Friday, 18 September 1987 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) took the chair at 9 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens, respectfully showeth: That we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Labor Government's Identity Card; that this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive, costly for taxpayers and business and will not be effective in combating the growing problems of tax evasion, illegal immigrants or social security; 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; that we call upon the Labor Government to improve management systems within the Australian Tax Office and other Departments to crack down on tax evasion and fraudulent practices. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Michael Baume (from 190 citizens) and Messner (from 35 citizens). To the President and members of the Senate. The petition of the undersigned do respectfully showeth that pornographic material relating to children is deleterious to the health and welfare of children and society as a whole. We respectfully urge the Government to ban all child pornography from entering or from being produced in Australia. And your petitioners in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Giles (from 1,015 citizens). To the honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled, your humble petitioners showeth that the proposed Australia Card will have a dramatic impact on the lives of all Australians, and your petitioners therefore request a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senators Michael Baume (from 315 citizens), Crichton-Browne (from 54 citizens) and Jones (from 26 citizens). To the honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we the undersigned, having great concern because of the spread of moral pollution in our nation call upon the Government to introduce immediate legislation: 1. To provide strict controls over importation, production, sale, hire or mailing of video-cassettes with the open sale of only G, PG and M rated video-cassettes; and the total prohibition of the sale of R rated video-cassettes so that R rated films can only be viewed in an adult theatre by persons over 18 years. We totally reject the concept of ``X'' rated video-cassettes which would allow the legal sale of hard-core pornographic films for screening in the homes of our nation, which endanger our children. 2. To dramatically improve the Federal Attorney-General's Guidelines for Classification of Video tapes/discs which restrict the importation, production, sale or hire, screening in private homes and mailing by Australia Post so as to include the total prohibition of any pornographic, obscene or blasphemous video cassette, or film containing child pornography, bestiality, sodomy, group sex, violent sex acts with women, such as rape and pack rape, sadism and torture, etc. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will protect our society, especially women and children from moral pollution and its harmful effects. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Jones (from 145 citizens). To the honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Parliament assembled should be aware that a significant number of Australians: strongly protest that the Department of Social Security pays married rate benefits to persons who are under the age of consent and living in a de-facto relationship involving the crimes of defilement and unlawful carnal knowledge, and strongly protest the 1985 decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which effectively encourages young people to leave home, establish a de-facto relationship, and then be paid $202.30 a week for their activities. Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their elected representatives to rectify this abhorrent practice. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Michael Baume (from 252 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: Moreton Island is an invaluable natural resource for Queensland and the world and that mining on Moreton would gravely compromise its unique flora and fauna and its outstanding recreational archaeological and scientific values. Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should: urge the government to use its proven constitutional powers to halt sand mining on Moreton by supporting the Moreton Island Preservation Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 219 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 Giles (from 80 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: millions of dollars of taxpayers money is spent at each Federal election in Australia in the drafting, production and distribution of How-to-Vote cards which are unnecessary and pollutant and that this waste is not desirable or essential in assisting the electorate to vote informatively for their parliamentarians. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should: urge the government to introduce legislation which requires that the registered How-to-Vote cards of all political parties and candidates for political office must be placed under glass in every polling booth within obvious sight of all voters, thus making it unnecessary for How-to-Vote cards to be distributed at future federal elections. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 72 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled- The petition of the undersigned expresses concern that some scientists in Australia are intent on undertaking destructive experimentation on human embryos. This subject was examined exhaustively by the 1985-86 Senate Select Committee on Senator Harradine's Human Embryo Experimentation Bill which received 270 submissions and more than 2,000 pages of evidence. The report of the Senate Committee recommended in October 1986 that the Commonwealth Government make unlawful any destructive experiment which frustrated the development of the human embryo. Your petitioners therefore request the Senate and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia to: Implement without delay the major recommendation of the Senate Select Committee to outlaw destructive experiments on human embryos. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Harradine (from 102 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens, respectfully showeth: that we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Government's Identity Card; that this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive, costly for taxpayers and business and will not be effective in combating the growing problems of tax evasion, illegal immigrants or social security; that we call upon the Government to improve management systems within the Australian Tax 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 Michael Baume (from 98 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens, respectfully showeth: that we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Government's Identity Card; that this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive, costly for taxpayers and business and will not be effective in combating the growing problems of tax evasion, illegal immigrants or social security; that we call upon the Government to improve management systems within the Australian Tax Office and other Departments to crack down on tax evasion and fraudulent practices. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senator Crichton-Browne (from 85 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That the proposed national ID Card and numbering system threatens the privacy of law-abiding Australians opening the door to computer matching of personal information, will cause inconvenience to rural people in particular, and will result in massive compliance costs for private business. That the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee Report of 1986 showed that the Australia Card will not be effective in combating taxation and social security fraud and illegal immigration, as its cost savings are based on faulty estimates. That accordingly the Senate and Parliament should reject the Australia Card Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Knowles (from 2,384 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we the undersigned, having great concern because of the threat to personal freedom posed by the introduction of the Australia Card, call on the Government to withdraw the enabling legislation on the following grounds: 1. Expert opinion does not agree ``that a National identification system for all Australians'' would ``combat tax evasion and welfare fraud''. 2. Once established at enormous cost to the taxpayer, the system would be here to stay. 3. The potential for the invasion of individual privacy by persons unknown to the private citizen is so great as to be unacceptable to us. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your Honourable House will protect this society by rejecting the Bill outright. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Jones (from 38 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: the Hawke Labor Government's Australia Card proposal is the most far-reaching and intrusive piece of Australian legislation ever and on all the evidence available will not tackle in the most cost-efficient manner tax and social security fraud. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should: reject the Labor Government's Australia Card proposal to prevent a gross waste of taxpayers' money and a significant infringement of civil liberties. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 86 citizens). To the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we believe there to be cheaper, more efficient means of combating social security and taxation fraud than those contained in the Australia Card Bill. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should consider these alternatives and reject any legislation which seeks to implement the intrusive and expensive Australia Card proposal. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Messner (from 26 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: The Government by persisting with the Australia Card Bill has wilfully rejected the advice and recommendations of the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia's `Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card' which unequivocally rejected the Government's proposal in these words: ``The majority believes the creation of a new bureau-cracy of 2,000 public servants within the Health Insu-rance Commission (HIC), with the sole task of identifying every man, woman and child in Australia, is a wasteful exercise which will not address the problems of tax evasion and social security fraud but will provide the mechanism by which the very fabric of our society will be irreversibly altered, opening the way for the greatest attack on the privacy of individuals as the `Identity Bureau' identities, monitors, and updates information on every person in Australia.'' (Report, 4.55, page 148). Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Go-vernment now withdraw the Bill as being contrary to the Common Law and traditional freedoms we have hitherto enjoyed in Australia, and should the Bill be nevertheless re-introduced, that the members of the Senate without regard for party should unanimously reject the Australia Card Bill as being contrary to our personal liberties and the national interest. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Panizza (from 117 citizens). We, the undersigned, would like to voice our protest at the proposed legislation for the Australia Card. This petition of Australian citizens shows: 1. We reject in principle the need for a national I.D. card on the basis that it will be a gross violation of civil liberties and personal freedoms. 2. We support proper measures by government to stamp out tax avoidance. We equally believe that the introduction of a national system of identification and sensitive data storage is a massive intrusion into the privacy of those least likely to be involved in tax avoidance practices, and equally less likely to be effective against those who are. 3. We reject the notion that the government, on the basis of its recent re-election, can claim a mandate for the proposed legislation. The Australia Card was not a debated pre-election policy issue and we categorically state that it does not reflect our will. We therefore request that you vote to reject this legislation. by Senator Robert Ray (from 17 citizens). Petitions received. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications) —I seek leave to make a statement relating to Amann Aviation Pty Ltd and to move a motion relating to that statement. Leave granted. Senator GARETH EVANS —I table and seek leave of the Senate to incorporate in Hansard a statement setting out a chronology of the advice provided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to the Department of Transport, subsequently the Department of Transport and Communications, and to me in relation to police checks relevant to the suitability of Amann Aviation to hold the Coastwatch contract. Leave granted. The document read as follows- STATEMENT IN RESPECT OF POLICE ADVICE TO THE DEPARTMENTS AND MINISTERS FOR TRANSPORT, AND TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS, IN RELATION TO THE SUITABILITY OF AMANN AVIATION TO HOLD THE COASTWATCH CONTRACT 1 Prior to the award of the contract (13 March 1987), security checks were carried out by the Australian Federal Police. Chief Superintendent Dixon interrogated AFP and State police records and sought comments from the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence. No adverse findings were recorded. Chief Superintendent Dixon reported orally to the Tender Assessment Committee on 21 January 1987; - the relevant extract from the record of that meeting is at Annexure 1. 2 The AFP confirmed with the New South Wales Corporate Affairs Commission that no adverse matter was recorded in relation to the tenderer prior to the award of the contract. 3 The AFP carried out over a period of several months checks of Mr Joseph Shlegeris, an employee of Continental Venture Capital Ltd who became a director of Amann Aviation Pty Ltd. As Mr Shlegeris was an American, these checks necessarily involved contact with United States law enforcement agencies through AFP Liaison Officers in the USA. Mr Shlegeris was not adversely recorded in either the United States or Australia. These findings were the subject of oral report by Chief Superintendent Dixon and there does not appear to be any material retained on Departmental files. 4 After the contract was let but before the end of May, the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence within the AFP raised concerns in an undated internal minute about some of the associates of some of the Directors of Continental Venture Capital Ltd and concluded ``there is sufficient justification in continuing a probe into Amann Aviation and its associated links''. This conclusion and the fact of these further investigations were not then drawn to the attention of the Department or Ministers as they were of a speculative and preliminary nature. 5 The Bureau of Criminal Intelligence reported to the Coastal Protection Unit (CPU) and the Deputy Commissioner (Operations) of the AFP on 30 June 1987. 6 It would be inappropriate to table or quote from that document because: - it contains details of the private affairs of a number of persons including their credit and other financial dealings; - it contains speculation about persons being involved in illegal activities which have not been the subject of full investigation or charges and the disclosure of which would be very damaging to the persons concerned; - it could prejudice criminal investigations in relation to matters unrelated to the subject contract and the principals involved in it. 7 This report and other matters were reviewed by Chief Superintendent Dixon in an internal note for file on 16 July 1987 (Annexure 2). Neither that document nor its contents were drawn to the attention of the Department or of Ministers at that time. 8 Chief Superintendent Dixon's conclusions that there was no reason to ``(a) pursue this probe further or (b) initiate actions to alert any other persons/Department of the initial BCI'' report were agreed by the Deputy Commissioner. The investigation ceased. 9 On 31 August 1987 allegations connecting Mr Amann with the use and/or smuggling of drugs were made to the AFP. The conclusions and recommendations of the relevant internal AFP minute are reproduced as Annexure 3. Investigations were put in train by the AFP and the Australian Customs Service. No adverse findings have been reported arising from these investigations. 10 On 1 September Chief Superintendent Dixon drew these matters to the notice of Mr Roger Beale, Associate Secretary, of the Department of Transport and Communications and briefed him on the earlier inquiries by the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence and the conclusions of AFP in relation to those inquiries. 11 Mr Roger Beale drew these matters, and the AFP's conclusions, to the attention of Senator Evans, the Minister for Transport and Communications in the context of a minute on 1 September. The relevant extract is reproduced at Annexure 4 with appropriate excisions to protect the identities of persons referred to in the BCI report and persons providing information to the AFP. 12 Mr R. Beale further discussed these matters with Deputy Commissioner Farmer on 4 September 1987. A copy of his note for file is reproduced as Annexure 5. 13 Mr Beale briefed Senator Evans on these matters in Melbourne on 7 September and it was agreed that they were not such as to justify any action to terminate the contract. 14 Between 7 September and the notice of termination on 12 September, no further information or advice was provided by the AFP. ATTENDEES Mr D. Kay DOT, Chairman Chief Superintendent Dixon AFP, CPU Mr B. McCulloch DOT Mr B. Stirling DPI Quarantine Mr G. Richardson DOT Mr P. Salvair D of A Ms C. Duffy DOT Mr G. Giles DOT, Secretary - CPU stated that security checks had been carried out on principals of Amann Aviation through Commonwealth and State police resources no records existed on any of the principals concerned further checks would be conducted through the Corporate Affairs Commission though because of cross indexing between this area and normal police records it was unlikely that anything adverse or of any significance would be found DISCUSSIONS WITH ROBERT AMANN AND QUERIES BY BCI 1. In discussion with Robert Amann (Darwin-9.7.87) he provided me with the following information: (1) He approached SCHLEGERIS/CVC following the withdrawal of funding by and other financial concerns, probably at the instigation of (2) CVC has no control of the contract/operations of Amann Aviation except in circumstances where Amann was in default of repayments over $.5m. The operation of the company would then revert to CVC until the deficit was overcome. This is normal control exercised by a lending concern to safeguard their investment in the event of total mismanagement. (3) No change of ownership of Amann Aviation is envisaged. Comment: Skywest is apparently interested in obtaining an interest in Amann. Any disposal by the Gostners of their holdings could give Skywest a stake in Amann or CVC a majority holding. The purchase by Skywest of CVC's holdings is also a possibility. (4) Robert Amann has had problems with Aviation; the variation of specifications/duplication of administration and decision making within that Department has caused him some concern. He does not envisage that this will prevent him from assuming contract responsibilities in September. Comment: This is not, apparently, an uncommon complaint from anybody involved in the bureaucratic machinery of the Department of Aviation. 2. CVC were subject of enquiry by DOT (RICHARDSON) through NSW Corporate Affairs where their involvement with Amann Aviation became known and subsequent to the contract being let. They were not adversely recorded then, and are not now. 3. Amann's original tender documents etc., are not in issue. They may however be perused by arrangement with DOT if some aspect is either suspect or subject of complaint/allegations. It is not an area we need to pursue. 4. The other matters raised by BCI (i.e. Department of Aviation/Customs arrangements) are a complex matter outside the scope of our role. (See also 1 (4) above). The aircraft have been purchased in the US from a variety of sources and refitted by several American contractors under the supervision of Amann's Chief Pilot, Mr Terry SCHRODER. This is not an area of interest to the CPU and impinges upon the DOT role in contract supervision/compliance. 5. The matter has been discussed with Superintendent Ray PHILLIPS, NSW Region 13/11. We are of the view that (1) any matters of specific concern in BCI should be clarified by direct approach to Amann or SCHLEGERIS. These should be identified by BCI, having regard to the delicacy and availability of their intelligence. (2) That the situation of CVC appears no different from that which exists in other companies and that in depth investigations into any major company would be likely to disclose people subject of BCI record. (3) There is nothing, apparently, of substance to indicate untoward interest or involvement in Amann by CVC or that CVC is other than it represents itself to be-a management and investment company of good repute. 6. Comment: (1) I have no reason to doubt the integrity of Mr Amann or the bona fides of the company with which he is financially involved (CVC). (2) Mr Amann has been quite frank in his discussions with me (and in contact with Department of Transport officers). He displays a willingness to answer queries or identify problems in regard to him, his company and the establishment of the contract operations. (3) The information provided by the BCI while of interest is neither specific in fact or implicit in its conclusions (this is not a criticism of the BCI). In any event CVC have no control of the contract or the operations Amann Aviation undertakes on behalf of COASTWATCH. (4) It is often forgotten (or not understood) that littoral contracts are not designed for or intended to encompass drug interdiction. Accordingly access to information about littoral programs/schedules would not provide any would-be trafficker with information he could not obtain through a knowledge of northern Australia. (5) The matter in issue is the possible embarrassment to the Government if the CVC Directors or corporate associates are disclosed to be of ill repute or with organised crime connotations. This has not been established, nor do I believe on information available to me that an initial suspicion of such connections can be substantiated. (6) Accordingly I am of the view that unless some significant matter can be identified by the BCI as of concern to them or with implications for the Government and/or the civil coastal surveillance system I see no reason to (a) pursue this probe further or (b) initiate actions to alert any other persons/Department of the initial BCI report. R. E. DIXON Chief Superintendent COASTAL PROTECTION UNIT 16 July 1987 cc. Deputy Commissioner R. FARMER OPERATIONS Det/Superintendent R. PHILLIPS NSW REGION Det/Chief Inspector R. SNAPE BCI ANNEXURE 3 CONCLUSION This latest ``allegation'' by....................adds a new dimension to the proceedings. The matters put forward by..........to support his views are heavy on suspicion and innuendo but devoid of evidence. There is little more than assertions that cannot be followed up or otherwise tested to prove the veracity of the claims. There may of course be other information/intelligence that I am not aware of concerning AMANN that may be helpful. RECOMMENDATIONS 1. That you note the allegations and the fact that....................is probably going to be made aware of them. 2. That a full examination be made of AMANN AVIATION and the principals of the company. (If one has not already been done as part of the tendering process). 3. All holdings (if any) be collated to enable a decision to be made to pursue this matter or not. 4. I await your instructions before proceeding further. T. H. DALES Detective Superintendent Regional Commander EXTRACT FROM MINUTE OF ASSOCIATE SECRETARY BEALE TO MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS DATED 1 SEPTEMBER 1987 In June 1987, a Bureau of Criminal Intelligence report ..................... The Department was shown that report today. The responsible AFP Officer (Chief Superintendent Dixon) concluded, however, that ``(5) The matter in issue is the possible embarrassment to the Government if the CVC Directors or corporate associates are disclosed to be of ill repute or with organised crime connotations. This has not been established, nor do I believe the information available to me that an initial suspicion of such connections can be substantiated (6) Accordingly, I am of the view that unless some significant matter can be identified by the BCI as a concern to them or with implications for the Government and/or the civil coastal surveillance system I see no reason to (a) pursue this probe further or (b) initiate actions to alert any other persons/ Department of the initial BCI report''. The recommendations were accepted by the BCI and the Deputy Commissioner of the AFP .................... has subsequently (31 August) made allegations concerning his suspicions and those of .................... concerning the possibility that; Amann's plane imports are a vehicle for importation of drugs; Mr Amann himself is a drug user. These allegations do not appear to be based on any hard evidence but the AFP, in consultation with the Australian Customs Service, has initiated appropriate action. We will pursue these issues further with the AFP and if any adverse matters come to light, advise you accordingly. ANNEXURE 5 DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS Office of the Associate Secretary R. D. Beale NOTE FOR FILE: AMANN CONTRACT I spoke this afternoon with Deputy Commissioner Roy Farmer concerning the BCI reports. He confirmed that the AFP's conclusion was that there was insufficient information of an adverse nature relevant to the contract to justify either: Further detailed investigation of CVC, for example through interviews; Any action to terminate the contract on these grounds. At my request he agreed to refresh his mind concerning the reports and to check whether there were any on-going investigations that were relevant. Roger Beale 4 September Senator GARETH EVANS —This chronology and the associated documents demonstrate clearly that neither in August nor at any other time was it the advice of the AFP to me or my Department that Amann Aviation was unsuitable to hold the Coastwatch contract. I can assure honourable senators that the advice of the AFP was considered closely by my senior officers and myself. The AFP had in fact pursued a range of inquiries sparked by innuendo, association, Press speculation and informants. The considered view of the most senior officers of the AFP involved in the matter was that none of these matters justified any action in relation to the contract. Should the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) or the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Chaney) or any of their relevant shadow Ministers wish to be briefed further on any of the matters dealt with in the statement, arrangements will be made for them to be briefed by Deputy Commissioner Roy Farmer and Chief Superintendent R. E. Dixon of the AFP. I move: That the Senate take note of the statement. Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(9.05) —I thank the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) for letting me have a copy of the statement, albeit only about 20 to 30 minutes ago. We have not yet had an opportunity to go through and analyse it in full detail. However, I have read sufficient of it to realise and understand that there are some very serious gaps in the explanations as provided in the statement that lead the Opposition to the conclusion that we should at least hold this matter on the Notice Paper until a later hour today, at which time we will have had time properly to analyse the paper. We could then discuss it in the Senate. Consequently, at a later stage I will move that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour this day. One or two of the items in the statement raise matters of serious concern to the Australian people. I refer first to paragraph 3 of the statement in which we read that there were findings by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) that were the subject of an oral report by Chief Superintendent Dixon. But there does not appear to be any material retained on the files in that respect. As suggested in part of the question which I addressed to the Minister in the Senate yesterday, I know that there surely had been some information in the hands of the Australian Federal Police, and indeed the Government for that matter, referring to contact with the Victoria Police and the application by Mr Amann to obtain that contract at an earlier time. So we need to know a little more about that point. Paragraph 4 states. After the contract was let but before the end of May, the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence within the Australian Federal Police raised concerns in an undated internal minute about some of the associates of some of the directors of Continental Venture Capital Ltd and concluded `there is sufficient justification in continuing a probe into Amann Aviation and its associated links'. The statement from the Minister then goes on to say: This conclusion and the fact of these further investigations were not then drawn to the attention of the Department or Ministers as they were of a speculative and preliminary nature. Senator Gareth Evans —Read the rest of the statements and conclusions that were drawn after that investigation did take place. You are quoting selectively. Read the rest of it. Senator MESSNER —The Minister does not have to go off his brain yet. He should just hang on to himself for a while. Surely there is sufficient information in this paper which leads one to the conclusion that at least there is some doubt about the activities of the Federal Police and as to why no record was made of any statement; no minute was kept on the files as to that particular statement for a start. That needs to be examined further. But other matters of very grave concern were raised later in the statement. I refer to paragraph 7. It reads: This report and other matters were reviewed by Chief Superintendent Dixon in an internal note for file on 16 July-- This sounds very familiar to me. It sounds as if it is the statement which we were seeking a reply from the Minister about yesterday which he claimed was not in existence. The Minister says neither that document nor its contents were drawn to the attention of the Department or the Ministers at the time. We want to know why. Senator Gareth Evans —It's a negative finding, you dill, if you read the text which is in front of you. Senator MESSNER —We are raising the questions. Perhaps the Minister can explain these things later in the debate. Later in paragraph 9 questions are raised-- Senator Gareth Evans —Take it away, read it, get briefed and then come back. There's a briefing on offer. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Evans, will you cease interjecting. Senator Gareth Evans —I am being provoked by a dill, Mr President. Senator MESSNER —The next point to which I draw the Senate's attention goes to the core of the concern of the Opposition and the Australian people's interest in this matter, that is, a reference to allegations made to the AFP concerning Mr Amann and the use or smuggling of drugs. The statement goes on to say: Investigations were put in train by the AFP and the Australian Customs Service. No adverse findings have been reported arising from these investigations. If the nature of the investigation was similar to the apparent check that was made in the first place by the AFP, which was a very cursory reference to see whether any convictions had been recorded against Mr Amann or any other person who was engaged in the company or supplying capital to the company, one has to raise questions as to just what kind of investigation was undertaken in that regard also. Consequently, that again raises serious questions which need further examination. We are showing that this paper requires deeper examination and we will certainly be undertaking that in the next few hours. Consequently, I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans) agreed to: (1) That the Senate concurs in the Resolution transmitted to the Senate by Message No. 2 of the House of Representatives relating to the appointment of a Joint Standing Committee of the New Parliament House. (2) That the provisions of the Resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the Standing Orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders. (3) That the foregoing Resolution be communicated to the House of Representatives by Message. Debate resumed from 17 September, on motion by Senator Ryan: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(9.13) —The Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia oppose the Australia Card Bill 1986 (No. 3) root and branch. We oppose it from clause 1 to clause 189, from page 1 to page 130. We oppose every element of this Bill which encroaches upon and reduces the rights and freedoms of all Australians. We oppose this Bill which redefines Australian men, women and children as `card subjects' and puts us all under an authority with a capital `A'. We will do all that we can to ensure that this Bill is exposed for the sham and the fraud that it is and we will use every proper, normal parliamentary device at our disposal to defeat it consistent with our manifest obligations to the majority of Australian electors who, at the last election, voted for parties pledged to oppose the Australia Card. In the event that this measure eventually becomes law, I assure the people of Australia that we will repeal the legislation lock, stock and barrel. I turn first to an analysis of the second reading speech on this Bill given yesterday by the Special Minister of State, Senator Ryan. It was as dishonest and dishonourable a speech as any government has produced. It was a speech which sought to deceive and to dissemble as this Government seeks to move us towards its vision of a totalitarian state full of bureaucratic pimps, spies and regulators. I turn therefore to look at exactly what the Minister said in her second reading speech. She said of this device that it was the best single instrument available to ensure fairness and equity in the tax and welfare system. That is untrue. The best single instrument available is lower taxation, which people regard as fair and proper. The lie is further given to the Minister's assertion by this morning's Australian Financial Review, which contains an interview with the Commissioner of Taxation, Mr Boucher, which states in part: Mr Boucher however admitted there was no `single formula' to successfully reducing tax evasion and avoidance. The Minister in her speech says that the Australia Card program has a limited and specific purpose. We know that that is not true. The other day in Brisbane the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Mr Humphreys, said that he wanted the extension of this scheme to cover Veterans' Affairs. He said: Most of the veterans already have all their records on file anyway, and it would make little difference to take it one step further. It is this one step further with which the Opposition parties and the people of Australia are concerned. We know that the Health Insurance Commission (HIC), by its own admission, wants to move one step at a time. In its outline plan it stated: It will be important to minimise any adverse public reaction to implementation of the system. One possibility would be to use a staged approach for implementation, whereby only less sensitive data are held in the system initially, with the facility to input additional data at a later stage when public acceptance may be forthcoming more readily. So the Minister is simply not correct when she says that the program will have a limited and specific purpose. She stated in her speech that this card will provide a method of ensuring that there are no hassles when dealing with Social Security officers. Why is it then that the Department of Social Security told the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card that it would not accept the Australia Card on its own as being proof of identity for social security purposes? That is simply not true. She talked about the extent to which it will minimise the need for most Australians to use more than one Australian government card. You will notice, Madam Acting Deputy President, that it has suddenly become a government card. It has suddenly become part of a government system, because it is the Government and the bureaucrats in the Government, who are the beneficiaries. The legislation refers to card subjects. According to this legislation we are not allowed to talk about Australian citizens. We do not talk about individuals; we talk about card subjects. We have been redefined by this Government as card subjects. The Minister, in her speech, stated that people will not need to use it very often except in their Medicare dealings. That is simply untrue. For instance, anybody who participates in casual employment, every baby-sitter, every gardener, every house cleaner or casual ironing lady, every primary producer-as Senator Panizza has pointed out to me-who seeks to undertake transactions which are derived from the partnership nature of this rural involvement, will need to produce this card for all of the transactions that they undertake for the delivery of their grain, for the purchase of their fuel, for their casual employment. In the next paragraph of the Minister's speech is the first reference-the sneaking reference-to what this is all about. She states that the program will be basic and simple by linking all sources of a person's income to that number. Linking is precisely what this legislation is about. It is about linking records. It is about linking all of the information currently collected for discrete purposes and held in discrete files by separate and different departments. She then talks about the savings over a 10-year period, and the revenue yield of $5.4 billion. That, of course, is based upon the presumption that in the course of the next 10 years there will be no reduction in the levels of taxation, because if taxation comes down, as it should, revenue will go down in terms of this device. We are supposed to accept from the Government that there will be no reduction in revenue brought about by a reduction in taxation, which is necessary, and that there will be increases in costs to which this Government will not admit. For instance, the Joint Select Committee found evidence that this Government had provided not one brass razoo for increases in computer equipment in the next 10 years. Is there anybody in this place-anybody in this country-who thinks that the Government will be able to run a system of this size, of this dimension, of this sophistication, without providing a single dollar for upgrading and improving computer equipment over a 10-year period? That is the sort of nonsense this Government comes forward with. When we take this Bill to a Senate committee we will be able to expose clearly, as the committee chaired by Senator Aulich exposed clearly, the bogus nature of the Government's financial claims as far as this matter is concerned. The Minister says in her speech that few people in Australian society would not already be attached to one or more numbered identification systems. That is true. The issue is, however: are they all linked? The answer to that is no, nor should they be, nor will they be when the Australia Card is eventually defeated. The Minister goes on to say that this information will be held discretely and separately, that tax information will stay with the Australian Taxation Office, that social security records will stay with the Department of Social Security, and that Medicare information will remain separate and secure. What she ought to have added at the end of that, however, is that Health Insurance Commission data will remain with the Australian Federal Police, with the Sunday newspapers or with whomever the bureaucrats in the HIC decide to give it to in the sorts of sleazy political activities in which they have regularly indulged themselves whenever they have been on their doctor bashing exercise or whenever it has suited the political demands of their government masters of the day. While at the moment the police in their jackboots are storming through the HIC looking for the people who have been releasing information to the Australian Privacy Foundation, not one person has been brought to account for the leaking of information, a practice which the HIC regularly indulges in for purely sleazy political purposes. We are told by the Minister that there will be limited information on the Register. The missing word is `now'. It may be limited now, but we know what Mr Humphreys has in mind, we know what his Government has in mind and we know that that first step is the step which has to be resisted. The Minister says that the great bulk of Western democratic societies have some form of basic identification system. That is not true. The great bulk of countries which have identification systems are, as I have pointed out consistently, those whose systems of government and law work upon a civil law basis, rather than a common law basis, in which there lies the presumption of guilt-not the presumption of innocence-and in which the whole method of collecting and storing data about individuals is entrenched. The great common law countries, the great Western democracies whose systems of government and law are based upon common law principles-be they Great Britain, the United States, Canada or New Zealand-have consistently rejected, for good and proper reasons, the sort of system which this Government wishes to introduce. We are told that the Australia Card program will use dedicated landlines, not telephone lines, thus denying access to computer hackers. Yet the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans), on the last occasion that he was asked about this, could not give us any information. In the other place his junior, Mr Duncan, could not give us any information. After the fiasco about Amann Aviation Pty Ltd it is no wonder. Ministers have to go out and talk to each other in King's Hall to get their collective stories straight before they come into the chamber and start answering questions. The Minister's assurance about the security of the system was given the lie yesterday by her own Press statement. Headed `Ryan denies ``Secret'' Dossier', it says, in part: None of the charts or diagrams produced give any guide to the eventual operation of the Card computer programs which have not yet been finalised. So the Government comes in here with a piece of legislation to set up a system, which it admits is not yet finalised, and says that it will be secure, despite the fact that it is not yet finalised. How can the Government give us that sort of assurance when, in the Minister's own Press statement, she says clearly that it has not even been worked out how the computer system is going to operate? The Bill supposedly establishes a Data Protection Agency. We know, despite the attempts of the then Minister, Senator Grimes, to mislead us about the circumstances of Mr Jan Freese's resignation from the Swedish Data Protection Board, that he resigned because the model which has been used by this Government for data protection has already been found to be a defective model. We are told that the Data Protection Agency will have powers equivalent to those of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. We know, from Senator Walsh's behaviour regarding the investigation of the Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs of the Industrial Sugar Mills case, that when it suits the Minister to ignore the Ombudsman's recommendations he ignores them and that consequently this as a protection is absolutely valueless. We are told that it will be a serious offence under the legislation for people to demand the production of the card. That is not correct. Clause 167 of the Bill states: Except as authorised by this Act, a person shall not require another person to produce a Card. It will not be an offence for a policeman or a publican to ask a person; it will be an offence if they require a person to produce the card. However, if they ask a person to produce it and he cannot do so, what is the remedy? The answer is none. This Government has to come clean on this. If a publican can say, `I am sorry, but if you cannot prove that you are over the legal age to drink I will not serve you', and a policeman can say, `If you cannot prove who you are I will take the sort of action against you that I think I am entitled to take; prove it by showing me your Australia Card', the Government is simply dishonest in saying that there is adequate protection. The Minister's second reading speech states: The Bill does not place any legal obligation on a person to produce a card in relation to employment. Of course it does not. It imposes a substantial financial penalty. What a nice form of weasel words these are: `does not place any legal obligation'. It means simply that a person will pay through the nose unless he produces the card. The financial penalty exists and this Government cannot weasel out of it by saying that there is no legal obligation on a person to produce a card. Senator Gareth Evans undoubtedly would be pleased to hear that, according to a news- paper report today, his colleague in another place, Mr Duncan, was asked whether it was physically possible to tap into the system, and he said, `Yes'. So once again Senator Evans and Mr Duncan are clearly at odds with each other. The trouble with members of the left faction of the Australian Labor Party, as you would know, Madam Acting Deputy President, is that they have a propensity to tell the truth. The information given by Mr Duncan on this occasion is yet another example of that. Senator Gareth Evans —Read the full text. Senator PUPLICK —I am sorry if Senator Evans finds it offensive for people to say that members of the left faction of his Party tell the truth and he has difficulty recognising it. I turn briefly to the three primary claims that the Government makes about the value and importance of the card-that it will do something about, firstly, tax avoidance; secondly, welfare fraud; and thirdly, illegal migration. The first claim is simply untrue. We know, from the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure entitled A taxing problem-a review of efficiency audit reports into the Australian Taxation Office, that a large number of things can be done and must be done within the Taxation Office to improve the efficiency of the existing system. We know, for heaven's sake, that the Taxation Office is one organisation which manages to underspend the money which the Parliament gives it for its computer equipment. For instance, in 1982-83 the Parliament appropriated $14.8m and the ATO spent $10.4m. In 1983-84 we appropriated $28m and it spent $9m. In 1984-85 we appropriated $21m and it spent $10.9m. We know that there are better ways within the tax system to improve its efficiency. As strange as it may seem to honourable senators opposite, I repeat the point that the Government will get more tax revenue and better compliance with the tax laws when it brings taxes down to a fair and equitable level and spends the money which it raises from taxation in a way which the people of Australia think is fair and proper and so do not mind making their proper contributions. We know that this system will not do anything, under any circumstances, to police the cash economy. We know that every country in Europe that operates with a type of identity card system, operates with a massive cash economy. We know that up to 20 per cent of the total economic activity of Sweden, because of high taxes and the card-type system, operates within the black economy. We know that in Italy, for example, probably half-if not more-of the economic activity takes place within the cash economy. We know full well that this card will have no effect upon that except to inconvenience a large number of ordinary Australians who are going about their proper, legitimate, day-by-day economic and social activities. We know that this system will not work in terms of welfare fraud. The Department of Social Security has not only said that it will not accept the card as evidence on its own of the identity of persons; it also came before the Joint Select Committee and made a compelling case as to why it did not want the system introduced in the first place. When Senator Chaney was the Minister for Social Security, and before him, when former Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle was the Minister, this matter was looked at consistently by the Department of Social Security and rejected as an ineffective method of policing the welfare system. We know that it will not work in terms of the problems of migrants and illegal migration in this country. All it will do is ensure that prohibited non-citizens who are here and who are working are subjected to even greater exploitation than they are subjected to at the moment. If one looks at the report of the Joint Select Committee, one will see that the evidence given by the then Secretary to the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Mr McKinnon, was the most woeful evidence ever given to a joint select committee. We were told in his evidence that the figures that were given to us were `presumed figures'. They are Mr McKinnon's words. They were `rough estimates'. They are Mr McKinnon's words. They were `no more than guesswork'. They are Mr McKinnon's words. He went on to say that if they redid the study which they had done some five years ago-and I quote: We probably could not find the same crystal ball that was then used. I asked him: Would you say basically that it is still a crystal ball type of calculation, Mr McKinnon? He replied: Yes. I do not think any of us are going to claim any great precision. In respect of immigration, we have the Secretary to the Department coming before us with his presumptions, his guesswork, his guesstimates and his crystal ball, and he still cannot tell us anything that is actually of any value. I have already mentioned the extent to which we know that in a financial sense this whole proposition is a nonsense. It is a nonsense in terms of revenue, it is a nonsense in terms of grossly understating the costs. I remind you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that this Government has consistently refused to give its estimates of the cost of this system to this Parliament, to either State governments or local government or to the private sector. The banks say clearly that there may be several hundred million dollars of cost to them-so much so that on 8 September the Minister put out a statement authorising the resumption of discussions with the Australian Bankers Association on implementation of the Australia Card program. How can the Government then come to us and say that this will be the cost of running the system when it is now re-authorising negotiations to try to work out how much the wretched system is going to cost? I come to the question of privacy and civil liberties. I know that this Government is not particularly concerned about civil liberties and about privacy. I know that it is perfectly happy to have a system by which it describes the people of Australia not only as `card subjects' but also, through its own planning documents, describes the people as `entities entitled to operate'. This is what this Government thinks of the status of privacy and of the rights of individuals. They are card subjects. They are subject to the `Authority', and the Bill describes the Authority with a capital A. They are card subjects or entities entitled to operate. That is the sort of attitude which this Government takes towards the people of Australia. We come to the question of organised crime. We know Commissioner Costigan has stated in the clearest possible terms his belief that this system should not be introduced and will not make any significant impact on organised crime. The Hansard of the Committee's proceedings of 6 February is taken entirely with the testimony of Mr Costigan and Mr Meagher making this point at considerable length. We know that the Australian Federal Police indicated that they did not believe the system would, in any way, be effective. We know that in the United States of America the Presidential Commission, the Comptroller-General, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the inquiry into the use of false identities all recommended against the introduction of such a card. We know full well that a top crime fighter in New South Wales, former Inspector Merv Beck, makes this perfectly clear. There is a recent newspaper article headed `Beck says crime will be Identification winner'. It states: Mr Merv Beck, the former New South Wales policeman known for his zeal in closing Sydney's illegal casinos, believes the Australia Card could pave the way for corporate crime `on a massive scale'. There is no way that Government could police the thousands of public servants with access to people's private records from stealing or selling information to those organised crime groups. We know that organised crime would be delighted to have this system in place. We know that Dr Blewett has admitted in the House of Representatives that it would not be easy to detect fake cards or forged cards. We know, in fact, that a senior officer of the Commission for the Future-one of this Government's particular playthings of the moment-has denounced this card proposal as a massive intrusion into civil liberties and personal privacy. Senator Archer showed, when he put out a statement in January this year dealing with the case of a bagman for a major organised crime syndicate, Frank Duggan, that there was absolutely no way in which security of cards could be policed. I have got a card made up like the Australia Card. Undoubtedly, a large number of members of Parliament have received these cards. I have got about half a dozen that have the delightful visage of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) upon them. People tell me that these cards will not be susceptible to forgery or to being misused. Senator Robert Ray —Wouldn't you like to have one? Senator PUPLICK —No, I would not like to have one with the Prime Minister's photograph on it because if I showed it to any self-respecting pub I would very properly get thrown out. We know full well the attitude which this Government takes towards the civil rights and liberties of people in this country; we know how tardy it has been in policing civil liberties, in policing leaks from the Department of Social Security, from the Health Insurance Commission and from various other Government instrumentalities. It is one of the great obscenities of this debate for the term `Australia' to be so prostituted, as it is, by being linked to this card system. The Government should at least be honest enough to call it a compulsory national identity card. The Government should not indulge in the prostitution of the name `Australia' to give the card some respectability, should not link the green and gold colours with the card to try to conceal from the people of Australia not that it is doing something which is fundamentally Australian but that it is doing something which is fundamentally un-Australian. It is fundamentally contrary to everything that this country has represented and has stood for; it is contrary to the principles which the Labor Party once espoused, that Prime Ministers such as Curtin, Chifley and Forde made clear in their comments that they would have no bar of. As soon as the national emergency of the war was over, the first thing that those Labor governments wanted to do was to get rid of national identification systems-of numbering, of cards, of records and all the rest of it. It takes Hawke, Keating and Senator Ryan to think once again about a system of renumbering the people of Australia, as I said the other day, as this Government's bicentenary present to the nation. We know the attitude taken by this Government towards the privacy of individuals. We know that Dr Blewett says, `Don't get hung up about it because, after all, it is only a bourgeois right associated with the right to private property'. The right to private property has never been something that Mr Keating has walked away from in the past. I doubt whether it is something that he will walk away from in the future. On behalf of this Opposition I say this: We have analysed this proposal very carefully and, had it been possible to devise a system which effectively policed the tax, welfare and migration systems at reasonable cost and without interfering with the rights and liberties of the people of Australia, we would have been prepared to support it. We are not prepared to support this scheme. In fact, we want this matter further investigated. I will now formally move the second reading amendment which has been circulated in the chamber and which seeks the reference of this proposal to a Senate committee and lays down the terms of reference for such a committee. I move: Leave out all words after ``That'', insert: ``, whereas: [Preamble] (a) while the Senate has received a report of a committee on the proposed identity card, the committee did not have the benefit of examining the Government's proposed legislation, as its reference was limited to consideration of the concept and not the Bill; (b) further, the committee was a joint select committee and not a Senate committee; (c) the Bill presented by the Government is particularly complex, being both very technical and lengthy and thus requiring close scrutiny; (d) recent public statements made by several Ministers and the Government's responses to the relevant Scrutiny of Bills Committee report have revealed the necessity to make amendments to the legislation; (e) the Minister responsible for the legislation, Senator Ryan, has, since the election, been reported as acknowledging the need to consult with civil liberties organisations on measures to strengthen privacy safeguards; (f) one of the Government's responses to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee report was unsatisfactory and requires further consideration; (g) the Government stressed the significance of the Bill in seeking the recent double dissolution and accordingly the legislation should be the subject of thorough and careful examination by the Senate through a select committee; and (h) there have arisen changed circumstances since the matter was last considered by the Senate, and in particular: (i) heightened concern in the community that the issues have been inadequately debated in the parliament and the community, (ii) the election of a number of new Senators (thus reflecting current feeling in the electorate) who did not have the opportunity to participate in the previous committee, (iii) the inability of the previous committee, due to the legislation not being drafted, to obtain a full assessment of the costs to business of compliance with the proposal, and (iv) the possible failure of some State or Territory governments to cooperate in vital aspects of the proposed system, this Bill be referred to a select committee, the powers and composition of which be contained in a subsequent resolution, and the committee: [Terms of reference] (a) examine in detail the provisions of the Bill; (b) consider the provisions of the Bill in the light of the reports of the Joint Select Committee on the Australia Card and of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee; (c) examine the integrity of the card manufacturing process in order to assess the likelihood of forgery and fraudulent or criminal misuse; (d) assess the feasibility of the proposed system in the event of a failure of any one or more States to cooperate in the establishment of a births, deaths and marriages register; (e) examine the extent to which new or updated computer systems and recent crackdown campaigns on welfare cheating and tax avoidance and evasion will obviate the need for the proposed system; (f) assess the costs to the private sector of the introduction of the proposed system; (g) determine the capacity of the proposed Data Protection Agency to adequately safeguard and protect the privacy of the individual and to control unauthorised use of the card and/or individual identification numbers by commercial organisations such as credit insurance companies and unincorporated associations and clubs; (h) investigate the desirability, timing and nature of comprehensive privacy legislation in Australia and the extent to which it might or should replace the privacy protection arrangements proposed in relation to the Australia Card; (i) examine the extent to which the proposed system accords with OECD guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (1981); (j) consider the appropriateness of the range and level of proposed penalties on individuals and other entities; (k) determine whether any, and if so what, limits or penalties should attach to unauthorised use of identification numbers by Federal, State and local government agencies and private sector bodies; (l) take evidence from overseas experts as to the experience of other countries with analogous identity card systems; and (m) present a final report on or before the first day of sitting in 1988. We reject the Australia Card. We reject this Government's Orwellian future, this nightmare of a brave new world of Hawkespeak in which all are numbered and all numbers are linked; in which all need to prove themselves to the Government; in which we become entities entitled to operate; in which the basis of our society, with a government as servant and the people as masters, is reversed; in which all Australians become card subjects; and in which `authority' is now spelt with a capital `A'. This obscenely named Australia Card is so un-Australian that it will be rejected, reviled and, if necessary, repealed by us as it will be rejected and reviled by every decent, freedom loving, honest and law abiding Australian man, woman and child. Senator AULICH(Tasmania)(9.43) —It is always good to start the day with a bit of entertainment, and Senator Puplick, as usual, has been quite Shakespearian in his approach. Unfortunately, of course, what he is really doing is representing the sort of approach that has been taken by a number of people who have opposed the Australia Card over the last year or so. Unfortunately, he is also now in the forefront of-- Opposition senators interjecting- Senator AULICH —Madam Acting Deputy President, is it not interesting? When the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) got up to speak about one of the major issues confronting this Parliament over the last year she was brayed at, abused and treated in a way that I regard as most unparliamentary. I get up to speak-as only the second Government speaker-and a similar approach is taken by people who stand up today and describe themselves as defenders of civil liberties and the right of people to speak and to have their voices heard. Yet in this Parliament one has to raise one's voice-to shout-to be heard. Are these two aspects of their approach somewhat at odds? Surely honourable senators opposite could give Government speakers the opportunity or the right to be heard in this chamber without their braying like donkeys from the other side of it. They are supposed to be-or they are at least disguising themselves as-the defenders of civil liberties. Let me talk about that particular issue to begin with. As I said, the approach Senator Puplick is taking is representative of the approach that has been taken by a number of people on this issue-this unusual coalition that has raised itself in the last three of four weeks to oppose the Australia Card. I suppose that the best way to start is to look at this pamphlet that has been put out by an organisation called the Australian Privacy Foundation in its national campaign against the identification card. Of course it is in black, and it says: `Why the Identification card must be stopped now'. I will quote from some of the people whose photographs appear in this pamphlet and who are prepared to make comments about Australia's future should an Australia Card be introduced. Let us hear what Ben Lexcen, the yacht designer, said: The Australia Card is an obscenity. It will destroy this country. If the government is allowed to get away with introducing it, I will turn in my citizenship and leave Australia. Senator Robert Ray —He has already changed his name. Senator AULICH —Apart from changing his name, apparently he now intends to change his citizenship because his views are not reflected in this Parliament. Let us take the words of Dr Bruce Shepherd, another great defender of civil liberties in this country, and the President-elect of the New South Wales branch of the Australian Medical Association: I am appalled at the prospect of my country being under such awful control. It's going to turn Australian against Australian. But given the horrific impact the card will have on Australia, its defeat would almost be worth- and listen to this- fighting a civil war for. They are just two quotations from two supposedly eminent opponents of the Australia Card. That is the nature of the debate that has been created by the card's opponents around this country, specifically over the last three or four weeks, despite the fact that we have already fought an election on that issue, an election which saw this Government returned comfort- ably to this Parliament and with a mandate to introduce the Australia Card. It is not interesting? Senator Puplick had his say. We listened without interjection to his views on the Australia Card. Senator Stone has left. Senator Puplick has left. There are two Liberal members in the chamber for a Bill that they regard as being horrendous and to which they are totally opposed in all sorts of ways on all sorts of grounds. Where is their interest in this issue? I am amazed. There were two Liberals and now there is one. (Quorum formed) As I said, I am fascinated. This is the most important Bill that the Liberals and Nationals intend to oppose and they can muster only two members in the chamber. These are the people who talk about someone's right to free speech, the right to be heard, and the community's rights to have its viewpoints heard in this Parliament. Senator Knowles —How many of your colleagues were in here when you started? Senator AULICH —The honourable senator's voice could bring down aeroplanes from the sky, so she should just sit quietly and listen. The interesting thing is that these are the people who, during the election campaign, when we raised the issue of the Australia Card, refused to debate it. They refused to come to the party. As someone said: it takes two to tango. One can get an election issue going only if both parties are prepared to make a public issue of it and debate it. We raised this matter very early in the piece. The very first advertisement in the campaign was about the need to bring in the Australia Card as soon as possible. What did the Liberals do at the time? They did nothing. They ran away from the issue. I am not the only one that believes that. Let us look at what some of the respected journalists in this Parliament have said. The Australian Financial Review noted in a report on Thursday, 20 August: According to Liberal sources, the Opposition did not campaign strongly against the ID Cards in the last election, mainly because market research showed 64 per cent of the electorate were in favour of the cards and it was judged too difficult to turn around during the election . . . That is an estimate of what the Liberals were about at the time. I quote Mike Steketee: For emotional claptrap, it is hard to go past the present debate on an identity card. There has seldom been a subject on which there has been so much misunderstanding, so much misrepresentation, and so much downright irrational fear. My three criticisms are, first, that the Liberals simply did not want to debate this matter during the election campaign; secondly, that they are simply not game to come into this chamber and hear what the Government has to say about the Australia Card; and, thirdly, that they are simply working on irrational fears and emotions in the community in order to oppose this card. Senator Puplick has shown just what sort of approach the Liberals are taking. In his speech he used such words-I did not bother to get up and take a point of order on him for using unparliamentary language-as `lies', `jackboots', `storm troopers' and `weasels'. Is that the way to debate a major issue that will affect this country over the next 10 years in one of its major debating chambers? Alternatively, is that the approach members of the Opposition take out in the community at large so that they need not attend this forum? What do Opposition members do? Do they use emotional claptrap to deal with the issue, as Senator Puplick tried to do, or do they simply stay out of the chamber, as the Liberals and Nationals are doing at the moment? Let us go to another example of emotional claptrap-Why the ID Card Must be Stopped Now! Let us look at some of the misrepresentation that has occurred in the pamphlets that have been sent out on the part of people who oppose the card. Under a section headed `Why do we need it?' it is stated: The parliamentary committee that was set up to investigate the Australia Card plan recommended AGAINST any form of card system. The committee slammed the proposal, calling it wasteful, pointless and dangerous. After hearing evidence from a wide range of experts, the committee recommended `a tax file number' system that would be cheaper, safer and more effective. The distinct impression given in this brochure is that somehow or other the whole Committee was opposed to the Australia Card, that the whole Committee described it as horrendous, that the whole Committee recommended the tax file number system as the appropriate way to go. What this brochure, and many others like it, did not say was that the Committee was split; that the Australian Labor Party gave its members a free vote in essence but that the Liberals forced all of their members to vote in accord with their Party decision; that the Liberals in fact turned around the position of a National Party person on that committee, Mr Blunt. His original support for the Australia Card diminished overnight as he was instructed by his Party Leader and by the Liberal Party to go out and oppose the Australia Card. There is nothing in this brochure to indicate that that happened, that in fact there was a split. Senator Robert Ray —It is the second time that Mr Blunt has been named as the fourth man. Senator AULICH —Exactly, the fourth man. Not only was he the fourth man; he was the missing man when it came to a showing of hands in favor of the ordinary people in this community who are going to be protected by the Australia Card. What the brochure also does not say is that the supposed alternative of the tax file number system, supposedly recommended by the majority of the Committee or, as the brochure put it, the whole Committee, was dropped as an alternative proposal to the Australia Card less than eight weeks after the Committee's report came out. How consistent and sincere is the Opposition been about this issue? It is all very well for those opposite to put out documents such as this with all their emotional claptrap and to come into this chamber and bray at every Government speaker, disrupt the speech of the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) and