Thursday, 9 May 1985 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk-Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: Plant Variety Rights To The Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: Upon evidence from within Australia and overseas, the introduction of Plant Variety Rights legislation would not be in Australia's best interests because: 1. Plant genetic resources should remain a public resource; 2. Australia's public plant breeding programmes could be undermined; 3. Such legislation may lead to a reduction in the genetic diversity of commercial varieties; 4. There is reason to fear that choices of seed and other plant propagation materials may be restricted due to the controlf placed on their use; 5. Plant Varietal Rights legislation could lead to higher costs for the grower, the consumer, the plant-breeder and the tax-payer; 6. Plant Variety Rights will lead to a further increase in foreign control of Australia's plant genetic resources; Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Parliament ensure that it recognises the widespread public opposition to PVR and promote alternative means of royalty collection for plant breeders. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Childs (from 102 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we the undersigned, having great concern because of the spread of moral pollution in our nation call upon the Government to introduce immediate legislation: 1. To provide strict controls over importation, production, sale, hire or mailing of video-cassettes with the open sale of only G, PG, and M rated video-cassettes; and the total prohibition of the sale of R rated video-cassettes so that R rated films can only be viewed in an adult theatre by persons over 18 years. We totally reject the concept of ''X'' rated video-cassettes which would allow the legal sale of hard-core pornographic films for screening in the homes of our nation, which endanger our children. 2. To dramatically improve the Federal Attorney-General's Guidelines for Classification of Video tapes/discs which restrict the importation, production, sale or hire, screening in private homes and mailing by Australia Post so as to include the total prohibition of any pornographic, obscene or blasphemous video cassette, or film containing child pornography, bestiality, sodomy, group sex, violent sex acts with women, such as rape and pack rape, sadism and torture, etc. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honourable House will protect our society, especially women and children from moral pollution and its harmful effects. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Childs (from 13 citizens) To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully shows: That:-the Australian flag symbolises the continuity between Australia's past, its present and its future; the presence of the Union Jack on the flag represents not a subservience to Britain, but a reminder of our inheritance of the fruits of hundreds of years of struggle for individual liberty against the forces of tyranny and oppression; Nonetheless recognises the rights of the Australian people should they wish as a people to change the design of their flag. Your petitioners humbly pray that no change be made to the Australian flag except with the consent of the people in a referendum. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Bjelke-Petersen (from 123 citizens). 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 Governments failure to act to correct the anomalies 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 Governments iniquitous and unfair Assets Test. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Messner (from 39 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 allocation of funds under the present TEAS provisions on a 'gross income' means tested basis is unviable. To introduce fees on a similar gross income means tested basis would be devastating. (iii) 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 to undertake post-secondary study from doing so. Those students and potential students from social groups currently under-represented and disadvantaged in the education system would be most severely affected by the re-introduction of fees for post-secondary education. We your petitioners therefore pray that: 1. post-secondary tuition fees not be re-introduced for any category of student; 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 re-introduction of post-secondary tuition fees. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Childs (from 35 citizens) and Robertson (from 12 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: We are deeply concerned at the present freedom of access to pornographic material in Video Tapes. Furthermore we consider the present legislation controlling the content of Video Tapes for general use as inadequate. Your petitioners pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should: Take all actions to ensure the present laws are re-drafted, to exclude excessive violence from any Video Tape. To exclude explicit sex scenes, or sadistic sequences. To exclude in particular any involvement of children in sex sequences. Certainly to ban the present X-rated offering in Video Tapes. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Bjelke-Petersen (from 13 citizens). Petitions received. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Manager of Government Business) —I table papers in accordance with the list circulated to honourable senators and I seek leave to have the list incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The list read as follows- 1. Review of the structure of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission and arrangements for co-ordination and consultation with states and institutions-Report by the Chairman-March 1985. 2. Commonwealth Legal Aid Council-Annual Report 1983-84-Pursuant to Section 33 of the Commonwealth Legal Aid Act 1977. 3. Companies and Securities Law Review Committee-1st Annual Report for the period 1 January 1984 to 30 June 1984. 4. Informal voting 1984 (House of Representatives)-Reports 1 and 2 by the Australian Electoral Commission. 5. Corrigendum to the Foreign Investment Review Board Report 1983-84 which was tabled in the Senate on the 18th April 1985. 6. Reciprocal Social Security Agreements-Text of a statement by the Minister for Social Security made in the House of Representatives on 8 May 1985. 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 Grimes) read a first time. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(10.04) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Banks (Shareholdings) Act 1972 in order to facilitate the establishment of new banks in Australia as well as to improve the ongoing administration of the Act. A Banks (Shareholdings) Amendment Bill 1984 was introduced into the previous Parliament but had not been passed when Parliament was dissolved for the December 1984 election. The current Bill incorporates the amendments from the 1984 Bill and also makes some additional amendments to facilitate the ongoing administration of the Act. The Government believes that the establishment of new banks will bring substantial benefits to the Australian community through the development of a more innovative, efficient and competitive financial system. Ultimately, a more dynamic financial sector will help to promote a higher rate of economic growth, providing more jobs and a higher standard of living for the people of Australia. The Government has already taken significant steps to improve the competitiveness of the Australian financial system and, particularly given the central role of the banking industry, to encourage the establishment of new banks in Australia. One largely local group, Macquarie Bank Limited, has recently commenced business as a new bank and another group, NSW Building Society, is taking steps to convert itself to a savings bank. The Bank of China is in the process of re-establishing banking operations in Australia. The amendments to the Banks (Shareholdings) Act contained in this Bill will facilitate the establishment of banking operations in Australia by the 16 new banks announced on 27 February 1985 as being potentially eligible to receive formal authorisation. The amendments will also help interested and capable domestic interests to establish new banks. The Banks (Shareholdings) Act currently limits any one shareholder or group of related shareholders to a holding of less than 10 per cent of the voting shares of a bank. The policy presumption in favour of dispersion of shareholdings in banks implied in this requirement is an important prudential safeguard which is designed to protect depositors. The amended Act will continue to reflect that policy presumption but will increase the size of an individual shareholding in a bank which may be held, without the Governor-General's approval, from 10 to 15 per cent of the voting shares of a bank. The Bill also makes more specific the circumstances in which the Governor-General may grant an exemption to the limit on individual or related shareholders in a bank by permitting such an exemption where it is considered to be in the national interest. Under the present legislation the Governor-General has the power to grant such an exemption but the circumstances in which the power is exercisable are not stated. The Government considers that it would be in the national interest for an exemption to the 15 per cent limit to be granted if it facilitated the establishment of a new bank that could be expected to provide strong competition subject to the bank meeting the high prudential standards of entry into banking. In this regard, it is intended that an exemption would only be proposed where the shareholder concerned had demonstrated an extensive record of undoubted financial strength and stability, clearly had the financial resources to maintain the bank's viability in the longer term and would give an unqualified commitment to the prudent development of the bank, and where there was no conflict of interest arising from other activities of the shareholder. In the main such shareholders could be expected to have been predominantly involved in the business of banking and finance. The proposals by the 16 new banks which the Government recently selected as being capable of being developed such that a recommendation could be made to the Governor-General for the granting of a banking authority, all involve exemptions to the 15 per cent limit on individual shareholdings. In all cases the shareholders concerned would meet the criteria for the grant of an exemption as outlined above; consequently the Government would be prepared to make recommendations to the Governor-General for the required exemptions. While the Bill increases the threshold limit on an individual or related shareholding in a bank from 10 to 15 per cent, it does provide that the Treasurer's approval is required to take a shareholding beyond 10 per cent but not greater than 15 per cent. However, the Treasurer shall not refuse to allow a person to take an interest in a bank exceeding 10 per cent unless he is satisfied that such a holding would not be in the national interest. The need for the Treasurer's approval for individual shareholdings to move beyond 10 per cent will provide protection against the possibility that a shareholder who may be judged to be incapable of providing the necessary ongoing support for a bank seeks to obtain a holding of up to 15 per cent, which might then allow that shareholder to exert an undue influence. It also provides a mechanism to avert possible conflicts of interest or an undesirable concentration of power which might arise from a shareholder having significant interests in more than one bank. In this regard, the general policy presumption will be that individual or related shareholders should not have an interest greater than 10 per cent in more than one bank. The Bill also provides scope for some desirable flexibility in the application of the 'association' provisions of the Banks (Shareholdings) Act, which provide for a person to be deemed to have an interest in a bank even though that person is no more than an associate of another person. While these are complex provisions necessary to ensure that the main intent of the Act is not undermined by the indirect holding of interests in banks, they can operate in a more restrictive way than was originally intended. For example, as these provisions now stand a person may be prevented from being a director in two different corporations that each have a shareholding in the same bank, even though such directorships may result in no significantly greater degree of concentration of ownership or control of the bank. One particular aspect of the association provisions which is addressed in the amendments in the Bill is the position of officers of a corporation when the corporation itself receives an exemption. Rather than every officer also requiring an exemption along with the corporation, a consequence of the association provisions of the existing Act, the Bill provides that the Governor-General will be able to exempt most officers of a corporation from the various limitations in the Act where they hold an interest in a bank only through their association with the corporation. This amendment was not contained in the 1984 Amendment Bill. The other major change introduced by this Bill is to make governments and their agencies, insofar as they are shareholders in banks holding an authority granted by the Governor-General under the Banking Act 1959, subject to the provisions of the Banks (Shareholdings) Act. As an interim measure, where a government or government agency, that will be covered by the Act by virtue of the Bill, has an interest in the voting shares of the bank in excess of 15 per cent, the Governor-General will be deemed to have given an exemption fixing that percentage which the government or government agency has immediately after the commencement of the Act. To repeat, however, this is only an interim measure. The shareholding that any government or government agency has in a bank which is covered by the Act will be reviewed and, depending on the outcome of that review, any exemption that has been deemed to have been given may subsequently be varied or revoked. In such a situation the government or its agency, would then have a three-month period in which to dispose of its excess shares in an orderly fashion. The Government believes that this Bill will facilitate the establishment of banks without weakening the protection of bank depositors. It will help with the early establishment of relatively large and strong banks which will bring more competition and innovation into our financial system. At the same time, the Bill improves the ongoing administration of the Banks (Shareholdings) Act. There are no significant costs, revenue or savings to the Government arising directly from the Bill. I commend the Banks (Shareholdings) Amendment Bill 1985 to honourable senators. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) adjourned. Bills received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Grimes) agreed to: That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the questions with regard to the several stages for the passage through the Senate of all or several of the Bills being put in one motion at each stage, and the consideration of all or several of such Bills together in the Committee of the Whole, and as would prevent the reading of the short titles only on every order for the reading of the Bills. Ordered that the Bills may be taken through all their stages without delay. Bills (on motion by Senator Grimes) read a first time. Second Readings Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(10.06) —I move: That the Bills be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speeches read as follows- RURAL INDUSTRIES RESEARCH BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amalgamate existing rural industry research legislation and provide one Act for the administration of Rural Industry Research Funds (which are known as RIRFs). The Bill will bring about improvements in the organisation and administration of existing RIRFs, it will revamp the Commonwealth Special Research Grants Scheme and will place rural research funding on a secure footing. I will also be introducing associated legislation on Poultry and Tobacco and a Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendment Bill all of which are necessary to give effect to this Bill. At present there are 14 Trust Accounts covering barley, chicken meat, cotton, dried fruits, dairy, fish, honey, oilseeds, pigs, poultry, wheat, wine, wool and tobacco. The Trust Accounts are funded and administered through separate legislation by Research Committees, although in the case of poultry and wine research special arrangements apply. The research programs of smaller industries are funded under the Commonwealth Special Research Grants Scheme. Government and industry presently each contribute about $32 million to industry research through these arrangements. The Government also provides additional funds to rural research through CSIRO, universities, colleges and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The Minister for Primary Industry spoke about the need for Government action in the area of rural research in his Second Reading Speech on the Australian Meat and Live-stock Research and Development Corporation Bill 1985 on 20 March. He pointed out that there have been a series of reviews and discussions in recent years about the adequacy of rural research in Australia. The Balderstone Working Group on Agricultural Policy examined the role of research and development in the process of agricultural innovation in its report in 1982. The Senate Standing Committee on National Resources reported, in the same year, on the Commonwealth's Role on Rural Research and Extension Services. In 1983 there was a Joint Management Review of the Administration of Research Schemes in the Primary Industry Portfolio. Within industry, various groups, including the National Farmers Federation and the Australian Wheatgrowers Federation, have also been giving attention to rural research policy. All of these inquiries have acknowledged that research and development is vital to profitability of rural industries and that considerable benefits flow to rural industries and the community generally from expenditure on such research. It is necessary, therefore, that rural research is organised in a way which will ensure that there is adequate research investment, that the greatest possible returns are achieved from each dollar spent, and that those who administer and undertake research are fully accountable to the providers of funds. The Government has made a detailed assessment of these issues. Rural research is, and will continue to be, a high priority of this Government. In November last year the Prime Minister announced that the Government would increase its financial contribution to rural research and, in February, the Minister provided the details of that commitment. He also announced a major upgrading of the organisation and administration of rural research. This Bill will give effect to those decisions. Concerning the issue of funding, the Bill makes provision for increased Commonwealth funding up to a maximum contribution of 0.5% of the annual Gross Value of Production (GVP) for each of the industries concerned. The current Commonwealth contribution averages around 0.25% of GVP over all industries currently receiving Commonwealth funds. Encouragement will be given for industry investment in research through a continuation of the dollar for dollar matching arrangement up to the Commonwealth's maximum contribution. The Government will seek to increase its funding to the maximum rate over a 5 year period but this is dependent on an increase in industry contributions. In the case of tobacco research where the Government's contribution is above 0.5%, the level of funding requested by industry in 1984 and agreed to by Government will be maintained. Under the new arrangements it will be possible for an industry to contribute in excess of 0.5% of its GVP to fund research. As expenditures above 0.5% of GVP will not be subject to government matching there will be no delay in approval arising from the Government's budgetary process. In such instances the Government will make legislative amendments or changes to regulations concerning levies as quickly as possible. This will enable industry to increase funding without being held back by the need for a Government decision on matching. I mentioned earlier that there are two other areas of concern to Government apart from funding. One is to ensure that the greatest possible returns are achieved from each dollar spent on rural research. The other is to ensure full accountability of those who administer and undertake research to the providers of funds. This Bill makes provision for the effective planning, organisation and administration of research and for effective accountability arrangements. It will apply to 11 major rural industries commencing on 1 January 1986. At this stage wool and wine research will be excluded from the provisions of the Bill. In the case of wool research, the Government has not completed its consultations with the Australian Wool Corporation and the Wool Council of Australia concerning the future operation of the Wool Research Trust Fund. This fund has been successfully administered over the years by the Wool Corporation to the benefit of woolgrowers and the community generally. In a number of respects the Trust Fund has provided an appropriate model for the reform of other RIRFs and obviously, the Government does not want to unnecessarily disrupt the present successful arrangements. However, the Wool Corporation has agreed to adopt many administrative arrangements outlined in the Bill for other RIRFs which presently do not apply to the Wool Research Trust Fund. In the case of wine research, Senators will be aware of the Inquiry being undertaken into the grape and wine industries. It would be inappropriate for the Government to introduce changes to the organisation and administration of research in these industries while this Inquiry is proceeding. For this reason the Minister has deferred consideration of applying the provisions of the Bill to wine research until the Inquiry is completed. He has received a copy of the report and consultations between Government and the industries will be needed before arrangements for wine research are finalised. In addition, the Bill will not apply to the meat and livestock industry nor to fisheries. In the case of meat and livestock, the Parliament has passed legislation setting up the Australian Meat and Live-stock Research Development Corporation which will take research in that industry outside the ambit of the Rural Industries Research Bill. In the case of fisheries, discussions have been proceeding with the fishing industry to reach agreement on the necessary organisational and administrative arrangements for research in that industry. The Minister will announce future arrangements for fisheries research when industry consultations have been completed. Under the provisions of the Rural Industries Research Bill 1985 the existing RIRF Research Committees will be replaced by Research Councils. The objective of the Research Councils will be to increase commercial returns to the industries concerned by improving the production, processing, storage, transport or marketing or relevant agricultural commodities. The Councils will seek to achieve this general objective by clearly identifying specific research objectives, by setting priorities for the promotion and funding of research and development, and by establishing research programs which will meet the specific objectives. The Bill provides for each Research Council to develop a five year strategic research and development plan which specifies the broad strategies the Council will adopt in meeting its objectives. The Councils will be required to consult with industry in developing these plans and will submit them to the Minister for approval. They will also prepare annual research and development programs for submission to the Minister. These will be considered to ensure consistency with the five year research and development plans. The Government considers that this strategic planning process will enhance the Council's capacity to actively direct research and development activities towards achieving industry endorsed objectives. It will ensure the Councils do not simply play a passive role of allocating moneys, but will evaluate projects submitted to them for funding against their priorities, needs and objectives for the industries concerned. Research Councils will comprise 5 to 9 members including the Chairperson and a Government member. The actual size will be determined by the Minister in Consultation with relevant industry organisations. The Government recognises the key role to be played by members of the Research Councils. The legislation, therefore, makes provision for a selection procedure which will ensure that the Councils are comprised of the best available people, who together have a mix of expertise and experience related to the Council's activities. Relevant expertise and experience includes commodity production, processing and marketing, science, technology and technology transfer, economics, administration or research and development, finance and business management. The Bill provides for the establishment of a Research Council Selection Committee to select all members of the Research Councils, except Chairpersons and Government members who will be selected by the Minister. This Committee will be required to develop selection criteria and procedures for the identification of people likely to meet those criteria. The Committee will be empowered to employ the services of a professional executive search consultant to assist in the identification of suitable people. The Selection Committee will comprise an independent Chairperson appointed by the Minister, a Core group of 3 members, which will be involved in the selection of members for all Research Councils, and up to 3 industry representatives who, along with the Core group, will select members for specific Research Councils. The Core group will include one member nominated by the National Farmers' Federation, one member nominated by the Australian Agricultural Council, and one member with knowledge of and experience in scientific matters, research and development and/or marketing, who will be selected and appointed by the Minister. The involvement of the Core group in all selections will enable a body of experience to be developed in selecting Council members and it is more cost-effective than setting up a completely new Committee for selecting members to each Council. For the industry specific part of the Selection Committee, there is provision for up to 3 members, with the actual number being determined by the Minister after consultation with the relevant industry organisation. This part of the Selection Committee recognises the need for a strong industry view on desirable membership attributes for particular Councils. As I mentioned before the Selection Committee will not select the Chairperson of a Research Council or the Government member. The Minister will make these selections on the basis of merit. The Government member on the Research Councils will be selected specifically on the basis of his or her personal qualities, expertise and experience of Government policy and procedures relevant to each Council's activities. The Minister will continue to appoint this member for a number of reasons. First, appointment by the Minister is necessary to ensure that the member is knowledgeable in the area of Government policies. The Selection Committee will not be constituted in a way which would suit it to make such an assessment of the potential appointee. Secondly, Government involvement in this appointment reflects its desire to play a role in Council activities commensurate to its matching financial contribution. It should be recalled that the Government is not substantially involved in the selection procedure which will apply to Council members other than the Government member. Thirdly, it may be desirable in the interests of the industries concerned and of the Government, for the Government member to be a person with an explicit policy formulation and advising role outside the Research Council. Choice of such a person can only be made by the Minister and not by a Selection Committee acting on his behalf. Selection of the Government member by the Minister will also reduce the cost to industry of the selection process. The selection procedure I have described will not apply to the selection of members for the State based Research Committees of the wheat and barley industries. For these industries the Commonwealth's financial contributions are administered through national Barley and Wheat Research Councils and the industry contributions are administered through state based Research Committees. The Government's intention is that this arrangement will continue and that the proposed Research Council Selection Committee, as I mentioned, will not operate in respect to the State research Committees. Given that these Committees operate under Commonwealth Legislation the Minister will appoint the Chairperson of the Committees. He will, however make the appointment on the recommendation of relevant State Minister who, I expect, will consult with relevant industry organisations. On the other hand, the strategic planning and accountability provisions of the Bill will apply to the State Committees. These Committees will be encouraged to devise arrangements for selecting members on the basis of relevant experience and expertise. There will not be a Government member appointed by the Commonwealth on the State Research Committees. The provisions of the Rural Industries Research Bill will presently apply to all major rural industries. In future, other RIRFs will be able to be established through Regulations according to the provisions of the Bill. There has been some confusion as to the process by which new RIRFs can be established. The Minister has asked me to clarify this process. When an industry approaches the Minister with a request for a RIRF there are a number of assurances which the Minister will seek prior to the Government considering such a request. Firstly, the Minister will need to be assured that there is support across the industry for the RIRF. Secondly the industry will have had to reach agreement on a levy to fund the RIRF. Thirdly, estimates of the rate and yield of the levy will need to be provided, and fourthly, the industry will have had to organise a mechanism for the collection of the levy. As a general guide the Minister would need to be satisfied that levy receipts from such a levy would provide at least $250,000 per annum. Finally I would point out that this Bill is a 'levy based' Bill and before a RIRF can be established under the Bill both a levy imposition and levy collection Acts must have been passed by the Parliament. For some small and emerging industries, which are essential to a dynamic and innovative agricultural sector, establishment of research councils or research and development corporations would not be cost-effective for such industries and would not allow sufficient flexibility. In addition, there may be a need for research to be conducted in areas which concern a number of RIRFs, but which are not attractive to any one RIRF. This inter-commodity or multi-disciplinary research requires special arrangements as does research undertaken in the national interest. In view of these requirements the Government will strengthen the role of the existing Commonwealth Special Research Grant (CSRG) which has provided limited funding for research into the small and new industries. The Bill provides for the establishment of the Special Research Grant on a statutory basis and re-naming it the Australian Special Rural Research Fund. The Government will increase funds available to the new Research Fund. In 1984/85 it doubled its financial allocation to the Special Research Grant to $0.5 million and it will aim to increase this further in subsequent years. The Bill will apply the general principles governing Research Councils to an Australian Special Rural Research Council. This will ensure the Council has statutory status presently not endowed upon the Commonwealth Special Research Grant is comprised of a mix of the best people available with expertise and experience relevant to its activities and has consultative and accountability requirements along the lines of the Research Councils. Other Councils, together, will also be able to participate in multi-industry research and there may be potential for co-operation elsewhere, for example, in administrative procedures and in the common use of specialised staff resources. The Bill provides for an annual co-ordination meeting of all Chairpersons of Research Councils to discuss matters of common interest. This will also include the Australian Special Rural Research Council, the Australian Meat and Live-stock Research and Development Corporation and the Wool Research Trust Fund. With regard to the accountability of the Research Councils, they will continue to prepare an annual report for tabling in Parliament. This will be the principle means of accountability to both Parliament and industry. It is expected that the annual report of each Council will address performance against the key elements identified in its strategic plan. In addition, the Chairperson of each Council will formally present the Council's Annual Report to an executive meeting of the industry body deemed to most fully represent that industry. The Chairperson will also discuss the performance and plans of the Council with the executive of the industry body. The Council's Annual Report together with the comments of the industry executive, will then be presented to industry. Under this planning and consultative mechanism there will be no need for the Minister to approve funding of individual research projects and minor alterations to approved budgets. This will increase the operational flexibility and autonomy of the Research Councils. Concerning the administration of the RIRFs, at present most are administered by the Department of Primary Industry, although for the larger RIRFs-wool, dairy and meat-their secretariat services are handled by the relevant statutory marketing authority. This Bill will allow administrative and secretariat support services for other RIRFs to be devolved from the Department, providing that cost-savings and appropriate accountability can be demonstrated. Councils who wish to take this course of action will need to apply to the Minister for approval. To ensure that the costs of RIRF administration are clearly visible, that efforts are made, where necessary, to improve efficiency, and that there is equity across all RIRFs, the Government has decided to recover the costs of secretariat and administrative support services, financial management, or other necessary services provided by the Department of Primary Industry to the RIRFs. Where secretariat services have been divested from the Department, the Government will only recover the cost of financial management functions which must be performed on behalf of the RIRFs. It should be noted that in relation to the wool, dairy and meat RIRFs, the relevant statutory marketing authorities recovered about $1.4 million from the Trust Funds in 1983/84 for secretariat services. In 1984/85 the Government expects to recover about $600,000 from all RIRFs for services provided by the Department of Primary Industry. Cost recovery will not significantly affect the funds that are available for rural research. Not only will the additional amount collected be fairly small, but the Commonwealth will be providing 50% of the funds expended on administration through its matching arrangement. Let me emphasise that it is essential that the costs involved in administration are identified and made visible, so that the cost-effectiveness of rural research can be assessed and, where necessary, action is taken to reduce these costs at their source. The cost recovery provisions of this Bill will assist this process. I have already referred to the financial impact of the legislation in terms of the funding, and cost recovery provisions. As I stated earlier, the Government will be providing funds on a matching basis up to a maximum contribution of 0.5% of the Gross Value of Production for each of the industries concerned. This will be phased in over a 5 year period in line with industry requests for levy increases and will result in a very significant Government contribution to rural research. In 1984/85 the Government will provide $32.6 million for rural research and recover costs of the order of $600,000 for administrative and secretariat services provided by the Department of Primary Industry. The Rural Industries Research Bill will do much to strengthen industry involvement in, and influence over, the direction of rural research. Whereas the present role of industry has been described as passive, in future industry will be actively involved in many ways. The objectives of the Bill have been defined to specifically identify industry interests. The principal objective is to increase the commercial returns to the industries concerned through research and development in a broader range of areas than previously covered. These include improvements in production, processing, storage, transport and marketing of agricultural commodities. Industry will be heavily involved in the selection of members to Research Councils which will administer the RIRFs. They will be well represented on the Research Council Selection Committee and will be able to select producer members to the Research Councils on the basis of merit. In developing research and development plans, the Research Councils and Committees will be required to consult industry to ensure that its priorities, needs and objectives are taken into account. Research Councils will also be required to formally present their annual reports to relevant industry organisations showing how they have performed in relation to those plans. These arrangements will ensure two-way communication between industry and the Councils. The major impact of the Bill will be in establishing rural research and development on a sound administrative and financial footing, in ensuring that the greatest possible returns are achieved from each dollar spent on research and in making sure that those who administer and undertake research are accountable to the providers of funds. This is vital if rural industries are to remain progressive, competitive and profitable in years to come. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. RURAL INDUSTRIES RESEARCH (TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS AND CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS) BILL 1985 This Bill is complementary to the Rural Industries Research Bill 1985 which I have just introduced. The purposes of the Bill are to amend complementary legislation where necessary, to repeal existing legislation no longer required, and to provide transitional provisions necessary for the enactment of the Rural Industries Research Bill. The Bill will amend Research Acts relating to barley, cotton, dairying and oilseeds. In each of these Acts both the levy collection and Research Trust Account and Committee arrangements are contained in the one Act. Parts I and II of the Acts, which relate to their interpretation and levy collection arrangements, will be retained. Part III of the Acts, which concern the establishment of a Trust Account and Research Committees, will be repealed as these are now covered in the omnibus Rural Industries Research Bill. The Bill also repeals the Research Acts relating to chicken meat, dairying, dried fruits, honey, pigs, tobacco and wheat. The transitional provisions in the Bill are designed to ensure a smooth changeover of responsibilities from the existing Research Committees to the new Research Councils. Provision is made for monies and investments which belong to the existing Research Trust Accounts to be credited to the new Rural Industry Research Funds from the day they are established under the omnibus Bill. Payments will also be able to be made from these Funds for work carried out under the previous legislation. This includes remuneration and allowances for members or deputies of the Research Committees, for consultants or advisers, and any other expenses incurred in the performance of functions. In addition, agreements entered into by existing Committees on behalf of the Commonwealth, with other parties will continue in force. This will provide for research projects, which are approved prior to the new legislation, to continue without disruption for the remainder of the financial year. The Bill establishes transitional provisions for the preparation of an annual report where a new Research Fund and Council are established during an annual reporting period. The Bill also provides that only one annual report covering the twelve months period to 30 June 1986 need be prepared. The Rural Industries Research (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 1985 does not have any direct financial implications for the Commonwealth. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. TOBACCO CHARGE (No. 1) AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Tobacco Charge Act (No. 1) 1955. The Bill makes provision for the continued funding of the Australian Tobacco Board to take effect from when tobacco research is brought under the new legislative arrangements for organisation and administration of Rural Industry Research Funds. The Bill is therefore complementary to both the Rural Industries Research Bill 1985 and the Rural Industries Research (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 1985. That legislation provides for the repeal of the Tobacco Industry Act 1965 which currently allows the operating expenses of the Australian Tobacco Board to be met from income derived from levies paid by tobacco growers and manufacturers under the three Tobacco Charge Acts. Tobacco Charge Act (No. 1) 1955 imposes a levy, currently set at 3.5 cents per kilogram, on tobacco leaf sold to a manufacturer. This Bill makes provision within the Charge Act itself for a proportion of the amount of the tobacco charge to be set aside by regulation to meet the expenses of the Tobacco Board. The balance of the charge will be directed to the Tobacco Research Trust Fund to be established under the new rural research legislation. The Bill involves no additional financial cost to the Government. It essentially continues arrangements already in place for funding tobacco research and the expenses of the Tobacco Board. I commend this Bill to honourable senators. TOBACCO CHARGE (No. 2) AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Tobacco Charge Act (No. 2) 1955. The Bill makes provision for the continued funding of the Australian Tobacco Board from levies paid by tobacco growers and manufacturers, to take effect from when tobacco research is brought under the umbrella of the new rural industries research legislation. Tobacco Charge Act (No. 2) 1955 imposes a levy, currently set at 3.5 cents per kilogram, on tobacco leaf purchased by a manufacturer. I have already outlined the background to this amendment in my Second Reading Speech on the Tobacco Charge (No. 1) Amendment Bill 1985. The Bill involves no additional financial cost to the Government. I commend this Bill to honourable senators. TOBACCO CHARGE (No. 3) AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Tobacco Charge Act (No. 3) 1955. The Bill makes provision for the continued funding of the Australian Tobacco Board from levies paid by tobacco growers and manufacturers, to take effect from when tobacco research is brought under the umbrella of the new rural industries research legislation. Tobacco Charge Act (No. 3) 1955 imposes a levy, currently set at 3.5 cents per kilogram, on tobacco leaf grown and processed by a manufacturer. I have already outlined the background to this amendment in my Second Reading Speech on the Tobacco Charge (No. 1) Amendment Bill 1985. The Bill involves no additional financial cost to the Government. I commend this Bill to honourable senators. POULTRY INDUSTRY LEVY AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Poultry Industry Levy Act 1965. The Poultry Industry Levy Act 1965 imposes a levy on all hens, in excess of twenty, kept for commercial purposes. Funds collected are used to provide financial assistance to the States and to make an industry contribution to poultry (eggs) research. This Bill seeks to abolish the hen levy with effect from 1 July 1987. Certain provisions of the Act are continued beyond that date to facilitate collection of any outstanding levy which is due and payable prior to 1 July 1987. When such latter action is completed, legislation to repeal the Act will be introduced into the Parliament. The Commonwealth hen levy was introduced in 1965 with the aim of providing financial assistance to the poultry industry to help it meet trading losses experienced by the State Egg Boards in disposing of eggs surplus to local demand. It was imposed at a time when the industry was faced with a critical economic situation and was designed to provide a measure of stability at the request of the States and Industry. During the twenty years in which the scheme has operated the aim has largely been achieved. In excess of $260 million dollars has been collected as levy and most has been returned to the States as assistance payments. In the past few years a number of reviews and reports on egg marketing, including studies by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, State Government Inquiries and Standing Committee on Agriculture (SCA) Working Parties, have raised doubts about the need for continued Commonwealth involvement, in equalisation levy arrangements. Industry actions and decisions re-affirmed the doubts on the need for such a levy. Industry agreed last year on a plan aimed at reducing progressively, the level of excess production through the already available mechanism of hen quotas, which are administered by State/Territory Authorities. In accordance with this plan egg production is to be reduced, by 1 July 1987, to a level which will provide a minimum surplus, sufficient to meet seasonal domestic demand. The Commonwealth, in the light of these events, and after discussion with the States in the Australian Agricultural Council, decided to phase out the hen levy by 1 July 1987. Removal on that date will help to re-inforce State measures to reduce production and is in line with the industry plan to achieve a minimum surplus level. As mentioned earlier, a small portion of the hen levy receipts provided an industry contribution to research programs. Alternate methods of providing the industry contribution after 1 July 1987 are being canvassed with relevant industry bodies and will be implemented after agreement is reached between the Commonwealth, States and industry. In the meantime to bring poultry research arrangements into line with those for other rural industries, provision is made in the Bill to divide the hen levy and cater for a specific research component. This will ensure continuity of funding for poultry research, involving the guarantee of continued Commonwealth matching of funds under provisions of the omnibus Rural Industries Research legislation. Administrative costs of the hen levy were met from the levy receipts. The Commonwealth, however, provided at no charge the necessary general and financial administration, at its level, of the levy arrangements and there will be some savings in the time of a number of officers when the arrangements are concluded. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. POULTRY INDUSTRY ASSISTANCE AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Poultry Industry Assistance Act 1965. The Poultry Industry Assistance Act 1965 provides for the establishment of a Trust Fund into which proceeds of the hen levy are paid. It also provides the authority for expenditure of such monies on assistance to the States and the Australian Capital Territory and for poultry research. Funds expended on research are matched by the Commonwealth up to a limit of $150,000 in any financial year. Prior to 1982/83 research programs involved expenditure of less than $300,000 and despite the ceiling on Commonwealth contributions still enabled industry funds to be matched equally. Since 1982/83, however, the total research program has exceeded that level and resulted in the industry contribution being a greater amount than the Commonwealth's. The Government decided as part of its 1984/85 Budget deliberations to match $ for $ industry funds on poultry research putting it on the same basis as for other rural industry research funding. This Bill removes the present limiting provision in the Poultry Industry Assistance Act 1965 to enable that decision to be implemented and the matching funding to apply this financial year. The Commonwealth contribution is expected to be increased in 1984/85 by $140,000 to $191,000 and to increase by $90,000 to $240,000 in 1985/86 as a result of this change. Poultry research funding and administration are to come under provisions of the omnibus Rural Industry Research legislation. The amendments therefore provide authority for the transfer of funds from the Poultry Industry Trust Fund to a separate research fund, if necessary, and repeal research expenditure provisions of the Poultry Industry Assistance Act, effective when the omnibus legislation becomes operative. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Bill received from the House of Representatives. Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay. Motion (by Senator Grimes) proposed: That the Bill be now read a first time. Debate (on motion by Senator Chaney) 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 Grimes) read a first time. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(10.08) —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- I present Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1984-85 in which appropriations totalling $138.5m-additional to those made by Appropriation Act (No. 2) 1984-85-are sought for capital works and services, payments to or for the States and the Northern Territory and for other services. The proposed appropriations are needed to meet essential and unavoidable expenditures for which provision was not made in that Act. Almost half of the additional appropriations is sought to meet medicare grants to the states; the remainder mostly reflects cost and price increases which have occurred since the time of the Budget and requirements which the Government has considered it appropriate to meet this financial year. Provision of $62.4m has been made under the Department of Health to meet an upward revision to grants payable to the States and the Northern Territory under formal agreements in respect of the medicare public hospitals arrangements. Almost wholly accounting for this additional requirement is the continuing increase in the number of patients electing to be treated as public rather than private patients under medicare. Other significant increases are as follows: $5.4m representing a Commonwealth contribution towards measures to combat the transmission of AIDS. This initiative includes Commonwealth funding of the cost of blood screening tests by the Red Cross Blood Transfusion Service during 1984-85, a national referral centre for blood testing, funding for the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories to produce AIDS screening tests, the establishment of an AIDS task force and funding for a national press, radio and television campaign aimed at informing the public. $5.5m to be paid to New South Wales and Queensland under the rural adjustment scheme for assistance to the sugar industry. $6.2m to provide additional funds for housing loan commitments in the Australian Capital Territory. and $16m to be paid to the Australian National Railways Commission for the implementation of an early retirement scheme. The cost of the scheme is expected to be more than offset by savings in future years flowing from reduced manning levels. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Bills received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Grimes) agreed to: That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the questions with regard to the several stages for the passage through the Senate of all or several of the Bills being put in one motion at each stage and the consideration of all or several of such Bills together in the Committee of the Whole. Ordered that the Bills may be taken through all their stages without delay. First Readings Motion (by Senator Grimes) proposed: That the Bills be now read a first time. Debate (on motion by Senator Chaney) adjourned. Bills received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Grimes) agreed to: That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the questions with regard to the several stages for the passage through the Senate of the Bills being put in one motion at each stage and the consideration of such Bills together in the Committee of the Whole. Ordered that the Bills may be taken through all their stages without delay. First Readings Motion (by Senator Grimes) proposed: That the Bills be now read a first time. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Motion (by Senator Grimes) agreed to: That, unless otherwise ordered, the order of General Business for consideration this day pursuant to Sessional Order be as follows: (a) Consideration of Government Papers pursuant to Sessional Order, (b) General Business, Order of the Day No. 102, (Social Security and Repatriation (Abolition of Assets Test) Bill 1985 [No. 2]); and (c) General Business, Order of the Day No. 2, (Constitution Alteration (Appropriation Bills) Bill 1984 [1985]). Debate resumed from 23 April, on motion by Senator Button: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator COLLARD(Queensland)(10.14) — Mr President- Senator Grimes —You are a cow cocky. Senator COLLARD —Both Senator Grimes and I acknowledge a certain expertise as far as milking cows is concerned. I do not know how far that extends in respect of growing wheat. Senator Grimes —I grew up in wheat country. Senator COLLARD —I understand from my Tasmanian colleagues that even to this day a little bit of wheat is grown in Tasmania. However, wheat is exported from the mainland to Tasmania. The purpose of the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 1985 is to alter the selection method and composition of the Australian Wheat Board and to complement existing State legislation with regard to the delivery of wheat and the operation of the stock feed wheat permit system. The Bill will be, one might say, cost-neutral as far as the Government is concerned. All the new provisions will be funded by grower levies. The old Board had 15 members with two grower representatives from each State. The Government's proposed Board would have 11 members, comprising one full time grower Chairman, who will be appointed by the Minister for Primary Industry, one person nominated by the Government, four people with expertise in either finance, marketing or industrial relations and one grower representative from each mainland State, making a total of five in all. Each State is to have an alternate member who will sit in the absence of the nominated representative. In the Government Bill the Australian Wheat Board will be selected by the Australian Wheat Board Selection Committee and this will comprise the Chairman of the Australian Wheat Board, who as I indicated is appointed by the Minister but who would be a grower, one independent presiding member selected by the Minister, five members nominated by the Australian Wheatgrowers Federation and two nominees of the National Farmers Federation, including the Chairman of the NFF. Naturally the Opposition is not opposing the Bill, but will move five amendments. The amendments relate to Board composition and Selection Committee composition. The amendments have been distributed. The first amendment will give the Selection Committee, not the Minister, the power to call for nominations of alternate members. The second amendment is to remove the narrow guidelines for the selection of the expert members and to give the Selection Committee a much wider field. The third amendment sets up a core committee of four-the same four required in the Act-and also retains the five grower members, but separates the role of the committee into two; first of all, to select the three Board members with special qualifications, and secondly to select the grower members from each State. We will be moving that amendment to ensure that there will be members from each State to assist the core committee to select the one grower member on the Board from that State. Amendment No. 4 is necessary because apparently there is a mistake in the Bill. Amendment No. 5 is a consequential amendment. The Australian wheat industry is one of Australia's most efficient, low cost and growth export oriented industries. It has not got the protection which is afforded to the manufacturing industry, which is currently running at about 24 per cent. The protection to the wheat industry is from probably zero to about 5 per cent. For the five year period up to 1984-85 the average wheat production increased to 15.3 million tonnes, with an average wheat production for the five-year period ending 1979-80 of 13.2 million tonnes. Our production of wheat is expanding. Of course, of that, a great percentage is exported. For the same five year periods our average exports increased from 10.2 to 11.4 million tonnes. On average, about 80 per cent of the wheat produced in Australia is exported. We believe that this will continue to increase because of the quality of our hard wheat. For the year ended June 1984 wheat exports were Australia's second largest export income earner, with a total of $1.198 billion. Coal was the largest at about $3.114 billion. Wheat was the largest agricultural export earner, surpassing wool, which had an export earning of $1.572 billion. Wheat is playing and continuing to play a major role in our export earnings. Wheat exports for the year ended June 1984 accounted for 23 per cent of the value of total rural exports and 7.3 per cent of our total exports. The above figures indicate clearly the importance to the Australian economy of the wheat industry and the export income which is earned through the export of about 80 per cent of our total wheat production. I think this is significant when one looks at the parlous state of the economy at this stage, when our current account deficit is running at a high figure and our balance of trade figures are not very complimentary to Australia or to the Government. It is important that an industry which is earning export dollars for our country should be looked after and should have a Board which comprises a predominance of grower members, particularly in view of the fact that no government input or taxpayer's money goes into this industry. There is an underwriting scheme but I cannot remember taxpayers' money having to be used in that scheme in the last few years. I want to re-emphasise that no taxpayers' money goes into the wheat industry. It is a large export earner, and we need all the exports we can get because of our massive current account deficit. It is important that the people who are responsible for growing that product have a fair say in the running of the Australian Wheat Board. That is one of the reasons why we will be moving amendments. As I reiterated at the start of my remarks, I will be moving amendments in the Committee stage. We will not oppose the Bill. Some of my colleagues from the National Party of Australia, particularly those who have a great personal interest in the wheat growing industry, will be supporting the Bill. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.21) —Today we are discussing the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill, which relates to the restructuring of the Australian Wheat Board. I think it is well to review somewhat the incidents of last year with regard to the Australian wheat marketing Bills that went through this chamber towards the end of October. At that time a large number of areas were of concern to the industry. All of those areas of concern were satisfactorily negotiated with the Government, and the Minister for Primary Industry, Mr Kerin, was successful in getting the support of the industry around Australia on all but one matter. That matter had to do with the constitution of the Australian Wheat Board and was a matter of some controversy. The Bill the Minister originally introduced into the other place contained provisions for a restructured Wheat Board which did not have a grower majority. As I indicated in my speech during the second reading debate on the wheat marketing Bills on 17 October last year, it had always been the policy of the Australian Democrats that there ought to be grower control of commodity boards. The situation at that time became very confused. I think the way it was handled, certainly by the Opposition in the other place at that time, was a matter of regret. Subsequent events showed that the Minister was willing to negotiate and, indeed, he moved amendments to his own Bill at that time to allow the Senate, the House of Representatives and the industry to look again at the composition of the Wheat Board. He agreed to give it consideration after the inquiry into the composition of the Wheat Board had been concluded, and then he presents to the Parliament the Bill before us today. I think that brief history shows the bona fides of the Minister with regard to this matter. I believe that the way the Minister has gone about his negotiations with the wheat industry in particular is to be commended. It is an unfortunate aspect of politics in Australia today that often very little praise is given to Ministers when they get things right, but certainly a lot of criticism is made of them when they get things wrong. On this occasion, very clearly, the Minister was operating in conjunction with the industry to try to reach an accommodation which was satisfactory to both groups, the Government's obvious concern being to have some experts on that Board because of the large amounts of money involved and, on the other hand, the industry's concern to have a grower majority on the Board. The proposals in the Bill show a fair degree of lateral thinking. The notion of coming up with a selection committee as the first part of a two-stage project had not been suggested previously and alleviates many of the pressures with which we were confronted in the legislation when it first arrived last year. The matters of substance, particularly in regard to the various amendments which the Opposition proposes to move, I would prefer to leave to the Committee stage. I have indicated in general terms that my Party strongly supports the notion of a grower majority on commodity boards, and hence in Committee we shall be looking to ensure that that occurs. The Board itself will be presiding over an industry which is one of the major rural industries in Australia and has been a most important part of our export drive. The industry is in good shape at present and it has had some good seasons, although it seems that some problems are looming in parts of Queensland and New South Wales, with many sectors now being declared drought stricken. I believe we could have considerable problems in the next growing season. I take the opportunity to look at a wider field, in particular the international situation in regard to wheat, and to examine various factors throughout the world that must give some concern as affecting this industry. To start with a topic that is always uppermost when one talks about primary industry, I refer to the question: 'What is the European Economic Community doing?'. The EEC in this area as in most other areas is continuing its course of action, which at least to most outsiders looks like lunacy but internally is strongly supported. Seemingly the EEC is able to continue that green support within the Common Market in a way that seems to defy all rational economic analysis. But it will continue, and hence one discovers that the wheat exports from the EEC have grown from 4.4 million tonnes in the 1977-78 season to 18 million tonnes in the 1984-85 season. That is an extraordinary jump in any terms, but the direction of those exports must be of particular concern to Australia. The EEC is finding a great deal of penetration into the Russian market-indeed, it is much greater than we would have thought possible. As Russia is one of our markets, it gives Australia a major competitor which in the coming years will be of increasing concern. The second factor is the United States Farm Bill. Primary industry groups regard this as a worrying aspect. The United States Farm Bill basically will be looking at lowering the loan interest rates within the US market, and the increase in subsidised credit sales by the United States in an attempt by its primary industry to regain its market share in the world must affect Australia. It must also have an almost necessary effect of lowering the subsequent world price. Since farm inputs in Australia have been rising at an incredibly rapid rate in the last year, I believe that any lowering of the international price will have a double effect, namely, a squeeze when our import prices are rising and export prices lowering, which will obviously ricochet back on the farm and, ultimately, on the Australian community. The next matter on which I touch is China's wheat policy. The current five-year plan in China will see the country moving from being a net importer of wheat to self-sufficiency in wheat over the next five years. Again, that is a matter Australia will have to look at with trepidation. Operations in China, as in Australia, are of course subject to fairly wild fluctuations in weather conditions. Hence we would expect to be called upon over a number of growing seasons to pick up the shortfall in China's production. However, the dynamism currently evident within China's agricultural plan means that China is not only moving towards self-sufficiency but also has the very distinct possibility, in its good growing seasons, of becoming an exporter of wheat into markets which we had hoped not only to consolidate but also to develop. As a consequence of these and other factors, world production of wheat has increased by over 50 per cent since 1970-71. While input demand has grown around the world during that same period, it has not grown at anywhere near the rate of world production. As a major trading country which exports of the order of 80 per cent of its wheat production we are very susceptible to those movements within the international wheat market. To the year ending June 1984 wheat was Australia's second largest export earner. Hence the Government, I feel sure, has been looking at the types of movements I have been talking about with a great deal of trepidation because one can see the necessity for Australia to pick up this export income merely to meet the ever increasing demands of the Australian community for imports. Unless we pay our way in the world by exporting in the same volume that we import, the problems which we now see looming for the Australian economy are only likely to grow larger. Hence the restructured Board is going to be faced with some extraordinarily tough decisions in the years ahead. The Australian Democrats sympathise with and support the Government's intention to restructure the Board to give it a range of experts in a variety of areas. There will be at the Committee stage some detailed discussion as to which experts and which description of those experts would seem to be the best, but I think there is no disagreement in the Government or the industry about the need to have those experts not only on the Board but also available to the Board in a whole variety of areas to assist it with the fluctuations which undoubtedly will occur and with the many tough decisions that the Australian Wheat Board will be called upon to make in the coming years. In closing I would like to comment on the support that Australia provides to its rural sector. There is within the general community a feeling that the taxpayer supports rural industries much more than it supports any other section of the Australian community. This is a feeling which it is very difficult to overcome. Its connection with reality is nil. Primary industry in total is not and never has been supported to anywhere near the extent that manufacturing industry, for example, has been supported. The effective support provided to primary industry as a whole-this is the subject of many reports-generally runs at about one-quarter to one-fifth of the total support provided by the taxpayer to manufacturing industry in Australia. I think it is very important to keep that factor in mind when we are talking about the very difficult restructuring processes that we are about to enter into in Australia with regard not so much to the wheat industry but to so many of the other rural industries which are currently in crisis. The demands that are going to be made on the Government, and hence the demands that will be made on the community of Australia, will be great in dollar terms. There is absolutely no doubt about that. But we must not simply take it that members of the general community will put their hands in their pockets to bail out an industry which has always been feather-bedded. It is not an industry which has been feather-bedded; it is an industry which, on world standards, has always been exposed to a very tough market. It is an industry which has had to compete and it has competed very well in international markets for Australia. By and large-there are a couple of notable exceptions-it is an industry which has always sought to be efficient in world terms, not just in Australian terms. That is very important to remember when one compares primary industry with manufacturing industry in Australia. Hence when we move to consider those types of restructurings and support to primary industry, it is well to remember that the Australian community will be asked to do something which it has already been doing for many other sections of the Australian community that have returned far less to it. If we can get through to the media and to the Australian public that what we are talking about is some type of restructuring support for a minimum period to allow our primary industries to reorganise themselves and again become competitive by world standards, we will be doing something that is in Australia's long term interests. It will be something that is well worth putting the dollars into. In the past primary industry has shown, and hopefully will again have the opportunity of showing, that it can be a major contributor to Australia's export dollar. Senator BROWNHILL(New South Wales)(10.38) —I am delighted to hear that Senator Macklin agrees with some of the amendments proposed by Senator Collard to the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 1985. Senator Macklin agrees with grower control. Being a wheat grower I believe that wheat growers make a reasonable contribution to the wheat industry and the country. Grower control is something that wheat growers hold dear to their hearts. We also believe that expertise is needed in the Australian Wheat Board because of the problems that will be encountered in the future with the export of wheat. However, I do not agree with Senator Macklin's statement that the industry is in great shape at the moment. If he talked to many wheat growers he would realise the problems they have at the moment, problems which I may allude to a little later in my speech. As Senator Collard has said, the wheat industry is a most efficient industry. It is probably as efficient as any rural industry in Australia. As I have already said, it is under terrific pressures and threats at the moment. The wheat industry does not receive its share of help as far as its rate of protection is concerned. Secondary industries in the manufacturing sector receive protection. The figure they currently receive is about 24 per cent. The wheat industry receives only about 5 per cent, down to a negative amount. Crops are increasing. As Senator Collard has said, average wheat production has increased to some 15.3 million tonnes compared with the average for the five-year period ending 1979-80 of only 13.2 million tonnes. Hence we need a top board, a board with the expertise to export our increasing crops. In the same five-year period, average wheat exports increased by approximately 1.2 million tonnes a year. That is a great deal of wheat. Eighty per cent of our wheat is exported. Again, the necessity for the top board is all the more needed. For the year ended June 1984, wheat exports were Australia's second largest export earner. Many people in Australia do not realise the importance of this industry to Australia. The fact that coal is our largest exporter and wheat our second largest is well known, but I think we should recognise that the Australian wheat farmer is producing a great deal for our economy and is doing something for the country at large. The statistics indicate the importance of our wheat industry to the Australian economy. I think the point should be noted that the rapid increase in Australia's international debt and the need to service that debt, the rapid decline in the value of the Australian dollar relative to the value of other currencies, and the importance of the export income from wheat and the wheat industry to the Australian economy cannot be over-emphasised. I have probably laboured the point, but I think we should take full note of it during the debate on the Bill. The fact that the growers deserve to have a say in the running of their industry has to be recognised. At the moment Australia's current account deficit is something like $7.6 billion, which is $3 billion more than for the corresponding period last year. The current account deficit for the year is expected to be about $11 billion, which is 30 per cent higher than last year and 50 per cent higher than the year 1983-84. Over 20 per cent of our export revenue, or over double the amount earned from wheat exports, will be required just to pay interest on that foreign debt alone. Again, this indicates the importance of the wheat industry to the Australian economy. I repeat that because we export so much wheat we require a Board which has the necessary expertise to be able to oversee those exports. The reason I talk about grower control is that the wheat grower is a price taker. He is not a price maker. The only option which we have available to increase international competitiveness and farm profitability is to take every step that we can to reduce the costs of production, storage, handling, transport and the marketing of wheat, and to ensure that adequate resources are available for an effective market development and promotional program for Australian wheat on the world market. Hence the need, again, for a top Board to look after our product and a Board with top expertise. The next few years will be difficult years for the Australian wheat industry. Senator Macklin believes-I agree with a lot of the things he said-that at the moment the industry is at a crossroads because there has been a rapid increase in wheat production in China and the overall world outlook for wheat is a matter of great concern. I quote from a report entitled 'Wheat: Situation and Outlook 1985': There is, however, some prospect of increased import demand arising from income growth in developing countries . . .The need for good marketing performance with a price decline continuing. The permit system for stock feed wheat may encourage increased high yielding varieties although quantities of this production may not be great. Increasing handling and marketing charges may encourage increased production of higher protein and higher value wheats which may give better net returns. The analysis in the report stated: With the security of record supplies, importers are unlikely to provide any demand stimulus for prices. However, should the economic situation (particularly the effects of economic recovery and the US dollar exchange rate) alter to favour a better demand outlook, the currently