Friday, 2 May 1986 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) took the chair at 9 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth: That whereas there is no evidence of a clear public demand for a bill of rights; and Whereas many rights included in the bill of rights never have been, nor are now in danger in Australia; and Whereas many rights deemed precious to all Australians are not included in this bill, e.g., the right to own property and the right to choose not to belong to a trade union without incurring penalty, and Whereas this bill confers on a non elected, non representative body (the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) powers, better vested in the Judiciary: Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Federal Government desists from proceeding with a bill of rights, until, by referendum it ascertains if (a) Australians believe their freedoms are in jeopardy; and (b) Australians believe such a Bill needs to be introduced. And your petitioners as in duty bound ever pray. by Senator Crichton-Browne (from 32 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens of West Australia respectfully showeth: That all legitimate business expenses incurred in earning or producing assessable income should be allowable deductions. That the proposed Capital Gains Tax is an unwarranted burden on the rural sector, which will severely affect its long-term viability. That the delay by the Government in introducing the legislation into Parliament is causing confusion and hindering farmers in the organisation of their affairs. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Government introduces the Capital Gains Tax legislation without delay and that the Australian Democrats join with the Opposition to defeat the proposed legislation. by Senator Chaney (from 15 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the Australian Bill of Rights Bill is a harmful, dangerous and divisive proposal, the provisions of which are authoritarian and anti-democratic. Your petitioners therefore pray: That the Senate rejects this Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Durack (from 152 citizens) and Knowles (from 160 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 deplore the proposed Bill of Rights because it adversely affects areas of the liberty and freedom of Australians. It will operate against: The States and our Federal system of Government Criminal Justice The Police Education Families Employer/Employee relations It will remove the power of the people through Parliament, by giving power to a new more powerful Human Rights Commission which is not elected, but can act as a Star Chamber. We do most earnestly wish to keep our system of Common Law. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should reject this Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Reid (from 20 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully shows: That we strongly support `The A.C.T. Smoking and Tobacco Products Advertisements Prohibition Bill' introduced by Senator Evans, because it represents the first positive national step towards the eventual elimination of wide-spread serious ill health caused by smoking tobacco. by Senator Vigor (from 15 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament House assembled. We, the undersigned citizens of Australia, humbly pray that the parliament act to outlaw the practice of the large petrol companies also controlling petrol retail outlets in competition with independent petrol distributors and retailers whom they supply, thus acting in a position of unfair competition, and leading to the large companies exerting unconscionable pressure on those independent distributors and retailers. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Vigor (from 28 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia shows that: We are opposed to the Parliament imposing a Bill of Rights on the people of Australia and we ask that the Senate reject the Bill entirely. Your petitioners humbly pray: That should the Honourable House decide to pass the Bill in amended form it will retain the amendment applying the legislation to trade unions. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Robertson (from nine citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: Graduated family allowances are of important assistance to families with more than one child. All family allowances, whether for one, two, three, or more children, have not kept pace with inflation. There are suggestions that all family allowances should be paid at the one flat rate. This would severely disadvantage families with more than one child. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should reject any suggestion that family allowances be paid at a flat rate and instead should ask the Federal Government to increase the value of existing payments. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Reid (from 76 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. This humble petition of citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: S.W.A.P.O. is recognised by the United Nations as the sole and authentic representative of the Namibian people. The situation in Namibia is of particular importance to Australians, given Australia's position as a member of the United Nations Council for Namibia-in effect a member of the UN, the government for Namibia in exile and therefore has a legal international entrusted responsibility to the people of Namibia, responsibilities which it must be prepared to take seriously in order to bring about social justice, freedom and independence for Namibia and genuine peace in that Region. Therefore this humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully requests the Government to urgently initiate the following steps: 1. To fund a S.W.A.P.O. Office in Australia, such funding to continue until a free Namibia is able to establish an Embassy in Canberra. 2. That all commercial, sporting and cultural ties with the Republic of South Africa be severed forthwith. 3. That all diplomatic ties with Pretoria be severed. 4. To give decent support to S.W.A.P.O. agriculture and educational programs. And your petitioners as duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Robertson (from 16 citizens). Senator MESSNER(South Australia) —by leave-I present the following petitioning letter bearing 24 signatures opposing the Australian Bill of Rights Bill 1985: We, the undersigned do oppose unequivocally the Bill of Rights, which the present Federal Government is endeavouring to have passed in the Senate. Petitions received. Senator VIGOR(South Australia) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act to prohibit the sale of, and dealings with, hazardous goods and for purposes connected therewith. 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 Gareth Evans) read a first time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(9.04) —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- This Bill provides for a payment to be made to domestic oil companies as reimbursement for liftings made under the crude oil allocation scheme in February 1986 at the January import parity price (IPP). As honourable senators will be only too well aware, since late January there has been a dramatic fall in world oil prices. The IPP for Bass Strait crude lifted in February was $43.71 a barrel-as from 1 March the price fell to $27.09 a barrel, a fall of 38 per cent, and it fell a further $6.10 a barrel on 1 April. Domestic oil companies who, in compliance with the voluntary crude oil allocation scheme, continued to lift high priced domestic crude during February, faced significant losses when this crude was refined and came onto the market after the lower crude oil prices were reflected in lower maximum wholesale prices by the Prices Surveillance Authority. The potential loss to companies for all their inventory holdings at the end of February was estimated to be between $575m and $600m. Stock gains and losses are a normal feature of commercial activity and it is usually open to enterprises to arrange their affairs so that the financial impact of price variations is optimised to the benefit of the enterprise. In the case of oil refiners, faced with the dramatic fall in world crude oil prices, one option would have been to stop lifting indigenous crude oil until its price reflected the international market. Such action would have been disastrous for the domestic producers, as well as for Government revenues. Consequently, to ensure the indigenous crude oil lifting program was adhered to in February, the Government gave an undertaking to the refiners that it would deal sympathetically with their inventory problem. The Government undertook to reimburse the refiners for their liftings of high priced indigenous crude oil in February. The total gross amount involved is $210.6m. This is calculated as total allocation liftings in February times the difference between the prevailing IPP and the IPP at 1 March 1986. This amount is offset by the value of product sales, recorded as entered for home consumption, made in the period in March before the Prices Surveillance Authority determined new maximum wholesale prices. The value of these sales, adjusted to take into account both the imported component of those product sales (25 per cent) and those products that do not carry an excise component and are therefore not recorded as entries for home consumption (10 per cent) was $85.8m, leaving a reimbursement to be made to oil companies of $124.8m. The payment will be disbursed to individual companies on the basis of their share of liftings under the crude oil allocation scheme and on the condition that they have settled all inter-company obligations under the scheme. Clearly it would be wrong for anyone to see the payment as a windfall gain for the industry-it is reimbursement for losses incurred during February, as a result of the 1 March IPP change, over which the refiners had little or no control. They could not take normal commercial action to minimise these losses and at the same time comply with their obligations under the crude oil allocation scheme. Refiners always bear some commercial risks in holding stocks-and have accepted the normal ups and downs. However, the circumstances they faced in February could certainly not be seen as normal and the payment should not be regarded as setting a precedent. Indeed no similar payment has been made in regard to the 1 April adjustment to the import parity price recently announced. Following the Government's announcement on 24 February to partially reimburse refiners for inventory losses, there has been some suggestion that similar treatment be given to retailers for stock losses they may have suffered. However, such suggestions have obviously taken little or no consideration of the different circumstances in which retailers and refiners operate: retailers were not obligated, like refiners, to purchase high priced stocks in February. Retailers were free to run down their stocks in anticipation of the fall in price of petroleum products. In fact retailers were free to exercise the full range of commercial options to maximise their financial returns and minimise their losses; while refiners normally hold between 50 to 60 days stock, city retailers hold only three to seven days stocks and country retailers about nine to ten days stocks. The retailers potential exposure to stock losses is therefore a great deal less than for refiners; retailers are also free to set their prices on the basis of market forces-they have had the commercial option of not lowering their prices until higher priced stocks were exhausted. For refiners the timing of any price change and the maximum wholesale price for their product are set by the Prices Surveillance Authority. It was for these reasons that the Government could find no justification for extending the stock reimbursement scheme to cover petroleum retailers. The Bill provides fair reimbursement to domestic refiners who continued to meet their obligations by lifting higher priced crude oil in February under the crude oil allocation scheme. The allocation scheme has operated effectively since the late 1960s and the Government has not been prepared to see it placed in jeopardy because of the totally unpredictable international oil market conditions that prevailed in February. The crude oil allocation scheme provides an assured market for locally produced crudes and an important incentive to continuing petroleum exploration and development in Australia. I commend the Bill to the Senate. 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 Gareth Evans) read a first time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(9.06) —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 effect of this Bill will be to make permanent an interim scheme to protect the heritage of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders. This will be achieved by repealing the `sunset clause', section 33 of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage (Interim Protection) Act 1984. The amendment reflects the Government's wish to retain reserve powers in the protection of Aboriginal and Islander heritage. In June 1984, when the Interim Act was introduced, I indicated that Aboriginals and Islanders had demanded of the Commonwealth a role, backed by legislation, in preserving and protecting places, areas and objects, including skeletal material, which were of particular significance to them and were under threat of injury or desecration. The Act does not interfere with the existing responsibilities of the State and Territory Governments. Those Governments have legislation which requires them to identify, record, research, interpret and manage Aboriginal sites. Management of sites in some cases may be undertaken by members of the Aboriginal community, though unfortunately this remains an exception. Recording the location of Aboriginal sites is simply one step towards later possible decisions as to which sites are to be protected. The basis for these decisions in the States and Territories have normally centred on issues relevant to University research on Aboriginal matters. On other occasions such decisions appear to have been based on the aesthetic and educative value of the sites. This is especially true of rock art sites. While such values may be important to the wider Australian community, Aboriginals and Islanders want a commitment that areas and objects which are particularly significant to them now, would be preserved and protected. Although it is certainly true that much of Aboriginal culture has been lost, it is the aim of this Government to restore, wherever possible, that cultural identity and gain community respect for Aboriginal and Islander people and their traditions. Where an Aboriginal community closely identifies with an area which has historical, cultural or spiritual significance, the Commonwealth Act provides a means of protecting that area from actions which may destroy, injure or desecrate it. The Act cannot and will not be used where a State or Territory Government has given assurances, or taken action, to protect such an area. Experience over the past two years has shown that, in most instances, these Governments have been willing to take appropriate action. The Act can and will be used where these Governments are not prepared to use their powers to protect significant areas. Governments may consider that other public interests are sufficiently important for protection not to be given to Aboriginal areas. The Commonwealth Government also considers such interests when deciding whether a declaration should be made under the Act. The Act in effect provides a means whereby Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders can use the Commonwealth to review decisions by State and Territory Governments. It gives the Commonwealth, authority to bring affected parties together, to conciliate, to mediate and negotiate in order to remove a threat of injury to a significant Aboriginal area or object. Declarations are only needed where such mediation fails to resolve the problem of a threat. The Act has been used in this way during the past two years. No declarations have been necessary in respect to areas of land. One declaration in respect of significant Aboriginal objects has been necessary. The Act was used to prevent the sale of certain items by public auction. During the period of the declaration negotiations were entered into with the auctioneer by a key Aboriginal organisation, and the items purchased for safekeeping by the Aboriginal community. This experience has clearly shown that resolution of issues can be achieved given the goodwill of parties. Applications have been genuine. Applicants have also been reasonable. State site authorities have been closely involved in reaching suitable agreements to remove or minimise damage. The value of such reserve Commonwealth power is readily apparent. A number of States have commenced revising their legislation and administration of matters such as how decisions on protection and management are taken. Aboriginal communities are considering with greater care what is to be preserved and why, and are seeking to explain these matters in ways which gain wide respect and support in our community. Two years ago the Opposition foreshadowed that this legislation would lead to thousands of applications, and that the Government would act to inhibit land development and planning. These fears have been shown to be without foundation. One of the critics of the Interim Legislation, the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association Ltd, in a letter dated 1 April 1986 to the Minister for Resources and Energy, the Honourable Senator Evans, wrote and I quote: While APEA is opposed to the continuation of national legislation on protection of Aboriginal heritage, it acknowledges that, to date, the Federal Government has administered the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage (Interim Protection) Act in a fair and reasonable manner. . . The preservation and protection of significant Aboriginal areas and objects is now firmly recognised as a responsibility of many parts of the community and not simply that of Government. This Act must remain to cater for exceptional occasions where mediation and negotiation is needed. It represents a positive instrument in raising our awareness of how important sites, areas and objects are to the integrity of a living and vital Aboriginal culture. I commend this Bill to the Senate. 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 Gareth Evans) read a first time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(9.08) —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- This Bill proposes to amend a number of Acts to remove or alter provisions which discriminate on the ground of sex or marital status to ensure that those Acts will be consistent with the Sex Discrimination Act. Acts done in direct compliance with legislation which was in force at the time when the Sex Discrimination Act came into operation on 1 August 1984 are the subject of an exemption under section 40 of the Act. This exemption for what would otherwise be unlawful acts of discrimination on the ground of sex, marital status or pregnancy operates for 2 years after the commencement of the Act unless extended by regulations either generally or in relation to specified legislation. In October 1984 all Commonwealth Departments began a review of Commonwealth legislation to identify provisions which would be inconsistent with the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. As a result of that review a number of provisions have been identified by Departments as involving discrimination on the ground of sex or marital status. The Government believes that wherever possible discriminatory provisions in legislation should be removed rather than preserved by regulation. This Bill is one of a number of measures the Government will be placing before the Parliament to achieve this aim. Where legislation is to be otherwise amended by Bills to be introduced in this Session, amendments to remove inconsistencies with the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 will be included in those Bills. This Bill deals with certain measures which are more appropriately dealt with in omnibus legislation rather than by a series of small and separate amending Bills. The Bill now before the Senate amends ten Acts to effect a variety of changes. The Re-establishment and Employment Act 1945 contains a number of redundant provisions concerning assistance to servicemen in the years immediately after World War II. Some of these redundant provisions conflict with the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and it has been decided that the opportunity should be taken in this Bill to repeal all the redundant provisions. The Seamen's Compensation Act 1911 and the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act 1973 at present provide for the payment of compensation to de facto spouses and other dependants of seamen and of Commonwealth employees. The Bill proposes the amendment of the definition of de facto spouse in those Acts to make them consistent with the definition of `de facto spouse' in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984. The Seamen's Compensation Act 1911 is also to be amended to remove a provision which terminates the payment of compensation to a child of a deceased seaman if the child marries. Honourable senators will see that the review of Commonwealth legislation by Departments has picked up both obvious and perhaps not so obvious instances of discrimination. Honourable Senators will also see that the Government has extended its review into some legislation which is already exempt from the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 for an indefinite period of time, namely the Compensation (Commonwealth Government Employees) Act 1973. Whilst this Act is exempt from the operation of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, it was considered that this was not a good reason why the Act should not be amended, as far as practicable, to be consistent with the Government's commitment towards eliminating discrimination. Amongst the discriminatory provisions identified by Departments in reviewing Commonwealth legislation there are a small number which will be preserved by regulation. Regulations to this effect are expected to be made in the near future. These regulations will preserve the operation of some provisions indefinitely, mainly where the other options open to the Government to remove discrimination would have been either to remove an entitlement to a particular benefit, or to make benefits available to a wider group, thereby imposing a considerably greater burden on the taxpayer. Honourable Senators will be aware that legislation such as the Social Security Act 1947 is already exempt from the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 for reasons such as I have just mentioned. The proposed regulations will preserve the operation of similar benefits. Of the other regulations proposed I need mention only one in relation to taxation legislation which arises because the process of reviewing all taxation legislation was delayed by the need to give priority to reform of the taxation system. Regulations under the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 will be made to enable a one-year extension of the exemption for taxation legislation until 1 August 1987. The measures in this Bill do not have any direct financial implications. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) adjourned. Senator McINTOSH(Western Australia) —On behalf of Senator Richardson, I present the report of Estimates Committee A on proposed additional expenditure for the year ending 30 June 1986, together with the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator GILES(Western Australia) —I present the report of Estimates Committee B on proposed additional expenditure for the year ending 30 June 1986, together with the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator CHILDS(New South Wales) —I present the report on Estimates Committee C on proposed additional expenditure for the year ending 30 June 1986, together with the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator ZAKHAROV(Victoria) —I present the report of Estimates Committee F on proposed additional expenditure for the year ending 30 June 1986, together with the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator REYNOLDS(Queensland) —I present the report from Estimates Committee D on proposed additional expenditure for the year ending 30 June 1986, together with the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator McINTOSH(Western Australia) —I present the report from Estimates Committee E on proposed additional expenditure for the year ending 30 June 1986, together with the Hansard record of the Committee's proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Debate resumed from 19 February, on motion by Senator Gareth Evans: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(9.10) —We do not oppose the legislation. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(9.10) —The Ministers of State Amendment Bill deals with the obligation of raising the amount that is able to be spent for ministerial salaries following the rises that occurred in parliamentarians' salaries. This always seems to be an area that occasions a great deal of concern on the part of parliamentarians. Honourable senators rarely raise the issue of parliamentary salaries for fear that if they do so there will be adverse Press reaction. It is a pity in many ways. I would like to put on the record something that seems to me to be largely anomalous. I think most honourable senators will agree that whatever government is in power the work that is required to be done by Ministers of the Crown is enormous. The amount of time they must spend on their duties is very large and the time they are able to spend at home engaging in normal activities is very small. Let us compare the salary of a Minister, excluding office allowance, with the salary of a departmental Secretary, Level 1-that is, the Minister's chief adviser-excluding office allowance. A Minister gets $82,561 and a departmental Secretary gets $91,704. A departmental Secretary, Level 2, gets $84,000, which is still above a Minister's salary. So a Minister's principal advisers are all paid more than the Minister. This seems to be an extraordinary situation, given the type of work that is required of Ministers of the Crown and the responsibility that they have to take for the final decisions that are made. However, these facts are rarely entered in any Press reports; we see only the adverse reports that politicians are paid too much. We then go down the line to the retirement entitlements which would be available to a departmental Secretary and a Minister. These are more difficult to compare, but I have taken two typical cases. If someone enters the Australian Public Service at the age of 20 and retires at the age of 60 with 40 years service and having achieved the level of a departmental head, the entitlement is $42,184. Additionally, such a person would receive a refund of his superannuation contributions. This is much more difficult to assess, but it is likely to be in the vicinity of $30,000 on top of that amount. Alternatively, a person entering the Public Service, again at the age of 20, and at the age of 45 entering political life, becoming a Minister and serving for the typical length of time for which Ministers serve-that is, three years-would end up with $34,207; in other words, a good $10,000 less if he becomes a Minister than if he stays a departmental Secretary in the First Division. I believe that we should not draw from that comparison the conclusion that the departmental Secretary has a salary comparable to a salary which would be paid in private enterprise for that type of level of responsibility; rather, we should conclude that the Ministers of State are underpaid. We should not be looking at a Bill which simply substitutes $660,000 for $630,000. In fact, we should be looking at a significantly higher figure. That, of course, will not occur. Political parties would be loath to take on such an activity. I believe that very easy media operations whereby people run around with television cameras, poke them at cars and so forth, by and large rarely take into account the level of responsibility and commitment that Ministers of the Crown are required to take and the enormous volume of work that they are required to get through. Added to that, of course, a departmental Secretary would rarely lose his job because of a letter whereas Ministers of the Crown can very easily lose their jobs by putting their signatures to a letter, hundreds of which they sign every day. Of course, honourable senators know of instances in the last few years when we have had discussions over such letters. I believe it is unfortunate that these things cannot be discussed, in light of the comparison between the duties required of a Minister of State and the duties required in private enterprise. I believe there are direct comparisons, but these things, of course, for political reasons, are not taken on because of the fear of adverse publicity. I think it is about time that we stopped asking the impossible of Ministers of the Crown. If we do, it is about time that we started to pay them commensurately. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(9.18) —in reply-I congratulate Senator Macklin on the most statesmanlike speech I have heard from an Australian Democrat during my time in this Parliament. Senator Archer —What about mine? Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Archer's speech was also an admirable one, setting a precedent which I hope will be followed on many future occasions by the Opposition. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate. Debate resumed from 12 March, on motion by Senator Button: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(9.20) —The Senate is commencing the second reading debate on the Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986 and I say at the outset that the Opposition does not oppose the Bill. Nevertheless, I shall not be making the sort of speech that my colleague Senator Archer made in respect of the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 1986 because there are, at least as far as I am concerned, six major shortcomings in the Bill. It is my intention to draw attention to those shortcomings as I see them. Those shortcomings are, to summarise them: Firstly, the very high cost for low return in terms of permanent employment; secondly, the limited success this proposal has met in its first three years; thirdly, the way in which it has been used to obtain funds over and above departmental budgets and to circumvent the financial restraints imposed by budgets; fourthly, the way some Government Ministers are using the scheme to finance favourite causes or to finance their mates in favourite causes-I might say that usually they are left wing causes that seem to be favoured; fifthly, the use of the scheme in un- economic projects which simply waste money; and finally, what I think is the most important point of all, the fact that it is clear from the so-called `creation' of 87,000 jobs that employers are prepared to employ young people but are inhibited from doing so by the high cost of award wages. Clearly employers can find the jobs when they have to find only half the award wage. If this Government would do something to deregulate the wages of youth in this country, the result would be that the unemployment level of youth in Australia would fall fairly rapidly to something approaching the level of unemployment of adults. I now turn to those points in some more detail, the first point being the very high cost of the community employment program. In the first three years this program has cost the taxpayers of this country about a billion dollars for approximately 87,000 short term jobs-a cost of about $11,500 per job. Many of these people returned to unemployment after their expectations had been raised and they then suffered the trauma of facing long term unemployment again. The Government really needs to scrutinise carefully all the projects to ensure that they really are providing value for money. Government agencies and departments should not be using the CEP for other than one-off projects. Government departments should be taking on trainees for permanent employment under the youth traineeship scheme as their priority one, not simply recycling the unemployed. In the Australian Capital Territory over 60 per cent of the CEP projects went to government agencies and departments. Secondly, as to the limited success of the scheme, I say to the Government earnestly that it is placing far too much reliance on this scheme as some sort of program to reduce unemployment. At best it is only a stop-gap to some long term training programs. Only 46 per cent of the participants were in employment six months after leaving the program and about 61 per cent were in employment some time during that period. Those figures are not satisfactory, but I want to look at the other side of the coin. What about the other young people who were not in any employment during the rest of that period after they had finished this scheme? What about the other 54 per cent who were not in employment six months after leaving the program? Would Government senators please give some consideration earnestly to the trauma that those poor kids-I am going to call them kids, they are kids-face. Having had their expectations raised, they go around and tell all their friends and their family that they have a job, members of their family tell other members that Johnny or Betty has a job at last, that they are thrilled with it and all the rest of it, but six months later they are back on the dole with no possible chance of getting back into employment. The trauma which those kids suffer as a result of that I think is shameful. The cost per job is $11,500 at a time when it is clear that the duration for individual unemployment is in fact lengthening. In July 1983 the average duration of unemployment to which an unemployed person was exposed was 39.9 weeks. By July 1984, one year later, it was 47.8 weeks; and by July 1985, again another 12 months later, it had increased to almost 52 weeks. So the average duration of unemployment when someone becomes unemployed in this country is almost a year at the moment. The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that over 95,000 of Australia's unemployed have been out of work for two years or more. Last month, so far as youth unemployment is concerned, the rate for youth unemployment increased from 20.8 per cent to 21.4 per cent. So the position for the young is actually getting worse, despite all the slick advertising about Priority One and the youth traineeship scheme. And, I might say, rural Australia seems to be running a poor second. I quote from an article in the Warrnambool Standard, my local newspaper, headed `Jobs scheme a fizzer in the bush'. The article was written on 18 April and it says: Rural Australia appears to be running a poor second to the metropolitan area in benefiting from the new Federal employment initiative, the Australian traineeship scheme. Of the first 132 position in Victoria, 128 are based in Melbourne, the other four are in Yallourn. Of course, Yallourn is a highly industrialised area. In Victoria we managed to get four jobs down in that area of rural Victoria, and the other 128 jobs were Melbourne-based. This job traineeship scheme in itself needs to be desperately looked at by the Government. The article continues: Not only has the scheme been slow to arrive in the bush, it has encountered several other setbacks . . . The problems include strong objections from unions and employees and potential problems training young people in country areas. The third point that I wish to make is the way this scheme has been used to beat the Budget limits imposed on Ministers and departmental heads. In the Australian Capital Territory over 60 per cent of the community employment programs covered government agencies or departments and were clearly being used as a means of circumventing the Budget restraints rather than providing genuine employment opportunities. I give examples: The Department of Territories recently utilised the CEP to hand-water trees in Northbourne Avenue. Honourable senators ought to know that Northbourne Avenue runs into Canberra from the north and continues as Commonwealth Avenue to the new Parliament House building. That street has recently had a magnificent new median strip, a grassed area, replaced at great cost. It was replaced at great cost because a special sprinkler system was put in. However, with the problems of Budget limitations it was realised that, if the sprinkler system was turned on, the grass would grow and that grass would have to be cut. So the sprinkler system was not turned on-the Department of Territories did not want the grass to grow. However, of course, the Department did not want the trees to die. So under the CEP the Department had CEP employees going along hand watering the trees and ignoring the magnificent