make a mockery of this Parliament, but when it is time to stand up to be counted and to be consistent, they are simply not there. As far as I am concerned, if Ben Lexcen wants to change his name, his country and his citizenship, he can join people like Senator Puplick and lose the respect of most people in this community who believe that the Australia Card will do something for ordinary, pay as you earn taxpayers in the community and those people who have a genuine right to social welfare benefits. Let us go further about the nature of the debate. There has not been an issue debated at such length in this community for many years. The whole issue was raised at the Tax Summit in 1985. Papers have been put out by the Government ever since. There has been public discussion, which the Government deliberately activated. There has been a select committee, which examined hundreds of witnesses and took hundreds of written responses and submissions. There has been a debate on the report of the select committee. There have been two attempts by this Government to bring the Bill into this Parliament, and now we are coming back a third time. Overall, there has been a greater discussion of this issue than of any other issue brought before this Parliament. This Government ought to be patted on the back because it has not tried to introduce a major innovation such as a national identification system through the back door. It has said, honestly, plainly and openly to the community, `We are going to bring in this system'. It is not some drivers' licence which will be upgraded later on through some ad hoc method to become eventually a de facto identification system. It is not a social security system that is upgraded in the same way as the Americans are upgrading theirs at the moment. It is not some sneaky method of numbering every citizen in Australia. We have said that we want an open debate about this issue because we believe that, on balance, the Australia Card will provide Australia with benefits which far outweigh any of the disadvantages of bringing in such a system. There are people on this side of the chamber who have had questions to ask about the impact on privacy and civil liberties in this country of any introduction of an Australia Card or national identification system. I asked the same questions of myself. I opposed the Vietnam War. Everyone on this side of Parliament opposed the conscripting of 20-year-olds who did not then have a vote to go to fight an unjust, unreasonable and unwinnable war in Vietnam, whether they wanted to or not, and whose names were drawn out of a lottery barrel. We opposed that. That sits in our minds as the most important part of the Australian political landscape over the last 20 years. We are not about to give up civil liberties and privacies. Most of us thought clearly and deeply about the effects of a national indentification system before we came down in favour of it. We debated it at our national conference, in our Caucus and our committees and we came to the conclusion that, on balance, an Australia Card system would give this community what it wanted, which was a fair tax system and a system of social security in which those who actually deserved social security benefits would get them. I notice that Senator Haines has just walked in with-- Senator Robert Ray —That is what she wants you to say. Senator AULICH —Yes, she wants me to see the protest written on her chest. That is about all she can get on-the ID card. Can I indicate quite clearly that when we looked at the balance of civil liberties and the benefits that would accrue to this community, in the end this Party was near unanimous. One has only to look at the vote at our national conference in Hobart to see just that. There was no attempt to hide it under the carpet. Let us get back to the basic question of how this system will work. I know that the major attack on the Australia Card has been that it will be ineffective. That is the second string to the bow of those people who, on the whole, do not care about civil liberties. I include most of the Opposition in that area. The members of the Joint Select Committee from the Liberal and National parties and the Democrats all agreed that the estimates of tax evasion in this country were conservative. All of them agreed that there ought to be some form of numbering system which would enable some matching to be done between social security and the Australian Taxation Office. All of them came to the conclusion that something had to be done about tax evasion in this country. Let us get back to what the Government is doing. The Government has a two-pronged attack in respect of taxation. First, it wanted to broaden the tax base so that ordinary pay as you earn taxpayers would not have to shoulder the burden that was being avoided by a significant number of reasonably wealthy people in this community. We have broadened the tax base by introducing the fringe benefits tax, the capital gains tax and the tax on entertainment. Those taxes will net something like $2 billion. This has enabled us almost directly to provide over the last year or so tax cuts to ordinary pay as you earn taxpayers in the community. It has enabled us to drop the top rate of taxation from 60c in the dollar to 49c in the dollar and to bring the other rates down correspondingly. It has enabled us to introduce the family assistance package which will in fact benefit those most in need. This is what has happened as a result of the broadening of the tax base. We see the Australia Card as an attempt to stop tax cheating. There is no other way to stop tax cheating that will bring in the same types of returns. If we are able to bring in the Australia Card in sufficient time, if the card works as we say it will, we believe that in the long term enormous benefits will flow from the card and that this will be reflected directly in a number of areas, such as tax cuts, which the Government may choose to enter. I think there is a reasonable expectation that if the money brought in as a result of the Australia Card were used just to give tax cuts, we could again bring the top marginal rate down, this time from 49c in the dollar to 40c in the dollar. It could be, for example, that we could choose not to give tax cuts but to give benefits in the pensions area. There is very good reason to believe that something like $8.50 a week extra could be given to every pensioner in this country-to every single supporting parent, to every old age pensioner and to every sickness beneficiary. Such an amount could be given to all of those people out there who need our assistance; the people who are waiting for something to be done about tax evasion in this country. Those benefits are very direct indeed. I go on to the question of civil liberties. There has been an attempt on the part of opponents, not only those opposite us in this House but also those out in the community, to try to prove that the poor are going to be disadvantaged by the Australia Card, that they are the ones who will suffer as a result of the Australia Card being introduced, and that they are the ones who are going to be pushed around by the introduction of some plastic card. It ought to be said right at the outset that it is the poor, the disadvantaged, the people who are social security beneficiaries and are reliant on some form of welfare somewhere in the system, who are most often asked for proof of their identity and who are most often subjected to investigations, both financial and social, into their personal lives. They are the ones whom most of the middle class opponents opposite us forget about. The middle class opponents opposite us, often highly paid lawyers with `QC' after their names and living in reasonable affluence, forget the poor. They would not know what it is like to have to go somewhere along the line once every week or once every fortnight to produce proof of identity and to keep updating personal details in order that a government can give them some benefit. They would not know that because, apart from tax cuts, they have never had to ask for a benefit from the Government. Let us look at what some of the welfare groups have to say. For example, the Sydney City Mission, an organisation for which I have enormous time and respect and which represents people who are really down and out, wrote to me about the Australia Card. It said: Dear Senator Aulich, As a welfare organisation, we would welcome the introduction of the Australia Card with a photograph. The Card will provide a valuable means of identification for people with drug or alcohol related problems, the homeless, or families in need of emergency relief. This would provide the best possible means of rationalising the distribution of moneys allocated to us by Government and help us deliver the money and services to those who most need it. I am sure we can speak on behalf of all welfare organisations in saying that following the introduction of the Australia Card we would treat all our records in the strictest confidence just as we do at present. Also, it is often said that welfare recipients are more likely to lose their cards than other members of the community. This is not true. Our people develop ingenious ways of looking after their few possessions. Many of them carry their Medicare cards in their shoe or other secure places. The letter finishes on this note: For welfare recipients more than most people in the Australian community the proposed national identity card with a photograph is a chance to be equal in a community that very often treats them as less than that. That is a major welfare organisation right at the heart of welfare activity which deals with those who are most oppressed and down and out and which speaks on their behalf. They are not lawyers, QCs, affluent middle class people sitting back in their armchairs saying, `The poor don't like it because they might be impinged upon'. The fact is that the poor are already imposed upon and impinged upon, and the Australia Card will be one way of lessening some of that need to provide all sorts of identifications that are currently being demanded. Let me mention, if that case is not enough, the view of Mrs Jackie Byrne, the Director of the Queensland Council of Social Service, who in her evidence to the Joint Select Committee said: I meant to make the point when I stated that civil liberties are very much the province of the middle class. When you have to start thinking about where the food is coming from for the next week, you really do not have that liberty to think about those sorts of esoteric things. In theory we all ought to have the same civil liberties, but I think one of the major civil liberties is the right to be able to feed your kids, to see that your kids have the same education as the people down the road and to see that they have access to the same health and welfare services as everybody else. I think there are a couple of million Australians who are having their civil liberties grossly invaded because they do not have the same standard of living as the rest of the population. We are talking about 2.75 million people in this country living below the poverty line: 750,000 of them being children. That is a gross invasion of civil liberties as well. One could go on to quote the view of the Salvation Army and I can produce letters from similar organisations to show that welfare organisations which represent the poor and down and out support the Australia Card because they know that the only way to get sufficient benefits to the right people, to their people, is to bring in this system which will bring in money from the tax evaders and which will make sure that those people who cheat on the social security system do not get away with it. Those organisations are right, and I believe that middle class people on the Opposition benches who for particular political reasons oppose the card are wrong. Let us examine a few other areas that have been raised by Senator Puplick, in what I regarded as one of the greatest Shakespearian speeches in this debate, in regard to privacy and civil liberties in the private sector. We all know that in this area an enormous amount of information is held about people in private databanks. Whether they happen to be savings banks, trustee banks, consumer credit organisations and so on, I think there are some four million people on file through one consumer reference organisation in New South Wales. We all know that there is an exchange of personal information between those organisations, often without the customer's permission. What do the opponents of the Australia Card say about that? I have heard them say nothing on that aspect in this chamber. We have heard nothing from them about those processes, which occur around us every day. It is said that the right to have credit is optional, that one does not have to go out and borrow money, that somehow or other if one objects to having personal information about oneself being exchanged with other people, if one objects to having to give personal and private information to these organisations, one does not have to borrow money. I want to hear those people go out and tell the average young couple trying to get a house in the outskirts of Sydney or Melbourne that they do not have to go and borrow money. What will they do about people who have to borrow money to buy a car because public transport in their particular area is not sufficiently good to get them to work? What will they do about the borrowings that some people need in order to pay medical fees? I ask those questions because they have not been answered at any time in the debate. Credit is not optional. If one has no credit in our society, if one cannot get access to credit and cannot borrow money, if one cannot produce a good credit record, one is dead. I defy anyone in this chamber to tell me that he or she has never borrowed money in his or her lifetime. Yet we, as a group, are reasonably affluent. All people in the community are ultimately forced to borrow money and that borrowing process is based very much on the provision and sharing of private information about themselves before they are finally given that loan. Let us not hear any more talk about the Government invading privacy when out there already there is an enormous uncontrolled sharing of information of the most personal and private kind to enable people to get loans to buy houses, cars and other essential items. During the couple of minutes I have left I need to indicate quite clearly that this debate is not about a government attempting to number people for its own sake. It is not about imposing a system for its own sake. It is something that we have thought through and made a balanced judgment about. It is a process through which we have shared information with the whole community, a process whereby there has been an increased refinement of the way in which we will do things. It is a process whereby we have invited sensible, logical, rational people in the community to express themselves and provide advice. That process is still going on. The Government has indicated that it is prepared to amend the legislation in the future and to improve it. We do not want a third occasion of braying and shouting by honourable senators opposite in this chamber, of attempts to stir up fear in the community at large about this issue. We want positive alternatives put forward so that improvements can be made to the system and so that this country can be known for its fairness and equity, for its respect for a fair taxation system and a system which delivers to those people most in need that which they deserve. Senator HAINES(South Australia-Leader of the Australian Democrats)(10.13) —This is the third time that the ID card legislation has been debated in the Parliament of Australia. We have heard nothing from the Government relating to this debate during the election campaign-or since it for that matter-that justifies this reintroduction of the legislation. Over recent weeks the Government has claimed that it has a mandate for what it is doing. It says that this mandate comes from the fact that it has won a record majority for a Labor Party in the House of Representatives. I point out to the numbers people in the Australian Labor Party that the Australian Federal Parliament consists of two Houses with equal rights and that no piece of legislation can pass the Parliament and become law until both Houses have approved it in an identical form. There is a very good reason for that. It is so this country does not become a dictatorship. The same election that increased the Government's majority in the lower House from 16 to 24, increased the majority against it in the Senate. The people of Australia believed that they should give the Labor Party a third term-although reasons for that escape me. Nevertheless, they decided not to give the Government a majority in the Senate. At least that was a sensible decision. The majority of Australians in the last election campaign actually had no idea at all that there was a joint sitting hanging at the end of this. The print media in particular did very little to make them aware of that fact, despite the fact that, in the Press Gallery in Canberra at least, most are of an age and of sufficient journalistic experience to have remembered-or they ought to have remembered it-the joint sitting that we had previously. It is within living political memory. Yet, that was not brought forward by anybody except me, I think, on radio programs around Australia. It was certainly not a feature in the Press of Australia. We had an election result that certainly returned the Government with an increased majority in the House of Representatives. But its majority in the Senate was decreased, I believe, because the people of Australia felt that the Senate would reject the Australia Card for the third time-and properly so-should the Government reintroduce it. The Government has claimed in recent days that no one has challenged the costings of this card. That is about the only new argument that Mr Hawke and his minions have been able to come up with. One then has to ask the question: which costings? How old are the costings that we are supposed to be challenging and where do they stem from? The Government claimed some two years ago that a national identification system in Australia would cost $1 billion to set up. It was not going to raise any revenue in excess of that expenditure for five years. Then according to Senator Tate's comments on the Opposition's urgency motion earlier this week, the Bill was going to raise $4.5 billion over 10 years. That is a little less than $500m annually. To the best of my knowledge the Government has not adjusted any of those claims about how much money it will raise, not withstanding the fact that earlier this year it implemented two significant changes to the tax and social security systems, that is, a crack-down on social security fraud which has apparently netted in the vicinity of $183m and an increased strength of tax audits on companies whose profits are in excess, I think, of $100m. Senator Stone —Not merely companies. Senator HAINES —Indeed, no. According to reports in the paper from Mr Trevor Boucher, the Commissioner of Taxation, the Government has raised on average an extra $2.5m from each of the companies audited. It is now planning on inserting an auditor, so to speak, into some of the major companies around Australia in order to ensure that revenue is not slipping through its fingers. I understand that some hundreds of millions of dollars of increased revenue are estimated to be raised from that tax audit system. So we now have in the vicinity of an extra $350m already raised by two methods that the Government has introduced without the benefit of the Australia Card. Yet the Government is not telling us whether this is in addition to the money that it laughingly suggests is going to come from the Australia Card or whether it is a significant part of it. If the former is true I would like to know where the arithmetic is coming from. If the latter is true, the Government has just removed any financial grounds for arguing for the implementation of what is essentially an intrusive, expensive and ineffective system. The Government has not told us how the system is going to produce the benefits that it alleges will flow from it. While on the one hand it is telling those of us who oppose it that we have not challenged its costings, the Government itself has not been telling us how it is going to achieve the benefits in cutting back tax and social security fraud that it constantly tells us it will do. We know that the implementation of a national identification system will not significantly affect the cash economy. We know that it will not eliminate crime, whether professional or enthusiastic amateur, in this country. How can it? It has never achieved that in any European or North American country. Nor will it effectively eliminate the problem of illegal immigration. We have in the community some people telling us that it is fine for Australia to have an ID card system. After all, they say, America has its social security card. Without going into the more or less voluntary nature of that card, I point out that, while that card has to be produced before people can get employment, it has not stopped hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants going north into America to pick up seasonal work. The requirement for a card to be produced has not cut back on illegal immigration in the United States at all. In the European countries that have some form of national identification system-which, I might add, they tend to use as an internal passport-the black economy, the black market, is still very much in evidence. I have not noticed any diminution in the activities of mafia-like organisations across Europe. So for the Government to argue that an ID card is necessary to cut back on tax and social security fraud, the majority of which comes not from false identification but from failure to state income accurately, or to say that it is going to cut back on criminal tax fraud or illegal immigration, is a nonsense. There is no country in the world the Government can point to which has a system such as that proposed in Australia, or any sort of national ID card system, which has managed to stop those problems. Nor, of course, have such systems been able to cut down on people who are holding down more than one job. Senator Aulich claimed somewhat plaintively, if not ingenuously, during his contribution that pensioners and low income earners would receive an extra $8 per week if this ID system were introduced. That is arrant nonsense. I ask you, Mr Acting Deputy President, whether the Government has passed on to pensioners or low income earners the revenue of nearly $350m that I mentioned a little while ago, raised from the tax and social security crack-downs implemented this year. Of course it has not. What the Government did in the Budget was to use up those savings to revenue, giving another tax concession to the well-off by using the savings to offset the costs of the reintroduction of negative gearing. If Senator Aulich were still in the chamber I would say to him that it is about time he stopped being so naive. As he is not, I will say it anyway and he can read it in Hansard. His claim is as silly and as untrue as the cheap shot that is inevitably fired across the bows of the opponents of the ID card-that the only people who oppose the legislation are either tax and social security cheats themselves or supporters of tax and social security cheats. That is one of the six great lies of the Australia Card. The Government claims it is the only way to stop tax and social security cheats and that if one were in favour of stopping them and not supportive of those anti-social people, one would get behind it. We all know that the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card, set up in late 1985 and which reported in mid-1986, said that the proposed system `will not address the problems of tax evasion and social security fraud'. It based that statement on some of the things that I have already mentioned. The system cannot stop the cash economy. How on earth is the possession of a green and gold bit of plastic with one's photograph on it, or a microchip in the top left hand corner, or a magnetic strip on the back, or anything else that goes whizz-bang in the night, going to cut back on the cash economy? How is it going to make someone who is paid in cash run off to the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Social Security and say, `Look at what I have just earned'? Is there some sort of elastic thread that we do not know about that connects us to the card and the card to those two departments? The only way the cash economy will be dealt with in any way at all through the introduction of a national identification system and the plastic card that goes with it is if we, the people who have our homes cleaned for cash, our lawns mowed for cash, our windows washed for cash, or a pergola built for cash-we, the payers-every week, or every time we pay someone in cash, report to the Taxation Office or the Social Security Department the ID card number of the person we have so employed. That would reverse the normal onus that we in this country pride ourselves on. As a democratic country we assume innocence until guilt is proven. For us as householders, to have to go through the process of assuming that the person who is earning $20 for spending a couple of hours cleaning a house or mowing a lawn is defrauding the system is appalling. Australia is certainly not the country I thought it was if that sort of system were implemented. And it is the only system that can be implemented if we want the ID card system effectively to crack down on the cash economy. As far as criminal fraud or criminal behaviour of any sort is concerned, the ID card is worse than useless. It is worse than useless because it confers a validity on the holder that may not be justified. The reason for that is that the identifying data-the documents that may be required to be produced to prove that one is who one says one is-have an appallingly low integrity. What is the point of having a system which is supposed to be high in integrity and that everybody can trust if it is based on three pieces of data which we all know to be so limited in integrity as to make them virtually useless? Birth certificates will not have any validity at all attached to them until we introduce certainly what is suggested as part of this legislation-but first; not last-and that is a nationalised computerisation of births, deaths and marriages. Until that is done there will always be the possibility of people acquiring birth certificates that are not theirs by right and then using them to get passports, ID cards and whatever else. To then turn around and say that a passport has some validity, when it is based on a possibly fraudulent birth certificate, compounds the problem. Then to suggest that to validate one's claim that one is who one says one is for the purpose of acquiring an ID card, one produce a flawed birth certificate, a highly improbable passport and a tax file number that has no integrity at all in this country is to force a monstrosity on this country that would be comical if it were not that it had such tragic potential. That is the first of the six great lies of the Australia Card: It is the only way to stop tax and social security cheats! The next lie, associated with that, is that if one has nothing to hide one has nothing to fear. Tell that to the New South Wales surgeons who discovered that their quarterly income from one quarter in 1985 was appearing on the front pages of New South Wales papers courtesy of a truck, apparently driven by a departmental employee of the Health Insurance Commission, that dropped the document off its back. Senator Schacht —How much do they earn anyway-$3m? Senator HAINES —It is not relevant how much they earn. They are entitled to the privacy of that information. Senator Burns —Why would they want to hide it? Senator HAINES —I have no time for Bruce Shepherd, et al who held the New South Wales hospital system to ransom, demanding more money. But it was not anybody's right to release confidential information in an attempt to sway public opinion against the doctors. If the Government has to resort to that, it is pretty inefficient indeed. Regarding the argument that if one has nothing to hide one has nothing to fear, tell that to the 16- and 17-year-old girls in Victoria who arrived home one afternoon to find the police on their doorsteps saying, `We understand from information we have received from the Health Insurance Commission that you had a termination performed on you by a certain doctor and we are charging that doctor for illegal activities. We want you to give evidence against him in a court of law'. I presume that that is of no concern to people on the other side of this chamber. Do not tell me that if one has nothing to hide one has nothing to fear. The honourable senator should try convincing those girls and their families first and when he has convinced them, he should come back and try to convince me. He will not do it otherwise. Then there is the argument: `It is only another piece of plastic like a Bankcard, like a drivers licence, like an Amex card with your photograph on it'. That is just as much rubbish as the previous two assertions. The Australia Card is not just another piece of plastic; it is the visible part of a vast computer network that will process and circulate information about every one of us. The card is not the danger-we all carry bits of plastic for one reason or another-it is what the card symbolises. The huge data base behind it is what terrifies so many concerned Australians. Senator Aulich said, `But information is collected on all of us in all sorts of areas around Australia. The bank knows a lot about you if you make a loan application. Finance companies know about you if you need a loan to buy a new car'. Certainly all sorts of people in the community know a fair amount about us but it is in-house information, or should be, and would be if this Government, in its previous three years in office had done something useful such as introduce across the board privacy legislation that affected the private sector as well as the public sector. In this country we protect all sorts of commercial data. One cannot get information under freedom of information legislation about the commercial activities of a company because that information is considered sacrosanct. If the Government is prepared to protect information contained in company documents, why is it not prepared to act to protect the privacy of individuals who most certainly do have a vast array of information held on them by a variety of organisations, from banks to retail outlets through to used car sales people. Of course we need privacy legislation but we need it first, not after the event. The problem with the information that will be collected and collated on us through the centralised data system of the national identification card is that it will be accessible in toto to some 2,000 public servants. The fourth argument raised by proponents of the card is that other countries have them so it must be okay. A variation on that argument is: `But we had them during the war'. We also had food rationing, blackouts and curfews during the war. Those things occur these days only in countries which have military dictatorships. While I do not want to make any assertions about what this Government might or might not become in a couple of years, at the moment we do not have a military dictatorship and we do not need the sorts of intrusive systems, impediments and restrictions that we happily accept under wartime conditions because we have the nation's security at risk. Furthermore, as I said earlier, those countries which have ID cards have not found them useful for cutting back on tax and social security fraud, criminal or otherwise. In the main they use them as internal passports. So the reason for introducing them was different. The Government says that the Australia Card will be forge-proof. That does not need to be challenged in any way at all. It is so patently absurd as to be laughable. There is not a card around-smart cards, cards with holograms on them, strangely shaped cards, multicoloured cards, magnetic cards, striped cards or what have you-that somebody cannot forge. If one has the technology to produce the card somebody else has the technology to reproduce it. A rather frightening aspect to me has been reports in the paper recently that a smart card is on line some few years down the track. A smart card was used as an exhibit to the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card. There it was, in all its radiant glory, with a little microchip the size of a 5c piece in the top left hand corner. I suggest to anybody here who is as likely to lose bits of plastic around the place as I am that it is a really terrific idea to think that some time down the track we are going to have a card with a microchip in it! If we lose it or if it is stolen, not only can it be used by somebody with a compatible system to find out what is on the chip, but also the chip can be changed; it can be reprogrammed. I wonder how many ordinary, individual human beings are going to win in a fight with the computer, if that ever happens. The last of the absurdities that are raised is that the Data Protection Agency will protect our privacy. Oh, come on now! Again, if we are to have some sort of privacy legislation, some sort of data protection agency, it should be implemented first so that we can find out how effective it is in stopping things from dropping off the back of the Health Insurance Commission trucks. Let us give it a bit of a trial, shall we, before we launch this system will-nilly on to 16 million Australians who will assume that the privacy is being protected, that the data held on them is being protected. I point out one other thing that seems to have been overlooked in this discussion about data protection agencies. At the very best they are, like our police forces, after-the-event agencies. Our police forces are not here in order that we have no murders, no rapes, no robberies and no looting and pillaging. It might be nice if they could prevent them but they cannot. We all acknowledge that. The purpose of our police forces is, with a bit of luck, to apprehend the criminal and, with a bit more luck in the judicial system, to get a penalty applied. But the damage has still been done. Whatever penalties are to apply to people who leak information and who are caught by the Data Protection Agency-whatever else happens-the fact remains that the information will have been leaked. People put in the position of those 16- and 17-year-olds in Victoria will get precious little satisfaction out of that. The Government is undoubtedly putting the cart before the horse. It has said to opponents of the legislation: `Produce your ideas'. Government members should go back and read, assuming that they can-those of them who are so much in favour of this system-the majority report of the joint parliamentary committee. It recommended firstly the nationalisation and computerisation of the births, deaths and marriages system, without which nothing of any integrity at all can be implemented. It recommended increasing the integrity of the tax file number and then using it for certain financial transactions, but only after its integrity had been increased. It recommended the use of a withholding tax on bank accounts accruing interest which did not have a tax file number attached to them. These measures will raise the sort of revenue still to be raised after the last two systems put into operation by the Government-the crackdown on tax and social security fraud I mentioned earlier. These three measures will pick up the extra revenue the Government is aiming for. Senator Aulich called for suggestions for improvements of the Australia Card legislation. I say to him: stop trying to improve something that is not able to be improved. Go back to square one. Go on from the changes to the tax and social security system that the Government has already implemented and start improving the systems that are there, before foisting on Australia an expensive, ineffective and intrusive system that cannot hope to achieve what the Government wants it to achieve. The reasons for opposing the card involve principle and practicality. They are not based on support for cheating and fraud in the tax and social security systems. The Government may well have backed itself into a corner over this issue but I say to the Government, as other opponents of this card have already said: `If you have any integrity at all you will admit your error; go back to the starting point and bring in the recommendations of the joint parliamentary committee majority report. You will not then need to give 16 million Australians a useless piece of plastic to get muddled up with the others they carry in their pockets'. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(10.42) —It is very difficult to overestimate the importance of this legislation. In my judgment, the Australia Card Bill 1986 is probably the most important piece of legislation ever to come before the Australian Parliament. I would like to compliment the previous speakers in this debate from this side of the chamber on the excellence of their contributions. Senator Haines and Senator Puplick both made outstanding speeches. But far more relevant than that is the importance of what they had to say. I come back to the point that never before has such important legislation been placed before the Australian people. Today we are considering legislation which absolutely cuts the democratic basis from under Australian society and which reduces us all to `card subjects', to `entities entitled to operate'-number carriers. I do not want a piece of plastic. If the Government is going to do that to me, let it put the number on my arm in the way governments did in other totalitarian states. That is what the Government is doing with its legislation. That is the state this free country will be reduced to when the Moscow card is introduced and the arrogant Keating and the arrogant Hawke are running as the totalitarian rulers of Australia in five or six years time. They will have total control of the Australian community. They will know everything. They will blackmail and bludgeon everyone into submission through the administration of this system. This is the most dangerous, repressive and regressive legislation that has ever been introduced into this Parliament. In a sense, it is a reversion to type for the Labor Party. Just as in the period after the Second World War, when I was a child, the Chifley Labor Government introduced the bank nationalisation Bill which produced a revolt and which led to the Chifley Government being thrown out of office, now we have another manifestation of the same sort of totalitarian thinking-the Moscow card, the identity card the Government is now proposing to bring in. The Australia Card Bill will not work. It will not catch tax evaders. It will not catch social security cheats. It will not catch illegal migrants. So the reason for bringing it in does not exist. It will destroy individual privacy. It will reduce even the Labor members of parliament to `card subjects', to `entities entitled to operate'. It will not only destroy our privacy, but also it will reverse the traditional onus of proof in a common law country, that one is innocent until the Government proves one is guilty. It is being introduced with horrendous penalties. If the ordinary housewife does not sight an Australia Card before she signs on a baby-sitter, she is up for a $20,000 fine. The cost of implementation is huge and unquantifiable. We hear a great deal from the Government about what it might cost to bring in. We hear very little about the cost to industry. We are looking at a cost to Australia of hundreds of billions of dollars for this futile scheme. Finally, it will aid and protect organised crime in Australia in a way that it never has been protected before. We hear a little bit of nonsense from the Prime Minister that he has a mandate to do this. As I informed Senator Ray yesterday, that is some mandate. He got 16,900-odd fewer votes in the election on 11 July than the Liberal and National parties got, but he got a bonus of 24 seats, thanks to the rigging of the boundaries. Do not tell me that he has a mandate to proceed with any Australia Card legislation. I would like to take the Government on with the argument that it will not work. The reason why we have problems with tax evasion, the reason why we have problems with social security cheats and the reason why we have problems with illegal migrants, have nothing to do with the absence of a Moscow card: they have everything to do with administrative inefficiency in the Australian Public Service. The imposition of different legislation will do nothing to cure or correct the managerial inefficiency in the Public Service. If I might divert for a moment, after 4 1/2 years of Labor rule, I have never known a time in the years I have lived in Australia when the Public Service was held in more disregard for its inefficient operation and its lack of accountability than has been the case since it has been politicised with the pork barrelling of the Labor Party for its friends being put into senior positions. Let us look at the tax position. The basic inefficiency of the Australian Taxation Office is the reason why people do not pay what they should pay in tax. All of us want to pay tax on a fair and equitable basis. We all want to have an equal accountability to the Tax Office. We do not want some people to evade tax and others to be taxed to make up for the deficit. But as Senator Puplick said, the fact that the Office has refused to spend half of what it has been allocated in recent years to modify and improve its computer systems speaks for itself. The Australian Taxation Office has failed, as reports have shown, to collect more than a small percentage of interest payments from bank accounts, building societies and other interest-paying bodies. There is no excuse for that. Above everything else, the Australian Taxation Office has shown that it has a failure of will to implement the laws that are on the statute books in the way they should be implemented. So until the Office fixes its house up, any sort of different system will have no effect whatsoever. On social security fraud, it is very strange that once upon a time whenever anyone in this Parliament talked about dole bludgers, the Labor Party took off in high dudgeon and high morality and it was very upset by that term. But all we hear today is a litany, from Senator Ryan downwards, that we have to catch the dole bludgers and that the Australia Card will catch them. That is nonsense. Very little social security fraud turns on mistaken or misrepresentation of identity. Most of it turns on misrepresentation of income and people having several jobs. In practice the Australia Card will not do anything to correct that situation. We had the example some months ago of the Social Security Department doing an audit on 4,000 people receiving dole payments. If found that 1,000-25 per cent-were not entitled to get it. It did not need an Australia Card to do that. It just needed to get off its bottom and shuffle a few papers to find out to whom it was paying money. That is the way to handle this problem. Again, it is an administrative inefficiency. I turn to the field of illegal immigrants. As I have said before in this place, the ritual figure of illegal immigrants in Australia that comes from the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs is always around 25,000 to 30,000. I believe it is at least 10 times higher. It might be 20 times higher. The facts are that these people are coming in and living in closed societies. The health inspectors, the thugs from the union movement, cannot get in to find out whether these people have union cards or anything like that. They beat the bully boys because someone stands in front of the building and says, `I don't understand what you are talking about. We do not speak English', and that sort of thing. People selling Australia Cards to illegal immigrants will not make one sale. It just will not happen. So the whole basis for the introduction of this card is impractical. It will not work; it will not attain the goals. If it is not going to work, why should we go ahead with it? There will be some very serious and profound consequences if we go ahead with this card. First, we will have the destruction of individual privacy. Everyone has talked about individual privacy and it is a very real point to Liberals because we believe in the supreme importance of individual personality. That leads me to another point. What is being destroyed here is not only our individual privacy, but also our personality because we are reduced all the way through this Bill-130 pages of print-to `card subjects'. We are only `entities entitled to operate'. We are not human beings. We are not Australian citizens. We are not Liberal voters or Labor voters, or anything like that. We are a dehumanised card subject. That is what we are: an alphanumeric number which will probably run to about 20 characters. I do not like that. I will not have that for Australia and neither will anyone else in this country. Where we find the Government described, it is always described as the `Authority' with a capital letter. It is Big Brother with capital letters. That point takes me back to my youth when I was a student and all those novels used to be written by refugees from behind the Iron Curtain and other totalitarian countries. They were on the theme of, `Who am I? Where am I in this world? Am I an individual?'. I could not understand that as an Australian growing up in a free democratic society. I could not understand how people could be troubled about who they were in this world, because I knew who I was and all my friends knew who they were. This Bill will not only destroy our privacy, but also it will destroy our personalities. We are already well down the track in the psychological warfare being waged by the totalitarian elements in the bureaucratic regime when we are described as `card subjects' not as Australians. Implicit in this, of course, is the reversal of common law which Senator Puplick talked about, in which the reversal of onus of proof takes place. It will be mandatory under this system for the individual to be able to prove that he is innocent in order to escape the penalties of the law in whatever field he is operating in. That might seem an academic point for some people, but it is a most sinister and malignant difference. Privacy will be destroyed by the fact that we have a linkage system now set up. We will have a common alphanumeric number for everyone. We have files at present, as various speakers on the other side have said. Everyone must have a medical file because we have a universal health system. Everyone must have a taxation file because every income earner must pay tax. We must have a social security file even if we are employed and not receiving the unemployment benefit. Most of us receive a family allowance, or something like that which occasions a social security file being raised on us. But the essential difference between the ways things are today and what is being proposed by the totalitarian regime is that we will now be identified by a common number-we are not at the present time-and there will be cross-linking between the files that are held. Our forebears-or a large number of them-came here 200 years ago linked in iron chains. Those people were later unfettered. But now, 200 years later, we are being offered the proposition that we should be linked in unbreakable electronic chains, from which we cannot be unfettered, through the Australia Card system. All the glib proposals that have come from the Australian Labor Party to protect our privacy are absolutely meaningless. It is impossible to do and, furthermore, the Government has shown a total inability to understand the complexities of the situation. If one listens to Senator Ryan talking about this matter, it becomes quite obvious that her knowledge of computerisation techniques and practices is about as profound as my knowledge of Patagonian hermaphrodites. She simply could not enter her own name into a computer. What has the Government done so far? What is its track record in protecting privacy? The Health Insurance Commission is the Government's chosen agent to introduce the system for the protection of the privacy of the Australian citizen. As Senator Puplick said, the Commission has a sleazy record. I am much more circumspect and diplomatic in my language; I would say that it has both a dishonourable and a dishonest record. Look at the way it has leaked information on doctors' incomes and the way it has sold patient records in the past. We can have absolutely no confidence in this scheme. Having been involved in the health professions for a large part of my life before I entered the Senate, I can say this with absolute certainty: patients are entitled to have total security of their medical records. One cannot take an accurate medical case history from a patient if he believes that it will be broadcast all over the community. It is one of the fundamental rights of patients to have privacy of their personal affairs. Many people in Australia are sick, and there is, regrettably, an intolerance in the community to infirmity, particularly among employers. They may not employ someone if they know he has a history of a carcinoma or some other malignant disease. It may be treatable or it may be quite inactive; or maybe a cure has been effected. Similarly, they will not employ anyone who has a history of psychiatric treatment. It just does not happen. Yet confidence in the maintenance of secrecy of patients' records simply does not exist with the Health Insurance Commission. The Government now proposes that there will be a Data Protection Agency. It is modelled on the Swedish example because most of the Government's ideas, insofar as the Labor Party has ideas, come out of Sweden. But the data protection agency in Sweden has been run up by a chap called Mr Jan Freese. After 12 years he has resigned in total despair at the failure of the model which the Australian Government is proposing. Let us look at the American experience. Unlike Australia, America has legislation controlling the confidentially of data held in computer files. The latest congressional inquiry has shown that this legislation has been a massive failure; it does not work. The final proposal offered this week is the dedicated landlines proposition. Let me say that no member of the Government knows any more about that than Mr Duncan or Senator Gareth Evans knows about the Amann Aviation business. What is the Government talking about when it talks about dedicated landlines? The Government is trying to tell us that somehow or other it has a secure system of transferring information from one office to another-absolute bunkum. It is just not possible to do it the way the Government says it will do it. Will it dig trenches between Brisbane and Sydney and Sydney and Melbourne, with one going to Longreach and another to Port Lincoln and all the other places? Will it connect all the offices and run a secure system? If it does that, how many thousands of billions of dollars will it require? Let me tell the Government what has been going on in the defence field. The Australian Government, from a time before I entered the Parliament-which is now some 10 years ago-has been trying to set up a secure defence communications system, the DISCON system or defence integrated secure communications network. We have spent over $400m and we have very little to show for it. The point is that creating secure communications is an enormously difficult and horrendously expensive technical procedure, and the Government has no concept of how it will do it in relation to the personal data that will be acquired through the Australia Card system. We cannot maintain privacy; we cannot control access to that information. We cannot prevent greater accretion of information. As Senator Puplick said, it is only this week that the Minister for Veterans' Affairs (Mr Humphreys) has called for his files to be added to the system. We do not know what the Government will be holding on us. There was a release this week of secret briefing papers saying that the Government would show citizens only what it thought the citizens were entitled to know. That is a frightening indication of what faces us. The Government wants to get information about every Australian citizen so it can blackmail the community into submission. Look at the arrogance of Mr Hawke and Mr Keating today and just think of what it will be like when they just have to press a button to know the most intimate details of one's whole life. I turn now to the horrendous penalties provided for under the Australia Card Bill. For many breaches of the legislation the individual will be fined $20,000-for a quite minor infringement. Companies will be fined $100,000. Do not believe any of this business that people will not be compelled to carry their cards. It will be a fact of life that we will be compelled to carry our cards to do any sort of business in Australia. This leads me to the costs of implementation. We have got no figures of any meaning out of the Government for what the system will cost to implement. We have heard the rubbery figure of 2,000 public servants to implement the scheme. Senator Ryan, in a Four Corners interview I heard about four of five weeks ago, said that we would have secure photographic services. Our mug shots to go on the card will not be taken by our friendly photographer down at the corner; they will be taken by a government employee. How many thousands or tens of thousands of photographers will have to be employed, and at what cost, just to do that? The implementation of this measure will cost the Government billions. But, at the same time, the cost to business is unquantifiable. We get back to the age old Labor principle that the citizen always pays twice. Just as we pay 1.25 per cent of our income without any ceiling for Medicare, and around another $1,000 for family cover to get decent medical treatment, so it is with this system. We will pay both the costs to government of implementing the card system and the cost to business-and this at a time when Australia is struggling to be competitive in the world to get our costs down and pay off the huge debts that the Labor Party has left us with. One will not be able to open a bank account; one will not be able to buy or sell any land or property; one will not be able to open a safety deposit box; one will not be able to get rent paid for a property unless the real estate agent sees one's Australia Card. And when one gets a heart attack from what the system will do, one will not even be able to be admitted to hospital without an Australia Card. The cost cannot be quantified but it will run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Finally, the card will aid and protect the criminals in the Australian community. The card will be very easily forged when money is no object. It does not matter what system is introduced; when money is no object it can be beaten. The recent inquiry in Queensland has been a revelation to most of the people of Australia about the extent of money involved in organised crime today. We are talking about millions or maybe billions of dollars a month in profits coming out of organised crime. It is just chicken feed for criminals to forge any system that is introduced. The danger is that once we set up this system, which is a one check system instead of having a multitude of checks to establish people's identity, which presently exists, once the first gate is passed through they are beyond challenge from then on. That is why Commissioner Costigan, and anyone else who has studied this position, has come out so strongly against the Australia Card system. The Australia Card system will not harass in any way at all the organised criminals in society, but it will harass the working mothers of Australia and the couples whose wives go out to work, and they form nearly a majority of the population today. They need baby-sitters for their children while they are at work and they need women to do a bit of cleaning in the house or in the apartment for a few hours and to do a bit of ironing. They will have to ask the people who come in to help them to produce an Australia Card, otherwise they will face a penalty of about $20,000. This will lead to a diminution of the taxation base, the very converse of what the proponents of the card say. They say that we need the card to get more tax money in and to make sure that everyone pays tax. The existence of this legislation-and the requirement for the card to be seen before any transaction takes place-means that people will deal out of the inside of their coat pockets. The cash economy will get the biggest boost it ever has. In countries where this system operates we find between 20 and 60 per cent or more of transactions in the economy take place on a cash basis with no records. Having dealt with the shortcomings of this legislation, let us look outside this chamber at what is going on in the public today. The first point to make is that there has never been any problem with identity in Australia. As individual Australians, we have never had any difficulty in showing who we were. More importantly, there has never been a petition to this Parliament saying, `Give us an identity card'. There is no public demand for this in any way at all. There was no mandate for it implicit in the last election. If we look at the polling position outside we will find that the overwhelming majority of Australians do no want a bar of this system. In my own State yesterday radio station 4CA in Cairns received 597 calls in half an hour in response to a phone-in about the Australia Card. That is not a bad record. Ninety per cent of the respondents-this in an isolated country town-were against the card. Anyone in the Labor Party or in the Ministry with any sensitivity ought to be very worried at the present total public opposition. But, naively or stupidly, they do not seem to be worried. Daily we hear statements from Senator Ryan and the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) that the legislation is faulty. That raises another question. What is the Government doing? If the Government admits to major defects in the legislation, how can it proceed if it has any intelligence, any integrity, any responsibility at all? No government says, `We are going to bring legislation in. We know that it is no good; we know that it has to be amended'. That is just not done, but apparently this Government is going go to it. Why is the Government allowed to do it? We have a Senate which is controlled by the Left and the far Left of the Labor Party. Where are those successors to Senator Georges? Where are the people such as Senator Burns, Senator Childs and the rest, with their passionate beliefs in the principles of the far Left and their opposition to this card? When are they going to do what their conscience dictates and vote against it? Were they bought off with the security of a Senate seat for the next three years? What a state the Labor Party has sunk to when the majority of its members loathe and despise what is being done to them with the Australia Card. The only one of them who had any backbone, any integrity at all, Senator George Georges, was expelled from the Party for doing what his conscience dictated. Where does that leave honourable senators opposite? Why do they not just hide behind their desks? This is the most dangerous, the most repressive and the most regressive legislation that has ever been introduced into this Parliament. It is the most undemocratic because it will destroy the principles on which Australian society has been founded. It will not work. It will remove Australia from the ranks of the great Western democracies and reduce us to the level of a third rate police state. Senator SCHACHT(South Australia)(11.10) —It is with great pleasure that I rise to speak in favour of the Australia Card Bill 1986 (No. 3). In my remarks today I wish to raise three matters. The first deals with the question of the Government's mandate. The second deals with the question of civil liberties and how that has been used in the debate by the opponents to attack the card. I wish thirdly to deal with a matter raised by Senator MacGibbon in his remarks about dedicated landlines and their so-called misuse or the ability to overcome their integrity, enabling people to get information. I refer first to the history of the Australia Card. I must confess that I first heard of the card when it was mooted by Eric Risstrom of the Australian Taxpayers Association over two and a half years ago. Because of Eric Risstrom's record, I had some doubt about the proposal. I thought that, as a noted and self-confessed sympathiser of the Liberal Party was putting up something like that, it must be suspect. But the more I thought about it and the more I studied it, the more I thought I could see a good reason for it to be supported. But I really became a convinced supporter of the Australia Card when a large number of lawyers in the community started attacking the idea and using the, in my view, false argument of civil liberties against the introduction of the card. I believe that many people in the law profession have a vested interest in ensuring that the Australia Card is not introduced. Their incomes are directly related to protecting and acting for clients in various industries-in tax avoidance and commercial transactions-who have done very well out of not having an Australia Card operating in this country. Therefore, in the debates in my own Party over the last two years I have always been a strong supporter of the Australia Card. I want to correct a statement that Senator Bjelke-Petersen made two days ago when she said that the South Australian branch of the Australian Labor Party opposes the introduction of the Australia Card. That is an absolute untruth. In last year's June convention there was a very vigorous debate within the democratic procedures of our Party in South Australia and our State branch voted by a considerable-(Quorum formed) As I was saying before the quorum was called, there was a vigorous debate within the South Australian branch of the Labor Party. Senator Bolkus, who is just leaving the chamber, was a participant in the debate that took place at the June 1986 annual State convention. As he is entitled to do within the ALP, he expressed his view openly and democratically. But the vote was substantially in favour of the introduction of the Australia Card. So our State branch, despite what Senator Flo Bjelke-Petersen said yesterday-- Senator Haines —Your State branch is broke. Senator SCHACHT —We also happen to have been the Government in South Australia for 18 of the last 22 years, much to the honourable senator's disappointment. Senator Haines —You're a great one to be talking about finance. The State Branch of the ALP is $1m in debt and you were the secretary. Senator SCHACHT —We have won plenty of elections in South Australia, much to the honourable senator's disappointment; I know all about that. In July of last year the National Conference of our Party also debated the issue and carried a resolution and amendments to the platform that clearly stated that the Party's position was that it was in favour of the introduction of the Australia Card. That, again, came after vigorous debate at that National Conference. I find amazing the claim that this Government does not have the mandate to debate and again bring into this Parliament a Bill to introduce the Australia Card. To me it seems extremely odd that this should be said when a double dissolution was caused by the Senate voting twice to reject legislation. The constitutional requirement is well known within the community. People say that the Australia Card was not really a major issue in the campaign. I note that the other day Senator Haines said that she raised the issue of the Australia Card during the Federal election campaign. I agree with her: to my recollection, on several occasions in South Australia, during the campaign, Senator Haines raised the issue of the Australia Card. She may not have got as much publicity as she would have liked from the media, but she did campaign on it. Although this was the first occasion on which a candidate, I had the opportunity to respond in the Press to Senator Haines's remarks in opposition to the Australia Card. Certainly I think Senator Haines ought to be commended for taking every chance she had to raise the issue. But the problem that she has is that the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia refused to run on the issue in the campaign. They ran absolutely dead. Mr Howard, the Leader of the Liberal Party, openly admitted after the election that they gave it the big miss because they were afraid that they would lose votes on it. They read their own Party research which showed that a majority of Australians were in favour of the introduction of the Australia Card. Why should the Government be blamed when the Opposition refused to campaign on the issue on which the double dissolution was called? Mr Howard wanted to spend most of his time trying to explain a tax package that did not add up. I suppose one of the reasons he did not get on to the Australia Card, even if he had wanted to, was that he was always on the back foot trying to explain a set of policies which no one could understand. Comments have been made about the result of the election. It is now being said that because more voters voted for the combined parties represented in the Senate than for the Labor Government, in some way the Australia Card is not part of our mandate. I have to remind honourable senators that the Government is created in the House of Representatives. Whether honourable senators opposite like it or not, we have a majority of 24 seats there on boundaries that are fairly drawn. The imputation that Senator MacGibbon made that those boundaries are rigged is a disgraceful attack on the integrity and the honesty of the independent Australian Electoral Commission established by this Parliament. I only wish that Senator MacGibbon and his Party in Queensland and the Country Party, now the National Party, had not, for the last 30-odd years squibbed introducing fair boundaries in that State. If they had, not only might the Labor Party have been in government but, in fact, even the Liberal Party might have been the majority party in coalition in Queensland. But Senator MacGibbon's Party has squibbed that issue for nearly 30 years. He made a disgraceful attack today on the honesty and integrity of the independent Electoral Commission. We won the election. We accept the fact that we do not have the numbers in the Senate to have the legislation passed. However, the Constitution which has been in place since 1901 provides very clearly that, after a double dissolution, if the Bill is again defeated in the Senate there will be a joint sitting of both Houses. Opposition members may not like it but we like it. We will have a majority in the Joint Sitting and the Bill will be passed. We will do that in accordance with the Constitution of Australia. For years I have heard Opposition senators defending the Constitution and saying what a great document it is. There are many aspects of the Constitution that I would like to see reformed. However, the joint sitting provision has been there for the last 86 years since Federation during which time nobody on the opposite side of politics has ever proposed changing that joint sitting provision which is now going to come into play in the next six to seven months of this term of the Parliament. So after this legislation is debated in the Joint Sitting it will be carried in accordance with the Constitution of Australia. I am very thankful that it will be because the Australia Card is the major plank on which the double dissolution was called. The Democrats were delighted that a double dissolution was called because it meant that several more Democrats were elected to this chamber than would have been the case had a half Senate election been held. It is ironical in a sense that the Democrats, who are back here with seven senators, are here because of a Bill which they used to trigger the double dissolution. It is a Bill which has enhanced their survival and some of us in the major parties might think that that is one of the unfortunate circumstances of the double dissolution. I would also say to the people in the community and even to some people in the labour movement who want a referendum instead of a joint sitting, that I think that it would be a tragic mistake, for the labour movement in particular, ever to consider that a joint sitting should not take place, that we cannot have a double dissolution when we are thwarted in the Senate with our legislation. If at some future time we give way on this Bill on the Australia Card, this will be used as an excuse when a reform of a Labor government is stopped in the Senate following another double dissolution. People will say, `Don't worry about dealing with an issue after a double dissolution; forget all about it'. Such a practice will be used to stop reform being introduced by a Labor government. Imagine what would have happened after the double dissolution in 1974 if we had said that we were going to forget a couple of the Bills that went through the Joint Sitting. The labour movement all around Australia would quite rightly have been up in arms and saying that it was a disgraceful backdown. The commitment has been made in terms of the double dissolution. It is going to be stuck to and we are going to go through with it with great firmness. I believe that that is the correct constitutional procedure. I am surprised that conservative senators opposite now want to start fiddling around, bending and misinterpreting a Constitution which overwhelmingly their forebears helped to write. I now wish to turn to the question of civil liberties. I am very impressed with Senator Chris Puplick's great defence of civil liberties. One has to confess that Senator Puplick is in a difficult position. He is one of the dying few small `l' liberals left in the Liberal Party of Australia. There must be only a very few of them left. He is very fortunate that he is able to stand up-I accept his integrity on this in that he has adopted a long-standing position on civil liberties-and, as my colleague Senator Aulich has said, give an almost classic, Shakespearian performance in defence of civil liberties. He is able to be in coalition with people like Senator Flo Bjelke-Petersen and other members of the National Party from Queensland. He therefore performs with great conviction, with the support of all the conservatives in the coalition parties in this chamber. However, before Senator Puplick gets too carried away about civil liberties, I think that there is a wider aspect of civil liberties that we in the labour movement always have to consider. I, like everybody else on this side of the chamber, fully support the right of individual freedoms as laid down in the Human Rights Charter of the United Nations. We in the Labor Party have been committed to those principles ever since we were founded in 1891 and they are enshrined in our national platform. But also enshrined in our national platform is the belief that civil liberties deal not just with political civil liberties and political freedoms. We as a democratic socialist party are committed to redistribution of wealth and the creation of a more equitable society. One way that has to be done is to ensure that the tax and revenue system of this country is fairly operated on behalf of all the people. There is no doubt that in many tax and social welfare areas there is fraud at the