Thursday, 28 May 1987 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: We, the undersigned citizens of Australia, being concerned that the Australian Government, in breach of its own stated policies, has lifted the bans on the sale of uranium to France; demand that the Government re-impose the bans on such sales, and further, that the Government ratifies and strengthens the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty to prohibit uranium sales within the region. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Sanders (from 185 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Labor Government's Identity Card. (2) That this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive, costly for taxpayers and business and will not be effective in combatting the growing problems of tax evasion, illegal immigrants or social security. (3) That we are deeply concerned at the Labor Government's inability to provide effective and efficient methods to combat tax and social security fraud without resorting to expensive, ineffective and authoritarian measures which are alien to the Australian way of life. (4) That we call upon the Labor Government to improve management systems within the Australian Taxation Office and other departments to crack down on tax evasion and fraudulent practices. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Messner (from 36 citizens). 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 Oct. 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 the pensioner and surviving dependents-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 Oct. 1986 to 1 July 1987 so that pensions are restored to the 9 Oct. 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 Peter Baume (from 42 citizens), Button (from 10 citizens), Sir John Carrick (from 60 citizens) and Collard (from 13 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: We the undersigned, (i) are greatly disturbed by the dangers to health posed by passive smoking, and evidence of which is being documented daily by medical authorities around the world; (ii) note that environmental tobacco smoke has been identified as the major pollutant in aeroplane cabins, and that its direct threat to health is recognised in the special leave provisions for flight attendants specifically on grounds of upper respiratory infections; (iii) appreciate the government's undertaking to legislate for smoke-free travel on aeroplanes, but are dismayed at the apparent reluctance to follow up the Minister for Aviation's December announcement with action; and (iv) call upon the government to make smoke-free aeroplane travel a reality without further delay, and to ensure that smoke-free areas which cannot be contaminated by recycled pollutants, are available at all aerodromes. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Ryan (from 199 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 family 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 Reynolds (from eight citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of the Maranoa Electorate respectively showeth that: The Social Security Amendment Bill 1987, Schedule 1, page 15, additional amendments of the Social Security Act 1947, part 1, omit ``Subsection 6 (1) (definition of `de facto spouse'): Insert `and includes a person who, but for a law of a State or territory prohibiting sexual intercourse between the person and another person by reason only of the age of either person, would be such a person' after `to that other person'.'', Substitute ``Subsection 6 (1) (definition of `de facto spouse'): Insert `but does not include a person who is living with another person in a relationship prohibited by a law of a State or Territory' after `to that other person'.''. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Button (from 223 citizens). 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, unless otherwise ordered and notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders, the routine of business for the remainder of this day and for each subsequent day of the 1987 autumn sittings be as follows: (a) Petitions; (b) Notices of Motion; (c) Formal Motions-Discovery of Formal Business; (d) Government Business, Notices of Motion and Orders of the Day or vice versa, as set down on the Notice Paper; (e) At 2 p.m. Questions; and (f) Further consideration of Government Business, Notices of Motion and Orders of the Day, or vice versa, as set down on the Notice Paper. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —I withdraw Government Business, Notices of Motion Nos 1 and 2, standing in my name. 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, Notices of Motion Nos 1 to 5 inclusive, standing in my name for the next day of sitting for disallowance of the Credit (Amendment) Ordinance 1987, the Electricity (Amendment) Ordinance 1987, the Public Service Board Determination No. 4 of 1987, the Australian Meat and Live-stock Order No. MS11/87, and Postal (Staff) By-laws Amendment No. 1 of 1987. I seek leave to make a short statement in relation to these matters. Leave granted. Senator COONEY —The Regulations and Ordinances Committee has examined aspects of this delegated legislation concerning the imposition of large penalties for certain offences; the need for brief explanatory statements to inform parliament and the community of the purpose and effect of certain kinds of delegated legislation; and the way in which by-laws and determinations provide for the exercise of important discretionary powers concerning employment matters in the Public Service and statutory authorities. The Committee has received a satisfactory explanation for the level of penalties, a ministerial undertaking to provide explanatory statements, and a Public Service Board undertaking to ensure that the conferral of wide discretionary powers over individuals is expressly made, subject to their reasonable exercise. The Committee acknowledges the co-operation and advice it has received from the Minister for Primary Industry, the Minister for Territories, the Public Service Board and the Australian Postal Commission. Delegated Legislation For the information of honourable senators and others, I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a more detailed summary of the Committee's scrutiny. Leave granted. The document read as follows- REGULATIONS AND ORDINANCES COMMITTEE ELECTRICITY (AMENDMENT) ORDINANCE 1987 The Electricity (Amendment) Ordinance 1985 created a range of offences to ensure the saftey of electrical appliances in the A.C.T. Penalties ranging from $100 to $10,000 were imposed. The Electricity (Amendment) Ordinance 1987 increased these penalties, in some cases to levels 20 times higher than those originally prescribed. The new penalties range from $500 to $100,000. It was the Committee's view that the maximum penalty to be imposed on an offender should be reasonably commensurate with the seriousness of the offence which an offender commits or is deterred from committing. However, where, under delegated legislation, a prescribed penalty appears to be set at a level beyond the confines of this rationale, the Committee considers that it has an obligation to determine whether the penalty is so high or so lacking in relative justification that it is unreasonable and an infringement of the Committee's principles relating to trespass on personal rights and liberties. The Committee therefore, invited the Minister for Territories (the Honourable Gordon Scholes, M.P.) to explain why these penalties have been increased so significantly within a relatively short time of their initial prescription. The Minister informed the Committee that the original penalties in 1985 had been determined by the Attorney-General's Department without reference to the penalty levels applying to contraventions of the then proposed Division 1A of Part V of the Trade Practices Act 1974. They were instead determined in the context of establishing a uniform scheme for control of electrical articles and reflected proposed penalty levels in other States. Under the Trade Practices Act (as amended by the Trade Practices Revision Act 1986) the Attorney-General was given powers in relation to all consumer products which were similar to the powers conferred on the A.C.T. Electricity Authority under the Ordinance specifically in relation to electrical goods. However, the level of penalties prescribed under section 79 of the Act (as amended in 1986) were very different from the level prescribed under the Ordinance. The Committee accepted that there was a need for consistency in the level of penalties prescribed under both enactments. The Committee decided to withdraw its opposition to the Ordinance bearing in mind: (i) the threat to life and limb which could arise from the criminal practices of an electrical goods manufacturer or supplier; and (ii) the Parliament's previous endorsement of similar penalty levels in the broad Trade Practices area. The Committee concluded that in these particular circumstances the increased penalties were not an undue trespass on personal rights and liberties. POSTAL (STAFF) BY-LAWS AMENDMENT No. 1, 1987 These By-laws provided for certain internal grievance procedures, as avenues of redress for Australian Postal Commission employees who may feel aggrieved at managerial decisions. In examining delegated legislation made by a statutory authority to provide for internal managerial and organisational procedures the Committee's role is to be astute in ensuring that the imposition of parliamentary supervision does not unnecessarily hamper the organisation in the discharge of its managerial and functional roles. In its dealings with statutory authorities the Committee endeavours to strike an appropriate balance by applying its principles of legality, propriety, liberty and redress to the delegated legislation in a way which takes account of and makes allowance for the different relationship that exists between an employer and an employee. In this case the Committee was concerned firstly, that reasons for disciplinary decisions be given in a timely manner. The Commission explained that explanatory guidelines issued to managers and supervisors would make it clear that this should be done. Secondly, the Committee sought assurances that a complainant would not be burdened with a requirement to forward to higher levels of management, official documents already available to lower level managers who had initially dealt with the grievance. The Commission explained that there would be no such requirement but that applicants in being required to give reasons for seeking a higher level of review would reasonably be in a position to focus and reflect on the nature of their grievance. Thirdly, the Committee was concerned whether the drafting of the by-laws was sufficiently clear to ensure that the higher levels of internal review addressed the real nature of a grievance rather than the procedure or nature of lower level reviews unless these themselves become the subject of a fresh grievance. The Commission assured the Committee that while this proper process was not explicitly stated in the by-law it was so essential for the operation of the overall procedures as to be clearly implied. The Committee accepted the Commission's explanations and considered that, in the circumstances, it was not necessary to further enquire into the By-laws. CREDIT (AMENDMENT) ORDINANCE 1987 Under section 19 of the Principal Ordinance made in 1985, the Minister for Territories was empowered, at his discretion, to suspend the operation of the protective provisions of the new credit law. The Committee considered that such an unusual power should be exercised by an instrument made subject to tabling and disallowance in Parliament. The Minister (the Hon. Gordon Scholes, M.P.) agreed to exercise the power by means of A.C.T. Regulations and he amended the legislation accordingly. The present Amendment Ordinance provides that exemptions from the law are now to be made instead by ministerial declarations which will however, remain subject to tabling and disallowance. For some time now the Committee has been concerned about the implications of the perceived drift in delegated legislation, away from professionally prepared and presented instruments, to less formal documents of a legislative and quasi-legislative character. The Committee has understood that when delegated legislation is made in the form of, for example, Statutory Rules; it is drafted by professionally skilled legislative drafters; it is briefly annotated to identify previously related instruments; it is printed and assigned a sequential number for citation and reference purposes; it is considered by the Federal Executive Council and its attendant scrutiny processes; it is tabled in Parliament with an explanatory statement indicating the authority under which it is made and briefly describing its purposes and impact; and finally it is made available for wide dissemination to users and the public generally. Each of these steps is an important part of the subordinate law making process, designed to provide some procedural as well as some parliamentary supervision over the exercise of ministerial powers to make law outside the procedures of the primary law-makers in parliament. Apart from the involvement of the Federal Executive Council, which arises from the formal legislative empowering of the Governor-General to make delegated legislation, the Committee finds it difficult to accept that these procedural and presentational requirements should not be uniformly adopted for all delegated legislative instruments. That which may cause possible objection for financial reasons, namely the provision of a brief explanatory statement, should in reality have no significant resource implications at all. In practice a Minister, contemplating the making of a delegated instrument, will always insist on having before him or her a document or submission describing the purpose and import of the draft instrument he or she is considering. Such a document would, of course, with little redrafting, qualify as an explanatory statement to inform and assist the Parliament, before whose members the signed instrument is tabled for approval or dissent. The Minister explained to the Committee that he preferred to make use of a declaratory mechanism rather than regulations to create exemptions in order to be in a position to respond more quickly and more flexibly to exemptions made in those other States with whose credit laws the A.C.T. Ordinance is in basic uniformity. The Minister indicated that there is a backlog of 25 State exemptions which need to be given effect to in the A.C.T. and thereafter it is anticipated that there will be a continuing need for approximately 6 exemptions per year. Finally, the Minister undertook to examine the resource implications of ensuring that an explanatory statement accompanied each of the new declarations. The Committee is encouraged by the Minister's positive response to examine the question of providing explanatory notes. The Committee agreed to withdraw the notice of motion of disallowance to enable him to do this freely. At this stage however, the Committee remains solidly of the view that delegated legislation, although subordinate in nature, is nevertheless in the eyes of the courts and the community, a legislative activity capable of imposing heavy obligations and severe penalties. Such legislation, whether it takes the form of a statutory rule, an ordinance, a regulation, a by-law, a declaration, a notice, a principle, a plan, a guideline, a determination, a direction, an order or an instrument of some other nomenclature, is often highly technical, and seemingly incomprehensible to the extent that it may form a small amending part of a large regulatory jig saw. Nevertheless, it can impact very significantly on the rights and liberties of individuals and it may contain important subordinate policy initiatives of lasting significance. It is at the very least unfair, and it may indeed be a discourtesy, to a House of the Parliament and a Standing Committee functioning in a scrutiny role under its authority, not to have available to it an official explanatory document describing the legality, the purpose and the impact of the instrument. It is very much the hope of the Committee that economic, uniform and adequate standards of presentation will be adopted for all instruments of delegated legislation which, regardless of their name, are submitted to Parliament for scrutiny. AUSTRALIAN MEAT AND LIVE-STOCK ORDER NO. MS11/87 The Committee invited the Minister for Primary Industry (the Hon. John Kerin, M.P.), who has portfolio responsibility for the Corporation, to consider the practice of ensuring that when presented to Parliament for scrutiny, future Orders should be accompanied by a brief explanation of their authority, import and implications. The Committee considered that adequate statements, contemporaneously prepared by the legal and policy experts responsible for the preparation of the Order, would be of value to Parliament and the Community. The Committee also raised with the Minister some technical problems concerning the clarity of the drafting of a part of that Order. The Minister has agreed that the provision of explanatory statements would be of assistance to the Parliament and he has directed his officials to consult with the Corporation to ensure that it is aware of the requirements of the Parliament in connection with the drafting and presentation of subordinate legislative instruments. PUBLIC SERVICE BOARD DETERMINATION NO. 4 OF 1987 This Determination was designed to transfer from the Public Service Act, the Public Service Regulations, and other non-legislative Public Service documents, and remake in the form of a Determination, certain conditions of employment related to leave of absence, other than recreation and sick leave. The Determination also amended earlier provisions dealing with studies assistance. The Determination represented, in part, the implementation of Public Service streamlining proposals concerning conditions of service. It transferred from the Board to Departmental Secretaries certain powers and functions. In doing this, certain broad personal discretions were conferred on Secretaries and their delegates. The Committee sought from the Chairman of the Public Service Board, Dr Peter Wilenski, comments and advice on the conferral of personal or subjective discretions on Secretaries and delegates, whether it would be possible or acceptable to replace personal discretions with objective standards and whether the conferral of personal powers should be expressly qualified by reference to their ``reasonable'' exercise. The Chairman of the Board, through one of his Commissioners, explained the background to the Determination, emphasising the Board's view that, in this particular area of personnel management, it was not desirable to avoid discretions when drafting conditions of service. Although it considered that, at law, the conferral of personal discretions was impliedly predicated on their reasonable exercise, nevertheless if for presentational reasons express reference should be made to the reasonable exercise of powers, the Determination could be amended to include a general declaratory provision to that effect. In its frequent examination of delegated legislative instruments which embody conditions of employment of public service officers, Defence Force personnel or employees of statutory authorities, the Committee is careful to ensure that the performance of its role as a legislative scrutineer and watchdog does not unnecessarily interfere with the special relationship that exists between employers and employees. In this respect the Committee endeavours to ameliorate what is, sometimes, wrongly seen as its intrusive role, by applying its scrutiny principles in a way which ensures that excessive managerial zeal or discretion is properly checked rather than legislatively entrenched. The Board expressed some reluctance to insert a qualifying clause into the Determination for ``presentational'' purposes arguing that ``most Secretaries and their delegates have a sufficiently sophisticated grasp of administrative law concepts for them to appreciate the need to act reasonably even though that is not specified in the provision''. After careful reflection however, and in the light of the detailed submission put to it by the Board, the Committee decided to accept the Board's suggestion that a general declaratory clause should appear in the Determination. The Committee considered that this initiative could have consequences beyond being a merely presentational gesture. It could assist the small number of Secretaries and delegates whom the Board acknowledges have not yet achieved that sophisticated grasp of administrative law concepts and the imperative to act reasonably attained by the majority of their peers and colleagues. Further it could underpin existing high standards of personnel management and reinforce employees' confidence in the integrity and professional judgement of Australia's most senior officials and their expert delegates. The Committee is grateful to the Board for its alternative suggestion and commends it for the helpful submission it presented. Senator COONEY —I also seek leave to table the Committee's correspondence, which is too lengthy to incorporate in Hansard. This is in accordance with the Committee's usual practice. Leave granted. Motion (by Senator Vigor) agreed to: That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act to amend the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 to provide for the filling of casual vacancies in the House of Representatives and for related purposes. Motion (by Senator Vigor) agreed to: That the Bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time. Bill read a first time. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(10.06) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard my second reading speech. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- Introduction The Commonwealth Electoral Act Amendment (By-Elections) Bill 1987 has two main purposes. The first is to provide rotation of names on ballot papers; the second is to provide for the filling of casual vacancies by a recount of the votes polled at the previous election. This will dispense with the need to have voters come to the poll for by-elections. Purpose The Bill makes provision for the rotation of names on the House of Representatives ballot paper so that no candidate is advantaged or disadvantaged by the donkey vote. Because the votes of those who could not care less will be shared among all candidates, the luck of a series of double randomised lotteries will no longer be able to determine the majority or even the nature of a government. The Bill also makes provision for the filling of casual vacancies in the House of Representatives by a re-examination of the ballot cast at the previous general election. This will reinforce the compact which candidates make with the voters during the campaign, namely to serve for the duration of the next Parliament. In most areas, voters can also expect to be offered a wider selection of endorsed candidates from whom to choose. Background The ordinary processes of government will no longer grind to a holt as they did in 1982 when the Fraser government faced the media circuses of the Lowe and Flinders by-elections. Disaffected members will no longer be able to threaten chaos by resigning and forcing the government to hold a by-election at an awkward time. However, depending on the way in which parties respond to the change, those members whose health declines will no longer feel obliged to hang on at immense personal cost just because the government could have a serious reverse at a by-election. More and more members are choosing to resign part-way through an elected term instead of waiting until the next general election to leave politics. As the pressure of public life mount and more people come into Parliament with a clear intention to move on to another career after 10 or 12 years, we will be facing ever greater upheavals and disruption unless we act now. We certainly do not want to confront an epidemic similar to the run of 13 by-elections in the current New South Wales Legislative Assembly since February 1985. ONE VOTE ONE VALUE IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT FUNDAMENTAL REFORM It is important to note that while these changes will inject greater fairness towards all candidates, and will encourage governments to look a little further into the future, they will not bring us any closer to one vote one value. The results of the 1984 general election are a clear indication that more fundamental changes are needed to achieve fairness to the voters and to the parties. The Australian Labor Party received 4,120,130 first preferences and won 82 seats, one for each 50,000 supporters. The Liberal Party won 45 seats as a result of its 2,978,891 votes, one for each 66,000 supporters. The National Party captured 21 seats with its 921,151 first preferences, one for each 44,000 supporters. These glaring national disparities, which would create major political unrest in much of continental Europe, are even worse when the outcomes in each State in 1984 are considered. For instance, in New South Wales the National Party won 10 seats at an average of one for each 31,800 supporters. Labor took 29 seats, one for each 50,300 first preferences. The Liberals filled the remaining 12 seats at a strike rate of one for each 82,500 votes. In Tasmania, the Liberal Party received 133,173 votes-51.1 per cent-and emerged with all five seats. The other 127,273 voters may as well not have turned up for all that their efforts achieved. As the following table shows, the outcome in other States was far from the one vote one value ideal that the reduction to 10 per cent in the tolerance in enrolment variations was supposed to herald. 1984 ELECTION-NUMBER OF FIRST PREFERENCES FOR EACH SEAT WON A.L.P. Lib. Nat. Victoria... 44,700 76,600 48,500 Queensland... 67,300 37,600 54,500 South Australia... 46,000 67,500 - Western Australia... 40,000 85,400 - The only effective way of removing these gross imbalances is to adopt a quota-preferential system of proportional representation as set out in the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Representation of the People) Bill introduced last year by my colleague Senator Macklin. As the Labor, Liberal and National parties all hope to benefit most from the iniquities of the current arrangements, we are forced to bring forward minor but important reforms nevertheless which go some way towards putting all candidates in an electorate on the same footing. Rotation of names on ballot papers THE DONKEY VOTE LOTTERY-AN AUTHENTIC AUSTRALIAN SOLUTION, BUT NOT THE MOST EQUITABLE ONE Before the 1984 general election, the listing of candidates on House of Representatives ballot papers had been in strict alphabetical order. This had several consequences for the behaviour of preselectors and the composition of the House of Representatives. While the Democratic Labor Party had an unenviable reputation for putting up candidates whose surnames would put them at the top of the ballot paper, others also had more than a passing interest in the matter. In 1982, Jonathan Kelly and Ian McAllister from the Department of Sociology at the ANU's Institute of Advanced Studies published `Ballot paper cues and the vote in Australia and Great Britain: alphabetic voting, sex, and title' in which they analysed voting at the 1974 and 1977 general elections. Using standard linear regression techniques, they found that in Australia a candidate with a name in the top third of the alphabet can expect to obtain an additional 2.5 per cent of the vote compared with counterparts in the bottom third of the alphabet, all other things being equal. About three-fifths of this difference was because `the major parties think the electorate are donkeys and choose candidates with names high in the alphabet'. The other two-fifths was explained by the advantage of being nearer the top of the ballot paper. In a paper titled `The Donkey Vote', written before he became Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment, Barry Cohen, produced a table which indicated that the composition of the Senate in 1980 and since Federation was in accordance with the general distribution of names in the telephone directory, but that there was `an outrageous over-representation in earlier letters in the alphabet' in the House of Representatives. Part of that table included the following percentages: Telephone Directory House of Reps marginals from 1940 House of Reps all seats in 1980 A-D 26.8 34.3 29.6 E-H 17.9 24.5 20.8 I-L 9.9 12.5 14.4 M-P 18.3 15.5 16.8 Q-T 17.8 9.8 12.8 U-Z 9.3 3.4 5.6 Marginal seats were defined as those which could have changed hand with a swing of 5 per cent or less between 1969 and 1980. The Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 1983 put an end to the tyranny of alphabet. Evidence put to the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform had indicated how the draw for column places on the Senate ballot paper could be improved by carrying out the process in two rounds. The suggested double randomised draw for places was adopted for order of places on House of Representatives ballot papers also. It is an interesting reflection on us as Australians that we insist upon having the fairest possible rules for the conduct of the lottery for places. However, once the two sets of draws are made, the die is cast and the donkey vote effect set for a particular electorate. Most analyses put at between 1 and 3 per cent the proportion of the votes where the numbering is straight down the ballot paper, whether because the voters do not really care or they do not understand preferential voting. There are certainly differences between regions at any particular election. At the 1984 general election, there were 25 seats where a change of mind by 2.5 per cent of the voters or less could have led to another candidate being elected. Only two of the 11 successful Labor candidates involved were assisted by the donkey vote, whereas 9 of the 14 successful Liberal and National candidates received that particular benefit. In the electorates of Petrie, Casey, Denison, Gilmore, Flinders, the Northern Territory, and Macquarie, the two-party preferred vote for the elected candidate was 51.5 per cent or less. Several of the sitting members, all Liberals or Nationals, owe their election to their good fortune at the draw for places on the ballot paper. The 1984 departures from one vote, one value may have been even significantly worse had it not been for the Opposition's luck of the lottery! FAIRNESS FOR ALL CANDIDATES The provisions of this Bill seek to give all candidates equal access to the most favourable places on the ballot paper, and hence to spread the donkey vote evenly. The details follow very much the work of the Liberal member of Tasmania's House of Assembly, Neil Robson. In fact the idea was put forward in 1957 during the inquiry into electoral matters by a select committee of the House of Assembly. Although the Premier and Chairman of that committee, Mr Cosgrove, was receptive of the suggestion, it was apparently set aside when the Electoral Department said that rotational printing of ballot papers would create undue counting difficulties. Neil Robson took up the idea because it enabled a more accurate reflection of the people's will. He introduced a private member's Bill in May 1977 and over the next 2 1/2 years promoted the merits of the change and sorted out the mathematical detail of the selection of the ballot paper permutations which treated all candidates fairly without creating horrendous problems for the printer. His proposal affected both the single-member districts of the Legislative Council and the group columns on the ballot paper for the seven-member districts of the House of Assembly. The crisis brought about by allegations of overspending at the 1979 general election produced an atmosphere in which the Electoral Amendment Bill 1979 passed through both houses without amendment, and received the royal assent on 21 November 1979. During the course of debate, the then Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Aulich, said: This Bill will make the Hare-Clark system the fairest in the world. It is already one of the fairest but this, by first of all changing the relative positions of the big poll-getters in multi-member electorates and by rearranging the donkey vote so that it is shared out equally amongst every candidate in the electorate will make the system near perfect. There are other changes that I am sure we can make by regulation which will sharpen the system up but in effect what we are doing here today, if the rest of Australia is listening and if the rest of Australia is as honest as both sides of this House have been about electoral reform, will be reflected elsewhere in Australia later. When he introduced this private member's Bill, Mr Robson circulated notes which pointed out the common practice in the United States of printing candidates' names in rotation, but generally following a single sequence. His contribution, as embodied in the Electoral Amendment Regulations (No. 2) 1979, was to devise a selection of sequences which gives all candidates equal access to the best places at the top and bottom of the column, and evenly spreads the benefit of other patterns where voters do not have any firm preferences beyond the first few. His Bill, as does this one, further seeks fair treatment for all by requiring ballot papers to be collated and distributed at polling places in such a way that each sequence of names on the ballot paper is just as likely to be the one on the paper handed to a particular voter as any other. The presence of party designations on each ballot paper, next to each candidate's name, and the availability of official assistance for those who are illiterate, means that each voter has an unfettered opportunity to make his or her wishes known. There is no longer any excuse for how-to-vote cards which at present constitute an enormous waste of resources, and which with rotational printing would confuse as many people as they would assist. As Neil Robson put it: If the listing of names on the ballot-paper were rotated, thereby giving every candidate an equal share of the ``donkey'' or ``down-the-ticket'' votes, then the choice of Members of Parliament would be made-as in justice to the electors it should-by the deliberate decisions expressed through the ballot box. If the ``donkey vote'' were thus neutralised by rotational printing, a candidate would be assured that this success or failure would depend on the number of deliberately selected votes which he had won, not on whether he lost or gained a portion of votes due to the luck of the draw for position on the ballot-paper. House of Representatives-Filling of casual vacancies The second arm of this Bill provides for the orderly filling of casual vacancies which arise in the House of Representatives, without requiring the voters of that electorate to return to the polling places. Only if none of the unsuccessful candidates at the previous general election indicates a willingness to act if elected will there be a need for a supplementary election after the calling of nominations afresh. Section 33 of the Australian Constitution says: Whenever a vacancy happens in the House of Representatives, the Speaker shall issue his writ for the election of a new member, or if there is no Speaker or if he is absent from the Commonwealth the Governor-General in Council may issue the writ. Since the first Parliament convened in Melbourne in 1901, there have been 136 vacancies in the House of Representatives. Four of these occurred because the Court of Disputed Returns voided the outcome declared at the general election. In addition, the member for Kalgoorlie was expelled from the House in November 1920 for `seditious and disloyal utterances at a public meeting' where he criticised British policy on Ireland. Nineteen vacancies, each of which occurred within three months of the dissolution of Parliament, were not filled. On two of these occasions, in 1931 and 1934, the Speaker withdraw a writ which had already been issued. On four other occasions, in Kalgoorlie in 1913, Dalley in 1915, Wide Bay in 1928, and Cunningham in 1956, only one candidate nominated and so the voters were not called back to the polling places. Seventy-six members have died in office while 48 have resigned, some through ill-health or to go into retirement after many years of service, but the overwhelming proportion, about three-quarters of them, to take up government appointments either at home or abroad. CHANGING PATTERNS IN THE CAUSES OF BY-ELECTIONS Of the Parliaments, only three, the Ninth (1923-25), Eighteenth (1946-49) and the Nineteenth (1950-51), have passed without any vacancy arising. On the other hand, there were 10 vacancies during the course of the Twentieth Parliament (1951-54), nine of them because of the death of the sitting member. Three times, in 1952-3, 1960 and 1983-84, there have been 6 by-elections in well under a year. The death of the sitting member was the cause in all cases the first time. On the second occasion, four resignations were among the causes, while the third time, all the vacancies were created by resignations. This is a trend which is also borne out dramatically in overall figures. In the period to the end of the Twenty-fifth Parliament in 1966, there were 64 deaths and 30 resignations which left vacancies in the House of Representatives. Since then, however, the vacancies have been caused by 12 deaths and 25 resignations. That is, the proportion of resignations has swung from one-third to two-thirds since the retirement of Sir Robert Menzies. I believe that it is time to re-examine our understanding of the purpose of a general election before matters get as far out of hand as they have in the New South Wales Parliament. Since 1975, there have been 32 by-elections, 13 of these from February 1985 in the lifetime of the current Legislative Assembly. It is difficult to accept that by-elections can occur in such epidemic quantities when candidates ask the voters to endorse them for a full term of the Parliament at a general election. DISRUPTION OF GOVERNMENT AND COST TO PUBLIC REVENUE There is a major problem when the government and the media concentrate almost exclusively on the beaten-up significance of a particular by-election. We can well remember the media circuses which accompanied the Lowe and Flinders by-elections of 1982, and the Bankstown and Heathcote by-elections for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly earlier this year. The prospect of a possible Bowman by-election has also been concentrating the minds of a number of people in recent months. We cannot afford to have governments diverted from the business of administration and policy oversight because they sense that a lot of face is at stake at a particular by-election. In fact, we should be encouraging governments to take longer term views of the nation's welfare than what extra promises might save them a seat. More and more, we will object to the considerable expense involved in recalling the voters of any electorate to the polling places, and in reimbursing some of the various candidates' expenses under the public funding schemes which operate. For instance, the Australian Electoral Commission has given the cost of staging last year's Scullin by-election as $129,283. A further $33,056 was spent under the public funding provisions. The cost to the public purse of holding the 6 by-elections held in the course of the Thirty-third Parliament (1983-84) was over three-quarters of a million dollars, exclusive of the ordinary payments to Australian Electoral Commission staff whose efforts are called upon. Figures provided to Senate Estimates Committee E in May 1986 illustrate how fast costs of by-elections rose over the period of the previous two parliaments: By-election Cost ($) Boothby... 21.2.81 67,145 Curtin... 21.2.81 48,827 McPherson... 21.2.81 127,202 Wentworth... 11.4.81 71,149 Lowe... 13.3.82 82,000 Flinders... 4.12.82 103,209 Wannon... 7.5.83 103,486 Bruce... 28.5.83 127,268 Moreton... 5.11.83 103,889 Hughes... 18.2.84 148,000 Richmond... 18.2.84 144,357 Corangamite... 18.2.84 145,133 The Australian Electoral Commission noted that advertising costs had risen from 5 per cent of total cost in 1981 to 10 per in 1984, and were expected to reach 12 per cent of total cost in 1986. As the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 1983 only came into effect on 21 February 1984 by proclamation of the Governor-General, these figures for costs will be further increased by the public funding requirements of the future. They are already massive when compared with what it costs to fill casual vacancies in Tasmania's House of Assembly. The Parliamentary Library was able to supply me with the Electoral Office's estimate that its re-examinations of ballot papers involve six staff for about a day and a half. THE TASMANIAN EXPERIENCE Once the Chief Electoral Officer has been notified of a vacancy, a notice about it is published in at least two newspapers, and unsuccessful candidates at the general election who have not since been elected have 10 days in which to notify their availability to serve if elected as the replacement. When the period for notifying consents has expired, there is a re-examination of ballot papers. In the case where the vacating candidate was elected at the general election, all the ballot papers which contributed to that election are re-examined, and the candidate preferred by those who have lost their representative becomes the replacement. The same principle operates where the vacating candidate was elected to fill a casual vacancy, except that all the papers examined in that person's election are re-examined. The driving force behind the idea that voters not be recalled to the polling places appears to have been Professor Giblin who in 1914 appeared before a commission of inquiry into the electoral system. The original provisions were enacted in 1917 and have since been altered to avoid further polling if a vacancy arises from a member who filled an earlier vacancy. In 1979, in the midst of the campaign overspending controversy, special provision was made for circumstances in which more than one vacancy was created simultaneously. When the election of three Labor members was voided on these grounds, a by-election for all seven seats in Denison was held the following year. The sunset clause on this legislation has since expired, and Tasmanians can continue to expect that vacancies in the House of Assembly will be filled expeditiously without disrupting the operations of government or requiring voters to return to the polling places. Since 1946, every vacating Liberal or Labor member has been replaced by a colleague from the same party. The two vacating Independents, Wedd and Turnbull, have been replaced respectively by the Independent McPartlan and the Australian Labor Party member Fraser. The Independent Dr Bob Brown replaced the Australian Democrat Dr Norm Sanders in January 1983 because Denison environmentalists' support was common to both. One of the major benefits to Tasmanian voters of these rescrutiny arrangements is the extra choice they have among those candidates whom various groups have endorsed. Although no party has ever won more than five seats in any electorate, and three or four seats have usually been taken by Labor and the Liberals, voters have usually been able to choose among seven to nine candidates endorsed by both the Labor and Liberal parties. This has saved them from voting against their preferred party because none of its endorsed candidates was acceptable. OTHER VACANCIES FILLED WITHOUT POLLING In the same legislation which introduced the re-examination of ballot papers, the Electoral Amendment Act 1917, was another section which allowed Legislative Council and House of Assembly members unsuccessful at a Federal election to be reinstated to their former place if they so chose, without any further polling whatsoever. When these circumstances arose, the returning officer to whom the writ for a by-election was directed was to `forthwith, without holding a poll, publicly declare him to be duly elected to fill the said vacancy' and to return the writ. At the Premiers Conference in 1920, it was resolved to try to induce the Commonwealth Government to remove the disability upon members of State parliaments who wanted to contest a Federal election. Once it became clear that nothing would be done by the Commonwealth, all the States except New South Wales brought in legislation based on Tasmania's, and sometimes worded almost exactly the same. The common thread was that a writ for a by-election could be returned without the holding of a poll. On 8 December 1921, the Hughes Government effectively over-rode these State enactments by inserting a tougher disability on State members, one which precluded nomination as a senator or as a member of the House of Representatives of anyone who had the right `to be re-elected to the Parliament of the State without the holding of a poll'. This disability remained on the statute books until the proclamation of the day from which the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Act 1983 came into effect. THOSE WHO ARE STILL WITHOUT REPRESENTATION SHOULD DETERMINE THE REPLACEMENT While I have followed the practical outline of the way in which arrangements are made to determine the consenting candidates, I have made one important change in relation to the papers which are examined in order to fill a casual vacancy. I believe that as many people as possible should have direct input into the processes of democracy. Consequently, when a casual vacancy occurs, those who are without representation should determine the replacement. In the case of single-member districts with which this Bill deals, all the ballot papers cast at the general election would be re-examined. This Bill is timely in that its principles can be extended to multi-member electorates, where the papers to be examined would be those for the vacating candidate and those not in the quota of any elected candidate. This would have resolved the current impasse over the replacement of former Senator Grimes. Such problems will continue to surface, as will the other major deficiencies in the 1977 constitutional amendment. Unless we act now, they will continue to give rise to political mischief and chicanery. We must resolve the basic principles at stake. This Bill is a step in the right direction. If we restore the power of appointing any replacement to those voters not represented, we will cut off further avenues of political manipulation in the composition of the Senate. By strengthening the role that voters play when they go to the polls at a general election, we will be making a very strong statement about what is expected of governments. Apart from giving voters more choice among the available candidates and eliminating unnecessary expenditure, we will be demanding that governments not be sidetracked by sideshows but that they get on with the job with which they are entrusted. Conclusion The two measures in this Bill: (1) rotation of the names of candidates on House of Representatives ballot papers, (2) filling of casual vacancies in the House of Representatives by a recount of the original votes cast at the previous general election, will both improve the fairness and effectiveness of the electoral process for the voters, and decrease the cost to the people of Australia. I commend these measures, and the Bill, to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Robertson) adjourned. Bill received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans) agreed to: That the Bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time. Bill read a first time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Resources and Energy)(10.07) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- This Bill contains amendments to the Social Security Act 1947, the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986, and the Seamen's War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940 to implement decisions which are to come into effect before or shortly after October 1987. Other measures which were announced by the Treasurer in the May economic statement will be implemented in Budget legislation or, where legislation is not required, administratively. Amendments in this Bill will lead to some new directions for social security while producing considerable savings. There will be changes building on administrative measures aimed at reducing the risk of wrong payments and welfare fraud. Other changes will encourage people to obtain employment and thereby combat long term dependence on Social Security. The Government retains its deeply-held commitment to disadvantaged people and children in poverty. In order to protect and improve their living standards we must ensure that social security payments are well targeted. In line with this objective, the Government has decided to income test family allowances for families where the parental taxable income exceeds $50,000 a year. This threshold will be indexed. To protect large families the threshold before the income test applies will be increased by $2,500 for each dependent child after the first child. Where the income test applies the family allowance payable will be reduced by 25 per cent of the income in excess of the threshold. In the area of unemployment benefit, amendments in this Bill will give effect to the following measures: The waiting period before benefit is payable will begin after registration with the Commonwealth Employment Service; an `education leaver' waiting period of 13 weeks will be introduced for most claimants under 21 years of age without work experience; and an increased postponement period will apply for successive occasions on which claimants leave their employment voluntarily, are dismissed for misconduct or fail the work test for unemployment benefit. New measures will facilitate obtaining written confirmation of the circumstances of termination of employment from previous employers of claimants for benefit. There will be some changes to eligibility for pension and benefit for sole parents and widows. Eligibility for a supporting parent's benefit and a class A widow's pension will be restricted to those with children aged under 16. The class B widow's pension will be phased out. This will be done gradually and will generally not affect the future eligibility of women currently aged 45 or over with dependants or of other women currently aged 50 or over. Amendments to rationalise the social security system and produce considerable savings include: Measures by which sickness benefits will become more closely aligned to unemployment benefit rates for unmarried people without dependants; the strengthening of residence requirements; changes to eligibility for invalid pension-medical impairment will have to constitute the major part of the incapacity for work; and the removal of the savings provision which currently enables those in government housing to receive rent assistance. Other amendments in this Bill enhance actions against welfare fraud and extend the powers of the Departments of Social Security and Veterans' Affairs to recover overpayments: The information gathering powers in the legislation will be extended to allow for greater access to external records; amendments will enable the passing on of relevant information, subject to secrecy provisions, to other Commonwealth Departments and authorities. Administrative arrangements between the Department of Social Security, the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Education will produce immediate savings by facilitating the earlier detection of incorrect payments and fraud; the powers in the legislation to acquire information from ex-clients will be extended; there will be power to recover debts from a wider variety of sources; and a penalty will be levied on persons who do not repay an overpayment within 3 months. Provisions relating to arrears of pension, benefit and allowances will be standardised and there will be limits on arrears payable following appeals. Amendments to the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 and the Seamen's War Pensions and Allowances Act 1940 made by this Bill will mirror amendments made to the Social Security Act 1947 in relation to debt recovery and information gathering powers, disclosure powers, and residence requirements. This Bill will result in estimated net savings of $236m in 1987-1988 and further net savings of $342m in 1988-1989. I commend this Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Kilgariff) adjourned. Declaration of Urgency Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate)(10.09) —For the information of honourable senators, I am proceeding to move a series of procedural motions which are more or less in accordance with the document which this morning has had some circulation around the party rooms. There are some variations to the text of that document, of which I have had time to notify only the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Chaney. If honourable senators want to check off what I am saying they should bear in mind that there will be some variations to the document as originally circulated. I declare the following Bills to be urgent Bills: Appropriation and Supply Package Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87 Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1986-87 Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1986-87 Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 1987-88 Supply Bill (No. 1) 1987-88 Supply Bill (No. 2) 1987-88 Tax Package Taxation Laws Amendment (Company Distributions) Bill 1987 Income Tax (Franking Deficit) Bill 1987 Income Tax Rates Amendment Bill 1987 Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1987 Bank Account Debits Tax Amendment Bill 1987 Income Tax Amendment Bill 1986 Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 5) 1987 Education Package States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987 States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987 States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill 1987) 1 July Commencement Bills Nursing Homes and Hostels Legislation Amendment Bill 1987 Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill 1987 Egg Industry Research (Hen Quota) Levy Bill 1987 Egg Industry Research (Hen Quota) Levy Collection Bill 1987 Wool Marketing Bill 1987 Wool Tax (Nos 1 to 5) Amendment Bills 1987 Miscellaneous Urgent Bills Social Security Amendment Bill 1987 Ships (Capital Grants) Bill 1987 Ministers of State Amendment Bill 1987 I move: That the Bills be considered urgent Bills. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition) —by leave-We have now had presented the first of what I understand will be a series of guillotine motions that the Manager of Government Business in the Senate (Senator Gareth Evans) proposes to move during the next few days. I want to make it quite clear that he does this without the consent of the Opposition. Indeed, we have a general opposition to the imposition of the guillotine. I make that statement knowing that the Government has called an election-an unnecessary early election, in our view-and has said that the Parliament will rise next Friday. It is likely that the Senate will deal with the Government's program within that time. But we face a situation in which without warning the Government has called an election, having said specifically within the last two weeks that it would not and we have a legislative program of very considerable substance. The debate which we are about to have on the Appropriations and Supply package for which 10 hours has been allowed is a debate which enables the Senate to direct its attention to the economic situation, as does the debate on the May package which is not dealt with in this motion. Since the Government has seen fit to behave in an extraordinary way and the Government's economic management has been brought into question by the need for it to bring down a mini-Budget, we would have thought that putting limitations on debate in this area would be quite inappropriate. A very substantial number of senators have indicated that they wish to speak on the appropriation Bills. There is a speakers' list of close to 20 senators. Quite clearly, the time will be insufficient to deal with the Committee stage matters which honourable senators may wish to raise on this legislation. The ludicrous situation that the Government has put us in is best examined by looking at the grouping of Bills under the heading `July 1 Commencement Bills'. The time permitted for debate here is three hours. There is an extraordinary collection of legislation. There is nursing homes and hostels legislation-- Senator Lewis —Two hours. Senator CHANEY —It is now three hours. The Minister amended it to three hours. Senator Gareth Evans —Not at the moment. There will be a subsequent amendment. Senator CHANEY —I am sorry. It is two hours at the moment, which makes the point even more forcefully. There is nursing homes and hostels legislation which is of very considerable significance to a large number of Australians, not least elderly Australians. We have veterans' affairs legislation, two egg industry Bills-which are not particularly contentious because they relate merely to a levy-and wool marketing Bills and wool tax Bills. The time presently allowed for discussion of those six Bills is two hours. The Minister has indicated that he may amend the motion to three hours. But if we stop to think about it, as the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Button) pointed out, we have a very large number of parties represented in this Senate. We have the Government, the Liberal Party of Australia, as the official Opposition, the National Party of Australia, the Australian Democrats and several Independents. With debate of three hours allowed on six Bills it is quite clear that for even a single spokesman from each of the parties represented in this place to speak and for all to have equal time is scarcely fair to the official Opposition which has the bulk of the numbers on the non-government side. It would be a matter of each party having a few minutes to put its views on a significant range of Bills. We object to that in principle. We think it is quite improper. I want to make my central point about the final list of Bills. Under the innocuous heading `Miscellaneous Urgent Bills' we find that the Government includes the Social Security Amendment Bill along with the Ships (Capital Grants) Bill 1987 and the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 1987. Two hours are allowed for us to debate three lots of legislation. I want to draw the Senate's attention to the social security legislation because it undertakes some major changes to social security policy. In the past it has been made plain by the Government that these major areas of policy are of very great importance. I want to select two things from the social security legislation which the Government expects us to deal with, along with two other Bills, in the space of two hours. The social security legislation effects changes to the invalid pension rules and it effects changes to the class B widow's pension rules. Mr President, can you imagine what Labor Party senators would say if the Liberal Party had introduced legislation to abolish the class B widow's pension and allowed perhaps 20 minutes for the Labor Party to put its case. The class B widow's pension provides a pension for women who have been widowed before they reach pensionable age. If they do not have dependent children but are in their fifties they have traditionally been given a pension called the class B widow's pension. I will not go into detail as to the qualifications, but essentially it provides a pension for women of mature age on the assumption that, where a woman has been a homemaker, a mother, for the whole of her working life and she then becomes a widow in her fifties, it is really rather unreasonable to expect her to go into the labour market. That is a quite significant sort of social policy question. We find slipped into this mini-Budget statement this view from the Government-I speak for the Government because this is what its mini-Budget statement says-`These women should not get a pension, they should be on the unemployment benefit'. Senator Ryan —Not in their fifties. They will still get the pension. Senator CHANEY —What age group? Senator Ryan —It is under 45. Senator CHANEY —These are women who were previously qualified for a pension, who have had children and who have ceased to have young children? Senator Ryan —If the children are over 16 they will lose their eligibility. Senator CHANEY —But the important thing is that women who might have been out of the work force bringing up children and who are widowed will be disqualified from that pension and put on the unemployment benefit. I am not prepared to debate that provision in detail here. I simply say that it is an important social measure and it is significant that there is very high and continuing unemployment. On the statistics, mature age workers are shown to have very long periods of unemployment. It means that these widows will have to be subjected to the work test. They will have to deal with the Department of Social Security as unemployed people, not as widowed pensioners. I think that is a matter on which some debate would have been expected. As I have said, if a Liberal government had brought forward this proposal I am sure that Labor senators would have expected an opportunity to probe and to question the Government both on the policy that is being implemented and on the practical implications of it for the individuals concerned. I am even more surprised to find that the Government expects us to debate in a few minutes provisions which go to the invalid pension. It may be that the Government expects this because Senator Grimes is no longer here. Labor senators will remember that Senator Grimes, in opposition, was very active as shadow Minister for Social Security in expressing concern on behalf of the Labor Party for the tests which were imposed on invalid Australians before they could get an invalid pension. Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle who was Minister for Social Security until 1980, and I, after the portfolio was given to me in December of that year, had extensive debate with the Labor Party on the application of the invalid pension rules. That was a matter which was regarded as being of major significance. In the explanatory material that was put forward with respect to the social security changes-which we have a third of two hours for all of the parties to debate-we find this very simple statement: There is a redefinition of invalid pension medical eligibility. While current eligibility provisions require no minimum medical incapacity for invalid pensioners, this will be changed from July 1987 to require that the major part of an invalid pensioner's incapacity for work must be medical incapacity. Mr President, I remind you of the debates of the 1979, 1980 and 1981 period when the Australian Labor Party, of which you, of course, were part, asserted very strongly that it was quite unjust for the then Liberal Government to be ignoring the state of the labour market in assessing eligibility for the invalid pension. The view put was that to make an assessment of disability on medical grounds only was grossly unjust. We were told that if the labour market proved to be very difficult it was unfair and unjust to suggest that 85 per cent medical incapacity was the only way one could establish one's incapacity to work. We were attacked continuously by the Labor Party on that subject. It was a matter of bitter recrimination in the Senate and elsewhere. The point that I want to make is that, with this mini-Budget, this Government is, as far as we know, not only going back to an even stricter medical test than that which applied in 1979, 1980 or 1981, but also doing so on the basis that we should have 20 minutes to debate it. Nothing could better illustrate the extraordinary lack of concern on the part of this Government in making these decisions than this particular decision, because the oft stated view of the Labor Party was, to quote from a Press release put out by Senator Grimes: To ignore the availability and likelihood of employment in an application for invalid pension was unfair and the cause of great hardship. That is a mild form of the words used by members of the Labor Party at that time. I draw this matter to the attention of the Senate as one tiny part of the legislation that we have been given 20 minutes to debate. I would say to the Australian Democrats that their desire to have an early election and a double dissolution is understandable. Clearly it represented the only option that they had to survive politically. But I also would like to remind the Australian Democrats that they took the view that they would not prevent debate in this place and would not support the gag or the guillotine. They have, of course, broken that undertaking on many occasions and it may be that it is no longer part of Democrat policy to follow that rule. But it appears to me that, if the Democrats are prepared to support this form of guillotine when we are dealing with legislation which touches on issues of the sort that I have mentioned in my comments, the Democrats have shown that they are prepared to sell out their undertaking to see these matters fairly and fully examined in favour of their own short term political advantage. The Government and the Australian Democrats have put us in a position where it is difficult, if not impossible, for us to do our duty by the people that we represent. That is the simple fact of the matter. We will later be dealing with other guillotines in respect of such things as the health amendments, which will affect 100,000 Australians who are waiting in hospital queues for operations, which queues will lengthen because of the legislation that the Senate is being asked to deal with in this next week. There is a series of major policy proposals which would have a significant impact on our constituents, and to suggest that they can be ordered in this way is, I think, to show a contempt for the Senate and for those constituents whose interests are being affected. I make all those comments openly saying that we, as an opposition, would not deny the Government its legislation with respect to the mini-Budget, because we have taken the view that a mini-Budget was essential and that reductions in government expenditure are essential, and we do not see it as being consistent with our stance on that to pick and choose with respect to the Government's changes. I want to make that clear. But that does not remove the obligation of this Senate fully to examine and expose the reality of what the Government is doing. It is extraordinary that in the social security field alone there are such major changes of social policy being implemented, absolutely enormous changes affecting young Australians, which were condemned, let me say, by the Government as recently as a couple of months ago as being the sort of things that a conservative or Liberal administration would put forward but the sort of things that the Labor Party would deny. That fact that we are being asked to accept a compressed debate of this sort is a condemnation of the Government. It is a condemnation of the Australian Democrats if they join with the Government in that. Mr President, I indicate that we will oppose this guillotine as we will oppose the other guillotines that will be brought forward later. Senator HAINES(South Australia-Leader of the Australian Democrats) —by leave-I think it is fairly normal practice at the end of any session for a government, of whatever political persuasion, to seek the expeditious passage of necessary legislation. That has been fairly normal, even in the time of the Fraser Government. However, I certainly share with Senator Chaney some concern about the time that has been allocated for some of these elements. Of course, what Senator Chaney also needs to realise is that if this Government does want all of this legislation before the end of next week-that is, within the next seven debating days-its alternative would be to leave the Supply package until everything else has been dealt with; it would then find that it had to push that through with perhaps an hour of debate. That would give people in this chamber very little time in which to look at some of the serious matters in the Supply Bills, which are, after all, guaranteed passage by all the Opposition parties. So, it is a little precious for Senator Chaney to be complaining about the fact that the Government is attempting to lay down some order for the passage of the Bills that it wants through prior to the election campaign. Having said that, I ought to point out that, while Senator Chaney has mentioned that there are problems for the Opposition in the debating times in some of these areas, there are problems for the Australian Democrats with the debating times in some other areas and some problems within some of the legislation. Certainly, we are concerned about the Social Security Amendment Bill for the same reason that Senator Chaney mentioned-that is that widows over the age of 45 with children over the age of 16 will suddenly be forced on to unemployment benefit queues, when, as everybody knows, employers in this country are loth to take on married women who have been out of the work force for any length of time, so there are some very real concerns that these women will be facing an embarrassing and frustrating time if this legislation is passed. In addition, like Senator Chaney, we have concerns about the Nursing Homes and Hostels Legislation Amendment Bill-not that I imagine there is any doubt that it will pass, but there are problems with regard, in particular, to the situation facing private nursing homes in both South Australia and Victoria and those problems need, at least, to be debated out in this place, even if nothing else can be done about them. I might point out that, so far as the education package is concerned, if Senator Chaney or anybody else would like to run a few statistical analyses on how long it has taken each year to deal with the States grants education package, they would find that two hours is about the norm. There are usually only two or three speakers from the Opposition benches and then the Minister's summing up. That means that two hours is not an unreasonable time to offer for a package that is never defeated and is not debated at any greater length than this under normal circumstances. Nonetheless, I have to point out that five hours for the tax package, which contains some fairly contentious legislation and some legislation with problems in it, particularly that Bill relating to the imputation, is perhaps a trifle under what is required. There is, for example, what may well be an unintended consequence of the Taxation Laws Amendment (Company Distributions) Bill 1987 relating to the sale of company assets where only a nominal capital gain is accrued. Under the capital gains tax legislation, that nominal gain would not be taxed. Once a company chooses to distribute that to its shareholders, because no tax has been paid on it, it is immediately subject to the full marginal tax rate. I am sure that it is an unintended consequence and perhaps one that could be dealt with by amendment. Nevertheless, it is there and it needs to be discussed at some length. The Australian Democrats also have some problems with the Commissioner of Taxation's powers in the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1987. Again, that could require some considerable debate and possibly amendment during the Committee stage. That leaves us with real problems with regard to provisional tax and short term redeemable preference shares, which are covered in the Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 5) 1987. It may well be that simply removing the retrospective element, that is, the rather appalling tendency that the Treasurer (Mr Keating) has to legislate by Press release, can sort out the problems but, in any event, problems regarding debate time exist. There may well have to be some additional discussion on this matter. It cannot be simply assumed that any guillotine motion that is introduced into this place during the next seven days will get through without argument. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —by leave-Shortly, I shall move a further motion that will allocate specific time periods for the particular packages that this motion simply declares as urgent Bills. They are as follows: Ten hours for the Appropriation and Supply Bills, five hours for the tax package; two hours for education; three hours for the July 1 commencement Bills, as Senator Chaney said; and two hours for the miscellaneous urgent Bills. In addition, tomorrow I will seek to move, and possibly on Monday as well, some further guillotine motions. It is not, as Senator Chaney implied, an open ended series. It is proposed to put before the Senate only four additional packages, and they are: A customs and excise package, which it is presently proposed should be debated for two hours; a crime package, four hours; the May economic statement package, five hours; and the media package, six hours. I indicate for the benefit of honourable senators that those time periods have been identified on the basis of worst case assumptions for procedural difficulties and so on, and on the basis of the need to finish deliberations by Friday of next week at the latest. They have also been identified to allow time for the quite extended series of valedictories which I know honourable senators will find it appropriate to make, and also some cleaning up of other business in the form of tabling of committee reports and things of that kind. Bearing those considerations in mind, it may be possible, as the days proceed, to find some additional time for debating some of the matters about which honourable senators have expressed concern. It may be that we will have a little more flexibility in respect of some of these matters which honourable senators will obviously want more time to debate than is provided for in the terms of this motion. It is not the Government's intention to be in any way dog in the manger about this. If the legislation is flowing in such a way that there can be a reasonable expectation of cleaning up these matters within the time periods I have indicated, it may well be possible by agreement, as the week proceeds, to find additional room for some debate on matters on which honourable senators are anxious to spend time. I cannot give any promises about that at this stage because obviously the overwhelming time constraint is the need to clean up matters by Friday week and still allow ourselves a reasonable time for some of the decencies which I hope are still current in this place at the end of long honourable terms of service by a number of honourable senators. Against that background, I commend the declaration of urgency to the Senate. Senator GEORGES(Queensland) —by leave-Yesterday I had a disagreement with the Manager of Government Business in the Senate (Senator Gareth Evans), who suggested to me that I should be allowed to speak on the declaration of an election statement provided that I supported a gag on further discussion. I do not know that I would acknowledge complete agreement with what was put to me in relation to this matter, as it seems unfair that some senators should speak to the motion while others should be denied that opportunity. However, to come to the matter before the Senate at the moment: I think that debate on the fact that the Government intended to complete its business by Friday of next week and that at some stage it would move an urgency motion to deal with certain matters-if they remain urgent-should have been foreshadowed for debate next week. We all have in mind now that an election is on. In fact, a gag has already been applied to this House by the double dissolution action of the Government-we have been virtually gagged by the action of the Government in calling a double dissolution. We know that next Friday we will face that situation, and we will have in mind that various other matters are to a certain extent not relevant. However, if various matters still remain urgent we would accept, possibly on Wednesday of next week, a guillotine action by the Government, but not at this stage, not today. Why should this occur today? The explanation for that has not really been provided. So, my view of this matter is that we should not accept lightly at this stage what is virtually a guillotine action and that we should reconsider the matter next week. I will vote against the proposition today, although I will not vote against it next Wednesday. Question put: That the motion (Senator Gareth Evans's) be agreed to. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 32 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 4 —— Aulich, T. McKiernan, J. P. Black, J. R. Macklin, M. J. Bolkus, N. Maguire, G. R. Childs, B. K. Mason, C. V. J. Coates, J. Morris, J. Coleman, R. N. Powell, J. F. Colston, M. A. Ray, RobertCook, P. F. S. Reynolds, M. Cooney, B. Robertson, E. A. (Teller)Crowley, R. A. Ryan, S. M. Devlin, R. Sanders, N. K. Elstob, R. C. Sibraa, K. W. Evans, Gareth Siddons, J. R. Foreman, D. J. Tate, M. C. Gietzelt, A. T. Vallentine, J. Giles, P. J. Walsh, P. A. Haines, J. West, S. M. Jones, G. N. Zakharov, A. O. Alston, R. K. R. Jessop, D. S. Archer, B. R. Kilgariff, B. F. (Teller)Baume, Peter Knowles, S. C. Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Lewis, A. W. R. Boswell, R. L. D. MacGibbon, D. J. Brownhill, D. G. C. Messner, A. J. Carrick, Sir John Newman, J. M. Chaney, F. M. Parer, W. R. Collard, S. J. Puplick, C. J. G. Crichton-Browne, N. A. Sheil, G. Durack, P. D. Short, J. R. Georges, G. Teague, B. C. Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Townley, M. Hamer, D. J. Vanstone, A. E. Harradine, B. Walters, M. S. Hill, R. Withers, R. G. Richardson, G. F. Watson, J. O. W. McIntosh, G. D. Puplick, C. J. G. Button, J. N. Baume, Michael (Senator Reid did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Grimes). Question so resolved in the affirmative. Allotment of Time Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate)(10.45) —I now move: That the times allotted for the consideration of these Bills be as follows: Appropriation and Supply Package Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1986-87, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1986-87, Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 1987-88, Supply Bill (No. 1) 1987-88 and Supply Bill (No. 2) 1987-88-all stages-10 hours. Tax Package Taxation Laws Amendment (Company Distributions) Bill 1987, Income Tax (Franking Deficit) Bill 1987, Income Tax Rates Amendment Bill 1987, Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1987, Bank Account Debits Tax Amendment Bill 1987, Income Tax Amendment Bill 1986, Taxation Laws Amendment Bill (No. 5) 1987-all stages-5 hours. Education Package States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987, States Grants (Schools Assistance) Amendment Bill 1987 and States Grants (Education Assistance-Participation and Equity) Amendment Bill 1987-all stages-2 hours. 1 July Commencement Bills Nursing Homes and Hostels Legislation Amendment Bill 1987, Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment Bill 1987, Egg Industry Research (Hen Quota) Levy Bill 1987, Egg Industry Research (Hen Quota) Levy Collection Bill 1987, Wool Marketing Bill 1987 and Wool Tax (Nos 1 to 5) Amendment Bills 1987-all stages-3 hours. Miscellaneous Urgent Bills Social Security Amendment Bill 1987, Ships (Capital Grants) Bill 1987 and Ministers of State Amendment Bill 1987-all stages-2 hours. I also move: That the question be now put. Question put. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 31 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 5 —— Aulich, T. McKiernan, J. P. Black, J. R. Macklin, M. J. Bolkus, N. Maguire, G. R.Childs, B. K. Mason, C. V. J.Coates, J. Morris, J.Coleman, R. N. Powell, J. F.Colston, M. A. Ray, RobertCook, P. F. S. Reynolds, M.Cooney, B. Robertson, E. A. (Teller)Crowley, R. A. Ryan, S. M.Devlin, R. Sanders, N. K.Elstob, R. C. Sibraa, K. W.Evans, Gareth Siddons, J. R.Foreman, D. J. Tate, M. C.Gietzelt, A. T. Vallentine, J.Giles, P. J. Walsh, P. A.Haines, J. West, S. M.Jones, G. N. Zakharov, A. O. Alston, R. K. R. Jessop, D. S.Archer, B. R. Kilgariff, B. F. (Teller)Baume, Peter Knowles, S. C. Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Lewis, A. W. R.Boswell, R. L. D. MacGibbon, D. J.Brownhill, D. G. C. Messner, A. J.Carrick, Sir John Newman, J. M.Chaney, F. M. Parer, W. R.Collard, S. J. Sheil, G.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Short, J. R. Durack, P. D. Teague, B. C.Georges, G. Townley, M.Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Vanstone, A. E.Hamer, D. J. Walters, M. S.Harradine, B. Withers, R. G.Hill, R. Richardson, G. F. Watson, J. O. W.McIntosh, G. D. Puplick, C. J. D.Button, J. Baume, Michael (Senator Reid did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Grimes). Question so resolved in the affirmative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 2 April, on motion by Senator Button: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —I believe it would suit the convenience and expectation of the Senate if the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87, Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1986-87, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1986-87, Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 1987-88, Supply Bill (No. 1) 1987-88 and Supply Bill (No. 2) 1987-88 were debated cognately, and I so request. Senator Chaney —Perhaps I should indicate that Senator Short will be leading the debate for the Opposition on these Bills. We regard it as an unusual procedure to debate the Supply and Appropriation Bills together. In the present circumstances, since a limited time for debate is imposed by the guillotine, I do not propose to take the matter further. However, I place on record that we would not regard this as the usual way of dealing with these Bills. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(10.52) —As the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Chaney, has said, the Opposition has agreed, with the very greatest reluctance, to the cognate debate of the three Appropriation Bills-the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87, the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1986-87 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1986-87-and the three Supply Bills-the Supply (Parliamentary Departments) Bill 1987-88, the Supply Bill (No. 1) 1897-88 and Supply Bill (No. 2) 1987-88. It is indeed a very unusual procedure because the Appropriation Bills and the Supply Bills have nothing to do with each other. One group of Bills relates to one financial year and the other group-the Supply Bills-relates to the next financial year. These Bills have been declared urgent, along with many other Bills of vital interest to every Australian. That is what we have been discussing for the last hour or so. It was very interesting to see which way honourable senators voted in the division on the time allotment for the Bills. The Government got its way with the acquiescence and support of the Australian Democrats. Australians will need no reminding, but they will be constantly reminded of it between now and 11 July-that the actions of the Democrats in this chamber, as displayed this morning, makes them no more than an appendage of the Australian Labor Party. The deals that the Democrats have done with the Labor Party are legion and are obviously one reason why we are having a double dissolution. That is the only way the Democrats can hope to survive; I do not think they will survive even on that basis. At the outset of my remarks I foreshadow that Senator Messner will move an amendment to that Bill on behalf of the Opposition to the following effect: At the end of motion, add `, but the Senate condemns the Government for- (1) its decision to call an early election without informing the Australian people as to the content of the August 1987 Budget; (2) its continued mismanagement of the economy which has caused: (a) widespread and growing concern among Australians about their future; (b) a sustained reduction in the living standards of all Australians, and in particular Australian families with young children, and (c) fundamental weaknesses in the nation's economy as indicated by- (i) declining economic growth rates, (ii) inflation at four times the average of our major trading partners, (iii) record relative interest rates, (iv) an overseas debt burden of $105 billion, and (v) the value of the Australian dollar being cut by one-third; and (3) its failure to implement the genuine expenditure cuts in its May economic statement necessary to restore balance to its policies and reduce interest rates'. Many questions will be asked by the people of Australia about the reasons for the 11 July election date announced yesterday. Australians will be asking why this election is coming on so early. Why are we having such an unprecedented election, an election which is being held right at the time when the government of the day ought to be devoting all its energies and attention to preparing a critically important August Budget? Why are we having a double dissolution election rather than the normal half-Senate plus House of Representatives election? Overriding all those questions will be one question and that question is: What is the Government hiding by going to an election at this unprecedented and early time? What will the Government do in the August Budget-if there is an August Budget? What will the Government do with its infamous industrial relations legislation which it has now withdrawn for consultation with employer groups which have expressed rage, great concern and anger about this legislation? That consultation will not take place before the July election. What will the Government do when it gets its Australia Card legislation through following the double dissolution, as it says it will do if it is re-elected? It will pass that ID card legislation and the Australian people will not be told what will then develop. The ID card legislation in its present form obviously will be only the thin end of a very large wedge that will be driven into the privacy and rights of all Australians over the years ahead, if it comes to pass that the legislation gets through and heaven forbid that it does. The early election is yet another broken promise. On 1 April the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), after having stirred up early election fever, said that the next election would be held in late 1987 or March 1988. `There will be no early election,' he said. Perhaps he thought he could get away with this as an April Fools Day joke. What a way to treat the Australian public. But not once did the Prime Minister give that promise; he gave it again less than two weeks ago. On 15 May-a very significant date because it was two days after the mini-Budget-the Prime Minister said that he could not envisage any circumstances which would make a July election likely. But yesterday, in announcing the election, the Prime Minister said that the mini-Budget was one of the two developments that had led him to change his mind about an early election. What absolute cynicism. Never in our history have we had a Prime Minister or a government so cynically opportunistic, so disdainful of the public and so prone to lying to the people and to breaking promises. Let us look at what the Press today is saying about this early election decision. The Press is unanimously opposed to this decision. It has treated the decision in the way it should. Views have come from newspapers around Australia that have not been noticeably anti the Government in recent times. Indeed, they have been bending over backwards to portray this Government in a favourable light. The Melbourne Age today said: Mr Hawke has gone back on his word for reasons linked more to opportunism than calling the double dissolution-the Australia Card legislation rejected by the Senate-is as cynical as the timing of the election. . . Mr Hawke said 7 weeks ago that he had some concern that he might appear hypocritical in calling an early election after disavowing the possibility so many times. He now appears hypocritical. The Canberra Times says: By calling an early election, and breaking his word to the people, Mr Hawke could be seen by many as putting political advantage before the welfare of the nation. The editorial in today's Australian states: The government will have to work very hard to persuade the electorate that it does not have ulterior motives in calling an early poll. The editorial in today's Daily Telegraph states: But even as he was calling the election events were taking place which should make sure he's not too cocky. Other articles in newspapers indicated that yesterday the Commonwealth Bank of Australia raised housing interest rates for new borrowers by one per cent-up to 16 1/2 per cent-and, in Wollongong, 20,000 workers brought the vital steel industry to a halt in protesting against the Macquarie Street workers compensation changes. So it goes on. Editorial comments around the nation are universally condemning this cynical, opportunistic early election. How right they are! But we should not be too surprised at this latest broken promise by the Prime Minister. His four years in office are strewn with a litany of broken promises. Every one of these broken promises has resulted from the Prime Minister's deliberate attempts to mislead the Australian people and to try to buy votes. It is a record without comparison in our history. Let us look at some of the broken promises that have occurred over the last four years. All of them have greatly disadvantaged the Australian public. The last election policy speech of the Prime Minister on 13 November 1984 stated: We pledge ourselves to bring home ownership once again within the reach of ordinary Australian families. At that time home loan interest rates were 11 1/2 per cent. Today they are 15 1/2 per cent and, as I have said, yesterday the Commonwealth Bank announced that it will raise interest rates to 16 1/2 per cent. Monthly repayments on a typical $50,000, 25-year home loan, have risen by $172 a month since November 1984-since the Prime Minister gave his promise to bring interest rates and, therefore, housing costs down. Since the Government came to office in 1983 housing interest repayments have risen in the last few years by $281 per month. Average loan repayments, as a percentage of median family income, have increased from 19 per cent to 27 per cent in the four years of this Government. That is one broken promise that did untold harm to, and caused hardship for, many Australians. At the same time, prior to the 1984 election, the Prime Minister also said: At present the outlook for interest rates is as bright as it has been for more than a decade. He said that the Government would expect to see interest rates fall in the near future. What happened? No sooner was the 1984 election out of the way than the entire interest rate structure rose to record levels in Australia's history, on a real basis, after taking account of inflation and at a time when the interest rates of every other Western nation fell. The Prime Minister also said at the time, again just prior to the 1984 election, that inflation was going to fall. He said: We expect inflation will be less than 5 per cent in the year ahead and we are determined to keep it below 5 per cent. What has happened since then? Annual rates of inflation, as measured by the consumer price index, have risen considerably. Indeed, the inflation rate in Australia has risen consistently while it has fallen in every other Western country. We now have an inflation rate, relative to our major trading partners, higher than we have had in our history. The Treasurer, Mr Paul Keating, said, prior to the 1983 election, that falls in Saudi oil prices must be passed on to Australian motorists in lower petrol prices. What did the Australian Labor Party do when it came into office? It introduced a new excise of 10c a litre so that consumers and business received less than half the real fall that occurred in overseas oil prices. The Prime Minister, in his election policy speech of February 1983-before this Government first came to office-promised that there would be increases in the spouse rebate and the sole parent rebate resulting in additional tax cuts of $2 a week to families. What has happened to that promise? The dependent spouse rebate has not changed in nominal terms in four years and, adjusting for inflation, the spouse rebate and, indeed, family allowances-about which similar types of promises were made-have declined in real terms by 25 per cent. Coming back to the 1984 election campaign, the Prime Minister said in his election speech: And I now give this undertaking- this was in relation to the Medicare levy- that for the term of our next government, the Medicare levy will not be increased. Last year-not much more than a year after that promise was given-the Medicare levy was increased by no less than 25 per cent. In a full year the Government will collect more than an additional $300m as a result of that broken promise. But the daddy of them all perhaps was when, immediately prior to the 1983 election, the Prime Minister said in his policy speech: And here let me make one point so that even our opponents can understand it; and let me make it beyond all their powers of misrepresentations and distortion. There will be no new capital gains tax. The Prime Minister gave that total and unequivocal commitment prior to being elected to office. On 19 September 1985 the Government announced that it would introduce a capital gains tax. That capital gains tax is now in operation and, far from raising the $5m to $25m this year that the Government forecast and told the Australian public that it would raise, it will raise between $125m and $150m, according to the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh. This amount will skyrocket still further in the years ahead. On television this morning the Prime Minister promised that there would be no new taxes and no tax increases in this coming August Budget. I have two comments on that matter. The first is that this rotten Government, thankfully, will not be in government to introduce the August Budget. But in any case, what reliance could the Australian people place on this latest promise by this record promise-breaking Prime Minister? The one certainty in this promise is that it will be broken too. On television this morning Mr Hawke also said: We have brought down our Budget. We brought it down on 13 May in the mini-Budget. What a plain stupid, nonsensical, incorrect statement. That mini-Budget had no revenue decisions in it. It was not expected to, but it did not deal at all with a key element-perhaps the key element-of the whole Budget. There were no firm decisions even on spending in the May mini-Budget. All that the mini-Budget was concerned with was a reduction in Forward Estimates that had been planned for expenditure over the year ahead. To that extent it is a mirrors and pea and thimble trick to talk about cuts off Forward Estimates. No firm decisions were made on the level of spending for 1987-88 in the mini-Budget. No idea of the borrowing requirement-and therefore the Budget deficit that will occur next year-can be gleaned from the mini-Budget. So, if that is the best that this Prime Minister and this Government can do, thank heaven the Australian people have only another six weeks to put up with them. Let us look at just a couple of comments that were made a little after the mini-Budget was released. I stress that the mini-Budget is what the Prime Minister is now fundamentally hanging this election on. One of Australia's leading businessmen, John Spalvins, once he had had a bit of a chance to reflect on the mini-Budget, said: I for one am concerned that perhaps the cuts have been superficial. The President of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce, David Abba, said that Labor had performed only `cosmetic surgery where a heart transplant was required'. Allan Wood of the very respected economic forecasting group Syntec International saw the mini-Budget as containing very ominous warnings for the Australian economy. He said: It has passed virtually without notice, but in fact the government has revised inflation forecast up by a full percentage point for the next 12 months in the space of just a few weeks. I might add to that that at the same time the Government had revised its economic growth forecast down by one full percentage point in just a few weeks. Alan Wood also went on to say: Also when you look at the wage assumptions that are implied in that statement, I think they are optimistic, they seem to assume that everyone is going to abide by the Arbitration Commission's new wage system and I think the evidence is fairly clear that they won't . . . So underlying the statement is a worse inflationary picture than the Government would like us to think. He went on to say: These problems won't really become apparent (until) a few months down the track and people suddenly find that things aren't coming good quite as fast as they thought they ought to be. That, of course, is one of the precise reasons for the Government going to this early election. This Government is going early because it knows that the economy and the political climate will deteriorate rapidly in the months ahead. The Premiers told Mr Hawke that. His own Labor Premier from Western Australia, Brian Burke, told him that on Monday. So did the Tasmanian Premier, Robin Gray. They made it crystal clear that the effects of this Government's policies so far as the States were concerned would be to force them to put up, to extremely high rates, taxes and charges that will flow through, have a major inflationary impact and force more and more burdens on to the Australian public. As I said, the Prime Minister's own forecasters tell him that things will deteriorate. They have forecast downwards the economic growth rate for the year ahead. They have forecast upwards the inflation rate, an inflation rate that I might point out to the Senate is the highest inflation rate relative to those of the rest of our major trading partners that we have ever had in our history. The forecasters are predicting no improvement in the level of unemployment in the year ahead and, indeed, most economic commentators now would say that there will be a considerable increase in unemployment in the year ahead because the economic growth being forecast is simply insufficient to maintain employment and, more particularly, unemployment at their present levels. There is no doubt at all that unemployment will rise significantly in the year ahead under the continuing policies of this Government. Business investment is falling. The national accounts figures that came out yesterday showed another major fall in business investment in the March quarter and for the year to March. It followed a major fall in business investment of about 10 per cent in real terms in 1985-86, and all the surveys that have been done up to date for the year ahead show an expectation of a further fall in business investment in real terms by 10 per cent or more in 1987-88. Yet it is business investment that Australia has to rely on to be the engine of growth in our economy. Other major indicators are pointing to an increasingly gloomy situation. New car sales, the figures for which came out yesterday, showed a fall of one-third in car sales last month to the lowest April figure for 20 years. That follows a year, 1986, in which we have already seen the biggest single proportional drop in new car sales in our post-war history. Our foreign debt situation is not improving; it is continuing to deteriorate. Our foreign debt is now $105 billion, which is equivalent to $26,000 for every family in Australia. With foreign debt growing at that level-and it is continuing to grow by at least $1 billion a month-there is no way at all that interest rates in this country can fall and, if the United States dollar continues on a downward path, forcing up interest rates in the United States of America and other countries in the world, it is obvious and necessary, particularly taken in conjunction with the policies of this Government, that interest rates in Australia will go still higher. So, what the Government is doing with this election is running for cover. The Prime Minister is also hiding from the public further harsh decisions that he will be taking. How much more can average Australian families stand? Very little. The Hawke Labor Government has given Australians the biggest fall in living standards for more than 30 years. Yet this Prime Minister said yesterday, when announcing the election, that he was seeking a mandate from the Australian people to finish the job. What job is he talking about finishing? If the Government stands on its record, it will be massacred at the forthcoming election. I have talked about inflation, and that is worse than at any time in Australia's history when compared with the rest of the world. At a time when the rest of the world's inflation is falling, Australia's is rising. The same applies with interest rates and Australia has the highest taxation it has ever faced in its history. The four Budgets of the Keating-Hawke regime have been the four biggest spending Budgets in Australia's history, and the Government is the biggest taxing government in our history. The Government now takes in tax 25 per cent of every dollar of Australia's total gross domestic product. Australia's debt has blown out abysmally, appallingly, in a way that causes great concern to every observer of the Australian scene. So it goes on. The Government, in its first four years in office, but more particularly in the last four weeks, has given to trade unions a power unsurpassed in Australia's history. Not only has it given them a power unsurpassed in Australia's history but also it has put the trade union movement above the law that should apply to every Australian. Now, because of the concern and the massive co-ordination of that concern expressed by employers-and I must say by many employees as well-throughout Australia, the Prime Minister, in the interests of an early election, has pulled out the industrial relations legislation to enable further consultation. But there is no way in the world that the Government will back off removing trade unions from the normal processes of the law. There is no way in the world that the Government will back off its decimation in effective terms of sections 45d and 45e of the Trade Practices Act, which have done so much in recent years to restore some degree of sanity to industrial relations. Those sections were put into the Act in 1976-77 by the present Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard. That decision probably stands in the annals of Australia's industrial relations history above all else in terms of the value it has provided to every Australian. If that is the record on which the Government will stand and the mandate it wants renewed, I am happy to go to an election on that basis. The group in our society that has suffered more than any other under this Government is the family, particularly single income families with young children. Let us look at some of the facts. A one income family with two young children is now at least $31 a week worse off than it was when the Hawke Government was first elected. Even after the Hawke Government's so-called tax cuts on 1 July next, all single income families with a dependent spouse will be paying a higher proportion of their income in income tax than they were in March 1983. The average tax rate for a single income family on average weekly earnings will have increased from 17 1/2 per cent in March 1983 to 20 1/2 per cent in July 1987, while the marginal tax rate for those families will have increased from 30 per cent to 40 per cent. After July this year, such a family will still require an additional income tax cut of $15 a week simply to restore it to the same average tax rate position it held when the Hawke Government came to office. In other words, the Hawke Government's December 1986 and July 1987 tax cuts merely give back to taxpayers some but by no means all of the additional tax that four years of fiscal drag has taken away from them. So much for the Government's taxation policies. They have simply bled Australian families dry, particularly single income families with young children. I refer to a few other areas where this miserable, incompetent government has savaged Australians. Almost three-quarters of a million more people are now below the poverty line than when the Hawke Government came to office. There are now 2.6 million Australians below the poverty line-700,000 more than there were in March 1983. Some 400,000 Australians live permanently in caravans because they cannot afford houses, and another 100,000 Australians are either homeless or live in refuges. Public housing waiting lists have continued to grow inexorably under this Government. Some 154,000 people in Australia are now on the public housing waiting list-that is a record high. What a sad and tragic record, and in terms of the number of people it is much more than that, because families are included in that number. So, those are some of the issues on which we will go to the election. I welcome this election, as do all members of the Liberal Party of Australia, and I am sure members of the National Party of Australia as well. It is an unjustified, unnecessary and cynically motivated election, but I welcome it because it provides the one means by which this Hawke Labor Government can be thrown out of office and a Liberal-National Party government restored to office so that Australians can stop the bleeding and get this great nation of ours back on the path of vitality and prosperity, the path from which it was side-tracked in March 1983 when people in Australia made the great mistake of electing this cynical, unprincipled and incompetent Labor Government. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(11.22) —This morning we are debating jointly a number of government financial Bills; both Appropriation Bills for the current financial year and Supply Bills in relation to the forthcoming financial year, 1987-88. I wish to direct my remarks particularly to Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1986-87, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 1986-87 and the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87. These Bills seek to appropriate funds as well as meet essential and unavoidable expenditure additional to the appropriations made last August in the 1986 Budget. The additional appropriations are required to meet commitments already approved by the Government since the Budget, as well as to meet requirements of an ongoing nature. Some $419m is sought in relation to the three Bills to which I am directing my remarks. That amount of money is offset, in part, by savings which have been made during the year. This reflects the Government's determination to achieve savings in expenditure for ongoing programs whenever possible. After allowing for the prospective savings, the net increase in expenditure which will result from these Bills is of the order of some $35m. I want to direct most of my remarks today to the elections which will be held on 11 July and the issues and the policies that I see as being at the centre of that election process. In its first three years the Hawke Government delivered higher levels of economic growth than any of the other developed industrialised countries in the world. In fact, in two consecutive years while we have been in office we had over five percentage points of real economic growth-very high growth indeed. Even in 1985-86, when growth moderated to 4.1 per cent, the result achieved was still a higher rate of growth on an annual basis than was the best rate of growth ever achieved when Mr Howard was Treasurer of the Fraser Government. So, even in 1985-86 we had a higher rate of growth than the best achieved in all the years that Mr Howard was Treasurer of Australia. After three years of strong growth the Government made a readjustment to economic policy in the Budget last year. The reasons for that involved the massive decline in Australia's export prices compared to the prices that we have to pay for imported items and the consequent impact of that on the recurrent part of Australia's balance of payments deficit-the effect on our balance of payments of factors involving the trading items and the so-called invisible items, such as freight and insurance. The Government's economic policy of readjustment basically is to hold down domestic demand growth while demand from external sources, for exports, increases. The Budget calculates that net exports, for example, will constitute some 1 3/4 percentage points of projected growth in gross domestic product this financial year, with the domestic sector contributing only one-half of a percentage point to the growth in gross domestic product. That latter figure basically will have the effect of improving the balance of payments by holding down the rate of growth in imports. To achieve those objectives about which I have spoken, the Government has made substantial reductions in its expenditure programs. I refer to last year's Budget, previous exercises in cutting expenditure and, of course, the May statement which was brought down just over two weeks ago when, in respect of the 1987-88 financial year, the Government reduced the total volume of outlays by the Commonwealth Government by $4,000m-a stupendous amount of money. As a result of those policies, despite the situation facing us abroad and despite our difficult economic circumstances, some very encouraging economic signs are now evident in Australia. A number of very encouraging economic indicators are available to the electorate on which it can base its decisions when it votes on 11 July. The Government is going to the people of Australia with the economy having an upward trend, more jobs available, a lower employment rate and an improving external balance. In the first 10 months of the current financial year the current account deficit in the balance of payments was lower than for the same period last year, so we have had an improvement there, and, more importantly, it is now likely to be $1,000m below the Budget forecast made last August for the current financial year. There has been quite a significant improvement. The national accounts data which were released yesterday and from which Senator Short quoted selectively show that in the six months to March 1987 the volume of exports achieved by Australia was up some 29.8 per cent. That is a stupendous increase. We have been able to achieve that in that six-month period by holding import volumes more or less constant. There has been a tremendous contribution by the excess of exports over imports to the growth in Australia's gross domestic product. That is the Government's policy. It has been saying for some time that it will use the external sector to create the real demand in the Australian economy, extra production and extra employment. That is what has been happening. A very encouraging range of information has been released in the financial sector in recent times. All of the major Australian banks have been cutting their overdraft rates, their prime lending rates-the jargon for the overdraft interest rates for large borrowers. In April this year, only some weeks ago, rates were of the order of 18 per cent per annum, but they have been cut to the 16-17 per cent range in recent weeks. All the signs are that they are heading downwards. I instance the very important rate paid by the trading banks on their bank bills. They are very important to on-lending by banks. The rates that the banks have to pay to borrow funds for on-lending have been falling dramatically. For example, on 15 January this year, the interest rate on the 90-day bank bill, which is the major form of borrowing by the banks, was 17.7 per cent. Yesterday it was 13.8 per cent. We have seen a fall of not 1 per cent, 2 per cent or 3 per cent in that key interest rate in the Australian economy; it has gone down four percentage points in four months-a tremendous fall. I notice that as recently as last week a leading commentator said that once that rate goes below 13 per cent we will see some very significant falls in housing interest rates. We are only three-quarters of a percentage point from that level and, if that commentator is correct, housing interest rate falls are on the way. I instance the very encouraging news on the cost of living. Madam Acting Deputy President, you will recall that when Mr Howard was Treasurer of this country, he presided, in the 12 months to March 1983, over a double digit cost of living rise of 11 1/2 per cent. That is his record; that is what he achieved when he had his go at running Australia's economy. Under this Government the cost of living rise is not 11 1/2 per cent; it is not 10 1/2 per cent; in fact it has been cut to 9.3 per cent, according to the consumer price index as of March this year. So there has been a reduction of over two percentage points in the cost of living rise under this Government. I refer to the national accounts figures that were released yesterday. Senator Short in his address this morning ignored the inflationary implications of the national accounts data, which showed, for example, that the annual rate of inflation, as measured by the deflator which is used for the gross domestic product-it is a more broadly based indicator of inflation than the consumer price index-in the six months to March this year had fallen to 7.6 per cent. So there has been a tremendous reduction in that key indicator of prices in the community. With that sort of data available the electorate will view the reduction in cost of living rises with great interest and delight. People can accept that by June next year the cost of living rise, the rise in inflation, as forecast by this Government, will be down to 6 per cent per annum. Effectively, that will be a halving of the inflation rate inherited by this Government from the Howard Treasury in March 1983. The signs in the Australian economy are very encouraging indeed. I turn to the jewel in the crown of our record; that is, the creation of extra jobs in the Australian economy. It is very illustrative indeed that from the time of the National Economic Summit Conference in April 1983, which was convened by Mr Hawke, up to and including April of this year-a four-year period-the number of new jobs created in the Australian economy increased by over three quarters of a million. There were 782,000 more Australians at work under the Hawke Government than were at work when Mr Howard was Treasurer. That represents an increase of 12 1/2 per cent in the total numbers of persons employed in Australia. So in a period of just four years the Australian work force has increased by a massive one-eighth since the time when Mr Howard was the Treasurer. Our record of 782,000 jobs created in four years contrasts with the record of 337,000 jobs created under the seven years of the Fraser Government. That is the record: More jobs, more opportunities and more households earning incomes under Labor than under the Liberals. We created 782,000 jobs; Mr Howard in his last year as Treasurer destroyed 186,000 jobs. The unemployment rate has been brought down from the double digit levels under Mr Howard in 1983. During the Howard recession of 1982-83 the unemployment rate in Australia peaked at a double digit level of 10.4 per cent; under the policies of the Hawke Government unemployment has been reduced to 8.3 per cent-a reduction of over 2 percentage points in the Australian jobless rate as a result of the policies of the Labor Government. So there is a range of strong economic indicators that the electorate can use to make an informed decision on when it votes on 11 July. The electorate will return the Labor Government because of its record in getting the economy moving again after the Howard recession of 1982 and 1983. Mr Howard has a massive credibility gap: He is going to the Australian people with a huge, yawning credibility gap. In contrast to the Hawke Government's measured response to the economic problems caused by the decline in the terms of trade, the Liberal Opposition approach is characterised by gross irresponsibility and barefaced opportunism. Mr Howard claims that the Government's May economic statement did not go far enough, although it cut $4,000m off expenditure. I read the newspapers in my State, including the provincial papers, and the Liberals around South Australia are complaining to local newspapers in their electorates about the deep cuts. Mr Howard says that the cuts do not go far enough, but a sample of the newspapers published in the electorates held by Liberal Party back benchers indicates that all they are doing is complaining about the severity of the cuts. What a contrast; what a contradiction. What utter hypocrisy from members of the Opposition in regard to the May economic statement. Mr Howard has refused to specify the areas which should be cut and how much he expects to save. The Liberals' financial policies and promises would add some $14,000m to the Budget deficit. However, Mr Howard refuses to spell out the spending cuts that would pay for his tax promises. Mr Howard is long on rhetoric but short on detail. His lack of credibility is so big one could drive a truck through it and this is no more evident than in his failure to release the Liberals' tax policy. All the electorate has to go on in this election is a document that was leaked on Monday through the newspapers. In contrast to the Liberals' tax mirage, the Hawke Government's tax reform package has delivered substantial tax cuts for taxpayers. It has delivered a fairer and more socially just taxation system in Australia-a system which is based more on the principle of ability to pay, a system which will no longer see high income earners regarding Australian income tax as a voluntary tax. Stage three of our income tax reductions will be introduced on 1 July next. The current 55c in the dollar marginal tax rate will be cut to 49c in the dollar; the current 43c rate will go down to 40c in the dollar and the 46c in the dollar rate will also be reduced to 40c in the dollar. In line with those reductions in income tax marginal rates, the tax free threshold will be raised; that is, the exemption from taxation of particular amounts of income will be increased and on 1 July, for the 1987-88 financial year, that figure will be $5,100 compared with the $4,595 exemption which operated when Mr Howard was Treasurer of Australia. So as a result of the Government's tax changes no Australians will pay more than half of their extra income in income tax. Mr Howard talks about the need to cut taxes but when he was Treasurer the lowest tax bracket rate was 30c in the dollar. That was his record. As a result of Labor's tax reforms the lowest rate will not be 30c in the dollar; it will be 24c in the dollar. That is a very tangible indication of the reductions in taxation under this Labor Government-a 6c reduction under this Government has been applied to the rate for the lowest tax bracket Mr Howard could deliver in five Budgets from 1978 to 1982. Under Mr Howard the highest marginal tax rate was 60c in the dollar. That was his record. Under the Labor Government the highest marginal tax rate from 1 July next will be 49c in the dollar. Senator Short —What about average tax rates? Senator MAGUIRE —I will turn to average tax rates in just a moment. I point out that this morning Senator Short, and yesterday Mr Howard, in his rather flustered style, said that taxation would be a major issue at the forthcoming election. Mr Howard has never been very good at doing his sums. Even the simplest piece of arithmetic escapes him. Under the Howard-Fraser Government taxation as a proportion of Australia's gross domestic product, as a proportion of our national income, did not fall despite all of the promises made by the Liberals at various elections that they would cut taxes. The fact is that over the course of the seven or eight years of Fraser-Howard Government the share of Australia's gross domestic product which went in taxation rose. It did not fall. If one looks at the figures available in the appendices to the Budget one can see that from the beginning of the Fraser-Howard Government to its end in 1982-83, the share of gross domestic product taken by taxation rose by 1.7 percentage points. It is there in black and white in the Budget figures. So the Liberals have absolutely no credibility when they say to the electorate that they will cut taxes, because their very record in government shows that despite the rhetoric they clearly are incapable of reducing taxation. I have used that figure in this chamber day after day, week after week and month after month. Not one time has that figure been refuted because the Liberals here know, based on their record in government, that they are incapable of reducing taxation. This Government is paying for its tax cuts on 1 July by a range of very progressive, fair and socially just measures. We have scrapped free lunches for the well-to-do. What about that? In 1985 a gaggle of Opposition senators said that we would wreck Australia, the economy, business and the restaurant industry. We saved $330m a year by cracking down on expense account lunches. We are using that money. It has been redirected to pay for taxation reductions for the rest of the community. I am delighted to say that the last free lunch in Australia has been eaten. We are taxing lurks and perks, such as the so-called company car. Why call it a company car? We, the rest of the taxpayers, pay for it. It incurs a tax deduction when it is purchased and yet it bears the name the company car. We are taxing that provision of motor vehicles to certain employees which effectively has been a form of tax avoidance. We are taxing that practice to stop it. The money from that tax is being used to reduce taxation for the rest of the community. These are some of the measures that we have introduced to make Australia's tax system fairer and more efficient, to make sure that taxation is based more on an individual's capacity to pay. Proponents of the flat tax, and I am sure that you, Madam Acting Deputy President, are aware of some of them, have exploited confusion in the community on the difference between marginal and average tax rates. Those proponents typically have very high incomes and in effect are trying to shift the tax burden from themselves and their supporters to lower and middle income Australians. The fact is that the marginal tax rate is the rate that is levied on the last or highest dollars of a person's income, whereas the average rate is the effective rate paid on all dollars of a person's income. For example, in the next financial year a person with a taxable income of $20,000 would have a marginal rate of 40c in the dollar compared with an average rate of 20c in the dollar. So that is the difference between the marginal and the average rate. Under the proposal for flat taxes these persons, in one model I have seen, would pay 25c in the dollar, but they would pay that on every dollar of income-so they would have an average tax rate of 25c in the dollar. That amount would be paid on every dollar of income whereas their current average tax rate is 20c in the dollar. So they would be facing an increase in taxation of 5c in the dollar on every dollar of income under this flat tax rate proposal. It is a hoax which will give enormous tax savings benefits to high income earners by reducing their average rate of tax and shift the burden of taxation on to lower and middle income earners whose average tax rates would be increased. No less than four out of five taxpayers would pay more tax under Sir Joh's flat rate tax proposal. The flat tax system would take money from the average taxpayer and give it to the 20 per cent of high income earners. In effect, by proposing this model of taxation, Sir Joh intends to rob the poor to pay the rich. That is what is behind the proposal and that is what it is designed to achieve. Mr Howard in his knee-jerk, panicked, and flustered response yesterday to the measured statement of the Prime Minister about the election said that this election would be fought on three issues, one of which would be living standards. That is what he told the Australian people. But how can Mr Howard have any credibility on living standards? How can he go to the Australian people and say: `Vote for me because I will look after your living standards. My track record is such that it shows I am a great believer in looking after the living standards of Australian people'. What a hoax for Mr Howard to say that. His credibility is in tatters on the question of living standards. If we look at wage rises and national wage cases before the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission we see that in 18 of the last 20 wage cases heard by the Commission, the Liberal Party said: `Have a wages freeze'. That was its policy on every occasion but two in the last 20 national wage cases. That formula was retailed time after time despite changes in economic conditions. Whether there was high or low growth the Liberals wanted a wages freeze-not a pause or lower growth in wages, but a wages freeze. Whether or not the cost of living was rising the Liberals went before the Commission on 18 of 20 occasions and said: `Let's have a wages freeze'. So how can Mr Howard now go to the Australian people in this historic election campaign and say `We are going to protect your living standards' when his recipe for working people, for lower and middle income people, will be a wages freeze-whatever the economic circumstances? In the unlikely event that Mr Howard were elected Prime Minister he would offer a wages freeze as his policy on living standards. I want to refer again to paper No. 27 which has been prepared by the Economic Planning Advisory Council, a path-breaking paper entitled `Aspects of the Social Wage'. It gives a much broader definition of living standards than do the Liberals. The Liberals define living standards only in terms of cash income and less taxation to get disposable income. They view living standards as some sort of cash concept. But in the modern industrialised society much of a person's and a household's living standard, their economic welfare, comes not just from earnings or what they pay in taxation, but what is provided by the State through expenditure programs. This comes from a range of public programs which are provided to people because government is better at providing them than are individuals. I instance education as a classic case. For the education of Senator Short who spoke at some length this morning about living standards, I will tell him that the Economic Planning Advisory Council has come up with a broad concept of the social wage which includes income and taxation and looks at the effect of government housing expenditures and health, social welfare and education expenditures on a range of households with different incomes. What were the conclusions of the Economic Planning Advisory Council paper on the social wage, that broader definition of living standards than the narrow definition used by Liberals to define the standard of living? It showed on page 13, for example, that from 1975-76, the first financial year of the Fraser-Howard Government to 1978-79, living standards as measured by the social wage did not rise at all. In fact, they were cut on average by 5 percentage points per annum per head of population. That was the Liberals' record on living standards. There was a cut of 5 percentage points per annum per capita in social wage expenditure under the Fraser Government. For the rest of the Fraser Government period when Mr Howard was Treasurer, from 1978-79 to 1982-83, all that could be managed was a 2.2 percentage point growth per annum per head of population in social wage expenditure. That was its result-negative growth followed by very slow growth. But let us look at the record under this Hawke Labor Government through the accord with the trade union movement. From 1982-83 to 1985-86, the first three financial years of the Hawke Labor Government, the social wage was not cut. It did not experience negative growth as it did when the Liberals were in power, when they had their last go at running this country. It was not negative and it certainly was not held down to a rate of growth of 2.2 per cent which was the best that the Liberals could manage. It grew, on average, by 4.5 percentage points per annum per head of population. Labor's record on living standards has doubled the best rate of growth in the social wage that the Liberals could manage of 2.2 per cent; there was a broader definition of living standards in Labor's first few years of office. So the Liberals have absolutely no credibility on the question of living standards. Mr Howard, by his own record in government, has no credibility on that question as living standards were cut under the Fraser-Howard Government. As I have pointed out, the Liberals have absolutely no credibility on the question of taxation. Their record in government shows that they are incapable of cutting taxation. Over the course of the Fraser-Howard Government Australia's share of gross domestic product going in taxation rose by 1.7 percentage points. The Government has responded firmly and responsibly to the economic challenge posed by the decline in Australia's trading position. The Government has put in place the policy settings necessary to correct the situation. On 11 July, when the electorate votes on Australia's future, it can consider a redirected economy, a falling cost of living and a falling jobless total. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator MASON(New South Wales)(11.52) —This will be the last time that I rise to speak in an appropriation debate in this chamber. I would like to begin by placing on record my sincere appreciation of the friendships and the education that the last nine years in this place have given me. Being in this place is a very educational process and I am sure that all of us here find that to be the case. I will leave this Parliament not with any spirit of cynicism but rather a feeling that the issues and the problems that this Parliament encounters are difficult. Nothing in the world is simple. All the issues are complicated. Because of that I think there are difficulties and problems in the process of government in establishing and working out laws which are not generally appreciated in the community and which are often presented in an unduly simplistic way in the media. But I will say more about that later. However, it is not my nature to leave any files uncompleted. Today I wish to speak on a matter that I raised in this place as early as 1982. I raise it not in a spirit of destructiveness or undue criticism but, I hope, as a harbinger for the future-as a caution. The thing which I want to talk about, which is a cautionary tale, is the new and permanent Parliament House. Over the last year or two I have found in my contacts with people in my electorate that one of the most acrimonious and controversial subjects in the eyes of the community is the new and permanent Parliament House and its costs. I think it is right and proper that that should be the case. This House of Parliament and the Parliament generally ought to take notice of the fact that, for one reason or another, through a time of great hardship in this country, a time when probably we have more people looking for public housing, more people living in caravan parks and more children in a state of destitution than has ever been the case in this country before, we have permitted the construction of a monster in economic terms. I will say at this stage, and I think it is generally agreed, that when this monster is completed next year it will cost over $1 billion and will be one of the most expensive buildings erected on the face of the earth. I do not believe that it is appropriate, proper or right that this has happened. I believe that it is most unfortunate that, as the years have gone by, it has been a blight on this Parliament. While I never like to say `I told you so', I remind honourable senators that in 1982 I predicted in this House that, if the cost of this edifice continued to rise at the rate at which it was already moving at that time, the final cost of the building would be over $1 billion, assuming, of course, that the building would be finished by 1988. At that time Senator Sir John Carrick, the Minister responsible, said that he had spoken with members of the Parliament House Construction Authority and that the cost control situation was very good. He expressed plain horror that I could make such allegations that the building might ultimately cost more than $1 billion and he was not the only one. At the same time Mr Gordon Peatey, the Executive Officer of the Authority, wrote a letter to the Canberra Times labelling my predicted cost figures as `inaccurate and misleading'. He felt that his efforts towards cost management were being constantly undermined by unrealistic estimates of the building's cost and unsubstantiated claims that the budget was being exceeded. That is what Mr Peatey said at the time. I bring up that figure again now, not with any great pleasure at having been right in the end, but to implore all who continue in this House and all those who will come into it not to allow a situation like this to occur again. I am not at all impressed at the fact that, over recent months, people on the Opposition side of the Parliament have got up and criticised the cost of the new and permanent Parliament House. They did this when they knew that it was impossible to influence that cost, and they had held their hands prior to this. If some of them had stood up and supported me in 1982 we might have saved this country a lot of the money that has been wasted and we might have had more people in public housing. It is more important that we have people in public housing and that they should be housed properly and decently, rather than having an edifice which would more properly be built in Third World countries where it is necessary for governments to impress their will on the people by the size and importance of their buildings. That is an ignoble motive. Whatever one thinks of that building it is an ignoble building and an expression of ignoble motives. I wondered whether I should hold my hands on this matter and not speak again. I have not mentioned the levels of criticism during recent months but my conscience was awakened on 11 May-not very long ago-when I heard Mr Eric Risstrom of the Taxpayers Association on the media. He took up this question of the new and permanent Parliament House and said that the building was enormously wasteful, that he had had evidence that workers on the site had set times for morning teas and other breaks which they were compelled to take-indeed, if people did not take those times they got into trouble with their fellow workers-and that there were rackets and ramps throughout all forms of the building's construction. Mr Risstrom said that taxpayers did not like their dollars being tossed down the sewer-those are his words and not mine-and I agree with him. But if a person of his standing and his degree of responsibility in the community can say that on the public media, and if members of the Joint Standing Committee on the New Parliament House have expressed disquiet about their ability to control the costs of this building and the degree of consultation that they have had, the matter ought not to be allowed to pass. There ought to be some kind of inquiry into this situation. Why has the building cost so much? Let us look at the figures which were first announced by the then Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, in June 1980. He said: The competition winner's cost estimate is generally credible and realistic and there will be no really significant increases upon the brief figure as the building proceeds. That was the statement the then Prime Minister made. Of course, the figure for the design brief was $151m. What would the amount be in 1987 figures, allowing for inflation over that period? The cost should now be well under $400m. I ask honourable senators to keep that figure in mind because, as I understand it now, that cost will be something like $1.1 billion. It is just too much money to be passed over, to be shrugged aside. So it is a matter of conscience-something that lies very easily on my conscience-that I associate one of my final speeches in this Parliament with a request that the Government, or whichever party gains government after the next election, undertakes a public inquiry into the costs of the new and permanent Parliament House and to establish, among its other terms of reference, why the building has exceeded by so much, what it ought to have cost. It should also take into account those concerns being expressed by people such as Mr Risstrom and by members of parliament about the building and its costs. If we do not do that, I think the members of this Parliament will lay themselves open to the accusation that they do not care about these things-that they really do not care how much public money they spend; that it is no good the community saying that there is cause for disquiet; that literally half a billion dollars over and above what should have been spent can go down the drain and nothing will be done about it. I suggest that that situation should not be allowed to continue. So, as an individual senator-not as an Australian Democrat but as a senator for New South Wales representing my constituents-I formally call for a government inquiry into this scandal, whatever government is returned, to establish why it happened and to make sure through the establishment of that inquiry that nothing like it ever happens again with a public building built under the auspices of this Parliament. I felt I would raise one other matter of concern, because it is a matter about which I know other senators and members of the House of Representatives are also concerned. Honourable senators may recall that when I began I mentioned the difficulties and problems that members of this Parliament have in carrying out their work. I have been concerned over the years about what appears to me to be an attempt in areas of the community to establish a diminution of the status and value of members of this Parliament. To an extent, I think this attack on parliaments is a world-wide phenomenon. While it is only too easy in this line of work to have conspiracy theories and to be paranoid, as all of us know-I often say we fight paranoia every day-I think that the evidence is mounting that indeed members of parliament are not regarded in the way that they have been in the past. I am one of those who believe it is quite wrong, whatever the other merits, that members of parliament should be paid so badly. Indeed, there are significant areas of the Public Service which are now paid better than members of parliament, in spite of the fact that, theoretically, members of parliament tell public servants what to do. I think it is quite wrong that, say, a Press secretary on the staff of a Minister should be paid better than a member of parliament. This is not an economic matter. I am not putting it forward in those terms. Rather, it is the process of the diminution of the status of members of parliament which is wrong. There have been attacks, one way or another, on the privilege of members of parliament. I think they are very rightly being resisted, and they should continue to be resisted. It is not a reasonable argument to suggest that people abuse privilege. In parallel, one could make a similar argument that none of us should drive a motor car and all motor cars should be abolished from tomorrow because some people drive them dangerously or irresponsibly. The powers of privilege are very important. They are the safety valve of the community and they ought properly to be maintained. My thought is that we should give no ground whatsoever in that area under any circumstances. Another area of this diminution of the powers of members of parliament which is cause for concern is the tendency, especially on the part of the present Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), to look at Australia not so much as a parliamentary democracy but rather as a sort of consensus arrangement in the manner of the Indonesian Musjuwara system. The idea of having summits and calling into consultation members of the community, no matter how eminent they are, seems to me a dangerous and false direction which ought to be thought out properly at its philosophical roots. The purpose of this Parliament is to have people here who are elected by their fellow citizens after a process of thought because those fellow citizens, presumably-I know I am talking in ideal terms; but why not, for once?