Friday, 14 October 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: To the Honourable President of the Senate and Senators in Parliament assembled: We, the undersigned citizens of Australia, strongly urge that the Australian Government prohibit the entry of nuclear-armed or nuclear-powered vessels into Australian ports or waters during our bicentennial celebrations and at any other time in the future. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Powell (from 200 citizens). To the Honourable the President and Senators in Parliament assembled; the humble petition of the undersigned citizens showeth: that your petitioners deplore the Federal Government's decision to remove 53 Pharmaceutical drugs-including the best available for the treatment of high blood pressure, cancer, epilepsy, high cholesterol and uneven heartbeat-and place them, for cost saving reasons only, on a special list requiring Authority from a Canberra Bureaucrat, and; that we believe a patient's doctor is clearly the best judge for medication needed for their particular illness and that is is therefore wrong and unfair to force that doctor to waste valuable time referring a case to a person in Canberra who has no personal knowledge of that case. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senators in Parliament assembled will call on the Government to immediately abandon the proposal and keep its election promise of high quality and universal health care for all Australians. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senators Michael Baume (from 342 citizens), Calvert (from 11 citizens) and Panizza (from 148 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate of the Commonwealth Parliament assembled: The petition of these residents of the Commonwealth of Australia Respectfully showeth that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation provides the citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia with the only nation-wide, independent radio and television service that the independence of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation must be preserved in the interests of the citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia that the introduction of commercial sponsorship or any form of advertising material from commercial sources, would destroy the independence of the Corporation. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Honourable Senators will oppose the introduction of any form of sponsorship or advertising material from commercial sources into the programmes of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray by Senator Alston (from 20 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled; the humble petition of the undersigned citizens respectively showeth: that while having some reservations on individual aspects of the Constitutional Initiative (Electors Initiative) 1987 your petitioners wish to express our strong support for the concept of people's democracy implied in that Bill. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled will Refer the above mentioned Bill to an appropriate Parliamentary Committee and will examine the operation of direct democracy procedures overseas with the intention of passing legislation granting such facilities to your petitioners during the Bicentennial year. Your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Jones (from 20 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 Australia is one nation which comprises people from many different racial and cultural backgrounds; that a Treaty with one of these peoples-the Aborigines-would be divisive and would be equivalent to the setting up of a separate nation; that a Treaty could lead to the introduction of a national system of land rights; that we are totally opposed to the signing of a Treaty with the Aboriginal people. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senators Crichton-Browne (from 209 citizens) and Jones (from 10 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: We, the undersigned, (i) are alarmed that many sporting, cultural and community groups have been made to feel that they can attract sponsorship only from promoters of unhealthy products; (ii) call for a National Health Promotion Foundation to be established through an increase in tobacco excise of 10 cents per packet; and (iii) urge that the National Health Promotion Foundation provide national sporting, cultural and community groups with alternative sponsorship funding so that these groups can flourish without the taint of accepting money from tobacco companies and assisting in the promotion of their unhealthy products. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Jones (from 32 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate assembled. The Petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that . . . 1. The Watsonia Army Barracks contains electronic communication facilities, operated by Australian and American personnel, that gives the United States the ability to pin-point Soviet nuclear submarines, hidden in the Oceans. 2. This would make it possible for U.S. killer-submarines to destroy all Soviet nuclear submarines, while the U.S. nuclear submarines launch their missiles in a ``first strike'' attack. This makes Watsonia a potential nuclear target. A nuclear attack on Watsonia would have a disastrous effect on Melbourne. 3. The ``joint U.S.-Australian'' bases in Australia endanger rather than protect us. They also add a new menace to nuclear arms race, that must be stopped. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should close the ``Joint Australian-U.S.'' Electronic Communication Facilities in the Watsonia army barracks. by Senator Zakharov (from 106 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 gold mining industry is a vibrant expanding industry which provides employment for many Australians; the gold mining industry provides valuable export income which contributes to a stronger balance of trade and Australian dollar, and thus a higher standard of living for all Australians; the Federal Government's proposal to introduce a tax on gold mining represents a threat to an industry which is vital to Australia's future; and we call on the Federal Government to withdraw its proposal for a tax on gold. As in duty bound your petitioners will ever pray. by Senator Crichton-Browne (from 133 citizens). To the Honourable the President of the Senate and members of the Senate in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: That we are gravely concerned at the Government's proposal to reduce significantly the pension and access to fringe benefits of persons who in good faith bought market linked insurance bonds, friendly society bonds, approved deposit funds, deferred annuities, and unit trusts to protect their savings. Your petitioners request that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, amend the proposed legislation to ensure that it will not apply retrospectively and that provision be made to protect savings against inflation. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Senator Calvert (from 35 citizens). To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: (1) That we are totally opposed to the proposal for the establishment of a gambling casino in Canberra or the Australian Capital Territory. (2) That a casino in Canberra would detract from the unique character and status of our National Capital. Your petitioners therefore most humbly request the Senate and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia to reject any proposal or legislation which would permit the establishment of a casino in the Australian Capital Territory. And your humble petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Bjelke-Petersen (from 56 citizens). To the Honourable President and the members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petitioners of the undersigned citizens of Australia wish to draw to the attention of Honourable Senators the cynical and cruel oppression of ethnic minorities in Transylvania by the Romanian Government through the forceful relocation of village dwellers so that their villages can be demolished and used for collective farms. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament should urge the Australian Government to put diplomatic pressure on the Romanian Government to refrain from this savage act and leave these unfortunate people in their villages where they and their forefathers lived. And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Jones (from 37 citizens). Petitions received. Senator McGAURAN(Victoria) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the Senate- (a) notes the funding crisis of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) due to a 32 per cent reduction in Government funding over the past 5 years including a 33 per cent loss in the research capacity of the Division of Plant Industry and a 50 per cent cut in the budget of the Division of Animal Production; (b) condemns the Federal Government for its entirely inadequate response to this crisis by merely establishing yet another committee of inquiry when Australia has already had 3 major inquiries into the CSIRO and research over the past 3 years; and (c) calls on the Government to restore funding of the CSIRO to a level adequate to ensure the technological development and international competitiveness of Australia's agricultural and other industries. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice) —I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move: That the following Bill be introduced: A Bill for an Act to make provision to protect the privacy of individuals, and for related purposes. Senator VALLENTINE(Western Australia) —by leave-I claim to have been misrepresented by Senator Newman in the adjournment debate on 12 October. She said of me: She is not at all interested in the defence of Australia. That is totally incorrect. I am vitally interested in the defence of Australia, but my definition of defence is based only on defensive capabilities; it does include offensive capabilities. Just because my interpretation of defence does not concur with Senator Newman's she ought not to conclude that I have no interest in the subject. On another occasion, on 29 September, I was misrepresented in this chamber by Senator Crichton-Browne, who criticised my absence from the chamber and wrongly accused me of being in my room scribbling anti-American notes. That is not so; I was at the time in a defence subcommittee meeting. Another misrepresentation from Senator Newman on 12 October was her statement that my recent time in gaol was a stunt. Does Senator Newman really think that I enjoy going to gaol for a stunt? She and other senators obviously need some education about civil disobedience which, in my case, was a carefully considered, principled position to make the strongest possible witness against the Australian Government's involvements in preparations for the use of nuclear weapons by hosting the United States spy base at Pine Gap. I remind Senator Newman and other colleagues that she would not be sitting here now if suffragettes had not committed civil disobedience to win votes for women; nor would we enjoy religious freedom today but for the efforts of those prepared to put themselves at risk, outside the law, to win that freedom. Motion (by Senator Robert Ray)-by leave-proposed: That, not withstanding anything contained in the Sessional Orders and unless otherwise ordered, Question Time take place at 11.30 a.m. this day. Senator Chaney-Mr President, I seek clarification on a point. Under the motion as it stands, will we adjourn for lunch post Question Time or will we continue sitting for a quarter of an hour? It would be of some assistance to know what the position is. The PRESIDENT —Usually on a Friday the sitting is suspended from 1 to 2 p.m. Senator Chaney-So we will sit between 12.30 and 1 p.m.? The PRESIDENT —That is as I understand it. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senator JENKINS(Western Australia)(9.07) —I move: That the Casino Control Ordinance 1988, as contained in Australian Capital Territory Ordinance No. 72 of 1988, made under the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910, be disallowed. Five times in the last 12 years-in 1977, 1979, 1981, 1983 and now in 1988-a casino has been proposed for Canberra. Each time so far, the clear opposition of the residents of Canberra has killed the proposal. The opposition to a casino has not been simply because Canberra residents do not want this sort of development in their own backyard, with all its associated problems. The opposition to a casino has come from people all over Australia who have an ideal or a vision of how the nation's capital should be. Both these groups of Australians have been consistently ignored and insulted in the current casino debate. In the first place, the Australian Democrats believe that a decision of such importance to a community must be made by the people in that community. I remind honourable senators that it is to be hoped that in the very near future the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) will have its own Assembly to make this sort of decision. This time the ACT casino proposal was dreamed up by the then Minister, Mr John Brown, who introduced it into the major section 19 development proposal for the city of Canberra. There was no consultation with the local community-not even, I believe, with the locally elected representatives for the ACT. On 18 April 1988, I asked a question in this place of the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories (Senator Richardson), in his capacity as Minister representing the Minister for the Arts and Territories. I asked whether the Minister was aware of the results of a poll conducted by a Canberra newspaper. The Minister said in his answer that one should read the results of any poll in conjunction with the reading of the methodology adopted in the poll. I must admit that I have criticised some polls myself, regarding them as shonky. I make no claims for the precise accuracy of the newspaper poll in question, the results of which were published on 23 February this year. I would allow considerable leeway in interpreting these results. I would accept that the methodology adopted by the pollsters tends to bring out those people of strong views while leaving the silent majority unmoved. Having said all this, I believe that no Minister could ignore a sample of 2,500 residents of whom 77 per cent voted `no casino'. I suggest that the Minister's caution about these results was quite reasonable. But I also suggest that the Minister's figures for the casino, provided in answer to one of my questions earlier this year-he referred to millions of dollars and thousands of jobs-need even more caution. But I will return to the costs and benefits of the casino later. Why do the people of Canberra object to the notion of a casino? It is easy enough to brush their objections aside and say they are negative, opposed to developments or anti-everything. One time Territories Minister Punch, speaking to Pru Goward on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation morning show in March of this year said: Well, I think some of these issues have got to be explained, Pru. I mean, this opposition to the casino is, I think, more wowser based than anything else. I think that's what it's all about. That was the public view of the Minister responsible for the ACT, Gary Punch, who said that opposition is wowser based. There may be some so-called wowsers out there who oppose the casino. There may be a large group of people who presumably the Minister would describe as wowsers-that is, people who sincerely believe that gambling in itself is wrong. I guess that those of us who oppose the casino find ourselves in strange mixed company. The so-called wowsers who oppose the casino include Senator John Stone, all those people who love Canberra for the gracious city that it is but who see a casino as totally inappropriate for such a city, and 68 per cent of members of the ACT branch of the Liberal Party. I would like to quote a letter which was written on 1 July 1977 during an earlier casino campaign by Sir Robert Menzies to J. H. Bradbury. It states: My Government engaged in a lot of hard thought, and some little imagination, for the purpose of making Canberra a Capital City of which all Australians could be proud. . . . . . . . . . I am horrified to find that proposals are now being made to establish a Casino in Canberra. Such an establishment would, no doubt, attract some gambling tourists and, in a small way, convert Canberra into a sort of Las Vegas. Nothing could be more inconsistent with the existence of a dignified National Capital. I therefore hope that you will have success in your campaign, in which I am entirely on your side. . . . . . . . . . My feelings about the matter at issue are very strong, because I have been foolish enough to think that the development of Canberra as a real National Capital might be regarded as one of my better deeds. The proponents of the ACT casino, who appear to include the developers themselves, representatives of some parts of the building industry, along with certain members of the Labor Government, have gone to some pains to persuade us that the people of the ACT want a casino as part of the overall development of the central Civic area. In August of this year the Canberra Association for Regional Development, known as CARD, commissioned McNair Anderson to conduct a survey on its behalf. Once again I remind honourable senators of the caution given by Senator Richardson about the methodology of polls. However, the usually reliable Canberra Times on Friday, 2 September had a heading on page 1 which stated `Most favour Civic project'. On page 2 the headline became `Majority favour casino'. I remind honourable senators of the poll result. While a clear majority of Canberrans strongly favoured the further development of the city centre and especially the development of a theatre and a library, an equally clear majority specified that the feature about the proposal which they specially disliked was `the casino'; so the casino is especially disliked. All honourable senators as well as members of the other place who conscientiously read their incoming mail will recall a letter dated 19 August of this year. It reads: We, the undersigned are opposed to a casino for Canberra, and call for the casino ordinance to be disallowed. There were more than 30 signatories to this letter. The signatories were representative of the most influential groups in the community. They represent some of the people whom the ex-Minister denigrated as wowsers. The signatories include the President of the Baptist churches; the Administrator of the Anglican Church Diocese; the Chairman of the Canberra Presbytery of the Uniting Church in Australia; the Catholic Archbishop of Canberra; the chairperson of the ACT Women's Consultative Committee; the director of the ACT Council of Social Service; the secretary of the ACT National Council of Women; the principal counsellor of the Australian National University; the spokeswoman of the Women's Electoral Lobby; and it goes on and on. In fact these people represent more than 30 organisations. These people represent much of the responsible and caring opinion in Canberra. We are told by the casino proponents and a succession of Ministers that the casino is a good thing because it will bring prosperity to the city of Canberra. They tell us that any unpleasant consequences of having a casino would be more than outweighed by the benefits. This theory simply does not stand up to examination in the light of what has happened in other parts of Australia. Casinos are simply not economically as wonderful as the Minister for the Arts and Territories (Mr Holding) would have us believe. The first Australian casino at Wrest Point in Tasmania-the first legal casino of course-has had a well documented history of boom and decline. While it is still paying its way, its contribution to the economy of Tasmania is far smaller than predicted. Its contribution to the quality of life in Hobart is debatable. There are casinos scattered all around Australia. There is no particular reason to suppose that a casino in Canberra would bring a single tourist to Canberra who is not coming to Canberra anyway. A casino is no longer a tourist draw in itself. A tourist coming to Canberra who loses money at the casino in all probability-this is documented in Queensland-would cut short his Canberra visit rather than prolong it. The money going to the casino would be of less value to the local economy than if it were to be spent in some locally owned and managed enterprise. Casinos simply do not do as well in Australia as they have been expected to do. Honourable senators will recall that at the July conference in Canberra of the National Association of Gambling Studies, it was stated that casinos are not successful as a catalyst for international tourism. It was doubted whether domestic tourists travel specifically to visit a casino. Let us consider the market analysis offered by well known Sydney stockbrokers James Capel Rivkin, which referred in a document dated May 1987 to the three casinos-Jupiters on the Gold Coast, Breakwater in Townsville and Burswood in Perth: The three listed casino trusts looked like good investments until they began to operate. The sharemarket's initial enthusiasm turned to disgust as all three failed to meet their prospectus forecasts. Again and again the various Ministers over a series of years have claimed that the proposed library and theatre development cannot happen without a casino. I am persuaded absolutely that the Australian Capital Territory will benefit from having a lyric theatre despite reports in the Canberra Times earlier this year which stated: Does Canberra need a 2000 seat theatre which would have been used nine times over the past two years- according to Mr Dawkins's account- For any `great city' more important than the size of its theatres is the quality of plays it can produce. As I said, I am convinced that the Australian Capital Territory will benefit from having a lyric theatre. There is no rational, essential or logical connection between a casino and a theatre or a casino and a library. The Minister has challenged his critics to come up with the money for these developments if there is no casino. Do I have to remind the Minister that Canberra is the capital of Australia and that it should have, for this reason alone, cultural facilities as good as any in Australia for its own citizens and in order to be a showplace for the world. Even though the Minister asserts that relevant land values will be enhanced by the presence of a casino and that entrepreneurs will hurry to put in their bids, this is no more than an assertion. I come now to the very important question of jobs. Certain sections of the building industry have been very vocal on the subject of jobs. The argument has often resembled the argument in defence of building that celebrated dam on the Franklin River; in other words, we must build the dam because otherwise the work force would be unemployed. However, there has never been an answer to the question: What will happen when it is finished? Of course, on the basis of this sort of argument a project can later turn out to have been misguided and misconceived from the start. If the building trades need a casino for jobs, what will they do when the casino is completed? Will they build another casino? If, as has been mooted, they would then be offered jobs on the proposed National Museum, for example, why not start that project now? There are a number of alternatives of that sort. For example, there is the Royal Canberra Hospital, which notoriously is in need of refurbishing. Potentially there is the very fast train project and its associated infrastructure, to be provided, incidentally, by private enterprise. These are some of the areas which the building unions should be looking at. There is also the ongoing development of inner Canberra itself. If, after genuine community discussions, this is truly found to be necessary and desirable, for reasons other than of providing jobs, I put it to honourable senators that builders should not find themselves in this position. A proper building program should have been set up well in advance. If the ACT community accepted that the inner city development should proceed, it would receive a full measure of capital sum and annual rating financial benefits from the disposal of the section 19 site to private development interests without building a casino. This should be a matter of sensible town planning. There is a strong argument that the National Museum would be at least as financially beneficial to the people of the ACT from the tourist point of view as a casino. While no vast sums of money would cross the museum tables, a venue of this sort would certainly persuade tourists to spend more time in Canberra. It would represent a gain in real terms for the whole of the hospitality infrastructure. While the social impact study set up by the Minister was instructed not to consider the economic aspects of the casino proposal, the study team made extensive use of the Jebb report regarding the supply of hotel accommodation in the context of the hotel-casino complex. However, I note that the Canberra Accommodation Industry Association submission argued strongly against increased up-market hotel accommodation for Canberra as the industry has reported poor occupancy figures as part of a consistent trend. In fact, the current trend is towards comfortable but economic hotels such as the new Greetings chain. I have briefly looked at some of the economic proposals for the casino, but I did this with some reluctance not because I am not concerned about the economic impact or the need for any major projects for Canberra, but because I believe that it is not what this particular argument should be based on. Presumably, jobs would be provided now and in the future if we built a smelter, a brothel or a power station on section 19. However, that would be an inappropriate use of a main section of the nation's capital. It would be an inappropriate use of this section of lands which is situated at one of the vertices of the Parliamentary Triangle. I put it to honourable senators that a casino is equally inappropriate, especially in that central area of our capital. Various Ministers have argued at various times during this debate that gambling is a part of the fabric of Australian society and that, therefore, a casino would make no substantial difference. But I guess that brothels, pornography, and drugs and alcohol, unfortunately, are also part of the fabric of Australian society. If a glass of wine with dinner does no harm, do we encourage wholesale boozing? No. We do not go along that path. We do not offer the easy means to massive addiction. Senator Tate —Not very convincing, Senator. Senator JENKINS —I am afraid that I regard that as a valid argument. In many ways Canberra is a beautiful city. It is spacious and clean and its architecture ranges from monumental, to cosy suburban, to post-modern brutalism in some of the office buildings. The town plan evolved into a cluster of discrete communities, each with its own character and each with its own community feeling. I must say, as a Western Australian, that I admire the sense of purpose and community spirit which typifies Canberra and I contrast the concrete jungle which is central Perth with the clean squares of Civic, with its original human scale buildings still intact. But Canberra, say the critics, is dull: there is no soul and no night life. I suspect that this criticism is largely made by outsiders. I add that Canberra seems to me to lack something of the vibrant 24-hour-a-day activity of, say, Carlton in Melbourne, or Fremantle or North Perth in Western Australia. But night life in these places is characterised by a multiplicity of many small restaurants, coffee houses, pubs and theatres. There is a sense of metropolitan style and a great awareness of one's neighbours. So I doubt very much whether a casino would contribute to night life, other than within its own doors. It is remarkable how the advertising image of casinos differs from reality. I make no claim to an encyclopaedic knowledge of casinos, but I and my staff have visited casinos both in Australia and overseas and, typically, the advertising depicts a happy crowd of people having a good time and winning lots of money. But in fact a casino is a machine which is designed to make money out of people's pockets as rapidly as possible, otherwise there would be a great loss to the casino itself; and I can assure honourable senators that it is not there to lose money. A casino is an unusual form of business in that it creates nothing and has no product. It really does not even provide entertainment, except as a peripheral attraction to entice customers through its doors. Documentation from Queensland suggests an almost dickensian reality of broken families, abandoned children and penniless holidaymakers appealing to overstrained welfare organisations. Experience from Perth suggests that the single type of small business which prospers in the vicinity of the casino is the pawn broker, and so many of those have grown up in the vicinity of the Burswood Island Casino in Perth. They are flourishing, with expensive television adverts and a fine selection of goods. The previous Minister for the Arts and Territories, Mr Punch, established a social impact study for the proposed casino, but this was not intended to examine the option of a casino. He said: That's real dollars, it's jobs, it's security, it's private enterprise for Canberra and, as I've said, we're determined it's going to go ahead. The idea of the social impact study is quite simply to stop any of the potentially bad aspects of it from starting up. In other words, as far as the Minister was concerned, the casino was a fait accompli. How does the Minister anticipate that the potentially bad aspects of a casino will be eliminated? Unlike compulsive alcohol or drug abuse, compulsive gambling is easily concealed until there is some sort of crisis. The social impact