Wednesday, 23 September 1987 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: To the Honourable the leader and members of the Senate of Australia: The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully shows that there has been clear demonstration of public dissatisfaction with the mismanagement of the Victorian Otway forests, and we pray that: The constitution of Australia be reformed to recognise significant expressions of public concern, eg. petitions, by the formation of a committee to represent public requests. by Senator Jenkins (from 38 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that: 1. The Watsonia Army Barracks contains a satellite communication dish, that sends to the United States the information, gathered by the ``joint high frequency stations'' in Australia and New Zealand, indicating the position of the Soviet naval ships and submarines. This information from Watsonia is combined with data from satellites and underwater sensors to calculate the location of the Soviet vessels with great accuracy. 2. This would make it possible for the US nuclear naval ships and submarines to destroy all nuclear Soviet naval ships and submarines, while the US nuclear submarines, naval ships and bombers launch their missiles in a ``first strike'' attack. 3. This makes Watsonia a potential nuclear target. A nuclear attack on Watsonia would have a disastrous effect on Melbourne. 4. The `joint U.S.-Australia' bases in Australia endanger rather than protect us. They also add a new menace to the nuclear arms race, that must be stopped. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should close the `joint Australian-U.S.' electronic communication facilities in the Watsonia Army Barracks. by Senator Cooney (from 280 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: That we consider the 2% discounting of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Scheme pension adjustments on 10 October 86 to be a serious breach of trust by the Government. The Commonwealth has reneged on an established commitment as incorporated in Commonwealth legislation and benefit promise pensions are not being paid in full. In particular we resent the long-term effect of the discounting. The pension loss is compounded throughout the life of a pensioner and surviving dependants-into the 21st century for many. We consider this Government-induced penalty to be out of all proportion to the short-term ``extraordinary circumstances of the economy'' given as the reason for the discounting. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should urge the Government to: 1. limit the pension discounting effect of the Superannuation and Other Benefits Legislation Amendment Act 1986 to the period 10 October 86 to 1 July 87 so that pensions are restored to the 9 October 86 level as a base for the 1987 pension adjustment; and 2. consult with organisations representing pensioners before changing the terms and conditions of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Schemes. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Michael Baume (from three citizens), Brownhill (from 27 citizens), Cooney (from 30 citizens), Gietzelt (from nine citizens) and Reynolds (from 18 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 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 with out 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 Senator Michael Baume (from 60 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that: 1. There is no legal barrier to the importation of x-rated videos in the A.C.T. or to their sale in the A.C.T. 2. The Government has ignored the repeated protests of the Senate and the people of Canberra on this situation. 3. As a result X-rated videos are being sold from Canberra to other States, although they are banned in all States. Your petitioners therefore ask the Senate to put pressure on the Government to ban the importation and sale of X-rated video material in the Australian Capital Territory. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Richardson (from 28 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. by Senator Macklin (from 177 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. by Senator Macklin (from 82 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 Senators Jenkins (from 27 citizens) and Reynolds (from 20 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 14 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 Button (from 33 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 Chaney (from 239 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 86 citizens). To the Honourable the President and Senators in Parliament Assembled: This Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: We strongly oppose the introduction of the Australia Card or any other form of national identification system. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Crowley (from 55 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 2,017 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully requests that the Australia Card legislation be rejected because the proposed system: (1) has been demonstrated to have no capacity to stop tax evasion, Social Security fraud, illegal immigration or to recoup the revenue lost through abuse of these systems as was claimed. (2) will impose a large financial impact on Australian citizens, and has been demonstrated by the Parliament's own Joint Committee to be not cost effective. (3) has been shown to have the capacity to actually aid and abet both illegal immigration and organised crime. (4) is designed to cause a great intrusion and disruption to the normal day to day activities of all citizens. (5) does not contain the very necessary barriers to invasion of privacy, and loss of personal liberties. (6) will in both the words of the Government and the HIC be enlarged to encompass far greater uses, and the compilation of much more information on the data base. And your petitioners humbly pray that in the light of the obvious and proven inability of the proposed Australia Card to achieve its stated objectives that the Government explain the reason why it is persisting in reintroducing this legislation. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator MacGibbon (from 742 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 169 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 McKiernan (from 103 citizens). To the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: 1. The proposed Australia Card will have a dramatic impact on the lives of all Australians. 2. The following citizens of Australia express their concerns at the potential violation of civil rights and democratic freedom posed by such a national identification system and urge that the Government not proceed with its planned introduction of the Australia Card. 3. Or that a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill be held before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Newman (from 1,263 citizens). To the Honourable the President and the members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: (1) That the Government's proposed Identity Card is the greatest threat to civil liberties in the history of this country; (2) That the I.D. card will be a costly and unnecessary method of attacking tax evasion and social security fraud; and (3) That the proposal will impose yet another bureaucratic burden on the business sector. Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate reject the Government's legislation to introduce the Australia Card or any other identity card system. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray by Senator Parer (from 863 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The petition of the undersigned citizens respectfully requests that the Australia Card Legislation be rejected because the proposed system: 1. has been demonstrated to have no capacity to stop tax evasion, Social Security fraud, illegal immigration or to recoup the revenue lost through abuse of these systems as was claimed. 2. will impose a large financial impact on Australian citizens, and has been demonstrated by the Parliament's own Joint Committee to be not cost effective. 3. has been shown to have the capacity to actually aid and abet both illegal immigration and organised crime. 4. is designed to cause a great intrusion and disruption to the normal day to day activities of all citizens. 5. does not contain the very necessary barriers to invasion of privacy, and loss of personal liberties. 6. will in both the words of the Government and the HIC be enlarged to encompass far greater uses, and the compilation of much more information on the data base. And your petitioners humbly pray that in the light of the obvious and proven inability of the proposed Australia Card to achieve its stated objectives that the Government explain the reason why it is persisting in reintroducing this legislation. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Parer (from 58 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 Powell (from 15 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth opposition to the introduction of any form of national identification system especially a system known as Australia Card. Your petitioners request that the Senate in Parliament assembled should oppose any legislation designed to impose such a system on the people of Australia. Your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Walters (from 500 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: (1) That we are totally opposed to the proposed introduction of the Labor Government's Identity Card. (2) That this form of national and compulsory identification will be intrusive and authoritarian, and alien to the Australian way of life. (3) That we are deeply concerned at the Labor Government's resorting to such a far-reaching and expensive measure to deal with the problems of tax evasion and social security fraud. We call upon the Government to improve management systems within the Australian Taxation Office and appropriate departments to tackle these issues. Your petitioners urge those members present to reject the identification Card proposal. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever humbly pray. by Senator Walters (from 500 citizens). To the President and Senators 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 resubmitted to Parliament. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senators Archer (from 108 citizens), Michael Baume (from 1,776 citizens), Crichton-Browne (from 169 citizens), Durack (from 18 citizens), Jones (from seven citizens), Knowles (from 150 citizens), MacGibbon (from 792 citizens), Parer (from 1,738 citizens), Powell (from 72 citizens), Puplick (from 190 citizens) and Richardson (from 36 citizens). The humble petition of certain citizens of the city of Tamworth New South Wales, respectfully showeth: a. that there is a very limited range of cultural provisions for rural areas; b. that the provision of ABC Concerts significantly enriches the options available to rural residents; c. that regional centres permit residents of wide country areas to attend concerts when they would not be able to journey to the metropolitan areas; d. that the youth of country areas have an equal right to access to visits by outstanding musicians and should not be disadvantaged; e. that significant savings could be effected without the complete elimination of the country concert program; f. complete elimination in the Bicentennial year would be a retrograde step. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Australian Broadcasting Commission be asked to continue its provision of country concert tours by leading artists. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Brownhill (from 19 citizens). Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales) —by leave-I present to the Senate the following petition, from 20 citizens, which is not in conformity with the Standing Orders as it is not in the correct form: Protest against The Australia Card Petitions received. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the following Bill be introduced: a Bill for an Act to make various amendments of the statute law of the Commonwealth, and for related purposes. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That, for the purposes of the referral of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Amendment Bill 1987 to a committee on 17 September 1987, the committee to which the Bill stands referred be the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania) —I give notice that, 15 sitting days after today, I shall move: That the word and figure `and 56 (1)', as contained in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 of the Administrative Arrangements (Consequential Amendments) Ordinance 1987, as contained in Australian Capital Territory Ordinance No. 37 of 1987 and made under the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910, be disallowed. I seek leave to make a very brief statement. Leave granted. Senator HARRADINE —This is an Australian Capital Territory ordinance and therefore the Senate has the ability to disallow part of it. The part I wish to disallow is the proposed amendment to the Classification of Publications Ordinance 1983 which would extend to the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories the power already granted to the Attorney-General to exempt any person or body from all or part of the provisions of that Ordinance. I am opposed to any Minister having such wide discretionary powers to allow any citizen or body to avoid the obligations of such important legislation, even if it is delegated legislation. I remind the Senate that, in the principal Ordinance, the word `publication' does not simply refer to books or magazines but states: ``publication'' means any book, paper, magazine, film or other written or pictorial matter that is made available, or is intended to be made available, for exhibition, display, sale, letting on hire or distribution to the public. The Ordinance, if allowed to remain, would, for example, enable either of the two Ministers to halt or overturn the classification of a film or video. The original conferring of this power on the Attorney-General must have slipped through the Senate in 1983. Had I noticed the provision on that occasion I would have sought its disallowance. I am advised that it is not possible to reach back through this disallowance motion to the principal Ordinance to remove also the reference to the Attorney-General. But at least this attempt to extend its application to a second Minister can be halted. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes the mounting conflict between the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) and the Treasurer (Mr Keating) over the appropriateness of measures taken in the 1987-88 Budget to resolve Australia's economic problems, particularly its balance of payments crisis and its worsening level of overseas debt; (b) notes Senator Walsh's criticism of the Federal Government that it has `oversold' the Budget, that it is complacent in a situation where a further fall in commodity prices could lead to the intervention of the International Monetary Fund, and that it did not have the political courage to cut 200 spending programs which could not be justified; (c) notes Senator Walsh's refusal in the Senate yesterday either to list these programs or to outline to what extent, if at all, they have been cut by the Government since he first made this kind of criticism last year; (d) notes the Treasurer's dismissal of what he described as Senator Walsh's `long run views' which he said had been rejected by the Government over 8 sessions; (e) further notes that this is in clear conflict with Senator Walsh's claim in the Senate yesterday that he had been successful to a reasonable extent in having his views accepted; and calls on Senator Walsh to reveal to the Senate the extent to which the Government has rejected his recommendations to cut the 200 programs he has targeted and to indicate to the Senate the impact such cuts would have made on the 1987-88 Budget and on Australia's economic outlook. Senator VALLENTINE(Western Australia) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes with regret the statement made by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) last weekend that he would support the increased mining of uranium; (b) condemns such a proposal at a time when nuclear weapons proliferation is still an enormous danger and in view of the fact that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty may not survive beyond the next Review conference; (c) believes that such at attempt to expand uranium mining would be electorally and politically foolhardy; and (d) calls on the Government not only to refute the Minister's statement but to revert to the original ALP policy of leaving uranium in the ground. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —Papers are tabled in accordance with the list circulated to honourable senators. With the concurrence of the Senate, I ask that that list be incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The list read as follows- 1. Phosphate Mining Corporation of Christmas Island-Financial Statements and Reports for the period 18 November 1985 to 30 June 1986. 2. Christmas Island Services Corporation-Annual Report 1985-86. Motion (by Senator Macklin) agreed to: That the following Bills be introduced: A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution so as to ensure that the Members of the Parliament of the Commonwealth and of the Parliaments of the States and of self-governing Territories are chosen directly and democratically by the People A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution in relation to the duration of the House of Representatives, the terms of service of senators, the holding of elections for the Senate and House of Representatives, and the office of Prime Minister A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution so as to vest in the electors power to propose laws and to approve or disapprove such proposed laws A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution so that the number of Senators need not necessarily be increased when there is an increase in the number of members of the House of Representatives A Bill for an Act to alter the Constitution to ensure that if the Senate fails to pass a proposed law appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government in respect of a year, an amount of money is appropriated for those services in respect of that year equal to the amount appropriated for those services in respect of the preceding year. Motion (by Senator Macklin) agreed to: That the Bills may proceed without formalities, may be considered together and be now read a first time. Bills read a first time. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(10.16) —I move: That the Bills be now read a second time. I seek leave to have my second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speeches read as follows- Australia has long had a proud history of achievement on matters of electoral equality and reform. Secrecy was a feature of Australian electoral systems long before it became accepted in most other democratic countries. The Australian colonies began to introduce secret ballots in 1856, the last one doing so in 1877 some 20 years and more before they were introduced by most other western countries. Voting for all adult men was granted early in the history of the self-governing new colonies in the mid 1850's, although it must be noted that until the turn of the twentieth century people who owned property generally had more than one vote. We can quite proudly point to the fact that women in Australia won the vote at about the turn of the century, 25 years ahead of their sisters in Britain. In terms of voting for the Senate, the proportional representation system was introduced in 1948 to overcome the unfairness of the first-past-the-post system and preferential voting system. The proportional representation system is widely recognised as the fairest electoral system and its introduction as the mechanism of election of Senators was a feather in Australia's cap at the time. Despite these notable achievements in the early history of Australian political life and subsequent corrections of grossly undemocratic electoral practices, such as giving aboriginal people the long overdue right to vote in 1977, there is still an urgent need for further reform on matters of electoral equality to facilitate the operation of good and effective government in Australia. There are still major stumbling blocks which must be removed to create a fairer and more informed political environment. The frequency and uncertainty of the timing of elections is a matter of vital importance to the whole nation. The existence of electoral systems which do not give people the same valued vote when electing their political representatives is disgraceful and must be rectified. The inability of citizens to have a direct input in the legislative process can and should be changed. The increase in the size of parliament as a result of outmoded requirements in the Constitution must also be addressed. Indeed the relevance and applicability of our Constitution has in recent years been the subject of considerable public debate. So much so that in December 1985 the federal government established the Constitutional Commission to inquire into and report on a possible revision of the Constitution. The Committee which will report by June 1988 was asked to review the Constitution in order to: ``(1) adequately reflect Australia's status as an independent nation and a federal parliamentary democracy; (2) provide the most suitable framework for the economic, social, and political development of Australia as a federation; (3) recognise an appropriate division of responsibilities between the Commonwealth, the States, self-governing Territories and local government; and (4) ensure that democratic rights are guaranteed.'' Despite the work of the Constitutional Committee and the publicity generated by the five Advisory Committees reporting to the Commission, there is still widespread ignorance about the existence of a Constitution, let alone knowledge of its place in the political and social landscape and its actual meaning. The Advisory Committee on Executive Government referred to the language of the Constitution and said it was ``less straightforward than that of most Constitutions.'' Their report went on: ``This makes the Constitution difficult or impossible to teach in schools or to become an acknowledged part of the political culture of the nation, as Constitutions can in other societies. Our Constitution remains too much of a mystery to those who should be its masters.'' This I believe is a very unfortunate situation and a sad reflection generally on the education of people about their government and political institutions in this country. Only by introducing studies of government into all schools will this situation be rectified. Only when we have a well informed population with a working knowledge can we expect a better standard of political debate and activity in Australia. Over the last 10 years the Australian Democrats have been to the forefront of the public debate on the state of our Constitution and its reform. In this new parliament my colleagues and I will continue in our efforts to publicise its existence and facilitate avenues for its reform with the aim of encouraging better and more effective government. To this end I am introducing a package of legislative initiatives which are designed to attend to some oversights of our founding fathers when they drew up the Constitution. The necessity for reform has been recognised by a series of federal governments of all political persuasions and a wide range of public and private institutions concerned with the good government of Australia. I will therefore be seeking the support of such groups and individuals and most importantly of my colleagues in this Chamber to see that this legislative package is debated and passed into law. CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS) BILL 1987 The first of this package of cognate bills is the Constitution Alteration (Democratic Elections) Bill 1987. This is a revised version of a bill first introduced to this Parliament on 2 April 1984. Extensive discussions since that time, including examination of the bill by the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform and debate and passage of a motion at the Australian Constitutional Convention in Brisbane in 1986 calling for the bill to be put to the people at a referendum, have led to revisions being incorporated to clarify and improve certain aspects of the Bill. The revised Bill has the same intention as the original Bill-namely, to guarantee the right to vote and to guarantee that every citizen's vote will be treated equally. Of course, as many honourable senators would recall, a substantially similar Bill was introduced on 8 November, 1973 by the then Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam on behalf of the Australian Government at the Australian Constitutional Convention held in Sydney in September of that year. While that Bill had the same aim as this one, the then Opposition, under the leadership of Mr Snedden, opposed the Bill. Basically, it appears to me, because it felt that the stated principle was not being implemented by Mr Whitlam's Bill. The Opposition argued, quite correctly I believe, that by making electorates equal in the sense that they were to have an equal number of people in them, would not give votes equal value. The argument advanced by some people is that from a work load point of view these members will have to represent people who are not registered to vote and consequently should be allowed to have them counted in the numbers. From my point of view, this is going about things the wrong way around. Indeed, I believe that we would be far better off encouraging these people to become Australian citizens, if they are not already, and to register to vote. Given the strong feeling exhibited in 1973 about whether electorates should be divided on the basis of electors or people, I had waited until the Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill had passed through Parliament before raising the matter again. I had thought that we might see a debate at that time on whether electorates should continue to be divided along current lines-that is, number of electors-or whether the Government would take up the Whitlam proposal again and attempt to divide electorates along the lines of numbers of people in them. No debate arose and I take heart from the fact that the present Labor Government is quite happy to accept what I take to be the Opposition line, that things remain the way they are. As a result of this, I have amended Mr Whitlam's original Bill so that the numbers ascertained in respect of divisions shall be, as nearly as practicable, the same in respect of the numbers of electors rather than the numbers of people in each electorate. In its first report the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform stated that demographic data presently available to Commonwealth and State governments meant that the minimum tolerance between the number of electors in electorates was ten per cent. The Committee's conclusion was the basis for current Commonwealth legislation which permits a maximum tolerance of 10 per cent deviation between the number of electors in electorates. It is reasonable to assume, however, that improvements in demographic data in later years will enable the present tolerance of 10 per cent to be gradually reduced. In some states of the United States, for example, the tolerance has been reduced to under one per cent. In short, what in 1987 may seem like a reasonable level of deviation will, in 2087, be an intolerable distortion. Given the difficulty that governments have experienced in changing the Constitution it is important for legislators to draft bills which not only enshrine and protect basic Constitutional rights but which also provide federal and state governments with sufficient latitude to achieve further advances in protecting democratic rights without constant referenda on the matter. It is for this reason that sections 125a and 29 of my bill not only establish a maximum tolerance of 10 per cent between electorates at both the federal and state level it also permits the Commonwealth to reduce (and only reduce) the margin between federal seats by simply amending the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Any reduction by the Commonwealth of electoral margins in federal electorates through alterations to the Commonwealth Electoral Act would also mean that state governments would be required to make identical reductions to their electoral margins in their respective state electoral systems. Thus, if the Commonwealth legislated at some point in the future to reduce Commonwealth electoral tolerances from 10 per cent to 5 percent, all states with the exception of those with margins below 5 per cent would also be required to reduce their tolerances to 5 per cent. Of course a state with tolerances already below 5 per cent would not be required to increase those tolerances merely for conformity with Commonwealth laws. This approach has a number of advantages. For example, small states such as Victoria would in the future be able to reduce, if their state governments wish, the present electoral margins within their electoral system without having to wait for other governments, including the Commonwealth, to catch up. Conversely, larger states such as Western Australia, which may experience difficulty in matching the advances of the smaller states, need not immediately order an electoral redistribution simply because a smaller state has been able to capitalise on demographic changes unique to that State. This concept should now have the support of the vast majority of senators and members in this Parliament. Although it is a principle which appears to have the almost complete support of federal parliamentarians, and indeed the people of Australia, it is a principle which is obviously not supported by all parliamentarians at the State level. I believe that the time has come for the people of the States and the self-governing Territories to have their say on whether or not their current situation should be allowed to continue. Unfortunately, no State Parliament requires a vote of electors in order to change its own Constitution in this regard. Indeed, not even the Federal Constitution requires that change. But I believe it is time that we enshrined the principle in the Federal Constitution so that future governments are not persuaded for purely political gain to change the principle once established. There are two other changes which have been made to Mr Whitlam's original Bill which I will mention briefly here before moving on to changes made to the Bill I introduced in 1984. The first of these is a purely technical one to rectify an inconsistency in Mr Whitlam's wording of clause 5 and clause 7 of the Bill. As to the substances of clause 5, which has become clause 4 in this revised version of the Bill, the proposed alteration to section 30 of the Constitution has been refined to ensure that the Parliament may provide for the continuing operation of laws relating to the enfranchisement of non-citizens who are currently entitled to vote. The second change to Mr Whitlam's Bill was to allow parliaments to decide to grant the right to vote to people under the age of 18 if they so desire. Arguments in favour of providing for a younger voting age remain the same as when this Bill was first introduced-although I recognise that the proposal may be controversial. My reason for incorporating the provision is quite simple. Given the difficulties in making amendments to the Constitution, I do not believe that we should enshrine the 18-year-old age limit into the Constitution as the time may well come-even if it is 20 or 30 years away-that we may wish to give 17 or even 16-year-olds the vote. This issue was raised in particular relation to 17-year-olds being conscripted to fight in Vietnam, even though they did not have the vote. It is one thing to force 6 to 15-year-olds to go to school, whether or not it is one of their own choosing, but it is quite a different matter to ask a 17-year-old to fight in a war which he or she might wish to oppose by voting for a political party which opposed such a war if he or she were entitled to vote. A vote of 17-year-olds might well have made the difference in 1969 as to who governed this country and as to whether or not this country continued to conscript people to go to Vietnam. When this Bill was last introduced in Parliament, the question was raised as to whether the Bill would allow proportional representation and whether or not the Government of the day supported that proposal. Unfortunately, the Government did not, as it still does not; but the Bill does allow for that type of system to exist, as it already does in Tasmania. As I said in my second reading speech on the Commonwealth Electoral Legislation Amendment Bill, the fact that proportional representation for the House of Representatives was missing from that Bill effectively means that the Bill did not really grapple with the last major task of reform in the electoral process. This is a bitter disappointment to many people in the community who feel that it is a necessary move that we must take. I hope that in the future it will be seen to be a necessary reform and that eventually it will be taken. The acceptance of this Bill will certainly do nothing to hinder that development. As my colleague, ex-Senator Jack Evans, said in his second reading speech on the aforementioned Bill, the omission of proportional representation means that Australia continues with the very lop-sided, winner takes all system of having governments elected. `Winner takes all' follows automatically from a system under which there is a single candidate elected for an electorate and a candidate has to attract only 50 per cent of the vote, plus one, to win. There is no justice and no fairness in that kind of system. I think most people in Australia are now aware that the newer countries which have been formed since this country was federated have opted for proportional representation. I now wish to draw honourable Senators' attention to certain other provisions in the Bill. Provision for the repeal of section 25 has been retained from the earlier version of the Bill. Section 25 of the Constitution provides that if by law of any State any persons of any race are disqualified from voting at elections for the more numerous houses of the State, then in reckoning the number of people of the State or of the Commonwealth, persons of that race resident in that State shall not be counted. This is an archaic and objectionable provision. It is not within the spirit of the wishes of any political party in this place and the Bill provides for the repeal of that section. The proposed repeal of section 41, which was not included in the original version of the Bill, arises for two reasons. First, section 41 has ceased to have any practical operation following a High Court decision in 1983; second, if retained in the Constitution, section 41 would conflict with the proposed amendment to section 30. The original Bill proposed amendments to section 75 to confer original jurisdiction on the High Court in relation to matters arising in the electoral provisions of State or Commonwealth law and to ensure that the electors are able to take action to enforce those provisions. The proposed paragraph in this revised version of the Bill has been altered in two respects. First, the words ``or involving the interpretation of'' have been inserted to make section 75 consistent with section 76. Secondly, the jurisdictional safeguards, which originally applied in relation to elections for the House of Representatives, have now been extended to include Senate elections and elections for representatives of the Territories in the Commonwealth Parliament. Proposed new section 106a, originally dealing with the election of members of State parliaments, has now been altered in several respects. First, the proposed section now extends to the parliaments of self-governing territories. This change is reflected in the alteration to the long title of the Bill. The provisions of the section now apply to both general and by-elections-apart from the penultimate paragraph which applies to general elections only. The revised wording makes it clear that people can only vote at elections in the State or Territory in which they are normally resident, but does not, of course, prevent them from voting due to temporary absence from home. As with section 30, revisions to the proposed section 106a ensure that Parliament may provide for the continuing operation of laws enfranchising non-citizens who are currently entitled to vote. In the event of non-compliance with the `one-vote, one-value' principle of section 106a, a further amendment provided for the whole State or Territory to be deemed one electorate for the purposes of a general election. This covers the situation where there is insufficient time for a re-distribution before an election. The amendment also explains why a commencement date, which had been included in the original Bill, has now been omitted. The inclusion of the `fall-back' position obviates the need to give the States some time to comply with the Bill's provisions. In addition, the amendment addresses the argument that the Bill in its original form might have empowered the Commonwealth to redraw State electoral boundaries which had been declared invalid. The final amendment to proposed section 106a ensures that the Senate voting system would be adopted in a situation where a State general election was held in accordance with the penultimate paragraph of the proposed section. One final point, proposed new section 122a imposes similar requirements to elections for representatives of the Territories in either House of the Commonwealth Parliament as those applicable to elections for representatives of the States. CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (FIXED TERM PARLIAMENTS) BILL 1987 This Bill will give effect to proposed changes to the Constitution endorsed by the Australian Constitutional Convention at its Adelaide meeting in 1983. In particular, the Bill provides for the present three-year term for the House of Representatives to be increased to four years and for the new four-year electoral cycle to be fixed. There is general agreement within the community that the present electoral arrangements have resulted in Australia having far too frequent elections. The Constitution allows the Prime Minister of the day to call an election virtually at whim for the House of Representatives and to demand a double-dissolution once the Senate has twice rejected a bill. Not surprisingly early elections have occurred so regularly as to have become the rule rather than the exception. The average term of Parliaments post-war has been two years five months and in the 21 year period from 1953 to 1984 there were no fewer than 13 separate national elections. There has been increasing public unease about the lack of sufficient continuity and stability in Government, with a resultant atmosphere of uncertainty and controversy and strong pressure on governments to adopt short-term expedient policies to ensure electoral success. Of course, as the Business Council of Australia observed, the frequency of elections is not only simply a nuisance or an irritation, it also has major ramifications for sound government decision-making, for budgetary policies and therefore, for the economic climate in which business operates. Indeed, Mr Eric Mayer, the Chairman of the Business Council's Government Expenditure Committee, argued that frequent elections have an adverse effect on government planning and decision-making and this, in turn, adversely affects private sector planning and business confidence. There is ample evidence to sustain this view. For instance, if the present Parliament runs for its full term, it will be the first time since 1980 that a Federal Government has delivered three budgets during its term of office. It will be only the second time since 1972 that a government has brought down three budgets in its three-year term of office. In the face of evidence such as this, it is difficult not to conclude that under our present unfixed, three-year parliamentary term system, governments of all colours have had enormous difficulty reconciling careful and deliberate economic policies with the electoral imperatives of political survival. Undoubtedly, this helps explain why the four-year parliamentary term proposal has received such impressive support from all political parties, from a variety of institutions and political commentators and increasingly, strong support from the business sector and the public at large. The Reid Committee of Review into Commonwealth Administration in 1982 expressed support for a four-year term for reasons of `better management and a more sensible lifestyle'. The 1983 Constitutional Convention in Adelaide endorsed a motion that the terms of Parliament be extended to four years (with Senators' terms equal to twice the term of the House of Representatives). A Bill to that effect was passed by Parliament, but was never submitted to referendum. In 1983 the present government introduced a bill for fixed term parliaments but the legislation was subsequently withdrawn. More recently, the Constitutional Commission has formed the provisional view that it should accept the proposals of the Adelaide meeting of the Australian Constitutional Convention. Of course, this considerable support for Constitutional reform counts for nought if the people are never provided with an opportunity to enshrine the fixed four-year parliamentary term in the Constitution. Clearly, the task for those in favour of electoral reform is to ensure that the question of fixed four-year terms is put to the people as soon as possible. A frequent reason advanced by Governments for not pursuing Constitutional reform is that the task of reform is too difficult. The Australian Democrats do not dispute that Constitutional reform has proved difficult in Australia. But this difficulty in turn also highlights the need for Governments to be continually sensitive to opportunities for Constitutional reform. As noted earlier, there is at the moment considerable public unease with the frequency of elections and the difficulties which Governments experience in implementing consistent and responsible economic policies under the present electoral arrangements. This dissatisfaction is reflected in the results of qualitative research recently conducted by the Roy Morgan Research Centre for the Business Council of Australia. A survey conducted during the month of August 1986 showed that a referendum to extend the term of the House of Representatives from three to four years would have succeeded. Fifty-six percent of electors said they would have voted `Yes', including a majority in five of the six States. A similarly impressive level of support was detected in 1983 for the notion of fixed terms and an end at last to the early election syndrome. These poll results indicate a growing appreciation within the electorate that a three-year maximum term is too short. It is also probably indicative that electors in States whose Parliaments have already been extended to four years are comfortable with the reform and are happy for the Federal Parliament to follow suit. If Australians are given an opportunity to extend the Federal Parliamentary term then this country will, according to a study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, join 25 other democratic countries with four-year terms. There are, incidentally, 24 democratic countries (including Canada and Great Britain) with five-year terms. The fixed four-year proposal will not prevent a government from going to the people should a genuine deadlock occur between the House and the Senate but it will certainly remove the present incentive for governments to call an election when they believe the moons of fortune are in alignment. It will certainly provide for greater continuity and stability in the electoral cycle, since the average span of Parliament may be expected to increase substantially. Given the strong bi-partisan support of Federal Members of Parliament for this proposal and the support of at least four State Governments, there is no reason why Australians should not be given an early opportunity to vote on this proposal in the interests of better government in Australia. CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (PARLIAMENT) BILL 1987 This is a Bill of immense importance but of not great complexity in itself. It is designed to prevent a Constitutional crisis created by a deadlock in the Senate by breaking the nexus-a term which we have all come to understand-and which is created by section 24 of the Commonwealth Constitution. I want to state this matter with all possible clarity because I think that is vital to an understanding of it. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members directly chosen by the people of the Commonwealth, and the number of such members shall be, as nearly as practicable, twice the number of the senators. With these words, the then Prime Minister of Australia, and founder of the Liberal Party, Sir Robert Menzies, first introduced this Bill. In his concluding speech he stated that: `I profoundly hope and I deeply believe that when this [Bill] is adequately explained to the people of Australia they will say ``Yes'' and they will change this rule and thereby make a tremendous contribution to making this Parliament an effective agent of the popular will.' Sir Robert was supported in his speech by the next speaker, the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr Calwell, who stated that `We regard it as vitally important to the well-being of the people and the welfare of the nation and the health of democracy that they [the two Constitution Alteration Bills being debated] should be carried. On their merits they deserve overwhelming endorsement'. The bill passed both houses on the 2nd December 1965 but the matter was not put to the people within the required period of time and so was re-introduced by the then Prime Minister, Mr Harold Holt on 1 March 1967. The Bill was substantially the same as that passed in 1965 except that the minimum number of people to be represented by each House of Representatives seat was increased from 80,000 to 85,000 people. In concluding his speech, Mr Holt stated that if the proposals contained in the Bill were approved by the people `this will constitute a significant advance in the efficient working of our parliamentary system.' The next speaker was none other than that great statesman, the then leader of the Opposition, Mr Gough Whitlam. In his opening remarks Mr Whitlam stated that `I can assure honourable members and all of our fellow citizens that my Party, in the Parliament and outside the Parliament, will support this Bill and the referendum without reservation, equivocation or qualification.' It would appear then, from the Hansard record, that there was strong support from all parties on this matter on the two previous occasions when it was debated in Parliament. Indeed, this bill with the support of Labor, Liberal and Democrat Senators passed the Senate in 1983 but the government failed to act on the bill. Despite this the arguments so ably put by political leaders in 1983 and earlier still apply. In sponsoring this Bill the Australian Democrats seek to both allow an increase in the number of members in the lower house and to limit the powers of Parliament in the extent to which it can increase its size. Unless we do so then the present number of senators means that at either the next or subsequent half-Senate election there is a very high probability of a hung Senate occurring. Under half-Senate election conditions there is a total of six Senators per state to be elected. Under the present system for Senate elections this would almost guarantee in every state the election of three government Senators and three opposition Senators and so we would produce a deadlocked Senate with every motion and every amendment defeated. A deadlocked Senate would not be any good to a government elected by the people, because nobody could pass a resolution and nobody could pass an amendment. Therefore, if there is to be a Senate in which a clear majority becomes possible, the numbers of the Senate would need to be such under the existing Constitution that an odd number would be elected every three years. Constitutionally, we can enlarge the membership of the House of Representatives indefinitely and at will. The Constitution imposes no restriction on the numbers, In fact, it is to the contrary, as it insists that if the numbers in the House of Representatives are increased then we must also increase the numbers in the Senate in the ratio of one to two. Under the proposal before us now, that burdensome necessity would be ended. And this Bill also goes further. It proposes, for the first time in our history, that there shall be a restriction placed on the size of the House of Representatives, by establishing that there will be `not less than' 100,00 people for each seat. That is 100,000 men, women and children-whether they be voters or not. It could at the discretion of Parliament be higher than 100,000-120,000 or even more; but it cannot be less than 100,000. At present there is no such restriction. Let me emphasise that currently there is nothing in the Constitution to prevent us from deciding that there shall be one seat for every 30 to 40 thousand people, or whichever figure we might choose. As long as we also simultaneously and proportionately increase the Senate we can make the other house as large as we like. I do not think anybody wishes to do that, If this proposal is carried, we shall not be able to do it. CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (ELECTORS' INITIATIVE) BILL 1987 The right of the people of a country to make law independent of politicians should be a basic and independent right-this is known colloquially as citizens' initiative. This is not only because the system has worked so well and effectively in other countries, but because there seems a particular need for it in Australia. Time and again national problems appear to be intractable because of the entrenched and largely self-interested position of the long-established political power groupings. In fact it suits these traditional power groupings very well not to find solutions, but merely to indulge in a variety of complex cosmetic operations, designed to demonstrate that the problem is being dealt with, when in fact it is not. The real losers are always the people. In a sense this is inevitable, and even has a kind of rough justice-for many decades now the Australian people have surrendered their political powers to clique-like political groupings which fundamentally operate in their own interests and in the interests of those from whom they receive liberal election financial funding. The answer is for the people to shoulder some of the responsibility again themselves, and to vote themselves the right to make legislation, not all the time, but where important and deeply controversial, even divisive, issues need to be debated and decided upon. The machinery of citizens' initiative proposed in this bill is very similar to that operating successfully in other parts of the world. It is virtually identical to a similar bill introduced by the former Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Colin Mason. The bill proposes that if 5 percent of the electors petition the government to hold a referendum to create a law then that proposed law should be submitted not less than two months or more than twelve months after presentation of the petition to the electors in each state and territory who are qualified for the election of members of the House of Representatives. Under the terms of the Bill, the people would acquire for the first time a potentially significant measure of control in the legislative process. The matters which would be proposed under the terms of the Bill are unlikely to be trivial. In recent times there has been no petition in the federal parliament which would have been large enough to secure a referendum-any issue would have to be of very considerable public interest to generate the number of signatures necessary to have it put to a national vote. There has been much opposition expressed to this issue within Parliament itself. This opposition amounts mainly to the arguments which were historically presented against universal suffrage and later women's suffrage-the argument that the people whose lives are ruled by these laws are not knowledgeable enough to decide what is best for them. This patronising attitude, whilst it is prevalent amongst most parliamentarians, is overwhelmingly dismissed by the people it would affect. They see it for what it truly is-an argument for some type of dictator-ship or oligarchy. Like every other right, there is a possibility that this one could be misused by powerful pressure groups. No freedom can be absolutely guaranteed. However, it must be borne in mind that the Australian electorate is essentially a conservative one. Historically, changes brought about by referendum are few and far between. It should also be pointed out here that the granting of this right would not affect the authority or usefulness of the parliament-far from it. In other countries with the initiative, the making of the vast body of law, especially in technical or complex areas, has remained the responsibility of the parliament, and I believe that would also be the case here. The use of citizen-initiated referenda would not be costly in either real or relative terms. The Bill proposes that the referendum be held on the first Saturday of each December. It would cost about the same as a national election, amounting to about $1-15 per head of population. In addition, every three years the date of the referendum would coincide with the date of the national election, which would diminish the cost enormously in that year. The right of the citizen to initiate referenda is practised already in several of the more enlightened countries, including Switzerland, Austria and the United States of America. This right is often found to be a long-standing one-the Swiss people were granted this right in 1892, and it has been adopted by progressively more States of the U.S.A. since 1890. In Switzerland, about one-quarter of the initiatives put to referendum are adopted-the others being either rejected or withdrawn. In the U.S.A., the most famous example of a citizen-initiated referendum is probably the Californian `Proposition 13' of 1977, which altered the taxation laws. Another proposition aimed at cutting a different area of taxation was rejected which indicates, I feel, that citizens can be trusted to judge a referendum topic on its individual merits and not just on whether it will result in personal gain. In a future which is acknowledged generally to have difficulties, to present problems, to require some sacrifice from the community at large, is it not best to allow that community to involve itself in the issues, and to give it the means to study and know the facts? Such a responsibility would, over a period, encourage the people to a more far-sighted attitude, and one which would be more healthy for Australia. Australians today are better educated and more politically aware than in the past. The great media and public interest in politics and the rapid growth of citizen movements demonstrate this. The whole point of democracy is that it is the responsibility of the people to govern. CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE ORDINARY ANNUAL SERVICES OF THE GOVERNMENT) BILL 1987 The purpose of the Constitution Alteration (Appropriations for the Ordinary Annual Services of the Government) Bill 1987 is to resolve the extremely contentious issue of the Senate's power to block supply. The task of reconciling the Senate's powers and obligations to scrutineer government appropriations with the Senate's power to block supply is not an easy one but clearly the issue must be confronted. The two solutions proposed so far to the issue of the Senate blocking supply have been to require an immediate double dissolution of both houses and an election. At the other extreme is the proposal to remove entirely the Senate's power to block supply so that only the House of Representatives would have to pass the supply bills for them to be signed into law by the Governor-General. The Constitution Alteration (Appropriations for the Ordinary Annual Services of the Government) Bill seeks to uphold the authority of the Senate to examine supply bills but in doing so to prevent the Senate from creating a Constitutional crisis of the magnitude of the 1975 episode and to prevent the Senate from forcing the House of Representatives to the people on its own. Reduced to its essence the bill specifies that once a supply bill has been passed by the Senate the amount specified in the supply bill will remain available to the government for that particular financial year. In the unlikely, but nonetheless, serious event of the Senate blocking supply the government would still have at its command a base amount consisting of the previous year's appropriations funds. Thus, if a government appropriated $75 billion in 1985/86 and in 1986/87 appropriated $82 billion the maximum amount the Senate would be able to block through defeating supply would be $7 billion. The $7 billion being of course the difference between the 1985/86 and 1986/87 appropriation bills. In short, the only money in a supply bill that the Senate could oppose and defeat would be that amount that the Senate had not yet scrutineered. In the example above it would be $7 billion. This would mean that in the event of supply being blocked the government could continue to operate although clearly it would have to weigh up the political and economic consequences of so doing. I commend this package of Constitutional bills to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Gareth Evans) adjourned. Debate resumed from 22 September, on motion by Senator Ryan: That the Bill be now read a second time. upon which Senator Puplick had moved by way of amendment: Leave out all words after ``That'', insert: ``, whereas: (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 re-ference 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 parti-cularly 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 indivi-dual 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- and upon which Senator Powell had moved by way of amendment to Senator Puplick's proposed amendment: (1) Leave out the words ``this Bill be referred to a select committee, the powers and composition of which be contained in a subsequent resolution,'' insert: ``this Bill be referred to the Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs for inquiry and report, upon the establishment of that committee, or, if a committee of that name is not established, to a committee specified in a subsequent resolution,''. (2) Paragraph (f) of the proposed terms of reference, leave out the paragraph, insert the following paragraph: ``(f) assess the direct cost to the private sector in establishing and maintaining the system;''. (3) Paragraph (j) of the proposed terms of reference, at end of paragraph, insert: ``, including the differential in penalties which applies to breaches of the legislation by the Authority and breaches by private citizens and corporations''. (4) Paragraph (l) of the proposed terms of reference, leave out the paragraph, insert the following paragraph: ``(l) examine the experience of comparable countries in the adoption or rejection of an ID card system such as the one proposed, this comparison to include the USA, West Germany, Canada, Netherlands, France, UK, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Denmark;''. (5) Paragraph (m) of the proposed terms of reference, leave out the paragraph, insert the following paragraphs: ``(m) assess the constitutionality of the Government's proposed Australia Card and personal identification system; (n) examine the implications for the system if a significant number of people whose activities fall within those for which the card and number are required refuse to apply for the card; (o) consider the financial implications and administrative delays in the public and private sectors in complying with the system and the impact of this on Australia's economic situation, consideration of these matters to include assessments of the system's impact on transactions specifically affected by the legislation-by example, auction sales; (p) assess the likelihood of more cards and numbers being issued than there are entitled card-holders (as has already occurred with Medicare cards) and the implications of this if the Medicare number is to be used in the Australia Card system; (q) determine the need for privacy protection legislation and a data protection agency and what form such protection should take, with particular reference to legal remedies for such matters as refusal to correct incorrect data; failure on the part of the Authority to perform its functions; and compensation for damage suffered; (r) make a comparison of the costs and benefits of the Government proposal with the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card majority recommendation for using a high-integrity tax file number to combat tax and social security fraud; (s) assess the appropriateness of linking sensitive personal information such as medical data with a system which is designed to address financial matters; (t) examine the constitutional implications of the legislation's use of terminology such as `The Authority' and `card-subjects' in a common law country such as Australia; (u) examine the problem of distinguishing between requiring someone to produce a card as a means of identification (which attracts a penalty if it is unauthorised) and `requesting' someone to do so; (v) determine the adequacy of protections against misuse of the unique personal identification number, as distinct from misuse of the card; (w) examine the appropriateness of fees being charged for card-subjects to have access to their details on the register, other than the annual inspection permitted under the legislation; (x) assess the likelihood of increased access to the register by government departments and the private sector in the future; (y) examine the ease of linkage between information on the register and information on the computer files of other government departments, agencies and private sector bodies where those bodies use the unique personal identification number for purposes required under the legislation; (z) assess the usefulness of the card and numbering system in achieving the objectives claimed for it, with particular reference to the cash economy, organised crime and large-scale tax evasion; (za) examine any matters relevant to the preceding; and''. (6) At end of the proposed terms of reference, add the following paragraph: ``(zb) present a final report on or before the first day of sitting in March 1988.'' Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia)(10.13) —We are debating the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3]. I have but a few moments, but let me first turn to the various penalties which are prescribed under the Australia Card legislation. An employer who fails to request the ID number of an employee is liable to a penalty of $20,000. I might point out that that covers even the most casual cases of employment, such as a baby-sitter. A penalty of $20,000 applies if an employer fails to request the ID number of a baby-sitter. For incorporated bodies the penalty is five times higher-$100,000-for simply neglecting to ask for the employee's ID number. In fact, virtually all areas where there is a requirement to record a person's number are covered by penalties of $20,000 for failing to do so. There is a penalty of $500 for failing to report the loss of an identification card within 21 days. If somebody neglects to report the fact that he has lost or misplaced his card within 21 days he is subject automatically to a penalty of $500. In clause 154 there is a penalty of $2,000 or imprisonment for 12 months for anyone who fails to attend before the Data Protection Agency and provide information under oath. I remind the Senate that by contrast a person who gives false information to the Department of Social Security for the purpose of fraudulently obtaining benefits is liable to a fine of only $2,000. One thing which is absolutely certain about the identification card is that the information which is collected and the access granted to it will inevitably and invariably expand with time. Of course, the bureaucracy and this Government intend that. They are currently engaged in a skilful game of tactics to ensure that everybody is numbered and provided with a card so that the range can be extended. When the Government made a submission to the Joint Committee on an Australia Card, which investigated and rejected the card, it proposed that 13 agencies have access to the Australia Card Register with a possibility of further extensions. Faced as the Government was with the inevitable outcry from the civil liberties groups, that number, for the time being, has been cut back to three. The reason is obvious. In a document published by the Health Insurance Commission called Outline Plan it is 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 on the system initially with a facility to input additional data at a later stage when public acceptance may be forthcoming more readily. What more surreptitious, insidious and pernicious method can one imagine a government using to seduce people into believing that the card will be harmless and the information held will be harmless when it is intended at a later date to expand the information base? Senator Teague —Of course it will be expanded. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Of course it will be. An officer from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet chairing an interdepartmental committee on the card called for information in the following terms: You could invite participants to outline briefly their views on the feasibility (of the scheme) . . . We suggest that acceptance of the need to introduce such a scheme is likely to be promoted if the Committee's report focuses on combating benefits and fraud. Every move is designed to ensure that the public is seduced into the belief that the card will be harmless and that the information attaching to it and held by the Government will also be harmless. In my view, the Australia Card will be draconian, intrusive and totally unnecessary. It is inevitable that there will be leaking of information stored under the identity card system. We have already seen leaks from the Health Insurance Commission which disclosed patients' medical records and recently doctors' income figures were produced in the Parliament by the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett). Of course, records of people's personal details have a market value. In the United States of America companies have paid to obtain these records and it is now not uncommon for people to receive quite unsolicited advice from companies that their wedding anniversary or their wife's birthday is around the corner-- Senator Bjelke-Petersen —That is helpful. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —It is very helpful-with an invitation to make a purchase. Bad enough as that is, imagine what organised crime will do in terms of blackmail once in receipt of information which may embarrass people. The far better, cheaper and less dangerous way of tackling the problem of tax and social security fraud is to enforce the powers that are already available. As for social security payments, the Department of Social Security can already cross-check income with income recorded with the Australian Taxation Office. The Liberal policy of introducing a work requirement for unemployment benefits would make sure that the recipients were genuine. As for income tax, we need only consult the 1984 Auditor-General's report or a subsequent report of 1986, in which he set out in very clear and fine detail methods for overcoming deficiencies in tax collections, which I understand are now being implemented. My final reason for opposing the identity card is a philosophical one. The intellectual pygmies on the other side of the chamber may downplay philosophy, but I think in the very long term it is philosophy which ultimately shapes society. Our system has been based on the premise that one is born free and entitled to exercise a free will unless constrained by law. Where government wishes to limit the exercise of free will, it must be lawfully authorised to do so. The identity card system will virtually outlaw the means of modern existence unless a person obtains government consent for his actions in the form of an identity card. Under this system people will no longer be entitled to exercise free will. Free will will be effectively outlawed unless the Government specifically authorises it. This, of course, turns our entire legal thinking on its head. It is not a system under which I wish to live; it is certainly not a system under which I wish my children to live. I condemn this Bill. It has no merit, it has no virtue, it has no necessity and it has no place in Australian society. I have no doubt that the vast majority of Australians are totally opposed to it. Notwithstanding the Government's insistence that the Bill proceed, ultimately the Government will be found wanting as a result of it. Senator COULTER(South Australia)(10.21) —I would like to make a number of points in opposing the Australia Card, or the identity card. I think we should get away from this euphemistic term `Australia Card'. I believe that the Government does not have a mandate to introduce this legislation. I believe that there is a deficiency in the order of introduction of legislation dealing with privacy protection. I believe that there are serious deficiencies in the integrity of the data which will be used to establish the ID card. I believe that there are deficiencies in the physical integrity of the proposed system. Furthermore, I believe that there will be a serious shift in the balance of power between the bureaucracy and the citizen, which is a threat to civil liberties. Finally, I will make the point that the ID card legislation is unnecessary. First of all, I turn to the matter of whether the Government has a mandate to introduce the ID card. The claim-we have heard this from both sides of the House at various times in the past-that the elected government has a mandate to carry out its whole program is arrant nonsense. It is quite clear that, when political parties put up a number of points at election time, different electors will vote for or against those points. There is no link between the election of a party to government and the idea that there is a mandate to carry out the whole of its program. The only way in which the government could claim that it had a mandate to carry out any particular part of its program would be if it were to conduct a referendum on that one issue alone. This, of course, is precisely the issue which the Australian Democrats have been raising for some time. We should have in this country an initiative procedure which would allow citizens the right to decide on a particular issue and then direct the government as to how it should behave with respect to that issue. The fact that the Hawke Government does not have a mandate for the Australia Card was clearly recognised by Mr Hawke when he gave recognition to the fact that at the last election the conservation movement gave considerable support to the Government in certain marginal electorates. He recognised that there was almost a 2 per cent swing towards the Government in those electorates because of the activity of the conservation movement. It is quite specious to claim that those people, who voted principally on the ground of protecting the wet tropics, were also voting for the ID card. As a member of the conservation movement for a very long time, I know that many of those people are opposed to the ID card. I might use my own voting experience as an example. When I voted I gave my second preference to the Australian Labor Party because I believed that, although its policies in relation to the protection of the environment were somewhat too little too late, nonetheless they were better than those of the Liberal Party of Australia. Recognising that it was not possible for an Australian Democrat to be elected in the lower House, my vote therefore went towards the election of the Australian Labor Party. Yet, here I am strongly opposing the ID card. So, to claim that the Government has a mandate because it was elected is nonsense. If the Government claims in any sense that it has a mandate, surely it had a mandate not to sell uranium to France. Indeed, it has a mandate from this election to protect the wet tropics of north Queensland. But I am concerned to hear that despite very strong guarantees that that action would be carried out forthwith, we find nonetheless in the Governor-General's Speech that the Government will consult with the Queensland Government. That consultation has been carried on for a long time with very little result in relation to the protection of those areas. I also noticed that last weekend the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) said that he was unhappy with the arbitrary nature of the Australian Labor Party's three-mine policy in relation to uranium mining and that he would support mining against arguments put up only on ideological grounds. I remind Mr Kerin that he is in fact speaking against the ALP policy, a policy on which the electors voted this Government in and on which this Government has a mandate. Furthermore, the Government argues that because it won a majority of seats in the lower House for some reason the Opposition-the Australian Democrats, the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia-must somehow fall in behind it on the matter of the ID card. But the Australian Democrats campaigned very strongly on the ID card and we improved our representation in this place. By the same logic we might argue that we therefore have a mandate given to us by our constituents to oppose the Australia Card. During the election I contacted a number of my friends and colleagues-believe it or not I probably have more friends and colleagues in the Labor Party than in any other party-to ask for their support during the election in a number of different ways, including letterboxing and all the other things people do during elections. Naturally, I was somewhat concerned to broach with these Labor Party people the question of the ID card because I thought it might have been a sensitive area. But in every single case the conversation got around to the ID card at their instigation and in every single case they were strongly opposed to it and were very pleased to support me because I was opposed to it. I point out that that opposition extended not only to members and supporters of the ALP but also to members of Parliament both at the State and Federal levels. It is a travesty of the process of representative democracy that Labor senators in this case are being more loyal to the Party than they are to their consciences. The system of binding individuals in government in Parliament means that a minority can control the legislative decisions. If one has a small group of eight or nine people and one can get a majority of one in that small group, that group is then bound in its decision when it moves into a larger group and that larger group then becomes bound. It then moves into the Parliament and the whole group becomes bound whereas in fact there may be a majority opposed to the decision. The only mandate which a government has is a mandate to form a government. The mandate which every individual who is elected to Parliament has-every senator has-is to exercise his or her conscience. I ask my fellow senators to do just that on this issue. The second point I wish to raise relates to the order of the introduction of legislation dealing with privacy protection. In late 1987 Australia remains one of the very few advanced Western nations without information privacy and data protection laws. Despite contributions to the international guidelines on privacy protection at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development by Australia, despite the fact that the OECD expert group was chaired by an Australian, despite the publication of the international guideline as long ago as 1980 and despite the Australian Law Reform Commission's report of 1983 which concluded that existing protections were inadequate, Australia does not yet have even the most fundamental information and privacy protection. If the Government is so concerned about privacy protection, why has it not, in the last four years, moved ahead with legislation in this area? One must assume either that the Government does not think that privacy protection, as a matter of principle, is all that important or that Australia has not reached that degree of sophistication when privacy protection is necessary. If the former, the Government was and is clearly wrong; but if the latter, we must note the absolute inconsistency in the Government's argument. Let us compare three statements. The first is: Australia has not needed privacy protection legislation till now. The second is: Australia will now get the most stringent privacy protection legislation- they are Senator Ryan's words- to accompany the Australia Card legislation. The third claim is: The Australia Card poses no threat to privacy or civil liberties. Those three statements prove the lie to the argument that the ID card poses no threat to privacy or civil liberty. The second point is that Australia does indeed need privacy protection. It needs it now, and it should be introduced well before there is any further consideration of an Australia Card. Only against the background of the successful operation of privacy protection legislation should an Australia Card be considered, and that is some years down the track. The third point I should like to raise relates to the integrity of the data, and much has been said on this point. The data on which this card will be based lacks the integrity required to carry out the functions for which the card and its accompanying database will be created. Birth certificates as yet are not computerised. They are not as yet checked against death certificates, and indeed it is possible for anybody to walk into any of the State registries of births, marriages and deaths and collect a birth certificate on behalf of another person. When one applies for a passport or several of the other documents to which reference has been made, if those documents are based on birth certificates they have no more integrity than the integrity of the birth certificate. Moreover, there is a difficulty concerning the integrity of the use of that data. The accuracy of the information is related very much to the use to which that information is to be put. We all know that when information is collected for particular purposes and then used for other unrelated purposes, there is the real possibility that that data can be misinterpreted. For instance, the information which is collected by the Australian Taxation Office in relation to the terms `spouse' or `dependant' may well vary from the use of these same terms in the database used by the Department of Social Security or the Department of Community Services and Health. When those sources of information become merged, there is the real possibility that that data can be misinterpreted. Fourthly, there is the matter of technical security and much has been made of this. The security of the system can be breached both with respect to people security and to technical security. We are told that some 2,000 people will have access to the central computer. Frankly, I believe that, with the best will in the world, failures will occur either through error or through deliberate corruption or breaching of that system. As for simple error, I point to an experience I had some years ago when helping my daughter who was then at high school. She had been doing her homework on the back of computer paper which had been given to the school to be used up. After doing some mathematical computations on the one side I turned the sheet over and there, on the other side, were the details of a visit by a woman to a gynaecologist, which included a considerable amount of personal detail. That computer paper had come from the then Medibank Private office. Clearly there had been a breach in security in that office which had quite innocently allowed that potentially extremely damaging information to get out. We also have the real possibility of corruption in the system: that people will quite deliberately divulge information for purposes of crime or personal advancement. Some mention has been made of the use of a dedicated landline. Anybody who has looked at the possibility of breaching dedicated landlines knows that there is precious little security in those landlines to stop anybody who really wants to get into that system. Even the use of complicated ways of encoding information on that landline still does not guarantee that that information cannot be used for illegitimate purposes. A point which I do not think has been mentioned as yet is the technical security of the data. In the event of a high level nuclear explosion in a nuclear war, computers and all other devices which are ultimately dependent upon transistors and printed circuitry for their operation are susceptible to complete damage by electromagnetic pulse, a pulse of very high voltage electricity which passes through these devices. So we must remember that we would be tying up much of our system in a way which would make it vulnerable to this sort of total loss in the event of a nuclear war. We must remember that in the event of war, a centralised computer system, with all this data on it, would enable an invading force to get a quick handle on every person in the country. We need only to remember what happened to the Jews in Holland during the Second World War. Holland had such a system, which allowed the nazis to arrest and exterminate a high proportion of the Jewish population in Holland, compared with France, which did have a system but, typical of the French, it did not work very well and most of the French Jews were able to escape and a much smaller proportion were caught. In the event of war it would be absolutely necessary that the first thing to be done would be to prevent enemy access to every computer and to ensure that data did not fall into the hands of the enemy. The fifth point I would like to mention is the shift in balance between the elitists and those who are not so advantaged in our community posed by the introduction of this legislation. The people with less access to financial resources, the less well educated in our community and the people who are just naturally more timid will have more of their liberty removed by the introduction of the card than those who are more aggressive, who know how these systems work and who know how to intrude their own personalities into the system to get things done. I am reminded that most people in this chamber will have access to computers and will have some knowledge of how they operate. We have an enormous advantage over probably 90 per cent of other Australians who do not yet have that knowledge, that skill and that experience. Every time I watch the evening news and see how the international money market is operating and I realise the level of technical sophistication which serves those people in that area, I am reminded that, compared with the people in this chamber, they have access to much more sophisticated technology. The growth of technology has increased the relative disadvantage of those at the bottom of the scale and increased the advantage of the elites. The Australia Card would simply put into a bureaucratic straitjacket a concrete example of that difference. Sixthly, I would also like to make the point that the Australia Card is quite unnecessary. If taxation is about redressing inequity, the main inhibition to that is not tax avoidance; it is the legal structures which this Government and previous governments have put in place which allow those with vast capital to avoid the payment of the tax which morally should be paid. I mention again the figures which I gave in my maiden speech the other day. Between 1984 and 1986 the number of Australians with more than $50m increased from 16 to 56. Their average wealth now stands at $125m each. Yet at the same time we have moved to a situation where just over 20 per cent of children in Australia live in families on welfare and in poverty. The absolute number of these children is approaching 750,000. Against that background, we have seen just in recent days the Government reintroduce negative gearing, giving tax relief to the wealthy. The problem is not one of identity; it is not a problem of tax avoidance; the problem is the structure in this country which allows the wealthy to get away without paying what morally they should be paying. I draw attention to a piece in yesterday's Age in which it is said: Negative gearing: many have heard of it, few know what it means. Now that negative gearing is back in favour, how can the average investor profit from it? That is the structure which this Government is setting up while it talks about tax cheats and social security fraud. The Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card was presented with evidence from the Australian Taxation Office. After being pressed by that Committee, the Taxation Office agreed that a tax file number with a level of integrity similar to that proposed for the Australia Card would produce similar revenue gains to those estimated for the Australia Card without the photo option, with similar staff and equipment costs. The majority of the Committee then concluded that they could: see no reason why the integrity of an improved tax-file number could not approach that of the Australia Card and hence attract similar revenue benefits to those estimated for the Australia Card without photograph. The situation, quite simply, is this: the improved use of the tax file number could indeed achieve what the Australia Card sets out to achieve in the legitimate areas of curbing tax avoidance and evasion, and the Government has given nowhere any explanation as to why it is not prepared to adopt that strategy. We are still waiting to hear from the Government why the tax file number option is not as good as the use of the Australia Card-and it is far less intrusive. I reiterate that the Government has no mandate to impose the Australia Card on the Australian people. It has a mandate to govern, and that does not include the introduction of the Australia Card. The Government is proceeding in the wrong order. Before it even considers an Australia Card, it has a duty-a responsibility which extends some years into the past and which has not been taken up as yet-to introduce privacy protection legislation. It is only against the background of the successful operation of such legislation that it should then consider an Australia Card. As I have said, there is a problem with the integrity of the data which will be used in the build up of the data for the Australia Card. There is a problem with the physical integrity of the system and the protection of the data once it is collected. I believe it shifts very seriously the balance between the bureaucracy and the citizen which poses quite serious intrusions into civil liberties. Finally, the introduction of the Australia Card is quite unnecessary because there is a much better option which is tied specifically to those areas which the Government should legitimately seek to address-that is, to improve the integrity and use of the tax file number. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(10.46) —I will concentrate primarily on the implications for the law enforcement agencies of the introduction of an ID card. In particular, I wish to address the Government's claim that an ID card is an essential tool in bolstering the effort against organised crime, the cash economy, tax avoidance and welfare fraud. All the evidence contradicts the claim on all counts. Firstly, the Government has repeatedly claimed that an ID card would play an important role in the wider battle against organised crime. Experienced royal commissioners, law enforcement agencies, criminals themselves and overseas evidence have all contested this view very strongly. For instance, former Royal Commissioner Frank Costigan, QC, and his senior counsel Douglas Meagher, QC, have expressed strong opposition to the ID card on the grounds that it will be of great potential benefit and use to organised crime. Mr Costigan, in evidence to the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card, indicated that he had: some trouble in understanding, except at a low level of crime, how an Australia Card would help in the fight against organised crime. Douglas Meagher, QC, argued that there were `less draconian' means than the ID card proposal for tackling fraud based on false identities. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) in its submission to the Joint Select Committee conceded that the card would be next to useless in the fight against organised crime. The Government's submission acknowledged this stating: The AFP adds that there are no realistic grounds for anticipating any impact on the level of organised crime generally. Furthermore, the National Secretary of the Australian Federal Police Association, Chris Eaton, stated: A national identity card is not the answer to the type of fraud identified by the report. He continued: The Australia Card will only be misused to cover the trail of organised crime protected by the presumption of validity presented by the card. The Chairman of the Law and Order Foundation, former New South Wales policeman Mr Merv Beck, said that the ID card could pave the way for corporate crime on a massive scale. He recently pointed out: 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 these organised crime groups. He further warned: Complete dossiers will be easily maintained by organised crime groups on police officers, magistrates, judges, lawyers, politicians and others in senior positions for the purpose of blackmailing or corrupting these officials for favours. On the other side of the law, in his exposition of the activities of organised crime in this country, the former bagman for the mob, Frank Duggan, told of the consummate ease with which organised criminals had been able to obtain taxation records, false passports, drivers licences, medical certificates and currency. Referring to the ease with which the mob was able to find taxation files, Frank Duggan said: We got Croc's whole file, which included letters from the Government Solicitor and a whole load of things like that. But you can get anything if you pay the right price. Only last week in the Sydney courts, alleged crime figures Barry Bull and Snapper Cornwell again demonstrated that drug-runners and the like have no trouble in obtaining false passports, drivers licences or anything else. The overwhelming evidence demonstrates that the introduction of an ID card, the integrity of which cannot be guaranteed, will expand rather than inhibit the opportunities for fraud and illegal trade in and use of false identities. This is precisely what has occurred in other countries which have adopted forms of national identification systems. Studies by the United States Government have unanimously concluded that a system of national ID cards helps rather than combats the spread of organised crime. Secondly, the Government has consistently claimed that an ID card is necessary to stamp out taxation fraud. Recent scrutiny has shown that the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) is still not serious about eliminating taxation fraud. This gross failure was documented recently in the report of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Expenditure titled Review of 5 Auditor-General's Efficiency Audit Reports into the Australian Taxation Office. The Committee revealed `serious shortcomings within certain ATO philosophies and operations', and suggested that `significant losses to taxation revenue were being incurred'. Further, the Committee stated: . . . taxation revenue losses through non-detection of total taxpayer incomes could conceivably amount to several billion dollars each year . . . not simply because of highly organised evasion schemes. In large measures it can simply be attributed to ATO's own internal inadequacies. This finding renders as complete nonsense the Government's claim that the civil conscription of the ID card is the key to the elimination of taxation avoidance. Put simply, the Government is treating neither the symptoms nor the cause. Rigorous enforcement of existing taxation provisions is not happening. This is also the case in the area of welfare fraud which is the third area which the Government claims the ID card would clean out. The Federal Government has argued that the rejection of the ID card would hamper the apprehension of welfare cheats. There has, however, been a succession of reports from a number of law enforcement agencies which have explicitly and implicitly criticised the Hawke Government for its lack of resolve in tackling welfare fraud using existing legislation. In November 1985, a Joint Task Force to Review Australian Federal Police Resources warned: The group was presented with cases of serious criminal activities which are not being investigated because of staff shortages. As for the smaller criminal activities-such as many D.S.S. frauds-most of these are unable to be investigated. The Revenue implications of the overall situation are clear. Almost a year later, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) reinforced the Task Force's concern that thousands of welfare fraud cases were going uninvestigated. In his annual report 1985-86, tabled in October last year, the DPP stated: The Australian Federal Police does not have the resources to cope with more than a few of the large number of cases referred to it. The A.F.P. seeks to concentrate its efforts on the very serious cases. As a result, most middle range welfare frauds are not investigated with damaging effects on the `deterrent value of prosecution in the area'. The Government is apparently willing to employ an extra 2,150 public servants to administer an intrusive form of civil conscription for honest, decent Australians, whilst refusing repeated pleas from the Australian Federal Police, the National Crime Authority, the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence and the Director of Public Prosecutions for support in the battle against the real criminals-drug traffickers, organised crime, tax avoiders and welfare cheats. What are the facts? Will the ID card stop or even hamper welfare fraud? By the Government's own reckoning, it will not. The Department of Social Security gave evidence to the Joint Select Committee that the introduction of the ID card proposal would result in no net savings. After all, the ID card will not address the principal means of welfare fraud-that is, the misstatement of personal incomes. And in any case, the Department of Social Security has indicated that an ID card will not be sufficient proof of identity for its purposes. What a stunning condemnation of the integrity of the proposed ID card. For the purposes of argument though, let us assume that the ID card was successful in identifying welfare cheats. Judging by the Government's record to date, that is all that would happen. As we have already seen, even if the cheats were identified, the evidence suggests that they would not be prosecuted. Law without enforcement is useless. And the Hawke Government's record on enforcement is absolutely lamentable. Until the Hawke Government acts to repair its shocking record on law enforcement, it does not have one scintilla of credibility to back its drive for an ID card. A long sorry list of government law enforcement agencies have made repeated pleas for more adequate resources and investigative powers. In November 1985 the joint task force on the adequacy of the AFP found: The Joint Task Group notes major resource problems in the drugs and intelligence areas of the AFP, the CIB functions and the organised crime units. . . . unless there is a substantial lift in overall resource levels the AFP will be increasingly unable to discharge its priority functions effectively. These resources have not been forthcoming. In November 1986 the Australian Federal Police Commissioner reiterated his earlier pleas for more resources and stated that airport security was at a `bare minimum, with little capacity to respond to a sudden increase in the level of threat'. Neither have resources been forthcoming for the Australian Bureau of Criminal Intelligence (ABCI) which has been starved of staff and funding for its drugs database. In his report to the Australian Police Ministers Council, the Chairman of the ABCI management committee warned: . . . the lack of support staff is having an adverse effect upon the efficiency and development of the organisation. Also indicative of the low priority given to combating organised crime is the Government's apparent open door policy on illegal drug importation. A report prepared by the senior Customs inspector on the Melbourne waterfront found: The criminal element has little to fear from Customs on the waterfront except through its own carelessness. This report was backed by an International Narcotics Control Board report which identified Australia as an important link in the passage of heroin from South East Asia to Europe and the United States of America. At this point it is worth repeating the view of Australia's emeritus professor of crime fighting, Frank Costigan, that an ID card would aid rather than hinder the spread of organised crime. The Government's case for an ID card is irrevocably weakened by its gross failure to adopt the recommendations of successive royal commissions to strengthen the hand of law enforcement agencies in the war against crime. This failure has been devastatingly documented by the Australian Federal Police Commissioner and the National Crime Authority in their respective recent annual reports. In his 1985-86 annual report the Federal Police Commissioner stated: Despite the publicity generated by the drug summit, little real progress has been made in the vital area of legislation essential for the effective fight against drug trafficking. Such legislation included the forfeiture and confiscation of assets, police access to taxation records, police access to records of banks and other financial institutions, the creation of an offence to send drugs through the mail and model drug legislation. In addition to the above the Government has also let down the National Crime Authority and other law enforcement bodies by procrastinating for four years on effective phone tapping powers, witness protection legislation, money laundering protection measures and even the extension of its very life. The Hawke Government will be powerless to justify civil conscription allegedly to combat tax and welfare fraud until all existing measures are pursued to the hilt. As the sorry record indicates, this is a long way off. The message for the Hawke Government is clear: give your excellent law enforcement agencies a chance against the burgeoning organised crime in this country. Do not establish a new army of public servants while denying the law bodies their proper avenue-the staff to chase real criminals. Do not saddle ordinary decent law abiding Australians with an intrusive, expensive dog licence. Do not reverse the relationship between the individual and the State by issuing a card so that holders of the card will be, according to the Health Insurance Commission, `those identities entitled to operate in the Australian community'-a most distasteful phrase. Until the Hawke Government has expended all its energies in pursuing the frauds, tax and welfare cheats, the ID card will be rejected wholeheartedly by the people of Australia. The Hawke Government is utterly confused about the revenue it expects to receive from the introduction of its national numbering system. It is simply a case of `pick a number-any number'. The original Blewett proposal submitted to the National Taxation Summit estimated savings, after four years, as $800m per year. Only six months later the then Minister for Health, Dr Blewett, wrote in the publication Civil Liberty that the revenue gain would be $500m per year. On this occasion Dr Blewett conceded that the original estimate of return of $800m per annum was incorrect. But the wheel turned again during the election campaign when Dr Blewett performed yet another somersault on the estimated revenue gain. In a Press release on 22 June 1987, Dr Blewett stated unequivocally: It is conservatively estimated that the Australia Card will save almost $900 million in public funds which are now being lost through tax evasion and welfare fraud. Then, of course, there was the Four Corners program and debate in which the Special Minister of State, Senator Ryan, argued that the ID card would reap $4.75 billion over 10 years. This comprised a total anticipated revenue of $5.5 billion less the establishment cost of $750m. However, on the same program, Senator Ryan contradicted herself when, as recorded on page 28 of the transcript, she stated: The ordinary taxpayers would be prepared for us to lift the benefits and indeed, we'd have an extra $5,000 million a year to spend on them. So the revenue gain from the ID card according to Senator Ryan on the Four Corners program would be approximately $5 billion every year. Further disagreement and confusion came on 16 September when the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) spoke at the Australian Financial Review post-Budget dinner. The Prime Minister added yet another estimate of the expected revenue gain when he said: None of the critics of the Australia Card has effectively questioned the estimate that it could raise nearly $1 billion of extra revenue. Of course, he did not say over what period. That was yet another guess of the expected revenue gain. For the record, I for one challenge him, Dr Blewett and Senator Ryan to demonstrate this phoney, rubbery figure and give proper details of it. Clearly, the Hawke Government has no idea of the income it can expect from the ID card. It is an absurdity that the Hawke Government is expecting the Australian populace to accept a system of numbering when it has no idea of what the revenue gain will be. Certainly, the Government has no idea of the cost of the card, whether it be the cost to its own administration or to business, large, small or medium. It is apparent that Government estimates of projected income are hopeful and that estimates of cost to business are suppressed. Like the expected revenue gain, Government estimates of the costs to both itself and industry vary widely, ranging from as low as $49m to as high as nearly $800m. Even worse, the Government's most realistic estimate of the cost of the ID card has been badly underestimated. For example, the Government's costing contains no provision for replacement of sophisticated equipment over a 10-year period-an omission described by the experts as ludicrous. There are serious underestimates of the number of transactions and thus the costs involved in keeping records up to date. No provision is included for the levels of compliance required by State and local governments-a cost predicted to be very substantial indeed. When will we hear from the prominent Government senators and supporters for freedom? I have looked at the list and have not found many of the Government senators who I would expect to be in the forefront of the debate. I refer to Senator Bolkus, Senator Cooney, Senator Childs, Senator Devlin and Senator Devereux. None of these has yet spoken. I trust that we will get their views before long. The Australian public needs to know what some of these people really believe about the ID card. Senator Ryan categorically defends the integrity of the system. We do not really know which system, but she still defends it. I think that Frank Duggan is closer to the mark when he says that the system is no better than the operators. He has proved his point. Dr McGoldrick found out all about the integrity of a system with the naming of his patients, which was deemed to be in the public interest. A little while ago hackers cracked the Pentagon system. I noticed headlines in yesterday's paper that hackers broke into the network of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Still Senator Ryan extravagantly, foolishly and incorrectly makes claims that she cannot deliver. She knows, as we know, that the system is not in absolute total integrity. I believe it was on or about 1 September that, to further the debate, Senator Ryan said that she would welcome comment. In order that I could participate in this debate and use the best information available, I wrote to Senator Ryan on that day stating that I wished to participate in the debate and asking for the answers to 10 simple questions. Three weeks later, and after another follow-up letter-surprise, surprise-I still have not had a response to the simple information that I sought. In view of the fact that it has not been possible to get a response, I will now ask those questions and ask Senator Ryan to provide me with the information I seek, at least in the summing up of the debate unless she is able to supply it for me today. The 10 questions are: firstly, did the Department of Social Security advise that only 0.6 per cent of its losses were based on false identity? Secondly, what is the official agreed figure for departmental overpayment and how is it arrived at? Thirdly, what allowance has been made for the new false identity fraud that will be treated by an official ID card? Fourthly, what is the official agreed figure for tax evasion for the 1986-87 year, and how is it arrived at? Fifthly, has the Commissioner of Taxation taken all possible steps to implement the present laws? Sixthly, if not, why should the Government believe that the new laws would be implemented any more fully? Seventhly, has tightening up produced an improved recovery from evaders and, if so, how much for the 1986-87 year? Eighthly, which law enforcement authorities have agreed that an ID card will eliminate social security fraud or tax fraud? Ninthly, what additional resources are planned for the Australian Federal Police to police and prosecute offenders under the Act? Tenthly, what percentage of the total population does the Government assess to be cheating under tax or social security laws? These questions are very simple. I would like to get answers to them even though it has not been possible to get them in time for the debate, as I requested. To summarise, every Minister seems to be giving different information. I regret only that so far we have not heard Senator Evans speak in the debate. I am sure that he could have confused us all further. No law enforcement authority agrees that a card would do the things claimed by the Government. The Government's record on law enforcement over its four years in office could not make anyone believe that it would change now. The costs of the card are not established. The grossly rubbery recovery figures are stated with no backing of any sort. Real criminals will be the major beneficiaries of this brand new form of criminal enterprise. Probably 15 million decent, honest Australians will be numbered, carded and recorded as an excuse for the Government not carrying out the provisions that already exist, in the name of chasing a handful of wrongdoers. The card will not change the operation of the black, or cash, economy. No other Western country has found it necessary or desirable to inflict such a system on its people. I oppose the Bill. I oppose its philosophy. I oppose its presentation. I particularly oppose the terminology it applies to people. Now that information-as distinct from bland political statements-is being made public already 60 per cent of Australians are opposed to the card. Decent Australians are offended by the assumption that they are all crooks. Criminals embrace the card enthusiastically for the new profitable opportunities it will provide. I oppose the Bill and support the amendment. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria-Minister for Home Affairs)(11.08) —This is the third time this chamber has debated the Australia Card Bill at great length. I must say that some of the thrill of the debate has gone. Very little that is new has been added in the last 15 or so hours in this, the third debate. Possibly the intrusion of the safety of dedicated landlines that Senator Coulter referred to earlier is one of the very few new factors that have been introduced. What we have heard in the last 15 or so hours of debate has been a regurgitation of previous arguments. Most of the arguments do not focus on each other. They are like ships passing in the night. We on this side of the chamber have put forward certain propositions that have rarely been counteracted by the other side and probably vice versa. What this has meant, apart from a drop in Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio ratings over the last few days, is that we are wasting about 25 hours debating the issue here, when the intention all along has been to refer the issue to a select committee that will, in a more concise way, go away, confront the issues and discuss them one by one. So what we have indulged in here is a belief, at least by the Opposition, that some political brownie points can be attributed by having a long debate on this issue. I refer any honourable senator who is interested-I do not recommend it-to my previous half-hour contribution on the Australia Card. I could be like others, get it out of the drawer and regurgitate it for half an hour. That not only would be boring but also would not be at all productive, so I do not intend to do that. I just want to go to two or three issues. The first issue which has come across a lot in this debate is whether the Government has a mandate. Some honourable senators on this side of the chamber feel passionately about this. I do not. Some honourable senators on the other side contest whether we have a mandate. I, for one, have never understood what a mandate is. It seems to me that a mandate is something one claims after an election to justify putting something through. It is denied by the other side by a whole series of devices. Ultimately, the only validity of a mandate, I would suggest, is whether one gets something through this chamber by constitutional means. The ultimate test of a mandate will probably be in March next year when, for one of the few occasions, we troop across to the House of Representatives, we all sit there and we have one big division. That will be the mandate. That will be what determines what the people think because it will be the combined views of the people as expressed in the result of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The last election was called on the issue of the Australia Card. No one could argue that it was fought exclusively on that issue. People will argue around the edges as to what extent it featured in the campaign. From a Government point of view, we do not have to set the agenda for most of the campaign. We are in government. We are being judged on our record when we go to the people of Australia. It is up to the Opposition-and it was up to the Opposition, the Australian Democrats and others-to raise what it regarded as the major issue. Our very first campaign advertisements-full page ads costing about $5,000 a page-appeared across this nation, I think, three days after the election was announced, announcing our support for the Australia Card. So we ran our colours up the mast very early. There was virtually no response from Liberal Party members, from their brothers in the National Party or from the Democrats on this issue. The challenge was launched. We called an election on the issue. We put in our full page ads. There was virtually no response from the Opposition. There were a variety of reasons for that. I think the Opposition squibbed the debate. It thought that it would be an electoral liability to fight an election on the Australia Card, and it refused to do so. Opposition members had other problems at the time. They were scrambling to get a tax policy ready. They were scrambling to get a health policy ready. They were scrambling to get a communications policy together which, by the way, has not been released yet. They did get an education policy together but refused to release the costings. So they had other problems that may have distracted their focusing on the Australia Card issue. But it certainly was not taken up by them. So the later claim by people such as Senator MacGibbon that the Opposition got 16,000 more votes Australia-wide than the Labor Party and that, therefore, we do not have a mandate to introduce the card and it has a mandate to oppose the card is not justified on the basis that the Australia Card was not a major issue raised by the Opposition in the election period. Let me go to the second point and consider why people are opposing the card. It takes a number of levels. One of the first levels, which is a very practical level, is for some Opposition members to say that it will not work. Senator Archer is an example of that. He said that it will never raise the money we are talking about. When it comes to predictions of revenue raising, Budget deficits, employment growth and the rest of it, we have the runs on the board. When we claimed when we were elected in 1983 that we would create 500,000 jobs in the first three years of government we were laughed at. But we did it. When we set targets for the Budget deficit year by year we were laughed at, but we achieved them or came in even lower. When we introduced the fringe benefits tax, opposed by the Opposition in this chamber, and said, `Here is the minimum revenue we will get', again, in snide remarks and attacks in this and the other chamber we were told that we would never meet our targets. So, with respect, when we say that the Australia Card will bring in an X amount of dollars, we are really saying that we think that is the minimum that it will bring in. The `won't work' argument running through many of the Opposition speeches lacks credibility. It cannot be counted. It cannot be contradicted absolutely, of course, because we have to suck it and see. We will have to find out when the revenue comes in whether it matches the target. I just point to our track record of fairly accurate predictions in a whole range of areas. The second level of argument comes from the civil libertarians. I will come back to them in a moment, but there must be some valid concerns about civil liberties in this regard. However, we point to the protections we are providing through the privacy legislation and through the Data Protection Authority. We have even been criticised in this debate for not doing this earlier as a general issue. If we are to be criticised for this, I think members of the Opposition have to take part of the blame. After all, they ruled for 30 out of 34 years. However, very little complaint has been heard here about the lack of protection for the data that already exists in the community. Most members of the community-not all, but most-are the subject of immense amounts of data stored in computers, whether it be through the American Express card, Bankcard, or anything else. Whatever happens in the end with the Australia Card, even if for some reason it falters, we still must proceed with the privacy aspect and the Data Protection Agency, because there is an area of information storage which is running riot with no coverage and no restrictions. A third section of people who oppose the Australia Card are some of those who belong to what I describe as the broad labour movement. That has been pointed out by Opposition senators. To me it is one of the great ironies that many of the people to whom I talk in the labour movement agree with the basic concept of the Australia Card, its aims, et cetera, but they always raise one more point. They say, `We trust you to keep the privacy aspects, to restrict the card's use and not to misuse it. Those we don't trust are the conservatives. They will misuse it when they get into power. They will extend its use, they will give it a police function and we will become a fascist state'. I think a little more of those opposite here than to think that they would do that, but that is essentially why some people in the labour movement, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and even the Australian Labor Party have expressed doubts about the Australia Card. They are doubtful not about this Government's ability to see it up and running as a good measure but about what may happen in the future with a Liberal-National Party coalition government, be such a government hard to imagine at the moment. The labour movement opposes the card for that reason. I come back to the civil libertarians. I have some sympathy for them. They are now embroiled in a campaign with a whole series of allies who are their traditional enemies. The whole ratbag Right-I do not include anyone in this chamber in this-is out there now doing the same thing as it did with the Bill of Rights legislation, taking parts of clauses, or one clause, ignoring their relationship to other clauses and then totally distorting them. We have claims on talkback radio and in letters to newspapers and newsletters about all sorts of uses of the Australia Card that have never been envisaged, never been contemplated and never been intended. The same thing happened with the Bill of Rights legislation. Clause after clause was taken totally out of context and totally distorted. The victims of that campaign were the very civil libertarians that are running a campaign against the Australia Card. I feel a little sorry for them that they have to be associated with such a distorting campaign. There is no direct linkage between what I regard as the ratbag Right and the civil libertarians. They are not combining generally on platforms. But I am a little disappointed that the civil libertarians, in their haste to oppose the Australia Card Bill, will not at least examine some of the arguments being used against the Australia Card by the ratbag Right and dismiss them. They do the service of civil liberties in this country a great disservice by not exposing those ratbag arguments and having them pushed off the agenda. They should have done so much earlier. I move to a third point. A lot of points have been made as to whether there is public support for the Australia Card. People look at opinion polls, et cetera. That is very hard to gauge, because the opinion polls show that ostensibly support for the Australia Card has dropped off. That is not a new function in politics. What has happened is that the issue has been politically polarised. Many people whose support is dropping away from the Australia Card and who initially thought it was a good idea are responding to Liberal or National Party leadership. That is a political reality. It is not so much that they have been disaffected with the Australia Card one way or the other-they may or may not have been; it is hard to determine-but once an issue becomes polarised, support drops. It drops because of what is said by the political leadership of one party and the loyalty of the voters responding to that. It happens in referendums. If the market research were undertaken into four-year terms and we in this chamber were all agreed on four-year terms, that would be reflected in a referendum, but the moment Mr Howard or someone else in Opposition-or, if the position were reversed, we on this side-opposed the proposition, support would drop from 80 per cent to 50 per cent automatically. That accounts for a lot of what is shown in the polls. The Government has been criticised by a few speakers in this chamber for not doing enough already about tax evasion. No government has been more diligent in attacking tax avoidance and evasion-and, quite frankly, we have not had enough co-operation from those opposite in that task. Those opposite, when in government from 1975 to 1983, did not do anywhere near enough to stop the haemorrhaging of tax revenue through tax avoidance. Those opposite really came to the party on only one occasion-in 1982, when the report of the Costigan Royal Commission on the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union hit with its full impact. There was a massive panic and the then Government decided to introduce the bottom of the harbour legislation. Even then, not all of those opposite supported the principle of the legislation. But, to save their political hide, a majority of Liberals opposite and in the other chamber voted for retrospectivity. The moment they lost the election, they disavowed that principle. But if we want to stop tax avoidance at least, adherence to the principle of retrospectivity-I talk to Senator Coulter in this respect-is the one way of removing it once and for all. When a principle is established in this chamber to attack tax avoiders retrospectively, there is no point in people avoiding tax because they will eventually have to pay out the lot, whereas, as the law exists now, until they are discovered they can pocket their ill-gotten gains. Much play has been made on the leaking of information. I make the point that no information is to be kept under the Australia Card that does not already exist. I point out that 10 million Australians are already on one file, called the electoral roll, where their name, address, date of birth and occupation are all recorded. I have not heard any objection to having an electoral roll-at least, not from a majority of senators. Senator Bishop —Some people still manage to vote twice. Senator ROBERT RAY —We might come to that in a big way, later in the day, but not many people do that. Very few cases have ever been proved. In the Nunawading case in Victoria in 1985, 12 allegations of double voting were made by the Liberal Party in its submission to Justice Starke. We disproved every one, I think to the satisfaction of the Liberal Party. But we will get on to that on another occasion. I just make the point that no extra information is to be kept. All systems are somewhat vulnerable in some ways; this one, though, as a result of the dedicated approach taken, will be less vulnerable than any of the existing ones. I sum up as to why we need an Australia Card. I feel sorry for those people in the community who have no ability at all to exploit the system, who are absolute victims of the system. There is very little sympathy for the tax cheats because they are cheating on their fellow citizen. They are taking money out of the pocket of their fellow citizen. There is very little sympathy for those involved in welfare fraud, because they are depriving those in need of extra income. There is very little sympathy for those illegal immigrants who are in fact jumping the queue. Many people overseas who are lawfully waiting their turn simply have to wait longer because illegal immigrants are taking their spots in this country. I am almost tempted-I was almost diverted into doing so-to repeat the speech that I gave a year or so ago during the second reading debate on this legislation. Senator Brownhill is not going to tempt me into doing so. I conclude by saying that nothing really new has been introduced into this debate. I suspect, if I can count correctly, that a select committee inquiry is anticipated. I will be very interested in the results of that and where we go from there. Senator McGAURAN(Victoria)(11.26) —I would like to congratulate all of my National Party colleagues who have taken part in this debate on the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3] on the very firm and unflinching position that they have taken against the Australia Card legislation. Although this is my first speech in this place on this issue, many of them have spoken on three occasions in opposing this legislation. It should be pointed out clearly that these men and the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) spoke out against this legislation during the election campaign. The Rt Hon. Ian Sinclair issued no fewer than eight formal statements and releases on the identity card. Indeed, a recent editorial in the New South Wales rural newspaper, the Land, gave Mr Sinclair credit for speaking out against the ID card, particularly during the election campaign. For my part, I took out a full page advertisement in Melbourne newspapers-the Sun, the Age and several ethnic newspapers-opposing the ID card. So it is false to allege that the National Party has not been campaigning actively, consistently and unflinchingly against this legislation. Why should the National Party not take this position? Its traditions lie with the rural community. As we campaigned across the great State of Victoria we got the message straight and clear from rural Australia that it does not want the ID card. As I said, the National Party is entrenched in its tradition of representing rural people and our stand on this legislation is another fine example of it. This Bill is another example of the way in which the Government is weighing down the rural community with administrative requirements and placing rural people at the beck and call of the bureaucracy. That is what this Government is dishing up to the rural community once again. This Government is avoiding the relevant issues within the rural community. With the Budget, the ID card is another example of why the Government in the last five years of its administration has been termed `bush basher'. It is impractical for the rural community. It is an insult to rural Australia. Farmers and their families will be required to travel to card authorities to be identified and to have their already fragile economic circumstances subject to further investigation. The ID card will dehumanise the life of the rural community. It will take out the human element-that quality of life that we all respect in rural Australia. I would like to give one of the best examples of how the ID card will place numbers on the relationships between people in rural Australia. I refer to those quaint and charming but very businesslike areas, the cattle yards, which are so often the heart of the rural community. Relationships which were based on a handshake between men who trusted one another and sales and deals done by a look in the eye will now be reduced to an exchange of a plastic identification card. It is a disgrace that the card will replace all the honesty and trust, the very natural ways of life, that have been built up in rural Australia. The quality of life which we know the rural community enjoys and which most Australians respect and envy will be lost with the introduction of this card. I make these points to show clearly that the senators from the Government side, unlike those from the National Party, do not come to this debate with clean hands. Last Monday Senator Bolkus from the Labor Left had to give a personal explanation to the Senate for his public comments opposing the ID card. While it was a contorted explanation, in substance it was really saying, `Well, I do oppose this card but I apologise for my public comments because the Caucus is my conscience and conscience is the Caucus. I will toe the line'. These comments by Senator Bolkus, these double standards, merely highlight the dishonesty of this whole debate. The truth is that the Labor Party is far from agreement on this piece of legislation. It is an issue that is causing deep concern in the rank and file of the Labor Party, the Party's branches, the Party machine and, most particularly, the State parliamentary Party of New South Wales. The Premier of New South Wales has the deepest concern. He not only faces an election in the next six months, and he has made that quite clear to his New South Wales colleagues, but also faces the prospect of losing it as a result of this and many other issues. This issue is a very disturbing factor for him. He is pulling in every favour that he has ever done for members of the New South Wales right wing in this chamber. The phones are running hot and he is very worried about his prospects. I would not be surprised if, within the next couple of days, or very soon, we heard an announcement from that Premier. We can expect a sudden announcement of an election while this piece of legislation is being considered by a committee. No doubt the Premier hopes that this issue will die down and be lost. I can assure the Premier, Senator Ray, Senator Richardson and anyone else who cares to listen that it will not die down, because I will still be campaigning very strongly against this card right around the great State of Victoria. I will even go up to New South Wales if I am invited. The Opposition's stance on this legislation goes further than that typical opportunism-and we have come to expect this from the New South Wales right wing-which is being displayed by the Premier, Mr Unsworth, in his opposition. It is a genuine opposition based on the integrity of privacy, an opposition which is displayed by the thousands of people who are sending in petitions, and which is shown by all the grassroots groups that are now springing up in opposition to this ID card. I can only hope, for this nation's sake, that the words of my colleague Senator Boswell come to pass. The honourable senator said the other day that, because of the great and forceful opposition to the card, we are going to witness the greatest retreat since Napoleon fled Moscow. They are very honest words. And leading that retreat, he said, would be Senator Ray. Of course Senator Richardson would be giving him a piggyback. That is what we are going to witness as a result of this Moscow card. This will come to pass-in fact, the retreat is on now. The ID card is a gross and unnecessary invasion of the privacy of the Australian people, and that is something we will never tolerate in this country. The mere language of the Australia Card Bill sends shivers up my spine-and that of anyone else who has been able to get hold of the legislation. It is the language of the high and low in society. It describes the administrative body of the ID card in terms of `the Authority'. When describing the card users, everyday Australian citizens, it uses the word `subject'. In short, the subject is beholden to the Authority and it is a very sad day when such language is used to describe Australians. It is even sadder when it is used in a time when we are preparing to celebrate our bicentennial year-a year to reaffirm our traditions and beliefs for which we fought so hard. Freedom and privacy have always been at the front of those beliefs. While accepting that there will always be a price and a balance for privacy in a democratic society, this piece of legislation goes beyond the balance. It is an extreme intrusion into our privacy. The only people who really fear this legislation are the bulk of honest Australians to whom the card has the least relevance. The directors of organised crime in this country are completely unconcerned about the Australia Card Bill. The drug runners and the bag men will welcome the Australia Card as a universal method by which they can conceal more easily their seedy ways. In addition, the Australia Card could, as Inspector Merv Beck has said, pave the way for corporate crime `on a massive scale'. It will add to crime. It is very opportune now for me to turn to the report of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card to quote several other authorities in crime-namely, the submission by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) Chief Inspector Brown. He only adds weight to Merv Beck's comments. The report says: The AFP adds, however, that there are no realistic grounds for anticipating any impact on the level of organised crime generally . . . Organised crime, particularly in the drug trafficking area, would be quick to identify the possible methods of avoiding the inconvenience caused. I, like everyone else in the Opposition, would like to quote Mr Frank Costigan, who deserves to be quoted time and again. He said: It might have inhibited at a very low level some of the practices which I came across in the early part of the Commission. I do not believe it would have inhibited the more important matters that I was looking at in the last couple of years. In essence, the Australia Card Bill before us now will serve to tighten the thumbscrews on the vast majority of law abiding Australians-taxpaying Australians-and give greater liberties to the crime network. This debate has really now reached the absurd. The Government cannot guarantee, even at a technical level, the security of the system it seeks to impose upon Australians. Yet there is even a greater concern relevant to this debate than the question of technical security which has been properly outlined by my colleagues. The concern relates to the rightful powers of the state in regard to its citizens. It is only in truly extraordinary circumstances that we ought to hand governments added authority in matters of this type. This legislation is not worthy of handing over such powers. It just does not match up. I would like to consider the history of the secrecy provision of section 16 of the Income Tax Assessment Act. This provision has been amended so often since 1936 that seemingly every man and his dog have access to personal financial information once thought to be securely held within the vaults of the Australian Taxation Office. My concern here is not so much the erosion of section 16 itself but the importance of the parallel. Who in 1936 would even have believed that personal financial dealings would be available to a long list of characters who now have access to this information under section 16. It just highlights that the future is unpredictable. For that reason the creation of a national identification system with a central database is testing the faith of all Australians in this Government. More importantly, it is testing the faith of Australians in the bureaucracy and its willingness to restrain its ambition, particularly in relation to many of the appointments that this Government has made in the bureaucracy. If we heed the ambitions of the head of the Department of Veterans' Affairs, the veterans will soon have their privacy invaded and their rightful entitlements, as a result of service to their country, scrutinised and questioned. This comes on the eve of the Vietnam veterans' march to be held in Sydney next weekend. I really hope that no member of the Labor Government has the discourtesy to show his or her face at that march. Senator McKiernan —We didn't send the troops to Vietnam. Senator McGAURAN —Well, do not go to that march. The Government's central justification for the Australia Card legislation resides in its mistaken belief that the Bill will bring about social justice. If this Government really wants to bring about justice within its social welfare system, if it really believes that, it ought to start by cutting taxes. It ought to start creating new opportunities for growth and enterprise in the small business sector. If this Government wants social justice it ought to be concerned about creating new job opportunities. The Australia Card is an admission of broad failure of the Government's broader economic strategy. That is why, for example, on page 58 of Budget Statement No. 2 we find that without even a glimmer of shame from this Government, it states blandly that Australians must once again anticipate an unemployment rate of 8.3 per cent in the coming year. In addition, people also look to this Parliament to set an example, to stand clearly and resolutely for democratic values-values this institution was created to give voice to and above all to protect. Therefore, some of those people who are most concerned with this legislation are those who themselves or whose parents came to this country in the immediate post-war years and whose willingness to work hard within a free and tolerant society helped to produce the standard of living which we now take as commonplace. It is these people who fear the introduction of an Australia Card most. For them it holds bitter memories of a past which they or their parents would wish to forget; a past which was either spent during the war years in Europe or more potently in the post-war Eastern bloc countries. These are the states that have continually called upon their citizens to account, to make them servants of the government. Those people in this country who know exactly what I am talking about reject the Australia Card as some sort of reminiscence of the past and fear of some political program of the future. I classify the selective leakings of Dr McGoldrick's case which has been stated many times in this chamber, the leaking of confidential information on particular individuals or groups as the first sign of the potential of the Australia Card to be misused. In conclusion, I ask the Government when it will come to understand that this nation is either a defender of the principles of democracy and privacy or it is not. On matters of this kind whatever this Government thinks, it cannot have it both ways. I reject the Australia Card legislation. Senator TAMBLING(Northern Territory)(11.45) —There is an English proverb which says that the way to hell is paved with good intentions. There is a lot of truth in that proverb when it comes to the Australia Card and our consideration of it. I wish to dwell on six major points in debate on the Australia Card Bill. First, I refer to the obvious problems with regard to the card itself; secondly, the direction of government in Australia since the last election; thirdly, the confusion in debate on the ID card between means and ends. Why has the Government chosen to solve the problem via this ID card program when departmental action would suffice? Fourthly, it is obviously aimed at small time crooks and the general populace, because surely determined criminals within the community will circumvent this card. What effect will the card have on organised crime? Fifthly, I refer to the Government's contempt for the process of Parliament. What is to stop the Government from steamrolling further provisions of the Bill through the Parliament? Finally, I shall address a number of issues which relate to people living in remote parts of Australia, such as those in my electorate in the Northern Territory. The obvious problems are as follows: First, the Australia Card will not stop welfare fraud. Secondly, it will not stop taxation fraud. Thirdly, it will not deter organised crime. Fourthly, it will not stop illegal immigration. Fifthly, it will not be a 100 per cent secure system. Sixthly, the Government will not obtain an extra $4.7 billion. Seventhly, the Government does not have a mandate for the card. It is interesting to look at the direction of this Government, this Hawkespeak Labor Government, and at the differences between traditional Labor governments throughout history, the trends and where they are going. There is a certain centralisation of power and this Government certainly takes a lot on itself. The genesis one needs to have in mind when examining the Hawke Government is always to remind ourselves of the Boyer Lectures by Bob Hawke, whose publication is ironically entitled `The Resolution of Conflict'. If we go to the section in the publication entitled `How We are Governed', we see the following statement: . . . Australians would be better served by the elimination of the second tier of government-that is the States-which no longer serve their original purpose and act as a positive impediment to achieving good government in our current community. This would give us, like the great majority of other countries, one Parliament with powers available to the government to match the responsibilities upon it of protecting and advancing the interests of Australian citizens. That was part of the lecture by R. J. Hawke. What has been happening with the real reduction in State powers that we have seen through the cuts in real expenditure in that area? Are we heading for an Eastern European or Yugoslavian type of community? The Government has been looking at the reduction of fraud at both ends of the income ladder-the welfare fraud in the area of the have-nots, the tax fraud in the area of the haves. It has been looking at a crackdown on illegal groups in the community, illegal immigration, and organised crime. But the ID card-the Australia Card-is not the answer. There are other more conventional, proper places to look at those issues in both State governments and the Federal Government. If we address the means and the ends, why use a blanket solution to solve these problems? Why not solve specific problems with precise measures? The card will not solve any of its target problems in the areas of tax, social security or immigration. In effect, this card will cause many new problems. The paper cost to industry is estimated to be around $2 billion. What about the plastic cost to individuals, the administrative fines of $20,000 and more to industry and other groups; the fine of $500 for the non-reporting of loss; the encroachment into the privacy of individuals and business? These newer problems are causing widespread community discussion and debate. I am aware that to date the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly has put up this subject as a matter of public importance and an interesting debate is going on there. I am aware of comments made on this topic by the Deputy Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, Ray Hanrahan, particularly those in a recent speech. He discussed the costs attributable to the card and the fact that in 1985 the Labor Government changed its mind and estimated the cost at some $827m. Let me quote from Mr Hanrahan's speech: . . . the real total cost will be much higher. The Government does not include the costs to Territory, State and local governments of putting I.D. numbers on the payrolls. Nor does it take account of the private sector compliance costs. The Confederation of Australian Industry claims private sector compliance costs of $540 million. The Australian Bankers' Association says that compliance costs for the banks alone will be $60 million-so you can expect some increased bank charges. And every small business can expect costs in the order of $2,000, according to the Small Business Association. The Government estimates totally exclude the costs to business of updating staff records and computer software to include the I.D. numbers, and of meeting the demand for data on financial transactions, rents collected, sales of luxury items, real estate, dealings in precious metals, deposits in trust funds, bank accounts, cash management funds, overnight deposits, share transactions, future exchange transactions and all the other activities of the market. The Australian National University Department of Information Systems believes those costs will be in the order of $653m. The consensus among independent observers is that the total public and private sector cost will be $2 billion. The extra cards, beyond one's personal card, will also be a complicating factor. What about women who run businesses under their maiden names? What about the involvement of sporting clubs with their own small bank accounts? What about business areas, and the effects on visitors who wish to stay in Australia for more than six weeks and who wish to be financially active, or who perhaps have the misfortune to be sick? The aim of the card may stop some petty small time fraud by amateurs; it may stop illegal immigrants from working off the books; but the card will not even dent organised crime. Mr Merv Beck, the senior New South Wales policeman renowned for closing Sydney's illegal casinos, has said that the Australia Card could pave the way for corporate crime `on a massive scale'. This card is really aimed at increasing government power over and controlling middle income, pay as you earn Australians. The report of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card contains an addendum by my colleague, Senator Puplick, in which he draws attention to the surreptitious social engineering contained in the proposal. I quote from Senator Puplick's report: The term `social engineering' I have borrowed from the writings of the British philosopher Sir Karl Popper. He uses it to describe any system which seeks to make wholesale changes in our social institutions and relationships enacted by governments in order to achieve some alleged greater good or benefit. He characterises it as an approach based on always appealing `to our emotions rather than to reason', surely a correct description of the propaganda for the Australia Card. He concludes however that- and here he again quotes Popper- even with the best of intentions of making heaven on earth it only succeeds in making it a hell-that hell which man alone prepares for his fellow-men. It has also been mentioned that the Australia Card would be an imposition on to the Australian public of the socialist ideal. The proposal gives the State supremacy over the individual and the ability to monitor individual behaviour. Does anyone really believe that the ID card will in any way stop corporate tax fraud or really control the black economy? Let me deal with the areas of contempt. There is contempt for the recommendations of the Committee, which were rejected and are not in the present Bill. There has been contempt for the public by the Government claiming that it has a mandate. There has been contempt for parliamentary debate. We are all aware of the number of quorums that have been called in this chamber over the last few days because the Australian Labor Party has had hardly anyone present. In fact there are only four members of the Labor Party in the chamber now. The numbers of honourable senators who have participated in the debate are rather remarkable. Out of 34 Opposition senators, 26 will be participating in the debate on this Bill. All of the members of the National Party of Australia have participated. To the credit of the Australian Democrats, all their six members have participated. Two of the three independents have participated, and Senator Wood has given his support and is still waiting to make his maiden speech, and he will be supporting this side of the chamber. Eight members on the Government side have participated in the debate, and Senator Ray has the audacity to say that the thrill has gone out of it. If we take out Senator Ray and Senator Ryan, who have ministerial responsibility, and take out the three new senators who, to their credit, are being blooded in debate-we can certainly give them credit-how many does that leave? Only three members of the Labor Party have made a decent contribution to this debate, compared with 34 members on the other side of the chamber. What a bloody disgrace! Senator Collins —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I am not unused to abuse and so on, but I dislike the use of certain language in the chamber. It might be fashionable and trendy but I do not like it and it is highly disorderly. I would like the honourable senator to withdraw it. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! There is nothing for the honourable senator to withdraw. It was an inappropriate remark but it was not out of order. Senator TAMBLING —Thank you, Mr Deputy President. Where are the members of the Left in the Labor Party who should be taking part in this debate? We have not heard from Senators Bolkus, Burns, Childs, Coates, Devereux, Gietzelt, Giles, McKiernan, Reynolds and Zakharov. Senator Zakharov may be away, but the rest of them have not participated in the debate. They have not given us any idea of how they feel. They must all be part of that group of 31 in the Labor Caucus who are running away from this issue. Talk about contempt of Parliament! What about contempt for the future? Justice Michael Kirby, one of our eminent jurists, said: If there is an identity card, people in authority will want to put it to use . . . What has Senator Susan Ryan said? On the AM program on 17 September she said: Anyone who's familiar with legislation would know that legislation that's 130 pages long is always going to be susceptible to a minor improvement here or in the future. Can we trust the honourable senator? The Government, with the best of intentions, will cause Australia to become a police state, and we will all have to rely totally on our 10-digit ID card. What about the people living in the remote parts of Australia? The introduction of this card will be an administrative nightmare. Imagine the costs incurred by those people and the inconvenience caused to them. Those living in the remote areas, far from big cities, will have to travel far to have their photographs taken, to fill in their forms and to produce forms of identity in order to get their card. Many Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory have already been put on to the Medicare system and received their Medicare cards. But why do they need an ID card as well? What purpose will the card serve? Are there going to be social security problems, tax problems or immigration problems in Arnhem Land or in central Australia? There will be no need for those people to rely on it. They already have their piece of plastic to cover certain requirements. I believe that those people will be seriously disadvantaged by the introduction of this legislation. I conclude by quoting the following verse from a ballad by the Australian poet, Les Murray, which I think carries a timely warning: Hey True Blue, they are slipping it to you, They'll do it in the end in all positions. They are sliding in a card, while you are off your guard, Between you and your traditions. Australia, and particularly the Northern Territory, takes pride in its freedom, its easy going nature and its tolerance to live and let live style. What sort of future can we hope for with an Australia Card? Senator BISHOP(New South Wales)(12.01) —I would like to refer yet again to the 1986 Australian Labor Party conference, which has been in the spotlight somewhat this week. But this time I would like to quote the Hon. Neal Blewett. The following is an oft used quotation, but I think it is important that it be stated and restated: 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. That is indeed the essence of this debate. Those who are opposed to the identity card are committed to the individual, to the rights and freedoms of the individual. Those who support it are not. I would like to deal with the history of the Liberal Party's opposition to the entire concept of an identity card, and of this identity card in particular. There has been much criticism that this issue was not raised to saturation point during the election campaign and that somehow the Opposition has a new found opposition to this concept. In truth, our opposition goes back in the party structure prior to 1986 to the State Council debates, to State convention debates and to the Federal Council debate. I remember very well the impassioned speech when Sir William Knox, from Queensland, reminded people at that convention that the most popular act of repeal following World War II had been the repeal of the existing identity card which had been a wartime measure. I come to the question of why the issue did not gain the saturation coverage that it is now gaining in the post-election period. First of all, the concept of this identity card is a very difficult one. Most people are not familiar with how computers work and how databanks are put together and the sort of intrusion that is possible into their lives. When they were told a simple shibboleth that the card would somehow stop tax avoidance, tax evasion and sponging on the social welfare system, that seemed an attractive proposition. It is only since there has been an in-depth debate that people have begun to realise the sort of intrusion that the card really does represent. In the heat of the election campaign, which was as short as we have now come to expect them to be, there were certainly no photo opportunities to explain in depth about the card. It is not a suitable subject for a 30-second grab, which is so typical of the campaigning style that we have these days. There was certainly not the saturation coverage in the print media that we are now getting. Although my cynicism may show just a little, perhaps some people who thought that the ID card must be prevented from being introduced also thought that they wanted the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) returned to office. So whereas some people are prepared to fight very hard to defeat the identity card in the post-election period, perhaps they were much happier to have it buried in other issues in the election campaign period itself. As I said a little earlier, the identity card involves a complicated concept. Most Australians' acquaintanceship with the idea of a computer is just that-an acquaintanceship. Even for myself, and others, it is a learning process from the information age, which many of us still have to come to terms with totally. But I understand very well, as do most Australians, the Orwellian concept of Nineteen Eighty-Four. One of the things of particular concern in the legislation is the fact that there is absolutely no right to a card; one has no right to be a citizen. At this stage, if one is born in this country or becomes a citizen by lawful means, one has the right to operate within our society. This card puts a barrier between that right and the ability to operate within our own society. In fact, if one is not granted an identity card, the only place one can possibly survive is in the cash economy. To digress for just one moment, if we are serious about attacking those who operate in the cash economy or underground economy, let us examine a different proposition. If we made all and any wages payable a tax deduction against any source of income in the hands of the wage-payer, we would transfer many people who operate in that cash economy into the pay as you earn (PAYE) economy. This is for the very simple reason that we would be giving the wage-payer an incentive to make remittances of PAYE tax because they would be getting the deduction. It would open up new jobs, particularly in the domestic area, and indeed it would make the collection of the revenue more certain. It is certainly a matter that should be examined. I would now like to turn to the Bill itself, because there are many proposed sections that I find of considerable concern, particularly because of the discretionary powers which are conferred by the Bill. Firstly, proposed section 10 deals with eligibility to apply. This is a non-discretionary power. The clause concisely sets out who is entitled to apply. But moving on we see that proposed section 11 says that the application is to be a prescribed form. This form has yet to be determined and therefore the information sought is subject to a discretion. Proposed section 12 deals with the question of whether a photograph is to be compulsory on the card. It says that, should there be an unreasonable amount of distress to the person or a member of the person's family, a card may be issued without the photograph on it. But that is a totally discretionary power that lies with the Authority which it may or may not choose to exercise and which is subject to an application for a reconsideration and finally for a determination by the Agency. But at no stage are there guidelines for how that discretion is to be exercised. It is freely to be exercised. Proposed section 25 sets out what is to go on to the Register and it is very wide. That is prescribed in schedule 1, which is at the back of the Bill. It sets out many sources of information that may go on to that Register. Proposed section 13 gives further discretionary power to the Authority. It says that the Authority may require such information or documents which are reasonably required to verify the identity of the applicant, to verify the statements in the application for the card, and to enable the Authority to decide whether one is eligible for a card. So again the Authority has wide-ranging powers to seek additional information and to exercise discretionary power to determine whether or not an applicant will be granted a card. Proposed section 14 gives further wide-ranging powers to require more information. Eight Acts administered by various departments are listed and the Authority has the power to require any information from any of those departments concerning any of those Acts which are so listed. It also has the power to seek information from the Australian Electoral Commission. Proposed section 15 deals with the actual issue of the card. It says that only when the Authority decides that four set out criteria have been satisfied will a card be issued. In other words, there is absolutely no right for a citizen of Australia to gain a card and therefore be able to operate within our own society. Senator Puplick, in his opening remarks in this debate, drew well the imagery of the tragedy of our bicentennial year being set for the renumbering of the Australian people. I would like to address some random points which I think are fairly important. There is the Government's tactic of trying to set up straw groups of Australians to attack, and to promote the politics of greed and envy. This is pretty hypocritical coming from a government which has well known members of its own ranks who rort various systems themselves. But more worrying still is the specious argument which says, `I have nothing to hide; therefore I have nothing to fear'. Once the card is in place many things can flow from it. The access to information could be increased to include more and more departments and therefore more personnel within government departments. More and more computers can be networked and can talk to each other. Legislation can even be introduced for the confiscation of the card. In a rational debate in a rational period, one would think that those sorts of things could not happen in Australia. But I suggest to honourable senators that there were people in Europe in the 1930s who also believed that their freedom could not be threatened as it was by the rise of Hitler's Germany. The question of the safety, security and foolproof nature of the system itself has also been attacked by many other speakers. It was interesting to read in the Australian of yesterday's date a report titled `Hackers breach NASA network'. This is also something we have been made vaguely aware of, but I thought the report was worth quoting. It said: A group of West German computer hackers calling themselves the Chaos Computer Club succeeded in breaching NASA's restricted international computer network for at least three months before being discovered . . . NASA's space . . . network . . . links 1000 computers in nine countries and provides about 4000 authorised scientists and engineers with information about . . . projects . . . The group discovered a general access code which allowed them to penetrate the whole system, including the electronic mail boxes of users and sensitive data . . . They said they were then able to make themselves invisible or present themselves as authorised users. Further, to give them easy access, they introduced what they called `Trojan horses' into 135 of the 1,000 computers. The article said further: The term Trojan horse is usually applied in computer circles to a program, often found on bulletin boards, which when loaded innocently by a user can destroy all data in loaded disks . . . But it also means a program which can operate independently and can siphon information input by other programs. To most ordinary Australians that sort of description is pretty much gobbledegook. But the long and the short of it is that the world's most sophisticated network program can be and has been breached and information can and has been used. Another point that has been addressed in debate which I think is important is the mandate question, which Senator Robert Ray addressed a little earlier. In this chamber, where the majority of senators do not support the identity card, and coming as I do from New South Wales where seven of the 12 elected senators oppose it, I find it insulting to the 17 new senators who have come into this chamber but who have not previously been able to debate the matter here, to be told that this matter has already been debated once and really does not require recanvassing. True, many of us debated the issue during the election period; I personally did. But as I went through the difficulty of not getting saturation coverage for the issue, many of the contributions in that early stage would have been found in isolated reports or on radio programs which, while a large number of people would have heard them, would not have promulgated the message through to the masses. Yesterday Senator Beahan said that he would like to abolish emotion from the debate. I am sorry but he cannot do that because individual freedom is a passionate and an emotional issue. Many of my constituents, the voters of New South Wales, are themselves passionate about the issue. In the pre-election period I had a phone call from a gentleman who was of European origin. He said that he had treasured memories of his wife. She had had an identity card and she had died in a concentration camp in Germany. He was very passionate and emotional about the identity card. On the Government's side, former Senator Jim McClelland said: Even if the ID card would ensure that everyone that dodged tax would be caught in the net, I still don't think it is worth the price of making every citizen wear a dog collar. That too is passionate language. I also find the analogy that is being drawn between the identity card and ordinary single purpose cards quite offensive. Every card that I carry, that I might choose to use-I have because I chose to apply for it. I could get by quite satisfactorily in my society without it. The identity card is a card which is being foisted upon us all. We do not have an option despite the language being used by the Government that we are being invited to apply. It is an invitation to treat. Very simply, it is said that we cannot get by without it. Therefore, the analogy is most misleading. The cost to the private sector of this compulsory card is something that is yet to be calculated. We have heard much discussion from the Government about claims that individuals are rorting the system and costing the revenue money. I think it is probably more accurate to say that the imposition of this card will rort the private sector and collect money from useful investment to be used only for bureaucratic purposes and not to contribute to the overall economy. This leads me, finally, to the question of why the card is wanted. What is the hidden agenda? What is the underlying motive? There are no two ways about it: information is power. The ability to gather information, to target its use, is something that we are all learning to use in the latter part of the twentieth century. It was interesting that during the election period the Australian Labor Party was said to have had a clever marginal seat strategy. Much of that strategy was to do with finding out information about various electors and targeting those electors, once their prejudices, their likes or dislikes had been identified, to persuade them which way their vote ought to be cast on the basis of a single issue. We spend millions of dollars in this country to teach people how to gather information and how to use it effectively so that we may promote our own causes. The capacity to link stored information and devise new purposes to which that information can be put by government has been best illustrated by the Swedish model where the power of the state has become so terrifying that the man charged with its administration has resigned in protest. Information is power. I have been brought up in a free Australia. I consider it my obligation to preserve the rights of freedom that can be handed on to my children and my children's children. Freedom is precious. If I have a mandate it is to fight to see that freedom survives. (Quorum formed) Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(12.21) —Late last year, on the last occasion the Australia Card Bill 1986 came before the Parliament, I spoke in the second reading debate against the provisions of the Bill but I supported the Bill into its second reading stage. I indicated that the Bill required substantial amendments to meet the concerns which were being legitimately expressed by various sections of the community at that time. I suppose that in hindsight if everyone had done what I did, had the matter reached the committee stage and had discussion on the possible amendments taken place for a period of about three weeks, we would not have had the double dissolution. In fact, the Government could not have obtained the trigger for the double dissolution had the matter still been before the Parliament, as at 30 June 1987. Therefore, we would not be faced, as we are now, ultimately with the Government using its numbers in a joint sitting of Parliament under section 57 of the Constitution to ram this measure through the Parliament. Today I wish to place before the Parliament the views I have, philosophically, about the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3]. It is my view that the Australia Card Bill ought to be opposed because it is like the Bill of Rights proposal. Ostensibly, it is designed to promote justice in our society. In reality, however, its potential for injustice is far more grave than the evils it is designed to deal with. It must be acknowledged at the outset that tax and social security fraud are serious problems. But an Australia Card is no way to deal with those problems. This is because the Australia Card has great potential to be an agent of state control over citizens. Although the Government has claimed that the ID card will be used for certain precise and limited purposes, there is no reason to suppose that future governments will not legislate to create further circumstances in which the identification card must be used. Coming from the trade union movement as I do, I see a great danger in the identification card becoming a work permit by which the state can control who shall have work and who shall not. That power is totalitarianism. In the best possible world, the Australia Card might be an unexceptionable proposal. But, of course, in Australia we do not live in the best possible world. In fact we live in a society in which the levers of government and bureaucracy are controlled increasingly by non-elected cliques who have no compunction about using the power of the state to reshape society after their own image and likeness; in other words to engage in their piece of social engineering. This itch to use power to manipulate public culture and private life has been demonstrated in recent times by certain actions of the Human Rights Commission in seeking to deny the fundamental human right to life to what it terms `defective newborns', by the passage of certain provisions of the sex discrimination legislation denying to individuals the basic right of freedom of conscience and by the attempt to foist on the country a deeply flawed Bill of Rights. These moves have not been undertaken to cultivate human rights considered in the round. On the contrary, a machinery has been established to promote in an arbitrary manner a partial and at times eccentric selection of human rights. This kind of rearrangement of the order of human rights to suit prevailing ideologies or passing intellectual fads is always a threat to human rights. To take the example of the sex discrimination provisions which refuse to recognise the rights of human conscience, in the last Parliament I put on notice my intention to move in the Senate an amendment to the Sex Discrimination Act drafted to correct this enormous injustice. However, the Government voted against my move to have the opportunity to discuss that amendment. Therefore, what the Government has done in those provisions of the sex discrimination legislation is to require Australians, under legal obligation, under pain of penalty, conscientious objection notwithstanding, to regard an unmarried state, a cohabiting state, as though it were a married state. Let me take another example. I mentioned the Human Rights Commission. It showed its true colours when it published its discussion paper on the care of what it called `newborns;' in other words infant human beings. Behind that document was the eugenics principle that if human beings are born with serious health problems they can be culled from the human family by means of medical neglect. This is very relevant to this debate because many of the social engineers, many members of the non-elected clique, are to be found within the health portfolio. It is not without significance that the people who will administer the Australia Card, the identification card, belong to that non-elected clique in the health establishment. Only recently we heard about the drug Depo-Provera being given to Aboriginal girls. Let me remind the Senate of my credentials in health matters. As far back as 1979 I raised in this Parliament in a question to the then Minister representing the Minister for Health the dangers of the drug Depo-Provera. The then Minister simply quoted back to me what the Department of Health establishment was telling her-that there was nothing to worry about. Had the Department of Health and the government at the time taken note of what I said, we would not have a problem with Depo-Provera at this time. I am perfectly aware that amongst the health professionals is concern at the increasing and unexpected strains on health budgets. That has led some health administrators to argue that one way of cutting costs would be to enable or require persons with congenital disorders to go through an in-vitro fertilisation program and submit their human embryonic offspring to a filtering system if that can be devised. And it is being devised. A substantial number of DNA probes are now being developed in Melbourne to detect genetic abnormalities in the early human embryo. A fact that is not well known is that consideration is being given at this point by a committee appointed by the National Health and Medical Research Council to the establishment of registers of persons with genetic disorders. Why would that consideration be taking place? Certainly, one can think of some advantages. But the disadvantages would very greatly outweigh the advantages. At least two of those on the committee are on record as saying that genetic probes can be used as a search and destroy operation, that is, to search for genetic disorders and then not to cure the disease but to eliminate the bearer. If such information were included in a person's Australia Card file, identification card file, how far down the track would we go? Let us assume that this material was available to the Department of Social Security. I am not saying that this Government would do such a thing, but it would need just a flick of a finger for a future government to say to a person whose family has a history of genetic disorders, of which there are some 4,000, `If you do not go through a program so that we can have a test done on your offspring, you are on your own. You will not be paid family allowance. You will not be paid a handicapped child allowance'. The last time a register of genetic disorders was established was during the Third Reich in 1934. There is a very interesting book of about 400 pages by Robert Jay Lifton, published by Basic Books Inc in New York, entitled The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. It details what occurred in 1934. A register-it was called a card index-was established of genetic taints. The persons who were found to have genetic taints were taken from the register and sent notification to go to court. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people were sterilised by the Third Reich. The courts which heard those applications were secret by orders of the state allegedly to protect the identity of those who were to undergo the sterilisation operation. I would be very concerned if this vehicle, this identification card, were able to be used for that sort of purpose. I am not suggesting that it would be used for that purpose by this Government. It certainly would not be in the mind of anyone I know in this Government. However, let the Government not be surprised that it is in the minds of persons behind the push for the identification card, particularly the non-elected clique-I am glad to see that the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan) is in the chamber. The non-elected health establishment clique is now ignoring the report of the Senate Select Committee on the Human Embryo Experimentation Bill 1985 and is attempting to stop its recommendations coming before Parliament. It wants to have a national body to be established to determine the ethics of the human embryo experimentation question and other questions, including euthanasia and the like. This non-elected clique is not answerable to this Parliament. It does not stand up for fundamental rights. Unless this issue is determined on the fundamental premise that we are dealing with human subjects and that human life is involved, the pressure to extend the limits will become irresistible. Families, whether or not they have genetic disorders, now have some privacy. When the Australia Card is introduced there will be no escape. The Australia Card Bill raises the point: if the Government is not capable of respecting the consciences of the Australian people, as it was not capable of doing when I proposed my amendment to the sex discrimination legislation-honourable senators should bear in mind that I supported aspects of it-how can we be so naive as to imagine that it will respect the privacy of Australians, something far less valuable than their consciences? A bureaucracy which has no respect for consciences cannot be trusted to respect privacy. The Bill of Rights gave to tribunals and the bureaucracy star chamber powers and to judges a legislative power in regard to human rights, which properly is the responsibility of the Parliament. It is not surprising that bureaucrats who contrived the Human Rights Commission and sex discrimination legislation-aspects of which I talked about-and the Bill of Rights have come up with the Australia Card. It is another attempt at addressing real problems by creating dangers more threatening to society. The ID card has too much potential for social engineering and social control to put this instrument into the hands of a bureaucracy already committed to schemes of social engineering. As I study the Australia Card Bill the dangers it contains clearly unfold. We find that without the card the conduct of routine essential business of ordinary life will be impossible. No important money transaction can be made without the ID card. More importantly, employers face a $20,000 fine if they do not require their employees to present their cards. Here we touch on the central problem of the Australia Card. To be at all relevant in the fight against tax evasion an instrument such as an identity card must play a necessary part in the relations between employee and employer. Yet this very necessity is what makes the ID card such a danger. To serve any useful purpose in regard to tax evasion the Australia Card must become a work permit. With a $20,000 fine hanging over an employer's head for not demanding presentation of the card, an employer is likely to refuse to employ persons who do not have or who refuse to use an Australia Card. Those who refuse to register for the Australia Card will be effectively unemployable, except in the cash or black market economy, one of the chief areas of tax evasion and one which, by its very nature, the ID card cannot touch. Once contracting parties decide to opt out of the white economy and into the black economy the ID card becomes irrelevant. Indeed, precisely because the ID card is incapable of identifying transactions in the black economy, it will, if anything, encourage its growth. This is exactly what has happened in communist and authoritarian countries. Under these regimes people turn to the black economy, not just because it happens to be more efficient than the official economy, but also because in the obscurity of the black economy an underground culture forms in which many people seek to escape from the prying eyes of the state. In reality these people are refugees from the official society. This rejection of official society by the underground society is a response to the falsehood at the heart of the official order. The state claims that it is a democracy but the people have no say in its running. The state claims to be a people's state when in fact it is a bureaucrat state. The state proclaims freedom of conscience and then imprisons those who exercise it. With the ID card Australia faces the prospect of building a lie of a similar kind, although of a less serious kind, into the fabric of our national life. What is the nature of this lie? The bureaucrats are attempting to create the impression that application for the Australia Card is voluntary. The Australian people are to be `invited' to take up the Australia Card. But the invitation to take up the Australia Card cannot be declined. Application for the card cannot be voluntary because failure to volunteer carries with it a penalty-the penalty of banishment from the sphere of everyday life. Furthermore, a non-registering citizen risks a $20,000 fine for being unable to present his card upon demand of the Commissioner of Taxation pursuant to his legal responsibilities. Sitting suspended from 12.45 p.m. to 2 p.m. Senator CHANEY —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations. I refer the Minister to Senator Walsh's description of the new Parliament House as `another scandal'. Does the Minister agree that it is scandalous for the Building Workers Industrial Union to demand the flow-on to the Parliament House construction site of the $20 a week severance pay agreement reached with some employers? Is he aware that last Friday Mr Justice Ludeke condemned the severance pay deals which had been done and said that they could not be justified under the wage fixing principles and that any further attempt to extend the payment was unacceptable? What steps will the Government take to ensure that the $20 severance payment is not paid on the new Parliament House site unless it is a determination of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission? Senator Walsh —Fancy having the effrontery to ask that when you supported the doctors union in the ACT. Senator BUTTON —I have been ably assisted by Senator Walsh, who has reminded me of the Opposition's attitude to the doctors union strike in the Australian Capital Territory. But, leaving that question aside, I am not familiar with the issues in this dispute. I observe what Senator Chaney said about the recommendation of Mr Justice Ludeke. I will refer the question to the Minister for Industrial Relations and obtain an answer. Senator McKIERNAN —My question is directed to the Minister for Home Affairs. Did the Minister see a letter in the Canberra Times yesterday from a person who claimed to have voted six times in the election on 11 July? Is the Australian Electoral Commission aware of this and what action, if any, has been taken to investigate these claims? Senator ROBERT RAY —Yesterday the Canberra Times published a letter from Mr Haantjens of Broulee, New South Wales. In that letter, which, by the way, was received by the Canberra Times on 9 September, Mr Haantjens claimed to have voted at the Federal election five times in his own name and once in someone else's. Mr Haantjens's letter to the editor did not mention that on 2 September the Divisional Returning Officer for Eden-Monaro wrote to him, asking why he had appeared to vote more than once. Mr Haantjens replied to the Divisional Returning Officer on 7 September-that is, before the letter to the editor was received. In his reply Mr Haantjens stated that he had voted at Moruya, Mossy Point, Batehaven, Batemans Bay, Mogo and Bodalla-areas with which I am not totally au fait-and that he had taken this action to demonstrate the lack of safeguards against multiple voting. It is not impossible that Mr Haantjens's decision to write a letter to the editor almost two months after election day was connected to the inquiries made by the Electoral Commission. Whilst it is possible to vote more than once on election day, I point out that such action is easily detected through the roll mark-back conducted by the Electoral Commission after the election. Under section 339 (1) (j) of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, multiple voting carries a maximum penalty of $1,000 or six months imprisonment or both. The Sydney office of the Electoral Commission has already referred Mr Haantjens's case to the Director of Public Prosecutions for examination. I might add that from time to time allegations are made as to multiple voting, but all investigations, at least going back for the last 20 years, have shown that it is not a practice indulged in by the citizens of this country. It would certainly never be a practice that any major party would encourage, because if the electoral margin were narrow a court of disputed returns quite clearly would throw out any such election on those grounds. I just remind the Senate that these days the Electoral Commission itself can put a matter before the Court of Disputed Returns, irrespective of party viewpoints. The only alternative, if this practice became common, would be for the Government to provide individual computer terminals at every booth to make sure that people were not voting more than once. Multiple voting is not a practice that any major political party would want to encourage; it is one that the full force of the law will be used to stamp out. Senator MESSNER —Is the Minister for Transport and Communications aware that, within a few weeks, not several months, of the coastal surveillance contract being awarded to Amann Aviation Pty Ltd, Amann requested certain significant changes to that contract? Is he also aware that the most significant change requested was an alternative to the type of aircraft that was to be used? Is he further aware that an aircraft change would have justified cancelling the contract? Given the serious concerns then expressed by the Department of Aviation about Amann's ability to meet the terms of the contract, which were well known to the Minister and documented in the papers he put down the other day, why did the Minister not cancel the contract forthwith? Senator GARETH EVANS —There is no difficulty at all about answering this question. The tender specification did not identify particular makes or models of aircraft. It simply required the contractor to provide suitable multi-engined aircraft which met certain equipment and performance criteria. These criteria included, for example, a capability to perform on task for a minimum of five hours flying at a level of 500 feet and a speed within the range of 140 to 160 knots and still have sufficient in-flight fuel reserves for emergency situations. The original tender by Amann was in terms of 14 Aerocommander 680F and FL aircraft which are piston-engined. It is perfectly true that a little further down the track Amann notified the Government that it was its intention to change from those aircraft to turbo-prop aircraft for reasons that were spelt out. So, there is no contractual question that arose. Whether that was a sensible economic or managerial decision for Amann Aviation to take is something that is, I suppose, debatable. Certainly, the question is by no means as open and shut as some self-titled experts on the subject who have been waxing lyrical in the nation's Press over the last few weeks would have one believe. It is a matter of trading off, as I said in this place a little while ago, the advantages of low maintenance associated, as I understand it, with turbo-prop aircraft against the higher fuel consumption that is involved in using those aircraft as distinct from piston-driven ones. That is essentially a matter of the economic and managerial judgment of the firm concerned. There is no question of that being relevant to the literal requirements of the contract. It was a discretionary judgment which was available to the successful tenderer within the terms of the contract and there is no basis whatsoever on which that particular exercise of commercial judgment would have proved a sound basis for the termination of the contract. Senator GIETZELT —My question to the Minister for Transport and Communications relates to what appears to be an invasion of privacy of citizens who happen to work for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Has the Minister seen a statement by the member for Parkes, Mr Michael Cobb, MP, in which he suggests that an Australian Broadcasting Corporation film crew may have used some or all of $1,000, drawn from a Commonwealth Bank branch in the New South Wales town of Brewarrina, to purchase beer and wine for local Aboriginal people prior to the riot that occurred in that town on Saturday, 15 August 1987? Is the Minister concerned about the possibility that Mr Cobb may have gained access to confidential bank data relating to transactions which took place at that time? Senator GARETH EVANS —I have seen Mr Cobb's statement and I have called for a full report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on the allegations contained in it. Specifically, I have asked the ABC to detail fully the activities of its television and radio news crews who were in Brewarrina at that time. The corporation's report to me will include details of expenses incurred by ABC personnel in Brewarrina and their contact with the local Aboriginal community. I have not yet received the full report I have asked for but I will be happy to make it available when I receive it which I hope will be before the end of this parliamentary week-although obviously I cannot guarantee that. On the basis of the partial report that has so far been made to me and which deals specifically with the Four Corners crew, the specific target of Mr Cobb's allegations in the other place yesterday, I can say that that crew was in Brewarrina from Thursday night, 13 August, until mid-Saturday afternoon, 15 August. That crew consisted of the producer Deborah Richards, reporter Pamela Bornhorst, cameraman Chris Doig and sound man Chris Alderton. They were nearing the end of a three-week assignment on the recent spate of Aboriginal deaths in custody-an assignment which was to take them to Adelaide, Wilcannia and Cairns; I am not sure whether it was in that order. The crew members were in Wilcannia from 10 August on the second leg of that research. As it happened, they discovered that the funeral of Lloyd Boney was about to occur in nearby Brewarrina and they made their way there on Thursday, 13 August. Deborah Richards, the producer and crew leader, went to the local Commonwealth Bank on the Friday to cash her travelling allowance cheque for $1,778.70 which was determined as the appropriate TA for a three-week trip for herself. The bank would not cash the cheque in question and suggested that the only way in which she could get some cash in relation to it was to open a personal savings account and transfer the Reserve Bank cheque into it. Senator Puplick —An ABC cheque, and they would not honour it? Senator GARETH EVANS —I am not responsible for the idiosyncrasies of the Commonwealth Bank's cheque cashing procedures but this is the reality of the situation which has been confirmed by my office with the State management of the Commonwealth Bank. That is the way they operate. The sort of identification that is necessary to open an account and cash a cheque is not necessarily of the same order as the identification needed simply to cash a cheque. So be it. Whatever the idiosyncratic management practices of the Brewarrina branch of the Commonwealth Bank may be, the reality is that this was the only way in which she could get some cash for the perceived needs of herself and the crew. In other words, she had to open a personal savings account, transfer the Reserve Bank cheque into it and withdraw the amount she wanted. She deposited the cheque and immediately withdrew $1,000 which she envisaged would be necessary, not only for possible motel and living expenses over the weekend, but also in particular for the possible need to charter a light plane over the weekend to take film back to the city should that need have arisen. That was the particular reason why it was felt necessary to have a substantial amount of cash. In fact, the money was not needed. The four-person Four Corners crew left Brewarrina mid-afternoon on Saturday, 15 August, for Sydney and the riot occurred later that night. When Deborah Richards arrived at work on the Monday for discussions about the future shape of the story, the decision was made to concentrate on a black death in one town, Wilcannia. Accordingly she returned $940 of the $1,000 that she had withdrawn to the unit production manager. Some $778 of the original cheque remained in the personal savings account of the Commonwealth Bank which she had opened. This was transferred to the Crows Nest branch. Later that week when the crew set out for a two-week shoot in Wilcannia, Ms Richards took with her both the $778 and the $940 as part of the new standard allocation for a shoot. It will be seen that this is all part of perfectly normal accounting practice and the allegations about the behaviour of the crew and the individual in question, whose name has been so scurrilously dragged through the mud by the scurrilous and contemptible National Party member in question, are most unfortunate. Senator Chaney —On a point of order, Mr President: The description of the honourable member is clearly out of order. The PRESIDENT —It was a personal reflection on a member of another House. I ask Senator Evans to withdraw it. Senator GARETH EVANS —It was a personal reflection, Mr President, and I withdraw it in deference to your ruling. Senator Chaney —Mr President, we are required to use the appellation of `honourable' with respect to senators opposite whom we regard as being completely to the contrary. But there are forms in this place and I suggest that you conform with the practice of the House and require a withdrawal that is not qualified. The PRESIDENT —I ask Senator Evans to withdraw. Senator GARETH EVANS —I withdraw, Mr President. Might I say finally that I would be very disturbed-indeed, as I am sure other honourable and less honourable members of this chamber would be-if there has been any lapse in normal bank confidentiality in Brewarrina relating to these allegations. It is crucial that bank customers have, and be able to have, complete confidence in the confidentiality of their bank transactions. It is clear that a breach of that principle of confidentiality occurred by some person as yet unknown. I will take this matter up with the Treasurer and provide the Senate with any information that becomes available, although obviously it cannot be guaranteed that any further information on a matter of this kind will in fact become available. That is a matter of great regret. Senator Messner —I ask the Minister to table the document from which he quoted. The PRESIDENT —Will the Minister table the document? Senator GARETH EVANS —No, Mr President. Senator MACKLIN —I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Education and Training to an article on page 2 of the Australian of 22 September. This article predicts that a number of private, fee-charging higher education institutions will be set up by entrepreneurs in Perth, Sydney and Melbourne along the lines of the proposed Bond private university on Queensland's Gold Coast. Would such institutions be eligible for government subsidies? For example, would students at such institutions be eligible for Austudy allowances? Would academics and departments in those institutions be eligible for grants from the soon to be established Australian Research Council? Senator RYAN —Senator Macklin gave my office some notice of that question. It has been referred to Mr Dawkins's office and we have not yet received a reply. Senator COATES —Is the Minister for Justice aware of the independent stance taken by the Tasmanian Minister for Police, Mr Geoff Pearsall, on the issue of uniform gun laws? How important is the establishment of uniform gun laws if recent tragedies are to be avoided in the future? Is the Minister aware that in the Press Mr Pearsall has accused police Ministers from the Labor States of an hysterical reaction to recent tragedies such as that in Hoddle Street? Is this claim justifiable? Given that Tasmania's gun laws have recently been shown to be particularly lax, is Mr Pearsall's stance jeopardising the establishment of uniform and stricter gun laws across Australia? Senator TATE —I have had drawn to my attention statements attributed to Mr Pearsall, reported in the Mercury of 21 September, where, among other things, he says concerning the proposal that minimum uniform gun laws be established: However, the Labor states, in a hysterical reaction to the recent tragedies, have, without advising me, decided to set up a committee to look into gun laws. The fact is that I advised Mr Pearsall some weeks before a recent meeting of police Ministers that it was desirable that we have some discussions on this topic. He declined to take part in those discussions. He boycotted them and instructed the Tasmanian Attorney-General, Mr Bennett, not to take part in those informal discussions held in Melbourne on 10 September. I believe that it is extremely desirable that there be established some national gun laws of a minimum character-not an exclusive or exhaustive list but at least one which would take into account the fact that the transfer of persons and obviously of firearms around Australia is extremely easy. That is as it should be; we would not want to have border guards supervising every passage of a car or, for example, the docking of the Abel Tasman at Melbourne, to see what firearms might be on board that vessel or in cars crossing State borders. On the other hand, it is clear that we need to have an approach which does not allow such a fragmentation throughout Australia that those jurisdictions which have tried to take steps to make the acquisition of firearms less easy for their citizens are frustrated by their easy purchase in other jurisdictions without due deliberation or taking account of the desires of those jurisdictions where such purchases cannot easily be made. This came to mind when I was in Western Australia attending a Labor lawyers meeting-unfortunately, I did not attend all sessions-last weekend, when I read a headline in the West Australian of Saturday, 19 September: `Death for sale across the counter'. It recounts the experience of the reporter from the West Australian who had gone to Launceston and purchased a semi-automatic rifle with the same ease, as he said, as `buying a bag of lollies'. He went into the shop called Gun Sales and Service in Launceston, and told the manager he wanted to buy a gun, something military. His article states: `Would we need a licence for that?' I asked the manager pointing to a semi-automatic on the wall. `No. No licences here,' was the reply. `You are over 16 aren't you?' he asked. We all laughed- and settled on the 0.223 semi-automatic made by the Tasmanian firm, Australian Automatic Arms Pty Ltd. It would be banned in Western Australia and most other States because it is a semi-automatic, centrefire weapon and can hold more than eight rounds. I handed over $840 and the manager threw in three packets of Chinese ammunition on the house. The only requirement was that the person be assessed by the manager to be over 16 years of age. We cannot have in Australia this fragmentation and protection of turf by State Ministers who are not prepared to co-operate in trying to bring about minimum national supervision of the acquisition of firearms by Australians and residents in this country. Indeed, the simple proposal by the Labor Ministers-I do not regard it as an hysterical reaction but as a well-considered and understandable reaction to recent tragedies-is that a working party be set up to look at proposals, including the licensing of shooters under a common national system; a practical test of firearm knowledge and safety for gun licence applicants; a uniform permit to purchase system requiring gun buyers to justify the reasons for buying guns; and the establishment of a national firearms register enabling jurisdictions to cross reference applications for firearm purchases. I am taking part in those discussions and so is Mr John Brown, because of the implications for the Australian Capital Territory. We hope that these discussions will prove useful in bringing about a situation where, without unduly interfering with farmers and recreational shooters in the pursuit of their necessary recreational interests, the occurrence I have referred to will not become as common as apparently it is. Senator BISHOP —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Treasurer. I refer the Minister to table 2, in Paper No. 2 in Mr Unsworth's election Budget last night, which reveals that the New South Wales net State and semi-government guaranteed debt and other obligations rose, between the end of June 1986 and the end of June 1987, by $2.5 billion to $18.5 billion or 23 per cent of the gross State product. I refer also to a confidential International Monetary Fund report on Australia which states: Within the public sector, the efforts of the Commonwealth to put its own house in order cannot be successful without parallel efforts by State and local governments. Does the Treasurer agree that New South Wales strategy has been, and remains, fundamentally flawed and at cross purposes with the need to address Australia's economic problems? Senator WALSH —I have not seen the New South Wales Budget documents, nor have I had more than a cursory glance at the Press reports on them. However, one prima facie possibility is that there may have been some offsetting adjustment in cash balances in the item referred to. Even if that were not the case and if the New South Wales Government has increased its debt by 2.5 billion, I would not pretend to know enough about the totality of the New South Wales Budget to know whether that is an inappropriate level of increase or not. I do, however, note that even in proportional terms-that is taking the New South Wales population as a proportion of the Australian population as something over a third or perhaps closer to 40 per cent-$2.5 billion is quite small compared to the $9.6 billion impending deficit that John Howard left behind him. Senator Michael Baume —Rubbish! The great lie again. Senator WALSH —Senator Baume says that that is a great lie. Would he like a copy of the minute that present Senator Stone sent over to the new Government after John Howard was ignominiously kicked out of office on 5 March 1983? If I do not already have a copy of it in my office, I am sure the Treasurer will be happy to supply me with a copy of the minute that Senator Stone sent over immediately after the 1983 election, immediately after the ignominious removal from office of the discredited former Treasurer, and I will make it available to Senator Baume. He might even decide to make available to Senator Baume something which was apparently inadvertently made public a couple of months ago, and that was the note which would have been given to the Fraser-Howard Government, had it by some some cruel twist of fate returned to office back in March 1983. That makes even better reading. It is quite small compared to the final act of fiscal vandalism produced by the discredited former Treasurer, that is his last Budget. It is true that there has been a problem for some time in maintaining sufficient agreement with or discipline over State governments in regard to monetary and fiscal policy. Senator Bishop, and perhaps even Mr Urbanchich, might be interested to know that the origin of that problem was the disgraceful abdication of responsibility by the Fraser-Howard Government-I believe it was in 1980, but I would not guarantee that-in abandoning control on borrowings by State government authorities. Indeed, in the context of the resources boom which Howard and Fraser mercilessly pumped up, the State governments involved-- Senator Chaney —I rise on a point of order, Mr President. The Minister was asked a quite specific question about the Budget of New South Wales-a Budget which shows an alarming increase in the deficit. In the past the Minister has given extensive and detailed replies with respect to the affairs of Queensland. It seems an extraordinary gap in the Minister's knowledge, but having told the Senate in answer to the question that he does not know the answer, he is now proceeding to debate. It is hard to say he is debating the question; he seems to be debating at large matters of historic interest which bear no relation to the question which was asked by the honourable senator from New South Wales. I ask you, Mr President, to call the Minister to order. Senator Button —I rise on the point of order, Mr President. The question, at the end, specifically drew attention to the difference between Commonwealth performance and State government performance. Senator Walsh, as I comprehended, was dealing with the point in specific and frank detail. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Walsh's reply was related to the general question. Some of his remarks were in response to interjections. I shall allow Senator Walsh to answer the question, but remind him about the length of time that he is taking. Senator WALSH —Thank you, Mr President. You are, of course, correct. The question specifically referred to the difficulties which a Commonwealth government may have in ensuring that the fiscal policies of State governments are compatible with the needs of the nation and/or the fiscal policies of the Commonwealth Government. They are not necessarily the same thing, although they are at this particular time. One of the major contributors to that problem is, as I was saying, the abdication of fiscal responsibility by the Fraser-Howard team in 1980 when in the context of a resources boom, which never happened, it issued open-ended invitations to State governments to go on a borrowing spree, in order to establish the infrastructure required for the resources boom, which in the end did not happen. We are still living with the legacy of that piece of fiscal vandalism. From my knowledge of it, we are gradually getting on top of that problem, but it was a major problem, and its resolution is taking a long time. Senator DEVEREUX —Does the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs have any information on reports that a caretaker government is to be formed in Fiji? Senator GARETH EVANS —It was announced yesterday, on 22 September, that in principle agreement has been reached on the establishment of a bipartisan caretaker government with the aim of finding a solution to Fiji's constitutional problems, re-establishing respect for law and order and restoring Fiji's economy. A group of six from the caretaker Government, headed by an independent overseas chairman, will review Fiji's Constitution with a view to restoration of full parliamentary democracy and safeguarding the interests of all communities in Fiji. It should be said that the coup on 14 May was a tragedy for Fiji and for the region. Since then, Fiji's Governor-General, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, has worked long and hard to overcome the many difficulties flowing from the coup. Dr Bavadra and Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara also have been prominent in negotiations. I hope that yesterday's announcement is a clear indication that developments are now moving in the direction which I am sure all honourable senators and members would welcome. As is I think well known, the Australian Prime Minister has remained in contact with Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau and has consistently stated the Government's sincere hope for continued and sustained movement toward a just and democratic solution to the problems stemming from the coup. The Government has indicated its preparedness to respond in kind to positive developments in Fiji. It is certainly my and the Government's hope that yesterday's announcement and the follow up to it will provide the base to carry forward Australia's relationship with Fiji. Senator PUPLICK —I ask the Minister for the Environment and the Arts what the Government's reaction is to the adoption of the Muntingh proposals and what steps the Government is taking to secure the defeat of the Mrazek proposals in their respective parliamentary forums? Senator RICHARDSON —I thank the honourable senator for his question and I hope that I can reply as soon as I have the details. Senator PUPLICK —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Am I to understand from the Minister's reply that he does not in fact know what the Muntingh proposals are, despite the fact that his own Director of the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service has briefed members of parliament on them? Is the Minister not aware that the Mrazek proposals are for the banning of kangaroo imports into the United States of America? Is the Minister's ignorance about these two attempts to restrict the Australian kangaroo products trade a result of his ignorance of his portfolio or the fact that he does not care about the issue? Senator RICHARDSON —I thank the honourable senator for the supplementary question. It is good that he has finally asked a question on my portfolio after having waiting for two weeks. As I said, because of the content of Senator Puplick's question I would prefer to make sure that I answer it in detail, and that is what I will do in due course. Senator CROWLEY —My question is addressed to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. Is the Minister aware of a Press report in the Australian Financial Review of 14 September regarding concerns within the United States of America about certain countries' offsets programs? Under the offsets programs, US corporations successfully tendering for foreign government contracts are obliged to invest in projects or businesses in that country, or transfer new technology to industries within the overseas country. Is the Minister aware that, according to this report, United States criticisms centre on possible injury to competing US corporations? The author suggests that such criticisms have implications for Australia's offsets program. Is there any recent evidence to suggest that this reported change of mood in the United States is affecting the success of the Government's civil offsets program? Senator BUTTON —I must confess that this is a sort of Rosemary Dix question. I think it is very important to get on the record some understanding of the criticisms that have been made in the United States, and some response to those criticisms. Senator Hill —Put down a statement. Senator BUTTON —The honourable senator would object if we did that. There has been some criticism in the United States about the requirements of some foreign government's offsets programs and the potential damage to United States companies. To my knowledge the criticism has however not been directed towards the Australian program. I understand that civil offsets obligations accruing in 1986-87 are about $297m, and orders placed with Australian beneficiary companies amounted to about $334m. A substantial proportion of these orders were related to the purchase of Australian produced goods and services for the export market. Other significant offsets activities undertaken by overseas suppliers included technology transfer, research and development and the marketing of Australian products on international markets. Today I have joined the South Australian Minister of State Development, Mr Lynn Arnold -and I take that to be the point, to some extent, of Senator Crowley's question-in announcing an agreement between the South Australian Centre for Manufacturing and General Electric (GE) of the United States. General Electric is one of the largest corporations in the United States, with revenue last year in excess of $38 billion. That company's operations range from the manufacturing of engineered plastic materials to highly complex aircraft engines, satellite components and so on. Under this agreement GE will provide the South Australian Centre for Manufacturing with hardware, software technology and machining and computer integrated manufacturing centres. General Electric's metals manufacturing application centre will also provide, over a seven-year period, training and consultation as well as technical data and support in advanced manufacturing techniques and application for general industry. This agreement is the single, largest technology transfer concluded under the Federal Government's offsets program. Senator STONE —I address my question to the Special Minister of State in respect of her special responsibility for the Australia Card. I ask: Firstly, is it not a fact that the key operational clauses 40 to 54 of the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3] can come into effect only after the `first relevant day' and the `second relevant day' specified in clause 32 (1) of the Bill are fixed by regulation? Secondly, until this regulation is made-- Senator Crowley —Mr President, I raise a point of order. I call your attention to the fact that this legislation is currently under debate in this place and I therefore think that the question is out of order. Senator Puplick —Mr President, I raise a point of order. If you uphold that point of order, the fact that the Budget is under debate means that no questions can be asked on it; this will also include all the matters raised in the Governor-General's Address-in-Reply. The point of order is a nonsense. The PRESIDENT —There is no point of order. There are many precedents for allowing this type of question. Senator STONE —Secondly, until this regulation is made, does this mean that the Australia Card could not be required for any proposed transaction or for any specified purpose relating to taxation, investment, real estate purchases, share transactions, banking, social security or welfare? Thirdly, will such a regulation be subject to disallowance in either the House of Representatives or the Senate? Fourthly, does the Government nevertheless intend to push ahead regardless with the Australia Card legislation, thus involving considerable public expenditure and inconvenience, in the full and certain knowledge that, even if the Bill were to be passed by a joint sitting, the Opposition with a clear majority of honourable senators will, by subsequent disallowance of the crucial necessary regulations, render that Bill totally inoperative? Senator RYAN —Although I understand your reasons, Mr President, for saying that there is a precedent for allowing detailed discussion of clauses in legislation, even when that legislation is currently before the House, I think the most satisfactory way I can deal with Senator Stone's series of questions, some of which are technical and some of which are political, is by taking them on notice. Senator COLLINS —My question is directed to the Minister for Justice-- Opposition senators interjecting- The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator COLLINS —It relates to Aboriginal deaths in custody-I wish there were a few deaths in here. I refer the Minister to the meeting in Melbourne on 10 September of Ministers for Police, Corrective Services and Aboriginal Affairs which discussed the issue of Aboriginal deaths in custody. Will the Minister inform the Senate of the background to, and outcome of, this meeting? Senator TATE —I will answer the question not only in my capacity as Minister representing the Attorney-General but also as Minister for Justice, because in fact the convening of that meeting on 10 September in Melbourne was undertaken as a result of a joint initiative by both me and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Gerry Hand. Honourable senators will recall that in announcing the establishment of a royal commission of inquiry into the circumstances surrounding certain Aboriginal deaths in custody since 1980, the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, also announced that there would be a meeting aimed at preventing future deaths in custody. The meeting needed to be convened in a timely, even urgent, way in order to share the common experiences of Police and Corrective Services Ministers so as to attempt-as I say, in a timely and even urgent way-to prevent the recurrence of the tragedy of Aboriginal deaths in custody, of which at that stage there had been quite a number in the preceding months. That meeting having been convened, I believe that the sharing of experiences and the sheer making of Ministers such as me aware of the difficulties and the circumstances surrounding the question of taking Aboriginal persons into custody-all that sharing of information-were extremely valuable. Those of us in southern urban areas, certainly myself, do not have the same degree of experience of these matters as, for example, the Northern Territory and Queensland Ministers, and their experiences were made available to that meeting. For example, whereas penal reformers have always talked of the desirability of having single prisoner cells with extreme privacy for most prisoners, in fact it became apparent that in many instances multiple prisoner cells were much more desirable as far as Aboriginals were concerned so that they could be accompanied by fellow Aboriginals in that situation. Indeed, it would lessen the sense of isolation that can be experienced and which can lead to such deep despair that it might possibly lead to suicide. It was matters such as this that proved the value of that meeting. All Ministers at the meeting supported the concept of using divisionary facilities so that Aboriginals might perhaps be put in the care of Aboriginal community groups as an alternative to detention in cells. There was also general agreement on the need for better liaison between police and Aboriginal communities. We actually had reports that a considerable amount of liaison work was very successfully undertaken, and Ministers were able to transfer the better experiences for use in other jurisdictions. One of the most positive results from the meeting was a reference to the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General (SCAG) of two matters-the removal of intoxication as an offence and a review of bail laws. I understand that at the SCAG meeting last week that matter was put on the agenda for February of next year and it is being looked at by its officials. This meeting involved only very preliminary discussions on a matter of great concern, the averting of these tragedies, and I believe that, as we are at an early stage, we can look forward perhaps to the end of November, when we have the scheduled meeting of Police and Corrective Services Ministers, for a time when those Ministers will be able, in a more formal way, perhaps, to come to enough common agreement to promulgate a common set of national guidelines relating to the taking of Aboriginal persons into custody. That will require a good deal of consultation beforehand, and both I and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs believe that it is important that we consult with Aboriginal people who are involved on a day to day basis in the criminal justice system and allow them to participate in the formulation of the procedures and processes that ought to be put in place. In this respect, the National Aboriginal and Islander Legal Service Secretariat, along with other Aboriginal groups, will attend a conference in October to be funded by the Commonwealth to discuss and evaluate such a code. I believe that with such input and further very helpful discussions between Ministers of all jurisdictions, by about the end of November we will be able to promulgate such a code which will help in preventing future tragedies of this type. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Attorney-General and it follows the question asked by Senator Stone which Senator Ryan was not able to answer. I remind the Minister representing the Attorney-General that Senator Stone's question referred to the fact that the key operational clauses of the Australia Card legislation, clauses 40 to 54, can come into effect only after the first relevant day and second relevant day specified in clause 32 (1) of the Bill when they are fixed by regulation. If I may, by way of further preface, I will read a paragraph from a memorandum on the Australia Card Bill and its possible effectiveness. It says: Thus all the main offences are completely dependent on there being such a relevant day. See, for example, clauses 40-54, which all provide for offences if the Card has not been produced on or after the first (or second) relevant day. If there is, as a matter of law, no such day, then the main provisions of the Act will collapse-they cannot be enforced. Still further by way of preface, I would also briefly quote the following paragraph of the memorandum: The conclusion is that regulations fixing the first and second relevant days are open to disallowance and the disallowance would be effective to make the Australia card Act wholly ineffective. I ask the Minister: Will he examine the proposition which has been put before him and the memorandum which I am about to seek leave to table and have incorporated in Hansard? Will he advise the Senate of whether the Australia Card Act could be effective in the event of the disallowance of those regulations? Will he seek the advice of his Government as to whether in these circumstances the Government will proceed with this legislation which is causing such strong opposition in the Australian community? Mr President, I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard this Opposition memorandum on the operation of the Bill, which is 2 1/4 pages, and to table it. Leave granted. The memorandum read as follows- AUSTRALIA CARD BILL Disallowance of Regulations fixing ``first relevant day'' and ``second relevant day'' The Australia Card Bill provides, in clause 2, that it is to come into operation on such day as is, or on such respective days as are, fixed by Proclamation. But the real operation of the Bill is dependent on there being a ``first relevant day'' and thereafter ``a second relevant day''. Thus all the main offences are completely dependent on there being such a relevant day. See, for example, clauses 40-54, which all provide for offences if the Card has not been produced on or after the first (or second) relevant day. If there is, as a matter of law, no such day, then the main provisions of the Act will collapse-they cannot be enforced. The meaning of the ``first relevant day'' (and the second such day) is to be found in clause 32 (1). ``First relevant day'' is there defined as ``a day declared by the regulations to be the first relevant day for the purposes of this Part, not being a day that is earlier than 1 March, 1989''. Suppose regulations were made fixing 1 April, 1989 as the first relevant day. These regulations could, in accordance with s.48 of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, be disallowed by the Senate. Under sub-section (6) of s.48, the disallowance has the same effect as a repeal of the regulations. There would therefore cease to be any law identifying the ``first relevant day'', and the vital operative provisions of the Australia Card Act would be brought to nought. Hence, if this view is correct, the Act would be wholly defeated-there would be no obligation on banks, other financial institutions, brokers, or any other persons (whether corporate or not) to comply with its provisions. Precisely the same considerations apply to the fixing of the ``second relevant day''. The only question that seems to arise is whether what is in effect a repeal (Acts Interpretation Act, s.48 (6)) deprives the once-fixed day (by the regulations that are disallowed) of all future operation. The question arises because a repeal does not wipe out the regulations from the time it was enacted, but from the time of the repeal (or disallowance). Section 48 (6) does not provide for the repeal to be retrospective, as if the regulation had never been made, and for good reason. Some time may have gone by and things lawfully done under it need to be kept as valid. However, at the particular time when an offence would be sought to be shown to have occurred, there would be no ``day declared by the regulations to be the first relevant day'' as the regulations had been repealed! And why were regulations chosen as the vehicle of fixing such a date, if it was not to allow for subsequent ease of extending, by alteration, that date. It could have been provided for by Proclamation, or by executive act, which would not be disallowable. Having chosen the means, the consequences flow. The conclusion is that regulations fixing the first and second relevant days are open to disallowance and the disallowance would be effective to make the Australia Card Act wholly ineffective. The PRESIDENT —I think part of the question asked for a legal opinion, but I will let the Minister answer it in whichever way he sees fit. Senator Gareth Evans —The rest of it was out of order because there is a Bill before the House. Senator TATE —Mr President, you have already ruled that the question is in order, even though there is a Bill before the chamber. Despite a very long preamble to the actual questions asked by Senator Chaney, in fact, his question came down, as I understood it, to only two or three matters right at the end. He asked whether I would examine that memorandum. Yes, I will. He asked whether I would advise on the legal validity or the soundness of the legal opinions expressed therein. Senator Chaney will know that it is not customary for a legal opinion to be given to the chamber by the Attorney-General or by me on his behalf. Thirdly, Senator Chaney asked whether this will affect the resolve of the Government to seek the passage of this legislation. No, it will not. Senator BEAHAN —I refer the Minister for Finance to an article in the Australian of 29 June 1985 regarding a report on cost-cutting prepared by a former Secretary to the Treasury Mr John Stone, a former adviser to the Fraser Government, Professor John Hewson, and the senior economic adviser to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, Dr Neville Norman. Has the Minister examined the 10 major areas listed in the article? Will the Minister refer the revenue proposals referred to in the article to the Treasurer? Senator WALSH —I have indeed seen the article in question. Indeed, I have a copy of it here. It is headed `PM told how to save $2.5 billion'. I am sure it is purely coincidental that the $2 1/2 billion figure is exactly the same as the arithmetical error in the would-be Budget put up by the Opposition during the election campaign. It is indeed, as Senator Beahan's question stated, a newspaper report of a cost-cutting proposal-or a revenue enhancement proposal to be more precise-put up just over two years ago by Senator Stone, as he now is, by Professor Hewson, Liberal MHR, as he now is, and by Dr Neville Norman. In line with the flavour of the time, when a number of right wing think-tanks were being established, it basically called for the establishment in Australia of a commission similar to the Grace Commission in the United States. Senator Hill —Will you speak up, Minister? We cannot hear you. Senator WALSH —The honourable senator cannot hear me; I am sorry. The fact is that it called for the establishment of a commission similar to the Grace Commission which the right wing Administration in the United States had put up. Given, however, that two of the three sponsors of that report are now in the Parliament on the non-Labor side one might, if one was uncharitable enough, suggest that there was a political motivation as well as an economic motivation. Most of the proposals that are listed have been examined by the Government and some action has been taken, not on specific proposals but on a number of the general areas that those proposals covered which included foreign aid, roads expenditure and so on. The report also included a rather nebulous $220m attributed to cutting administrative, operational and consultancy costs in relation to urban and regional development, culture and recreation, defence and so on. It was a very detailed list of expenditure cutting and revenue enhancing proposals compared to the $2 1/2 billion worth of blue sky cuts that the Leader of the Opposition produced a couple of months ago. The most interesting item in the list of 10, however, is this item which says: ID cards to boost revenue by eliminating tax avoidance. Saving: $400 million. That was a proposal sponsored by Senator Stone, as he now is, and Dr Hewson, MHR, as he now is. I note also that Senator Stone spoke on the Australia Card Bill yesterday, arguing essentially that the need for the Australia Card had now passed because `great strides in already tightening up the administration of the tax system and in other ways garnering revenue that had not been obtained previously' had been made. He went on to refer to the introduction of a prescribed payments system, the introduction of the fringe benefits tax and of the non-deductibility of legitimate business expenses for entertainment and, by implication, the fringe benefits tax and the capital gains tax. In other words, Senator Stone gave implicit-arguably one could claim explicit-endorsement to the base broadening measures which the Government has already put into legislation and which have yielded a great deal of revenue. He asserted that on those grounds the Australia Card was no longer necessary. It must follow, however, that he has argued that one or the other is necessary which, I suppose, means that if by some mischance the Opposition should find itself in government implementing its policies to repeal the base broadening measures put in place by this Government, it would have to introduce an Australia Card Bill. At least that seems to be the logic of Senator Stone's position. The Government does not agree with that. The Government believes that both measures are required because conceptually they cover completely different areas. The base broadening measures widen the tax base. The Australia Card will enforce the taxation law effectively. Senator PATTERSON —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Social Security. Is it a fact that in April of this year microfiche of social security master files, dated March 1987, and microfiche files containing personal details of social security clients were found on a suburban footpath in Melbourne? Is it also a fact that the Department of Social Security sent an officer to the scene and that this officer found additional microfiche records? Given the community's current concern about security of information on government records, has there been an inquiry to ascertain how the loss of such sensitive and highly confidential records could have occurred? If such an investigation into this breach of security has been held, will the Minister please advise the Senate of the outcome of this inquiry? Senator RICHARDSON —Mr President-- Senator Hill —It is a good question. Senator RICHARDSON —Yes, it is an excellent question. As I said in an answer earlier, I shall provide the honourable senator with details as soon as they come to hand. Hopefully, that will be tomorrow. Senator BURNS —Has the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce seen Press reports about the possibility of a spaceport being established at Cape York in Queensland? Most recently there was an article in the 30 September edition of Australian Business on reports of significant interest in the project from a group of United States companies but which argues that the project will not get under way without government subsidy. What is the Commonwealth Government's view of the project? Does the Government intend to support this project financially or take any active part in its development? Senator BUTTON —There have been a number of reports in the newspapers from time to time about the feasibility of establishing a spaceport at Cape York in Queensland. The Premier of Queensland was quite vocal on this matter last year and still is marginally. Of course the Government and everybody else is aware of the proposal. The Government has taken an active interest in it. When the Premier announced the commissioning of a study in September 1986, the proposal was for a major international commercial spaceport but the proposed facility would be privately financed, constructed, marketed and operated and available to an international market. Phase 1 of the study was released in February. Its findings were that Cape York Peninsula offers a number of advantages over most operational sites elsewhere in the world. Following receipt by the Queensland Government of the summary report on phase 2 of the study, the Queensland Premier released a document soliciting proposals from commercial organisations interested in the construction and operation of that spaceport. Registrations of interest are to close on 30 November 1987. It is understood that a number of overseas companies have expressed interest in the spaceport. The Commonwealth is following progress although it has not been privy to the results of the phase 2 study report on the commercial viability of the proposals. Apart from any interest in encouraging commercial projects to proceed, the Commonwealth has a direct interest in any proposal. Before it could proceed a range of Commonwealth issues involving Commonwealth powers would have to be discussed. They relate to legal, industrial, trade, defence and foreign affairs matters and to the need for subsidy or Commonwealth equity. These issues have been raised not by us but by others. The Australian Space Board, a non-statutory advisory board set up to advise on space matters, is taking a close interest in the possibilities that such a development could have for space related activities in Australian industry. A number of Australian companies are taking a similar interest and the matter will be, of course, monitored by the Government as time goes by, particularly when the date for the close of registration of interest draws closer. Senator ARCHER —I direct my question to the Special Minister of State. The Prime Minister recently referred to an ID card producing $1 billion from tax cheats and social security frauds. In view of her own and Dr Blewett's varying estimates of the revenue, can the Minister give the Government's official estimate, how it is calculated and the period to which it refers? Senator RYAN —The figures used by various Government spokespeople and the Prime Minister to demonstrate the extent of losses to revenue by tax fraud and social security fraud were developed during the course of the inquiry by the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card. They were figures supplied by the Australian Taxation Office. The honourable senator can refer to that Committee's report to see where they are. Senator ARCHER —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I did not get any information from the Minister. Will the Minister ascertain whether the estimate includes or excludes the measures already taken or contemplated by the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Social Security? If so, what is the expected recovery from those sources as well? Senator RYAN —The second question is not a supplementary question. If it refers, as I assume it does, to measures such as the fringe benefits tax and the capital gains tax, or if it refers to the increased taxation revenue which is being-- Senator Archer —Just cards; cards only. Senator RYAN —Well, in that case, as I have said, the figures are set out in the submission to the Select Committee and were current at the time. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia) —Mr President, I seek leave to make a personal explanation. Leave granted. Senator STONE —I refer to the dorothy dix-or perhaps one might say the Michael Eamon Dix-question addressed to the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) somewhat earlier in Question Time relating to some events of two years ago. I certainly do not propose to seek to make a personal explanation on every occasion on which I am misrepresented in this place by the Minister for Finance. If that course were to be followed by honourable senators we would spend our time listening to nothing but personal explanations. But, for the information of the Minister, I think I should say that as I understand it the document from which he quoted was a newspaper report of an item on the Schildberger program on a Melbourne radio station some 2 1/2 years or so ago. My recollection of that program-it is a recollection based only on memory because I had no prior knowledge of the question or the answer that would be given to it-is that at some stage while I was in New York I was telephoned by Mr Schildberger who said that he was hoping to respond to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), who had challenged him on an earlier program on his show, to come forward with, as he was so critical of the Government's failure to cut expenditure, a whole range of individual detailed programs to show where expenditure could be cut by $2 1/2 billion. Mr Schildberger told me that he had consulted Dr Neville Norman and also, I think, Professor Hewson, as he then was, now the honourable member for Wentworth. Over the telephone he read out to me a number of specific matters and asked me whether I was broadly in agreement with them. I said to him that I certainly had general sympathy with the thrust of what he was proposing to say on the radio program. I did not necessarily associate myself with each and every one of the particular measures but said that, if he wished to associate my name with those issues, he was very welcome to do so. Senator WALSH(Western Australia-Minister for Finance) —Mr President, I will table the newspaper report. It does not mention the Schildberger show but it does, of course, mention the three people I referred to, including Professor Hewson, as he once was, or the mere meretricious player that he was even earlier. Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Parer asked me a question on 21 September about the alleged use of Chilean copper in the new $2 coin. I am happy now to give him the detailed answer I promised. The Royal Australian Mint has a contract with the firm Austral Bronze Clay and Copper Ltd for the supply of blanks for the new $2 coin. Austral Bronze is an important Australian metal company with total sales of $242m in 1985. It produces a wide range of rolled and extruded copper and copper alloy products and, as such, it has purchased in the past Chilean origin copper. However, the contract in issue with the Australian Mint specifies that only Australian material will be used in the production of the blanks. Austral Bronze has confirmed to the Controller of the Royal Australian Mint that it is indeed abiding by the terms of that contract. Only Australian material is being used to produce the blanks. No Chilean copper is being used by Austral Bronze for this purpose. The PRESIDENT —I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter, dated 23 September, from Senator McLean: Dear Mr President, In accordance with Standing Order 64, I intend to move today-That in the opinion of the Senate the following is a matter of urgency: The requirement for the Government to acknowledge and rectify the inadequacies of the Evatt Royal Commission into the effects of Agent Orange, in order to accord with the spirit of the imminent ``Welcome Home'' march for Vietnam Veterans and to restore confidence in the processes of public inquiry which have been seriously damaged. Yours sincerely, PAUL McLEAN Senator for New South Wales Is the proposal supported? More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator McLEAN(New South Wales)(3.05) —I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The requirement for the Government to acknowledge and rectify the inadequacies of the Evatt Royal Commission into the effects of Agent Orange, in order to accord with the spirit of the imminent `Welcome Home' march for Vietnam Veterans and to restore confidence in the processes of public inquiry which have been seriously damaged. Before developing the Australian Democrats' case for this proposition, I wish to place on record my pleasure at having been assigned the shadow portfolio of veterans' affairs as it provides me with an opportunity to serve a constituency with which I have a strong affiliation. My first contacts with the responsible Minister, the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the Hon. Ben Humphreys, and his senior departmental staff have been courteous, positive and very professional and I thank them for the thoroughness and the manner of their briefings in recent days. I turn now to the proposition before the chamber. This being my first urgency motion, I naturally turned to Odgers. I am satisfied, as you are, Mr Acting Deputy President, that it is clearly in order and that it is indeed a matter of urgency. I quote from page 292 of Australian Senate Practice where Odgers states: . . . the Urgency Motion provides a unique opportunity for bringing the Government to account for its administration, which is Parliament's duty. That is exactly what we wish to do here-to bring the Government to account for its administration. The Australian Democrats and the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia are seeking the support of honourable senators in gaining from the Government an important acknowledgment-an acknowledgment that the royal commission appointed to investigate the effects of exposure to agent orange and other toxic substances on those who served in Vietnam failed the Government, failed the Australian people in general and failed the Vietnam veterans in particular. That royal commission, the Evatt Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam, failed us not because of the conclusions it reached but in the manner in which it reached those conclusions. We, the Australian Democrats, hopefully supported by other senators, argue that it is imperative that the Government should publicly and clearly reject the findings and the methods of the Commission so that the true needs of Vietnam veterans may be acknowledged and attended to and so that confidence may be restored in the processes of public inquiry in this country. I will briefly sketch in the background and then justify our criticisms of the Commission. As Australian Democrat senators we are sincerely convinced that we are justified in seeking the support of all honourable senators in this motion. Our examination of the report and credible evaluations of it leave us in no doubt that we are justified in this plea. Because of the imminent `Welcome Home' marches on 2, 3 and 4 October, it is urgent that we all support this motion now and that the Government give effect to it. One cannot underestimate the significance of these `Welcome Home' marches. After 15 years Australians will finally declare their pride in these men and women. We will salute them and acknowledge their proud place in our history by saying to them, `thank you; well served under the most difficult of circumstances'. Of course, the Government is to be congratulated on supporting these events with financial assistance of $50,000 and the offer of a range of supporting services such as the transport of veterans and their relatives. However, that is not good enough because at the same time as the Government is apparently being so supportive, it continues to accept the findings of a grossly flawed process of public inquiry-a public inquiry which was vital to the rendering of justice to many Australian servicemen and women. The Evatt Royal Commission was merely one among several recent inquiries which denigrated and gravely damaged the credibility of the process of public inquiry in this country. It will assist if we look briefly at the dimensions of Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war. Let us remind ourselves of the magnitude of the sacrifices that were made by Vietnam veterans. You will be aware, Mr Acting Deputy President, that Australia first became involved in the Vietnam conflict in May 1962, that, as a result of this involvement, national service was introduced in Australia, that it was a lottery system of national service and that national servicemen were posted to Vietnam for the first time in May 1965. For almost 10 years national servicemen and regular servicemen served in that theatre of war until the process of withdrawal began in October 1971 and was completed in December 1972. During that period, 45 females and 40,000 males served in Vietnam. Almost 17,000 of them were national servicemen. Sadly, 414 Australians died in the conflict. I suppose that, alongside the 53,000, nearly 54,000, who died in World War I and the 19,000 who died in World War II, the figure of 414 may seem relatively insignificant. Two hundred and seventy-seven Australians died in Korea. Subsequent to their service, and sacrifice in many cases, by June 1982, 17,000 Vietnam veterans had lodged claims with the Repatriation Commission and of these, almost 11,000 had succeeded in obtaining disability assistance and 7,000 had been awarded some form of pension. Approximately 400-this is a significant figure-out of the 1,000 claims based on herbicide exposure have been acknowledged and granted. So we are suggesting that there are 400 precedents in this country alone for the granting of repatriation benefits relating to herbicide exposure. We now sense a dimension which we did not anticipate. Who could have anticipated the use of enormous quantities of toxic substances, the effects of which were unknown at the time and, many would argue, are still substantially unknown? So, years after the event the controversy still rages. Scientific and medical questions remain unsolved. In all, 27 different chemicals were used, only some of which have proven toxicity. The real troublemakers were those chemicals assigned colour-coded names or designations, such as agent orange, agent blue and agent white. I am not a technical or scientific expert but I have access to them. On my left sits my colleague Senator Dr John Coulter, who is an eminent researcher in this area. I have had considerable discussion with him in relation to this matter. So, as one who is not technically knowledgeable but who has access to advice, I prefer to keep it simple. The greatest troublemaker, as I am advised, is agent orange, which contains dioxin, the most toxic substance known to man. It is claimed, scientifically and otherwise, that these are two profound long term effects of exposure to dioxin. The first is that, because dioxin is a highly carcinogenic substance, exposure to it will lead to a substantially heightened risk of cancers. The second claim is that it may give rise to genetic birth defects in the offspring of veterans. Not only dioxin is cited as being carcinogenic. The evidence in support of these claims was considerable and was sufficient for the Government to establish the Evatt Commission. Here is the nub of the problem. The Vietnam Veterans Association completely rejects the findings of the Evatt Commission, but especially its methods and dispositions or, perhaps more correctly, its predispositions. Furthermore, the Association argues that since the Commission tabled its conclusions in August 1985 more significant findings have been made which support its position and deny further the conclusions which were reached by the Commission and accepted by the Government. The Australian Democrats support the claims of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia. We are convinced that its concern is justified. I remind honourable senators of the sequence of events. In August 1985 the Government accepted the findings of the Evatt Commission, namely and in summary, that there was insufficient evidence of a link between toxic substances used in Vietnam and subsequent illnesses. That was a general statement of the findings. In November 1985 the Deputy Leader of the Australian Democrats, Senator Michael Macklin, tabled the Vietnam Veterans Association's reactions and substantially supported its expressed doubts. In May 1986 the then Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Gietzelt, gave an assurance that the Government would investigate the claims of bias and plagiarism which were beginning to emerge. In May of this year, presumably in order to investigate those claims, the Minister announced the appointment of Mr Bob Hogg as special consultant to the Government to report on the adequacy of the Evatt Commission. It is anticipated that Mr Hogg will report to the Cabinet in October this year. Most recently, and probably most controversially, the Vietnam Veterans Association has claimed that Mr Hogg has been restricted in his terms of reference and that, in essence, he has been directed to be uncritical of the Commission's methods and predispositions. This claim has been specifically denied to me as recently as yesterday by the responsible Minister, Mr Humphreys. I would like to cite the extent and nature of the dissatisfaction with the Commission's methods. I quote from an article which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on 5 May 1986. Mr Rick Haines, the National Secretary of the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia, is quoted as saying: [the] commission placed too much emphasis on material supplied by the manufacturers and distributors of Agent Orange, Monsanto Australia Ltd, and that the commission's report in part contained word-for-word material from the companies which defended the use of the chemical. . . . The association had identified 360 pages of the report that caused it concern, most to do with the evaluation of evidence from the chemical company side. Two further experts who expressed their grave concern were quoted in the same article: . . . two of the commission's scientific witnesses, the Swedish physicians Dr Olav Axelson and Dr Lennart Hardell, accused the commission of producing a questionable document by `suppressing and distorting' information. . . . According to Dr Axelson, Professor of Occupational Medicine at the University of Linkoping in Sweden, the report `had serious flaws as a result of the commission's misquotations of published work, distortions and falsifications of the facts. Dr Hardell said he had `never had an agency or commission handle data so carelessly and make so many wrong conclusions'. The physicists sent letters to the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, and the Governor-General, Sir Ninian Stephen, calling for a fresh inquiry. Obviously, they were totally disgusted and disillusioned with the status of the report. Dr Clyde Maxwell, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science writing in the Medical Journal of Australia, said: 1. It should be recognised that the Evatt Royal Commission did not conform to the norms of scientific and medical research and that, thus, its conclusions on scientific and medical matters should be ignored. 2. The issues raised in regard to allegations of plagiarism and the hostile treatment of witnesses should be referred to the Office of the Attorney-General. Kenneth Maddoch, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Macquarie University, in a comprehensive paper of 12 January this year, referring to submissions by the Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia said: In conclusion, I believe that your charges of bias and plagiarism are well-founded and that they are deeply disturbing . . . The fact that evidence is continuing to come forward of possible links between cancer and chemicals of the sort used in Vietnam makes the position even more unsatisfactory. As evidence of the degree of dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the status of this report, I quote Dr Ben Selinger of the Australian National University, as reported in the Law Journal of Australia early this year: It is ironic that the Royal Commissions epilogue consists of a scathing attack on scientists and publicists arguing that Agent Orange was a causative agent, when the Commission itself obviously understood little of the scientific philosophy of its own experts. That is documented rejection of the status of the Evatt Commission report. Sadly, the Evatt Commission drew the conclusion that no findings meant no danger. A scientifically more honest thing to say would have been that we know that we are dealing with extremely potent toxic substances and that there is a higher probability of the dangerous links hypothesised, but that it is not possible, because of lack of control data, to prove them statistically. The scientific realities are that where records are grossly inadequate, no conclusions whatsoever can be drawn, and in this case records are totally inadequate. So the pursuit of scientific research in this regard is bound to lead to insubstantial evidence. A new controversial accusation is the suggestion that the Government, by imposing restrictions on Mr Hogg-this is the nub of the proposition before the chamber-is even now sustaining what amounts to a blatant whitewash, despite the fact that Senator Gietzelt, the then Minister, gave assurances to the contrary. The Vietnam Veterans Association has no doubt at all as to Mr Hogg's present situation. The National President of the Vietnam Veterans Association, Mr Tim McCombe, when he wrote to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) earlier this month, said: I wish to express this association's concern that restrictions have been placed on Mr Bob Hogg, consultant to Cabinet on the Evatt Royal Commission, without prior consultation with this association. The instruction to Mr Hogg that he should not criticise Justice Evatt in his report to Cabinet in fact raises serious questions about the government's commitment to properly investigating Mr Justice Evatt's findings. I re-emphasise that as recently as yesterday the responsible Minister, Mr Ben Humphreys, denied such restrictions on Mr Hogg's terms of reference. In conclusion, the Australian Democrats urge honourable senators, at this critical time, only days before the welcome home march, to support this urgent appeal to the Government on behalf of this worthy group of Australians who have already sacrificed, but some of whom may yet have the worst to come. Shoddy and inadequate processes of inquiry deserve to be disowned, not sustained and furthered. Therefore, let us collectively call upon the Government to disown and correct them now before the first weekend in October. I commend the motion to honourable senators. Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(3.23) —Most honourable senators and, indeed, most Australians will remember full well the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, known generally as the Vietnam war era. I think most Australians would acknowledge that the soldiers who answered the call of their nation and served in forces in Vietnam, some 50,000 of them, did a marvellous job for Australia and maintained Australia's military tradition. There is no doubt that our troops were regarded by the United States troops, the Koreans and the Filipinos, who also served as our allies in Vietnam, as the finest of all the services whose members gave their services and in some cases their lives on the fields in Vietnam. That is the first thing to be acknowledged about what occurred during that period. The many feats of battle undertaken by our soldiers are well known. I recall the battle of Long Tan-- Senator Button —You recall the bottle all right. You are pretty good on that, I am told. Senator MESSNER —The Minister might take this matter more seriously by attending the march on 3 October. This is of pretty serious concern to most Australians, if not to him. Feats of arms, such as the battle of Long Tan, particularly, and the clearance of the Viet Cong from virtually the whole of the province of Phuoc Tuy during that period, amounted to an enormous victory for Australian troops. That being so, I believe that it now remains for the Australian community to declare to those Australians who served in Vietnam, including those who gave their lives on the battlefield, remembrance of their effort and to show solidarity with the armed forces who did so well at that time. Bearing that in mind, I bring to the attention of the Senate the lack of taste and the untimeliness of this motion, having been moved in the fashion that it has by the Australian Democrats today. We have now introduced an element of politics into a situation from which we should be seeking to get rid of that element, which has too often and for too long dogged the history of the repatriation of the Vietnam veteran. For that reason, the Opposition will not be supporting the Democrats' motion. Indeed, I will be moving an amendment, which I hope will have the support of other senators and become the final recognised resolution of the Senate in this matter. I think it is a sorry thing at this late stage, so close to the Vietnam welcome home march on 3 October, that we should seek to inject into this matter an element of such political controversy as surrounded the whole agent orange question from the late 1970s to now. But, that matter having been raised, we must as senators start to examine some of the events of that period and to place on public record the inquiries undertaken by governments of both persuasions into the problems of agent orange. I mention in passing, since the Democrats have seen fit to raise such a political matter, that during the period in which I was Minister for Veterans' Affairs-from late 1980 to the early part of 1983-I waited in vain for the matter to be raised in debate by the Australian Democrats but not once was a motion brought forward by them for debate in this place. That also applied to the then Opposition, the now Labor Government. When I became Minister for Veterans' Affairs back in 1980, I found fairly quickly that there was need for a conclusive scientific examination of the effects of agent orange and other chemicals on our soldiers in Vietnam. The procedure that had been followed up to that time was to seek to establish any scientific link between chemicals and the ill effects of service in Vietnam. None have been found. Indeed, at that time there was a total lack of any scientific evidence of any kind of link. The Fraser Government established an epidemiological study of the 50,000 veterans who had returned and that was well under way at the end of 1980. However, it soon became evident that that task was not going to provide quick enough or adequate enough results. Consequently, as Minister I decided to establish at that time rather shorter inquiries which could be undertaken and finalised in a much shorter time frame, with very useful and, I think, significant results. At that point that major epidemiological study was discarded and shorter inquiries into the relationship of agent orange to birth defects, the mortality of veterans and morbidity were established. The reports on those studies were received progressively from 1982 through to 1984, when the present Government was in power. The one thing we have to acknowledge is that the reports established no connection between chemical exposures and any illness among veterans. The Senate also established in 1982 a Senate committee inquiry into these matters. That committee came down with much the same report as all of the other inquiries which have subsequently reported. These results coincide very broadly with other inquiries that have been undertaken by United States Government agencies. For instance, an investigation through the so-called Operation Ranchhand in San Antonio, Texas, revealed that there were no registrable ill effects amongst Air Force personnel who were in direct contact with chemicals. Only recently we have heard that the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, which I visited I think in 1981 to discover what progress had been made in its inquiries, has revealed that in fact chemicals did not cause any birth defects in children fathered by Vietnam veterans, and that there was not a far heavier increase in mortality amongst Vietnam veterans than there was in the ordinary population. This consequently confirms again the results of our inquiries in this country. A recent study in the United States into cancers amongst Vietnam veterans has thrown up a rather errant result in that one particular group of veterans, namely those who served in the United States Marine Corps, have in fact, for some reason or other, developed cancers to a greater extent than either their comrades who served in the general infantry forces and other forces in Vietnam or the general population. Nobody has been able to explain why the marines have been so afflicted and why there is that difference. Nevertheless, the overall result of that inquiry has proven to be much the same as all the other inquiries-that there is very little difference between those who served in Vietnam and may have contracted cancer and the general population. Notwithstanding all of this, the fact remains that the Government, the Opposition prior to the 1983 election, promised that it would set up a royal commission to examine the linkage between chemical exposure and the health of Vietnam veterans. That was notwithstanding the fact that there was plenty of scientific evidence around the place at that time denying that there was any connection and the unlikely chance of the inquiry turning up results that had not been established by the other inquiries that had been held before. Nevertheless, the present Labor Government set up that inquiry on coming to office. In the middle of 1985 that inquiry reported much along the lines of all of the other inquiries that had been conducted. It stated that no scientific link could be established between the exposure of veterans to chemicals and their health. The point about this is simply that the Government sought to establish that inquiry notwithstanding all the evidence at the time that there was no link. At the time that seemed to be a rather silly procedure, but the Government persisted with it. Having done that, having now received the results of that inquiry and having built up the hopes of Vietnam veterans that that inquiry would produce results that were somewhat different from those of all other inquiries, the Government has failed since the middle of 1985 to investigate properly the complaints which have been put down in writing and which certainly have received a lot of media exposure. Those complaints have been made by veterans who have been exposed to chemicals in the Vietnam war and who feel that they have suffered ill effects. The fact is that the Government has built up the hopes of those people and it has failed to deliver on those hopes. There is some evidence that leads us to suspect that the Government is failing to examine properly the report of the Evatt Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australia Personnel in Vietnam. Indeed, Mr Hogg, who I understand has been appointed investigator of this matter, has not yet brought down a further report to the Government. As I say, there has been no action on this matter since the Evatt report came down almost two years ago. What this seems to indicate is that the Government is lacking in resolve to help Vietnam veterans who consider themselves to be the subject of ill effects of chemical exposure. The Government, having established that it believes there is a possibility of exposure by denying that previous reports were valid, now fails to take further action in that regard. Consequently, I believe that the Government has a case to answer here and should act as soon as possible to ensure that it allays the fears and concerns of Vietnam veterans, who have been very vocal on this matter for some time. The issues that have been raised by veterans concerning the Evatt report are pretty well known and I think Senator McLean referred to some of the concerns when he talked of the apparent bias of members of the Evatt Royal Commission and its counsel. He also talked about plagiarism and the Monsanto submission. It would seem rather odd to me if a commission hearing evidence provided by one of the companies directly concerned with this matter, that is Monsanto, did not then quote that as part of the reason for it having formed an opinion about the outcome of its inquiry. That can hardly amount to plagiarism of that particular submission. Nevertheless, notwithstanding all of that, the fact is that these fears and concerns do exist, and I think that is where the Government has failed. Consequently, it ought to seek to investigate these matters in a far more diligent and expedient fashion than it has to date. Senator Newman —It is dragging its feet. Senator MESSNER —It is dragging its feet, as Senator Newman says, and consequently it needs to be stirred up a little bit. This is probably the most that can be said for the Democrat motion in this respect. Notwithstanding the other arguments that they have introduced into this matter, I wish to reiterate that point: we have here an attempt to politicise what is almost a sacred time-a period in which we, as a nation, can reflect upon the aims, deeds and great feats on the battlefield of our soldiers in Vietnam. This is a matter of great concern to the Liberal and National parties. We believe that our soldiers performed absolutely brilliantly, very bravely and courageously and served their country well in Vietnam. We believe that all Australians should acknowledge that during the march in Sydney on 3 October. Many Liberal and National members of parliament, both Federal and State, will be attending that march in Sydney to show their respect for our magnificent troops who served in Vietnam. Motion (by Senator Messner) agreed to: That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Messner moving an amendment to the motion. Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(3.41) —I move: Leave out all words after `urgency', insert: The need to acknowledge the concerns of Vietnam veterans regarding the outcome of the Evatt Royal Commission which continue, notwithstanding successive inquiries, both private and public, culminating in that Commission, by providing appropriate repatriation benefits for those veterans who gave service to their country at great personal sacrifice. Senator GIETZELT(New South Wales)(3.43) —The Government opposes the motion moved by the Australian Democrats. We will support the amendment moved by the Opposition for the very reasons that I wish to outline to the Senate. The Evatt Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam was the fourth such inquiry conducted into the problems associated with the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical agents in Vietnam during our involvement in that war in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, the Senate has had the opportunity on numerous occasions to examine both its own report in 1982 and another report on the case control study of congenital anomalies and Vietnam service birth defects study which was presented by the previous Government in January 1983. Then, of course, we had the mortality study which I presented to the Senate in October 1984. No member of this Government has been unsympathetic to the problems of the Vietnam veterans. No Minister of this Government has been unsympathetic to the general view that exists amongst Vietnam veterans, as well as the community at large and in particular the media, about the problems of Australia's involvement in Vietnam and the effects on the health of those who served there. Certainly, no Minister for Veterans' Affairs has shown more interest than I when I held that position for some 4 1/2 years and had to handle, deal and contend with the conflicting scientific evidence and views that existed about the use of chemical agents in Vietnam. When I retired from the job of Minister for Veterans' Affairs I kept and maintain in my present office one particular group of files which deal with this very issue of pesticides, herbicides and chemical agents in Vietnam. I am most sympathetic to the difficulties that some Vietnam veterans have experienced and feel in relation to their service in that war. In my first administrative act as a Minister I set in train the Evatt Royal Commission. I negotiated the terms of reference with ministerial colleagues and with members of the Vietnam Veterans Association. Finally, of course, the Royal Commission was appointed. This Government not only established it but also provided sums in excess of $600,000 to the Vietnam Veterans Association for the purpose of their having the capacity to participate and to call scientific evidence and persons to put their case before the Royal Commission. In addition to that resource which the Government provided, I and my office were `friends in court' if I could use that expression. Without any doubt there was a very harmonious and friendly relationship between the Vietnam Veterans Association, myself and my personal staff. As a result of the request from the Vietnam Veterans Association extensions were given to the Commission to carry out its work. Instead of reporting, as was anticipated, within a year, the Royal Commission went on for some two years. It was not until July 1985 that the Commission was able to complete its work and hand down its findings. It is true that misgivings and concerns still exist amongst various members of the Services who served in Vietnam. The Government acknowledges that. Therefore, despite the fact that it appointed an umpire-that is what a royal commissioner is-to sift the evidence and come to a conclusion, the Government was very careful in the way it reached its conclusions on the Evatt findings. Nevertheless, having regard to so many of the findings and recommendations that were made by the Royal Commissioner, the Government saw fit to refer the matter back to the Department of Veterans' Affairs and the Department of Defence for the purpose of further examining the issues that were raised in that Royal Commission. The Government is aware of the genuine concerns that exist. One may come to the conclusion that there is nothing finite in the area of science and health; one cannot be dogmatic in these matters. My personal view is that I still have a degree of doubt, having regard to the evidence that has been referred to in the debate by both the Democrats and the Opposition. Nevertheless, there is sufficient doubt to say that the matter requires further examination. As I replied to Senator Newman and Senator Lewis when I was Minister in the earlier part of this year, I took the matter to the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) for his comments on the concerns which have been amplified today by Senator McLean. On the basis of that report I then referred the matter back to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) with a recommendation that Mr Hogg be appointed to further examine the issues that were raised by the Vietnam Veterans Association and its officers with whom I have very close personal relationships. I include the late Phil Thompson, who was one of the prime movers for the establishment of the Royal Commission with a view to reconciling and resolving those concerns that had been expressed. The Government is still sympathetic to the claims of the Vietnam veterans. That is why the new Minister for Veterans' Affairs, Mr Humphreys, recently reappointed Mr Hogg whose consultancy concluded at the dissolution of Parliament. He is required to report to the Government within the next few weeks. One can have a view about the Monsanto evidence, about the extravagant language that was used in the report and about the concerns that have not been resolved by the four reports that have been presented. One has only to read the American Press to be aware that the United States Government and the American people, including US scientists, and scientists worldwide, have still unresolved views on the use of chemical agents in wartime, particularly those used in Vietnam. If any criticism is to be levelled at all, it is that the previous Government sent the troops to Vietnam, involved them in an unwinnable war and then allowed them to be brought back to Australia without providing sufficient psychological adjustment programs. I lay some blame for that at the door of the armed services chiefs in that they did not understand the essential readjustments that were needed by those who were sent away to Vietnam, a third of whom were national service conscripts. There was no understanding at top levels in the armed services of what was needed when people were brought back to a community that was so heavily divided over our involvement in that war. What has the Government done? It appointed the Commission, it provided financial resources, and it provided human resources in a friendly Minister and his staff. We established the joint venture scheme, which has proved to be a very important initiative. We also established a half-way house in Brisbane where the emotional problems and other difficulties suffered by Vietnam veterans are able to be ventilated with people who understand those problems. This Government has extended the pilot scheme, the Vietnam Veterans Counselling Service, which was established by the previous Government, and nine agencies are now operating throughout Australia. Some 5,000 Vietnam veterans have participated in the counselling service. This Government brought in the domestic allowance and the majority of Vietnam widows have profited from that provision. In the Veterans' Entitlements Act the Government extended free treatment to all Vietnam veterans, regardless of their capacity to show that their state of health was due to service in Vietnam. We have extended the range of benefits to those who served in the supply ships-benefits which were denied by the previous Government. We took that action on the basis that we believed that those who were involved in the Jeparit, the Boonaroo and the Sydney should become entitled to benefits under the Veterans' Entitlement Act. Let us look at what the Government has done since then. The Government acted from the first day that the concept of the Welcome Home came to light. Indeed, I was the first person approached and I immediately made available $15,000 for that venture. I wrote to each State Premier following an approach that was made to me by Mr Unsworth, the Premier of New South Wales. Each State gave the Welcome Home organisers a donation of $10,000. Not only have all States participated, but the Premier of South Australia has also provided leave without pay to enable Vietnam veterans to come to Sydney on the holiday weekend in a couple of weeks time. It has been asserted by Senator McLean that Mr Hogg has been restricted in his work and his consultancy project. The terms of Mr Hogg's consultancy were established clearly at the time of his engagement. He is to co-ordinate the Government's response to the report of the Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam. The task involves drawing together the issues, but not seeking to reopen them or the work already done by various departments or inquiries. It would be absurd to suggest that the Senate, Mr Hogg or any other person should sit in judgment on a royal commission whose task it was to evaluate the evidence. Whether one likes the judgment of a royal commission, whether it be in the Chamberlain case or in other areas of public inquiry, the Government is obliged to accept the findings, unless it is said that there is no confidence in the way in which the inquiry has carried out its work. That is not the position. The Government has ensured, as the figures prove, that the Vietnam veterans are now getting access to the repatriation system at the same level as all the other personnel who served in World War I and World War II. There is no discrimination at all. I am satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt that there is no longer any need for Vietnam veterans to believe that the Repatriation Commission is not conscious of its responsibilities to apply fairly and equitably the terms and benefits that are available under the various pieces of repatriation legislation. It is true, as Senator Messner suggested, that a case study has been made in the United States which suggests that there is still some evidence that goes beyond what is normal-that certain groups of United States Vietnam veterans have suffered health problems to a greater extent than have other sections of the armed forces. Whatever can be said about the problem with which we are confronted, it must be said that this Government since its election in 1983 has been sympathetic on this subject. Therefore, we cannot support the motion, despite the vehemence with which it has been put forward by the Australian Democrats. We will support the Opposition's amendment. Senator COULTER(South Australia)(3.58) —I rise to support the motion and speak against the amendment. I am concerned at some of the hogwash the Senate has heard this afternoon on the so-called scientific evidence. I wish to make a few comments in order to correct statements which have been made. Before I do so, I point to the claim made by Senator Messner that the Australian Democrats are raising this as a political matter. I have been on record for a long time as being opposed to the sending of Australian troops to Vietnam. Nonetheless, I support the claim made by the Vietnam veterans as to exposure to agent orange, and I do so for very good reason. Recently concern has been expressed over very low levels of pesticide in Australian meat exported to the United States of America, and questions have been raised as to the possibility that organochlorine pesticides can cause cancer and birth defects. That is the basis of the concern expressed in that area. The dioxin which was present in the 2,4,5-T used in Vietnam is the most potent organochlorine substance known in terms of its mutagenic and carcinogenic activity. Two things need to be noted about these substances. First, when a substance has been shown to be mutagenic, around the world all scientific authorities recognise that the relationship between the dose, the level of exposure and the incidence of adverse effects, such as mutations and cancer, are linear and without threshold. In other words the risk rises lineally with exposure. That risk disappears only when there is no further exposure. In other words, any exposure carries some risk and the level of risk rises with the level of exposure. The second point I make is that when people try in epidemiological studies to find an increase in cancers or birth defects they do so against a substantial background of naturally occurring cancers and birth defects. It is extremely difficult to establish from epidemiological studies that increases have occurred. For example, if I were to take a coin and toss it 100 times, I would expect that on average I would get 50 heads and 50 tails. But if it came down 51 heads and 49 tails I would not necessarily suspect that the coin was biased. I could even get 48 heads and 52 tails or 47 and 53. The question is: at what point do we say that there is a reasonable possibility that the coin is biased? In fact we need to get down to about 37 heads and 63 tails before there is a one in 20 chance that the coin has a bias, and we presume there is bias in the coin. There may not necessarily be one, but there is a one in 20 chance that there is. But for purely arbitrary mathematical reasons we call that the level of significance, and that principle is followed in epidemiological studies. Among the Vietnam veterans, or among any group in Western society, we expect about 25 per cent of the population to get cancer at some stage in their life. Australian statistics show that about 19 per cent of the Australian population will die from cancer. It is against that background that we are trying to pick up relatively small changes in the incidence of cancer and birth defects. From epidemiological evidence we would not expect to be able to prove that Vietnam veterans were suffering from a higher than normal incidence of cancer or birth defects in their children, so we were not surprised when that was not found. But that is not proof that there was not an increase in either cancer or birth defects. We are forced, from all the evidence, to believe that we are dealing with a substance which is a potent mutagen and a potent carcinogen and which was present in very large amounts in agent orange. I would remind the Senate that the level of dioxin allowed in 2,4,5-T in Australia is 0.1 parts per million, whereas the average level of 2,4,5-T used in Vietnam was 1.8 parts per million. Some of the levels went much higher than that. Therefore we would expect some level of birth defects and some level of cancers to have occurred in that population. It would be very useful if the Senate were to look at the report of the Evatt Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam and compare it with the way in which the inquiry into the incident of cancer and birth defects at Maralinga looked at the same sort of evidence; in the latter case in relation to exposure to radiation. But again, one would not have expected to find epidemiological evidence among people who were exposed to radiation at Maralinga. Nonetheless, in the case of the Maralinga inquiry, there was a clear recognition that those men may well have experienced some damage. That is the sort of result which I think the Evatt inquiry should honestly have come forward with. It is the sort of result which I believe the Vietnam veterans are looking for. I think it is quite specious of both the Government and the Opposition to attempt to distort this motion by way of amendment, to make the matter very bland and to fail to recognise the essential point. The veterans want redress and recognition that in this case they were indeed exposed to a dangerous substance. The value in this lies in the recognition that these substances are hazardous, and that substances such as 2,4,5-T, containing dioxin, should not go into general use in the community just because the Evatt report says that these things are without hazard. Senator McLEAN(New South Wales)(4.05) —I am quite sure that not only Senator Messner but in fact a majority of the people present in the chamber today would be aware of the fact that this motion is before the chamber at the request of the Vietnam Veterans Association. For me to be told that this is crude and dirty politicking is just empty rhetoric. The Vietnam veterans who are listening in numbers right now will be well and truly aware of what the realities are in this chamber. It is interesting that the veterans should come to the Australian Democrats to ask for this proposition to be put before the chamber. Perhaps over the last 10 years or so they have learnt the realities about the other possible sources of support. The fact is that they assessed that support on the basis of honesty and trust and they came to us, and their judgment has been vindicated right here in the chamber this afternoon. I do not think it would have taken much for people to realise that the essential intention of this proposition which is before the Senate this afternoon is to highlight the gross inadequacies of the Evatt Royal Commission on the Use and Effects of Chemical Agents on Australian Personnel in Vietnam. That is basically what we are on about and that is basically what the Vietnam veterans are distressed about. They are focusing on the Commission and they have asked us to do the same. I had not seen the report of the Commission before, but I have been told about it. We find an extraordinary political deal being carried out right here on the floor of the chamber, before our very eyes, a crude political exchange, whereby two former Ministers, one from the Opposition and one from the Government, got their heads together and said not only, `How can we get one another off the hook?', but also `How do we get this totally deficient, ineffective report off the hook as well?'. At the moment we are confronted with an amendment, the effect of which is to leave everything exactly as it was-to leave Senator Gietzelt off the hook, to leave Senator Messner off the hook, to leave the report off the hook and to leave the repatriation situation exactly as it is. If this amendment is passed we retain the status quo and go away thinking nothing has changed here in the last hour and a half. But it has, because what has been revealed in these critical few days before the march is exactly where the Government stands in relation to Vietnam veterans. The scene is quite different now from what it was an hour and a quarter ago. It has changed profoundly. I am grateful to the Vietnam veterans for approaching me, whom they judged to be trustworthy at least at this stage, although I have been in this chamber only a week. They are the realities of what has happened in here this afternoon. Because we have exercised our right to speak against an amendment and to fly in the face of some loose agreement that occurred this morning, everybody gets terribly distressed. We knew nothing about this amendment. Senator Harradine —We haven't seen it anyhow. I haven't seen a copy. Senator McLEAN —It was read out a moment ago, Senator Harradine. Senator Harradine —It should have been distributed. Senator McLEAN —Of course it should, but this is just another example of how the Government is trying to carry through an utterly inadequate process, which goes on year after year. The Government wonders why organisations, such as the Vietnam Veterans Association, finally reject it as being as incredible and untrust- worthy as the report, the inadequacies of which we sought to highlight here this afternoon. Question put: That the amendment (Senator Messner's) be agreed to. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 8 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 52 —— Alston, R. K. R. Hill, R.Archer, B. R. Jones, G. N. (Teller)Aulich, T. Knowles, S. C.Baume, Michael Lewis, A. W. R.Beahan, M. E. MacGibbon, D. J.Bishop, B. K. McKiernan, J. P.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Maguire, G. R.Black, J. R. Messner, A. J.Bolkus, N. Morris, J. J.Boswell, R. L. D. Newman, J. M.Brownhill, D. G. C. Panizza, J. H.Burns, B. R. Parer, W. R.Calvert, P. H. Patterson, K. C. L.Chapman, H. G. P. Puplick, C. J. G.Childs, B. K. Ray, RobertCoates, J. Reid, M. E.Collins, R. L. Reynolds, M. E.Colston, M. A. Richardson, G. F.Cook, P. F. S. Ryan, S. M.Cooney, B. Schacht, C. C.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Sheil, G.Crowley, R. A. Short, J. R.Devereux, J. R. Sibraa, K. W.Devlin, R. Stone, J. O.Durack, P. D. Tambling, G. E. J.Evans, Gareth Tate, M. C.Foreman, D. J. Teague, B. C.Gietzelt, A. T. Vanstone, A. E.Giles, P. J. Walters, M. S.Hamer, D. J. Watson, J. O. W. Coulter, J. R. McLean, P. A.Haines, J. Macklin, M. J. (Teller)Harradine, B. Powell, J. F.Jenkins, J. A. Wood, W. R. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Original question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative. Senator COULTER(South Australia)(4.20) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I speak on the financial statements and report of the Phosphate Mining Corporation of Christmas Island for the same reason I gave the other day when I spoke to the report on the rice industry in Australia. I also refer again to the points I made in my maiden speech in relation to a sustainable economy. In the matter of phosphate mining on Christmas Island, we have a very nice example of a resource which has been run almost to extinction and the extraction of which has occasioned very considerable environmental damage. But in the report we find very little reference to this damage. The report deals almost exclusively with economic matters. Again we find that phosphate mining on Christmas Island is now uneconomic and the Corporation has made a considerable loss in the last year. On Christmas Island there are a number of rare species which are being threatened and which should be protected. I note that it was only the action of the trade unions operating there which protected the southern parts of Christmas Island. A reserve was declared. It is worth telling honourable senators that some of the phosphorous from the Ocean Island is high in cadmium and that we have been neglecting to use indigenous sources of phosphorus in Australia in preference to phosphorus coming from the Ocean Island. Indeed, we have been increasing the concentration of cadmium in Australian soils. Phosphate mining on Christmas Island should be stopped forthwith and the area should be returned, as far as possible, to whatever natural state is possible. Senator PARER(Queensland)(4.22) —The Phosphate Mining Corporation of Christmas Island is a statutory authority of the Commonwealth Government. I note that the report of the Corporation is made as at 30 June 1986. It made me wonder why at this late stage in 1987 we are now getting a report for June 1986. However, I think it is worth referring to the report. The events occurring after the balance date are the ones of great interest. What is shows is that to keep the mine going, the Government has agreed to make funds amounting to $4.5m available to the Corporation during the period to cover operating losses. That is $4.5m of taxpayers' money. On 15 August 1986, the services of 150 employees were terminated and new work practices were introduced. The Australian Council of Trade Unions responded with its normal industrial action. Included in this action was a ban on mining on the west and south point shore terrace, an area significant to the maintenance of the proposed scale of operation. I think it is also worth pointing out that in the events occurring after the balance date, the Corporation claims that the then Minister for Territories on behalf of the Commonwealth, the unions and the Corporation executed an agreement, dated 22 April 1987, to guarantee industrial stability. The agreement came to nothing. What we have before us is a very depressing report which forecasts the inevitable death of phosphate mining on Christmas Island. The fatal blow was delivered in 1979 when the then President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Bob Hawke, sent one of his standover men to Christmas Island to impose Australian working conditions on the workers at that mine. The result was inevitable. It is worth quoting again the remarks made by Mr Hawke who wrote in the foreword to a book on Christmas Island in 1983. That foreword, quoted in the Australian Financial Review on 18 September 1986, stated: . . . the list of achievements was `staggering' despite the opposition. The report quotes Mr Hawke as saying: In the end, however, their solidarity, resolution and intelligent campaigning under tough, competent and committed leadership won through. They have lost their jobs and we have lost the mine. As the article in the Australian Financial Review of 18 September 1986 said: The words will be among many to haunt him. Senator VANSTONE(South Australia)(4.24) —Like a colleague from South Australia, Senator Coulter, I want to address some things which, having looked through the report of the Phosphate Mining Corporation of Christmas Island, I see are not there. They have been properly addressed by a colleague of mine, Mr Braithwaite, in another place. Rather than take up the Senate's time and run the risk of a hay fever attack reading out a list of questions that I believe should be answered, I ask leave of the Senate to incorporate the list in Hansard. They are questions I would have preferred the report to have answered. As it appears that they have not been answered I ask the Minister for the Environment and the Arts (Senator Richardson) to answer them. Leave granted. The list read as follows- *85 MR BRAITHWAITE: to ask the Minister for the Arts, Sport and Environment, Tourism and Territories- (1) How did the sudden creation of the new Phosphate Mining Corporation of Christmas Island (PMCCI) to replace the Phosphate Mining Company of Christmas Island Ltd in November 1985 facilitate the Prime Minister's orderly closure, given his statement of the 11 September 1985, which confirmed that the Commonwealth would not support an economic mining operation on Christmas Island and that this decision would not be influenced by any prospects for alternative industries. (2) How did the working party conclude in December 1985 that a new operation basis for the mine will result in continued economic mining operations. (3) Why does the Government maintain that it is subsidising mining when the former Minister, in August 1986, said that the Government's financial support is tied to the continued use of Australian National Line (ANL) shipping. (4) What action is he undertaking about allegations that the Government was misled in 1986 about the significance of the Western Shore Terrace deposits to continued mining. (5) What action is he undertaking to clarify the confusion about reserves of phosphate and future production potential. (6) Has the Christmas Island Arbitrator certified the recent Industrial Agreement, as sought by the former Minister. (7) Has the Government authorised the recent contracts between PMCCI and ANL, and the Australian Phosphate Corporation and Japanese customers. (8) Has the Government renegotiated the 1983 Phosphate Supply Agreement with New Zealand. (9) Is he able to say whether the New Zealand Government has expressed its concern or intention in relation to future phosphate supplies. (10) Was the resettlement element of the voluntary redundancy package announced by the former Minister in December 1986 confined to employees who left the Island. (11) How many mainland-based employees applied for the above package. (12) How many mainland-based employees were selected. (13) Did termination payments to mainland employees include the resettlement element. (14) Are the financial and social costs of all the above redundancies and the current unstable situation facing the mining operation reasonable and consistent with the Prime Minister's announcement of an orderly closure. (15) What action is the Government taking about the current situation. *84 MR BRAITHWAITE: To ask the Prime Minister for the Arts, Sport and Environment, Tourism and Territories- (1) Since 11 September, 1985, when the Minister announced that selective redundancies would apply to assist with the orderly closure of Christmas Island's phosphate operations, how many employees have applied for redundancy under the voluntary selective schemes of 1986 and 1987. (2) How many of these applicants were (a) selected and paid out and (b) denied selection. (3) How many of the employees selected in August 1986 were (a) members of the Union of Christmas Island Workers, (b) not members of that union, (c) of Asian extraction and (d) not of Asian extraction. (4) Did the termination payments made in August 1986 to those selected as redundant include the mainland parity rates announced by the Prime Minister. (5) Did the termination payments to applicants for the voluntary selective schemes of 1986 and 1987 include payments in lieu of notice in addition to the award conditions at mainland parity rates. Debate (on motion by Senator Michael Baume) adjourned. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Giles) —In accordance with the provisions of the Public Service Act, I present the annual report of the Department of the Senate for the year 1986-87. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Giles) —Pursuant to resolution of the Senate of 25 March 1982, I present the annual report of the Standing Committee on Appropriations and Staffing for the year ended 1986-87. Debate resumed. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(4.27) —When the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3] was before the chamber this morning I outlined my view concerning this matter. I attempted to outline my philosophical objection. It previously had been indicated that too often power in our society is being usurped by non-elected cliques to impose on the people their type of social engineering without in any way being responsible or answerable to the people. I indicated how this had occurred particularly in the health portfolio and how the Depo-Provera issue was raised first in this chamber in 1979. Had the Department of Health taken notice of what I said at that time there would not have been the problem in regard to the application of that drug, dangerous as it is, to Aboriginal girls. I introduced a Bill in this chamber two years ago to outlaw proposals of certain scientists to undertake destructive non-therapeutic experimentation on human embryos. There are attempts in the Health Department establishment to ensure that this matter of major public policy is not brought to where it belongs and that is before this Parliament. When this Bill was debated in this Parliament, a Senate Select Committee on the Human Embryo Experimentation Bill 1985 was established. When that Senate Select Committee came down with a recommendation that there be a statutory principle banning destructive non-therapeutic experimentation, the self-same members of the health establishment attempted, because of their own ideas about social engineering, to ensure that the Parliament did not have a say. I have indicated my concern about the establishment of registers of people with genetic disorders and how, if this information found its way on to the identification card, the Australia Card, it could be used in a fashion not dissimilar to the way that the card index of genetic taints was used by the Third Reich in 1934 when many people were brought before secret courts and as a result were sterilised. In this case I have indicated the possibility of those people being required to go through an in-vitro fertilisation program so that their embryos would be DNA probed-not for the purpose of curing the disorder but for the purpose of eliminating those human beings deemed by that non-elected group to be deficient. What I said some years ago about Depo-Provera was ignored at the time by the health establishment, to their ultimate regret. I sincerely hope that we will not have a similar situation in 10 years time. I hope that the warnings I am now giving on the question of human embryo experimentation-and, indeed, more importantly, what the Senate Select Committee said about it-have been taken note of. Otherwise, this will pose grave problems for the whole of mankind. As I come from the trade union movement, I had indicated the problem that the ID card would pose for persons seeking jobs. I had indicated the very real possibility of the cash economy flourishing. I indicated also that whilst the Government creates the impression that application for the Australia Card is voluntary, in fact, the Australian people are to be invited to take the Australia Card, but the invitation cannot be declined. Application for the card cannot be voluntary because failure to volunteer carries with it a penalty. The penalty is banishment from the sphere of everyday life. Furthermore, a non-registering citizen risks a $20,000 fine for being unable to present his card upon demand by the Commissioner of Taxation pursuant to his legal responsibilities. The point here is that people will be penalised for not having committed any fraud against the public purse but merely for having failed to register. In other words, the ID card will be obligatory. It will be a crime not to have a card. In addition, the occasions on which the card must be presented are so numerous and the risks of losing it so great, including a $500 fine for failure to notify loss of the card, that pressure will be put on the citizen to carry the card continually. Thus the Government comes into possession of a unique tool for the exercising of control over the people. A society trained to carry and present a card is one easily disposed to accept incremental expansions of the circumstances in which that card must be used. A people thus anaesthetised to the increase of state intervention into the sphere of private and family life is one highly susceptible to losing altogether its civil and political rights. I support this measure being sent for determination and report by a committee. Senator HILL(South Australia)(4.34) —I rise to contribute to this debate on the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3]. In an article in the Australian newspaper a week or two ago the distinguished author Morris West reminded me of the words of Woodrow Wilson: Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it. That is my starting point in this debate. My politics are the politics of those on this side of the chamber-to eye suspiciously the growth of government authority over the individual. That is why I am a member of the Liberal Party of Australia-to protect the freedoms of the individual against the ever-encroaching authority of government and to promote the concept that the state exists for the benefit of the individual, not that the individual exists for the benefit of the state. So I make no apology for the fact that, when a proposal such as this comes to me-which involves the building by government of a massive databank on the lives of people, the accessing of that information by the bureaucracy, the numbering of people to provide more orderly and effective management of that information and the obligation to produce an identity card as the link to that databank-I shudder. The step from an orderly society to an ordered society is small. But with that step so much is lost-so much, I suggest, that is precious and so much that distinguishes life in Australia from that in so many other places. I recognise that respect for individual people to err on the side of individual freedom, is inconsistent with the natural tendency of government, and I mean any government. The natural tendency of government is towards order and regulation. At its most benign it is for ease of administration and at its worst it is for control of individuals-always, of course, in the interests of the majority, as represented by the state. With a socialist government the natural tendency is accelerated. If the individual exists for the benefit of the state, control and regulation is more than a necessary evil. It is the means towards achieving an end. This Government is presumably somewhere in between. Certainly, there has been no critical cost-benefit analysis such as one would expect from any party which would put the interests of the individual and his or her right to privacy and respect ahead of the interests of the state. Of course, there was some criticism from those on the other side but they were silenced by the majority, on pain of expulsion. They have sacrificed their individual freedom to the perceived benefit of the majority. That is exactly what is being asked of individual Australians by this legislation. It is claimed that by sacrificing one's privacy to the databank and accepting the order and control of a national identity system one would benefit because it would strike down the minority who are tax or social security cheats. That is the argument that is put for the personal losses that we as individuals will be called upon to bear. Of course, a Liberal faced with that proposal would do a cost-benefit analysis. Regret- tably, every day we accept greater regulation of our lives to enable society, that is, the relationship in which we exist together, to function more effectively. Every sitting day in these chambers, in every State parliament and in every local government body, through the many and varied methods of administrative direction and regulation, proclamations, et cetera, we accept greater restriction upon our lives. But we do attempt to assess whether the additional burden or loss of that individual freedom is justified by the benefits that follow. We all want to fight effectively against fraud and tax evasion. But when we sacrifice freedom and accept invasions of privacy to carry out that fight we want to be sure that the sacrifice is worth while. On the evidence so far before us, that is where I respectfully suggest that this Bill fails. The evidence suggests that the Bill will not achieve the claimed objectives. Experience elsewhere is that ID cards basically have proven ineffective in combating major crime. In major crime, as we know, passports can be and are forged. It will be just as easy to forge an identity card. Most taxation is avoided through cash transactions-the black economy. The identity card will not change that. In regard to social security abuse, the Department of Social Security has admitted that the ID card will be of little help in reducing welfare fraud because most fraud relates to overpayments as opposed to mistaken identity. I think the figure that was given earlier was 61 per cent for overpayments and less than one per cent for mistaken identity. The card will not help in relation to illegal immigrants. When the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs gave evidence to the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card it could point to no benefit from the introduction of the card. So it would seem that the benefits flowing from the introduction of the card, as they are presently before the public, are marginal at best. On the other side of the ledger, apart from the loss of privacy and individual freedom, one must weigh the cost in terms of dollars. Although the figures are imprecise, they are mind-boggling. It will require some 2,000 new public servants, a cost to government in dollars of more than $1 billion over a 10-year period, a compliance cost to business estimated to be in excess of $2 billion, plus compliance costs to State and local government and massive expenditure on new computers and software. I remind honourable senators of what Dr Blewett, the architect of this card, said to the South Australian Labor Conference in June 1986- Senator McKiernan —You should not need to read it, Robert. Senator HILL —The more times honourable senators opposite are reminded of this the better, because the basis of Dr Blewett's philosophy on the card has been adopted by his Party. Dr Blewett said: Let me say as a socialist that it is the interests of the community that 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. That clearly delineates a political value system so different from that of those of us on this side of the chamber. Even if we discount the importance of individual freedom, as it is discounted by Dr Blewett, it is still difficult in any objective assessment to get the scales to fall down on the side of the card. We are conscious that once the card is entrenched and over 2,000 employees are in office and the capital has been expended, the difficulties in abandoning the card will be enormous-not impossible, but enormous. The system becomes dependent on it. We are conscious of the example of Sweden, which has one of the most intrusive ID card systems in the world outside the totalitarian states. When Sweden considered abandoning its ID card in 1976 it found that it would cost too much to dismantle. The moral of this story is: do not rush in. We on this side of the chamber accept new regulations and restrictions on the individual, as I have indicated, every day. But with this proposal the claimed benefits simply do not stack up against the cost. The Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card could not get the benefits to outweigh the costs. According to the opinion polls, Australians are becoming increasingly sceptical. So they should. The Government says that the legislation it has before the chamber will require substantial amendment but we do not have its proposals. We are asked to pass a Bill which the Government acknowledges to be defective. Almost daily the evidence builds of shortcomings in the security system that is being advocated and of additional cost burdens not earlier taken into account. In such circumstances the Senate, as the House of review, would be failing in its responsibility if it passed this Bill without further detailed analysis. That is what the amendment moved by Senator Puplick to refer the Bill to a Senate committee is designed to do. The Joint Select Committee did not consider the terms of the Bill. I remind the Senate that it simply considered the concept. This Bill clearly requires detailed analysis, particularly considering its acknowledged deficiencies. The costs to the private sector need to be examined further-that is the least of our responsibilities-as does the capacity of the proposed Data Protection Agency adequately to protect the privacy of the individual in the circumstances of alarming breaches elsewhere that we are now reading about in the media every day. The penalties need further examination. The appropriateness of fines of up to $500 for failing to report the loss of a card, or up to $20,000 for engaging domestics such as baby-sitters and handymen but failing to obtain their ID card numbers and identifying them personally, raises questions as to whether the penalties are appropriate for the offence. There is no better body to consider that question than the Senate through its committee system. The evidence is there that the Senate must consider whether or not the updated computer systems, particularly in the Australian Taxation office, are now recovering what this Government claimed needed to be recovered under the ID card itself. There is evidence before us to suggest that the Taxation Office is now recovering what the Government said it had to pass this legislation to recover. Madam Acting Deputy President, as you know Senate committees have a high reputation for their objectivity, their thoroughness and particularly for their bipartisan approach. The time and the cost of the committee examination will be negligible. It is clear that the Australian community is concerned and wants further serious consideration of this Bill before it becomes part of the Australian way of life and, in fact, changes the Australian way of life forever. It is now being recognised that once freedoms are lost they tend to be irretrievably lost. The facts on the public record at this time demand that the Bill be rejected. I, therefore, strongly support the reference of the Bill to a Senate committee for its further consideration. Senator PARER(Queensland)(4.48) —I rise, after a long list of speakers from the Opposition side, to oppose yet again the infamous ID card and to support Senator Puplick's amendment to refer the legislation to a committee. It is significant that of the 37 speakers on the Australia Card Bill 1986 there have been only 10 Labor speakers in this, the third time the legislation has come before the Senate. Where was Senator Cooney, a great upholder of human rights? Where was Senator Bolkus? Where was Senator Childs? Where was Senator McKiernan, who is sitting in this chamber now? The list goes on. They betray themselves by their absence from the debate. They are opposed to this horrific legislation but know that if they adhere to their principles and vote according to them they will be expelled from their own Labor Party. That is what happened to Senator Georges. Few senators who were present when Senator Georges made his emotional speech on 10 December were not touched by the supreme sacrifice he was prepared to make because of his beliefs. Senator Georges pointed out that he strongly believed in the rights of the individual to exist without unnecessary bureaucratic interference by the state, that privacy was the right of every individual, that to destroy the privacy of the individual would be to destroy society, and that the ID card would be a licence to exist. That is exactly what this ID card will be. It will be no more or less than a licence to exist. He pointed out that it would become a weapon for social pacification and that when all information was gathered, it would indicate not only a person's financial position but also his social position and his social behaviour. Those are some of the words of former Senator Georges, and every Labor senator and member who agrees with him should be squirming with shame that he or she did not have the same intestinal fortitude to make a similar stand. Senator McKiernan on the other side should be squirming in his seat right now. I will be very interested to see what Senator Burns does if this matter comes to a vote in a joint sitting. As everyone knows, Senator Georges was the mentor of Senator Burns, from whom we heard some pious words in his maiden speech. What will he do when it comes to the serious vote on the Australia Card? We in the Liberal Party knew that when we opposed this draconian legislation for the second time, we would be providing an opportunistic Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) with a trigger for a double dissolution, notwithstanding his promises over and over again that he would go his full term. He had broken so many other promises to the Australian people that we ignored this promise as well; so we knew we were running that risk. When the Medicare card was introduced the Government denied that it would lead to a national ID system. So much for that assurance! We felt so strongly about the consequences of this legislation that, despite pragmatic political considerations, we had no option but to oppose it. As honourable senators know, we could well have let the legislation go through and committed ourselves to repealing it on re-election to the Government benches. We decided that we could not do that because of the principles involved-principles which those on the Labor side quite obviously know absolutely nothing about. Senator McKiernan need not blush. No sensible person supports tax evaders or social security fraud. It has been shown quite clearly by my colleagues that the ID card will not touch the cash or black economy-by far the most extensive form of tax evasion; everybody knows that. It will not touch social security fraud. The Department of Social Security itself has conceded that false names account for only 0.6 per cent of social security fraud. The major means of fraud is false information, and the ID card cannot and will not touch those indulging in that type of fraudulence. Penalties for misuse of the ID card will be savage. It will be an offence to require someone to produce the card as a means of identification, with a penalty of $5,000, but requests for the card will not attract a penalty. A fine of $500 will be applicable if the card is lost or stolen and not reported within 21 days. Honourable senators may have seen, for instance, in today's Australian Financial Review under the heading `Australian Graffiti', that in the last 12 months over 30,000 Medicare cards were reported lost or stolen. There will be a fine of $20,000 for employing an ironing lady, cleaner or baby-sitter without identifying that person personally and obtaining his or her ID number. There will be a fine of $5,000 or two years imprisonment for making false statements or altering or defacing a card. There will be fines of up to $1,000 for individuals and $5,000 for companies not properly reporting all prescribed transactions of more than $10,000. There will be fines of up to $100,000 for businesses not registering new accounts or for failing to register all existing accounts within two years of the legislation's introduction. If one reads the legislation, one finds that people will be invited to have a card. Everyone knows that the idea is to call it an Australia Card to appeal to our sense of nationalism, which is a dreadful thing to do. I suppose the card will be green and gold. Recently the Minister responsible for the ID card, Senator Ryan, on a talk-back line, was asked the simple question, `How do you get an ID card?'. We were told that every individual in Australia will have to present himself or herself to a public servant. That is to understate it. She said that there will be a 10-minute interview. We should not have to wait any more than another 10 minutes, and when all the required information is recorded and we have proved who we are-as if we did not know-we will eventually get an ID card. The simple fact of the matter is that it is not an invitation to have a card; if we do not apply, we cannot exist. It was pointed out to Senator Ryan the other day in Question Time that if a person who did not have an ID card paid a cheque to someone to whom he owed money, that cheque could bounce because a bank will not be able to clear a cheque from a person who does not have the ID card. When we are being paid by somebody for goods or services rendered, we will have to make sure, if we do not want the cheque to bounce, that that person has an ID card recorded with the bank. Many people representing diverse interests who oppose the ID card have been quoted in this debate. Senator Ryan has been known to call it selective quoting. There is, however, hardly any group in society, irrespective of political persuasion, which does not oppose this card, this numbering system of individuals now called in the legislation not `Australians' but `card subjects'. It sounds like something out of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. All of us on this side, and I am sure those on the other side too, have been inundated with letters, votergrams and petitions far in excess of anything else I have encountered during my time in the Senate. There is a revolt in the community, and the Prime Minister and the Minister responsible for the ID card, Senator Ryan, will ignore it at their peril. Public wrath is coming down on ministerial heads, and they deserve it. My colleagues have quoted people representing every group in society. I would like to quote, even though my colleague Senator Stone mentioned him yesterday, Mr Ewart Smith, who has a singular background. He was, until he recently retired, Deputy Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department and served on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. He was a most dedicated public servant and he has never been a member of any political party. He stated in his letter to the Australian newspaper of 22 September that if he had an axe to grind it would be the stopping of the fraud of tax and social security cheats. He said: . . . the time has come to speak out against this evil card. Those of us who served in the Second World War fought for freedom and that freedom must be jealously guarded-and never surrendered. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance and never has our liberty been so threatened as at present. The 130-page, 189-clause Bill that seeks to enmesh us all on the pretext that it is essential that we be properly identified to prevent tax fraud and social security fraud by a comparatively small proportion of society is an obscenity that must be stopped. In addition to the arguments that have been cogently put as to the security of the information database, and privacy, I regard the most vital factor as the immense change in the Australian way of life that the card would bring to us all. There are many ways to attack tax and social security fraud. That is being done presently with outstanding success. All that is needed is more of the same, not the imposition of a card on us all. Even viewed in the most optimistic light, the card would do absolutely nothing to curtail tax fraud or social security fraud that does not depend on identity, for example, the cash economy. I have already pointed this out. He continued: The all-pervasive nature of the card system, apparent from a study of the Bill . . ., will bring needless complication to all our lives and fear and worry to countless citizens (especially migrants)- including those who came to us from Eastern bloc countries- while sprinkling offences around like a fish-and-chips proprietor would with the salt. He went on: And it would be an administrative nightmare, engulfing more and more public servants to service its growing needs. There are so many points to make against the legislation, but in the interest of brevity I think it can all be summed up by simply calling the card `the un-Australian Card'. That is from a man of absolute integrity, a man who devoted his life to the Public Service of this country and who knows the possible effects of what will happen if we allow this card to go through. Senator Ryan will wind up this debate shortly. It is interesting to note that on both previous occasions on which this Bill was brought into this chamber Senator Ryan did not say a word. In fact, she spoke on the ID card for the first time in the Senate only last week. That scarcely denotes a sound and interested Minister. The handing of this task to her is the action of a Prime Minister who thinks he may know that he is beaten. I understand that it is expected that this legislation will be referred to a committee. Subsequently, I suppose, if the Prime Minister continues with his madness to get this legislation through, there will be a Joint Sitting. It will be very interesting to see at that Joint Sitting just what those people on the other side, with their high-minded principles, are going to do. Senator Puplick said in his address that the problem with the left wing of the Labor Party is that it has a tendency to be honest. Honest, maybe; but intestinal fortitude, we will see. The legislation will be passed at the Joint Sitting if we assume that all of the little yes men on the Government side vote in favour of it and give the Government a majority of 14. But having got that far, we find today that there is a distinct possibility that the card itself will be totally and utterly inoperative. Maybe this is the out that the Prime Minister and the members of his Party will take. I do not know whether that will happen; we will see. It came to light today during Question Time that the relevant date as outlined in the Bill will be set by regulation and that regulation must come before this Senate for passing. Senator McKiernan —Could we do it at the Joint Sitting? Senator PARER —I am pleased to acknowledge Senator McKiernan's interjection because we know that he has principles. He comes from a place where people are most concerned about the infringement of liberties. What would he do if there were such a card in his old country and he could be picked up for the nefarious things that he may have done over there? The honourable senator asked what we will do in respect of the card. Of course, we will continue to oppose it. In closing I would just like to reaffirm that I support the amendment moved by Senator Puplick to have the Australian Card Bill referred to a committee. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia)(5.04) —I have the honour to be the last Opposition speaker in this debate on the ID card. This is the third occasion on which the Senate has debated this issue which has now gained the disapproval of a majority of Australians. The ID card is the most discussed political topic in Australia at the moment. The Opposition is resolutely and totally opposed to the arguments that have been put forward by the Government and to this legislation. My colleague Senator Puplick, who is leading for the Opposition, has moved a comprehensive amendment to refer this legislation to a Senate committee. That inquiry will take up all the matters that are set out in the committee's proposed terms of reference, which cover some 18 or so areas, as well all the matters that have been raised by honourable senators in this debate. I do not wish to repeat the speech that I gave on 2 April, the last time the Senate debated this legislation. Following the debate on that occasion, the Senate voted against the legislation. This gave the Government the double dissolution trigger which was the technical foundation for calling the last election. However, I refer the Senate to three of the major points that I made on 2 April. I said that the card would not be cost effective, that it was a gross intrusion on the privacy of individual Australians, and that in its operation or practical form it would not be effective. I remind the Senate that some seven reasons have emerged from the lips of many people and in thousands of letters and petitions that have been received by senators for opposing this ID card. I have summarised the points made in the letters and petitions that have come to my office and divided them into seven great big heaps. Firstly, it is argued that the ID card will not end tax fraud, that there are cheaper and less intrusive means of dealing with this problem, such as improving the efficiency of the Australian Taxation Office. This has been the subject of various inquiries into the tax area. Secondly, public criticism of this legislation points out that it will not solve the problem of welfare fraud. Even the Government's own Department of Social Security has admitted this in public evidence to the parliamentary inquiry into this matter. Thirdly, it is argued that the Australia Card will not solve the problem of illegal immigration. The Government has admitted this and has said that the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs will not have access to the card or to the card's number. The fourth group of letters mostly stress that the card will be a gross intrusion into the lives of 16 million individual Australians. Fifthly, it is argued that the data held on the Australia Card Register will not be adequately protected. It will be possible for sensitive personal information to be sold, stolen or inadvertently given out. I will come back to that matter a little later in my remarks. The sixth group of letters stress the enormously heavy penalties that are attached to offences, even inadvertent offences, related to the card. The legislation before us provides for fines of $500 for just failing to report the loss of the card and fines of $20,000 if an employer does not sight the card and record its number before employing somebody, even on a casual basis. These heavy penalties seem out of kilter and quite unreasonable in comparison with any other legislation or requirement of government. The seventh group of letters to me demonstrates again and again the point that I made in my speech here in April, namely, that the card will not be cost effective. It is for these sorts of reasons that we have all received so many letters from the public encouraging the Opposition to oppose the legislation. Senator Jenkins, a Western Australian senator, has just reminded me that two hours ago in Perth there was a massive crowd of 20,000 people-- Senator Jenkins —Thirty thousand. Senator TEAGUE —It was in excess of 20,000. I am told that 30,000 people marched from The Esplanade to the State Parliament House in Perth. This was the largest crowd of people demonstrating against a government decision that has been seen in that city for years and years, perhaps since the demonstrations against the Whitlam Government. Bishop Challen, who has been a forthright leader in this debate in the community, was one of the speakers at the rally, as were Liberal and National Party parliamentarians Hassell, MacKinnon, Hendy, Cowan and others. The Premier, Mr Burke, refused to speak to this rally and instead he offered one of his colleagues, a Mr Parker, a Minister in the State Labor Government. However, the crowd did not want to hear Mr Parker. They wanted to hear from the Premier and they rejected overwhelmingly his lack of courage in not facing up to that crowd and giving an account of himself. We have yet to see whether the State of Western Australia will co-operate with this legislation in terms of the issuing of records, such as birth certificates and so on. In my own State of South Australia, the Bannon Labor Government has yet to make a commitment to have anything to do with the Australia Card. I understand that is also the case in the Northern Territory and in Tasmania. It seems that a majority of States and Territories in Australia will not co-operate by handing over information on births, deaths and marriages, yet this Government's ID card project seems to rely on that information. I return to my remarks about the Perth rally. Every kind of person was involved in that march of 30,000 people-young, old, persons variously dressed, students, business people, housewives and even school children who were away from school. They were all demonstrating against an intrusive Government decision that they regard as a blight on individual freedom and their own lives. The ID card is rejected by Australia, it is rejected by the Opposition and it is rejected for all the reasons that have been debated here and put forward by the Opposition. In the South Australian Parliament, a colleague, the Hon. Diana Laidlaw, moved a motion in the Legislative Council in the following terms: That this Parliament registers its strong opposition to the introduction of a national identification system incorporating the Australia card and, if the legislation passes the Federal Parliament, calls on the State Government not to co-operate in the establishment of a national identification system incorporating the Australia Card. I received a letter from Diana Laidlaw this week informing me that the motion was passed without dissent in the Legislative Council of my State Parliament. Obviously it was sponsored by the Liberal Party and supported by the Australian Democrats in that chamber, but there was not one Labor member who was prepared to show any kind of dissent which would have led to a division. We can only record that in the South Australia Legislative Council this motion was adopted without dissent and has been passed on to the House of Assembly. There have also been rallies against the card in Adelaide. Last Friday there was a very large rally, based on Victoria Square, which was very similar to that which occurred today in Perth. That rally was addressed by John Olsen, the Leader of the Liberal Party in South Australia and a number of other speakers. In the University of New South Wales the biggest student gathering seen for more than a decade occurred to protest against the Australia Card. It was addressed by Peter Garrett and a number of other speakers. I would like now to note references to costs and savings that Government members have referred to during this debate. The Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), the Minister responsible for the Australia Card in the other chamber, continues to maintain that there will be $5.4 billion of savings-that is, of gain to Government revenue-arising from the implementation of the ID card over a 10-year period. He notes that the cost of setting up the program in the first year will amount to some $750 million to $1 billion and that there will be a net amount of about $4 billion over a 10-year period. That is the official view that is put forward by the responsible Minister. However, in the debate here Senator Maguire gave a lesser amount when he tried to estimate what this figure would be. Mr Keating gave a very global reference in his Budget speech in which he said that the ID card would return up to $1 billion per annum in revenue. Do we take Dr Blewett's view, Senator Maguire's view or Mr Keating's view-they are all different-as each one of them is only an estimate? Certainly, they are only confined to the initial estimate of cost in setting up the system. We know that there will be 2,000 extra public servants employed and that the cost of setting up the system will be about $1 billion, but the estimate of gains arising from the ID card is in doubt because none of those summaries has tried to take stock of the cost to private enterprise, the banking system, industry and to all employers of the implementation of the ID card's requirements. An official cost impact assessment by an official advisory committee of the Government has estimated that the cost to private enterprise, to industry and to employers in setting up the apparatus for the ID card will be twice as much as the cost to the Government. This is reasonable and no one has argued against the estimation that it will cost $2 billion to private employers and $1 billion to the Government. It is only on the `hope-so', the most favourable estimate, that we are going to see some gains to revenue. I wish to press on towards the fact that over the past 12 months, while we have been debating this ID card and since the idea was first introduced at the Tax Summit, or shortly before it, as an initiative of the Australian Taxation Office-when it was first proposed to gain about $500 million a year-there have been quite a number of happily achieved reforms within the Tax Office. Those reforms have meant that there has been a greater efficiency in collecting due tax. Some of the estimated amount accruing from this scheme is already to hand. I note that $850 million in additional tax revenue was gained from internal reforms within the Australian Taxation Office, in particular, from more comprehensive auditing activities and a much more systematic and sophisticated computer matching of data supplied by financial institutions and companies on taxpayers' interest and share earnings. This increased by $460m in this year's Budget compared with the previous financial year. Ironically, the revenue gains from the reforms in 1986-87-$460m-were about the same as the amount the Government believed could be recouped by using the ID card. I have already acknowledged that the Treasurer has now doubled his estimate of what the revenue might be to $1 billion a year. In the first stages of this debate it was estimated that we would raise about $500m. That is what the gain has been through the measures that the Tax Office has already undertaken. What slack is left? What tax avoidance will this ID card now uncover which the new, reformed methods of the Australian Taxation Office-methods which do not require legislation but which require the Taxation Office to act more efficiently with the powers it already contains-will not uncover? I can only conclude, as have all Opposition speakers who have referred to costs and savings, that there is the most hazy estimate of any fresh savings that will accrue if this legislation is passed that will not be otherwise gained by the advances in efficiency and prosecution that the Taxation Office is already achieving. One decidedly new aspect which has emerged in this debate is whether the communication links between the computer systems, the databases, held in the three departments and in the Health Insurance Commission, which is responsible for the ID card, will be secure. In answer to questions in the Senate, Senator Ryan has said that there will be secure landlines, that the links between the computer systems will not be by telephone but by secure landlines. My constituents have expressed many fears and anxieties over the proposed legislation, particularly in this respect. It has been one of the most persistent concerns that the system of security and protection of personal information stored on government computers is not as safe as the Government claims. In a statement issued on 18 September, Senator Ryan, the Minister responsible for the ID card, made several bold claims relating to the security of the proposed Australia Card computer system. She said that the system would incorporate the very best in security and safeguards. She said that it would be impossible for computer hackers to gain access to the system through the telephone system because information would be conveyed, not by telephone link but along a dedicated network of communications, that is along landlines. Senator Ryan said that information carried along this dedicated network would be encrypted, compressed and segmented. So if any outsider were able to break into the system, he would have no chance of being able to read or make sense of the information. Senator Ryan did admit, however, that it was theoretically possible to tap information from a transmission line. She claimed that such an effort would have to be extremely sophisticated, very expensive and that it would be detectable. In addition to these claims, Senator Ryan argued that the card register would contain only basic identifying data and that there would be comprehensive safeguards restricting and recording all access to the register. All well and good, one might say, but over the past few months computer and information systems experts have raised a number of matters which place Senator Ryan's assurances in considerable doubt. There are several areas where these experts have raised sufficient doubt to justify sending this legislation to a Senate committee to make a thorough examination and to bring back a report to the Senate. We need to know the cost implications of establishing this heightened security. Already we know that it is a large part of the $1 billion cost of setting up the ID card system. The technical director of Eracom Pty Ltd, Mr William Caelli, told a recent conference that it is possible to provide a level of security equal to that of banks and finance organisations, but he said that that level of security was `going to cost a lost of money'. Mr Caelli also expressed concern about the Government's track record on the security of existing data stored in Commonwealth departments. He said: Government systems have been some of the worst offenders when it comes to security. It is only a few years ago that in government computer requirements, security was down on the list at about number six in importance, at best. He also said that as a result of conversations with government employees, he understood that the Government was falling behind in cryptographic protection of datalines and work stations. The New South Wales branch of the Australian Computer Society set up an investigative group to look at the Australia Card. Its report noted: The data will be held in centralised databases which will be accessible from all over Australia. It will be almost impossible to ensure network security because even if dedicated lines are used these can be identified and tapped. In the Australian Capital Territory a senior computer teacher at Erindale College, Mr Alan Brooke, was quoted in the Canberra Times of 7 September as saying that all landlines are vulnerable to tapping as they are all routed through telephone exchanges. He said that had Senator Ryan been taught computer awareness she might have been aware that all cables carrying data, whether spoken or coded, give off electromagnetic emanations and that these also can be tapped. Mr Brooke is also reported as saying: Senator Ryan might also have been aware that most abuses of such systems are not from outside an organisation but from within and because the Australia Card system is to have some 2,000 terminals, the system overall is going to be a great deal less than totally secure. I quoted Roger Clarke in my speech in April. He is a computer expert, an academic at the Australian National University, and he also has said that the system will not be sufficiently protected. In the past fortnight I have been in contact with computer experts who have advised me that there are several points where landlines are not secure and it has been demonstrated that it was possible for individuals to break into the database that was held on the last census in the Australian Bureau of Statistics, and retrieve every item relating to themselves or to friends. They got away with it and it can be done. We have yet to hear whether the Government's claims that this system will be secure will make it more secure than the database in the Australian Bureau of Statistics. I also understand that encryption, compression and segmentation of messages pose no serious problem to those with a good working knowledge of computer systems. It is a fact that all encrypted information can be decrypted. Currently I understand that many companies and other organisations involved in the transfer of sensitive computer information now no longer favour encryption as a security measure. Senator Ryan also mentioned compression and the breaking up of information as a further security measure. This involves the elimination of gaps and certain unnecessary characters in messages as well as breaking up information into jumbled segments. But every time there is such a change or jumbling, a flag or indicator is inserted to tell the system how to put the information back together again. A determined and competent interceptor has merely to find the flags to be well on the way to restoring the message to its original form. But the dangers from without to the security of the computer system are far surpassed by the dangers from within. The graver risks arise from those personnel who have access to the computer terminals. They are not only those public servants who work with the ID card database. There are technicians-hundreds of them-engineers and training consultants who also will know how to use the system. The problem is that these people will not necessarily be employed by the relevant responsible department. We have yet to hear any kind of detailed argument that gives a credible guarantee that with all these variables and dangers from without and within the database will be secure. I turn in the remaining few minutes at my disposal to concentrate on some political questions associated with the ID card. One profession by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) is that he has a mandate to go ahead with this legislation, despite the fact that his Party did not gain the greatest number of votes either in the House of Representatives or in the Senate, and despite the fact that in this chamber a majority of members are decidedly opposed to it. I note that Senator Ray disagrees with the Prime Minister. He says that he has not got any solid sense of mandate and he does not know what the concept means; all he knows is who has the numbers when there is a joint sitting. I think that is a healthy factual approach to this matter. But whatever any government may claim as a mandate, we have to recognise that the last double dissolution election was based upon this legislation being twice refused and hence providing the trigger for the Prime Minister to advise the Governor-General of the need for a double dissolution. Does anyone seriously believe that that was the top priority issue in the last election? Certainly the Prime Minister did not claim so. In fact it was the eighth, ninth or tenth priority that was given by all candidates on both sides to this issue, because of other matters that were more directly flowing from who was to gain government after the last election. This only puts into perspective what happened in February 1983, when Malcolm Fraser used a double dissolution trigger-most of us here forget what the issue was, but he had a technical trigger in constitutional terms to call a double dissolution then-as did the present Prime Minister on 5 June of this year. I think there should be no more nonsense claimed by government speakers that there is some mandate. I expect that after Senator Ryan's summing up remarks in the next few minutes we will proceed to a vote and that a Senate committee inquiry will be established. I thoroughly commend, as have my colleagues in the Opposition, each item in the terms of reference that will guide that committee in its inquiries over the coming months. Vital matters need to be publicised not only in this Parliament but also in the public arena. It would be very surprising if, after hearing the evidence given to that committee, anyone of my colleagues in the Opposition were to be sufficiently persuaded to adopt this legislation. I cannot think of anyone who would be more led to accept this legislation after the Senate committee inquiry. It is quite possible that when the committee reports, the Senate will meet in February to vote again against the legislation, which will trigger a joint sitting in the House of Representatives chamber. But I ask honourable senators opposite what that will gain, even if there is a majority in favour of the legislation? We already know that it is defective and that it cannot operate without regulations that are yet to be passed. It can then be disallowed by a majority, which we have in the Senate. The public is opposed to the legislation. I make the prediction now that this Government will lose its nerve and will respond to the overwhelming opposition of the public, expressed here by the Opposition, and that it will pull out. I predict that in April next year this Government will decide that it has heard the message from Australia. I predict that the Hawke Labor Government, impressed by what we have said in the Opposition, will abandon the ID card, and in so doing will serve us all much to the better, and stop this step which we find so totally offensive. Senator McKIERNAN(Western Australia)(5.34) —I understood that Senator Knowles was going to precede me, but I will press on. The Senate is debating for the third time the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3]. I am not sure exactly how many speakers we have suffered and endured on the three occasions that this Bill has been debated in this place. Quite honestly this debate has gone far beyond what a debate should be, because on many occasions individual senators from the other side-not the new ones-virtually read verbatim from their previous contributions. That has not enthused us and indeed it did not even enthuse the people on the other side who read their previous speeches. Senator McGauran —Are you not Irish? Senator McKIERNAN —No, Senator McGauran, I am Australian and Australians wear green, as the honourable senator can see. Senator Crichton-Browne —And I am Irish! Senator McKIERNAN —I certainly do not want to talk like Senator Crichton-Browne. I am proud of my heritage and I hope honourable senators opposite are too. While we are talking about that, I think Senator Parer mentioned that when we do get the Australia Card-if indeed we do get it-it will be printed in green and gold. I hope there will probably be a little bit more green than gold, although I have no aversion to those colours. Senator McGauran, in asking me what my nationality was, reminded me that the colours of the country of my birth are indeed green and gold. They are sometimes referred to as green and orange, but that is a different matter for debate. Before I was diverted by the interjections-I am not answering any more interjections at the moment-I mentioned how the debate had deteriorated. Quite honestly, if debates are to be conducted merely be repetition-one person repeating what he or she said in February and that in turn being a repetition of what he said in December-that really does not add a great deal of thought and intellect to a debate on a very crucial and important matter. I do not begrudge the Senate giving this amount of time to this very important issue, which is causing consternation throughout the Australian community. It is also causing consternation among members of the party to which I belong, the Australian Labor Party. Honourable senators opposite may or may not know that there is a degree of opposition by sections of the party to which I belong and work with to the implementation of the Australia Card. Unfortunately the debate has deteriorated somewhat. I am not only reflecting on what has happened in this chamber over time but I am also reflecting on what has happened in the community. The previous speaker, Senator Teague, mentioned that a great number of letters have been received by senators and members on this issue. Some of the letters that are coming into my office-I can speak only for the letters I have received-I believe are from people with genuine fears about the possibilities of what the Australia Card could be used for by the present Government or by any future government of whatever political colour or calibre. I think that is a very real fear. But mixed up with those letters from genuine, caring and concerned people have been a number of letters which I can describe only as ratbag letters. They begin by taking a religious stance and condemning the Bill as being Stalinist, Nazi and fascist. Obviously we can see that letters like that come from people who have a deep understanding of politics and the various spheres of politics in this country, in countries in Europe and countries in the rest of the world. Various references have also been made in this debate to the protection of civil rights. Indeed the stance of my friend, the ex-Senator Georges, not the late Senator Georges, on the Australia Card, and his contribution to the debate last December, have been quoted on a number of occasions by people in this chamber. But I think some people have taken that out of context. It was alleged on some occasions that Senator Georges was kicked out of the Australian Labor Party because of his stance. He actually resigned from the Australian Labor Party. Senator Short —He was going to be expelled. Senator McKIERNAN —Well, Senator Short, maybe due to the machinery of the Party, the Party did not get an opportunity to make a decision. Senator Short —He would have been expelled. Senator McKIERNAN —Can I pre-empt things, Senator Short? Would Senator Short's party do it? Senator Short —No. Senator McKIERNAN —That is the discipline of the Australian Labor Party. Indeed, the Liberal Party of Australia has also been talking in recent weeks and months about its own discipline. One of the reasons why the Liberals lost the last election was their internal faction fighting and their weak leadership-matters within their own party. Their President, John Valder, had quite a number of things to say on that matter. I am not sure how many of the Opposition senators here at the moment actually attend the national meetings of their Party. But that is their problem. They have disciplinary problems as does the Australian Labor Party. We handle it a little better from time to time, and sometimes we make a blue. But that is life as we live it. We have to have some rules and some order of things-- Senator McGauran —And settle it with a punch-up? Senator McKIERNAN —I hear Senator McGauran again. It was Senator McGauran who got me somewhat irate this morning when he mentioned Vietnam and the Vietnam veterans parade that is on a week next Saturday in Sydney. It was not the Australian Labor Party that deprived young Australian of their lives by sending them, at the mere drop of a marble, to that place to fight in a hopeless, useless war. It is unfortunate that the issue has been brought into a debate such as this. I think the Australia Card is much too important for the debate to be used simply to score points using a matter which is very important to those people who have been to Vietnam, who lost friends there and who came back. I think this matter is above politics and perhaps in a little time, after Senator McGauran has had the rough edges knocked off him, he will not use this issue in that way. I do not think that it was offensive in the sense that one ought to ask him outside to settle things. But I think it was perhaps ill-considered just at this particular point in time, because memories will be going back in these 10 days or so leading up to Saturday week when those people celebrate their return and remember the people that they left behind. We have heard a fair amount of talk about civil liberties. Many people around Australia listening to the debate would think that honourable senators opposite, in particular, had some concern about civil liberties. In Australia the deprivation of civil liberties is not unknown, and it is something that must be addressed in talking about the Australia Card. But we can look back in recent history and ask: Where were the people who are standing up now talking about deprivation and loss of civil liberties during the Vietnam moratorium marches? Where was their political party at that particular point in time? Senator Walters —I will tell you where I was. Senator McKIERNAN —And who was the Minister responsible for sending them over? I know we all make mistakes in our lives from day to day and week to week. But I think a travesty was made when we sent our people over there and deprived those people of their civil liberties. Senator Walters —I was supporting the Vietnam veterans. Senator McKIERNAN —I thank Senator Walters. I accept what she says and I recognise her contribution. Senator Walters —I was marching in an anti-moratorium march under the Australian flag supporting our troops where they were, and I still support them. Senator McKIERNAN —The honourable senator still supports the Australian involvement in that awful war. Never mind; let us move on and continue with the Australia Card. Just eight years ago in Western Australia an infamous section of the Police Act known as section 54b was used. That Act deprived individuals of the right to gather in groups of more than three people to meet and discuss a matter of common purpose. The Act was not established by a Labor government, a socialist government or a neo-fascist government. It was not done by us. But it was used against the trade union movement. It was used to arrest and hold people because they had the audacity to stand up and defend their rights on things. Where were the great civil libertarians who are now protesting about the Australia Card and defending civil liberties? Where were they in 1979 when that occurred? Where were the people who are now defending civil liberties in respect of the Australia Card when there were demonstrations against the ban on marches in Queensland? That is not so many years ago. Probably one of the greatest civil liberties we have is the right to vote-and the right of one vote one value. I challenge the civil libertarians on the other side of the chamber and out there in the community-including those who stand on the stages addressing demonstrations-to open their mouths and say something about the gerrymander that exists now in the state of Queensland. Senator Jenkins —I have done that, Senator. Senator McKIERNAN —I recognise that. I thank Senator Jenkins for it and I wish her well in continuing to do it. Senator Crichton-Browne —Why don't you complain about the fact that each State has equal representation in the Senate despite their populations? Why don't you complain about Tasmania having the same number of senators as New South Wales? Senator Walters —Don't you dare. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Teague) —Order! There are too many interjections on my left. Senator McKIERNAN —Mr Acting Deputy President, I suggest that Senator Walters and Senator Crichton-Browne sort that out themselves by leaving the chamber and discussing it outside-or perhaps we could deal with it on another day. A lot has also been said about the mandate that the Hawke Labor Government got out of the last election. Like Senator Robert Ray-I refer to his excellent contribution here this morning-I have some difficulties with what `mandate' means. I have been disillusioned by some of the acts of the previous Hawke Labor Government in respect of promises that were made when going to the polls and the Government, including myself, carrying out those promises. We had a mandate and a commitment to do things; we should have done them. But some things we did not do and some things we did differently. I am a bit confused about what a mandate is. It has been argued that because we did not get more than 50 per cent of the vote in the last election, we do not have a mandate for the Australia Card. I do know, however, that, as far as I was concerned, the Australia Card was an election matter in the last Federal election campaign over the days and weeks leading up to 11 July. It was raised with me at meetings and through personal representations by people, and I could do nothing other than to repeat the Party's policies on the Australia Card. The matter was discussed in the election campaign. It was the subject of the first advertisement the Labor Party published following the dissolution of the Parliament and the calling of the election. It was a full-page advertisement placed in all of the major daily newspapers around Australia. That is not to say that it was the only issue that would be discussed throughout the whole of the election campaign, and it is not to say that that is the only thing we have to take action on in the life of this Hawke Labor Government. But, if a mandate means that the issue was raised in a campaign, we have a mandate to implement the Australia Card in whatever form because we did raise it. Senator Walters —Rubbish! Senator McKIERNAN —Senator Walters, in her contribution to the debate-I think it was on Monday, or probably Tuesday-mentioned that she had made a number of attempts to get the matter of the Australia Card raised with the media. She said that she got a number of knockbacks in trying to get the Australia Card discussed. I do not dispute that that happened. But it did not become the central issue of the election campaign. What really became the issue in the election campaign was the question of numeracy-or to put it simply, for those of us who did not have the benefit of a university education, adding up. A great number of figures were put out during the campaign, and a lot of promises were made that just did not add up. A strange issue, which I have still not worked out, involves an admission made by the Leader of the Liberal Party that his figures were wrong in the middle, but the end result was said to be still the same. I still have not been able to come to grips with that one. But maybe I am of a superior intellect, having being born in Ireland. I do not know that some of the things that made the headlines in the election campaign were what seemed to be a continual spate of Press releases emanating from the Opposition leadership saying that its Press releases were not being used. I thought at the time, `Isn't this funny'. If the Opposition can put out Press releases that say that its Press releases are not being used, what are they putting Press releases out about? The Opposition was getting coverage. It may have been negative coverage, but it was coverage. I think that the honourable senators opposite, including Senator Puplick who is with us in the chamber at the moment, ought to examine their methods of electioneering when they front the next general election-whenever that will be. Senator Maguire —That is a good idea. Senator McKIERNAN —I thank the honourable senator. The one thing it would do would be to provide us with a little bit of a challenge. Although it was a long and hard campaign, it was perhaps a little too easy. When things come too easy, one tends to take things for granted. We should really be challenged for the position we hold. We should be challenged as a Party and offered some resistance. In that regard I am very pleased to see that Senator Puplick is here and sitting on the front bench opposite. He is one of those people who were left to flounder on the back benches. It is the sartorial elegance that I really admire rather than the intellectual wit. I hope the honourable senator uses those bits of paper-- Senator Reynolds —Don't forget the glasses. Senator McKIERNAN —The glasses are another thing. Another point I wish to raise before I conclude relates to the National Party of Australia. I think all National Party senators have spoken in this debate. Some have spoken better than others. They and their Party are in opposition to the Australia Card. They probably are in opposition today, but were they in opposition when Charles Blunt made his statement in support of an Australia Card? Were they in opposition to an Australia Card when Ray Braithwaite, one of their senior members, made his statements in support of an Australia Card? I really do not know the answers to those questions. That is the difficulty of a debate on this highly emotional and most important question. The introduction of an Australia Card deserves more than we have been treated to in the last weeks and months in this chamber, in the other place and in the community. It is too important a subject matter to be left to the ratbag elements of our society which are out there. I hope that all parties in this House agree that there are certain ratbag elements in society who seek to grab a platform which in not necessarily theirs. But because it is there they seek to jump on the platform to make it theirs. The implementation of a national identity system is deserving of more than that. It is also deserving of more than what we have had in this chamber in the last few days in the repetitious speeches. There have been a number of good contributions from the other side of the chamber. I will not mention any names or select any people because I might get labelled. If one gets labelled one might have problems in advancement. I may even lose my whip. I think this is the appropriate time to conclude my contribution. Senator KNOWLES(Western Australia)(5.55) —I find this debate quite amazing because it was meant to finish after your contribution, Mr Acting Deputy President. But after the contribution from one of my colleagues this morning, Senator Tambling, who highlighted to the Parliament that the members of the left wing of the Australian Labor Party have been very sparse with their contributions to the debate, they have all sprung to life. I believe that there will now be a succession of left wingers who will speak. But what they are going to speak about, we are not too sure. My friend Senator McKiernan had a wonderful time talking about the Vietnam war but spoke little about the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3] that is before us. Senator Short —Which way will he vote? Senator KNOWLES —That is a very good question. I know the way he would like to vote and that is against the card, but the way in which he is entitled to vote without risking expulsion from the Party, of course, will ensure that he fronts up on that side of the chamber. This is the third time that this Australia Card Bill has come before the Senate. The evidence against it is stronger than it has ever been. We continually hear smug defiance from the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) downwards that the ALP Government has a popular mandate for this Bill. Even Senator McKiernan, who spoke before me, spoke about the mandate for this Bill. Whatever legal rights honourable senators opposite may have, it is a farce to claim, in defiance of all the evidence, that the people of Australia now support the ID card. It is all very well for the Government to say that it ran the first advertisements on the ID card. That is right, but it also happened to be its last because it found out that it was a sheer and utter disaster. More and more people were finding out about the ID card. As public criticism has mounted against this proposal, those groups opposing it have been called the ratbag elements of society. Senator McKiernan mentioned the ratbag elements of society. We all get called many names in this chamber from time to time, but it is a great tragedy that people outside this Parliament-decent, honest citizens of Australia-are being called ratbag elements of society simply because they want to preserve the freedoms and the liberties that they have grown to accept in a wonderful country such as this. Equally, it is a farce to claim that the action of the Australian people last July in returning the Hawke Government constituted an endorsement of this Bill, a Bill that the Government is so anxious to conceal from the public that it prevented at one stage the printing and distribution of any further copies of it. No one in this country could get a copy of this Bill for three or four weeks. That is a disgrace because it is the right of every Australian citizen to have access to any piece of legislation that is going through the Parliament. But this was not so. The printing of this Bill was stopped. Some speakers on the Government side have mentioned that there are people from our side of the Parliament who were originally in favour of such a proposition. It happens to be a matter of record that some of those people originally said that a system that was supposedly going to catch welfare frauds and tax cheats, and people of that kind, would be a good idea. I add that that was well and truly before the colour of the legislation was seen and any detail of the Bill was put down. It is a matter of record that the Liberal Party of Australia has consistently warned of the dangers of the national identification system and opposed this Bill once it saw it; even when the public opinion polls suggested that this was an electorally unpopular course. In our election campaign we stated that we would examine the possibility of giving the electors the right to veto Bills carried by this Parliament. The Australia Card, cutting across some traditional political allegiances and threatening to overturn the whole basis of the citizen's relationship with the state, is a prime example of where such a course would be appropriate. As I have said, this much vaunted mandate looks even thinner when we remember that in the Senate 712,000 more Australians voted for parties and candidates who opposed the ID card than voted for the Government. In Western Australian seven out of the 12 elected senators stand opposed to the Australia Card. Some of the voters who elected them would have cast only a preferred vote for the ALP in the House of Representatives. Under what logic can such voters be claimed as having given the ID card a mandate at the ballot box? It was interesting that last night even Senator Beahan, responding to an interjection from Senator Short, said: If the honourable senator can separate the issues in any election and say, `For that, you have a mandate, for that you haven't; for this you have, and for that you haven't', he is a better man than I am. He even admits that he cannot declare that the Government has a mandate. But he rabbited on incessantly about hysterical arguments that were being put against the card. It is a great shame that Government senators are calling people hysterical, irrational and all the other adjectives that they can think of, purely and simply because their opinions do not agree with those of Government senators. The actions of this Government throughout the saga of the ID card have been less than straightforward. Despite admitted reservations about the protection of civil liberties, no amendments have been made. Why is that so? Last December we saw several ALP senators, including Senator McKiernan, express the need for the Bill to be amended before it was reintroduced. On 6 February, the then Minister for Health, now the Minister for Community Services and Health (Dr Blewett), was reported in the Press as saying that amendments would be made, clarifying safeguards, and that account would be taken of legitimate suggestions. What do we have now? Many honourable senators in this chamber have said that the legislation should be amended. The Minister for Community Services and Health has said that it should be amended. The Special Minister of State, Senator Ryan, has said that it should be amended. The Prime Minister has said that it should be amended. Barrie Unsworth, the Premier of New South Wales, has said that it should be amended. Yet the Bill comes back into the Senate in exactly the same form in which it has been presented on two previous occasions. But, oh no, it is all right to bring it back because Senator Ryan, the Prime Minister and non-medical Dr Blewett have all admitted that they will amend it after it has been passed by the Parliament. That too is absolutely and utterly improper. If amendments are to be made, those amendments should be presented to the Parliament. This Parliament has the right to see the colour of any amendments before making any decision-not that we would ever give in to a numbering system that last night Senator Beahan could not even see was some form of dog-tagging or tattooing. Sadly, like all the Government speakers-there have been very few of them, I might add-he was completely unable to mount any campaign in support of the ID card. All Government senators have done is stand up and abuse anybody who dares to oppose it. That tells the story in itself. No matter how often the Special Minister of State and other spokesmen stress that the card is limited and pragmatic, we recall the statement of the Minister for Health in July of last year that socialists should not be too concerned as to individual rights or the bourgeois right of privacy so closely associated with private property. I am sure that non-medical Dr Blewett's remarks have caused the Labor Party great embarrassment, as have many of the other remarks by Labor Party members on this issue. Some of them have the courage to say that they do not believe in some thing. But the tragedy is that they do not have the courage to go out and oppose it. There is one other thing that I want to raise in this debate, and that is the cost to business. The cost to business of complying with the ID card may be as high as $10 billion over the next 10 years. I will tell honourable senators how I have come to that figure. The Government's own Business Regulation Review Unit has determined that new red tape generally costs business 10 times the cost incurred by the Government. The Government has already estimated that the ID card will cost as much as $1 billion over the next 10 years. Therefore, that means that the cost to business of compliance could be as high as $10 billion. I do not think that businesses deserve that type of imposition. They have had quite enough from this Government in years gone by; every imposition of a taxation nature that could possibly be contemplated has been thrown at the business community. It is about time that the Government gave business the opportunity to be productive, to create more employment and to be buoyant at a time when this country should be going forwards instead of backwards. Of course, many lies have been spread around about the Australia Card by the proponents of it. One of them is that it is the only way to stop tax and welfare cheats. That is absolutely, blatantly untrue. The Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card found that it would not stop the tax cheating, it would not stop welfare fraud, it would not stop illegal immigration and that it would in fact be a boon to crime, the cash economy and everything else that is wrong in our society. Last night Senator Beahan said that the Joint Select Committee agreed on everything. He said that it agreed that there was tax evasion, that there was welfare fraud and that there was a lack of a proper process of identification. He went on with a whole lot of other things about which the Committee agreed. The one thing that he did not say was that the Committee agreed that an ID card would not work. That was in the majority report. The question that many of us have been asking the Government for so long and to which we cannot get an answer is why the Government chose to adopt the minority report from the Joint Select Committee in preference to the majority report. The saga goes on and on. The next lie that we hear is that if one has nothing to hide, one has nothing to fear. We will have a lot to fear once everything about us is put into a centralised computer base. People have the naivety to believe that hackers will not get into computer terminals. They should go and talk to the 15-year-old computer whizz-kids and see how quickly they can get into computer terminals. They should see how easy it is for anyone who has any sophisticated knowledge of computers to get into the terminals and have access, in this case to the most private of information. It is an absolute fallacy to say that only one's name, birth date, address and photograph will be on it. Why, if that is the case, must it be produced for everything that one does? I still think it is a great untruth for the Government to say that we do not have to carry the card with us. That is all very well if we do not want to do anything. But we simply have to carry the card with us if we want to have a bank account, if we want to have any shares and if we want to buy any property. The list goes on and on. Of course, one of the most outrageous lies of all in this debate right from the word go is that it is only another piece of plastic like one's Bankcard, MasterCard, library card or whatever. Nobody in his right mind would ever buy that story. One's MasterCard, Bankcard, library card or driver's licence-all admittedly with numbers on them-do not carry the same number which goes into the same computer terminal to which all those organisations have access. We are constantly told not to worry because the ID card will be the same as those other cards. Of course, we are also told that many other countries have an ID card, so it must be all right. But no other country has a card similar to that being proposed by this Hawke socialist Government. I am sure that people will start to understand-as they have already indicated, given the rising numbers in opinion polls-that that is just not so. No other country has such an ID card. Even a country such as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics does not have a card similar to this. We are also told that the Australia Card cannot be forged. As I have said in previous debates on this legislation, that is absolute 100 per cent rot. Only last year we heard of a prison in New South Wales that was a one-stop shop for every piece of forged material one could wish for. If one wanted a new birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate, drivers licence, passport-or even if one wanted a bit of money-one could just go to the one prison, which was a one-stop shop. The Government is saying to us that that will not be the case with an ID card. The intrinsic value of the card will make it worth forging. A nice little business will be set up on it-make no mistake about it. The Government shows little originality in its current attempts to justify this Bill. We are treated to variations on the theme that, as I said before, honest people have nothing to hide, forgetting that most honest people have nothing to hide from the police but would object in the strongest possible terms to police raids on their homes without a warrant. We are also told from time to time that the social security cards in Canada and the United States are similar to the Australia Card. That is not so. Whereas it will be quite impossible to function in society without an ID card, the Bill gives no absolute guarantee that we will get one. Clause 16 of the Bill requires the Authority to explain its reasons for refusal of an application for the card but does not mention any right of appeal. Clause 20 of the Bill allows for regulations governing the issue of replacement cards, but says nothing as to any time limit by which a card must be issued. While a business person could be seriously inconvenienced by delays in replacing a lost ID card, a pensioner could easily delay reporting a loss and thus incur a $500 fine under section 179 for failing to make a report within 21 days. Let us be honest about this. If people lose something they do not know when they lost it. Who is going to decide whether it is 21 or 22 days since the card was lost? The whole proposition is absolutely and utterly outrageous. The list of penalties under this Bill goes on and on. In Western Australia we have just seen the ALP Premier, who strongly supports the Australia Card, reveal the private financial dealings of a citizen whose single offence is to be the State President of the Liberal Party. How useful will a central databank be to people such as Premier Burke? He did not give two hoots about the privacy of someone's financial dealings but just blew them out of the water in the middle of the Parliament. The inconvenience to individuals is another thing. The level of inconvenience imposed by this card is an infringement of all civil liberties in itself. Let me run through a list of inconveniences that will be attached to this card. The card must be produced when dealing with banks and financial institutions, initiating investments, instigating transactions with trusts or cash management funds, for primary producers transactions involving stock agents and marketing authorities, for foreign remittances, for land transactions, to use safety deposit boxes, for investment in share and public companies, for transactions relating to futures contracts, for employment-starting a new job an so forth-for transactions under the prescribed payments system, when required by the Australian Taxation Office, in claims for cash Medicare benefits, for admission to hospital and for dealings with social security departments, and the list goes on. To cap it off, the penalty for non-compliance is between $20,000 and $100,000. So beware! That is the catch. The card will bring the greatest intrusion into individual privacy ever contemplated by any government in Australia's history. I do not think that is anything of which this Government or this Parliament could be proud. We must fight and continue to fight as hard as we possibly can to make sure that the legislation is rejected. The number of petitions that have been flood-ing into both Houses of this Parliament has been absolutely unprecedented. The people who have approached me personally to present petitions-which number over 23,000 signatures, and there are many more to come-are not what the Government calls the ratbags of this society. They are genuinely concerned citizens who have vigorously gone out and asked the Australian public to make sure that they are aware of what this legislation contains. No one has been forced to sign a petition but I believe that the number of signatures on petitions coming into the Senate alone is fast approaching 100,000, if it has not already passed that number. It is very sad that these people are being called the ratbags of our society. Access to the Register will be limited to one inspection a year, a qualified right to say the least, as false information may have been added and then deleted over the previous eleven months. How do we know about it? Evidently, one can pay to have another peek at what should be one's right to see without having to pay. But the citizen has no right to sue the Authority for wrongful data that may have resulted in embarrassment or monetary loss. Should we try to gain access to the Register in addition to our one free look, we will encounter the barriers so carefully constructed to deter queries under the Freedom of Information Act last year. A person on a low wage, or relying on social security for that matter, might hesitate to run the gauntlet of the $30 application fee, the $15 an hour search fee and the $20 an hour decision making fee. Yet the Government says that we can have a peek at what is our right to peek at at any time. That is not so. One can do it only once a year or one has to pay for it. More and more we are getting from this Government the attitude: `If you want something, pay for it'. That is reasonable if it does not concern one's own privacy. One's privacy and a check on one's privacy should not be charged for. Whilst this legislation poses great dangers to honest Australians from computer error to the compiling of secret dossiers, it fails to provide proper safeguards against dishonesty. People could put information into the computer about which one does not know and which one is unlikely to find out about in many cases. Australians simply do not want a national ID system that puts them at the mercy of computer error, inquisitive social engineers and closet authoritarians within the government system. They do not want to live so many steps further towards a controlled society. They have a healthy gut feeling that being reduced to `card subjects', as this legislation calls them-not people; not Australian citizens-by the government they elected is a big departure from the Australia we have all known. Australians are reserved people who cherish privacy. The Minister for Community Services and Health was never so wrong as when he implied that only the affluent care about privacy because it allows them to protect property. History teaches that privacy and private property are guarantees of the liberty of all people against the threat of the collectivist, all powerful state. History also teaches that those with less property have a greater need for privacy to sustain their essential dignity against the social planners who always seem to find the poor easier to get at. They deserve better than a number from the cradle to the grave. We must fight this ID card right to the end. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(6.19) —At Question Time in this chamber today certain questions were asked by Senator John Stone and then by Senator Fred Chaney. They were launched on a rather unsuspecting chamber, and, when completely understood in their ramifications, they can have a very profound effect on the constitutional arrangements of this nation and on the very deliberations normally undertaken by this chamber. I want to make it very clear that as far as the Government is concerned the implications behind those seemingly innocuous questions are so profound that we will require from the Senate chamber an indication that what was suggested in those questions does not, in fact, meet with the concurrence and approval of a majority of senators in this place. For that reason I wish to move an amendment to Senator Powell's proposed amendment No. (1) to Senator Puplick's amendment. I move: At end of words proposed to be inserted, add: `but the Senate affirms that it will, consequent upon the passage of the Australia Card Bill at a joint sitting of the Houses, secure the effective operation of the legislation by not disallowing regulations made pursuant to sub-section 32 (1) providing for the `first relevant day' and the `second relevant day','. Some members of the Opposition have signalled an intention to frustrate the implementation of the will of the Parliament as it would emerge from a joint sitting of the elected representatives of the Australian people assembled together rather than in their separate chambers, as is provided under the Constitution. If that joint sitting should pass the legislation, it would be an expression of the will of the people of Australia, as mediated by their elected representatives assembled in that joint sitting, that that legislation be part of the law of Australia. The Opposition seems to be signalling the intention to frustrate the clear intention of the Constitution, provided for under section 57, that the will of the Parliament be carried into practical effect. It would be a nonsense, of course, simply to pass legislation which had no particular effect. As far as section 57 is concerned, we know that the visit to the Governor-General at Yarralumla on 5 June was undertaken to secure a double dissolution in order that the processes could be put into play for an election which, having been held, would allow the convening of a joint sitting so that the majority of the elected representatives of the Australian people, in the assembly of that joint sitting, could pass this legislation. To attempt, as certain segments of the Opposition are indicating they will, to frustrate the carrying through into practical effect of the legislation passed by that joint sitting would be to undo, I believe, the whole constitutional process properly provided for in section 57. I put it very seriously to those in this chamber, as senators, that it is not only the constitutional dimension which I believe ought to be considered. The fact is that the traditional surveillance and supervision quite properly undertaken by this chamber of the whole regulation-making process undertaken by the Executive is being put in peril. We have in this chamber, having had the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances in operation for many decades and having set up the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills only four or five years ago, an acceptance, concurred in by governments of all political persuasions, that regulations ought to be made with great care and that this chamber ought to be able to disallow them, particularly if they interfere with the civil liberties of the citizens of Australia or in some way constitute an abuse of the regulation-making power. The Scrutiny of Bills Committee has examined this legislation twice. On both occasions that Committee, using the criteria set down by this chamber which would justify the disallowance of a regulation, has made no comment whatsoever on the regulation-making power that we are discussing. That Committee, comprising as it does senators from all political parties, has seen in the regulation-making power provided for in the Australia Card Bill a very ordinary exercise of Executive power to implement legislation which obviously expresses the will of the elected representatives of the Australian people. This move by the Opposition will lead to a situation in which no government can safely issue drafting instructions to have within the body of any piece of legislation a simple, common form regulation-making power designed to carry that legislation into practical effect. We will have to try to do this by some form of Executive action falling short of regulation-making. That will lead to an impasse because, obviously, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee will say, `This is not on'. The fact of the matter is that no government of either persuasion-this Government while it remained in office or, God forbid, those on the other side if they ever came to government-would be able safely to put in its legislation a regulation-making power which simply, ordinarily and in common form provided for the implementation, the carrying into practical effect, of the will of the people as expressed in the main body of legislation. There is nothing in this regulation-making power which has raised any question whatsoever in the minds of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, comprising, as I said, members of all political parties from all parts of the chamber. Senator Macklin —This is a policy dis- agreement. Senator TATE —We then come, as Senator Macklin says, to the crux of the matter: this is a simple policy disagreement. It is simply a question of bare political vandalism undermining what will be in effect the will expressed at a parliamentary joint sitting, of the elected representatives of the Australian people. There are those on the other side of the chamber who themselves have been in government from time to time. They should recognise the very serious implications to which I am pointing for the passage of many ordinary Bills, many ordinary parts of the legislative process-many dozens of Bills that pass through this chamber year in, year out. But it is the political mind that is revealed in relation to the constitutional process on which we are embarked which I think requires more particular attention. The Leader of the Opposition, Mr John Howard, who has very kindly come to listen to me and perhaps, sitting in the gallery, to be persuaded, said in the other place that the Liberal and National parties in the Senate would reject any new Bill designed to repair this defect-if, indeed, it is a defect. But, more importantly, he said that when the necessary regulations were made, they would move to disallow them in the Senate. This reveals the utter bad faith of the Opposition parties in sending this Bill to a committee of the Senate. It is quite clearly revealed in that statement of intention by the Leader of the Opposition, concurred in no doubt by the Leader of the National Party of Australia (Mr Sinclair) in the other place-and certainly concurred in by the Leader of the National Party in the Senate (Senator Stone) and the Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia in the Senate (Senator Chaney)-that the committee process upon which we are about to vote is to be an absolute sham, an absolute farce of no substance whatsoever. At the end of the day, what is to be undertaken in that committee process is not deliberation on this Bill, not the ordinary legislative, mature, calm consideration of this legislation, but a process of sheer frustration in order to stave off the evil day when the constitutionally appointed processes initiated by the Governor-General on 5 June and concurred in by the Australian people on 11 July have their natural fruition in the joint sitting passage of this legislation. The fact is that the sending of this legislation to a committee would not be part of the deliberative processes which are quite properly recognised by the High Court of Australia as being part of what is required for the passage of legislation. What is going on amounts in my view to elements of a failure to pass the legislation. The fact is that the amendment which I have moved to the various amendments proposed in relation to the second reading is required in order that the Government can clarify whether this chamber is prepared to allow the will of the people, as mediated by a majority of their elected representatives, assembled in a joint sitting as provided for under the Constitution, to be implemented in practical effect. If it is the intention of those opposite, as has been signalled, simply to frustrate that will, the defeat of this motion will clearly indicate that the sending of this Bill to a committee of the Senate is an absolute sham, an absolute farce and part of the frustration of this legislation-part of putting off the evil day, as they see it, of the Joint Sitting and having nothing to do with the ordinary deliberative processes which this chamber normally proudly undertakes in the sittings of its select and standing committees. I believe that it is essential that the chamber pass the amendment I have proposed in order that the will of the people be carried into practical effect. Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(6.30) —Senator Aulich and Senator Collins, in the course of their remarks, were kind enough to refer to me as Shakespearian. Let me say in the best of Shakespearian moulds that right at the moment members of the Opposition come to bury Blewett, not to praise him. This card will now be buried. It will be buried comprehensively and we will see an end to this attempt to deceive the people of Australia about the Government's intentions. What Senator Tate had to say to the chamber this afternoon is most interesting. He said three or four things of great importance. Firstly, he said that this Parliament and, indeed, if necessary, a joint sitting of this Parliament, should pass a piece of legislation which again it has been admitted is defective. He told us that the attitude of the Australian Labor Party towards this chamber, towards this Parliament, is simply this: Caucus has decided and, therefore, the will of the people expressed in this chamber as much as in any other part of the Parliament should be set to one side. We are to be required to betray the oath which we take to pass legislation which is in the interest of the people of Australia. We are to set that to one side and pass defective and bodgie legislation in order to get the Government off the hook-the hook of its own making, of its own sloppy draftsmanship. All of the committees and all of the little bureaucrats in the Attorney-General's Department and elsewhere who thought they were on Easy Street with the passage of this legislation will have to think again. The second thing Senator Tate said is that in exercising the proper control which this Senate has over delegated legislation it should prefer at all times the will of the Executive to the will of the chamber. It has to be remembered that people sit in this chamber only because they have been elected to this place by the people of the States and the Territories of the Commonwealth of Australia. We are required to discharge our duty as regards delegated legislation with the same degree of scrutiny, care and efficiency as we bring to ordinary legislation. When we see a chance, through regulations, to change the way in which this Government is seeking to proceed, on the basis that we do not accept that it has a mandate for this legislation, we are obliged to exercise that power. As far as frustrating the will of the people type of argument is concerned, let me remind Senator Tate what Senator Robert Ray had to say the other day about mandate theory. He said that he did not understand mandate theory, that all he understood was the numbers. He is about to get a lesson in numbers. The numbers are such that this chamber will reject the amendment moved by Senator Tate. It will be made clear that if the Australian Labor Party wishes to live and die by the numbers we are prepared to play that game as effectively as it is. On this occasion it will find that the numbers-something that Senator Ray never leaves home without-will not be available to it. Finally, Senator Tate said that to proceed with the reference to a committee would somehow constitute a sham and a fraud. All we say in response to that is quite simply this: here is a piece of legislation which is worthy of examination. Presumably, if the Government's case is strong enough the committee will be persuaded to come back and tell everybody that we should pass the legislation. If, of course, the Labor Party is honest about wanting to improve the legislation, it undoubtedly will participate in the work of the committee. Undoubtedly it will be persuaded by the evidence which can be put on the record before the committee. I want to indicate very briefly the response that the Opposition parties-the Liberal and National parties-will make to the Australian Democrat amendments. I will do so now rather than rising again to indicate what that response is. I indicate that we will support the reference of the Australia Card Bill to the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. I indicate that we will support the Democrats' amendment to paragraphs (f) and (j) of our terms of reference. In fact, we will support their amendment 5 as it relates to paragraph (m) of the terms of reference, which paragraph I understand is to be reworded by Senator Macklin, and paragraphs (z) and (za). I seek leave to move amendments to my own proposed terms of reference-that is, to insert a new paragraph (ia) and to reword paragraph (l) in line with the printed sheet which has been circulated in my name. Leave granted. Senator PUPLICK —I thank the Senate. I move: (1) After paragraph (i) of the proposed terms of reference, insert the following paragraph: ``(ia) examine the issues raised regarding the physical security of dedicated landlines and other data transmission facilities involved in the Australia Card programme.'' (2) Leave out paragraph (l) of the proposed terms of reference, insert the following paragraph: ``(l) examine and, where appropriate, take evidence from overseas experts as to the experience of other countries with identity card systems; and''. I conclude by indicating the extent to which, in an unreserved and unapologetic fashion, the Opposition regards this as a day of triumph. We regard this as the culmination of a campaign which we have individually and collectively waged since the Australia Card legislation was first mooted. We have said throughout that we would take all proper, legitimate parliamentary avenues open to us to defeat this legislation. We will do so with a great deal of pride. The only people who will be seen smiling more broadly than members of the Opposition are members of the left wing faction of the Labor Party, who are equally delighted to see the defeat of this card. One can see the smiles on all their faces. Once can see quite clearly the extent to which they are pleased that the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and the Australian Democrats have allowed the perpetration of a system of social organisation of which they heartily approve. We therefore take the greatest of pride in indicating that we will not support Senator Tate's amendment. We will not be persuaded by the argument that we should pass defective legislation, that we should be negligent in our duties so far as subordinate legislation is concerned or that we should deny a Senate committee the capacity to look at this matter in a proper fashion. As I said when I opened the debate on the Australia Card legislation last Friday, Senator Ryan has been condemned like Simon of Cyrene to carry the cross for the last few paces. It is a pleasure to announce that she has at last arrived at Calvary. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Special Minister of State)(6.39) —I rise to state my position on Senator Puplick's amendment and to speak to Senator Tate's amendment. In the whole course of the debate, from the time the Liberal and National parties discovered that there was something wrong with the legislation, from the time they decided to jump on the Peter Garrett band-wagon, from the very recent discovery that there was something wrong with the legislation, from that very recent time which, of course, post-dated the election campaign during which these points could have been made daily and were not, from that very recent time that they decided that Peter Garrett was getting on television a lot and they wanted to get on the publicity band-wagon, we have accused them of hypocrisy in relation to this issue. We have pointed out that they had eight weeks of an election campaign in which to express their misgivings, reservations, and so on and so forth. They chose to remain silent throughout eight weeks of election campaigning. They chose to hide behind their Leader, John Howard, who at that time was persuaded of the popularity of the Australia Card. They never discovered a single defect or reservation in the legislation that warranted John Howard's public comment. So when they decided that a little publicity could be obtained from getting into a disgraceful, fear-mongering campaign, they decided to jump on the band-wagon by producing all these reservations and new-found horrors. We accused them, quite rightly, of hypocrisy, of being Johnny-come-latelies and jumping on the band-wagon, but never have we had a greater example of the opportunism and hypocrisy that has characterised their whole participation in this debate than the latest technical trick they have come up with. They have made their intentions clear. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator Collins —On a point of order, Mr Deputy President: This is an important debate- The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —What is your point of order, Senator Collins? Senator Collins —This is an important debate. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I am aware of that. What is your point of order? Senator Collins —This matter has suddenly become extremely important and I would like to listen to the arguments. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —There is no point of order. Senator Collins must resume his seat. Senator Ryan has the call. Senator RYAN —The ultimate in opportunism and hypocrisy is realised. Opposition senators interjecting- The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! There is continued interjection from the Opposition benches. Senator Ryan is entitled to be heard in silence. Senator RYAN —The ultimate in opportunism and hypocrisy is presented in the tactic that has emerged today. The Opposition is saying that it wants to go off and have five months on a committee; it wants to spend the resources of the public purse traipsing around the countryside, grandstanding and getting on television as often as it can; it wants five months free ride at the taxpayer's expense to grandstand about an issue on which it has made up its mind in advance-namely, that it will use a minor regulatory power of the Senate to frustrate the constitutional processes in which the Government has been involved. If Opposition members intend as it appears they do, not to permit the necessary regulations for implementation of the Australia Card program to pass, then why are they not honest enough to refuse to pass the legislation immediately? What is all this Senate committee business about? What are honest citizens to believe? Citizens will be invited to talk to the committee about civil liberties, computer security or whatever. What is all that about, other than an extended example of grandstanding, an extended opportunity for extravagant grandstanding, if they have made up their minds to use this minor regulatory power to frustrate the program at a late stage? The Opposition is flying in the face of section 57 of the Constitution. Section 57 specifically provides mechanisms to resolve a deadlock between the two Houses. We have honestly and thoroughly fulfilled all the constitutional requirements for the breaking of a deadlock, as it is our responsibility in government to do. The Senate refused to pass the legislation twice; we went to the people. What could be more open and democratic than that? We went to the people precisely on the second refusal of the Senate to pass this most important measure of tax and welfare system reform. Opposition members remained silent; they gave the electorate no hint of their current stance during that campaign. The electorate could well believe that they were not opposed to the legislation because they expressed no opposition in the course of the campaign. Now they are prepared to use the threat of a minor regulatory power concerning the date-and that is all it is; setting two dates-to frustrate the whole of section 57 of the Constitution. Why is section 57 of the Constitution there? It is there precisely to provide mechanisms for resolving a deadlock. We had a deadlock. We considered this legislation to be of such importance to taxation and welfare reform, to restoring public morality, to restoring decency and honesty to the tax and welfare systems that we went to the people on a double dissolution; a most unusual, important and significant step. What happened? Unlike the Opposition, which has all kinds of hidden agendas and which remains silent, hiding under stones on this issue, including Senator Stone-- Opposition senators interjecting- Senator RYAN —What did Senator Stone say about the Australia Card during the eight weeks of the election when he was pretending to the people of Queensland that he suddenly had an interest in representing them in the Senate? Senator Aulich —He needed a card to prove he was a Queenslander first. Senator RYAN —I understand he does not even have a Queensland driving licence. He does not even know what is on a Queensland driving licence yet he comes in here pretending to represent the Queensland people in the Senate. I do not wish to diverge from the main issue under discussion. The main issue is that we now have an Opposition trick, connived at by the Australian Democrats, stating the intention of using a minor regulatory power concerning the capacity of the Government to set dates to frustrate all the processes set out under section 57 of the Constitution. This is constitutional vandalism. It is opportunism of the worst kind and it deserves all the contempt and derision that the people of Australia can muster. I conclude by urging all honourable senators to support Senator Tate's amendment. If they refuse to do so they are guilty of the worst kind of constitutional vandalism. They are flying in the face of section 57 of the Constitution. Senator Archer —Mr Deputy President, I raise a point of order. The motives of senators are being impugned by Senator Ryan and I will not stand for it. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! There is no point of order. Senator RYAN —I remind the Senate of the consequences of this trick should it come to fruition. It would simply deny the Australian Government legislation which section 57 of the Constitution entitles it to and deny the people of Australia the opportunity to have fair and decent tax and welfare systems. The Opposition is prepared to call into question the whole of the conventions of the operations of the Senate and the Senate committees, as my colleague Senator Tate, has pointed out. The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills found nothing wrong with the legislation. Should the regulation that the Opposition now threatens to sabotage go to the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances it would not be recommended for disallowance. Of course it would not. Senator Vanstone —How do you know? Senator RYAN —Because there is nothing wrong with it. Senator Vanstone probably does not know what the Senate Regulations and Ordinances Committee does or what criteria it applies to regulations. There would be no way in which the Regulations and Ordinances Committee could reject this. The Opposition is flying in the face of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and flying in the face in anticipation of the decisions by the Senate Regulations and Ordinances Committee. It is flying in the face of section 57 of the Constitution. It is doing all of this in total contrast to its total silence during the election campaign that was called precisely on this legislation. John Howard has often been asked by journalists why he did not say anything about this legislation during the election campaign. Members of the Opposition in this place have also been asked that question. They have no answer. I think the answer is that they were not game to raise it because they believed that the Government had a popular measure, which indeed it did. They were then prepared to join in in the greatest campaign of misinformation, of deliberate misleading of the public about the provisions of the legislation and the operation of the system that we have ever witnessed in Australia. And we have witnessed some shocking campaigns of misrepresentation, such as in the Human Rights Bill. This is the greatest period of misinformation, distortions and contradictions that we have ever seen. We have contradictions such as the Australian Democrats saying that we cannot have this system because it numbers people, but on the other hand they want a tax number system. People have been jumping up and down shouting about numbers taking away our freedom, when they are perfectly happy to use their Medicare number, which numbers every Australian citizen, to get their Medicare benefits. We have heard the most dishonest, contradictory, ludicrous series of claims, but those opposite were not game to carry on with such ludicrous misrepresentation at a time when it might have been proper from their political perspective to do so, during the election campaign. But there was not a peep. John Howard on television many a times a day could easily have raised the matter. He could easily have said, `We are fighting the Government because it is about to introduce the greatest threat to civil liberties the world has ever seen' or `It will return Australia to convict days', which was said in an outstanding contribution from Senator Puplick the last time he spoke on this matter, or `We believe that any system that gives someone a number is tantamount to putting them in a concentration camp'. All the spurious arguments which the Opposition has been confusing the public with lately they were not game to raise in the eight weeks of the election campaign. Opposition members should hang their heads in shame for having been so silent about something on which they have suddenly become so dreadfully noisy. The technical trick with which Opposition senators have decided to threaten the Government and the people of Australia is the worst example of opportunism in a whole sorry saga of hypocrisy, opportunism, distortion and attempts to destroy the intent of the Constitution. I urge honourable senators to support Senator Tate's amendment. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(6.51) —On behalf of the Australian Democrats I would like to indicate that we will be opposing Senator Tate's amendment. Senator Tate raised a series of constitutional or procedural arguments to which I shall come in a moment. As for Senator Ryan's contribution a moment ago, I was wondering why she was becoming so worked up, when I realised that all that she will have left in her portfolio will be the Bicentenary. I can well understand that. If I were in a similar situation, I also would be very concerned. Senator Tate raised a number of substantive arguments. My Leader, Senator Janine Haines, in her opening speech in the election campaign raised this issue as a fundamental point on which we would fight the campaign. Probably most honourable senators will remember the very nice photograph of my colleague Senator McLean on the front page of the Australian burning his Australia Card. We were there continually throughout the campaign, as we were before it and as we have been since. We will continue to oppose this card because of the dangers that it poses to the civil liberties of Australians. The point that Senator Tate raised is important because he seeks a declaration of the Senate as to where it would stand at the end of the day if regulations were made under any legislation which passed a joint sitting. I think it is important to have a vote on that because later tonight the Government can announce that the Australia Card is dead. I hope that it will do so. However, my Party wishes to press on with an inquiry. The reasons for that are important because although tonight the Government will announce that the Australia Card is dead, it will not renounce its intention of trying to bring it in. Hence, we shall have another brawl on this at some time in the future, whether this year, next year or the year after. I believe that a Senate inquiry to look at the Government's proposal is still as necessary now as it was before this afternoon's revelation that this legislation will die. Senator Aulich —It will turn it into a farce. Senator MACKLIN —It will not be a farce; it will be a very important inquiry. It will establish a whole range of issues on the record with regard to the Government's legislation which it will be important to have on the record. They will be used in the subsequent debates on this legislation when the Government reintroduces its legislation. The Government could stand up now and say that it forever will not bring in this legislation. It would then be possible to adjourn this debate and for us to go away to consider whether there needs to be an inquiry. But the Government will not stand up and say that it will not try this exercise again. Therefore, we have to continue. We have to put matters on the record; we have to have the inquiry. With regard to Senator Tate's observation that somehow it is a piece of vandalism on the part of the Senate to say that it will use its powers to disallow regulations to prevent this legislation, I make it very clear to Senator Ryan, who got mixed up in this exercise, what will happen when the Government goes to its Joint Sitting, as I presume it still intends to do: the legislation will pass; it will be signed by the Governor-General and will become law. The Senate will then exercise its right with regard to regulations made under the Act. It will not be abusing any constitutional power or anything else. It will be using its constitutional power to deny regulations. The substance of Senator Tate's contribution, which was important, was to draw a distinction between policy items. He maintained a very narrow interpretation of the Constitution-that is, that we knock back regulations in this chamber only when they run against the references given to the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, or the type of references which we give to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances. That is false. We do knock back other regulations-they are not the majority of those we knock back and I accept that-but there were occasions in the last Parliament as there are in every Parliament when this chamber disallowed regulations on policy items alone. Senator Boswell —That is right. Senator MACKLIN —Senator Boswell interjects on this matter because he instigated one of those in relation to the Northern Prawn Fishery management. That might not be an important matter to some honourable senators here, but it is important to Queenslanders. It was knocked back as a policy item alone, and for no other reasons. It was purely a policy disagreement. The Northern Prawn Fishery was saved because the Senate denied that regulation. Senator Aulich —We should have gone to the people on that, should we? Senator MACKLIN —Senator Aulich should not interject too loudly because that was accepted by his Minister, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin). He accepted that the regulation should have been knocked back. Normally the Senate does the type of thing that Senator Tate outlined. When the Government is on a sticky wicket it serves up Senator Tate to get it out of trouble. He always makes a good fist of it on these occasions and he made a good fist again tonight, but he was not quite on the ball. He did not quite hit it but it was a good attempt. Senator Puplick —Nine out of 10 for effort. Senator MACKLIN —He should get eight out of 10 for effort and I think his effort will be acknowledged as such. That should not be taken away from him as he always does a good job for the Government on a sticky wicket. I will put on record what the Australian Democrats intend to do, to make the matter very clear. If any regulation with regard to a relevant date is made, we will vote to reject that regulation. The Government under the regulation power is not then entitled to introduce a new regulation in similar or identical terms for another six months. If, upon the rising of this House for the recess the Government brought in regulations on the next day, Senator Haines, on behalf of our Party, would seek immediate discussions with Senator Chaney on behalf of the Opposition, so that we could move a motion-a measure introduced by Senator Murphy a long time ago to the effect that the majority of this chamber can recall the Senate-to recall the Senate immediately so that retrospectivity would not last any more than about a week at the most. I am sure that the Opposition would concur with that. Obviously we would not allow such regulations starting the legislation up to stand on the books for any more than two or three days, in which case-let us be very clear on this-this legislation will not start up. The Government can introduce the Australia Card and invite everybody to get one, and it can spend as much money as it likes. But it will not be able to enforce the legislation because there will be no regulation. We intend to do that-that is on the record. Our vote against the Government's amendment will register in this chamber our firm intention to do that at any time in the future when the Government brings that legislation in. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(7.01) —I do not wish to canvass the matters that have just been raised, nor to go over the questions that I raised during the second reading debate in expressing my opposition to the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3]. But I wish to address the amendment moved by Senator Tate. There is an additional reason why the Senate should reject that amendment. In my view the amendment is either out of order or very close to being out of order. According to Odgers Australian Senate Practice, the second reading debate is a debate in which the Minister explains the principles and purposes of the Bill. Then, upon the conclusion of the Minister's second reading speech, a member of the Opposition usually moves for the adjournment of the debate. It is interesting that Odgers states: The second reading is the most important stage of a Bill. It is then that the principle of the Bill is debated and affirmed, or rejected, as the case may be. But the close examination of all the clauses intended to give effect to the principle of the Bill is left to the Committee stage. What is this amendment all about? It is all about a clause intended to give effect to the principle of the Bill; and that specifically, according to Odgers, should be dealt with at the committee stage. Therefore, in my view, Senator Tate's amendment is out of order. I am not going to ask the President whether he thinks it is out of order, but I think that is certainly a reason for anybody to vote against Senator Tate's proposal. Therefore, if anybody chooses to vote against it on that basis, they need not necessarily go to the question of constitutional propriety. Not only does Senator Tate's motion deal with a question which ought to be determined in the Committee of the Whole, but it ought to be determined in the committee stage of the Joint Sitting and not in the stage which the principal motion-that is, that the Bill be read a second time-is designed to effect. I indicate simply that I will be voting against Senator Tate's amendment on the basis that it is not relevant to the question that is before the House and, furthermore, that it anticipates debate, which is also out of order. Question put: That the amendment (Senator Tate's) be agreed to: The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 40 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 11 —— Aulich, T. Foreman, D. J.Beahan, M. E. Gietzelt, A. T.Black, J. R. Giles, P. J.Bolkus, N. Jones, G. N.Burns, B. R. McKiernan, J. P. (Teller)Childs, B. K. Maguire, G. R.Coates, J. Ray, RobertCollins, R. L. Reynolds, M. E.Colston, M. A. Richardson, G. F.Cook, P. F. S. Ryan, S. M.Cooney, B. Schacht, C. C.Crowley, R. A. Sibraa, K. W.Devereux, J. R. Tate, M. C.Devlin, R. Walsh, P. A.Evans, Gareth Alston, R. K. R. MacGibbon, D. J.Archer, B. R. McLean, P. A.Baume, Michael Macklin, M. J.Bishop, B. K. Messner, A. J.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Newman, J. M.Boswell, R. L. D. Panizza, J. H.Brownhill, D. G. C. Parer, W. R.Calvert, P. H. Patterson, K. C. L.Chaney, F. M. Puplick, C. J. G.Chapman, H. G. P. Reid, M. E. (Teller)Coulter, J. R. Sheil, G.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Short, J. R.Durack, P. D. Stone, J. O.Haines, J. Tambling, G. E. J.Hamer, D. J. Teague, B. C.Harradine, B. Vallentine, J.Hill, R. Vanstone, A. E.Jenkins, J. A. Walters, M. S.Knowles, S. C. Watson, J. O. W.McGauran, J. Wood, W. R. Button, J. N. Baume, PeterZakharov, A. O. Sanders, N. K.Morris, J. J. Lewis, A. W. R. Question so resolved in the negative. The PRESIDENT —Order! The question now is that Senator Powell's amendment be agreed to. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland) —Mr President, I seek leave to amend paragraph (m) of the terms of reference proposed in the Australian Democrats' amendment by leaving out the word `assess' and inserting in its place the words `examine and report on'. Leave granted. Senator Puplick —Mr President, may I have your indulgence? Would you tell us the way in which you intend to proceed with the putting of the Democrats' amendments? The PRESIDENT —I had intended to put all the amendments together. Senator Puplick —Mr President, may I indicate to you that I previously indicated that the Liberal and National parties would be supporting amendments 1, 2 and 3 and amendment 5 as it relates to paragraph (m), as reworded, and paragraphs (z) and (za) and we would not be supporting any of the others. If you could put them to the vote in that fashion we will be able to proceed. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland) —Mr President, I think it might assist the deliberations of the Senate if I seek leave to withdraw all other parts of our amendments that have not been supported by the Opposition. We would then be able to vote on them en bloc. Leave granted. Senator MACKLIN —I withdraw all the amendments other than amendments 1, 2 and 3 and paragraphs 5 (m), 5 (z) and 5 (za). The PRESIDENT —The question now is that Senator Powell's amendments, as amended by Senator Macklin, be agreed to. Question resolved in the affirmative. The PRESIDENT —The question now is that Senator Puplick's amendment, as amended, be agreed to. Senator Puplick —Mr President, I draw your attention to the fact that we are deciding on not only the amendments moved by the Australian Democrats, but also my amendments proposing new paragraphs (ia) and (l), as indicated on the amendment to my amendments, which has been circulated. The PRESIDENT —That is right. Question put: That the amendment (Senator Puplick's), as amended, be agreed to. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 29 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 11 —— Alston, R. K. R. MacGibbon, D. J.Archer, B. R. McLean, P. A.Baume, Michael Macklin, M. J.Bishop, B. K. Messner, A. J.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Newman, J. M.Boswell, R. L. D. Panizza, J. H.Brownhill, D. G. C. Parer, W. R.Calvert, P. H. Patterson, K. C. L.Chaney, F. M. Puplick, C. J. G.Chapman, H. G. P. Reid, M. E. (Teller)Coulter, J. R. Sheil, G.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Short, J. R.Durack, P. D. Stone, J. O.Haines, J. Tambling, G. E. J.Hamer, D. J. Teague, B. C.Harradine, B. Vallentine, J.Hill, B. Vanstone, A. E.Jenkins, J. A. Walters, M. S.Knowles, S. C. Watson, J. O. W.McGauran, J. Wood, W. R. Aulich, T. Foreman, D. J.Beahan, M. E. Gietzelt, A. T.Black, J. R. Giles, P. J.Bolkus, N. Jones, G. N.Burns, B. R. McKiernan, J. P. (Teller)Childs, B. K. Maguire, G. R.Coates, J. Ray, RobertCollins, R. L. Reynolds, M. E.Colston, M. A. Richardson, G. F.Cook, P. F. S. Ryan, S. M.Cooney, B. Schacht, C. C.Crowley, R. A. Sibraa, K. W.Devereux, J. R. Tate, M. C.Devlin, R. Walsh, P. A.Evans, Gareth Baume, Peter Zakharov, A. O.Lewis, A. W. R. Button, J. N.Sanders, N. K. Morris, J. J. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Special Minister of State)(7.20) —in reply-It is my responsibility now to close the second reading debate. When the debate started and during the debate I made a serious attempt to pay attention to the points raised by Opposition senators to see whether they were actually entering into this part of the process with any good faith at all. It is not possible for me to perform the customary function of a Minister closing a second reading debate-that is, to respond to serious points that have been raised, to answer queries to do with what Senator Harradine referred to in his contribution earlier as explaining again the principles of the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3]. It is not possible because the Opposition chose to use this second reading debate not in a serious way to examine the Bill, to examine its operations, to make comments about the Data Protection Agency, but simply to persist in the campaign of hysteria, misrepresentation, fear-mongering that it has set upon. Senator McKiernan —Distortion. Senator RYAN —And distortion, as my colleague said. Senator Haines —Mr President, I raise a point of order. I am trying to work out under what standing order Senator Ryan is currently speaking, since the motion that we just passed provided that when the Bill came to be read a second time all words after `that' were to be left out and the Bill was to be referred to a committee. If Senator Ryan is speaking because she is closing the debate, I would like to know under which standing order she is doing so. The PRESIDENT —The Minister is speaking because the original motion, as amended, has not yet been put. Senator RYAN —I was making a point about this most recent episode in the Opposition's attempt to grandstand, to fear-monger and to be opportunistic about this most serious piece of legislation. I think we had about another 15 hours available to debate it in this chamber, following upon the 40 hours or so of debate that the legislation received in its first two passages through both Houses. Instead of choosing, as one might have hoped in order to give some cover of respectability to the Opposition's opportunistic tactics, to address themselves to the principles of the legislation, to explain why it was that they were not prepared to pass a piece of legislation designed to recoup billions of dollars for the Government on behalf of the taxpayers from those people who we all know are engaging in tax evasion on a dramatic scale-a dreadful scale-to recoup money from those people who we know are claiming welfare benefits that they have no entitlement to-- Senator Teague —It is 0.6 of one per cent; less than one per cent. Senator RYAN —If Senator Teague really believes that less than one per cent of social security recipients are engaged in some sort of fraud, he is the only person in Australia who believes that. I do not think that any unfortunate member of the public who might be listening to this travesty that the Opposition parties are foisting upon us would believe that less than one per cent of people currently taking social security payments are not entitled to them. Unfortunately, the fact is that there has arisen in our community in recent years a very distressing willingness on the part of some people in the population to believe that if they can get away with ripping off the system it is okay. There has been a decline in public morality. I do not think that any senator in this place who has read the documentation prepared for the Government's National Taxation Summit or who is familiar with the work of Frank Costigan and his Royal Commission on the activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union-an inquiry into crime, fraud, corruption, and so on-could say anything other than that there has been a dreadful decline in public morality in recent years in Australia, to the point where we just do not have a minor problem of a few people getting a benefit which they are not entitled to, or a few people disguising their taxation responsibilities; we have a massive problem of fraud. We have a massive problem of corruption of the taxation system. We have a problem that goes beyond our own shores. Many Opposition senators argued that we have no need in Australia for an identification system. Although democratically elected governments in western Europe, Canada and the United States of America believe that it is necessary to have an identification system-that is self-evident-the Opposition parties said that we do not need that sort of thing in Australia. We do need that. Australia is no longer a country town cut off from what is happening in international corruption, the international drug trade and so on. Australia, tragically, has been drawn into international crime, corruption and the drug trade. There are people in Australia who are making millions of dollars out of the drug trade. They are getting away with it because they are able to conceal that money by having false bank accounts, by buying property in false names, by sending money out of the country in another name. We know that we have a massive problem concerning our taxation system. We know that because of the decline in public morality, a large number of Australians, tragically in my view, believe that it is their right to rip off the system. So we have a massive problem. Senator Walters —The majority of Australians are good, decent people. You are a disgrace. The PRESIDENT —Senator Walters, will you withdraw that comment please. Senator Walters —I am sorry, Mr President, I do not understand. I said that the majority of Australians-- The PRESIDENT —I have tried to ignore the previous remarks that were made. You said that the Minister was a disgrace. I am asking you to withdraw that comment. Senator Walters —I withdraw the words-- The PRESIDENT —Thank you, Senator Walters. Senator RYAN —It is a very sad thing for the people of Australia who need to rely on their governments to do certain things for them that they cannot do for themselves that we have an Opposition that is totally unwilling to co-operate with a democratically elected government-a government with an historic majority, a government that has just been re-elected by the people-in the very important exercise of bringing to an end the massive corruption of our taxation system and the serious corruption of our welfare system. Those two tasks, one would have hoped, were serious enough to cut across the petty boundaries of party politics, how many times people can get themselves on television and how many petitions they can bring into the place. One would have thought, after all of the evidence that the Australian people and the Parliament have had available to them, with the massive problems we are confronting, that a government-our government-that has gone to enormous pains to find a system to restore decency and integrity to the taxation system, restore a sense of public morality, would be able to say to the young people of Australia: `This is not a country in which we are inviting you to get away with anything you can get away with. This is a country where we want welfare for the genuinely needy. We want a responsible attitude to the payment of taxation'. After all, we are a country that offers a very high standard of living, that offers a sound and relatively generous welfare system to the genuinely needy. We are not a mean country. We are not a country without compassion. We want to offer these things to people but we need a system to stop the corruption, to stop the crime, to stop the rip-offs, to stop the fraud. The Senate will remember that we first raised this issue at the Taxation Summit in 1985. There was lengthy debate on these issues. One would have hoped that if there was anything the Opposition could co-operate with the government on, if there was any issue on which it could show that it was not just representatives of the Liberal Party or the National Party but representatives of the Australian people-members of the Australian Parliament-this would have been the issue. All along we have invited co-operation from the Opposition. We have had committees of inquiry. We have invited submissions. We have had consultations. We have acted in total good faith on this issue. All we have sought is co-operation so that the Parliament of Australia and the Government of Australia can do what the people of Australia need us to do-that is, to restore equity, to restore decency and to restore honesty to the system. Debate interrupted. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being 7.30 p.m., under sessional order, I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 39 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 9 —— Aulich, T. Foreman, D. J.Beahan, M. E. Gietzelt, A. T.Black, J. R. Giles, P. J.Bolkus, N. Harradine, B.Burns, B. R. Jones, G. N.Childs, B. K. McKiernan, J. P. (Teller)Coates, J. Maguire, G. R.Collins, R. L. Ray, RobertColston, M. A. Reynolds, M. E.Cook, P. F. S. Richardson, G. F.Cooney, B. Ryan, S. M.Crowley, R. A. Schacht, C. C.Devereux, J. R. Sibraa, K. W.Devlin, R. Tate, M. C.Evans, Gareth Walsh, P. A. Alston, R. K. R. McLean, P. A.Archer, B. R. Macklin, M. J.Baume, Michael Messner, A. J.Bishop, B. K. Newman, J. M.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Panizza, J. H.Boswell, R. L. D. Parer, W. R.Brownhill, D. G. C. Patterson, K. C. L.Calvert, P. H. Puplick, C. J. G.Chaney, F. M. Reid, M. E. (Teller)Chapman, H. G. P. Sheil, G.Coulter, J. R. Short, J. R.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Stone, J. O.Durack, P. D. Tambling, G. E. J.Haines, J. Teague, B. C.Hamer, D. J. Vallentine, J.Hill, R. Vanstone, A. E.Jenkins, J. A. Walters, M. S.Knowles, S. C. Watson, J. O. W.McGauran, J. J. Wood, W. R.MacGibbon, D. J. Zakharov, A. O. Baume, PeterButton, J. N. Lewis, A. W. R.Morris, J. J. Sanders, N. K. Question so resolved in the negative. Debate resumed. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Special Minister of State)(7.38) —As I was saying, it is a very sad thing for the Australian people that the Government appears to be unable to get the co-operation of the Opposition parties in the Senate in this immensely important task that we have undertaken. The principles of the Bill are sound. The system set out for ensuring that Australians have a secure identity and that their identities are not forged or defrauded by other people is very sound. The Data Protection Agency provided for in the legislation provides for the first time in Australia real protections for privacy against the misuse of data. I cannot conclude this phase of the exercise without pointing out that we brought forward legislation which has the strongest, most progressive provisions for the protection of the individual against the misuse of data held about him or her by government, and to some extent by the private sector, that Australia has ever seen. There has never been protection of this kind before. We brought it in in the context that many supporters of the Bill in the public and in the media had pointed out the immensity of data of the sensitive and private kind held about individuals by the private sector through the operation of credit cards, banks, other lending institutions and the like, for which there is no protection whatsoever. For the first time we are offering the Australian people strong, firm, secure mechanisms for protection of the very limited data that will be held about them in the Australia Card database. But, for reasons of rank opportunism, Opposition members are not prepared to allow Australians to have this protection. Having set all these hares running about privacy, computers and data and so forth, what are they doing? They are doing nothing. They are saying, `Let the situation prevail where a great deal of sensitive information is kept about individuals in government agencies. We will not let you have the new protection that this Bill will provide'. There is an enormity of information used and misused about individuals in the private sector, but the Opposition says, `We will not worry about that, it is the private sector. It does not concern us what they do to individuals'. Opposition members ignore all the problems they try to point to in their opposition to our legislation and attempt to throw away a major piece of progress in terms of the civil liberties of all Australians. In concluding this stage of the debate I can only hope that Opposition members will think again, that they will examine the rhetoric about freedom, independence and the protection of liberties that they have thrown about so carelessly until now, look carefully at the Data Protection Agency and its new provisions and make suggestions for strengthening the provisions, if they wish. We have said that we have an open mind on that. I hope that they will behave like senators in an Australian Parliament, instead of a rag-tag bunch of opportunists who will seize any opportunity to try to refight a battle they have just lost in the recent Federal election. I commend the Bill to the Senate. Question put: That the original motion, as amended, be agreed to: The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 29 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 11 —— Alston, R. K. R. MacGibbon, D. J.Archer, B. R. McLean, P. A.Baume, Michael Macklin, M. J.Bishop, B. K. Messner, A. J.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Newman, J. M.Boswell, R. L. D. Panizza, J. H.Brownhill, D. G. C. Parer, W. R.Calvert, P. H. Patterson, K. C. L.Chaney, F. M. Puplick, C. J. G.Chapman, H. G. P. Reid, M. E.Coulter, J. R. Sheil, G.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Short, J. R.Durack, P. D. Stone, J. O.Haines, J. Tambling, G. E. J.Hamer, D. J. Teague, B. C.Harradine, B. Vallentine, J.Hill, R. Vanstone, A. E.Jenkins, J. A. Walters, M. S.Knowles, S. C. (Teller) Watson, J. O. W.McGauran, J. Wood, W. R. Aulich, T. Foreman, D. J.Beahan, M. E. Gietzelt, A. T.Black, J. R. Giles, P. J.Bolkus, N. Jones, G. N.Burns, B. R. McKiernan, J. P. (Teller)Childs, B. K. Maguire, G. R.Coates, J. Ray, RobertCollins, R. L. Reynolds, M. E.Colston, M. A. Richardson, G. F.Cook, P. F. S. Ryan, S. M.Cooney, B. Schacht, C. C.Crowley, R. A. Sibraa, K. W.Devereux, J. R. Tate, M. C.Devlin, R. Walsh, P. A.Evans, Gareth Baume, Peter Zakharov, A. O.Lewis, A. W. R. Button, J. N.Sanders, N. K. Morris, J. J. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans) proposed: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(7.49) —I raise the important question of the closure of the Strahan post office. It is a matter which concerns all the residents of Strahan, most of whom have appended their signatures to a petition which I have in my hand. The petition objects to the proposal by Australia Post to relocate the Strahan post office from its present admirable location in Customs House on the esplanade to an area unnamed in another part of the town. The concern is that the relocation from Customs House, where the post office has been since the turn of the century, will inconvenience considerably the local populace. The municipality of Strahan has written to me, over the signature of the Warden, Mr Gardiner, complaining about this proposal. The Council is particularly concerned that some of the services that are available in the current location may not be as accessible as they are now because of the confidentiality that exists in that locale if such services under contract to an existing storeholder were to be transferred to another area of the town. Mr Gardiner points out in particular that many people use the post office and Commonwealth Bank agency facility. I understand that discussions are taking place between the Strahan Council and Australia Post. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard the 1 1/2 page letter from Mr Gardiner to me and the letter from Mr Gardiner to Mr Barry Baldwyn. Leave granted. The letters read as follows- MUNICIPALITY OF STRAHAN P. O. Box 20 STRAHAN Tasmania 7468 Telephone (004) 71 7261 9th September, 1987 Senator Brian Harradine, Marine Board Building, 1 Franklin Wharf, HOBART, Tas., 7000 Dear Senator Harradine, re: Proposal by Australia Post to re-locate the Strahan Post Office The present Postmistress at Strahan, Mrs. Louise Hart, has tendered her resignation to Australia Post after 4 1/2 years in that situation, in order that she may spend more time with her family. The reaction from Australia Post has been that of calling applications from interested persons currently conducting business in the town area to take the postal services to their own place of business and run it as an agency in conjunction with their normal business. This has provoked a very strong reaction from the people of Strahan, which to Council is quite understandable as the Post & Telegraph Office, as it was known in earlier years, has been part of the Customs House building since the turn of the century. The existing Post Office is in an excellent situation in Esplanade. Patrons can park outside the building to conduct their business without difficulty, but this may not be the case if the postal services are re-located in the town area because of the tourist traffic. Local patrons are concerned also about the possible loss of confidentiality which could occur in the event of the proposed re-location of services. At present, as there is no bank at Strahan, many people use the post office Commonwealth Bank agency facility. It is felt that the degree of confidentiality that currently exists, could be eroded by the agency being transferred to a business with several employees, many of whom from time to time would be required to process patron's banking transactions. Attached for your information is a copy of a petition protesting against the re-location, signed by 269 persons. As the population of Strahan is currently 530, the 269 signatures could well represent every family in Strahan. Enclosed also is a copy of the advertisement by Australia Post. Council would be appreciative if you could use your utmost endeavours to see that the Post Office remains at its present location. Your faithfully, B. GARDINER Warden. Municipality of Strahan P.O. Box 20 STRAHAN Tasmania 7468 Telephone (004) 71 7261 1st September 1987 Mr Barry Baldwyn, Australia Post, P.O. Box 197B, LAUNCESTON, 7250 Dear Sir, I write further to my phone call expressing concern over the proposal by your department to relocate the existing Strahan Postal service to within an existing mixed business located in the already crowded business area. My council, and indeed the whole community openly oppose any such move which we believe is unwarranted and is both socially and economically detrimental to the township. Strahan is fast becoming the growth centre of the West Coast. The establishment of new industries in forestry, aquaculture, housing sub divisions, 5 new accommodation complexes, increased tourist infrastructure and attractions will, within the next 12 months see injection of capital investment into the community totalling almost 5 million dollars. The already established postal service provides an important focal point for this community, easy parking and privacy of transactions, none of which can be adequately duplicated in a mixed business situation and all of which will become increasingly important to the private and business sectors. We formally request the Post Office service continue to operate from the existing premises and would like to meet with your department to discuss this matter. Yours faithfully, B. Gardiner WARDEN. Senator HARRADINE —I ask that favourable consideration be given by the Minister to asking Australia Post to consider the important aspects of the location, including the environmental ones. I do not know whether the Minister for the Environment and the Arts (Senator Richardson), who is in the chamber, realises what a nice building the Customs House is-it is the building in which the post office has been located for the last 80-odd years-and I ask that even on that ground, as well as for the convenience of the residents, the post office be maintained at that locale. Senator BOSWELL(Queensland)(7.51) —I rise in the adjournment debate to bring before the Senate and the public of Australia the tremendous concern of people in the north-eastern areas of north Queensland who are engaged directly or indirectly in logging. There will be a time when the Senate can robustly debate this matter, but tonight I seek information from the Minister for the Environment and the Arts (Senator Richardson), who is in the chamber. I want to put it on record that I am totally opposed to the listing on the World Heritage List of rainforest areas that are currently logged. But, as I said, that matter can be the subject of a debate in which we will be able to make our political points. The 2,858 people that are directly or indirectly involved in the timber industry are seeking answers. The industry is worth $33m to north Queensland and now, because of uncertainty, businesses and houses cannot be sold and people are worried about their families, their businesses, their towns, their shire councils and their futures. Tonight I seek some answers from Senator Richardson so that people will be able to plan their lives knowing what this Government intends to do about the north Queensland rainforest. I point out to the Minister that between 1,200 and 3,000 allotments of 2 1/2 or 5 hectares are included in the indicative plan for this area. What will happen to those blocks of land? Will people be able to have houses and driveways constructed on them and to cut down trees on them? Will they be able to use them for the purpose for which they were bought, as household blocks of land? I have examined the Federal Budget Papers and I cannot see in them any amount for compensation to disaffected parties as a result of the World Heritage listing. The Minister may well have provided for a grant, but I was not able to find mention of it. Does the Federal Government intend to pay compensation to the people who have lost their jobs or to the small business people? I have been to Ravenshoe, and I must put it on record that I certainly do not condone the treatment that Senator Richardson received there. I have mentioned it to the people of Ravenshoe that it is not in their best interests to do that type of thing. I believe that they were so frustrated that they got carried away. I feel that they are apologetic for the treatment that the Minister was given. However, they are interested to know the sort of compensation that is available to them. For instance, will the local chemist's shop, the local newsagency and the local hotel be compensated when the people who work in the forestry industry cannot find jobs and ultimately have to move out of the area, thus reducing the worth of the businesses in the towns of Malanda, Atherton, Ravenshoe and many others? Senator Richardson is reported in the Australian of 13 September to have said that he would release in two weeks time a plan of the jobs that would be available and the compensation that would be paid, which will have a great bearing on the lives of people in north Queensland. When will he release it? Secondly-this is the most important issue that I want to raise with Senator Richardson-when will the logging be stopped? When will the Minister proclaim north Queensland rainforests free from further logging? These questions must be answered. The people of north Queensland are living on a knife's edge. I am sure Senator Richardson can appreciate the concern of those who do not have a lot of future there. They are trained foresters who are very proud of their occupation, and they do not want to be reduced to being road workers or tourist guides. A number of them have been in the timber industries all their lives. They are looking tonight for some information on which to base decisions affecting their lives-whether to sell their houses now or to hang on in the hope of better times ahead. I have also had inquiries from some of the shire councils. One of their main concerns is the land that is to be placed on the World Heritage List. Will compensation be paid to the 12-odd shire councils in the area for land that will not be of any use to anyone as it will not be productive and no money will be made from it? Does the Government intend to pay any compensation to the shire councils to help them provide services to the area? I look forward to debating this matter in the Senate, but tonight I would like some answers from Senator Richardson so that I may pass them on to the people of north Queensland. Senator HILL(South Australia)(7.58) —I raise a matter that is causing me great concern as a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia appointed by this Senate. What I am concerned about-I am pleased that the Minister for the Environment and the Arts (Senator Richardson) is here tonight to hear my concern-is the substantial and continuing erosion of the capacity of the Library to purchase books and serials and thus maintain its collections and meet its national responsibilities. This erosion has come about because the Government's funding has not kept pace with the increasing costs of books and serials-a cost which is increasing, I understand, at the rate of about 10 and 15 per cent respectively-and because the Government has not taken into account the loss of purchasing capacity caused by the depreciation of the Australian dollar. It is important to bear in mind that about 87 per cent of the books purchased by the Library are purchased overseas and in recent years the Australian dollar has depreciated by about 40 per cent. The effect has been a program of cancellations. Since 1980-81-therefore, this goes back before the Hawke Government, but unfortunately, in some ways, it has accelerated during the period of this Government-nearly 4,000 serial titles have been cancelled by the National Library. In 1986, 637 serials were cancelled. The result was an actual decline in current titles held by the Library during 1986-87. Cancellations have been in the areas of medicine, chemistry, psychology, overseas newspapers, law journals and loose-leaf law services as well as in other areas. I bring this to the attention of the Senate as obviously a continuation can only lead to an undermining of the integrity of the nation's premier library and a decline in the information base that is publicly available. The economies, which presumably the Government sees itself as pursuing in relation to the National Library, are false and will be regretted in the future. In a picture of generally declining funding for other libraries, the effect will be that many serials or books are not held anywhere in Australia on a publicly available basis. The National Library has a national responsibility to provide a resource upon which other libraries may call. The holdings of the National Library must be seen as a national resource and a first resort library in document delivery for the nation. The sums of money involved to return the book vote of the Library to the capacity it held back in about 1980-81 in fact are not very great, relative to the national Government's expenditure. In 1984-85 it would have taken about an extra $1m; in 1985-86, $1.7m; in 1986-87, 2.3m; and in 1987-88, $3.2m. I have calculated those amounts taking into account both inflation and depreciation. So, as I said, the sums are not great. Nevertheless, as I have indicated, in order that the National Library may meet its national responsibilities and maintain the integrity of its collection, I urge upon the new Minister that he now is presented with an opportunity-certainly not in this Budget but in the next Budget-to do something that is most worthwhile in the best interests of the nation. I ask him to take into consideration the matters that I have raised tonight. Senator RICHARDSON(New South Wales-Minister for the Environment and the Arts)(8.03) —I have much to say in response to Senator Boswell's complaints. As far as the Strahan post office is concerned, I inform Senator Harradine that I will make sure that the environmental considerations in respect of that 80-year-old building are taken into account. I shall talk to the relevant Minister about them. Senator Harradine —Have you ever been there? Senator RICHARDSON —I have been to Strahan. Senator Harradine —It is a matter of convenience to the people. Senator RICHARDSON —Their convenience, as always, will be paramount in our minds. Senator Boswell asked a great many questions. I am not sure that I was able to write them all down as I do not take shorthand, but I will do my best to reply. If I miss any, he can remind me of them tomorrow. Nonetheless, he expressed the worry, concern, anguish and anxiety of many people in north Queensland who are faced with a world heritage decision and fear for their future. He mentioned that he has been to Ravenshoe. I went to Ravenshoe a few weeks ago to try to talk to the people there about their worries, anguish and anxieties and to see what I could do to make them understand what we were doing and what we could do for them as a result of the decisions we are taking. I was not heard on that occasion. However, I am sure that when I go back I will be heard. Senator Boswell was correct when he said that I had said that I would go back on 13 September, two weeks later. The dates that I have been able to work out for my return visit are 6 and 7 October. I will be going to Cairns, I think Port Douglas, Ravenshoe and anywhere else that I can fit in in the time available to me. When I visit that area I will be making public the Government's plans, or at least some proposed plans that we hope to put on the table for discussion, on the future of the area listed for world heritage. Senator Boswell would know better than me that it is very difficult for this Government to come up with all the solutions on its own. It needs the information that can be provided, in the first instance, only by the Queensland Government. Of course, the Premier of Queensland and the Queensland Government are playing no speakies on the issue at the moment. The Federal Government requires the co-operation of the industry to give it the figures on how many people are involved and in what circumstances they find themselves. Industry has been bludgeoned by the Queensland Government into not co-operating. Local government is under a similar threat and is not co-operating at all. Without the co-operation of those three tiers, if you like, it is very difficult for the national Government to make detailed plans. However, to start the discussion off, given that we cannot do it in private yet, I point out that on 6 and 7 October we will put forward publicly what we believe to be a realistic employment program for those affected and also a regional development plan to show to local government in the area what we have in mind, at least for discussion. We must remember at all times that land use and land management primarily have always been the responsibilities of the States and remain so. In this case, therefore, we have to set up a management authority for the area to be listed. On 6 and 7 October I will try to provide a draft for the sort management authority that we would envisage. There are two working models at which we can look. One is adjacent to this area; that is, the Great Barrier Marine Park Authority, which has worked well in co-operation with the Queensland Government. I see no reason why this one should be any different. The second similar authority is in South West Tasmania. Drawing from those two models we intend to produce a draft for a management authority and a management plan for the area. To get to some of the specifics, the real reason for listing is to save rainforest. That is what the concept is there for. Most land uses will not be affected; the land use that will be affected is logging. The purpose of the exercise is to stop logging in the wet tropics rainforest. However, as Senator Boswell correctly pointed out, there are a great many private landholders. We are having difficulty in establishing exactly how many because some of the councils are not co-operating in telling us. I am in the process of writing to as many private landowners as we can identify in an attempt to set out the situation for them. As I have the opportunity, perhaps I should answer some of the main queries which have been raised by private landowners. The first is, `I have bought a block of land. You have now listed it for world heritage so I cannot build my house'. That is a vision promoted by some Queensland Ministers and it is not true. If private citizens who own private land within the area wish to build houses, they will be permitted to do so. We will not stop them from either building a house or, obviously, providing access to it. What we are against is wholesale clearance of rainforest. But in the circumstances that Senator Boswell mentioned there is no problem whatsoever. Quite a number of people graze cattle or have small orchards. A number of different land use activities are carried on in the heritage area. They will not be affected at all by our decision. They will continue. We have no intention of trying to stop them. It seems that no matter how often I repeat that, the difficulty is getting people to accept it. I think that when I have released a draft management plan and a draft plan for an authority, some of those fears will disappear. The real problem occurs with those people who feel that their livelihoods are affected by the decision. A couple of weeks ago I saw a headline from the local paper in Ravenshoe. It carried a screaming banner headline which said, `Ravenshoe under threat'. However, the newspaper article was not about the World Heritage listing and the headline did not refer to me. It referred to the Queensland Government's decision to reduce by more than half the quota allowed to be taken from the forests, which worried all the mills. Some of those mills closed but Ravenshoe kept going. It is the Government's firm view that because of the number of people whom we can re-employ, the towns will do so also. That being the case, I doubt whether too many people, outside those directly affected, will need compensation. However, the Government is prepared to look at any claim that is put in. I have advised a number of small businessmen in Ravenshoe and other towns that if they have concerns now is the time to put them forward to us. In the next couple of days the Government will announce the appointment of consultants whose task it will be to look at a socio-economic study and to make sure that before any submission is made to Cabinet on the question of compensation for financial packages, the Government has before it as much information as we can possibly get. The only way we can get that information is by the co-operation of the people for whom Senator Boswell says he speaks. The most common complaint that one gets in Ravenshoe when one listens to the people-it was easy for me to listen to them because they made a lot of noise; there was just some difficulty in responding-is from people who have worked in the forests all their lives. They say, `I cannot do anything else; you cannot put a cummerbund on me and make me a waiter. I do not want to wear a bow tie. I have my occupation, I am proud of it and I want to stay in it'. It is the Government's intention that the vast majority of those people who make such complaints and establish such concerns will continue to work in the forests or in activities related to them. In looking at plantation establishment and maintenance and park management, we intend to employ a great many of the people of whom Senator Boswell speaks. There are a number of ways in which they can be employed-for example, in the construction of visitor facilities, walking trails, sign-posting, roads and fences. If one is to preserve the forests, one must make sure not only that future generations can get to see them, but also that people from Australia and all around the world can get to see them now. The only way that can happen is by making sure that more and more of that magnificent forest is accessible. In park management there is also weed control and rehabilitation, nursery work, the closure and rehabilitation of logging roads and fire management and maintenance. There is a whole host of different areas and hundreds of jobs can be found for people in the industry there. On the question of exactly how many jobs can be made available, at the meeting on 6 and 7 October I will have a stab at putting forward the numbers that we think might be employed in that way. We must always remember that without the co-operation of the three tiers that I mentioned earlier, it is very difficult for me to give a hard and fast figure; but I will give the best estimates that my Department can make. On the question of tourism, I point out that one does not always have to be employed as a waiter. That is the most common complaint. There are interpretive facilities and other infrastructure facilities for tourists which do not involve putting on a cummerbund. There will be a great many such opportunities in this World Heritage listing area. We believe a great many people can be employed there. Let us look at public works. Any regional development plan which I look at in draft form between now and 6 and 7 October will involve the construction of roads and community facilities in co-operation with local councils. I think that 12 or 13 local councils are involved in the area and we will talk to them again on 6 and 7 October. I have already had a number of meetings with them but hopefully, with this draft regional development plan, I can give them some idea of what the national Government will have in mind for them. I have been asked also to talk about the details of retraining and re-employment schemes. I think that I have covered the re-employment aspects as best I can at the moment. Obviously, I will be filling in more detail on 6 and 7 October. The Government is serious in its commitment to retraining, as it is with all the things about which I am speaking. After the consultants have identified the areas in which we can see people being employed and, after, I hope, we have received submissions from the people themselves, because that is what we are really seeking, we shall be in a position to develop a plan for retraining. Included in any submission that I make to Cabinet, there must be some plan for helping people through any adjustment period, and there will be. I can say to Senator Boswell that I, as the son of a trade union official, would not be able to sleep too easily at night if I were able, at the stroke of a pen, to sign away anybody's rights. I will not do that, and it will be my intention to make sure that, as far as possible, we can employ everybody in the area. No doubt, some will miss out and some will opt to miss out in the new regime. Some will decide that they do not want to be involved in reafforestation and the like. The Department is in the process of looking at thousands of hectares that we can put under plantation schemes over the next five or six years. That will also be announced on 6 and 7 October. Again, it will involve the employment of hundreds of people. Through all those schemes, I am confident that we shall get the great majority of people re-employed in constructive employment in which they will be happy because it will still involve the forest and forest-related industries. If some miss out, I must have a financial package for them, and it is a matter of finding out enough information from the people on the ground to make sure that that package is sufficient. That is the commitment of the Government, and I think that, by the end of the exercise, the people of Ravenshoe and the surrounding area will understand the depth of our commitment. We will have to put our money where our mouth is. Senator Boswell —When are you going to proclaim the area that is stockpiled? Senator RICHARDSON —We have not issued any proclamations at this stage of the game. I hope that, as a result of negotiations with the companies over the next few weeks, that will not be necessary. I am sure that, once we talk to the companies and the workers, they will understand the value of co-operating with the Government. At this stage I am not anticipating having to get into a fight over the necessity for a proclamation. Most of the mills have three to four months up their sleeves in terms of stock on hand. That has been checked with pretty well all of them and it is true. Therefore, I do not anticipate that there needs to be a great deal more logging. With the wet season approaching, there will not be anyway, and I think that we can, without proclamations, satisfy the environmental and employment concerns of those involved. If I have missed out any points, perhaps Senator Boswell will take them up with me tomorrow and I will be happy to answer him in writing or, if he wants to ask a question at Question Time, I will answer him then. We also had the contribution of Senator Hill concerning the National Library. I was at the National Library last night for the launch of the national poetry awards for the Bicentenary, and in the speech I made there I congratulated the Library not only on the preservation of what my colleague the honourable member for Brisbane, Mr Manfred Cross, called the dusty tomes but on the information provision role which the Library has developed so rapidly and so skilfully over the past years. Senator Hill referred to the substantial and continual erosion of the Library's capacity to purchase. Undoubtedly, the main reason for that in the past couple of years has not been any reduction in Government funding-although I concede that in the past couple of years of restraint we have not maintained the level-but a loss of the purchasing power of the dollar, which has dropped dramatically and made life difficult for the Library. During this week I had a meeting with the Library's Chairman and Director and we discussed these matters. I hope that in the next Budget the Government can announce something better for the Library. Right across the environment and the arts, as with every other government portfolio, in a time of restraint everyone suffers. Though we have tried to apportion the suffering on an equal basis, I must concede that the reason the Government was able to achieve a deficit as low as it was, and the reason why the Budget was as good as it was, was that some important parts of the portfolio had to suffer. Having said that, the record of funding for the National Library in the 4 1/2 years of the Hawke Government more than matches that of the Fraser Government in its seven years in office. All I can say is that I will make it better over time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 8.20 p.m. The following papers were tabled: Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 188. Audit Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 191. Banking Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 184. Christmas Island Act-Ordinance 1987-No. 2-Motor Traffic (Amendment). Currency Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 196. Defence Act- Determinations 1987- No. 57-Overseas Living Allowance. No. 58-Overseas Living Allowance and others. No. 59-Overseas Living Allowance and others. No. 60-Overseas Living Allowance and others. No. 61-Loss on Sale of Motor Vehicle on Posting Overseas. No. 62-Common Duties and Antarctic Allowance. No. 63-Disturbance Allowance. Egg Industry Research (Hen Quota) Levy Collection Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 192. Export Inspection (Establishment Registration Charge) Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 195. Extradition (Foreign States) Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 187. Federal Court of Australia Act- Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 198. Rules of Court-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 197. Jury Exemption Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 186. National Gallery Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 190. Navigation Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 Nos 200 and 201. Racial Discrimination Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 185. Seat of Government (Administration) Act-Credit Ordinance 1985-Credit Notices- Nos 15e to 22, 25, 27 to 34, 37 and 38, dated 18 June 1987. National Roads and Motorists' Association Exemption, dated 18 June 1987. NRMA Employee and District Depot Exemption, dated 18 June 1987. States Grants (Schools Assistance) Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 189. Superannuation Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 No. 199. Quarantine Act-Regulation-Statutory Rules 1987 Nos 193 and 194.