Friday, 19 February 1988 The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Kerry Sibraa) took the chair at 9 a.m., and read prayers. The Clerk —Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows: This humble petition from certain businessmen of Western Australia requests that representation be made to Telecom advising it to immediately abandon its reported proposal to charge local telephone calls on a time basis. We humble petitioners believe that such a proposal, if implemented, would seriously damage the continued welfare and profitability of many small businesses in Western Australia. by Senator Beahan (from 15 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Tasmania respectfully showeth that: The introduction of time-charging for local telephone calls by Telecom Australia would seriously disadvantage thousands of elderly and disabled people and families, and would add a further burden to the already prohibitive cost of living borne by every Australian. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, urge the Government to: Reject out of hand any plans by Telecom to time-charge local telephone calls and prevent the Australian people from being seriously affected by yet another ludicrous charge. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Calvert (from 126 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 the public is overwhelmingly opposed to Telecom's plans to introduce time charges for local calls; (2) that while Telecom remains a public enterprise, it must be accountable to the public, its owners; and (3) while Telecom retains a statutory monopoly which shields it from the discipline of competition, it should not be unilaterally allowed to impose extortionate charges upon the public. Your petitioners therefore respectfully call upon all members of the Senate in Parliament assembled to take action to prevent Telecom introducing time charges for local calls. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Crichton-Browne (from 503 citizens). To the Honourable the President and the members of the Senate in the House assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth: That we most strongly oppose the process of `food irradiation' by Cobalt 60 or any other radioactive substance. That we oppose the introduction of regulations that will facilitate the food irradiation process being permitted by State governments. That we express our deep concern at this attempt to extend the use of radioactive substances and exposure of workers to radiation. Your petitioners humbly pray that the Senate ban the importation of radioactive Cobalt 60 or other radioactive substances for the purpose of food irradiation and disallow regulations permitting the irradiation of food in Australia. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Sanders (from 413 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 Port Pirie Education Centre Inc. has for twelve years fulfilled a wide range of educational needs among underprivileged and isolated rural people in the upper north of South Australia. That the Federal Government's withdrawal of base grant funding will in effect cause the Centre to close at the end of 1987. That Federal Government managerial incompetence is evident in deciding to cause the closure of the Centre at the same time as approving a Community Employment Program grant of approximately $50,000 to upgrade the Centre's grounds. Your petitioners therefore pray that the Federal Government will restore base grant funding for 1988 and beyond to ensure that the Port Pirie Education Centre Inc. can continue to provide its wide range of educational services to the people of the upper north of South Australia. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Chapman (from 34 citizens). Petitions received. Senator McLEAN(New South Wales) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the following Bill be introduced: a Bill for an Act to repeal the Koongarra Project Area Act 1981. Senator McLEAN(New South Wales) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the following Bill be introduced: a Bill for an Act to amend the Defence Act 1903 to provide for Parliamentary approval for overseas service by members of the Defence Force. Senator MESSNER(South Australia) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) expresses its criticism of the Federal Government for its failure to address the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's severe funding problems whereby: (i) the ABC's funding base, covering both operational and capital expenditure, has declined by $46m over the past two years; (ii) the ABC has a $120m backlog of obsolete equipment due for urgent replacement, where, in some cases, it still operates equipment it acquired over 20 years ago; and (iii) the Department of Finance's Forward Estimates reveal another cut of $18.7m in government funding for 1988-89; (b) notes with alarm the unprecedented comments of the Board of the ABC which has stated that the ABC had reached a critical moment in its history and could no longer adequately fulfil its obligations under its present legislative charter; (c) notes that, unless the ABC's critical funding problems are properly resolved, cutbacks to television and radio programs are inevitable, which will severely disadvantage people in regional and remote areas of Australia through an expansion of networked programs and a reduction in local content; (d) urges the Government to ensure that the ABC has access to adequate funding in the future; and (e) requests the Government to review all of the ABC's employment and recruitment practices to allow an expansion of contract employment consistent with the particular needs and requirements of the ABC. Senator WOOD(New South Wales) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate urges- (a) that the Federal Government heed the call from sections of the Australian Labor Party, its own party, for the cessation of uranium sales to France; (b) that, in so doing, the Government will return to the ALP policy on uranium sales; and (c) that this be the first step in the cessation of all uranium mining, given recent doubts on the effectiveness of safeguards agreements. Bill received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Gareth Evans) agreed to: That the Bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time. Bill read a first time. Senator GARETH EVANS(Victoria-Minister for Transport and Communications)(9.05) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- The Bill makes a number of rather minor amendments to the Patents Act 1952. Most of them are to set up procedures for handling patent applications which relate to nuclear technology. The procedures are needed to ensure compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation (Safeguards) Act 1987 (the Safeguards Act) which was passed earlier this year. The new procedures introduced by the Bill relate to patent applications which contain information of a kind referred to in the definition of `associated technology' in the Safeguards Act. The Safeguards Act provides that associated technology is not to be possessed or communicated without the relevant permit or authority from the Safeguards Office. Under the Safeguards Act, `associated technology' means a document containing information that is primarily applicable to enrichment of nuclear material, reprocessing of irradiated nuclear material, production of heavy water or nuclear weapons, or nuclear information that is covered by an international agreement and is declared by the Minister to be information for the purposes of this definition. A document is defined to include a photograph, model or other thing from which the information may be obtained. Information publicly available is excluded from the definition. Clause 4 of the Bill provides for the Commissioner of Patents to refer a specification which appears to contain this kind of information to the Director of Safeguards. If the Director is satisfied that the specification does indeed contain information of the defined type, the Director can send a certificate to that effect to the Commissioner. The Safeguards Office will also check whether the necessary permit and authority to possess and communicate the information had been given. In a case where it emerges that they had not been given, the Director's certificate can include a direction that the patent application is to lapse. The Bill also enables the Commissioner, on the basis of the Director's advice, to take appropriate steps to prohibit or restrict publication of the information contained in a specification. There is provision in clause 4 for restoration of a lapsed application where the applicant's default is subsequently rectified by obtaining the necessary permit and authority. Clause 9 makes various provisions for aggrieved applicants to apply for review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal of a decision of the Director or Commissioner. Clause 2 imposes an obligation on Safeguards Office staff to observe the usual confidentiality requirements of the Patents Act. The system set up by the Bill is not particularly complex. The reason its wording runs for a few pages is that the new procedures have to mesh into the provisions of the Patents Act, ensuring particularly that decisions affecting people's rights are taken in a fair and open manner. The number of patent applications which will be affected by the Bill is expected to be small, and the procedures will be handled within existing resources of the Patent Office. Clause 3 makes an amendment consequential on clause 4. Clauses 5, 6 and 7 of the Bill make minor amendments to the Patents Act which are explained in the explanatory memorandum. Clause 7 corrects a drafting error which recently came to light. The Bill is not momentous, but it sets in place necessary procedures to ensure that the Safeguards Act and the Patents Act operate in a complementary and harmonious fashion. I commend this Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Bill returned from the House of Representatives without amendment. Senator NEWMAN(Tasmania) —by leave-Yesterday in the Senate, Senator Tate answered a question I had asked the previous day relating to the National Crime Authority (NCA) in which I asked him whether he had misled the Senate. In his answer yesterday Senator Tate claimed that I had deliberately, knowingly or mischievously misled the Senate by virtue of my not having used his exact words when I referred, in a question to him on 26 October last year, to a Four Corners interview with Senator Tate by Andrew Olle on 21 September 1987. The interview in question was with Mr Angus Innes, MLA, the Hon. Race Matthews, MP, and Senator Tate, and the topic of the interview was corruption within Australia's law enforcement agencies. The interview referred to corruption in several police forces. Senator Tate agreed that this corruption filled him with some foreboding and went on to say: Naturally I share the concern of all citizens when the stench of corruption reaches so high. He went on to give the case of Mr Parker as an example of such corruption and said that he had asked for-and I quote: . . . an investigation to examine whether indeed the operations of the National Crime Authority were compromised. The interview with all three politicians then continued concerning organised crime, corrupt police forces and co-operation between police forces. In my question to Senator Tate on 26 October I mentioned corruption in the Queensland Police Force and other forces. I did not advert in any way to Mr Parker. My question was: What steps has he taken to ensure that the work of the Authority is not compromised further? In the second part of his answer Senator Tate told me of the steps he had taken. In the first part of his answer he gave a clear impression that the work of the NCA had not been compromised. He volunteered the information that the National Crime Authority's operations had-and I quote: . . . as far as one can judge and on advice available to me from Mr Justice Stewart, not been compromised by the events surrounding, in particular, Mr Parker in his role as liaison officer with the National Crime Authority over several years. I remind the Senate that Senator Tate answered a question I had not asked when he gave this information. However, I believe that at that time Senator Tate had already been briefed that the work of the National Crime Authority in Queensland had been compromised by a corrupt policeman. Senator Tate therefore knowingly gave information to the Senate designed to create the impression that, because Mr Parker had apparently not compromised the work of the National Crime Authority in Queensland, its operations there had not been compromised at all. Former NCA commissioner Mr Bingham last week revealed publicly that in fact operations had been cancelled because of interference by the Queensland police. I totally reject the Minister's suggestion that I deliberately, knowingly or mischievously misled the Senate and I draw the Senate's attention to the fact that the questions I asked of the Minister on Wednesday, 17 February have still not been answered. Debate resumed from 14 December 1987, on motion by Senator Tate: That the Bills be now read a second time. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(9.10) —The Senate is debating the Extradition Bill 1987 and the Extradition (Repeal and Consequential Provisions) Bill 1987. The principal function of these two Bills is to consolidate in one format the two existing Acts which deal separately with extradition to Commonwealth and other countries. The principal Bill will apply to matters which are already extraditable under existing legislation, regardless of whether the offence occurred before or after commencement of the new Act, and the consequential provisions Bill will preserve existing extradition proceedings. I will be talking about the principal Bill and hereafter any reference to `the Bill' will be to that Bill. The fact that the Bill consolidates two previous Acts is an indication of the dilemma that we face in regard to extradition proceedings around the world. That is because two systems of law operate in the world. There is a system of law derived from British common law, which is well known to us in Australia. We call that the common law and we understand it. We also have another system which is derived from Roman law and which is based on the principle of nationality and the principle that the state has a duty to its citizens, that the citizens have a duty to the state and that that gives the state complete authority over its citizens. Countries operating under the civil law are in a position to control totally the actions and activities of their citizens to the extent that they in general object to their citizens being extradited to another country to be tried for an offence. They try their own citizens for the offence committed in the other country. The result of that in the past was that we had two Acts dealing with extradition, one which dealt with those countries which had adopted the principles of common law from the British system-mostly Commonwealth countries-and another which dealt with those countries which had adopted the Roman law principles, called civil law. The Government has, in effect, very largely adopted the civil law proceedings rather than the common law proceedings. That is why I shall be arguing very strongly that this Government is both incompetent and out of touch with the people and that that is demonstrated by these Bills. As to the question of incompetence, let me make the point very clearly and simply. The Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) in his second reading speech said that the legislation was the result of an undertaking that he gave to the Parliament in November 1985 to make an exhaustive review of our extradition laws. What he failed to mention was that in February 1983 the Stewart Royal Commission identified the requirement for these laws to be corrected and for our extradition procedures to be improved. The Government sat on that report and did nothing from the time it came to office until November 1985 when, lo and behold, Trimbole had escaped from our clutches and the Government rushed in its legislation to try to fix up that situation. At that time the Attorney-General said yes, he would come in with a Bill in due course to correct the situation totally, but there was this preliminary measure as a result of the Trimbole escape. We had to wait until October or November of last year for this Bill to be brought into the other place for debate. It has taken all that time, from when this Government came to office in March 1983, with the Stewart Royal Commission report before the Attorney-General for his consideration, for us to get this Bill. It is a clear indication of incompetence. Let me turn to the question of the Government being out of touch with the people. I will go direct to a quotation from a Professor Shearer of the Faculty of Law of the University of New South Wales. I will quote his words, which I adopt. He says about this Bill: It is offensive to our notions of justice that a person, (whether a foreign or an Australian citizen) can be extradited on the mere demand of another country without any evidence. I believe that is a clear indication that this Government is totally out of touch with the people because if the people of Australia only realised what was coming in in this measure they would say, `No, Government, we do not want this. Mr Prime Minister Hawke, take this legislation away and tell your Attorney-General to redraw it'. What this legislation does is to confirm what the Government did back in November 1985; that is, to take away the right of Australian citizens to come before a magistrate when they are charged with an offence which is an extraditable matter and have an Australian magistrate consider whether there is, in fact, a prima facie case against them. That right of Australian citizens has already been taken away by this Government and that taking away is confirmed by this Government so that for all time, while this legislation remains in force, Australian citizens will be deprived of their right to come before a magistrate and say to the magistrate, `Look, this Government overseas does not have the evidence that would create a prima facie case against me and therefore it is not entitled to take me over there and try me'. I believe that if the Australian people knew what was going on in this legislation they would say to Mr Hawke, `Take it back, Mr Hawke. We don't want it. This is a right which we have always had until you took it away from us in November 1985. We didn't understand what you were doing in November 1985; we now understand and we don't want it. You are out of touch with the people. You don't understand the sorts of things that people in Australia really want. I will quote again from Professor Shearer: It is offensive to our notions of justice that a person . . . can be extradited on the mere demand of another country without any evidence. That is what this Bill does. What it does is bring an Australian citizen to a position where, if another country files certain documents-all it has to do is produce certain documents which I will come to in due course in the debate-an order can be made to extradite that citizen without the magistrate being satisfied in any way that there is, in fact, a case against him. Again, as to the incompetence of the Government, let me say that the Attorney-General argued the case appallingly badly. This Government is clearly intent on reducing extradition in Australia to a mere formality without regard to the liberty of the individual and without regard especially to the liberty of Australian citizens. In the debate in the other chamber the Attorney-General was in some considerable trouble in endeavouring to establish his case. As I say, in the course of that debate he argued his case appallingly badly. I can do no more than again turn to Professor Shearer who has written to my colleague, Mr Peter Reith, the shadow Attorney-General, as to a number of the matters which arose out of the debate back in the other chamber. Professor Shearer stated: The Attorney-General argued appallingly badly; he does not appear to understand the subject at all. His Department is clearly intent on reducing extradition to a mere formality . . . The most egregious error of all made by the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) was his trump card- Professor Shearer then refers to the bottom of page 3073 of the Daily Hansard- that `no European country has been able to extradite anyone from Britain for more than 40 years'. Professor Shearer said: This was in the context of his argument that the prima facie case requirement impeded extradition. This is just plain invention. From the figures available to me for the years 1971-1980, taken from the Review of the Law and Practice of Extradition in the United Kingdom commissioned by the Home Secretary in 1979 and submitted to Parliament a total of 69 extradition applications from European countries to the United Kingdom were successful and 26 unsuccessful. This ratio is not significantly different from the figures for U.S. applications to Britain in the same period; 19 successful, 8 unsuccessful. As I have said, the Attorney-General stated in the other place that no European country had been able to extradite anyone from Britain for more than 40 years, and, as Professor Shearer points out, that is a pure invention. Professor Shearer goes on to refer to pages 3067-8 of the House of Representatives Hansard. He referred to something the Attorney-General said, which was: . . . I was at a conference of Commonwealth Ministers in Harare. All of them-except the British-said that it was about time that they abandoned the outmoded British standard. Professor Shearer said about that comment: It is untrue that at the Harare Conference Britain alone stood out against abolishing the prima facie case requirements. The debates are marked ``Confidential''. I don't know that I can quote them. (I have them because I have been the Commonwealth Secretariat's adviser on the Commonwealth Extradition Scheme). The truth is that there was no enthusiasm by any Commonwealth country for Australia's proposal to abolish the prima facie case, and the question was quietly dropped. There is no doubt that the European countries want us to abandon the prima facie requirement. But the Commonwealth countries, except for Australia, recognise that there is a need to retain the prima facie requirement because it is the thing which Australia has had for so many years as a result of our common law traditions. But this Government is quite happy to go along with the European traditions and abandon the security which Australian citizens have had for so many years as a result of our traditions of the common law. I quote Professor Shearer further. He referred to page 3068 of the House of Representatives Hansard at which Mr Lionel Bowen said: In fact we do not have treaties with the Eastern Bloc countries because we do not recognise their systems of justice. Professor Shearer said: Another blunder by the Attorney-General. We do have extradition treaties currently in force with the following Eastern Bloc countries: Albania, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Yugoslavia. They are all pre-War and we have not actually extradited to any one of them since 1945, but they are still valid treaties. I do not think there can be any doubt-in fact I have established it-that the Attorney-General, on this matter, like most of the other Ministers in this Government, is incompetent. As Professor Shearer said, one must have some doubts as to whether the Attorney-General knows what he is doing or whether he is simply being led by his Department along a track which, in due course, Government backbenchers and other members of the Government will suddenly say: `Glory be! What did you do? How did you happen to go down that path? We didn't understand that that is what you were on about. We didn't realise that that would be the consequence'. There is another matter which I will come to in relation to the death penalty which will provide even more startling and horrifying consequences for the Government when we reach that stage of the debate. As I have said, clause 19 of the Bill takes away the prima facie requirement of Australian citizens which they had until November 1985. I acknowledge openly that in November 1985, in the rush to get the legislation through, to close the door after Trimbole had escaped, the Opposition did not vote against the provision taking away the prima facie rule. But, having considered it and having understood it almost immediately, we said that we had made a mistake, it was ridiculous and we must return to the situation where Australian citizens are entitled to the privilege they have always had because of their heritage. At the committee stage I will move an amendment to clause 19 which covers our concerns. Clause 19 provides that a request for extradition needs to be supported only by specified documents. There is to be no prima facie case. The prima facie test is the rule applied by lower courts in common law countries as to whether the prosecution has adduced sufficient evidence to warrant the accused being put on trial by a jury. We all know what that means. A person appears before a magistrate, the people putting forward the extradition case say to the magistrate, `Here is the evidence', and the magistrate considers it and says, `I have considered that and there would be a prima facie case for committal to a jury. So I will make an order allowing the extradition'. But under clause 19 all that is needed to be done is to produce supporting documents which include a duly authenticated statement setting out a description of, and the penalty applicable in respect of, the offence. That is nothing. No evidence has to be given that a person has committed anything. The statement just has to say that that is the offence and that is the penalty. Then all that has to be produced is a duly authenticated statement-we know what `duly authenticated' means; that in some way or other it is declared to be correct-in writing setting out the conduct constituting the offence, setting out that it is alleged that a person did a certain thing. It sets out the conduct. No evidence is required to prove that he did that thing; it just has to be alleged that he did it. That is the basis on which an order may be made. A magistrate cannot refuse to make an order to have a person extradited. In my mind it is unbelievable that the Labor Party has introduced such legislation. Professor Shearer also criticised the Bill because it does not include provisions for a general power in the courts to refuse extradition where it would be unjust, oppressive or incompatible with humanitarian considerations. That power rests with the Attorney-General only. In other words, when a person appears before the courts of our land, the magistrate, the judge, will have no discretionary power at all. That is to be taken away from him. Once the supporting documents establish the matters listed in the Bill, the magistrate must make an order. Even if he believes that it is outrageous that a person should be extradited for a particular charge, he has no power of discretion. The only discretionary power rests with the Attorney-General. Again, that is something for which Professor Shearer has, rightly in my view, criticised the Government and the legislation. Before I finish dealing with clause 19 I shall read from page 21 of the explanatory memorandum just in case there is any doubt that what I have said is correct: Sub-clause (5) makes it clear that the issue of a person's guilt or innocence is not relevant to extradition proceedings and that accordingly evidence to that effect may not be adduced by the person or received by the magistrate. I turn now-my time is running out-to another matter of absolutely major concern under this Bill. Under sub-clause 22 (3) there is a new provision which prevents the Attorney-General consenting to an extradition application where the death penalty can be imposed for any offence for which extradition has been requested unless Australia receives an undertaking from the requesting country that either the death penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out if extradition is granted. That all sounds fine. Let me say right at the opening of my remarks on clause 22 that I am opposed to the death penalty: I do not believe the state should take away the life of a citizen. That is a high principle. The clause says that where the offence in the other country is punishable by death the person is not allowed to be extradited to that country. So the person-and it is not just Australian citizens; the person, whether he is an Australian citizen or a foreign national living in Australia-is not allowed to be sent back to that country for trial on that offence where the death penalty may be applied. I suppose in the case of some person who murdered a member of his family in the sorts of circumstances in which one would have some feeling that he might have had an excuse, one's heart may bleed for such a person and one might say that the death penalty should not be applied. But what would one do if the foreign national in this country was a terrorist who had, say, hijacked an aircraft in one of the southern States of the United States of America, say Louisiana, and blown up 150 people and then escaped and somehow arrived in Australia? This person has destroyed an aircraft with innocent people on board and the State of Louisiana, which is one of the 37 States of the United States which retain the death penalty, says it wants him back. Under this legislation the Attorney-General has no right to sign an order allowing that person to be extradited back to that State in the United States unless it gives an undertaking that it will not enforce the death penalty. How could we possibly get such an undertaking? This provision is an absolute nonsense. There would be no way that in those circumstances we would be able to persuade that State to say, `Yes, send that terrorist back here and we will not execute him if we find him guilty of this offence'. Of course it is a nonsense. As I said, the problem is that no one on the other side has really applied his mind to this question. Let me go a step further: the Government has said, `If he is in Australia he will probably be guilty of some immigration offence, he will be here unlawfully, so we will be able to get rid of him in that way'. So we are going to take this terrorist and export him to somewhere else in the world because he has committed an immigration offence-not because he is a terrorist but because he has committed an immigration offence or he is here unlawfully. What if he is here lawfully? He may be married to an Australian citizen and so be entitled to be in Australia. What will we do then? We are stuck with him. Under these circumstances the Government says, `Well, we have a provision in here whereby we can prosecute him in Australia for the offence'. Does the Government really want to prosecute a terrorist in Australia for committing some offence overseas? Do we really want a member of the Baader-Meinhof gang to be held in our gaols for life as a result of some offence committed overseas? Glory be, if that happened every Qantas Airways Ltd aircraft travelling around the world would be at risk of being hijacked by other members of the gang. Every Australian citizen around the world would be fearful of his or her life because this Government was holding some terrorist on certain charges. We have to face the situation if an act of terrorism is committed in Australia. But we do not want to face it if that act occurs somewhere else around the world because of the death penalty provision which is in the extradition Bill. If the death penalty is bad enough, what about those countries which chop off a person's hand for stealing? There is nothing in the legislation about not being able to extradite people to countries which have such penalties. So it is all right to send people back to have their hands chopped off but we will not send them back if the death penalty applies. This means that we have to keep drug dealers here because some Asian countries have the death penalty and apply it. The Government has not thought this matter through. There is no discretion in the legislation. There is a total prohibition on extradition if the death penalty applies in the country to which a person is to be extradited. The legislation will result in effect in making Australia a haven for major international criminals. This will be the place to come. All a person who commits a crime in a country which has the death penalty need do is whip off to Australia. A person who can get into this country somehow or other legally can stay here in the sure knowledge that he will not be extradited. People who have not committed some offence in regard to immigration laws will be able to stay in Australia safe from prosecution. Do we want to make Australia a haven for international criminals? That is what this legislation does. Let there be no doubt about that. I do not understand why the Government is introducing this Bill in this form. The legislation would perhaps be satisfactory if the Attorney-General had some discretionary power in all the circumstances to say, `Well, look, in these circumstances I am not prepared to exercise this discretion; I am prepared to allow the person to be extradited'. But the Attorney-General himself has no discretion. No one has any discretion under this Bill. It is a nonsense. A discretion is not provided for because the Government does not have the political courage to exercise a discretion in particular circumstances. It is better to be able to hide behind the legislation and say, `No, we are not going to allow this person to be extradited because there is a death penalty over there. There is nothing that I can do about it because that is what the Act says'. If the Attorney-General had a discretion, he would have to exercise it. He would be responsible to the people of Australia for the exercise of that discretion. This is why the Government will not allow the Attorney-General to exercise a discretion. I doubt whether I can say any more about this aspect of the Bill. I note that my time has almost expired. The people who have come to understand the significance of this legislation are making massive representations to us saying, `Please try to stop this in some way'. In particular I refer to the Minister for Justice and Attorney-General of the State of Queensland who has written to us, Senator Haines and the Attorney-General saying, `Please, do you understand what you are doing to this nation?'