study noted that it was therefore exceedingly difficult to determine the number of excessive gamblers betting on the poker machines, at the Totalisator Agency Board and other gambling facilities here in Canberra. The number is estimated, by extrapolation from membership of Gamblers Anonymous, to be anything from 752 to 5,000. Gamblers Anonymous further states that each excessive gambler causes significant harm to 10 other people in his or her life. Honourable senators may have read a letter from E. F. Frohlich of the Society of St Vincent de Paul written to the Canberra Times and published on 26 September. In this letter he quoted from the senior social worker of Lifeline, Gold Coast, Queensland: Our workload has increased about 10 per cent that we are aware of, due to the casino's operation . . . Our increased workload is in the form of both individual and marital counselling related to gambling and welfare-assistance requests. The really noticeable aspect of casino gambling versus other forms of gambling is the very large amounts of money lost, including total losses of all savings and even assets. . . . We have counselled many people who have lost their homes, businesses and marriages since the opening of the casino. More often, people will be currently struggling with a gambling habit they've created since the casino opened and which now impacts adversely on their marriage and family life and their standard of living. . . . . . . . . . Despite these limitations to our knowledge, we are aware of many individual client's distress and this mixed with the massive profits being shown by the casino has to lead to a conclusion that deep and widespread personal and financial destruction is being done in our community because of a casino . . . The social impact study received much criticism as being no more than a whitewash operation for an already firm decision. To their credit, the members of the study team were keenly aware of this. Indeed, they reportedly likened the study to condensing a three-year PhD thesis into three months. The social impact study was short of time. The members were given a very limiting brief and they were not empowered to call and cross-examine witnesses. For the definitive view of a casino in Australia, the Victorian report of the Board of Inquiry into Casinos is outstanding. This report, which is known as the Connor report, was delivered to the Victorian Parliament in 1983. The report recommended that no casino be permitted in Victoria. In his ministerial statement, the then Attorney-General, Mr John Cain, quoted Connor's definitions of four distinct types of casinos: the maximum revenue casino, the single entertainment-convention centre casino, the resort casino and the so-called unobtrusive casino. Mr Cain was concerned that the larger casinos would be almost impossible to operate without the incursion of organised crime. I quote from the report: (c) resort casinos should be able, with difficulty and expense and eternal vigilance, to operate free of organised crime; While the unobtrusive casino, which is not totally irrelevant to the present debate, should have the best prospects of operating crime free, I also quote from Mr Connor's conclusions regarding the so-called resort casinos, which I believe to be the most relevant to the situation in the Australian Capital Territory: I recommend that resort casinos not be established in Victoria for the following reasons: (a) they would be likely to stimulate casino gambling to an unacceptable degree; (b) there is no substantial demonstrable demand for them; (c) it would not be possible to rule out with confidence that they would operate free of organised crime and street crime; (d) they are not, by comparison with certain other forms of gambling, likely to be efficient producers of revenue for the State of Victoria. I repeat that the Connor report was the result of the fullest and most exhaustive inquiry into the whole question of casinos. Mr Cain said: Its conclusions are clear, unequivocal and strong. The Government has considered the Report and decided that no casinos will be introduced into this State. The issue of introduction of casinos into Victoria is now closed. Both the Connor report and the much smaller ACT study looked exhaustively at the issue of organised crime and there are continuous hints and suggestions that several well-known figures, alleged to be connected with organised crime, are also connected with casinos. Two further aspects must be noted very briefly. Canberra is the nation's capital. This not only gives the city a certain character and its town planners certain obligations, but it also determines to a large degree the demographic make-up of the city. Canberra is the city of political power and therefore it is dangerous for any additional avenue of corruption to be introduced. The impact study reported. The political and economic stakes could be very high indeed if even one instance of criminal infiltration or political corruption occurs in Canberra. In conclusion, the developers want a casino-but casinos do not attract tourists; casinos do not bring in significant outside money; casinos do take local money and put it in the pockets of outside operators; casinos do attract the attention of organised crime; casinos are not necessary for enlightened town planning. Do the people of the ACT want or need a casino? The answer to that is most definitely no. But, above all, a gambling casino is totally inappropriate for the beautiful city of Canberra, the capital of the Commonwealth of Australia. Debate (on motion by Senator Tate) adjourned. Bills received from the House of Representatives. The PRESIDENT —Messages have been received from the House of Representatives forwarding the Corporations Bill 1988 and 15 related Bills for which the House requests the concurrence of the Senate. A list of the Bills has been distributed to honourable senators in the chamber. Before calling the Minister, I advise that because of the bulk of the documentation, the largest Bill, the Corporations Bill, is in four volumes and runs to 982 pages and its explanatory memorandum runs to 1,061 pages. The usual practice of distributing the Bills and the explanatory memoranda to each senator in the chamber will not be followed in this instance. Senators can, on request to the Table Office, have the Bills sent to their offices. The chamber attendants have copies available for those who require the Bills at their desks in the chamber. Senators will note that some of the Bills were amended in the House of Representatives. I am advised that, because of the cost and time involved in reprinting, the House has forwarded the Bills as introduced with schedules of the amendments. Copies of the schedules will also be available to senators. Motion (by Senator Tate) agreed to: That the Bills may proceed without formalities, may be considered together and be now read a first time. Bills read a first time. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(9.40) —I table the supplementary explanatory memoranda to the three Bills amended by the House of Representatives and move: That the Bills be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The speeches read as follows- AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES COMMISSION BILL 1988 The Bills which I introduce today will bring about a fundamental change in the direction of national companies and securities law in Australia. The Bills represent one of the largest legislative undertakings of any Australian Government. Before turning to the individual Bills, I propose to outline the genesis of the legislation. Co-operative Companies and Securities Scheme The present co-operative companies and securities scheme came into being nearly 10 years ago. Even when it was put in place, the existing scheme failed to recognise the fundamental need for a national approach for companies and securities control. The need for a national scheme was recognised by the Rae Committee in 1974 which concluded that when considering the regulatory needs of the securities market, it is essential to recognise the national character of the activities being regulated. The Rae Committee specifically rejected the concept of a commission established by several governments with continuing responsibility to all the governments concerned. The period since the establishment of the co-operative scheme has been one of rapid and fundamental change in the character of the Australian financial and securities markets. Yet the scheme has failed to meet the need for a truly national approach. The co-operative scheme was, in some respects, a product of its time. The then Federal Government was more intent on leaving State Governments with control of companies and securities within their jurisdiction than it was with meeting the needs of the wider Australian community. Our economy is national, companies operate across the country and often in the international sphere. To overlay artificial boundaries on the national economy was to do a grave disservice to the interests of Australian business and the broader community. From the outset the co-operative scheme was fundamentally flawed. The most important deficiency was that is provided a regime in which no Parliament, no Government and no Minister had responsibility and accountability for the operation of the scheme. Thus, the scheme fell short of the fundamental democratic principles which should underpin Government activity in our society. In its operation the scheme was also deficient. It has not been able to meet the challenges of recent years when the companies and securities market has undergone major change. There has been community concern that markets have been manipulated. Where problems have occurred they have been difficult to identify and to deal with satisfactorily because of the division of responsibility between State and Federal bodies. The performance of the co-operative scheme has been examined by the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. That Committee in its report `The Role of Parliament on the National Companies Scheme' in April 1987 concluded that the co-operative scheme had outlived its usefulness. It unanimously recommended that the Commonwealth introduce comprehensive legislation to assume responsibility for all areas covered by the existing scheme. The Committee's recommendation was founded on an opinion of Sir Maurice Byers, QC, which asserted that the Commonwealth does have the power to enact comprehensive legislation covering company law, takeovers and the securities and futures industries. It was against this background that the Government set out to reform the co-operative scheme and provide a regime that can meet the needs of the Australian economy into the 1990's and beyond. In doing so the Government has consistently sought to meet the legitimate wishes of the business community, State Governments and other interested groups within the community. It is unfortunate that much of the criticism which has been mounted against any change in the present system, notwithstanding its self-evident defects, has arisen from State Government concerns about perceived loss of revenue. State Governments have simply refused to accept that the national interest has required a new approach and have continued to assert that new life can be put into a scheme which has been increasingly unable to meet the pressures put on it. If Australia is to achieve its potential it must have a basic framework for its business enterprises which promotes efficiency, which represents the national and increasingly international outlook of much of our industry and which is capable of quick reaction as circumstances change. While ensuring that the interests of shareholders and the broader community are protected, the Government must also ensure that the regulatory framework is consistent with the broader international interest. The Bills which I am introducing today will be a significant step towards that result. A National Approach In response to the Senate Committee's report and growing community calls for action, in September last year the Attorney-General announced the Government's intention to introduce a new companies and securities scheme based solely on Commonwealth law and with effective national administrative arrangements. The Attorney-General has held extensive negotiations with representatives of State and Territory Governments, and a wide cross section of the business community in all parts of Australia and also State and Territory Public Service employee representatives. To meet concerns expressed about some aspects of the original proposals he has been prepared to make a number of significant modifications where this does not erode the Government's fundamental objectives. Within that framework the Government has made every effort to seek the co-operation of the States and the Northern Territory. The modified proposals which the Attorney-General put to the State and the Northern Territory Governments on behalf of the Commonwealth Government in April 1988 substantially addressed concerns about the viability of independent business communities in the smaller States and the Northern Territory, their access to decision-makers, the revenues of State and Territory Governments, and employment conditions of existing State and Territory employees. Under those proposals the States would have retained a major role in companies and securities administration, through their Corporate Affairs Commissions administering the Commonwealth laws as delegates of the Australian Securities Commission (ASC) and participating in an ASC management committee to supervise the operation of the scheme. It also involved the States collectively nominating 2 part-time members of the ASC (which would also have 3 full-time members). The States would have been re-imbursed all but 1/8 of the revenue collected by the Commonwealth, with that portion being retained by the Commonwealth to fund the ASC. The highest priority would be given to the establishment of a national computer system enabling access by the public to information about every company in Australia. Although the States have so far flatly rejected all attempts by the Commonwealth to achieve a compromise, the Attorney-General has recently received a letter from one of the State Attorneys-General suggesting a special meeting of the Ministerial Council for Companies and Securities to again discuss the Commonwealth legislation. The Attorney-General has agreed to a meeting to be held in Sydney on 1 November 1988 to discuss the matter. The Commonwealth Legislation The Bills I will introduce will replace the separate State and Territory legislation of the co-operative scheme with a single regime of Commonwealth laws applicable throughout Australia. This will restore the proper relationship between legislative policy making and the Parliament and the legitimate interests of business and other community groups. The Government is responsible for this legislation and will be held accountable for its operation and for any future legislation it seeks to introduce. The legislation for the Commonwealth scheme will