Wednesday, 7 October 1987 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Peter Baume and Senator Sanders, who were absent on parliamentary duties when the certificates of election of senators to serve in this Senate from 1 July 1987 were tabled in the Senate and senators were sworn, are in attendance in the chamber. I ask the honourable senators to come to the table and make an oath. Senator Peter Erne Baume and Senator Norman Karl Sanders made and subscribed the oath of allegiance. The PRESIDENT —It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death, on 28 September 1987, of Sir Keith Cameron Wilson, a former Senator for South Australia and a former member of the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans) proposed: That the Senate expresses its deep regret at the death, on 28 September 1987, of Sir Keith Cameron Wilson, a Senator for the State of South Australia from 1938 to 1944 and a former member of the House of Representatives for the division of Sturt from 1945 to 1954 and from 1955 to 1966, places on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service, and tenders its profound sympathy to his widow and family in their bereavement. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition) —On behalf of the Opposition, I wish to support the motion of condolence moved by the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Gareth Evans. My last contact with the late Sir Keith Wilson was in a most appropriate context in terms of the contribution that he made to Australia. It was at a splendid aged persons centre at Noarlunga in South Australia which Sir Keith had been asked to open and which I attended as a guest as the then Minister for Social Security. It was particularly appropriate because Sir Keith Wilson made a major-indeed, a dominant-contribution to the establishment of the system of housing for the aged which has been such a feature of the past 30 years in Australia. Sir Keith Wilson's political and other life is a substantial reminder of the capacity of individual Australians to change for the better the society into which they are born. Sir Keith Wilson is also a reminder to the many people who serve in parliament but who never serve in government as a Minister that it is possible to make a major contribution to government policy and to the administration of one's country from the back bench. Sir Keith Wilson served as a senator for a period and was distinguished from every other senator who served in this place in that he left the Senate to enlist in the Army and served his country overseas whilst a senator. That, of course, is a very great mark of his devotion to his country. But I have no doubt that he will be long remembered publicly not for the fact that he served in two Houses or that he served in the armed forces at the same time as serving as a parliamentarian, but for his contribution to the housing of the elderly in Australia. The Aged Persons Homes Act, which was a statute of the Menzies period, was very much the product of his initiative and his concern for the decent housing of older Australians and the very substantial capital and other programs which have flowed from the mid-1950s through to the present day were significantly initiated by the views he promoted whilst he was a member of parliament and a back bench supporter of the Menzies Government. He continued his activities outside the Parliament, Mr President. Again, whilst he will be remembered for his contribution to the migrants to Australia through the Good Neighbour Council and otherwise and whilst he will be remembered for other public works that he undertook as a private citizen, his very substantial contribution and permanent memorial will be the villages and other facilities which were established because of his initiative. That initiative came both in the promotion of community support for these programs and in the achieving of a steady system of government support for those community efforts. Mr President, it is a privilege for me to have the opportunity on behalf of the Opposition to acknowledge the very significant contribution which Sir Keith Wilson made to Australia in that way. Sir Keith is the father of the Hon. Ian Wilson, who is a current member of the House of Representatives and who was a Minister in the Fraser Government. Sir Keith was one of that not rare breed of politicians who beget other politicians. At this time, the thoughts of his family-of Ian, Andrew and Elizabeth and, of course, Lady Wilson-are predominantly on the personal loss which they have suffered. On behalf of the Opposition I extend our sympathy to them but more importantly, I think, I extend our respect and admiration for the contribution which their husband and father made to the public life of this country. It was, I think, rarely successful-that is, his success was rare and will be emulated by few of us in this place-in terms of the very substantial improvement in the lives of many Australians that he affected. His death was a great loss to Australia as it was a great personal loss to his family. I believe that we owe a great debt of gratitude to Sir Keith Wilson. I acknowledge that on behalf of all senators sitting in this place. Senator HAINES(South Australia-Leader of the Australian Democrats) —On behalf of the Australian Democrats I would like to add our support to the motion moved by the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Gareth Evans). Sir Keith, as Senator Chaney has already pointed out, was a most distinguished South Australian who served his State and, I believe, his Party very capably and very conscientiously for many years in this place. He was a well-known and well-respected man. Indeed, the Wilsons are an old and very respected South Australian family. As Senator Chaney has also indicated, Sir Keith was a man of considerable compassion, a man who was motivated by a deep and long-held commitment to the community in which he lived, in particular to the needs and improvement of living standards of the elderly members of the community. He will be sadly missed. We extend our condolences to his widow and family in their loss and, in particular, to our current colleague Ian Wilson, who I think has followed a distinguished father with competence and with the commitment to South Australia that his father had when he was in this place. Senator TEAGUE(South Australia) —I wish to be associated with the Senate's motion of condolence to the family of Sir Keith Cameron Wilson and I note that the Senate chamber is nearly full as we debate the motion before us. I wish to extend my condolences to his widow, Lady Wilson, and to the families of his children, Ian, Elizabeth and Andrew. They are close to me and my family and they are close to many South Australians, not least the members of the Liberal Party of Australia. Sir Keith, or `K.C.' as he was affectionately known, died in Adelaide nine days ago, a month into his eighty-eighth year. This past week our thoughts and prayers have been for the comfort of his family. Sir Keith Wilson was first elected to this Parliament as a senator for South Australia in 1937, 50 years ago. He served in the Senate during the war years but for most of that period he had the unique distinction of coming into this chamber in the uniform of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force and he was given leave by the Senate to serve in the 2/7 Australian Field Regiment in the Middle East and the Western Desert where he rose to the rank of major. The Senate was a different Senate then, with only 36 senators, and senators from distant States, such as South Australia, were unable to return to their homes as regularly as we do now. Sir Keith was much involved in the founding of the Liberal Party of Australia in 1944 and, at the 1949 election, he was elected to the House of Representatives as the first member for Sturt, in which capacity he served for some 15 years. At the 1966 election he was succeeded by his son, Ian Wilson, the present member for Sturt and our very close colleague. Sir Keith Wilson was distinctively a Liberal. He cared about individual Australians and, for that reason, he brought a distinctiveness in his representation of South Australia into both chambers of the Parliament. When we look at the antecedents of the Liberal Party we see that Sir Keith Wilson looms large. In the 1920s-as far back as 1928, 60 years ago-he was the first President of the then Young Liberal League. As a lawyer in Adelaide he inspired many young South Australians to take up the political values that we know as Liberal values. His wife, Lady Wilson, who is dear to many of us in South Australia, was inspired by `K.C.' and helped in the formation of the Young Liberal League and its political impact on my State of South Australia. The commitments that they shared in the 1920s they have consistently held through all the decades since. Let me quote from his first speech in the Senate chamber 49 years ago this week. Senator Wilson said: People . . . should not be disadvantaged because of where they live . . . or because of their circumstances. He declared: There should be equality of opportunity. Senator Chaney has already spoken of Sir Keith's pioneering achievements in terms of housing for the aged. He was especially committed to the welfare of veterans and to the welfare of the aged and migrants. In South Australia the movement to establish homes for the aged is chiefly the result of the pioneering work of K. C. Wilson. He was Chairman of Aged Cottage Homes Inc. and inspired similar aged persons homes in other suburbs of Adelaide and other parts of South Australia. This became the model on which the then Menzies Government based homes for the aged throughout Australia. K. C. Wilson is undoubtedly the pre-eminent pioneer in that area. He was the president of the Good Neighbour Council in my State of South Australia. In the 1950s, before we used such terms as `ethnic affairs', before we spoke of the importance of every Australian in the way in which we do now in our debates about the settlement of migrants, the terms that were used were the `good settlement of migrant Australians' and the `Good Neighbour Council'. It was in that era that the Liberal values of K. C. Wilson were reflected by his leadership. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard the eulogy given last Thursday at the funeral service at St Matthew's Church, Kensington-a church I know very well-by former Senator Gordon Davidson. The eulogy concluded with these fitting remarks: May God in His mercy give him a safe lodging a quiet rest and peace at the last. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Eulogy delivered by Gordon S. Davidson, C.B.E. at the Funeral Service of Sir Keith Cameron Wilson at St Matthew's Church, Kensington on Thursday 1 October, 1987. We are here this morning for several reasons. Firstly . . . to pay our respects to Keith Cameron Wilson, 1900-1987. Husband . . . father . . . grandfather Knight Bachelor Bachelor of Laws, University of Adelaide Both Senator and Member of the House of Representatives in the Commonwealth Parliament of Australia Colleague . . . friend . . . and mate. Who died on Monday last 28 September, 1987 . . . a month into his 88th year. We are here also . . . to express our sympathy and remembrance to his family. To Lady Wilson to Ian to Elizabeth and to Andrew and to their families and to assure them that our prayers are for their comfort. Again we are here . . . to give evidence of our tribute to his years of service . . . service to our State and Nation . . . service to the discipline of politics and to the High Court of Parliament . . . and service to our public affairs and commonwealth. And very importantly . . . we are here . . . to give thanks for his long life and all that the years have been. For all of his vision . . . his innovation . . . his high hopes and work for the future . . . for his concern for his fellow Australians . . . the aged . . . the migrant . . . the wheatgrower . . . the serviceman . . . the pensioner . . . for his enthusiasm for Australia and the great diversity of its talents . . . and for the way he carried these and other causes into the public arena. Disraeli once observed of a friend, ``He was a public man of light and leading in the whole country''. The same could well be said of K. C. Wilson. K.C. to everyone and to us all. A public man of light and leading. Indeed he may have taken his first initiative into the public arena as he stood that day in 1918-on the wharf at Port Adelaide-having enlisted for service in the A.I.F. in the First World War. His zeal for his country and its defence and its security remained with him . . . to when the call came again . . . this time in 1940 . . . he enlisted once more . . . in the 2nd A.I.F. It was with the 2/7 Australian Field Regiment . . . a unit to which he has remained very specially related ever since. But in the intervening years his public emphasis had embraced the discipline of politics. This resulted from a series of concerns . . . of experiences . . . of observations on the state of the nation . . . and of opportunities. These same concerns confirmed in him a political philosophy . . . a political philosophy through which he sought to build a better neighbourhood . . . establish a better community . . . and move towards a more responsible and worthy nation. In terms of political philosophy K. C. Wilson was a Liberal. He was a Liberal by conviction by practice by example by enthusiastic application and most of all . . . by loyalty. He held strong political concerns for his own life and times. As a young man he worked ceaselessly within his own environment to gather together young people of like mind and to persuade them to bend their energies to the political development . . . as he saw it . . . in Australia. He gave leadership . . . and was the first President of the then Young Liberal League as far back as 1928. He went on to hold office and become a Vice President in what was then the Liberal and Country League. We see in these various exercises some early examples of his enthusiasm and persistence . . . characteristics which he was to put to good effect all of his life. So it is not surprising that he sought early election to Parliament . . . and was elected to the Senate in 1937. That was fifty years ago . . . a half a century ago. It was a different Senate then . . . only 36 Senators and pace of life somewhat different to now. But K.C. Wilson's own pace was worthy of the man and of his dedication to Parliament and the people. Standing in the Senate alongside his red leather seat and desk on the 5th October, 1938 . . . 49 years ago next Monday . . . he addressed himself to his maiden speech . . . ``Mr. President'' he began . . . and then he declared himself . . . his responsibility to South Australia as more important than anything else . . . and then to its people. ``People,'' said Senator Wilson, ``people . . . should not be disadvantaged because of where they live . . . or because of their circumstances''. ``There should be,'' he declared . . . ``equality of opportunity!'' Later in the same speech he pressed the case for immigration . . . ``Australia,'' he went on . . . ``Australia can and must support many more than six million people. We want migrants . . . more migrants . . . migrants with families and with skills . . . the best migrants we can get!'' Years later he was to confirm that interest and to sustain those arguments when he accepted appointment by the Minister of the day as the Chairman of the Commonwealth Immigration Advisory Council. It wasn't long after that maiden speech . . . and still in that same Senate seat . . . that the then Senator Wilson appeared in uniform. For he had enlisted in the Second A.I.F. and whilst still a Senator he served with the 2/7 Australian Field Regiment in the Second World War . . . in the Middle East and the Western Desert . . . and rose to the rank of Major. He returned to Australia in 1943 . . . somewhat restless but with a clear conviction about the necessity for people to have opportunity to help themselves . . . and the provision of circumstances which would assist them in their desire for achievement and to have some elements of independence. He . . . in due course . . . gave expression to that conviction in his work with various communities . . . pensioner groups . . . his own regiment . . . and others. Meantime the matter of housing needs pressed heavily upon him. He wanted houses and more houses . . . homes and more homes . . . homes which people could afford . . . which they could enjoy . . . and homes in which they felt secure. But his equally strong conviction about the role of politics and Parliament in the affairs of people called him again to Canberra. In 1949 he took his place in the House of Representatives as the Member for the new electorate of Sturt. He was there from 1949 to 1966 with the exception of a short break in 1954-55. His party was now in power and he was able to plead his cause at the seat of Government . . . and what is more he was able to do this at the National and Commonwealth level. He continued his representations in the Committee Room . . . in the Party Room . . . and in the House. The program of subsidies and allocations developed and improved . . . other allocations and facilities were included . . . indeed speaking in the House in May 1963 he was pleased to be able to say, ``No Act in the history of the Commonwealth has done so much good with the same allocation of funds as has the Aged Persons Homes Act.'' But K.C. was not content with what support he might get in Canberra. Here in Adelaide he was busy encouraging groups to take their own initiatives. His own Aged Cottage Homes organisation of which he was the Chairman for 20 years . . . 1952-72 was a model. He sat down with scores of Committees . . . and groups . . . and individuals . . . including me . . . as we sought to meet the need for senior citizens homes. He was called in by an executor company to advise as they sought to place funds from an estate for the purpose of aged care. Meantime organisations like the War Blinded Welfare Fund . . . Adelaide Legacy . . . the Burnside R.S.L. . . . and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Research Foundation all knew and valued his patronage, support and in some cases his presidency. But his outreach towards people did not cease. The immigration interest which he had so clearly stated so long ago now found expression in his work for the Good Neighbour Council. In due course he became its President and continued with the organisation and its branches in a service to the people with whom he enjoyed so many links for so many years. But K. C. Wilson's interest in the migrants found an intense and personal dimension among the new citizens within his own electorate. Stories of what he has done for them are legion. Not only of what he has done for them . . . but of what he has done to encourage them to do more for themselves. They have not forgotten . . . and they have made their responses over the years in very many ways. In 1930 K. C. Wilson married Betty Bonython . . . a union which was a precious one for 57 years. In it there was an enduring feature in which there was total support and interest shown by each of them for the activities and pursuits of the other. Then as a family of five people their total interests and activities . . . whether vocational . . . professional . . . social or cultural . . . covered an area of our public affairs that was very large indeed. What is more it was as varied and diverse as it was large. And K.C. as a public man . . . stood with a public family. He was indeed a ``public man of light and leading . . . '' K.C. had a public and political career which had its frustrations . . . and its disappointment. Anyone in politics and public life has the same experience . . . but he stayed there . . . as though he felt that ``the reward of a thing well done was to have done it''. But another reward was to crown his efforts. In the New Year Honours of 1966 Her Majesty the Queen conferred upon him the honour of Knighthood . . . Sir Keith Wilson. It was shortly before his retirement from the Parliament and the hearts of the countless friends with whom he was associated one way or another were indeed glad. In presenting a tribute to a man like Sir Keith Wilson . . . and in drawing it to a close . . . we may well ask ourselves questions about the sources of his abundant life and his abundant energy for living. Was it his awareness of the life that was being lived all around him . . . in the lives of the people with whom he worked and served? Was it in the abundance of young life which he saw in his grandchildren whom he adored? Or was it in the life of Nature which he observed at the farm at Williamstown and from which he drew so much renewal? It came . . . I believe in part from all of these and the Divine spark within him responded . . . giving him the grace and power to discharge the many responsibilities entrusted to him. So we take our leave . . . for . . . in the words of John Henry Newman . . . for him . . . the shadows lengthen and the evening comes the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is over and his work is done. May God in His mercy give him a safe lodging a quiet rest and peace at the last. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania) —I wish to associate myself with the condolence motion now before the Senate. It was only a few minutes ago that I learned of the death of Sir Keith Wilson, because I have been absent on business associated with two committees of the Parliament. I rise to speak not only because I am in a position where no one else can speak for me but also because I have, as Sir Keith Wilson's family knows, a personal reason for knowing the pioneering work that was done by Sir Keith Wilson in the establishment of homes for the aged. I take this opportunity of joining with my colleagues in the Senate in conveying condolences to Lady Wilson and to her family. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —Mr President, I would like briefly to associate myself with this condolence motion. I grew up in South Australia, as you would know. The first Federal member where I lived was the late Sir Philip McBride and the second was Sir Keith Wilson, and he remained so until I came to Canberra. He was, therefore, a person who was very important in my activities within the Liberal Party of Australia. I met him soon after I joined the Party when I left school, and I would say he had more influence than any other person on the role I have played in the Liberal Party since that time. He was none of the things that people say about politicians. He was not cynical; he was not pragmatic. He was a man who cared for his community. He was a man who cared for the young people who joined the Party, and he took a great deal of interest in it. I also got to know Lady Wilson very well. She was an active member of the Liberal Party and chairman of the federal women's committee for many years. His children, Ian, Elizabeth and Andrew, were friends of mine and still are. I wish today to acknowledge the role he played in influencing my life. I say to Lady Wilson and to Ian, Elizabeth and Andrew that he will be missed, and I offer my condolences to them and to his grandchildren, particularly Julie, who is also my goddaughter. Senator MESSNER(South Australia) —I too would like to join my colleagues in their remarks in regard to the death of Sir Keith Cameron Wilson. I noted particularly the remarks of Senator Teague in relation to Sir Keith Wilson's activities with aged persons homes. Even in recent years, while I was Minister for Veterans' Affairs, I frequently had phone calls from him to gen me up on the information that was important in that particular industry as it affected veterans. His interest in people was a continuing one throughout his later years. I think that that signifies the greatness of the man. Senator Teague also referred to some of Sir Keith Wilson's earlier roles in the foundation of the Liberal Party of Australia, particularly in South Australia. There is just one other point I want to mention in regard to that. My first experience of Sir Keith actually was after he had left Parliament in 1966. In 1968 he and some other people and I were appointed by the Liberal Party at that time to a committee called, for want of a better name, the Wilson Investigating Committee. Its role was to examine the whole function and operation, from a political standpoint, of the Liberal Party in South Australia. That Committee brought down a report which subsequently led to major changes to the constitution of the Party and, in fact, brought it up to date and turned it into a modern day political organisation. Again, Sir Keith was one of the major forces in bringing about the future and further development of liberalism in Australia. My condolences and that of my family go to Ian and Andrew, whom, of course, we have known for many years and, of course, to Lady Wilson. Question resolved in the affirmative, honourable senators standing in their places. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: To the honourable The President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: That we consider the 2% discounting of Commonwealth Occupational superannuation Scheme pension adjustments on 10 October 1986 to be a serious breach of trust by the Government. The Commonwealth has reneged on an established commitment as incorporated in Commonwealth legislation and benefit promise pensions are not being paid in full. In particular we resent the long-term effect of the discounting. The pension loss is compounded throughout the life of a pensioner and surviving dependants-into the 21st century for many. We consider this Government-induced penalty to be out of all proportion to the short-term `extraordinary circumstances of the economy' given as the reason for the discounting. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should urge the Government to: 1. limit the pension discounting effect of the Superannuation and Other Benefits Legislation Amendment Act 1986 to the period 10 October 1986 to 1 July 1987 so that pensions are restored to the 9 October 1986 level as a base for the 1987 pension adjustment; and 2. consult with organisations representing pensioners before changing the terms and conditions of Commonwealth Occupational Superannuation Schemes. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Short (from 27 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: 1. They are completely satisfied with the design of the existing Australian National Flag. 2. They are aware that it properly reflects the immutable characteristics of Australia namely: (a) The Union Jack, itself the creation of three Christian Crosses, represents the nation's historical origin and the source of its language and law; (b) The Southern Cross on an azure blue background signifying its place in space; (c) The large star depicting the advent of Federation in 1901 and each point depicting a State and the Territories of the Commonwealth. 3. They know the Flag has been a source of inspiration to generations of Australians in peace and war. 4. They recall that millions of native-born Australians and newcomers to these shores from other parts of the world have become united under its proud symbolism. 5. They are certain that any change to its form or to its acceptance as the sole Australian National Flag will produce divisions in the Australian community. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should ensure that the existing Australian National Flag remains sacrosanct from change and remains the sole national flag. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Walters (from 1,179 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: Moreton Island is an invaluable natural resource for Queensland and the world and that mining on Moreton would gravely compromise its unique flora and fauna and its outstanding recreational, archaeological and scientific values. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should: Urge the government to use its proven constitutional powers to halt sand mining on Moreton by supporting the Moreton Island Preservation Bill. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Macklin (from 277 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. This petition of concern to Australian citizens asks that: If there is to be legal process against alleged war criminals resident in Australia, the foundations of justice should be clear and equitable. 1. Let the term, ``war crime'', be first clearly defined. 2. Let specific prosecutions be swiftly launched against those individuals alleged to have committed them, thus releasing the rest of their co-nationals from unwarranted slur and suspicion. 3. Let an Australian tribunal hear the charges. Nobody should be deported to face the ``tender mercies'' of any foreign government. 4. Let the presumption of innocence until proved guilt be clearly established. 5. Let all evidence obtained from the Soviet or any other communist government be set aside and totally disregarded. 6. Let all the costs of any person charged and found not guilty be paid by the Commonwealth government so that innocent people are not financially ruined in the course of establishing their innocence. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Bishop (from 54 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia: On June 9th the Greenpeace yacht ``Vega'' was involved in a peaceful protest against the nuclear armed frigate U.S.S. Ramsay because of the threat that her presence posed to the people of Australia. We the undersigned demand that criminal charges against her crew be dropped. by Senator Vallentine (from 3,000 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 Senators Hamer (from 756 citizens), Knowles (from 26 citizens), MacGibbon (from 83 citizens), Puplick (from 140 citizens) and Reid (from 10 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled, your humble petitioners showeth that the proposed Australia Card will have a dramatic impact on the lives of all Australians, and your petitioners therefore request a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senator Peter Baume (from 18 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 Senator Bishop (from 20 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 support the call by the Australian Privacy Foundation for 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 Senator Knowles (from 256 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. Therefore your petitioners request a national referendum on the Australia Card bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator MacGibbon (from 117 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled, your humble petitioners showeth that the proposed Australia Card will have a dramatic impact on the lives of all Australians, and your petitioners therefore request a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senator MacGibbon (from 291 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 Parer (from 1,450 citizens), Puplick(from 930 citizens), Reid (from 635 citizens), Stone (from 41 citizens) and Walters (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 Walters (from 23 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Australia Card. (2) That this national identity system will be intrusive, will not appreciably combat tax or social security fraud, is authoritarian and alien to the Australian way of life. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should: Urge the Government to institute a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Walters (from 8 citizens). To the President and Senators in Parliament assembled, your humble petitioners showeth that the proposed Australia Card will have a dramatic effect 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 Senator Watson (from 51 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That we are totally opposed to the introduction of the Australia Card. (2) That this national identity system will be intrusive, will not appreciably combat tax or social security fraud, is authoritarian and alien to the Australian way of life. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should: Urge the Government to institute a national referendum on the Australia Card Bill before the proposal is re-submitted to Parliament. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Watson (from 533 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we the undersigned whilst opposing tax evasion strongly reject the I.D. (Australia) Card as a means of increasing Government revenue. The I.D. Card, by its intrusive nature, will be an invasion of our historic rights to privacy and freedom for all Australians. No democratic nation has an I.D. Card with such detailed computer surveillance, which will be provided by this system known as PIN (Personal Identification Number) or SUI (Standard Universal Identification) where every Australian citizen will have a personal dossier on computer. Your petitioners therefore, humbly pray that your Honourable House will protect our privacy and freedom, and totally reject the I.D. (Australia) Card, which will not stop welfare fraud, nor deter organised crime, nor prevent illegal immigration, nor expose tax evasion. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Peter Baume (from 200 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 Labour 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 Calvert (from 440 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 5,801 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 538 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 330 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 119 citizens). To the Honourable the President and the members of the Senate in the Parliament Assembled. We the undersigned Citizens residing in the Federal Electorate of Parramatta and the State Electorate of Wentworthville respectfully showeth that we protest against the Legislation for the introduction of the I.D. Card in Australia And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Puplick (from 250 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned shows: That the proposed introduction of compulsory identification (ID) cards should be reconsidered and rejected because the system: (a) is not a cost-effective method of reducing tax evasion and social security fraud and, to the contrary, in the form proposed will facilitate such evasion and fraud; (b) will constitute an unwarranted infringement of individual privacy by the aggregation of a wide variety of personal information of a private nature; (c) will cause a further large and costly growth in the bureaucracy and burden on the taxpayer; and (d) cannot be guaranteed against misuse for purposes other than for which their introduction is stated to be intended and in fact provide the opportunity for blackmail and other forms of misuse. And your petitioners humbly pray that the problems which identification cards are intended to reduce should be attacked by other, more effective and less obnoxious methods. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Short (from 35 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate 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 Numbering System. We believe that the introduction of a National Identification Numbering System is not only totally unnecessary but is a severe threat to our civil liberties and privacy. We condemn the Government's actions on this matter, particularly as no reasonable or responsible justifications for the proposal have been forthcoming from the Government. We humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should reject any proposal for a National Numbering System. by Senator Short (from 36 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that: The Hawke Labor Government has no mandate to introduce its flawed and costly ID card proposal and that the card won't stop tax and welfare fraud and will invade the private lives of Australians. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject Labor's ID card proposal as the Australian public haven't given the Government a mandate to introduce it. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Tambling (from 1,889 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned Australian citizens shows that: An ID Card numbering system for all Australians would give future governments tremendous power to collect sensitive information and use it against us. Criminal elements could benefit by forging cards and documents needed to obtain them, or by illegally accessing the data in the system. The dangers are much greater than with current systems such as Medicare, as the Australia Card number could link so many different confidential records. The cost to government and private enterprise of implementing the ID Card would be enormous, outweighing any gains. Tax cheats can be stopped more effectively by better checks in the present system. Your petitioners therefore pray that you will reject the Australia Card Bill. by Senator Vanstone (from two 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. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Walters (from 3,960 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 846 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 Watson (from 34 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. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Watson (from 17 citizens). Petitions received. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Special Minister of State) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: 1. That, notwithstanding anything contained in the resolution of the Senate of 23 September 1987, the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs report the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3] to the Senate on or before the next day of sitting, without further considering the Bill or the matters referred to the Committee in relation to the Bill. 2. That, upon receipt of the report of the Committee, the Australia Card Bill 1986 [No. 3] be laid aside, without any further question being put. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)/Trade Development Council report ``Australia Reconstructed''; (b) expresses its serious concern about the document's prescriptions for the Australian economy; (c) in particular records its disagreement with proposals to: (i) maintain and strengthen the centralised wage-fixing system, (ii) establish a National Development Fund financed from superannuation fund income and import levies in order to direct investment, (iii) establish a National Employment and Training Fund, financed by a special tax on employers, and (iv) pursue a `picking winners' industry policy, because such policies will lead Australia in the wrong direction, creating a centrally-planned economy with all the associated inefficiency, inertia and loss of individual choice and freedom; and (d) urges the ACTU to devote its energies to reform of the labour market to make it more flexible and responsive to economic conditions to create greater wealth for all Australians, including trade unionists, and to find a means of effectively enforcing orders of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications) —On behalf of the Minister for the Environment and the Arts, I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, he will move: That the following Bills be introduced: A Bill for an Act relating to the Australian Tourist Commission A Bill for an Act to enact a transitional provision and effect certain repeals in consequence of the enactment of the Australian Tourist Commission Act 1987. Senator REID(Australian Capital Territory) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes with concern the failure of the Federal Government's health care system to deliver adequate health services to the people of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and in particular condemns: (i) the refusal of the Government to accept the Arbitration Commission ruling of 7 May 1987 on the nurses pay and career structure, which has led to major disruption to the delivery of nursing services in Canberra hospitals, (ii) the refusal of the Government to make any real effort to resolve the dispute with private doctors in the ACT which has resulted in a withdrawal of their services from Canberra's public hospitals, (iii) the continuing industrial disputes involving other hospital employees in the ACT, and (iv) the failure of Medicare to provide an efficient, affordable and reliable health care system; and (b) calls upon the Minister responsible for the ACT to fulfil his obligation to provide an adequate health service to the people of the ACT, particularly those who rely on the Medicare system. Senator COLSTON(Queensland) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) deplores the action taken by Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, the Premier of Queensland, in supporting the military coup in Fiji, a Commonwealth country with a democratically-elected Government; (b) disassociates itself from the Premier's bellicose attitude; (c) accepts that on this matter the Premier did not speak on behalf of the Queensland people; (d) calls upon the Queensland Premier to announce publicly whether or not he supports the principle of democratic government or whether he is content to see military force used when extremists are not satisfied with the result of an election. Senator VALLENTINE(Western Australia) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes the Brisbane arrest on 9 June of crew members of the Greenpeace yacht Vega, who have been charged under the Queensland criminal code in relation to a protest involving the nuclear-armed warship USS Ramsay; (b) notes with concern the unnecessary detention of the Greenpeace yacht Vega from June until early October; (c) further notes the arrest of Michael Jack, skipper of the peace fleet yacht, Genevieve, in Fremantle during a similar peaceful protest against nuclear-armed warships on 17 September; (d) deplores the over-reaction by police against non-violent water-borne protests, such as the 6:1 ratio of police to protesters in Fremantle and the dangerous action of a police launch crossing the yacht's path, causing a collision; (e) calls on the Federal Government to indicate to the relevant authorities that they should drop charges against the individuals arrested in Queensland and Western Australia, and that they should desist from such aggressive behaviour towards future non-violent protests; and (f) further calls on the Federal Government to follow the example of New Zealand where eight years of non-violent protests finally led to the Labour Government's ban on nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered warships. 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. Review of systems for dealing with fraud on the Commonwealth-Report. 2. Army and Air Force Canteen Service Board of Management-Annual Report for the period 28 January 1986 to 26 January 1987-together with the Auditor-General's report-Pursuant to Regulation 23e of the Army and Air Force Canteen Service Regulations 1981. 3. Council on Overseas Professional Qualifications-Annual Report 1985-86. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —I declare that Government Business notice of motion No. 2, standing in my name, is formal, subject to the Senate accepting, as I believe that it will, by leave, an amendment to that notice of motion, the amendment being to insert item (6a) after `Questions', namely, `Government Business'. The PRESIDENT —Is leave granted to amend the motion? Leave is granted. Is there any objection to this notice of motion being taken as formal? There is no objection. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans), as amended, agreed to: That, notwithstanding anything contained in the Sessional Orders, the Order of Business on Thursday, 8 October 1987, be as follows: (1) Petitions (2) Notices of Motion (3) Ministerial Statements, by leave (4) Discovery of Formal Business (5) Placing of Business (6) Questions (6a) Government Business (7) Adjournment. Motion (by Senator Durack) agreed to: That the following Bill be introduced: a Bill for an Act to amend the Family Law Act 1975 with respect to maintenance. Motion (by Senator Durack) agreed to: That the Bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time. Bill read a first time. Senator DURACK(Western Australia) — (10.32)-I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have my second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- On 5 December 1985 I introduced a Bill to amend the Family Law Act which addressed the twin problems of determining child maintenance and enforcing an obligation to pay it. The Family Law Act itself made a revolutionary change to family relationships by abolishing the concept of fault and changing the responsibility for maintaining a former spouse and the children of the marriage. Section 73 of the Act squarely places the obligation on both parents according to their respective financial resources to maintain the children of the marriage at least up to the age of 18 years. However in giving effect to this obligation the Family Court is required to take into account a large number of considerations which are set out in Sections 75 and 76. These considerations have qualified the general responsibilities laid down by the previous Sections and have in practice led to some confusion where a parent who would otherwise be liable to pay an adequate and perhaps substantial sum for the maintenance of his or her children has successfully reduced that amount where other responsibilities have been assumed following the break-up of a marriage. The overall result has been outlined by the Institute of Family Studies in the report entitled ``Cost of Children in Australia'' (August 1984) which established that the level of maintenance being ordered by Courts in respect of children is significantly less than the actual cost of their maintenance. This result has exposed an important social issue which requires to be addressed by the Parliament. Another problem arises under Section 75 (2) (f) of the Family Law Act which provides that the Court shall take into account `the eligibility of either party for a pension or allowance or benefit under any law of the Commonwealth or of a State or Territory . . . or the rate of any such pension, allowance or benefit being paid to either party'. At the time the Family Law Act was passed the Government of the day had recently introduced the Supporting Parents Benefit. Since then there has been an astronomic rise in the cost of that benefit to the Australian taxpayer as the following table demonstrates: Year Number Per cent increase Expenditure Per cent increase 1974... 26.286 - 40.6 - 1975... 36.015 37.01 76.1 87.43 1976... 45.542 26.45 127.2 67.14 1977... 50.954 11.88 158.5 24.60 1978... 57.433 12.71 192.8 21.64 1979... 62.498 8.81 226.7 17.58 1980... 70.425 12.68 259.6 14.51 1981... 106.631 51.41 412.4 58.85 1982... 123.942 16.23 605.9 46.92 1983... 140.228 13.14 727.7 20.10 1984... 153.589 9.52 889.6 22.25 1985... 168.000 9.4 1066.2 19.9 1986... 176.700 5.2 1238.0 16.1 1987... 179.000 1.3 1366.7 10.4 There is a great deal of evidence to establish, and wide recognition of the fact, that these two events are related. Although there is justification for a Court having regard to a Social Security benefit available to either party where there is a low income by one and no income by the other there can be no justification for a Court taking into account the existence of such a benefit in the case of parents who can afford to pay for the maintenance of their children. The problem is by no means confined to orders by a Court being influenced by this statutory signal which the Parliament unfortunately gave when it passed the Family Law Act. Most maintenance obligations do not arise out of court orders but by agreement between the parties or by orders made with the consent of the parties. It does seem that the taxpayer has been ripped-off by such agreements in much the same way as he has been by tax avoidance schemes. One might also say that in recent years there has been a growth industry of maintenance avoidance and that the payment of maintenance has virtually become optional. My previous Bill proposed to solve these problems by preventing the Court taking into account the availability of Social Security benefits and to give a signal to the Court about the priority which should be accorded to the needs of a child of the marriage over other responsibilities and commitments of its parents. My previous Bill also proposed some amendments to the Family Law Act to strengthen the enforcement provisions of that Act but I recognised and mentioned in my Second Reading Speech that this problem required urgent action by the Government which was beyond the powers of a private Senator to achieve. At the time I introduced this Bill, the Government's attitude to the problem of child maintenance was particularly delinquent as the magnitude of the problem had emerged towards the end of the term of the Fraser Government. As Attorney General in that Government in conjunction with the then Minister for Social Security, Senator Chaney, I had been considering in the light of a report of a Joint Select Committee of the Parliament a number of ways of establishing adequate enforcement machinery. Although the first Attorney-General in the Hawke Government, Senator Evans, set up an inquiry into this question and obtained a Departmental report, nothing further transpired until after my Bill had been introduced. The Government then commissioned an inquiry into the matter from Dr Meredith Edwards who reported in October 1986. The Government's response to that report was made by Mr Howe in March 1987. One of the first steps the Minister announced was the introduction of a Bill to amend the Family Law Act along the lines of my 1985 Bill. Despite these events the Government Senators voted against my Bill when brought to a vote in the Senate on 14 May 1987 and no such Government Bill has been introduced. In these circumstances I am now bringing forward a new Bill to amend the Family Law Act with the same object as my 1985 Bill. Although passed by the Senate it was allowed to languish in the House of Representatives until it was wiped off the Notice Paper with the Double Dissolution on June 5 last. In view of the fact that the public debate has now concentrated on the question of child maintenance as against spousal maintenance, I have decided to make some changes to my former Bill to focus it on the problem of child maintenance. I have also had the benefit of considering some important new contributions to the solution of these problems. In particular I refer to the decision of the Full Court of the Family Court of Australia in Mee and Ferguson 1986 FLC No. 91/716. The report of the Law Reform Commission on Matrimonial Property and the Report of the Family Law Council on Issues Relating to Sections 86 and 87 of the Family Law Act have also been most helpful. In view of the fact that the Government has decided to establish more adequate machinery for the collection of maintenance even though it has not yet unveiled its final plans, I have omitted from this Bill provisions of my previous Bill which were designed to better enforce that obligation. I had in fact agreed to the excision of such provisions in order to assist the passage of that Bill through the Senate. Accordingly the Bill which I now introduce simply addresses the problem of determining adequate child maintenance and sheets that responsibility home to parents of the child instead of the taxpayer. This basic parental responsibility has been firmly emphasised by the Full Court in Mee and Ferguson, ``. . . the essential first step is to ascertain in financial terms the needs of the child in question. This will obviously vary with the circumstances of the individual case, taking into account amongst other circumstances the age and sex of the child, the relevant standard of living and any special factors applicable in that particular case. Very often in maintenance cases this aspect is neglected and very imprecise evidence is given, . . .'' Clause 3 of the Bill deletes the provision in Section 75 (2) (f) of the Act which requires the Court in assessing maintenance to take into account the eligibility of either party for pension, allowance or benefit under any law of the Commonwealth, State or Territory. This is a fundamental step towards a solution of the problems I am seeking to redress. The Family Law Act has clearly given a wrong signal from the Parliament to the Court. Its mere deletion will not of course prevent the Court taking this matter into account in appropriate circumstances on a question of spousal maintenance. However it is clearly necessary to go further in relation to child maintenance. Accordingly Clause 4 (2) of the Bill prevents the Court taking these matters into account in relation to the determination of child maintenance. The full extent of that responsibility should be determined by the Court in accordance with the other guidelines in Sections 75 and 76. If as a result of that determination the means of the parties is such that one or both of them may be entitled to a pension or part pension, there is nothing in the Bill which prevents that party from receiving such a benefit. The Bill proposes two other significant amendments. Clause 4 (1) adds a further matter to be taken into account in determining child maintenance. I have already mentioned the important report on the cost of keeping children in Australia by the Institute of Family Studies. Hopefully Judges of the Family Court have taken note of that report but Parliament should require them to do so. I also hope that the Institute of Family Studies will keep that report up to date. The Act does not give any guidance to the Court about the priority which the needs of a child should have ahead of any commitments and responsibilities which a parent may acquire after the breakup of marriage or, indeed, after the birth of the child. Since I introduced my previous Bill the Full Court of the Family Court in Mee and Ferguson have tackled this question but it would be helpful if Parliament clearly laid down the rule that the needs of the child should be paramount over other commitments of the parent. Clause 4 (2) does so. This may work an injustice in the peculiar circumstances of a particular case but Clause 4 (2) gives the Court the power to have regard to such circumstances. There is also the general directive to that effect in Section 75 (2) (n). Clause 5 of the Bill deals with the problem of maintenance agreements. These are dealt with in Sections 86 and 87 of the Family Law Act. Section 86 provides that agreements may be registered with the Court but these agreements do not prevent either party seeking to modify an agreement by a subsequent claim for maintenance if circumstances have changed. To prevent parties entering into agreements under this Section which minimise child maintenance, the Government should enforce the requirement of the Social Security Act (Section 83AAD) that it is a condition of the payment of a benefit that steps are taken to enforce the right of maintenance. Agreements under Section 87 require the approval of the court because these prevent either party, except in certain extreme circumstances, from coming back to the Court to seek any variation of maintenance. These are the ones favoured by the better-off sections of the community for maintenance avoidance purposes. The Bill provides a simple amendment to exclude the maintenance of a child of the marriage from the effect of a Section 87 agreement. It is interesting to note that the Report of the Law Reform Commission on Matrimonial Property adopts the same approach to these agreements. `The paramount consideration of the welfare of the child requires that the court should never be deprived by an agreement between spouses of its powers to make orders concerning children, including child maintenance orders.' (p. 195) As I have said, the Government has been most tardy in dealing with this major social problem. Despite its flurry of activity earlier this year, it still does not seem to have grasped the urgency of providing a solution to this problem. The most disappointing aspect has been the refusal of Labor Senators to support any move in recent years to amend the Family Law Act to remove the now widely recognised flaw in the Act by which Parliament has signalled the Courts and the legal advisers of parents that the maintenance of children is more the responsibility of taxpayers than the parents themselves. The Full Court of the Family Court has eloquently repudiated that notion. The Minister for Social Security in his statement to the Parliament has done so as well. The Institute of Family Studies and the Family Law Council have identified the problem. It is incredible that Labor Senators' thinking has been so outmoded on such a major social issue. This Bill still gives such Senators an opportunity to bring themselves up to date and repair the damage they have done by their earlier opposition to similar proposals. I commend this Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Gareth Evans) adjourned. Motion (by Senator Puplick) agreed to: That the Senate congratulates Wayne Gardner of Wollongong, New South Wales, on becoming the first Australian to win the World 500cc Motorcycle Championship. Motion (by Senator Macklin) agreed to: That the Senate- (a) notes the 200th Anniversary of the United States Constitution and conveys its congratulations to the people of the United States on the 200 year existence of this dynamic document which has been the foundation of efforts to protect and maintain some of the most important fundamental rights in a democratic country; and (b) applauds the United States Constitution as a splendid example of commitment to liberty and wishes the people of the United States well for their celebrations and the continuing vitality of their Constitution. The PRESIDENT —Pursuant to standing order 28a, I lay on the table a warrant nominating Senator Peter Baume to act as Temporary Chairman of Committees when requested so to do by the Deputy President and Chairman of Committees or when the Deputy President and Chairman of Committees is absent. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications)(10.34) —I move: That this House consents to termination by the Commonwealth of the Airlines Agreement 1981. After 35 years of detailed economic regulation of interstate aviation by successive Australian governments, I today place before the Parliament a motion which will bring the two airlines policy to an end, and open Australia's interstate air services to free competition. The 1981 airlines agreement, a copy of which is set out in the schedule to the Airlines Agreement Act 1981, was put in place by the previous Government. It required three years notice of termination. The motion now before the Senate, which was foreshadowed by my predecessor, the Hon. Peter Morris, on 5 June this year, and which will subsequently be put to the House of Representatives, seeks to enable the Government to serve that notice and to bring the existing arrangements to an end in 1990. In essence, the Government's major objective in bringing the two airlines policy to a close is to create an environment which will foster increased responsiveness by airlines to consumer needs; a wider range of fares and types of services to provide enhanced travel opportunities; increased competition and pricing flexibility leading to greater economic efficiency in the industry; and a continuation of Australia's world renowned aviation safety record. To achieve this objective, the Government has decided to withdraw from aviation-specific economic regulation and to allow the market to operate within the constraints of the established competition policy controls applicable to industry generally. I emphasise that this withdrawal is from economic regulation, and not the regulation of safety. The airline industry in Australia is now well developed by world standards. The aircraft and facilities used are of the highest standard, and the expertise and safety achieved in Australian operations are of world renown. Given the size and established position of the trunk airlines, there is simply no longer a need to continue the absolute protection from domestic competition. In fact, the development of the aviation industry has now reached a stage where detailed economic regulation can no longer help, and may be hindering, the achievement of the broader economic and social objectives which have previously underlined the two-airline policy. The question of the Commonwealth's role in the economic regulation of the industry has recently been subjected to the most detailed and public scrutiny in the industry's history by the Independent Review of Economic Regulation of Domestic Aviation-the May Review. The May Review was critical of existing arrangements and drew attention to significant public dissatisfaction with the current policy, including the widespread view that it works to the disadvantage of consumers and encourages the airlines to serve the high yield business markets to the detriment of the leisure market. It found that in comparison with its overseas counterparts, Australian aviation is characterised by relatively low labour productivity and relatively high and stable profit levels. Public comment on the May Review generally favoured substantial withdrawal by the Commonwealth from economic regulation of the industry. We have decided to adopt the broad thrust of option 5 proposed by the Review. What this means is that the Government will-upon termination of the Airlines Agreement in October 1990-withdraw from the detailed economic regulation of four matters. First, controls over the importation of aircraft will be removed. These controls have provided the threshold underpinning of the legislative and contractual arrangements which currently regulate the industry. Secondly, the detailed determination of the amount of passenger capacity that may be provided by each trunk airline and each regional airline which uses jet aircraft larger than 30 seats, will cease. Thirdly, the Independent Air Fares Committee which currently sets all air fares will be abolished and the Commonwealth will withdraw from the determination of air fares. Fourthly, the existing constraints on the entry of new domestic operators to trunk routes will be removed. Let me make it clear what this deregulation decision does not mean. First, as I have already stated, economic deregulation does not mean that the Government will in any way withdraw from, or lessen the effectiveness of, safety regulation. On the contrary, a series of new initiatives are proposed that will significantly further strengthen Australia's already outstanding aviation safety record. They are spelt out in full in the detailed statement I shall be tabling, and seeking leave to incorporate in Hansard, at the conclusion of this speech. The statement has, I believe, now been distributed in the chamber. Secondly, the economic deregulation decision does not mean that there will be any abdication of the Government's responsibility for consumer protection, or any lessening in our commitment to ensuring that effective competition prevails in the Australian aviation industry. On the contrary, we have taken the view that there is a need to apply the Trade Practices Act to the new aviation industry environment, to maintain a limited degree of price surveillance of the kind that applies in many other deregulated industries, and to ensure that in the operation of the airport infrastructure under the Federal Airports Corporation new entrants will not be excluded from effective access. Thirdly, economic deregulation does not mean that an open skies policy will prevail domestically insofar as foreign airlines, and in particular those operating international services to Australia, are concerned. There is a close interrelation between the position of domestic and international carriers, with the viability of each depending to some extent on how the boundaries are drawn between them. The Government has made decisions and formulated guidelines on all these matters, and they are set out in full in the statement I will table shortly. Fourthly, it does not mean that we will abdicate our responsibility to ensure that the Government's own domestic airline, Australian, is well equipped-both managerially and in terms of its capitalisation-to succeed in the robust competitive environment that will prevail from 1990. Again, the steps we are proposing to follow in this regard are set out in full in the accompanying tabled statement. The Government has been acutely conscious of the difficulties that have occurred in the United States following deregulation there in 1978, and our policy is designed to avoid the undesirable effects of the kind of economic deregulation that occurred in that country. We have also had the benefit of the Canadian experience, where the industrial relations framework, market size and characteristics are much closer to Australia's and where economic deregulation has not, in fact, resulted in the significant problems experienced in the United States. What is involved in the Government's economic deregulation policy is not a simple, or simple-minded, lifting of existing controls, but a complex group of interacting policies involving a number of internal checks and balances. The key elements of that total policy are, in summary, as follows: first, withdrawal from detailed economic regulatory controls over aircraft imports and capacity, air fares and route entry; second, continuation and enhancement of regulatory controls over aviation safety and security; third, watchdog protection for consumers through the application of the Trade Practices Act, appropriate fare scrutiny by the Prices Surveillance Authority, and assured access to terminal facilities by new entrants to the industry; fourth, action to strengthen Australian Airlines to confront the post-1990 environment, including immediate incorporation, removal of a number of Public Service controls immediately with a review of others to follow, and a full review of options for generating necessary capitalisation and managerial effectiveness; fifth, neither Qantas Airways Ltd nor any other international airline to carry domestic passengers or freight on regular services, international operators into Australia to be confined to less than 15 per cent equity in any Australian domestic carrier and Qantas to remain Australia's sole designated international carrier; and, sixth, as interim measures to encourage competition before 1990, Qantas's interlining rights to be restored, and restrictions on large aircraft passenger charters by domestic operators to be modified and arrangements for the approval of commercial domestic charters by Qantas to be subject to review on termination of the Airlines Agreement. The Government has not taken in isolation its decision to terminate the two airlines agreement. The deregulation policy we have developed is based on a comprehensive approach encompassing sweeping changes to the Commonwealth's role in Australian aviation, including new approaches to the provision of infrastructure and services, safety regulation, and the role of government aviation business undertakings. The policy is designed to take the domestic aviation industry into the 1990s and beyond. I table, and seek leave to incorporate in Hansard, a detailed statement in support of the resolution to terminate the aviation airline agreement, and commend this motion to the Senate. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- DOMESTIC AVIATION : A NEW DIRECTION FOR THE 1990s After 35 years of detailed economic regulation of interstate aviation by successive Australian Governments, I have today placed before the Parliament a motion which will bring the two airlines policy to an end, and open Australia's interstate air services to free competition. The 1981 Airlines Agreement, a copy of which is set out in the Schedule to the Airlines Agreement Act 1981, was put in place by the previous Government. It requires three years notice of termination. The motion now before the Parliament, which was foreshadowed by my predecessor, the Hon. Peter Morris, on 5 June 1987, seeks to enable the Government to serve that notice and to bring the existing arrangements to an end in 1990. GOVERNMENT'S OBJECTIVE In bringing the two airlines policy to a close the Government's major objective is to create an environment which will foster: -increased responsiveness by airlines to consumer needs; -a wider range of fares and types of services to provide enhanced travel opportunities; -increased competition and pricing flexibility leading to greater economic efficiency in the industry; and -a continuation of Australia's world renowned aviation safety record. To achieve this objective, the Government has decided to withdraw from aviation-specific economic regulation and to allow the market to operate within the constraints of the established competition policy controls applicable to industry generally. I emphasise that this withdrawal is from economic regulation, and not the regulation of safety. I will return to the paramount question of safety at some length later. BACKGROUND: THREE DECADES OF AIRLINE INDUSTRY REGULATION The first Airlines Agreement originated in 1952, and by 1960 a package of contractual and legislative arrangements was in place which provided for government regulation of the domestic aviation industry to achieve the following objectives: -foster the development and growth of the ``infant'' aviation industry in an orderly manner; -ensure long term financial stability of the major domestic airline operators; -provide assistance to operators on unprofitable routes in rural areas; -enable airline capacity to be closely matched with market demands, thus avoiding the provision of excessive capacity and resultant higher costs which could ultimately be borne by the whole community; and -promote fair and workable competition between the airlines and discourage monopolisation or uncompetitive practices within the industry. By 1970 the domestic airline industry was considered to be a strong, financially stable industry. The 1972 Airlines Agreement was framed against a background of perceived shortcomings in the regulatory system in areas such as parallel scheduling, and lack of innovation in fares and rural services. It placed a number of obligations on the airlines as to the level of service they were to provide in return for the retention of the two airline policy. The airline industry continued to develop, and the 1981 Airlines Agreement was designed to increase the level of competition within the industry, while maintaining the established network of services on a safe and efficient basis. The airline industry in Australia is now well developed by world standards. The aircraft and facilities used are of the highest standard, and the expertise and safety achieved in Australian operations are of world renown. Given the size and established position of the trunk airlines, there is simply no longer a need to continue the absolute protection from domestic competition. In fact the development of the aviation industry has now reached a stage where detailed economic regulation can no longer help, and may be hindering, the achievement of the broader economic and social objectives which have previously underlined the two airline policy. The operation of capacity controls is perhaps the clearest example. They have not been effective in achieving their aims, insofar as, under a system which is designed to closely match capacity with market demand, at various times wasteful excess capacity has not been prevented. Capacity controls have also stifled airline incentives to develop new markets and interfere with normal business responsibility for efficient utilisation of assets. THE MAY REVIEW Against this background, and the increasingly widespread perception that the present regulatory regime has lost its rationale, the question of the Commonwealth's role in the economic regulation of the industry has recently been subjected to the most detailed and public scrutiny in the industry's history. The Independent Review of Economic Regulation of Domestic Aviation commissioned by the Government in March 1985 (the May Review) conducted its Inquiry over a period of almost two years and received more than 80 written submissions. Public comment on the May Review was sought in January 1987 and written comment was received from 30 organisations, including the airlines, State Governments and unions. The May Review was critical of existing arrangements and drew attention to significant public dissatisfaction with the current policy, including the widespread view that it works to the disadvantage of consumers and encourages the airlines to serve the high yield (business) markets to the detriment of the leisure market. It found that in comparison with its overseas counterparts, Australian aviation is characterised by relatively low labour productivity and relatively high and stable profit levels. The May Review identified five options for future Government policy on aviation. These range from maintenance of the status quo to more or less full economic deregulation. Public comment on the May Review generally favoured substantial withdrawal by the Commonwealth from economic regulation of the industry. The Government has developed its response to the May Review against the background of our general, and by now well known, policy of withdrawing from business regulation where it is not, on balance, justified as a means of promoting efficiency, improving the competitiveness of Australian industry or securing long term benefits for consumers. We have taken the view that maintenance of the current arrangements (May Option 1) would not promote, and may prevent, attainment of economic efficiency, and that other options short of total economic deregulation (May Options2-4) would involve as much regulation as atpresent, if not more, but would still fail toresolve the problems identified with thecurrent arrangements. We have accordingly decided to adopt the broad thrust of Option 5 proposed by the Review, and will withdraw from detailed economic regulation of domestic air fare setting, aircraft imports, capacity controls and route entry. A summary and assessment of the May Review's options is at Attachment A. The Government has not taken this decision in isolation. The policy we have developed is based on a comprehensive approach encompassing sweeping changes to the Commonwealth's role in Australian aviation, including new approaches to the provision of infrastructure and services, safety regulation, and the role of Government aviation business undertakings. The policy which I will outline today is designed to take the domestic aviation industry into the 1990s and beyond. The Government has been acutely conscious of the difficulties that have occurred in the United States following deregulation there in 1978, and our policy is designed to avoid the undesirable effects of the kind of economic de-regulation that occurred in that country. Wehave also had the benefit of the Canadian experience, where the industrial relations framework and market size and characteristics are closer to Australia's, and where economic deregulation has not in fact resulted in the significant problems experienced in the US. WHAT DEREGULATION MEANS-AND DOES NOT MEAN The economic deregulation of the Australian airline industry means, in essence, that Government will-upon termination of the Airlines Agreement in October 1990-withdraw from the detailed economic regulation of four matters. First, controls over the importation of aircraft will be removed. These controls have provided the threshold underpinning of the legislative and contractual arrangements which currently regulate the industry. Secondly, the detailed determination of the amount of passenger capacity that may be provided by each trunk airline, and each regional airline which uses jet aircraft larger than 30 seats, will cease. Thirdly, the Independent Air Fares Committee (IAFC) which currently sets all air fares will be abolished and the Commonwealth will withdraw from the determination of air fares. Fourthly, the existing constraints on the entry of new domestic operators to trunk routes will be removed. A paper setting out the legislative basis for the constraints that currently apply to domestic aviation operators, and enumerating the controls that will be removed following termination of the Airlines Agreement is at Attachment B. One additional aspect of economic regulation that is not addressed in this statement but will require consideration before 1990, is the application of the Government's offsets policy to the airline industry. Both Australian Airlines and Ansett are presently required to comply with that policy, and the question for decision will be whether, in a deregulated environment, it is appropriate for that situation to continue. Let me make it clear what this deregulation decision does not mean. First, economic deregulation does not mean that the Government will in any way withdraw from, or lessen the effectiveness of, safety regulation. On the contrary, a series of new initiatives are proposed that will significantly further strengthen Australia's already outstanding aviation safety record, and I will spell them out shortly. Secondly, it does not mean that there will be any abdication of the Government's responsibility for consumer protection, or any lessening in our commitment to ensuring that effective competition prevails in the Australian aviation industry. On the contrary, we have taken the view that there is a need to apply the Trade Practices Act to the new aviation industry environment, to maintain a limited degree of price surveillance of the kind that applies in many other deregulated industries, and to ensure that in the operation of the airport infrastructure under the new Federal Airports Corporation new entrants will not be excluded from effective access. Thirdly, economic deregulation does not mean that an open skies policy will prevail domestically insofar as foreign airlines, and in particular those operating international services to Australia, are concerned. There is a close interrelation between the position of domestic and international carriers, with the viability of each depending to some extent on how the boundaries are drawn between them, and the Government has made decisions and formulated guidelines, which I will spell out later, addressing this. Fourthly, it does not mean that we will abdicate our responsibility to ensure that the Government's own domestic airline, Australian, is well equipped-both managerially and in terms of its capitalisation-to succeed in the robust competitive environment that will prevail from 1990. We have addressed that question closely and I will, again, have more to say about it later in the statement. BENEFITS OF ECONOMIC DEREGULATION The Government is well aware that unlimited benefits do not always flow from the operation of market forces. However, it is clearly the case that the existing economic regulatory environment does not actively encourage industry efficiency, and is not an appropriate basis for the further development of the industry through the 1990s. Increased opportunities for competition in a deregulated environment will provide a number of benefits that I will spell out in more detail in a moment; - greater incentives for existing and new participants in the industry to become more efficient and responsive to consumer needs; - a wider range of air fares, in particular an increased availability of discount fares; - growth, particularly in the price sensitive leisure travel market; and - a greater variety in the types, standards and frequency of services provided, and use of more appropriate aircraft on some routes. No one can predict precisely what will happen when economic deregulation occurs in 1990. However, it is possible to clearly point to the areas in which the existing regulatory arrangements have failed to meet consumers' needs and enhance industry efficiency, and from this address the potential for improvement in an environment designed to foster competition. Opportunities for New Entrants. New operators will be able to compete on interstate trunk routes presently served by Ansett and Australian. The May Review found that there are a large number of routes between trunk centres (the State capitals plus 10 other key regional ports) that are not being directly served-eg Adelaide/Hobart-and that certain other routes are only infrequently served, eg Canberra/Brisbane. Such routes may well provide scope for new operators to provide services using more appropriate aircraft. Scope for increased efficiency. No one would argue that costs in the Australian aviation industry under economic deregulation should be reduced to the extent experienced in the United States, with the adverse consequences that have there been evident for that country's aviation workforce and the quality of service provided. But the May Review did, nonetheless, identify cost differentials between the two countries' airline industries which-even after taking into account all relevant differences-suggest that there is scope for significant improvement in management and work practices in the Australian aviation industry: with resultant cost savings then being passed on to customers, with the help of competitive pressures, in the form of lower fares. The study commissioned by the May Review from Travers Morgan Pty Ltd involved an assessment of comparative airline efficiency which sought to discount factors specific to particular operating environments, so that the remaining performance differences between airlines could be linked to regulatory and associated management influences. After adjusting for differences in cost environments, nature of services provided (such as relative emphasis on scheduled passenger rather than charter and/or freight services), route network structures (including stage lengths and route densities), and quality of services provided, the study found that, overall, Australian trunk airlines were some 7%-10% more costly than US airlines undertaking comparable operations. Among the elements of the cost structures of the Australian airlines found to be much higher than equivalent elements of the cost structures of the US airlines sampled were the costs of flying crew and general administration - in both cases up to 90%-100% above US levels. Airfares. Currently both Ansett and Australian are obliged to operate on identical economy fares, and because these airlines are each accorded 50% of the available aircraft capacity for trunk routes there are few incentives for competition on the basis of price. Competition has occurred mainly in the areas of standards and frequency of service. The operation of the IAFC Act has limited the types and extent of discounts and allowed overly restrictive conditions to be applied to the fares which can be offered. The complicated web of regulatory limits on discounts will be lifted after 1990 and the airlines will be free to offer a wider range of fares and place fewer conditions on them. Overseas experience suggests that with increased competition, airlines offer more and better discounts, and more consumers take advantage of them thereby reducing the average level of fares to the travelling public. For instance, latest figures from the US suggest that more than 90% of air travellers used some form of discount fare, and the average discount was over 60% off the standard fare. By comparison, less than 45% of Australian trunk route passengers utilise discount fares. Again, while the US experience is not to be uncritically embraced, it does suggest that there is room for improvement here. Growth in the market. If, as was suggested in many submissions to the May Review, there is a substantial untapped market for air travel in Australia, deregulation will encourage the airlines to compete more vigorously to attract the price-sensitive consumer. There is a body of evidence that strongly suggests that leisure travellers, particularly in the over 45 age group, provide scope for significant growth in air travel. On the basis of the experience in other countries, any effect on employment levels resulting from efficiency initiatives is likely to be balanced by increased employment opportunities flowing from the expansion of the industry. Types, standard and frequency of services and appropriate match of aircraft to markets. Not every air traveller wants a five star service with prices to match; on the other hand, there will always be people who are prepared to pay for top of the line service. In a deregulated environment there will be greater incentives for airlines to serve all segments of the market, rather than concentrating on high yield traffic, as at the moment. East-West Airlines has shown the potential for the development of low cost `no frills' services. Economic deregulation will allow these and other specialised niches to be filled. Inevitably there will be further changes in service patterns, aircraft types and operators on individual routes. However, what is often overlooked is that, under the present heavily regulated system, there has already been major rationalisation of services to the point where together Ansett, including its regional airlines, and Australian Airlines now serve only about 50 of the more than 150 ports to which they provided services in 1968. In the overwhelming majority of cases services to these centres have been taken up by East-West Airlines or commuter operators, and consumers have often benefited from the use of more appropriate equipment resulting in a higher frequency of service. There is every reason to expect that under economic deregulation there will be even greater scope for specialised carriers, using more appropriate aircraft, to occupy any further market niches where services are reduced or vacated, or appropriate discount fares are not offered, by the major airlines. SAFETY Safety regulation will continue to apply, and be of paramount importance, after the Airlines Agreement terminates. The bodies responsible for standard setting, operational control and safety investigation will have ample resources, including the necessary legislative compliance tools, to ensure that safety regulation and surveillance are in no way diminished. Civil Aviation Authority. Both safety standard-setting and day-to-day regulatory control will be the responsibility of the proposed new Civil Aviation Authority, which will also have operational responsibility for air traffic control, flight advisory services, communications, navigation and surveillance systems, and rescue and fire fighting services at airports. The Government's in-principle decision to establish such a body has already been announced by my predecessor in October last year, and its structure and functions have been the subject of extensive consultation with the industry and unions. I would hope to see the Authority operational-after appropriate further consultation on implementation details, and parliamentary approval of the enabling legislation-within 12-18 months.. The question of whether safety regulation should be subsumed within the Authority, or rather be a function continuing to be separately exercised by the Flight Standards Division of the Department of Transport and Communications, has been the subject of some debate. I believe, however, that there is strong logic in the view that the task of regulating aviation safety must be regarded as an integrated system in which all elements are coordinated to achieve maximum reliability and effectiveness. The operation of air traffic control and the flight advisory service is as much a part of safety regulation as the regulation of the aircraft and its crew. The two areas complement each other. I am certain that the Departmental officers who have made such a splendid contribution to our aviation safety in the context of integrated safety and operational functions within the Department will continue to do so in the new Authority. It is to be noted that, in the United Kingdom, that country's Civil Aviation Authority has very successfully combined safety regulation with the operation of the airways system. The UK decision was taken after a formal review (the Edwards Committee) , and on the basis that the setting of standards, regulatory control and the day-to-day operation of the system should be under single control in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness, because of the close interrelationship involved.. I want to make it clear that the Australian Civil Aviation Authority will be required to give primacy to safety considerations over commercial ones, and that the enabling legislation will make provision for the Minister to give broad directions in relation to the safety regulatory role to ensure that occurs. I should also mention that the name of the proposed Authority has been changed from the originally proposed Civil Aviation Corporation as another way of reflecting and demonstrating this safety priority. Bureau of Air Safety Investigation. By contrast, it is proposed that the Bureau of Air Safety Investigation (BASI) will remain in my Department, separate from the Civil Aviation Authority, and directly responsible to the Minister. There are several advantages in this. First, the Authority responsible for improving and enforcing safety standards, should not be allowed to be the judge of its own performance. Secondly, this separation will overcome the reluctance of some in the industry to report safety incidents to BASI when it is located, as at present, in the same agency as those responsible for enforcing regulations. The audit function that BASI currently performs may require some expansion under the changed arrangements and consideration will be given to the resources required for this. Aviation Security. Another function that will be retained under direct government control in the Department is aviation security. The Government will shortly be considering the report of a task force that has been examining our current oversight of airport security. If any upgrading is required, we will ensure it is initiated quickly. Review of Legislative Framework. My colleague the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support, the Hon. Peter Duncan, will shortly be announcing details of a review of the legislative framework for safety regulation, which he will be personally overseeing. The review will seek to simplify the aviation safety regulations and place them on a more rational basis. We will ensure that aspects of the review dealing with the need for effective action to ensure compliance with safety regulations are in place before 1990. We will also review the licensing system to ensure that new and existing airlines have and maintain appropriate safety standards. In addition, we will consult with the industry with a view to ensuring the availability of skilled personnel to meet the requirements of both the safety regulatory authority and the industry. Regulatory Review Panel. The Government is also conscious of the need for the regulatory system to remain responsive to the needs of the industry while continuing to serve the public interest in maintaining aviation safety. Accordingly, the Government is discussing with industry the establishment of a Regulatory Review Panel with industry representation to examine and advise on new or changed safety regulatory provisions. In the case of both the review of the legislative framework and the establishment of the Regulatory Review Panel, it is the Government's intention to take advantage of the three year period before termination of the Agreement to implement these measures well in advance of deregulation. COMPETITION AND CONSUMER PROTECTION After safety, the next area of vital concern to the Government is to ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to protect consumer interests. Trade Practices Controls. The most immediate concern in this respect in a deregulated environment is to prevent the emergence of a monopoly on the network of interstate routes and to prevent the abuse of market power through anti-competitive practices such as predatory pricing. With the demise of the current economic regulatory arrangements in 1990, the aviation industry will be fully exposed to the Trade Practices Act. Any move towards monopoly on the network of interstate services would be dealt with by Section 50 of the Act, which covers market dominance. Other provisions of the Trade Practices Act, in particular sections 45-48, will ensure that other anti-competitive practices would be examinable by the Trade Practices Commission. We have looked at whether there is any need for special aviation competition controls, either through amendments to the Trade Practices Act or industry specific legislation. However it is the Government's belief that the aviation industry does not display characteristics which significantly distinguish it from other industries to warrant special consideration in a deregulated environment. Intrastate services, of course, will continue to be the responsibility of State Governments. The policy of the States currently ranges from complete deregulation in South Australia, to the allocation of route licences to individual operators in NSW. Air Fares. Following the abolition of the Independent Air Fares Committee, interstate air fares will be made subject to surveillance by the Prices Surveillance Authority (PSA). As is the case with some other industries operating in a competitive market, the fares charged by domestic operators will become subject to public scrutiny. However, the discipline that competition will apply to the industry should ensure that the PSA's influence will, in practice, be limited to cases-likely to be isolated-involving abuse of market power. Any concern that PSA scrutiny will become a disincentive to investment in the airline industry is answered by the statutory obligation of the PSA to take into account the influence of profitability on investment and the need for business enterprises to make reasonable returns. The need for continuing involvement of the PSA will be reviewed after an interim period of three years. It will be up to State Governments whether air fare controls are imposed on intrastate services. Access to Airport Facilities. One of the key aspects of the debate on deregulation, especially in the US and Canada, has been the issue of access to airport facilities. Australia's major civil airports will, from 1 January 1988, be under the control of the Federal Airports Corporation (FAC), a new statutory body designed to place the airports-with their terminals, runways and associated facilities-on a proper commercial basis. While proposing to vest all airport assets in the FAC, the Government has nonetheless recognised the need for existing airline operators to have security of tenure and to be able to project their own corporate identities throughout their terminal facilities. We are, as a result, engaged in negotiating with the airlines-prior to the FAC start up date-a series of longer term leases (of up to approximately 20 years duration) designed to give security of tenure over existing dedicated spaces and to secure dedicated spaces in other terminals where the physical arrangements are such as to make this reasonable and practicable. On the other hand, it is essential to provide new entrants with the opportunity to gain access to terminal facilities if there is to be real competition. To this end the Government intends that, in the absence of other available access facilities, any leases negotiated or re-negotiated with the existing airlines make reasonable and adequate provision for the access of other operators to those parts of the terminal which are subject to such leases. In addition, it will be open to the FAC to make provision at its airports for the construction of alternative facilities-which could range from low cost no frills facilities to high standard facilities-as a means of providing further scope for competition from new entrants; what provision is eventually made in this respect will depend very much on the circumstances prevailing at the particular locations. I put the industry on notice that while the Government clearly recognises the commercial needs of the existing airlines, we are determined to ensure that nothing is done that will in any way stifle competition in the domestic aviation industry in a deregulated environment. ROLE OF QANTAS, OTHER INTERNATIONAL CARRIERS, AND FOREIGN INVESTMENT Earlier I referred to the close interrelationship between the roles of international and domestic carriers and the bearing that this has on their viability in the market place. The central question confronting us in the context of the economic deregulation decision is the extent to which international airlines will be permitted to compete in the domestic market and, conversely, what are the implications of such competition for the domestic airlines. Role of Qantas. In considering the issue of access to scheduled domestic passengers by Qantas, the Government agrees with the May Review's assessment that to allow Qantas to perform such a role, which incidentally it does not seek, would undoubtedly lead to pressure for other domestic operators to be allowed to operate as designated international Australian carriers, which pressure would be difficult for the Government, on grounds of fair and equitable commercial opportunity, to resist. However, it has been the policy of successive Governments to designate only one Australian airline to take up Australia's rights to operate scheduled international services as provided for in the air service agreements that we have negotiated with foreign Governments. The basis for this approach has included the desire to develop and retain a strong, competitive Australian `flag carrier' presence in international aviation, the fact that competition is already provided by a large number of foreign international carriers, and recognition of the relatively small traffic base in Australia. Certain other countries, such as the US, UK, France and Japan, which designate more than one carrier to exercise their international air service rights, do so to serve vastly greater markets than Australia's, and the individual carriers concerned are many times larger than Qantas. For instance United Airlines and American Airlines carry 50 million and 46 million passengers per year respectively, with 373 and 330 aircraft respectively. Qantas, on the other hand, carries less than 3 million passengers per year with a fleet of 32 aircraft. The emerging international trend is towards the amalgamation and the further development of mega carriers-witness the proposed mergers between British Airways (17 million passengers) and British Caledonian (2.4 million passengers), and between UTA (1 million passengers) and Air France (12 million passengers). Arguments have been put that there should at least be an open skies policy between Australia and New Zealand as an extension of the Closer Economic Relations Agreement (CER) between the two countries. This would place the international airlines of both countries in direct competition with the domestic carriers of both countries, thereby leading to pressures from the domestic carriers to be granted full international rights. However, as I have already outlined, the Australian international market is not large enough, and already has competitive pressures such that multiple designation of Australian international carriers is not warranted. The New Zealand international market is even smaller than Australia's and is similarly served by a number of international carriers. It is difficult to see any rational solution short of the possible designation of a single international carrier to service both Australia's and New Zealand's international markets-possibly involving the ultimate amalgamation of all the major carriers of both countries along the lines of SAS in Scandinavia, which exercises domestic and international rights on behalf of Sweden, Denmark and Norway. This could possibly be envisaged as one scenario which could evolve under the CER. It would obviously involve extremely complex and difficult political, legal, industrial relations, and other practical issues. The point I would particularly emphasise in this respect is that any intermediate solution would also involve many of these difficulties, without the corresponding benefits. In these circumstances therefore, it is in Australia's best interests to retain the single designation policy, at least for the foreseeable future, and for Qantas to remain Australia's sole designated international airline. If Qantas is to remain Australia's sole international airline with domestic Australian carriers denied the right to operate internationally, then the commercially fair and equitable converse of that limitation is that Qantas should be restricted in its ability to operate in the domestic market. The Government will not, accordingly, permit Qantas to operate domestic scheduled air services, nor to carry domestic passengers or freight on domestic sectors of its international services. Interlining. The Government will, however, with effect from 1 July 1988, restore Qantas's rights, removed by the Fraser Government in 1979, to carry passengers of other international airlines on domestic sectors of Qantas's international services. This practice, which is called interlining, is expected to increase the number of tourists who travel by air while visiting Australia and is one of the few initiatives which can be taken to increase competition on interstate air routes prior to 1990. In addition to the benefits from increased air travel by international tourists within Australia, interlining will reduce the waste of economic resources represented by empty seats on Qantas flights within Australia. As this decision will not take effect until 1 July 1988, the domestic airlines will have an adequate period of notice to develop their competitive responses. In this regard, the domestic airlines enjoy a significant frequency advantage over Qantas on all routes and will be well placed to compete for what is expected to be a growth market for international tourists travelling within Australia. Concerns have been expressed in the past, when interlining previously applied, about the possible misuse of interlining-involving carriage of domestic passengers on international services-by travel agents and some international airlines. Before the new interlining arrangements come into effect, the Government will have discussions with Qantas, the domestic airlines, and representatives of the travel industry with a view to implementing, if necessary, arrangements to avoid the potential for such misuse. Other international airlines will not be permitted to interline or exercise cabotage rights in Australia. Cabotage is the term given to the right of the airline of one country to carry domestic passengers or freight between points in another country. It would not be appropriate for Australia to give cabotage rights to foreign international airlines while Qantas does not enjoy similar rights in other countries and in circumstances where our international airline is excluded from operating domestic scheduled air services in Australia. Domestic Charters. As a further small contribution to stimulating competition in the interim period before 1990 the Government proposes to lift existing policy restrictions which have prevented domestic operators other than Ansett and Australian Airlines from operating commercial domestic passenger charter flights with large jet aircraft. In this interim period we will give sympathetic consideration to proposals by domestic operators other than Ansett and Australian Airlines, to import large jet aircraft for this purpose. The Government will ensure that any initiatives taken would not be allowed to undermine the scheduled passenger services provided by Ansett and Australian Airlines under the terms of the Airlines Agreement. Domestic charters by Qantas are not presently subject to prohibition under the current Airlines Agreement but are required to be approved on a case-by-case basis. It is intended that this situation will continue but be subject to review on termination of the Agreement. International Charters by Domestic Airlines. The domestic airlines will not be without new commercial opportunities themselves in the period immediately ahead. They will be able to expand their international freight charter operations if they wish as a result of changes to Australia's international freight charter policy. These changes, while recognising the primary role played by scheduled carriers, lift restrictions on genuine freight charter operations to permit carriage of consolidated cargo inbound and outbound from any gateway or combination of gateways. This gives the domestic carriers an opportunity to play an important supplementary role in the promotion and development of Australian exports. There are similarly new avenues being opened up for the domestic carriers in new guidelines agreed for passenger charter operations. The Government believes that inbound tourism, especially, will be fostered by enabling passenger charter operators to play a real and complementary role to that already being undertaken by the scheduled carriers. New guidelines for international freight and passenger charter operations are at Attachments C and D respectively. Foreign Investment. The objective of the Government's decision to deregulate domestic aviation is to open up the industry to competition. Access to foreign capital could make an important contribution to this aim. Continuation of the special category status for aviation under the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) Guidelines would not be appropriate in a deregulated environment. However, as I said earlier, this does not mean that an open skies policy will prevail domestically insofar as the capacity of foreign airlines, and in particular those operating international services to Australia, are concerned. Allowing foreign international airlines unlimited investment in domestic aviation or the right to operate such services, would not be appropriate while Qantas is so excluded. However, the Government would not wish to totally exclude the contribution of equity capital by foreign international airlines. Accordingly, foreign investment in established Australian domestic airlines or new domestic airline businesses will generally be permitted, subject to the normal FIRB Guidelines, except where the applicant is a foreign international airline operating services to Australia, in which case the level of investment will be limited to less than 15% in any one domestic operator; this level having been accepted elsewhere in Commonwealth legislation as signifying the extent beyond which the interest would involve actual or potential control of the business in question. ``Foreign international airline operators'' will be sufficiently broadly defined to ensure that associated companies and substantial shareholders will be excluded. The proposed prohibition on the operation of domestic services in Australia by foreign international airlines and the restriction on foreign investment in Australian airlines will obviously extend to proposals that have been floated for Air New Zealand to operate domestic services in Australia. ROLE OF AUSTRALIAN AIRLINES An essential element of the deregulated environment after 1990 will be a strong, viable, efficient Australian Airlines, able to provide effective competition across the trunk route network. This means it is essential that the constraints on the airline's management flexibility and effectiveness are minimised and that it has an adequate capital base.. In its public comment on the May Review, the Australian National Airlines Commission stated that the airline would have to undergo major changes to enable it to compete effective in future, and called for: * establishment of the airline as a company; * provision of an adequate capital base; * exemption from Loan Council restrictions on commercial borrowings; and * independence from controls in respect of its commercial activities, labour relations and staff remuneration. Some progress has already been made, in recent times, in strengthening Australian's position. We provided a major capital injection in 1983, strengthened the airline's charter in 1984, and the Commission and staff have responded with improved results in recent years. I have also recently announced a number of new appointments to the Commission which will enhance its commercial orientation. I want now to outline three further steps we propose to take to put Australian Airlines in the best possible shape to compete in the post 1990 environment, and in particular to address the concerns raised by the Commission in its response to the May Review. Incorporation and removal of day-to-day controls. The first step we propose to take is to establish, as soon as possible, Australian Airlines as a public company, giving it exactly the same corporate structure and status as Qantas. In association with that step, we will take action to remove day-to-day controls over: - all but exceptionally significant expenditure decisions (eg those requiring additional equity capital); - detailed terms and conditions of borrowing and leasing arrangements (but not so as to involve removal from the requirement for Loan Council consideration); - investment of surplus money; - choice of auditor; - dividend recommendations; - provision for insurance against risk. A number of advantages will flow from this initiative. As a public company established under companies legislation, the airline will be subject to the normal provisions relating to control, performance, accountability and reporting of company activities. The directors will become fully responsible for the activities of the company, in particular the airline's financial performance, in line with their statutory obligations under the companies legislation. Incorporation will in itself operate to distance the airline from the public service environment and will help management and staff focus more closely on the airline's commercial objectives. Removal of the day-to-day controls over the airline will help streamline management decision making and place increased responsibility with the airline's board, where it properly belongs. Removal of Broader Controls. The second step the Government proposes to take, consistent with the approach set out in the Policy Discussion Paper on Statutory Authorities and Government Business Enterprises, is to examine the scope for removing other broader controls from Government business enterprises generally, and specifically, from Australian Airlines. These controls involve borrowings by enterprises being subject to Loan Council consideration; remuneration of board members and senior executives being determined by the Remuneration Tribunal; industrial relations arrangements being subject to Government oversight and coordination; and certain restrictions being placed on the ability of business enterprises to adopt commercial superannuation arrangements. Given the broad application of these controls, and the wide-ranging implications of their removal in any one Government enterprise, the scope for change in this area will be considered over the next few months by the Cabinet's Structural Adjustment Committee in the context of the further development of our policy on statutory authorities and government business enterprises generally. Establishment of Advisory Group-Even if we take all the steps I have just foreshadowed-incorporation, removal of day-to-day controls, and consideration of the removal of more broad ranging controls-questions still remain as to how Australian Airlines will be able to optimise its managerial effectiveness in the post deregulation environment, and in particular how it will be able to meet its future recapital requirements. The Government has decided, accordingly, to establish a high level Advisory Group to examine and report back to us within six months on any further measures that should be adopted to enable Australian Airlines to compete with maximum flexibility and efficiency in the context of imminent and actual economic deregulation. The Advisory Group will comprise: Mr Ted Harris-AO (Chairman)-Chairman (from 1 November 1987) of Australian National Airlines Commission (Australian Airlines); Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Ampol Ltd and Ampol Exploration Ltd. Mr Colin Carter-Commissioner (from 1 November 1987) of Australian National Airlines Commission (Australian Airlines); partner with the consulting firm Pappas, Carter, Evans and Koop; former consultant with McKinsey and Co. Inc. and visiting lecturer at Yale University School of Public and Private Management. Mr Bill Kelty-Secretary of the ACTU; Member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia; and Member of the Economic Planning Advisory Council. Mr Peter Redlich-Senior Partner of Holding Redlich & Co. Solicitors; Director AIDC (Australian Industrial Development Corporation) 1973-76; and Board Member AIRDIB (Australian Industrial Research and Development Incentives Board) 1983-86. Dr Peter Wilenski-Secretary to the Department of Transport and Communications; former Chairman of the Public Service Board, and Secretary to the Departments of Education and Youth Affairs, and Labour and Immigration; and foundation Professor of the Australian Graduate School of Management from 1977-81. The Group's terms of reference will be to advise the Government, against the possibility of either the removal or retention of the broad-ranging controls I have already referred to, on: (a) the extent of Australian Airlines's capital requirements, and options for meeting these requirements; and (b) means of enhancing the airline's management flexibility and effectiveness, and the efficiency of its operating structures. Scope for Amalgamation with Qantas. The Government has considered suggestions that Australian Airlines and Qantas should be amalgamated, but has rejected this course of action. The Government has taken this decision, in part, on similar grounds to those I outlined earlier in support of the Government's decision that Qantas will, for the foreseeable future, remain Australia's sole international airline and will not be permitted to operate domestic scheduled air services. If such a proposed merger were to take place, it would be difficult for the Government to resist pressures from other domestic operators to be allowed to operate as designated international carriers, thereby placing the Government's single designation policy in jeopardy. In any case, Qantas and Australian, neither of whom have sought amalgamation, undertake significantly different operations and require different aircraft fleets and business structures. Their route characteristics are such that only very limited opportunity exists for the exchange or substitution of aircraft between the two airlines, and there would be few substantial economies resulting from a merger in the short term. If a merger were to occur there would, moreover, be a number of extremely complex, difficult and potentially volatile industrial relations issues demanding resolution, associated with the simultaneous employment of international and domestic flight crews who presently work under quite separate industrial awards. It is, of course, open to both Qantas and Australian to enter into appropriate commercial arrangements-such as leasing of equipment and facilities or the operation of routes on behalf of the other-should this be to their mutual advantage, just as such arrangements are open to any other carriers. CONCLUDING SUMMARY Let me say, in conclusion, that what is involved in the Government's economic deregulation policy is not a simple, or simple-minded, lifting of existing controls, but a complex group of interacting policies involving a number of internal checks and balances. The key elements of that total policy are, in summary, as follows: (1) withdrawal from detailed economic regulatory controls over aircraft imports and capacity, air fares and route entry; (2) continuation and enhancement of regulatory controls over aviation safety and security; (3) watchdog protection for consumers through the application of the Trade Practices Act, appropriate fare scrutiny by the Prices Surveillance Authority (PSA), and assured access to terminal facilities by new entrants to the industry; (4) action to strengthen Australian Airlines to confront the post 1990 environment, including immediate incorporation, removal of a number of public service controls immediately with a review of others to follow, and a full review of options available for generating necessary capitalisation and enhancing managerial effectiveness; (5) neither Qantas nor any other international airline to carry domestic passengers or freight on regular services; international operators into Australia to be confined to less than 15% equity in any Australian domestic carrier; and Qantas to remain Australia's sole designated international carrier; and (6) as interim measures to encourage competition before 1990, Qantas's interlining rights to be restored, and restrictions on large aircraft passenger charters by domestic operators to be modified; and arrangements for the approval of commercial domestic charters by Qantas to be subject to review on termination of the Airlines Agreement. ATTACHMENT A DEPENDENT REVIEW OF ECONOMIC REGULATION OF DOMESTIC AVIATION SUMMARY OF OPTIONS AND ASSESSMENT MAY REVIEW OPTION 1: STATUS QUO SUMMARY (a) Import Control (b) capacity determinations for operators of large jet aircraft (c) Controls on route entry (trunk routes) (d) Price setting by IAFC ELEMENTS (a) Import. Control of all aircraft imports into the country. [General consent applies to aircraft below specified capacity] (b) Capacity. Operator's fleet subject to detailed determinations, setting maximum capacity (in seat kilometres) which airline can provide in determination period. Capacity determination designed to avoid excess capacity. For trunk airlines, also ensures no major imbalance in market share. Capacity determinations also apply to regional operators (eg East-West) as a means of matching capacity to compete on trunk routes with the role of a regional airline as expressed in legislation. (c) Route entry. Designation of trunk centres, with trunk route operations between centres generally reserved for Ansett and Australian Airlines. Provision for limited Regular Public Transport (RPT) operations over trunk routes by operators other than Ansett and Australian Airlines including specialised services and prescribed routes linking trunk centres. (d) Pricing. Commonwealth, through IAFC determines and approves all fares for interstate operators and most intrastate RPT operators. The underlying purpose is to set fares in a way which avoids cross subsidisation between fare types. IAFC required to ensure fares are cost related and consistent for similar routes with similar characteristics. Economy fare determinations are same for Ansett and Australian Airlines. Discount fares proposed by individual airlines are subject to IAFC approval and once approved, discount fares can be matched by other operators. MAY REVIEW ASSESSMENT Review's assessment of existing arrangements in terms of their evaluation criteria. Economic efficiency Hinder efficient use of resources Concentration on high yield business travellers. Unsatisfied consumer demand. Relatively high and stable trunk airline profitability Acceptability to consumers and general public High degree of public dissatisfaction with restricted competition, parallel scheduling and high fare levels National interest Rural areas and defence well served Effectiveness Legislation is complex Industry conditions Has achieved stability/profitability Safety High safety levels PUBLIC COMMENT Option 1 is supported only by the ACTU and Ansett the ACTU considers that there has not been sufficient argument or material developed to support any change in the current system and therefore opposes options 2 to 5 Ansett considers that the status quo should be maintained as it offers more real benefits (aircraft utilisation, fare economy, and service and safety standards) than deregulation ``which is the only viable alternative.'' Otherwise Ansett considers that there should be complete deregulation (on the proviso that Australian Airlines be sold beforehand to an Australian controlled entity and that international airlines not be allowed to expand their operations on Australian domestic routes). The majority of submissions opposed Option 1 on the basis that while in the past it has served many useful community objectives, it does not meet Australia's current requirements, has led to inefficiencies, and does not provide the full range of services needed by the public. OVERALL ASSESSMENT The existing arrangements have not achieved economic efficiency in the provision of air services. Consumer demands are not fully satisfied, and the arrangements are widely regarded as putting the interests of the industry before the interests of consumers. The 1981 Agreement was intended to provide greater flexibility in trunk route operations but this has not eventuated. MAY REVIEW OPTION 2: REVISED REGULATION SUMMARY (a) Import Control (b) Capacity determinations (c) Restrictions on route entry (to trunk routes) with a minor increase in opportunities for new entrants (d) Precise regulation of air fares (e) Independent aviation-specific economic regulatory body ELEMENTS (a) Import. Import permits would not be issued unless both economic and safety regulatory agencies agreed to importation. Aggregate seat capacity is not to exceed amount specified by regulator for each airline. Import will be conditional on undertakings from the airlines that total assessed seats are not exceeded and that aircraft are used as per route entry policy. (b) Capacity. Once aircraft imported, the airline could use it as it wished, subject only to the route entry regulation applying to this option. Regulator would make capacity determinations based on seats (using eg standard seating) and airlines would be free to choose actual seating. Economic regulatory agency endorsement required for designated aircraft types having more than 30 seats (jet) and 38 seats (turbo prop). For non designated aircraft, no endorsement would be required. [This mechanism could allow two major airlines different aggregate capacity on trunk routes.] Capacity control would apply to all airlines operating over trunk and regional routes. (c) Route entry. Retains concept of trunk route network, but excludes intrastate routes. Most trunk routes reserved for Ansett or Australian or both (excepting where grandfather rights apply). Continuation of existing opportunities for third operators to begin specialised services, provide services over prescribed routes and non-stop services between city pairs, for which neither Ansett nor Australian provides, or wishes to provide non-stop service. On some low density routes in trunk network the regulator could decide to allow only one airline (which need not be Ansett or Australian) to offer services. On some dense routes, a third operator could be allowed to operate jet or turbo prop aircraft to provide specialised services. Regulator would monitor scheduling and could request airlines to adjust their schedules. Regulator could adjust scope of trunk network in the interests of industry and the public. (d) Pricing. Economy fares would be predominantly cost based and include other cost factors such as route density, and aircraft type. Discount fares and conditions would be determined by the individual airline and approval arrangements retained; however the regulator could ensure that discount fares are not predatory. Off peak fares would be mandated by regulators for some routes at least. (e) Independent Regulator. See comment under Option 5. MAY REVIEW ASSESSMENT Review's assessment of `revised regulation' in terms of their evaluation criteria. Economic Efficiency Should lead to significant improvements including, better aircraft utilisation, traffic generation, may help contain costs/fares on low density trunk routes. Only as good as the ability of the regulator Acceptability to consumers and general public Public may resent continued heavy regulation, although may accept moves to prevent unreasonable parallel scheduling National Interest Industry stability Significant gains for tourism Effectiveness Would require form of contract or agreement Industry conditions Could involve challenges to regulatory decisions Safety Safety not compromised PUBLIC COMMENT There was little support for Option 2. Most opposition was on the basis that this option would retain the existing problems of a regulated industry including lack of competitiveness and inefficiencies Ansett argues that Option 2 (together with Options 3 and 4) exposes operators to greater discretionary regulation and increases exposure to possible uncommercial conduct by Australian Airlines Australian Airlines notes that whilst Option 2 addresses a number of shortcomings evident in the current system, the powers proposed for the regulator are too extensive with respect to pricing of air fares. OVERALL ASSESSMENT This option seeks to achieve increased competition by increased regulation. As proposed, the option would not overcome the serious shortcomings in the existing arrangements and would involve more regulation and continuation of legal challenges to decisions taken. There is also doubt as to the Commonwealth's constitutional ability to control route entry. MAY REVIEW OPTION 3: MODIFIED REGULATION SUMMARY (a) Import control (b) Capacity determination (c) Limited opportunity for new entrants on trunk routes (d) Fare setting procedures for trunk route operators only (e) Independent aviation-specific economic regulatory body ELEMENTS (a) Import. Import approval subject to capacity (b) Capacity. Retain existing capacity determination procedures however no requirement for airlines to consult each other and capacity determined by independent regulatory authority. (c) Route Entry. Size of trunk route network reduced, removing all wholly intrastate routes and routes not served ``on a regular basis'' by Ansett and Australian. No restrictions on through carriage of passengers between trunk ports by airlines operating services linking trunk centres by intermediate ports.New entrants would be allowed on trunk routes, provided they can demonstrate (to regulator) the merit of the proposal. Potential entrants must prove that proposal will not lead to excess capacity, will generate new traffic, and will benefit consumer or tourism or both, and not result in fare increases by other operators on trunk routes. The regulatory body could add and remove routes to trunk network and would be responsible for developing revised route entry criteria if in industry and public's interest. (d) Pricing. Present cost-related fare setting procedures would continue, but would apply only to carriers on trunk routes. [Not clear which pricing controls (if any) intended by Review to apply to airlines operating services between trunk ports via intermediate centres.] (e) Independent Regulator. See comment on Option 5. MAY REVIEW ASSESSMENT Review's assessment of `modified regulation' in terms of their evaluation criteria. Economic efficiency Greater competition between trunk operators, from Qantas as a result of granting interlining rights, and from relaxations to route entry however new entrants may have difficulty competing. Acceptability to consumers and general public Some degree of public acceptance, but many people may -consider fares should be deregulated -criticise continuing preference for Ansett/Australian National interest May effect services to some smaller centres. Possible that tourism enhanced Effectiveness More flexible, simpler administration Industry conditions Obviate predatory competition, excess capacity and monopoly Safety Unlikely to affect safety levels. PUBLIC COMMENT Option 3 is supported only by the Regional Airlines Association of Australia on the basis that the status quo