. I say to the Government, `Please rethink this. Adjourn this legislation. Take it away and have another thought about it because, quite clearly, you are incompetent and out of touch with the people of Australia and you are just, frankly, wrong'. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(9.40) —The Extradition Bill 1987 is an attempt to consolidate Australia's extradition laws by combining two Acts-the Extradition (Commonwealth Countries) Act and the Extradition (Foreign States) Act. The consolidation process involves the elimination of unnecessary duplication, inconsistencies and deficiencies. Essentially, the legislation provides that people accused or convicted of terrorist type offences shall not be entitled to the benefit of the political offence exception to extradition. This is an interesting area. In the past there has been a fair amount of litigation surrounding the definitional problems arising out of political offences. By removing terrorists from that provision, I think the Bill has gone a long way towards clarifying the political offences category and, hopefully, will assist significantly in solving some of the problems that have arisen in the past. Another pleasing feature of the legislation arises from clause 45, which will allow Australia to refuse to extradite its nationals when the country requesting extradition adopts this approach in relation to its own nationals. In those circumstances the Bill allows Australian authorities to prosecute that person. For the first time in our extradition laws we have established true reciprocity with other countries. The Bill also places some restrictions on the granting of bail. Under this Bill magistrates are not permitted to remand a person on bail unless there are special circumstances. This provision is clearly necessary because experience has shown that people who are sought for extraditable offences often abscond. Quite often, for example, these people are in Australia to avoid arrest in the country where the alleged offence was committed. The other aspect of this provision is to prevent bail shopping-that is, to make a fresh bail application to another magistrate when the initial application is refused. The overall effect is to create a presumption against the granting of bail. Given the number of wealthy drug dealers who have absconded in recent years, many of whom have no ties to Australia, these amendments are eminently sensible. I believe that the provisions will help to maintain other countries' confidence in our ability to meet our extradition obligations. This particular matter will possibly be the subject of some discussion in the committee stage. I understand that, although they have not been circulated, some honourable senator will be circulating amendments with regard to the restriction on bail. I leave any further comments about that particular aspect until the committee stage. This Bill also continues a provision introduced in 1985 which permits a person to consent to extradition and thereby obviate the need for proceedings. Linked to this provision is another which allows a person being sought to consent to being tried on return for offences for which extradition cannot normally be granted. I think this is a useful development. Of course, one often finds that a person who is accused of an extraditable offence may also be accused of other offences in the other country which is seeking the extradition order. At the moment it is not possible for that other country to try the person with regard to those other offences under the extradition warrant. What we have here, I believe, is a benefit to the defendant. If he or she so opts, that person can stand trial for all outstanding offences for which he or she is surrendered. Then, of course, there is the possibility, if they are done under the one operation, of concurrent sentences. Because the Bill requires the requesting country to list all extraditable and non-extraditable offences the person who is being sought will have a complete understanding of the charges that he or she can be expected to face upon return. Whilst we acknowledge the explanation of the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) the Australian Democrats note with some concern that access will be denied to the administrative review mechanisms under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act, the ADJR Act. We have in the past commented on this Government's propensity to deny such access in relation to a reasonably large number of Bills that the Government has brought in. However, having regard to the totality of the Bill, we made a judgment that since the Bill contains an enhanced system of review and appeal procedures, designed to ensure that the denial of access under the ADJR Act does not leave a person without recourse to proper review procedures, the Bill should proceed in that particular item in the form in which it has been introduced. The Government can, however, rest assured that we will be keeping an eye on this matter and particularly on how the procedures are going to operate in practice. We will seek to restore the operation of the ADJR legislation if it seems necessary, as a result of experiences, that the review mechanisms in this Bill are either inappropriate or ineffective. Another innovation in the provisions of this Bill relates to temporary surrender. A person serving a term of imprisonment for an offence against an Australian law may be temporarily surrendered to another country to stand trial there for an extraditable offence, and then returned to Australia to complete his or her sentence here, and ultimately be resurrendered to serve any sentence imposed as a result of the trial which came about because of the extradition. In addition to these matters Senator Lewis used an analogy about the chopping off of arms. I am not quite sure that I followed his analogy since extradition will be prohibited unless the Attorney-General is satisfied that the person will not be subject to torture. I would have thought that that is likely to come under that item in the Bill. Senator Lewis —Torture usually precedes an offence. It is not subsequent to an offence. Senator MACKLIN —The honourable senator was talking about a person having his arm chopped off as a result of being convicted of a crime of theft. Senator Lewis —Yes, but torture precedes the offence. That is how they get the admission, is it not? Senator MACKLIN —My reading of the Bill-and I would be interested in the response of the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) to this-is that it is a blanket operation. A further safeguard-I certainly see it as a safeguard-exists in the statutory prohibition on extraditing persons from Australia to face charges in respect of purely military offences. Just as significantly, extradition is to be precluded, as Senator Lewis has already said, where the death penalty can be imposed for any offence for which extradition is granted. Unless Australia receives an undertaking from the requesting country that either the penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out, extradition will be refused. One can certainly imagine a range of problems arising in this area. However, I applaud the Government for taking this step. There is in fact a worldwide movement, not limited to Australia or to Commonwealth or even common law countries, towards abolishing the death penalty. It seems to me that Senator Lewis is suggesting that Australia, by taking part in this exercise, should be totally free from any problems. Unfortunately, the world is not like that. Many of Australia's attempts in this area, in terms of its international obligations, do have penalties. I draw Senator Lewis's attention to the attitude we take to South Africa. Undoubtedly that has penalties for Australia with regard to trade and other matters. This country does suffer penalties in its pursuit of worthwhile aims. It would be nice if the world were such that in this pursuit of worthwhile aims one never suffered; unfortunately, that is not the case. We support very strongly Australia's contribution to the international campaign to abolish the death penalty by the inclusion of this particular clause. I think it signals very clearly and unequivocally where Australia stands on this matter. Clause 19 of the Bill provides that a request for extradition needs to be supported only by specified documents. Senator Lewis has circulated a number of amendments that he proposes to move in the Committee of the Whole, and therefore I do not propose to say anything more about that matter at this time except to indicate that we will not be accepting the amendment with regard to prima facie evidence. But I will leave the debate to the committee stage. It is important for the Senate to realise that with extradition we are in a two-way street. We are dealing with other countries; we are dealing in areas where we wish to be able to get hold of those people who have committed crimes in Australia and who have fled to other countries. Likewise, other countries have exactly the same desire. Therefore, we have to negotiate in the treaty area for a workable arrangement. We do not want recurrences of the Trimbole exercise in Ireland. At the end of the day we will certainly be facing a trade-off. I suppose we are confronted with trade-offs everywhere in the area of justice. We have to address ourselves clearly and precisely, on the one hand, to rights of the defendant and, on the other, to the rights of society. When making judgments as to what positions one should take, we must realise that people of goodwill tend to arrive at quite different conclusions. I must say that, as a result of committee hearings I have been involved in for some time now and experiences I have had, I have become more and more aware of the enormity of crime within our society. This involves not just the murder, the break and enter or the armed robbery. Although that is bad, it is something for which the society and the police have always had at least adequate protection and prosecution mechanisms. The type of crime with which we are now dealing, and against which the Senate has accepted that we require increased and special powers, is organised crime, particularly in the area of drug offences. This chamber has accepted that we should establish a National Crime Authority, quite specifically, and with specific powers which exceed those which we have given to any other body in this country. It was not without some heartache and concern that we established the National Crime Authority. It is interesting that we are having this debate today, when the Victorian police have said quite clearly with regard to apprehension of alleged drug dealers this morning that that particular operation was only possible because of the National Crime Authority's powers. In other words, we have had to move towards the rights of society in this matter, away from the other pole, as it were, of the rights of the defendant. We have had to recognise that society did not have sufficient protection against organised drug traffic of the most horrific kind. If we are to be effective in the fight against that type of crime-which affects not just a few people in this society, as some seem to imagine, but the entire society, and which results in massive corruption in police forces, in the judiciary and in public life-we must be willing to confront it and take stern measures against it, otherwise we shall be condemned by our society. So in dealing with these matters, of which this Extradition Bill is one-for, fairly obviously, the types of crimes about which we are talking in terms of extradition are serious crimes-we probably have to look again at where we have made the balance with regard to the people who are alleged to have committed crimes and to the rights of the society to be protected against crimes. It is interesting to consider a judicial inquiry in my own State which started out in a relatively small area. Once one starts to tap into any one of these areas of organised crime, one finds that the connections to so many other areas immediately come forward. We have seen the most senior of police admit to corruption. We can sit back and wave our arms around and say, `We can't do anything about this', or we can seek to take whatever additional measures we are able to take-bearing in mind our desire always to maintain a system which is just and which will not end up in the conviction of innocent people. But we cannot go down that particular track unless we are willing to co-operate with as many other countries as possible, be they common law countries or civil law countries, with regard to treaty arrangements and unless we maintain a reasonable opportunity for countries to be able to extradite those people who are alleged to have committed crimes in their own countries. So essentially, in terms of the extradition procedures, what we have moved towards here is not establishing guilt or innocence at extradition hearings, not conducting a trial, not testing the evidence under cross-examination, but, indeed, towards a situation in which those people can be taken into a certain type of legal system. I remind honourable senators that we have extradition treaties only with those countries that we believe have a legal system in which we are able to have faith. I found it rather odd that Senator Lewis should trail across the debate the fact that we had treaties with a number of Eastern bloc countries before the war. It is a lacuna of history that we seem to have ignored that the war caused an enormous change to the social, political and legal systems of those countries. Let me say that they are still in force. There are plenty of treaties reaching back into the last century which we still have in force, because they have not been abrogated, with countries that do not exist. Lots of nonsenses still float around in international treaties. But we are talking about the day-to-day reality. Unfortunately, there is too much day-to-day reality in the spread of crime and corruption throughout our society. We will seek extradition under the terms of this Bill only with those countries which have a judicial system that we believe provides a fair opportunity for a person to be found innocent at the end of the day, and not have his life and livelihood put at jeopardy within a system which does not embody the principles that we hold so dear. The Australian Democrats support the Government's approach to this issue. It is an important measure which will go a long way towards remedying a number of serious deficiencies that have appeared in innumerable trials in the past, where notorious criminals have been able to wander at large while non-operative treaties gathered dust in the Attorney-General's drawers-or if the new Attorney-General does not have drawers in the bottom of his desk, gathering dust on his shelves. We welcome the improvements and hope they will work. We will be facing further amendments to this Bill in the future as the Government seeks to broaden our extradition treaties with other countries and as we seek to make more efficient and effective this aspect of our fight against organised crime. We have to think seriously-and I hope the Opposition has-when it comes to the committee stage about where we draw that balance with regard to the fight against crime. As yet, I am not convinced that we have been able to give society sufficient weapons to make a massive inroad into that cancer which is continuing to spread throughout our society. Senator STONE(Queensland-Leader of the National Party of Australia)(10.04) —I rise to address some remarks not so much to the Extradition Bill in its totality but to one aspect of it which was subject to comment by my colleague Senator Lewis in his remarks earlier this morning. I refer to clause 22 (3) (c) of this Bill. For the information of the Senate, that clause, as Senator Lewis has already pointed out, refers to the circumstances in which the Attorney-General receives from a foreign state a request for extradition of a person currently resident in Australia against whom there is alleged a crime for which there is prescribed in the country requesting extradition the death penalty if a verdict of guilty should be found against that person. Clause 22 deals with the question of determination by the Attorney-General of whether surrender should be made under extradition treaties in force between states at the time. Sub-clause (3) provides: . . . the eligible person is only to be surrendered in relation to a qualifying extradition offence if: ... ... ... (c) where the offence is punishable by a penalty of death-by virtue of an undertaking given by the extradition country to Australia, one of the following is applicable: (i) the person will not be tried for the offence- even if he is extradited; that clause does not seem likely to be used very commonly- (ii) if the person is tried for the offence, the death penalty will not be imposed on the person- even though it may be prescribed in the legislation of the country concerned; in other words, some kind of pre-trial, almost plea bargaining process, or something akin to that, would already have occurred- (iii) if the death penalty is imposed on the person, it will not be carried out. In other words, there is a guarantee that the sentence will not be carried through. If any of those circumstances is applicable, the clause is inoperative, but if none of those conditions apply then, where the offence is punishable by a penalty of death, this Bill makes it mandatory, not just optional or discretionary, for the Attorney-General to refuse extradition. Before proceeding to my more general remarks on this clause I want to emphasise and make my position very clear. My attitude to this clause-I suggest it ought to be the attitude of any thoughtful person and, by definition, that obviously embraces all members of this Senate-has nothing to do with whether one believes in the death penalty for certain serious crimes or not. What I am talking about are questions of principle as to the ways our laws ought to be constructed. Having said that, I do not wish to conceal from the Senate and from you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that I personally believe the time has come-indeed, I believe it is overdue-for a review to be undertaken by the Government of the previously very sweeping views about the appropriateness of the death penalty which some years ago resulted in its total abolition throughout every jurisdiction in Australia. In the case of certain specified crimes and in certain specified circumstances-and those crimes and circumstances would be much narrower than those previously specified in most of our jurisdiction for the application of the death penalty-I happen to think that the restoration of the death penalty, although not, I emphasise, by hanging, which I happen to regard as a particularly ghastly method of execution, would be appropriate. In saying that, I also remark that that happens to be the view-not that I depend upon this in any way for my own position-of a considerable majority of Australians. Every opinion poll taken over the past decade indicates that the considerable majority of Australians are in favour of the death penalty in certain specified cases, including-I say this for the information of the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate), who is in the chamber-a significant majority of Australian Labor Party voters. Mr Acting Deputy President, you would also be well aware from your own experience-as indeed would all honourable senators in this place-that there is growing anger and revulsion in the Australian community at the growth in the murder rate, particularly where such murders are accompanied by other extraordinary crimes such as rape, other forms of bestiality and behaviour of that kind, of which the Anita Cobby case is perhaps the most striking, terrible and tragic of recent times. However, I say these things not only to make my position plain but also in order to make it clear that my remarks on clause 22 (3) (c) of the Extradition Bill 1987 have nothing to do with those things. Whether one is in favour of or opposed to the death penalty is totally irrelevant to the attitude which one should bring to this clause. At the outset, I note that that does not seem to be the view of the Government. It is difficult to ascertain what its view really is. The Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) in his second reading speech on the Bill in the other chamber simply said in relation to this clause The Bill also introduces important new principles, most of which add to the safeguards afforded to people whose extradition from Australia is sought. It is these new safeguards which I regard as the most important elements of the Bill. After some intervening comment which is not relevant to this point, the Attorney-General went on: The second new safeguard is to preclude extradition where the death penalty can be imposed for any offence for which extradition is granted. Unless Australia receives an undertaking from the requesting country that either such penalty will not be imposed or, if imposed, will not be carried out, extradition will be refused. As I said earlier, under the terms of this Bill, it would be mandatory that such refusal be given. With great respect to the Attorney-General that is not a reason; it simply tells us what the Government proposes. Therefore, in search of more explanation of the Government's somewhat ill-thought out position-my colleague Senator Lewis has also made that point-I turned to the explanatory memorandum which accompanied this Bill in the other place as, invariably, explanatory memoranda accompany all legislation introduced in these chambers. Turning to the relevant pages 25 and 26 of that explanatory memorandum I find that subclause (3) provides that the Attorney-General shall not decide that a person is to be surrendered if any qualifying extradition offence attracts a death penalty unless an undertaking is given. It then goes into the exceptions to which I have already referred. With respect-although in this case I have not much respect for those who drafted this explanatory memorandum-I would have to say that, in terms of explanation, it is hardly what I call a very full and wide-ranging coverage of the reason for the clause. In fact, all it does is state what the clause does. If one can read the clause one does not have to read the explanatory memorandum because it does not add anything to what is in the clause. In further pursuit of the Government's reasons for this particular provision I looked at the Hansards for the other chamber. The Attorney-General was no more helpful when responding to my colleague the shadow Attorney-General, Mr Peter Reith, on this clause in the committee stage of the Bill. So far as I can see from my reading of the relevant sections of the Hansard, the responses by the Attorney-General on this issue were, at that time, both evasive and confused. I will set out the problem as I see it. Senator Lewis has already spoken at some length about this matter although he covered the Bill as a whole much more widely. I want both to support his remarks on this particular clause and, in some respects, elaborate upon them. In doing so, I put it to the Senate that this clause raises very serious questions which properly transcend party politics. As Senator Lewis has said, the Government simply has not thought this proposal through. So far as the Bill as a whole is concerned, indeed, as Senator Lewis said, there is a good deal of evidence to suggest that the Government has taken a very long time to bring forward legislation on this matter which was first recommended by the Stewart Royal Commission of Inquiry into Drug Trafficking as long ago as 1983. Be that as it may, it is clear to me that, in this area at least, the Government has not thought through the consequences of the proposals which it has now included in the Bill. What it has simply done, as it has done so often in these matters, is to throw another bone to its Left faction. The members of the Left believe-and they are entitled to their views; I do not suggest otherwise-that there is something peculiarly abhorrent about the death penalty and that it should not be imposed for any crime, no matter how abhorrent that crime may be or how much forethought went into it. They believe we should not only apply that view within our own jurisdiction but also seek to impose it upon other jurisdictions. Let us look at the magnitude of the problem. I think I am correct in saying that, while we do not have a death penalty on the books of any jurisdiction in Australia at present, many Western democratic countries, countries whose claim to be called democratic could not possibly be challenged, do have it. I am informed that 37 of the 50 American States, as well as the Federal Government of the United States of America, retain the death penalty for certain crimes; Canada does so; the Republic of Ireland or Eire does so; New Zealand does so, as does the United Kingdom. All of those countries retain capital punishment for treason as well as for certain military offences. A number of European countries, such as Belgium, Spain and Greece, also retain the death penalty for certain offences. I am informed that at present there is a debate in the Canadian House of Commons. The Minister for Justice might like to refer to that point in his response to the debate. A month or two ago there was a debate in the Canadian House of Commons sponsored by the Government of Canada on the possible reintroduction of capital punishment for murder. At that time it was believed that there was a strong likelihood that if a vote were taken, Canada would restore the death penalty. I do not know the outcome of that debate. I mention it solely to indicate that in other parts of the world where, as I said before, no possible challenge could be sustained to the democratic nature of the countries concerned, some second thoughts are occurring on some of these matters. I am not suggesting that persons against whom extradition proceedings are brought for the alleged committal of crimes for which the death penalty is prescribed in the countries concerned should be automatically extradited. The Attorney-General does and should retain a complete discretion to refuse extradition if he is satisfied that there are good grounds for doing so. If, for example, in the Attorney's opinion, after advice, there is a risk of a person being subjected to an unfair trial or being tried for spurious reasons, or where the offence is not recognised by civilised nations-an offence such as adultery, which in civilised nations would not be regarded as a capital offence-the Attorney-General would be expected to exercise his discretion. My point is that the power to refuse extradition in such cases should rest in the discretion of the Attorney-General and that that discretion should not be taken away from him, as this Bill would have the effect of doing. Let me consider some possible examples of the kind of embarrassment to which the enactment of this clause would have the capacity to subject Australia in the future. Let us take the case of a man who murders several people in one of the States of the United States of America where the death penalty is prescribed for such conduct and then comes to Australia. There was a case not long ago of a Californian who murdered six women in the United States and then fled to Canada. Canada at present has in its laws the equivalent of clause 22 (3) (c) and had to refuse, because that was the law, to extradite this mass murderer to California because he faced the death penalty in that State. He might just as well have fled to Australia. If he were to do so after this Bill, including 22 (3) (c), becomes law, we will be facing exactly the same situation. If that is what the Government wants-if it really wants the kind of political storm, as well as the feeling of outrage on the part of the Australian community that I believe would result in such circumstances-let it proceed to enact this clause. I hope nobody will tell me that in certain circumstances, although I do not think in this one, it would be open to the Australian jurisdiction actually to try such a fugitive in Australia. I understand that that would be possible in certain circumstances, but that is not what we are talking about in this case. That being so, the Government has simply not thought this measure through. Let me take another example. Let us suppose an Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorist assassinated a member of the royal family. As we all know, several years ago certain IRA terrorists assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten. I am not sure whether he would qualify, for the purposes of what I have to say, as a member of the royal family, but that is a case in point. Under the British Treasons Act, the mandatory-not discretionary-penalty for such a crime is death by hanging. I leave aside the question of hanging. Let us assume that, having committed such an act of terrorism, the IRA terrorist makes his way to Australia, which course would be perfectly open to him if he was not apprehended at the time, and it is only after a lapse of some time that the British authorities determined that this was the man responsible for the assassination, track him down to Australia and seek his extradition from this country. Under this clause -I am not attacking the Bill as a whole-the Australian Government would be prohibited from permitting the extradition of that IRA terrorist to the United Kingdom unless the United Kingdom authorities were prepared to give one of the undertakings which I referred to earlier; namely, that, if the death penalty were imposed, it would not be carried out. But, as I have already indicated, the death penalty in this case is mandatory. The United Kingdom could not give such an undertaking without changing its law. Let us consider the case of a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) terrorist who assassinates an Israeli ambassador in one of the European countries-or any other country, for that matter-where the death penalty is prescribed for such an act of terrorism. We are well aware that acts of assassination directed against Israeli diplomats have been almost commonplace throughout the world in the last decade or so, even in countries such as the United Kingdom-where such an attempt was made a few years ago at the Dorchester Hotel-which are on the whole relatively free of such terrorist activity. Let us say that the terrorist slips away and travels to Australia-perhaps sponsored by Mr Bill Hartley, that well-known friend of the PLO, or perhaps by some of the PLO extremists who, under our current immigration policy, have been admitted into this country by successive Ministers for immigration in this Government during the past five years, particularly by the first of them, Mr Stewart West. Let us assume that the country in which this act of assassination eventually took place eventually concludes that this is the man that they want, tracks him down and seeks his extradition from this country and that, under this Bill, we refuse to extradite him. One can imagine the effect upon public opinion, not only in the country where the crime was committed and not only in Australia, but also in Israel-a country with which we have a more than cordial, in fact, a very close relationship, particularly on the part of the Prime Minister personally-the country whose ambassador had been the victim of the terrorist act concerned. I put it to the Senate that these are totally possible-not fanciful-circumstances which could arise in this country. Let us assume that I am wrong in that regard. The Minister may well suggest that in some cases, although I do not think in any of the cases I have specifically mentioned-I may be wrong in that regard; I will listen with interest to the Minister's reply-it would be open to the Government to take proceedings in Australia against the person for whom the extradition was sought. I pick up the point made on that aspect by my colleague Senator Lewis, who asked, I think very cogently: Are we really contemplating that, when a terrorist act of that kind has been committed elsewhere in the world, we will hold a trial in Australia for the terrorist and that, if in due course our courts convict him, we will imprison that person for life, 20 years or something of that kind? Surely we have learnt by the experience of the past few years that that kind of outcome is an open invitation to stepping up terrorist activity in our country. The whole history of the Baader-Meinhof gang in the Federal Republic of Germany has been that whenever a terrorist has been brought to book in that country and gaoled it is only a matter of time-a year, 18 months, 2 years, 2 1/2 or 3 years-before an attempt is made to free that person either by a direct attack upon the security of the prison in which the person is incarcerated, or by some kind of hostage operation in which the lives of innocent people are put at risk. I can see some smiles on the faces of some of the Minister's advisers. I suggest that they wipe them off their faces in these matters because I do not appreciate that kind of-- Senator Tate —Mr Acting Deputy President, I take a point of order. I was talking to my adviser who was sitting next to Paul Conn at the time. There were certainly no smiles on their faces. I was engaged in conversation with them. There could not have been smiles on their faces. I think that that charge is totally unwarranted. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Burns) —Senator Stone, you are being heard in silence. I ask you to remain relevant to the Bill. Senator STONE —I propose to conclude my remarks now. I thank the Minister for his intervention, but I maintain my position. Perhaps they were smiling at the Minister. Naturally, I defer to your ruling, Mr Acting Deputy President. Anyone who contemplates a procedure of that kind in Australia and the consequences which it would undoubtedly have for the Australian community must be totally irresponsible. I suggest to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, and to the Senate that the Government has simply not thought through the consequences of this provision of the Bill. I hope that even in the limited time still available to it, it will do so. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(10.32) —in reply-I thank those honourable senators who have contributed to the debate on this most important legislation to do with extradition of fugitives alleged to have committed crimes. Of course, these are mutual matters. In other words, we are talking about persons who are found within the Australian jurisdiction and alleged to have committed some criminal offence in an overseas nation or persons who may have committed, it is alleged, a crime in Australia and who have fled overseas. The evident need for mutuality in any extradition treaty between nation states has always to be borne in mind. In fact, the need to conclude modern extradition treaties was highlighted by the Trimbole affair. There is no doubt about that. I acknowledge that. That is why the Parliament was presented with legislation in 1985 which was supported by the Opposition and which, amongst other things, did away with the requirement for the prima facie case in relation to the treaties that we were to negotiate. I will come to that in a moment. The fact is that extradition treaties are extremely important and that is why in only a matter of a week or 10 days I will be in the Philippines signing an extradition treaty with the Foreign Minister of the Philippines between our two countries in order to ensure that the South East Asian region does not become a haven or a safe retreat for those fleeing from Australia's criminal jurisdiction. At the moment it is regrettably the fact-I believe that Mr Costigan made this clear-that Australian criminals can purchase a ticket to Manila and flee the Australian jurisdiction when they think the heat is getting too much. Not only do they thereby escape Australia's system of criminal justice but, given their inclinations, they move into the underworld in the Philippines or in Manila itself and create a very bad impression in Manila of the types of Australians who undertake rackets and activities in that city. But with the new Government installed under President Cory Aquino, I am pleased to say that the frustrations in the negotiation process that have been experienced before have been set aside and a treaty is now about to be signed, I think within the next 10 or 12 days, depending on my program when I get to the Philippines. I believe that that is a very important example of the active, practical and effective steps which this Government is taking to ensure that in our region-let alone in many of the countries more traditionally thought to be havens for criminals such as those in South America and Spain-we do not have safe retreats available for those who have allegedly committed crimes in Australia. This is a very important matter. The Philippines treaty has been drafted and is obviously ready for signature. The Philippines has accepted, naturally, even though I believe its criminal justice system is mainly characterised by common law characteristics-I cannot be absolutely confident because it has had a history starting with Spanish colonisation and then it was the United States influence, I presume, that brought in common law elements-and we have accepted that the prima facie case rule would not be suitable in its instance. It has also accepted that Australia can refuse to extradite an alleged criminal, a fugitive, to the Philippines, unless the Philippines gives an undertaking that the death penalty will not be imposed. So immediately we have an example of a treaty to be signed within the next 10 days or so where the matters of concern to the Opposition have not been, in any way, a barrier to the conclusion of these negotiations. The fact is that, in general, the extradition treaties are a very important part of our overall attack on organised crime. Indeed, as Senator Macklin quite rightly pointed out, these Bills are to be seen as part of the Government's overall attack on organised crime both domestically and in recognising not only international dimensions of criminal activity in Australia but also our international obligations to other nation states facing the same criminal activity. This Parliament in 1985 was confronted with the proposal to remove the prima facie rule in order to recognise in a mutual, respectful, internationally proper way the different characteristics of mature, sound, fair legal systems which do not have within their traditions the sort of prima facie rule leading to committal proceedings that we have in our common law jurisdictions. It recognised the propriety in that situation of not insisting on the presentation of what we might call prima facie evidence to an Australian court which is being requested to agree to the extradition of a fugitive. That is a mature approach which I think ought to be commended to the Senate. I point out that it does not affect Commonwealth countries, except New Zealand. But in relation to Commonwealth countries, where there is a different scheme, the prima facie rule will still apply. The fact is that on the basis of the bipartisan support then given by the parties in the Parliament in 1985, Australia has already signed 13 extradition treaties and has effectively concluded negotiations with another seven countries. A further 16 negotiations have proceeded on the basis of that statutory authority given by the Parliament in 1985. To accede to the Opposition's amendment now would be to alter unilaterally the ground upon which those negotiations have been concluded and effectively, in many instances, already brought into effect as treaties. Senator Stone —Are you saying that you can never alter the law in the future? Senator TATE —No, I am not saying that. I am just pointing out that in good faith and with the knowledge that we had bipartisan support in 1985 we concluded many treaties and negotiations. I believe that on the basis of that, that undertaking and understanding, having been translated into those negotiations and treaties, ought to stand. There has been no good reason put forward for that not to be the case. It is interesting, too, to note that the United Kingdom Parliament currently has before it a criminal justice Bill which removes the requirement that foreign countries provide prima facie evidence in support of extradition requests. As I understand it, it is taking that step-as I suggest we should-in order to deal, in a more mature and respectful manner, with those very sound but differently constructed criminal justice systems on the European continent where, as Senator Lewis pointed out, the foundations of their jurisprudence are different from those within the common law. I believe that the amendment, to be moved by Senator Lewis on behalf of the Opposition, to insert provisions reinstating the prima facie rule, ought to be rejected by this chamber. As far as the death penalty is concerned, I notice that despite the fulminations of the Opposition-or at least of Senator Lewis and Senator Stone-there is no actual amendment before the chamber whereby the Opposition would delete that statutory requirement that a person not be extradited unless the undertaking is given that, in effect, a death penalty will not be carried out if it is imposed as a sentence upon conviction for a serious offence in the requesting country. The fact is that there is no amendment before the chamber, which makes it all somewhat peculiar. The answer to Senator Stone's question about why we should impose on other nations our view on the imposition of the death penalty was given by Senator Lewis. It is a metaphysical or an ideological stance, if you like, but he said that in his view it is improper-he was explaining why he opposes the imposition of the death penalty, even for serious offences-for a state to take the life of a citizen. I did not note it down but I think that is what he said. The honourable senator nods in agreement. That point of view is of such general metaphysical significance that once one forms that view and once a government adopts that view-as has the Australian Labor Party in conference and as have most Australian governments, as recognised by the fact that in no Australian jurisdiction is the death penalty available to be imposed upon conviction for even a very serious offence-the principle is so wide ranging and so generally applicable that it cannot be confined to the jurisdictions for which we have immediate responsibility. When an opportunity comes in international forums to make that position clear and indeed to negotiate for the recognition of that position-when another nation state is requesting Australian jurisdiction to give up a fugitive whom it alleges has committed a serious crime-we should take that opportunity to assert that general principle to which Senator Lewis pointed and make it part of our arrangements with those other nation states. Senator Stone —Whatever the consequences for Australia? Senator TATE —I can only agree with Senator Macklin that there will be instances where those consequences may occur, but because of the strength of the principle I have to say, `Yes, I believe that we have to accept some of those consequences'. In other words, if the principle is good in Victoria for Senator Lewis, it is good in Louisiana, to take his exact example. The example he gave was to do with the hijacking of an aircraft. I remind honourable senators that in the case of the hijacking of an aircraft and violence being done to passengers, the Australian courts could assume jurisdiction and deal with the offender. It is not as though the person would get off scot-free. In fact, we have an international obligation to deal with those persons who are found in our territory-- Senator Lewis —That's what you want to do, is it? Senator TATE —I do not want to do it. But I make this point. Senator Lewis gave the example of Louisiana in the United States. The officers have drawn to my attention the fact that there was an extradition from the United States of a person who was on what is called a murder 1 charge, I suppose the most serious intentional form of murder, in the state of California, which has the death penalty. I am advised that California gave the undertaking last year, and the person, whose surname is Bouras, was extradited. Our extradition treaty with the United States makes provision-- Senator Stone —That is not the question. Senator TATE —I am just saying that it can work. In fact, the United States extradition treaty makes provision for that sort of process of negotiation to take place. I agree that there are complexities in the federal system. I am just pointing out that the Louisiana example might be dealt with in several different ways. But I do not believe it is a situation where one would be left without any redress against the offender concerned either within our jurisdiction or in the United States jurisdiction. Such an undertaking might be given as occurred in the Californian instance. We do not have an amendment before us so there is no need to say that we oppose it. I think I have given enough reasons to explain where we stand on that matter. In relation to the subject of torture which was raised, I am advised that we have a model extradition treaty. Article 32F of that model extradition treaty, which obviously we take into negotiations, states: Extradition may be refused if the offence for which extradition is sought is an offence which carries a punishment of the kind referred to in article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I think article 7 talks about cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. That clause has been taken into negotiations with, for example, Ecuador, Egypt, the Philippines, Uruguay, Indonesia, Venezuela and Argentina. So one can see in relation to that and no doubt in compliance with the torture convention which is to be introduced in statutory form into the Parliament possibly this session, that there would be good grounds for refusing to extradite somebody whom one thought would be subject to a punishment akin to torture in the sense of a dismembering of the person. I think we can deal with the question of new evidence at the time of review when we come to the committee stage. I do not think Senator Lewis spoke about this matter in his speech on the second reading. I ask the chamber to support the second reading of this most important piece of legislation, which is part of a package not only to deal with the threat of organised crime to Australians within the jurisdictions for which we are immediately responsible but also as an aid to those other nation states around the world which themselves are threatened by the criminal activity which can undermine their societies and do such damage to their citizens. I commend the Bill to the chamber. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bills read a second time. The Bills. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(10.50) —I move the following amendment in respect of the Extradition Bill: (1) Page 16, after subclause 19 (4), insert the following new subclauses: ``(4A) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, in the case of all extradition applications the magistrate shall determine whether the evidence produced by or on behalf of the extradition country satisfies the prima facie evidence test. ``(4B) For the purposes of subsection (4A), a reference to the prima facie evidence test being satisfied has the same meaning as in paragraph 11 (5) (b). ``(4C) In determining whether evidence satisfies the prima facie evidence test, the magistrate shall receive any evidence produced by or on behalf of the extradition country that would be admissible in criminal or extradition proceedings before the courts of the extradition country. ``(4D) For the purposes of subsection (4C), evidence may be admissible if it is provided by or on behalf of the extradition country in duly authenticated form.''. As has been made clear in the debate which preceded the committee stage of the Extradition Bill 1987, the amendments are to reinstate in the extradition procedures the old common law provision that when a magistrate considers an application for extradition he shall determine whether the evidence produced by or on behalf of the extradition country satisfies the prima facie evidence test. That is a fairly simple proposition and it goes to the heart of our common law tradition. It distinguishes clearly the difference between the Liberal Party of Australia and the National Party of Australia on the one hand and the Australian Labor Party, and apparently the Australian Democrats, on the other. We have a firm and continuing belief in the common law heritage of the people of Australia, in the right which this nation's citizens have to ensure that they are not sent for trial on the basis of some documentation produced but can be sent for trial only after a committing magistrate has heard the evidence and determined that the evidence establishes a prima facie case for them to face trial in this country and, in an extradition case, in a foreign country. After all, if Australian authorities decide to prosecute a person in Australia it is necessary for the prosecuting authorities to establish a prima facie case. But what this Government is saying is that if some foreign country wants to prosecute an Australian national or a person who happens to reside in Australia it does not have to establish a prima facie case; it simply has to produce documentation which, as I indicated in my speech at the second reading stage, contains this simple thing: a duly authenticated statement in writing setting out a description of, and the penalty applicable in respect of, the offence. `Duly authenticated' does not mean anything other than that a statement is sworn or declared to be a true statement; it just has to say that a particular offence exists in that country and outline what the penalty is. That is not something on which an accused person is in any way indicted. The only other thing that has to be looked at by what I would call the extradition country is a duly authenticated statement. Again, it is just a matter of its being sworn. It is not a sworn statement as to the evidence but a sworn statement in writing setting out the conduct constituting the offence. Evidence does not have to be produced. Some person in authority-I think that the Bill lists who that person might be-in a foreign country just has to say, `Mr Jones committed the following offence by doing a particular thing'. The person making the declaration was not present and did not see Mr Jones commit an offence. There is no requirement to produce any evidence. That is a massive departure from the traditions which the people of Australia have been brought up to expect will apply to them and, indeed, to all people charged in Australia with offences which are of a sufficient nature to warrant extradition. I am not talking about minor statutory offences. That fundamental principle-that common law heritage-is being overridden by the legislation. We say to the Government that it is wrong; the people of Australia do not want it to do this. Unfortunately, as we know, far too many people do not really understand the significance of the laws which have been passed by the Parliament until they or some close friend or relation are confronted with the result. Then they shake their heads in disbelief and say, `Surely the Labor Government did not do that to us. Surely it did not take away our rights'. I believe that if the people of Australia really understood what this was all about, if it could be tossed to them by way of a referendum or something like that, they would reject the proposal in favour of the retention of their common law right at least to have an Australian judge say, `Yes, there is a prima facie case to answer'. I now turn to the two arguments raised by the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) in the other place in objection to our amendment. He said that the United Kingdom had abandoned the principle. That is not so in relation to Commonwealth countries. My understanding is that the United Kingdom has not abandoned that principle in relation to Commonwealth countries, but it has abandoned that principle for the European Economic Community (EEC), of which it forms a part. Because of its EEC obligations it had no choice but to be forced to go along with those countries in the EEC which have civil law. I do not see that that is an argument which should be followed in Australia. After all, the United Kingdom really had no choice because it is a member of the EEC. As I have said, it has retained the principle as far as it applies to extradition proceedings in Commonwealth countries. In addition, the Attorney-General argued that the proposed amendment would require proof of the evidentiary laws of the requesting country in Australian courts. In other words, there would be a technical difficulty because every time such a matter went before a magistrate the extraditing country would have to appear before him and prove the law of the land to the magistrate's satisfaction. That is a specious argument. Honourable senators will see that the way in which we have drawn up the amendment provides that: . . . evidence may be admissible if it is proved by or on behalf of the extradition country in duly authenticated form. Honourable senators will also see the provision that: . . . a magistrate shall receive any evidence produced by or on behalf of an extradition country that would be admissible in criminal or extradition proceedings before the courts of the extradition country. If the Government were really concerned about the position but would accept our amendment, if we could overcome that difficulty, let me offer the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate), who is at the table, this suggested addition to the amendment: Admissibility of evidence may be proven pursuant to a certificate to that effect, produced by or on behalf of the extradition country and authenticated. I suggest a clause along these lines: `The magistrate shall receive any evidence produced by or on behalf of the extradition country that would be admissible in criminal or extradition proceedings before the courts of the extradition country'. I am saying to the Minister for Justice that there are ways whereby we could overcome this problem, if that were the Government's concern. What I am talking about here is the fundamental principle. Is there a difference between the members of the Australian Labor Party and, apparently, the Australian Democrats on the one hand and the members of the Liberal and National parties on the other hand, that we believe fundamentally in the prima facie rule and the Democrats and Labor Party members do not? Senator VALLENTINE(Western Australia)(11.01) —I rise to support the amendments proposed by the Liberal Party of Australia relating to the presentation of prima facie evidence. Had such evidence been admissible to the Australian courts in the recent Orionia case, two American citizens, Dr Hempel and Mr Etheredge, would not have languished in Canning Vale prison for 19 months. The associated questions of bail denial and seizure of the vessel, which I understand to be a Customs matter rather than a case for the Attorney-General's jurisdiction, are also of concern. Many Australians have been appalled at the imprisonment of these two American citizens, who ought to be considered innocent unless proved otherwise, and that bail has been denied to them. This is a denial of basic justice. Had prima facie evidence been presented to the Australian courts this case would have been settled long ago. If such amendments regarding prima facie evidence mean the renegotiation of extradition treaties with some countries with which we have agreement, so be it. To limit inconvenience to the Government and its bureaucrats is no excuse for injustices to continue. I therefore support the amendments put forward by Senator Lewis. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(11.02) —Clause 19, as it currently stands in the Bill, provides that a request for extradition need be supported only by specified documents. Normally, the documentation, as Senator Lewis has already said, would consist of a duly authenticated warrant and authenticated statements specifying the alleged offence and penalty as well as the conduct constituting the offence. What Senator Lewis did not then go on to say is that in some instances, and it is not ruled out by this Bill-this covers mainly common law countries, Commonwealth countries-there is an additional treaty obligation that a prima facie case be established, in which case it would be. The provisions of this Bill whereby the liability for extradition is decided on the basis of documentation essentially continue procedures which were first introduced in 1985. It is interesting that the Opposition at that stage voted for them. If one takes Senator Lewis's words, presumably the Opposition was doing away with its support for a prima facie case to be established. One well knows why the Opposition supported the provisions in 1985; at that time there was a great clamour in the population to tighten up our extradition arrangements because we had just been involved in the Trimbole case and the Opposition was not about to stand out against that type of popular opinion. There was a need then and I think the need continues now. As I argued at the second reading stage, Australia does need tough, workable extradition laws. Where we come down with regard to one pole or the other probably depends less on our emotional or other attachments to our history and more, I would have thought, on a realistic appraisal of the vast extent of crime moving through our community. In looking at each of these Bills we have an obligation to judge it on the situation before us. Senator Vallentine raised some other matters with regard to the Orionia case, which has been settled in the High Court of Australia. Under this Bill, of course, a person could avoid all the extradition obligations and return to the country which is seeking the extradition to stand trial. In other words, there was not an obligation on those people to languish here; they could have returned and the case would have been completed. I assume the reason they did not want to do that is that they believed they would not have a fair trial in the country which was seeking their extradition. That is a totally different matter; it is a matter for them with regard to that particular country. They did not have to stay in Australia. They were perfectly free to go-in fact, we would have been quite happy for them to go-to the country seeking their extradition with regard to the matter of the boat and other items involved in the case. Rather than try, as Senator Lewis did, to put opposition in the form of support for the traditional methods of common law, which we still support and which will continue in this country, we are looking at our relations with both common law countries and civil law countries and we have to weigh in the balance matters other than our particular type of judicial system. We have to have good working relationships on extradition with those countries if we are to battle the problem of organised crime, which of course does not sit inside any particular State in Australia; it does not sit within Australia, it sits over the entire world. It is not inhibited in any way by travel between countries or by the vast amounts of money that are required for these purposes. We are engaged in an international struggle against organised crime. We have to co-operate with many other countries around the world if that battle is to be won. I think this legislation is another arm to that battle. I think it should be seen in that light and not in the light in which Senator Lewis tried to show it. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(11.08) —I recognise the point that has been raised by Senator Macklin that it is very difficult to address the various mixes of judicial systems around the world. Not every country with which we have extradition treaties has our system. Nevertheless, we do have a system and the onus of proof surely is on the Government to establish reasons why we should depart from soundly based principles which are provided in our system, as were described by Senator Lewis. I have not heard in this whole debate any compelling argument advanced by the Government that would suggest that we depart from the requirement of a prima facie evidence test. I have not heard any argument by the Government that would convince me we should be departing from what is an essential feature of our system of justice. Extradition treaties quite clearly are political instruments which are established between executive governments of various countries. I believe it is very important to maintain as far as we can in the interests of individuals' freedoms and rights the separation of powers between the judiciary and the Executive, even on an international level. Senator Vallentine has raised a very valid point. I acknowledge that a number of people may not have confidence in the system of justice operating in another country and they may be more confident that their rights would be more adequately protected under the system that we have here. People look to their rights being protected by our system of law while they are resident in this country. I would like the Minister in his response to the debate thus far to outline the particular cases which the Government considers are of such importance as would require or influence it to depart from what is a major tenet of our system of justice in Australia. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(11.11) —I made some comment during the second reading debate-and I understand that Senator Harradine was engaged on other senatorial business at the time-about the fact that following the 1985 acceptance of the abolition, in certain instances, of the prima facie requirement, the Government engaged in negotiations with many countries, which I listed, and successfully concluded treaties of extradition with them. I pointed out that, for example, in the next 10 days or so I will be in the Philippines signing an extradition treaty with the Foreign Minister of that nation state which has itself accepted certain requirements based on the 1985 legislation. The point I am coming to is this: despite our adherence and devotion to the common law, there is a need when one is concluding arrangements with nation states around the world which, as the honourable senator said, share different jurisprudential cultures and different ways of approaching the trial, conviction and sentencing of an alleged offender, to acknowledge respectfully that other legal systems have their own soundness and validity. Those other legal systems of countries where a trial would take place-and we do not have extradition treaties with nation states which, in our judgment, do not have sound legal systems-find great difficulty in presenting the sort of evidence which is required in Australian common law jurisdiction by way of a prime facie case. Their legal systems are not geared to that sort of hearing. For example, Spain had such difficulty in its relations with the United Kingdom that it could not get anybody extradited from the United Kingdom. In 1978 it abrogated the treaty with the United Kingdom, which led to Spain becoming a haven for British criminals. The point is that we cannot impose treaties on other nation states in order to achieve a situation where those who flee the Australian jurisdiction, having allegedly committed an offence here, can find a safe haven. We need to have extradition treaties with a range of countries, some of which do not share the common law appreciation of the trial method, which includes establishing a prime facie case. These nations will just not come to the party or be signatories to a treaty unless we make an adjustment and acknowledgment. This provision has been put in the Bill to enable us to conclude treaties with countries that have different jurisprudential bases. Senator Lewis raised the question of the United Kingdom Bill which, although not passed into law yet, does exactly the same thing. This Bill, which is before the United Kingdom Parliament at the moment, distinguishes between Commonwealth common law countries and all other non-Commonwealth countries, not just European Economic Community (EEC) countries. It is not just a matter of the United Kingdom having some obligation because of the EEC arrangements. The United Kingdom Government and the House of Lords-and I have read some of the debates that have taken place-have given recognition to something which is at the heart of the common law tradition. It is the fountain of the common law tradition. The United Kingdom Government and the House of Lords, which includes the law Lords-people who appreciate the sorts of points that are being made-have nevertheless concluded that, as a part of their international treaty making in regard to extradition, this provision is suitable, helpful and efficacious in concluding treaties with other countries. It is for that reason that the Government will be opposing the amendment. Senator Jo Vallentine raised the question of prime facie evidence not being made available in an extradition proceeding in which the state of Israel sought to extradite certain persons who were remanded in custody in Western Australia. That is not the case. Under the extradition treaty with Israel, the Israeli authorities had to provide evidence. Under the treaty the requested state has to produce evidence which would constitute sufficient evidence to justify a person being put on trial if the act or omission constituting the offence had occurred in that part of the territory. So there was a requirement. In other words, a treaty of extradition-in this case with Israel-can add that requirement if it is mutually agreed upon. That was the case. Prime facie evidence in that sense was required in that extradition proceeding. Question put: That the amendment (Senator Lewis's) be agreed to. The Committee divided. (The Chairman-Senator D. J. Hamer) Ayes . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Noes . . . . . . . . . . . 34 —— Majority . . . . . . . . . 5 —— Archer, B. R. McGauran, J. J.Baume, Michael MacGibbon, D. J.Baume, Peter Messner, A. J.Bishop, B. K. Newman, J. M.Bjelke-Petersen, F. I. Panizza, J. H.Calvert, P. H. Parer, W. R.Chaney, F. M. Puplick, C. J. G.Chapman, H. G. P. Stone, J. O.Crichton-Browne, N.A. Tambling, G. E. J.Durack, P. D. Teague, B. C.Hamer, D. J. Vallentine, J.Harradine, B. Vanstone, A. E.Hill, R. Walters, M. S.Knowles, S. C. (Teller) Watson, J. O. W.Lewis, A. W. R. Aulich, T. Jenkins, J. A.Beahan, M. E. Jones, G. N. (Teller)Black, J. R. McKiernan, J. P.Bolkus, N. McLean, P. A.Burns, B. R. McMullan, R. F.Childs, B. K. Macklin, M. J.Coates, J. Maguire, G. R.Colston, M. A. Morris, J. J.Cook, P. F. S. Powell, J. F.Coulter, J. R. Ray, RobertCrowley, R. A. Reynolds, M. E.Devereux, J. R. Richardson, G. F.Devlin, R. Sanders, N. K.Foreman, D. J. Schacht, C. C.Gietzelt, A. T. Sibraa, K. W.Giles, P. J. Tate, M. C.Haines, J. Walsh, P. A. Brownhill, D. G. C. Collins, R. L.Patterson, K. C. L. Zakharov, A. O.Alston, R. K. R. Cooney, B.Sheil, G. Button, J. N.Boswell, R. L. D. Evans, GarethReid, M. E. Black, J. R. Question so resolved in the negative. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.24) —I wish to raise with the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) clause 22 of the Bill, which is the provision whereby, if the offence in the other country is punishable by a penalty of death, the following provisions are applicable: a person will not be tried for the offence; where the offence is punishable by a penalty of death, the Attorney-General will not surrender that person unless- Senator Tate —Unless he gets one of three undertakings. Senator LEWIS —Yes, unless he gets one of three undertakings. I want the Minister to confirm-so that the people of Australia understand that there is no question about it-that the Attorney-General has no discretion unless he gets one of those three undertakings. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(11.25) —Yes, that is absolutely correct. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.25) —I beg the Government to rethink this provision, I appreciate that the Bill is now about to go through. The people of Australia will have this burden imposed upon them and Australia may indeed become a haven for international criminals who seek, one way or another, to avoid the penalties which may be imposed upon them in a foreign country. The Government should think this through and, if possible, bring in some amendment as soon as possible rather than allow this situation to continue until we reach a situation that some of us have indicated. The Government will then try to introduce some legislation which might endeavour retrospectively to get it out of the trouble that it will be in, but it will then be too late. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(11.26) —The Government has given consideration to these matters, including over the summer period when it received further representations, but intends-for all the reasons already outlined in my reply to the second reading debate-to stand firm on this provision. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.26) —I move the following amendment in respect of the Extradition Bill: (2) Page 18, paragraph 21 (6) (d), line 24, at end of paragraph, add ``unless the court otherwise orders''. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(11.27) —The Government does not agree to this amendment. We believe that the proposed clause is consistent with rules governing appeals in criminal matters before our courts. For that reason we cannot accept the amendment. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(11.28) —I understood that to be the case, but we now have it on record that the Government has rejected that amendment. Amendment negatived. Bills agreed to. Bills reported without amendment; report adopted. Bills (on motion by Senator Tate) read a third time. Debate resumed from 2 November 1987. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(11.30) —Although I am not well qualified to speak on it, I move: That standing order 362 be deleted and replaced by the following standing order: 362. The publication of each document laid upon the table of the Senate is authorised by this Standing Order. I have no idea what that means. Senator PUPLICK(New South Wales)(11.31) —I support the motion which the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) has moved. Senator Macklin —Do you have any better reason? Senator PUPLICK —From what the Minister has said, any reason would be a better reason. However, I wish to draw attention to something that seems to me to be worthy of some consideration, either by the Standing Committee on Procedure or by some report being given by the appropriate Senate officers. I refer to the significant difference which apparently exists in terms of the status of those papers which are tabled in the House of Representatives and those which are tabled in the Senate. As I understand it, one of the important advantages of a paper being tabled in the Senate is that when it is subsequently quoted from by a senator outside this place, it has attached to it the same sort of privilege as would exist if the senator were quoting directly from Hansard, whereas a paper tabled in the House of Representatives, if quoted from, attracts only a qualified degree of privilege. This was particularly drawn to my attention yesterday, I think, in a matter in which Senator Tate would have some particular interest. In the House of Representatives, Mr Bowen tabled a couple of reports from the Australian Federal Police which dealt with a matter involving the Tina Wong case in New South Wales. I sought the advice of the Records and Table Office in the Senate about being provided with copies of those documents which had been tabled in the House of Representatives. The Records and Table Office here was kind enough to explain to me that, had these documents been tabled in the Senate, I would have been able to have made use of them and quoted from them in a particular fashion in relation to the question of privilege. The fact that they had been tabled in the House of Representatives attracted a degree of privilege which was in fact a lesser degree of privilege than that which derives from their tabling in the Senate. I believe that this is an area in which there needs to be some attempt to reconcile the Standing Orders of the House of Representatives and the Standing Orders of the Senate, so that the documents in the possession of the Parliament should not have a different quality attached to them depending on whether they were documents of the House of Representatives or documents of the Senate. Similarly, I believe that in terms of tabled documents it would be of considerable advantage for the Procedure Committee to investigate the question of whether a document, having been tabled in one House, should automatically be notified to the other House as having been tabled and therefore being a part of the parliamentary record. I recall a case in which a fairly significant document relating to a report by the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC) was tabled in the House of Representatives and had a material bearing on the ASTEC report. That document, however, had never been tabled in the Senate nor had the Senate been notified that it had been tabled. Despite all of the attempts to investigate this particular ASTEC report, it was quite by chance that I noted that a paper had been tabled in the House of Representatives which was quite important in terms of the debate which subsequently ensued. This was a matter involving a financial transaction of ASTEC over which some debate occurred in this chamber between Senator Peter Walsh and me. I think this particular standing order is a useful one in that it makes it quite clear that the documents which are laid upon the table of the Senate are authorised for publication and that we do not require a series of specific resolutions dealing with individual papers to give them the sort of status about which I have been talking. Therefore I very much support this motion. It is the laying down of a blanket rule about publication of all papers which have been laid upon the table of the Senate. But I draw attention to those two matters: First, the need to reconcile the differing Standing Orders in the House of Representatives and the Senate, which give a different quality of privilege to documents depending on whether they were tabled in the House of Representatives or the Senate. We therefore have to be somewhat careful about quoting from tabled documents to make sure that we understand the difference between the quality of privilege attached to those tabled in the House of Representatives and those tabled in the Senate. Secondly, there is a need for there to be greater communication between the two Houses in at least advising what papers have been tabled in one House which have not been tabled in the other House. People who have an interest in a matter will have that automatically drawn to their attention. It might be done by some sort of formal notification being printed in our Hansard in the same way that we print the list of the papers which the Clerks table each day, and have that list incorporated in Hansard, a list of papers might be made available that were tabled in the House of Representatives during the week, which were not tabled in the Senate, and that list included in the record; or there might be some other more appropriate fashion. I think this is something which could usefully be looked at by the Procedure Committee or form the basis of advice from Senate officers to the President, for him then to bring the matter to the attention of the chamber. But in terms of the specific resolution before us relating to a change in standing order 362, I support the proposal as advised by the Procedure Committee and as moved by the Minister for Justice. Senator COLSTON(Queensland)(11.38) —When the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) moved that standing order 362 be replaced by a different standing order, I think he said he had no real reason for doing so. I should point out that the reasons for the change have been fairly well set out in the report that has come from the Procedure Committee, the first report of the sixty-third session. One section of the report states: The combined effect of the two sections of the Act- that is, the Parliamentary Privileges Act- therefore, is to make it abundantly clear that the publication of a tabled paper to a person other than a member is not absolutely privileged unless there is an order by a House authorising the publication of the paper. I did not find that abundantly clear, but I gained the general idea of what is required. I do not know whether there is anybody here who can answer my question, but I would like to know why the proposed standing order is written in the terms that it is. I do not think it would cause much fuss to me if it stayed the way it is. It states that the new standing order 362 should be: The publication of each document laid upon the table of the Senate is authorised by this Standing Order. I think that is a very quaint way of putting down a standing order. It seems that a standing order is something that one follows rather than something that is authorised by the standing order that says that it is to be followed. Why did we not make standing order 362 a little more clear such as, `Each document laid upon the table of the Senate may be published'? I am not sure that there is anybody here who can answer my question. If we are changing our Standing Orders we should make them as clear and as pithy as possible. I will not go to the barricades over a change of wording but it seems to me that a different type of wording would be a little more in line with the supposed intent of our Standing Orders. I will not worry at this stage if nobody can answer my question. Senator HILL(South Australia)(11.41) —Briefly, I support this change. Standing order 362, which by virtue of this Standing Committee on Procedure report I read carefully for the first time this morning, is clearly not only ambiguous but also somewhat confusing. It states: All Papers and Documents laid upon the Table of the Senate shall be considered public. On an ordinary reading of that, I think that the papers would presumably be able to be accessed at will by the public. The report goes on to distinguish between papers that are ordered to be printed and those that are not ordered to be printed. The latter papers may be inspected by the public-of course this does not apply to senators-only with the permission of the President. I see that confusion in this standing order and I think that it-apart from the real question of privilege-is something that called for clarification. That brings us to the question of privilege which, as I understand it, is the real basis for the change recommended in this report. It seems to me that all such documents, upon being tabled, should be privileged. There should be no doubt about it and it should not have to relate to any decision about publication. Therefore, the suggested alteration that has been put to the Senate is a new standing order 362, which is in a simple form and states: The publication of each document laid upon the table of the Senate is authorised by this Standing Order. This appears to be clear and unambiguous and therefore resolves the problem of privilege. It means that we can comfortably quote from tabled documents in the future without having to be concerned as to their status. Senator COOK(Western Australia-Minister for Resources)(11.43) —A number of matters have been raised in this debate. I propose to go, as best I can, to those matters and answer them. Senator MacGibbon —It will not be a terribly good best. Senator COOK —That is not for the honourable senator to judge but for others to judge. Senator Puplick was raising some matters as I came into the chamber to relieve the then duty Minister, Senator Tate. In response to Senator Puplick, I think that the major determinant which ought to be considered in terms of this standing order is that each House is the master of its own affairs and that the motion relates only to the Senate. Those remarks should be seen in terms of what is in the report of the Standing Committee on Procedure. At the bottom of the first page, it states: It appears that the House of Representatives has taken a more restrictive view, and generally has not made tabled papers freely available. It then goes on, and I think this picks up the point referred to by Senator Puplick: This difference of practice is of little consequence, because any granting of access to a tabled document is a publication of the document, and the Houses differ only in the degree of publication. I will take on board the other remarks made by Senator Puplick concerning the documents being tabled in one House and not the other. Senator Peter Baume —What do you mean by `take on board'? Senator COOK —I will take them on board and report them-- Senator Puplick —And steam around with them until you can unload them somewhere? Senator COOK —Does the honourable senator want me to make a helpful comment on this? I will take them on board, report them to the Minister and the Minister will-- Senator Puplick —What Minister? Who is the responsible Minister? Senator COOK —I will draw Senator Puplick's remarks to the attention of the President. He is the proper person. Senator Colston asked why the words are in the form that they are in and not in another form. I think that the words recommended are to be preferred because they automatically provide that the actions will be taken. Senator Colston suggested the words `may be', and that would require that some further action be taken by another decision. Therefore, I think the words as proposed are to be preferred. Question resolved in the affirmative. Debate resumed from 26 November 1987. Motion (by Senator Cook) proposed: That the following Sessional Order, as contained in the attachment to the Report, be adopted: That, notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders, in a debate on a motion for the suspension of any Standing or Sessional Order a senator shall not speak for more than 5 minutes, and if the debate is not concluded at the expiration of 30 minutes after the moving of the motion the question on the motion shall then be put. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(11.48) —I wish to speak against this proposal that a sessional order be introduced to restrict the amount of time that can be devoted to debating the suspension of Standing Orders. At the outset, I say that I am a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure, and I voted against this proposal at the time it was considered by the Committee. The tradition of the Senate is that a debate on Standing Orders affords a free vote. It is not a matter of party discipline, so I look forward to some support from those thinking members of the Australian Labor Party who have turned their minds to this question. I see this very much as a matter that relates to the ethos of the Senate, and its collegiate system. I well remember the time when I came in here as a new senator. I was sitting on the other side; we were in government then. One of those great senators of the modern age, Senator Reginald Withers, was sitting beside me. Somebody-I cannot remember whether from my own Party or the Labor Party-was carrying on interminably, speaking on a Bill. In those days, on non-broadcast days we were allowed to speak for one hour. I was impatient with the line of argument that was being developed and I said to Senator Withers, `Why don't we move that he be no longer heard?' He turned to me, with genuine surprise, and said, `You mightn't agree with what he is saying but he is certainly entitled to put his view, and he is entitled to be heard in the Senate'. In the 10 years I have been here I have learned to recognise the virtue of that point of view. This chamber is unlike that of any other parliament in Australia. People are entitled to be heard. I see the suspension of Standing Orders restriction on time as very much a further erosion of our rights to speak in this chamber. In the time I have been here I have seen a marked reduction in the opportunity that honourable senators have to speak on issues. The procedure that we used to have of being able to speak on any subject at all on the first reading of a money Bill was a very important privilege that we had. It has now disappeared. The only opportunity that we now have to speak on a subject is that very abridged quarter of an hour on a non-controversial matter through lunch time on a Thursday. Senator Peter Baume —Do you agree, Senator, that that is a change of custom, not a standing order? Senator MacGIBBON —It has been a change of custom, but the effect has been a reduction in the opportunities that senators have to debate and to bring a matter before the Senate. Despite the restriction in the opportunities that we have to speak in this place on matters of our choice, the amount of work we do or the efficiency with which we debate and process Bills through this chamber has decreased. I do not believe that we are putting as many Bills through as efficiently as we did before. I wonder whether that is not due to the fact that people are rising to speak on Bills, particularly in committee stages of Bills, on which they really do not have a burning urge to speak but just feel that they have to say something and the other avenues that they formerly had are denied them. Perhaps I may diverge for a moment, since we are talking about procedural matters. I support the view that has often been aired in all the time I have been a member of the Senate-that we spend too much time in the Senate debating, in second reading debates, matters which have already been fully debated at the second reading stage of Bills that have been introduced in the House of Representatives. I believe that, as a House of review, we should devote more time to the committee stages of Bills that are introduced in the House of Representatives. I, on most occasions, would support the view that the Opposition and the Government put down a formal statement of their support for or opposition to a Bill and devote most of the time for that Bill to the committee stage, where I think the characteristics of this chamber enable us to do a much better job than could possibly be done in the House of Representatives, which is driven by the mass of numbers and the need always to support the Government. Let us turn to this particular case, because the proposition that the Procedure Committee has put before us is that when a motion is moved to suspend standing orders there be only 30 minutes in which to debate it. The motion to suspend standing orders is always taken as a matter of urgency. It follows, therefore, that there is a need to explain why the business of the Senate should be set aside so that this matter of urgency can be dealt with. There is a need for the senator moving the motion to explain why it is necessary. There is a need for his or her argument to be challenged by senators on the other side and for the points that are raised to be picked up by the supporters of the suspension and debated so that the Senate fully understands the point of view. I should like to read the standing orders which cover the suspension of standing orders, in chapter XXXV, at present. Standing order 448 says: In cases of urgent necessity, any Standing or Sessional Order or Orders of the Senate may be suspended on Motion without Notice: Provided that such Motion is carried by an absolute majority of the whole number of Senators. Standing order 449 reads: When a Motion for the suspension of any Standing or Sessional Order or Orders appears on the Notice Paper, such Motion may be carried by a majority of voices. Standing order 450 reads: The suspension of Standing Orders shall be limited in its operation to the particular purpose for which such suspension has been sought. Inherent in those three standing orders is the matter of relevance. It has always been a tradition of this chamber that no part of the debate on a motion to suspend standing orders shall stray from the point at issue before the Chair. Senator Robert Ray —Which is unenforceable-that is the problem, is it not? It is almost unenforceable. Senator MacGIBBON —No; with respect, Minister, you are quite wrong on that point. It is not unenforceable. I would agree that there are often areas of greyness. There are areas which require judgment, and indeed firm judgment, from the Chair. But it is in no sense an impossible task for the Chair to rule on those matters. Indeed, in all the time I have been here the authority of the Chair has never been a matter of issue. While I can concede that, in the heat of the moment, there may be times when very firm and decisive action is required from the Chair, such action is in no way beyond the attainment of the Chair. In the time that I have been here, I have never seen a President-the President is usually in the chair for the suspension of standing orders-faced with a situation which was beyond his control as a chairman. So I do not accept that the difficulties we face are difficulties that cannot be coped with by our present Standing Orders. The Procedure Committee cited the House of Representatives and instanced in its report that the House of Representatives operates on the basis that a motion to suspend standing orders may not be debated for more than 25 minutes-the first two speakers being limited to 10 minutes and the other speakers to five minutes. As Senator Cook said a few minutes ago, what the House of Representatives chooses to do is its own business. We have no obligation to conform to its practices. Indeed, its practices are very different. I return to the point I made earlier in this speech: that the House of Representatives is driven by the tyranny of numbers; the Government always has the majority, and the Government must never be put at risk by losing a motion on the floor. So it is quite proper for the House of Representatives, if it decides to do it, to restrict its debate to 25 minutes. But it has absolutely no relevance to the Senate, and it is a complete irrelevance to bring it up. Let us reflect on the practicalities of what happens when a motion to suspend standing orders is brought up. It is either a premeditated move in the Senate or it is not premeditated. In a large percentage of cases, it has not been premeditated. Whether or not it has been planned, the fact that someone in the Senate gets up to divert the Government of the day from the course of business it has published on the Notice Paper always produces a marked reaction. So the first thing that happens when one moves to suspend standing orders is that one creates turmoil in the chamber. To propose, as the Committee does in its report, that we have a restriction of 30 minutes total time, with each speaker being restricted to five minutes, is completely impracticable for reasoned debate. If someone on this side moves the suspension of standing orders, the first thing that happens is that there is uproar on the other side, there are interjections, and the speaker frequently cannot be heard for minutes at a time, and any way and any opportunity of developing a reasoned argument goes out of the window. It really is incumbent on the first speaker to lay out the basic reasons why standing orders have to be suspended. On a five-minute time scale, it is quite impossible to do that. The reason why the Committee moved there was that the Australian Democrats decided that they did not want any debate at all on the suspension of standing orders. Despite the name of the Democrats, they are a very immature party from a democratic point of view. Their view of democracy is that provided that they are heard and their views are not challenged, we have a democracy. But as for defending their views in the robustness of this chamber, they are not very keen on that. They sought to pervert the great traditions of this chamber by removing the right to speak from the great majority of senators and, therefore, the great majority of the people of Australia. I will argue very strongly that there is no reason at all for a limitation to be placed on the amount of time in this chamber when a motion to suspend standing orders is moved. For the 10 years I have been here, I have never seen a motion to suspend standing orders abused. I have always seen it used responsibly and used for a legitimate legislative purpose. I have no grounds for believing that that will not be so in the good judgment of the Senate in the future. What is being proposed here is a variance of the practice of the Senate. It is not a matter of saying that we are relying on tradition in opposing this. What we are doing is looking back at the operations of this chamber and the experience we have had over 88 years, and the very strong belief we have in the right of individual senators to be heard, whether we agree with them or not. I seek leave, Mr President, to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. The PRESIDENT —Order! By arrangement, I propose that Question Time conclude just before 1 o'clock to enable Australian Broadcasting Corporation broadcasting commitments to be met. If Ministers have answers to questions asked earlier in the week, these answers may be given at 2 o'clock. Senator SHORT —My question is addressed to the Minister for Home Affairs. I refer him to a staff circular dated 16 February 1988 from the Australian Electoral Commissioner, Dr Hughes, to all Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) staff, and tabled by me in the Senate yesterday, in which the Commissioner said, amongst other things: A number of substantial defects have been identified in the returns and statistics relating to the 1987 election. It now appears possible that the existing returns and statistics cannot be relied upon with any certainty. It has been established that in the areas where inquiries have already taken place, far too many figures are defective . . . What is not known is the degree of accuracy of figures in the many areas which have not yet been tested. A working party is being set up to recheck and recount the ballot papers and declarations from a sample of divisions. Is the Minister aware that the Electoral Commissioner, in his circular, also referred to the disenfranchisement of electors by administrative errors, the denial to parties or candidates of public funding payments to which they are entitled and the loss of records that are required to be kept so that election results may be challenged? I ask the Minister: First, are these grave admissions those which he described in a Press statement last night as `possible minor inadequacies at the local level'? Secondly, if so, how does he explain the yawning chasm between his description and that of the Electoral Commissioner? Thirdly, did the Minister mean to imply that the Electoral Commissioner was wrong in his remarks, or was the implication accidental? Fourthly, why has the Minister failed to inform the Parliament on these serious matters, which cast doubt on the ability of the Hawke Government to guarantee fair elections? Fifthly, will the Minister now make a full and immediate statement to the Senate about this matter? Senator ROBERT RAY —Yesterday I read a Press release from Senator Short. My first inclination was to look at the date of Senator Short's Press release to make sure it was not dated 1 April. For a long time I have noted the dichotomy between reality and fantasy in Senator Short's Press releases, and it has always been amusing. However, this one, with its misleading and extravagant claims, will severely dent his future credibility. Inevitably in his shadow portfolio position he will find some real flaws in the electoral system and no-one will believe him because he has cried wolf once too often. To begin, I pose the following question: Why did Senator Short not speak to the Electoral Commissioner before going off half-cocked? Senator Short would know that at any time he can ring the Electoral Commissioner and discuss electoral matters with him. He did not ring the Commissioner because he knew in his heart of hearts that such a phone call would deflate and expose his naive conspiracy theories. I have a letter from the Electoral Commissioner to Senator Short that went with the circular. It invited Senator Short to ring the Commissioner and discuss the matter. If Senator Short had done so, he would have received an explanation that would have satisfied him and he would not have gone off and told his Leader, Mr Howard, about this exciting discovery, with the result that Mr Howard went off half-briefed last night in Albury. All those things could have been avoided. What are the facts? The Electoral Commission has authorised a recheck of statistical returns in six sample divisions. The intention of the check is to correct any sloppy bookkeeping. I stress that point. What we are talking about is not a miscount of votes, in the main, but sloppy bookkeeping; that is, a failure to meet the bookkeeping requirements of the operations manual that is sent out by the Electoral Commission. If the honourable senator cannot understand that