be contained in the following Bills: (a) an Australian Securities Commission Bill to provide for the administrative arrangements for the new scheme; (b) a Corporations Bill to set out the law covering the regulation of companies, takeovers, the securities industry and the futures industry; (c) a Close Corporations Bill to provide a new simpler and more flexible form of incorporation for small business; and (d) ancillary Bills covering the imposition of fees and levies. The Bills, except in some key areas referred to below, generally follow the existing co-operative companies and securities legislation. In the Bills introduced by the Attorney-General into the House of Representatives in May the Government, after consultation with the business community and other interested groups, introduced a number of significant reforms in order to remove unnecessary regulation or to overcome specific problems in the existing legislation. In his second reading speech, the Attorney-General foreshadowed, and welcomed, continuing consultation with the business community up to the passage of the legislation and referred to the role of his Companies and Securities Consultative Group. In accordance with that commitment, during the Parliamentary recess there was extensive consultation on the legislation with the business community and others. As a result of these consultations, the Bills now incorporate a number of additional improvements to the practical operation of the legislation. These improvements, which were the subject of Government amendments in the House of Representatives during committee stage on the Bills, can be generally categorised as follows: (i) Amendments to the fund raising provisions of the Bill to clarify their operation, particularly in relation to prescribed interests, to increase protection for investors in respect of certain classes of fund raising and to identify those situations where prospectuses are not required. (ii) Amendments to ameliorate some unintended consequences of reforms which were to clarify and rectify some technical anomalies in the takeover provisions, the securities recommendations provisions and the licensing provisions of the cooperative scheme legislation. (iii) Amendments to clarify the role and power of the Australian Securities Commission; (iv) Amendments to the futures industry provisions, foreshadowed at the introduction of the Bills, to minimise any disruption as a result of the constitutional underpinnings of those provisions; and (v) Amendments, also foreshadowed at the introduction of the Bills in May, to bring court jurisdiction, administrative and judicial review under the Bills into conformity with Commonwealth practice. These changes and the earlier reforms are set out in more detail below and in the second reading speeches on the Corporations Bill and the Close Corporations Bill. Many changes of form from the existing legislation derive from the need to express the Bills in language reflecting Commonwealth institutional powers and to reflect their character as truly national legislation. Although principally based on the Commonwealth's constitutional power over trading and financial corporations, a wide range of other supporting constitutional powers have been relied on where appropriate. These include the powers in respect of interstate trade and commerce, posts and telecommunications, banking and insurance, and cheques and negotiable instruments. The opportunity has also been taken to rationalise the structure of the legislation and to correct some minor anomalies. Consultation The Bills introduced by the Attorney-General in May reflected considerable input from the business community and other interests. In particular, members of the Companies and Securities Consultative Group made many useful recommendations which were adopted in the original legislation. The Bills were introduced into the House of Representatives on the basis that they would lie on the table over the winter recess to allow an opportunity for public exposure and further examination of the Bills. As indicated above, in his second reading speech on this Bill in the House of Representatives the Attorney-General foreshadowed continuing consultation with interested groups during the Parliamentary recess. Many business organisations, such as the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange have made submissions on or discussed the legislation with the Attorney-General. The Consultative Group called for and received public submissions. It has carried out a detailed examination of the legislation and the concerns raised by business organisations and professionals such as the exchanges, the Unit Trust Association, the Company Directors' Association and the Institute of Directors. Following this the Group has made many useful recommendations most of which have been adopted in the amendments I have referred to. The Government would like to again record its appreciation for the voluntary work of the Group. The overall response of the business community has been very supportive of the legislation. In particular the national small business Organisations, such as the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia and the Australian Small Business Association have strongly supported the Close Corporations Bill. The Australian Securities Commission Bill 1988 The Australian Securities Commission Bill 1988 (ASC Bill) establishes the major administrative organs of the new national scheme. The first among these is the new Australian Securities Commission which will replace the NCSC and will be responsible for the administration of the scheme. The powers given to the ASC will ensure that it is able to be a strong and effective regulatory body, yet one which is flexible and responsive to developments in the market place. The ASC Bill also specifically recognises the role of the ASC in the formulation of legislative policy. The ASC Bill clarifies the relationship between the ASC and this Parliament. In the Westminster tradition the ASC will be solely responsible to the Commonwealth Minister and through him or her to Parliament. The independence of the ASC is made clear in that the Bill does not permit the Minister to give directions on specific matters. In the interests of accountability, this is balanced by enabling the Minister to give directions as to general policies or priorities, which must both be written and made public. By contrast, the NCSC may be subject to a direction by the Ministerial Council on any matter, whether specific or general, and the direction need not be publicised. As a measure of the importance which the Government attaches to community participation in the development of business regulation, the ASC Bill will establish a new statutory consultative body, the Companies and Securities Advisory Committee. The Committee will be composed of a broad spectrum of community interests-business, market participants, company administrators, investors, professional advisers and other interested groups. It is important that all parts of Australia are adequately represented on this Committee. The role of the Committee will be to advise the Minister on the legislation and administration of the national scheme and to keep the Minister informed of new developments in the markets that may require action. So as to ensure that the Advisory Committee is able to perform its functions effectively, the Bill provides for separate funding, staffing and research facilities for the Committee. The ASC Bill contains provisions which give strengthened inspection and investigation powers to the ASC compared with those of the NCSC and clarify the scope of the hearings powers. The separate inspection and special investigation powers of the existing legislation will be amalgamated to make the operation of investigations more effective. An amendment has been incorporated into the Bill to put beyond doubt the power of the ASC to investigate a matter for the purpose of bringing a case before the Panel. In addition a further amendment has been made so that it is clear that the ASC's ability to begin a prosecution does not override the role of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The Bill authorises the ASC to disclose information to overseas agencies performing comparable functions. An amendment was made by the Government to widen the provisions and authorise the ASC to disclose information to a domestic or overseas agency for the purpose of the performance of that agency's functions. This will facilitate mutual co-operation with overseas law enforcement agencies and local bodies such as the Australian Stock Exchange and Sydney Futures Exchange in enforcing compliance with their rules. The opportunity for harmonising companies and securities laws and administrative arrangements will be greatly enhanced by ensuring that ultimate responsibility rests with one Australian Government rather than eight. In this context I note that on 1 July 1988 the Australian and New Zealand Governments entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to examine the harmonisation of their respective companies and securities laws and other business laws. A major new feature of the legislation is the establishment of the Corporations and Securities Panel on the recommendation of the Consultative Group. It is considered inappropriate for the regulatory authority, which has a legitimate charter to investigate malpractices in the market place, to also perform ajudicatory functions in relation to those malpractices. The Panel will perform those ajudicatory functions. The Panel will, initially, be conferred with power to declare acquisitions of shares or conduct in relation to a takeover unacceptable. It will be required to hold a hearing before making such a declaration. The requirement that all Panel hearings be held in private was amended so that the Panel may decide to hold a hearing in public if all parties so agree. The Panel will have powers to issue restraining or remedial orders which were previously exercised by the Courts. Decisions of the Panel will be final, subject of course, to appeals on questions of law. It is envisaged that, in the future, further functions will be conferred on the Panel when it is sufficiently established to conduct a larger number of ajudicative hearings. In view of the role of the Corporations and Securities Panel to conduct hearings, and the expanded investigations powers of the ASC, the ASC's function to conduct hearings has been narrowed. It is limited to two main situations-to afford natural justice to a person whose licence or registration it proposes to revoke and to hold public hearings to ascertain views on the exercise by the ASC of its administrative responsibilities (e.g. a proposed policy statement or guideline). In order to enable the ASC to maintain complete national registers for the benefit of the public and to obviate any need for documents lodged under the previous legislation to be relodged by companies, the ASC will be empowered to acquire records kept by State and Territory Corporate Affairs Commissions, in the event that they are not voluntarily provided. A separate disciplinary body, the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board which presently exists separately in most States and Territories, will now be constituted as a single entity in the ASC Bill. The Bill also re-creates, in statutory form, the current Accounting Standards Review Board. To ensure proper Parliamentary accountability an amendment has been incorporated into the Bill requiring the Corporations and Securities Panel, the Advisory Committee and the Companies' Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board along with other bodies established under the Bill to prepare annual reports to be tabled in Parliament. In relation to judicial review of the actions of the ASC, the Bills now provide for full merits review by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and judicial review by the Federal Court. This accords with the view of the ARC and will permit de novo review of administrative decisions within the constitutional constraints of judicial power. Jurisdiction to hear civil cases under the scheme will continue to be vested concurrently in the State and Territory Supreme Courts and the Federal Court. However, the Bill has been amended so that, in accordance with normal Commonwealth practice, State Supreme Courts will now have exclusive jurisdiction in criminal matters. Amendments introduced by the Attorney-General will also provide for the State and Territory Supreme Court jurisdiction to be exercised by a single judge and for appeals to lie as of right to the Federal Court and by leave to the High Court. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and a supplementary explantory memorandum explaining the amendments that were passed by the House of Representatives. CORPORATIONS BILL 1988 The Corporations Bill heralds a new direction in national companies and securities law and administration. If Australian business enterprises and markets are to remain competitive in the new national and international trading environment, it is essential to have national legislation which provides a flexible and responsive regulatory environment in which companies can operate efficiently. The Corporations Bill provides this national legislation. This Bill amalgamates into one law the areas presently covered by the separate co-operative scheme codes, namely the Companies Code, the Acquisition of Shares Code, the Securities Industry Code and the Futures Industry Code. Apart form those key areas outlined below, in which reforms have been undertaken to deal with specific problems or regulatory burdens which have been widely acknowledged under present law, the Corporations Bill generally re-enacts the existing legal requirements. The Government's approach has been that it would not be appropriate for the introduction of national legislation to be accompanied by more extensive changes to the fundamental structure of the existing law than has been attempted in this Bill without further consultation with interested sectors of the community. The Bill is, for the most part, the same as the one introduced by the Attorney-General in the House of Representatives on 25 May 1988. However, as I indicated in the second reading speech on the Australian Securities Commission Bill, the opportunity has been taken to incorporate a number of significant improvements to the practical operation of the legislation which resulted from the extensive process of consultation engaged in by the Attorney-General while the Bill lay on the table over the winter recess. Structure and Style of Legislation The consolidation of the existing law into the Corporations Bill and the Australian Securities Commission Bill has led to the removal of much duplicated material and to a major rationalisation of the structure and arrangement of the legislation. The definitions and interpretation provisions for the Bill have largely been incorporated into one Interpretation Chapter. The next 5 Chapters generally conform to the structure of the existing Companies Code. Other