Tuesday, 12 May 1987 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) 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 respectfully showeth: That we consider the 2 per cent discounting of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Scheme pension adjustments on 10 October 1986 to be a serious breach of trust by the Government. The Commonwealth has reneged on an established commitment as incorporated in Commonwealth legislation and benefit promise pensions are not being paid in full. In particular we resent the long-term effect of the discounting. The pension loss is compounded throughout the life of a pensioner and surviving dependants-into the 21st century for many. We consider this Government-induced penalty to be out of all proportion to the short-term ``extraordinary circumstances of the economy'' given as the reason for the discounting. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should urge the Government to: 1. limit the pension discounting effect of the Superannuation and Other Benefits Legislation Amendment Act 1986 to the period 10 October 1986 to 1 July 1987 so that pensions are restored to the 9 October 1986 level as a base for the 1987 pension adjustment; and 2. consult with organisations representing pensioners before changing the terms and conditions of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Schemes. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Brownhill (from 16 citizens), Gareth Evans (from 34 citizens), Hamer (from 63 citizens), McKiernan (from 30 citizens), Newman (from 39 citizens), Puplick (from 10 citizens), Reid (from 33 citizens) and Robertson (from 236 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: 1. the continued presence in Australia of the United States bases make this country a target for nuclear attack; 2. these U.S. bases are integral parts of the global nuclear war machine; 3. Australia should be governed in the interests of Australians and foreign bases are not in our interests. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should support the Australian Democrats' Foreign Bases (Pine Gap Base) Removal Bill which requires the Government to wind up operations at the Joint Defence Space Research Facility-better known as Pine Gap, by terminating the agreement under which it operates in Australia. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 51 citizens). To the Honourable the President and the honourable members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia showeth that whereas: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. 2. They are aware it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia, namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the Nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its geographical location on this planet Earth; (c) The large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901. 3. They know the Flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australians and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to the Flag will produce division in the Australian community. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable House will propose and pass a motion that ``the existing Australian National Flag be changed only with the approval of the Nation as expressed in a Referendum''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Robertson (from 108 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 221 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: The costs of raising children are rising and the value of government provided economic assistance to families is declining. Families raising children are providing a vital function to society and are deserving of government provided economic assistance. Your petitioners therefore urge the Senate and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia to: 1. Restore family allowance payments to their 1976 real money value. 2. Provide for the regular and automatic indexation of family allowance payments. 3. Increase the value of the Dependant Spouse Rebate to $1851 per annum and convert it to a cash payment given directly to the non-income earning spouse. 4. Amend the Family Income Supplement Scheme so that its value is increased, its eligibility provisions widened and its withdrawal provisions eased. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Chaney (from 25 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: Moreton Island is an invaluable natural resource for Queensland and the world and that mining on Moreton would gravely compromise its unique flora and fauna and its outstanding recreational archaeological and scientific values. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should urge the government to use its proven constitutional powers to halt sand mining on Moreton by supporting the Moreton Island Preservation Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 242 citizens). To the Honourable the President and the honourable members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned electors of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth that: (1) Australians are offended by taxation evasion and welfare fraud which has the effect of increasing the taxation burden of honest Australians. (2) The community has shown its overwhelming support for the Government's decision to proceed with a national identification system known as the Australia Card. Your petitioners therefore pray that your honourable Senate will: continue the fight against taxation evasion and welfare fraud and restore fairness and equity to the tax and welfare systems by supporting the Australia Card Bill. by Senator Colston (from 277 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The Petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully showeth that: 1. The Hawke Labor Government's tax amendment which restricts superannuation entitlements to seven times the average of the last three years income before retirement is penalising those Australians who are providing for their own retirement through superannuation. 2. The Government's rule that 2 1/2 per cent of superannuation entitlements be deducted for every year an employee retires before the age of 65 penalises those Australians who have provided for early retirement through a superannuation scheme. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: 1. Abolish the seven times rule in relation to superannuation payments. 2. Abolish deductions in superannuation entitlements for those Australians who chose to retire early. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Chaney (from 1,245 citizens). To the President and members of the Senate. The petition of the undersigned do respectfully showeth that pornographic material relating to children is deleterious to the health and welfare of children and society as a whole. We respectfully urge the Government to ban all child pornography from entering or from being produced in Australia. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Giles (from 928 citizens). Senator VIGOR(South Australia) —by leave-I present to the Senate the following petition from 954 citizens praying that the Special Broadcasting Service and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation be not amalgamated: We the undersigned strongly oppose the merger of SBS (radio and television) with the ABC. We believe the financial reasons for the decision to merge are ill conceived, as evidenced by the Report of the Government's own Connor Committee of Review. The Ethnic Communities of Australia cannot understand why the Government proposes this merger without any consultation with the communities most severely affected. The Government must be aware that Ethnic Communities and other Anglo-Celtic Australians will not stand by and watch multi-culturalism in this country being reduced to tokenism. The amalgamation of SBS and the ABC constitutes the end of autonomous ethnic broadcasting in Australia. Petitions received. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Order of the Day for the second reading of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill 1986 be restored to the Notice Paper and be made an Order of the Day for the next day of sitting. Senator COONEY(Victoria) —Pursuant to my notices of intention given yesterday, I now withdraw Business of the Senate notices of motion Nos 1 and 2 standing in my name for this day of sitting concerning section 2 of the Blood Donation (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) (Amendment) Ordinance (No. 2) 1986 and the Christmas Island Lands Ordinance 1987. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes that on 19 August 1986 in the 1986-87 Budget Statement it was announced by the Government that the Allambee Nursing Home was to be sold; (b) further notes that almost 9 months later, Allambee has neither been sold nor withdrawn from sale; (c) draws attention to the disruption and uncertainty this inaction has caused to both the patients and staff of Allambee; and (d) calls upon the Federal Government to prevent further upset by announcing its intentions without delay. Senator JONES(Queensland) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate, noting that a comparison of 18 key economic indicators on a State by State basis to the start of May 1987 reveals that once again Queensland achieved by far the poorest performance and further noting that- (a) Queensland achieved the worst result in 7 of the indicators, the second worst in 6 and was below the Australian average in no less than 15; (b) Queensland was Australia's worst in unemployment, inflation, bankruptcies, and residential buildings either commenced, under construction or completed, and (c) Queensland was the second poorest performer in average weekly earnings for both men and women, household income per head, overtime hours worked, new private capital expenditure growth, new vehicle registrations, and new dwelling unit approvals and came below the national average in retail sales and new telephone service demands; and further, condemns the Bjelke-Petersen National Party Government in Queensland for its inept economic performance that is dragging down the rest of Australia. Senator REYNOLDS(Queensland) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate condemns the failure of the Queensland Government to hold a royal commission into the extent of organised crime, prostitution and drug trafficking operating with police protection in that State. Senator COONEY(Victoria) —Pursuant to standing order 109a, 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 two sitting days after today for disallowance of Defence Determinations Nos 93 and 94 of 1986. Mr President, with some trepidation, I seek leave to make a very short statement. Leave granted. Senator COONEY —I do not propose to describe this matter in detail except to say to Senator Haines in particular that it concerns the use of extensive retrospectivity of over two years in defence determinations. The Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) has explained the background to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances. Nevertheless, because it denies Parliament the opportunity to examine legislation at the time in which it actually applies, the Committee views retrospectivity of beyond a few months as warranting its scrutiny. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard for the information of honourable senators and others my short descriptive statement, the Committee's brief correspondence and also the text of four guidelines which since 1968 the Committee has applied when scrutinising retrospectivity. Leave granted. The documents read as follows- RETROSPECTIVITY IN DEFENCE DETERMINATIONS The Committee wrote to the Minister for Defence about Defence Determinations Nos. 75, 93, and 94 of 1986 because they contained significantly retrospective elements, going back as far as 1 September 1983 and 1 January 1984. In its 19th, and again in its 25th, Reports, in 1964 and 1968, the Committee, with the support of the Senate, formulated guidelines on how it would scrutinise retrospective instruments. While objecting to retrospectivity beyond a few months, the Committee has taken a very strong stand against retrospectivity exceeding 2 years where the payment of monies is concerned. The Committee requires exceptional circumstances to justify that. Although I stress that, in these cases, the retrospectivity has not prejudiced any defence force personnel, it can prejudice the Parliament which is expected to approve of backdated expenditure in circumstances other than those prevailing at the time to which the expenditure relates. The Minister for Defence has written to the Committee pointing out that lengthy retrospectivity was needed here because Defence Determinations were based on precedent Public Service Board Determinations and human error resulted in applicable Public Service Board determinations being overlooked. The Committee has no interest in apportioning and casting blame. Our concern is simply to ensure that retrospectivity in Determinations is kept to a reasonable minimum. Although administratively convenient and sometimes genuinely necessary to avoid hardship or unfairness, the unquestioned use of retrospectivity for administrative purposes can lead to a decline in standards of administrative efficiency and money management. The Minister has assured the Committee that he does not consider the system for producing Determinations to be fundamentally flawed. The Committee has some confidence that the Minister will monitor the situation through his senior advisers to ensure that legislative retrospectivity is minimised. PARLIAMENT OF AUSTRALIA THE SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON REGULATIONS AND ORDINANCES 24 February 1987 The Hon. Kim Beazley, M.P. Minister for Defence Parliament House Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 Dear Minister, At its meeting on 19 February 1987 the Committee considered Defence Determinations Nos. 75, 93 and 94 of 1986. The Committee would appreciate your assistance in explaining the need for various periods of retrospectivity which arise under these Determinations. In Determination No. 75 there are periods of retrospectivity going back as far as 1 September 1983. In his letter of 28 October 1986, the Minister Assisting, the Hon. John Brown, M.P., explained that the precedent Public Service Board Determinations dealing with the relevant allowances did not come to the attention of Defence staff until recently. As you will appreciate, the period of retrospectivity involved here exceeds 2 years and the explanation is very similar to that arising in connection with determination No. 72 about which the Committee wrote to you in 28 November 1986. In that letter the Committee queried whether oversights giving rise to the need for lengthy corrective retrospectivity arose from some defect in intra-departmental or inter-departmental systems and procedures. The Committee would be very grateful if you could also address that query in the context of this particular Determination. In Determination No. 93, Mackay Allowance, similar to a precedent Public Service Board allowance made available in December 1984, is payable from 1 January 1984 until a posting ends or 31 December 1986 which ever is the earlier. Although the retrospectivity prejudices no one other than the Commonwealth, it could have applied for almost 3 years. Once again the potential retrospective application exceeds 2 years and the Explanatory Statement does not explain why this significant deviation from the norm was required. The Minister Assisting very kindly wrote to the Committee on 1 December 1986 partially explaining the background to Determination No. 93. However, the Committee remains somewhat uncertain as to the quality of administrative procedures and departmental liaison and the part these play in giving rise to the need for such extensive potential retrospectivity. The Committee would welcome your advice on this. Finally, Determination No. 94, made retrospective to 1 January 1984, precludes payment of District Allowance to any member who becomes entitled to Mackay Allowance. The issue of the need for retrospectivity was addressed in the letter of 1 December 1986 from the Minister Assisting, who informed the Committee that the Department became aware of the Public Service Board Mackay Allowance in August 1985, but because ``retrospectivity beyond the normal was involved and because of other pressing drafting commitments and the small number of members entitled to the allowance (three members) the subject was accorded a low priority''. The Committee has noted this explanation. However, the Committee would appreciate your clarification of two issues, firstly, whether the Mackay Allowance is the same or greater than the District Allowance it is replacing and secondly whether inter-departmental or intra-departmental systems and procedures are adequate to maintain an effective level of communications between the Public Service Board and the relevant areas of the Department of Defence to reduce, as far as possible, the need for retrospectivity. Yours sincerely, Barney Cooney Chairman COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Minister for Defence Parliament House Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 6 May 1987 Senator Barney Cooney Chairman Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances Parliament House Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 Dear Senator Cooney In your letter of 24 February 1987 you seek an explanation of the need for various periods of retrospectivity which arise under Determinations Nos. 75, 93 and 94 of 1986. Your letter also seeks clarification of whether Mackay Allowance (Determination No. 93) is the same as or greater than the District Allowance (Determination No. 94) it is replacing, and whether inter-departmental or intra-departmental systems and procedures are adequate to maintain an effective level of communication between the Public Service Board (PSB) and the relevant areas of the Department of Defence to reduce, as far as possible, the need for retrospectivity. I regret the delay in responding. I turn firstly to the retrospectivity which arises under Determination No. 75 of 1986. As you have commented, the explanation provided in the letter of 28 October 1986 from the Minister Assisting, the Hon. John Brown, MP, is very similar to that given in connection with Determination No. 72 of 1986. The answer to your present query is similar to that which I provided to you on Determination No. 72 of 1986 on the 24 February 1987; that is, that human error occurred within the Department at the time of checking the PSB determination and the oversight was not recognised until mid-1986. Determinations Nos. 93 and 94 of 1986, covering Mackay and District Allowances also have a degree of retrospectivity and in this instance the PSB did fail to advise the Department of Defence of the creation of Mackay Allowance. The allowance was brought to the notice of the Department by the Deputy Regional Secretary, North Queensland in late August 1985. As the Minister Assisting explained in his letter of 1 December 1986, further delay ensued in the preparation of Determinations Nos. 93 and 94 because: a. it was necessary to consult with the PSB to clarify certain aspects of the eligibility criteria; and b. limited drafting resources required that priorities be set and because of other pressing drafting commitments and the small numbers of members entitle to the allowance this matter was accorded a relatively low priority. As a consequence of this and other similar incidents, the PSB was requested in November 1986 to standardize procedures for ensuring that all relevant Determinations are passed to my Department in a timely manner. The PSB has agreed and the inter-departmental liaison system is now considered adequate to minimise the possibility of a recurrence. We must accept that our requirement has to be recognised and acted upon by an organisation for which this is only a by-product of its activity. In summary, given the unrelated and isolated nature of the occurrences, I consider that they are more attributable to human error than to fundamental flaws in the system. I turn now to the question of whether Mackay Allowance is the same as or greater than the District Allowance which it replaces. Prior to 1 January 1984 a qualified member serving in Mackay was entitled to District Allowance under the provisions of Determination 0301; however, the entitlement to the allowance ceased on 31 December 1983. Since that time Mackay has not been an isolated district in respect of which District Allowance is payable. It follows therefore that, since 1 January 1984, a member would not normally have been entitled to both District Allowance under Determination 0301 and Mackay Allowance under Determination 0308 in respect of service in the Mackay locality. The only situation where a member could be entitled to both allowances concurrently is where he or she is posted from the Mackay locality to an isolated district within the terms of Determination 0301, and the member's entitlement to Mackay Allowance continues for a period under the provisions of clause 14 of Determination 0308. However, clause 15 of Determination 0308 provides that Mackay Allowance shall continue to be payable in these circumstances only if it is greater than the District Allowance to which the member would become entitled in respect of the new posting locality. Determination No. 94 inserts in Determination 0301 a corresponding provision which precludes payment of District Allowance where a member is entitled to Mackay Allowance but, as Mackay Allowance is only payable if it is the greater, the exclusion in Determination 0301 only operates if the rate of District Allowance that would otherwise be payable to a member is less than the rate of Mackay Allowance that is payable to the member. Yours sincerely KIM C. BEAZLEY SENATE REGULATIONS AND ORDINANCES COMMITTEE TWENTY-FIFTH REPORT (Parliamentary Paper No. 188/1969, page 225) (1) All regulations, of whatever character, having a retrospective operation will prima facie attract the attention of the Committee. (2) Where the retrospectivity involved is in relation to payment of moneys the Committee will view the retrospectivity as requiring close scrutiny. (3) The Committee regards retrospectivity beyond a few months as objectionable. It is recognised, for obvious practical reasons of an administrative character, that some retrospectivity is inevitable. The Committee believes that such retrospectivity should be of the shortest period practicable. (4) Regulations involving retrospectivity in payment of moneys, if extending beyond two years, will be the subject of report to the Senate and unless quite exceptional circumstances are established to the Committee's satisfaction, will be the subject of a recommendation for disallowance. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —Papers are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable senators. With the concurrence of the Senate, I ask that the list be incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The list read as follows- 1. State of the Automotive Industry-Report for the year 1986-Pursuant to sub-section 8 (3) of the Automotive Industry Authority Act 1984. 2. Royal Australian Air Force Veterans' Residences trust-annual report 1985-86-together with the Auditor-General's Report-Pursuant to sub-sections 10 (3) and 10a (2) of the Royal Australian Air Force Veterans' Residences Act 1953. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister representing the Attorney-General. I refer the Minister to today's report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation AM program in which the chairman of the Free Papua Movement revolutionary council claimed that an office in Melbourne had arranged for a number of Irian Jayan citizens to undergo training in Libya as part of OPM's struggle against Indonesian rule. I ask: Can the Minister confirm the connection between the Irian Jayan independence movement and the Gaddafi regime? If so, does the Government approve of an Australian-based organisation arranging the training of guerrillas for action against our close neighbour Indonesia? Is the Government concerned by the statement by the OPM leader that this organisation is looking to Colonel Gaddafi for finance and training of guerrillas? Finally, will the Government investigate whether there may be grounds for action against any Australian citizens under the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978? Senator GARETH EVANS —Moses Weror, the self-styled chairman of the revolutionary council of the Free Papua Movement, or OPM, has, as Senator Chaney said, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in a broadcast repeated this morning that OPM members are receiving military training in Libya. Similar claims have been made by a former leader of the OPM, Nicholas Jouwe, who is currently living in exile in the Netherlands. Mr Weror also claims that the Libyan centre in Melbourne and the so-called West Papua-Australian Association in Melbourne provide the OPM link to Libya, rather than Vanuatu. On a number of occasions the Australian Government has expressed its concern over growing Libyan activities in the South Pacific which have been very evident recently. We would naturally be concerned if these allegations were shown to have some basis. We are presently not in a position to make any judgment about that but we have initiated appropriate inquiries. I should add that we continue to recognise Indonesian sovereignty over Irian Jaya and we do not recognise or endorse the objectives and activities of the OPM. Specifically on the Libyan office in Melbourne, which has been functioning for some time, it seems on an informal basis, through the role of this character, Mr Robert Pash, who is a well-known confirmed racist and anti-semitic representative of the extreme Right, the opening of this office, if it goes ahead, is something that the Government would regard with considerable regret. There is no impediment to the establishment of such an office, provided it is staffed by Australians and its activities are conducted within the bounds of Australian law. Obviously we will watch very closely to see whether its activities fall within the bounds of Australian law, and included in that would be a close watch as to whether any question arose as to a breach of the particular legislation about foreign incursions to which Senator Chaney referred. Senator JONES —Is the Special Minister of State aware of allegations made on the Four Corners program last night of organised criminal activities and corruption of officials, including police officers, in Queensland? If so, will the Commonwealth stand ready to assist the National Crime Authority should it decide to seek a reference in relation to these matters? Senator TATE —Yes, I am aware of the allegations contained in the Four Corners program screened last night, but due to pressing duties in this chamber I did not have an opportunity to view the program. I am sure, like me, other senators were quite shocked at the portrayal not of isolated instances of alleged criminal activity but of a pattern of criminal activity, including corruption of government officials, including apparently some police officers. Insofar as the allegations related to very serious offences involving drug running, bribery and corruption, illegal gambling and obtaining financial benefit by vice engaged in by others-and I am reading from a list of activities which fall within the charter of the National Crime Authority-quite clearly this Government would be prepared to assist the Authority in any investigation it undertook into those allegations. It is very fortunate that the intergovernmental committee of the NCA, which comprises Ministers in all the Federal, State and Territory jurisdictions which have an interest in law enforcement matters is meeting in Hobart next Thursday week, on 21 May. I am quite sure that, should the NCA-having decided to undertake the gathering of intelligence, the carrying out of investigations and the assembling of evidence concerning these allegations-wish to exercise its plenary powers and seek a reference from the intergovernmental committee, quite clearly the Commonwealth Government would certainly grant, as it always has done, a reference insofar as it lies within its jurisdiction. Insofar as matters in this instance clearly lie within the province of the State of Queensland, I would expect the Queensland Government to be equally responsive to any request for assistance from the NCA, particularly in the granting of a reference. I know that that view of the Queensland Government's readiness to adopt such a co-operative attitude is not always shared, particularly for example by the State President of the Young Nationals in Queensland, Mr Paul Schembri, who according to a report dated 4 May 1987 said that the Young Nationals were concerned about the State Government's apparent procrastination in cleaning up organised crime identified in the Sturgess report. Mr Schembri said: We believe the State Government is moving too slowly and we want something positive done about these insidious things. It would be a shame if it took the courage of those journalists engaged in the Four Corners program and those who were prepared to appear before an inquiry to bring about a proper inquiry into these allegations. As I say, the NCA will make a decision for itself in relation to whether it wishes to pursue these particular allegations, and the Commonwealth Government will stand ready to assist it. Senator DURACK —My question is directed to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and follows his answer to Senator Chaney's earlier question. He referred particularly to the Libyan Arab Culture Centre in Melbourne and its activities. I ask the Minister whether the Government shares the concern which has been expressed by members of the Jewish community that, in view of the Libyan Government's open support for terrorism around the world, this centre may not pursue its purposes by peaceful or legal means. Will the Minister institute an immediate review of official Libyan Government offices and Libyan front organisations, of which this cultural centre seems to be one, and any other organisations of that kind to establish not only whether their activities are compatible with the law but also whether they should be allowed to continue their operations in this country? Senator GARETH EVANS —I can only repeat what I said to Senator Chaney: We have seen the plans. There has been a lot of Press attention devoted to the plan to establish a Libyan Arab culture centre in Australia, in Melbourne, at the World Matabah Centre against Zionism, Racism and Imperialism, which is described as an international forum for progressive peace and revolutionary movements but which has associated with it, and its official ideology has a commitment to, persons with beliefs which are of an extreme and unacceptable kind not only to members of the Jewish community in this country but to those who are concerned about the proliferation of Libyan terrorist activity around the world and what leads up to it. So of course, as I repeat, we are concerned that this organisation should be gaining any sort of toehold and we regard the establishment of a formal office as a matter of regret, but I repeat that there is no impediment to the establishment of such an office provided that it is staffed by Australians and its activities are conducted within the bounds of Australian law. We will not permit the entry of Libyan personnel to staff that office, and we will continue to monitor very closely the activities of Libyan personnel and those purporting to represent Libyan organisations in this country with a view to giving attention to the particular matters that Senator Durack and others have expressed concern about. Senator REID —My question is addressed to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. I refer the Minister to his speech yesterday to an education conference at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in which he called for a greater entrepreneurial approach by educational institutions to designing courses to meet industry needs, and charging for them. Did the Minister refer to `inflexible funding arrangements and institutional arrangements' which were frustrating the desire of institutions to charge for and improve the educational services they offered? Is the Minister speaking on behalf of the Government in encouraging institutions to charge for certain courses and to put proposals to the Government so that present rules which effectively prevent this can be changed? Does the Minister believe that in the absence of such change there is a need for new privately financed institutions such as the proposed Bond university in Queensland? Senator BUTTON —The conference to which Senator Reid refers was the conference organised by the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The conference was attended by a wide range of educationists from various parts of the post-secondary education sector. Any statements by the Government in relation to charging for courses will be made by the Minister for Education at the appropriate time. The point I want to make about the conference is that, hopefully, it was going to consider a wide range of ideas in relation to future education policy and perhaps make suggestions to governments about how those ideas might be accommodated. The speech I gave was designed to provide a framework for the consideration by the participants in the conference of a wide range of ideas of that kind. First of all, in answer to a specific part of the question, let me say that the current funding arrangements for universities and colleges of advanced education do not by any means preclude the charging of fees for particular short courses and so on. What they do preclude is the charging of fees for awards leading to degrees. There is probably some confusion within the education sector about what can be charged for and what cannot be charged for. It is a matter about which I have received the advice of the Minister for Education in the last week or so-not in the last 24 hours. Perhaps there is room for some better understanding of what the rules in fact are. Senator Reid also asked me about the Bond university. The Bond university is, I suppose, an entrepreneurial response to perceived needs in particular areas of education. It is certainly being marketed as such. Whether it is successful in the market-place remains to be seen, and whether it is successful in providing high standards of accreditation also remains to be seen. But I certainly see it as a response to some perceived deficiencies in some areas of the education system in respect of which it has been sought to establish a competitive facility. Senator ROBERTSON —My question is addressed to the Special Minister of State. Following the Minister's visit to Darwin last weekend, is he able to indicate to the Senate steps being taken to ensure that a timely and effective response can be made to terrorist activity should it occur or be threatened in Australia? Senator TATE —The question raised by Senator Robertson is, I think, one that is in the consciousness of most of us as we become more aware of the threat of terrorism, particularly that which is inspired by international factors rather than those which are domestic to Australia. The fact is that since 1970 in Australia there have been some 36 terrorist incidents in which people have sought to use violent terror in order to achieve political ends. Twenty-five of those incidents, though, have had to do with bombings or attempted bombings. In fact, it is the possible threat of bombings as a technique of terrorist activity to which this Government has directed many resources over the past couple of years. But it is not simply a question of directing resources and trying to anticipate the type of terrorist activity that might be undertaken. There also needs to be a firm political stance in relation to the threat of terrorist activity. In that regard, I would certainly reiterate what was said by my predecessor last October in relation to terrorism. He said: A major element of Australia's response to incidents of terrorism is a policy of no concessions, other than tactical ones, to terrorist demands. It is that firm intention of the Government not to give in to the political demands of terrorist that lies behind any particular technical or timely response by way of police or military action that we might mount. In relation to the particular activity taking place in Darwin which Senator Robertson mentioned, the fact is that this week, for three or four days, a mock terrorist hijacking of a 707 aircraft is being staged there. In fact, we have made available a Boeing 707 aircraft which will have within it Commonwealth and State personnel who will play the roles of hostages and terrorists. This will require the activation of a crisis command centre and we will have to see and assess the performance of the Northern Territory Police, assisted by the Australian Federal Police and elements of the defence forces, in dealing with that particular incident. I believe that that particular training exercise, which will be one of testing the collaboration between those forces which have the first responsibility of response-namely, in this instance, the Northern Territory Police-and then the further elements of assistance from the AFP and the Special Air Service, will make it very apparent to those who might contemplate such hijacking of airliners in transit in Australia that the Government does have not only a very sound political response to terrorism but also a very well trained force capable of dealing with any such incident. Senator POWELL —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment. Was the Minister or any officer of his Department consulted about the proposal for the establishment of a casino on Christmas Island? Further, I ask the Minister to provide the Parliament with full details of his policy and findings relating to the environmental impact of the casino proposal. Senator RYAN —The Department of Territories referred the Christmas Island casino proposal to the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment for environmental assessment under the provisions of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act. The developer, Mr Frank Woodmore of Perth, was designated as the proponent of the proposal. As required by the administrative procedures under the Act, the proponent supplied information on the proposal and its likely environmental effects to the Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment. In the course of its assessment, the Department secured the proponent's agreement to a series of environmental protection undertakings. These addressed the potential impact of the proposal on the island's natural and socio-economic environment. On the basis of these undertakings and the Department's assessment, the Minister concluded that an environmental impact statement would not be required on the proposal. I understand that the environment protection undertakings agreed between the proponent and the Department have been incorporated in the draft agreement between the Commonwealth and Christmas Island Casino Resort Pty Ltd. Senator DEVLIN —My question is addressed to the Minister who represents the Treasurer and the Minister for Primary Industry. Has the Minister seen a Press release issued yesterday by the Federal member for Maranoa and chairman of the National Party's fuel committee, Ian Cameron, proposing a range of subsidies and taxation expenditures in relation to fuel usage? What would be the effect on the deficit if those measures were implemented? Senator WALSH —I have seen a statement with Mr Cameron's name on it; I presume it is genuine. It says that Mr Cameron welcomes Esso's support of the abolition of the crude oil excise applied at wellhead, which is currently worth $1.3 billion to the Federal Government. That figure of $1.3 billion appears in the Budget Papers for 1986. Since then, because of the changes in world prices, the oil price has increased appreciably and I expect that the revenue would be running somewhat above the $1.3 billion. However, I have not yet had that checked out. I expect that the revenue would be of the order of $1.6 billion this year. However, more importantly, Mr Cameron's proposal would have no effect at all on the retail price of petroleum products. It would simply entail a transfer from Commonwealth revenue of something like $800m to the Esso subsidiary that operates in Australia; that is, a wholly American company. The National Party is proposing the transfer of about $800m this year to a United States company. That is about the sort of economic loyalty that Australians have come to expect from the National Party over a number of years. As to the other items that Mr Cameron identified, the abolition of fuel indexation would cost about $340m in a full year; the rebate of excise for all fuel used on farms, including distillate, which is already fully rebated, and the petrol that is used to go to town or the city or wherever, would cost $145m; and the abolition of sales tax on lubricants would cost $70m. The purpose of the reintroduction of the fuel freight subsidy is not specified precisely in Mr Cameron's statement but the restoration of the scheme that operated a few years ago would add at least $115m to outlays. In terms of lost revenue and reductions in outlays for this financial year, had Mr Cameron's scheme been in operation, the loss would have blown out the deficit by another $1.47 billion. If present oil prices are maintained, it would blow out the deficit by something close to $2 billion in the succeeding year because the excise from crude oil, at present oil prices, will be considerably higher in the next year than it is this year. I do not know what the official Opposition thinks of this National Party proposition to add to next year's prospective Budget deficit close to another $2 billion on top of the $14 billion or $16 billion that it already has in prospect. Senator COLLARD —Given the present protectionist mood in United States of America agriculture-lamb quotas, decreased access to sugar markets and subsidised grain sales-can the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry tell the Senate whether the Government has considered urging the Bureau of Agricultural Economics to do a cost analysis on United States agricultural protection similar to the `red book' exercise that was so successfully carried out on the European Economic Community? Senator WALSH —The simple answer is that I do not know whether the BAE has any such exercise under way. I will inquire of Mr Kerin. My hunch is that the results of such an exercise would be much less dramatic than the BAE's review of the effect of agricultural protection in the EEC. Senator McKIERNAN —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations aware of research recently completed by Drs Beggs and Chapman of the Australian National University into trends in the incidence of industrial action in Australia? Are those trends indicative of the performance of this Government's industrial relations policy? How does the performance of the Australian Government's industrial relations policy compare with overseas experience? Senator WALSH —I am aware of the research referred to, a report of which was published in the Age a few days ago. The main finding relevant to the performance of this Government's industrial relations policy is that the country experienced a very sharp drop in days lost through strikes from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1985. Dr Chapman was reported to have been reluctant to attribute the drop in strikes solely to the effect of the Government's prices and incomes accord but said that it would be implausible to argue that industrial relations policy changes since 1983 were irrelevant. That is certainly an understatement. In the period from 1971 to 1983, Australia lost an average of 0.638 working days per worker. That figure fell to 0.262 in the period between 1983 and 1986. The research compared those figures with the average of 13 other Western countries. While the statistics are not precisely comparable, it was made very clear by Chapman and Beggs that that did not seriously distort the statistics. The average for the other 13 Western countries for the period 1971 to 1983 was 0.459-that is, about 30 per cent less than it was in Australia during the same period. However, for the period from 1983 to 1986, the figure was about 0.322-that is, about 30 per cent more than the equivalent figure for Australia. In the 12 or 13 years to 1983, Australia's record compared with that of these 13 other industrial countries was about 30 per cent worse, but since 1983 it has been about 30 per cent better. It is, of course, possible for it to be much better still, as the case of Sweden demonstrated, where in that same three-year period from 1983 to 1986 only 0.009 working days were lost per year. In other words, it was a figure so low that it could almost be ignored. Before Senator Chaney again demonstrates his sympathy for the industrial relations policies and ambitions of the Bjelke-Petersen regime in Queensland, he ought to take some time reflecting on those figures and note that Sweden certainly did not achieve that negligible level of working time lost through industrial disputes by following the Petersen regime's formula for doing that. Senator MESSNER —Have the Leader of the Government in the Senate and Senator Maguire noted the results of a survey by the Small Business Corporation of South Australia which has revealed an alarming increase in the number of personal bankruptcies in all States with rises of 60 per cent in Queensland, 50 per cent in South Australia and 49 per cent in Western Australia in the nine months to the end of March this year? Does the Minister agree that the main cause of this dramatic rise in the number of personal bankruptcies is the rocketing interest rates which have been deliberately foisted on the Australian people by the Hawke Government? Does he further agree that the situation is likely to worsen as people resort more and more to credit in an effort to maintain the living standards which are likely to be hit further by measures to be announced tomorrow night? Senator BUTTON —The honourable senator's question clearly indicates that he does not understand the measures to be announced tomorrow night or their purpose. Their purpose is, of course, to cut back government expenditure with a view to achieving quicker and better reductions in interest rates. I am sorry that the honourable senator put that codicil on his question, which bears an extraordinary resemblance to a will. Senator Michael Baume —We will see whether you have any real will tomorrow, any real spirit. That will be an interesting test. Senator Lewis —He cannot think of any riposte. Senator BUTTON —I am speechless. The report prepared by, I think, the Director of the Small Business Corporation of South Australia has been drawn to my attention. As I understand it, it relates principally to personal bankruptcies, not business failure. I think the honourable senator referred to personal bankruptcies in his question. The figures are high and that is so for a variety of reasons. The report of the survey conducted by the South Australian Small Business Corporation refers not just to interest rates as a suggested reason for the bankruptcies. Another very important reason is a downturn in demand which, apparently, has affected the level of personal bankruptcies quite considerably and has aggravated cash flow problems for a number of businesses. The Government recognises the role which small businesses have to play. It is encouraging that the level of small business bankruptcies has not increased at anything like the same level as personal bankruptcies. We believe that the decisions made in the taxation area, which are designed to provide a more neutral environment for investment by small businesses and to ensure that funds are directed to their most efficient use, have been generally appreciated in the small business community and the full benefits will be appreciated by small business firms when the abolition of Division 7 tax and imputation are in operation. I am aware of the survey and I can only say that its results were probably not unanticipated in the present circumstances. However, a variety of factors are involved. Senator GILES —My question is directed to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. Has the Government noted the report from New York, datelined Sunday, that four new Star Wars related tests have been proposed to the President of the United States of America despite the fact that they would violate the traditional interpretation of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty? What would be the implications of such a course of action in view of the recent bilateral discussions which held such great promise of a beginning of genuine disarmament? Senator GARETH EVANS —The Government is aware of Press reports to the effect that the United States Secretary of Defense has sent a report to President Reagan recommending that the United States adopt a broader interpretation of the anti-ballistic missile treaty in order to speed research on the strategic defence initiative program. The United States Government has not yet completed its review of policy on the interpretation of the ABM treaty. It decided earlier this year that before any decision is made a series of things should happen-there should be a Pentagon study on the testing requirements of the SDI program; examination of the legal aspects of the ABM treaty; consultation with allied governments; and consultation with Congress. A State Department spokesman said a few days ago-on 30 April-that the technical and legal reports would be completed `within about a month'. The Australian Government has consistently made its views on this matter clear to the United States. For example, on 2 March the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hayden, made it very clear to the United States special envoy, Ambassador Rowny, that the Australian Government was opposed to any broader interpretation of the ABM treaty and did not endorse the SDI program. Australia attaches great importance to the continued integrity of the ABM treaty. We would be concerned if either party to the treaty were to take unilateral action which diminished confidence in it. We believe that the successful conclusion of agreements providing for radical reductions in strategic nuclear arsenals will be largely dependent on both sides being confident that the ABM treaty remains a reliable barrier to the pursuit of wide scale ballistic missile defences. It is particularly important at this juncture to give the Geneva arms control negotiations a secure framework within which to operate. Finally, we hope that the United States Administration will continue to consult closely with its allies, including ourselves, on how best to advance the common objective of radical reductions in strategic nuclear weapons, culminating in their complete elimination. Senator LEWIS —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Defence why the Hawke Government has failed this year to give any substantial publicity to the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea which took place on 7 and 8 May 1942 between Japanese and United States naval forces with assistance from Australia. This battle was the start of the turnaround of the threat to Australia and in the past it has been treated as a major and important event commemorated by Coral Sea Week. Why was the visit to Brisbane of Admiral Lyons, of the United States Navy, kept so low key? Is not the commemoration of the Coral Sea Battle an opportunity to provide all Australians with a visible reminder of the value of our alliance with the United States? Finally, why is the Government deliberately playing down the continuing importance of that alliance? Senator GARETH EVANS —I do not accept that there is any foundation for the various comments that Senator Lewis has incorporated in his question, in particular the last point which is tendentious and not