-feel that that is the best way of establishing a system of responsibility in the parliamentary sense. In other words, by electing us to this place and other people to the other place we have people who are responsible to the electorate. That is, of course, true. That is the whole basis of parliamentary democracy. To erode that by saying `Okay, parliament is one part of government but we will have a summit to look at what everybody in the economic field, or business or unions thinks; and those decisions will somehow be railroaded through as policy' seems to me to be a very dangerous and false direction-not because I have any argument with the wisdom of trade unions or business organisations or any of that kind of thing, but only because they are not responsible in the sense of which I am speaking. It is a selling out of the community if people who intend to govern this country say that they will do so not through the strict mechanisms of parliamentary democracy but by somehow short-circuiting that process by going through this or that area of consultation and somehow making the results of that consultation become policy. Of course, that is dangerous also because when one consults one selects the areas of consultation, thereby involving a selective process. Again, it is wrong for anybody, with the best will in the world, to feel that he can consult a group and come away and have the resulting views confirmed and it will be fine. It seems too easy for any of us to do that. With the best will in the world, we can go along perfectly sincerely and come back after consulting a lot of people and say: `I am right about this; this confirms my view'. It depends on whom one consults. That consultation also happens to be a subjective process and because of that it ought reasonably to be suspect. The third area in which I think there is a problem with this Parliament is the treatment it receives from the media, especially the electronic media. This is a matter which ought properly to be raised. I am not raising it in a personal way. The Democrats, and I particularly, have, to my mind, never had anything but good treatment from the media. We have had a better media run, I suppose, than we deserve, because we are a novelty and things of that kind. Senator Messner —Yes, that's true. Senator MASON —I am glad that Senator Messner agrees with me. I suppose it is part of any small party's riding orders to do that. That is the sort of way we have kept things going. That is fair enough, from that point of view. But I am concerned about the overall influence of areas of the media. In Australia we are now getting very strong and persistent bias in newspapers and some of the electronic media towards certain sections of the community. My view is that the New Right is getting far too much newspaper running. It is getting a far greater amount of newspaper running and attention than its apparent influence in the community would deserve. That is being done, presumably, to try to increase its influence in the community. I do not think that is happening. The poll figures already show that that is not the case. Again, I have no particular argument with the New Right; it is entitled to its point of view. All I am saying is that a degree of bias is growing up in this country and there is also a tendency on the part of the media not to report as adequately as it should the constructive and useful things that are done in this place and in the other place. They tend to concentrate on confrontation, argument, disputation, personality problems and the bizarre and unusual things that sometimes happen in any organisation. I do not want to appear over-wise in this matter, but I am an ex-journalist myself. I served in that profession as a foreign correspondent, as a writer and as a reporter-right through all the stages of the journalistic profession-and it concerns me that that kind of influence should be exerted, and that it should be exerted in such a way that it does not help the public's view of parliament. What is the reason behind that? Is it accidental, or is there indeed-as there appears to be-a concerted influence over a period of time which, in fact, does reduce the influence and value of parliament in the public mind. If that is the case, whether it is accidental or not, it is a very serious matter and a very bad thing, which also ought to be examined at its philosophical roots. I do not argue with the right of the media to inquire into and investigate anything that happens here. Any of us should be completely open to investigation by anybody. That is absolutely right. I do not dispute that in the slightest. But so often it is the case that the media harps on comparatively small matters of confrontation, such as the question of who will or will not lead a particular party. I know these things are important within those parties. They are nationally important to a degree-but not to the degree that they are forced and pushed in the media of this country. I think it is time that that matter was looked at. Perhaps it is time that members of this Parliament felt that at times they ought to be a little colder, a little harder to get and little less approachable by the media. Some interviewers try to put words into the mouth of the person being interviewed on television. This happens regularly now with some of the pundits, who are very bad interviewers-they may think they are good, but they are very bad. They seem to think that they will develop a point of view and that that point of view then has to be somehow pushed into the mouth of the person being interviewed. That is intolerable; it is inexcusable; it is not in the public interest, it is not in the interests of the media or anybody else. With all respect, I would have thought that when this occured honourable senators and members of the other place would be perfectly justified in using whatever rude words they felt like using, on air or otherwise, to put down that sort of situation and not answer that kind of questioning. I have found that a good deal of the mischief that one perceives in the political scene over the years has been contrived in exactly that way. There are plenty of questions, as we all know, of the beating your wife nature which have only wrong answers. It may seem smart and clever and it may even be good television to expose a public figure to that sort of situation, but is of no use whatsoever and is, as I have said, part of what is a potentially dangerous and damaging situation if one is considering good government and the welfare of the country as a whole. That sort of thing does not contribute to it, it does not add to it and, I suggest, it is not particularly valuable. It may well be increasingly perceived in that way over the years by members of the public. I shall conclude, as one of those who sees light at the end of the tunnel-and I shall be running off to buy my catamaran pretty soon, and a few things like that-by wishing my colleagues who are continuing here well and the best of luck for the election, whatever party they are in, and saying, finally, `Don't get too much indigestion from the rubber chickens'. Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(12.11) —The Bills we are discussing today form the Appropriation and Supply package that is coming forward at this time to provide Supply to the Government for the forthcoming few months. They come at a time when the Government has already declared an election, having brought down half its Budget only about a week ago and, of course, hiding from the people the fact that within another three months the Government would have had to pay the piper by introducing an horrendous full Budget, which it would have needed to bring down in August. The Government is determined to try to hide the facts from the people by going to a double dissolution election on 11 July to try to avoid the wrath of the people that would have followed the full Budget having been introduced in August. That is a fact of life. The Government is really pulling the wool over the eyes of the Australian people. In fact, it is quite clear that the Government has plenty to hide. If we go through the economic facts of life, it is pretty easy to see the state of play with this Government. We know that this is the highest taxing government in Australia's history. We know that this Government is spending more and has spent more since it has been in office than any other government since Federation. We know that it presides over the greatest debt that this country has ever had. It has brought about the phenomenon of the 12-digit debt-the $105,000m that this country owes overseas. This all occurred under the tutelage of this Government over the past four years. The debt that was left for the Hawke Government when it came to power in March 1983 totalled $30,000m, and that has grown to $105,000m under this Government. That has led to enormous interest rates, the highest interest rates since the Depression. They are now at a level, in real terms, that is greater than those of all of our trading partners. Is it any wonder that not only foreigners but also people within Australia are failing to invest in new industries that would create jobs for Australians? That is the great challenge for the next Liberal government when it comes to power after 11 July-to ensure that a whole new system of incentive is established in this country and that, in fact, industry gets going again, in order to provide jobs for Australians, particularly young Australians. We know that the average length of time for which a person is unemployed has virtually doubled since this Government came to power. In 1983, on average, people were out of work for 26 weeks; today, on average, they are out of work for 46 weeks-nearly double. So, there is absolutely no hope for the unemployed under this Government. When we look around and see the problems of young people in this community, we note that approximately 25 per cent of our young people are unable to find jobs. That is a direct result of this Government's anti-incentive policies. What are those anti-incentive policies? The first is, as I have just mentioned, those very high interest rates that this Government has brought upon this nation. The second is taxation. We all know that the Government has broken every promise that it ever gave on taxation. We know that whereas the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) said he would not have a capital gains tax, we indeed got one. That is the same sort of promise that he gave pensioners about the assets test-`We will not have an assets test'-but we got one. We were not to have a tax on superannuation payments, but we got one. So the list has gone on until the most obvious phenomenon and the clearest feature of this Government's period in office, the famous disposable promise has become apparent. The promises of this Government are not worth the proverbial bumper. They are not worth even writing down on paper. Senator Walsh yawns at that kind of revelation, but the truth is, as he would know-he has been party to the breach of promise-that those things were promised twice to the Australian people at elections and, of course, the further promises we can expect during the election campaign in the next few weeks will not be able to be counted upon in the event of the Government being re-elected, either. The people of Australia have had enough. They know that this Government does not tell the truth. They know that it does not tell the people all the facts and, consequently, that we will not get the kind of truth in government that we might expect from another colour of government. On the question of taxation, we have seen the introduction of the fringe benefits tax. The Government has claimed great credit for the windfall gains of hundreds of millions of dollars that have come out of business to pay that tax. Of course, the point is, as we said during the debate on this matter at an earlier time, that that is a tax on employment and, indeed, must-in the same way as payroll taxes which are levied by the States are a tax on employment-destroy job opportunities in this country. The fringe benefits tax has raised, I think, some $800m in this financial year. That is certainly a large sum of money, but how many jobs have gone down the tubes as a result? We know that motor car industry sales, for instance, are down by 35 per cent this year-35 per cent! Of course, not only has the motor car manufacturing industry suffered job losses, but the biggest impact of that drop has been in motor vehicle dealerships and the people who are employed in that sector of the industry. It is pretty obvious that perhaps 10,000 to 15,000 jobs have disappeared in the motor dealership area. That is the kind of thing that has come about as a direct result of the Government's activities and clearly indicates that there can be no investment confidence or incentive for the future as a result of these kinds of new taxation measures. That is why the statistics that have recently emerged reveal no confidence in investment. The Australian Chamber of Commerce and the National Australia Bank recently put out statistics clearly indicating that people looking ahead to invest in new job creation opportunities in this country are very pessimistic. That was confirmed by the figures released yesterday for the March quarter this year, which indicated that investment was down by some 8 per cent compared with the figures for the previous quarter, which, in turn, were down very substantially compared with those for the rest of the year. That investment figure is absolutely vital in terms of where this country is going. This Government is unconcerned with the fact that investment is collapsing. It is doing nothing to improve that investment climate in this country and is, indeed, trying to compound the problem by ensuring that people have the wool pulled over their eyes as to the facts. That is why, if this Government were to be returned to power after 11 July and actually brought down a Budget in August, we would find the truth and we would find that severe measures would be taken in that Budget which would be politically unpopular and unpalatable, and which the Government is not prepared to put forward at this time. Not only has the Government imposed the highest rates of tax since Federation, but also the living standards of ordinary Australians are suffering tremendously. People are having trouble meeting the mortgage payments on their houses. People renting houses, particularly in Sydney, are finding they have to pay some $267 a week for an ordinary three-bedroom house. That seems unbelievable in terms of average weekly earnings, which are no more than about $450 a week. It means that rental payments take up more than half of people's disposable income. That is a disgraceful state of affairs which has been brought about by a lack of investment by ordinary private individuals in housing for low income families; the capital gains tax; and the abolition by this Government of negative gearing taxation concessions. Those things are causing huge concern, and clearly people's disposable incomes are not as lavish or as generous as they were. People are starting to reduce their living expenditure. That is having a devastating impact upon their psychology, their incentive to work harder and so on. People know that taxes will only take more out of their pockets and those of their families if they seek to work a little more overtime; they know they will lose at least 40 or 50 per cent of their extra earnings through taxation. One set of statistics that has come to my notice that indicates a downgrading of people's standards of living simply concerns retail sales. We all have read the overall statistics, and in fact some which came out yesterday indicated that retail sales have fallen by about one per cent over the last quarter. When one breaks the figures down a little, one finds major changes greater than that in, for example, the area of red meat sales. The fall in that area is dramatic. Indeed, butchers all over the country are noticing that, instead of buying a steak or some other choice piece of meat, people are downgrading their purchases to sausages and minced steak. That is happening all over Australia and it is direct evidence of the decline in the standard of living in this country under this Government. It is the kind of thing that is happening across the whole range of living costs. Some years ago we read with horror about people, living in rather insalubrious circumstances in New York City, eating dog food instead of real meat. It looks as though this country is well down that route at present as a result of the Government's policy. On the matter of taxation, it is always useful to remind ourselves that the Government has increased the rate of tax applicable to the average wage earner since it came to power four years ago. The rate of tax applicable to those people earning average weekly income in 1983 when the Government came to power was 30 per cent. That figure is now 43 per cent. The marginal rate of tax has gone up by almost 50 per cent under this Government. That certainly does not indicate a reduction in taxes and indeed, as we all know, any reductions that occurred last December and which are about to occur, on 1 July, have all been paid for by increased inflation and by the so-called bracket creep effect. The Government is only giving back what it has already taken out of the pockets of Australians by virtue of that silent robber, inflation. That is a fair indication that people are certainly feeling the squeeze not only in respect of their living costs but also in respect of taxation. Taxation levels are clearly making a big difference to people's attitudes. That was seen in the reaction in the last few days to a leaked newspaper report of the Liberal Party's taxation policy, which indicated a very substantial, almost revolutionary, change to taxation. Senator Walsh —A revolutionary increase in the deficit. You have got it up to $18 billion now. Senator MESSNER —If one really looks at it, it is probably $25 billion. Why does not the Minister for Finance call it $25 billion? It may be $30 billion. The figures the Minister throws about are absolutely irrelevant because he does not know the policy. In fact, the document printed in the newspaper was not the Liberal Party's policy, and it has nothing to do with the point that the Minister is trying to make. Senator Walsh —You haven't got one. Senator MESSNER —The Minister does not have long to wait. The policy will be out shortly, and the Minister will be astounded. He will find he has a real fight on his hands. The Australian people are sick to death of paying taxes. The reaction that occurred after the printing of that article in the Herald the other day indicates the extent of that sickness. The reaction members of the Liberal Party have had has been enormously positive. Clearly, our policy will be very attractive to the people, and it will show the direction that the Liberal Party's future taxation policy will take. The Government gave us all the hint as to when the election would be by withdrawing last Monday its industrial relations legislation. Apparently the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Willis) has been working on it for three years. He has been consulting all over with the business community, the industrial relations community and the trade unions to get this brave new world of industrial relations into the field. When the crunch came and the Bill was to be brought into the Parliament, the Government found that enormous opposition to the Bill, which was aimed at keeping trade unions above the law, was growing outside and inside the Parliament, and it withdrew the legislation immediately it started to feel that opposition. In the first place the Government has not got the guts to carry through with that legislation, because it knows it is electorally unpopular, and, in the second place, the Government has misunderstood from the very beginning what it should be on about in the industrial relations area. All one can say about the Hancock legislation is that it is a payoff to the trade unions. It is a payoff to put the unions above the law, which no doubt the Government has promised the unions over a long period-ever since it came to government in 1983. It is quite clear that by getting rid of the effect of sections 45d and 45e of the Trade Practices Act the unions would be on easy street. They would have had removed one of the major thorns in their flesh because of the very effectiveness of those sections of the Act. The Government's measures to try to water down those sections to such an extent that they became unworkable was clearly an attempt to put the unions into a privileged situation, above the ordinary rights of individuals in this country. That needed to be opposed, and certainly the Liberal Party was opposed to those measures in this Parliament. However, it means that the Government has now handed the Liberal Party an issue for the election campaign. The people know that if they re-elect the Labor Government to power on 11 July, they will get this legislation. During the campaign we will have the opportunity of highlighting the effects of the industrial relations legislation, and the people of Australia will be able to make up their own minds what they think of it. Quite clearly, the choice will be very easy for them, as they will know that the Liberal Party of Australia opposes that nonsensical legislation. They will know that they would be handing over power to the trade unions-not to the Hawke Government-if they vote Labor. Consequently, the people of Australia will opt for the alternative. That is quite clear from the reaction of people on the street to the union issue. Only the other day a poll was taken; that showed that 70 per cent of trade unionists want a reduction of union power. In fact, only 37 per cent of people interviewed said that they supported the position of the Government in respect of trade unions. I suppose it is no wonder that the legislation was withdrawn by the Government. The other point that I want to make about the forthcoming election concerns the position of the Australian Democrats. Notwithstanding Senator Mason's `farewell speech' that we have just heard, it is clear that the Democrats have been bought off. The situation is that we have seen the Democrats support the Government here today in relation to the guillotine to be applied to debate on legislation between now and 5 June. Senator Mason —On a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President: I take strong exception to the statement made by Senator Messner that the Democrats have been bought off. It is an insulting and misleading statement which ought not to be made in this place, and I call on him to withdraw it without reservation. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Morris) —Senator Messner, do you withdraw that statement? Senator MESSNER —I will withdraw that particular statement, Mr Acting Deputy President, but I think that even Senator Mason-- Senator Teague —They have done a deal. Senator MESSNER —I was just about to say that I think that anybody with half an eye would have to agree with me when I say that the Democrats have obviously done a deal with the Government, and I refer to the question of preferences for the forthcoming election and to the fact that they have got themselves a double dissolution. Everyone around this place and all over Australia knows that the only way that the Democrats can survive in an election-which otherwise would have been a half Senate election-is by means of a double dissolution, where their quotas are reduced by half. All the commentators in the papers have been saying that the Labor Party has deliberately designed this election, on the flimsiest of excuses, in order to provide the Democrats with an opportunity. If that is not the basis of a deal, I do not know what is. The test of that-- Senator Mason —On a further point of order: I would again like to draw the speaker's attention to my resentment and total rejection of his suggestion that there has been a deal. I point out to Senator Messner that the double dissolution election will occur because the Government feels that it was given a reason for the double dissolution due to the rejection by the Senate of the Australia Card. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT — Order! There is no point of order. Senator MESSNER —I simply make the point, Mr Acting Deputy President-and I thank you for your firm ruling in this regard-that the test of whether or not a deal has been done will become very clear in the next few days when we find out how the Democrats will distribute their preferences on their how-to-vote cards for the forthcoming election. Senator McKiernan —The choice is theirs. Senator MESSNER —I will be very surprised-as indeed Senator McKiernan will be very surprised-if the preferences do not go to the Australian Labor Party. Senator McKiernan —They will recognise the talent that we have. Senator MESSNER —All honourable senators in this place recognise that the Democrats are the left wing of the Labor Party; they have been for the many years that they have sat in here. They have supported the introduction of these new taxes, like the capital gains tax, the fringe benefits tax, as well as the assets test on pensions, and also the lump sum superannuation measure. All of these things have been due to none other than our friends, the Democrats! When I say `our friends' I am referring specifically to the friends of Senator McKiernan. The fact is that the speech that Senator Haines made here yesterday, which was nothing but an apologia for the reasons for calling the election, showed quite clearly that she ought to be a member of the Australian Labor Party. I think it is obvious that a deal has been done and, indeed, I point out to Senator Mason that the test of it will be when we see what colour the preferences are on the Democrats' how-to-vote cards. Members of the Labor Party would be terribly surprised-indeed we would all be surprised-to find that those preferences were not going to Labor. On behalf of Senator Short I shall move an amendment to the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87 which sets out the position of the Liberal Party on the matter of the reasons for the election. Accordingly, I move: At end of motion, add ``, but the Senate condemns the Government for- (1) its decision to call an early election without informing the Australian people as to the content of the August 1987 Budget; (2) its continued mismanagement of the economy which has caused: (a) widespread and growing concern among Australians about their future; (b) a sustained reduction in the living standards of all Australians, and in particular Australian families with young children, and (c) fundamental weaknesses in the nation's economy as indicated by- (i) declining economic growth rates, (ii) inflation at four times the average of our major trading partners, (iii) record relative interest rates, (iv) an overseas debt burden of $105 billion, and (v) the value of the Australian dollar being cut by one-third; and (3) its failure to implement the genuine expenditure cuts in its May economic statement necessary to restore balance to its policies and reduce interest rates''. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales)(12.37) —The Appropriation Bills provide the Senate with the opportunity to note, with concern, the Government's total failure in relation to economic policy, the Government's uneasiness-and quite proper uneasiness-about the future of the Australian economy and, of course, in particular, the Government's concern about the sort of Budget that will have to be brought down later this year, if this Government were to stay in office. The reality is, and the whole of Australia knows it, that the Government is having an early election because it does not want to have to face the people after having brought down the forthcoming Budget. It is a simple and uncomplicated proposition. The people of Australia have every right to ask: `What has this Government got to hide? Why is it going to the polls before the forthcoming Budget?'. Well, we know perfectly well why. When the Government introduced part of its package, when it introduced its mini-Budget and when it was talking to the States, it was reassuring the markets that this was part of an overall plan and that the Budget itself in August would be the next stage. However, the Government has now turned around completely. It is now saying that it has put everything in place, that it does not need to wait until the coming Budget. What has happened magically to change the situation? Previously these things were only part of what the Government planned to do, with the Budget to be an important segment and with more and significant things to be done in order to placate the market, in other words, to soft soap the market-an attempt to sell the Government with words rather than deeds-while in fact now we find that the Government is going to an election. It is now trying to placate Australian voters by saying: `Don't worry, we have in fact put everything in place, there is nothing left to do in the Budget, so do not worry about what is going to be in the Budget'. That is the sort of deception that we have had from this Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) before every election. Let the Senate cast its mind back to the list of promises made before the 1983 election by Mr Hawke, the man with the record list of broken promises. Let us go back to the 1984 election and what he promised then. The assertion in those days was: `Yes, we will keep interest rates down. Yes, everything will be wonderful. All you have to do is vote Labor. Capital gains tax? No, I can give an assurance, in words that even the Opposition would understand, that there will be no capital gains tax.' It is the same sort of promise that was disgracefully and deliberately broken on every occasion that this Prime Minister has gone to the polls. On every occasion we have seen a deliberate determination to make promises which he had no intention of keeping, to make assurances to the people of Australia which were false and which were broken. Here we have now this latest assurance: `Don't worry. There will be nothing in the Budget'. If the Prime Minister is standing on his track record he cannot be believed in any run-up to any election. He has a track record of disgraceful deception of the Australian people in pre-election times. If anyone is to be conned by an assurance from this Prime Minister not to worry about the Budget, one can just look at his record of deception in these matters and his continual assurances which are made in the knowledge that they will be broken. The essential element is that they are made in the knowledge that they will be broken. It is quite right that newspapers such as the Australian should point out: The main difficulty facing the ALP is the holding of the election before the presentation of this year's Budget. The Government will have to work very hard to persuade the electorate that it does not have ulterior motives in calling an early poll, and, if it is re-elected and the subsequent Budget is found to contain unacceptable elements of which the public has not been warned, respect for its integrity will be critically injured. This Government's integrity has already been critically injured on this score. It has no integrity in terms of statements made before elections, and in particular this instance when it is talking about one not needing to worry about the Budget is self-evident bunkum. On what issue will this election be fought? Clearly, the state of the economy is a major disaster for Australia, and that has its effect on standards of living for ordinary Australians; it has an impact on the family; and it, of course, impinges immensely on the tax burden of Australians. These problems are now being compounded by the Government's determined and deliberate attempt to increase the power of union bosses. We have a situation where the former President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, now Australia's Prime Minister, is delivering to the present President of the ACTU increased power to thumb his nose at the Australian people, to disrupt the economy and to destroy the industrial base of areas such as mine, the Illawarra region of New South Wales, where there is massive industrial disturbance. I remind the Prime Minister that he came to power and won seats in that area on a deliberate and straightforward uncomplicated lie, and that political lie was that there would be no more sackings in the steel industry and no more retrenchments in the coal industry in the Illawarra region. Thousands and thousands of jobs later, people are still being sacked-a couple of hundred were sacked from the coal industry only this week. There are still retrenchments in the steel industry-60-odd were put off in recent times. Yet that was the basis on which that man came to that area and sought the support of voters. He was elected in that area on a lie; he will be defeated in that area on a lie. Senator Walsh —Who's that? Senator MICHAEL BAUME —That is the Prime Minister who made false promises to people in that region at that time. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Motion (by Senator Walsh) agreed to: That, unless otherwise ordered, till 2 p.m. this day, matters of public interest may be discussed by senators, provided that no senator shall speak for more than 15 minutes and provided further that should a division be called for, such division shall be forthwith postponed till a later hour of the day not being earlier than 2 p.m. Senator VALLENTINE(Western Australia)(12.45) —I wish to put on record the reasons for my arrest in the United States of America at the Nevada test site, when I partook in the Mothers' Day Action of 10 May. I know that there are some honourable senators who feel that this was not appropriate behaviour for an Australian senator, so I think it is important that I do place on record the reasons for my action on that occasion. This was an action which involved civil dis- obedience by a large number of people. There were 3,000 people at the Nevada test site for the action, 780 of whom got arrested for trespass, for going over the line into the United States Department of Energy territory at the site. Civil disobedience has become quite commonplace in the United States when citizens have felt that they have exhausted all of the usual procedures for encouraging a change in their government's attitude on any particular issue. They have a history of non-violent civil disobedience which we do not share in Australia but which, I think, it was very appropriate for me to participate in on that occasion. The citizens of the United States have already written many letters, to their politicians; they have signed petitions; they have lobbied, they have public opinion polls on their side. Depending on which opinion poll you look at, at least 70 per cent of United States citizens want their government to stop the testing of nuclear weapons. Since the Soviet moratorium on weapons testing, which was in place for 18 months, they have become increasingly aware of the fact that it is their government-the United States Government-which is holding up the process of achieving a comprehensive test ban. This is something which the world urgently needs and something which I am glad to say our Government has fully supported. Our Government could have done more to persuade the United States, our friend and ally, to reciprocate to the Soviet's moratorium. It did not do that. I believe that our disarmament ambassador has worked tirelessly to put a comprehensive test ban in place. It is very clear to world citizens that it is the United States which is holding up this procedure. With that background in mind, knowing that there are Bills before both the Senate and the House of Representatives of the United States Congress which, if passed, would limit funding for the testing program, civil disobedience has been considered by people who have long been opposed to the testing of more nuclear weapons as an appropriate action to take to draw attention to the issue. Mass civil disobedience must eventually make a change to the actions of any government, which can only govern by the consent of the majority. If the people refuse to co-operate on a mass scale the workings of a government will break down. The United States peace movement hopes that the United States Government will come to its senses before that stage is reached. There is increasing opposition to the tests because that Government has ignored the Soviet Union's 18-month moratorium proposal. The action taken at the Nevada test site on 10 May was the fourth major action at the site this year and further rallies are planned. So far this year almost 2,000 people have been arrested at the site. The stage has now been reached where the District Attorney of the county of Nye, in which the test site is located, has announced that charges of trespass will be dropped because the courts cannot cope with the number of people who are being arrested. The law is being made to look rather foolish because people must be arrested for trespass if they go across a given line, yet charges against them are not being proceeded with. This is an important stage in the whole process of civil disobedience. People are invoking the Nuremberg Principles which should be familiar to honourable senators. They amount to invoking a higher moral authority than the law of any particular nation. Under international law certain crimes are punishable and people, as long as they are not forced at gun point, as long as they have any choice in the matter, need to feel responsible to a higher moral authority than the laws of their own particular country. Article VI of the Nuremberg Principles refers to crimes against peace-planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties. Clearly, the testing of nuclear weapons, which are weapons of mass destruction, is in violation of this international law. The Nuremberg Principles also refer to crimes against humanity, which include the extermination, deportation, enslavement or murder of a civilian population. Again, the testing of nuclear weapons and certainly the use of nuclear weapons or any weapons of mass destruction, would be against any international law. So it is important that people should respond to this higher moral authority if they are concerned about the common good of humanity as a whole, rather than their immediate loyalties to their own countries. If they think that their country's law is against the principles of the common good of humanity in general people may well feel obliged to take action against their own country's laws-hence civil disobedience. In fact, one of the large signs in place at the Mothers' Day Action on 10 May read `Nuremberg obliges us to act'. The Mothers' Day Action was taken according to the principles of non-violence, clearly laid down and, with the permission of the Senate, I would like to have incorporated in Hansard both the Nuremberg Principles and the non-violent guidelines for the Mothers' Day Action in question. Leave granted. The documents read as follows- THE NUREMBERG PRINCIPLES (i) Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment. (ii) The fact that internal (i.e. national) law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed that act from responsibility under international law. (iii) The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law. (iv) The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of the Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him/her. (v) Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law. (vi) The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: (a) Crimes Against Peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i). (b) War Crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labor, or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. (c) Crimes Against Humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime. (vii) Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law. MOTHERS' DAY ACTION Non-Violence Guidelines for the Action 1. Our attitude, as conveyed through words, symbols, and actions will be one of openess and respect toward all people we encounter. 2. We will remain nonviolent, verbally and physically. 3. We will not damage any property. 4. We will not bring or use any drugs or alcohol. 5. We will not run. 6. We will act in the spirit of the action scenario consensus reached by the affinity group spokescouncil. In the event of a serious disagreement, we will remove ourselves from the action. 7. If arrested, we will not actively resist. 8. We agree to fully accept the legal consequences of our actions and will not seek to evade these consequences beyond legitimate legal recourse. Senator VALLENTINE —I thank the Senate. It is important that these principles be clearly understood. It was very impressive to see the way in which this action was conducted, clearly along lines of non-violence. There was no verbal, let alone physical, aggression, and there were people present who supported the continuation of the tests. It was very impressive to see such discipline exercised by a very large number of people who were determined to make their protest according to these principles of non- violence. One of the important principles is that no surprise tactics be adopted, that there should be no running, that there should be no drugs or alcohol on the site and that people should refrain from verbal or physical abuse of any other person at the site. These principles were very clearly upheld by all of the participants in the action so it was conducted in a very peaceful and dignified manner. That for me was a very important component of it. I think also that it was important that on this Mothers' Day, the day which in 1870 was declared by an American woman, Juliet Howe, as a day of peace and as an anti-war statement, the people who conducted this action were trying to get back to the original intention of the founder. What better gift could there be for any mother anywhere on the face of the earth than the gift of knowing that her children could live in peace? So it was highly symbolic that we should have been out there in the middle of the desert, where we were also in reverence of the earth, our mother, at the invitation of the Western Shoshone native American people. They claim that according to a treaty with the United States Government the land is theirs, further that that Government has ignored the treaty by allowing its Department of Energy to use the land as a test site. So there was also that thread to the protest action which lent it, from my point of view, a great deal of dignity. I felt that it was a privilege to participate in this action and, by going across the line with many brave Americans and people from other countries as well, show Australian support for the actions of peace movement people in the United States who are prepared to face the consequences of their actions. Many in the United States have suffered gaol sentences because they have stood firm for the principles in which they believe. To me, that is very laudable indeed. Also, I felt privileged to participate because I believed that I was supporting this Government's stand, which is firmly against the continuation of nuclear testing in any environment and for all time. Also, it is exactly what I have a mandate from the people of Western Australia to do-work on the issue of nuclear disarmament and draw attention to the insanity of the arms race. With the current arsenal, under the arms race, standing at roughly 50,000 weapons, the last thing the world needs is to test any more weapons. This is clearly recognised by many ordinary citizens. Now it is up to the ordinary citizens of the world to influence governments which continue to test nuclear weapons-not only the Government of the United States but also, now that the Soviets have resumed testing, that government also, as well as, in particular, the French Government, which conducts its testing in the Pacific region. The world urgently needs a comprehensive test ban and I felt that it was quite appropriate for me, by participating in a peaceful demonstration, to draw this matter before the attention of the Australian people in that way and also show support for fellow workers for peace in the United States and in other countries, who need a show of support and solidarity by world citizens. That is really what it boils down to-the fact that people who are prepared to undertake civil disobedience on this particular topic are considering themselves as world citizens before they consider their loyalty to their own country, if they consider that it is involved in something which is basically immoral. Senator HILL(South Australia)(12.55) —The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is about to head off to the South Pacific Forum meeting in Apia. This focuses our attention on the fact that the Australian Government has demonstrated its inability to understand the needs, aspirations and problems of the Pacific island states and the necessity to formulate an effective foreign policy. Instead we have witnessed the Government slowly lose control over the handling of our affairs in a region that is, of course, sensitive and fast becoming destabilised. The Government's shortcomings in the South Pacific vividly illustrate that in two successive terms in office the Prime Minister has neglected the strategic, political and economic realities that face this region. In 1983, when the Australian Labor Party came to office, its much talked about platform contained many foreign policy promises. These included more and better aid, a greater balance of trade with the Asia-Pacific region, improved immigration programs and further promises of not only regional co-operation but also defence co-operation programs. Despite these promises we have seen a very different reality. Each of the areas that I have mentioned has in one way or another been diluted, ignored or mishandled. Let me mention briefly the subject of aid. I will start by looking at the position which obtained before this Government came to office. The period after 1976 saw the most concentrated degree of aid being given to our region. In the period 1974-76 Australia's aid to the Pacific, excluding Papua New Guinea, totalled $15m. In 1976, with Soviet overtures being made to Tonga, the Fraser Government realised that the independent Pacific nations were in great need of economic assistance. That was tied, of course, to our immediate strategic concerns. The then Government quadrupled its aid to the Pacific to $60m in the 1977-79 period. The close links between strategic perceptions and Australian interests were further highlighted when the then Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, announced in 1980 that aid to the Pacific was to be increased further to $120m for the 1980-82 period. At the South Pacific Forum meeting in New Zealand in 1982 the Australian delegation announced that aid to the Pacific would rise to $300m over a five-year period. This commitment represented three-year-forward civil aid of over 40 per cent, sending an Australian team to the islands to help assess the need for and technical requirements of maritime surveillance, the early conclusion of a non-reciprocal free trade agreement with the island Forum countries, the further strengthening of Australia's diplomatic network in the region and continued regional co-operation. Interestingly, this target was reaffirmed by the then Treasurer, Mr Hayden, in his Budget Speech of 1983. What has happened has been, of course, a completely different story. This Government has presided over the most severe cuts in the Australian aid program that have been made since World War II. In its four years in office its annual aid budget has been progressively slashed to the lowest level in 20 years. Our aid now amounts to a mere 0.39 per cent of gross domestic product. In real terms, aid was cut by 2 per cent in 1984, 5 per cent in 1985 and 13 per cent in 1986-the toughest pruning, I would emphasise, that has taken place in any area of government spending. The 1986 Budget also cut 5 per cent off the funds allocated to Papua New Guinea. Honourable senators will be well aware that this unilateral decision, made without any consultation with the Papua New Guinea Government, caused a major regional upset. This year already, in the course of the May economic statement, the Government has cut $20m off aid programs for education-a field in the Pacific which, I would suggest, can ill afford to be cut, given the need to educate and effectively train people to overcome their country's development problems. The lack of skilled personnel is the single most important constraint to development in the Pacific. Madam Acting Deputy President, the Government has ignored the need for long term planning and the giving of a more assured level of assistance to the Pacific region, a course which would be more likely to foster a closer relationship between Australia and the countries of the region. Domestic political decisions which result in aid being provided on an ad hoc basis in response to perceived problems in the region do little to assist those nations. Let me also touch briefly on the subject of the trade balance. The import-export balance of trade between Australia and the nations of the Pacific, with the exception of Nauru, from which we purchase phosphates, is predominantly in Australia's favour. The advantage to Australia is particularly evident in the cases of Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. In 1986 Australia accounted for more than 40 per cent of Papua New Guinea's imports, whilst that country accounted for only 2 per cent of Australia's overseas trade. Australia's entire trade with the Pacific accounts for about 3 per cent of total exports. At the Rarotonga Forum meeting in August 1985 new liberalising measures were announced by Australia. These were to commence in January 1987. They involved access to Australian markets being on an unrestricted basis for all products, other than those to which Australian sectoral policies applied-clothing, textiles, footwear, sugar and so on. Unfortunately, these are the areas in respect of which the island states need the greatest access to Australia's market. Therefore, the Pacific nations have not considered the announced changes to be of great benefit. This persistent imbalance in Australia's favour can only serve to illustrate the differences between Australia and the island states. The Pacific islands and Papua New Guinea have been important markets for Australian manufacturers, but we should reflect that the island markets are small and that the linkages established by Australian companies are being eroded by imports from sources other than Australia, particularly East Asian suppliers who, of course, are highly competitive. The result will be, in due course, a lowering of our market share in these islands and loss of influence that will flow from this. The third area that I want to touch on as illustrating the failure of this Government's policies in the region is that of immigration. The Government has embarked on slow and laborious changes in this field, but has not looked at regional priorities. The populations of the Pacific islands, particularly the smaller islands, that most need outside employment opportunities are so small that Australia can have a significant impact on their economic development by enabling people to work or settle here. At present no preferential treatment is afforded such migration requests. One can contrast the situation with New Zealand. The Government, by more sympathetic treatment of Pacific island immigrants, can further the interests of the South Pacific and of Australia. The fourth area that I want to touch on concerns regional co-operation. I would have thought, Madam Acting Deputy President, that regional co-operation was clearly essential in several areas, notably transport, communications and higher education, if obstructions to development were to be overcome and economic and political development in the island states were to continue. However, unfortunately Australia's support in the last Federal Budget for South Pacific organisations and programs decreased by 18 per cent. At the Estimates hearing on the provision made for the Australian Development Assistance Bureau in the 1986-87 Budget, it was stated that budget cuts to South Pacific regional programs were determined according to the assessed contributions of those organisations of which Australia was a member and those programs regarded as essential and consistent with sectors of emphasis in the Australian aid program. What that meant in practice was that the Government cut all funds to the United Nations development program's South Pacific program, to the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific's regional operation centre, to the Pacific islands development program, to the East-West Centre and to the Regional Teacher Training Centre for Health Personnel. Also, extra-budgetary contributions to the South Pacific Commission, the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation and the tripartite marine geoscience research program were severely reduced. The only commitments to be met in full by this Government have been those which presumably it cannot vary, such as to the South Pacific Commission, the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation, the Forum Fisheries Agency and the South Pacific Board for Education Assessment. So again the Government has not looked at the long term implications of such cuts in the region. It is understandable that in a time of economic constraint such as we are now facing economic rationalisation needs to take place. But if this is to be paramount for the Government why did it not, for example, support Papua New Guinea's proposal for the unification of the South Pacific Commission and the South Pacific Bureau for Economic Co-operation, which would have enabled economies of scale to be achieved? The other area I wish to mention is defence co-operation. It is clear that a sense of insecurity and vulnerability has since independence prompted Pacific island states to seek protective and mutually supportive measures in the region-particularly as the vulnerability is basically economic and will inevitably have strategic implications. The Australian Government responded by announcing at the South Pacific Forum in Canberra in 1983 that Australia would develop, in conjunction with the South Pacific countries, a Pacific patrol boat project to meet the needs of regional states to patrol effectively their 200-mile exclusive economic zones. Unfortunately, as is now known, the Pacific countries criticised the fact that the boats were not of an appropriate design for patrolling open sea distances; that they were slow and unable to catch the fast craft being used by poaching tuna boats and drug-running vessels. The governments of Kiribati and Tuvalu withdrew from the scheme because their country's economies could not afford to maintain the vessels. Tonga declined from the outset. Papua New Guinea withdrew from the project in 1985 because of the operating expenses involved, but the Australian Government, of course, pressured it to reconsider and to take four boats. Similarly, Fiji withdrew but was also persuaded to reconsider and participate. So what we have is a situation in which patrol boats which many say are unsuitable are being provided and island states are taking them although their economies cannot meet the cost of properly operating them. That brings me, in the last few moments of my remarks, having looked at that sorry saga of developing government policy, to the current situation in the South Pacific. The coup d'etat in Fiji and the drama that has followed have shown Australia how quickly things can occur in a constantly changing region. I would suggest that the events of the last few weeks have raised serious questions as to whether the Government has had a co-ordinated policy to deal with the South Pacific. The Government clearly should have taken greater notice of the advice put forward by the Department of Foreign Affairs in its submission to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence in March of this year. That advice was that racial tensions were running high and could be expressed through civil disorder. As I understand it, available intelligence assessments determined that a coup was fomenting, though it seems that other intelligence assessments denied this. In fact there seems to have been an almighty mix-up in the intelligence assessments. The fact that there was such speculation as to what could be happening in Fiji and that it was ignored represents a significant error on the part of this Government. I remind you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that as far back as 1983 there were writings on the situation in our region. I refer specifically to the statements of Iosefa Maiva, who wrote in Pacific Perspective: The secessionist tendencies in PNG and Vanuatu and the racial tensions in Fiji and New Caledonia may also provide opportunities for unscrupulous outsiders to destabilise the region overtly-encouraging break-away sentiments and violence. The unity of island states given their disparate compositions and relatively weak central governments could easily be undermined. The Australian Government was at a loss to know how to handle the Fijian crisis. Its rather pathetic attempt to deflect attention by expelling from Australia the Libyan People's Bureau-which we on this side of the chamber have said should have happened months ago-gave no reason for any confidence in its regional policies. Finally, I simply remind the Senate that it is not just the difficulties over Fiji that we have to face. There are also the evolving problems in Vanuatu with its election in November, the referendum planned for New Caledonia in October and so many other matters that are not properly being addressed by this Government. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales)(1.10) —I regret that the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) is not in the chamber because the matter that I want to raise is of some interest to him. For quite some time he has been engaged in a war of words with Australian Capital Territory doctors in relation to a dispute of long standing. I wish to raise a very serious question: Why has not the Government genuinely set out to resolve this dispute? Without taking sides in the matter I simply say that it is incredible that the Government should have made an offer to visiting medical officers in the veterans' affairs area which, in money terms, involves no more expenditure than the request made on an interim basis by Canberra doctors yet should have refused to make the same offer to the latter group. In other words, the Government is prepared to make an offer to one group of doctors-in New South Wales and other States-relating to veterans' affairs, for performing exactly the same tasks, but is not prepared even to consider doing the same when it comes to Territory doctors. Why is the Government being so discriminatory? It is urgent now, for the sake of residents of the Australian Capital Territory, that the Government stop playing politics with health in this area. If it is good enough for the Government to offer such a deal elsewhere, why will it not even consider the Australian Capital Territory doctors' interim proposal, which would cost no more? Until the Government answers that question effectively it must stand condemned for deliberately continuing the Territory doctors' dispute and so diminishing the supply of health services that should be available to the residents of the area. Let us look at the actual figures involved. We will not have an opportunity to debate during the life of this Parliament the annual report of the Australian Capital Territory Health Authority. As I understand it, the presentation of papers is not to be included in the rush of legislation which is necessary to permit the early election which the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has chosen in a desperate effort to avoid, firstly, the obvious economic problems that will be mounting later this year and, secondly, the consequences of any forthcoming Budget. However, it is interesting to note that on page 35 of the report medical fees are revealed as costing $3.7m, of a total expenditure of $156m-a pretty small proportion, by the way-of the Australian Capital Territory Health Authority. To try to pretend somehow that settling this dispute at a rate that involves giving any substantial increase to doctors would be a costly disaster for the health system in the Australian Capital Territory is, of course, self-evident bunkum. The figure of $3.7m represents the cost in the financial year to June 1986, some 11 months ago. In keeping with this Government's lax financial control and incompetent reporting standards we have this report before us only now, almost at the end of the following financial year. The Authority has said publicly that this year the cost of the doctors' current contracts-if not changed-would be about $4.1m. The Government has offered an increase which would bring the cost to about $4.9m. The doctors made a claim which the Health Authority says would cost $7.5m. That sounds enormous, when compared with the $4.1m that would otherwise have been paid this year, until one compares it with what the cost would have been under the Macken decision-an arbitrated decision relating to what doctors should be paid in New South Wales. That would have brought Australian Capital Territory doctors a payment of $8m a year. Let us have a quick look at the Macken inquiry which was, in fact, forced upon the New South Wales Government by the Federal Government. The Prime Minister put out a Press release congratulating himself upon having appointed Macken, a former judge, to undertake that inquiry. Now, of course, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Finance, in particular, are complaining about the umpire's decision. Whether or not it would be appropriate for Australian Capital Territory doctors to enjoy benefits such as would flow from the Macken decision, in fact they have put in a claim which at this stage would involve an outlay of $7.5m, or less than would be the cost to the Commonwealth if the Prime Minister's Macken decision involving an expenditure of $8m were applied. The doctors having made that ambit claim, if you like, put in another interim proposal, as they called it, which would have cost $6.9m, or some $2m more than the Government had offered. The Government has rejected that out of hand; it will not discuss it. That is incredible, when one recognises that the deal that is now being offered by this Government to exactly the same sorts of doctors in veterans' hospitals in New South Wales would, if it were transposed to the Australian Capital Territory, cost exactly $6.9m-the precise amount that has been rejected out of hand by the Government, which appears to be set on continuing the medical problems, the lack of medical services, the medical dispute generally, in the Australian Capital Territory. I do not know what its motives are. I do not know whether the Minister simply likes to maintain a situation in which he can get up in this place daily and bang his gums about greedy doctors. If it is not good enough that such an offer should have been made to doctors outside the Australian Capital Territory-an offer equivalent to that which the local doctors are seeking-why does not the Minister for Finance criticise the Department of Veterans' Affairs for having made such an offer? Obviously the double standards of the Government in this area need exposure. I believe that there is no will on the part of this Government to do something positive and sensible to resolve the Australian Capital Territory doctors' dispute. Of course, other matters are involved. It is not simply a question of the level of fee or whether it should be a fee-for-service contract or a sessional payment. I must say that doctors to whom I have spoken in New South Wales say that the way in which the sessional payment is working under the Macken decision is wasteful; that they are being paid for spending a lot of their time waiting in public hospitals for patients to turn up. Sometimes more than half of their time is spent simply waiting, whereas under a fee-for-service basis they would be paid only when they were actually doing the job. Also there is a strong view among many medical practitioners that if they are paid on a sessional basis they become, in fact, employees for that period; they are not maintaining their independence. If they are paid on a fee-for-service basis they are paid for the work that they do. One can understand a preference for that approach to be adopted. But these are peripheral issues. The central issue is how much it would cost the Government. The Government's double standards and reluctance to do something positive and fair to resolve the dispute are such that it stands condemned. Certainly the empty rhetoric of the Minister in the matter is self-evident nonsense. A couple of other matters need to be raised on this score. I will deal with only one of them. I have before me a letter from Mr Bissett, the General Manager of the Australian Capital Territory Health Authority, in which the following statement is made concerning the suggestion that doctors now have less opportunity to deal with private patients: While there is some truth in this assertion, it must be acknowledged that the Authority and the Government have recognised this problem and have responded positively to the profession's demands for more private hospital beds in the ACT. With a threefold increase in private beds over the next few years and a prevailing private health insurance level close to fifty per cent within the Canberra population, there is no doubt that across the total ACT hospital system, something near to the previous private/public balance will quickly be achieved. I do hope that that does not suggest that more resources are to be allocated in the Australian Capital Territory in order to create more hospital beds. The reality is that already 34 per cent of the hospital beds in the Australian Capital Territory are not staffed. They have been put into mothballs. The annual report shows that of 1,445 beds in Canberra public hospitals only 953 are staffed. The Health Authority may simply be saying that some of the beds in public hospitals will be used in private wards and so on. One would hope that that would be the way it would be going rather than inserting additional beds in an area that is already massively over-serviced. I will simply leave the matter there at the moment and call on the Government, instead of generating hostility as in the past, to do something positive to resolve the doctors' dispute in the Australian Capital Territory. At the moment there is a crazy situation in which residents are sent by the Health Authority to Sydney if they need a particular form of treatment and while there they are being treated by doctors who are being paid under the Macken proposals-which, of course, the Government is not prepared to offer doctors in the Territory itself. The same goes for veterans who may be sent to Concord. They will be treated by doctors who will receive the very reward that this Government denies their colleagues in the Australian Capital Territory. As I said earlier, I am not arguing the case for the doctors' initial claim. I am not arguing anyone's case. All I am wondering is why this Government should adopt such double standards in this matter; why it does not genuinely seek to resolve a dispute which has been of such major inconvenience to the people of the Territory. Sitting suspended from 1.25 to 2 p.m. Senator CHANEY —My question is to Senator Button in his capacities as Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. It concerns the industrial blackmail being engaged in by the Minister's Victorian Senate ticket colleague, Mr John Halfpenny, in his capacity as Victorian Secretary of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union. Is it a fact that metal trades employers are at present negotiating second tier wage rises in accordance with the national wage case and subsequent directions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission? Is it also a fact that Mr Halfpenny's demand for metal trades employers to agree to a 4 per cent second tier pay rise by today or face strike action was rejected by 25,000 to 1,000 at meetings held around Australia? Is it also a fact that Mr Halfpenny and his supporters were able to carry several area meetings in Victoria and that as a result strikes or bans will be either in effect or threatened after today at 30 companies in that State? Is one of those companies the vehicle parts supplier ANI? If the present strike continues, Ford and Chrysler will run out of parts by the middle of next week, and Nissan by 8 June. Will the Minister join me in condemning Mr Halfpenny's guerrilla warfare tactics which have been rejected by the vast majority of metal trades unionists? I further ask him: What advice does he have to offer the 30 companies that are the subject of this guerrilla action by his colleagues? Senator BUTTON —It is true that under the second tier wage negotiations there has been a different approach to the negotiations in various States. The approach in Victoria, as I understand it, has been singularly different. I have had the opportunity of discussing these matters with some metal trades employers. I must say that I do not accede to the statements which Senator Chaney has made in his question which purport to be facts. I am not saying that they are not substantially correct; I am just saying that, from what I have heard, a slightly different set of facts is available. Senator Chaney —In what sense? I am puzzled. Senator BUTTON —Senator Chaney referred to 30 companies; I have heard of a different number of companies. He referred to a number of meetings; I have heard different versions of those meetings-things of that kind. In saying that I differ on those matters on the basis of the information available to me, I am not saying that there is no substantial point in the question which Senator Chaney asked. Probably the most helpful thing I could do in the current circumstances is draw Senator Chaney's question and my response to the attention of the metal trades unions, and I will do that. Senator CHANEY —Mr President, I have a supplementary question. I ask the Minister to clarify whether he is suggesting that the facts I have put forward in my question are in any fundamental way incorrect. If so, I would like him to draw attention to that. The fundamental facts are that around Australia a great majority of metal workers rejected the call for strike action and Mr Halfpenny is now carrying out action against 30 or so companies-it seems to me that the precise number is fairly immaterial to the import of the question-and strikes or bans will be in effect or threatened after today. There is in fact a national approach to this matter under the supervision of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and Mr Halfpenny is clearly acting contrary to both the union at a national level and the dictates of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. There is a very significant impact upon manufacturers pending because of Mr Halfpenny's action. I ask the Minister: Will he condemn that action by Mr Halfpenny which is clearly destructive of the policies which the Minister has supported as a member of this Government, both as a Minister for industry and as someone who has promoted an approach to national wage fixation before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission? Senator BUTTON —I condemn any industrial actions which are inconsistent with the policies of national union organisations and I condemn any industrial action which is detrimental to the welfare of industry. The point which was in dispute in my earlier answer to Senator Chaney is simply whether the facts which he alleged are correct in every respect. I say quite frankly that I do not know the answer to that. For example, in his supplementary question he suggested to me that the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission had already given some directions in this matter. That is not my understanding. I will check that out but I understood that as late as yesterday this matter was still before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. I will check that out for Senator Chaney and try to provide a more detailed answer. Senator Jones having addressed a question to the Minister representing the Treasurer- Senator Chaney-Mr President, I rise with several points of order on that question. The first point of order relates to the final part of the question, which clearly calls for an expression of opinion from the Minister, which is in breach of the Standing Orders. Over the last few months the Government has been asked a series of questions in this place about leaked documents which have been put forward as the policy of the Opposition. This Government is not prepared to answer questions about what is going to be in its Budget. It is not prepared to answer all sorts of questions. To allow it to engage in broad discussions on hypothetical matters is quite clearly beyond the Standing Orders. Senator Jones-Come on, what is the point of order? Senator Chaney-Mr President, I direct your attention to standing order 99-if the honour- able senator has a problem about it. It reads: Questions shall not ask- (a) for an expression of opinion; In any event, this is a hypothetical question and clearly, in a Senate where debate on major matters brought forward by this Government has been restricted by guillotine, it is inappropriate to allow the Government to abuse the rights of this Senate and to engage in debate on hypothetical policy questions in the way in which the question invites the Minister to do. Senator Lewis-Mr President, on the point of order: I also draw your attention to the part of standing order 99 which says that questions shall not contain hypothetical matter. I put it to you that this is a hypothetical matter. It involves a publication in a newspaper. There is nothing to say that it is the policy of the Liberal Party or will be at the next election. To allow Senator Walsh to get up and start raving on about this I think would be an abuse of Question Time and I suggest, Mr President, that you ought to rule the question out of order. Senator Jones-On the point of order, Mr President: The matter I referred to was reported in the Melbourne Herald on 26 May. It is not a hypothetical matter. It was reported and I asked the Minister questions in relation to that report. The PRESIDENT —I rule in favour of Senator Chaney's point of order. A number of questions were asked and most of them were out of order. I suggest that the question could be rephrased in a way which would allow the Minister to answer parts of it, and I would be prepared to give the call to Senator Jones later in Question Time. I call Senator Robertson. Senator ROBERTSON —My question is directed to the Minister representing-- Senator Chaney —On a point of order, Mr President: I think the normal practice that has been followed in this place when a question is ruled out of order is to regard it as a question which has been asked and to give the call to the other side. The PRESIDENT —I have never been in such a situation before. I called Senator Robertson, and I call him again. Senator ROBERTSON —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Press releases issued by members of the Opposition since the May statement was made claim that there is some threat to the success of the Government's fiscal policy. Is there any substance to these claims? Senator WALSH —There is a threat to the Government's fiscal policies-I doubt whether it should be taken all that seriously-and it comes, of course, from the Liberal Party and the National Party. Both of those decrepit, creaking political organisations put out specific criticisms of measures contained in the May economic statement and said that the measures should be turned around. The Liberal Party said that $750m worth of the savings should be turned around, cancelled or reversed and the National Party-rather surprisingly, because the National Party can usually beat the Liberals very easily in this sort of contest-said that only $577m should be turned around. When it comes to the aggregate credibility gap, that is, the prospective deficit of either of these outfits, these squabbling aggregations of homeless politicians, the National Party would beat the Liberals very easily. The National Party has a $21 billion credibility gap, that is, a prospective Budget deficit of that amount if all of its proposals were implemented, while the Liberal Party has a $16 billion credibility gap. I will give some of the details of the specific measures that various people in the Liberal Party have said should be implemented. Mr Howard said that the Opposition was concerned about the cut in defence spending. His shadow Defence Minister, Mr White-I seem to have heard that name before; I think he was once a member of the Queensland Parliament-put out a Press release suggesting that instead of cutting defence expenditure we should increase it. Senator MacGibbon —That's right. Senator WALSH —Who said: `That's right'? Senator MacGibbon —I said that. Senator WALSH —Senator MacGibbon also believes that defence spending should be increased, so that adds a bit more to the $16 billion credibility gap that the Liberal Party already has. The Leader of the Opposition said that the family allowance was not a welfare payment and therefore it should not be means tested. That would cost $71m. Holding defence spending at the same level would cost $350m; obviously increasing it, as Senator MacGibbon wants to do, would cost more. Senator Michael Baume said that the changes to hospital charging arrangements were discriminatory and unfair. Abolishing these changes would add $80m to the deficit. Senator Baume is in favour of the Australian Capital Territory doctors union's attempt to grab a 69 per cent pay increase in one hit. It is running an industrial campaign based on work bans to grab a 69 per cent pay increase which translates into a $350 a week wage rise for a part time job, a job in which doctors spend about one-quarter of their time. Let it be put on the record that Senator Baume, the shadow spokesman for health, supports the Australian Capital Territory doctors union's pay grab for a 69 per cent increase, or $350 a week for a part time job, which it is pursuing by undertaking industrial action based on work bans. Let that point be put on the record. Mr John Moore, the shadow spokesman for transport, said that the road funding arrangements should be reversed, which would cost $180m, and Mr Peter Shack said the same thing about education. That would cost nearly $44m. As I said earlier the National Party, surprisingly, is more modest than the Liberal Party. Mr Charles Blunt said that there should not be an assets test on unemployment benefit recipients, and that would cost only $12 1/2m. Mr Lloyd, the transport spokesman for the National Party, had the same attitude to road funding as Mr Moore and that policy would cost $180m. The shadow Minister for Communications-- Senator Button —Keep going, Senator. I have never heard of half these people. Senator WALSH —I have not heard of this one either. The shadow Communications Minister for the National Party-someone called John Sharp-said that we should reintroduce sales exemption for a few Commonwealth commercial authorities and also Customs duty exemptions. Those measures would cost $310m and $75m respectively. The response to the May statement shows that each fragment of the Opposition, whether it is split into two, three or even four fragments as the Prime Minister suggested it was the other day, is as irresponsible as any of the other fragments and as irresponsible fiscally as the Opposition ever was. Senator LEWIS —Is the Leader of the Government in the Senate aware of the decision of Mr Justice Beach in the Supreme Court of Victoria to grant an interim injunction against the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union to prevent it attempting to persuade workers to strike at the Don Smallgoods Co. Pty Ltd factory at Altona? Is he further aware that the judge heard testimony from the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, in which the union's secretary said: You get nothing out of these bastards unless you belt them. Does the Minister accept the view put to the court by counsel for Don Smallgoods that this was a case in which the Arbitration Commission had been unable to protect the company's right of freedom of contract and it had been forced to turn to the Supreme Court? Why does the Government refuse to guarantee the deletion of clauses from its industrial relations legislation which would have the effect of cutting off direct employer access to the normal courts of this land? Senator BUTTON —I am not aware of the decision of Mr Justice Beach to grant an interim injunction so I am unable to comment on the details to which Senator Lewis referred in his question. I am attracted by the comment of the union secretary-but not in relation to industrial disputes-namely, that `you get nothing out of these bastards unless you belt them'. It is a view I have always taken of the Opposition in this place and I propose to do just that in the next few weeks. The point of the honourable senator's question-if it had a point, apart from Senator Lewis's wish to make a speech-relates to what he chose to describe as the deletion of clauses which would give employers direct access to remedies under the trade practices legislation, for example, or perhaps in the common law jurisdiction. The industrial legislation which was introduced in the House of Representatives last week and which has been adjourned for further consultation with employer organisations and unions, did not contain clauses which took away the capacity for access to those provisions. All it did was to provide that a conciliation process, in effect, should take place before access to those provisions was available. Senator ELSTOB —Can the Minister representing the Attorney-General offer an estimate of the extent of computer crime in Australia? Is the Minister concerned that the legal system has not kept abreast of the information revolution and that the costs of the crime are passed by business on to the consumer? Will the Minister outline the problems associated with legislation dealing with computer crime, and indicate what steps the Government intends to take to help combat it? Senator GARETH EVANS —The Attorney-General advised me that it is not possible to offer an estimate of the extent of computer crime because it is not possible to quantify the extent of unreported and undetected computer fraud. As computers are just the tools for committing offences it is not possible to say what proportion of all reported fraud offences, for example, which we do know about are committed by the use of computers. What is known is that the use of computers to commit criminal offences-so-called computer-related crime-is a big problem in the United States. There is no reason why it should be thought of as any less of a problem here in Australia. In answer to the second part of the question, the Government is concerned to ensure that the legal system, in particular the criminal justice system, is capable of dealing with problems associated with the application of new technology. The Government is concerned that computer-related crime, like other white collar crimes, imposes economic costs, not only on businesses and ultimately their customers, but also on governments, which results in additional burdens for taxpayers and, ultimately, the whole community. As to the last part of the question, the problems associated with legislation dealing with computer crime are being examined in the context of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. At the March meeting of Ministers it was decided that each jurisdiction should examine its own criminal laws to ensure that they are adequate to cover the range of criminal conduct involving computers. The complex areas of unauthorised access and unauthorised use of computers continue to be the subject of discussion among Ministers. The Government is examining both Commonwealth and Australian Capital Territory criminal laws to ensure that they are adequate. We will take appropriate action where there is manifest deficiency. In this context it should be particularly mentioned, for example, that section 115 of the Crimes Act 1900 of New South Wales as it applies in the Australian Capital Territory creates the offence of dishonest use of computers which has a maximum penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment. No other jurisdiction in Australia has the provision of a similar offence. Senator HAINES —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs aware that the United States-Australian joint facility at Nurrungar in South Australia has played and could continue to play a role in the development of the strategic missile defence system, or star wars program, through the provision of information on Soviet missile and satellite launches, thereby making it a potential target? In case the Minister is not, I draw his attention to a defensive technologies study conducted in response to President Reagan's national security study directive. This study concluded in late 1983 that data such as I mentioned earlier provide high confidence that a space-based infra-red censor system can be developed to provide the sensitivity, clutter rejection, resolution and booster projectory accuracy to support boost-phase intercept requirements. Given that the Government has stated repeatedly that no joint facility in Australia participates in the star wars program, will the Government now insist that no further information relevant to that program be provided through Nurrungar? Senator GARETH EVANS —As has been made clear to the Parliament on a number of occasions, the Government does not endorse the strategic defence initiative program and believes that verifiable arms control agreements offer the best prospect of preventing war and ensuring international stability. The US Government is well aware of the Australian Government's position and has assured the Australian Government that none of the joint facilities is involved in the SDI program and that there is no contemplation that any of the joint facilities would be required for any system of SDI defence that might be developed. The Australian Government is confident that these assurances are valid and are being met. Certainly, nothing in anything quoted today by Senator Haines constitutes evidence to the contrary. As has also been made clear to the Parliament nor does Australia participate in research funded under the SDI program. Senator BOLKUS —I refer the Minister for Finance to a letter in Monday's Australian Financial Review from the Executive Director of the National Farmers Federation, Mr Andrew Robb, replying to the Minister's assessment of the Federation's pre-May statement expenditure proposals. In view of this response can the Minister undertake to investigate both the Federation's criticisms and the consumer price index effects of its proposals and give an answer to the Senate? Senator WALSH —I have done that; I will be sending letters in reply to the National Farmers Federation. What I had done previously was point out that the brilliant strategy devised by the right wing ideologues of the NFF to get interest rates and inflation down would have added 4 per cent to the consumer price index in the short term and, according to NFF logic therefore, 4 per cent to interest rates. My figures were challenged by the NFF Executive Director in the letter to which Senator Bolkus referred. The NFF claim that inflation would fall by 5.7 per cent if excise on refined petroleum product was removed is quite false. The weighting under the CPI of automotive fuel, heating oil and kerosene-that is, products bought by the household sector-is just under 4.9 per cent of the CPI total regimen. If the excise were removed, the prices of those commodities would fall by a little over one-third and the CPI first round effect would fall by just under 2 per cent, not the 5.7 per cent which the National Farmers Federation was suggesting. Because petroleum products are also an intermediate good over time there would be some further downward effect on the CPI, possibly by as much as the original first round effect. So over time the CPI could fall by as much as 4 per cent. The rest of the National Farmers Federation figure was based on assumed cuts in government spending and the assumed CPI effects of that-in other words, on blue sky stuff which is unquantifiable. On the debit side of the NFF proposition, neither the National Farmers Federation nor the national priorities project paper from which the NFF appears to have taken its ideas is sufficiently specific to give a precise costing but it appears that its proposal is to save $5.8 billion on government outlays, that is State and Federal, by removing the provision for free treatment in public hospitals for public patients and removing medical and pharmaceutical benefits. If that were done and if people took out private insurance to cover their increased health liability, the CPI would increase by 6.7 per cent. The rule of thumb for that transfer of public expenditure to private health insurance expenditure is to add about 0.115 per cent to the CPI for every hundred million dollars so transferred. So, the NFF should be far from complaining about my 4 per cent estimate of the increase in the consumer price index if the NFF brilliant strategy were followed because that figure was very generous to the NFF. One could argue that the immediate increase in the CPI would be of the order of 5 per cent not 4 per cent. Mr Robb also claimed that the NFF proposals in total were based on the Monash University's national priorities project analysis which he described as a highly professional analysis. In a number of ways the national priorities project so-called analysis falls well short of being highly professional but I do not intend to go into that, particularly at this time. I just say that the NFF did not draw from the national priorities project its suggestion that $577m could be saved from funding the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Special Broadcasting Service. That is about $100m more than is actually spent. The National Farmers Federation suggested that we could save $100m more on the ABC than we actually spend on it. That did not come from the Monash University paper; that piece of amateurish misrepresentation was all the work of the National Farmers Federation. Senator SHEIL —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport and Minister for Aviation. Is it a fact that the Government is attempting to shelve the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure regarding Mr Dick Smith's allegations concerning the Darling Harbour helipad fiasco? Can the Minister report any action taken by the Department of Aviation to reform those practices condemned in the report? Why will the Minister not heed the call by the aviation industry for an independent review into both the industry and the Department of Aviation, or has the Minister been Sir Humphrey Appleby? Senator GIETZELT —In response to Senator Sheil's interesting question, the only information that I have is that the Government has the review under consideration. Of course, it has called for public comment in respect of the May report. It has been giving consideration both to the comments and to the report. It is concerned about the future of our aviation industry. In due course, the Government will make recommendations and decisions arising out of that review. Senator WEST —My question, which is directed to the Special Minister of State, relates to the election timetable. What is the last date for enrolment for eligible voters? Who is eligible to enrol and who is eligible to vote? Senator TATE —I do have some information that might be of interest not only to honourable senators but also to members of the general public. The election timetable is as follows: If the dissolution of the Parliament goes ahead on 5 June, as has been agreed to by the Governor-General on the advice of the Prime Minister, and the writs are issued on 5 June, the close of rolls will occur on Friday, 12 June at 6 p.m., and I emphasise that particular time for the purpose of the latter part of my answer. The close of nominations will be on 18 June and, as we know, the election date is set for Saturday, 11 July. The return of the writs is set for 3 September and section 5 of the Constitution requires that the Parliament meet within 30 days of the return of the writs, so that would be some time up to 2 October this year. The last date, therefore, for the enrolment of an eligible voter is Friday, 12 June at 6 p.m. Every person who is entitled to be enrolled as an elector is obliged by law to apply for enrolment and that includes anyone who is 18 years of age or more, is an Australian citizen or a British subject who was on the electoral roll on 25 January 1984, and has lived in one subdivision for one month. In addition, those who are aged 17 at present may enrol to vote but, of course, they are not entitled to vote until they turn 18. But should such persons turn 18 after the close of rolls on 12 June, but before the election day on 11 July, they will be able to vote. So 17-year-olds who have their eighteenth birthday falling within that one month period between 12 June and 11 July should get on the electoral roll now and they will be able to cast a vote in this most important election. I do not intend to be partisan at all but I want to say that I think most honourable senators will agree that it is very important that young Australians get on the electoral roll and cast a vote in an election which will be very important for the shape of Australian society, for their futures and, of course, for the shape of Australian society into the next millennium. I certainly encourage them to do so. I cannot understand honourable senators on the other side of the chamber wanting to interject. I would have thought that we would all have an interest in this matter, particularly when we contrast it with what has happened, for example, in Fiji. All Australians who are eligible to vote should participate in a democratic electoral process. Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE —Does the Leader of the Government in the Senate recall, in answer to a question asked by Senator Messner two weeks ago, describing as quite encouraging the real terms increase in manufacturing investment recorded in the December quarter of last year? Is the Minister aware that yesterday's Bureau of Statistics survey of private capital expenditure shows a real terms fall of 8 per cent in total private capital expenditure during the March quarter of this year? Is he further aware that the biggest component of that overall decline was a drop of 13 per cent in investment in new equipment and that the Bureau's survey of expectations shows an expected decline of 7 per cent in manufacturing investment in 1987-88? Does the Minister agree that these figures expose the dubious nature of the Treasurer's mini-Budget optimism on investment and help to explain why the Government is rushing to an election before the bleak economic realities become even more apparent? Senator BUTTON —First of all, I do not agree with Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle's wishful conclusions from the material contained in the body of her question. I certainly recall saying to Senator Messner or, perhaps, Senator Chaney a week or two ago-whoever it was scurried off to see whether the figures were correct-that there had been a real increase in manufacturing investment in the December quarter of 32 per cent. Senator Short —That is not right. Senator BUTTON —I am sorry; Senator Chaney's question related to manufacturing exports. Senator Messner's question related to investment. I have not examined fully the national accounts figures published yesterday but, as I understand it, business investment increased at an annual rate of 12.3 per cent in the six months to March and that figure is revealed in the national accounts figures. I am advised that the Australian Statistician published investment figures showing a decline in the March figure but those figures also confirm that the overall figures are on track with the Budget forecast for investment in 1986-87 which, as Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle will recall, were not optimistic figures in respect of investment as revealed in the Budget. It is the Government's view that these statistics have been overtaken, to some extent, by policy developments in May and that they show a welcome increase in investment intentions for 1987-88 over previous figures. Senator Short —That is not right. Senator BUTTON —It all depends on which mirror you look in. I am giving the answer from mine. Senator Short —You are looking in the wrong mirror. The intentions are for a decline next year, not an increase. Senator BUTTON —There are all sorts of surveys of investment intentions-- Senator Short —Get the figures right. Senator BUTTON —Who are you to interject and say: `Get the figures right?' The first time you asked a question as shadow Minister for Finance you made about a $60m mistake. You would be a good person-- Senator Chaney —You don't even know what is happening in the metal industry and you are supposed to be the Minister. Senator BUTTON —I am not supposed to be the Minister for the metals industry. The honourable senator should get his facts right too. The fact that the Opposition is confused does not surprise me in the least. Only last night the Opposition's national President did not know who the Opposition leader would be at the next election which is only seven weeks away. That is all confirmed by what Opposition senators are saying here. Let me answer Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle's question because she sought to draw certain conclusions from it. Let me just remind her of what was said today in New York about the economic performance of the Government following the May statement. Senator Messner —They are asking you about that statement. Senator BUTTON —The honourable senator should listen. This question was asked of the New York stock market: `What does the market feel about who wins an election?' The answer was: `I think they would very much like to see the current Administration in office for a long time'. Later on it was asked: `What are we likely to see happen to the Australian dollar if there is a change of government?' The answer was: `I would have to say that it would probably be a disaster and I would think you would see a big sell-off of the Australian dollar'. The fact of the matter is that, even as far away as New York, people know the quality of the Opposition in this Senate. Opposition senators interjecting- The PRESIDENT —Order! There are far too many interjections. Senator BUTTON —Mr President, this Question Time is being broadcast and I can hardly be heard answering a question because of the noise from the other side of the chamber. That noise confirms one thing which every Australian knows-that the Opposition in this place is a rabble. That is what all the noise is about. Senator MAGUIRE —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. The Minister will be aware of Opposition statements that the 11 July election will be fought on taxation and other issues. Is the Minister also aware of support from major superannuation funds for the present tax regime on lump sum superannuation payments which, I should say, was introduced by the present Government? I ask the Minister: How much revenue is collected by means of that tax on lump sum superannuation payments? What is the policy basis of the support of the superannuation funds themselves for the tax as it exists at present? Senator WALSH —I am aware of support from a major-in fact, I think the major- superannuation fund in Australia for the lump sum superannuation tax. It was reported in the Adelaide Advertiser of last Saturday, under the heading `AMP slams abolition of lump sum super tax', in these terms: Abolition of the tax on lump sum superannuation would not make sense, a spokesman for Australia's largest investor, the AMP Society, said yesterday. The spokesman in question was a Mr Graham Lewis, the national superannuation manager of the Australian Mutual Provident Society. He said that the society was not prepared to buy the Liberal Party's policy of abolishing the tax unless the Party revealed what taxes would replace it. Mr Lewis is then quoted directly as saying: The Opposition haven't enunciated a position yet except that they will abolish the capital gains tax, the fringe benefits tax and the lump sum tax. Mr Lewis said that he expected, and did not oppose, increasing taxation of superannuation through the raising of the age at which retirees became eligible for concessional tax treatment. Perhaps this next passage is the most important of all. The report continued: Superannuation recipients should not be able to `live it up for 10 years and go on the pension', and such `rorts' would not survive in the current budgetary climate or in the long term. The report went on to say: He broadly defended the current system, saying it covered about 40 p.c. of the workforce and contained measures which encouraged people to preserve their superannuation rather than spend it. The tax on lump sums was one such measure, and others should be introduced. I have not read all the report, but I think I have read enough to make it very clear that the manager of, I think, Australia's largest superannuation fund, the AMP, has explicitly endorsed, for all sorts of good reasons, the Government's policy of levying a tax on lump sum superannuation payments. The revenue from the tax in this financial year is expected to be around $85m, and that figure is expected to grow by about $30m each year for as long as 20 or 25 years. If the lump sum tax were to be abolished, however, the loss to revenue would certainly be very much greater than the present $85m gain. It would be greater for this reason: If any government were silly enough to abolish the lump sum superannuation tax, the green light would have been given to employers to save themselves money by making payments into what would really be phoney superannuation funds, which payments their employees could then draw out at three- or five-year intervals tax free. In other words, what would be called superannuation would in fact be deferred wages paid free of tax. If ever any government were silly enough to abolish the lump sum tax, that is precisely what would happen, and it would happen very rapidly. Fortunately, however, there is negligible prospect of such a government being elected. Senator KILGARIFF —I direct my question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Is it a fact that today's Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that new car sales during April were 33 per cent lower than they were in the same month last year, the worst result for that month in 20 years? Does the Minister maintain his view that the main reason for this disastrous slump in car sales is that the price of cars is too high? Is he aware that, since the start of his car plan, the price of a Laser has gone up by 53 per cent, a Commodore by 42 per cent and a Falcon by 33 per cent? Why has the Hawke Government pursued economic policies which have depressed living standards by pricing cars out of the reach of many Australian families, a development which in turn threatens the very future of vehicle manufacturing in this country? Senator BUTTON —I will answer this question slowly, if I may. Shortly after we came into government we made a decision that this society was very uncompetitive in international terms. Accordingly, we deregulated the financial sector and we floated the Australian dollar. The result of floating the Australian dollar-- Senator Chaney —You overspent, overtaxed and had a silly wage policy. Senator BUTTON —I understand that Senator Chaney has been languishing for many years without the opportunity to answer a question at Question Time, and he will have a great number of more such years ahead of him. That is no reason for interjecting and trying to answer when I am answering. The very floating of the Australian dollar drew attention to the lack of competitiveness, and the fall of the dollar has demonstrated that very much. Senator Chaney —The dollar didn't shift for 13 months. Tell the truth. Senator BUTTON —Just a minute. The dollar certainly did not shift when Senator Chaney was in government because, on the admission of his then Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, the former Government kept the dollar artificially high in order to keep down inflation. That is the admission of the honourable senator's then Prime Minister. That is what he said about what honourable senators opposite did in government. That did immense damage to Australian industry. Senator Short can nod his head. Noddy's head will fall off in a minute if he nods it too hard. The fact of the matter is that that is what the former Prime Minister said and did. To return to Senator Kilgariff's question, a number of consequences flowed from the devaluation of the dollar. Import prices went up; Australian industry was placed in a much more competitive position in terms of exports; the prices of cars went up, particularly imported cars, for the very reason of the change in the exchange rate. The price of imported components in locally manufactured cars went up. The rate of inflation, to which the honourable senator sometimes refers, has never been as high under this Government as it was at the time we came to office as a result of the efforts of the Government of honourable senators opposite. It has never been as high. If we compare government with government, inflation has never been as high under this Government as it was under the Fraser Government. Senator Michael Baume —You are deliberately misleading. It has never been worse relative to the rest of the world. Senator BUTTON —Senator Michael Baume says I have been deliberately misleading. There is nothing misleading about that fact. I know Senator Baume was an adviser to the Government of the time. He probably gave it the sort of advice that he is trying to give me now-useless advice. The fact of the matter is that inflation under this Government has never been as high, in spite of a massive devaluation of the Australian dollar, as it was in the period of the Fraser Government. To return to Senator Kilgariff's specific question on the matter of motor cars, I was asked whether I maintain the view which I put earlier. I maintain the view that the car market has been suppressed in Australia because of two factors: One is increased-- Senator Chaney —Button and Keating. Senator BUTTON —Mr President, I object to being described as a factor. I maintain the view that the car market in Australia has been depressed for two fundamental reasons. The first reason is the increase in prices consequent upon the devaluation of the dollar, and the second is the success of Government wages polices which have restrained incomes, again in a manner which was never understood by the Fraser Government and never implemented by the Fraser Government. Those two factors produce this result, I confess: That people tend to put off buying motor cars for that reason. That is undoubtedly so. The honourable senator then went on to refer to the very difficult situation of the Australian motor vehicle manufacturing industry. I am extremely optimistic and confident about the future of the Australian motor vehicle manufacturing industry. That industry has had enormous levels of investment; productivity is improving immensely; the companies are all very busy at present. The export performance of that industry has improved enormously under this Government, both from the component sector and the vehicle manufacturing sector. If Senator Kilgariff wants any evidence of that, he should not hold his breath for more than a few days. Next year this country will be exporting $300m worth of motor vehicles, something that has not happened since the late 1960s. So, in terms of the point of Senator Kilgariff's question, yes, I concede that the local vehicle market is depressed. I maintain the same reasons for that having happened as I have given earlier in the Senate, and the conclusion that Senator Kilgariff draws from that fact is entirely erroneous; it is wrong. Senator JONES —My question is-again-directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Has the attention of the Minister been drawn to alleged reports on the taxation policy of the Federal Liberal Party as reported in the Melbourne Herald of 26 May? Does the Government intend to adopt any of the policies as proposed and, if not, why not? Senator WALSH —I have seen that report in the Melbourne Herald, which purported to report on the Liberal Party's taxation policy. I understand from some comments that Senator Messner made before the suspension of the sitting for lunch that, in fact, the policy set out in that report is not the taxation policy of the Liberal Party. He is not saying anything now, but I certainly understood him to say before the suspension of the sitting that what was reported in the Herald is not the taxation policy of the Liberal Party-the reason for that being, I presume, that the Liberal Party does not have a taxation policy. It is trying to cut and paste one within the next couple of weeks but at this stage evidently it does not have a tax policy at all. If the Liberal Party ever does get around to producing a tax policy, I certainly hope it does not produce a tax policy like the one that was outlined in the Herald last Monday. I say that for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that, on the admission of those who prepared that document, it would cost $5.7 billion in revenue. In addition to that, it would cost about another $1 billion to increase family allowances in the way proposed. That would be on the outlay side of the Budget. So, in total, there would be an increase in the Budget deficit of nearly $7 billion if such a policy were introduced, on top, of course, of all the other commitments the Liberal Party has given that would add to the deficit. In the absence of specific spending cut proposals, to offset that loss of revenue and increased expenditure would require the introduction of a broad-based consumption tax, which would need to raise net revenue of around $8 billion after removing wholesale sales tax and compensating pensioners. That would require a 12 per cent across-the-board consumption tax, which, of course, would have a huge impact on the consumer price index, an impact of the order of 6 per cent. Senator Messner —Isn't that what Keating proposed? Senator WALSH —Yes, and one of the reasons why the Government did not proceed with that proposal was the very point that I have just made. Senator Chaney —I raise a point of order, Mr President. The question was very cleverly reworked to bring it within the Standing Orders, and therefore I did not object, but the Minister is now clearly debating the question and he is now dealing with the Labor Party tax policy, which was rejected just after the tax summit-I think in a hotel room just over the lake here-by Mr Hawke, who sat down with the Australian Council of Trade Unions and did not bother to tell his Treasurer or anybody else. My point of order, Mr President, is that the Minister is debating the question. He is dealing with hypothetical matter and I think you ought to draw him to a conclusion and sit him down. The PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order. The Minister is answering within the area of his responsibility. I would suggest, however, that not a lot of questions have been answered today and we should consider that aspect. Senator WALSH —Yes, I shall, Mr President. I shall conclude shortly, but I think I am entitled to respond to an interjection from Senator Messner. One of the reasons why the Government did not proceed with the broad-based consumption tax is that it would have boosted the consumer price index by 6 1/2 per cent, and no country in the world has ever had a one-off increase in the price level of that magnitude. Some very substantial macroeconomic dangers would have been incurred in any sort of policy that had that effect. Last but not least, the reason why the Government would not adopt a tax policy of the type set out in the Melbourne Herald is the simple fact that almost all ordinary Australians would be worse off under such a policy. The effect of the policy, if the revenue lost were to be recovered by way of a consumption tax, would be massively to redistribute the taxation burden away from people on higher incomes towards people on lower incomes. I shall give just a couple of examples. A two-earner family with two children and an income of $30,000 would lose, net, some $23.50 a week. If the same family had a total income of $45,000, it would lose $19.50 a week. But if the income were $100,000 a year, it would be the winner by a net $68 a week. That demonstrates, of course, that the family on a $100,000 income would be a very significant winner under the sort of tax policy that was reported in the Herald, but if that family were on $45,000 or $30,000 dual income-and a lot of households have dual incomes of that size-it would be a substantial loser. If the other proposed revenue losses were incurred-through abolishing the fringe benefits tax and so on-the losses to those sorts of families would be greater again. Senator BOSWELL —My question is addressed to the Minister for Finance. Is the Minister aware of a recent study commissioned by the Government supported Business Council of Australia that confirms that Queensland has the lowest level of State taxes in the country-16 per cent below average; that Queensland has consistently spent less than other States in the past 25 years-15 per cent below average; and that, in all, the study concludes that Queensland stands out as the low spending State? Will the Minister agree with the Business Council of Australia's warm praise for Queensland's long and excellent record of responsibility and apologise to the Senate and the people of Queensland for his unjustified smear campaign on the excellent management of Queensland's finances, which has resulted in the fortunate inhabitants of that State enjoying the lowest level of State charges in the country? Senator WALSH —My hearing is imperfect, but I am sure Senator Boswell referred to the `Government supported Business Council of Australia'. I am baffled by the comment, because if the Government pays any subsidies to the Council I am not aware of it. They must be sneaking through the Budget in a way I have not noticed. I am pretty confident that the Government does not pay any subsidies to the Business Council of Australia. Senator Button —He meant the Business Council supported the Government. Senator WALSH —I was about to say that. The Business Council-a seminar dinner of which I addressed last night, incidentally-both publicly and via a number of individual members, has supported the bulk of this Government's economic policies because it knows it is a better economic policy than any government in Australia has followed since 1950. That is well appreciated. While I am aware of that, I am not aware of any Business Council analysis of taxation levels in Queensland but I am willing to take Senator Boswell's word for it that such an analysis was done. Senator Reynolds —I wouldn't. Senator WALSH —Some people may suggest that I am over-generous in taking Senator Boswell's word, but I am a generous and trusting sort of a chap by nature so I shall do that. I am, however, aware of studies done by the Utah Development Company two or three years ago which calculated that the Queensland Government was levying a hidden tax of $360m a year by overcharging for rail freights on coal and other minerals. Senator Button —Mount Isa Mines, too. Senator WALSH —It came to a similar conclusion. In any other State that sort of revenue would be levied by overt taxes. In Queensland it is levied by a covert tax applied by overcharging mining companies on rail freights. Senator Michael Baume —Just like New South Wales. Senator WALSH —Look Steve, or Patrick, or whatever your name is, if that $360m calculated by Utah-and more recent estimates put the figure at higher than that-is added to the Queensland tax aggregate, which it ought to be, one finds that Queensland is the highest taxing State and not the lowest taxing State. Senator CROWLEY(South Australia) —I present the ninth report of 1987 of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills concerning the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill (No. 3) 1987, the Broadcasting (Ownership and Control) Bill 1987, the Nursing Homes and Hostels Legislation Amendment Bill 1987, the Sea Installations Bill 1987, the Sea Installations Levy Bill 1987, the Sea Installations (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 1987, the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. 1) 1987 and the Sugar Cane Levy Collection Bill 1987. I also lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 9, dated 27 May 1987. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate) —I table correspondence between the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) and His Excellency the Governor-General, dated 27 May 1987, relating to the dissolution of both Houses of Parliament on 5 June 1987 and the election scheduled for 11 July 1987. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —On behalf of the Joint Committee on the Australian Capital Territory, I present its report on metropolitan Canberra, together with the transcript of evidence and minutes of proceedings. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator REID —I seek leave to make a brief statement relating to the report. Leave granted. Senator REID —This is a comprehensive report of the metropolitan plan of Canberra, and I commend it to the Senate and hope that it will be read. There are a number of significant recommendations about the future development of Canberra, including a suggestion that the planning and development of Gungahlin should not go ahead according to the timetable that the National Capital Development Commission has previously had, and reasons are given for that. The Committee also recommends that the Department of Defence be relocated from the Belconnen area, Jerrabomberra and Harman Bonshaw, thus releasing valuable residential sites in the Territory. There are a number of other matters, but because we are being pressed for time today I will not deal with them in detail. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a statement dealing more fully with the recommendations. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- The Committee considers that the major issue underlying this inquiry is that of urban consolidation as opposed to continued expansion of the built-up area. The NCDC has ignored developments resulting from its own planning decisions which have made employment projections and self-containment objectives, as expressed in the metropolitan plan, misleading and inaccurate. In the preface to its report the Committee stresses the importance of developments which have occurred and the consequences of continued urban sprawl and its associated levels of high and increasing infrastructure servicing and social costs. The Committee, in its report, has suggested ways in which the NCDC and the Department of Territories can improve the present land administration system and, with the benefit of a more comprehensive database, achieve a metropolitan Canberra which can realise the benefits of increasing density in established areas. This will make full use of existing service capacity and also limit, for the time being, further peripheral expansion of the urban area, until this is considered appropriate. On the basis of available information, the Committee considers that the environmental and social costs of dispersed growth are greater than the costs associated with concentrated development. As a consequence, the Committee recommends that the development of Gungahlin not proceed according to the timetable previously proposed by the NCDC. The Committee, in its final recommendation, proposes that the NCDC and the Department of Territories implement an urban consolidation strategy with community consultation which seeks to increase residential density in existing suburbs and make detailed information publicly available regarding the costs and benefits of such a strategy. This strategy will only be successful if the Department of Territories, as the administering authority, and the NCDC work together to achieve the objectives set out in this report. It is expected that high levels of co-operation and improved communication will be achieved along with a better plan for Canberra's future development if recommendations in this report are carried out. The Committee also considers that a crucial step in overcoming the shortage of critical data on which to base informed planning decisions is the establishment of a land development account. This has been recommended in previous inquiries both by this Committee and other review bodies. It is encouraging that some progress has been made in this direction and the Committee recommends that such an accounting system be established as soon as practicable. This should also allow judgments to be made concerning the costs and benefits of urban consolidation as opposed to further peripheral expansion. The Committee further recognises that the NCDC's development process is hampered to some extent by a lack of commitment from government for longer term planning initiatives. At present while the Commission conducts assessments on the basis of 12-month and 3-year programs, the lack of certainty regarding continuing commitment to long term construction programs has implications for the private sector in terms of investment potential and maintenance of predictable levels of construction activity in the Australian Capital Territory. The Committee is of the view that a longer time frame for planning would, in the end, result in cost savings, and a more efficient allocation of resources and therefore recommends that the NCDC should be supported in its proposal for longer term planning and programming, particularly for major capital works. Where the Government has agreed to a particular planning initiative which requires the expenditure of funds over a longer period than one financial year, consideration should be given to a 5 year program of commitment. Another issue related to accountability for planning decisions raised during the inquiry is the present lack of self-government for the Australian Capital Territory. The Committee has adopted a de facto role as a major public consultative mechanism in the planning process and is seen as such by residents of the Australian Capital Territory. It therefore recommends that all future policy and development plans prepared by the NCDC be referred to the Committee for its consideration. Thus the Committee can comment on planning initiatives where this is considered appropriate in the public interest. The Committee recognises the serious nature of traffic and parking problems in and around Civic and to avoid compounding the problem recommends that the Commission and the Department of Local Government and Administrative Services provide greater impetus for the development of other town centres by locating government departments and authorities not already placed in central locations in the new town centres. This has already been addressed in the Committee's report on the 89th series of variations relating to the development of section 38 in Civic and the Committee reiterates its support for an undertaking from the NCDC that a review of the Civic Centre policy plan be completed by June 1987. Joint Committee on the Australian Capital Territory During the inquiry the Committee was alerted to problems concerning the system of land tenure in the Australian Capital Territory and the administration of the leasehold system. The Committee has decided to pursue this by commissioning an independent study of the system. The Committee was specifically asked in one of its terms of reference to report on the impact of the plan upon the south-east region of New South Wales. Any discussion of regional co-ordination and consultation should include the impact of Canberra's development on the surrounding region of New South Wales and the Committee notes that the recommendation of a report by a joint Commonwealth, State and local government committee in September 1976 that a Commonwealth and South East Region Advisory Committee be set up has not been acted on. The Committee recommends that priority be given to the formation of the organisation proposed in 1976 realising that the need for such a regional body is now becoming acute as problems relating to the expansion of Canberra and its increased population levels are already having greater and greater impact on the region as Canberra continues to expand. The question of the availability of appropriate land for residential development in the Australian Capital Territory was also raised during the Committee's examination of the metropolitan plan. In investigating the scope for large scale redevelopment, the Committee was made aware of the potential for such redevelopment in areas presently occupied by the Department of Defence such as Belconnen, Jerrabomberra and Harman Bonshaw. The Committee tried to pursue this suggestion by asking for information and co-operation from the Department of Defence. The Defence Department declined to appear before the Committee and did not respond to subsequent requests for information. The Committee is extremely critical of this lack of co-operation and as no evidence was given to the Committee to justify continued use of the areas by the Defence Department and, because of the high opportunity costs of such continued use, the Committee recommends that the Department relocate from the areas of Belconnen, Jerrabomberra and Harman Bonshaw thus releasing these valuable sites and redressing the high cost in lost opportunity for this land. Finally, I would like to stress that this is a very important report and the first major public review of the Y plan which has shaped the development of Canberra since 1970. The Committee's report makes recommendations which will influence the future Canberra into the next century and marks another stage in the planning and overall development of Canberra as the national capital. I commend the recommendations to the House. Senator FOREMAN(South Australia) —In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act, I present the report relating to the construction of an air movements cargo hangar at the Royal Australian Air Force Base, Richmond, New South Wales. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator FOREMAN(South Australia) —In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act, I present the initial report relating to the construction of the Department of Aviation central training college, Australian Capital Territory. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator FOREMAN —I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a short statement. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- The proposal referred to the Committee in January this year was for the construction of a Central Training College at Pialligo, Australian Capital Territory for the Department of Aviation. In April the Minister for Aviation requested the Committee to extend the scope of its inquiry to include an examination of the cheaper alternative of locating the college at Watson High School which will close at the end of 1987. It is intended to accommodate the Department of Aviation air traffic control, flight services, search and rescue, flight standards, administrative and ADP training schools in the Central Training College. A new air traffic control and flight services simulator is being acquired by the Department for training air traffic control personnel. It is due to be delivered in September 1988 and aviation required completion of the simulator building by that date. However, the Department of Housing and Construction has advised that the earliest a simulator building can be completed at Watson High School is November 1988. At present air traffic control, flight services and flight standards training is carried out in Melbourne. The other three schools are located in leased premises in Canberra. The Department of Aviation submitted that there would be advantages in co-locating all training schools in Canberra. Whilst Aviation's future responsibilities are unclear due to the establishment of the Civil Aviation Corporation, there will be a continuing requirement for specialist air traffic control personnel to be trained. Accordingly, the Committee recommended that the air traffic control and flight service schools should be relocated to Canberra and co-located in the one complex with the other training schools already here. The Watson High School buildings are basically sound, although it will be necessary to construct a new building to house the simulator because none of the existing buildings are considered suitable for that purpose. The limit of cost estimate for the Pialligo proposal is $11.2m. Indicative costs for the Watson High School are $9.115m. Both costs include the provision of a simulator building at $2.45m. The indicative costs for the Watson High School proposal are based on achievement as closely as practicable of the requirements on which the Pialligo design was based. Cost reductions could be achieved if the Department of Aviation alters its briefing requirements. The Committee accordingly agrees to the conversion of Watson High School provided that significant reductions in costs are achieved resulting from the Department of Aviation re-examining the scope of its briefing requirements. The Committee will hold a further public hearing to examine the limit of cost estimate for the conversion of Watson High School. In conclusion, I would like to address a number of matters relating to the reference about which the Committee is not entirely happy. They relate to timing and the consequential urgency attached to the examination of what was a most complex subject. The Committee believes that the requirement for the continued training of air traffic control personnel, the arrival of the simulator in September 1988, the time taken by the Location of Australian Government Employment Committee to examine the proposal and the need for the Public Works Committee to consider the Watson High School proposal after the work had been referred placed considerable time constraints on the Committee and have given it very little option but to agree to the work proceeding. Debate resumed. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales)(3.06) —Before this debate was interrupted earlier, I was saying that it was evident that the Government had something to hide by having this election before it had brought down its Budget in August. That explains, of course, why the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has once again broken his word. The question of what the Government has to hide extends, however, into the specifics of the Senate Estimates committees where, in fact, undertakings have been broken by Ministers of the Crown, in particular the Minister for Territories, Mr Scholes. Senator Gietzelt, on behalf of Mr Scholes, accepted that questions would be put on notice in order to expedite the hearings of the Committee but then refused to answer those questions in blatant and clear contempt of this Senate. It is a disgrace that an arrangement made simply to facilitate the proceedings and to assist the Minister has resulted in senators' questions raised at Senate Estimates Committee E not being answered, and the Government has no intention to answer them. In a letter to Senate Estimates Committee E, Mr Scholes states: . . . I have instructed my Department not to commit the resources necessary to answer the outstanding questions and would ask that you advise the Committee of my views . . . The reason, he said, was that something like 1,000 questions altogether were asked at his Department's hearing. I understand Senator Vigor will have something to say on that because, no doubt, a large proportion of those questions were Senator Vigor's. However, the fact remains that at the request of the Minister questions were not pursued at those hearings and we were then sold down the river, just as the Australian people are continually sold down the river by accepting in good faith false promises by this Government. Let us look at exactly what they were trying to hide and why the decision was taken, because that is what it is really all about. Mr Scholes' decision not to provide answers was in order simply to avoid the embarrassment of revealing what the Parliament House Construction Authority, for example, had said it was prepared to reveal. Details it was prepared to reveal would be of great embarrassment to it and to this Government because of the massive waste and misallocation of resources, and the massive incompetence that has been demonstrated from the level of government itself down through the structure at the new Parliament House site. At the Senate Estimates Committee I asked a whole series of questions, to which I was assured I would have answers but which officers did not have answers to at the time. They said there was nothing sinister about not having them there, that there were not secret reports. However, we now have the situation where the information is being denied us. This is a scandal. The Waste Watch Committee already demonstrated in January this year that something like $200m of cost overruns have taken place on that project as a result of unexplained and apparently indefensible cost rises. At a previous Senate Estimates Committee hearing we established that there were something like 47 major contracts where the cost overruns were more than 25 per cent over the tender price, and this was in addition to those overruns that were due to escalation clauses in the contracts which allowed for inflation and other cost rises and which excluded any increase in the scope of the contract. Here was a situation whereby we had already established that 47 of the major contracts had had these massive and unexplained overruns. The new Parliament House Construction Authority felt under no obligation to explain them in its annual report or to the Senate Estimates Committee. Therefore, naturally, I pursued the matter at the recent Senate Estimates Committee hearings, which hearings resulted in the reports with which we are now dealing in the Appropriation Bills. I naturally asked what the present situation was with such cost overruns. I asked whether the new Parliament House Construction Authority would please correct its figures to take account of the fact that there are 5,000 unsettled claims for extra expenditure on work that has already been done. These 5,000 outstanding claims had not been settled and had not been taken into account when the new Parliament House Construction Authority said to me that 47 major contracts had overrun by more than 25 per cent. I want the truth from the new Parliament House Construction Authority; I want honesty from the Government. I do not want the Minister to instruct the Senate Estimates Committee that he will not commit the resources necessary to answer the outstanding questions, particularly in situations where the effort involved in getting this information should be minimal. Yet, here is a deliberate and determined policy of covering up. What does the Government have to hide? Senator Vigor —It is scandalous. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —As Senator Vigor says, it is absolutely scandalous. It is the biggest project that has ever been undertaken in the national capital; there is clear evidence of $200m of waste, and yet the Government will not answer simple questions put to it during the Senate Estimates committees-as senators have a right to do. This involves an arrogant Minister in an arrogant government, which claims to support the concept of open government but which has sought wherever it can to close the door, particularly to the Waste Watch Committee because it kept on evidencing disgraceful and indefensible government waste. During the Senate Estimates Committee hearing I asked: How many major contracts now exceed their contract price by 25 per cent in money terms, after account is taken of scope variations and additional costs due to the normal cost rises? However, the Government had considered that it was not worth while to prepare itself for such a question, and the response to my question was: I cannot answer that question offhand. We would be happy to take it on notice and provide the information for you. That was the response-that the new Parliament House Construction Authority was happy to take that question on notice and happy to make the information available to us. But the Minister was not happy to do that. The Minister said: `No you won't'. The Minister has something to hide. I asked whether the claims could be separated out and whether the amount by which costs exceeded 25 per cent could be provided as a proportion of those that were able to be assessed. I was making the point that it was not possible to assess many of these contracts because they had not yet been finalised; the claims had been resolved. The response was that, yes, they would separate them out for me, so that, out of the total contracts, the proportion of those in relation to which costs had exceeded 25 per cent would not simply be in relation to all the contracts, as many of them were open to doubt, but in relation to only those that had in fact been settled. The answer was: `Yes, certainly we can do that'. The new Parliament House Construction Authority was prepared, apparently, to provide the information. However, the Minister vetoed it. I then asked: It would be self-evident, would it not, that there are many contracts, of a major nature even, where the lack of the processing of these 5,000 cost variations would in fact have significantly affected the number of major contracts that had been overspent by 25 per cent? Mr Peatey, Senior Executive Officer, Administration and Finance of the Parliament House Construction Authority, said: That is possible. Yes, I think that the answer to that will emerge in the information which we will provide to you. I then asked about the details of a cost control report, or a report on the lack of cost control in relation to the new and permanent Parliament House, a matter that I had revealed from the Waste Watch Committee's exposure of the multi-millions of dollars of waste at the new Parliament House. I asked whether this report could be provided to the Senate Estimates Committee. After all, I understand that the report was highly critical of the management of the new Parliament House. I had not seen the report in detail; I had been told by people on the site of the thrust of the report, as many people up there, many good people up there, have been very concerned about what is happening. I had been told basically what was in the report but I had not actually had the report. I asked during the Estimates Committee proceedings: Could the details of the McCain report-its recommendations and, alongside it, what has been achieved-possibly be given to the Committee so that we will have a view of it? You- this is a question to Mr Peatey, the Senior Executive Officer- mentioned that most of the matters raised by McCain had been met. Is the report so confidential that it would be wrong to release it? In response, Mr Peatey said: The report is not a secret report or a confidential report in that sense. It was a report commissioned for the use of the Authority in setting up this cost control and action group, but it is not a secret report. So I then asked whether we could have it, and Mr Peatey said yes. The Senior Executive Officer of the Parliament House Construction Authority was apparently prepared to release this report that he claimed was not secret. I wonder who told him that he could not do that. As Senator Vigor says, the Minister refused the Senior Executive Officer the right to release that report. Why is the Government intervening in this way? I pointed out to the Senate Estimates Committee some ludicrous examples of contracts that had run over budget. For example, one of the plumbing contracts for the new Parliament House was tendered for at $2m but I understand that as at the end of March it was up to over $6m and had still not been completed. That was called a suspended hydraulics contract. I asked Mr Peatey about this and about another contract. I asked him for details about how these contracts for suspended hydraulics had gone, to which Mr Peatey responded: Again, I cannot give you financial details, but they can be provided. Mr Peatey was prepared to tell us by how much those contracts had overrun, but the Minister, in this secretive Government, would not tell us. This sort of thing is just intolerable. It is made more intolerable by the fact that Mr Gordon Peatey engaged in, if you like, a very strong set of disagreements with me when I released the January report of the Waste Watch Committee, exposing what had gone on in relation to the new Parliament House, in relation to which he said that I was wrong, that there were factual errors and that in fact everything was very fine up there. Anyone who listened to those broadcasts would have heard the way in which he was dismissive of the details and the factual material presented by the Waste Watch Committee. During the Senate Estimates Committee hearing I said that, as Mr Peatey was critical of what he described as factual or non-factual comments in my claims about cost rises, I wondered whether he would take on notice a question in relation to outlining where those inaccuracies could be identified. Mr Peatey replied: `We will take that on notice'. However, in fact, Mr Peatey cannot outline where the inaccuracies are, because there were no inaccuracies, and the Minister has again come to his defence in relation to banning the revelation of any material from the Parliament House Construction Authority. Senator Vigor —It is dishonest. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —It is totally dishonest-a dishonest Minister in a dishonest government covering up a multi-million dollar scandal. Senator Vigor —In the United States they would have a Watergate inquiry. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Senator Vigor is absolutely correct. In a matter of this significance a Minister is deliberately covering up a scandalous waste of money, refusing to stick by an agreement and protecting an authority which clearly has got itself into trouble by overspending and making grievous errors, many of which were prompted by the Government. Mr Scholes refused to answer questions which had been agreed by Senator Gietzelt and the officers who were there would be answered. Not only was that contemptuous to the Senate and destructive of the Senate Estimates Committee but also it represents, I believe, a degree of deception by this Government, which is intolerable. This leads me to a real questioning of the integrity of the Senate Estimates committees as to how a Minister can behave in this intolerable way. The Senate Estimates committees provide one of the few opportunities that honourable senators get of probing into those matters of government administration which are properly their right to examine. Senator Vigor —Our duty. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Our duty, as Senator Vigor says. The contemptible and contemptuous approach of this Government to these committees has put them at a degree of risk. As it is, every honourable senator would agree that the manner in which the Government handled the Senate Estimates committee hearings this year was a total disgrace. We were given detailed information a couple of days before the hearings started. We were supposed to have understood and then based coherent questions on that material in a very short time. In other words, from the beginning of these Senate Estimates committee hearings there was a clear, deliberate and determined policy of this Government of limiting the effectiveness of honourable senators in those Estimates committees by not giving them access to information, not giving them adequate time and continually changing the times of meetings of those committees so that we did not know what sort of preparation we could do. There was a total shambles. Senator Vigor —Was it dishonesty or incompetence? Senator MICHAEL BAUME —One could be kind and say that it was incompetence. I believe the pattern of behaviour, particularly that established in Senate Estimates Committee E where the Minister refused to stand by the undertaking made by the Government, represents dishonesty. This whole pattern was an attack on the rights-- Senator Reynolds —I rise on a point of order. Senator Baume has called a Minister dishonest, and I think that is against Standing Orders. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —It is a very marginal case. I think Senator Baume said that the pattern of behaviour represented dishonesty. It might help the proceedings if the honourable senator were to withdraw that and then continue with his speech. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —I withdraw it. The facts speak for themselves. They show a pattern of behaviour which is totally unacceptable to any civilised, decent community. It may be acceptable to Senator Reynolds, but I find it intolerable that Ministers or a government should behave in this way. In these latest Senate Estimates committee hearings we had a clear example of an attempt by a government, which has an immense amount to hide, to seek to hide it. That fits in with the same pattern of behaviour that we see by a Prime Minister who seeks to hide what will be in his Budget by having an election before the Budget is brought down. This leads one to another clear issue of this Government of deception seeking to hide facts. The Waste Watch Committee revealed enormous amounts of disgraceful expenditure and waste, particularly for example in relation to the community employment program which the Government has now decided to abandon. Yet, as I have complained to the Senate, there was a deliberate and determined pattern of refusing to allow the Opposition access to information-public information, in many instances-about the grants made under CEP. In the end, after a great deal of toing and froing, the Government agreed that it would provide the Opposition with a computer printout of CEP grants provided that the Opposition paid $400 to the Government for the provision of that information which should be readily available to the Opposition because it is in the public interest for the people of Australia to know the manner in which its tax money was being wasted by this Government, the manner in which long term unemployment money was being redirected into purchasing assets, such as vans for various strange groups-fringe groups-typewriters for the socialist workers party fronts and radio broadcasting equipment for a community radio station in Victoria which did not have a licence and which had never broadcast. The station said that it needed this equipment because it wanted to train three long term unemployed people for three or four months. The Government bought it a console, a turntable, a record player and tape recorders in order to give training. This radio station did not have a licence and did not broadcast, but it was going to train people with this equipment. The Government said that it would buy it for it out of the long term unemployment funds. What happened to the equipment when the program ended after three or four months? It remained the asset of the community broadcasting station in Victoria. That sort of thing was spread far and wide throughout the CEP. This Government set out deliberately to block my access to that sort of information by refusing to provide me with details of CEP grants unless I was prepared to pay $400. I believe it is an absolute disgrace and part of a pattern which is manifested in these Estimates committees. I remind the Senate that it was the Waste Watch Committee which revealed waste over an enormous area. It was so effective that the Government appointed a damage control committee made up of Senator Walsh, Mr Mick Young and Mr Cohen. It set out also on a pattern of withholding information. The Australia Council which had previously put out its own list of grants every three or four months now does not do so. We have to wait until the annual report comes out eventually at the end of the year-usually well after the end of the year-and then have to look through the pages at the back of it. The Government is reducing the amount of information that was available to it because it is aware of how vulnerable it is. It is expert at hiding embarrassing material. What is happening now is another example of its attempt to hide, by having an election before the coming Budget, the next round of attacks that it will make on the Australian people, particularly those who are least able to protect themselves. Senator McKIERNAN(Western Australia)(3.29) —This cognate debate on the Appropriation and Supply Bills allows honourable senators a deal of latitude to range over issues that are of concern to them, their electorates or their constituencies. This afternoon I want to direct some comment to the phenomenon which has arisen on the Australian political and industrial scene in the past 12 months to two years and which is known colloquially as the New Right. I want to examine some of the mutilations that it has engaged in to date and also particularly one of the societies that it uses most of all to promulgate the material and the work that it seeks to do to fulfil the aims of its organisation. I refer particularly to the H. R. Nicholls Society. I want to say something about the mutilation of that individual's name and how it has been misused by those involved in the H. R. Nicholls Society. I want to talk also of the growing confidence of the business community in the work of the Hawke Labor Government and why the business community will more likely than not direct support in the forthcoming election to the re-election of that Government. The H. R. Nicholls Society is to meet next at Mooloolaba in Queensland from 6 to 8 June. Luminaries who are set to cast an eerie light on the hill-I want to say a little more about that later-include, in no particular order of merit, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen; Mr John Stone, who is temporarily working for Sir Joh; the Hon. Lindsay Thompson of Victoria; Mr Hugh Morgan of Western Mining Corporation; and Mr Charles Copeman-we will not forget him-from Robe River. The Hon. Neil Brown has been named but I understand that Senator Fred Chaney will go instead. Mr Paul Houlihan and Mr Wayne Gilbert will also address the meeting. From this place, Senator Peter Walsh and Senator Fred Chaney may be in attendance, unless election demands make their appearances elsewhere of more importance. I have every confidence that Senator Walsh, should he attend, will put forward his usual persuasive arguments and that he will not be forced to resort to carrying garlic cloves about his person or perhaps even a vampire stake in his suitcase as the clean living heroes in horror movies sometimes have to do. Doubtless, Senator Chaney will feel quite at home in Mooloolaba. Senator Chaney will be happy there because the Opposition draws most of its ideas on industrial relations from the New Right groups such as the H. R Nicholls Society. These people will be temporarily accommodated in Queensland, the pineapple State, for this meeting. I have to put on public record my commendation of Senator Walsh and his bravery. I publicly express the hope that he does not return to this Senate chamber smeared with some kind of snake oil or other potions that might be used there. One of the more ghoulish acts of members of this society so far is to name themselves after the hapless Harry Richard Nicholls who in his dotage at the age of 81 became a reactionary newspaper editor. A contempt of court charge was laid by the Attorney-General against Nicholls in 1911. The case was heard in the High Court of Australia and it became more of an apologies, forgive and forget event than the present New Right advocates would have us believe. The H. R. Nicholls Society has been most selective in what it claims the man Nicholls believed in. It would be quite possible for a left wing or even a new left H. R. Nicholls Society to be formed. Nicholls, in his prime, can be quoted as saying that the workers: . . . are here to found a great and glorious nation, by their labour, intelligence and virtue; not to toil, like the millions in the old countries for the aggrandisement and glorification of the comparative few, whom chance for the present has made masters of their destinies. No! Rulers and capitalists here must not be the masters of the people . . . If Sir Joh, John Stone or others were going along to support the beliefs of the radical young Nicholls who fiercely defended the rights of the diggers in the Victorian gold-fields in the 1850s, what a wonderful change would come over Australian politics. As the words of the old saying go, pigs might fly. I regret that the greedy and reactionary will always be with us. Before I turn to the second theme which I wish to address, I will first comment about the title of the H. R. Nicholls Society conference which will be held in June. The Society has called this conference the `light on the hill'. In the same way as it is abusing H. R. Nicholls's name, it is abusing a famous motto that is proudly borne by those of us in the Australian Labor Party. We see the light on the hill as something to aim for. In the words of former leaders of the Party, it will provide benefits for those people who are not as fortunate as others. It is unfortunate and regrettable that the H. R. Nicholls Society and those involved in it cannot think up their own themes in support of their greed and avarice. The second theme I wish to address in my short contribution to this debate is the wide acceptance in the business community of this Government's management of the economy. The May mini-Budget has been an exercise in economic management which has been widely welcomed by the business community and the Australian public in general. This Government has demonstrated not only in the May economic statement but also in previous economic action that it is in touch with the true needs of Australia. In turn the Australian community has responded by demonstrating that it has the maturity to look beyond the solutions offered by the quick fix merchants among the disorganised ranks of the Opposition, beyond the fanaticism of the New Right advocates, and that it is ready and eager to look reality squarely in the eye and to accept that our ability to survive internationally as a nation is built around an effort by all Australians. At this stage in our economic existence we cannot afford the doubtful luxury of indulging in the type of internal political and economic strife which the divided Opposition and the New Right would dump us in. The recipes which the New Right and the Opposition want to cook up for Australians seem to me to guarantee a dreadful case of national food poisoning in a very short time. Their recipes boil down to a few unpalatable ingredients. They would hammer the trade union movement, those organisations which are the only protection working people would have in the unlikely event of a reactionary ultra-conservative government being elected anywhere in Australia, perhaps with the exception of Queensland. They would hammer the unions and attack the working class through massive doctrinaire and totally unnecessary cuts in government spending. But they would make sure that the rich would get richer while making sure that their few remaining cronies were okay. I use the phrase `few remaining cronies' advisedly, for I can assure the Opposition that it has run out of cronies. Many of those opposite know that the writing is on the wall. It is on the wall for John Howard and for Sir Joh's Canberra power lust. I will not bother to mention `Sinkers'. For those that can see the wall, the writing was on the wall last Monday, 25 May, in the Australian Financial Review. This is the kind of cold comfort it served up to the Opposition: As things stand, the response to the mini-Budget has been good, the Prime Minister is gaining in popularity, is confident and appears in control, and community sentiment on the state of the economy is healthy. The article continues: The Opposition on the other hand, is conspicuously divided. The coalition has dissolved, but more importantly, there is civil war within each party. The Opposition Leader, Mr Howard, is electorally unpopular and is struggling to maintain control of his party. It continues: His tactical judgments have been poor. He has been successfully depicted as an extremist by the articulate `wets' within his party-a devastating criticism for a political leader in a nation that seeks out the middle ground. That was the front page story of the Australian Financial Review-a newspaper that business people read-of last Monday. The editorial in the same edition was even more damning. It published the latest Business Review Weekly Hyatt business poll which showed that out of 180 chief executives from the nation's biggest companies, almost 56 per cent regarded the Government's performance as quite good or very good, while 94 per cent said that the Opposition was bad or indifferent. Senator Messner, in his earlier comments, made great play about a recent poll-he did not give the source-in which 70 per cent of the people polled stated that they wanted a reduction in union power. If Senator Messner is to be influenced by polls he ought to look at the Business Review Weekly Hyatt poll which stated that 94 per cent of the people polled thought that the Opposition was bad or indifferent. I wonder what the late Sir Robert Menzies would have said about that. I doubt whether Menzies ever envisaged a situation in which the Liberal Party was getting such marks from the business community. But there we have it; the business community is almost unanimous in its view that John Howard and the Liberals are bad or indifferent. These are changed times indeed. The heartland of the Opposition's support base is telling the Liberal and National parties something that they have never heard before, although I am not so sure about that because we on this side of the Senate have been saying this quite consistently for some time. Unfortunately, it takes some business leaders time to wake up. Hopefully, they are waking up. The business leaders and newspapers are also saying that the Labor Party is a party of consensus, the party that has been able to pick up the aspirations of every significant sector of Australian society. John `Rambo' Howard has few mates in the New Right but he has lost touch with the legitimate needs and demands of centre Australia. The main demand is that all sectors of our society must work together for the future of Australia. We on this side of the chamber have waited for some coherence to come into the Opposition but we have waited in vain. The Opposition has tried Andrew Peacock; it is trying John Howard. John Elliott cannot get himself pre-selected; Ian McLachlan cannot make up his mind. Maybe another three years of introspection on the Opposition benches will improve them. At the moment this looks to be an extremely doubtful prospect. I suspect that 13 years will be needed to achieve such a major task. Thirteen years might be a fairer reflection of the disparity in the performance between this Government and the petty pretenders opposite. Who will lick the Opposition into shape when not only its leaders but also its possible leaders have been murdered? They are too weak, too inexperienced, some would say too conservative, to tackle such a major political task. The Australian public will be the ones who will lick the Opposition into shape, and if they cannot lick it they will kick it into shape, at the next election, which is only just over six weeks away. That will be done at not only the next election but also the one after because there is no light on the hill being shone by those on the Opposition benches at the moment. The Australian people will keep the Opposition in the cooler for a long time, until it develops some compassion for the people of Australia, the ordinary people who make this country tick. The Opposition has flirted with the New Right extremists for too long. It has even got into bed with them. The people of Australia know what it has been doing and they are not about to commit national suicide by electing it. They know that this Government is in touch with the national desire of the major segments of Australian society so that we can have a successful economic future. The bulk of Australians are not about to be led up the New Right garden path. Australia may have a lot of sheep but it is real people who use the ballot box. Senator Messner mentioned a deal that this Government had allegedly done with the Australian Democrats. He will wait with bated breath until their position on preferences is published in the very near future. I say to Senator Messner that we on this side of the chamber will also wait. I am not sure whether any assurances have been given or whether, if they have been given, they would be stuck to. These matters are fluid and change with time, as those who know Democrat senators would know. Senator Vigor —We go to our members. Senator McKIERNAN —I do not reflect at all on Senator Vigor. I think the Democrats will have some difficulties in determining preferences. Previously they have been able to determine between what they used to call the socialists and the conservatives-Labor on one side and the Liberals on the other. They could give preferences to both parties by turning over the cards. When one has gone to a polling booth in the past, one has been given a Democrat how to vote card which states `Vote 1 Democrat-2 Labor' on one side and, on the other, `Vote 1 Democrat-2 conservative'. However, the Democrats will not be able to do that this time because they will need a seven- or eight-sided how to vote card. On this occasion they will have to choose between not only Labor and Liberal but also Labor and National. It is not even as simple as that because they will have to choose between the new Nationals-the Joh Nationals-and the traditional Nationals. Which Liberals can we vote for? There are the wets and the dries. There will be a number of other parties as well. Fortunately, the Alliance Party and the Workers Party will not be running candidates on this occasion. I sympathise with the Democrats, having to make such a choice, but it is a relatively simple choice to have to make when they examine the various groupings that make up the conservative parties in Australia today. It is a reflection on them and their leaders that they cannot even get agreement or unanimity. One of the things that used to upset me most-I am not as thin skinned as most honourable senators-when I first became a senator was various senators from time to time talking about the Hawke socialist Government. At this very time people from the Liberal Party in Western Australia are talking about the Liberal socialist party. Even today's West Australia has an article headed `Socialist control of Lib. Party denied'. That article quotes a Mrs Rita Waters, a candidate in the last election-I do not know whether she is running this time-and she complained that the former State secretary of the Liberal Party, Mr Chilla Porter, had a case of sour grapes when he claimed at a dinner in his honour last Saturday night that the party had been dominated in recent years by the wets, by Trotsky socialists, more socialistic than the Liberals. That is a reflection on the conservative forces in the Liberal Party and most certainly on the leadership of the Liberal Party. Before I sit down I make the following disclaimer: The Liberal Party in Western Australia is led by a gentleman by the name of Barry MacKinnon, and that is unfortunate because I have the problem of having to redirect Mr MacKinnon's mail to him because our names are so similar. I take every effort to make sure that people know my name and my address. I wish he would do the same thing so that people do not get me confused with him. There is no glory at all in my getting mail addressed to the leader of such a divided party back in my home State of Western Australia. I commend the Government's economic record to all Australians. It is proven and has set us on the path to recovery and it is a record that the Australian people will examine closely and thoroughly on 11 July. I am sure that after that examination they will fulfil the words of the leader of my Party, the Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, that we will be returned to office, and not only will we be returned but with an even greater majority than we have this time. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(3.51) —In the final days of this dying Government it is appropriate to start off this small dissertation on the Appropriation Bills by making a few relevant comments on the conduct of those opposite during their period in office. Senator Button —It will be the first time since you have been here that you have made relevant comments. It will be very refreshing. Senator MacGIBBON —It might be a reflection on Senator Button's standard of consciousness that with an election coming along he has probably woken up for the first time in quite a long while. We have just been subjected to about 20 minutes of rambling by Senator McKiernan. His speeches are always devoted to worrying about imagined problems in the Liberal Party. We have enough people here to worry about our problems. The problems he faces in losing office after the next election are of such a magnitude that he should try to concentrate his mind as well as the mind of Senator Button-which is infinitely better than his-on dealing with them. I have been involved in Australian politics for decades longer than has Senator McKiernan. It is the hoary old cliche of the Australian Labor Party that the Liberal Party is the party of big business. The honourable senator has discovered in the last couple of days big business does not claim the Liberal Party. I congratulate him. That has been a fact of life since Federation because the Liberal Party represents the ordinary caring Australian who wants to raise a family, develop his career and indulge in the good and constructive things of life. I want to return to some comments about the conduct of this Government because the acts that we have seen in the last few months are hardly the acts of a responsible government. Government is concerned with the exercise of power. It is also concerned with a responsible accounting for the raising of money from taxpayers and citizens. There is no more valid touchstone of the way a government handles its sense of responsibility than the way it is prepared to stand up and be counted for the way it has handled other people's money. By that test this Government is dishonest. The Estimates committees which are supposed to provide the Parliament-or one of the parliamentary chambers, the Senate-with accountability for how the money is proposed to be spent and how money has been spent in the immediate past were just a joke this time. Questions were put on notice and Ministers arrogantly refused to answer those questions on notice. Ministers obstructed their officers from answering relevant questions. I come to the other avenue of accountability, the Appropriation Bills. We find that the Government with those blackguard prostitutes of the political scene, the Australian Democrats, combined to guillotine the legislation so that we cannot examine what is going on. Senator Vigor —I didn't vote for it. Senator MacGIBBON —I overlooked Senator Vigor. He did have the integrity to do the right, proper and correct thing. I apologise to him for inferentially including him. The committee system, which again enables ordinary members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to inquire into what is going on in the executive government, has become a joke under this Labor Party. Nothing more graphically illustrates, after four years in office, the inevitable trends back to the totalitarian system that is the end point of all Labor governments once they get wound up. I go back to the time long before Senator McKiernan came to this country, when I was a small child. I can remember the cartoons in the Chifley and Curtin years of people with jackboots on and swastikas on their arms. The caricatures and cartoons represented the various Ministers of the Labor government of the time because people then lacked freedom. We had rationing, controls and restrictions on what we did. It all ended in 1949 with the Labor Party being thrown out of office for a generation or two. That is the situation we have reached today because we have reached the end of this Whitlam-Hawke Labor dynasty. The party is over. Australia is left with a huge debt. This is the biggest spending, biggest borrowing government we have seen in our history. It borrows to cover the huge debt it got us into. It is the biggest taxing government ever. The Australian dollar under this Administration is at the lowest value it has ever been on foreign exchanges. We have the highest interest rates ever with home loans at around the 16 per cent mark-if people can get them. Bankcard, which most people use as currency, is at 23 per cent. Small overdrafts are at 21 per cent. We have a huge debt of $105,000m at December 1986, which has grown from $30 billion when this Government came to power. That is $26,000 that every Australian family owes and will be paying off for generations to come. We have the worst inflation rate compared with our Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development partners that we have ever had. It is four times higher. Senator Button —Tell us about the change to the policy. Senator MacGIBBON —I say to Senator Button that it is no wonder that his industrial portfolio is in tatters. We cannot sell anything overseas because our inflation rate is four times that of our trading partners. We have the largest current account deficit we have ever had at 6 per cent of our gross domestic product. While the other things that I have mentioned are difficult and unpleasant and bite at everyone's hip pocket, the crucial problem is the current account deficit. We are living beyond our means in a grandiose way like drunken sailors. Is it any wonder in that environment that we have lost our AAA credit rating. This Hawke socialist Government that Senator McKiernan was prattling about before has lost the first AAA credit rating of Australia-to the Government's eternal shame. While Senator Button is reading the paper he might look at today's Courier-Mail. What struck my eye a few minutes ago when I left the chamber to get the paper is a heading on the front page `New-vehicle registrations lowest for 20 years'. What a credit that is to Senator Button's motor industry reconstruction policy. I would like to take a minute to quote from this article. It says: The motor industry is at crisis point, with April registration figures the worst in more than 20 years. The figures, released yesterday by motor industry statistician IDAPS Australia Ltd, show vehicle registrations for the year are down 36,949. Sales of cars and commercial vehicles in the year to date total 140,204, compared with 177,153 for the same time 12 months ago. Motor vehicle sales are down because of the huge increase in costs that has come about under the industrial and economic policies of this Government and because people no longer have disposable incomes to buy them. That is some economic management that we have had. Closing this part of the speech I just say that the number of long term unemployed is higher than ever in our history. In March 1983 when the Labor Party came in there were 159,000. In February this year they numbered 193,000, a lift of over 20,000 in the number of long term unemployed Australians who want jobs but cannot get them because of the economic policies of this Government. The Australian people are going to judge this Government in a few weeks. The Liberal Party is going to win that election. The Labor Party has run out of coupons as far as the Australian electorate is concerned. The one thing that every Australian understands is not the complexity of the economic argument or the other failings of the Government but that every Australian's standard of living has gone down-except for a few of the Labor Party's cronies in the media and big business world who fete government members and increase or double their wealth every year under a Labor government. But the ordinary Australian trying to eke out a living in this country knows that, for the first time in his life and since the four years of Labor, his standard of living has declined. He will have his revenge and his opportunity to correct that when the election is held on 11 July. All this has been quite unnecessary. The Australian Labor Party has misrepresented the situation and it has said that it is due to overseas terms of trade, the low commodity prices for sugar, beef and everything else that we are trying to sell. We have had low commodity prices in the past. It is a function of life. Commodity prices are cyclical; they go up and they come down. But never before have we had the collapse in our standards of living that we have had under this Government. Those are some of the failings of this Government within Australia. But just as this Government has created problems within, it has certainly created a lot of problems without. We now live in a region which is characterised by unpredictability and instability. We have active Libyan involvement pushing a terrorist pattern of behaviour in the region, we had the coup in Fiji last week, we have the Philippines and, above all, we have the Soviet penetration in the area. There has never been a time when Australia has had to look more carefully at its defence preparedness. But what has this Government done? It has done nothing but reduce the defence vote and Australia's level of defence preparedness. As the Fiji coup demonstrated, the need for defence and the need for intelligence, so that we know what is going on, are always there. It can be summed up in two words: `Be prepared'. This Government is not prepared to cope with any changes outside Australia. If we look at the Fijian coup the one thing that stands out very clearly is that under this Government the Department of Foreign Affairs is not up to snuff. It did not know about the military coup until it had actually happened. It is the purpose of the Foreign Affairs Department to be able to supply intelligence as to what is going on in this region. But in recent times the Foreign Affairs Department has strenuously resisted employing the specialists in the intelligence gathering field that it should have. It prefers to do this itself. It thinks that it can do this over cocktails on the cocktail circuit, when really we have to get out into the market-place and on the highways and byways and talk to people if we want to know what is going on in the region. But this fits in with this Government's low priorities for the South Pacific region. Coupled with this is the tendency that has been established in this Government's four years in office. I am glad that the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, is in the chamber because he had a crack at me earlier in the day about wanting to spend more money on defence. I will show him the way he has run down the funding of the Australian defence forces in the four years that this Government has been in power. We have been faced with more and more cuts until we have now reached the stage where we have the highest level of resignations from the armed services that we have ever had. People will not stay in the Services because they see no point in serving the country when they cannot be paid ad- equately, when their conditions of service are deteriorating day by day, and when they are denied the opportunity to train to defend the country, which is what they joined the Services to do. They do not get the operational training that they need to get job satisfaction. The facts are that equipment costs have gone up a lot in recent years. They have gone up at a much higher rate than inflation. We need to have modern equipment in Australia because of our population and our geography. We need to maximise technological resources to defend this country. The Liberal Party of Australia foresaw this when it was in government, when Senator Sir John Carrick was a Minister, and it made an intelligent and appropriate response. In 1982-83, the last year of the Fraser Government, the defence vote committed 17.4 per cent of its expenditure to new capital equipment. The projections from the Fraser Government were that by 1984-85 that 17.4 per cent would rise to 25.9 per cent and it was estimated that that would rise almost to 30 per cent through the latter part of the 1980s. Nearly 30 per cent of the defence vote would be going on new capital equipment and new buildings. If expenditure has gone from 17.4 per cent and has nearly doubled to 30 per cent, unless the aggregate goes up there will be a pinch in some areas. There will be less training, poorer conditions of service, no war stores will be bought and all the other things that the Services need to do will not be done. To cope with this foreseen situation the Fraser Government, in its final year of office, set out in its five-year defence plan to achieve a 6.3 per cent real growth in defence expenditure for 1982-83 through to 1986-87. What did the Hawke Government do? When the Hawke Government came into office, no doubt under the guidance of the Treasurer, Mr Keating, and various other luminaries in that cabinet, its first act was to cut the 6.3 per cent agreed five-year defence plan vote to 4.5 per cent. Not content with that, in May 1985 it cut it back to 3.1 per cent-a figure, I might say, that it never attained. We then had the May statement which was delivered a couple of weeks ago, where instead of maintaining the 3.1 per cent growth in real terms of the next five-year defence plan, the Government cut it back to a negative growth of one per cent for the next financial year, and this was presented as a saving of $350m. This Government is proposing to have a one per cent real increase in 1988-89 and a 2 per cent increase for the 1989-90 fiscal year, and it will claim that it has made a saving of $1,400m. It happens to be a fact of life that the way things are at present the barest level of real growth the defence forces can have to stay precisely where they are today is a 3 per cent growth in real terms. So the Australian defence forces will suffer grievously as a consequence of this action to cut spending to a negative growth this year and what will essentially be a negative growth next year and the year after. If the Government takes it out to the end of the decade with the proposals it has it will mean that we will have even greater levels of resignations from the defence forces than we have had up to the present and we will have an Australian Defence Force which is incapable of responding in any way when we need it. We simply cannot meet the new level of capital equipment, despite the fact that, when the May statement was made, the Minister for Defence, Mr Beazley, said that the proposed $25 billion could be satisfied in the years ahead. It is absolutely impossible to do this with an inad- equate level of funding. Apart from the stuff that we have already agreed to buy we have a pressing requirement to buy new equipment. We must buy airborne early warning aircraft. We must buy APCs to replace those very dangerous M113s that the Army has. We need, as a matter of high priority, to upgrade the whole level of electronic counter measures that the forces have because we simply cannot survive on the battlefield with the techniques that we have in general for the three Services. Of course, at present we have no war reserve stores. If we have an emergency we just do not have the missiles or the ammunition that we need. In this situation of constriction and inadequate funds we have this extraordinary saga of the submarine program. Nothing demonstrates the waste of this Government in the defence field more than the way in which this has been handled. It has been the most bizarre chapter in Australia's military history and it has been driven impetuously by the ego of the Minister for Defence and nothing else. There is no pressing hurry for Australia to replace the Oberon submarines. This Government proposed to replace them with a design which I, and everyone else who has been involved in this program, have grave reservations about. But even though the decision has been made for some weeks we have had nothing concrete from the Government as to the design parameters of the boats selected or the costing. We have heard all sorts of rumours but all we know about the costing is that it is open ended and it is enormous. Australia is now exposed to a design which has inherently very high technical risks and which involves a huge financial commitment. Historically, it is a re-run of what happened in the Whitlam years with the FFG decision and the Leopard tanks. A more useless and a more dangerous ship has never been bought for the Royal Australian Navy than the FFGs, as can be seen from that incident in the Persian Gulf the other week when 37 United States sailors tragically lost their lives. The FFG is a product of a Labor government-a product of the Australian Labor Party's muddled equipment assessment programs-as was the Leopard tank. Fortunately we have not had to use the Leopard tanks anywhere, they are in hibernation. I come back to the need for the new submarines. The boats we have were bought from 1967 through to 1978. They have a life which will take them through to the end of the century. The proposal that they be retired in 25 years is not an accurate assessment, because the Australian boats have been maintained, through their regular refit program, at a higher standard than any other submarines in the world. It is quite possible to run the oldest of those boats-the HMAS Oxley, which was commissioned and came into service in March 1967-for 30 years without any trouble at all. The design is capable of doing that. The earlier boats-the A class and the T class of the Royal Navy, which were built to much lower design standards in the 1930s and 1940s-all ran for a 30-year service life. So, if we accept that there is no pressing need for these new submarines, we have the ability to look at the matter and get it right, instead of being rushed into it in the way the Government has done. We are now put in a position of having an unproven design; we do not know whether it is safe. I have real reservations about the safety of the design; I have reservations about its operational capabilities; I have enormous fears about the cost of it, because that seems to be uncontrollable. When the Liberal Party committee had the Swedish builders before it we could get no undertaking from the Swedes that they were prepared to underwrite and accept financial responsibility for any design shortcomings or for the integration of the weapons systems into those boats. I doubt very much whether the Government has managed to screw the Swedes' arms and get that commitment from them subsequently. But without that commitment the Australian taxpayer will pick up the tab-and the tab will run into billions of dollars-for making this design work. I started out on this matter not to discuss the submarine program but to use it as an example of waste in this Government. As Senator Michael Baume said in his speech, the one thing that characterises this Government is waste. Earlier today in Question Time, Senator Walsh brought up the question of the funding of defence. He said it ought to be reduced. I take the contrary point of view. It can be increased, because it must be increased. The way to increase it is to correct the waste-the waste of having the layabouts and the people who are ripping off the social welfare system, and in every other program that this Government is involved in. If this Government were efficient in its economic management we would not have to have the high taxing that we have; we would not have to have the high borrowings; we would not have to have the high inflation. We would be able to have Australians living in their own homes, buying the cars that they cannot afford to buy now and looking after themselves instead of being locked in this vicious circle of serfdom that this Government has generated of taxing, taxing and taxing, so that everyone at the end of the day is dependent on the beneficence of Mr Hawke or Mr Keating for his daily bread. Senator Sir JOHN CARRICK(New South Wales)(4.14) —The Senate is debating cognately the Appropriation and Supply Bills. To understand and interpret the debate one must look at these Bills as one of five parts of an overall economic program. They form the first of those parts. A mini-Budget was brought down on 13 May, and that must be assessed also as part of the economic orchestration. There is also the recently held Premiers Conference, the effects of which are still to be evidenced to the public. There is the Budget-now seriously delayed-which is the main economic statement. That Budget, with all its papers, is the one insight that the public can have into the economic program. Finally of the five, there are the various State Budgets in September which will show the effect of the flow-on of the Premiers Conference and the Premiers' reaction, either negative or positive, to the Commonwealth Government's setting of the economic targets. We have only two, at the most, of those five parts of the program before us. In fact, the more important ones remain unknown and are to be deferred. Yesterday the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) made a statement announcing that he had sought and gained the approval of the Governor-General to have a double dissolution of this Parliament. The statement read in this Senate chamber was so implausible, so insincere, so factually dishonest, that the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Button), when reading it out, could not stop giggling. He could not keep a straight face because he knew how insincere these statements were. He knew how totally implausible the tactic of the Prime Minister was. The Prime Minister, in making that statement and in taking that action, had broken once again major promises. Indeed, the insincerity of the statement is evidenced in that action. Only weeks ago he repeated that he would run his full term and that there was virtue in doing so. There was no question then of any danger in the holding up of identity cards or Australia Cards. That was all right and time would take care of it. He said that the could run his full term. But suddenly, in order to get a pretext, yesterday the Government in a panic action discovered the obstruction of the Senate. A greater nonsense has never been perpetrated on the Australian people, as honourable senator after honourable senator has pointed out. The best that the Prime Minister could do was to cite the Australia Card and the matter of the broadcasting Bills which had been held up for a day or two. What the Prime Minister did yesterday was something that the Australian people must come to understand. Yesterday he showed that he and his Government are frightened to have their economic program implemented and exposed to the people of Australia. They are frightened to let the people of Australia see the consequences of their mini-Budget when it is implemented in all its forms. They are frightened to have the people of Australia see the nature and impact of their Budget and to read all the finer print of the Budget Papers. Above everything, they are scared to have the State Budgets brought down one by one, because they will show the very perversion of the economic program. Those State Budgets will show that costs are now going up, that the price of the Premiers Conference will be an increase in inflation and that taxes and charges are going up. In September and October we will pay the price. The Government is running now because it is running scared. It has always sought to have elections ahead of time-just as in 1984 the Government promised, after something like 16 months in office, that it would run its full term and then broke its promise; just as it went to the people and said: `There will be no capital gains tax' and broke its promise; just as in fact in a whole series of matters it has broken promises. What the people of Australia have to understand is the reason why this Government decided to go to the people. So concerned is the Prime Minister for himself and for his Party that he is willing to do great damage to this parliamentary institution by doing what he has done. There was absolutely no need for a double dissolution. There was no need to pull the whole Senate out. Indeed, there may have been a bargain with the Australian Democrats. If that is so, that in itself would be a desecration of the parliamentary principle. The fact of the matter is that if the Government wanted the Australia Card and wanted its broadcasting legislation passed, it has a very simple procedure to follow: It can make them a principal part of its policy speech for the election. It can seek a mandate from the people and, of course, like all other governments that gained clear mandates, it would then implement them. It has shown that it had no worries at all about a delay of a month or two or three with the Australia Card. Indeed, the Australia Card is not, if it ever emerges, to come into force for another couple of years or so, so time was not vital. There was no urgency at all and no need for a double dissolution. In any case, the absolute implausibility of this claim can be measured very simply. If the Government is arguing that it can win an election and then take the Australia Card legislation to a joint sitting, it knows and every honourable senator knows that it will be in a very insignificant minority in this chamber after the election, whatever the result, and that it will not be able to command the numbers if those independent senators who have in the past opposed the Australia Card are back here and keep to their principles. So, no matter which way one goes, yesterday's statement-giggled at by the Leader of the Government in the Senate because he, of all people, knew he was talking nonsense-was an attempt to hoodwink the Australian people, to pretend to the Australian people that there was some kind of obstruction in the Senate, that he had to have urgency to get the Australia Card, that we were holding things up and that the Australia Card was part of his economic management. That is a nonsense and demonstrably so, because, if that was so yesterday, why was it not so a week or two ago when he said, `The Government will run its full term'? At the time when he said that the Government would run its full term he knew that he did not have the Australia Card. He knew there would be delays, if not total obstruction of it indefinitely; but it was no problem to him at all right through the months since the Australia Card legislation was properly rejected here. It was never an obstruction for him when he said: `We will run our full term'. It was an invention yesterday, a crude invention that the people of Australia will see through. It was an invention yesterday in order to do one thing-and that the people of Australia must understand clearly. He could not have a half Senate election plus a lower House election in July. The Constitution would not allow him to do that. He could have it, at the earliest, on 8 August, and that would be too close to the date of 18 August set down for the Federal Budget for him to be able to explain why he did not have the Budget. Therefore, to get as far away as he could from the Budget he had to bring down the whole of this Parliament in a double dissolution. That is political conniving, political scheming, political engineering and a desecration of the parliamentary system. It does great damage to this institution, Madam Acting Deputy President. This Senate is supposed to be a House of review with a continuity of purpose, but what the Prime Minister and his Government have done-and he knows this-is to desecrate this Parliament by their action in enlarging the Parliament for their own political purposes. What they did with this Senate was this: They decided, because they wanted to enlarge the lower House, that they had to enlarge the Senate-because the lower House must be, as nearly as practicable, double the size of the Senate-to 12 senators from each State. They did that in the full knowledge that that would create a hung Senate and a Senate that would from time to time be rendered inoperable simply because it would allow all sorts of groupings of people to come in. Whereas in a half Senate election it would take more than 14 per cent of the voters to fill a vacancy here, in a double dissolution it takes only 7.7 per cent. The Government has opened the doors widely to a fragmentation of this Parliament, not for any reason other than its need to have an urgency to have an election in early July. So long as the people of Australia understand that the whole of the action yesterday was for one purpose, to distance the Government as far from the Budget as possible, they will clearly understand that the Government has massive things to hide. It is frightened of the impact of the mini-Budget, of the Budget and of the State Budgets and it wants the election over beforehand. It is willing to damage the Parliament to do that. Let me again make it clear that there could be no greater nonsense than talking about the obstruction of the Australia Card. Let me repeat this: This is the pretext on which the Prime Minister went to the Governor-General-that there was obstruction-but on his own admission there was no thought in his mind of obstruction in the weeks when he repeatedly said that the Government would run its full term. There was no thought of that in his mind because he knew that if he went to the electors, made the Australia Card a major issue for a mandate and got that mandate, he could get it through and there would be no delay. There was nothing to stop the Government from putting into operation all of the pre-planning for the Australia Card if they wanted to, so there would be no delay at all. Therefore, yesterday's statement is, in itself, downright dishonest. Its aim is purely to allow the Government to run scared. Another reason the Government gives for going to the election is that the Opposition is in disarray. My goodness, Madam Acting Deputy President, when one looks at the Labor Party and one looks at Mr Halfpenny, a senator-elect for this Parliament, doing everything in breach of Labor principles-a former Communist-and doing everything to disrupt and damage the economy, who is in disarray? When one looks at the Queensland branch of the Labor Party and realises that its members cannot even resolve their differences about the seat of Bowman, when one looks at all the fights inside the Labor Party, when one looks at the Unsworth Government and sees that it expelled Mr Petersen yesterday or the day before, all one can say is, `Physician, heal thyself'. The Labor Party has been torn asunder by factions. The Labor Party has within it elements of its own destruction, but because it suits the Government to pick a pimple on the behaviour of the Opposition, that matter is played up by self-interests who want to see damage in the Opposition. There is no greater disarray around Australia than that in the Australian Labor Party. After all, Senator Georges sits in this chamber as a symbol of the disarray of the Labor Party, a senator who was willing to buck his Caucus and go with his conscience-and what for? It was to denounce the Australia Card. Where did the obstruction come from in that regard? It came from a Labor Party member. Let me simply say that perhaps all I should have said is: Let Senator Button's demeanour, let his vacuous giggles yesterday, be the judgment on that statement. I never saw in this place a statement put forward with more disbelief and mistrust in it by the person putting it forward. That has to be clearly understood everywhere. Now the Government is running scared, and let us have a look at why the Government is running scared. Its misjudgment will sit ill upon the Government, because it will be defeated. The people of Australia have an innate sense of decency. They hate trickery and they will punish the Australian Labor Party because they know it is trickery. Indeed, the Australian Labor Party is making a grave mistake because it fails to remind itself of two major trends. There has been a major trend in the polls for eight or nine months putting the Opposition ahead of Labor, although it is having a dip at this moment, but the Government fails to comprehend that every by-election that has been held-and five of them have been in my State during the past year-has shown that the people given the chance to get at the jugular vein of the Labor Party, take the chance not in terms of a few per cent but in terms of 10 or 20 per cent. Those by-elections show that the Treasurer was not game to participate in the by-elections in his own seat. He was told not to appear, to go on holiday. The two by-elections, for Bass Hill and Bankstown, resulted in a total rejection of the Labor Party, yet the Prime Minister has the gall to get up and say that the Liberal