Monday, 1 December 1986 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) took the chair at 2 p.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 Australia respectfully showeth: That the imposition of the $250.00 administrative charge will: (1) Prove a dis-incentive for all students-particularly part-time and mature age students-from continuing their tertiary studies. (2) Lead to higher levels of youth unemployment as fewer students will now enrol in tertiary studies. (3) Impose economic hardship upon the student population at large. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should vote to reject the imposition of the administrative charge, or, at the very least, vote to impose a lower fee on students who are not full-time. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 19 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that there is widespread community concern about the proposal to irradiate food in Australia. Your petitioners, most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should: (1) Block the introduction of food irradiation into Australia; and (2) Ban the import of Cobalt-60 and Caesium 137 and Caesium 134 to be used to irradiate food products. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 320 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. This petition of concerned Australian citizens respectfully points out: That, the presence of American bases in Australia makes us a nuclear target in the event of a nuclear exchange between the superpowers. We thus strongly urge the Australian Government not to renew the agreement with the US Government on their use of the facilities at Pine Gap. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Siddons (from 97 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That the result of the recent Queensland State Election, when the National Party received a comfortable majority in Parliament with a bare 39% of the votes, violates the rights of a majority of citizens to elect a government of their choice; and (2) That consequently there is an urgent need for electoral and constitutional reform at Federal and State level. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should: Support the Constitution Alteration (Democratic Elections) 1985 Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 30 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 support your efforts to strengthen our family and community life particularly by increased penalties for `drug pushers' and distributors. We, however, wish to register our firm opposition to any legal changes which would increase or encourage the distribution or availability of so-called ``soft drugs'' such as marijuana. We believe such drugs to be harmful to the physical and psychological health of the individual and therefore to the interest of the community of which such individual is part. Although there is current controversy concerning the question of such harm it appears to us quite foolish to legalise and encourage the use of such drugs unless or until it be shown that the drugs are in fact harmless. The serious social problems of alcohol should provide sufficient warning to our society. Any efforts to legalise or decriminalise usage or distribution of such drugs will have the following results: (1) Encourage and inculcate a social acceptability towards such drugs. (2) Increase the volume of usage of such drugs in schools and the community by present users and by `drug pushers' through the proposed one ounce legal possession. (3) Extend the usage of such drugs to persons who would previously have abstained because of the legal sanctions. (4) Put pressure upon Parliament to establish and license import, growth, manufacture and/or distribution of such drugs, that is, to regulate another destructive industry contrary to the best interest of the individual and society. (5) There would be a probable temptation to tax such drugs as another source of Federal revenue. We urge the Government to increase the medical and counselling facilities for the assistance of drug users and to expand existing Drug Referral Centres and Clinics. We have general confidence in the existing law and its sympathetic implementation by the Police and the Courts. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will firstly take no measures that could extend the major social problem of drug usage and secondly will oblige those who are promoting marijuana and/or similar drugs to prove without doubt that such drugs are harmless before any legislation or decriminalisation of use is introduced. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Richardson (from 56 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens 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 widespread serious ill health caused by smoking tobacco. by Senator Vigor (from 150 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That there is a need for an Independent and Multi-cultural Broadcasting Corporation to give a firm legislative and financial basis for the SBS Network. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled should pass Senator Vigor's Bill with all expediency. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Macklin (from 13 citizens) and Vigor (from 146 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned are deeply concerned at the impact of the new Fringe Benefits Tax on the following grounds: 1. Its severe and damaging effect on business confidence, investment and incentive, especially in the rural, mining and small business sectors. 2. Its capacity to seriously worsen unemployment through the additional costs it imposes. 3. Its extremely negative impact on the competitiveness of export industries at a time when the nation desperately needs to improve its trading performance. 4. In that it may compel many honest and decent citizens to defy Tax in order to preserve their livelihoods, their businesses and the jobs of their employees, thus causing hardship, the breakdown of respect for the law and discord within the community. We therefore most earnestly petition you to repeal the Fringe Benefits Tax Legislation forthwith. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Brownhill (from 143 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: We the undersigned are deeply concerned at the impact of the proposed Australia Card legislation on the following grounds: 1. We believe that in represents potentially undesirable interference in the lives of honest Australians and is a grave interference in the civil liberties of Australian citizens; 2. That it will not address the problems of tax evasion and social security fraud; 3. That it will create unnecessary expansion of the bureaucracy; and calls on the Senate to reject the legislation. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Brownhill (from 26 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament. The petition of the undersigned shows: that there be a National Educational Day on Peace for the Youth of Australia. Your petitioners request that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should: act upon this before the Year of Peace concludes. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Reynolds (from 14 citizens). Petitions received. Senator COONEY(Victoria) —I give notice that, at the giving of notices on the next day of sitting, I shall withdraw Business of the Senate, notice of motion No. 1 standing in my name for 4 sitting days hence relating to disallowance of the Quarantine (Animals) Regulations (Amendment), as contained in Statutory Rules 1986 No. 283. I seek leave to make a short statement. Leave granted. Senator COONEY —The Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances discovered a drafting anomaly in the regulations and the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Kerin) has agreed to correct it. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a short explanation and to table the Committee's correspondence for the information of honourable senators and others. Leave granted. The document read as follows- The Minister for Primary Industry wished to remove from the regulations discretionary power to grant to research bodies `exempt exporter' status so that certain quarantine fees could no longer be waived. The regulations removed the provision providing for review of the discretion but did not also remove the discretionary power itself. The Minister acknowledges there was a drafting anomaly and he has undertaken to correct it in the next set of regulations planned to be made before the end of the Autumn 1987 sittings. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) congratulates the New South Wales (NSW) Division of the Liberal Party of Australia for its selection and endorsement on merit of three women candidates, all in winning positions, in a team of 6 people chosen for the forthcoming election for the NSW Legislative Council; and (b) conveys its congratulations on selection to the Honourable Virginia Chadwick, Doctor Marlene Goldsmith and Helen Wai-Har Sham. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate, noting that the North Queensland tropical rainforests known as the Daintree are the largest low-land tropical rainforests left in Australia- (a) reminds the Federal Government that the Daintree is internationally acknowledged as one of the rarest forests in the world containing examples of the earliest forms of flowering plants left on earth, dating back to 70 million years before the extinction of the dinosaurs; (b) condemns the Government's failure to discharge its national and international obligations to protect this beautiful but diminishing resource, and (c) urges the Government immediately to use its powers under the World Heritage Properties Conservation Act to save the Daintree from further needless and senseless destruction. Senator COONEY(Victoria) —I give notice that, seven sitting days after today, I shall move: That the Nature Conservation (Amendment) Ordinance 1986, as contained in the Australian Capital Territory Ordinance No. 65 of 1986 and made under the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910, be disallowed. Mr President, I seek leave to make a short statement. Leave granted. Senator COONEY —The Committee has written to the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes) about the absence from this Ordinance of provisions for the tabling and disallowance of certain plans of management and declarations of reserved areas. These kinds of sub-delegated instruments are usually subject to parliamentary oversight. We are still corresponding with the Minister but, as time is passing, I have given this protective notice of motion. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate) —I table papers in accordance with the list circulated to honourable senators. With the concurrence of the Senate, I ask that the list be incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The list read as follows- 1. Defence Service Homes Corporation-Annual Report 1985-86-Together with the Auditor-General's Report-Pursuant to section 50b of the Defence Services Homes Act 1918. 2. Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979-Report in accordance with sub-section 30 (1) or (2)-Pursuant to 31 (2) of the Telecommunications (Interception) Act 1979. 3. Administrative Review Council-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 58 of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975. 4. Department of Primary Industry-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 5. Australian Honey Board-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 30 of the Honey Industry Act 1962. 6. Honey Research Council-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 30 of the Honey Industries Research Act 1985. 7. Foreign Investment Review Board-Annual Report 1985-86. 8. Australian Institute of Marine Science-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 44 of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Act 1972. 9. Australian Capital Territory Building Standards Committee-Annual Report 1985-86. 10. Proposal to install standard high intensity lighting within the parliamentary zone-Pursuant to section 5 of the Parliament Act 1974. 11. Department of Communications-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 12. Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 13. Australian Children's Television Foundation Incorporating ACTF Productions Ltd-Annual Report 1985-86. 14. Australia Council-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 38 of the Australia Council Act 1975. 15. Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation- Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 32 of the Albury-Wodonga Act 1973. 16. Victoria Grants Commission-Annual Report 1985-86-Pursuant to section 13 of the Local Government (Financial Assistance) Act 1986. 17. Freedom of Information Act 1982-Annual Report on the operation of the Act 1985-86-pursuant to Section 93 of the Freedom of Information Act 1982. 18. Primary Industry Bank Act 1977-ninth report on the operation of part III of the Act. 19. International Monetary Agreements Act-Annual Report on the operation of the Act 1985-86-pursuant to Section 10 of the International Monetary Agreements Act 1947. 20. Commissioner of Taxation-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 14 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936, section 3b of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 and corresponding provisions of the general taxing statutes of Australia. 21. Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984-consultants engaged under section 4 of the Act-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 31 of the members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984. 22. `National Forest Strategy for Australia'-together with an explanatory statement tabled by the Minister for Trade on behalf of the Minister for Primary Industry. 23. Australian Meat and Live-Stock Industry Policy Control Act 1984-Annual Report on the operation of the Act 1985-86-pursuant to section 22 of the Australian Meat and Live-Stock Industry Policy Council Act 1984. 24. Department of Housing and Construction-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922-this report also contains the Annual Report required by legislation of the administration and operation of the First Home Owners Act 1983 and the Home Deposit Assistance Act 1982 for 1985-86. 25. `Moving Ahead'-report of the Maritime Industry Development Committee. 26. Australian Shipping Commission (Australian National Line)-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 35 of the Australian Shipping Commission Act 1956. 27. Independent Air Fares Committee-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 33 of the Independent Air Fares Committee Act 1981. 28. Pel Air Accident Investigation-Bureau of Air Safety Investigation Report. 29. Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 30. Australian Tourist Commission-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 29 of the Australian Tourist Commission Act 1967. 31. Australian Sports Commission-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to sub-section 63m (3) of the Audit Act 1901. 32. Sport and Recreation Ministers' Council-summary period of proceedings of the fourteenth meeting held in Rotorua, New Zealand on 31 July 1985. 33. Department of Aboriginal Affairs-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 34. Department of Science-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 35. Science and Technology Statement 1986-87-document. 36. Anglo-Australian Telescope Board-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 19 of the Anglo-Australian Agreement Act 1970. 37. Department of Foreign Affairs-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to sub-section 25 (8) of the Public Service Act 1922. 38. Schedules of special purpose flights by the Royal Australian Air Force for the period-1 July 1985 to 30 June 1986-incorporating two appendices amending two reports previously tabled. 39. National Exhibition Centre Trust-Annual Report 1985-86-pursuant to section 63h of the Audit Act 1901. 40. Australian Capital Territory-Consumer Affairs Council-Consumer Affairs Bureau-Administration of the Credit Ordinance-Administration of the Sale of Motor Vehicles Ordinance-Annual Report 1985-86. 41. UNICEF involvement in Sport Aid and the Race Against Time-preliminary report-Sport Aid-a UNICEF report-together with the text of an accompanying statement tabled by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism. 42. Patents, Innovation and Competition in Australia-Industrial Property Advisory Committee Report-together with the Government's response and an explanatory statement tabled by the Minister for Science. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate) —I inform the Senate that Senator Grimes, the Minister for Community Services, will be absent from the chamber for Question Time today. Any questions which would normally be directed to Senator Grimes should be directed to the Minister for Education, Senator Ryan. I also ask that questions for the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Gietzelt, be addressed to him early today, as he will have to leave the chamber at the latter part of Question Time. I understand that both those matters have been communicated to the Whips. Senator CHANEY —I ask the Leader of the Government in the Senate whether the Government has made inquiries to satisfy itself that the Treasurer's tax affairs are in order, particularly the Treasurer's claim that, as a pay as you earn taxpayer, he expected a tax refund for the 1984-85 tax year. Has the Treasurer been asked to explain his taxpayer status, given his reported involvement in the sale of a shop which, it is alleged, he bought three years earlier and on which he made a reported profit of $60,000? Further, has he been asked to explain whether he received any income in the relevant year arising from any investment or business activities in which he was involved, or indeed any income beyond his parliamentary and ministerial allowances and salary from any source which could be regarded by the Commissioner of Taxation as taxable income? Senator BUTTON —The first part of the question relates to, to use Senator Chaney's terminology, whether `the Treasurer's tax affairs are in order', particularly in relation to the filing of his tax return for the year 1984-85 and that return. The Treasurer has already made a statement about that matter and any question of whether or not he would be entitled to a refund is basically a matter between the Treasurer and the Commissioner of Taxation. Senator Michael Baume —Not any more, it isn't. Senator BUTTON —Is `not any more' the view of the Opposition? Senator Michael Baume —It is properly a matter of public interest. Senator BUTTON —It is properly a matter between the Commissioner of Taxation and the Treasurer. I have been advised by the Treasurer that it is his belief that he will receive a tax refund in respect of that year, but the final determination of that question is, as I said, a matter between the Commissioner of Taxation and the Treasurer. All other matters raised by Senator Chaney in his question are a matter between the Tax Commissioner and the Treasurer as a taxpayer. Senator CHANEY —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I find that an extraordinary answer from a Minister who has a motion for the declaration of pecuniary interests before the Senate. I ask the Minister whether he is suggesting that there is no Government interest-Government interest as against a Commissioner of Taxation and an individual Minister interest-in the taxation affairs of the Treasurer when it has already been admitted by the Minister that he was in default of his taxation obligations in respect of filing a return and when there are other public allegations which suggest that his status as a pay as you earn taxpayer is in doubt. Is the Minister telling the Senate that the Government has no interest in this matter and no duty to examine this matter and to satisfy itself that the Treasurer is in fact meeting his obligations under the taxation legislation? Senator BUTTON —The law on that matter is as clear as a bell. It is a matter between an individual taxpayer and the Commissioner of Taxation. Senator Chaney —Why are we having declarations of interest, then? Senator BUTTON —Declarations of interest do not go to the question of taxation. Opposition senators-Ha, ha! Senator BUTTON —Three years after we provided for declarations of pecuniary interest of members of parliament Opposition senators are still swinging the lead on it all, as are Opposition members in the House of Representatives. They do not like it too much. We have this ludicrous situation where the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate is trying to confuse the question of the obligations of a taxpayer to the Commissioner of Taxation with statements of pecuniary interest of members of parliament. Those opposite do not understand either issue. That is why this country got into all the trouble it did get into when the other side was in government. Senator AULICH —Has the attention of the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations been drawn to an article in Saturday's Weekend Australian entitled `How to reform the unions'? Does the Minister see merit in the various proposals for trade union reform made by the writer of that article, Mr Peter Costello, a founding member of the H. R. Nicholls Society? Senator WALSH —My attention has been drawn to the article, and at the outset it should be noted that Mr Costello is a Melbourne lawyer. Therefore, as a member of the lawyers union, he is or has been a beneficiary of the law in Victoria which gives lawyers a monopoly of conveyancing. I note that Mr Costello did not complain about that particular abuse of union power or attempt to modify it in any way. Senator Lewis —He is a barrister. He doesn't do that sort of legal work, you donkey. Senator WALSH —I said, Senator Lewis, that he is or has been a beneficiary of that particular lawyers union monopoly conferred upon lawyers by statute. Whether he is currently a barrister and still a beneficiary of the conveyancing monopoly that has been granted by legislation to the lawyers union or not, it remains a valid point that as a member of that lawyers union he has offered no criticism whatever of the abuse of that piece of monopoly power and the fact that, because of that monopoly power, the lawyers union members manage to rip millions and millions off the public every year. However, on the matters that Mr Costello did raise, the arguments he put were quite well written, as I suppose one would expect from a barrister, and superficially persuasive. Indeed, one might wonder whether Mr Costello also has a club foot in common with another attribute that he shares with an historical figure. He argues that there should be a trade union reform Act which: . . . should ensure that unions who wish to support party political causes through affiliation fees or otherwise are obliged to strike a completely separate fee for this purpose, with the payment of that fee genuinely optional. That is an old one that at least 17 years ago was dredged up by the Right in Australia, and is vulnerable to exactly the same criticism as it was 17 years ago or whenever it was first proposed-that is, what control does the individual shareholder in any company have over whether that company makes large donations for political purposes to the Liberal Party or any other political party? The logic of Mr Costello's argument is that if a trade union member should be able to opt out of his pro rata contribution for a donation to a political party, so ought shareholders in a company to be allowed to opt out of their pro rata contribution to a political party to be used for political purposes. Mr Costello also asked: How can any ordinary employee with a full-time job who wishes to stand for union office possibly try to match the resources of an entrenched union leadership and fight an election for office on equal terms? He then argued that union funds should be set aside to allow full time employees to take leave from work and contest union elections. The same sort of principle applies in the corporate sector, if Mr Costello is really interested in pushing equality of access. For example, the National Mutual Life Association of Australasia Ltd is `owned' by its policyholders, but how could an ordinary policyholder effectively run for directorship against Mr Costello's entrenched mate, John Elliott? Likewise, In Mr Elliott's own firm, how could an ordinary shareholder realistically expect to be able to run for election as a director against Mr Costello's entrenched mates, Mr Elliott and Mr McLachlan? It is notable that Mr McLachlan proposes no democratic principles in those areas. In other words, and in short, although it is a really well argued and well presented case, it is highly selective in its subject matter. Senator MESSNER —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. When a taxpayer who normally prepares and lodges his or her own taxation return fails to lodge it by mid-November for the previous financial year, is it normal for the Commissioner of Taxation to issue a final notice at that time? Does the Commissioner then allow a period of 14 days before issuing a summons after the final notice? How many summonses have been issued so far with respect to failure to lodge returns for the 1984-85 taxation year? Senator Walsh —Do you mean a final notice of assessment or a final notice of lodgment? Senator MESSNER —Final notice of lodgment. Senator WALSH —I can understand why the Opposition tries to keep pumping up last week's story, because it does not have any other feathers to fly with. The plain fact is that the Treasurer has committed a technical breach of the Income Tax Assessment Act. He has acknowledged that he has committed a technical breach of that Act and he has pleaded mea culpa. The processes of the law will apply to the Treasurer as they would apply to any other taxpayer, with perhaps this significant exception. In every State-and probably Territory as well-there is what has been colloquially known as a VIP section of the Australian Taxation Office. It is the duty or the function of that section to keep its eye on people in public office and people who might otherwise have a high profile. That could be read in two ways-- Senator Sir John Carrick —Why? Senator WALSH —The honourable senator thinks there is something wrong with that, does he? That would have been a very good question to ask during the seven years that Senator Sir John Carrick was a Minister in the coalition Government when for all of those years that same VIP section existed. Throughout the entire five years of John Howard's treasurership, he presided over the existence of that VIP section in every State and Territory taxation office, without any demur whatsoever. If Senator Sir John Carrick thinks that there is something wrong with that, he is a bit late in making his objections known. The same goes for the rest of that lot on the Opposition benches. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to return to Senator Messner's question. Senator WALSH —Certainly, Mr President. However, I was provoked by an interjection from the Opposition. The Treasurer has acknowledged his error and the provisions of the Income Tax Assessment Act will apply to the Treasurer the same as they do to everyone else. Senator Walters —They haven't, have they? Senator Watson —Why haven't they? Senator WALSH —They have, Squeaky. They have. Senator Walters —On a point of order, Mr President: As you will be well aware, I do not like sexist talk in this chamber. I have great objection to the Minister calling me `sweetie'. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister not to address Senator Walters in terms of affection but to address her as she is entitled to be addressed, as Senator Walters. At the same time I ask him to do it through me. Senator WALSH —Certainly, Mr President, and, through you, I offer the explanation that the comment was not addressed to Senator Walters. The Treasurer has admitted his misdemeanour. The law will take its course with respect to him as with respect to everybody else, although I understand that it is most unusual, if not unprecedented, for any pay as you earn taxpayer who is entitled to a refund but who is late in lodging a return to have any penalty imposed. On the other quite specific matters which Senator Messner asked regarding the number of final notices which have been served this year or last year, or whatever year it was, the answer is the same: I do not know that off the top of my head, but I expect that an answer can be obtained on notice. Senator MESSNER —By way of a supplementary question, I ask: Are we to take it that, in the light of the Minister's answer, in future technical breaches such as failure to lodge fringe benefits tax forms will not attract any penalty from this Government? Senator WALSH —I am not sure whether the Commissioner of Taxation has the same discretion with respect to FBT. If he does, I would expect that, if an FBT return was late in being lodged and there was no FBT liability, no penalty would be imposed. That would be a common-sense approach. Senator COLSTON —I direct my question to the Minister for Education. In the light of concerns that have been raised about the higher education administration charge being the thin end of the wedge for the introduction of tuition fees, can the Minister inform the Senate of the Government's position on tertiary tuition fees? Senator RYAN —There is no basis for concern with regard to the thin end of the wedge campaign in respect of the Government's intentions and the administration charge for some higher education students. Both I and the Prime Minister have made it categorically clear that the $250 charge will be indexed, according to the higher education cost index, in subsequent Budgets but will not be increased in any other way. However, there is cause for concern, I think, in the failure of the Liberal Party to come clean on its intentions with regard to tuition fees. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator RYAN —There are some shrieks of opposition opposite. I have here a confidential document issued by Mr Shack, the present shadow spokesperson-- Senator Townley —Mr President, I raise a point of order. I note on the back of the blue paper headed `Notice of Questions' it states: Discussion, in anticipation, upon an Order of the Day or other matter, by means of a question, is not permitted. I would have thought that, as this matter is on the Notice Paper, this answer should not be given at this time. The PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order. It has been a general rule of the Senate that Question Time will not be stymied in any way by that matter, and I think the question is in order. I call Senator Ryan. Senator RYAN —It is not surprising that Senator Townley would try to interrupt when I was just about to tell the Senate about the contents of a confidential document from Peter Shack in which it is made crystal clear that it is the intention of the Opposition, if ever it manages to regain the treasury bench, to go ahead and charge full cost fees. Indeed, in the document Mr Shack says: We will allow universities, CAEs and so on- I suppose the `so on' means technical and further education colleges- to raise money to supplement government funds in whatever ways they think fit. They might do this by increasing their funds from the business sector, or they could do it by enrolling extra students on a fee-paying basis. It is interesting that this matter appears in a document which is one of the most cynical and patronising exercises I have ever seen. It is a document that has been prepared in panic in response to the fact that the Liberals are getting about 19 per cent of the youth vote at the moment, and it contains a series of instructions to Liberal members of parliament on how to deceive and manipulate young people with regard to the intentions of this Government. Liberal MPs are advised to make patronising references to movie stars or to rock singers, such as Bruce Springsteen, or to simulate an interest in sport, in order to inveigle young people into confusion about the intentions of Liberal MPs in respect of working for the dole, their intentions with regard to full cost fees and their intentions with regard to dismantling peace disarmament programs. It is a truly disgraceful and very cynical document. I will table it for the interest of honourable senators. In conclusion, I remind Senator Colston and honourable senators that our intentions with regard to the $250 administration charge are clear, as, of course, are the intentions of the Liberals with regard to full cost tuition fees. I table the document. Senator HAINES —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I remind the Minister that earlier this year the Government decided to support economic sanctions against South Africa as a way of pressuring the South African Government to dismantle its apartheid system and adopt policies more consistent with respect for the social and political rights of the entire population of South Africa. My question is: Why, given that action, has the Australian Government voted recently to support an International Monetary Fund loan to Chile, a country now infamous for its violations of human rights? Is the Government taking any action to help to prevent or to censure the violations of human rights under the Chilean Government of General Pinochet? Senator GARETH EVANS —The position on this matter was very clearly and forcefully explained over the weekend by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden. But I will reiterate, for the benefit of Senator Haines and other honourable senators, the basic position. It is the case that the Executive Board of the World Bank approved a $250m structural adjustment loan to Chile at its meeting in Washington on 20 November. Australia votes in the World Bank as part of a constituency, so called, holding 3.36 per cent of the Bank's voting rights. Other members of our constituency are New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Korea and a number of Pacific countries-the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Western Samoa and Kiribati. We consulted with other members of the constituency before the vote was made. The constituency's Executive Director supported the approval of the loan on the basis that Chile met World Bank economic and development criteria for the granting of loans. Our vote reflected, above all else, the Bank's articles of association, section 10 of Article IV of which states: The Bank and its officers shall not interfere in the political affairs of any member; nor shall they be influenced in their decisions by the political character of the member or members concerned. Only economic considerations shall be relevant to their decisions, and these considerations shall be weighed impartially . . . In the past it has been regarded by Australia as quite crucial, in multilateral bodies of this kind, that we not, as Mr Hayden said over the weekend, encourage a kind of competitive expulsion environment in reacting to regimes which we manifestly, and for very good reason, dislike for their political and military behaviour. What matters is the economic criteria; they are the ones that are supposed to be applied by virtue of the Bank's articles of association, and that is what was applied in this instance. However, acknowledging the sensitivity of this vote, we did, through the Executive Director, make a strong statement-it was made on behalf of Australia and New Zealand-recording that support for the loan did not imply any lessening in concern about the human rights situation in Chile. Australian repugnance at the continuing denial of human rights in Chile has been expressed in the Parliament, in international forums and directly to the Chilean Government. A very strong expression of our distaste was made on 9 September by Mr Hayden on the occasion of the imposition of the new state of siege in that country. The memory of the Pinochet regime's overturning of the democratically elected Salvador Allende Government in September 1973 burns very strongly indeed in the memories of all people around the world who have some affectionate regard for democratic principles. Sharing that memory as we do, particularly on this side of the chamber, it is inconceivable that we would have been party to anything that would give aid and comfort to that regime were there not overriding principles that we regarded as appropriate and relevant operating in the contrary direction. We shall continue to urge the Pinochet regime to put an end to repression and to hasten an early return to democracy in that country. Senator HAINES —I wish to ask a supplementary question, Mr President. Apart from expressions of distaste which the Minister has indicated have been made, is the Government taking or preparing to take any action at all to prevent the violations or encourage the Chilean Government to end the violations of human rights? Senator GARETH EVANS —We are always open to suggestion. With all the sophistication, resources, flair and experience of government that the Australian Democrats have in these matters, I am sure we will get some constructive suggestions coming from Senator Haines along this line in the future. Senator COONEY —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Foreign Affairs: Are any Australian Regular Army troops serving in Thailand at present? If so, how many; what duties are they performing; are any assisting the Thai Army and, if so, in what way? Senator GARETH EVANS —To the question of whether any Australian Regular Army troops are serving in Thailand at present the answer is yes, I am advised by the Minister for Defence. As to how many, there are two of them. In relation to the duties that they are performing, one is at a staff college and the other is a consultant with the Royal Thai Army vehicle workshop. As to whether any are assisting the Thai Army, I am told yes, but it is a matter for judgment as to how and to what extent, I suppose. Senator SHEIL —I refer the Leader of the Government in the Senate to the Treasurer's statement of 11 September 1984 when he said: Among the most common tax offences- I note that it is not `technical breaches', to which the Minister for Finance referred before- are failure to furnish information to the Tax Commissioner and failure to file a return- not whether he owes money to the Commissioner of Taxation. Is the Government seriously asserting the proposition that the excuse of-to quote the Treasurer again-`being too busy' is an acceptable one for the failure to lodge a tax return? Senator BUTTON —I do not want to be technical about this as the Treasurer has lodged a tax return for the year 1984-85. That, of course, is the point. Senator Chaney —That is not the point. Senator BUTTON —I will have to go through it slowly for the benefit of the people on the other side. Senator Chaney —Go through it as slowly as you like. The people of Australia are listening. Tell us the truth-that would be a nice change. Senator BUTTON —The people of Australia are listening to this mob of wimps over the other side who have nothing else to talk about. That is what they are listening to. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to respond directly to Senator Sheil. Senator BUTTON —The expression in the quotation which the honourable senator has gleaned or garnished from Hansard is one which was used by Senator Chaney on Friday. It was used, if I might say so, in a way which can be described only as intellectually dishonest. What the Treasurer was talking about then, as he is now, is an offence of failure to file a return-that is, failure to file a return at all. That is what he was talking about. Anybody who reads that passage ought to understand that. There is deathly silence from the Opposition senators now. They were yelling their heads off a few seconds ago. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator BUTTON —Now they have started again. It is a pavlovian response to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I appreciate it. If I say `frog' I suppose they will all jump. The point is that what that means-anybody in his right mind knows what that means in its context-is failure to file a return at all, not the technical breach of delaying the filing of a return. Senator Chaney —It is not serious? Is that what you are saying? Senator BUTTON —Yes, that is what I am saying. Mr President, I do not want to be misinterpreted as saying that the issue is not serious, as Senator Chaney was trying to suggest by way of interjection. What I was saying to Senator Chaney, in answering his interjection, was that this Opposition is not serious and cannot be taken seriously on this issue. Senator McKIERNAN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. Will the proposals of the New Right to introduce a radical, laissez-faire approach to economic matters, in particular, to the deregulation of the labor market, result in the strong dominating the weak, as reported in this morning's newspapers? Senator WALSH —I guess that, to some extent, the answer to that question is a matter of opinion or judgment. But one thing is perfectly clear: In the judgment of the honourable member for Goldstein-that is, Mr Macphee, a member of the Liberal Party front bench-the answer is clearly yes, because Mr Macphee said so at the Young Liberals meeting in Melbourne yesterday. I believe that Mr Macphee ought to be congratulated for having the moral courage to come out so forcefully on that subject and to distance himself from the New Right, or extreme right policies, on this and most other matters which have recently been embraced by the Leader of the Opposition and his Deputy. It is particularly courageous in view of the publicity which has been given in recent days to moves within the South Australian branch of the Liberal Party to purge Steele Hall from the Party-as another heretic, I suppose, or another one who challenged the dogma of the far Right and the Liberal Party leadership's too close association with it. Should the South Australian Liberal Party succeed in purging Steele Hall because he has heretical views, one wonders whether the next step or some later step might be to purge all of those who do not have blue eyes and blond hair. Clearly, though, Mr Macphee has thrown down the gauntlet on this issue to the Liberal Party leadership. I believe it will be a very good thing for the Liberal Party to promote constructive debate within the Liberal Party instead of allowing the views of the far Right to go largely unchallenged, as they have to the present time. Senator SHORT —I refer the Minister representing the Attorney-General to Press reports that Federal Government tax prosecutors are now very concerned about the difficulty of succeeding in having courts impose penalties against people who adopt what is now known as the `Keating defence', that is, `I was too busy', when facing action for failing to lodge personal income tax returns. I ask the Minister whether he agrees with this reported comment of one prosecutor: This whole thing has knackered us and made us a laughing stock. What action is proposed by either the Attorney-General's Department or the Director of Public Prosecutions to cope with the damage resulting from Mr Keating's failure to act in compliance with the taxation laws for which he has ministerial responsibility? Senator GARETH EVANS —At the moment the only thing that has been knackered in this Parliament is the credibility of the Opposition in seeking to make so much of a matter which is manifestly quite irrelevant to the conduct, not only of the economic affairs of this nation, but also of effective prosecution policy in the tax area. For reasons that have been fully explained by the Treasurer, and by others who have spoken in Question Time today, it is perfectly clear that the policy of the Australian Taxation Office over many years has not been to prosecute people for late filing of returns in circumstances where no tax liability was involved. To that extent I find totally implausible the notion of the prosecution policy or the law enforcement policy of the Commonwealth being put at risk by people making some spurious claim based on a false analogy with what has happened in the case of the Treasurer. Senator SHORT —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. In view of that response, do I take it from what Senator Evans has said that he disagrees with the comments and views of the Federal Government tax prosecutors, as quoted in the weekend Press? Senator Walsh —Quoted anonymously. Senator GARETH EVANS —I think Senator Walsh made the point by way of interjection; it is impossible to have a considered view about a statement made by people who refuse to give their identity in circumstances where what they are talking about is manifestly at odds with the reality of tax law enforcement in this country. Senator RICHARDSON —Is the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce aware of a report titled `Manufacturing Industry Productivity Growth' released yesterday by the Bureau of Industry Economics? According to a report in today's Australian, the BIE has warned that thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector are at risk unless the Federal Government moves to improve productivity and expand the market for manufactured goods. Does the Minister agree with the conclusion of the report that productivity growth is an important path to international competitiveness and hence to economic and employment growth? What is the Government doing to encourage this? Senator BUTTON —I am aware of that report, or a series of reports, which was made public yesterday. Those reports are based essentially on 1981-82 data. A lot has happened since then, of course. Nonetheless the conclusions reached I suppose are of very considerable relevance to the situation of manufacturing industry today, although the revelations are not particularly new or startling. The study is important in explaining the basis for past productivity growth and in indicating broad directions for future policy initiatives. There are, in fact, four studies with which the BIE has dealt. One is on manufacturing industry productivity. A second draws the conclusion that if future productivity trends follow those of the 1960s and 1970s, average annual rates of growth and the volume of production would need to be more than 4 per cent a year just to maintain or raise manufacturing employment. A third study discusses the technological progress made by Australian industry during the post-war period. The fourth deals with the question of productivity and economies of scale. Senator Richardson has asked what the Government has done by way of response in relation to the broad conclusions indicated by the BIE study. First, let me make the point that subsequent to the BIE study we had the substantial depreciation of the dollar, which raised the price competitiveness of Australian manufacturing industry. There are a number of other measures which are available in order to take advantage of that change and to help capture new overseas markets. Some of those things include the substantial tax concession for research and development, a revised export marketing assistance scheme, the availability, for the first time, of venture capital and development finance through the management investment companies scheme, the Commonwealth Development Bank and the Australian Industry Development Corporation, and the development of the national industry extension services which are more devoted to quality and other issues associated with competitiveness other than price. Inevitably, as the BIE study points out, changes in many sectors will involve new labour saving technologies. This is inevitably worldwide. I think the Australian Government, business and the trade union movement have to grasp the need to make substantial improvements in produc- tivity in order to raise competitiveness in world markets and to expand Australia's share of world trade. There has been an enormous change in attitudes in relation to those issues in the last two or three years which is widely recognised throughout the business community and in industry. Senator Newman is shaking her head. I hope it does not fall off. Senator KNOWLES —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Is it a fact that, in the wake of the Keating affair, the Australian Taxation Office has changed its procedures for handling inquiries from the media seeking information about Tax Office procedures concerning late lodgment of returns? Is it a fact that callers are now being referred to the department's freedom of information section, required to provide specific details and required to pay a fee whereas, previously, advice was given through the public relations section? Why, and on whose instructions, has this change been made? Senator WALSH —I do not know whether any changes have been made or the source of the tale that Senator Knowles is peddling in here and, I presume, outside. If the media at any time made an inquiry about the affairs of a particular taxpayer and a taxation officer gave details of that particular taxpayer's affairs, the taxation officer would clearly be in breach of section 16 of the Income Tax Assessment Act. But if the Opposition is interested in-- Senator Durack —You are a real ignoramus, Walsh. Senator WALSH —There speaks the great- The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Walsh, I ask you to respond to Senator Knowles's question and ignore the interjections. Senator WALSH —With respect, Mr President, if I am not allowed to answer the hibernator, he should not be allowed to interject in the first place. No taxation officer can legally answer inquiries about a particular taxpayer's affairs. I expect that it would be legitimate to answer more general inquiries. As far as I know, no changes have been made to approaches from the media. If there were changes, as I understand it, the only person from whom such a direction could have been given would be the Commissioner of Taxation. I will inquire as to whether any such direction was given or whether this is another furphy that the Liberal Party of Australia is peddling in substitution for policy. Senator KNOWLES —I ask a supplementary question. To clarify the matter, as Senator Walsh has misrepresented my question, if he is to find out the information may I repeat what it was that I was seeking-whether the Australian Taxation Office has changed its procedure for handling inquiries from the media which seeks information about Tax Office procedures concerning late lodgment of returns. Senator WALSH —I have answered that, Mr President. Senator BLACK —Is the Minister for Education aware of comments made by the headmaster of Toowoomba Grammar School to the effect that the Federal Government treated the school with conscious spite and deliberate malice in its application of the fringe benefits tax and that Queensland school children were the unfortunate victims of an obvious and deliberate injustice when they sought tertiary education. Is the Minister able to provide the Senate with details of the effect of the FBT on tertiary institutions and the number of places provided for tertiary students in Queensland under this Government? Senator RYAN —I did see some reports of those extraordinary comments. I only hope that the person who was reported as making them-the headmaster of the Toowoomba Grammar School-in fact did not make them because I think it is really very unbecoming for a person in a position of education leadership to resort to that sort of stupid and obviously inaccurate abuse. The application of the fringe benefits tax to higher education, which he seemed to be talking about, is very minimal. Senator Chaney —Sounds like Question Time, doesn't it. Secondary education; boarding schools. Senator RYAN —As Senator Chaney intervenes, there will be some application of fringe benefits tax in those cases where teachers in boarding schools have been receiving free or subsidised board in lieu of part of their wages but honourable senators will be aware that the extent to which that tax will be applied has been modified by the recent streamlining of the fringe benefits tax and ought not to be a harsh or unconscionable imposition on the employers in boarding schools. It is also the case that boarding schools receive under Commonwealth funding a higher level of per capita payments in recognition of the fact that they have to provide boarding facilities for teachers. The other part of the claimed statement, the suggestion which we seem to hear almost daily in Queensland, wrong though it is, that Queensland students are somehow disadvantaged compared with students in other States and Territories with regard to higher education places, of course is clearly wrong. I remind the Senate that Queensland's share of extra intakes in 1987 will be 650. Queensland will get 22 per cent of total extra intakes for next year, which takes its share of the extra intakes funded by us over the last four years to some 24 per cent of the total, which is clearly a decision giving preferential treatment to Queensland. Between 1983 and 1987 the number of higher education places is expected to grow nationally by 36,800 to 300,000-a growth rate of 14 per cent. During that period Queensland's share of higher education places is expected to grow by 22 per cent. So quite clearly, as I have pointed out on many occasions in the Senate and to the Queensland media, Queensland is receiving positive discrimination under our higher education places policy. What happened prior to our assuming government is of course a different story. The backlog we inherited from the Fraser Government and from the period when the State Government had under-funded higher education in Queensland still exists, but our record cannot be challenged. As I have just stated, the overall national growth over the period for higher education places is 14 per cent and we are giving Queensland 22 per cent of those places. That is positive discrimination and is clearly to the benefit of students from Toowoomba Grammar and any other high school in Queensland. Senator TOWNLEY —Has the Leader of the Government in the Senate seen reports that Mr Graeme Campbell, who is the Labor Federal member for Kalgoorlie, received 100,000 shares in a company in return for making representations to the Western Australian Government on behalf of that company? Is it a fact that Mr Campbell disclosed his ownership of these shares in his declaration of pecuniary interests? Does the Minister agree that, in determining whether any conflict of interest arises in this case, the fact of ownership is far less important than the circumstances under which the shares were obtained-which in this case are said to involve a gift to a member of parliament for helping a constituent? Does the Minister agree that this is yet another example of the failure of a formal declaration of pecuniary interests to disclose the facts which are relevant to an assessment of whether or not an inappropriate or improper conflict of interest has occurred? Does the Government agree that Mr Campbell should divest himself of these shares? Senator BUTTON —I have seen some Press reports over the weekend about Mr Campbell's circumstances, which were referred to in Senator Townley's question. I congratulate Senator Townley on getting it right because after all he understands the importance of a statement of pecuniary interest. As distinct from his Leader in the Senate, he understands that it is about conflict of interest-- Senator Durack —He understands that they are no good. Senator BUTTON —He understands better than Senator Durack ever did, in the five years he sat on that file, about the importance-- Senator Durack —On a point of order, Mr President: On Friday I had occasion to object to a statement by Senator Walsh about the matter to which Senator Button has now also alluded. Senator Walsh was obliged to withdraw. Senator Button has just repeated the same allegation, which had to be withdrawn the other day, and I think the same ruling should apply. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Leader of the Government to withdraw any imputation contained in his statement. Senator Chaney —There will be no deals on Wednesday night or at any other time. Senator BUTTON —Do not come in here and threaten me. You can do it outside if you want to. You are a wimp. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator BUTTON —What a pathetic collection! The PRESIDENT —Order! The Chair does not need any assistance. Senator BUTTON —He comes in here and he says-- The PRESIDENT —Order! Under standing order 418, I ask Senator Button to withdraw any imputation contained in his statement. Senator BUTTON —Which one, Mr President? The PRESIDENT —The one relating to Senator Durack. Senator BUTTON —I withdraw. Insofar as the substance of Senator Townley's question is concerned, I do not know the details of that matter. As I said, I saw Press reports at the weekend. I will endeavour to find out more about that and give Senator Townley an answer in due course. Senator TOWNLEY —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Could the Leader of the Government answer that part of my question where I asked whether he thought, if the facts are as I stated by way of question, that Mr Campbell should divest himself of those shares? Senator BUTTON —I am not offering an opinion on that matter at this moment. I want to find out what the facts are. I have undertaken to do that. The PRESIDENT —Order! I point out that up to date there have been seven questions and six supplementary questions from the Opposition. That being the case, it is pretty hard to fit in everybody who wants to ask a question. Senator Chaney —Mr President, could I say, in response to that, that if we occasionally got answers to our questions there would be fewer supplementaries. The PRESIDENT —Order! I am just pointing out the facts as they are. Senator FOREMAN —My question is addressed to the Minister for Education. The Minister will no doubt be aware that some institutes of technology have approached State governments to change the names of their institutions to universities. I ask the Minister: First, what implications will these changes have for these institutions in terms of what they teach? Secondly, what implications would such changes have for government funding to these institutions? Senator RYAN —The teaching programs of higher education institutions are determined by those institutions. Whether an institution like the Western Australian Institute of Technology will have any different teaching program as a result of being called, at State level, the Curtin University of Technology, is something I cannot comment on yet. That would be a decision for that institution. However, as far as any funding implications by the Commonwealth are concerned, a name change like that made unilaterally by a State government would have no effect whatsoever. Specifically in regard to the Western Australian Institute of Technology, the Commonwealth Government does not intend to change the funding of that institution to the level of university funding which universities so recognised by the Commonwealth attract. I would add, Mr President, that it is a fairly fruitless activity for institutions to put so much energy into achieving name changes when I think what students, employers and serious researchers and scholars are concerned with are the academic standards reached by the institutions and not the names that are attached to them. Senator VIGOR —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Communications. In view of the Government's revised timetable for the introduction of extra commercial television services to regional Australia, will the deep freeze on new commercial and public radio licences be allowed to thaw a little during the next 18 months? Will the freeing of some planning resources mean that the radio licensing process will not remain frozen, as previously feared? Why has the chronic shortage of engineering staff in the Department of Communications received only mild and passing mention in the latest annual report when it has such a significant effect on the provision of radio and television services to all Australians? Senator WALSH —I will have to take that question on notice. I do not know the answer off the top of my head. Senator MAGUIRE —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. I refer to the Opposition's document of instructions on how to deal with young Australians which was just tabled by the Minister for Education. Does the document advocate employers paying young persons below award wages? In that respect, is the document's author, the Federal member for Tangney, also advocating breaking the law? Are there other policy implications stemming from the contents of the document? Senator Chaney —Mr President, I rise on a point of order. Quite clearly, that question does not relate to a matter which is within the Government's responsibility. It is yet another attempt simply to canvass what is claimed to be an Opposition document and it is not within the-- Senator Button —But the Treasurer's tax does! Senator Chaney —Well, I am glad that the Leader of the Government buys in on the Treasurer's tax. Quite clearly it is a matter of public concern and relevant to the Treasurer's situation as to whether or not he pays his tax and lodges tax returns. The PRESIDENT —Order! I think the first two portions of the honourable senator's question were clearly out of order and not within the ambit of the Minister so far as ministerial responsibility is concerned. The third one is a bit dubious but I will allow it and I will ask the Minister to relate his remarks to that section of the question. Senator WALSH —Certainly, Mr President. I was about to do that before I was interrupted with yet another spurious point of order. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I find the Minister-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Leader of the Opposition to resume his seat. I regard the Minister's comments as a reflection on the Chair and I ask him to withdraw them. Senator WALSH —I withdraw them then, Mr President. The third part of the question, if I remember correctly, was: Is the policy being advocated by Mr Shack an incitement to break the law? The answer unequivocally is yes, for these reasons-- Senator Chaney —Mr President, I raise a point of order. That must be a request for a legal opinion and that part of the question is clearly out of order under the Standing Orders. The Minister is not entitled to pass a legal opinion in this place, and that is quite clear. The PRESIDENT —Order! I think the Minister was clearly giving an answer to the second part of the question asked by Senator Maguire. In that respect, the question and the answer are clearly out of order. I ask the Minister to restrict his answer to the third part of the question asked by Senator Maguire. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I suggest that, since the Minister quite obviously has forgotten, we get on with the business-- The PRESIDENT —Order! Does Senator Walsh wish Senator Maguire to reframe his question? Senator WALSH —I ask that he clarify it, Mr President. I have just had unofficial confirmation from Senator Maguire that the third part of the question he asked was the question of the legality of the action being advocated. The PRESIDENT —Order! Will Senator Maguire ask that portion of his question again. Senator MAGUIRE —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. Is the document's author, the Federal member for Tangney, advocating breaking the law by publishing a document which suggests that employers should pay young people below award wages in Australia? Senator Chaney —Mr President, I rise on a point of order. To suggest that any policy document, even if it had the contents that have been imputed to it by the honourable senator in his question, is advocating breaking the law is an absolute absurdity. It would mean that whenever a party-- Senator Gareth Evans —That is not a point of order. Sit down. Senator Chaney —I do need your help, Senator Evans, you're such a wonderful little help! Senator Robert Ray —What is the number of your point of order? The PRESIDENT —Order, Senator Robert Ray! The Leader of the Opposition is entitled to make a point of order. Senator Chaney —Thank you, Mr President. My point of order simply is that to claim that any suggestion by any Opposition, or indeed any Government, senator that there should be a change of policy which might involve a change to the law itself amounts to an incitement to breach the law is an absurdity, and I suggest, Mr President, that you should rule it out of order as being a quite absurd proposition. The PRESIDENT —Order! If that is the question asked by the honourable senator, I rule it out of order on the ground that he is seeking a legal opinion. Senator JESSOP —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to the Government's support for a World Bank loan to Chile on the grounds that economic considerations, not political ideology, should be the basis for such decisions. Is it a fact that the Government supported wider economic sanctions against South Africa as a means of changing that country's system of government? Is it not reasonable to interpret the Government explanation for the vote in favour of the loan to Chile as another example of the Hawke Government's double standards? Senator GARETH EVANS —No, it is not reasonable to make any such assumption, even if someone such as Senator Jessop with his well-known bias in this matter thinks so. The truth of the matter is that we are talking about an international financial institution with an article in its governing document explicitly requiring its member countries not to have regard to a particular country's political situation when making decisions as to whether supporting loan moneys should be made available to it through that institution. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the decision that has been made by Australia in combination with many other countries who share our attitude to apartheid, an attitude which is not shared by Senator Jessop. We have taken the view that, by joint action, not in the context of particular institutional loans from a body such as the World Bank but through trading action generally, appropriate pressure can be brought on South Africa to help it change its mind and behave in a more civilised way. There is simply no parallel whatsoever possible between the two situations. Senator JESSOP —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. First of all, I reject the Minister's insinuation that I may have some sympathy with apartheid, because that is quite wrong. I object to the Government in Chile as well as to the Government in South Africa. However, I ask the Minister a question, having regard to the fact that he said that the action of the Government is quite reasonable as far as Chile is concerned: Would he consider supporting a loan to South Africa in the event of that country suffering an economic downturn? Senator GARETH EVANS —To the extent that something was sought through the World Bank, or an equivalent institution, in relation to which we are bound by articles which commit us to a particular approach, yes, of course we would adopt such a view, just as a few weeks ago we adopted a position of support for South Africa remaining within the International Red Cross organisation. We adopted a position of very strong support for South Africa remaining within that organisation because to have voted with a number of other countries which were urging upon us the fashionableness of doing otherwise would have been to undermine completely the credibility of that organisation. Obviously it did not demonstrate any affection whatsoever for the contemptible regime in that country of which the honourable senator is an apologist: It demonstrated simply a commitment to the principles of international institutions. Senator Jessop —Mr President, I raise a point of order. I am offended by the Minister saying that I am an apologist for the South African Government. I am not an apologist for the South African Government. I am opposed to apartheid. My attitude to apartheid is one that may differ from the attitude of others in the way in which we can overcome the problem. I object to the Minister casting aspersions on me and I ask him to withdraw. The PRESIDENT —I ask the Minister to withdraw. Senator Gareth Evans —In deference to the Chair, I withdraw, Mr President. Senator Chaney —Mr President, I raise a point of order. You earlier ruled on conditional withdrawal. The PRESIDENT —Order! I ask the Minister to withdraw unreservedly. Senator Gareth Evans —Unreservedly I withdraw, Mr President. Senator COLEMAN —I ask whether the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce has seen a report in today's Australian Financial Review on comments made by the chief economist of the Metal Trades Industry Association, Dr Clive Edwards, about new trading opportunities now open to Australian business in the Asian-Pacific region, including those in Japan. Does the Minister agree with Dr Edwards that `Government, business and unions in Australia are preoccupied with the various problems faced by the nation'? Does the Minister agree that Australia is well placed to participate in the opportunities which are emerging in the Asian-Pacific region? Senator BUTTON —I have seen a reference to that article and the remarks of Dr Edwards. I think it is true that in the past there has been considerable introspective concentration on problems in Australia rather than on opportunities. There are and will be substantial trade opportunities in the Asian-Pacific region and that is in large part due to the increased competitiveness of Australian manufacturing industry. These matters were discussed at some length during the recent investment mission to Japan and I am sure there will be opportunities in conjunction with Japanese companies for Australian manufacturers, particularly engineering companies. At this time I am unable to comment further than that on the question which Senator Coleman has addressed to me. The PRESIDENT —I have received a letter from Senator Messner proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The delay and devaluation of the Hawke/Keating personal income tax changes, cheating Australians of real tax reductions. I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(3.10) -Today is 1 December, the day when the Government has delivered at last, three months late-or, one could even argue, two years late-the first instalment of its tax cuts. These tax cuts cannot be characterised properly as reductions of tax at all. They merely are changes to the structure in order to give back to people that which they have already lost through inflation. It will be the task of the Opposition in the course of this debate to assert that this measure is nothing more than an illusion perpetrated by this Government to disguise its mismanagement of the economy. Let us just sketch the state of the economy at present. The Australian people are confronted with an economy which is clearly in recession. Already, at least three quarters of this financial year have shown negative, or at least zero, rates of growth for the economy. The average rate of interest that is charged on loans in this country remains at the highest levels for at least five decades in real terms. This has led to a slump in private capital investment, which is the only sure way of ensuring that jobs are created in this economy. Of course, the nation is incurring debt at a rate commensurate with only Third World debtor countries. More importantly, on top of this comes Australia's inflation rate which, over the three years just past, has been averaging at least 7 per cent. Currently the inflation rate represents something like four to five times that of our major trading partners. It is the staggering increase in prices over the last three years and the continuing pessimistic outlook for those prices that is at the heart of the fraud that is being perpetrated on the Australian people by this Government. While the Government continues to gloat over the fact that the tax cuts which it has just introduced will somehow be beneficial to wage and salary earners, the true picture is that these tax relief measures will provide only a very small return compared with the bludgeoning effects of economic policy over the previous three years in which it has been in office. Senator Peter Baume —Too little, too late. Senator MESSNER —It is too little, too late, as Senator Peter Baume has pointed out. Indeed, even taking into account the instalment that will be due in June of next year, there will still be a depressingly small amount of benefit for the Australian people. I would like to come back to this matter in a few minutes. The fact is that there has been a fraudulent breach of promise by this Government. We recall very well how before the 1984 election the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), forced as he was on to the back foot because he had no taxation policy to present to the Australian people in the course of that election campaign, undertook a solemn and sincere promise. Let us remind ourselves of what that promise was. He undertook that there would be no increase in taxation during the life of this Government which was re-elected in 1984-no increase in taxation as a percentage of gross domestic product. But, of course, at the first opportunity that has arisen for the Government's sincerity in this regard to be tested, we have the highest rate of tax being applied to the Australian people and a record increase in the rate of taxation to the point that this Government is now applying the highest rate of tax in the nation's history. That represents nearly 26 per cent of the gross domestic product-a clear breach of promise in respect of the Prime Minister's solemn and sincere undertaking to the Australian people in 1984. The Government's promises mean nothing and they quite clearly provide a basis for this attack today. Let us have a look at the real picture and what is really happening because of the Government's inability effectively to control inflation. Concomitantly with the increases in wages as a result of prima facie full wage indexation that we are now suffering, Australian wage and salary earners have suffered a significant decline in their after-tax money. Even after today's tax cuts single taxpayers and families with a dependent spouse who are earning about average weekly earnings will be paying both higher marginal rates and higher average rates of tax than they were when the Hawke Government first came to power in 1983. Let us look at a short sketch of the Australian economy in that regard. Let us just remind ourselves first of all that the Government, in its tax package introduced in September of 1985, said that it would hand back over two years to the Australian people some $4 1/2 billion in tax cuts-so it said. But at that time it said: `We will only raise through new taxes such as the fringe benefits tax and the capital gains tax an extra $1.5 billion'. The difference, that $3 billion overhang, has had to be found out of the pockets of the Australian people. That is where, again, the fraud of this Government lies, in that all this Government is doing with these taxation measures is merely handing back to the Australian people that which it has already taken through inflation. Let us interpret how that situation will affect the average Australian family by using some more meaningful figures. When this Government came to power in March of 1983-we can recall this very well-the average rate of tax that applied at the highest dollar of a person's income, whether it was a family or a single person, was 30 per cent. But today, nearly four years on, after this Government has broken so many promises in the taxation area, that rate of tax has climbed to 43 per cent. That represents an increase of more than one-third in the tax rate that applies to the person on average weekly earnings. We are not talking about the most wealthy in the community; we are not talking about the highest income earners in the community; we are talking about the average family man in this community. His tax rate has risen, since Hawke came to power with his world famous Treasurer, Mr Keating, in tow, by at least one-third. In terms of the average tax rate the same kind of pattern has occurred. We have seen an increase of at least 30 per cent in the average tax rates that are applying both to families and to individuals. What this amounts to, in the shortest of terms, is that Treasurer Keating has presided over a situation in which average earnings have continued inexorably to be taxed at higher and higher rates. Looking at the statistics, the average weekly wage earner was paying 11 per cent of his income in tax 30 years ago. We find that that rate has more than doubled to 24 per cent today. The real point is that after these tax cuts have been taken into account a single income family on average weekly earnings, which today is running at something like $480 a week, would require a tax cut of over $23 a week merely to bring the proportion of income that the family pays back to what it was when the Fraser Government went out of office in March of 1983. I remind the Senate again of those figures. The tax cut that would have to be delivered today to restore the taxation level back to what it was when this Government first came to power would be $23 a week. What have we seen instead of that? The tax cut that the average family is getting today is $8.46 per week. The real amount of money then that is flowing to this Government as a result of these marvellous Keating tax measures, the amount by which taxpayers are down the tubes, is $14.60 a week for the average family. How can the families of Australia possibly dream that they are better off under this Keating tax package? It is a cheating tax package because it is robbing nearly $15 a week from the pockets of Australian taxpayers. If the Fraser tax proposals of 1983 had been maintained they would have ensured that to that extent they were better off. Let us take a person who is slightly better off than average weekly earnings, a person on $600 a week. That person would have to receive $13.60 more per week to be in the same position as he was when the Fraser Government went out of power. Clearly these figures show that the Government's tax cuts are purely illusory and do not genuinely reduce the burden on Australian taxpayers. These supposed tax changes are cheating Australians of real tax reductions. This is perhaps even more clearly thrown into sharp relief when we consider what has happened only in the past five months since the new financial year started. After taking into account the increase in Medicare levy of some 25 per cent, we find that another 240,000 taxpayers in the last five months have crossed from the 29 per cent tax bracket to the 43 per cent tax bracket. This Government's tax policy is forcing relatively low income earners into a higher and higher tax bracket so that they will be ripped off. The effect over a 12-month period in this financial year will be that nearly 700,000 people will be paying extra taxes and will have moved from the 29 per cent bracket over to the 43 per cent tax bracket. By the year of our Bicentenary in 1988 it is shown quite clearly that two million taxpayers who are currently paying taxes at the rate of 25 per cent to 30 per cent will have moved up to the 43 per cent tax bracket. That is what the people of Australia will be feeling and are feeling in their pay packets in the next month, the next few months and in the next year. By the time the Bicentenary has arrived we will find that the 40 per cent tax rate has become a reality for just about all Australians, simply because of the inadequacies of this Government's tax measures. This outright display of cheating and fraudulent behaviour on the part of the Keating-Hawke Government is amply demonstrated by the deferment of the tax cuts from the original date of 1 September up until today. This has been a savage blow to wage and salary earners. As a result of that three months delay, average wage earners this year will be paying an extra $110 in taxes than would otherwise have happened had these tax cuts started from the original date. This Government must be shown up for what it is. It is the highest taxing government in history which breaches its promises on taxation at every opportunity, as it has done following the 1984 election, and is the highest spending administration in the history of the nation. These tax cuts, if that is what they can be called, are cheating ordinary Australians of real tax reductions. It is cheating them of a standard of living that they have worked for because the Government is taking it out of their pay packets before they actually get the cash. It is cheating these people of the opportunities to be able to provide a future for their children. The Government cannot continue with this illusion. It is a sad fact of life that it shows this Government to be without concern for the average person. It shows that the Government will not review its current economic policies when the people of Australia are crying out for this to be done. While the Government continues to provide the business community with an uncertain outlook on wages and prices, investment and associated increases in employment, economic growth will remain stagnant and will not provide the opportunities for our young people who are coming on. Such measures as the fringe benefits tax, the capital gains tax, the abolition of negative gearing as well as the very substantial increases in infrastructure costs now arising through inflation, are some of the reasons why investment in this country will remain depressed in the years ahead. This is notwithstanding the problems with high interest rates, notwithstanding the problem with the falling dollar, notwithstanding the overwhelming problem of our growing debt as it heads towards the $100,000m mark. The Government must review its economic policies as a matter of urgency. This alone is a sufficient reason for the Treasurer to be sacked. Leaving aside of course the current problems he has demonstrated by virtue of the fact that he has failed to lodge his 1985 and 1986 taxation returns on time and the questions that the people of Australia are raising about his individual and personal affairs which reflect upon his administration as the chief Cabinet Minister in charge of the administration of taxation, it is his economic policies that bring his whole approach to government into disrepute. Budget forecasts are continually shown to have been challenged by actual data as they come out. Government expenditure is already running well ahead of the Budget forecast. This indicates that the Budget deficit, which was somehow fiddled in the Budget to be brought down to $3,500m, will blow out substantially. What is being confidently predicted by commentators is that there may be a deficit this year of the order of $5,000m or even more. Increasingly this is becoming clearer as economic commentators bring out their statements. These statements also are being made by people who have severe doubts about the Government's estimates on the growth in the economy. The Government has been claiming a growth rate of some 2.5 per cent for this financial year, but already we have seen in this financial year a growth rate of only just zero. Consequently there will have to be a mighty big job done in the last six to nine months of this financial year to bring the growth rate anywhere near 2.5 per cent. Where are commentators pointing to change in the economy that will produce that result? They are not, and no legitimate business house or group of commentators is adverting to that point at all. While the Government continues on its road towards higher and higher spending with a bigger and bigger deficit on its current account overseas and a falling dollar, we must see a bigger and bigger problem arise while the present Treasurer Keating's integrity and his ability to manage the economy are thrown into greater and greater relief. It stems from his grasp of economics, which is politically based. We have seen the absolute arrogance of this man in dealing with the Australian people-with his own Cabinet, with his own Caucus, with the Opposition and with parliament. All these things obviously reflect on his capacity to be able to take the right decisions. Finally, let me ask the Australian people this question: How much better off do the Australian people feel today than when this Government was elected 3 1/2 years ago? The answer is that they are worse off-worse off through higher prices, higher interest rates and lower standards of living. This Treasurer, Mr Keating, has failed in his job, and he should be sacked or resign. Senator WALSH(Western Australia-Minister for Finance)(3.30) —I really thought that the Opposition might have been able to put on a better performance than the pathetic performance that Senator Messner has just put up. At the outset I draw attention to the humbug and hypocrisy of this Opposition, which purports to be concerned about the living standards-which means the disposable incomes-of the people of this country, the wage earners in particular. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) has opposed every wage increase since 1977. The Opposition's present wages policy is for a wages freeze-and no prices freeze to go with it. One does not have to be particularly numerate to work out that if wages are frozen and prices are rising, people's real incomes will fall. What matters to people is not the absolute or relative levels of taxation, but the disposable income that they have-that is, their incomes after taxation. This Opposition has argued for nine years, and continues to argue with increasing fervour that there should be a freeze on wages. Let us wipe away that humbug and hypocrisy and dry the crocodile tears. (Quorum formed) I had just pointed out the Opposition's humbug and hypocrisy-an Opposition which purports to be concerned about the incomes and living standards of people, but which simultaneously advocates a wages freeze while prices can go wherever they like. Senator Messner even referred to `suffering full wage indexation'. The Opposition wants wage earners to suffer a wages freeze. Figures about average rates of taxation paid by taxpayers can be distorted and manipulated. Indeed, this afternoon we saw some examples of the way in which that can happen. Senator Messner quoted figures which included the Medicare levy as a tax paid, and then compared them with the era before the Medicare levy was applied, when people had to pay private health insurance instead. In other words, he counted the Medicare levy, which is a replacement for private health insurance, but made no adjustment for the fact that since Medicare people no longer have to pay private health insurance. Let us look at the facts about income tax as a proportion of earnings. The average rate of tax for a person on average weekly earnings in November 1982 was 23.1 per cent. The tax cuts of 1982 reduced that rate to 20.9 per cent. That was under the previous Treasurer, and I will have a little more to say about that later. Following the income tax cuts of November 1984, the average tax rate paid by a person on average weekly earnings fell to 19.9 per cent. In December this year-that is, from today onwards-further reductions in marginal tax rates will reduce that average rate to 19.7 per cent. Some people might argue that that is still too high. That is largely an ideological statement, but a factual statement is that the only way in which average tax rates across a significant spectrum of the tax-paying population can be reduced significantly is if the tax base is broadened. In other words, if the taxation base is broadened so that fringe benefits and capital gains are taxed and various tax havens are eliminated, the rate can be reduced. Thus, the only way in which the average tax rate for a large proportion of taxpayers can be reduced is by introducing the taxation reforms that this Government has introduced and which the Opposition has opposed at every step in recent months. The Opposition has pledged itself to repeal these tax reforms, whatever that pledge is worth. I return to the tax cuts of December 1982-the Howard tax cuts which brought the average tax rate paid by a person on average weekly earnings down to 20.9 per cent. It is now 19.7 per cent. Certainly, the former Treasurer brought those average tax rates down in December 1982 to 20.9 per cent. How did he do that? He did that by blowing out the underlying deficit to nearly $10 billion. That is the legacy that this Government inherited from Mr Howard. In his seeming tax generosity, he brought about a prospective deficit of $9.6 billion, or 5 per cent of gross domestic product. Senator Messner —On a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask you to rule on whether the Minister is relevant when he persistently quotes fraudulent figures which are mere figments of his imagination. Quite clearly he is merely trying to cloud the issue by pulling figures out of the air. He is plainly wrong. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —There is no point or order. Senator WALSH —I can understand why the Opposition does not want this fact to be repeated. But it will be repeated ad nauseam because it is highly relevant and it is true. Senator Archer —It is a lie! The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT — Order! Senator Archer must withdraw that remark. Senator Archer —I withdraw. Senator WALSH —When this Government came to office the prospective deficit was $9.6 billion, as assessed by the Treasury. If a government is prepared to run a sufficiently irresponsible fiscal policy and a deficit of more than 5 per cent of gross domestic product, as Mr Howard was when he was Treasurer, then tax rates can be brought down cosmetically. But the only way in which tax rates can be really brought down is by broadening the taxation base and that is what this Government has done. Simultaneously we have also brought the deficit down to less than 1.5 per cent of gross domestic product, compared to the more than 5 per cent prospective deficit which this Government inherited from the last, and discredited, Treasurer. The one grain of truth in the Opposition's case is that the tax cuts, the first stage of which came into operation today, are concentrated on marginal tax rates with one significant exception to which my colleague the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) drew attention yesterday. That exception is very low income earners, who will be major beneficiaries in terms of average tax rates as a result of the significant increase in the tax free threshold. Thus the first and second stages of the tax cuts-the first stage of which came into operation today-are concentrated on marginal tax rates and on very low taxable income through the increase in the tax free threshold. That is the one valid point that the Opposition has made. But that should be seen in this context: The tax cuts of 1984 were concentrated on the $12,000 to $20,000 taxable income bracket-the income bracket which at the time included the vast majority of wage and salary earners. For that vast majority of wage and salary earners there was a uniform tax reduction at that time of $7.60 a week. So the 1984 tax cuts were concentrated on that income band which incorporates the vast majority of wage and salary earners. The tax cuts stage 1, which take effect from today, and the tax cuts stage 2, which will take effect from 1 July 1987, have been concentrated on marginal tax rates and the very low income earners through the threshold. With regard to broadening the taxation base, which is of course the only responsible way in which average tax rates can be brought down, I have already noted that the Government, through the capital gains tax and the fringe benefits tax-through the introduction of a fairer taxation system-has made it possible for this to be done. I have also drawn attention to the fact that the Opposition, after an initial period of indecision, subsequently opposed all of those tax reform measures, thereby of course making it impossible to deliver the tax cuts which have been delivered today and which will be enhanced on 1 July. When the Opposition, under the leadership of John Howard, embarked on a blatantly opportunistic political strategy, it decided it would oppose what it had, initially at least, been neutral about. If other policies presently being advocated by the Opposition were to be adopted, the tax base would shrink even further. I will quote from a document dated 27 November and marked `Confidential'-the Opposition's policy on youth-which at this stage is about as confidential as something on the front page of a newspaper, although it has not as yet been in the newspapers. Page 7 of that document, authored by the shadow spokesman for youth, Mr Shack, says: A further point is to look at the issue- this is the issue of youth wages- from the point of view of a person who has been unemployed for six months and would gladly work for $180 a week-although the going award wage for youth might be $220 a week . . . He goes on to say: If an employer currently couldn't afford to employ that person at $220- I interpolate that that is at the award wage- but could at $180 a week, why prevent the employer and the unemployed person getting together and negotiating an acceptable wage which satisfies them both? In other words, a clear incitement to break the law is incorporated in a Liberal Party policy document. Of course, the law breaking goes well beyond the breaching of industrial awards, be they State or Federal. By definition, any employer who acted upon the proposition being advocated by Mr Shack-- Senator Messner —Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I ask you to rule on relevance. The Minister is straying well away from the point at hand, which is, of course, the economy and the tax cuts starting today. What he is talking about here is a possible Opposition policy and it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —There is no point of order. The Minister is relevant to the whole debate. Senator WALSH —I can see the tactics here. They are to interrupt the flow of the case and thereby the comprehension of it by those people who are listening. But because the Liberal Party is advocating in an official policy document that employers should breach industrial awards by paying below award wages, it follows axiomatically that such employees could not be recorded on the employers' books or could not be accurately recorded on their books. If they were, the industrial inspectorate, when inspecting the books, would discover that the awards were being breached and would take action accordingly. (Quorum formed) I had just explained why, under the wages policy being advocated by the Opposition, employers would not have employees accurately recorded, or recorded at all, on their wages books. If they are not going to be recorded accurately on the wages books for the purposes of the respective conciliation and arbitration Acts, it follows that they are not likely to be recorded accurately on the taxation books either; so that would lead to a further shrinkage of the income tax base, as well as a violation of the law of the land with respect to award wages. I want to make two final points. First, to say the least, it ill-behoves members of the Opposition to talk about fiscal drag, as economists or taxation experts call it, and taxation indexation, particularly when the last Liberal Government was elected on an ironclad promise to index the personal tax rate scale, thereby removing what was known at that time as the tax on inflation. It did it for the first year, modified it in the second year and, in the first year that Mr Howard was Treasurer-in fact almost immediately upon Mr Howard becoming Treasurer-repudiated the taxation cuts which had been introduced for the purposes of the 1977 election. It not only abandoned the full indexation, to which it was previously committed and indeed which it had at that time enacted, but it actually increased the nominal tax rates for a significant period into the future. Secondly, I want to warn against the pitfalls which are entailed in using international comparisons of taxation. It is common for taxation propagandists in Australia to assert that Australia is a very highly taxed country in the absolute sense, and more common still for them to say that personal income taxes contribute a disproportionately high amount of tax in Australia and thereby in absolute levels. Those comparisons inevitably rest on an inadequate definition of personal income tax; that is, that it varies from country to country. In closing, I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table which is from a publication called `State of Play', published by George Allen and Unwin and authorised by the INDECS economists and which shows the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with those correct adjustments. Senator Archer —I have not seen it. Senator WALSH —I apologise. I will show it to Senator Messner. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Table 7.2 TAX REVENUES IN OECD COUNTRIES, 1983 (as percentage of GDP) Personal(a) Income Payroll(a) Goods and Services Total(b) Australia... 13.2 1.8 9.9 30.0 Austria... 15.9 9.1 13.2 41.0 Belgium... 21.8 7.9 12.0 45.4 Canada... 13.4 2.7 10.8 33.0 Denmark... 25.0 0.9 16.5 46.2 Finland... 15.9 2.7 14.1 35.2 France... 12.6 14.1 12.9 44.6 Germany... 16.7 7.2 10.3 37.4 Greece... 11.0 5.3 14.3 32.9 Ireland... 13.7 4.4 18.1 39.2 Italy... 15.5 10.4 9.5 40.6 Japan... 11.2 4.2 4.2 27.7 Luxembourg... 16.7 5.7 10.1 42.5 Netherlands... 23.0 8.4 11.4 47.3 New Zealand... 19.5 nil 8.4 32.5 Norway... 14.8 7.1 16.8 46.6 Portugal... n.a. 5.7 14.4 32.9 Spain... 8.9 9.1 6.5 27.2 Sweden... 20.2 15.3 12.3 50.5 Switzerland... 17.9 3.2 6.1 31.6 Turkey... 8.7 0.7 6.2 18.8 UK... 13.7 3.5 11.3 37.8 USA... 14.2 4.9 5.2 29.0 a. Payroll taxation includes compulsory social security contributions levied on employers, while personal income taxation includes compulsory social security contributions levied on employees, the self-employed non-employed persons. b. Includes company taxes, property taxes, etc. in addition to the sum of the first three columns. Source: OECD, Revenue Statistics of OECD Member Countries, 1965-84, OECD Paris, 1985. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(3.49) —I rise in this debate to point out that the tax cuts that are talked about in the matter of public importance are useful mainly to the wealthy. The Budget, of which we are now seeing the effects, disadvantages mainly the poor, the young, the aged, Aborigines, migrants and the unemployed. Senator Parer —And the single income family. Senator VIGOR —It also disadvantages the single income family. The postponement of indexation of pensions and benefits, including the age pension, sickness benefit and the unemployment benefit, is another way in which those people are being affected. The delay in the tax cuts from September to December, which is what we are talking about, has meant an effective loss to taxpayers of around one quarter of the promised tax cuts. The tax cuts which have come into effect today, discounted as they have been by the delay, would not have come in at all, however, had the Australian Democrats not taken a strong stand on supporting the Government's way of trying to get a more equitable tax system and had we not passed the fringe benefits tax and capital gains tax legislation, the main impact of which is on the larger corporate entities within our community and the more wealthy people of this country. We passed that legislation, not because we approved of the way in which it was drafted in those cases, but because the taxing of fringe benefits and capital gains made the taxation system much more equitable. The set of tax cuts that we are getting today is meant to be simply a redistribution of tax from the wealthy to the poor. However, the Government, by the back door, has managed to achieve exactly the opposite; that is what the Democrats are worried about. The Government has left in the taxation system a large number of loopholes that are currently being exploited by the wealthy and by those people who are influential enough to employ clever accountants who can do creative tax accounting. The rorts that have arisen, and the loopholes that have come out of the new round of taxes that the Government has imposed, appear to be almost as bad as the rorts that were there before. However there have been tax cuts today and the ordinary pay as you earn Australian taxpayer is grateful for that, even though it is only three-quarters of what was expected. It is better than nothing. Taxpayers would have received nothing if the Opposition had been handling it. Its friends, the large corporate entities, would have continued-- Senator Messner —I take a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. Quite clearly, this is a lie that Senator Vigor is perpetrating, to the effect that we would not be introducing tax cuts. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —Order! Senator Messner, you must withdraw the word `lie'. Senator Messner —I withdraw the word `lie' and say that he is speaking untruths about the Opposition's policies in this area. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order. Senator VIGOR —The Opposition in fact flat-footedly opposed the Government's measures providing for these tax cuts. You voted against these tax cuts, Senator Messner. Senator Messner —We did not. Senator VIGOR —Effectively, you voted against these tax cuts. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Vigor, will you please address your remarks through the Chair? Senator VIGOR —I believe it is important that the Opposition realise that the Democrats' stand on the tax package was predicated on the fact that the tax cuts would be given, as promised by the Government. We are annoyed that the Government did not in fact give them at the time that it promised it would give them. However, currently, the Government is getting around these tax cuts as they affect the poor people in our community. The Government has removed the family allowance for most children aged over 16. It has introduced a $250 tertiary fee with no concessions for age pensioners or part time students. It has restructured assistance for Aboriginal housing so that only new capital works are funded and ongoing maintenance programs are cut. The Government has cut so much out of the programs which helped the poor that the poor are in fact worse off as a result of the general measures in the Budget. In other words, the income tax changes today advantage mainly the wealthy. Our current inflation rate is more than twice that of the average for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. Wages and pensions have now been discounted so that effectively, while inflation last year to 31 March was 9.2 per cent, wage awards rose by only 3.8 per cent over the year to June 1986. Average earnings rose faster than award rates, reflecting the increased disadvantage of our lower income earners who have borne the brunt of wage restraint through loss in purchasing power, through inflation and discounting. These tax cuts will return some of that advantage to them but not as much as will be returned to the wealthy. It is noteworthy that the rate of increase of Government revenue was well beyond that of wage awards and wage rates. Government revenue increased in 1986 by 12.6 per cent, and again this year by 11 per cent. This rise is obviously due to more than just covering wage costs in the Public Service. High interest rates have pushed up housing costs inordinately. Many low income earners, who were spending around 25 per cent of their income on interest payments on housing, are now in desperate straits as interest rates have rocketed through the ceiling. They find it very difficult to balance their budget. What is an extra $5 a week in take-home wages when one is faced with an extra $50 a week in interest payments? The income tax cuts effectively decrease income tax for the wealthy to 49c in the dollar from 60c in the dollar. For single pensioners living below the poverty line, with as little as $5,000 invested at a rate of 11.75 per cent, the tax cuts mean an effective tax rate of 74c in the dollar. This seems grossly unfair. Pensioners, welfare beneficiaries and the 8,000 children living below the poverty line are being penalised, but the wealthy are getting the advantage of a healthy and hefty tax cut, some of which is being received today and some of which will be received next June. However, the real problem facing Australia is our balance of payment crisis, which is exacerbated by the failure to invest in productive enterprises in Australia. This is due largely to high interest rates and the floods of foreign money which come in on the speculative markets and which are encouraged by this Government, as they were by previous governments, through its allowing negative gearing on takeover moneys. The people entering into these speculative arrangements for buying and taking over companies are getting Australia into real problems. This flood of speculative money pushes up the value of the dollar, which makes our exports uncompetitive because of higher relative production costs. It totally discourages investment in productive business ventures in Australia. We need to do something about that. Taxation is avoided by the major large companies through transfer pricing arrangements which mean either that they pay very much lower taxes than they should pay or that the profit is made on the high seas or in foreign tax havens. We also have an unwarranted situation of high taxes on employment and work, which is leading to disillusionment amongst our small business owners, more and more of whom are giving up the unequal battle and essentially retiring from active business to enjoy the interest earned on their capital. It is the sign of a country going downhill. In the investment gap left by these various people we have foreign investors. We are getting a large amount of foreign investment money slushing in on finance and insurance. It is coming in essentially free of tax, so the tax cuts do not really affect those investors. There is very little productive investment. Of the order of only 13 per cent of the total money coming in as capital is actual productive investment. In 1984, $1.2 billion was spent on takeovers; in 1985, the figure was $4.5 billion. So far this year $7.7 billion has been spent in just the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd takeover triangle, and that $7.7 billion has not gone in any way into productive investment. We are currently building up an enormous debt overseas, on which we are having to pay interest. Takeovers are a relatively unproductive exercise, yet the taxpayers of Australia are financing them and helping them through our tax system. These people on takeover jaunts are being financed by the taxpayer through negative gearing arrangements which allow them to offset the profits of the companies which they take over against the interest paid on the money which they borrowed to buy the companies. This does not help. All it does is add heat to the stock market and make things much worse for the ordinary Australian. We need to attack on a much wider front these types of rorts which we have in the system. An amount of $1.2 billion is available currently if we are willing to pursue transfer pricing. That could be translated into tax cuts. The Australian Taxation Office said in its September 1986 report, `A Taxing Problem', that, as part of the proposed priority setting mechanism outlined in its recommendation, it would like to have many more staff members transferred from technical assessing duties to compliance areas, such as field and in-house auditing activities. If this were done, it would be much easier for rorts and the people who are defrauding the tax system to be pursued. Much bigger tax cuts could then flow through to other people in the system. Revenue is forgone through undisclosed dividends and interest incomes which are not caught currently because the Taxation Office does not have the ability within its system to match the records that it gets from the banks with those prepared by taxpayers. If this were solved, an enormous saving could be translated into tax cuts. I believe that the tax cuts are a good thing. People of Australia would not have had them without the Australian Democrats, who supported the Government's program for producing these tax cuts. I believe we should be continuing with this program of pursuing the rorts within the taxation system and lowering the tax rates in Australia so that all Australians get a fairer go. Senator WATSON(Tasmania)(4.05) —I rise in support of a matter of public importance which was raised by my Liberal colleague from South Australia, Senator Messner-a matter of public importance on a very significant date, 1 December. The Australian Labor Party heralds the so-called tax cuts as a great achievement. We in the coalition parties are concerned about the delay and devaluation of the Hawke-Keating personal tax cuts. The Liberal Party of Australia believes the Labor Party has been cheating Australians of real tax reductions. The Labor Party does not support many newspapers but to one, the Australian Financial Review, it gives some credibility. A headline on its front page today is ` ``Sleight-of-hand'' tax cuts follow confusion on FBT'. This headline epitomises the attitude of the Labor Party towards tax cuts in this country. What has happened? Even after the 1 December tax cuts virtually all single income families will be paying a higher proportion of their income in pay as you earn tax than they did when the Liberal Government left office in 1983. In addition, taxpayers are facing increasingly onerous burdens as a result of actions taken by this Labor Government. We have had a whole range of new taxes under Labor; yet we are talking about tax cuts. We have had the capital gains tax, the fringe benefits tax and substantiation. More significant is the fact that we are finding nowadays that many of the tax laws are really being made not by the legislature but by the Australian Taxation Office by administrative decree. Therefore an increasing range of taxes in this country do not have any legislative sanction. They were made outside the law. Many of the changes are incompatible with present legislation. Quite often the tax laws which are being administered by the Taxation Office are contrary to the original political intent. This is a sad reflection on the way in which this Labor Government is allowing the tax administration of this country to be carried out to the detriment of ordinary pay as you earn taxpayers, the business community-indeed, to the detriment of the whole of the Australian community. Let us look at the thrust of the contribution by the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) to this debate today. His contribution was based on his estimates of figures for the last year of the Fraser Government. My colleague Senator Messner rightly pointed out to the Minister that the Minister's outrageously inflated estimates were figments of his imagination. The basis of his argument rested on those estimates. Senator Vigor, on the other hand, merely gave the Senate a recycled version of his favourite topic-takeovers. We have heard this speech time and time again. It is good in sentiment, but it is a far cry from the issue before the Senate today. The Liberal Party is concerned about taxation; it is concerned about the impact that tax is having on the ordinary taxpayers of this country and the fact that many Australians have a reduced standard of living. Let us look at some of the facts. Why has the Labor Government had to pay an advertising agency $2m to tell people that they are getting a tax cut? It is the first time in the history of this country that a Labor government has had to spend taxpayers' funds to tell ordinary people how good a tax reform package is and how much they are getting in tax cuts. Senator Messner —How much is it costing? Senator WATSON —Two million dollars. Senator Archer —More than that. Senator WATSON —Yes, it will be higher. That $2m is the first instalment. It will be more than double that. The present Labor Government is the highest taxing government in Australia, raising 25.5 per cent of gross domestic product in taxes. They are the facts. What has happened? Under the last Liberal Government people were taxed $44 billion, but under this Labor Government people are now taxed $71 billion. This is an increase of 61 per cent in just four years, and the Government is trying to convince us that we are better off with these tax cuts. We acknowledge that they are tax cuts, but we are saying that people are not better off under a Labor government; they are better off under a Liberal government. That is the point that we are making. We acknowledge that the Government is putting through a nominal or notional tax cut today. It is just dressing it up. What we are saying is that overall people are now worse off under Labor than they were under a Liberal government. What is happening to the average wage earner? He will be paying 20.5 per cent-this figure does not include the Medicare levy-of his income in tax, compared with 17.5 per cent in the last year of the Fraser Government. By 1 July 1987 about two million taxpayers will have moved from the new 29 per cent tax bracket to the 40 per cent tax bracket. What will the Government rely on? It will rely on tax bracket creep. When inflation and wages go up, the tax goes up at a much faster and higher rate. The Government will give some tax cuts-it will cut taxes a little-perhaps in July 1987. But I doubt whether that will take place. I will give honourable senators my arguments on that subject later. How will the Government finance these cuts? It will finance them through inflation. By 1 July 1987, 50 per cent of all taxpayers will pay the 40 per cent tax rate or higher. These are ordinary Australians. We are not talking about the tall poppies that the Government is trying to cut down. In regard to the company tax rate, it is doing the same thing. We have the highest company tax rates in the world-46c to 49c in the dollar. According to the Budget Papers, the total tax take in the 1986-87 Budget will increase by 11 per cent, or $6.5 billion. Government spending will go up quite massively. Net pay as you earn income tax collections for this year will go up by $2.6 billion, even after today's tax cuts. They are the real figures that we must look at. We believe that the Hawke Government has been quite deceptive in its approach to tax relief. It is as simple as that. The tax cuts which take place today were promised for 1 September. The Government has failed to deliver on its original promise. As a result of this three months delay, average wage earners will pay an extra $110 in taxes this year. But what has happened to the pensioners? The poor old pensioners' benefits were delayed, too. Furthermore, on the same day on which the tax cuts will become effective, the Government will levy an additional 25 per cent for Medicare. This will be taken from the pay packets of all Australian taxpayers. While the tax rates have come down, other taxes are going up. Sales tax on a range of consumer goods, including poor old flavoured milk, is being increased. There is also the fringe benefits tax. Ordinary middle and low income earners who get some small fringe benefit will now have to cash it out as a result of the Labor Government's policy. So their take home pay-their effective earnings-is actually going down as a result of this cashing out of the benefit, because they will not get much of an increase in salary out of this cashing out. In regard to petrol, my colleague the honourable member for Franklin, Bruce Goodluck, is very concerned about the cost of petrol to the ordinary motorist. Under the Hawke Labor Government the excise on petrol has risen from 6c a litre to 19c a litre. This has meant that the ordinary suburban motorist is now paying an additional $5.80 a week in petrol tax. When one starts to look at the range of additional imposts that have been imposed by the Hawke Labor Government, the ordinary man is finding that prices are going up and his standard of living is going down. Big government equals big taxes. The root, the cause, the crux, of our problems today is the size of government spending and the size of governments. This is causing a tremendous incentive to destroy the taxation system, which is gnawing at the heart of the fabric of our society. Do honourable senators know that governments now spend nearly 45 per cent of the national product, compared with 30 per cent only 20 years ago, and that taxation on average earnings has risen from 11 per cent 30 years ago to 24 per cent today? The figures are really quite frightening. Currently, 32 per cent of wage and salary earners are employed in the government sector. Therefore, we have one of the highest rates of public sector employment in the world. This has been achieved only by the imposition of higher taxes. As I mentioned previously, the Hawke Government is the biggest spending and biggest taxing government in Australia's history. In the lead-up to the last election, the Hawke Government saw fit to impose a number of disciplines. It introduced the concept of a trilogy. This required a certain ratio of receipts as a percentage of gross domestic product. The trilogy required that this ratio be kept at or below the 1984-85 minimum, which was 25 per cent. But this ceiling has been broken each year by the Hawke Labor Government. So it has done very little in meeting its commitment in that regard. The figure for 1985-86 was over 25 per cent. In 1986-87 it is estimated to be 25.5 per cent. In other words, this aspect of the trilogy has never been met by the Labor Government. This tax impact on people has never been met. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) unfortunately has conceded that the breaking of the trilogy was a conscious decision by his Government. So he made the commitment to the ordinary taxpayers of Australia and then made a conscious decision at a later date, after the election, to break that commitment. People's disposable incomes will be so much less as a result of this conscious decision by the Labor Government to break that trilogy. All families and single income people in receipt of average weekly earnings currently face both higher marginal and average tax rates than when the Hawke Government was first elected. That is the fact that must be presented today. The average tax rate in 1983 was 30c. By July 1987-that is, when the second instalment of tax cuts is due-it will be 40c. But how will the Government achieve this second instalment of tax cuts? The only way in which it can achieve it is by higher taxation or having bigger Budget deficits, because it will not cut expenditure. The Budget figures show that the Government is not meeting its commitments. It is not meeting the figures which it laid down in its Budget. What did Minister Walsh say about that? He said: `The figures must be rubbery'. He is condemned by his own words. The figures are rubbery, because the Budget figure for inflation is 8 per cent. Currently, it is running at a higher rate than that. This means that more and more people will move into higher tax brackets as their incomes rise. Rises in the tax rates are disproportionate to rises in income. In regard to increases in average weekly earnings, a figure of 6 per cent was forecast in the Budget. But the figure to August was higher than that-it was 8.7 per cent. Some fringe benefits are being cashed out and are becoming part of wages. The Government did not calculate the effect of the fringe benefits tax on average weekly earnings. The Australian Labor Party has not done its sums. It has not looked at the consequences of its legislative action. Let us look at economic growth. It is true that the economy is starting to stagnate. The Government estimated a figure of 2.5 per cent for economic growth. Today it has not even reached 2 per cent. The position is deteriorating. The Labor Party is in trouble. The Australian people are in trouble because they have reduced disposable incomes. We have problems with a new range of taxes. We have problems of bracket creep. Therefore, I support this matter of public importance that has been raised by my colleague Senator Messner. Why should the Government spend taxpayers money on an advertising campaign to tell people how much better off they are supposed to be as a result of today's tax cuts? I support the proposal put forward by my colleague. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(4.20) —Today is day one of the Hawke Government's personal income tax reductions. Today is day one of the major reforms in personal income tax. Today is a milestone in taxation reform. Today, the Government has reduced the tax burden on low and middle income earners. Today we have a proposition before the Senate from Senator Messner claiming delay and devaluation in regard to the tax cuts and claiming that the Government has cheated and denied Australians real tax reductions. That is the sort of proposition that has been put this afternoon in the Senate of the national Parliament by Senator Messner. His claim about the Government delaying the tax cuts is astounding. I will go on to that in a moment. I will repeat what I have said here on many occasions: The integrated tax reform measures being introduced by this Government are part of a tax reform package. The Government is collecting some $1,500m in extra revenue through the package, but it is paying out to the community some $4,500m. The package is based on a group of nine taxation principles, one of which provides that there will be no overall lift in the taxation level. Another provides, most importantly, for greater fairness in the taxation system, for greater fairness to taxpayers and for greater fairness to families. The taxation package has been financed substantially by three important taxation measures: The introduction of the fringe benefits tax, a tax on income in non-cash form which will raise something like $700m a year towards paying for the tax package; the introduction of the capital gains tax-a Government milestone-which was supported, of course, very strongly at the National Taxation Summit and will make an important contribution to financing the tax package; and the crackdown on the major abuse permitted under the Liberals, the so-called free lunch. By cracking down and denying tax deductibility for business lunches, the Government will save some $300m per annum which will be a vital contribution to the financing of this tax reform package. The revenue from all those measures is financing the Government's major tax cuts which we have introduced today. The revenue from those three major measures, the disallowance of the free lunch, the capital gains tax and the tax on non-cash remuneration, is vital in financing this Government's milestone tax reform package and the personal income tax cuts which begin for Australian pay as you earn taxpayers today. Mr Acting Deputy President, you will be aware, as you have been in this place a long time, that in the last 12 months on every occasion that legislation has come before the Senate to crack down on the free lunch, to introduce the capital gains tax or to tax non-cash remuneration, the Opposition has voted to oppose it, to deny the Government the revenue from these important measures. That revenue is essential to the financing of these very important personal tax reductions which apply from today. On every occasion the Opposition has voted to oppose the fringe benefits tax, the capital gains tax and the crack down on the free lunch. That is the record of this Opposition. It tried to sabotage this Government's personal income tax reductions by opposing the measures designed to raise revenue to finance those personal income tax reductions. It did this week after week, month after month, over the last year. The Opposition comes in here this afternoon and claims that we are somehow delaying the tax reductions. The word `delay' appears in the motion. Yet on every occasion when we brought in legislation to give effect to those tax cuts, to find revenue to finance them, the Opposition voted against the legislation. So much for delays as claimed by Senator Messner this afternoon. The Liberals are in a hypocritical position on tax reform. It is in a grossly inconsistent position. On every occasion they have tried to deny this Government the revenue it needed for these personal income tax reductions. The Liberals are also saying that the tax cuts are of little value. That is one of the claims they are now making. They are trying to tell the millions of employees in this country, that when they get their pay slips they will have no reductions in tax. (Quorum formed) Obviously the Opposition cannot take a few home truths this afternoon and is trying to stir Government speakers. The Liberals are now saying, after repeatedly trying to deny us the legislation to finance these tax cuts, that the tax cuts are of little value. That is their position. They are trying to tell the millions of employees of this country that when they get their pay slips at the end of this week they will not show reductions in their income tax. They will be able to see the reductions in tax on their pay slips. Government taxes will be reduced and their disposable income will rise. The Liberals have a very short term position on this. Clearly, the tax cuts will come through and the wage and salary earners of this country will begin to see them on Friday. That the Liberals can come in here and talk about taxation and make all sorts of claims against the Government is astounding. The fact is that when the present Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, was Treasurer of this country from 1978 to 1982 the share of Australia's gross domestic product in relation to taxation rose significantly. (Quorum formed) I point out that this matter of public importance this afternoon was moved by the Opposition. Obviously, it is not prepared to have the Government answer this matter of public importance and hear a few home truths about it because it cannot take a few truths about this matter. For the last five years of the Liberal Party's period in government, from 1978 to 1982, the present Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, was the Treasurer. In the period that he was Treasurer the share of Australia's gross domestic product taken by taxation rose by 1.7 percentage points. At the end of Mr Howard's period as Treasurer it was 1.7 per centage points higher than at the beginning. This afternoon Senator Messner, in speaking to the motion he moved, referred to real tax reductions. Let us look at the Opposition's record in government in the 1970s on real tax reductions. Let us look at Mr Fraser's 1975 policy speech. I can remember his policy speech. He said: `We will end inflationary taxation. We will end tax by stealth'. I remember hearing that. He said: `We will deliver tax indexation'. He was referring to the adjustment of the income tax brackets for inflation, but how long did that last? It did not last very long. In fact, it lasted effectively until the 1977 election. Senator Watson claimed that the Liberals had never advertised tax reductions before, but we can all remember the fistful of dollars at the 1977 election and then the 1 1/2 per cent surcharge on personal income tax introduced in February 1978 immediately after the election. That is what the record was under the Fraser Government. The tax rates were loaded up right after the success of the Liberal Party in that election. Mr Howard brought down his first Budget in 1978. This afternoon Senator Messner moved a motion concerning real tax reductions, or at least that is what his motion referred to, and I am answering that. In 1978 Mr Howard, the present Leader of the Opposition, the then Liberal Treasurer of Australia in his first Budget scrapped full tax indexation. He was the butcher of tax indexation. When he became Treasurer this country had full tax indexation-that is, the adjustment of tax brackets for inflation-but when he left office as Treasurer we did not have it. That was his record. Senator Messner talked about the need for tax indexation. At the beginning of Mr Howard's period as Treasurer Australia had it, but at the end of his period as Treasurer it had been thrown out the window. Honourable senators on the opposite side of the House should not lecture us on taxation or real tax cuts because their record on the subject is appalling. In fact, the most shameful record in Australia's recent history was that of the Liberal Party of Australia when in the 1977 election campaign it put to air that shabby fistful of dollars advertisement. In this particular package we are collecting only $1.5 billion in extra revenue, but we are putting back into the community $4.5 billion. That is the record of this particular tax package. There is $4.5 billion going back into the community because we have cracked down on the free lunch, the lurks and the rorts that were favoured by the Liberals and their supporters. We have scrapped the free lunch and we have got rid of the abuse, that great area of privilege in the community, and we are delivering very substantial reductions in personal income tax. I ask members of the Opposition present today whether they will promise to have real tax cuts when they are in office. Will they deliver personal income tax indexation when they are in office? I want to know those answers. I am prepared to cut short my time this afternoon on this debate to allow them time to tell the Australian people whether they will introduce personal income tax reductions through tax indexation at the next elections. I want to hear from them and the Australian people want to hear from them. The reason that they are in opposition is that they have no credibility on taxation. Their record speaks for itself-record tax rises and a 1.7 percentage point increase in the share of gross domestic product going to taxation under Mr Howard. That was his record after five years as the Treasurer of Australia. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition)(4.35) —Pursuant to contingent notice, I move: That so much of the Sessional Order relating to the consideration of Government Papers be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate moving a motion relating to the order in which the papers are called on by the President. I move that motion because the Government has brought before the Senate today a list of 42 papers. That very long list is in part explained by the fact that on at least one day last week and possibly more no papers were tabled. I can understand the Government's tactic in this matter, which is to try to ensure that more time is spent on Government Business and, therefore, not to introduce any papers at all, but it now leaves us with a situation where the Senate is given half an hour to consider 42 papers. The papers are quite varied and a number of them are of importance. For example, the defence service homes annual report is listed first. I remind the Senate that we had quite an extensive debate on defence service homes during the Budget. What worries the Opposition is that the twentieth paper listed is the 1985-86 annual report of the Commissioner of Taxation. We believe that, in the current circumstances, it is important that there be an opportunity to debate that report. It is my proposition, therefore, that, on the carrying of my motion, we would move to bring on Paper No. 20. I sought the support of the Australian Democrats with respect to this proposition but it was indicated that that would not be forthcoming; rather they would prefer that we brought on papers every day so that we could work our way through this list. I understand the approach they are putting forward but I do not believe that it is practical at this stage of the session for us to be foisting that upon the Government and I therefore wish to put arguments as to why the Senate should be considering the annual report of the Commissioner of Taxation rather than these other matters, important as they might be. I do not think there is any doubt that the issue with the highest profile at the moment and which is of central concern to the Australian people is that which surrounds the Australian taxation system. It goes beyond the issue of today, which has had a great deal of media attention and attention in Question Time today, the taxation affairs of the Treasurer, Mr Keating. Of course, it is very serious that the Treasurer has been found not to be upholding the very laws which he is committed to administering. It goes way beyond that issue, although the Opposition's concern is increased by the fact that the Government has failed today to answer quite straightforward questions which were put to it about the operation of the tax system. For example, Senator Messner sought advice as to how people who failed to lodge tax returns are normally treated by the Taxation Office. He asked a very simple question on the generality of cases: How does the Taxation Commissioner treat Australians who lodge their own tax returns if they fail to lodge a tax return? Do they-- Senator Gareth Evans —I raise a point of order. I think Senator Chaney is perfectly entitled to debate the order and sequence in which papers come before us but he is stretching a long bow to get as far into the substance of one of those topic areas as he now is. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! I have been listening to Senator Chaney. He is in order so far. He is entitled to give an example of the importance of changing the order of consideration of papers. Senator CHANEY —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. So that Senator Gareth Evans does not get unduly agitated, perhaps I should tell him the sort of line I intended to advance in this argument so that he does know where we are going. All I wish to do is to highlight the fact that there are some unanswered questions. I merely wish to deal with that question which the Government refused to answer in Question Time today. I then intend to turn to the review of five of the Auditor-General's efficiency audit reports which show that there is a situation of gross maladministration in the Australian Taxation Office and I wish to refer to the politicisation of the Taxation Office by the present Tax Commissioner as well. These are points which I think are all very relevant to whether we should be debating the annual report of the Commissioner of Taxation. In that context I direct the attention of the Senate to the fact that in the annual report of the Commissioner of Taxation, which we are seeking to debate, table 68 shows that 37,000 Australians were prosecuted-- Senator Gareth Evans —I rise on a point of order, Mr Deputy President. I think Senator Chaney is trespassing well beyond the bounds of tolerance as it bears upon the particular procedural motion he has moved. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order at the moment. Senator CHANEY —I am quite happy to be interrupted every second sentence by Senator Evans and I assure him that it will not deter me from pursuing the reasons why the Opposition believes that this is a priority matter for debate. I was making the point that the report we are seeking to debate shows that more than 37,000 Australians were prosecuted during the last financial year for failure to lodge an income tax return. The questions we have put forward about the normal procedures followed by the Tax Commissioner, with respect to when he seeks the lodging of returns and when he mounts prosecutions, have not been answered by the Government. That is one reason for our very considerable concern. The major reason for our concern, and the major reason we wish to give priority to debating the report of the Commissioner of Taxation, is that a committee of this Parliament has indicated quite clearly that on a proper examination of the work of the Auditor-General, who has in five reports examined the workings of the Australian Taxation Office, there is a serious and deep problem with the Office under this Government's administration. That is particularly relevant now because this Government is about to spend upwards of another $1 billion of taxpayers' money to introduce a new identity card aimed at getting rid of some of the deficiencies which exist in the Tax Office but which could be cured using the existing laws and procedure. We have the objective evidence of the Auditor-General's report to show that that is so. It is therefore quite clear why the report of the Tax Commissioner is a far more important matter for us to be debating than the other 19 matters which the Government has sought to put before that report so that we will not get an opportunity to debate it during the current parliamentary session. We see that as being a matter of great concern. I want to stress that, whilst there is a continual effort by the Government to suggest that any complaints and criticisms put forward by the Opposition are merely political arguments, the evidence that I am citing now is that the deficiencies in the Tax Office, which we believe are properly the subject of debate now, have been identified not by a partisan Opposition operation; they have been identified by the Auditor-General, who is a statutory officer, and by a committee of this Parliament which consists of representatives of both the Government and the Opposition. It is that committee, not just the Opposition, which is saying that there are serious shortcomings within certain Australian Taxation Office philosophies and operations. It is this parliamentary committee which is saying that significant losses to taxation revenue are being incurred and that unnecessary costs have been imposed upon the taxpayer. These are the sorts of concerns which we believe need to be aired today in the Senate, rather than the myriad of other things which the Government would seek to have us debate and which the Australian Democrats would prefer to debate. This report shows that the Tax Commissioner and his administration have failed to do the most obvious things about having information put on to computers; that the Australian Taxation Office has lost taxation revenue and that there is low staff morale as a result; and that the Office has suffered from poor management and direction of its data processing area. The report identifies the fact that the Tax Office has underspent its equipment allocation by $49m-- Senator Gareth Evans —I rise again on a point of order, Mr Deputy President. Senator Chaney is manifestly now debating in detail and in substance the particular matters that it is appropriate to raise pursuant to the substantive debate either on whether that particular report ought to get priority or on the paper itself. We are debating at the moment a motion simply that the procedures be changed in order to enable him to nominate an order of priority. He has made a sufficient number of points to make that part of the debate amply clear. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —We are not even at that point yet. The motion before the Chair is that a sessional order be suspended to permit such a motion to be moved. Senator Chaney is going to the detail of the report and I think he could confine his remarks to the motion. I understand the problem, but the motion is for the suspension of the sessional order. Senator CHANEY —The only reference I have made to the report was a brief reference to its establishing that 37,000 Australians were prosecuted by the Tax Commissioner during the last financial year while our Treasurer was blissfully going along without having filed his tax return. I am citing a parliamentary committee report which suggests that there is a massive and continuing breakdown in the administration of the Australian Tax Office, and that is a matter which needs to be debated now because within a matter of days this Senate will be called upon to commit the people of Australia to spending, on the Government's estimate, some $700m on an identity card which we will not have tattooed on our wrists but which certainly we will all have to carry around, produce and do all sorts of things with. The Government is seeking to put a vast and expensive new system in place at a time when this report has been brought forward about an office which is failing to utilise existing systems. Taxes are not being collected because of a gross failure to administer existing laws and use existing powers. I do not wish to trespass unduly on the time of the Senate but I hope that within the Senate there is considerable support for the proposition that the time to debate the deficiencies in the Taxation Office is now. This is not the time to be debating the relatively minor matters which are also before us. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Before I call Senator Evans, I point out to the Senate that the time taken up in this debate, by sessional order, will come out of the time available for the consideration of papers. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(4.49) —Because I am aware of the point the Deputy President has raised and because I have no wish to delay debate on any of these items I will be very brief, but I do need to make a couple of points. Despite the imputation and the inference that we are supposed to derive from Senator Chaney's speech that the order of business today is a matter of deliberate Government decision-moreover, deliberate Government design-to lower the annual report of the Australian Taxation Office to a point on the agenda where it is unlikely to be reached, Senator Chaney must be aware that the order in which these papers are listed is simply the order in which they are received by the Table Office of the respective House. I understand that the order of business before us for these 42 papers is the order of business the House of Representatives had before it when these matters were dealt with last week. As we all know, some of us have been very frustrated over the years because particular papers on which we have had a passion to make a speech have been down the list. People have a passion about all sorts of things. Whether there is much passion about the reports relating to the Australian Honey Board, the Honey Research Council, the Australian Capital Territory Building Standards Committee, a proposal to instal standard intensity lighting in the Parliamentary Zone, or the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation-all ahead of the Taxation Office on today's list-remains to be seen. It may be the case that there is, or maybe there is not. I just advise the Senate that I have asked members of the Labor Government, sitting on this side of the chamber-and there are half a dozen of us here at the moment-whether any of them want to speak on any of the 19 items which precede the Australian Taxation Office report, and the short answer is no. No one on this side of the chamber wants to stand in the way of debate on paper No. 20. No one is the slightest bit interested in stopping us getting to paper No. 20 as soon as possible. Far from there being any design, I repeat that it is purely a product of the order in which these papers were received, as is always the case and unnecessarily the case, because there are all sorts of people with different priorities, as we well know. Senator Messner —Well, why are you opposing us? Senator GARETH EVANS —Because I do not want to undermine the principle that people should be given an opportunity to debate these things in the order in which they appear before us, and I do not believe that there need in practice be any inhibition on this Senate getting quickly to these matters in the ordinary way. There are not many more papers, as I understand it, to be introduced later this week. There should be plenty of opportunity for this matter to be dealt with in later days, if not today. Since I do not want to waste the Senate's debating time on this matter I will not track over any of the other spurious grounds offered by Senator Chaney in his speech in support of the motion. I simply indicate that the process we are embarking upon today is exactly the same process that we have always embarked upon. There is no inhibition in practice on us reaching the particular item that honourable senators are concerned about, nor should we concede to the sorts of points that Senator Chaney was making today, because to concede to that point would amount to some concession that there is something wrong in principle or wrong in the way in which these matters have been brought forward. That is absolutely not the case, and it is for that reason that we will not accede to Senator Chaney's motion and we will just get to the papers in the ordinary way. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(4.50) —The Australian Democrats would prefer that, if any honourable senators wish to do so, we debate all 42 papers in the order in which they are listed. The arguments that Senator Gareth Evans raised in terms of the order of listing can and have been disputed from time to time. Indeed, it is hoped that some type of rationalisation of the ordering will be achieved, certainly in the next session. But I think that if the Government were able to give an undertaking that, since only a couple more papers or reports might be coming in this week-- Senator Gareth Evans —No. There are 11 tomorrow and after that we are not quite sure. Senator MACKLIN —It seems to me that if the Government gave an undertaking that we could work through the papers in the order in which they appear on the list, I think that we could easily get through all of these papers plus the additional ones in the five remaining days of this session. It is fairly obvious if one actually has a look at the way papers are dealt with that-- Senator Messner —Do you think we will believe that rubbish? You do not think they will allow us to debate the Taxation Commissioner's report, do you? How naive you lot are. Senator MACKLIN —It is interesting to see Senator Messner getting very excited about papers. I think that Senator Messner's record would probably pale into insignificance if it were put up against that of Senator Vigor. Senator Messner —He wins by a street. Senator MACKLIN —I notice that Senator Messner throws up his hands in surrender. The list contains a number of papers which are important to certain people. We believe that the papers should be dealt with in the order in which they are listed. We ought to be able to deal with all of the papers this week. As Sessional Orders will not allow this course to be followed, can the Government give an indication that it will allow papers to be dealt with in this way? Senator SHEIL(Queensland)(4.53) —I rise to support the motion of the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Chaney) to suspend Sessional Orders and to elevate in terms of its position on the list of papers the report of the Commissioner of Taxation. From the last comments of the Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Gareth Evans), it is obvious that the report of the Commissioner of Taxation has been available for some time and that it was presented to the House of Representatives some time ago. That report, which is buried half way down a sheaf of nearly 50 papers, happens to be the most pertinent report that we need to look at at the moment. I presume that when this Government stands for re-election it is going to stand on its record. However, its record is a dreadful one. It is a record of record taxation, record interest rates and record spending and waste. It is a record of broken promises, particularly the trilogy promise concerning tax. I did not even bother to remember that undertaking-I knew it would be broken. A whole raft of broken promises has been part of this Government's record. The confiscatory taxes in Australia have been responsible for robbing us of our initiative and incentive to get on in business. In fact, taxes are the biggest consideration for anybody who is starting a business. Businessmen have to consider the tax elements first. In fact, taxes are so high and crippling that they have distorted investment in Australia. I can tell honourable senators now that nearly all of the investment decisions in Australia are taken more for tax purposes than for any economic advantage that can be gained in the business. The Senate today debated a matter of public importance which drew attention to the way in which taxes are crippling Australia. We have now had presented to us a list of papers which contains the report of the fiscal fiend who garners tax from us and whose own office has been impugned. We have the report from his Taxation Commissioner. The Auditor-General has presented reports on bungling and ineptitude in the Australian Taxation Office. However, the Government is not prepared to debate the Taxation Commissioner's own report. The illusory, delayed and devalued tax cuts have been brought in today. People will find, with their Medicare levy going up 25 per cent, that the whole thing is a chimera and will disappear from in front of their eyes. Yet, the Government and the Democrats are not prepared to support a motion which would allow the Senate to debate the report of the Taxation Commissioner on this matter. No wonder they are not prepared to do so; it is the Democrats and the Government which have been responsible for bringing in the horrendous taxes that Australia now has. We have the capital gains tax, the assets test and the fringe benefits tax. The whole place is swimming in taxes. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator should not get too wide of the motion before the Chair at the moment, which is merely to suspend Sessional Orders. The others are merely being foreshadowed. Senator SHEIL —Very well, Mr Deputy President. I fully support the motion to suspend the Sessional Orders so that we can take note of the report of the Commissioner of Taxation. It is no wonder that the Government and the Democrats do not want the Senate to take note of this paper when we look at their horrendous record. This Senate should be debating the important issues of the day. The important issue today is the Tax Commissioner's report. His own office is in disarray. Our Treasurer (Mr Keating) has failed to put in his own tax return. There is nothing but bungling and ineptitude everywhere. The Senate has before it a report which should be debated but neither the Government nor the Democrats want this to happen. They want to apply the gag, and this is another broken promise. Just last week they put a gag on the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Bill. Now they do not want to suspend the Standing Orders so that we can debate this report. I support the motion by the Leader of the Opposition. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria)(4.57) —This is not the first time the ordering of papers has come up for questioning. It happened when we were in opposition and it has happened on two or three occasions since we have been in government. It has been explained each time that the order in which papers are listed is the order in which they are received. This is not necessarily a satisfactory procedure to most senators, because quite often reports that we are not interested in come on first. Honourable senators should ask themselves why generally we do not get a chance to consider the more vital ones. The reason is that there are two or three gas-bags in this chamber who could talk under water and who, in order to get their name on the record, go away, type up a five-minute speech and then bore us all to death. As a result, honourable senators who come into the chamber once a session to debate an important paper are debarred from doing so because the 30 minutes allotted is used up. I think it will be conceded by the more reasonable honourable senators opposite that it is a pure accident that the paper that the Opposition wants to debate today happens to be No. 20. I wonder why the Opposition did not approach us? I wonder why the Opposition moved its contingent notice of motion rather than approaching us and saying: `Look, would you just agree in advance to moving No. 20 up to No. 1?' No approach was made. Did Senator Sheil, someone who goes under the guise of a Whip in these matters, approach us and ask us to promote the paper up? No, of course he did not. The Opposition wanted to use Question Time to attack the Government on an issue that interested it; then it used the matter of public importance provision; then it thought: `What is another cunning little method we can adopt to give this issue a little more profile?' Of course, the answer was to suspend Sessional Orders so that it could get a 10-minute free hit. The normal tactic is to be relevant for the first five minutes, then become increasingly irrelevant until our very competent Deputy President pulls one up; then again become relevant, then stray and then again be pulled up. So far we have wasted 27 minutes and if I keep it going we might even make it 30 minutes, although I will have to defer to a couple of colleagues on the other side who want to make their views known on this subject. The Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Gareth Evans), of course, pointed out a very reasonable way of getting to paper No. 20. He was willing to give an assurance that no one on this side would address papers. If no one on the other side addressed the first 19 papers, we would have had 25 minutes to debate this taxation report that so interests the Opposition. Of course, maybe, the Opposition is not able to control the ever proliferating minority group in the Senate. So I suggest to the Opposition, if it is not being insincere, that next time it might approach the Government and we can try to get an agreement that a particular paper is more important than another because it has created interest all of a sudden. Maybe then we will be able to make debate on papers a sensible debate. At the moment the debate is a farce, and I am the first to say that. We have 42 papers. I think-I am not too good at maths-that allows about 40 seconds debate on each paper and that is not good enough. However, it is not just a problem of this Government; it happened when Senator Sir John Carrick led the Government in this chamber and no doubt before him when Senator Withers, and before him Senator Wriedt and Lionel Murphy led the Government. Whenever, it was proposed that we debate papers we always had the problem of knowing how to give them relativity. Senator Vanstone —It was your lot who did it. Senator ROBERT RAY —Senator Vanstone may think that the Australian Honey Board is very important. If the Government tried to tell senators that in its order of priority for the 42 papers it regarded the Honey Board as the forty-second, the Opposition would run to the rural Press saying: `Look at the Labor Government. It does not give the Honey Board proper priority'. The Opposition would abuse us. We do not adopt the tactic of trying to tell the Opposition what is the most important paper because, if we were to do that we would have constant debates in this chamber in which the Opposition would try to make political points off the Government and say: `This paper is more important than another paper'. Senator Chaney has moved a motion in which he is so interested that, unfortunately, if I sit down now and no one else speaks he is not even here to reply to the debate. If this is such an important issue, where is he? Why is he not ready to sum up and reply to the devastating points made by me and Senator Gareth Evans? He is not here to sum up the debate because he adopted this tactic to give the issue another 10-minute run. It is a legitimate Opposition tactic, by the way, it is one of the weapons the Standing Orders give an Opposition to harry and needle a government. That is the reason why the matter was brought up today. It was not brought up because anyone really wanted to debate the Australian Taxation Office. Any of the points that honourable senators wanted to make could have been made in the debate on Senator Messner's rather pathetic matter of public importance today. They could have been made in Question Time; they could be made in the adjournment debate. There are ample opportunities to debate this issue. Let us face it, Senator Messner does not get into his stride until he has spoken for 20 minutes. How could he make a valid point in five minutes? However, with three minutes to go, I think I should defer to Senator Short. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(5.03) —Very briefly, I support the motion of the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Chaney, for a variety of reasons. Having listened to Senator Robert Ray, it becomes increasingly obvious why the Government has been disputing our wanting to move this motion today. It would appear that Senator Ray, the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Gareth Evans, and the Government just do not want to have the subject of taxation discussed in this chamber. The reason why we want to debate the report by the Commissioner of Taxation is that it is a very important report indeed; it is always an important report but the 1985-86 report is even more important than usual. It is essential that it be discussed in the Parliament. If it is not discussed in the Parliament today it will not be discussed at all, that is for sure, and we will go into a vitally important debate on the identity card later this week with the report having passed us by. That is really why the Government is trying to obfuscate this matter a the moment. The Commissioner's report has been tabled at a time when the subject of taxation has been almost the only topic of conversation in the community for days as a result of the unbelievable arrogant actions of an unbelievably arrogant Treasurer who thinks that he alone is above the very laws for which he personally has direct, sole and total ministerial responsibility. The failure of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) to lodge his 1984-85 tax return until 17 months after the end of the 1984-85 financial year has done more to heighten-- Senator Gareth Evans —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. Senator Short is trespassing beyond even the most flexible possible interpretation of our exceedingly flexible Standing Orders on this matter and he ought to be brought to heel, with the utmost respect, Mr Deputy President. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The subject before the Chair is the question of the suspension of a sessional order. Senator SHORT —Mr Deputy President, the point I am making is totally relevant because the actions of this Treasurer, who has responsibility for the administration of the taxation laws of this country, in recent days have brought into the community a general attitude of concern about the whole of the taxation system, the administration of government and the administration of laws in this country. It has raised the whole issue of the morality of the community in terms of decency, in terms of paying our share of taxation and the like, and it is directly relevant. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The time for consideration of government papers has expired. Senator Townley —Senator Short is not talking to the papers; he is talking to a motion. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I am about to deal with that point, Senator Townley. The time for consideration of government-- Senator Messner —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. May I just seek clarification? The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I am about to give clarification. The time for consideration of government papers has now expired. The sessional order evidently did not contemplate a debate of this nature taking place and therefore it does not deal with the matter. However, under the ordinary Standing Orders there is no time limit on this debate. I have to call Senator Short. Senator SHORT —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. Senator Robert Ray —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. Can you give me some assistance? Are we now, therefore, debating a motion to suspend a sessional order to permit a discussion the time allowed for which has already passed? The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —That is correct, Senator Ray. The Opposition might consider its position but as the sessional order is worded, the debate is in order. Senator Gareth Evans —I seek further clarification. You are not suggesting for a moment are you, Mr Deputy President, that when we do get to the end of this debate, however long it takes, we will still have a half an hour to debate papers? Clearly, the time for consideration of papers has passed. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —When this debate is over, if a vote is taken I will immediately have to rule that the time for consideration of papers has expired. Senator Gareth Evans —Do the Standing Orders contemplate a nonsense, that is, debating that the Senate should do something which is clearly impossible of achievement? Might I suggest that ordinary rules of statutory interpretation militate against an interpretation which would result in a nonsense. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I think I am in the hands of the Senate, in its wisdom, in this case, but as far as the sessional order is concerned this debate is in order. I call Senator Short. Senator SHORT —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. The Senate is not infrequently called upon to do what Senator Gareth Evans has suggested it cannot do. I was discussing the relevance of the actions of the Treasurer in recent days to the whole of the activities of the Commissioner of Taxation whose report we are trying to have debated in the Senate. I was making the point that the actions of the Treasurer in recent days have done more to heighten the disgust, cynicism and scepticism of the Australian community against politicians and parliament than any other single act that I can remember. This flagrant disregard for the rules of the system has come from a man who has accused and abused his fellow Australians, calling them tax cheats, tax rorters, sleazebags and all the other gutter filthy terms for which he is now in famous, and that goes beyond all the conventions of decency. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Short, this is a debate on the suspension of a sessional order. Your remarks are getting very wide of the subject of the debate. As yet there is no motion before the Chair about the tax rules. I again draw the attention of the Senate to the fact that, although there is a defect in the sessional order-it does not deal with this-this debate has no relevance to and the passing of the motion before the Chair will not affect the consideration of papers. I think honourable senators should be aware of that. Senator Short, would you confine yourself strictly to the matter of the suspension of the sessional orders. Senator Robert Ray —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. As this motion is to suspend a sessional order and comments must be relevant to that order-in fact, it is not possible to suspend the order-I ask you to rule that any comment is now irrelevant. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I think the Senate is rapidly reaching a point of absurdity. Senator Short, do you wish to continue your remarks on the suspension of the sessional order, bearing in mind that if it is suspended the motion can have no effect? Senator SHORT —I would just like to make a couple of points in addition to those I have made, because if we do not follow this through the whole thing will become an absurdity and what we were talking about is a very important matter. I repeat what I said earlier: If we do not debate the report of the Commissioner of Taxation this week, we are within probably 48 hours of going into one of the most important debates that this Senate has ever undertaken, namely, the question of whether we introduce an identity card in Australia. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! I think this debate has reached a point at which I must implement standing order 397. I do not think the Senate can go on with a debate which, even when concluded, can have no possible effect. So I rule that the Senate must go on with its ordinary business. Senator Michael Baume —I raise a point of order, Mr Deputy President. It is a matter of some moment whether the Senate should have suspended sessional order to allow the discussion of this report. In a sense, the debate now on whether the sessional order should be suspended relates very significantly indeed to the impropriety, if you like, of the Government's seeking not to allow this to happen and blocking the proper discussion of the report. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Michael Baume, make your point of order clear. What was your point of order? Senator Michael Baume —The point of order is that it is a relevant and proper debate to debate the suspension of sessional order because of the propriety of the Government's opposition to debating the report. Therefore, the debate itself is not irrelevant, it is not improper, and it does have a bearing on the proceedings of the Senate. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Baume, your comments are becoming a reflection on the ruling I have given. I will explain again to the Senate the situation that has arisen. We have 30 minutes by sessional order for the consideration of papers; Senator Chaney moved that the sessional order be suspended so that the order could be changed; the time for consideration of Government Papers has now expired, so no motion could possibly have any effect. At that point, I now rule that the Senate should get on with its business and not debate a motion which could have no effect even if agreed to. Motion (by Senator Messner)-by leave-agreed to: That the Government Papers tabled earlier this day be called on at the consideration of Government Papers, pursuant to Sessional Order, on the next day of sitting. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! In response to a question from the Leader of the Opposition, I table, on behalf of the President, a summary of questions on notice for the period 11 February 1986 to 28 November 1986. Senator JESSOP(South Australia) —In accordance with the provisions of the National Crime Authority Act, I present the second report of the Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority. Senator JESSOP —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the report. I seek leave to incorporate my speech in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- This is the Second Report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Crime Authority. The Committee's First Report in November 1985 dealt with the problems it was then experiencing in attempting to establish an appropriate working relationship with the National Crime Authority. This Second Report acknowledges the improved working relationship now established between the Committee and the Authority. It reports on a variety of matters relating to the operation and performance of the Authority and to the Committee's activities over the past twelve months. The Report also addresses the difficulties envisaged in establishing criteria for the evaluation of the work of the Authority given the existence of the sunset clause in the National Crime Authority Act 1984. It also considers the future direction which the Committee may take in performing its statutory and parliamentary duties. Following the tabling of the First Report the Special Minister of State, the Honourable Michael J. Young, MP, convened a meeting between the Joint Committee and the National Crime Authority in an attempt to resolve the impasse which had prevented the establishment of an appropriate working relationship between the two bodies. As a result of this meeting, held in May of this year, it was agreed that the Authority would prepare a comprehensive briefing on its operations for the Committee. The Committee prepared a matters of interest document, detailing the areas of the Authority's operations on which the Committee sought information. In response, the Authority provided a large amount of written material and addressed the remaining issues by way of oral briefing in June. Further joint meetings took place in August and early November, enabling both bodies to address remaining issues of concern. The Committee has been satisfied with the amount of information which the Authority has provided, especially on organisational and administrative matters. The Authority has also been forthcoming on operational matters, although the Committee has been careful not to pursue any matter involving current operations, the safety of persons working for the Authority or the reputation of persons under investigation. The Committee was particularly interested in receiving information from the Authority on aspects of its organisation and staffing. It noted with interest the problems encountered by the Authority in recruiting suitably qualified and experienced senior legal staff for the Melbourne office; and in the differing perceptions and expectations on the nature and shape of the Authority on the part of some staff during its transitional period. The Committee believes that all possible avenues must be explored to rectify the recruitment problems which the Authority has encountered. It is also of the view that the problems associated with the different backgrounds of some officers may prove to be an inevitable transitional problem. The Authority appears to have addressed these problems and is now closer to operating as a unified organisation. Other areas of concern raised by the Committee included the possible duplication of administrative machinery in the Sydney and Melbourne offices of the Authority; and the apparent lack of balance in the number of legal and investigative personnel employed in the Authority compared with the number of financial analysts and accountants. These matters are under review by the Authority. The Committee also expressed concern in relation to the security of the Authority's computer and information systems; and the possible threat to civil liberties entailed in a computer data base. These concerns, however, have been allayed by the Authority's approach: selective incorporation of material into the system and access to the database by authorised officers only. The Committee also sought information from the Authority on general and particular matters relating to its operations. General matters included the methodology adopted by the Authority in the exercise of its functions; the number and general nature of the references from the Inter-Governmental Committee; prosecutions arising from Authority operations; co-ordination and co-operation with other law enforcement agencies; criminal intelligence requirements; and the operation of the sections of the National Crime Authority Act 1984. Specific matters raised by the Committee have included the Bruce Cornwell and Barry Bull extradition proceedings; and a series of allegations relating to some aspects of the operations of the Authority. Whilst some of these matters might be categorised as embarrassing to the Authority, the Committee acknowledges both the Authority's candour and the steps taken to ensure no repetition of these particular isolated incidents. The Committee has been satisfied with the operational material and briefings made available by the Authority as far as that material goes. The Committee, of course, shares the Authority's views that it should not reveal details of specific matters where this may jeopardise a current operation or proceedings, or endanger the safety or reputation of officers of the Authority or people under investigation by the Authority. Thus, though the Committee has not pressed the Authority on such matters, there may come a time when the Committee is placed in a position where it has no alternative but to pursue a particular line of inquiry. It may then be appropriate for the second leg of the Committee's recommendation in its First Report to be invoked, involving the presentation of a separate report or briefing to the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Committee. This mechanism will allow a bipartisan view to be taken as to whether the Committee as a whole ought to pursue a particular line of inquiry. The option for the Committee to pursue matters of concern must remain open if its role as a parliamentary watchdog is to have any credibility. The alternative is to cede to the Authority the power to categorise any line of inquiry as operational and hence inappropriate for the Committee. It is the intention of the Committee to continue meeting regularly with the Authority, as these joint meetings provide opportunities for the Committee to receive briefings on matters of interest raised by members. In the course of its activities the Committee has also examined the National Crime Authority Annual Report for the year ended 30 June 1985. In particular, the Committee noted the reports on investigations; legislative matters and law reform; and the preliminary investigative and evaluation work carried out by the Authority in determining its priorities. The Committee also noted the amount of time and the difficulties experienced by the Authority in the recruitment of suitable staff and the establishment of satisfactory administrative procedures. Since its inception, the Committee has been briefed by the Commissioners and senior officers of the police forces of South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, as well as by senior officers from the Australian Federal Police, the Australian Customs Service and the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence. As a result of these briefings members of the Committee are better placed to understand the overall background against which the National Crime Authority operates and to appreciate the difficulties facing law enforcement agencies in the fight against organised crime. In this context the Committee was disappointed that it was unable to receive a briefing from the Queensland Commissioner of Police. As mentioned in the Committee's First Report, all States except Queensland agreed to the Committee's request for a briefing by their Commissioner of Police on organised criminal activity in their jurisdiction. A subsequent request this year to the Queensland Premier to reconsider this matter was also rejected. It is planned to continue this pattern of briefings from law enforcement bodies and to extend them to include officials from the relevant Commonwealth departments and statutory authorities who participate in, and advise on, the development of government policy in combating organised crime. One theme which has been stressed before the Committee is the crucial need for a high level of co-ordination and co-operation between all agencies involved in the fight against organised crime. The Committee therefore intends to examine and report on the Authority's relationships with other law enforcement agencies and the degree of co-ordination and co-operation which is taking place between these agencies. It is also the intention of the Committee to conduct a major examination of one feature of organised criminal activities in 1987. The Committee will report on this examination and on any changes which the Committee thinks desirable to the functions, structure, powers and procedures of the Authority. As the Committee's report relates, an assessment of the achievements and impact of the National Crime Authority on the activities of organised crime is necessitated by the inclusion of a sunset provision in the National Crime Authority Act 1984. This will entail an assessment of the effectiveness of the legislation with the view of making recommendations as to the future of the Authority. The Committee intends to play a major role in the review of the operations of the Authority. Whilst the Committee has canvassed the general issue of evaluation criteria, the only conclusion it is prepared to make is that it will be extremely difficult to establish such criteria. However, it is the Committee's belief that its meetings with the Authority and with other law enforcement agencies, Government officials and others involved in, or observers of, the fight against organised crime will allow it to make a substantial contribution to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Authority. Finally, the Committee thanks the Honourable Mr Justice D. G. Stewart, Mr E. M. Bingham, Q.C. and Mr R. Greenwood, Q.C. for their co-operation and assistance during the year. The Committee also thanks members of the staff of the Senate who have assisted in its work, particularly Robert Walsh, Rosa Ferranda, Christine Hall, Jacqueline Bradley and Elizabeth Malone. Senator JESSOP —I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate 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 Walsh) read a first time. (Quorum formed) Motion (by Senator Walsh) put: That the order of the Senate of 14 November 1986, relating to the introduction of Bills into the Senate after 19 November 1986, not apply to this Bill. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Douglas McClelland) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 6 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 47 —— Archer, B. R. Lewis, A. W. R.Aulich, T. McClelland, DouglasBaume, Michael MacGibbon, D. J.Baume, Peter McIntosh, G. D.Boswell, R. L. D. McKiernan, J. P.Brownhill, D. G. C. Maguire, G. R.Carrick, Sir John Messner, A. J.Childs, B. K. Morris, J.Coates, J. Newman, J. M.Coleman, R. N. Parer, W. R.Collard, S. J. Puplick, C. J. G.Colston, M. A. Ray, RobertCook, P. F. S. Reid, M. E.Cooney, B. Reynolds, M.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Richardson, G. F.Crowley, R. A. Robertson, E. A. (Teller)Devlin, R. Ryan, S. M.Durack, P. D. Sheil, G.Elstob, R. C. Short, J. R.Evans, Gareth Sibraa, K. W.Foreman, D. J. Tate, M. C.Giles, P. J. Vanstone, A. E.Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Walsh, P. A.Hamer, D. J. Walters, M. S.Jessop, D. S. Watson, J. O. W.Jones, G. N. Zakharov, A. O.Knowles, S. C. Haines, J. Powell, J. F.Macklin, M. J. (Teller) Sanders, N. K.Mason, C. V. J. Vigor, D. B. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Senator WALSH(Western Australia-Minister for Finance) —(5.24)-I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- The purpose of this Bill is to provide legislation to enable plant breeders to apply for and to receive proprietary rights for new varieties of plants which they develop. The Government's objective in introducing legislation for a Plant Variety Rights scheme is to stimulate plant breeding effort in Australia and to encourage the development of new varieties of plants for our domestic industries and for export. An important added benefit for Australian farmers and horticulturalists is expected to be an improvement in their access to new varieties from overseas. Through the proposed scheme Australian plant breeders are expected to improve their access to overseas markets for seed and nursery plants. These factors are expected to provide a significant boost to Australian agricultural industries and allow our farmers and nurserymen to compete more effectively on world markets. We can also expect an overall genetic improvement in our plant industries. The proposed plant variety rights scheme would be similar in many respects to existing intellectual property rights granted under the copyright and industrial patents legislation but incorporating particular provisions for protection of food supply to consumers and the use of plant material in further breeding and research programs. The proprietary rights conferred under the proposal would provide plant breeders, both public and private, with a means to recoup some of the high research and development costs involved in breeding new plant varieties. Plant breeding is expensive. It also takes a good deal of sustained effort by skilled and dedicated persons over many years. Because the results are uncertain it is also a high risk activity. However, if we are to maintain our high levels of productivity and competitiveness especially in international markets, if we are to develop new plant based industries and if we are to address new diseases of plants as they appear, Australia will need an active and sustained plant breeding program. This Government has moved on several fronts to improve the resources available for research and development including plant breeding, and to improve their management. We consider technological innovation to be an essential element in maintaining and improving international competitiveness in the rural industries. Within the primary industry portfolio, the commitment to rural research through the Rural Industry Research Fund Scheme has been increased from $35 million in 1982 to $78.5 million this year. We have set the objective with industry of raising the respective industry and Government contributions to research through the RIRF scheme to 0.5 per cent of industry gross value of product within five years. We are now well on the way to that objective. The Minister for Primary Industry has also set about improving the management of the research funds by introducing professionally selected councils and strategic research planning principles into their operations. The Minister expects that the reports the Government will receive from the research councils will be more relevant to Parliament and to industry. Research and development in the private sector has been of particular concern to this Government. It had been let run down to perilously low levels under the previous administration. To redress that neglect my colleague Senator Button has led the Government's response with the introduction of a 150 per cent taxation deduction for private sector bona fide research and development expenditure. These measures are providing an incentive to new private sector investment in, for example, the plant, nursery and biotechnology industries. In the Government's Economic and Rural Policy statement of 15 April 1986, the Minister for Primary Industry indicated that action on several fronts is necessary for Australia to maintain and to develop its rural industries. He outlined several new measures in that statement and several recent measures in support of technology development which are repeated here. He indicated that the Government had received a report on Plant Breeding in Australia following an inquiry by Professor Lazenby and would make a final decision on the proposal for a scheme of Plant Variety Rights. PVR is a structural measure which provides the conditions for investment in plant breeding and development and which can be expected to improve the economic viability of our plant industries. PVR is expected to be most important for our nursery and horticultural industries but also to have potential to provide a significant boost for the grains, pasture and seed industries. Introduction of PVR legislation has been recommended by the Industries Assistance Commission following separate public inquiries into Rural Research in 1976. The Apple and Pear Industries in 1985 and the Vegetable and Vegetable Product Industries in 1986. The 1985 Committee of Enquiry into the Grape and Wine Industries also concluded that PVR would be of considerable value to Australia's grape and wine industries through access to varieties and genetic material which would assist the industry in improving productivity and product quality. The introduction of Plant Variety Rights in Australia is not however without some controversy. The issue has been the subject of considerable debate in Australia for well over a decade now. We must recognise that some sectors of our community are philosophically opposed to the concept of private ownership of plant material. The debate in Australia has occurred at a time when most other western democracies have introduced legislation for Plant Variety Rights. The Minister for Primary Industry continues to receive many representations both for and against the introduction of PVR legislation for Australia. Honourable Senators will recall that the Minister for Primary Industry in the previous government introduced legislation into the House for a Plant Variety Rights Scheme in 1981. His proposal was considered deficient in many respects and public consideration of the concepts proposed was sought. It was left to the Senate to act on that recommendation, and the Plant Variety Rights issue was referred to the Senate Standing Committee on National Resources. That Committee carried out a most detailed review of the Plant Variety Rights issue. It received submissions and heard evidence from a wide spectrum of society and subsequently tabled its report in May 1984. The major recommendation was that the Commonwealth consider the introduction of Plant Variety Rights in Australia. It made 22 other recommendations on improvements required in the 1982 Bill and on operations related to a PVR Scheme. The Committee suggested that before any Plant Variety Rights legislation is drafted, the Department of Primary Industry closely examine evidence presented to the Committee which was critical of the 1982 Bill. That examination has been undertaken by the Department. This Plant Variety Rights Bill has benefited from the Senate inquiry and encompasses features which address the needs and the concerns about a scheme for Plant Variety Rights in Australia. The Australian Agricultural Council for several years now has given general support to the introduction of a Plant Variety Rights Scheme. The Minister for Primary Industry raised the issue with State Ministers again at the recent meeting of Council as there have been some differences of attitude to PVR between States in the past. These differences reflect the strongly held view of some State plant breeders, especially breeders of cereal crops, that introduction of PVR would adversely affect the public plant breeding effort. It was in this context that the Government acted on the Senate Committee recommendation to establish an inquiry into plant breeding and options to upgrade the public plant breeding effort in Australia as a pre-requisite to any decision to proceed on Plant Variety Rights. Professor Alex Lazenby, Vice Chancellor of the University of Tasmania, completed that inquiry on behalf of the Government. In his report to the Minister for Primary Industry, Professor Lazenby has strongly recommended the introduction of an unrestricted scheme for Plant Variety Rights. He closely examined a wider range of suggested alternatives to PVR but concluded that introduction of PVR legislation was the most appropriate way for the Government to stimulate both public and private plant breeding effort. He has made a number of other recommendations on co-ordination of the public plant breeding effort. Its funding arrangements and on marketing the products of publicly funded research which are under consideration in the sub-committee system of Australian Agricultural Council. The Minister for Primary Industry has already distributed the Lazenby Report to the Parliament and he will be discussing Professor Lazenby's recommendations on public plant breeding again with his State counterparts. Despite these public inquiries and resulting reports there remains a good deal of community uncertainty about PVR and because some of the concerns are so strongly held by some people I want to address them now. The main issues raised by the many people who have written to the Minister about PVR centre on its possible impact on Australia's third world neighbours, the management of world wide plant genetic resources, the ownership of essential food resources, market structure and consumer interests, and the effect on public plant breeding in Australia. All of these issues are important but we should recognise that they exist independently of the PVR issue. They are raised, however, as key arguments against the introduction of PVR legislation for Australia. Australia already has active programs to address each of these issues. For instance under the aid program, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research has been established with a $12.5 million per annum program of research assistance for developing countries. Australia also financially supports the agricultural research and plant breeding centres of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) which are specifically working on the problems of developing countries. Under CGIAR, 13 well equipped research institutes have been established in developing countries to assist their development of suitable crop plants, farming systems and infrastructural support. They have been very successful. It is claimed that Plant Variety Rights schemes in developed countries have led to the disappearance of land race cultivars in third world countries and their replacement by improved varieties requiring high levels of inputs at substantially higher prices. Whilst this is an issue of concern to all Governments I believe the use of new plant varieties has resulted from significant changes in agricultural technology world wide and particularly in developing countries. We cannot expect peasant farmers to improve their well being through use of new technology on the one hand and be the conservators of the world's plant genetic resources on the other. I am told, for example, that India had 30,000 varieties of rice in common usage at the turn of the century but now uses only 30. No doubt the Indian rice breeders have used the best rice genes available to develop those 30 varieties now used and as a result India is largely self sufficient in rice despite its massive population increase since 1900. This Government is most concerned about preserving genetic resources. With the co-operation of all States and the Commonwealth through Australian Agricultural Council a network of plant genetic resource (PGR) centres for our major economic species has been established across Australia and, with financial appropriations from the Commonwealth and the States, they are being progressively upgraded. This year $485,000 has been allocated by the Commonwealth for the establishment of a new facility at Biloela in Queensland for tropical field crop genetic resources. Australia also strongly supports the International Board of Plant Genetic Resources program of CGIAR and has joined the FAO Commission on Plant Genetic Resources. Australia has not accepted all the proposals before FAO on the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources as we do not consider it in the best interests of Australia that FAO take control of our PGR collections nor the plant genetic resources of any other country. To follow on the above example I am advised that India maintains a rice genetic resource centre containing some 34,000 accessions under the IBPGR network. Indian breeders also have access to the collection of some 56,000 varieties at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. Market operations, monopoly powers and resource ownership are addressed through the Trade Practices Act and the quite significant powers of the Trade Practices Commission. Much concern has been expressed that large multinational chemical companies are dominating the seed industry as a result of PVR schemes overseas. While several large multinational companies do have seed divisions we need to recognise that international linkages have been developed in many industries over the past twenty or so years. We should also recognise the large number of relatively small, often independently owned businesses in the seed trade. The continued operations of a strong public sponsored plant breeding effort is also important in this context. The Minister for Primary Industry informs me that the public plant breeding effort overseas has benefited overall from PVR. In summary, the overseas experience suggests that in some countries (for example Denmark, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands) the effort in public breeding of finished varieties has been reduced and there is now greater concentration of public funds on basic breeding research. On the other hand, in other countries, including the USA, South Africa and Switzerland, there has been an increase in public breeding of finished varieties. In New Zealand, where PVR was introduced in 1974, public breeding organisations have welcomed PVR and are using it to obtain rights to newly developed varieties. In fact the introduction of PVR legislation has enabled New Zealand to develop an international plant breeding program and new export opportunities in seed and nursery products. It is considered essential that Australia maintains a strong public plant breeding effort for our economically important crops to ensure we continue to have varieties well adapted to Australian farming conditions and plant products suited to our principal markets. We must recognise however that we just cannot afford the cost of public breeding programs for our minor crops and that we will continue to be reliant in this area on genetic resources from overseas and the programs of private breeders. This is particularly the case in our horticultural industries. As I have already indicated, Professor Lazenby has put forward recommendations on improving the public plant breeding effort including improving its commercial perspective. Competition is certainly a key way to sharpen that perspective and many public breeders would welcome competition and more effort overall in plant breeding in Australia. Professor Lazenby has recommended Plant Variety Rights as the best way for the Government to improve the overall Australian plant breeding effort. The main economic premise underlying the many recommendations for introduction of PVR legislation is that there are too few resources employed in plant breeding research and development. Professor Lazenby has detailed those deficiencies for us. Some can no doubt be addressed by more financial support from Governments. However there are real limits to such action in the current Budget context. We must also question the desirability of just more Government funding given that the current market structure has failed to encourage sufficient private investment into plant breeding except in the production of hybrid plants where private breeders are able to recoup the benefit of their investment. The extension of the principle of property rights to new plant inventions is recommended to us as the most appropriate measure to address the market deficiencies and is the basis of the plant variety rights legislation I have brought before you today. I turn now to the main features of the Bill and the proposal for a Plant Variety Rights Scheme as the Government intends that it should operate. The scheme will be voluntary and open to any plant breeder, public, private or home gardener, to apply for and to receive a right. It will also be open to overseas breeders to apply for rights. The Government intends that Australia apply for membership of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants which would allow Australian breeders applying for PVR under legislation in overseas member countries to be treated as if they were nationals of those countries. A reciprocal obligation would apply to Australia. All species and genera of plants will be potentially eligible for the granting of rights. However no species will be included in the scheme at the outset. The Bill provides for a broad based Advisory Committee to be appointed and responsible for advising the Minister on the admission of species and genera and the technical administration of the Scheme. The committee will consult widely in its deliberations. The definition of a plant under the Bill does not include fungi, algae or bacteria. To be eligible for grant of a right the variety must be new. The new variety therefore must be clearly distinguishable from any other known variety. It also must remain true to type in future generations. The variety must have been developed by selected breeding of plants, by selection from humanly induced genetic mutation or by selection from natural genetic mutations but only in this latter case where some active intervention has occurred such that a new plant variety has resulted. It is not the Government's intent that the legislation apply to selections from a natural or wild environment or that it apply to varieties already known or available for sale in Australia. It is a scheme for new plant inventions. The grant of a plant variety right would entitle the breeder to sell or produce the variety for sale, or to license others to do the same for a period of 20 years. The 20 year period is to be timed from the date of acceptance of the first application with respect of that variety. An application can be amended or withdrawn. The Bill also provides for rights to be transfered, for rights to be surrendered and for rights to be revoked for instance if the grantee does not meet conditions of grant or pay annual renewal fees. As is the established practice with other forms of property rights, it is for the owner of the new variety to protect his or her rights should infringements occur. The Bill provides for action against infringements to be initiated in the Federal Court. The grantee of a right is free to decide whether or not to licence a variety and whether or not to charge a royalty fee. The grantee would be obliged under the legislation to make the variety available publicly in reasonable quantities and at reasonable prices. In this respect the legislation is to be complementary with the functions of the Trade Practices Act with respect to trade in plant varieties with the exception of its main function, to grant an exclusive proprietary right over a plant variety. The Bill contains quite extensive provisions designed to protect the interests of consumers, be they users of plants or their products. Farmers and home gardeners using a PVR variety will continue to be able to retain seed or other propagating material for their own use. Similarly reproductive material may be used for research and breeding purposes without infringing rights. Rights granted under the legislation will not extend to sale or plants with land, or reproductive material of plants as food, fibre or fuel. This will mean, for example, that a right granted over a variety of wheat will not extend to the use of that variety for bread making. Provision is made for compulsory licencing of plant varieties by the Secretary of the Department administering the scheme should the reasonable requirements of the public with respect to the plant variety not be satisfied by the grantee. The Bill also provides for a sample of the reproductive material of the variety over which a right has been given to be lodged at a designated plant genetic resource centre. It is the intent that this sample be available to the Register for reference purposes and to the Secretary for compulsory licencing purposes under circumstances which might include, for example, that no other material of the variety is available. Appeals against decisions of the registration authority could be made to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The Government proposes that the Scheme be administered by a technically qualified Registrar to be appointed within the administering Department and with responsibilities and duties for receipt and evaluation of applications, and entry to the register. The duties of the Registrar are set out in the legislation. The scheme is expected to require only a very small executive secretariat for its technical and administrative functions. The Registrar can be expected to draw on the extensive taxonomic expertise already available in Commonwealth, State and local herbaria and on overseas reference material. The scheme is expected to cost approximately $700 000 in the first three years of operation. This includes the cost of employing two additional staff members (one technically qualified Registrar and one Clerical Officer), computing, production of a PVR Journal, membership of UPCV, plus equipment and operational costs. There are significant costs in establishing data bases of known varieties and their characteristics for each new species or general added to the scheme which can only be capitalized and amortised over several years. Offsetting these costs, revenue received from applications and granting of rights, together with annual renewals over the initial three years is estimated at $150 000. It is anticipated that full cost recovery will be possible as the number of genera or species under the scheme increases, as the level of participation increases and the costs associated with its establishment decrease. The estimates have been based on experience with establishment of PVR schemes overseas and in New Zealand in particular. It is proposed to review the effectiveness and impact of the Scheme after 5 years as recommended by the Senate Committee. This review should also establish future self sufficiency or the requirement for further Commonwealth support. In conclusion Mr President, we have considered this issue from both sides of the House for several years. Many expert groups and individuals have debated the topic in forums such as the Senate Standing Committee on National Resources, the Industries Assistance Commission and Professor Lazenby's inquiry, all of which recommend in favour of Plant Variety Rights. The Department of Primary Industry has investigated the workings of Plant Variety Rights in other countries, and officers have closely examined all the evidence presented to the inquiries on this issue to develop a scheme which specifically meets Australian requirements. In the light of such evidence it is the Government's conclusion that the advantages of Plant Variety Rights for Australia outweigh the perceived disadvantages argued by the opponents to PVR and that we should proceed without further delay to introduce legislation for a Plant Variety Rights scheme for Australia. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) adjourned. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —The President has received the following message: The House of Representatives requests that the Senate will give leave to Senators Archer, Black, Cooney and Vigor, members of the Joint Select Committee on Telecommunications Interception, to attend, if they think fit, to be examined as witnesses, and give evidence before the House of Representatives Committee of Privileges. JOAN CHILD, Speaker House of Representatives, Canberra, 27 November 1986 Motion (by Senator Walsh)-by leave-proposed: That Senators Archer, Black, Cooney and Vigor have leave to attend and give evidence before the House of Representatives Committee of Privileges, if they think fit. Debate (on motion by Senator Durack) adjourned. Assent to the following Bills reported: Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1986-87 Appropriation Bill (No. 2) 1986-87 Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 1986-87 Debate resumed from 15 October, on motion by Senator Grimes: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy) —It might suit the convenience of the House if the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill were to be debated cognately with the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —There being no objection, it is so ordered. Senator DURACK(Western Australia)(5.28) —As has been indicated, the Senate is about to debate a Government Bill, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986, to ratify a treaty to establish a South Pacific nuclear free zone, a treaty which was entered into by the members of the South Pacific Forum, of which Australia is one, a little over a year ago. At the same time and as a result of the provisions in the Treaty the Government is seeking to amend the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981 to give wider effect to that Act in relation to the dumping of radioactive waste, which is an obligation which Australia has assumed under this treaty. As honourable senators will be aware, it is not usual for treaties entered into by the Executive Government of the day to be ratified by legislation. Under our constitutional system those decisions are made by the Government, not by the Parliament. That procedure is under considerable challenge these days and it is suggested that there should be greater parliamentary control over the ratification of treaties. The ratification process is that under which the obligations of a treaty are assumed by any country which is a party to it. It is an important process, particularly in Australia where, by the interpretation of the external affairs power, the Government and the Parliament can obtain powers they would not otherwise have under the Constitution. The fact that the Government has brought this Treaty into the Parliament to enable the Parliament to determine the ratification rather than the Government's simply ratifying it of its own volition is welcomed by the Opposition, and certainly a treaty of such significance as this, in our view, should be fully debated and voted upon by the Parliament. The Opposition is opposed to the ratification of this Treaty for reasons which I shall deal with shortly. That means that it is even more desir- able that the matter should be properly debated in the Parliament before the Government takes steps to ratify the Treaty. Therefore, the move to enable Parliament to debate this Treaty properly is welcome. However, in the Opposition's view the effect of the Treaty is not desirable, even though on the face of it it may seem to be a desirable proposition that the South Pacific should become a nuclear free zone. Unfortunately, declarations of nuclear free zones are made these days without any careful thought being given to the nature or consequences of such a zone. This Treaty is a very good example of that. Here we have the nations of the South Pacific-I shall not list them exhaustively-which include the traditional island states of the South Pacific and other nations such as Australia which have a major interest in the region, gathered together in the South Pacific Forum. The South Pacific area is of great importance to Australia and of great interest to Australians. Australia's role in the region is of great importance to the other countries which constitute it. Australia has a growing relevance in the region. It has always had an historical association with it but in recent years the role of Australia in the South Pacific Forum has become very important, particularly in view of Australian aid to the region. The region is certainly of great importance to us. It is not our view that Australia's role should be in any way diminished. We certainly encourage Australia's taking a leading role in the area as we have supported Australia's taking a leading role in the South Pacific Forum. Indeed, we encourage Australia's taking note of the views of our neighbours in the South Pacific, their wishes and their needs as states which are in need of further economic development. We can play our part, as we have in the past, in assisting the region in many different ways. Whether we assist the region by joining in a treaty to establish a nuclear free zone in the area is another matter altogether. The Opposition's final conclusion is that this Treaty is not of any benefit to the region and, in fact, it could be to the region's detriment that it is ratified by Australia and that this country assumes the obligations that that requires. First, let me point out that the phrase `nuclear free zone' is a misnomer. The Minister for Resources and Energy (Senator Gareth Evans), who represents the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden) in this place, recognised, when he introduced this Bill, that there was some doubt about the appropriateness of the title `nuclear free'. This Treaty does not, as so many local authorities around Australia are prone to do when they are taken over by anti-nuclear forces, declare a nuclear free zone in that sense at all. In the popular mind, nuclear free zones tend to be associated with declarations that a particular place shall have absolutely nothing to do with anything nuclear, either for peaceful purposes or for the deployment of nuclear weapons. This Treaty does not purport to ban all things nuclear from the South Pacific region. For a start it cannot do that, there is no legal power for the nations of the South Pacific to do that, nor would it be in their interests to preclude for all time-as this Treaty would do-the development of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes in the region. The Opposition believes that it is a matter of great regret that the present Hawke Government is virtually moving in that direction because of its nuclear policies. It is placing very great restrictions on research into the nuclear fuel cycle by our own Atomic Energy Commission and is greatly restricting the exploration for and development of uranium mines in Australia and the export of uranium. This is not a debate about those matters. However, this Bill is a further reflection of the very myopic attitude of the Hawke Government to the nuclear industry and nuclear power. Of course that policy represents the very great influence of the left wing of the Australian Labor Party on this Government. I believe that it is largely due to that sort of influence on this Government that it has taken part in and indeed has been leading the movement towards the declaration of this nuclear free zone in the South Pacific. The same forces are behind the Government in this case as were behind it in its domestic nuclear policies. This Treaty itself and the Bill giving effect to it do not, as I have pointed out, purport to make the South Pacific or Australia totally nuclear free. As the Minister recognises, it really wants to establish a nuclear weapon free zone. According to the Minister, it is perfectly appropriate to talk about something being nuclear free when one only means it to be nuclear weapons free. I find this a most extraordinary use of the English language because there is a vast difference between an absolute nuclear free zone and a nuclear weapons free zone. Obviously, one of the most important and widely supported treaties in the world is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons-or the NPT-in which Australia is an important partner. We are part of the governing council under that Treaty of the International Atomic Energy Agency. That great worldwide movement is concerned to prevent the diversion of the nuclear fuel cycle at any point into the production of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear weapons states. It is a vitally important part of the world in which we live that nuclear power should be harnessed and controlled for peaceful purposes. Probably billions of people in this world would be gravely affected in respect of the availability of elementary electric power if the whole world was a nuclear free zone. We are talking here about a nuclear weapon regime. Senator Gareth Evans —I hope you have noted the title of that Treaty though, Senator. The title is the same, for nuclear non-proliferation. Senator DURACK —I want to make it perfectly clear to Senator Evans that we are not talking about a totally nuclear free zone. The Treaty does not renounce the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the South Pacific region; it simply deals with the renunciation of explosive nuclear devices. The Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) recognises that, even in that limited sense, this Treaty also presents what he suggested that many people may see as an inconsistency. The Minister went to great pains to explain, and no doubt Senator Evans will go to great pains to explain, that this Treaty does not prevent Australia from maintaining its defence arrangements under the ANZUS Treaty because, even though the member nations undertake to renounce the use of explosive nuclear devices or nuclear weapons in the South Pacific, they are limited only to a certain extent under the Treaty, consistent with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So it is really only a local application, so to speak, of the latter Treaty. Nevertheless, certain definitions in this Bill go much further than the Treaty requires, and that is what is worrying the Opposition. The Treaty does not, as the Government claims quite rightly, affect our defence arrangements because it does not prevent Australia from allowing nuclear powered or nuclear armed warships or aircraft to visit Australia, nor does it prevent any other nation in the Pacific from allowing that to occur. It does not require those nations to prevent nuclear powered or nuclear armed ships or aircraft from being in their territorial waters or airspace. It also cannot stop them moving around the international waters or airspace of the Pacific region. As I have said, the Opposition's concern is the wider definition of the stationing of such allied warships or aircraft which may be nuclear armed. It is this very wide definition that has been adopted in the Treaty which is of great concern to us. Although we are presently in a situation of peace and allow visits from allied warships which may be nuclear armed, it seems that this definition would prevent a number of activities which would be required if in fact we moved from a state of peace to a state of war. The very circumstances and conditions in which the ANZUS Treaty applies would be brought into place as a result of armed conflict involving Australia. If our allies were, under the ANZUS Treaty, to come to our aid, whether it be the United States under that Treaty or any other allies who may have nuclear armed ships or aircraft and who would be a very important part of our defence, definitions and provisions in this Treaty would prevent their full participation in a state of war, which of course we cannot assume will never happen. Indeed, the ANZUS Treaty is the cornerstone of our defence policy and of our security and protection against the possibility of war. If war did occur, we would want allied ships or aircraft, which may or may not have nuclear arms, stationed in Australia. I want to refer to the meaning of `stationing', which in the Treaty and, of course, in the Bill giving effect to it extends to: . . . emplacement, transportation on land or inland waters, stockpiling, storage, installation and deployment. These are the very things that may well be required in those circumstances. Although in one sense the Minister is correct in saying that this Treaty does not interfere with our defence arrangements so long as we are in a state of peace, as we are at present, it undoubtedly would interfere with our defence arrangements if we were unfortunately to enter a state of war. The Opposition cannot see what value there is in saying that the Treaty does not affect our defence arrangements in those circumstances. In view of that definition, the Treaty is reduced almost to absurdity. We believe that the Government has taken an overoptimistic view of the benefits of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. I have already pointed out that the Treaty cannot even prevent nuclear armed ships from proceeding through the international waters of the region. This is an area of great concern to our major ally, the United States of America. Thank goodness the United States does have a major presence in the Pacific region with its ships and aircraft. It would be a sorry day for Australia if that were to change. Nor does this Treaty stop the Soviet Union penetrating the international airspace or the international waters of the Pacific region as a result of either invitations extended or permission given by the other members of this Treaty, the South Pacific nations themselves. As we all know, there is a rapidly growing interest by the Soviet Union in the South Pacific, just as it has shown interest in the last decade or more in the Indian Ocean. The South Pacific region is clearly going to be subjected to more and more interest and penetration by the Soviet Union. The United States is in the Pacific region most importantly for the security of the region, particularly the security of Australia, and the Soviet Union is also moving into it, yet we are here entering into a treaty giving the impression that we are really aligning ourselves against our major ally, the United States, while at the same time we are not prepared, or are unable, to prevent the Soviet Union from entering the region and endeavouring to destabilise the present situation. It is not only the specific legalities of the Treaty that concern the Opposition; it is also the perceptions of the Treaty by our allies, particularly the United States of America, that concern us. It is those broader concerns, rather than the specific problems that I have mentioned under the Treaty, that deeply disturb the Opposition. The Treaty certainly does nothing to enhance security in the region. The effect of it may well be to encourage the Soviet Union further and further destabilise peace in the region. As we know, nuclear weapons free zones certainly do not protect us from nuclear war and do not provide an adequate deterrent against the commencement of nuclear war. That uneasy but successful balance of deterrence, which has been the basis of peace in the world over the last 40 years, could well be eroded by treaties of this kind. We are deeply concerned by that aspect of it. The Opposition will support the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill. Nothing that I have said on behalf of the Opposition in this debate should be taken as indicating any lessening of our opposition to the testing by France of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific. We have a proud record of opposition to and concern about the dumping of radioactive waste in the Pacific region as we have of opposition to nuclear tests being conducted in the Pacific. There seem to be stringent definitions of radioactive waste in the Treaty and in the Bill to amend the sea dumping Act. The Opposition supports the Bill, at least until some worldwide agreements and rules can be made about the disposal of radioactive waste. As I have said, the Treaty has taken an extremely strict view of what is radioactive waste, as has the Government in giving effect to that Treaty. Even the most low level waste would be prevented from being dumped as a result of the definitions in the Treaty. The Opposition believes that position is justified at present and we will support the Bill accordingly. If the Treaty is not ratified, it may be desirable for the Government to promote a further treaty limited to the disposal of radioactive waste in the region because, if this Treaty is not ratified, the question of disposal of waste will be left open. The Opposition would certainly have no objection to a treaty being entered into on that matter. For all of those reasons, the Opposition is opposed to ratification of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and thus to the Bill to ratify that Treaty. But we support the opposition of the Government, which has been our position both in government and in opposition, to nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific and the dumping in the Pacific of radioactive waste. Senator MASON(New South Wales)(5.55) —In looking at the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill, the first thing I would like to say is that any sensible government in Australia would have extended this Treaty to cover all nuclear technologies. A responsible government should be able to foresee a disastrous horizontal proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Pacific, as elsewhere, as a direct result of Australia's connivance at and encouragement of the nuclear industry. By horizontal proliferation I mean, in the jargon of the trade, an extension of nuclear weapons of one kind or another to smaller and smaller and less and less responsible powers-to dictatorships, to autocracies, and eventually even to determined terrorist groups. Work has been done by the responsible scientists of the world and they are telling loudly and clearly all those who will listen that a continuation of new technologies now under experimentation, and advanced experimentation, in the nuclear industry will lead within a foreseeable amount of time to the possibility-perhaps the likelihood; even perhaps the certainty-of small irresponsible powers and determined terrorist groups being able to manufacture for themselves not balance of terror weapons, not hydrogen bombs or anything of that kind, but only the small dirty atom bomb-the type of bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. I should have thought that that possibility was bad enough. I was in Europe earlier this year and talked to a number of people, including some expert scientists in Israel and elsewhere, and including people who I was told were nuclear power hawks. They are now deeply concerned about this and regard it as one of the major problems facing the world. The Jekyll and Hyde aspect of the nuclear power industry will continue as its technologies improve. Will they improve? They have to improve if we go on with them because the present economic state is so bad that it is impossible for the nuclear power industry, as it is presently constituted, to continue. The costs are so high and the problems so great. That is why so few new reactors have been brought into service, and even fewer are planned for the future. On this basis it seems quite perverse for the Government or any person not to see this connection and not to take it seriously into account. Certainly, many Australian Labor Party members-probably a majority of them-see this quite clearly. Like all reasonable human beings, they are deeply concerned about it. I noticed recently that Senator Durack mentioned this point when he opened the debate for the Opposition. He said that there is this driving force in the Labor Party, which he thought was in the left wing. He perpetually says that this is a left wing matter. I say to him that this is a matter that concerns all sections of the community, not just the left wing of the Labor Party; it goes right through the community. It is part of the knowledge that our school children have. Do we ever wonder why so many of them believe that they should not worry about getting a job or having a family? The reason is that survey after survey has shown that here, as elsewhere in the world, children do not believe that they will live long enough to have a career and have children. They believe that they will be dead long before they reach maturity-that they will be killed in a nuclear war. If we want that sort of spin-off and are prepared to indulge ourselves in this wasteful industry, so be it. It is said that those who are incapable of learning from what they see around them are fated to their doom. I hope that that will not be the case and that as time goes on we will have more sense. But it did interest me to hear that, aside from those in the Labor Party and others, Senator Durack-I am greatly reassured by this-sees the connection between nuclear power and nuclear weapons, which he mentioned right at the beginning of his speech. Keeping the Pacific free of nuclear weapon proliferation may in time be very difficult indeed. The point that has to be made very clearly is that production of uranium 235 and plutonium 239 has in the past been very expensive and very difficult to conceal. This has been a big league matter. Now the situation is beginning to change quite dramatically. It is beginning to change in the interests, we are told, of a more economical and efficient nuclear power industry. The point, which I will repeat, is that that nuclear power industry, in being able to produce uranium 235 or plutonium 239 more cheaply and more easily and to have it around in greater quantities, is indeed creating the fuel not only for nuclear power stations but also for bombs. There is no doubt about this whatsoever. There will be plenty of cheap and easily obtainable power for nuclear bombs in the world in another 10 or 15 years if we go on as we are. Centrifuge enrichment has improved radically. The use of carbon fibre in the centrifuges and new, very high speed bearings which simply run around at high speed and allow the slow separation of the U235 from the U238 mean that the time will come when a small power, perhaps in the Pacific Ocean or perhaps elsewhere, will be able to have a fairly small factory in which it can produce U235 more or less at its leisure. It will be able to conceal it easily. This is where the attempts at international supervision will fail. Even worse is laser enrichment. One of the countries which is pioneering it is France, which is totally irresponsible, which does not see any consequences of its nuclear industry and which does not worry about nuclear proliferation. All its actions show this. Laser enrichment is even worse because it is not really an enrichment process at all. It is a natural separation by a single process of U235, which is the fissionable component of the natural uranium, from U238, which is not. If we go ahead and permit this technology or do not attempt to bring it under some sort of world control, some small country somewhere in South East Asia or east Asia could eventually use so-called peaceful methods to derive these weapons. What would happen once one of them had them? Once one had them, they would all want them. We would have a situation in which every small regional war in this region, as elsewhere, would use these nuclear weapons. Once the weapons are there, it is fairly obvious that they will be used. They will be seen then as fairly small league weapons in terms of the awesome nuclear arsenals of the super-powers. What is the odd Hiroshima-sized bomb used here and there in a desperate necessity, such as when our enemies may beat us? Why should it not be used? The consequences of that will not appear to be very great to begin with, but they will be great, of course, over a period. I have said before in this place, and I will say it again, that if we allow that-these weapons are very dirty; the radioactivity fallout from these crude weapons would be very high-the fate of the human race will be to end not with a bang but perhaps with a whimper. The second point that I want to make in relation to this Bill is that I cannot see why we have to have nuclear powered warships in Australian ports. There is every reason, I believe, that Australia should follow the lead given by New Zealand. When Australian citizens are honestly questioned on this most of them probably will agree with that. If, indeed, Australian citizens of good intent could be convinced that the balance of world power would be seriously affected somehow by not allowing ships here, I think they might feel differently. It is a fairly open secret that nuclear powered and nuclear weaponed ships come here mostly to give rest and recreation to their sailors. I do not, and I think most Australians would not, believe that this is a reason for placing our major cities at risk. In this country past governments have been careless enough to allow major naval bases to be located in the heart of our major cities. This is the case in both Sydney and Perth. Those governments that tolerate the present situation ought to have a very careful look at the possible consequences of it before they bring forward pious Bills of this kind which are supposed to be achieving something of value for this country in the nuclear debate but which are doing very little indeed. Certainly the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill is potentially one of the most important and significant Bills ever presented to this Parliament. It is of vital importance to the South Pacific region, to us and to the world that a workable and thorough South Pacific nuclear free zone treaty be established and strictly enforced as soon as possible. That will happen only when those matters which I raised earlier in my speech are taken into account and considered seriously on an international level. I see no sign whatsoever of the Labor Government here making any moves in that direction. It shrugs its shoulders and does its Judas act. It just allows these things to drift on. At one time we were told that unless we were in the nuclear industry we would not have an influence at all on the world. When we are in it we do not attempt to exert any influence. What sanity is there in that, or is the Government so stupid that it and its researchers are not capable of knowing the things of which I have spoken and their dangers? Of course they know. The point is that the Labor Government, the Hawke Government, is washing its hands of this and does not want to know. In its favour, the Bill prohibits the manufacture, production and acquisition of nuclear explosive devices in Australia, research and development relating to manufacture or production of nuclear weapons in Australia and the testing of nuclear explosive devices in Australia. That is a very considerable step forward, and I concede it because I understand that Australia is the first country to enshrine these principles in legislation. It comes back, I think, to our cringe, or our national or parliamentary sense of an inferiority complex, that we are able to take this good and valid step in our country yet our Government somehow feels too scared, too concerned or not confident enough to try to extend these principles into the wider world. We give credit, as Senator Durack has mentioned, to those Government back benchers who pushed very hard in the ALP Caucus to have this Bill introduced. Senator Durack —I didn't give any credit to them. Senator MASON —As I recall, Senator Durack did not actually give credit to them; he mentioned them, I think. I differ from him. I give them credit for it because I believe in giving credit where it is due. I think it is reasonable that the Labor back benchers who pushed for this should be given credit. I am aware of how much this move was resisted by many powerful members of the Government. That the Bill was presented by the Government at all in the circumstances of the Government's nuclear record in other respects is amazing. I know that the ALP Caucus possibly has been influenced by the fact that the Australian Democrats have presented so many anti-nuclear Bills in this place. We feel that when we presented those Bills we presented a reasonable argument and debate for them. I think that was conceded by many people who were prepared to look at them in a rational and unbiased way. This Bill prohibits the permanent stationing of nuclear weapons in Australia. The Australian Democrats applaud this excellent provision. However, there again it falls pitifully short because none of its provisions applies to any foreign ship or aircraft visiting Australia or travelling through Australian waters or airspace. When we come to look at it, I think we see it as a pretty weak and watery sort of provision. In other words, we cannot actually have weapons permanently in Australia. To give credit where it is due, when one looks at the situation in, say, Britain and the rest of Europe, one sees that it is a pretty good concession in that we at least will not have cruise missiles and things of that kind going backwards and forwards on our country roads and stationed all over our country. That, I suggest, is probably due to a lack of pressure and a lack of necessity for us to have such weapons in this country. If it were necessary and if we were pushed very hard, one wonders whether the present Australian Government would be capable of standing up against it. My view is that that may well not be so. I was pleased to read in the second reading speech of the Minister for Community Services (Senator Grimes) on the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill that the Bill makes it a binding, legal, international obligation on Australia that Australian uranium cannot be exported for use by any country in nuclear explosives. The Minister goes on to say that Australian uranium may be exported to France with no fear that it will be used in such weaponry. I find this a most curious statement. I do not see how the Government has got itself to believe what it is saying. It is totally incredible that uranium should be exported to France, which has said many times that it will use material from its nuclear reactors for weapons. We can believe it. France is building Superphenix, its fast breeder reactor, to obtain huge quantities of plutonium. The quantities of plutonium that a breeder reactor produces over a period are such that it is inconceivable that they could all be used in a single country for nuclear power. There is simply too much produced to consider it worth while. There is a plain and obvious use for that type of technology. The reason fast breeders have not been introduced in other parts of the world is that, ultimately, at the bottom line, a fast breeder is there to produce Pu239 for weapons. I would be very surprised if the Government could hold that ground. It is a totally unjustifiable stance on the part of the Government. If it looks at the facts, it will see that, if Australian uranium is exported to France, there is no way humanly possible that anybody can tell over the years whether it is our uranium or somebody else's that finally comes out of some spent fuel rods that are reprocessed, or whether some U238 that goes into the blanket of a breeder reactor is ours or anybody else's. It is quite likely that France will, of course, use all the uranium it can get in its nuclear weapons to pollute and destabilise the South Pacific region. France is maintaining its colonial stand in New Caledonia and other places. I do not believe it would hesitate to use nuclear weapons in this region if it felt that it was a necessary act of war. The Government will, of course, now realise, in our opinion, if it gives any serious consideration to what this Bill states and the facts, that it can no longer allow the export of Australian uranium to France, as it will undoubtedly be breaking the law that it has established, once this Bill has been enacted. The Australian Democrats will not allow the Government to forget that point. We will, if necessary, insist on whatever inquiries are necessary to prevent the continued export of uranium to France within the scope of this Bill. I cannot compliment the Government highly enough on the introduction of the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1986, which we are debating cognately. It has not been lost on me that this Bill is virtually an exact replica of my own private member's Bill-the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1985. I am delighted that the Government has taken it on board. I introduced that Bill because the Government was dragging the chain. It said years ago that it would bring in this provision. I thought I would be a little helpful to it by introducing my Bill last year. It seems to have had the desired effect. I am glad that the Government has now introduced its own Bill. As such, I give it my wholehearted support. I conclude by referring to the delightful quote which the Minister used in his second reading speech and which I think everybody deserves to hear. In the words of the preamble to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, the people of the South Pacific are: . . . determined to ensure, so far as lies within their power, that the bounty and beauty of the land and sea in their region shall remain the heritage of their peoples and their descendants in perpetuity to be enjoyed by all in peace. That is an excellent and praiseworthy determination. It is a great pity that it was not the attitude of the United States Government when it decided to subject the people of the Marshall Islands to the consequences of its weapon testing. Of course, this concept is obviously quite beyond the arrogant and shortsighted attitude that is being expressed by the current French Government. While it is okay for the Minister in his second reading speech to use those lovely words, I would like to see more determination and more careful thought by the Government as to how it will actually bring those concepts into practice. On behalf of the Australian Democrats I congratulate the Government on introducing these Bills, while at the same time stressing their serious limitations. Although the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill does not, in our opinion, go nearly far enough, it can be said, I think, that it is a start-possibly a good start-in the direction of a nuclear free South Pacific region. But it will only be that start if we have stronger legislation of this kind from the Government in the future, and some indication that it understands in totality what the influences are, bearing not only on the nuclear weapons industry, but also on its strong and dangerous association with the nuclear power industry. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(6.14) —The Senate has before it two Bills. One Bill is entitled the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1986. The Opposition-the Liberal and National parties, of which I am a member-fully supports that Bill. We have before us another Bill entitled the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986. The title is such that one is minded to say that one would have to support it; it sounds so important, and every right-minded person wants a nuclear free zone. I must tell the Senate that, on examination, one can see that not only is the title of the Bill incorrect, but the Bill itself does nothing to add to the security of the area, and can do much to destabilise. In saying that-speaking both personally and for the coalition parties-we fervently want to see nuclear weapons removed from this world. We believe that the goal must be the total eradication of all nuclear weapons. We support the attempts to get nuclear powers progressively to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to nil and put in non-nuclear defensive systems. I say that as one who fervently, throughout the world, has sought to find solutions to this problem. But it is very wrong for a government or any person to seduce the public into believing that a measure will do something to add to its security, when it may well do the reverse. Let me refer first to these words in the Bill's title: `Nuclear free zone'. The fact is that my colleagues and I emphatically want the world to be a nuclear free zone. Unless the whole world is a nuclear free zone, not one tiny part of the world can be nuclear free. If there is one message from Chernobyl, the nuclear power disasters near Kiev in the Soviet Union last year, it is that there can be no nuclear free zones. It involved, compared with a missile blast, a minor emission of radioactivity which swept not only over that part of Russia, but on through western and southern Europe, over areas which had been wrongly and perversely called nuclear free zones. The fact that parts of Scandinavia, Scotland, Italy and Greece were called nuclear free zones did not stop the radioactive material spreading over those areas. It is an illusion to believe that one can create such a zone. If one wanted to present the true picture, one would say not only that we are out to make this world nuclear free, but also that the main objective of any government, any party and any member of parliament is to see that every nation in this world is a signatory to and an observer of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Nothing in the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty does anything to add to the real benefits that lie in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That Treaty applies to the South Pacific states. The fact is that no country in the South Pacific at the moment is a nuclear weapons country. So there is no need to move away from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The fact is that if we want to stop horizontal or vertical proliferation in this world, we in Australia are committed, as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to get behind that Treaty and get every country in the world to sign it. Some 130-odd countries are signatories to that Treaty now. In September last year a meeting of those countries revealed a fascinating thing-that the progress of observance of the Treaty had been good, that there was no evidence of breaches of the Treaty, and there was evidence that more nations were working towards that Treaty. Australia is a signatory to that Treaty. It is an active member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. One should not have to go further than the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the text of which I have in my hand, to see that nothing further is to be gained in the South Pacific, bearing in mind in the first place that there are no weapons states in the area at the moment. Article II of the United Nations Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons states: Each non-nuclear weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Australia, Fiji, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and Samoa are signatories to that article. They are committed to this already. They are committed further in that any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty undertakes to accept the safeguards as laid down in the International Atomic Energy Agency and also to see that any transfer of peaceable fissile material shall be done with total safeguards. It also says in Article IV of which Australia is in breach that it is the duty of signatories to the Treaty to help other countries with peacetime usage of fissile material with strict safeguards. Clause 2 of Article IV states: All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organisations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapons States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration to the needs of the developing areas of the world. In other words, the great bulk of the nations of this world are already signatories to what the world recognises as the most significant treaty in the world, the most significant instrument in the world, for stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The countries of the South Pacific are signatories to it. There are no nuclear weapons states there. One would say that our duty is to get amongst those 13 states to ensure that they are active in working within the Treaty. If one or two of the smaller islands are not already members of the Treaty it is our bounden duty to get them to join that Treaty. It is recognised by every country of the Western world that their prime task is to ensure horizontal and vertical non-proliferation of weapons. That ought to be our task. If the Treaty were to be based on nuclear non-proliferation it would have an honest and a non-seductive title. It would say to people: `These nations that are non-weapon states are signing a treaty to undertake not to have weapons themselves, not to manufacture them, and not to station them on their soil, et cetera'. One would understand that. But it gives the impression from the word `zone' that we can draw some circle on this earth and within that circle make that part nuclear free. I have referred to Chernobyl. Sadly, no matter where a nuclear device explodes in this world it will spread throughout the world. Let me give an example to show the nature of that statement. If one is at sea level in Australia the amount of radioactivity that comes from the cosmic rays, from the rocks, from the food we eat, from our own bones, is measured at about 100 millirads. All the atomic explosives that have happened in this world since Hiroshima and Nagasaki have added two millirads to that. In the cosmic mix they have been distributed throughout the world. A Muroroa explosion going eastwards in the first place will spread whatever radioactivity it has throughout the world. If we elect to come to Canberra, as we have today, we would be adding, because of the altitude, two more millirads. The higher one goes the higher the millirads. We have to accept that the ordinary cosmic mix of this world will ensure that, wherever an explosion is, it will ultimately spread throughout the world. Our task is to stop any missile ever being exploded anywhere in this world, no matter from where it is to be exploded or whatever its target may be. There cannot be in this world a limited nuclear war. No one can win a nuclear war. Once a nuclear war starts the aggressor must make the attack so enormous that he limits or even stops any kind of retaliation. That would be of such a magnitude as to be worldwide destructive. That is accepted by both sides of this chamber. Fundamentally our job is to get a nuclear free world. The best way is through the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and alongside that Treaty, the best way is to support the deterrent inside the Western alliance. The Government admits that for the time being there is no substitute to the deterrent; that is the ability of the Western world if it were attacked by nuclear means to respond. One hopes that ability will never be used but will simply be a deterrent. No aggressor would attempt to attack because the dispersal of nuclear weapons throughout the world would be such that the aggressor could not wipe them out and there would be significant retaliation. It would be an ugly situation. It would be mutually assured destruction, as it is called. There is no substitute as yet, unless, of course, the strategic defence initiative, the so-called star wars, proves to be effective and we can get a non-nuclear defence system in this world. The situation is that there cannot be such a zone because wherever an explosion happened in this world the South Pacific zone would be affected just as much as the rest of the world would be. This Treaty gives the illusion that the international waters and the international air space are part of the zone. There are only two elements to this zone: The nation states themselves, their territories, territorial waters and air- space, and the international waters and the international airspace. We know that through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty we can get a total answer by the signatories observing that Treaty. We know that they are non-nuclear weapon states at this moment, so we can solve the territorial situation by working for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and working for the strengthening of the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which we are a member. This Bill gives the illusion that international waters and international airspace are somehow nuclear free. There is no way to stop the movement backwards and forwards throughout the whole of the South Pacific zone of nuclear powered, nuclear armed vessels and, of course, aircraft carrying nuclear weapons. So it is an illusion, an ugly illusion, to pretend to people through a title of a Bill, through the title of a treaty, that we are doing something that we cannot do. It is surely the ugliest and most corrupt of illusions. We want a world that is totally nuclear free. The Democrats are opposed to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Do not forget that the Australian Democrats stand for two devastating negatives: It is opposed to the ANZUS alliance-it wants us to become neutral, to opt out, to simply be isolated without friends to defend us-and it wants us to get out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We would be lonely indeed in doing that. Do not ask me why the Democrats create the illusion that we can somehow in isolation be safe when we know that there can be no safety in isolation, no protection for anyone in this so-called nuclear free zone. That is an ugly illusion. There is safety in a growing world of decent nations and people wanting to work together to create nuclear non-proliferation areas further and further out until we have a world that is nuclear free. That in itself is the essence of what it is all about. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Bill Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —Before the suspension of the sitting for dinner I said that the title of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill is bad illusion. It gives the illusion that one can create a nuclear free zone in the South Pacific. The illusion is that there is a zone which contains the territories, the territorial waters, the territorial airspace, the international waters and the international airspace of the South Pacific which could be made nuclear free. Even the Government admits that this is nonsense. The Government admits that no such treaty could bind the international waters or the international airspace. It knows that nuclear powered and nuclear armed vessels and nuclear equipped aircraft can use international space at any time. It knows, as I pointed out, that radioactivity can spread from any point in the world throughout the world and that no declaration of a nuclear free zone can stop it. It knows-I make this very important point-that the only nuclear free zone that we must all strive for is a world that is wholly nuclear free. I pointed out that the important safeguards against the proliferation of weapons in this world lie in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Not only is Australia a signatory to that Treaty, as are 130 nations, most of the nations of the world, but also the nations of the South Pacific zone-Fiji, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu and Samoa-are signatories to it. I read the terms of the Treaty to show that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty imposes great responsibilities and sanctions upon these countries, greater than this proposed Treaty can possibly do. I pointed out that the International Atomic Energy Agency ought to be given far more powers so that it can deal with any suggested proliferation. If we are to test how we can achieve a world that is nuclear free we have to look at the realities. The first reality is that nuclear knowledge is universal, growing and irreversible. One cannot wipe out knowledge. Any country with reasonable technology can make a nuclear weapon and delivery system. Weapon technology cannot be frozen; it will mirror the advancing technology of society. With the knowledge there, we have to find ways of stopping people using that knowledge for bad purposes. But I go one step further and say that uranium and thorium, the two main fissile materials, are universally distributed throughout the whole earth's crust and its oceans. The absence of any world trade in them-whether or not a country mined, milled and exported them-would have no effect at all. Any ban on Australia's export of them would have no effect at all if a country wanted to get fissile materials for nuclear purposes. Indeed, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty makes the salient point that by joining the Treaty, becoming a member nation and carrying out responsibilities and by trading uranium freely and fully to those who are signatories to the Treaty so that they observe all the sanctions, responsibilities and safeguards is the best way to stop fissile material going astray for nuclear purposes. The onus is on Australia to make absolutely sure that we are good suppliers of uranium to the world and that we supply it to those nations that are signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Senator Sanders —Shall we sell heroin as well? Shall we push dope as well? Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —That is a treaty that Senator Sanders rejects, incidentally. Let me again make it clear that Senator Sanders, a member of the Australian Democrats, like his Democrat partners, rejects the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Indeed, Senator Chipp has said that the Democrats reject it, as they reject the ANZUS Treaty and any Western alliance. So I say again that it is Australia's task to observe the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Australia, being one of the largest possessors of uranium in the world, ought to export to partners to that Treaty, observe the safeguards and monitor all those fissile materials through their cycle. Not just one or two nations but virtually every nation in the world agrees with that. Some 130 nations are now signatories to the Treaty, and the only people out of step in the regiment now are Senator Sanders and the Australian Democrats. They are out of step with 99 per cent of the world's population. Of course a handful of nations are not parties to the Treaty, and our job is to get alongside those countries and see whether we can get more members. In the last few years even more nations have come in. We may fundamentally want the world to be a nuclear free zone but we cannot wipe out knowledge and we cannot prevent people from getting fissile materials. We cannot turn back the clock in terms of the peaceful use of nuclear materials. This Parliament of Australia has had before it the report of the Australian Science and Technology Council, the main scientific body in Australia, which says quite clearly that during the next 30 years there will be no substitute for increased nuclear power generation; that renewable energy, whether it is solar, biomass or water, is marginal; that oil is diminishing; and that coal is a serious pollutant. In fact coal-fired power stations have more radioactive fallout than nuclear power stations. What a strange thing it is that those who inveigh against nuclear power stations forget to tell the world two things: That coal-fired power stations throw radioactive material into the air and distribute it widely, and that coal-fired and oil-fired power stations around the world are creating acid rain which is destroying the ecosystem, particularly in Canada, in the Black Forest and in Scandinavia. The very people who pretend that they have a monopoly on the ecology and a monopoly on conservation never open their mouths about the damage to flora, fauna and human health that is occurring. The American Medical Association has said that 50,000 Americans each year become seriously ill or die as a result of acid rain. We do not talk about that. Senator Sanders —Right; you did read my book. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Senator Sanders! Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK —I do not mind when Senator Sanders interjects because it is important for the world outside to understand that he and the Democrats are fighting to destroy the great safeguards of this nation and the free world. They are fighting to destroy the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that 130-odd nations want, and they are fighting to destroy the Western alliance, including the ANZUS Treaty, which all but the Democrats in this Parliament believe is the one great safeguard for Australia. Happily, the belief that the Western alliance forms a deterrent is shared by both the Government and the Opposition, and by the recent report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. So the people of Australia should understand that the one group in this Parliament threatening the very safety of the free world, the Western alliance, is the group that puts forward these arrant nonsenses, that mouths the theory that there can be a nuclear free zone. I make it perfectly clear to Senator Walsh, who is in the chamber, or to anybody else, that both America and his Government say that there must be no nuclear war, no one can win a nuclear war; there can be no limited nuclear war. In a nuclear war there can be no winners, no escape for neutral nations, and yet the Democrats want us to be neutral. There can be no protection in nuclear free zones and no protection in isolation. The fact is that in any kind of major nuclear situation everybody would be affected. No nation can opt out. The absence of a primary target, of bases and installations, gives no protection at all to a country. The cosmic mix has an effect on the total situation. The Bill before us is concerned with a treaty which does not do as much as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, to which we are already a signatory. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty is not as stringent as that Treaty. It does not have 130-odd nations bound to it, and it pretends that such South Pacific zone can be created. However, it can have no influence at all on airspace or sea space in international waters. The Treaty creates an illusion. I would support it fully if it had only gone as far as being cosmetic. I would say that it was unnecessary, but that would be that. But the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty goes further than that. The wording of the Treaty can, in fact, threaten the ability of Australia to perform within the Western alliance and within the ANZUS Treaty should there be a critical situation. Should there be a situation in which Australia finds itself in some kind of peril, in which it wants support from its Western partners and from the Western alliance itself, there is quite a danger that this Treaty will make impossible the type of deployment and association that would safeguard Australia or the region. It would be nonsense for us to let ourselves into a situation in which we could not in a crisis co-operate fully with the Western alliance or fulfil our obligations under the ANZUS Treaty. That really is the nub of the situation. The Treaty in itself is an illusion and is basically unnecessary because of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The nations which are signatories to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty are non-nuclear, non-nuclear weapon countries. Australia is pledged to do certain things under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. We are regarded in the world as very good neighbours in the nuclear sense. We enforce all of the safeguards when we export our uranium. We trace and monitor what happens to it around the world. We do what 130-odd nations say are the right things to do. The tragedy is that the Hawke Government does some of it but does not do all of it. It says that it is good to export some uranium for peaceful purposes but that it is not good to supply uranium, no matter what might be the demand, to those countries that observe the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The danger is that, if we do not supply the countries that want it, they will find it from elsewhere and the same kind of safeguards may not be applied. So we have a major problem. We have to move towards a world that is nuclear weapons free. That is our task; that is our goal. The way to do that, of course, is to bring about nuclear disarmament and major conventional disarmament. We have to move down to verifiable and equivalent levels step by step until we get, hopefully, to the abandonment of all nuclear weapons. The only way we can do this is to see the nuclear free concept as a world that is nuclear free. The way to do that is through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, by giving more muscle to the International Atomic Energy Agency and for Australia to be a good neighbour in our zone, certainly working within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty but also working under the Western alliance and the ANZUS Treaty to maintain a sensible deterrent so nobody ever in this world uses an atomic weapon or, indeed, a major weapon of conventional warfare. That is the way to achieve a nuclear free and war free area. Any other way is nothing but an illusion. I am sorry that this should be so. It is a great pity. I have fought in the past to get the words `nuclear free zone' in the Treaty changed to `nuclear non-proliferation'. I would understand a treaty that contained such words. The words `nuclear free' are simply a confidence trick on the Australian people. I find the use of these words an ugly and corrupt kind of trick because they pretend to do something that this Bill can never do. The use of those words creates an illusion of safety which does very great harm to the Government and the people of Australia. Senator CHILDS(New South Wales)(8.15) —We are debating the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986 and the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1986. In the brief time I have to speak-I must speak briefly because it is very important to the Government that this legislation be passed tonight-I would like to make a few points about the development of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. Australia first raised the matter of a nuclear free zone in the South Pacific at the South Pacific Forum in Canberra in 1983. The broad outlines of the Treaty were discussed in the 1984 Forum meeting in Tuvalu and the Treaty was finally presented to the heads of government of the Forum members at the Rarotonga meeting in 1985. It is significant that the Treaty has been developed at all, let alone in such a relatively short period. It is yet another sign that, even with difficulty and reservations, agreements on arms control and nuclear matters can be reached. Such is the case with the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. I have looked closely at the amendment proposed by the Australian Democrats and find that I cannot support it because it seeks to make the passage of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill conditional. The second amendment states: Sections 1 to 7 (inclusive) shall come into operation on the day on which the Customs Amendment (Prohibition of the Exportation of Uranium to France) Act 1986 comes into operation. I find that condition which the Democrats are placing on the legislation puts me in a position in which, although I personally strongly believe that Australian uranium should not be exported to France until such time as France ceases to test nuclear weapons-that is the platform of the Australian Labor Party and I strongly support it-- Senator Sanders —Then why don't you support the amendment? Senator CHILDS —It is because the Democrats, as usual, have been just too monkey cunning. As Senator Siddons pointed out recently, being too opportunistic puts one in a position in which one mixes up two concepts. I belong to a party that strongly believes that this Treaty should be endorsed. At our national conference in Hobart we urged countries in this area of the world to sign the Treaty. However, I am critical of the Government because I believe that the decision to sell uranium to France was a mistake; it was a major error. It was the most insensitive and stupid decision that this Government has made since it came to power. A great deal of the good will of an Australian community that is universally opposed to French nuclear tests has been lost because of the Government's decision. However, I believe that the Government can learn from its decision. The Government should escalate actions of retaliation against France should it seek to test further nuclear weapons. I believe this very strongly. It is a view held within the Labor movement, held very strongly within the peace movement and held by many members of the Government. I feel certain that the Government, when it considers the overall position that we face in Australia at the present moment, will see the need to move in this direction. I share with, I think, all members of parliament an abhorrence of the arrogance of the French Government that continues to test nuclear weapons in this part of the world yet dares not test them in mainland France. I think that in the light of that arrogance we have come to the position where we should say: `No more'. However, I do want to refer to the Treaty itself. It is, of course, the three protocols annexed to the Treaty, which restrict the activities of the nuclear weapons states, that are particularly significant. Protocol I is open to those states with territories in the region; they are, France, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Protocol I relates to the prohibition of manufacture, stationing and testing of nuclear devices on those territories. Protocol II is open to all the nuclear weapons powers. It relates to the prohibition of the use or the threat of use of nuclear devices against another state within the region. Protocol III relates to the prohibition of the testing of nuclear devices within the region. The 1985 Forum meeting also asked for the inclusion of a withdrawal clause of three months, which is somewhat shorter than the withdrawal time needed for other treaties. The Treaty is certainly worth Australia's signature. Even with the reservations which some governments and some commentators outlined, it is a step in the right direction, especially when very little else is happening. That has been demonstrated, unfortunately, in the last couple of months by the failure of the super-powers to make progress. There have been no concrete disarmament initiatives from the super-powers in recent times. The Treaty should not be ignored simply because some of those commentators do not think its terms go far enough. This is an important point, because many people are critical of the Treaty. They do not see the significance, the qualitative change, that this first step makes in this region of the world. Indeed, this Treaty becomes an example to other parts of the world for them to try to come together in a similar way to the way in which the countries in this area of the world have come together. I believe that the crux of the problem that we face in the South Pacific is not necessarily the terms of the Treaty, but the willingness of those states involved to abide by the spirit of the Treaty. It is only concerted international pressure, with the formal backing of the Treaty, which will stop nuclear activity in the South Pacific, or anywhere else for that matter. I would just like to say that I think that some of the advantages of the Treaty can be summarised as follows: The Treaty promotes regional solidarity; the Treaty is a step towards world disarmament; the Treaty prevents the stationing and acquisition of nuclear weapons in this part of the world; it prevents the threat or use of nuclear weapons; it prevents the use of nuclear devices; its protocols still allow for the sovereignty of the member states; most importantly, as I said earlier, it will put pressure on France to stop nuclear testing in the Pacific; I believe that it will also have the effect of minimising the rivalry between the two super-powers in this part of the world-although it is only a small part of the world in terms of the number of people, it is nevertheless a significant development which, of course, links up with other nuclear free treaties that now touch this part of the world, such as the Antarctic Treaty and the treaty covering South America, to extend gradually the area of the world that has begun the process of becoming nuclear free; finally, I believe that the Treaty will have the effect of fostering stability in one part of the world and I think this has to be the way the world goes if it is to have stability. Countries in the various areas of the world will have to come together and agree to minimise the danger of confront- ation. To that extent, I believe the Treaty is a very effective and important step in the direction of world peace. Senator SANDERS(Tasmania)(8.25) —I have sat here and listened to Senator Sir John Carrick's remarks on the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill and allied Bill and he has repeated his theme over and over again-he only has one speech-and that is that somehow nuclear power is good for you and, by inference, nuclear weapons are good for you. His view is that we must maintain a balance of terror and of mutually assured destruction. He believes that nuclear non-proliferation treaties are the only way, this is the way we should be going-not signing treaties for nuclear free zones. Under Sir John's enthusiastic non-proliferation regime we now have 50,000 nuclear weapons in this world-50,000! What good has the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons been? We are on the verge of a nuclear war. All the scientists in the world who worked on the original atomic bombs are worried about a nuclear war, and this has come about with Sir John's favourite Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He says that it is the only way. It is the way to destruction. People who do not wish to sign the Treaty happily build nuclear weapons. People who do sign it happily build nuclear weapons. It has not stopped the flow of nuclear weapons at all. Sir John says: `Well, look what happened at Chernobyl. Look at all the nuclear free zones in Europe that the radiation drifted over'. He neglects one important fact-if Chernobyl itself had been in a nuclear free zone there would not have been a reactor there; there would not have been any radiation leak at all. What we should do is to make the entire world a nuclear free zone. He also said that there were no nuclear weapon states in the South Pacific and therefore the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty is not worthy of signing. He went on to say that, if we did sign it, it would somehow limit the passage of nuclear weapon armed ships in the United States Navy. He cannot have it both ways. In fact he pointed out, rightly, that this is a nuclear zone insofar as the weapons of the United States, British and French navies are carried into it. Sir John is correct in one way: This is not a nuclear weapons free zone about which we are talking tonight. There is only one prohibition involving the deployment of nuclear weapons, and that is the ban on stationing them on land. That is highly desirable, it is great, but it does not affect the nuclear weapons activities which are now happening-the movement of nuclear weapons through our region on ships and aircraft. We see over and over again in our harbours the presence of nuclear armed and powered ships. The Treaty has breathtaking double standards. It allows the firing of nuclear weapons to be ordered from bases in countries within the zone, that is North West Cape, yet it has a protocol that commits the nuclear weapon states not to use nuclear weapons against these countries. North West Cape could be used to order a first strike against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and yet we would expect the USSR to agree not to use nuclear weapons to destroy North West Cape. The other nuclear activities which the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty prohibits are the dumping of nuclear wastes at sea and underground testing of nuclear explosive devices. The main effect of both prohibitions is to free the South Pacific of nuclear pollution, which of course is a desirable goal, but the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty fails to meet any of the key objectives of a nuclear weapons free zone. It does not ban the United States, or indeed the Russians, from deploying nuclear weapons in one region. It does not provide a useful model for zones elsewhere in the Pacific, and puts no pressure on the super-powers to disarm because it is too weak to be taken seriously. After the Treaty was first brought up there was an article in the Australian newspapers to the effect that the United States Government was saying: `We view with relief the fact that the Treaty is as weak as we were told it would be by the Australian Government'. It is a weak Treaty and and should be strengthened. The use of the term `nuclear free zone' to describe this Treaty is a deliberate attempt to convince the public of the Labor Government's sincere desire for nuclear disarmament, while allowing United States plans for the nuclearisation of our region to proceed unchecked. It is an attempt to hide our nuclear bondage beneath an embarrassingly thin veneer of independence. It has been left to smaller, more vulnerable nations to expose the inadequacies of the Treaty-Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have all said that the Treaty does not go far enough. In fact, Papua New Guinea may not ratify it, while the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have not signed. In banning nuclear warship visits despite United States pressure, New Zealand has shown by its actions that the Treaty is a pathetically small step. We could and should go much further. We should follow in New Zealand's footsteps. Australia, as the principal architect of the Treaty and the most powerful nation in the South Pacific Forum, is responsible for a dangerous charade. Australians should not be lulled into a false sense of security by the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. It does nothing to end our involvement in United States plans for global war. It will not alter our status as a prime nuclear target because that status depends on the presence of the United States bases and United States nuclear armed and powered ships in our harbours. The Treaty will ban only one nuclear activity that is presently occurring in the zone-the testing of nuclear weapons by France at Mururoa. Yet that is the activity to which Australia has just given moral assent by resuming uranium sales to France. It is no wonder that the Forum states and the Australian public consider the Hawke Government's action to be a sell-out. What of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill? My advice is that only Part IV, which provides for inspections within Australia at the request of foreign nations, is actually required for ratification. It is, in fact, the Government's response to the Australian Democrats Nuclear Weapons Prohibition Bill which the Government and Opposition combined to defeat last year. That Bill would have prevented the stationing of nuclear weapons on Australian soil. Part II of this Bill prohibits the stationing of nuclear weapons on Australian soil, as did our Bill. However, all similarities end there. Our Bill was part of a package of measures. Other legislation in this package prevented the passage of nuclear weapons through Australian waters or air space. This Bill specifically allows those activities to take place. Australians are aware that nuclear weapons enter our ports on British and United States ships. Recently the USS Missouri carried Tomahawk cruise missiles into Sydney Harbour. The tomahawk is the most dangerous weapon ever to enter an Australian port. It is well known that the Government supports visits by nuclear armed warships so it is not surprising that this Bill specifically provides for them. What is surprising and disturbing is that the Bill specifically allows aircraft to carry nuclear weapons through Australian airspace and on to Australian airfields. Both the Fraser and Hawke governments have stressed that the B52 bombers visiting Darwin are unarmed and carry no bombs. This Bill makes it clear that the Government expects that nuclear weapons will be brought into Australia on aircraft in some circumstances. The Australian public and the Parliament must be told of these circumstances as a matter of urgency. It is untenable to make provisions for such visits without public debate. The Bill also makes explicit provision for the issue of firing orders for nuclear weapons from North West Cape by allowing control over nuclear weapons to be exercised from Australia. This means that North West Cape can be used for the issuing of nuclear first strike orders to US submarines deployed in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans. This is in direct conflict with Labor Party policy. In summary, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty and this Bill are far more notable for the nuclear activities they permit than those they prohibit. The Bill provides a legislative framework for unfettered involvement by Australia in the United States nuclear weapons system, short of actually stationing nuclear weapons on our soil. The Australian Democrats are opposed to any Australian involvement in the nuclear weapons system of any nation. We are opposed to the nuclear activities which this Bill provides for. However, we seek to remedy only one of these gross deficiencies with an amendment to ban uranium sales to France until the Mururoa tests cease. The amendment will prevent-- Senator McIntosh —That means that you are in favour of sales elsewhere. Senator SANDERS —Senator McIntosh interjects, but it is his Party's policy. I am quoting his policy to him. If he does not like his own Party's policies he will have a chance to vote on them very shortly. The amendment will prevent this Bill from coming into force until our Customs Amendment (Prohibition of the Export- ation of Uranium to France) Bill comes into force. Senator McIntosh —You are being hypocritical! Senator SANDERS —Listen to honourable senators opposite squawk. When I bring up their own policies and read their own policies to them about not exporting uranium to France, we then see this reaction. It is time for Labor senators to show their guts. They should stand up and say something. They will not cross the floor on this matter, of course they will not. We will see what happens. They will show the entire Australian public how serious those senators in the progressive wing of the Labor Party really are when it comes to the vote on my amendment. That will be the litmus test and I hope that they pass it. We are offering Labor senators the opportunity to vote for their own Party's policy. We hope that this move will significantly strengthen the Treaty which this Bill ratifies. If they do not take this opportunity, they will be signalling the fact that the Labor Party can offer nothing concrete to the nuclear disarmament movement in this country. The amendment specifically states: . . . whereas it is the intention of the Parliament to give effect-- Senator Peter Baume —We have seen you people vote against your own amendments. Senator SANDERS —Listen to them bleat. Senator Coleman —You are moving it now, are you? Senator SANDERS —No. This is what it says: . . . will refuse to allow the supply of Australian uranium to France until France ceases testing nuclear weapons in the South Pacific region. Where have we heard those words before? Those words are out of the Australian Labor Party platform resolutions and rules as approved by the 37th national conference in Hobart in 1986-a very recent document indeed. Before the ink was dry on these policies the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) of this country said: `Look, we want to make a lot of money. We do not care about our ideological purity. We do not care about the promises we made to the people. We do not care about our Party policy. We are going to flog uranium to the French as fast as we can.' He used a hubris not seen since Nixon's time, hubris being excessive arrogance or pride. The members of the Government are put in the very untenable position of having to support that hubris and support that policy, and I grieve for them. The fact is that they are going to have to put up or shut up. The hubris of Hawke is matched only by that of the French. France, we know, is the world's most irresponsible nuclear nation. The French have been testing their bombs at Mururoa, first in the atmosphere and now underground. They say that there is no damage being done and there is no leakage, but the authorities who actually live in Tahiti, such as Bengt Danielsson, say there is massive leakage and damage not only to the Mururoa Atoll itself, but also to the whole Polynesian way of life. We have also seen the French irresponsibly blow up a ship in a New Zealand harbour. These are the people to whom the Hawke Government is happily shipping uranium as fast as it can. Another thing that France-this country which has won new-found favour with the Hawke Government-is apparently interested in doing is to actually start testing in the Kerguelen Islands. These are to the south-west of Australia and their position will strengthen the argument against testing because any radiation leak from there will be caught in the south-westerly winds and end up in Australia, first Perth and then across the country. We have recently discovered that the French have been sending up balloons to test the wind direction in the upper atmosphere at 33,000 feet. Balloons have been sighted above Australia and New Zealand. So here are the French, our friends, the Hawke Government's friends, getting set for more nuclear testing, probably using Australian uranium, in the Kerguelen Islands. What is happening with the Australian Government's uranium policy? With the approval of the sales to France, in spite of the opposition of many of the members of the Labor Party, it looks as if it will be stepping up the shipment of uranium. A document was recently leaked, from BP Australia, over the signature of Bob Ritchie, who is in the strategy development department. Under the heading `Minerals-Major Issues, Olympic Dam Uranium Sales', it states: With an estimated start-up date of October 1988, efforts are continuing to negotiate sales with Taiwan and France. We have approached the Department of Trade for their approval to commence negotiations with both these countries. The main issues are- this is BP Australia talking- We will need an intermediary to sell to Taiwan because it is not a formal member of the Non-Proliferation Agreement. A proposal on how we intend proceeding with this customer is awaiting approval by the Federal Government. So that company is expecting the Federal Government to approve a way around Senator Sir John Carrick's famous Non-Proliferation Treaty. The letter continues: Olympic Dam Marketing has approached the Department of Trade for approval to negotiate sales with France. To the credit of the Premier of South Australia, the letter states: The Premier of South Australia, John Bannon, has restated his opposition to uranium sales to France and this issue will need to be negotiated with Bannon separately should sales appear likely. If sales are negotiated, there will also be a re-opening of the public debate within the ALP and in the community on the issue. You bet it will be! It also states: The decision to withdraw the ban on uranium sales to France is almost definitely a forerunner to a general freeing up of current restrictions on the number of uranium mines allowed to export. Main pressure is from Pancontinental. This debate should hot up in 1987 with an announcement likely during 1987. This is from BP Australia; it knows what it is talking about. It is saying that the Hawke Government is getting ready to open the floodgates on uranium. In fact, in this very chamber we had a hint of that on 20 August 1986. I asked a supplementary question of Senator Gareth Evans about the policy of shipping uranium to France and its ramifications. I said: The Minister mentioned that he hoped that Australia would soon have 25 per cent of the French uranium market. I ask: Have we signed any new contracts for uranium supply to France, other than the existing contracts which we all know about? Senator Evans replied: I simply make the point, and was making the point, in the context of the market for all practical purposes now being opened, that it is therefore possible for Roxby Downs and new supplier- I repeat, `Roxby Downs and new suppliers'- coming on to the market to now actively pursue the French market in a way that was not possible during the currency of this policy. What he was talking about was opening the floodgates, with open slather on the shipping of uranium to France. What about uranium in France? How does it get there and what happens when it gets there? It turns out that we are already supporting the French nuclear weapons industry through our shipment of uranium overseas. It should be kept in the ground. But it is shipped overseas. It is shipped, nominally, to Finland. It has its end use in Finland, but it does not go directly to Finland. First of all it goes to France. It is shipped from Australia to France as yellowcake. The French break it down into uranium hexafluoride and ship it to the Soviet Union for enrichment, where it joins the total pool of uranium. It is a book entry. Our uranium goes to the Soviet Union, disappears into an enrichment plant, and we get out a certain amount of uranium-which is probably mostly Russian; it has to be mostly Russian on the statistics-which is then sent to Western Europe for processing into fuel rods, and ultimately it ends up in Finland. That is uranium 235. But what about the tails, the residue? It gets shipped back-guess where?