in accordance with the facts. It certainly is not accepted by the Government. As to whether the scale of the commemoration of the Battle of the Coral Sea is of the same order as in previous years, I am not in a position to make any comment about that at this stage. I will refer Senator Lewis's question, stripped of its ornamentation and rhetoric, to the Minister for Defence in order for him to make such comments as he feels are appropriate in the circumstances. Senator COLSTON —I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations to his answer to a question last week from Senator Maguire referring to Queensland's high rate of unemployment. Has the Minister any further statistics which would lend support to his suggestion that the Queensland labour market is continuing to perform particularly badly? Are Queensland's economic statistics clear evidence that the push by the Premier of Queensland for the Federal Parliament should be firmly rejected by all thinking Australians? Senator WALSH —The answer to the last part of the question, I think from any reasonable person, would certainly have to be yes; we do not want the practices of the Petersen regime, with or without last night's Four Corners program, imposed upon the Federal Government. Last week I referred to the Queensland unemployment rate for the month of April being 10.2 per cent in non-seasonally adjusted terms, which is the highest unemployment rate of any State. When one looks at the number of unemployment beneficiaries in Queensland, one sees that it has a disproportionately high number of unemployment benefit recipients relative to its population. Indeed, even though the Victorian work force is 65 per cent larger than the work force of Queensland, Queensland actually has 17,000 more people receiving the unemployment benefit than does Victoria. Senator Maguire —How many? Senator WALSH —There are 17,000 more people receiving the unemployment benefit in Queensland than in Victoria, even though Victoria has a work force and a population which is 65 per cent higher than that of Queensland. April was the fourteenth consecutive month in which Queensland had a higher number of unemployment benefit recipients than Victoria. Again, in spite of Victoria having a population which is almost two-thirds higher than that of Queensland, for 14 months in succession there has been a lower number of unemployment benefit recipients in Victoria than in Queensland. The explanation or apologia for those facts used to be the allegation, of course, that lots of young people from the south were coming to Queensland, lying around in the sun, not trying to work, and drawing the unemployment benefit. That has been blown out of the water in the last 12 or 18 months by the simple fact that there has been a net migration out of Queensland by people in that prime young working age group from 15 to 24 years and up to 34 years. They have been voting with their feet. They have gone to places such as Victoria where they have a much better chance of getting a job than they have under the Petersen regime in Queensland. Senator ARCHER —Did the Minister representing the Minister for Housing and Construction note that yesterday the Prime Minister was reported as saying that the $124 a month average increase in housing loan repayments, as advised by the Real Estate Institute of Australia, was exaggerated? Did the Prime Minister provide any evidence to support his very doubtful comment? Did the Minister also note that the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation reported that the number of its insured borrowers in arrears more than doubled during 1986 and, in fact, is double the number that has arisen ever since the HLIC was formed? Does the Minister consider this figure to be exaggerated also, or does she concede that the enormous current interest rates and diminishing family income policies of this Government are to blame for the position? Senator RYAN —Senator Archer has asked a number of questions about what the Prime Minister said yesterday in reply to a question on these matters. I refer Senator Archer to the Prime Minister's answer yesterday. Senator ARCHER —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I would like the Minister to answer whether the Prime Minister provided any evidence on the matter. As I asked, did the Minister note the HLIC report? Does she concede that the figures over this period are as I cited? Does she concede that it is the Government's policies that have made this happen? Senator RYAN —I can only say that Senator Archer has asked what the Prime Minister said yesterday. I refer him to yesterday's Hansard, from which he can find out. Senator CROWLEY —Is the Minister for Resources and Energy aware of claims by the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association that the petroleum industry is the most heavily taxed group in Australia? Can the Minister comment on the Government's reaction to these claims? Senator GARETH EVANS —I have seen claims reported in the Press in the last two or three days from the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association to that effect. It is important that the record be set straight. It is not possible for a start to verify the APEA estimate that petroleum producers have paid $34 billion to Commonwealth and State governments over the past decade, as that includes company tax payments which, of course, are confidential. Published estimates of Commonwealth excise and royalty receipts would suggest a significantly lower estimate than that. However, I acknowledge that the petroleum industry has made a very substantial contribution to government revenues and economic activity over this period. It is important to recognise this and the industry's potential future contribution to the economy. To set the record straight, it is also important to recognise that the industry has gained very substantial benefits in recent years, including changes in government policy, such as pricing arrangements on crude oil, and windfall gains in crude oil prices. We are endeavouring to give it another benefit in terms of reduced secondary taxation on exploration effort. But that raises the spectre of resource rent tax legislation and that perhaps is another story for another day. Senator Durack —But what about the new oil taxes? Senator GARETH EVANS —I will come to that. I remind Senator Durack in the process that, despite all his fulminations and protestations in a widely unreported Press release a couple of days ago about the Government's embarrassment at having removed royalty before RRT was put in place, the Opposition along with the Australian Democrats voted for that in 1985. That again is just another marginal issue in this ongoing saga. To come back to the main theme let me make the point about benefits that since 1975-76 oil prices to domestic producers have increased by a factor of between 10 and 15 times. Over this period, the gross value of petroleum production has amounted to about $40 billion of which about $28 billion has been paid as excise and royalty to the Commonwealth. While that tax take might appear to be relatively high, it should be appreciated that it is also, of course, a reflection of the highly profitable nature of some petroleum investments, particularly the Bass Strait project. This still represents a very substantial reward for the risk, effort and investment that has been made. I add that the Bass Strait field has been one of the best oil-producing regions in the world. Despite the crude oil tax and the company tax complained about by APEA, over the life of the project to date the field has provided Esso Australia Ltd and the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd with something like a 40 per cent internal rate of return after taxes on funds invested. That is a phenomenal rate of return, as anyone economically or financially literate opposite should be able to appreciate. The industry has also benefited recently from the effects of import parity pricing with $36m being the net gain since 1983-since we have been in office-on the swings and roundabouts of leads and lags in prices. It has also benefited from the fact that the Government maintained excise concessions in place long after the point where we said last year that we would review them. Some $90m attributable to that benefit has flowed to the companies since September last year. The industry arguments that Senator Durack mouths periodically, when he can understand them, that the top marginal tax rate of 91 per cent on old oil is too high-and that 91 per cent, of course, based on the current top excise rate of 80 per cent plus 12 1/2 per cent on royalty and 49 per cent company tax on the remainder-fail to recognise that those tax rates apply only to Bass Strait crude production, that lower tax rates apply to about half of Bass Strait oil production and all other petroleum production and that the 91 per cent rate would apply only to production that was itself extraordinarily profitable in that it is produced at no cost to the producers. There has been no evidence whatsoever produced to indicate that these tax rates are inhibiting any crude oil production. Lest Senator Sanders, who is looking smug, should think that any of this is a reason in itself for not going ahead with the resource rent tax on the ground of excessive generosity to the industry, I make the point in passing that that conclusion does not follow from any of the material I have so far put on the record. Senator Durack —Hoist with your own petard. Senator GARETH EVANS —No, I think the industry hoists itself with its own petard with its attack on the resource rent tax because it has found itself in the extraordinary situation of having the Parliament reject it, notwithstanding the industry's fervent hope that it could get away with the rhetoric and find itself with an appropriate tax at the end of the day. That again is another debate we should not be having here. The final thing I want to say is that excises on petroleum products have contributed about $14 1/2 billion since 1975-76. These taxes make a major contribution to government revenues and hence the financing of expenditures on such items as defence, social security, health, education, roads, water resources and so on. It is inconceivable that these taxes could be removed, as a number of people in the political spectrum out in the far flung fields of the far Right are arguing. That they could be taken off without impacting dramatically on all those areas of social expenditure is, of course, just nonsense. Finally, in this respect the Government provides generous concessions to farmers and miners for diesel used off-road, and Australian petrol prices, including those excises, do still at the end of the day remain comparatively among the lowest in the world. Senator JESSOP —My question is directed to the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and it concerns the current visit to Australia by a Mr Jalandoni, an international representative of the Philippines National Democratic Front, which I understand is closely affiliated with the Philippines Communist Party. Prior to issuing a visa, was the Government aware that Mr Jalandoni played a significant role in the recent Libyan Conference of the World Matabah Centre against Zionism, Racism and Imperialism and that the Far Eastern Economic Review of 26 March reported that the reason for Mr Jalandoni's visit to Australia was to open a disguised front office for the National Democratic Front? Is the Minister aware of the purpose of that particular office and, if not, will he investigate the matter and report to the Senate? Earlier in Question Time the Minister referred to another office being set up in Australia by the Libyan Matabah organisation. Can the Minister say whether Mr Jalandoni is involved in that and whether the Libyan People's Bureau is financing that office? Senator GARETH EVANS —I have some knowledge of the matters to which Senator Jessop refers but not enough to respond fully to the points that he has raised. I will seek further information and I hope to be in a position to reply tomorrow. Senator CHILDS —Has the Minister for Finance seen a report in Saturday's Age that shadow Treasurer Jim Carlton had called for the Government to cut at least $4,000m from the Forward Estimates in the May expenditure statement? Can the Minister say whether the expenditure statement which will be brought down on Wednesday will meet the shadow Treasurer's expectations? Senator WALSH —I am not going to answer the very last part of the question because it asks me to tell the Senate what will be in the Treasurer's statement-if not in detail, at least in aggregate-and I am certainly not going to do that. I have seen the report in the Age of a day or two ago-last Saturday, I think-wherein, in between bucketing John Elliott and a few other people in the Liberal Party, Mr Carlton referred to what he thought should be done about government expenditure, and he said that $4 billion should come off the Forward Estimates. I would be very grateful to receive Mr Carlton's list of cuts totalling $4 billion or a description of the mechanism that he would use to cut $4 billion from the projected Budget deficit. All I have seen so far from Mr Carlton or from his leader is a specific $32m off government outlays accompanied by a whole grab-bag of proposals both to increase spending and to reduce revenue through an assortment of tax concessions. Principally, that would bring back the old tax shelters, the old tax rorts, over which John Howard presided for the entire time that he was Treasurer and which this Government has got rid of. Abolition of the assets test alone, which has been Opposition policy for some years, would cost several hundred million dollars on present indications. So that proposition would add, in just one item, several hundred million dollars to outlays. Notably, the document produced by Professors Porter, Freebairn and Walsh last week, even though it is flawed, at least had the common sense and intellectual honesty to explicitly advocate the retention of an assets test. It is a pity that the Liberal Party did not have the common sense and honesty to do likewise. On the revenue side, far from pointing to measures which would reduce the Budget deficit, the Opposition has a grab-bag of promises to bring back tax shelters and abolish the capital gains tax. That would entail losses to revenue gained not only specifically from the capital gains tax but under section 25 (1) and section 26aaa of the Income Tax Assessment Act. When assessing the impact of the capital gains tax the revenue from all those sections should be added together minus only that small amount collected under section 25 (1) and section 26aaa of the Income Tax Assessment Act before that. If we abolished the fringe benefits tax-another article of faith of the Opposition-there would be a loss to revenue of $700m. If we brought back the free lunch, another $300m or $400m would be lost. If all those things were done-if the free lunch came back, the fringe benefits tax was abolished, the capital gains tax was abolished, negative gearing was reintroduced and so on-once the message had gone out that the Government had explicitly endorsed the use of these devices in order to erode the tax base, the tax base would erode at a very rapid rate and the ultimate loss to revenue, albeit in a very short time, would be very much greater than the $1.2 billion or so which I have detailed. Senator SANDERS —I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. Is it a fact that Mr Bob Richardson of the Australian Council of Trade Unions receives funds from the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations? If so, for what purpose; how much money does he receive, and for what period? Does his job involve making public statements supporting the Tasmanian logging industry and denouncing conservationist and Federal Government action? Does the Minister condone such actions by Mr Richardson? What does the Minister intend to do to rectify the situation? Senator WALSH —The short answer to the question `Does Mr Richardson receive funds from the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations?' is no, but it is a bit more complicated than that and I will go into it later. Implicit in the latter part of the question is an authoritarian attitude that anybody who does not agree with Senator Sanders should in some way be silenced by the Government if the Government can so silence that person. That is not an attitude I share; nor does the Government. Mr Richardson was to have been the ACTU's industrial democracy adviser and to receive financial assistance under the employee participation and industrial democracy scheme which is administered by the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations. However, the ACTU has recently advised the Department that Mr Richardson has taken up another position, so another person has been nominated to the position of ACTU industrial democracy adviser. Payments made by the Department under the scheme will be in respect of this other person's period of appointment, and, as I said before, no payments have been made to Mr Richardson under this scheme. Senator ZAKHAROV —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Territories. The Minister will be aware that in the new Parliament House Ministers will be able to avoid Press and public attention when they arrive for work by driving into the secure underground car park and taking private lifts to their offices. Can the Minister assure the Senate and the public that after the move to the new building, the right to peaceful protest will be preserved by the provision of suitable and prominent areas similar to the lawns in front of the present Parliament House, where protests can be held and tent embassies set up? Senator GIETZELT —I have to advise Senator Zakharov that I have no information in respect of her question, so I will draw it to the attention of the Minister for Territories. Senator NEWMAN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. I refer to the answer that he gave Senator Walters yesterday, and I now ask whether the Minister will categorically deny that no Royal Australian Air Force flights took place over the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests areas of Tasmania during the last three days. Senator GARETH EVANS —All the information that is available to me from the offices of the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment leads me to categorically deny it. I am happy to do that. Senator FOREMAN —Can the Special Minister of State advise the Senate of the contribution of the Australian Federal Police to the Federal Government's fight against organised crime? Senator TATE —I am grateful for Senator Foreman's question because it gives me an opportunity to affirm that the Australian Federal Police is the Federal Government's primary law enforcement agency. Since August 1985, when we replaced the AFP's outdated charter, we have seen tremendous progress in the professionalism and, indeed, the achievements of that law enforcement agency. It will be recalled that at that time in August 1985 a new and more relevant charter of objectives and priorities was given to the Australian Federal Police, one which placed investigations into drug trafficking, organised crime and major fraud on the Commonwealth as the AFP's top priorities. I can say that that particularly setting of priorities is the envy of many other law enforcement agencies throughout Australia and has provided a framework within which the Commissioner and his police force have been able to channel the resources that are made available to them. As far as those resources are concerned, the Government, even in the context of stringent budgetary considerations, has consistently supported the Australian Federal Police with those necessary resources. Our three-year commitment to strengthen the AFP, at a cost of $10m, has provided an additional 100 staff this year, bringing the increase in AFP staff since the Government came to office to 535, or 21 per cent. Seven million dollars has also been provided to enhance the AFP's computer capacity. But it is one thing to provide the resources and to give a political charter; it is another to see the results. In fact, as members of the public and, of course, honourable senators will be aware, as far as major successful drug operations are concerned, Operation Lavender, which brought about the disruption of a major syndicate responsible for importing between five and seven tonnes of cannabis resin, of which approximately one tonne was recovered, was a very major breakthrough. Recently, Operation Oyster was very successful in bringing to light and dealing with importations of heroin totalling 11 kilograms which was smuggled in soccer balls by a syndicate which allegedly included a Customs officer. I want to say that I am extremely delighted with this new charter and with the resources that we are putting into the AFP. There has been a most successful recruiting program which has allowed us to recruit people, young people in particular, of very good quality and calibre into the Australian Federal Police. It was my great pleasure recently, on 8 April, to attend my first passing out parade as Special Minister of State when 24 Australian Federal Police officers stepped out to join the ranks of that force. It gave me particular pleasure to present Constable Cathryn Bell of Sydney with the award of dux of the course. I think that the presentation of that particular award to that young lady indicates that the Australian Federal Police is also an equal opportunity employer, one which is able to attract people of great quality and calibre to join those people with the professional expertise that they have managed to acquire over the years, so that we have a force that is well able to deal with organised crime in Australia. Senator CHANEY —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. It follows representations from the Western Australian shipbuilding company Ocean Shipyards Pty Ltd. I ask the Minister: Can he confirm that Ocean Shipyards Pty Ltd has not been successful in obtaining a contract for a new Navy hydrographic vessel? Is it a fact that Ocean Shipyards submitted the lowest tender? What was the difference in price between the tender of that company and that of the successful tenderer? Further, on what basis was the decision taken to reject the Western Australian bid, given that the company concerned has had a long and successful history of building survey ships for the oil industry and given the stipulation in Department of Defence documents that `the Commonwealth would not normally pass over a lower priced offer'? Was the decision in any way affected by considerations associated with the new submarine project? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am advised by the Minister for Defence that no recommendation has yet been made to the Minister on the matter of survey vessels. When the Minister has considered the matter I will provide what information is possible to Senator Chaney. Senator RYAN —On 11 May Senator Townley asked me a question about the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. In particular, he sought an undertaking that no Commonwealth funds were available to enable Mr Michael Mansell either to visit Libya or to engage in travel around Australia promoting that visit. I undertook to refer the matter to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Mr Holding informs me that he had a meeting this morning with Mr J. Everett, Secretary of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. During that meeting, he sought a number of assurances from Mr Everett and indicated that he expected Mr Everett to reply to his inquiries about obfuscation. The Minister is now awaiting a response from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. He has asked me to assure the Senate that there can be no question of any Aboriginal organisation receiving funds from Libyan sources and at the same time continuing to receive Commonwealth funds. The honourable senator also asked whether procedures were in place to ensure that Libyan money was not received by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. Senator Walters —How could they know? Senator RYAN —I am giving the honourable senator the information. The Department of Aboriginal Affairs is not in a position to check the source of all non-Commonwealth funding that an Aboriginal organisation or person may receive. However, all funding provided to Aboriginal organisations is subject to strict audit requirements. Such funds as are provided are required to be devoted to the purposes specified in the approved Budget. It is to be expected, therefore, that any unusual injection of funds from private sources would be readily detected by the Department in the course of its regular administrative activities. Senator TATE —In Question Time this afternoon Senator Gerry Jones of Queensland asked me a question concerning the Commonwealth Government's response, perhaps through reaction to the request by the National Crime Authority for a reference, to the matters raised on the Four Corners program last night concerning alleged organised criminal activity and official corruption in Queensland. I inform the Senate that I was informed only three or four minutes ago that the Deputy Premier of Queensland and, I think, the Minister for Police, Mr Bill Gunn, has announced a full judicial inquiry into the allegations that were the subject of the portrayal on Four Corners last night. Senator POWELL(Victoria) —by leave-The Australian Financial Review, in its editorial this morning, makes a series of accusations about decisions for which I was the responsible portfolio holder for the Australian Democrats in relation to the northern prawn fishery. Those accusations run to a view that those decisions would destroy an export industry that is adding $180m to Australia's wobbly trading account, that the decisions were made on the basis of chasing a few short-sighted fishermen and, perhaps finally, that the ultimate result would be that that industry-- Senator Messner —On a point of order, Mr President: I noted that Senator Powell, during her opening remarks, referred to her position as spokesperson for the Australian Democrats. She appears now to be arguing a party political point in terms of the representations in the Australian Financial Review. I ask whether or not she was personally misrepresented in the editorial. The PRESIDENT —It is a valid point of order. I did not know whether Senator Powell was referring to a speech that she had made or whether the editorial was about her party position. The misrepresentation has to be a personal one. Senator POWELL —Thank you, Mr President. While it might not be evident to everybody in the community, I certainly accept personal responsibility for decisions such as this. I consider that these accusations, which are incorrect-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I am afraid that is not a personal misrepresentation, Senator. The PRESIDENT —I have received a letter from Senator Alston proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The disastrous effects of Labor's high tax and high interest rate policy on home ownership by Australian families. 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 ALSTON(Victoria)(3.14) —This is a matter of great, enduring social concern because if one thing, above all else, determines the quality of life in this country it is the affordability of and access to housing for the average Australian. What I think is beyond doubt is that Australians are now reflecting through the opinion polls and elsewhere their total loss of confidence in the Government's ability to deliver in this crucial area. Quite a number of indicators demonstrate the extent to which the Government has neglected this vital constituency. Above all else, this will ultimately be responsible for the Government's demise. The high tax regime which has been imposed relates not simply to the inordinately high cost of interest, which in itself is a function of the Government's general economic incompetence. We are all aware that interest rates are not only a function of the demand for money in the country but also a necessity when we are running current account deficits of $14 1/2 billion, when we have a foreign debt in excess of $100 billion and when we desperately need to encourage foreign investors to forsake the risk of further depreciation and devaluation and to invest in this country. As a result, the funds that are available to those seeking to borrow are at extraordinarily high levels. Certainly interest rates in the vicinity of 20 per cent are much too common and, despite the removal of the ceiling in relation to housing loans in March 1986, the fact is that people who want to buy houses are forced to pay those exorbitantly high levels of interest. There are a number of ways in which one can judge the success or otherwise of housing policies, but perhaps one of the best indicators, given that government has the ability to determine the availability of both private and public housing, is to look firstly at public housing. Nationwide the length of public housing queues is now in excess of 157,000, which compared rather unfavourably, to say the least, with the level of about 100,000 when the Government came to office in March 1983. In addition, some 400,000 people now reside in caravan parks around Australia. They are people who have clearly given up the ghost, who have opted out, who have decided that they simply cannot afford the classic Australian dream any more and who are now reduced to living on the periphery of society. The Department of Housing and Construction estimates that a further 40,000 Australians are homeless. If ever there is an indictment of a society, it is when people are wandering the streets without a roof over their heads. So one can say that on the public housing side the Government's policies have been an unmitigated disaster. In terms of housing starts, which is where the average Australian really sets out to carve out some security, we find that the trend line has been going down about 20 per cent a year since the Government came to office. The latest estimate is that there will be only about 118,000 new home starts in the current financial year. In April 1986 the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) promised 135,000 new home starts, but successively that figure has been downgraded. The infamous Indicative Planning Council report-which confirmed what we all knew, that there was most unlikely to be any reduction in interest rates-is surely a prime factor behind those successive reductions in housing starts. The matter is compounded when one looks at the only real alternative-the rental sector-because through a combination of Government decisions that market has almost dried up. Vacancy rates are down to historically low levels. I think less than one per cent of the rental stock in Sydney is currently available for rental. Around Australia the position is not much better. Dwelling rents have risen by something like 20 per cent over the last 12 months or so. No one in his right mind would invest in the residential real estate market as things currently stand. To quote Mr Robert Hunt, the international partner for real estate for the firm of Hillier Parker, residential real estate is hardly worth the bother. This situation is due to a number of reasons. It has a lot to do with the negative gearing proposals and the capital gains tax, which have both made investment in real estate an increasingly unattractive proposition. It is not simply a matter, as the Government probably thought it was, of punishing the large number of investors who were thought to be somehow exploiting the system. It has had the opposite result because quite a number of people have thought that in their retirement they would invest in relatively secure bricks and mortar but they have been actively discouraged as well. The end result is that there is absolutely no incentive at all and that puts a great squeeze on demand. There will be no further investment in housing during the life of this Government and housing rentals will rise accordingly. As a result pressure is increasingly placed on the public housing system. As we can well understand, people in public housing will want to hold on to what they have despite the fact that their income levels may rise and their economic position may improve slightly. It will be very hard to dig them out. So the public housing answer is certainly the worst alternative but it is about the only one the Government seems to have been able to take seriously because it is the only one directly within its capacity to dish out finance and that is a tragic indictment of its approach. It certainly does not accept the primacy of the private sector. The Government is certainly not interested in providing a climate which would induce investors to return to the market and it certainly does not have at heart the welfare of the many hundreds of thousands of Australians who thought that they would be able to afford to purchase their own homes or rent initially and then purchase their own homes. Yesterday another indictment of the Government's approach-the home loan affordability index-was released. Some criticism has been made of the organisations responsible for the index. I suppose it is fair to say that, despite the fact that the Government has been releasing the index on a quarterly basis for some years, this is the first time that the Government has seen fit to try to kill the messenger and that is because the figures are an indictment of Government policy. On a national basis the percentage of gross income paid by those with home mortgages has risen to 26.9 per cent when we know that historically 25 per cent has been about the limit of affordability. The explanation the Government gives for that obviously unaffordable increase is the abolition of the loan cocktail; the 13 1/2 per cent ceiling that previously applied to the interest rate level has virtually been abolished so that people on all income levels have access to home finance. That has had a limited effect; it has certainly reduced the amount that is payable for those on incomes in excess of average weekly earnings but it has done nothing for those below this figure. It is simplistic in the extreme for the Government to pretend that somehow it can explain away the affordability index on that basis. Another startling statistic from the Australian Institute of Family Studies is that a one income family with two children needs an income in the vicinity of $42,500 per year to be on a par with a single male in receipt of average weekly earnings of $24,000 per year. Those figures show the sorts of pressures that have been brought to bear on the average family and the way in which the Government's policies have had such a deleterious impact on family life. When one compounds that with the increased mortgage burdens on those who are silly enough to have families under a Labor government, it can be seen that the squeeze is from all angles. A range of taxes have impacted adversely upon families and they were recently detailed very cogently by the shadow Treasurer, Mr Carlton. For instance, since March of 1983-for the duration of this Government-the amount paid weekly in taxation has risen some $37 for a single family on average weekly earnings. Interest payments have gone up by $26 a week over that period; the cost of basic private health insurance has gone up from $9.60 to $14.30 a week. During that period average weekly earnings have just exceeded the inflation rate. So once again it is clear that families whose incomes have fallen in most instances-this is not simply the income they derive from wages but the income after all of the taxes and burdens that are imposed upon them have been deducted-are at the same time being expected to pay dramatically higher amounts in home repayments. If one looks at the plethora of new taxes that have been imposed one finds that once again they all go in one direction. I forget the number, but probably close to a dozen new taxes have been imposed during the life of this Government. None of them has been of any consolation to families in our society. Families have simply had to bear a greater burden. The average family's rate of tax has gone up from 17 1/2 per cent to 20 1/2 per cent. The marginal rate of tax for the average family has gone up from 30c in the dollar to 40c in the dollar. I would have thought that it was unarguable that the combination of Government policies has had a disastrous impact upon families and their ability to manage their own incomes and lives. If there is one thing above all else that governments should accept as a responsibility it is the obligation to ensure that middle Australia is able to maintain itself and that there are positive discriminations in favour of the family unit. The cost to government of family breakdowns is very well documented. I do not think anyone in our society could argue that that is not one of the most disastrous social consequences that can flow from mostly financial pressures that are ultimately intolerable. The Government steadfastly refuses to increase the level of family allowances to those who are in real need and to index a range of pensions or at least adjust pension benefits and spouse entitlements for those who really need them. It is clear that in total the combination of these policies severely punishes those people with families. That is probably what will cause the Government to burn at the next election. Mr Howard recently said that interest rates would do more to burn Labor out of office than any other issue. That has to be so. No amount of intellectual obfuscation on the part of the Government can disguise the fact that levels of interest rates in this country are so high by historical standards. John Marsden, Chief Economist of the National Mutual Royal Bank, said that home mortgage repayments levels were now higher than they had been for 17 years and perhaps since the Second World War. That is another screaming indictment of Government policy. In a whole range of areas the level of interest rates and taxes is putting an inexorable squeeze on families that will be so critical to their future well-being. I do not think anyone can argue for a moment that housing policy has not been one of the disaster areas of this Government. Frank Walker, New South Wales Socialist Left housing Minister, had this to say late last year: The `unintended consequences'- that is a fairly key code phrase these days- of the Federal Government's economic policies are having disastrous effects on housing in NSW. He went on to say: I am sure the Federal Government did not intend to exacerbate the housing crisis, but that is what has happened . . . the Federal Government's decision six months ago to deregulate interest rates on new lending for housing has done little to ease the housing shortage. It is clear that the Government is simply out of control in this area; it is not responsible for its actions. It is certainly acting very irresponsibly. I will give honourable senators a classic example of that irresponsibility. Senator Michael Baume, in one of his earlier lives, was Chairman of the Waste Watch Committee. Early this year that Committee was astute enough to realise that 1987 had been proclaimed as the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. One would have thought that shelter was fairly critical in our society and deserving of government support. Certainly financial support was available but it has not been directed to those in need. An amount of $1.3m has been allocated by the Government for the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. Not one cent has been provided for shelter for homeless Australians. An amount of $226,000 has been spent on promotion and public relations. The Government's policy decision was to refuse to direct any of the funds to the provision of shelter for the homeless as a matter of priority. That is contrary to the United Nations resolution which set up the International Year. Senator Baume pointed out that, despite the Government's refusal to provide housing funds for those who are obviously in need of them, a whole range of fringe organisations have been provided with funds to pursue their own political agendas. Some of the more exotic include the First Fremantle Housing Collective. That outfit has been given $7,300 to produce a personalised account of the history of the organisation. An amount of $3,500 has been provided for the production of a video of the 1985 National Youth Housing Conference. Once again, it is perhaps a passing coincidence that that conference happened to take place in the electorate of the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West). Finally, the sum of $7,000 has been made available to the Tenants Union for a national conference. It is an absolute scandal and a public disgrace that the Government should be so cynical in its misuse of public funds that it should allocate in excess of $1m in a very tight financial climate, and that none of that money should go where it belongs. That money, if the Government is to provide any at all, should have gone directly to those in need-the 40,000 who are out on the streets. All of those who cannot afford to buy housing may well have benefited from some marginal assistance. But no; what has happened, in the pithy words of the former Chairman of the Waste Watch Committee, is that: This promotional spending is really aimed at making it appear that the Government is doing something positive to fix up its own inadequate or misdirected housing policies . . . . . . there is no real need to spend one quarter of a million dollars on a promotion and public relations campaign telling itself how to fix up its own policies . . . Along with those of its fellow travellers in the States. That is probably the high water mark of irresponsibility in the area of housing. It is quite clear that it is a substitution for any real action. It is probably a concession that the Government is unable to control the real level of interest rates-that it has really given up the ghost-and a concession that it is prepared to accept an inflation rate of 10 per cent, which is three or four times that of our major trading partners, and prepared to continue having the sorts of high levels of cost and the whole range of pressures that will impact, and continue to impact, so severely on Australian families. Unless and until there is a realisation on the part of government that we need correct economic policies, less profligacy in government spending, and much greater attention to correcting our trading imbalance, there is no prospect of interest rates coming down. There is no prospect of the Government being able to do anything other than the sorts of inept public relations exercises that we have seen to date. We will continue to find that housing affordability, home rentals and all the obvious indicators of social dislocation run solidly against the average family. If there is one thing that average families should have learnt over the last period of four years or more of Labor government, it is that Labor governments, despite the rhetoric, are unable to deliver in economic terms and unable to provide an environment in which home owners can realise the great Australian dream. Ultimately, all that they will get are high words and high interest rates for the diminishing duration of this Government. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(3.34) —On behalf of the Hawke Government I oppose the matter of public importance which has been proposed this afternoon by Senator Alston, alleging that high interest rates and high taxation are having disastrous effects on home ownership in Australia. Let us look first at Labor's housing record. Let us look at the facts. Let us look beyond the housing myths of the Liberals. In 1986 in Australia, commencements of new dwellings-that is, new housing starts-totalled 121,000. In 1982, when Mr Howard, the present Leader of the Opposition, was the Treasurer of this country, 109,000 new dwellings were started in Australia. So in a period of four years under the Hawke Labor Government housing starts have risen from 109,000 to 121,000-a 10.9 per cent rate of growth. Yet this afternoon Senator Alston, on behalf of the Liberals, has proposed this matter of public importance attacking the Government over its housing policy. The fact is that, as a result of those housing commencements, 12,000 more Australian families have benefited from improvements in the housing industry. In regard to houses, as distinct from other dwellings such as flats and rental accommodation, in 1982 when Mr Howard was Treasurer, 77,000 houses were started. In 1986, four years later, under a Labor government, 93,000 new houses were started. That is a massive increase and represents a reversal of the disastrous housing period that afflicted this country when Mr Howard was Treasurer. I refer to the report of the Indicative Planning Council for the housing industry. Senator Alston referred to that this afternoon in his address. He said that there had been a downtrend in housing under the Hawke Labor Government. But what he did not tell this chamber, the electorate or the people listening to the debate, was that the housing situation in Australia was much worse under the Howard Treasury of the Fraser Government. The downtrend occurred in the early 1980s. The fact is that the Indicative Planning Council is forecasting for the 1987-88 financial year some 128,000 housing commencements. That is not a downtrend when compared with the 121,000 commencements in 1986. I defy Senator Alston to say that that is a downtrend. Unless he has an inverted view of the world, it is clearly an increase in housing starts under the Hawke Labor Government. So that is the record and the comparison. Let us nail the Liberal myth about housing in Australia. The fact is that the housing sector is producing more dwellings. There is more work for housing industry employees than when Mr Howard was Treasurer. Yet the Liberals have proposed this matter today. Clearly, it is based on the premise that the Australian public has a short memory. That is the only basis that this matter of public importance can have, because the housing industry was clearly in a much worse position and in a much more parlous situation when Mr Howard was Treasurer. I simply refer to the letter to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) last week from the Housing Industry Association, a major housing body in Australia, which congratulated Mr Hawke and his Government on their achievements and their records in regard to housing in this country. That is a very important letter from a major housing industry organisation. It can see increased housing starts in this country, increased activity in the industry and increased employment in the industry. I simply refer to the fact that in May 1983 the total number of people in employment in the Australian housing and construction sector was about 420,000. By 1986, total employment had risen by 70,000 to some 490,000. The Housing Industry Association is well aware that there is more activity in the industry, there is more business and there are certainly more jobs for Australian building workers under the policies of the Hawke Labor Government. Under the Liberals, the housing industry was on its knees. There was excess capacity and there was a shedding of labour. I simply refer to the change in the figure for housing starts under Mr Howard. For example, in 1981-82 the number of new houses commenced-after all, the matter we are debating this afternoon is home ownership, not accommodation in flats or rental accommodation-under Mr Howard totalled 89,700. In 1982-83 that figure fell to 79,000. So over 10,000 fewer new houses were commenced in Australia in that 12-month period under Mr Howard. There was a massive fall in the housing industry and in housing opportunities for many Australians. This motion possibly has been prompted by the survey by the Real Estate Institute of Australia which was published over the weekend. I suspect that the proposing of this matter of public importance has partly been prompted by that survey, which claimed that in 1986 there was an increase in average home loan repayments of 24 per cent, or an increase of $124 a month in repayments. Of course, the survey is out of date. Old data is involved in the survey. There have not been rises in housing interest rates for over 12 months. I place that fact on the record for a start. Of course, the main thing that is wrong with the survey, the main fault contained in its analysis of the situation, is that it substantially overstates the increase in cost. It does not take into account the changing complexion of housing loans since the Government's housing package was introduced in April 1986. It does not take into account the fact that Australians now do not have to rely so much on very high interest rate personal loans to provide part of their housing finance as they did over 12 months ago. Nor does it take into account the fact that a higher proportion of housing loans granted by banks, for example, now are at the one interest rate. We do not have a composite of rates on different amounts of lending on different types of security within the one housing loan. So the survey significantly overstates any change in housing repayments in the last 12 months. It does not take into account the fact that the average rate paid on a range of loans is lower than it was 12 months before as a result of a reduction in the different types of loans being used by people to make up the total cost of a new home purchase. This position was exposed this morning. I do not have to say that I have calculated these figures. The Australian Bankers Association is on record this morning as saying that the survey overstates the figures. Clearly, Senator Messner has not read that. He has not been keeping up with the fact that the Australian Bankers Association has exposed, as we have exposed in this place, the weakness in the survey of the Real Estate Institute of Australia, which the Liberals have cited parrot fashion this afternoon, both during Question Time and in this matter of public importance. I refer the Opposition to the latest monthly summary of statistics issued by the Australian Treasury, the department officially in charge of regulating the Australian economy. The summary shows that there have been significant increases in the amount of funds lent for housing in the period up to February 1987. So we are not talking about 1986, as was the Real Estate Institute survey. We are talking about here and now-1987. The Treasury document shows that more funds had been lent for housing up to February 1987. Like all other Government members, I am concerned about the effect of interest rates on home loans. I know what interest rates mean in terms of the disposable incomes of Australian families. The Government is aware of the concerns of the electorate and the home-buying public about the impact of interest rates on loans. Let us have no fiction-as the Liberals would have the electorate believe-that interest rates just come out of the blue to stop people buying homes. That is the simple message being retailed around the electorates at the moment. The fact is that interest rates are high because of the country's balance of payments problems. People overseas are not paying high prices for our products. We are using interest rates to supplement our balance of payments policy. The Liberals do not want to hear about that. But the fact is that if the Australian dollar were to fall significantly in value as a result of there not being a capital flow to manage the dollar, the first effect would be an increase in inflation and the second effect would be an increase in interest rates because one of the key determinants of the level of interest rates in Australia is the rate of inflation. Those people who go around the community pretending that there is no balance of payments problem, saying `Let us have the easy solutions and not take the tough options', are really prescribing a recipe for higher inflation. That is basically what it is all about and the corollary of