moment. Nobody has denied that. In fact, Senator MacGibbon has just given a most horrifying account of criminal activity, mentioning the Mafia and so on in terms of what is going on in this country; yet Opposition senators propose nothing to overcome those problems in our society, if they are as horrific as he described. He said that the Australia Card will not fix it, but if the Australia Card will not fix it, what will? Let us hear from Senator MacGibbon and Senator Haines what will fix these things. The Australia Card will do a number of things when people have to carry out some transactions in their daily lives. It is said that the Australia Card will be intrusive and an annoyance and that ordinary people will always have to use it. The question is: how often will people have to produce the Australia Card? Apart from Medicare transactions for which they now have to produce their Medicare card, ordinary people will probably have to use the card once or twice a year. I am referring to ordinary citizens, the bulk of whom the Australian Labor Party is proud to represent. The reason many honourable senators opposite are opposed to the card is that it will have to be used when they want to carry out a range of transactions which the ordinary Australian never will have to carry out, or may have to carry out only once or twice in their lifetime. How many ordinary Australians make their living out of buying and selling real estate? Not very many. Average Australians may buy or sell a house only once or twice in their lifetime, but an Australia Card will be used in carrying out real estate transactions. Of course the National Party in Queensland is totally opposed to an Australia Card having some sort of effect over such transactions. Mike Gore and the white shoe brigade on the Gold Coast, the property developers, would be the last people who would want some sort of honest record kept of their transactions. Mike Gore made the offer to raise $20m in the Bjelke-Petersen-for-Prime Minister campaign. Apparently Mike Gore raised only about $2m. Even some of the white shoe brigade realised that the Premier of Queensland in his political campaign was a sinking sun in the desert. The next category involves sending funds overseas. How many ordinary Australians are in the business of sending funds overseas every day of their lives? Not too many that I know. Somebody like John Elliott probably does such things once a week, or once a day. Perhaps that is why John Elliott made the extraordinary statement the other day that there should be an Australia Card only for those people who apply for social welfare benefits-not for people like John Elliott who are into financial transactions overseas, probably into property investment, and probably into earning income for their companies or privately receiving rental income. No wonder he wants the card only for the poor and for those who rely on social security benefits and not for himself, because he will be affected and his companies may then have to start paying their fair share of tax. How many ordinary Australians receive income from investment in shares and futures exchanges? I bet that barely 2 per cent of Australians would be in that category. Of course the Liberal and National parties-and, I am surprised, the Democrats-support them. Many supporters who pay the bills of the National Party and the Liberal Party receive income from share transactions and from future exchanges. Why should they not have a card to show that those transactions have been properly taxed and that the Australian community is receiving a fair percentage of the tax that should be paid to ensure equity in the tax system? Another category is receiving payments from marketing authorities or produce agents. I suppose one has now found a reason why the National Party is also opposed to the card. It will mean that large graziers may have to show, on the occasions when they receive income from the Grain Marketing Authority or the Wool Authority, that the money has been properly paid to the person identified. I do not think that is a great imposition on many average family farmers whom the National Party purports to represent. I must say that these days the National Party seems to have been taken over by retired Treasury bureaucrats, multimillionaires and large graziers. The days when it represented small family farmers have long since gone. An occasion on which ordinary Australians will have to use the Australia Card is in opening a new bank account. Again, I do not expect it will be that often, and most Australians will accept that as a reasonable proposition. It will also apply when applying for Commonwealth benefits, including Medicare and social security. In my view, no one, not even recipients of benefits, would think it unreasonable, in ensuring that the system is properly protected, that they should produce an Australia Card. In examining who has to produce the card we see the main reason why the Opposition parties are opposing it: the people who support them have something to lose. If we are talking about civil liberties, we must consider not only civil liberties in the political area but the economic civil liberties of the ordinary taxpayer and citizen who is being ripped off because rich people, people who support the Liberal and National parties, have had an unlimited go to duck and avoid paying their fair share of tax. Senator MacGibbon mentioned the security of the dedicated landlines that would be used by the Australia Card service when it is introduced. He made some outrageous accusations in respect of the Australia Card that anybody could get into the telephone lines, that the system would be totally insecure, and therefore that information held within the system would be available to anybody who attempted to get into it. Since those remarks were made I have received some information which I should like to put on the record. The matter should be cleared up now because people like Senator MacGibbon will continue their scaremonger campaign. (Quorum formed) I am most touched that once again Senator Walters has ensured that I have a larger audience to listen to my remarks. I wish to put on the record some information about security of landlines. We in the Australian Labor Party and the Government reiterate that the Australia Card system will incorporate the very best security and safeguards that we can provide and that it is impossible for all practical purposes to tap or hack into that system. The Australia Card information will be sent on dedicated landlines. Those lines simply cannot be tapped into through the telephone system or by hacking. As my colleague the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support (Mr Duncan) stated yesterday, individual dedicated users of landlines simply cannot tap into any other information carried on the Australian landline system. It would be acutely difficult to identify the particular line or part of a line being used for transmission of Australia Card data. I challenge the honourable member for O'Connor, Mr Tuckey, to give any example where a landline has been successfully tapped. In addition to this layer of security the material on the Australia Card system will be encrypted, compressed and segmented. Nobody trying to read that information, even if it were available, would be able to make any sense of it at all. Nobody trying to read that information would be able to tap into the Australia Card Register and obtain any other information. And, of course, the Register itself will contain only the most basic identifying information. We regret the fact that the Opposition has chosen to misunderstand and misrepresent this position. We reiterate the Government's firm and clear statement that the information carried on the Australia Card system cannot be tapped, cannot be hacked, cannot be intercepted and cannot be understood or read by anyone except the personnel within the system itself. I trust that puts the position so clearly that even Senator MacGibbon can understand it. In conclusion, I reiterate that I believe the introduction of the Australia Card will be one of the great reforms of the third term of the Hawke Labor Government. I think that in the next five or six years when it is operating, people will wonder what all the argument was about. I am sure that in the future people will look back at this time and realise that those who opposed the introduction of the Australia Card overwhelmingly were doing so because they had particular vested interests to protect. It is not the first time, unfortunately, that the Opposition parties in this country have been more interested in protecting vested and privileged interests which they represent at the expense of the Australian people. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(11.38) —The debate on the Australia Card, both in this place and in the wider community, has been characterised by hyperbole, exaggerated statements and sheer nonsense. That has come from both sides of the debate. The last speaker for the Government, Senator Schacht, made it very clear where most of the absurd statements started. Very early on the Government decided to characterise everybody who was opposed to the Australia Card as a friend of tax cheats or social security fraud operators. Once that was the point at which the debate started it managed to go downhill from there. With the Australia Card, as with most other issues of dispute within our community, there is not only an idiotic rat bag debate; there is also a sensible debate. The proposal is far reaching and it will have reverberations, both through the legal system and through many other parts of government operations in Australia. As such it deserves close scrutiny. If at the end of the day one could be assured that the card would fulfil some of the functions that have been claimed for it, one might give it closer attention. I believe that there are substantial major problems with the proposal, not the least of which is the inability of the Government so far in the only inquiry that has taken place with regard to the Australia Card actually to give a factual underpinning for the various claims that have been made. That neglect at that first inquiry has really bedevilled the debate since then. We have a proposal, the major ingredients of which are not only to combat crime and fraud on the Commonwealth revenue but also to link together all types of information. One cannot get an argument going in addressing crime unless one believes that there will be a linkage of information and data. That is an essential ingredient of the card. That linkage of data will be held by government. There are a lot of people around the world who regard governments-quite rightly-with some suspicion, regardless of whether those governments are democratically elected. As parliamentarians we are all aware of the abuse of power by government and by bureaucrats with regard to individual citizens. I say all of us because I think anybody who has been a senator for even a short time would have had constituents come to him with examples of obvious abuses of power. That has been finally accepted over time by the Government because by looking at the Commonwealth Government and the Commonwealth bureaucracy we see that we have put in place a whole panoply of committees and appeals systems to protect citizens because of the abuse of power. We would not need those if that abuse did not take place. Through the Australia Card we are now providing another area of possible abuse. That has to be accepted because we cannot argue that we must use this concentration of data to combat crime without also recognising that we are opening ourselves up to a very large area of possible further abuse of citizens' rights. It is a necessary corollary of any such move. I refer those senators who do not believe me to the debate that took place here when there was unanimous support for the establishment of the National Crime Authority. Whilst speaking in support of this Authority everybody spoke about our worry about intrusions into civil liberties. Whether the Government likes it or not there is a considerably body of opinion in Australia which is concerned about that. To simply say that all those people are friends of tax cheats manages to get the debate heading in exactly the opposite direction. I raise some problems by reference to clause 14 of the Bill in which we find the relevant laws which can be accessed in relation to the Australia Card. These include the Social Security Act, the Veterans' Entitlements Act, the Veterans' Entitlements (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act, the Seamen's War Pensions and Allowances Act, the Student Assistance Act, the Australian Citizenship Act, the Passport Act and the Migration Act. They are all areas where information can be obtained through the system. It is eligible information under the definition provided in the Bill. That is obviously one area in which some Government senators may at least have resonated in their younger days-I certainly did-in terms of the opposition to the Vietnam war, if they happened to have been students. This is accessible information. The digitised photographs fairly obviously will be able to identify those types of people. I suggest that the effectiveness of the moratorium campaigns would have been destroyed by this method had the Australia Card been in existence at that time. I am not trying to draw a long bow. The exercise is perfectly feasible. In fact in Queensland the Special Branch had a jolly good attempt at this with cameras. But, of course, the televising and digitising of photographs gives instant information and name and address, which is something that even the Special Branch in Queensland sometimes finds it difficult to obtain-at least, directly. Senator Aulich —But you fool them by wearing beards. Senator MACKLIN —If one shaves one's beard off and then grows it again, it works wonders. In the situation to which I refer the last major mass demonstration against Government policy in this country would have been effectively undermined and destroyed. I used that example because I hoped to appeal at least to some people in the Government ranks who may have been involved in that exercise. I am not sure how many of them were involved; possibly more members of the Opposition than members of the Government were involved. That is an example of why people have a legitimate concern about the power of government to identify and quantify information in the manner allowed under the provisions of the Australia Card Bill. There has been a fair amount of debate in the community and elsewhere about thin ends of wedges. I must admit that I am not terribly happy with that form of argument because I think it partly represents the conspiracy argument, which is not at the best of times a very strong one. However, in this case there is a very legitimate problem. I will raise an instance in which I was involved over this very card, when the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform was looking at the problem of cleansing the electoral rolls. We were very much aware of the reluctance of any government-I am sure that the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce (Senator Button), who is at the table, has been involved in such discussions in Cabinet-to spend money on the cleansing of our electoral rolls. It is an expensive, time-consuming operation. One has to employ lots of people who have to knock on doors and do a lot of checking. In the Committee we addressed ourselves to the question of what we would recommend if the Australia Card became law. On the basis of efficiency alone, one could not argue for continuing the labour intensive operations that we have had to date with expenditure of some $15m to $20m a year on getting our electoral rolls up to date when it could be done by pressing a button. So what one would have to argue is whether, if the Australia Card were in place, we ought to allow the electoral rolls to go under it, for that very reason of pure efficiency. If one looks at almost every area of government one finds corresponding instances. It is inevitable that once this legislation is passed it will be extended, extended and extended. There is no way to prevent that. There would be no reason to prevent it, in effect, because of the efficiency argument. Senator Walters —Humphreys has already wanted it. Senator MACKLIN —I am saying that because of efficiency we would be faced with saving $15m in this area. As we would already have the stuff collected, why not include that? One could raise another $20m in another area, another $30m elsewhere. In other words, the areas of saving would start to steamroll. The incremental creep of this would inevitably go on. It is pure baloney and hogwash to say that what is in the legislation is what we are addressing; it is not and it cannot be. Anybody who is in government knows that. I am not just talking about the current Labor Government. I doubt whether conservative governments once in power, although I understand that the Opposition parties have said that they would do so, would repeal the legislation. Once an executive government had such legislation in place, it would love it. That is the major problem. Regardless of what a parliamentary party might like, executive governments would like this because it would give them an unending source of revenue because they could keep eliminating additional functions down the line. We are looking at a major change. We are not just looking at what is already in the legislation. We are looking at turning around the whole system of government surveillance of citizens. I use the word `surveillance' advisedly because governments already engage in surveillance of citizens. For example, we have had some very interesting debates in this place about the tapping of the telephone lines. A number of people, including me, have argued to keep State governments out of such an exercise. I do not trust even a Federal government with such an exercise, and I certainly would not trust State governments with it. Senator McKiernan —Some of them. Senator MACKLIN —Well, it is abused at the Federal level anyway, and it would be more vastly abused if more governments were involved. It is one of the inevitable consequences of the way governments operate. So surveillance already takes place, and it will be extended. Already in my State we have instances of false information being given. Almost every week-certainly every month-one can read a horror story about some poor person being bailed up in his own home by the drug squad or somebody else and whose home has been ransacked and the doors broken down. As happened in the last instance, it often turns out to be the wrong street. In the last instance the police had the right number but were in the wrong street. So misinformation held by government in this country-probably one of the most democratic countries on earth-is sometimes used violently to abuse the civil liberties of our citizens. In fact, we now have Acts in every State and the Commonwealth which provide monetary recompense because we know that at some stage governments will abuse the liberties of citizens. We allow people some kind of monetary recompense for being woken up in the middle of the night and having a shotgun pointed at them, as happened to the poor citizens in the last drug raid that went wrong. We are now to have a computerised operation. One government senator said that with a wave of a hand any citizen will be able to look at his record. I presume that that honourable senator has not actually read the legislation. Access to one's record will be allowed once a year. But the type of information on record could ruin one within one year. Access to the record once a year is supposed somehow to recompense one for the possibility of having one's livelihood ruined along the way. Quite frankly, what we are facing is a massive problem. There will be massive problems of abuse. There will be massive problems of leaks. I loved hearing a previous speaker say that he was so enamoured of the protection mechanisms that were to be built in that he actually believed them. Presumably he has never bothered to speak to anybody in the computer industry. We know that there will be leaks. For example, why is it that under the largest governmental system that we have at present the health records of Federal Ministers have a special lock on them? Why is there a special lock? It is for the very good reason that otherwise one could get access to them. So a special device exists to avoid any embarrassment to Federal Ministers. But people can get around most of these devices, through decoding, compressing, dedicated landlines, et cetera. I am not saying that such devices are not important. Of course they are. We know that there is vital information that needs to be protected and we do need a whole variety of measures to protect them. But at the end of the day we could have the problem that Canada had when somebody walked off with all of the tax records and they were not retrieved for a couple of weeks. At the end of the day the human element is always involved. I am not sure whether human beings are going to be eliminated from the system but provided they operate it, there will be security leaks. I do not even have to go to the arguments about dedicated landlines. Once human beings use the system we have the possibility of information being abused and at the end of the day the information that it is being abused may never come to the knowledge of the individual citizen. Honourable senators know as well as I do that there are companies in capital cities which one can ring to get tax returns. Honourable senators throw up their hands and deny all knowledge of this when outside this chamber but they all know about it. They know that they can get a security check on an individual if they really have to and that people have used those systems and have told senators about them. In other words, Australia's most secure system, which is our taxation system, is abused every day of the week. At the end of the day there is not a protection which will beat human beings. Are we now going to accept that we will make available much more generally and in a compressed form a whole variety of pieces of information? What is that information? It is the person's name, address and date of birth. Of course the Australia Card Register will contain other information. I have already gone through the various Acts from which information can be drawn but on top of that information can be obtained on a person's eligibility to receive Medicare benefits, a record of eligibility to obtain employment, any name used by the person, previous residential and postal addresses, a list of documents used to establish identity, the person's Australia Card number and information from government departments which come under the various Acts I have mentioned. This may include, for example, information held by the Commissioner of Taxation and information held by a department acquired for purposes connected with the administration of laws such as student allowances, and there is a fairly large amount of information there, not only on the individual but also on the individual's parents and the individual's siblings. The Register will contain information held on personnel records of members of the defence forces. If honourable senators have actually ever seen records on members of the defence forces they will know that there is not much that the defence forces do not end up knowing about a member, and about his grandmother as well. So at the end of the day one would have a fairly healthy grasp of that person and his connections with other people in the community. This is why the Government is talking about the fight on crime, and I will come to that in a moment. This type of information could be seen to be very useful in that regard. Of course the matter goes beyond that because a number of the sub-sets of that type of information would lead us to know where the person spends his holidays and where he spends money. In fact, some of those sub-sets could even turn up information such as the periodicals to which a person subscribes. The value of that information on the commercial market is absolutely incalculable and that is why I am saying that there will be leaks. This Bill will provide a whole new area of crime. We are generating a whole new area of crime by the mere bringing in of this Bill. Undoubtedly, we will have what is one of the major industries in Mexico City-a card forging industry. One can get one's United States security number in Mexico City. Everyone knows about the shops there that provide the cards; in fact there are shops just off the main street that do so. I am not quite sure whether we will have shopfronts in Australia that will provide them but obviously the operation will occur here. The exercise is fraught with massive problems. I do not think we have to rely simply on the assertions made in Australia; we can look at some of the operations in other countries. For example, in recent times the former Chairman of the Swedish Data Protection Board has resigned for the very reason that he felt that privacy is no longer adequately protected. We know that the proposed Data Protection Agency in the Australia Card Bill is modelled on the Swedish Board. The Swedish Data Protection Board up to recent times was considered-it probably still is-to be the best security that has been offered by any country with regard to data. Yet its Chairman resigned because he says that privacy can no longer adequately be protected. One has to pause under those circumstances and not dismiss them as though they are the ravings of lunatics. So many people in the community have massive concerns. Senator Button —What follows from all of that? Are the Swedes going to abandon their system? Senator MACKLIN —Our Agency is based on the Swedish one. In fact it has not even improved on it; it is deficient when compared with it. Yet the Chairman of the Swedish Board-presumably he is in a position to know-thinks the Swedish system is no longer adequately able to protect the privacy of Swedish citizens. Let us be assured that the privacy of Australians will not be protected. It just will not happen. With all the good will in the world that may be there, by the Government and the bureaucrats, privacy will not be protected. I do not think we have to go to conspiracy theories about this matter. It is a fact: that is what will occur. I am very doubtful of what will be achieved with this card at the end of the day. I do not think by and large that the types of crimes we are facing in Australia will be inhibited all that much. As I have already said, fraud and forgery of cards will be a problem. After all, the ID cards in Europe do not seem to do too much. Honourable senators who are familiar with Italy would know that not terribly much happened to its underground economy or organised crime with the introduction of a card after the Second World War. The Department of Social Security does not believe that social security fraud will be reduced because most lost revenue results from the failure of people to notify their changed circumstances, not from forged identities. A presumption of validity will be attached to the card whether or not it has been obtained legally, hence opening up a whole new area of possible crime. The card itself will be used to commit crimes, and that is fairly obvious. If honourable senators do not believe that, they should look at all of the other cards that are operating in society and they would see the types of crimes that occur by the mere existence of the card. This card will be very important because it will be presumed to be valid. The difficulty is that it will be presumed that if a person's photograph is on it, that is that person and it is his card. Hence, it will be used for all sorts of purposes not the least of which is possibly getting into the new Parliament House. Senator Aulich —At least the automatic teller machines won't chew them up. Senator MACKLIN —I am not at all sure that a little down the way, this Government will not find a very good way to use the Australia Card and that is to turn it into a smart card and sell part of it off to private enterprise. It seems to be wanting to privatise most other things and that would certainly be a very lucrative area. The Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh), who has just come into the chamber, is probably already looking at this area. The tax file number alternative recommended by the majority of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card would certainly tackle these types of problems, more cheaply and without the threat to civil liberties. What we are facing is an inexorable movement possibly towards a joint sitting to which I will refer in conclusion. There has been some discussion of mandates and otherwise in regard to this matter. I think the situation is relatively clear. Those senators who campaigned to oppose the card were returned in an increased majority in this place. Senator Walsh —Except most of them didn't campaign. Senator MACKLIN —Be that as it may, I am talking for myself. I certainly made quite a number of speeches, as Senator Jones, who is in the chamber at the moment, can attest to. I certainly campaigned on the matter. It is an absurd notion of parliamentary democracy to say that, although one of the issues I campaigned on was this issue, and presumably some people voted for me on that basis, because people also voted for the Government on the basis of its campaign, I should now agree with them. I and other senators who are opposing this card have to stay true to the people who voted for us. We have to continue the opposition to this card to the death knell. All talk to the contrary is by the by. If the Government had done so well that it had got the majority in this place, there would not even be a debate going on now, for obvious reasons. The fact that the Government did not get the majority in this chamber means that the debate will continue through to a joint sitting. I express my support for the inquiry because I believe that, as more people come to know about the problems associated with the card, more will become concerned. I am referring to people who are conscientious enough to read the Bill and to attempt to understand its provisions. I am referring not to people who will oppose almost anything-the people whom one just tells to oppose something and who do-but to the very large number of people in the community who have genuine concerns and who have read the Bill. It is remarkable how many photostat copies of the Bill, because one cannot get hold of originals, are floating around in the community. The number of photostat copies I have come across at meetings is enormous. People have gone to the trouble of reading through the Bill, and it has been an educative task for many of them. These people have genuine concerns and should not be dismissed by the Government in the way that they have been to date. The Government arrogantly says that it will at some stage amend the Bill but will not even tell us how it is to amend it. We are buying a pig in a poke. We are being asked to pass a Bill which the Government has declared it is its intention to amend. If that is not holding this Parliament in contempt, I do not know what is. The Government is saying, `Please pass this Bill although we know it is defective'. That is an absurd way to proceed. Under the Constitution the Government can propose amendments which can be discussed in a joint sitting. So that argument cannot be used as an excuse. As this issue progresses the community will become more and more educated. The political imperative for the Government is to try to get the matter over and done with as quickly as it can because it is facing elections in States where I am sure it does not want this issue on the agenda and it knows that it is becoming increasingly unpopular as a result. I ask the Government to reconsider its position and to consider the alternatives which are available to achieve the same goals of overcoming tax fraud and welfare cheats. (Quorum formed) Senator WALTERS(Tasmania)(12.11) —It is an old political tactic, perfected by the Australian Labor Party, when one is in a tight corner, to use intimidation, to attack personally, and to come out fighting, because that is the best means of defence. Try to stop public debate; make sure that the public stay ill-informed-that is the only way one can win the race. That is exactly what the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) has been doing. We all know the statement he has been making-that only those who have something to fear will worry about an ID card. Barrie Unsworth, trying to cover himself because an election is coming up, is saying, `Have a rethink, Mr Hawke. An election is close on my heels'. John White from Tasmania, a good Labor bloke, stood on the same platform as me and said, `The Labor Party is wrong and must withdraw'. We had the Labor Lawyers Association-a good crowd-opposing the Labor Party. The Trades and Labor Council is also opposing the Labor Party. Jim McClelland is saying that Labor is wrong. Ben Lexcen, who was Bob Hawke's best friend when he won the America's Cup-`me mate Ben'; he was a mate then-is now, apparently, a taxation cheat. Alan Jones, often spoken of in the same breath as Ben Lexcen, is also supposedly a taxation cheat. And what about Peter Garrett? Apparently he is also a taxation cheat. What did the Minister call that mob yesterday? The Minister called them a motley crew. I wonder what Barrie Unsworth thinks about being called a motley crew. I wonder what John White thinks about it. Now-the latest one-Peter Duncan has been added to the motley crew. A headline in the newspaper today reads, `New Minister contradicts Mr Hawke on the card'. But I will come to that in a little while. Senator Schacht —You ought to read it. Senator WALTERS —I read it. Labor people, Mr Hawke in particular, have been telling us that they had a mandate, although there was not a word about it in Mr Hawke's election speech. I was censored in Tasmania on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) when I went forward with a leaked document. I did a very good interview. I complained to the ABC. When the ABC refused to put on my interview I rang the ABC and said to Phil Martin: `Okay, Phil, was it because it was too hot for the Labor Party that the ABC would not put it on?' He said, `All I can say, Shirley, is that direction came from Sydney that it was not to go to air'. How do honourable senators like that? Senator Schacht —Who said that? Name the person. Senator WALTERS —Phil Martin, of the ABC. After the election I rang Phil and said, `Okay, is it safe enough now? Labor is back. Will you now have me on the ABC?' He said, `I will get you on the 7.30 Report'. So I did another interview for the 7.30 Report on the same subject. When I was asked why I did not take a higher profile during the election campaign I said, `Because you censored me. Before the elections I was up here and did an interview. It was not shown. Phil Martin said that direction had come from Sydney that the interview was not to go to air'. What happened? The producer of the 7.30 Report came down and said, `I am sorry, but that cannot go to air'. Then what happened? Phil Wallington from The World Today rang me and asked me a question on the Australia Card. When he asked me why I did not take a high profile during the election campaign I answered: `Because you, the ABC, censored me'. I said to him, `You ask Phil Martin what he said to me, because he said to me, ``Direction came from Sydney that it was not to go to air'' '. When Phil Martin was asked about that, what did he say? He said, `Oh, no; Senator Walters got it wrong. It was just that Sydney was not interested'. But the words that Phil Martin used to me were not `Sydney was not interested'; they were, `Sydney said that it was not to go to air'. Honourable senators opposite ask us why we did not have a high profile. We did not have a high profile because we were censored. The Government has made lots of claims about this ID card. But the speech of the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) yesterday was thoroughly untrue. There were so many untruths in that speech that she ought to be ashamed of herself. The Government said that the card would be effective in dealing with tax evasion, social security fraud and crime. It said that it would be cost-effective and, of course, it said that all the privacy in the world would be very, very secure. Let us deal with tax evasion. If honourable senators opposite have read the Auditor-General's report on the taxing problem they might agree with the Prime Minister, who has no doubt read that report, when he said to the Australian Taxation Office, `Tighten yourself up'. What has happened? Twelve months after that report came out the Taxation Office has indeed tightened up. It found that 90,000 taxpayers had been cheating to the tune of $770m-all without the ID card. It was just the will of the Taxation Office after the Prime Minister had told it to tighten up. There was no need for an ID card. An amount of $770m was collected from 90,000 taxpayers because the Prime Minister said so. Let us look at social security fraud. When I asked a question at an Estimates committee hearing, the Department of Social Security told me that an ID card would not help it at all and that it was not identification that was its problem but mis-statements. So the Department has assured us that the ID card would be no help. What has the Prime Minister done about that problem? He demanded that all those getting unemployment benefits be reviewed. What was the result of that? A quarter of them were found to be collecting unemployment benefits when they should not have been. No ID card was necessary and no ID card was used; it was just the will of the Department to get stuck into its job, as was demanded of it by the Prime Minister. That deals with the social security fraud. Let us look at crime. The Prime Minister says that the Australia Card will fix crime. Mr Costigan and the Australian Federal Police have said that it will not touch big crime. Big crime will quickly have its ID cards forged and when these criminals forge these cards they will be accepted without question as the individual they claim to be. They can take on an assumed identity once they produce a forged ID card. They can have a whole handful of cards, and they can assume the identities of the various names on them, with no question at all. The young people in Kings Cross already have forged drivers licences, photograph and all, so that they can use them in the pubs to say that they are old enough to drink there. Let us look at the privacy laws which Mr Hawke tells us are so secure. I would first like to read to honourable senators what the Minister in charge, the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), believes about the need for privacy in this country. Dr Blewett said at a branch conference of the Australian Labor Party in South Australia: Let me say as a socialist that it is the interests of the community that should come before the individual right . . . We shouldn't get too hung up as socialists on privacy because privacy, in many ways, is a bourgeois right that is very much associated with the right to private property. There is a deadly hush from the socialist Government opposite because Dr Blewett makes it very clear that his view is that socialists should not get too hung up on privacy, because privacy is `a bourgeois . . . very much associated with . . . private property'. That is what this Government thinks about the need to protect the privacy of Australian people. Do not give me the Prime Minister's comments that he will make sure that privacy is maintained. Privacy cannot be maintained. There is no desire on the part of the Minister that it be maintained. Of course, it is a lot of rubbish. We have already had security leaks from that Minister's Department. We have already had the leaking to the police of the names of young girls who had had abortions and their being dragged into court for having abortions performed by a doctor. That is from the Department of the Minister that the Government has placed in charge of this Bill. Senator Cook —Do you want to debate that? That was not a leak. Senator WALTERS —That was leaked by him. Other leaks from that Department involved doctors' incomes, and we had Government senators saying in this chamber this morning, `And what is wrong with that?'