difference he should move six feet back out of his seat and on to the back bench. Since Federation, there have been minor statistical errors in the keeping of records in this area, under both Liberal and Labor governments. But two things changed after 1983. Firstly, the accuracy of electoral figures became an absolutely essential part of public funding. Accurate figures in terms of public funding are required because every vote for a party that achieves more than 4 per cent of the vote is paid for from public funding. Secondly, after the 1983 election, we required a recheck of every ballot paper in Australia. That had never been done before. We did it because of the desire of politicians, journalists and academics to achieve a true two-party preferred vote in the result sheets of the voting system. Prior to 1983, unless preferences had been allocated in a particular electorate, it was all Mackerras-type guesswork and we did not have an accurate two-party preferred vote. For those two reasons it has been necessary to lift the standard of the requirement on divisional returning officers to provide their relevant information accurately and without any errors whatsoever. Senator Walters —You have mathematical errors. The Commissioner says there are mathematical errors. Senator ROBERT RAY —Why does Senator Walters not listen and learn something, instead of babbling on? Let me use an example from 1984 to clarify this matter, an example that probably no-one on the other side has bothered to read about. In 1984, adjustments were made to the amount paid to each political party under public funding provisions. The adjustments followed the finalisation of election results and were reported in the AEC interim report on funding disclosures, in September 1985, some nine months after the 1984 election. The largest adjustment was the recovery of $99.75 from the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in Queensland and the second largest was the payment of $52.02 to the Liberal Party in the Australian Capital Territory. The implication is that for the whole State of Queensland, after checking all the divisions, approximately 120 votes-$100-were found not to be in the right piles or correctly allocated. That is the dimension of the problem Mr Hughes has been referring to-not that the 1987 election result could be in any doubt. The magnitude of corrections to the final statistical returns, obviously, is extremely small. There is no chance that any result could be affected. The closest results last year were for Fisher, 703 votes, held by the ALP; and Chisholm, 872 votes, won by the Liberals. The magnitude of the error not only is nowhere near this, it is barely into double figures. Let me move to what I would have thought to be the more important part of Senator Short's question-not the sloppy bookkeeping by divisional returning officers in their eventual returns to the Electoral Commissioner. What would worry me more is the reference to the disenfranchisement of voters. I see Senator Short nodding. We agree on this. If any voters in this country are disenfranchised, if their votes are not correctly counted, that is a major area for concern. Those concerns came up very clearly in the first Nunawading election, when the matter went to a court of disputed returns, and the Government subsequently amended a whole variety of sections of the Electoral Act to cover such contingencies. I might add that there was a concern in 1984, when certain overseas absentee votes from the United States did not arrive in Australia because the consular officials and so on did not obey the Electoral Commission's directive to send the votes back by courier. They were put in diplomatic bags and disappeared. Subsequently, we amended the Electoral Act to give the Electoral Commissioner power to direct consular officials and to fine and discipline them if they fail to respond. What are the facts in the 1987 election? How many votes went missing? There was one case of votes going missing, which is not a bad record compared with other times and other cases in courts of disputed returns. There was one case where 182 votes were improperly transferred, or failed to be transferred, to the Lalor electorate. What we have set up for absentee votes is a central clearing house. All absentee votes go to the clearing house and are then returned to each electorate. One officer of the Electoral Commission, in one division, failed to uphold his duty in that regard. If that had happened for a seat in which the result differed by 200 votes, no doubt the matter would have gone to the Court of Disputed Returns and there would have been gross embarrassment all around. It is not something we endorse. I think even Senator Short would concede that even though we were highly indignant at the absence of those 182 votes that went to the Labor electorate-and most of them were Labor votes, so we are down in funding, I might add-they barely made a difference. Barry Jones's majority in Lalor was $25,000-or, I should say, 25,000 votes. I might add that that is the last electorate in Australia on which we are likely to spend $25,000. If one can get more than $100 out of Barry Jones one is going well. I come to another part of Senator Short's question. I am sorry I have taken so long to give the answer, but he has criticised me for not making a statement in this Parliament on this matter and he deserves a full and honest response. I would not deny that the wording employed in that circular by the Electoral Commissioner was overblown. I understand that the intention was to impress individual divisional staff of the importance placed on accuracy by the Electoral Commissioner and, indeed, this Parliament. It was basically to give them a touch-up and to make sure that no sloppiness existed. I say while I am on that subject that, even where there has been sloppy bookkeeping in this regard, our Electoral Commission still has the highest level of integrity of any such body in the world. Even at its sloppiest, it still has the best standard in the world in terms of recording votes. I am sure that the Electoral Commissioner-I have talked to him today-regrets the overemphasis in the circular on those matters. There is, of course, some irony in that he was demonstrating his keenness to provide Senator Short with answers to his request for statistical information on these matters. I presume that when the copy of this information was sent to Senator Short he also read the covering note of invitation. I wish to say two other things. We have already seen this week an example of the Liberal Party jumping the gun by way of Press release, trying to distort matters. We had the case of Senator Chaney on Monday night saying in regard to the Robert Wood matter that the Labor Party had amended the Commonwealth Electoral Act and had been caught out. Subsequent research showed that it was the Liberal Party which amended the Act, and inserted those provisions. Senator Chaney has not even had the decency to apologise for that blunder. In my former occupation as a teacher I had to deal with a whole lot of recalcitrant students in class 3F in a technical school. In most cases, with some perseverance, I was able to succeed. In trying to educate Senator Short in these matters, however, I face the most herculean task of my career. But I am going to persist. Every time he puts out an inaccurate, basically stupid and misleading Press release, I will respond, I will nail it down. I think he owes the journalists of this country an apology for putting out these sorts of furphies, these sorts of interpretations, which have caused some who did not check to run ridiculous articles associated with them. Senator SHORT —I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. We have just heard an almost 15-minute blustering and totally irrelevant diatribe from the Minister. He has not answered one of the questions I put to him. I repeat: I want to know how the Minister can explain the yawning chasm between his description and the comments of the Electoral Commissioner. The Electoral Commissioner himself says that there are a number of substantial defects and that it now appears possible that the existing returns and statistics of the 1987 election cannot be relied upon with any certainty. I want to know how the Minister reconciles that with his description of `possible minor inadequacies at the local level'. I ask again: Will he give a full statement to the Senate about the facts of this matter instead of going on with an irrelevant, blustering diatribe? Senator ROBERT RAY —The first thing I am going to do when I leave this chamber is get the phone number of the Electoral Commissioner and provide it to Senator Short. If he had bothered, if he had just taken the time yesterday, to ring the Commissioner, that explanation would have been given. Senator Short —It is your responsibility. You are the Minister. Senator ROBERT RAY —Yes; I take full responsibility. We have an independent Electoral Commission, as I have made clear on many occasions. I do not run away, though, from responsibility for the Electoral Commission. I could do so. I could hide behind the fact that it is an independent Commission and has nothing to do with me. I do not. I seek to defend the Commission because in this case it certainly deserves defence. Senator Short has quoted the Commissioner as having said that the election results cannot be relied upon with any degree of accuracy. The Commissioner was saying that, on his own view and by his own standards, if the return says that 333,330 people voted Labor when, in fact, 333,329 voted Labor, that figure cannot be relied on as accurate. We are not talking in terms of large discrepancies. What we are basically talking about, which Senator Short has failed to grasp, is the difference between the counting and recording of votes and the sloppy bookkeeping in returning those figures to the Electoral Commission. That is the nub of it. I ask Senator Short to see whether he can focus for just one minute on the difference between the actual counting of the votes and the declaration of a poll and then when it comes to reconcile misused ballot papers, destroyed ballot papers, et cetera, whether in the transference of that count to the bookkeeping returning officers have been sloppy. They have been. They should not be. They should follow the manual. Senator Short has an opportunity to explore this matter. If he talks to the Electoral Commissioner today, as I invite him to do-I will have the Electoral Commissioner come to see him-and the Commissioner can convince the honourable senator, as I am sure he will, that no election result was in doubt following all this- Senator Chaney —I thought he was independent. Senator ROBERT RAY —The Electoral Commission is one of the finest examples of open government co-operation with political parties in this country. It responds to all political inquiries, no matter which parties they come from, and it is a credit to it that it does. Senator Chaney is trying to divert me. Let me respond to Senator Short. If, after a conversation with Professor Hughes, he can be convinced that no election result was in doubt, we can then move on. We are doing a sample of six electorates to try to measure accurately where this sloppiness is. That, in turn, will be reported to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, of which Senator Short is a member. He will have the opportunity to cross-examine and to discuss these matters. The whole difficulty, which Senator Short fails to understand, is that we are not talking in magnitudes of hundreds of thousands of votes; we are talking in the magnitude of a few votes. Inaccuracies have existed since Federation. We are talking about the higher standards now required of divisional returning officers than have existed before. I make a final point. Some consideration has been given to regionalisation of electoral offices to avoid these mistakes. I have been a bit reluctant to support that proposal because of the unusual electoral configurations and the artificiality involved. But this is certainly one example of excuses given by divisional returning officers for their alleged sloppiness which could be met by regionalisation-another thing which Senator Short and others on the Committee will progress. I invite Senator Short to discuss this matter with Dr Colin Hughes to see whether any electorate would have any different result concerning his staff circular. If the honourable senator is convinced after that, I will then invite him to put out another Press release, this time based on fact, on reality and on honest judgment. Senator CROWLEY —I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy to the first page article in today's Daily Telegraph headed `Secret deal to split the ALP'. Can the Minister inform the Senate whether the Federal Cabinet, when it meets next Monday, plans to secretly extend the uranium export contract with France? Senator COOK —I too, like Senator Crowley, have seen the so-called exclusive on the front page of the Sydney Telegraph. I can only say that it is an example of lurid sensationalism. I can assure the Senate that no decision will be taken by the Cabinet on this matter before the appropriate Caucus discussion takes place. The Prime Minister has already made that abundantly clear. There is no secret deal, as this article suggests, to split the Australian Labor Party. That can be the fond hope of some headline writer, but I can assure the Senate that that will not happen either. There is no secret plan that the paper refers to and no secret deal. I repeat: the Prime Minister has made that clear and there will be no decision before the appropriate Caucus discussion. Senator Chaney —I ask the Minister to table the paper from which he quoted. The PRESIDENT —Will the Minister table the paper? Senator Gareth Evans —No; claim confidentiality. Senator Chaney —I think this is an interesting example of the Manager of Government Business in the Senate. The PRESIDENT —Senator Cook, will you table the document you were quoting from? Senator COOK —I would rather not. Senator Chaney —If the Minister wants to make a joke of himself, by all means, but that is not a ground for not tabling the document. Senator COOK —The document is confidential. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator COOK —Those opposite should just wait their turn and they will hear the full answer. I have spoken directly to the Senate from a series of headings that I have written and I was not quoting from that document at any length. Senator CHANEY —My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate and follows that asked of Senator Cook by Senator Crowley. I observe that if there was some restriction on tabling documents that were handwritten notes we would not have got some of Senator Walsh's gems over the years. He has given us lots of handwritten notes. I remind the Leader of the Government in the Senate of his comments a week ago when he warned of the danger of Australia becoming a `poor white country in the South Pacific' and when he told how there was a `grave danger' of intervention by the International Monetary Fund in 1986 and that that influenced the decision to resume uranium sales to France. I ask the Minister: Does he agree that, provided the strict regime of safeguards is adhered to, these sales should continue despite the obvious growing resistance within the Government's own ranks? Is the Government likely soon to have to make a decision regarding future contracts with French utilities? Senator BUTTON —I have nothing to add to the answer given by Senator Cook. The Government will announce a position about this at the appropriate time. My views expressed in respect of a situation in 1986 are not relevant to that decision. Senator CHANEY —I ask a supplementary question: Has the Minister agreed that provided the regime of safeguards is adhered to the sales should continue despite the situation within his Government's ranks? Why is the Minister not prepared to give his view to the Senate when he was prepared to give that view to a reporter from the Australian newspaper? Just a few days ago he was reported as saying that despite his earlier reservations about uranium exports to France he regarded the matter as closed and said that uranium exports should continue. My specific supplementary question to the Minister is: Why is he prepared to speak more freely to the Press than he is to this chamber where we are entitled to ask for statements of fact from him? Senator BUTTON —Simply because when I was interviewed by the journalist from the Australian two or three weeks ago-- Senator Chaney —That was reported on 12 February. Senator BUTTON —I do not know what the date was, but I think it was two or three weeks ago. I did not have the benefit of the answer given today by Senator Cook, who is the Minister responsible for that. If Senator Chaney wants to establish the fact that there are differences in views about the issue of uranium within the Australian Labor Party, I congratulate him on doing that. I thought everybody in Australia knew that. If I have to explain that to the Senate I am very surprised that that would be required of me. But in relation to the current position, Senator Cook has given the answer and I just add that the Government will make an announcement about that at the appropriate time. Senator SCHACHT —Has the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade any information about reports that the Polish Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa, may shortly be visiting Australia? Senator GARETH EVANS —The President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), in his capacity as convener of the World Congress of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, has invited the Chairman of Solidarity, Mr Lech Walesa, to attend the Congress in Melbourne on 14 to 18 March. Mr Walesa has accepted that invitation. The invitation is from a non-government organisation, the ACTU, to a non-government organisation in Poland, namely, Solidarity. Australia supports pluralism in trade unions and in other spheres of public life. As is well known, that was demonstrated during Mr Hayden's visit to Poland in November last year when he met Mr Walesa. Australia also supports other fundamental rights, including freedom of movement. Naturally, the giving and the acceptance of this information are primarily matters for the ACTU and Mr Walesa. However, the Government would be concerned if Mr Walesa were refused authority to travel either by an announced decision or by undue delay in official processes, including processes related to applications for leave of absence from his place of work or for a passport. We would also be concerned if any Polish citizen such as Mr Walesa were reluctant to accept an invitation to travel abroad on the grounds that he might be refused re-entry to his own country. Senator MACKLIN —I draw the attention of the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to the present situation in the Torres Strait and the widespread concern on the part of Islanders about the proposed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission. Does the Minister acknowledge the Islanders' fears that their affairs may be submerged by the greater Aboriginal participation and make-up of the Commission and that their interests may not, therefore, be adequately addressed? Accordingly, will the Minister consider establishing a separate Torres Strait Islander Commission which will be concerned with the unique circumstances and conditions of the Islander people? Senator TATE —I am sorry for the delay. I am trying to see whether there is anything in my folder provided by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs by way of briefing. In relation to some aspects of the situation in the Torres Strait Islands and the call for independence from some of the inhabitants of that group of islands, I am able to say that the Government understands and sympathises with the Islander's desire for a substantially increased measure of self-management and self-determination. Indeed, over the last few years the Government has worked persistently to promote those objectives. It is to be noted with satisfaction that the Queensland Government has extended secure land tenure to the Islanders. Total Commonwealth spending in the Torres Strait Islands is significant and has increased significantly during the lifetime of this Government. The views and concerns of the Islanders now being expressed are being taken seriously by the Government, as is indicated by the visit of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs very soon after they erupted, and that led to his discussions of a preliminary kind with the leaders of the Torres Strait Islanders. As a result, the Prime Minister has asked for an interdepartmental committee to re-examine Commonwealth policies and programs as they affect the Torres Strait Islands and to report to Cabinet as soon as possible. The Minister shall be returning to the Islands later this month and the Prime Minister has indicated that at an appropriate time he intends to make a visit. The Commonwealth looks forward to a steady improvement in the living conditions of Torres Strait Islanders and believes it will be possible to develop present arrangements to enhance self-management and self-determination. I do not think that that specifically answers some of the points raised by Senator Macklin, but at the moment that is the brief I have. If something comes to hand, I will answer at 2 o'clock. Senator McMULLAN —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. It relates to the matter of takeover bids for listed public companies. Will the Minister explain to the Senate the nature of the benefits which economists regard the takeover mechanism as providing for the economy as a whole? Are there recent examples of company takeovers which provide evidence of this process in action? Senator WALSH —Mr President-- Senator Walters —Fancy your first question being a dorothy dixer. Senator WALSH —The honourable senator should wait until she hears the answer. The orthodox theory behind company takeovers is that if a company has a moribund or incompetent set of managers and directors who are inefficiently utilising the company's assets, it will be subjected to the discipline of the market-place, that is a bid for takeover so that the moribund and incompetent managers and directors will be replaced by a more entrepreneurial and competent set of managers and directors. I notice that Senator Stone is nodding his head as I expect he would do because that is the orthodox theory. It is based on the idea that those mounting the takeover bid, having assumed that under their superior management the earnings of the company will increase, can afford to pay more for the target company shares than the prevailing market price and by paying more thereby indu-cing the existing shareholders into selling their shares at the above market price. There is one recent example of a takeover which is particularly interesting when viewed against that background. I refer to the takeover of Peko-Wallsend Ltd by North Broken Hill Holdings Ltd. I understand that although this takeover is not formally completed, North Broken Hill had acquired 90 per cent of the shareholding in Peko by yesterday and has extended the time period to give the remaining 10 per cent of shareholders the opportunity to sell if they wish. Therefore, the bid can be regarded as successful. Whether the takeover of Peko should be attributed to its past management and to the three years or whatever it was that Senator Stone spent on the board as a director and the many years that Mr Copeman has been-- Senator Stone —It was 15 months. Get your facts right. Senator WALSH —Fifteen months. For many years Mr Copeman has been the Chief Executive as well as a director during which period he took the opportunity to use Peko as a social and industrial laboratory for the New Right. Whether the influence of that management unduly depressed the earnings of Peko and therefore prompted the takeover bid or, alternatively, whether the Peko takeover should be seen as what is known as a friendly takeover which, by definition, is incompatible with the orthodox theory, is a matter on which I do not propose to pronounce judgment. Senator KNOWLES —When will the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories hold discussions with the board of airline representatives regarding the financial shortfall on the collection of the immigration arrival fee of $5 which threatens the airlines with losses of $1.5m by July? What is the Government doing to resolve the problems that this tax is causing the tourist industry? Senator RICHARDSON —I am not responsible for the $5 fee. Senator MacGibbon —Don't weasel out. Senator RICHARDSON —I am not weaseling out. The honourable senator should remain calm; it will all come. I am not responsible for the $5 fee in terms of it being within my portfolio. However, obviously it has had an effect on the tourist industry. I have had complaints from airlines. Anyone who has read the newspapers or seen the television news in the last fortnight could not fail to be aware that there is a problem. That being the case, I have requested talks with a number of my colleagues. They will take place some time next week. If anything comes of those talks I will be very happy to let the honourable senator know. Senator DEVLIN —Has the attention of the Minister for Finance been drawn to the 1 February edition of the Syntec publication Business Outlook? Does the bar chart titled `Australia's increasing burden', which appears on page 10 of the publication, give a reasonable or a misleading picture of Australia's debt servicing burden? Senator WALSH —I have seen the Syntec newsletter Business Outlook and I have a copy here. A bar graph in that publication which purports to show Australia's foreign debt problem is misleading. Although it is based on Reserve Bank of Australia data, the method of presentation is highly misleading and I am surprised that a Syntec publication would have presented it in that form. But the graph, having been presented in that form by Syntec, has been taken up by a number of other publications. I understand that there is an impending staff addition in Syntec as a result of which I trust the method of presentation of data will be improved. But only time can show that. The bar graph to which I refer is headed `gross debt servicing to exports' and purports to show that debt servicing is currently consuming about two-thirds of our total export returns. Before I proceed further let me acknowledge, in case Senator Stone subsequently accuses me of not doing so, that Australia does have a foreign debt problem. But the appreciation of that foreign debt problem and the remedying of it is not assisted by presentations which are as misleading as is the Syntec bar graph presentation. It is misleading for this reason: the figure of 64.2 per cent, to be precise, designated as gross debt servicing to exports-that is 64.2 per cent of exports consumed by gross debt servicing-relates to all interest payments paid outwards from Australia during the last financial year plus all the repayments of principal that were paid out. In other words, there is an ongoing servicing component and a capital component. The degree to which that presentation is so misleading as to be almost meaningless can be shown by this comparison: let us assume that all foreign debt was for a term of 12 months. By definition all of the principal would have to be repaid or rolled over within that 12 months. If that were the case, the ratio of gross debt servicing to exports would not be 64 per cent but 250 per cent. The underlying reality would not have changed. The far more relevant figure is, of course, the interest cost of servicing the debt which, in the case that I have cited and to which Syntec refers, is 20 per cent and not 64.2 per cent. It is correct, as I mentioned earlier, that the Syntec graph was derived from a Reserve Bank table. Immediately adjacent to the column which showed the figures on which the table was based in the Reserve Bank publication was the interest servicing cost which was shown at 20 per cent. To take one figure out without adequately qualifying it is highly misleading. It does not really tell us much about the underlying position. One other qualification is that 1986-87 was the first year in which the Reserve Bank included in that table repayments of principal by banks. The Reserve Bank explicitly noted that the series should not be taken as being continuous for that reason. There had been a very substantive change relating to banks when, of course, it is the business of banks to be raising and repaying deposits all the time. Senator PARER —I address my question to the Minister for Resources. The Minister will be aware of the impeccable timing of the mining unions in calling a 48-hour strike in recent weeks in the middle of coal price negotiations in Japan. Does the Minister, in his new capacity, intend to pursue the introduction of a coal marketing authority? Senator COOK —The answer is no. The Government's position on a coal marketing authority is quite clear. It is not my intention, in my role as Minister for Resources, to pursue that. In any case, it is not my position to pursue it because the responsibility for that part of the primary industries and energy portfolio rests with Minister Kerin. Senator PARER —I ask a supplementary question, Mr President. Does the Minister, by his reply imply, that he has changed his view, considering the alleged statements he made last year to industry people that he believed a marketing authority was inevitable? In response to his remark about not being responsible for coal, I understand that he is responsible for or will take an interest in the industrial relations side of the coal business. Senator COOK —I will take the last part of the question first. Yes, I do, take an interest: my role as a junior Minister to Minister Kerin is to take an interest in all the things that Minister Kerin is doing. I take a deep interest in all of those things. I hope to have some interest, if not involvement, in the industrial relations side of the coal industry in the future. The question whether I have reversed my position, I think, ought not have been asked. Senator Parer may have some recollection, but I do not have any recollection, of my making the sorts of remarks quoted back to me now in terms of the inevitability of a marketing authority. In any case, there is no question about my position. I am here supporting the Government. My position is exactly that. Senator BURNS —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs. The Courier-Mail of 16 February quotes Mr Getano Lui Jr, Deputy Chairman of the Islanders Co-ordinating Council in Torres Strait, as attacking Canberra's lack of control over movement of Papua New Guineans in Torres Strait. What is the response of the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs to that criticism? Senator REYNOLDS —Under the Torres Strait treaty between Australia and Papua New Guinea, traditional visits are allowed by adjacent PNG residents into a defined area of the Torres Strait without formal passport and visa documentation. Opposition senators interjecting- Senator REYNOLDS —So honourable senators opposite are not interested. I find it extraordinary that, in view of some of the statements that have been made by the people of the Torres Strait in the last month, Opposition members are not interested in my answer. I would have thought that they would have great interest in finding out what the Government's view of this criticism is. This legal movement is regularly misrepresented as illegal immigration. Although breaches of the treaty do occur from time to time-mainly in regard to crayfishing in Australian waters-the Department monitors movements under the treaty and responds to those breaches. To improve the efficiency of the monitoring a new system has been developed for progressive introduction on islands in the Strait. Getano Lui, who is also Chairman of Yam Island, has agreed to the system first being introduced on Yam Island. Under the system, appointed Torres Strait Islanders identify visitors to their respective islands, record details of foreign nationals, decide whether a visit is traditional or not and monitor those visitor stays. If problems arise the Islanders can contact the Department of Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs direct and the Department can take up those matters. I am sure that honourable senators will agree that this move by the Department indicates that the government is listening to the concerns of the people of the Torres Strait. Through this Department we have moved immediately towards some involvement of the Torres Strait Islands people in monitoring movement between PNG and the islands themselves. I think that the Department is to be congratulated on taking that move. I am rather surprised and disturbed that Opposition members show so little interest in the matter. Senator MESSNER —Does the Minister for Transport and Communications recall