that is higher interest rates. This Government is taking action to set the foundations for interest rate cuts. On two occasions so far-and this will happen again tomorrow-the Government has examined the level of government spending in the community. We did that in 1983 and 1985-we will do it again this year-to reduce the prospective deficit of $9,600m that we inherited from the previous Liberal Government in 1983-84. That deficit is very well documented and was referred to in the excellent book by Mr Paul Kelly entitled The Hawke Ascendancy. In this episode of Australian political history, Mr Kelly shows how the $9.6 billion deficit emerged. I must say that it is one of the most gripping books I have read on politics. It certainly surpassed Gorky Park, which was the most exciting book I had previously read. Mr Kelly verified and in great detail showed the evolution of the $9,600m deficit under the Liberals. This Government, through expenditure cuts, has reduced that deficit to the order of $3,000m to $4,000m and this will have an impact in reducing pressures on interest rates. That is a very important factor to bear in mind. The Government is acting to reduce the rate of inflation. We are cutting cost of living rises. As I pointed out, interest rates importantly reflect the level of inflation in the community. One of the reasons that we had extraordinarily high interest rates in 1982-83 when Mr Howard was Treasurer-a number of commercial interest rates were above 20 per cent per annum-was that we had an extraordinarily high rate of inflation at that time. Mr Howard, as Treasurer, left double-digit inflation to be cleaned up by the Hawke Government. Inflation, which was running at 11.5 per cent per annum, was a very important factor in the high interest rates prevailing in 1982. Under this Government, the cost of living rise, the rate of inflation, is now running at 9.3 per cent. So the rate is over two percentage points lower than when Mr Howard was Treasurer. Inflation is trending down and that is a good precondition for reducing interest rates. The Australian dollar has become firmer due to the economic policies of the Government. That, in turn, has assisted reductions in interest rates. It is important to note that some of the key interest rates have been falling significantly in the commercial sector. The rates paid by banks as distinct from rates charged by banks-to borrow money for on-lending to consumers have been falling significantly. On 15 January, an interest rate of 17.7 per cent applied to 90-day or three-month bank bills. This morning's quotations on the money market show that the rate has fallen to 14.3 per cent. So, there has been a 3.4 percentage points reduction in interest rates on that key security. Interest rates on government bonds are now at their lowest level in over 12 months. Prime overdraft rates are declining. On Friday of last week, as I was preparing to leave Canberra after the sitting of Parliament, I heard on the radio that one of the lending institutions in this city-and I am sure that Senator Reid is aware of this-is reducing its home loan interest rates. I believe that a lending institution in New South Wales is now in the process of reducing its home lending rates. The commercial rates paid by institutions to borrow money which they on-lend have been falling. It seems that those reductions are now flowing over into the prime areas. As I pointed out, under the Labor Government there has been a rise in the number of new housing commencements compared with when Mr Howard was Treasurer. Importantly, that has been due to the introduction by this Government of the first home owners scheme. That scheme is income tested and helps middle and lower income Australians to overcome the rental trap and buy their own homes. They can receive lump sum assistance or payments over a five-year period. It is important to note that under this Hawke Government policy, over 200,000 Australians have been assisted and over $1,000m has been spent to boost home ownership. A very tangible sum of money-over $1,000m-has been spent by the Hawke Labor Government to boost home ownership. That is what we have done for home ownership. Over $1,000m has been spent under the first home owners scheme. Yet, the Liberals castigate this Government over housing when $1 billion has been allocated to housing under one scheme alone. From March this year we have relaxed the income test so that more potential home owners can take advantage of that scheme. It is estimated that that relaxation of the scheme will enable another 13,000 Australian families to purchase their own homes. So they are some of our housing achievements and some of the initiatives that we have taken to boost home ownership in Australia. The Government has relaxed the prudential requirements made of saving banks in Australia. Instead of having to keep 15 per cent of deposits in liquid form, the Government is now allowing banks to keep 13 per cent in that form. That will enable the banks to allocate more money for housing and should result in significant increases in housing allocations by the banks. Senator Alston referred this afternoon to public housing. I simply mention that under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, which is an arrangement by which the Federal Government of Australia makes grants and payments to the States and Territories for housing, there has been a substantial lift in funds. It is important to note that, in 1982-83 when Mr Howard was Treasurer, the total allocation of funds for housing under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement was $333m. In the current 1986-87 financial year the allocation of funds is $694m-so we have an increase from $333m to $694m, which is an amount more than double the effort of the Fraser Government when Mr Howard was Treasurer. A substantial real lift has occurred in public housing allocations through the Hawke Government and in this financial year some 40,000 public rental allocations will be made and some 14,000 home loans will be granted as a result of the funds paid through the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. That is the record of this Government-$1,000m spent under the first home owners scheme and more than a doubling of payment of funds to the States and Territories under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. While we have done those things, there has been an increase in new housing commencements under this Government compared with the situation when Mr Howard was Treasurer and, as I pointed out, there are now more jobs in the Australian housing and construction sectors. By contrast, under the previous Liberal Government we had falling employment and soaring unemployment-186,000 Australians were thrown out of work and on to the scrap-heap. Those people had no ability to purchase a home under the Fraser Government. By contrast, under the present Government 750,000 Australians have found work or have found new jobs. Obviously that could enable them to buy homes. Under the Liberal Government the dream of home ownership was destroyed and it became a nightmare, so senators opposite should not lecture us about housing or about home ownership in Australia. This matter of public importance claims that taxation is high under this Government. I will say what I have said in this place before and will say again in the future: Under the Fraser Government when Mr Howard was Treasurer the share of Australia's gross domestic product of our national income going in taxation rose-it did not fall. Despite the promise of tax cuts and despite the promise of reductions in tax at the beginning of the Fraser Government, the fact is that the share of Australia's gross domestic product going in taxation rose that 1.7 percentage points over that Government's life. So the Liberals, by their very record in government, are clearly incapable of cutting taxation. Therefore, they cannot lecture us about taxation and they cannot be credible in calling for lower taxation in the community because they were responsible for rising taxation in the Australian community. This afternoon honourable senators opposite have the cheek to attack this Government over home ownership; yet under Mr Howard they struck a series of sharp blows at home ownership. The previous Liberal Government presided over the 1982 recession; it threw 186,000 Australians out of work and turned the dream of home ownership into a nightmare for hundreds of thousands of Australians. The previous Liberal Government reduced new housing commencements while the present Hawke Labor Government has increased housing starts. Housing is one of the Hawke Government's major social objectives. Through the first home owners scheme and increased funding for public housing, the Hawke Government has turned the dream of home ownership into reality for many thousands of Australians. Senator HAINES(South Australia-Leader of the Australian Democrats)(3.55) —When I received the letter this morning indicating that this would be the topic for the matter of public importance today I was sorely tempted to save everybody's time and effort by seeking leave to incorporate in Hansard the speech that I made on the previous occasion when this matter was raised. On 25 February of this year Senator Archer introduced for debate a matter of public importance as follows: The need for the Hawke Government to reverse its high interest rate and high taxation policies which are having such a disastrous impact on home owners and prospective home owners throughout Australia. On that occasion I said something to the effect that it was staggering that on an almost quarterly basis in this place in all the years that I had been here and under all governments we have had a debate on problems facing home owners and the areas that could be attended to in order to sort out their problems. Today it is not Senator Archer who has introduced the matter of public importance but Senator Alston. The wording today is marginally, but not significantly, different. Today we are debating: The disastrous effects of Labor's high tax and high interest rate policy on home ownership by Australian families. I hate to disappoint Senator Gareth Evans, the Minister on duty, but I am not going to seek leave to incorporate in Hansard my previous speech, but there are one or two matters that certainly bear repeating. It is interesting that it is almost exactly three months since the last occasion when this matter was brought up for debate. I would hate anybody to think that I do not believe that this is an important issue that the Senate should be debating. I am not suggesting that we are wasting our time by looking at it again; I am saying that, like many other people, I suspect I am getting sick and tired of this and previous governments doing nothing but talking about the problems facing home owners, the problems facing Australian families because of the tax system, and in effect doing nothing much to correct the problems. The fact is that not only did the Fraser Government do nothing and not only is the Hawke Government currently doing nothing, but we currently see on both sides of politics-or at any rate whatever sides one can make out of a right wing Labor Government and an even further right wing Liberal Opposition-people still crying and complaining about the problem of homelessness and unaffordable home loans as well as insufficient public housing stocks while simultaneously recommending proposals that would make matters worse and refusing to adopt measures that could really help. Months ago I wrote to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) on this issue-in fact, it was shortly after the last debate that we had in this place on this question. In that letter I listed a number of actions that could be taken if affordable housing was really a high Government priority. To date I have not had so much as an acknowledgment of that letter. Senator Boswell —He has not written to you? It is a shame; it is disgusting. Senator HAINES —Maybe he has better things to do than attend to the concerns people have about housing affordability. Senator Boswell —You are the leader of a political party, so you should receive the courtesy of a reply. Senator HAINES —I would have thought that, more importantly, the topic was something that should excite the attention of the Prime Minister and his office at least sufficiently for him to have acknowledged that a letter-and a quite extensive letter at that-had been sent to him on this issue. So not only have I not had an acknow- ledgment, but I have also not had anything like an indication from the Prime Minister or from any other Government Minister about what they may or may not be considering as far as the proposals put forward in my letter are concerned or about any other proposals for ending the problems that currently face large numbers of Australian individuals and families in this country. In the February debate a number of senators, including myself, referred to what were then current Real Estate Institute of Australia figures from a national survey that it had conducted during the September quarter of 1986. The figures showed that families were paying on average something like 26.7 per cent of income to meet home loan repayments, and some were paying as high as almost 29 per cent. That is an extraordinary amount to come out of any family's income on a single item, that is, mortgage repayments. The most recent REIA figures-the ones that Senator Maguire spent some considerable time disputing-indicate that this picture has not changed much. I do not think it is worth our while spending time arguing whether it is 26.7 per cent or 25 per cent of income; it is still an enormous amount of money to go out of the income of a family or an individual to pay for that single item. Despite these figures and despite concerns that are generally being expressed in this place and elsewhere about the problem, the Government and the Opposition are still not prepared to acknowledge that continuing high interest rates come as a direct result of our essentially deregulated financial system and the inequities which exist within it, particularly inequities between private and business borrowers. Let me return for a moment to the letter to the Prime Minister that I mentioned earlier. It is an extremely long letter because it covers a range of issues. I have spoken to both the Minister on duty and to the Opposition front bencher on duty and have sought their approval, so I now seek leave to incorporate the letter in Hansard. Leave granted. The letter read as follows- PARLIAMENT OF AUSTRALIA THE SENATE Office of Senator Janine Haines Leader of the Australian Democrats 110 Hutt Street Adelaide, S.A. 5000 Tel (08) 223 1866 13 March 1987 The Rt. Hon. R. J. Hawke, M.P. Prime Minister Parliament House Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 Dear Prime Minister, The Australian Democrats urge your Government to accept the recommendations of the Australian Housing Industry Association that Superannuation Funds be required to provide housing loan assistance. The Australian Democrats have advocated such action for over 12 months. Set out below is an outline of proposals which would immediately inject desperately needed funds into the housing industry through the provision of loans at or below 13.5%. 1. Superannuation Fund Housing Investment Superannuation funds are a potential source of significant low cost housing finance. They presently hold assets worth in excess of $35 billion, and it was estimated in early 1986 that they had annual contributions in 1986 of $3 billion, a figure which may double as superannuation coverage spreads throughout the workforce. Superannuation Funds should be required to invest a percentage of new contributions in the provision of affordable housing loans. As demonstrated below this would not interfere with the Funds' primary responsibility to contributors. Superannuation Fund investments are diversified in order to spread their risks. A significant amount of their present investments are in assets which return below the level of the Bank home loan interest rate ceiling (i.e. 13.5%). The Commonwealth's Superannuation Fund Investment Trust (SFIT) for instance, holds 29.3% of its assets in Long Term Fixed Interest Investments which returned an average of 12.8% in 1985-86. A requirement therefore that SFIT exchange its long-term fixed interest investment portfolio (worth almost $1 billion) for housing loans at the ceiling rate of 13.5% would have led to an increase in Fund income. The proposal does not however require changes to existing investment portfolio. The requirement would be for a percentage, say 30% of new contributions to be invested in housing loans. This would release immediately $1 billion of new housing funds onto the market (at the present ceiling rate of 13.5%). All income from the housing loans would in turn be reinvested in further housing loans. Because Superannuation Funds pay no tax on earnings, an interest rate of 13.5% is equivalent to a markedly higher interest rate received by an institution subject to tax, such as Savings Banks. If one were to compound $1 billion at 13.5%, free of tax, it would grow to approximately $39 billion after 30 years. It can be seen therefore that a requirement that Superfunds invest in housing would not jeopardize their ability to provide adequate returns to contributors. 2. Retirement Savings Account Broad Outline The proposal is to establish a new category of Savings Account, available to retired persons not covered by Superannuation. The account would pay a rate of interest set by reference to housing interest rates, and all deposits held in these accounts would be provided for housing finance at an interest level set by the Government. All interest paid on the Account to depositors would be tax free. There would be a requirement for an ``income stream'' to be withdrawn from the account by the account holder. The account would attract funds presently held in investments which provide limited or no assistance to housing. Discussion Persons who have retired without superannuation-the majority of the workforce-but with some savings generally invest their retirement savings in Bank Accounts and various forms of securities on which interest is paid. If the interest exceeds $1,000 per annum provisional tax must be paid on the income. The combined effect of taxation plus inflation can erode the real value of the savings. For instance, an interest rate of 12 per cent is equivalent to an after tax rate of just over 9 per cent (tax at 24c in dollar). If inflation is running at over 9 per cent therefore, the real value of savings invested at 12 per cent would fall. As a consequence retired persons with savings are forced to invest in high interest bearing deposits or securities. If these deposits are a source of funding for housing construction the interest rate on the housing loans sourced from these deposits will of necessity be high, certainly well above the protected ceiling of 13.5 per cent. In many other cases-such as unit trusts and cash management trusts-the rate of return is high precisely because the investment is not in housing construction, but in other assets such as shares, or commercial property development. Those retired persons who are primarily interested in the soundness of their deposits will invest in Government issued securities, which are not targeted to the provision of housing finance, and Savings Banks accounts at levels of interest which frequently do not equal, after provision for tax, the rate of inflation. In summary the investment choices are (1) high interest bearing deposits or securities which do not provide housing finance, or which provide only expensive housing finance; (2) low interest bearing deposits or securities which may provide affordable housing finance (e.g. Savings bank accounts), but at cost to retired persons of their savings being eroded by inflation. The Retirement Savings Account would address both of these problems-it would provide affordable housing finance whilst still paying retired persons interest above the level of inflation. How would the Retirement Savings Account work? The RSA would pay a rate of interest set by reference to the protected ceiling on Bank housing loans. If the ceiling was the present 13.5 per cent the interest on the RSA could be, say 12 per cent, on the assumption that 1.5 per cent would be a sufficient margin to allow banks to recover their administration costs. There is some room for negotiation over the bank margin as the figures below illustrate. The income paid on an RSA would be tax free. The following figures give the RSA interest rate, and the equivalent interest rate if 24c in the dollar tax was being paid. RSA tax free interest Equivalent interest if 24c in $ tax paid % % 9.12 ... 12.0 9.88 ... 13.0 10.64 ... 14.0 11.4 ... 15.0 12.0 ... 15.8 Thus if the bank were to pay only 11.4 per cent, over 2 per cent below the rate at which it will on-lend it for housing (at 13.5 per cent), the retired person will receive interest equivalent to a 15 per cent return from a taxable investment, such as a cash management trust, or a finance company debenture. The RSAs would have a condition attaching to them equivalent to that governing Immediate Annuities, namely that an income stream would have to be withdrawn from the Account. There could be some flexibility in the way the income was withdrawn, e.g. a major withdrawal to purchase a capital asset, or pay for a holiday could be credited against the income withdrawal requirement. The Retirement Savings Account scheme would be a significant source of new affordable housing finance. It would also contribute to the equitable treatment of retirees who through no fault of their own are forced to rely on savings, rather than superannuation or tax sheltered annuities. 3. Interest on Housing Loan Repayments to be tax deductible Both the USA and the UK tax systems permit interest on purchase of home to be tax deductible. An equitable system of deductibility should be introduced in Australia. Such a system would, at the very least, provide a rebate for low and middle income earners paying high rates of housing interest. The revenue cost of such a scheme could be more than offset by removing or limiting the tax deductibility of interest on moneys borrowed from overseas to finance negatively geared takeovers. The social and economic benefits of tax deductibility for housing are, I would have thought, clearly greater than allowing the Bell Group, Bond Corporation or Elders IXL to derive tax free gains from their essentially non-productive takeover activity. While the average home buyer is paying average tax on earnings of around 30 per cent, Bell Group paid under 17 per cent in 1985-86, Elders paid just over 10 per cent and Bond Corporation 14 per cent. While this continues average families paying in excess of these amounts have every right to be angry. Yours sincerely, JANINE HAINES Senator for South Australia Leader of the Australian Democrats Senator HAINES —The letter actually covered three major areas that the Government should consider with regard to making housing more affordable. It considered the question of superannuation fund housing investment, the issue of setting up special retirement savings accounts, and, finally the issue, of the tax deductibility of interest on housing loan repayments, either in toto or in part. As far as the former was concerned, we made the point in the letter to the Prime Minister that superannuation funds are a potential source of significant low cost housing finance. These funds presently hold assets in excess of $35 billion, and it was estimated some 12 months or so ago that they had annual contributions at that time of about $3 billion, a figure which may double as superannuation coverage spreads throughout the work force. It seemed not only to us but also to a number of other people concerned about this area that those superannuation funds could well be required to invest a percentage of new contributions at least in the provision of affordable housing loans. They currently have amounts of money put aside in areas that bring in varying amounts of interest, and since the housing interest market is running at between 13 1/2 and 15 1/2 per cent, it is easily calculated that they will not be significantly damaged by this. What makes it more important that superannuation and life funds pay some attention to their responsibilities with regard to investment in the housing market is that they are currently very significant off-shore investors. Those funds enjoy tax free, tax concession status. To allow them to take significant amounts of money outside Australia for investment-essentially to speculate on the Australian dollar, and in doing so depleting domestic lending resources and pushing up interest rates as a consequence-is something that we should not continue to permit, at least not while allowing them tax free status at the same time. That is something that this Government could well be considering. Certainly it can allow the life and superannuation funds to retain tax free or tax concessional status, but only while they invest on-shore. Let them invest off-shore if they like, but do not allow them to retain that concessional status. They should not be entitled to have it both ways. The retirement savings account scheme, of which we gave the Prime Minister a broad outline in the letter of 13 March, was a proposal to establish a new category of savings account available to retired persons not covered by superannuation. The account would pay a rate of interest set by reference to housing interest rates and all deposits held in those accounts would be provided for housing finance at an interest level set by the Government. All interest paid on the account to the depositors would be tax free. This is a variation on a piece of legislation that we introduced some five or six years ago which would have allowed tax exemption of the first $1,000 in interest earned by a depositor who had put money, at a rate of 10 per cent or less, into a bank or building society which lent for home building or home buying purposes; that is, the interest would be earned on money in an account paying 10 per cent or less at such institutions. The final point that we put to the Prime Minister concerned the tax deductibility of interest on housing loan repayments. Australia is one of the few countries that do not allow at least partial tax deductibility of those repayments. Both the United States of America and the United Kingdom tax systems permit interest on the purchase of a home to be a tax deduction. We have not done that in this country for quite a long time, so that housing loan borrowers paying 13 1/2, 14 1/2 or 15 1/2 per cent are forced to pay out all of that while watching business borrowers, who certainly borrow at the higher rates of 17, 18 or 19 per cent, claim interest as a tax deduction. In doing so they pay, effectively, almost half that amount-that is, 8 1/2, 9 or 9 1/2 per cent. The inequity there is a fairly obvious one. It is made worse because while the average home buyer is paying average tax on earnings of around 30 per cent, the Bell Group Ltd and other extremely wealthy corporations are in a position to pay half that because of the tax concessions that they receive. I find it rather extraordinary, and I have said so in this place on a number of occasions, that somebody like John Elliott, mooted to be the best leader that the Liberal Party has had in decades, is threatening to take his company off-shore because he claims that companies pay too much tax in Australia, when all published figures-which he has not to my knowledge challenged-indicate that his company is paying something less than 11c in the dollar in tax. There is not an Australian family I know, even on average weekly earnings or less, who can get their tax payment down to that figure. What is helping these companies to achieve this rate of tax is that the interest paid on moneys that they borrow is a tax deduction and, as I have said, therefore their tax is effectively halved. What is worse is that by being halved this rate of tax has become taxpayer subsidised. So ordinary pay as you earn taxpayers are subsidising the frequently unproductive takeover bids and share raids of some of the wealthiest individuals and companies in this country and allowing them to pull their tax payable down to around 11c, 12c, 13c or perhaps as high as 15c in the dollar. Lack of tax deductibility of home loan interest repayments furthers the inequity that exists between average Australians and their families and these very wealthy companies and individuals. So these families have every reason and every right to be angry about the predicament in which they find themselves. To make matters worse, we have people like John Elliott and the New Right representative organisations recommending further cutbacks, further attacks on Australian families and less well off individuals. Cuts to health expenditure, cuts to education funding and cuts to welfare and housing grants are among the suggestions of certain right wing think tanks-groups in the community who believe, and probably quite rightly, that they have the ear of the official Opposition, in however many parts that may be at any given time. I think it is extraordinary that, with home ownership already under threat, people such as Professor Porter and his cronies could recommend the abolition of the first home owners scheme, and presumably cuts to grants to the States from which they provide public housing. While that sort of inequity continues, while the two groups in Australia-those on average weekly earnings or less and those on significantly high incomes-are treated so differently by governments, this chamber will go on debating on a quarterly basis the housing problems faced by Australian families. Senator BOSWELL(Queensland)(4.09) —The Senate is today debating as a matter of public importance the following important subject: The disastrous effects of Labor's high tax and high interest rate policy on home ownership by Australian families. The Australian Democrats and, I believe, the Government have made the criticism that honourable senators on this side of the chamber continually rerun this subject as a matter of public importance. Well might we rerun it at regular intervals, because the subject of this particular matter of public importance reflects the aspirations and ambitions of every young Australian family that wishes to own its own home. It is the very basis on which Australia is created-the right to own one's own home. We heard from that apologist for the Australian Labor Party, Senator Maguire, who is an academic. He made an academic speech. He is normally sent into this chamber with these riding instructions: `If you can't convince them, confuse them'. He ran out a whole string of statistics that only an academic economist would understand. Let me put it very clearly to the Senate and the Australian people: In 1984-85, 160,243 homes were built in Australia. In 1986-87, 122,223 homes have been built in Australia. That is a net loss of 38,000 homes built in Australia. Thirty-eight thousand fewer homes are being built in Australia now than there were two years ago. No matter how Government senators argue that the Labor Government has done magnificent things for the housing industry, they cannot deny the figures-that 40,000-odd fewer homes are being built in Australia than was the case two years ago. No matter what Senator Cook or any other Government senator says, those are the cold, hard facts. But those figures do not really give a true picture. They are just academic figures also. The true picture is given by some of the social workers out in the field who have to operate with people losing their homes, families being destroyed, and kids being sent to foster homes and fathers throwing in the towel in desperation thinking that they are failures because they cannot keep a roof over their children's heads. I should not be making a speech such as this; honourable senators opposite are the ones who say that they look after the battlers. They are not looking after the battlers; they are not doing anything for them. They are out there now. One has only to ring up a couple of social workers out in the field to get a real picture of what is happening in the Australian metropolitan areas. What is happening? I phoned a social worker today, not two hours ago. She said: `It's desperate. I've got people sleeping in cars; I've got kids being taken from their families and put in foster homes; I've got older people living with their families, putting the kids under the tremendous pressures of living with older generations'. These are the true pictures that should be painted when we say that fewer homes are being built and that the Government's policies are disastrous for the families of Australia. As I said, people are living in cars. It is a shocking indictment of the Hawke Labor Government. No one on the Government benches can be proud of this Government's record on housing or on families. It is absolutely disastrous. Forty thousand Australians do not even have a roof over their heads. That should shame every person in the Labor Party. Honourable senators opposite should hang their heads in shame over that figure, instead of coming in here trying to confuse the Australian people by saying how wonderfully well the Government is going. We find that today, under this Government, average monthly home repayments have gone up by $281. They were $350 a month before this Government was elected. They have now risen to $631 per month. That is not a figure that we have worked out; that is an independently arbitrated figure that has been put on the rise in home repayments. The proportion of family incomes spent on home loan repayments has gone up from 23.1 per cent a year ago to 26.1 per cent in the December quarter of 1986. When Labor came to power this proportion was only 18 per cent. That is also an indictment of the Government's family policy and its home policy. It is just not working but we come in here and listen to excuse after excuse. This situation is placing an absolutely intolerable burden on every family in Australia. People in business are affected because of the higher repayments that people have to make on homes. There is less money in the retail sector, less money to purchase cars and less money for people to go on holidays. For many families the annual two weeks away at the beach is the first casualty. Very few families can take that opportunity now to get away for two weeks and enjoy themselves without the pressures of business and work-just being a nice family together. The number of houses being repossessed in Australia at the moment creates a tragic situation. The number of people who are in arrears and in imminent danger of losing their homes is now something like 2,050. That number of homes is likely to be repossessed in the next two months. Interest rates have been at exorbitant levels over the last three or four years. The Labor Government has tried-I emphasise the word `tried'-to hold bank interest rates down by giving the banks a grant of $145m. But, again, the Government has completely missed the point. The people who can afford to get bank loans are people such as myself on relatively high incomes-business people and senior public servants. Those are the people who can go to banks and obtain a home loan. But the poor old battler-the mechanic, the medium range public servant or the school teacher-must obtain housing loans from building societies. So the Government has funded the wealthy and has forced housing loan interest rates up to around 17 per cent for people who have to seek accommodation through building societies. It is absolutely ridiculous that a person who needs to go to a building society has to pay the open market rate when the affluent person who can borrow money from a bank is subsidised by the Government. So again the Government has put the boot into the working class-the people who elected it. The Government is forcing the people who elected it to pay higher interest rates. It is forcing the people who traditionally support it, the workers, to pay higher interest rates while it subsidises the people who normally support honourable senators on this side of the chamber. The Australian Labor Party is supposed to care for the worker. Honourable senators opposite have no understanding even of what the worker needs. Home loan interest rates have risen from 11.5 per cent to levels of up to 17.5 per cent under the current ineffective Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr West). Home loans at the moment can be found at the rate of around 15.5 per cent. But every home owner is saddled with high interest rates. We must remember some of the statements of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). I think it is very useful for me to mention them. We can regularly refer to his comments on the rural industry, but in this instance let us look at what the Prime Minister said on interest rates during the 1985 election campaign. He said: Australians will during 1985 reap the interest rates rewards that are flowing from the successful policies of the past 20 months. We've ploughed the field and sown the seeds. In the very near future we will harvest the crop. What a blighted, failed crop it has been for the Australian home owner. In National Party terms, we would assist the Prime Minister by giving rural assistance to get him off the farm if that were the best crop that he could harvest. The Prime Minister's promises on interest rates, like so many of his other promises, have been broken. His promises to primary industry have been broken, his promises to the rural industries have been broken, and now his promises to the home buyers of Australia have been broken. In 1984 the Prime Minister again pledged to bring home ownership within the reach of every ordinary Australian, yet out there in the community thousands of homes are being repossessed. People's families are being destroyed as they place their children in foster homes. Sometimes when people seek emergency accommodation, there is none that can take four or five children and the mother and the father, so the mother has to live somewhere with the kids, if she is lucky, and the father has to seek accommodation elsewhere. That puts tremendous pressures on families. It not only destroys the great Australian dream of home ownership for all, but also destroys the family lives of many thousands of families in Australia as the pressures become too great and the father or the mother walks out because he or she cannot tolerate the thought of being a failure and of being unable to put a roof over the children's heads. Senator Cook —How would you bring interest rates down? Senator BOSWELL —I do not want to be diverted. I am not the Government, but I tell Senator Cook that if his Government could bring interest rates down within the reach of all Australians to enable them to purchase their homes, that would accommodate many problems-family problems and economic problems. Over the past three years, the number of homes built has decreased by 40,000. I just did a quick calculation in my head, and that represents $2 billion not going into the economy. Plumbers, carpenters and tilers are out of work, and builders are quoting just to enable themselves to eat, not to make a profit, and to keep their teams together if they can. They are trying to survive, hoping that another day will be a better day. We have heard the Prime Minister's promises to the rural industry. They have as much credibility as Zsa Zsa Gabor's marriage vows: No one takes them very seriously at all. In the past three years, over 40,000 homes that should have been built have not been built. In the period from 1984-85 to 1986-87 home building has decreased by 40,000 homes. In the short time that I have left, I shall deal with the rental market. The capital gains tax and the abolition of negative gearing measures have devastated the rental market. For every 100 Australians looking for a home to rent in Melbourne, there is 0.7 of a house available. Senator COOK(Western Australia)(4.25) —We are today debating what the Standing Orders choose to describe as a matter of public importance. The so-called matter of public importance, which has been proposed by a Victorian Liberal senator, Senator Alston, is an undisguised attack on the Government's housing policy. We have just been favoured with the ranting rebuke of the National Party, a humourless rebuke which is peculiarly its own and which can best be summarised by the fact that, when I asked Senator Boswell how he intended to reduce interest rates, he skirted that matter saying `Don't bring technicalities into this argument' and continued on his rave. Senator Lewis —He did not say that at all. That is not true. Withdraw. Senator COOK —The Hansard record will show what he said. I stand absolutely by the description of Senator Boswell's reply as skirting the issue. That demonstrates more clearly than any other argument that there is no policy from the National Party for the control of home loan interest rates, and the Government thanks Senator Boswell for making that clear. Senator Alston, who brought forward this matter of public importance, is a junior back bencher and it may be said that he has been asked to go in to bat while the heavies of his Party concentrate on preparation for the May economic statement, to be brought down by the Government tomorrow, which itself will have a major impact on interest rates in Australia. That is not a comment from the Government, although it would be a fair comment for the Government to make; it is a comment made in the financial pages of the various newspapers circulating throughout this country by the heads of various banks. They are awaiting this statement, which will have an impact on interest rates. Senator Alston has been placed in double jeopardy by his more senior colleagues, who have given him the impossible job of arguing this matter and have left him without any protection. For example, it is pertinent in this matter of public importance brought forward by the Liberal Party to ask: If the Liberal Party is attacking this Government on its taxation measures, what is that Party's tax policy? I recall that just last week John Elliott, the aspiring new leader of the front bench of the Liberal Party, asked for the Party's tax policy to be made clear. I think it was Andrew Peacock who on the Sunday program also joined in the chorus for the tax policy to be released. We know that the policy of the Joh show, if it ever gets under way, is for a flat earth tax, a 25 per cent flat tax which is counterproductive to all the things that have been espoused by Senator Boswell-but that type of inconsistency has never bothered the National Party. We know from various leaked reports and comments by John Howard that the Liberal Party is flirting with an 8 per cent consumption tax, which will have a massive impact on inflation in this country. If it is fair enough for the Opposition to have a go at the Government-and I accept that it is-it is fair enough and pertinent for us to ask the Opposition what it would do in these circumstances. The reply to that on taxation policy is a deafening silence. The Opposition has not brought forward its policy and, until it does, its approach in handling these matters cannot be judged effectively by anyone. Thus, it must be condemned. I said that Senator Alston was in double jeopardy. The second problem he confronted in bringing forward this matter of public importance was what the Liberal Party's housing policy is. That is, indeed, a fascinating read for anyone who takes an interest in what an opposition that is never likely to be in government is proposing, in the depths of its own internal divisions, to be a housing policy. The housing policy it is proposing has been taken over by the cost cutters in the Liberal Party because it seeks to abolish what in fact is the jewel in the crown for welfare housing in Australia, the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. That has disappeared into the maw of the cost cutting machine, as the ultra dries regain control of the front bench of the Liberal Party. In reality, that cut would mean that the people on whose behalf the Opposition has been talking as the self-appointed spokesmen, the welfare home aspirants, would be placed in the worst imaginable circumstances ever, because a cut in welfare housing funds would result in the possibility of their obtaining housing going straight out the window. A cut in welfare housing funds would put massive pressure on rental accommodation and push up rents beyond the level which those on welfare can pay. That is the Opposition's policy, yet it criticises us this afternoon for having an organised approach to resolving Australia's housing difficulties. Further than that, its policy proposes a gutting of the first home owners scheme, a scheme that has been very effective in producing a massive number of new housing commencements in Australia since it was introduced by this Government. Part of this debate today revolves around the subject of interest rates. It must be said that no one in the Australian Labor Party takes comfort from the level of interest rates that are commonly available in the market today. We would all like to see them lower. The question, though, is: What is the best way to reduce them? At the moment one can see that the macroeconomic policy of the Hawke Government is having an effect on bringing interest rates down. Since mid-February the official yields have been reduced by 3 per cent for shorter maturities; they are coming down. The 10-year bonds have fallen by 1 1/2 per cent. The major bank prime rates are down by up to three-quarters of one per cent, to about 17 1/2 per cent-and some banks are lower. Indeed, the Civic Advance Bank Ltd has announced lower rates. The following report appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of 9 May: The first signs of an easing in home mortgage rates became apparent yesterday when Citibank cut its rates from 16.5 per cent to 15.75 per cent. Mortgage rates are teetering on the brink of reductions as the general commercial rates available in the market fall. They fall because of the major economic settings that this Government has put in place. When we came to office we inherited a projected Budget deficit in excess of $9 billion. In the 1986 Budget we reduced that deficit to $3.5 billion, a reduction in that Budget of $2.5 billion. The May economic statement, which is due tomorrow, will reduce that deficit even further, thus taking pressure off the money market. We are now looking at an improving trend in the balance of payments results, and our wages policy has meant that wages are not the factor that they were when the Fraser Government was in power. The Hawke Government is committed to, and will deliver, a reduction in the public sector borrowing requirement as well. If one follows the tabulation and the fortunes of the Australian dollar one can see that it is holding reasonably well at present. All those things together mean that, as the market is showing in the commercial field, we can expect an imminent reduction in home loan interest rates. That outcome will take hold throughout the rest of this year. People holding home mortgages will benefit considerably because the economic policy of the Government is beginning to work through the system and produce the results that are necessary to get the economy back to the level for which we aim. In that area I believe there can be no real criticism of the Government's policies which are producing the results. Those results are slow in coming-slower than we would like-but one would say that, in the face of a $900m turnaround in our terms of trade over the last year, because we inherited the old policies of the Fraser Government, it has been what the market regards as a good performance. However, it is important to put that record alongside of the record of the current Opposition. When we gained office the housing industry was in bad shape. There were only 105,000 commencements in 1982-83. By 1984-85 we had got that up to 152,700-a 45 per cent increase on 1982-83 and the highest number of commencements since 1973-74. Since then, in the face of the strong macroeconomic framework about which I have been talking, there has been a fall-off. In 1985-86 there were 136,000 commencements, still 30 per cent more than in 1982-83, the last comparable period of the Liberal Government. The Indicative Planning Council for the housing industry, headed by Professor Fred Gruen, is predicting 118,000 commencements Australia-wide in 1986-87 and an upturn of 124,000 to 128,000 in 1987-88. Those predictions by the Indicative Planning Council show that the track that we are following is right. In March this year we brought down a new housing package which broadened the eligibility for the first home owners scheme and has provided for strong funding for public housing. Employment in housing and construction has significantly increased since we came to office. In August 1986, 491,000 people were employed in housing and construction industries-70,000 more than in May 1983, the comparable period under the Liberal Government. The Labor Government's record in home lending is much better than the record of the Opposition. In the last three years of government by this Opposition there were 735,000 home loans from major lenders, compared with 914,000 for the three years under Labor since 1983. On average there were 305,000 home loans per year in the first three years of Labor Government compared with an average of 245,000 per year in the last three years of the Liberal Government. Under Labor the value of home loans has been $21.1 billion for the last three years; under the Liberals it was $11.7 billion. In terms of the comparison of performance, which is the basic benchmark that one must go by, ours has been much more impressive because, under our economic leadership, the economy has come back and we are getting our balance of payments under control. Since the March 1987 package which set out, as I said, to lift the peg on interest rates and abolish the subsidy to the banks, interest rates have remained at around 15.5 per cent and, as I have said, they are tipped to go down. As well, we caused $900m to go into bank loan funds by changing the bank assets reserve requirements. Also, we have broadened the eligibility for the first home ownership scheme. Lending now is strong. The market reports that building activity is good. If there is any question in terms of what the industry thinks about our policies and how the industry regards those doomsayers on the other side as to the future of housing, let me quote what the Australian Financial Review of 11 May had to say about the Real Estate Institute of Australia survey on the affordability index for housing. It said: However, the survey's conclusions have been challenged by the Housing Industry Association and Australian Bankers' Association. It continued: Dr Ron Silberberg, the national executive director of the Housing Industry Association, said: `If anything, housing should have become more affordable over the last 12 months. Interest rates have come down-although they are still too high; house prices are flat; incomes have been growing and tax cuts will soon be made. This has brought repayments down to a level the average family can afford.' The article runs on: Dr Silberberg pointed out that the `affordability index' used by the Real Estate Institute . . . did not take account of the changing structure of housing finance. The Australian Bankers Association went on to give a similar eulogy to the current state of the market. On the basis of that and what the Housing Industry Association said in its letter to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) praising this Government for its role in the housing area, one can only draw the conclusion that, in the absence of any policies at all from the Opposition, it does not have a clue that our sober management of the economy, achieving reasonable goals and turning around the economy, is bringing about the dream of home ownership for most Australians. Senator HAMER(Victoria)(4.40) —The Senate is considering the following matter of public importance: The disastrous effects of Labor's high tax and high interest rate policy on home ownership by Australian families. The two Australian Labor Party senators who have spoken in this debate-Senator Maguire and Senator Cook-have confirmed that that statement is absolutely accurate. All they have been able to say is that it has not really been the Labor Government's fault. How much longer are we going to hear this nonsense that nothing that happens is its fault; it is all someone else's fault? Senator Robertson —You did it for seven years. Senator HAMER —The Labor Government has been in power for more than four years and it is about time it started getting its act together and stopped trying to pass the buck. The blame is the Government's and the Government's alone. Senator Cook's final words about the dream of home ownership are what this Government has reduced home ownership to for many Australians-a dream, not a reality. When we look at housing we have to look at four different aspects of it. First, there is the question of the costs of new loans to acquire houses and the ability of the average Australian home seeker to afford those loans. Secondly, there is the question of what happens to people who have existing loans. Thirdly, there is the question of what happens to welfare housing. By the way, Senator Cook grossly misrepresented Liberal Party policy on this matter. Finally, there is the question of the availability of rental accommodation. Let me look at each of these matters in turn. I turn firstly to acquiring a new loan for a house. For a typical loan of about $46,000 at an interest rate of 15 1/2 per cent, monthly repayments are $620, which comes out of after-tax income. How many families can really afford that much? And that is for a cheap house. It is very difficult to find houses in Melbourne for $45,000 or $46,000. That is what the result of the policies of this Government has inflicted on the Australian community. Of course the $620 is for a loan at an interest rate of 15 1/2 per cent. A person would be very lucky to get a loan at 15 1/2 per cent. Most borrowers would be paying substantially more. I turn to existing loans. For a typical existing loan from a bank under the cocktail arrangement of, say, $38,000 at 13 1/2 per cent and $8,000 at 19 per cent-that would be a typical arrangement-monthly repayments are $605. Home loan interest costs have gone up 25 per cent in the last two years. Since the Hawke Government came to power average home loan repayments have increased by $280 a month. The average Australian home buyer is paying $280 a month more now than he was when this disorderly Hawke Government came to power. We have heard some disputes over figures about the relationship of average home loans to median family income. If anyone examines them, he will see that they are quibbles about detail, not dispute about the thrust of the facts. In 1983 repayment of the average home loan took 19.2 per cent of median family income; in December 1984 it took 20.3 per cent. In December 1986 26.9 per cent of median family income went to pay off the average home loan and this is well beyond the means of many Australian families. Remember that this is paid out of after-tax income. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the second half of 1986 81 per cent more home loans were in arrears than was the case during the second half of the year before. The third point I raise is the question of welfare housing. I would first like to say in answer to Senator Cook that our policy is not to abolish welfare housing or to stop support for it; our policy is to stop the confusion that exists with the Commonwealth and State governments both being in the same field. We are aiming to transfer this responsibility to where it rightly belongs-on the State governments-because the present system is not working at all well. In June 1983, soon after the Hawke Government came to power, 124,000 people were on the public housing waiting lists. In June last year-that is, after three years of Hawke Government misrule-the number had increased from 124,000 to 157,000. Thirty-three thousand more people were on the public housing waiting lists after three years of Hawke rule than there were before. It sounds like the hospital queues, does it not? The fourth aspect is the availability of rental accommodation. Rental vacancies are at the lowest level ever. In Melbourne at the end of February this year the rate was 1.9 per cent, and it has been steadily declining. Demand is very high but listings are very difficult to obtain and, of course, prices are going up. This is the direct result of government policy, in particular its tax changes to eliminate negative gearing for rental properties. There was some talk by Senator Cook and others about the required rate of construction of new houses. I think it is fairly well accepted that with our present population level we need about 135,000 new houses a year. Last year there were 144,000 and this year the number looks like sinking to about 110,000, well below our needs to meet the requirements of the community. The reason for this is the gross mismanagement of the economy by this Government. What we have been locked into, by the almost unbelievable mismanagement of the economy by this Government, is a situation in which we have high tax and high inflation-our inflation rate is five times that of our trading partners-and as a consequence of high inflation and our trading problems we have high interest rates. We will not be able to get our interest rates down until we improve our balance of payments, and we will not get the investment necessary to improve our balance of payments until we get interest rates down. This incompetent Government has locked us into a very dangerous economic situation. I mentioned interest rates because they are critical both to housing and to investment in manufacturing industry, which is the key to our recovery. Look at the figures. In March 1987 prime interest rates in Australia were 18.5 per cent; in Japan, 5.2 per cent; in West Germany, 8.45 per cent; in France, 9.6 per cent; in the United Kingdom, 11 per cent; and in the United States, 7.5 per cent-and in Australia, 18.5 per cent. Senator Cook said, quite correctly, that our interest rates had come down since then but, quite incorrectly, he said that this was because of the effective workings of the Government's economic policies. In fact it has been a world-wide trend and interest rates in all of the other countries I mentioned have come down more than ours. To say that this small drop in interest rates is the result of successful Government policies is absolute nonsense. I was interested to read some comments by the Federal Government's Business Regulation Review Unit. It had some interesting comments to make about why the Australian economy has not achieved growth. It stated-and it is the Government's own unit: National savings have been low, largely due to the taxation regime discouraging savings and investment. It also stated: There is excessive intervention by the Government through economic and social regulation. The wage determination and other labour market processes are inflexible. They surely are. We have now got ourselves into a situation from which our way out will be very difficult. I do not know what the Government will announce tomorrow but I do know that what it will announce will be too little too late. Every month the Government delays taking these actions makes recovery slower and more difficult. The great crime of this Government is that it has tried to conceal from the Australian people the reality of the economic situation. It has failed to take action in a timely fashion and has failed to make the Australian people realise the united effort that is necessary in both investment and work practices for us to trade our way out of our difficulties. The Government has tried to con the Australian people and, listening to some Government senators, it appears to have ended up conning itself. If we are to tackle this tax problem which is highlighted by the Government's own Business Regulation Review Unit, we must reduce expenditure. If we do not reduce expenditure at the same time as we cut taxes, all we will do is increase inflation and interest rates which will harm sections of the economy such as housing. Government expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product has risen over the years from 22.3 per cent in 1960 to 23.7 per cent in 1970 and 30.1 per cent last year. Even with the developing economic crisis, the Hawke Government introduced $816m worth of new programs this financial year. Yet now it is talking about cuts. Those cuts should have been made last year or the year before. If the Government share of GDP were reduced to that of 1970 or to the pre-Whitlam rate of 23.7 per cent, $12 billion a year would be saved on government expenditure, even after allowing for the present unemployment rate. This would allow for a 40 per cent cut in income tax. The second matter which we must tackle because it directly affects interest rates, and therefore directly affects housing, is inflation. Our inflation rate is five times that of our trading partners and the effect of this is that we are constantly pricing ourselves out of markets. Our fundamental internal problem is that our spending power is grossly beyond what it should be. It is in excess of what we earn from our exports and what we generate in our internal economy. For a country such as ours to be granting itself wage increases must appear insane to outsiders. Singapore, with a much less serious problem, gave itself a 16 per cent wage cut, yet we are gaily granting ourselves wage increases which are increasing our spending power, our inflation and our interest rates, and harming all of us. Of course our terms of trade have turned against us. We must get new investment in manufacturing industry and, to a lesser extent, tourism. We must overcome all the appalling restrictive practices that mean Australian workmen, using identical equipment, produce very much less than our foreign competitors. The really alarming aspect of our present economic crisis is that the new investment in plant and equipment which should have resulted from the rapid fall in the dollar under this Hawke Government has not yet started. Our recovery will not begin until we see a sharp rise in investment in new plant and equipment so that we can overcome the pressure on the Australian dollar which in turn affects interest rates which in turn affects housing. All these things are interlinked and must be tackled as a whole. This incompetent Government does not seem able to see these matters as a whole. People who can see clearly the way we must go are assailed by snake oil salesmen on either hand. On one hand they have the Hawke Government saying that the J-curve is just around the corner-that J-curve is a very long time coming-and that we must stick to the accord because that will get us out of our trouble. But the accord is the fundamental problem that we must face because we are linking ourselves to increased wages we are not earning. On the other hand they have people saying that all we need to solve our problems are tax cuts and a small amount of union bashing. Merely cutting taxes and doing nothing else would increase our spending power and make our present serious situation disastrous. We must have an organised and co-ordinated effort to tackle this problem, to get new investment in plant and equipment in manufacturing. We must overcome all the restrictive work practices that make our production much more expensive and less adequate than that of other countries. When we get our economy right, our interest rates will fall and then we will be able to provide the Australian people with the conditions and accommodation that they deserve. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(4.55) —The Opposition must be congratulated for raising the question of housing-the need to build more houses and the need to provide houses for people without them. However, once we have congratulated Opposition members for raising these matters we really cannot go ahead and congratulate them for providing any answers to these problems. Indeed, they produced no answers to the problems, with the exception of the last speaker, Senator Hamer, a very experienced senator and a very skilled debater. It is interesting to look at his solutions to the problems. He said that there are all sorts of problems for Australia, yet we allow ourselves wage increases. He went on to say that Singapore workers had taken a 16 per cent wage cut. From that I take it that he means there should be a wage cut for Australian workers. This matter of public importance was brought before the Senate by the Opposition which says, quite correctly, that we should do as much as we can for those people without houses. The one positive suggestion that has been put forward by inference is that there should be a 16 per cent wage cut so that a person who is on $400 a week will get $64 less before he or she pays tax. How can the Australian dream be attained-that is, how can a person obtain a house-when it appears that the Opposition's policy is, first of all, to cut wages by 16 per cent? How will that help somebody to buy a house? Secondly, it has been said that something should be done for housing. We say that of course something should be done. But what is the Opposition going to do about it? The question that has been properly raised is: What about taxation policy? We are still waiting for the Opposition's taxation policy. It is clear from what the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, has said that there will be great cuts in the taxes that are presently imposed upon the Australian people. The fringe benefits tax will go, the deductibility of entertainment expenses will be reallowed and the capital gains tax will go. These changes will cost $18 billion-$18 billion worth of promises. The only way they can be paid for and the only thing we can surmise, given the fact that nothing definite has been stated, is that a consumption tax will be imposed upon the Australian people. So far the Opposition's program has taken $64 a week from the person on a wage of $400 a week-to overcome the fact that it apparently thinks that the people of this country are being paid too much-and having done that it will then impose a consumption tax. This tax will, no doubt, be placed on everything that is needed to build a house-the timber, the nails, the windows, et cetera. The proposition put so far is that we reduce wages and we increase the price of houses by imposing a consumption tax. Apparently that is the policy that has been put forward by the Opposition. That sort of approach, that attitude, that climate which would be created, probably indicates why, under the previous coalition Government, only 105,000 homes were commenced in 1982-83. When this Government came to power this figure was increased to 152,700 in 1984-85. I do not want to avoid the next figure, which shows that in 1985-86 only 136,000 homes were commenced in Australia. That is the figure that Senator Boswell cited. He said that there was a decrease between the 1984-85 period and the 1985-86 period. That is quite correct. But the interesting thing is that the Opposition, in putting the argument, in order to show a fall, had to refer to periods during this Government's time in office. It was unable to compare periods during the previous Government's time in office. When that is done, it indicates there has been a massive increase in the number of homes built. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) was able to say, in answer to a question yesterday, that there has been a 42 per cent real increase in public housing funds since the Government came to office. He was able to say that by June this year we will have enabled the best part of a quarter of a million home owners to be assisted into home ownership by the first home owners scheme. The Minister for Housing and Construction, Mr West, referred yesterday to the March housing package that he produced. Of course, that was not dealt with by the Opposition in this debate. Nevertheless, in that package the 13.5 per cent ceiling on loans made before April 1986 was preserved. The bank reserve asset ratio requirement was reduced from 15 to 13 per cent. As I understand it, more money-about $900m-will be released to the banks and will be available for housing finance, if the banks so choose. Does the Opposition object to that? Does it object to this Government releasing an amount of $900m to the banks so that they can direct it to home loans if they so desire? This Government has increased the income limits for the first home owners scheme. The Government has made a commitment to provide $700m a year for housing finance over the next three years by way of grants through the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement. Those are some positive things that this Government has done, and that it will do in the future. I contrast that with the policy put forward today of reducing real incomes of people and adding to the burdens of building a home by increasing consumption tax. That is the proposition that has been put forward today. Indeed, that was the approach that was taken from the start. Senator Alston, who opened this debate, said during his speech that interest rates will burn this Government out of office. It seems, therefore, that this debate was not aimed so much at showing concern for home owners; it was a matter of trumpeting prematurely a hoped for victory at the polls. That is a political approach that people might take. It may seem that the concern that Senator Alston was showing for home owners does not, as it were, go beyond-and in fact carries less weight in his mind than-the fact that he is keen to see this Government thrown out of office, and that any way in which it can be thrown out, through interest rates or what have you, is a good thing. We on this side of the chamber take a different view. Our concern is for the people who are without homes, those people whom Senator Boswell described, those people who-and it is a scandal for the nation-do not have homes and who must live in caravan parks and in cars. The fact is that these people who are without homes or who have sub-standard housing are placed under stress and strain that leads to the break-up of marriages and all sorts of problems with children. We on this side are concerned about that. We do not seek to make political points as did Senator Alston with his trumpeting call that interest rates will burn the Government out of office. That was his triumphal cry. We do not make that cry. We take the point that there is a need for housing and we are doing something about it. The other point I want to make about Senator Alston's speech is this: He begrudged the $7,000 given to the Tenants Union so that it could hold a national conference. On the one hand he criticises this Government for not doing enough about housing, for not showing enough compassion and for not trying to help people who are in need of homes; yet, on the other hand, when $7,000 is allotted to the Tenants Union so that it can hold a national conference to see what can be done about this problem, he criticises the Government in the most trenchant terms. Where is the Opposition's heart when it takes that approach to this very serious problem? Indeed, it is one of the great problems faced by this nation. Senator Hamer said: `Of course, when one takes an approach on the question of housing, one must look at it in terms of general macro- economic policies'. That is correct. That is the way in which it should be approached at a particular level. There should not only be concern to see that money is put into housing, but also the situation should be arranged so that people can afford to buy their own homes, so that they can achieve that great dream which is in all of our hearts, so that that happy state is achieved in which everybody is able to buy a house. Of course, that should be done and that is what this Government is doing in terms of its economic policies. It has reduced taxes. The coalition was not able to achieve that. It has brought down the rate of tax at the top marginal level from 60c to 49c. People earning $12,600 and below will have to pay only 24c in the dollar. It has reduced the rate of tax. At a time when billions of dollars have been cut from the amount of money coming to this country, it has succeeded in bringing some equity to the adjustments that have been needed in the community. Much of this debate has arisen because of a matter that was raised yesterday by the Real Estate Institute of Australia. It berated, by inference, the Government for the housing situation. That position was met by people who are independent of this Government. It is worth quoting some of the things they said, as set out in an article on page 5 of the Australian Financial Review of Monday, 11 May. The article reads: The Australian Bankers Association executive director Mr Alan Cullen said many of the State increases were due to higher housing prices, not higher home loan interest. Of course, the Government cannot do anything about the price of houses; the private sector looks after that matter. It is very much at the heart of the Opposition's policies. It believes that free market forces should operate. What does it say if the price of houses goes up? Does it say that they should or should not go up? That, of course, was not answered by Opposition senators today. The article continues: The banks have not been witnessing any shortage of housing funds or home loan customers. It is worth repeating that statement: The banks have not been witnessing any shortage of housing funds or home loan customers. It continues: And while Mr Howard's- the Leader of the Opposition's- statement yesterday used data compiled by the Housing Loan Insurance Corporation which showed 81 per cent in home loans in arrears in the second half of 1986 compared with the same period in 1985, Mr Cullen- I remind listeners that Mr Cullen is the Australian Bankers Association executive director- said few people were defaulting on home loans, or asking their banks to reschedule their home-loan repayments. In referring to that article in the Australian Financial Review, I do not want to belittle the real problems, the heartbreaks and the concerns of many because of the fact that housing of adequate quality is not available to them. If we are to look at this question of housing, let us look at it in a realistic fashion. Let us look at it in terms of the correct figures, and let us look at it with compassion, not in a political, point-scoring way. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator MacGibbon) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(5.10) —Senator Alston has submitted that the Senate consider: The disastrous effects of Labor's high tax and high interest rate policy on home ownership by Australian families. This Government was re-elected on a promise of tax and social reforms which would stimulate the economy and provide employment, abolish poverty traps and provide shelter and housing for all Australians. Its promises are like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They have not materialised and will not materialise. We all know how the Government lost its nerve at the National Taxation Summit. We have all seen the downturn in the economy which we have suffered since then. By now we all recognise that this is a Government pre-occupied with corporate welfare rather than with social and individual welfare for all Australians. In an attempt to maintain apparent buoyancy in the economy and to keep money flowing into Australia, the Government has adopted a policy of appeasement towards outside financial and media powers. It is using high interest rates to attract foreign investment funds into Australia. It is turning a blind eye to the disastrous effects that these high interest rates are having on the Australian internal economy, particularly on our balance of external trade, and on housing moneys. The result of the large capital inflows is a rise in the value of the Australian dollar. This makes our exports uncompetitive with those of other export competing nations. It also encourages imports rather than allowing the natural market forces to stimulate local production. The Government's imported nightmare of high interest and low productivity, coupled with the rapacious tax regime that the Government applies to individuals rather than to companies, means the death of the great Australian dream-a home of our own. High interest rates send small businesses and farming enterprises over the brink into bankruptcy and desperation. High interest rates mean that unemployment once again is soaring and takeovers are reaching a record level, while home building is depressed. High interest rates divert savings away from productive investments and housing into speculative ventures on financial and property deals and on the share market. It is not necessary for internal interest rates to mirror the external interest rates which are applied in Australia. High unemployment and high housing costs have pushed government expenditure to record levels. This is being paid for by those still working, by increasingly harsh taxation which is falling more and more on lower income earners. The Government has also failed to come to grips with tax reform. For country people, the problem is even greater. Some of them are even losing their family homes under the current regime. The first home, however large, is free from capital gains tax yet the option of even owning a small place is denied to young Australians starting up in the work force because of high interest rates and impossible loan repayments. In fact, the Government has failed in the principles of good business management-of the conservation of resources and assets, of minimising costs and of providing proper incentives for the people in Australia incorporated. The Government is not providing enough money for people to live well, own a house and raise a family. This dream-the dream of a home of your own-will disappear into the distance like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator MacGibbon) —Order! The time under Sessional Orders for debate has expired. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce) —I seek leave to make a ministerial statement relating to the tourism industry, to incorporate the statement in Hansard and to move a motion relating to the statement. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- I rise today to make a ministerial statement on a matter of major importance not only to members in this Parliament but to all Australians who have an interest in the future of their country. I refer of course to the tourism industry. I guess in some ways this is an analysis of the Hawke Government's five year stewardship of this industry. It is difficult to overstate the importance of tourism to the national economy. This year alone tourism will contribute $24,000m to our gross domestic product, making it our largest industry in turnover terms. Tourism will also contribute almost three thousand million dollars in foreign currency income to Australia. The tourism industry is now growing at a spectacular rate and currently employs more than 405,000 Australians in a huge variety of occupations scattered over the whole country. This of course makes it the largest individual employer in the nation. However, this bright picture of tourism is in stark contrast to the dismal shambles we inherited when coming to office in March 1983. For the whole of the Fraser Administration, tourism had been neglected and the industry was expected to struggle along by itself. The Department of Tourism having, been set up by Frank Stewart in the Whitlam Government from 1972 to 1975, had been dismantled and tourism was conducted in the Fraser years by a handful of people working virtually out of a cupboard in the Department of Industry and Commerce. Thus the potential that Australia had in tourism was neglected. In my three years as a shadow Minister in the Labor Opposition prior to coming into office in 1983 I realised the extraordinary potential that Australia had in the tourism industry and set about producing a document `The Future of Tourism in Australia' which eventually became the Labor policy for tourism for the 1983 election. This paper set out a series of moves dedicated to turning what was then a fragmented enterprise into a major integrated industry. In hindsight the decisions that we took in opposition were correct, because what has happened since we implemented this blueprint for the industry is that tourism is now the biggest industry in Australia. Not only has the Commonwealth Government become active in the promotion of tourism but the State governments, which were as moribund as the Federal Government in that period prior to 1983, have now also become very actively involved as well. The document that we put together pointed to four main areas that needed attention if Australia were to become a tourism force. They were (1) promotion, (2) incentives for development, (3) incentives for overseas investment and (4) staff training. There were other related changes which were also included in that document. All of which have been implemented and all of which have become integral parts of the sophistication of this hugely successful industry. I would like to draw the attention of the House to the moves we made in these four main areas and how these threads, having been drawn together gave this industry the opportunity to develop into the major concern it has now become. First of all, promotion. The Australian Tourist Commission formed in the late 1960s had achieved some recognition in the time of the Whitlam Government. However under the Fraser Government it was almost wiped out. Denied funding staff and resources. The need to promote Australia overseas is of course fairly obvious. Australia was the best kept secret in the world and with all we had to offer we really needed to promote Australia as a holiday destination. Funds for the tourist commission under this Government have been trebled from ten million to thirty million dollars and of course this enabled us to fund the very successful Paul Hogan series of commercials which have revolutionised the promotion of Australia overseas, particularly in the United States. Prior to 1983 the number of international tourists visiting Australia was 950,000 per year with 1.4 million Australians travelling overseas every year in desperation because of the lack of proper facilities in Australia. In 1987 we will have 1.7 million visitors to Australia, and in 1988 2.2 million which is a huge increase over the 950,000 which I mentioned was our figure for international tourism in 1983. Replacing the old kangaroo-koala duumvirate with a new human face for Australia has obviously been a master stroke. On the reverse side of the coin more Australians than ever are choosing to stay at home. The need for the building of infrastructure was fairly obvious. In the Budget of 1983, the Government decided to increase the depreciation rate on buildings for the tourist industry from two and a half to four per cent. The stimulative effect of this initiative is now very clear. The face of tourism infrastructure in Australia has been revolutionised. In those four years from 1983 to 1987 one only has to look at cities like Sydney or Melbourne, or particularly the tourism areas of Queensland from the Gold Coast north to see exactly the effect this has had. At the present time we have almost eight thousand million dollars worth of infrastructure being built for the tourism industry in Australia. These changes mean that we can now bring international tourists to Australia confident that the infrastructure they will find in terms of hotels, motels, resorts, and restaurants is the envy of the world and of course this has had a marked effect on getting Australians to holiday at home. They no longer have to travel to Fiji, Hawaii, Bali or other places offshore in order to find the splendid array of facilities that are now here on their own shores. Prior to 1983 there were very strong disincentives for overseas investment in Australia but this Government in its wisdom has eased the guidelines and now we are allowing foreign investment in Australia to 100% equity in the provision of tourism infrastructure. The effect of this has been quite miraculous with particularly the Japanese being heavily involved in investment in tourism. The benefit of having the Japanese of course is once they build facilities here they spend a great deal of their own time and energy in attracting Japanese to come here and use them. On the fourth issue of course, it was useless developing a tourism industry of some size in Australia unless we could staff the facilities. Prior to 1983 it was very difficult to convince bright young Australians who had completed their schooling that tourism was a proper career for them. There was mistaken belief that to be in the service industry in Australia one had to be at least obsequious and probably servile. I am pleased to note that these attitudes have changed and now we have in Australia a marvellous reservoir of very well trained, well equipped young Australians entering this glamorous industry. Education authorities all around Australia have responded to the change and we now have emerging a splendid array of hospitality schools either in the TAFEs, the CAEs, the universities, and even in the schools where young people now have an opportunity to be trained to the highest level for the very skilled and glamorous jobs that exist in this industry. So those four main areas-promotion, incentive for development, incentive for overseas investment and training have all been put into place. The success that we are having with tourism in Australia at the minute is not necessarily the result of a decreased value of the dollar or the success of the Paul Hogan campaign. The product we are selling has not altered dramatically since 1983. The beaches are no more beautiful now than they were. The wonderful climate is the same. The blue skies are the same. The free and easy life style is the same. The friendliness of Australians is still the same. But what has happened is that this industry is at long last recognised for what it is-a great contributor to the Australian economy as a result of government leadership. To examine our commitments and achievements in detail it is necessary to look first at the changes that have occurred since March 1983. A number of important measures have taken place in line with our promotional commitments. The first of these was to increase the budget for the Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) by 200%. This was a major step in inspiring confidence in the minds of investors and developers and also led to the phenomenally successful Paul Hogan television commercials, which I mentioned earlier. I think it is fair to say that Hogan has made Australia the flavour of the decade in the United States. And now Crocodile Dundee has reinforced this image right around the world. Australia now has an international profile that we could not have dreamed of prior to 1983. The Hogan campaigns (scoffed at by allegedly sophisticated critics at their inception) are now universally recognised as the most successful tourism marketing exercise the world has seen. The Government also introduced the tourism overseas promotional scheme (TOPS) to assist the industry in its international product marketing efforts. This has encouraged private operators to build on the great promotional efforts of the ATC with financial rebates for advertising and other marketing expenses incurred overseas promoting the Australian product. As a further innovative step, I introduced an annual program for national tourism awards. These awards encourage excellence within the industry and also make a major contribution to heightening public awareness of the importance of tourism as a whole. A number of subsidiary measures were also introduced. For example: Sales tax on certain cruise vessels was removed (backdated to the implementation date of August 1981), to provide a boost to the tourism and boat-building industries. We have provided a special subsidy towards the cost of diesel fuel used for power generation by off-shore tourist resorts within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park region. We have approved international or charter flights where it has been shown that they will promote a genuinely ``new'' market. We have agreed to a program for the accelerated development of visitor facilities and infrastructure in Kakadu National Park and, as a part of its management objective for the Uluru National Park, helped to facilitate the development of the Yulara tourist resort on the perimeter of the park. We have introduced lower air fares for domestic travel. We have provided $26 million for the purchase and modification of a replacement Bass Strait ferry of doubled capacity and for associated terminal upgradings. The Australian land transport program was introduced on 1 July 1985, providing to date almost $1.5 billion for construction and maintenance of roads, mainline railway upgrading, road safety and research. Standard registration of travel agents. Duty free shopping for return passengers. In the area of training this Government has addressed the long term needs of the industry. Without trained staff, the viability of tourism as a major earner for foreign exchange would be jeopardised. We need to have in this country a system whereby young people can look forward to rewarding careers in the tourism industry. Accordingly we have commissioned and now released for public discussion the Sprokkreeff report. This most valuable document clearly identifies the problem areas in tourism training needs and makes constructive suggestions as to how we should go about remedying these deficiencies. This report is also being considered by my colleague the Minister for Education. I might add that even without the benefit of the Sprokkreeff Report, there has been a huge upsurge in the number of jobs available to young Australians who are looking for a career in the tourism industry. In the short term, the Government has actively used the Community Employment Program, administered by my colleague, the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations to boost tourism projects and also to increase job opportunities in this most rewarding area. Up until 1983 the development of hotels, resorts and casinos was haphazard and occurred in a climate of government disinterest. The turnaround since that time has been truly remarkable. This Government, for the past four years has done everything in its power to foster and encourage the development of tourism across the entire nation. Rather than sit on our laurels, as outstanding as they may be, we have embarked on a marketing strategy to expand the variety of experience holidays available in Australia. Sport, culture, excitement, heritage, wilderness, are just some of the headings that spring to mind. Our vision for the future includes an awareness program highlighting our museums, art galleries and theatres and a vast variety of extremely high quality resorts with a uniquely Australian flavour. Every week I hear of new and exciting proposals that are about to get under way that will offer visitors to Australia holidays far more luxurious and exciting than they can get anywhere else in the world. This is obviously the way forward for this country. What we will seek to do in an environmentally sensitive way is to give international visitors, and our own domestic tourists, greater access to the beautiful and remote parts of the continent. Our aim is to provide facilities that will give people access to these areas but we will do this in a way which will not harm the sometimes fragile environment or detract from it in any way. We have learned well that tourism and environmental protection can be harmonised with sensitive development. We are also examining the requirements for visa entry to Australia, and it is my personal hope that we might be able to ease the current restrictions. While the Government can look at its record with pride, the Opposition must be truly embarrassed by the total absence of policy development which has occurred during the past four years. All that the Opposition can offer the industry is a demand for greater private sector investment. It would appear from this that the Opposition has learnt nothing from the Government's highly successful multi-layered approach to the development of the industry. A continuing narrow-minded theme in the Opposition statement on tourism is an attack on industrial relations. It is worth putting on public record the fact that in the last four years there has not been a single strike within the tourism industry itself, though industrial action has indirectly hurt the trade. Furthermore the bogey of penalty rates has not stopped the huge upsurge in tourism development, and it is acknowledged that the quality and costs of service in Australia compare favourably with most other countries. In fact despite what appear to be generous hourly rates of pay many tourists are delighted to return to Australia because we do not have the insidious system of obligatory tipping. I have said on several occasions that Australia is now the tourism success story of the Western world. The most recent OECD report confirms this view. Released in Paris on the 9th of March, this report states that Australia has recorded easily the world's strongest growth in international visitor numbers for 1985-86-up 23 per cent, against an OECD average of a mere 1 per cent. While most other industrialised countries have remained stagnant Australia is surging ahead, and the best is yet to come. Interestingly, according to the OECD figures the next most successful country after Australia is Canada. The OECD report indicates that the staging of Expo '86 in Vancouver played a major part in boosting visitor numbers to that country. This is very welcome news for Australia in general and Brisbane in particular. Expo '88 will be a major international drawcard, along with many other facets of our bicentennial celebrations. All the statistics indicate tourism will continue to grow and benefit the whole economy. Many members might not be aware of the number of overseas visitor arrivals. Before the Hawke Government came to power, Australia had never received one million visitors during a calendar year. But thanks to the policies of this government, growth has been spectacular: 1984-1,015,000 1985-1,143,000 (+12.6%) 1986-1,418,000 (+24.1%) 1987 (est) 1,666,000 (+17.5%) I am confident that we will easily eclipse our target of 2 million visitors next year. It is estimated that each adult visitor spends on average around $1,440 in Australia, meaning that in the current year overseas tourists will spend over $2,300 million while here. This estimate excludes the earnings of Qantas and expenditure of foreign airlines, which amount to a further $1,200 million. New Zealand remains our largest market (24% of total short-term visitors), followed by the USA (18%), the UK (12%) and Japan (11%). However, the Japanese market is growing so quickly they will soon be in third place. As impressive as these figures are, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that 85% of the industry is composed of domestic travel and holidays. That is, Australians. Deciding to take their holidays in their own country. This part of tourism has also grown under this Government at about 3% per annum. Australians travelling within Australia will spend over 250 million nights away from home in 1986-87 involving a total expenditure of around $15 billion. A further 100 million day trips will account for an extra $3.4 billion of domestic tourism expenditure. As well as assisting our balance of payments, the tourism industry has also given a major boost to employment. The Hawke government is immensely proud of having created 3/4 of a million new jobs since 1983. Some 70,000 of these have been in the tourism industry-a huge contribution. As more overseas visitors come here, and as more Australians holiday in their own country, so more jobs are created. There is a misconception, however, that tourism will lead Australia towards an army of unskilled and semi-skilled people, with no future prospects. The truth of the matter is that tourism is providing real career paths for young school leavers who are voting with their feet into the industry. There is also a growing awareness and understanding that work and career in service industries, ought not to be regarded as servile in nature. Let me give you an example. The Ryde College of Catering in Sydney reported a `football grand final' scramble for places in management courses for the hotel and tourist industries. People had started camping out the night before enrolments began; and while 400 young people were admitted to courses, another 800 were turned away. Similarly the William Angliss College in Melbourne had more than 500 applicants for its diploma of hospitality and catering but only 96 students could be accommodated. The picture is similar all over Australia. Young people have recognised the wide scope for a long term career in tourism, and are prepared to train for 3-4 years to seek positions in hotel and catering management, travel agencies, theme park management, and the airline industry, to name just a few of the avenues opening up to them. As I mentioned earlier, a report has now been completed into staff training needs within the tourism industry. Undertaken by Mr Willem Sprokkreeff, Vice President Australia South Pacific, Hilton International, this report contains extremely valuable recommendations on how best to respond to these demands for trained staff by the burgeoning industry with international visitor arrivals increasing at around 20% annually, and major investment in new world class establishments, attention is focusing on the industry's ability to cope. This growth rate means each year up to 10,000 new jobs will be created each year from international tourism alone. As a nation we need to meet this challenge, to keep apace with the promotional activities being undertaken by other countries to capture the leisure and tourist dollar and the work of the Sprokkreeff committee will help the Government and industry do just that. I should add that the problems associated with tourism tend to be ones of too much success rather than too little. Examples include too many passengers arriving early in the morning at Sydney airport. The design and outlay of our baggage collection and customs areas, too many people seeking accommodation, and an excess of organisations wanting to hold conventions in Australia. I can add other deficencies, such as a shortage of staff who speak Japanese, and a shortage of signs in the same language. These are all difficulties which the government is working to overcome. Tourism's ascendancy has been obvious in many subtle and not so subtle ways. For example, I am reminded of early attempts by the media to denigrate the value of tourism by relegating tourism stories to the social pages or in flashy advertising supplements. It is also immensely satisfying to see the beginnings of media debate on the subject. Are we doing enough for tourism? How can we provide incentives for tourism development? How can we best marry the needs and wants of environmental groups and tourism investors? There is now a clear recognition that tourism is this country's major industry. It is certainly the fastest growing and the more sophisticated media it now gets reflects this. Even political and economics writers are reporting on tourism related subjects. A far cry indeed from longstanding media indifference and the `She'll be right mate attitude' that unfortunately confronted the industry and its commentators. Analysis of data provided to my department by Cordell Building Publications indicates there were nearly two billion dollars worth of tourism projects commenced in the period April 1984 to September 1986. These constructions alone will provide around 12,000 part and full time jobs when completed and 54,000 man years of work during the construction phase. In addition there are six billion dollars worth of tourism projects in varying stages of planning, with the potential to generate a further 40,000 part and fulltime jobs once operational, and some 130,000 man years of construction work. Tourism is bricks and mortar, small business, electricity and power generation. Tourism relies on an enormous range of feeder industries and it is this multiplier effect that gives tourism a special place in well balanced economic planning. Tourism represents a real future-we are not waiting for major structural adjustments to the economy, we are creating them. I am not here to state that it is this government alone which has been responsible for the rise in tourism. I pay tribute to my State colleagues and their tourism authorities whose professionalism had done much to increase tourism to their regions. However, it is the private sector which has really taken up the tourism challenge, in a climate created by the Hawke Government. The industry can be justifiably proud at its achievements, without handouts, protection or over-regulation. Every overseas tourist who has spent a dollar here has assisted this country in reducing our foreign indebtedness. Also all Australians who have decided to take advantage of the development of our tourism industry-the better roads, better flight facilities, better developed hotels and motels are also assisting the maintenance of a strong Australian economy. More importantly I believe the findings of the Australian Government inquiry into tourism-the Kennedy report-will become the blueprint for the future direction of Australian tourism. The inquiry, which I commissioned in January last year, has produced a wide ranging report over the full gamut of issues which will affect Australia's tourism competitiveness in the years to come. As a result of all the factors I have outlined I believe that the Hawke Government has set the stage so that Australia can truly aspire to be the tourism capital of the world. Certainly the pre-conditions are there-friendly people, a stable government, a great climate, wonderful scenery, and world class accommodation and catering. No other country can compete with us. We are now taking ourselves, and the industry seriously. Senator BUTTON —I move: That the Senate take note of the statement. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(5.14) —The Opposition welcomes the tabling of the ministerial statement entitled `Tourism-Under Labor' by Senator Button on behalf of the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, Mr John Brown. This statement was tabled in the House of Representatives last Thursday and we welcome its presentation here today. The Opposition joins the Government in emphasising the importance of the tourism industry to Australia and the great need for us to do all that we can to develop that industry over the years ahead. We live in a world in which many of our traditional exports and other areas of economic activity are suffering increasing cost and price pressures and many of those pressures will continue. Many people on the Government side, the Opposition side, in industry and in the community see the tourism industry as one of the real potential growth industries for this country-an industry that we will need increasingly to rely on for investment and employment and, in particular, for the correction of our horrendous balance of payments problem. So I stress at the outset our pleasure that a statement on this industry has been presented. Having said that, however, I question very seriously the motivation of the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism in making this statement. The statement first of all was to have been tabled and debated yesterday in this chamber. It was listed for yesterday's debate under the heading `Government Papers'. This would have meant that each speaker would have had no more than five minutes to talk to the statement and that in total the debate could not have exceeded half an hour. That is a pretty fair indication of what the Government thinks of this statement. Well might it not think much of it, because this statement is nothing more than a misguided attempt by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism to rehabilitate himself after a long period during which his reputation and standing as a Minister of the Hawke Government have fallen abysmally. One has only to look at Mr Brown's record over recent months to see the parlous state into which his political standing has fallen. The litany of mistakes and errors that this Minister has been found out on is almost endless. In his portfolio he has fallen down on a number of vital questions, some of which I will come back to later in my remarks. He has fallen down on the vital question of penalty rates in the tourism industry. He has presided over a great expansion of his own bureaucracy and administration which has gobbled up funds which should have been going to much more productive uses in the areas for which his portfolio is responsible. He had an absolute disaster with his choice of the Director of the Australian Institute of Sport, which now fortunately has been rectified. He is suffering very severe problems regarding financial support for his much lauded tourism overseas promotional scheme. And, of course, on the personal front it has been brought home to the Australian public just what an enormous amount of money this Minister has cost the Australian taxpayer. Since John Brown's appointment as tourism Minister, he has visited Athens twice, Bangkok, Budapest, Frankfurt, Hong Kong, London three times, Los Angeles twice, Milan, Moscow, New York twice, Rome three times, Paris, San Francisco twice, Tokyo twice-and it looks like a third visit is coming up in the next few months-and he has been to Vienna. The cost to the Australian taxpayer for that travel by a junior Minister of this Government is astronomical. For example, between March 1983 and June 1986 the Minister enjoyed three extended overseas trips over 93 days which cost the taxpayer $178,379. That works out to an average of $1,658 a day. On Mr John Brown's trip his accommodation and meals averaged $592 per day and his bill for car hire was $15,853, which included being at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, I recall, when he hired a couple of Mercedes at a time and did not even turn up at half the official functions for which he had been sent to Los Angeles. Senator Button —Now, now-steady. Senator SHORT —Senator Button knows that that is correct, and it is a very sad statement. More recently we saw the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism caught out on changing domestic air tickets when his wife cashed in a first class air ticket to allow his son to travel at government expense to the grand prix in Adelaide last year. Subsequently he repaid the amount-it was not a large amount-of $230. The Minister allowed his son to travel at government expense deliberately and knowing that it was in contravention of Remuneration Tribunal guidelines. Of course, he paid up in the end but only because he had been caught out. Of course, in more recent days there have been other statements which I would regard as being of a quite unedifying nature in relation to Mr Brown-so much so that he has had desperately bad editorial treatment and coverage in the media over recent weeks. I quote just one example from the Melbourne Herald of 27 April: Can we really expect [Mr Brown] to promote anything except the uncultivated ocker-the very image we have been trying so hard to dispel? His latest activities have . . . ensured more than his own previous stunts that John Brown is a politician with a great future behind him. The Minister was recently interviewed on AM about his expenses of office, and he made what I believe is a quite extraordinary statement at a time when this nation is being told quite rightly that it needs to pull in its belt and reduce living standards because of the economic conditions. In response to a question on his expenses, John Brown said: I am not in the least embarrassed about my expenses. They are about, I think, $40,000 a year or something. That is very small beer. That was said on air by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism. So this statement which has been tabled today is an attempt to rehabilitate the Minister in the eyes of his constituency, the tourism industry. I might say that the Minister does it with his normal coy modesty. Let me highlight some quotes from the Minister's statements: I am not here to state that it is this Government alone which has been responsible for the rise in tourism. By cripes, he is right about that, and I will come back to why that is so in a moment. Other terms dotted throughout this ministerial master statement include `a master stroke'. The statement also says that tourism infrastructure has been `revolutionised'. I might add that the Minister says that it has been revolutionised because three years ago the Hawke Government built on the Fraser Government's allowance for depreciation of buildings and put the figure up from 2 1/2 per cent to 4 per cent. Mr Brown claims that that has revolutionised tourism infrastructure. Senator Button —Might it be that we just did not keep the dollar overvalued in order to halt inflation, as the Fraser Government did. Senator SHORT —Let us come back to that later. Senator Button —Yes, you come back to it. Senator SHORT —I will come back to it very heavily as I go along. I refer to another choice quote from the Minister's statement when he was discussing the effect of one particular minor measure in relation to some minor relaxation of the foreign investment rules. He says that the effect has been `quite miraculous'. In another instance the Minister says that the development of tourism infrastructure has been `truly remarkable'. The Minister also talks about a huge contribution having been made as a result of some of the Government's measures, and he talks about being immensely proud and finding immensely satisfying the growth in tourism that has occurred. I would be the last person to deny that the tourism industry has developed very well in recent years, and I would be the last person to deny the Minister any credit for that. I believe that in certain areas the Minister has made a very worthwhile contribution, and I place that on the record. It is for that very reason that I feel sad that the Minister had to put down such a ridiculous statement on his Government's performance in the tourism industry which is now the subject of this debate. Not only is it a ridiculous statement but it wittingly or unwittingly contains a pack of either lies or totally misleading statements. For example, the Minister starts off his statement in the first three or four paragraphs by saying: Tourism will also contribute almost $3,000m in foreign currency income to Australia. He means this year. The Minister omits to say that that is a gross figure for foreign tourism credits within our balance of payments. The Minister neglects to say that in the accounts there is also a set of debits, and the foreign debits on tourism amount to $4.2 billion. Therefore, far from having a plus balance of $3 billion implied by the Minister, we have a deficit in our balance of payments on the tourism account of $1.117 billion. I stress that that figure is larger than the deficit immediately prior to this Government taking office. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table showing figures for the period 1981 to 1986 on travel credits and travel debits as they appear in the trade account-including air fares. Leave granted. The table read as follows- TRAVEL CREDITS AND TRAVEL DEBITS AS THEY APPEAR IN THE TRADE ACCOUNT (INCLUDING AIRFARES) Credits Debits Deficit $m $m $m 1981... 1,346 2,376 -1,030 1982... 1,571 2,717 -1,146 1983... 1,672 2,879 -1,207 1984... 1,762 3,500 -1,738 1985... 2,255 4,034 -1,779 1986... 3,079 4,196 -1,117 Source: ABS Balance of Payments Catalogue No. 5302.9. Senator SHORT —So that statement by the Minister is totally misleading. The Minister's statement then talks about the four main areas that, according to him, needed attention when the Hawke Government came to office if Australia was to become a tourism force, and he speaks very laudingly of the Government's activities in, first, the area of promotion; secondly, incentives for development; thirdly, incentives for overseas investment; and, fourthly, incentives in the area of staff training. I will comment briefly on one or two of those areas. First, in the area of promotion it is certainly true that the Australian Tourist Commission budget increased considerably in the first couple of years of this Government. What is not so clear from the Minister's statement is the fact that in real terms the budget of the ATC has fallen in each of the past two years and is almost certain to fall again in the forthcoming Budget. The Minister talks about promotion, but I point out that out of all that increase in the ATC budget in recent years it has not spent any money at all for a period of five years on advertising in Europe, one of the major potential sources for increased tourism to Australia. The Minister talks about incentives for development. The development that he is talking about there-and he explains this later in his statement-is an increase, as I mentioned earlier, from 2 1/2 per cent to 4 per cent in the depreciation allowance for tourist dwellings. I stress that the initial putting into place of that incentive occurred in the period of the Fraser Government. The Minister talks about incentives for investment, and by that he means having relaxed foreign investment guidelines for overseas investment in tourism in Australia. It is true that there was some relaxation during the period of the present Government, but it was a relaxation of a minor nature; indeed, most of the initial major developments in foreign investment in the tourism industry in Australia occurred during the years of the Fraser Government, not the Hawke Government. Senator Button —Don't be churlish, Senator; you know that is not true. Senator SHORT —It is true, and I am giving the Minister credit for having built on a very worthwhile development that was started by the Fraser Government. What I am saying to both the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, who is at the table, and the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, Mr Brown, is that they ought to give a bit of credit where credit is due. All that the Minister has been talking about and lauding in his ministerial statement is a building-and a desirable building-by this Government on initiatives taken far earlier than when this Government came into office. The ministerial statement talks glowingly about staff training, and about a report that has recently been tabled-a report that Mr Brown commissioned some time ago-from Mr Willem Sprokkreeff, who is the Vice-President for Australia and the South Pacific of Hilton International. He chaired a committee which examined in detail the establishment of priorities and the feasibility of promoting better tourism training in Australia. That report made many recommendations and suggestions, and the Minister has said that he is going to give high priority-and we will watch that with interest-to developing the recommendations that have been made. What the Minister fails to point out in his statement to the Parliament is that that report was highly critical of the huge bottlenecks that have occurred in recent years in training people for the tourism industry in Australia. The report found that the Australian tourism industry is seriously underprepared for the anticipated increases in the number of visitors and that it faces shortages of staff at all levels. The report stated: Decision-makers in government have yet to be convinced that tourism should be regarded as a serious industry. The report, which is a good report, has made a series of recommendations. One of those recommendations calls upon union and industry support for the restructuring of awards to recognise skill levels and to combine that with a review of work practices to encourage greater staff training. That recommendation is very much along the lines of the Liberal Party's industrial relations policy, and I would hope that the Government will look at that recommendation from the Sprokkreeff committee, take it up and work on it because I agree that that proposal has a great deal of potential. The Minister in his statement makes virtually no reference to penalty rates. Mr Brown seems to have very conveniently forgotten that, as the shadow Minister for Tourism prior to the 1983 election, he said publicly that the Labor Party, on being elected to government, would abolish penalty rates in the tourism industry. No sooner had he said that, during the 1983 election campaign, than Mr Hawke publicly rebuked and humiliated him and made him retract the statement. Why was Mr Brown made to retract? Because the major union in the industry-the Federated Liquor and Allied Trades Union-had put tens of thousands of dollars into the Labor Party's election campaign coffers. It is no wonder that we have not heard anything more from the Minister in the last four years-- Senator Robert Ray —Where is your evidence for that? Senator SHORT —The evidence? Senator Robert Ray —For all the money; the tens of thousands of dollars? We haven't got the cheque yet. Senator SHORT —Senator Ray had better see one of his senatorial colleagues who might be able to help him on that. Senator Robert Ray —It is a figment of your imagination. Where is your evidence? Senator SHORT —The honourable senator knows as well as I do that that is a fact. The next point the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism has made that I wish to comment on is that more and more Australians than ever are choosing to stay at home, and that is one of the essential reasons why the tourism figures are looking good. Eighty-five per cent of the total tourism industry in Australia is concerned with domestic travel and accommodation. I welcome the increasing tendency of Australians to see more of their own country as well as travelling overseas, but to say that Australians are staying at home because of the policies of this Government is right for only one reason, and that is that the policies of this Government have changed the cost structures of overseas travel to such an extraordinary extent that it now costs an enormous sum to travel overseas. Senator Button —But your Leader agrees with that. Senator SHORT —That it is an enormous cost to travel overseas? Senator Button —No; he agrees with the changes which were made that have led to that. You know that, and you ought to. It is simply that you cannot get your act together over there. Senator SHORT —If the honourable senator is suggesting that the enormous fall in the exchange rate for the Australian dollar, coupled with the record high interest rates and record high inflation, both records relative to the rest of the world-- Senator Button —They are not records relative to your government; they are nothing like it. Senator SHORT —If the Minister is saying that that is a credit to him and that a good reason for more Australians staying home is that they cannot afford to travel overseas, I will allow the Australian public to make a judgment on that matter. Senator Button —You had better make a judgment about you and John Howard. You are saying separate things again. Senator SHORT —The reason why there has been a growth of tourism and inward visitors to Australia is, very importantly, that change in the Australian dollar value which has made it so expensive for Australians to travel overseas. I am not suggesting for one moment that the exchange rate is all good or all bad, but it is an extraordinary omission by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism to fail to acknowledge that exchange rate changes rather than the bloated fine words with which he has come out have been the essential catalyst for the change that has occurred. There are many other things one could say about the statement; other speakers will no doubt pick some of those up. There are three aspects that I wish to comment on very quickly. The first relates to the tourism overseas promotional scheme, known as TOPS, which the Government introduced a couple of years ago. In the 1986-87 Budget $5m was allocated for that scheme. It has the general support of the Opposition, but what has happened now is that, because of a variety of things, including administrative incompetence on the Minister's part, there is, so I am advised, presently with his Department a huge backlog of applications for grants under this scheme which, if approved, would require $8m to $15m in 1987-88 even if no new applications are received during that period. That scheme is in a great mess. The Minister is aware of that. He has failed to give any lead at the moment as to how he is going to get out of that mess, and I think it is incumbent on the Minister, and I call on him to do so, to make an announcement at the earliest possible time on whether or not applications for TOPS grants now in the pipeline will get through. If he cannot give an answer on that, obviously a great deal of uncertainty will be created in the industry. The other matter I wanted to touch on was the move of the headquarters of the Australian Tourist Commission from Melbourne to Sydney. This move has been imposed on the Commission by the Government, and it has been very strongly opposed by the Commission itself. The Commission put to the Kennedy inquiry into the tourism industry recently that its headquarters should not be moved to Sydney. The Government has chosen to ignore the Commission's wishes in that regard. The fact is that 70 to 80 per cent of the members of the Australian Tourist Commission head office in Melbourne have refused to make the move to Sydney. The dislocation costs, therefore, will be enormous. There has not been any firm indication of how much this move will cost when all those figures are totted up, but it will certainly run into many millions of dollars. The Minister himself has put a bottom line figure on it of over $3m, and that excludes any of the redundancy and other relocation costs. The Minister has not told us where that money will come from; nor has he told us what other programs of a worthwhile nature in the tourism industry will go by the board simply to meet the whim of that move. Finally, I want to draw attention to the opportunities that are going begging for the further development of tourism in Australia through the failure of the Government and airlines to take advantage of the enormous potential in the area containing countries such as Korea and Taiwan, the failure to have direct air links between those countries and Australia and because of the great difficulties in both these countries in the processing of visa applications. I was in Taiwan recently and was given statistics which indicated that the loss of tourist income to Australia alone from Taiwan could amount to up to $400m each year. This loss is due to the lack of any direct air links between our two countries and the fact that visa applications cannot be processed in Taiwan; they have to be sent to Hong Kong, which causes great delays. This is therefore a major deterrent to the growth of tourism between our two countries. The Minister's statement is, as I said at the start, a flamboyant attempt to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of his clientele. We welcome the fact that there is at last a statement on tourism to debate in this chamber, but we are very greatly concerned about and highly critical of the content of it. Senator COLLARD(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(5.44) —When I was considerably younger than I am now and I got to skiting a bit, my parents would always bring me back into line by saying that self-praise is no recommendation. I had not thought of that for a long time until I read the statement that has been incorporated in the record of this chamber and was given earlier in the House of Representatives by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, the Hon. J. J. Brown. Nonetheless, this statement provides a good chance for the Parliament to look at the tourism industry and have a debate on it. The Minister has given some excellent statistics. None of us would deny that. For instance: Tourism will contribute $24 billion to the gross domestic product this year; the tourism industry currently employs 405,000 people; international visitors in 1986 numbered 1,418,000; the estimate for 1987 is 1,666,000; and currently $8 billion worth of infrastructure is under construction. It is estimated that each tourist spends $1,440 in Australia. So, for the current year, that gives us an income of $2.3 billion. That figure excludes the income from Qantas Airways Ltd and expenditure by foreign airlines which amounts to an extra $1.2 billion. There is no doubt that they are excellent statistics. On top of all that 85 per cent of the industry income is still derived from domestic travel and holidays. The Minister's statement said that nothing was done by the Federal or State governments up until 1983. Then, hey presto, along came the Hon. J. J. Brown and the Australian Labor Party Government and the whole scene changed. Indeed, he even had the audacity to say that the States were moribund until then. I would just like to mention that, in my State, the Queensland Tourist and Travel Corporation was formed in 1979 under the quite exceptional and outstanding chairmanship of Sir Francis Moore, a good friend of mine. Quite interestingly, this Government has used the Deputy Chairman of the QTTC, Jim Kennedy, to write a report for it. So it seems that the Queensland tourism industry does have some standing. Also, I am sure that my colleagues from Tasmania, which State has relied on tourism for many years, would take great exception to their State-no matter under which government-being called moribund, because for many years Tasmania has been a tourist oriented destination for people from all around Australia as well as for international visitors. Nonetheless, according to this statement, hey presto, along came the Hon. J. J. Brown and the ALP Government and the whole scene was changed. I admit that since 1983 the scene has changed. I must admit also that it has changed because of ALP policy. But it has changed because of its economic policy and not because of its tourism policy. Any victory that the Government claims is really a pyrrhic victory. The change is due to the J-curve, not because of the J. J. cure for our supposed tourism ills. It is all about the devaluation of the dollar. Indeed, I think that half way through the report the Hon. J. J. Brown did mention that the devaluation of the dollar has had an effect on the tourism industry. The tourism industry has taken the utmost advantage of the devaluation of the dollar. In other words, it is cheaper to come to Australia now than to go to many other destinations. On top of that, there was the other aspect, particularly last year, of terrorism in Europe. Indeed, when I was part of a delegation that went to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Poland last year I spent some time in Great Britain, particularly London. It was quite noticeable that in the middle of Britain's tourist season there were very few-almost none-of the traditional tourists from the United States who are expected at that time of the year. Indeed, wherever one went it was commented on. Senator Robert Ray —And wasn't it nice? Senator COLLARD —I must confess, it was. One could get in to see things that one wanted to see without having to get into those inevitable queues which I hate even in Australia. Nonetheless, two things contributed to the upturn of tourism in Australia and they had nothing to do with the so-called exploits of the Hon. J. J. Brown. Of course, the converse of that is the fact that Australian tourists-and my colleague Senator Short mentioned this-can no longer afford to go overseas; so they are stopping at home. It is no wonder that 85 per cent of Australia's tourist industry income comes about through domestic travel and accommodation. The one and only instance that the J-curve has really worked is in respect of the tourist industry. Thank heaven it has. Concurrently with the dollar devaluation we saw an education process-a very necessary process that took a long time. It started to take effect among our tourist operators. In the first instance, they did not even try to understand that nobody else in the world has the same working conditions as the Australian worker, particularly when it comes to annual leave. Four or five weeks annual leave and 13 weeks long service leave are unheard of in other countries. Our tourist operators thought that, with a little bit of advertising, the world would beat a path to our door, and it took them a long time to learn what package deals were all about. They thought that an international airport at their front door would automatically bring tourists flocking in, and that did not work either. Australia probably has more international airports per head of population than any other country in the world-in some instances because of pork barrelling and in other instances because of the demographic situation that obtains in Australia. Nonetheless, at long last the operators started to learn from a hard educational experience the necessity of package deals. In other words, tourists will come in only with deals arranged by operators and by international airlines. They generally want to come in at one airport, stay in that area a couple of days, travel around and fly out from another airport. That brings me to the subject of airports, which did not rate much of a mention at all in this tourism policy. It is no wonder that it did not rate a mention when one considers the inability of successive New South Wales governments to bite the bullet concerning the Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport and to take the necessary hard decisions in that regard. If that airport wants to remain one of the main entry and exit ports for tourists in Australia, it must face the absolute necessity right now for a second runway paralleling runway 16/34, albeit one that is shorter, to take domestic and commuter traffic. If construction of that runway began today, it would already be too late, yet the New South Wales Government has not been prepared to bite that bullet. Senator Robert Ray —The coalition will build the second runway, will it? Is that clear? Do I get you right? Senator COLLARD —If it were left to me, the second runway would be there now. That would be of absolute benefit to Sydney itself. As a Queenslander, I have often said that the best thing Queensland tourism has going for it is the Australian Labor Party Government in New South Wales, because when our airport is completed, Queenslanders will have another good alternative and will start dodging Sydney. In fact, they are doing that now and going to Melbourne, which Senator Ray would welcome. So we have that problem. We also have $20m being spent on the international terminal. Admittedly, the extension will enable more passengers to be handled, but they will not allow for one extra parking space for an international aircraft on the apron. Brisbane has a similar situation: A magnificent new airport is being opened there, but the international terminal will not be upgraded in the near future, so we will have an increasing log-jam at one of our major tourist destinations and exit points. That will not help the situation at all. On top of that there is the curfew at Kingsford-Smith Airport. Talking with some of the international pilots, I find that when they come in late on runway 34, flying over Botany Bay, there is never any complaint; but if somebody mentions that an aircraft is to come in late at night for some reason, complaints are received. There is a generally accepted procedure for coming in-that pilots come in over Botany Bay, use runway 34, and do not use reverse thrust. That way, nobody is any the wiser. The sooner the Government bites the bullet on curfews and grasps the fact that modern aircraft with high bypass turbo-fans are considerably quieter than some of the turbo-prop aircraft that are allowed to operate out of curfew, the sooner our airports will be used to better advantage. It has already been said that the new Brisbane Airport should be curfew free, and indeed it should. It has been built further towards the river mouth, towards Moreton Bay, and it cannot be built out. Any government that allows the old Brisbane Airport to be used for anything other than industrial use is not right in the head. The new airport should be curfew free. The honourable member for Lilley (Mrs Darling) in the other place has already said that a curfew should be imposed. This airport was built specifically to be curfew free and, with the newer generation of aircraft operating, there is no need for a curfew to be put in place. Curfews result in underutilisation of resources and equipment, and it is not possible to keep air fares down when there is underutilisation of resources and equipment. While on the subject of airports, I mention the matter of Customs inspection. I raise the question: Is it absolutely necessary? Is the Customs section at airports necessary at all? It has nothing to do with narcotics or anything like that. Narcotics law enforcement is entirely different. A major blockage is caused by the Customs inspection of things that one may be bringing in in one's luggage-gifts for friends or relatives and things for oneself. If a cost-benefit analysis were undertaken on the cost of maintaining Customs officers in those Customs halls in relation to the amount of revenue that is derived from them, I imagine that it would point up that we could well do without them. The Government should look immediately into the necessity for them as they are another major cause of hold-ups. Getting rid of them could indeed be another cost saving measure. Senator Colston —If you did without them, would not the behaviour change? Senator COLLARD —I do not think so; not at all-not from the information I have received. You are talking about narcotics. Senator Colston —No, I am talking about the ordinary things that people bring into the country. Senator COLLARD —I do not think so, for the simple reason that one has to be a pretty shrewd buyer today to do much better overseas than one can do in Australia. If one is in the market for a hi-fi or a camera for one's own use and knows what one is about, one can do a reasonable deal, but those who think tourists can do what they did 10 or 15 years ago by going overseas and buying a lot cheaper than in Australia are sadly mistaken. I really think that the Customs exercise is not worth the effort. In his statement the Minister also mentions overseas investment. I welcome the Government's attitude towards overseas investment. Indeed, the Minister singles out Japanese investment for special laudatory comment. I find that quite strange. I remember taking part in debates in this chamber to defend the Iwasaki project outside my home town of Rockhampton. The condemnation at that time was quite trenchant; yet now the Minister is rightly welcoming overseas investment, particularly Japanese investment. As a matter of fact, the current Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has even played golf on the Iwasaki course. As against that, the Minister never mentions the Government impost on resorts-the fringe benefits tax, for instance, particularly when people who work on resorts have to have their accommodation supplied. He never mentions the sales tax on oils and lubricants, particularly when people are running their own boats and generating their own power. We had the excise on diesel fuel in relation to which the Government suddenly had to back off and provide a special subsidy. Senator Button —Would you abolish that, Senator? Senator COLLARD —Fringe benefits tax? Sure. Senator Button —No, excise. Come on; tell us. Senator COLLARD —We would certainly be reviewing the excise in the constraints of the mess that we will take over from the Government. We will be trying to get sales tax exemptions on oils and lubricants for all primary producers and tourist operators. The Minister, quite rightly, talked about the courses being offered at colleges of technical and further education and colleges of advanced education. I can only commend that. Already, as most of us know, the TAFE institutions have courses on catering and tourism. Indeed, some of us in our careers have probably had meals at some of those establishments which offer catering courses. The Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education, in my home city of Rockhampton, wants to offer a bachelor of arts course majoring in tourism, with external courses to be offered at both Mackay and Gladstone. The sooner those courses can be accredited the better. The Institute wants the course to relate particularly to policy and management. Heron Island is just off Gladstone; Rockhampton has the Great Keppel Island and Iwasaki resorts; and Mackay is one of the major gateways to the Whitsunday resorts. For some unknown reason in this attempt to gather unto himself all that he can, the Minister mentioned the Uluru National Park. I do not know why he did that. The Opposition was, and still is, quite critical of the handing over of the Uluru National Park. If it is a national park, we believe that it belongs to all Australians. In this instance, it has been handed over to an organisation, not to a clan that has a right to it. There are restrictions on entry because of that. The Minister also mentioned that for some time there have not been any strikes in the tourist industry. What is the airline industry if it is not a major contributor to our tourist policy? Last week anybody who wanted to travel by Ansett Airlines of Australia was affected by strikes and disruptions. I understand that on Anzac Day, which was a Saturday, refuellers would not refuel aircraft in Brisbane for the simple reason that they were not going to get an extra public holiday because Anzac Day did not fall on a weekday. They had one anyhow. Such is the mentality of some of the people-I say, advisedly, some-in the trade union movement. It rings a bit hollow when the Minister lauds the fact that there have been no strikes in the tourist industry. I can only commend the Minister for his comments on tipping, which is one of the most degrading aspects of the tourism industry-particularly accommodation and restaurants-when one goes overseas. We know that tipping was brought in overseas for the simple reason that wages were quite low. Now a service charge is added, whether or not one has had good service. I think such a practice is degrading. I tell my friends from overseas not to tip at any place here because they think they should automatically do so. If people get good service they can go ahead and tip, but they should not think that they have to do so automatically. It is a degrading habit. For a long period most people working in the accommodation and restaurant areas have been paid an adequate wage. Ironically, the Minister mentioned Expo 88. I do not blame him for doing that. We will have a great Expo in Brisbane, but the Labor States have not yet indicated whether they wish to take part. I am the chairman of a committee that will be conducting an air race around Australia next year. As well as 1988 being our Bicentenary, it is the diamond jubilee of Hinkler's flight from London to Darwin, Kingsford-Smith's flight across the Pacific Ocean and the founding of the Royal Flying Doctor Service. We wish to commemorate all those events and at the same time raise money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. The race will finish in Brisbane over Expo the day after Expo opens. It will be a tremendous race. Senator Button —You should be working as a shadow Minister instead of running that sort of thing. We have a lot to do. Senator COLLARD —We are trying to talk the Minister for Transport and Minister for Aviation (Mr Peter Morris), who is now a pilot, into taking part, and indeed he is attracted to it. The Hogan advertisements and Crocodile Dundee came out at about the time of the devaluation. I have written to the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment (Mr Cohen) about the education of our tour operators and incoming tourists in respect of crocodiles. We have had unnecessary tragedies, and we will have more. The Australian newspaper on, I think, Easter Saturday contained a photograph of a tour operator encouraging crocodiles in the wild to jump to take meat off a stick beside a tourist boat. That is terrible. One can imagine what would happen if crocodiles in that estuary or inlet were in the vicinity of a family member in a 12-foot aluminium boat who was pulling in a fish. I do not need to say what could be the result. That conduct by the tourist operator concerned is most reprehensible. We should educate our tour operators and incoming tourists on how to treat these reptiles in the wild. They are territorial and predatory animals. The female, particularly at nesting time, has very strong maternal instincts. All of this adds up to operators and tourists becoming targets in accidents that should never happen. I wrote to the Minister on 1 April-I have not yet received a reply-indicating that something should be done. I even nominated a person who would be prepared to help. That person is certainly the Australian, if not the world, expert on crocodiles. He is Mr John Lever who runs a crocodile farm near Rockhampton. His expertise, together with that of National Parks and Wildlife Service officers in the States and Territories, should be used to put together a tourist package so that operators and tourists are educated as to the lifestyle and the habits of these prehistoric reptiles. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a copy of that letter which I sent to the Minister. I have sought permission from the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button) who is at the table. Leave granted. The letter read as follows- 1 April 1987 Hon. Barry Cohen, MP, Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600 My dear Minister, I would like to commend your action in suggesting that there should be a campaign to engender more public awareness as to the dangers of entering crocodile infested areas and that there should be penalties imposed on persons ignoring safety signs to this effect. In addition to your proposed measures, I would suggest that tour operators be involved in a ``Never smile at a crocodile'' campaign. This could involve an education package to include a video presentation on the habits and habitats of crocodiles and the dangers of becoming too ``friendly'' with them or intruding into their territory. It has become evident that tour operators need to be actively discouraged from attracting these dangerous reptiles for tourist viewing by constantly feeding them or trailing meat over the side of the boats. The package could act as a deterrent to tourists if shown to them in a simplified form with associated written briefing material prior to their embarking on excursions. Such a program should be developed in conjunction with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, drawing on the experience of those officers from the States or Territory with crocodile populations who have knowledge of the habits of these animals. I suggest that Mr John Lever be invited to participate in the team formulating this package as he is the most recognised authority in Australia-if not the world-on crocodiles and their characteristics. As you probably know, Mr Lever is the owner/developer of the Koorana Crocodile farm at Cawarral near Rockhampton and obviously has many years' expertise in all aspects of crocodile behaviour. In fact, I understand that he has already produced such a video for the use of tour operators. If these operators, as well as tourists, are made acutely aware of the dangers of flirting with crocodiles, perhaps we could reduce the incidence of serious accidents and fatalities such as those reported recently. Eight deaths in the short space of two years is not a statistic to be taken lightly. As reported on the ABC's ``AM'', these attacks are not the fault of crocodiles-they are just doing what comes naturally. I would be happy to discuss this matter with you further. Yours sincerely, Senator Stan Collard Senator COLLARD —I conclude by saying that, above all, our tourist policy should be one of bringing the tourists back and getting them to encourage other people to come here. I suppose that goes back to the training of people involved in the tourist industry here. Whether they be waitresses, cleaners, management or tour boat operators, they have to grasp this opportunity that is now presenting itself to us. There has been a vast increase in the numbers of tourists because of our economic situation. A large number of tourists will come to Australia next year. Tourism is one of the great industries of the world and certainly one of the great industries of Australia today. Unfortunately, as I finished reading the statement of the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, I could not help but think that he must almost permanently be in a half-nelson from constantly patting himself on the back. Debate interrupted. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy) —by leave-I take this opportunity to clarify an answer and correct what was perhaps a misleading impression that I may have given in Question Time today on a subject that is only faintly related to tourism, one about which I hoped I would never have to speak again, and that is flights over Tasmania. Yesterday I told Senator Walters, in answer to a question, that there had been some aerial observation of developments in the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests area but that such aerial observation or photography had not involved the use of Royal Australian Air Force planes at any time. Today Senator Newman referred to that question and answer and asked me whether I could `categorically deny' that no RAAF flights took place over the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests area in the last three days. I replied to that question as follows: All the information that is available to me from the offices of the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment leads me to categorically deny it. I am happy to do that. In fact my answer was totally accurate but only because of a double negative in Senator Newman's question which I did not notice at the time I gave my answer. I had asked the office of the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment (Mr Cohen) and the office of the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) to double check today before Question Time that no RAAF plane had been requested or tasked for the purpose of surveillance in the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests area. The answer came back as a resounding no-that is to say, no RAAF aircraft had been requested or tasked-and it was on that basis that I gave the categorical denial today. In response to a question that I did not ask but perhaps should have, and that is whether there had been any other RAAF flights in the area in the last few days, I was advised late this afternoon-this is the first opportunity I have had for correcting the record since I was given this information-that there were some RAAF flights in the area but they had nothing whatsoever to do with the Lemonthyme and Southern Forests inquiry. I have been told by the office of the Minister for Defence that two RAAF HS748 aircraft from Sale overflew the Lemonthyme area on routine navigational training flights which had been planned for a long time. They were planned way before the inquiry. In other words, it is pure coincidence that RAAF planes were in the area. Senator Sanders —It is part of Australia and you can fly over it. Senator GARETH EVANS —It is part of Australia and such flights fly over all parts of the country, particularly interesting parts of the country, at all sorts of times. This was one such purely routine navigational training flight that was observed by people who, understandably, were not impressed with my answer that the RAAF had had nothing to do with any flights in Tasmania in the last few days. It is on that basis that I hope I can correct the record. I do not think the Senate has been misled in any relevant respect and certainly I had no intention whatsoever to do so. Lest anyone should think there is any ground for concern about what I said, I hope I have put the record straight once and for all. I repeat the categorical denial that any RAAF plane was requested or tasked for the purposes of observation related to the current Lemonthyme and Southern Forests inquiry. In that respect my answers-the intent of my answer yesterday to Senator Walters and the intent of my answer to Senator Newman today-are exactly as I expressed them. Debate resumed. Senator SANDERS(Tasmania)(6.13) —I am an expert on tourism because I am a tourist who came to Australia and stayed here. I probably have a different outlook from many on tourism because I appreciate Australia for what it is. I was attracted to Australia, as are many people in America, by the natural Australia, not the built environment. America has tall buildings. If I had wanted to see tall buildings I could have stayed in Los Angeles. Tall buildings did not attract me. Basically it was the Australian environment which attracted me and which attracts most tourists to Australia. I do not think the Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism and the officials in general appreciate this fact. In Hobart, Robin Gray our Premier is now pushing a large hotel development right on the waterfront. He went into a glass-sided building in Japan and he was very impressed with it-he is a small town boy from Victoria who has made good in Tasmania-so he decided that Tasmania needed one of those buildings on its waterfront. He steamrolled this idea over the heads of members of the Legislative Council, over all of the local planning appeals boards and he came up with a ghastly design. It was considered too much even in Tasmania so he had to pull in his horns. He then created a lesser monstrosity-it is still a monstrosity-which he hopes will attract international tourists. It will not-it is a mistake. What Australia and Tasmania have to offer is the natural environment and yet the Gray Government, which ostensibly is trying to attract tourists, is cutting down all our trees. It is allowing trees to be cut down by the woodchip industry and the loggers in Tasmania. Tourists are not coming back and tourist operators are saying that they are losing business because of the woodchipping. Not only are the forests disappearing, which is bad enough, but the tourists are in great jeopardy through the logging operations. Every year numbers of tourists are killed by log trucks. Log trucks are being driven by people who were promised great returns from the logging industry when they contracted to buy their trucks but now they are struggling to make a buck. They are working 18 hours a day and they hit tourists and Tasmanians head on. Of course the resulting confrontation is generally lethal for the tourists or motorists. Roads are also being broken down by the log trucks and tourist operators, the people who are trying to promote tourism in Tasmania, are concerned. At the moment the mining industry in Australia is pushing a major campaign to have access to national parks. As a person from America, I find it absolutely incongruous that Australia can create a national park such as the Kakadu National Park which has a mining industry incorporated in it, namely, the Ranger mine. The mining industry wants more; it wants access to all land in Australia even though it has access to about 95 per cent of it. Honourable senators should look at what mining has created as a tourist attraction in Tasmania-Queenstown. The Queenstown people call Queenstown the technicolour hills because the hills are completely devoid of any vegetation-this is as a result of the mining industry-and they think it is a tourist attraction. Senator Newman —One hundred years ago it was a smelter. Senator SANDERS —Senator Newman says that that was 100 years ago. What about what is flowing down the Queen River right now? It is pollution; thousands and thousands of tonnes of mine waste are going down that river along with sewage. Attitudes in Tasmania-as they are expressed by Senator Newman-have not changed in 100 years. People there do not want tourists in Tasmania. Even now if a mainland tourist with a beard and wearing a check shirt went to Queenstown he would be in danger of getting his teeth knocked down his throat. If mainland tourists said that they did not think the damming of the Franklin was a good idea, they would be scathed in Tasmania. This is a legacy of the Gray hate campaign which continues today. This campaign dates back to the time when the Hydro Electric Commission tried to remove a prime tourist attraction in Tasmania-the Franklin River. It tried to dam the Franklin River to remove it as a tourist attraction. At present the Tasmanian Government-the Gray Government-is seriously saying that there should be tourist hotels on the Gordon River, at Port Davey and in other parts of Tasmania. The Gray Government is also pushing for commercial huts in national parks such as the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, along the overland track. Commercial huts have no place in the environment and it once again brings out my point that the governments of Australia-I include State governments-do not appreciate our natural environment. However, things are starting to change and it is not because of governmental attitudes; it is because of the tourist operators. Queensland found that all the publicity over its loss of rainforests-it is still going on-has created a curiosity overseas. People want to see the rainforests, the beautiful remnants of what once covered the world, species that were alive when dinosaurs lived on this earth. I went to Innisfail, which is in Queensland near Cairns, where a beautiful stand of rainforest called Downey Creek was threatened by logging and is now being logged. The local residents in Innisfail knew that if they logged the rainforest the logging industry would get a few jobs out of it, a few years worth of timber, but the tourist attraction would be gone forever. The local residents were against it-they realised that the sugar mills were closing down and they were looking to tourism. If honourable senators go to that area they will find that operators are capitalising on the rainforests. They are renaming their tours `Rainforest Tours' and their hotels and motels `Rainforest Motel'. This is what people want to see. The basic difficulty is that politicians and bureaucrats alike are locals in the eyes of the world and in reality. They are so accustomed to what exists in Australia that they do not see it as an attraction. Therefore in Tasmania we have tourist officials advocating things such as fibreglass dinosaur parks and those sorts of things to try to attract tourists. Tourists can see that sort of thing anywhere. They really want to see the natural environment. In Tasmania the Gray Government is fond of saying: `Bushwalkers do not bring anything into the State but a shirt and a $10 bill and during their stay in the State they change neither'. That is absolutely false. The people who come to see the Tasmanian wilderness bring millions of dollars a year and they happily spend this money, yet the Government does not want to accommodate them in Tasmania especially the greenies. The official Government policy towards promoting the wilderness is slowly changing. The Government is starting to recognise its value but it still does not welcome it. The State Government's policy is still to penalise anyone in the tourist industry who was opposed to the construction of the dam. For example, Morrison Brothers, who run tours on the Gordon River, have had great difficulty in getting their brochures carried by the Tasmanian Tourist Bureau, whereas their opposition, which did support the dam, has no trouble at all getting its brochures carried. If one rings up the Tasmanian Tourist Bureau it will often say that there is only one cruise down the Gordon River, and that is the opposition's. The Bureau will not tell the public about the Morrison Brothers, who have laboured so long and hard to save the Franklin. They have been in business in Strahan for years, first as wood gatherers and later as tourist operators. They knew that a dam would ruin tourism in Strahan, and in fact it would have done so. Now Strahan is a thriving tourist venue in spite of the operations of the Gray Government. I will tell the Senate what brought these matters home to me. I was beginning to get accustomed to Tasmania. During my previous incarnation as a member of the Tasmanian State Parliament, I was having lunch with the parliamentary librarian, Tom Pickering, who played as an accompanist to the famous singer Eartha Kitt when she was visiting Tasmania. She came to have lunch with Tom Pickering, who played in the Pearce-Pickering Jazz Band, and I invited myself along. Eartha Kitt said: `Gee it's dull at Wrest Point. What a plastic place; it's a kind of poor imitation of Las Vegas. I'm tired of playing squash and I don't drink'. She asked me whether there were any trails up Mount Wellington, which she could see out the window. I told her there were, and that I would show them to her. So at 7 o'clock the next morning I appeared in my old Datsun ute at Wrest Point and Eartha Kitt came out in a tracksuit. We hiked up Mount Wellington and she asked me: `Why don't they promote this?'