sprinkler system and the grass that is on the median strip. That is the sort of thing that is going on, as people endeavour to cope with Budget limitations by going around the Budget limitations. Instead of trying to reduce expenditure in other areas, people are endeavouring to avoid the limitation imposed by the Budget. There are many other examples which appear to have merited employment under the youth traineeship scheme or permanent employment. However, they have been covered by the CEP. I refer to certain landscaping projects which are going on in the Australian Capital Territory: Forestry silviculture, Australian Capital Territory schools ancillary positions, hospital pharmacy assistance, stores services, drug referral staff and motor registry clerical staff. My fourth point relates to the way Ministers use the scheme to finance their mates or their favourite causes. I mention in particular their favourite left wing causes. Ministers of this Government who are not left wingers ought to have a look at what their left wing colleagues are doing in financing causes around this country that follow their political lines. A clear example in the Australian Capital Territory is the grant of $113,639 to Tilly Devine's wine bar for women. Another example is the CEP grant to Jobless Action to produce `The Housing Book', 25 per cent of the contents of which is devoted to the illegal use of other people's property. That is the sort of funding of left wing causes that is being carried on by certain Ministers. I note that the Minister for Community Services, Senator Grimes, is the Minister in the chamber at the moment. He might be aware of the $17,000 grant to the Tasmanian Wilderness Society for a wilderness shop co-ordinator. I am not sure, but I think that that wilderness shop co-ordinator actually resides in the Australian Capital Territory. The grant is going to the Australian Capital Territory for this person to operate the shop dealing with the Tasmanian wilderness areas. The Nuclear Disarmament Co-ordinating Committee received funding to organise the Palm Sunday marches and also a grant of almost $80,000 for five people to run a peace bus. The Victorian Trades Hall Council got a mere $81,000. The Friends of the Earth received $24,000 plus another $34,000 for a magazine it publishes. The catalogue of these causes seems to go on and on. The money involved is not being used to help long term unemployed people; it is being used simply to promote left wing causes. The fifth point I make about the scheme relates to uneconomic projects which just simply waste money. The most blatant example is the capital works project in the electorate of the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis). I refer to the $2.8m that has been spent so far to provide the people of Footscray with a swimming-pool. That project seems to involve not only funny money but also funny companies. It is a project about which the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, has been strangely silent in the Senate. Why is that project long overdue for completion? What is the total cost overrun? Why were the guidelines bent? These are questions which have been raised in the other place and which have not been answered in any way. As Senator Walsh is the Minister for Finance, perhaps he is the Minister who ought to be answering those questions. Another project which comes to my mind is the control of weed regeneration in Jervis Bay under the Department of Territories. Ten young people are going around the Jervis Bay area removing by hand the noxious bitou bush. That bush is a matter of grave concern to the coastal areas of Australia. Clearly, a very widespread and extensive program is needed to get rid of it. As I understand it, the bitou bush seeds three times a year. The number of seeds which it drops per square metre is almost unbelievable. It also has some method whereby it is able either to choke out or to poison any other shrub which is trying to compete with it for its territory. The result is that the bitou bush-another import; I think it came from somewhere in Africa-is taking over the coastal areas of Australia. It has certainly taken over along the eastern coast of New South Wales. It ought to be regarded as a matter of major concern and it ought to be dealt with properly. There is a way to deal with it. A person at Jervis Bay has worked out how to deal with it, and it is by spraying it with a certain percentage of Roundup. But one person with a spray-gun is doing the spraying in the area. The other 10 people are employed going around pulling it out by hand. that is really a hopeless task with such a regenerative plant. The task is described as challenging. In my view it is about as challenging as prisoners trying to break rocks at Alcatraz or somewhere similar. It is also questionable whether either of those two programs provides the sort of work experience that we should be on about. The job certainly needs to be done and done properly. But the community employment program really ought to be about providing long term jobs and not filling in for budgetary problems that departments have in areas such as this. Finally, I turn to the area which, in my view, is the most important one, that is, the issue of appropriate wages. The private sector is clearly prepared to take on youth and pay them an appropriate wage while they are being trained. There is ample evidence of this. The real problem is the union's insistence on their being paid full adult wages. From the point of view of the youth traineeship scheme, it makes good sense, despite union opposition, for employees to be able to be paid a training wage. But the CEP projects make little sense except as evidence that jobs available. The real tragedy of all this is that the victims are the unemployed people. They are given false expectations. They are told that the programs will provide them with the necessary work experience to gain full time employment. Instead, at the end of six months, about 60 per cent of them are recycled back into unemployment while government agencies take another dip into the till. Not only government agencies but also private employers have learned that this is way to get some sort of government allowance. They dip into the till in order to have the taxpayers of Australia make up the difference in salary from what they would be prepared to pay in some sort of open market arrangement. We are not suggesting that it be a total open market. But surely it should be possible to fix a minimum wage of $100, $110, $115 or something like that instead of the nearly $200-odd that people have to be paid at present if they are 18 and are given a job. If the Government and its Ministers responsible for the economy and employment were competent in these matters, it would not have been necessary to renew this program for another three years. It is also an admission that the Government has failed to obtain the co-operation of its masters, the union movement, in getting the youth traineeship scheme under way. The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations recognised the difficulties he faced with the unions and sought a modest 5,000 initial traineeships. But, no, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) decided to big-note himself, as he always does, and doubled that number. He attempted to promote the scheme, claiming that there would be 10,000 jobs, and to promote himself, in a massive advertising campaign as though he was promoting a brand of soap. The unions have sabotaged the scheme from the outset and continue to do so. The Prime Minister, with his special relationship with the unions, should stop posturing and demonstrate that he has the capacity and courage to negotiate with or override the unions to obtain a fair deal for the unemployed youth of this nation. There should be some major initiative by this Government that would bring about some very substantial reduction in the percentage of youth unemployment. It is a national disgrace that, whereas the national unemployment rate is running at about 8 per cent, the youth unemployment rate is over 20 per cent. The Government really must face up to the fact that something has to be done about it. The job traineeship program is clearly another way of allowing some sort of lower wage rate to be paid to youth. With all due respect, the CEP is another way of allowing a more modest wage to be paid to youth. Why does the Government not face up to the fact and allow youth wages to come back to a much more moderate sum-one that employers would be able to face and to pay without all the enormous commitments that they have, and so bring the youth unemployment percentage in this country back to a more modest figure? Senator COATES(Tasmania)(9.40) —The Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986 seeks to extend approval for the community employment program for another three years. It is a simple Bill, the terms of which propose to replace the finishing date of the existing program of 30 June 1986 with the proposed completion date of 30 June 1989. The funding for the program is provided for in each year's Budget. I guess the Government is pleased that the Opposition is not opposing the Bill, but judging by Senator Lewis's remarks it did not sound as if it were actually supporting it. He was full of criticism. It is easy for Opposition members to pick out the occasional problem that might occur with the program, the anecdotal evidence of criticism of particular projects and condemn the program because of that. One of Senator Lewis's points that needs to be answered is his assertion that Ministers' favoured causes have been supported all around the country. If Opposition members were honest they would acknowledge that in each State and Territory there are committees which decide on the approval of projects. Ministers do not have the ability to fund favoured causes, even if they want to. Senator Lewis went on to suggest that a preponderance of the projects supported are proposed by left-wing community groups and he listed some organisations which, in his judgment, were left wing. Who knows what some other person's judgment would be about their political leanings? Of course Senator Lewis omitted organisations which have been funded which many of us would describe as right wing. And so they should be funded. We are talking about a community employment program where community organisations, as well as local government and government departments, put up projects for approval. As far as the definition of `community organisation' is concerned, I do not find it as easy as Senator Lewis apparently does to define some of these organisations in the ideological spectrum. The other matter which Senator Lewis must have been in error about was his assertion that private employers were being funded under this program. It is a community employment program for community groups and public agencies. He must have been thinking about something else when he made that comment. Senator Lewis said that he was appalled and amazed that 60 per cent of projects in the Australian Capital Territory went to government departments and their agencies. I am not surprised at that sort of percentage in the Australian Capital Territory because here one is talking about the equivalent of Commonwealth, State and local government projects in the States. Here they are all done as Australian Capital Territory projects, so I would not be surprised that that sort of a percentage occurred in this community because of its special nature. That sort of assertion cannot be broadened to cover the whole country. I agree with one aspect of Senator Lewis's comments-the regrettable fact that not all those who are employed under the program end up getting full time permanent employment immediately they finish their temporary work. Certainly, there is a problem of people's expectations being raised and no one would be pleased that people suffer trauma because they find themselves back on the unemployment lists. I would have thought that it was preferable for people who had already had a long period of unemployment to have had some job experience during this period rather than none at all. The logical outcome of Senator Lewis's comments is that there ought not to be this program and that people ought to have even longer periods of continuous unemployment so that they do not experience some employment. There is just no real logic to his comments. The area that he said was of most concern was the question of youth wages. He acknowledged that, in that part of the Priority One program involving traineeships, there were negotiated lower rates for youth. But he seems to think that the Government ought just to wave its wand and declare that youth wages should be a certain percentage lower than adult wages. What he forgets is that in many industries there are awards which provide for lower wage levels for those who are younger. This is always determined by the system as it exists through conciliation and arbitration. In some industries it applies and in others it does not and it ought to be allowed to be negotiated and arbitrated in that area rather than, as Senator Lewis was apparently suggesting, the Government making some determination about what should occur. The community employment program has to be acknowledged as being a success. I guess that, if it was not a success, the Opposition would be opposing the Bill. But the Opposition, with its faint praise, is supporting it. It is the largest and the most ambitious labour market initiative ever undertaken by an Australian government. It is a direct intervention into the labour market and it reveals the commitment of this Labor Government to reduce unemployment. We know that the figures overall show successive Labor strategies leading to the creation of not half a million jobs but something like 608,000 new jobs in the first three years of this Government. The other commitment that it reveals is that we want to assist those groups of people most damaged during the seven years of neglect and mismanagement by the Fraser Government. The Opposition does not like the CEP probably because it has been so successful. The Opposition says that it offers only short term jobs. That is the very nature of the program. It is not intended to provide permanent employment and presumably the Opposition would oppose it even more if it were to do that. The objections that the Opposition has to it, for example, the fact that it does not adequately train participants, are not justified and show the Opposition's fundamental lack of understanding of the program. The CEP was not designed as a program that would solve all the problems of a decade of recession and unemployment. It was designed to assist those who would find the most difficulty in entering the labour market, particularly the full time labour market, in the period of growth which began with the election of this Labor Government. The groups that it can particularly help are Aborigines, migrants with poor English skills, women looking for full time work, disabled people and the young and inexperienced. It is a stepping stone for these groups of people into permanent employment. It was established to take care of the human toll of unemployment which is so often ignored in the talk of broad economics; the human effects of depression; the loss of self-esteem; and the lack of dignity that the community gives to people who are unemployed. The CEP was designed, amongst other things, to restore the dignity and esteem of the most disadvantaged unemployed. It was designed to give them confidence, some experience and some hope to improve their employment prospects. In these objectives the program has been overwhelmingly successful. Cynical observers have said that the CEP is a ploy merely to reduce the unemployment statistics. The statistics have been reduced by the growth stimulated by this Government and by programs such as the CEP, which has created over 87,000 jobs, but this has not been done as an exercise in itself. Those who say it is merely a ploy obviously have little sympathy for the tragedy of the long term unemployed. Critics, such as those in the Opposition, of such programs as the CEP prefer deregulation policies-when it suits them of course-for example, the deregulation of the labour market and the abolition of minimum wage agreements. Those are the sorts of policies coming from the Liberal and National parties which, no doubt, would inflict great hardships on Australian workers, because they cannot think of any other way to fight unemployment. Senator Lewis continually used terms such as `The Government ought to do something about this; it ought to do something about the other'. This Government, within the economic constraints that apply to it, is doing something, and this community employment program is one of those initiatives. The proponents of deregulation policies want the market to be the only and ultimate decider of who is employed and who is not, and how much or how little employees are paid. But, as we all know, other people believe that the market exists for the generation of profit, which in turn goes to a wealthy few. This reveals the Opposition's lack of concern for Australian workers and its eagerness to exploit the disadvantage of this country's long term unemployed. The Opposition sees programs such as the CEP, Priority One and affirmative action for women as distortive to the market-although, of course, it does not actually oppose the legislation when it comes forward. In other words, it prefers to sacrifice attempts to establish wage justice and equality of opportunity for the most disadvantaged and replace them with the brutal profit generations of the market. It is not really surprising that the Liberal Party, under Mr Howard, has chosen this road of deregulation and privatisation. It reveals that it is not a party for all Australians; it is there to serve the interests of the wealthy and the privileged. I turn to some other criticisms mounted by the Opposition against the CEP. As I said earlier, it has raised one-off anecdotal examples and broadened them to generalised criticisms. For instance, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr N. A. Brown) in the House of Representatives said that the CEP was set up to serve the political interests of the Australian Labor Party. He supported this by pointing to the fact that some trade unions have been given grants to undertake projects within CEP guidelines. I remind the Opposition that we are talking about existing open guidelines which are administered by committees in the States, involving State and Federal government and community representatives, to ensure that it is administered properly and fairly. Maybe Opposition senators need to be reminded that trade unions are a legitimate part of, and play an important role in, Australian society. They are legal associations fighting to obtain better wages and conditions for their members. If one believed the Opposition one would think that the CEP was funding underground illegal activities. The Opposition has also criticised the Government for the fact that a grant went to the Nuclear Disarmament Co-ordinating Committee. Senator Lewis mentioned this matter specifically. Of course this Committee organises the Palm Sunday peace marches. This year the Liberal Party availed itself of the work of this Committee by participating in the Palm Sunday marches in order to try to sell its nuclear policies to the electorate. Therefore, in a sense it could be said that the CEP is furthering the political ends of the Liberal Party. The question could be asked: Is the Liberal Party exploiting the peace movement to further its own political interests? The Opposition condemns all sort of grants to particular organisations that it chooses to criticise. Senator Lewis, in his confusion, raised the matter of a grant to the Wilderness Society which he referred to as the Tasmanian Wilderness Society. I understand that it is now the Wilderness Society. It is a national organisation so it is not surprising that it operates in the Australian Capital Territory. There is no conflict in that at all. It is amazing that Opposition critics can use such terms as the failed Mr Coleman used in the House of Representatives. He referred to the CEP as being transformed from being predominantly a stepping stone to real work to being a funder of left wing political causes, which is a very peculiar criticism. He concentrated on cultural and creation oriented projects as if there were something wrong with such an area or that it was wrong to spend money on such projects. The CEP is not strictly a training program but it is designed to improve the employability of the most disadvantaged unemployed. Work in such cultural and creative areas develops certain skills amongst participants which are different from construction and maintenance projects that Mr Coleman apparently thought ought to be the sole recipients of CEP grants. The CEP is providing skills such as administrative and clerical liaison, policy development, policy implementation, communications and public relations. Such skills are generally more transportable than those used in road construction. So if one of the main objectives of the CEP is to improve the employment prospects of the disadvantaged unemployed, one could argue that the more money spent in cultural and creative areas the better the job prospects for participants. The problem is that the Liberal and the National parties just cannot break out of the communists under the bed mentality that they have. If they did, maybe they could grasp the facts and make some constructive suggestions about the operation of the community employment program. I just re-emphasise that the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) does not direct the choice of projects. All sorts of community groups, including some of which I would not approve but which are legitimate organisations, have received funding, and so they should have. I now turn to the success of the program in Tasmania. In Tasmania more than 850 projects have been approved creating well over 3,000 jobs. The Commonwealth has committed $24m to the CEP in Tasmania to aid the plight of the unemployed. The program has worked particularly well in Tasmania. The last figures I have showed that 65.3 per cent of CEP placements went to people who were unemployed for more than nine months. This figure is higher than the national average which was 58.6 per cent. Unfortunately, one of the reasons that this figure is higher than the national average is that long term unemployment is a huge problem in Tasmania because of the sorts of policies implemented by the Gray Liberal Government. One example of its appalling policies is the proposed Tasmania community service program. Under this scheme the State Government will pay unemployed people under the age of 21 the equivalent of the unemployment benefit in return for two days of community service. That is a disgraceful proposal and shows a flagrant disregard for the needs of unemployed youth for training and development skills, quite apart from the question of their availability for referral by the Commonwealth Employment Service for permanent employment. That State Government program disregards the principle of award wages. It is a cynical move by the Gray Government to reduce the unacceptably high levels of unemployment in Tasmania without addressing either the reasons for that unemployment or the needs of the unemployed. It will reduce the statistics, as suggested by Liberal member Mr Smith in the House of Representatives. He said that technically these people will be no longer unemployed as far as the Commonwealth Government is concerned. He thinks that two days of forced labour is employment, is caring for the unemployed and is providing training. The Gray Government apparently thinks that this is all that is required. Another indication of how well the CEP is working in Tasmania lies in the fact that 45.9 per cent of placements, excluding jobs on local roads, have gone to women. This is not quite the target of 50 per cent, but again the Tasmanian figure is higher than the national average of 41 per cent. Senator Ryan —Very good. Senator COATES —I am pleased to hear that Senator Ryan is grateful for that. I refer to some of the examples out of one batch of approvals of Tasmania projects which illustrate the useful work that is funded by community employment program. The Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery in Launceston received nearly $20,000 for a project for the conservation of works on paper, which involves training in basic mounting and conservation techniques and clerical and cataloguing techniques-skills that can be used by people in other areas-while at the same time providing much needed conservation of works on paper which were under threat. The Devonport City Council received $12,750 for a project involving the compilation of a photographic land and building register of old buildings and Council owned property; again a worthy project. The Launceston Community FM Group Inc., received $66,000 for people to learn the skills of radio presentation-announcing, interviewing and preparation and presentation of programs. The Mersey Valley Festival of Music Inc., received over $14,000 for a trainee administration officer who would learn general office skills such as clerical duties, basic accounting, preparation of funding submissions and planning, organising and co-ordinating the activities associated with the Festival of Music. The Salamanca Theatre Company Ltd in Hobart received $8,500 for a trainee theatre technician to learn about theatrical set, sound and lighting productions, including costing, planning, buying, making and rigging operations. They are just some random selections from one or two batches of approvals which show some of the creative ideas which had led community groups to apply for CEP grants. I emphasise again that it is community groups, local government, State Government and Federal Government initiatives which receive funding. Because of this program many worthy ideas which would not otherwise have come to fruition have done so. If more of the organisations of which I would approve have been funded, that shows that there is more imagination and initiative from such organisations than from those of which the Opposition would approve. In conclusion I say that when the Labor Government came to power in 1983 three-quarters of a million people were unemployed in this country. They represented the tragic legacy of the Fraser Government. Many of these people had been unemployed for a long time. It is a fact that the probability of gaining employment declines noticeably the longer a person is out of work. The community employment program has attempted to address this problem to break the vicious cycle of long term unemployment. This program is not a cure-all; it was never meant to be. There must be sustained economic growth over a number of years for the unemployment situation to improve. That growth has occurred over the last three years and unemployment has dropped. It is an indication of the success of this scheme that it is being extended. Presumably, if it had failed the Government would have wanted to forget about it. However, it has been successful. I congratulate the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Mr Ralph Willis, on the program. I hope that by 1989 there will not be a need for such a program to be extended once again. Senator SIDDONS(Victoria)(10.06) —We are debating the extension of the community employment program. There is a very long list of speakers in this debate, and well there should be, because youth unemployment is the greatest scandal in our community today. Twenty per cent of our young people still are unemployed. The Australian Democrats support the extension of CEP, but we do so reluctantly, because it is a very unsatisfactory band-aid measure. What we would like to be debating today is a fundamental approach to youth unemployment, an approach that would at least give the young unemployed permanent part time work. That is an approach that we could support. It is an approach about which we have talked in the past and about which I will talk again today during my allotted time. If we look behind the figures we see that, despite the Government's much vaunted successful economic management leading to growth in the economy and so on, there is not a large growth in the man-hours worked in this country. Certainly, there has not been growth in the sort of jobs on which young people could be employed. We therefore support the extension of CEP simply because we have no other Government initiative that is attacking the very grave and scandalous problem of youth unemployment in this country in a more fundamental way. The Government is going in the wrong direction with CEP. We are seeing the taxpayers' funds create short term jobs when there is a need to tackle long term unemployment. Unemployed youth need real jobs to give them real prospects in life. We are told that the CEP has given work to 95,000 young people since August 1983. We are told that 95,000 people have had work who would otherwise not have had it. The point is that these people are not getting long term jobs. They are getting work for only a few months. The Government tells us, with some pride presumably, that 41 per cent of people employed under CEP have had work six months after they have finished their time under the scheme. I do not know why we can be proud about that. This means simply that 60 per cent of young people have not had any employment at all. Senator Coates —That is 40 per cent who would not have had work otherwise. Senator SIDDONS —I will admit that it is a band-aid. That is the only reason we are supporting it. However, it is not tackling the fundamental problem. It is simply recycling the unemployed. It is simply saying to them: `One minute you have a job and the next you are back on the dole'. That is a terrible thing to do to young unemployed people, particularly those who have never been employed. I will not dwell on this point because I think that Senator Lewis covered it quite well. It is the worst possible environment in which to put young people-temporary work for six months then they go back on the dole. Nothing could be designed more to destroy the initiative, incentive and ambition of young people. Unemployment has fallen from a rate of 10.4 per cent in 1983 to a little over 8 per cent at present. That is a 2 per cent drop. We still have an unemployment rate of 8 per cent-a very high level. This is in spite of the fact that the economy has been growing at record levels. It has been growing at 3.8 per cent a year-the highest rate in the Western world-yet we have been able to reduce the unemployment rate by only a mere 2 per cent. The figures show that the bulk of the 8 per cent unemployed are young people. Of the 595,000 unemployed, 270,000 are young people. We are still letting the young people of our community carry the can for a very poor economic performance. Something has to be done. The fundamental thing that we have to do is get investment back into industry. It has been dropping over the last two to three years. There has been no expansion. The expansion of jobs in the work force has been almost entirely in the tertiary sector. This sector has been subject to a revolution in computer technology. Even though expansion is taking place there, job opportunities are not expanding at the rate they should or at the rate which we would expect given the rate of growth of the economy generally. Adding up the total number of hours worked in Australia we find that the figure for June 1985 was only 2 per cent higher than that for June 1983. In other words, there has not been much growth in man-hours worked in our community. This has been due very largely to two factors: It is the tertiary sector that is expanding, and the revolution in technology has not expanded job opportunities at the same rate as we would expect with the growth in the economy generally. What can we do about it? The short term answer, before we address the fundamental problems of getting the right sort of growth in our economy, is to offer young people permanent part-time work, not six months' work then the dole, but a part-time job, even for one day a week, for as long as they want to work. That could be done straight away if the Government bothered to organise itself and look at the fundamental problems. I have spoken in this place before about introducing a private member's Bill to tackle youth unemployment and offer permanent part-time work to young people who are unemployed. It is a very simple approach. One would require industry and those employing people generally to make available one work place to be worked on a roster basis, so that instead of one person being employed for 40 or 38 hours a week, four people could be employed for one day a week or eight people for half a day a week. That work station would be rostered. This would not be a great hardship for employers. It could be organised very quickly and easily and would have enormous advantages for the young people concerned. First, it would get them into the work force on a permanent part-time basis. They would be a permanent part of the work force. They would be inside the work force watching how industry operates and how enterprises are organised. Because they would be on the inside on a permanent basis, they would get to know the people in the work force. They would get to know how work is organised and what the requirements are. This arrangement would exercise discipline on the young people concerned in that they would have to be at work at a certain time at least one day a week. It would allow them to organise their own time schedule around a permanent part time job. It would also allow them to apply for permanent work on the basis that they had been permanently employed, if only on a part-time basis. They could say: `Well, I have been employed with XYZ company; I have had experience, therefore, I am qualified to apply for a permanent job somewhere else.' Alternatively, when a job became available in the place where they were working they would be transferred immediately and could apply straight away. This arrangement would also have the great advantage that it would give at least some work to young people who would perhaps otherwise be unemployable. Many young people who have been on the dole have dropped their bundle. They do not have any motivation to work. Certainly, they do not have any motivation to work every day for a 38-hour week. As a result their attitude when they apply for jobs is offhanded and casual, and this does not impress employment officers. These young people very quickly become discouraged. They say that society does not want them. They say: `We will just go on the dole and we will stay there forever'. Senator Coates —I wish you would not call it the dole. Senator SIDDONS —Well, what would the honourable senator like me to call it? Senator Coates —The unemployment benefit. Senator McKiernan —`UBs' for short. Senator SIDDONS —I will stand corrected. At least if young persons can be assured of a permanent part time job they will have the opportunity to show what they can do. They will have the opportunity to become interested in work and may quickly realise that the idea of working for a living is not so bad after all. The company with which I am associated has tried this approach for five or six years and it is working very well. We have a permanent part time workforce of five or six people. One simply has to arrange for a supervisor or a foreman to come into direct contact with a welfare officer associated, for example, with the community youth support scheme who can arrange for young people to try out for a particular job. The social worker and the supervisor of the job discuss directly the best sort of work for the people who are available. They try the people in various jobs and take an interest in them. Both the social worker and the supervisor discuss the people concerned and fit them into the work force on a permanent part time basis. One man can quite easily look after four, six or eight young people, using only one work station. Senator Lewis took a swipe at the unions, saying that they were not co-operating in this area. I can assure him from my experience with metal workers that they are delighted with this approach to permanent part time work. They have not objected at all and, in fact, encourage it. This scheme could be expanded dramatically, almost overnight, if the Government bothered to get down to it. The private member's Bill which outlines this approach has not been introduced to the Parliament. We are simply not allowed to debate it until it has been drafted in detail, because of some obscure regulation in this place. The Bill is being drafted. It is not an easy Bill to draft, but it will be drafted and introduced as a private member's Bill. As I said earlier, the problem with the CEP and with the Government's economic strategy generally is that they do not address the two fundamental problems facing Australia today: We are not creating jobs in the manufacturing industry and we are not coming to terms with our foreign debt problems. I am afraid that both the Liberal Party and