the decision by Telecom Australia last year to introduce a fee for the directory assistance service it provides by dialling 013, which is proposed to operate from 1 July this year? Does he also recall the recent publication and release of exemption forms for people from paying those fees if they are in necessitous circumstances? Is the Minister aware of the very recent withdrawal of those exemption forms from Telecom agencies and offices? Has the Minister or the Prime Minister directed Telecom to suspend all new policy initiatives which affect the public and the media until further notice? Does this explain why the fee exemption forms have been removed? By issuing this directive, is the Government's interference in Telecom an attempt to minimise any further political damage to Mr Unsworth in New South Wales? Does it mean that Telecom will proceed with the introduction of the fee from 1 July 1988, but will be prevented from offering an exemption because of the Government directive? Senator GARETH EVANS —There has been no such directive although, now that Senator Messner has suggested it, I might give it some consideration, given the last few months! Of course, there has been no such directive. Telecom makes its own decisions on these matters. Some matters are the subject of ministerial approval, or approval by the Prices Surveillance Authority, and others are not. Off the top of my head, I am not sure what the situation is for directory assistance. I think that it was to be considered by the Prices Surveillance Authority. Certainly, I was asked some little time ago to consider that course being adopted with matters of this kind. I am not sure how far that has been progressed. I will need to check and perhaps respond further at some later stage. The decision in principle to introduce a directory fee for directory assistance was made last year in order, as was said at the time, to relieve some of the extraordinary pressures that were developing on the system by a number of people, in particular businesses routinely seeking directory assistance for numbers that could very readily and should have been looked up in the ordinary way. A commercial decision was made to do it in that way. It was on that basis that Telecom made the decision in principle. However, Telecom has been concerned that some community groups might be adversely affected. As I recall it, it is particularly concerned about the print handicapped. Discussions have been taking place with a view to satisfactorily resolving a mechanism by which exemption could be achieved. I have no idea whether forms have been available in the past or subsequently have become less available. I will seek some information on that. As far as I am aware, an orderly process of community consultation of the kind that I am constantly urging Telecom to engage in has been taking place. I imagine that it will be implemented in due course, but I do not believe that a final date has been set and will be set until those processes of consultation fully work themselves out. Senator JONES —I draw the attention of the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories to a statement made in this place on Wednesday by Senator Boswell, a Queensland National Party senator, who made a personal attack on the credibility of Dr Keto, the President of the Rainforest Conservation Society of Queensland. Senator Boswell also claimed that a report written by Dr Keto was a `tame cat' report. I ask the Minister: Are the claims correct? If not, can the Minister inform the Senate the true position of Dr Keto's standing in the community and the rating of her report? Senator Stone —Is she going to get a character reference from Senator Richardson? Senator RICHARDSON —I am glad that Senator Stone has interjected because the Queensland Nationals are going to get a mention during the answer to this question. It is disappointing that Senator Boswell, Senator Bjelke-Petersen and indeed Senator Puplick, who has never spoken up for those forests, are not here. Senator Walsh —Where are they all? Senator RICHARDSON —Where they are I do not know, but then again I am not sure that I care. It is staggering that Senator Boswell, Senator Stone, Senator Puplick, Senator MacGibbon and a whole host of people on the other side-including Senator Parer-have continued to ignore the extraordinary national and international interest in the Queensland wet tropical rainforests. Their outstanding universal values are well known and catalogued, and they are catalogued because of the efforts of Dr Aila Keto. As one looks around this chamber one comes across a few big Australians. However, we all know of one very big Australian. Indeed, one knows of the big Australian and that is of course the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd (BHP). I do not ask Senator Stone to worry about what character references I can give anyone but I would have thought that even he would have to accept that my influence over the board of BHP and the decisions it takes at its meetings-Sir James Balderstone and others-is probably very small. But even BHP had to recognise the extraordinary value of Dr Keto's work when she was awarded only a few days ago the BHP award for excellence on the environment. So we do not have to worry about only-- Senator Stone —It will be giving you one next. Senator RICHARDSON —My rewards come in terms of the adulation of so many-but not Senator Button's. The recognition by BHP the other day was a very significant step because all those people such as Senator Boswell who made such a cowardly attack on Dr Keto here the other day will have to realise that there is more and more mounting evidence of the worth of her work. She is indeed a great Australian, and that is a claim that will never be made about Senator Boswell. As well as being a great conservationist she is of course a disciplined scientist. When in 1984 the Australian Heritage Commission had Dr Keto do a report for it on the values of the forests, it realised that there were people in the world who would be inclined to criticise her, that there were people in the world who dream of nothing other than raping those forests and that they would make absolutely certain that Dr Keto's name was blackened. Because of that, the Heritage Commission got four independent, eminent, international referees to look at Dr Keto's report. All of them praised the report; all of them supported its conclusions. But praise for the work of Dr Keto does not end there. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), the body that checks out and values World Heritage nominations, has already said that Dr Keto's report constitutes the most detailed evaluation of any prospective World Heritage listing ever. Representatives of the IUCN will be here in March and April to evaluate the wet tropical rainforest and that body has already spoken of just how valuable Dr Keto's work has been. Senator Boswell-- Senator Parer —Are you taking them to Mount Etna? Senator RICHARDSON —Probably not. They are not here to evaluate the bats. I have done that for them. The Rainforest Conservation Society of Queensland has been paid $13,000 for the report that Dr Keto did. Senator Boswell gets up and criticises us for paying $13,000 for this voluminous report, this report of great worth. Senator Boswell should understand that Dr Keto has already made it very clear that the $13,000 paid for the research and the production of the report. Dr Keto worked for virtually nothing, as Dr Keto has done so often in the pursuit of progressive environmental causes for many years. Her worldwide recognition as a scientist is not good enough for Senator Boswell; but worse than that, he even has to attack her for being paid. Thank God Aila Keto produced the report and we did not commission some expensive consultants who obviously would have charged very much more. The Government had Dr Keto working on the cheap. I wonder just how much a Government report of that magnitude would have cost. I extend my congratulations to Dr Keto for the fact that she was able to win that BHP award for excellence, as I am sure all senators should. The win by an acclaimed Australian ecologist, Dr Webb, in 1984 means that we have now had for the second time in five years pioneering work in Australian rainforest recognised by none other than BHP. Given Senator Stone's views of the world, he will find that difficult to criticise although I would value listening to his doing so. It would be very interesting. Senator Stone —I would have no difficulty at all. Senator RICHARDSON —By the way, I do not value listening to much of what Senator Stone does. Having now had that recognition twice in five years, we then have to wonder what effect this will have on the National Party in Queensland and indeed on Senator Puplick and the Liberal Party. So far all we have had is silence on the rainforest from Senator Puplick and criticism from Senator Boswell and the National Party. It is a pity that the-- Senator Chaney —Mr President, I raise a point of order. The Minister is debating the question. I was extremely tolerant early in the session. I think you should call the Minister to order. The PRESIDENT —I think the Minister is coming to a conclusion. Senator RICHARDSON —As I was saying, Mr President, in coming towards my conclusion-I will get there shortly-the National Party in Queensland has been criticising Dr Keto because it has this great need to criticise any proposal to save the rainforests. It is the work of Dr Keto, who has been so viciously attacked by Senator Boswell, that gives the Government and indeed conservationists around the country- Senator Chaney —Mr President, the Minister is treating the Senate and you with contempt, in my submission. The PRESIDENT —I asked the Minister not to debate the question but I do believe the Minister is concluding his answer. Senator RICHARDSON —As I said, Mr President, the question was asked about a criticism of Dr Keto and that is what I am answering. Having listened to all of it, we are faced with an attempt to discredit anything that the Government or anybody else attempts to do to save the forests. I regard that as deplorable. Once again I extend my congratulations to Dr Keto. Senator DURACK —I draw the attention of the Minister for Justice to the conflicting statements by the Prime Minister about the Prime Minister's knowledge about the events surrounding Senator Tate's misleading of the Senate. I ask the Minister: When did he first discuss-- Senator Robert Ray —A false premise. Senator DURACK —The Minister apologised for misleading the Senate. I ask the Minister: When did he first discuss this issue with the Prime Minister? Did that discussion take place on the telephone or was it face to face? Were there subsequent discussions and if so when and where did they occur? Which documents were faxed to the Prime Minister, as he said material was faxed to him, and when were they faxed? In view of the Prime Minister's comments that former Minister Brown and his staff were sloppy for not detecting that Minister's misleading of the House of Representatives, has the Prime Minister suggested to Senator Tate that he and his staff were similarly sloppy in that apparently no-one realised the misleading nature of the words used by him on 14 December until after the freedom of information request? Senator TATE —I reject the premise. Mr President, with your permission, given the exigencies of time in respect of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, I will provide the answer at 2 o'clock. Senator Button —I ask that further questions be placed on notice. Senator Chaney —There is no problem about your answering the question. Do not hide behind the broadcasting arrangement. You do not have to hide behind that. Senator TATE —Mr President-- The PRESIDENT —Order! I believe the Minister said that he would answer the question at 2 o'clock. Sitting suspended from 1 to 2 p.m. Senator TATE —At the conclusion of Question Time today I was asked a series of questions by Senator Durack, most of which have been raised ad nauseam in this and the other place over the past week. At a minute to one I was accused by Senator Chaney of not being willing to answer the question and trying to find some excuse to squib out on it. In fact, you will recall, Mr President, that at the beginning of Question Time you had asked for the co-operation of the chamber to enable the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to carry out its transmission arrangements at a minute to one. It was in deference to your request that I suggested that I answer the question at 2 o'clock, which I am now very happy to do. Senator Short —It was very convenient for you. Senator TATE —It was not very convenient, Senator. I could have given the answer but I chose to defer to the President's request. There were five elements to the question, as my staff jotted them down. The answer to the first is 3 February. The answer to the second is by telephone. I was in Melbourne and the Prime Minister was in Sydney at that stage. The answer to the third question is that discussions were subsequently held with the Prime Minister's office in Canberra. In answer to the fourth question, I gave a complete set of the documents relating to the matter in my possession on 3 February to the Prime Minister's office. I understand that the Prime Minister's office transmitted all of those documents to the Prime Minister's travelling party on 3 February. The answer to the fifth question is no, but I can say that the Prime Minister was not pleased with what had happened. The PRESIDENT —I call Senator Durack. Senator DURACK —I notice that-- Senator Robert Ray —What are you rising on? Senator DURACK —A supplementary question. Senator Robert Ray —I take a point of order. The PRESIDENT —Order! I have called Senator Durack. I am waiting to hear whether he wants to ask a supplementary question or is seeking leave. Senator Robert Ray —That is not the point of order I am rising on, Mr President. The PRESIDENT —Order! I call Senator Durack. Senator DURACK —I am seeking to ask a supplementary question. Senator Gareth Evans —Do you need any assistance? It does not seem in-- The PRESIDENT —No, I do not need any assistance. I believe that Senator Button asked that further questions be placed on notice. So Question Time is over. I was waiting to see whether Senator Durack-- Senator Chaney —Mr President, may I speak to the point of order. The reality is that when Question Time runs for an hour and a question is asked just before the hour concludes it is the usual practice of the Senate to allow the question to go through to completion. It is the usual practice of the Senate to allow a supplementary question if that is sought by the questioner, even if it be after the expiration of the hour. That is the normal practice. On this occasion, Mr President, in common with a number of recent days on which we have had Question Time at 12 o'clock, we have artificially had to bring Question Time to an end because of the broadcast requirements. I might say, Mr President, that that is a practice which I think we should review. The simple alternative is simply to carry on without the benefits of the broadcast. I think that would be a much more sensible thing to do than to cut off Question Time. I make that as a new suggestion. I do not suggest for a moment, Mr President, that you should have done it. My point in rising now is that it would be totally consistent with the usual practice of this Senate to allow a supplementary question to be asked, even though Question Time has gone beyond the hour. The other thing I would like to say while I am on my feet is that at one o'clock I did suggest that Senator Tate was trying to avoid answering the question. Let me say that I think that that comment was wrongly directed. I withdraw what I said to Senator Tate. I should have referred to the obvious filibuster by his colleague Senator Richardson, which is a quite separate matter. The arrangement was that we would get up at one o'clock, and I accept that. I would simply say on this point of order that a supplementary question should be allowed to be asked as happens in the normal course of Question Time. Senator Gareth Evans —On the point of order, Mr President: It would be a travesty of the procedures in this place, in my submission, were Senator Durack to be allowed to ask a supplementary question. The truth of the matter, as you well know, Mr President, as you have already indicated, is that Senator Tate took the question on notice, which any Minister-- Opposition senators interjecting- Senator Gareth Evans —If I might be allowed to finish, Senator Tate said four things: firstly, that he rejected the premise of the question; secondly, that he took it on notice; and, thirdly, that he would respond at 2 o'clock. The fourth thing he said was that this course of action was forced upon him by the agreement of the Senate, in the interests of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation-although God forbid that the listening audience has to put up with this-being able to return to its programming in the way in which it was indicated was appropriate. So let us have no misrepresentation of that kind. Senator Tate having taken that course, Senator Button asked that further questions be placed on notice and that, in accordance with the procedures of this place, determines Question Time. Having said that, may I indicate that should Senator Durack seek leave to ask a further question now, leave will not be refused. Honourable senators interjecting- The PRESIDENT —Order! Despite all the help, will you now seek leave, Senator Durack, to ask a supplementary question? Senator DURACK —I seek leave to ask a supplementary question. Leave granted. Senator DURACK —After the most childish performance I have witnessed in this place in the nearly 17 years I have been here, I ask a supplementary question of the Minister for Justice. He said that all documents were faxed to the Prime Minister on a particular day from place to place. Was one of the documents included in that list of documents the Australian Federal Police document which had been made available to Mr Reith? Senator TATE —The answer I gave was that I provided to the Prime Minister's office in Canberra all the documents in my possession on 3 February. Those documents included the briefs of 14 September and 30 November, as held by me. The PRESIDENT —Order! I draw the attention of all honourable senators to the presence in my gallery of a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association study tour from the Parliament of Nauru led by the Speaker of the Nauruan Parliament. On behalf of all honourable senators I extend to members of the delegation a warm welcome and trust that their stay in Australia is a success. Honourable senators-Hear, hear! The PRESIDENT —I have received a letter from Senator Short proposing that a matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion, namely: The need for the Government to ensure the public release of the report by the Australian Federal Police of its investigations into breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act arising from the non-disclosure of an election campaign donation by Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd. I call upon those senators who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places. More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places- Senator SHORT(Victoria)(2.09) —On behalf of the Opposition I submit the following matter of public importance: The need for the Government to ensure the public release of the report by the Australian Federal Police of its investigations into breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act arising from the non-disclosure of an election campaign donation by Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd. The Opposition would have brought this matter of public importance forward for debate in any event, but our desire and our belief that it is necessary to do so is heightened by the fact that we have already seen, through two delays in the completion of the police investigations, that this is a matter which is increasingly showing all the signs of a matter of major moment. This matter raises the gravest issues because we are talking not only about breaches of the Electoral Act or even possible criminal action. What we are talking about is very much broader than that. It goes to the question of the whole integrity of government. It has potentially the gravest constitutional and political consequences. We saw this last year in my own State of Victoria with the corruption by the Australian Labor Party in the Nunawading how-to-vote card scandal. We have seen this corruption and debasing of the political capital of this country pursued without relief in New South Wales under the Wran-Unsworth governments during the past decade, a decade of unrivalled corruption and abuse of power by senior public officials in that State. My colleagues Senator Michael Baume and Senator Bishop will be going into that example of that situation of corruption and abuse in their State in much greater detail when they follow me in this debate. We have to recall the conviction and gaoling of Police Minister Rex Jackson, for accepting bribes, and former Chief Stipendiary Magistrate Murray Farquhar, for attempting to pervert the course of justice; and there are many more examples. The Opposition's wording calls for the public release of the report by the Australian Federal Police. In putting that forward, I insert two caveats. The first is that, without knowledge at this stage of the content of that report and the consequences that might flow from it, there may obviously be need for some delay in the timing of its release for legal or other purposes. There also may be need to have some deletions made to the report when it is made public in order to protect innocent parties who may be named in it. I make it clear at the outset that the Opposition fully accepts these caveats. The Opposition believes that this is a vital matter because it goes to the heart of the political process; it goes to the need to protect political propriety, integrity and morality in this country. The case of the Labor Party's handling of the $10,000 donation from the woodchip company Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd to its election campaign coffers in 1987 goes to the heart of these fundamental issues and threatens to debase them beyond repeal. It has been shown by many political researchers that the whole process of parliament and of government in this country is very importantly related to the attitude of the community to the morality of those who engage in politics. Whilst the report of the police is not yet available the indications are, I believe, that those are issues that are very much involved here. Let us look at the facts of this case. It first came to light at the end of January when the New South Wales Minister responsible for the environment, Mr Carr, in what was thought to be a cheap political trick, accused the Liberal Party of receiving funds in the last election campaign from the woodchip company Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd for its election campaign purposes. It was quite correct that the Liberal Party had received those funds, and they were disclosed in the proper and normal way, so there was no secret about it. Senator Stone —That is how he knew. Senator SHORT —Yes, that is how he knew. Mr Carr claimed that the Labor Party was a clean skin on it in the sense that it had not received money from this company which was at great odds with his constituencies, the greenies and the conservationists in New South Wales, who were not only making very loud noises but-and this is very important-were financially supporting the Labor Government in that election campaign. What Mr Carr apparently did not know at the time was that the Labor Party had received a similar cheque for the same purpose from the company, Harris-Daishowa. On 11 June 1987 Harris-Daishowa wrote to Mr Young, the Federal President of the Australian Labor Party and a senior Minister in the Government, saying that the company had had no hesitation in helping with the cost of campaigns over long periods and helping candidates of all political parties, and enclosing a cheque for $10,000. The letter states: We have pleasure in enclosing a cheque in support of the Labor Party's election campaign and we would respectfully suggest that this be directed to the Eden-Monaro promotion campaign account. In other words, the company specifically requested that that money, in line with its previous contributions on earlier elections, be publicly disclosed, because election campaign donations have to be. Two weeks later, on 24 June, Mr Loosley, the Secretary of the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party wrote back to the company saying that Mr Young had forwarded the donation to him `to assist in the New South Wales branch of the ALP in its administration'. Because of that the donation was not disclosed. Following Mr Carr's remarks at the end of January 1988, Harris-Daishowa raised this issue, and that is how the whole matter was made public. Harris-Daishowa, in its letter of 2 February, objected to what had happened and specifically said: Harris-Daishowa . . . emphatically deny releasing any letter which is being used in an attempt to promote a campaign fund controversy. This raises a very important question that I presume the Federal Police will look at-that is, if the company did not leak that letter to the media, who did? On 2 February, when this matter first came to light, the New South Wales Secretary of the Labor Party, Mr Loosley, when asked why this situation had arisen and why the money had gone into the administration account rather than the campaign funds, was quoted in the Press as saying that he `understood from a conversation with Mr Young at the time'-that is, in June 1987-`that the money should go into the administration account'. On the same day, Mr Young, who was, of course, a senior Minister of the Government and the Federal President of the Labor Party, as he still is, said that he did not recall ever seeing the covering letter, nor could he remember handing over the cheque to Mr Loosley. What a comment that is. How could a senior Minister of the Crown, a man who had been the State Secretary of the Labor Party in South Australia for five years and who had followed that with five years as National Secretary of the Labor Party-so he had 10 years as a senior Labor Party official, concerned with the handling of funds for election campaign purposes and the administration of his Party-not remember receiving either a letter or a cheque for that amount? Senator MacGibbon —And a first class bagman to boot. Senator SHORT —Yes, I agree with Senator MacGibbon. On 2 February Mr Young said: No-one can give a proper explanation for what has occurred. But obviously it is a fairly honest mistake. It is not obvious to me. It is not obvious that it was honest-even fairly honest-nor is it obvious that it was a mistake. There appears to be a much better argument that it was a fairly dirty trick. Indeed, on 2 February, the day that all this broke, Mr Loosley rang 2GB in Sydney to say that it was his understanding that the money had been intended by the company for the Party's maintenance and administration account. He said, after having referred to thinking back during that period of the year, that he understood from a conversation with Mr Young at the time that the administration account was the account to which the donation should have been paid, and they acted accordingly. When Mr Young was asked about that on 2 February, he said that he had `no reason to argue' with Mr Loosley's recollection. Two days later-48 hours later-hey-presto! All is well. The letter which had been missing for all this time was found in Mr Loosley's office in Sydney. `Mr Young's cleared', says the Labor Party, `of any wrongdoing'. The Press cleared him, too. It was all Mr Loosley's fault. He had not found that letter when he should have found it. He had not remembered that he got that letter back in June 1987. Indeed, he had remembered that he had a conversation with Mr Young about where the money was to go, and that was all'. As Michelle Grattan said in the Age at the time: `It was a wonderful case of laying the blame Loosley speaking'. Within two days Mr Loosley changed his earlier recollection of the 1987 discussion with Mr Young. Indeed, so much did he change it that he said: Given that the Harris-Daishowa correspondence is here in our office, it is not possible that that conversation could have related to that contribution. Asked who might then have given him the impression that the money was for the administration accounts, Mr Loosley said: That is something that continues to elude us, frankly. The letter may have turned up in Mr Loosley's office, but not the fact, nor, as I believe would be obvious to blind Freddy, the truth. Mr Loosley's statements are riddled with contradictions. His confession did not change in any way the fact that the Labor Party deliberately attempted to circumvent the provisions of the Electoral Act by redirecting a donation specifically targeted by Harris-Daishowa to the Eden-Monaro promotion campaign account and diverted that to the Labor Party's administration account. Nor was the basic issue in any way lessened-and that is the debasing of those very precious commodities of political integrity, political propriety and morality in this country. They have not in any way been lessened by the discovery of the letter in Mr Loosley's files, nor were they in any way lessened by Mr Young's resignation four days later. The questions that have been asked by the Opposition and by others from the outset of this tawdry affair, this scandal, remain-questions such as how and when Harris-Daishowa's letter to Mr Young of 11 June 1987 and the accompanying cheque were transmitted from Mr Young to Mr Loosley; and whether Mr Loosley received both the cheque and the letter at the same time. I asked Senator Robert Ray, the Minister for Home Affairs, a question on that matter the other day in this chamber. He said that it did not really matter because it was not relevant. I think I quote him correctly. He said that it was not pertinent to the case. I submit to the Minister that it is of the most vital importance. What is the explanation for Mr Loosley's initial statement that he had had a conversation with Mr Young in June 1987 about what to do with the $10,000? How could it happen that Mr Young could not remember receiving either the letter or the cheque from Harris-Daishowa despite Mr Loosley's statement that he had, that he and Mr Young had discussed the cheque? What were the reasons for Mr Loosley dramatically altering his story in the space of 48 hours? If Mr Loosley received the Harris-Daishowa letter and cheque from Mr Young at the same time, how on earth could he have written to the company on 24 June saying that the $10,000 would assist the New South Wales branch of the ALP in its administrations, when the company's letter of 11 June had expressly stated that the cheque was `in support of the Labor Party's election campaign' and `We would respectfully suggest that this be directed to the Eden-Monaro promotion account'? How did the company's letter of 11 June come to be found, according to Mr Loosley, in a `file of national ALP papers' on 4 February 1988, bearing in mind that Mr Loosley is the New South Wales Secretary of the Party? What annotations were on the letter when it was found? Was a copy of Mr Loosley's letter of 24 June, acknowledging the money in writing to Harris-Daishowa, attached in that file? What is the name of the file? Where is it kept? Who had had access to it in the days preceding the sudden miraculous discovery of the letter? All those basic questions have been asked but not answered. Presumably the police report will cover them. The thing that has interested me, and many others I am sure-not only in politics but outside-is this: Why would Mr Young resign and why would he do so at such a critical time? He resigned two days after the Adelaide by-election, a disastrous by-election result for his Party, and in an adjoining seat to his own when he knew that his resignation would bring about another by-election. He knows that the New South Wales election is six or eight weeks away. He is the national President of the Party. Mr Young's whole Party generally is reeling on the political ropes and he resigns at that time. After all, he had survived-that is perhaps the right word-much more in the past than this episode. He had survived the Combe-Ivanov affair when he had been named by a royal commissioner as having breached Australia's security. He had survived the Paddington bear affair when he had falsely signed a Customs declaration. And he resigned after the media-his court-had cleared him a couple of days earlier. Still he resigned. The only reason he gave was `media overkill'. Quite frankly, that is simply unbelievable. Mr Young knew that his resignation would be a body blow to the Hawke Government and a body blow to the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke) because they were the closest of mates according to the Prime Minister and Mr Young. I believe various reasons need to be looked at as to why Mr Young resigned. This is one of the essential reasons why the police report must be completed and made available. Until it is, these matters will remain in the realm of speculation. Let us name of couple of these matters. There was a very interesting article in the Melbourne Sun on 9 February by Dennis Atkins, who was the Press Secretary to Mr Young in the period 1983-1985. Mr Atkins pointed out that Mr Young had been loyal to the end to the nation. I do not disagree, because Mr Young normally would be loyal to the end to his Party. Atkins said, quite rightly: Mick Young was someone who dedicated his life to the politics of the Left, first in the trade union movement then the party machine and until the middle of yesterday afternoon, the parliamentary process. He talked about loyalty and said that Mr Young left because of his loyalty to the Party. On the other hand, in yesterday's Melbourne Age there was a very interesting comment by Ken Davidson. He said of Mr Young that what finally precipitated him to go was what he saw: . . . as the lack of party support, not even a telephone call, between the time the issue surfaced publicly and the belated discovery of the Harris-Daishowa letter in the NSW Labor Party headquarters. He points out that the disclosure of the Harris-Daishowa gift was a real bonus to the New South Wales Right in the battle that is looming over the Deputy Prime Ministership when Lionel Bowen goes. It would have been between Keating and Young. Young is now eliminated. A very good question is: Why did Bob Carr let the whole thing originate? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Powell) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria-Minister for Home Affairs)(2.29) —The matter of public importance, in the terms in which it is written, is quite misleading. It refers to `breaches' of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Anyone with any decency would have put `alleged breaches'. However, I am somewhat restricted in dealing with some of the material that Senator Short has produced. We are awaiting the police report. I also leave it to my colleague, Senator Tate, to address the more technical question in this matter of public importance as to the efficacy of releasing a police report. I add that at this stage no decision has been made by the Government one way or the other. How could we until we see a report? Senator Tate —We may not even see it. Senator ROBERT RAY —As my colleague points out, as Government Ministers we may never see it. I quote what I said to the Senate in November 1983 with regard to disclosure: There will always be a way round- disclosure- but what the legislation does is to set down at least what the moral principles are in politics and if people want to break them they can take the consequences. In recent weeks I have made that point far more explicitly. I have said that, no matter which political party someone belongs to, if there is a breach of the Electoral Act the person responsible should be prosecuted. I am not assuming anything in this case until the evidence comes in. We on this side of the House and the Government will not back away from the enforcement of the Electoral Act, now or later. I notice that the new member for Adelaide, Mr Pratt, is asking us not to enforce the Electoral Act in terms of not fining people who did not vote. That is another recent example of someone who would like us to ignore the Electoral Act. Again, it is not for us to interfere. I have listened on many occasions in this chamber to speeches from Liberals. I have listened to the phony ethics of those opposite about donations. They say that Liberal politicians never see the money, that they never have anything to do with it; therefore, there is no need at all for disclosure. I have heard that statement made time and time again. I refer the Senate to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald of 27 August 1981: The Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, has been warned by major manufacturing interests who are vital Liberal Party donors that their funds would be withdrawn if the Federal Government cuts tariffs. One Liberal Party source told the Herald that the interests involved were six-figure donors to the Party and come from the backbone of the Party's financial base. Senator Teague —That was seven years ago. Senator ROBERT RAY —I will move through these matters in chronological order for Senator Teague. The Sydney Morning Herald, in a profile of Peter Nixon on 12 September 1981, wrote the following: A Liberal Minister who canvassed funds in Melbourne before the 1977 election found that Nixon had beaten him to most of the likely contributors. `He didn't leave anything for the Liberal Party,' the minister laments. On 15 September another revealing article appeared in the Australian about a Mr Gale, who was a great friend of Mr Fraser, although I do not think Mr Fraser visited him in prison once during the eight or nine years he had to spend there after the friendship ended. Gale swapped cheques for $25,000 with a Japanese businessman to get a clean donation to the Liberal Party. He said: it would be better to have a cheque from a foreigner. Let us go to a Liberal Party source that is more impeccable, with a direct quote from Mr Leo Hawkins, former State Director of the Victorian Liberal Party. On Nationwide he said: Now, I think it is quite wrong for the Prime Minister, the Premier and other leaders to have to go through the sorts of antics that are required to lever money out of people in the community who have got relatively large sums to give. The reality is that the Liberal Party has been consistent on one aspect. Senator Michael Baume —What about the $1,000 breakfasts your leader gives? What a hypocrite. He gives $1,000 breakfasts. Senator ROBERT RAY —I did not interrupt Senator Short once during his speech-not once. Senator Michael Baume —He was not talking such nonsense, and he was quoting. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Powell) —Order! Senator Baume, I notice that you are on the speakers list for a later time. Senator ROBERT RAY —Senator Baume might get a response then. The Liberal and National parties have at least been consistent. They opposed disclosure from day one and they oppose it today. On that they have been absolutely consistent. On the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform they fought tooth and nail to prevent the introduction into the Commonwealth Electoral Act of any disclosure laws. In this and the other chamber they fought tooth and nail to stop any disclosure. As well as that, they opposed public funding. On a matter of principle they would not touch funding-but they all took the money. That describes the principles of those opposite. They oppose public funding, yet they take the money. I remember seeing a definition of that somewhere. It had something to do with prostitution. Let us look at the attitude of the Liberal Party now that we have disclosure laws. Let us take New South Wales. That is what this is about. There were disclosure laws in New South Wales at the time of the 1984 State election. At the last New South Wales elections the Liberal Party managed to siphon off $3.9m through Canberra to cover the sources of its dirty money. What did Mr Valder have to say about it? He stated: We are hoping to send a great deal of money out of the State, and to bring it back to avoid disclosing the identity of the donors. That is what Mr Valder said. He said: It is not flouting the law, it is protecting a great principle of confidentiality in this country. Those opposite accuse people of trying to hide the disclosure of donations. An amount of $3.9m in the 1984 State election in New South Wales was sent out of New South Wales to Robert Menzies' house here and then sent back as a donation. So not one cent of it could be declared under the New South Wales Electoral Act. Let us go to Queensland and Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen. In an article in the Daily Mirror he stated-Senator Teague has gone, but we are at least up to 30 April 1987: . . . the Electoral Act amendments requiring parties to disclose the organisations which have donated had been made to stop him getting to the top in Canberra. In other words, we amended the Act in 1983 in anticipation that he would make the run for Canberra in 1987, but leaving aside the stupidity of that he went on to describe it as `a devilish piece of legislation aimed at me'. So the Queensland National Party has always opposed donations. Of course, his State President, his one-time mentor and campaign director but later fallen out friend Sir Robert Sparkes, in the National Times in March 1987, had the following to say: You don't have to take any notice of the disclosure laws, give us as much money as you can. He then made promises. When the Nationals swept to power in Canberra in 1987, he said, `We will retrospectively amend the law', in spite of the fact that in this chamber every national gets up here and says, `We will never support retrospectivity'. So members of the National Party were able to repeal their greatest and strongest principle when it came to disclosure; that is that they would repeal retrospectively the disclosure laws of this country. We have all known for a number of years about the power and influence and absolute rottenness of the Bjelke-Petersen Foundation. The only historical equivalent that I can discover for it is a Huey Long machine in Louisiana in the 1930s. People who need government contracts are pressured into donating to the Bjelke-Petersen Foundation. There are people from Senator Parer's party, such as Mr Litchfield, who have gone on record publicly and said that people have come to the Liberal Party of Queensland to say that they were pressured to give money to the National Party. Not one person opposite has ever got up and admitted, debated or shown any concern about that. The last words of that great film on Huey Long had him dying in the hospital bed with everyone round saying, `Huey, Huey, where is the deduct box?'. A similar situation exists in Queensland. The day Sir Joh went out of office I can imagine all the Nationals running in to him and saying, `Joh, Joh, where is the deduct box?'. How much do we cream off the top of the National Party there? One would expect that if the Liberal Party is making the running on disclosure, it would be concerned about loopholes and about changes, but it has expressed no such concern. Let us take John Elliott, Federal President of the Liberal Party. On 5 February he stated: We didn't make these stupid laws about disclosure of funds. And we believe that political parties ought to be funded by private donations, they ought to be kept confidential and there should be no need to disclose. They (the ALP) never had a system to do it. The Liberal Party have always had a better system to handle it. So the titular head of a Liberal Party at an organisational level, Mr John Elliott, does not want disclosure laws. During the lead-up to the Adelaide by-election Mr Howard made a whole series of comments about the disclosure laws. He offered to open up his Party funds to spot audits, but then later retracted that. He mentioned that maybe the Party's administrative and maintenance fund should be opened up. But what did he have to say after the Adelaide by-election? He did a doorstop interview on Tuesday, 16 February. He was asked by a reporter: Will you be calling for any changes in the electoral law? Mr Howard's answer was: Not at this stage, no. It is quite obvious, and we have said so throughout, that disclosure laws and the legislation as it exists at the current time is not perfect. Liberal representatives on the Electoral Reform Committee have said it, I have said it and I am sure that Senator Macklin as a long-standing member of the Committee has said it too. However, there was one major loophole discovered after the 1984 election: a donation to one organisation which then forwarded the money on in its own name-what we call third party donations. It was a disguised way of getting around the disclosure laws. For anyone who wants to check the bona fides of this Government with regard to that, the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform recommended that this loophole be closed off. Most people know that, before the 1987 election, some fast track legislation was introduced embodying only a few of the recommendations of the Electoral Reform Committee. Probably about 15 out of 120-odd were picked up in that emergency legislation. Included in that were amendments to the Act to cut out these third party donations. Having put that Bill through-it was debated in this chamber after the election was announced-we proclaimed it within about a day of its passage. If this Government were weak on its bona fides regarding disclosure, that legislation containing those provisions would never have been proclaimed in that period. Let us never forget some of the hypocrisy that we are hearing from the Liberal and National parties on disclosure. They have never wanted disclosure laws. But now that there is an alleged breach of the disclosure laws they want a full prosecution, having already given the verdict. It is a little like Alice in Wonderland. Senator Short and his colleagues come out, like the Queen of Hearts, and say, `Guilty'. They almost give the sentence first, then the verdict, and then they will hear the evidence. That is not the order in which we work in our society. Let us wait until the evidence. If there is evidence available, prosecutions are launched under the Electoral Act. It is also very much the case of the dog that did not bark. Senator Short, on this and other matters, invites us to make some sort of comment on breaches of the Electoral Act. I now throw the invitation his way. Apart from this issue, I have not heard Senator Short comment on convictions under the Electoral Act. Let me remind Senator Short of three convictions. He might be able to correct me about whether he issued a comment on these cases. On 9 February 1988 National Party scrutineer Mr Wah Day was fined $300 in a Cairns magistrates court for attempting to fill out a ballot paper he found outside a polling booth on 11 July last year. This individual was convicted of ballot rorting. He was a National Party person. I did not comment on this case until it went through the full procedures and went to the magistrate court. I knew of an impending prosecution and I could have said in here that he was obviously guilty-another National Party rorter caught. I did not. I now mention a second case. Did Senator Short or anyone on the other side of this chamber mention this blatant breach of the Electoral Act, or put out a Press release to congratulate the Electoral Commission for bringing a felon to book for his crimes? No, they did not. There was dead and absolute silence. The second case was on 23 November 1987. It involved a National Party MLA in Queensland. Mr Dennis Hinton was fined $400 in the Brisbane magistrates court for forging a false signature on a joint Commonwealth-Queensland enrolment card. He later used parliamentary privilege, of course, to attack the officers of the Electoral Commission and the Australian Federal Police for carrying out their duty. Here we have an official member of the National Party, a member of the State Parliament, bodgying enrolment cards and being convicted in the court. Did Opposition senators here once mention the case, once congratulate the Electoral Commission for pursuing offenders under the Electoral Act? Did they say nothing? Yes, they said nothing. Why did they say nothing? Because they never criticise their own. That is their internal rule. A third case was brought to the attention of this Senate by Senator Black last year. But it was never once commented on by the Opposition. It was about the Fitzgerald Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct and Allegations-and I stress they were only allegations at this point-that Mr Don Lane had been responsible for putting bodgies on the electoral roll. That was the accusation that was made. The inquiry from our side of the House was: Is there any truth to this? Will it be investigated? And so on. The Opposition was absolutely silent on this matter. What constrains the Opposition to chase one breach of the Electoral Act and no others? This one was not pursued. I thought that even the Liberal Party might have pursued it because Mr Don Lane used to be a member of that party until he ratted to the National Party of Queensland on the basis of an offer of a ministry. That is not unparliamentary. Everyone knows that that is true. In all those cases of breaches of the Electoral Act, no mention comes from the Opposition. We have a major investigation going at the moment-I hope that my colleague from the Northern Territory will get time to allude to it-into a front organisation pouring a massive amount of money into the Queensland National Party. I will not comment on whether it is guilty or not. I have not even commented on the investigation. I could have come in here and made great play of all the Northern Territory people involved in that, but I did not do so. The matter is under investigation. If there are breaches those Liberal Party-National Party members in Queensland will be prosecuted like anyone else under the Act. The matter of public importance before us is poorly based. It says `breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act'. It should say `alleged breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act'. If honourable senators really want to know what the matter of public importance is today, it is this: `We hereby want to think up an excuse to get involved in the New South Wales election. We are looking for a device to do so and this is the device by which we will do it'. Senator Short will be given the job of running through all the alleged facts of the case that he sees, pre-judging all the way through and barely mentioning the subject matter to which this matter of public importance is restricted, which will at least take the shine off the new ball, so the two apparatchiks from the New South Wales Liberal Party-Senator Peter Baume and Senator Bishop-can go back into the mud box and start throwing mud around as they did in the discussion of a matter of public importance on Wednesday and fairly poorly last night. That is what this is about. It is an insult to the Electoral Act, the Electoral Commission and everyone who serves it. They are simply using this issue for the tawdry purpose of trying to make some pathetic points about the New South Wales State election. To do so, they are willing to abrogate every legal principle in the book to allege that Mr Young or Mr Loosley is guilty and so on. They come into this place, make those allegations and demand that the police report, which they and I have had no access to, be made available. I continue to support disclosure laws in the Federal Parliament. I will continue to support them as they exist in New South Wales. I will continue, wherever I go in Australia, to motivate the other four State governments, be they Labor, Liberal or National, to introduce disclosure legislation, because it is a major protection against having political parties obligated to anything else. It is important that political parties are not dependent on financing from private individuals who will obligate them. In part, public funding helps ameliorate that. In part, disclosure helps ameliorate that position. If there are loopholes in the Act and the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters recommends that those loopholes be closed-not that there is a loophole in the case discussed by Senator Short-I will be more than happy to do so. If one wants to take a principled stand one must follow it through all the way. I invite, but I do not expect, support from the Liberal and National parties on this issue. We will get the same reaction as we have had for the last five years-that of dragging the chain and not supporting any change. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(2.48) —In the last few days there have been discussions in the media about whether this Parliament should be broadcast and whether the Australian Broadcasting Corporation should lose so much time on one of its valuable radio channels. I must admit that this afternoon's debate is probably one of the clinching arguments as to why Parliament should not be broadcast. The actual topic, which I think speaks for itself-one may wish to add a couple of other items to the end-is this: The need for the Government to ensure the public release of the report by the Australian Federal Police of its investigations into breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act arising from the non-disclosure of an election campaign donation by Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd. I too would have thought that the matter of public importance would have been better worded `alleged breaches'. Presumably the judgment has already been made. What I cannot understand is why the Opposition, when it wished to put down a matter of public importance, did not include Carpentaria Transport Pty Ltd. If it wants to release a report regarding an investigation of $10,000, one would have thought that it would want to release a report regarding an investigation of $300,000. Senator Robert Ray —It was $320,000. Senator MACKLIN —I thought it was only $300,000. If there was any fairness, if what the Opposition was doing was upholding the integrity of the electoral laws, Senator Short would have called for the release of both of those reports. He did not do so and because he did not he condemns his case out of hand as being merely a case concerned with political mud-slinging, which I think the population of Australia is heartily sick and tired of. I would like to spend the time available to me in having a look at the disclosure laws. When items such as the one we have just seen occur it seems to me far better to address oneself to the substantive issue to see whether there may be ways in which we can overcome the problem and so lessen the likelihood of breaches taking place in the future. When my Party voted on an electoral reform package in 1978 one of the items included was: All donations or assistance valued at more than $2,000 to any candidate, party or political group will be discloseable publicly. The sum will be indexed for changes in the value of money. Further on it is stated: Companies, trade unions, and any organisation which receives subscriptions or funds from its members, must clearly disclose in audited annual financial statements any donation made which it makes to the public electoral fund, political parties, candidates, or for any political purpose. I think the first part is important. For 10 years our Party policy has been that all donations over a certain value should be disclosed. The difficulty the Daishowa case runs straight into is the distinction that has been made between campaign funds and funds for administrative purposes. I was on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Electoral Reform at the time it presented its report on this matter and I acquiesced to that recommendation because at that stage the Liberal and National parties were fighting tooth and nail against any disclosure, not just disclosure for the campaigns but any disclosure of anything. So it seemed to me at that time-it seems a long time ago but it really was not; it was September 1983 when our report came in-that it was better to get something rather than nothing and that as time went on and problems emerged with the law as we have proposed it, hopefully public opinion would be such that people would press for increasing areas of disclosure by political parties. I think that is what we have. It is one of the fruitful things that have come out of this episode. It was interesting, in going back, as I have done in the last few hours, and rereading the Press with regard to this episode to find that nowhere is it suggested that there should not be any disclosure. Those thoughtful articles in the Press that sought to find a way out of the problem all suggested we should get rid of the dichotomy between campaign funds and administrative funds. If we may be charitable enough to say that the Press is reflecting the general feeling outside-I am not sure whether it is but probably it does as well as any other organ in our community-there is not a move in the community to get rid of disclosure; there is a mood within the community to increase disclosure. I think now is the time for the Government to take note of that mood in the community and to seek to legislate. I am quite sure if it does so there will be a majority in this chamber to pass increased disclosure laws with regard to political funding. Although I think there would probably be opposition to it as well, the Australian Democrats would support it. We believe that by taking that extra step with regard to the administrative fund we will remove the problem that arose in this instance. A number of other problems lurking in the Commonwealth Electoral Act have not been given as much attention. In fact, some of them have not been raised at all. I want to look at a couple of those now. I think if we are interested in cleaning up, tightening and finetuning the law to ensure that we do not have breaches, we must pay attention to the emerging problems. I would like to draw attention to the amounts of money that are paid in respect of public funding because this is the largest area which is open to a rorting of the disclosure provisions. The Australian Labor Party was allocated $8,428,000 under the title `public funding' for the 1984 and 1987 elections. The Liberal and National parties have $8,105,000 under that heading. This means that for the next election they will be able to put against expenditure $8m simply designated as public funding. According to one piece of paper-I am not quite sure about the extent to which I should hold to this document because the figures are certainly not correct in respect of other items-the Labor Party spent over $7m in the last election campaign. This theoretically means that if the Labor Party does not spend any more than that the next time, it could actually disclose that all of its funds came from public funding. That was not the intent of the public funding provision; it was not the intent of the law; and it was not the intent of the disclosure Act. But that is where we are heading. As that public funding builds up after each election and the amounts get bigger and bigger, a political party is able to swallow all sorts of other donations. One can say, `All right, that means that the political parties might be trying to hide something'. Quite frankly, we are simply being absurd if we allow a law to rest on the fact that political parties do not want to hide something. Senator Ray read out a number of examples-and I do not want to repeat them-of members of political parties who have said quite clearly that they have been trying to hide things. They have been quite happy to say publicly that they have been trying to do this. This is on the record. If we give someone the opportunity to do this, we have a bad law. Therefore, I think we need to do something about that exercise. One way of dealing with this matter would be to allow the Australian Electoral Commission to engage in random audits. This is a somewhat controversial proposition. After the 1984 election the Electoral Commission sought to engage in random audits. The national bodies of the Australian Labor Party, the Liberal Party of Australia, the National Party of Australia and the Tasmanian division of the Australian Democrats were chosen for random audit purposes. I can remember clearly that my Party certainly gave its okay to such an exercise when it was approached. I believe that the Labor Party also agreed with that arrangement but that the Liberal and National parties objected. Their objection was upheld on legal grounds by the Attorney-General's Department. In other words, the law did not give the Electoral Commission power to engage in random audits. So the Liberal and National parties were quite within their rights in objecting to this proposal. When the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform, which is now the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, looked at this item, we went through the whole exercise again, but there was not the will at that time to pursue the matter and give the Electoral Commission that additional power. I believe that we should look again at that item. I hope that the Government will look at it again and give the Electoral Commission the power to undertake random audits of political parties at any time, whether it be during a campaign or in the middle of the normal three-year period between elections-if we ever manage to get a three-year period between elections again in this country. I think that that random audit procedure would fit very well with what we have given the Electoral Commission-that is, the power to act on its own cognisance to enforce the law. It is required to undertake the enforcement of the law. It must not simply ask the Government to do it; it is required to do it as an independent body. What we now need to do is give it more teeth to enable it to operate in a way that can be seen by the public as being fair and reasonable. The argument to date has been that we should rely on mutual trust and a whole range of other things. I think that is fine to this point. I am not complaining about what has happened up to this point, although many sections of the media have done so. As I see it, it is a gradual development. After all, in 1983 we did not have any disclosure. So we are moving, but we have to learn from our mistakes and we have to move forward. I think we now have the opportunity of moving forward in the electoral disclosure laws, of making them tighter and more transparent for the public. The public has to maintain its faith in the political system. That may seem to be a rather naive and absurd proposition to put in a debate such as the one that has occurred until now, but I do not believe it is. If we give in to that type of despairing opportunity and say, `Well, everybody is going to throw mud at the political system, it's all bad and rotten and nobody will engage in it', we are damning the democratic process. We have to try and try again to get the political process up from its knees and operating in such a way that people can have faith in its integrity and in the people who are engaged in it. To do that, my Party welcomes the full disclosure of funds. We want that. We do it in terms of our Party constitution. We hope that other political parties want to do that also, to make as transparent as possible the operation of political parties in this country. I understand the problems that the Liberal and National parties put up at the time against disclosure but they have not actually come about in practice. I do not think there are any reasons any longer why any political party should stand in the way of having tough, open and transparent disclosure laws. Senator BISHOP(New South Wales)(3.03) —In rising to speak in favour of the proposition put forward by Senator Short I think it is important to get back to the substance of the matter raised. Senator Macklin made an impassioned plea at the end of his speech that there was a need to maintain faith by the public in the political system. I put it to the Senate that the public has no such faith because it is being put asunder by the hypocrisy and cynicism that have been introduced into the political process by the Australian Labor Party (ALP), at both Federal and State level. The wording of Senator Short's proposition is that there is a need for the Government to ensure-the word is `ensure'-that there will be a public release of the report by the Australian Federal Police of its investigations into breaches. Senator Macklin said we should call them alleged breaches. Nobody can deny that breaches have occurred. It is the manner in which the breaches have occurred and how they are dealt with that are subject to investigation. We are looking at the breaches arising from the non-disclosure of the election campaign donation by Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd. So that we do not get confused by the rhetoric we heard from Senator Ray, I think it is important that I read to honourable senators the actual words of the letter that was sent with the $10,000 to one Mr Mick Young. The letter read as follows: Dear Mr Young, Harris-Daishowa has always felt that it is necessary to give support to candidates standing for election, both state and federal in our area and the company has no hesitation in helping with the cost of campaigns. In the past few years our federal member, Mr Jim Snow, has given the company support and in recent weeks Mr Snow has put in much time and effort to ensure that, if possible, the timber industry of the Eden-Monaro region should continue in its present form and not be adversely affected by those groups who would see the industry close down at any cost. The current pressure on both State and Federal governments by the `greenies' is having an adverse effect on the area with uncertainty of the future as to employment, general standards of living, and in many cases, a fear that family units will not survive in the area. You would be aware of the effort put in by Jim Snow at the recent Canberra demonstration and that Jim will be leading a delegation to see Premier Unsworth on June 17 to support the industry. We have pleasure in enclosing a cheque in support of the Labor Party's election campaign and we would respectfully suggest that this be directed to the Eden-Monaro promotion campaign account. We take this opportunity to wish your party success with the forthcoming election and, in particular, we wish Jim Snow every success and look forward to his continued strong support in the future. Yours faithfully, . . . The letter is signed by the Managing Director and the General Manager. I would have thought that that was pretty explicit, and I find it very hard to understand how, on 24 June, when that letter had been dated 11 June, Mr Loosley could have written back, saying: Mr Mick Young, MP, federal president of the ALP, has forwarded to me your donation, on behalf of Harris-Daishowa . . . to assist the New South Wales branch of the ALP in its administration. How can this very clever man, this same Mr Loosley, who was supposedly behind the clever strategy for the winning purposes of that Federal campaign, be so inept as to treat his correspondence in the manner of his name, namely, loosely? How could he be confused by a very specific letter that says: `Mr Snow has been helpful to the forest industry. We would like to see him retained because he is working against the greenies.'