could largely be maintained, whilst still allowing new entrants access to the trunk networks. Option 3 is generally opposed on the grounds that rigid regulatory controls will prevent significant increases in competition, discourage new entrants and ensure the continued dominance of Ansett and Australian. It was generally felt that this option will achieve only limited improvement and will slow progress towards substantial deregulation -Australian Airlines argues that changes to the trunk entry rules are not in themselves sufficient to overcome the inefficiencies in the present system. -Western Australian Government believes that under this option the dominance of Ansett and Australian could be assured. The Government further argues that the setting up of this complex new regulatory framework would achieve only cosmetic changes in the domestic airline system it maintains. OVERALL ASSESSMENT Offers improvement over existing arrangements by providing regional airlines with controlled opportunities for entry onto trunk routes. However arrangements would limit scope for economic efficiency gains. Continuation of IAFC type fare setting for services over heavily trafficked interstate trunk routes would limit the diversity of fare types and services available. As well the existing operators would be protected from full competition on trunk routes. There would be substantial regulatory involvement in assessing the merits of particular service proposals and decisions would be reviewable. This together with retention of the capacity determination procedures would lead to the likelihood of increase litigation by the airlines. MAY REVIEW OPTION 4: PARTIAL DEREGULATION SUMMARY (a) Import control. (b) Aggregate capacity control. (c) No control over route entry. (d) No fare setting mechanism. (e) Independent aviation-specific economic regulatory body ELEMENTS (a) Import. Import control [eg number of seats and type of jet aircraft with applications heard at annual public hearings] (b) Capacity. The central issue is the basis on which the regulatory body would allocate capacity between airlines. Examples of approaches are: (i) ``Nominated airline'' approach would allocate predetermined proportions of capacity to particular number of carriers (ii) ``Nominated airline plus specialised carrier'' approach where additional carriers would be allocated capacity on particular occasions to be able to provide a new service (iii) ``Commercial performance only'' approach (no favoured treatment for particular airlines) where incumbent carriers would be granted additional capacity in strict proportion to commercial success or extent of likely additional capacity required by initiatives (iv) ``Commercial performance plus public interest'' approach where regulatory body could allocate capacity on ``merit'' to prevent a monopoly or preserve the viability of a carrier. (c) Route Entry. No control over route entry however Qantas and foreign carriers would not be permitted domestic passenger carriage. Qantas would be allowed to carry international interlining passengers over its domestic sectors [i.e. Review sees interlining as part of this option]. (d) Pricing. No fare setting mechanism, but fares would be monitored and controls established to prevent predatory pricing. (e) Independent Regulator. See comment under Option 5. MAY REVIEW ASSESSMENT Review's assessment of `partial deregulation' in terms of their evaluation criteria. Economic efficiency Potential to provide strong impetus to efficiency gains through airlines seeking to expand and meet market demands. Risk of predatory behaviour in use of capacity. Acceptability to consumer and general public Very acceptable to the general public although may see as giving undue preference to incumbent airlines. National interest Consistent with trade practices policies. Would probably cause industrial relations tensions. May lead to downgrading of service quality to country centres. Effectiveness Should allow flexible legislation. Industry conditions Doubts about feasibility of this option while Australian Airlines remains Government owned. Safety Extra safety regulatory resources may be necessary. PUBLIC COMMENT Option 4 received wider support than Options 1 to 3, and was preferred by Australian Airlines and the Northern Territory Government. It attracted support from organisations in favour of the introduction of a substantially deregulated market, but which saw a need to retain some checks on overall capacity and market shares in the industry through active control of aircraft imports. Partial deregulation was often viewed as an effective means of moving towards a more competitive, and eventually fully deregulated system -Australian Airlines supports Option 4, on the proviso that route entry controls are also retained -there was some opposition to Option 4. It was maintained that managed deregulation was not workable and that the existing problems including excessive powers of the regulators, dominance by the existing major airlines and high costs would be retained under this proposal -the Western Australian Government doubted that newcomers would be better able to compete under partial deregulation, and considered that the incumbent airlines would retain a strong position in the industry and the fate of new entrants would be determined by the regulator. OVERALL ASSESSMENT This option removes a number of the existing regulatory arrangements. It has a number of attractions over existing arrangements. It would be likely to improve economic efficiency of airline operations through the effects of abolishing price controls and existing barriers to entry on trunk routes. Air fare competition and new entry should help promote airline operating efficiency, and satisfy a wider range of consumer demands. Control of aggregate capacity would allow wasteful capacity competition to be avoided, while ensuring there is scope for increasing competition. The industry would become subject to trade practices legislation and prices surveillance monitoring. The problem with this option is that a workable method has not been identified for controlling aggregate aircraft capacity and for allocating capacity between operators. It is not clear that any capacity allocation by regulation will achieve optimum results. As well, decisions on capacity allocation would be reviewable and airlines adversely affected would be expected to litigate. MAY REVIEW OPTION 5 DEREGULATION SUMMARY (a) No import control. (b) No capacity control. (c) No route entry control. (d) No fare setting mechanism. (e) Role of independent regulatory body not clear; industry subject to broad industry controls such as Trade Practices Legislation. ELEMENTS (a) Import Control. No controls over number or type of aircraft to be imported (b) Capacity. All carriers would be free to operate their aircraft as frequently as they wished, subject only to State Government licensing and Commonwealth operational and safety requirements. (c) Route Entry. No control over route entry, with the exception that, at least initially, Qantas and foreign airlines would be excluded from domestic passenger carriage. Incremental steps are available should there be insufficient carriers entering or there is dissatisfaction with extent of competition between ``domestically owned participants.'' These include, minority foreign investment (subject to FIRB), carriage of domestic passengers by Qantas on international flights, provision of domestic services by Qantas, and provision of domestic services by foreign carriers. (d) Pricing. No fare-setting mechanism; however fares would be monitored and controls established to prevent predatory pricing. (e) Independent Regulator. The Review recommended that ``no matter what the extent and nature of the economic regulation ultimately adopted by the Government, that regulation should be the responsibility of a single regulatory body that is specific to the industry''. Elsewhere the Report comments that ``any regulatory regime relying solely on TPC and PSA oversight of the airline industry would entail a substantially different (and less regulatory) approach to the industry than currently applies''. It suggests that the case for a separate body ``is particularly strong if a phased deregulation approach were to be adopted''. Even under Option 5 the Review saw a role for a separate body to collect and make accessible data on the functioning of the industry, monitor consumer views, monitor and control predatory practices, and liaise with the safety regulation and airport authorities. Given the extent of deregulation proposed by the Government, and the adequacy of safeguards provided by other bodies such as the TPC and PSA which could perform the consumer watchdog role, creation of a separate aviation-specific would appear to be an unnecessary duplication of functions. MAY REVIEW ASSESSMENT Review's assessment of `deregulation' in terms of their evaluation criteria. Economic efficiency Dominance of incumbent carriers may discourage new entrants -Ansett through network of direct and associated operations -Australian through Government ownership. Could assume that only a government-owned competitor could be assured of survival against Ansett. Acceptability to consumers and general public Initial reaction probably overwhelmingly favourable. Longer term reaction would depend on fares and schedules results. National interest Unlikely any services lost but may be provided with smaller aircraft. Tourism should be assisted to the extent that lower fares are available. Effectiveness Simpler administration, but little flexibility to reinstitute controls. Industry conditions Probable industrial relations difficulties. Safety Prudent safety approach to increase enforcement effort as warranted by caution. PUBLIC COMMENT There was substantial and broadly based support for Option 5 including from most State Governments. A number of submissions favour total deregulation on grounds of expected increases in competitiveness and associated efficiency gains, including better services and lower prices. However access to terminal space and some mechanism to prevent monopoly control and anti-competitive practices are generally seen as essential prerequisites for deregulation -Ansett Airlines views Option 5 as the only viable alternative to the existing system, subject to Australian Airlines being sold and international operators being prevented from extending their operations on Australian domestic routes. -East-West Airlines supports total deregulation, provided the industry is subject to Trade Practices Legislation, the existing monopoly on airport facilities is eliminated and import controls are removed. -Deregulation is opposed by the unions and by those favouring options 1-4. OVERALL ASSESSMENT This option involves Commonwealth withdrawing from pricing and route entry controls, capacity determinations and control of import of aircraft on economic grounds. Safety regulatory controls remain. The expected advantages of this option are improvements in economic efficiency; increased satisfaction of consumer demand through the availability of a wider range of fares and a greater variety in the types, standards and frequency of services; reduced regulatory costs; and even-handed treatment of all airline operators by the Government. The airline industry would become subject to normal industry controls such as Trade Practices and Prices Surveillance. Implementation of this option could be expected to lead to the most favourable outcome for consumers, and the Australian economy as a whole, and allow for a far greater degree of competition in the aviation industry than the status quo or options 2 to 4. It would be necessary to ensure that safety standards were maintained following economic deregulation. Overseas experience suggests that if this option were to be adopted then enhancement of the safety regulatory function would be desirable. ATTACHMENT B CURRENT LEGISLATIVE BASIS FOR THE ECONOMIC REGULATION OF THE DOMESTIC AVIATION INDUSTRY The current arrangements for regulating domestic aviation are given effect through a package of legislation, regulations, and administrative controls. The legislative basis for these constraints is set out below. LEGISLATION CONTROLS (TO BE LIFTED) AIRLINES AGREEMENT ACT 1981 (ratifies Airlines Agreement) Obliges the parties (Commonwealth, Ansett, and the Commission) to take all reasonable action within their power to ensure that the Commission and Ansett are the only two operators of scheduled domestic passenger services on trunk routes - excepting, for example, the indirect linking of trunk routes centres via intermediate ports in certain circumstances. Ansett and the Commission obliged to comply with the Airlines Equipment Act. Compulsory consultation between Ansett and Commission on specified matters. Prerequisites for withdrawal of rural services relating to profitability or consultation on replacement of services by another operator. Airlines required to provide financial and other information relating to the provision of air services to the Minister for presentation to parliament. INDEPENDENT AIR FARES COMMITTEE ACT 1981 Airlines may only charge air fares (both discount and full fare levels) approved by the Committee. AIRLINES EQUIPMENT ACT 1958 Minister is required to make formal determinations of the capacity to be provided on the network by Ansett and the Commission - capacity to be provided by Ansett and the Commission over competitive routes is to be shared equally. Determinations are also made for other operators of large jet aircraft. Minister's certificate is required before operators subject to capacity determinations can acquire additional aircraft. Undertakings are required as to the use and disposal of large turbo-jet aircraft imported by regional airlines and cargo operators. The objective is to ensure they are not used by the importer, or any operator to whom they are subsequently sold, for passenger operations over trunk routes. CUSTOMS (PROHIBITED IMPORTS) REGULATION 4N All operators require the permission of the Secretary of the Department of Transport and Communications for the import of all aircraft. In considering applications to import aircraft the Secretary is required to have regard to the provisions of the Airlines Agreement. ATTACHMENT C GUIDELINES FOR INTERNATIONAL AIR FREIGHT CHARTER FLIGHTS 1. Australia's policy in relation to the operation of international non-scheduled cargo flights to and from Australia is that charter operators should be as free as possible to conduct genuine non-scheduled operations. (a) Non-scheduled cargo-only flights may carry mixed consignments of any cargo into and out of Australia. (b) The aeronautical authorities of all countries involved in any proposed flights must accept them as being genuine non-scheduled operations. (c) Applications for single entity, own use and one-off flights and for ad hoc programs of up to three months may reasonably expect automatic approval. (d) Applications for programs of charters for periods longer than three months and up to twelve months will be considered on a case-by-case basis, particularly where proposals involve new market opportunities. 2. Factors such as foreign policy considerations, or air service negotiations and arrangements, will be taken into account in assessing applications. 3. Flights will be subject to normal operational and safety requirements, and the requirements of the Air Navigation Act and Regulations. ATTACHMENT D GUIDELINES FOR INTERNATIONAL PASSENGER CHARTER FLIGHTS 1. A principal aim of Australia's aviation policies is to promote the development and maintenance of a network of commercially viable regular scheduled services between Australia and overseas. Non-scheduled (charter) operations are encouraged where these are compatible with this objective. Development of inbound tourism to Australia is of special interest. 2. Applications for non-scheduled services to Australia fall into two categories: those that will receive automatic approval, and those that will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Guidelines in relation to each of these categories, as well as a number of general requirements applicable to all international passenger charters, are set out below. A. APPLICATIONS TO RECEIVE AUTOMATIC APPROVAL 3. Single or ad-hoc charters of the following types will receive automatic approval: (a) Affinity group; (b) Own-use charters where passengers do not contribute to meeting costs of the operation (eg including mineral exploration and employee incentive/reward flights); (c) Special event charters; or (d) Round-the-world and other drop-in charters which include Australia as part of a broader itinerary. 4. Programs of charters with each of the following characteristics will also receive automatic approval: (a) Charters which are inbound, ie carrying foreign passengers only to Australia and out again. (b) Where the proposed charter flights are over routes not currently served on a scheduled basis by airlines designated under air services arrangements between Australia and the other country(s) concerned. Flights to Australia may arrive and depart from different gateways. Passengers carried on the charter flights to/from Australia may stopover at one gateway and depart via another gateway on separate flights in a charter program. (c) A charter program which comprises up to 4 return services per month and operates for up to 3 consecutive months. The positioning legs on the first outbound and last inbound flight are not counted in the number of services. Further programs could be approved, but would be considered after a review of the first program. Pending the completion of the review, charter flights beyond the end of the first program may be approved on an ad-hoc basis. The main criterion in giving approval for further programs is that they continue to meet the Guidelines for automatic approval; and that all conditions of approval of the first program were complied with; and (d) All passengers on charter services must have purchased a significant ground component as part of their travel for consumption in Australia, in addition to the airfare component. This would include, for example, accommodation and ground tours. B. APPLICATIONS TO RECEIVE CASE-BY-CASE CONSIDERATION 5. Applications which do not meet the terms and conditions set out above will be considered on a case-by-case basis. For example, where there is interest in developing new market opportunities, but end-to-end traffic levels are not sufficient to support commercially viable direct scheduled services, sympathetic consideration may be given to programs of charters whose purpose is to test and develop markets and traffic flows. The size of program and associated conditions would depend on the particular circumstances. 6. In considering all applications in this category, regard will be had to: (a) origin of expected traffic, whether there are scheduled services between that country and destinations in Australia to which charters would operate, and the adequacy of such scheduled services; and (b) whether there might be adverse impact on commercial viability of scheduled services. C. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS 7. While any operator is eligible to seek approval to operate non-scheduled services, a condition of approval is that operators must comply with Australia's normal operational and safety requirements. Information for intending applications is contained in the Australian Aeronautical Information Publications (AIP-FAL). 8. Approval of charter programs or individual charter flights must also be obtained from the authorities of the other country(s) involved. The onus is on the operator to obtain such approval and the Australian Government takes no responsibility for the operator's failure to do so. 9. Charter operators will be required to provide evidence that suitable consumer protection arrangements are in place. 10. Approval may be deferred or not granted for foreign policy reasons, or where the proposal impinges on air services negotiations or rights exchanged between Australia and the country(s) from which the charters were to originate. 11. In the event that, in the operation of a charter flight or program, the operator breached one or more elements of the foregoing guidelines, approval may be withdrawn at one months notice. 12. An operator having received approval for, or having commenced a charter program, could normally expect to complete that program should a scheduled carrier subsequently obtain approval to commence a regular scheduled service over a route on which the charter operator was flying. Further programs would be subject to a review to determine whether traffic demand was sufficient to allow for charter operations to continue should a scheduled service subsequently commence on a route. OCTOBER 1987 Senator MESSNER(South Australia)(10.43) —I move an amendment to the motion which has just been moved by the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) in these terms: At end of motion, add: ``, and notes the long overdue adoption by the Government of a substantial part of the Coalition's aviation policy; further notes the Government's de facto decision to privatise Australian Airlines, which is the inevitable and proper consequence of the deregulation of the airline industry; and condemns the Government for: (a) the time lost since the first day that notice of termination of the Two Airlines Agreement could have been given (January 1987) and the effect this has had on the postponement of the commencement of deregulation of the Australian airline industry; (b) its inaction during this period in not preventing the removal of competitors in the airline industry, which will substantially reduce competition; (c) the repeal of legislation which the previous Coalition Government had in place to convert the then Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) into a company, thereby reducing the ability of TAA to readily adjust to the new deregulated environment; (d) the absence of pre-1990 informal measures to facilitate deregulation; (e) its failure to provide the necessary infrastructure at Australia's airports, especially Kingsford-Smith Airport in Sydney, so as to cope with present and, more importantly, future congestion; (f) not completely deregulating domestic and international airfreight carried by Australian airlines; and (g) creating unnecessary uncertaintly amongst Australian Airline employees as to their future''. The statement which the Minister has delivered today is clearly a long overdue adoption by the Government of a substantial part of the coalition's aviation policy. It is absolutely clear, from the body of the document itself, that there has been a de facto decision to privatise Australian Airlines. That is the situation. It does not matter whether we look at it sideways, upside down or backwards; it still comes out the same: there has been a decision by the Hawke Labor Government to privatise Australian Airlines. The reasons are quite clear. I would like to set out those reasons as we go through in some detail the amendment which I have just moved. The Minister, at page 37 of his statement, announced the establishment of an advisory group to undertake an examination of the operations of Australian Airlines. I will quote from his statement. He says: Even if we take all the steps I have just foreshadowed-incorporation, removal of day-to-day controls, and consideration of the removal of more broad ranging controls-questions still remain as to how Australian Airlines will be able to optimise its managerial effectiveness in the post deregulation environment, and in particular how it will be able to meet its future capital requirements. That statement refers to the establishment of a company to operate Australian Airlines. It acknowledges, firstly, that Australian Airlines, being publicly owned, will not have the capacity to raise enough capital and that, consequently, in order to undertake its commitments in the 1990s it needs to be converted to a public company, obviously as a precursor to its being floated on the public stock exchanges, allowing ownership by ordinary Australians. That is absolutely consistent with the Liberal and National parties' attitude to the privatisation of Australian Airlines as enunciated in our aviation policy at the election in July. It is quite clear that the Government is intending to privatise Australian Airlines. One wonders why it has not come out and said it is going to do it now. It is skipping round with words-weasel words, as some people would say-describing changes in managerial capacity and the capacity to raise future capital requirements. It talks about managerial effectiveness and sets up an advisory group of people who obviously have expertise in this area to advise on how this will occur. But why does it not face the fact that it is going down the track of privatisation, and why does it not say so? It is particularly galling to note that the Minister draws back from the edge of saying that after we have heard Ansett Airlines in recent times, in talking about the whole issue of deregulation of the airlines and the privatisation of Australian Airlines, make this point absolutely clear. Let me repeat what Ansett has said. It has said that, before any deregulation of the airlines can occur, Australian Airlines should be privatised and put into public ownership for the Australian people. That is what Ansett Airlines says. It is the competitor of Australian Airlines. But what has this Government said? It has turned the approach around the other way. It has said, `We are going to deregulate first', and left in the air the questions of privatisation. I repeat: the people who are closest to the industry say that it should be done the other way around so as to ensure the proper privatisation of Australian Airlines. The Government has apparently embarked on a course which may not lead to the success with the privatisation of the Australian airlines that it would want. The de facto decision to privatise is quite clear when we look at the various details of the statement that has been put out. The decision which the Government has taken on deregulation is obviously leading to a freer environment amongst Australian airline operators. That is to be welcomed and is certainly something which we in the Liberal and National parties have been pushing for some time. But if the Government has decided on this route-and clearly it has-why did it, when it first came to power in 1983, as one of its first acts, repeal the very legislation which the Fraser Government had put in place during its period of office up to 1983 which set up Australian Airlines, then called Trans Australia Airlines, as a public company? The situation is now reversed. The Government has gone back on its tracks and is now leading in the direction of privatisation, which is obviously inevitable, and again is facing the folly of its earlier mistakes in that area. The whole purpose of today's announcement is to act as a smokescreen for what is to come in the months ahead. The Labor Party is engaged in an enormous internal debate over the whole question of privatisation. The decision it makes will affect Australian Airlines, Telecom Australia, the Overseas Telecommunications Commission, Aussat and numerous other government bodies. Every day we read of the differences of opinion expressed by members of the Labor Party about privatisation. We can understand that the Labor Party is split on this issue. Indeed, we welcome the decision of the Cabinet to press on with this important development for Australia's future, because it is acknowledged that it is the only way in which airlines and other Commonwealth instrumentalities will be able to raise sufficient capital to meet the needs of the community in the years ahead. That is why the Opposition supports the decision that has been announced. We make it absolutely clear that we support the Cabinet decision of the Hawke Labor Government on this matter. Consequently, we wish the Labor Party all the best in the debates that ensue in its efforts to change its platform in July next year. Senator Gareth Evans —You are all heart. Senator MESSNER —We will be rooting on the sidelines for you, Senator, and wishing you all the best. I wish now to turn to the detail of my amendment. It reads: and notes the long overdue adoption by the Government of a substantial part of the Coalition's aviation policy; further notes the Government's de facto decision to privatise Australian Airlines, which is the inevitable and proper consequence of the deregulation of the airline industry; That is the fundamental point that we in the Liberal and National parties wish to make today: The Government has decided to privatise Australian Airlines and, consequently, it is now incumbent upon the Labor Party to fall in line with the decision of Cabinet to ensure that that occurs. My amendment then details several points that I wish to discuss. The amendment continues: and condemns the Government for: (a) the time lost since the first day that notice of termination of the Two Airlines Agreement could have been given (January 1987) and the effect this has had on the postponement of the commencement of deregulation of the Australian airline industry; Clearly the Government had the power to make this decision almost a year ago, yet it failed to do so. The reason it failed to do so was that it was facing an election. It denied that it intended to hold that election some time in 1987 and particularly early in 1987. Clearly it was not in the Government's perceived political interests to expose an issue such as the privatisation of Australian Airlines at a time leading up to an election. Obviously the interests of Australians were again sacrificed in order to ensure that there were as few ripples as possible within the Labor Party on the very vexed question, to its members, of privatisation. Again the delay in the decision being taken occurred purely for political purposes and had no relationship to the best interests of the Australian community. Paragraph (b) of my amendment reads: its inaction- that is, the Government's inaction- during this period in not preventing the removal of competitors in the airline industry, which will substantially reduce competition; During the Government's period of inaction and delay since last January, we have seen the takeover of East-West Airlines Ltd. The de facto third airline in this country was swallowed up by Ansett Airlines. Consequently, competition in the airline industry has diminished. That take- over would not have occurred and perhaps the best interests of Australia would have been better served had East-West Airlines been allowed to continue its operations in another fashion. The Government's inaction of almost a year ago has meant that East-West Airlines has been swept off the board as a future competitor in a deregulated airline market. Again, that is a direct result of the Hawke Labor Government putting its political interests ahead of the interests of the people of Australia. That has been the long and sorry history of this Government since it came to power in March 1983. Paragraph (c) of my amendment reads: the repeal of legislation which the previous Coalition Government had in place to convert the then Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) into a company, thereby reducing the ability of TAA to readily adjust to the new deregulated environment; This is a most important paragraph in my amendment. Honourable senators will well remember the debates that took place in this Parliament in 1982 when the Fraser Government was pushing through legislation to set up TAA as a public company. During those debates members of the Labor Party, including those who are now part of the Hawke Labor Cabinet, expressed the view that such a move would have a detrimental effect on the interests of Australians, particularly rural Australians. Yet, that very principle has now been adopted by the Hawke Government some four and a half years late, at a time when the processes of deregulating the airline industry in this country will be set back. Again, the former coalition's policies have been vindicated by the actions of this Government; they have finally been accepted. We on this side of the chamber applaud the Government for coming to its senses, albeit so late. However, we are getting used to that from the Hawke Labor Government. This proposal can join the long list of proposals put forward by the Liberal and National parties, both in government and in opposition, which have been taken up finally by this Government in its own time. On this occasion it once again has done so at a time which is most suitable to it politically rather than to the best interests of the Australian people. Para- graph (d) of my amendment reads: The absence of pre-1990 informal measures to facilitated deregulation; Mr Acting Deputy President, you may not know that when the aviation industry in the United States was deregulated some years ago, although a certain formal date was fixed for that deregulation, informal negotiations took place which led to that deregulation occurring ahead of the fixed date. We believe that the way is well open for this Government to undertake such informal negotiations with Ansett Airlines and Australian Airlines to set in train the deregulation of the airline industry before the two-airline agreement ends in 1990. However, the Government has not seen fit to consider that course. We know the reason for that. Again, the public interest is being set aside in favour of the internal processes of the Labor Party. We know that Labor Party members will have to debate such proposals at their national conference next July in order to determine Labor Party policy on privatisation. Consequently, all these matters should be set aside until after the Labor Party has determined its policy. Australia is bumbling along under this Government which has no clear policy. It is the Government's objective in the meantime to organise its members for when the vote is taken on the floor of the Labor Party conference. The agreement has some three years to run before it collapses. Consequently, there is plenty of time for this Government to initiate discussions with the airline industry to start a new era of aviation development in this country by encouraging the operators presently in the field to adopt new techniques which the Government expects to operate after 1990. Again, that is not on the Labor Party's agenda because it simply does not have the political will to push the issue through its national conference. Rather it has to wait and see what its masters in the trade union movement will allow it to do before undertaking the proper measures of deregulation and privatisation. In my amendment point (e) states that the Government is condemned for: its failure to provide the necessary infrastructure at Australia's airports, especially the Kingsford-Smith Airport in Sydney, so as to cope with present and, more importantly, future congestion; Mr Acting Deputy President, the Liberal and National parties have set down in their aviation policy that a Liberal government would investigate the implementation of a far more open approach to the development of the necessary airport terminals in places that are obviously bursting at the seams at present and that need redevelopment. That does not receive any attention in the Minister's statement. That is to be regretted because it seems that there is a lack of co-ordination in what the Government is intending to do with deregulation, which presumably means more business for the airlines, and its lack of consideration of its impact upon infrastructure support at airports. All of us who often travel by air through New South Wales know of the congestion that occurs at Sydney Airport at various times, the delays that occur to the travelling public as a result of not being able to land because of aircraft congestion in the area. Yet this Government does not address that matter in this statement by the Minister. It is absolutely vital to the future development of aviation that the question be addressed. Again we have to ask the question: Is there some political reason why the Government is not addressing this? We do not have to look too far for the answer. We all know, firstly, that the Sydney Airport question is of great political concern to the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales. Secondly, the New South Wales Government under Premier Unsworth will hold an election within the next few months, certainly before the ALP conference that will lead to such trouble for the ALP next July. So again the political interests of the Labor Party are being put before the interests of the nation and before the interests of the travelling public, particularly those people who use Sydney Airport. Again the political interests of Mr Unsworth are being best served by this Minister who in his statement has refused even to comment upon the problems of Sydney Airport which, as we know, are becoming more and more extensive. Paragraph (f) of my amendment states that the Government is condemned for: not completely deregulating domestic and international airfreight carried by Australian airlines . . . including Qantas. That is of very real concern to those who need the services of air freight carriers in this country. We all know that freight costs are an enormous burden for business and consequently for the consumer in Australia. Therefore, one would have thought that the Government would have tackled that area immediately. We can only assume that again action in the interest of the Australian community is being delayed because the Government faces internal political problems with its debate over privatisation and will not be prepared to face up to that issue until it has resolved that point at its national conference in July of next year. That means further burdens for the Australian community at a time when we have very extensive cost structures which are helping to increase the uncompetitiveness of Australian industry, which make it more difficult for us to serve our markets overseas and consequently sell effectively and create jobs for Australians. Again the Australian community's position is being put second to the political needs of the Hawke Labor Government. The last point in my amendment, (g), reads: creating unnecessary uncertainty amongst Australian airline employees as to their future. As I said at the outset, the move by the Government announced today is a de facto move for the privatisation of Australian Airlines; there is no doubt about that. Because the Government has not been prepared to say clearly that that is its intention, this will generate concern amongst the employees of Australian Airlines. They must be in some doubt over the next year or two before decisions are finally taken by this Government as to its intentions. They will not know, for instance, whether they will have jobs in the future or whether they will be able to purchase shares in the new public company that might be established for Australian Airlines. They do not know whether they will be required in future. Those matters are of very great concern to the Liberal and National parties. People who work for Australian Airlines have every reason to be disturbed at the Government's lack of clarity in the statement today and its lack of commitment and certainly its lack of candidacy at this time. Senator Gareth Evans —Candour. Senator MESSNER —Candour. Candidacy is what you and I usually do, Senator. The lack of candour by the Government on this matter must be of great concern to the people. The Government makes play of two particular things in the announcement today. It has given special attention to two matters. The first is consumer protection. We in the Liberal and National parties support fully the approach of allowing the Trade Practices Commission to view the operations of airlines and to ensure that proper practices are engaged in. The other point is of less value to the community and that is the involvement of the Prices Surveillance Authority. One has to wonder what the Government has in mind with this move if it is really interested in true competition. It seems to me that introducing surveillance of prices and the possible setting of minimum and maximum prices does not necessarily serve the best interests of the Australian community in a competitive environment. That seems to be a rather contradictory objective of the Government in this situation when it has put down so many lofty and worthy ideals that it is seeking to achieve by the deregulation of Australian Airlines as it has now announced in this statement. So one has to wonder about the real intentions of the Government in that area. Finally I turn to safety. We of course support the Government's strong commitment to the maintenance of the highest level of safety standards for the operation of Australian airlines. Everbody recognises that this is the No. 1 priority in the operation of Australia's airlines. However, one wonders at the wisdom of the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in selecting the Minister for Land Transport and Infrastructure Support, Mr Duncan, as the Minister in charge of investigating the legislation for safety standards when we have already observed how easy it is for Mr Duncan, as Senator Gareth Evans's offsider in the Department of Transport and Communications, to get it wrong. He cannot even read and interpret correctly a ministerial brief in respect of the Amann Aviation Pty Ltd affair in the House of Representatives. I hope that the Minister for Transport and Communications will be double guessing Mr Duncan because, quite clearly, there will be some lack of commitment by this side of the House to trust Mr Duncan's efforts until we see quite clearly what he will be proposing. So we hope that the Minister for Transport and Communications will take a direct and personal interest in this most important matter for the benefit of all Australians who are using the airlines. Unfortunately, with the Minister's history of commitment to the airlines, to safety and to certain other flight activities, in one way or another, we cannot be certain that even that is in the best of hands. Nevertheless, let me restate the Liberal and National parties' commitment to the principle that safety standards in the air are a No. 1 priority. We will be ensuring, with all the vigilance at our disposal, that the Government sees to it that those safety standards are maintained and we will be giving all reasonable support to measures that are designed to enhance that. This is notwithstanding the fact that Mr Duncan may be bringing those measures forward. We will, of course, be examining them all the more closely because he is bringing them forward. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(11.12) —I rise to support and second the amendment to the motion moved by my colleague Senator Messner. I should say at the outset-I hope that the Government will accept this statement of our position-that we naturally welcome any movement in this or indeed any other area of the economy towards greater deregulation. If the statement which the Minister for Transport and Communications (Senator Gareth Evans) has put down were merely a statement designed to further the cause of deregulation in Australia I would have nothing but praise for it. Again, so as not to be misunderstood, let me say that of course I welcome the motion, taken in isolation, to bring to an end the two-airline agreement, although I notice that that motion is being advanced only in the Senate today and I understand that it is not presently being advanced in the other chamber, which gives rise to some questions perhaps as to whether this matter is quite so straightforward. Of course, I may be incorrect in that speculation but time will tell and I will look at the facts as they develop. But my chief point, and the point I want to focus upon in these remarks, is the falsehood which the Government again seeks to perpetrate in putting forward this motion today as a motion concerned with deregulating the airline industry. It is a motion which, in its practical essentials, is about selling Australian Airlines; there should be no mistake about that. Of course, it is a very elaborate move to cover that underlying objective. The enormously lengthy statement, which was made available to the Opposition at 8 o'clock this morning and which Senator Evans incorporated in Hansard when he spoke earlier, has obviously, from any reading of it, been very carefully crafted, and I compliment the Minister in that respect. Of course, the time and expertise and the political input which have gone into its crafting are also evident in the fact that we are blessed-if that is the appropriate word-with what I might call a somewhat jazzed-up version of the same statement which not only sets it out in very nicely printed form but also benefits us with a photograph of the Minister, not normally a matter which I would feel necessary to record among my remunerations in this place. To return to my basic theme, I have to say that the key to this whole document is not that it is yet another move on the part of a government committed to deregulation and enjoying the deserved plaudits, in some respects, of the public in that regard, but that it is a move which seeks to overlay an underlying political decision on the Government's part to sell off Australian Airlines. I make it very plain, and I think Senator Messner has also, that we on this side of the chamber welcome that decision. What we deplore is the Government's lack of candour in not telling us and the Australian public. Once again, this Government is making, I believe, the philosophical error-the Government may not think it is a political error-of attempting to deceive the Australian public about its true intentions. However, whether it will be successful in that regard remains to be seen. I happened to note on page 10 of this morning's Australian Financial Review an article by Anne Davies entitled `Gareth Evans crosses privatisation Rubicon'. I do not know that I want to follow that particular allusion too far. We have enough Caesars on the Government side of the House without letting another one come into office. I would just like to quote the opening paragraph of that article because I think it sums up-and I give full marks to its author for this-the reality underlying this motion from the Government side. The paragraph in question reads as follows: Despite assurances that the question of privatisation of Australian Airlines will be left until next year's ALP National Conference, the announcement today- that is, the announcement by Senator Evans today- on deregulation of the airline industry will further commit the Government to the privatisation road. I cannot stress too much that that is what we are talking about today. That is what this debate and the resumed debate on Friday, or whenever it is, will be and should be concentrating upon. Let us look in a little more detail at some aspect of the Minister's statement; not so much the statement that the Minister has just made to the chamber but the lengthy document in printed form which I referred to earlier in these remarks. The Minister said at the very outset that this motion: will bring the two airlines policy to an end- and this is the key point- and open Australia's interstate air services to free competition. Let us look at the question of whether that is what it will do, or perhaps what interpretation we should place upon the words `free competition' in that context. I think I am correct in saying that, as things stand in the airline industry today, it is the two-airline agreement upon which, ironically enough, Australian Airlines depends for its economic and financial survival. As we all know, that was not the situation when the two-airline agreement was initiated. The whole purpose of that agreement at the time of its initiation was to protect Ansett-ANA or whatever it was called in those days. Today, through a process which I do not have time to go into, essentially the market share of Australian Airlines is heavily dependent upon the existence and operation of the two-airline agreement. It would follow from that quite inevitably, even if nothing else were to happen in the intervening three years, that the termination of the two-airline agreement would undoubtedly place Australian Airlines under the most severe pressure from its major competitor, Ansett Airlines of Australia. Of course, some other things will be happening in the intervening three years. They have already begun to happen. I refer particularly to the takeover of East-West Airlines Ltd, a matter which I understand is, in some aspects at least, still before the Trade Practices Commission. It is very clear that in a deregulated situation the takeover by Ansett of East-West Airlines will add further to the position of market dominance that that company already holds as against Australian Airlines. Again I do not want to be misunderstood; I repeat, the Opposition welcomes the proposal by the Government to end the two-airline agreement. It welcomes the deregulatory aspects of that proposal but points out that what this motion is really about is a decision in effect to bypass-I think that is the best word-the Australian Labor Party national conference next July at which time the whole question of privatisation, including not least the privatisation of Australian Airlines, was to be debated. No doubt it still will be debated at that time but in a formal sense only. So let us have that clearly on the table. The Minister's circulated statement also says that, as a result of the termination of the two-airline agreement, existing constraints on the entry of new domestic operators to trunk routes will be removed. In theory, that is perfectly true. The question is: How relevant to the facts or the likely facts is that theory? I suggest that it is not very relevant at all and that we will see the two existing major airlines operating on these trunk routes and we will not have new domestic operators to provide the competition that ideally one would like to see. To quote from the Minister's circulated statement, in that regard the Government has said: It is the Government's belief that the aviation industry does not display characteristics which significantly distinguish it from other industries. That is a view the Government is entitled to put and have debated, not merely in this chamber but publicly, but I remind the Minister of the view to the contrary which has been stated publicly by none other than the Trade Practices Commission in its supplementary submission to the May Independent Review of Economic Regulation of Domestic Aviation in March last year. At that time the Trade Practices Commission quite correctly stated that the two-airline policy, and therefore the two-airline situation, `could best be described as securing a monopoly consisting of two airlines'. That is not what one would normally describe as an industry which does not display characteristics which significantly distinguish it from other industries. Senator Gareth Evans —You are talking about after the post-deregulation situation. Senator STONE —I am aware of that, but I am saying that this highly capital intensive industry, in which one company already has a considerable stranglehold on the market and will obtain, as a result of the termination of the two-airline agreement, an even greater stranglehold on the market, is not one in which ease of entry will be simple. I hope that statement, at any rate, will not be contested even from the Government side of the House. Senator Gareth Evans —It is perfectly true. Senator STONE —It is perfectly true. Senator Evans is correct on this occasion. I welcome the Minister's assent to my proposition. We do not need it, in one sense, because we have an even more informed authority than the Minister, and certainly than myself, on these matters in the person of none other than Sir Peter Abeles. On 12 August last he was interviewed on the Carleton-Walsh Report when Mr Carleton was still enjoying the privilege of working for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Mr Carleton put a proposition to Sir Peter Abeles. He said: But you will also be able to dominate the aviation industry in Australia, won't you? To that proposition Sir Peter replied: We will be the dominant airline. So, there is no question about what the outcome of this set of decisions will be. It will be to make Ansett Airlines, in the words of its principal, Sir Peter Abeles, the dominant airline. Because of that, because of these quite ineluctable economic facts, there will be no alternative for the Government but to proceed to sell off, to privatise, Australian Airlines. The alternative would be to see Australian Airlines simply go down the tube. Those members of the Labor Party who are presently struggling desperately to preserve an objective I do not share, namely, to preserve Australian Airlines in the public sector, will be struggling just as desperately under those circumstances to get it sold in order to help preserve some competition in the industry. Of course, they will have our full support. It is just that we on this side of the chamber would like to see the Government coming clean about this matter, not merely with the Australian people generally but even with its own dissenters, if I may put it that way. We have before us this morning a dissembling statement, a statement which purports to move towards a certain outcome but under the cloak of that actually moves towards not a different outcome, because the purported outcome will be present, but a very much wider outcome; one that contains a major political objective on the part of the Executive Government as distinct from the Labor Party Caucus, at this time at least, namely to sell off, to privatise, Australian Airlines. That is what this motion is about. In the statement that the Minister was good enough to circulate and provide to us earlier today it is stated that the Government has taken the view that there is a need to apply the Trade Practices Act to the new aviation industry environment. Naturally, again, we on this side of the chamber welcome that statement of intent. However, what can such a statement mean in the circumstances in prospect? As I have said, we have an industry which is presently characterised by two major operators, one of which is inherently very considerably more powerful than the other. Indeed, it does not go too far to say that the other airline is essentially being propped up by the two-airline agreement, and the Government is proposing to terminate that agreement. The outcome of that can only be that Australian Airlines will suffer very considerably in terms of the openly competitive situation it will then face. It will be starting so far behind scratch that I think it is fair to say it is unlikely to make the grade under those loaded dice conditions. One must ask whether, indeed, this is not yet another example-as we have seen in some other areas of policy in recent times; not least, the media-of the Government moving, in its mysterious ways, to look after some of its friends. I do not assert that view at this time, but we on this side of the chamber will, of course, be watching very closely the future development of events in this area. I turn to one or two particular aspects of the amendment to the Minister's motion moved by my colleague Senator Messner. As I think he pointed out, if the Government had been serious and had been open, frank and candid about these matters, if it had actually been moved by the spirit of deregulation to which it now claims to adhere in this area of policy, it would have been open to it to move in this matter a good deal earlier, in fact, some nine months or so ago. Yet, it did not do so. In one sense I suppose it is hardly worth again recording the point-but I shall do so for the sake of the record-that one of the machinery hurdles which the Government will have to surmount as it approaches its new-found task of selling Australian Airlines lies in the fact that it actually repealed legislation passed by the previous coalition Government, which had at that time already converted what was then Trans Australia Airlines or TAA, now Australian Airlines, to company form. If that legislation had not been repealed it would have been much easier for the Government to move forward on the sale of Australian Airlines to its actual but undeclared objective of selling Australian Airlines, I presume without having to bring into this Parliament new legislation-to which, I should say, we would give a very good wind-which would do no more, effectively, than simply restore the legislation which this Government so wilfully and dogmatically repealed when it first came to office. Unimportant in one sense though the point may be, in another sense nothing could more clearly reveal the cynicism with which this Government has approached the whole difficult and vexed question of airline policy during the past 4 1/2 years. As my colleague Senator Messner said, the abuse which was heaped on members of the Opposition-of which at that stage I was not a part-by Ministers of this Government in the last two or three years, not merely in the context of the privatisation debate generally but in the context of this matter in particular, does not make pretty history when today we find Senator Evans coming into this chamber, putting his hand on his heart and saying that he stands for deregulation but, sotto voce, not incorporated in Hansard, that he also stands for the selling off of Australian Airlines. I do not wish to be unduly unkind to the Minister, but I think that one has to say that today we are witnessing an act of palpable hypocrisy on the part of Senator Evans. I think we should put that on the record. I repeat what I said at the outset of these remarks-that the Opposition welcomes this move to end the two-airline policy. That is the declared objective of Senator Evans's motion. We welcome it. What we deplore is the lack of candour in the Minister's statement and the Government's position in not coming clean with the Senate and, through us, the Parliament and the people of this country more generally by saying that what this motion is really about is selling Australian Airlines. Again-let me be clear-we approve of that proposal, although it is really a non-proposal, a concealed proposal. We approve of that, but we thoroughly disapprove of the Government's lack of candour, its disingenuousness and its characteristic lack of frankness with the Australian people which leads it to seek to conceal its real motives in bringing forward this motion today. I conclude these remarks by quoting a further two or three paragraphs from that article in the Australian Financial Review to which I referred earlier. Again, I think the writer is to be congratulated on her perceptiveness as to what this particular proposal is all about. She states: The question of whether Australian- I think she means Australian Airlines- faces death by `slow strangulation'- following the ending of the two-airline agreement- through lack of capital and inability to change quickly will be brought into sharp focus. Indeed it will. Nothing so wonderfully concentrates an airline executive's mind than the thought that he is to be commercially hanged in the morning. That is what I think, in commercial terms at least, this proposal will actually do to Australian Airlines. Senator Gareth Evans —He sounded remarkably cheerful on radio this morning under those circumstances. Senator STONE —I am sure he was. I again quote the article: More importantly, Senator Evans' game plan will tend to limit viability of alternatives that the Left- I presume Miss Davies means the Left in the Minister's Party- has been working on-such as an amalgamation of Qantas and Australian. I do not want to comment on that proposal for the amalgamation of Qantas Airways Ltd and Australian Airlines, but merely note the comment which obviously is correct-indeed, I had this partly in mind when I paid my earlier compliments to the Minister about the carefully crafted nature of his statement-that that option has indeed been locked out. I see the Minister nodding his head and expressing appreciation of the accuracy of my comments. It is clear that the author of the article in this morning's Australian Financial Review is perfectly correct in the assumption that the Minister's statement has been carefully crafted to: limit viability of alternatives that the Left- that is, the Left of the Australian Labor Party- has been working on . . . It is obviously correct. At the end of the day, when it is clear that we are moving-as we are at last, thank goodness-towards the ending of the two-airline agreement, the whole thrust of expressions of opinion from employees of Australian Airlines, not merely from the executive, which I think has been in favour of it for some time, but from the staff, the employees, of that organisation, will be towards asking the Government to get the airline out of government hands and into the private sector as quickly as possible because otherwise-and probably in any case-the airline will have its commercial throat cut. Of course, as the writer of the article says: The need for capital to meet the onslaught from Ansett will finally lead the Government towards the privatisation path. There is no question that this will finally lead the Government there: it is there already. It is simply that the Government has not told us that as yet. I repeat that we welcome the Minister's proposal to end the two-airline agreement and we welcome the underlying proposal, namely the proposed sale of Australian Airlines, but we very much deplore the Government's lack of candour in not telling us or the Australian people that that is its underlying motivation for this statement today. Debate (on motion by Senator McKiernan) adjourned. Debate resumed from 24 September, on motion by Senator Tate: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.42) —The Senate has commenced debating the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1987, which is a massive document. It is about 89 pages long and the Bill proposes amendments to 87 Acts and repeals 24 Acts. During the last decade it has become regular practice to have one or two such Bills every year. They are said to contain only drafting and technical matters, but from time to time items arousing some political controversy have found their way into the Bills. I read from the general outline in the explanatory memorandum: The amendments made by this Bill have a number of purposes such as the tidying up, correction or updating of legislation. Other amendments implement changes that are of minor policy significance or are of a routine administrative nature. None of the amendments made by this Bill has any significant financial impact. The idea of having such Bills was introduced during the period of the Fraser Government. They were a means whereby the Parliament could readily deal with a large number of amendments of a minor nature without any great delay. As I said, this Bill amends 87 Acts and repeals 24 Acts. So in one measure the Parliament is able to deal with what in the past would have required 111 Acts of Parliament. So, of course, this has been a very effective way of reducing the amount of wasted time in the Parliament. One could perhaps mention to Mr Kelty that this would probably be of some relevance in a productivity claim. There can, however, be some difficulty in that the practice in effect limits the time that members of parliament have to debate various policy matters. There is always the possibility that the Government can fail properly to draw some controversial matter to the attention of the Parliament. We always have the worry that something we have missed will slip through in this massive document. The other thing is that such legislation tends to treat the Parliament simply as a processing machine. Opposition shadow Ministers and, no doubt, Australian Democrats shadow Ministers and va-rious other people try to examine the legislation in detail with a view to ascertaining whether there is some matter that really ought to be considered by the Parliament in more detail. We hope that we have not missed something. The Opposition is so concerned about this matter that in the other place-I point this out to the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate)-it is going to propose that one of the standing committees, which the House of Representatives is intending to establish under the new processes ought to be given the job of analysing such legislation in the future and reporting to the Parliament as to whether there are any matters of concern to which the Parliament ought to give greater detailed consideration. In due course a proposal of that nature will be introduced in the other House by our shadow Attorney-General, Mr Peter Reith. In the meantime, there are a number of matters with which we will be dealing in the committee stage and which need some explanations. Those matters will be dealt with by way of amendments. I just mention that matters of great significance are concerned. For example, I notice that in the Acts Interpretation Act one provision deals with the rule of interpretation that `may' means `shall' in some circumstances. That has always seemed to me to be a most peculiar provision, but the truth is that under the interpretation of Acts of parliament in the past there have been occasions when the courts have decided that the word `may' did not grant a discretion but really meant `shall'. For example, a Bill which says that the Governor-General in Council may appoint someone to a particular position in fact means that the Governor-General in Council shall appoint someone to the position. That is the sort of example the layman may understand more easily. What happened in the past was that every time the parliamentary draftsman used the word `may' he added the words `at his discretion'. In other words, the person had an absolute discretion. But the draftsman ran into difficulty with our new non-sexist language and so he had to say `at his or her discretion'-which has become a very difficult task. The parliamentary draftsman is now proposing to overcome this problem by always using the word `may' as meaning `may' and never meaning `shall'. In this Bill there is a proposal to define the word `may' as always importing a discretion. Senator Tate —That is much clearer, thank you. Senator LEWIS —I understand the complexity of this matter but the truth is that it will be of great interest to lawyers-yet it is going through in this Bill which deals with amendments to 87 Acts. Lawyers all round Australia will have to be aware that in future `may' means `may'. As a matter of interest it means may only in relation to any future Bills passed. Senator Tate —It may mean may. Senator Puplick —In certain circumstances. Senator LEWIS —Yes, in future circumstances it will mean may and in past circumstances it may mean shall. I hope that is very clear. Policy items are included in this Bill. For example, it deals with the Canned Fruits Marketing Act 1979 and extends the life of the Australian Canned Fruits Corporation by some 12 months. Of course, the Opposition supports that proposal, but it is a policy matter, not simply a mechanical matter. In the amendment to the Dairy Produce Act there is a proposal to implement Government policy on cross membership of executive councils of the Australian dairy industry conferences and the Australian Dairy Corporation. Again, we do not oppose it but it is a policy matter, not simply some mechanical matter. I notice my colleague Senator Puplick in the chamber; he has told me that the amendment to the National Museum of Australia Act 1980 touches on a policy question regarding disposal of material. I understand that although Senator Puplick disagrees with that policy he acknowledges that the Bill does not make any significant changes that he wishes to oppose at this stage. There are matters of detail and importance in this Bill and ones of such a nature that the Opposition believes that it would be wise for a parliamentary committee, such as one of the new House of Representatives standing committees, to analyse these Bills as they come through Parliament from time to time. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(11.51) —We are debating the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1987. When similar legislation was initiated under the Fraser Government it was supported by the Australian Democrats as a means of dealing with the host of tidying up items that are required in legislation. In the Australian Government's Legislation Handbook dealing with miscellaneous Bills is a description of the procedure. These are the guidelines set down in it, which I would like to quote because they are important in this debate. The handbook says: Guidelines applicable in determining whether a matter is suitable for inclusion in such an omnibus Bill are that: only matters genuinely dealing with tidying up, correction and updating, routine administrative changes or changes of minor policy significance may be included no matter that is contentious, or is closely related to a contentious matter, may be included matters involving lengthy and complex drafting, particularly of a kind that may hold up the Bill, generally should not be included matters involving substantial policy issues (including legal policy issues) generally should not be included no matter constituting a change to the National Companies and Securities legislation may be included no matter imposing, abolishing or varying a tax or varying the incidence of a tax may be included no matter involving an appropriation may be included That gives a fairly good indication of the general agreement as to what these Bills were about. However, over time, those guidelines have been pressed to their very limit. Fairly obviously, this procedure is now being used to bring through items that should not be brought through in this way. It is interesting that the Victorian Parliament appointed its Legal and Constitutional Committee to have a look at this motion for the Victorian Parliament. In its report it advised against such a move. The reasons why are also very important because they bear on what the Democrat concerns are with this Bill and possibly with subsequent Bills. The procedures have also come under significant criticism from other committees of this chamber, notably the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. The basis of the criticisms is that these omnibus Bills, which are supposed to conform to the guidelines that I have just read out, often contain items of a significant nature. An example quoted in the report to the Victorian Parliament provides: Eleven and one half pages of the Act are devoted to changes of a substantive nature to the Copyright Act, a number of which involve criminal offences and the setting of and infliction of penalties on persons who do not conform with the requirements of the Copyright Act. That obvious breaking of the agreement did not stop that legislation going through. Again, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee has commented adversely on these Bills from time to time. For example, in 1983 there were criticisms of a miscellaneous provisions Bill because clause 7 (5) increased penalty rates and the schedule to the Bill proposed to increase the penalty rate from 10 to 20 per cent in respect of a great many Acts. There were also proposed amendments to penalties applying to offences against the Air Navigation Act, the proposed substitution of a new section to the Navigation Act, and the proposed insertion in the Wool Industry Act of a section concerning the refunding of moneys and so on. Many reports of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee have raised such arguments. The majority of the adverse comments to the Victorian committee came from the legal profession. It is worth quoting from some of those submissions. The Law Reform Committee said that it: is of the opinion that a Statutory Law Miscellaneous Provisions Act should only contain amendments to certain typographical, grammatical type errors and that it should contain nothing which could be said to be substantive. It is possible that the Government of the day may try to make substantive amendments by this `back door' method avoiding public scrutiny and debate. Again, the Law Council of Australia pointed out that it has a very firm policy in relation to omnibus legislation, and that that policy had been put to the Federal Government. The Council went on to say that its policy: is that `omnibus legislation' is acceptable for amendment to legislation in the most routine of matters only, that any changes of a policy nature should not be incorporated in such legislation, nor should it be used for the amendment of what might be termed `major legislation'. The Council added that it: has frequently received from the Government assurances that it would abide by that policy but regrettably those assurances have not always been realised. That has been borne out by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. The Law Institute of Victoria opposed the concept of miscellaneous provisions Bills for a number of reasons. They are: members of the public are presumed to know the law, but legislation of this type makes the principle more difficult to fulfil because of problem of finding amendments to a particular Act miscellaneous provisions legislation makes it even more difficult than at present for lawyers to learn of changes to specific legislation and to advise the public accordingly there may be situations where people cannot be represented by lawyers-for example, where they appear before certain tribunals-and in these circumstances there is a real risk that changes to a particular Act will be overlooked and not acted upon guidelines existing at federal level are unsatisfactory generally there appears to be scope for such a procedure to be abused by the executive. The Institute listed a number of reasons for finding current Federal guidelines dealing with miscellaneous provisions Bills unsatisfactory, including: The Institute listed a number of reasons for finding current federal guidelines dealing with Miscellaneous Provisions Bills unsatisfactory, including: they involve the exercise of discretion and judgment-for example, as to what is a change of ``minor policy significance'' or what is a ``contentious matter'' the list of matters stated as not to be included in a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill is inadequate-for example, it does not include matters affecting civil liberties or the right to legal representation in practice, the guidelines have not always been adhered to by federal parliamentary counsel it would be difficult for Members of Parliament to give proper consideration to all aspects of the many amendments to different Acts contained in a Miscellaneous Provisions Bill there is a real risk that amendments made to each Act will not be given the same degree of consideration as would be the case had they been contained in separate Bills It seems to me that those criticisms are well founded. This Bill, as with previous Bills, shows clear lapses in the application of the guidelines. For our part, in future, if we believe that some of these items have been pressed to their limit, taken beyond their limit or have not been most rigorously and strictly adhered to, we will vote against such Bills, whether or not we happen to agree with the items that are contained in them, in terms of amendments of a policy nature. That vote will be a registered vote of protest against using what is a very useful procedure in a way which simply abuses the method that is before us. We hope that the types of comments that Senator Lewis and I have made will be accepted as being not an attempt to derail the process but an attempt to put it back on the proper rails and have it dealt with in a proper fashion. I believe that if there is any doubt about an item, the judgment should be made that it should not be included. At the moment if there is any doubt, it tends to be included rather than left out. We will support the amendments that Senator Lewis has proposed and circulated. We believe that these types of items need more consideration. Some of those, at least, were not included in the legislation when it was circulated in the last Parliament. We therefore believe that it is useful to have a chance to look at these matters. As a matter of principle, we believe that if any group within the Senate wishes to have some more time to consider these types of matters, it should be given that time. After all, if we were complying very strictly with the notion that it is not contentious and is simply a matter of tidying up, these types of problems would not arise. I hope that in future this type of debate does not have to occur. As I say, we believe it is a useful method of dealing with non-contentious items; otherwise the Notice Paper would be cluttered with an enormous number of Bills. But I also signal our intention in the future to vote against such Bills unless those guidelines are strictly adhered to. Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(12.03) —Senator Lewis said in his remarks dealing with this legislation that there was one amendment contained in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1987 to which I wished to draw attention. It is in regard to one of the amendments to the National Museum of Australia Act 1980. This amendment introduces a new policy in terms of the method by which material may be disposed of from a national historical collection. I indicate, as the shadow Minister for environment, arts and the bicentenary, that this is a policy decision which the Government has made with which I disagree. Had I been the Minister, I would not have consented to such an amendment to the Act. I think it is a retrograde step. At the moment the National Museum of Australia is the custodian of a large amount of material which is properly regarded as being part of the national historical collection. It does not have at the moment the capacity simply to throw it away if it believes that the material that it is holding is surplus to its requirements or it simply does not wish to continue to maintain that material. What it must do at the moment, essentially, is find a method by which it can dispose of material from its own collection by sale, gift or exchange. The amendment to the Act would insert a new sub-section 9a which, in part, reads: . . . the Council may resolve that historical material owned by or in the possession of the Museum, but not in the national historical collection, be disposed of by sale, gift, exchange for other historical material, or destruction. The question which always arises in museums, as indeed it arises in libraries, is the question of the disposal of surplus material. The amendment provides that that material may be destroyed. Subsequently, it states: . . . the Council shall not resolve that historical material be disposed of by destruction unless the Council is satisfied that the material has no saleable value and cannot be disposed of in any other way. I am unclear as to what tests the Council must bring to bear in order to satisfy itself that the historical material cannot be disposed of in any other way; in other words, that it cannot be given away, for example, and should be destroyed. One of the pleasant features of Australian cultural policy in the last couple of years has been the encouragement of the establishment of regional museums and regional galleries in which material is on display outside the major collecting institutions in Australia. There are a large number of these small galleries, small museums, which, in my view, would be quite prepared, if they knew of the availability of material which is otherwise potentially marked for destruction, to take that material, include it in their local collections and give it some degree of display. It would therefore seem to me that at the very least there should be a requirement upon the Council to do something, such as to publish in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette a list of those items which it has tentatively earmarked for destruction, so that persons-they do not have to be collecting institutions; they may be individuals-who are prepared to take that material and prevent it from being destroyed are given the opportunity to so do. The fact that the amendment to the Act does not in any sense say how the Council shall resolve that material cannot be disposed of in any other way is, I think, an unfortunate addition to the Act. There is a protection that if the value of the historical material exceeds $5,000, the Minister has to give approval for the disposal. I see no particular problem with that. Nevertheless, as Senator Lewis and Senator Macklin have indicated, this represents a change of policy. It is a matter which is of significance in that it provides the legislative and legal framework for the control of materials which are in the possession of a major institution-namely, the National Museum of Australia. I do not believe that statute law miscellaneous provisions legislation provides the way in which such changes in policy should be made. If the Government accedes to the Opposition's request in the House of Representatives for this matter to be scrutinised by a committee of the House, I hope that if other people have particular problems and particular objections to this change of policy, they will have the opportunity to express them. I simply say, in my capacity as the shadow Minister, that it is a policy determination of which I do not approve and which I would not have recommended or supported. There is one other matter about which I seek some guidance from the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate). I also have responsibility for the oversight of the Protection of the Sea (Prevention of Pollution from Ships) Act 1983. I would be grateful for the advice of the Minister for Justice as to what precisely is the distinction between regulations and orders. I am unclear about this, particularly having regard to the fact that the explanatory memorandum refers us to the Navigation Act on this matter. My understanding is that that Act has all sorts of arcane arrangements in British imperial law, virtually none of which is understandable to people who are not specialists in admiralty jurisdiction and matters of that nature. Despite all the very considerable assistance that has been given to me by my colleague Senator Hamer, who is one of the few people who understand what the Navigation Act is all about, I am unclear as to the purport of the distinction between regulations and orders, particularly in regard to the change which is to be made in the definitions section which, in part, reads: Insert the following definition: `` `the regulations', except in sections 33 and 34 or to the extent that the regulations provide otherwise, includes orders made pursuant to the regulations;''. I am sure that the Minister would be only too well equipped to give me a detailed explanation of this significant point of law. Senator Macklin —Lucid, no doubt. Senator PUPLICK —As Senator Macklin says, no doubt it will be a lucid explanation. I look forward to it with great anticipation. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(12.11) —in reply-I rise having just been thrown a challenge by Senator Puplick to which I feel quite inadequate to respond. However, I am somewhat comforted by the fact that there is an old adage that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Hitherto, the only people of whatever station, economic circumstance, or whatever, who have been able to take advantage of an exception have been judges at first instance. I regard myself in this chamber as perhaps the equivalent of a judge at first instance. Rather than hazard an answer to Senator Puplick that could well be overturned on appeal, I will take the question on notice and make sure that a full explanation is given to him at a later stage: I hope that it will not be too much later. The common law adage to which I referred is of some concern when there is a Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill before us. As I think both Senator Lewis and Senator Macklin pointed out, when there is such omnibus legislation which purports to amend a wide variety of laws applying to the people of the Commonwealth of Australia, quite clearly there is a problem in making legal practitioners and ordinary people who might be affected by such changes aware that such legislative amendments have been brought about, amendments which modify some imposition of an obligation on them, delete some provision which imposed some obligation on them, or somehow modify the law which hitherto applied to them. Arrangements are made whereby persons who are entitled to Commonwealth statutes and are regular purchasers of them get a monthly and then an annual update of the statutes as amended, including amendments made by the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. To that extent, there is a recognition of the need to put in the hands of practitioners, as speedily as possible and in a comprehensible form, the information related to the principal Acts with which they are concerned and on which they advise their clients. It is important that they be given the information as speedily as possible. I can assure the chamber that that is attempted. I agree with both Senator Lewis and Senator Macklin that it is important that the Government adhere as strictly as is possible-or even without that qualification-to the guidelines which have been put down and which Ministers need to observe when they propose that matters be included in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. In general, I believe that there is a genuine attempt to conform with those guidelines. Occasionally, matters may slip through. I think that the contraction of this session, with fewer sitting weeks than is normal, and the Budget being delayed by a month, has led to a situation where, because the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and similar committees have not been constituted early enough, we have not perhaps had an opportunity for the scrutiny by Senate committees of some of the matters which normally would be looked at before such a very large Bill came into the chamber. Therefore, I foreshadow that the Government will agree to a proposal by Senator Lewis, which, I understand, will be consequential upon certain amendments being moved and passed in this chamber, that the four clauses which are the subject of his amendments be sent to the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances and the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration for them to give a very speedy report so the matters can be elucidated and clarified for the benefit of both chambers as this matter is dealt with. I do not think that I need to comment any further on the general policy. We have taken the admonitions and forewarnings to heart. In particular, we will take into account the foreshadowed proposal that a House of Representatives committee be established to look at this omnibus legislation as a whole. I do not know whether any such committee would feel competent to look at all the matters, but it may have a role somewhat analogous to that of the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and that may be of some use. However, at the moment the Government has not determined its position on the foreshadowed proposal to establish a committee in another place. It is small comfort that the Caucus legal committee, under the chairmanship of Mr Peter Cleeland, is very conscious of the need for the legislation to conform to the guidelines which have been outlined by Senator Macklin. That committee is very rigorous in its analysis of proposals which are put forward and, on occasions, has sent matters back, saying that they are to be brought forward in ordinary legislation, much to the annoyance of the Minister concerned. So there are already some informal committees seeking Executive adherence to the guidelines. However, if Parliament wants to get further and better assurance through its own committee system, I can understand what leads to that aspiration. This Bill, I think, requires a fairly speedy passage. Many of the matters in the Bill were passed at the second reading stage in the House of Representatives before the end of the autumn session, before the double dissolution. So there are matters here which ordinarily could have been expected to be passed into law by the end of the autumn session this year. Therefore, I am grateful to those honourable senators who have indicated that, with the exception of the matters to which Senator Lewis referred, the Bill will be accorded a speedy passage. Senator Puplick referred to the National Museum of Australia Act and the proposed amendments to the Act. My understanding is that, since the Act was amended in 1985, operational experience has demonstrated a need for the legislation to identify clearly the powers of the museum to dispose of historical material which might be in the possession of the museum but which has not been formally accessioned into the national historical collection. The Attorney-General's Department has advised that there is no power in the museum to dispose of historical material not in the national historical collection. There is some consequential sensitivity and urgency in amending the Act, and I will explain why. It has transpired that the museum wishes to dispose of two groups of material which are not in the national historical collection, namely, a collection of Tasmanian Aboriginal skeletal specimens and a collection of Melanesian artefacts. The return of the skeletal material to the Aboriginal people was announced before the hiatus in the Act was realised. I think that, to that extent, this represents an attempt to overcome that problem. I just wished to put that on the record as a major part of the reasoning that lies behind these amendments. I thank those honourable senators who have spoken at the second reading stage. I look forward to the second reading being carried. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. The Bill. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(12.20) —Amendments are proposed to the Conciliation and Arbitration Act. Page 42 of the explanatory memorandum states: The Registrar has the power under s. 139 (4) to certify an alteration to the rules of registered organisations or refuse to certify such an alteration. Doubt exists as to the power of a Registrar to certify only part of a rule alteration. Proposed s. 139 (7) is to operate to validate the certification of rule alterations, the validity of which might otherwise be in doubt because a Registrar had certified only part of the rule alteration. I do not expect an answer immediately, but I ask the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate): What is the issue that gave rise to that particular recommendation? The main reason I rose to my feet was to refer to the amendment which relates to the Non-government Schools (Loans Guarantee) Act 1977. Page 94 of the explanatory memorandum states: Proposed amendment of s. 3 omits the definition of the `Commonwealth Schools Commission'. It is consequent upon the proposed amendments to s. 4. Proposed amendment of s. 4 will empower the Minister, rather than the Commonwealth Schools Commission, to exercise the power to approve building projects of non-government schools for the purposes of the Act. This reflects the change in responsibility for the administration of the Capital Grants Program for government and non-government schools from the Commission to the Department of Employment, Education and Trade. It seems to me that that is a somewhat significant change. It is a policy change which ought, more appropriately, to be dealt with by an amendment to the Non-government Schools (Loans Guarantee) Act 1977. We, in this chamber, have frequently criticised governments of all persuasions-that is my recollection of it anyhow-for putting into the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act matters which, more appropriately, ought to be dealt with by amendment to the principal Act. That, of course, would enable the Minister concerned to direct attention to the purpose behind the change in policy. This seems to me to be a policy matter. I have not been told to give the matter the consideration it is due, but I would be interested to hear what the Minister has to say about having this matter in the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act rather than as a specific amendment to the Non-government Schools (Loans Guarantee) Act 1977. It appears to me that to pass the authorisation over to the Minister, thus taking it away from the Commonwealth Schools Commission is, indeed, a significant amendment. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(12.25) —by leave-I move: (1) Page 11, Schedule 1, proposed amendments of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, proposed amendment to paragraph 48 (1) (b), leave out the proposed amendment. (2) Pages 13 and 14, Schedule 1, proposed amendments of the Audit Act 1901, proposed amendment to sections 32 and 33, leave out the proposed amendment. (3) Page 15, Schedule 1, proposed amendments of the Audit Act 1901, proposed amendment to subsection 49 (2), leave out the proposed amendment. (4) Page 16, Schedule 1, proposed amendments of the Audit Act 1901, proposed amendment to subsection 57 (2), leave out the proposed amendment. [Consequential amendments] (5) Page 15, Schedule 1, proposed amendments of the Audit Act 1901, proposed amendment to subsection 49 (1), leave out the proposed amendment. (6) Page 18, Schedule 1, proposed amendments of the Audit Act 1901, proposed amendments to Schedules, leave out the amendments. The first amendment relates to paragraph 48 (1) (b) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901 and the proposal is that the amendment be left out. We feel this provision needs some explanation. In the explanatory memorandum the Government gives the reason for this amendment. It states: It is necessary to make it clear that regulations may be expressed to commence at the commencement of a specified Act, even if the Act is to commence on a proclaimed date. I think I understand the reasoning for that. It seems to me to be fairly logical, but there are a couple of matters which concern us on this side of the chamber. In particular, our concern relates to the recent Australia Card legislation. Some of my colleagues and I have been concerned because, if the proposal had gone through, this might have been a way which the Australia Card Bill could have been implemented notwithstanding the Senate's power to disallow the regulations. We feel that some explanation is necessary and, accordingly, we propose that this amendment go off to a Senate committee for investigation and report. That is what we would normally seek to do, but in a few minutes I will explain what is proposed as an alternative. My amendments then refer to sections 32 and 33 of the Audit Act. Again, I am proposing that we leave out the proposed amendment. These sections deal with the responsibility of the Minister for Finance in the process of issuing appropriated amounts. We believe that the Minister's power, proposed under this amendment, should be considered by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration. I will not refer to the third amendment for the moment, I will go on to the fourth amendment because it is, similarly, a proposal which purports to set out the details which should be included in any Act appropriating moneys of the Loan Fund. Again, this is a matter which we believe should be considered by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration with a view to reporting back to the Parliament as to the reason for the proposed amendment. That would be the normal procedure, but that would substantially delay the Bill because these amendments would be referred to a committee for consideration and report in due course. The Senate would then consider the report of its committee and deal with the Bill. Rather than delay the Bill in that manner, what I have proposed-I believe it will have the support of the Committee-is that these amendments be left out of this Bill so that the Senate can pass the Bill today without them. After the Bill has been read a third time I shall seek the leave of the Senate to have those matters referred to a committee for consideration and report back to the Senate. In the meantime, the Government will introduce the Bill in the House of Representatives with these provisions put back into the Bill by an amendment. By that time one would hope that the Senate committee would have investigated and considered these matters so that in due course the Bill would come back to this chamber amended by the House of Representatives. It would probably be passed by this chamber without further amendment. That is what is proposed in my amendments (1), (2) and (4) and consequential amendments (5) and (6). I turn now to what I believe to be a much more substantial matter, and that is my proposed amendment (3), which deals with the proposed amendment to section 49 (2) of the Audit Act 1901. The explanatory memorandum reads: Proposed amendment of section 49 (2) would give to the Minister for Finance the authority to approve variations of the format of the Monthly Statement. This replaces the current requirement for prior approval of both Houses of Parliament. Proposed new section 49 (3)- in fact, I believe it is proposed new sections 49 (2) and (3)- will require the Minister to table details and explanations of variations in Parliament. While Parliament has approved variations to the format of Monthly Statements, the act of approving a variation is seen largely to be an administrative matter. It is considered that, as an administrative matter, this should more appropriately be handled by the Minister for Finance. The Opposition does not see this as an administrative matter; we see it as a straight-out attempt to take away from the Parliament a right that the Parliament has always had, and that is to oversee the nature of the monthly financial statement which the Minister for Finance is required to table in the Parliament. If the Government's amendment goes through in the manner that is proposed, the Minister for Finance will be able to vary that statement in any way that he sees fit. For example, he could produce simply a one-line statement containing no detail. The Minister could take the attitude that that is the form in which he will present the financial statement and not supply any further information, and the Parliament would be powerless to do anything about it. There is another means by which to alter the format in which the financial statement is presented; it could be done by way of regulation. In that event the Parliament would have the power to disallow the form proposed if it were considered unsatisfactory. I caution the Minister and his officers that that also would present a difficulty. If the regulation were disallowed, would it mean that the Minister would be provided with no form in which the financial statement could be presented? If the Government puts forward an alternative proposal-- Senator Tate —The schedules remain unaltered. Senator LEWIS —The Minister has grasped the point that I am trying to make-that, if the Government were to put forward an alternative proposal which had the effect that the Minister for Finance was left with no form in which to present the financial statement, the Minister would still be able to do what he wished. Of course, the Opposition would oppose such an alternative. The Opposition would have no major objection to a proposal put forward by the Government that ensured that the Parliament retained some degree of control over the form in which the Minister presented the monthly financial statement. That deals with the amendments I have moved. As I say, I shall be seeking the leave of the Senate to refer ultimately three substantive matters to its committees for consideration. Amendment (3) seeks to leave out the proposed amendment to section 49 (2) of the Audit Act 1901, and I anticipate that at some stage in the future the Government will propose an alternative to that amendment. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(12.35) —I shall respond first to the matters raised by Senator Harradine. At this moment I am unable to give him an explanation of the genesis of the proposal dealing with the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, put forward no doubt by the Minister for Industrial Relations (Mr Willis). I know that certain discussions took place between the Industrial Registrar, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Minister following the decision of Mr Justice Keely in Linsket's case. I am unable to go beyond that to give the honourable senator the fullest explanation possible, but perhaps that gives a hint which we could follow up a little later. Senator Harradine referred also to the proposed amendment to the Non-government Schools (Loans Guarantee) Act 1977, which is dealt with at page 94 of the explanatory memorandum. The amendment appears to involve a transition of power from the Commonwealth Schools Commission to the Minister for Employment, Education and Training to approve building projects for non-government schools for the purposes of the Act. I am informed that that reflects the change in responsibility for the administration of the capital grants program for government and non-government schools from the Commission to the Department of Employment, Education and Training. That decision having been taken and the responsibility no longer residing in the Commonwealth Schools Commission, the proposed amendment is merely a matter of form to indicate where that particular power resides. It simply indicates that the power is to be drawn back into the Minister's possession rather than being exercised by the Commission. The Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill simply gives effect to that consequential matter, following the change in responsibilities which has been announced elsewhere. The statute itself does not try to change those responsibilities; apparently that has been undertaken by way of administrative arrangements, as set out by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). I know no more than that at this stage. I turn now to the matters raised by Senator Lewis. In the course of the morning considerable discussion has taken place between Senator Lewis, Senator Macklin and me. That discussion has led to a very sensible and amicable resolution of the queries and misgivings that have been raised. I can assure the Senate that the Government had no nefarious intent of trying to disguise the proposed amendment to the Acts Interpretation Act by including it in this Bill. Apparently queries have been raised as to whether it is possible to make a regulation that does not have a particular commencing date or that does not commence at a definite time in relation to the commencement of a statute. The proposed amendments endeavour to deal with a couple of situations that have arisen in the past. It might be useful to put those matters on the record. A regulation under the Australian Capital Territory Tax Transfers of Marketable Securities Act had to come into force at 5 p.m. on a particular date. Presumably that is when the Act came into force. The commencement of the regulation was to coincide with the Statute coming into force. Provisions in the Acts Interpretation Act make it impossible for regulations to come into force at a particular hour of the day. That led to problems which were noticed. The Act was especially amended in an effort to deal with that problem, but it is preferable that the Act contain a more general provision, and that is what is proposed here. Secondly, regulations were sought to be made under the Protection of the Sea (Civil Liability) Act 1981 pursuant to Australian ratification of a protocol. Those regulations were required to come into force when another Act which provided for ratification itself came into force. I am told that that would be when the protocol came into force for Australia. That date could not be identified in advance, so the provision proposed in the Bill is designed to deal with that matter. The genesis of the amendment lies in those problems and has nothing to do with the Australia Card legislation. Nevertheless, I think it is appropriate that the matter be examined by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and that that Committee report to the Senate speedily. Referring to the provisions of the Bill which deal with the Audit Act, may I simply say, without wanting to prejudge the attitude of the Government to the matters raised by Senator Lewis, that I agree with him. I suppose to some extent I am still influenced by my having been Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and having in mind the traditions of the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances. I do not think it is appropriate that a matter in a schedule to a statute be changed by a ministerial directive or statement which itself cannot be disallowed. We cannot have an amendment of a statute included in a schedule to the statute by way of ministerial dictate which in itself is not disallowable. One can see why this sort of machinery was thought to be useful. I am sure we can come up with a method which, by bringing into force the power of disallowance in the chamber-let us say that this is now done by way of regulation rather than by the proposed method-we can overcome that problem. I thank the chamber for indicating its willingness to pass this legislation with the exception of the matters that have been raised by Senator Lewis. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(12.41) —If the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) looks at what I have circulated about what I propose to seek leave to do after the third reading he will see that I am proposing that the amendment to paragraph 48 (1) (b) go to the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances for report and that the audit amendments would go to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration. May I seek leave of the Committee to make an explanation about another area not on this subject because it is causing someone who is listening to the broadcast great concern? The CHAIRMAN —Perhaps we could dispose of the amendments first. That would take a very short time and then we could come back to that matter. Amendments agreed to. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(12.42) —Mr Chairman, during the second reading debate I mentioned the alteration of the Acts Interpretation Act in relation to the expression `may' no longer meaning `shall'. Someone has had such concern about this-I do not blame the person-as to point out the radical alteration that this makes to statutory interpretation and to ring my colleague Senator Stone about it. Senator Collins —Was it Ewart Smith? Senator LEWIS —No, I do not believe it was Mr Smith. He pointed out that this is a prospective amendment. In other words, it quite clearly says that in the interests of caution proposed new section 33 (2a) will apply only to Acts assented to after the amendment is made. That was why we were saying that sometimes `may' means may and sometimes it might mean `shall'. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(12.44) —The point I wish to raise was raised by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills last time it looked at this piece of legislation in the last Parliament. It concerns the proposed new sub-section for the Anglo-Australian Telescope Agreement Act. It is a rather extraordinary proposition that on page 11 the Bill states: The Board has such additional functions as are conferred on it by the regulations. Presumably at the moment the Board is limited in its functions to the operation and management of the Anglo-Australian Telescope in accordance with the agreement set down under the Act. It is now going to be able to do anything. This is the most extraordinary sort of proposition. In any shape or form it is a most inappropriate delegation of legislative power. However, there may be some other type of explanation which is not forthcoming. It certainly was not forthcoming to the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. The Minister may be able to look at that so that the next time the Bill returns there will be an adequate explanation as to what that provision is doing there. I foreshadow that if there is not an adequate explanation I will move for that piece to be deleted. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(12.45) —The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills has criticised the amendment enabling additional functions to be conferred on the Anglo-Australian Telescope Board by regulations, suggesting that additional functions should be conferred by the Act itself. This matter was dealt with in the second reading speech. We have been advised that the nature of the additional functions to be conferred on the Board is dependent on negotiations between the Australian and United Kingdom governments and those negotiations have yet to be completed. We have also been advised that arrangements for Australian administration of a United Kingdom telescope co-located with the Anglo-Australian Telescope must be in place by the beginning of next year. Bill, as amended, agreed to. Bill reported with amendments; report adopted. Bill (on motion by Senator Tate) read a third time. Referral to Committees Motion (by Senator Lewis)-by leave-agreed to: (1) That the proposed amendment to paragraph 48 (1) (b) of the Acts Interpretation Act 1901, omitted from the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1987, be referred to the Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances for inquiry and report; and (2) That the proposed amendments to sections 32 and 33, subsection 57 (2), and the Schedules of the Audit Act 1901, omitted from the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1987, be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration for inquiry and report. Sitting suspended from 12.48 to 2 p.m. Senator CHANEY —My question is addressed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, both as Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce and as the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations. It follows the Minister's statement yesterday in Question Time that `the relevance of unit labour costs is of very significant importance in terms of maintaining international competitiveness'. Is the Minister aware that, according to the latest Treasury Round-up, nominal unit labour costs in Australia increased by 7.5 per cent over 1986-87 compared with an average in our trading partners of 3 per cent, which is 2.2 percentage points worse than in the preceding year? Is he further aware that Treasury estimates that unit labour costs will grow by at least 6 per cent over 1987-88-around double the rate of our trading partners? Does the Minister regard these actual and anticipated outcomes as satisfactory? If not, what does the Government intend to do to bring these costs more into line with those existing in countries with which we compete? Senator BUTTON —I am aware of the figures which Senator Chaney has cited. I think they were referred to at some length in the Budget Papers in terms of anticipations of wage outcomes for 1987-88. I maintain what I said yesterday: that real unit labour costs are a relevant and important matter in terms of international competitiveness, as are a range of other parameters which go to the question of international competitiveness. I think the question really goes to the heart of the matter of whether the adjustment is proceeding at the right pace. On a range of issues I think it probably is. Senator CHANEY —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I ask the Minister really to address the point as to whether this is satisfactory and whether the Government will act. The suggestion in the Minister's answer is that he thinks the position is satisfactory. Let me quote the Minister that he represents in this place, the Minister for Industrial Relations. He told the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU): It is quite fundamental to our prospects of economic recovery that we keep increases in our labour costs broadly in line with those of our international trading competitors. Not to do so would jettison the great opportunities provided by the very large devaluation of the $A and place us in dire economic peril. I stress the words `dire economic peril'. I ask the Minister: Is he suggesting that labour cost growth double or more that of our trading partners can, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as broadly in line with that of our international trading competitors? Does that not indicate that the present situation leaves us in dire economic peril? Senator BUTTON —Of course, it depends on what weight one gives to real unit labour costs in terms of an array of matters which are relevant to international competitiveness. I attach importance to that; and importance has to be attached to it over time, not looking at any particular isolated period. The Minister, in making that statement to the ACTU, was reflecting a concern about constraint in labour costs, and I think to some extent that view has been reflected in ACTU comments about relative wages between Australia and overseas. So whether that falls within the category of `broadly in line' is a matter of judgment, having regard to a number of other factors, including a whole range of very important trade-offs which are being made in respect of wages in this country. Senator SCHACHT —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Is confusion in the hiatus caused by the Opposition's constitutional vandalism of the Australia Card legislation likely to hamper the Government's efforts to attack the endemic problem of tax evasion? Senator WALSH —The opportunism and vandalism of members of the Opposition have already hampered the Government's efforts to stamp out tax cheating, not only in their opposition to the Australia Card Bill but also in their predicted further opposition to any measure which will effectively attack tax evasion. Earlier this week, for example, Mr Tuckey, in his particular efforts to protect tax evaders from the discipline of an enhanced tax file number system, went out on a limb on behalf of the taxation and welfare cheats. According to this morning's papers, he was hauled back a bit by other people in the Opposition yesterday-not, I suspect, because they are in principle in disagreement with Mr Tuckey's efforts to protect taxation and welfare cheats but because they fear the electoral consequences of being too openly identified with the interests of those people, as, of course, Mr Tuckey openly identifies himself. However, we still do not know what are the answers to these critical questions: Firstly, whether the Opposition will attempt to block anything which requires employers to notify promptly the Australian Taxation Office of the tax file numbers of their employees; and, secondly, whether the Opposition is advocating a 50 per cent interest withholding tax, because nothing less than a 50 per cent interest withholding tax could be effective in ensuring that no tax was evaded on interest received. If the Opposition is advocating a 50 per cent interest withholding tax, it is, of course, advocating that 50 per cent of the interest payments received by pensioners who have a few thousand dollars in a building society account be confiscated, at least in the short term, by the Taxation Office. If that is what the Opposition is advocating, I wish it would come out and say so. That is by no means an exhaustive list of the measures which are necessary to ensure a greater degree of compliance with the taxation law. But this confusion in the Opposition is not a recent phenomenon. Mr Blunt of the National Party of Australia and Mr Porter and Senator Puplick of the Liberal Party of Australia, as well as Senator Haines, were members of the parliamentary Select Committee on an Australia Card which supported the tax file number system. On 10 December last year, Senator Haines moved an amendment which essentially mirrored the recommendations of the majority report of the Select Committee. I will not read all of the amendment because it is too lengthy, but it commences: That the integrity of the tax file number be upgraded to that of the proposed Australia Card number based on the following premises: I will not read all of the premises-- Senator Knowles —You would not accept the recommendations in the Joint Select Committee report before, would you? Senator WALSH —No doubt Senator Knowles depends for her preselection, as a member of the Liberal Party Senate team in Western Australia, on ingratiating herself with the tax evaders who have dominated the Western Australian branch of the Liberal Party for many years. So I am not surprised that she takes the attitude that she does. I will not read all of Senator Haines's amendment but, under Senator Chaney's leadership, the Opposition voted against that amendment as well as against the Bill. But in the Senate on 24 September Senator Chaney was applauding the majority report of the Select Committee on an Australia Card when he spoke in glowing terms of Senator Puplick's contribution to the report of that Committee. Of course, Senator Puplick recommended the upgraded tax file number system in the terms of Senator Haines's amendment of 10 December last, against which the Liberal Party, led by Senator Chaney, voted. To add further to the confusion, Senator Puplick claimed yesterday that I was wrong in interpreting Mr Tuckey's remarks in the way I had interpreted them, although I have yet to see any report of Senator Puplick's assertion, let alone any retraction or correction by Mr Tuckey, of my interpretation of it. Specifically, I repeat that if Senator Puplick is interested in putting out a Press statement on this issue, I would welcome it from him, from Senator Chaney or from anyone on the Opposition front bench, that the Opposition would not oppose an enforcement system which requires employers promptly to notify the Taxation Office of the tax file numbers of their employees. Senator Stone —Is that what you are proposing? Senator WALSH —I point out to Senator Stone that we are conducting a study. If he has no objections to that I would welcome a statement from him to that effect, because the National Party combined with the Labor Party could carry such legislation. Senator Chaney —Mr President, on a point of order: The Minister is clearly conducting a debate with himself at this stage. He is putting forward an absurd proposition that the Opposition should declare itself on propositions which he has just told us the Government still has under study. He is reducing Question Time to a farce. He should be called to order and made to resume his seat. The PRESIDENT —The question asked of the Minister was in order but he is straying from the question he was originally asked. I ask him to take that into account. Senator WALSH —I certainly will, Mr President. I note for the record that there speaks another senator who depends for his preselection on ingratiating himself with the tax evaders who have for many years dominated the Liberal Party's Western Australian branch. It is no wonder the Opposition adopts the attitude it does in the Senate. What I have done is catalogue five about-faces by the Opposition in less than 12 months on this issue. It is about time members of the Opposition got their act together. I would welcome an assurance from the Opposition that it would support a requirement that employers must notify the Tax Office of the tax file numbers of their employees and clarify whether as part of its interest withholding tax proposal-which it quite clearly seems to have supported-it proposes to confiscate, at least in the short term, 50 per cent of the interest earnings of those hundreds of thousands of age pensioners and to do that as a preferred option to a more effective crackdown on taxation cheats. Senator PETER BAUME —My question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate arises from yesterday's statement by the Prime Minister that any `realistic' stance on the Fiji crisis would require us to recognise and presumably to accept that any solution in Fiji would involve the entrenchment of minority Melanesian rule. I ask the Minister: Since any such solution would probably be inconsistent with the principle of one person, one vote, one value, will the Minister now, on behalf of the Government, reaffirm in unequivocal terms the support of the Government-whether it is talking about Australia, Fiji or South Africa, I do not mind-for the principle of equality of all members of an electorate irrespective of their colour or racial origin? Senator BUTTON —I suppose I am an old-fashioned Presbyterian but I was brought up to believe that God helps those who help themselves. I think it is peculiarly within the province of this Government to pursue the issue of one vote one value, or near enough to it, in the Australian context. But there are differences which apply in other countries and this Government or any Australian government cannot necessarily have direct or beneficial influence in respect of what happens in those countries. I am not aware of precisely what the Prime Minister said, but I will certainly inquire from him what the purport of his comment was in relation to Fiji and try to provide the honourable senator with a further answer in respect of the detail of his question. Senator PETER BAUME —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. All I asked the Minister to do was to reaffirm the Government's unequivocal support for the principle of equality. It really does not matter what the Prime Minister said. I ask the Minister: Is he prepared now to reaffirm the Government's support for the principle of one person, one vote, one value in actions that the Government takes or in regimes it wishes to support? Senator BUTTON —As I indicated in answer to the earlier question, certainly I am prepared to reaffirm the principle in relation to Australia. But all sorts of factors come to bear when one is considering the position in other countries. It may not be advisable for the Australian Government, in trying to encourage democratic principles in other countries, to make a reaffirmation of that kind. It may not be the most positive way of achieving the result. Senator BEAHAN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Has the Minister's attention been drawn to the article on business investment appearing in the September issue of the Treasury Round-up of economic statistics? What light does this article shed on the current macro-economic situation in Australia? Senator WALSH —I have seen the article. It gives more of the details which underlie the Budget forecast that there will be 5 per cent real growth in total business investment this financial year. It also makes a couple of other very important points. The first is that business spending on motor vehicles has been going through a cycle during which it grew by 21 per cent in 1984-85 and fell in both the next two years and is expected to fall again this financial year, due to a variety of factors-the unleaded petrol legislation, and probably the increased cost of imported vehicles and vehicle components, but substantially to do with the Government's tax reforms which have led to a significant reduction in the extent to which what is in fact consumption spending on motor vehicles has previously been misdefined as investment spending. When that distortion is netted out business investment grew by more than 6 per cent in real terms in the last financial year and is expected to grow by a further 7 per cent this financial year. To tackle successfully the long-standing problem of Australia's current account deficit more effort and more investment need to be put into the tradeable goods and possibly services sector, be it to replace imports or to boost exports. The Treasury article referred to does attempt to estimate the extent to which business investment is flowing into the tradeable sector and more specifically it looks at tradeables other than the commodity tradeables which are our traditional export staples. It finds an increasing share of business investment spending going into this area. For example, page 7 of the Treasury Round-up shows that investment in non-commodity tradeable goods and services, or goods defined as manufacturing but excluding food, beverage and tobacco, as a proportion of total investment, has risen from 28.1 per cent in 1983-84 to 34.7 per cent this year. The Treasury Round-up reveals that the gross 5 per cent anticipated increase in total business real investment masks an equally or arguably more important underlying structural change. That is in the quality of the business investment taking place, which is business investment of the quality required to correct the country's current account imbalance. Senator COULTER —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence, and relates to the Nurrungar base in South Australia. Has a nuclear fall-out shelter been constructed beneath the Nurrungar base? If so, does this not prove the contention long held by the peace movement in Australia that the presence of these so-called joint facilities makes Australia a nuclear target? If not, what is the purpose of the recently constructed one-kilometre-deep shaft and radiating tunnels leading out from the shaft, and why has it been necessary to line these tunnels with one-metre-thick concrete? Senator ROBERT RAY —I refer Senator Coulter to the Prime Minister's statement in the House of Representatives on 6 June 1984 in which the Government went as far as it would go in public statements about the purposes and roles of those bases. I have nothing to add to the Prime Minister's statement on that occasion. Senator McKIERNAN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. I ask whether the Minister is aware of the reported shortfall in key mining personnel, especially in the gold mining industry of Western Australia? Has the Government taken any steps to speed the inflow of immigrants with relevant mining expertise from overseas? Is the shortfall in key mining personnel a problem which is likely to be of long standing? Finally, in view of the appalling history of South Africa in terms of its racial and industrial relations policies, can the Minister give an assurance that special category immigration applications from mining personnel in South Africa will not be accorded any form of preferential treatment? Senator REYNOLDS —I thank Senator McKiernan for his question. I am aware of the shortfall in key mining personnel in the gold mining industry in Western Australia. I am aware that the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs has commenced negotiations with the industry to establish and meet its requirements. The Department has recognised acute shortages of senior personnel in Western Australia. Special negotiated arrangements are available to industries in need of occupational skills in short supply on domestic labour markets. These arrangements allow streamlined processing of group nominations for migrant entry at the Australian end in return for an industry's commitment to the recruitment and training of Australian residents. Discussions with the industry are taking place in the context of the Government's global processing priorities overseas which, of course, will be maintained. I understand completely Senator McKiernan's concerns about the sensitivities of the issue he raises. I will seek full details of the progress of discussions with the industry from the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Senator McGAURAN —I refer the Minister for Transport and Communications to his lunchtime rendezvous with Mr Holmes a Court at Canberra's Lobby restaurant and the fact that it was reported that Mr Holmes a Court was seeking yet another favour from this Government-this time concerning the maintenance of his cross-media ownerships in Perth. In light of this lobbyists lunch, is the Minister aware that there is also a problem of common and cross-media ownership in the rural districts of Australia? I particularly refer to the common ownership in channel MTN9 Griffith and radio 2RG Griffith. This ownership chiefly has been brought about by way of achieving efficiency in business due to the servicing of a small population and the using of common facilities. Compared to the media interests of Mr Holmes a Court this business is very small, but, in fact, it involves the same principle and the same problem. I further ask: If the Government is prepared to rethink its attitude to joint media ownership, will the Minister keep a special consideration for rural Australia and its special requirements, not just the special requirements of media barons? Senator GARETH EVANS —The question is based on an entirely false premise. For that reason alone, I do not propose to give it any further answer. Senator McGAURAN —I ask a supplementary question. If the Minister is willing to accept that he did have lunch with Mr Holmes a Court, will he also answer the question: Who paid for it? Senator GARETH EVANS —The premise in question was not of my having had lunch with Mr Holmes a Court, which is by now a notorious public fact, but the subject matter of our discussion at that lunch. Senator JONES —My question is directed to the Minister Assisting the Minister for Community Services and Health. I ask: Can the Minister advise the Senate whether assistance provided under the Government's first home owners scheme (FHOS) effectively encourages and assists low to moderate income earners to purchase their first homes? Can the Minister also advise how many additional people have benefited from the Government's decision earlier this year to lift income levels under the first home owners scheme? Senator RYAN —Without government assistance many prospective first home buyers would be forced to delay the purchase of their homes. Since the inception of the first home owners assistance scheme on 1 October 1983 it has assisted almost 260,000 low to moderate income households into their first homes. Under FHOS the waiting periods for assistance are short, there is no discriminatory savings requirement, assistance in the forms of non-repayable and tax free grants is available at the time of purchase and home buyers can choose the type of assistance most suited to their circumstances. The high application rate for FHOS indicates that the scheme is still successful in providing assistance to the first home buyers and, therefore, stimulating to the construction industry. The 30 march decision to lift income limits will enable an additional 13,000 households to receive first home owners scheme assistance in 1987-88 and will also increase the benefits available to a further 13,000 households. I think that the summary answer to Senator Jones's question is yes. Senator PARER —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Industrial Relations. The question is pertinent in view of comments made in recent times by Senator Walsh in respect of tax cheats and welfare fraud. I refer the Minister to the new severance pay scheme for building industry workers to come into operation this week. I ask: Does the Minister support the Building Workers Industrial Union of Australia, which states that building workers should be entitled to receive the dole in addition to their severance scheme payout? If so, is this not a form of welfare fraud? Given the temporal nature of the building industry, how can the Minister consider each job finish as a bona fide redundancy for which lump sum severance payments would attract tax on only 5 per cent of the figure at the marginal rate? Is this a form of tax cheating? Will the Minister indicate how widespread he thinks the severance pay scheme will become in other industries where employees are frequently between jobs, for example, seasonal industries such as fruit picking? Senator BUTTON —The Government has, of course, given consideration to the redundancy scheme for the building industry. The Minister has written to the parties to the purported agreement which, as I understand it, was offered by employers in particular areas of the industry. Senator Alston —That was collusion. Senator BUTTON —Of course, they never do anything except under collusion. The Government has written to parties to the agreement explaining technical deficiencies relating to the scheme, drawing attention to certain concerns of the Government relating to both social security and taxation aspects and indicating that in the Government's view the scheme is in substantial need of amendment if it is either to meet its intended objectives or to satisfy Government wages policy and Conciliation and Arbitration Commission principles. As a result of that, it is my understanding that the parties, including those who are not purported signatories to the agreement, are considering the position and are exploring new approaches in response to Government concerns. The Minister expects that all parties with an interest in building industry redundancy will review their positions and seek to develop an arrangement which satisfies both taxation and social security requirements and which is designed to accord with the requirements of the national wage fixing principles. I must say that, of course, there are and always have been, unique features of this industry. Not all those features are easily translatable to other industries. However, the Government would expect that any scheme developed will be taken to the Commission on its merits, having regard to both the wage fixing principles and the particular features of the building industry. The Government is ready to assist with that process. I also draw Senator Parer's attention to the commitment of the parties to their obligations under the 1987 building industry agreement, in which they expressed a desire for orderly industrial relations. In the Government's view, the redundancy issue has to be seen in the context of that agreement. Senator PARER —I ask a supplementary question. Is the Minister saying that the amendment the Minister is seeking, to satisfy the taxation and social security requirements, is to enable this redundancy payment to be made and yet still entitle workers to receive the dole and pay tax on only 5 per cent of the payment? Senator BUTTON —I was saying that, in order to receive any sort of favourable consideration from the Government, the scheme has to conform to the Government's social security, taxation and wage-fixing principles. Senator COLLINS —My question is directed to the Minister for Justice. Is he aware of the recent landing of an Indonesian vessel on islands off the coast of the Northern Territory? If so, could he advise the Senate what action was taken in respect of the landing? Senator TATE —I know that Senator Collins takes a very keen interest in matters of the surveillance of the northern coastline and waters. Hence the question, which I am able to answer in some detail for the benefit of the Senate. On 2 October 1987, at 12.50 hours, a Northern Territory police aircraft sighted a vessel displaying the Indonesian flag near Lawson Island. Lawson Island is east of Croker Island, approximately 160 nautical miles east of Darwin. Nine persons were sighted on the vessel and a small craft was also sighted leaving the island for the vessel. A coastal surveillance aircraft was diverted to maintain a watching brief and the Australian Customs Service vessel Jabiru was alerted for immediate response. An Australian Federal Police coastal protection unit member and an officer from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service accompanied the response vessel, which departed Darwin at 15.30 hours on the same day. The Indonesian vessel was tracked by coastal surveillance aircraft from Lawson Island to McCluer Island and finally to New Year Island, where it was eventually intercepted by the response vessel and boarded at 07.10 hours on 3 October 1987. The Indonesian vessel had also landed at New Year Island. The vessel-a 12-metre type 2 fishing vessel Bunga Rampi, with a crew of 15-was seized under the provisions of the Quarantine Act and taken in tow to Darwin, arriving at 09.05 hours on 5 October. The master of the vessel was interviewed by quarantine and Customs officers in the presence of a representative of the Indonesian consulate in Darwin. At the conclusion of the interview and upon consultation with the Director of Public Prosecutions, the master was charged under sections 20 and 29 (1) of the Quarantine Act and section 58 (1) of the Customs Act. Obviously, court proceedings are to be undertaken. I need go no further on that matter, except to say that I commend those who were responsible for the initial sighting of the vessel, directing the co-ordination of the tracking and the eventual interception of the vessel. I know that Senator Collins will be pleased with this instance of the successful operation of coastal surveillance of the northern waters and coastline, to which the Government attaches the very highest importance. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I direct my question to the Minister for Transport and Communications. Will the Minister ask Australia Post to reconsider its decision not to include for commemoration by the pre-stamped envelope program of 1987 the involvement by Australian servicemen in the Vietnam War, particularly inasmuch as one of the grounds for objecting to the request was that `it is of potential public divisiveness and therefore contrary to the criteria for eligibility as a stamp subject'? Senator GARETH EVANS —I will raise that matter with Australia Post and communicate a response to the honourable senator in due course. Senator COLSTON —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. Has her attention been drawn to the action of two former Fiji nationals, now naturalised Australian citizens, who tore up their naturalisation certificates on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 7.30 Report in Brisbane? Is such an action an indication that these two persons do not value their Australian citizenship and should return to Fiji? Are replacement naturalisation certificates available for people who wilfully destroy the original certificates presented to them? Senator REYNOLDS —I thank Senator Colston for his question. I am aware that two Australian citizens from Fiji tore up their citizenship certificates recently on the 7.30 Report. The destruction of a citizenship certificate does not mean that a person does not value his or her citizenship. In the heat of the moment many people react in a manner that they later regret. I am sure that the persons concerned in this case feel deeply about the situation in Fiji, as indeed we all do. The mere fact that a person destroys his or her citizenship certificate does not result in that person losing his or her Australian citizenship. No legal action can be taken by the Commonwealth against a person for destroying a citizenship certificate, as the certificate is not the property of the Commonwealth. If people wish to renounce their Australian citizenship they are required to lodge a formal declaration of renunciation, which takes effect upon registration. The Australian Citizenship Act bars registration of the declaration if the person concerned would become stateless or if the Minister considers that it would not be in the public interest to register the declaration. The Citizenship Act prohibits the issue of replacement certificates to persons who wilfully destroy their original citizenship certificates. If persons who destroy their certificates require evidence that they are Australian citizens, for example for passport purposes, they must apply for a certificate evidencing their citizenship. Such certification can be obtained on application and the payment of a $30 processing fee. Senator Short —I ask the Minister to table the document from which she was reading. The PRESIDENT —Will the Minister table the document? Senator REYNOLDS —No. Senator Puplick —I take a point of order, Mr President. Is the Minister claiming that there is particular confidentiality in the document that she is refusing to table? My understanding is that she cannot refuse to table the document unless she claims that there is confidentiality in the document, which she has now read into the record. She cannot simply decline to table a document because it happens to suit her purposes. The PRESIDENT —That is the only ground the Minister can use. Is the Minister claiming confidentiality? Senator REYNOLDS —Yes. Senator MacGIBBON —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs: Is it not a fact that the left wing activist Ramos Horta has applied for permanent residency in Australia? Senator REYNOLDS —I thank the honourable senator for his question. I will refer it to the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs and advise the honourable senator in due course. Senator BOLKUS —I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Defence: Is it a fact that women cannot be trained as pilots in the Royal Australian Air Force? If so, can he indicate the reasons for this? Can he also indicate what steps are being taken in the Defence Force to promote equal opportunity for women? Senator ROBERT RAY —The answer to Senator Bolkus's question is no. Women can be trained as pilots in the Royal Australian Air Force, but they are able to be employed only on non-combat duties. It is Defence Force policy to exclude women from combat and combat-related duties. Section 43 of the Sex Discrimination Act states that this action is not unlawful. Four women commenced pilot training in the Royal Australian Air Force earlier this year, but one has already withdrawn because she failed to meet the required flying standard. Further opportunities for air crew training for women will be identified from time to time according to vacancies, staffing and experience levels. However, there have been very few applications from women to fill the non-combat air crew positions available to them in open competition with men. Senator TEAGUE —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment, Education and Training. I refer to the reintroduction of tertiary education tuition fees by the Labor Government. In particular, I refer to the administration charge introduced by Senator Ryan and now paid by two-thirds of all enrolled students and to Mr Dawkins's ministerial statement of 22 September, which approved tertiary tuition fees for some postgraduate students. I ask specifically: Given the increase to $263 in the administration fee, what total revenue will be raised by this fee next year, and will there be any variation in the proportion retained by universities and colleges? Secondly, what is the Government's estimate of the revenue to be raised through the new postgraduate fees? How many institutions intend to charge these fees and how many has the Minister so far approved? Finally, has the Government now approved the full fee approach of the new Bond university in Queensland? Senator RYAN —In reply to Senator Teague's reference to the administration charge and the consumer price index adjustment to that charge, it was the policy of the Government from the inception of that charge that the charge should be inflation adjusted. With regard to the other specific matters that the honourable senator has raised, I will ask Mr Dawkins to provide answers in writing for him. Senator CROWLEY —I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Community Services and Health. Has the Minister seen the recent Press release by the Opposition spokesman for health, Mr Tuckey, criticising the Government's allocation of $25m to address problems with public hospital waiting lists? Can the Minister advise the Senate what progress has been made in the allocation of hospital waiting list money and what results the Government expects from this program? Senator RYAN —Mr Tuckey seems to make a habit of exaggeration and misrepresentation of facts concerning public policy. I am aware of the statement made by Mr Tuckey. He claims that 150,000 people are on waiting lists, but only two months ago the Opposition used the figure of 100,000, a figure which was grossly exaggerated. Mr Tuckey asked why public hospitals cannot subcontract from private hospitals. If Mr Tuckey read the Medicare agreements-- Senator Walters —How many are there? Senator RYAN —I might extend that suggestion to Senator Walters as well. If Mr Tuckey read the Medicare agreements he would know that the State governments have the power to make arrangements with private hospitals if they choose to, and some States are already planning such arrangements. The Opposition, in its desperate attempt to disguise its failure to produce an alternative health policy, continues, quite inappropriately, to blame Medicare for any problems in the health sector. Waiting times for elective surgery are being unjustifiably depicted as Medicare-related. State governments have identified the real reasons underlying waiting lists as nursing shortages resulting in bed closures; an undersupply of some specialists, such as orthopaedic and ophthalmic surgeons; advances in technology allowing previously difficult or dangerous procedures to be more routinely performed; and greater public awareness and higher expectations leading to increased demand. Some States have already developed programs to address particular bottlenecks in their hospitals. While not wishing to intervene inappropriately in an area of State government responsibility, the Federal Government saw scope to develop a program which would support and maintain the momentum of the current State initiatives. During the election campaign, the Government announced a hospital waiting list program which will provide $25m a year for the next two years. With matching State funds, this means that $100m will be dedicated to hospital waiting list strategies over the next two years. The Commonwealth's $25m has been allocated to the States on virtually a per capita basis. These funds, which will be matched dollar for dollar by the States, will be directed to specific programs which have been clearly demonstrated to have a real impact on waiting times for elective surgery. Funding within the two-year program will be continued only on the basis of the results achieved. The types of programs which have already been demonstrated to be effective and which have received approval under this initiative are: in Victoria, a five-part program covering dedicated facilities for specific specialities, overseas nurse recruitment, use of private hospitals for recovery and rehabilitation, day surgery and management review; in South Australia-of particular interest to Senator Crowley-day surgery facilities, additional theatre sessions for orthopaedics, enterology, urology and general surgery; and, in New South Wales, expansion of cardiac and orthopaedic services, improved ophthalmology services, development of day surgery facilities and paediatric enhancement projects. Under the program it is anticipated that some 1,000 paediatric, 1,150 cardiac, 3,400 ophthalmic and 18,000 general elective surgery patients will be treated in the course of a year. The cost of the program is $19.14m for 1987-88, and the Commonwealth share is $9.57m. In conclusion, it is quite clear that Mr Tuckey is not the only member of the Opposition who has no genuine interest in the steps that the Commonwealth, together with the States, is taking to reduce hospital waiting lists. Senator Chaney —Mr President, will the Minister table the paper from which she so extensively quoted? The PRESIDENT —Will the Minister table the document? Senator RYAN —Mr President, I will claim confidentiality. The PRESIDENT —The Minister will not table the document. Senator WALTERS —My question, which is addressed to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, follows Senator Parer's question regarding the building industry severance pay agreement. The Minister said that the Government thought that the agreement needed amending. Can the Minister say how the agreement should be amended to fit in with the social security and tax requirements? Senator BUTTON —I ask Senator Walters to put that question on notice. The question asks for a lot of detailed matter which is probably not, at this stage, resolved-- Senator Walters —Broadly will do. Senator BUTTON —I gave Senator Parer a broad view, and I do not propose to give the honourable senator any more detailed a view. Senator CHILDS —My question is directed to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. I ask whether the Minister has seen this morning's copy of the Australian Financial Review in which, in an article headed `Dollar, interest rates fuel manufacturers' optimism', it is stated that 526 respondents from New South Wales manufacturing industry indicated that they were: more optimistic about Australia's business climate than at any time during the past two years, according to a report by the State Bank and the NSW Chamber of Manufactures. Is the optimism well based? Senator BUTTON —This is not a dorothy dix question. It is a thoughtful and intelligent question from Senator Childs, who takes an interest in these matters. He asks me whether the optimism or satisfaction is well based. I would think so, because it is a view which has been reflected in numerous comments made to me by members of the business community about, for example, the current investment climate in Australia and investment anticipations-a view which, I must say, was not about to the same extent three or six months ago. I have not seen the article in the Australian Financial Review, but the results of that review seem to reflect a mood which is broadly about in industry and which is very important in itself. Anticipations about capacity to invest and potential returns on investment and so on and about the general state of the economy are very important in terms of the decisions which will be made by businesses both now and in the immediate 12 months or so. Senator ALSTON —My question is addressed to the Minister for Transport and Communications. Has the Minister's attention been drawn to a report in the latest edition of the Business Review Weekly that Telecom Australia has purchased exclusive easement rights to the Victorian Railways network? Is the report true? Was the Minister aware of Telecom's intention prior to the acquisition? Does the Minister agree that the deal pre-empts the current internal departmental review of Telecom's activities? Does the Minister agree that the effect of the purchase will be to close out potential new entrants into the optical fibre trunkline business in the event of any government decision to expose Telecom's network activities to private sector competition? Will Telecom's reported arrangement with Vistel allow the Victorian public sector to save an estimated $20m a year by using a private network? If so, why should the same opportunity be denied to the private sector? Senator GARETH EVANS —I recall seeing the article to which Senator Alston referred. I do not have a detailed brief on it. I would prefer to respond in detail to the question he raised rather than rabbit on off the cuff. Senator PANIZZA —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy aware that the number of farms quarantined for pesticide contamination in Western Australia alone has risen to 64, with a further 25 under investigation? Is he aware that buyers have refused to buy stock from a further 300 for fear of contamination-that is, contamination by association? Is he aware that public utilities such as the State Energy Commission (SEC) have caused contamination to private land? Does the Government accept that part of the blame for contamination is likely to lie with people and bodies other than farmers and that the whole cost should not therefore be borne by the farmers? What action will the Government take, either alone or in conjunction with State governments, to assist farmers and abattoir operators who are currently carrying the whole burden? Senator WALSH —I was asked whether I was aware of five facts, or alleged facts. The answer is that I was not. I do not believe that the Commonwealth Government has any responsibility for what the State Energy Commission of Western Australia may or may not have done. I must say that the Commonwealth Government did, quite gratuitously, pick up some responsibility for one of the SEC's past mistakes. Charles Court twisted the arm of the SEC commissioners in, I think, 1980, to sign that disastrous take-or-pay contract for North West Shelf gas. The Commonwealth Government has generously forgone very substantial royalty payments in order to assist the State Government to get out of the financial disaster with which Charlie Court lumbered it, because he leaned on the weak SEC commissioners to sign that take-or-pay contract. That, however, was an act-of-grace payment, so to speak, and there was no obligation. I will check with Mr Kerin the number of properties which are quarantined or under investigation. He should be able to get the information. Even if the SEC is responsible for some of the contamination at the margin, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of contaminated soils or crops has been contaminated by chemicals used by farmers. Senator DEVLIN —My question is directed to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. I refer to the Minister's previous statements about the need to encourage the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to work more closely with industry through its research program and commercialisation activities. What action have the Minister and the Government taken to bring about this stronger link? Senator Archer —That is not a dorothy dixer! Senator BUTTON —As Senator Archer knows, the CSIRO is a very important organisation on which a considerable amount of taxpayers' money has been spent and, for most of its history, properly spent. In answer to the specific part of the question, the CSIRO has just undertaken a very fundamental examination of its purpose, function and structure-the most fundamental examination in its 60-year history. Senator Puplick —The Birch review was a better one. Senator BUTTON —I said it was the most fundamental one, Senator. The outcome of this examination is a research organisation which is much more focused on the application of its research results. The CSIRO has arrived at a strategy which will involve it remaining at the forefront of world science and technology. It will have a commitment to the creative application of its research results through bodies such as Sirotech. Priority will be given to research with a high potential to create new products, processes or services which will be of benefit to Australian industry or society. Customers or potential customers will be much more involved in setting CSIRO's priorities, financing, conducting of research and implementation of results. CSIRO's capacity to create or capture new knowledge which has longer term potential will be maintained and research in important areas of national interest, such as the environment, the oceans and atmosphere, and human nutrition, will be retained. The new structure, together with the strategy or objectives to which I have just referred, will be put in place as from 1 January 1988. Also, new guidelines are under discussion with CSIRO which will set out the Government's policies and priorities and help to guide the Organisation towards an increasingly productive future. Senator CHAPMAN —Is the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy aware of the crisis among grain farmers on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia who are expecting poor harvest yields this season for the third year in a row, causing a South Australian Department of Agriculture agronomist to describe their situation as disastrous? Has the Federal Budget reduced interest rate subsidies on rural adjustment loans to farmers to a level which will support a lending program of only $11m to needy South Australian farmers this year, compared with $37m last year? In view of the crisis on Eyre Peninsula, will the Government respond favourably to a request from the South Australian Minister of Agriculture for increased funds for interest rate subsidies on rural adjustment loans to South Australian farmers to allow a much needed increased lending program? Senator WALSH —We have just witnessed another example of why the Liberal Party of Australia deserves to be in opposition. It is full of humbugs and hypocrites. The same Party- Senator Chaney —Mr President, the Minister should be told to withdraw that. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Walsh will withdraw that statement. Senator WALSH —I will withdraw. I think the facts speak for themselves. The Liberal Party spends most of its time running around the countryside demanding that Government expenditure be ruthlessly slashed by $7 billion, $9 billion, $10 billion, or $22 billion, if one takes the National Party's version of it. It spends the remainder of its time berating the Government for not providing additional handouts for this favoured group, that favoured group or some other favoured group. Senator Chapman —Where there is genuine need. Senator WALSH —I am about to come to that, too, Senator. Having been a practising farmer myself for well over 20 years-- Senator Knowles —Not a very good one, either. Senator WALSH —I was quite a good one, actually. I did not get out of farming because I was going broke. The people who get out of farming because they are going broke end up as National Party politicians or sometimes Liberal Party politicians, not as Labor politicians. Anybody who knows anything about agriculture, or wheat growing in particular, would know that there are two major reasons why a substantial number-probably about one-sixth in total-of wheat farmers have very serious debt problems. The first is a combination of excessive purchases of plant-wasteful over-investment in plant and equipment, encouraged by the tax laws left behind by the last Government-and the second is that they paid too much for wheat growing land in the early 1980s, largely in the expectation of receiving untaxed capital gains. Senator Messner —Who drove the interest rates up to 23 per cent? Senator WALSH —If Senator Messner and his lot had had the nerve and the common sense to reform the taxation system during that barren 7 1/4 years that they spent in government, there would not be nearly as many farmers in financial difficulties now as there are. From 1979 onwards the real price of wheat has been continuously falling, but for most of that period, until 1984 or even 1985, the price of wheat growing land has been going up. Obviously, that could not prevail forever. A major reason for the price of wheat growing land going up is that farmers had been encouraged to believe, and had come to believe, that they would be the beneficiaries of substantial untaxed capital gains from appreciating land prices. Well, it just could not go on. I repeat that if Senator Messner's lot had had any guts and sense, it would not have gone on for the seven barren years that they were in government. Senator Chapman —It is the interest rates that have killed them. Senator WALSH —That is another popular fallacy from someone who will accept, apparently, every opportunity to parade his ignorance of this subject. I will consult Mr Kerin about the specific amounts of money which have been provided in the Budget estimate and their breakup between the States and supply the facts. Senator ROBERT RAY —On 21 September, Senator Vallentine asked a question on the joint facilities which I answered in my capacity as the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. I undertook to refer her supplementary question to the Minister for Defence. On Thursday, 24 September, my colleague the Minister for Defence provided a comprehensive statement on the role of the defence support program. I refer the honourable senator to that response, which I am sure will allay any outstanding concerns. Senator GARETH EVANS —Senator Calvert asked me a question yesterday about the closure of the VNG facility and I undertook to seek supplementary information. I have now done that. Although the subject matter is fascinating to Senator Calvert and me, I doubt that that fascination will be shared by other people. I seek leave to incorporate the response in Hansard. Leave granted. The response read as follows- Telecom's standard time and frequency service, VNG, has been transmitted from the Commonwealth transmitting station at Lyndhurst in Victoria for many years. However, Telecom itself has made no use of the VNG service for some time as its own needs for time and frequency signals are met through its terrestrial network. The Commission had been proceeding towards the closure of the VNG service since September 1986; it contacted numerous users of the VNG service with a view to continuing the service if the users were prepared to fund its operation. Before deciding to terminate the service, Telecom approached known major users, offering to transfer, free of charge, the existing transmitting equipment. In addition, Telecom contacted numerous users of the service with a view to having users fund a short postponement of the closure. However, none of the users of the VNG service was prepared to fund the continuation of the service. In my former portfolio, as Minister for Resources and Energy, I had sought a postponement of the closure of VNG to 30 September 1987. This was to enable the Bureau of Mineral Resources, which operates some 20 seismological observatories, including those at Mawson and at Macquarie Island, time to examine whether it would fund a continuation of the VNG service or its relocation at another site. I have recently been advised that the Bureau is establishing an alternative system for its seismological stations and it is expected that the new system will be in place by early next year. There will apparently be some difficulties during the construction of new Omega receivers, particularly at Mawson in Antarctica, but the Bureau decided that it was prepared to accept the closure of VNG on 30 September 1987. I understand that, in the meantime, they will use the less adequate United States' WWV signal from Hawaii. In addition to the Bureau of Mineral Resources' requirement for VNG, the service was also used by surveying and mapping groups at Federal and State level, by private surveyors, geophysical and mineral exploration companies, and by transportation departments and companies. The signal was also received in neighbouring countries. The National Standards Commission had conducted a survey of these other users of the VNG service. While the survey indicated that there was extensive and diverse use of the VNG service, the National Standards Commission failed to attract funds from private sector users for a continuation of the service. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications) —by leave-Mr President, I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a statement by the Minister for Trade Negotiations (Mr Duffy) relating to his visit to North and South America. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- I would like to report to the House on the outcome of my visit to Canada, the United States, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay from 11 to 29 September. From the outset, I would like to report that in the United States and the various Cairns Group capitals visited, I received many expressions of appreciation for the positive contribution made by the former Minister for Trade, Mr Dawkins, in progressing the movement for world agricultural trade reform and for his most effective leadership as chairman of the Cairns Group. The purpose of my visit to the United States was to register strongly Australia's concerns with several of the proposals contained in two trade Bills currently being considered by the Congress. The two versions of the Trade Bill, which were originated in each of the Houses of Congress, are in the process of being negotiated to a single Bill by a joint conference which includes members of both Houses. The Bill agreed by the conference will then be returned to both Houses for ratification before onforwarding to the President for his agreement or veto. Many of the proposals in the present versions of the Bill are protectionist in intent and unfortunately accurately reflect the current mood of many of those in Congress. This is a mood which countries like Australia must fight-the alternative is to allow the undermining of the international trade system to the detriment of all countries. While in Washington I met with 10 congressmen-all of whom are participants in a joint conference of the Congress to consider the Bills-and with leading members of the Reagan Administration. I argued strongly for those congressmen to reconsider the most damaging elements of the Bills. I stressed the obvious contradiction between the radical US proposal for agricultural trade reform which they have tabled in the Uruguay Round negotiations in Geneva and the protectionist tendencies evident in draft US trade legislation. I pointed out that such a contradictory approach to trade policy put at risk the credibility of the United States. I argued that in the interests of all nations, what the United States should be doing is providing leadership in the process of trade reform-not trade destruction. Apart from the illogical and unsustainable direction of the draft legislation, I argued strongly that specific measures, which would directly damage Australia, should be reconsidered. I argued most strongly against the provision in the draft legislation which would restrict the entry of Australian lamb into the United States market. I also argued for the removal of a proposal to introduce an effective export subsidy for US sugar refiners. I repeated the Government's views on the intention to increase the funding for and duration of the export enhancement program. I also expressed concern at other elements of the Bills which would provide increased protection for US industry. I can see no justification for any of these proposals and I said so. I received a good hearing from all those I met and was able to detail Australia's concern about the Bills and the general direction of US industry policy. I am reasonably optimistic that the final version of the US Trade Bill will emerge from the US Congress in an improved form. I took up these same concerns with the U.S. Administration. While there was some agreement on the desirable direction of trade policy, I was particularly disappointed with the differences between us on the operation and extension of exports subsidy provisions under the export enhancement program. The Administration's position is that while it opposes export subsidies, in principle, the EEP is seen to have value as a retaliatory measure and as a means of putting pressure on the EC in particular, to negotiate on agricultural trade reform in the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. I indicated to the Administration that current US policies were placing only marginal pressure on the EC. I pointed out that contrary to US claims their strategy was proving ineffective in adding substantially to the cost of the Common Agricultural Policy, and that rather it had shifted the adjustment burden onto non-subsidising countries like Australia which were being caught in the subsidies crossfire. I drew out for them the consequences of reduced export income for Australia's purchasing power and what that could mean for future trade between our two countries. I would like to note that despite the strong protectionist mood which prevails in the Congress there are some signs of recognition that increased protectionism is not the right path to take. One recent indication of this welcome development has been the failure of the Textiles Bill to attract enough support in the US House of Representatives to avoid a presidential veto. I left the United States encouraged in this view by the efforts of certain congressmen and the Administration to work towards an open and fair trading environment, not only in the United States but globally as well. The statement by President Reagan to the IMF/World Bank meeting last week in Washington that he would veto any protectionist proposal is also a welcome reaffirmation of the Administration position. I am convinced that the repeated representations by this Government, especially given the reasonableness of our views, are essential if we are to protect both our bilateral trade position in the US as well as our position in international trade. During my discussions in Canada and the US, I indicated clearly my concern that Australia's trading interests should be properly protected in any US-Canada trade agreement. Our officials are closely monitoring more recent negotiations in North America and have again been in contact with Canadian officials this week. It is still too early to judge the final form of the US-Canada agreement. However, the Government will continue to represent strongly our trading interests as the negotiations unfold. While away I held discussions in Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, which are members of the Cairns Group of Fair Traders in Agriculture. The principal objective of my visit to these countries was to discuss with Ministers our common interests in seeking comprehensive agricultural reform, to gain an appreciation of the priorities of these countries in the GATT negotiations, and, in particular, the strategy which the Cairns group might follow for the remainder of 1987. Firstly, I would emphasise that it was evident during my visit that the Cairns Group has become a recognised and respected voice in the debate on agricultural trade reform. I received strong encouragement, including support from the United States, for the group to continue its efforts in maintaining the momentum for agricultural trade reform in the Uruguay round of trade negotiations. In all four countries, I was impressed by the strong commitment to the group. I was reassured of the future of the group by the strong expressions of support for the objectives of the group and by the assurances I received of active and constructive participation in its future activities. Argentina has offered to host a further meeting of the group at ministerial level in the first quarter of 1988. Subject to the view of other members of the group on this proposal, I welcomed this offer and indicated Australia's participation towards its success. I will be visiting Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia on my way back from Europe later in the month. These ASEAN countries are also members of the Cairns Group. I shall take the opportunity of my visit to obtain their views on the appropriate future strategy of the Cairns group. Senator GARETH EVANS —I move: That the Senate take note of the statement. Debate (on motion by Senator Stone) adjourned. The PRESIDENT —I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter, dated 7 October, from Senator Puplick: Dear Mr President Pursuant to Standing Order 64, I give notice that today I propose to move- ``That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The need for the Government to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud in a way that does not unacceptably trespass on civil liberties and individual privacy and for it to cease its campaign of smear and misrepresentation against opponents of the discredited Australia Card legislation.'' Yours sincerely (CHRIS PUPLICK) Senator for the State of New South Wales Is the proposal supported? More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(3.03) —I move: That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: The need for the Government to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud in a way that does not unacceptably trespass on civil liberties and individual privacy and for it to cease its campaign of smear and misrepresentation against opponents of the discredited Australia Card legislation. This matter of urgency before the Senate has two elements to it. The first identifies the continuing failure of the Labor Government to deal with the issues of taxation evasion and welfare fraud, except by making slick comments about the necessity for the Australia Card legislation to be passed without amendment. The second element deals with the Government's campaign of smear and misrepresentation against opponents of the discredited Australia Card legislation and allows us to identify why it is that the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh) and the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) are now embarked upon a campaign of smear and deliberate misrepresentation, a campaign which owes its principles to Joseph McCarthy and its techniques to Joseph Goebbels. The biggest lie which this Government has attempted to put across is that the Australia Card is a simple solution to all of the problems of welfare fraud and tax evasion and that such a system can be introduced without in any way trespassing unduly upon the rights and liberties of Australian citizens. If anything needed to be brought forward to give the lie to that claim by the Government, it is to be found in its own Review of Systems for Dealing with Fraud on the Commonwealth, a report which was presented just a couple of days ago. Page 33 of the report states: Not all fraud can be prevented or countered. A watertight system would require controls of Orwellian dimension and prohibitive cost. I am fully aware that Senator Schacht, who has attempted to interject in the last couple of moments, objects neither to Orwellian controls nor to unlimited expenditure of public money. Undoubtedly, he would have had an opportunity to participate in this debate to make sure that people understood that the Australian Labor Party is perfectly happy to go along with a system in which those Orwellian controls are put in place and those prohibitive costs are imposed on the people and the taxpayers of Australia. I want to make plain the Opposition parties' clear position in response to the Australia Card legislation's defeat, although we have been waiting for the Government to announce clearly what steps it proposed to take from the moment that it realised that its Australia Card legislation was doomed. Today, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Howard, put out a statement on behalf of the Opposition parties dealing with this matter quite unequivocally. Mr Howard said in his statement: The Opposition welcomes the Government's decision, in the face of the Liberal and National Parties campaign and overwhelming public opposition, to withdraw the Australia Card legislation. That legislation was unacceptable to the Opposition because: it clearly would not have solved the basic problems of tax fraud and welfare cheating; it would not have been cost effective; and it represented an unacceptable level of intrusion upon personal privacy and individual civil liberties. It is now up to the Government to bring forward either legislation or appropriate administrative reforms which will achieve these objectives. The Opposition makes it clear that we are totally and utterly opposed to taxation fraud and welfare cheating. Such behaviour is not only illegal but it also imposes additional costs and burdens on the vast majority of honest, law-abiding Australian citizens. In government the Liberal and National Parties waged a relentless and effective attack upon tax evasion. All the major strikes against tax evaders over the past decade were initiated by the former Liberal and National Party Government. For example, the prescribed payments system, so lauded by the Minister for Finance in the Senate yesterday as a major weapon against tax evasion, was introduced by the Fraser Government in the 1982 Budget. The Liberal and National Parties will give their support to any reasonable measures which: (1) effectively eliminate tax fraud and welfare cheating; (2) are cost effective in so doing; and (3) do not unreasonably intrude upon personal privacy and individual civil liberties. This has been the formal position of the Opposition for well over three years. When the idea of some form of national identification system was first proposed we made our position clear and we have not deviated from that at any stage. We rejected the Australia Card legislation because all the evidence indicated that it failed to meet each of our three tests. In relation to the use of an upgraded tax file number our position is equally clear. Firstly, we will support moves to upgrade the degree of integrity of the tax file number system. This is essential to ensure that people do not abuse the system by, for example, having more than one tax file number. In addition, we will favourably consider any proposals designed to improve the use of tax file numbers for proper taxation and welfare purposes such as those already provided for in the Income Tax Assessment Act. Any such proposals will be judged against our three stated criteria. However, we will vigorously oppose any attempt to turn the tax file number system into a de facto Australia Card system. The Opposition and the Senate have indicated what is not acceptable to us, namely the Australia Card legislation as proposed. Equally we have indicated consistently since 1985 what is acceptable to us. Labor's failure to produce acceptable and proper reforms must bring condemnation upon the Government. It would indicate that they are not serious about addressing the significant problems of tax fraud and welfare cheating but are interested only in playing sleazy and shabby political games at the expense of law-abiding Australians. Our bona fides in this matter are not open to question, what is in doubt are the Government's. The Opposition totally rejects the McCarthyist-style campaign of the Government to smear the opponents of the Australia Card as friends of tax evaders and welfare cheats. The Prime Minister has repeatedly and fraudulently used the figure of $1 billion without providing a skerrick of evidence of how such a figure was determined. In addition, the former ID Task Force chaired by David Jull, will be renamed the Anti Fraud Task Force and will have a new role of examining available material on methods of dealing with tax and welfare fraud. It will also continue to monitor the general matter of privacy protection for Australians against the creation and misuse of centralised data banks. We have also moved to ensure that a Senate Committee examine in detail the likely effectiveness and possible flaws of any Government proposals to: improve the efficiency of the tax system; and eliminate fraud and abuses in the tax and social security system. There can be no doubt as to where the Opposition stands and has consistently stood in relation to the question of the elimination of taxation fraud and welfare cheating. By contrast, that stands markedly against the lack of success, indeed the lack of effort, made by this Government directed towards those particular problems. I turn first, therefore, to the question of what our record was on tax matters and indicate that from early 1978 onwards the Fraser Government followed a steady pattern of outlawing specific tax avoidance practices as they came to light. A string of amendments to taxation laws was announced and subsequently implemented and by the start of 1982 the Government-that is, the Liberal and National Party Government-had introduced over 22 pieces of legislation closing down over 50 tax avoidance schemes of which the landmark decisions were the Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act of December 1980 and the new part IVa of the Income Tax Assessment Act. On 16 April 1985, the then Minister for Finance, Mr Dawkins, addressed a seminar, and I quote from a report on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio: The Finance Minister, Mr Dawkins, says tax avoidance is `no longer an issue in Australia'. Mr Dawkins told a conference of accountants in Sydney last night that both the accountancy profession and the Government had `put the question of tax avoidance behind them'. They are the words of Mr Dawkins, that it was no longer an issue and the issue of tax avoidance had been put behind the Government. Yet Senator Schacht, Senator Aulich and Senator Ryan come in here bleating about tax avoidance problems despite the fact that their former Minister for Finance, Mr Dawkins, had said that it was no longer an issue and that the Government had put it behind it. It is no wonder that they are sensitive on this question of taxation reform and taxation fraud. If honourable senators look at an article by Ross Gittins in the Sydney Morning Herald on 30 May 1984 analysing what this Government had done to date on the question of tax reform they will see that he indicated that a Labor Party publication prior to the election had, in fact, been issued-a 20-page policy statement on tax avoidance called `A Fairer Taxation System'. Gittins went on to say in his article: . . . by comparison with all it said and all the promises it made before the election, Labor's performance on tax avoidance has been, in a word, pathetic. In almost 15 months, Paul Keating has acted on virtually none of the 13 points. That was in the Government's own document; that was in its own policy statement on this particular matter. So we have an absolute lack of record for the Labor Party. We have Mr Dawkins admitting that the 22 pieces of legislation introduced and passed through the Parliament by the Fraser Government had taken that issue to the point of being a non-issue and an issue which the Government itself had admitted that it had put behind it. Consistently, this Opposition has put before the people of Australia and before the Parliament a series of realistic alternatives. When we have come to the area of fraud in the welfare system we have had two initiatives which we have put before this Parliament on which the Government has sought from time to time to heap scorn and has failed to take up the proposals. The first proposal has been the initiation of a comprehensive policy on the question of work for unemployment benefit. On 20 October 1986, Senator Chaney moved a motion in the Senate which indicated: The need for the Government to endorse the principle that some form of community work be required of those in receipt of unemployment benefit. I and a number of other senators had the opportunity to participate in that debate. My colleague Senator Alston produced a paper in October 1986 on workfare which was subsequently, in an amended form, reproduced in the Current Affairs Bulletin of April 1987. We have consistently said, `Here is a method of dealing with part of the difficulty of cheating in the unemployment benefit system'. If one looks once again at the Government's own report, Review of Systems for Dealing with Fraud on the Commonwealth, one will see on page 181 that in analysing the fraud against the Department of Social Security overpayments were detected to the sum of $73.7m of which $32.5m arose in the area of unemployment benefit. That would have been substantially addressed if the Opposition's proposals on the work for benefits scheme had, in fact, been acted upon. But back in 1979 when Mr Hawke was the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions he said that the proposal to have any scheme of work for the dole was `a political sham without substantive foundations'. No wonder the Government is not prepared to do anything about that. Yet we know that the schemes work. For instance, we know that the Liberal Government in Tasmania has an excellent scheme which has been operating in George Town. Its work for the dole program has made notable progress. The other major area which is identified in terms of overpayment in the Department of Social Security has been in the area of supporting parent's benefit-$15.6m out of the $73.7m. Yet on every occasion when Senator Durack and other senators on this side have sought to bring forward changes in areas such as the Family Law Act dealing with maintenance and proposals which would in fact address some of the financial problems in the supporting parent's benefit, again this Government has had absolutely nothing to do with that. This Government has an appalling record on both taxation reform and taxation fraud compared with that of its predecessor, the Fraser Government. In terms of doing something about fraud within the Department of Social Security, it has had from the Opposition positive suggestions dealing with the major areas in which fraud has taken place and it has declined to take any substantive action. We come, finally, to that part of this motion which, as I say, relates to the campaign mounted by Senator Walsh, the Prime Minister, Senator Ryan and others, which simply gets into the business of attempting to smear and misrepresent those persons who have been genuinely concerned about the Australia Card legislation, presumably a smear which goes to the 85,000-odd Australians who have signed petitions which have been presented in this chamber alone dealing with the question of their opposition to the Australia Card. As I said, it is a campaign based upon taking its principles from Joseph McCarthy and its techniques from Joseph Goebbels. Members of the Labor Party have refined both to an absolute art form. Nobody in this Parliament is better known throughout the length and breadth of the Commonwealth of Australia than Senator Walsh as working on the basis that if one cannot answer a point of substance or address arguments against Labor Party propositions on the basis of the truth, one simply muckrakes and throws dirt in the hope that some of it will stick. Senator Walsh positively revels in the process at every opportunity. The tragedy is that basically decent people such as Senator Ryan find that this is now the only technique that they can manage to bring to account. People such as Senator Schacht find themselves given little pieces of paper to read out at Question Time to allow Senator Walsh to get on with yet another of these techniques. It is a great pity that Senator Walsh's corrupting techniques have now spread as far as they have throughout the back bench of the Labor Party opposite. Nevertheless, that does not disguise the fact that this Government has been unable to answer the points of substance raised against the Australia Card proposal. It has been unable to answer them and, more particularly, it has failed consistently to bring forward techniques and proposals for the way in which it will go about reforming the taxation system and the welfare system. It refuses to face up to the fact that its primary responsibility in taxation reform ought to be to introduce lower levels of taxation and that its primary responsibility in the welfare system ought to be to cast more personal responsibility upon the recipients of welfare payments. It refuses to face up to those two fundamental requirements for reform of the taxation and welfare systems. Under those circumstances, the Opposition has no embarrassment about the extent to which it has successfully waged the campaign against the Australia Card, not on behalf of tax cheats, not on behalf of people who are fraudulently receiving payments under the welfare system, but on behalf of the majority of Australians who, at the last election, voted for political parties clearly opposed to the Australia Card-people who are genuinely concerned about their civil liberties and who are aware of the comment in the Review of Systems for Dealing with Fraud on the Commonwealth about the prohibitive costs and the Orwellian dimensions that would be introduced into public life in Australia by introducing the sort of system that this Government favours. We have no embarrassment about our actions because we have attacked the Australia Card on its merits and its demerits. We have indicated clearly what we will support as an alternative. We have indicated clearly by our record on taxation reform and welfare reform that the record of the Opposition parties will stand any scrutiny. Indeed, it will stand any degree of muckraking, personal abuse, smear and misrepresentation which the Labor Party likes to put forward. Madam Acting Deputy President, as you know, this Government has already been forced into one humiliating backdown on the Australia Card. The very least it can do now is to be honest and decent enough to put forward its alternative proposals, with which we will deal fairly on their merits, on the basis of the principles enunciated in Mr Howard's statement today which I have now put into the record. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator RYAN(Australian Capital Territory-Special Minister of State)(3.23) —In the course of the overexcited ranting that Senator Puplick has just inflicted on the Senate, he claimed on a couple of occasions that he was not embarrassed by the Opposition's position on the Australia Card or on measures to crack down on tax evasion and welfare fraud. I do not believe Senator Puplick. I think Senator Puplick is very embarrassed, and he has very good reason to be embarrassed. After all, why would he not be embarrassed in bringing before the Senate such a stupid, pointless motion. The motion states that as a matter of urgency the Government should proceed with measures to crack down on tax evasion and welfare fraud, or words to that effect. How ludicrous it is for Senator Puplick to bring this motion forward in the Senate when he and his cohorts opposite have spent the last few weeks doing everything possible, employing every trick in the book, to make sure that the Government could not proceed urgently to introduce the most effective measures yet devised to remove frauds and cheats from the system. Senator Puplick's actions belie directly his words. Senator Puplick has been put in a very embarrassing and humiliating position, because the Opposition parties have decided to use their numbers to disallow a regulation in order to block the principal Act, to block a piece of legislation which was the cause and trigger for a double dissolution. At the election following that double dissolution the Government was returned to office with an increased majority and therefore with the right to hold a joint sitting and secure the legislation that was the trigger for the double dissolution. Senator Puplick's cohorts opposite have decided to use for the first time in 87 years a minor regulatory power of the Senate to prevent the use of section 57 of the Constitution which was set up precisely to resolve differences between the Houses. It seems that one of the Opposition spokespersons-I do not know whether he is the most official Opposition spokesperson but certainly he is the most vociferous and irritating Opposition spokesperson-Mr Wilson Tuckey, has now decided that he will back down on any measure that might have any chance of being effective in stopping tax evasion. Senator Puplick was a member of the now famous Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card and a signatory to its report. That Committee recommended the implementation of a number of measures involving the use of tax file numbers. Such measures would not be as effective as an Australia Card but they would be effective in cracking down on the dreadful evasion and cheating that is occurring at the expense of honest taxpayers. Senator Puplick is now in a position where he has to back down from supporting even those most modest measures because Mr Wilson Tuckey has decided, with or without consultation with the Liberals opposite, that he will not allow any effective measure to be taken. Obviously, the Opposition is in complete disarray about this matter. We have Wilson Tuckey saying one thing one day; we have orders from Liberal Party of Australia headquarters that he should shut up and stop saying those things; we have Wilson Tuckey revealing by his comments that he does not even understand the way in which the current tax legislation operates in respect of employers' obligations in reporting taxable payments to employees. John Howard, who has committed so many somersaults over this issue that he should run away and join the circus, today made a statement in which he tried to re-create some sort of sense of commitment to ending tax evasion. I should make it clear in the course of this debate that the Opposition appears to grow furious, enraged and embarrassed when the Government points out to it that its actions have assisted tax evaders and welfare frauds. They are the facts, and the Opposition cannot stomach those facts. The Opposition then accuses the Government of saying that every Australian citizen who had worries about the Australia Card was lining up with the tax cheats and the tax frauds. What a distortion that is. We have never said that. Because of the kind of misleading, hysterical campaign in which the Liberals participated, because of the particularly misleading and frightening things that some self-styled leaders of the campaign against the Australia Card said, some people in the community were genuinely worried and concerned about the measures; they misunderstood the measures and feared them because of the misrepresentation of the likes of honourable senators opposite. We are not saying that every person who signed a petition against the introduction of the Australia Card was a supporter of tax cheats or tax frauds. But we are saying that the only effect of the action of Liberal senators opposite is to protect the cheats and the frauds. We also remind them of a fact of which Senator Chaney does not wish to be reminded, that the Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, John Howard, who apparently has made some bleating statement today to try to restore his credibility in this area, was silent for eight weeks of an election campaign on the question of the Australia Card. It is John Howard and his ilk we are accusing of hypocrisy in this matter, not the citizens of Australia who understandably have been led by a most outrageous campaign of misrepresentation. Senator Chaney —I wish to raise a point of order. The Minister cannot accuse the Leader of the Opposition of hypocrisy. That is clearly unparliamentary and should be withdrawn. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Order! I suggest that the Minister withdraw that unparliamentary remark. Senator RYAN —Madam Acting Deputy President, of course I comply with your ruling, but I point out that John Howard was quoted on a number of occasions as supporting these sorts of measures. He then retreated from those remarks, and it appears that today he has discovered the value and benefit of introducing measures to crack down on tax evasion. I shall not describe that series of somersaults in a way that is unparliamentary, but honest, sensible Australian citizens can make up their own minds about what it all means. The other extraordinary thing that Senator Puplick tried to do was boast of the Fraser Government's record in the area of tax reform. What a pathetic effort that was. What a shameful and shameless performance that was. I remind honourable senators and the Australian public of the tax reform record of honourable senators opposite. I remind them that it was honourable senators opposite who opposed the recovery of money from bottom of the harbour frauds, who condemned the capital gains tax, who denounced the fringe benefits tax, who criticised the Australia Card, and who derided the introduction of the Cash Transaction Reports Bill. In the course of the recent election campaign they promised to remove most of those tax reform measures if returned to government. Senator Puplick can shout and scream and froth all he likes, but the record of the Opposition parties in opposition-they have been in opposition for the last few years and will be for many years to come-and in government previously has been absolutely pathetic. At the end of the day the Opposition, whether it likes it or not, has lined up with those who are seeking to avoid and evade their honest tax responsibilities. Senator Puplick has come here today asking us to consider as a matter of urgency the question of acting on tax fraud and welfare fraud. He ignores the fact, as he has ignored it for some months now, that we are doing that. He has suddenly rediscovered himself as some sort of self-professed civil libertarian. He wants us to make sure that we do not unacceptably trespass on civil liberties and individual privacy. We are taking such action. I remind Senator Puplick of the words of a person who is not an Australian, David Lange, the Prime Minister of New Zealand. When asked his views on civil liberties and the Australia Card and the various measures we were proposing, he said that he was very concerned with civil liberties; he was very concerned with the civil liberties of the honest citizen who was being increasingly burdened by the activities of tax evasion and welfare fraud. Mr Lange-I refer to him because he was not a participant in the debate up to that point-gave an honest and direct answer and said that he was concerned with the civil liberties of those honest Australian citizens who are fed up to the back teeth with the welfare frauds and the tax evaders. Let me remind honourable senators of what Senator Puplick and the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card, of which he was an active member and the report of which he wrote and signed, actually advocated. It is a very different series of steps from what he is advocating today. All he can say today is that he wants the unemployed to be forced to work for the dole. That is the single anti-tax and welfare fraud measure that he has proposed. But a few months ago, when he was a very active member of the Joint Select Committee, he advocated, in recommendation 4.58: That the use of the tax file number be extended to cover all the financial transactions proposed in the Government submission for the use of the Australia Card by the Australian Taxation Office, as well as for social security purposes. That is what he said then. What is he saying now? Our Government is currently examining ways of using the tax file numbers to achieve those ends. The Joint Select Committee recommended in recommendation 2 (a): That the computerisation of all State and Territory Registries of Births, Deaths and Marriages proceed. It further recommended that the Commonwealth provide appropriate assistance and advice to ensure that that was being done. That is what he recommended then. Did he utter one word about the births, deaths and marriages register today? Did he make one suggestion about how the very widespread fraudulent use of birth certificates documented by Frank Costigan in the report of the Royal Commission on the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union could be dealt with? No. He was totally silent on that question today. Of course, I understand that I am not to use the word `hypocrisy' because it offends the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Chaney). That is what Senator Puplick advocated then; today there is absolute silence. The Joint Select Committee agreed that there should be a Data Protection Agency. Of course, we accepted that recommendation and we have announced that we are proceeding with a Data Protection Agency. Do we get one word of commendation or support from Senator Puplick, the great civil libertarian, the great self-professed born again civil libertarian, about our adoption of the recommendation of the Joint Select Committee for a Data Protection Agency? There is not a word, total silence now about the single most progressive measure that any government has introduced to protect citizens against the abuse of data held about them in government and some private data banks. We have, of course, introduced the privacy Bills and we will proceed with them and pass them as soon as possible. They set out a number of very important principles that have been internationally endorsed whereby all government agencies can ensure that the privacy of individuals is properly protected. Do we hear one word of support from Senator Puplick about the good thing the Government is doing in proceeding with the privacy Bills? No, he is totally silent. No doubt Wilson `Iron Bar' Tuckey has silenced him and made a few threats about what would happen should he suggest that he actually supports the Government's Data Protection Agency or the privacy Bills. All the measures the Government proposes now-the Data Protection Agency, the births, deaths and marriages register, the privacy legislation, the improved use of the tax file system to cut down on cheating and fraud; the current package of measures that the Government has brought forward and announced to replace the Australia Card legislation-were supported by the Joint Select Committee of which Senator Puplick was a member and a contributor and the report of which he was a signatory to. Yet today we heard nothing from him about these wonderful recommendations he was so proud to put his name to a few months ago. We are including in our measures the greatest array of protections for the individual this country has ever seen. Yet, what do we get from the Opposition? Constant denigration, constant misrepresentation, constant negativism and obstruction. The Opposition parties-I include the Australian Democrats; up to this point they have made no constructive contribution; perhaps Senator Haines will make one today but she has not yet-have given no assistance in the massive task the Government has to pursue in getting the frauds and the cheats out of the system. We have had no assistance in recouping for the Australian people the $1 billion, or thereabouts, that has been assessed as what is being lost to revenue by the cheats and the frauds. So, we have to ask ourselves why Senator Puplick wasted everyone's time by bringing forward such a silly, hypocritical, ultimately self-destructive motion as he did today. Senator Collins —They are getting worried. Senator RYAN —The answer clearly is, as my colleague the very experienced senator from the Northern Territory, who has seen a bit of redneck behaviour in his time, knows, Opposition senators are getting worried. They are getting worried because the number of somersaults, backflips, about-turns and contradictions that they have collectively and individually done on this issue has just become too much for the Australian public and too much for the Australian media. They have been able to fool some of the people some of the time but they cannot fool all of the people all of the time, and Senator Puplick's time has run out. Madam Acting Deputy President, let me give the Senate a collection of the kinds of things the editorials are saying that have frightened Senator Puplick into bringing this silly motion before the Senate today. The Launceston Examiner-it is a shame Senator Walters is not here to hear this-said: (An improved tax file number system and other measures) deserved the support of the people of Australia and should get the backing of the Senate. On 30 September the Daily Sun said: Those politicians who staged a late anti-ID Card assault can go some way towards redeeming their reputations if they now direct their energies towards formulating an acceptable and workable national strategy to ensure our treasure is expended efficiently and fairly. The Card has been torn up. Those who shredded it now face the challenge of coming up with a workable alternative. The Courier-Mail, not known for its radical views, as you would know, Madam Acting Deputy President, said: The Government should not forget the admission of the Opposition leader, Mr Howard, that he once favoured the idea of the Card. It's ideals should not be allowed to perish with it. The reasons for the Card are just as relevant today as when the Government first promoted them. (An upgraded tax file numbering system) was a consensus option suggested by the first select committee of inquiry into the Card. On 1 October the Age said: To its credit, the Government remains determined to diminish tax evasion and welfare fraud. These measures- referring to the package of measures announced by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke)- should reinforce the fight against organised crime as well as tax evasion and deserve political and public support. By abandoning the ID scheme and committing itself to alternative means of combating tax and welfare cheating, the Government has put the Opposition and the Australian Democrats on the spot. Having recommended an upgraded tax file numbering system . . . they would lose their credibility and respect if they now sought to hinder these options as well. On 29 September the Daily Mirror said: In a major policy reversal, Democrats Leader, Senator Janine Haines said that wide ranging use of tax numbers . . . could not be justified. Yet something must be done to net the tax and welfare cheats. On 1 October the Sydney Morning Herald said: Put simply, the Opposition has really nowhere to run on this issue. Does Mr Howard doubt that up to $900 million a year is being lost this way? When the majority on the joint select committee rejected last year . . . the Identity Card . . . it embraced an alternative. That alternative was the extension of the tax file number system. . . . Mr Howard is stretching it if he suggests an enhanced tax file number system is an ID Card by another name. He risks the judgment that he and the Liberal Party have abandoned principles for sectional interests. This is an accusation that the Liberal Party, of course, does not like but one that is now being made in the editorials of the Sydney Morning Herald. The Newcastle Herald of 1 October stated: The victory for the Opposition? Not necessarily. The method by which the Australia Card was killed has left a dangerous legacy: a precedent that reinforces the supremacy of the undemocratic upper house over an elected government. Those are very sobering words used in the Newcastle Herald's editorial and it is a very sobering thought that Opposition senators were so determined to exploit, so determined to be opportunistic about this very serious measure and so determined to gain any kind of populist support they might be able to squeeze out of the issue, that they were prepared to act in a way that is contrary, not only in the short term but also in the longer term, to the interests of the proper workings of the Senate and to the interests of democracy. Senator Stone —Nonsense! Senator RYAN —Senator Stone, a newcomer in this place, says, `Nonsense!', but Senator Stone will not be able to get up in the course of this debate and point to one other occasion in the last 87 years of Federation when a Senate has decided to use a minor regulatory power to block the effect of a principal Act. Whatever he might like to say, he will not be able to give us one example of that and he will not be able to justify the course of action which he persuaded his colleagues to adopt, for which he became a one-day wonder. The matter of tax evasion and welfare cheating is urgent. To that extent and that extent only we have a substantial motion before us. But the tactics and behaviour of members of the Opposition have been pathetic, they have been unprincipled, they have been undemocratic and they have been totally unconstructive in assisting a properly elected government to behave responsibly on behalf of honest taxpayers and genuine welfare beneficiaries in this country. The motion deserves the contempt that I hope it will get. Senator HAINES(South Australia-Leader of the Australian Democrats)(3.42) —The urgency motion that has been introduced by Senator Puplick calls for the support of the Senate in these terms: The need for the Government to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud in a way that does not unacceptably trespass on civil liberties and individual privacy and for it to cease its campaign of smear and misrepresentation against opponents of the discredited Australia Card legislation. That certainly will get the support of the Australian Democrats despite the 20 minutes of rhetoric that we have just heard from the Special Minister of State (Senator Ryan), who so unwisely took on the oversight of this doomed piece of legislation following the election a couple of months ago. The Minister has managed to fire an assortment of shots across an assortment of bows, most of which, I am pleased to say, have missed completely. She finally resorted to quoting from, of all things, an editorial in the Newcastle Herald which is claiming that undemocratically elected upper houses should not have a say in the legislative process. I wonder what she thinks of the sort of situation that we see on a day to day basis in Queensland, which does not have an upper House, undemocratically elected or not, to offset some of the worst excesses of that unicameral system. I point out that this chamber has the same powers as the lower House-it quite rightly has those powers until the people of Australia take them away-and for a very good reason indeed. Both Senator Ryan and the Newcastle Herald editor seem to think that proportional representation is somehow less democratic as an electoral system than single member electorates that lead to governments being formed with considerably less than 50 per cent of the first preference votes. Now tell me which of those two is less democratic and I will point out that Australia is not, and will never be, a dictatorship while this Senate remains as a House of review with the powers that it currently has. We should not sit back simply because an undemocratically elected government attempts to foist unacceptable legislation down the throats of the Australian public. We in this chamber must not sit back and accept the sorts of unacceptable procedures that were contained in the ID card legislation when other measures can be found to implement the processes and should be tried first. Let us have a look at what this Government has done over the last few years to crack down on tax avoidance and evasion and social security fraud. In some instances it has had considerable support from us as it had with the prescribed payments scheme, which was an exceptionally successful attempt to crack down on large losses through large scale cash payments in the economy. We were prepared to accept the imposition of a capital gains tax system, of fringe benefits, of an assets test system and of negative gearing, until this Government so churlishly bowed to the demands of the property developers in Sydney and turned turtle on that one, in order to make the tax system in this country fairer and more equitable. More importantly, I stress that this has happened not only since the Government mooted an ID card system at the National Taxation Summit in 1985 but also since the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card brought down its report. In the last 10 months we have seen significant crackdowns in the social security area and the tax avoidance and evasion areas, both of which have recouped large amounts of money. I think we have to be careful that we do not double count when we are debating what is going on in cracking down on tax and social security fraud. The Government is still claiming that a national identification system of the sort that it proposed in the Australia Card Bill would raise all the money it first predicted, notwithstanding the fact that large chunks of it-in fact, almost the entire amount-have been recouped through a variety of measures since that proposal came into effect. In April 1987 the Minister for Social Security, Mr Howe, announced a crackdown in the social security area that he anticipated would save $100m annually. This followed the six-point plan announced in February 1986 to recover overpayments resulting in savings of an additional $90m. A further $19.7m was saved as a result of the three-month amnesty on people who were inappropriately and illegally claiming social security benefits-not an insignificant amount of saving from the social welfare fraud area. The May economic statement saw the Treasurer (Mr Keating) announcing a large number of measures to improve administration in a variety of departments, in particular the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Social Security, and the strengthening of eligibility criteria to counter fraud and abuse. These measures were costed by the Government-not by somebody on this side of the House making up the figures; quite likely the Government was making up the figures, but they are the Government's figures-as follows: changes in benefit eligibility were estimated to raise $65.3m in 1987-88 and $85.3m in 1988-89. Of course, those measures included strengthening residency requirements for access to temporary benefits by people who were temporary residents of this country. On the Government's own figures administration changes, such as increasing debt recovery provisions, would increase by $79m in 1987-88 and $138m in 1988-89, and a further $4m this financial year is estimated to come from the recovery of overpayments. So there have been significant savings by other non-invasive measures already implemented by this Government in the area of social security. In total, by 1988-89, that is, by the end of the next financial year, some $418m will have been recouped-nearly half a billion dollars over a two-year period-in cracking down on social security fraud alone. I remind the Senate that when the Minister for Justice, Senator Tate, was last speaking on this matter he estimated that the Government believed that $4.5 billion would be raised through a fully fledged ID card system over a 10-year period; meaning that, in essence, $450m per year would be raised over that 10 years. Already the Government, in these measures I have mentioned, is coming up with savings of $418m in a two-year period. So, more than half the money in that period has been raised already from those measures. We then come to some tax fraud prevention procedures introduced by Trevor Boucher, the Commissioner of Taxation, and proudly, and I think justifiably, touted by him recently as raising significant amounts of money. One of those is an improved auditing system. According to the Australian Financial Review of 28 July extra revenue raised was something like $461m in 1985-86 and $723m in 1986-87. That is extra revenue in those 12-month periods, due to increased auditing procedures, of several hundred million dollars. Much of that money has been raised from corporations with offshore structures. That matter should have been attended to a long time ago; but even so, I understand those audits applied initially only to companies making $100m a year profit or more. According to the Commissioner they raised on average $2.5m per company audited. He is now talking about placing in the offices of some of those major companies an auditor as a permanent part of the furniture, so to speak. He will be there for ready reference so that the companies do not have to be spot checked in this way but can more appropriately assess their tax liability during the year. So, $723m was raised during 1986-87 due to the improved auditing measures and more is expected to be raised in 1987-88. Let me go back a few years to another scheme that this Government introduced, again getting the support of the Australian Democrats, in order to crack down on lost revenue. That was the prescribed payments scheme that I mentioned a while ago. It attacked large scale evasion in the cash economy area and since 1983 it will have raised a total of $2.75 billion, much of it coming from the 50,000 extra tax file number holders who have since registered as a consequence of the implementation of the prescribed payments scheme. Dividend and interest income is another area where there are distinct possibilities and capabilities of fraud being engaged in. An additional 115 staff were employed by the Tax Office in 1985-86 to check up on possible evasion and avoidance in this area. This led to a huge increase in amended assessments, raising something like $96.2m in that year alone. Indeed, earlier this year in a speech in Queensland the Commissioner of Taxation said that during 1987-88 the dividend and interest check system will be developed into a generalised matching system. Features of the expanded system include, first, aggregation of a variety of income payment types taking in dividend and interest payments, partnership and trust distributions, PPS income-that is, prescribed payments scheme income-rents and unemployment benefits; secondly, extension of the computer-based taxpayer identification process to include taxpayer records for which no assessment has issued; thirdly, production of individual case reports which will summarise all taxpayer related transaction data; fourthly, enhanced presentation and follow up of the unmatched transaction data where no taxpayer record is on file; and, fifthly, production of case reports for registered taxpayers who have not lodged returns but who on the basis of recorded income data have a liability to do so. In addition, he said, the Tax Office will use external sources of information to test whether the level of assets owned by a taxpayer is in line with the level of income returned. So that is an attempt to crack down on what is left of the cash economy by finding out essentially whether people are living beyond their means. I presume the Tax Office's new $700m computer system will be used to check income from interest payments, dividends and so on. If it is not, it is an appalling waste of money by a government that knew this ID card legislation was going to be defeated in this place and went ahead anyway spending that much of taxpayers' money on a system that may well not be able to be put to a great deal more use. The measures I have just mentioned with regard to tax and social security fraud have in the main been introduced since the Government announced the ID card legislation with claims about how much it would raise from implementing the ID card system. The only exception to that was the prescribed payments scheme which was introduced in 1983. The bulk of the systems I have mentioned today were introduced post mid-1985. Does the Government then not realise there is only so much blood to be got out of the same stone? One cannot recoup this sort of money from these sorts of areas and still get the same or more from a system imposed on top. Of course we still need to improve and upgrade the tax file number system. There are people who should have one who do not, and people who have two or three who should have only one. I do not accept the comment by the honourable member for O'Connor (Mr Tuckey) that a lot of honest, law-abiding citizens have more than one tax file number, because I do not think those two things can necessarily tie up. `Upgraded' does not mean `excessively extended'. `Upgraded' means improved in integrity and made to work properly. I support fully the Opposition's urgency motion today. Other measures must be tried before we go down the invasive, intrusive little frolic of an ID card system. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(3.57) —I support the motion moved by Senator Puplick. I suggest that the motion needs to be read in a number of segments. It begins with the need for the Government to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud. That is the first element, so to speak, of the motion before the chamber. The fact is-and honourable senators on the Government side know this perfectly well-that there is no difference between the views on that side of the chamber and the views on this side of the chamber about the overwhelming importance of dealing with tax evasion and welfare fraud. That should be clearly on the record and we should put an end to this divisive and shameful smear campaign coming from the Government side of the chamber to the contrary. That should be put to rest. I appeal to Government senators to stop this nonsense. They know it is nonsense; they know it to be untruthful. It does them no credit and it diminishes not merely their own standing but the standing of this chamber, which is a great deal more important than their personal standing. In the past the Australian Labor Party, that is to say the party now in government-and I give it full credit for this-has always been highly intolerant of tax cheats, as any right-minded person should be. However, I have to say that the Labor Party has in the past been much more tolerant of welfare fraud than it has recently become. I greatly welcome the Labor Party's conversion on that matter, but how has it come about that only in the last nine months or so we have started to get measures from this Government to deal with welfare fraud? It is not as though the subject is a new one or that it never came to the attention of the party that occupies the benches on the Government side of the House. As I say, I welcome the conversion of the members of the Government, but let us not have any nonsense from their side that somehow they have always been anxious to crack down on both tax cheats-which they certainly have been, and I acknowledge that-and purveyors of welfare fraud, whereas senators on this side of the chamber have been anxious to do neither. In fact, that is not the truth. In fact, honourable senators opposite are well aware of that and it is to their personal shame that they should put forward views to the contrary. The second element of Senator Puplick's motion, in a very important qualification-one which I think Senator Haines, as well as Senator Puplick, went out of her way to stress-referred to the need to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud, something which we all agree must be carried out. The motion stated that this must be done: . . . in a way that does not unacceptably- the word `unacceptably' carries a certain weight also- trespass on civil liberties and individual privacy. We are all aware that any effective measures to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud run some risks of trespassing on civil liberties and individual privacy. The key element of that particular phrase is the word `unacceptably'. Of course, when one imparts meaning to a word such as `unacceptably' naturally one imparts a matter of judgment. I would be the first to recognise that. I suppose that those honourable senators on the Government side might say that what constitutes `unacceptably' is different in their eyes from the construing of that word in our eyes. I hope not. I would like again to give honourable senators on the Government side of the chamber the benefit of the doubt on this and to suggest to them that on this matter also their views as to what constitutes an unacceptable trespass on civil liberty and individual privacy might not, on more mature and considered thought than has so far gone into their campaign on this matter-particularly more so than went into the preparation of the Australia Card Bill-differ from the views on this side of the chamber. Let us be very clear about this. In the course of the last few months since the election we have had the greatest upsurge of public feeling and protest on this question of civil liberties and individual privacy and their possible invasion by the measure proposed to be brought in by this Government than we have seen in Australia before, certainly in my recent memory. I think probably we would have to go back almost to the time of the Vietnam protest to find anything that even begins to match the protest on the Australia Card. I turn now to the next element of Senator Puplick's motion. I think that that element is, of course, the one which, above all, needs to be brought home to Government senators. I refer to the motion's call on the Government, and honourable senators opposite as its representatives in this place, to cease their campaign of smear and misrepresentation. Senator Puplick and Senator Haines have spoken effectively and eloquently on this matter. They have spoken, I think naturally, in very general terms. Sometimes I think that an ounce of particular example is worth a ton of generalities on matters of this kind so I would like to mention one particular example that concerns me. Honourable senators will recall the censure motion moved in the House of Representatives on 24 September this year by none other than the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke). I would like to come back to some of the things Mr Hawke said in that statement as they concerned me. Before I do that, I remind the Senate also of my personal explanation to the Senate on the day preceding, 23 September, when the Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh), in response to a dorothy dix question from an honourable senator from his own side of the House, made a number of totally unwarranted and totally unfounded allegations about me to which I immediately responded, as one does in this place, as soon as Question Time had ended. Those comments are to be found in the Senate Hansard of that day. They would have been available to people in the Prime Minister's office when they were drafting the speech that he made in the other place on the following day. Let me refer to one or two things that the Prime Minister said at that time. He said: Senator Stone is unequivocally on the record in support of the ID card. More than that, Senator Stone has strongly urged this Prime Minister to introduce the ID card . . . He went on: . . . more than that, he has personally offered me his services to help in the introduction of the ID card. These are, after all, the remarks not of some irresponsible backbencher but of the Prime Minister of this country in the course of a motion of censure of the Opposition. Mr Acting Deputy President, I ask whether you and other Government senators are aware of the basis for these remarks of the Prime Minister. Let me tell you what the basis for them is. They are based on a report in the Australian newspaper of 29 June 1985. Of course, this was the report which was referred to in this chamber on the preceding day and which I think I dealt with effectively in my personal explanation following that dorothy dix question. Nevertheless, not in the least abashed-not one wit abashed-the Prime Minister brought forward this piece of what he would presumably regard as evidence for his totally unsubstantiated campaign of smear and misrepresentation in regard to this matter. Time will preclude my spending more time on this matter other than to say that the Prime Minister's statement is a shameful misuse of the parliamentary processes and that his subsequent repetition of these allegations on various radio programs a few days later is even more shameful. The only thing which exceeds it in its degree of shame is the conduct of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), which carried a remark of the Prime Minister along those lines on its PM program. I happened by good chance to hear that remark. I telephoned the ABC, spoke to one of its journalists at about 6.30 p.m. and recorded with him a clear rebuttal of the Prime Minister's remark, which the ABC failed to put to air. I think that one simply has to say that this is the kind of conduct which one has come to associate only too often with the ABC these days. Also, given the new management of the ABC, it is the kind of conduct which, I regret to say, we will have to become only too familiar with. It is entirely consistent with the campaign of smear and misrepresentation from the Government in regard to this matter to which, as I say, Senator Puplick's motion refers. Let us take another example of fear and smear which took place in Question Time today and, indeed, which I think took place yesterday also. In response to a dorothy dix question the Minister for Finance got up and tried to promote a wave of fear among the pensioners of this country by attempting to suggest that what the Opposition would be proposing in this area of interest and dividend, particularly interest income, would be a form of withholding tax levied at the highest possible marginal rate of 50.25 per cent which would, of course, cut in half the interest income of these poor people. This is the sort of thing we are getting from the Government today. Again, this is not an irresponsible comment from the back bench but a statement by the Minister for Finance. I think that this again illustrates the kind of campaign of fear mongering and smear that we are-I genuinely regret to say-becoming unduly accustomed to find coming from that side of the chamber. The final part of Senator Puplick's motion of course notes that the `campaign of smear and misrepresentation' is directed by the Government `against opponents of the discredited Australia Card legislation'. The public opinion polls revealed, I think, that more than half the population are strongly opposed to this now defeated legislation. All these people are being vilified by the Government in its campaign of smear and misrepresentation. These are all the strange bedfellows to whom the Prime Minister referred some weeks ago when he went out of his way, among other things, to belittle an honourable man, Mr Ewart Smith, and none other than Mr Ben Lexcen, whose name, I might say, will live a lot longer in the annals of this country than that of the man belittling him. There is not the slightest doubt that the Government should be ashamed of itself for engaging in this campaign. I close these remarks by recalling that during the last election campaign, at which time I was writing each week a column in the Melbourne Herald and the Sydney Morning Herald, I said, dismayed as I was at that time by the way the Government was conducting the election campaign, that the best election slogan this country had seen in some time was the 1980 slogan of the Australian Labor Party, `Raise the Standard'. I can only deplore the extent to which that slogan, which was put forward, not by the present Prime Minister, but by the then Leader of the Opposition, Bill Hayden, has been departed from by the Government and the extent to which the standard which led to the selection of that slogan has been departed from. Today this is producing the kind of campaign of fear, smear and misrepresentation on this matter which is coming from the Government side. Senator AULICH(Tasmania)(4.12) —We are faced today with a first from Senator Puplick: the first occasion on which he has gratuitously and frivolously wasted the time of this chamber by putting such a motion before us. The motion has been read on a number of occasions-presumably to fill in time-by people such as Senator Stone. I guess it will not hurt if I refresh people's memories again. The motion is: The need for the Government to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud in a way that does not unacceptably trespass on civil liberties and individual privacy and for it to cease its campaign of smear and misrepresentation against opponents of the discredited Australia Card legislation. In short, Senator Puplick is saying in this motion that, first, we must do something about tax evasion and social welfare fraud and, second, we must not say nasty things about people like Senator Puplick or tax cheats. In broad summary, that is all Senator Puplick has been saying; that he is intending to waste the time of this chamber. I suppose that he is entitled to his moment of glory, like a faded ballerina. It is a moment of glory occasioned by, on the whole, a less than brilliant discovery that a great deal of legislation-not just the Australia Card Bill-can be defeated by refusing to pass the accompanying regulations. It did not take a genius to find that out. It does not matter to Senator Puplick and other honourable senators opposite that a special select committee discussed this issue, met around Australia, listened to public opinion, read countless thousands of pages of information about it and heard overseas witnesses. It does not matter that a government went to the people on a double dissolution on this basis and was returned with an increased majority. It does not matter that the Liberal Party of Australia in particular, during that campaign, at no stage attempted to raise the issue of the Australia Card because it was frightened of defeat as a result of people seeing the arguments behind the Government's move in this area. It does not matter that all those things have occurred: Senator Puplick is still prepared to savour his moment of glory. He has had that. Suddenly he has realised that public opinion is not as monolithic as he imagines. People have said, `That is fine. You have knocked off the Australia Card by sleight of hand. That is very good. You have done that and it shows how clever you are. What are you going to do now about tax evasion? What are you going to do about social welfare cheating?'. The people are asking members of the Opposition where they stand and where is their alternative proposal. It does not matter to those opposite that a supposedly little known, retired public servant had to find the smart way to beat the Australia Card Bill, that he had to do the work that they should have done. There is an element of farce in the way the solution was discovered. It was like some legislative aviary let loose. At 4.30 in the morning, according to Mr Ewart Smith, he was awoken by magpies. At 7.30 a.m., when he was shaving, he got a phone call from Senator Stone. I must say that if I got a 7.30 a.m. phone call from Senator Stone that would encourage me to cut myself if I were shaving. After an hour and a half of being berated by Senator Stone at that hour of the morning, Mr Smith decided to do something about the legislation and he told Senator Stone what sort of trick he could pull later in the day. I understand that Mr Ewart Smith later got a letter from a well-wisher congratulating him on thinking up this brilliant idea to defeat the Australia Card through trickery. It said something like, `May the birds sing always in your garden'. The bird analogy keeps coming up all the time but if we look at what could happen as a result of the Australia Card being dismissed in this way, we could say that the only birds that will be singing around the place are the legal eagles and the accountants protecting the people involved in massive tax evasion and fraud. But Senator Puplick got a bit of a victory out of this matter. Senator Stone got a bit of a victory; it was a wonderful entry into politics. But this was not a victory for a number of people. It was a victory for tax cheats, the people who live off pay as you earn taxpayers and can afford to hire accountants and lawyers to fudge, rearrange their companies and ensure that no tax is paid. I know that some of the richest people in this country proudly boast-- Senator McGauran —Holmes a Court. Senator AULICH —No, I was not including the honourable senator. Those people proudly boast that they have not paid tax for up to 15, and in one case 25, years. They have not paid a single dollar of tax because they use all sorts of mechanisms to evade their responsibilities. They can do that because we do not have something like the Australia Card to make it easy for the authorities that are out to cut out tax evasion, to really move in and do the job properly. The defeat of the Australia Card is also a victory for drug pedlars and pornographers-people who have made millions of dollars and been busy year after year suborning and undermining law enforcement authorities. Some honourable senators on the other side can smile but if they believe that crime in this country is not increasing, they should say so now. Having read the Costigan report, the reports on Nugan Hand, the McCabe-Lafranchi report and all the other reports, I believe that we are at the crossroads on what we do about tax evasion and crime. What are those opposite doing? They are doing nothing. They walk into this place with what they believe to be a clear conscience and rejoice positively in the idea that something like the Australia Card, which will stop this sort of problem and help people to follow the money trail, has been knocked over. Will those opposite rejoice when they look at their children and the next generation and consider the type of society they will grow up in? They should work out just what they did and what part they played in making sure that the balance was tipped in favour of criminals and against law enforcement authorities. Those opposite should think about what they did this day, last week and the week before in making sure that law enforcement authorities cannot do their job. Those opposite have done their bit to tie those authorities' hands behind their backs. If those opposite want to protect the legal profession and the army of accountants involved in tax avoidance, that is fine but they should not expect anyone on this side of the chamber to support them. Many people have been genuinely concerned about the Australia Card in terms of its effect on civil liberties. As a government, we have not abused people about that. We have said, `Yes, we understand your concerns about civil liberties. We have brought in the Data Protection Agency. We will be bringing in special legislation to protect privacy. We are not dropping that simply because the Australia Card has gone down the chute'. Special editorials in three major newspapers, the Australian, the Age and the Canberra Times, have said, `That is fine. The Australia Card has gone down the chute, but what is the Opposition going to do about all the issues raised?'. As an example, I will quote from the Canberra Times: At the weekend, Mr Howard foreshadowed the establishment of an Opposition task force to look at ways of cutting down on tax avoidance and fraud . . . Finally, two years later, the penny has dropped with Mr Howard. He was a Treasurer for I do not know how many years under his own Government when massive tax evasion and fraud was going on. The Canberra Times continued: . . . and this will include having `a look at the tax number'. Surely, during the long period that the Australia Card legislation was before the Parliament, the Opposition had plenty of time to get its thoughts together. This is an example of the attitude that got it into trouble during the election campaign, an inability to devise policies when they are needed. This is from a man who was the Treasurer of this country at a time when tax evasion was rampant and the crooks got their start in a way that enabled them to go on to bigger and better things. It is especially worrying as well when we look at the whole question of what has happened to the credibility of this chamber, the Parliament and the whole process of Senate select committees-an area that particularly concerns me. That was a good Select Committee and most people on it put in time, effort and thought. They were prepared to look at all the options and, at the end of the day, the majority came down 5 : 3 in favour of an upgraded, improved tax file number system. A minority, which included me, wanted to go for an Australia Card with photograph in an attempt to solve basically the same problems of tax evasion and social welfare fraud. That is fine. We spent time on it, we wrote the report-all of us-and we brought it into the chamber to be debated. The Government based legislation on one section of the report. Now, at the end of the day, when people are expected to stand up and be counted on what they were prepared to put into the report, where do we find the four Opposition members of the Committee-Senator Puplick, Senator Haines, Mr Porter and Mr Blunt? We find them reneging totally on the one major recommendation that they made as an alternative to the Government's Australia Card proposal. What are we to think of the value of select committees spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayers' money? What are we to think of the people who came before that Committee and who gave it their time, effort and thought? We said to them, `Yes, yes, we will listen to you and bring down recommendations' but then the Liberals and the Nationals reneged on everything that they put into the report, bar a few minor matters. What are people in Australia to think about that? Does it not make a mockery of the much vaunted Senate select committee system? How can Senator Haines talk in this place about the Senate's right to reject legislation, the Senate's right to be a House of review and, by implication, the Senate's right to examine issues through select committees? How can she do that when she is prepared to go on a select committee, make recommendations and then renege on them within one year? What will people think about all of us if such things continue? I am reminded by Senator Puplick's general use of literary analogies of the lobster quadrille in Alice in Wonderland: `Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?'. That is Senator Haines. I would hate to dance the tango with the Democrats-one would be extremely lonely because one would be dancing on one's own. They have moved totally away from their recommendations. Senator Puplick is embarrassed and that is why we have this motion today. He is embarrassed because his small `l' liberal viewpoint about beating tax evaders-I do not think that he is weak about that-through an upgraded tax file number system or an Australia Card system has been made a mockery of on the other side of the House. He knows that he has been beaten in his own Party room. He knows that the small `l' liberals have been beaten by those who have been chosen to represent the Liberal Party in this place by the tax dodgers and the big money people who do not want any major changes to tax legislation or the effectiveness of attempts to beat tax evasion. That is why this motion is here today and that is why he is pleading with us not to berate him, smear him or attack him because he only did his job. Unfortunately, he did not do his job well enough. He raised issues, some in a significant way and some in ways that have benefited the debate, but he has been beaten in his Party room and he is incredibly embarrassed about it. He has to come in here and lead the debate. Where are all his supporters? Like Senator Stone, they have left the chamber. Nobody is here to support him. At the end of the day, the Australia Card has gone down the chute. The question now is: What is this chamber going to do about the alternative? What is this chamber going to do about making sure that this society gets back on an even keel again and that the balance is not tipped in favour of those who consider that they do not have to pay tax and can ride on the backs of the pay as you earn taxpayers, or those who suborn law enforcement authorities or politicians simply because they have the money? The balance has to be tipped back the other way. All right, the Opposition does not want the Australia Card. What does it want? Does it want something that will effectively beat the tax evaders and criminals in this community, or does it want to sit on its backside and allow this society to drift into a situation in which, in the long run, the criminals will be able to walk away and lie safely in bed at night saying, `We have beaten them'? I oppose this motion. Senator CHANEY(Western Australia-Leader of the Opposition)(4.27) —It was worth having Senator Aulich enter the debate because he is a strong reminder of why it was worth bringing forward the motion. He carried on, as one would have expected from his contribution to earlier debates, with the nonsense that this motion is intended to counter. We had from Senator Aulich the statement that the defeat of the card was a victory for tax cheats, drug dealers and pornographers. I am interested that he brought pornography in, because that is a new twist. I am happy to stand in the company of that great range of people who have opposed the card, including Mr Frank Costigan, QC, who, in his comments, made it clear that he thought that the Australia Card was certainly not the way to go. There can be no person more committed to the fighting of organised crime in this country than Mr Costigan. I am proud to stand in the company of the Anglican Bishop of Perth, the Reverend Michael Challen, the Catholic Social Welfare Commission-- Senator Aulich —And tax cheats. Senator CHANEY —I hear Senator Aulich muttering, `Tax cheats'. Does he think these people are tax cheats? A great range of people, including many trade unionists, academics, lawyers, and Labor lawyers and politicians when they have not been bound by Caucus, have given us the clear statement that they accept the reasons why the majority of an all-party parliamentary committee rejected the idea of an Australia Card. There is a common abhorrence in this chamber of tax and welfare fraud and it is a McCarthyist smear which is being undertaken by the Government to accuse those who have opposed the Australia Card of being the friends of tax cheats and welfare frauds. The reality is that the record of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in these matters is spotty, while the record of the Liberal Party of Australia is nothing like that which is suggested in this place time and time again by Labor speakers. I take the opportunity in this debate to refer both to the ALP record and to the Liberal record, which belie the tactics being used by the Government in this debate. With respect to the now Government's record on welfare fraud, I can only say that, as Minister for Social Security in the previous Government, I could be quite certain that any attempt to deal with welfare fraud would be resisted by the Labor Party on the grounds that we were seeking to grind the faces of the poor. Let us take a now uncontentious change to welfare law-the proposition that the Government is now advancing that there should be a strong attempt to recover maintenance from non-supporting parents. Senator Reynolds, the Minister at the table, went public and accused me of attacking the poor when I advocated that in about September 1985 on behalf of the Opposition, but was a little surprised when her Minister, Mr Brian Howe, advocated exactly the same measure in the same week. It is now the policy that the Minister at the table is bound to support. I remind her that she was very quick to score a cheap political point at that time on an issue which the Opposition had considered very carefully-an issue on which the people of Australia would, I believe, demand action, which the Government is now very belatedly promising to deliver. With respect to the Government's approach to taxation, the record shows a totally different picture from the one which speakers in this debate and Ministers during Question Time and at other times have tried to paint. We find that in 1982 the present Treasurer, Mr Keating, admitted that the dreadful spate of artificial tax avoidance schemes that afflicted this country had started under the Whitlam Government. On 10 September 1982 he stated: When we were in Government between '73 and '75 the tax avoidance industry started to move into sophisticated contrived schemes. Schemes that were artificial devices to avoid tax. Senator Chris Puplick has already pointed out in this debate that the early action of Labor when it came into government on this occasion was described by Mr Gittins in very uncomplimentary terms. But the reality is that this country had an absolute disease of artificial tax avoidance. It started under the Whitlam Government. I do not blame the Whitlam Government for that; it was not created by that Government, but that is when it started. The true record is that there was a succession of attacks on that problem under the Liberal Government. By the start of 1982 the Fraser Government had introduced over 22 pieces of legislation, closing down over 50 tax avoidance schemes. The reality is that in the years from 1976 to 1982 there was a continuous record of legislation being passed by the Parliament which struck down tax avoidance schemes. The final pieces of legislation which were critical to the solution of the problem were passed by the Fraser Government and have not needed to be changed by this Government. The Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act was passed in December 1980. It prospectively created a criminal offence for bottom of the harbour transactions. We replaced that section of the Income Tax Assessment Act which, under High Court rulings, had proved not to strike down artificial tax avoidance schemes, with a new part IVa. That is why in 1984 the then Finance Minister of the Hawke Government, Mr John Dawkins-when he was not trying to engage in a Goebbels exercise of the sort that we are seeing in Australia today-was prepared, on 17 April 1984, to say that the matter of tax avoidance had been put behind us. Mr Dawkins said that because it is true, and this Government's legislative record proves that it is true. The Government has not had to introduce legislation to strike down artificial tax avoidance schemes because those schemes are being dealt with under part IVa of the Income Tax Assessment Act, which was introduced by the Fraser Government. The only legislation which has been introduced and resisted by the Opposition is legislation which sought to impose new, additional, retrospective tax liability on people who had already been forced to pay their taxes retrospectively under Fraser Government legislation. That is the only example that can be pointed to by the Australian Labor Party of legislation which was frustrated by the Opposition in conjunction with the Australian Democrats. We make no apology for doing that because we believe that it was correct in principle and that the Government's legislation was excessively punitive and was not justified. It is the gravamen of my remarks that there was an extremely significant tax avoidance problem and, indeed, a tax avoidance industry in this country. The legislative record of the Fraser Government was such as to bring that artificial tax avoidance industry to an end. I refer further to the figures of the Commissioner of Taxation. One can see that the deduction of claims involving tax avoidance peaked in 1977-78 and fell very rapidly thereafter. That occurred because of Fraser Government legislation. A succession of lies is being put forward in the debate, suggesting that the Opposition has been opposing the Government's attempts to get rid of artificial tax avoidance schemes, and that is clearly not true-- Senator Cook —Oh! Senator CHANEY —I do not have time in this debate to respond to Senator Peter Cook who, as usual, tries to make cheap political points. The reality is that the history of tax avoidance in this country is such that a former Minister for Finance of the Hawke Government was able to say that the question of tax avoidance had been put behind us. That was long before any new legislative initiatives of this Government could be pointed to as bringing that about. The Liberal Party of Australia has a record of continuous legislative action in the face of an epidemic of artificial tax avoidance-action which was ultimately successful in striking it out of Australian society. In terms of social security fraud, I would like to say, as an ex-Minister for Social Security, that any action I took to crack down on welfare fraud was undertaken under siege from the Labor Party. The Labor Party automatically labelled any attempts to improve the tightness of the welfare system and to prevent fraud as action which was against the poor. Like earlier speakers in this debate, I note with approval the fact that the Government, under the pressure of being in government, has had to change its attitude. Before the last election, the Treasurer proudly said that thousands of people were being struck off the unemployment benefit rolls and $100m was being saved. But the reality is that we sought to introduce work for the dole on a trial basis in 1982 on the basis that that was one of the realistic and non-punitive ways available to crack down on welfare fraud. Senator Coates —What's it got to do with social security fraud? Senator CHANEY —Everything, because it is impossible to defraud unemployment benefits if one has to turn up and perform some community obligation and put in time. The present Government discontinued that trial project. It has refused to pick up that very worthwhile effort to do away with one of the major areas of welfare fraud in this country; that is, the abuse of the unemployment benefit. With respect to the second largest area of abuse-the question of maintenance and abuse of the supporting parent's benefit-the Government has for 4 1/2 years postponed action to recover moneys from parents who are not supporting their children in favour of leaving that obligation in the hands of taxpayers. It is only after 4 1/2 years of government that it has moved to adopt our policy. We have adopted completely consistent attitudes in this matter. Senator Puplick in this debate has already read into the record the statement which was made by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Howard) today with respect to our stance on these matters. There are three fundamental principles that we stand by, and we have stood by them over the last three years in a very consistent way. We have said that we will subject anything which is done in this field to three tests. It must be demonstrated actually to meet the problems of tax fraud and welfare cheating. In other words, we will not support measures which are not demonstrated to be effective. Secondly, measures must be shown to be cost-effective. We will not accept that one can spend a billion dollars to save $100m. We expect there to be some relationship between what is imposed and the cost of what is being imposed. Finally, and most importantly, we have always said that we will support only those measures which do not intrude unnecessarily on personal privacy and individual civil liberties. In all the dishonest debate which takes place on this card, the Labor Party continually tries to fudge the fact that when it initially proposed a measure of this kind we did not oppose it on a knee-jerk basis. We did not immediately say, without examining the proposition, `We are opposed to this'; we said we would apply those three tests. We would want to see whether what the Government was doing was effective; we would want to see whether it was cost-effective; and we would want to see whether civil liberties were protected. The simple reality is that we subjected the Government's proposal to a most careful examination at the parliamentary level, as we have subjected it to the most careful examination at the party level. The reality is that the measure failed to pass the test at the parliament level when an all-party committee recommended against it. The further reality is that we are simply taking the position that, now that the public of Australia has followed that parliamentary inquiry and come to the realisation that the identity card is not an acceptable solution, we will not see that unacceptable solution foisted on the Australian people under the guise of some very extended use of the tax file number. We have in no way set our face against the more effective use of the tax file number and, again, Mr Howard's statement makes that clear. He said: . . . we will support moves to upgrade the degree of integrity of the tax file number system. This is essential to ensure that people do not abuse the system by, for example, having more than one tax file number. In addition, we will favourably consider any proposals designed to improve the use of tax file numbers for proper taxation and welfare purposes such as those already provided for the Income Tax Assessment Act. Any such proposals will be judged against our three stated criteria. He continued: . . . we will vigorously oppose any attempt to turn the tax file number system into a de facto Australia Card system. We make no apology for that. It is common knowledge in this Parliament and in the community that if a strict Caucus system did not apply to the Australian Labor Party, many members of the Labor Party would support us in our stand both on the identity card and on any proposed use of the tax file number which turns it into a de facto card. Senator Walsh —Will you support employer notification? No, you will not. Senator CHANEY —I reject such an accusation which is a speciality of Senator Walsh, who has just come into the chamber. Senator Walsh should not require the Opposition to answer questions about issues on which the Government itself has not made up its mind. This Government has lamentably failed to bring forward to this point any alternative proposals for Opposition and public consideration. It is a farce to have Ministers challenging the Opposition to declare its position on proposals which have not been defined by the Government, with all of the resources of government. There is much that is farcical about the conduct of political and parliamentary life in this country but, on behalf of the Opposition, I commend this motion because we believe that the real issues are being obfuscated by the Government. There is an attempt, by lie and smear, to create confusion in the public mind. We stand by our principles. We refuse to be bullied into accepting proposals which are not in the national interest. Senator COONEY(Victoria)(4.42) —Insofar as the matter of urgency refers to the need to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud, of course it is a matter of urgency. The Opposition is more interested in bringing forward debating points than in producing an alternative to what the Government has done in terms of tackling tax evasion and looking after welfare fraud. No doubt a legitimate claim is made by many who oppose the Australia Card that it transgresses civil liberties. One could accept the Opposition on that. However, the Opposition said that it was opposed to the bottom of the harbour legislation because it was retrospective in its operation. That is a point of law which, again, can be accepted. But when one starts putting these things together one's suspicions rise. It was not just the Australia Card or the bottom of the harbour legislation which the Opposition opposed. It also opposed the disallowance of tax deductible entertainment expenses, the capital gains tax, the fringe benefits tax and the closing of loopholes in tax legislation which was confirmed by the Supreme Court of Queensland last year. Everybody admits that there is tax fraud and that it is a matter of urgency. Why is it that the Opposition is opposed to every proposition that this Government puts forward to crack down on tax fraud? It would be fair enough if the Opposition opposed only one of the Government's measures, but a pattern has been formed. When the Government asks, legitimately, what that is all about, no matter what the Opposition says, the Government sees that the effect of the Opposition's actions in this chamber and in the other place is to allow people who otherwise would have to pay tax to avoid doing so. The effect of the Opposition's approach over the years has been that a great number of people who, morally at least-the Opposition agrees that, morally at least, they should pay tax-should have paid a substantial amount of tax, have not done so and the rest of us have had to pay extra tax. The people who are struggling on an average weekly wage, sending their children to school, paying off a mortgage and struggling to make ends meet and to bring up their family in a decent way, over the years have had to pay an incredible amount of tax which they would not otherwise have had to pay. This Government has moved in various ways to stop that, to give the ordinary person in the street a chance to make a decent living. Those people have had imposed on them a frightening and crippling burden of taxation while others have been able to rort the system. They have been able to buy speedboats, build houses on lake shores, take overseas trips and send their children to the most luxurious of schools. Those people do not pay tax whereas others do. Yet, when the Government says that that is a bit hard and that the system is a little unfair, what is the Opposition's response? Does it say, `Yes, you are right; we will try to formulate an alternative measure'? No, it says, `You are very nasty; you are a naughty lot of boys and girls because you've used nasty language to us'. The reality is, and it is agreed, that through the 1970s and 1980s there has been a rorting of the tax system. Crippling burdens of tax have been imposed on pay as you earn taxpayers and on those on whom it should not have been placed. As soon as this Government gets a little angry and says that we ought to do something about it, the Opposition does not say, `We will try to redress that imbalance'. Instead, it comes in here and says, `You've been naughty; you've been like Goebbels; you've insulted us'. That is the crime involved in this. The crime is not that the Government has tried to protect the small taxpayer; the crime is that the Government has said nasty things to the Opposition. Senator Stone in effect made a personal explanation. Most of his speech was devoted to some statement that the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) made. Senator Stone said that it was dreadful that the Prime Minister went about developing treaties overseas, that he went about trying to save the tax system and building up industry. Senator Stone said that the Prime Minister looked at those things instead of apologising to Senator Stone. This I gather from reading Senator Stone's speech in this place. Senator Stone went on for minutes in his speech developing that theme and saying how dreadfully he had been insulted. It is extraordinary that, in a chamber in which politics are conducted and in which political campaigns are conducted, nasty and robust things have been said! What does the Opposition say at its first opportunity when a matter of urgency is debated? It says, `You've been very nasty and naughty to us; isn't this a dreadful thing? The great matter of urgency is the insult that the Labor Party has placed upon us'. The tax rorts do not matter. The Opposition says, `What about the social security people? You haven't ground them down enough. When we were in government, we used to grind them down properly'. Indeed, it did grind them down. We can remember the Greek conspiracy case. How many convictions ensued? Absolutely none. How many people were insulted and ground down by this merciful system about which Senator Chaney tells us? Hundreds! Senator Walsh —It cost about $10m. Senator COONEY —It cost $10m, all for nought. It was a dreadful mistake. Not only was it a most outrageous injustice but also it cost the Commonwealth $10m of the tax which should have been paid by the people which the Opposition refused to pursue. Senator Coates —Yet they claim they are concerned about civil liberties. Senator COONEY —Yes; they pursued these people overseas. Opposition members pursued doctors. They tilted at windmills and chased shibboleths. They made no analysis of the situation and did not look at the realities. The situation still continues. The motion states: The need for the Government to tackle tax evasion and welfare fraud in a way- in what way; what is specific about this?