the Australian Labor Party are taking a similar line in this area. They are both basically saying: `All we have to do is get the economy moving. We do not have to look below the growth in gross domestic product; everything will be right. We have to take a laissez-faire approach. The best way to develop economic prosperity is to let money flow in and out of the country and to let that money be invested wherever people want to invest it'. That is what both the major political parties are advocating. As far as the Australian Democrats are concerned, that policy is not working. It is not the right approach. Let us look at a couple of figures to show what is in fact happening. In 1983-84 investment in plant and machinery amounted to only $13.75 billion, and in the following year it fell to $13.5 billion. Unless we get money into industry and into developing our manufacturing capacity, we are not going to create more jobs. It is as simple as that. Although we have been expanding the tertiary sector as hard as we can, the actual additional number of man hours of work created has been only 2 per cent over the last four years. We are going to head for bankruptcy unless we solve our balance of payments problem. We will not solve that problem unless we expand our manufacturing sector and start exporting manufactured goods, value added goods. So we have two fundamental problems-lack of investment in industry and our balance of payments. Both of these problems will not be solved until we have a new approach to the management of the economy. We cannot afford any longer the luxury of following a laissez-faire policy, which says: `Let her rip; let money flow into the country where it will. That will be good for us in the long term.' Record profits have been made over recent years. Is that a good thing or is it not? Cash has flowed into takeovers at an enormous rate over the last couple of months. In 1984 a total of $1.9 billion was involved in successful takeovers. In 1985 this figure had jumped to $4.2 billion. The stock market index jumped 40 per cent between 1984 and 1985. Where is this money going? It is going into unproductive stock market speculation, which is being fed by the takeover racket, which is in turn being funded by the taxpayer. We are squandering our opportunities and we are fobbing off the unemployment problem with mickey mouse schemes such as the CEP. We must do three fundamental things as far as the management of the economy is concerned if we are to solve the unemployment problem, and the youth unemployment problem in particular. First, we must change the takeover laws to get rid of the present incentive to expand corporations purely through takeovers. Over the last two weeks $2.5m has gone into defending Elders and the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd from takeovers by unwanted raiders. That $2.5m could have gone into a productive capacity and created an enormous number of jobs. The second thing we must do in the management of the economy to create expansion where it is needed and to create employment, which is critical, is to reimpose controls to prevent the large speculative flows of capital into and out of this country. Just recently the Treasurer (Mr Keating) has enabled currency losses to be written off against tax. He is, in effect, encouraging speculation. He is saying: `Well, go ahead and make profits out of currency speculations. We will encourage that to happen by allowing the profits to be written off for tax'. What do the leaders of industry do? They see the enormous profits that can be made out of currency speculation. They put their efforts behind that and not into expanding their enterprises. The Government is saying: `Good on you, go to it. Speculate in currency. We do not care whether you expand your corporation and its productive capacity in real terms or not'. We have to control the flow of money in and out of the country simply because we have a critical balance of payments problem. We have a grave shortage of foreign currency. We have got to make sure that the money that flows into Australia is being used for productive purposes and not for speculation and protecting companies from unwanted raiders. The Australian Democrats believe that the third thing we should do to create jobs and ensure the expansion of the economy is to direct money from superannuation funds into productive investment. At present, superannuation funds control 50 per cent of the share market. That is a pretty high figure already, but once superannuation for all is introduced in Australia we will be doubling the amount of money available for investment in this country. What are we going to do? Are we going to sit back and let that money be invested all round the world, or are we going to direct at least a proportion of it into productive capacity in Australia? Unless the Government brings down guidelines for the investment of superannuation funds, it is as plain as could be that the majority of that superannuation money will be invested all round the world and not in productive capacity and in the creation of jobs in Australia. We heard just recently the Chairman of Elders-IXL complaining on the AM program on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that if the Government does anything about clamping down on negative gearing for corporations IXL will invest anywhere in the world except in Australia. In other words, the leader of IXL threatened the Government with a strike of capital or a drought of capital in this country unless it was allowed to have a free go and open slather in making money through takeovers and raiding on the stock exchange. The encouragement to invest in stock exchanges and not in productive capacity in the country has to be controlled. The Government has to stop the incentive to use the funds that are available in Australia in speculation rather than in productive capacity. Until the Government is prepared to face up to the facts of unemployment, look at its root causes and act on them, we will never overcome the problems. The CEP is simply a band-aid measure. We need to create real jobs through controlling the economy, mobilising it on a wartime footing and making sure that the funds we have and the funds we are likely to have in the future are invested in productive capacity in Australia. In the short term, rather than expand the CEP, the Democrats would like to see the Government face up to creating permanent part time work for all young people by requiring by a law of this Parliament that all employers in most categories make one job available to be filled on a roster basis so that we can at least offer all the unemployed young people-every one of them-at least one day's work a week now, not in six months, 12 months or two years' time when the unemployment problem may or may not be solved through the rapid expansion of the economy. The rapid expansion of the economy that we have had-we admit that it has been expanding-has been in areas that are not creating jobs at a sufficient rate to solve the underlying fundamental problems of our 8 per cent unemployment. Senator VANSTONE(South Australia)(10.30) —Today we are debating the Community Employment Amendment Bill to extend the operation of the community employment program. Before going on to some specific remarks, I would like to refer to some of the comments made by the previous speakers. Firstly, I would like to make some comments on the remarks made by Senator Coates. The first point I draw to his attention is that, while the community employment program is designed for the benefit of community groups-local government, State government and I think the Commonwealth Government-some community groups are private employers. If Senator Coates cared to cast his eye over the list of community groups in South Australia that have benefited in a real way from the community employment program, he would find that unions, the Red Cross Society and the Marriage Guidance Council of South Australia Inc. and other community groups have benefited. These groups are also private employers. Senator Coates complained about the negative comments made by Senator Lewis and the Opposition in general. If he stays in the chamber he may hear a few more negative comments. It seems that he wants to turn Parliament into some sort of mutual admiration society. How ludicrous it would be if we failed in our duty to point out the problems of a particular scheme. That is the job of the Opposition and the job of a competent government. If the Government cannot see the problems for itself, the very least it should do is listen to the problems that are raised by Opposition parties, take them on board and do something about them. Senator Coates is surely not asking the Opposition and the Australian Democrats to block all Bills in relation to which, in the detailed operation of the legislation, we would go another way. From what Senator Coates had to say the implication is that he thinks the Opposition should, in some way, be more bipartisan. He is not satisfied that we are supporting the Bill; he seems to expect that all Opposition speakers will simply praise Government activity and not offer any criticism. Criticism is not in his calendar. In his concept of bipartisanship, Parliament would sink into some sort of mutual admiration society and nothing constructive would be done. But given that the implication of Senator Coates's remarks is that we should be more bipartisan, let us turn our mind to the bipartisanship of those on the government benches. A number of senators and members, including myself, well prior to the debate on this Bill made requests for details of community employment programs in our States. Other senators and members were told exactly the same as I was-that they could not have them. I could have had them had I wanted to pay a few hundred dollars and get them under freedom of information legislation, but my request for information to enable me to participate constructively in the debate was refused. I was told that the reason for the refusal was not that the Government wanted to be recalcitrant or difficult, certainly not that at all. The reason I was given for being refused was that the Government had had so-called experts in to reconfigure the database for information stored in the Department. This reconfiguration apparently means that getting information such as I have had in the past-a simple list of projects, nothing complicated-is now such a difficult exercise that the Government cannot bring itself to make it available to senators or members unless they apply for it under freedom of information provisions and pay the appropriate fee. I would have thought that a government that was interested in youth unemployment, and a constructive debate in this chamber and in the lower House would have been all too keen to provide that information. Certainly a government that believed there were no further scandals in CEP projects would have been happy to issue the list. What would be the problem in issuing a list if there were nothing wrong with any of the projects? Surely this is an attempt by the Government to prevent scrutiny of the administration of CEP by the Opposition and, presumably, by the Democrats. I was told I could be given, as all senators and members could be given, summary totals by Federal electorate, but I submit that this is simply not good enough. One can hide all manner of sins, all manner of inefficiencies and all manner of patronage in a general summary total listing by Federal electorates. The Government knows that to govern well and for the Opposition to carry out the task of opposition in a satisfactory manner, we need detail. While it may be important and exciting to discuss the broad brushstrokes of policy, it is the detailed effect on the man or woman in the street that we should concern ourselves with. It is the detail that the community service organisations, the local councils and the State governments need to work their way through to get the subsidy if they wish to participate in the CEP scheme. The operation of the program in detail, rather than the broad brushstroke of policy, is what these groups need to concern themselves with. Again it is the detail that an unemployed person needs to work through if he or she wants to get some sort of experience and wants what benefits there are from participation in CEP. Certainly the statistic on a piece of paper is carried by the Public Service, but when the Opposition asks for details so that it can contribute to a constructive debate in this area, it is refused, under the pathetic excuse that the data base has been reconfigured. If the data base has been reconfigured to such an extent that it cannot produce a simple list of projects by State, the consultants who reconfigured the data base ought to be sacked. Secondly, I want to make a small reference to a comment Senator Siddons made. He, like many other people, would like to see an increase in the availability of permanent part time work. If I understood his comments correctly, he indicated that the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, with which he had some involvement, was particularly keen on seeing the development of this practice. Senator Siddons —Prepared to see it developed. Senator VANSTONE —Prepared to see it developed. If the good senator knows of any other unions which are prepared to see it developed, I suggest he draw up a list of those relevant unions and make the list available to the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) who is at the table and who is also the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women. The lack of permanent part time work is one of the greatest problems for women seeking to enter or re-enter the work force and the unions are seen as being the most obstructive group to the development of this practice. I turn now to the comments I wish to make on my own behalf. The Government has decided that it wants to extend CEP, and I simply wish to draw the Government's attention to certain problems with CEP, in the perhaps naive belief that if it can it will look at them and fix all or some of those problems. Since the spirit of bipartisanship is overflowing in the chamber this morning, if I have been misinformed and the Government is aware that I have been misinformed and that a problem I have presented as a problem in fact is not a problem, I would be delighted to receive the information from the reconfigured data base that will enable me to understand my error. I acknowledge that in CEP there have been many useful projects but, as I said, there are problems. One problem in particular is that short term job creation exercises are not the complete answer. One particular problem with the project, in my view, is the type of work that is offered. Many people are trained under CEP in skills that are not readily marketable after the program has finished. The second problem I see is the cost efficiency and accountability of the management of the program. In this sense I think there is a complete lack of real accountability of taxpayers' funds in regard to the responsible management of schemes, particularly once the funds have been handed over. A third problem I perceive with the program is the inflexibility of the guidelines. These guidelines have been the subject of complaint by a number of groups which have participated in the scheme. These groups say that this inflexibility will either prevent them or turn them off wanting to participate in the scheme in the future. The fourth particular problem with the scheme is its substantial cost and the enormous investment of over $1 billion over a period of three years for a total of 87,000 short term jobs. Senator Lewis has already referred to some of the projects as being political activities and he has also made reference to the problem whereby State and local government agencies use CEP to top up their recurrent activities. I will deal first with the problem of the inflexibility of the guidelines. The Government, in my view, would do well to turn its attention to the comments made by various councils which have participated in this scheme. I ask the Government to bear in mind that, at least in South Australia, it is the local councils which take up approximately 50 per cent of CEP funds. The District Council of Hawker in South Australia wrote me a letter in which it indicated that it would no longer be participating in the scheme. The council said that it had done so in the past but that it was most unlikely it would take part in future in further schemes for several reasons. The council said: Firstly, for a small Council such as ours the Scheme is very tied by rules and regulations and is unworkable for us where we have to retain a climate of great flexibility in our works programme and scheduling. Secondly, in remote areas such as ours there is great difficulty in finding appropriate persons to carry out infra structure jobs that we are involved in from time to time within our work schedule. The Clerk of the District Council of Hawker went on to say: For us, or for any other small Council in South Australia, I guess the great difficulty is to match a relatively inflexible scheme with the need to retain flexibility in our management of human resources and financial resources in a small Local Government climate. It is not only in my State that the local councils are complaining. I refer to an article in the Age on 11 November 1985 in which the Northcote City Council threatened to withdraw from the Federal Government's community employment programme, claiming that job schemes had been administered in an `insensitive and impractical manner'. A particular councillor is quoted as saying: `The Federal Government appeared to have an obsessive concern with the expectation that council could effectively employ 45 long-term unemployed people, with a common commencement and termination date for the project, and that terminations, non-attendances and workers' compensation claims would not occur,' he said. `In reality, council experienced delays in undertaking the necessary work as well as higher-than-average workers' compensation, absenteeism in some cases and wet weather. Also the CES office found it impossible to provide a large number of suitable employees over a short period of time, let alone all on the one day.' I could go on. There are bundles and bundles of examples of complaints from local councils and from community groups about the difficulty created by the inflexibility of the guidelines. Let me make it clear that I am not suggesting that the Government so loosen up the guidelines that there are no controls at all, but surely the complaints about inflexibility indicate that some attention needs to be paid to providing at least in some ways some flexibility for groups which wish to participate in the scheme. The next point I make relates to the lack of private sector involvement in the scheme. I understand that it was never intended in the first place that the private sector, as a business group, participate and that the only private employers who would be able to get some benefit from the CEP scheme would be community groups which could be characterised in a secondary way, as private employers. It is my belief that the Government should be looking to creating real jobs for young people, firstly in the private sector, but not exclusively as it should also create some in the public sector. In this program the public sector has a field day. As I have indicated, local government in South Australia gets about 50 per cent of the funding and 50 per cent of the jobs under the community employment program. The State Government gets about 20 per cent of the funding and the jobs. The community groups-the word `community' is used to identify the general nature of the scheme, which is known as the community employment program-get only 30 per cent. Even within the balance of entitled groups, that seems to me to be an imbalance. In my view, more money should be going to community services and less to State and local government. The cost of those jobs that are created for the short term-I understand that they are not meant to be long term jobs-to give experience to young people is substantial. I understand, looking at the costs involved, that there is a capital element in a large number of the jobs. If the database had not been reconfigured so that we are no longer able to get some detail, I would be able to elaborate on the extent to which the capital element of the CEP played a part. It would seem useful for this chamber to understand what portion of the money allocated to the CEP goes in actual salaries and what portion is attributed to the capital element. Without the detail I am unable to make much comment on that issue. There are a few things I wish to say. Firstly, the targeting of the program to State and local government, particularly to local government, can have a particular effect in that local government will redirect its budget and its priorities in order to gain the capital benefit from the Commonwealth Government. I believe that that effect on local government should be considered. One needs only to look at some of the projects that have been undertaken by local government to get just some idea of where that money is going. In South Australia the highest number of CEP jobs in the local government sector are in a classification of jobs called kerbing roads and drainage. The second highest number of jobs are in a category referred to as parks and gardens, and the third highest are clerical jobs, and so it goes on. The question that I believe the Government should be asking is: If councils are now undertaking the kerbing roads and drainage jobs so as to get the benefit of some capital portion of money from the Government, when this program ends where will they get the money to go on with the kerbing roads and drainage work so that they can offer the young people the opportunity to use the skills that they have gained under the CEP? The answer is that they will not find funds within their own budgets to extend that work to be able to give all those people kerbing roads and drainage jobs. The Government should be paying some attention, within the guidelines and the operation of the scheme, to the classification of jobs that are offered to young people to try to find some mechanism of matching the need for work for unemployed people and the need for the jobs to be done, with the opportunities that will exist for young people to apply their skills after the CEP work has finished. If there is not a closer relationship to the sorts of jobs that are available afterwards, the effectiveness of the scheme in giving people skills is diminished. The second point I make about public sector involvement in this scheme to the exclusion of the private sector is simply this: Going through the projects that are offered-I undertook the task with regard to South Australia for a period running from 1 July 1984 to 21 May 1985, and this was prior to the database being reconfigured, so I was able to get some detail-one finds that the cost of the jobs to the Commonwealth varies substantially. For the benefit of comparison and to put these jobs into some kind of common form, I have worked out the cost to the Commonwealth on a per annum basis, even though a lot of the jobs are for a period of 12 or 48 weeks. Jobs run for a varying number of weeks. For the period I referred to, the highest cost per person per annum was $29,276. This related to a grant for the Aboriginal Community Affairs Panel. The activity was described as being `an Aboriginal community recreation area'. The classification it came under was sport and recreation. The number of jobs created was six, and they lasted for 14 weeks. I am well aware that those six people were not paid $29,276. As I have already said, a capital element is involved. But I indicate that to give six people a job and to give them some experience-very limited experience because it was only for 14 weeks-the cost to the Commonwealth, worked out on a per annum basis, was $29,276. That does not seem to me to be a cost-efficient way of giving young people skills which will enable them to get a job after the program has finished. The least expensive program on a per person per annum rate cost $5,824. The Government should be turning its mind in the case of the so-called job creation schemes-schemes to benefit the unemployed-to the role the private sector can play in using the money available in a more cost-efficient way than perhaps local government and State government can. I agree with the comments that Senator Lewis has already made that some State government departments are just using the CEP to get young unemployed people to do all the hack work that the departments cannot be bothered doing themselves. They want to have little lackeys to run around and top up the jobs that they do not want to do. I cite in particular the employment of a female stocktaker at Elizabeth High School. I query what that child has learned from doing a stocktake that someone else could not be bothered to do. Sure that young unemployed person should get the benefit of some community employment program training, but she should not be employed to do stocktaking at Elizabeth High School. I would have thought that a competently run administration could keep up a regular basis with its records and would not need someone to come in and do a major stocktake in that sense. That is all I want to say with respect to the public sector. There is one further point I wish to make with respect to private sector involvement. I acknowledge that the Government, in planning for the Australian traineeship scheme under the Priority One scheme, has designed that scheme to include private enterprise. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), in his statement last year, indicated that small business would take up the majority of these traineeships. He also promised to put in place 10,000 traineeships in the first financial year, which ends on 30 June. We all know that the sad fact is that only 903 of these traineeships are in place at the moment. The even sadder fact is that only 33 of them are private enterprise jobs. That should surely be spelling out to the Government that there are some problems in getting private enterprise involved in the traineeship scheme. The Government should be turning its attention to those problems. I would have welcomed some comment on and some reference to those problems in the report which was issued this week entitled `Young Australia Part B-Priority One in Progress'. Even if there were not a detailed reference, there should at least have been some commitment and some indication that the Government had some ideas about what was wrong with the traineeship scheme and what it could do to attract private enterprise to participate in it. The traineeship scheme has some real benefits to offer young Australians if only the Government can get it off the ground. It seems to be having some difficulty in doing that at the moment. I wish to comment on some remarks made by the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) in the House of Representatives. He cited as one of the most outstanding achievements of the CEP its success in meeting the objective of equal female representation in jobs created under the program. I heartily endorse women getting their fair share of government funding or of opportunities created by government funding for employment programs or, indeed, for any program. However, I do believe the Government should turn its mind to the detailed application of this principle at the level where people are taking the jobs-down at the Commonwealth Employment Service offices. There have been reports-admittedly not such an influx of them that they are making headline news-of young girls who have gone to CES offices and asked to participate in the schemes that are available. They have taken the jobs on a broad job description, only to find out when they get to the place of employment that the work is too heavy for them and is of such a nature that had they known what was involved in the first place they would not have taken those jobs. I support the concept of women getting an equal share of government money, but I hope that that as a goal does not override the needs of the women who want the jobs. I hope that it does not lead public servants, in their desire to put government policy into practice, to con young girls into taking jobs that they otherwise would not have taken. A number of comments have been made in this debate to the effect that the Opposition does not understand the role of the CEP because of its constant references to the fact that the program is not providing permanent work. Of course the Opposition does understand that CEP participants are not being offered permanent work, and of course there is no expectation that the recipient of a grant will keep an employee on after that grant has finished, in a way that might have developed under older schemes such as the special youth employment training program. Nonetheless, the fact remains that youth unemployment is at an all time high. This program has been going for some time and it does not appear to have had any substantial effect on reducing the rate of unemployment, certainly in my State. In summary, I simply wish to say that it would be a welcome change if members of the Government, instead of spouting about the lack of bipartisanship on the part of the Opposition, displayed some themselves. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(11.00) —The Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986 extends the community employment program. The Government will continue the highly successful CEP for a further three years beyond next month. The Government remains committed to a substantial job creation program aimed at tackling the problems of the long term unemployed and other particularly disadvantaged job seekers. A total of $290m has been allocated to the community employment program in the current financial year, with a forward commitment to the program of $140m next financial year. The rate of CEP approved activity in 1985-86 will be maintained in line with that achieved last year and it is expected that 30,000 new jobs will be approved throughout Australia under the program this financial year. Taking account of the carryover of jobs approved last financial year, it is anticipated that about 45,000 Australians will be assisted this financial year. Despite the general improvement in the labour market over the past two and a half years, long term unemployment still remains a serious problem. The number of Australians unemployed for nine months or more has dropped by 9 per cent over the past two years, but unfortunately there are still 220,000 Australians in this position of long term unemployment. After listening to remarks made this morning by Opposition speakers and reading carefully those made in the House of Representatives recently on this legislation, it is very clear that the Opposition is divided in its attitude to the community employment program. Some members of the Opposition parties claim that the CEP is `wasteful and inefficient and does not create permanent jobs'. Yet other Liberal Party and National Party MPs are more than happy to gain publicity by announcing CEP projects in their electorates. It seems that coalition members of parliament are prepared to support or oppose the CEP whenever the opportunity suits them. Some Opposition members are quite prepared to have their beaming faces photographed at the opening of CEP projects which directly benefit their electorates. Other Opposition members take the opposite tack and speak against the CEP in the Parliament and the media whenever the opportunity arises. This inconsistency and division among the Opposition ranks was evidenced by recent statements from the Liberal members for Mayo (Mr Downer) and Barker (Mr Porter) in my home State of South Australia. Their statements on the CEP contrast very sharply, even though they are neighbouring members of parliament from South Australia. While the honourable member for Mayo was decrying the CEP as a waste of public money, his neighbour, the honourable member for Barker, was announcing in the Adelaide News of 24 April CEP grants in his electorate worth almost $135,000. That is one of many announcements that I have discovered by Liberal Party members of parliament who are very keen to jump in and announce the benefits to their electorate provided by this Government when the opportunity suits them. Senator Cook —Shocking hypocrisy! Senator MAGUIRE —As Senator Cook points out, it is shocking hypocrisy. On this particular occasion Mr Porter announced grants in his electorate provided by the Hawke Labor Government of $135,000 for works by the Millicent Council in south-eastern South Australia and a number of school grants in that region. It would appear that Mr Porter is not too proud to associate himself with the CEP, while his neighbour, Mr Downer in the electorate of Mayo, is very free with his criticism of the program. In fact, Mr Downer said in the House of Representatives on 20 February this year that he had significant reservations about the CEP. He described the scheme as: ``. . . an extremely inefficient way to both provide facilities and create jobs. Mr Downer went on to say that the community employment program was not attacking the causes of unemployment. These statements were made by a Liberal member of Parliament who supported a government which presided over the destruction of hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country. While Mr Downer was making those statements in the House of Representatives, he omitted to say that the Hawke Labor Government-which I presume he would describe as a socialist government-had provided some $7.9m since the inception of the CEP to create 933 jobs in his electorate. Nine hundred and thirty-three employment positions were created in the Mayo electorate, yet that member of Parliament is very sceptical about the community employment program. In his speech he ignored the very substantial benefits to his electorate that have been provided by this Labor Government. Earlier this morning Senator Vanstone used the word `patronage' to describe the CEP. That word was actually used by Senator Vanstone when she suggested that these grants were allocated between electorates according to political favours. But as I have just pointed out, we provided $7.9m as patronage-to use Senator Vanstone's jargon-in a Liberal held electorate in South Australia. This money created 933 jobs in the electorate of a member who does not support the community employment program. Another example of the Opposition's division over the community employment program is evidenced by remarks by Senator Jessop in this place on 14 March, which cast aspersions on the operations of a company known as Trojan Owen and Associates Pty Ltd. As I pointed out earlier, one of Senator Jessop's colleagues from South Australia, the honourable member for Barker, Mr Porter, is eager to jump in whenever the occasion presents itself to announce the grants in his electorate which have been provided by the Hawke Labor Government. But Senator Jessop in this chamber attacked the company Trojan Owen, which has been managing a number of CEP projects. Trojan Owen is an established and reputable company. It has a reputable record as a management consultant for job creation programs. In South Australia, Trojan Owen has been involved in 14 successful CEP projects. One of these, the Chelsea cinema redevelopment in Marryatville, which involved my local council, the City of Burnside, won a Civic Trust commendation for design and construction. This company, which has been maligned by Senator Jessop, was involved in a project which won a Civic Trust commendation for design and construction. Of course, Senator Jessop did not refer to that fact in his remarks in this chamber some time ago; he ignored it. It seems that some members of the Opposition will go to great lengths to discredit the community employment program while others want the credit for opening new projects in their electorates. The fact is that Trojan Owen has been involved in a number of projects of great benefit to the South Australian community, and I think that should be placed on the record. Not only do the Opposition's claims about the CEP lack one ounce of credibility, but also they completely ignore the rationale and the objectives of the program. After all, the CEP is not designed to create permanent jobs; its fundamental purpose is to create short term jobs to provide employment and, most particularly, work experience for the most disadvantaged unemployed members of our community. In fact, without social assistance these unemployed persons have little chance of getting back into employment. The Opposition parties refuse to see the CEP program in its proper context. It is the overriding aim of general Government economic policy to create permanent jobs. This Government has successfully attacked the causes of unemployment. It has created jobs. When the Government came to office Australia was in the grip of a recession; job opportunities were disappearing, and many Australians faced a bleak future. The Hawke Government's top priority was to stimulate economic recovery and create the