Chapters, such as the Acquisition of Shares, the Securities Industry and the Futures Industry Chapters essentially cover the same ground as the corresponding Codes under the existing law. There has also been a re-organisation of material across chapters: for example, the provisions dealing with prospectuses and the transfer of marketable securities have been moved from the Companies related chapters to the Securities Chapter where they more properly belong. In addition, large groupings of sections have, wherever possible, been broken up into smaller groupings, and long sections and sub-sections split into shorter ones, thus allowing a much greater use of Part, Division and Section headings. These hearings will help the reader to find the provisions of concern to him or her and make them easier to follow. The existing law has, in some important areas, been reworked to give it clarity and simplicity. These include, in particular, the parts of the Corporations Bill that deal with financial statements of companies, names of corporations, registration of foreign companies, and the transfer of marketable securities. The chapter dealing with the Acquisition of Shares adopts a number of the structural improvements suggested by the Victorian Law Reform Commission in its final report on ``Plain English and the Law''. However, the essential language and concepts of the previous law remain, in order to accurately reflect the existing law as currently understood by market participants. Major Reforms In the drafting of the national law, the opportunity has been taken to introduce a number of substantial reforms in areas of the law that have been bedevilling the business community because of the excessive and unnecessary regulation imposed. These reforms, incorporating the amendments moved in the House of Representatives during the committee stage, reflect substantial input from the business community and the considered recommendations of the Companies and Securities Consultative Group after detailed examination of submissions on the Bills from business organisations and professionals, generally. Some of the main reform proposals are as follows. The fund-raising provisions of the legislation will be substantially simplified and new provisions introduced to shift the thrust of the fund-raising controls from the regulatory authority to the market. Thus, to ensure that fund-raising activities are not impeded by delays or the imposition of unnecessary costs by the regulatory authority, the ASC will no longer pre-vet all prospectuses. To provide additional protection to the general public in respect of primary offerings by unlisted companies, about which investors will have insufficient prior information, the Bill now incorporates an amendment requiring prospectuses of that type to be pre-vetted. At the same time, in response to public submissions, the Bill has been amended to specify a wider range of circumstances in which a prospectus is not required, such as, for small capital raisings of offers of an essentially `private' character. Because they are subject to informed market scrutiny, Part A statements, profit forecasts and asset valuations during a takeover will not be pre-vetted. As well, the complex and detailed rules as to the content of prospectuses will be replaced by much more basic disclosure rules designed to provide investors with the relevant information they need to make informed investment decisions. The Bill makes it clear that different levels of disclosure may be appropriate depending on the type of offer, e.g. whether it is a rights issue to existing members or an offer to the public at large. Obligations will be imposed on those engaged in fund-raising to promote self-enforcement by the market. There will be a general prohibition on misleading or deceptive conduct in relation to the issue of or trading in securities-based on section 52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974. To maintain appropriate safeguards for investor protection the ASC will be able to issue orders to stop serious misrepresentation or malpractice and investors will have an enhanced range of remedies enabling them to take action against a wider class of persons involved in the preparation of the prospectus. However, in response to recommendations of the Consultative Group, the provisions imposing liability on advisers have been modified in the present Bill so that the liability will be more closely related to the functions performed by the adviser in relation to the prospectus. The procedure provided by section 261 of the Companies Act, which enables a company to trace beneficial ownership of its shares, imposes a costly paper burden on the market as a whole and has been abused. The Bill removes the scope for this abuse. Only the ASC will have power to obtain information as to beneficial ownership. However, in order to maintain appropriate levels of shareholder disclosure, the substantial shareholding reporting requirements have been reduced from 10% to 5%. The procedure for registering company names has been simplified. The provisions establishing the present ``subjective test'' on whether a name is available for reservation have been removed. All company names will be allowed, except for identical names and names of a type to be prescribed in Regulations such as names suggesting connection with the Government. The Bill also clarifies that companies are permitted to incorporate with number names to facilitate faster incorporations. To assist in the development of a more efficient securities market, provisions have been included to remove delays in the transfer and registration of securities occasioned by unnecessary forms. The requirement that a transferor sign a transfer form has been removed. However, full compensation will be available from the National Guarantee Fund, provided for under this Bill, for any losses arising from unauthorised transfers. Transferee acceptance forms will also be deleted. There will no longer be a requirement that companies maintain branch registers at a shareholder's request. This will save costs for the several parties involved in processing certificates and transfers and will simplify the operation of the proposed new transfer and settlement system currently being developed by the Australian Stock Exchange. It is proposed to discontinue the licensing of representatives of securities dealers and advisers and of futures brokers and advisers. To ensure that proper responsibility is taken for the activities of their representatives, the principals will be fully liable for the conduct persons who are, in fact, their representatives. Amendments were incorporated into the Bill in the House of Representatives to clarify the scope of this liability. In addition, the Bill has been amended to remove undesirable burdens on the operation of the securities industry which may have resulted from certain requirements of the Bill as introduced in the House of Representatives. In particular I mention that the Bill now specifically recognises the creation of an effective `Chinese Wall' as a defence to a potential conflict of interest situation. The Bill also omits the unworkable requirement that advisers provide subsequent written confirmation of every oral disclosure of an interest in a recommendation made to a client. As foreshadowed by the Attorney-General when introducing the Bill in May, amendments to the futures industry provisions have been incorporated in the Bill following extensive consultations with the Sydney Futures Exchange. These amendments include the more extensive use of constitutional powers to prohibit unauthorised futures markets, or so called `bucket shops', from harming investors. Other amendments have been made to facilitate the effective operation of the futures exchange, such as widening the membership of the exchange to include unincorporated persons dealing on their own account to add greater depth and liquidity to the market. In the light of the abolition of the doctrine of ultra vires and rules of constructive notice affecting outsiders, proprietary companies will be relieved of the obligation to lodge a copy of their memorandum and articles of association with the ASC upon their incorporation. This reform will reduce administrative costs for the ASC. In making these changes to the existing legislative controls, the Government has sought to create a more efficient commercial environment by reducing unnecessary and costly regulatory burdens while ensuring adequate protections remain for both shareholders and other investors and providing a framework for the fair and honest operation of the market. An outline of the principal features of the Corporations Bill and, in particular, the main changes it makes to the existing legislation are set out at the front of the explanatory memorandum that has been circulated for the benefit of senators. The principal amendments made to the Bill by the House of Representatives are set out in the introduction to the supplementary explanatory memorandum that has been circulated with the principal explanatory memorandum. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and the 10 associated Bills, and the supplementary explanatory memorandum explaining the amendments to this Bill made by the House of Representatives. CORPORATIONS (FEES) BILL 1988 This Bill authorises the making of regulations for fees payable under the Corporations Bill. SECURITIES EXCHANGES (APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP) FIDELITY FUNDS CONTRIBUTION BILL 1988 This Bill deals with fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by an applicant for membership of a securities exchange. SECURITIES EXCHANGES (MEMBERSHIP) FIDELITY FUNDS CONTRIBUTION BILL 1988 This Bill deals with annual fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by the members of a securities exchange. SECURITIES EXCHANGES FIDELITY FUNDS LEVY BILL 1988 This Bill deals with fidelity fund levies payable under the Corporations Bill by the members of a securities exchange where the fund is depleted. NATIONAL GUARANTEE FUND (REPORTABLE TRANSACTIONS) LEVY BILL 1988 This Bill deals with levies imposed under the Corporations Bill on reportable transactions undertaken by securities dealers where the guarantee fund is depleted. NATIONAL GUARANTEE FUND (PARTICIPATING EXCHANGES) LEVY BILL 1988 This Bill deals with levies payable under the Corporations Bill by a securities exchange where the guarantee fund is depleted. NATIONAL GUARANTEE FUND (MEMBERS OF PARTICIPATING EXCHANGES) LEVY BILL 1988 This Bill deals with levies which may be imposed by a securities exchange on its members where the guarantee fund is depleted. FUTURES ORGANISATIONS (APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP) FIDELITY FUNDS CONTRIBUTION BILL 1988 This Bill deals with fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by an applicant seeking membership of a futures exchange or futures association. FUTURES ORGANISATIONS (MEMBERSHIP) FIDELITY FUNDS CONTRIBUTION BILL 1988 This Bill deals with annual fidelity fund contributions payable under the Corporations Bill by the member of a futures exchange or futures association. FUTURES ORGANISATIONS FIDELITY FUNDS LEVY BILL 1988 This Bill deals with fidelity fund levies payable under the Corporations Bill by the members of a futures exchange or futures association where the fund is depleted. CLOSE CORPORATIONS BILL 1988 The purpose of the Close Corporations Bill 1988 is to provide a new simplified corporate structure for small business. Many of the current detailed rules applying to companies that are more appropriate for larger companies impose inflexible requirements and costly and unnecessary burdens on small companies. The distinctive features of the new corporate form which will enhance flexibility and reduce operating costs involve the reduction in financial and other reporting requirements and replacing the usual concept of management with simpler association rules. Details of the provisions are set out in the explanatory memorandum that is circulated with the Bill. Memorandum and articles of association will not be required and will be replaced by a non-registrable written association agreement. This enables the formal shareholder/director distinction to be eliminated and will allow the internal affairs of the corporation to be governed by simpler partnership rules. An optional model association agreement will be prescribed in the regulations. Basic information about the close corporation will be filed in the form of a Founding Statement which will be updated each time there is a change to the material particulars. A Certificate of compliance will be an annual document in which the close corporation states that accounts have been kept which accurately reflect the financial position of the Corporation. The Close Corporation Bill provides a simple means for small business to obtain the benefits of incorporation such as limited liability. However, under the Bill the interests of creditors are also safeguarded by a number of provisions which enable the corporate veil to be lifted and personal liability to attach to the members. Thus, members may be personally liable for a debt incurred by the close corporation: where accounts have not been properly kept; if the close corporation becomes a holding company and subsequently becomes insolvent; or where there is unreasonable delay in taking action where the corporation is insolvent. The Bill permits a close corporation to acquire the shares of members in certain circumstances including, where the members have signed a declaration of solvency. Personal liability will attach to the signatories of that declaration where, subsequently, the corporation commences to be wound up and will attach to members where the close corporation has unlawfully acquired its own shares. The Bill is a major innovation in corporation law to meet longstanding needs of small business for an uncomplicated business structure. Consequential amendments were made to the Bill in the House of Representatives to bring the Bill into line with corresponding amendments made to the ASC Bill and Corporations Bill concerning such matters as administrative review and court jurisdiction. I have addressed the effect of these amendments in the second reading speeches on those Bills. I present the explanatory memorandum to this Bill and the 3 associated Bills, and a supplementary explanatory memorandum explaining the amendments to the Bill passed by the House of Representatives. CLOSE CORPORATIONS (FEES) BILL 1988 This Bill authorises the making of regulations for the fees payable under the Close Corporations Bill. CLOSE CORPORATIONS (LIQUIDATORS' RECOVERY TRUST FIND CONTRIBUTION) BILL 1988 This Bill deals with the contributions to the liquidators recovery trust fund payable under the Close Corporations Bill. CLOSE CORPORATIONS (ADDITIONAL LIQUIDATORS' RECOVERY TRUST FUND CONTRIBUTION) BILL 1988 This Bill deals with the additional contribution to the liquidators recovery trust fund payable by a close corporation under the Close Corporations Bill when the fund is depleted. Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(9.41) —Pursuant to my contingent notice of motion, I move: That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Macklin moving forthwith a motion to refer the Bills to a select committee. Question resolved in the affirmative. Referral to Committee Senator MACKLIN(Queensland)(9.41) —I move: That, acknowledging that the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs has unanimously recommended that the Commonwealth should introduce comprehensive legislation to assume responsibility for all areas covered by the co-operative scheme and that a package of Bills for this purpose is now before the Senate, the Bills be referred to a select committee, to be known as the Joint Select Committee on Corporations Legislation, and the Committee inquire into and report on the Bills for the regulation of companies and the securities and futures industries with reference only to the adequacy of the proposed legislative provisions to: (a) improve the regulation of companies; (b) facilitate the performance of the securities and futures markets; and (c) ensure adequate protection for investors in companies and the securities and futures markets; and, in particular, report on the adequacy of the fund-raising provisions. (2) That the Committee consist of 10 members, as follows: (a) 2 Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, (b) 2 Senators to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, (c) 1 Senator to be nominated by the Leader of the Australian Democrats, (d) 3 members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by or on behalf of the Prime Minister, and (e) 2 members of the House of Representatives to be nominated by the Leader of the Opposition. (3) That the Committee may proceed to the despatch of business notwithstanding that all members have not been duly nominated and appointed and notwithstanding any vacancy. (4) That the Committee elect as Chairman one of the members nominated by or on behalf of the Prime Minister or by the Leader of the Government in the Senate. (5) That the Chairman of the Committee may, from time to time, appoint another member of the Committee to be the Deputy-Chairman of the Committee, and that the member so appointed act as Chairman of the Committee at any time when there is no Chairman or the Chairman is not present at a meeting of the Committee. (6) That, in the event of the votes on any question before the Committee being equally divided, the Chairman, or the Deputy-Chairman when acting as Chairman, have a casting vote. (7) That the quorum of the Committee be 5 members. (8) That the Committee and any sub-committee have power to send for and examine persons, papers and records, to move from place to place, to sit in public or in private, and the Committee have leave to report from time to time its proceedings and the evidence taken and such interim recommendations it may deem fit. (9) That the Committee have power to appoint sub-committees consisting of three or more of its members, and to refer to any such sub-committee any of the matters which the Committee is empowered to consider, and that the quorum of a sub-committee be all the members appointed to the sub-committee. (10) That the Committee be provided with all necessary staff, facilities and resources and be empowered to appoint persons with specialist knowledge for the purposes of the Committee with the approval of the President. (11) That the Committee be empowered to print from day to day such papers and evidence as may be ordered by it, and a daily Hansard be published of such proceedings as take place in public. (12) That the Committee report to each House of the Parliament by the first day of sitting of that House in 1989. (13) That the Committee have access to any relevant evidence and records of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. (14) The the Committee cease upon the dissolution or expiration of the House of Representatives. (15) That the foregoing provisions of this Resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the Standing Orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders. (16) That the foregoing provisions of this Resolution be communicated by message to the House of Representative with a request for the concurrence of that House in the Resolution. (17) That consideration of the motion for the second reading of the Bills be an Order of the Day for the day on which the Committee reports to the Senate. I draw honourable senators' attention to paragraph (12), which seeks a reporting date on the first sitting day of the House in 1989, and to paragraph (13), which states: That the Committee have access to any relevant evidence and records of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs and the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs. The latter paragraph is important because, as honourable senators well know, our own Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs has for some time been dealing with the issue of the obligations of company directors, and the corresponding Committee in the House of Representatives has been dealing with the very vexed issue of company takeovers. Both issues are dealt with to some extent in this package of legislation. Senator Harradine —Mr President, I raise a point of order. Are these Bills laid on the table? Are they physically present in the chamber? The PRESIDENT —I believe they are, yes. Do you wish to have copies of them? Senator Harradine —Yes. Senator MACKLIN —Mr President, as you said, in formally receiving the message from the House of Representatives, the package of Bills we are dealing with, and indeed the Corporations Bill 1988, is of such size that it is the largest piece of legislation ever introduced into the Federal Parliament. These Bills were introduced into the House of Representatives on 25 May and after a couple of weeks I did toy with the idea of suggesting to the Senate that only those members who had read the Bills should be allowed to debate them, on the grounds that we may have a very short debate indeed. Senator Messner —That's not a bad idea. Senator MACKLIN —I am glad Senator Messner thinks it is an excellent idea. It is a fascinating collection of Bills. I recommend that honourable senators read them because, for the first time, we have brought together from some 50 disparate pieces of legislation the totality of the regulations and legislation governing the operation of companies in Australia. That is a massive task, as the size of the Bills indicates. Not only have they been consolidated in these Bills but there have also been some quite radical proposals included. The Government quite rightly has had in operation for quite some time a consultative mechanism. Those honourable senators who have been following this particular procedure will know that parts of that consultative mechanism have worked very well: other parts, unfortunately, have not. Probably the most outstanding feature of the consultative mechanism is the extraordinarily small number of submissions that have been made. One would believe that in an area as important as this, as comprehensive as this, and as far reaching as this, there would be a number of submissions that would overwhelm the consultative committee. But this was not so. When one looks through the submissions one sees that very few of them go beyond one page and that most of them are mere expressions of opinions or points of view and do not really go into a great deal of detail. If honourable members had been seeking details on these issues they would have had to talk to people in the industry. I am sure that a large number of members of both the Government and the Opposition have been doing so. Quite a number of people in the industry are willing to give of their time and energy-they have done so with me-for days working through a whole variety of these items. It is not as though there is a lack of interest, a lack of informed opinion, a lack of detailed points of view out there, but for whatever reason that has not come through the consultative mechanism. In my consideration of these Bills it slowly became apparent that a further mechanism needed to be provided before they became law. I believe that it is a legitimate exercise of this chamber, and I hope of the House of Representatives if it concurs with this reference, to set up a joint committee, comprising senators and members who are interested in these areas, to be available to people in the community who wish to make submissions that for one reason or another were not made to the consultative committee or were made but were felt by those submitting them not to have been dealt with in as sympathetic or as adequate a way as they would have liked, or those who now have had the time to work through these Bills. I remind honourable senators that these Bills have been available since 25 May. In recent weeks it has become apparent that a number of organisations have at last managed to get on top of these Bills and have formulated their views. That length of time is not unusual, given that most of the associations one is dealing with are constituted on a State basis and would need to come together on a national basis to consolidate their particular submissions. It is also apparent that quite a number of organisations and associations have views that differ from State to State. For example, it is obvious that the stance taken by a couple of major organisations in my own State of Queensland and in Western Australia differs quite significantly from the stance taken by their colleagues in Victoria and New South Wales. That is to be expected, particularly since, one would assume, the new Securities Commission will be based in Melbourne. There is a significant difference, particularly for the small companies-what are called in this package of legislation `close corporations'- between being able to get to headquarters if one happens to be resident in Sydney or Melbourne and bringing someone across from Perth or down from Brisbane. The larger companies, of course, do not have that problem. The cost of lodging a Queen's Counsel in Melbourne for three or four days would not be noticed in their budgetary arrangements. For small companies to do so would not only eat up their profits for a year but probably bankrupt most of them. Hence there is an enormous range of views that have to be considered when one is dealing with companies in Australia. We have had to date a cooperative scheme that has had its problems, but I think it has probably had a worse press than it really deserves. It has marked up a significant number of important positions to its credit. Obviously in looking ahead we can see that there will be significant changes within the Australian community and the international trading community, of which we have to be a part. It is our view as a party that the significant changes that we see coming will have to be dealt with at a national level. Hence we have indicated from the very start that we are supportive of the notion and the position that was taken by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs that there should be a comprehensive national scheme. We have felt that to date there really has been a singular lack of parliamentary control of legislation. The cooperative scheme essentially was controlled by executives. Those members here who dealt with the various pieces of legislation that came through under that cooperative scheme will remember the debates that we have had-I was here for some debates when the Fraser Government was in office-have expressed their concern. We felt constrained at not being able to amend the legislation and there were parts that we wished to amend but, considering the difficulty of getting all the executive governments within Australia to agree on anything, the Senate felt constrained not to amend the legislation in case it jettisoned the reforms that were obviously desirable in totality, although it may have disagreed with particular items. It is for that reason that I sought a meeting with the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen). On 29 July I met the Attorney in Sydney and proposed to him that when the Bills came into the Senate I would move for the appointment of a joint select committee to look at the legislation. I put to him that I felt that such a committee could provide industry with another avenue before the enactment of the legislation to go into technical details and look, for example, at the issue that had not then been altered by the Government-the items of pre-vetting. The Government has introduced amendments on pre-vetting that go a significant way to meeting the concerns that have been expressed in the community. But the secondary market probably has not been touched although a great deal of concern was also expressed in that area. The Government has, through its consultative committee, sought to respond in a fairly comprehensive way to many of the concerns in the community. Although the Attorney-General at that stage indicated to me that he intended to do that, I persisted with the proposition that a joint committee be appointed. I felt that it would be of advantage for a number of reasons. First of all, my Party has been supportive of the moves that have been made in recent years for the establishment of statutory committees. Two new statutory committees are now operating, after the Joint Committee on Public Works, which is the oldest of our statutory committees. They are the Joint Statutory Committee on the National Crime Authority and the Joint Statutory Committee on the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. But in terms of the developing expertise that will be required within the parliamentary structure to deal with these matters, I felt that the proposed committee might be the forerunner of a statutory committee that would have as its task the oversight of all this legislation. That suggestion has another political angle to it. It has been felt that the establishment of a single legislative base could open up business legislation to greater political interference. It is proposed in the legislation that a new body, an independent commission, will replace the existing National Companies and Securities Commission. I think in reality the National Companies and Securities Commission has operated very freely. The only body which can control the Commission is the body which consists of Ministers from all of the executive governments. However, it has found it very difficult to control the Commission and, hence, the Commission has been independent. I think that independence has been appreciated by the business community, which wants it retained. So there has been some concern that obviously there is the potential for the opening up of greater political interference if there is consolidation under one government. I think a parliamentary committee with oversight would remove that worry. Members of such a committee would have the opportunity to apprise themselves of the way in which the legislation operates. I am mindful of the fact that I had the good fortune to serve on the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform. That Committee