. That is another instance of the socialist attitude that privacy is not important. Senator Schacht said today: `What is wrong with that? What have the doctors to hide?'-another indication of the lack of even the faintest understanding on the part of the socialist group opposite of what privacy is all about. Through public servants, current information, including addresses of social security recipients, has been sold to debt collectors. How is that for security? Yet this Prime Minister assures us that we will have every security under the sun and that, if we do not, he will introduce amendments to require such security. Let us see. We now have a couple of Ministers for transport. We have a maxi-Minister in this place, whom Senator Schacht quoted. Let me quote the mini-Minister in the place opposite. The Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support, Mr Duncan, said that it would be possible to `physically' tap into the proposed ID card system. This is what I am saying. Peter Duncan, the mini- Minister for land transport, the man in charge of the landlines about which we have heard our maxi-Minister speak so much, says that that is all rubbish and that, indeed, it is physically possible to tap in. He said: Dedicated data systems can still be compromised by someone physically tapping into an exchange or transmission line. So, we have the mini-Minister in the other chamber assuring us that what the Prime Minister and the maxi-Minister say is totally wrong-and of course he is right, because it is only the members of the Left in this place who are at the moment telling the truth about the ID card. The computer experts in this country also agree. They say that there is no way privacy can be maintained. Indeed, we have had the situation-odd as it may be-of hackers getting into the Pentagon. Another release just recently says that young West German hackers have had access to the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The hackers got into that, and the Government tells us that our data will all be private and so secure. Senator Collins —What are they going to do with your name and address when they have got it? Senator WALTERS —There we are. Here we go again. There is no need for privacy; it does not really matter if they get in! Senator Collins —I don't care who has mine. Senator WALTERS —There we are. The honourable senators says: `I don't care, so why should anyone else care?'. In the case of the doctors' incomes dispute, which was investigated by the Australian Federal Police, only a handful of public servants were meant to have access to that information. What did the police find? They found that 197 public servants had access to it. Of course every public servant who wants to have access to the three computers will have access. Senator Ryan says that there will be nothing sensitive on the ID card and nothing sensitive on the Register. But there will be a number, and once the number typed up on the three computers of those three departments, and those computers, to use the jargon, talk to each other, there will be a mass of information about every individual. The whole history of what is on their medical files, their social security files and what financial transactions they have carried out will be there. There will be a wealth of information to be abused by anyone who wants to do so. Senator Ryan said yesterday that there is no need for a central data base. Of course there is not, because the number on the card and on the Register will enable anyone with access to those three computers that talk to each other to gain any information. I turn to deal with just how this passing of information can be increased. I have a document from the Health Insurance Commission. It contains the recommendations of the Commission to the interdepartmental committee, chaired by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, about how the system should be set up. It says in part: It will be important to minimise any adverse public reaction to implementation of the system. One possibility would be to use a staged approach for implementation, whereby only less sensitive data are held in the system initially with the facility to input additional data at a later stage when public acceptance may be forthcoming more readily. Other related issues . . . are the extent to which: (a) the nature of all items of data held on the central database will be made known to the public; Are we going to tell people everything? The document also asks whether the names of the government agencies with access to the system will be made public and what non-government agencies will be permitted access to the system. Apart from those recommendations to the interdepartmental committee, chaired by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, we have had other leaks from public servants who are very concerned and who are becoming more and more concerned about this. A newspaper article referred to a `Discussion Paper on Recording Changes to Data on the Australia Card Registry', and said that, in part, the paper stated: In respect of programme management information, changes may be made to the register without the need of any notification to the card subject. The article quotes a Mr Robertson as saying that he believed there would be an open file containing information that people would know about, because they have given that information, and that there would be a second file that people would not be allowed to see that would contain more detailed information. Of course more information has been leaked on the hacker's handbook of how to get into the system. So we are now getting information from public servants who are becoming very concerned about just what is happening with these things. Honourable senators must not forget that the Labor Party normally caucuses its members very strictly. But in Tasmania recently the Labor Party Secretary, Mr Eugene Alexander, is quoted as saying: . . . the party had to be broadminded over the issue, as it was obvious a number of members had widely differing views. The Party in Tasmania was not going to get stuck into its members. It just said that they had widely differing views on the ID card and that there would be no criticism of them. The President of the Labor Party, Mr Leo Brown, is quoted as saying: Members are free to discuss the issue and that's their democratic right. That is the first bit of democracy that we have heard about in the Labor Party-that it is members' democratic right to oppose the Party, because it says, `At present support for the Australia Card is not ALP State policy, nor is it Federal policy'. Members can be disciplined only for breaking policy or for attacking the Party. The Tasmanian Labor Party, which is pretty Left too, has decided to let its members have free rein. John White can stand up on the same platform with me and say, `The Labor Party is wrong and it is introducing something that is really quite a disgrace'. We have been told that because so many problems with privacy have been pointed out to the Government the Bill needs amending. The Government is prepared to put a flawed Bill through the Senate, knowing that it needs amending. What a disgrace that is. It will not tell us what those amendments are likely to be. Let the Minister take on notice that the Government can put nothing through this Parliament because it has not got the numbers. It does not matter what it attempts to put through by way of amendments; it has not got the numbers. The Government says the card will be most cost-effective. There are 2,150 new public servants just for starters to keep an eye on the public. According to the Government's own figures, it will cost $759m over 10 years. What will the cost be to private industry? The Government has done the work but it will not allow us to see the information. Private industry sources tell us that their estimate is that it will cost $800m to $1 billion. We tried very hard to get that information through the freedom of information legislation and we were knocked back, but I believe that the Government came up with a fictitious figure which it gave Mr Porter some time within the last couple of months. The banks have already explained to the Government that they will not be able to use their automatic teller machines-those machines which people put cards into and get money from. The banks now say that the machines cannot be used and the Government has said, `Don't worry; we will amend the Bill'. The Government is putting through an imperfect Bill and telling us that it will amend it later. Senator Schacht said today that there are only two things that an ordinary person will have to do in relation to the card. He said that the card would have to be produced to open a new bank account and to collect the Medicare benefit. That is untrue. The ordinary Australian will not use a card only to open a new bank account. He will have to use the card to operate an existing account. I asked the senator in charge of this Bill in this place, Senator Ryan, the day before yesterday in the Senate: What happens straight after the card comes in? What happens to all the cheques floating around? How does anyone know that the cheques he receives are going to be honoured; because the person may not have presented his ID card to the bank? She said, `Yes, that is true. Some people may take some time to do that, and if they do, their account will continue to accrue interest, and will in every other way be of benefit to them'.-except of course that they cannot use it. They cannot draw on it. That is what the Minister said. What a wonderful benefit! It is a pity that Senator Schacht does not do a bit more homework. He is pretty new and he probably has not done a lot of work on the ID card. If he has not, he should not be pushed up here by the Government just because it is finding it hard to get senators to speak on this Bill. It should not pick on the new fellows who do not know that the Government is telling a lot of untruths. The Government is pushing them up. We have got three new fellows speaking on this because none of the old ones will take the floor on it. We had Senator Schacht standing on his feet not knowing about the Bill and not telling the truth about it. He told the people out there that the only occasions on which they will have to produce the card are when they collect their Medicare benefits or open new bank accounts. What they will have to do, of course, is present the card to their employer. They will have to present it if they want to use their present bank account. Of course, they will have to use it to open a new account or collect their Medicare entitlements. They will also have to use it if they want to buy or sell a block of land or a house. They will have to use it if they pay rent. There are a whole host of reasons why they will have to use the card. Is it not a pity that poor Senator Schacht does not understand the Bill and that the Government has put him on his feet to speak in order to fill the numbers. Senator Ryan said something yesterday which is a complete untruth. She said: The Bill is also quite specific that no one-not the police, not the local supermarket, not the local publican-can ask to see one's card as a means of identification. Any unauthorised person asking for a person's card, or even suggesting- she elaborates- he wants to see it, is committing a serious offence punishable by a heavy fine or gaol or both. That is simply not true. Indeed, I will quote from the Bill because I think it is pretty important that the people, who I might add cannot get a copy of the Bill, should know what is in it. Even if there are some copies of the Bill in the Government Printing Office, people will not be able to afford to buy them. I have been told in Hobart that hundreds of people have tried to get a copy of the Bill in that city. They have been told that the cost of the Bill, which is not accompanied by an explanatory memorandum, is $14.40. Although there is a supplementary memorandum, the main one is not available. What would one expect an ordinary man in the street to learn from the Bill if it was not accompanied by an explanatory memorandum? A person has to pay $14.40 for the Bill and $3.70 for the supplementary memorandum. The cost of the legislation works out to be over 11c a page whereas the Income Tax Assessment Act costs 3.6c a page. What is the Government trying to do in hiding the Bill? How can we expect Joe Blow to walk into a Government Printing Office outlet and pay $14.40 just for the Bill? What on earth is the Government on about? Of course it is trying to hide the situation. Let me get back to the claim by Senator Ryan that people cannot be asked for the card. She is not speaking the truth when she says that because the Bill says: Except as authorised by this Act, a person shall not require another person to produce a Card. The legislation refers to production of the card being required, not demanded. Everyone in this chamber knows that if a policeman on a corner says to a young bloke, `Where is your ID card? I think you are looking suspicious', and the recipient says, `You cannot demand my card of me', the policeman will say, `I am not demanding it, sonny, I am asking you for it'. If the chap says, `I am not going to give it to you', the policeman will use Bob Hawke's intimidatory language and will say, `and what have you got to hide?' Do not, for heaven's sake, think for one moment that this card will not become a common identifier, because it will. There is no doubt at all about that. I would like to wind up with a quote. Unfortunately my time is just about up. Let us look at what was said by Woodrow Wilson. I think it is pretty impressive. Senator Walsh —Who was he? Senator WALTERS —The socialists opposite do not even know who he is, but it was he who said: Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. How true those statements are. We will not tolerate and we will not have an ID card in this country. We are not going the way of Nazi Germany or the socialist mates in Moscow of honourable senators opposite. The Australian people will not tolerate it. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(12.40) —I rise for the third time to support the Australia Card Bill brought before this Parliament by the Hawke Government. For the third time the Government has introduced the Australia Card legislation into the Senate. The Senate has rejected the legislation on two previous occasions. The second refusal on 2 April triggered a double dissolution of the Australian Parliament and the subsequent election on 11 July. Let us be quite clear about this recent historical fact. The Australia Card was the only parliamentary or legislative issue which triggered the dissolution of Parliament on 5 June for the election on 11 July. It was the only parliamentary or legislative issue which triggered the dissolution of the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia. The July election was called in accordance with the due processes of the Australian Constitution. (Quorum formed). Senator MAGUIRE —I was interrupted by Senator Walters who is trying to stifle the democratic processes and debate in this Parliament of Australia. After speaking for half an hour about civil rights and civil liberties she is not prepared to cop it when it is dished out. Like other members of the Opposition, she is not prepared to receive it after she has given it and to take on the chin the arguments in favour of the Australia Card. Honourable senators opposite do not believe in free speech and free debate. They want to stifle this debate by the artifical calling of quorums. As I was pointing out, the July election was called in accordance with the due processes of the Australian Constitution. But now, less than three months later, Opposition and Australian Democrats senators are claiming that somehow the Government does not have a mandate to proceed to a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament to decide the outcome of the Australia Card legislation. The very same senators exercised their legislative prerogative and twice rejected the Australia Card, thus triggering the double dissolution of the Australian Parliament. That is how we came to this position. They exercised their rights under the Constitution to block the Government's legislation. But now, with breathtaking effrontery, they claim that a joint sitting of the Australian Parliament, the constitutional process which resolves a deadlock between two Houses, is somehow a sleight of hand, and a petty trick called on by the democratically elected Government of this country. That is their attitude. They will not accept the umpire's verdict-it is as simple as that. The Opposition and the Democrats seem to believe that the Australian Constitution does not serve to protect the legal and political rights of all Australians but is there merely to serve their own self-interest and partisan political purposes. In a nonsensical speech today, Senator MacGibbon, who I note is a senator from Queensland, waxed eloquent about civil rights and civil liberties. However, he is a senator from the very State where political rights are denied by a nineteenth-century gerrymander. This senator, from a political party which has squibbed the debate on democratic rights in Queensland, came into the Australian Senate today and lectured us about civil and political rights. Debate interrupted. Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2 p.m. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate) —by leave-The Ministers of State Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1987 received royal assent this morning. As honourable senators are aware, this legislation has increased the possible number of Ministers of State from 27 to 30. Following the granting of royal assent, His Excellency the Administrator at noon today at Government House appointed as Ministers of State the following honourable senators and members: Senator the Hon. Michael Carter Tate to be Minister of State for Justice and to administer the Attorney-General's Department; the Hon. Roslyn Joan Kelly, MP, to be Minister of State for Defence Science and Personnel and to administer the Department of Defence; and Senator the Hon. Margaret Reynolds to be Minister of State for Local Government and to administer the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Senator MESSNER —My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Communications. Following his appointment as Minister, when did he first ask for and receive a detailed briefing from his Department on the coastal surveillance contract? Did the Minister consider the briefing adequate, and in particular was he satisfied with the contribution of the Australian Federal Police before and after the awarding of the contracts to Amann Aviation Pty Ltd? If not, what further matters did he raise with the Department? Senator GARETH EVANS —My recollection is that the subject of the Amann contract came up in the initial few days of detailed briefing on current issues within the Department. It then came up again on several occasions during the early part of August, as I started asking more and more questions about what the probability was of the particular deadlines being reached and what contingency plans, if any, had been made to fill the vacuums that might arise from the first week of September until 12 December, after Skywest Airlines Pty Ltd phased out and Amann was scheduled to come in but might not be ready to do so. I am trying to recall the first time that the question of police and security issues arose. Naturally, I asked at an early stage of proceedings what, if anything, was on the record on the police aspects of it, not least because a number of allegations were being made in the public media at that stage about alleged interference by Skywest with Amann and reciprocal counter-allegations. The statement I tabled this morning indicates Mr Beale's record of when he first responded to my request to bring me up to date on this. That was in his minute of 1 September, the relevant portion of which is set out in the papers I tabled this morning. There was some subsequent exchange between me and Mr Beale, as the statement indicates, on 7 September. I think that was the last time a security matter came in issue. It was perfectly clear to me, on the basis of the papers I saw, the briefing I received from Mr Beale of my Department and from the nature of that briefing that there was no security matter in issue, and that if the contract was to be terminated it would be on grounds having nothing whatsoever to do with police and security considerations. Senator MESSNER —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I thank the Minister for his answer. However, he did not address himself at all to the question about the adequacy of the briefing that he received. Can he please tell us whether he was happy on all occasions of the various briefings he mentioned, including the briefing from the Australian Federal Police? Senator GARETH EVANS —I have no complaints, then or now, about the quality of the briefing I received from the Australian Federal Police, which was a briefing communicated both in the form of written minutes and orally through Mr Beale, the Associate Secretary of my Department. Senator JONES —Has the attention of the Minister for Justice been drawn to the resignation on Wednesday night of the former Queensland Assistant Commissioner, Mr Graeme Parker, who subsequently admitted to the Fitzgerald commission of inquiry in Queensland that he was in fact corrupt. In view of Mr Parker's confession to the Fitzgerald inquiry, what measures does the National Crime Authority (NCA) have to protect witnesses who have already given evidence, and those who might be encouraged to do so in future, from harassment or even death from organised crime bodies now clearly being identified as operating within Australia? Will the National Crime Authority investigate the very serious allegations being raised in the Fitzgerald inquiry of widespread organised crime in Australia, and what steps are being taken to monitor the information coming forward day by day? Senator TATE —I thank Senator Jones for his question, which I know touches matters which are of great concern to him and to other Queensland senators in particular. He raises matters which are of grave concern to us all, because when it is revealed that corruption has taken hold at the very highest levels within our police force, naturally it fills ordinary citizens with foreboding. Given the fact that police officers naturally exercise quite considerable discretion in carrying out their duties, one needs to have a sense of the fairness and impartiality with which they will undertake those duties. The stench of corruption which is now being revealed in the Fitzgerald inquiry reaching to high levels gives cause for foreboding insofar as that trust in police forces is thereby undermined. The inquiry and its conduct by Mr Fitzgerald entirely vindicate statements that I made at the end of the last autumn session of Parliament, just before Parliament rose, where I expressed my confidence in the integrity and forcefulness with which Mr Fitzgerald would undertake his inquiries. There was some scepticism whether that would be the case, but I think that he is doing so. In regard to Senator Jones's particular questions, the fact is that the admissions made by Mr Parker have caused me concern not only in the general sense I have indicated, but because it is the case that Mr Parker, as Assistant Commissioner, was the liaison officer for the Queensland Police with the National Crime Authority. Mr Parker filled this role during 1986 and parts of this year before he took leave on account of his current illness. During that time Mr Parker attended three of the Authority's operations conferences, two in 1986, I think in February and July, and one in March 1987, in his capacity as Assistant Commissioner (Crime and Services). Quite clearly, without going into the matters discussed at the operations conferences, matters will have been discussed which explain the concern that I share with Senator Jones. In that respect the National Crime Authority is seeking to interview Mr Parker concerning matters of interest to it. I think at the moment the matter should be left there. I have had conversations with the Chairman of the National Crime Authority, Mr Justice Stewart, this morning and that is the situation which has been reached at this point. Senator Jones raised the very proper concern about the protection of witnesses and those who might be sources of information-I take it that he means both to the Fitzgerald inquiry and to NCA and police inquiries-and how the NCA or the Federal Government might be involved in the protection of such witnesses. In the latter stages of the autumn session I pointed out to the Senate that the National Crime Authority had a reference which overlapped with many of the matters which are the subject of Mr Fitzgerald's inquiry. In fact, that was under a joint reference given by the Commonwealth Government and the Government of the State of Queensland. Insofar as that overlap means that many of the witnesses and sources of information available to Mr Fitzgerald are of equal interest and are providing information to the National Crime Authority, clearly the NCA in appropriate circumstances and where it makes an assessment that the protection of such persons is necessary, will undertake such measures. Finally, Senator Jones asked what `tick tacking'- to use a colloquialism-is taking place between the NCA and the Fitzgerald inquiry. Again, at the end of the last autumn session I indicated to the Senate that I had asked the NCA-and this would have been forthcoming in any case-and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) to be as co-operative as possible with the Fitzgerald inquiry. I understand that Mr Fitzgerald has, on every occasion when he has sought the assistance of the NCA and the AFP, received that assistance in a timely and useful way. Naturally, the relationship between the two bodies-the NCA and the inquiry-is a continuing one and I expect that that useful exchange of information, particularly given the overlapping of the inquiry and the reference being conducted by the NCA, will enable both Mr Fitzgerald and the NCA to better achieve their objectives. Senator NEWMAN —My question is also addressed to the Minister for Justice and I take this opportunity to congratulate him on the restitution of his elevated status. As Minister responsible now and in his previous ministry for the Australian Federal Police (AFP), can he tell me whether, in view of the public controversy which developed about the awarding of the coastwatch contract to Amann Aviation Pty Ltd, he ever asked for and/or obtained a briefing from the Federal Police on their involvement in the tender process? If so, did that briefing include the fact that in May, as revealed in the documents tabled today by the Minister for Transport and Communications, the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence (BCI) said that there was sufficient justification for continuing a probe into Amann Aviation and its associated links? Did any such briefing also reveal that both this conclusion and a BCI report of 30 June were not drawn to the attention of the Department of Transport or Ministers? Did the Minister agree then, and does he agree now, with the decision not to pass on this information? Senator TATE —Of course I was aware of the involvement of the Australian Federal Police in the tendering process, mainly because the AFP has the responsibility for the management and co-ordination of the Coastal Protection Unit (CPU) and Chief Superintendent Dixon was a member of the tendering board. So I was aware of all this. In fact, in my first week in office I received fairly continuous daily briefings on the build-up to the Cabinet submission relating to the eventual award of a tender to Amann Aviation. At that time I was briefed by the Australian Federal Police and they certainly did not at any stage indicate anything other than is reflected in annexure 1 to the statement tabled by Senator Gareth Evans this morning-namely, as was recorded in the minute there: CPU stated that security checks had been carried out on principals of Amann Aviation through Commonwealth and State police resources. No records existed on any of the principals concerned. Further checks would be conducted through the Corporate Affairs Commission though because of cross indexing between this area and normal police records it was unlikely that anything adverse or of any significance would be found. Certainly nothing was brought to my attention in that build-up to taking the submission to Cabinet to indicate any concern by the AFP about the suitability of Amann Aviation from the point of view of Amann, his directors, his chief pilot and so on being fit and proper persons. Of course the technical and managerial competence is something for others to assess, not the AFP. It is quite clear from the documentation-and it is the case-that, when the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence raised the question in late May and suggested that some probe might be undertaken, internal action was taken by various police forces pursuing that query which eventually resulted in the internal minute signed by Mr Dixon of 16 July. Mr Dixon, having followed up all the matters raised by the query from the BCI, came in that internal minute of 16 July 1987, with the concurrence of the BCI, which raised the matter originally, and of Deputy Commissioner Roy Farmer, to the following conclusion, among others: The matter in issue is the possible embarrassment to the Government if the CVC Directors or corporate associates are disclosed to be of ill repute or with organised crime connotations. This has not been established, nor do I believe on information available to me that an initial suspicion of such connections can be substantiated. Accordingly I am of the view that unless some significant matter can be identified by the BCI as of concern to them or with implications for the Government and/or the civil coastal surveillance system, I see no reason to (a) pursue this probe further or (b) to alert any other persons Department of the initial BCI report. That judgment was made in the best professional manner by Mr Dixon and was concurred in by the BCI, which raised the matter initially, and by the Deputy Commissioner, Roy Farmer. This led to the fact that I was not informed. As Mr Dixon says, he thought it was not necessary to inform Ministers or departments or other agencies of this conclusion being, as it was, favourable to Amann Aviation. Senator COLLINS —I ask the Minister for Home Affairs whether his attention has been drawn to comments made in the Senate chamber by Senator MacGibbon yesterday alleging that the Commonwealth electoral boundaries were gerrymandered and, this morning, that those boundaries had been rigged. Are Senator MacGibbon's claims in any way justified and what procedures exist to determine fair electoral boundaries in Commonwealth elections? Senator ROBERT RAY —I was present on both occasions when Senator MacGibbon commented on what he regarded as the unfairness of electoral boundaries. Yesterday he said that they were gerrymandered and today I think he used the work `rigged'. It seems to me that some members of the coalition, seeking reasons for their defeat in the last election, may be looking for a scapegoat. They may be looking towards the umpire to fulfil that role. It is very unfair for the Australian Electoral Commission to be isolated for blame for the Liberal failure in the last election. The Australian Electoral Commission's criteria for redistributions emanated from the report of the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform to this chamber and the other House in 1983 and were supported for the most part, with one or two minor exceptions, by every member of this chamber. Indeed, for the first time in Australian history malapportionment and malapportionment provisions were removed from the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Historically, the electoral system nationally has had very little malapportionment, but prior to 1983 it had some entrenched malapportionment. All the seats in the 1984 redistribution were allocated above or below a quota depending on their future growth pattern. In my view nothing could be fairer than that. The people who actually distributed the seats were independent commissioners. In the last series of redistributions Professor Colin Hughes, the Chief Electoral Officer for the country, participated in all redistributions. I have never heard his integrity impugned here or anywhere else, yet if accusations are made of gerrymandering they must eventually find their home in Dr Hughes. That is most unfair. Three other commissioners were involved, including the Surveyor-General for every State, the Chief Electoral Officer in each State and, finally, where they were available, the Auditor-General for each State. I ask honour- able senators to note that last point. Previous governments always had the right to appoint one public servant. The Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform asserted that that could mean that a government could choose someone of its own political persuasion; so we insisted on trying to find the most independent characters around the country to do this process and we fixed on the idea-- Senator Walters —Ha, ha, ha! Senator ROBERT RAY —For Senator Walters's benefit I add that it was at the insistence of Sir John Carrick that we fixed on the Auditor-General. I supported Senator Sir John Carrick in that. Indeed, once the boundaries had been set and it went to a rehearing, two additional members were added for those rehearings. They were the Chief Statistician-does anyone here want to impugn his impartiality?