? How could Mr Loosley be confused by that and put it into an account so that nobody would know that money to fight the greenies had been accepted by the ALP? Perhaps the more reasonable explanation was the one that was originally given, the one that was subsequently denied, the one where Mr Loosley had said that he had seen Mr Young and Mr Young had said: `Here is a cheque for your administration account'. Is that not a more reasonable explanation that ought to be properly investigated? Look at the letter of 24 June when Mr Loosley wrote to the Managing Director of Harris-Daishowa and said: `Mr Young has forwarded me a donation'. Where is the copy of the letter, or indeed the letter itself, that forwarded the letter from Harris-Daishowa? It has never been seen. It has never come to light, which tends only to support the assumption that perhaps the cheque was transmitted in another way. A further point for investigation is the lapse of time between the change of story when Mr Loosley became the fall guy, when the New South Wales Right machine was told it had to cop it so that Mr Young could be off the hook. Where is the investigation of that lapse of time? These might be harsh words for a man who has now resigned, tough Mr Young, who as we heard from Senator Short is a man who survived first of all the allegations, the royal commission and the findings of Mr Justice Hope concerning his leaking to a mate of quite sensitive and important information about the security of our nation, and, secondly, when he survived the so-called Paddington Bear affair, where quite clearly there was a breach of the law which had caused two Ministers under the Liberal Administration of the day to resign in accordance with the Westminster system. Mr Young is a man who had become known as accident prone and who, having been so-called exonerated by the Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), finally tossed it in. Why? The proposition that we are looking at this afternoon is that the Government ensure that the Australian Federal Police report be published. In the public mind there are many questions to be answered, just as there are many questions to be answered in New South Wales. New South Wales has a long history, to use the words of former Senator Jim McClelland at a Press conference last Sunday when he spoke about the clandestine contracts entered into between the State Government and the Kumagai-Gumi organisation-- Senator Tate —Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I believe that the honourable senator is now straying a long way from the topic under discussion, which is the public disclosure of an Australian Federal Police report. I think you ought to ask her to stay within the bounds of relevance to the matter of public importance. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Burns) —I think the Minister for Justice, Senator Tate, has a point. I ask the honourable senator to stay within the bounds of the subject matter. Senator BISHOP —The material that I am referring to concerns the nexus with the Australian Labor Party (ALP) machine in New South Wales, which has become the fall-guy for the resignation of Mr Young. The matter to be investigated by the Federal Police may relate to a possible conspiracy or, indeed, a collusion between the machine of the New South Wales Right and the former Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs who, in the terms of the letter from Mr Loosley, forwarded the correspondence to him to deal with the money which had been sent to him as part of the ALP machine and which, under the terms of the Electoral Act, is required to be attested to by the agent. Indeed, it is Federal legislation. What I am discussing about what happens in New South Wales is clearly very pertinent to the investigation that is carried out into this matter. I was about to quote the former Senator Jim McClelland's comments, when he said of the New South Wales machine that there was a perception of a whiff of corruption. Those are the issues which need to be investigated. In that same perception of a whiff of corruption I also refer to the collusive agreement concerning the building of the Harbour tunnel, the usurping of power from State councils to deal with zoning applications, the proposal of this Federal Government-- Senator Bolkus —Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. I know the point has been raised already, but after reading the matter of public importance proposed by Senator Short relating to the investigation of breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act, I cannot imagine how, no matter what the nexus that Senator Bishop wants to stretch, no matter how wide and all-encompassing her imagination is and no matter how broadly she wants to approach the topic, the question of the Harbour tunnel can in any way come within the terms of reference of this matter. If we are looking at Harbour tunnels and bottom of the harbour schemes, we can have another matter of public importance about certain matters that the Liberal Administration was responsible for. This point that the honourable senator is making is widely outside the terms of reference. Senator Lewis —Mr Acting Deputy President, I raise a point of order. Senator Bolkus is wasting the speaker's time, which is why I did not respond to Senator Tate before. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! It seems to me that this chamber has allowed a fairly wide-ranging approach to many debates provided the points can be linked up. I believe Senator Bishop has done that, but I ask her not to range too wide. Senator BISHOP —Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I raised the matter of the Sydney Harbour tunnel and the usurping of the proper exercise of power and the proper tendering system for the simple reason that one of the main reasons for this investigation is that that whiff of perception of corruption arises from the fact that this cheque was conveniently hidden because it may have adversely affected the Labor Party's so-called pursuit of the greenie vote, which in the letter accompanying the cheque was clearly referred to as the reason for the cheque being forwarded. The conclusion that can be implicit in that sort of investigation is: If it has happened once, has it happened more than once? In New South Wales, which has become the fall guy for this whole sordid mess, there has been an attempt, in Senator Ray's rhetoric, to try to say `Well, everybody is a bit tainted'. He tried to say in his initial speech that the Labor Party had done something moralistically wonderful by introducing disclosure provisions. Let us go back to the cynicism and the hypocrisy. The former Minister Mr Young had the carriage of the legislation. He understood it well. Be under no illusion that the purpose of introducing the legislation in the first place was along the lines of the reasoning on which Neville Wran introduced optional preferential voting in New South Wales. It was meant to disadvantage one's opponent. Just like Neville Wran's optional preferential voting has backfired on the ALP in New South Wales, so has this so-called moralistic legislation backfired on the ALP in the Federal arena. We have never made any secret of the fact that we oppose the provisions that were introduced by the Labor Party. There is one very important point that distinguishes the political process in this country. It is that the ALP is the political wing of the trade union movement. A major funding of the Labor Party comes from the trade union movement, and the trade unions pay no tax. That means that every $50,000 donation to the ALP that comes from the trade union movement is the equivalent of the non-Labor parties having to raise $100,000 with tax paid on it. If members of the Labor Party were really interested in equity and fairness, they would be looking seriously, perhaps, at a proposition which is mine, and mine alone: that they make donations to political parties a tax deduction and thereby ensure disclosure. The fact of the matter is that this matter needs a thorough investigation because, in former Senator James McClelland's terms, there is a perception of a whiff of corruption, and we need to be assured that we will indeed see that report made public. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(3.17) —The Senate is discussing a matter of public importance raised by Senator Short in the following terms: The need for the Government to ensure the public release of the report by the Australian Federal Police of its investigations into breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act arising from the non-disclosure of an election campaign donation by Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd. The first thing to be said is that if it is not formally against standing orders for this allegation of breaches of the law to be made, certainly it is something which is quite improper to raise in this chamber. Indeed, it is quite clear that, recognising this, I believe, and in order to ensure that the Senate is not faced with the embarrassment of having a vote on this matter-which would have been the case if the matter had been raised by way of, say, an urgency motion or some such motion-the Opposition has decided to cast the matter as a matter of public importance, which does not require a vote. It would have been intolerable for this Senate chamber, composed as it is of elected representatives of the people from the various States and Territories, to set itself up as a tribunal to decide whether in fact breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act have occurred in this particular matter. To bring that allegation into the chamber by subterfuge, in other words, by way of a matter of public importance, is a very sad reflection on the Opposition, which obviously simply wishes to make allegations and political capital rather than deal with the matter in a fair-minded way. The fact is that Senator Short has made an allegation that breaches of the Commonwealth Electoral Act have occurred. That is precisely what the Australian Federal Police investigation is being conducted to ascertain-to accumulate information, intelligence and evidence towards reaching a conclusion on that matter. I take it that Senator Short, in a sense, is trying to unduly influence-although I am sure they will not be influenced on iota-the investigating officers in that investigation. Why did not the Opposition cast the matter of public importance in terms of alleged breaches, purported breaches or apparent breaches? The fact is that the Opposition has chosen to allege that breaches have occurred whilst they have not been established by the Australian Federal Police or by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in a preliminary way. The final or correct tribunal, if breaches are said to have occurred, is the court-when a conviction is recorded. Senator Short and the Opposition want to set themselves up as a substitute for the courts of this country. But not content with that, Senator Short, in the course of his remarks, alleged, concerning former minister Mick Young-and I took a note as he spoke-that he had falsely signed a Customs declaration. That is an allegation of a crime, a criminal offence. Mr Black, QC, who conducted the inquiry into Mick Young's involvement in the so-called Paddington Bear affair found: There was no impropriety in the actions of the Hon. M. J. Young. Mr Young did not at any stage use or attempt to use his official position to his advantage or to divert any person from the proper and impartial performance of his duty. I express no conclusion as to whether any breach of the law of the Commonwealth may have occurred. My reasons for taking this course appear in Part XII of this report. It should not be inferred that I make any finding that a breach of the law of the Commonwealth may have occurred in the actions of the Hon. M. J. Young. Senator Michael Baume —Is this the Black report? Senator TATE —It is the Black report. The fact finding and expression of opinion by Mr Black stands in absolute contradistinction to the statement by Senator Jim Short during this debate. But it is not to be wondered at because his own leader, Mr John Howard, in an interview on the World Today on 4 February 1988, when asked by Heather Ewart: `Is it proper for you to speculate like this, publicly, Mr Howard, when it is the subject of a police inquiry?', replied: There's no doctrine known to Australian or British law that says you can't canvass the merits of something like this while a police investigation is under way. That constraint only arises after some charge has been made. It may not technically be sub judice but clearly it is prejudice in the real sense of the word-prejudgment by the Opposition in the terms of the matter of public importance-on this matter. I will move to the questions raised more specifically in the matter of public importance. Unlike honourable senators on the other side, I do not intend to wander near and far. I will try to help the Senate understand the situation. The Australian Federal Police has acted in this matter on a specific request from the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)-not from the Government. The Government is not the complainant in this matter. The independent Australian Electoral Commission, without any political interference, directive or decision whatsoever, has made the complaint. It is known, therefore, as the complainant. The AFP has taken up the matter. This request was communicated to the AFP by the Electoral Commission on 2 February 1988. The AFP, at the end of its investigations, will decide to either recommend against prosecution or for prosecution. If a recommendation against prosecution is made, that will be contained in that confidential report which will be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions. I will come to his role in a moment. If a recommendation for prosecution is made, quite clearly the sub judice rule will apply, even to Mr Howard and his Opposition, in relation to all persons and documents surrounding the matter. It would not, therefore, be the proper subject for debate in this chamber, nor would it be proper to disclose that report, because obviously the disclosure of the police report, while the matter is before the DPP and then the courts, would be quite out of order. The point is that the result of the Federal Police investigation, one way or the other, whatever the conclusion, will be made available to the Director of Prosecutions. I do not think it will even be made available to the Australian Electoral Commission, which is the complainant. The report, as I said, will be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The independence of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is well known to all honourable senators. It is set up by statute of this Parliament. The booklet entitled Prosecution Policy of the Commonwealth dated January 1986 contains the following general statement: Perhaps the most significant change- in the setting up of the DPP- is the effective removal of the prosecution process from the political arena by affording the Director an independent status in that process. The Attorney-General as First Law Officer is responsible for the Commonwealth criminal justice system. He remains accountable to Parliament for decisions made in the prosecution process notwithstanding that those decisions are now in fact made by the Director and lawyers of the DPP, subject to any guidelines or directions which may be given by the Attorney-General pursuant to section 8 of the Act. One has only to look at the judicial recognition in Clyne v. the Attorney-General by Mr Justice Wilcox when he said: Parliament has given to the Director the power to determine for himself whether an indictment shall be filed and whether a prosecution shall be discontinued. He went on to say: The evident intention was to divorce the Government, and the Attorney-General in particular, from day-to-day decision making in those areas. I have given those quotations in full, which was perhaps somewhat tedious for those opposite. But I want to emphasise for those who may be listening that the Government will play absolutely no part in the decision whether or not to prosecute in relation to any matters arising out of this allegation of non-disclosure of an election campaign donation by Harris-Daishowa (Australia) Pty Ltd. Whether to prosecute is not a matter for government decision. If the DPP decides against prosecution it will be a matter for the DPP as to whether reasons are made public. If the DPP decides against prosecution, let it decide whether the reasons are to be made public. The DPP has a quite unfettered discretion in this regard. The Government cannot properly direct the DPP to give or not to give reasons for non-prosecution. The Government and I, certainly, have no intention whatsoever of interfering with the discretion of the Director of Public Prosecutions in this regard. It is for the Director of Public Prosecutions, if he decides not to prosecute, to decide subsequently whether or not to make his reasons for non-prosecution available to the general public. That is his role, not the Government's. If he makes a decision to prosecute, as I said, the matter will then be before the courts. It will be sub judice and there will be no question of publishing any sort of police report. That would be quite prejudicial to those proceedings. Given that sequence, it appears to me that the Government, represented either by me as the Minister responsible for the Australian Federal Police or Senator Ray as the Minister responsible for the AEC, will not be presented with the police report. I have now been Special Minister of State and then Minister for Justice for just over 12 months-plus this week, which feels like 12 months-and in all that time I cannot recall ever seeing a police report on my desk. I have had transmitted to me the conclusions of an investigation but I have never seen a police report. I do not want to see one and, as far as I am concerned, I have no reason to expect that the Australian Federal Police report into this matter will ever be made available to me as the Minister for Justice responsible for the Australian Federal Police. We are dealing in this instance with quite autonomous institutions which are quite properly jealous of their integrity, namely, the Australian Electoral Commission as the complainant-not the Government-the Australian Federal Police as the investigating officers and the Director of Public Prosecutions, who will make the decision as to whether to prosecute. The Government will play no part in that series of decisions, which may or may not lead to a case being presented to a court for decision. The request that the Government make this particular report available I do not think will arise in the sense that I do not know which responsible Minister would ever have the report made available to him. The fact is that I think it would also be somewhat dangerous for a government to be in a position where it could decide from time to time which police report it might wish to divulge or disclose to the public and which not, particularly if a police report and then subsequently the decision of the DPP were that it did not reveal such matters or admissible evidence as should lead to a prosecution. For a government then to decide, nevertheless, to release the report publicly I would have thought would have filled senators with misgivings. Obviously one would be revealing much material of a prejudicial character which could well have the tendency to defame or impugn the integrity of persons who were caught up in or the subject of those investigations. The short answer is, as I think was indicated by Senator Robert Ray at Question Time during the earlier part of this week, that though we were uncertain exactly where the report might go we were both fairly clear that it would not go to Senator Robert Ray as the Government Minister or to myself as the Minister for Justice. I do not believe, therefore, that the Government, even if it were so minded, can be in a position to ensure the public release of this report. I have indicated and constantly reiterated that the question of the release of reasons why a prosecution should not go ahead is in the hands of the quite independent Director of Public Prosecutions established by this Parliament. It is in the hands of Mr Ian Temby and his absolutely independent officials that that decision is entrusted. I believe that that is the proper course of events and procedures in a democracy and I would think it highly unlikely that the Government would ever be in a position to present this police report to the public. Senator MICHAEL BAUME(New South Wales)(3.32) —The Australian Labor Party (ALP) has put out an official handbook for candidates in the coming election. It states: The candidate should always look good, appear tidy and display all of the cliche clean cut characteristics. use a deodorant, bathe or shower regularly, during intensive campaigning showering 3 or more times a day. May I say that no deodorant and certainly no public washing of their dirty linen can remove the stench of corruption from the Labor Party in New South Wales. This Mick Young-Stephen Loosley scandal is simply the latest example of that corruption. The reason that there is a need for the police report to be made public is very simple: the facts of this matter need to be presented to the people of Australia. It is not simply a legal issue; it is an issue of morality and decency in politics that is involved. The fact that there may well be or may well not be a case for someone to answer is almost incidental. It is a question of what is proper behaviour for a political party, what is the decent way for a political party to behave. That is at issue here. Clearly that point is not one that can be understood, let alone addressed by the Labor Government in this place, just as the concept of decency is far beyond the understanding of the Labor Government in New South Wales. So we have here the incredible humbug, the extraordinary hypocrisy of Senator Robert Ray coming into this place complaining that the Liberal-National coalition had used some device to get around the law by providing some money through Canberra and that this was somehow disgraceful. I remind Senator Robert Ray that the coalition has always opposed this kind of legislation. It has regarded it as nonsensical and it has quite properly used legal arrangements to avoid the sorts of nonsense which we have said would follow from the passing of this kind of law. I stress that we have always used legal arrangements. The fascinating situation is that the Labor Party which wrote the law not only used legal devices to get around it but it has also used illegal methods, and that is what this issue is all about. Before we move away from the legal devices, let us deal once again with the hypocrisy of Senator Robert Ray. How dare he come into this place and criticise the coalition for having raised election funds through Canberra as he did and make great political play. I would like to read a document signed by a Mr Robert Francis McMullan dated 30 November 1987. Mr Robert Francis McMullan is now Senator McMullan. I stress that this document, which comes from the Federal ALP, lists as a contribution to the last election campaign funds an amount of $1,946,348.19 from a company called ALP Legacies and Gifts Ltd of 22 Brisbane Avenue, Barton, ACT 2600. That is a front organisation through which the Labor Party channels donations in order to avoid the requirements of the law. If it is disgraceful and dishonest-as it is according to Senator Robert Ray-for the Liberal and National parties to legally make that kind of arrangement, how is it morally pure and beautiful for Robert Ray and his henchmen up the back to have come to this kind of deal? Those opposite were not content with using legality, using the back door; they just trampled through the front door illegally because that is the style that this Labor Party-- Senator Bolkus —I raise a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. From what Senator Michael Baume has just been saying there is a very clear allegation of illegality by back bench members of this Parliament whom he also described as henchmen which, I believe, is also in breach of Standing Orders. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —I raise a point of order, Madam Acting Deputy President. Senator Bolkus —Could I address my point of order first? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Powell) —I will first take the point of order from Senator Bolkus. Senator Bolkus —There are two specific aspersions on backbenchers in this Parliament. The first is that they are henchmen and the second is that they are involved in illegalities. I ask the honourable member to withdraw both of those comments. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —I ask Senator Michael Baume to withdraw the allegation in reference to the comment about illegality at least. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —Madam Acting Deputy President, I made no allegation about illegality against Senator McMullan or any other honourable senator here. I said that they had used a legal device to get around the law. Senator Bolkus —Read what you said in the Hansard. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —The allegation of illegality that I made relates to this matter which is for debate here. It is the breach of the Commonwealth Electoral Act. Whether it is a breach that will warrant prosecution is another matter. That is the matter we are debating. The issue here is that there has been a clear, uncomplicated breach in the Harris-Daishowa matter. There can be no argument about that, and certainly no withdrawal from some phoney point of order by the desperate Minister on the other side of the Senate who got to the front bench only as the result of a sordid deal between the factions of the Labor Party. The reality is that there has been a breach, and the inquiry is to determine whether there should be any legal prosecutions emerging from that breach. Senator Collins —It has not been determined that there has been a breach. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —The fact that the money was put into the wrong account is not seen by the Labor Party as a breach. I understand its morality. I can understand why it would respond in that way. If there is a clear instruction that the money should go to a campaign fund and then it is switched to the maintenance and administration fund, obviously the Labor Party would not regard that as a breach. That is evident from the way it has behaved. What arrogance and contempt for the law! Naturally the honourable senator does not regard it as a breach because the Labor Party itself shows that it does not. Mr Young is quoted on 3 February as saying that there had been no breach of the Act. The fascinating part reads: He said there would only have been a breach if the money had been spent for campaign purposes after it had been directed to the Labor Party's administration account. What happened was exactly the opposite. What they did was to divert money, clearly indicated and determinedly stated, that was supposed to go for the election campaign and for the Jim Snow campaign, who, I might say, was effectively snowed by his Party because he got only six grand out of the 10. Interestingly, Mr Young has said that there was no breach because even though it was used for the wrong purpose the Act says, according to him, that it is a breach only if the money had been spent for campaign after it had been directed to the Labor Party's administration account. He said that there had been a misunderstanding and that he shared in the misunderstanding that had taken place. The misunderstanding was with Mr Loosley. Mick Young has declared himself innocent. The Prime Minister (Mr Hawke), Senator Ray and everyone have declared him innocent. They have been the judge and jury and have declared him innocent. Yet if we dare to say that there has been a breach of the Act we are somehow behaving disgracefully by suggesting that there is a possibility that someone has done something wrong by deliberately doing something that gets around the Act. The double standards, hypocrisy and dishonesty of this Labor Government in this matter and in its whole administration are exactly the same as the fraud and dishonesty that exist in the New South Wales State Labor Government. It is incredible. Only a week or so ago Michelle Grattan commented in the Age newspaper: . . . the dubious handling of the woodchip donation reinforces all the bad things that are thought about the ALP Right wing. It brings back memories of the smell that emanated from the Wran Government. How right she is. As I said last night in another debate, I can recall meeting Rex Jackson, who presently resides in the Berrima prison in New South Wales in what used to be a very good electorate when I represented it. Senator Bolkus —They got rid of you. Senator MICHAEL BAUME —The electorate was divided up by Senator Bolkus's lot so that I could not get back. I saw Rex Jackson in the street outside the State office block. I was in company with a most reputable person who can certainly support my recollection of this matter. After I asked Rex Jackson how he would go with all the problems he was facing he said to me, `I think I'll be all right. In fact, I know I'll be all right. If I go they'll need a new Premier of New South Wales within a week'. What incredible prescience Mr Rex Jackson had because one week before the Jackson trial started, lo and behold, there was a new Premier of New South Wales. Whether that was pure coincidence I have no idea, but it does seem that Mr Jackson lost whatever leverage he thought he had in respect of not ending up in the cooler on the departure of Mr Neville Wran. I underline the point made by Michelle Grattan in the Age that there is that stench, that feeling-the smell that emanated from the Wran Government. The New South Wales Right has argued that it is not all that bad, that Loosley would not have done anything wrong over the woodchip cheque because the machine would not sin on such a small scale so incompetently. That is the only defence: it was so incompetently done that it would not have done it. It was done because of desperation. It was done because there was an urgent need for something to be done to save Mick Young and Loosley was the fall guy. It may well be he was only too well aware of what the letter said and what Mr Young had instructed him to do either in the knowledge or without the knowledge of that letter. There are many facts which must come out in this matter which have not yet come out. That is why the police report must be revealed to the people of Australia, so that they can judge the morality of the Party which occupies the benches opposite and which is soon to be defeated in the State election in New South Wales because it has lost touch with the people and with morality. The PRESIDENT —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. The PRESIDENT —It being 3.45 p.m., under sessional order I put the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 3.45 p.m.