recommended to the Parliament-and our recommendation was accepted-a comprehensive list of reforms to our electoral laws. That Committee was retained by the Parliament to review the operation of those laws in the practicality of an election context. As honourable senators well know, that review led to well over 100 further amendments, some of which related to changes we had made before because in practical terms, it was felt that they were too complex or that they did not have the desired effect. Quite frankly, I felt that the exercise, in terms of my work as a legislator, was one of the most satisfying that I have done. It gave me a chance to be involved in making recommendations, to see them enacted, to review them in action, and then to change the law again in the light of practice. Obviously these Bills will be amended over time. Undoubtedly various unintended consequences will emerge. A Senate committee inquiry would enable us to make sure that the possibilities of unintended consequences is reduced to an absolute minimum. The other angle, the policy item, was discussed at the meeting that I had with the Attorney-General on 29 July. I indicated to him that we would be unwilling to have an inquiry which opened up that policy item. I think there are a number of reasons for this. One is that, if the policy item were opened up, the possibility of seeing an end to the debate in the committee would be relatively slim. Given the lines which have already been drawn in the political context between the positions of the various parties on this matter, I think one would probably be able to predict that at least a couple of reports would come from such a committee at the end of the exercise. That really was not my major concern. My major concern was that till now there seems to have been, as I have already indicated, very little by way of input to these Bills from industry and business through the consultative process. It struck me that that may very well stem from the not unexceptional sort of assumption that these Bills might not get enacted. The thought that we could go through a whole exercise and again have little input from business on the technicalities of the Bills was of enormous concern. We have to improve a number of areas and we need to have a detailed input from industry. So I felt that an inquiry specifically targeted to the technicalities of the Bills before the chamber was the appropriate type of inquiry to pursue. Fairly obviously it is not the only type, and I understand that Senator Hill, on behalf of the Opposition, will be seeking to amend the proposal by suggesting alternative terms of reference. However, the type of inquiry I am suggesting is appropriate is one that will actually focus on the legislation itself rather than on the broader and legitimate differences between the political parties. Undoubtedly those differences will be debated again in this chamber in the Committee of the Whole stage of the 16 Bills, and if past committee stages on Bills of this size are anything to go by, that is likely to be an extensive debate. That is legitimate. But, as I said to the Attorney, the inquiry I was suggesting was not meant in any shape or form to be part of a delaying tactic. It was meant as a contribution to the legislative process and as a testing, in some ways, of the types of things that another committee of which I am a member is trying to come to grips with-that is, how we can improve our activities as a chamber dedicated to the scrutiny of legislation. The proposals put forward by the Opposition in Senator Chaney's comprehensive motion concerning committee inquiries have been subject to some discussion in that committee, and there has also been discussion within the party rooms, as to how we might move down that track. As has been suggested on all sides, that will require a fair amount of trust and that would be witness to the fact that this chamber is serious about its task of scrutinising legislation. Undoubtedly in the past some committees have had more than an inquiry on their minds, and we will probably have the same thing at some stage in the future. But that was not what my suggestion to the Attorney was about. This committee should have the chance to visit every capital city, to meet with those people who undoubtedly want to have an input, and to concentrate-as the Joint Select Committee on Electoral Reform was able to do-on the very text of the Bills before us. The committee could then report back to the chamber, hopefully with detailed suggestions for amendments that have flowed through from the inquiry. Our deliberations here in the Committee of the Whole would then be that much better informed as a result of members of all political parties having been exposed to that process. It is for that reason that I have moved the motion circulated. It is suggested that the committee have a membership of 10. That would provide the opportunity for representation from all parties in each of the chambers. As is normal, the committee would be chaired by a member of the Government. The only point which differs from normal is the item to which I have already drawn attention, and that is the ability, if agreed to by the House of Representatives, of this committee to have access to the material currently held by both the Senate and the House standing committees dealing with matters pertinent to this legislation. I hope that the proposal will receive the support of the chamber, that the committee will be set up as soon as possible, and that we can show that our committee inquiries can be dealt with expeditiously and in a way which does not delay legislation, which is, in fact, a constituent part of what this chamber should be about; that is, the detailed scrutiny of the legislation that is placed before it by the other chamber. Senator HILL(South Australia)(10.06) —The Opposition is also of the view that the Bills should be referred to a joint committee for consideration. However, we differ from the Australian Democrats, who have proposed to the Senate a narrow committee reference, described by Senator Macklin this morning as `an examination of the technicalities of the Bills'. We believe that there are much wider and more fundamental questions to be determined by the Senate before the second reading debate proceeds. Therefore, we seek to amend the Democrats' motion and insert much wider terms of reference. I therefore move: Leave out paragraph (1), insert: ``(1) That the Bills be referred to a select committee, to be known as the Joint Select Committee on Corporations Legislation, and the Committee examine the Bills for unintended legal and commercial consequences, and report whether: (a) the Bills and the scheme thereby created meet the legitimate needs of the business community, all State Governments and other interested groups within the community; (b) passage of the Bills and the scheme thereby created is the only means of facilitating further national and international development of Australian business, or whether a modified cooperative scheme could achieve such objectives, and in particular whether a transfer to the Commonwealth of takeover and associated securities provisions could achieve the Government's stated objectives; (c) an efficient regulatory system can be achieved by an alternative scheme other than that proposed by the Bills, i.e., the complete centralisation of power; (d) the interests of shareholders and the broader investor community are adequately protected by the Bills; (e) it is desirable and advisable to proceed with passage of the Bills considering the serious constitutional concerns which have been raised regarding their validity; and (f) passage of the Bills will result in: (i) the loss by the State regulatory authorities and their respective business communities of accessibility and the ability to influence policy and law-making; (ii) additional costs to business; (iii) a loss of skilled staff from State corporate affairs offices; (iv) loss of business and professional expertise in the States as a result of the transfer of power from the States to the Federal Government; and (v) adequate funding and resources to ensure that the regulatory system can function efficiently and react promptly to immediate concerns.'' We propose this much wider examination because, although I am not prone to the use of extravagant language, I have to say that what the Government is seeking to do with this package of Bills is little short of disgraceful. I say that because the Government knows that the Bills will not become law. In the recent debate in the House of Representatives the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) indicated that he had agreed to go back to the Attorneys-General of the States to discuss the matter further. He has agreed to do that because none of the States is supportive of these very fundamental changes which he is seeking to make to corporate law in this country. We know that some of the States are now talking about the prospect of an alternative split scheme. That is likely to be what the Attorney-General will accept. So we have the Bills introduced into the Senate for debate-some 16 Bills comprising 3,000 pages and over 1,300 clauses-in circumstances where the Attorney-General and the Government know that they will not become law; some alternative scheme is much more likely to be proposed to the Senate. Therefore we ask: What is the point in setting up a Senate inquiry to investigate the technicalities of these Bills if even the Government acknowledges that much more fundamental questions have yet to be determined? We say further that the Bills should not be dealt with in this way because of the very dubious constitutional validity of the package, and I will expand upon that in a moment. We certainly say that, again, there is no point in simply looking at the technicalities of the Bills if there is a very grave doubt that the package as a whole would stand up constitutionally. It would be much more worthwhile, we would suggest, if the joint committee examined that question of constitutionality, as well as the question of the potential for a split scheme, with part of the package going to the Commonwealth. We believe that a wide-ranging inquiry is more appropriate because of the enormously broad based opposition of business and professional groups throughout this country to the package as presented by the Government. I have never come across such a situation: I think all professional bodies in the fields of law, accounting and business are opposed to this package of Bills and nearly every business organisation in the country is likewise opposed. There are fundamental questions that the joint committee should look at that come out of those expressed concerns, not just at questions of detail. As I have said, we also believe that a broad-ranging inquiry is warranted by the fact that all the States, including Labor governed States, are opposed to the scheme. In a federal system, if all the States are opposed to it, it makes this transfer of power unworkable in practice. Perhaps a joint committee of the Parliament could help where this Government seems to have failed; that is, by looking at whether there is some compromise that could win support from all the States. We are further opposed to this narrow ranged inquiry as such because of what the Government has referred to as its consultative process with business and professions which involved the setting up of committees, consultative groups, subcommittees, steering groups and so forth. As I will indicate in a moment or two, that simply became a sham. If the Government was not prepared to enter into proper consultations, we believe that this Parliament, through a joint committee process, can do so. We are opposed to the narrow ranged inquiry because the Bills are so fundamentally flawed that the Government introduced 280 of its own amendments into the House of Representatives before the debate proceeded. It is unprecedented in the legislative history of this country for a government to put down its Bills and then come back with 280 of its own amendments which it seeks to have passed. The amendments are so complex, so detailed and so numerous that, as I understand it, we cannot even get a proper reprint of the Bills for this debate. I suspect that that is also unprecedented. It seems to us on this side of the chamber that it would be grossly negligent if the Senate were simply to refer the Bills to a committee to look at the technicalities of the package. Therefore we argue in the strongest possible terms that, before looking at the technicalities, the Parliament should be considering these broader, more fundamental questions. We are disappointed that the Australian Democrats do not recognise the importance of what I have just said and are not prepared to become part of a constructive overview of these fundamental questions but rather are prepared to be a part of the farce that this Government is attempting to bring to the Senate today. I stress that what we are looking at in this enormous package of legislation is a most fundamental restructuring of Australian corporate law. It could be said that it is the most fundamental restructuring since Federation. If one accepted the notion of the cooperative scheme as an interim between total State powers and control in the area of corporate law, one would argue that it is the most fundamental restructuring since Federation. We are not dealing with Bills of little consequence; we are dealing with a package of legislation which is of very major consequence constitutionally, as well as of great consequence to business and professions in this country. We are also looking-I do not want to be too emotive-at a takeover by the Commonwealth of the right to regulate the corporate and securities industry in this country, which raises all the basic questions of federalism that should be considered by this inquiry but which will not be if the Government supports the Democrats' motion. The content of the Bills should also be looked at. That is not in dispute as far as we are concerned. We acknowledge that it is fundamentally a new scheme. It sets up new commissions, new committees, et cetera, and creates new law. It even introduces a new language, what we call plain English, which I do not necessarily think is a bad thing, but which will mean a whole new range of precedents within corporate law-matters that should be looked at very carefully by this Parliament before they are enacted. New concepts are introduced. For example, I refer to one contained in the Australian Securities Commission Bill-that is, an obligation upon that body to strive to attend to certain matters. Notions that in the past have been unknown in our legal system will now be incorporated within the law. Perhaps the time has come for this to happen. Some of us would like to see more plain English in the taxation law. It means that we should tread warily and cautiously and ensure that there is a sensible meaning to the use of this so-called plain language which is utilised in this legislative package. I stress that the Opposition is acting constructively in this