and National parties are in disarray. Was there ever a Treasurer in more disarray than Paul Keating, with his tail between his legs slinking from his own seat of Blaxland because he was a vote loser? In looking at it, the public made a judgment and decided it wanted to sweep out the Labor Party. So half of the Treasurer's Labor stronghold of Blaxland is held by a Liberal State member at this moment. Despite that, the Labor Party says the Liberal Party is in disarray. Only last Saturday in the Northern Tablelands, in the heart of the countryside, a very popular candidate, who had been the de facto member in the time of her husband's illness, stood for election. The Premier of New South Wales, Mr Unsworth, said she was worth 7 per cent in her own right. The Labor Party took a hiding of nearly 5 per cent. According to Mr Unsworth's statement, that was a swing of 12 per cent. Who is in disarray? Everyone must know that both the grounds for seeking a double dissolution are nonsense. It has been claimed that the Liberal Party in the Senate frustrated the Bill of Rights-36 hours of frustration, so Senator Evans said. Why do we not hear that the Government is going to reinstate the Bill of Rights? Why does it not make it a platform in its policy speech and say it will bring it to the people? I shall tell honourable senators why. In the public's perception, the Bill of Rights was bad. The public is proud of this Senate because it rejected the Bill and because of the way it has behaved. Do not let us have any nonsense about the grounds on which it is stated that members of the Liberal Party are supposed to be in disarray. The real disarray lies with the Labor Party itself. It has a Treasurer who has never been able to get what he wanted. Every time the Treasurer has said that something ought to be, the Prime Minister has taken it away from him. The Government had a great National Economic Summit Conference and the Treasurer was defeated; it had a National Taxation Summit and the Treasurer was defeated. This is the Government that says that others are in disarray. There is open evidence that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer hold totally different views. The Government is in disarray. What happened to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Hayden) in the last couple of weeks? A crisis was occurring in the southern Pacific, an area that is very important to Australia. Where was the Foreign Minister? Overseas. He was overseas because the Prime Minister told him to stay there. There has been no justification from the Foreign Minister; he has not tried to justify it. When he is asked why he was overseas and not where the real problem was, he says that the Prime Minister told him to stay away. Why? Because Mr Hawke wanted to big note himself. Who is in disarray when one considers the Northern Tablelands result for the Unsworth Government; the expulsion of the man Petersen from the Party; the Queensland Labor Party mess, with the Bowman situation; and the dirty tricks involved in trying to solve their problems by having a new ambassador for Greece? Who is in disarray when the left wing of the Labor Party in Victoria is dragging the Party by its nose? I cannot think of anything more nonsensical. Why is the Government running to an early election? It is because of fear. The Government knows of these things I have mentioned, and it knows that, when implemented, the mini-Budget will hurt people and will be unjust in many ways. It knows, as those who are involved closely with social security know, that when the mini-Budget impacts on dual income families, it will cause hardship to many people. They know the mini-Budget is a phoney. Fancy trying to pretend that the mini-Budget provides a cut of $4 billion when $1 billion of that is from sale of property. Everybody knows that one should not attempt to reduce one's deficit in a once-off situation by selling capital. If that is done, it is a oncer. After all, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) have simply shifted a $1 billion deficit from the coming Budget into the deficit for the year afterwards. It is a cosmetic piece of nonsense. In the last Budget, the Government was going to sell the Anzac Rifle Range. Has it done so? Not on your life! The more time goes on, the more it becomes absolute nonsense. The proposal was never a goer as most of the land was not capable of being sold for the purpose intended. Nothing has happened. The Government is going to sell the Commonwealth offices in Sydney and Melbourne and lease them back. Time and time again I have heard Labor members say it is bad business to lease buildings around Australia for public purposes. The Government should be the owner of the buildings, it ought to hold the capital of buildings as it is much more costly to lease them back. What a piece of nonsense! Japan is a country in which Australia needs prestige, and it has a prime site there which, over the years, will increase enormously in value and add to Australia's prestige in that country. The Government is going to hive off a bit of that land for the purpose of pretending it has cut the deficit. When that is removed from the deficit and one looks at the $3 billion left, one realises that $1 billion must be taken up by the States. That is no hardship for the Government. So in the mini-Budget the Government has passed on the hardships to the people of Australia by selling its heritage and capital. It has passed on the pressures to the States, but it is going to make darn sure that it will have an election ahead of the time that the States bring down their Budgets and have to put up all their taxes and charges, their water and electricity rates, and so put up inflation as they go. If the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Finance are so proud of their economic program, why will they not wait until the five pieces of their program-the Appropriation Bills, the mini-Budget, the Premiers Conference, the Budget and the State Budgets-can be seen together? That would be a fair test, but the Government does not want that test. The figures in the gallup poll have taken an interesting little dip at this moment, and the Government knows that it has a good chance of sneaking some type of election prospect. That is nonsense. The people of Australia know that it is a pretence, and that there was no need for a double dissolution and an early election and that if the Government had nothing to hide, it would wait until after September before calling an election. I have heard the Minister for Finance and the Treasurer talk about the importance of having the Budget in place in time so the markets of the world would get to know the position. The Budget is so important that, for its electoral expediency, the Government will postpone and delay it for a month or more. Today honourable senators heard when the writs will be returned. The Government cannot say it has all its budgeting in place. Members of the Government cannot know what will happen to the economy in the months of June, July and August. The incoming government will need a month or two to put together the Budget papers. The figures will be out of joint by then. However, it is of no consequence to the Government, in terms of its own expediency, to delay the Budget for a month or two. Its idea is to take a quick trick while it can. I have never heard a more disgraceful or implausible statement than the Prime Minister's statement yesterday. It was so disgraceful that Senator Button in this chamber could scarcely mouth it because he knew it was so untruthful and dishonest. He was giggling like any schoolgirl saying something she thought was naughty. Have honourable senators ever seen a more truant person than the Leader of the Government yesterday trying to mouth a statement he knew was utterly wrong? So what have we got? The people of Australia are being asked to vote without knowing what is in the box, without knowing what taxes and charges will face them. It is not good enough for the Government to say it has its Budget in place; what will happen to the State Budgets? What is to happen to things in the meantime? The Government knows things will get worse. Today there was further evidence from industry that industry in Australia remains on the decline and that investment in the real things of Australia, and not the spivvery of Australia, is also on the decline. The Government asks that it be judged on its record. I think that perhaps we ought to judge the Government on its record. Let us judge the Government on the fact that, whereas the average sustained unemployment over the whole of the nearly eight years of the Fraser Government was under 6 per cent-I think a little over 5 per cent-under the present Government it has been consistently 8 per cent or 9 per cent. The present Government has not been able to lower that figure. The Government has presided over the highest sustained unemployment since the Great Depression-and let the Government wear that. This Government has brought Australia's external debt from about $30 billion out to beyond $100 billion, wrecking the Australian budget-and they are proud of it. It is a government that has brought record high interest rates which have damaged the pockets of ordinary people, particularly home owners. The Government and the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce and the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Button) year by year have been responsible for the further steady disintegration of industry in Australia. Year by year more and more people have been shed from industry, with more and more people becoming unemployed, and yet the Government maintains that it is succeeding. However, until it discovered the banana republic, for three years it said that everything was all right. The present Government will be judged on its record. Australian citizens will judge it on falling living standards and a total and abysmal punishment of ordinary families. What does the Government say to that? It maintains that it is not its fault but that it is due to a fall in the terms of trade. It says that Australia cannot sell its exports at the prices that it used to. However, the Government forgets to say that Australia cannot export more or that it cannot stop imports because the unit costs of production in Australia are so much higher than those applicable to most of our competitors. Thus, this Government is costing us out of world markets and costing 600,000 Australians out of jobs. The Government refers to only one side of the coin. The real situation is that the Government has done nothing about creating more jobs and reducing unemployment. It talks about the fact that it has created more jobs, but on the Government's own say-so about four years ago, some 140,000 more jobs must be created each year just to keep up with the population explosion. So let us not have any more of those sorts of assertions. In fact we have had soaring inflation, soaring interest rates and indeed a collapse of industry, particularly in relation to the motor car industry. In the statement made by the Government yesterday concerning the double dissolution we were asked to judge the Government on its merits. Well, the people of Australia will judge the Government. They will judge it as being so afraid of the consequences of its actions and that it is hoping to run before those consequences have been revealed. Further, they will judge it on its contributing to high sustained unemployment, high interest rates and inflation and the fact that it has never addressed the really important matter of the unit costs of production. The Government contributed to the development of a confrontationist society instead of a co-operative society. The people of Australia will judge the Government in the way that has been indicated over the past 12 months, that is, they will tip this Government out. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(4.43) —It is now one week since the Government made its Mayday call, and one day since the Government finally bailed out into its election lifeboat. The mini-Budget was a final call for help by the Government to its friends in big business and the media to bail it out, and I believe that it is yet another kick in the guts for those young Australians, the unemployed, the Australian family and the aged people in Australia. It is a Budget of 1,000 cuts. The Government effectively managed to disguise this due to the Fijian coup which took place fortuitously, and hid the public responses to this. The Government has now hidden itself away by means of an election sham. As Senator Sir John Carrick has said, if in doubt, hide. The Australian Democrats believe in open government. The Bills that we are discussing are the main Bills which review the operation of the Public Service and the expenditure of this country. This Government has mismanaged the economy. The Australian Democrats believe that it is important that the Senate should be a House of review, that it should provide an effective review and scrutiny of the account of this country. Yet, in this regard I refer particularly to the Senate Estimates committee hearings this year; we were given only two days notice of the figures before the commencement of the first committee. Even in relation to questions that we had prepared that were direct and to the point, scrutinising what happens within the Public Service, scandalously, Ministers, like Mr Scholes, actually forwarded letters to the committee, after promises had been made by the various chairmen of the committees and after various public servants had undertaken to provide answers to those questions on notice, telling the committee that it would cost $10,000 to answer questions that had been put on notice. He said that because of that no answers would be provided to the questions. That is scandalous behaviour. That is the type of behaviour that we have come to expect from Senator Walsh who never answers questions in this place. It is the type of scandalous behaviour that we have come to expect from this Government. Members of the Government should hide their heads in shame. Senator Walsh —That is not right. Senator VIGOR —Senator Walsh is one of the worst people in terms of being contemptuous of the Senate. I believe that it is extremely important that at the next election the people of Australia realise exactly what this Government stands for. The Government has shown a very laissez faire attitude in relation to leaving Australia exposed to the mercy of the large multinational corporations; to their friends, the media barons; to the greed of the large financial dealers; and to the general forces of the market-place. They are almost indistinguishable from the New Right, which Senator McKiernan was hitting at. I almost thought that I was listening to a liturgy of what the Hawke Government was doing when I was listening to the description of the ills of the New Right. I believe that the election is a final sell-out of the electors, following the ruthless sell-off of Australia's last remaining assets and resources, and I believe that it heralds an impending economic disaster of massive proportions. The Government suddenly decided that it had to have a double dissolution. The Government has proved its failure to keep faith with Labor ideals and it is continuing to prove its failure to manage the business of government, and, what is more, as Senator Sir John Carrick has pointed out so ably, its failure to keep its word. It is a penny wise, pounds foolish government-it is exactly that which we see in all the types of edicts which come out of the Department of Finance. I believe that `penny-wise pound-foolish' will be the epitaph of the Hawke Labor Government. Its short-sightedness in cutting education expenditure and employment opportunities for young people, its savage attack on the State services and its further cut backs in overseas aid are throwing away many years of prior investments in goodwill and the skills of people in Australia. This is simply a short cut that has been taken. The selling off of assets on the cheap has been simply a short cut in order to balance budgets. I believe that it is scandalous to sell off Australian ownership and control of our industries, land, infrastructure, banks, energy and mineral resources, and our media. This will make it almost impossible for Australia to recover from the type of profligate attitude of the Government involving waste and penny-pinching cuts that have been undertaken. It is the across the board cuts in the Public Service which have led to cuts not only in the areas where savings could be made but even more particularly in areas which are essential to government revenue, and I refer to areas like the Department of Communications, which is actually providing and collecting money for selling services such as those provided on our airwaves. Any sensible business would recognise that the income which comes into general revenue from such departments should be sought after. Instead of that, there are cuts in the number of people essential for producing that revenue. We are faced with the prospect of becoming a manana republic. This is what the Hawke Government has created by its incompetence, by Labor's betrayal of Australian control over its resources and by putting off until tomorrow the debts it is running up today. Everything is being deferred-defence spending, communications spending and the whole infrastructure of our roads. Airports and the expenditure on almost all fronts are hit at in a completely unreasonable way, in the name of getting our national debt down. Our national debt is mainly in private hands, and we are subsidising it through various tax measures. We are subsidising it through the taxation system by negative gearing arrangements and by encouraging foreign people to come in and overheat our stock markets. More seriously, industrial development, business investment and small business viability are being deferred by this Government. This Government came here yesterday and said: `Let us finish the job'. Basically it seems to me that the country cannot afford to have this Government finish off what it has been doing to small businessmen, farmers and people who have been at the tender mercy of the deregulated economy, deregulated banks and deregulated exchange rates. High interest rates are diverting savings away from the productive investments, which would increase our industrial base, into speculative stock exchange activities, into unproductive financial and property deals. Small business people cannot meet these interest rates on borrowings, and that is why they are finding it very difficult to survive. They will be the people-I can tell Senator Walsh that there are many of them-who will show the Government what they feel at the next election. Future investment has had to be cut to survive. Effectively all those businesses which expanded recently, after listening to Senator Button's proposals for a great, new economic era in industry and technology, have been the hardest hit. It is no wonder that unemployment is again souring, that takeovers have reached a record level and that businesses which seemed to be doing well are grasping for cash. There is no way that business can support the level of interest rates that this Government has thrust upon us. The most serious cost for the future is the attack on Australia's investment in the future, our young people. Priority One has turned into priority lost. Cuts in technical and college education, employment programs for the young and skills training leave our young people high and dry without any support. It is amazing that a government which is supposedly socialist and supposedly caring has actually hit at these key people. We came in with this dream of Priority One, of an exciting future for youth, but we have actually cut out the incentives for these people. We have cut out the support and much of the money which used to go into the technical and further education area and we have cut out the community employment program. It might have had some failures, but it really deserves to be continued in hard hit areas. This Hawke Government has let the economy run the people, not the people run the economy. It will indeed be remembered by the words `penny wise, pounds foolish'. It certainly does not pay to be a supporter of the Australian Labor Party. It certainly does not pay to be thought of as a safe voter for the Labor Party. Students, young unemployed, disabled, older unemployed, women and migrants, who have been some of the strongest supporters of the Labor Party, have been sold down the river by this Labor Government, and most recently by this mini-Budget. Because the Government could not face delivering another Budget, it has had to call an election. The welfare system is in tatters. Our education and training system is a disaster because of the tertiary administration fee. Thirty-two thousand people qualified to go to universities are unable to take up places because those places were not made available. The future cost of supporting these people in the community will fall on the wage earners and salary earners. The unions and the wage and salary earners are facing pressure for deregulated labour markets while they pay ever increasing taxes and interest rates to support tax-free rorts and a labour squeeze. The fact is that this Government has not been prepared to take on the larger rorts in the taxation system. It has not been prepared to pursue transfer pricing. It has not been prepared to pursue satisfactorily the rorts associated with overseas tax havens. It has not been prepared to apply the same types of measures to negative gearing in company takeovers as it did to the individual pensioner who might own a flat. It is really quite unreasonable. The Government is penny wise, pounds foolish. It appears to have no plan of management, no plan of development and no planned economy. It is acting, to some extent, like an opposition. It is saying: `Look, the Opposition is in disarray; it has no policies'. The Government is spending much more time talking about the Opposition's disarray than looking at its own. It cannot see the log in its eye but is seeing the spot in that of the Opposition. It is really quite unreasonable that we should have to put up with this type of government. I welcome the election, even though it has been called a sham, because it will allow the people of Australia to look at what this Government has done. I now turn to the other side of government activities-the spending side. I believe the Hawke Government has been afflicted with the Yes Minister syndrome. It has been very lucky that we have had that clever television series to show us many of the tricks which the Public Service and public servants may be trying on the Government. Ministers should be forced to view this show. I believe the Public Service has made an effort to escape scrutiny. The Government is failing in its long term scrutiny and control of existing expenditure and, to some extent, failing to understanding the processes of government. I have been involved in investigating in Estimates committees these types of processes. The set of Estimates committees associated with these Appropriation Bills has been one of the most disappointing. Three departments have been totally scandalous in the way they have handled these Estimates committees. One of them, the Department of Territories, hid behind its Minister, Mr Scholes, who accepted the Government's statement that, to answer questions put on notice last month by the Estimates committee, would cost $10,000. Mr Scholes failed to recognise that the questions had been put on notice in an open meeting of the committee to save time and money and that an extra meeting of the committee to question officers of the Depatment would have cost at least $10,000. Mr Scholes also failed to question why the Department wished to avoid any scrutiny by not answering the types of questions which were asked. Some of them were the types of questions which Senator Michael Baume raised relating to Parliament House, where enormous overexpenditures have occurred. A large number of these questions dealt with maladministration, which is the hallmark of the Department of Territories. It is the Senate's responsibility to oversee this expenditure. When we pass these Appropriation Bills we accept that expenditure is going to be effected. If we cannot answer reasonable questions about how this expenditure is carried out, how efficiently it is ordered, and what type of inefficiencies exist within the Department, we have a real problem. It is our job to scrutinise the departments. The failure of the Department of Territories is a disgrace. In this particular case the questions which were not answered dealt with the Australian Capital Territory Schools Authority, and with the Australian Capital Territory Fire Brigade, which has been a running sore within the Department over the years, for various reasons. We were asking questions to bring that out into the open. Questions were asked in relation to community housing activity in the Australian Capital Territory and the inability of the Australian Capital Territory properly to manage and administer the lands in its control. There were problems with the National Capital Development Commission in handling the new developments and in ensuring that environmental protection criteria are applied within Canberra. These were the types of simple and reasonable questions asked about the operation of government. There were not large numbers of them. The Minister responsible for the Department of Territories probably used the formula of the Department of Finance which, I believe, added 72 per cent in overheads to the time used in answering questions in order to justify that figure of $10,000. It is quite unacceptable that the Government should treat the Senate with this type of contempt. I believe that the people of Australia will respond by voting in a senator to make certain that whatever the complexion of the government we get, it will be answerable to the people, that people elected senators will have scrutiny of what the public servants are doing. We are elected for only short periods-three years or six years or whatever it may be. During that time we are forced to break in, to start to understand the processes of the Public Service. By the time we get to be reasonably proficient and knowledgeable, the departments either hide behind the type of unacceptable behaviour which the Department of Territories does or resort to another level of Yes Minister activity. The Ministers should take the responsibility of reviewing what their departments do and they should welcome the Senate's scrutiny of what is happening in the Public Service and work with it. What has happened in these Estimates committees is scandalous. I would like to take another example of a department in which we have not had good information and in which we have been `Yes Ministered'. I refer to the Department of Communications and Australia Post. The management of Australia Post, as far as I can see, is in a shambles at its headquarters. I have been pursuing the questions of printing, distribution and destruction of stamps for some time. It has been a sore spot within the organisation for some time and has resulted in comments in the Auditor-General's report. Australia Post has failed to exercise adequate supervision and checking at all stages of stamp printing and distribution. In answer to questions on notice I was told that there were stringent procedures for destroying surplus or misprinted stamps, with two people involved in most procedures. Yet in the past few years several individuals have been charged with siphoning off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stamps. That does not square with Australia Post's answers. Its explanation of philatelic reasons for disposing of commemorative stamps after six months is of a banana republic standard. I still have no answers from the Minister for Communications (Mr Duffy) to a question without notice about the oversight he has shown over these stamp matters. That is just a very small matter but millions of dollars are involved. We have the responsibility of checking and handling these matters for the people of Australia. The Auditor-General's Office has also ducked the issue, pointing out that it investigates and makes findings and it is up to others to try to do something about the problems. It is important that we get investigations into what has been going on over the last five years and why the management of Australia Post has not solved this problem. We need an inquiry. We are having an election and, temporarily at least, this matter will be lost in the election fever. I hope it is only temporary and that it will be taken up by somebody, if not by me. Also, an enormous amount of information is being withheld from us. I have been trying to get information from Australia Post about the closing down of the Watson post office. The saga is far too long to go into in detail at this stage but basically the Department has been carrying on a legal battle with the postmaster. It has been making statements which were inconsistent with previous statements. It is in a complete mess. It is looking at closing down this post office. It has not succeeded because a local group has taken this matter to court, has fought it through and has kept feeding material to people such as me, who have kept the matter alive. Eventually these public interest groups face massive costs if they want to follow such matters legally. They have now been further squeezed by the raising of freedom of information costs which this Government-which prides itself on its alleged open government-has presided over. Now it is not possible for people freely to get information other than personal information from the Public Service. The Public Service spends an enormous amount of time trying to make certain that information asked for is not able to be treated as personal information. It is quite unreasonable for organisations such as Australia Post and the NCDC to go into legal battle against public interest groups and to use the might of the public purse to push those groups out of litigation in which they are trying to pursue a matter in the interests of the people of a particular district or in the interests of Australia as a whole. It is quite unacceptable that public moneys should be used in this way and I have been pursuing this matter through the Estimates committee. We have not been getting the support we need from the Government in the answers that have been given. In the remaining five minutes available to me, I point out that yet another problem hits the Parliament when it has to oversee government expenditure. It will probably not be realised by most people that only 30 per cent of total government expenditure is handled through the budgetary process and through these types of supplementary Bills. Some 70 per cent of the government expenditure undertaken on behalf of the people of Australia is not directly subject to the scrutiny of this Parliament. These Bills include special appropriations of which there is no proper or regular scrutiny. Ministers do not scrutinise them and it is only through secondary questioning at Estimates committee hearings that one can actually get at some of the figures. Essentially, enormous slush funds are available on which we can get no reasonable accounting figures. That situation needs to be changed. I undertake that, if re-elected, I will continue to pursue accountability in government. Whether by some outside chance the Labor Government actually manages to get back into office or whether another party is elected to govern, the Public Service must still be beholden to Parliament and must respond to it. During this Government not only have we had more and more appropriations by way of special appropriations and special Bills-this allows the Public Service a completely free hand without any scrutiny from the Parliament-but also we have seen more and more government by Press release, which is also government by department and Minister. This shows contempt for the Senate. If we are to be a proper House of review, if we are to scrutinise properly the operations of the Public Service and look at every piece of legislation and make certain that it is good legislation for the people of this country, we must squash the government by Press release which has been the hallmark of the Hawke Government. I say to the Hawke Government that it must answer to the electors for this government by Press release and for more and more handing over of its responsibility to other people and blaming other people. It is blaming others at every stage, whether it be for our terms of trade or whatever. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Morris) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator WALTERS(Tasmania)(5.13) —Firstly, I congratulate Senator Vigor on his most interesting speech. The Government ought to be taking notice of what he said but, unfortunately, the only member of the Government in the chamber is the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Senator Gietzelt). That shows the contempt in which the Australian Labor Party holds this legislation. The Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, has called an early election. On April Fool's Day the Prime Minister told the people of Australia: To have an early election may have brought into question the Government's resolve to make the tough decisions needed to meet the economic challenge facing this country. I want to tell the Australian people that we will not shirk our responsibilities in making the unpalatable, though necessary, economic decisions. On April Fool's Day he ruled out any likelihood of an early election. He said that the May statement would be tough but fair. But in true characteristic style, what do we have? We have an early election. A month later that Prime Minister stated that this promise was to be forgotten. What other promises has this Government made that have been cast aside as easily as that promised? Mr Cain said at the Premiers Conference: You and I and people around this table took part in deregistering the BLF because it didn't keep agreements. He indicated that the Government had not kept its promise to the States of the year before. What was the answer of the Treasurer, Mr Keating? He replied: John, you say we've broken our commitment to you and you liken our commitment to Norm Gallagher. The fact is the world's broken its commitments to Australia. What utter rubbish. The Treasurer has been hiding behind the fact that the world is not giving us the prices we want for our commodities, the high prices for which we have become accustomed, ever since he has been in government, ever since he found that he could not manage the economy of this country. The Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh, got it right. Last year, at the Australian Labor Party Conference in Hobart, Senator Walsh said: I know some people believe, that budget deficits don't matter. They do matter in the degree to which they lock in future expenditure. If we had a public debt interest payment, the same level of outlays as it was in 1982- that was the last financial year during which the Fraser Government held office- we would in this financial year have about $4 billion extra to either cut taxes, increase welfare spending or whatever else you wanted to do with it. But because we have run a sequence of high budget deficits, we are lumbered with a crippling public debt interest payment which restricts the ability of this Government and Governments for the foreseeable future, to deliver the programs they would like to deliver elsewhere. Senator Walsh was honest enough to say that this Government has squandered $4 billion and it is because of that that we needed the May mini-Budget. We did not need it because of overseas problems or because, as Mr Keating said, the world has broken its commitments to Australia; it was because this Government has squandered money, as Senator Walsh said, through a series of high Budget deficits and given us crippling public debt interest payments. Those factors are restricting the Government's ability to manage the economy in a responsible manner. This Government has sold its soul to the media barons and thus it thinks it can get away with an early election. It will have all the media barons on side but I can tell it that there will be a backlash. The people of Australia are responsible and without any doubt-I assure Senator Gietzelt as the Minister present-the people will throw out this Labor Government as they did in 1975, and just as thoroughly. There will be a backlash. Mr Hawke has said that he needs a mandate to finish the job. Why does he need a mandate when already he and his Treasurer have presided over the lowering of Australia's overseas credit rating for the first time in Australia's history? Let us face the facts. This means that Australia no longer has an AAA credit rating and that any overseas borrowing will now be at a slightly higher interest rate. He wants a mandate to finish that job? What will our credit rating be by the time he finishes? The Treasurer-the best treasurer in the whole wide world!-is saying that we are becoming a banana republic, yet Mr Hawke wants a mandate to finish the job, to bring us into a true banana republic. That is what we have been promised by this Prime Minister. He wants certainty and continuity. Let us look at the job those opposite have done. We have a list of the top 10 broken promises. What happened to the first promise on home ownership? Mr Hawke, in his policy speech in 1984, said: We pledge ourselves to bring home ownership once again within the reach of ordinary Australian families. Within the reach of ordinary Australian families? In March 1983, average loan repayments were 19.2 per cent of a median family's income. The figure is now 26.9 per cent, as of December 1986. Monthly payments on a typical $50,000 home-not a lavish home-over a 25-year period have risen by $172 a month. Yet Mr Hawke says that he will bring home ownership within the reach of ordinary Australian families. The hypocrisy of it is sickening. Let us look at Mr Hawke's No. 2 promise on interest rates. In November 1984 he said: Australia and Australians will during 1985 reap the interest rate rewards that are flowing from successful policies of the past 20 months. Let us look at those interest rates. In November 1984 at the time of his speech, the prime interest rate was 13.5 per cent. The latest figure is 18.5 per cent. When Mr Hawke made that statement home loans were at 11.5 per cent. The latest Commonwealth Banking Corporation announcement was a rate of 16.5 per cent. The Bankcard rate at that time was 18 per cent. It is now 22.5 per cent and small overdrafts have moved from 14.5 per cent to 20.5 per cent. Let us compare that record with that of our immediate trading partners. It is most interesting to compare prime interest rates because such comparisons can be made only with countries to which we are trying to sell our goods. As I said, at the moment our prime interest rate is 18.5 per cent whereas in Japan it is 5.2 per cent, in the United States of America it is 7.5 per cent and in West Germany it is 5.45 per cent. What a wonderful broken promise that was. And we should give him a mandate to finish the job? Australians would be mad to do so. The next promise concerned petrol prices. Mr Hawke promised: Any fall in Saudi prices must be passed on to Australian motorists in lower petrol prices. What did he do? He put on a 10c per litre excise. We all remember the promises to lower petrol prices. The Australian people know what they are paying for petrol. There is no need for me to say anything further. Then we come to promises made to ordinary families. In February 1983 Mr Hawke promised concerning the dependent spouse rebate: The major points of Labor's tax reform will be . . . increases in the spouse rebate. Under the previous Fraser Government, the dependent spouse rebate went from $400 when we first came in after Mr Whitlam, for a dependent spouse with dependent children, to $1,030. For a dependent spouse without dependent children the sum more than doubled from $400 to $830. Not one cent has been given for the dependent spouse rebate by this Government. Yet Mr Hawke promised that Labor's tax reform would mean increases to the dependent spouse rebate. Let us go further to the Medicare levy. We all remember that promise, do we not? In November 1984 in that good policy speech of Labor-anything to get it into government but with no intention to have a commitment to any of the promises-Mr Hawke said: And I now give this undertaking-that for the term of our next government, the Medicare levy will not be increased. What dreadful fraud. In the 1986-87 Budget, the Medicare levy was increased from one per cent to 1.25 per cent and the ceiling on the levy was abolished. In the mini-Budget the Government has done a lot more-it has done things that had never been thought of, so Mr Hawke has got away with not having made promises about them. I will come to that later. Let us look at promise No. 8. Mr Hawke said: In our next three years of Government the overall level of taxation will not increase as a proportion of Gross Domestic Product. What has happened since Mr Hawke said that in November 1984? In 1985-86 it went up by 0.2 per cent and the next year it went up again another half per cent-but Mr Hawke said the promise would stand for three years. In breaking that promise the Government raised $400m in additional tax in the first year. He said he would keep the promise for three years but he broke it in the first year and raised $400m in tax and $1,400m in the next year. So much for that promise. We all remember him telling us so clearly that that promise at least would never be broken. The next promise was the wine tax promise. We all remember that. It is of no use Senator Gietzelt turning off his hearing aid because the people of Australia will tell him when the election comes and he will have to listen to them. Mr Hawke said: Labor has pledged not to impose a sales tax or an excise on wine. That was in Bob Hawke's rural policy speech. In the 1984-85 Budget he imposed a 10 per cent tax. What did the Prime Minister do in the 1986-87 Budget? He increased it to 20 per cent. I now come to the Prime Minister's famous promise on the capital gains tax. I know that Opposition senators certainly remember that because these were his words: And here let me make one point so that even our opponents can understand it; and let me make it beyond all their powers of misrepresentation and distortion. There will be no new capital gains tax. We all know what we have. We have a capital gains tax. Senator Gareth Evans said by way of interjection that the promise was for one election only. What credibility could any government have when it makes a promise and then backs off so quickly? Those are the top 10 broken promises that I would like to deal with tonight, and I am dealing with only 10. Are the people of Australia going to give this Government a mandate to finish the job and to break more of its promises? I do not believe that they will. What has this Government been responsible for? More people are living below the poverty line than ever before. More married women are being forced into the work force because it has become necessary to have two incomes to support the family. We have the highest level of company and personal bankruptcies in the history of the nation and the highest level of personal taxation that Australia has ever seen. This Government has a contempt and a lack of compassion for the people of Australia that has never been experienced before. Jobs and grants for the boys and the friends of the Australian Labor Party are also on a scale that has never been experienced. This Government has a list of broken promises that has never been equalled by any government before it. Are we really going to give this Government a mandate to finish the job? What about the trade unions? We all know that Mr Hawke, coming fresh from being President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, has had to kow-tow to the ACTU to ensure that the money rolls in for the election. He introduced industrial relations legislation into the House of Representatives that we were all able to have a look at. The business community decided that it would fight that legislation tooth and nail to the death because it would give the unions so much power and a court of their own which would keep them out of any civil court. It would have given the unions such power that they would have been well above the law that applies to any other Australian citizen. Because the Government introduced this legislation, because we were all well aware of it, because the Opposition made it so clear that it would never allow the legislation to get through, and because business decided that it would fight the legislation so hard, this pragmatic Government withdrew the legislation as it announced the election date. Are we going to give this Government a mandate to finish the job, a mandate to give the ACTU powers in this country, and a mandate to make the foreign affairs policies that it is making at the moment over Fiji? Not on your life! No mandate will be given to this Government to finish the job. What sorts of standards do we have in this Government? We have the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Mr Young. The people of Australia will be reminded of Mick Young's long lunch. Mick Young is one of six Cabinet Ministers on a sub-committee on national and international security-I suppose one of the most important committees in Australia-yet he was not able to keep his own counsel. He had to tell friends over a prolonged lunch that he was about to kick out a Russian. Mr Coombe was involved. The Prime Minister rang Richard Farmer and said: `I will not tell you much about it but do not waste your money by going into business with Mr Coombe'. Those are the sorts of standards we have in this Ministry. We had Mick Young bringing undeclared goods into this country. What happened? The Customs officers were so appalled that they told us about it and Mick Young was thrown out of Cabinet for a short while so that an inquiry could be conducted. What a disgraceful situation when Ministers of the Crown can get away with things that the citizens of this country cannot get away with. What a disgrace! Of course, to cap it all we had the Treasurer (Mr Keating) who decided that he was above the law and that he would not pay his tax or put in a tax return. I have a copy of the letter from the Commissioner of Taxation which states: Dear Mr Keating, The purpose of this letter is to draw to your attention the need for you to file your 1986 tax return which is now outstanding. As recently discussed your 1985 return is also well overdue. The Commissioner of Taxation writes personal letters to the Treasurer of the country pleading with him to pay his overdue tax and to send in his overdue returns, yet the citizens of this country are being fined if they do not do it. They do not get letters from the Commissioner of Taxation. Mr Keating's only excuse was that he was too busy to fill in his tax forms. This same Treasurer is ripping off the people with the highest taxes that Australia has ever experienced. He is also ripping off these people by saying that his home is really in Sydney. He collects a travelling allowance for living in Canberra. His wife and children live in Canberra, his children go to school in Canberra and he claims a daily travelling allowance because he fraudulently says that he lives in Sydney. Senator Peter Baume —His Canberra address is on the electoral roll too. Senator WALTERS —His Canberra address is on the electoral roll. So he votes in Canberra but he still says that he lives in Sydney, and he collects a daily travelling allowance. What a fraud this Government is! What sorts of standards does it have? What sort of control does the Prime Minister have over his Cabinet? He has no control at all. If he puts Mick Young out of the Ministry for a while his colleagues put Mick Young in again. The Prime Minister has lost all control over the standards of his Cabinet Ministers. Can we afford to give this country the same again? Can we afford to give this Government a mandate to finish us off? There is no way in the whole world that the people of this country will give this Government a mandate to send them broke and bankrupt, to make Australia a banana republic and to allow this Government to continue its sordid standards and remain in government. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(5.40) —By tradition, this debate gives us the opportunity to examine not only the legislation before us-the Appropriation Bills and Supply Bills-but also related matters of economic management. In today's climate it is proper, too, that we examine the Australian Labor Party's headlong rush into an election, one which it will lose. The folly of Labor's cupidity and poor judgment will become clearer with each week of the campaign. We are pleased that the battle is joined; we are delighted that the election has been called on. We are delighted that we can now take on and tip out this dishonoured, dis- honourable, cynical and opportunistic Labor Government. But the timing of the election is revealing. It is an eloquent statement of what the Government is hiding, of what Labor will not tell us. It is a particularly eloquent statement of the Government's determination to hide from Australians the shape and nature of the Budget to come down in August. Let me pose a simple question: What is the difference for this or for any government between an election held in July and an election held in September? Let us acknowledge that there might be some differences. In September, the Government could have an election for only half of the Senate; in July, it could call for a double dissolution. This is being done so that Labor can assist the Australian Democrats to an election in the most propitious circumstances with the smallest possible quota for a Senate election. That is a judgment that the Labor Party has taken. The preservation of the Democrats, after all, is in the interests of the Labor Party. Sadly, it is not in the interests of Australia; nor is it in the interests of the good government of the country. But never mind, we will accommodate that challenge. But the July date is notable too for the opportunity it gives to seek votes without first revealing the shape or nature of the Budget due in August. We will accommodate this, too, because we will ask the Australian people: `What is it that Labor is hiding? Why go in July? Why does it not reveal its Budget? Why does it not wait until the people know what package they are buying? Why buy a pig in a poke?'. We will ensure that Australians know that Labor has bad news hidden until an election is behind us. The election of a Liberal government is the only way to avoid some of the bitterness and betrayal that the election of a Labor government would bring. The July date is most notable because it gives us, the Liberal Party of Australia, the earliest chance-an earlier chance than we had anticipated-to meet and to defeat the Hawke Government. Since the May economic statement was brought down this is something that I have been hoping for with all my heart and with considerable anticipation-and Labor has now delivered it to us. Let us look at why this is so. That May economic statement, the so-called mini-Budget, was a cruel and cynical document. It was a typical Labor Party exercise in looking after its mates and its own voters at the expense of the weak and powerless in Australia. It did achieve some savings-very few; too few; some of them illusory, many of them overstated; but these savings have been achieved and can be achieved only at great social cost to this country. In the areas of health, education and social welfare, Labor will achieve savings. It will do it by reducing protection for the genuinely needy, by increasing barriers to make it more difficult for people to become personally powerful and autonomous with control over their own lives. Labor has reduced or withdrawn benefits for some people; it has imposed harsher conditions upon welfare access for other people; it has increased waiting periods for yet others. The Labor Party has targeted widows, the unemployed, some families, jobless school leavers, single sickness beneficiaries, widows over the age of 45 years, students, those unlucky enough to have complicated or catastrophic illness, those who are in hospitals as private patients and so on-a sad litany of the most needy and most deserving in our society. Honourable senators may not be aware that since 1982-83 Labor has already reduced income support for individuals through the social security system as a percentage of total outlays, just as it has reduced support for families since 1982-83. With the economic statement that came down this May, income support programs will be cut again. The burden of this mini-Budget is to be borne by the weak and politically powerless-in the short term electoral interests of a Labor Party determined not to alienate powerful voting groups. Labor has done all this to the weaker, poorer, needier members of our community-the widows, the students and the unemployed-while leaving most well off, middle class people absolutely or relatively untouched by the economic statement. What an abandonment of the role of protector, initiator, shield and ally that has been the traditional boast of Labor senators and Labor governments. What an eloquent statement of social values and priorities! Labor today preserves tax cuts for those in jobs, including senators, while preaching restraint, belt tightening, benefit withdrawal, harsher conditions and more difficult access for those in greatest need or with the greatest disadvantage. While the weaker and the poorer have taken the brunt of the expenditure cuts, we, the better off, have retained our promised tax cuts and, for the most part, have retained our payments from the welfare budget. Yes, it is a great mini-Budget statement! It hits the weak and it preserves the powerful. Let us just look at some of the details. Savings have been effected from family allowances; from payments to widows; from levels of payments to the jobless; from benefits to unemployed school leavers; from access to benefits by the young jobless; from single sickness beneficiaries; from widows with student children; from technical and further education, as it tries to add to the skills of the young in Australia; and from higher education, as it tries to make Australia more competitive by training people. A Sydney economist, Paul Gross, says that the decision to reduce Commonwealth rebates for certain hospital patients will mean higher costs of private health insurance. It might mean that some doctors withdraw from the care of hospital in-patients, and it could mean that certain effective, non-invasive and advanced diagnostic techniques are withheld from patients who need them. All these things are eloquent declarations of priorities and intent. Mr Gross is also aghast at the reduced funding for geriatric assessment teams-one of the cornerstones of any rational policy for aged persons' residential care. What a tragedy it is that Senator Grimes has gone. While he was Minister this would never have happened. The Labor Party is reducing funding for geriatric assessment teams which, of course, help to make people able to cope without going into residential care. If we add to this the decision in the mini-Budget to reduce the Commonwealth commitment to home and community care we see that the vulnerable aged are also being asked to bear an undue proportion of the burden of Labor's cost cutting. Reduced medical rebates, another part of the package, will leave the sick, particularly the chronically ill, with larger net medical bills to pay. What a great priority for targeting cuts! What Labor is doing is saving nothing in absolute terms, but it is shifting costs of medical care from the public sector back to the sick-to the sickest and most vulnerable, to those with major progressive complicated medical disease and to those in hospital. What a statement of priorities that is! Some savings! It is merely a transfer of costs to the weak and needy by a Labor Party out of touch with Australia. We now know, too, that up to 20,000 qualified young Australians were refused entry to Australian universities and colleges of advanced education this year. We are now told that one of the priorities of the Labor Government, expressed in the mini-Budget papers that came down a week or so ago, is to withdraw yet more money from the higher education sector-an amount of $132 million in a full year. Oh, what a statement of priorities that is! It can mean only less opportunity in education and that less opportunity in education will be one direct outcome of the priorities adopted by the Hawke Labor Government. Not only has the Labor Party reduced its expenditure on education; it has reduced its expenditure on aged persons, in spite of evidence put forward from within its own ranks, from Mrs Marie Coleman, from its own Policy Co-ordination Unit, just to take the case of the aged, that in the next five years-from 1987 to 1991 inclusive-we will see increased numbers of people over the age of 75, increases of the order of 22 per cent. This is no area for expenditure reduction, certainly not while the comfortable and affluent remain untouched. I am angry at this document, angry at this Government, angry on behalf of so many people called on to suffer so that we, the well off, can all be better off from 1 July. Ross Gittins, the journalist, made this clear in a fine statement in the Sydney Morning Herald when he said that other options might have actually involved those of us who are better off in bearing some of the burden contained in the recent expenditure cuts. He even made specific suggestions of what kind of cuts could have been made to spread the load more equitably than has been done, rather than concentrating it all on the weak and disadvantaged. Some of his proposals are not consistent with the policy of my Party, but no matter; the fact is that he was suggesting that there were ways to spread the expenditure cuts more fairly than has been done. Some of his suggestions do no more than suggest that the well off should share some of the same sacrifices that Labor is demanding from the weak and the poor. Members of the Liberal Party, those from a philosophical liberal tradition, operate within a different and better philosophical framework. Ours is the political philosophy based on individual persons who come together to create and define and renew and modify and maintain a society. We talk about individuals who have rights and who have needs and, most of all, who have obligations to each other. We believe that individuals acting rationally and with co-operative goodwill can shape society to avoid past errors and to correct injustice. It is not possible to do that if one orders one's priorities to make the weak bear all the burdens and the powerful enjoy all the benefits. We believe that individuals have rights. We believe that individuals should be equally able to participate. We believe, too, that individuals have obligations to each other, and that individuals should be able to pursue their own goals within agreed bounds. On that test of what liberalism is about, we Liberals have to condemn the Labor Government of Bob Hawke. It has displayed no compassion, no sense of obligation, no sympathy and too little fairness in the statement we had in its mini-Budget a fortnight ago. As David Kemp has written in the past, the overriding goal of liberalism is the realisation of human dignity for all people. Other people have also given us tests for designing public policy. The Harvard philosopher, John Rawl, has added some thoughts about his concept of justice as fairness. It is a useful concept for this debate. Rawl's idea is encapsulated by his challenge to make rules for a society on the assumption that we do not know what role we, individually might be called on to take in that society. For example, we could not assume that we will be senators; we could be anyone in society. He then challenges us by asking: `What would we consider to be a fair society if we might have ended up as someone else?' It is not a bad test. My vision is of a society where those of us designing and implementing policy can meet Kemp's challenge, can answer the questions of John Rawl and can satisfy the standards of liberal compassion and concern. Although I do not accept that small government is a social goal in itself, or that processes such as deregulation or privatisation are valid political goals in themselves, there are many occasions on which my goals, related to individuals, will be served by reduced government, by lower taxation, by specific acts of deregulation or by some degree of privatisation. I do accept, and my colleagues accept, as a proper starting point the extent of the economic crisis facing Australia and of the central need, as part of the solution to that problem, for us to reduce the burden of government on Australian citizens. The argument then shifts to how this might be approached with justice and equity and, in particular, how government might still direct its benefits preferentially towards protecting and empowering those in society whose needs are greatest. I do not believe, as Labor apparently does and as Labor displayed in its mini-Budget, that Australia will be served best by reducing the imposts on the wealthy by removing or reducing the benefits for the needy. That kind of formula, which was displayed clearly in the mini-Budget, is a disgrace in terms of social priorities and social theories. We Liberals want a welfare system that displays efficiency, neutrality, simplicity, fairness and acceptability. They are features that should sound familiar. Most economists agree that those are the features of a good tax system. But if one wanted to add liberal values in welfare, one could include the empowering of individuals, responding to need-one has to accept that the whole concept of need itself is value-dependent-keeping to a minimum the level of unmet need in society, the encouragement of the maximum degree of independence and dignity, and the provision of maximum incentive for self-provision. Yet the Labor Party has not addressed this question fairly in the priorities it has addressed, particularly in its miserable May economic statement. The statement has been produced, after all, by powerful Ministers, secure on ministerial salaries and with guaranteed political support and pensions. These people have laid the burden of their strategies on the weak and the needy in an unfair and discriminatory way. Whatever else happens, they know that they will not-except perhaps, for some of them who have young children and may suffer some loss of family allowance-be called upon to share in the sacrifice or the burden they are laying on other people. I believe what they have done is morally reprehensible. I want to say a little about the context in which welfare policy exists in this country. People are fond of attacking welfare expenditure. Some people say that it has increased too fast, that too much of it is wasted and that too many of the recipients are, as people put it, `undeserving'. I will have no part of that. The record shows that since 1982-83 outlays in social security and welfare have increased at the same rate as expenditures on defence. The figures show that income transfers to individuals have increased at a lower rate than have outlays for administration or outlays for subsidies for goods or services. So, let no one tell us that welfare is blowing out quicker than other expenditures. The figures do not bear it out. It is a sad commentary on the motive power of greed and self-interest that many of those who most criticise cash provision for other people when it is provided through the social welfare system in Australia are the very same people who are at the forefront in advocating the extension of benefits for themselves when they are paid through the taxation system. Too often there is a call to restrict the eligibility for benefits under the social welfare system and a simultaneous and associated call-a demand, in fact-that benefits available through tax rebates be extended. It is even sadder that a Labor Government has taken such a clear position against the neediest and the most vulnerable while leaving the strongest and most affluent relatively unscathed. The Labor Party clearly has no qualms when it comes to choosing between the desires of the powerful and the needs of the weak. It chooses the powerful all the time. Where hard choices have to be made, the Liberal Party will generally favour the weak and the poorest and the claims of needs-based programs. As a result of this Labor mini-Budget, life will be harder particularly for the poorer in society, but also for many more. Mr Deputy President, I put it to you and to the Senate that extended middle class welfare should not be favoured in any but times of the greatest national affluence. More middle class welfare should not be favoured especially when unmet social need is great and when a national economic crisis demands that expenditure is limited where it can be. Given the dimensions of the economic crisis facing Australia today, the Liberal Party will give the highest priority still to the requirements of the most needy and give lowest priority to the welfare demands of the affluent. It is tragic that Labor did not do that in the mini-Budget honourable senators had to listen to a fortnight ago. Just by concentrating on the most needy, members of the Liberal Party believe we can achieve the welfare savings necessary to help overcome part of the economic crisis. A Government with a littered path of broken promises behind it is taking us to an early election in an attempt to hide the Budget it was due to bring down in August. The Australian people will understand that. They understand that the reason for the election is phoney and contrived. They understand that there is no legitimate reason of government to take the nation to an election in July. We know that following the election a Liberal government will have to pick up the pieces and try to do something about the economic mess it will inherit. It will do that against the background of an Australia with reduced living standards for all, trade unions being given undue power and higher taxes year by year. Since March 1983 when this Government took office, the weekly tax bill of the family on average weekly earnings has risen by $65 dollars a week. It has more than doubled, to more than $100 a week. Those Australians with home loans have to pay off their mortgages at a rate of something like $200 or more extra every month. The same families are having to pay more than $5 a week extra for private health insurance which many people in Australia are determined to maintain because it is their life line to treatment in times of crisis. These same families have received a real increase in wages after inflation is discounted of only $9 a week. Those families are now considerably worse off than they were previously. The Liberal Party has a story to tell the Australian people; it has a message to take to them-a message of hope and renewal. It is a message of social priorities that will encourage those who are less advantaged rather than the priorities that were set out in the disgraceful mini-Budget which came down two weeks ago and which seemed to target the weak, the needy, the unemployed and the widows with such viciousness and which apparently gave the Labor Party such pride. Members of the Liberal Party look forward to the election; it cannot come quickly enough for us. We have wanted the chance to tip this Government out and we are now getting that chance. Although the Senate gets up next week, we look forward to being back here a few