- that does not unacceptably trespass on civil liberties . . . Have we had one suggestion from this so-called Opposition, which is so outraged by this, of what it means by an unacceptable trespass? The only thing it has given specific evidence about as to its being unacceptable is the insult apparently done to Senator Stone. I am sure that Senator Stone is a very nice man and a very brilliant person, but I hardly think that the time of the Senate and the country should be taken up-especially when he has set aside, as a result of all this, people who would otherwise have made their maiden speeches-for the purposes of a senator, on a broadcast day, making a personal explanation of how he was in some way offended by the Prime Minister because the Prime Minister said something in the thrust of debate. Every time somebody makes a remark across the chamber, such as one of those brilliant remarks that Senator Puplick makes, are we to get Senator Coates, for example, bringing on a matter of public importance the next day to say, `Yesterday Senator Puplick said this awfully nasty thing to me, and it is outrageous'? If somebody says, `What about the big issues of the country?', would Senator Coates be the sort of person to say, `That is the big issue. The big issue is my offended pride'? Senator Walters —Why don't you sound as though you mean it? Senator COONEY —I hope Senator Stone did not mean what he said, Senator Walters-but I think he did. I think he genuinely thought that the Senate's time should be taken up in an explanation concerning the great Senator Stone. I do not deny for one minute that he is a great Senator Stone-like we are all great senators. But really, is this the sort of thing we ought to be spending time on? Should we not be, in effect, talking about the real issues, one of which is how we are to get people to pay their proper tax? Honourable senators should look at the example of what we have done in the field of so-called social security fraud. This is what the Opposition wants us to intensify and extend. The Government has adopted a three-pronged anti-fraud strategy. It has not gone chasing innocent Greeks or innocent doctors. It has tightened social security administration and people on unemployment benefit must now report fortnightly to a social security office. For a person who is genuinely unemployed, that is a big imposition. Nevertheless, the Opposition says, `No, we must go further than that'. I suppose it wants to put people on social security in thumbscrews. In talking about the way the Opposition goes about looking after social security fraud, I have been reminded of something by that kind hearted and generous spirited man Senator Walsh, who adorns this chamber again and again with the generosity of his spirit. He has pointed out to me that in 1981 the razor gang, under the coalition, said, `We have got to save some money'. The coalition then said, `People who are unemployed can get unemployment benefits without registering with the Commonwealth Employment Service. They can just go and fill in a piece of paper and claim unemployment benefits'. There was then none of this business that the Opposition now proclaims: that people must go out and work for the dole. Senator Puplick said that people should work for the dole. Senator Puplick is someone for whom I have the highest admiration, and therefore I did not think that he would go back to that old, worn chestnut of people having to work for the dole. That presupposes, of course, that there is work for people on the dole to do. I see that Senator Parer is in the chamber. He used to be a member of the mining industry, which has slashed jobs. Senator Puplick might ask Senator Parer how many jobs he could provide. But he just makes this wild and vague statement. He provides no evidence that there is work available or that there is any sort of program to cure this problem. That is the disappointing thing about it. There are good minds on the Opposition side of the chamber. Senator Stone is one. I see the Deputy Whip, Senator Puplick and Senator Parer. None of them-no doubt they planned this before they came in-was able to produce one tittle of evidence, one suggestion as to how they would cure the tax rorts that go on. There is a terribly negative approach to matters. That is why they are in opposition. The one thing that the Opposition poured out during the election campaign was that it was going to reduce tax. It is a real witches' cauldron. Macbeth would consult those opposite. The witches' cauldron is held over there. We can see the big cauldron over there on the red chairs. They stir it there and they put in a bit of an insult here and a bit of an idea there. Nothing is together. I was reading the Australian Financial Review of yesterday-6 October 1987. There is a photograph of that outstanding man called Mr Tuckey-looking very grim and extremely ministerial. The article states: The Federal Opposition has switched its cautious support for the tax file number alternative to the ID card to rejection. The article talks about how Opposition members change their minds from time to time. That was on page 5. On page 4, dead opposite, was the significant heading, `Libs act to woo quality candidates'. I reckon that really answers it all. Senator Walsh —They could certainly do with them. Senator COONEY —Yes. I think that that is the best thing those opposite can do here-get off and get these quality candidates that they are going to woo, as it says on page 4 of the Financial Review, and come back here with a good suggestion. I can guarantee this: led by Senator Walsh, this very reasonable man, we will adopt certain policies if those opposite tell us about them. That is the best thing that they have done-`Libs act to woo quality candidates'. Get into it! The only thing I should say is that having looked at that edition of the Financial Review, I then looked at the next day's headline, which was `Libs ease up on tax file number'. One thing about coming from Melbourne is that one is able to cope with the Opposition up here-because the weather there changes four times in a day. As we read through the papers and hear the Opposition propositions put, we find that the policies of the Liberal Party change in the same way. We can cope with the Liberals down there. That probably makes Victoria the great intellectual State of the Commonwealth. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(4.57) —in reply-Mr Deputy President, there are only one or two things that need to be responded to in terms of points which Senators Ryan, Aulich and Cooney have made in this debate. Senator Ryan has attempted to say that no action was taken by the Opposition to deal with the question of taxation fraud. That is simply untrue, and the evidence which has been put down during today's debate about the 22 pieces of legislation introduced by the previous Government, and in particular the impact of the Crimes (Taxation Offences) Act 1980 and part IVa of the Income Tax Assessment Act, simply gives the lie to that. Senator Aulich attempted to misrepresent the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card in relation to the use of the tax file number. I will read the first two: That the use of the tax file number be extended to cover all the financial transactions proposed in the Government submission for use of the Australia Card number by the Australian Taxation Office, as well as for social security purposes. That all other Departments ie. other than the Australian Taxation Office and Department of Social Security be barred from access to and use of the tax file number. As Senator Haines said in her speech, an upgraded tax file number system does not mean an unlimited tax file number system. Senator Aulich was at pains to say something about the issue of crime and why something had not been done about it by the Opposition. He fails to address the question of why his Government will not give the National Crime Authority the teeth that it needs to get on with the job in question, why his Government will not act upon all the recommendations of the Costigan Royal Commission on the Activities of the Federated Ship Painters and Dockers Union, and why his Government will not take action upon the reports which it has had from the Australian Federal Police-which reports, indeed, it is intent upon suppressing. Finally, Senator Cooney comes into the debate. If we were able to believe that he, Senator McKiernan and Senator Collins were heart- broken at the loss of the Australia Card, then perhaps we would take it seriously. But the degree to which they were heartbroken over the loss of the Australia Card was reflected only by the extent-no names, no pack drill-of the number of Labor senators opposite who were offering to shout drinks in the bar on the day on which the thing went down the tubes. Here he is, coming along saying, `Why is that? I see a pattern, a conspiracy'. He looks into the witches' cauldron and sees the pattern of conspiracy. The only thing he cannot see in the witches' cauldron is the pattern of conspiracy about negative gearing, about scraping the bottom of the barrel, if not the bottom of the cauldron, with claims of getting rid of negative gearing, which his own Treasurer scrapped fairly quickly. He put the system of government upon its head by saying that the responsibility rests with the Opposition to bring forward the methodology by which welfare fraud and tax cheating are to be eliminated. I say to Senator Cooney: That is the Government's job; that is your responsibility, not ours. We have laid down the tests that will be applied to any piece of legislation or any administrative action that the Government brings forward. We challenge the Government to get on with the job and do something. Instead of just grinning around the place at every possible opportunity about the defeat of its own piece of legislation, it should look at the faces of those members of the Labor Party who hold marginal seats and who are as heartbroken as Senator Cooney, Senator McKiernan and Senator Collins were about the Australia Card rightfully being consigned to the dust heap where it properly belongs. Question put: That the motion (Senator Puplick's) be agreed to. The Senate divided. (The President-Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 28 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 9 —— Alston, R. K. R. McLean, P. A.Archer, B. R. Macklin, M. J.Baume, Michael Messner, A. J.Baume, Peter Newman, J. M.Bishop, B. K. Panizza, J. H.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Parer, W. R.Brownhill, D. G. C. Patterson, K. C. L.Calvert, P. H. Powell, J. F.Chapman, H. G. P. Puplick, C. J. G.Coulter, J. R. Reid, M. E.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Sanders, N. K.Durack, P. D. Sheil, G.Haines, J. Short, J. R.Hamer, D. J. Stone, J. O.Jenkins, J. A. Tambling, G. E. J.Knowles, S. C. (Teller) Teague, B. C.Lewis, A. W. R. Vanstone, A. E.McGauran, J. J. Watson, J. O. W.MacGibbon, D. J. Aulich, T. Foreman, D. J.Beahan, M. E. Gietzelt, A. T.Bolkus, N. Giles, P. J.Burns, B. R. Jones, G. N.Childs, B. K. McKiernan, J. P.Coates, J. Maguire, G. R. (Teller)Collins, R. L. Morris, J. J.Colston, M. A. Ray, RobertCook, P. F. S. Reynolds, M. E.Cooney, B. Ryan, S. M.Crowley, R. A. Schacht, C. C.Devereux, J. R. Sibraa, K. W.Devlin, R. Walsh, P. A.Evans, Gareth Zakharov, A. O. Boswell, R. L. D. Black, J. R.Chaney, F. M. Button, J. N.Hill, R. Richardson, G. F.Walters, M. S. Tate, M. C. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(5.08) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. This paper, which was made available to honourable senators this morning, is a considerable document of some 200 pages. In speaking to it for a few moments, it is possible that we will not do justice to the work that went into it or the effort that has been put into it by very senior officers of the Commonwealth. I wish to address myself to a narrow area which has been of concern to me over the years and which remains of concern to me. The document appears to be something of a curate's egg: it appears to contain some quite good analysis but really it seems to opt out of some of the problems that have been of concern to me. My interests lay in the activities of the Health Insurance Commission. During the time that I was Minister for Health and previously when I had an interest in health matters, I was concerned about the difficulty that we faced in ensuring proper and prompt investigation of matters which appeared to involve fraud upon the Health Insurance Commission. Before I became a member of this place, I was a member of a profession which is an honourable profession. Most of its members are honest and operate in a system that requires honesty as the keystone of its operation. I refer to the system of rebates for medical services based on a fee for service system. It involves some honesty on the part of the provider, and most providers are scrupulously honest. But it is in our interests that anyone who is not honest, who is practising fraud, be detected and that it be acted upon quickly. I became aware-other senators will have had this experience-that the Australian Federal Police had the conduct of every investigation of fraud or overservicing when it got to a certain stage. It was quite apparent to me that the Australian Federal Police lacked the capacity either to investigate or to act upon the cases sent to them. Certainly, they lacked the capacity to do so with any dispatch or any promptness. Senator Newman —They lacked the resources. Senator PETER BAUME —This is part of the problem. At one stage when Mr Fraser was the Prime Minister we actually approached him-a number of the then backbenchers-and he agreed to provide extra resources for exactly that reason; the work which the Australian Federal Police was doing in relation to fraud upon the Health Insurance Commission was very cost effective. The deterrent effect of a successful prosecution or successful investigation was widely known. This report identifies that in 1984-85 some 22,224 matters involving fraud were referred to the Australian Federal Police for investigation, and only a percentage of those would have been in relation to the Health Insurance Commission. It is quite clearly impossible for the Australian Federal Police to deal with and to process promptly that number of matters. This report recommends that many of those investigations be referred back to the operating line agency for different administrative procedures and for resolution. Some of those suggestions are obviously sensible but the report misses one point and that is that many of the matters referred to the Australian Federal Police involved small amounts. That did not mean that the matters themselves were small. I will give an example. A doctor may be undertaking a whole range of consultations, each of them for a small amount of money-each process and each procedure for $10, $20 or $30. If we became aware that in such a case there was a need to investigate, if that investigation were carried out and if interviews were held they might throw up only three or four instances of fraud, each involving $50. But they may demonstrate a wider and much larger pattern of misbehaviour. My concern is that until we realise that it is absolutely essential that the Commonwealth can detect, punish and make examples of those who conduct fraud we will not be protecting the public, protecting ourselves, protecting the public revenue or giving a capacity to use our resources for the things we wish to use them for. I support some of the administrative reforms which have been recommended but I do not find from the tone of this report a proper appreciation of the needs of the Australian Federal Police, the importance of detecting fraud or the need to identify that we have been unable to do so for far too long. Senator COLLINS(Northern Territory)(5.13) —I commend this report to honourable senators. It really should be read because its recommendations are highly topical. I quote from page 17 of the report to give a taste of the background to it: In the early 1980s, reports of various commissions of inquiry revealed a largely unsuspected and disturbing picture of major criminal activity in modern Australian society. Not the least disturbing part of this was a burgeoning tax evasion industry, including `bottom of the harbour' and other tax schemes, highlighted by the 1982 McCabe-Lafranchi Report and in a number of Costigan Royal Commission Reports. Mr Costigan also suggested the involvement of the Federal Ship Painters and Dockers Union in large-scale social security fraud. Also contained in the report is what I believe to be a classic definition of fraud. The report quotes Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. It reads: They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, for they allege that care and vigilance with a very common understanding may preserve a man's goods from thieves. But honesty hath no defence against superior cunning and since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted or connived at, or hath no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone and the knave gets the advantage. Honourable senators should refer to some of the recommendations of this report. I quote from page 10. Recommendation 14 reads: That the Attorney-General, at the next meeting of the Ministerial Council for Companies and Securities: urge all States and the Northern Territory to expedite current programs to computerise corporate affairs records and develop an analytical capacity to facilitate data gathering for the purpose of investigations and legal proceedings; seek agreement that such records and analytical capacity be made available on-line to the AFP, the DPP, the AGS, the ATO, the ATS, the ACS, the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy, and to other agencies as appropriate. Recommendation 15 reads: That the Attorney-General, at the next meeting of the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General: urge all States and the Northern Territory to introduce or to expedite programs to computerise land titles records and to develop an analytical capacity to facilitate data gathering for the purpose of investigations and legal proceedings; and seek agreement that such records and analytical capacity be made available on-line to the AFP, the DPP, the AGS, the ATO, the Official Trustee in Bankruptcy, and to other agencies as appropriate. I am sure the topicality of recommendations 23, 24 and 25 will not be lost on honourable senators. I quote from recommendation 23: That, for a trial period of one year, agencies which believe their efforts to recover moneys owed to the Commonwealth are hampered by lack of access to locator information possessed by other agencies record relevant details and provide them to the Department of Finance for an assessment as to what action may be required including, if necessary, the need for a submission to Cabinet by the end of financial year . . . Recommendation 24 reads: That, in order to reduce the incidence and maximise the detection of financial loss, and where it is consistent with the terms of present legislation, agencies adopt co-operative policies in providing information to other agencies and, in particular, where it is cost-effective, consider matching of information relevant to identifying instances of fraud. Recommendation 25 reads: That, to meet the immediate needs of the AFP, the DPP and the NCA for adequate access to information from the ATO, the HIC, the DSS and the ACS (the disclosing agencies) for law enforcement, prosecution or civil remedy purposes, the Attorney-General bring forward as soon as possible a proposal for legislation which would override secrecy provisions otherwise applicable . . . So it goes on. I quote from recommendation 26: That the present review of secrecy provisions by the Attorney-General's Department be completed within twelve months of the date of acceptance of this recommendation, that it place particular emphasis on the removal of unnecessary constraints upon the flow of information between agencies in relation to fraud, and that upon conclusion of the review the Attorney- General report to Cabinet recommending any desirable changes to legislation. The reality of all of those recommendations is very simple: they recognise quite sensibly that using on line data collection with exchange between agencies to overcome tax evasion and fraud is not inherently sinister; it is simply a recognition of modern technology. It simply needs to be protected with mechanisms such as the Data Protection Agency. Senator Puplick on the other side, with his concern about combating tax evasion and fraud, could do no more to achieve that end than to support any moves that this Government makes to introduce measures that he totally supported when he was a member of the Joint Select Committee on an Australia Card. Senator ARCHER(Tasmania)(5.18) —I too wish to study this report of the Review of Systems for Dealing with Fraud on the Commonwealth at considerably greater depth than I have been able to yet. From what I have found in it so far, I regret that I find it to be quite superficial, totally elementary, pointless and, in many respects, absolutely useless. It is the fourth report on crime that has been put down by this Government in the last 4 1/2 years. The Government has not advanced the situation one jot in those four reports. The report sneaked out late one night because, I presume, it would have been laughed at had it come out in daylight. This report must be regarded as a damning indictment of the attitude of this Government and its actions in dealing with crime generally. The review of the systems is one thing but the report does not specify the extent of fraud that we are endeavouring to control. There is no mention of whether it is $1m, $1 billion, $4 1/2 billion, as has been mentioned lately, or $10 billion, as has been mentioned in some circles. To me it is fairly fundamental that until one knows the size of the problem one really cannot make up one's mind as to the best way to deal with it. That applies to the Government too. The major point is that the action taken must fit the need and we do not know what the need is. We are not told whether the Government has any idea of what it is either. We are getting report after report, we are getting words and not actions, and I really feel sorry for Senator Tate, who must be terribly embarrassed by all this. We certainly look to him now to pick up from Minister Young, who has done absolutely nothing over the last four years except give comfort to crooks. We hope that Senator Tate will really be able to show his mettle as a result of this. The report shows up the Government in many ways. I believe that the report is a fraud because it is absolutely typical and predictable and the material is so serious. I think we would laugh about it if it were not so serious. There has been talk about superficiality. I, too, would like to quote from the report. On page 38 it states: What is required is recognition that fraud can and does occur, and an explicit, systematic approach to its prevention and detection appropriate to the requirements of the agency in question. We could not have anything more simplistic than that. Page 40 of the report quotes Douglas Meagher, who was ignominiously sacked, along with Costigan, by this Government. It states: `Ignorance is bliss. If you do not have a detection system that is going to uncover fraud then you do not know it is happening . . . If you are not looking for it you will not see it.' On the next page the report states: It is considered highly desirable that early consideration be given to sample surveys as a means of assessing the effectiveness of resource allocation and present approaches to preventing and detecting fraud. All this is very simplistic if this problem is so great. I just do not think the Government fully appreciates it. There are indications that Government organisations are handling huge amounts of money and that no one had thought that there could be fraudulent endeavours to obtain it from people outside. The various recommendations that I found in the early stages of the report are also very naive. I do not think the Government has any system in mind. I make two positive suggestions. Firstly, no system should be considered before discussing it with the Australian Federal Police. The Federal Police can give us plenty of advice on how to prevent some of these problems. Secondly, we totally reject the second recommendation in the report, which suggests that each of these government organisations ought to set up its own mini-police force. We have too many police forces now. If we really want to do the job properly we need to use the professionals. I certainly believe that if the Government falls for having yet more police forces of this nature it can only get further and further into trouble. Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania)(5.23) —The report entitled Review of Systems for Dealing with Fraud on the Commonwealth has been sat on by the Government since March this year. As Senator Archer has said, it is only the fourth in a long line of reports that the Government has sat on over several years. In February 1985, Mr Young got a report entitled The Cost of Efficient Policing, which he refused to make public. In April 1985 he called for a second report which was never tabled. In March 1986 he got a third report, which was also known as the `Fraud Report', and he did not do anything about that. In May 1986 he called for a fourth report and that is the one for which Senator Tate now has responsibility. That is also the one to which Mr John Spender was refused access following his freedom of information request. It is also the report which the Federal Secretary of the Australian Federal Police Association (AFPA), Mr Chris Eaton, said that the Government was sitting on, that was a disgrace and that the Federal Police Association was very upset about. He also said: A national identity card is not the answer to the type of fraud identified by this secret report. He said further: An Australia Card will be just another document open to fraud and able to be misused to cover a trail of organised crime protected by the assumption of validity presented by the card. Yet this report recommends the Australia Card. It is nonsense! It is not surprising when we look at the composition of the review committee that we find buried, hidden well in the text of this report, that Mr McGuarr, Dr Wilenski, the Commissioner of Taxation and the General Manager of the Health Insurance Commission were notable contributors to this report. Is it any wonder that they were chosen for the job? It is quite interesting also that representatives from the Attorney-General's Department and the Commissioner of Police were co-opted to a couple of meetings later on. They were not made members of the review committee. Why is this Government so secretive about the report? I think it is simply that it is very well aware that it has been in government for 4 1/2 years now and has just sat on the problem. As we know, a huge amount of taxpayers' money is involved and is being wasted-we do not quite know how much. A former senior solicitor with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said that it was between $10 billion and $30 billion. It is enough to make any government move fast but this Government clearly is unable to. I recognise that direct crediting of regular payments, one of the matters which has been referred to in the report, has improved the situation somewhat but I am appalled to find criticism of the government agencies for a lack of training in the prevention and identifying of fraud. I am glad to see that that suggestion is being made and I hope that it will be acted upon. If ever we had a need for action it is in the area of those agencies that are subject to fraud to make sure that their personnel are properly trained in preventing and identifying fraud and detecting and dealing with it. But an ID card or an indiscriminate swapping of information between departments is totally unacceptable. What we need is an increase in resources for the law enforcement agencies-the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the Director of Public Prosecutions, and the Attorney- General's Department-to prevent the bigger fish from defrauding the Commonwealth. Those agencies do not have the resources they need. The AFP and the AFPA have been lobbying for two years for a 50 per cent increase in staffing to fight these sorts of fraud against the Commonwealth. The report entitled The Cost of Efficient Policing, presented in February 1985, called for 1,364 extra staff. The review that Mick Young established in April 1985 found a shortfall of between 1,000 and 1,400 AFP members and 230 to 350 support staff. Since then this Government has increased the AFP staff level by 145 and by another 104 in this Budget, and it has increased the support staff in the Public Service by only 19 in the last four years. It is not good enough. The DPP also claims that a lack of resources is hindering the fight against fraud. We will only get the kind of policing against these sorts of frauds that we are prepared to pay for. Staff members alone will not do the entire job but they are a good start. We need political will. Clearly, until now at least, we have not had it. I hope that, after publicity given to this fraud report, the Government will be pushed into action, but I have not seen much evidence in the current Budget to suggest that the Government is really serious. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(5.28) —This Government is involved in some sort of massive cover-up in relation to fraud against the Commonwealth. The Australian Federal Police Association has been so concerned about the enormous fraud against the Commonwealth that it has called for a royal commission to determine why the Government has not acted on years and years of reports alleging enormous fraud against the Commonwealth. This call has not been addressed by the Government. I see that Senator Walsh is in the chamber and I challenge him in relation to this matter. In July the Australian Federal Police Association released figures which put tax fraud at $3 billion. The figures showed customs fraud and evasion at $2.5 billion, social security fraud and over-payments at $2 billion, fraud against defence at $800 million and health and medicare fraud at $700 million, or the equivalent of 11 cents in every dollar of Commonwealth expenditure. Senator Walsh comes into this place and claims to argue against tax evasion and similar cheating. He unmercifully and unfairly attacks people on this side of the House, yet he is strangely silent about his Government's failure to address the issues raised by the Australian Federal Police Association, an independent body which is greatly concerned about the fraud which it sees going on in this nation. One can only wonder whose interests are being protected in what appears to be a massive cover-up by this Government and the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs, Mr Young. In February 1985 Mr Young received a report entitled The Cost of Efficient Policing, and he refused to table the report. In April 1985 he called for a second report allegedly entitled `Resource Enquiry'. He received that, I understand, in October or November 1985 but again that report has not been made public; it has not been tabled. In March 1986 Mr Young received the `Fraud Report'; again not made public. Why was it not made public? Why is this Government covering up? I challenge Senator Walsh to tell us why the Government is not prepared to make reports public. In May 1986 Mr Young rejected the `Fraud Report'. Does Senator Walsh deny that Mr Young recalled the privately distributed copies of that report and shredded the report so that no one would be able to see what was in it? On 28 May, Senator Gareth Evans said to this chamber: It is not possible to offer an estimate of computer crime because it is not possible to quantify the extent of unreported and undetected computer fraud. The Federal Police Association has given its estimate of the massive amount of money the Commonwealth is being defrauded of, certainly enough to make up for the loss of the so-called Australia Card claimed by this Government, and the Government is not doing anything about it. This nonsense report that we have had tabled was released late at night so the media could not get hold of it-that is called media manipulation. It is a very large report. As my colleague Senator Archer said, it contains very little government information and is prepared by government sycophants. The report reveals some criticism of the Government, which is not surprising, but it does not contain anywhere near enough information for people to be able to deal with it properly and, in particular, deal with it in a way the Australian Federal Police wish the Government of the nation to deal with it, by way of royal commission. This Government has reduced the Australian Federal Police budget by $1.5m. How that will help recover these billions of dollars from the people who are defrauding the Commonwealth of Australia, I do not know. I see that Senator Walsh thinks this is a laugh. Senator Walsh and Senator Maguire are laughing and joking about it. I can assure them that neither the Opposition nor the people of Australia consider it to be a laughing matter. I seek leave to continue my remarks later so that we can deal with this matter on another occasion. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator JENKINS(Western Australia)(5.34) —I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. In the limited time available, I was most interested to examine this report. My first comment is that it is regretted that it is the annual report for 1985-86 and therefore the information contained in it must be very out of date. I was particularly interested, because of connections I have had with its predecessor, the Committee on Overseas Professional Qualifications, known as the COPQ. The initial report of that Committee was instrumental in playing its part in events which led eventually to the production of the national language policy to which the Governor-General referred in his Speech on the opening of the Parliament. I quote from page 1 of the report: The objectives of the Council are: to assist prospective immigrants in the assessment of their qualifications in Australian terms; and to assist Australian residents who are holders of overseas qualifications to obtain assessment of their qualifications in Australia. Two of the functions of this Council are to investigate overseas qualifications and to relate the findings to Australian educational standards, and to provide individual assessments of overseas professional qualifications and to assist professions in Australia to evaluate overseas qualifications. It must be realised that the recognition of the overseas qualifications is a problem but it is not a new problem. Page 5 of the report reads: The problem of the recognition of overseas qualifications in Australia is not new. In 1956 a large influx of professionally qualified people from Hungary was largely responsible for the establishment of a Foreign Practitioners Qualifications Committee (FPQC) in Victoria. In 1968, following the crisis in Czechoslovakia, another group of highly qualified people expressed interest in settling in Australia. As a result, attention was once again focused on the need to update assessment procedures and assist Australian professions to acquire information about professional training in countries outside the British system. Requests for recognition of overseas professional qualifications have a history going back a number of years. The Council on Overseas Professional Qualifications espouses the commendable principle that as far as is practicable we must ensure that skills brought to this country by migrants are not wasted and procedures for recognition of overseas professional qualifications have been established to ensure that minimum standards are maintained within occupations. The need for a knowledge of Australian codes, practices and conditions is incorporated into these procedures by written and practical examinations. Bridging courses are seen as an essential part of Australia's recognition procedures. Bridging courses can embody two different concepts, that of reorientation and that of retraining. Both these are essential components if overseas professional qualifications are to be properly recognised. I should like to draw the attention of honourable senators to some of the statistics in the report. In 1985-86 more than 11,000 requests for examination and assessment were received but the growth in applications for assessment in nursing was absolutely dramatic. Out of 11,269 examinations and assessments conducted, 2,973 were for nursing. However, it is puzzling to note that there is no mention of assessments or examinations for people in the medical profession. I ask why that is so. I thank you, Mr Deputy President, for the opportunity to draw the attention of honourable senators to this report on overseas professional qualifications. I recommend that honourable senators read it because of its vitality in the matter of professional qualifications as a whole within Australia. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator MAGUIRE(South Australia) —On behalf of Senator Cooney, I lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 11, dated 7 October, 1987. Debate resumed from 24 September, on motion by Senator Gareth Evans: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(5.39) —The Loans Bill is one of the most important Bills, in my judgment, to come before Parliament in the course of any financial year because it is one of the Bills that allow Parliament to exercise supervision and, in the last analysis, control over the behaviour of the Executive. After all, that is the role of Parliament, the role properly considered of Parliament, as distinct from the Executive Government. Of course, no part of the Parliament has a greater hand in carrying out that role than the Senate. If one wants any evidence of the truth of what I just said, one can point immediately to two very recent examples, one of them of the most overwhelmingly important kind and another that might be thought to be rather minor but in my humble opinion in its own small way important also. I refer, of course, to the action of the Senate in bringing to an end the Government's proposals for the so-called Australia Card, on which we had some debate earlier this afternoon on Senator Puplick's motion of urgency and, indeed, on which we have had some debate in the course of earlier sittings of the Senate. I suppose that for some time both inside and outside the Parliament one has not heard phrases such as `constitutional vandalism' and other examples of overblown rhetoric of that kind which, of course, have resulted from the perfectly constitutional and perfectly proper actions taken by the Senate to deal with that major piece of Government legislation which has led now, of course, to its actually being withdrawn by the Government. That is an example of the proper role of the Senate in a major instance. As I said, we have seen a much more minor example of the same proper discharge by the Senate of its constitutional responsibilities. I refer to debate somewhat earlier today when the Senate considered the Government's Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 1987. This Bill seeks to make changes, described as insignificant or of a purely machinery kind, in no fewer than 87 Acts of this Parliament. I have to say that I think that the experience of debating that Bill earlier this day has given rise, not only here but also in the House of Representatives, to some serious questioning about the manner in which we conduct our affairs in relation to that form of legislation. As Senator Lewis was able to point out today, that particular Bill was one which contained a number of provisions which, in the end, the Senate refused to approve. That was notwithstanding the fact that it was put forward as a purely machinery, purely technical and purely non-policy piece of legislation. The amendment which I particularly had in mind was that which proposed that in future by ministerial fiat the Minister for Finance would have the sole prerogative of making any change that he, and only he, thought fit in the presentation of the monthly statement of Commonwealth financial transactions-the so-called Niemeyer report, which these days no doubt is a somewhat misleading term. Nevertheless, this is a significant and important monthly report, not merely to the Parliament but to the people of Australia, on the Commonwealth's financial accounts. Had that particular provision not been struck out of the Bill the Minister would have obtained sole power to determine for the future the form of that report. I mention that matter, although I do not want to stray too far from the Loans Bill itself. However, I mention those two examples by way of illustrating my much more general point about the supreme importance of the role of the Parliament and, as I say, particularly of this chamber, in maintaining appropriate supervision and, in the last analysis, control of the Executive Government of the Commonwealth of Australia. I think the fact that debate on the Loan Bill is traditional again underlines my earlier point that this is one of the most important pieces of financial legislation to come before the Parliament each financial year. It is not a mere piece of machinery legislation although, at times, it takes on that colouration. It is an integral part of the budgetary process and of the budgetary financing process. Of course, as such, each year it very properly gives rise to considerable debate which ranges widely on the subject of the Budget itself, the state of the economy and so on. Of course, this is a time at which debate of that kind is particularly and peculiarly appropriate. The Minister for Finance (Senator Walsh)-who is not actually gracing us at the moment with his presence-described the Budget less than a week after it was brought down as being in danger of being oversold. I think the Minister for Finance was in danger of understatement. There is no question of the Budget being in danger of being oversold; the Budget very clearly has been oversold. It is interesting to note and, I hope, perhaps it is salutary for the Government to note, that since about that time there has been the appearance of some signs of the effect of overkill, both in the now somewhat more balanced statements emerging from the financial and economic commentators in our Press and other media and also perhaps as reflected in the behaviour of some elements of the financial markets. It is no longer good enough for representatives of this Government to stand up here in this chamber and rave on to the effect that all of this country's problems are due to the faults of its predecessors. I have no doubt that this Government's predecessors did have some faults; in the eyes of some, no doubt, many faults. However, it is no longer to the least purpose for the Minister for Finance, for Senator Button, or anyone else either here or in the other place to try to persuade us-or to bully us, which is more generally their modus operandi-into acceptance of their view that, in fact, Australia's ills are all bequeathed. After all, this Government has been in office now for 4 1/2 years. That is not an inconsiderable period. As I was saying, we have, as was revealed as a result of questions in this chamber today, an Australian dollar which from one point of view-what I might loosely call, no doubt, Senator Button's point of view and the point of view of import competing manufacturers in particular-is too dear. As I said, it is a dollar which is uncomfortably high from the point of view of the interests of that particular area of the productive economy. The same undoubtedly would apply in regard to the exporting industries such as the major rural and great mining industries of this country. As I say, from that viewpoint we have a dollar that is too dear. Yet as was illustrated by the extraordinary action of the Treasurer (Mr Keating) last week in placing a virtually total ban on purchases of residential real estate in urban areas by non-Australians and the point of view of the relative international value of Australian assets, we have a dollar that is too cheap. I think that that is a dilemma that this Government has barely begun to realise, let alone begun to face up to in terms of the policy requirements that it will need to induce in due course. One of the consequences of that kind of dilemma, of course, is the very considerable degree of uncertainty which now pertains not merely in the financial markets, which in this respect I think are not the most important places to look, but in our major industrial sectors. The Minister for Finance has now rejoined us in the chamber. I think I recall earlier this afternoon his responding to one of the rather characteristic dorothy dix questions-which I think are the only kinds of questions which are asked by honourable senators on the other side of the chamber-by reading a little lecture on what the latest Treasury Round-up may or may not have said about the outlook for business investment in this country. I do not propose to follow him in what, I think, turned out to be a somewhat boring recitation-other than to note that, notwithstanding the Government's attempts to suggest that all in the investment garden is, if not yet rosy, certainly taking on the first blush of rosiness, we will have to wait a little longer and wait to see the numbers come up before we accept the Government's newly found euphoria in that area. The fact is that, if from one point of view our currency is too cheap and from another point of view it is too dear, it is rather hard under those circumstances for manufacturers, for example, to make up their minds on what basis they should begin to plan their future. Should they begin to plan on the assumption that the Australian dollar will rise in value against foreign currencies or should they begin to plan their future, in particular their investment, on the assumption that the dollar will begin to fall? Perhaps the most interesting aspect of that conundrum or dilemma is that I am not sure that the Government, taken as a collective at least, has even begun to understand that it has a problem in that regard. It may be that some glimmer of understanding of that is beginning to dawn on such Ministers as Senator Button and, I would like to think, Senator Walsh; but I doubt that it has yet dawned on the Government, taken as a collective. A third element of our economic problems with which the 1987-88 Budget purports to deal-I emphasise `purports'-is the problem of our cost structure, future wage rates and, more generally, the whole question of real unit labour costs, which are a function not merely of the present level of and future increase in money wages but also of the present position of and future change in productivity, in this case, I think one must say, on an enterprise basis. We all know that this Government's performance in both those areas bearing upon this fundamental question of the outlook for real unit labour costs has been not merely poor but abysmal. The Government stands in thrall-it has ever since it came to office-to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the particular power brokers who run that body. The Government is incapable of dealing with this problem of real unit labour costs. It is palsied when it comes to facing up to it. While I do not wish to comment unduly on what I understand to be the somewhat topical question now before the Remuneration Tribunal, I will just say that a particularly powerful example of the manner in which this Government's policies are being run by Mr Bill Kelty could be noticed in the Press of the last couple of days. Senator Haines —Only when it suits them, because they paid no attention whatsoever to the numerous occasions when we either halved or disallowed entirely our parliamentary salary increases. Senator STONE —I think I have to accept Senator Haines's interjection. Without pursuing this element of my remarks further, the simple points I want to make are: we have an economy which is in a frightful mess and we have a government which, if one can judge by the standards of the Budget, which, after all, is the Government's single most important instrument for economic adjustment during the financial year, seems to have thrown up its hands in the air on dealing with the problems of the economy. Let me come rather more directly to the Loans Bill. What is the purpose of a Loan Bill? It seeks to deal with certain quite proper legal constraints which are laid upon the Government in the pursuance of its financial transactions. The single most important such constraint, in this context at least, is that payments from the Consolidated Revenue Fund cannot legally exceed moneys available to that Fund. In 1987-88, it is estimated, there will be a deficit in the Consolidated Revenue Fund-not in the total public account, although there will be a small deficit in the total public account according to the Government's creative accounting processes or ways of looking at these things. In the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which forms a very large part of the total public account, there will be a deficit which was estimated in the second reading speech to be of the order of $2.4 billion. Because of that, one of two things has to occur: either action must be taken to reduce in some way expenditures out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund to balance out the two sides of that fund, or action must be taken to bring funds into the Consolidated Revenue Fund from somewhere else in the public account. Because that is often the case, not invariably, but in recent years it has generally been the case, it has become customary at this time of the financial year, that is, concurrently with the Budget, appropriation Bills and the other legislation which flows from the Budget process, to seek legislative authority to charge some defence expenditure-as a general rule and because borrowing for defence purposes is not covered without exemption in the terms of the Financial Agreement and therefore the Commonwealth does not have to seek the agreement of the States to undertake such borrowings-to the Loan Fund or to give authority to reimburse the Consolidated Revenue Fund from the Loan Fund, for some other expenditures. That is what this Bill, for the most part, proposes to do. It seeks authority to borrow money in 1987-88 for defence and other purposes. The second reading speech in the other place, which has been incorporated in this place, states: This Bill therefore seeks authority to borrow money in 1987-88 for defence and other purposes and to enable certain other expenditures to be met from the Loan Fund rather than from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. So far, so good. From the viewpoint of the Opposition, we have no real objection to those proposals, so far as they go. In saying that, I do not wish to be misunderstood. I particularly do not wish to be understood to be saying that we regard this legislation as a mere machinery measure which should go through, so to speak, on the voices and without proper scrutiny and detailed consideration. Up to that point, the Opposition, on this occasion, has no objection to the Bill. If that were all the Bill proposed to do, we would be prepared to give it a fair wind. We would have some discussion about it, as we are now doing in the second reading debate; but I imagine that we would not do more than that. But one aspect of the Bill is in a different category. Again I refer to the second reading speech, in which the Minister says: In addition, and for the first time, the Bill provides for continuity of that authority- that is, the borrowing authority- by the inclusion of a supply clause. In the past, borrowing authority under the annual Loan Act- it is interesting that the Minister quite properly describes it as a loan Act, in the singular- ceased to be available on 30 June until the next Loan Act was passed, usually by urgent passage in the Budget sittings. The provision to go beyond that is what gives rise to difficulty, and there is some relevant history on this matter which should be briefly cited. In 1985 the Government brought in what was again called a Loans Bill 1985, which not merely sought to obtain the requisite borrowing authority for the financing of the transactions of that Budget for 1985-86 but also included a clause which would have provided standing authority for such borrowings rather than the need for annual legislation. In the terms that were used in the Parliament, it would in effect have produced a special appropriation type of borrowing authority rather than an annual appropriation type of borrowing authority. That would have had one effect alone, although an extraordinarily important effect: it would have removed this area of the Government's transactions from the annual review of the Parliament. I was not in this chamber at that time. Senator Haines —No, but we were and we were the ones who picked it up. Senator STONE —Senator Haines reminds me that both the Opposition and the Australian Democrats were here at that time, and to their joint credit, which I fully concede, they made it clear to the Government that they would not accept that major change in legislative process and, as a consequence, that provision was deleted from the Bill in 1985. I do not wish to be provocative, but it seems that the Government has amongst its ranks-I do not want to suggest that this comes from officers, although sometimes such things do, so perhaps I should say either the Government or the Department of Finance has within its ranks-some slow learners, because in 1986 another Loans Bill came before Parliament. Again, I was not here, but again this Bill contained a provision seeking to do what, in the previous year, this Parliament had specifically, categorically and for cogently stated reasons, refused to do. I do not wish to use provocative language, but I would have thought that that was a provocative act and it was dealt with as acts of provocation from a Government that does not have a majority in this chamber ought to be dealt with-that is to say, with contumely. That provision was defeated, and once again the Loans Bill 1986-or the Loan Bill 1986 as it emerged-became what the Loan Bill traditionally has been, that is to say, a Bill to provide authority for borrowings relating to the Budget of the financial year in question. This year there is some sign of educability on the part of the Government, because it has not brought back again the outrageous provision which it has twice introduced. This time, it has produced a seemingly different provision by including a clause which seeks to extend the existing borrowing authority by the inclusion of a Supply clause. If this Bill is passed, borrowing authority under the proposed change would be extended into the following financial year. It would not expire at 30 June, unlike previous Loan Acts, but would be extended into the following financial year of 1988-89 and by the amount included in the Supply Bill (No. 1), which of course we have not yet received. That Bill normally comes in in April or May of the financial year and has effect into the first five months of the following financial year. Because of this new clause, we would have a borrowing authority equivalent to the amount provided in the Supply Bill, although we do not know that amount because the Supply Bill is not yet before Parliament, which would roughly be in the order of some billions of dollars. After all, the defence vote, to which the Supply clause specifically relates, is a very large vote and a Supply provision in respect of the defence vote is therefore, although it is only for five-twelfths of the year, a very large amount. I think that it is fair to say that the provision of such a large Supply provision in this Bill would give the Government more borrowing authority for the financial year 1988-89 than it is seeking in the Loans Bill for this year, even though it has not done anything by way of a new Loans Bill for next year. Some time ago, after the Loans Bill appeared in the House of Representatives and I had a chance to look at it, I issued a Press statement on the matter which made it clear to the Government that, from where the Opposition sat at any rate, although I had not at that time had a chance to consult with others such as Senator Haines, we would not allow, or would do our best to deny to the Government, this evasion of the proper constitutional role of this chamber in bringing to bear a process of scrutiny upon the Government's financial processes. Therefore, some time ago the Government was forewarned that we would be moving against only this particular provision-not the Bill as a whole-to which the Opposition takes very strong objection. I foreshadow that, in the committee stage, I shall move a number of amendments to this Bill, which I think have already been distributed in the chamber. Certainly, earlier today during the lunch break, I gave a copy to the Minister for Finance as a