-to France. The uranium 238 gets shipped back to France. We have shipped 159,000 kilograms to France. What is it used for? It is used as blankets in fast breeder reactors for the production of plutonium. France has already admitted that it depends on its fast breeder reactors for the production of its nuclear weapons arsenal. It plans to build 600 more nuclear weapons in the next 10 years. Amazingly enough, the fast breeder reactors can produce 60 weapons a year. Sixty times 10 is 600. So the Superphenix reactor in France will be used to produce nuclear weapons. Already our tails are there. But there is yet another route by which Australian uranium goes to France. It is through a contract with the West German firm RWE. I am sure that this is no surprise to the Government or anybody in the Government, but it may be a surprise to the people of Australia. The West German firm RWE has an 11 per cent interest in the Superphenix and a commitment to provide 11 per cent of the plutonium for the initial fuel assembly and uranium for the outer blanket for plutonium production. This is from Energy Resources of Australia. The Government claims that the Superphenix fast breeder is safeguarded, thus preventing military use of the plutonium. But at no stage has the Government categorically said that France cannot use tails from Australian uranium for plutonium production in its fast breeders. It has said only that this has not been the case so far, to the best of its knowledge. To the best of its knowledge, it cannot guarantee that this material has not already been used for the French weapons that have been tested in the Pacific, at Mururoa. France is not even a signatory to the NPT which, weak as it is, still delights the heart of Senator Sir John Carrick. In any case, it does not prevent existing nuclear weapons states from using civilian plutonium for bombs. It is only the non-nuclear weapons states that are thus restricted. Acceptance of safeguards by nuclear weapons states is voluntary only. France accepts what is called the `proportionality principle', not the contamination principle in safeguards agreements. This is important. This means that if, say, 10 per cent of the U238 fuel blanket in the Superphenix is Australian and we have stipulated that it cannot be used for weapons, France will simply set aside 10 per cent of the reprocessed plutonium 239 and use the remainder for bombs. The same thing happens if we send it uranium which may not be used in its Superphenix. It will liberate its own uranium, or uranium from other sources, for bombs. To say that we are not participating in its bomb effort is simply misguiding the public. So ERA is supplying uranium to a company which is assisting the French bomb program, so the contract should be stopped. The only way to ensure that our uranium tailings do not get into bombs is to bring them back home. France's intentions regarding the Superphenix are in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Article 6, committing nuclear weapons states to disarmament, and the spirit of our bilateral safeguards agreements, weak though they are. Under the terms of those agreements, the stuff should be returned to us and we should ship no more to France. No more uranium should be shipped to France. No more uranium should be shipped anywhere. Uranium should be left in the ground. Senator Childs brought up the issue of the Bill to which the amendment refers, the Customs Amendment (Prohibition of the Exportation of Uranium to France) Bill 1986. That Bill could be passed at any time-it could be passed right after this one-if the Government were willing to grasp the nettle and obey its own policies, the policies put forward by the sincere, thoughtful people in the Australian Labor Party. All the Government has to do is pass the amendments and pass the Bill. Then the Government can hold its head high when it faces its constituents, its members and the electorate. It would give the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty some teeth. It was not and is not a useless gesture to avoid selling uranium to France, any more than it was a useless gesture for the New Zealand Government to ban nuclear powered and armed ships in New Zealand. These gestures are noted; they are seen around the world. If it was useless gesture, why were the uranium companies so eager to get rid of it, to start mining and selling uranium to France? It was not a useless gesture. It should be put in place. I call upon the concerned members of the ALP in the Senate-there are many; I know their goals and aspirations, and I applaud them- to come out from the protective shell of-Senate party loyalty or parliamentary party loyalty and join me and the rest of the people in the country who are concerned about the nuclear issue and cross the floor to support their own policies on the shipment of uranium to France. If they fail to do so, if they do not support these policies, I am afraid that they will have let down the people of this country who voted for them in the first place. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —I remind honourable senators that the main Bill we are debating is the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986. I thought Senator Sanders got away from it a little bit. Senator WALTERS(Tasmania)(8.49) —Madam Acting Deputy President, I am well aware that tonight we are debating two Bills-the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1986, which is a non-controversial Bill and with which the Opposition certainly agrees entirely, and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986, which is the one that you mentioned and which we strongly oppose. The words sound fine. A nuclear free zone treaty Bill sounds wonderful. But the point is that it just will not work. As Senator Sir John Carrick said earlier, unless we have a nuclear free world, a nuclear free Pacific is a farce. Should a nuclear war take place, no one will be protected. No one pretends for one minute that, in the result of a nuclear war, the South Pacific would get off scot-free. The resulting nuclear winter would affect the whole world. It would not matter what treaties had been passed, the South Pacific would be affected just as much, whether or not it had been declared a nuclear free zone. If we are serious about declaring the South Pacific nuclear free, all warships, be they nuclear fuelled, nuclear armed or otherwise, would be prohibited from going through the area. But the Government, very rightly, would not allow this in the Treaty. I could not agree more, because while the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has the largest navel fleet outside the Warsaw Pact at Cam Ranh Bay, this is impossible. It would be a very one-sided affair. Let us turn to the crux of the world problem. Without doubt, the most important decision to face this generation is how to avoid nuclear war and how to maintain world peace. This is the overriding desire of us all. We may have different ideas as to how we go about it, but we must pay each other the courtesy of acknowledging that none of us wants nuclear war. From that disaster there can be no winners. It is usual, if one wants to avoid mistakes, to look at how things have been done in the past. I believe we must look at history to find our answers. If we do not, and attempt to look only towards the future, we can only guess the outcomes. The things we know are the facts shown to us by history. Following the 1914-18 war, people were so disillusioned by the brutality of a world war on such a large scale never previously witnessed-there were about 50 million deaths-with the use of new technology at that time, such as gas warfare and air bombardment, they felt that that must be the war to end all wars and vowed that never again would such inhuman acts be allowed to take place. The way they chose was disarmament-a very familiar demand today, about which we have just heard from Senator Sanders. So four years after that war ended, in 1922, a treaty, the Washington Treaty, was agreed to by Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France and Italy. They agreed to restrict the numbers of battleships and their sizes, the cruisers and aircraft carriers. They agreed to scrap those existing ships that were in excess of the numbers agreed upon. After the initial arguments, France and Italy eventually withdrew from the Treaty, leaving the United States, Great Britain and Japan. This was the first time that three major powers in any area of international dispute had agreed to limit their navies. At that time the battleships were the most destructive weapons that man had made. As a result of that agreement, Australia, as a member of the Commonwealth, sank her only battle cruiser, HMAS Australia, in 1924. After all, we thought, that if we set the example, surely others would follow-again, a very familiar phrase today. The Treaty was meant to last until 1936, but by 1934 Japan had withdrawn from certain clauses of the Treaty, and the Treaty foundered. Further efforts at disarmament, regarding other weapons, met similar fates, with some nations abiding by the agreements and others opting out as they chose. The largest international conference on disarmament at that time was attended by 60 nations in 1932, with President Hoover of the United States taking a prominent role. He proposed that land, sea and air weapons should be drastically curtailed, even to the extent of abolishing tanks and other heavy artillery. While this was not agreed to, some nations such as Britain did make efforts to disarm, but as the negotiations wore on it was obvious that Germany was not abiding by the spirit or the letter of that agreement, and so the negotiations fell down. As the Senate can imagine, while these disarmament agreements were taking place between the nations the public was also heavily involved. Similar public debates on disarmament were going on as they are today. An example of such debate was in 1933 when some of the students of the Oxford Union held a similar debate as that held recently when Mr Lange was invited from New Zealand as the speaker. On that occasion in 1933 they passed a resolution which read: `This House refuses to fight for King and country'. How similar are those sentiments to the ones being expressed by the so-called peace movement today? We have all heard them. We have heard the lot: `Get rid of the American bases; get rid of ANZUS; declare the South Pacific a nuclear free zone'. After all, it is claimed, that if we set the example others will follow. We heard Senator Sanders talking like that tonight. What was the end result of all this disarmament talk in the treaties? What was the result of the peace debates of that time? Again, we are looking at facts-just facts. Great Britain's armed forces had been whittled away by the disarmament agreements to such a degree that they were no longer a problem of the peace movement at that time had, by their sentiments, encouraged Germany into the belief that Great Britain had gone soft. Why not? After all, some of the young people of one of the most famous universities of the world said they would not fight for King and country. Finally, when Britain tried through negotiations to stop Hitler's further invasion of Europe it was negotiating on such a position of weakness that Hitler ignored the pleas for peace. After all, Hitler knew Mr Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at that time, had been only too eager to believe him when he said he would not invade Poland, when he promised that he would never go to war with Britain. Do honourable senators remember the talk of `peace in our time'? He knew England did not want to enter the conflict completely unprepared as she was. The religious leaders of the day-indeed, the Dean of Canterbury-had even sought permission to go on a prayer campaign for peace to Germany, so why should Hitler have worried when everyone rightly believed that Britain did not want to fight? She did not want to call Hitler her enemy. She believed that if she disarmed other nations would follow suit, but they did not. Germany had secretly armed and Hitler continued his march into Europe. When we finally took up the fight we were weak; we were irresponsibly weak. I remember when I was a schoolgirl watching the map change-I am sure Senator Coleman would remember this too-as Hitler marched slowly across Europe to Britain. Senator Sheil —Not so slow; a blitzkrieg. Senator WALTERS —No, not so slow but he marched well on to Britain. No one was able to stop him. Britain, with so few arms, was no match for the invaders. All that the disarmament agreements and the peace rallies had done was to weaken Britain to such an extent that Hitler had free reign. It was not until after Japan, with the support of Germany and without warning, attacked Pearl Harbour and the United States entered the war on our side that the tide turned. That is what we are learning from history. Those are the hard facts. It is not something imagined-just hard facts. Let us look at what is happening today. We are being told by the peace movement that it is wrong to look upon the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a threat to the free world. Senator Coleman —Oh no you are not; that is a load of rubbish, Senator. You are talking about the peace movement. They don't make statements at all. Senator WALTERS —I am not accusing Senator Coleman of that. I am accusing the peace movement. It says we should not be looking upon the USSR as a threat to the free world. We should be showing trust and setting an example by disarming. What happened when we did that last time? We were then told that we should not look upon Hitler as a threat. Along with others of that view, Mr Chamberlain decided to trust Hitler, and that trust was totally misplaced. Hitler took advantage of Britain's trust and invaded Poland. Did Britain have a right to call nazi Germany a threat? She did not want to but the atrocities carried out by that regime particularly against the Jews resulted in six million Jews being put to death in gas chambers or by starvation in concentration camps and all the other horrors in the biggest and most inhumane massacre in the world's history. Senator Gareth Evans —What has this to do with the South Pacific, Shirley? Senator WALTERS —If Senator Gareth Evans has not been listening, as the Minister in charge he should have been. The aim was to wipe out the Jewish race. Those atrocities were committed against the Jews by nazi Germany. There were many other atrocities. Another five million civilians were murdered in cold blood. Britain, as leader of the free world, could not stand by and allow such dreadful acts to take place. She did not want to fight but was it not legitimate for her at least to call Hitler the enemy? Why should we see the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a threat to the free world? Let us look at her history. We can start when Russia took over East Germany after World War II. In 1953, because of her inhumane treatment and lack of freedoms allowed the people, mass demonstrations broke out against communist rule. The Soviet Union sent in troops to break dissent, killing many unarmed protesters and arresting thousands, but despite that the protests continued. Eventually in 1961 the Soviets were forced to build a wall around East Berlin to keep their people from fleeing the country. I have seen this wall. It is a monument to Soviet oppression. I have seen the documentation of those who have attempted to flee but were not successful. What sort of regime has to build a wall around its people to stop them leaving? Following the massacres that occurred in East Berlin, further uprisings occurred-in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. The Hungarian uprising resulted in a particularly cruel assault when Soviet tanks ploughed into members of peace groups who stood unarmed shoulder to shoulder in the streets. Some 3,000 unarmed peaceful Hungarians were slaughtered. Suppose we come more up to date. Over seven years ago the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The year before, through a military coup, the communists overthrew the republican government of Afghanistan, but they were unable to control the protests that took place against the new regime. As a result, the Soviet Union sent in its troops to assist President Amin. Then it deposed him in favour of a president more to its liking. President Karmal had the inevitable mass demonstrations that occurred in all Soviet-dominated countries. Sixty students were killed and 7,000 people were arrested in April 1980. According to reports, six months later the majority were still awaiting trial. We are told that during the whole of the communist takeover 4,854 people were killed while in gaol and 9,000 people were arrested and just disappeared during that six-month period. Presently there are 115,000 Soviet troops in Afghanistan. An independent report from Helsinki stated: Just about every conceivable human rights violation is occurring in Afghanistan on an enormous scale. The crimes of indiscriminate warfare were combined with the worst excesses of unbridled violence against civilians. The atrocities committed against the young in particular resulted in most females and their children fleeing the country. They are presently residing in Iran and Afghanistan. They make up a third of the pre-war population. No international or non-government organisations are allowed in the country-not even the Red Cross. These are just a few of the facts of the USSR's international history. What of its human rights record at home? We are told that the USSR allows peace movements, but there is a vast difference: Those marching in the peace movements in the USSR must belong to the official peace group and carry banners abusing the United States. Otherwise, demonstrating is quite illegal and those participating are arrested. Senator Coleman —I raise a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. I draw your attention to the fact that Senator Walters has not mentioned the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. In the whole of her speech, which has now taken more than 15 minutes, she has filibustered. She is determined to take her whole 30 minutes, and I think it is about time her attention was drawn to the contents of the Bill. Senator Peter Baume —On the point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President: Senator Walters is discussing the context within which this Bill is set. She is doing so rather widely but she has considerable time remaining and I ask for your indulgence as she is putting the Bill into a quite relevant context. Senator Walters —On the point of order, I have mentioned the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty at least four times in this debate, and it is a pity members of the Government have not been listening. If they listened to the history they might learn something. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Elstob) —The Senate is discussing the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill and the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill, and perhaps Senator Walters will get around to explaining to the Senate just how her comments relate to those Bills. Senator WALTERS —I am not sure why the Government is so sensitive. I really do not understand. I have gone through the history to explain why we are opposing this legislation: We cannot call one area of the world nuclear free and so give an advantage to those countries that are a threat to the free world. That is exactly what I am relating this history to. If we look back we can come up with a little knowledge on this matter. At the moment I am particularly talking about the supposedly official peace group in the USSR. It is quite illegal for members of that group to carry banners criticising the USSR. We were told that the unofficial group is called the Group of Trust, and that it has completely disappeared from the USSR. Its members have been expelled, imprisoned, or sent into internal exile. They were told that, if they did not carry the appropriate banners, they could not march in the USSR. We know that there are ways of forcing these people to make disclaimers. They have made public announcements that, should any of them be arrested and be said to have changed their minds, they would have been forced to do so. We are well aware of the use in the USSR of psychiatric institutions. We are aware of internal exile, and of the intimidation of Russians outside the Soviet Union regarding relatives left behind. It has all been recorded by those brave enough to have their writings smuggled out of the country. We are well aware of it all. Is it legitimate for our country to label the USSR a threat to the free world? We are one of just a handful of independent countries-one of the 19 countries out of 167-that are really free. How precious is freedom to those 19 countries? How precious are the freedoms that our ancestors fought for so that we could have the privilege of living in this wonderful country? If we value our freedoms, we must take the most secure path to maintain them and to avoid nuclear war, the consequences of which would be so horrific that no country at all would escape the nuclear winter which, as I have said, we are assured would follow. The situation has been reached where both sides realise the perils. When Senator Sanders asked during this speech what has been accomplished, I interjected and said that we have had an unprecedented 40 years of freedom from world wars. That is what has been accomplished. If we decide to learn from history, I believe that that time can be doubled. The Western world must unite. We must have defences to deter the aggressor. The free world must show the USSR that its strength cannot be ignored. The USSR must agree to the verifiable arms reduction treaty proposed by the Western alliance. We must continue to maintain our defences until the USSR agrees to do this. Australia has been asked to forsake the free world and get rid of the American bases from our soil. We have been asked to make the South Pacific a nuclear free zone, to prohibit navies from the free world entering our ports, and to destroy the ANZUS alliance. Senator Coleman —Oh, come on! Senator WALTERS —We have been asked to do all of that by the Left of the Party to which Senator Coleman belongs and by the Australian Democrats. What we have not been told is that the Soviets are currently spending 15 per cent of their gross national product on their military, while the United States spends about 7 per cent. We have not been told that the USSR is expanding in our area, and that in return for the Soviet's, support of Hanoi's occupation of Kampuchea, Vietnam, as I have already said, has allowed the USSR to transform Cam Ranh Bay into the largest Soviet naval depot outside the Warsaw Pact area, using not only surface vessels but also attack and cruise missile submarines, in addition to reconnaissance and fighter aircraft. All of this is occurring as close to Darwin as Darwin is to Melbourne. Again, few of us realise that the USSR is now entering our own immediate area with negotiations going on between Vanuatu and the USSR. Vanuatu is about the same distance from Brisbane as Hobart is from Brisbane. Yet, some in the peace movement tell us to get rid of the United States bases. They say that if we set the example, the USSR would follow suit. We have been told that the Soviets do not want war any more than we do. It is all so familiar, because 40 years ago Great Britain was told all of this and she believed it and was very nearly defeated in the early years of World War II. Indeed, it nearly brought about the destruction of Western civilisation. It did not stop that war when Great Britain believed the German people did not want war any more than she did. It did not stop that war when she believed that if she set an example and disarmed, others would follow suit. Indeed, it did the opposite; it made Hitler realise he could demand the world. He had little opposition, because Britain was negotiating from a position of great weakness. We never want to go through that again. We must never allow a similar situation to arise. We must always be capable of negotiating from a position of strength. We must never allow a World War III. As I have said, from that disaster there can be no winners. I wonder what the demands of the present peace movement are doing to the will of the United States when it negotiates with the USSR? What has the recent decision of New Zealand to destroy the ANZUS Alliance done to the resolve of the Soviets? What would happen if once again the free world were undermined sufficiently that it was forced to negotiate with the enemy from a position of great weakness? I will leave it to the lessons of history to tell us. Senator McINTOSH(Western Australia)(9.15) —Let us move from the Northern Hemisphere down to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986 and the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1986. Before I start speaking to those Bills, I would like to say that I think it was most unkind of Senator Durack to characterise all the supporters of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill as left wingers. The issue is a cross factional issue and many people who are not members of the Australian Labor Party would support this legislation. We will debate Senator Sanders's foreshadowed amendment when it comes before the chamber. The purpose of the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill is to give effect to obligations Australia has as a party to what is known as the Treaty of Rarotonga. Implementation of this legislation is a necessary requirement before Australia can ratify this Treaty. However, the Bill goes beyond this basic requirement. It also incorporates sections of Labor Party policy which oppose the manufacture, testing and stationing of nuclear weapons in or by Australia. The Treaty of Rarotonga is an important regional step towards the ideal of nuclear non-proliferation. While it cannot prevent this region being tied into the strategies of the nuclear powers, it encouraged a climate of concern not only in the region but internationally as well. It is a signal to the rest of the world, and in particular to nuclear weapon powers, that countries in this region remain uneasy about their strategies. If we can advance further down a genuine anti-nuclear path as a result of this Treaty, it will be a significant step. The Treaty bans acquisition of nuclear weapons by member states; it bans nuclear weapons testing; and it bans the permanent stationing of nuclear weapons on the territories of member states. These bans are very important in assuring neighbouring countries in Asia that we have no intention of developing nuclear weapons. However, it must be acknowledged that there is a whole range of nuclear related activities which are not ruled out by the Treaty of Rarotonga. These include nuclear weapons transit on ships and submarines within territorial waters; nuclear weapons transit on aircraft through territorial air space, nuclear weapons related command, control, communication, intelligence, navigation and scientific bases and installations; military exercises involving nuclear armed vessels and aircraft; nuclear powered vessel transit and port calls; nuclear waste disposal on land; and military alliances involving the potential use of nuclear weapons by an alliance partner. Two other highly important nuclear weapons related activities which the Treaty does not, and could not, prevent are high seas transit by nuclear armed ships and submarines and international air space transit by nuclear armed aircraft. We would have no effect on international laws by trying to pass such legislation in this country. These are indisputable facts. The Government does not disagree with this analysis. These points are listed by the peace movement as the key omissions from the Treaty. At least the Government and the peace movement agree on one thing. The Treaty is limited in its effects. Australia's relationship with the United States of America is especially important to the limitation on the Treaty. That is an undeniable fact. Because of this, I simply cannot understand why the Opposition is against the Treaty and why it will vote against this Bill. Neither the Treaty nor the Bill affects in any way the existing defence relationships between the United States of America and Australia. Perhaps Washington is uneasy about it. It plays a role in creating a climate of concern about the whole principle of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. It challenges the view that the threat of use or deterrence is fundamentally acceptable. However, if the Liberal Party is not prepared to go even that small step it will have no chance at all of convincing the electorate that it is really serious about its opposition to the use of nuclear weapons. There are acknowledged limits to the Treaty of Rarotonga. Many members of the Australian Labor Party as well as members of the peace movement look forward to the day when this and similar treaties will encompass more anti-nuclear weapons activities. But it is a step forward, just as the Bill before the Senate is an important step forward. This Bill will make Australia, I am told, the first country anywhere to pass a law which will have the effect of banning the testing, acquisition and storage of nuclear weapons. This is in the interests of all Australians. I turn to the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill. This Bill gives effect to obligations that Australia has as an active party in international treaties, such as the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty. This Bill is testimony to the seriousness with which the Government has taken its responsibilities to ensure that internationally declared commitments cannot simply be wiped away at the whim of executive decision-making. With the passage of this legislation, any changes by executive administration will require an Act of Parliament, so allowing proper scrutiny of the proposed changes. The Bill also indicates the seriousness with which the Government views increasing international government and non-government concern about the dangers associated with the whole nuclear cycle. I think it is interesting to observe that the nuclear industry is still far from gaining widespread acceptance, or even indifference, to its progress. If anything, while governments in a number of countries may indicate plans to resort to nuclear power generation, there remains a widespread unease about safety. Of course, dramatic events such as those at Chernobyl are likely to increase this unease. The possibility of nuclear reactor accidents is a fact of life of the nuclear cycle. Such accidents lead to the fundamental problem with the whole industry; that is, the dispersal of radioactive material. But, in addition to unplanned and dramatic reactor accidents, the dispersal of radioactive material is a natural result of the nuclear power industry. I am referring to the growing headache over what to do with radioactive wastes. For this reason, I am particularly pleased to support the Bill to amend the 1981 Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act. This Bill implements our obligations under the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty which prohibits the dumping of radioactive wastes at sea. The Australian Government strongly opposes the dumping at sea of any radioactive wastes or other radioactive material. This Bill lends weight to the Australian Government's active work at meetings of the London Dumping Convention to press for the maintenance of a moratorium on all sea dumping of radioactive waste. The London Dumping Convention, ratified by the Australian Labor Government in August last year, bans the disposal at sea of high level radioactive material. While there is currently an agreed international moratorium on the dumping of all radioactive wastes, this ban is not enshrined in the London Dumping Convention.The fact that countries with a nuclear waste problem have so far abided by the moratorium is an acknowledgment by those states that international concern about dumping at sea is increasing; it is not decreasing. The fact that the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia are supporting the Bill is testimony to increasing, not decreasing, concern in Australia about the potential problems arising from radioactive waste dumping. When the original 1981 Bill was introduced into the Parliament by the present Opposition, the Labor Party amendments proposing complete prohibition on sea dumping were rejected. The coalition now supports these proposals, and that support is very welcome. This legislation will prohibit the dumping at sea of material having a radioactivity level in excess of 35 bequerels per gram of material. A bequerel represents one disintegration of a nucleus per second. This choice of 35 bequerels per gram was apparently arbitrary. I understand that International Atomic Energy Agency standards for the purpose of transport, define material in excess of 74 bequerels per gram as being radioactive. As I understand it, the IAEA does not have a definition for a minimum level of radioactivity for the purpose of dumping at sea. We are told that the standard of 35 bequerels per gram compares roughly with the natural radioactivity of Australian beach sands which are mined for their mineral content. I note in passing that the level of radioactivity of mineral sands has created concerns in my State of Western Australia, in the Capel and Bunbury areas. I recall a State Minister declaring that it was in the interests of people south of Bunbury for sand-mining to proceed, so as to reduce the potential radiation hazard. A radioactivity level of 35 bequerels per gram is higher than average background radiation. I understand that the average background radiation of sea water is about 15 bequerels per litre. This means material up to 35 bequerels per gram is over two thousand times more radioactive than sea water. Despite that, I am not aware of any challenge to the Government's choice of definition of what is radioactive for the purposes of this Act. The dumping at sea of any radioactive waste is the ultimate example of the expression `out of sight, out of mind'. I believe Australia as a nation should do as much as it possibly can to continue to oppose such activity. This Bill is testimony to the Government's commitment to the issue. The fact that it is supported by all parties will lend weight to present and future efforts by Australia to promote this important principle internationally. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(9.26) —The Opposition is opposed to the major Bill, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986, that is being dealt with in this cognate debate. We oppose the Bill because in reality it is pointless and contains a major and significant defect. That significant defect is that it puts Australia's security at risk at some future date, because it closes off options that we might very well need to exercise in our national interest. There is no point in doing this at this stage. There is no reason that we should try to close off those things that might well be very essential to our survival in years to come. The conduct of foreign relations requires the long term view-not the short term view in trying to score cheap political points or to massage the ego of the far Left of the Australian Labor Party. This Bill is very much a Bill on Australian foreign relations and our defence and national security. Unfortunately, this Government does not give us time to debate those topics, and any member in the Senate who wishes to speak for the full 30 minutes on foreign affairs and defence in relation to this Bill could not be gainsaid their say in any way at all, because that is the heart of this Bill. How we see Australia and its national security through the decades to come. The Government runs away from any debate on defence and foreign affairs, as well it might, because its record is very shabby, not to say shameful, on these two subjects in the four years it has been in office. There are some good points in the Bill and the Liberal Party and the National Party support or are in sympathy with those parts of the Bill which provide for a prohibition of dumping of nuclear wastes in the South Pacific region, and that part of the Bill which prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons in the South Pacific region. Both of these policies have long been supported by the Liberal Party and the National Party both in government and in opposition. The Bill itself is very positive on emotion; it is very negative on achievement. As I said before, the Bill is a sop to the left wing of the ALP. It is no coincidence that all the Labor speakers who have preceded me are members of the far Left of the ALP-Senator Childs, Senator Sanders and Senator McIntosh. Senator Coleman —Senator Sanders is not in the ALP. Senator MacGIBBON —The Bill has been brought in to soothe those senators on the far Left over their injured feelings about the sale of uranium to France. That is why we have this Bill here today. It has also a secondary function. It is a dishonest attempt by the ALP to buy the votes of the PND-the People for Nuclear Disarmament, or Party for Nuclear Disarmament or the Semi-Nuclear Disarmament Party, or whatever flag it is flying at the moment-and the rest of the peace groups. Labor members colloquially describe this Bill as the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Bill. What they are implying there is that the Labor Party is making the whole of the South Pacific a nuclear free zone. Nothing could be further from the truth because the Bill does not provide for that at all. However, it suits the Labor Party to try to catch a few votes from the peace movement by misrepresenting it in that way. There are three sacred cows of the peace movement-the NDP and all those people. These are: Unilateral nuclear disarmament, nuclear free zones and nuclear freezes. This Bill does not create anything of that sort. Speakers on the other side of the chamber have failed to recognise that the most important treaty that we have for peace and disarmament is the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Senator Sir John Carrick dealt with this so eloquently and at length so I will not go over that, but it is the operative treaty in the world today on controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. One hundred and thirty-four countries have signed it and the strongest supporters of it, apart from Australia, are the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In simple terms the Non-Proliferation Treaty sets out to control and prevent the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. Senator Georges —Not very successfully. Senator MacGIBBON —I am sorry to hear that. Senator Georges is ignorant and uninformed on this matter. I would have thought that an intelligent person like him would have known better. The NPT prevents the spread of nuclear weapons very successfully. It is a very powerful instrument for peace and it is the best treaty that exists in the world today. In simple terms it prohibits the acquisition of nuclear weapons by those powers which do not already have them. It prevents those countries which have nuclear weapons and which have signed the Treaty from transferring nuclear weapons technology or nuclear weapons to those which do not have them. It also provides the most stringent safeguards possible for the sale of nuclear materials-uranium and things like that-and makes sure that they are used for nuclear power and not for munitions purposes. I am proud to say-and Australia can be proud also-that the initiative to join that Treaty was one of the many great achievements of the Fraser Government. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill does not have any more teeth and does not advance the cause in any way beyond the achievements that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has already put in place. But, as I said before, it is emotionally and superficially attractive and as such, people on the other side of the chamber flock to it like bees to a honey pot. Anything simple they can follow. But at the end of the day the Bill does not make the region or the world any more secure and it does not aid the disarmament negotiations which are so critical to us and which are going on at present. The questions of peace and disarmament are very complex. Those of us who get involved in this at a serious level recognise their complexity and recognise that there is no simple, glib, quick fix to the problem of excessive armaments in the world today. Unfortunately, there are two major groupings in the world at present-the Western Alliance on the one hand, believing in democratic systems of government, and on the other hand, the Soviet totalitarian empire. Neither bloc trusts the other. It is a measure of the mistrust between these two great blocs in the world today that we have huge arsenals of weapons. It is not true, as the peace groups say, that it is the huge arsenals that are creating the mistrust. It is the political mistrust between these two blocs that creates the need for the weapons. Any effective resolution of the problems between these two blocs in the world today has to treat the cause and not the symptoms, and treating the cause is getting to the bottom of the political tensions, the political competition and the political insecurity that flows from that competition between the two blocs. Sure, it is highly desirable to get rid of the excessive number of weapons we have. There are far too many nuclear weapons in the world today to satisfy any need for deterrence or any other use that they might be put to. We have more weapons than we could ever use and we would all like to see the elimination of all those weapons and, if we cannot eliminate them, we want to see them dramatically reduced. But to focus on the weapons themselves is not to get to the root of the problem. We can cure the problem, resolve the problem or ameliorate it by having contact between the two blocs, and that is why disarmament talks, however unproductive they might seem in the short term, are so terribly important, because while people are talking and while they are in contact at least they are not at war. It follows that all of us have to be careful, patient and understanding, and we have to support the contact between the two blocs. What we want to see is mutual, balanced and verifiable reduction of all arms. I do not despair that we are going to see that at some stage in our lifetime. We have, after all, had a great deal of success. We have had 40 years of peace in a nuclear age. We have had no world wars in that period. There has not been a war between the democracies for over 70 years, when the First World War was fought with Germany. Although nothing concrete has eventuated from the talks that are going on between Reagan and Gorbachev, behind the scenes there are very positive signs of achievement. The fact that they can both publicly talk about massive reductions, of the order of 50 per cent, of strategic intercontinental ballistic missiles is something that we would never have dreamed of a few years ago. I have no fear at all of a nuclear war breaking out. I believe that the responsible people in both the Western democracies and in the Soviet Union are very conscious of the great responsibility they bear. I think that peace on a world scale for the last 40 years is testimony to that. If I do have a criticism of the peace movement, beyond the ones I have already made, it is the fact that they focus entirely on nuclear war. I believe that just as serious as an outbreak of nuclear war would be an outbreak of a world war fought on chemical or biological grounds. It is going on at present on a small scale in Iran and Iraq, but the effect of a major chemical or biological war would be every bit as devastating and every bit as long term and lethal for future generations as a world nuclear war. We must do all we can to prevent wars of any sort. Let me turn to the dangers for Australia in this particular piece of legislation. The problem comes from the fact that we cannot see ahead. Australia neither has at the present time nor will in the future have nuclear weapons. That is a consequence of our being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But we are part of the Western alliance and, as such, we must play our part in supporting similar democracies in the West. The part that Australia has played has been weakened considerably in the last four years by this Government. The business of banning the docking of the HMS Invincible in December 1983 had major ramifications internationally and in the Western alliance for the willingness of Australia to stand with our allies around the world. That was followed very rapidly by the MX missile test fiasco when, if memory serves me right, Senator Richardson and Senator Robert Ray advised the Prime Minister, from Japan, not to go ahead with an agreement that he had entered into. The agreement was not to let off MX missiles in Australia but to allow one aeroplane to fuel in Hobart or in Melbourne while it would observe the splashdown of an inert missile somewhere in the Tasman Sea. Again that had serious implications for Australia's credibility as part of the Western alliance. The Government has opposed the strategic weapons update that the Americans are trying to do. They are trying to update their old ICBMs with the MX missile and other developments so that they have a credible deterrent. If a deterrent is not credible, it ceases to have any value. But this Government will not support the Americans in that and has actively criticised them for trying to maintain our security, indirectly, by improving their weapons. The Government has criticised the strategic defence initiative. None of us knows whether the strategic defence initiative will work, but the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia have said unambiguously that they support the research into it because, if it can be made to work, the benefits for mankind will be enormous. Finally, this Government came up with the Dibb report, which downplays and damns with faint praise the alliances that Australia has, principally the ANZUS alliance, and proposes an insular, isolationist approach for the defence of Australia-a defence based on a fortress concept. But we do have the ANZUS Treaty, which is a military treaty. At some time in the future, in a time of crisis, we may want to home port or base United States Navy ships in Australia-something that we would not have any requirement for at present. But who can say what might be going on in 10, 15 or 20 years? Maybe the United States Navy will want a base facility or a home port facility somewhere in the South Pacific region; this Treaty will prohibit that. It may be that the Americans will want to base units of the United States Air Force, again, either in Australia or in the South Pacific region. This Treaty will prohibit those basing facilities. The trouble is that the Treaty is an indefinite treaty. It is not for five or ten years; it is in perpetuity. That makes it inconsistent with Australia's national security interests. Clause 11 of the Bill states: A person who stations, or does any act or thing to facilitate the stationing of, a nuclear explosive device in Australia is guilty of an offence against this section. That prohibits anybody in Australia from allowing the Americans, the United Kingdom or any of our allies to do other than transit through this country. Clause 15 states the same sort of thing. It states: Nothing in this Part makes it unlawful for a person (including the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory or an authority of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory) to allow or facilitate- (a) a visit to a port in Australia by a foreign ship; (b) a visit to an airfield in Australia by a foreign aircraft; (c) navigation through Australian waters by a foreign ship; or (d) the transit through the airspace over Australia by a foreign aircraft. In other words, free passage in Australia of nuclear-armed or potentially nuclear-armed ships or aircraft is not prohibited. But the ships or aircraft are restricted to the right of transit; in other words, they cannot stay here. It may well be that in a period of confrontation or crisis with the Soviet Union, we may need that facility. In contrast to the denial that we have placed on ourselves and our allies, there is no restriction on what the Soviet Union can do. We are in a period of expansion of Soviet military and political activity in the Pacific region. It has the strongest navy in the Pacific. The strongest of the four Soviet navies is in the Pacific. The Soviet Navy is far larger than the American Navy in the Pacific. It is a very modern navy. It has many nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable surface ships and submarines. It has a magnificent base at Cam Ranh Bay, which, as previous speakers have said, is closer to Darwin than Darwin is to Melbourne. The Soviets have a declared policy of increasing involvement in the South Pacific region. We saw that last year with the fishing agreement negotiated with Kiribati. It has constant activity in Vanuatu. It is anticipated by our Department of Foreign Affairs that an agreement will be negotiated in the next 12 months between the Soviets and Vanuatu which will give the Soviets port facilities and maybe airfield or landing facilities in Vanuatu. While these interests may well be commercial in the first place, they will certainly be followed up with military presences later on. Also on many occasions the Soviets have made a clear statement that they are out to decouple ANZUS-to break up the ANZUS alliance, to split Australia and New Zealand off from the United States of America. Probably through no action of the Soviets, but fortuitously, the New Zealanders are already out, through actions of the Lange Government. We cannot foresee what will happen in this region. We on this side of the Senate see no point at all in closing off options that we may well need to exercise in the future. The one thing of which we can be certain is that the Soviets will not close off any of their options. In conclusion, we think the provisions in the Bill against the dumping of nuclear waste in the South Pacific region and the testing of nuclear weapons are excellent. However, if the Government were sincere and had a sense of priority about this, it would not have mixed it up with all the other claptrap it has gone on with. It would have written a special treaty against the dumping of nuclear waste and prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons. That is something that we would have supported because it is our policy, and it has been our policy for generations. By mixing it all up together, it has lost the good and has thrown out the baby with the bath water. We oppose this Bill because we believe a diminution of our national security is involved in it. Senator COLEMAN(Western Australia)(9.46) —We hear some quite incredible statements from Opposition senators when the Government puts up legislation which may not meet with their approval. I was interested in some of the notes that I took down from Senator MacGibbon's speech. For instance, he said that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics has a much larger naval capacity in the Pacific area than does the United States of America. He said that there is increasing involvement in the Pacific; first of all, there was a fishing agreement and that would lead to greater military involvement. I have to question from where he has got his facts, or are they once again just a load of rubbish that he has dreamed up? The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986 is, like all such agreements, a compromise in a sense. Some of the activities that the Bill will allow are, to my mind, serious problems in relation to nuclear proliferation, even to the spread of military power, but most of those issues have already been discussed by others and I do not really intend to debate them, I want to address the spirit of this Bill, not its compromise nature. I believe that any agreement to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons and associated military activities is based on the belief that there is a higher level of interaction between nations than armed might, which I suppose one might call it. The arms control agreements allow for international co-operation to replace basic nationalistic orientations and the good of all to replace the chauvinism of the few. This is one of those pieces of legislation. The decision makers who have drawn up this legislation, like the decision makers who drew up the Treaty, inhabit the world of ideas just as much as they inhabit the world of material things. They sit down to discuss questions of arms control and national security. Senator MacGibbon told us that the talks are going on very well at the moment. He obviously has not been told that the talks between Mr Gorbachev and Mr Reagan broke down some weeks ago and are not expected to get back to that level again. If they do get back to that level, it will mean that this Treaty will substantiate the basic aim of those talks, which is what it is all about. There are enough nuclear weapons in the world to destroy the world something like five times over. Both of the super-powers-the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics-have enough nuclear materials to destroy all of the members of each others countries about 16 times over. I think it is important that Australia plays a role in getting rid of, or assisting in getting rid of, nuclear weapons. If we go back to the early 1960s and look at the talks that President Kennedy and Premier Khrushchev arranged, and if we look at the reasons behind the agreements that they reached, we must recognise that mostly they were because of the Cuban missile crisis. Both leaders admitted that it was because of that crisis that they became determined to make improvements in their personal relations. I would like to think that we have passed the point where it takes the threat of imminent nuclear war to effect meaningful arms control and disarmament agreements. I would like to think that we have a solid basis for future disarmament agreements. There is, for instance, the Partial Test Ban Treaty, the SALT treaties, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Most of these have been discussed either in full or in part by honourable senators opposite tonight. No one has said how successful they have been. In regard to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty legislation that we are discussing tonight, obviously Senator Walters was unaware of it because she said we would be creating world history, or words to that effect-- Senator Giles —She has never heard of Tlatelolco. Senator COLEMAN —She has never heard of the Latin American nuclear free zone treaty, even though it came into operation in 1967. I would have thought that, because she was so involved in what was happening during the war, she would have at least made herself aware of the fact that treaties are in operation and some of them are quite effective. Senator Zakharov —She has never heard of the Antarctic Treaty either. Senator COLEMAN —She has never heard of that one either. I would like to think that the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty would lead to other nuclear free zones. I can think of a number-the Indian Ocean zone of peace, which most people in the Labor Party in Western Australia have been looking at very considerably. There is the situation in central Europe-the Baltic-and, as I said, the Indian Ocean. So there is plenty of room for treaties to be brought into operation. It is true that there are serious problems in relation to arms control treaties at present because verification is still an issue. I think that only the most rabidly anti-arms control people would admit that it will be quickly solved by technical developments, and nothing more. But perhaps what is more worrying is the rejection of the SALT guidelines by President Reagan only a matter of weeks ago, when he sat down to talk to Mr Gorbachev, and the accelerating threat to the ABM regime, if the star wars program really does get under way. I believe it is important that we support any nuclear free zone initiatives because they provide us with the opportunity of allowing people to see that we have control over brute force, and because they allow smaller nations to have a say in the big issues of nuclear arms. I think that honourable senators opposite who are voting against this Bill on party lines-or so they say-have not read the Bill in any great detail. They are unaware of the restrictions that will apply even after the Bill comes into operation. There is no option to arms control and disarmament in the nuclear age except by such agreements as the nuclear free zone treaty that we are now discussing. By passing this legislation we are, in effect, telling the nuclear powers that it is time to sit down and get on with the job of disarming, that we want them to take into account the feelings of the people of Australia, that we want them to give us notice that they intend going ahead with their undertakings as far as treaties are concerned, and that we want that action to come about fairly rapidly. Senator Sanders gave notice of some amendments he intends moving at the Committee stage. As he has given me notice I will give him notice that it is not my intention to support those amendments purely and simply on the basis that his is endeavouring to threaten certain members of the Government. He is endeavouring to threaten me by saying that he will publicise the fact that I am not voting for his amendments. His amendments will mean that there will be an unnecessary date line put on this agreement. Because that is a condition I will not be supporting them. I doubt that anyone on this side of the Senate would be supporting them. I suggest to him that there was action he could have taken that would have made me feel obligated to support the amendments, but under the circumstances I will not be. I will be supporting the Government on the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(9.57) —The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986 obviously is a very important piece of legislation. It is a Bill to bring into the South Pacific region, and the countries of the region bound by members of the South Pacific Forum, a range of measures to restrict the use of nuclear energy for military purposes. Therefore, it does have a superficial and an emotive appeal, I am sure, to many people regardless of their particular political affiliations. It is, I think, accepted by all of us that we all want peace, that peace is the number one objective for all people in Australia-I venture to say for most of the people of the Western world. We all want nuclear disarmament. There is no dispute about the desirability and the wish for nuclear disarmament in this over nuclear armed world. No single political party, I believe, could claim the high ground of morality on this issue. We all have the same end in mind and that is a progressive reduction and hopefully an elimination of nuclear arms in the world. Where political parties vary is on the means of achieving that agreed end. People and parties in Australia believe that we ought to take steps down the road of unilateral disarmament, that the Western world should set an example which the rest of the world would follow. Honourable senators on my side of politics regard that as a very dangerous path to follow. It is in that area that the main disputes about nuclear disarmament arise-the question of unilateral disarmament compared with balanced and mutual multilateral disarmament. I believe that the debate on the Bill we have before us tonight very importantly revolves around that area because, as I will come back to later on in my remarks, this Bill imposes restrictions on the Western world and, in particular on the nations of the South Pacific in a way which alters the balance of relationship and power between those countries and the Soviet Union. In my remarks tonight I would like to talk about the region of the South Pacific, which is such a vitally important region to use. It is a rapidly growing region of the world and it is becoming important not only to us but also to the rest of the world. We are in the middle of seeing major changes to the region. An ex-British diplomat, Mr John Colvin, writing in the August edition of Asian Bulletin, said: The South Pacific is no longer-if it ever was-as depicted in Rogers and Hammerstein's musical comedy, which featured genial and unsophisticated natives attendant upon gentle, boyish European masters. Instead, what we have today and what we have seen increasingly over recent years are economic difficulties, fledgling governments and Soviet expansionist designs combining to make the south Pacific region an area of flux. The South Pacific is made up of more than 1,300 islands and atolls. Five million people inhabit the nations and territories formed by those islands and a very large population surrounds them and makes up the rest of the region, including Australia. When the Second World War ended five colonial powers-Australia, Britain, France, the United States of America and New Zealand-administered the Pacific island dependencies. Initially, the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty we are now discussing was one of those oddball ideas of the United Nations. It was adopted enthusiastically by the Melanesians and especially by Father Walter Lini of Vanuatu, who wanted to shut everything nuclear out of the South Pacific, including international waters. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty produced at the Sixteenth South Pacific Forum therefore prohibits the acquisition, manufacturing, testing or stationing of nuclear weapons in the region. It does allow for the transit of nuclear armed and nuclear powered warships and it allows individual countries to determine port facilities for such vessels. As has been said, the Treaty has been signed by 10 Pacific nations, including Australia, out of a total of thirteen. Vanuatu and the Solomons have not signed because they consider the Treaty too weak. On the other hand, Tonga has refused to sign because it considers that the details of the Treaty are too strong. The Opposition and I have a number of concerns regarding this Treaty. Most importantly, I believe that it will severely damage Australia's long term security. The South Pacific island states play a vital role in Australia's strategic security. The sea routes to America and Asia are affected by circumstances in the South Pacific. This was highlighted very dramatically during the Second World War when the Allies relied on the route from the Pacific through the Tasman Sea and Bass Strait to the Indian Ocean to defend India and the Middle East when the Japanese cut off the north and central Pacific to allied forces. Today the South Pacific is more important to Australia than ever because it has increasingly important strategic, political and economic factors. It is for these reasons that the region is also attracting Moscow's attention. The Treaty encompassed in the Bill before the Senate serves as a signal to the Soviet Union that Australia, under the present Australian Labor Party Government, has radically changed its stance. It amounts to an attempt to coerce the United States to do something that it cannot do without abandoning its allies, including Australia-that is, station ships in the area. In the last month or so the national journal of the Australian Defence Association quoted a senior officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs as admitting that the whole process of the Treaty `was designed to coerce the British, French and the Americans, but especially the latter two'. This Treaty can only serve to limit the capability of the United States and therefore to weaken our own security to the extent that we can no longer rely absolutely on the United States to come to our side in the event of possible conflagrations. It would not physically be able, for example, to come within the same proximity as would be the case if this Treaty did not go through. The Treaty ignores the growing Soviet influence in the region. I believe many Australians have ignored the significance of the Vladivostok speech by Soviet leader Mr Gorb- achev in July, when he served notice quite unequivocally that Moscow intends to become a Pacific power in the fullest sense of the term. This has been underlined time and again since Gorbachev made his speech. For example, it was underlined by Mr Peter Hayes, the defence analyst from the highly respected institute, Nautilus Research, who in an Australian Broadcasting Corporation interview on 23 August said that Gorbachev's speech: . . . reflected the fact that the Pacific is now on the Soviet foreign policy agenda for good and this upgrade is reflected by the creation in the last year of Pacific region units in the various prestigious Institutes of Oriental Studies, of world economics and politics, of USA and Canada studies and so forth, in Moscow. These are the technocrat advisers to Gorbachev. Professor Lukin, a Soviet academic in the newly created Pacific Department of the Institute of United States and Canadian Affairs in Moscow, has echoed Gorbachev's views: We understand more and more that the Pacific area becomes more and more important. Maybe in the more distant future it will be the most important region in the world. We are frequently occupied with the fact that the Pacific region is, I would say, one of the most important, mostly developed economically and technically, region in the world. And one of the most retarded politically. That is from Professor Lukin, a noted Soviet academic. So there is no doubt that Moscow sees the South Pacific region as of increasing importance and significance to it. From time to time we see an attempt to equate the Soviet Union with the United States in terms of morality. This is the so-called `moral equivalence' doctrine. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one considers such fundamental values as freedom of speech and of association, freedom of migration, and respect for the individual and for basic human rights, it is monstrous to equate the Soviet Union morally with the United States. I am appalled that the Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Hawke, has personally endorsed this moral equivalence doctrine, the most recent occasion being in the other place only last week. The moral equivalence doctrine is not only monstrous; it is, as well, extremely dangerous. For example, it makes no distinction between the Soviet Union and the United States in terms of territorial aspirations. But there is overwhelming evidence to demonstrate that the Soviet Union is aggressively imperialistic-that is, that it is hell-bent on territorial expansion and on the domination of weaker states. Initially, this expansionism and imperialism was confined to Europe. But in more recent years it has spread and is now becoming apparent in our region of the world. Militarily, the Soviet Union's Far East fleet and air force have been heavily built up. Economically, there is little doubt that the Soviets are interested in what the region can offer. Diplomatically, the Soviets are striving to become presentable to key Asian nations, such as Japan and China, as part of an attempt to reduce tensions on their eastern border. However much we might decry it, the realities indicate that super-power rivalry is now here to stay. Soviet forces in the Asia-Pacific region are far larger than what is required to protect the Soviet Far East and they continue to increase. The march of Soviet naval forces in the Asia-Pacific region has been proceeding for nearly two decades. Since March 1968, naval deployments to the Indian Ocean have been followed by a series of Soviet manoeuvres, including the 1971 treaty with India which allowed the Soviets the use of Indian port facilities. Two very significant actions in 1968 squashed any thoughts that the Soviets were inclining towards a defenceless neutrality in the region. In November of that year the Soviets fortified their bases in Japan's northern territories and concluded their treaty with Vietnam. In December 1979 Vietnam invaded Kampuchea. In March 1979 it announced the arrival of Soviet warships at its ports. During the past five years the Soviets have gained access not only to facilities at Cam Ranh Bay and Da Nang but also to the ports of Kompong Som and at nearby Ream in Kampuchea on the Gulf of Thailand. Since 1965 the Soviet Pacific fleet has nearly doubled in size and it is now the largest of the four Soviet fleets. It consists of over 800 modern surface ships and well over 120 submarines, half of which are nuclear powered, and some of the Soviet's best available ships. In 1965 the Soviet Pacific fleet contained 25 per cent of all Soviet naval assets. By 1975 that percentage had grown to 28 per cent, and today it stands at 32 per cent. Almost one-third of all the Soviet naval assets are in this region of the world in the Pacific fleet. Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay has been upgraded into a major naval base for Soviet warships. With the establishment of an electronic intelligence gathering facility, it is expected to handle regional communications for the Soviet Navy and Air Force in both the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. Cam Ranh Bay is now the largest Soviet naval base for forward deployment outside the Warsaw Pact. Over 2,500 Soviet military advisers are presently in Vietnam. By being able to station contingents and air power in Vietnam, the Soviet fleet's problem of having to pass through the narrow straits of the Sea of Japan to gain access to the Pacific is solved. As a result of these efforts, the Soviets are now 3,500 kilometres closer to the Indian Ocean and to Australia than they were just a decade ago. The South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty applies only to the South Pacific. It does not apply to any other region, such as Cam Ranh Bay which, as I have said, has nuclear warheads aimed at Australia. An extraordinary feature of the Treaty is that the South Pacific Forum nations, by unilateral act, have extended the geographic area of the Forum nations to include the territory of countries which had no part in drawing up the rules of the Treaty. Whilst the United States, Britain and France have been invited to sign the Treaty-that is, to declare their intentions to be good-their signatures would have no impact on whether or not the Treaty comes into force. At this stage Britain and the United States are still pondering the Treaty. France has indicated that it will not sign. China and the Soviet Union were invited to sign and they have already agreed to this regardless of their lack of traditional or legitimate interest in the region. Ratification of the Treaty will serve, rather than hinder, their strategic interests. So, of course, they are likely to go along with it. The South Pacific is extremely dependent upon aid from the rest of the world and in that regard Australia has an excellent record, although I think certain South Pacific nations deserve and require more assistance from us than we have given them in the past. I believe that in future our foreign aid policy ought to be directed increasingly towards that region. It is interesting that it took the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden, I think some three years after becoming Foreign Minister to undertake his first visit to that region. Hopefully that neglect has now been overcome, at least to some extent. The total and individual populations, minute geographic and economic size, colonial history, and economic and capital limitations make these countries extremely vulnerable to world economic trends. As I said, Australia has been a very important provider of assistance to the South Pacific. For historical and regional considerations Australia and New Zealand have been the main outside economic forces in the region. A smaller portion of assistance has been provided by the multilateral agencies, including the Asian Development Bank, the United Nations development program and one or two others. In 1985-86 Australia's economic aid contribution of $368m to the region was by far the largest component of our aid. Of course much of that money went to Papua New Guinea but still a very important contribution went elsewhere in the region, including military aid of over $20m per year and another several million dollars through the Australian education system by providing free tuition for secondary and tertiary Pacific students. While the island states intensely oppose nuclear testing at Mururoa, they are divided on the issue of banning nuclear armed or nuclear powered ships. For instance, Fiji and Papua New Guinea understand the United States requirement for nuclear powered and armed ships and welcome a United States naval presence. On the other hand New Zealand and Vanuatu-I point out that Vanuatu has recently forged links with Libya-ban all naval nuclear armed or powered ships. The pro-Western disposition that until now has kept the Soviets in check in the Pacific region has, in recent times, undergone profound questioning. Today all the islands are independent, with the exception of American Samoa, the French territories of French Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna, the Pitcairn dependency governed by Britain, Tokelau, a New Zealand territory, and Niue and the Cook Islands, which are self-governing but associated with New Zealand. The current generation of Pacific Island leaders, who have emerged in the last decade or so following the departure of the colonial powers, generally favour the West but this may not remain so for a number of reasons. The present leaders are aging. Those who will succeed them will have no recollection of being protected or liberated by the Australians during the Second World War. For the majority of Australians the major issue regarding our alliance with the United States is the implicit pledge that America stands as a defender of last resort. At the Australian Labor Party conference in Hobart the Hawke Government's Foreign Minister, Mr Hayden, indicated that the overwhelming majority of Australians support our continued membership of the 35-year-old ANZUS alliance. Along with the rest of the Opposition, I welcome that support, as did the Government. There are those who argue that the recent termination of Kiribati's agreement with Moscow within hours of an American offer being accepted shows that the Soviet Union's influence in the South Pacific is just a toe-hold, and a tentative one at that. But the march of Soviet military and other influences through South East Asia over the past 20 years or more puts paid to this view. Moreover, the Soviet's continuing stranglehold over so much of Eastern Europe, its activities in Angola, its support for Vietnam and that country's invasion of Kampuchea, its invasion of Afghanistan and its long history of severe violations of the must fundamental human rights all serve to remind us of what sort of country totalitarian Russia is. On the morning after New Zealand excluded the United States warship some time ago, thereby effectively ending ANZUS, Radio Moscow predicted that this event `would set off a chain reaction leading to the collapse of the ANZUS bloc', with the New Zealand example to be `followed by Australia'. So we should make no mistake about Soviet intentions in our part of the world. Those intentions are for real. The Soviets quite clearly wish to break our alliance with the United States to weaken our position in the region. The Hawke Government's proposal for a South Pacific nuclear free zone plays into the Soviets' hands. It imposes major restrictions on the United States, Australia and the South Pacific island nations, but it imposes no equivalent restrictions on the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the Soviet Union now has enormous military capability poised on our doorstep. This Bill is no more than a sop to the left wing of the Hawke Government and the ALP. It is a dangerous proposal. It weakens Australia's security and it enhances the position of the Soviet Union in our region. For these reasons, as well as others that time does not permit me to go into tonight, the Opposition strongly objects to this Bill, because it is contrary to the interests of Australia's future security. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia)(10.23) —We are debating cognately the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986 and the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment Bill 1986. As I rise, I am moved to note that the one honourable senator elected to this chamber of the Federal Parliament on one issue, the issue of peace and disarmament, is not in the chamber. As I look at this extensive list of speakers, amounting to something like 14 senators, embracing the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia, the Australian Democrats and the Australian Labor Party, I ask: Who is not there? It is Senator Vallentine, the person who claims to represent the interests, the views and the aspirations of those who have concern and anxiety for peace and stability not only in this region but in the world as a whole. Senator Vallentine is not here tonight, has not been here all day and will not be here tomorrow to argue on that issue on which she purports to represent the people of Western Australia. I have no doubt that her fraudulent representation will be clearly identified by the people of Western Australia and she will return to the occupation she had prior to entering the Senate. The Opposition has made its position on the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty Bill 1986 abundantly clear. We are opposed to it and we shall vote against it. In respect of the matters of the dumping of waste in the ocean and the testing of-- Senator Georges —I raise a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. I notice that you are in some doubt. Perhaps I can assist you by pointing out that `fraudulent representation' is a term that should not be used in this place, especially about a person who is not present. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —I would ask Senator Crichton-Browne to withdraw that remark. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I withdraw without reservation the use of the words `fraudulent representation'. I would say this of Senator Vallentine: She came here giving the people of Western Australia the impression that she would represent the views of those who concern themselves with peace, disarmament and stability in the region. She is not here and the people of Western Australia themselves will make a judgment. It requires no further comment from me on that topic. Of course the coalition supports proper responsible legislation, treaties and conventions which cover the dumping of waste in the sea, and of course nuclear testing within the region generally. But this legislation is neither fish nor fowl. It does not do that which it purports to do, but it does that which the Government claims it does not do. The provisions of the Treaty do not make the South Pacific a true nuclear free zone. They are such that they weaken security, and the security of the region generally, particularly insofar as they contradict and inhibit the provisions and performance of the ANZUS Treaty. The Treaty now before the House successfully provides Australia with the worst of all worlds. But perhaps before we look at what the Treaty does do, we should look at what it does not do. The very name of the Treaty itself is misleading. The very name of the Treaty is not a reflection of the content of the provisions of the legislation or the provisions of the Treaty itself. It does not provide, nor does it seek to provide, the mechanism to make the South Pacific a nuclear free zone. It does not establish or even seek to establish a zone in which all nuclear activities are prohibited. Let us look at the things it does not do. It does not prevent the mining of uranium nor the sale or the export of uranium. It does not prevent the use of nuclear power stations; it does not prevent the use of uranium for peaceful purposes. It does not place a complete ban on the dumping of nuclear waste either on land or in the ocean. It does not prevent the testing of nuclear weapons delivery systems. It seeks to prevent the detonation of nuclear devices, but does not prohibit or inhibit experimentation in respect of delivery vehicles. It does not prevent the navigation through the zone of nuclear powered or nuclear armed warships or aircraft. It does not prevent the visitation to Treaty countries of nuclear powered warships or aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon; nor does it prevent the firing from the zone of nuclear weapons. The Labor Government would have the peace lobby and the far Left constituency believe that the Government has completed and concluded a nuclear free zone, but it certainly has not. Obviously the far Left, from the speakers we have heard today, recognises the phoney attempt. I have no doubt that the peace lobby will also understand that this legislation does not provide for a nuclear free zone in the South Pacific. The document can be described as but a political concept. Inasmuch as French Polynesia is included, it cannot and will not prevent nuclear testing. Finally, what is described as the picture frame approach has been taken, which means that the Treaty has been extended to include the high seas over which the Treaty has absolutely no legal jurisdiction whatever. Debate interrupted. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being 10.30 p.m., under sessional order I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(10.30) —A constituent of mine recently received a letter from the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation in which he referred to the interview that she had with an officer of the Australian Taxation Office on 22 October concerning payment of an amount owing by her to the Commissioner of Taxation. The letter stated: Payments of $20.00 per month commencing November 1986 with a review due in January 1987. You are required to contact this office in order for the above arrangement to be reviewed should your financial circumstances alter. The letter goes on with all the threats of what will happen if the money is not paid on time. The reality is that Lindy, my constituent, owes $200 to the Commissioner of Taxation, which she is now told she must pay back at the rate of $20 a month. As she said in her letter to me: I have not 200 cents. This debt comes about as follows: Lindy has been unemployed for some considerable time. As she says in her letter: In the last financial year I have been employed by the Public Service `stopgap' schemes-A.I.R.D.I.B. (2 1/2 months) and the Immigration Department from 1st April-30th June 1986. That was a total of 5 1/2 months employment for the year. She goes on: When not employed I applied and received unemployment benefits. I duly filled in my tax form, honestly, and received a request for payment for $200 . . . I requested and received an interview and the enclosed copy is the result. That is the document to which I referred earlier. She continues: How can I possibly pay $200 between November 1986 . . . and January 1987 when my only income is a cheque from the Social Security. She points out that after January, if that sum is not paid, she will have to pay interest on the unpaid amount. How can we set up schemes to get people into the work force and then treat them like that? Lindy points out in her letter to me that those of her friends who are fully employed got refund cheques at the end of the financial year when they put in their tax returns. Those who were not employed at all and were living totally off the system, not bothering to attempt to get a job and continuing to take their fortnightly cheques, managed quite well too. They did not have to pay anything back either. But she, who has been trying to help herself, by indulging in the stop gap schemes about which the Government boasts, suddenly finds herself with a debt of $200 and is ordered to pay it off at the rate of $20 a month while she is on unemployment benefit. There is absolutely no incentive for this young girl to attempt to get employment and work when she is able to do so. She has sent me copies of her income tax form which she filled in and also duplicates of her group certificates. I certainly cannot understand what has happened. I will not disclose the full name and address-I see no reason for those to be in Hansard-but I shall certainly supply that information to the Minister so that the matter can be investigated. How can the Government set up these stopgap schemes to try to encourage people to take jobs and get experience in the work force and then present a person who has worked under these schemes with a tax bill for $200 which must be paid back at the rate of $20 a month while that person is on unemployment benefit? If that money is owed-and I certainly cannot see from the documents how that is so-how is it expected that she should pay the money back out of unemployment benefit? Surely there must be a better way to make work meaningful for young people rather than treat them as this girl has been treated. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(10.34) —I have noted the matters that have been raised by Senator Reid. I suggest that she make those documents and her comments and queries available to the Australian Taxation Office for a response. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 10.35 p.m. The following papers were tabled: Defence Act-Determinations 1986- No. 75-Overseas Rental and Utilities Allowance and others. No. 76-Overseas Living Out Allowance and Supplementary Living Allowance. No. 77-Settling In and Settling Out Allowance and others. No. 78-Travelling Allowance and others. No. 79-Salary of Permanent Force Members and Allowances of the Vice Chief of the Defence Force. No. 89-Temporary Rental Allowance. Public Service Act-Determinations 1986 Nos. 82, 84, 85, 86, 88, 91.