jobs necessary to reduce unemployment. Since the National Economic Summit Conference in April 1983-just over three years ago-over 600,000 new jobs have been created. Over a three-year period, 600,000 extra Australians have found work. Senator Cook —A promise delivered. Senator MAGUIRE —It is a promise delivered. That figure is almost 100,000-not 1,000-above the Government's original target, and I am pleased to say that it has been achieved with several months to spare. I say for the record, seeing that honourable senators opposite have a fetish about the role of the private sector in job creation, that the great majority of the 600,000-plus new employment positions which have been created in our country in the last three years-in fact, over 86 per cent-have been in the private sector. One of the more pleasing achievements in association with Australia's labour market recovery has been the reduction in youth unemployment rates. I heard Senator Vanstone a moment ago trying to tell this chamber that youth unemployment in Australia is at present at record levels. She seems to have forgotten, very conveniently perhaps, the record of Mr Howard when he was Federal Treasurer. But the fact is that when this Government came to office in 1983, following five years of Mr Howard's stewardship of the nation's finances as Federal Treasurer, the youth unemployment rate was in the vicinity of 28 or 29 per cent. Senator McKiernan —And climbing. Senator MAGUIRE —And climbing, as the honourable senator points out. At present the youth unemployment rate is 21.8 per cent. I cannot see how Senator Vanstone has any basis for making the claim that youth unemployment at present is at a record level. In fact, from 1983 to 1986 the youth unemployment rate has fallen by over 6 percentage points. That is yet another false statement by an Opposition senator in this debate nailed down, and nailed down very firmly. The Hawke Government's success in creating new permanent jobs is in stark contrast to the record of the Fraser-Howard Government. The economic policies of that Government, with which Mr Howard was so intimately associated, were responsible for destroying thousands of jobs. In the last year when Mr Howard was Treasurer some 186,000 Australians lost their jobs. The objective of the community employment program is to assist the long term unemployed, Aboriginal members of the community, disabled people and others who have been unable to benefit from the general growth in employment opportunities as a result of general economic policy. In that sense the community employment program supplements the general policies of economic expansion so that the Government can be seen to have a two-pronged policy to reduce unemployment. This Government has recognised the need to break the unemployment trap-that is, the tendency for unemployed persons to encounter increasing difficulties in finding employment as the duration of their unemployment extends-by providing appropriate work experience. This will also improve the unemployment prospects of the most disadvantaged jobless by restoring their self-confidence, job skills and, most importantly, acceptability to employers. It is clear that the community employment program is attacking the causes of unemployment, despite the comments of the honourable member for Mayo, Mr Downer, that it is not. I believe that the community employment program has already achieved its specific aims. It has created a large number of jobs at a reasonable cost. It has successfully targeted those disadvantaged unemployed groups most in need of assistance and it has successfully redirected many long term unemployed back into the work force. From the inception of the community employment program to the present day, some 18,200 projects have been approved at a total cost to the Commonwealth Government of $1,035m. Translating these figures into jobs, some 100,000 Australians have found employment on community employment program projects. The average cost to the Commonwealth Government of a six-month job has been around $10,000. The labour component of the community employment program, set at a target of 65 per cent of the total Commonwealth contribution per pro- ject, has been exceeded, on average by some 10 per cent. Although the primary objective of the community employment program is to create jobs and to provide suitable work experience for the long term unemployed, projects funded under the CEP are also required to provide facilities and services of lasting benefit to the community. I should also point out, in view of some of the criticisms that have been made about the scheme, that funds allocated to the CEP projects have been overwhelmingly spent on creating jobs and have not been soaked up in administrative costs. In fact, administrative costs to the Commonwealth Government, including funds for State and Territory administration, amount to only 3 per cent-I repeat, only 3 per cent-of the total community employment program budget. I would now like to cite some specific examples of CEP projects which have benefited the community in my State of South Australia. The railway project at Victor Harbor, which is in the Mayo electorate-we have heard something about the honourable member for Mayo this morning-was approved in 1985 and will upgrade the historic and scenic railway between Adelaide and Victor Harbor. This project will be a major boost to South Australia's tourist industry. The initial grant for the project is some $1.2m and 84 persons will be employed, 75 of whom are in the long term unemployed category. Moreover, this group comprises 15 women, three persons of Aboriginal descent and 10 handi- capped Australians. I am pleased to note from reports in the local newspaper, the Victor Harbor Times, that the project is already stimulating the regional economy. A bus service has been started to ferry CEP workers to the site and local shopkeepers are benefiting from the presence of 84 new railway workers in the district. Yet this project in the electorate of Mayo is operating under a government scheme which the local member, Mr Downer, would prefer to be replaced; a project which has created 84 jobs in his electorate. Also in that electorate $140,000 has been allocated to upgrade the causeway and Granite Island at Victor Harbor. Nineteen jobs are involved there. A range of new community employment program projects have been announced for South Australia this year. I have mentioned a couple which have been announced by the Liberal member for Barker, but I now refer to some others. A CEP grant of $248,000 has been provided to the Port Adelaide City Council for redevelopment of the old Port Adelaide War Memorial Swimming Pool site. Seventeen unemployed members of the community will work for 40 weeks to fill in a disused swimming pool, construct tennis courts on the site, refurbish change rooms, plant grass and landscape the area. The City Council of Mount Gambier will employ 12 people for 24 weeks with a CEP grant of over $132,000 to provide tennis and netball facilities at three of the city's sports parks. The Greek Women's Society of South Australia will receive $106,000 to employ seven persons for 35 weeks to establish a women's centre. At Port Lincoln the Lincoln South Football Club will receive $177,000 to employ over 200 persons for 25 weeks to extend the club's facilities. Since the inception of the community employment program a total of over 8,800 jobs have been approved in my State of South Australia at a cost to the Commonwealth Government of some $88m. The average prior unemployment duration for all CEP participants is over 12 months and the long term unemployed have represented 61 per cent of all placements since the beginning of the program. In contrast to the knocking by some members of the Opposition, evaluations of post-CEP employment show clearly that former CEP participants have had considerable later success in finding work. A survey of former community employment program participants carried out in July last year found that some 60 per cent had been employed in the six months subsequent to their leaving the community employment program. So that is a quite respectable figure-some 60 per cent of former participants have had some further work after leaving the program. Short term job creation programs such as the community employment program of course have positive psychological effects on the long term unemployed, as I believe would be expected by any reasonable critic of the program. In fact, recent research undertaken by Dr Anthony Winefield of the University of Adelaide clearly shows that programs such as the community employment program help to restore the dignity, self-esteem and confidence of the long term unemployed in our community. These psychological effects are clearly apparent and measurable and continue beyond the program even when the participants do not proceed to other forms of employment. That is a very important aspect of this program which has been largely overlooked by Opposition speakers. The CEP is the largest and most ambitious short term job creation initiative ever undertaken by an Australian government and it has been an outstanding success. The program evaluation results show that the CEP has achieved its objective of creating short term employment. It has provided essential work experience for those unemployed groups which have been unable to benefit from the general uplift in the Australian economy. Although this point may not mean much to the members of the Opposition, a CEP job is an offer of hope and opportunity for those unfortunate Australians in a position of unemployment. I commend the Government for extending the community employment program beyond this financial year. Senator FOREMAN(South Australia)(11.21) —In December 1985 the Government announced its intention to continue the community employment program, widely known as CEP. Today we find ourselves in a very different situation from when the first CEP Bill was introduced in August 1983. The economic landscape of 1983 saw a much higher level of unemployment. Since that time the community employment program has been only a small part of the Hawke Labor Government's rebuilding of the economy; a rebuilding of employment and employment opportunities that was scoffed at by the Opposition when it was proposed in 1983. Now that the runs are on the board and the economy which had a negative growth rate in 1982-83 has seen record growth rates, we are in a much different position. When the Government stated its intention was to create 500,000 jobs in the first three years of office, the Opposition reacted with two responses. The first response was derision. As the members of the then Opposition have so clearly demonstrated in the Howard-Fraser years, such a vision was beyond their grasp. They proved very much better at abolishing jobs than creating them. The second response was to say that all such jobs created would be in the Public Service or job creation schemes. The truth of the matter is, of course, that that proved not to be so. The number of jobs permanently created by the turnaround in the economy that this Government engineered proved to be in the private sector. The increase in employment went hand in hand with increased consumer confidence. The community employment program was a response to the problem of long term unemployment which existed when we came to government. The parlous state of the economy in 1983 meant that something had to be done. In November 1983 over 260,000 Australians, or 41.8 per cent of all those out of work, had been unemployed for nine months or more. This tragic waste of human resources was such that the Hawke Labor Government wanted to bring in a scheme which would address both this problem and the problem that for years the disadvantaged job seekers had experienced poor employment prospects. Since the inception of the CEP many community projects have been successfully completed. The success of this scheme was not only that it in part reversed the long term problems of unemployment, or that it gave disadvantaged job seekers a share of the benefits of the economic recovery, but also that it led to the building of numerous community assets. These assets are across the country and are far too numerous to mention here. The scope of CEP is enormous-enormous in both financial and human terms. Since its inception some 98,391 jobs have been created. The total funds that have been allocated so far are over a billion dollars. In South Australia some 8,678 jobs have been created in this scheme at a cost to the Government of $86.55m. In my home State of South Australia many small projects as well as many large ones have been completed or are in the process of completion. It is hard to think of an area that has not been affected by this scheme. Some immediate examples that spring to mind involve projects such as the bricking of King William Road, the Victor Harbor rail line, and many more. Around Australia over 16,000 projects have been federally sponsored. This brings me to one other positive aspect of this project. Projects that are to be considered have support from State government, local government and community organisations. They are projects which are not imposed from Canberra but originate in the community in which they will be built. In this way genuinely felt community needs are catered for and the number of people involved in planning such projects is wide indeed. The performance of the scheme also needs scrutiny. For long term unemployed persons the figures are astounding. For instance, those with nine months or more prior unemployment represent 62 per cent of all CEP placements to date. Over the 1985-86 period this percentage will be around the 77 per cent mark. This remarkable achievement shows clearly that this scheme is getting to the heart of long term unemployment. One of the other outstanding achievements of this scheme has been its success in meeting the objectives of equal female representation. This was the first major labour force program to take up the challenge of the Government's equal employment opportunity policy. To the end of 1985 the female participation rate was 38.6 per cent. This figure includes the jobs on local roads component, which did not initially have a target for female employment. Should this component be removed then the female participation rate on other projects would rise to 42.7 per cent. During 1985-86 the participation rate will be around 52 per cent. The female component on the local roads project was to be 25 per cent but is actually exceeding that figure by a further 5 per cent. Other persons who have experienced disadvantages in seeking employment have been Aboriginals and migrants with English language difficulties. During the 1985-86 financial year 12 per cent of all placements have been Aboriginals, 14 per cent disabled persons and 10 per cent migrants with English language difficulties. It would be wrong to suggest that some adjustment problems were not experienced in the early days of this project. Simply to view the whole context of this scheme in terms of just financial resources also poses difficulties. It has been the practice of this Government to try to reach into the morass of long term unemployment and the problems of disadvantaged persons seeking employment. The CEP has achieved remarkable results. In respect of its original terms of reference it has been an outstanding success. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales)(11.30) —I do not think that many honourable senators on this side would disagree that the community employment program is aimed in a very useful direction and has many things going for it. However, the problems as we see them on this side have generally tended to be with the implementation of the program and the manner in which Government money has been spent. The Government has responded to many of the points we have made, particularly those from the coalition Waste Watch Committee, in a way that at best has been unfortunate and at worst misleading and deceptive. The attempts to discredit the Waste Watch Committee's comments on the CEP generally have been along lines that can readily be disproved, and I intend to do so today. Let us start with a few general principles. Some of the objections that the Waste Watch Committee has had to the CEP have rested on concerns about the large expenditure of public moneys in areas that, in fact, do not involve employment opportunities to the long term unemployed, in terms of at least providing money to them directly. The concern has tended to be that a large proportion of the CEP money in fact has been directed to areas other than payments for the employment of the long term unemployed. For example, the latest report of the CEP-that is, for its second year, 1984-85-demonstrates that the total value of programs, including sponsor contributions, has been $1,076m and the number of persons placed in employment has been 75,519. In fact, it works out that the average cost of employing each person has been something like $510 a week. Of course, the clear evidence is that people being employed would not be getting anything like $510 a week. The big question we have been asking is: What has happened to the difference between the $510 a week average cost of each job and the amount, I should imagine, of around $300 a week on average, or perhaps even less in some instances, that the long term unemployed have been receiving? To an extent, of course, that may well be described as not being the Commonwealth's business because some of the money has come from sponsoring groups rather than from the Government itself. Nonetheless, there seems to be enormous scope within the framework of the CEP for Federal money to be directed away from payments to the long term unemployed into other areas. For example, sponsoring organisations in effect can have their immediate ex-staff employed as supervisors in this program. I know of one instance in which an organisation which, from memory, put on three CEP workers had one supervisor paid for by the CEP who was not in fact a long term unemployed person. Not only was she not a long term unemployed person but she had simply ceased employment with the sponsoring organisation immediately before the program started. She had been working for the sponsoring organisation but ceased work for that organisation and became eligible for appointment as a supervisor under CEP, despite the fact that she was not a long term unemployed person-and of course she may have been an ideal person for the job. All I am pointing out is that when employing three long term unemployed people, the sponsoring organisation was able to finance a supervisor out of the funds for the program. Looking at many of these programs-- Senator Cook —Are you going to name the project so that we can check your assertion? Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Yes, it is the Wollongong Women's Centre. Senator Cook —All right, we will check the assertion. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Thank you. Looking through this list, it seems that many organisations, such as some of the Socialist Workers Party fronts-in which no doubt Senator Cook is interested-which are listed in the mountain of material from the Waste Watch Committee, appear to be able to receive with some ease funds under the program. I am interested to know in how many instances-and we are pursuing this-the people supervising the programs are de facto or ex-members of the sponsoring organisation. That is one element of concern. That example is only one of many of people who have been closely associated with, or are affiliates, members or ex-employees of sponsoring organisations ending up as supervisors of projects or being employed under this scheme, particularly in areas where very few long term unemployed are employed. One supervisor for three long term unemployed people seems to be a rather extraordinary ratio. There may well be a case for suggesting to the CEP organisers that where there are as few as two, three or four long term unemployed, the supervisors could be employed on a part-time basis if he or she does not fit the criteria, rather than being paid on a full-time basis. The other area of concern emerges from the guidelines of the CEP, in which part 5.7 states: Ownership of equipment purchased with grant funds- Sponsors will be required to specify their intentions to purchase equipment in the grant application forms. I stress this part: Any equipment purchased by a sponsor with grant funds will become the property of the sponsor unless the Commonwealth delegate determines otherwise at the time of approval or at any time prior to the completion of the project. I cite a case in point. An unlicensed Victorian community radio station in the scrub applied for CEP funding to train long term unemployed people in community radio techniques. I will leave to one side the matter of the quality of the training that would emerge as the radio station had no licence, no history and, in fact, was simply seeking to run some trial transmissions. One could question whether that is the ideal centre in which this training should be developed. The CEP organisation agreed to buy for this community radio station, which had basically very little going for it, a console, a turntable and tape recorders so that it would, allegedly, be able to train long term unemployed people. Those assets remained the property of the community radio station after the CEP training program ended. That seems to be a good lark. If one wants to start a community radio station, one offers training and ends up with the Government buying some of the equipment. That is an example of my concern about some of the projects. I am concerned about other projects that are simply blatantly and disgracefully political, in which money has gone into promoting a political philosophy-a philosophy which, incidentally, may be far to the left of that of the Government. One can hardly say that the Government is being terribly clever in funding this political activity. I assure the Senate that in each instance it is political activity that is aggressively hostile to the Opposition's attitudes. For example, Associate Professor Ted Wheelwright's organisation, the Trans-National Workers Research Group, has done very well out of the program-if not directly, then indirectly. This was through the Printing and Kindred Industries Union grant. I was astounded when I found out how it was ultimately used, because this grant was aimed allegedly at providing $172,644 for research into employment practices. Nine jobs were involved with a duration of 37 weeks for the Printing and Kindred Industries Union to investigate the extent of sub-award employment practices. That works out at about $518 per week per long term unemployed person. There is no way in a fit that any of the long term unemployed involved would have been paid $518 per week. The fair question is what happened to the difference between what they were paid and the amount of the grant? We know where the grant ended up. It is explained in the report `Anti-Union Employment Practices', a final report put out by Professor Ted Wheelwright's Trans-National Corporation with the inevitable introduction from Professor Wheelwright attacking the whole concept of a deregulated labour market, which I notice that some of our colleagues in the Labor Government are tentatively approaching. Senator Cook —That is not true. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —I have been reading large numbers of reports in the newspapers about how various members of the Government and leading members of the Labor movement, such as Mr Charlie Fitzgibbon, have been approaching the view that there is a need for a greater degree of flexibility-- Senator Cook —You have to read exactly what they say before you make assertions. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Than the backbencher who is interjecting so consistently is prepared to concede. But the introduction to this report is a pretty vicious attack on academic freedom, because Professor Wheelwright says that there is something disgraceful, basically, about a government that provides funds to academic institutions which are not supporting the political position that Professor Wheelwright supports. In fact, the same sort of attitude emerges in the conclusions of this report. The suggestion is that governments should provide funds only to those sorts of research bodies which toe the left wing political line. I must say that I find the diversion of money in this way to be totally offensive. In particular, the nature of this very lengthy attack on the economic and industrial relations policies of the Opposition is way beyond the bounds of what one would be entitled to expect from a grant which is supposed to have gone to providing assistance to the long term unemployed. Of course, this is only one of the many curious grants that have been given. I do not think I have the time to go through the mountain of material we have involving grants to what are clearly very left wing bodies-groups that are associated, for example, with extreme leftist attitudes in Central America. I understand that FILEF, which receives a grant, is associated with the Italian Communist Party. There is a whole range of most curious organisations apart, of course, from the inevitable collection of peace bodies and so on. As I said, I was interested to see the nature of the response by the Government to this kind of criticism from the Opposition which I would have thought people like Senator Walsh, who profess a great concern about saving Federal money, would have welcomed. Instead of that, Senator Walsh, for example, attacked the Coalition Waste Watch Committee when it pointed out that money had been directed under CEP towards training people to be clowns. Senator Walsh is on record in the Senate as saying that it was not the present Government that funded people to become clowns, but the previous Government. That, of course, is simply false. Senator Walsh was referring to a project in Gippsland, approval for which was given on 11 November 1983. Even Senator Cook will find it difficult to establish that the Fraser Government could have been involved in decisions to fund a Gippsland clown project on 11 November 1983. That date might have some significance to some honourable senators opposite. However, the significance in this context is that this was many months after March 1983 when the Fraser Government was defeated. It is deceptive and dishonest for anyone in this or any other chamber to get up and say that because this clown training operation was funded by a program initiated by the Fraser Government-the decisions for it in terms of granting money were made entirely by the Hawke Government-this is somehow the responsibility of the Fraser Government. It is deceptive and dishonest to do so. The simple reality is this: The Fraser Government saved $100m by introducing the wage pause program. The Hawke Government spent the money. It spent it on items such as training people in Gippsland to become clowns. I stress that this kind of response by the Labor Government to clear evidence of this order is, I believe, an indication of the fact that the Waste Watch Committee's exposure of waste and misallocation of money has hit so hard that this Government will deliberately tell lies about allocations of this nature in order to try to discredit the Committee's campaign. The Government will stop at nothing. It will resort to personal denigration, as we have seen in the other House, as part of a concerted political campaign, knowing it to be false. The Victorian Ministry of Employment and Training's annual report for the year ended 30 June 1984 reveals this training to be a clowns program from the Arts Resources Collective in Gippsland under the wage pause program. As I said, it was announced by the Victorian Government on 11 November 1983, and the amount involved was $85,130. In fact, my records show that the first announcement in Victoria under the wage pause program as administered by the Hawke Government was not, in fact, till some time in May 1983-long after the Fraser Government, which as I said saved money, had been defeated. The administration was then under the Hawke Government. The allocations are under the Hawke Government in association with the Labor Government in Victoria. I should also say that the clowns training program to which we referred was the one in Canberra. The money allocated to this program was not ultimately spent for one very good reason: By the time it was allocated it was far too late for the program planned by the Arts Council of the Australian Capital Territory to proceed. In other words, the Government in that instance was saved from actually spending the money which it had happily allocated simply because of its own incompetence. Incompetence triumphed over waste. However, let me stress that this Government was happy to see a situation in which people were to be trained to be clowns, whatever the benefit-and that is open to discussion-by allocating something like $410 per week, exempting the cost of the person doing the training, which no doubt would have been an element, and so reducing the average cost to the participants. But the overall cost to them-- Senator Tate —It didn't happen. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Exactly, and if the honourable senator had been here he would have heard me explain why. The program did not go ahead because the Government or the people associated with the CEP were too incompetent to get the money out by the time the program was to proceed. The point is that the CEP people were happy for the program to proceed. It was in line with the guidelines. It involved a cost of something like $410 per week per person for people to learn to become clowns. I stress that the Government seems to have an interesting sense of priorities when it pays out a maximum of something like $70 per week under the tertiary education assistance scheme to people at the bottom of the income scale who are learning to become engineers and even lawyers, yet suggests that $410 per week is a reasonable cost to learn to be a clown. That argument is peripheral. The real issues are whether the administration of this scheme has allowed too many opportunities for money to be misdirected and misallocated and whether there is waste. That is the essential point. What happens when the programs and projects involve the raising of revenue? One of the matters on which the Government claimed we had been proved to be wrong related to the funding of a conference in Wollongong. It was listed under the program as the first national depressed regions conference. The funding was pretty substantial-$100,624, involving five jobs for 39 weeks. It was to the Wollongong Workers Information Research Centre, to organise the conference. When I put out my Press release, I said that that conference did not ever take place. In fact, it did not take place despite the misleading allegations in this chamber that it did. A conference took place. It was called Australian Industry-the future. Not one item on the agenda related in any way to a conference that could have been vaguely described as the first national depressed regions conference. The words `depressed regions' do not appear on the brochure and, more significantly, there was a charge for participants in this conference the preparation of which was to be funded by CEP. When I asked in a Senate Estimates committee what happens when a charge is made for such a conference, particularly as this involved five people and cost $100,000 to prepare for-it did not ever take place and was replaced by a totally different conference-the response from the Department was as follows: The project referred to was sponsored by the Wollongong Workers Information and Resource Centre. CEP funds were provided to pay the wages of a co-ordinator for the Centre's activities and part of the co-ordinator's duties was to organise a conference. Here we have another whimsy about what happens to co-ordinators' pay. In fact, the co-ordinator was supposed to be supervising the five long term unemployed in preparing this conference. This answer is misleading to start off with. The CEP funds were, in fact, provided to pay for five people to prepare for this conference as well as the co-ordinator. Their full time duties were to organise for the conference. But listen to this: While the funds were provided to pay the co-ordinator, part of his duties were to organise a conference but not to actually run it. Funding for the conference itself came from the Wollongong Workers' Information Resource Centre and not from the CEP. In other words, the CEP did all the work, $100,000 worth of work, to prepare for a conference that did not ever take place and which was substituted by another. It did all the work, it paid all the money and it had all the expense. But where does the $5 per head go? Where does the revenue go? It goes instead to the Wollongong Workers Information Resource Centre. I believe there are examples of this order-and we are pursuing them-where money is, in fact, generated from these bodies as a result of work under the CEP and goes to the sponsoring groups. The sponsoring groups involved in this case are not just the Wollongong Workers Information Resource Centre but also the Australian Political Economy Movement and the South Coast Labour Council, that very strong left wing organisation. There are many examples of the way money has been diverted not only from the Government but also from revenue raised as a result of things such as this conference. It has been diverted into the hands of the sponsoring groups either by way of assets, paying the fees of people involved or taking money generated as a result of these projects. This money would never have been generated for the South Coast Labour Council if it had not been for this program. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator COOK(Western Australia)(12.00) —The Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986 proposes to extend the community employment program for another three years beyond the end of next month. Before I turn to my general remarks on the Bill, I cannot sit back and allow the remarks that have just been made by Senator Michael Baume to go unanswered in some respects. I want to treat some of the things he said in greater detail later, but some threshold rebuttal is necessary. Senator Baume asserted that there is widespread maladministration, misadministration or rorts being worked through the CEP. That is the charge he levelled at this Government. He then said, thumbing through an impressive pile of papers, that he had mountains of material to present. We waited in anticipation for this mountain to descend on us. We were given the benefit of two or three examples. Out of a mountain we got two or three examples at great length. Nothing was tabled to show all the other things that he could have referred to but for time-and he pleaded lack of time. No total number for this massive mountain of cases was given, so we do not know what the number is. No percentage of the total number as a proportion of the overall CEP projects was given, so we do not know the incidence of this maladministration. On that basis it can be fairly said that no case has been established despite the assertions and the hyperbole that Senator Michael Baume entertained the Senate with for a few minutes. The case has just not been established. It seemed that Senator Baume's real purpose was to have a go at what he described as left wing groups and to make some political points about his activities in the Illawarra. I suppose many things are fair game in political debate; that is true. That is fair game too. But in the absence of a quantification, in the absence of an incidence table and in the absence of the evidence he asserts exists, one can only draw the conclusion that since he had half an hour to do the job the evidence does not exist. It was never presented. As this debate stands at the moment, I do not think there is much succour for Senator Michael Baume's argument. I want to go back to the basic problem with which this Government has been contending in the CEP. I want to go back to the years before 1983 when we had galloping unemployment and virtually no prospects for thousands of school leavers in this country. The prime reason why we are sitting on this side of the chamber and members of the coalition are sitting on the other side of the chamber is that they created the greatest unemployment in this country's history. I want to go back to those years for a few minutes. In a public debate about unemployment conservative economists argued that there was an acceptable level of unemployment. They said that the community could bear an acceptable level of unemployment. Politicians such as Malcolm Fraser and John Howard also asserted that there was an acceptable level of unemployment; that we had to tolerate this level of unemployment. Just as long as they were not unemployed but some other poor bugger was, the level of unemployment was acceptable. That became the justification for the level of unemployment applying in this country. The coalition Government's strategy was to fight inflation first, which meant that the unemployed suffered. The Australian Labor Party, under the Hawke Administration, set out, on taking the treasury bench in the House of Representatives, to fight inflation and unemployment simultaneously. Our whole history as a political party is one of seeking to find the formula for full employment. There is not in the Labor Party lexicon anything that goes remotely close to acceptable levels of unemployment. Our commitment is firmly to full employment. It is not just a commitment, it is deeply embedded in Labor Party philosophy. That is why the wages-prices accord with the Australian Council of Trade Unions was worked out. That is why the primary objective of that accord is full employment, and that is why this Government introduced CEP as well. We are committed to getting the macroeconomic settings correct so that, through growth in the economy, all Australians who aspire to jobs will find jobs in rewarding and satisfying careers. We inherited massive unemployment on a scale that is not easy to turn around and there are no simple panaceas one can produce to solve it. While we pulled the economy out of the morass it was in when we came to office, while we built on a substantial economic growth year on, year on and year on, having expanded the economy for further employment, we introduced CEP to give jobs, work experience, self-esteem and skills to those who were unemployed in this country who had to wait until the macro settings were right before they could move into full employment. That was the strategy we embarked on. It was a humane strategy which reflected our genuine and deep abiding concern for unemployment and it was an effort to do something real and positive for those who suffered the lash of joblessness. Our record on the macro front, which is the most important, is well known, of course. Senator Short —Deplorable. Senator COOK —Senator Short says it is deplorable. Let me just go back to 1983. In 1983, before coming to office, we promised we would create 500,000 new jobs in our first three years. Liberal politicians said that it could not be done and they rubbished us, saying that it was a promise that was attempting to mislead the Australian community. Back in the 1983 election campaign the Opposition said we could not do it. We did it. We achieved it. In fact, we have created over 600,000 new jobs. That is a substantial achievement of the key promise of the 1983 Hawke election campaign marked `delivered in the community'. We achieved that. We have had year on year of economic growth while in the last year of the Liberal Government there was negative economic growth. Under our administration inflation has come down from the galloping levels it was at under Fraser. Under our administration unit labour costs have been reduced to the levels they were in the 1960s. Under our administration industrial disputes have dropped to decade-long record lows, and under our administration there has been a redistribution of the gross domestic product away from wages and salaries and towards profits. The Government initially pursued an expansionary economic philosophy and we are now withdrawing that approach-we have a less expansionary economic approach, in order for the private sector to pick up the slack. We are expecting and hoping that the private sector will invest some of its profits in plant and equipment so that the industrial base of this country can expand and genuine long term jobs created. That is our record. Given that the hecklers opposite said earlier that our record was dismal, if that record is dismal then I am proud to say that I do not mind being called dismal. That is a record of proud achievement, and it is the record of this Government. I turn to the nature of this Bill. As I said before, it is a Bill which seeks to extend CEP for another three years beyond next month. This year $290m will be allocated to CEP and next year an early indicative amount of $140m will be allocated. We are looking at continuing the program in such a way that, for those who are still unemployed and who are in particularly difficult areas of unemployment, real opportunities will be available through CEP. We expect that there will be 30,000 new jobs this financial year and, because of a carryover from last financial year, 45,000 new jobs will be created in the course of the year. That is the objective and that is the purpose of this legislation. Having stated that, I want to refer to what I thought was a detailed and studious speech by Senator Graham Maguire earlier in this debate. He analysed the performance of CEP, pointed to the figures, and rebutted some of the specious assertions made by honourable senators on the Opposition benches. One assertion he distinctly and clearly vanquished was an assertion by Senator Vanstone that youth unemployment now was at higher levels than ever before in Australia. Of course, that is just not true, and any resort to the record, to the statistics and to the facts will establish that. I just make the point in passing that, while we have dubious assertions like that that are never backed by any figuring, the general argument that is then put on all the other matters by the people who make those bold assertions is called ultimately and totally into question. In 1986 we are still troubled by the fact that 21.8 per cent of the total number of unemployed are youth unemployed. We say we have not got it right yet but we say that that is 6 per cent less than it was three years ago. This is a difficult problem. We are tackling it responsibly, but there is no automatic panacea. Those figures come down slowly. Our approach is working. It is certainly not true, as Senator Vanstone asserted, that unemployment is at record levels. It is not. One other point which I think needs to be made is the tendency for the Opposition to want to have it both ways. That tendency is most marked when it comes to announcing CEP initiatives in Liberal Party electorates. Under the guidelines, local members are notified when CEP programs are approved. I have never noticed any marked reluctance by any member of the Liberal Party-or member of the National Party of Australia, for that matter-to rush into print and claim the credit for a particular CEP program. There is no reluctance at the coal face of the electorate in that regard. There is also no reluctance in this chamber to bag CEP up hill and down dale, as we heard from Senator Michael Baume-the old `let us have it both ways' approach. I suppose many things go in politics, but that type of hypocrisy ought to be noted. CEP is a Labor Government initiative; those jobs would not have been created without it. Because CEP responds to community needs, it is often the case that the local member claiming credit for certain projects had nothing to do with those projects. I might also say that it is sometimes the case that the local member had something to do with the particular project. In those circumstances the local member is to be commended for taking advantage of a project aimed at creating work for unemployed people in that particular electorate who are in desperate conditions, and in particular cases of discrimination those areas concerning women, Aborigines, disabled people and migrants who do not have an easy facility with the English language. The next point I move to is the general point of this debate. It has been made by a number of Opposition senators and, while it is trivial in its content, it has been the major expression of view by them and it requires nailing. I refer to the argument that CEP is in some way being abused or misused. Senator Michael Baume said it is blatantly and disgracefully political. As I said at the beginning of my speech, Senator Michael Baume made those assertions but he did not table any documents to indicate the incidence of `blatantly and disgracefully political' programs. He cited one or two cases and then, on the basis of the dubious examples he used, he bagged the whole scheme-a scheme which has created 100,000 jobs in Australia. I do not think that that argument can stand up. I want to go back and look at the record. Many of the projects that were attacked by Senator Michael Baume had their origins in the wage pause program. That program was initiated not by this Government but by the former Government. We inherited it, and we were obliged to observe the guidelines that had been laid down and the commitments entered into by the former government with the States. What happened under that program is not our responsibility. It was our responsibility to carry it through. Since it was not originated by us and we were not responsible for drawing up the guidelines, we cannot now be attacked for the deficiencies that it had-and, indeed, it had deficiencies. Senator Michael Baume referred to two or three cases. I have a list of 20 projects funded under the wage pause program. The organisations which were beneficiaries could have been regarded as political. If Senator Michael Baume wants to attack the CEP, which is a Labor Government initiative, because some groups which he considers politically distasteful may have got some advantage from it, he ought to look at what advantage was achieved in the same sense under the Liberal program and accept that many more projects than those he chose to rely on have received the same succour in terms of the injection of funds for job creation. A fundamental point that seems to have escaped every speaker in this debate is that in order to get a program funded under the CEP one has to prepare a program submission and submit it to a broadly-based community-selected committee. The committee receives all the incoming submissions and applies stringent criteria to them, assesses them and then makes decisions according to what funds are available and according to the priority in job creation. The commitment is to job creation, particularly in those areas in the work force where there is discrimination. So any attack upon a CEP allocation is, in reality, not an attack upon this Government but an impugning of the integrity of the community groups that make up the CEP committees and make those allocations. If anything in this debate is disgraceful it is that impugning of the genuine integrity of the broadly-based selection committees. I do not know what is the purpose in launching this attack. I do not know whether it is to discourage people from offering public service to the community by volunteering to accept an appointment to those committees. If that be the purpose, it is genuinely disgraceful. We take responsibility as a government for setting the guidelines, which are indeed stringent. We take responsibility as a government for entering into exhaustive community consultation. We take responsibility as a government for making the funds available. We take responsibility as a government for targeting the hardship groups that need to be served. We take responsibility as a government for the global aspects of the program. But the administration of the direct allocations is overwhelmingly in the hands of the community groups, who take that responsibility. The criticism that has been made ought to be seen as an unjustified criticism of those groups. I have said that under the wage pause program, which was a lax and maladministered program because of the guidelines that the Fraser Government had laid down, I could list 20 projects. The list is too long to read at this hour of the debate. Let me refer to a couple of the more interesting projects. Under the Fraser program, the Amalgamated Metal Foundry and Shipwrights Union of New South Wales obtained a grant of $32,904. An Italian organisation, FILEF in New South Wales, received $11,800 for the production of an Italian language newspaper. I think that is the organisation that Senator Michael Baume attacked as being an extreme left wing organisation. Going down the list, the Association for Peace Studies in Victoria received $24,000. Friends of the Earth in Western Australia received $10,900 and $28,600, and so on. Senator Michael Baume gave two or three examples. I have 20, and I am prepared to table my list. I do not know where that takes us, because the basic purpose of both programs is to create more jobs. Our program is properly audited, checked and scrutinised. The wage pause program was not. That is a deficiency that we have had to live with. The result is that as an outcome of both of these programs more Australians in need have got work. It seems to me that the real point Senator Michael Baume wanted to make was to use the debate on the community employment program to attack various left wing radical groups, and he described some groups, such as the Socialist Workers Party, as being antagonistic to Labor government. Anyone in the Labor Party knows what it is like to be criticised by those groups who claim to be holier than the Labor Party in their concern and compassion for the broader community. If such groups meet the criteria of the guidelines and they propose a genuine job creation program, in a pluralist society they have a right to their individual political points of view. The question here is not what might be the political point of view of some group in the broader community which applies for and gets a community employment program grant because it meets the standards; the question is whether it is proposing a genuine job creation program. I think that the political intolerance of the Opposition in saying that some groups should be censored and discriminated against because of their political views, which is the import of Senator Michael Baume's remarks, is distasteful. To balance the ledger, I shall refer to a particular community employment program project that was approved by the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis). The weight of Senator Michael Baume's attack has been that only left wing groups benefit. I have in front of me a community employment Commonwealth component project summary document. The project's sponsor is the National Library of Australia and the project title is `Liberal Party of Australia Records Project'. The description of the project under the heading `Project Aim and Activities' reads: A large body of Liberal Party records totalling several hundred boxes, was identified, labelled and prepared for relocation in appropriate archival containers. Much of this material had previously been stored loose on shelves. The material is now housed in conditions which will prevent its physical deterioration and is so identified that it can be made readily available to scholars. This is an important collection of major political and historical importance. The project was timed to commence in December 1984 and had to be completed by 13 February 1985. Total funding was $6,500. I have talked about our society being a pluralist society, tolerant of all strands of political view. If a Labor government were to take the view that Senator Michael Baume was espousing, it could have said: `Because this project preserves records that our political enemies have developed over the years, we will not fund it. They can just forget about it. We will not provide any assistance to the Liberal Party'. But this Government did fund that project, and that was done at ministerial level. I want that firmly on the record, because with the modern McCarthyism with which Senator Michael Baume is associating himself, it ought to be squarely on the record in this debate that this Labor Government has recognised the pluralistic nature of our community. It has ensured that, irrespective of the political viewpoint that might be held or served by a particular project, the fundamental and critical aspect is whether it fulfils these criteria: Does it create jobs? Will it provide experience for people in the community who would otherwise not get work? Will it provide self-esteem for the longer term unemployed? Will it make a meaningful contribution to the community in some valuable way? Will it fit people with some work experience which will give them better prospects for full, enduring, lifelong careers in the future? Those are the basic criteria which we have addressed and that is the performance of the community employment program. A total of $1,035.74m has been spent on the CEP, 18,272 projects have been funded and more than 100,000 people have got work. That is the record of the CEP. At the National Economic Summit Conference in 1983 the Government introduced our program on unemployment and identified our approach as being not `fight inflation first' but `fight inflation and unemployment simultaneously'. Neville Wran summarised our objectives in three words-`jobs, jobs, jobs'. The community employment program has addressed that and is delivering. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(12.27) —I rise to make a few points in this debate on the Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986. The first thing that should be stressed is that, contrary to the implications in the remarks of Senator Cook and other speakers on the Government side, the Opposition is not opposing this Bill to extend the community employment program by a further three years. We are not opposing the legislation, but we are saying that there are some very serious defects which have been revealed by the scheme to date and which the Government must address if it wants to be seriously considered as having the interests of the unemployed of this country really at heart. Before addressing the Bill, let me pick up a few of the points made by Senator Cook, because they were grossly misleading about unemployment, inflation and job creation in this country. First, I point out that the Hawke Government's unemployment record to date compares very badly with that of the Fraser Government during its seven years in office. Senator Cook said that the Australian Labor Party was seeking a formula for full employment. He said that `jobs, jobs, jobs' was the real theme of the Labor Government. If that is so, it is about time the Government went back to the drawing board in order to try to meet its objectives. The Hawke Government has been in power for 37 months. The Fraser Government was in power for 86 months. If one compares the unemployment record of the two governments, one finds that unemployment has been higher during the 37 months of the Hawke Government than it was in all but four of the 86 months of the Fraser Government. Senator Gareth Evans —Ha, ha! Senator SHORT —Senator Evans may laugh, but the statistics are there for all to see. Senator Cook —Lies, damned lies and statistics. Senator SHORT —The Government's unemployment record does not compare with that of the Fraser Government. The Government has talked at length about the jobs it has created since it came to office in 1983. I remind Government speakers that there has been job creation in the past three years for three main reasons: First, the Government came to office right at the time when the American and other international economies began to take off again in a growth phase; secondly, the Government came to office literally on the day the drought broke; and, thirdly, it came to office inheriting a wage pause program that had been agreed between the previous Fraser Government and the trade union movement. The Government very wisely continued that program for the initial nine months of its term. Those three factors more than anything else caused the creation of jobs. Even with all that luck running for it, the Government's record on job creation does not compare favourably with that of the Fraser Government. As Senator Cook said in an intervention a few moments ago, I suppose one can have lies, damned lies and statistics; but I can show honourable senators opposite several three-year periods during the Fraser Government's term of office during which the numbers of new jobs created far exceeded the achievements about which the Hawke Government is now trumpeting. Senator Cook also talked about inflation and the inflation record of this Government. I remind him of the inflation record of this Government. Our inflation rate, relative to that of other countries-that is the key criterion because it determines the competitiveness of our country in the international market-place, and that competitiveness in turn is the real determinant of long term growth and employment in any nation-is 2.4 times higher than that of the average of other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. That record has not been surpassed since the OECD was formed. In other words, we now have the worst inflation record, relative to our major trading partners and other Western countries, that we have ever had. There again, the Hawke Government's record is appalling in the key area for looking at the engine of growth on a sustainable basis in any economy. Yet we wonder why there is a lack of investment in this country at the moment. The Government, the Opposition and industry itself are concerned by the lack of growth in private investment, which is the engine house for future growth in our economy. Why is investment not occurring at a desirable rate in this country? Basically, it is because the potential investors are so concerned about the direction in which the Hawke Government is leading this country's economy over the next two or three years, which is when the return on investment will be reaped, that they are not game to put their money in at this stage. On all those very fundamental points the record of this Government is appalling. I return to the main purpose of this debate-the Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986. In August 1983, with the aid of a $500,000 publicity campaign, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) launched the community employment program. Its aim was to help the most disadvantaged unemployed to gain self-esteem and improve their permanent job prospects. That was a very laudable aim with which the Opposition fully agreed and still agrees. In announcing in December 1985 the extension of the CEP for a further three years, the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, Mr Willis, claimed that by the end of 1985-86 some 18,500 projects and about 118,500 job opportunities will have been provided. At a cost of $1.12 billion from Commonwealth funds in addition to sponsor contributions, the total cost for the three years 1983 to 1986 could be well over $1.3 billion. That is an enormous commitment of taxpayers' money to a scheme which, whilst laudable in its intent, I believe has several serious defects which I urge the Government to look at as a matter of urgency if we are going to get value for money as taxpayers and if the intended beneficiaries of the scheme are to derive the benefit that we would all wish them to get. I will come to some specific suggestions on that matter later in my remarks. The Opposition supported the initiative in 1983; we said then, however, that we had doubts that it was the best way to tackle long term unemployment. Nevertheless, it has provided some amelioration for a number of people. But more opportunities for growth in employment will, of course, only eventuate from proper overall economic management in terms of fiscal and monetary policy and, very importantly, in the area of wages policy. I believe that our criticisms of the Government's proposals in 1983 have now proven valid. It is an enormously costly program. As I said, the total estimated cost to date is over $1.3 billion, and presumably at least that amount again will be spent over the next three years. It has achieved only limited success. More than 50 per cent of participants in the scheme were not in permanent employment six months after ending their CEP jobs. There is evidence that the Government is using the scheme to finance, in many cases, its favourite left wing causes and to reward its friends. For example-I will not go into all the details as they have been gone into by others-many CEP projects have gone to or involved trade unions. That has happened at a time when the funds of the 20 largest trade unions in this country totals $118m. That represents an increase of 550 per cent in union funds over the last ten years. Despite that enormous increase in the coffers of the unions, the Government has continued to put large amounts of taxpayers' money through CEP and other programs into the trade unions. Another criticism made at the time on which I think we have been proven correct is that the average duration of unemployment has not been reduced as a result of CEP. The average duration of unemployment is now 52 weeks, compared with 40 weeks in early 1983, just before CEP was introduced. So long term unemployment has increased; it has not improved. The latest unemployment figures indicate an increase in the rate of youth unemployment. The cost per job provided under CEP has been estimated at being in excess of $500 a week-a very large amount of money. Of course, only a fraction of that actually gets to the unemployed participant in the scheme. In the Canberra Times on 18 November 1983 the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) trumpeted that Australia's employment situation was expected to have improved over the next three years to such an extent that job creation schemes such as the CEP would be abolished. Yet, three and a bit years later, we have the Labor Government touting the CEP program as a great success and saying that it will continue with it virtually unaltered for a further three years. It seems to smack of a smug complacency and a seeming inability by the Government to perceive the scheme's faults. Our criticism of what the Government is proposing with this extension is not the fact that it is being extended but that it is being extended without sufficient attention being paid to the problems that have emerged in its experience over the last three years. In addition, we now have a youth traineeship scheme which was also launched in a blaze of publicity. This scheme is yet to provide any significant jobs or traineeships. There have been some, but they have been of a very insignificant nature and virtually all of them have been in the public sector. The job creation ability of this Government, quite frankly, is a myth. Labor seems to be more interested in self-promotion than in providing real assistance to the unemployed. The net result of the self-aggrandisement and ego-tripping by the Prime Minister and his Ministers is that the unemployed are being very cruelly conned by government statements which the Government knows full well it cannot deliver on. When announcing the extension of CEP for a further three years in December 1985 Mr Willis said: . . . the Government is prepared to consider any changes which would clearly result in further improvements to the program's achievements. It is in the spirit of that promise by the Government that I wish to make some contributions in this debate. My first query is whether the Hawke Government has learnt not only from the mistakes that have been revealed by CEP in its first three years but also, going back even further, from the very real mistakes that emerged with what was to some extent the forerunner of the CEP program back in the mid-1970s, namely, the old regional employment development scheme, which the Whitlam Government introduced. That Government found subsequently that it was so full of holes that it announced its abandonment just before it went out of government in 1975. There is in existence a report prepared after the abandonment of the RED scheme by the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations on the substantial misuse of funds under the scheme and the way projects were approved for political reasons against its own guidelines. I suggest to Mr Willis that if he has not already done so, he should hunt up this report and learn its lessons. He appears not to have done so in any shape or form. The CEP scheme of the Hawke Government is now showing signs of being a tragic re-run of the RED scheme fiasco of the Whitlam Government. I urge the Minister to take heed of the warning signs in CEP and to spend more of his time monitoring the program, which is in danger of becoming a bureaucratic nightmare and a fiasco. There is strong evidence gathered over a long period to indicate that the scheme is being abused by certain political operators-certainly not all; I am not suggesting that-and others to the detriment of those whom it was originally designed to help. Many of these examples have been outlined in debate in this chamber and in the other chamber. I will not go into them again other than just to mention yet again the disastrous debacle that has overtaken one of the major schemes in Victoria, namely, the Footscray swimming centre project. It is a project on which I am still waiting for much further information from the Minister. The Minister must act to pull CEP into line. I would like to raise six specific criticisms and concerns. The first relates to the design of the program. Is CEP tailored to meet the needs of the long term unemployed? Secondly, are CEP funds merely an alternative source of funding for local and State governments, or are they really designed to try to tackle the problem of unemployment? Thirdly, are the monitoring techniques being adopted under the program effective? What action has been taken when abuses are detected? Will the Minister make audits of schemes public? Fourthly, why are so many politically active groups being sponsored? Fifthly, are the current guidelines for sponsors comprehensive enough? Sixthly, is the growing use of project managers deliberate? What are the implications of this very important extension of project manager use? I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2 p.m. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Manager of Government Business) —by leave-I inform the Senate that Senator Button will be absent from the chamber for Question Time today. Any questions normally directed to Senator Button in relation to his portfolio or those he represents should be directed to me. Senator CHANEY —In the absence of Senator Button, my question is addressed not to Senator Grimes, whose grasp of social security matters I suspect is greater than that of interest rates but is addressed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Does he agree with the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Mr Bob Johnston, who said on Wednesday that, even on optimistic assumptions, large current account deficits may be with us for some time? I was going to ask Senator Button that question because his published views on the J curve suggest that he would agree with Mr Johnston. Does the Minister share Mr Johnston's concern that, because of the serious trade account problem, monetary policy may be called on to play a greater role than would be desirable? What implications does this have for interest rates in the medium to long term? Senator WALSH —I do not think that people who hold important positions, or positions that are perceived to be important, anyway, ought to be speculating about the likely direction of interest rates at all. I remember one person who certainly held an important position a few years ago, a person named Anthony, who was Deputy Prime Minister at the time, saying that interest rates would fall by 2 per cent over the course of the year or he would eat his hat. The Prime Minister at the time said something similar and gave an absolute guarantee that interest rates would fall by 2 per cent, or something. I do not think that people ought to speculate about the likely movement of interest rates. Of course, it remains a question of received wisdom, I suppose, that tight monetary policy equals higher interest rates than if there were not a tight monetary policy. Senator CHANEY —I have a supplementary question. I ask the Minister, in light of that quite peculiar reply, whether he agrees that elements of both Government policy and Reserve Bank activity impact upon interest rates. Does he suggest that questions about the likely impact of specific Government policies on interest rates generally are not questions which should be addressed? I ask him again: Does he share Mr Johnston's concern that, given our very serious trade account problem, monetary policy may well be called upon to play a greater role than he as the Minister for Finance and Minister representing the Treasurer would regard as desirable? Further, does he agree that the implications are that this will continue to exert an upward pressure on interest rates? Senator WALSH —I am not trying to be evasive. Senator Chaney said something like this: `Does Government policy impact on interest rates?'. Of course Government policy impacts on interest rates; all sorts of things impact on interest rates. Having said that, one should avoid being too simplistic about this, as politicians in the past have been known to be simplistic-indeed, not only politicians. It was a popular thing in a discredited former Government to say that there was a direct correlation between the size of the Commonwealth Budget deficit and the level of interest rates. That has been empirically disproven in both directions since that was the conventional wisdom of the Fraser Government. Again, as an accurate generalisation, of course a current account deficit, as distinct from a Budget deficit, which some people confuse, of the size that Australia has at present and has had for a number of years-indeed, it is worth noting that the highest ever recorded current account deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product was the 6.1 per cent recorded in 1981-82 when Mr Howard was the Treasurer-- Senator Chaney —What will this year's be? Senator WALSH —This year's will not be 6.1 per cent of GDP. If it were 6.1 per cent of this year's GDP, it would be something close to $14 billion. The highest current account deficit we have ever had, at least since reliable statistics have been kept, was in 1981-82 when Mr Howard was Treasurer. Of course, current account deficits among other things, through various linkages, are likely to exert upward pressures on interest rates. Senator ELSTOB —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. Was there a shortfall in the offsets due to Australia through the procurement of defence items from overseas companies in the years 1970 to 1984 and what was the order of that shortfall? What action is the Government taking to ensure that Australia receives the best offsets deals possible in such procurements; for example, from the company that received the contract for the new helicopter acquisition announced yesterday? In what way does the revised offsets policy benefit Australian industry and the Australian economy generally? Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Elstob asked me about a shortfall in offsets between 1970 and 1984. Certainly it is the case that between those years there was an apparent shortfall in the offsets due to Australian industry of some $420m against defence purchases. I say `apparent' because $380m of that was attributable to the FA18 project, which at the time had achieved little progress. We had firm contractual commitments to provide these offsets, but the time for achievement extended into the 1990s. This particular program has since maintained its schedule, producing about $100m worth of offsets to date, including technology transfers and work for Australian industry. The long timeframe involved is a characteristic of defence programs, reflecting their complexity and size, and should not be necessarily interpreted as an inability to obtain firm contractual obligations or fulfilment of those obligations. The present Government, unlike its predecessors, has been absolutely assiduous in its pursuit of offsets arrangements of this kind. With regard to the kind of action the Government is currently taking, the Government advises prospective tenderers of the Government's policy on offsets and encourages the offer not just of the mandatory minimum but of more than that. We do this by making the value and quality of Australian industry involvement, including offsets, factors to be assessed in the evaluation of the tenderers. That was certainly taken into account in respect of the helicopter exercise to which Senator Elstob referred. As to the general benefits that flow from offsets, I guess it is fairly obvious that the revised offsets policy adopted by this Government aims to acquire advanced technology, skills and capabilities which would support industry objectives for defence and would result in the establishment and enhancement of internationally competitive facilities in Australia. I repeat that this Government has a very strong commitment to the offsets program; one that is being worked out and stands in stark contrast to the lack of commitment reflected in the figures of our tory predecessors. Senator MESSNER —Does the Minister for Finance recall his answer to my questions at the hearings of Estimates Committee C when he admitted that the Government was considering changing the present system of appeals against taxation assessments? Does this involve the informal and effective Taxation Boards of Review under the present system being subsumed into the legalistic and impersonal Administrative Appeals Tribunal? What guarantees will the Minister provide that taxpayers will not be disadvantaged by any change, or have their rights reduced in the event of such a change being introduced? Senator WALSH —I do recall the question coming up at Estimates Committee C. I do not recall precisely what I said but it certainly was along the lines that the Government has before it a proposition to change the administrative arrangements for taxation appeals. That has not yet been finalised. Some of the other points that Senator Messner raised I think deserve two comments. First, he seems to assume that anything that makes appeal processes more legalistic will be to the disadvantage of taxpayers as individuals. I think it is a pretty strange conclusion to come to, if anyone looked at the record of the High Court of Australia in this area. Through the 1970s and in the era when it was dominated by Barwick it came out with so many ludicrous decisions that tax paying virtually became a voluntary activity in Australia. Indeed, my own view is that the less the lawyers are allowed to have to do with that area, probably the better-maybe the less influence the lawyers are allowed to have in other areas, the better as well. Senator Withers —Especially in Cabinet. Senator WALSH —I am not going to go into that with Senator Withers, who is a former lawyer and Cabinet Minister. The other point concerns this notion of what advantages or disadvantages a taxpayer. There is a quite widespread and popular view-it is not confined to the Opposition-that any institution or administrative arrangement which `protects' the perceived rights of the individual against the tyranny of the state is a good thing. When that is applied to taxation matters or, for that matter, to expenditure matters, it ought to be borne in mind that the state is no more than the sum of the individuals within it and that any arrangement, policy or whatever that provides particular advantages for an individual is achieved at the expense of all the other individuals who comprise the state. Senator MESSNER —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I hear what the Minister says, in his usual bombastic manner, but could we have a simple answer to whether the Government is contemplating a change to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, as I outlined? Senator WALSH —I have already said that. The Government has under consideration at the moment a review of taxation appeal mechanisms but that that has not yet been finalised. Senator ZAKHAROV —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. I refer the Minister to recent events in the United States of America where medical products such as tablets and capsules have been illegally tampered with. I ask: What action has the Government taken to ensure that similar products in Australia cannot be tampered with in this way? Senator GRIMES —As Senator Zakharov implies, there have been considerable problems in the United States with people tampering with capsules in particular. In fact, in the worst cases cyanide was introduced into the capsules of a very frequently used analgesic in the United States. There have been efforts over many years, even preceding what happened in the United States, by companies to introduce tamper resistant packaging in this country and other countries. The Proprietary Association of Australia, whose members produce about 90 per cent of the over-the-counter preparations, has set a deadline for the introduction of tamper resistant packaging, and most preparations will be protected by February 1987. Certainly, the balance will be protected by August 1987. The moves towards tamper resistant packaging, the existence of emergency procedures, and the methods that will be used have not been publicised and will not be publicised by us, on police advice, for the simple reason that we do not want publicity encouraging cranks to find ways of circumventing such procedures. I can assure the honourable senator that the universal introduction of tamper resistant packages is proceeding as we thought it would and will be complete next year. Senator MACKLIN —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Is the Minister aware that unless urgent action is taken by the Aboriginal Development Commission four enterprise development projects-Alcorn College, Brisbane; Almavale stud, Toowoomba; the picture theatre at Mitchell; and the cultural centre at Southport-will be lost to the Aboriginal people of south Queensland? Has the Minister yet responded to urgent requests from south-east Queensland Aboriginal representatives for his intervention and support in a situation which is severely disadvantaging Aboriginals in south Queensland? If the Minister has responded, has he acted in support of these people and, if not, when will he do so and in what way? Senator RYAN —Mr Holding has advised me that he has responded today on the matters raised by Senator Macklin in his question. Although I do not intend to go into detail about the Minister's response I do have some background information about the matters addressed in Senator Macklin's question. The allegations have been brought to the Minister's attention. He understands that they claim that south-east Queensland is receiving significantly smaller proportions of grant moneys from the ADC by comparison with other areas. I should mention that the ADC operates under its governing legislation as a self-managing Aboriginal organisation and, as such, the role of the ADC commissioners is to consider the needs of Aboriginals nationally in their allocation of loans and grants for lands, enterprises and housing fund. To suggest that the Aboriginal Development Commission is not performing its job satisfactorily goes to the very heart of and undermines the very basis of the principle of Aboriginal self-management. The facts are that only 30 per cent of Queensland Aboriginal people live in south Queensland. In regard to land and enterprise funding the ADC has allocated $8.04m since 1981-82, of which $887,000 has been allocated to south Queensland. Projects worth approximately a further $2m for south Queensland currently are under consideration by the Commission and these are expected to receive attention at the June meeting of the Board of Commissioners. An amount of $25.937m in housing loans has been allocated to south Queensland since 1975, compared to $3.855m for north Queensland. A total of $3.063m has been allocated to south Queensland under the grants in aid program for housing, compared to an amount of $5,672m for north Queensland in 1985-86. I am sure Senator Macklin will agree that these figures indicate a very favourable result for south Queensland on a per capita basis. Senator BLACK —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations whether he has seen a report in the Courier-Mail on the Opposition's industrial relations platform headlined `Coalition outlines Queensland-style industrial policy'? In view of the fact that the Queensland legislation has led to Queensland having the highest rate of industrial disputes and bankruptcy growth in the country, the highest level of unemployment of any mainland State, and the nation's lowest average weekly earnings, can the Minister predict the outcome if the Federal coalition is ever in a position to inflict Queensland style industrial relations policies on the rest of the country? Senator WALSH —Senator Black's question draws attention to the fact that the economic performance of Queensland is dragging down the rest of Australia; that the national economic performance is worse than it would otherwise be because of the Queensland Government. It may be drawing too long a bow to say that that is entirely attributable to the industrial relations policies of the Queensland Government, but I think it is quite reasonable to say that a factor in the dismal economic performance of Queensland is the industrial relations practices in that State, certainly as reflected in the fact that Queensland has the highest level of industrial disputes of any State. The real point of Senator Black's question is whether I could predict what would happen if a Federal coalition should be installed and attempted to apply the same sort of policy nationally, as indeed the Federal coalition threatens to do. I think the answer to that really is fairly self-evident: The national economy would be performing at a level closer to that of the Queensland economy than it is at the present level, and that would be a good deal less satisfactorily than it is performing now. Indeed, the chief architect of the sort of industrial relations policy the Opposition was said to have favoured-although perhaps in view of the release of the policy yesterday there is some doubt as to whether the policy Mr Howard said he favoured is still the policy of the Opposition-he said gleefully would lead to what he called, and gleefully anticipated, five years of industrial warfare. He said that he looked forward to having five years of industrial warfare. He might look forward to it but I do not think many other people would-certainly not the people in this Government nor, I would have thought, at least half the members of the Opposition. Senator BOSWELL —I wished to direct a question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate but, as it has an element of finance and an element of primary industry, I will direct it to the Minister for Finance and Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry. I refer the Minister to today's Financial Times which states that the Government is on the verge of offering an $84m package to the heavy engineering industries. In light of that offer and the generous grant of $350m to assist the steel industry and the car industry, will the Minister explain why his Government blatantly discriminates against the sugar industry which effectively has been given $63m in assistance over three years, or slightly over $20m a year, when his Government promised a $150m package? Will he advise the sugar farmers to affiliate with the Australian Council of Trade Unions as that is the only way to get this Government to give assistance? Will the Minister agree that his Government is pork-barrelling the industries with large union membership at the instruction of the ACTU while ignoring the plight of the sugar industry and other primary industries that do not have ACTU affiliation? Senator WALSH —It should be noted for the record that Senator Boswell is opposed to assistance for the heavy engineering industries. He wants to see Tofts Engineering Pty Ltd in Bundaberg closed down, the north Queensland-- Senator Boswell —Mr President, I take a point of order. The Minister misrepresents me. At no stage did I say that I was opposed to assistance-- The PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order. Senator WALSH —The honourable senator wants to see the North Queensland shipping yards in Cairns closed down and the Massey-Ferguson (Aust) Ltd cane harvester factory closed down. Government senators-Shame! Senator WALSH —It is indeed shameful that an honourable senator who purports to represent Queensland wants to see all those major industries closed down. Of course, there are many more that I cannot recall at the moment. Senator Boswell referred to a report, if I heard him correctly, in the Financial Times. I suppose that he meant the Australian Financial Review. I have not had time to read it this morning. I have not seen that report. I will return to the other point of his question. It contained two real points. One was that he wants to see the heavy engineering industry in Queensland and everywhere else closed down, and the other concerned sugar. There are at least two reasons why the Government has taken up the policy that it has regarding underwriting assistance for the sugar industry. The first is that a major cause of the problems of the sugar industry is the fact that it has been regimented by the Queensland Government for decades in a manner which has prevented the industry from achieving the economies of scale for which its technical efficiency provides the potential. Secondly, the industry is almost entirely confined to Queensland. If it is not unique in that regard, it is almost unique. I said `almost entirely confined to Queensland' deliberately because a small part of the industry, about one per cent, is located in New South Wales. Instead of berating the Commonwealth Government for its generous offer to the sugar industry, Senator Boswell ought to berate the State Government of Queensland for failing to do what the New South Wales Government has done-match the Commonwealth contribution, $1 for $2, in the way that the Commonwealth required. The New South Wales Government has agreed to match the Commonwealth contribution in the required manner; the Queensland Government has not. The Government out of the three governments involved which has something to answer for is the Queensland Government, not the Commonwealth Government or the New South Wales Government. We also know that Queensland's Minister for Primary Industries, Mr Turner, agrees with the Commonwealth about this matter. The Queensland agriculture Minister wants to match the Commonwealth's offer in the way the Commonwealth requires but, as Mr Kerin said, Mr Turner gets cut off at the knees every time by the Premier of Queensland. It is about time that the Queensland people and those in Senator Boswell's Party started thinking about getting rid of that vexatious geriatric who cuts Mr Turner off at the knees-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to withdraw that remark. Senator WALSH —I am sorry, Mr President. I withdraw that. The Queensland Premier cuts Mr Turner off at the knees and prevents the sugar industry from receiving the assistance which the Commonwealth has offered. Senator VALLENTINE —I ask the Minister for Resources and Energy: Given the shocking disaster at the Chernobyl reactor involving what seems to have been a partial meltdown and the appalling record of radiation leakages and accidents on board both the United States and Soviet ships and submarines to which I referred in my speech yesterday, will the Minister inform the Senate what plans exist in the event of a reactor accident in Western Australia, where many United States nuclear-powered warships come on port calls? Does the Minister believe that in light of the dangers from nuclear power and when the experts clearly have no idea how to handle a serious accident, Australia should follow the example of New Zealand and ban all nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed warships from our ports? Senator GARETH EVANS —The Government's position on access by nuclear-capable ships and nuclear-powered ships to Australian ports is perfectly well known. Nothing that has happened in the Soviet Union in the last week, let alone anything that may have been said by Senator Vallentine in her speech yesterday, has led the Government to reconsider that position. However, I will explain with some precision what the situation is on visits of nuclear-powered warships to Australian ports to set at rest any fears that might be held as a result of agitation from those such as Senator Vallentine who want to make capital out of the tragedy at Chernobyl and to make clear that there is no ground for concern as far as our existing procedures are concerned. Nuclear-power warship visits to Australia must take place in accordance with the conditions of entry which were first laid down in 1976, reviewed in 1982 and affirmed by me in the Senate on 15 December 1983. The condition relevant to safety planning is that an operating safety organisation, competent to conduct a suitable radiation-monitoring program and able to initiate actions and provide services necessary to safeguard the public in the event of a release of radioactivity following an accident, must exist for the port being visited. That is the basic rule. The way that it applies is that each Australian port which has been assessed as being suitable on environmental and safety grounds to host nuclear-powered warship visits has a safety plan designed to address all aspects of routine and emergency matters associated with them. This plan is prepared and, where necessary, implemented by a State or Territory nuclear-powered warship visits committee which includes representatives from the police, emergency services, port authorities, health and environmental organisations. There are about another eight or nine points, Mr President. It is quite a lengthy answer. I do not know whether Senator Vallentine wants me to go on, or whether she would be happy for me to incorporate it in Hansard. Senator Vallentine —Please go on. Senator GARETH EVANS —The honourable senator does not give me leave to incorporate it, so I will proceed. The committee liaises with appropriate local and Commonwealth authorities. The latter assists in the provision of overall guidelines and advises on safety plans, radiation monitoring assistance, and co-ordination through the National Disasters Organisation of any additional Commonwealth support that is necessary. Safety plans vary in accordance with local conditions and administrative arrangements. However, they generally include arrangements for radiation monitoring and protection, co-ordination of emergency services, evacuation, public information and the removal of the vessel to a remote safe location. Nuclear weapons accidents are managed within the general control of emergency plans for accidents involving warships. This is undertaken in the knowledge that safety precautions taken on board visiting warships effectively preclude the possibility of an accidental nuclear detonation and that our main concern is the release of radioactive material from other causes, such as fire. The responsibility for such plans rests in the first instance with the port authorities, naval or civil. These are integrated into and supported by State and Territory emergency services, with Commonwealth support if necessary. Every port in Australia is covered by such arrangements. These plans generally provide for a graduated response relying in the first instance on the safety design features and crew expertise available in modern warships. Should this be insufficient, the resources of the port emergency service, with its State, Territory and Commonwealth support, are utilised. The emergency procedures adopted would be generally similar to those that I described a moment ago for nuclear-powered warships. I would emphasise that there is a specific requirement for captains of vessels to inform port authorities immediately of an accident or incident involving a nuclear weapon or a nuclear reactor. The incident would also be reported immediately to the home base of the visiting vessel, and we would expect appropriate assistance to be provided. I would also emphasise once again that these plans address a remote contingency. While a wide range of foreign warships, including nuclear-powered warships, have visited Australia, there has never been an accident involving the weapons or the nuclear propulsion systems on board these vessels while in an Australian port. The radiation monitoring procedures activated by Australia during nuclear-powered warship visits have never revealed any leakage of radiation from any of these vessels. Senator VALLENTINE —I ask a supplementary question. The Minister has not given an answer about exactly what the emergency procedures are. It is very difficult to obtain this information from the State authorities. Why are such plans secret if people need to know what to do in the case of an emergency? How can they be expected to know what to do if such plans are secret? There would be absolute and total chaos in the case of an accident. Senator GARETH EVANS —I believe that I have given a great deal of information in the course of my answer today. If there is any other information that the Minister for Defence feels able to provide to Senator Vallentine along the lines she has indicated, I will bring it to his attention in order that he can make that decision. Senator WATSON —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. With the reduction in revenue to government due to the downturn in oil prices, certain changes to the tax package and, in the words used by Senator Button earlier, some of the effects of the fringe benefits tax being highly speculative, will the Government still provide personal tax reductions as promised and in accordance with the program as previously scheduled? Senator WALSH —As far as I know, the answer to that is yes, but I will refer the question to the Treasurer for confirmation. I want to make one point arising from the question. Senator Watson referred to the reduction in oil revenues. It is true that there is some reduction in revenue because of the falling oil price. I cannot recall off the top of my head just what the estimate for that is for next year. The honourable senator referred also to other questions about the tax package. We do not know at this stage-threatening noises keep coming from across the aisle about opposition or amendment to the various elements of the tax reform package which will provide the revenue to provide the tax cuts. Let it be known that, if the taxation package is sabotaged by the Opposition in the Senate to the point where it is impossible to deliver the income tax cuts which the Government has promised, the responsibility for that will rest fairly and squarely with members of the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and the Australian Democrats. Senator SIBRAA —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs aware of Press reports that the United Nations is facing a severe financial crisis and that this is likely to affect its operation substantially? Can the Minister advise the extent of the financial crisis presently faced by the United Nations? In the face of this crisis, will the Government reaffirm its commitment to the maintenance of the United Nations and to its many worthwhile programs? Senator GARETH EVANS —On 28 April-that is, Monday of this week-the United Nations General Assembly resumed its 1985 session for one week at the request of the Secretary-General to consider the very real financial crisis that is facing the United Nations. The crisis has arisen after many years in which a growing number of member states of the United Nations have failed to pay in full their assessed contributions to the regular budget. Their arrears totalled $US242m at the end of 1985 and fully committed the financial reserves of the organisation. Further shortfalls in payments of assessed contributions in 1986 will place the United Nations in danger of not being able to carry out its approved work program or meet its financial obligations. At 31 March this year only 16 states, of which Australia was one, had paid their contributions for 1986 and owed no debt. Separately, arrears in payments for the United Nations peace-keeping operations totalled some $US275m. The Secretary-General described the financial crisis facing the organisation as a threat to the viability of the United Nations and its present and future effectiveness. He noted that restoration of the financial stability of the United Nations in the longer term required member states to address fundamental issues related to the budgetary process. The Secretary-General has proposed a package of short term cost saving measures, likely to save $US76m in 1986, and indications from New York are that that package will be accepted today when the resumed session is due to conclude. As to Australia's attitude, this country, as a committed supporter of the United Nations and a major contributor to the budget-its contribution this year being $US16m-is actively involved in the resumed session. Australia is not, however, uncritical of the United Nations, its effectiveness, and its budgetary and administrative performance. We believe that a process of review and reform is urgently required and have made plain our views in this regard. Addressing the General Assembly on 29 April, the Australian permanent representative to the United Nations made the following points: That Australia has a strong and steadfast commitment to the United Nations and the multilateral system; that Australia wants the United Nations to emerge stronger and more effective from the current crisis; that withholding of payment of assessed contributions by member states is contrary to obligations under the United Nations charter; that late payments of assessed contributions contribute significantly to the financial instability of the United Nations; that important reforms are required to restore the financial stability and political credibility of the United Nations; and that the Secretary-General has not made sufficient effort to address some of the fundamental issues which underlie the financial crisis. I conclude by quoting Mr Woolcott's final remarks in this respect when he said: The resumed session provides an opportunity to begin the process of rebuilding consensus on the major budgetary issues. We need to consider what we most want the Organisation to do and how best to fund this. Australia is prepared to pull its weight and to play a positive role in this process. The United Nations is too important to us all, as the only truly international institution we have, to be allowed to wither away, or become enfeebled because of our inability to meet the challenge posed by the present financial crisis. If we fail to meet this challenge we shall all lose. I hope that the Opposition will take some appropriate opportunity to endorse those sentiments. There has been a regrettable absence of strong bipartisan support in recent times for the United Nations and its agencies. I think at a time like this it is appropriate that we act unanimously as a nation to support the kinds of views that are there set out. Senator MacGIBBON —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry. In the recent rural economic package reference was made to the creation of a new figure for taxation purposes for the value ascribed to natural increases in the stock of stud breeders. Precisely how will this new figure be determined? Senator WALSH —I believe that this is a Treasury question rather than a primary industry question. I will answer what I believe to be the case, but I cannot guarantee the accuracy. I will answer the question with the caveat `subject to confirmation by the Treasurer or perhaps further details by the Treasurer'. Firstly, for those who do not know it, it is customary for livestock to have imputed to it a taxation value at the end of each financial year-a value for tax purposes as a sort of trading stock valuation. There are arbitrarily determined figures for various types of livestock-it is something like $1 for sheep, $5 for a cow and perhaps something like $10 for a horse. Senator Gareth Evans —How much for a Ronnie Boswell? Senator WALSH —How much for a goat? I do not know. The proposition, as I understand it, is that that figure will have to be at least equal to the fee paid for the stud stock service or, in the case of, say, a racehorse or a sheep, the tax value put on the stock at the end of the year must be at least equal to the price paid for the ram which sired the sheep. Senator MacGibbon —Will you repeat the last sentence please? Senator WALSH —The value placed on each lamb at 30 June would have to be at least equal to the price paid for the ram which sired the lambs. That is subject to confirmation, but I think it is basically the change which is proposed. Senator MacGIBBON —I ask a supplementary question. In a stud herd where one is breeding from a line and has not purchased the sire or the dam and it is not customary to charge a service fee for the stallion or the bull, how would this figure be arrived at? Senator WALSH —My understanding is that under those circumstances it would not apply. Senator COLEMAN —Has the Minister for Veterans' Affairs been made aware of a rumour circulating at least in the veteran community that totally and permanently incapacitated pensioners have been called in by the Department of Veterans' Affairs for medical reviews for the purpose of assessing continuing eligibility to receive a totally and permanently incapacitated pension? Can the Minister advise whether these medical reviews are actually taking place or whether there is any basis for that rumour? Senator GIETZELT —There is absolutely no truth in the rumours that have been circulating in one or two States suggesting that there is to be some change in the criteria relating to the granting or otherwise of the totally and permanently incapacitated pension. I have no idea who is responsible for such an ill-founded contention, nor do I understand the motivation of those using such scaremongering tactics. Unfortunately, in the political process political point scoring takes place in the Parliament from time to time and all sorts of statements are made, but some people then want to extend that point scoring to give credence to statements and rumours which really create concern amongst the very group in the Australian community that ought to be protected from such scaremongering. The present TPI criteria have been operating since 6 June 1985 following the May economic statement. At that time the Acting Minister for Veterans' Affairs in the debate on the second reading to the then Veterans' Entitlements Bill gave assurances that no presently entitled veteran receiving a disability pension or war widow would be affected by any changes in the Veterans' Entitlements Bill. I emphasised that again in my recent second reading speech but despite the assurances that the Government and my representative in the House of Representatives have given these rumours continue to gain some credence. Under the Veterans' Entitlements Bill there is a specific legislative provision to ensure that a veteran is not disadvantaged by the application of the provisions of the Veterans' Entitlements Bill in respect of a pension that was granted before the Veterans' Entitlements Act came into operation. One can only say that there is absolutely no truth that any person will be affected by the recent legislation. I deprecate any attempts that are made by rumour mongers to create confusion and concern in the ranks of veterans. Senator NEWMAN —Can the Minister for Resources and Energy confirm that the compensation to be paid under the Oil Companies (Stock Loss Reimbursement) Bill is intended to minimise stock losses caused by government action? Is it correct that there is no plan to reimburse retailers in any way for their losses caused by the Government's action? As the Government has declared that the retailers' potential for stock losses is a great deal less than for refiners, are we to understand that the Government is concerned only with the problems of big business? Senator GARETH EVANS —The question is based on a false premise; that is to say, that retailers have suffered significant stock losses as a result of the changing and rapidly declining import parity price of oil. That is simply not the case. They have a much faster throughput of refined product in the service stations than is the case with refineries, where the time taken for crude oil to come into one end and go out the other end is something like two months and where revaluations of the amount of stock involved do have massive financial implications. For retailers, depending on the volumes and turnover of their sales and so on, the periods are much less than that. It is the case that price adjustments are usually made by arrangement between the refiners and the retailers in such a way as to ensure that no loss at all is incurred by the retailer. That is certainly my understanding. It is a bit more complex than that to spell it out. I will provide a more detailed answer if it seems to me to be appropriate to do so when I have had a further look at that question. But it is my understanding that nobody has suffered any significant losses at the retail level and, as such, the question of compensation does not arise. Senator McKIERNAN —Has the attention of the Minister for Finance been drawn to an article in this morning's Business Review Weekly detailing the Northern Territory Government's bankrolling of Mr Jay Pendarvis's Mudginberri abattoir in the Northern Territory? If so, can the Minister comment on the contents of that article? Senator WALSH —I have seen the article referred to published in today's Business Review Weekly. The information in it is, I might observe, entirely consistent with information which came my way some time ago, but not from the Business Review Weekly. Basically what it says is that last year Mr Pendarvis, the abattoir's proprietor, was advanced all but $8,000 of a $1m item which appeared in the Northern Territory Budget. It came through the Minister for Primary Production, Mr Hatton. The authority is called the Agricultural Development and Marketing Authority and its budget is supposed to provide incentives for growers and farmers to market their produce with advance payments, but, as I said, all but $8,000 of the $1m was advanced to Mr Pendarvis. When the Authority ran out of funds, the Northern Territory Government contacted Westpac to inquire whether the bank would advance $2m to Pendarvis against a government guarantee. The bank agreed and a memorandum was signed by Mr Hatton and Mudginberri abattoirs which required Mudginberri to pursue damages claims against the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union. Mr Tuxworth signed the government guarantee to Westpac on the $2m advance from Westpac. Eight weeks later the Northern Territory Government announced that its $1.3 billion account would transfer from the Reserve Bank to Westpac, so it looks as if there was a bit of a trade-off there as well. As well as the trade-offs between the territorial government and Mr Pendarvis there was another trade-off-or a sleazy, under the table deal, if you like-between the Government and Westpac. The editor of Business Review Weekly, Mr Simpson, said on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation this morning: We think there are a number of very important questions which need answering. He further said: . . . there should be some form of judicial inquiry into the whole Mudginberri situation. Some people would probably add to that that there should be a much wider ranging judicial inquiry into administration by the Northern Territory Government in general. Finally, I think it is worth noting that Mr Howard said that he would like to see a thousand Mudginberris. If that were to happen, it would add between $1 billion and $3 billion to the $1.5 billion in extra expenditure which Mr Howard has already promised in his irresponsible spending spree. Senator PARER —I address my question to Senator Grimes in the absence of the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I refer the Minister to comments made by the Prime Minister in his speech at the Australian Mining Industry Council dinner last night in which he claimed that inflation was likely to decline in the near future partly because of what he called the circuit breaker of the expected delay in the payment of the current wage case. I ask the Minister: Is this not an admission by the Prime Minister that wage indexation is the major direct cause of an inflation rate which has never before compared so badly with our trading partners as it does today. Is it not also an admission of the folly of the Australian Labor Party and Australian Council of Trade Unions accord and the current ACTU claim for a 3 per cent productivity rise which everyone knows Australia cannot afford? Senator GRIMES —Unlike Senator Parer, I have yet to read the Prime Minister's speech. Senator Withers —Shame! Senator GRIMES —I am a little like Senator Withers. I do not read everything that comes in. Senator Withers says he does not read the newspapers, but he seems to know a fair bit about it. I am always surprised when Senator Parer and others in this place get up and attack the accord. The accord has been the linchpin of the Government's economic policy in the last three years, and I point out to Senator Parer that it has been a very successful economic policy. From the look of the polls in the Australian this week and the Bulletin last week, the majority of the Australian people agree with that. The accord has meant that we have changed the economy from the situation that existed before we got in, where 300,000 people had just been added to the unemployment list, where inflation was at a record level, where there was a general feeling of despair in the community, and where the business community would not invest. That economic policy, of which I say the accord is the linchpin, has resulted in wages holding at a much better level than the previous Government was capable of when we had that extraordinary expansion of wages in the early 1980s, and it continues to be successful. It is only people like Senator Parer who take the isolated view that when in Opposition one knocks everything the Government does, regardless of what the Government does. That sort of approach is one of the reasons why I recommend to him that he look at the polls in the Australian last week and the Bulletin the week before and think about why his Party is in the situation it is at the moment. Senator PARER —I have a supplementary question. I refer the Minister to the remarks by the Prime Minister that inflation is likely to climb because the delay in the payment of the wage case is the circuit breaker. Is this not an admission that wage indexation is a direct cause of the inflation rate? Senator GRIMES —No, I do not think it is anything of the sort. I am sure the Prime Minister did not say that that was the only reason that inflation would come down. I will read the Prime Minister's speech and if I have been unkind to Senator Parer I will come back and say so. Senator CHILDS —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment. Has the Kurnell Peninsula on Botany Bay been zoned as a section 4 (c) (4) area under the New South Wales Planning and Environment Act? Would this permit companies like Bayer Australia Ltd and the Australian Gas Light Company, both of which have applications before the New South Wales Minister for Planning and Environment, to operate in this area? Could such operations be classified as noxious, toxic or hazardous under the terms of the Act? Is Australia a signatory to the 1971 Ramsar Convention on the protection of wetlands and is the Towra Point site on the Kurnell Peninsula such an area? How does this rezoning square with our obligations under the Convention? Senator RYAN —In June 1975 the Commonwealth Government purchased 281.8 hectares of freehold land at Towra Point at a cost of $3.85m for nature conservation purposes. The land was later transferred to New South Wales as part of a Commonwealth-State land exchange agreement on the understanding that it would be dedicated as a nature reserve under the New South Wales legislation. Towra Point Nature Reserve has been accepted as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. Australia is a party to that Convention. The area is also a significant habitat for migratory wading birds covered by the Japan-Australia migratory birds agreement. The Commonwealth has retained an interest in the area through participation of the National Parks and Wildlife Service on an advisory committee which advises on management of the Towra Point Nature Reserve. The Director of ANPWS recently wrote to the Director of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service nominating a representative on the new advisory committee that will cover all of the reserves in Botany Bay. The matter of zoning the land on the Kurnell Peninsula is the responsibility of the New South Wales Government. Advice will be sought from the New South Wales Minister for Environment and Planning on what decisions have been made and on what the effects are likely to be on areas of nature conservation significance. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Minister for Finance and follows his reply earlier in question time on the current account deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product and the claim he made today, which he has made before in the Senate, that it would never reach the level of 1981-82. Is the Minister aware that, according to the Federal Treasury figures contained in the Round-up of April 1986, in the first two quarters of this financial year the current account deficit as a percentage of GDP stood at 6.2 per cent and 6.8 per cent-an average of 6.5 per cent-which, of course, is worse than the 1981-82 result? Since there is little prospect of an improvement in the trade deficit and with an expected slow-down of GDP growth, does the Minister not agree that there is a very real prospect of the 1985-86 result for the whole year being worse than that of 1981-82, as it was worse in the first half of this financial year? Senator WALSH —I think Senator Chaney has answered his own question. He has quoted the figures for the first two quarters and then multiplied them by two to give what he believes to be the annual outcome. This shows that the Opposition has made little progress in understanding economic statistics since it used to multiply the Budget deficit for each month by 12 to calculate the annual deficit. I remember Mr Lynch, in particular, was very fond of doing that. He would multiply the Budget deficit by four at the end of the first quarter-this was in 1975, of course-and say that it was going to be $10 billion or $20 billion, or whatever was the first quarter figure multiplied by four. We now find that Senator Chaney has not made much progress since then in a different area. Senator COATES —I direct my question to the Minister for Resources and Energy. The Minister would be aware of the widespread complaints about the use of unleaded petrol in cars-the offensive smell and the effect on drivers' health, especially those who spend a high proportion of their day on the road. Can the Minister provide an up to date report on this matter? What can be done about it and what advice does he give to those who have to drive cars that run on ULP? Senator GARETH EVANS —It is true that in recent weeks there have been a number of complaints by Commonwealth car drivers, their passengers and the Automobile Association of Australia about hydrogen sulphide odours, or rotten egg gas, arising in cars running on unleaded petrol. The precise cause of the reported smell problem is not known at this stage. However, the New South Wales Pollution Control Commission has initiated laboratory investigations and environmental authorities have asked for an early report on the matter from the oil and motor industries. In addition, the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment, which I am pleased to say has the co-ordinating responsibility for this matter rather than my Department-I am the Minister for petrol prices, not the Minister for petrol pongs-is consulting with other departments to review the situation. I can say further that the problem does not appear to be caused directly by the fuel and is confined to vehicles with catalytic converter pollution controls. Standards for both leaded and unleaded grades of petrol have been published, I am told, by the Standards Association of Australia. These standards are in line with the best overseas refining practice and were determined after full consultation involving the oil and motor industries. So far, at least, there has been no suggestion that the quality of ULP supplied to the Australian market does not comply with the standard. The effect on odour of vehicle type, state of engine, tune, and engine and system design is still under investigation. I am afraid that while all that is happening I am unable to add any further advice as to how drivers should cope with potential health problems arising out of this or, for that matter, the psychological pressure that I expect they are under from new passengers getting into their cars and looking so often sideways at them. Senator COLLARD —My question is addressed to the Minister for Finance, and I refer to part of his answer to Senator Boswell's question earlier today. Would the Minister advise whether the help to North Queensland Engineers and Agents Pty Ltd in Cairns mentioned by him is to be the granting at last of the patrol boat contract promised by Mr Hawke when in Cairns prior to the 1983 election, or is the help to be because the promised contract was not forthcoming? Also, is the Minister aware that the Massey-Ferguson (Aust.) Ltd plant at Bundaberg that he accused Senator Boswell of not wanting to help has already closed down, because of this Government's disastrous economic policies, and the building is now used as an indoor cricket stadium? Senator WALSH —My earlier answer referred to Senator Boswell's obvious opposition to assistance for the heavy engineering industry. I just pointed out some of the consequences of that sort of policy for a number of engineering firms in Queensland if it were to be pursued. Senator JONES —Has the attention of the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs been drawn to an article in yesterday's edition of the Brisbane Courier-Mail which claimed that efforts are under way to establish sanctuaries in Queensland to harbour illegal immigrants in so-called safe houses throughout the State? Does the article quote an anonymous Brisbane solicitor as saying that illegal immigrants offered sanctuary would be those whom organisers consider to have been disadvantaged by tough immigration laws, with those seeking to escape political persecution in their own countries at the top of the list? As the so-called Queensland Movement is said to be linked with a Melbourne-based organisation comprising mainly church and social workers, I ask: What action can the Australian Government take to stamp out this threat to its orderly immigration laws and procedures? Senator GRIMES —There have been a number of recent Press reports, including the one referred to by Senator Jones in the Courier-Mail quoting an anonymous solicitor who claimed that an Australian group is being formed to give sanctuary to illegal immigrants in Australia, especially those `fleeing political persecution in their home countries'. Australia has a well-established and long-established and respected procedure for handling claims by people who arrive in Australia seeking refugee status. It is in the individual's interests to approach the appropriate authorities with any claims that he or she may have. I believe that it is in the interest of people such as members of Parliament, who sometimes get approached in this regard, to approach the Government. All claims are examined thoroughly and no one is deported while a claim is being processed. Applications are examined by the Determination of Refugee Status Committee. It is not a decision-making body, but it makes recommendations to the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. It is government policy not to discuss individual cases. This policy was designed many years ago to protect the individuals who are making claims. Illegal immigrants without refugee claims should be dealt with in accordance with the current legislative and policy provisions relevant to their situation, and the Australian Government simply cannot, as any previous government could not, condone queue-jumping of this type. People who knowingly break the law or encourage others to do so expose themselves to penalties under the Migration Act. It is to be noted that the Courier-Mail indicated that the Reverend Hall-Matthews, the Anglican Bishop of Carpentaria, had said that there was no need for anyone in Australia to panic about illegal immigrants; he warned that the sanctuary movement could jeopardise the future of West Irian refugees in the Torres Strait islands; and that he said that he considered that the Government had handled cases in a humanitarian way. Those people who might be thinking of establishing such illegal procedures would be well advised to take the advice of the Reverend Hall-Matthews and deal with this matter in a legal and sensible way. Senator GARETH EVANS —Earlier in Question Time today Senator Newman asked me a question about possible compensation for retailers for stock losses following reductions in oil prices. I have some further information which I think is appropriate to put on record. The first point I make in confirmation of what I said earlier on is that, whereas refiners' stocks are normally held for 50 to 60 days, city retailers' stock levels would last for only three to seven days, and in country areas about nine to 10 days. So the retailers' exposure to inventory losses is therefore much less than is the case for refiners. Some other points could be added. Retailers have had the option of running stock down in anticipation of the price fall each time that has occurred, not least because of the gap of a fortnight or so between the announcement of a reduction in import parity prices and the follow-on wholesale price reduction by the Prices Surveillance Authority. The extent that retailers could deplete their stock is dependent on their commercial judgments about the timing of deliveries of lower-priced products and the consequences of running out of supplies entirely. Their position, in this respect, is in marked contrast with that of the refiners, which, if they are to comply with the crude oil allocation scheme, are simply not free to exercise their commercial judgment about taking deliveries. The final point that I make is that petrol retailers, unlike refiner wholesalers, are not bound by the decisions of the Prices Surveillance Authority, which sets the maximum wholesale price of petroleum. So, subject, of course, to local competitive pressures, retailers are able to dispose of old stock at the retail price they consider appropriate, given market forces prevailing at the time. I do not doubt that there may have been some experience of small inventory losses around the place, but I reiterate the point I made earlier that those losses are really quite negligible and within the scope of ordinary criteria of commercial risk-quite unlike the situation confronting the refiners, which is the subject of the present legislation. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales) —Mr President, I claim to have been misrepresented, and I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Leave granted. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —On page 2188 of yesterday's Hansard, in response to a question from Senator Cook relating to the potentially profligate government spending involved in increasing the allowances of the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair), and his Deputy, the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt), the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, after his normal personal abuse of me, said: . . . Senator Baume replied that he regarded such money as well spent, which shows us that there is no limit to the self-indulgence of Senator Baume . . . This misrepresents the letter I sent to Senator Walsh, to which he was allegedly referring, in which I said: As such expenditure would assist in the removal from office of a government that has done so much damage to Australia through its fiscal laxity, monetary madness, interest rate mayhem, record balance of payments deficit and a trail of broken promises, no doubt any rational cost/benefit analysis would show the money to have been well spent. Senator BOSWELL(Queensland) —Mr President, I claim to have been misrepresented and I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Leave granted. Senator BOSWELL —The Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, in answer to my question at Question Time, implied that I called for the closing of heavy industry in Queensland. He mentioned Tofts Engineering Pty Ltd and a number of other industries. At no stage in my question did I say that I was against assistance to heavy industries or that I advocated the closing down of any industry in Queensland. I was merely comparing the assistance received by industries in Australian Labor Party electorates with the second-class treatment given to primary industries and country people. Senator Colston —That is the last time you'll get leave. I mean it, Ron. You are a fool. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I take a point of order. I ask you to ask the honourable senator to withdraw that. It was a disorderly interjection which should be withdrawn. The PRESIDENT —Order! I heard a noise, but I did not quite hear the interjection. If it was an offensive remark, I ask Senator Colston to withdraw it. Senator Colston —I withdraw what I said, Mr President. It was what one would call a reflex action, and I am sorry. Discharge from the Notice Paper Motion (by Senator Gietzelt)-by leave-agreed to: That Government Business, Order of the Day No. 24 (Trade Practices Amendment Bill 1985), be discharged from the Notice Paper. Debate resumed. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(3.10) —Before the lunch break I listed six specific concerns that I have about the operation of the community employment program. I asked the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) to give urgent consideration to these concerns and criticisms. The Minister seems to have become increasingly sensitive to criticism about the CEP and about individual CEP projects. I am amazed and very disturbed to learn that in recent days Mr Willis has directed that any information on CEP projects must be channelled through his office. Why has he issued this directive? What does he think might be disclosed? This is an extraordinary decision which raises the suspicions of honourable senators on this side of the chamber, and many in the outside community, about the operation and administration of the scheme. Senator Michael Baume —What about making us pay to get information under the Freedom of Information Act? Senator SHORT —That is right. We have to pay to get information which should be readily available publicly to any member of the community. The Minister should think again about this misguided direction. He should not lightly dismiss the criticisms which have been raised about the community employment program, not just by politicians but also by many people in the community. I am sorry to say that there is a growing distrust of the CEP in the electorate and that is not good for the scheme or, more importantly, for its intended beneficiaries. I wish to make some comments about the design of the program. The community employment program appears to have developed a momentum of its own. It appears to be unrelated to the Government's youth traineeship scheme and, if there is a lack of relationship there, this could lead to waste and duplication in administration. The Kirby Committee of Inquiry into Labour Market Programs brought down a report which led to the development of the traineeship scheme, but it specifically excluded from its study any research on the CEP. Hence the CEP does not appear to be integrated into the Hawke Government's other job schemes. The Government must tell the people of Australia how these two seemingly independent schemes will be made to work side by side. For example, are the on-the-job training programs of the CEP now redundant? Will CEP project workers be eligible for youth traineeships? I understand that all these questions are still up in the air. Certainly a large number of people in the community do not know the answers. In June last year Anthony King, of the social policy research unit of the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, made this claim: Measured against the program principles recommended by the Kirby report, the CEP does not stand up well. He also said that the CEP was: . . . not fully effective in assisting the most disadvantaged unemployed. Bishop Peter Hollingworth, who has taken a great and compassionate concern and interest in the problems of the long term unemployed, in his book Australians in Poverty, reinforces this view by pointing out the substantial reasons for long term unemployment. According to Bishop Hollingworth, 74 per cent of the long term unemployed in Australia are unemployed because of special disabilities. It is cruel to portray the CEP as being able to assist these unemployed people, especially when one considers the nature of some CEP projects-building swimming pools, assisting in laboratories, surveys, market research and the like. Anthony King also said in his 1985 study: The CEP focuses on the needs of project sponsors, rather than prospective individual participants, with project design and approval occurring in advance of recruitment from the eligible unemployed. In only a few cases under the job creation schemes have projects been designed with close consideration of the needs of individuals. This analysis points to an urgent need to integrate the more legitimate aspects of the CEP into the traineeship scheme and other related schemes. Quite frankly, the CEP appears to be a juggernaut with its own mindless self-serving momentum and the result is a chaotic waste of taxpayers' funds in many instances. The figures prove that the CEP is making little impact on the long term unemployed and pockets of unemployment are as entrenched as ever. I mentioned that before lunch. The recent report by the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, entitled `CEP-the second year', merely crunches numbers to show how certain targets are met. There is no real attempt to look behind the screen and show us what is really going on. It seems that we are forced to turn to magazines such as the Bulletin and private research to gain a real feel for the way in which the program is going off the rails. About 18,500 projects have been approved or will be approved in the first 30 months of the CEP. That involves $1.3 billion. This is a massive amount of money and it raises the question of whether the projects are adequately monitored. My office has been informed that it is not unusual for a CEP project officer to have 70 schemes to supervise at the one time. This may well be the reason for the widespread problems that are being reported because obviously it is impossible for any person to administer 70 projects efficiently in that way. As a result of constituent concern my office studied in detail the largest CEP project in Victoria-the Footscray Swim Centre project-and found that contrary to the explicit guidelines set out in the document `CEP-the second year' there were many abuses. For example, the official sponsor was apparently not capable of managing the approved project but the guidelines say that official sponsors must be capable. The sponsor had not spent three quarters of its proposed contribution, despite raising a public loan for the project. The project had extended over 32 months, well beyond the maximum period of 12 months, and is still very far from completed. I am sorry, I think that that figure of 32 months is a mistake; I think the timescale is more like 18 to 20 months. Failure to meet the general CEP requirements could result in suspension or termination of the grant for the Footscray project, yet the Minister seems little concerned to call the sponsor to account. That may be because this project is in his own electorate and it may be because the apparent sponsor is a Labor controlled council. How often have the abuses been detailed and acted upon in other projects? The Minister should make it an urgent priority to ensure an open and public audit of the larger CEP projects. At the heart of the CEP's problems is the Government's frantic desire to find jobs to sponsor. It seems that any job would appear suitable. Local councils and State governments are using CEP funds as a source of revenue for projects that should be carried out in the normal course of their own duties. CEP funds are being used to underwrite their own budgets and are a way of avoiding a more restrained approach to expenditure. On top of that, private organisations have made a profession of approaching councils with proposals for certain projects, and I think that Senator Jessop will probably give some example of that. It is doubtful whether many of these projects are of benefit to the community. The Minister should be concerned about this developing practice of companies spruiking for business. Additionally, funds are being directed towards subsidising certain lifestyles, often with political overtones, and many of these have been financially disastrous. Many have also been in areas that are more the normal requirement of State government financing. In my own area of Victoria-in Mr Willis's electorate-one of the local newspapers, the Mail, recently claimed that $8m given under the CEP for beautification along rivers and creeks in the area was `a flop, and a fiasco'. The paper blamed bureaucratic bungling. Fences built have since fallen down and weeds have overgrown the areas because of a lack of ongoing maintenance. In addition to this $8m, there is the cost of the Footscray swimming pool project that I have mentioned, bringing the total to about $10m with virtually no community benefit at this stage. Funds have been handed over to fringe political groups with little or no job-making potential. In conclusion, I repeat my initial comments in this debate that the Opposition does not oppose the extension for three years of the CEP scheme as proposed in this Bill. However, I and other Opposition speakers both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives have raised serious issues of concern in the interests of the supposed beneficiaries of the CEP scheme, namely, the long term unemployed. They are genuine complaints, criticisms and concerns. I believe that the Government will be sadly failing in its duty if it does not pursue these issues as a matter of urgency. Senator JESSOP(South Australia)(3.21) —I join this debate in order to highlight some of my concerns about the community employment program as we know it today. This, I think is the third generation employment scheme that Australia has been subjected to. The first was the regional employment development scheme, which was introduced during the Whitlam years, at a time when the number of unemployed youth in particular mushroomed, to a very large extent due to the Whitlam excesses and maladministration of that time. Another scheme was known as the SUR scheme-the special unemployment relief scheme-the object of which was to provide temporary employment relief. Now we are dealing with the community employment program. Any government and the people of Australia believe that unemployment is a scourge on our community, and successive governments have done their best to introduce schemes that provide some opportunity for the unemployed to obtain employment, even if it is on a temporary scale, with the hope that this could lead to more permanent occupation. Job opportunities will not be created until the Government understands that the high cost of socialist governments are preventing any real recovery in the private sector. That, of course, is where the job opportunities should be created. At the same time, intolerable pressures are growing within the community for the unemployed to be made to work for the dole. The CEP scheme is a pilot scheme for any national work-for-dole scheme. The Government will eventually have to implement something a little more permanent if unemployment is to be overcome under its administration. These pressures are such that many young people have come to me in recent times and suggested that they would be interested even in national service as a means of occupying themselves, gaining better work experience and perhaps learning a trade. Those benefits, of course, are available through the armed forces, but that is another matter. However, this highlights the concern that exists in the community with respect to this problem. In the light of what I have said, let us examine the CEP as a pilot scheme. The first deduction must be that the scheme is inefficient and fails either to cure unemployment or to train the unemployed in sound work practices. Of course, the nature of the scheme is such that those who have been unemployed for the longest period are employed in the first stages. Quite frequently, unfortunately, these people are in the unemployeable category and do not last for very long on these projects. As a result, we find that we are not getting the full value that we would hope for for the work input. Councils and others have told me that it takes several months before they can get a stable, reasonably efficient work force under this system. So there are problems that we have to expect in a scheme of this nature. I notice that local government is involved in a lot of these projects. I am concerned that much of the work is done at this level. It is not that I am suggesting that all councils cannot cope with it, but some find difficulty in doing so. They do not have the technical know-how and the resources to exercise effective financial control in order to guarantee the successful completion of such projects. I am not saying that that applies to every council, because some of them can cope and do it quite well. This was highlighted by Senator Vanstone this morning when she referred to representations that have been made to her from the Hawker District Council indicating that it is not interested in the CEP scheme for the reasons that I have suggested. Senator Maguire criticised me for raising questions related to the operation of Trojan Owen and Associates Pty Ltd. That matter arose because of comments made to me following Senator Short's raising of the matter-he has repeated this today-of the Footscray Swim Centre. I asked a question whether it is a fact that Trojan Owen and Associates has in some instances obtained preferential and privileged information from Federal and/or State departments involved in the CEP about intending projects of some potential sponsor organisations. I went on to ask: Has it been the first and sometimes only company to approach such sponsor organisations offering its services before the project has even been approved? I did that in good faith because I wanted to clear this matter up. I have had complaints about this matter levelled at me through my office, and I felt it was fair enough for me to ask the Government to give me information on that matter. Senator Walsh in reply said: I am sure Senator Jessop will be surprised to know that I cannot remember the answers to all those questions. In fact, I cannot remember all the questions. Answers should be obtainable for most of them, I think, and I will try to get them. That was on 14 March. Now we are into May and I still have not had any clarification on the points that I raised. We are all familiar with the Footscray Swim Centre to which Senator Short has referred. In South Australia we are all familiar with the surfacing at a cost of just over $5m of two kilometres of road through the Unley district not far from where I live. I believe that this is the tip of the iceberg. The expenditure of $5m for two kilometres of road seems to me to be extraordinary. I believe that in excess of 150 people were employed on that project, and I heard that at least one of them has obtained full time employment as a result of it. I want to give one or two examples. The first concerns the Adelaide Central Mission. This mission obtained $541,000 to modify the mission building. The mission was required to provide a further $433,000, making a total of $974,000. The first floor of the mission now looks like a bomb site. The money has run out and there is no more money available to complete the project. A further $140,000 is needed to complete the project and the mission, being the sponsor, will have to find that money. The mission did not have the professional experience to plan or supervise that project or another one in which it was involved at Kuitpo Colony, which is managed by the Mission. Therefore it turned to a firm which came into business to become involved with the regional employment development scheme initially, and now the community employment program scheme. Other firms are in the same business, but the Central Mission chose to employ Trojan Owen and Associates Pty Ltd for a fee of approximately $172,000 for the two projects. Other projects with which Trojan Owen has been associated and for which fees have been paid are at the Linear Reserve at Taperoo Beach and the redevelopment of the war memorial at a total cost of $750,000, of which the CEP fund contribution was $500,000 and the fee to Trojan Owen was about $85,000; Victor Harbor District Council indoor recreation centre; Hindmarsh River development; restoration work at Waipinga; and restoration work on the Bluff. The total cost of those projects is $2.13m, with the CEP fund contribution being over $1m and fees to the supervising company of $222,000. It is fair to say that with respect to those projects the Town Clerk of Victor Harbor stated that this particular firm is the best operator of CEP projects in his experience and it was singularly successful at Victor Harbor. The Noarlunga City Council was involved as sponsors in the Onkaparinga Estuary conservation and development project stage 1 at a total cost of $1.2m, with a CEP contribution of $775,000 and between 8 and 10 per cent of the total cost, or $110,000, going to the supervising company. The Burnside City Council was involved in the redevelopment of the Chelsea Theatre indoor sporting complex-a project to which Senator Maguire referred-at a cost of $1.8m, with a CEP contribution of $1.2m and fees of about 8 per cent, or $138,000, going to the supervising contractor. I have seen the Chelsea Theatre and the company did an excellent job there. It refurbished the theatre and retained the character of the original building, which is quite a commendable achievement. However, that project went over budget. Such cost is usually expected to be found by the sponsor, in this case the Burnside City Council. I understand that Senator Maguire is a ratepayer of that Council. It is interesting to note that one CEP worker on the Chelsea Theatre project is still on workmen's compensation two years after the completion of the project. Another CEP project is the Memorial Drive Tennis Club public administration building and club facilities, at a total cost of $500,000, with a CEP contribution of $340,000 and a fee to Trojan Owen of $45,000, which is roughly 8 to 10 per cent. It took a long time for this project to get under way. No skilled advice was available, according to the reports I have received from the Commonwealth Employment Service, and the job was completed for $200,000 over budget. I understand that the supervising company had an employee visit the site occasionally, the site foreman having been employed by the company through the CES. The Noarlunga City Council Onkaparinga Estuary conservation and development stage 2 project cost is $1.6m. That project is awaiting CEP funding, but the fee to Trojan Owen is to be about 10 per cent or $160,000. The Adelaide City Council scheme for the River Torrens enhancement has a total cost of $750,000. I am not sure what the CEP contribution will be, but the fee charged by Trojan Owen will be 8 to 10 per cent or $60,000. This project has been postponed, I understand, because of other work on the site. From these jobs alone Trojan Owen has received something of the order of $820,000. The firm has been doing this sort of work since about 1978. I have been told that Mr Eric Trojan left the firm in 1979, but Mr Owen has kept the company name. Mr Don Owen is known in Adelaide as an ideas man, in that he is very good at creating projects and doing all the paper work necessary for an application to be submitted under the CEP. He has done some very valuable work in that respect. However, I have been given to understand that once a project has approval and has started only one or two employees of the company supervising the project monitor the project, and this is carried out on a part time basis while other projects are being initiated. I understand also from what I have been told that the firm normally carries out more than one project at a time, which puts added strain on its ability to supervise these projects. Another example I would like to give deals with a yabbie farm that has been started for the Gerard Reserve Aboriginal community in the Riverland. The Gerard Reserve community was approached by Mr Owen of Trojan Owen and Associates with a proposal to build this yabbie farm if the community could get CEP funds. The proposal was that Trojan Owen was to do all the work on the project. With the support of the Aboriginal Development Commission, the community succeeded in getting approval from the CEP secretariat in Adelaide and the relevant State and Federal departments. Prior to getting approval, Trojan Owen and the Aboriginal Development Commission wrote to the State Department of Fisheries outlining the proposal and asking for its technical comment on it. The Department of Fisheries said that it looked like a good project but pointed to a need for a lot of preparatory work and feasibility studies to be carried out before it went ahead and got approval. That was in June 1983. The next that the Department of Fisheries heard of the project was when the announcement was made in a newspaper in September 1983 that the project had the approval for funding and that it would proceed under the responsibility of the Department of Fisheries. That was news to the Department, because it had not been asked to do a feasibility study or to contribute anything further since June 1983. The initial CEP funding was $434,000 and the Aboriginal Development Commission contributed a total of $104,000, consisting of half loan and half grant. The low interest loan was to be paid back once the yabbie farm started to make revenue. These funds were given to the Gerard Reserve Council and it employed Trojan Owen to manage the project. Since the Department of Fisheries was publicly forced to shoulder some of the responsibility for the project, even though at that stage it had had no input, it pushed for the establishment of a review group to monitor the progress of the project. Mr Don Owen of Trojan Owen was made chairman of this review group. The Department of Fisheries was very concerned that it could not get this review group to hold enough meetings. From September 1983 to January 1985, when the review group folded, it met on only three occasions. Once approval for the project was given, money had to be spent by certain dates to fulfil the employment obligations under the CEP guidelines. This meant that Trojan Owen was virtually designing the project as it went along. According to the