matter of personal courtesy. We will be moving a number of amendments to deny this provision which the Government is, in a quite extraordinary manner, seeking. All that we are seeking to do by that process is to return the Bill, if that should be the will of the Senate, in that amended form to the same form as in previous years. Senator HAINES(South Australia-Leader of the Australian Democrats)(6.07) —The legislation before us is a Bill for an Act to authorise the borrowing and expending of money for certain purposes. It is standard practice for this Parliament to deal with a Loans Bill on an annual basis. It is a slender Bill of only nine clauses, but it has quite a significant impact on the way in which not only Parliament operates but also government operates. This legislation has an even more significant element to it, and one which Senator Stone has discussed at some length, in that it extends the period in which governments can borrow through Treasury beyond the end of the financial year with which we are dealing. Essentially, this legislation provides for the financing of the prospective deficit in the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of some $2.4 billion. This includes the financing of the 1987-88 Budget deficit, which is estimated to be $27m, and we will see how accurate that is sometime down the track. Most of the Consolidated Revenue Fund deficit consists of what I think accountants tend to call `below the line financing transactions', which are predominantly payments for maturing debt or prepayments of Commonwealth debt. For legal reasons, expenditures from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in any financial year may not exceed revenue moneys available to it. To the extent of any shortfall in CRF revenues, balancing the CRF requires the charging of expenditure to, or reimbursement of, the Consolidated Revenue Fund from the Loan Fund, where they can be financed out of loan raisings. There are three options or ways for transferring expenditures from the CRF or reimbursing the CRF from the Loan Fund. The first of those is a delightful piece of creative accounting that operates essentially to charge to the Loan Fund, under the authority of the Loan Act for that purpose, defence expenditure which has been appropriated from the CRF under the authority of the Supply and Appropriation Acts. While it may seem odd that the Loans Bill authorises borrowing for defence purposes in particular, there is an obvious reason for it. By seeking to borrow for defence purposes, the Commonwealth avoids seeking Loan Council approval for the borrowing, since defence expenditure is exempt from Loan Council coverage. As I said, it is a bit of creative accounting which, I hasten to add, is not sinister in any way; it is just a useful device encompassed by governments to get around having to go to the Loan Council all the time. It has occurred since 1949. Nevertheless, while it is traditional and not sinister, it is not only a creative bit of accounting but also a rather haphazard way of giving governments the authority to borrow. The other two options are more precise. They require, of course, Loan Council approval. The first of the remaining two options is to utilise existing legislation provisions, known as dual appropriations, for the fairly obvious reason that they can be charged either to the CRF or to the Loan Fund. When the expenditures are charged to the Loan Fund under such legislation, the borrowings to finance them are governed by the limit of the Commonwealth's Loan Council borrowings program. Dual appropriations Bills include most of the States grants Bills, such as those which deal with housing, schools assistance and so on. The second of the remaining two options is to reimburse the CRF with respect to other non-defence expenditure which has been incurred, again, under the authority of Supply and Appropriation Acts, from the Loan Fund under the authority of a Loan Act for that specific purpose. As with the second option that I discussed a moment ago, the borrowings to finance this expenditure are governed by the limit of the Commonwealth's Loan Council borrowings program. The Loans Bill 1987-soon, I hasten to add, to become the Loans Act-uses these three traditional avenues to deal with the expected Consolidated Revenue Fund deficit. In addition, it proposes that, for the first time, a Supply clause be included to provide continuity of borrowing so that Treasury can borrow between the end of one financial year-that is, 30 June-and the passage of the next financial year's Loans Bill, which usually takes place in the following October or November. I point out that it is passed in October or November because the Parliament does not resume sitting until August, and often the middle of August. There is no reason why it could not be brought further forward so that the hiatus period is shorter than the traditional one of seven months. In any event, the new element in this legislation is the extension proposed under this Bill to allow legal borrowings to occur after the end of this financial year and prior to the passage of the following financial year's Loans Bill. In other words, it seeks to remove the current restriction on government borrowings, although, as Senator Stone has already pointed out, it does not go as far as the Government has attempted to go in previous years. I hasten to point out to Senator Stone that in 1985, for example, the Australian Democrats noticed that that particular year's Loans Bill would have been the last to be considered by the Parliament. Senator Stone got his guernsey and had his moment in the spotlight a couple of weeks ago. For the record I claim that ours was in 1985. Senator Stone —I yield entirely. Senator HAINES —Yes, I am sure that Senator Stone would realise that I would not let that pass without commenting on it. That year the Opposition parties-I dare say because they were overworked and underpaid-let the legislation be passed by the House of Representatives without commenting on the fact that there was a clause in the Bill that removed the need for further Loans Bills. By the time it had been drawn to their attention by us the Bill was before the Senate. As Senator Stone has already noted, I am pleased to say that everybody on this side of the chamber saw the wisdom of removing that element from the Loans Bill. As I said a moment ago, this Bill does not go as far as that, but we still need to be cautious when governments try to take for themselves powers that are not open to full parliamentary scrutiny until after the event. I will say more in a moment about the need to extend parliamentary scrutiny of the Loans Bill because a particularly important function of this chamber is the power that is contained in the Senate, which is not in the hands of the Government, of extensive investigation of legislation and questioning of Ministers. This Bill does not go as far as that, but we are concerned that it does include the several months extension of legal borrowings. We acknowledge that the contentious Supply provision does not affect how much the Commonwealth borrows or how much it spends. What it does affect is the timing of the decision to borrow-at least, that is the stated intention-and it does so to a relatively small degree at the moment. We need to ask ourselves whether that matters a great deal. We need also to ask, if there are savings to be made by giving Treasury the freedom to borrow in the hiatus period between 1 July and the following October, if borrowing terms appear favourable and whether this justifies further diminishing parliamentary scrutiny of Treasury's practices and, hence, of government's policies and intentions. We do not believe it is justified, on the slender grounds that maybe in that period there will be more favourable borrowing conditions of which the Government should be in a position to take advantage. One of the roles of this place has been referred to by me and by Senator Stone. I must say that I am worried about the number of occasions on which I am agreeing with Senator Stone; one of us is having a major ideological problem and I have not yet had time to work out who it is. In any event, Senator Stone was perfectly correct in arguing that one of the roles of this place is for us to scrutinise and, where necessary, comment on and criticise the Government for its activity, lack of activity or the behaviour of its departments. What this Bill effectively highlights is the total inadequacy of current parliamentary supervision of the Loans Bill because we do not ever really get the information that we, as members of parliament, need in order to make informed decisions, ask sensible questions and come to rational decisions. While I know that that is asking a bit much of some people around the place, there are a few of us who attempt to do those things from time to time. Senator Walsh will say that this is not one of those times, and he is entitled to that view. But I believe that this chamber has a vital role in the scrutiny measures that we undertake. As I said earlier, in 1985 and 1986 the Government wanted to make it even more difficult for Parliament to supervise what governments were doing on those occasions. It attempted to remove the Parliament's annual scrutiny of loan raisings absolutely by extending the Government's authority to borrow forever. It seems to me that, especially in these times when the amount of government, domestic and foreign borrowing has become a major focus of economic policy making, the Parliament should not be giving a free hand to the departments of Treasury and Finance to borrow as they wish, when they wish, with scrutiny only after the event. Currently, the Parliament and the Australian people can only find out what the Government has borrowed for the year that has just passed. In effect, we already give Treasury carte blanche to borrow enormous amounts of money for the following year. We acknowledge that Budget Papers give some indication, but they are not binding and they are often not as comprehensive as we would like. We then have to rely on the government of the day to borrow on the most favourable terms, and only as much as is needed within the generous upper limit-$7 billion this year-imposed by the Loans Bill. We need more, not less, parliamentary supervision of borrowings. They are becoming an integral and increasing part of the whole system. It is important that the Parliament is in a position to keep tabs on what governments are doing with regard to borrowings, given the impact that this can have on all sorts of things, including our credit rating, the attitude of overseas financiers to Australia, the attitude that investors inside and outside the country are likely to take to us, the level of our dollar and all sorts of other economic imponderables. It is important that tabs are kept. The Parliament should know how much will be borrowed, from whom it will be borrowed and why it will be borrowed. That sort of information should be contained in future Loan Bills. Instead, this Government is intent upon giving itself more power to borrow while reducing Parliament's very limited supervision of its borrowing program. We cannot and will not support that, and nor should any responsible member of parliament. For that reason, we will support the Opposition's amendments which in effect ensure that governments, through Treasury, cannot escape full parliamentary scrutiny by borrowing after the end of one financial year and prior to the passage of the next Loan Bill. Senator WATSON(Tasmania)(6.21) —In both 1985 and 1986 the Labor Government included a clause in the Loans Bill that would have had the effect of eliminating the need to present a Loan Bill to Parliament annually. By attempting to change an annual Bill to a standing Bill, the Government was making an amendment that would have reduced the power of the Parliament to scrutinise government expenditure. The powers of the Executive would have been increased by the fact that, thereafter, a Loan Bill would not have needed to be presented to the Parliament for debate. That was a retrograde step. I remind the Senate that, on both occasions, the proposal was rejected by the Senate. In the Loans Bill 1987 the Government appears to be trying to achieve the same result, again by a back-door method, by the inclusion of a new technique-the inclusion of a Supply clause. To date, the borrowing authority under the annual Loan Act has ceased to be available on 30 June until the next June Act is passed. The effect of the new clause, a Supply clause, will be to give borrowing authority for the period from 1 July 1988 to the date of commencement of Appropriation Act (No. 1) 1988-89-a period to be know as the Supply period-the amount included in Supply Act (No. 1) 1988-89 for defence purposes. We are told by the Government that this new arrangement will not in any way impinge upon the Parliament's prerogative to appropriate public moneys, but will simply provide a mechanism for financing public expenditures previously provided and appropriated by the Parliament. I believe that there is room for a great deal of scepticism in this area. The danger is that such measures will give the Government sufficient capacity to avoid the presentation of a Loan Bill in 1988, thereby removing the opportunity for the Parliament to debate the issue. That is another retrograde tactic to strengthen the hand of executive government in Australia. I believe that is a matter of concern that the power of the Parliament as a whole to scrutinise the operations of the executive government is being eaten away. I remind the Senate that, in the last sitting period, we witnessed the weakening of the capacity of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts to scrutinise government expenditure by a similar back-door approach. In fact, the staff of the already overworked secretariat was reduced to one-third of its original level, thus reducing its capacity, and that of the Joint Committee, to investigate adequately all the matters that are necessarily brought before it. Another example is that the Government has denied adequate resources to the Commonwealth Auditor-General, thereby preventing him from fulfilling his statutory obligations to this Parliament and to this Senate. The Government has referred to the Loans Bill as a `machinery financing measure' and has said that no new financial implications flow from the Bill. However, it overlooks one important thing. It does have important implications for the functioning of this Senate and the Parliament. The elimination of the need to present a Loan Bill annually could have serious consequences for the management of a deficit and accountability to the people of Australia, because it would allow the removal of some items of expenditure from Consolidated Revenue and their inclusion in the items paid for from the Loan Fund. I believe that this is a very serious shortcoming. Given the extent of this nation's debt, it is an area that should be given greater, not less, scrutiny. The Government has before this Senate a technique for reducing scrutiny by this Parliament in an area which needs additional scrutiny. I remind the Senate that approximately one-third of our external debt is accumulated by the public sector. In fact, the public sector debt for the June quarter of 1987 was $44,371m. It was up on the $38,838m figure for the corresponding quarter of 1985-86. The figures certainly give some justification to the fact that the amendments proposed by Senator Stone should be agreed to and that we should revert to having an annual Loan Bill. (Quorum formed) Senator WALSH(Western Australia-Minister for Finance)(6.28) —The Loans Bill before the Senate is a machinery measure. It was described in the House of Representatives in 1985 by the then shadow Treasurer, Mr Carlton, in these terms: This Bill makes arrangements for the Government to borrow. Previously there used to be an annual Loan Bill to handle this situation for all circumstances arising during a financial year. This Bill has been drafted as standing legislation- that is, the 1985 Bill- rather than annual legislation to remove the necessity to pass legislation annually. As the Bill does not itself authorise expenditure- Senator Watson —Shame! Senator WALSH —I note the interjection from a member of the Liberal Party about the then shadow Treasurer two years ago- but merely creates a mechanism whereby expenditures authorised by other legislation can be made, the Opposition does not object to the concept of standing legislation. It merely improves the efficiency of the Parliament. We therefore support the Bill. That was Mr Carlton accurately describing the Loans Bill of 1985 which included, as a standing piece of legislation, authority for the Government to borrow against efficiencies in the Consolidated Revenue fund under the appropriations for defence purposes. Mr Carlton described it accurately. Some time after he made that accurate statement and statement of support on behalf of the Opposition he had his arm twisted up behind his back by some of the ratbags in the Liberal Party of Australia and the Opposition opposed the Bill in the Senate. Thinking that they might have acquired a sense of responsibility in the succeeding 12 months the Government put up standing appropriations again last year and they were defeated in the Senate again. The purpose of the standing appropriations, apart from making the Parliament more efficient, as Mr Carlton said, was to enable the Government to take advantage of opportunities which may arise in the early part of the financial year to borrow under favourable terms, opportunities which are not available if the longstanding practice of passing a Loan Bill either in late September or early October is continued. This year the Government decided, since the standing appropriation had been rejected twice, to include under the Supply provision a mechanism under which the Government could borrow in the early part of the financial year if opportunities to borrow advantageously arose. The amendments which have been forecast by the Opposition deny that opportunity. In the autumn session of Parliament, on the legislation providing for quarterly provisional tax, we had amendments originating from the National Party in Queensland supported, I trust in ignorance-although one cannot be sure of these things-by the Liberal Party and later the Australian Democrats which made that part of the legislation technically inoperative. We also had regulations early this year to curb the overfishing of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The teeth from those regulations were then drawn by the Senate on the most spurious grounds, the grounds in question being that there was no need for the teeth in the Bill because what the Bill sought to do would happen anyway; in other words what members of the Opposition said they feared they themselves asserted would never happen. In that way the logic or illogic of the Opposition's collective mind apparently operated. In this Bill we have more ignorant and opportunistic meddling in the loan raising program, the effect of which, as I said before-that is of the amendments-is to deny the Commonwealth Government the opportunity to borrow no matter how advantageous that opportunity may be in the first three months of the financial year, thereby, of course, potentially and almost certainly from time to time actually increasing the cost of borrowing to the taxpayer. For those people who parade themselves as representatives of the private sector, I ask: How would the private sector like to have legislation passed by this Parliament which precluded a private company from borrowing in the first three months of its financial year? The private sector, quite justifiably, of course, would be enraged by such legislation and yet that is precisely the curb which the Opposition proposes to impose on the Government. In that way, as the Treasurer (Mr Keating) succinctly described it, the swill of Australian politics, that swill which has been flushed into the Senate, sabotaged good government. This swill, this Opposition, is comprised of misfits and mediocrities who have been kicked out of the House of Representatives and people who could never get elected to it, including those who, standing alone, got 1.5 per cent of the primary votes. In an attempt to justify this act of sabotage we were subjected to pontification at some length from Senator Stone, as pompous as it was spurious, about Senate or parliamentary supervision of borrowings. His amendments, by the way, do nothing to enhance parliamentary supervision of borrowings; they just preclude in the first three months of the financial year those borrowings proceeding no matter how advantageous the term may be. This is the same Senator Stone, I remind everyone, who is a member of the Queensland branch of the National Party who obviously can cope without any difficulty at all with the redneck Parliament of that State which scrutinises nothing-- Senator Maguire —Not even a public accounts committee. Senator WALSH —Not even a public accounts committee; and now, on spurious grounds of parliamentary scrutiny, he proposes to move amendments which cancel opportunities to borrow advantageously in the first three months of the year. I say that those grounds are spurious because any scrutiny of borrowings is, by its nature, ex-post. I suppose that is just as well too. Who, for example, would be willing-I think even the Opposition might baulk at this-to allow someone such as former Senator Vigor to get involved in any meaningful way in the scrutiny of the Government's borrowing program? So meanwhile Senator Stone will have no problems at all in coping with that outrageous Government and Parliament of Queensland, but he then pompously and piously attempts to impose, for no valid reason whatever, a measure which will potentially and almost certainly from time to time impose additional borrowing costs on the taxpayers. It should be apparent from what I have said that the Government will not accept these amendments. I understand that the Australian Democrats are supporting them. I am advised that it will require major redrafting of the legislation to accommodate those amendments if the Government chose to do so which will close off borrowing opportunities, possibly advantageous borrowing opportunities, for an even longer period at greater cost to the taxpayers, something imposed by people who have power without responsibility, either fiscal or moral. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. The Bill. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(6.37) —by leave-I move: (1) Page 1, clause 1, leave out ``Loans'', insert ``Loan''. (2) Page 2, clause 3, leave out the definitions of ``next financial year'', ``relevant appropriation Act'' and ``supply period'', insert the following definition: `` `relevant appropriation Act', in relation to the current financial year, means: (a) the Supply Act (No. 1) 1987-88; or (b) an Act, whether passed before or after the commencement of this Act, appropriating the Consolidated Revenue Fund for the service of that financial year, being an Act that is expressed to have effect subject to this Act.''. (3) Page 2, clause 4, leave out subclause (2). (4) Page 2, subclause 4 (3), leave out ``or (2)''. (5) Page 3, clause 5, leave out subclause (2). (6) Page 4, clause 9, leave out subclauses (2) and (3), insert the following subclauses: ``(2) Subsection (1) does not affect the expenditure of money appropriated under the heading ``ADVANCE TO THE MINISTER FOR FINANCE'' in a relevant appropriation Act for the current financial year. ``(3) Nothing in this Act shall be taken to authorise expenditure (otherwise than for the expenses of borrowing) after 30 June 1988.''. In the course of my remarks in the second reading debate I have already indicated why the Opposition has taken the action of moving these amendments. These amendments are directed to one purpose and one purpose only: to provide the Government with precisely the same degree of borrowing authority that it has always had under Loan Bills, not Loans Bills, year by year throughout the history of Federation. I express my considerable disappointment at the nature of the remarks with which Senator Walsh wound up the second reading debate this evening. Senator Walsh —They cut very close to the bone. Senator STONE —No, they did not cut in any way close to the bone. What they did was diminish his standing as a senator and a Minister of the Crown. I suggest that is a matter to which he should begin to give some attention. Be that as it may, I do not wish to indulge in cross chamber argy-bargy with the Minister for Finance, Senator Walsh; I merely express my disappointment with the attitude that the Minister took in winding up the second reading debate and in his attempt, once again, to bully the Opposition and in this case also the Australian Democrats-those on this side of the chamber-into acceptance of his point of view. We on this side have become unduly familiar with that bullying process even in the very short space of time in which I have been in this place; it was, indeed, central to the urgency motion moved earlier today by my colleague Senator Puplick in relation to a quite different matter; namely, the need for the Government to cease its campaign of smear and misrepresentation on a quite different subject-the Australia Card debate. Within less than two hours of the winding up of that earlier debate Senator Walsh used his bullying tactics on what he purports to describe as a machinery Bill and in response to what I believe any independent observer reading the Hansard of this date tomorrow or at some future time will judge to have been objective, balanced and perfectly proper comments from this side of the House expressing a perfectly proper constitutional point of view. We have had from Senator Walsh not merely bullying but also a further example of his personal proclivity to descend to the level of personal abuse. It is a matter of great regret to see a Minister who in many respects has a capacity to behave as a Dr Jekyll descending into the role of Mr Hyde. I do not propose to extend that aspect of my remarks further. As I said, the Opposition has one purpose and one purpose only in moving these amendments in the chamber this afternoon, and that is to provide the Government with precisely the same authority to undertake borrowings in the financial year 1987-88 as it has had in every previous year since this Federation came into being and since the Federal Parliament came into operation. Senator Walsh said-I believe I heard him say this in the course of his ill-judged, ill-chosen and ill-tempered remarks-that these proposed amendments represented a curb being placed upon the Government. I can only say that it is a curb that was placed on all previous governments for 86 years, if that is the right way of putting it; and for these purposes I shall accept Senator Walsh's formulation. The only novel aspect of this whole matter is not this so-called curb that Senator Walsh affects to discern-I emphasise those words-in the amendments moved by the Opposition and supported by the Australian Democrats. That is not the change. The change is that in this Parliament today we have a government that has grown so arrogant that it regards itself as no longer being properly subject to the same curbs, to use the word the Minister used, to which all its predecessors have been subject. That is the proper sense in which the present situation differs from previous such situations. I repeat that the sole purpose of moving this body of amendments is to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to give the Government the same borrowing authority that it has had on all previous occasions and, in doing so, to return the Loans Bill to the form in which it has been presented on past occasions. We have moved these amendments not for the purposes that Senator Walsh's fevered imagination has conjured up so that he could engage in a quite synthetic burst of indignation in closing the second reading debate; our purpose, as I said during the second reading debate, and as Senator Haines and my other colleagues on this side of the chamber said, is to preserve to this Parliament, and particularly to this chamber which has a particular role in the scrutiny and review of governmental actions and legislation, the rights, prerogatives and constitutional entitlements and duties of this place in the face of an overwhelmingly arrogant Government that continues to seek to usurp those rights and authorities and to enhance the power not of the Government or the Labor Party but of the Executive. I inform Senator Walsh that we on this side of the chamber will not submit to those sorts of bullying and power-seeking tactics from members on the Government side. If Senator Walsh is unable to understand that, I regret to say that he is due for much more disturbing afternoons than those that he seems to have had thus far. I suggest that he might like to examine his attitude towards these matters and his attitude towards the Senate. Indeed, he might like to examine his attitude towards the role of this chamber in the processes of government. The Senate is not the Government's chamber. The Government has a majority in the House of Representatives, otherwise in all but the most unusual circumstances it would not be the Government. What this Government does, particularly in the House of Representatives, is use its numbers to drive through the House of Representatives an enormous sausage-like string of legislation, disregarding the balance of argument put forward in debate. I am very glad to say that that is not the way in which the Senate goes about discharging its duties. In the limited way in which I personally hope to take some part in that process, my attitude certainly will not involve that kind of executive power grabbing that this Government continually embarks upon in this Parliament. To be fair to some members on the Government side of the Senate, I do them the credit of not believing that the sort of attitude expressed in Senator Walsh's ill-tempered remarks in winding up the second reading debate about the attitude of the Executive Government represents the views of all honourable senators-I emphasise the words `honourable senators'-on the Government side of the House. Undoubtedly his remarks represent the views of some of them, perhaps the majority of them. However, I do not believe they represent the views of all of them. I take pleasure and indeed comfort from that thought. I do not propose to speak in detail to each of the amendments because, as I have said, their purpose is quite straightforward. It is to strike out of this Bill the supply clause to which we on this side of the House in our earlier remarks took objection. Against that background the amendments are straightforward. Some of them are consequential upon the major amendment. I refer, for example, to amendment (4) which simply seeks to leave out reference to sub-clause (2) elsewhere in the Bill which will be necessarily consequent upon an earlier amendment, if that be the will of the chamber. Without further ado, I commend the amendments to the Senate. Question put: That the amendments (Senator Stone's) be agreed to. The Committee divided. (The Chairman-Senator D. J. Hamer) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 28 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 10 —— Alston, R. K. R. MacGibbon, D. J.Archer, B. R. McLean, P. A.Baume, Michael Macklin, M. J.Baume, Peter 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. Powell, J. F.Chapman, H. G. P. Reid, M. E.Coulter, J. R. Sanders, N. K.Crichton-Browne, N. A. Shell, G.Durack, P. D. Short, J. R.Haines, J. Stone, J. O.Hamer, D. J. Tambling, G. E. J. (Teller)Jenkins, J. A. Teague, B. C.Knowles, S. C. Vanstone, A. E.Lewis, A. W. R. Walters, M. S.McGauran, J. J. Watson, J. O. W. Aulich, T. Foreman, D. J.Beahan, M. E. Gietzelt, A. T.Bolkus, N. Giles, P. J.Burns, B. R. Jones, G. N. (Teller)Childs, B. K. McKiernan, J. P.Coates, J. Maguire, G. R.Collins, R. L. Morris, J. J.Colston, M. A. Ray, RobertCook, P. F. S. Reynolds, M. E.Cooney, B. Ryan, S. M.Crowley, R. A. Schacht, C. C.Devereux, J. R. Sibraa, K. W.Devlin, R. Walsh, P. A.Evans, Gareth Zakharov, A. O. Hill, R. Richardson, G. F.Chaney, F. M. Black, J. R.Puplick, C. J. G. Button, J. N. Question so resolved in the affirmative. Bill, as amended, agreed to. Bill reported with amendments; report adopted. Bill (on motion by Senator Walsh) read a third time. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Burns) —The President has received letters from the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Button), the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Chaney) and the Leader of the Australian Democrats (Senator Haines) nominating senators to be members of the Senate Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts and certain joint parliamentary committees. The letter from the Leader of the Government in the Senate also requests a change in membership of Senate Estimates Committee B. Motion (by Senator Robert Ray)-by leave-agreed to: That: (a) in accordance with the provisions of the Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcasting Act 1946, Senators Michael Baume and Childs be appointed members of the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings; (b) in accordance with the provisions of the Public Accounts Committee Act 1951, Senators Bishop, Gietzelt, Giles, McKiernan and Watson be appointed members of the Joint Committee of Public Accounts; (c) in accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969, Senators Burns, Devereux and Sheil be appointed members of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works; (d) Senators Black, Coates, Coulter, Crichton-Browne, McGauran, Morris, Panizza and Zakharov, having been duly nominated in accordance with the provisions of standing order 36aa, be appointed members of the Senate Legislative and General Purpose Standing Committee on Environment, Recreation and the Arts; and (e) Senator Maguire be discharged from attendance on Estimates Committee B and that Senator Devereux, having been duly nominated in accordance with standing order 36ab, be appointed a member of the Committee. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria-Deputy Manager of Government Business in the Senate) —Pursuant to order of the Senate of 16 September 1987 I lay on the table of the Senate certain answers to questions relating to the Parliament House Construction Authority which were asked during the proceedings of Estimates Committee E in April 1987. Copies of the answers have been distributed in the chamber. The remaining answers will be tabled pursuant to the order as soon as they are available. Debate resumed from 6 October 1987, on motion by Senator Tate: That the Bills be now read a second time. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(6.59) —The Occupational Superannuation Standards Bill 1987, the Insurance and Superannuation Commissioner Bill 1987 and the Insurance and Superannuation Commissioner (Consequential Provisions) Bill 1987, which are being debated together in the Senate this evening, give effect to a number of announcements by the Government and particularly by the Treasurer (Mr Keating) over a lengthy period. They incorporate proposals to establish a new body called the Insurance and Superannuation Commission which is to be headed by a new statutory officer. That Commission will bring together the existing offices of Insurance Commissioner, Life Insurance Commissioner and Australian Government Actuary, as well as the proposed office relating to occupational superannuation. I have to say that while the subject of these Bills is very important and we on this side of the House naturally support the proposals taken in their general framework in order to give effect to a somewhat different method of approaching the question of occupational superannuation from that which has obtained until recently, there are some concerns about the way in which these Bills have been drafted-I do not want to embark again on the debate that we have had in this place a couple of times today-to provide for very considerable powers on the part, particularly, of the new Office of the Insurance and Superannuation Commissioner which are not really set out in the body of these Bills. Yesterday, in Estimates Committee C I had the opportunity to question one of the officers of the Department of the Treasury who were present, Mr Roger Freeney. It emerged from that process that, whereas these Bills do not contain detailed provisions, for example, for the standards to be applied by the new Insurance and Superannuation Commissioner, nevertheless, a great deal of discussion has already gone on between the Government and, particularly, the Treasury and the present statutory officers which has been directed towards setting down standards and agreeing upon those standards. I hope that I am not misquoting the response given to me yesterday evening in the Estimates Committee but I believe that I was told there that the regulations which will in due course govern these standards have already reached a very advanced stage of drafting. I think it is something of a pity, particularly because of the very large ambit which the proposed legislation gives to legislating by way of regulation, that the Government did not choose, in bringing forward these Bills, to foreshadow at the same time the regulations, insofar as they are already basically in being, which would give effect to the Bills themselves-that is to say, the regulations which would put flesh upon the very sketchy statutory bones which are presently before us. The limited time available to the Opposition for consultations gives rise to some concern, and I will return to that point. In the limited time which has been available to the Opposition to undertake consultations with interested parties outside the Parliament-and there are a great many interested parties outside the Parliament as far as these pieces of legislation are concerned-very frankly, we have had a wide variety of views put to us. I think it is fair to say that there are people, particularly those in the industry who are close to the engine rooms of superannuation schemes and so on-people in the major life offices and people who run various superannuation funds-who are, quite naturally, very anxious to have this legislation on the statute book. After all, they have been waiting for legislation for a very long time. From the day when the Treasurer (Mr Keating) first started talking about these matters-the Government once again having had its policy determined for it by the Australian Council of Trade Unions-it has been a very long time until the Government has finally brought forward this legislation. It is true that some part of that intervening period has been taken up by an election called by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) in double breach of promises to the contrary. But, even if one makes allowances for that loss of the parliamentary timetable, the fact remains that the Government has been extremely dilatory in bringing forward this legislation. Meanwhile, the industry and those whose pecuniary interests are directly involved simply have to make do with Press releases and their imagination as to what, in legislative terms, those Press releases might finally boil down to. That is a very risky business for people whose livelihoods and professional reputations are at stake in these matters. It is natural-and I understand the feelings on the part of many in what I call the industry-that now that the Government has finally brought forward some legislation, people do not wish it to delay further in putting it on the statute book because at least that will then give some legislative basis for proceeding. Those people, with interests of that kind, naturally see themselves as then being able to talk-as indeed they have, no doubt, already been talking-to the statutory officers concerned, with a view to making their representations to them more effective than they can currently do when there is no legislative framework within which to do so. In the best of all possible worlds that is certainly not an unacceptable way of proceeding. The problem that one has on this side of the chamber, particularly in light of some recent experiences, including the experience today, is that one does not really feel that one can trust the present Government to behave in a straightforward, frank and candid manner. Even at the outset of today's proceedings we had a statement from Senator Gareth Evans, who I am glad to see has joined us in the chamber, which purported to be-and, in one sense, undoubtedly was-concerned with deregulation of the airlines and with a motion to bring to an end the two-airline policy. But, as honourable senators on this side of the chamber pointed out, it was really concerned with a quite different matter-namely, the Executive's decision to privatise Australian Airlines. Senator Gareth Evans —It is a very intellectually undistinguished analysis. Senator STONE —I thank Senator Evans. I am glad to have his dispassionate and objective judgment on that question. But let us stick to the facts. Let me re-assert the point I was making, namely, that what we had this morning was the Government putting forward in this chamber a statement which had to do with a particular matter but which had much more to do with a matter not referred to in the statement. That is the sort of behaviour which leads us on this side of the House to suffer from a sense of unease, to use no harsher term, from time to time-indeed, more or less perpetually-about the extent to which we can trust this Government, about this Government's bona fides. I make that point to say that the views the Opposition has had from some people in the industry are understandable from the point of view of the people who form that industry. They are people who behave honourably and straightforwardly and who want to get on with running their businesses without being messed around by governments, particularly this one, and they tend to assume that governments behave as they do. But governments do not always behave as they do. I refer not just to this Government. To be fair to Senator Evans and his colleagues, one has to say that governments generally do not behave as those people do, but this Government particularly does not. Therefore, one has to approach the matter with some caution. That caution is reinforced by other representations of one kind or another which have come to us from bodies which are not themselves specifically concerned or involved in the industry but which are nevertheless knowledgeable about these matters and have a more detached and objective viewpoint-certainly a more disinterested one-than do some of the others I have just been referring to. They have considerable doubts about what the Government is proposing. They certainly have considerable doubts about the enormous black holes in this legislation-black holes into which, it would seem, all manner of very important decision-making processes will disappear. To the extent that that can result in legislation by regulation, this raises some of the questions which have been concerning people on this side of the chamber, and, I suspect, some of those on the government side also, for some time and especially since this new session began. Let me mention one or two of these views. I think it would be improper to name the author of a particular communication I have received, as he is entitled to anonymity, but I assure the Government senators that he is a highly responsible and knowledgeable person in these matters. He has taken the trouble to write a letter to me which reads: In my view the Government sought to rush unsatisfactory legislation through before the election. The activities of people such as myself with the help of Senator Short and others achieved a deferment. Indeed, it was because of action taken in this chamber on the eve of the election that a deferment of that earlier legislation was obtained. The letter goes on: A deferment which allows a proper consideration to be given by Parliament to this legislation. The writer goes on to say: The proposed legislation would basically allow the appointment of a commissioner and give that commissioner power to make regulations on any aspect of superannuation as he thinks fit. Superannuation is a long-term arrangement for any individual and while reform is desirable-- I share that sentiment entirely as, I am sure, do all senators on this side of the chamber. The letter goes on: I am concerned that the present Government has moved too quickly and without adequate consultation with experts in the field. I and others of like mind do not wish to see the legislation defeated. That is not the gravamen of the letter to me and it is certainly not the gravamen of the remarks which I think I am safe in saying will be coming from this side of the chamber. I quote the letter further: Rather, we wish to see adequate brakes placed on the ability of a Treasurer or other Ministers to make changes overnight without proper consultation. The writer says that he would like to see the legislation amended, and, indeed, he has been good enough to propose some draft amendments, which we could come to at an appropriate time depending upon developments between then and now. The point I am trying to convey to Government senators particularly is that this is not just a place where the Government has the right-indeed, here it does not have the power either, and that is the only thing that matters to it-to bring forward Bills of this extremely general and broad kind and expect the Opposition and the Australian Democrats simply to accept them, wave them through, pull out the green flag and say, `Off you go'. We do not believe that is a reasonable expectation on the Government's part, and we certainly do not propose to confirm it, even if it should be held. I emphasise that we do not approach this matter with any mischievous intent or any intent to block the legislation. We approach it from the standpoint that this is a very important matter, one in which I suspect the aims and objectives of those on the Government side-the ones they would profess to anyway-would not be very different from those of senators on this side. Certainly, the ends are in substantial agreement, although perhaps not total agreement, but one is talking about the means-in this case the legislative means. We are talking about Bills which confer very broad powers upon appointed statutory officials. I have another letter from a quite different quarter, in this case a quarter with legal orientation, not an industry orientation as such. The correspondent I was quoting previously does have a relationship with the industry although he is totally independent. He is not a part of the industry in that sense; he is an independent and objective critic of it. The further representation I have received comes from a different orientation, a legal one. The writer is speaking, in effect, on behalf of a particular body. I feel sure in this case that he would not object to my making the source of the representation known but as I have not had time to get that clearance I do not intend to make it known at this stage of the debate. The pith of this particular representation is the stated belief that the appeal procedures contained in the Bill are regarded as totally unsatisfactory. In one sense we could say that that has nothing to do with the framework of superannuation provisions as such but it is, of course, a matter about which again, as I think Senator Haines said in her remarks this afternoon on quite a different topic, the Senate is peculiarly sensitive and about which it ought to be peculiarly sensitive. It ought to be peculiarly sensitive about the rights of individuals-in this case, the rights of a great many individuals-because the superannuation arrangements which are to be constituted under this legislation cover the financial interests of a great many people. Not to put too fine a point on it, what we have here at this stage-I have to say it on behalf of the Opposition-is something of a dilemma. We certainly have no desire to hold up this legislation. Certainly, we have no desire to hold it up unnecessarily, but we have a very considerable worry that by voting it through the Senate we may be participating in a process about which we have certainly not had time to satisfy ourselves fully. We may also be participating in a process which will result in two things which we regard as inherently objectionable. I refer to the giving of much greater power to unelected persons than those unelected persons should rightly have in the kind of parliamentary democracy in which we have the privilege of living. Secondly, we may also deny some people some rights that they might otherwise be justifiably expecting to receive. Senator Watson —How do you know what those rights are going to be if the Bill has not yet introduced standards? Senator STONE —Precisely, Senator Archer. Senator Archer makes the point that since the standards are not contained in the Bills- Senator Watson —Watson! Senator STONE —I beg Senator Watson's pardon. I apologise for my mistake, which was made because we have such a high quality of senator from Tasmania. One must always remember that one's colleagues are uniformly of good quality. As Senator Watson said, since the standards are not even contained in the Bill, it is impossible to arrive at any rational conclusion, a priori, about whether the Bills will damage people's rights. I have to say that I think the Government has been seriously defective in the manner in which these Bills have been drafted. I said I would come back to this point-- Senator Collins —You are coming back to it for the fifth time. Senator STONE —I thank Senator Collins for that comment. One could perhaps understand if these Bills had been part of a rushed process. One could understand if, as a result of some statement last week by the Government, this legislation had to be rushed into the House and into the Senate. One could understand that, although perhaps one would not necessarily in that case condone the fact that the Bills are expressed in such very general terms and that they give rise to the disquiet which I have been expressing, which Senator Watson, by way of interjection, expressed and which, I suspect, other senators on this side of the House will express. It is no good Senator Collins or other honourable senators opposite trying to ridicule the proper expression of concern on the part of senators on the Opposition side of the chamber about these matters. I have to say that if the Government still has some learning to do in regard to the way it behaves in this place we will be perfectly prepared to stay here long enough to teach it. That is enough. I do not wish to pursue that point. I am not seeking to be provocative. Senator Haines —Have a go; be provocative! Senator STONE —I wish Senator Haines would not urge me to do so because I am sure that if I did it would begin to unravel that lovely accord to which she referred earlier this afternoon. Senator Collins —Don't allow yourself to be intimidated by the Democrats. Senator STONE —They are not nearly as big as some honourable senators on the other side of the House, Senator Collins. Senator Collins —The Government needs men of substance. Senator STONE —Yes, I quite agree. I think that I may have said enough to reveal, at least in a preliminary way, that the Opposition really does have some legitimate concerns about the manner in which these Bills are drafted. I was saying before I was-- Senator McKiernan —Rudely interrupted. Senator STONE —Not at all; not rudely interrupted. I was saying before I was assisted by Senator Collins that the Press statements giving rise to these Bills have the dust gathering on them they are so old. They have been around for ages. We have a situation in which the Government appears unable to be more explicit on the provisions of these Bills. With those closing comments I simply say that we will want to have another look at the legislation in the further time we will now have. Senator Collins —He is rounding out nicely. Senator STONE —Senator Collins invites me to round out. I will be glad to take up his invitation. I know it is offered in the spirit of conciliation and I accept it entirely in that spirit. I believe that we may wish to think further about these matters. Certainly, the attitude of honourable senators on the other side of the chamber is a powerful inducement for us to do so. I leave my remarks at that point. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Bjelke-Petersen) —Order! It being almost 7.30 p.m., under sessional order I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Senator PETER BAUME(New South Wales)(7.28) —I understand that many honourable senators have other engagements tonight and I will therefore seek to be brief. This is the first occasion on which I have been able to come to the Senate since my return from parliamentary business to report in the adjournment debate on a matter concerning the father-in-law of one of my constituents who appears to have been detained in Saudi Arabia. It is a matter which is causing some concern. If, indeed, he has been detained we would like the Government to respond. I understand the facts I am putting forward are ex parte and represent the case put to me by one side only. I report them with that caveat. Apparently Mr Robert Wenham went to Saudi Arabia about 10 years ago to construct a cattle rearing and meat processing facility. He invested his own money as seed money to help get the project off the ground. The further funds to complete the project, which was then 90 per cent complete, were not forthcoming from the banks when they found their security gone, because the land securing the loan had already been mortgaged. The company on whose behalf Mr Wenham was undertaking the project, together with Wenham's sponsorship, fell into the hands of a Saudi Arabian prince, Ahmed Al Sudairi, who had somehow acquired the project land from the company. The family says that he stole it, but I have no knowledge of whether that is true. The prince then demanded that Mr Wenham hand over the control of the project to him. The result was that over the last six years no further progress was made in building the project. During this time, the remaining cash reserves of the company disappeared. It appears that in Saudi Arabia all foreign workers must be sponsored by a Saudi national. It appears further that on arrival foreign workers must hand over their passports and are then issued with an internal Saudi identity card. In order to leave the kingdom, the workers must get the sponsor to reverse the process. The workers get their passports back, yield their identity cards, then leave. Under Saudi law, any sponsor can prevent a foreigner leaving the country by stating to the authorities that he does not wish to return the passport because there are matters that are still pending and incomplete. In such a circumstance, the Saudi national is supposed to go to the civil rights court to state his reasons for doing that and must deposit a bond to cover any losses which might be suffered by the foreigner as a result of detention. It appears that Mr Bob Wenham has been detained. He has not been able to obtain his passport or leave the country. I have been informed, and I cannot check this point, that the sponsor, Prince Ahmed Al Sudairi, was too powerful to bother with the civil rights court or the cash bond. In fact he simply has not given back the passport. My constituent is therefore stuck in Saudi Arabia. The Sudairi family claimed that Mr Wenham had misappropriated the company's money. However, two audits by international accountants did not substantiate this claim. The audits could not find any fault with the accounts provided by Mr Wenham. Despite this, the Sudairi family continued to pursue Mr Wenham through the courts. It has eventually been decided that the matter should go to arbitration. Meanwhile, the Sudairi family has had judgment delivered against it; it has had judgment debts awarded against it on its personal guarantees to the banks. Several governments are pressing King Fahd to see that these debts are paid by the Sudairi family. But while Mr Wenham is held in the country the Sudairi family can hold off these creditors by stating that it is trying to get its money back from Mr Wenham. If he were to leave the kingdom, this excuse might disappear. I have been told that the Saudi Foreign Minister is on record as stating that Mr Wenham can leave the country at any time. My constituent disputes this. He said it is simply not true. Mr Wenham is alleged to have maintained that the Australian Government is fully aware that only representations which could be made at the highest level, Minister to Minister, will secure his release. There have not been representations at the highest level; there have been some periodic conversations between the Australian Embassy and assistants at the Saudi foreign ministry. These have not had any effect and are unlikely to have any effect. I am concerned, first, that the Australian Government appears to want Mr Wenham to submit to arbitration when the Saudi Government has the power to block the result of any arbitration-and, after all, we are dealing with a very powerful member of the Saudi community. Secondly, Mr Wenham has no proper legal representation. Thirdly, the matters to be arbitrated are unknown, the process is biased and the procedure is lengthy. Fourthly, Mr Wenham has no money to cover the fees. After all, he is not supposed to be working in Saudi Arabia and I do not wish to inform the Senate how he is managing to survive. If Mr Wenham had a job, it would obviously be illegal. My advise suggests that, contrary to the statements of the Australian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, until very recently the Embassy has hardly ever responded to Mr Wenham's letters and has not been in regular contact with him. I interpolate that I said at the beginning that this is the account I have been given. I have not been able to test it. It is ex parte, but it is of great concern to one of my constituents. Despite all the problems, Mr Wenham has refused even to consider attempting to escape because, he claims, he has done nothing wrong. From the records I hold, this appears to be the case. Mr Wenham would like recompense for his investment and for the events that have occurred involving him in that country. He would like to have his passport back and be able to move freely between countries. Mr Wenham is an Australian citizen and he is being held in Saudi Arabia. He does not want the Saudis to be able to say that he ran away. In addition, attempting to escape from Saudi Arabia is a very risky business. A person who was unsuccessful in doing that could easily spend a considerable time under appalling conditions in gaol, if the person was not executed. In summary, it appears that the Australian Government needs to address the problem and tell us about the facts behind the detainment of Mr Bob Wenham in Saudi Arabia over the last six years. We need to be told about his continuing detention, the facts behind it, the loss of the money he has invested in Saudi Arabia and, of course, the loss of the potential rewards of the project and how he is supposed to react to what is intervention by a very powerful citizen of that country to prevent his leaving. In addition, the Government should respond to the suggestion by the Professor of International Law at Oxford University that long term detention on a civil matter is against international conventions-and that appears to be what is happening. So it would seem that Mr Wenham's detention is in breach of both Saudi law and international conventions, for the reasons I have set out. I believe that the Australian Government should feel that it is under an obligation to intervene to assist any of its citizens in such a situation. I have presented the case of one citizen caught in another country, without possession of his passport and unable to leave. I hope the Government will look at the question of diplomatic protection, which should arise under international conventions, for an Australian passport holder caught in this appalling situation. I invite the Government to give a formal response, if not immediately, as soon as it is able. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications)(7.36) —I listened carefully to what Senator Peter Baume said on the Wenham case. It is, of course, a matter which has already received a degree of attention in the media. I am sure that under those circumstances the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mr Hayden) is already aware of at least the general circumstances of the matter. But I will ensure that Senator Baume's remarks are conveyed to him and I will seek and early response, as requested by Senator Baume. Senator COLLINS(Northern Territory)(7.37) —I will be brief. Australia witnessed recently what I think by any measure was a highly successful welcome home parade for Vietnam veterans. I have been asked by representatives of Northern Territory Vietnam veterans to place on record their appreciation of politicians of all parties who assisted in representations made to them and in the essential travel that was provided. In particular, I have been asked to place on record the appreciation of the Northern Territory Vietnam veterans of the Federal Government and especially its Minister for Defence, Mr Beazley, for the essential assistance that was provided in the provision of transport to make the parade the success that it was. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 7.38 p.m. The following paper was tabled: Export Control Act-Export Control (Orders) Regulations-Orders 1987 No. 16-Export Control (Fees) as amended (Amendment). The following answer to a question was circulated: (Question No. 13) Senator Crichton-Browne asked the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce, upon notice, on 15 September 1987: (1) Is the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce aware of instances of passengers departing Australia from Sydney International Airport who have been able to leave the country without a passport after processing by Customs. (2) Is the Minister aware of instances of passengers departing Australia from any other airport who have been able to leave the country without a passport after processing by Customs. (3) Do Customs officers have any powers to prevent the departure from Australia of passengers without passports; if so, what are these powers. Senator Button —The answer to the honourable senator's question is as follows: In normal circumstances, the Australian Customs Service requires all passengers leaving Australia through one of our International airports to produce a valid passport as proof of identity. In special circumstances however, it is not unusual for persons to depart Australia without a passport. This could occur when: there is a death in the family and there is no time to wait for the issue of a passport; there is loss or theft of a passport and travel must be undertaken before a replacement can be issued; or a foreign national (particularly from New Zealand) has no valid passport but wishes to return to take up residence in their country of origin. In all these cases, the Australian Customs Service would expect suitable proof of identity to be produced. In every instance, the final departure is contingent upon the willingness of the airline to carry persons without valid passports. Officers of the Australian Customs service have no powers to prevent the departure from Australia of passengers without passports. Where they are aware of a legal prohibition to travel such as: a Departure Prohibition Order issued pursuant to Sub-regulation 16 (1) of the Taxation Administration Act 1953; or a Family Law Restraining Order issued pursuant to Section 70a of the Family Law Act. action will be taken to detain those passengers identified in the Order pending action by the relevant authority, such as the Australian Federal Police.