. I might add that she was a very fit woman; I had trouble keeping up with her. When she got to the top of the mountain she looked around and said: `This is magnificent, this is what you should be promoting'. I asked her whether she would like too see more of Tasmania. She agreed. So for the next week when she was not working I took her flying over the south-west, which she thought was wonderful. I took her to Lake Gordon, which is part of the Hydro Electric Commission scheme, and which has dead trees sticking out of it. She asked me what had happened to the lake and why. I said: `Because the Government does not recognise the value of the local area for tourists'. And so it goes. There is a growing trend around the world for tourism to take the form of people travelling at low cost through the community. People do not just want to go to another Holiday Inn like the one they just left in Dallas. They used to like that sort of travel because they were insecure but now people want to see the sights and talk to local people. Australia is falling down in this respect. We are not catering to this trend. Although these people do not want to spend a lot of money, they will lash out and spend if they have to. They have the money but they do not want to be ripped off. This country is not catering to that growing market. The Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) says on page 5 of his statement: These changes mean that we can now bring international tourists to Australia confident that the infrastructure they will find in terms of hotels, motels, resorts and restaurants is the envy of the world and of course this has had a marked effect on getting Australians to holiday at home. It may keep Australians at home but I do not think that tourists come here because of big hotels and lavish restaurants. The Minister goes on: Prior to 1983 there were very strong disincentives for overseas investment in Australia but this Government, in its wisdom, has eased the guidelines and now we are allowing foreign investment in Australia to 100 per cent equity in the provision of tourism infrastructure. The effect of this had been quite miraculous with particularly the Japanese being heavily involved in investment in tourism. The benefit of having the Japanese of course is once they build facilities here they spend a great deal of their own time and energy in attracting Japanese to come here and use them. Unfortunately, this tends to create Japanese ghettos. The Japanese stay in these Japanese developments and the profits go back to Japan. It is quite dangerous to allow any nationality to set up tourist developments here and attract tourists from the home country solely to that development. That is dangerous and it does not really benefit Australia all that much. On page 9 the Minister pats himself on the back, as Senator Collard said. He probably has tennis elbow from doing so. He says: We have introduced lower air fares for domestic travel. The Government may or may not have done that. I have not noticed the air fares being much lower. If the Government is really interested in tourism it should bite the bullet and bring about the deregulation of the airline system. It should abandon forthwith and posthaste the two-airline system and allow competition on the scene so that we can have lower air fares and attract tourists. As it exists, the system is a club between the two airlines. It was almost a club between the three airlines, but East-West Airlines Ltd has recently changed its policy. It wanted a three-airline policy but now it is calling for deregulation. The sooner the Government deregulates the airline system the better for both tourists and people who live in this country. We have talked briefly about Expo 88. I think it is a wonderful idea. The Minister for Tourism almost dropped the ball on that one. He was ready to grant a very lucrative contract to an American firm to run an audio-visual display at Expo 88. A person who was supposed to be advising the Minister turned around and, with confidential information, bid on the system. He almost got the contract but there was a public outcry and now I am happy to say-and I think this is known-that an Australian firm has got this $3m contract for the audio-visual display at Expo 88. I think it will do an excellent job. Tourism is an important industry, not only from the economic view but also environmentally. Wisely used, tourism can co-exist happily with the conservation of the environment. However, it cannot exist happily if we have as open slather an idea about it as we do about resource development. It may be possible to have tourism in some areas but others may be too sensitive. I know that I will be accused of locking things up if I urge that tourists be kept out but this is necessary. In the United States there are wilderness areas where one has to book years ahead if one wants to go in. The number of people who can go into such areas is limited. That has to be so because we can love an area to death as well as destroy it by mining, woodchipping and flooding. Tourism is a valuable adjunct to our economy. It could be even more important to Australia if the Government truly appreciated and promoted the natural assets of this country. Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(6.28) —First I must say that I have an interest in tourism, having been a developer of colonial accommodation in Tasmania. I would not want to speak on this matter without that being clearly understood. It is interesting to hear Senator Sanders, another Tasmanian, speak on this subject. My State is very dependent on the tourist industry and obviously there will be a number of attitudes and views as to how we can best develop it. Tourism is very important throughout the country but particularly so in a State such as ours which is heavily dependent on tourism and which is very beautiful. We have different approaches to this topic and there is value in that. Nobody is all right about this matter. I was very pleased to see that the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) was prepared to put down a substantial statement on the tourism industry but in many ways I regard it as inadequate and misleading. Obviously this Government has succeeded very effectively in the promotion of Australia overseas. Obviously promotion runs in the Minister's family. Under his leadership the Government has done well promoting this country and I give it credit for that. The Minister said that there were four areas which needed attention if Australia were to become a tourism force. These were promotion, incentives for development, incentives for overseas investment and staff training. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. Senator NEWMAN —Before the suspension of the sitting I was discussing the statement put down by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism on the current situation in the tourism industry in Australia. I think it is generally agreed by all parties that this is an extremely important industry for our nation, particularly because of its heavy involvement in employment for the young. The Minister in his statement said that there were four main areas which needed attention in order for Australia to be a tourism force: First, promotion; secondly, incentives for development; thirdly, incentives for overseas investment; and, fourthly, staff training. I said that I thought that the tourism situation in Australia at present is a very rosy one, and I hope and pray that it will continue to be rosy. But I must say that the Government's record on tourism is not as unflawed as we would be led to believe by the Minister's statement. I hope that I can demonstrate that later. I have also to say that I think the Government has been very lucky. It was lucky in that it took office when the drought broke and overseas conditions changed so that Australia's economy was on the up. It has been a lucky government in the tourism field in particular. The Minister said that in 1987 we will have 1.7 million visitors to Australia, which is almost double the figure for 1983. Why is the Government so lucky? Why are there so many tourists flocking to our shores? We have been very lucky in the sense that we are benefiting from the terrorism which has been so rife overseas. Australia looks to be a very safe tourist destination. We are also lucky in the sense that our dollar is down. In the tourism sense we are lucky, firstly, because it is a cheap place for tourists to visit and, secondly, because it is very expensive for our own people to holiday overseas. So in a tourism sense we are doing well. The Government is lucky in that respect to take the credit, but I do not think it can take all of the credit. Why are more Australians than ever choosing to stay at home for their holidays? What sort of holidays are they having? We know that because of the current economic situation in Australia-the high interest rates, the lack of spending power by Mr and Mrs Average Australian-people are forced to take their holidays in Australia and are not having the sort of holidays to which they may have been accustomed. I draw the Senate's attention to a report in the Launceston Examiner of 2 May, only last week, following a statement by the Tasmanian Visitor Corporation's General Manager, Mr David Phillips. The article stated: . . . the number of budget tours visiting Tasmania was rising while the number on package holidays had fallen by 25 per cent in some areas. He said that the average downturn in visitor numbers to Tasmania was caused by the depression in the Australian economy coupled with aggressive marketing by mainland states. Let us not forget that the overall downturn in visitor numbers to my State, caused by the depression in the Australian economy, has resulted in an increase in the number of budget tourists. They are still perhaps having their holidays, but they are not having the sort of holidays they used to have. In an article in the Advocate of Tuesday, 28 April, Mr Glenn Cocking, the Commonwealth Deputy Statistician, was reported as having stated: . . . caravan parks had a slight increase in site occupancy rates for the December quarter last year . . . from the December quarter in 1985 . . . People are having their holidays, but instead of the more glamorous ones, they are now taking the caravan option. That is what this Government has done to the tourism industry; that is what it has done to the Australian people. It has forced them to cut their cloth very tight indeed. The Minister stated that the face of tourism infrastructure in Australia has been revolutionised. I agree that in many ways it has. But one of the things that concern me when we look at the face of tourism infrastructure and how it has been revolutionised is the great emphasis that has been placed on luxury beds in Australia. Over the last few years billions of dollars have been spent on high-rise luxury accommodation in the main capital cities of this country. The National Australia Bank, in its Monthly Summary of November last year, pointed to a recent study of the tourism industry which revealed that the lower end of the market is badly underserviced. It stated that most tourist promotions in Australia emphasised classy, high cost accommodation, which is usually priced out of the range of the local spender of tourist dollars. It stated that while the number of overseas tourists visiting Australia has grown at a faster rate than the number of local tourists travelling internally, Australian residents travelling internally still make up the bulk of tourists. When we talk about tourism, it is all very well to concentrate on our `shrimp on the barbie' overseas image. But let us not forget that not too many Australians can afford those shrimps because the `barbie', as it is set out for the overseas tourist, is in a very classy, expensive, international hotel. There has not been the incentive for small business operators in this country to put their money into the sort of accommodation which is needed by Mr and Mrs Average Australian who are taking their children on a holiday. Increasingly, their pay packets are so diminished that it will be a caravan holiday. They are not getting the opportunities to stay in good, moderately priced accommodation because the small business people in Australia are afraid to invest. With interest rates at the level they are, what small businessman would dare to go into a major investment now-which must represent a minimum of a million dollars, probably nearer to two-in order to set up some sort of motel or moderately priced accommodation of a viable size? Businessmen will have to spend that sort of money in order to establish a new motel, and they will spend most of their waking hours working for the bank. It is just not on. Any government that really understood the way small business thinks would realise that there is just no hope of getting that sort of investment while the economy is in its present state. It is all very well, as I said, to concentrate on the glossy, glamorous end of the industry. But the fact remains that it is catering for the major international companies. The Australian investor in small business cannot afford to invest under this Government's regime. We are paying the price in this far too great emphasis on the luxury beds and insufficient coverage of the small operator and the small Australian family which goes on holiday. The Minister stated that at present we have almost $8 billion worth of infrastructure being built for the tourism industry in Australia. Infrastructure, of course, also extends to such matters as airline terminals. I was interested to note in the course of the Minister's statement that he referred to the problems at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport. He stated: . . . too many passengers arriving early in the morning at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport, the design and outlay of our baggage collection and Customs areas, too many people seeking accommodation, and an excess of organisations wanting to hold conventions in Australia. He pointed to these examples of too much success rather than of too little. I think it is also an example of the failure by this Government and by the statutory authorities that work under it. It is very clear that the emphasis should be on overseas visitors changing their point of entry to this country. Most overseas visitors think of Sydney when they think of Australia. Until we have better reception facilities at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport, it is up to the Australian Tourist Commission actively to direct tourists in and out by other gateways. Until such time as we can do something about the curfew in Sydney, and the simultaneous arrival of so many large aircraft into Sydney, with people having to face Customs and immigration officials at 6 o'clock in the morning in long queues that go on and on, I believe that the Australian Tourist Commission should actively encourage people, as I said, to arrive and depart by other gateways. It is interesting to recall the figures relating to overseas visitors who visit other parts of Australia. Unfortunately, I could not find them for the debate tonight, but I recall very clearly that only 3 per cent of overseas visitors actually make it to my home state of Tasmania. I also recall that well under 15 per cent get to Queensland. We think of those two States as being two of our main tourist destinations. Yet the figures for New South Wales were extremely high by comparison. There must be more emphasis on spreading visitors throughout the country. I draw the attention of the Senate to a report in the Age newspaper on 11 July last year which said: The detailed economic management report focusing on Australian holiday patterns, released by Mintel Australia, also showed that local and international visitors spent most money in NSW (including the Australian Capital Territory). A total of $3818 million went to NSW and the ACT. A total of $2689.3 million was spent in Victoria. There is a very heavy imbalance when we look at the figures for the country as a whole. I am concerned that we should be looking to do more about that. If the Commonwealth is to be involved in bringing international visitors to this country, it should take an active role in suggesting routes around it. The Minister went on to say that prior to 1983 there were very strong disincentives for overseas investment in Australia but that his Government had eased the guidelines and was now allowing foreign investment 100 per cent equity in respect of the provision of the tourism infrastructure. He naively said that the effect of this has been quite miraculous. I do not find it miraculous at all. If one's currency is as low as ours and if one has a high inflation rate, one will be attractive to foreign investors. It is just an accidental result of the Government's mismanagement of the economy that occasionally there has to be a plus. The attraction of so much tourist investment into this country has turned out to be a plus. But the Government should not be crowing and taking credit for this. Mismanagement of our economy is a serious matter and the Government should not skite about something that happens along the way and over which it has had very little control. The Minister also said that we now have a marvellous reservoir of well-trained, well-equipped young Australians entering this glamorous industry. If we have such a marvellous reservoir, the reservoir has a leak. The figures for February 1986 show that 229,800 people were employed in the hotel, restaurant and clubs industry while the figures just out for February 1987 show that now only 200,500 people are employed. Nearly 30,000 people have left that industry. So it is not good enough for the Minister to claim that this is such a marvellous avenue for jobs for Australians-the figures prove otherwise. People are leaving this industry. Although some people may still be employed in the glossy end of the industry, I have to tell this Government that restaurants all around this nation are closing down. One has only to read the Age newspaper's epicure guide week after week to see how many high quality restaurants have reluctantly shut their doors. They may not have all gone into bankruptcy but they have seen the writing on the wall and when they start to go into the red they shut their doors. There is no getting away from it. The figures for the hotels, restaurants and clubs show that employment has dropped by 30,000 people in the last 12 months. So much for such a marvellous reservoir of well-trained and well-equipped young Australians entering the glamorous industry-obviously they are also leaving it. I was also interested to see that the Minister is claiming that the Government had done a wonderful job in training these young people. I tried to do a bit of research on how much training they were actually getting. The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) is constantly showering members of parliament with news releases, across the top of which is his distinctive green logo. I ran into a bit of trouble when I tried to find out how many of these traineeships under the Priority One scheme had been handed out for the tourist industry. I found back on 19 December that 17 leading Perth restaurants were to offer young people food and beverage service traineeships in Western Australia. I could not find anything about it afterwards. On 21 October last year 11 young Canberra men and women were to get traineeships under the scheme. I understand that later there were a further 15-but I could not find a Press release for that. It was announced in September last year that 12 young Aboriginals in the Australian Capital Territory were to get on-the-job work experience and formal off-the-job training in the tourism industry. Back in September last year it was announced in Queensland that hospitality traineeships would soon be announced-but I could not find a follow-up Press release. The Parliamentary Library has been chasing this information for me. However so far, this is the only information it has been able to come up with. So it looks as though there has not been great involvement by the tourist industry working with the Government on these traineeships. I wonder whether this is because people in the industry are struggling to survive themselves and they do not really have the time or the faith in the future to take on trainees, as the Government was hoping they would. The Minister himself pointed out what I feel is a very weak area in respect of young people in this industry. He described in graphic detail-if any- body is interested in reading the statement-the fact that of the 1,200 young people who tried to get into the Ryde hospitality school 800 were refused. Five hundred people tried to get into the William Angliss school in Victoria and 400 were refused. This Government is not prepared to allow young Australians to get the education they want. The Government allows people from other countries to get the education they want because they are prepared to pay for it. However, Australians are not even allowed to try to pay for it. The Government cannot make facilities available. It is not providing sufficient places or any options, which my party has clearly stated it will do. Let it be understood: This is not an area in which the Government can claim any virtue. The Minister also talked about the tourism overseas promotional scheme, the TOPS scheme, which is designed to assist the industry in its international product marketing efforts. If I were in the Government, I do not think I would be doing too much skiting about this. Only a month or so ago, the Australian Hotels Association drew attention to the fact that of 33 organisations using that scheme, which were contacted by the International Tourism Organisation of Australia, 30 were experiencing problems with delays in approval, delays in payments or both. I asked the Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism a question about that during an Estimates committee hearing. Officers agreed that they were having trouble and that the administrative situation was in some sort of chaos. They said that they were getting too many applications to be able to cope and that the Minister was in consultation with the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) on the question of forward commitment for future approvals. I understand that they are now somewhere between $8m and $15m in arrears on this matter. The Australian Tourism Industry Association has commissioned Peat Marwick to examine the scheme from the tourism industry's point of view. I have to make sure that the Government understands that the industry is not happy with this scheme which is most inefficient and which needs thorough and hearty reworking. The idea is good but the Government cannot skite about it yet because it is not working too well. The Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism went on to say: There seems to be a feeling abroad that international tourism is the only thing that we should be pushing. It seems to be forgotten that 85 per cent of the tourism industry in Australia is generated within Australia. I referred to that fact earlier. One of the things that the local and international tourism industry depends on most is the road system in this country. It should be remembered, and remembered very well, that the real level of road funding in this country in 1983-84 was $1.359 billion, and the Budget estimate for this past year dropped to $1.152 billion-a drop of $200m. I will be very interested to see what happens to those road funds in the mini-Budget when it is brought down tomorrow. That will really test what sort of a commitment the Government has to tourism because roads are a major part of tourism infrastructure and are of great importance to the economy and commercial life of the country. We will see tomorrow what the Government will do about roads. The Minister also spoke about strikes and, interestingly enough, he said: . . . in the last four years there has not been a single strike within the tourist industry although some industrial problems in the airline industry have, at times, indirectly hurt the trade. First, I dispute the Minister's statement and, secondly, to say that the industrial problems in the airline industry have at times indirectly hurt the trade makes one wonder whether the Minister has been away overseas all the time. Anyone who knows anything about the tourist industry has to say that the merest threat of an airline strike sends chaos and cold winds throughout the tourist industry. Bookings are cancelled right around the country, arrangements are changed and many bookings are never replaced. It is a very great problem in the industry and to say that it indirectly hurts the trade betrays incredible ignorance, and the mind boggles. The Minister also talked about the bogy of penalty rates and said: Furthermore, the bogy of penalty rates . . . has not stopped the upsurge in tourism development . . . in Australia. I have news for the Minister. If he thinks that he has done well in the tourist industry, I would like him to try a moratorium for a couple of years. Let us have no penalty rates for two years and see what it does for the industry. If there was not a dramatic growth in tourism, the Minister could always reintroduce them. I think that there is no way that the Minister can accurately say that is a bogy and that penalty rates have not stopped an upsurge in tourism development. The upsurge in tourism development-the services that could be provided to our overseas visitors, to our own internal tourists-I think would be amazing to see if employers were able to have their employees work any five days during the week without penalty rates. The National Australia Bank, which I mentioned earlier, in its survey in November last year said: . . . many Australian businesses have reduced their out-of-hours services, maintained skeleton staffing at weekends, and eliminated most services on public holidays. A solution is to develop more flexible wage-fixing principles that are industry specific. Of course, visitors from overseas also expect to be able to shop at all sorts of times, and they find it incomprehensible when they cannot spend their money-especially the Japanese tourists, who are very keen to buy gifts for their families back home. That is an integral part of a holiday for Japanese visitors when they are in other countries. They like to take back gifts to their families, as do we all, of course, but they cannot do it because they have limited time and the shops are shut. The shops are shut on Sundays and restaurants are shut on Sundays and Mondays only because of cost limitations on them on public holidays as a result of penalty rates. Until we have an opportunity in the tourist industry to demonstrate their stifling effect, it will be very difficult to get through to the union movement and to this union dominated Government just what they are doing to the industry which holds so much future and promise for us all. I do not want to take any more of the Senate's time. I am glad to see that a committee headed by Mr John Haddad has been set up by the Tourist Advisory Council to negotiate with the unions for a better regime for industrial relations. I wish the Committee well but, until there is a change of government, I think it is not too likely that it will have much success. I say to the Government: It is all very well to promote tourism effectively overseas-and I acknowledged earlier on that I believe the Government is doing that-and it is all very well to get the spin-offs from its economic mismanagement by having the dollar drop and money flood in, but what this country desperately needs is to get the economy back on an even keel and get interest rates down so that people can invest. The Government should get rid of the capital gains tax so that people who are prepared to work long hours in this industry, which it demands, will be rewarded by receiving some sort of capital gain when they decide to get out. We should be training young people-that is not happening at the moment-giving them places in tertiary education, and giving them more traineeships, if that can be organised. The Government should not hold out the young but should let them start at a lower rate of pay so that they can be taught to do their jobs properly. Teaching them on the job takes time and costs employers money. Let us get rid of the penalty rates which are holding back the industry. If we could do all these things, we might really be able to talk about what a wonderfully promising industry we have. I think the Government has taken action, in some ways, at the beginning of the race; but the race is a marathon and there is a long way to go yet. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(8.27) —The ministerial statement on tourism is indeed an important recognition of the role of the tourist industry as an export earner and as a possible provider of stimulating jobs for Australians. However, the statement by the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) in places shows the tendency for the Minister to exaggerate and overpromote himself regardless of the facts. The statement makes one think of the Minister as a contortionist trying to pat himself on the back at all times, if honourable senators can imagine that. However, it is quite correct that the Hawke Government has seen the tourism potential and has taken many potentially good steps in that direction. Our previous notion of tourism as some sort of last resort into which unskilled people went has now been swept away. There is an understanding that we need to harness skills in young Australians, and also in not so young Australians, to be able to offer services to people who come from all parts of the world. The rapid growth in the Japanese market highlights the need to tailor what we have to offer to the requirements of those people who want to travel here. Japanese tourists come here in groups far more often than tourists from other countries and they like to see many more regions while they are here than do most other people. There is plenty of room for a specialised segment of the tourist industry to devote itself to servicing the needs of the Japanese tourist market. We could provide that service ourselves rather than sitting back like the Government and expecting the Japanese to buy our resorts and to `ghettoise' their tourist activities. However, this requires a completely new and important approach to both language and cultural skills within Australia. We need to have people with a knowledge of Japanese culture, and we also need people with a knowledge of cultures of other nations whose people may come to Australia. This must link in with the development of a national language policy and must take account of our trading links and our position within the Pacific region. It is extremely important that we recognise that we are part of a Pacific economic community in terms of our tourism because we can offer a very broad range of services to tourists by actually being part of an operation which brings people into New Zealand, the islands and Australia as part of linked tours. It is also very important to look at shift work and to try to get a sensible approach to the labour problem. This has been mentioned by other speakers, so I will not dwell on it for very long. Basically we need to maximise the convenience for tourists. The industry has to provide a service which is of recognised and acceptable quality and standard, and we have to move away from a lot of the inflexibility of the previous era which is still dominating the managers in many hotels and resort areas. It is important that we make a start with the development of specialised training associated with schools such as the William Angliss College and the Ryde College School of Catering and that we should also give some of these people the right language skills and the right cultural knowledge of what people will expect and want from a good tourist service. As this professionalism increases, so will the opportunities for our industry, and we will be able to re-assess how we can use the young people who have entered into this area and offer a lot more skills and earn a lot more money-many more foreign tourist dollars. It is very important for our appeal as a tourist destination that we maintain the range and diversity of our natural environment. Senator Sanders has spent some time on this. If we allow our natural environment to be raped and pillaged in our role as a quarry for overseas investors who are seeking a quick return, we are only cutting our own throats. The spectacular growth in the number of overseas tourists who come to Australia shows that we can generate an enormous amount of foreign exchange from people who appreciate our natural beauty, and we have to promote harmony between our tourism and our environment. This is possible. It sometimes requires rejection of proposals that are going to despoil nature. The putting up of very large urban complexes such as those that are spoiling the Gold Coast of Queensland detracts from the beauty of the place. Maybe we can earn more dollars by actually making more selective use of our natural beauty, which is unique in the world. It is very important that we re-establish a reputation for actually watching our environment, and we can have a large number of concerned people coming to Australia to look at things like our rainforests, our desert coastlines and so on. They are not necessarily just people who will come along with a back pack and not spend any money here. That can be part of what they are coming along to see. In Thomas Hardy's novels at the turn of the century it was suggested that one of the major tourist venues of the world would be our wilderness areas, and this is coming true today. People with reasonable amounts of money are willing to come and spend it to get professional viewings of parts of our wilderness. Last year I briefly visited some of the Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, and at Uluru, which has been fairly commercialised, the local Aborigines have been employed in a very positive way, as rangers to look after their traditional land around Ayers Rock. The community was very proud of its role in restoring an area of major significance and being able to express its traditions and culture to people from all parts of the world. The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service officers were indeed sympathetic to the Aboriginal culture and to the needs of the environment, and worked painstakingly to improve conditions. As well as that we have a full-scale luxury hotel in that area which is charging sufficient to enable it to get a pretty good return on its money. I believe it will be a major advance if we start to examine how we can reap the potential from areas of spectacular beauty and at the same time retain the awareness and care that is necessary to nurture the natural environment. We need to promote Australia first and not get caught in an all-States favouritism game of picking winners. Each region has its potential and there are in those regions many small business entrepreneurs able to seize opportunities in each of those parts of Australia. However, those people need proper marketing and transport infrastructure to help them. We need to offer the facility of a deregulated airline system which does not cost the earth. It costs more to travel in Australia than to get here. We need competitive bus and rail travel and we need to sort out more deregulated arrangements such as those for interstate buses. We need to recognise as well that there is an upper end to the tourist market and provide facilities for people who want to come here and spend large amounts of money, maybe on some of our specialised jewellery products such as opals. We need to collect statistics on all of this and know what types of facilities we have to provide. Last May the Secretary of the Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism, Mr MacDonald, wrote to me in these terms: Accurate, timely and reliable information is of course of vital importance to enable the development of policies sensitive to the needs of the tourism industry and more informed decision making by Government. Mr MacDonald pointed out that his Department was trying to expand data coverage and improve the types of surveys carried out. He added: A source of considerable concern to the Department has nevertheless been lengthy delays involved in the release of certain important tourism statistics such as ABS visitor arrivals data. In this area the Department has been in close consultation with the relevant authorities and has endeavoured to ensure that data handling systems are established which lead to more timely data availability. I recommend to Mr Brown and the Government that they make certain not only that we help tourists to appreciate Australia and promote it overseas, but also that we know where we are succeeding and where we are failing. That is where proper statistics and data on the tourism industry are necessary. I recommend this approach to the Department. Senator KILGARIFF(Northern Territory)(8.38) —This is an interesting debate, and coming from the tourist industry, in which I have participated to some degree for about 28 or 30 years, I feel it could be said that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The tourist industry is not all about big government and what the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism (Mr John Brown) is doing or is not doing, and what we politicians think the tourist industry should be. The fact remains that the tourist industry is a most interesting one. It employs, as the Minister had said, many Australians through all walks of life. I wish to take the Minister to task only to a degree, because obviously he is a Minister who is very enthusiastic about his responsibilities to the tourist industry of Australia. But I think he should also realise that the tourist industry did not commence in 1983. Perhaps he feels that to quite a degree it did, but we have to give credit where credit should be given. When one looks back over our tourist industry, one sees that over many years a tremendous number of people-little people; big people too, but mainly little people-have developed it. The Minister should not look back over previous governments and cast aspersions on them, because it does not do them justice and because, at the same time, it makes him a little foolish. I will reminisce for a little while. I look back to the days of Sir Phillip Lynch, which was also about the period of former Senator Bob Cotton, who became the Australian Ambassador to the United States of America. He was the Ambassador for both the Fraser Government and the Hawke Government. In respect of Sir Phillip Lynch, I suppose with the pressure and pace of the way in which parliaments go on, we tend to forget those who were with us and who gave so much of their time. They disappear and we think nothing more of them. Sir Phillip Lynch gave much of his body, soul and heart-the lot-to small business and to tourism. He did this in the period that he held very senior positions in the Fraser Government. He gave his whole body and soul and eventually died of cancer, under very difficult circumstances, I might say. He was a man who, within the parliamentary scene, did much. Bob Cotton is still alive these days and as hearty as ever. He was recognised by both governments as having done well for Australia. I remember when I first came into the Senate how he was particularly interested in tourism and could see the future of it. He gave much to that industry, as has Mr Brown, the present Minister. Looking back over my brief few years in a role within the tourist industry, there are so many people who should be recognised, whether one sees them as big citizens of Australia or just minor ones. I refer to people who have made the tourist industry so significant. I guess one would be Sir Reginald Ansett, who started off as a surveyor's assistant in Katherine in the Northern Territory. He battled his way up. He, of so many Australians, added so much to the tourist industry. He started off as a single person, bought a light aircraft and built himself up to be the head of Ansett Airlines of Australia. Of course, there is also Sid Williams, who commenced Bush Airlines in Queensland. He is another battler who has done much for the tourist industry. One could go on. One could refer to Eddie Connellan who, in the outback, was a most significant person. In 1939 he developed airways through the outback. It is incredible to think of it now, but he serviced some 128 landing points throughout the outback-in northern South Australia, Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. His contribution to travel and to the tourist industry was significant. He was a most incredible person. We can look in so many directions. There are the people of some 30, 40 or 50 years ago who brought about the beginnings of tourism. Tourism does not just grow overnight. It did not grow just in 1983. It did not grow just in 1940, 1950 or 1960. It had humble beginnings, as did the mining industry and the pastoral industry. I have been in touch with so many of the small people. Such small people still exist these days. I can remember Bertie Bond. He introduced coaches to the outback. Perhaps I should have a grey beard, but I remember him in 1930. There was Stan Cawood. Ayers Rock was hardly on the map in the days just after the war. Very few people went there. Stan Cawood still lives. It was he and Jack Cotterill who pioneered travelling to the Rock and that area of tourism. One could go further afield and look at Queensland to see what the Hayles of Mackay have done with tourism in the Whitsunday Passage. This is only a minute selection of those people through the outback and the whole of Australia who have contributed to tourism. Looking at this particular statement, my first impression-I do not want to be too hard on the Minister-leads me to say that self-aggrandisement tends to diminish the stature and credibility of the speaker and I must say that I would have thought that the Minister would have taken just a little more time to remember to recognise and congratulate the people who have made the Australian tourist industry. The Australian tourist industry has grown from strength to strength through the years and through governments and it will continue to grow, because it has a tremendous future. It is not the Federal Government, a State government or anything like that that is at the helm. They are there to assist and, wherever possible, guide these small people of Australia in endeavouring to make a good living for themselves, their friends and their families. It is not the Federal Government that leads them along by the nose in the general direction in which they are going. Indeed, it is the small people who have established these directions; sometimes government has assisted them and sometimes it has not. Mr Brown is to be congratulated to some degree for what he is doing. But before he announces to all far and wide all those things that he has done to assist the tourist industry-as he did continually through his statement-I would ask him to halt just a little and recognise the problems of the people in the tourist industry today. There are immense problems. I was looking at an article in the Australian Financial Review of 12 May. The headline said: `Personal bankruptcies hit a record high'. By nature I am an optimist. But when I see so many small businesses going bankrupt, I do not blame it on the Government. I am not as silly as that. I think that some of its policies could have contributed a bit, but they are not responsible for the situation that exists now in which personal bankruptcies have hit a record high. Also, it is no good saying in this statement that everything is so glossy and good within the tourist industry that we are all living on a high. We are not. We have a record number of small people going bankrupt, and I can assure honourable senators that within the tourist industry and small business there are very many people who are in desperate straits. So let us have less flag waving and let us be realists. Let us look at the situation in Australia and the people that we represent and do something for them. We will not do anything for them by waving the flags and saying how wonderful we are, how wonderful the Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism is, or how wonderful the Government is. We have more responsibilities than that to those people. I seek leave to have this article incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The article read as follows- Personal bankruptcies hit a record high By Julie Power High interest rates and the availability of plastic credit cards have led to a record number of personal bankruptcies. The South Australian Small Business Corporation has carried out a survey of financiers and found steep rises in personal bankruptcies in all States, and says the worst may be yet to come. The Corporation says that in the nine months to March 30 the number of bankruptcies had risen by 60 per cent in Queensland, 50 per cent in South Australia, 49 per cent in WA, 44 per cent in Victoria, 35 per cent in the Northern Territory, 33 per cent in NSW and 30 per cent in Tasmania. It called on the Federal Government to help reduce the taxation burden on the private sector to help counter the ``rising trend of personal and business failure''. Last week Australian Guarantee Corporation noted in its interim report a 40 per cent increase in bankruptcies. AGC said South Australia was the worst affected State, with a 58 per cent increase. According to the SA Small Business Corporation, the ``dramatic increase in personal bankruptcies'' resulted in a decrease from 33 per cent to 24 per cent in the direct proportion of bankruptcies directly attributable to business failure. But it said that business could take a little comfort from this statistic because the absolute number of businesses failing had also increased above the trend line. Mr Ron Flavel, the SA Small Business Corporation's general manager, said not only had household income declined, most people were stretching their credit lines to the limit. He also said that the stigma attached to bankruptcy had declined as evidenced by a recent pamphlet from the SA Department for Community Welfare. The pamphlet in question mentions social disgrace as one of the drawbacks of bankruptcy and says: ``You should consider how you feel about this and how your friends are going to react.'' A spokesman for the department, Mr Brian Walker, said that there were 6,594 bankruptcies throughout Australia last year and there was ``evidence to suggest'' that personal bankruptcies would increase by more than 33 per cent this year. The department, he said, had become aware of the need for easy-to-understand literature on the subject. Credit companies contacted yesterday confirmed a noticeable increase in the number of bad debts and bills in arrears. The State Bank of SA said there had been a ``concerning increase in Bankcard debt''. Beneficial Credit assistant company secretary, Mr Trevor Waller, said the number of bills in arrears for 30 days and over had certainly taken off. To manage the increase, the company had increased its staffing in the collection of arrears by more than 20 per cent. But Mr Michael Mount, a spokesman for the Insolvency Practitioners' Association of Australia and a partner in Michael Mount and Co, of Adelaide, said the number of business bankruptcies had increased only slightly. He said that the increase in personal bankruptcy was associated with the ``overselling of credit cards, and the increased cost of interest on these kinds of services''. ``The burden of interest rates between 18 per cent to 20 per cent was catching up with the little people who are relying on credit increasingly,'' he added. Senator KILGARIFF —I thank the Senate. I shall not spend too much time on the Minister's statement, but one matter that concerns me considerably is that he talked of the wonderful things that are being done for young Australians in the tourist industry. That is true enough. There is a golden opportunity for young people within the industry, but there are problems. The Minister talked about the education of young people, promotion and other matters, and referred to schools and that kind of thing. I remind him of a situation that has been hurtful to a group of young people who wished to gain experience of the tourist and hospitality industry by going to a college to see whether that was to be their life's work. Those young people coming out of school, aged 14, 15 and 16 years, were not too sure what they wanted to do. If they had been, they would have been exceptions. This group wanted to find whether their future lay in the tourist and hospitality industry. These young people were encouraged to take up youth traineeships, but the Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union of Australia said to them, `You cannot participate in this school or enter this traineeship unless you join the Miscellaneous Workers Union'. I take exception to the fact that unionism can encroach on the lives of young people-people aged 14, 15 and 16 years-and deny them the opportunity, without joining a union, of trying their luck at training with the possibility of a job in the hospitality industry. A few days ago I drew up a question on this aspect for the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh), who represents the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis). I now put it to him. I draw the Minister's attention to the problems currently being experienced by employers in the tourism and hospitality industry in the Northern Territory, where youth traineeship opportunities are being thwarted by the demands of the Miscellaneous Workers Union that young trainees join the union. This compulsory unionism being forced on potential trainees has led to 12 trainees not being given traineeship opportunities in 1987. The figure was 12; it could have been 100. Can the Minister say whether his Government believes that young people-in this case, in the Northern Territory-are entitled to gain work experience through traineeship schemes without being forced to join a union before undertaking that necessary work experience as the foundation of their careers? Further, what is the Federal Government prepared to do to ensure that union belligerence does not deprive other young Australians of traineeship opportunities? The Minister also talked about the efforts of his Government to bring about better facilities for tourism. I note that he said: We have provided a special subsidy