projected record stocks could be reduced. The size of the 1985 world crops would then have a greater bearing on price in the second half of the year. The report then refers to the limited prospects for international trade growth. I repeat that the wheat industry will need every bit of help and expertise it can get in the coming years. I agree with the amendments foreshadowed by Senator Collard. Obviously we will discuss these further in the Committee debate. The point I make at this stage concerns the problem of costs for the wheat industry. In the last few years wheat pool costs have risen by something like 18 per cent and handling and storage charges have gone up by about 10 per cent. Rail freight charges have increased by around 11 per cent, header costs by 15 per cent, wages by about 12 per cent, and fertiliser costs by 10 per cent. Interest rates have increased by approximately 6 per cent. There has been only a small increase in chemical costs but fuel costs have increased by about 50 per cent. In the last five years or so the price of wheat has gone up by only 2 per cent while cash costs have increased by 17 per cent. Hence my worry about the situation of the wheat industry. Something has to be done about this Government's fuel pricing policy. For example, in the last 14 years, which covers a number of governments, the cost of diesel fuel for use on my property has increased by some 700 per cent while the price of wheat has increased by only some 300 per cent. A harvester I could buy two years ago for $92,000 now costs something like $140,000. I am told that later this year as a result of the devaluation of the Australian dollar the cost of that harvester will be around $165,000. There are problems in the wheat industry that are yet to manifest themselves. The devaluation of the dollar really has not helped it. As I have already said, the world is over-supplied with wheat. The chickens will come home to roost in our industry in the near future because of the devaluation and the increased input costs to which we will be subjected. What will happen when wheat growers find the situation too bad? What will happen if we do not have a good wheat board and a market that will sustain us? We will stop the use of fertiliser on our properties. Obviously, by using fertiliser we increase yields and we increase profitability, but we also look after the soil, thus ensuring that it is good for future generations. We will reduce our labour. Chemical usage will decline, machinery will not be replaced, and repairs will be reduced. In order to keep up with our costs, wheat acreage probably will be expanded or there will be diversification, resulting in a major move away from the wheat industry. As wheat is this country's second largest export, that is something we cannot afford. Another problem for the wheat industry since the election of the Hawke Labor Government has been the increase in fuel prices that takes place every two months. There have also been delays in the diesel fuel rebate, and the 100 per cent deductibility for on-farm fuel storage has been removed. The Government has dropped the accelerated depreciation on primary production plant. The Hawke Labor Government has stopped the income equalisation deposit tax incentive scheme introduced to cover bad seasons. It has imposed a 15 per cent rise in tariffs on imported grain harvesters, which will cost the grain industry around $14m. It has slashed Federal funding for the rural adjustment scheme by some 40 per cent. It has reduced depreciation allowances, removed the sales tax exemptions for oils and lubricants, and increased Telecom Australia and Australia Post charges substantially. Further the Government has tried to snatch prime agricultural land for defence purposes. Industrial disputes in New South Wales have cost the wheat growers enormous sums of money. That brings me to another part of the Bill. Members with special expertise in finance, marketing or industrial relations will be appointed to the Board. I believe that the terms of reference of the Grain Handling Authority of New South Wales, which has a member with special expertise, have not been absolutely carried out. The wheat industry for years has had to contend with droughts and floods. Now it must contend with droughts, floods and industrial problems. The thing that concerns me about this Bill is the fact that the growers may lose control of their industry. I think that the amendments foreshadowed by Senator Collard will solve that problem. I believe that we do not want a bureaucratic monolith running our wheat industry. The second reading speech of the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button) representing the Minister for Primary Industry states that an alternate grower member is to be appointed from each mainland State to the Australian Wheat Board. I think that person will have difficulty in keeping up with the current problems of the Board. I think that that person will only be somebody who votes at meetings. I think that that person will have trouble in keeping up with the expertise of other members of the Board. If we read the second reading speech carefully, the Minister seems to have the responsibility for determining the selection criteria against which the selection committee can objectively assess the suitability of prospective appointees and which must be addressed by the committee before it puts forward its nominations. That is contained in proposed new section 33H. I do not know whether such a provision is contained in other legislation. But it is obvious that the Minister of the day could keep sending back nominations and asking the committee to look again at its selection criteria if he did not like the person who was nominated. I worry about the accountability of this new Board to the wheat growers. I believe that in the past the Wheat Board, even though it has sometimes suffered from a lack of expertise-I am in agreement with this new Board having such expertise-has always been accountable to the growers and its members have travelled to country areas to visit the growers and explain the problems of the industry. This provision for accountability could perhaps be looked at during the Committee stage. I support the Bill as it will be amended by Senator Collard at the Committee stage. I think the wheat industry is at a stage at which it needs help and expertise. I trust and hope that the Board, by way of the amendments suggested by Senator Collard, will do something for the wheat growers for the future of Australia and will make sure that the wheat industry is not only the second largest exporter of Australian produce in the future, but also that it will make a worthwhile contribution for the good of all Australians. Senator SCOTT(New South Wales-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(10.54) —I will briefly address the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 1985. I do not intend to pursue the statistics that have a very real relevance to the circumstances, but which have been so widely exposed by honourable senators who have spoken previously in the chamber this morning. I indicate my support for the Bill, but a support that is governed, I hope, by the Government's acceptance of the amendments that we propose to move at the Committee stage. Those amendments will give back to the grower representatives on the Australian Wheat Board what has traditionally been, in regard to the Australian primary industry's circumstances, their right and province-that is, basic control of their marketing organisation. Indeed, the Australian wheat grower not only deserves that sort of traditional control, but also, I believe, merits that sort of control. If we look at the performance of the Australian Wheat Board as a marketing organisation, it has been a very successful organisation in extraordinarily difficult international circumstances. Consequently, the growers deserve and merit a real measure of control of their marketing body. The Opposition's proposition in regard to this legislation is virtually to agree with the proposition of the Government that the number of members of the Board should be reduced from 15 to 11. We propose that it should be made an even tighter unit by reducing the number from 11 to 10. An argument could be mounted-I expect a respectable argument-that a board comprising 15 members may well be cumbersome, less efficient and unable to operate as quickly and as exactly as may be required from time to time. Our amendment suggests that by reducing the number of members from 11 to 10 we would be reducing the number of members with special expertise from four to three. That seems to be a reasonable and proper proposition. There is no shadow of doubt-indeed, there is no argument-that the membership of the Board should comprise members who have special expertise in certain areas. If we reduce the membership from four to three we would still significantly cover the areas of concern expressed by the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin) in his second reading speech. He mentioned the areas of finance and management and marketing. There is one other area in which he believed that special expertise was necessary-the area of industrial relations. Those three areas, of course, are the problem areas in the operation of the Australian Wheat Board. The three members that we propose in our amendment would be sufficient to cover all of those areas. Why is there the need for special expertise in those areas? I think it is interesting and necessary to have a very brief look at each of them. The Australian Wheat Board has become in recent years a much more flexible unit. It has a capacity for independence, a capacity in particular to finance itself by operating in the world's financial markets. Because of this, and because it is a $3 billion-plus industry, it is necessary to have at least one permanent member of the Board who has real expertise in the area of finance; someone who not only knows and identifies the appropriate places in which to seek money, but also who knows the process of hedging against commodities, interest rates and so on. So there is a very real need for a financial competence within the Board and that expertise could well be levelled by one of its members. The Board must raise its own loans, and that is an advantage providing it has the real capacity to raise them in the best and most effective manner. The second area of expertise, of course, is in the field of management and marketing skills, which in recent years has become an area of truly professional operation. Significantly, people in the marketing world now have a professional background. Indeed, when we are handling a $3 billion export industry, marketing is of enormous consequence. Marketing is of consequence not only to the farming community itself but also-this is an important point that is sometimes overlooked-this massive, in Australian terms, wheat industry is of importance to a totally integrated socio-economic community in extra-metropolitan Australia. That $3 billion is the very life-blood of the people who live in the towns, villages and provincial cities of Australia. So it is that we must have within that marketing organisation a power and a knowledge that will succeed in marketing this $3 billion plus crop. Finally, in industrial relations, there is again a need for competence, experience and expertise within the Board. There has been an intolerable toll of this industry through industrial relations problems, particularly in my own State of New South Wales and particularly within the field of the Grain Handling Authority of that State-a toll that has seen perhaps 2 million tonnes of general purpose wheat still lying in dumps in New South Wales which could well have been sold and delivered long ago had there been the capacity and determination through the transport and the handling system so to do. It is extraordinarily important to have that area of industrial relations well and truly a specialist area within the operation of the Wheat Board, for once one loses a market through failure to supply there is a great probability that it will be extraordinarily difficult to regain it. That is history, and the situation is not likely to change. Moreover, when we cannot deliver or move at the time we create further damage to the product itself and extraordinary cost increases through fumigation, turning the grain and so forth. All these costs come back to the producer or grower, which is yet another reason he needs to have and must have control of the marketing authority. Expertise is required in those three areas, and our proposition that there should be three people basically qualified to carry out those areas of operation must be seen to be sufficient. Beyond that, I believe that a grower himself has traditionally and through his own expertise a capacity to identify and pursue other areas in which some form of extra advice and direction is necessary. I am confident that the growers on this Board have the capacity to observe from time to time where they need appropriate help and to seek and implement this advice. Before closing my remarks I ask the Senate to consider just a little of the industry and development of the wheat industry. As I have said and as has been explained here this morning by previous speakers, it is an industry of very great prominence which is typically Australian in the context of our total primary industry organisation. The Australian wheat grower has forged a great industry out of what has been a fairly inhospitable circumstance-an extraordinarily variable climate which is in general very dry and a variety of soils which on the whole are not very fertile. For literally a hundred years machinery, fertilisers, chemicals and so forth were not available as they are today and that, of course, has taken a severe toll of the land's capacity to produce. I believe that the contribution made by the Australian farmer who, incidentally, on a per capita basis is the most efficient in the world, is sometimes not recognised as fairly as it should be. From time to time he is blamed, I believe unfairly, for many things including his handling of the soil. As I said, he has had to compete with a hostile climate, with variable soils and with enormous distances from basic supplies and markets. He has pioneered dry land agriculture. He has pioneered the technique of retaining moisture in the soil, together with the development of appropriate machinery, to such an extent that he has become a significant adviser in the field of agriculture in many dry land areas around the world. He is sometimes abused for having shown a measure of recklessness in his treatment of the environment. I think it is worth while looking at the facts in that field. In the first place, when he had to produce food to live, there was a tendency to clear whatever was in the way of the plough in order that cultivation could be carried out and no doubt there were a few excesses in that climate of urgency. But that period has long since passed and the Australian farmer, like the Australian pastoralist, has been extraordinarily busy in recent years re-establishing shelter belts and timber blocks and has exhibited a capacity and concern to contour and conserve the soil. Several things which have happened in the development of the agricultural industry, such as the advent of selective chemicals and weedicides and, in particular, post-emergence sprays, have enabled the intensity of cultivation to be broken down very significantly and this in itself has resulted in a significant decrease in soil wastage and a cutting back of erosion. The change in machinery is changing the whole course of agriculture. We are reaching a point where the straw can be retained in the soil as the machinery is now capable of handling it. This will strengthen and consolidate the soil and lessen the chance of erosion. These matters have largely been the result of the initiative, and in many cases the genius, of Australia's farming community. I do not believe that there is a need to talk at any further length on this Bill but I reiterate that it is important not only that we do not oppose the Government's Bill but also that the Government should see fit to agree to the amendments, which merely aim to provide for a more complete and appropriate grower control of an authority that is of very great value and enormous importance not only to the wheat growing community but to the whole of the Australian community, which is significantly dependent upon it. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(11.10) —I move: That the debate be now adjourned. With the indulgence of the Senate, I seek the adjournment of the debate because of the multiplicity of amendments which have been introduced and the fact that the Government has now brought forward amendments which may cope with the amendments moved by the Opposition. It will give us all a chance to read the amendments and to work out where we are going. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 7 May, on motion by Senator Button: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.11) —The Senate is debating the First Home Owners Amendment Bill 1985. I might just make the point that this debate has been brought on very suddenly and far ahead of the anticipated time. I hope that honourable senators who are going to speak on this matter have been alerted to that fact. The Opposition does not intend to oppose this legislation. However, I move as an amendment to the motion that the Bill be now read a second time: At the end of motion, add 'but the Senate, whilst accepting the need for overall budgetary cuts in Government spending, including in the First Home Owners Scheme, condemns the Government for- (a) introducing this Bill which amounts to a shameful dishonouring of an election pledge to maintain the First Home Owners Scheme, and (b) its arbitrary action in determining that the heaviest cuts would fall on the poorest and most needy members of the community'. The truth of the matter is that the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and the Government totally misled the people at the last election by announcing that this Government would continue the first home owners scheme. The truth of the matter is that the Bill before us goes back on that promise and in fact makes very substantial cuts to the first home owners scheme. The legislation is a total dishonouring of the election pledge which no doubt many thousands of young people were conned into believing. Senator Primmer —It helped many thousands. Senator LEWIS —Many thousands of young people would have believed at the last election that they would be able to gain from this scheme. The truth of the matter is that this legislation cuts back the scheme. Senator Primmer rightly has said by way of interjection that the scheme helps many thousands of young people. I agree with that. However, if Senator Primmer were to look back he would remember that the Fraser Government had in place an enormous first home owners scheme which provided more funds for a larger variety of people in the community and encouraged young people to save towards the cost of their first home. One of the major criticisms of the Government's legislation is that it does not contain a savings provision. There is nothing in the legislation to induce young people in the community to save towards the cost of buying their own home. The financial limitations on the scheme are such that it is extremely difficult for young people to take advantage of the scheme and actually to earn enough income to meet repayments on a housing loan. We have made that criticism frequently. One presumes that in this day and age a young husband and wife are both working. That couple must have a taxable income of no more than $24,300 to get the maximum advantage of the scheme. They are totally cut out of the scheme altogether if their combined income reaches $27,900. Couples earning such a low combined income clearly have to obtain a housing loan which allows them to make very long term repayments. It must be clearly obvious to even the Government that the only way in which young people with such a low combined level of income can repay a housing loan is to pay it off over a period of, say, 40 or 45 years. They have to take out a very long term loan in order to get down their monthly or quarterly repayments to a reasonable level. Of course, they run the risk all the way along the line of having to sell their house if the wife becomes pregnant and is unable to work because the husband's income is insufficient to meet the repayments. This criticism has been made right from the word go. During the past year, average weekly earnings have risen by 7.6 per cent. However, the limitations in the legislation of a combined income of $24,300 or below and a family income maximum of $27,900 have remained the same. It is very clear that young people who are desperately seeking this sort of support would need a combined income of $24,000 anyway if they were thinking about buying a home. They are just the people who have probably received a 7.6 per cent increase in average weekly earnings and as a result they have been cut out of this scheme. A large number of young people have complained bitterly to me that they have not been able to come within this scheme and say how much better off they would have been under the Fraser Government scheme. I want to raise the way in which the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West) has totally misled the people by selectively quoting statistics. The reality is that the number of dwelling approvals for January 1985 is very little different from the number, for example, for January 1981. There were 13,614 dwelling approvals in January 1981 and 13,933 in January 1985. The Minister keeps saying that the scheme has been an overwhelming success and that so many young people have been able to purchase a home. The truth of the situation is in fact set out in the Department of housing and Construction's own reports. The annual report of the Department of Housing and Construction for 1983-84, at page 55, states: In 1982-83, reflecting the general economic climate, conditions in housing and construction were depressed. It states that dwelling commencements fell. All the Minister is saying is that there has been a general economic recovery. We all know that there has been a general economic recovery. We know that the United States's economy has recovered and that that has flowed around the world. We know that the drought has broken in Australia and we know that as a result of the wage fixation policy of the Fraser Government the Australian economy has recovered during 1984 with a resultant increase in the dwelling construction area. Frankly, I say that this scheme of the Government has made no greater contribution to housing construction than the Fraser scheme which it replaced on a much poorer basis. In fact, that is also set out in the same annual report at page 53, where it is stated: The level of activity in the housing and construction industry fluctuates more than in most other sectors. Activity is sensitive to changes in the investment climate, including the cost and availability of finance, and investor and consumer confidence the overall level of economic activity and especially the demand for resource exports the level of public expenditure population growth and household formation, and especially the level of migration. They are the points which determine the level of activity in the housing and construction industry. The Minister's claim that this scheme has meant a return to the previous levels of housing construction in Australia is in fact a nonsense. The great pity of this legislation is that it will not only dishonour an election pledge, but that this arbitrary action will determine that the heaviest cuts will in fact fall on the poorest and neediest members of the community. The shadow Minister for Housing and Construction, Mr Michael Hodgman, presented in the House of Representatives five different scenarios in which he set out the differences in the scheme and how it affects the joint home buyers with lower incomes. I simply refer to his speech in the Hansard rather than repeat that information for the Senate, but there is no doubt that all of these proposed changes will in fact be hitting the poorest in the community the hardest. The pensioner home buyer with children and the underprivileged will clearly be hit the hardest. The final point I make is that the truth of the matter is that at the time the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) was saying at the last election that the first home owners scheme would proceed, 75 per cent of the funds allocated had already been spent and the year still has a long way to run. The explanatory memorandum produced by the Minister in relation to the First Home Owners Amendment Bill and circulated with his authority explains the financial implications of the Bill in one simple sentence. It stated: These changes will ensure that the integrity of the First Home Owners Scheme Budget appropriation is assured. It is quite fascinating that even in those few words there is a slight attempt to mislead because it appears when one first starts to read it that it says these changes will ensure that the integrity of the scheme is assured. Of course, it is not, because it is really the Budget appropriation in relation to the scheme that is assured. What the Government is saying, in effect, is that we have to make sure that we do not spend more than $290m. We have already spent 75 per cent of the $290m before the first half of the year is over; so we have to make sure that we are not going to spend more than $290m because the Budget appropriation must be assured. The Government is not looking at what first home buyers might get out of this legislation. It is looking at maintaining the Budget appropriation to make sure that it is not over-expended. I do not have a great deal of argument with that. I believe that the Budget should be maintained. My criticism is that the Government knew this when the Prime Minister went to the last election called in December. That election could have been called in May of this year. The truth of the matter was that this Government knew that if it maintained the first home buyers scheme the way it was, the Budget appropriation would be greatly over-expended, probably by over 50 or 60 per cent. Perhaps $125m would have been involved because of all those people who would have qualified. The Prime Minister went into the election saying to the young people of Australia, and this is why I say he conned them, that the Government would maintain the first home buyers scheme. Now honourable senators opposite are in Government they say: Look, if we had maintained it in its previous form we would have over-expended our Budget very substantially, so we have to cut back. That is why I moved: At end of motion, add 'but the Senate, whilst accepting the need for overall budgetary cuts in Government spending, including in the First Home Owners Scheme, condemns the Government for- (a) introducing this Bill which amounts to a shameful dishonouring of an election pledge to maintain the First Home Owners Scheme, and (b) its arbitrary action in determining that the heaviest cuts would fall on the poorest and most needy members of the community'. Senator HAINES(South Australia)(11.27) —The First Home Owners Amendment Bill before us today is in effect the third attempt by the current Labor Government to limit the effectiveness of what has been described, probably accurately, as the most successful operation of the first home owners scheme we have had. In doing so, as previous senators have indicated, it has ignored quite deliberately the needs of low income families and families with dependent children. Of course, those people are currently living in the private or public rental market sector, and in forcing them to remain there, as this legislation could well do, the Government is continuing that dreadful poverty trap that catches so many low income families, particularly those who have young dependent children. It limits their opportunities for saving. Therefore, it limits their opportunity to bridge deposit gaps and it limits their opportunity to get out of a cycle in which a large amount of their money is going into somebody else's asset and which will in effect achieve very little for themselves and their children in the future. In the guise of budgetary restraint-indeed, in the guise of alleged responsible budgetary restraint-this Government has in the last nine months cut back not only the number of people who can qualify for the grant, but also the amount of money people receive in assistance by not indexing the limits for inflation. What may have seemed a fairly generous limit a year or two ago becomes a not so attractive limit when it is not indexed for indexation. One could almost say that we have here a case of reverse fiscal drag operating so that over a two-year period, fewer and fewer people are benefiting because limits are not keeping pace with inflation. Of course, the first cut was effected by way of regulation in August last year and, indeed, it affected most single people. If, as is the case on both sides of this House, there is some agreement that we ought to have as a top priority the needs and concerns of families with dependent children, perhaps that was not a particularly reprehensible step for the Government to take. It may well have been an appropriate action to take, if that was the priority order it had. The second change was also done by way of regulation, although, from looking at speeches made in the lower House, that fact did not seem to register with some members of the Opposition. The regulation was changed in April of this year. Of the two changes, I suggest that the one made in April of this year will have the most devastating effect on people who are looking to this Government for assistance to get a permanent roof of their own over their heads. That change cuts in a single stroke by $1,000 the amount eligible individuals and families can receive. Even in this day and age $1,000 is not an insignificant amount when people are budgeting tightly to build or buy a home. As one correspondent pointed out to me, it has in fact made the difference to him and his family of having a roof on his house. This gentleman and his family are building their own home. There is no contract to sign with a builder. There is no contract to sign with somebody who is selling an already built home. He is building his own house. He said: . . . I object strongly to the way the Government has attempted to economise. Once again, it has been those who can least afford it who have been hit the hardest. My family, that is a wife and three children, live on a very low fixed income and have only a small fixed amount of money available for building. All of which has been budgeted for, with no prospect of further loans. The $1,000 in question represents to us the roof of our proposed new small house. Since we do not qualify for any type of home loan, I would like those in power to explain how I am going to finish building our home. Of course, he has a quite definite point to make. The third change the Government has made to the first home owners scheme is implemented in the piece of legislation before us today. The Government is placing an absolute spending limit of $290m on the FHOS. The Bill places a ceiling of that amount for 1985-86, based on the $290m that was spent on the scheme in 1984-85. We may have reduced our inflation rate from what it was four, five or more years ago, but in holding down the spending in 1985-86 to the amounts spent in 1984-85 we automatically guarantee that fewer people will qualify, simply because the money spent-the $290m-in real terms, will be less than the value of the $290m spent last year. Furthermore, since the payments under the first home owners scheme are spread over five years, some of the money to be allocated in 1985-86 must be to service first home owners scheme commitments made since 1983. I have not seen anywhere evidence that the Government has told us just exactly what proportion of that $290m will be used for those who have already been successful in getting grants. Therefore, it is impossible for me or, I presume, for anybody else to calculate exactly how large the cut will be for new people coming into the system. One is forced to ask: How many people who want to buy or build a home will be prevented from doing so in the coming financial year because the Government has opted for a sort of first in first served distribution principle? I find this neither equitable nor fair and I wonder just what sort of backlog it is likely to produce in, say, the 1986-87 financial year. How many people will be prevented from buying the home of their choice either because the Government has cut by $1,000 the maximum eligible amount or because the $290m allocated has run out in, say, the first seven, eight or 10 months of the year? What sort of backlog will that produce in subsequent years? What kind of rolling effect will this have on people who want to make use of this scheme to get themselves into a home of their own? Furthermore, one is forced to ask what effect this penny-pinching will have on the housing industry generally and a number of associated industries the Government successfully managed to stimulate through the first home owners scheme Mark 1. One wonders whether we are going to have the same sort of housing assistance muddle during the period of this Government with constant changes to the scheme, as we saw throughout the Fraser years with the constant changes to the health care system. I suspect that an additional problem will face us in this area, and that is that this Government is likely to continue its interest deregulation process to include home loan interest rates. If it does that, the impact on the housing industry and related industries such as soft furnishings, white goods and so on, could well be as dramatic as it was in the days of 1981-82, when interest rate rises were becoming almost a monthly event. Mr Acting Deputy President, I am sure that you, like me, have been in the position of budgeting to pay mortgage repayments and so on. Of course, at the moment we are in a much better position than others to absorb interest rate rises that will affect our mortgage repayments. The majority of people in the community are not so fortunate. I think it is incumbent on this Government at least to give people some sort of warning about what is likely to happen to their budgets through action the Government is likely to take in the future. For example, if the Government is going to follow deregulation of small business loans, deregulation of personal loan interest rates, deregulation of Bankcard rates and so on, with the deregulation of housing interest rates, will it assure, and in fact reassure, people that it will take some other action that will offset the effect of this rise in interest rates-because that is what will inevitably follow deregulation-on the budgets of people who hold large mortgages? For instance, will the Government offer some sort of housing interest subsidy? People in the community are entitled to know. If they do not know, the housing industry will become unstable and families will have the budgetary problems to which I referred as occurring in the early 1980s. Most families budget fairly tightly. They know what their interest rate repayments are likely to be. They usually know what their housekeeping costs are. They know when they are likely to need a new car. They can usually tell if the washing machine has a terminal illness and how long it is likely to last. If that sort of budgeting system is upset by the changes we see in the regulations concerning FHOS, which have been implemented by the Government in the last nine months, and by the changes before us in the legislation today and the impact they are likely to have on who can qualify this year or next, and if those sorts of budgetary problems are going to arise, I think people are entitled to know what offsetting benefits the Government is likely to use. The Liberal Opposition has introduced an amendment to the motion for the second reading, which we will be supporting. The amendment states: but the Senate, whilst accepting the need for overall budgetary cuts in Government spending, including in the First Home Owners Scheme . . . As I indicated earlier, we certainly can see some sort of equity in the Government prioritising families with dependent children as it did by its regulation change last year. We, too, feel that the FHOS should not be excluded from budgetary cuts. Nevertheless, we agree with the other points raised in the amendment to the effect that the introduction of this Bill amounts to a shameful dishonouring of an election pledge by the Government to maintain the first home owners scheme and that the arbitrary action of the Government will mean that the heaviest cuts will fall on the poorest and most needy members of the community. I add, however, that I wonder how many of the poorest and most needy members in the community ever did benefit. Did it ever help people whose sole income came from a pension or benefit of some sort? If the Government has any figures on how many supporting mothers, for example, with one or more children were in a position to qualify under the FHOS, I would be interested to have the figures. Also, I would be interested to know how many people who are on invalid pensions, with dependants, were able to qualify under this scheme to bridge a deposit gap and have some sort of budgetary assistance to purchase or build their own home. I suspect that the numbers will be very slight indeed. There is no doubt that a significant number of people who could have been and should have been helped by this Government to buy or build their own homes will not be helped because of the changes made in April to the regulations and to the first home owners scheme by this legislation. For that the Government stands condemned, and condemned in the words of the Liberal Party's amendment to the second reading-an amendment I have no hesitation in supporting. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(11.42) —The Senate is now dealing with the First Home Owners Amendment Bill 1985, which seeks to amend the First Home Owners Act 1983. This legislation has been in place for a very short time. The amendment Bill makes some significant changes. It is worth noting that housing is a large industry and a response to these significant changes will result in a cost penalty being imposed on the building of houses. People who want to buy houses will have to pay more. It is characteristic of a Labor administration that things change rapidly because matters are not thought through before they are implemented. The common perception in the community is that the Australian Labor Party is bad at economic management, but it goes much wider than that. Members of the Labor Party are bad managers, period. This Bill illustrates in a classical way the fact that the Labor Party never thinks anything through before introducing provisions into Parliament. I would like to deal with the Labor argument which has been put by speakers both here and in the other place. The first point that should be made-it was well made by Senator Lewis and Senator Haines-is that the fact that the Senate is now dealing with an amendment to the Act represents a clear breach of an election promise by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). He stood on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in the election campaign and said-and I quote from page 4 of his policy speech on 13 November 1984: We introduced the First Home Owners Scheme, to bring home ownership within the reach of thousands of young Australians of limited means. The number of new houses being built in Australia has increased by one third. And we are going to keep it that way. That was a clear promise. That promise, of course, turned out to be as valid as his promise to the United States of America on co-operation in the MX missile tests. I remember how for a long while the cartoonist in one of the well known southern papers drew Mr Hawke running around with a cardboard shoe box under his arm in which he carried his integrity. Needless to say those cartoons do not appear any more. No doubt the Prime Minister got caught in a shower of rain and the cardboard just fell away. The second point in the Labor argument is that somehow or other this Labor Bill is the first home owners Bill ever to be presented in the Parliament. Twenty-two years ago, in 1963, Sir Robert Menzies introduced the first home owners scheme. That scheme, in the economy of the time, was very successful. For 22 years Australian home buyers have had some support program from the government for the purchase of their first homes. Those schemes have been progressively upgraded to cope with different economic circumstances. There is also a large element of deception and dishonesty in the presentation of this first home owners scheme by the Labor Party. Very few people mention the fact that in bringing in this scheme, which looks attractive because it gives a handful of money to people straight off, two other important supporting schemes were abolished to make way for it. The first was the home interest rebate scheme, which provided help for some home buyers in the low income categories against high interest rates. The second scheme was the home deposit assistance scheme. The fact that those two schemes were abolished gave the Government $300m in the year-and $300m is not a bad windfall to be generous with for the Bill that is now in place. As Senator Haines so accurately said when calling for some new housing interest rebate scheme, that earlier scheme was valuable. I remember the occasion that I bought my first house in 1966, when interest rates were about half today's figure; I think I was paying between 5 per cent and 7 per cent. That seemed an enormous, usurious sum at the time but, looking back, it was very cheap. When I signed the contract I talked to an elderly friend of mine and told him about the interest rate I was paying. He said that the important thing with house ownership or any business operation is the interest rate one pays. It is not the repayment on the capital but the interest rate that is the killer. At present, as a legacy of the Whitlam Government in 1972-75, Australians are still coping with high interest rates as a consequence of the inflation that was then engendered by ill-conceived economic policies. Today, Australia has the highest real interest rate terms ever in its history. There is a real case for some sort of housing interest rebate scheme to take the burden off first home owners. That need has been heightened by the deregulation of the banking industry. The introduction of banks from overseas is a move supported by the Liberal Party and the National Party; we believe that it is in the long term interests of the Australian community. But the consequence is that the market is deregulated. Australia for most of this century has enjoyed an artificially low interest rate for home purchases. The rate has been kept below the real market rate for people who buy their first house-or indeed any house, because it was not restricted to the first house. In this there was a misallocation of Australia's resources. In other words, money and capital that should have gone into wealth creating programs, such as the building of factories, industries and that sort of thing, got channelled into home ownership, thereby diminishing the economic growth in the country in one sense, although clearly the housing industry provided employment and demand for goods and services. But those times have changed. Although a big increase in interest rates for home ownership has not yet been experienced, it is inevitable that some increase in the present figure will occur and that the interest rates for borrowing money to buy houses will be on parity with other commercial transactions. Therefore, the need for some home purchase interest rate accommodation from the Government is more pressing today than it was before. But this Bill and this Government take no recognition of that need for the Australian community. The amendment Bill deals broadly with three categories. There are changes in the money available under the scheme; there are procedural changes; and there are evidentiary changes. I wish to deal with the first of those categories, which is the most important one. It deals with the funding available under the Bill. It applies from 16 April 1985, so it is already in place. In essence it cuts $1,000 off each category for which assistance was available. In percentage terms $1,000 does not seem very much when talking about houses which today range in cost from $35,000 and $40,000 and upwards, but as a percentage of the money made available under the First Home Owners Act it is a cut of between 14 and 24 per cent, which is highly significant. The reason given for the cuts, as instanced by Senator Lewis, was the need to bring down the deficit. I am delighted that this Government, which is the biggest taxing and biggest borrowing government in Australia's peace time history and a government which is running the biggest deficits we have ever had in peace time, should be concerned about its big spending. It cannot be ignorant of or blind to the great social consequences that the changes to the First Home Owners Act entail because they affect most significantly the lowest income groups in the country. The Liberal Party is very concerned about the low income groups. We are concerned to give support to families with children and to get them into their own homes. Yet the very effect of this Bill is to strike hardest at those single income families, those low income families, with children and to make it much more difficult for them to get into their own homes. They are the ones in the community who most need help. If the Government wants to save money there are thousands of ways in which it can do so. We need not have had the expansion of the Parliament by 35 new members. I would say that each parliamentarian in the Federal sphere generates conservatively at least $250,000 in expenditure with his staff, his officers and travel-and that might be an underestimate by 25 or 50 per cent. To increase the size of the Parliament needlessly by 35 new politicians, as was done last year to enable the Government to cling on with a slender majority to its position in power, cost the Australian taxpayers conservatively at least $8m to $9m, and that expenditure will run on year after year. One of the things that has come to my mind recently is the community employment program which, at its best, I thought, was just a means of recycling the unemployed of the community, taking the youth cynically off the dole and putting them through a scheme for a few weeks and thereby driving the unemployment figures down. I was with Senator Sheil at a rally for the ANZUS pact in February of this year in King George Square, Brisbane. There was in the square a gaudily-painted double-decker bus containing a bunch of rather disrespectful young people who interjected very rudely on the eminent speakers such as Senator Sheil. I made some inquiries because word was around that these people were funded under the CEP scheme. This week I had a reply from the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) that this was indeed so and that the Australian taxpayer spent $74,756 for six young people to refurbish an old bus and to drive around promoting unilaterist disarmament views in schools, in shopping centres and generally around the countryside, views which are against the professed policy of the Government in relation to defence. I guess that this is just the tip of the iceberg. One would not know how many millions are being wasted under the CEP scheme. Let us look at the huge Government propaganda scheme. We all get the publication entitled Government In Focus which comes around every two weeks or every month and in which one sees the smiling faces-the only time one does see those smiling faces-of members of the Ministry on every page. That probably costs $10m or $20m a year to run and it is a simple Goebbels-type propaganda thing. I return to the Bill itself. The Prime Minister has broken his election promise. In his policy speech he said: We introduced the first home owners scheme to bring home ownership within the reach of thousands of young Australians . . . The number of new houses being built in Australia has increased by one-third. And we are going to keep it that way. Yet four months after that speech the promise that he was going to keep it that way had been broken. According to the Minister in the other place we are going to see a reduction in the number of homes being built from 143,000 to something like 80,000 or 85,000 next year. The sad part about the Bill is that the people most seriously affected are the low income groups in the community, specifically those earning below $27,000 per year, which is the vast majority of the Australian work force. It is a very big group. The precise details of the scheme have been gone through by other speakers in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, and it would be repetitious for me to repeat them. The classical example is that a single or joint applicant without children faces a cut of 20 per cent under the first option given them, 22 per cent under the second option, and 24 per cent under the third option. It is not valid for the Labor Party to argue that, even though these cuts of up to 24 per cent are taking place, home seekers are getting more money than under the Fraser Government. The truth is that one has to see the entire housing picture. The abolition of the home deposit assistance scheme and the home loan interest rebate scheme has significantly altered the picture. I come back to the point that I made earlier. There is definitely a need for some compensatory scheme to support the interest payments that people now have to meet because the present scheme does affect the neediest. We are going through all this trauma to the neediest group in the community for a saving of only $25m a year. It is peanuts really, considering the profligacy of this Government. It is very hard to take it seriously when it comes up with a proposition that is going to save it only $25m. Over and above everything else, it is tinkering with the real issue, the state of the Australian economy, which is going down hill very rapidly. We all know that the Hawke socialist dollar is worth only about US62c or US65c on the international market. The real need for this Government is not to mess around with housing interest, first home owners Bills, or anything like that, but to look at the structural problems which bedevil the Australian economy, to get unemployment and interest rates down and to revitalise Australian industry. The crux of the matter is the lack of productivity of the work force in Australia. It costs too much to employ people here for what we get in return. That is a consequence of the monopoly position on the supply of labour by the union movement in Australia. The consequence of that is quite disastrous in an economic sense. There is nothing at all wrong with the Australian work force. It is as good, as competent, and as capable as any in the world but it cannot produce under the present management practices imposed on it, with respect to the monopoly supply of labour, by the union movement. Mr Hawke, the Labor Ministry, and the Labor Party as a whole are presiding over the slide from a developed country to Third World status. We are going back because of the total inability of the Hawke socialist Government to address the fundamental structural problems of the Australian economy. If we got the economy right, the acute housing problems would largely be solved. I said at the outset of my speech that the first home owners assistance Bill came from the Menzies Government 22 years ago. If we look back to the years in the 1950s and 1960s we realise that they were not only the golden years in an economic sense, but were the golden years for all of Australia. They were the golden years because responsible economic policies were followed and we all benefited from a high standard of living coming from the efficient economy we had at the time. We are now sliding back to Third World status because of the inability of the Labor Party to manage the economic situation in this country. The first task of this Government is to fix the problem, not tinker with the symptoms. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(12.00) —I, too, would like to speak to the First Home Owners Amendment Bill 1985 which is described in the explanatory memorandum as follows: The purpose of the Bill is to provide for a number of machinery amendments of minor policy significance or of a routine administrative nature, and to provide for a fixed appropriation to contain expenditure under the First Home Owners Scheme to within Budget appropriation. What a euphemistic approach to something that absolutely guts the previous legislation! I am not sure who is likely to see the Bill in that light because it represents a complete repudiation of a promise only 16 weeks old. It is a massive change to people who are in the home buying market. It is a massive change to a scheme that was lauded as being such a good idea and such a great help. However, that did not stop it being changed to such a massive extent. Finally, it is one of the greatest exhibitions of verbal pedantics that I have ever seen, and I will come back to that later. The scheme we now have is, by any standards, complicated. It is not easy for anybody who is unskilled in the art of reading government documents to understand. We now have a pamphlet entitled 'First Home Owners Scheme, Benefits Table For people acquiring their first home from 17 April 1985'. One finds that there are 60 alternatives from which to choose. One must work out which category one is in. I happen to have been involved in the housing business from 1946 onwards and I can assure anybody in the Public Service or the Ministry that the average buyer of a house over that period would certainly not have been able to readily identify where he fitted into that table. Still, I suppose that does not matter! If the scheme gets too confusing fewer people will apply for a housing grant! I believe it is just another example of a typical misreading of the housing situation generally. One cannot confine an industry which will always have dips and hollows into a regular pattern by just cutting off the tops and bottoms, and that is what has traditionally happened to housing. Housing has been used for what is called 'pump priming', but like any pump priming operation, it works while one primes and stops when one stops. It is generally acknowledged that there is a market for about an average of 120,000 housing commencements in Australia per year. That figure has fluctuated considerably due to a whole variety of things. In this regard I may well know more about the matter than some of the people who have produced the figures. Over a period I have seen various things that affect this figure and they are not reflected in the tables and they are seldom reflected in the explanatory notes that go with the tables. However, it is acknowledged that there is a market for 120,000 housing commencements in Australia per year. For instance, in 1979-80 there were 123,000 housing commencements; in 1980-81, 140,000; in 1981-82, 124,000; in 1982-83, 92,000; in 1983-84, 120,000, and for 1984-85 we have an estimate at the moment of 147,000. The fiddling that goes on with the operation of the market causes and accentuates the fluctuations; it does not remove them. The actions and the reactions work from government policies; they do not work in spite of government policies. As I have said, this has been so for many years. For instance, when the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation scheme was first introduced it added to the market who had never been potential house buyers. The HLIC introduction of such people to the market went on for probably hundreds of thousands of people 10 or 12 years before it ran out. The figures became concreted in but the reasons for them did not. It encouraged, for instance, the operation of a two-house family. We find that fluctuations in the number of housing commencements came at a time when two-income households became the regular thing, not the exception. We had another peak when equal pay was introduced. We had another peak with the wages explosion and with the rising affluence boom. All of these factors produced peaks in their own time and by producing peaks they also produced hollows. In case anybody has any doubts, 147,000 housing commencements is an unrealistic figure to work on. It is a borrow partly from the past and partly from the future. Anybody with any responsibility understands that there will be a natural falling off. We do not need to have intervention on the part of government to make that falling off any more accentuated than it will be because it will happen anyway. I read the documents of the Indicative Planning Council for the Housing Industry pretty regularly and I take a fair bit of notice of what they say because they cover a wide perspective of people who have an interest in this area. As I say, I think there are times when some of the members probably do not have a long enough view of history. They do not look back quite far enough to see what history tells them. However, by and large what they say is worth paying some attention to. The basis of the Indicative Planning Council's figuring in its last report was that interest rates would stay low, that money targets would be met, that the housing scheme would stay as it is, that costs would remain reasonable and that finance would remain available. That is a fairly daunting list of what has happened since the Council wrote its report. I think the Council wrote it on the basis that it could see that these things may not hold because certainly not one of them is now appropriate for the report which it last produced. Take, for instance, interest rates. We have only to look at the various items in the Press: The Canberra Times of 1 May, 'Home-loan interest ceiling ''must go'' '; the editorial in the Age of 2 May, 'Deregulation: housing next?', and the Tasmanian Mercury, 'Home-loan interest limit must go: bankers'. How does that affect the projects of the Indicative Planning Council or anybody else? What effect will this have? There is no way that the Government, with the interest in deregulation that it has suddenly produced, will not be able to go along with ensuring that money is left available for housing. The Government is caught in a bind of its own making. Funds for housing must be found. Surely the solution to the problem is not to upset the housing scheme to the extent that people cannot buy houses. However, it appears that that is the way we are going to try to keep interest rates down-by keeping the demand down; by preventing people from benefiting from government schemes. Already deregulation is starting to affect quite a lot of home owners because the vast majority of them require a second mortgage. The majority of those second mortgages are funded by trading banks. In many cases those trading banks are now charging interest rates of anything between 18 to 20 per cent on second mortgage funds. What are we to do about that? Do we just say: 'We have controlled first mortgage interest rates and it does not matter about second mortgage interest rates'? It seems to me that that is the attitude being adopted. As a result of the first home owners scheme, many thousands of new buyers appeared. The price of land went up and the price of houses went up by far more than the handout which was provided under the scheme. In fact, the handout only compensated some people for some of the extras that the scheme itself created. It turned out to be a particularly good scheme for the people who made it, but it is not such a good scheme now for the people who have not yet made it because their chances of being able to get a house at the moment are far worse than they would have been had the scheme never existed. Increases in building costs are now far ahead of increases in the consumer price index. I do not know how long they are likely to stay that way. On 8 April the Launceston Examiner stated: Recovery in the housing sector could slow sharply later this year if interest rates rise further and the Federal Government cuts back its First Home Owners Scheme, according to industry leaders. That is what the industry leaders are saying. If the industry leaders are starting to think that way, surely it will flow down through the industry generally. The Indicative Planning Council mentioned interest rates. Senator MacGibbon, who has just spoken, drew attention to the fact that in real terms housing interest rates in Australia are the highest they have ever been. Never before in peacetime have interest rates for housing been as high as they are right now. I have already stated that it is likely interest rates will go even higher. There are now some good low deposit housing schemes available around Australia. Various States have introduced schemes of their own. I think that they are well worth consideration and assistance. Recently I received a letter from the Tasmanian Minister for Housing, the Hon. Brendan Lyons, in which he enclosed a pamphlet outlining an almost no deposit housing scheme. Under the heading 'How much will your home cost?' the pamphlet states: If your home is rented from the Housing Department, the price will be market valuation less the value of any improvements you may have made. If a home is built or bought for you the price will be the amount that it costs the Department. A deposit of five per cent is required, but this may be varied. The value of your improvements to a Departmental home may be accepted as part of the deposit. Commonwealth or State Government grants must be included in your deposit. Weekly repayments will be a quarter of the purchasers' incomes. Each year your financial circumstances will be reviewed and repayments altered if the incomes have changed. Over the term of the purchase contract, the interest rate will be similar to housing rates charged by banks and building societies. Part of the interest charges may be deferred any time you cannot afford the purchase contract rate. That is the sort of scheme that will help people on low incomes get into lower priced houses. I believe it is a very good scheme. I think there is a similar one in Victoria. Generally, the housing market can live with almost anything if it knows where it is going. About the only thing it cannot live with, as is the case with any other industry, is constant and rapid change. Uncertainty is the destroyer of industry. I have had some experience in the ups and downs of the housing market. I have been involved in both the selling and building of houses over a few years. I have seen the way in which factors such as these I have mentioned can destroy people and at times whole communities. Such fluctuations can make a big difference to their predictions. The action which the Government takes can only add to those fluctuations. I think that by next year we will see considerable variations in the predictions which have been made on the number of housing commencements. I hope this will not be the case. This was obviously an off the cuff way of trying to save a few quick dollars. I hope the Government will have a proper look at what it will cost. The cost to housing, the community and the economy generally will be far greater than the few miserable dollars that this knife in the back has saved. I have seen predictions that by next year there will again be about 120,000 housing commencements. I have even seen one prediction that by next year they may well be operating, for certain parts of the year at least, at the rate of about 95,000 a year. Should that be anything like the figure the disaster that will occur Australia-wide will be absolutely enormous. As the previous speaker said, it will affect not only those people in the house building trade and apprentices. It will also affect those people involved in transport, the brick manufacturers, the white goods manufacturers and the curtains and carpets manufacturers. The effect will go right through the community. The retail trade and everybody would suffer if there were any question at all that a figure in the order of 95,000 to 110,000 commencements were to be returned to. There is no need, under the current world economic situation, for us to create a downturn and a depression in the housing market of that magnitude. All we need to do is to go along with what the rest of the world is doing in keeping the market on an even keel so that there will be some dependability. But we are going to have this rise in costs and interest rates, and now we are going to have the Government withdrawal. I think it is quite unreasonable. I urge the Government to re-think what it has done and to consider the effects that it will have. I cannot let the opportunity pass without quoting from the statement by the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West). The second last paragraph stated that the Government sees the adjustment of the scheme as an acceptable balance between prudent economic management and the need to maintain building activity at a healthy level. I have news for that Minister. He will not do either. Finally, I refer to the two full pages of the Bill which are taken up with making amendments such as 'after ''his'', wherever occurring, insert ''or her'' '; 'omit ''he'' and substitute ''the Secretary'' '; 'omit ''his'' and substitute ''the applicant's'' ' and so on. There are 27 of these futile pedantic amendments to the Act. The cost of doing such a stupid thing in a document of this nature worry me to death. If the priorities of the Government are such that it would rather spend money on creating this sort of linguistic nonsense than put the money into the housing scheme itself, I am absolutely appalled. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(12.19) —A number of points have been made by the Opposition during this debate but I am pleased to note that it will not be opposing the First Home Owners Amendment Bill, and neither should it. Despite the nit-picking comments that have been made at certain points during the debate, it is clear that the first home owners scheme has been the most successful scheme ever established in Australia. It has been the most successful in terms of the number of people it has reached and in terms of reaching the target group of people who would otherwise not have been able to purchase their own homes. Of course, the effects of this scheme on the economy and on re-establishing the building industry generally have been widely acclaimed throughout the industry and indeed throughout the community. I will address myself to some of the points that were made during the debate, those that I think justify a substantial response. The theme of some of the comments by Opposition senators seemed to be that somehow this scheme was not reaching the most needy people. I remind honourable senators that this scheme is not the only way in which the Commonwealth assists people to be housed. In fact, this is not the scheme designed for the most needy people in the community. The most needy people in the community are housed in public housing. I am pleased to take this opportunity to remind the Senate of the outstanding record of the Hawke Labor Government in respect of its support for public housing-that form of housing which houses the most needy people. These are the people who cannot afford at a particular stage or, perhaps, at any stage to buy their own home but who are still entitled to adequate housing. I remind the Senate that the combined Federal, State and Northern Territory housing funding for 1984-85 is at a record level of $1,571m. That is 24 per cent higher than for the previous year. In real terms it is a record. It provides some 80 per cent more funds than were provided by the Fraser Government's 1981 agreement. The Federal contribution for 1984-85 was $623m in non-repayable grants, which is up 9 per cent on last year. Grants for the year before were increased by 50 per cent and an amount of $38m in subsidised loans at a 4.5 per cent interest rate was provided under the Loan Council agreement. I remind honourable senators, in particular Senator Messner, who seemed to be drawing some unfavourable comparisons between our performance in this respect and the performance of the Fraser Government, that in real terms the Fraser Government reduced the Commonwealth's contribution by 60 per cent over the period December 1975 to July 1982. It is very clear that the 1984 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement was a major initiative of our Government. The 10-year scheme which it set up will constitute a major assault on housing-related poverty. I hope that that has cleared the record in respect of comments made about housing for the most needy. Such people are being assisted at a greater rate than ever before because of our Government's very substantial increase in funds available for this purpose. In the course of the debate there was some criticism of housing interest rates in relation to this scheme. I remind the Senate that since taking office the responsible economic management of our Government has led to reductions in housing interest rates. The savings bank base rate charged by most banks is 12 per cent. The high priority given by our Government to housing has ensured an adequate supply of housing finance, something this country has not always had. Our initiatives have greatly improved home ownership prospects for low to moderate income earners in Australia. The interest rate of 12 per cent which will now apply to most bank housing loans is still considerably lower than the peak level of 13.5 per cent, which applied between March and December 1982 during the period of the Fraser Government. Clearly, in respect of interest rates there has been an improvement. Senator Archer —You are on yourself. Senator Lewis —She is just reading out the notes she has been given. Senator RYAN —The boys over there will have their way. I guess honourable senators opposite are looking for distractions from this debate. As I have said, this is widely acknowledged as the most successful home ownership scheme ever launched in this country. The inane grumblings that honourable senators opposite engage in cannot detract from that fact, nor can they detract from the recognition of this, particularly by the people who have gained housing. A couple of other points probably require some comment in my response. It was charged that there was some resiling from our election pledge to retain the scheme. Of course, that is not the case. I point out that no class of buyer is excluded. I point out that single people with dependants are tested against higher income limits. Single people without children, who are less in need of assistance, are tested against a lower income test. It was suggested that the Fraser scheme was better because it required prospective owners to save for their home. That is a very odd criticism to make of our scheme. The savings provisions of the former scheme worked against those people who were unable to save, and of course they are the people most in need. Our scheme does not have such a bias against those who are unable to afford to save. Despite the criticism by the Opposition of the income test it is the case that 87,000 households have been assisted this year and that 82,500 households will be assisted in 1985-86. That demonstrates the extent to which this scheme is able to assist people. I remind the Senate that the Fraser Government's home savings grants scheme in 1982-83 helped only 47,881 people in contrast to the 87,000 people we are assisting this year. I could subject the Senate to more statistics but I think the point is fairly clear. The extent of this scheme is almost double that of the Fraser Government's scheme in terms of numbers. A comment also was made that the heaviest cuts fall on the most needy home buyers. The income test, which did not apply to previous housing schemes, now targets assistance to those in greatest need. The 87,000 households that will be assisted this year have an average joint income of $17,000. Even honourable senators opposite must be able to grasp the fact that a joint income of $17,000 is a very low income indeed. I repeat that that is the average income of the 87,000 households which will be assisted this year. It is quite clear from the facts, if Opposition senators care to examine them, that this scheme is indeed helping low income families. The point was made also that the Fraser Government spent $300m in one year on the home savings grants scheme and the home deposit assistance scheme. To set the record straight on that, it must be pointed out that this amount of money included a massive payout under the discredited HSG scheme to cover grants withheld during the nine months waiting period. It can hardly be claimed as being a massive new form of assistance to those home buyers. As I have said, there is no substantial opposition to this legislation. It has been debated thoroughly in the House of Representatives and here. Despite some minor points the Opposition chose to make regarding the scheme, it is quite clear that it is a massively successful scheme and will continue to be so. The fact that the Government has set a Budget limit on the scheme will not mean any erosion of it. Very large numbers of Australians will continue to have the security of being able to purchase their own homes by means of this scheme. Senator Archer —This is rubbish. Senator RYAN —It is slightly irritating when facts such as the 87,000 low income home buyers who will be assisted this year are described by Senator Archer as nonsense. The facts stand for themselves. The success of the scheme is obvious. At this point I ask that the Bill be supported. Question put: That the words proposed to be added (Senator Lewis's amendment) be added. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon.Douglas McClelland) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 30 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 5 —— Archer, B. R. MacGibbon, D. J. Baume, Peter Macklin, M. J. Boswell, R. L. D. Mason, C. V. J. Brownhill, D. G. C. Messner, A. J. Chaney, F. M. Missen, A. J. Chipp, D. L. Parer, W. R. Collard, S. J. Puplick, C. J. G. Crichton-Browne, N. A. Reid, M. E. (Teller)Durack, P. D. Scott, D. B. Evans, Jack Sheil, GGuilfoyle, Dame Margaret Teague, B. C. Haines, J. Townley, M. Hamer, D. J. Vanstone, A. E. Hill, R. Vigor, D. B. Jessop, D. S. Walters, M. S. Kilgariff, B. F. Watson, J. O. W. Lajovic, M. E. Withers, R. G. Lewis, A. W. R. Aulich, T. Jones, G. N. Black, J. R. McClelland, DouglasBolkus, N. McIntosh, G. D. (Teller)Childs, B. K. McKiernan, J. P. Coates, J. Maguire, G. R. Colston, M. A. Primmer, C. G. Cook, P. F. S. Ray, RobertCooney, B. Reynolds, M. Crowley, R. A. Richardson, G. F. Devlin, R. Robertson, E. A. Elstob, R. C. Ryan, S. M. Evans, Gareth Sibraa, K. W. Foreman, D. J. Tate, M. C. Giles, P. J. Walsh, P. A. Grimes, D. J. Zakharov, A. O. Knowles, S. C. Coleman, R. N. Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Gietzelt, A. T. Carrick, Sir John Button, J. N. Short, J. R. Hearn, J. M. Rae, Peter Georges, G. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate. Motion (by Senator Grimes) agreed to: That, unless otherwise ordered, until 2 p.m. this day matters of public interest may be raised and discussed by senators, provided that no senator shall speak for more than 15 minutes. Senator JESSOP(South Australia)(12.40) —I take the opportunity of this part of the Senate program to raise the question of Australia's relations with South Africa, since that country has had very significant mention in the media in recent times, particularly with respect to professional cricketers' visits to it. I guess that as soon as I mention South Africa people opposite will suggest that I am an apologist for apartheid. That is quite wrong. On the contrary, I have always been one who believes that the apartheid system in South Africa is repugnant. I have always taken that view. I think it is about time that we examined the whole question of the various attitudes on what ought to happen to effect change with respect to the domestic policies in that country. We find people who advocate isolationism encouraging organisations such as the African National Council and the South West African People's Organisation, which are determined to effect change within South Africa by bloody revolution. We also find that it has been decided in the Gleneagles Agreement to prevent South Africa from joining in sport with other countries. On the one hand, people are encouraging bloody revolution in order to effect change with respect to apartheid in that country. My view, on the other hand, is that we could achieve far greater results if we explored the four or five bridges of understanding that are available to us. Those bridges of understanding are with respect to cultural exchange, parliamentary exchange, trading relations, diplomatic exchange and playing sport with countries such as South Africa. All those bridges can bring people together in that country and make them aware of the difficulties and problems that are being faced there. I suggest that it would be a more effective and quicker way of encouraging the breakdown or abandonment of apartheid. We certainly exploit trade with South Africa. Last year the trade balance in our favour was of the order of $150m, which is not insignificant. Of course, South Africa has very important strategic materials upon which we depend for our steel industry. It has chrome, the predominance of the world's gold supply, diamonds and other strategic materials which are quite important to industries in Australia. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard, for the interest of honourable senators and others who read that document, a table listing the export and import commodities between Australia and South Africa. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Table 15 AUSTRALIAN TRADE WITH SOUTH AFRICA $'000 1981-82 1982-83 1983-84p Exports 22nd largest 145,539 144,533 279,680 Imports 25th largest 90,701 84,944 132,131 Excess of Exports 54,838 59,589 147,549 Principal Commodities (a) Exports 01 Meat &meat prep 1,853 385 342 036 Crustaceans &molluscs, f.c.f., salted, etc 5,100 7,523 9,137 041 Wheat . . . . 8,421 048 Cereal &flour prep 250 1,278 984 27 Crude fertilisers, minerals (excl coal, petroleum &prec stones) 263 330 1,417 292 Crude vegetable materials, nes 2,083 4,173 1,940 334 Petroleum prod, refined 1,553 . . 13 411 Animal oils &fats 10,919 6,482 13,448 424 Other fixed vegetable oils, fluid or solid crude, refined . . . . 1,651 592 Starches, inulin, wheat gluten, glues, etc 1,390 1,073 2,044 59* Other chemicals, materials &prod, nes 570 516 1,363 65 Textiles 1,572 1,448 1,908 665 Glassware 243 491 2,209 682 Copper 1,216 362 982 686.1 Zinc &zinc alloys, unworked . . 83 1,880 695 Tools 1,162 832 1,779 697 Household equip of base metal, nes 262 925 2,099 69* Other manuf of metal, nes 3,527 2,523 2,782 713 Internal combustion piston engines &parts 7,150 7,199 6,634 721 Agricultural mach (excl tractors) &parts 7,911 3,623 4,061 723 Civil engineering plant &equip &parts 816 1,298 1,956 72* Other mach specialised for particular industries 2,338 2,157 1,709 737 Metal-working mach, etc 1,237 970 1,466 741 Heating &cooling equip &parts 1,879 523 1,390 745 Other non-elec mach, etc 1,041 1,021 1,169 749 Non-elec parts &accessories of mach, nes 2,592 1,812 1,780 759 Parts &accessories for office &ADP mach, nes 2,502 1,748 2,737 764 Telecom equip &parts, nes 833 656 1,588 772 Elec switches, fuses, etc &parts 1,183 743 1,049 775 Household type equip, nes 1,413 523 589 782 Motor vehicles for the transport of goods, etc 13,006 7,310 94 784 Parts &accessories, nes for road motor vehicles 11,125 9,510 6,709 87 Professional instruments &apparatus, nes 1,913 1,218 1,605 88 Photo apparatus, equip, optical goods, watches 1,172 1,011 658 893 Articles of artificial resins, plastics, etc 1,972 528 379 894 Perambulators, toys, games &sporting goods 1,844 927 1,159 8* Other misc manuf articles 3,089 2,647 3,071 989 Items for which details are not separately available 32,630 59,450 58,111 991 Non-merchandise trade 557 498 110,400 Other 15,373 10,737 16,967 Imports 034 Fish, f.c.f. 10,844 11,114 14,233 035 Fish, dried, salted or in brine; smoked fish 5,097 5,115 5,014 037 Fish, crustaceans &molluscs, prep or pres, nes 1,949 2,346 3,977 057 Fruit &nuts (excl oil nuts), fresh or dried 23 863 1,145 062 Sugar confectionery not containing cocoa 306 443 803 273 Stone, sand &gravel 3,181 2,123 2,340 277 Natural abrasives, nes 1,485 195 244 27* Crude fertilisers, materials (excl coal, petroleum &prec stones) 4,438 3,505 1,824 287 Ores &conc of base metals, nes 4,183 196 282 325 Coal, coke &briquettes 46 1,444 1,472 335 Residual petroleum prod, nes &related materials 552 732 1,169 515 Organo-inorganic &heterocyclic compounds 986 1,135 681 51* Other organic chemicals 1,045 549 372 522 Inorganic chemical elements, oxides &halogen salts 3,529 2,634 3,986 52* Other inorganic chemicals 884 1,434 2,080 532 Dyeing, tanning extracts, etc 1,822 1,474 1,778 541 Medicinal &pharm prod 839 884 1,248 562 Fertilisers, manuf 91 3,373 17,697 582 Condensation, polycondensation &polyaddition prod 152 716 3,774 59 Chemical materials &prod, nes 1,050 1,164 623 641 Paper &paperboard 883 1,257 7,222 651 Textile yarn (incl wool tops) 5,198 3,841 9,367 657 Special textile fabrics &related prod 1,736 1,653 1,483 65* Other textiles 2,550 1,480 2,240 662 Clay &refractory construction materials 1,526 76 1,469 664 Glass 1,150 2,675 1,057 667 Pearls, prec &semi-prec stones 1,524 551 257 671 Pig iron, spiegeleisen, sponge iron, etc 8,487 3,331 9,134 674 Iron or steel universals, plates &sheets 1,192 2,078 1,486 678 Iron or steel tubes, pipes &fittings 621 1,868 1,068 68 Non-ferrous metals 432 640 751 693 Wire prod (excl elec) &fencing grills 300 1,197 1,268 695 Tools 2,727 2,186 1,625 697 Household equip of base metal, nes 1,241 2,048 2,042 69* Other manuf of metal, nes 2,550 1,416 3,473 72 Mach specialised for particular industries 667 988 2,375 74 General industrial mach &equip, nes &parts 2,168 2,096 1,864 772 Elec switches, fuses, etc &parts 897 968 864 784 Parts &accessories, nes for road motor vehicles 716 496 456 84 Clothing 512 546 993 874 Measuring, checking, etc instruments, nes &parts 546 665 914 89 Misc manuf articles, nes 885 1,329 940 931 Special transactions &commodities, nes 512 793 4,647 989 Items for which details are not separately available 390 898 2,505 991 Non-merchandise trade 945 675 552 Other 7,844 7,754 7,337 (a) Groups may exclude certain data which are confidential. * Remainder of category. Source: Composition of Trade, Australia 1983-84, Dept. of Trade. Senator JESSOP —I thank the Senate. Several people have made comments about South Africa in recent times. As recently as a few days ago a world famous author, Mr Alan Paton, who wrote the book Cry the Beloved Country and who has lived all his life of 82 years in South Africa, said: The Afrikaner nationalist is certainly less arrogant than he was 30 years ago and he is readier to listen to righteous judgment, but he reacts negatively to self-righteous denunciation. The 60 Minutes program in the United States of America, a program that is quite often avoided because of its liberal tendencies, noted recently that changes in South Africa were being introduced 'that only a few years ago seemed beyond all possibility'. The introduction of a tricameral parliament, although found wanting because it continues to refuse blacks political power, was a significant step for South Africa. The Government does not see this as the end of constitutional reform. However, it cannot move as quickly as it wishes for fear of a right wing backlash. So we have to appreciate that. The South African Government has introduced trade union reforms, which include the right to form and join a trade union and the right to strike. These rights are not available in a large number of countries throughout the world, for example, in Poland. As an example of constitutional reform the Government has set up constitutional councils for urban blacks to represent a national council to be used as a basis for negotiations in political participation. The State President has said that he envisages political representation for blacks on a level higher than local government; in other words, central government is his ultimate objective, and so it should be. Urban blacks can now purchase their own housing and are recognised as permanent residents in urban areas. Business laws have been relaxed, which means that blacks, whites and everyone else can shop together which, a few years ago, was not possible. The South African Government's plan to abandon the abhorrent law preventing inter-racial marriage is a huge step which does not seem to have been fully appreciated by the media in Australia. Although the actual number of mixed marriages may initially be very small this reform has far wider dimensions when we consider the subsequent changes to the society and its laws which will have to occur to accommodate mixed marriages and their progeny. Political anti-apartheid groups have denounced these reforms as superficial, stating that they do not confront the main problems, such as pass laws and political representation. However, the question needs to be asked: Will further, more significant, reforms be encouraged by Western nations pressuring for change through constructive criticism and help or by isolationism, buoyed up at home by a flood of politically motivated anti-apartheid rhetoric? Senator Edward Kennedy's chauffered trip around South Africa through black townships for purely political consumption in America was inexcusable in that it served no constructive purpose in alleviating the plight of the blacks. The author, Alan Paton, thinks that any moves towards disinvestment will do serious material harm to many black people. Alan Paton says that we often here black South Africans, such as Bishop Tutu, say: 'We do not mind suffering; we are used to it.' . . . whilst calling for disinvestment. According to Alan Paton this cry usually comes from articulate blacks who suffer least. Senator Missen —The Bishop does not call for immediate disinvestment, does he? Senator JESSOP —No. I want to get on to that subject because I think it is important. We want the South Africans to abandon apartheid. I am suggesting that the way to do it is by forming bridges of understanding, and I have some support for that view in the achievements that have been made by American companies in South Africa. The Chairman of the Ministers Council in the House of Delegates, Mr Rajbansi, said that about 750,000 black workers stand to lose their jobs if disinvestment becomes a reality. According to a report in the Los Angeles Times at least 12 black African nations are so economically dependent on South Africa that they would face economic ruin if a total embargo were enforced on South Africa. Disinvestment would place in jeopardy almost $4 billion each year which is provided in humanitarian aid to black African nations from South Africa and the jobs of over 1.5 million foreign black workers from neighbouring states. Of course, apart from the economic importance of that country there is no doubt that if there is a world war between the West and the communist people-heaven forbid that that would ever happen-South Africa certainly becomes a very important strategic place in the defence of the Indian Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope. There can be no doubt that a war is going on between the South African Government and revolutionary forces. To put it plainly, the Government is caught in a catch-22 situation of its own making. If it moves too fast with its reforms it risks losing fellow African and Nationalist support to the extreme right and forfeiting all hope of peaceful reform. If it moves too slowly it risks the black people's hatred of apartheid being heightened to a degree that they will be susceptible to successful manipulation by left wing forces thus forfeiting all hope of peaceful reform, as history has already shown. Chief Buthelezi had something to say about the need for continued foreign investment interest in South Africa. He is the Chief of the Zulu people, which is the biggest tribal group within that country. As reported in the Australian on 6 July he said: Bloody revolutions fought against terrible oppression do not automatically bring about great improvements. Nowhere is this more evident than in countries where the extreme left or right wing prevail. It is interesting also to note the tremendous interest that was being exerted by the Soviet Union in Africa in the middle 1970s. I refer to the 'Journal of Modern African Studies' of, I think, March 1984. It states: In the middle 1970s, scholars and politicians agree, the Soviet Union began a major effort to penetrate Africa. After a decade of relative indifference to African developments, Soviet arms and advisers, in support of Cuban troops, poured into Angola and Ethiopia. Involvement in these two countries was supplemented by further transfer of arms to a number of other African regimes, and this seemed to signal a dramatically heightened interest in the continent. It is interesting to observe that the acceleration of arms sales from the Soviet Union throughout the world increased significantly. The Journal states: . . . in the last half of the 1970s, the increase to Africa was especially dramatic; in the decade 1967-76, the average annual value of such transfers was $2,200m whereas during the half decade 1976-80 the comparable figure was $7,700m a multiple of 3.5 . . . The Third world in general, received a higher share of this vastly increased flow than it had earlier, as did Africa with $400m worth of arms annually during 1967-76 as against $2,400m throughout the next four years, a multiple of 6. It is not surprising that the Russians are showing some interest in Africa, with particular emphasis on South Africa because of its strategic importance to the USSR. Chief Buthelezi, as reported in the same article in the Australian, in respect of calls for American disinvestment, said: For large American companies to opt out of the South African situation is to opt out of the prospects of being catalysts in the process of change. He went on to say: No big business today can secure future plans without challenging apartheid. It was the large corporations that broke the apartheid barriers that led to real advancements for black workers. Black people can now form trade unions and I think that is highly commendable. So Australian companies should be encouraged to set up businesses in South Africa as they have in the past-I hope they will continue to do so-and to operate those businesses in a way which will lead to peaceful reform of apartheid laws and enhance the economic and political status of blacks. Calls for disinvestment are destructive and do not acknowledge that overseas companies can act as catalysts for reform. It is important to note that more than 50 per cent of all black South Africans are 15 years old or younger. For Australia or any country to disinvest from South Africa at a time when a huge population bulge is approaching the employment market would be unforgivable. Again, in the words of Chief Buthelezi, such action would: . . . greatly exacerbate unemployment and underemployment, and greatly increase the already horrendous backlog in housing, education, health and welfare services. Black South Africans do not ask countries to disinvest. The strident voices calling for confrontation and violence are the voices most dominant in calls for disinvestment. I suggest that if we change our approach to the problem we may well see a speedier breakdown of that abhorrent apartheid system in South Africa. I am a very strong proponent of a change of course by the Australian Government and the Australian people. Seventy-four per cent of Western Australians polled recently in a gallup poll supported playing sport with South Africa. It is a very real way in which Australians can understand problems in that country. Senator TOWNLEY(Tasmania)(12.56) —I congratulate Senator Jessop on that speech because it showed a sense of balance that I think many of us in this country would do well to follow. There is certainly a moral dilemma over South Africa and apartheid but too often in Australia we condemn the South Africans for doing certain things yet people in other countries are not condemned in nearly the same way as the whites of South Africa are. Today I wanted to speak, first of all, about the sitting days-not the sitting hours-of this Parliament. When the Parliament rises in a few weeks time, we will have before us a program of sitting weeks that will see us in Canberra for eight weeks in eight months. We are programmed during the Budget session to sit for only eight weeks. If we add June and July to the months of the last half of this year the Parliament will be in attendance for only eight weeks in eight months. I just do not think that is good enough. Politicians, I believe, are well paid to represent the voter, here in Canberra. We in the Liberal Party well recognise that the Hawke socialist Government does not want the Parliament to sit because of the embarrassment that can be caused to it, such as happened yesterday when there was a debate on a motion to suspend Standing and Sessional Orders so that we could discuss the dairy industry in Victoria. When we look at things like that we can see quite clearly that this Government does not want Parliament to sit. Many of the troubles that any government has occur when Parliament is in session rather than when it as in recess. I believe that the Liberal Party and the Australian Democrats between them should insist that the Parliament sit more often than it does. For many years we sat for three days a week-Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday-for three weeks in every four. It seemed to work pretty well. But now we have two weeks on and two weeks off. Senator Missen —It is going to be five weeks on and five weeks off. Senator TOWNLEY —I will mention that a little later. Senator Missen will recognise from his time here that nearly all the so-called important legislation, the controversial legislation, is held to the last few weeks of the sitting. Senator Missen —And that is no accident, either. Senator TOWNLEY —Of course it is not, but I still feel that we in this place are not here enough to deal sufficiently with things like the reports that come before us every day. I cannot remember one day this year when we have had enough time for everybody in the place to discuss at the length he wanted to the reports that come before us. I think the situation is being made worse, too. Not only are we sitting for fewer weeks, giving the Government the opportunity to issue controversial statements at the end of a two week sitting period so that two weeks elapses before any debate can take place in this House about those announcements, but also we are starting to sit later and later in the year. We used to have the Budget, I believe, early in August. This year it is to be brought down on 20 August. I think that is a week later than it should be, but I can, I suppose, understand Mr Keating's apprehension, maybe his superstition, about bringing down a budget on 13 August. This year's Budget, I believe, will be a horror Budget and so he would do anything to avoid that unlucky day of 13 August. I believe we should return to more weeks of sitting. If we followed the old pattern during the coming Budget sittings we would be in Canberra for 13 weeks until the end of November. I have allowed there an extra week's sitting as the Senate usually does sit for an extra week. That would give us 13 weeks sitting instead of eight. Admittedly, it would not be a much larger number of days but it would give senators in this place a better opportunity for their committee work on the Mondays preceding and the Friday following the sitting, if they were held on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. It seems to me that at the moment democracy is not working the way it should be with Parliament sitting for only the short time that it is. I believe that the people of Australia are not getting a fair deal from their Federal politicians from the few sittings that we are having. There is a big investment in this Parliament building and its supporting organisation. There is a big new building being built on a hill not far from where I am standing now, which is costing hundreds of millions of dollars. I do not believe it is good enough to have the Senate sitting for only about 80 days a year. I am informed that the British Parliament sits for something like 160 days a year. Senator Missen —Canada sits for about 170. Senator TOWNLEY —I thank Senator Missen for that. I am informed that Canada sits for about 170 days and I was also told that some other parliaments sit for about 180 days. Yet we in Australia sit for approximately 80 days. That to me is not good enough for the public of this country. The voters of this country, I know, will recognise that it costs more to have people in Canberra that it does to have them in their home electorates, but if we take that argument to its extreme we would not have us here at all. Senator Withers —A jolly good idea; conduct it by correspondence. Senator TOWNLEY —That would save a lot of money except for postage but it is not good enough to have democracy operating in this country for only 80 days a year. Had we had these hours of sitting in 1975 when Mr Whitlam was in power I think it would have been a lot more difficult to get rid of that evil Government as early as we did. I know that some people will say that it is not convenient to be here, but we are paid to be politicians in Canberra. We have big support services, as I have said, such as the big white cars that float around. I sometimes wonder what they do when politicians are not here. I read the article which quoted Senator Withers so thoroughly the other day and I agree with many of the things he said. But if we are to have these facilities it does not cost much more to operate them. The staff are there. The machinery is there. This Parliament is here, and the staff are here when we are not here. It must be very difficult for people like the Hansard staff, the dining room staff and the Committee staff to keep their enthusiasm and morale when members of Parliament are not here as often as they should be. Once again, I mention, quite briefly this time, our debt per head. I have said before that this country is more in debt than Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Poland. In fact, Australia's debt per head-its per capita liabilities in the international banking community in 1983-was $US1,200. In Chile it was $US1,040, in Mexico it was $US910, in Argentina, which everybody thinks is going broke very quickly, or is broke, it was much less than ours at only $US870 per person, in Brazil it was $US480 and in Poland it was $US300. When we compare the figure of $US1,200 per head for Australia we see what a situation we are getting into in this country. I bring up the matter again because the Labor Government has attempted recently to say that our massive debt has been long standing. Examination of the figures at the end of this financial year will show, I am sure, that almost half of our national debt will have been accumulated since the Australian Labor Party has been in power. I do not believe the people of Australia will be confused by the Labor statements that it has been long standing. We all know that the Labor Party is a high spending and therefore a high taxing and a high borrowing Government. Unless it does something very soon about the level of government spending in this country no amount of fiddling with the taxation system will save us from becoming as indebted as some of the banana republics of this world. Our international debt to the banking system at June 1983, as reported by the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland-their figures were supplied to me by the Parliamentary Library-showed Australia being sixth in debt after Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Korea. Australia's debt was nearly $US16,000m. Mexico's debt was $US65,500m, Brazil's $US63,000m, Venezuela nearly $US27,000m, Argentina $US25,500m and Korea nearly $US23,000m. Of course, all those other countries have many more people than us. We are getting into the big debt league and yet we do not have the number of people to support that kind of debt. Our international debt is of real concern. I believe that is one of the main reasons why the dollar recently went down the way it did. Unless this Government can show that it can stop the trend of increasing our debt at such a rate that each year, we have to allocate more and more of our Budget towards the interest on our overseas borrowings we are heading for a very sad state and not a long way down the track either. From the graphs I have drawn the situation looks very serious indeed. I only hope that Mr Keating and Mr Hawke will recognise just what a dangerous situation this country is heading toward. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(1.09) —I rise in this debate on matters of public interest to raise a question which I think should be better known to members of the public in Australia and on which there have been some developments in this Parliament which I think are important. In particular, I refer to the complaints that are made by members of the Turkish community in Australia at the sufferings undergone by Turkish minorities in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is not a country that we have a great deal to do with, but is perhaps appropriate that we should be dealing with this matter today in view of the fact that today a very significant trial is opening in Rome in which charges are made against the Bulgarians in respect of the attack some years ago on the Pope. The attitude of the Bulgarian Government on questions of human rights leaves a great deal to be desired and is one which I believe should be exposed on every possible occasion by the representatives of this country. In particular, the Amnesty organisation of this Parliament has received complaints from the representative of the Bulgarian-Turkish Association of Victoria, namely Dr Mehmet Alev. He supplied graphic detail-I must admit, I was not aware of it-of what he has described as 'cultural' genocide in Bulgaria against the Turkish minority. When one considers that there are something like one million people of Turkish derivation in Bulgaria, about one-third of the population, and that they are suffering in the way that he has described, it is, I think, a matter of extreme importance. I know that this is not the only place in Europe where this is happening. I know that in the Hungarian parts of Romania there are complaints of a similar kind, but this appears to be of a greater degree. Senator Peter Baume —Armenia in 1915. Senator MISSEN —In Armenia in 1915, of course, people were wiped out to a very great degree in the Ukraine in 1933-1935 a process of famine induced by government activity caused the destruction of people. But the same thing is happening now in Bulgaria. I have spoken to the Minister about two documents I seek to incorporate in Hansard, Dr Mehmet Alev made some general complaints: One is that there is an attempt to wipe out the cultural status of the people who are in this minority in Bulgaria. It is an attempt to destroy the Turkish language and the literature that exist in the area. Likewise in respect to education, the facilities which were available to people to study a Turkish language have been, since 1968, entirely abolished. Furthermore, all Turkish cultural and religious organisations have been closed down and their buildings demolished. It is also illegal to practice traditional Turkish customs now in that country. So that the further details can be appreciated by those who read this speech, I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard Dr Mehmet's letter and statement he has supplied on the genocide in Bulgaria against the Turkish minority. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Bulgarian Turkish Association of Australia, 14 Clonaig Street, Brighton, Victoria, 3187 Telephone: (03) 596-6296 2 April, 1985 The Honourable A. S. Missen Commonwealth Parliament Offices 400 Flinders Street Melbourne 3000 Dear Sir, I wish to draw attention to the inhuman acts of the Bulgarian Government towards the one million Turkish minority which is one third of the Bulgarian population. I enclose some information about the latest developments in this area which shows current policy of genocide of the Bulgarian Government. In the name of humanity, we request your urgent attention and quick action to stop the genocide in Bulgaria. Yours sincerely, Dr. Mehmet Alev President Bulgarian Turkish Association of Victoria Bulgarian Turkish Association of Australia 14 Clonaig Street Brighton, Victoria 3187 Telephone: (03) 596 6296 GENOCIDE IN BULGARIA AGAINST TURKISH MINORITY There are over one million ethnic Turks residing in Bulgaria. Presently these Turks are living through the most critical period of their lives. In an attempt to abolish their national and cultural identity, the Bulgarian government is following a policy of genocide. Today the Bulgarian Turkish minority have been deprived of their fundamental rights and liberties. The Turkish community has been robbed of the following: (1) The use of Turkish language has been prohibited. (2) Turkish literature, such as books, magazines, newspapers, and other reading material are no longer made available. (3) Since 1968, the availability of the Turkish language in the education system has been abolished. (4) Furthermore, all Turkish cultural and religious organisations have been closed down, and their buildings demolished. It is also illegal to practice traditional Turkish customs. As if these induced changes were not enough, the Bulgarian government has more recently completed ''THE NAME CHANGE OPERATION''. The names of over one million Turks have been altered to Bulgarian names. Those who refused to change their Turkish names have been subjected to torture, imprisonment, and, worst of all, death, by the Bulgarian authorities. For example, in the district of Momcilgrat, 55 were killed, and in the province of Kircali, 160. In Varna, Plovdiv, Sumen, and Razgirat, the death toll is over 800. Their only guilt was to be Turkish and to have Turkish names. These actions carried out by the Bulgarian government are the most degrading and inhumane means of wiping off the records of a minority group. These barbaric actions are also the lowest form of oppression one human being can impose on another, depriving him of his dignity and basic freedom of choice. The aim of the Bulgarian authorities is clear. They intend to create a country where there is no room for other minorities. This is a racist policy, and an example of which we have not seen since Adolf Hitler. Is it a crime to retain one's native language, traditional customs, and, simplest of all, their names? Article 55, Section (C), of the United Nations Charter states that its members should be respectful of the fundamental rights and liberties of all people, irrespective of their race, colour, and sex. Although Bulgaria is a member of the United Nations, it is not complying and fulfilling its responsibilities toward ethnic Turks. Bulgaria was dominated by the Turks for 500 years. During this period the Turks had never attempted to change their names, interfere with their language, cultural and religious practices. If it had been otherwise, there would be no Bulgaria today. In contrast, the Bulgarian government, over a short period of 30 years, is trying to eliminate the one million Turkish minority, which is one ninth of Bulgaria's population. In the name of humanity, the Bulgarian Turkish Association of Australia invites the Australian government and all the members of Parliament to view the latest tragic incidents in Bulgaria, which are affecting the Turkish minority, and to voice protest regarding the inhumane actions of the Bulgarian government. We also request that the Australian government bring this issue before the United Nations Human Rights Council. Dr. Mehmet Alev, President Bulgarian Turkish Association of Australia Senator MISSEN —As will be seen from that record, the situation is extremely serious, particularly the attempt to destroy the names of people. This goes rather further than most countries have gone insofar as there has been a forced name change by the Bulgarian Government. Over a million Turks have had their names altered to Bulgarian names. Those who have resisted this have been killed. Examples are given in the letter of the numbers of them who have been killed because of their resistance to this move. This, I think, is a particularly dramatic and unfortunate circumstance. As a result of receiving this letter, I wrote, as Chairman of the parliamentary Amnesty group, to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden) and, though there has been some delay, I am now pleased to see that I have had a reply. It is dated 8 May 1985 and it comes from Mr I. M. Hutchens of the Public Affairs Branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs, I seek leave to incorporate that letter in Hansard. Leave granted. The document read as follows- DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS 8 May 1985 85.114.00 558/36/2/11 Senator Alan Missen, Senator for Victoria, Commonwealth Parliament Offices, 400 Flinders Street, Melbourne, Vic. 3000 Dear Senator Missen, As has already been explained to your office, your letter of 11 April to the Minister for Foreign Affairs regarding the situation of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria was not received in time to meet your deadline. I do regret this, and now respond in Mr Hayden's absence. As requested in your letter, departmental representatives present at meetings of the Parliamentary Group of Amnesty International will also be able to provide additional information on this issue. The Government has been closely monitoring the situation through its embassies in the region. In addition, detailed information similar to that which you have received was in February provided to Departments in Canberra by a delegation from the Bulgarian-Turkish Association. The Government does not accept the claim made by the Bulgarian authorities that such acts of Bulgarianisation as the changing of individuals' names are ''spontaneous and voluntary''. It entertains few doubts that the Turkish minority is being subjected to the denial of its cultural rights in the most crude form, and that the Bulgarian Government's aim is to strip it of its ethnic identity. The present repression is an intensification of a long-standing campaign which contravenes not only normally accepted standards of human rights, but provisions of a number of UN Human Rights instruments to which Bulgaria is a party. The Australian Ambassador to Bulgaria has expressed Australia's concern to the Bulgarian Government. We will continue to monitor the situation and will make further representations as appropriate. Moreover, should the government assess that to do so would assist the victims of such violations, it will consider raising the matter in appropriate United Nations' bodies in line with its policy of condemning human rights violations wherever they might occur. Yours sincerely, I. H. Hutchens Public Affairs Branch Senator MISSEN —That is an encouraging response to the problem. The Government has been aware of this information for a short period and has been inquiring of our representatives abroad and also elsewhere. The Government is monitoring the matter and has made a strong protest to the Bulgarian authorities. As the letter says, the Government quite clearly rejects the claim that such acts of Bulgarianisation as the changing of individuals' names are, according to the Bulgarian authorities 'spontaneous and voluntary'. It entertains few doubts that the Turkish minority is being subjected to denial of its cultural rights in the most crude form and that the Bulgarian Government's aim is to strip it of its ethnic identity. It is important to realise that the Australian Ambassador to Bulgaria has expressed Australia's abhorrence of and concern in this matter and that the Government is continuing to press its representations there. In the letter is a general statement that we will proceed in our United Nations activities to take the matter further. I point out to honourable senators present that this is clearly a breach of what is recognised by all countries under the United Nations Charter as being essential to human liberty. Article 55 of that Charter states: With a view to the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples the United Nations shall promote: universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. Clearly, in a general sense and quite apart from the ways in which it is set out in further covenants which have been prepared by the United Nations to which we and the Bulgarian Government are signatories, it is necessary to observe that discrimination against people by reason of their race is abhorrent to the world. In fact it is racist in the extreme and calls for the greatest condemnation from our country and from other democratic nations. I trust that we will as a nation use our membership of the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations as a vehicle whereby we can make very clear and loud our complaint about this conduct. Things like this must be known in the world. They clearly have not been well enough known among Australians. We have very few dealings with Bulgaria and it is important that we, as one of the democratic countries, should make it very clear that we find this situation intolerable and suggest that it should stop. I raise this matter today, believing that it is important to this country and to the Turkish people who live in this country, who are terrified by this attack upon the minority of their people in Bulgaria. It is a very big and important minority. It is interesting that in the 500 years in which Turkey controlled Bulgaria, no attempt was made to do this sort of thing. No attempt was made to destroy the culture, the records and the names of the people who were of Bulgarian extraction. Yet in the last 30 years or so when the tables have been turned this is happening. If this is progress in the world one wonders what worse things are in store for us. I hope that we in Australia will vehemently support what has been done by the Australian Government to date, and that the Australian Government will take the matter further so that our voice is heard in protest against this genocide by the Government of Bulgaria. Senator BOSWELL(Queensland)(1.19) — Mr Deputy President, today I wish to discuss the problem of animal welfare and the inappropriate remarks made on this subject by Mr Justice Kirby at a symposium on animal welfare in Brisbane. Mr Justice Kirby has made a reputation for himself over the last number of years as being the show pony of the judiciary. This gentleman has given wide ranging opinions on subjects from breastfeeding babies in South Africa to many others. So the rural industries of this nation who supply 40 to 45 per cent of the nation's export dollars-- Senator Gareth Evans —36 per cent. Senator BOSWELL —Has it gone down to 36 per cent? That has happened under the Labor Government. The rural industries should not have been surprised that Justice Kirby has become an instant expert on animal welfare. The primary industries are well aware of their need to provide the best animal husbandry methods for their stock and the most improved methods of stock transport. It is obvious to all who are associated with the livestock industries that unless an animal is well looked after in a stress-free environment, that animal will not grow, breed or be productive. Disregarding the commercial point of view, farmers and graziers have a genuine fondness of and pride in their animals. The grazing and farming industries have implemented many improvements for their animals and producer organisations have spent many millions of dollars from research funds to provide animal welfare research. Some of the direct improvements that have been made by the grazing industries have been stock crate design development; stock handling facilities; yard designs; more adaptable material in the building of yards; drought management; supplementary feeding-for example molasses and urea additives-auction sales of cattle whereby stock is sold by description and what is left remains on the property until sold; and, of course, only a couple of months ago television sales were introduced. New breeds of cattle have also been introduced that will adapt more readily to Australian conditions. There have been continued pasture improvements; clearing of timbered land and sewing of pastures including grasses and legumes; continuing expenditure on new and improved watering facilities; controls of predators; new and improved chemicals for control of internal and external parasites; and continuing surveys of rail and road transports with a view to reducing stress. Mr Justice Kirby's remarks on animal welfare have served only to flame emotionalism in the animal welfare area and have done nothing constructive to help the intelligent debate on this issue. On Tuesday on the Queensland Country Hour, Mr Justice Kirby stated that he had never seen any form of animal operation take place. Unlike Senator Georges who was prepared to visit the rural areas as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Animal Welfare-he earned the appreciation of the grazing industry because he took the time to visit graziers, and listen to their problems and points of view-Mr Justice Kirby has shot from the hip. The tenor of his speech was to imply that the grazing industry had acted irresponsibly and certain animal husbandry practices should be carried out with anaesthetic. Mr Justice Kirby does not realise, if he has not seen any operations take place, that the anasthetic, if administered, increases the stress on the animal and puts the beast in a semiconscious state for a period of two hours. When it recovers it goes berserk and races around the paddock. An anaesthetic just does not work. That is the sort of thing that people must have practical experience of before they can make such statements. Mr Justice Kirby also attacked the live sheep export industry, which is vital to our wool industry. The standard of shipping has constantly been improved over the years and losses have been reduced to around one per cent. It is interesting to note that in the next year vets will accompany some 20 ships exporting live sheep. He also remarked that lambing percentages in Australia were down compared with other countries. It is well known in the industry that Australia's predominantly merino sheep have a lower lambing rate than any other breed of sheep in the world. A great deal more of Mr Justice Kirby's speech indicated that if and when the Commonwealth, Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation developed certain biological controls to obviate castration and mulesing operations, legislation should be introduced to stop these operations. I assure Mr Justice Kirby that no laws would be needed to introduce them. The grazing industry would take it upon itself to use the new methods but, unfortunately, no such biological control has been successfully developed. In the case of mulesing a product was developed but it was unsuccessful as when it came into contact with the skin of the sheep it caused severe burning. The suggestion that Mr Justice Kirby made regarding overstocking in a hostile, uncongenial climate does not hold up. No grazier is going to expose himself to financial ruin by placing numbers of cattle in an environment in which they cannot survive. Unfortunately, the remarks made by Mr Justice Kirby have done nothing to help the vexed question of animal welfare that is being investigated by the Senate Committee headed by Senator Georges. All it has done is inflame emotionalism in the animal welfare lobby. I suggest to Mr Justice Kirby that he should not in future try to pre-empt the findings of the Committee or go out on a one-man animal welfare campaign or crusade unless he better informs himself. Senator McINTOSH(Western Australia)(1.26) —I take this opportunity to look at the question of nuclear dumping and I am very pleased that the Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Gareth Evans) is on duty. Australia has yet to ratify an important international treaty which covers the ocean dumping of nuclear waste-the London Dumping Convention-which was set up in 1972. It moved into a new era in 1983 when member countries voted to place a two-year moratorium on all ocean dumping of radioactive wastes. During the moratorium a scientific study is being conducted by countries party to the Convention to assess the safety of sea dumping. Despite opposition by the United States, Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and South Africa at the time of the moratorium vote it seems that public pressure has forced all dumping nations to postpone their dumping programs until the next London Dumping Convention meeting in September of this year. The reason for the British opposition to the moratorium is clear. Britain is the world's largest ocean radioactive waste dumper and has reportedly abandoned altogether research into the land based alternatives for nuclear waste storage. Waste from its uranium processing plant at Sellafield, previously known as Windscale, is being deposited in the Irish Sea with Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands. It drops other nuclear waste into a dumping ground about 200 kilometres off north-west Spain. The American vote against the moratorium contradicts its own legislation establishing a similar domestic moratorium. The London Dumping Convention moratorium was prompted by concern by Pacific nations over Japanese plans to begin dumping low level waste in the region. The proposed dumping site is immediately north of the northern Marianas Islands and is about 900 kilometres south-east of Tokyo. The Japanese Science and Technology Agency has made conflicting statements about its dumping plan at first claiming that it was determined to proceed in spite of Pacific opposition or any decision by the London Dumping Convention. Its spokesman has tempered more recent comments claiming that the dumping will be carried out with the understanding of the countries and territories concerned. The Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Nakasone, told the National Press Club in Canberra on 16 January this year: I am fully aware that the countries in the South Pacific have expressed concern over our plans to dispose of low-level radioactive waste in the ocean. I wish to take the opportunity to state that, believing that safety and regional understanding are essential in this matter, we have no intentions of carrying out such disposal in disregard of the concern expressed by the communities of the region. The people of the northern Pacific region, closest to the dump site, are concerned that their opposition to the dumping is being deliberately disregarded by Japan. The statement by Mr Nakasone and his Foreign Minister, Mr Able, on 20 January, that 'Japan will not dump without the consensus of Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea' cannot be reassuring. A further issue being considered by the London Dumping Convention is the seabed emplacement of high level nuclear wastes. The seabed emplacement program would involve placing billions of curies of long-life radioactive waste into the ocean environment and would dwarf all existing or proposed low-level dumping schemes. The United States, Japan and Britain, as well as a coalition of other countries in the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development, have been studying this option for several years. United States research vessels have concentrated on a prime site in the northern Pacific, exactly the same region as the proposed Japanese low-level dump site. Three other sites are also under study-one in the mid-north Atlantic, one near the Caribbean, and another off the coast of Africa. In summary, the ninth meeting of the London Dumping Convention in September this year will consider the following issues of crucial importance to the countries of our region: First, a report assessing the safety of any form of ocean dumping; secondly, seabed emplacement of radioactive wastes; thirdly, definitions from the International Atomic Energy Agency of the radioactivity suitable for dumping; and fourthly, a proposal from Nauru and Kiribati for a total ban on any ocean dumping. The Slatyer report on Australia's role in the nuclear fuel cycle recommends a number of actions Australia could take on ocean dumping issues. These include ratifying the London Dumping Convention; supporting South Pacific attempts to impose regional bans on nuclear waste dumping; and participating in scientific assessments of the safety of dumping. Pending the outcome of these assessments, Australia should support a moratorium on the ocean dumping of radioactive waste. There is no evidence from the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment that any of these steps have been taken, and I draw the attention of the Minister to this while he is in the chamber. Senator MESSNER(1.32) —I rise to speak about the problems of the wine industry. Honourable senators will clearly remember the antagonistic attitude of the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, to the wine industry and that of Senator Cook from Western Australia, when Senator Walsh addressed himself to the fluctuations in the sales of wine over the last 12 months in response to a question from Senator Cook recently. The point that was raised at that time was that the wine tax, which this Government saw fit to impose upon the wine industry in the Budget of last year, somehow, by Senator Walsh's twisted imagination, resulted in an increase in sales of wine. The point that was made in response to that argument at the time was that the industry, of course, was selling substantially more bulk wine which was the product of larger producers, but certainly the sales for smaller producers were declining as a result of the imposition of a wine tax. It is those smaller producers to which I draw attention today. It is, I think, significant that even though Senator Walsh disparagingly refers to small wine producers as being tin-pot, some 200 of those wineries operate throughout Australia. It is their strategic location which is of such great importance to certain sections of our rural economy. One has only to recognise the place of small wineries based along the River Murray, for instance, in my State of South Australia, which are the sources of a great deal of tourist interest and, hence, people coming from interstate tend to stop over and spend a considerable amount of money and their time enjoying the fruits of that area as well as the wines. That, of course, means more tourist dollars in circulation for South Australia. If anybody feels put out about this I must say that that occurs all over Australia where small wineries are established. One has only to think of the South Eastern regions of Western Australia around Albany where there is a growing wine industry and the Hunter River districts of New South Wales as well as those areas in the north eastern parts of Victoria which produce very fine quality wines and are major tourist areas as well. For that reason, we have to consider that wineries are not just producers of wine but major tourist magnets which add significantly to the economies of local areas. Certainly, that is of great assistance to the small country towns which lack other kinds of facilities, and industries which can employ people. That is very significant and should not be overlooked by this Government or the Senate. Senator Walsh is totally misinformed on the position of the wine industry, if he does not deliberately misunderstand it. In his remarks recently he sought to argue that if there were-- Senator McIntosh —You are being controversial, aren't you? Senator MESSNER —Matters do not have to be non-controversial. We are discussing matters of public interest. Mr Acting Deputy President, you might be able to inform Senator McIntosh as to the real function of this period of debate and tell him that it is not for raising non-controversial issues but issues which may not be brought to any kind of vote. Senator Reid —I take a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. This matter has been discussed before. It was discussed, I think, in the last General Business debate and at a Whips' meeting quite recently. This is not a period for non-controversial debate. It is a period in lieu of first reading debates. If the Government were to insist on it being totally non-controversial it would, first of all, preclude speeches such as that made by Senator McIntosh and, in any event, it would mean that we would need to go back to the traditional first reading debates so that we would have the opportunity to discuss these matters. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Colston) —There is no point of order. The matter is not covered in our Standing Orders. It is a private arrangement between parties. Senator MESSNER —Whilst it may not be covered in Standing Orders that is the arrangement and it certainly is the understanding of all honourable senators on this side. All the matters raised today by Opposition senators have been controversial. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —There is nothing in Standing Orders which I, presiding at the moment, can rule on. It is a matter between the parties. That might be respected by almost all honourable senators but it is nothing to do with the Chair. Senator MESSNER —I again refer to the fact that Senator Walsh, the Minister for Finance, has, on many occasions, sought to argue that he can improve the status of the wine industry somehow and increase its sales by raising taxes. As we all know, the Government imposed a tax on wine in the last Budget. It seems from all the questions that have been asked in this place by Government senators, Senator Cook in particular, and the remarks of Senator Walsh, that the Government is softening us up for a further tax on wine. I draw attention to that because I think it is very significant that in the light of all the discussions that are going on about taxation at the moment, the introduction of indirect taxes of various kinds, capital gains taxes, death duties and everything else, obviously the Government is starting to focus its attention on wine again. Perhaps it is making sure that the community understands that it has not seen the last of taxation on wine. I draw your attention, Mr Acting Deputy President, to my remarks earlier that there are 200 small wineries in this country which are suffering at the moment from a fall in sales as a result of the imposition of the tax last year. Any further increase in that taxation on wine is sure to lead to further problems for those little industries which, as I pointed out, are extraordinarily valuable in their own local communities and which provide employment, not only in a direct sense but also indirectly through tourism and other ancillary industries. For that reason, I believe that Senator Walsh should take note of these remarks, form some much clearer views about the value of the wine industry to local communities and ensure that those points are taken into account if the Government is going to impose even higher taxation on the wine industry. I hope that Senator Walsh will be able to clear our minds on this in the very near future and that we will get a statement from him to the effect that he does not intend to raise taxation any further on the wine industry. Certainly, if he does, he can expect vigorous opposition from this quarter and from all Opposition South Australian senators, with the support of New South Wales senators as well, no doubt. Perhaps there will be support for the Opposition's point of view even from Government senators from South Australia. We know that they are developing an independent streak these days. Some Government senators are even speaking out against the Government's assets test. Perhaps they will see the light and decide to stand up for their own States in this House by ensuring that any proposal for a further imposition on the wine industry is defeated by voting with the Opposition, should it come to a vote later. The issue is one of great consequence to the industry. I warn the Government that it is on the edge of a turmoil, should it decide to impose further taxation on the wine industry. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(1.41) —I take the opportunity to join this debate. Senator Missen earlier drew attention to events which are occurring in Bulgaria. I am reminded by what he said that on 24 April this year the Armenian communities in Sydney and throughout the world commemorated-I cannot say 'celebrated'-the 70th anniversary of the genocide of the Armenian people which took place in 1915. On that occasion, the Turkish people were not the victims of genocide, as they were in Senator Missen's example; they were the perpetrators. It is worthwhile setting down the events of that genocide in the Parliament so that the 70th commemoration shall not go unnoticed. The events are simple enough. With the outbreak of World War I and with the landing at the Dardanelles, a conscious policy decision was taken by the young Turk Government to rid itself of its Armenian minority. This was done because they were thought to have friends among those who had launched the Dardanelles invasion and because they were thought to have cousins and relatives fighting with the Russian army on the Eastern Front. Turkey, of course, was then at war. A decision was taken at government level and implemented to move the Armenians-about 1.75 million of them-living in their traditional lands in the north-east of Turkey in the Caucasus by foot into the deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia. Survival in those areas was, of course, almost negligible. There was almost no opportunity to survive the journey or the resettlement. The reception areas were ill-prepared and inhospitable. The decision to move them was, in fact-and I use the words carefully-a final solution and it was one which Adolf Hitler consciously emulated some 20 to 25 years later when he came to formulate his plans for the destruction of the Jewish people. The Turkish Government put its plans into effect. Estimates vary but somewhere between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians died, either en route from their homelands down to the areas of Syria and Mesopotamia, or before and afterwards as a result of various massacres. It was the first massacre, the first genocide, of the 20th century. It was one of the most horrible. Part of the tragedy was that the people had committed no sin whatsoever. Most of them were citizens of Turkey. Many of them had joined the Turkish Army. The Armenians within the Turkish Army were taken out and hanged. They gave pledges of loyalty; these were ignored. They were simply forced to leave their homes and march, being massacred en route by their guards, by tribesmen, and by citizens groups in the way that pogroms have gone on throughout history. The Armenians commemorate to this day the loss of a large part of their population. The genocide went on with large numbers of people in the world knowing that it was occurring. It went on with the German government of the day, then engaged in World War I, doing all it could to suppress action on or knowledge of that genocide. It went on with the courageous American Ambassador to Turkey, Mr Morgenthau, at that stage doing all he could to alert the world to what was happening and suffering all kinds of threats because he was attempting to bring to the attention of the world what was happening. As I say, the Armenian communities have never forgotten. The messages from genocides of this kind are that one should never forget. If we forget we become insensitive to the fact that genocide can recur. The second message from genocides of this kind is 'never again'. Never again should they be allowed to happen. I am reminded of another genocide, the Jewish holocaust. One of the survivors of Auschwitz, Samuel Pisar, came to this country afterwards to complete his education. He attended the same law school that the Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Gareth Evans) attended. Sir Zelman Cowen selected him and sent him to Harvard later. Samuel Pisar wrote a book called Of Blood and Hope. In that book he recalled how in 1975 he returned to Auschwitz with President Valery Giscard D'Estaing. In Auschwitz, returning to where he had been a prisoner, he said to the President: 'Mr President, in this cursed and sacred place today you face your greatest audience-in the presence of millions of innocent souls. Mr President, with the authority of the number tattooed on my arm, I say to you that if they could cry out they would say to you ''Never again''.' The message from any genocide has to be 'never again'. The sadness is that in our world today we are seeing genocide again and again. We saw the genocide in Kampuchea-in our time. We saw Idi Amin when he was rampant, inflicting genocide upon his people. We have seen recent events in Ethiopia. The Government there is guilty of genocide by obstruction. We have the events occurring in southern Lebanon where the Christian Maronite community is likely to be wiped out by acts of genocide occurring now. If we are to commemorate what has gone on in the past it has surely to be to ensure that it does not happen again, and that if it is happening we make our voices known. I say to the Minister, who is presently the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, that we have a seat on the Security Council at present; we have a capacity to initiate discussion at an international level about some of these events. If episodes are occurring now which have the quality of genocide, I ask the Minister: Do we have a duty to bring those matters in a formal sense before the world assembly for proper discussion? The only other point I raise is that a decade ago some members of the international Armenian community, grieving still for the loss of their grandparents, thinking still about the cousins that have never been born, the families that have never had fulfilled lives, undertook a program of terror and reprisal murder. I took the opportunity a week or so ago to speak to the Armenian community in Sydney-a hall with 2,000 people, the best citizens I know, loyal Australians. I said to them that we must never forget but we must not undertake murder in revenge. The Ten Commandments which forbid murder are as binding upon the victims of genocide as they are upon its perpetrators. I put on the record my belief that the awful events of 70 years ago with the destruction of the Armenian people and the Armenian nation, as dreadful as they were, and all the genocides which follow, do not justify the revenge murder of anyone. If anyone, in the name of the Armenian genocide, commits murder or kills Turkish diplomats two things are wrong. First, these diplomats they are killing are not genocidists. They are, at the worst, the grandchildren of the people who were alive in 1915. The present Turkish Government is guilty of indifference, ignoring history and denying the events but it is not guilty of the murders and its representatives should be kept safe from reprisal killings. The second argument is that those who kill in reprisal are in quality no better than those who earlier had killed as an act of genocide. So I hope that members of the Senate will recall the sad events of 1915, that genocide remains one of the darker sides of history and that it is our duty, so far as possible, to remember these events and to pledge that they will happen never again. Sitting suspended from 1.50 to 2 p.m. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Manager of Government Business) —I inform the Senate that the Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button, will be absent from the chamber today and tomorrow. Opposition senators-Oh! Senator GRIMES —I know that honourable members opposite are all disappointed. Any questions which would normally be directed to Senator Button in relation to his portfolio should be referred to the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Gareth Evans. Those questions directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate or relating to the portfolios which Senator Button represents in this chamber should be directed to me. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Minister for Finance. I refer the Minister to the comment by the Treasurer last Friday when, after talks with union leaders, he said that the Australian Council of Trade Unions was 'prepared to go down the particular path with us on the various reform options, including, I think, the indirect tax area'. I ask whether the Minister heard Mr Dolan of the ACTU say on AM this morning, in reference to those talks: . . . Mr Keating was either misunderstanding the position or you know just simply attempting to you know pursue his point of view and quite incorrectly saying that the ACTU delegation has given or shown some signs of acceptance of it and that was quite the contrary. Which explanation is correct? Is Mr Keating misunderstanding the position or just attempting to pursue his point of view? Senator WALSH —I did hear Mr Dolan on AM this morning. I also heard somebody else gibbering away immediately before Mr Dolan. I was not present at those discussions. I will refer the question to the Treasurer for his comments. Senator REYNOLDS —Has the attention of the Minister for Finance been drawn to the recently released Australian Bureau of Statistics figures of the deficit levels in all States? Can the Minister advise the Senate of the performance of Queensland under the administration of Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen as both Premier and Treasurer as far as his State's Budget deficit and State public sector deficit are concerned? Senator WALSH —Yes, my attention has been drawn to the recent publication of State by State public sector and Budget deficits. The situation in Queensland is, of course, quite alarming. The trend has been evident for some time but the trend is getting worse. In fact, the public sector deficit for Queensland in 1984-85 is estimated at $1.2 billion. On a per capita basis, that is almost as much as the irresponsible former Treasurer lumbered this Government with as a prospective deficit two years ago. Of course, State governments do not normally run deficits on a per capita basis of anything like that magnitude. The Budget deficit, which is part of the public sector deficit in Queensland, in the same year is estimated to be $600m. In per capita terms, compared with the records of other States, Queensland's record is even more devastating or alarming. Queensland's public sector deficit per capita is estimated to be nearly $475. That is almost $475 which every Queenslander had added to the debt for which Queenslanders are responsible just in this financial year. This is higher than that for every mainland State. I say 'every mainland State' advisedly because the only parts of Australia where it is higher are Tasmania and the Northern Territory. I think a lesson can be drawn from that because every other State in Australia has a Labor government. The Liberal Party and the Country Party or the National Party-whatever it calls itself these days-which proclaim that they are guardians of probity in public finance have shown through the three governments which they control in the Commonwealth just how irresponsible they in fact are by the enormous public debts which they are loading on to succeeding generations and succeeding governments. Likewise, Queensland's Budget deficit, which as I noted before is part of the public sector deficit, in per capita terms for the last three years has been higher than that of every other mainland State. The Queensland Government is clearly mismanaging the economy and living beyond its means. It is no better at living within its means than one of the Premier's good friends, Sir Edward Lyons, appears to have been. Sir Edward, of course, arranged, as Chairman of the Totalisator Administration Board of Queensland, to lend $28m worth of TAB funds to Rothwells Ltd, of which he was a director and over which there are no prudential controls, putting at risk, without lender of last resort cover or any prudential controls under the Banking Act, $28m worth of TAB funds arranged by him, as the former chairman of the TAB, for another company of which he was a director. Of course, he is a very close friend of the Premier. Regrettably, future generations of Queenslanders will have to pay for all those debts irresponsibly rattled up by the Bjelke-Petersen Government. Indeed, unless something is done very quickly about the State of Queensland, Queensland may have disappeared so far down the Argentinian road that it might be very difficult to reverse the trend. Senator CHANEY —I ask a question of the Minister for Finance arising out of the answer that he has just given. Is he suggesting in saying that many millions of dollars of the Totalisator Administration Board of Queensland funds were at risk, that there is some financial doubt? Is he casting some financial doubt over the bank known as Rothwells? If he is, I think he should clarify that instead of giving rise to inference in the way in which he has. I further ask: If that is the case, is he concerned about any connections between the managing director of that bank and the Australian Labor Party in his home State of Western Australia? Does he regard that as also a matter which should be splashed around this Senate and made subject to comment? Senator WALSH —So far as I know, no public funds or funds from statutory bodies responsible to a government have been invested from Western Australia in Rothwells Ltd. I make no assessment of that company. I simply state the facts that as a merchant bank it does not have lender of last resort cover from the Reserve Bank of Australia and nor is it subject to the prudential controls of the Banking Act. It is not customary in public finance in Australia that very large amounts of money-and $28m by anyone's standards must be counted as a very large amount of money, even for a big public authority-are lent other than to some sort of secured borrower. I do not know what the accounts of the Queensland TAB show but I would have thought that $28m would be a very substantial component and even perhaps close to all the liquid assets that the institution in fact has. When we have on top of that rather unusual behaviour the fact that the chairman of that public authority is a director of the merchant bank to which that money was lent and a very close friend of the Premier, it is very clear, I think, that something is very much wrong in the State of Queensland. Senator COATES —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce whether he has seen the recent comments made by the Tasmanian Premier concerning the establishment of a centre for industrial innovation and entrepreneurship in Tasmania? Is it reasonable for Mr Gray to propose such a centre when, as he said himself, it would depend on an assurance of funding by the Federal Government? Has there been any approach from the State Government about the establishment of the centre? Can the Minister tell the Senate what is the current level of Federal Government support for new business ventures and small business innovation in Tasmania? Senator GARETH EVANS —The first part of Senator Coates's question was whether there had been any approach from the Tasmanian State Government with respect to the establishment of a centre of the kind he refers to. Senator Button's brief tells me that one component of the Industry, Technology and Commerce Department's technology programs involves the establishment of an Australia-wide network of innovation centres. These centres are established as joint Commonwealth-State initiatives. They co-ordinate expertise and facilities required at the prototype, business plan, manufacturing and marketing stages of new technology-based product innovations. Innovation centres have been established in South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales. Negotiations are currently being finalised for centres in Queensland and Victoria. An amount of $4m has been committed to date under the innovation centre program, of which the Commonwealth contribution of $1.5m represents some 40 per cent. The remaining funds have been contributed by State governments and industry sources. In relation to Tasmania, a working group was constituted in November 1983 to investigate and report on the scope and feasibility of such a centre. Extensive negotiations have recently been undertaken between the Commonwealth Department of Industry and Commerce, the Tasmanian Premier's Department and the Tasmanian Development Authority in relation to the college's proposal for a centre in Launceston. In further developing this question, Senator Coates asked about the level of Federal Government support for new business ventures and innovation in Tasmania. I am not able to give the precise level of support which is currently provided for new business ventures and small business innovation in Tasmania. However, substantial support for innovation development initiatives has only become available since the election of the present Government and this is yet to flow through fully to Tasmania. Senator Button's Department has experienced some difficulty in promoting innovation in Tasmania as a consequence of the absence of an innovation centre. In fact, it has been found necessary to use the South Australian, New South Wales and Western Australian centres in facilitating commercial development of Tasmanian inventions. Provision has been made within the Government's technology and innovation programs for up to $12,000 in each of the next three financial years for the establishment and initial operation of the Tasmanian innovation centre. The actual amount of any contribution is dependent on necessary matching dollar for dollar support, and this is the issue currently under negotiation with the Tasmanian Government. The basic point remains, in answer to Senator Coates's question, that the Federal Government has already made provision for a Tasmanian centre and the ball is now very firmly in Mr Gray's court. Senator CHIPP —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Special Minister of State. Despite the surprising lack of coverage in this morning's media, is the Government concerned about the extraordinary Special Air Service Regiment manoeuvre in Sydney at the weekend? Does the Government believe that if we must have these organisations, at least they should be efficient? Unsuspecting, innocent citizens merely walking in a street, out to do nobody any harm, have been held up at gun point by masked men and interrogated against their will. After the Sheraton fiasco and the Bass Strait oil rig raid, what steps did the Government then take to make sure that such fiascos did not occur again? How can the Government now ensure that law abiding citizens can be protected from such traumas, which are the result of sheer ineptitude at departmental level? What does the Government intend to do to make sure that there are no more of these bungles? Senator GARETH EVANS —I think the question is more appropriately directed to me in my capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Defence since it was an SAS operation that is the subject of this controversy and, of course, that is the responsibility of that Minister. I am advised that the Minister for Defence was informed in advance of the nature and details of the exercise. It was a New South Wales police exercise supported by the SAS Regiment. The area was secured by a New South Wales police cordon and by check points. Insofar as the Defence Force is concerned, I am advised that investigations to date reveal that at no time did members of the Defence Force dress in black uniforms with black caps and visors or take into custody, interrogate or threaten with a weapon any member of the public in the Mort Bay or Long Nose Point area, which is the particular matter to which Senator Chipp is no doubt adverting. It is also the case that members of the counter-terrorist force at no time carried explosives or live ammunition. To make the exercise more realistic, blank ammunition and pyrotechnics-fireworks-specifically designed for training were used. These were held in a secured area under military guard. Defence is carrying out further and more detailed investigations into the allegations. As to the other part of Senator Chipp's question, his reference to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service affair last year which I believe he quite properly described as a fiasco, the Government's response to that is well known. That is a matter for the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He has made it perfectly clear in a series of subsequent statements that any repetition of that kind of exercise will not be tolerated and steps have been taken to ensure that that will in fact be impossible in the future so far as that particular organisation is concerned. I do not believe anyone should jump to conclusions about what is alleged to have occurred in the context of this New South Wales affair, but to the extent that matters do require further investigation, that is in hand. Senator CHIPP —I ask a supplementary question. I thank the Minister for his answer and his undertaking to provide more information. When doing so, could he give us an assurance that nobody concerned with the organisation involved in the Sheraton fiasco had anything whatsoever to do with what the Minister euphemistically describes as the New South Wales affair? Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Chipp can be confident that I will be able to give such an assurance, but I will certainly take on board his further question. Senator BLACK —Will the Minister representing the Special Minister of State inform the Senate whether the Australian Electoral Commission is investigating the National Free Enterprise Ltd of Queensland, which it appears is the biggest political donor in Australia? Is the Government concerned that this organisation, which is run or has been run by Queensland National Party luminaries such as Leonard Knevitt, David Tennant, Sir Ernest Savage, Sir William Foots, Sir Ian McFarlane and Sir Robert Sparkes's personal secretary, Helen Mayberry, appears to have been used to evade the laws requiring donations to political parties which allegedly are supposed to be made public? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am advised by the special Minister of State that most returns of political donations made to parties prior to the last Federal election have now been received. The Australian Electoral Commission is presently examining these returns to make sure that they comply with the legislation. I am not able to say on the Minister's behalf what particular inquiries have been made by the Commission as it is, as senators will know, a body that is independent of the Government. But the Government is certainly aware of and is very concerned about reports of the National Free Enterprise Ltd. As Senator Black has said, this company, which operates out of a legal firm's premises in Brisbane, is apparently the biggest political donor in Australia. On the information presently available, it is also apparently accountable to no one. No one seems to know who is really behind it. No one seems to know where it gets it money from. If the National Party in Queensland has found a way to circumvent the law, the Government will respond. We will move to tighten the law. We will close any loophole which arises. Perhaps I ought also draw the attention of the Senate, and the attention of those people who may have made donations to the National Party through this company, to the fact that the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform in this Parliament is presently conducting a wide-ranging inquiry into the operations of the new electoral laws at last year's election. Without in any way wishing to pre-empt the work of that Committee, it may be appropriate to observe that a committee of the Parliament can call people to give evidence and can require them to give answers. Neither the National Free Enterprise Ltd nor anyone else is outside the ambit of a parliamentary committee inquiry of this kind. Senator WALTERS —Does the Minister for Finance agree with the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Dolan, who said on AM today that offsetting the effects of indirect taxes in certain sections of the community has been, to use his words, more or less admitted as being just about administratively impossible? Senator WALSH —I heard Mr Dolan this morning, as I have said, and I do not recall whether the words just used are exactly the words Mr Dolan used, but I will accept Senator Walters's word that they are correct. There are certainly administrative difficulties in an offset of that type. I do not know the degree to which Mr Dolan has gone into it, but from the examination I have made it would only be possible to get a 100 per cent offset with a great deal of administrative effort-administrative effort of an intensity which would probably not be justified. I remind Senator Walters that most policies are imperfect and, indeed, probably all policies are imperfect to some degree or other-even the policies of the former Government which she as a supporter pursued. They were grossly imperfect. They produced the highest level of inflation we had had for a number of years, the highest level of unemployment we had had for 50 years, and the only sustained period of negative economic growth we have had since the war. The policies of the Government of which she was a member were so imperfect that at the time that Government was ignominiously removed from office we had both inflation and unemployment running at above 10 per cent, something that had never before happened in Australia. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I raise a point of order. The Minister has been asked a short and quite precise question about a matter. He is now engaging in a debate on a wide number of economic policy and other issues which have nothing to do with the question. I ask you to ask the Minister to restrict himself to answering the question. The PRESIDENT —At the time the point of order was taken I was about to indicate to the Minister that I tended to think he was ranging into the area of debate rather than immediately answering the question. I ask him to direct his remarks to the gravamen of the question. Senator WALSH —Certainly, Mr President. I was pointing out to Senator Walters that something less than perfection is probably all that can be realistically expected from any policy or any law, but there are degrees of imperfection. The level of imperfection of the policies of this Government pales into insignificance beside the massive imperfections, supported by empirical evidence, of the policies of the previous Government. Senator McINTOSH —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Health aware of the results of the poll conducted by the Australian Medical Association concerning the doctors dispute in New South Wales public hospitals? Can the Minister advise the Senate of the current position regarding a return to work by doctors in the State public hospital system? Senator GRIMES —Yes, I am aware of the results. The AMA closed its plebiscite on 7 May. Senator Peter Baume —Did you vote too? Senator GRIMES —Yes, we all voted. I hope Senator Baume voted and that he voted the right way. I hope he followed the advice of the Leader of his Party in New South Wales, Mr Greiner, who called for a return to work, by contrast with the inflammatory remarks made by his Leader in this Parliament, by the shadow Minister, Mr Porter, and by the real shadow Minister, Mr Carlton. The President of the AMA released the results yesterday. Some 13,000 doctors voted, which represents some 40 per cent of the entire medical profession. I am sure Senator Baume will agree that this was an historically high return of votes for the medical profession, for both members and non-members of the AMA. The Senate may be interested to know that the State by State breakdown of those who voted in favour of a return to work was New South Wales, 65.7 per cent; Victoria, 86.7 per cent; Queensland, 84.6 per cent; South Australia, 83.5 per cent; Western Australia, 67.5 per cent; Tasmania, 85.6 per cent; and the Australian Capital Territory, 76.8 per cent. In all States a majority of professions such as surgeons, anaesthetists, obstetricians and gynaecologists, and physicians voted in favour of returning to work. As Dr Lindsay Thompson, the President of the AMA, has said, the small group which has been agitating to maintain this strike-it is a strike-has been shrinking daily. Those people are placing health care standards and the reputation of the profession at risk. They are also-I believe they know it-placing their own hospital appointments at risk. I doubt whether the New South Wales public hospital system needs to get back anything like the total number who have resigned, as many people who have resigned in fact do only small amounts of part time work. Mr Mulock, the Acting Premier of New South Wales and the Minister for Health, has reported today that 524 doctors have agreed to withdraw their resignations. I expect that by the end of this week or early next week it will be quite clear to the New South Wales Government where the gaps are in the system. One can anticipate that these gaps will be in places such as the upper North Shore of Sydney, where there are high socio-economic groups, where the rates of insurance are high, and where there are plenty of public servants, and in the Illawarra district, where the surgeons have been bloody-minded from the word go. This indicates that the dispute has been futile. It has been enormously damaging to the medical profession. I think the remaining doctors who are still contemplating industrial action should decide this week to return to normal services because the New South Wales Government obviously has to take action. It is certainly under no obligation to hold open their hospital positions any longer. The New South Wales Government is supported by the overwhelming majority of public opinion, certainly by the overwhelming majority of the medical profession and, I am pleased to say, on this occasion even by the media. The New South Wales Government will have a duty to advertise these positions and fill them as soon as possible. I hope that the plebiscite and the results of that plebiscite will spell the end of this stupid dispute. Senator COLLARD —My question is addressed to the Minister for Finance. Will the Government's proposed White Paper on taxation contain a preferred Government position? Senator WALSH —The White Paper has not yet been finalised. Senator BOLKUS —Is the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs aware of the call from the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions for a review of the Government's foreign aid policy to the Philippines in view of claims that Australian aid money is being used for corrupt purposes by members of the Philippines Government and the Philippines military? Can the Minister give an assurance that Australian aid will not be used for these purposes? Further, following the comments of the ACTU President, will the Minister also indicate what action the Australian government plans to take to ensure that Australian companies provide fair working conditions and adequate remuneration for their workers in the Philippines? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am aware that the trade union mission which recently visited the Philippines criticised aspects of Australian assistance to that country and the treatment of Filipino workers by some Australian companies. Our development assistance to the Philippines is concentrated in two rural development projects in Zamboanga del Sur and Northern Samar. The assistance we provide is carefully assessed in the light of our own special criteria and objectives, the basis of which is a genuine concern for the interests of the people of the country. We also seek to take advantage of particular Australian expertise. In giving aid Australia's concerns are twofold. Firstly, in response to widely felt humanitarian concerns we need to do something effective for those most in need. Secondly, our development assistance contributes to regional progress and stability. Cessation of our development assistance would only harm those we most wish to see benefit from that assistance. Australia maintains a small defence co-operation program with the Philippines. At present the Philippines DCP is running at approximately $1.66m per annum. The Philippines program is, along with Singapore and Brunei, the smallest in South East Asia. The Government closely monitors the program with the Philippines. Under it Australia does not supply weapons or armaments. The granting of defence co-operation program assistance does not imply endorsement of all the policies of the recipient government. As to the criticism that the operations of some Australian companies in the Philippines have been less than satisfactory, the companies have been criticised for the allegedly poor conditions they provide for their employees. In 1984 Dunlop closed its factory in the Bataan export zone, and it is that that has attracted the bulk of the criticism, but it continued with its footwear plant in Manila. In line with the Government's policy, the Australian Embassy has been closely monitoring the human rights situation in the Philippines. The enforcement of Philippines labour law is, however, a matter for the Philippines authorities, who have shown some ability to pursue breaches of the law. Senator LEWIS —I refer the Minister for Finance to that part of the statement by Mr Dolan of the Australian Council of Trade Unions on AM today when asked whether there was any possibility of the ACTU accepting a consumption tax. He said: 'I, right at this point of time, would say no'. Will the Government abandon the tax reform option of introducing a broadly based consumer tax if the ACTU maintains its present opposition to that change? Senator WALSH —The Government, as I would have thought even Senator Lewis would know, has not made any specific decisions about changes to the tax system. Options are under consideration and, as I said yesterday, it has been a matter of public record for many months that the Treasurer has canvassed the view that the present system is badly in need of repair. I do not think anyone would dispute that, other than the tax evaders and avoiders and their friends across the aisle who are more interested in protecting them than they are in reforming the taxation system. The Treasurer has also expressed the view that there should be a significant change towards higher levels of indirect tax in one form or another. As I said yesterday, that is a view which appears to be shared at least by the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia and maybe, for all I know, by many other people in the Liberal Party. As for Mr Dolan's comments, his views will not be particularly relevant to the decision because if Mr Dolan is not yesterday's man, he is today's man-he is certainly not tomorrow's man. By the time these matters become important in relations between the ACTU and the Government, Mr Dolan will no longer be President of the ACTU. Senator GILES —Can the Minister for Community Services say whether any decision has been reached on the proposal to close the residential block of the rehabilitation centre at Melville in Western Australia? Senator GRIMES —The Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service is to wind down and eventually close hostel-type residential facilities at the major treatment centres and replace them with a more appropriate range of residential options for its clients, and that includes the residential facility at Melville in Western Australia. Over the past few years the demand for this type of accommodation, provided for disabled people from country and outer suburban areas who need to attend the centres on a daily basis or for those who require close medical supervision, has decreased considerably and will continue to decrease. At the present time residential facilities at Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service centres are currently underutilised by about 65 per cent. We intend to discontinue the service and replace it with non-institutional, community-based accommodation, which is consistent with contemporary rehabilitation principles, which recognise the rights of people with disabilities to live with dignity and a minimum of restrictions. It also recognises the importance of normal surroundings to the habilitation and rehabilitation of people with disabilities. In Queensland and South Australia a number of alternative forms of accommodation have already been successfully used, ranging from independent flats on centre to various types of accommodation. One would hope that by the end of December 1985 or thereabouts alternative accommodation which satisfies these criteria will be developed elsewhere. The closure of these blocks will mean that staff currently employed in those areas will no longer be required for that purpose. In accordance with Public Service provisions relating to redeployment and retrenchment, every effort will be made to arrange alternative employment for those staff. This has already been occurring in Queensland where work trials have been arranged with the Department of Veterans' Affairs for staff no longer required at the Taringa Rehabilitation Centre. The unions affected by this decision will be consulted throughout this process, in particular about the securing of appropriate alternative employment for their members. Investigations will be undertaken, in co-operation with the Department of Local Government and Administrative Services, into the possibility of alternative usage for the residential blocks. This form of accommodation, as I said earlier, has been dramatically under-used in recent times. This represents not only the actions of those who are involved in rehabilitation but also the preference of those who are being rehabilitated. I am sure that the alternative arrangements will be much more satisfactory for all concerned. Senator ARCHER —I direct my question to the Minister for Resources and Energy. The fishing industry is a major user of fuel per unit of production in Australia and a major exporter for international earnings. Has the Government made an impact investigation of the effect of the 1985 price rise and the likely changes that such a rise will have on the development of new fishieries and the exploitation of existing ones? If the effect on fishing has been particularly considered, what is the extent to which it is anticipated there will be an effect on participation and on export? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am not aware of any specific study that has been made of the effect of fuel price rises on the fishing industry. If any such study were to be made, it would no doubt be the responsibility of my colleague the Minister for Primary Industry. I will refer the question to him to see what further information I can supply. Senator McKIERNAN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Social Security. Is the Government considering easing the requirements for the older unemployed who find it very difficult to get work and very irksome to have to report fortnightly their progress or failure to get work to their local social security officers? Is the Government considering any special steps which will remove pressure on such people to prove that they are looking for work, even though they may be aware that their search is unlikely to succeed? Senator GRIMES —In common with Senator McKiernan, I have a great deal of sympathy for those in that latter age group who become unemployed because there is no work in the area, because they are unfit, or in particular in recent times because of technological change in industry. Many of them even when they are unfit are not eligible for invalid pensions. I formed the view when I was Minister for Social Security that it was administratively cumbersome for the Department and extremely trying for the individuals involved to prove that their unemployment was not for want of trying. I have been informed by my colleague the Minister for Social Security, Mr Howe, that next month he is to begin a pilot study in the Wollongong-Dapto area on the possible relaxation of fortnightly reporting for the older unemployed. This will be a six-month pilot study, which will begin during the week starting 3 June. Invitations are being mailed to approximately 1,000 clients inviting participation in that pilot study. Those people who wish to accept the offer of relaxed reporting requirements will be interviewed. At that time their rights and obligations under the pilot study will be explained. It is expected that the first payments of unemployment benefit under these arrangements will occur during the week beginning 10 June this year. During the pilot study all clients are to be reviewed at three-monthly intervals for continuing entitlement to unemployment benefit. The format of that review will alternate between full in-office interviews and a questionnaire similar to the current review which is being held. Quite clearly, with changes in technology and the nature of industry in recent times, it is important that we recognise that there is a special group in this age group. I hope that the pilot study will be merely the commencement of an Australia-wide program to recognise the very special needs of these people. Senator KILGARIFF —I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. Is the Minister aware of a report in the English magazine New Scientist of 21 March this year which suggests that the black mist and black cloud which have been described by witnesses before the Royal Commission into British Nuclear Tests may have been from simulated nuclear blasts which were designed to add an element of realism to training exercises? Will the Minister investigate these claims, which indicate that these exercises involved the exploding of barrels of waste sump-oil with plastic explosives which, when detonated, are said to have projected a vertical column of dense black smoke which rose to a considerable altitude, surmounted by a large black smoke ring, and could have been mistaken for the real thing? If this matter has been followed up by Australian Government, is the Minister in a position to report to the Senate on the matter? If not, does the Government believe that the doubts which the report has raised should be inquired into and the people of the outback who have been alarmed by much of the evidence presented to the Royal Commission informed of the outcome? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am not personally aware of the article to which Senator Kilgariff referred. No doubt it will be of interest to the royal commission presently conducting its proceedings. With the degree of interest and knowledge that Senator Kilgariff has shown in this matter, he will be prepared no doubt to contemplate himself making a submission to the best dressed judge in central Australia. I will refer the matter to my colleague the Minister for Defence, but I think it is essentially a matter for my Department and the royal commission. I will see in any event what possible reply it is appropriate to make at this stage. No doubt it will be something canvassed by the royal commission. Senator ROBERTSON —Has the attention of the Minister for Finance been drawn to reports that Parliament House security personnel have been called to a stop work meeting tomorrow, allegedly to receive a report on projected security cuts in the forthcoming Budget? Is the Minister concerned about action of this kind, particularly when it is apparently being envisaged as a protest at unannounced Budget measures? Senator WALSH —Yes, my attention has been drawn to that. It was drawn in the form of a letter from Mr Forbes, the secretary of the Australian Capital Territory branch of the Miscellaneous Workers Union, who was apparently kind enough to forward a copy of a note to his members which said: The purpose of the meeting is to receive a report on the projected security cuts contained in the Joint House Budget and to decide on appropriate action to protect our jobs. All staffing questions have been subject to discussion between various Ministers and parliamentary departments, and between you, Mr President, as you well know, Mr Speaker and myself. All staffing matters are under review. Of course, for 50 years there were no security staff at all in Parliament House. Senator Missen —But you were not around then. Senator WALSH —I was actually. I had been around for quite a few years at that time. Security staff were introduced by the former Prime Minister when he was the generalissimo who wanted to indulge some kind of military command fantasy, a fantasy which he declined to indulge at the time there was an actual shooting war in Korea against the wicked communists, despite his very firm views on other people fighting the wicked, as Mr Fraser saw them, all over the world. However, I digress. There was for 50 years no security service until one was introduced by Mr Fraser. I refer to a report in the Canberra Times which says: Asked what security there would be while the meeting took place, Mr Forbes said, 'There'll be none. Whether they are on or off duty, everyone will leave their homes and their posts'. It is reasonable to assume from that that Mr Forbes does not regard the security service as essential to the security of Parliament House. If that in fact does happen and all walk away from their posts, they will have suggested to the Government that they are dispensable. The PRESIDENT —As an addition to the answer provided by Senator Walsh to the question asked by Senator Robertson, I inform the Senate that the Acting Speaker and I have asked our officers to prepare contingency plans in the event of a stop work meeting taking place tomorrow to ensure the security of Parliament House to the best of our ability during the time of the stop work meeting. Senator CHANEY —My question, which is addressed to the Minister for Finance, follows the answer he gave to the question asked by Senator Lewis, which really involved the Minister indicating that he was not concerned about Mr Dolan's view because, if not yesterday's man, he is not tomorrow's man. I ask the Minister: Since he heard the interview, did he note that Mr Dolan also expressed the view that Simon Crean and he were in complete agreement on this matter? I ask whether in that situation the Minister is confident that the plans to broaden the tax base can be brought about, or whether he believes that Mr Crean, like Mr Dolan, is not someone who need concern the Government because he is not tomorrow's man. Senator WALSH —I must confess that while Mr Dolan was speaking I was not paying a great deal of attention for reasons at which I have already hinted. To put a balanced perspective on that, I should say that I was paying even less attention to the interviewee immediately preceding Mr Dolan. So I do not know precisely what Mr Dolan said about Mr Crean. Of course, for some time there have been some concerns in the Australian Council of Trade Unions-that has been a matter of public record-held by people of probably enduring relevance in that organisation about aspects of major tax changes of the type which have been suggested by quite a number of people. I have not been involved in any discussions with ACTU officials on that matter, but I understand that the Treasurer has had a number of discussions already and that there will be continuing consultations probably before, and certainly after, the tax summit. Senator CHANEY —By way of supplementary question, in light of the views which have been ascribed to Mr Crean, I ask the Minister again whether the Government will abandon the tax reform option of introducing a broadly based consumer tax if, in fact, the ACTU maintains opposition to that change. Senator WALSH —Should those hypothetical circumstances arise, that is a decision the Government will have to make at the time. I do not know what Senator Chaney is trying to get me to say. Senator Chaney —Anything you like. Senator WALSH —Okay, anything I like. I have said here previously that obviously it would be a very serious matter if there were a likelihood or a significant risk of the sort of consumer price index increase-in the order of 7 per cent or even higher-which could flow from some of the levels of consumer tax which some people are suggesting. It would be very serious if there was a risk of that sort of increase in the CPI being fed back via indexation into wages. Senator AULICH —Did the Minister for Education receive an invitation to speak at, or be present at, this week's opening of the metal fabrication block at the Alanvale technical and further education college in Launceston? Is the Minister aware that the project, funded completely by the Federal Government, was opened by the State Minister? Is the Minister concerned that this example of bad manners and political interference on the part of the State Government has now become common practice with all official openings in that State? Senator RYAN —My attention was drawn to the opening of the TAFE building referred to in Senator Aulich's question. As far as I am aware, no invitation was addressed to me or to any person associated with the Commonwealth Government in respect of that opening. I have had reports of similar events occurring, and I am having discussions with the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, which is the agency through which our funds for TAFE colleges and other tertiary institutions pass, as to possible guidelines to ensure that, where there is a facility provided solely or substantially at Commonwealth expense, there is appropriate recognition. I think everybody would agree that it is a legitimate view of the Commonwealth Government-and I think of Commonwealth governments before us-that where we fund facilities there should be appropriate acknowledgement either by way of invitation to the Minister, or a representative of a Minister, or by some other way. Senator Peter Baume —Isn't there a provision already for schools? Senator RYAN —Senator Baume reminds me that during the time that he was Minister for Education he attempted to reach some agreement with State governments on the acknowledgement of Commonwealth contribution to state schools by way of joint Press releases, and perhaps even plaques nominating both contributors. I think that initiative, if it was indeed an initiative, of Senator Baume had some success, but not universal success; in other words, there is still some resistance. I think it is important that Commonwealth support for institutions such as the TAFE college is acknowledged. It is certainly important to the Commonwealth to have it acknowledged and I think it is important for the people of Tasmania, or in this case the people of Launceston, to be aware of very substantial contributions that the Commonwealth is making in respect of the development of TAFE in that city. I hope to be able to find some systematic way of ensuring that the Commonwealth contribution is properly acknowledged. Senator HAINES —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Social Security. I refer the Minister to a recent successful appeal by Madame Artwinska with regard to the classification of her German reparation pension as income under the assets test. Can the Minister say how many people in Australia are in receipt of a German pension under the West German Federal Restitution Act? I remind the Senate that such pensions are paid only to survivors of concentration camps. What is the estimated cost of not including these reparation pensions in the income test for the Australian pension? Further, can the Minister say whether the Government intends to appeal to the Federal Court of Australia against the decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in the Artwinska case? If it does intend to do so, when is it likely to lodge the appeal and on what grounds will it lodge it? Senator GRIMES —I am well aware of the Artwinska case and was well aware of similar cases when I was Minister for Social Security. The number of people in Australia who are in receipt of Federal Republic of Germany pensions under the Restitution Act is not known precisely. It is my understanding that the number is less than 2,000; therefore it is pretty small. Senator Haines asked the cost of not including these pensions in the income test applying to the Australian pension. The cost, for reasons of uncertainty, obviously cannot be estimated but it is also likely to be very small. The implication of excluding these pensions has been considered in the past by previous governments in the context of a possible flow-on effect embracing compensation-type payments to people who have suffered through war in all sorts of situations, be it persecution or other aspects of war, and the costs of that would be very considerable indeed. The Secretary to the Department of Social Security has instructed the Australian Government solicitor to lodge an appeal. An appeal has been lodged but that does not mean that Mrs Artwinska will not be paid the pension; in fact it is my understanding that she will continue to be paid. I will state roughly the grounds for the appeal. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal held that German restitution payments are not income for pension purposes under the Social Security Act because neither of the two definitions of income under that Act applies to the payments; that is, they are not moneys, as described in the Act, earned, derived or received, and nor are they a periodical payment by way of an allowance. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal then said that even if such payments are income within those concepts, they are accepted pursuant to the exception for compensation made for reasons of the loss of, or damage to, a building, plant or personal effects. The grounds of appeal to the Federal Court challenge all those holdings. They suggest that the Administrative Appeals Tribunal's interpretation of the word 'money' was too restrictive, that the pension-like character of the money received indicates that it is income and, finally, that the characterisation of the money as compensation for loss of property, et cetera, is questioned, given the very substantial element of compensation for persecution and personal suffering represented in these payments. One thing that will result out of these appeals is that the matter will be settled, one way or another. However, the basic reason why previous Ministers, including myself, have accepted the departmental advice in this area is the very considerable flow-on effects which would result. Senator ZAKHAROV —Is the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs aware that in Songkhla, Southern Thailand, there are holding camps for refugee boat people from Vietnam and that these people claim to have been held there, under armed guard, for two or three years while countries which will accept them are found? What steps can Australian representatives in Thailand take to ensure that the treatment of these refugees in the southern areas of Thailand is humanitarian and that action is being taken to relocate them as quickly as possible? Senator GARETH EVANS —There is a small transit camp for Vietnamese boat people at Songkhla in Southern Thailand where people are held for several months. They are then transferred to Sikhiu, which is the designated holding centre for Vietnamese boat people. The allegations may have confused Songkhla with Sikhiu. The longest anyone has stayed at Songkhla is eight months, but some people at Sikhiu have been there for more than three years. Since 1983 the Thai Ministry of the Interior, which administers the camp, has been making people available for processing by resettlement countries and this now covers arrivals up until December 1984. Australia, like other major resettlement countries, has been accepting people from Sikhiu as releases have been made. Acceptance rates have been high. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has access to the people both at Songkhla and Sikhiu and provides their food and medical services. Additional services are provided quite extensively in Sikhiu by voluntary agencies working under the umbrella of UNHCR. It is the case that refugees are not allowed to move in and out of the camps at will. The view is taken that it would give rise to insurmountable problems in keeping track of them if that were the case. Senator BOSWELL —I direct a question to the Minister for Finance. In view of the Minister's answers to questions yesterday and today in which he suggested a close relationship between Rothwells Ltd and the Queensland National Party I ask the Minister whether he is aware that Mr R. L. Connell, who is Deputy Chairman of Rothwells and a major shareholder of that company, is also the Vice-President of the John Curtin Foundation of Western Australia, a fund raising foundation very similar to the Bjelke-Petersen Foundation. Is the Minister also aware that Mr Connell is an adviser to the Western Australian Premier? In asking that question I impute no impropriety to Mr Connell or to Rothwells. Senator WALSH —Yes, I am aware of the fact that Mr Connell is the Chairman of Rothwells Ltd and the John Curtin Foundation. As far as I know, though, he has not used whatever influence he may have on the John Curtin Foundation to deposit all its funds with Rothwells bank, as did Edward Lyons, who used his influence as Chairman of the Totalisator Administration Board of Queensland to deposit if not all, something which must have approached all, of the TAB's funds in Rothwells bank. Senator Crichton-Browne —Mr Connell is the Deputy Chairman, a major shareholder. Senator WALSH —I can see that neither Senator Crichton-Browne nor Senator Boswell, or probably anyone associated with the Queensland National Party, would be able to see that there is anything reprehensible about a Chairman of a public authority transferring $28m, which must have been very close to all of the liquid assets of that public authority, to a bank of which he was a director. The concept of conflict of interest is probably beyond the comprehension of either Senator Boswell or Senator Crichton-Browne. Senator Crichton-Browne was the mining warden at Marble Bar when he was a shareholder in a speculative mining company associated with dealing in Poseidon shares. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I raise a point of order. I have not intervened to this point because the Standing Orders provide no protection for the citizen. Of course the citizen takes what he cops in this place and for that reason I did not intervene to object to anything that was being said. However, I simply point out to Senator Walsh, Mr President, that Senator Crichton-Browne is entitled to the protection of the Standing Orders. Whilst Senator Walsh is free to slander anyone outside this place, he is not free to slander people in this place and he ought to be asked to sit down and shut up. The PRESIDENT —I have been listening to Senator Walsh. At this stage there is no substance in the point of order, but I remind Senator Walsh that he has been responding rather at length to an interjection by Senator Crichton-Browne. I ask him to return to the question that was directed to him by Senator Boswell and, if possible, to relate his remarks to his ministerial responsibility to this Parliament. I call the Minister. Senator WALSH —I was reciting some of the historical facts about Senator Crichton-Browne's background. Senator Chaney says that that was slander. That is a judgment which Senator Chaney is entitled to make. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to respond to Senator Boswell's question. Question Time is near an end and other honourable senators want to receive the call. Senator WALSH —Certainly, Mr President. I can well understand why Senator Chaney-whatever his personal views might be as Leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate-would not like to have Senator Crichton-Browne's sort of commercial history repeated in the Senate. The PRESIDENT —Order! The Minister will withdraw that remark. Senator Crichton-Browne —Come on, you greasy grub. The PRESIDENT —Order! The Minister will withdraw. Senator WALSH —I withdraw, Mr President. The PRESIDENT —I now ask Senator Crichton-Browne to withdraw his remark. Senator Crichton-Browne —I withdraw the comment that Senator Walsh is a greasy grub. The PRESIDENT —I ask the Minister to bring his answer to a conclusion because Question Time is near an end. Senator WALSH —Certainly, Mr President. The point I was making was that there are standards by which most decent Australians live-if they do not actually live by them they do feel a necessity to pay lip service to them-and there are other standards, such as those which prevail in the Queensland National Party and which were implanted in the Liberal party of Western Australia during the time when Senator Crichton-Browne was its President and the time when his clique took over the Western Australian Branch of the Liberal Party. The people who belong to the Queensland National Party or the Western Australian Liberal Party, of which Senator Crichton-Browne is a member, are probably quite genuinely incapable of seeing the conflict of interest which Sir Edward Lyons-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to come back to answering Senator Boswell's question. If he does not do so I will have to ask him to resume his seat. Senator Crichton-Browne —To loud acclamation. The PRESIDENT —Order! I warn Senator Crichton-Browne. I call the Minister. Senator WALSH —Mr President, do not throw him out; he is not worth it. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Walsh, please resume your answer. Senator WALSH —Sir Edward Lyons was in a conflict of interest situation which I think almost anyone, except members of the Queensland National Party and the Western Australian Liberal Party, would recognise. The PRESIDENT —I have received a letter from Senator Chaney proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The confusion and uncertainty of the Government's Aboriginal affairs policy. I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition)(3.03) —This debate has been brought forward by the Opposition because of our concern about the Government's total failure to come to grips with this important area of policy. I think the first thing I should comment on is that the speakers' list which has been put up by the Government does not include the Acting Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Senator Ryan. It is fascinating that in 1981, only a few years ago, Senator Ryan pontificated in this place about the great moral responsibility that faced the then Government in not resuming land in Queensland. I will quote from a few of Senator Ryan's better contributions to debate when she had no responsibility and when she was part of the Australian Labor Party's raising of Aboriginal expectations which have now been so grossly dashed. Her total failure to live up to her responsibility is simply evidenced by her scurrying out of the chamber now when she should be meeting her responsibilities as the Minister who is responsible for Aboriginal affairs in this Government. In 1981, Senator Ryan brought forward all sorts of arguments about the failure of the then Federal Government to carry out its constitutional responsibility to ensure fair and just conditions for Aboriginal Australians. That was her view in 1981. Let me quote Senator Ryan when she reminded the Senate that the Federal Government 'can secure land for Aboriginal people and this is the first and foremost obligation that it has'. She went on to talk about what ought to be done by the Government with respect to Queensland. She said: . . . and in the view of my party-the Australian Labor Party- that great friend to Aboriginals, I interpolate-- the Federal Government inarguably has the moral responsibility to do it. That was the high moral tone of Senator Susan 'runout' Ryan when she was not the Minister responsible. That is the position she adopted when she was the Opposition shadow Minister and that is not the position she adopts today. A few months later, in May 1982, good old Senator Ryan went on with the same sort of thing. She talked about this outstanding moral question. Senator Reynolds —I raise a point of order. I was under the impression that the matter of public importance to be debated related to the Government's Aboriginal Affairs policy. Senator Chaney is referring to Senator Ryan when she was in opposition. I would say that he is out of order. Senator Grimes —I support the point of order. I believe that Senator Reynolds has a point. If we are going to range as broadly as this, I think we should range over the matters in the Western Australian election when Senator Chaney's colleagues and relatives were sent up to prevent Aboriginals voting. Fair is fair. If we are going to throw around words like that, I think we should swap it around. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order. Senator Chaney's remarks are relevant to the debate. Senator CHANEY —Senator Reynolds has been chosen to speak in this debate for the simple reason that she, like all the other speakers, has been a member of the Senate since only 1983. The honourable senators to speak today were not party to the lies and misrepresentations that were made consistently by the Labor Party when in opposition to the Aboriginal people of Australia. Not one Government senator is game to enter this debate. They sat in the Opposition benches and told a series of lies to the Aboriginal people of Australia which are now quite apparent. Senator Colston —Mr Deputy President, I take a point of order. I can remember some years ago when an honourable senator was suspended from this place for quoting the word 'lies' from a newspaper. The current speaker has used this word twice. Through you, Mr Deputy President, I ask that the word be either withdrawn or that we get an undertaking that it will not be used in this chamber again. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I listened with care to the way in which Senator Chaney used the word. If it had been applied to an individual it would have been out of order. Applied to a party-there are previous rulings by this chamber on this-it is not out of order. Senator CHANEY —Just a couple of years ago, this was a great moral issue. There was a clear obligation and a clear ability on the part of the then Federal Government to take the land of Queensland. Honourable senators opposite have had two years in government. They know, as I know, that that was cant and nonsense and that it will not happen. Senator Reynolds —We believe in consensus. Senator CHANEY —We are now told that they believe in consensus. How far is that from the views which were put forward as the views of the Labor Party prior to its coming into government? In October 1982, Senator Ryan again brought into this Parliament a matter of public importance in the following terms: The continuing failure of the Federal Government to grant freehold title to Aboriginal and Islander people to their reserve lands in Queensland. What a laugh! The fact of the matter is that there has been more dishonesty in this area and more vote buying by the Labor Party on the basis of promises which will not be met than bears examination. I am not surprised that Senator Ryan scurried from this place so that she did not have to face the facts of her history. That brings me to one of the points of confusion in the present Government's policy. Senator Ryan's contribution, as the Acting Minister, has been to cut off the funds for the National Aboriginal Conference, a body which the Labor Party, when in opposition, supported as the spokesmen for the Aboriginal people and a body which it has now disbanded. It is a classic example of the confusion, the doubts and the uncertainties of Labor policies. When the Labor Party was elected to government only a couple of years ago it was a firm supporter of the National Aboriginal Conference. When the Labor Party was elected to government its first Budget increased expenditure for the National Aboriginal Conference by 87 per cent. In other words, it thought enough of the National Aboriginal Conference to want to increase its expenditure by nearly doubling it. I suppose the members of the NAC thought that was a clear indication that the pre-election words of the Labor Party meant something. I suppose they thought: 'This is putting value on us and giving us the resources that we need'. We find, of course, that two years later the National Aboriginal Conference is to be abolished. The Government doubles the NAC's Budget in year 1 and abolishes it in year 2. It is no wonder that the Aboriginal people are confused. It is no wonder the people of Australia wonder what the policies of this Government are in respect of Aboriginal matters. The matter is serious. I speak with some heat because I think it is serious. There is a growing disaffection among Aboriginals themselves and, critically, among the wider community. The fundamental, grievous error of this Government-the grievous error that will live with the Australian community for a long time-was the creation of expectations when in Opposition, expectations which cannot be met, and many of which should not be met. The reality is that the Australian Labor Party raised expectations and the Aboriginal people responded to those. In the process of doing so, the Aboriginal people have managed to offend and estrange many other sections of the community. It has been a disastrous situation. The burden of that is carried by the members of the present Government. We will be reaping the legacy of that for many years. Either it was irresponsibility on the part of the Labor Party or it was dishonesty, or it was both. The record of the Australian Labor Party in opposition is consistently that. It is a record of going too far, of promising what will not be achieved and what cannot be delivered. This policy has been most evident and most damaging in the area of land rights. The NAC is a very good example. The NAC is subject to very severe criticism. In recent times it has been severely criticised by members of my own Party over the extraordinary maladministration exposed by the Auditor-General. This is no time to be defending the NAC. It is a discredited body and has no support in the community. However, I remind honourable senators opposite that if the NAC were being abolished by the Liberal Party that would bring forth a torrent of abuse on our heads. I also remind them that in the last two years they have been responsible for guiding the National Aboriginal Conference and working with it. I point out that that simply has not happened. I further remind them that when we were in government the NAC even met with the Cabinet. Certainly I and other Liberal Aboriginal Affairs Ministers spent many hours in consultation with that body, in a way which the present Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Holding) certainly has not. This Government made it quite clear that it was a great supporter of the National Aboriginal Conference. This is what it told the Aboriginal people in December 1983. Mr Holding said: On the great issues of policy I expect the NAC to advise me and I expect to be guided by that advice in the action I take or recommend to the Government. . . . It is not my intention to bring a package of national land rights legislation to this Parliament without the approval of the NAC and the support of Aboriginal people. My God, how things have changed since December 1983! If there ever is such a package, and part of my speech today is to say that I do not believe there ever will be, there will not be an NAC to approve it. As Galarrwuy Yunupingu made clear in his comments last week, such legislation certainly will not have the support of the Aboriginal people. What we see in the NAC is a sorry tale of neglect, a neglect of the Government's responsibilities to the point where it can now say that the NAC has abused its position and should be abolished. Mr Roger Shipton, the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, has detailed in a speech in the House of Representatives the complaints in the Auditor-General's report. I in no way seek to excuse the maladministration that has occurred. However, I do not blame the people elected to the NAC; I blame those people who are politically responsible and who should have provided guidance and assistance during periods of great difficulty. The damage that has been done by this Government's embrace of national land rights legislation is yet to be measured. It is very important to remember the line that was adopted by the previous Government and, of course, bitterly opposed by the Labor Party at that time. When we were elected to government we legislated for land rights in the Northern Territory, in accordance with the recommendations of the report of the Woodward Aboriginal Land Rights Commission. We took a consistent attitude that we were not to bring in national land rights legislation. I do not have time to explain all the reasons, but there were reasons that related to our view of federalism and there were constitutional and legal difficulties. I dread the day we get enmeshed in those, but they are clear for all to see. The administrative difficulties also would be very great in the face of State government opposition, and State government opposition there would be, from both Labor and Liberal State governments. Of course, there would also be an enormous cost. I note that in the brief period I was Minister for Administrative Services I sent to one of the Senate committees an estimate of the cost of moving in Queensland alone. In the letter dated 11 October 1978 I said that the Department's then estimate of the cost of moving on land rights, without taking the mineral rights in Queensland into account, would be $163m. I can see this Government undertaking a bill of some millions of dollars to legislate nationally in the current climate! I am not sure how it would affect the trilogy. I mention that because it is an illustration of just how facile, footling and foolish the pre-election words of the Labor Party were. Our position was consistent. We had a view on the range of things that needed to be done to assist the Aboriginal people. We moved to meet our direct responsibilities in the Northern Territory and we worked with the States rather than seeking to take the matter out of their hands. We did that under the severest criticism from the Labor Party. It is also important to remember, because the Labor Party never remembered this and made life very difficult for us, that the Woodward report made it clear that the first land rights legislation would be unique and therefore would need review and possibly change. From my own Ministry onwards Liberal Ministers worked to secure changes to the Northern Territory legislation, and were always bitterly opposed in that by the Labor Party. Consistently during the periods of Liberal Government the Labor Party bitterly opposed alterations to the land rights legislation-changes which were clearly needed in the Northern Territory. We accepted the need for change, but the Labor Party did not. What is this Government's position? That really seems to depend on who is the audience. We find that back in October last year the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) when in Western Australia reaffirmed the Government's commitment to its constitutional responsibilities but said that in fulfilling those responsibilities the Government would acknowledge the particular needs of Western Australia. It is quite clear that if the Government is talking to a mining audience it will tell one story and if it is talking to an Aboriginal audience it will tell another story. Mr Holding has put forward his five principles, and since he is the Minister I suppose we can believe that he speaks on behalf of the Government. We still hear the Government asserting that Aboriginal land is to be held under inalienable freehold title, that there is to be protection of Aboriginal sites, that there is to be Aboriginal control in relation to mining on Aboriginal land, that there is to be access to mining royalty equivalents, and that compensation for lost land is to be negotiated. The fact is that no State's legislation meets these five requirements. Each State's legislation meets those requirements in part. The reality is that if the Government is to deliver on these five principles it will have to legislate nationally; it will have to take the matter out of the hands of the States. Uncertainty arises because I know of no one who has considered these matters carefully who believes that this Government will act. What we have been left with is a situation of complete uncertainty about what rights, if any, the Aboriginal people are to have through the actions of this Federal Government. I want it to be quite clear that it is the view of the Opposition that this matter should be dealt with in a federalist context. Primarily, matters of land and mining remain to be dealt with by the State governments. The fact is that, on paper, the Government is committed to something much more overreaching and much more severe in a constitutional and intrusive sense. I am saying that the Government by its actions, and by its delay, has shown that there is very considerable doubt about what, if anything, it will do. I had hoped that we might today get a clear statement from the Minister on whether the Labor Party platform, adopted only last year, was something the Government intended to enact into Federal legislation. I had hoped that Senator Susan Ryan, who is a no stranger to this matter, having been the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and having represented the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs for some years in this place, might be able to tell us whether there would be Federal legislation implementing the Holding principles. I had hoped that Senator Ryan might come in here and clarify some of this confusion and make it clear whether the preferred package of legislation of Mr Holding is to be enacted as Federal legislation. I say only that unless the Minister has had a change of heart-she has just reappeared in the chamber-we will be left with a few comments by back benchers which will not provide us with any significant guide as to what this Government is going to do. The Government has trotted out a bit of paper which is called the Holding preferred land rights model. I know of no one who prefers that model. I know of no Aboriginal person who supports it; I know of no State government that supports it; I know of no industry group that supports it; I know of no one else in the Labor Party who has expressed any great confidence in it. It seems to me that we have bits of paper, we have principles, we have platforms, we have preferred models and we have absolutely no knowledge of what is going to happen. I pose the question: What is going to be done? My answer is: Nothing. I ask that question because I believe that to answer it soon is important. It is all very well for Mr Holding to be hunting for support among the Navahos. That might be pleasant and it might inspire him to make comments which will cast further doubt and uncertainty in the Australian community and, in particular, in the mining community. That is his usual destructive contribution to these difficult issues. I want to know what this Government proposes to do. Let us have some certainty. The continuing doubt and the continuing uncertainty are sowing the sort of disaffection which is so damaging to the Aboriginal people and, indeed, to attitudes to Aboriginals in Australia. The last thing I want to say is another comment about the present Minister because it seems to me to represent the sort of totally thoughtless, unthinking and unfeeling approach which has been adopted by this Government to a matter which it put forward two years ago as a matter of high morality. Mr Holding for a long time subjected the Australian people to the spectacle of him negotiating with the traditional owners of Ayers Rock about the amount that they should get from entry fees. That is precisely the sort of inanity which has offended so many Australians. The sort of nonsense that Mr Holding has gone on with will badly damage Aboriginal people, not just for a year or two, but for a generation. I think it is time that this Government got its act together. It is time that it threw away the silly policies of the past. It is time that it acknowledged the existence of a federal Australia and it is time that it got back to the business of trying to help Aboriginal Australians. Senator REYNOLDS(Queensland)(3.22) —Government back benchers will be deeply offended by the remarks made by Senator Chaney, who suggested that Government back benchers do not have the expertise or interest to speak on Aboriginal Policy. I assure Senator Chaney-- Senator Chaney —Mr Deputy President, I take a point of order. My point of order is that there is no question of the honourable senator's right to speak as a back bencher. It is a question of her having no authority to commit the Government. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! That is not a point of order, Senator. If you claim to have been misrepresented you may deal with it at the end of the honourable senator's speech. Senator REYNOLDS —I would have thought that if Senator Chaney was genuine in his concern about Aboriginal policies in this country, if he was as genuine as he would like us to believe, having regard to some of the pious claims that he made during his speech, he, along with the shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, would be prepared to call a truce in regard to Aboriginal policy in this place. However, as usual we had cheap political point scoring at the expense of the most disadvantaged group of Australians. Just as the Opposition tried to seek political milage last year in regard to immigration policy when it knew that an election was coming up, so too we find that it believes that it can divide the Australian community by point scoring in regard to Aboriginal policy. The Government is neither confused nor uncertain about Aboriginal affairs policy. But it has set its sights high because the achievement of justice for this most disadvantaged group in Australian society is a priority for honourable senators on this side of the House, even if it is not a priority for those on the other side of the House. Of course, when one tries to bring about change and to redress injustices which have occurred over a considerable period-we are looking at 200 years, let alone the period when the Opposition had control of Aboriginal affairs-there will be problems along the way. There will be disagreements and a breakdown in communications. Aboriginal policy and the whole complex range of issues require a great deal of patience, a great deal of time and a great deal of care. This Government has acknowledged the Aboriginal people's prior ownership of Australia. We have acknowledged that they were dispossessed of their inheritance and we have acknowledged that some measure of compensation is now long overdue. By contrast, the former Government regarded Aboriginal people as being just another problem-another group of underprivileged people. Let there be no uncertainty or confusion about this Government's fundamental commitment to Aboriginal people and about the Opposition's ad hockery and lack of clear direction. Nowhere was that more evident than during the shameful betrayals at Aurukun and Mornington Island. I notice that Senator Chaney has left the chamber. That shows how concerned he is about Aboriginal policy. Senator Hill —There he is. Senator REYNOLDS —He is still here, but he is planning to leave the chamber. If he is so concerned about Aboriginal policy, I am not quite sure why he does not have the time to remain in the chamber for the entire period of the debate. In regard to Aboriginal affairs, who will ever forget the muddle, confusion and lack of decision-making during Mr Ian Wilson's term as Minister? Even though there were several land commissioners' reports which recommended grants of land in the Northern Territory, he delayed and delayed any decision. It fell to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Holding, on taking office to get on with that job. Some mention has been made of the Government's policies in regard to land rights. Unlike the Opposition, we recognise the fundamental importance of the land to Aboriginal people. We do not want any more Noonkanbahs. (Quorum formed) I was referring to the fact that the Government is seeking a consistent national approach to these issues. As is reasonable, the Minister has outlined a preferred model. But it is only a preferred model and discussions on it are proceeding. Those discussions will be held with all interested parties and everyone will have an opportunity to make his views known. There has also been mention and a great deal of criticism in the chamber this afternoon of the National Aboriginal Conference and a disgraceful attack on the NAC in the other place. Senator Chaney —You are abolishing it. Senator REYNOLDS —We are restructuring it. It appears that Senator Chaney is prepared to say in this place that the NAC is thoroughly discredited. That is how concerned he is about Aboriginal consultation. He dares to talk about Aboriginal policy, yet he can say that the NAC is a discredited organisation. Of course there have been some problems in regard to the Auditor-General's report. I think it would be most appropriate if Opposition members could keep that criticism in the Auditor-General's report in some sort of perspective. Anyone would think that never before had an Auditor-General's report been critical of the administration of various government departments or statutory authorities. Anyone would think it was the first time there had ever been an Auditor-General's report. Certainly, there were problems. Senator Lewis —Don't you think you should do something about it? Senator REYNOLDS —We have done something about it. It was our Minister who actually addressed the problem. Senator Lewis —Of course, because you are in government. That is what you are supposed to do. Senator REYNOLDS —Yes, exactly. I find it extraordinary that Senator Chaney, someone who wants consultation with the Aboriginal people, can say in this place that the NAC is thoroughly discredited. I refer to a Press release by Mr Rob Riley on the announcement by the Minister that the NAC would wind down its operations pending restructuring and the formation of a new body for consultation processes. The Press release stated: National Aboriginal Conference Chairman Rob Riley has welcomed the announcement by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs that the NAC will cease operations on June 30. It went on: Mr Riley said the NAC may not have performed as well as expected . . .. That statement could be made about any government department or statutory authority in this country at this time by Aborigines or, as expected, by government. The Press release continued: . . . but it had bequeathed a strong political awareness to Aborigines. 'It has provided us with invaluable political insights, experience and knowledge that will greatly assist our activities in the future'. He said successive Federal governments-- I emphasise, successive Federal governments- I had to accept a major share of the blame for the fact that the NAC had not performed well on a national basis. I remind Senator Chaney that the blame lies not just with this Government but with successive Federal governments. The NAC was created as a window dressing. Who was responsible for its creation? It was Senator Chaney's Government. The Press release continued: 'The NAC was created as window-dressing to placate critics of Australia's treatment of Aboriginal people. Quite deliberately it was never provided with the funding or the recognition needed to ensure it operated effectively and efficiently'. Mr Riley said the important issue remaining for the NAC was to ensure that the body that replaced it enjoyed the respect and status worthy of any organisation that represented the political interests of the Aboriginal people. Further, Mr Holding has spent many hours with the NAC in consultations on a wide variety of issues. Only yesterday the Government policy committee met with New South Wales members of the NAC, and we will be meeting with the NAC itself on Friday. I believe that the criticism that this Government has not done its very best to work with the NAC is totally unfounded. The Government is planning now to assist in the restructuring so that there is adequate consultation with Aboriginal people. I move on to land rights policy, about which Senator Chaney seemed to be very concerned in his speech. The headline to an article in the Australian Financial Review this week highlights the attitude of many people in this community to the current land rights debate. It says: 'Progress in Land Rights Debate: All Sides Display Conciliatory Attitude'. That is all sides, I would argue, except the Opposition, because the Opposition is interested only in gaining cheap political mileage. I wish now to state, as requested by Senator Chaney, precisely what the Government land rights policy is. It has been stated before but, as he seems to be a slow learner, I will state it again. The Government has a fundamental commitment to securing land rights justice for Aboriginal Australians. It has been working towards achieving national Aboriginal land rights since coming to office. On 20 February 1985 the Minister released a paper outlining proposals which the Commonwealth has advanced to form the basis of national Aboriginal land rights legislation. The proposals have been advanced as a preferred basis for the purpose of consultation. They are not a final outline of Commonwealth legislation. We do not believe in not consulting people, which is something in which the Opposition seems to indulge on many occasions. Since coming to office in 1983 the Government has been consulting widely about land rights legislation. It established a steering committee comprising representatives of Aboriginal organisations to advise the Minister on Aboriginal views and aspirations. Discussions have also taken place with State and Territory governments, and with mining, rural, church and other groups with a special interest. The Commonwealth model has taken full account of the very many differing views and positions put to us over the last two years by a wide range of interested groups, including Aboriginal groups, throughout Australia. I notice that Senator Chaney, who was so keen to hear precisely what the Government's land rights policy is, has now in fact left the chamber. Senator Chaney — I'm still here. Senator REYNOLDS —Oh no, he has not; he is still there. The Government is fully aware of the diverse interests and concerns which need to be taken into account. It was with this very much in mind and in recognition of the need to develop legislation which is equitable and balanced that the preferred model was released for consideration and comment. We make no apology for this. The Government is concerned to ensure that groups and individuals with a particular interest or contribution to make should have the opportunity to respond to specific proposals before we move on to develop legislation. That process of consultation is now well advanced. The Minister has met with his counterparts in the Northern Territory and States other than Queensland and Tasmania. The objective in discussions with the States is to identify any inconsistencies in approach with a view to resolving possible areas of conflict amicably. Very useful discussions have been held with church groups. Consultations are taking place with mining and rural industry representatives on a constructive basis. Aboriginal views are being sought and a wide range of views is being received from groups and individuals. A number of major submissions are expected shortly and the Minister will then be moving to develop proposals for legislation which have full regard for the range of views and suggestions. The Minister's objective is the introduction of legislation in the Budget sittings this year. I shall now detail some other relevant points relating to the Government's land rights policy. In regard to Aboriginal control in relation to mining, the Government has taken the position that no one group within the community should have the right of veto over the development of national resources. The Commonwealth's proposals entail a procedure whereby owners of Aboriginal land may, if they so choose, object to exploration and subsequent mining of their land and whereby they have the right to have those objections heard by an independent tribunal. The tribunal, in its consideration of whether exploration should take place on Aboriginal land, would be specifically required to have regard to the wishes or objections of Aboriginal land holders as well as the likely impact of mining or exploration on the community concerned. The tribunal, in making its recommendations on terms and conditions for mining, would be required to have regard to the need to minimise the impact on the way of life and traditions of the Aboriginal land holders in any Aboriginal community which might be affected by the Mining activity. The tribunal, having objectively considered the various points of view put forward by the parties concerned, will then make recommendations to the relevant government. It will be the government which will decide which terms will apply. Similarly, if the terms and conditions under which exploration and mining are to proceed on Aboriginal land become subject to dispute, the tribunal will make recommendations to the government. The right to object is exercised at the point when the proposals are made and before any intrusion has occurred. I now turn to the powers of the tribunal. Under the Pitjantjatjara Land Rights Act, the tribunal has determinative powers, that is, rather than making recommendations to the Government, as the Commonwealth model would provide, the South Australian model binds all parties including the Crown to the decision of the tribunal. We are talking about decisions which relate to the questions of whether or not and under what conditions national resources will be developed and exploited-national resources owned by the Australian community. These are issues of public interest and as such should be decided upon by those who are ultimately accountable to the public, that is, the politicians. Just as with the procedures set down under the Northern Territory land rights legislation by which land claims are heard and assessed by a judical tribunal and then determined by the Commonwealth Government, so too, will questions in relation to mining on Aboriginal land be the subject of examination by an objective and independent tribunal making recommendations to government. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(3.41) — After listening to speakers so far in the debate today, it is no wonder that Aboriginal people say that while Aboriginal law goes straight white law moves like a snake. Undoubtedly the Australian Labor Party Government is proposing to sell out the Aboriginal people on national land rights. On 8 December 1983, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Holding, moved a motion in the House of Representatives and said: The motion before the House identifies the major areas of policy we have pursued and will pursue. The first is land rights. The motion sets down five principles which will guide us in this important matter. I repeat them here as they appear in the motion before the House: (i) Aboriginal land to be held under inalienable freehold title; (ii) protection of Aboriginal sites; (iii) Aboriginal control in relation to mining on Aboriginal land; (iv) access to mining royalty equivalents; (v) compensation for lost land to be negotiated. That was on 8 December 1983. On 19 October 1984 a Press release from the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said in crowing terms that the Australian Labor Party Government would certainly not permit any veto over mining or exploration. This is the exact opposite of what it said the year before when it went to the people. The Press release also said that there was no intention to introduce Federal legislation that would over-ride Western Australia's decision 'to ensure that any mechanism to resolve access disputes would not constitute a de facto veto'. What do we find on 20 February 1985? We find in the preferred national land rights model released then that the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, which was upheld for so long during the time the Government was in opposition, is to be amended, consistent with the Commonwealth preferred model. What do we find in the Commonwealth preferred model? At paragraph 9.2, we find: 'There is to be no veto over exploration or mining on Aboriginal land'. It is no wonder that the Aboriginal people have produced an advertisement, authorised by both the Northern Land Council and the Central Land Council, which reads as follows: In 1985, Aboriginal Land Rights in Australia are under threat from the Hawke Labor Government. The Aboriginal Affairs Minister Clyde Holding, says he will introduce uniform national land rights legislation this year. In its present form this model has been rejected by Aboriginal people. It might be interesting to hear what other speakers have to say on this issue. The advertisement continues: He has failed to consult Aboriginal people-- This is the Aboriginal people speaking, not me-- and the new law would destroy the very basis of the original Commonwealth Land Rights Act. Where Land Rights exist in Australia a new wave of cultural re-generation has been made possible. If the proposals become law, Aboriginal life and existence throughout Australia will come under increasing attack. Aboriginal people from all over Australia will be in Canberra on May 13 to protest. Join them and speak up for Land Rights! Yet Government speakers have stood up and said that they have the support of Aboriginal people and that the Labor Party has not changed its policy. Perhaps they should try telling the Aboriginal people that. The advertisement raises two issues which I think are central to the case we are talking about. The first is that Aboriginal land rights do not and will not threaten one centimetre of privately owned land anywhere in Australia. This is contrary to the type of proposition which is spread about by so many people, including politicians in the National Party, the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party. The second issue is this: Where Aboriginal people have won back land through existing laws; there is more opportunity to enter or travel through this land than any other privately owned land . . . The point must always be that we are talking about Aboriginal land rights in terms of justice, not in terms of charity and hand outs; we are talking about the moral basis by which all land is held in this country. The basis of any free enterprise society is private property. All the major religions base the moral claim and right to property on prior ownership and first occupancy. If anybody would like me to quote what all the major religions in Australia have to say about this subject I would be happy to do so, and I am able to give up to date quotes at that. It is interesting to establish where the moral claim for land actually come from. I am able to quote, for example, from a recent papal document which points out that the moral basis for claim has rested on the argument of first occupancy or prior ownership. We are not talking about charity; we are in fact talking about who actually owns the land. At some stage or another perhaps some politicians in this place will have the guts to stand by what they actually believe and not by what their parties are preaching. To identify the moral basis for just land rights in Australia is to identify the moral claim which is the basis of our society as well; that is, if the land is held by a citizen of this country and that citizen has title to that land, the land cannot be taken from him. Unlike what we have heard in the unscrupulous, muck-raking campaign of the mining companies in Western Australia, all Australians have equal rights to land. The central underpinning of any society such as our's must be the moral ownership of and claim to land. Yet, plenty of people are quite happy to go around and argue that the traditional tribal owners of land in this country-the people who have continued to reside in their traditional lands, who have discharged their spiritual obligations to those lands and who have never moved from those lands-do not to own it and do not to have any claim or right to it. We are told that if they dare to assert that they have a right they will be disturbing matters and may raise racial problems in this country. If that is the way in which racial problems are going to be raised in this country, so be it. If we do not assert, and assert strongly, that moral claim of Aboriginals we may as well give away the rest of the type of moral humbug that seems to go on so much in this area. We are not facing a new problem. Recently I came across a letter which was written by a group of Catholic bishops in Australia in 1869 which said: We have dispossessed the aboriginals of the soil . . . In natural justice, then, we are held to compensation . . . It is shocking to think of what has, in fact been done. With very little, with short-lived exception, injustice, neglect, cruelty, and, a million times worse, the actual teaching of vice, have branded the annals of white men. The stain of blood is upon us-blood has been shed for otherwise than in self-defence-blood in needless and wanton cruelty. It is said, even now, that as Europeans progress northwards, blood is so shed. We all know that. In fact, last week I had the honour to meet one of the traditional owners of Uluru and I discussed with him the murder of his uncle on the rock. Deeply embedded in many Aboriginals is not a story about cruelty but actual experiences of cruelty and murder. Yet it is expected that such people should listen to the slithering of the snakes in terms of white law as the Australian Labor Party moves again from its base. That is what the Aboriginals say. They sit on their soil and say yet again: 'These people came to us and said something, and now what do they do? They change it. Why should we trust any of them?' What is one expected to say to that? It was said to me last week and I had no answer because there is no answer. Why should they trust anyone and, particularly, why should they trust a group of people who held out so much and who dashed the hopes of Aboriginals so wantonly? When one looks at what is going on now and at what has occurred in the past, one wonders whether justice will ever be achieved in this area in this country because we have already moving in political parties-in the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party-groups which will deny that very basis, that very item which we must uphold. In many ways it is difficult to speak on behalf of other groups of people. I certainly do not seek to do so and I think it would be presumptuous of me to do so. But when we compare our attachment to this country and how dearly we hold it and then actually try to respect and understand the way in which Aboriginal people also think about this country and how they hold it, we ought to be able to recognise in some way why the Aboriginal people are so attached to this land. Their attachment goes beyond that mere national attachment of drawing artifical boundaries in the European style. They have a sacred responsibility to the land, not an ownership in the sense that we have ownership, but a sense of ownership which has responsibility. When I was at Uluru last week I did not meet with the people who owned the rock, but the people who have the responsibility for the rock. I wish we could actually get through our heads the extraordinary responsibility that they felt as they sat there with tears in their eyes pouring the dust through their hands and saying: 'Our law is growing weaker and weaker'. For held out to them by the Labor Party was hope, and the Labor Party now presumes, in its wisdom, to dash the hope that was held out. I finish by quoting something that Clyde Holding quoted. I hope he remembers it. It is from a white author, Xavier Herbert, who said: Until we give back to the black man just a bit of the land that was his and give it back without provisos, without strings to snatch it back, without anything but complete generosity of spirit in concession for the evil we have done him-until we do that, we shall remain what we have always been so far, a people without integrity; not a nation but a community of thieves. (Quorum formed) Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(3.57) —No wonder Senator Ryan did not lead for the Government in this debate. The Government's record is too embarrassing and Senator Ryan's record is too embarrassing to bear to have us consider it. She is not just the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Holding) in this chamber. She is at this moment the Acting Minister. She is the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs pro tem for the Government right now. A motion has been moved in this chamber about the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, and the Minister at the moment-Senator Susan Ryan-has not had the courage, the ability or the willingness to come in here and defend the record of her Government. I think she has not come in to the chamber because she cannot defend the record of the Government. We have a series of outstanding advisers-the Deputy Secretary to the Department, Mr Jacka, Mr Brownbill, Mr Hand and Mr Miller-sitting there with no front bencher to advise. Having worked with these officers, I would say that they are officers as good as I would find anywhere in the Public Service, and they deserve better. The Department deserves better than the very weak defence we have seen presented so far by Senator Reynolds, who simply read a series of briefs and did not answer the questions at all. Senator Ryan came into the Senate on 3 December 1980-none of the Labor people who are to speak in the debate were even in the Senate at that time-and, in one of her many speeches on Aboriginal affairs, moved a motion which included, inter alia . . . the need for the Fraser Government to take all legislative steps necessary to eliminate discriminatory practices against Aboriginals by the Western Australian and Queensland State Governments. That is what she demanded in 1980 when she was in opposition. Further, when she was in Opposition she had no hesitation in presenting to the Senate a Bill drafted and promoted by her. Mr Brownbill sitting in the adviser's box had to help me understand what in hell it was about. She had the Bill ready then when she was in opposition. The Bill obviously met her satisfaction. She was not calling then for extensive consultations. She wanted a Bill passed right then and there. In fact it was passed in this chamber and went to the other House. Labor came into government and, two years later, where is the legislation that was so urgent in 1982? There has been not a word, not a bit of legislation. What the Labor Party said when in opposition is not what it is prepared to do when in government. The Labor Party was very big on having Labor Party interests print thousands of slogans saying: 'Land rights now'. Labor people handed out those bits of paper and stickers to many Aboriginal groups and supporters around Australia. The slogan was 'Land rights now', but they should have printed in brackets: 'While we are in opposition'. When the Labor party comes into government, where is its action? Where is the action to back up the kind of rhetoric with which it went to the Australian people? There has not been any action because these people are not all about action. They are all about wheedling votes out of people and then not delivering when it comes to the point. This debate is about confusion and uncertainty. It is not about the intentions of the Government. The saying goes that good intentions butter no parsnips. Honourable senators opposite should not tell us what they intend to do. They have had two years to do something and their record is abysmal. Their record has disgusted Aboriginal people around Australia. Their record has saddened them. It is no good the Government telling us that it intends to do this and it will have consultations on that. What has it been doing for two years? I will tell the Senate what the Government has been doing. It has been breaking the hearts of Aboriginal communities, who actually expected it to deliver on some of the things it promised. This debate is about uncertainty and confusion in the Government's handling of the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio. It is a debate in which the Minister for the moment will not even take part because the record is indefensible. The confusion and the uncertainty mean that the Aboriginal people of Australia are not getting a fair go. At the end of the day that is what is wrong-they are not getting fair treatment. Senator Elstob —They didn't get a fair go when you were in. Senator PETER BAUME —I say to Senator Elstob that the Aboriginal people actually got legislation, they got a fair go, when I was Minister. I am saddened that the Aboriginal people I knew are coming to me now and saying that they have been betrayed. The Minister, Mr Holding, who is out of the country during the crisis that is going on, makes big statements while he is overseas but he does not deliver while he is at home. I quote from today's Sydney Morning Herald a statement which purports to come from Yellowknife in Canada. These are the words attributed to the Minister: I'm just going to find that the level of racist nonsense here which denies all rights to indigenous people, denies the social statistics-and makes the kind of glib assertion that all you need to do is provide money for housing, education and health and everything will be all right . . . The Minister is correct in what he says in Yellowknife. Just telling us how much money the Government has provided is not enough. This matter is not just about money. It is about actually helping Aboriginal people. It is about the Government keeping its promises, because Aboriginal people today feel betrayed. How do I know? I know because they are telling me that they feel let down. Only yesterday I, like Senator Reynolds, met a delegation of my friends who were the National Aboriginal Conference members for New South Wales-people I have known for years. They told me in words of one syllable that they did not trust Mr Holding. Mr Holding has let them down. Mr Holding will not listen to them. His form of consultation is to sit with them, fidget, look at the clock, and then tell them what he has decided. The Aboriginal people's trust in government has been eroded, after it was so carefully nurtured during the period when the Labor Party was in opposition. Now that the Labor Party has to deliver, it cannot do so. I remind all the Labor senators who will take part in this debate that Mr Robert Riley, the Chairman of the National Aboriginal Conference, on 21 February this year went on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation AM program and had a number of things to say about the Government's land rights proposals. He was asked about the previous Government and this is what he had to say: The record of the Liberal Government is there to be seen. It has got legislation in the Northern Territory. There is legislation that applies in South Australia. I interpolate that that was also introduced by a Liberal Government- The only piece of legislation the Labor Party can stand by is the Interim Heritage Act and I don't think too many aboriginal people think too positively about that. Malcolm Fraser has got the record there and Bob Hawke has not. Those are the words of Mr Bob Riley, and they are correct. That is true. Of course, it is also true that the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act is due for review, revision and change; but what Mr Riley says is correct. We actually had legislation passed. Our Liberal colleagues passed that Pitjantjatjara land rights Act in South Australia. The Government has simply betrayed, let down, confused the people who have come to it for trust. It simply is not good enough. Of course, Senator Ryan when in opposition was very ready to intervene. She was determined that her private member's Bill for national land rights legislation should be debated because it was urgent. She was very insistent that it went through the Senate. The Acting Minister at the moment will not even take part in this debate because of her record and her Government's record, which is so abysmal and disappointing. The uncertainty has been caused because the Labor Party does not match rhetoric with its action, to the detriment of the Aboriginal people, who are the most depressed, disadvantaged and in greatest need of any group in our society. The Minister does not, perhaps cannot, consult, even when he has promised so to do, and the Minister does not communicate. I say again that perhaps he cannot communicate. Whatever the reason, Aboriginal people are saying he does not communicate and does not consult. There is confusion because the Party speaks with many voices, not with just one voice. It has many conflicting messages. As my Leader said, depending upon who the audience is, so the message will be received. The Labor Party is saying different things. I want to talk about the land rights legislation for one moment. We hear from Premier Burke in Western Australia one message. We hear from the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the Commonwealth Parliament a different message. We hear from the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) yet a different message. We hear from the left wing, through Mr Tickner and Mr Hand, another message again. We hear all these different messages about what the Government will or will not do. Aboriginal people are confused, and so they should be. The rhetoric does not match the action, and certainly this applies to the land rights situation. I ask people to contrast in their minds the very firm position taken by the Labor Party at its policy-making conference. There was absolutely no doubt what it was saying at the conference on what should be done about land rights. It is irrelevant whether I agree with that. I remind people of what Mr Hawke said before the election when he was asked to comment. He was in Perth during the election campaign, and in Perth the subject of land rights was sensitive. So Mr Hawke said: . . . you could 'get a commonality of principles in Australia without having Federal Legislation going over the top of State Legislation which meets these principles'. How very convenient. That was a very convenient statement to make in a State where that was the right thing to say, regardless of whether it matched up with what the Labor conference had said, whether it matched up with what the Minister was saying, and whether it matched up with what was going to happen after the election. What has been the reaction of Aboriginal people following the announcements, when they saw what the Government proposed, when they saw the way in which Mr Burke and Mr Holding argued? When the Government put out its preferred model, Mr Rob Riley, again on the ABC AM program on 21 February, said: The some rights don't add up to what was promised and what is expected of this Government. This Government came to power as a government to reform and change. But it really has not done that. He continued: This Government has proven time and time again that it will listen to public opinion before it will develop anything politically. He was very sad because this meant that the Aboriginal people were likely to lose out. What is so tragic is that the preferred model put up by Mr Holding for land rights is a weaker package than that which the Liberal Government enacted in 1976 for the Northern Territory. The Fraser Government's Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act, which I and many of my colleagues voted for, which we supported and which I as Minister administered, is a stronger Act than the preferred model the Labor Party is putting up. How does that match with the rhetoric of the Government? Senator Lewis —And we were criticised at the time. Senator PETER BAUME —We were criticised, but we have the record, and Labor has caused confusion and uncertainty everywhere. The confusion and uncertainty have been added to by other things, such as broken promises on health. No action has been taken on the promise to examine Queensland's health provision. There has been no provision of the promised extra funds for trachoma programs. There has been no action to increase the collection of health statistics, as promised, and no action to increase the provision for the Aboriginal public health improvement program, as promised. There has been no delivery yet of the promise made in Derby in July 1985 by Mr Perkins that water and sewerage would be provided to all communities in the Kimberley by June 1986. Aboriginals have the greatest needs of any group in Australia. The report of the Borrie National Population Inquiry put the matter as well as anyone could when it said of Aborigines in 1975: They probably have the highest growth rate, the highest birth rate, the highest death rate, the worst health and housing and the lowest educational, occupational, economic, social and legal status of any identifiable section of the Australian population. For God's sake, if the Government is to make promises to the Aboriginal people, it should deliver. If it promises to consult, for goodness sake let it consult. It is the satisfaction of these needs which requires a government of sensitivity, care, patience and skill. This Government has exhibited none of those things. There is confusion and uncertainty and the Hawke Government should be condemned for what it has failed to deliver. Senator ZAKHAROV(Victoria)(4.12) —I would like first to respond to some statements made by previous speakers. This debate seems to be turning into an occasion for attacking a Minister, rather than for coming to terms with the matter of public importance as stated. I maintain that there is no need for a Minister to be involved in this debate. We are talking about the policy of a government whose back benchers are all members and whose back benchers are all far more active than was the case when the present Opposition was in government. We are also talking about the policy of the Australian Labor Party. The policy of the Australian Labor Party is developed in a democratic process which includes, incidentally, its Aboriginal members. The policy is endorsed by the national conference, which again is elected from the grass roots of the Party. All matters of party policy are debated fully at all levels. It is not policy on the run as we have seen in previous coalition governments. Therefore, when we are talking about the policies of the Party, I maintain that it is very relevant-particularly when the relevant Minister is not present, because he is not a member of this House-that back benchers who are involved in discussing these policies and in the Caucus committee which has had many consultations on all these matters, including a number with Aboriginal groups and individuals, should have a say on this matter. I deal now with some of the particular points made by Opposition speakers. The Leader of the Opposition, Senator Chaney, talked about cutting off funds of the National Aboriginal Conference. Funds have not been cut off, as he alleged. Funding is continuing during the changeover period. Nor has that Conference been disbanded in the usual sense of something being disbanded and nothing taking its place. I find the attitude particularly of Senator Peter Baume but also of other Opposition speakers hypocritical in the extreme. I have been for the last two years a member of the Estimates committee which has been concerned with Aboriginal Affairs and have heard continuous attacks made by Opposition members particularly in denigration of the National Aboriginal Conference and its members. The Conference is not being disbanded in the true sense. It is being reviewed and a decision has been made to re-establish it as a body more relevant to Aboriginal social structures and methods of decision-making than was the NAC, which was based on the Westminster-type model. These consultations are being led by Lois O'Donoghue, who has been held in such esteem in the general Australian community that this year she was made Australian of the Year. She is consulting and negotiating with the Aboriginal community to develop that new structure, which I am sure will be far more relevant to Aboriginal need and Aboriginal ways of consulting. Senator Chaney said he hoped the Labor Party platform would be enacted. There is a good deal of misunderstanding about the Labor Party platform, perhaps because other parties do not have similar platforms-that is to say, any of the other parties represented in this place. The Labor Party platform is a long range plan, and I am sure that Senator Chaney and other honourable senators on the Opposition benches would be horrified if we moved to implement that whole platform at once. In fact, I think they should look at that platform to see what our long range plans are in a number of other areas. I think they would be most unhappy if we were to move to implement all those plans at once. That would apply in a practical sense as well as in a policy sense. Unlike the Opposition parties, that policy has been developed by a democratic process and is publicly available. The conference itself, which is the decision-making body, is held in public and anyone who can get in can attend and listen to how the policy is developed. That policy will be implemented. Much progress has already been made, and I shall return to that matter. But we will go about it in the right way and in full consultation with those people in the Aboriginal community and in the general community who are affected by it. Senator Peter Baume said he did not believe that Aboriginal people were getting a fair go. I wonder what sort of a fair go they got under the previous coalition Government, which made no attempt to grasp the nettle of the land rights issue, or even to take very much action to protect sacred sites. The Opposition needs to look at its own record when it was in government, and I am sure that all Aboriginal people remember Noonkanbah. As a member of the previous Aboriginal affairs Caucus committee I was present at many discussions with Aboriginal groups in the presence of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Holding). Senator Baume's description was to my mind far from the truth. I also know that the Minister has travelled very widely to places that are difficult to get to, under difficult conditions, and he has been prepared to sit down to talk to Aborigines in those places. I know he is not the first Minister to do this; I know there have been other Ministers who have done so. But one cannot claim that consultation has not taken place. I also know that at times it has been the Aboriginal groups which have withdrawn from consultation. That is their right and I can understand why that action was taken, but one cannot withdraw and then claim that one has not been consulted. Returning to the topic of the matter of public importance, which relates to the alleged confusion and uncertainty of the Government's Aboriginal affairs policy, I completely reject that proposition. The Aboriginal affairs policy of the Government is firmly based on the ALP's platform and it is clear. There may be confusion and uncertainty in the public perception of the Government's policy, but that is not the fault of this present Government. A number of factors are involved. One is that Aboriginal affairs became a Federal matter only in comparatively recent years, and is still bedevilled by the lack of co-operation of some of the States, notably Queensland, as previous Ministers have also experienced. This policy is developing in the practical application of principles and has to be co-ordinated with all the other departments involved, such as Health, Housing and Education, which have been concerned with matters affecting Aborigines as a group or groups over the years. There are problems of consultation with Aboriginal communities in remote areas and with Aborigines who lead itinerant lives in either rural or urban areas. Only comparatively recently has there been a realisation by the Australian community in general, and even by governments, that Aboriginal social structures are very different from those of the white community and that new ways of negotiating have had to be developed to cope with those differences. There is a further problem-I think a very important one-for which some Opposition senators at least bear a great deal of responsibility; that is, the deliberate misinformation which has been spread in years gone by, and at present, by many groups in the community but most recently by organisations such as the League of Rights and its many pseudonyms, one of which is something like the Electors League which I had some dealing with in Victoria, and by individuals such as Hugh Morgan who are able to get media publicity for their views and their misinformation very readily because of the public positions they hold. I had an interesting experience in north-east Victoria last year when travelling around showing an excellent film about Aboriginal women called Lousy Little Sixpence. Because I was in an area where the League of Rights is very strong a number of these people attended the meetings. I was appalled by their attitude towards Aboriginal people and by their misinformation. Even when it was pointed out in print that their information was wrong, they continued to hold their views and to propagate them. In that case there was an effect on local councils who again believed what they were told, in the absence probably of proper Press servicing of those areas, and mounted a campaign against both the State and Federal moves on land rights, again on the basis of total misinformation. I hope that Opposition senators who may have associations with the League of Rights, or whose parties have, will feel an obligation to exert whatever influence they can to prevent the dissemination of such false information, which is causing unnecessary ill-feeling and division, particularly in some rural areas. This misinformation gets a ready ear because, of course, governments over the last 80 years have failed to meet their responsibilities to the Aboriginal people. I would now like to spell out some aspects of the present Government's policy to show that this Government, far from being confused and uncertain, has moved in a purposeful and consistent way to implement its stated policies. Senator Baume said that he wanted action. Here are some examples of that action. I refer first to education, which is very close to my heart. Aboriginal education comes primarily within the ambit of the Education Department, and I would like to point to progress made in that area by the present Labor Government. I cite such things as the National Aboriginal Education Committee which has been established as the principal adviser on Aboriginal education. Increasing resources are being supplied to this Committee. For the first time Aborigines have been appointed to major Commonwealth education agencies-Ms Pat O'Shane to the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, Mr Paul Hughes to the Commonwealth Schools Commission and the Curriculum Development Centre, and Mr Eric Law to the Technical and Further Education Council. Increased resources have been provided in many areas of Aboriginal education. There has been continued support for special schemes of student assistance to encourage greater participation by Aboriginal students in secondary education. I have had personal experience of that scheme in a city school and I can imagine the very great benefits it must have, particularly in rural areas. The Aboriginal study grants scheme provides support for Aboriginals undertaking study after leaving school. This support, and the rate of allowance have been increased by the present Government. On top of the 100 awards already made to Aboriginal students for teacher training, a further 100 awards will be made this year towards our target of 1,000 fully trained Aboriginal teachers in the classroom by 1990. There have been additional measures for participation by Aboriginals in tertiary education. Funds have been provided for 200 additional places for Aborigines in higher education award courses in each year of the triennium. In addition, $1.159m has been specifically targeted for Aboriginal programs in the participation and equity program at school and TAFE levels. Capital grants for Aboriginal education programs through the Commonwealth Schools Commission amount to about $8m this year. Under the direct responsibility of the Aboriginal Affairs Department this Government has provided funds for the first time for two more Aboriginal independent schools, Yipiringa in Alice Springs and Worawa in Victoria. Expenditure on education within the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio has increased by 11.26 per cent over the previous year. Health has been an area of great neglect in the past. I do not have the time to go through that, but I would like to refer to the trachoma program, which is continuing. More importantly, the trachoma program covers only one aspect of Aboriginal health care. It is hoped that, with the establishment of further health facilities in areas of high trachoma incidence, the addition of better general health facilities will not only prevent and treat trachoma but also will prevent a number of other diseases to which people are prone and disabilities such as malnutrition. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator KILGARIFF(Northern Territory)(4.27) —The matter of public importance submitted to the Senate for debate by Senator Chaney is: The confusion and uncertainty of the Government's Aboriginal affairs policy. I believe that Senator Chaney and Senator Baume, two previous Ministers for Aboriginal Affairs, have put the present situation firmly and fairly. But this is a most unusual debate because we have in the Senate the Acting Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Senator Ryan. Because Mr Holding, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, is in Canada, she is Acting Minister, but she is not participating in the debate despite the fact that two previous Ministers for Aboriginal Affairs have joined in the issue. While Senator Ryan is in the Senate for the debate but not participating, she is advising the various speakers on the Government side. I think this is a most unusual situation and the Opposition has very good reason to ask why Senator Ryan has not joined in the debate to speak on behalf of the Federal Government. Senator Ryan —You can stop showing off now; the audience has gone. Senator KILGARIFF —At least she can interject, even if she has not the courage to stand on her feet and join the debate. We are talking of confusion and uncertainty. I put it to the Senate that the speeches of Senators Reynolds and Zakharov excused the action which has been taken against the National Aboriginal Conference. Senator Reynolds talked about keeping the matter in perspective. Senator Zakharov talked about the NAC being restructured. No such thing has happened. The Government has disbanded the NAC. The Opposition, the Aboriginal people and other people of the nation want to know what sort of organisation is going to take its place. It has been disbanded; it is not being restructured. What has Mr Holding in mind for both the Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people of Australia? We have indicated our concern by asking questions of the Government-these can be seen in Hansard-about its intentions. We want to know, for instance whether it is the Government's intention to give the traditional owners, the people of the outback, a say in their own affairs. I do not speak on their behalf because they are capable of speaking on their own behalf. They say to me: 'Why is it that we cannot participate in speaking to the Government?' This is one of the things we would like to know. In this make-up of the new organisation, are the old people, the traditional owners whom one finds in the outback, going to be able to participate? The Government has offered nothing but confusion and a lack of direction to the Aboriginal people. As speculation mounts as to what the Government may decide to do next, the wider community is becoming increasingly anxious about the Government's land rights legislation. What does the Government intend to do? Conflicting Government statements have done nothing to allay the fears of many people that the national land rights legislation which is proposed by the Federal Government may result in the racial tensions and disharmony which are occuring in the Northern Territory as a result of the legislation which is now in place. As I have said on so many occasions, the problem there is that the package of amendments discussed in conferences over many months between the previous Government, Land Councils, the Aboriginal people and the Northern Territory was ready to go but it was white-anted; it was blown up. This package of amendments would have brought about harmony in the Northern Territory, not the disharmony that we see now. So we are asking: What are the Government's intentions? While the Government has been unable to make clear its intentions on national land rights legislation we have all heard about Clyde Holding's five principles. Senator Ryan has consistently thrown them at me whenever I have asked a question on Aboriginal Affairs in this chamber, whether they answered my question or not. Let us look at the five principles that have been thrust at me: Firstly, Aboriginal land should be held under inalienable freehold title; secondly, sacred sites should be protected; thirdly, Aborigines should control mining on their land; fourthly, Aborigines should have access to mining royalties; and, fifthly, compensation should be paid for lost land. There are certain problems, I would suggest, in debating the merits of these principles, not the least of which is that we do not really know whether they represent the policy of the Government. No doubt they represent the policy intentions of Senator Ryan and Mr Holding, but from all the statements that we have seen in the last few months, I suggest that they are not the policy of the Federal Government. There is obvious disagreement within the Government as to the direction in which Aboriginal land rights will proceed. Let us look at the contradictions. This statement of the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 24 October last year: The general position of the Government is that we don't believe that the right of veto is an integral part of having effective, fair and efficient land rights legislation. This directly contradicts Mr Holding's plans for right of veto over mining on Aboriginal land. The Government's approach has been full of contradictions. The Prime Minister could not even make up his mind whether to let the Australian public in on what the Government was planning before the election last year. On 3 October last year, at a Press conference, Mr Hawke said in regard to land rights: We will be making quite clear before the election what the position of the Government is. Only two weeks later he said, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 October 1984: I don't believe that we're going to be able to clarify the land rights issue before the election. This is in line with what I am saying regarding the confusion and uncertainty of the Government's action. It is typical of the to-ing and fro-ing which is occurring within the Australian Labor Party and the Government. It is leaving Aboriginal people and for that matter the rest of Australia-the whole 90-odd ethnic groups that make up Australia-wondering exactly where they stand. The Aboriginal people are becoming tired of waiting to see which way the Government will swing. A new element of doubt has now been added by the defeat of the land rights legislation of the Western Australian Premier, Brian Burke. This is another example of confusion. The Government's confusion on Aboriginal affairs was reflected in the fact that the Prime Minister was prepared to wear the Burke Government's legislation even though it would have been at odds with Holding's five principles. That is a strange situation. People are asking: What will happen now that the Western Australian legislation has been defeated? There has been speculation that it will lead to the introduction of tough national land rights laws. Surely enough time has passed for the Federal Government to indicate now its intentions. The last time a question was asked from this side of the House as to the Government's intentions it was said, if I remember correctly, that Mr Hawke and Mr Burke were to consult about the situation and that the Senate and the people of Australia would be told what would happen. We are waiting and we have been waiting a long time. Land rights in Australia have grown into a very emotive issue. It is up to the Government to cut out this confusion and uncertainty and to bring the whole matter back to taws. As I have said, the Opposition hopes that the tough national land rights laws will not come into effect, that the Federal Government will learn from the experience of the Northern Territory and the legislation which operates there and realise that tough legislation is not the answer. The Northern Territory legislation was introduced in 1976 by the Liberal-National Government. This was a massive piece of legislation. What has happened over the years, as I see it-I have lived in the Territory throughout the period-is that time and again the High Court of Australia was asked for an opinion on the meaning of the legislation. I believe that the principles relating to the true intent of the original Bill became eroded, the result being that it has been necessary to bring about amendments that would cut out this disharmony and bring the legislation back on track with what the architects of the legislation intended back in the mid-1970s. The matter was discussed by Senator Chaney, Senator Baume and Mr Wilson, who were Ministers for Aboriginal Affairs. The remedies were well on the way but they fell by the wayside when this package of amendments could not be brought in. This has resulted in stunting the Territory's economic development to the detriment of all Territorians, including the Aboriginal people. It has brought problems to the Aboriginal people; it has certainly brought problems to the many other people in the Territory who have had to live under somewhat difficult conditions. As a result of the legislation Aboriginal people have been given the exclusive ownership of Ayers Rock. I think most Australians believe that it should belong to all Australians. Kakadu National Park is another immense problem. The Federal Government should heed the wishes of the people of Australia. Once again, I believe that the wishes of Australians are that such national heritages should belong to all people. A recent article in the Bulletin described the situation in the Northern Territory as a form of apartheid. It was quite an interesting article. I believe it reflected many of the views of the people who are most interested in land rights these days. Once again, I believe the Federal Government is to blame because it is not moving to do away with a lot of these pressures that are causing this confusion and uncertainty. The Northern Territory legislation has meant that previously public roads and beaches-that is, public lands-have been closed to non-Aboriginal people. Stock routes have also come under claim, which has fragmented pastoral leases. The difficulties cause by Aboriginal veto over mining and the necessity for agreements to be reached by land councils with the traditional owners when exploration or development permits are sought has meant that no projects which were not under way prior to the commencement of the operation of the legislation have been undertaken. Is this what the Government has in store for the rest of Australia? I say, once again, that the Government must be honest about the whole matter. No one seems to know the answer to that question, not even the Government itself, because there has been no clear statement put forward by the Government on its land rights policy. Its policy is in a state of confusion and disarray. Mr Holding continues to enunciate his five principles which include the right of veto over mining on Aboriginal land. Mr Hawke says that the Government does not believe a right to veto should form part of the land rights package. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(4.42) —I begin by making some remarks about the fact that the Minister for Education, Senator Ryan, the Acting Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, did not enter this debate. First of all, it is proper to consider the nature of the proceedings before the Senate. There is no legislation before the Senate and there are no proceedings which would call for the presence and the contribution of the Minister in these circumstances. If there was legislation, such as the legislation which was introduced by the Fraser Government for the Northern Territory, before the Senate, and if there was an agreement across this chamber that that sort of legislation should be made applicable throughout Australia, I am sure that Senator Ryan would come in here and make a contribution. But the fact of the matter is that that is not so. Senator Baume has quite properly directed the attention of the Senate to the good deeds of the Government of which he was part in bringing in the legislation in the Northern Territory. Knowing him for the decent man he is, I ask him whether he would be agreeable to a situation where all parties in this chamber agreed to extending the provisions of the Northern Territory Act so that they applied throughout Australia. That seems to me to be the test of just where we are going, the test of just what we are all about. Is there agreement? Can there be agreement by all parties that the Northern Territory legislation be made national legislation applicable in each State? If Senator Baume and the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Chaney, were to agree that that was so, I would go immediately to my party room and say: 'Look, we have agreement across the parties. This is a non-party situation where we all agree'. If the honourable senators can acknowledge that, many of the problems will be solved. The fact of the matter is that that cannot be done by them. The history of the matter shows that the Northern Territory legislation will bring difficulties if an attempt is made to extend it to other States. That is explained by the history of both the Aboriginal and the non-Aboriginal people in Australia. The non-Aboriginal people of Australia have much to be proud of since they first settled here in 1788. The settlement of the land, the building of towns and cities, the development of a national identity, the establishment of a culture and the creation of a free and open society are matters Australians can properly hold up to the world as mighty achievements. The culture the Europeans found on coming to this country appeared to them, wrongly in my view, to be primitive. Unfortunately, they displayed towards it a contempt and animosity which has continued until today, although thankfully it is now more muted. A superior technology enabled the Europeans to conquer and possess the land which they then exploited to generate the civilisation in which we now live. Obviously, that process has devastated the Aboriginals. It has devastated them most unjustly. It has devastated them to this very day. Clearly, the history of Australia cannot be changed. We cannot call back yesterday. No matter what our ethnic backgrounds, we are now Australians. Senator Macklin pointed this out. Senator Macklin said that because the Aboriginals are the original owners, the original inhabitants, the original possessors of our land, they continue to have proprietary rights over the land. If that is so, they have the right over all the land. Senator Macklin cannot have it both ways. He cannot say that because of their position in Australia Aboriginals have a right over only part of the land. It must be over all the land because the Aboriginals, as a matter of fact, originally possessed all the land. Senator Macklin also said that the non-Aboriginal Australians love their country and they ought use that love of their country to understand how devastated the Aborigines have been because they have lost the rights that they had in their country. How can he say that we, non-Aboriginals, do have a love for our country when, on his own analysis, it cannot be our country? That simply shows the difficulty we are in. It simply shows how complex this problem is. History throws obligations upon us. There is an obligation for all people, particularly non-Aboriginals, to recognise the injustice, the oppression, the degradation, which have been inflicted over the years on our fellow Australians, the Aboriginals. There is an obligation on us to ensure that the demands of their situation are met and to redress the wrongs that they have suffered. We cannot-this debate has shown this-restore them to the position they would have been in had non-Aboriginal people never come here, but we can attempt to place them in a position that restores, as far as possible, their rights as the indigenous inhabitants of this country. That is the problem. There are 200 years of European history, of white, non-Aboriginal occupation of this country. We cannot, as it were, suddenly pass legislation that clears away all that injustice and oppression overnight. What we have to do is to feel our way. That is what has happened. That is what is happening under this Government. That is what has happened under other governments, including Senator Baume's Government. Insofar as that Government felt its way so that the Aboriginal inhabitants of Australia got justice, credit ought to be given to it. In pointing out what the former Government did, one cannot isolate one part of the country, the Northern Territory, from the whole situation-one State-and say: 'Look what we did there. We were good. We brought in satisfactory legislation. We deserve praise for it'. Of course that Government deserves praise, but it does not deserve praise for not including the other parts of the country in the legislation. Senator Chaney is present in the chamber. He is a man of compassion, a man who would like to do more than he and his Party are able to do for Aboriginals, but surely he and Senator Baume could take to their party room the suggestion that the Northern Territory legislation-I have returned to this because it is important-apply throughout every State. Of course it is magnificent legislation. If it is so good-it is good; I accept it as being good-it follows, as night follows day, that a policy should be introduced so that it would apply not only in the Northern Territory but also in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, insofar as it is applicable in those States. They cannot do that because the reality is that the tortured history that the Aboriginals had to face in this country has broken the straight line that existed before. It has bent it and it is impossible to put it back. Looking at that in the terms in which it ought to be looked at, for the Opposition to come in here and say that this Government ought to be censured and taken to task because it has a policy which is confused and uncertain seems to miss the point. That situation has been created not by this Government but as a result of the white occupation of this land. How is it possible at one point in history to select one group or organisation and take it to task for something that was created over many decades? Senator Lewis —It is the promises you made up to 1982 that we are criticising. Senator COONEY —I think that is a fair point. Of course promises have been made, not only by this party but by many other parties over the years. When the Australian Labor Party came to government and found itself in a real life situation-Senator Lewis has been in such situations himself-those aspirations and policies were very difficult to realise and, in fact, it has not been possible to realise them. That is what has happened here. I have no doubt that if we ask honourable senators in this chamber what they personally would do for Aborigines we would get a very generous response. We would get a very generous policy, a very generous plan from them. The problem is how to put that policy and that plan into operation in the real world. What this debate ought to be about is how as a parliament and as Australian people we can feel our way to redressing in some way the injustices that have occurred so far. The difficulty is that when we try to do that we come up against vested interests-people with legitimate interests, people whose families have been here for over a century, and perhaps up to two centuries. What do we do in that situation? That problem is similar to the situation in Northern Ireland or the Middle East. How can those problems be solved? There are two conflicting groups with conflicting rights that must be adjusted. True enough, if we see it, as Senator Macklin does, from a position of not actually having to put into operation some sort of effective policy, it is easy to make statements and to put forward policies which are too grand in their concept. They are too grand because of the vested interests over which, unfortunately, we have no control. On the other hand, unless we have a dream, unless we have policies which are more ambitious than can ultimately be realised, we will not get anywhere. If I can use a hackneyed old phrase, without vision the people perish. Without some attempt by the Labor Party to realise the grand vision, the result would not be as extensive or as good as it presently is. I hope that when the legislation in relation to Ayers Rock, to use the old name, and the area surrounding it is debated in this House there will be unanimity, which will be evidence not only to Aboriginal people but to people generally in Australia, that we are intent on redressing so far as we can, although we can never do it completely, those injustices that have occurred in the past. We will see what happens when that legislation is introduced. I return to Senator Macklin's comments because in my view he made some impractical suggestions, no doubt with the best of intentions. I concede that it is reasonable enough for him to have this grand vision, which people should have, but in putting forward those views it is proper for him to understand that there are practicalities and, unfortunately, our visions have to be tempered by the realities of life. He would find wide agreement with his view that Aborigines have a moral right to land. What then are we to do? If Aborigines have a moral right to the land, a right which many people would concede, I ask Senator Macklin whether the Aborigines are the ones who should refuse or accept entry of refugees from war-torn areas? Are they the people to make the decisions on matters such as that? Should they make decisions on whether uranium ought to be mined and sent overseas? These are the questions to which Senator Macklin did not turn but which I submit ought to have been addressed by him. In other words, Senator Macklin did not address himself to what is possible in this very difficult area. I note that Senator Chaney in a very compassionate speech spoke quite feelingly about the Aborigines. I hope he uses the same approach, even the same speech, when he returns to his home State of Western Australia and speaks to the Leader of the Opposition there. I am sure he will do that. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. The debate on the matter of public importance is concluded. Bills received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Grimes) agreed to: That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the questions with regard to the several stages for the passage through the Senate of all or several of the Bills being put in one motion at each stage and the consideration of all or several of such Bills together in the Committee of the Whole. Ordered that the Bills may be taken through all their stages without delay. Bills (on motion by Senator Grimes) read a first time. Second Readings Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(4.57) —I move: That the Bills be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speeches read as follows- AUSTRALIAN DRIED FRUITS CORPORATION AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to provide for the number of specially qualified members of the Australian Dried Fruits Corporation to be increased from two to four. Following receipt of the Industries Assistance Commission's report of 11 October 1984 on the dried vine fruits industry, the Government considered the arrangements applying to the industry. In view of the increasing complexity of international marketing of dried vine fruit, and in line with its objective of enhancing the effectiveness of statutory marketing authorities, it decided to provide for the appointment of two additional specially qualified members of the Corporation. The additional members are to be selected for their skills in commerce, finance and/or marketing matters. Currently, apart from the Chairman, the Corporation has four members to represent producers of dried fruit, a Government representative and two members with special qualifications in the marketing of dried fruit. The addition of two members with special qualifications will considerably widen the expertise which can be brought to bear within the Corporation in the performance of its functions. The quorum for Corporation meetings is being increased from six members to seven. This legislation has no financial implications for the Commonwealth. The Corporation's administrative costs including member's remuneration are met by a charge on exports of dried vine fruit. The opportunity is being taken in this Bill to make certain minor amendments of an administrative nature. In accordance with arrangements adopted by the Government about a year ago for the approval of borrowings by primary industry statutory authorities, the Bill provides that Corporation financial borrowings will be subject to approval by the Minister for Primary Industry, not by the Treasurer as provided in the current Act. The Minister will however consult with the Treasurer before giving any such approval. The Bill also amends gender-specific references in the present legislation, and provides for repeal of a redundant section of the Act relating to the rights of Corporation staff, which are now provided for staff of statutory authorities generally in the Superannuation Act 1976. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. DRIED SULTANA PRODUCTION UNDERWRITING AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Dried Sultana Production Underwriting Act 1982 to take account of recent Government decisions on future assistance arrangements for the dried vine fruits industry. The present underwriting scheme for sultanas covers the 1982 to 1986 seasons, relates to the average ex-packer returns for the whole dried sultana production of a season, and guarantees a minimum return at a proportion of the estimated average of equalised returns for the current and two preceding seasons. This Bill will continue present arrangements up to and including the 1985 season only. Between the 1986 and 1990 seasons the Government will underwrite the overall production of each season on the basis of the average export return at the free on board-f.o.b.-level. The guaranteed minimum export return rate for a particular season will be 80 percent of the average of the f.o.b. export returns for the preceding three seasons. If the average export return for the particular season is less than that guaranteed minimum, an underwriting payment is payable over all sales at the amount per tonne by which that average export return falls short of that guaranteed minimum. The new arrangements are expected to provide roughly the same amount of assistance on average as at present. However, with the system being based on returns from exports only rather than returns from all sales, underwriting will be more sensitive to sharp falls in world market prices and thus will be more effective in providing the protection intended. Basing the system on f.o.b., rather than cost including freight-c.i.f.-as recommended by the IAC, removes the freight and insurance costs, which are not specific to the dried vine fruits industry, and enhances this sensitivity. Also the new arrangements make it possible to determine the guaranteed minimum return for underwriting much earlier than under existing arrangements. It is not feasible at this time to estimate reliably dried sultana production or average export returns for the 1986 season, or the average return over the three seasons 1983 to 1985 inclusive. Accordingly no reliable estimate is available of the cost of the new arrangements to the government through any underwriting payment in respect of 1986 or later seasons. However, a comparison of the new and the current systems on the basis of data for the 1982 season, the latest for which an underwriting payment has been made, indicates that an underwriting payment of $61 per tonne would have been payable under the new arrangements. Under the current arrangements, $16.38 per tonne was paid. As the 1982 production of sultanas was 80,655 tonnes, $4.92 million would have been payable under the new arrangement, compared with $1.32 million actually paid. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. DRIED VINE FRUITS EQUALIZATION LEVY AMENDMENT BILL 1985 The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Dried Vine Fruits Equalization Act 1978 to take account of recent Government decisions following a report on the dried vine fruit industry by the Industries Assistance Commission. The Government had requested the Commission to inquire into the assistance needs of the industry because world market prices had fallen sharply under pressure from a major surplus of fruit and the industry was experiencing considerable financial difficulties. At present returns for each variety of dried vine fruit-sultanas, currants and raisins-are equalised by imposing a levy on domestic sales and distributing the proceeds over all sales. The levy has in practice served to defend a particular level of domestic price by reflecting the difference between the domestic and estimated average export returns. Until recently the domestic price has been able to move roughly in line with CPI movements irrespective of prices on export markets. In the 1984 season for sultanas, the dominant variety, the expected domestic return was 120 per cent above the expected average export return and the equalised average return at packer level is expected to be 37 per cent above the average export return. The difference between domestic and export prices made sales on the Australian market highly vulnerable to import pressures. The present equalisation arrangements provide for levels of assistance that fluctuate widely and that in recent times have been very high. The Industries Assistance Commission commented that these arrangements enable domestic prices to subsidise export sales, disguising the true return from exports and encouraging a greater level of dried vine fruit production than is most profitable for the industry. The industry itself recognises the need to reduce the level of production to that which can be sold profitably. The Government considers that assistance provided through equalisation payments should be more stable and should make the industry more responsive to market signals. To achieve this the Government has decided to progressively reduce the maximum proportion of equalisation payments to average export returns. From the commencement of the 1986 season equalisation asistance to the industry will be reduced at uniform rates for each variety so that the equalised returns at the ex-packer level in 1990 will be no more than 15 per cent above the average export returns. There is considerable misunderstandings concerning the proposed amended equalisation arrangements. While they will enable clearer market signals to be provided to producers, the arrangements will continue to provide for a considerable consumer transfer, even at the stage where the equalised returns over all fruit are no more than 15 per cent above the average export return. The following example illustrates the amount by which the equalisation arrangement could enable domestic returns to be above average export returns at the 15 per cent level. If it is assumed that Australian production is 65,000 tonnes and of this 45,000 tonnes are exported and 20,000 tonnes are sold on the domestic market, similar to the expected 1985 season situation, and if it is also assumed that the average export return is $1,000 per tonne and thus at the 15 per cent level the maximum equalised return would be $1,150 per tonne, this would enable a domestic return of $1,488 per tonne, almost 50 per cent above the average export return. The working is as follows: Overall equalised return of $1,150 per tonne x total production of 65,000 tonnes gives an overall return of $74,750,000. Deduct the return from exports of 45,000 tonnes X $1,000 per tonne or $45,000,000 and this leaves a return from domestic sales of $29,750,000. Divide the domestic return of $29,750,000 by the number of tonnes sold on the domestic market ie 20,000 tonnes and this gives $1,478.5 per tonne. This level of return from domestic sales is equivalent to an average wholesale price of approximately $1,766 per tonne. With a higher proportion of fruit being exported the domestic price allowed by the arithmetic is higher and the converse applies. After careful consideration the Government decided against adopting the Australian Dried Fruits Association's market entitlement proposal. The Government was concerned in particular that the immediate effect of the industry scheme would be to transfer substantial surplus production onto the winegrape market which is already in surplus. These measures will encourage ongoing adjustment within the industry to place viable producers on a stronger footing in the long term. However, numerous producers of dried vine fruits earn very low incomes from their farms and, for reasons such as inadequate farm area or excessive debt structure, have no prospects of becoming economically viable in the future. To help such growers adjust out of the industry the Government intends to provide, in conjunction with the Governments of producing States, on a $2 Commonwealth $1 State basis, up to $5m total funding for adjustment assistance additional to that being provided through the rural adjustment scheme. These funds are intended primarily to facilitate a vine pull program, but could also be used for other adjustment purposes. Half the funds will be made available forthwith, and any amount unspent in 1984-85 and the balance of the Commonwealth commitment will be available in 1985-86 and 1986/87. I commend the Bill to honourable senators. 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 Grimes) read a first time. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(4.59) —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- Public lending right-PLR-is an internationally recognised concept of compensation paid to authors to recompense them for income lost by the free multiple use of their books in public lending libraries. Schemes embodying this concept first emerged in Scandinavian countries in the 1940s, and have since been introduced in eight other countries. In the English-speaking world, New Zealand introduced a scheme in 1973, Australia in 1974 and the United Kingdom in 1979. The Australian public lending right scheme was introduced in 1974 by the Whitlam Government, following recommendations by the Literature Board of the Australian Council for the Arts. The Board had undertaken a study at the direction of the then Prime Minister in response to representations from Australian authors and publishers seeking recognition of the principle that the community as a whole should compensate them, at least in part, for the loss of potential income represented by their books being borrowed, free of charge, from public libraries. The PLR scheme operated initially under the control of the Australian Author's Fund Committee within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. An Australian Authors' Fund Bill was drafted to establish a statutory base for the scheme, but this legislation lapsed with the dissolution of Parliament in November 1975. From that time the PLR scheme has continued to operate on a purely administrative basis, being funded within the appropriation for its administering body. In 1976, the scheme was placed under the control of the Australia Council, but this arrangement proved unsatisfactory and in 1980 the scheme was transferred to the then Department of Home Affairs. The scheme currently operates within the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment under the control of a PLR Committee, appointed by the Minister, comprising representatives of authors, publishers, libraries and the Government. These changes in the organisational arrangements for the PLR scheme, and the numerous reviews of its functions which have occurred in the last ten years, have not allowed the establishment of a firm and clear basis for its continued operation. The scheme has lacked a coherent framework of accountability for the expenditure of the public funds allocated to it, and a clear source of authority for the decisions of the PLR Committee. These deficiencies have also induced great uncertainty among the various literary interest groups, who have maintained strong pressure for formal establishment of the scheme, as a guarantee of its continuation. In 1983, before the federal election of that year, the Australian Labor Party made a commitment to Australian authors and publishers that, if elected to government, it would place the PLR scheme on a statutory basis. Within its first year of office, the Government initiated the legislative drafting processes necessary to fulfil this commitment. On behalf of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, I therefore take great pleasure in introducing the Public Lending Right Bill 1985 as formal recognition by the Government of the principle of PLR. This Bill has been drafted with the advice of the PLR Committee, and contains the following provisions: it delineates the scope of the scheme, restricting it to compensation payments only in respect of Australian books held in Australian libraries it describes the powers to be exercised by the Minister in approving and modifying the PLR scheme as necessary, and in appointing members of the PLR Committee to advise him it formally establishes the PLR Committee, describing its constitution and operation, including membership, terms of office, powers of delegation and conduct of meetings. it provides appropriate mechanisms for review of decisions by the PLR Committee, thus ensuring a right of appeal for claimants. The operational details of the PLR scheme, as it will function under this legislation, will be promulgated in a notice of the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette immediately after proclamation of the Act. These details will include information on eligibility requirements, claim mechanisms, rates of payment and so on. This Gazette notice is currently being prepared by the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment, and the Minister intends to invite the various literary interest groups to comment on its provisions, so that their views may be taken into account before the document is finalised. The PLR scheme, as it currently operates, has a budget of $1.78m and distributes payments to some 4,500 authors and publishers. For this financial year, the Minister was pleased to be able to increase the basic rates of payment to 70 cents per copy for authors and 17.5 cents for publishers. These funds are provided as an item within the annual appropriation for the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment. There will be no change in the funding procedure or in the level of funding as a result of this legislation. PLR payment rates are reviewed annually in the Budget context, and may be increased should that be considered appropriate in the prevailing budgetary circumstances. In the ten years of its operation, the PLR scheme has established wide acceptance and support from authors, publishers and libraries. The actual amounts of compensation range from the very small for part time authors to larger amounts for recognised and full time writers, but whatever the amount, it represents a modest contribution by the community in return for the considerable pleasure and enlightenment provided by books, even in this electronic age. The PLR scheme applies to the whole spectrum of literary endeavour, imposing no restriction on content or style. The class of 'author' includes illustrators, translators, compilers and editors-anyone who has made made a substantial contribution to the creation of a book. The principal requirement is that the creator of the book be an Australian citizen, or at least resident in Australia, thus ensuring that the economic benefit of the Scheme remains within this community. The Minister believes that the Public Lending Right Committee, as constituted by this Bill to represent the principal interest groups of authors, publishers, libraries and the Government, will ensure that the PLR scheme remains accountable and responsive to changes in publishing and library practice. The Minister looks forward to working with its members, and hopes that he and the Committee will enjoy the support and confidence of the Australian literary community in their administration of the PLR scheme under this legislation. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) adjourned. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The President has received Message No. 60 from the House of Representatives relating to the reference of a matter to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts. Motion (by Senator Grimes)-by leave-agreed to: That the consideration of the Message be made an Order of the Day for the next day of sitting. Assent to the following Bills reported: Australian Meat and Live-stock Research and Development Corporation Bill 1985 Australian Meat and Live-stock Legislation (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 1985 Live-stock Slaughter Levy Amendment Bill 1985 Live-stock Export Charge Amendment Bill 1985 Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs Amendment Bill 1985 Extradition (Commonwealth Countries) Amendment Bill 1985 Extradition (Foreign States) Amendment Bill 1985 Soil Conservation (Financial Assistance) Bill 1985 Bounty (Injection-moulding Equipment) Amendment Bill 1985 Bankruptcy Amendment Bill 1985. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services) —For the information of honourable senators I present the report of the Forward Estimates of Budget outlays and staffing for 1985-86, 1986-87 and 1987-88. This report bears the formal publication date of May 1985, and is identical in all respects to the original document dated February 1985. The Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) has available a copy of the original report in case anyone would like to check the contents. Senator PETER RAE(Tasmania)(5.02) —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. In doing so I indicate that the Opposition is delighted that the Government has recanted and has decided to publish the information. As soon as we have looked at the information, we will be able to continue the debate. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(5.03) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. We are very grateful for the tabling of this paper on behalf of the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan). I would also like to place on record my appreciation of the briefing on the document which the Chairman of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, Mr Hugh Hudson, gave me this morning. The paper proposes major changes to the Commonwealth structure which oversights post-school education; a structure which has previously exhibited what Senator Sir John Carrick called, when he introduced it, creative tension between four different statutory bodies, four different commissions. One is the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission and the three others are the sectoral councils-the Universities Council, the Advanced Education Council and the Technical and Further Education Council. The report proposes some major shifts in power. For a start, it proposes abolition of the three statutory councils-the Universities Council, the Advanced Education Council and the TAFE Council-and their replacement by advisory bodies with little statutory power. This will mean that the Chairman of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, and the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission itself, will now hold all real power at the Commonwealth level in this area. This is a decision which the Government has taken which we will have to examine and on which we will seek advice from those who make up the sectors as to whether they see this as an appropriate or a threatening move. At the moment I do not wish to comment. I merely indicate to the Government that we will take advice and find out what the clients in the community think about the proposal. The paper, however, also makes other recommendations. It recommends that there be the devolution of certain approvals for certain courses and certain course extensions to institutions; that is, it proposes that institutions should not have to go to the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission each time they want to change any particular course. This makes very good sense and it will help to streamline the administration. The paper also proposes that a discipline be imposed on the CTEC and that there be a deadline of three months within which the Tertiary Education Commission should be able to respond to certain proposals from the post-school institutions. Again, this kind of discipline which has been proposed by the CTEC is very good. I would like to see it put into effect and I commend that proposal to the Government. The paper also proposes new capacities to initiate the gathering of statistics and I would be interested to see what the Government's response to that proposal will be. However, several problems still remain. The whole post-school sector faces problems which relate to its existence as a sector which is a Treasury mendicant. It is totally dependent upon funding from the Consolidated Revenue Fund, funding from government, and to that extent decisions in post-school education are taken on grounds of Treasury capacity rather than on grounds of educational need and educational priority. This is a matter which is not addressed in this paper and which the government sooner or later must address. While it is not the subject matter of this paper, it is one of the central questions facing higher education and post-school education in Australia. It remains a problem even after this review. This review really concerns arrangements within the government sector. The other matter which has not been addressed in this paper, although it has been referred to, is the kinds of relations which exist between the Commonwealth, which is the funding agency, and the States, which is the level of government which has all of the statutory power in relation to universities, colleges of advanced education and TAFE. It has become quite apparent over the last few years that the States have been initiating co-ordinating bodies for the sole purpose of trying to retain some power vis-a-vis the Commonwealth, which has total funding power. It has meant that the States have been setting up almost duplicate administrative structures and that the States have been trying to restrict the capacity of universities and colleges to deal directly with the Commonwealth by means of legislation through the various co-ordination bodies-the Higher Education Board in New South Wales, the Victorian Post-Secondary Education Committee, and so on-in the different States, the different Boards which effect co-ordination. I do not believe that this paper really resolves those problems, although it does attempt to address them slightly. In summary, I welcome the paper. I will be seeking responses within the sectors as to whether the central proposition is one which we should welcome. Again, I thank Mr Hudson for the briefing which he made available to me. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(5.07) — I will make only two points alongside those of my colleague the shadow Minister for Education, Senator Peter Baume. The first is that Mr Hudson, in his presentation of the report to the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan), quite rightly looks for a Government reaction to, and presumably implementation of, his findings so that they can operate from 1 July. It is now May, so a very short time has been allowed by the Chairman of the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission during which he hopes the reforms that he has set out will be implemented. Whilst his report was given to the Minister on 25 March and the Minister and, presumably, the Government have given consideration to it during these past two months, it is nevertheless less than two months before 1 July, which is the projected date that Mr Hudson referred to. Nevertheless, I make the plea to this Government that there be adequate consultation of all of those who are concerned. I do not refer only to the councils of the universities, the colleges of advanced education and technical and further education colleges, but to every institution and department and all of those students, staff and members of the public who are concerned about the structure of higher education. Because this report has been brought to the Parliament and made public only today, there ought not to be too short a period for a public response to it so that views can be taken into account in the Government's consideration of it. I make the plea for an extended period in which this consultation may take place. The Opposition wants to ensure that responsible bodies have access to this report to comprehend it fully and, reflecting upon it, to see its implications for the better development of the provision of higher education in Australia. The second general matter I wish to raise is the general sympathy of the Opposition for a renewed examination of the structure of and funding arrangements for higher education. For more than two decades higher education in Australia has had a binary structure. Universities are one thing; colleges of advanced education are the other. There have been changes in the definition of colleges of advanced education, as teachers colleges particularly came to assume that name and as a wide range of post-secondary training courses were developed in CAEs, but one of the enduring differences is the inability of a college of advanced education to conduct research and to award research degrees in the way that is and has always been the case with universities. In some areas this is still a proper restraint with regard to the concentration of resources into centres of excellence, that distinction always being before me when I think about colleges and universities. Nevertheless, I believe that colleges of advanced education have now developed in many places centres of excellence which ought not to be deterred from further contributing to Australia's education opportunities by being able to give research degrees and to be involved in research programs. I believe that we are feeling the constraints of a couple of decades of developing structural lines in higher education which now ought to be made more flexible and re-examined. I am not calling for another giant royal commission into the structure of higher education but I believe that the Government should look beyond just the structure of the Tertiary Education Commission to the nature and structure of colleges and universities and, for that matter, the technical and further education sector more generally. The Opposition last year determined in its published policy statement on education a commitment to reviewing comprehensively the structure and funding of higher education. I refer to one paragraph in the statement released by the shadow Minister, Senator Peter Baume, and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Peacock). In part it says: Leading educationists are questioning whether the rationale behind the binary structure of higher education is still tenable. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Colston) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator Teague —I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria)(5.16) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. The report goes into detail of the Administration of the Legal Aid Council and raises some of the areas of activity in which it has been involved. I do not think the general area of legal aid has yet been resolved satisfactorily in this country. Many problems are involved in it. In many cases people are taken to court, prosecuted and found innocent and still face massive legal fees. That is a punishment of those people, people who have been found not guilty, that I think is unwarranted. At times there are also problems with the time delays in payment of legal aid. But I think a more important sort of problem arose yesterday. In some circumstances, someone who is technically bankrupt nevertheless apparently may be qualified for legal aid, notwithstanding the fact that that individual may happen to be driving around the country in a Rolls Royce and that that individual's spouse may be driving around the country in a Mercedes sports car. They may happen to be living in a home worth $1m and have access to and constant use of a yacht worth $2.5m, yet apparently it is quite all right for the Federal Court to ask the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) to reconsider their position concerning legal aid. I understand that some legal and technical arguments were involved in the case to which I refer and I understand that the Federal Court did not direct the government to grant legal aid; nevertheless, I suggest that it is a bit anomalous that $400,000 or $500,000 could be paid out to a technical bankrupt who seems to have enormous visible means of support. It is not good enough to say that that sum happens to be in the name of the person's spouse. If we are to make such a decision on legal aid we should look beyond that as to when the assets were transferred and in what manner. The only gratifying aspect of this process in some other cases is that people, knowing that they are to be prosecuted, transfer enormous assets to their spouses and occasionally a spouse decides to leave with all the assets. All I can say is that that is my idea of natural justice. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(5.18) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. This report identifies the reasons for the high incidence of informal votes in the election held at the end of 1984. It makes clear that the informal voting contributed neither to the good showing of the Liberal and National parties nor to the bad showing of the Australian Labor Party and that it is impossible to explain the result of the election on the basis of informal votes. It sets out to show how some of the informal votes occurred. It makes clear in its finding that, at the very most had it not been for the informal vote, only one seat-the seat of Forde-might have changed hands and it even concedes that it does not really know whether it would have changed hands. It makes quite clear that one cannot put the election result down in any way to the high incidence of informal votes. This is a very important result. I remind honourable senators of what we knew at the time of the election. Liberal Party scrutineers were confirming for us that the informal votes in marginal seats such as Casey were dividing evenly between the major parties. We were told by our own scrutineers that in Casey the informal vote went 53 per cent to the ALP and 47 per cent Liberal, so there was not much advantage to us there. In Cook the informal vote slightly favoured the Liberal Party; in Macquarie, the seat we won, the informal vote slightly favoured the ALP; in Deakin, Mr Beale reported that 60 per cent of the informal votes were Liberal and only 40 per cent ALP; and in Burke and Goldstein the accidental informal vote seemed to be evenly divided between the two parties. Although I have not checked each of those electorates, what our scrutineers said seems to be consistent with what the Australian Electoral Commission has determined. It seems clear that some of the informal voting was a protest. One has only to look at the Western Australian seat of Moore when there were only two candidates and where all that was necessary was for a voter to put one number-the number one-in one square to record a formal vote. One asks how it is that even in that electorate, where all that was necessary was the number one, almost 6 per cent of the votes were informal. It is clear that there were other factors operating, whether they were ticks or whatever. What is very interesting is that while the Press was saying after the election that the informal vote had played a very large part in Labor's poor showing, not all Labor people were saying that. Mr Hayden said: But to argue that-- he was talking about the informal vote-- all there is in this problem I think is to start erecting an alibi with much thin shelling around it. For instance it seems to imply that Labor people almost exclusively are vulnerable to making simple misunderstandings, simple mistakes-that the really bright voters vote for the Liberal Party and those who have difficulties with this sort of thing vote Labor. Now instinctively I just can't accept that. Those were Mr Hayden's comments. He went on to describe the results as 'dreadful' and a 'failure'. He said at the time-and I think honourable senators will remember this-that 'the drover's dog will win again but it looks a bit clapped out this time'. Other observers said the same thing. Some of the other observers in the Labor Party had other comments to make about the result and about the alibi which was being erected-that it was informal votes which had caused the result. Mr Hayden also said: I would be less than candid if I didn't say that there is this sort of restlessness and uneasiness I detected at the grassroots and not just with the Left . . . there was unease in the grassroots of the ALP because of the Government's image as a party for bankers and big business. Senator Button said that Mr Hawke had not campaigned as well this year. He said: It certainly raises questions about his judgment on some issues. So it was not just the informal vote. Senator Richardson identified the length of the campaign and the introduction of the assets test and the debate over the possible introduction of a capital gains tax as the reasons for Labor's poor result, not the informal vote. Mr Howe said: The Government has to start communicating its policies better. The defeated Mr Steedman said: I think with this election we have seen the folly of basing everything around the one person. If you erect a deity, the quicker it goes up, the quicker it goes down. I think Bob Hawke will have to look into himself and examine his style and approach and what he has been doing over the past 20 months in government. I must say that I believe that what Mr Steedman said is correct and what has been produced in this document by the Electoral Commission bears it out. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(5.23) —The report by the Australian Electoral Commission on informal voting is a very valuable report. It was commissioned by the Government to look into the reasons for the rise in the informal vote for the House of Representatives last December from around 2 per cent to over 6 per cent nationally. I would like to spend a little bit of time looking at one of the other features of the report and that is the extent to which it confirms the very large fall in informal voting for the Senate and how well the new voting system introduced by the Labor Government worked in reducing the number of informal votes for the Senate. I think that factor has been lost sight of in the recent debate about informal votes in this country. There has been very little discussion about the extent to which the new voting system, which was a product of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, reduced the number of informal votes for the Senate. I refer particularly to the group voting ticket method of voting which involves simply placing a number in one square on the ballot paper to vote for an entire party How to Vote card. That voting option was most preferred by electors. Well over 90 per cent of electors chose that option and only some 9 per cent nationally chose to use the preferential method of voting. I think that the group voting ticket method had a dramatic effect on the number of informal votes for the Senate. According to the report, the number of informal votes in New South Wales fell by 5.5 per cent, from 11.1 per cent in 1983 to around 5.6 per cent in 1984. Similarly, there was a big fall in Victoria from 10.7 per cent in 1983 to around 4.5 per cent in 1984. They were very large falls indeed. There was a similar fall in my State of South Australia. I must say that the fall in the number of informal votes for the Senate was particularly marked in a number of electorates around the country. Senator Robert Ray, who is sitting in the chamber, will be aware that in the Port Adelaide division the informal vote for the Senate fell from 14.1 per cent in 1983 to 7 per cent last December. So there was a very big fall in the number of informal votes cast in that electorate. That pattern was repeated in a number of other electorates around the country. There were very large reductions in the numbers of informal votes for the Senate cast in two of the polling places in the Port Adelaide electorate. In fact, in 1983 in two polling places a 27 per cent informal vote for the Senate election was recorded. At one of those polling places, for which I have figures with me today, the reduction in the number of informal votes in 1984 was a full 18 percentage points-a mammoth fall in the number of informal votes, showing what can be done with the introduction of a new voting system. I think that is probably the largest fall in informal votes recorded in Australia. That meant that many electors were enfranchised effectively for the first time. They had been voting for many years in Australian elections but had been denied a formal vote by the very complex system for Senate elections that we had to put up with in this country. I think it is probably true to say that the former Senate voting system which prevailed in this country was the most complicated voting system in the world. It was an unnecessarily complex system. I certainly could not fathom how electors in this country were expected to rank 70 or 80 preferences for candidates in their heads and put them on their ballot papers on polling day. This was a sheer impossibility and the reform was long overdue. The results of the 1984 election showed very clearly just what could be done about informal voting, that the means were always available to rid Australia of that blight. I must congratulate the members on the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform who came up with the recommendation for the introduction of the group voting ticket method of voting that had a very marked effect on ridding Australia of this problem. I congratulate the Government for taking the initiative and putting that proposal into legislation because it effectively enfranchised many Australian electors for the first time. I think the next step is to move into the field of voter education. The Australian Electoral Commission now has the power to carry out voter education. I believe it should not just involve itself in keeping the rolls and conducting elections but should educate electors how to vote correctly. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria)(5.28) —I wish to congratulate the Australian Electoral Commission on the job it did in compiling this report. Had such a report been compiled six or seven years ago-or eight years ago as was the case in 1977-it would have been suppressed for six years and would never have seen the light of day. That happened with the 1977 report on informal voting. That report was not made available publicly until 1983. However, we now have the current report. Senator Peter Baume is correct; not one seat would have changed hands bar, maybe, Forde-the informal votes have never been counted in that seat because of an action before the Court of Disputed Returns-had the old system of voting been used. I suppose I take a perverse form of satisfaction from that result, as I said on the Sunday after the election and as I have said continually ever since. Informal voting at times was used as an alibi to explain unpopular results. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to push this matter too far. According to our estimates and the estimates of the Electoral Commission the new system of voting cost the Australian Labor Party 0.4 per cent of the total vote. I think it is regrettable that that occurred. I am not generally going to comment on whether there was a protest vote because that analysis will be done by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. We have already interviewed the Electoral Commission and we will be in the process of forming judgments on that for quite a long while. However, it is very easy to inadvertently vote informal. As I pointed out, I think on 4 December in the Melbourne Sun, I was watching television on the night before the election and I saw on the television a leader of a political party voting by post in the Australian Electoral Office in Canberra. That leader took the three ballot papers, filled them out, and with a theatrical flourish put them in the ballot box. Anyone knows that if one is making a postal vote one must put the ballot papers in the postal vote envelope, sign that, seal the envelope and place it in the box. Here we had a person-of course, it was Senator Chipp-probably voting informally at the last election. He is a person of massive political experience. He was the member for Higinbotham and then Hotham from 1960 through to 1977 and then a senator in this place. I draw two conclusions from that, because I did watch it on three television channels. Either Senator Chipp voted informally or, even worse, the ballot box was later opened and adjustments made. I am sure that that could never be the case. My statement in the Melbourne Sun on 4 December has never been refuted. If it is possible for a very articulate, brilliant person to vote informally, it is rather harsh to judge other people and say that all informal votes are merely protest votes. The one surprising thing in that report is not the amount of No. 1 votes. It is possible to explain that through confusion with the system and a one-sided advertising campaign. However, there was an increase over, say, the 1977 figures for ticks and crosses. It is almost impossible to understand why that occurred. As Senator Baume pointed out, in the seat of Moore, where a single No. 1 vote would be a formal vote, there was a massive increase in ticks and crosses. I am not sure that the electorate is so sophisticated that it says: Because there are only two candidates in Moore, we will protest vote in another way. However, if the Opposition is going to argue that the electorate is sophisticated enough to vote informal no matter what voting system the Government introduces, then the Opposition should be happy to accommodate us in our desire for an optional preferential voting system. If that system is introduced and people still want to vote informal, they will find another way to do it. The basic tenet of compulsory preferential voting that the Opposition has always argued collapses around its ears. I realise that honourable senators may want to speak but I want to congratulate the Electoral Commission again for producing a report of this quality in the time concerned. It is an advance for political science and for the study of political parties in this country. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Colston) —Senator Vigor, in giving you the call, I remind you that there is only one minute remaining for debate on this item. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(5.34) —I particularly want to make a few remarks about the last sentence in the report, which states: The value judgment that has to be made is whether the possible exhaustion of some 15,000 ballot papers justifies the effective disfranchisement of 375,000 electors. I ask whether anything justifies the effective disfranchisement of nearly four million Australians. I am sure that all honourable senators are horrified at that prospect. Unfortunately, not all honourable members realise that this actually happened last year. When one looks at the returns, one finds that the efforts of 3,827,118 voters were completely futile. Even though they managed to record a formal vote, 3,827,118 voters voted for a losing candidate and did not have their ballot papers examined for second or later preferences. Under a proportional representation system we would have a greater proportion of voters able to cast a valid vote. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Colston) —Order! The time has expired for the consideration of Government Papers. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE(Victoria) —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator TATE(Tasmania) —I present the third and fourth reports of 1985 of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills concerning Australian Meat and Live-stock Legislation (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 1985, Australian Meat and Live-stock Research Development Corporation Bill 1985, Automotive Industry Authority Amendment Bill 1985, Bounty (Injection-moulding Equipment) Amendment Bill 1985, Corporations (Employee-owned Co-operatives) Bill 1985, Customs Administration Bill 1985, Customs Administration (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Bill 1985, Dividend Recoupment Tax Bill 1985, Foreign Ownership and Control Registration Bill 1985, Petroleum (Submerged Lands) (Cash Bidding) Amendment Bill 1985, Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 1985, Taxation System Reform Bill 1985, Taxation (Unpaid Company Tax) Assessment Bill 1985 and Tax Avoidance Schemes Bill 1985. I also lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 4 of 1985 dated 8 May 1985. Ordered that the reports be printed. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —On behalf of the Joint Committee on the Australian Capital Territory, I present a report on Proposals for Variations of the Plan of Layout of the City of Canberra and its Environs-Eighty-third Series, Item 4 and Eighty-fourth series. I also table extracts from the Committee's Minutes of Proceedings. I seek leave to make a short statement relating to the report. Leave granted. Senator REID —There are a number of items included in this report and I shall shortly seek leave to have the statement incorporated. I refer specifically to that item which related in part to a variation of the site known as the White Industries development. That is a particularly important development to Canberra because of its impact now on car parking during construction, for the spaces that it has taken, for the availability of car parking once it is completed and for the use of the hotel and convention centre. The other particular matter that the Committee paid attention to was the development of the convention centre, when it would be available and whether or not conventions are already being booked for 1988 when the convention centre ought to be available. It is a particularly important development for the Australian Capital Territory but it will only be of real significance if it is actually used and attracts large numbers of people to Canberra. For that reason, the Committee was pleased to have the additional briefing from the National Capital Development Commission and from the Department of Territories and Local Government and to receive the answers which we have received in relation to these important matters. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard the balance of the tabling statement. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- The committee recommends approval of variation 4 of the 83rd series and the variations contained in the 84th series, except variation 6. The Minister for Territories, Mr Gordon Scholes, advised the committee that it was no longer his intention to proceed with the Weston Park road additions and deletions proposed in variation 6. The committee, in considering these variations, took evidence from several organisations including community groups as well as two members of the ACT House of Assembly. The cost involved in the proposals dealt with in this report is $16.9m. I wish to comment on only six of the variations. The first is variation 8, which concerns the White Industries Project. The Committee is concerned about a continuing reduction in car parking areas in Civic Centre and would like to place on record its support for public access to the carparks to be located under the office building. This would help alleviate some of the problems presently being experienced by shoppers and the work force employed in Civic. A further concern of the Committee is the realisation of the full potential of the convention centre. The lag time from booking conferences and conventions to assembly of delegates and participants may be 3-4 years. It is therefore necessary for arrangements to achieve initial full utilisation to be set in train immediately. Advice has been received from the Department of Territories that some preliminary promotional work has commenced, but it is essential that firm bookings be taken now so that the centre will not stand idle during its first year of operation, which is targetted in 1988. Variation 10 provides for the development of Isabella Plains North. The area includes about 500 residential sites, a shopping centre, high schools and playing fields. In view of the size of Monash, which has a lower population than adjoining suburbs, the Committee supports the submission of the South Tuggeranong Progress Association to include the area within the suburb of Monash. This would assist in unifying the area and providing a greater cohesion of services. The Committee approves the variation subject to the incorporation of the area into the suburb of Monash. Variation 11 provides access to a site within the Erindale Group Centre. The new plans for Erindale as a group centre allow for a total of 4,000m2 of retail space plus 2,100m2 for a hardware store, a garden centre and catering and drinking establishments and will provide much needed retail services for the area before construction of the Tuggeranong Town Centre. With regard to variation 13, which provides for a major realignment of the extension of Drakeford Drive, the Committee approves works associated with construction of the proposed road from Isabella Drive to Johnson Drive. However approval is deferred on the section from Johnson Drive to Tharwa Drive pending further information concerning the intersection of Tharwa Drive and proposed land development in South Tuggeranong. Variation 14, which provides access roads in north-western Theodore to new residential blocks, is approved on the proviso that initial purchasers are informed of the lack of bus services and other facilities in the area. Variation 16 proposes to delete some roads from the city plan in order to set aside a portion of the proposed residential area as public open space which contains Aboriginal axe grinding grooves and artefacts regarded as having high archaeological and general heritage significance. The Committee approves variation 16 and stresses the necessity for the development of adequate protective safeguards of the Aboriginal artefact site from acts of vandalism and desecration. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE(Victoria) —On behalf of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts I present the report of the Committee's activities from July 1983 to December 1984. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE —by leave-The 226th report is the report of activities of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts for the period July 1983 to December 1984. It contains a review of the inquiries conducted by the Committee during that period, issues arising from investigations and other matters which the Committee regards as significant in its development. There are advantages in having a review of the Committee's activities over the 18-month period to 31 December 1984. This covers the operations of the fourteenth Committee. The fourteenth Committee was appointed in May 1983 and in December 1983 its membership was increased from 11 to 16. The five new members of the fourteenth Committee then appointed were Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, Senator Margaret Reynolds, Mr Lewis Kent, Dr Richard Klugman and Mr Peter McGauran. Membership of the fourteenth Committee ceased under section 5 (5) of the Public Accounts Committee Act 1951 when Parliament was dissolved on 26th October 1984. It is thus appropriate to take the 18-month period as the review period and to inform the Parliament of the fourteenth Committee's activities. The Committee scrutinises and regularly reviews the manner in which departments estimate their financial requirements and expend the moneys allocated to them by Parliament. Its primary concern is with the cost effectiveness of administration rather than the determination of policy. However, the Committee is becoming more interested in analysing the process by which policy objectives are determined. This interest and implementation is reflected in the Committee's close relationship with authorities such as the Public Service Board, the Department of Finance and the Auditor-General. During the period under review the Committee produced 22 reports. Within the Committee's program particular attention was paid to processing government responses to earlier reports. Accordingly, 13 of the reports tabled were Finance Minute reports which completed the Committee's inquiry sequence for numerous subjects including chemists' remuneration under the pharmaceutical benefits scheme and coal export levy. The Committee also presented major reports on income maintenance programs, HMAS Tobruk, excise and automatic data processing. Brief summaries of the Committee's 22 reports are presented in our report of activities. In addition to the Committee's investigative activities to the end of December 1984, Committee members have spoken at numerous seminars and conferences both on the role of parliamentary committees, including the Public Accounts Committee, and on specific issues of interest to it. The Committee considers that these activities supplement its inquiries as a means of increasing public awareness of efficiency issues in public administration. The Committee records its appreciation to its Secretary, Mr Michael Talberg, permanent and seconded staff and its advisers for their efforts throughout the period. In addition, the Committee thanks officers from the Department of Finance, the Public Service Board and the Auditor-General's Office who have acted as observers for our hearings. The Committee is also grateful for the work done by the Principal Parliamentary Reporter and his staff, and other officers of the parliamentary departments who have assisted the Committee in its activities. I commend the report to honourable senators. Senator WATSON(Tasmania) —by leave-I wish to add a few comments to those already made by Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle. The Joint Committee of Public Accounts concerns itself with the cost effectiveness of government policies rather than their objectives, and I think that distinction is important. However, the Committee co-operates very closely with the regulatory authorities-the Public Service Board, the Department of Finance and the Auditor-General-and I think that reflects its interest in the process by which policy objectives are determined. It is significant that since 1981 the Committee has been publishing discussion papers on significant issues, including internal audit, the collection and dissemination of statistics, the form and standard of financial statement of Commonwealth undertakings, and income maintenance program. A current paper discusses the complexity of the auditability and co-ordination of funds provided by the Commonwealth to the States. Unfortunately, the Commonwealth Auditor-General does not have the right to review Commonwealth expenditure once it has passed into a State's hands beyond his duty to see that those moneys are distributed appropriately between the States. The Committee has been successful in initiating administrative changes and has also acted as a catalyst for reform as a consequence of many of its reports. I think that is most significant. There are two notable examples of the role of the Public Accounts Committee in highlighting the need for administrative reform. One is the reassessment of the Department of Health and the Health Insurance Commission, particularly in the area of fraud administration. The Committee's inquiries into medical fraud and overservicing have had the beneficial impact of stimulating public debate on these issues. By highlighting public awareness, the Public Accounts Committee perceives that it has enhanced the accountability of medical practitioners and also health administrators. A second and very important area of PAC involvement has been its defence project management inquiry. Already this has led to some improvement being initiated in project management and the creation of a capital procurement organisation. I believe the Public Accounts Committee is confident that it will continue to perform an important role in overseeing and monitoring the taxpayers' money in Commonwealth Government organisations. Debate resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Macklin: That the Senate take note of the papers. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria)(5.44) —In 1983 the electoral law was changed and for the first time the Commonwealth of Australia had a redistribution in which the final boundaries were not referred back to this chamber and the other chamber for ratification. I think that, in itself, is a major advance. One of the problems in the past, especially when different parties have been controlling different Houses, has been that if the prevailing Government or prevailing Opposition has not liked the boundaries it has simply knocked them back. There are many instances of that occurring, even in the last 30 years. In 1962 a redistribution for every State was held. A combination of the National Party of Australia and the Australian Labor Party rejected the proposals. They made it quite clear to then Prime Minister Menzies that the proposals would be rejected. Again in 1975 six sets of proposed boundaries were introduced into the House of Representatives, passed, went to the Senate chamber and were rejected. Following the trend of several other States in this Commonwealth, the Hawke Labor Government introduced legislation that appointed independent commissioners and allowed them to come to an end result without reference back to this Parliament. There was a lot of debate. This was not a bipartisan policy by any means because the Liberal representatives on the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform opposed this process. I think honourable senators can see by the end process of the redistribution in six States that it was not a particularly bad process. When the first set of boundaries was announced in Western Australia the Liberal Party screamed long and hard, as though it had been dudded. One would have to admit that the boundaries, by accident and coincidence, favoured the Labor Party. When the final boundaries were announced in Queensland the Labor Party yelled: 'We have been dudded'. When one looks at the situation Australia-wide one sees that the boundaries favoured no one. The situation was different in different States. The Labor Party was advantaged in Western Australia. The Liberal Party was advantaged in Queensland. In Victoria the redistribution had the effect of marginalising electorates, so neither party was particularly critical because they knew that if they won a majority of the votes they would win a whopping majority of the seats. The redistribution had little effect in South Australia as it gave both parties a safe seat. Finally, in New South Wales it created seats for all parties, although it did cause some tension amongst the coalition parties in seats such as Parkes and Page. In those seats, instead of members of the parties acting like gentlemen and deciding that either the National Party or the Liberal Party would contest a seat, they slugged it out amongst themselves-not a very enjoyable spectacle, although we enjoyed it very much. A couple of problems arise out of the redistribution. One is the requirement for redistributions to be based on growth, as well as allowing for only a 10 per cent tolerance between the seats. At times that gave the commissioners a very difficult job. If they wanted to base a seat on a fast-growing area they really had to couple it with a declining area to make the whole thing balance. I am not sure whether this Parliament considered the full implications of that change at the time, but it may be a matter we will have to tackle in the future if we are to get the sorts of seats this Parliament deserves, that is, seats on community of interest, geographical and other requirements. The implication of the Act that each electorate must be of equal size within 3 1/2 years of the boundaries being announced I think made the task difficult for the commissioners. On the whole I think they did a good job. As I said, there are always winners and losers in redistributions. On the whole, they have tended to balance out evenly between the parties. I think Professor Hughes and the rest of the redistribution commissioners are to be congratulated. One other point I would like to raise is whether the initial submissions from parties are of any use at all. I tend to think they are not. I tend to think the resubmission and appeal procedures are good safeguards for each political party to be involved in. However, I believe that the original submission, which is always, of course, based on self-interest or disguised self-interest, wastes the commissioners' time and the political parties' time. We put a lot of effort into designing the boundaries we want. We can never get those boundaries because the commissioners would be accused of being biased if they delivered those boundaries. Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(5.50) —I agree with a great deal of what Senator Robert Ray said about redistribution processes. In particular, I agree that Professor Hughes and his colleagues are to be congratulated on their handling of the matter and His Honour Mr Justice St. John is to be congratulated on the way in which appeals were heard and dealt with. I should like to mention one matter that arose during the course of the redistribution. I confine myself purely to comments about the redistribution in New South Wales, which I thought posed some substantial difficulty, particularly given Senator Ray's concluding remarks about the value of appeals and resubmissions once boundaries have been seen. Without traversing the full details of what occurred, let me simply say that the augmented redistribution Commission held two sets of hearings in New South Wales. It held hearings in Sydney, at which it heard evidence on most of the objections to the redistribution in New South Wales. It then adjourned to Griffith where it held a second series of hearings and confined itself to dealing with matters touching on the electorates essentially of Hume, Farrer and Riverina-Darling. I had the pleasure not only of making the original submissions to the commissioners, but also of appearing on behalf of the Liberal Party of Australia before the augmented Commission. The problem I shall describe is not peculiar to the Liberal Party but affected all the parties. We had a situation in which the Commission published an initial redistribution of the State of New South Wales. Very considerable objections were made to the way in which the far-western and south-western part of the State of New South Wales had been redistributed, and in particular the way in which the seats of Farrer and Hume and the old seat of Riverina had been treated. All the parties came to Griffith, they all made their submissions, and off went the augmented commission to consider those submissions. The plans which the commission then produced the second time around, which were no longer subject to appeal, public comment or parliamentary scrutiny-I agree they should not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny-turned out to be totally different in just about every respect from the original plans. I have no particular objection to this since all three seats I have mentioned were retained by the coalition parties at the election. But what happened was that the enormous changes that were made left no opportunity for individual electors in that area, shire councils, municipal councils, or whatever it happened to be, to make further objections. It is clear that there must be a stage at which the process stops. There cannot be permanent objections to redistributions and proposals for redistribution. The appeal process resulted not in minor adjustments, as I think happens just about everywhere else in Australia. There were minor adjustments on the borders and minor adjustments between seats, but in New South Wales the adjustments were anything but minor. Seats in western and south-western parts of New South Wales were entirely rearranged. Indeed, up in the Hunter Valley area of New South Wales a seat that was not even proposed in the first redistribution appeared, and a seat which had been proposed in the first redistribution disappeared entirely. I believe that the process and the procedures put in by the last amendments to the legislation are good. I believe that, by and large, they worked well. However, I think there are great difficulties if the appeals procedure results in an almost total recasting of electorates, the creation of new electorates, and in major changes, not just minor technical changes made on appeal but almost a second redistribution being done at which time there is no chance for further submissions and further appeal. The augmented commission should have confined itself to far more minor changes and not to creating at the last moment new seats not subject to appeal and in fact doing a second complete redistribution in at least half of the State. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Peter Baume: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator WATSON(Tasmania)(5.55) —It is not surprising that there has been a mixed response to the report on the Tasmanian freight equalisation scheme. Firstly, there are advantages. There was some relief that the report at least acknowledged that Tasmania suffers certain transport disadvantages because of policies which increase freight rates of sea transport, particularly across Bass Strait. The proposed scheme is a compensation rather than an equalisation scheme, and is designed particularly to help small shippers on the sector between the mainland and Tasmania, based on payment of an amount for each of the different types of cargo units. I think those changes are to be welcomed. On the other hand, concern has been expressed about the proposed new arrangements by some of the large shippers, particularly of bulk cargo. For example, if the proposals result in organisations becoming less competitive-I include the pea processors, apple and pear producers, shippers of green timber and paper, and industries that could be affected for other reasons, such as electrolytic zinc producers in the State-there could be dramatic ramifications in terms of loss of jobs. These labour intensive areas could be severely affected. I hope that the Government will review some of its recommendations, particularly in these areas. Tasmania overall must be receiving less benefit, since there is a projected 15 per cent reduction in total compensation payments. One of the problems with a previous scheme was that it was acknowledged that some of the payments fell largely into a few hands. But the combined effect of this report and the opening up of Bass Strait to some real competition will mean changes in the Bass Strait trade. There will be further pressure to ship out of northern ports, particularly involving those ports and shipping concerns that offer competitive pricing. The Gray Government of Tasmania should be commended for tackling the issues presented by Bass Strait. Farmers, manufacturers and merchants in Tasmania will continue to suffer cost penalties when they need urgent parts or supplies that have to be sent across to the island by air since there is to be no extension to commodities transported by air. A rough rule of thumb is an addition of between 30 to almost 50 per cent to the cost of small items that have to be shipped by air, simply because there is no alternative transport for urgent items. This puts Tasmanian producers and other people at a severe disadvantage. I trust the Government will accept the report and rectify the problems that have been raised. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Peter Baume: That the Senate take note of the papers. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Peter Baume: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(5.58) —I desire to speak briefly on this subject. It is, of course, impossible to deal with this subject in five minutes and I had intended to speak in the adjournment debate at greater length on the general matter of relations with South Africa. However, this is too important a subject to let the matter go at this stage without reference to it, although no justice can be done to the topic in so short a period. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden, has set down a voluntary code of conduct to apply to Australian companies which operate in South Africa. There appear to be about 75 companies in all that come within that category and the code of conduct is not unique. It is very similar in formation to the code that applies in the United States of America, which is called the Sullivan code, the European Community code, to which Britain and the other nations of the European Community belong, and to the code which operates in Canada. The position is outlined rather fully by Mr Hayden in his speech on this matter. I remind honourable senators that Mr Peacock, who spoke in the absence of Mr Macphee who was ill at the time, generally supported the existence of the code but said that he would have reservations if it were to be suggested that the code would be other than voluntary. I think we must endeavour to operate a voluntary code. The experience in Britain has been of fairly substantial acceptance. Approximately 90 per cent of the British companies that operate in South Africa operate under a voluntary system. If Australian companies comply with the requirements of the code, which basically are that they shall improve relations with those who work for them in South Africa, will endeavour to improve the conditions of the workers and will not endeavour to make money out of the low standard of living of the black people, they will benefit this country and South Africa by increasing and improving the present standards of living in that country. Mr Peacock also said in his reply that we would not favour sanctions. I think there is a strong argument, which I will refer to later this evening, against the idea of boycotts and sanctions, which generally have a history of failure in the economic world and which clearly, in relation to South Africa, would lead to the French, the Israelis and other people taking up the area we would vacate if we ceased to trade with South Africa. We recognise that there has been some improvement in the South African position; there have been minor changes. Whether or not they are of substance can be debated at length, but clearly the desires which South African companies and United States companies in South Africa have recently voiced very vehemently-that there should be an improvement in working conditions and that the doctrines of apartheid should be broken down and put an end to by South Africa-will be helped by the existence of such a code. Consequently, I warmly commend the long discussions that have taken place-under the Freedom of Information Act I obtained a lot of material-which have enabled the Government to put forward this proposal. I hope that it will succeed and that companies in Australia will comply with it and that thereby we will see a useful relationship for Australian companies in South Africa. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Peter Baume: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Consideration resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Peter Baume: That the Senate take note of the paper. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 23 April, on motion by Senator Peter Baume: That the Senate take note of the paper. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(6.04) —It is important to examine this report of the Commonwealth Schools Commission containing its recommendations for 1986. The report is the Commission's latest assessment of what is necessary for Australian schools to meet what it considers to be educational priorities. I want to speak very briefly on this matter and to make just a couple of points. The report sets our what the Commission considers to be the urgent needs for funding in order to meet high priority needs. Paragraph 1.3 of the report says: The Commission has confined its financial recommendations for 1986 to the urgent measures set out above- that is, specific purpose program measures- because it is presently undertaking a major review of the Commonwealth's specific purpose programs and detailed investigations are yet to be completed. However, the Commission has considered some of the very high priority programs against the solemn promises that the Government has made to certain communities. The Commonwealth Schools Commission has come up with a very high-spending set of recommendations which really challenge the Government. For example, it has recommended that $26.5m in December 1984 prices be provided in 1986 for recurrent expenditure relating to the education of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders. This represents a very considerable increase in real terms. It recommends as well in relation to the English as a second language program that grants be increased by 20 per cent in real terms for 1986. It recommends in relation to disadvantaged schools programs that funds be increased by 20 per cent in real terms for 1986. It contains several other recommendations for real increases in funds. For the special education program, for example, it recommends extra money to restore in real terms the amount by which this element was reduced under a Labor government between 1984 and 1985. The point that needs to be made is that this is a very high resource-requiring ambit claim made by the Schools Commission on the basis of several things, including its assessment of educational need and priority and its assessment of what the Government has promised. I refer particularly to the Aboriginal educational program in respect of which the Government has made promises. In fact it referred to these promises today in the discussion of a matter of public importance. We are awaiting next Tuesday a financial statement, a mini-Budget, or whatever we call it, from the Government in which it hopes to unveil areas in which it will be cutting expenditure. It will be very interesting to see how the Government approaches the educational needs set out in this report from the Schools Commission, how it sets out its general budgetary management program and priorities, and how, for example, it approaches the achievement of its trilogy, to which we will not object if the Government can approach the trilogy in the interests of good national housekeeping, except of course that the trilogy is not enough in terms of what needs to be achieved. Senator Aulich —Not enough? Senator PETER BAUME —No, the trilogy is not enough to restore this nation to prosperity. It is a necessary start, but the challenge for the Government in responding to this Schools Commission program is to say how it will try to achieve its other economic goals and at the same time not turn its back upon the disadvantaged, the Aboriginal, the migrant and those in need of special education whose needs have been set out by the Schools Commission in this report. It is an extremely difficult problem for the Government. It is very likely that the disadvantaged and the weak will lose out once again when we see next Tuesday's package. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania) —by leave-I wish to say a few words in connection with the annual report for 1983-84 on the operation of the Fishing Industry Act 1956. This is a small and very useful fund. It operates extremely economically and extremely valuably. It received an injection of only $200,000 of government funding for the year. The report shows that the money is used very sensibly in the areas where development work would otherwise probably not be possible. In 1983-84 five new projects were undertaken for a total grant of $260,000. An amount of $150,000 of the $260,000 went to the deep water trawl fishery, and rightly so. The trawl fishery in south-eastern Australia has gone through a phase of considerable over-exploitation on the one hand, and suffers from inadequate knowledge on the other. It was necessary to try to keep the fishermen fishing as well as to get them to develop grounds other than those which had been traditionally used. Tasmania has a new Director of Sea Fisheries in Marc Wilson. In the last few years Marc has done a great deal of research into these areas and in the waters around Tasmania. I think it will be very valuable to have him in the position of Director. The leading deep-water Tasmanian fisherman, Peter Rockcliff, knows more about the fish and fishing in that part of the world than anyone else. He, too, will be able to make great use of the information. He has done a lot of the work that has gone on in this research area. The three items that were granted money were, firstly, monitoring the seine trawl fishing of New South Wales; secondly, assessing the trawl fishery off Victoria and, thirdly, checking the distribution and abundance of the orange roughy on the edge of the shelf. One of the other items in the account in which I have taken a considerable interest has been the establishment of an octopus fishery. It operates out of Stanley where a gentleman named Michael Hardy has been battling to try to establish a commercial octopus fishery. It has been difficult but the advantage that devaluation should produce may well now assist overseas marketing of the product. Mr Hardy has done quite well in the learning stage and in trying to cope with experimental equipment, merchandising promotion and considerable price fluctuations, as is usually the case with a new venture. It has been very useful to have this fund to see him through. It has given him a little assistance here and there, for instance, in the provision of most of the equipment and in trying it out. It has not all been successful. In places the equipment has caused losses amounting to quite a bit. However, it is now working and I am pleased to say that he is now back at sea continuing to do more re-establishment work. The account is a very useful tool in fishing development. I hope and trust that the Government's hatchetmen do not get their hands on this little account and try to close it in the next year or two because it serves a very valuable purpose. Those who have participated in it would certainly attest to that. Consideration resumed. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE(Victoria)(6.14) —I wish the Senate to take note of this paper because I believe there will be opportunities later for debate. I simply make a few remarks following the Statement that was made yesterday by the Minister for Social Security (Mr Howe) with regard to the negotiations that have proceeded for a reciprocal agreement on social security payments with Italy and possibly other countries. It interested me to read of the progress that has been made by the Minister because I think it is well known that this matter has been under consideration by successive social security Ministers over a number of years. We have always had difficulty in reconciling our system of paying social security entitlements with the contributory systems that exist in most of the overseas countries that have an interest in having a reciprocal agreement with us. I note that the Minister has stated that as yet an agreement has not been signed. However, he has outlined the arrangements that would be likely to be the basis of an agreement. He said that both countries will be making progress towards such an agreement and ultimately legislation will enact the agreement in our social security system. I want to comment on a couple of matters. I know it is early in the discussions to do so but I draw attention to the fact that what has been outlined by the Minister for Social Security does bring fairly substantial changes to the generous portability arrangements that were introduced by the Whitlam Government in, I think, 1974 or 1975. The portability arrangements that exist for transferring social security entitlements to whichever country a person chooses to go are unique in the sense that it is a non-contributory scheme. People having attained an entitlement to a pension in this country are able to take it and live elsewhere for the remainder of their life if they choose to do so. The outline given by the Minister yesterday certainly changes that in the sense that we had a system under which a person became entitled to a full age pension on, say, a residential requirement of some 10 years whereas on my reading of the Minister's statement yesterday we will be looking more at a 35-year period to be the residential requirement in order for a person to receive the full pension. We will be working more on the lines that European countries work on. They look at a 40-year working life span in their contributory systems. What occurs with people who come from European countries to Australia is that they have an entitlement for some years. If they return to their own country before becoming entitled to our pensions or under any other circumstances there is a gap in their entitlement for a full pension in the country to which they choose to return. There may be some concern by people who are resident in this country who, under existing arrangements, become entitled to a pension under certain conditions. They will find that these conditions have been changed and the changes are not to the advantage of those who are looking for a full pension after either the short residential period of 10 years or, in cases of other pensions, when the full entitlement is achieved, and that could be in a short time-say, for a widow's pension or an invalidity pension, or whatever. I note that the Minister referred to the residential requirement of a period of years in this country and a period of years on a reciprocal arrangement. These changes are something that will need to be given very close scrutiny. I will be interested to see the reaction of ethnic community groups and those who study our social security system when they look at the arrangements which have been outlined by the Minister. Let us work effectively to understand what he has in mind and what will be the basis of the agreement that might be achieved with Italy and with as many other countries as possible in similar circumstances. I hope that we will have an opportunity to debate these matters at appropriate times but I wanted to take this opportunity to make a brief comment. Question resolved in the affirmative. Reports Consideration resumed. Debate (on motion by Senator Peter Baume) adjourned. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(6.20) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. This paper appoints three new members to the Parliament House Construction Authority. I congratulate those new appointees. That is all I want to say about them. What I do want to refer to is that the paper discloses the end of the tenure of Sir Bernard Callinan, Mr R. D. Ling and Sir John Overall on the Parliament House Construction Authority. The way in which these three gentlemen found out that their tenure had been terminated was by reading about in in the newspapers. Senator Missen —Shameful. Senator LEWIS —As Senator Missen says, it is shameful. This Government talks about consensus, about dealing with employees, about how employers need to get out and talk to their employees and discuss matters with them, about open government and all those sorts of things. The Government makes all of those claims and then, when it comes to taking action in regard to three gentlemen who have served this nation extremely well-in particular, Sir Bernard Callinan and Sir John Overall who have served the nation in many high offices-it allows their term of tenure to expire. About 10 days after their term of tenure has expired, it lets them read in the newspaper that they have not been reappointed. What sort of an excuse were we given in the Press release for the fact that these gentlemen had not been reappointed? I do not know very much about Mr Ling. He is from South Australia. All I can find out about him is that he seems to have been associated with Hills Industries Ltd. He seems to be a very fine gentleman. Senator Hill —A highly regarded industrialist. Senator LEWIS —As my colleague Senator Hill says, he is a highly regarded industrialist. I do not know how old he is. Perhaps Senator Hill knows his age. The statement about these two gentlemen is that apparently they are not of an age when they ought to be reappointed. This Authority will probably come to a conclusion in no more than four years. Sir Bernard Callinan was born, according to Who's Who, on 2 February 1913. Sir John Overall was born, according to Who's Who, on 15 July 1913. Let me mention that a fellow by the name of Mr Whitlam, who has been appointed by this Government as Australia's Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, was born in 1916; so he is three years younger than these people. A judge by the name of Else-Mitchell was born in 1914. Justice Roma Mitchell was born in October 1913. They have recently been appointed to government positions by this Government. Really, this is an absolute nonsense. This stupid Government, with its stupid Australian Labor Party policy, got rid of a senator by the name of McLaren who was one of the most active, interesting and enthusiastic senators the ALP ever had. It got rid of him at the age of 59 because if he had received another six-year term he would have been beyond the age of 65. So he was forced to retire at the age of 59. What an absolute nonsense. This Government has disgracefully ended the tenure of these people in a manner about which it ought to be ashamed. It did not have the courtesy to call the gentlemen in and explain to them that, for some reason or other, it did not want to renew their appointments. The Government did not give them the opportunity to say that they would resign. The Government did not do any of those things. This marvellous building is being constructed. These gentlemen have served this country extremely well and what did the Government do? It sacked those gentlemen in a most disgraceful way. I think that the Government ought to be ashamed of itself. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(6.25) —I support very strongly what Senator Lewis has said. I do so particularly because I was a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the New Parliament House for some time-I think six or eight years. I saw the work that Sir Bernard Callinan and other members of the Committee did. The work involved people having to come to Canberra from other parts of Australia. These gentlemen had no particular axe to grind and no particular benefit to derive. We did. We were members of the Committee because we were going to live in the building and we were concerned with its internal mechanisms. Those gentlemen were prepared to give a lot of their time to this work. I think it is disgraceful that they have been removed in this way without any notice and any reason whatsoever being given for it. I think that they are entitled to an abject apology from the Government for what it has done. If this Government expects people to continue to give voluntary and helpful service-people of the eminence who are named-in the future, it should remember that they will have before them the glaring example of the way in which these men were removed from their positions. They read about it in the newspaper. That must be bad for all of us in this Parliament. We recognise that voluntary service is a tremendously important thing. A great deal of the work that is done for this country is done by people who give of their time. I am amazed that they do so much work. I would not be surprised if people are discouraged from doing it by this heartless and foolish action on the part of the Government. Therefore, I support very strongly what has been said. I hope that the Government will see fit to try to make at least some amendments. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(6.26) —It might be appropriate if I said something on this matter as someone who was a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the New Parliament House, one of the assessors on the new Parliament House design competition and, as such, as one who had a very close relationship with Sir John Overall, a gentleman for whom I have the utmost personal and professional admiration. I want to say simply that I will take up with the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes) the points that have been made by Senator Lewis and Senator Missen. If it is the case that these gentlemen were not informed before the Press statement was released publicly, I say to both Senator Missen and Senator Lewis that I personally will express my reaction in the strongest possible terms that that occurred. If it is the case-I hasten to add that I am in no position to confirm that it is the case-that they were not formally notified by the Minister before the matter was made public in that way, it is quite inexcusable and I would not seek for a moment to defend what is obviously, if that is true, a piece of specular maladministration. It is the case, I do know, that the possibility of the tenure of at least the two older gentlemen being terminated for that reason, and that reason alone, was canvassed with them at some earlier stage, or at least it had come to their knowledge at some earlier stage. I think that in that respect it has to be understood that sometimes governments are faced with difficult and sensitive decisions when it comes to reappointing people beyond a certain statutory age for jobs which have some longevity about them. I think it needs to be appreciated that the Parliament House Construction Authority will have a life substantially beyond 1987, even 1988, in wrapping up this project. There is a real policy difficulty and dilemma for governments when confronted with the reappointment of people who are over the age of 70 years in the context of an exercise of that kind. I do not want to be taken, from anything that I have said, to be acceding to the point that was made by Senator Lewis and Senator Missen about the age factor, but I certainly do acknowledge the force of the point that has been made about the notification issue. If it is the case that they were treated in that way, I repeat that I find that something for which I can only apologise very strongly on behalf of the Government. Question resolved in the affirmative. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy) —by leave-Just before the dinner break I was speaking to the paper on appointments to the Parliament House Construction Authority and making the point in passionate agreement with Senator Lewis and Senator Missen that if it had been the case that Sir John Overall, Sir Bernard Callinan and Mr Ling had their services with the Authority terminated without their knowing about it before they read it in the newspapers, it would have been a matter of disgraceful maladministration. I remain of the view that if that had been the circumstance it would indeed have been something for which the Government should be profoundly apologetic. However, over the dinner break I had the opportunity of checking the matter out, as I said I would, with the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes) and his office. I have been assured by the Minister that we were proceeding on a false premise and that there was a notification of the gentlemen in question of the Government's intention before the matter was made the subject of a Press release. To set the record straight, the Minister for Territories has advised me that he invited Sir Bernard Callinan, Sir John Overall, Mr Robert Ling, Mr Neil Macphillamy and Sir Laurence Muir, to his Parliament House office on Tuesday, 9 April. At those meetings Mr Scholes advised each member of the Authority of his intentions regarding their reappointment. Honourable senators no doubt will wish to note that these meetings took place 14 days before Mr Scholes's ministerial statement on 23 April on appointments to the Parliament House Construction Authority. Of course, the Press reports that were made followed that statement in the House of Representatives on that day. Mr Scholes said that he regretted that the statement was not being made concurrently in both chambers but the Senate had risen before the statement could be made. In think that is the clearest possible indication from the Minister that perhaps there had been some misunderstanding on this issue. The Minister in fact did communicate his intention not to reappoint, for the reasons that have been stated to the gentlemen in question. In those circumstances, the dire characterisation I gave of the circumstances before dinner would appear not to be justified. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(8.04) —Before the debate was interrupted I was pointing out that we had not been looking at the right questions when it came to voting. It is not enough just to concentrate on whether a ballot paper is going to be accepted as formal. The real crunch is whether voters' opinions are heeded. Quite plainly, that does not happen in the case of half of them. In fact, 47.3 per cent of those who cast a formal vote found their first preferences ineffective. Over 44 per cent of voters need not have bothered at all, for all the good their votes did. They were well and truly had. The statistics section of the Australian Electoral Commission's report divides seats into the following categories: Safe, fairly safe, and marginal. Safe seats were those in which the successful candidate received over 60 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. How many of these were there? There were 61 safe seats out of 148 seats. So in nearly half the seats there really was only a symbolic value to the campaigning. Interestingly enough, irrespective of whether the seat was a safe Labor, Liberal or National seat, more votes intended for the winning candidate were informal than were those for the major opponent. That can be ascertained fairly easily from pages 28, 29, 34, 35, 40 and 41 of the report. In 31 other seats the winning candidate received between 56 and 60 per cent of the two-party preferred vote. Honourable senators can imagine how little genuine political debate and activity will occur in those fairly safe seats-at least until the next set of unnecessary redistribution proposals come along and there is a mad scramble for those seats that are turned into safe seats. The Australian Electoral Commission report does have one extraordinary remark at page 21 dealing with pre-election research on the effectiveness of its main television advertisement. It refers to a sample of 101 people who conformed broadly to the demographic characteristics of the Australian electorate. I find it hard to put faith in findings based on such a small number of people. When we have such a far-reaching claim based on such small samples I wonder whether those conducting the research and interpreting the information collected have any concept of the error that can be expected on statistical grounds. I hope that in future more extensive work can be done before millions of dollars are splashed around. I draw the Senate's attention to the curiosity that Queensland for a long time has had the lowest rate of informal voting in the nation. Perhaps the Electoral Commission can examine why that is so. I seek leave to incorporate table 4.2 of the report in Hansard in order to illustrate my point. Leave granted. The table read as follows- Table 4.2 INFORMAL VOTING BY STATE AND TERRITORY FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 1974-84 (%)* 1974 1975 1977 1980 1983 1984 N.S.W. 1.66 1.87 2.26 2.36 2.16 5.75 Vic. 2.11 1.96 2.85 2.70 2.20 7.59 Qld 1.38 1.27 1.53 1.76 1.30 4.43 W.A. 2.52 2.30 3.30 2.69 1.98 7.08 S.A. 2.81 2.40 3.38 2.79 2.67 8.26 Tas. 1.77 1.85 2.60 2.64 2.30 5.87 A.C.T. 1.53 1.67 2.38 2.15 2.21 4.72 N.T. 2.81 3.25 3.46 4.91 4.40 4.62 Aust. 1.92 1.89 2.52 2.45 2.09 6.38 *Including missing and discarded ballot-papers, 1974-83. Senator VIGOR —I thank the Senate. I return to my previous point that the only way to give people an effective vote is to bring in quota preferential counting in multi-member districts. The Australian Labor Party might even want to use optional preferential voting in a multi-member electorate. I believe we would be prepared to support that. Senator Zakharov —You were not prepared to support it last year. Senator VIGOR —I repeat we would consider it in multi-member electorates. We would then find 90 per cent or more of voters having an effective first preference. Voters would have a real choice of parties and candidates. It would be worth their while to turn up to vote for a House of Representatives election, no matter where they lived. Both Labor and Liberal parties would then have to learn to cater for the whole nation, rather than just particular geographical sections in which they have won seats to date. I also want to consider electoral advertising by the Commission. Given the length of time needed for issues to take off in the public mind, it is odd that there was an electronic media blitz confined to the last two weeks of the December 1984 election campaign. The Commission will have to develop less spectacular ways of trying to get the message across, and to do so over a longer period. I note that voting for the Senate showed a lower informal vote than did voting for the House of Representatives. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard table 4.1 which illustrates this. Leave granted. The table read as follows-Table 4.1 INFORMAL VOTING AT THE PREVIOUS VOTE AND IN 1984 (%)* House Senate Referendums 1983 1984 1983 1984 1977 (Q4) 1984 (Q1) 1984 (Q2) New South Wales 2.2 5.7 11.1 5.6 1.6 4.6 6.4 Victoria 2.2 7.6 10.7 4.2 2.2 5.5 7.7 Queensland 1.3 4.4 8.6 3.3 1.2 2.7 4.1 Western Australia 2.0 7.1 7.8 4.7 2.4 4.4 5.9 South Australia 2.7 8.3 8.8 5.4 2.4 7.0 9.6 Tasmania 2.3 5.9 7.4 5.7 1.9 5.6 8.4 Australian Capital Territory 2.2 4.7 3.3 3.1 . . 3.8 5.5 Northern Territory 4.4 4.6 4.7 3.2 . . 7.0 8.4 Australia 2.1 6.4 9.9 4.7 1.8 4.8 6.7 * Including missing and discarded ballot-papers in 1983 and 1977 and for the Senate and referendums in 1984. Senator VIGOR —This evidence suggests that an advertising campaign would make voting very much more effective, especially if the advertising occurred over a much longer period. I believe it would help if one could honestly tell voters in safe areas for Labor or the coalition that their House of Representatives vote was meaningful. I believe that the only way in which we can do this is by establishing multi-member electorates with proportional representation. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator LEWIS(Victoria) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(8.10) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. This is one of the papers which we wished to discuss yesterday, as it covers an issue which is so urgent and important to the dairy industry around Australia. This paper concerns the special meeting of the Australian Agricultural Council which was held on 27 September last year and which was called specifically to discuss the Australian Dairy Industry Conference proposal and the method that it had of solving the dairy problem. It must be recalled that at present much is being said, particularly by Government members, about the fact that the industry has been derelict in its actions in trying to change the industry's size, shape and form. Of course, that is totally incorrect. For three years the industry, to my certain knowledge, has been discussing how the appropriate legislation would be enforced to see that it was assisted in trying to return to a reasonable level of production. It has known that the production has been getting high and it has come up with various schemes at various times. It has sought the Government's assistance in trying to bring in the necessary legislation that would fairly and equitably distribute the new industry in a slightly more slender form. This document contains the details of the plan that was put forward. If honourable senators will bear with me, I will briefly outline the half a dozen points that it proposed. Primarily, the plan would run for six years with a full review after two years; a levy would be imposed on all milk; domestic price support would be modified; an equalisation arrangement based on the levies would be phased out; and an entitlement scheme would be introduced. That was the way in which it was seen that the industry could bring itself back to a reasonable level. That case should still be looked at very carefully even now. The legislation introduced tonight in another place is an absolute sham. It is a disgrace to treat an industry of this magnitude in such a manner. It is necessary that the size of this industry be reduced. The proposal that was dealt with on 27 September, had it been agreed to at the time, would have done so. It must be remembered that a gentleman from Victoria named Eric Kent was the reason that it was not then implemented. It was hoped at that stage that legislation would be introduced to operate as from 1 November 1984. It was as close to being agreed to as that, except for the whims of some silly old coot who, for reasons which nobody yet understands, would not go along with the eminently suitable proposal. As a result of that, we are now being subjected to all sorts of undesirable effects which will be disastrous in many parts of Australia. The dairy industry has done a tremendous amount towards assisting the development and decentralisation of Australia. It has fitted into the rural communities very well. People involved in the industry now have very few alternatives that they can turn to. Australia enjoys the cheapest milk products of probably any developed country in the world except New Zealand. The efficiency of the industry is second to none, including New Zealand. I believe that this report is very important because it demonstrates the milestone that was reached at that time. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(8.14) —The Victorian dairy farmers are in trouble. They produce 80 per cent of the milk that is produced in Australia. They are the most efficient dairy producers in Australia. They are probably the most efficient dairy producers in the world. As Senator Archer said, they are just as efficient as New Zealanders, perhaps more so. Tasmanians produce 5 per cent of the milk and the other States produce 15 per cent of the milk. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The time allocated under Sessional Orders for consideration of government papers has concluded. Debate resumed from 28 March, on motion by Senator Missen: That the Senate, recognising the unquestioned extent of Commonwealth responsibility for the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef exercised through the operations of the Marine Park Authority and for the effective countering of any established threat to the integrity of the reef area- (a) expresses concern about reports which indicate that large numbers of crown-of-thorns starfish have been found in many of the major reefs within the Great Barrier Reef, that the infestations are becoming widespread and posing a serious threat to the organisation and functional relationships within some reef communities; (b) notes recent reports that soil erosion arising from the building of a road in the Daintree rainforest may be creating a threat to rare coral reefs just off the Daintree coast; (c) observes that, despite former reports of committees of inquiry into the crown-of-thorns starfish since 1969-70, the present Advisory Committee has reported in January 1985 that 'present evidence is inadequate for scientists to agree on the nature and significance of the phenomenon of aggregations of large numbers of crown-of-thorns starfish and thus on the extent of any consequent risk' and that the current level of research activity is unlikely to lead to a short-term resolution of the questions raised; (d) expresses its deep concern to the Commonwealth Government and the Marine Park Authority for: (i) the apparent lack of urgency in commissioning urgent research which would enable scientists to ascertain the nature and significance of the crown-of-thorns starfish infestations and the extent of any consequent risk that the reef or some substantial part of it is being destroyed, (ii) the failure to review techniques for monitoring crown-of-thorns starfish and coral conditions, and developing more efficient techniques such as biological control by predators or other action to control the infestations, (iii) the inadequacy of regulations preventing tourist spearfishermen and professional fishermen from removing large numbers of giant triton, groper and other natural predators of the starfish from the reef; and, accordingly (e) refers to the Standing Committee on Science, Technology and the Environment and the Standing Committee on National Resources the question of whether an urgent investigation should be undertaken into this matter, and if so by which committee, to ascertain whether the present proposals of the Advisory Committee and the Marine Park Authority are adequate to meet the situation, or otherwise to make specific recommendations relating to a co-ordinated program of crown-of-thorns starfish research, control and eradication within the Great Barrier Reef. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(8.15) —I would like to speak to the motion that has been moved by Senator Missen. My starting point is the way in which the motion appears in the Notice Paper. Paragraph (a) expresses certain concerns. I think the claim that the crown-of-thorns starfish presents a serious threat to the organisation and functional relationships within some reef communities needs to be put in perspective. It tends to imply that we have a widespread problem or that the magnitude of the problem may be greater than it really is. Paragraph (d) expresses deep concern to the Commonwealth Government and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for, firstly, the apparent lack of urgency; secondly, the failure to review techniques; and, thirdly, the inadequacy of regulations. I think that in all fairness that is not quite an accurate presentation, particularly with regard to the lack of urgency in commissioning research. A great deal of work has been done on this subject. I think that a slightly different point of view ought to be aired. Paragraph (e) refers to committees of the Senate-the Standing Committee on Science, Technology and Environment and the Standing Committee on National Resources-the question of whether an urgent investigation should be undertaken into this matter and, if so, by which committee. An enormous amount of work would be involved. I doubt very much whether any committee of the Parliament has the resources to undertake such a task. I think it is a fair comment that to carry out in full what is implied in that paragraph is beyond the resources of the Senate. As I said, I have every sympathy with Senator Missen's concern on this issue, but I would like to put a slightly different point of view and create a different perspective on the matter. In a sense, what Senator Missen is asking for was covered with respect to the information he sought, by the Crown of Thorns Starfish Advisory Committee, which reported earlier this year. That Committee was very carefully put together. It had as its Chairman a very impartial person with impeccable credentials. Importantly, the Committee's membership included one of the long-standing critics of activity on the reef, Dr Robert Endean. The findings of that Committee were supported by the Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Marine Science and Technology Committee. It is my expectation that the recommendations of that Committee will be supported in the coming Budget. Of course, I am not privy to what will be contained in the Budget, but it is my expectation that there will be financial support for those recommendations. I do not know that there is much more that can be done at present in the circumstances with respect to the crown-of-thorns starfish. One million dollars is being spent at present by the Australian Institute of Marine Science on conducting a real time survey of the whole of the reef. Previous inquiries into the crown-of-thorns starfish have been sequential inquiries. They have taken samples of the reef and have done intensive surveys in a few local areas. But the survey that is under way at present, which is being carried out by AIMS, will give us the first overall real time survey of the whole reef structure. Another point raised by Senator Missen during the debate earlier in this place was the Japanese study. It is generally conceded amongst the scientific community that the $5m that the Japanese expended on starfish clearance of their reefs was $5m wasted. In a way, it could be compared to trying to kill grasshoppers in a grasshopper plague by using a fly swatter. The physical removal of starfish from a reef is not effective and has no permanent value. I have a great deal of confidence in the two bodies that are principally involved in this area-the Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Australian Institute of Marine Science. I have looked at and been involved with both of them in a scientific capacity over the years in which I have been a member of the Senate. I have no hesitation in affirming my admiration for their professional integrity and professional competence. I have sympathy for them as advisory bodies because it is very easy on the one hand to say 'You have to spend money in a hurry and clean it up', and on the other a large body in the community says: 'Don't spend money until we know what the effect of it will be'. This produces a genuine problem for the advisers. Another point to which I refer is the television film, part of which I saw. I think it is a very fair comment to make that that film certainly presented an exaggerated view of the reef. The producers of that film definitely went to areas where they knew the crown-of-thorns infestation was bad and they could get spectacular footage. I think the balance in that film left a bit to be desired. The producers certainly created the impression which they set out to create, that we were facing some cataclysmic destruction of the reef. The evidence is that the present crown-of-thorns infestation is no worse than it was in the 1970s. We are dealing with a repetitive infestation here. It does not occur on regular cycles but it has a repetitive nature. The last time it occurred in the present dimensions was in the early 1970s, and the numbers of starfish and reefs involved are no greater now than the numbers involved then. One can say that with a high degree of confidence because the statistical sampling that was done involved 10 per cent of the reefs on the Great Barrier Reef. In aggregate, 260 reefs were studied. As I said, that is 10 per cent of the total. As politicians we have an enormous amount of confidence in the gallup polls that come out each week to show us how we are going with the public. The statistical sample used in those polls is 0.4 per cent and we all agree that we have a high degree of confidence in them. I reaffirm the point that the technique that is being used to estimate the degree of crown-of-thorns infestation of the reef at present is statistically sound. We simply cannot make a prospective assessment of what will happen. No one can say at present whether the infestation and destruction will worsen or improve. It is something on which we just do not have any data on which to base a prospective view. It seems that the populations of starfish on the reef are moving south, which is what happened before. It is not that the starfish themselves are moving; it is the spawn, and they are moving progressively in a southerly direction down the reef. On previous occasions, when they reached the southern end of the reef they petered out, and the cycle started again in the north. I reaffirm that the infestation is definitely no worse than it was in the early part of the 1970s. To put it in perspective, less than 10 per cent of the reefs are at present infested by crown-of-thorns starfish. I think anyone who watched that film on television when it came out some months ago would have come away with the impression that the great majority of the reef system was infested by the crown-of-thorns starfish. The actual figure is considerably less than 10 per cent of the reef system. While one cannot form a prospective view of what will happen, there is, by the same token, absolutely no evidence to suggest and no reason to assume that what is going to happen will be totally disastrous to the reef system. That, of course, was the finding by the Committee to which I referred earlier. The second point of interest in this motion relates to the Daintree Road. The Daintree Road is exactly the same type of road as the Cape Tribulation Road which has been in place for about 20 years. It has the same type of construction and, geographically, it lies just inside the shoreline in some parts. So there is evidence of the effect of roads close to the beach line. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has set up a monitoring program at 12 sites alongside the Daintree Road and is looking at the corals, fin fishes and invertebrates. It is looking for long term effects. There is no doubt at all that there is an increased turbidity in the water alongside the road, particularly in the three creeks that run through it and run out from it. But the total length involved is no more than six kilometres and it could be considerably shorter than that. The studies show that the plume of pollution or turbidity that is coming from soil being washed into the water alongside the Daintree Road is going out to sea rather than remaining on the shoreline. Be that as it may, quite obviously the solution to that problem, since the road is in place, is to spend some money and put in a properly engineered road. My advice is that something like only $2m would be involved in putting in a properly engineered road. It is also suggested that if the Queensland Government does not want to spend that much money, an expenditure of even $1m will prevent deleterious effects of the soil being washed away, if that sum is spent on the building of concrete culverts, proper drainage schemes and things like that to mitigate the effect. Senator PRIMMER(Victoria)(8.26) —When I took over the role of Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on National Resources, I immediately became aware that that Committee had been giving some thought to the crown-of-thorns starfish and to whether the Committee should take on such a reference. However, very shortly afterwards I became aware that the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation was also giving consideration to taking that reference aboard. On 30 April 1985 Mr Peter Milton, Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee, sent to me a letter which I think I should read into the Hansard. It states: Dear Senator Primmer, Following a meeting with the Chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the Committee has decided to investigate the impact of the Crown of Thorns Starfish and erosion from the Daintree Road on the Reef. The Committee discussed in detail Senator Missen's notice of motion and the areas outlined in the motion will be included in the investigation. The Committee will be writing to conservationists, the scientific community, relevant State and Commonwealth Authorities and the tourist industry. In addition we will be seeking information on studies and research conducted overseas. While a detailed programme has yet to be decided discussions and inspections in Queensland have been scheduled for when the House rises. Yours sincerely Peter Milton Chairman Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(8.28) —I do not wish to make any comments but I do wish at this point to table the report of the Crown of Thorns Starfish Advisory Committee which I think will assist in the further development of discussion on this topic. I table the report. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(8.29) —in reply-I wish to speak briefly in reply. I shall deal firstly with the matters raised by Senator MacGibbon. I do not intend to challenge in any way a number of the points which he made. The point of the investigation which I have made into this matter was to raise in a motion the questions which I think are worrying a number of people in this community. Some of the answers that Senator MacGibbon has given may well be found to be correct and there may therefore be less misapprehension about certain aspects of this matter. I do not feel, however, that Senator MacGibbon's remarks in any way answer the whole of the matter. One of the problems which I raised in my earlier speech-I do not intend to go further with it tonight-was the problem of the lack of investigation over a number of years and the fact that we have reached a situation in which, as Senator MacGibbon said, we cannot say, because there is no data, whether the infestation will worsen. That is the problem. The question may be whether the inquiries that are being made by the Crown of Thorns Starfish Advisory Committee and the proposals put forward in its report, which the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) has kindly tendered tonight and which I think is very useful to us all, are adequate and represent the right way of tackling the problem. It is proposed that quite a considerable amount of money will be spent. I hope, with Senator MacGibbon, that the Government will announce that a considerable amount of money will be expended in this way this year. I think it is important that a committee of the Parliament-I emphasise 'of the Parliament'-look at the question and see whether the lines of investigation are correct and whether this is an adequate response to the problem. I might go into some argument with Senator MacGibbon as to whether the infestation is not more serious than he suggested. However, in general the matters which he raised in his speech are matters which will certainly be considered by a Senate committee. He suggested, however, that no committee of the Parliament could really be expected to investigate sufficiently. I do not believe that this is so. Like Senator Primmer, I also have a letter from Mr Peter Milton saying that a House of Representatives committee is keen to undertake this study. Apparently that committee feels capable of doing this. Of course, very considerable written as well as other material is available to assist that committee in its task. So far as the Daintree Road is concerned, there is no doubt that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority itself, which has drawn my attention to this matter, fears the dangers which are inherent in the road as it presently stands. Whether something should be done as has been suggested here is a matter which I trust the committee will take into consideration. However, I think it is important that this matter be taken up immediately and looked at by a committee of this Parliament which would no doubt be expected to contribute to the cost of such work. You will note, Madam Acting Deputy President, that my motion has been amended to leave open the choice of which committee would be available and the most suitable one to undertake this work. I think it would be unrealistic to suggest that it would be other than a House of Representatives committee. Senator Primmer has read into the record the letter from Mr Milton. I also have a copy of that letter. I have also received a letter from Senator Jones, the Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Science, Technology and the Environment in which he says that he feels that his Committee would not be capable at the moment of dealing with this matter but that the House of Representatives committee is. As the Senate has raised this matter and pressed for some action for some inquiry to be undertaken, I think it is desirable that this motion be carried by the Senate. When this is done the committees will, obviously in their wisdom, reach agreement as to which one should undertake the investigation. I believe that it is very necessary that this investigation be done, and done in this year. The excellent report which we obtained this year, which the Government has and which is now before the Senate will, no doubt, be a basis for such discussion. I think further investigation is required as to whether the report into this very important area which is of importance to this country is adequate or not. I therefore trust that the Senate will carry this motion and that a committee of the Parliament will proceed forthwith to investigate this matter. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 13 June 1984, on motion by Senator Peter Rae: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator HILL(South Australia)(8.34) —I rise to support the Constitution Alteration (Appropriation Bills) Bill 1984 [1985] which is a private member's Bill introduced by Senator Peter Rae. I do not intend to speak at length but I again record my support for the Bill. I say 'again' because the Senate last debated a Bill in a similar form in June of last year. That legislation was passed by this place but, unfortunately, the Government failed to take it further. In particular, it failed to take it to the people at a referendum. That is a matter that I will come back to. The Bill is an attempt to provide an answer to just one of the many problems that arise in our Constitution in its effort to marry the Westminster system with the Federal system. On the one hand we have the principle that a government that loses Supply or which is unable to get Supply has no alternative but to resign, after which it would normally have to go to an election whereas on the other hand there was an attempt by the founding fathers to give adequate powers to the upper House to protect the States' interests as they were then seen to exist. Those adequate powers included the power to reject Bills, including the power to reject Supply. When both of these principles are joined, unless there is a double dissolution mechanism in place, the upper House's rejecting Supply can lead to an election of the House of Representatives. That might of course happen in a situation in which the government still has the confidence of the lower House. If we follow that scenario down the track a little further, it means that the Senate has the power to force the House of Representatives to the people although it may be that it is not at that time answerable to the people for its action. That position is to some of us no longer tenable. If the Senate chooses to exercise this extreme power some of us believe it should not be able to avoid the electoral consequences of that action. This private member's Bill which has been introduced by Senator Rae is one solution to that problem. The Bill in effect provides that if the Senate fails to pass a proposed law appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of government within 30 days, the Governor-General shall forthwith dissolve both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In other words, forthwith the Governor-General has no choice but to dissolve the Senate and the House of Representatives simultaneously. Much of the Bill deals with what are Appropriation Bills or proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the government. It is obviously of critical importance that such terms are properly defined in order that the Constitution contain the certainty which is so necessary. The arguments and the debate on the definitional matters were gone into in Senator Rae's second reading speech and have been debated in full in this place previously. I do not intend to retain the attention of the Senate tonight with the various opinions as to what amounts to appropriations but I do want to say that Senator Rae had no choice but to define the terms in his Bill and he appears to have done that, certainly to my satisfaction. I want to stress that the Bill provides a solution to the type of political crisis that occurred in 1975. It may not be the solution that some would want and I am sure that the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Gareth Evans, when he follows me in this debate, will argue that it is not the solution that he would advocate. However, the first point to be made is that the legislation provides a solution to that type of crisis. The second point is that it provides certainty in that it requires the Governor-General to so act. Of course, that would remove much of the discretions which might suffer from clashes of convention such as Parliament resigning if it fails to secure Supply as against the Governor-General's obligation or the convention that he should act on the advice of the Prime Minister. If this Bill does-as in fact it does-remove that uncertainty, I would argue that that is a point in its favour. Thirdly, I suggest that the Bill provides a solution which is in fact just. I stress the importance of the system that we have of being seen to be both fair and just. Therefore, if the Senate is to retain the power to block Supply, and that is not in argument tonight, it is fair and just that it should be prepared to answer to the people for exercising that power. The history of this matter appears in the record. This proposal was considered by the Australian Constitutional Convention. In particular it has been considered by Standing Committee D of the Convention for a number of years. This was proposed as a matter of principle at the Perth Convention in 1978 and then, I understand, referred back to Standing Committee D for detailed drafting and recommendations. That drafting was presented to and accepted with amendment by the Adelaide Convention in 1982. As I indicated when I commenced, a Bill was prepared, again under the name of Senator Peter Rae, and debated in the Senate last year. As I recall, on that occasion it passed. Of course, we desired that it be put to the people but this Government, as we know, chose last year rather to abuse the process of constitutional change than move in this constructive direction. I say that the Government chose to abuse that process because, as the Senate will remember, it sought to extend the power of the Prime Minister to dissolve the Senate at any time of his choice. At any time he chose to have a lower House election, he would have had the power to take out the Senate. The Government sought to mislead the Australian people with its so-called simultaneous elections referendum by arguing that it would mean fewer elections. The Australian public, not being so gullible, realised of course that that was not necessarily so, that in fact it could result in more elections rather than fewer elections. That attempted abuse of the public did not succeed and the proposal of the Government was defeated. An opportunity to improve the working of the Constitution constructively by putting Senator Rae's Bill to the Australian people was lost. Senators would also remember that when we last debated this Bill it was one of a package, and the most important of that package was the much vaunted fixed term Bill. I very happily supported that Bill on that occasion. Of course, it was designed to ensure that, except in the most exceptional circumstances, a government would have to serve its full term. History records that this current Government failed those who supported the Bill by refusing to proceed with it to the Australian people, in the same way that it refused to proceed with Senator Rae's Bill. It took this action because it feared a political backlash. The principles of constitutional change have been failed again by this Government and in the short term the Australian people have been let down. All I say in conclusion is that this Government, which we feared at the time it was first elected was going to present to the Australian people constitutional change from an idealistic point of view and carry it through to the people at referendums, has failed in that area, as it has failed in others. It had the opportunity, after last years Bills, particularly in relation to fixed term parliaments and also in relation to Senator Rae's Bill, to show that idealism in a practical form by taking these proposals forward, but it failed to do so. Senator Rae's Bill on this occasion is another attempt. I admire his determination and dedication to proceed with the matter. It is going to give this current Government another opportunity to give the Australian people the opportunity to put into the Constitution a solution to the type of crisis that developed in 1975, and as I have indicated, a solution that appears on the face of it to provide certainty, justice and equity and which would be a much better situation than currently exists. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(8.45) —One can really be quite brisk in disposing of Senator Rae's Bill or at least in expressing opposition to it. I debated this matter in October 1983, and although I do not normally quote myself, what I said on that occasion puts the matter very succinctly. What I said then is this: I think the only remotely respectable aspect of this proposal so far as the Government is concerned is that it would require the Senate to go to the polls to face an election in the event that it exercised its Supply-blocking power. However, as to its basic substance, its picking up of the so called Sir Charles Court resolution at the earlier Australian Constitutional Convention makes it completely unacceptable to the Labor Government. That will not be news to any honourable senator. What it does is simply institutionalise the outrage of 1975. So far from discouraging the Senate from exercising the manifestly excessive powers it has to determine not just the content of legislation but the life or death of properly elected governments, those manifestly excessive powers will not only not be curbed in any way by this particular measure but also their exercise will positively be encouraged. There is no question under any circumstances of this measure achieving any support whatsoever from this side of the House. I have no doubt at all that Senator Rae appreciates the fate in store for him, if not here today, then certainly in the other place. I do not resile from a word of what I said in 1983 as I believe that encapsulates with some precision the merits and demerits of this Bill. In deference to Senator Rae's persistence in again bringing the Bill forward in the way he has and to the grand nature of this occasion, as always when we are debating constitutional matters with the nation agog at every word we utter, let me say a little more about the particular measure before us. Senator Rae's Bill involves an acceptance of two principles which conflict in a quite fundamental way with stable, responsible and efficient government in Australia. These principles are, firstly, that the Senate is entitled as of right to reject or defer supply and, secondly, that when the Senate does so, the popularly elected government of the day, whatever its majority, must promptly go to an election. For the Senate to be justified in the exercise of these extreme powers it could only be on the basis of one or other of two distinct rationales. The first possible rationale is that the Senate is a fully democratic chamber representing the electorate as a whole, responsible for protecting the interests of the electorate as a whole and for determining the composition of the government of the day. The other rationale which I suppose could found the kinds of claims that Senator Rae is seeking to make is that the Senate is somehow charged with protecting, if not the democratic interests, then some other kind of interest which needs protection and which would otherwise go by default. In a Federal system such as ours, this is usually seen to be that of the States, particularly the less populous ones, whose voice might otherwise be swamped. The difficulty is that neither of these rationales is borne out by the factual situation. The Senate has never been a democratic chamber in the same way as it is proper to describe the House of Representatives as a democratic chamber or as a people's House. This is basically because of the method of election to the Senate. Democratic though it may be, looked at solely within the confines of any particular State, it entirely loses that character when one looks at the composition of the Senate as a whole. As has been acknowledged on innumerable occasions, the situation is that the value of the vote of each elector in Senate elections varies enormously as between the States, with Victoria and New South Wales, for example, each having more than ten times the population of Tasmania and with the votes accordingly of Tasmanians being worth, for this purpose, ten times as much as those of Victorians or New South Welshmen. Senator Peter Rae —It is a sort of IQ test. Senator GARETH EVANS —I do not think even the hubris of Senator Rae, which is much in evidence here tonight could possibly justify that particular distinction on democratic grounds. It has to be on some other ground; of course the other ground is the old chestnut that the Senate, if it does not protect democratic interests, at least it protects some other interests that are worth protecting, that is, the States and the Federal system. Of course, it cannot be established with credibility that the Senate is or ever has been a States House any more than it can be established with credibility that it is a democratic chamber. The Senate is a party House. It acts in accordance with the decisions of the majority party or the parties comprising the majority of the day or the majority on a particular issue. This fact was most spectacularly and powerfully demonstrated in 1974 and 1975, but it is a recurring fact of our daily existence. It has been throughout the course of this century and we all know it. I hope that in any future edition of Mr Odgers's book one of the examples of the Senate not acting as a States House that creeps its way into print, because it is one of the more spectacular examples I can remember during my tenure here, is the vote in this chamber on the question of the composition and jurisdiction of the National Crime Authority and the method by which the jurisdiction, or the scope of the references, of that Authority would be determined. It will be recalled that an effort on the part of the Labor Government to give a meaningful decision making role to the States was rejected on party lines in this chamber. That was a classic demonstration of the sheer hypocrisy that is talked so often by those who would claim that this House is more sensitive than other organs in the political process to the rights, interests and role of the States. The simple reality at the end of the day is that to accept that the Senate, which is not a popularly elected representative chamber, should have the power to send the House of Representatives to the people is simply an affront to representative democracy. It is and must remain the right of the House of Representatives to preserve and maintain a properly and democratically elected government of the day. I should say that the Labor Party's approach to these issues is very well known. The proposal of former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam at the 1976 Australian Constitutional Convention in Hobart was that the Constitution ought to be amended so as to remove the power of the Senate to reject, defer or in any other manner block the passage of crucial Supply Bills. That proposal remains the policy of the Australian Labor Party. It is one of the specific planks in our constitutional reform policy. I continue to nurture the hope, unrealistic though it may be, that it will one day assume its place in the Australian Constitution as a proper statement of the subsidiary role of this chamber in the political process. I add by way of parenthesis that I have said on many other occasions that I believe this chamber has a meaningful, positive and constructive role as a House of review and in a number of other respects so far as the political system is concerned, but as a house of destruction it has no place at all in our present political system. Finally, I will make some quick comments on some points of detail in Senator Rae's speech which I think should not be allowed to go unchallenged. Senator Rae's citing of an opinion by Mr Ewart Smith, formerly of the Attorney-General's Department, in support of the insertion of his proposed new section 53A can be described politely as disingenuous, to say the least. Mr Smith, after commenting that the '1965 Compact', having been followed since 1965, can be regarded as 'firmly establishing a practice that may achieve convention status in the strictest sense as its observance continues', goes on to say quite specifically that in his view it would not be appropriate for inclusion in the text of the Constitution. Senator Rae's citation of the resolution of the Adelaide Constitutional Convention in 1983 is also quite misleading. That resolution simply cannot be regarded as indicating any measure of cross-party support for this proposal. I expressly stated at Adelaide, on behalf of the Government, that the proposal was anathema to the Government. What we were debating on that occasion, of course, was not the substance of the resolution but its drafting form. I had hoped that Senator Rae might have acknowledged that in his speech rather than cheapening what was a perfectly rational debate, alone among others, on that occasion. Finally, I think it should be said that Senator Rae's expressed personal preference for the joint sitting device in the event of a continuing deadlock after a dissolution over Supply is interesting. Although it is not in his Bill, he suggests that if not even a joint sitting were capable of resolving a dispute the whole matter should be sent back to the people. If nothing else, this at least illustrates the inherent instability in the system of government embodied in the Opposition's and Senator Rae's approach to this matter. I complete my remarks by saying that this Bill would do nothing whatsoever, were it ever to be enacted and implemented as part of the Constitution, to enhance the quality of democracy, the quality of our system of government in this country. By contrast, its passage would go an enormous way down the track of destroying that very democracy that we are pledged to uphold. Senator DURACK(Western Australia)(8.56) —Senator Gareth Evans's contribution tonight has revealed once again the near impossibility of achieving the constitutional reform which he allegedly so much desires to achieve. Any likelihood of achieving constitutional reform requires an ability to compromise and to exercise some forbearance about one's political prejudices in the interests of getting some sort of broad agreement. I hesitate to use the word that has been so popularised by his Leader, namely, consensus. Clearly, to achieve changes in a Constitution requires, by and large, agreement across party lines. That is the one thing Senator Evans has shown himself to be quite incapable of understanding, much less achieving. When the Hawke Government was elected just over two years ago constitutional reform was very high on the agenda, particularly when Senator Evans was Attorney-General. We spent a good deal of time in this chamber over that period of 18 months or so in the life of the first Hawke Government debating constitutional questions. Of course, all efforts came to naught. At the election on 1 December last year two relatively minor matters were referred to the people as a result of all the huffing and puffing by Senator Evans, both in opposition and in government, in favour of constitutional reform. Those proposals failed. They failed for many reasons, but probably more than anything they failed because of the intransigent and pig-headed way in which Senator Evans approached this whole issue. His speech tonight has demonstrated his total incapacity-I think this is probably also true of his colleagues-to face this question. It is very interesting that since the election and the change in occupancy of the Attorney-General's portfolio there has been a facing of reality about these matters. Indeed, the present Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) seems to have gone to the extreme of being totally disinterested in the subject. He has made almost a joke of constitutional reform by his suggestion that his way of approaching it would be to have some sort of convention of sporting figures and recipients of Australian honours to draw up a new Constitution. That might be as successful as what has been proposed by Senator Evans, with all his legal erudition and philosophic ideals. However, I do not think that in the life of this Government we will see any progress at all-any more than we have seen so far-in relation to constitutional reform. It comes back to the fact that some compromises are required and yet, judging by Senator Gareth Evans's reaction this evening to Senator Peter Rae's Bill, it is clear that Senator Evans is not prepared to face any compromise at all on this subject. Senator Gareth Evans has stated the views of the Australian Labor Party about the Senate and its attitude to powers of the Senate. There is nothing surprising or new about that. We have known for many years the views of the Labor Party on the Senate. Those views have been modified to some extent because, until recent years, the Labor Party simply wanted to abolish the Senate, but because it has proved to be an agreeable place for members of the Labor Party such as Senator Gareth Evans who have found it to be a way of achieving a political career on the national stage which they would not otherwise have been able to achieve, those views have been modified. Now it appears that the Labor Party believes there should be some emasculated institution playing a fairly minor role in the political life of this country, but still enjoying the emoluments and comforts of members of the national Parliament. If that is the Labor Party's view of the Senate, and we know that as a basic political philosophy it would favour its abolition- Senator Tate —That is not right. Senator DURACK —If Senator Tate had been here earlier he would have heard me give the background to that statement. It is not helpful for him to come into the debate at this stage and seek to interject, not having heard my earlier remarks. If the Labor Party had the courage of its convictions and if the Labor senators in this chamber had the courage of their convictions, even regarding the Senate in this emasculated form which they now espouse, they would put to the people of this country a referendum to abolish the Senate, or at least a referendum to emasculate it. Labor's policy now is to emasculate the Senate. Senator McKiernan —That is not so. Senator DURACK —Senator McKiernan would not know these things because he was not here at the time and probably was not following anything much that was going on here, but Senator Gareth Evans introduced a Bill in this Parliament some years ago, when he was in opposition, which contained the proposal that the Senate should not have power to refuse supply. That part of the Bill was withdrawn. He went on with other aspects of the Bill dealing purely with fixed term parliaments-another issue altogether. But Senator Gareth Evans and the Labor Party, either in opposition or in government, have never had the courage to go frankly to the Australian people and put their views to them, as Senator Gareth Evans has put his views to the Senate tonight. It is all very well for him and no doubt for Senator Tate, who is to follow me in this debate, to come into this chamber, with its comfortable atmosphere and in the presence of a few senators-and very few other people-who are interested in this debate and state the high-sounding principles espoused by the Labor Party about government in this country. But they are not prepared, and never have been, to argue their case to the people. They have not done that for the simple reason that they know perfectly well that that would be laughed at and scorned by the electorate. Their proposals would be thrown out neck and crop-not just by, as Labor regards them, the backward States of Queensland, Western Australia or Tasmania, but by a majority vote throughout Australia, and probably a majority vote in all the States of Australia. The same sort of thing happened to the fairly minor proposals that the Labor Party ultimately summoned up the courage to take to the electorate last December. Even then the Labor Party could not obtain a majority vote in the Australian electorate. That had nothing to do with the politics of the matter. It shows that the Labor Party has never been prepared to face up to its convictions and to argue its case to the Australian people. If that is to be its approach to constitutional reform, we shall never get anywhere. What I have said is required is some ability to compromise. Senator Gareth Evans —After your performance last year? Humbug, absolute humbug. Senator DURACK —The humbug was Senator Evans's. He had a compromise last year or the year before in this place and he rejected it. He rejected it because he was denied the money to sell his case, the Government's case, and not provide equal funding for the Opposition. Because Senator Evans could not get his own way on a thoroughly minor and irrelevant matter, he behaved in his usual childish fashion, picked up his playthings, took them home and abandoned the referendum on which he could have had some consensus. That is why his whole effort failed. He never had a genuine interest in constitutional reform or in obtaining agreement on both sides of politics. This proposal by Senator Peter Rae is a proposal for compromise in relation to the powers of the Senate. Senator Gareth Evans has said what the Labor Party believes about the Senate. It is diametrically opposite to the views of the Opposition about the Senate. We must accept the fact that we shall never agree about that matter. But one thing that is clearly agreed between us is given effect in this Bill. The Opposition has always said-it took this view in 1974 and 1985-that if the Senate rejected Supply and if the Government played by the rules, which Mr Whitlam did not want to do but which it is now accepted a government has to do, if it sent the House of Representatives to the people the Senate shall itself go to the people. That was a fundamental aspect of the policy we pursued in 1974 and 1975. We did not exercise, and did not purport to exercise, the undoubted powers of the Senate and nobody has been prepared to challenge that-much less the Labor Party with all its view about the Senate. It has never been prepared to challenge the fact that rightly or wrongly, the Senate has those powers, and has them unchallengeably. In that circumstance, as a matter of law under the present Constitution the Senate can send the House of Representatives to the people without itself going to them. But we do not believe that that is an appropriate exercise of powers by the Senate. Senator Rae's Bill is as he has brought it forward in this House. It has been supported in this chamber before, as I hope it will be supported tonight. He has brought forward a compromise to change the Constitution to ensure that the Senate could not act in that completely capricious way whereby there would be an election for the House of Representatives but not for the Senate if it exercised its powers to refuse Supply to the government of the day. That is a very reasonable compromise which, in light of the views expressed by Senator Evans on behalf of the Labor Party tonight and the views strongly held on this side of politics by the Opposition, is a way of ensuring that in future there will be an orderly and fair way of resolving conflict if it ever erupts again. Although that must be considered an unlikely event now because of the Opposition's views on this question, it is an event which could erupt again. Therefore, it would be highly desirable to change the Constitution to ensure that if a crisis of that kind ever arose again there would be an orderly, sensible and fair way of resolving it. That is all that Senator Rae's proposal entails. I would have thought that if the Government and Senator Evans, a former Attorney-General and a former great constitutional reformer, believed in constitutional reform and in an attempt to achieve some consensus on this subject, this Bill would have the support of both sides of this chamber. The brief purpose of this Bill is to ensure that if the Senate does exercise its powers to refuse or defer Supply there must be an election within 30 days. It is a very well researched piece of legislation. It has been considered at the Constitutional Convention for a number of years. It was first proposed in October 1976. It has been closely looked at by a policy sub-committee of that Convention known as Standing Committee D. The Bill itself has been very carefully and closely studied over a period of years by that Committee and the major features of it were approved by the last Constitutional Convention in Adelaide in 1983. There could still be debate about some provisions of the legislation. They are not sacrosanct and there have been divisions of opinion about how it should be drafted and so on, but that is not the response we have received tonight from Senator Evans. We have received a simple and firm rejection by the Government of this attempt at reaching what is undoubtedly a compromise, but a sensible compromise, on an issue of this kind. I can only express my disappointment that Senator Evans has revealed his total incapacity to understand how constitutional reform in this country can be advanced. Senator Peter Rae —He is a constitutional reform troglodyte. Senator DURACK —He has totally misunderstood the nature of the problem. That is not surprising. He is sitting opposite no longer as Attorney-General of this country. He has had the great toffee apple taken from him simply because he was unable to cope with the demands of that office and unable to implement any of the major reforms that he sought when Attorney-General. We had the classic example tonight of his attitude and of his incapacity to give any real effect to his desires to achieve constitutional reform in this country. I can only express my regret that this attitude persists, and I hope that other members of his Party will not do likewise, particularly now that we have a new Attorney-General in Mr Bowen in another place who has shown much greater realism towards how he may achieve reform of the law and of the Constitution. I am not impressed with some suggestions of Mr Bowen about the nature of the Constitutional Convention, of sportsmen and others--- Senator Gareth Evans —Bush nurses. Senator DURACK —Well, he may well succeed more than Senator Evans has been able to do. I wish him well, and I hope that at the Constitutional Convention he is going to assemble in Brisbane in July this year we will have a much better spirit of compromise and a better understanding of the need for compromise and of the fact that that is the only way in which we will achieve any major changes in our Constitution, which of course are desirable from time to time. I give the very strong support of the Opposition and myself to Senator Rae's proposal. I hope that other supporters of the Government who may speak in this debate will have a somewhat deeper understanding of this proposal of Senator Rae and that it will have the support of the Senate once again. Senator TATE(Tasmania)(9.17) —I oppose the Constitution Alteration (Appropriation Bills) Bill 1984 [1985] brought into this chamber by Senator Rae in order to bring about an alteration to the Constitution. I do this for the simple reason that I believe it is quite inopportune to bring before the chamber at this time such a proposal when, as Senator Rae must know, it is doomed to failure in the electorate to which he would be appealing in any referendum. It is well known, it is part of the historical and political culture of Australia, that, when one major political group in the country does not support and actively opposes a referendum proposal, it gets defeated. What the honourable senator has put forward by way of a proposal to alter the Constitution this evening has as its core an institutionalising of the right of the Senate to reject Supply. We can argue for a long time as to whether the Senate actually has that power vested in it by the Constitution as it stands, but Senator Rae could not expect the Australian Labor Party to support any proposal which reinforced or institutionalised that particular power in the Constitution. Therefore, I think what we have before us tonight is some play acting, a bit of symbolism, and bears no relation to the reality-- Senator Peter Rae —No, be fair. I introduced it 12 months ago. It has just managed to come up. Senator TATE —I am surprised that the honourable senator has not learnt from the experience of late last year, because what makes this doubly inopportune is the experience we had late last year when proposals had the support of the Constitutional Convention, of which Senator Durack has just made a lot-all parties and political leaders supported simultaneous elections and the interchange of powers proposals-but because it was politically opportune to exhort the people to vote no against the Labor Government late last year the position was changed from what it had been in the Constitutional Convention. So I think it falls particularly ill from the lips of those members of the Liberal-National parties opposite, the coalition, to come into this chamber and talk about certain proposals which at one stage had the support of the Constitutional Convention when, in fact, it has never been something which has weighed with them when political opportunity arose, as it did last year, to do damage to proposals for constitutional reform. Senator Peter Rae —You will accept that I have been consistent. Senator TATE —I accept Senator Rae's good faith in this, but given the fact that it has no hope of being supported sufficiently in the community to get the majority required in a referendum, namely, that in a majority of States a majority of electors voting have to approve it, I believe it is a fairly futile exercise-that is the point I am making-to raise it for discussion at this time when the Senate should be considering so many other really important matters. Let us recall that the real reason for this proposal, which I think was first put forward by Sir Charles Court, then Premier of Western Australia, was not so much to submit the Senate to some sort of discipline so that the Senate would know that it would face a full dissolution of the chamber in the event that it forced the House of Representatives to an election by refusing Supply to the Government. I heard pious statements to that effect as I re-entered the chamber and listened to Senator Durack. That was not the real reason for that proposal. The real reason, as I recall-those who can recall the early constitutional conventions will back me up I am sure-was to make the consequences of refusal of Supply as automatic as possible. So there was no compromise. Senator Durack spoke of compromise many times during his address. There is no compromise on the central issue of whether the Senate can refuse Supply so as to force a government enjoying the confidence of the House of Representatives to an election. The proposal was to make this situation as automatic, as step-by-step as possible, in order that the Governor-General would not be put in a position where he had to exercise some sort of discretion, to make some choice, to make some sort of decision. The real reason for the Sir Charles Court proposal-I recall this well-was to ensure that the Governor-General was taken out of the political process, so that he could remain untainted by the political furore that would erupt if the Senate rejected Supply. It was to preserve his position as the representative of the Queen, in that exalted position accorded to him by the Constitution where the Executive power of the Constitution is vested in the Queen by the Governor-General as her representative. It was for very conservative political reasons that this proposal was put forward. I do not think it ought to be forgotten that that is the real rationale of the true conservatives who put forward this proposal initially. Senator Rae may have a different emphasis for taking up the proposals. Senator Peter Rae —It is not even the identical proposal that was put forward. Senator TATE —That was a very strong reason for taking the Governor-General out of the process and making it as automatic as possible, thus leading to a double dissolution. The kernel of our disagreement can be re-stated quite briefly. We simply believe that when the Westminster system of government-responsible government-was wedded to the Federal system in Australia, when the Commonwealth of Australia was constituted, quite properly, provision was made for the Senate, a House which it was thought would in some measure or way represent the States, the members of that Federation. But as we know the Houses are composed and voted for in quite different ways. It is clear that a government which commands a majority in the House of Representatives and enjoys the confidence of a majority in the House of Representatives may, and quite commonly does not, enjoy the confidence of a majority in the Senate. The question simply is whether a government is entitled to remain in government when, not having lost the confidence of a majority in the House of Representatives, it nevertheless finds a Senate which consistently, and over a long and broad range of programs, tries to frustrate it to the point of refusing it money for the ordinary annual services of the government. It is pretty obvious that in our party system which dominates both chambers we cannot sensibly expect a government to operate in a way which requires it to be responsible to both chambers. Where we have a political culture such as ours dominated by the party system and where both chambers are constituted so differently, as I say, it is quite likely that a government will be faced with a hostile political majority or coalition of forces in the Senate while enjoying the confidence of a majority in the House of Representatives. As is well known we on the Labor side are quite adamant that governments are formed by those members of parliament who are chosen by the Governor-General, on the advice of the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister being the person who enjoys the confidence of a majority in the House of Representatives. He is the person whom the Governor-General ought to select to become Prime Minister. That is the convention of the Constitution. The formation of a Government depends on a body of parliamentarians having the confidence of a majority of the House of Representatives and no doubt that can be tested in various ways on various votes. But no one is suggesting that the Governor-General should seek to know the mind of the Senate in relation to the formation of the government. A vote of no confidence passed by this chamber in a government which still enjoys the confidence of the House of Representatives would make no impact on the Governor-General in whom he selected to be Prime Minister and who then advised him as to the members of the Executive Council, the members of the Government. It would have no impact on His Excellency whatsoever. So the position as to the formation of a Government is very clear, and everyone agrees with it. However, we in the Labor Party can see no reason to adopt a different outlook or policy in relation to the destruction of a government. Once again, the House of Representatives should be the chamber which is pivotal in the question of formation and destruction of a government. A Prime Minister who cannot command the confidence of a majority in the House of Representatives either has to be replaced-the Governor-General can select another person from that House to be Prime Minister and it can be quickly demonstrated whether he or she has the confidence of that House-or there can be an election to re-constitute that chamber. It is as simple as that. Whilst it is true that there has been no direct vote of no confidence in a House of Representatives such as the government being forced to resign because of such a vote being carried, nevertheless there have been, I believe, some eight occasions when governments have either resigned or advised of dissolution following their defeat on important questions in the House of Representatives. That is the political situation in Australia and we say that it is quite adequate to the formation and destruction of governments. Senator Rae's Bill virtually asks us to accept a situation where, as I say, the Senate not having the power to remove a government by passing a vote of no confidence nevertheless can bring about the same result by blocking Supply. That is, it does not have an effective power to vote on or approve the Governor-General's choice of a Prime Minister by any vote of confidence or no confidence, as the case may be, nevertheless, apparently it can starve a Prime Minister of the funds necessary to carry through his government's programs when he is seeking money for the ordinary annual services of government and in that way bring the machinery of government to a halt. Senator Rae has tried to define what are the ordinary annual services of government. Senator Peter Rae —I am glad you are going to address that. I hope you will support that part. Senator TATE —I am not sure that I do because the honourable senator has attempted to define them by reference to the 1965 compact, and that has some merit. However the distinction which is embodied in that 1965 compact is properly expressed, I think, as a convention of the Constitution. This is something which I do not think can be very usefully written in hard and fast terms into a constitution. It is of the nature of a compact, of an arrangement, of an understanding, of a true convention of the Constitution. To try to reduce it in this hard and fast way, as Senator Rae's Bill proposes to do, I think gives a rigidity to what really was an arrangement between the two Houses, an arrangement for a quite different purpose. I think it has to be remembered that the arrangement was made in order to give the Senate a power to amend those Bills which, in Senator Rae's list, are matters which will not count as measures to obtain Supply-for example, financial arrangements with the States or financial arrangements to do with the implementing of new programs of government. Of course the compact was designed to allow the Senate to amend such Bills and in that way allow it to have some sort of say in the moneys that were proposed to be allocated to those purposes. But it is not clear to me that to refuse a government certain moneys to do with financial assistance to the States, which, as we know, is a matter of great importance to the Australian Federation, to refuse a government moneys to implement new policies not previously specifically authorised by legislation, would not be as damaging to the programs of the government-it might be as central, as crucial, as significant to the government, to its announced program-as would be simply refusing to provide the government with the money for the ordinary annual services of government. It seems to me that the distinction which was drawn for the purpose of enhancing the ability of the Senate to obtain amendments may not be appropriate when we are trying to define those matters to do with the provision of moneys to government which are central, crucial and of the utmost significance to its ability, its standing and its status as a government able to implement its programs. For that reason I cannot give the Bill the fullest support that I might otherwise like to. As I say, the real difficulty for the Australian Labor Party, the present Government, remains the same as it has been in the years of opposition; that is, that there is no true compromise in the essence of the Bill. There is compromise, I agree, to a certain extent in the machinery provisions. Nevertheless, there is no compromise in the central matter, which is that once again the Senate's ability to bring down a government which still enjoys the confidence of the House of Representatives is, if anything, enhanced, because the Governor-General has been taken out of the political process, the steps being so automatic. Whilst the Senate would then bear the enormous burden of facing the people, nevertheless its exercise of the power is probably enhanced or strengthened because it has no discretionary supervision by the Governor-General to stop the automatic steps which are outlined in the Bill. For those reasons I cannot support the Bill and I guess nobody on this side of the chamber can do so either. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(9.32) —I support the Constitution Alteration (Appropriation Bills) Bill, which was introduced by Senator Peter Rae, chiefly because it brings to a powerful Senate responsibility and accountability in the exercise of that power. I disagree with Senator Tate and the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Gareth Evans, although they put their arguments with undoubted conviction. I fear that my weak voice may not persuade them to see otherwise, but I still persist. I hope that they will recognise the arguments that I will put and those which have been put so eloquently by my colleagues Senator Rae and Senator Durack. Essentially my argument is this: Senator Tate and Senator Evans have so fully committed themselves, as if to a captivating light, to the United Kingdom concept of responsible government, that they have blinded themselves to the Federation compact which endorsed an equal and, in its action, even stronger concept; that is, a powerful Senate. I share a full commitment in the context of these other considerations to responsible government. I believe that in a democratic chamber such as the House of Representatives the government which has the confidence of that chamber is the government of the country. The concept of responsible government to which I say the Labor senators are appealing, which is derived from the tradition of political philosophy and law in the United Kingdom, is not the only major commitment that is in the Constitution of Australia. Australia has within its Constitution these two powerful concepts. I appeal to Senator Tate, however much it may be distasteful to him or not in accord with the priority that he would currently wish for in the 1980s, to recognise the facts of the Federation compact and this balance of the two concepts. There would not have been Federation had there not been within that compact a powerful Senate. I put it to the Government, although Senator Tate feels that even this interpretation is controversial, that the Constitution clearly and unambiguously gives the Senate power over all legislation. It does not give the power to introduce all legislation-money Bills are to come from the House of Representatives-but it gives the Senate power over all legislation, including the ability to prevent any legislation and to prevent Supply. That was a knowing act. It was not an accident. If anything can be made of these two main concepts sitting alongside each other in the Australian Constitution, it may be that the full ramifications of the operation of these two concepts were not foreseen or, if they were foreseen by the Federation fathers, it was not spelt out with minute detail as to how to resolve the conflict between the two principles. It was put to the test in 1974, and more especially in 1975 when the Senate blocked Supply. Therefore, I only make this appeal. I still hope to convince the Government at least to accept that there are these two concepts-the concept of responsible government and the concept of a powerful Senate, a Senate that has equal representation from the States. It was on that basis of a compact between these two concepts that we had the Federation. It is at that point that policies differ across the chamber. In this decade and in some other decades of this century, the Labor Party has had an objection, because of its commitment to the concept of responsible government, to the Senate having that constitutional power to block Supply. I feel that it is not straightforward to interpret the Constitution in a 'hope so' way, as if the Constitution did not have that powerful Senate with the ability to block legislation and Supply which is currently offensive to members of the Labor Party. I see the policy difference between the parties. Nevertheless, as a person who is not a lawyer among so many lawyers speaking to this Bill tonight, I believe very genuinely that the Australian Constitution unambiguously gives that power to the Senate and that was a very real intention of the Federation fathers. Senator Tate —Even admitting that, you could not expect to try to reinforce it. Senator TEAGUE —That is the point I want to go on to. The honourable senator went on to argue that Senator Rae's measure entrenches the Senate's power. I do not believe it does entrench the Senate's power. It is certainly recognised that there is such a compact in the Constitution; that is, a concept of a powerful Senate. It recognises that. I do not think that one can run away from that. One cannot have a 'hope so' interpretation of the Senate to meet current ALP policy. Therefore, recognising that there is a powerful Senate provided for in the Constitution, but not entrenching it, it is to make that Senate more responsible and more accountable that we have Senator Rae's Bill before us. That is why the Australian Constitutional Convention supported this matter as a way of resolving and defining, in the operation of a conflict between the two concepts-responsible government on the one hand and a powerful Senate on the other hand-how to proceed, so that what is silent currently in the Constitution would be made clear with a procedure to overcome the deadlock. I genuinely believe that this is a substantial, constructive and positive way to resolve such a deadlock. Senator Tate spoke not only about entrenching the power but also about lifting a responsibility from the Governor-General. I can see, with the nuances of the way in which the ALP assessed the role of the Governor-General in 1975, that that would be offensive to honourable senators opposite. I acknowledge that matter of policy with regard to the Governor-General. Nevertheless I put the view that it is appropriate that when there is a constitutional deadlock the Parliament of the land should put to the people a constructive and positive way to resolve it, not just leave it to a Governor-General to make a decision which, by the precedent of 1975, was so enormously controversial. I happen genuinely to have supported the Governor-General's decision. I believe that the Senate has the ability to block Supply and that this power was consciously given in the Constitution from the beginning. I do not see any particular escapism or political motivation by members on this side somehow to make life easier for a Governor-General, as one goal, or to entrench a matter which is seen to be controversial. I genuinely appeal to honourable senators opposite to accept that this is recognising the fact of the Constitution, going on to make the Senate more accountable and more responsible. Senator Tate —We can change the Constitution and get rid of the power to block Supply. Senator TEAGUE —No, this is the element we have before us. Senator Rae's Bill will improve the provisions in the Constitution by not allowing a Senate with this power to make a decision to block Supply, or block any legislation, and sit back comfortable in the knowledge that it is not immediately accountable to the public, to the voters, to the electorate. I believe that Senator Rae therefore is wishing to achieve, as is the Australian Constitutional Convention, a more responsible exercise of power. There is no doubt that the power is there in the Constitution for the the Senate. Let that power be exercised responsibly and with accountability. That is why I support the Bill before us. I make some brief remarks about the Constitutional Convention. Back in 1983 when we were debating this measure it was in concert with debate on some five other Bills to alter the Constitution. There was the exchange of powers proposal, the outdated provisions proposal, and the two controversial proposals which had not been accepted by the Constitutional Convention-the fixed term parliament proposal of Senator Gareth Evans and the electors' initiative proposal of Senator Macklin. At that time I rejected the proposals of Senator Evans and Senator Macklin. However, I spoke in favour of those measures, unlike the other two, which had been supported by the Constitutional Convention. The measure that is before us now was supported by 46 votes to 32 at the Constitutional Convention meeting in Adelaide in 1983. That was a clear majority. A subsidiary vote related to this matter was taken without dissent. In this context I regard that as a substantial majority. Once upon a time the Australian Labor Party members were- Senator Grimes —What about the interchange of power? That was unanimous. Senator TEAGUE —I know; I agree. I remember that Senator Grimes was in the chamber when I spoke on these matters in 1983. I put the view genuinely then that the Government should withdraw the fixed term parliament matter because it was not supported by both sides-Senator Tate is appealing to that principle even now-and the Government did withdraw it. The Government withdrew it because of the arguments put in the course of the debate about the deficiencies of Senator Evans's Bill. That was the appeal I made then. Subsequently a revised package was brought forward, as Senator Grimes knows very well. To meet the Senate Leader's interjection I say that we did support the exchange of powers, as did the Constitutional Convention. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Colston) —Order! The time for General Business has expired. Debate resumed from 22 April, on motion by Senator Ryan: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator PETER RAE(Tasmania)(9.45) — We have moved from one of the extremely important matters concerning the future conduct of this country to a matter which could be regarded as being beyond any party differences other than a feeling of a degree of shame. I believe there is a degree of shame on both sides of the Parliament that it has taken us as long as it has to recognise that something that was costing the taxpayer money was inefficient, ineffective, inappropriate and unnecessary. We have before us the National Welfare Fund Repeal Bill. The National Welfare Fund was introduced in 1943 as the vehicle for making various welfare or social service payments as are directed by any law of the Commonwealth to be made from the Fund. Initially amounts paid into the National Welfare Fund were provided from the general revenue. However, in 1945 the Parliament passed the Social Services Contribution Act and the Pay-roll Tax Act to provide revenue specifically earmarked by virtue of a complementary amendment to the National Welfare Fund Act which appropriated the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the purpose, that is, for the National Welfare Fund. I believe it is important to go through the history of this matter because there is a lesson for all of us to learn in relation to this Bill-a Bill which will be supported warmly by the Opposition and which was initiated by the Opposition. My only political comment is that it is a pity it has taken the present Government nearly 2 1/2 years to get around to introducing the legislation. Senator Grimes —Come off it, you had twenty years. Senator PETER RAE —No, from the time the former Minister for Finance, Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, started the action to repeal the Act. I am not saying that we did not have time before that to do something about it. To continue with the history, in 1950 the social services contribution was merged with income taxation and the National Welfare Fund Act was amended to ensure that the income of that Fund would be approximately the same as if the social services contribution had remained as a separate levy. What happened was that for a relatively short period there was, as happens in some countries, a specific levy in relation to aspects of social services. The change of government in 1949 brought about a change of attitude in relation to that specific social services contribution. What happened was that the social services contribution became part of the general Consolidated Revenue coming from the various forms of taxation. From that time on we found that there was no real nexus between the earmarked revenues of the National Welfare Fund and payments from it. This resulted in a substantial buildup in the Fund's credit balance. In 1952 Parliament amended the National Welfare Fund Act to provide that future payments from the Consolidated Revenue Fund to the National Welfare Fund in any financial year would be equal to the amount paid out for welfare and social purposes. A standing appropriation of the Consolidated Revenue Fund was provided to enable payments into the National Welfare Fund. For the life of me I have found it difficult, from my reading of the speeches that were made at the time and from anything else, to understand what it was that motivated people to make a decision such as that at that time. The Parliament did it, and I just do not understand why. It was perfectly obvious that there was no longer any real purpose in continuing the existence of the National Welfare Fund. One can only assume that some somewhat hidden political considerations of the day motivated people to take the decisions that were taken. There continued thereafter a situation whereby the balance which was then standing to the credit of the National Welfare Fund, some $370m, was recycled within the Commonwealth public account by investing it in the internal Treasury bill-that is, by transferring moneys of the trust fund of which the National Welfare Fund is part to the Loan Fund, and to the extent necessary to cover any temporary revenue deficit in the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The procedure whereby a temporary shortfall in revenue of the Consolidated Revenue Fund may be met by payments from the Loan Fund is authorised by the Loan (Temporary Revenue Deficits) Act 1953. Interest received on such investments increased in the National Welfare Fund balance to $470m by 1976, at which time the then Treasurer, the late Sir Phillip Lynch, announced that the Government had decided that the balance should be repaid to the Consolidated Revenue Fund pursuant to section 62A of the Audit Act. Since that time there has been no continuing balance of the National Welfare Fund, all expenditure from it being precisely matched by payments into it from the Consolidated Revenue Fund pursuant to the standing appropriation inserted into the National Welfare Fund Act by the 1952 amendment. It is important to go through this story because I believe that there is a very good lesson to be learned in relation to the necessity for reducing waste in government. What we find is that the raison d'etre for the National Welfare Fund, namely, as a vehicle for the receipt of specifically earmarked revenues-that is, the levies which were to be made for welfare, pending their disbursement for welfare and social service payments-was effectively removed in 1952. But they have continued to be paid by way of transactions until now-1985. Some 5,000 transactions per annum have been paid into the National Welfare Fund and have been paid out by the National Welfare Fund to the disbursing department. We have had a series of transactions which have cost a small fortune by way of the cost of requisition, the cost of payment, the cost of re-requisition for the payment out and the cost to the disbursing department of that payment out and then the auditing of the whole transaction. I think it would be not unreasonable to estimate that each of those transactions would have cost not less than $50, just to take a ball park figure of the absolute minimum for the most efficient operation which one could imagine would take place. Taking the cost of all that is necessary in the various steps from the initial requisition to the final disbursement and audit, I would be amazed if they were done for $50 each. But that is what happened. For a period of more than 30 years some 5,000 transactions in and out per annum were being carried out for no real purpose. As the Auditor-General said in his report for the year ended 30 June 1981, all that happened was that it served no useful function either as a control mechanism or as a holding account for future expenditure. He stated: Its continuation as the hub of the accounting process entails significant and unnecessary accounting work. He went on to say that he believed that there was a very good reason for abolishing the National Welfare Fund, for repealing the legislation. The processing by the spending departments and the Department of Finance of more than 5,000 journal entries per year and the effecting of the corresponding reconciliation process, together with the audit burden, amounted to a good reason for abolishing it when it served no useful function either as a control mechanism or as a holding account for future expenditure. The journal entries involved a number of departments-Social Security, Health and Housing and Construction, as well as the Department of Finance and the Auditor-General's Office. A number of pieces of legislation were involved in relation to the National Welfare Fund. Those pieces of legislation included the Social Services Act 1947 in respect of pensions, benefits, allowances and the Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service. Also included were the Aged or Disabled Persons Homes Act 1954 for the personal care subsidy, the Delivered Meals Subsidy Act 1970, the Homeless Persons Assistance Act 1974, which involves grants in respect of food, accommodation and meals, the National Health Act 1953 involving medical, hospital and pharmaceutical benefits, the Health Insurance Act 1973, the Nursing Homes Assistance Act 1974, the Home Nursing Subsidy Act 1956, the Tuberculosis Act 1948, the Homes Savings Grants Act 1964 and the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement Act 1945, with its provision for contribution to rental losses by the States under the 1945 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. As I said, the Auditor-General in his report stated that the Department of Finance had advised that it intended taking the matter up with other proposals having potential for administrative savings, but indicated that any proposal to abolish the National Welfare Fund would require consultation with relevant departments and possibly with the Joint Committee of Public Accounts. I can only say that I would criticise the Department of Finance for failing to mention in that regard that it should also consult the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations. Fortunately, the then Minister for Finance, Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, remedied the omission of the Department of Finance. She did consult the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations as well as the Joint Committee of Public Accounts. She inquired whether either of those committees saw any reason why the National Welfare Fund trust account should not be abolished and the Act repealed. Both committees looked at it and they also discussed it with other potentially relevant committees of the Parliament. The Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations, responding to the letter of invitation of the then Minister for Finance to consider this matter, considered it and found that it could find no reason why the Fund and the Act should be continued. It had discussions with the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and with the Auditor-General, who also agreed that there were no reasons for not supporting the proposal. It was also discussed with the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare to ensure that from that Committee's point of view there were no reasons why the Act should not be repealed. The Committee recommended to the Minister that it would certainly support the repeal of the Act. However, it did raise one question as to whether and how aggregations will in future be published and whether there will be any statutory or other obligation to publish them in relation to that. The Minister replied in a detailed letter on 10 June 1982 in which she gave full details of how the aggregations would be published in what I will summarise as the totality of the Budget and national accounts. I do not propose to take time to detail the answer she gave. I simply assure anybody who may have the same questions the Finance and Government Operations Committee had about the situation that a very detailed answer was given by the then Minister. I have not asked the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes) whether I may have incorporated the answer given by the then Minister for Finance, dated 10 June 1982, to the questions asked by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations but, to save time, I seek leave to have it incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The document read as follows- MINISTER FOR FINANCE Parliament House Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 10 June 1982 Senator Peter Rae Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations Parliament House Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 My dear Senator Thank you for your letter of 25 May 1982 attaching your Committee's response to my letter of 5 January which proposed the abolition of the National Welfare Fund and the introduction, in its place, of standing appropriations of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) to effect the relevant social security and welfare payments. The Committee commended the proposal subject to clarification 'as to how aggregations will in future be published, and whether there will be any statutory or other obligation to publish them'. At present there are two main sources of published information on National Welfare Fund payments: Budget Paper No. 4, table 7 of which provides, under the relevant departmental headings, disaggregated information on expenditures estimated to be required from the standing appropriation contained in the National Welfare Fund Act; table 6 also provides an aggregation of expenditures by three (now two) departments responsible for National Welfare Fund payments. The Financial Statements of the Minister for Finance prepared pursuant to section 50 of the Audit Act (and which accompany the Auditor-General's annual report to Parliament) show for each relevant department, details of expenditure from the CRF under the standing appropriation contained in the National Welfare Fund Act into the National Welfare Fund Trust Account, as well as details of final expenditure from the Trust Fund via that Trust Account. Expenditures from CRF are disaggregated as in Budget Paper No. 4; expenditures from the Trust Fund are shown in less detail as those expenditures precisely match the prior transactions of the CRF. Abolition of the National Welfare Fund will remove the need to publish details of the Trust Account which will be abolished with the Fund. Standing appropriations of the Acts listed at pages 3 and 4 of the paper attached to my letter of 5 January 1982 will, as pointed out in that letter, be required to replace the Fund. Disaggregated information relating to these standing appropriations, showing essentially the same detail as at present, will continue to be provided in table 7 of Budget Paper No. 4 and in the financial statements which the Minister for Finance is required by statute to publish pursuant to section 50 of the Audit Act 1901. The provision of aggregated information on National Welfare Fund expenditure, as set out in table 6 of Budget Paper No. 4 (which compares estimates for the Budget year with actual results for the previous financial year) has been under consideration for some time. While the fund is a distinct entity, and it is thus valid to aggregate payments from it, there has been concern that the casual reader might take such aggregations as representing all social security and welfare payments of the Commonwealth. This is far from being the case; indeed, in the case of welfare housing payments, the bulk have for many years been paid other than through the National Welfare Fund and the remainder (estimated to be some $2.5 million in 1981-82) are expected to be phased out by the end of 1982-83. With the abolition of the Fund, I consider that it would be desirable to dispense with any aggregation of payments corresponding to those presently met from it. The more appropriate source of information is the aggregations (and disaggregations) published in Statement No. 3 of Budget Paper No. 1 (see, for example, pages 85, 86, 100, 101 and 121 of the 1981-82 document). That document covers all social security and welfare expenditures classified in accordance with the functional classification of outlays adopted for Budget and National Accounts purposes and is based on the widely accepted international standard recommended in the United Nations publication ''A System of National Accounts''. Most of the present ''National Welfare Fund'' expenditure is included under the functional headings ''Health'' and ''Social Security and Welfare''. That covering welfare housing expenditure is, together with all other welfare housing payments, included under the ''Housing'' heading. I also note that aggregated information of outlays under the social security and welfare functional heading is and will continue to be published monthly in the Commonwealth Financial Transactions statement pursuant to section 49 of the Audit Act 1901. If you or the Committee have additional questions on this matter I should be pleased to elaborate further. Yours sincerely MARGARET GUILFOYLE Senator PETER RAE —I thank the Minister for his co-operation and I thank the Senate. The position is that, some 33 years after it ceased to be necessary to keep the National Welfare Fund as part of the national accounts of Australia, we are debating and supporting the repeal of the legislation requiring the keeping of that account. It is a great day for reform in Australia. It is a great day for starting the process of eliminating those aspects of government which involve waste and unnecessary action, aspects which I am sure many sectors of the Public Service would be only too anxious to see removed as soon as possible. One hopes that, when the Opposition is back in government after the next election and is applying its new policy for deregulation and reform of the regulatory process, we will have a whole system of review of all of these things which, having learnt some of the lessons of the previous period of government, is far more successful than past systems, to ensure that we do not have any repetition of the continuation of a totally unnecessary fund such as this involving very substantial public expenditure to no public purpose. It is with great pleasure that the Opposition supports this Bill which, as I said, was initiated by the former Minister for Finance, Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle. I pay her credit for having commenced the action as a result of this matter being drawn to her attention by the Auditor-General, whose action in drawing it to her attention and the Parliament's attention I also commend. The Opposition will continue to regard this day as an important day in the development of reform for the elimination of waste in public expenditure. We are delighted to support the legislation. Senator JACK EVANS(Western Australia)(10.03) —I do not wish to take up the time of the Senate recounting the history that has just been related more than adequately by Senator Peter Rae. I wish simply to put a couple of points in perspective. The first is that the Australian Democrats join with the Government and the Opposition in applauding this long overdue move. Ours is probably the only party that does not have that feeling of guilt that Senator Peter Rae expressed on behalf of the Opposition. We are rather fortunate in that we have been neither the party in power nor in a position to influence the Government to take this step. But it is a welcome step and I believe that it needs to be recognised that it does not interfere in any way with welfare, welfare payments or the ability of the Government to continue with its welfare scheme in exactly the way that it operates now. The National Welfare Fund Repeal Bill has the blessing of the Department of Social Security itself which, at the instigation of the Auditor-General, made it quite clear that the Fund involves a significant burden on the Department in the processing of over 5,000 journal entries each year just so that a set of books, in essence, can be maintained to keep up with legislation which might have been relevant decades ago but which is totally irrelevant now. Briefly, I would like to put into context the fact that this Fund was a magnificent scheme at the outset with wonderful potential which could have solved a lot of the problems which loomed large over recent years and will loom larger in the years ahead of us right across the whole welfare spectrum, particularly in the pensions area. It was with great vision and foresight that Mr Chifley, as Treasurer, and Mr Curtin, as Prime Minister, introduced the National Welfare Fund and the legislation to go with it. Conceptually they were right on target. At this historic moment, when the Fund is about to be legislated out of existence, they need to be recognised as people with a vision and foresight who saw 20, 30, 50, or even 100 years ahead of the potential problems that this country would have in its welfare system. I now move the following amendment to the motion for the second reading: At the end of motion, add: ', and the Senate calls upon the Government to introduce, within 12 months after the repeal of the National Welfare Fund Act by this Bill, a national superannuation scheme which is both universal and portable'. I move that amendment on behalf of the Australian Democrats because we believe that the vision of Chifley and Curtin has been lost sight of by this Government, a government which applauds those historic giants so frequently but which seems to have cold feet when measures such as a universal national superannuation scheme get on to its agenda. Such measures are then put back into the too hard basket. I would like to run quickly over the reason for the amendment and the Australian Democrats' belief that it is imperative that we have a national superannuation scheme in place within the next year. We need it to provide that degree of security which all people need in old age because their savings, and the assets that they have accumulated over their years of living in this country, are eroded due to the impact of inflation, taxation and, in many cases, their lack of business and investment acumen. A national universal superannuation scheme is a means of redistributing resources to those who at certain stages may desperately need them. We can take those resources from a fund such as that. At present not everybody has access to a superannuation scheme, partly because not everyone has anticipated the need and made provision for it and partly because some are simply denied access because of where they work, how they work or a lack of work. Such a scheme needs to be portable because, as is now recognised, superannuation is important in retirement and is not available to more and more people because of their job transfers. Job mobility is a critical new element which crept into the whole job scene over the last couple of decades. Portability has become imperative. Another aspect of the provision of superannuation concerns women who may decide to leave work to raise their children. They also need the portability of a superannuation fund so that they can re-enter the work force and the benefits of superannuation for themselves rather than having to rely on a spouse. I believe and the Democrats believe that it is imperative that the Government introduces as quickly as possible a national superannuation cover for all employees. Because of the shortage of available time this evening I will not go into the statistics that indicate the desperate need, industry by industry and age group by age group, for a national portable superannuation scheme. I shall just touch on a couple of things that will make some honourable senators in the chamber tonight listening to this speech blush with embarrassment. This is not a new item on the political agenda. It has been before us for many years. It has certainly been looming large since 1973 as a result of the Hancock National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry. It was made abundantly clear by the alternatives that came from that inquiry that either a universal flat rate scheme and pensions financed from general revenue or a non-funded partially contributory scheme should be immediately introduced, but because of political disputation it was left in the too hard basket. The Hancock report and the debates that followed that report were nothing compared with this Government's response to the confidential report by Dr John Deeble to the Government on options based on the plan put forward by the then shadow Minister for Housing and Construction, Mr Hurford. This comprehensive report assumed that there would be an opportunity to start this scheme in mid-1985 with the first benefits to be received in 1986 with a cost of about $2.345 billion, or about one quarter of the Federal Budget, by the year 2000. The scheme was lauded around the country. The Australian Financial Review said: In the context of the Government's commitment to raise the basic pension rate to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings, the scheme would provide a significant relief to revenue (about $300m a year) and it would be reasonable to expect that some of this would be applied to raising other benefits. In late 1983 the Government formed a working party consisting of the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes), who is at the table, Mr Dawkins, who was the Minister for Finance, and Mr Hurford, who is the Minister Assisting the Treasurer. What happened? They met once. They left it to the bureaucrats. They met once in 1983 and again the matter was left in the too hard basket. The Australian Council of Trade Unions picked it up and talked with Mr Hurford who gave a very encouraging response. Mr Hurford actually wrote to the Treasurer (Mr Keating) in March 1983 saying that he was encouraged by the outcome of his discussions with the ACTU and he believed that there was a prospect of making real progress with that body on national superannuation. Where is the progress? We want that national superannuation scheme. Not just we, the Democrats, but we, the people of Australia, desperately need that superannuation scheme. I believe it is appropriate, therefore, to ask all honourable senators-not just Democrat and Opposition senators so that political points can be scored against the Government-to support the amendment because it is a reminder to the Government and a reminder to the Senate and the Cabinet to look at this matter now and endeavour to introduce a national superannuation scheme within the next 12 months with the blessing of all political parties in this country. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(10.14) —First of all, I thank honourable senators for their support for this sensible piece of legislation, the National Welfare Fund Repeal Bill 1985. Like Senator Peter Rae, I would like to pay due respect to Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, who is now in the chamber and who everyone recognises put this matter in train some years ago. The legislation, of course, has been supported by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations, the Public Accounts Committee and everyone else who has looked at it since 1951 or 1952 when the extraordinary decision that Senator Rae spoke about was made. I can give Senator Rae a bit of a clue about why the scheme was not introduced in the last two years. In fact, it is probably the reason why it has not been introduced since 1952. I, when shadow Minister for Social Security from 1976 and Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle as Minister for Social Security in that time, attended many meetings with pensioners. I am sure that Senator Chaney and Mr Howe have frequently attended such meetings around the country. At almost every meeting I have been to, one or two pensioners have accused me, Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle and all those who have preceded us, of locking away in a big vault in Canberra the national welfare fund which was introduced by Mr Curtin and Mr Chifley and was snitched away from them by Sir Robert Menzies and locked up. We are told that the only thing that was stopping the pensioners of this country from getting their pensions doubled was the fact that the national welfare fund was locked away and we nasty politicians had got at it. We considered this matter last year. I dare say that this happened in the past but I do not expect Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle to open confidences. Last year there was a suspicion that an election might have been coming on. As soon as that happened this small group of pensioners around the country, who firmly believe that all this money is locked away and it is only the terrible politicians of whatever party is in power who are stopping them from getting their hands on it, increased in number and put advertisements in the paper about the terrible things the Government was doing and asking why it did not release all this awful money. Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle —Did they bring you all their group certificates? Senator GRIMES —That is right. They bring in their group certificates to show the contributions that they have made to that national welfare fund over the years. Of course, as Senator Rae and others have pointed out, it was a silly fund which was costing money, time and the effort of public servants who were needed to keep it in some sort of order. It cost the Auditor-General a considerable amount as he criticised it each year. It also, incidentally, created great difficulties at one stage when it was being considered by a Senate Estimates committee because government members used to claim that questions could not be asked about what was spent under the national welfare fund. However, I think all that is behind us. I cannot support the Australian Democrats amendment. I do not support it, for a start, because I do not think it is an appropriate amendment to this sort of legislation. Senator Haines —Will you tell us when it is appropriate? Senator GRIMES —I do not intend to go into a long dissertation on national superannuation. However, I assure Senator Haines that I can, if she would like me to. National superannuation is also something that Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle, I, Senator Chaney and many other senators in this place have lived with for a considerable time. Before people start talking about national superannuation they ought to define what they mean by that term. Senator Jack Evans seems to think that national superannuation in this country is the proposal put forward by my good friend Dr John Deeble as a discussion paper to the Government last year. I do not believe that that proposal was an adequate national superannuation scheme. The problem is that everyone in the community is in agreement on national superannuation. Everyone thinks it is a great thing until he finds out that, under the Hancock proposal, we would have to have a levy of 3.5 per cent on taxable income to pay for it or that under his alternative proposal we would need a taxation levy of 1.5 per cent or 2 per cent to pay for it. These people suddenly become not very interested in such a scheme. National superannuation also means different things to different people. The Life Offices Association in this country has a great national superannuation proposal which it would run and which would cost revenue, on the latest figure, only about $1,800 million a year. Such a proposal would give them a lot of business. It would enable them to top up the pensions that they would be able to provide through their insurance schemes. Some members of the trade union movement believe that we should get to a national superannuation scheme in the way in which almost all European countries got to some sort of comprehensive superannuation scheme-that is, by introducing occupational superannuation schemes covering whole occupations rather than just companies and then merging those categories together. I suppose Senator Jack Evans is really talking about a contributory social security system. It is a very interesting exercise to go to Europe these days and talk to the Europeans about it. Practically every country in Europe has some sort of contributory superannuation or pension plan, particularly Sweden, Belgium which has the oldest scheme, Germany and Italy. All sorts of countries have those schemes with the exception of Denmark. Denmark has a scheme like ours. Except for a very strange unemployment benefit scheme, Denmark has a non-contributory pension scheme like ours. Denmark pays its pensioners out of Consolidated Revenue on a means tested basis. If you go to the Danes and ask, 'Why do you not have a contributory scheme like Sweden, Norway and all those countries?', they say: 'We have seen what has happened there and we do not want any of it'. If you go to Sweden they say: 'We understand that you have a scheme like Denmark and we are looking at that scheme'. There are enormous problems with contributory schemes which unfortunately do not redistribute in the way Senator Evans seems to think they do. In times of economic crisis and economic difficulties these schemes inevitably need huge topping up from Consolidated Revenue. The Canadian scheme pays very modest rates and is funded by a 1.8 per cent levy on income tax, a 1.8 per cent levy on employers and a 3.6 per cent levy on self-employed people. It has to be topped up by a 2 per cent sales tax. The New Zealand scheme is non-contributory and that scheme is practically wrecking the economy of that country. I am not saying that we cannot have a contributory scheme which is fairly universal or that we cannot introduce a social security tax. That is what Curtin and Chifley introduced-not a superannuation scheme, but a social security tax, a social security levy. We can investigate all those things but in coming to a conclusion about that we must consider not only the effect on the revenue at difficult times like this; we have to consider also the effect on the taxpayers because the taxpayers will inevitably have to top up the benefits in the first 20 or 30 years if we are going to have immediate benefits, and I suggest no one wants only long term benefits. We have to consider the effects on the investment economy in this country which heavily relies on such things as superannuation and insurance. I am not saying that we cannot introduce a national superannuation scheme. I am not saying that we cannot introduce some sort of contributory pension scheme. What I am definitely saying is that in economic times like we have at present we cannot do it in a year and for that reason alone I say that we cannot support that amendment. Senator Jack Evans —But is it on your agenda? Senator GRIMES —Of course it is on our agenda. Senator Jack Evans seems to think that there has been some great plot on our side. We have a working party that is looking at national superannuation. As honourable senators would know, Mr Hurford is taking an interest in this. There has been a meeting between Mr Hurford, Mr Dawkins, I think Mr Keating, and me to establish the parameters of that working party. There was no suggestion that we were going to meet every week to try to sort out those problems, but we do meet and discuss this issue. I can understand that some people see a great Utopia or something at the end. People think that national superannuation will solve all our problems. Certainly the sort of funded scheme which I think Senator Jack Evans was implying we should introduce-if one wanted to introduce the immediate benefits he talked about-would cost the revenue a considerable amount of money and would probably cost it considerably more than $2 billion by the year 2000. I think it would cost $2 billion before then. We are not giving up hope on national superannuation. What I say is that it needs more careful thought and it is certainly unlikely to be introduced in a year-although you never know, all sorts of things happen in this country in a year. I do not agree that it is correct in principle for this Senate to demand that the Government should do that within a year and try to amend this sort of legislation which really has nothing to do with it. I do not agree that the amendment is a very sensible one. I thank honourable senators for their support. I am glad to be rid of the national welfare fund. I suppose for the next three or four years the Government will be accused of putting even more padlocks on that big vault of money, but at least I can say that it was not only me who put the padlocks on. It was Senator Rae, Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle and Senator Jack Evans who all supported this legislation. Senator Peter Rae —I seek leave to speak to the amendment. Leave not granted. Question put: That the words proposed to be added (Senator Jack Evans's amendment) be added. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon.Douglas McClelland) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 56 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 50 —— Chipp, D. L. Macklin, M. J. (Teller)Evans, Jack Mason, C. V. J. Haines, J. Vigor, D. B. Aulich, T. Lewis, A. W. R. Baume, Peter McClelland, DouglasBlack, J. R. MacGibbon, D. J. Bolkus, N. McIntosh, G. D. Boswell, R. L. D. McKiernan, J. P. Brownhill, D. G. C. Maguire, G. R. Chaney, F. M. Missen, A. J. Childs, B. K. Parer, W. R. Coates, J. Primmer, C. G. Collard, S. J. Puplick, C. J. G. Colston, M. A. Rae, PeterCook, P. F. S. Ray, RobertCooney, B. Reid, M. E. (Teller)Crichton-Browne, N. A. Reynolds, M. Crowley, R. A. Richardson, G. F. Devlin, R. Robertson, E. A. Elstob, R. C. Ryan, S. M. Evans, Gareth Scott, D. B. Foreman, D. J. Sheil, G. Giles, P. J. Short, J. R. Grimes, D. J. Tate, M. C. Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Teague, B. C. Hamer, D. J. Townley, M. Hill, R. Vanstone, A. E. Jessop, D. S. Walters, M. S. Jones, G. N. Watson, J. O. W. Kilgariff, B. F. Withers, R. G. Lajovic, M. E. Zakharov, A. O. Question so resolved in the negative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Debate interrupted. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being after 10.30 p.m., under sessional order I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(10.33) —Tonight I wish to raise a matter that has been drawn to my attention by one of my constituents. He wrote to Dr Blewett as the matter relates to the operation of health centres in the Australian Capital Territory. My constituent has told me that on 26 April he required the services of the Kippax Health Centre for his eight-year-old daughter. At 1.20 p.m. he attempted to make an appointment and was told that it was lunch-time and that he had better ring back after 2 o'clock. He did this and was told by the receptionist that there was no possibility of obtaining an appointment that day and that if he felt it necessary to seek medical treatment for his daughter he should go to the Calvary Hospital or the Royal Canberra Hospital. He then attempted to ring the Department of Health and was told that the matter was not really its responsibility and he should contact the Health Authority. He did and discussed the matter with Mr Foskett of the Authority, who, as my constituent has said, was most understanding and offered to contact the Kippax Health Centre and investigate the situation. At 4.15 p.m. he was contacted by the administrator of the Kippax Health Centre, who told him of her difficulties at the centre. She apologised for what she thought was a misunderstanding, but still was not able to give him an appointment for his daughter at the Health Centre that day. My constituent, in his letter, said: Sir, with this response from my Health Centre, I have absolutely no faith in the services your Department offer and I wonder why taxpayers are forced to support a medical system which is unable to cope with demand. There was no attempt made by anyone in the Health Centre or Commission to try and obtain medical treatment through another Health Centre. As a taxpayer, I would like to know why I am forced to pay 1 per cent of my salary for a service which is unable to provide just that-SERVICE-when needed. He also queried why it is that, of the five medical practitioners at the Kippax Health Centre, four are private practitioners renting premises from the Capital Territory Health Authority and only one is an employee of the Authority. My personal opinion is that the health centres are exceedingly costly. I question whether they are needed in a community such as this where there are, in fact, plenty of doctors. The point I make is that if they are to exist they ought to be efficient and they ought to provide the service for which they were intended. I also find it remarkable that a health centre in Canberra was too busy to see another patient on a particular day on the basis of the figures I have seen of the number of patients the doctors see in a day. Maybe 26 April was exceptional. It is quite clear that for some reason the centre just is not functioning the way it is supposed to. Given the cost, I think we are entitled to ask the Minister for Health (Dr Blewett) to look into the matter. We are faced with the situation that the Capital Territory Health Commission has been abolished. An interim Health Authority exists at present. It is a little the same as a few other things in Canberra. Self-government is promised and promised and never quite happens. We are faced with uncertainty in that area. Last week we were told that the Australian Capital Territory Schools Authority is to be abolished and its functions separated, but we still do not know what will happen in that area. The Australian Capital Territory Council of Social Service has been critical of the administration of the Australian Capital Territory, as have certain interests in the private sector. I think this example of the way the Health Centre at Kippax is functioning gives further reason for concern as to how the services that are supposed to be being provided are in fact being provided. As I have said, the letter was sent to me by Mr Soustal. It was written by him and sent to the Minister for Health. I hope the Minister will look into the matter because I think the cost of the health centres gives reason for concern. Senator MISSEN(Victoria)(10.37) —Tonight I desire to speak on the subject of Australia's relationship with South Africa. I want to say some of the things that I could not say this afternoon when we were speaking in a brief debate in this chamber on the codes of conduct, a proposal the Government has recently adopted and which I think offers to be useful in relation to the Australian community. I believe that wider questions of relationships with South Africa ought to be discussed and that we should be coming to a conclusion on our views on this matter. We ought to bear in mind that recent examples suggest that the position in South Africa is getting not better but rather worse. In fact, it is known that recently in the United Nations Security Council, of which Australia is now a member, we took part in debate on resolution 560, which was carried on 12 March 1985 and which strongly condemned the practice of apartheid. The resolution drew particular attention to very recent incidents that had occurred. Mr Hogue, our representative appearing before the Security Council, referred in particular to the great objection Australians have to apartheid, in the belief that it is a crime against human rights and an abuse of human rights which must be deeply resented and fought against by the world, and to the fact that it has led to a situation where greater and greater stress is being shown in South Africa. The first of the two incidents was the tragic violence and death which occurred at the Crossroads settlement, when some 18 people died. We protested against that and, of course, the United Nations protested as well. The second incident was the recent arrest of the leading members of the United Democratic Front-trade unionists and community leaders who are charged with treason. They are matters of very serious concern. These cases illustrate the fact that the position appears to be getting worse. The old idea was that certain constitutional changes were being made in South Africa. When I was there in 1982, the authorities were in the process of finalising those changes, or they were talking of them. I then gained the firm impression that such changes were regarded as no more than superficial or cosmetic, and that the proposal for new houses of parliament for coloured and Indian members would not solve the problem. Indeed, we have seen that it has caused great anger among the black people, who have been excluded entirely from the scheme. This has led to a worsening of the problem. Yet at the same time there is within South Africa considerable realisation of the need for something better to be done and an impressive realisation on the part of the employer organisations that South Africa cannot continue on its present course. What is particularly impressive is a joint statement by eight or more of the major employer organisations covering some 80 per cent of the employment strength of the country. Their members have a long term stake in the development, advancement and prosperity of the people. In a statement in February 1985 they made it clear that they felt that, among other things, these organisations had been to the forefront in successfully urging the South African Government to make meaningful policy changes, especially in certain areas. They gave a list of such changes, which I shall briefly summarise. They include the widening of the labour relationship framework to embrace all workers regardless of race, colour and creed; the opening up of housing to black private ownership, thus effectively reversing the use of black urban housing shortages as a form of influx control; relaxing restrictions on small and informal business activities to give blacks an opportunity to acquire a genuine stake in the economy and to create genuine additional employment opportunities and revising the system of education and training to bring them into line with the needs of the economy and to maximise black aspirations. Those organisations realise that it is necessary for changes to be made. Their further programs include meaningful political participation for blacks in government and full participation in private enterprise economy for all South Africans, regardless of race, colour or creed, with the common loyalty they would then have for South Africa by that course of action. All in all I believe that the employer organisations in South Africa are showing realism as to some extent is the Government, but undoubtedly powerful forces oppose any change. Political leaders in South Africa, such as the Leader of the Opposition, Dr F. van Zyl Slabbert, have made it very clear that the country has tremendous economic problems. He has pointed to the great necessity for South Africa to overcome these matters by having an informal forum, an open-ended and non-racial one, at which a wide range of constitutional issues could be negotiated or discussed-a novel concept in National Party philosophy. He also sees the release of Nelson Mandela, who is undoubtedly the leader of black Africa, as an important consideration. In dealing with the subject of South African business, I would mention that, as reported in the Age of 15 January, at that stage its economic leaders were advocating strong change. It is claimed in that article: In a bold challenge to the Government last week, six major business groups, representing about 80 per cent of South African industry and commerce, laid out an agenda for reform that not only goes far beyond anything envisioned by President Pieter Botha and the ruling National Party but rejects apartheid's whole concept of separate development. It is necessary for Australia to take a very firm stand at this time because, undoubtedly, there is movement for change in South Africa, but also great dangers that the hatreds which have developed may become so great that there is no way out of the present situation. As I put to leaders of the National Party and the Vice-President of the Republic, who were my luncheon guests when I was there in 1982, did they want their country to put up barriers against the rest of Africa, or did they want to be part of Africa. They said that that was their desire, but they have done very little since then to achieve that aim. The problem that arises for Australia is twofold. We have obligations under our policy in regard to sport. We have the Gleneagles Agreement to which we are rightfully committed, to ensure that in that important area-an area in which South Africa feels the desire to be part of the world and an area that is of great importance to them-we should stand firm and carry out our obligations. On that aspect the Australian Government and Opposition are generally agreed, although there are some people in this country who point to a certain inconsistency in our attitudes. One finds references in the newspapers to people involved in South Africa economically who are not suffering nearly as badly. The proposed codes of conduct are to apply at first on a voluntary basis. I hope it will stay that way, but, unless that policy is successful, we shall not show the same consistency between sporting and economic policies which is necessary in our attempt to ensure that apartheid is broken down and destroyed. At present a battle is taking place between those who say, as I do, that codes of conduct offer a real solution as a practicality in this world and those who advocate economic boycotts. Clearly, even in the United States of America there are threats of change and attempts are being made to radicalise the position to enable United States firms to move their investments from South Africa. Yet we all know that if that is done, these opportunities will be taken up by other companies. It is rare in the world to find much success in the application of sanctions or boycotts. In an interesting article in the Australian on 6 May this year, there was a discussion by Peter Godwin of the Sunday Times, who gave examples of boycotts and sanctions which had been applied in the last 50 years or so. He pointed out that although an embargo was established 25 years ago by the United States in respect of Cuba and had cost the Cuban economy $10 billion, it had no moderating influence on Fidel Castro's policies. Instead, the island grew closer to Moscow. He further pointed out that in 1958 some 70 per cent of Cuba's trade was with the US, but today Cuba is a full member of Comecon, the Soviet economic bloc, which takes up more than 96 per cent of its trade. He further draws attention to similar failures which occurred when there were attempts to put pressure on General Galtieri's regime in Argentina to shorten the Falklands war by halting trade with Argentina. Again, at that stage those attempts did not succeed. He also referred to the freezing of Iranian assets, which likewise did not succeed. The common and general view is that sanctions and boycotts are not the way to achieve results. Other countries in the world will always take the opportunity to come in and take the place of somebody else. Australia has some 75 companies operating in South Africa to a substantial degree. Australia is not one of the biggest of South Africa's trading partners, but we constitute a fairly important partner. In that event I believe that the codes of conduct should be fairly effective in showing that Australian firms will take action to improve the condition of work and people's living conditions and, without breaking South African laws, will help slowly to break down the gross discrimination which occurs at present in that area. I want to say a word or two about the codes. Altogether there are some 13 different forms of codes of conduct in other countries. The Economic Community one covers some nine countries. So it is quite common for countries to have this form of setting an example, to expect its firms to operate according to those examples and, most importantly, to ensure that they report regularly so that what they are doing and what efforts are being made to improve conditions in the country can be seen. I hope that this code succeeds. There is substantial belief that it will do as well as the European code, particularly the way in which the British have applied it. In a number of documents which I have obtained through the auspices of the Foreign Affairs Department and through the use of the Freedom of Information Act there are a number of remarks by respected people abroad who have reported to the Australian Government. I think it would be worth while my quoting some of them. In a document submitted to the foreign Ministry last year this was said: The definition of Australian companies to which the code will apply makes it clear that attention is focused on those companies which have significant commercial interests in South Africa and employ non-white staff. It is not intended that the Code will apply to such operations as single-person, promotional or representative offices which do not employ non-white staff. While Companies with small minority investments in South African concerns could be encouraged to adhere to the code, it should not be expected of them to the same degree as companies with majority interests. I believe it is sound common sense to expect compliance with the code by those companies which employ a substantial number of black Africans, which have a substantial interest in the area and which otherwise may appear to be gaining benefit from the poor working conditions of South African workers. In an interesting article by Martin Holland called 'The EEC Code for South Africa: A reassessment' which was supplied to me by the Department an interesting observation is made about the relatively poor standard of living still enjoyed by people who work for British companies. The article said: A further weakness of the collective policy is that Britain has been the only member regularly and fully to report since the Code's inception in 1977. The other Community members have been less willing partners although recently both German and Dutch reports have been as equally comprehensive. In other words, that is an interesting example in respect of the EEC code of genuine and effective reportage. I think reportage is all important in this matter. If, as in Europe, other countries are less effective, naturally much less is achieved from the whole undertaking. We do not have the same problem of comparing one country with another, but if we do not ensure that companies readily exercise the necessary reportage we will not know what is going on. It is said that there is always an alternative to the codes. One alternative is disinvestment, which has become a serious question, particularly in the United States. The report dated September 1984 which the Foreign Affairs Department obtained from our authorities in Washington is interesting in this respect, because it seems to me that disinvestment is the last resort. It can very often mean great weakness for the people who work in a company if other companies are persuaded to cut their investments in South Africa. In this article there is reference to a survey into black opinion regarding disinvestment conducted by the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University of Natal. It was commissioned by the United States State Department and tested the opinion of 551 black production workers in industrial areas of the Transvaal, Port Elizabeth and Natal. The article states: The main outcome of the study was that blacks surveyed supported foreign investment in South Africa and rejected the withdrawal of foreign capital and trade boycotts as a strategy for their liberation. The results of the study also indicated that, while black militancy was increasing, most blacks take a pragmatic view of economic development and employment opportunities and, by and large, do not favour political actions that jeopardise their economic and social wellbeing. I think it important that that should be taken into consideration. It is true that there are differing views on disinvestment. Bishop Tutu takes the view that at this stage it is not desirable, but he is inclined to put a deadline of a couple of years on the South African Government to give it an opportunity to prove whether it is going to alter its system. On the other hand, as Senator Jessop pointed out today, Chief Gatshu Buthelezi, chief of the Zulu group and a very important, powerful and articulate leader whom I met while I was in South Africa, is not of the opinion that disinvestment is a good idea and believes that the building and strengthening of his own people and of capitalism in the country will be more effective than if they are merely sent to coventry by lack of investment in the country. Another question which arises in regards to the codes is whether they are to be mandatory. At this stage the Government has chosen that the code should not be mandatory but should be voluntary. In the confidential advice it received on 10 February 1984 on this matter the following objections to compulsory or mandatory codes were raised: Vagueness in the wording of necessary legislation since the codes themselves leave scope for broad judgments . . . The difficulty of proving any alleged breach of the code. The imposition of a full scale mandatory code of conduct would more than likely involve Australia in asserting jurisdiction over companies in situations where Australia (and other countries) allege that a state should not exercise jurisdiction. There was a very considerable problem in that regard. The advice which the Government received and which it obviously has accepted is that it should not be mandatory for a company to be involved in a code but that, once it entered the code, it should be expected to report regularly so that the effectiveness of its work in South Africa can be judged. It may be said therefore that the judgment by the Government in Australia is the right response at this time. It is strange that for years we in Australia have not had a code. Although we have taken a strong stand in this regard, for which I commend Malcolm Fraser, the previous Prime Minister, we have not enforced or had a code in operation for all this time. I think that is unfortunate. It tended to disparage to some extent the strength of our attack on apartheid. All these matters must be watched from time to time. Circumstances may change. South Africa may change. I believe the Government is quite right to take a firm and strong stand in the sporting field, in transport-Qantas Airways Ltd does not land in South Africa-in the refusal to allow armed services to be provided for South Africa in any way and in providing a decent code of conduct. I believe that these matters at present show that Australia strongly believes in its case and in its opposition to apartheid, that thereby we will stand to gain and that our companies will be playing a part in a battle in the world, particularly in South Africa. Senator AULICH(Tasmania)(11.00) —I rise to make one or two very brief comments on the contribution of Senator Missen. I commend him for most of what he has said. In fact I commend him for taking what is basically an honest and straight-forward line on a major issue that is confronting both this country and the world at large. I understand that he has put himself at odds-I respect his courage for doing so-with a number of his colleagues, many of whom are new additions to this chamber. They have most clearly indicated their support for the South African regime, even if it is only on the basis of its being slightly better than some of its black neighbours. Senator Missen has been prepared to stand up in this chamber to indicate support for the Australian Government's stand, in terms of its voluntary business agreements for investment in South Africa. He has been prepared to congratulate previous governments on the basis of their support for the Gleneagles Agreement and he has been prepared to support everyone on this side of the chamber in their approach to their relative isolation of South Africa. There is no doubt, from my experiences in South Africa, that the one thing the hierarchy of that country fears more than anything else is isolation from the rest of the world. Nowhere is that isolation felt more cogently and deeply than in the sporting arena because, as everyone knows, sport is a very important common denominator among people who might otherwise not be persuaded by overt and pure political argument. The South Africans feel that isolation in the sporting area; they will also feel it in the business area. I disagree with Senator Missen's view about disinvestment, if I can use that awful American word. I believe that if disinvestment is pushed in the appropriate way, with a degree of agreement between the various countries that make up the major investors in South Africa, it can be another method of bringing home to Pretoria the fact that it is isolated, that the majority of the civilised world will not cop its particular approach towards racial development and the civilised world will not cop the exploitation of labour in South Africa. Although there have been some changes in South Africa which all of us may well applaud there is still the basis of an organisation of society which all of us on this side of the chamber find reprehensible. Most reprehensible is the fact that that country, its economic production and probably even its social well-being in the eyes of the white people in that country, rely very much upon the exploitation of coloured labour. It is isolation of labour from contact with people of other racial backgrounds, social isolation and economic isolation which, in effect, is so damaging to the well-being and morale of people in that country who do not happen to be white. I do not need to remind Senator Missen and other people who have been to South Africa that South Africa is still faced with the every day discrimination which must sorely hurt a person right to the heart of his very being. For example, people cannot even go into a lavatory without working out which door to go through. It has 'whites' or 'non-whites'-not 'coloureds' or anything else but 'non-whites', non-persons-written above the door. When they go into an airport terminal they have to look up at the door and work out whether or not they are supposed to go through that door or one which is around the back for the non-whites. A person going to a bottle shop to buy a bottle of wine has to go to the appropriate window. If a person wishes to address a letter at the side of the post office, there is a table there of about three foot in width at the most and that is divided into 'white' and 'non-white' sections. Whites and non-whites actually rub shoulders but the clear delineation of race is there for all to see. That has not changed in South Africa and nor has the deliberate shooting of people in demonstrations. The Uitenhage incident shows that apartheid is operating as it always has, that is, in a careful and clinically detached way in which decisions are made to shoot people in the back, if necessary. That was done primarily not as an accident but as a deliberate policy to ensure that those people who want to demonstrate in the future knew the consequences of any such actions. South Africa is still very much a police state. There are many police states throughout the world but very few are based upon a clinical and very cold use of racial separation as a method of controlling a majority of the population. The coloured people have no economic power; they have no social power and they are still isolated. My view about disinvestment is that we ought to be involved in it as far as we can, effectively and in conjunction with other countries. Australia, as in so many other cases since the Australian Labor Party came to power, is now becoming known, quietly but with a degree of appreciation that is real, as a country that is prepared to put its morality on the line in matters of foreign policy. I am not one who likes to fly flags for the sake of the crazy extreme Left or people who believe that their attitude towards foreign policy is based on whether or not they buy South African oranges and so on. That is not my scene. My scene is very much the idea of making sure that if one has a policy, it works. This Government is moving towards the position in which it will be seen as a moral leader in the world. In short, I do not think that South Africa is changing a great deal. It is changing cosmetically. I am extremely concerned about the types of people who are being elected to this chamber, and some who have been members for some time, who are prepared to raise their heads and say: 'Because I have been to South Africa and accepted assistance from that government to get there and to stay there, I am prepared to stand up in this chamber and support what is going on there'. I believe there is cause for concern by all of us in this chamber that some people have sold out their principles for the sake of a good social visit. That is a matter of great concern; it ought to be a matter of great concern to Senator Missen who is a member of a party of which the number of these people is on the increase. Senator Missen —I went at my own expense, of course. Senator AULICH —I agree that the question of the reprehensibility of the actions of some other people certainly does not reflect on Senator Missen for whom I have had great respect over a long period. I think he is showing his true colours in this chamber tonight. I congratulate him for being prepared to stand up in his Party and be counted on an issue which is important not just for South Africa but for the way we treat the rest of the world, and whether or not we can hold up our heads on a matter that I think is of vital importance and a measurment of the way the West operates, in moral terms, in foreign policy. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.08) —Earlier today I spoke on the Parliament House Construction Authority paper which was tabled in the Senate. I misled the Senate and I caused my colleague Senator Missen to mislead the Senate. I wish to apologise to the Senate and to the Minister for Territories, Mr Scholes, for that. Apparently, I misunderstood my advice or I was misinformed, I am not sure which; maybe it was a combination of both. I accept the Minister's advice conveyed earlier to the Senate by the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Gareth Evans, that the Minister for Territories did advise Sir Bernard Callinan, Mr Ling and Sir John Overall on 9 April of the fact that they would not be re-appointed. Thanks to my colleague Senator Reid, who has been able to get the correct information for me, I understand that the gentlemen concerned, the members of this Authority, were requested to attend on the Minister on 9 April, a day on which the Parliament House Construction Authority met-the Chairman at 12.30 p.m., the two other other people were to be dismissed at 12.40 p.m. and the two whose appointments were to be continued, at 12.50 p.m. It was somewhat in the nature of children attending before the headmaster. These people were called in to the Minister's office and one after another they were told their fate. I sincerely apologise for misleading the Senate and misrepresenting the Minister. I will not hold up the Senate any more than a minute or two. Notwithstanding my misleading the Senate I believe that the termination of these appointments was most unfortunate. The difficulties which have been experienced in building the new Parliament House have been passed now. Members of the Authority have got through the extra load which was placed on the Authority by having to increase the size of the accommodation to cater for the extra senators and members. Yet the terms of these members of the Authority have been terminated at a stage when the building is close to completion. I really do think that it is a most unfortunate termination. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(11.11) —I will ensure that Senator Reid's remarks about a health centre in Canberra are directed to the attention of the Minister for Health (Dr Blewett). I listened with considerable interest to what Senator Missen had to say on the situation in South Africa. I agree completely with the remarks of my colleague Senator Aulich, both in what he said about Senator Missen's contribution and his rather more free ranging comments on the general situation there. I too would say, as Senator Aulich did, that Senator Missen's remarks on codes of conduct, economic boycotts and related matters were generally consistent with the Government's position on these matters and, moreover, were marked by a degree of sensitivity and understanding of the condition of black people, coloured people, in South Africa, which is conspicuously lacking in the approach of so many of his colleagues and in particular was lacking in the contribution to the debate at lunch time today by his colleague Senator Jessop. It is important that we maintain a strong, civilised, bipartisan approach to these very grave matters of morality that are involved in apartheid and our response to it. I welcome the contributions that have been made to that debate and that consciousness raising exercise tonight by Senators Missen and Aulich. It was a gracious apology from Senator Lewis with respect to his misleading the Senate today. I am sure that Mr Scholes will take the whole affair in good part, even the chiding which accompanied what was otherwise, as I said, a gracious apology by Senator Lewis in circumstances which I can understand him having misunderstood what might have occurred. The PRESIDENT —Last night in the adjournment debate Senator Missen raised the matter concerning the delay in the production of the Senate Hansard for Tuesday, 7 May. I undertook to refer Senator Missen's comments to the relevant Minister. This I did. I now seek to have incorporated in Hansard for the Senate's information a copy of the reply I have received from the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, Mr John Brown, who has ministerial responsibilities for the Government Printing Office. Might I say that I appreciate the Minister's prompt reply to my letter. I take it that leave is granted to have the contents of that letter incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The letter read as follows- MINISTER FOR SPORT, RECREATION AND TOURISM 9 May 1985 Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland President of the Senate Parliament House CANBERRA, A.C.T. 2600 My dear Mr President I wish to advise you of the reasons the Australian Government Publishing Service is having problems in the timely production of parliamentary publications including Hansards. Operating under a very tight staff ceiling requirement, AGPS productivity has been seriously affected by an epidemic of repetitive strain injury and a shortage of qualified keyboard print production staff. You will appreciate that the incidence of RSI among staff is unpredictable and makes orderly planning and scheduling particularly difficult. To alleviate the situation, AGPS has been contracting out core typesetting work which does not require to be held on file for updating purposes. Several issues of the Public Service Gazette, for example, have been contracted out to private typesetters. During the recent Parliamentary session there have been abnormally heavy workloads of Bills and Explanatory Memoranda. For example, on Wednesday of this week there were 39 Bills, 26 for Issue and 13 for Supply, with their accompanying explanatory memoranda, all required by 8.30 am on Thursday. The consequence has been that over the last two Parliamentary sitting days, production of Hansards has been seriously delayed to both Houses with today's Hansards being scheduled for delivery by 2.30 pm for the Senate and 6.30 pm for the House of Representatives. I note that in a comment in the Senate last night Senator Missen raised the issue of priorities allocated by the Printing Office to various Senate and House of Representative publications. I assure you that Printing Office allocation of priorities for Parliamentary work is in accordance with long standing practices agreed with the Parliament. Notice Papers, Bills and Explanatory Memoranda, Votes and Proceedings, Journals and Hansards are produced with that order of priority. Manuscripts for Hansard for both Houses is received progressively during the night. Both the Senate and Representatives Hansards are progressed at the same time depending on the amount and timeliness of copy received. Generally, the Senate Hansard is published earlier because it is smaller in page content. AGPS is making every effort to meet the situation. A close examination is being made of scheduling of Bills, especially those for Issue, to see if some typesetting can be deferred for the day shift staff instead of being processed during the night. All available staff resources are being utilised. Yours sincerely JOHN BROWN Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 11.14 p.m. The following papers were tabled: Defence Act-Determination 1985 No. 23. Lands Acquisition Act-Statement by the Minister describing land acquired by agreement under sub-section 7 (1) of the Act, for specified public purposes. Public Service Act- Appointment-Department of Aviation-D. J. Roylance. GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S MESSAGES-ASSENT TO LAWS: Messages from His Excellency the Governor-General were reported, informing the Senate that His Excellency has, in the name of Her Majesty, assented to the following Laws: 7 May 1985-Messages- No. 8- Australian Meat and Live-stock Research and Development Corporation Act 1985 (Act No. 12 of 1985) Australian Meat and Live-stock Legislation (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Act 1985 (Act No. 13 of 1985) Live-stock Slaughter Levy Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 14 of 1985) Live-stock Export Charge Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 15 of 1985) No. 9- Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 16 of 1985) Extradition (Commonwealth Countries) Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 17 of 1985) Extradition (Foreign States) Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 18 of 1985) No. 10- Soil Conservation (Financial Assistance) Act 1985 (Act No. 19 of 1985) Bounty (Injection-moulding Equipment) Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 20 of 1985) No. 11- Bankruptcy Amendment Act 1985 (Act No. 21 of 1985)