weeks later and sitting on the other side of the chamber. Senator BROWNHILL(New South Wales)(6.05) —I support the Opposition's amendment to the Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 1986-87. It is appropriate for the Senate to take note of some of the points raised earlier in the debate by Senator Messner. The amendments refer to the decision to call an early election without informing the Australian people of the content of the August 1987 Budget; the Government's continued mismanagement of the economy, which has caused widespread and growing concern among Australians about their future; its continued mismanagement of the economy, which has caused a sustained reduction in the living standards of all Australians, particularly Australian families with young children, to which Senator Peter Baume has just referred; the fundamental weaknesses in the nation's economy, as indicated by a declining economic growth rate; an inflation rate of four times that of our major trading partners; record relative interest rates; an overseas debt burden of $105 billion; the value of the Australian dollar being cut by one-third; and the failure of the Government to implement in its May economic statement the genuine expenditure cuts necessary to restore balance to its policies and reduce interest rates. I ask the Australian people why the Government is running scared and wanting to have an early election; an early election which, only some time ago, the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) had said was not on the cards. The Prime Minister tells us we should trust him, but he said there would be no way there would be an early election and that the Parliament would definitely go to the end of the year or, most probably, into 1988. Why is the Prime Minister having an early election? I say he is running scared-running scared because this Government is not game to bring down the August Budget. It will be left to the Liberal Party when it wins the election to do that, and that will be a good thing for Australia as it will do something that will make the country the beautiful place it used to be. Is the Government calling the early election because of the industrial relations legislation lying on the table in the other place? I hope the Australian people will take full note of the fact that that legislation has been hastily withdrawn and laid on the table in the House of Representatives so that this cynical election could be called and the ire of all the people in the community would not be brought down at this stage on the Government. When people consider the legislation, they will see the damage it will do to the whole of the community. It puts the trade union movement well above any other people in the community; it puts the trade union movement in a position of power that it has never had before. The legislation is lying on the table in the other place ready to be put in place if the Government is returned. Thank goodness the Government has given us the opportunity of fighting an election so that we can make sure that the legislation does not see the light of day. Why a double dissolution? I would have thought that if one wanted good, solid government on one side or the other, one would not have a lot of Independents in the Senate. One would not have the Australian Democrats in the Senate to go cap in hand to every time one wanted legislation passed. Obviously a deal has been done between the Democrats and the Labor Government because the Democrats have voted with the Labor Party more times than it has voted against it. The Democrats will obviously be expected by the Labor Party to come up with the goodies if, perchance, it is re-elected. The Australian people must realise that if the Labor Government is returned to power and if people vote for the Democrats, they will be voting in the industrial relations legislation currently lying on the table in the other place, along with all the other nasties that are just around the corner. As I have said, the Liberal Party has been given the opportunity of winning the next election, and it will win the next election and it will get Australia back on its feet so the country will no longer be led down the garden path as it has been over the last five years of the Hawke Labor Government. Australia's current inflation rate is around 9.4 per cent. During the last calendar year, it was 9.8 per cent. The inflation rate in the United States is 1.1 per cent, Japan's inflation rate is only 0.2 per cent and West Germany has an inflation rate of minus 1 per cent. I refer to an article, which was received in my office only today, from the National Australia Bank `Monthly Summary' which states, in part: According to the leading article in the June `Summary', inflation in Australia is likely to remain disturbingly high and out of line with other Western economies. . . . . Such chronic inflation, the bank suggests will dissipate the benefits of the depreciation of the Australian dollar and may trigger further devaluations leading to a prices/wages spiral. So, that is just around the corner, if we cannot get this country back on the road. That will be the case if we cannot win this next election, although, as I have just said, we will win that election, now that we have been given the opportunity. Senator Hill —We will win. Senator BROWNHILL —Of course we will win, because the Australian people will not be fooled by a cynical Prime Minister. Mr Hawke has tried to fool the people of Australia for too long. Just because he thinks he has some charisma-you know `old silver', who has charisma-when the people out there realise that they have been hoodwinked yet again by this Prime Minister they will vote accordingly. They will vote with their pockets and with their heads; they will demonstrate that they want the Liberal and National parties to have a go at governing this country, to ensure that it returns to the way that it used to be before the present Prime Minister and this discredited Labor Government came to power. I refer to our living standards. Every time something happens in Australia, one of the Labor Party Ministers blames it on the bad market prices that prevail or on something else that is occurring elsewhere in the world. However, I suggest to them that these situations have occurred before. We have had bad market prices in the past but we have not had factors pertaining to a high inflation rate or to the cost of production prevalent in Australia as is the case at the moment. In the past, when we had Liberal and National Party governments in Australia, we were able to live with the bad commodity prices, as we did not have the price spiral or our input costs to contend with. At the moment the thing that is killing especially the farming community is the input costs; it is not so much the commodity prices on the world markets. This is the biggest taxing government in peacetime history. In 1986-87, receipts from tax accounted for something like 25.5 per cent of the gross domestic product. Government outlays as percentages of the GDP in the four Keating Budgets have been the largest in post-war history, averaging 29.2 per cent. Senator Hill —The more times you repeat it the better. Senator BROWNHILL —That is right. Would the honourable senator like it from the start? This Government's outlays as a percentage of the GDP in the four Keating Budgets have been the largest in post-war history, averaging 29.2 per cent. This the biggest spending government in peacetime history. Senator Michael Baume —That means that it is the biggest taxing government too. Senator BROWNHILL —It is the biggest taxing government. It is the biggest everything. Those in the Government are the biggest muckers-up of the economy that this country has ever had. The votes in the ballot box will certainly indicate what the people of Australia think of the Government. The size of government in 1986-87, even after the mini-Budget, is still larger than the average size of government under Mr Fraser. In relation to interest rates, everyone thinks that the Government has done something about bringing down interest rates, but it has done nothing about that. The Government has not done a thing about bringing down interest rates in this country. Most probably the American economy has had a bigger effect on bringing down our interest rates than has the Government. To give the Government a little bit of praise-maybe for the first time in some time-the Government has pulled the Reserve Bank off the back of the dollar, with the bank no longer holding up the dollar. It may be that that has helped a little. In relation to the prime commercial rate for loans over $100,000, in February 1983 in Australia the rate was 14 per cent, while in February 1987, just four years later, the interest rate was 18.25 per cent. Of course, while our interest rate in Australia is 18.25 per cent, I point out that those in other countries are: United States of America, 12 per cent; Japan, 3.75 per cent; Italy, 7.5 per cent; and Canada, 9.75 per cent. Further, in 1983 Bankcard customers were paying 18 per cent but they are now paying 20 per cent for their money. In 1983, overdrafts under $100,000 attracted a rate of 13.5 per cent to 14 per cent, while now the interest rate is something like 20 per cent. What about people who are paying off their homes, those who have taken the average loan for their house? Those people are now paying $50 a week more because of the policies of the Hawke-Keating Labor Government. In New South Wales, since 1984 the average loan repayment has increased from some $472 a month to $678 a month. It is all very well for Senator Evans to smile and laugh about the economy, as he did a little while ago, but I point out that the people who are paying those interest rates on home loans will have the chance on 11 July, when this prematurely called election will take place, to indicate what they think about those high interest rates and the problems that they are having in paying off their homes. The present Government is supposed to be one that cares about the family and one that is concerned about the need for young Australian families to have homes of their own. However, I would venture to say, when considering some of the legislation that has been brought into this place, that the Government is more interested in the big monied interests of Australia-the big companies-than in the average Australian family. I refer to health care costs, which Senator Peter Baume mentioned earlier. Before Medicare, the net weekly cost of medical and private cover for a family on average weekly earnings was $9.66 but by the end of 1986 that had increased to $14.30. That is an increase of nearly 50 per cent. During 1986, health care costs rose by some 26 per cent. In those circumstances one cannot consider that the economy is under control and on the right road. Thank goodness that we have been given the chance to vote this Government out of power. I could go on for quite some time talking about the problems in the economy and the fact that this Government has a total disregard for the ordinary people in Australia. By means of the mini-Budget the Government has thrown various costs back to the States. Supposedly, some $1.6 billion has been cut off the Federal Budget-although this is a bit shonky-but it has asked the States to cut $2 billion off their Budgets. One would think that the party asking for the cutting to be done would lead from the front and not from behind. But that is not the case and the Federal Government will have to contend with less in cutbacks than it has asked the States to endure. Of course, the States will have to pass on the costs involved, and that will cause further inflation. In turn, that will cause further problems for the ordinary people in Australia going about their business in the workplace. Before concluding, I shall quote from some comments that were made about the outlook for the Australian economy. I shall be brief because I know that Senator Hill wants to say something in this very important debate. I refer to an article by David Potts published in the Australian newspaper on 14 May 1987. This article relates to the economy and to the fact that all that is likely to occur in the foreseeable future is that the inflation rate will rise by 7.25 per cent. That is wonderful, is it not? It is still probably at least seven times more than that of some of our trading partners. David Potts says that the slump means that worse might be still to come. He goes on to say: Missing altogether- he is talking about the mini-Budget- is an account of where we have come from and where we are going. We are told the forward estimates of spending rose. But we are told nothing of revenues, or of the likely Budget deficit we face. A minute ago Senator Peter Baume made the point that taxes will go up under Labor. The so-called tax cuts that it talks about will leave a single income family with dependent children $15 a week worse off than it was four years ago. What a wonderful thing to give to the Australian people! David Potts goes on: Mr Keating told us the deficit next year would now be `under 1 per cent of GDP'. This is a limit of $2.9 billion. We know spending will be $78.4 billion, which means revenues must be $81.3 billion. So the hidden figure is a 14 per cent rise in revenues, compared with a rise of 11 per cent last year. There will be more revenues, more money coming into the till. By a sleight of hand or a devious little trick, this Government is trying to fool the Australian people that the economy is on the good side of being bad rather than what it is-on the bad side of being good. I repeat what David Potts said: So the hidden figure is a 14 per cent rise in revenues, compared with a rise of 11 per cent last year. I have repeated that because I think it is well worth doing. He continues: We do not know yet how much taxing this will be because we do not know how much the Reserve Bank is going to make from its increasingly lucrative foreign exchange dealings. This Government has not told all the people all the truth all the time. It is high time that it told the truth even a little of the time. I am quite sure that during the next few weeks of the election campaign we will expose this Government for what it is doing: It is playing charades with the Australian people. Let us look at the rural sector. This Government has done nothing for it, except to make the lives of people in it more difficult. It has saddled the rural economy with massive interest rate problems. It is overseeing an economic environment in which our goods are unable to be afforded by most of our trading partners. Even in the death throes of the Hawke-Keating Labor Government it is saddling the rural community with unnecessary legislation, forcing statutory authorities such as the Australian Wool Corporation to adopt equal opportunity guidelines. That is an example of one of the things that it is doing at the moment. The industrial relations legislation is lying on the table in the other place, to be brought out from under the carpet if this Government were ever to be given another chance. With rural Australia in danger of suffering a major collapse, what does this Government do? It runs to the polls to avoid the problems. It is not game to bring in the August Budget first. It pushes through useless legislation that will simply push up costs in the short term. The average income of farmers this financial year will be only something like $9,300; we can understand the problem. That is an increase on last year's figure of $2,000, but it is still less than half the average weekly earnings. The average real rate of return on capital for all the farm industries has fallen to minus 6.9 per cent, and land values are down 30 per cent. This Government should be condemned for what it is-a government that has led a country with so much potential, which had so much going for it, down the road to economic ruin. I am sure the people of Australia will condemn the Government for that in the 11 July election. Senator HILL(South Australia)(6.25) —This cognate debate on the Supply and Appropriation Bills provides an opportunity to examine the economic malaise that besets Australia and this Government's very significant contribution to it. The economic indicators show Australia to be in dire straits. In 1986 Australia's economic growth was a mere 1.4 per cent, lower than that of all Western nations except Greece and New Zealand. In 1987-88 the Government is hoping for a 2.5 per cent growth, in itself a reflection on the failure of the Government which earlier forecast a 3.5 per cent growth. The motor vehicle industry, an important industry in my home State of South Australia, experienced in 1986 the lowest level of new motor vehicle registrations since 1972-a mere 526,000 registrations. The forecast for 1987 is a maximum of 500,000 new registrations which would be the lowest since 1969. Regrettably, according to figures made available today, it now appears that it will more likely be about 460,000, the April registrations being 20,000 less than for April 1986, a 38 per cent fall. Housing is well below Budget forecasts. Approvals and commencements are down by 17 per cent on the same period in the last financial year. The number of new commencements this financial year is likely to be only 118,000, well below the minimum 135,000 promised under the Government's housing package. A record number of people is on public housing waiting lists-154,400 compared with 109,800 before Labor came to power. This 154,400 includes 40,000 applications on behalf of 100,000 individuals in South Australia. Despite this, $52m has been cut from housing in South Australia. This could mean a reduction of 1,000 homes in a building program of some 3,000 homes. This is against a backdrop of 100,000 homeless in this, the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless. As one moves through the various indices the same depressing picture recurs. In the labour market unemployment remains unnecessarily high. The number of unemployed has risen by 64,000 in the first 10 months of 1986-87 to a total of 641,000. The unemployment rate similarly rose from 7.5 per cent to 8.3 per cent. It is worth remembering that the unemployment plateau averaged 5 per cent under the Fraser Government; under the Hawke Government the rate has been 8 per cent. The average duration of unemployment also has risen dramatically in the last four years of the Labor Government, from 35 weeks to 50 weeks in March 1987. The youth unemployment rate of 23.1 per cent is higher than when Labor announced the Priority One program in August 1985, despite traineeships, Austudy and all the public relations that we experienced following the introduction of Priority One. Australia's rate of increase in labour costs is still almost twice that of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations-7 to 8 per cent as opposed to 4 per cent. It is little wonder that industry is making such little headway in the international market-place, despite the readily eroding value of the Australian dollar. Australia's inflation rate remains disturbingly high. At 9.4 per cent, it is some five times that of our major trading partners. If one looks at the Government's expectation of 7.25 per cent in 1987-88 one sees that that is still a mere four times the rate of those trading partners. Under the Hawke Labor Government Australia's inflation rate has exceeded the OECD average every year. I suggest that this is hardly surprising considering, for instance, the 18 per cent rise in the health and personal care group of the consumer price index in the last year, reflecting the Government's Budget measures. The May statement effects have yet to be reflected in the CPI, but no doubt they will maintain the surge of Labor health cost increases. Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 8 p.m. Senator HILL —Before the dinner break, in the context of debating the Supply and Appropriation Bills, I was referring to a few of the economic indices which indicate the mess this Government has made of the Australian economy. I had reached the stage of referring to Australia's balance of payments, which under this Government has deteriorated in the last few years. In 1985-86 our current account deficit was $14.4 billion or 6 per cent of gross domestic product. A current account deficit of that proportion of GDP was last experienced in 1951-52. Australia's figure was the second highest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The forecast for 1987 is that Australia will maintain that position-not surprisingly, when our current account deficits appear to be averaging about $1 billion a month. I turn now to the lamentable state of Australia's foreign debt. Australia's gross foreign debt has grown alarmingly under Labor. The lame excuse we hear from Labor Ministers, that takeover activities are the cause, simply does not stand up to examination, because $41 billion of our approximately $105 billion foreign debt is in the public sector. That debt has grown faster than the debt of the private sector over the four years of the Labor Government. Australian gross foreign debt has risen threefold under Labor, from $36 billion in June 1983 to, as I said, $105 billion in December 1986. Our net indebtedness is much the same, having risen from $23 billion to $81 billion. Related to our debt situation has been the collapse of the value of the dollar under this Labor Government. I could not but mention interest rates. Under this Government interest rates are at record levels. Home loan interest rates of savings banks are at a record 15.5 per cent, compared with 11.5 per cent at the time of the last election. The same record rates are contributing to the downturn of the motor vehicle and housing industries, which I mentioned before the dinner break, and to the unacceptable level of bankruptcies and business failures that we are experiencing. These interest rates are harming consumers and businesses alike and I would respectfully suggest they record a sorry indictment of this Government's policies. Taxation has been the hallmark of this Government. The Government might like to be reminded of a few of its initiatives in this area-a new higher tax regime for lump sum superannuation payments; biannual indexation of excise on alcohol, tobacco and petroleum; the Medicare levy of 1 per cent, and now 1.25 per cent; a wine tax of 10 per cent and now 20 per cent that particularly hits producers in my home State of South Australia; abolition of the concessional expenditure rebate; abolition of negative gearing; removal of the Medicare levy limit; disallowance of entertainment expenditure; disallowance of investment allowance; capital gains tax; fringe benefits tax; substantiation provisions; reduction of objection rights; new sales tax; large increases in petrol excise; an increase in the corporate tax rate from 46 per cent to 49 per cent; and of course, the foreign tax credit system. Similarly, in the wings we now have the threat of the resource rent tax. I would suggest that is quite a record. Even after the 1 July tax cuts are in place, all single income families with a dependent spouse will be paying a higher proportion of their income in pay as you earn tax than in March 1983. For a single income family on average weekly earnings the average tax rate will have increased from 17.5 per cent in March 1983 to 20.5 per cent in July 1987. Its marginal tax rate increased from 30 per cent to 40 per cent. After July this year such families will still require an additional income tax cut of $15 a week just to restore them to the same average tax rate position they faced when the Hawke Government came to office. These calculations reveal that the 1 December 1986 and 1 July 1987 income tax cuts merely give back to taxpayers some of the additional tax that four years of fiscal drag has taken from them. Despite $3.6 billion in cuts in government outlays, the May mini-Budget maintains the Hawke Government's status as a big spending, big taxing government. Even including the once-off assets sales and deferrals contained in the $3.6 billion figure, outlays in 1987-88 will still be around 27.4 per cent of GDP. By subtracting for assets sales this figure rises to 27.8 per cent. This figure compares with an average in the Fraser Government period of 27.1 per cent. The cuts the Government has made have been made from a very high base. Had the Government adopted a greater restraint in spending in its earlier years, particularly 1984-85, current expenditure would be at a considerably lower level today. If Government outlays had increased at the Fraser Government average of 2.1 per cent during the last four years instead of at around 4 per cent, total outlays over the four-year period would have been almost $20 billion less and the Budgets would have been in surplus in both 1985-86 and 1986-87. This is the background against which these pieces of legislation are debated. As I suggested, it records a sorry state of affairs. The Supply Bills provide interim appropriations for the services of government, expenditure on capital works and services and payments to the States and the parliamentary departments. The extent of the increases in interim appropriations is illuminating as they involve increases on last year's amounts of 8.2 per cent, 13.6 per cent and 11.2 per cent respectively. These figures do not suggest any restraint in government spending at all. The May economic statement was a prelude to the cuts cynically passed on to the States at the Premiers Conference. When one examines these figures carefully one finds that the Federal Government is not interested in restraint. What it has done is purely cosmetic. For 1987-88 the Government has claimed that it will reduce spending by $2.641 billion. Take out the deferrals of expenditure, the minor asset transactions and the buck-passing in the expenditure cuts to the States and local government and the actual figure is much less. To be more specific, if the figure is then reduced by $1 billion for the buck-passing to the States, $350m for defence deferral, $180m for roads deferral, $41m for housing deferral, $7m for local government deferral, $90m for Telecom and Australia Post buck-passing, $82m from the sale of minor assets and capital items, $10m for cancellation of the civil works capital item, $7m for national broadcasting deferral and $10m for the engineering assistance deferral, the total is reduced by a total of $1,797m. Actual expenditure cuts in real terms then come down to only $844m. The Government has done everything but restrain its own spending. It has lavished money on every fringe group, supported its trade union mates and wasted money. The Opposition's Waste Watch Committee has only just scratched the surface in this area. There is duplication between the three levels of government and enormous waste at each level. Only recently it was reported that the Economic Planning Advisory Council and the Advisory Council on Prices and Incomes will be merged. In many areas of government there are overlaps, duplication and sheer waste but I ask the question, as it has been asked so many times before: Where is the action by this Government? A recent Senate Estimates committee hearing provided some revealing answers concerning the Government's application of public moneys to promoting, and what it spends on promoting, or selling, its new taxes. I refer specifically to Estimates Committee C and to the advertising campaign on the Government's taxation measures on which it spent $7.197m in 1986-87. Some of that money is for routine advertising and $2.75m relates purely to selling and promoting in the community the Government's fringe benefits tax. The response of officers of the Australian Taxation Office suggests another year of big advertising spending in 1987-88 if this Government remains in office because there are a host of measures to sell-principally, again, the fringe benefits tax and also substantiation, the quarterly payment of provisional tax, the capital gains tax and dividend imputation. The massive advertising campaign for the fringe benefits tax was approved by the Government after its review of the tax in October 1986 when it found that it was a liability and that it needed to be hosed down as an issue. It is not surprising that the firm retained for polling to provide the research for the campaign was the Australian Nationwide Opinion Polls Pty Ltd, the Australian Labor Party's pollster. No doubt it provided daily advice to the Government on the public mood. It received $135,000 for its efforts in selling to the public the fringe benefits tax. Furthermore, not only was $135,000 paid to ANOP but also $221,000 was spent on public relations. It was paid to the firm of Hill and Knowlton. When officers of the Department of the Treasury were questioned about what this firm had to do to earn $221,000, the answer from Mr Gleeson was that essentially it had to come up with ideas for dealing with aspects of the Government's tax reform measures. So that firm was to be paid $221,000 to come up with ideas on how to sell the Government's tax package. Later Mr Gleeson elaborated, when he stated: As I indicated before, essentially the firm was engaged to undertake the strategic and creative ideas for dealing with the tax reform awareness program. It did that for $221,000. This is how this Government wastes taxpayers' money, while at the same time talking about how we must all share the burden. As all of the contracts with ANOP, advertising firms and Hill and Knowlton are deemed to be commercially in confidence they have not been made available to the Estimates committee. So much for this Government's accountability. The lines of control and the agencies responsible for recruiting these private sector suppliers of services are intriguing in themselves. The Information Co-ordination Branch of the Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism engaged the advertising firms of Magnus Nankervis and Curl DDB, USP Needham Australia Pty Ltd, and Monahan Dayman Adams, while the Treasury engaged the services of ANOP for polling and Hill and Knowton for public relations. More curiously, the Treasury was not directly involved in briefing the advertising agencies. ANOP was responsible for this function while the managing of the advertising agency was helped by the Information and Co-ordination Branch of the Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism. It is little wonder that Treasury and Taxation Office officials were unable to provide satisfactory answers to the Committee's questions. Their answers were quite inadequate, confused and showed they were completely unprepared for what should have been reasonably expected Estimates questions. The awarding of contracts to advertising agencies was done in an extraordinarily short time-about a week from when the proposals were submitted. It is a great pity that the Treasurer (Mr Keating) is not so expeditious with responses to Estimates Committee C in relation to the matters I have outlined. Hearings were held on 31 March and 3 April but no response was received from the Treasurer's office until 26 May. That is more than seven weeks for a response. The campaign to sell Labor's tax changes, I regret to say, is part of the Government's wider self-promotion campaign at public expense of which we have given so many examples to the Senate over the last few years. Labor failed its test with its May economic statement. As I have said, the statement was merely an opportunity to set the scene for an election. The initial welcome reception given the statement has given way to scepticism. Syntec Economic Services Pty Ltd highlighted the fact that in the space of a few weeks the inflation forecast has risen a full percentage point. The Brisbane Daily Sun noted that families with teenage children have been hit hardest in the economic statement. The Australian Financial Review questioned why the economic statement did not hit harder and more equitably. David Potts, of the Australian, summed it up well when he said: Paul Keating has just pulled a swiftie over the media and the market. In conclusion, this Government has failed to make the tough decisions that are necessary to put this economy back on an even keel. Never has it been more apparent that a change of government is necessary in this country. Senator WALSH(Western Australia-Minister for Finance)(8.18) —I do not propose to delay further the passage of this legislation. Question put: That the amendment (Senator Messner's) be agreed to. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 26 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 7 —— Alston, R. K. R. Macklin, M. J. Archer, B. R. Mason, C. V. J. Baume, Peter Newman, J. M. Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Parer, W. R. Boswell, R. L. D. Powell, J. F. Brownhill, D. G. C. Puplick, C. J. G. Carrick, Sir John Reid, M. E. Collard, S. J. Sheil, G. Durack, P. D. Short, J. R. Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Siddons, J. R. Haines, J. Teague, B. C. Hamer, D. J. Vanstone, A. E. Hill, R. Vigor, D. B. Kilgariff, B. F. (Teller) Walters, M. S. Knowles, S. C. Watson, J. O. W. Lewis, A. W. R. Withers, R. G. MacGibbon, D. J. Black, J. R. Giles, P. J. Bolkus, N. Jones, G. N. (Teller)Childs, B. K. Maguire, G. R. Coates, J. Morris, J. Coleman, R. N. Ray, RobertColston, M. A. Reynolds, M. Cook, P. F. S. Robertson, E. A. Cooney, B. Ryan, S. M. Crowley, R. A. Sibraa, K. W. Elstob, R. C. Tate, M. C. Evans, Gareth Walsh, P. A. Foreman, D. J. West, S. M. Gietzelt, A. T. Zakharov, A. O. Jessop, D. S. Richardson, G. F. Baume, Michael McIntosh, G. D. Townley, M. McKiernan, J. P. Crichton-Browne, N. A. Devlin, R. Chaney, F. M. Aulich, T. (Senator Messner did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Grimes). Question so resolved in the affirmative. Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. The Bill. Motion (by Senator Walsh) agreed to: (1) That leave be given to Senators to move motions expressing opinions or making recommendations based on the Report of Estimates Committee A. (2) That where more than one motion is proposed, the motions may be debated together, but in all cases a motion or motions shall be disposed of before the Question is put on the Vote before the Chair. (3) That any Resolutions be reported when the Chairman makes his Report to the President at the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the Whole. Bill agreed to. Bill reported without amendment; report adopted. Bill (on motion by Senator Walsh) read a third time. Consideration resumed from 2 April, on motion by Senator Button: That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Motion (by Senator Walsh) agreed to: (1) That clauses 1 to 9 be postponed till after the consideration of the Schedule. (2) That, unless otherwise ordered, the Votes in the Schedule be considered in the same groupings and order as the departmental estimates referred to Estimates Committees A, B, C, D, E and F, as follows: Division No. Department Amount $ Group A 380, 385-386 Industry, Technology and Commerce 38,153,000 500, 505-506, 511, 513, 516, 518 Prime Minister and Cabinet 1,463,000 640, 642-643 Trade 3,284,000 540, 542-545, 547 Science 3,300,000 Group B 520, 522 Resources and Energy 1,931,000 165, 170, 175, 179-181, 191 Attorney-General's 10,482,000 360, 364 Immigration and Ethnic Affairs 3,809,000 315, 317-319 Foreign Affairs 13,774,000 230, 232-233, 237, 239, 241, 244 Defence** 48,044,000 Group C 304-305, 307 Finance 545,000 287-288, 290 Employment & Industrial Relations 5,529,000 670, 676, 678 Treasury 14,500,000 325, 490, 497 Primary Industry 3,360,000 200-202 Communications 10,433,000 Group D 270-271, 278-279, 282-283 Education 14,512,000 352-353, 355 Housing & Construction 950,000 245 Buildings and Works (Defence) 18,000,000 248 Housing for Members of the Australian Defence Force (Defence) 500,000 590, 593 Sport, Recreation and Tourism 1,783,000 130, 132, 140, 143, 145, 149 Arts, Heritage and Environment 565,000 120 Aboriginal Affairs 1,828,000 Group E 690, 692-694 Veterans' Affairs 57,249,000 664, 666-667 Transport 2,865,000 193-194 Aviation 4,805,000 620, 623-626 Territories 8,159,000 400, 402 Local Government and Administrative Services 4,322,000 250 Rent (Defence) 2,000,000 Group F 575-578, 580-583 Special Minister of State 3,551,000 220 Community Services 3,846,000 560 Social Security 4,327,000 325-326 Health 2,629,000 (3) That leave be given to Senators to move motions expressing opinions or making recommendations based on the Reports of the Estimates Committees; that such motions be moved when the appropriate Vote is under consideration; that where more than one motion is proposed in relation to a particular Vote, the motions may be debated together, but in all cases a motion or motions shall be disposed of before the Question is put on the Vote before the Chair; and that any Resolutions be reported when the Chairman makes his Report to the President at the conclusion of proceedings in Committee of the Whole. GROUP A Department of Industry, Technology and Commerce Proposed expenditure, $38,153,000 Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet Proposed expenditure, $1,463,000 Department of Trade Proposed expenditure, $3,284,000 Department of Science Proposed expenditure, $3,300,000 Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(8.29) —I have several small points that I would like to raise concerning the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. One of the answers given to the Estimates committee was that the affidavit presented to the Supreme Court of Australia by the Secretary to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in the Peter Wright case was endorsed by the Australian Government. Will the Government be providing further assistance to the Thatcher Government in the latter's appeal against the original judgment? I would be pleased to get a view on this. We have also some questions which follow from the material supplied by the Department in relation to the closure of the Advisory Council for Inter-Government Relations. Until the Advisory Council for Inter-Government Relations Act is repealed, if it ever is, there is a formal annual reporting and auditing requirement of which the Department should have been aware. There is also the point that the ACIR was subject only to directions given at a Premiers Conference. The request of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) for it to wind up its affairs was clearly beyond his power. I ask: Has there been any formal Premiers Conference decision to abandon the Advisory Council for Inter-Government Relations as required under section 4 of the Council's Act? The Department claims that the Commonwealth, the State and the Northern Territory are involved in a rationalisation exercise to identify and remove significant areas of overlapping administration. Can the Minister provide some details about who is conducting this exercise, whether any of the proceedings are public, and when any of the results can be expected? While the Minister is seeking advice I would like to raise another matter. At Estimates Committee A hearings officers from the Office of Multicultural Affairs seemed very vague about their eventual numbers and about quite a few of their duties. Has the Government arrived at a final staffing figure and a statement of structure and functions now that more than nine months have passed since the decision to abandon the Australian Institute of Multicultural Affairs as a savings exercise? Last week there were advertisements for five senior positions and in each case a salary of $40,000-odd was offered. One of the job descriptions was basically that of a manager of propaganda to be sent out to the ethnic media. Is there now a timetable for filling all the positions in the Office of Multicultural Affairs? What are the Government's plans in this area because I believe that all three aspects are extremely important in terms of the decision which people will have to make in choosing a future government at the forthcoming election? Senator WALSH(Western Australia-Minister for Finance)(8.33) —I do not know, nor do the officers present, about the Wright case. From my recollection, staff numbers in the Office of Multicultural Affairs within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet are to be of the order of 30. Proposed expenditures agreed to. GROUP B Department of Resources and Energy Proposed expenditure, $1,931,000 Attorney-General's Department Proposed expenditure, $10,482,000 Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Proposed expenditure, $3,809,000 Department of Foreign Affairs Proposed expenditure, $13,774,000 Department of Defence Proposed expenditure, $48,044,000 Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(8.34) —Last year, after the 1986-87 Budget, we had Estimates committee hearings at which I asked the Department of Defence a number of questions on notice. I received no answers to those questions on notice. On 27 November, during the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 1), I asked very specific questions concerning restrictions on exercise resources for the Australian Defence Force. These were the questions which I asked on notice at the Estimates committee hearings last September: What were the bids for exercise resources for 1986-87? Has the Government applied restrictions? What restrictions if any have been placed on flying hours for the RAAF . . .? Have any reductions been made in steaming time for the Navy . . .? Have exercise hours for the Army been cut? If in fact restrictions have been applied, is it not true that they will seriously impair training for the next financial year? I received a wordy answer at the Estimates committee hearings to the effect that, overall, the major activities of the Services were expected to be held at about the same level as achieved in 1985-86. In other words, I received no specific answers to very specific questions. I also asked again whether my questions would be answered and I gave these questions as examples: What is the average number of exercises held per infantry battalion in the last year? What is the average number of exercises per infantry battalion intended for the coming year? How many times will the brigades exercise and when will the next divisional exercise be held? During the debate on the Appropriation Bills former Senator Grimes, in answer to my questions, said: Senator Newman has given some examples of questions for which she received unsatisfactory answers on anybody's judgment. Senator Michael Baume did the same . . . Senator Sir John Carrick has been trying to get an answer for three months on a certain matter. I would not be too pleased if that happened to me . . . He went on to say: I think there is a need to reform the system . . . If Senator Newman's experience of questions on notice is anything to go by, that is not fine at all. I think we really have to come to grips with this matter . . . I will seek proper answers to the questions that Senator Newman asked. I am not in a position to know whether former Senator Grimes did seek answers. But, as I understand the system in this Parliament, the departments are very well aware of what takes place during these Appropriation debates. I have still not received answers to any of those very specific questions and I question the attitude of the Defence Department in continually refusing to answer proper questions put to it in a proper form on notice. I even dispute whether they should have needed to be on notice, but on notice they were. I now ask the Government whether it can obtain answers to the questions I asked first of all last September. I would also like to have the same questions answered for the current year. Since then we have had the mini-Budget. We all know that $350m has been cut from the defence budget. There has been very little objection to this and I think it is largely because the populace is perhaps not taking a proper interest in defence. It does not mean to say that it is not a matter to which we in the Senate should give serious consideration. It is obviously of vital importance that our country is properly defended. This Government is prepared to cut $350m off the top priority for any government in this country-that is, to protect its citizens. It does so because its natural constituency is probably not there and it will not worry at the polls about what the soldiers think. I can tell the Government that there are plenty of other people who really worry about what it is doing to the defence forces. We are very aware of what has happened to the bright and shining White Paper that was produced a few short weeks ago, that was going to be such a marvellous new world for the defence of this country. Senator Watson —Just words. Senator NEWMAN —They are just glossy words. But we would like to know now just where those cuts in the mini-Budget will fall. Will it be in the area of operating costs? Will it be in the steaming, flying and exercise time? What about man days for the Reserve? The Reserve has just been given a role. We can hear the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) saying: `Highlighted-a role for the Reserve'. Proper it is that the Reserve should have an identifiable role, but the man days that it had previously will in no way enable it to deal with its new role. What do we find? Inevitably, the man days for the Reserve, post mini-Budget, will have to be cut. I can see no alternative for the Government, and that is a disgrace. Senator Walsh —Mr Chairman, I take a point of order. I do not believe that any of this self-indulgence by Senator Newman has anything to do with Appropriation Bill (No. 3) because that concerns this financial year and the May statement concerns the next financial year. The CHAIRMAN —Senator Newman must be relevant to the estimates before the Committee, which is this year's appropriations. I ask her to address her remarks to that area. Senator NEWMAN —Thank you, Mr Chairman. Senator Walsh may be the Minister for Finance but it is quite clear that he does not seem to know about the way the five-year defence plan-- Senator Walsh —I am just sick of your egomania. Senator NEWMAN —Abuse does not make much difference as we are pretty used to that from the Minister. Clearly, the problem in the defence forces is one of the morale of the personnel. It is very clear that this matter has been proceeding for the four years that this Government has been in office. If Senator Walsh is concerned about what I might say about the future let me remind him that in the four years that this Government has been in office defence personnel in this country have been leaving the forces in droves. We have paid good taxpayers' dollars to train those people whom he is currently being too miserly to support and keep in the forces. He was prepared to cut 2 per cent out of the base of their future pensions, and they will not forget him for that. It looks as though the deferral of the service allowances is inevitable. At least half a billion dollars is owing to the defence forces for the extra hours that they work without any chance of overtime. Service people are currently working approximately 53 hours per week with none of the assistance which the Minister's mates in the Australian Council of Trade Unions expect as a right to be handed to them on a silver platter. It is very convenient to forget those defence forces and to make noises in this place and try to shout me down, but I can tell the Minister that there are Reserve officers and men throughout this country and their mates who know exactly what this Government has done to them. At this stage I do not want to go on to deal with the way that this Government is not maintaining its defence property, because that comes under Group C. I will refer to that later. But I suspect that, once again, that is one of the ways in which this Government will be saving money shortly on the defence vote. There is no reason for this Government to bring out glossy papers at great cost after the many man-hours-man-years, if you like-of work that went into first the Dibb report of the Review of Australia's Defence Capabilities and then into the Government's White Paper while continuing to refuse to recognise the basic problem facing the Defence Force; that is, the question of morale of the forces that are trained at such great cost. If the Government ignores the personnel problems, if it cuts back on training and the operating costs and maintenance of defence assets, the you beaut subs, the frigates and the radar systems might as well be placed in mothballs. We will have no one to operate them expect `Rambo' Beazley. The CHAIRMAN —The question is: That the votes in Group B stand as printed. Senator Newman —Mr Chairman, does the Minister not intend to answer those questions? Are they too difficult for him? The CHAIRMAN —The Minister is not obliged to answer them. Senator Walsh —No, I do not intend to answer Senator Newman's bloody self-indulgence-Ollie's proxy. The CHAIRMAN —Order, Senator Walsh! Senator Newman —Mr Chairman, am I to assume from that that the questions are too difficult? The CHAIRMAN —Senator Newman, if no one else stands, you are entitled to speak a second time. You may speak if you wish. Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(8.43) —Mr Chairman, I assume that some of the gentlemen sitting in the Ministers' advisers' seats are from the Department of Defence. I would find it very strange if somebody cannot advise this Minister who seems to know nothing about such a large part of the Government's Budget. I have asked some very specific questions of the Minister and of the Government. I asked them last year. The Department of Defence did not see fit to answer them then. I am calling on the Minister now to obtain those answers. If the questions are too hard for him to answer, I ask him to give a guarantee that he will obtain answers to them and let the Senate have them. When will he do it? Senator SHORT(Victoria)(8.44) —I rise briefly to support very strongly what Senator Newman has said. I think it is about time that this Parliament expressed its disgust at the performance of the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh), who is at the table now. Apart from the personal abuse that he has been levelling at Senator Newman and others in this place for far too long, he is abusing the privileges and the rights of members of this Parliament. It is the right and the responsibility of members of the Parliament on this side of the chamber to ask the questions that Senator Newman and other honourable senators have been asking of the Department of Defence, the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley) and other departments for months and months now. For the Minister for Finance to refuse even to acknowledge the dilatoriness of departments and their Ministers in supplying this information is to treat this Parliament with a contempt that does neither this Government nor the parliamentary and democratic system of this country any good at all. As parliamentarians, regardless of which side of the chamber we sit on, we are here to represent the interests of Australians, and we are here to ask right and proper questions of Ministers and their departments. There could be no more important ministry of state than the one which provides for the defence of this nation. I find it quite extraordinary that the Minister refuses to acknowledge or even say that he will follow up questions, the answers to which are still outstanding. A White Paper on the whole area of defence was released only a month ago. As Senator Newman said, it was supposed to be a show piece of this Government. Decisions have been taken in the last few weeks, particularly in the May mini-Budget, which show every sign of blowing that White Paper strategy to pieces. The questions that have been asked in Estimates committees do relate to this year, but I am sure that Senator Walsh would be the first to acknowledge that one year's spending cannot be separated from that of the next year when it comes to looking at sensible approaches to major items of government activity such as the defence budget. I say to Senator Walsh again that I believe that he does all of us in the Parliament a great disservice by refusing to acknowledge the need for answers to right and legitimate questions that any senator in this place puts, whether they come from this side of the chamber or from the Minister's own side. Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(8.46) —I am appalled at what I see happening. We are here as part of what is supposedly a House of review. It is indeed a case of penny-wise and pound-foolish that we are seeing from Senator Walsh at this stage. We came in here with a co-operative attitude towards trying to determine a few extra matters concerning the Estimates committees. The Department of Defence is one of the worst departments in terms of its performance at Estimates committee hearings. It turns up with 100 or so people for a couple of days. These people find that they cannot answer the questions, so they are actually put on notice, although they are quite simple, referring to such things as the contents of the annual report. Nobody of the 100 or so people can actually answer these questions and the Minister agrees to this. We keep being told that some of the issues which are being dealt with are policy issues and we put these questions on notice. I say to Senator Walsh that there is no way that the people of Australia who do believe in the Senate will put up with this type of behaviour from a so-called Minister of a government which I believe is being discredited by this type of behaviour. I would like Senator Walsh to actually endeavour to get those answers. In the meantime, I will ask him a few simple questions relating to the Attorney-General's Department, which is also covered in the area we are debating. The Minister is obviously not properly briefed in the defence area-although he is the best that the Government can present to us. Perhaps he will then have a chance to at least give a reasonable, sensible and civil answer to Senator Newman. I know that he believes that he has, in fact, the control of this situation because he has a guillotine device. But that particular type of power can be removed as easily as it is given. I put that on notice. This Senate is responsible for the business of the Senate and there is no way that, just because the Minister happens to be in Government, he can get away with insulting people who are elected to be here to represent the people of Australia. That type of insult is quite unsatisfactory. Anyway, I return to the Attorney-General's Department. Some of the information which was supplied to the Committee by the Attorney-General's Department has been downright misleading. We were told during the Estimates committee proceedings that the yacht in which members of the Orionia community landed in Australia was handed over to authorised representatives of Orionia Ltd, Israel, on the basis of documentary evidence produced by that company which, in the eye of our Attorney-General's Department, was sufficient, in the view of the Commonwealth legal representatives, to establish that the yacht was owned by Orionia Ltd, Israel. I was basically quoting that evidence. I believe this is quite misleading, from information that has come to my knowledge. No one, indeed, disputes that Orionia Ltd Israel owns the schooner in question. What is in dispute is the control of Orionia Ltd Israel and who is authorised to represent that company here. That is the nub of the question, which has seen two people, a certain Dr Hempel and a Mr Etheredge, remain in Canning Vale Remand Centre for month after month as extradition proceedings are brought against them. It was also recognised as a problem area by the Australian Government Solicitor, whose personnel in Western Australia pointed out that the information available was not sufficient. Interestingly enough, the ground of legal professional privilege was invoked by the Department as the excuse for not giving the Committee information about the advice given to the decision makers before the boat was handed over. In fact, the boat now has left Australia. That particular claim of legal professional privilege was challenged before the Australian Appeals Tribunal or the courts, I understand, and the information was then supplied to various people. So, I believe we have a double standard applying-one for the Parliament and one for the courts. This is quite unacceptable. I am very glad to see that the Government has brought into the chamber a Minister who I hope will treat the chamber appropriately and I hope the people who are here representing the Department will be able to give Senator Ryan both the information necessary to answer Senator Newman's question and also the information necessary to comment on and answer my question to the Attorney-General. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(8.53) —The officers advise that we will get information for Senator Vigor but we do not have it at present. Senator KILGARIFF(Northern Territory)(8.53) —Mr Chairman, the debate tonight has been most unsatisfactory because the Minister who was in charge of the Bills, Senator Walsh, has not answered any of the queries put to him by members of the Opposition and the Australian Democrats. He has merely interjected and made rude remarks, although he was the Minister in charge of the chamber. He has not indicated to members of the Opposition whether members of the Public Service representing the Defence Department are present. We have absolutely no indication of that. I believe the questions that have been put by Senator Newman and others are simply part of the general debate on the Appropriation Bill in Committee. I repeat: The situation is most unsatisfactory. There has now been a change of Minister in the chamber. Senator Susan Ryan has stood up, now that Senator Walsh has removed himself from the chamber, and she has said: `Yes, answers will be made available'. Senator Newman —Just to Senator Vigor. Senator KILGARIFF —That is right, to Senator Vigor. I am sure any reasonable senator would be absolutely taken aback at the attitude taken by the Government to the Opposition in regard to this debate. Senator Jones —I call a point of order. I am not sure whether Senator Kilgariff was making a point of order; he certainly was not speaking to the Estimates. He was speaking well around the question and he should deal with the Estimates before the Chair. The CHAIRMAN —Senator Kilgariff is speaking to the Estimates and the handling of the Estimates. Senator Kilgariff is in order. He may carry on in the way he was speaking. Senator Jones —I raise a new point of order, Mr Chairman. Senator Kilgariff was attacking the action of the Minister. I do not think that that was talking in relation to the Estimates. I believe that the Minister, as a Minister, has a right to handle the Estimates in any way that he sees fit. Senator KILGARIFF —Mr Chairman-- The CHAIRMAN —Order! It is all right, Senator Kilgariff; I need no further information on this. Senator Kilgariff was criticising the lack of reply from the Minister to the questions that were asked. That is in order in the Estimates debate. Senator KILGARIFF —Mr Chairman, I was not raising a point of order. The CHAIRMAN —No, you were speaking in the debate. Senator Ryan —No, you were just filibustering. Senator KILGARIFF —I beg the Minister's pardon! I am not filibustering. All I am saying, respectfully, is that the Government is not showing respect to the Opposition. I am asking for the Government to please answer the queries. All I have asked is for the Minister who is responsible for this debate to make some semblance of answering the queries raised by the Opposition in regard to the defence group. If the Government is not prepared to do that, I shall have no alternative but to move that the debate on Group B be adjourned until a later date. I shall do that formally. I move: That further consideration of the votes in Group B be postponed. The CHAIRMAN —Order! The motion is in order. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(8.58) —I should like to speak to that motion, Mr Chairman, because I think Senator Kilgariff is under the impression that there is no officer from the Department of Defence here to assist the Committee. That is not the case. An officer is here. I would point out, Mr Chairman, that Defence has provided answers for about half of the very numerous questions that Senator Kilgariff put on notice. Yesterday, the Department of Defence received the last answers to the remaining questions and they will be provided as soon as they can be put into the proper form. I remind you, Mr Chairman, that we are at a very late stage in the examination of the Estimates. There have been extremely lengthy considerations of the Estimates by Estimates committees, in which forum Opposition senators, along with all other senators who are members of committees, have had ample opportunity to seek information either during the course of debate or on notice, and a great effort has been made by officers from all Departments, so far as I can understand it, to provide answers. Sometimes the questions asked are not able to be answered on the spur of the moment, and under those circumstances-- Senator Newman —You were not here. Senator RYAN —Mr Chairman, it would really assist me in explaining the Government's position if Senator Walters would cease interjecting. Senator Newman —I am the one who is interjecting. I am telling you that you don't know what was said. You weren't here; Senator Walsh was. The CHAIRMAN —Order! Senator Ryan has to call. Senator RYAN —I am pointing out that we are now at a very late stage in the examination of these matters and that there have been very lengthy opportunities available to honourable senators from all parts of the chamber to ask questions during the course of the Committee debates or to put questions on notice and that officers have made very substantial efforts to provide information and will continue to do so. Where information is not readily available in a form appropriate to this stage of the debate, it will be provided at a later stage, and I say that as a general point. I also point out that there is an officer from the Defence Force here who will provide what information he can at this stage. Otherwise, the information will be provided as soon as it is in a form appropriate to assist honourable senators. Senator SHORT(Victoria)(8.59) —I support Senator Kilgariff's motion. First of all, I welcome the change with Senator Ryan having come into the chamber. It is a welcome change. But, as Senator Newman said, I am not sure that Senator Ryan quite understands what has happened. We are not complaining about the lack of answers to questions put tonight; we are complaining about the lack of answers to questions put months and months ago and also in great detail in the Estimates Committee hearings themselves. It is just not good enough for the Government to say that it has not had enough time to respond to those questions. In many cases it has not attempted to do so. Indeed one Minister, the Minister for Territories (Mr Scholes), formally wrote to an Estimates committee and said he would refuse to give answers. That is an absolute disgrace and an abuse of the Parliament. The point I make is that this is the final chance in the life of this Parliament to consider the Appropriations for this financial year. The Government has known that for weeks, as have the departments of State, and it is simply not good enough to say on the final opportunity for debate on issues of considerable moment that the Bills will be let through without answers being provided to the questions members of the Opposition asked months ago. That is why members of the Opposition are not prepared to allow further consideration of Group B estimates. I support the motion Senator Kilgariff moved, that further consideration of Group B estimates be postponed until answers are supplied. If that is not done, we will not get answers in the proper context in which the questions were framed. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Minister for Education)(9.02) —I wish to speak against the motion. I remind honourable senators that the time allowed for debate on appropriations will come to a conclusion tomorrow morning and, at that time, votes will be taken. If honourable senators wish to delay consideration of this part of the estimates and vote accordingly they may do so, but I am confident in saying that officers from the defence forces have provided numerous answers to questions. Senator Newman —No, they have not. Senator RYAN —I have had some indication of the number of answers that have been provided. Senator Newman —Not a word since September last year. Senator RYAN —If it is possible to provide further answers, that will be done but the suggestion that there has been some unwillingness to provide answers-- Senator Newman —You don't know your facts. The CHAIRMAN —Senator Newman should cease interjecting as Senator Ryan has the call. Senator RYAN —I am simply pointing out that the Government will not accept the motion moved by Senator Kilgariff. The Government believes it is in the interests of the proper consideration of these matters for senators either to get the information that is readily available or, in other circumstances, to accept the Government's commitment that what can be provided will be provided at a later stage. Question put: That the motion (Senator Kilgariff's) be agreed to. The Committee divided (The Chairman-Senator D. J. Hamer) Ayes ... 33 Noes ... 27 Majority ... 6 AYES Alston, R. K. R. Lewis, A. W. R. Archer, B. R. MacGibbon, D. J. Baume, Peter Macklin, M. J. Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Mason, C. V. J. Boswell, R. L. D. Newman, J. M. Brownhill, D. G. C Parer, W. R. Carrick, Sir John Powell, J. F. Chaney, F. M. Puplick, C. J. G. Collard, S. J. Sheil, G. Crichton-Browne, N. A. Short, J. R. Durack, P. D. Siddons, J. R. Guilfoyle, Dame Margaret Vanstone, A. E. Haines, J. Vigor, D. B. Hamer, D. J. Walters, M. S. Hill, R. Watson, J. O. W. Kilgariff, B. F. (Teller) Withers, R. G. Knowles, S. C. NOES Aulich, T. Gietzelt, A. T. Black, J. R. Giles, P. J. Bolkus, N. Jones, G. N. (Teller) Childs, B. K. McKiernan, J. P. Coates, J. Maguire, G. R. Coleman, R. N. Morris, J. Colston, M. A. Ray, Robert Cook, P. F. S. Reynolds, M. Cooney, B. Ryan, S. M. Crowley, R. A. Tate, M. C. Devlin, R. Walsh, P. A. Elstob, R. C. West, S. M. Evans, Gareth Zakharov, A. O. Foreman, D. J. PAIRS Jessop, D. S. Richardson, G. F. Baume, Michael McIntosh, A. D. Reid, M. E. Button, J. N. Townley, M. Robertson, E. A. Teague, B. C. Sibraa, K. W. (Senator Messner did not vote, to compensate for the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Grimes). Question so resolved in the affirmative. GROUP C Department of Finance Proposed expenditure, $545,000 Department of Employment and Industrial Relations Proposed expenditure, $5,529,000 Department of the Treasury Proposed expenditure, $14,500,000 Department of Primary Industry Proposed expenditure, $3,360,000 Department of Communications Proposed expenditure, $10,433,000 Senator VIGOR(South Australia)(9.09) —I wish to raise a few points concerning the Department of Communications. I would like to point out, and I believe I will get support from other senators, that some of the questions that were asked about communications at Estimates committee hearings were not fully answered. However, in no way was the situation in this regard as bad as it was with the Department of Defence or the Department of Territories, which matter we will consider later. The question that I want to follow through with the Special Minister of State-and it is nice to see that we have a co-operative Minister in Senator Tate at the helm; it is fantastic-concerns the case involving Australia Post's attempt to close down the Watsons Bay Post Office. I have asked various questions about this matter and I referred to it in the second reading debate. This has brought to light Australia Post's failure to adhere to its proper procedures when considering the closure of postal agencies and post offices. The judge in this case, Mr Justice Wilcox, was quite scathing about the sloppiness with facts, the failure to consult, and the failure to consider what the closure of the post office would mean to the elderly in the Watsons Bay area who use that post office. I would like to quote from parts of the judgment that was handed down in Sydney on 1 April of this year. For instance, on page 11, we find that the decision-maker visited Watsons Bay before he decided to close the post office. But, Mr Justice Wilcox says: Mr Broadbridge failed to notice a TAB office and a supermarket in an arcade in the shopping centre. The opinion he formed was described in this way in his affidavit: `It was clear to me that many goods and services were not available to residents on site at Watsons Bay and as a consequence I formed the view and made the assessment that residents would need to attend other shopping locations (at which they would be likely to find postal facilities) on a regular basis in order to satisfy their normal consumer needs'. The following comments were made at page 19 of the judgment: The possibility of establishing an agency service at Watsons Bay was fleetingly referred to in the memoranda exchange between Mr Broadbridge and Mr Cumberland. In his initial memorandum of 12 May 1986 Mr Cumberland suggested only two options: One was to close the post office and sell the property and the other was to close part of the post office and leave the Postmaster, Mr Stammers, in residence. He did not in fact canvass the possibility of making the existing post office more cost efficient of the possibility of substituting an agency. In his reply, Mr Broadbridge commented: `There is a major omission in your assessment of the options associated with Mr Stammers's quarters', but he did not raise other options for providing a continuing service. The question of an agency is taken up further on page 21 of the judgment, and it reads as follows: There was considerable evidence from Mr Broadbridge about the possibility of an agency. Much of the evidence was given in response to questions asked by me because I found considerable difficulty in understanding the Commission's approach to the use of agencies. Since the hearing I have re-read the whole of Mr Broadbridge's evidence but my difficulty remains. As Mr Eddleston's memorandum-in which he quotes from paragraph 7.1 of the Manual-reveals the Commission's policy does no contemplate the possible conversion of an official post office to an agency; but, ordinarily, only where the work load is less than one full-time job, equivalent to 125,000 work units. Where the volume of business is greater-as in the case of Watsons Bay-the available choice, according to the policy, is between keeping open a full post office-perhaps uneconomically-or closing down altogether. It seems that, within a certain range of figures, the greater the demand for postal services in an area the less chance there is of their being provided. I could go on speaking in relation to the procedure followed in this case. The Australian postal service was misleading in relation to the situation at Watsons Bay and, in fact, the judgment was made against Australia Post. It is important that we make certain that Australia Post behaves much better than that. Although none of the facts associated with Australia Post's bad behaviour in the attempted closing down of the Watsons Bay Post Office are in dispute, Australia Post has not sought to justify its failure or to in any way correct the incorrect observations that it made. What has Australia Post done? It sought to have the judgment set aside on the grounds that the applicant did not have sufficient standing to bring forward the matter-the applicant being Mr Stammers, who is the Postmaster. The major problem that we have here concerns a large organisation like Australia Post using its might against a small individual and refusing to allow that individual to have access to the law courts at reasonable prices and using the might of taxpayers' money to suppress information and to push its own procedures. I ask the Minister: What has been done in the light of the Watsons Bay case-which Australia Post lost-to improve the type of situation occurring in a number of areas, and that includes my local post office in Canberra at Aranda which is currently in the process of being closed. A number of places are involved and it does not seem that any lessons have been learnt from the Watsons Bay case. I believe it is extremely important that we make certain that large organisations like Australia Post be subject to proper scrutiny and that they do in fact follow sensible procedures. What is the Government doing about making certain that they do and that the appropriate standards are properly followed and that lessons are learnt when they in fact transgress? Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.18) —As honourable senators will be aware, I am not overly familiar with the matter concerning the closure of the Watsons Bay Post Office and the subsequent court action that was taken. Senator Vigor will be well aware that Australia Post, and Telecom for that matter, do have a certain independence and autonomy from government as statutory bodies and not only that but, of course, they are off the Budget-they are funded in a non-budgetary way. So, whilst Senator Vigor's questions are very interesting, they are not quite related to the question of the Estimates that we are considering at the moment, although I would not say that he is not entitled to ask such questions. I think Senator Vigor has raises some very valid points. I think that the most valid concerned the questioning of the use of the locus standi rules to exclude a citizen from possible contest against a major statutory body providing public services. If indeed Senator Vigor is correct in saying that the appeal against the judgment of Mr Justice Wilcox is not being contested on the merits of the case but merely by excluding the person who was successful in the lower court on the ground of not having sufficient standing, I would think that the matter should be looked into a little further. I do not have sufficient details to comment on the merits of the decision that was made. However, it is quite clear that if indeed Mr Justice Wilcox's decision stands then not only Australia Post but Telecom, when it makes decisions about the closure of various agencies, will need to take into account the sorts of values which Mr Justice Wilcox found were not sufficiently attended to in the decisions made to close the Watsons Bay Post Office. That is as much as I can convey to Senator Vigor at the moment. Senator BROWNHILL(New South Wales)(9.20) —The points that Senator Vigor made regarding questions asked by honourable senators in Estimates committees but which have not been answered also concerns me. One matter that concerns me is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The Estimates committees allow honourable senators to find out from departments, on behalf of Australian taxpayers, how the taxpayers' funds are being spent. If honourable senators wish to save the time of some of the departments by putting questions on notice it then behoves the departments to answer the questions and send the answers to the honourable senators in a reasonable time. Recently the ABC has been rather slow in answering some questions. It should be remembered by it that if we try to help out during the Estimates committee hearings it should send the answers back to us more quickly than it has done in the past. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.21) —Senator Brownhill went from saying that answers were not provided to saying that they were provided in a very untimely way. I agree that, insofar as it is possible to provide Senate Estimates committees with answers to questions that are put on notice, as Senator Brownhill said, in order to save time at the committee meeting, that should be done as speedily as possible. Having a quick look through the file, I can see that many of the questions asked, particularly by my friend and colleague Senator Vigor, were of a very detailed and cumulative kind, and no doubt it has taken some time to have them answered. Senator Brownhill asked: What is the cost of the 7.30 Report? I see that an answer is on the record. I do not know whether that was supplied in a speedy way. Many questions were put on notice, and no doubt it required a diversion, but a proper use, of resources by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. I am sorry that honourable senators feel that they were not provided in an entirely timely way. Senator BROWNHILL(New South Wales)(9.22) —Would the Minister suggest that in future we should be asking more questions at Senate Estimates committee hearings and not putting them on notice? Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.22) —Obviously, honourable senators need to put questions on notice because an official at the hearing is not able to assist the committee at that time. The sort of chastising that Senator Brownhill is conveying to the chamber will be relayed, I can assure him, to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Proposed expenditures agreed to. GROUP D Department of Education Proposed expenditure, $14,512,000 Department of Housing and Construction Proposed expenditure, $950,000 Buildings and Works (Defence) Proposed expenditure, $18,000,000 Housing for Members of the Australian Defence Force (Defence) Proposed expenditure, $500,000 Department of Sport, Recreation and Tourism Proposed expenditure, $1,783,000 Department of Arts, Heritage and Environment Proposed expenditure, $565,000 Department of Aboriginal Affairs Proposed expenditure, $1,828,000 Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(9.23) —I raise the question of housing for members of the Australian Defence Force. The Special Minister of State (Senator Tate) would be aware, I am sure, as would the Senate, of the parlous condition in that area of government housing, with 60 per cent of the service houses considered by the Department of Defence to be substandard. Of course, that is not the end of the story. In addition to the substandard housing there are thousands more married personnel than houses and what houses we have are extremely badly maintained. I do not intend to labour the issue, but it has to be clearly understood that this situation is not to continue. I understood that the Government was committed to getting rid of it. I understood from the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley), who made a great splash about it recently, that he would set up the Defence Housing Authority and that all these things would be got rid of by the wave of a hand and $750m. Nothing of the sort will happen, by the look of it, because this so-called important legislation has been dropped from the legislative list. Obviously a double dissolution is of much greater importance to this Government than is the housing of the Australian defence forces. When 60 per cent of the married quarters for servicemen in this country is substandard and thousands of servicemen cannot be provided with married quarters and what they are provided with is disintegrating, what priorities does this Government have? It is just not good enough. At this stage, I draw the attention of the Senate to the maintenance by the Department of Housing and Construction of the defence assets. In the efficiency audit report of the Auditor-General, dated May 1987, the audit identified that under normal circumstances the minimum period between the date on which assets were first inspected and maintenance needs were identified and the date on which maintenance work was commenced was in order of 18 months. That is the minimum. Further on in the report it was revealed that it can take up to 30 months before something is repaired. At this stage I wish to refer to page 13 of the Auditor-General's Report. It states that, of the 1985-86 backlog of $118m in the Department of Defence, over $64m relates to the Army Office. The Army had a number of reviews of its assets, and the latest one was completed in August 1985. That review showed that the maintenance backlog was between $72m and $92m. Projections based on estimated future funding levels show that the backlog will be $128m by the end of the five-year defence program to 1990 and that the fundamental cause of the current backlog had been inadequate funding. The report went on to say that the fact that the Army's buildings were not collapsing did not constitute a denial of the existence of a serious backlog of maintenance. The problem was being kept under control only by the use of funds for recurring maintenance and the forced adoption of an increasingly expensive repair when failed approach. Thus, only the symptoms and not the causes of problems were able to be considered. This is an extremely serious matter. Any government is looking at ways of saving money would surely be looking to ensure that what assets it has are properly maintained before it buys some more `you beauts'. The Minister for Defence is a great man for `you beauts', but he does not seem to be able to spare the cash to maintain what assets he has. This concerns not only defence housing but also defence assets of all kinds. In this section of the Estimates I have to draw attention to the fact that the Government has not considered the Defence Housing Authority of sufficient importance to ensure that it stays on the legislative program rather than get knocked off by this double dissolution which nobody needs but which obviously the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) thinks is the only chance he has of getting back into government. Senator Teague —A big blunder! Senator NEWMAN —It is a big blunder, and we have a lesson coming for him. It will be a very short, sharp one indeed. He will be able to ponder on it at leisure. When we have servicemen living in the kind of accommodation that I have talked about and we have the Auditor-General mentioning the way the defence assets have not been maintained by this Government, I have to ask: What sort of professional service is the Department of Housing and Construction giving or expected to give by this Government? What is the Department of Defence trying to do about it to see that it gets a better service? We are talking here about many millions of dollars. We are talking about many millions of dollars in capital investment and many millions of dollars being spent on the stop-gap measures that are being used to try to keep the thing going. We have the forced adoption of an increasingly expensive repair when failed approach. What an indictment! What priorities does this Government have? Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.30) —I am delighted to reply to Senator Newman, who has given us a burst of rhetoric without much substance. Perhaps it goes down well in Tasmania. I inform honourable senators that the Defence Housing Authority has been established and in fact an interim board of that Authority has been operating for several months. Senator Newman —And that is how you are going to operate it? You do not have an executive director. What are you going to do about that? Senator TATE —I am about to tell the honourable senator. The chief executive officer will take up his appointment on 1 July. Senator Newman —Who is it? Senator TATE —Madam Chair, who has the floor? If Senator Newman wants to get up and ask more questions she can do so. The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Order! The Minister has the floor, Senator Newman. Senator TATE —The chief executive officer will be-I wonder whether I am allowed to reveal this-- Senator Walters —Am I allowed! Senator TATE —I do not want to go behind the back of the Governor-General or whoever may make the formal appointment, as you should understand, Senator Walters. The chief executive officer will be Mr Kirkby Jones, who has a very distinguished record in housing construction in Australia, as all honourable senators will know. I think that he will make a very fine chief executive officer. Insofar as the properly and permanently constituted board will come into effect and carry through the policies enunciated by the Minister for Defence (Mr Beazley), I think that we are in a situation which is quite different from that which Senator Newman sought to portray. Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(9.32) —First of all, may I say that I believe the Government has made an excellent choice in its appointment. However, where is the vote that will enable this body to start work on 1 July? How can there be a permanent body without an Act? Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.33) —I am told that the appropriation is not within this group of appropriations. The Housing and Construction Authority acts as an agent for Defence in these matters. I do not have an immediate answer as to where the appropriation is in these papers, but I will undertake to provide it before the end of the consideration of Estimates. Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(9.33) —I would like the Minister to answer if he can. I understood that there was nothing on this matter in the defence estimates at all. I know that we have passed the defence estimates but we are still dealing with an area of the defence vote, even though it is under the housing and construction section. I do not believe that this appropriation was made in the defence vote. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.34) —I am advised by my officers that the money is appropriated in Supply Bill (No. 1) 1987-88. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(9.35) —I wish to raise a matter relating to education which arose in Estimates Committee D and on which questions on notice were taken. It concerns student numbers in universities and colleges of advanced education. The question which I put and which has now been answered centres on a table which sets out for the years from 1974 to the present the number of equivalent full time students in universities and colleges of advanced education and the total number in higher education. This is a very important matter because this week we have received the report of the Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee and the Committee of Principals and Directors of Colleges of Advanced Education. The report shows that this year between 13,000 and 20,000 students have been turned away from our universities and colleges of advanced education. That is a net figure. The gross figure of persons turned away from enrolment is 44,000. In South Australia more than one in four students eligible to attend a university or college of advanced education are being declined enrolment. That is a serious situation which shows an inability to accommodate the numbers of students who are eligible and able and who apply to enrol in our universities and colleges. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard the answer given by the Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) which gives the figures for 1974 to 1987. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Year Universities (EFTSU) (2) Advanced Education (EFTS) (3) (4) Higher Education (EFTSU/ EFTS) (2) (3) 1974 115,500 88,300 203,800 1975 121,500 101,200 222,700 1976 125,800 110,000 235,800 1977 128,800 114,200 243,000 1978 128,100 121,400 249,500 1979 126,900 124,400 251,300 1980 126,900 124,400 251,300 1981 128,800 125,700 254,500 1982 129,300 127,900 257,200 1983 131,600 133,100 264,700 1984 134,400 138,300 272,800 1985 136,800 146,400 283,200 1986 140,500 157,100 297,600 1987 145,400 164,200 309,600 (e) estimate (1) Data for years prior to 1974 is not readily available. (2) Equivalent Full-Time Student Units (3) Equivalent Full-Time Students (4) Includes all students enrolled in advanced education courses including Colleges (including Institutes of Advanced Education) and TAFE Colleges Includes all institutions except military establishments. Senator TEAGUE —This table shows that the Minister has been totally misrepresenting the facts in three Press releases which she presented earlier this year. The first, on 19 January, said: The Government is making 3,000 extra places available to new students in 1987, bringing the number of new places we have created since coming to office in 1983 to 36,800. That is incorrect. It is only correct in terms of the extra 3,000 places-a meagre number-compared with last year. It represents a very small increase between 1986 and 1987. The second Press release was on 25 February in which the Minister said that she was proud of the great achievements in education under the Hawke Labor Government. She went on: In particular, the Government has dramatically increased the number of higher education student places by 40,000 since coming to power, compared with a miserly 8,000 places created by the Fraser Government in the previous four years. This is a total misrepresentation of the facts, judging by the answer that the Minister gave in the Estimates Committee. The figure should be 32,900-not 40,000. The Minister has overestimated the gains that have been made since the first election of the present Government. Also she has underestimated the figure for the last four years of the Fraser Government. Instead of 8,000, the figure should be 13,400. Instead of there being a 5:1 comparison that the Minister subjectively sought to conjure up, there is a 2:1 comparison. I repeat that it is a 2:1 comparison, not a 5:1 comparison. In the first four years of the Fraser Government the increase was the same as that in the first four years of the Hawke Government. However, when the constraints of responsible government came to Australia in the late 1970s, there was a more established plateau which led to smaller increases. I acknowledge that this smaller increase was doubled-not multiplied by five-in the first four years of the Hawke Government. The present prospects are that there will be no increase at all. The third Press release to which I refer was on 5 March 1987 when the Minister said: While Labor has created 48,000 free higher education places since coming to power, the Liberals promise no new free places. The statement should have read `36,000', not `48,000'. Not only has the Minister put out to the whole of Australia that the Hawke Government has created 48,000 new places when it should be three-quarters of that number, but also the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has quoted this figure several times in the House of Representatives as a result of information given to him by the Minister. The claim has been made that the Hawke Government has created a certain number of new places in higher education, in universities and colleges, when that has not been its true achievement. Arising from the Estimates Committee answers that I have received, I want to clarify the facts. I draw attention directly to the table that the Minister provided. In 1975 the total number of enrolments in higher education was 222,700. Eight years later, in 1983, the figure was 264,700. During the eight years of the Fraser Government there was an increase in higher education student numbers-that is, equivalent full-time students-of 42,000. That figure of 42,000 is much greater than the lie that was put about by the Prime Minister and by the Minister that there were 8,000-- Senator Tate —Madam Chair, I ask for a withdrawal of the imputation that the Prime Minister told a lie. The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —That is unparliamentary, Senator Teague, and I ask you to withdraw it. Senator TEAGUE —I am sorry to be so excited about this matter. I withdraw, but I demonstrate-- Senator Robertson —There is no `but' about a withdrawal. Senator TEAGUE —I unqualifiedly withdraw. I wish to say that when this Government's representatives say `We have achieved 48,000 and the previous Government achieved 8,000', and the facts of the matter are that the achievements are much the same, it is a gross misrepresentation of the available opportunity for higher education in Australia. These figures give the lie to any statements that have been put forward before in this matter. In the first three years of the Hawke Labor Government the figure increased from 264,700 to 297,600. It is very clear from the table that has been incorporated in Hansard. It is an increase of 32,900 in three years. The comparison that must be established is that during the eight years of the Fraser Government there was an increase in equivalent full-time students in higher education of 42,000 and in the first three years of the Hawke Labor Government the increase was 32,900. I do not refer to the last line in the table, which is an estimate. It is acknowledged clearly by the Minister to be an estimate for this present year. I believe it is an overestimate because there is provision for 3,000 additional places for this year. This is shown in the Budget Papers and has often been referred to by the Minister. It appears in one of the ministerial statements from which I quoted a few moments ago. This is a crucial matter and I wish to make my statement clear to get the Special Minister of State (Senator Tate), who is now at the table, to acknowledge that my figures are correct. We have reached a completely inflexible impasse in the present Government's policy of providing new places in higher education. There were 44,000 people turned away from our universities and colleges this year. The university vice-chancellors and the principals of the colleges have brought that down to a net figure of 13,000 to 20,000. That is a considerable increase on the 9,000 to 14,000 of last year. This is a critical failure of the present Government's policies in higher education. The Liberal Party has put forward and published its own higher education policy. It is called a policy for growth in higher education and it opens the doors to those who have been turned away to be enrolled and to gain the advantages of a university, college or institute education. Through a scheme of higher education scholarships we propose that the same number of free places will be available as there is now but institutions will be able to enrol additional students on whatever terms they see fit. This lifting of the plateau and opening of the doors is a refreshing change for those who have been turned away by current policies. I make no excuse about the whole of the last decade; it seems to me to show a very slow growth pattern. I have given the figures squarely with regard to the Fraser Government. They are set out in the table, along with the figures from the present Government. One quarter of the growth is concentrated in universities and three quarters is concentrated in colleges of advanced education and institutes of technology. The latter are the cheaper courses, at an average cost of $6,000 per student compared with universities at $8,000 per student. The growth has been mostly in colleges of advanced education, which are cheaper for everybody, and that has been a consistent pattern in the last decade, as is very clearly set out in the table. I wish to spell out specifically one of the inadequacies in the Minister's three Press releases. There is no doubt that the 1983 student enrolment is an outcome of policies in 1982. Whatever moneys were provided in 1982 for student enrolment were determined by the Parliament and initiated by the Government. It is wrong to claim that the 1983 outcome is the result of the present Hawke Labor Government. In the same way, it is wrong to claim that the Fraser Government established the outcome in 1976, because that was determined by the Whitlam Government initiatives and parliamentary decisions of 1975. The figures in the Minister's statements vary from 36,000, 40,000 to 48,000-all of which are wrong. They mislead the Parliament and the public. These things are clarified in the table that I have had incorporated. I ask the Minister to acknowledge that there was a 42,000 increase in the number of full time students in the eight years of the Fraser Government compared with a 32,900 increase in the first three years of the Hawke Labor Government. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(9.47) —Senator Teague presented a very complex set of figures. I am a little astonished by his enthusiasm for trying to diminish the achievements of the present Government, in particular the present Minister for Education, Senator Susan Ryan, by saying that we are only doing twice as well as the Fraser Government did in its last four years of office. He seems to think that somehow that is a matter of consolation but I do not believe it is. Even accepting his figures-and I have been unable to verify each of them and the various patterns that he was putting together as the speech was made-the claim that the Labor Government and the Minister for Education, Senator Ryan, have done only twice as well over the last four years as the Fraser Government in its last four years is not something that the Liberal Party can take much consolation in. It is important to say that it is not merely a question of providing more opportunities for people to get into tertiary education institutions; it is also a question of providing the capital works-that is, the buildings for them to study in-and to have the support services, libraries and laboratories and so on for the educational process to be successfully undertaken. In that regard it is important to note that the building program undertaken in the various tertiary institutions throughout Australia has been quite significantly different-I would argue that it is much better-from that under the Fraser Government. On my campus in Hobart I know that, for example, the life sciences block which is presently being constructed is testimony to the interest and concern that this Government has in providing capital facilities. There was a huge backlog of such buildings on campuses of universities and tertiary institutions right across Australia, which is another factor in any comparative judgment to be made of the performance of the two governments. I am informed that there is some variation in figures caused by different ways of describing or characterising student places. Nevertheless, between 1983 and 1987 total student places in the higher education sector in Australia increased by some 42,400. I want to be accurate so will the honourable senator give me just a second to check? Senator Teague —I understand. Senator TATE —This seems to be a plausible explanation in relation to the differences to which Senator Teague alluded. Under four years of Labor Government there has been an increase of 36,800 places fully funded by the Government in the tertiary sector. Of course tertiary institutions can take on more people than the number for which the Government actually funds that institution to provide education facilities. That makes plain some of the discrepancies which Senator Teague was concerned to point out. The number of places actually occupied by Australians in higher education institutions is, I am advised, 305,000. If the honourable senator looks at the funding of higher education institutions under this Government-which has increased by $193m or 8.4 per cent in real terms to $2.5 billion-I think he will have a total picture of a commitment to higher education which, as I have said, is far superior to that achieved during the Fraser Administration. It is also not true to say-as I think Senator Teague was led in his enthusiasm to say-that no new places have been created this year. Senator Teague —No, 3,000 odd. Senator TATE —When the honourable senator looks at Hansard he may find that he made that claim in passing but 3,000 new places were created this year in such difficult times and I am glad that the honourable senator acknowledges that fact. Senator Teague —I meant that the next year, 1988, there will be zero. There is no provision for new places next year. Senator TATE —That matter is still to be considered in the Budget context. I am unable to say whether the honourable senator is correct in his forecast because that matter has not yet been determined. Senator Teague —After the election. Senator TATE —As per normal it will be considered in the Budget context. It is also important to note that the additional places have had an emphasis in the engineering, science and technology and business related disciplines. That has been a very definite emphasis of this Government in trying not only to meet the needs of students to be educated but also to anticipate their integration into the work force and their contribution to the sort of Australia that can create the wealth that can then be distributed so that we can all enjoy a fair standard of living. The unmet demand is a very difficult concept. Gross figures are bandied about but, as I understand it, the Vice-Chancellor's Committee and the Australian Committee of Directors and Principals estimate for 1986 was between 11,000 and 16,000 places. I am advised that their estimate for 1987 is 13,000 to 20,000-an increase which is not unexpected given the 10 per cent increase in the number of year 12 students in 1986 which, in itself, is a commendable factor. At this moment that is as much information as I am able to give in response to Senator Teague. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(9.54) —I will not take up the time of the Committee much longer on this matter. I certainly appreciate the Minister's intelligent response to the matters I have raised. What I am saying to the Committee is this: The Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) made three public statements-in January, February and March-all of which are patently wrong. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has been induced to make comparisons which are very nice round numbers-40,000 places compared with 8,000 places. Those were the figures on his lips. He said `We have produced 40,000; the Liberal National parties, in a similar time, produced only 8,000' and those figures are wrong. The reason for my making the comparison 5:1 back to 2:1 is that in the extravagance of the first years of the Hawke Government there was expenditure beyond the ability of this country to pay given the policy guidelines for higher education of the Labor Government. The outcome in student numbers for the first four years of this Labor Government, compared with the last four years of the Fraser Government, increased by a factor of 2:1. However, over the whole eight years of the Fraser Government there was an increase of 42,000 places and the increase in the number of places during the first five years of this Government is less than that; it is 36,000 places. That establishes, in broad terms, a plateau, not a 5:1 advantage that the Prime Minister stated. This matter bears on the question I put to the Minister on Tuesday and which was not answered in the Senate. The question followed the release on Sunday this week of the shortfall in the number of student enrolments, the unmet student demand. The Minister has confirmed that the figure for this year is 13,000 to 20,000, that is, a net figure after double entry, after all of the discounting that has to be sensibly undertaken, has been fully taken into account. Up to 20,000 eligible people who have applied for places and are ready to enrol have been turned away. That figure is more than a 20 per cent increase on the figure for last year. The pattern we are on, with the inflexible higher education policy of the Government, will see that number increase. Given the state of the Australian economy, the overexpenditure of the first three years of this Government, the inability of taxpayers to front up to paying a greater amount in the taxpayer funded part of higher education, the Government's policy being inflexible and deriving only some $70m through the higher education administration charge and the Government indexing it and promising that it will never increase, the Government is totally locked in. There is no way, given the ceiling on taxpayer dollars, that there will be an increase in higher education enrolments. Yet the numbers involved in unmet demand are increasing. Because this matter will be a major aspect of the higher education comparisons between the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal Party of Australia over the coming six weeks, it is important that the Committee notes that the propaganda of the Minister's Press releases in January, February and March and the Prime Minister's statements in the House of Representatives are not only distortions but also gross misrepresentations and that the correct table to measure any of the rhetoric from any party on this matter is the table that the Minister, through the Department, supplied to me in answer to a question asked in the Estimates committee hearing and which I earlier incorporated in Hansard. That table shows that if we do not change our higher education policies, this country is doomed to a plateau of zero growth in higher education places under this Government. This is not good enough to meet the technical and business needs of the community. I agree with the Minister's reply that the right emphasis is upon applied professions in business and technology. If we do not see a change of policy, such as that represented by the Opposition in this matter, higher education is doomed to stagnation. I will conclude my questions by referring to that part of the question I asked on Tuesday in the Senate which the Minister did not answer. I asked: What are the Minister's precise estimates for reductions in student numbers next year in universities, colleges of advanced education and technical and further education institutions? What was announced in the May mini-Budget was a $12m reduction in funding for higher education in 1988. That sum is greater than the net amount that was to go to the 1,500 extra places arising from the higher education administration charge. By that decision in the mini-Budget of a $12m cut, the Government immediately has wiped out any ability for universities to increase student numbers next year. It is a worse situation in the TAFE sector. In that other most important area of post-school education, technical and further education, the cut is $30m for next year and $45m for the year after. The outcome in TAFE, despite the argument by the Minister that this will lead to the same student numbers except in stream six-the climb will occur in non-vocational courses-is not credible. There will be a decline in universities, colleges of advanced education and in technical and further education as a result of the Budget cuts announced in the May mini-Budget. When asked about this on Tuesday, the Minister was not able to give any estimates as to what those reductions in student numbers would be. There is no credibility in saying `Oh, there will be an increase' because in the coming six weeks of this election campaign the public will want to know the Government's estimates for student numbers in universities, colleges of advanced education and in technical and further education. The public will not be content with hearing that there will be some manner of increase which we will all know about in the Budget. I put it to honourable senators that with a $12m and $25m cut in higher education in two successive years and a $30m and $45m cut in TAFE there will be reductions that will add two extra lines to the table I referred to some minutes ago. Those reductions are in sharp contrast to the increases in student enrolments that will flow from the Liberal Party higher education policy and TAFE policy. There will be an enormous reduction in unmet demand as a result of Liberal Party policies. At last, the distortion of statements by the Minister in the earlier months of this year has been exposed by her own table. The contrast between Liberal and Labor policies for post-school education is demonstrated to all. The public who wish to see mature age students and school leavers being able to apply successfully for a place in higher education or TAFE will be turning to the Liberal Party's policy as a basis for that achievement. I ask the Minister to say now what reductions there will be in student numbers in universities, colleges of advanced education and technical and further education in the next year. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(10.05) —The Government will not be creating a funding situation where there will be a reduction in the numbers of student places in tertiary institutions in the next academic year, 1988. I am assured that the reduction of $12m in 1987-88 and $24m in a full year that Senator Teague hinges some of his expectation of reduction in places on, whilst it is equivalent to about one per cent of general recurrent funds for higher education, can be accommodated largely by recognising the efficiency gains in the system that have been made over the last decade. Nevertheless, it is recognised that the impact on various sectors and institutions will vary. Proper regard will be given to those institutions and sectors which have already achieved a certain amount of efficiency. There will not be an absolutely uniform, blanket impact on each institution to achieve that reduction of $12m in 1987-88 and $24m in a full year of general recurrent funds for higher education. But it is quite wrong in terms of the Government's intention and expectation that any reduction in the number of places in tertiary institutions should take place next year. In fact, there will be continuing increases in the number of government-funded places in those institutions. As far as the constant dispute about figures is concerned, I am told that the previous Liberal Government in the last four years of its administration of that portfolio funded 8,100 places in tertiary institutions. In the four years of Labor government, we have funded 36,800 new places. If those figures are correct, and a Minister can accept only the best advice possible, and presuming that the computation is made with exactly the same basic characterisation of those places, then a ratio of 1:4 or 1:5 is implied in those figures. Insofar as that ratio is used in rounded terms in political rhetoric, there is some justification for it in the comparison of those two sets of figures. Therefore in that sense there is a proper justification. I make the general political point that this problem-and it is a problem-that the Government and the nation is facing of ensuring that there are enough places in higher education, particularly for young Australians, has been brought about partly, which is somewhat ironical, by the great success of increasing the retention rates of students in the secondary sector. Certainly-and I know that Senator Walters from our Tasmanian experience would agree-in Tasmania, and no doubt in other States if figures were made available, there has been a very poor retention rate of students into years 11 and 12. The fact is that there has been an absolutely dramatic increase in retention rates across Australia of students to year 12. That has raised not only their level of education in the sense of completing secondary qualifications but also has raised their expectations and those of their parents. With the encouragement of their teachers no doubt numbers of them-this would have been inconceivable in the Fraser years-begin to think that they will apply to a tertiary institution, whether it be university, college of advanced education or some equivalent. In doing so, they create the so-called unmet demand which is so hard to quantify because we all know that many inquiries by students are made on enrolment days but are not always fully completed by proper enrolment by the Dean of Studies. Nevertheless, they are recorded-naturally it is in the interest of the institutions to record them-as fairly fully-fledged inquiries about the possibility of finding a place in an institution. So there is an unmet demand; there is no denying that. Its dimensions are very difficult to quantify exactly, but given the great retention rates that have been achieved in secondary education it is not surprising that there has been this bulge in those seeking places. That is why, even in this particularly difficult economic environment, the Government has funded 3,000 new places this year and, as I have said, will continue to fund places in the future. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(10.11) —I wish to move to a matter relating to the Austudy scheme. In brief, the Minister has strayed back and has claimed that there is a four to one comparison if we compare the first four years of the Hawke Government with the last four years of the Fraser Government. I assert that 1983 statistics are the outcome of policies determined in 1982. The 1976 statistics are the outcome of the Whitlam Government in 1975. Arrangements for the tertiary education assistance scheme and the provision of additional places in the calendar year of a university or college were determined by parliamentary and government decisions in a previous year. It is incorrect to claim that the 1983 outcome was achieved by the Hawke Government. The correct figures in that comparison are 13,400 additional places in the last four years of the Fraser Government and 32,900 places in the first years of the Hawke Government. I leave it to any objective observer to look at the table to which I have referred. I agree that there is additional pressure with regard to unmet demand because of the retention of more Australian students in years 11 and 12 and that is a bipartisan goal in this Parliament. Both the Government in opposition and the Opposition in government sought to retain greater numbers of Australian school students in years 11 and 12. We have noted the increase from 30 per cent to 40 per cent and to 50 per cent. In the same way, we aspire to a goal of 60 per cent which has been set for the early 1990s, and so on. These policies are shared alike in this Parliament. Not only is there that pressure but also there is pressure from an enormous number of mature age students, particularly those aged from 23 to 40 who, having missed or not taken any opportunity for post-school education at an earlier age, are now seeking to study economics, business or any area connected with their profession. Those mature age entries into higher education have increased enormously. I do not wish to go on about this. I wish to say that there is pressure from school leavers, which we acknowledge, and there is pressure from mature age entrants. The point is that this will not be satisfactorily met to the good of all Australians unless there is a change of policy. Whilst this Government persists with giving distortions such as those I have cited, which are thoroughly wrong, the Government will lose credibility and it will be seen to be dithering-as I believe it is-in not responding to the needs of Australia in higher education. The second matter which I wish to raise concerns the Austudy allowances and, in particular, the general secondary scheme. The Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) and I have had quite a dialogue, on the record and off the record, with regard to the change in November last year when TEAS and the secondary allowance schemes were integrated and called Austudy. When we passed legislation last year the Minister told the Senate that the Government would be proceeding on the basis that all 16-year-old students and above in secondary schools who met specific family income test eligibility would receive Austudy and that payment would be made to the student. I protested on behalf of the Opposition and said that it should be able to be received, as in all preceding years, by the parent and that this Government and this Parliament should not interfere in the financial relationships between parents and student dependents. In the debate on the legislation our view was put but it was not accepted because the Australian Democrats were persuaded that a family eligible to receive Austudy would receive a lesser amount because, in the admission of the Minister at the time, it would be taxable in the hands of the receiver. A third or more of that payment-but typically, one-third-would be taken away if it were put in the hands of a parent, who was a taxpayer, rather than a student who was not a taxpayer. At that time I urged, on behalf of the Opposition, that there should be a tax exemption for Austudy payments. Following the end of the parliamentary session the Government had a change of mind. I was glad that wisdom and enlightenment were coming to the Government. To cut a long story short, the Minister determined that an additional page would be added to the application form so that parents could opt to receive the Austudy payment direct. I, and the Opposition, have questioned the grounds on which the Government maintains that that is lawful. That is, given the assurances that were made by the Minister last November and bearing in mind changes to the taxation Act, how is it that what was said in this place last November is now no longer true? The Minister wrote to me today. She set out answers to my questions of a month ago about this matter in a two-page letter. The Minister faithfully acknowledges that there was a change of mind on the Government's part. It was seen that an enormous number of parents wished to receive the payment direct and, therefore, an alternative would be considered. One of the two options was to take the line that I had advocated-that is, to exempt the payment in the hands of the recipient. That has not been accepted by the Government. Let me quote from the Minister's letter, which I received only this afternoon. It states: The second option considered was to amend the tax legislation in such a way as to be able to pay the parent but still regard the allowance as assessable income in the hands of the student. While that is the arrangement that we have now taken up, it does bring with it problems of more complex administration and apparent inequity, since the tax system is based on the individual and not the family, as the unit. Recognition of those problems led us at the time- that is, last November- to reject the option and to decide in favour of payment to the student. The last paragraph of this letter, which will lead me to my questions, states: On the administrative side, the provision is expected to be reasonably complex, as I mentioned at the Estimates hearing. Details of the necessary changes to tax administration and legislation have not yet been finalised. It was a month ago that I clearly asked the Minister these questions and she clearly understood them. Even the Department did, too. The Minister said that it was necessary to amend the law to achieve this. Accordingly, there is an amendment in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. 1) that is now on our Notice Paper. I see no problem with that. As part of that statute law amendment Bill, no doubt it will be passed before we get up next week. But I ask these questions quite precisely as I do not wish the position of those parents who have opted to receive Austudy payments directly to be in any way jeopardised. The Minister has acknowledged in another answer that she gave to me yesterday that, as of the end of April, I understand, 13,000 parents had already opted for direct payment. If there had been full notice I imagine there would have been very many more. I want to make sure that those parents-13,000 in April, but the number is increasing-who want to receive this Austudy payment in the traditional way have a lawful basis for receiving the payment. I want to know that they will not be taxed and I want to know what all the difficulties that have not yet been finalised are. When will they be finalised? Will they be finalised tomorrow? Senator Button —That is a bit unfair, Senator. Come on. You ask: `What are all the difficulties that have not yet been finalised?' Senator TEAGUE —I have already outlined these matters in the last 10 minutes, and if the Minister has not picked them up I will be happy to put them again. What has to be resolved is whether the allowance is in doubt or whether it is only the possibility of it being taxable that is in doubt? I want assurances that the matter will soon be finalised and that the payment of the allowance is not in doubt; and I want to know that the matter of the allowance not being taxable is not in doubt. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(10.22) —I think Senator Teague was correct in saying that the Government was persuaded by the concern of many parents that they should be the recipients of the Austudy payment, which no doubt is then used within the household, but primarily, I would hope, for the support of the student member of that household who is, of course, meant to be the beneficiary of that particular allowance. I think it has to be conceded that the eloquent advocacy of Senator Teague played some part in that persuasion. Nevertheless, I think it is important that parents who wish to take that option have their choice respected. In that regard, it has taken some time to devise the procedures to allow the transfer of those payments to parents where that has been requested and to put those procedures in place. I understand that those payments commenced on 6 May in order to coincide with the first pay day of second term in the majority of States. Where the first payment has not been made to the student by the end of first term, parents will receive the allowance backdated to the beginning of the year. As I said, I believe that that process commenced a couple of weeks ago. Senator Teague raised the very difficult question of whether it is necessary to amend the law to achieve the result of parents, although money is paid to them if their choice of that option is respected, not having to pay tax. I take it that Senator Teague means that the tax liability would be with the person of the student concerned. Senator Teague —Yes. Senator TATE —I am not quite sure whether the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. 1) is strictly necessary to achieve that purpose when the Minister has made a determination that the parents may receive the benefit if they so choose or whether this merely is being done in order to clarify the situation. Certainly this was a very real difficulty which was noted at the end of the year. I am not privy to the advisings which the Minister may have had on that matter. But it is true that the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill (No. 1)-which will be passed at the end of this week if the arrangements for the guillotine are observed-does contain one provision which clarifies that situation and puts beyond doubt the legality of the payments which parents will be receiving over the course of the next several weeks. I do not have the terms of that provision in front of me but I would imagine that it has been drafted according to directions from the Department in a way which ensures the legality of those payments. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(10.25) —So the allowances will not be taxable in the hands of the recipient parents and there will be no delay in continuing payments to parents. Is that right? Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(10.25) —I believe I can answer yes in relation to both those questions. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(10.26) —The final matter I wish to raise this evening on the education appropriations relates to the national policy on languages and the five-year debate that has ensued very constructively in this chamber about Australia's national language policy. One of the provisions in the response the Government gave to the Senate Standing Committee on Education and the Arts was the establishment of an advisory council on Australia's languages policy. The Government has already initiated an allocation of $100,000 in this financial year-and that has been supported by this Parliament-for the implementation of a national language policy. The Minister for Education (Senator Ryan) has made a commendable response to the Senate's inquiry, and I together with many of my colleagues and, indeed, a number of Government senators, commended the Government's commissioned response which was written by Joseph Lo Bianco. The Government-not only by the first heralding of this measure in the statement of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in Melbourne but also by the Minister's clear statement here-endorsed the report. Quite apart from the reinstatement of the English as a second language moneys that the last Budget denied Australian school students, some $28 million and some other related areas in language policy-quite apart from those hot political questions-the most urgent aspect of the implementation of this very important area that this parliament initiated and which the Government has properly taken up is the setting up of the advisory council on Australia's languages policy. There has been $100,000 set aside; a specific set of objectives has been set out for the council. There is a specific constitution for it. Four standing committees and two temporary committees are also well defined and nominees from various categories of persons are to be appointed. We face some six further days of work in this Parliament and then six weeks of an election campaign-and it will be a couple of years before the country starts to make decisions again. I put this to the Minister: Will his government, or will I, as part of my government, be implementing this part of this report? I believe that after five years of deliberation, it is an urgent matter. It is also a matter that is testable in the election context. Will the Government be setting up this council to get on with the task of implementing the measures that the Government itself has endorsed; or will it be just deferred until after the election, as I gather will be the case with the first important area that I raised tonight from the vague deferral answer I was given? Senator TATE(Tasmania-Special Minister of State)(10.30) —The short answer is: Yes, we will be in government when the necessary decisions have to be made. In fact, this will all be revealed when the Budget is brought down later this year. In light of the very clear endorsement of the Lo Bianco report by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) one could imagine that that endorsement of the report would be carried over into effective implementation of such key recommendations as those that have been outlined. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(10.30) —I take that as a direct deferral and a passing of the buck until after the election. In other words, this Government will not make a decision now to implement this important and urgent matter. Proposed expenditures agreed to. The CHAIRMAN —Order! It being 10.30 p.m., under sessional order I put the question: That the Chairman do now leave the Chair and report to the Senate. Question resolved in the affirmative. The Chairman having reported accordingly- The PRESIDENT —Order! I propose the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator ALSTON(Victoria)(10.31) —I draw the attention of the Senate tonight to a very important decision handed down today by the President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in Victoria, Judge Rowlands, in the matter of Paul Chadwick, as applicant, and the Victorian Department of Property and Services, as respondent. The matter arose out of the events surrounding the by-election for the upper House seat of Nunawading Province, one which will no doubt go down in electoral history as having been initially a tie decided by a vote drawn from the hat and subsequently by a by-election determining the weight of the balance of power in the upper House. In the course of the conduct of that by-election, a complaint was received from an official of the Nuclear Disarmament Party about a how to vote card that he alleged had been circulated during polling and which appeared to be one issued by his party but which in fact was not. It suggested that voters give their preference votes in an order which would be advantageous to the Australian Labor Party when, in fact, the official policy and card of the Nuclear Disarmament Party did not advise voters with regard to preference votes. Following the complaint the Chief Electoral Officer of the State of Victoria was concerned to determine whether some person or persons had breached electoral law. He indicated before the Tribunal that he had formed the view from the outset that it was desirable for further investigations to take place, that on the face of the card it appeared that there was certainly a question as to whether, in fact, an offence had occurred, and that he did not regard himself as having sufficient legal knowledge to decide the questions involved. Opinions were then sought from a variety of highly qualified legal personnel. Ultimately, advice was obtained from Mr Habersberger of counsel in relation to the matter, he having appeared for the Chief Electoral Officer in the Court of Disputed Returns in this very matter. He prepared an advice dated 9 October 1985 which indicated that the distribution of the card amounted to an offence, although it was a borderline case. The Crown Solicitor subsequently agreed with that opinion. A member of the Crown Solicitor's Office, who advises the police, also agreed with that opinion and, finally, so did the Director of Public Prosecutions. So there were four persons in unanimous agreement that a prosecution should be brought in respect of the matter. In substance, the legal advices indicated that prosecutions might properly be instituted against some and named people, although a discretion was to be exercised by the Chief Electoral Officer. It subsequently appears that the Chief Electoral Officer provided those opinions to the Director-General of the Department of Property and Services, who then came back to him and suggested that he should consult the Solicitor General. An opinion was later received from the Solicitor General and junior counsel which suggested that no offence had been committed. In those circumstances, as that view differed from that of the four lawyers who had earlier considered the matter, the two barristers, Mr Habersberger and the Director of Public Prosecutions, were given an opportunity to consider the question again. Each, in substance, maintained his original position, so the fact was that all bar one of the legal opinions sought recommended prosecution of those involved. The role to which I wish to draw attention tonight was that played by Mr Peter Batchelor, the Victorian Secretary of the Australian Labor Party, who issued a statement at that time conceding that he and others had had a personal involvement in the issue of the cards but stating that the ALP had not been concerned in the matter. I pause to remark that that is a laughable and incredible proposition. It is like the Prime Minister of the country going on to the hustings and making a statement saying that he was appearing in his private capacity as a citizen. It was certainly one that raised a great deal of controversy and speculation at the time, so that Mr Batchelor's behaviour and his self-serving explanation became a matter of very serious controversy. He maintained that his activities had been in the best interests of the anti-nuclear cause. I dare say that the true owners of the card that was purporting to be represented at the by-election would have disagreed with the proposition that what had happened was in their best interests. He also maintained that his actions were lawful. Subsequently, during a television interview, he outlined some amendments to the Electoral Act which he would propose, and in due course a Minister put forward some similar amendments which ultimately were not proceeded with. The point of all this, Mr President, is that in today's judgment it was held that although legal privilege attached to those opinions and numerous other documents in dispute, the public interest outweighed that claim of legal professional privilege. Therefore, His Honour ordered the release of a series of documents, including those opinions. I should pause to add that the Department, through its counsel, the Solicitor General, then sought a stay of execution of the order. Therefore, the present situation is that until the expiry of, I think, a stay of 10 days we will not know whether the matter is to be appealed to the Full Court of the Supreme Court or, indeed, whether the Premier will take the course of simply releasing the documents and avoiding any further appearance of dragging the chain. But what is of the utmost concern is that, in dealing with the matters in his judgment-which are now, of course, on the public record-His Honour quoted a portion of the advice tendered by the Director of Public Prosecutions and in the course of so doing he exonerated the behaviour of a whole series of persons. Quoting the opinion, he said: In the light of the enormous publicity this matter has received, surrounded as it has been with rumour and innuendo, I believe it is appropriate in this advice to state quite unequivocally that there is no evidence of the participation in this activity of any Minister of the Crown or indeed of any Member of Parliament. Nor is there any evidence of the participation in this scheme of the candidate Mr Bob Ives or his Campaign Committee. Conspicuously and excruciatingly absent from that list of exoneratees is Mr Batchelor, the Secretary of the Labor Party in Victoria. As a result the decision, which refers to the critical role played by Mr Batchelor and discloses that the overwhelming weight of evidence was in favour of prosecution, leaves one with no reasonable alternative other than to infer that Mr Batchelor's role requires a great deal of further explanation. The judgment inevitably raises serious questions about his role and probity as an important public figure and these cannot be satisfactorily dispelled or confirmed until the opinions become available. In these circumstances, Mr President, it is highly relevant to remember that the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is already reeling from massive, self-inflicted wounds to his own integrity. Having metaphorically sworn on a stack of bibles that there would be no July election, he then turned around before the cock crowed thrice and promptly called a premature and wholly unnecessary election. In this situation, with his own integrity at stake, he is faced with the prospect of entering a critical election campaign with a very serious question mark hanging over the person who will be conducting that campaign in Victoria. In these circumstances the documents in question-the legal opinions-ought to be immediately released so that there is no more stalling or filibustering or, alternatively, Mr Batchelor should stand aside until the appeal process is exhausted. Otherwise, the Federal Government will go to the people with an enormous weight of lead in its saddle bags and with questions as to the probity, responsibility and credibility of one of its most senior officials very much at issue. In these circumstances, it is encumbent on the Prime Minister to clarify Mr Batchelor's status and future role in the campaign. He has clearly played a critical and questionable role in the events surrounding that dishonest how to vote card and has made a number of self-serving and unbelievable explanations of his conduct. Therefore, in the light of today's judgment, it is unacceptable that he be permitted to remain in control of the campaign. If he does, the Government will then deserve the animus that will attach to it. There is no honourable course other than for Mr Batchelor to immediately stand aside from any future involvement in the campaign. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 10.41 p.m. The following papers were tabled: Defence Act-Determinations 1987- No. 37-Overseas Living Allowance and others. No. 38-Overseas Living Allowance and others.