towards the cost of diesel fuel used for power generation by off-shore tourist resorts within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park region. That is tremendous, and I am not envious. In such situations the subsidy should be provided, but I wonder whether the Minister has been to the outback where people are building up their little private enterprise tourist industry. They may be 100 or 200 miles off the road and have to drag their fuel and supplies from the nearest centre. They live in extremely poor conditions and are doing their own thing in encouraging people to go to the outback; yet despite all the Minister's hoo-ha about assisting tourism, I cannot see a damned thing being done for the little Australian in the outback, and I have lived there most of my life. What is the Federal Government doing for people who live out there in the dust? To me, the paper that has been presented is extremely lacking. The Minister said that he has done much to provide facilities for overseas visitors. That is all very well, but, when one gets down to it, it is really private enterprise that is doing it. The international terminals were not built by the Minister's Government; they were built a few years ago. I have said again and again, and I will continue to say, that I am bitter about the Federal Government's lack of responsibility concerning the gateway to the north, the Darwin Airport. I am bitter about it because, while many facilities in major cities are perhaps being encouraged, it is still private enterprise that is doing the work. The Government speaks of international visitors to Australia. Those who come through the Darwin Airport have to go through an old hangar that was shot up and bombed during the Second World War. That hangar is still the terminal at Darwin Airport and that is a very poor introduction to Australia, particularly for people who have come through such places as Singapore. A new airport was to be built but when the Minister's Government came to office it cancelled the work that was in train. Some $19m or $20m had already been spent, but nothing further has been done. A leading Darwin businessman has again written to the Prime Minister on behalf of a group of private businessmen who are prepared to take over a piece of ground on the airport and build a terminal. I seek leave to have a document dealing with this matter incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Prime Minister asked to intervene in Darwin Airport crisis Leading Darwin businessman and endorsed C.L.P. candidate for the Federal House of Representatives, Mr Peter Paroulakis has again written to the Prime Minister Mr Hawke on behalf of a large group of investors to personally intervene and resolve the present crisis relating to Darwin airport. Mr Paroulakis said that in the past two years since the north side project was halted on April 4, 1985, despite numerous requests of the Minister, not only by the N.T. Government but by a wide range of industry and community organisations and members of the public Mr Morris has given no indication of when a new terminal will be constructed. A press release of August 20 1986 referring to the ``detailed planning of a new passenger terminal'' in the totally inappropriate south west corner of the Airport, in the existing R.A.A.F. area, is the last advice we have received from the Minister. We now learn that the Federal Labor Government's Expenditure Review Committee is considering the possibility of selling the terminal. Mr Paroulakis said he was gravely disturbed at the constant changing of proposals and conflicting concepts which indicate a gross lack of competence and good will and the total disregard for the people of Darwin shown by the Minister. Mr Paroulakis intends to again try and put a private funding proposal to the Prime Minister and Mr Morris during his proposed visit to Canberra at the end of May to try and resolve the crisis but also to seek some firm and clear commitment for the construction of the much needed passenger terminal. The people of Darwin are fed up with being treated as second class citizens by Federal Labor Ministers who continually call us ``parasites and bludgers with a cargo cult mentality living off the efforts of other Australians''. Mr Paroulakis said ``Territorians want to decrease their dependence on Commonwealth funding but we must be given the opportunity to develop our economy. Tourism is a major growth area which will provide a massive stimulus to the local economy. Uncertainty over the future of our airport is helping to wreck this industry in its infancy. Overseas and local investors have injected hundreds of millions of dollars of their own risk capital which will contribute to the N.T. being a self reliant economy. The present airport terminal and its totally substandard recent additions which only increase the chronic congestion stands as a landmark to the deliberate and unrelenting policy of the Federal Labor Party in its efforts to stifle the growth and development of the Northern Territory''. Senator KILGARIFF —One could go on and on about this statement, but it is not my intention to do so. The Minister may see himself as the leading light for tourism in Australia, but in the eyes of many people he is lacking. He is lacking because he tends to build himself up as the accomplisher, but that is not the case. He believes that he has brought in overseas people in large numbers. I assure him once again-this goes back to what I was saying at the beginning of my speech-that tourism started many years ago. It is the battler, the businessman, who has gradually built up the private enterprise tourist system and promoted Australia overseas. These people have built up the figures. It is interesting to note that the tourist industry in Europe now is very much in the doldrums. There are many reasons for this, one of which is the exchange rate. If we asked people from overseas why they came to Australia, I would not be surprised if, more often than not, they said: `Gaddafi sent us'. So many people now refuse to go to Europe, including England and Ireland, because of the terrorist campaigns. They see Australia as a safe country and let us hope we can keep it that way. Only a little while ago Americans particularly would not come to Australia in large numbers because of the exchange rate. Their dollar did not go very far in Australia. Now it is extremely advantageous for overseas visitors, particularly Americans, to come to Australia because their dollar goes a long way. In closing, it is interesting to note the Minister's statement. Some of the facts and figures that he has put forward indicate that the tourist industry of Australia is in a very strong condition. It has been growing in strength over the years. The only criticism that I have to make regarding his statement is that he fails to recognise the pioneers and the present workers in the tourist industry. I am not too sure where they fit in, in his mind. They are the tourist industry. While Mr Brown remains, in the Federal sphere at least, the Minister responsible for tourism, I think many people within the tourist industry of Australia would look to him for more assistance and more sympathy. But he is waving the flag as though he is the achiever. Senator VANSTONE(South Australia)(9.03) —I wish to make eight or nine comments with respect to the ministerial statement of the Hon. John Brown, Minister for Sport, Recreation and Tourism, entitled `Tourism-under Labor'. Honourable senators who have spoken before me have indicated that their view of this statement is that it is yet another example of the Minister blowing his own bags and failing to accept the contributions that other people have made to tourism in Australia. That is the theme that I would like to pick up and develop. This paper says a lot more about what has been done or what the Minister thinks has been done by this Government rather than what this Government will do. The first point at which I would take issue with the Minister is on page 2 of the ministerial statement. There he says: Not only has the Commonwealth Government become active in the promotion of tourism but the State governments, which were as moribund as the Federal Government in that period prior to 1983, have now also become very actively involved as well. What the Minister forgets, what has escaped his mind or what he has deliberately excluded, is the role of the South Australian Government in tourism development, under the Tonkin Government, from 1979 to 1982. The Minister has obviously forgotten that during the time of that Government the tourism budget was increased twofold-a claim that I note the Minister has made in the paper with respect to certain aspects of the tourism budget. He fails to acknowledge that the South Australian Liberal Government reorganised its department-a reorganisation which was long overdue. Further, he fails to acknowledge that the South Australian Liberal Government developed a five-year plan for tourism, which has now been upgraded by the current Labor Government. I say that to indicate that the need for a five-year plan was accepted by the Labor Government. That is why it was upgraded. The Labor Government is continuing to handle tourism on the basis that it needs some planning and that it is not a day to day business. I am informed-reliably, I believe-that that was the first coherent, long term tourism plan developed by any State or Federal government in this country. Therefore, I find offensive the reference by the Minister about the State governments being as moribund as the Federal Government prior to this Labor Government getting in. The second point that I wish to make relates to some comments made by the Minister on page 4 of his statement. There he seeks to remind us of the increase, in hundreds of thousands, of overseas visitors coming to Australia. He is very pleased with the fact that we have had such a substantial increase and seems to try to take credit for it. However, he does not acknowledge that the falling value of the Australian dollar is making Australia a cheap tourist attraction. I do not deny that some Government initiatives may also be contributing to that increase. However, I venture to say that the major attraction for tourists, especially the Japanese, is the value of the Australian dollar. As if to compound the Minister's ignorance of this fact, he goes on to say that, on the reverse side of the coin, more Australians than ever are choosing to stay at home. The implication in this statement, put in the context of the whole speech, is that the Minister has found some wonderfully clever way to attract other people here and to keep us home within the domestic tourist industry, thereby increasing the contribution made by the dollar to the economy through local tourism. He has forgotten yet again that the reason that Australians are not travelling overseas as much as they may have in the past is that it is just too expensive to do so. If one goes to any bank here to get a quick exchange of the Australian dollar for the English pound or the Japanese yen, one will soon find out how many McDonald's burgers one will be able to buy with the Australian dollar overseas-many fewer than one can buy here. That is why people are staying at home, not because this Government has come up with some bright idea that will convince people that local tourism is something that they have denied themselves unwittingly in the past and should now take advantage of. In making those comments, the Minister also ignores one other fact, and that is that a significant proportion of the tourism industry here is involved in outbound tourism. It wants to sell trips to the United Kingdom, Italy, et cetera. That is how it makes its money. The industry is not pleased that more people are staying at home. It is not pleased with the value of the Australian dollar and that people are choosing to stay at home. The next point on which I would like to take issue with the Minister is one that he has outlined on page 6 of his statement. He refers to the fact that education authorities around Australia have responded to the change and that we now have emerging a splendid array of hospitality schools in the colleges of technical and further education and the colleges of advanced education. It is a small pork barrelling point for me to make, but I would have preferred the Minister at that point to have mentioned the Regency Park School of Catering. That is a TAFE college, I think, in my State which is renowned for its very high standard. The graduates of that school go out into the industry with a very professional approach and are welcomed around Australia. A further point that I would like to take up with the Minister is on page 8 of his statement. He says: As a further innovative step- yet again, of course, blowing his own bags, as Senator Kilgariff has pointed out- I introduced- not his Government but that he personally, single-handedly, introduced- an annual program for national tourism awards. I would have preferred the Minister to mention that well before this Government came to power, in the very early 1980s in South Australia, the industry, without any government intervention, set up its own tourism awards. As I have said, the regional association in South Australia set up its own scheme of awards, the pinnacle of which are the Harry Dowling awards. I agree with the Minister that the national tourism award have created a greater awareness of the need for professionalism in the tourist industry and to that extent they may facilitate the upgrading of standards. But the Minister should not pretend, either in this paper or in the other place, that he has introduced this program of awards and that it is an innovation. The industry in my State, under a Liberal government and without government intervention, produced its own range of awards. This scheme is nothing new; it is nothing special. If the Minister thinks this scheme of awards is innovative, in my view he has a number of problems in grappling with what is innovative and what is simply repeating something from the States. A further matter on which I question the Minister is on page 8 of his statement, where he lists what he refers to as a number of subsidiary measures which we also introduced. We are then treated to a page and a bit of star dot points most of which relate to pork barrelling in particular States. For examples, we are informed that sales tax on certain cruise vessels is backdated to the implementation date of August. So what? That is particularly beneficial to Queensland, and I do not deny it. Every State needs assistance. Senator Kilgariff referred to page 9 of the statement and to the special subsidy towards the cost of diesel fuel used for power generation by off-shore tourist resorts within the Great Barrier Park Marine Park region. As I understood the honourable senator, he said that he does not deny that that is a good idea. Neither do I, but again it is pork barrelling for Queensland; it does not help a whole variety of States. The statement ignores that in the gulf waters of South Australia is a boat charter industry which is struggling to establish itself; it is struggling to develop and become a part of this tourist boom that the Minister implies he created single-handedly. Yet I do not notice in the statement any reference to assisting these boat charter people. Nor do I notice any reference to the tourist resorts which Senator Kilgariff mentioned, in the inland and remote areas of Australia. For example, there is nothing about Arkaroola and Wilpena in South Australia but if one happens to be in the Great Barrier Reef, a high profile area, a little pork barrelling will go down very well. But if one is an outback tourist operator not yet in the high-flying area of tourism, one can forget about getting any help from this Government. With the advent of Crocodile Dundee in the United States and other countries from which we get a large number of tourists, I would have thought that the Government would want to give a significant amount of attention to the outback tourist operators. I do not notice anything in this list that will particularly assist them. I notice things for the Northern Territory, Tasmania and a variety of States but I do not notice anything in particular for South Australia, which makes one call into question the South Australian Labor Government's slogan `When Bannon fights, South Australia wins'. It seems apparent from this list that either that statement is untrue or Mr Bannon, the Premier of South Australia, has not been fighting enough on behalf of his State. A further point I would like to take up is raised by the Minister on page 10 of his statement: . . . there has been a huge upsurge in the number of jobs available to young Australians who are looking for a career in the tourism industry. If that is the case I ask the Minister: Why, on seasonally adjusted figures, are more young people in the 15- to 19-year-old age group unemployed than there were when the famous Priority One: Young Australia shonk started? Young people are not getting jobs in the tourism industry. Priority One is an absolute disaster with respect to private enterprise. It has been singled out for its capacity to turn private enterprise off. Something like 95 per cent of the jobs are in the public sector and only 5 per cent are in the private sector. So very few jobs are in the private sector and of those a limited number are in the tourism industry. How the Minister can say that there is a huge upsurge in the number of jobs available in this area to young Australians, given the disastrous performance of the Priority One program, I am not sure. In relation to the employment of young Australians, I refer also to the community employment program, which is raised by the Minister on page 10 of his statement. He states: In the short term, the Government has actively used the community employment program . . . to increase job opportunities in this most rewarding area. I have a particular interest in the community employment program, and there is a reason why the Minister has commenced the paragraph with the words `In the short term'. It is that it was only in 1985-86-I presume that it applies to 1986-87 also-that a category of tourism was introduced into community employment program projects. Prior to that, on my analysis of the 1984-85 projects, there was no such category. So the Minister is quite right in saying `In the short term'. It is something he thought of 18 months or so ago. I do not deny that this is not a good program but the Minister's words `In the short term' are not quite as telling as they ought to be. It was a last minute thought. While I am on that subject I should raise the point that I have some concerns with the community employment program being used to achieve objectives other than the employment and training of young Australians as its first priority. A certain amount of capital is included in the Commonwealth money that is allocated and local councils are eyeing off that capital as a rich apple they would like. They are developing projects to acquire the capital section and not paying the heed that ought to be paid to the training program which the community employment program trainees will undergo. In other words, some might say, to put this at its harshest, that the community employment program is, in some respects, a scheme to divert capital to various groups rather than to encourage the employment of young Australians. On page 11 of the statement the Minister states that his Government's vision for the future includes: . . . an awareness program highlighting our museums, art galleries and theatres and a vast variety of extremely high quality resorts with a uniquely Australian flavour. I come back to the point I made earlier about little help being given to the tourism industry as it relates to the outback. Surely that is the most uniquely Australian flavour that the tourism industry in Australia could have. The River Murray, which concludes its course in my State, has along its course an enormous range of developments which are suitable for tourism, not the least of which are those in the houseboat industry. I do not notice any reference to this sort of uniquely Australian tourism industry in the Minister's speech. Another industry which I think ought to be mentioned in the context of being uniquely Australian is the wine industry. I refer to an article in the most recent English Harpers and Queen in which the distinguished wine writer Mr Auberon Waugh wrote an article entitled `Fair Drinkum'. He explains why he came to Australia and in doing so he states: There are three reasons for my sudden pilgrimage to the wine-producing state of South Australia. He continues: First is ordinary, vulgar curiosity to see Australia for the first time: do they really walk on their hands? We may be offended by that but he goes on to refer to Max Schubert as Australia's greatest wine maker. In relation to the wine for which Mr Schubert is most famous, namely, Penfolds Grange Hermitage, he states: This is truly a great wine, to be set beside the best that France can show. In relation to another winery in my State, the Petaluma winery in the Adelaide Hills, he states: Perhaps the most beautiful winery I have visited; its wine-maker, Brian Croser, is the original perfectionist. I could elaborate on that article but I am sure those two quotes indicate to honourable senators the very high regard in which our wine industry is held overseas and it should confirm the point that the Australian Government should be looking to the wine industry to increase tourism rather than attempting to kill it by increasing the sales tax on wine. A further point I wish to take up with the Minister relates to some of the comments he makes on page 12. He glibly says: We are also examining the requirements for visa entry to Australia, and it is my personal hope that we might be able to ease the current restrictions. I could not agree more. I hope the Government will not only ease the current restrictions but also improve the delivery of service by public servants overseas who administer the visa requirements. Much damage is being done not only to the business community but also to the tourist industry by our visa requirements and the administration thereof. One small industry which would contribute to tourism and which would benefit from an improvement in this area is that which teaches English as a second language. One does not need to be bright to add up the number of Asians around the globe who would be more than delighted to come here and take courses in English as a second language if only we did not turn them away every time they applied for a visa. Again on page 12 the Minister says: . . . in the last four years there has not been a single strike within the tourism industry itself, though industrial action has indirectly hurt the trade. In my State that is something of an understatement because there was a builder's labourers' strike on the Adelaide Station and environment redevelopment project and the tourism industry across the board has been substantially harmed. The opening of the Hyatt Hotel has been deferred indefinitely. The effect that this has had on the regard for South Australia as an investment opportunity for the tourism industry is incalculable. The Premier consistently evades questions about the escalating costs of the ASER project as a consequence of the Builders Labourers Federation action and involvement. Not only does he evade questions about the escalation of costs, but also he goes further than that. The South Australian Tourism Development Board, which is an informal board set up to advise the Minister, has a union appointee on it. I have no problem with that. The United Trades and Labour Council provides the nominee. In the past it has been someone from the Federated Liquor and Allied Industries Employees Union of Australia which is quite appropriate for the tourism industry in South Australia. But in South Australia recently we have seen the muscle of the left wing unions moving in to get rid of the liquor union's appointee and replace him with Mr Ron Owen from the BLF. The tourism industry in South Australia is not happy about this. It does not want on the board a union representative whose union does not have an immediate direct and substantial involvement in the tourism industry. In summary I agree with the point made by a number of previous speakers, that the Minister may have done some good things. But it is a pity that in his statement he did not outline a number of other matters, particularly the contribution that a number of other people have made to the development of tourism in Australia. It is also a pity that he did not, at the same time, outline in a realistic and pragmatic way the future problems and what this Government intends to do about them. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator ALSTON(Victoria) —by leave-I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Amendment Bill 1986 be referred to the Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs for inquiry and report. Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(9.25) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I have not as yet seen this Automotive Industry Authority report which has been incorporated in the table of papers presented today. I want to pick up some of the matters referred to in an earlier report and which, I believe, would have been commented upon in this latest report. I turn to page 28 of the Automotive Industry Authority report for the year ended 30 June 1985. On that page the following statement occurs: Following a year of record sales in 1985, 1986 promises to be another solid year for the passenger motor vehicle industry, although it is unlikely to be as good as 1985. That statement would have to get the booby prize for the greatest understatement of all time because as we all know-- Senator Boswell —Who said that? Senator MESSNER —That statement was made by the Automotive Industry Authority and issued under the authority of the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button. As we all know, motor vehicle industry sales collapsed in the year ended 30 June 1986. In fact, we have seen a reduction in overall market sales of about 30 per cent. That has occurred as a result of direct Government policies which stem from the highest interest rates since the Depression. They also stem from the decline in the value of the Australian dollar, which has put a great deal of pressure on motor vehicle manufacturers as a result of the increased cost of imported parts. The reduction has also been brought about by the cost of additions to the vehicles through the introduction of lead free petrol. Most of all, and very significantly, the increased costs in the production of motor vehicles in this country, which have led to a decline in the sales of the products, have resulted from the introduction of the idiot fringe benefits tax in 1985. That tax has affected the sales of motor vehicles by about 30 per cent. Fleet owners of motor cars have tended to reduce their intake of new vehicles as a result of the introduction of the fringe benefits tax, for obvious reasons. The other thing that has happened, quite significantly, is that because of the very high interest rates that people have to pay-not just the hire purchase companies and leasing companies-private purchasers of motor vehicles have also declined to buy cars at the rate they did in 1985. That has had an enormous impact on the market in the last financial year. Consequently, it has brought about the decline in the industry that I have just been speaking of. There is no doubt that the Government's policies are detrimental to the development of the motor car industry. That is quite apart from the attempts of the Automotive Industry Authority to bring about change in the industry which we would all commend. Indeed, that change is supported on this side of the Senate by the Liberal Party of Australia. We believe that the move towards commonisation of parts, the reduction of models and measures of that kind are certainly steps in the right direction; steps towards ensuring that the efficiency of the industry is improved so that more vehicles can be sold. That does not mean that the Hawke Labor Government has got it right. In fact, what it is doing in some ways-in a good way on the one hand, through the operation of the Automotive Industry Authority-is being destroyed by its inept handling of the economy, by rampant interest rates and by the introduction of high taxes and charges on business. I mention particularly the fringe benefits tax and the effect it has had on the industry. It is time this Government woke up to itself. It cannot succeed with worthwhile measures like the Automotive Industry Authority while it is mucking up the Australian economy with outrageous measures such as its interest rate policy and the introduction of the fringe benefits tax, for which the Australian Democrats are to blame as well. Senator FOREMAN(South Australia)(9.30) —I rise tonight to speak on the report of the Automotive Industry Authority entitled `State of the Automotive Industry 1986'. In doing so I want to make a few background points in respect of this matter. In 1985 the sales of new vehicles reached record levels. Some 685,000 motor vehicles, both imported and locally produced, were sold in that year. Quite naturally, in terms of profitability, it was a good year. Coming so soon after the massive slumps of 1981 and 1982 the industry welcomed these record sales. However, numerous factors came into play which brought about record sales in 1984 and 1985. The first point was the lowering of the unemployment rate in the years 1983 until 1985. The success of the Government's accord with the trade union movement in those years saw a huge growth in employment and a view that secure financial management of the economy was at hand. As a consequence more buyers took the plunge and bought new motor vehicles in record numbers. Some other factors also came into play. The decision to introduce lead-free petrol, which Senator Messner mentioned, and to make it mandatory that all new cars sold after 1985 be lead-free models caused some problems. Lead-free models, of course, did not have the performance, at least in the transition period of non-lead-free models, and they were also much more expensive. In 1985, many buyers bought vehicles prior to the mandatory requirement that all new vehicles be lead-free. So, considerable numbers of 1985 sales were no doubt sales that would have been made in 1986, had the move to lead-free models not created such resistance in the minds of motor vehicle buyers. The other factor of considerable relevance to this debate is the devaluation of the dollar. The massive depreciation in the currency has meant that motor vehicles have become more expensive-imported vehicles and locally produced models alike. The componentry of locally produced vehicles has its source in many instances overseas. As a consequence, devaluation inevitably hit locally produced models as well. However, the news is not all bad; far from it. The year 1985 was, for the reasons that I have already spoken about, an unusual year. In some respects it was a twilight year for the motor vehicle industry, as well as a sunrise year. It was the twilight year of an industry that found competition from imported models crushing, but it was also the sunrise of a new vehicle industry which this Government has done so much to bring about. The Button plan, one of the first initiatives of this Government when it came to power, was to build a new vehicle industry in Australia that produced models cheaply, efficiently and competitively against imported models. Instead of building tariff walls that would eventually see an industry so heavily protected that it would die, this Government announced plans to establish a new and more vibrant industry that would see for the first time in many years a substantial growth in exports. The future of the vehicle industry lies in producing models which are as good as or better than imported models, and in exporting vehicles or components. The basis for this development was established by this Government, and we see that progressing. I quote from page 3 of this report: . . . the Plan producers have continued to invest at a high rate and foreshadow further investment in the near future. This shows the industry's faith in the future with improved competitiveness, resulting from the devaluation of the Australian dollar, providing opportunities in both local and export markets. Progress towards rationalisation of the industry is encouraging. One more pleasing aspect is found under the heading `Quality'. I quote again: The latest independent surveys of recently produced local cars show an improvement in quality as perceived by consumers. Further, it states: . . . an increase in quality is evident in the new models which have been released on the market in the last two years. I commend the report to the Senate. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(9.35) —It is hoped that the Button car plan by 1992 will bring to an end 90 years of government mismanagement of the Australian car industry. However, the chances are that it may simultaneously bring to an end the Australian car industry itself. This will occur unless we can establish in Australia within that time a locally controlled, technologically advanced, competitive and export oriented car industry. While the car plan offers generous support for the six large foreign owned manufacturers with assembly plants, it is much less generous to the car component industry, which is for the most part Australian. It is positively lacking in support for the Australian high technology companies which are attempting to get into the market in this area. The car industry in Australia is suffering from a giant overdose of instability in the market-place. Sales overall have plummeted to their lowest point for 20 years. Imports are particularly depressed. This ought to provide a magnificent opportunity for local manufactures to consolidate in local markets. However, the sales of even the local car manufacturers have slumped to their lowest point for 10 years. The industry is pessimistic about a fast recovery because of its high dependency on imported components, which is keeping prices high. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table containing some sales statistics. I have shown it to both sides of the House. Leave granted. The table read as follows- TABLE SHOWING DECLINE IN MOTOR VEHICLE ASSEMBLY AND REGISTRATION OVER THE LAST TWELVE MONTHS Extracted from A.B.S. Statistics Assembly of vehicles 1st 6 months 1985-86 1986-87 Cars and station wagons... 212,781 165,707 Vehicles used in transport... 14,444 10,080 New motor vehicle registrations for the month of March 1985-47,164 March 1986-34,320 March 1987-32,043 1st 6 months 1985-86-212,781 vehicles 1st 6 months 1986-87-165,707 Senator VIGOR —I thank the Senate. The car industry employs directly in assembly and component manufacturer one-eighth of the work force in the manufacturing sector in Australia. Employment in this industry has almost halved since the mid-1970s as manufacturers have introduced sophisticated automated equipment and processes. Over the last 10 years jobs have remained fairly constant, but overtime earnings have dropped dramatically. Similarly, profits have generally declined as production levels near break-even threshold quantities, although the apparent profit slump is exaggerated by provision for interest on cumulated years of transfer pricing arrangements, in which the large car companies seem to have indulged. Prospects for the industry in the long term are indeed bleak unless we get a competitive Australian-controlled industry off the ground in the few short years before the Button car plan removes the required local content provisions and import quotas, and drastically lowers the tariff protection for local manufacturers. It is therefore encouraging that steps are at last being taken to promote the Sarich engine in Australia. When I spoke last year on the state of the automotive industry I pointed out that Ralph Sarich was being forced to sell the rights to his revolutionary fuel injection system to overseas interests. This was because he was unable to obtain grants or tax concessions to enable him to establish such a venture in Australia. In fact, a short time later the Sarich fuel injection system was purchased by a manufacturer in the United States of America. However, I am delighted this year to report that PA Consulting Services, which was jointly funded by the Western Australian and Commonwealth governments, has endorsed the Sarich orbital engine as a commercial proposition for manufacture in Australia. This has followed widespread discussions with the car industry here. I look forward to a new start for the automotive industry in Australia, preferably retaining Australian control of the manufacturing of components, as we sell the products as well as our own innovations. I advocate to the Government a more enlightened policy rather than the stop-go industry policies which we have had to date. I believe that we should introduce far-reaching tax reform measures which will not disrupt Australian industry so that we can plan a co-ordinated support for new as well as existing technologically advanced manufacturing processes and take maximum advantage of our chance to gain export markets all over the world. We have the brains. We should be using them and exporting the products which they develop. That is a responsibility which this Government must grasp. Senator BOSWELL(Queensland)(9.40) —The automotive industry has suffered one of the worst setbacks in its history with the imposition of the fringe benefits tax. This tax has dealt a crushing blow to an industry already in a painful adjustment process and struggling to survive in a harsh economic climate brought on by the failure of this Government to adopt policies which would decrease our ballooning current account deficit and lower crippling interest rates. Excessive labour on-costs and all manner of taxes are draining the life-blood out of the car industry. The Australian Automobile Dealers Association claims that the present recession is the most severe that the motor industry has experienced in 30 years. The sales tax of 30 per cent on vehicles valued at $30,000 and above needs to be reviewed without delay as soaring costs boost prices for cars not previously classified as luxury vehicles. New commercial vehicle registrations have dropped from 10,044 to 6,494 in the 12 months to March 1987-a decrease of 35.3 per cent. This can be directly related to the crippling effect of the fringe benefits tax. The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports a drop in new registrations of motor cars and station wagons of some 24.9 per cent in the 12 months to March 1986 and a further drop of 16.2 per cent in the 12 months to March 1987. The new vehicle market continued in severe recession in the three months ended 31 March 1987 with a drop of 20,833 units when compared with the same period in 1986. The AADA also reported an overall market decline of a massive 37.4 per cent. No industry of such national importance can absorb a drop in sales volume of around 40 per cent without repercussions to the general overall Australian economy. Employment in the industry has dropped by 5,500 people between June 1985 and December 1986. Retrenchments in dealer staff are continuing. The rural position is a tragedy with reports of non-existent dealer profitability and severe drops in employment and apprentice intake. The end result is that the rural consumer will suffer dealer casualties which will leave rural towns without servicing and supply of parts. There is no doubt that a severe and crippling recession in the motor industry has resulted from the inefficient policies of this Government. While the Senate acknowledges-and I acknowledge- that the Minister responsible for the car industry, the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, Senator Button, has made an attempt to rationalise the industry, the Government's tax changes have wreaked havoc on the industry and placed any reconstruction plans right behind the eight ball. The `Report on the State of the Automotive Industry' comes from an organisation established by the Federal Government. The report says on page 3 that the sales fall `was mainly due to the rapid increase in motor vehicle prices resulting from the devaluation of the Australian dollar'. I believe that the Automotive Industry Authority is not telling the truth when it says that. Anyone with half a brain could see that the main problem facing the car industry is the increasing effect of the fringe benefits tax and high interest rates. If people on the Authority were to report honestly, they would acknowledge those problems instead of being sycophants to the Government. According to the report, domestic car sales have plummeted because of the devaluation of the dollar. I would have thought that this would increase the price of domestic manufactured cars and the cost of imported cars, but there would still be sufficient distance between the prices to encourage domestic manufacturers. But this report fails to acknowledge that the industry is in crisis, that the Government has engineered the crisis in the automotive industry and that high taxes, high interest rates and the unstable dollar have all contributed to a lack of confidence in the car industry. The crisis in which the industry has found itself is one for which the Government can take full responsibility. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT Senator Giles)-Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator WATSON(Tasmania)(9.45) —Senator Foreman, an Australian Labor Party senator who spoke to this report entitled `Report on the State of the Automotive Industry', must have been looking through rose-tinted spectacles because it paints a bleak picture for the industry's future prospects and likelihood of growth. Since 1966 there has not been a great deal of room for optimism. For example, the damaging slump in car manufacturing and the retail industry is highlighted in the synopsis of the report. But one statistic that is not included and which should be mentioned tonight is that since this slump began over 5,000 people have lost their jobs in the retailing sector alone-ignoring those who have lost their jobs in manufacturing lay-offs by the big car makers. The report states that over the last five years people under this plan have incurred over $100m in losses. On page 8 of this report we find that sales of passenger motor vehicles have slumped by 21.6 per cent. The 1986 sales figures were the lowest since 1972. This sharp decline is due to quite a number of factors. The report says that price increases of both locally produced and imported passenger motor vehicles are mainly due to the devaluation of the Australian dollar. While we appreciate the price hike for imported cars, for those produced under the 85 per cent local content plan that is hardly the full answer. The report goes on to mention public uncertainty over the introduction of unleaded petrol. Whom do we have to thank for that? We have to thank the Wran Labor Government in New South Wales. There is also business uncertainty or uneasiness over the introduction of the fringe benefits tax. Whom do we have to thank for that? We have to thank the Hawke Labor Government. What about the decline in real incomes of people-the ordinary wage earner? The average income earner, even after the next round of tax reductions, will still be paying more tax than when Fraser left office. Whom do we have to thank for that? We have to thank the Hawke Labor Government. Whom do we have to thank for the depressed rural sector and high interest rates? We have a high interest rate policy and an overreliance on monetary policy. Bob Hawke has the temerity to say: `I make no apology for that'. By overrelying on monetary policy and ignoring fiscal restraint, he is harming this industry. There are also low levels of business and consumer confidence. One would not think that this was the case when talking to Keating but those low levels are manifested in the report which, indeed, is a great indictment of this Labor Government. We notice that one of the major objectives under this plan is to increase all aspects of efficiency within the industry. One would expect that since the Automotive Industry Authority has existed for quite a number of years it would at least make sure that when it collates figures it does so on a consistent basis so that car maker A and car maker B have identical figures. But the report contains a condemnation. On page 27 we find that the Authority has collected data on investment from the plan producers for the years 1982 to 1989. That is about seven years. As each of the plan producers prepares and categorises information on investment differently, there are some uncertainties about the direct comparability of the data. What is this Government doing about this? What does the Authority think it is up to? It is not even insisting that the figures for the plan are collected on a comparable basis. What future does this car industry have when it is not even being led properly, when there is no corporate plan and when statistics are not being prepared on a proper and even basis? This report is a real indictment of the Labor Government and the Minister who has just come into the chamber. I hope that this report spurs the Government into some action and that we do not get the continual rhetoric that we have heard for so long. The pretty bleak picture painted by this report is an indictment of the Minister and the Government. Senator SANDERS(Tasmania)(9.50) —The report on the state of the automotive industry goes into great detail about the quality of Australian automobiles and says: The latest independent surveys of recently produced local cars show an improvement in quality as perceived by consumers. That is absolute rubbish. These cars are not selling because they are rubbish cars-they are not good cars and they are not well built. Choice magazine of February 1987 in an article headed `1987 Car reliability survey' states: Its not good news for the Australian industry. Japanese triumph. Six of the top eight makes are Japanese, and so are nine out of the 11 models which rated above average. The best current Australian produced car is the Ford Laser/Meteor in 22nd place-not bad, but its Japanese twin Mazda 323 is in 12th place. The article includes a graph on how age affects reliability and the analysis of the graph states: A nine-year old Honda or Toyota is more reliable than either a Ford or a Holden in its first year. So a nine-year-old Japanese car is more reliable than an Australian built car in its first year. That is ridiculous and it is no wonder people are not buying these things-they are just lemons. The article also states: Lemon flavoured Aussie cars. The main disappointment of the year is the Australian built Mitsubishi Magna. After a poor showing last year, it has slid further down the table to the slot beneath Holden Camira- which is really in the basement- The Australian dominance in the below average bracket is depressing. There are explanations for this, even if none will do as an excuse. The article then talks about protection and that sort of thing. Certainly overprotection is a reason for the low quality. Later in the article a section headed `rating the makes' puts Honda at No. 1 followed by Mercedes-Benz, Mazda, Diahatsu, Toyota, Leyland, Suzuki, Subaru, Citroen, Volkswagen, and so on. Ford is at No. 17 and Holden is at No. 18-right at the low end of average. The only cars worse than Ford and Holden are the Rover, the Renault and Alfa Romeo. The article shows over and over again that it is the quality which is affecting car sales. It is a fact that our industry has been so overprotected for so long that it thinks it can get away with shoddy workmanship and shoddy quality but, of course, it cannot. The people see through this. The statement in the report that consumers perceive the quality as improving is absolute rubbish. People do not see quality in these automobiles. Until they do see quality they will not buy these cars. So any amount of rationalisation that the Government wishes to do will not have the desired effect until the car industry itself demands that its output has high quality and low price. As yet we have seen no sign of this. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE(Victoria)(9.54) —I present the 273rd report of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and seek leave to make a brief statement. Leave granted. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE —Each year the Committee examines recently published reports of the Auditor-General. Following the tabling of the report of the Auditor-General of March 1984, the Committee sought written submissions from 16 departments in respect of 19 items raised. The Committee's findings were presented in its 240th report to the Parliament on 28 November 1985. This report, the Committee's 273rd, sets out the Government's response to the Committee's findings in report 240. The items raised in the Committee's earlier report have largely elicited a satisfactory response. Of the outstanding matters, the most significant were telephone rental concessions to pensioners and the National Biological Standards Laboratory. In its earlier report, the Committee expressed concern that the matter of telephone rental concessions to pensioners, which has been raised in many reports of the Auditor-General, remained unresolved. The Committee is satisfied, at this stage, with the discount voucher system currently being introduced, but recognises that this system needs to be tested in practice. The Committee is aware of concerns expressed by representative organisations and will keep this matter under review. If the Committee finds that concerns remain once the system is fully operational, then it will examine the operation of the voucher system further. In relation to the National Biological Standards Laboratory, the Committee is concerned that insufficient and inadequate resources continue to prevent the Laboratory from carrying out its functions effectively. This, together with other information available, has prompted the Committee to embark upon a public inquiry into the National Biological Standards Laboratory. This review will encompass laboratory standards, the quality and efficacy of pharmaceuticals and generic drugs on the Australian market, the testing of these drugs and the acceptance of overseas testing, and the efficiency and effectiveness with which the Laboratory carries out its other functions. The Committee will also examine the resources available to the National Biological Standards Laboratory. In conclusion, the Committee would like to express its serious concern on a matter becoming increasingly common in responses to Committee reports. This is the length of time taken to respond to the findings in these reports and the growing number of matters which remain outstanding. The Committee is particularly concerned that in some instances departments are taking an inordinate amount of time to deal with specific and immediate administrative problems identified by the Committee, particularly when raised previously by the Auditor-General. Accordingly, the Committee expects a more determined effort from departments to ensure timeliness in dealing with and responding to the findings of the Committee. I commend the report to honourable senators. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans)-by leave-agreed to: That Government Business Notices of Motion Nos 2 to 5 be postponed until the next day of sitting, Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.48) —I move: That the Senate- (a) noting the failure of the Joint Sitting of the Tasmanian Parliament on 8 May 1987 to choose the duly nominated Australian Labor Party (ALP) candidate, John Devereux, to fill the casual vacancy consequent on the resignation of Dr Don Grimes; (b) noting the resolution of the Senate of 19 March 1987 endorsing the constitutional convention, established in 13 successive instances since the 1977 Referendum, that ``a person chosen to fill the vacant place in accordance with section 15 of the Constitution should be the member of the political party duly nominated by that party to fill that place''; and (c) noting the statement by the Leader of the Opposition (the Hon. John Howard) on 8 May 1987 that ``I believe that the person appointed to fill casual vacancies of this kind ought to be the person nominated by the retiring Senator's political party'', and the statements in support of the established convention made by the leaders of all other parties in the Commonwealth Parliament. calls on the Presiding Officers of the Tasmanian Parliament to immediately take such action as is necessary to reconvene the Joint Sitting of the Houses of the Tasmanian Parliament to fill the vacancy in order that representation of the people of Tasmania in this place be in accordance with their constitutional entitlement, and calls on those members of the Tasmanian House of Assembly and Legislative Council, including members of the Gray Government, who have to date acted contrary to the established convention, to vote at such a Joint Sitting to accept the nominated ALP candidate. This motion is before the Senate because of the failure of the Tasmanian Parliament convened in a Joint Sitting a week or so ago to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of our colleague Dr Don Grimes. As a result, the people of Tasmania have lost their constitutionally assured representation in this chamber. They are entitled to have 12 senators sitting in this chamber representing their interests across a wide spectrum of political points of view, but they have been denied that particular democratic representation which, as I said, is constitutionally assured. But more than the general democratic representation point, there is the specific point that those electors in Tasmania who voted five quotas in support of endorsed Labor candidates are deprived of a voice in the councils, the debates and the votes of this chamber; their parliamentary Senate team of five Labor Party senators has been reduced by one. It is because of that undermining and disruption of the democratic representation which is an important function of this chamber that it is essential to have an unqualified statement from this Senate and, as it happened, from the other place also, in support of the convention which has been so blatantly ignored and tossed to one side in the pursuit of some immediate political point scoring, particularly by the Premier of Tasmania, Mr Gray. I think it is very important that we as a parliamentary chamber directly affected by this action in Tasmania affirm our understanding of the constitutional proprieties which ought to prevail. I believe, as I have already indicated, that a motion in these terms has already this afternoon been carried on the voices without a division in the other place, and I am very conscious of the extra authority that will give to a motion if it is carried in the same terms by this chamber. But rather than base comments on the happenings in that place, I wish to make as the foundation of our consideration of this matter tonight the debate in this chamber that occurred on 19 March when a motion was passed which embodied the view I have adverted to already, namely: . . . a person chosen to fill the vacant place in accordance with section 15 of the Constitution should be the member of the political party duly nominated by that party to fill that place . . . The recognition of that important constitutional convention, as I call it-I understand, from our debate on 19 March, that Senator Durack would prefer to call it a constitutional practice-in that Senate motion needs to be reaffirmed today. I believe it is quite proper to characterise that understanding of the proper way of filling a vacancy as a convention of the Constitution simply because, as I understand it, conventions of the Constitution do not really need to have a long period of gestation and observance in order to qualify as conventions of the Constitution. I must be quite clear to anybody conversant with ordinary life that not every twist and turn, particularly of political life, can be anticipated and catered for in the written, express words of a document, whether it be a contract or, in this instance, a constitution; the high fundamental law which created out of the colonies of Federation of the Commonwealth of Australia and which provided for parliamentary representation from those former colonies now called States. Within that written express constitutional framework there needs to be some supplementing by understandings and practices which give lively day to day sinews to make the bare bones of the Constitution actually operate in a way which makes of our democracy a habitable place and not one where there is confrontation and the sort of grandstanding that unfortunately has characterised the last few weeks in Tasmania. Those conventions which supplement and give operation to the written words arise where, as I say, there is a sufficient political consensus that that propriety or practice needs to be observed to avoid constitutional chaos, impasse or deadlock without any apparent means of resolution, such as we are now presented with. What evidence do I have that such a convention does exist? The fact is that on no less than 13 occasions-it is really quite remarkable-in the decade since 1977 various State parliaments of various political persuasions have chosen a person to fill a casual vacancy in the Senate on the basis of the convention I described; that is, they have accepted the nomination of the political party to which the senator who has retired from this place belonged. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a list of those instances where that practice has been affirmed. Leave granted. The list read as follows- The South Australian Labor Government accepted J. Haines, Liberal Movement/Australian Democrat to replace R. S. Hall, Liberal Movement/Liberal; the New South Wales Labor Government accepted C. J. G. Puplick, Liberal, to replace the Hon. Sir Robert Cotton, K.C.M.G., Liberal; the New South Wales Labor Government accepted K. W. Sibraa, Australian Labor Party, to replace the Hon. J. R. McClelland, Australian Labor Party; the Victorian Liberal Government accepted L. W. Neal, National Country Party, to replace J. J. Webster, National Country Party; the Tasmanian Liberal Government accepted J. M. Hearn, Australian Labor Party, to replace the Hon. K. S. Wriedt, Australian Labor Party; The Australian Liberal Government accepted M. Reid, Liberal, to replace J. Knight, Liberal; The Western Australian Liberal Government accepted J. R. Martyr, Liberal, to replace A. C. Rocher, Liberal; The Queensland Liberal-National Party Government accepted F. I. Bjelke-Petersen, National Party, to replace G. Sheil, National Party; the Queensland National Party Government accepted W. R. Parer, Liberal, to replace K. J. Martin, Liberal; the Tasmanian Liberal Government accepted J. M. Newman, to replace P. E. Rae, Liberal; the Victorian Labor Government accepted R. K. R. Alston, Liberal, to replace A. Missen, Liberal; the Victorian Labor Government accepted J. R. Powell, Australian Democrat, to replace the Hon. D. L. Chipp, Australian Democrat; and the New South Wales Labor Government accepted S. M. West, Australian Labor Party, to replace the Hon. D. McClelland, Australian Labor Party. Senator TATE —Those 13 instances cover all the various parliaments of the States of the Commonwealth of Australia and incorporate situations where all governments, or majorities in the lower Houses of those parliaments, have agreed to the nomination of persons of different political persuasions, different political organisations and parties in accordance with the convention I have described. Apart from the aberrations that are well known to us flowing from the actions of Premier Lewis of New South Wales and Premier Bjelke-Petersen of Queensland, which necessitated the passage of the 1977 referendum, that well understood convention has in fact been observed from the earliest occasions when a replacement was required. But simply as a result of political skulduggery and point scoring, particularly by the Premier of Tasmania, Mr Gray, that convention has been abandoned in this particular instance. Unfortunately, although one can understand Mr Gray engaging in this constitutional vandalism, some members of the Legislative Council, perhaps not so conscious of the ramifications for this chamber of their actions, have concurred in that frustration of the intention of section 15 of the Constitution. I say-and perhaps it is by way of anticipating their defence-that some legislative councillors in particular may have thought, and I think many Tasmanians were also led into this trap, that this would be a media event, a bit of a stunt by the Premier; it would last a couple of weeks, would be exhausted and then Mr Devereux would be appointed. I know Senator Watson took that view on 19 March when he said that this was more or less a piece of political grandstanding by the Premier and that it would not have long term consequences. There are now no more avenues for waiting for common sense to prevail. We are presented with a situation where we have an indefinite casual vacancy, and whereas it was designed in the initial stages to embarrass the Labor Party in Tasmania and create a political storm down there, in fact it has done quite the opposite. It has had the effect of uniting the Australian Labor Party in Tasmania in a way that it was not united before in its cohesive stand behind Mr John Devereux as the nominated member of the Labor Party. What we are defending is the Labor Party's right-and, indeed, the Liberal Party's right and the right of the Australian Democrats and the National Party-- Senator Coates —And all factions of the National Party. Senator TATE —And the National Party, all factions, to nominate their preferred member for parliamentary office. Surely it is a fundamental matter, and all except the Independents in this chamber are here because they are the preferred members of their political party or organisation who have through the normal processes of that party been successfully endorsed for parliamentary office. We are simply insisting that that right of the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Labor Party to endorse its preferred member for parliamentary office be recognised in this instance. The proper normal processes of the Labor Party led to the nomination of John Devereux. He is entitled to fill the vacancy in the team of five senators of Labor Party persuasion which the Tasmanian voters wanted to see here, along with five Liberals, one Australian Democrat and one Independent. That is the composition of the constitutionally assured group of 12 senators which the Tasmanian electorate voted to have come into this chamber in order to join in the deliberations and debates in this chamber and to vote on the passage of legislation and other matters. I want to emphasise in this contribution tonight the impact on this chamber of what the Tasmanian Parliament has done, thinking it was acting in an autonomous way, exercising its right. That is what needs to be highlighted. In the Tasmanian Joint Sitting there was not a majority in favour of the view that the convention I am advocating should be observed. As a result of the failure of the Joint Sitting as a whole, a completely distorted representation of the Tasmanian electors' will prevails in this place at this moment. As far as one can tell it will go on through these very crucial weeks of the autumn session. One might have understood a lapse of a week or so while matters were finalised in Tasmania. The people of Tasmania are being deprived of their constitutionally assured team of 12 senators in this chamber, composed, according to their preference, of five senators from the Australian Labor Party, five from the Liberal Party of Australia, one Australian Democrat and one Independent. The Tasmanian Joint Sitting has deprived this chamber of its democratic and representative character in relation to Tasmania. It is very ironic, is it not, that a Premier who constantly pleads the States, rights argument should undermine the representation of the State of Tasmania in this place. In fact, I wrote a letter to the members of both Houses of the Tasmanian Parliament yesterday. It was delivered to their offices last night I believe, so I am able to quote it today. In it I said: I am asking you to reconsider the vote which has led to the situation where, in the crucial week of the Autumn session (the May economic statement is delivered on Wednesday), Tasmania is to be under-represented in the Senate Chamber. Specifically, voters are being denied a member of the team as determined by the quota gained by the Australian Labor Party. I went on: You will be aware from your parliamentary experience that the granting of a pair of votes is no remedy for the loss of a voice in debates on a wide range of issues. The Senate Committee system also cannot operate effectively without a full panel of Labor back benchers available to sit on them. In short, whilst the Tasmanian Parliament in its joint sitting may have asserted its role, the democratic and parliamentary processes in the Senate are being put in jeopardy the longer this matter is in stalemate. I believe that unless that particular letter and the passing of the motion before the Senate-which I anticipate will occur tonight-together with the resolution in like terms passed in the other place earlier this afternoon, has some impact on my Tasmanian parliamentary colleagues, that undesirable situation will continue through these last few weeks of the autumn session, and who knows whether it will be resolved by the time we resume for that crucial Budget session. I think it is important to point out that what lies behind this particular situation is something of a streak of authoritarianism on the part, in particular, of Mr Gray. If this situation is allowed to continue, then that authoritarian political approach will have been given full reign and endorsement by the Joint Sitting of the Tasmanian Parliament. The nub of the issue, as I see it, if that in this situation there seems to be no feeling for the fact that we live in a democracy where those people who do not share the point of view of the majority of society nevertheless-and this is one of the strong features of the composition of this chamber as compared with the chamber across King's Hall-can have political representation and have their voice heard in debates and counted in votes in the chamber that makes the laws which govern this nation. The fact is that Mr Gray, simply because he has a majority in the House of Assembly and can persuade some members of the Legislative Council to go along with his particular point of view-those numbers in that particular Parliament-does not have the right, surely, to trample on the voice of those electors who wanted a Labor Party representative selected through the Labor Party's democratic processes for the casual vacancy replacement in the Senate. Senator Coates —It shows up the legislative councillors for what they are. Senator TATE —Well, I am saying that the legislative councillors have been led astray in this particular matter and that they should not join Mr Gray who poses as a States' rights advocate but is denying this State representation as its constitutional entitlement-I would have said `assures it' but it is not assured, as matters have turned out. Of course, he also poses as a conservative. But a true conservative would value the way in which our constitutional written document is supplemented by the conventions to which I have alluded. But the Premier is such a confrontationist that the idea of conserving those things which are of true value in our democratic political system does not appeal to him when he can see a short term, immediate political advantage. The fact is that Mr Gray wants us to look upon the replacement senator-no doubt he would want us to look at all senators in this way-as in some way emissaries or ambassadors on behalf of the State government concerned or the State parliament concerned. Of course, they are not. If that were the case, all one would need to do when the Premiers Conference meets in the House of Representatives chamber is to have the Premiers walk across King's Hall into this chamber as legislators. If senators are to be mere ambassadors of State governments, why do not the Premiers, as they do in some other federations, just join together from time to time as the Upper House in the particular federal arrangement? Of course, we know that that is an absurd situation, but that is the effect of the situation to which Mr Gray has brought us. If there was ever any political gain for Mr Gray in this whole constitutional confrontation, that vandalism that is occurring, I believe that time has long passed. May I say-and I am sure this view is shared by my Tasmanian Senate colleagues-the time has passed when Mr Gray is getting any political advantage in Tasmania out of this whatsoever. Tasmanians are fed up with his posturing. As long ago, in fact, as 10 March the editorial writer in the Launceston Examiner said this: In the seventies the Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, rejected an ALP Senate nomination thereby breaking a sensible civilised convention in favour of the grossest from of political expediency. It went on to say: Few Tasmanians would want their State to follow that sordid, miserable and undemocratic path. I think that just about sums up the actual mood of most Tasmanians, despite the assertions of Mr Gray that he has most Tasmanians behind him. I think they are fed up with his posturing. Indeed, on the very same day, in the Mercury of Tuesday, 10 March, there appeared an editorial to this effect. I will read it because it reinforces my submission. It states: Likes and dislikes of ideologies are facts of political life; they are, however, irrelevant to the present debate, which should not be about forestry, but which should be about filling casual vacancies in the Senate. The only attitude which really matters in the debate is that of the ALP. It wants Mr Devereux to replace one of its members in the Senate. It arrived at this decision democratically, and its wishes should be paramount. Any serious attempt to bring about a result different from the one sought by the ALP risks destroying the attempts supported in a referendum by the people of Australia to try to strengthen parliamentary stability through the Constitution. I believe that that particular view is shared increasingly, not only by people in Tasmania but also amongst conservative political circles, even on the mainland, who regard the action by Mr Gray as quite a diversionary and artificial crisis. In fact, it led Mr Ian Sinclair, the Parliamentary Leader of the National Party in this Parliament, to say that Mr Gray's actions amounted to an act of gross political stupidity. Mr Howard, on 8 March-I think it was on the steps of Parliament House-said this: I believe that the person appointed to fill casual vacancies of this kind ought to be the person nominated by the retiring Senator's political Party. It is because of that recognition by the Leader of the Opposition, Mr John Howard, of that convention that the Labor Party has incorporated that particular quotation in the motion that is before the chamber this evening. Senator Coates —He said something about `at the end of the day'. The end of the day may be July next year. Senator TATE —I think it was actually Senator Chaney who, very early in the piece-in fact, on 13 March-endorsed that particular view. Speaking of Mr Devereux, he said: I would, therefore, expect him in due course to be nominated by the Tasmanian Parliament. There have been stages in this particular saga when those on the other side of the chamber, the more sensible of them and those who are more sensitive to the conventions of the Constitution, thought that good common sense would prevail, given a week or two. We have seen, with Mr Gray in particular, that appeals to common sense and constitutional propriety, and sensitivity to a non-authoritarian, democratic and representative chamber, have no effect whatsoever. The appeal fell on deaf ears and we are confronted with the stalemate with which we are presented today. I do not believe this is a matter for partisan politics. That is why I was pleased to hear of the passage of a resolution in identical terms in the other place on the voices and without division earlier today. With the passage of the same motion through this chamber, I hope Tasmanian parliamentarians will take stock of the situation and put pressure, if that is the appropriate word, on their Presiding Officers, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Mr Cornish, and the President of the Legislative Council, Mr Broadby, to do what the Governor asked them to do. You will recall, Mr Acting Deputy President, that on 3 April our esteemed President, Senator Kerry W. Sibraa, wrote in the following terms to His Excellency, Sir James Plimsoll: Your Excellency, Pursuant to the Provisions of Section 21 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution, I notify Your Excellency that a vacancy has happened in the representation of the State of Tasmania through the resignation of Senator the Honourable Donald James Grimes on 2 April 1987. Consequent on receiving that letter, the late Governor wrote to the Speaker in these terms: Dear Mr Speaker, I am enclosing a copy of a letter I have received notifying me, pursuant to the Provisions of Section 21 of the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution, that a vacancy has happened in the representation of the State of Tasmania, through the resignation of Senator the Honourable Donald James Grimes, which occurred on Thursday, 2 April 1987. It is the following sentence that I wish to emphasise: I enclose also a copy of the letter that I have sent to the President of the Legislative Council asking him to arrange with you for the filling of this vacancy. Clearly, there is a recognition there that it is the Presiding Officers in the Tasmanian Parliament, the Speaker of the Assembly and the President of the Council respectively, who have the very key, crucial and grave roles in this matter. They have effectively been asked by this chamber, through the letter of the President conveyed to the Governor, to make such arrangements as are necessary to fill the vacancy, to assure all Tasmanians that they may have the representation of 12 senators to which they are constitutionally entitled in the proportions, as provided in section 15 of the Constitution and supplemented by the convention to which I have referred, in which voters in Tasmania indicated by their votes cast in the ballot box at the preceding election; namely, five members of the Labor Party, five members of the Liberal Party, one member of the Australian Democrats and one Independent. It was in regard to that that the Governor asked the Presiding Officers to arrange for the filling of the vacancy. The role of the Presiding Officers becomes very important, and perhaps we can now stand back from the political posturing of Mr Gray and the Government of Tasmania. Senators are not ambassadors or emissaries of the Government or the Parliament of any State, but the role of the Presiding Officers is the important one and they must now play their part in preserving that democratic and representative function of this chamber, following the resignation of former Senator Grimes. Senator Watson —Who said they were emissaries of the State? Senator TATE —I am saying that Mr Gray, by requiring that a person who is to fill a casual vacancy share the political stance and views of the Government on a crucial issue, is treating that senator as no more than an ambassador, emissary or mouthpiece of the Government in regard to that matter. However, I am confident that the Speaker and the President of the Assembly and the Council in the Tasmanian Parliament will respond to this motion and will take whatever steps are open to them. I know that they do not hold all of the power in this matter. Clearly, the Governor has to be advised by his Executive Council, but those Presiding Officers should take whatever steps are open to them to ensure that a joint sitting is convened to fill the vacancy, as they were requested to do. I believe very strongly that, with the passage of this motion tonight, this chamber will be reaffirming a most important convention of the Constitution, one that has been observed scrupulously by many State parliaments of all political persuasions no less than 13 times since, by way of referendum in 1977, when an overwhelming majority of the electors in Australia said that they wanted an end to the manipulation of the situation that can flow from the resignation or retirement of a senator from this chamber. Unless that convention is observed, we will have the impasse that has had the anti-democratic, unrepresentative consequences to which I have constantly referred as the theme of my contribution. I understand that an amendment to the motion has been circulated but not yet moved. I anticipate by saying that, of course, the Government will not accept the amendment which the Opposition proposes to move. Senator DURACK(Western Australia)(10.26) —Senator Tate has just moved a motion in very lengthy terms about the failure of the Tasmanian Parliament last week to accept the nominee of the Australian Labor Party to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of former Senator Don Grimes, who was a senator for Tasmania for a number of years. The Senate considered this matter earlier this year. As Senator Tate would recognise, on 19 March the Senate passed the following resolution with the support of all parties, including the Opposition, on whose behalf I gave it strong support: . . . that, where the place of a Senator who is a member of a particular political party becomes vacant before the expiration of the Senator's term of service, in the opinion of the Senate a person chosen to fill the vacant place in accordance with section 15 of the Constitution should be the member of the political party duly nominated by that party to fill that place; and The motion had a second limb which I think is irrelevant to our discussion this evening. It was moved by Senator Haines and, as I said, debated and passed by the Senate on 19 March. At that stage the Tasmanian Parliament had not made any decision, but the Premier of Tasmania had been threatening that the Parliament-I assume on the motion of the Government-would not simply rubber stamp the nomination of the ALP in Tasmania, namely, Mr Devereux. So the matter was a very live political issue as long ago as 19 March. Indeed, as Senator Tate acknowledged in his speech, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Chaney, gave his support to that principle, I think on 12 or 13 March. Indeed, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard-I think on the same day or the day before, but certainly prior to 19 March-also gave the support of the Opposition to that proposition; and, speaking on behalf of the Opposition in the debate on 19 March, I again formally supported that proposal on behalf of the Opposition. One may wonder why, in the House of Representatives earlier today and again in the Senate this evening, the Government has introduced a further motion which says virtually the same thing. Indeed, it notes the resolution of the Senate on 19 March and notes the statement that was made by the Leader of the Opposition only a couple of days ago on 8 May. I shall read what Mr Howard said: I believe that the person appointed to fill casual vacancies of this kind ought to be the person nominated by the retiring senator's political party. There could not be a clearer statement of where the Opposition stands in a matter of this kind. It has been repeated over and over again. It was repeated by the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives earlier today, yet we have had another half-hour speech from Senator Tate in support of a proposition to which both Houses of Parliament and all parties in this chamber and the other chamber have given their full support. Debate interrupted. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being 10.30 p.m., pursuant to sessional order I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator WATSON(Tasmania)(10.30) —Tonight I wish to pay tribute to the late Sir James Plimsoll, Governor of Tasmania from 1982 until his sudden death on 8 May. Sir James had a career of exemplary public service. He began his education at the Sydney High School and the University of Sydney where he gained an economics degree and a Bachelor of Arts degree. While at the university, Sir James was president of the union, and he made some shrewd and far-sighted purchases of art works which are now a significant asset for the university union. Sir James was, for a time, an economist with the Bank of New South Wales before serving in the Second World War, rising to the rank of major in the Intelligence Corps. After his war service he joined the Australian diplomatic service, then in its infancy. One of his first roles was as a member of the Commission for the Rehabilitation of Korea. Sir James Plimsoll had a brilliant and meteoric rise through the diplomatic service. He became High Commissioner to India and then permanent Secretary to the Department of Foreign Affairs, a post that he held for five years. Subsequently, he was Ambassador to both the United States of America and the Soviet Union, Ambassador to Belgium and the European Communities and High Commissioner to London. He ended his illustrious diplomatic career as Ambassador to Japan. In all his posts he won the confidence and respect of the various foreign statesmen both for his fine intellect and for his unfaulted discretion. In 1982 it was announced that Sir James Plimsoll would become Governor of Tasmania. Early in his term he made the comment that he intended to meet every Tasmanian. His punishing schedule, sometimes two weeks solid of official dinners, often travelling the length of the State twice in a day, and his concern for people in every field of endeavour, won the affection of all Tasmanians. The Official Secretary at Government House, Hobart said on Saturday that he had asked the post office to withhold some of the hundreds of messages of condolence from people in every walk of life in Tasmania, Australia and around the world, because the staff could not cope with the volume. In November last year the Tasmanian Premier announced that the Queen had approved an extension of a further three years to Sir James's term, until the end of 1990. Many people who know of the calibre of Sir James Plimsoll will appreciate the loss that is being felt by so many people in Tasmania, in the arts world, at the Department of Foreign Affairs and in so many other spheres for a great man and a dedicated public servant. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory)(10.33) —I wish to speak briefly tonight about a man who has contributed a great deal to the sport of gliding. Unfortunately, Ingo Renner is a name that, though very well known in gliding circles, is not well known to the rest of Australians. Yet, he is a four times world champion glider and 11 times he has been the Australian champion. He is a German-born Australian who has lived in this country for a number of years. I am not sure how it is that some athletic feats are featured but others attract less attention. I learned particularly of Ingo Renner when I visited the Canberra Gliding Club's twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations earlier this year at the Bunyan field near Cooma. I congratulate the Canberra Gliding Club on the success of its celebrations and for having paid for its field in five years. Honourable senators would appreciate that it is quite an extensive tract of land on which the club has placed the appropriate and suitable buildings. It is a memorial, if that is the right word, to the dedication of the members of the club that they have achieved so much. This was also the occasion of my first flight in a glider. Mr President, you will be pleased to know that it was not a solo flight; I had a very competent glider behind me. It was on that day that I learned of the dedication and of the feats of Ingo Renner who is so well respected amongst gliders and who has done a great deal to put Australia on the map amongst those in other parts of the world who really appreciate gliding as a sport. An article written about him under the heading `Hero of the open skies' tells more about him than I could do because it is written by someone who knows and understands him and gliding. I ask the Senate to recognise the feat of Ingo Renner, and I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard the article to which I have referred. Leave granted. The article read as follows- HERO OF THE OPEN SKIES For one who spends most of the time with his head in the clouds, Ingo Renner is a singularly down-to-earth sort of character. The four times world champion glider pilot is a diffident and private man, which befits the solitary pursuit of which he is champion. His domain is within the wheeling, plunging forces of the sky. He rides the crests on invisible waves of air and challenges the elements for mastery in the sport of soaring. On the ground he is quite shy and given to few words. He melded invisibly among the hundreds of gliding aficionados attending the 25th Australian Gliding Championships at Gawler. But within that fraternity he is something of a hero. He is one of those quiet achievers whose experience and sheer technical artistry inspire awe in others. Eavesdropping at pre-flight briefing sessions, one could hear his name mentioned again and again as his fellow competitors pitted their strategic wits against his steady excellence. Renner remains politely aloof. He is devoid of the competitive killer instinct. His idea of strategy is to ``take it easy''. He cares little whether he has a flock of airborne rivals or is in individual pursuit of a new record. It is all ``sport'' to Ingo Renner. The 45-year-old German-born glider ace simply loves flying. He finds it hard to describe in mere words. The beauty and satisfaction of gliding may only be comprehended by those who have done it. And, he says, none among them has had the sheer poetry required to tell it as it is. From earliest childhood, Renner has identified with soaring birds such as the albatross, the eagle and the seagull. Funnily enough he has something of the ungainly albatross about him as he goes about the pre-flight routines on the ground. He is a large man who lumbers slowly around his sturdy little prototype glider. Every motion is a gesture of love. After 29 years of gliding in borrowed aircraft, he now owns one. Call-signed Xray Xray, it is a sleek, German hand-built Discus glider worth $50,000. Renner squeezes awkwardly into the tiny cockpit in a semi-reclining position, his legs disappearing into the nose, his knees bent between the control sticks. It is not terribly comfortable and he could have had a glider made to measure, but he prefers it as it is. Once aloft, his physical comfort becomes irrelevant. His mind is fully absorbed with the business of flying and achieving the controlled grace of the soaring birds he so so admires. His flying outfit consists of slightly baggy jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, comfortable soft shoes, a towelling soaring club hat, sunglasses and a liberal layer of zinc cream on the nose. The sun can be pretty ferocious at ten or twenty thousand feet, he says. Unlike many of his rivals, he takes with him no refreshments other than water, however long the flight. His most epic flight has kept him in the air for 12 1/2 hours. With a touch of chagrin he explains that gliding is a sport limited to daylight hours. But if there is only so much a pilot can do in a day, Renner has done it. He holds the record of 1095 km for longest straight flight to a nominated goal as well as the speed record of 129 km/h average on a 1000 km triangular course. He is unafraid in the air. In gliding, he says, pilot error is the only terror. Renner has crash-landed and damaged a sailplane just once. He asserts that gliding is the safest of sports, provided the pilots have astute concentration. Ingo Renner lives for soaring and soars for a living. Yet it was not always so. Although his heart has been in the sky since he was a schoolboy making radio-controlled model planes, when he came to Australia from West Germany 28 years ago it was as a shipping clerk. But, as Renner points out, gliding is a great social leveller. Glider pilots come from all walks of life-and they begin flying at all ages. Renner was already a seasoned pilot when he arrived in Australia. He had begun flying at the age of 15, when he regularly cycled 50 km to the gliding field from his home town of Hude, near the harbour town of Bremen where his father was a merchant sailor. Once in Australia, he swiftly glided to prominence winning a 1966 regional championship in Queensland's Darling Downs in an unlikely old-model glider. Since then he has notched up many records. He has won the Australian championships six times in the open glider class, twice in the 15m class and three times in the standard class. He has competed in the World Championships six times. He came sixth in Yugoslavia in 1972, second in Australia in 1974, first in Finland in 1976, 14th in France in 1978, first in USA in 1983 and first again in Italy last year. He was deeply disappointed when, as an Australian citizen, he was prohibited from competing in the 1981 World Championships in Germany. ``I felt I would have had a good chance, knowing the countryside so well from my youth,'' he explained. ``But there are politics in gliding just as in other sports. The South Africans were competing and therefore we could not go. It was a bit sad for me, but I have made up for it since.'' Renner's philosophy towards life and flying is dominated by his spirit of calmness and positivism. He says he is thankful for what he has had in life. He yearns for nothing. He is most at home aloft in the whispering ambit of a glider, soaring on thermals, dipping, diving and cruising in the cumulus sky. He is also content amid the clouds of dust at the Adelaide Soaring Club's Gawler aerodrome, surrounded by his peers and their families. One of the nice things about gliding, he says, is the camaraderie of the competitors. When glider pilots attend competitions, they take everything including the proverbial kitchen sink. They park their nine-metre sailplane trailers in neat rows and set up camp in tents and caravans nearby. The championships take a fortnight, so they settle in with children, dogs, televisions, lounge chairs, eskys and all the comforts of home. One family even takes their pet galah. Assembling the gliders is a team effort. All pilots have a back-up crew of friends or family. Ingo Renner has his Finnish-born wife, Teresa, and needs no-one else. Teresa, 30, is an expert glider pilot in her own right. They met at competitions in Germany and have been married for four years. When Teresa is competing, Renner performs as back-up crew. ``It is really not very romantic,'' declares Teresa. ``We rarely fly together and tend not to compete in the same class at the same time. I don't kiss my husband goodbye before he takes off like some other wives. Quite frankly I'm just too busy. I have my work cut out checking the equipment and keeping the glider clean of dust. At take-off I run with the wing''. Even in the repetitive and laborious task of keeping the craft free of SA's ochre-coloured dust with a wet chamois, Teresa avows love for the way of life. Against a mosaic backdrop of criss-cross white sailplane wings, with the wasp-like buzz of the old crop-duster towplanes in the air, she bustles around Xray Xray, ensuring there are enough sweaters tucked around the parachute to keep Ingo comfortable and, finally, affixing to the perspex windscreen ``the best and cheapest gliding instrument,'' a length of red woollen thread which will tell the pilot if he is ``flying cleanly''. Once her husband is airborne, she returns to their caravan to monitor his progress on the radio while he executes the day's ordained flight route, to bring back photographs of nominated landmarks in the fastest possible time. The Renners spend six months of the year in Australia, living in New South Wales at Tocumwal on the River Murray. Ingo, with about 14,000 flying hours, works as a full-time gliding instructor, using his leisure time listening to classical music (``preferably any composer whose name begins with B''), swimming in the river or making flying model gliders. Every March the Renners return to Europe where Ingo continues to instruct in gliding in Germany while multi-lingual Teresa goes back to her old airport job in Sweden, planning aircraft movements on the apron. ``It is a gypsy life,'' admits Teresa. ``I suppose it is a bit unusual. But we are happy with it so far. Of course we can't go on like this forever.'' Renner is of a different mind. He is a non-smoker, a very occasional drinker and a robust man. He is not in a hurry to stop competition flying and he does not intend to retire as a gliding instructor until the regulation retirement age of 65. Even, then, while he wants to specialise in making model gliders, he will not eliminate the possibility of a little pleasure gliding. To Renner, soaring is a way of life. ``I think I was at my peak a few years ago,'' he says. ``A glider pilot's peak is much the same as an astronaut. It depends on a lot of experience while you are still young enough to take the pace and stress of flying. ``Elderly pilots are at a disadvantage because they can no longer concentrate at the required level for long periods of time. But gliding is a sport without age barriers. It is best to start at 15, but many people dream of sailplaning for years and years and do not manage to begin to do it until middle age or later when their children have grown up. It is still not too late.'' But if it is never too late to start learning, according to Renner; equally, it is never possible to finish. ``Even after 30 years I am still learning to read the sky,'' he says. ``I try to understand it and to use it. I try to copy the birds, but they are still the masters. There is always more to know and more to do.'' In Renner's case, it is fair to say the sky is almost unlimited. Senator REID —I thank the Senate. I ask that we note, amongst all the other heroes of Australian sport, the name of Ingo Renner and that we watch his career in the future. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 10.35 p.m. The following papers were tabled: Excise Act-Declaration in respect of rebate and amount of rebate in respect of Bass Strait Oil, dated 6 April 1987. Public Service Act-Determination 1987 No. 18. The following answers to questions were circulated: (Question No. 1694) Senator Jones asked the Minister for Resources and Energy, upon notice, on 24 March 1987: (1) In view of the Minister's statement of 22 March 1987 that Maralinga has not been ruled out as a dump for national nuclear waste, how much of that waste is currently within Australia. (2) What levels of radiation waste are already deposited (a) on the Australian mainland; and (b) at sea off the Australian coast. (3) How is this waste being contained and disposed of, and what is the annual accumulation rate. (4) In view of the Minister's reported statement to AAP (23 March 1987) that low level radiation waste is already stored in different Australian cities, will the Minister specify which cities. (5) In respect to each city will the Minister specify the level of nuclear waste and the specific suburbs, outer areas of each city and indeed the proximity to each street, where the waste is housed. (6) If Maralinga is ruled out as a suitable site, what are the total options available to the Federal Government. (7) How acute as of March 1987, is the nuclear waste storage problem. Senator Gareth Evans —The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows: (1) Firstly, I should point out that the former Maralinga atomic test site in South Australia is not being actively considered as a waste repository notwithstanding recent media reports suggesting that it is. Aside from a range of other considerations, including the views of the traditional Aboriginal owners of the Maralinga lands the South Australian Government has expressed no interest in hosting a national radioactive waste repository. As to quantity, approximately 1000m3 of radioactive waste which has accumulated over the years from activities involving the medical, industrial and research use of radionuclides is currently held in store in Australia. (2) (a) and (b) Apart from radioactive waste resulting from the British Atomic Tests in the 1950s and 60s, radioactive wastes that are already deposited (in the sense that they are buried rather than stored) comprise: bulky low level wastes from mining/processing of radioactive ores at a range of locations including: mineral sand mining residues at Byron Bay in New South Wales, South East Queensland and Capel, Bunbury and Geraldton in Western Australia uranium mining wastes at Moline, Rum Jungle, Ranger and Nabarlek in the Northern Territory, Mary Kathleen in Queensland and Radium Hill and Port Pirie in South Australia medical research and industrial wastes have been deposited at Hunters Hill, Woolwich and Lucas Heights in New South Wales and at Kambalda in Western Australia. (3) and (4) Because of the large volume of low-activity material involved, tailings and waste rock from mining and milling operations are disposed of on-site. This is done in accordance with the Code of Practice on the Management of Radioactive Wastes from the Mining and Milling of Radioactive Ores 1982, developed under the Environment Protection (Nuclear Codes) Act 1978. Where radioactive wastes arising from medical, industrial and research activities contains radionuclides with short half-lives, it is safely disposed of directly to the environment (e.g. through sewer, incineration, or municipal landfill). Where those disposal routes are used it must be in strict accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council's Code of Practice for the Disposal of Radioactive Wastes by the User (1985). Where wastes contain radionuclides of longer half-life (apart from those items able to be returned to the overseas manufacturer when no longer usable), the practice of each State and Territory Government and the Commonwealth Government has been to store them. They have therefore accumulated in small quantities at numerous locations around Australia including all capital cities. Approximately 1000 cubic metres is currently in store and is increasing at about 50 cubic metres per year. (5) Detailed information has been published in Hansard describing the type and location of stored radioactive wastes in Australia. See answers to Question without Notice on ``Nuclear Waste Disposal'' (H of R Hansard, 29 March 1984, page 1107), answer to Question on Notice 1232 (H of R Hansard, 23 August 1985, page 527) and Question on Notice 1987 (H of R Hansard, 29 November 1985, page 4193). This information has been updated as a result of the Commonwealth/State examination of the possibility of establishing a nuclear waste repository (see answer to 6 and 7). I propose to make it public once a decision on this matter has been made. (6) and (7) Continued reliance on present storage arrangements does not present an immediate problem although it obviously cannot continue indefinitely. The Commonwealth is therefore coordinating with State and Territory Governments on an approach to the disposal of radioactive wastes currently in store with the objective of developing a national radioactive waste repository. Based on internationally developed criteria nearly all of these wastes are suitable for shallow-ground burial and a desk review has been completed which shows that large areas of Australia could be technically suitable for the establishment of a repository. Consultations are continuing on this matter with both State and Northern Territory Governments. (Question No. 1721) Senator Crichton-Browne asked the Minister representing the Minister for Community Services, upon notice, on 28 April 1987: (1) Why did the Department of Community Services sell the Melville Rehabilitation Centre. (2) Why was the Centre sold to Murdoch University and not to Mr George Margetts who sought to purchase the Centre for use as a hospital. (3) (a) How much did Murdoch University pay for the Centre; and (b) what was the amount offered by Mr Margetts. (4) Is it correct that Murdoch University received Federal Government assistance to purchase the Centre; if so, how much was provided. (5) Is it correct that Murdoch University is seeking to sell off some of the surplus land at the Centre; if so, what is the estimated value of this land. (6) Has the Federal Government received a request for assistance from the Western Australian Minister for Health in providing suitable premises for use by the Head Injured Society of WA (Incorporated); if so, what was the nature of this request and what action has the Government taken with respect to this request. Senator Tate —The Minister for Community Services has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) The Melville Rehabilitation Centre was sold because it no longer met appropriately the requirements of the social and vocational rehabilitation services provided by the Department. The Melville Rehabilitation Centre was one of seven capital city centres sold in implementing the Government's 1986/87 Budget decision to put delivery of those rehabilitation services on a regional basis. Proceeds from these sales are being used to establish a network of regional units in all States to make services more accessible to clients. (2) The Melville Rehabilitation Centre was sold to Murdoch University because it submitted an unconditional complying tender for the Centre. Marmac Pty Ltd, of which Mr George Margetts is a director, submitted a conditional non-complying tender. (3) (a) $2.75 million unconditional (b) $3 million conditional on Marmac Pty Ltd being granted a licence to run a private hospital. (4) Murdoch University is funding the full purchase price of the Centre. The Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission has undertaken to provide a capital contribution of $1.75 in either 1989 or 1990. (5) Murdoch University is an autonomous body established under State legislation. The Commonwealth is not involved in the day-to-day administration of the University, and I have no information on this matter. (6) The Minister for Community Services has received a request for assistance from the Western Australian Minister for Health to provide residential and other services for people with head injuries. The Western Australian Minister for Health did not specifically ask for the service to be used by the Head Injured Society of Western Australia (Incorporated). The Western Australian Minister for Health suggested joint funding between the Commonwealth and Western Australian Government, of a residential facility perhaps with some nursing home and some hostel beds for younger clients. He proposed that the Western Australian Government would contribute rent and some capital costs and the Commonwealth other recurrent costs. The Minister for Community Services has written to the Western Australian Minister for Health asking for an offer made by the Commonwealth earlier this month to be considered urgently by Western Australia, viz, a lump sum once only payment of $1.5 million to be made by the Commonwealth before 30 June to the Western Australian Government in exchange for the Western Australian Department of Health providing rehabilitation services for people with head injuries that are now being provided in the Melville Rehabilitation Centre in Perth. In his letter, the Minister for Community Services has also suggested a working party be established to report to both Ministers by 1 September on the longer term residential and living needs of people with head injuries in Western Australia which might be met jointly by the Commonwealth and the State.