-and Justice St John. No one could suggest to me that Justice St John was a party to rigging any electoral boundaries. I believe in the inherent integrity of those commissioners and I believe that most people in this Parliament support me in that. There has been no political interference in the redistribution system in the last few years. A further reform brought in is that this chamber and the House of Representatives no longer have the power to reject redistributions. There have been two recent instances of rejection: 1962 saw the Australian Labor Party and the then Australian Country Party gang up against the Liberal Party of Australia and knock over a set of boundaries. In 1975 we saw the National Party of Australia and the Liberal Party knock over all boundary changes, all for their political advantage. These days we have removed that power from the hands of the Parliament. Any redistribution proposal is implemented automatically. There are heavy penalties for anyone trying to interfere in the redistribution process. Indeed, we know what happened last time someone tried that. Former Senator Withers-for a very trivial offence in my view-was unfortunately removed from Cabinet and from leadership of the Liberal Party in this chamber. So it ill behoves any member of this chamber, any Minister or anybody else, to try to interfere in that political system. I assume that what Senator MacGibbon is really saying is that at the last election the Liberal and National parties in total outpolled the Labor Party by 16,000 votes and that therefore the system is not fair. First of all, he overlooks that we have a preferential voting system. If he wants to re-write the rules and say that whoever gets the most votes wins government, could we please have government for 1954, 1961, 1969 and 1980, because we were deprived on those occasions under a first past the post system? In the last election, after distribution of preferences, Labor received 50.8 per cent of the preferred vote and that is why we won the election. People often comment, `Why do you win by such a large margin once you get 50.8 per cent?'. There are two explanations for that. One is the cube rule-that the winner always has a disproportionate majority. The second is that on that occasion the distribution of Labor votes changed from its historical base. The votes are now more evenly spread. We do not lock up massive majorities in the western and northern suburbs and therefore we tend to win marginal seats. We certainly do win marginal seats; I can see four ex-marginal seat holders here who have had to come back to this chamber having lost their marginal seats in the other place. I just want to say one other thing. I have searched the record and I would be more impressed by Senator MacGibbon's comments if I found him examining and attacking the worst malapportionment and gerrymander that exists in this country-that in the State of Queensland. The Queensland Liberal Party has been a spineless party. It has failed to stand up for its professed principle of equal electorates. It has caved in to the National Party when, in tandem with the Labor Party, it could have forced electoral boundary changes. Indeed, in the last two State elections the Labor Party made this offer to the Liberal Party: Why do you not combine with us and push through fair boundaries? What was the Liberal Party's response? It was to do absolutely nothing. I state in conclusion that if anyone is wondering why, having held four senators in New South Wales, five in Victoria, five in Western Australia and five in Tasmania and the other States, the Liberal Party has only two senators from Queensland-albeit both long term-in this chamber, it is because of its weak attitude in that State. The reason it has only five out of the 24 House of Representatives seats in Queensland-two of those are highly marginal-is that it has been spineless on this issue of electoral redistribution. I reject the charges made by Senator MacGibbon in the debate yesterday and today. We have some of the fairest electoral boundaries in the world. We are admired by the rest of the world for that. I hope all parties will be committed towards that course. Senator HAINES —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Is the Minister aware of the `statement-in-principle' issued yesterday by the board of the National Australia Bank Ltd opposing the acquisition of more than 10 per cent of the bank's voting shares by Mr John Spalvins? Does the Minister agree with this `statement-in-principle' that it would be against the national interest for Mr Spalvins to acquire, through David Jones (Aust) Pty Ltd, 15 per cent of the National Australia Bank, thereby gaining directorships on the bank's board? If he does, will the Minister exercise his right to disallow this or any other similarly entrepreneurial bid which could open up the lending policies of banks to speculative profit chasing at the expense of ensuring security for Australian depositors? If he will not, why not? Senator WALSH —I was asked whether I had seen a statement by the National Australia Bank Ltd commenting on Mr Spalvins's bid. The answer is no, I have not. I will refer to the Treasurer for comment the other questions that Senator Haines has asked. With regard to her last question about security of Australian depositors, there are, of course, prudential requirements that apply to all Australian banks. Senator BLACK —Is the Minister for the Environment and the Arts aware of reports that timber companies in north Queensland have instructed their employees not to supply to the Minister or to their union any information relating to workers who will be affected by world heritage listing of the tropical rainforests? Would the withholding of this information, especially information associated with compensation claims, restrict the ability of the Government to assess the impact on workers of its proposals and to make provision for any compensation that may arise? Senator RICHARDSON —Yes, I am aware of allegations of intimidation by, certainly, the Queensland Government and by some Queensland timber companies that have made sure that their workers have been unable to speak to me, under pain of the sack. Only a couple of weeks ago when I was in north Queensland-honour- able senators will remember that I was in north Queensland a few weeks ago-- Senator Puplick —Anything for a bit of publicity. Senator RICHARDSON —I can assure Senator Puplick that I am not developing it as a tactic. I was in a hotel in Cairns conducting a number of meetings with interested groups on the issue. At that time I was to meet with a delegation of workers, and I did so. There were about eight or nine of them in attendance. However, I then discovered that three of them had had to go back to work in cars because they had been telephoned when they arrived at the hotel and told that if they spoke to me they would be sacked upon their arrival back at work. During the meeting another two of them were sitting under a tree across the road. I might say that I put a preservation order on that tree to make sure that it is there for next time. What happened was that ordinary workers who wanted to talk to me-not, by the way, to tell me what a great job I was doing, but rather to complain about some aspects of the decisions that the Government has taken and, more importantly, to discuss their future, their prospects of re-employment and what packages might be available to assist them-were prevented from talking to me by the bloody-minded attitude of the Queensland Government and, what is worse, of the timber companies intent on crawling to Bjelke-Petersen and his allies. All I am doing in this exercise is trying to make sure that the 700 people who are affected directly by this decision are given an opportunity at least to hear what plans the Government has for them and for that area. All that will happen is that one area of activity will change and other areas of activity will develop. Senator Puplick —Such as? Senator RICHARDSON —Senator Puplick has had all week to ask a question. If he gets around to it, I will answer it. Other activities will begin which will enable most of these people to be re-employed. More importantly, I hope they will give their families some cause to relax in the future and not to remain with the anguish that they feel now. A difficulty will arise if the Queensland Government maintains its attitude. If it threatens the companies who in turn threaten the workers, none of us will get anywhere. At the end of the day this world heritage listing will go through. Over the next couple of months I intend to ensure that those talks do continue and that we can offer most of those workers a future. To those whom we cannot offer jobs, we will offer packages of assistance to help them into other areas. All I require in that endeavour is some co-operation from the Queensland Government. Already we are getting some co-operation. However, it must be remembered that while threats are made to companies, `If you talk to Richardson, we will take away your southern concessions', and while threats are made to the workers, `If you talk to him we'll give you the sack', the reality is that the Premier's Department in Queensland is continuing discussions with my Department. So the Premier has it both ways. What is good enough for him is not good enough for anyone else. However, people in north Queensland are waking up. Members of the industry will be coming to the table next week and the workers will be coming a couple of weeks later. Sooner or later the crack in the dam will widen and breach. In the end the revival of a flagging career of a politician in his death throes is not worth the lives and the futures of Queensland workers, and we are about saving them. Senator HAMER —My question is addressed to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. Is it a fact that the Government expects a 2 1/4 per cent rise in employment and a 3 per cent rise in non-farm gross domestic product during the coming year? Does this not mean a projected rise in national non-farm productivity of less than one per cent? Since national productivity actually fell last year and will rise only minimally in the coming year, how does this square with the 4 per cent wage rise granted this year on the grounds of improved productivity? Is the Government satisfied that the promised improvements in work practices have economically justified the wage rise? Finally, is the Government satisfied that our percentage utilisation of high cost capital equipment is as high as that of our trading competitors? Senator BUTTON —There are a number of parts to that question, the first of which relies on assumptions made and figures given in the Budget Papers. I am not in a position, not having the papers in front of me, to disagree with the assumptions; I accept them as being accurate. The most important point of Senator Hamer's question is whether some industries are adequately utilising capital, particularly in terms of working hours. My answer to that question would in general be no. But some very significant changes are taking place in some particular industries of which I am aware. For example, the textile and clothing industry awards were varied last year by agreement with the unions, after a lengthy period of discussion, to provide for a much greater spread of hours and continuous shifts in some of the larger plants. In another industry in respect of which negotiations are currently taking place, the number of working days is now, I think it is pretty well agreed, to be increased from something like 218 working days a year to 310. That increase has been negotiated and agreed to. So, in the spirit of Senator Hamer's question, we have some way to go in relation to the utilisation of expensive capital equipment in industry. However, progress is being made in respect of that issue in some industries; in others it is not being made to the extent one would wish. Senator Hamer asked me in the earlier part of his question whether I was satisfied that the promised improvement in work practices resulting from negotiations, particularly under the second tier, had been achieved. Again, one cannot give a general answer about that matter. My view is that it has been achieved in a number of industries but not in others. The progress of second tier wage negotiations has been very slow for a variety of reasons. Let me give some of the reasons why this has been the case in some industries. Employers say, `We cannot find anything which we want the work force to give up in various issues relating to productivity, hours, et cetera, I find that somewhat strange but that is what they say and that has been a difficulty in the negotiations that have taken place. In some industries the results of those negotiations have been very satisfactory; in others they have not. It is perhaps a bit too early to say in terms of the general picture of work practices. All these things are dependent on fundamental attitudinal changes in industry. If I might be discursive for one moment, shortly before the recent election I had lunch with a former very prominent employer representative in this country. He said, `The difficulty about this country is that in the 1960s and 1970s employers always argued over a $2 or $3 wage increase and we gave away hours all the time.' Why? Because it did not show up in the books. If a manager of a plant gave a $5 wage increase, the decision would immediately go to the finance director at corporate headquarters, who would say, `What is John Stone or Austin Lewis doing giving a $5 wage increase at that plant?'. If employees at the plant were given a half-hour smoko that decision would not go to the finance director and would not have appeared in the books until now when productivity problems are really becoming more obvious. That is not my view; that was a view put to me and I think a lot of that happened. The sorts of things about which Senator Hamer has asked me depend fundamentally on achieving attitudinal change in industry at both management and work force levels. There are no magic wands to achieve these things. It is very important that industry, management and the work force keep working at them. There is no arithmetical calculation that one can make to give a conclusion in terms of improvements in work practices or percentage utilisation of capital, for example. However, I am encouraged by the level of progress which is being made. Senator MORRIS —Can the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade advise the Senate of progress in the efforts of an Australian consortium to win a contract for thermal power generation in Turkey? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am very pleased to be able to advise the Parliament that the Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Turgut Ozal, announced yesterday that a consortium led by the Australian company Seapac Control Services Pty Ltd has been selected to build the first of five planned foreign built thermal power plants in Turkey. This is the first project of its kind to be won by Australia. The project, which is to construct and operate a $1.2 billion, 1,400 megawatt coal fired power station and deep water port, will be located between Botas and Yumurtalik on the northern coast of Iskenderun Bay. Of the final five contenders, the Seapac proposal was judged to be the most competitively priced and was evaluated the best technical and commercial proposal. The success of the Seapac proposal guarantees Australian coal exports of 3.9 million tonnes per annum with the possibility of further potential exports of up to 10 million tonnes through the use of port and entrepot facilities. There will also be a significant Australian manufactured content as well as provision of services involved in the project. Finally, while the Queensland Government has shown its support for the project by its equity participation in the consortium, it is, I think, fair to emphasise the role that the Australian Government, through the Prime Minister, other relevant Ministers and the Ambassador in Ankara, has played consistently in lending support to the Seapac consortium in this proposal. Senator BOSWELL —Is the Minister for the Environment and the Arts aware that high ranking Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation officers have been instructed by the Chairman of the CSIRO, Mr Neville Wran, not to make any public statements or release any scientific information that supports the view that commercial logging operations in north Queensland rainforests are sustainable and do not significantly damage the environment? Can the Minister assure the Senate that neither he nor any of his officers requested Mr Wran or any other CSIRO officer to issue the instruction to repress scientific views of the CSIRO? Senator RICHARDSON —I thank the honourable senator for his question. I am aware of a number of things about the wet tropics. Senator Boswell —Just answer the question. That is all we want. The PRESIDENT —Order, Senator Boswell! Senator RICHARDSON —Mr President, as I was saying before being rudely interrupted, I am aware of a number of things about the wet tropics and north Queensland rainforests. I am not aware, however, of any instruction by the Chairman of the CSIRO to any of its officers so I am not quite certain of the details of the matter Senator Boswell raises, although if he will provide me with the details I will certainly check them out and answer his question more properly at a later time. However, as you would appreciate, Mr President, the Prime Minister has made it clear that Ministers should not speak on other portfolio matters. Given that the CSIRO is not within my portfolio, I would be happy to answer the question after I have been provided with details. Senator COOK —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer and follows on from a question which I think was asked by Senator Stone yesterday and the sham or shadow Budget put down last night by Mr Howard. Is the Minister aware that Mr Howard and other Opposition spokespeople have accused the Government of complacency in responding to Australia's current account deficit problem? Can the Minister give an assurance that these criticisms are unfounded and explain the Government's policy position in this area? Senator WALSH —I am broadly aware of the remarkable statements that were made by Mr Howard last night. The most relevant facts are these: In 1985-86, as a consequence of the collapse in the prices of Australian export commodities, the current account deficit moved up to 6 per cent of gross domestic product. In 1986-87, as a result of the effects of the devaluation and the success of the Government's economic policies, the current account deficit fell to 5.1 per cent of gross domestic product. We expect it to fall to 4 per cent in this financial year. Four per cent, of course, is still too high a figure for any sensible person to be completely satisfied with, but we expect it to fall further in the following year. There is no complacency on the part of the Government in regard to the current account deficit problem. That is in marked contrast to the position which Mr Howard took when he was Treasurer. In 1981-82, Australia recorded a current account deficit-on the basis of the then available gross domestic product statistics, that is, those available early in the 1982-83 financial year-of 6 1/4 per cent of gross domestic product, well above the figure forecast in the August 1981 Budget which, incidentally, was slightly greater than 4 1/4 per cent of gross domestic product. That slightly greater figure, 12 months later, had grown to become 50 per cent greater. Was the then Treasurer or, so far as we can tell from the public record, the then Treasury Secretary, galvanised into action by that deficit, by a recorded current account deficit of 6 1/4 per cent of gross domestic product? Not a bit of it. The 1982 Budget Statement No. 2 forecast a 1982-83 current account deficit `broadly similar' to the 1981-82 figure and expressed absolutely no concern about it. In other words, at the time that forecast was made the best available evidence showed that the deficit for the previous year had been 6 1/4 per cent-the highest on record-and that it would be broadly similar in the following year. That, according to the judgment of the Public Service officer and the Treasurer most responsible at that time, was nothing to be worried about at all. Mr Howard's 1982 Budget Speech stated: After taking account of some increase in the invisibles deficit, the current account deficit may be broadly similar to that in 1981-82. That is, 6 1/4 per cent, from the best information that was available at the time. I should also quote from Budget Statement No. 2 because it is generally regarded-I do not know whether it is entirely correct to regard it as such-as expressing the view of the Treasury rather than the Treasurer or the government of the day. Senator Stone —No longer. Senator WALSH —Senator Stone would certainly know something about 1981 and 1982. If the quotation does not express his view he can let us know at some time. Budget Statement No. 2 said: . . . the outlook for exports and imports of goods and services and a likely increase in the net invisibles deficit, including strong growth in interest payments abroad, would suggest a current account deficit in 1982-83 broadly similar to that in 1981-82. So the Treasurer's Budget Speech and Budget Statement No. 2 both forecast a deficit broadly similar to that which had been recorded in the previous year, which was the highest current account deficit since records have been kept, if not forever. They expected it to flow on to the next financial year and expressed absolutely no alarm about it. It has been said from time to time that there was less reason to be concerned about the current account deficit in the early 1980s because the deficit at that time was driven by the import of capital equipment associated with the resources boom, which in the end never happened, which would earn the foreign exchange which would comfortably service the overseas debt obligations which were being incurred and so on. The catch is that it is not true. For the years 1980-81 and 1981-82 the capital goods imports accounted for 24.6 per cent of total imports. The average for 1985-86 and 1986-87 was 25.3 per cent. In other words, the ratio of capital goods imports to total imports in the last two years was higher than it was in the early 1980s. Senator TEAGUE —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Education and Training. It concerns the Government's intention to provide grants for only 3,500 to 4,000 additional higher education places for school leavers next year and to reduce the intake of part time and mature age students. How exactly will the balance of the announced 5,800 new places be financed? Will there not be an overall reduction in the number of higher education students in Australia, that is, an overall decrease in participation? Given that a part time mature age student incurs fewer costs than a full time student-even a school leaver-precisely how many mature age and part time student places does the Government expect will be lost in higher education institutions next year as a result of the Budget measure? Exactly what process will apply to determine how many part time and mature age places will be lost at each university, college and institute of technology? Finally, does the Minister agree that the Budget measures relating to new student enrolments create an even greater burden of Commonwealth Government interference in the way universities and colleges conduct their affairs? Senator RYAN —I certainly do not agree with the last part of Senator Teague's very longwinded question, but I will provide him with the information I have available to me about those parts of his question that go to the growth in participation in higher education which will come about as a result of the Budget decisions. I emphasise that we are continuing our record of growth in higher education. Any suggestion, such as was contained in Senator Teague's question, that there will be a natural reduction in intake is quite wrong. The total number of higher education places in 1988 will be around 310,600, which is a record number. The total increase in Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission (CTEC) funded places between 1983 and 1988 will be around 38,700. In addition, by 1988 a further 15,500 places will be funded from other sources. An additional 5,800 higher education intakes will be made available for young school leavers in 1988. Of those intakes, 3,500 to 4,000 will be funded by the Government, and CTEC will advise on means by which the further 2,000 intakes of school leavers can be achieved. The remaining places may be found by institutions readjusting the composition of intakes further in favour of young school leavers. This may mean more mature age entrants taking up part time and external places. Emphasis in allocating new places will be on courses relevant to economic requirements, including 650 new places to computer science, electronics, engineering and other information industries disciplines. Of these, 200 places will be devoted to pilot information technology courses being developed with industry. The remainder of the places will be concentrated in science, technology, design, economics and commerce. I add-and perhaps Senator Teague will be interested in this-that 200 of the new intakes will further increase the participation of Aboriginals. I think those figures demonstrate continued growth and expansion in higher education places, which has been characteristic of our Government since it was first elected. There will be a continuing and, indeed, increased emphasis on growth in areas relevant to economic needs and, of course, in my reference to the increased Aboriginal places, an ongoing concern for equity and participation in access to higher education places. Senator TEAGUE —I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. Further to the Minister's answer, to what precisely does she refer when she says that some of the places will be funded from other sources? By admitting that the 2,000 places that are in discrepancies are being referred to CTEC to advise on how they will be funded, can she say what the guidelines are for CTEC and when that knowledge or report will be received by the Government? Senator RYAN —The Minister for Employment, Education and Training, Mr Dawkins, will be making a full statement on the Government's intentions for higher education. The question asked by Senator Teague was about a further reference to CTEC for places to be funded by other than Commonwealth sources, which could include places funded by the private sector. I have referred to the 200 pilot places in information technology courses which are being funded by the private sector, including IBM Australia Ltd. I think there are other companies involved but I am familiar particularly with IBM's involvement. There is a capacity for the private sector to move in here and assist the universities and colleges to develop new courses. I expect that when Mr Dawkins sets out his statement he will explain this process in detail. Senator BURNS —I direct my question to the Minister for Local Government. Given my understanding of the role played by local government and its need to attract every dollar and make those dollars go further, has the Minister's attention been drawn to the recent statement by the Queensland Premier to the annual conference of the Queensland Local Government Association that the Queensland Government will no longer activate the Local Government Grants Commission? What effect would the Queensland Government's refusal to use the Grants Commission have on the 134 Queensland local government authorities? Senator REYNOLDS —Senator Burns raises a very concerning matter. I am aware that the Premier has threatened the future of the Queensland Local Government Grants Commission. This is extremely concerning not just for me as the Minister responsible for local government funding, but also for local government throughout Queensland. Should the Queensland Premier pursue his threats-and I believe that the Queensland Premier is only grandstanding in his usual style-the effect on local government authorities in Queensland would be absolutely disastrous. The Commonwealth Act under which general purpose financial assistance to local government is provided requires that, before a State is entitled to a payment under the Act, it must have a local government grants commission. Each State must have a local government grants commission or it cannot receive funding to pass on to local government. Therefore, were Queensland to refuse to activate its Grants Commission, it would not be able to receive its entitlement under the Act. In other words local government authorities in Queensland would no longer receive these grants. Given that this year the amount is in the order of $106m, that would be an absolute disaster for Queensland local government. I notice that, unfortunately, rather than taking a more conciliatory role, the Deputy Premier, Mr Gunn, has also made a similar threat. In a report in the Daily Sun on the 15th of this month, he foreshadowed the demise of the Grants Commission. Again, I call on both the Premier of Queensland and the Deputy Premier to adopt a less confrontationist role with the Commonwealth Government and start to talk about the way in which funding principles should be established for next year so that we do not have the kinds of arrangements and hostility that we have had this year. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Deputy Leader of the Government in this place in his ministerial capacity and follows earlier questioning on the Amann matter. I ask the Minister about a response which was given by Mr Duncan in the House of Representatives a little while ago to a question which followed Mr Duncan having advised the House that he had relied on an oral briefing which he had received from his colleague Senator Evans. He was asked whether he was then saying that the sole basis of his answer yesterday was not, in fact, documents but an oral briefing from Senator Evans; if in fact he was relying on documents in the answer that he gave yesterday, whether he could now tell the House whether the document, or those documents, was one of those referred to in the documents tabled in the House this morning; and, if not, whether there was any other document on which he was relying in giving his answer. Mr Duncan replied: The reference yesterday to documents referred to documents which were part of the tender process, not the latter documents which were tabled in the House this morning. I ask: Are there, in fact, any minutes from the police relating not to what has already been tabled but to the tendering process which would explain Mr Duncan's answer? If there is such a document, will the Minister please table it? If there is not, will he seek clarification from his colleague as to what was intended? Senator GARETH EVANS —It may be that I will need to seek some clarification because I am not willing to rely on Senator Chaney's account of what transpired in the other place, nor on summary notes and things that have been passed to me. Obviously, it depends on what Mr Duncan actually said and obviously I will find out what he did say precisely in due course. The situation so far as documents are concerned is that all relevant documents in my Department or those that were involved in the tendering process or in any subsequent police activity after that tendering process-certainly all the ones that I am aware of-were referred to in the statement that I made this morning or were attached to that statement, as the case may be. There are no other documents that I am aware of that bear upon this particular question. My discussions with my colleague about this matter were very brief over the course of the last six weeks-understandably so, since we were both extremely preoccupied with our respective areas of responsibility in our new portfolio-and it was only simply a matter from time to time of keeping up to date with developments on matters of current moment. My recollection, like that of my colleague, is that we really discussed the security dimensions of this, I think, probably on only one occasion. That was, as I recall, only some two weeks ago, around the time-maybe just before or just after-I was in physical possession of the materials supplied to me by Mr Beale. In this place, in this job, two weeks sometimes feels like two months, so I cannot be very precise about the dates in question. As I recall it, there was only one such conversation that bore upon the security matters. My own recollection of that conversation is saying that there was some police material that had been brought to my attention or was in the process of being brought to my attention-I am not sure which. I recall saying to him something like, `I don't think there is anything in it, but I haven't had time to go through that material yet'. It is clearly that particular conversation that has stuck in Mr Duncan's memory and was the basis of his response yesterday, rather than sighting by him of any material that could possibly bear upon this particular question. A mistake was made yesterday. But, as the Prime Minister has described it, it was a completely honest mistake and a perfectly understandable one in the circumstances. The documents that were tabled this morning and the statement that was made this morning are a full and comprehensive account of this particular matter. I have offered to the Opposition the opportunity to be briefed by the senior police officers concerned. As I walked in for Question Time I asked whether any communication had been made by anyone in the Opposition to take up that particular offer. The answer was in the negative. If the Opposition were to pursue this matter any further in the absence of taking advantage of that offer, I would only describe their actions as being carried out in the utmost bad faith. Senator CHANEY —I ask a supplementary question. To avoid any further misunderstandings or mistakes, can the Minister clarify which of the answers he has just given is the one he intended? He has said twice that there is no further minute from the police relating to the tender process, and he has said on the other hand that there is no minute of which he is aware. Which of those versions is the answer that he wishes us to regard as the answer we should rely on? Is there no minute, or is he saying that as far as he knows there is no minute but that he will check again and find out? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am endowed with some metaphysical properties, I suppose-we all are-but one of them is not a capacity to testify confidently about matters of which I am not aware. The most I can say is that I was speaking yesterday and today-and will again in the future-on the basis of all the information which is available to me about documents which exist and which either have been previously brought to the attention of me or my Department or remain in departmental files. There are some documents that do undoubtedly exist in police files, I suppose-reports of earlier investigations which were the subject of oral reports and which are not in departmental files. There is no doubt some material of that kind. But the documents of which I am speaking are those of which I am aware. I believe my understanding of the situation is complete in this respect on the basis of the very detailed discussions that have been held between my senior officer Mr Beale-he is no relation, and he certainly would not claim to be one, to the Opposition's Mr Beale-and the senior police officers concerned. So I am not going on a hunt for documents which are reminiscent of the mythical snark. I do not believe they exist. Assent to the following Bills reported: Ministers of State Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1987 Administrative Arrangements Bill 1987 Senator ROBERT RAY —Honourable senators will recall that yesterday I provided answers to Senator McLean's question concerning the offer of married quarters in the Moorebank- Holsworthy area to members working in Penrith. The Minister for Defence Science and Personnel (Mrs Kelly) has provided the following answer to Senator McLean's supplementary question. A member who refuses the offer of a married quarter may be denied rental assistance if the married quarter offered is suitable in terms of his entitlement and family composition and is located within 30 kilometres of his place of work by public road or 150 minutes travelling time, return journey, door to door, by public transport, whichever is the greater. In the case of members working in Penrith, the distance from Moorebank exceeds these criteria. Accordingly, members have not been obliged to accept married quarters in Moorebank and have been free to choose private rental accommodation and receive rental assistance. There is no evidence to indicate that members serving in Moorebank are not being offered married quarters in Moorebank. As at today there are only six members whose place of work is Penrith and who are occupying married quarters in Moorebank. All have done so on a voluntary basis. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business) —I table the explanatory notes of certain departments and authorities relating to the estimates of proposed expenditure for 1987-88. Arrangements have been made to make copies of these explanatory notes available to honourable senators. Debate resumed. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia)(3.05) —Before the luncheon suspension of the sitting I was making the point that the Opposition and the Australian Democrats in effect claim that the forthcoming joint sitting of the Commonwealth Parliament following the double dissolution is somehow a government sleight of hand, a conjurer's trick. The Liberals and the Nationals already have a track record of constitutional vandalism in Australia, and it now appears that the Democrats are heading down that particular path. That is most regrettable. The logic of the present situation is clear: the 11 July election was called because the Senate, this chamber, refused to pass the Australia Card legislation. Honourable senators opposite are trying to create the fiction that the election was not fought on the issue of the Australia Card, that it was not mentioned in the election campaign. I simply invite members of the Opposition and the Australian Democrats to read page 3026 of Hansard for 27 May when it was made very clear by the Leader of the Government in this place, Senator Button, that the Australia Card was the reason that the double dissolution had been called requiring the people to go to the polls on 11 July. It is a fiction, therefore, for honourable senators opposite to claim that the Australia Card was not raised in the context of the election, because in the Hansard record of the proceedings both of this place and of the other place it is very clear indeed that the Australia Card was at the centre of the issues leading to the 1987 general election. The Government fought the election on the Australia Card as well as on other issues such as taxation and the state of the economy. Of course, it is now a matter of historical record that we won government, and won handsomely. The conclusion is obvious: the Government has a mandate to proceed to a joint sitting of Parliament to resolve the deadlock over the Australia Card. It is a matter of great regret to me that the opposition to this measure-comprising Liberal, National and Australian Democrat members-will not accept the umpire's decision. It is as clear as that: they went to the election, they lost, and they will not accept the umpire's decision on the Australia Card. On 11 July the Australian people had their opportunity to decide the future of the Australia Card and of the Government of Australia. The Australian people made their decision. They re-elected the Hawke Government for a third successive term. In doing so the Australian people gave the Government a green light to proceed with the Australia Card. My awareness of proposals to introduce an identity card goes back several years; in fact, to conventions and annual conferences of the Australian Labor Party in South Australia. It is there, I believe, that the origins of the Australia Card can in fact be found. I well recall a motion moved by delegates from the Kilburn sub-branch-which is situated in a working class district in the northern suburbs of Adelaide-earlier this decade calling for some sort of identification system. Those working class people, those employed members of the community, well understood that tax evasion and avoidance was rampant and rife in the Australian community and they saw a need to do something about it. So, with the very good sense of the working class of this country, they proceeded to the State conference of the Labor Party and proposed that we adopt an identification system to clamp down on tax cheating and welfare cheating in Australia. That is what the Australia Card is directed at-tax evasion and welfare fraud-because the use of false identities is a major contributor to tax evasion. False identities and the misstatement of personal financial circumstances are also a major factor behind social welfare fraud. I believe the Australia Card will provide a unique identifier of the highest integrity for each individual. The card will help combat tax evasion and welfare fraud by determining eligibility for social security benefits and for a wide range of financial transactions. It will also enable the Australian Taxation Office to draw together financial information about individuals to ensure that correct taxation assessments occur. The card will also prevent people from double dipping, as it is called, from the Department of Social Security and obtaining benefits under false identities or where their financial circumstances should preclude them from doing so. The Australia Card will contain a person's name, signature, special identification number, the period of the card's validity and a photograph. All Australian citizens will be eligible to register for the card. I must stress that it will not be compulsory to carry the card. The legislation is very clear on that. Nor will it be used as a means of general identification or as an internal passport. During the last session of Parliament I heard Senator Peter Baume, one of the more liberal of the Opposition senators, claiming that this identification system would result in it being an internal passport. I was most disappointed to hear somebody of the calibre of Senator Baume making such outrageous claims in the Senate. After hearing that I took the opportunity to telephone the Australian Federal Police to find out just how many Australian Federal Police officers there are in South Australia, because the legislation makes it very clear that the only police authorities who will be able to examine breaches of the card will be the Federal Police. I found out that in the whole of South Australia, which has a population approaching 1,400,000, we have a total Federal Police establishment of 99 men and women to check breaches of the card. It can hardly be argued that it will be an internal passport. Even though the legislation makes it very clear that it will not be, honourable senators opposite still go around the country claiming that it will be. But I repeat that in my State there are only 99 Federal policemen who can actually ask to see the card. The Australia Card Register will contain only personal identifying data, such as a person's name, residential address and postal address, date of birth, sex, a digitised photo and a signature and, of course, verifying information used to establish identity. Contrary to the claims made opposite, the Register will not be a comprehensive central database and will not contain information about a person's marital status, family composition, religion, employment, political affiliation, medical history or banking and taxation records. The information contained on the Register will be confined to basic identification data already existing-I repeat, `data already existing'-for the legitimate purpose of Government departments in this country. Much of this existing data we have found from research contains duplications and inaccuracies which will be resolved by the Australia Card. That is one of the things that those opposite do not mention, that the current information which is available in many cases is very inaccurate. We know this from samples that have been taken. This initiative will enable a clearing up of that inaccurate information. There will be strictly limited access to the information in the Australia Card Register. Only officials from the Australian Taxation Office, the Department of Social Security and the Health Insurance Commission will have access to the Register for tax linkage purposes and, of course, for establishing identification for welfare payment purposes. Access to the information on the Register will need to be specifically authorised and the authorisation approved by the Data Protection Agency. That Agency is a new watchdog body that we are establishing under the legislation to protect the rights of privacy of individuals by controlling the collection and use of personal data for the Australia Card. The Government believes that by making the production of the Australia Card mandatory for a number of specific uses, it will be possible to achieve substantial revenue gains, reductions in tax evasion and greater equity and fairness between members of the community in contributing towards the costs of providing government services and in the distribution of government welfare assistance. It will also provide a convenient high level integrity means of identification without adversely affecting honest individuals. The legislation also sets out the specific uses to which the card may be put, including the opening of an account with a bank or a building society, the purchase of stocks and shares and so on. Those uses are specifically listed in the legislation and the production of the card is mandatory only for those uses. It will not be compulsory for any other use. In fact, it will be an offence for the card to be requested by private sector bodies, by State government and local government bodies and by State law enforcement agencies. I emphasise the point I made earlier, that in my State only 99 Federal Police officers will be able to request to see the card while between 3,000 and 4,000 State police men and women will not be able to request to see it. I think that really does nail the lie about compulsory carriage and about the card being used as an internal passport. I believe that major benefits will be obtained from the Australia Card. There will be increased taxation revenue arising from a reduced incidence of tax evasion. The Government's estimates are that the card will cost some $55m a year to operate-that is on the costings done in the last parliamentary session-but will provide total savings of some $900m a year. The savings far exceed the costs, on the estimates, and between $3 and $4 will be recouped for every one dollar spent setting up the system. There are a number of safeguards in the legislation and associated with it. The legislation includes measures to protect the rights of privacy of individuals and to prevent abuses of the card. It specifies all the permitted uses of the card-the number and the Australia Card Register-and all unauthorised uses which are specifically prohibited. As I have pointed out before, the Australia Card legislation establishes the Data Protection Agency. So there are a number of protections and safeguards included in the legislation. Honest and hardworking Australians-the great majority of our community-know that they have absolutely nothing to fear from the implementation of the Australia Card system. Honest and hardworking Australians are sick and tired of paying through the nose to subsidise tax evaders and welfare cheats. They want action to stamp out tax evasion and welfare fraud. By voting against the Australia Card proposal, the coalition parties and the Australian Democrats are delaying the Government in acting against tax evaders and welfare cheats. They are prepared to allow the tax system and the social security system to be ripped off to the tune of $1,000m every year. The Liberals and the Nationals are trying to eke out every ounce of political milage from the Australia Card issue. For the sake of short term political gain they are prepared to let honest and hard working Australians subsidise the criminal activities of tax evaders and welfare cheats. Earlier comments made by Opposition members in support of the Australia Card concept exposed the Opposition's manifest hypocrisy on this issue. Mr Ray Braithwaite, a member of the National Party of Australia in the Federal Parliament and the then shadow Minister for Social Security, was quoted in the Brisbane Courier Mail on 16 May 1985, as follows: What we need in Australia to effectively fight all forms of abuse is a proper identification of each Australian with a number, photograph and even a fingerprint. Even a fingerprint! Mr Ray Braithwaite was calling for an identification system involving the use of a fingerprint. Mr Ralph Hunt, the then Deputy Leader of the National Party, in a Press release dated 5 June 1985, stated: The use of plastic cards for an effective means of identification would streamline the collection of tax revenue, imposing a greater accountability on that small minority of taxpayers who sought to evade their responsibilities to the community. Further, Mr Charles Blunt, another member of the National Party and currently a frontbencher, in a media release dated 8 June 1985, said: The introduction of a national identification system using identification cards, offered benefits to the Australian people which outweighed any civil liberties considerations. He went on to say: With the Government's White Paper on tax reform recommending the introduction of identification cards, there is now broad bi-partisan support for this measure. It should therefore be implemented. Mr Acting Deputy President, when I last spoke in this chamber on this subject I referred to a colleague of yours, Mr Trevor Griffin. Mr Trevor Griffin, who is the Liberal shadow Attorney-General in South Australia, was quoted on 13 November last in the Adelaide Advertiser as saying that ID cards with a photograph should be introduced as a means of preventing under-age drinking. The attitude of the South Australian branch of the Liberal Party was that identification cards should be introduced to stop young people consuming alcohol. On the other hand, the Liberal Party does not want to see an identification card system introduced to crack down on tax cheating and welfare cheating. Of course, Mr Trevor Griffin is a very close and intimate political colleague of Senator Messner and Senator Vanstone in this place. Once again the Australian Democrats are threatening to vote against legislation aimed at stamping out tax evasion in this country. They are threatening to do that at a time when they go around Australia calling on the Government to increase expenditure or calling for proposals which will diminish the Government's revenue. I well remember that in 1983 three members of the Australian Democrats, including Senator Macklin and Senator Haines, who are still members of this chamber, voted to block the Hawke Government's bottom of the harbour tax evasion legislation. I remember that well because the sum of money involved was stupendous. It was not $5m or $57m. Those honourable senators voted to block legislation which was designed to recoup $570m from tax cheats in this country. That figure pales into insignificance compared with the $1,000m a year that will be lost if the Australia Card legislation is blocked in the Senate. One can come to the conclusion that, as a result of the revenue involved, those Democrat senators are very expensive and very costly members of this place. They are a very high price for the majority of Australia's taxpayers to pay. The Democrats claim that the Government did not make the Australia Card an issue during the election campaign. They have been saying ever since 12 July that we did not make it an issue. How does Senator Haines explain the fact that the very first Labor Party advertisement in the national Press was in fact on the Australia Card issue? The very first election advertisement that we inserted during the campaign was on the Australia Card issue. How does Senator Haines explain to the Australian people the fact that the Democrats are making more noise about the Australia Card after the election than during the campaign itself? When the Democrats got the double dissolution that they desperately wanted, any Democrat noise about the Australia Card was far outweighed by the sound of the popping of champagne corks in Senator Haines's office. That is the reality. There was absolutely no suggestion from the Democrats during the second debate on the Australia Card in April this year that there should be another Senate inquiry into the Australia Card. That is a fact. In April this year there was absolutely no suggestion that there should be another inquiry into the Australia Card. The Democrats leapt at the opportunity for a double dissolution to save their own political skins. They knew that the double dissolution would result in a reduction in the electoral quotas from 14.3 to 7.7 per cent of the vote. They knew that a double dissolution offered a real chance for them to get back into business. That is what they were mainly interested in. That is why they consumed champagne when the Leader of the Government in this place, Senator Button, pointed out that an election was going to be fought as a result of the Australia Card being blocked in this place. The Australia Card clearly was the issue which triggered the July election. As a result of that election, Labor received a clear majority of the two-party preferred vote throughout Australia. The Democrats are simply thumbing their noses at the Australian Constitution and the Australian people. Some people go around the place saying that what we need is a tax file number system. If the community is serious about stamping out tax evasion and welfare fraud, the Australia Card must be implemented. There are no practical alternatives which offer the same level of integrity or cost efficiency. The tax file number alternative has been rejected on the following grounds: it is a low integrity system which opens up the potential for impersonation and it would entrench long standing false identifies because, regrettably, it appears that there are many false identities within the tax file system in Australia. They are some of the disadvantages of the alternative proposals being put forward by Opposition and Democrat spokespersons in this place. Tax evasion has reached such levels in Australia as to pose severe financial constraints on Government spending programs. Even without Liberal, National and Democrat calls for more spending by government or more cuts in government revenues, we have now reached a situation where, as a result of tax evasion, we face very severe financial constraints. We cannot tolerate a situation where the Government is losing billions of dollars every year through tax evasion. Unfortunately, tax evasion has become entrenched in the psyche of significant sections of the Australian community. It is clear that tax evaders will not be deterred by exhortation alone. Practical measures such as the Australia Card are essential if all Australians are to pay their fair share of tax. The Government has a mandate to proceed with the Australia Card. The 11 July election was called by the Government because of the Senate's refusal to pass the card legislation. I repeat that the Hawke Government went to the people on the issue of the Australia Card. That was made clear here and in the House of Representatives on 27 May. The electorate responded by voting for the Hawke Government and it gave it a majority of the two-party preferred vote. Parliamentary democracy has always relied on an element of voluntary compliance with accepted conventions-that is the reality-the most important of those conventions being that the people's representatives should abide by the wishes of the electorate at the ballot box. Opposition and Democrat senators should pause to reflect on this before they dig around the foundations of democracy in this country. There are bigger threats to personal rights and liberties from digging at the foundations of democracy than from the present subject of their bleatings-the Australia Card. Senator McLEAN(New South Wales)(3.28) —I agree with those who suggested earlier in the day that we are discussing probably one of the most profound issues to come before an Australian parliament since Federation. My feelings about this issue have changed quite significantly in the last few months as, obviously, have those of the Australian community at large. Only three or four months ago during the process of pre-selection within my own Party I was posed the question, `What is your attitude towards the Australia Card?' In the rounds my reaction at that time was that it was much ado about nothing. Because I had in fact carried an ID card for most of my life and I had a whole series of numbers, for a while I saw this issue as being of limited significance. However, somebody said to me that surely, by that logic, I would have no objections to somebody tapping my telephone or opening my mail. All of a sudden I started to think more seriously about the significance of what was being proposed. It was put to me, and it came home to me, that this issue is about the most fundamental plank of freedom, privacy. One cannot compromise privacy. There are not many issues in life which are black and white, but privacy is one of them, and that is fundamental to this proposal for an Australia Card. In this debate it is important for us to distinguish between the card-an inoffensive thing that we carry in our pockets and which is an instrument of convenience for many of us and for systems at large-and the register as such, the database, the dimension of this whole process which is beginning to attract particular attention. Theoretically, we have been subjected to the facts in previous presentations here today. We are supposed to have heard the facts about the costs and benefits of this issue, but I suggest that nobody knows the facts. What we are hearing is a mass of speculation. It may prove to be as inaccurate as the projections of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) on revenue from the fringe benefits tax. He was 900 per cent wrong in that respect. It may well be that he is 900 per cent wrong on the negative side of the equation in the supposed facts that we have before us on the Australia Card. We do not have any facts; we have a whole mass of projections and speculation. I believe that there is a great deal of room in this debate for feeling. For some reason or other we in this country believe that we have to be objective about everything, yet many of the things we do in life are quite subjective. Most of us choose our life partners, our friends, our associates by subjective criteria. What we feel in our guts and in our hearts is significant to us. I project that the Australian population does not believe there are any facts because they heard about temporary income tax in 1940; they heard about the fact that TAB offices were to be highly protected places, but now find them in community recreation centres. They have no confidence in governments to protect them, so they are now reacting with their gut and heart. We are told that this issue is about recouping dollars and cents. It almost made me ill to see the Treasurer responding to questions at the National Press Club the other evening and quantifying the dimensions of this proposal in terms of recouped dollars and cents, without a single reference to the fundamental issues of privacy, liberty and freedom. This is all about choice. The fundamental question posed here is: do we wish to be pushed, ever so coaxingly, across a significant line? It is the line between an essentially libertarian society and an essentially authoritarian society. The Bill mentions `the Authority' and `the authorities' over and over again. It is a document about authoritarianism. If we proceed with this legislation what we will be doing quite deliberately, at the suggestion of this Government, is passing across that significant line between an essentially free, libertarian society and one which will become increasingly authoritarian. The fundamental issue here is one of gut and heart. It is about liberty, choice and having all the facts. It is about being able to weigh and deliberate over those facts. It is about being able to decide whether we want to be fundamentally a libertarian or an authoritarian society. Probably we come back to the question whether the Australian people should be consulted, whether the Australian people should be fully informed. I am thankful that they are becoming fully informed. By the processes that we are ensuring in this chamber every day they are becoming increasingly informed. I do not know whether honourable senators are aware of the fact that just a few hours ago 5,000 people turned out at a public rally in Adelaide on this issue. I attended and spoke to a public rally in Hobart several weeks ago, the biggest rally held in Tasmania since the Franklin Dam issue. Fundamental to this whole process is the distinction between the issue of the card and the issue of the databank. I wish to pose four fundamental objections to the propositions inherent in this Bill. My first objection is that it would seem to me that the whole proposition of having an Australia Card is totally unnecessary. Let me deal with the question of first basic proof. Presumably, if we proceed with this farce, eventually the vast majority of Australians will be called upon to make the first fundamental proof of identity to someone somehow. It seems to me logical that if we are able to do that and if we accept the proposition, which has been advanced time and again from the Government in this place and in public forums, that the requirement to use this card to prove identity will be very rare and will occur on very few occasions and if there is in existence an instrument that is sufficiently reliable to prove initially our identity, that that same instrument should suffice on these relatively few occasions that we are told we will be called upon. In other words, there is a first fundamental logical flaw in the argument. We are told and we read over and over again in reports by the Auditor-General-and we have been reading this for 20 years-that there is a tax and welfare rip-off. We have even been told the solutions to these problems. We have even been told that the legislation has to be strengthened and we have been told the potential returns from strengthening it. Therefore, we are not being told anything new. We all surely agree that the tax rorts and welfare rip-offs have to be stopped. The answer obviously lies in strengthening the legislation which is directly relevant to the area of fraud or abuse. My first point is that the whole exercise is totally and utterly unnecessary, and it is known to be unnecessary by those who are proposing it. The second point is that essentially it is a dangerous proposition. I have already hinted that it will translate us from where we are now to a different social situation. Australians, once they understand the implications, are now saying that it is totally unacceptable. It is dangerous because it will render us an authoritarian society. Do Australians really want to take their place with societies such as South Africa, Chile or the majority in the Eastern European bloc? Is there any need for us to go there? I do not believe there is. It is an un-Australian place to go. It is dangerous because it asks us to invert the basic fundamental assumption of our society. We can assume and have assumed in Australian society for a long time that the vast majority of people are honest. This fundamental proposition contained in the Bill will invert that proposition and lead one to assume that the vast majority of Australians are dishonest. For 50 years I have been able to put out my hand and say `G'day, I'm Paul McLean'. The majority of people have accepted and believed me. Why should I be asked today, immediately from now, all of a sudden to prove it? I do not believe that that is necessary. I believe that it is offensive, and I believe that is what fundamentally the vast majority of Australians find offensive and dangerous about this proposition-its authoritarian dimension. My third objection hinges on the question of honesty versus dishonesty. Senator Maguire has just assured us that the double dissolution was fundamentally a process of honesty, that the Australian population knew what it was all about, and that they are informed about double dissolutions and joint sittings. I do not believe it. We can only speculate on the arguments that the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) must have advanced to the Governor-General at the time the Governor-General approved a double dissolution of both Houses of the national Parliament. It would have been essential that the Prime Minister would have said: `Sir, this is a matter of the most profound national importance. This proposition for an ID card is fundamental to my Government proceeding. In fact, it is one of the most fundamental and profound issues ever to face the nation'. He must have marshalled the arguments very convincingly, because he was back very quickly. I was here as a visitor to the chamber that day and heard simultaneously the announcement that our Parliament had been dissolved prematurely, unnecessarily, farcically and that he had to go to the people on this proposition of the Australia Card, on the issue of freedom and choice. But we did not hear a word about it. Presumably the same arguments that were put to the Governor-General for a double dissolution were not advanced out of any sense of honesty or honour by the Prime Minister or, for that matter, by any of those who were representing him in the campaign process. They were not advanced to the Australian people. Not once did the Prime Minister refer to this in his fundamental primary statement to the nation. Not once do I recall him actually initiating reference to it, but only responding to questions. In fact, the Australian people were deceived about the real issue of that election. I believe that the whole process of arriving at that double dissolution was the greatest confidence trick that Australians have ever been subjected to. And, by heavens, there have been some confidence tricks in our history! But this was the greatest. Let me turn to a second dimension of dishonesty. I believe that the Bill is inherently dishonest. If we read it and really understand it-it is difficult to understand and there is no way in which the Australian people could understand it without its being explained by concerned Australian citizens-we find that the Bill suggests that Australians really have a choice as to whether they become card carriers. The expression used is that the Australian people will be `invited to apply for an identification card'. What a delightful phrase to use! They will be `invited to apply' for a card. When one looks at this farce, this pretence of choice, one finds the implications of exercising what appears to be one of two choices. Let us imagine that somebody courteously refuses this invitation to apply for an ID card and chooses to become a non-card carrier in our free society. Such people will live with horrendous implications. Their right to work, to property and to their own assets which have been accumulated by hard work, and a whole series of fundamental rights, will in fact be denied them. The Bill is even more dishonest than that. It does not direct abuse at those people specifically. There is no obligation to apply for this card; the penalty is directed at that person's bank manager, employer or someone else who is absolutely vital to his or her commercial and other life processes. If an employer does not ask a person to produce the card or is not satisfied that that person can produce it that employer faces a $20,000 fine. If a bank manager does not ask for the card or does not freeze a non-cardholder's assets, he faces a $20,000 fine. We are told that under this Bill we have a choice, but there is no choice there. This is the most offensive proposition that has ever been put before the Australian people. I wish to explore the possibility of those on this side of the chamber, who oppose this Bill, actually not becoming card carriers. Do honourable senators know who is supposed to be fined $20,000 in this case? Do they know who is supposed to ask us as senators for this card? Our employer. Who is our employer? The Australian people. I believe that I have been elected on the mandate of opposing this card. Yet it is implied in this Bill that the Australian people are supposed, first of all, to ask me for my card and then, if I do not produce it, they are supposed to be fined $20,000. Presumably that will apply to more than 50 per cent of senators in this chamber if present indications are true. I was formerly a schoolteacher. Had somebody put this document in front of me I would have said, `Look, you have not done your homework; take it back and rethink it. It is shallow, it is empty.' That is exactly what the Australian people should do to this piece of potential legislation. Debate interrupted. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being 3.45 p.m., pursuant to sessional order, I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 3.45 p.m.