Department of Fisheries, no in-depth feasibility study had been carried out. Engineering problems were encountered on the project and one of the yabbie hatcheries fell down during construction. Apparently it was lucky that no one was injured as a result. It is not surprising that the project fell behind schedule and eventually ran out of money. The Aboriginal Development Commission told the project sponsors and the various Government departments that it could not afford to grant any more money for further construction costs. The State Department of Labour and the Commonwealth Department of Employment and Industrial relations, which run the CEP, decided to top-up the $434,000 already given to the project. Apparently, the total funds designated for this as yet uncompleted project are approaching $700,000. The future of the project currently is under review and Trojan Owen has not played any further part in it since work has come to a halt. The remaining funds have been held back until this review has been completed. The Aboriginal Development Commission employed an independent engineering firm to find out how much more money would be needed to complete this project. The State Department of Labour and the Commonwealth Department of Employment and Industrial Relations also asked the Commonwealth Department of Housing and Construction to undertake a review of the project. It is now at the stage where someone has to make a decision as to whether more money should be granted to complete the project or whether they should cut their losses and give up the project altogether. No doubt the Gerard Reserve Aboriginal community is not too impressed with how it has all turned out. The Department of Fisheries does not want any part of this disaster since it was never formally or actively involved in the project, regardless of what the newspaper announcement to which I referred earlier said. The CEP secretariat has been asking Trojan Owen for financial and other information relating to the project because the Gerard Reserve Council accepted directions from the project managers, Trojan Owen, once funds were approved. Apparently, engineers from Canberra have visited the site and suggested that a few hundred thousand dollars would be needed to complete stage I and to get it operating. Mr Owen was responsible for employing a civil engineer to do the original design work and costings. At the moment the Gerard Reserve Council is left with six or seven big holes in the ground and one or two sheds. At the time of this project Trojan Owen apparently had several other projects under its supervision. Although I have mentioned this firm, Trojan Owen, because it has had some publicity as a result of Senator Short's interest, other management consultants are available in South Australia. Apparently one in particular has a special relationship with some of the staff of the CEP secretariat. In South Australia one such firm specialising in education facilities has been created, I understand with some contact with the State Department of Education. That Department laid down procedures whereby each project was to obtain technical approval from the construction authority, the State Department of Housing and Construction, and the Education Department. In at least two cases both the Education Department and the construction authority were bypassed and the CEP secretariat funded the project. I am told that both projects are technically and financially in a mess. It is no wonder that we are concerned about the way this scheme is being carried out. I will cite one more example of matters that are giving me concern. Under Mr Uren's Department of Local Government and Administrative Services, I understand that the Torrens River banks are being cleaned up as part of the natural areas enhancement scheme. The State Insurance Office was asked to provide workmen's compensation cover and demanded 43 per cent of the labour costs as a premium because of the lack of compensation history of projects undertaken by that Department. That premium of 43 per cent of labour costs is horrendous. It must be asked why Mr Uren's Department has to run this scheme. The insurance for the building trades in South Australia, for example, in 1982-83 was about 3.4 per cent of labour costs, and for the metal trades was about 4 per cent. The average for CEP projects was 14 per cent during that year, which is high enough. I have talked about local government before and, generally speaking, local government does not want to be involved with workers compensation because of its experience up to now. If local government and project managers are not properly supervising CEP jobs then bad work practices are likely to occur and, certainly, compensation claims greater than normally must be expected. The pattern in respect of workers compensation claims is as follows: When the job begins it takes a little while for those who must be offered the work under the rules to start the job. As I have stated before, sometimes they fall by the wayside. The work force then settles down, but when completion of the job is in sight CEP employees sometimes drop out, claiming injury. That has happened in many instances. I referred to the case of the CEP worker involved with the Chelsea Theatre who was still receiving workers compensation after two years. I do not believe that the community employment program is properly administered because it is not properly structured, the correct controls are lacking and, I am told, there are problems that ought to be looked at and overcome. We in the Opposition support the community employment program, but we must exert every effort to ensure that the scheme is more effective and more economic. I am sure that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Senator Gietzelt) would agree that the points I have raised are important. If we are wasting money, as I have suggested, and sponsors are required to find further finance because projects are going over the estimated cost, I think that inhibits the scheme and prevents its becoming successful. I am raising these matters in a very constructive sense and I hope that we will be able to get the Government to find some answers to the questions that were posed earlier by Senator Short and Senator Michael Baume, and to the points raised by me. Senator Short pointed out that his staff are having difficulty in getting any information either from the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, at regional or head offices, or from the CEP secretariat. Each inquiry is now referred to the Minister's office, who when approached states that there are three ways of obtaining information. The first is to write a letter requesting information. The second is to ask a question in the Senate. The third is to seek information through the Freedom of Information Act. I have sought the information I want through the Senate and I have asked a question of Senator Walsh. Six weeks later, I am still waiting for an answer. I now ask the Minister whether he will undertake to ensure that explicit answers are provided to the questions I have raised. In mentioning Trojan Owen in particular, I do not want to suggest that in every instance that company is not properly supervising those projects; it has been quite successful in regard to a number of them. However, I am afraid that in others there are reports to my office from various responsible sponsors that the supervision has not always been what it should be. I suggest that that might apply to other companies as well. I think the Department ought to provide a little more technical advice to the sponsors concerned and it ought to provide some assistance in respect of financial supervision of these various projects. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(3.50) —The Community Employment Amendment Bill essentially extends the program that has existed for some time through to 1989. Regrettably, this program will be needed as part of the general employment and welfare schemes until that time. The unemployment rate is hovering at about 8 per cent. According to the Treasurer (Mr Keating) and the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) this is unlikely to decline in the near future. Indeed, it is the Government's policy to restrict economic growth to about 3 per cent, which makes any decline in unemployment virtually impossible. Eight per cent unemployment represents almost 600,000 people. Those people, on December 1985 figures, have 217,000 dependent children. If one includes the spouses and children, the total number of persons dependent on unemployment benefits exceeds one million. It is also worth noting for those people who seem to believe that some people wish to rush on to unemployment benefits that the only category of unemployment benefit recipient above the poverty line is that of the unemployed person receiving the married benefit of $163.30. All other categories are below the poverty line. The difference between unemployment benefits and the poverty line is as much as $59.10 per week on the September quarter 1985 figures. We also know that those people who have to exist below the poverty line do so for a long time. Some 57 per cent of the unemployed have been so for more than six months, almost 200,000 of the unemployed have been so for longer than 12 months, and 105,000 have been unemployed for longer than two years. I do not think that it takes very much imagination to realise what that would do to an individual in our society and to the spouse and dependent children. However, we must recognise that the majority of long term casualties are in the 15 to 24-year-old age bracket. For a dangerously large proportion of our youth the will and confidence to work is being eroded by constant knock-backs and long periods of unemployment. Studies done overseas, where long term unemployment has been more endemic than in Australia, show that a long period of unemployment, even if followed by some employment, leaves a mark, so that those people who have generally been unemployed for more than 12 months, even if they find a job, on average are out of the work force again within a three to six-month period. In other words, it is not just a matter of finding a job for young people; it is a matter of being able to build the confidence in those young people to give them the courage and the view ahead to enable them to keep going and to give them the skills and the approach necessary to retain a job once they find it. It is a pity that so many people seem to be willing to knock young people who are struggling hard and have enormous difficulty in a society to which they have not yet had a chance to contribute, yet they are being blamed for the ills of that society. When talking about unemployment, we must recognise that it is not just an economic problem, it is a national tragedy. I do not suggest that the Government does not recognise this fact or even that it has failed to respond. There are a plethora of schemes of which the community employment program is but one. However, I point to one problem that needs to be raised. I hope that the Minister, in his reply to the second reading debate, will respond to my concerns about a particular aspect of youth employment in the community employment program. We must be very much aware that it has spawned its own bureaucracy and consequently its own detailed guidelines. Earlier in this debate, Senator Vanstone referred to problems that local government groups have experienced in complying with these detailed CEP guidelines. I am sure that many other senators have received representations from many worthy organisations undertaking unemployment relief schemes which are entirely consistent with the Government's general policy statements yet which have simply withered away because for some reason they do not fit the detailed bureaucratic guidelines which have been established. I refer to but two which have come to my notice. The first is the bridging the gap scheme, which finds employment for particularly disadvantaged youth by a network of monitors who, most frequently, are employers in a local area. The bridging the gap scheme has found 1,555 permanent jobs on a budget of $62,000. That is $40 on average per job in 1985 figures. On any costing, that figure is extraordinarily low. The second scheme concerns the Waverley Youth Resource Centre, which incorporates the Rotary Youth Bank. This centre is not a job-seeking centre and does not provide work projects. However, it goes to the heart of the matter which I raised earlier. It provides counselling services, which are just as important as the job-seeking exercise because if we are to learn anything from the research of countries which have suffered this problem before, that counselling exercise must be available. The Waverley Youth Resource Centre, which includes the Rotary Youth Bank, provides counselling services dealing with the entire range of problems encountered by the unemployed, including vocational, personal and job-seeking skills. The success rate between 28 May 1984 and 4 November 1985, during which the service had 403 participants, was 80 per cent-an extraordinarily high success rate in anybody's terms. The service was established with the assistance of a $35,000 CEP grant. Following some comments that have been made in this debate, I add some on the other side. Around Australia there have been some extraordinary success stories in the scheme. Thousands of people, of all ages, have been supported and assisted. I would not like my comments to be taken to be critical of the work that has already been done. My remarks are directed much more to what additional assistance may be provided. The $35,000 grant that I spoke of-the initial funding for the CEP-was augmented by a local council grant of some $70,000. Unfortunately that scheme now falls between all of the current government employment assistance scheme guidelines-that is, the grant which is necessary for its continuation does not seem to be available because the scheme does not come within any existing departmental guidelines. I think it must be admitted that it is extremely disappointing to find that a worthwhile scheme, which has got up and running with Commonwealth money, is now unable to continue because of the way the guidelines have been put together. This highly successful program will simply now have to close down. The cost to the Government so far has been about $300 for each unemployed person for whom a placement has been found. The $20,000 grant which is necessary would represent about 20 per cent of the total running costs or around $200 per placement. Due to the shortness of time I have been able to raise only two items. However, I think the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes) will get the gist of the point I am trying to make-that is, that having set guidelines for perfectly respectable and useful reasons, I think we are now finding that many worthwhile schemes which previously had been funded by the Commonwealth are being excluded. I think there is a solution to the problem. I would welcome the Minister's response on what I believe is a sensible way to handle this matter-that is, that the Government should be able to set aside a fixed percentage of the total funds devoted to unemployment assistance projects for special one-off projects which have been demonstrably successful. I am quite happy that the projects have to be demonstrably successful before an application can be made for inclusion in the special category that I am suggesting. It seems to me ultimately that any weeding out process ought to weed out the unsuccessful schemes and leave the successful schemes to continue. This is preferable to arbitrarily putting in place guidelines which winnow through, not in terms of success or failure but in terms of some other non-relevant arbitrary guideline. I believe that there should be an obligation to demonstrate the success of schemes for which continuing funding is required. If success is not able to be demonstrated the very much sought after funds ought to be redirected to new schemes to see whether they can succeed. In any event, it seems to me that those which have succeeded and have shown that they are successful should not subsequently be excluded. The Waverley scheme has been very successful in raising 80 per cent of its own operational funds. Senator McKiernan —Would you put new people into that? Senator MACKLIN —New people are coming into it all the time. In fact, the scheme has a reasonable turnover. The difficulty now is that the scheme just does not seem to fit into any of the current guidelines. However, it has been successful. I believe that a fixed percentage of money set aside to deal with one-off matters would be the way to handle this problem. I think we find that the best schemes are those which ultimately are able to attract some of their own funds and which are not totally dependent upon government finance. I put to the Minister, and hope that he might be able to consider sympathetically, the types of problems which obviously arise in regard to a number of highly successful programs which, I would like to emphasise, were government funded initially and which have been demonstrably successful in carrying out the work to which the people involved have dedicated themselves. Senator McKIERNAN(Western Australia)(4.05) —It is with pleasure that, like all previous speakers in this debate-in this chamber and in the other chamber-I support the Community Employment Amendment Bill 1986. This piece of legislation will extend the community employment program for a further three years beyond 30 June this year. The community employment program was a major initiative of the Hawke Labor Government following its election in March 1983. When we came into office at that time we found the economy in a parlous state. We found it perhaps in its worst ever recession-certainly the worst in the last 50 years since the Great Depression of the 1930s. That impacted on nobody more than on the ordinary wage and salary earner of this country. At that time, as a result of the disastrous policies of the Fraser Government, we found that the unemployment rate was reaching 10 per cent and continuing to rise. The policies of the previous Government, disastrous though they may have been, had taken effect on the average wage and salary income earner of this country. The Fraser Government had failed, and failed miserably, to fulfil all the promises that it had given to the people of Australia in three previous elections. Of course, the result of the 1983 election, re-endorsed in the 1984 election, was that the Fraser Government-the Liberal-Country Party Government of that time-was tossed into oblivion. Faced with the economic problems that we had and an economy that was in recession, with unemployment and inflation rates in double digits, the Hawke Government embarked on a twofold objective. That twofold objective was not to cut inflation at the expense of jobs but to do both in tandem-to drop inflation and to increase the rate of employment. One of the initiatives of the Government was the introduction of the community employment program, or CEP, as it is more commonly known. The program has now been in existence for close on three years and it has, by any standard or any measurement, been very successful. Statistical evidence which we have to hand and which has been produced in the reports put out by the community employment program people is but one indicator of the success of the program. For example, a total of 1,698 projects have been approved in my own State of Western Australia since the introduction of the program. That program has created 9,197 jobs for Western Australia. A total of $100.3m has been spent in my State, and in terms of population that payment has kept pace with the payments that have been made to the other States. The program has been particularly successful in dealing with people who are termed as long term unemployed. On average, participants have been unemployed for 50 weeks prior to joining the program. Senator Lewis —Why don't you do something about them? Senator McKIERNAN —I did not even know that Senator Lewis was in the chamber. He has been so well behaved in recent days. Senator Lewis —Those poor people have been out of work for 50 weeks. You are going to give them six months. Senator McKIERNAN —Those people who are caught in long term unemployment are rather like the people who sit on the Opposition benches. They are caught in a catch-22 situation. I think we will have to instigate some new special projects under the community employment program for those members on the Opposition benches in this place and in the other place who do not know what they will do following the next election. I really think that Senator Lewis will be one of the greater problems that we will have to face. We will have to have an individual program for him in the next special program. Senator Lewis —Make sure it is Priority One. Senator McKIERNAN —I am not so sure it will be Priority One for him. A couple of his colleagues might get precedence over him. We have done things for the long term unemployed. Those people are, as I said in jest perhaps, caught in a catch-22 situation. The community that we live in judges people not so much on their looks and their abilities, as on what they do. It is common for a person meeting someone in a pub, in a club, on a bus, on a train or wherever people meet each other to ask him what he is, whether he is a fitter and turner, a politician, a teacher or whatever. People identify themselves with the work that they do. The long term unemployed, particularly the youth, reply that they are on unemployment benefits. That in itself draws a stigma. Many of them reject the tag that has been put on them-dole bludgers. Thank heavens use of that expression is dying out somewhat now. These people do go out and chase jobs, but when they front up to an employer the first question that is generally asked is: `What is your experience?' If these people have never worked previously, they are never going to have any experience, so they are caught in a catch-22 situation. They cannot get a job because they have got no experience and because they have not got a job they are not going to get experience. We have done things for them in this program. The analysis of the program's effect has proved that the assessments are having some value in this area. A survey was carried out in March last year into whether or not the program had been effective in training people to play a role in the work force. That survey showed that 41 per cent of those who had participated in the CEP were in employment six months after leaving the project. A total of 59 per cent had been employed at some time during the six-month period. Senator Lewis —What about the poor kids who were not in employment? Imagine how they feel-the 60 per cent who were not in employment. Senator McKIERNAN —I think I would probably know better that the honourable senator does how they feel, because at least I and people on this side of the House meet with them, talk with them and have an understanding and an affinity with them. The coalition parties condemned these people to oblivion, never to play a productive role in society. Those opposite who have spoken in this debate should be ashamed that, when in government, they did not institute programs such as this and sought, through economic policies, to make a sacrifice of the youth, the future generation of Australians, in order to satisfy their short term political ambitions-ambitions which have been rejected on two occasions since 1983 by the people of Australia. Senator Lewis interjected and said: `What about the other 60 per cent?'. If he had kept quiet, had not interjected and had listened for a while, or even read the reports of the program or the results of the survey, he would have found that I was not talking about 60 per cent. I went on to say that a commissioned survey showed that some 59 per cent of the people who had taken part in the CEP had work at some time or other in the following six months. They were out there working, albeit for a short period through this band-aid project, earning money and gaining confidence which will stand them in good stead for the future when they seek to join the labour force on a full time basis. Other research by the Bureau of Labour Market Research shows that the participants in this type of program gained a continuous improvement in their psychological well-being. This is an indicator that the program has been working. Debate interrupted. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator MacGibbon) —Order! It being 4.15 p.m., under sessional order, I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(4.15) —On Wednesday I put the case for an extension to seven years of the time in which people ought to be able to take action over damages caused by defective products. One of the examples I gave was the Dalkon shield episode where, despite the efforts of the A. H. Robins company to conceal exactly what it knew and when, there was enough evidence on the public record to show that moral principles had been consistently trampled in the search for quick corporate profits. Nearly 150,000 Dalkon shields were distributed in Australia out of a total of 4 1/2 million sold in 80 countries. We were apparently the third best market. Now some 3,000 Australian women have been joined in United States of America litigation after the A. H. Robins company's successful petition in its home town of Richmond, Virginia, to take advantage of the United States bankruptcy laws and put an end to the mounting numbers of claims for personal injury due to the Dalkon shield. More and more cases were being brought successfully as a result of the information available on the public record. Many of these were settled out of court, especially if a threat of production of documents was pending. For instance, in 1984, 198 women jointly received a record settlement of $38m. Among these were 11 whose children had major birth defects, including hydrocephalus, and two whose children were stillborn. In that same year, 1984, Judge Miles W. Lord of the Minnesota jurisdiction assigned two special masters to go to Richmond, the headquarters of A. H. Robins, to expedite pre-trial discovery. Quite a few obstacles were put in their way, but they were able to get at material previously withheld from the courts. The report of the special masters, Peter Thompson and Thomas Bartsh, a year later began: We conclude that Plaintiffs have established a strong prima facie case that A. H. Robins Co. Inc., has, with the knowledge and participation of in-house counsel, engaged in an ongoing fraud by knowingly misrepresenting the nature, quality, safety and efficacy of the Dalkon Shield. The ongoing fraud has also involved the destruction or withholding of relevant evidence. From 15,000 pages of documents which were produced for inspection by the special masters various conclusions can be drawn. Among the conclusions drawn were: That the developer of the Dalkon shield was no longer either a credible witness or a credible scientist; that Robins officials knew that the results of four studies given extensive publicity at the end of 1972 were inaccurate and misleading; that a memo on the use of copper in the Dalkon shield corroborated the charge of a former Robins defence lawyer that documents had been pulled from files so that they would not be produced in litigation. As the pressure and the law suits mounted, increasingly the Robins company sought to limit its liabilities. That is why I have risen to speak this afternoon. In April last year it announced the creation of a $615m reserve fund for paying Dalkon shield claims until the year 2002. Naturally that move created taxation advantages for the company. In July, Robins was unsuccessful in its attempts to get all claims against it that included punitive damages relief consolidated into one class action. Just two months earlier a Wichita jury had awarded a record $7.5m in punitive damages on top of $1.1m in compensatory damages to a woman who had lost her uterus and ovaries after wearing a Dalkon shield for nine years. An outside consultant estimates that some 88,000 of the 2.2 million American women who wore the shield have suffered injury and that claims could be expected from at least 20,000 of them. By June 1985 Robins and its insurers had paid $378.3m to settle 9,230 cases and had incurred legal expenses of $107.3m. Over 5,000 suits were then pending. Claims were coming in from outside the United States. It was in this atmosphere that Robins filed for pre-emptive bankruptcy on 21 August to protect itself from the continuing burden of litigation. The National Women's Health Network was outraged by the move and unsuccessfully sought to have Chapter 11 petitions thrown out. It also argued that Robins's civic contributions in Richmond, Virginia, created a climate of sympathy that would be detrimental to the claimants' position. If there were to be proceedings, it said, they should be in the American capital. The whole episode raised a number of fundamental questions for Australia, some of them of quite great difficulty to resolve and some of them of immediate great urgency. There is, at the outset, the very vexed question of the safety of contraceptives and, for that matter, other consumer goods. Balancing the risk of injury with the potential benefits to the community is always going to be tricky. However, no one should be thrown on to the scrap heap as a result of being injured. If we as a society allow the distribution of products with nearly negligible attached risks, we must have a proper safety net for the victims. Over the years it has become more and more clear that that was not the case with the Dalkon shield in the United States or, in fact, anywhere else. In many respects Australia was treated as a backwater, without the need for the elaborate charades that were played out before the Food and Drug Administration and other centres of influence in the United States. If we rely on manufacturers' integrity as the only defence for the public, from time to time we will find that the corporate profit-seeking bulldozer will splatter a large number of innocent people. If we do not have the proper injury reporting mechanisms, the absence or the withholding of relevant information about the true situation can severely compound the problem. I point out to the Government today that as from 2 o'clock yesterday the situation is that no more claims will be accepted against the Robins company in the United States courts. I believe that the Australian Government should petition the United States Government to extend this time. Very little advertising has been done within Australia on this matter. It is extremely important that the Government should act quickly to ask immediately, through diplomatic channels, that Australian women be given the chance to continue to put their claims against this company. Those working in the area tell me there have not been the fundamental changes in reporting procedure that would engender confidence in our danger-detection systems. If we have a major obstacle in the path of victims getting redress, we load the system in favour of the shonks and the fly-by-night operators. It is a disgrace that Australian women are having to apply for justice in the United States rather than having a right to apply for justice here. Admittedly, now we have some coverage under the Trade Practices Act but we do not have the class action mechanism to facilitate proper redress in these tragic large scale cases. However, I am hoping to change that. I hope that at least the Government will support my Bill in this area. It is unfortunate that we have to make this appeal. I ask the Minister whether he could give me some type of undertaking to take this up with the required powers, both in the Department of Foreign Affairs and in the Department of Health, to make certain that Australian women who have been injured by this device can continue to seek redress in law in the United States. Senator GRIMES(Tasmania-Minister for Community Services)(4.24) —I can only guarantee that I will refer the matters raised by Senator Vigor to my ministerial colleagues. The matters are of considerable concern and complexity and I will do that as soon as possible. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 4.25 p.m. The following papers were tabled: 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-Determinations 1986 Nos 16, 26. The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 931) Senator Mason asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 20 February 1986: (1) Are women in Sweden encouraged to undergo a mammogram examination on a regular basis, usually in conjunction with Pap smear tests? (2) Have the costs of individual examinations in Sweden been reduced from $60 to $20 and the mortality rate from breast cancer in Sweden been reduced by some 31 per cent, as a result of such widespread encouragement? (3) Will the Minister for Health instruct the National Health and Medical Research Council to undertake a feasibility study into the introduction of a universal mammogram screening program in Australia, with estimates of costs of such examinations being undertaken in Australia varying from $2,500 to $20,000 per 1000 women screened; if not, why not? (4) At what cost to the community would the Minister consider such a scheme to be financially viable, given that the unit cost per examination could be significantly reduced by the introduction of a universal scheme and by encouraging women to have such an examination when a Pap smear examination is carried out, and considering the Government's budgetary considerations? Senator Grimes —The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) Medical authorities in most western countries, including Sweden, encourage women of certain ages to undergo mammographic examination at regular intervals. It is often feasible to make the arrangements for mammographic examination (which requires sophisticated radiological equipment) at the time of performance of a Pap smear test. (2) A report of a Swedish trial investigating the efficacy of mammography in reducing mortality from breast cancer appeared in ``The Lancet'' medical journal on 13 April 1985. This trial, involving two counties of Sweden and women aged 40 years and over, reported a reduction of 31 per cent in mortality from breast cancer in the group who were regularly screened compared with a control group after a seven (7) year period. The trial is still not completed. The 31 per cent reduction in mortality does not apply to Sweden as a whole, nor has a universal mammographic screening program been introduced. The current cost of mammographic screening on a large scale in Sweden (as on the trial) is SEK 120 per examination (at current exchange rate, approximately $24 Australian). The large scale Swedish trial uses a single oblique view which is a less expensive option than is performed in Australia. However, a National Health and Medical Research Council Working Party on Screening for Breast Cancer recommended against this technique in Australian practice. (3) The National Health and Medical Research Council at its 97th Session in June 1984 received and approved a report of a Working Party on Screening for Breast Cancer. The Working Party made no recommendation on universal mammographic screening, although the Terms of Reference included the issue of screening the whole population, as defined. The Working Party recommended that the female population over the age of 40 years should be advised that periodic examination of the breast, both clinical and mammographic, is potentially beneficial towards the earlier diagnosis of breast cancer. (4) The introduction, in the future, of a universal screening program is a complex issue and all aspects would have to be examined, financial considerations being but one factor. A number of medical trials are still underway (in Canada, and the United Kingdom; the Swedish trial is still not complete). The optimal use of mammography, especially its frequency, is still to be determined. No country has, as yet, decided to introduce universal screening. It is generally not possible to combine Pap smear and mammographic examinations; one is performed by a general or gynaecological practitioner and the other by a specialised radiological unit. Senator Grimes —On 11 March 1986 (Hansard, page 763) Senator Elstob asked me, as Minister representing the Minister for Health, a question without notice concerning a national study into the situation of mothers who relinquish their children. I undertook to refer the report and the matter to the Minister for Health with the intention of getting an early answer for Senator Elstob in an attempt to see whether we can ensure that conditions improve. The Minister for Health has provided the following information: I have seen the study and, as the honourable senator says, it does confirm the absence of professional and family support for relinquishing mothers. I am aware that research into adoption has tended to ignore the relinquishing mother and I have drawn the report and the honourable senator's concern to the notice of the National Health and Medical Research Council to see what is possible to redress that imbalance.