matter. We are not point scoring. As I said, we were supportive of suspending Standing Orders in order that this matter could go to a committee so that that committee could get on with the task that we think it is important for it to do. We believe that there is basis for reform of this area of law. We accept that business and the commercial world have changed. We have accepted that business has become more national and is becoming more international. We accept that the regulatory system needs to change along with the changes within which it must operate. We think it is time to consider constructively a transfer of takeover and security law to the Commonwealth. We have accepted that there are benefits in the concept of a close company, an attempt to simplify the small company concept, particularly for the benefit of small business, in circumstances in which companies, in practice, are little more than a partnership. We are supportive of that type of constructive reform. We accept the failure of proper parliamentary accountability in the existing system and that that must be addressed. I am a little disappointed that the Government did not accept a long time ago the advice of the former member for Hawker, Mr Jacobi, who wanted to set up a joint select committee of the Parliament to look at the matters that have been thrust upon us by the Government in this way. I suspect that had the Government taken the path that he advocated some time ago we would have before us now a much more realistic package of Bills. We support the need for reform. We are not attempting to retard reform where it is shown to be necessary. But we do say that business and the professions in this area expect certainty in the law that we pass and, at the very least, that certainty is very much put in jeopardy by the package of Bills before us. The first critical question on the subject of doubtful certainty is that of the constitutionality of this package of Bills. I want to spend a few minutes looking at that matter, because I think it is of fundamental importance to this debate. It has long been thought that, for the Commonwealth to have power to support a package of Bills of this breadth, it would require constitutional change. Historically, proposals to extend the Commonwealth's power over corporations were proposed and defeated in referenda in 1911, 1913, 1919 and 1926. In 1929 the Royal Commission on the Constitution recommended that the Constitution be amended to confer power on the Commonwealth in legislative form in this area. In 1959, the Joint Committee on Constitutional Review recommended that the Constitution be amended to grant the Commonwealth concurrent legislative power over corporations. As late as 1987, this Government's advisory committee to the Constitutional Commission on trade and national economic management recommended constitutional reform to overcome doubts that existed as to the constitutional competence of the Commonwealth Government to support legislation of this type. Throughout the history of the Commonwealth we have seen a recognition by learned bodies after due consideration that the constitutional basis for this type of reform is very much in doubt. I remind honourable senators that the advisory committee that I mentioned, comprised of senior lawyers and businessmen, reported only three months after the report of the then Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs was brought down. It came to its conclusion on the basis of advice of eminent lawyers, despite the opinion of Sir Maurice Byers, which was relied on by the Senate Committee. Many eminent lawyers in this country very much question the opinion that was given by Sir Maurice Byers to that Committee and upon which that Committee was able to make certain recommendations. Even the Attorney-General's Department, in its submission to the Senate Committee, made clear that it had doubts as to the constitutional validity of a full takeover of law in this area. The submission recommended a split scheme with a transfer of takeover and security law-the type of scheme that has some appeal to those on this side of the chamber. The submission to the Senate Committee stated, `There is still room for doubt in some of these areas'. So in 1986 the Department itself was in doubt in relation to this matter. Apart from the Senate Standing Committee and the advice it received, since this matter has been on the table for debates an endless list of eminent lawyers in this country have said that the Commonwealth is going too far, that it is going beyond its constitutional competence. I refer briefly to the joint memorandum of the Solicitors-General of each of the States and the Northern Territory which was produced earlier this year as a result of a meeting on 9 March 1988 in which they unanimously questioned the Commonwealth's legal competence in this area. They questioned it in relation to the capacity of those parts of the Bills that relate to incorporation, internal regulation and trading in company shares. I do not have time to refer to it in depth. Because it is a most important memorandum and because of its brevity, I seek leave to have it incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted. The document read as follows- Corporations Power Constitution Section 51(xx) The Attorneys General of the States and the Northern Territory requested their respective Solicitors General acting as a body to provide a joint memorandum setting out their views as to the scope of Commonwealth power to enact a comprehensive Companies and Securities Code pursuant to s51(xx) of the Constitution. That provision empowers the Commonwealth to pass laws with respect to: ``foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth''. The Solicitors General for New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania and representatives of the Solicitor General of Western Australia met in Sydney on 9 March 1988 to prepare this memorandum. The Solicitor General for Victoria was unable to attend. Those who prepared this memorandum had regard to the views expressed in the publications and opinions mentioned in the Appendix. Joint Advice 1.1 There seems to be no doubt that the Commonwealth can legislate in respect of the following- 1.1.1 A corporation whose trading or financial activities are a significant part of its business. It does not matter that the corporation would be characterised as something else, e.g. a local government corporation, a sporting body or a credit union. (It does not extend to State banking or State insurance within the limits of the State concerned.) It will sometimes be unclear whether a company is a trading or financial corporation. If its character depends on its activities, a corporation could move in and out of the field of Commonwealth control as its activities change (with obvious administrative and other problems). 1.1.2 All the business activities of such corporations, including things done for the purpose of (i.e. preparatory or ancillary to) such activities. 1.2 The extent of the Commonwealth's power under s51(xx) is such that it may legislate with respect to a wide range of bodies corporate including statutory corporations such as State power authorities and quite possibly education, hospital and local government corporations. 1.3 The matters which are clearly or probably within Commonwealth power are most of those covered by the existing Companies Codes but not those parts relating to incorporation, internal regulation and trading in company shares (as to which see (3) below). 2. There is doubt as to whether the Commonwealth can rely on its corporations power to legislate with respect to the non-business activities of trading or financial corporations. 3. The Commonwealth clearly cannot rely upon its corporations power to legislate in respect of corporations which are not trading or financial corporations. 4. The ability to legislate comprehensively in respect of trading or financial corporations is fundamental to the establishment by the Commonwealth of any viable scheme. No scheme could operate effectively which did not cover the inter-related matter of incorporation, internal regulation and trading in company shares. 5. There is at least a reasonable prospect that the High Court will conclude that the corporations power of the Commonwealth does not extend to these matters. The opinions of the Solicitors General as to the prospect of establishing invalidity of legislation extending to these matters ranged from evenly balanced through to quite good. A dual system of regulation of trading of financial corporations would then be necessary. 6. The following are some of the problems which a dual system of regulation of trading or financial corporations would be likely to create: 6.1 To enact a coded limited application in such important matters is to run the risk of serious confusion developing. A dual system would inevitably lead to the several States requiring their own legislation and administrative structures to cover all that was beyond Commonwealth power. The result would be duplication of administration, increased cost, `demarcation' disputes and generally a downgrading of the system presently in place. Commercially it could be chaotic. 6.2 Such a system would be very difficult to police and enforce. Currently there is a high level of successful co-operation between State police and Corporate Affairs officers in relation to the investigation and prosecution of crime corporate and otherwise. No jurisdictional problems exist. Investigation by authorities required to differentiate between Commonwealth and State offences could become unnecessarily complex. 6.3 One can say fairly confidently that a dual system, attracting as it must many of the aforementioned problems, would not be palatable to the business community and would give rise to serious inefficiencies. 7. If the Commonwealth cannot legislate in respect of incorporation and internal regulation it does not seem feasible for it to regulate the securities industry. If it cannot regulate trading in shares or corporations as such it will have to base its controls on corporations acquiring securities, acting as brokers and acting as advisers. This would be an inadequate scheme. Only corporations within s51(xx) would be bound. Individuals and other corporations would not be. There would be no control over large parts of the investment advising industry. If those engaged in the industry adopted a non-corporate structure they would escape the scheme. Senator HILL —I will simply quote one sentence: There is at least a reasonable prospect that the High Court will conclude that the corporations power of the Commonwealth does not extend to these matters. The Solicitors-General of almost every State are listed: New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, a representative of the Solicitor-General of Western Australia, and also the Northern Territory. The Victorian Solicitor-General was unable to attend. In those circumstances where the most eminent crown lawyers in each of the States say that the Government's proposed package is in jeopardy, should the Senate be proceeding with a narrowly based inquiry or should it have an inquiry that includes this constitutional question? I draw the Senate's attention to the opinion of the Law Institute of Victoria which was given only in August this year and which supports the document that I have incorporated. That opinion indicates that that organisation very much doubts that the Commonwealth has the powers which it believes it has, and brings into question directly the opinion of Sir Maurice Byers. It believes in a number of areas-in incorporation as well as other areas-the Commonwealth does not have the power that it claims it has. The opinion of the Law Institute goes on to mention that if part of these Bills were found to be invalid-which it fears would be the case-it would result in `catastrophic effects to trade and commerce within Australia and between Australia and the rest of the world'. That is a serious opinion from the Law Institute of Victoria and one of Australia's leading commercial firms, Mallesons Stephen Jaques. It says that the Commonwealth does not have the power and furthermore that the effect of this package going ahead could be to lead to catastrophic effects. The inquiry being proposed by the Democrats does not deal with that wider question at all. I draw to your attention, Mr Acting Deputy President, the view of the Law Council of Australia, not lightly to be dismissed, I would have thought. In its advice put out on 31 August of this year-again, only a month or so ago-it says that it has doubts whether the Commonwealth has the constitutional power that it claims. The advice states: It believes that it would be irresponsible for the Commonwealth to legislate on the basis of its existing constitutional powers. The Commonwealth should not legislate unless and until the Constitution has been appropriately amended . . . That is a statement from an opinion put out only a month ago by the Law Council of Australia, the most senior legal professional body in this country. It would be irresponsible for the Federal Government to go ahead on the current basis but that is what it is seeking to do. I would have thought that in the light of all this eminent advice the Government would have bowed to the consensus of the legal views in this country and acknowledged that there is a serious doubt that catastrophic consequences could follow. Just imagine for a moment the consequences if incorporation of a company is found to be invalid and shareholders lose the corporate veil of limited liability because this Government has pushed through unconstitutional legislation. I wonder whether the shareholders within Australia would understand the prospects and consequences if that occurred. Why, in these circumstances, does the Government insist on going ahead and refusing this Parliament a broad-based inquiry? That is beyond me. I have said that the package also fails to have the confidence of the States. I have indicated that it fails to have the confidence of the legal profession. Very briefly, I will put to the Senate the facts of why it fails to have the confidence of business. I refer to a press release put out by the Australian Chamber of Commerce in July of this year, only a short time ago. It states: The Federal Attorney-General should not proceed with the proposed new national system of companies and securities laws. The Federal Government does not have the necessary support of commerce and industry within this country, especially small business . . . The Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, representing over 10,000 company secretaries and corporate managers, in a letter of 5 July said: The necessary reforms . . . can be achieved within the framework of the existing scheme . . . The case to dismantle the existing scheme and to replace it with a Federal scheme does not appear to have been made. The more the Confederation of Australian Industry thought about and considered the matter the less it was impressed. On 10 July and subsequently by press release on 29 September it made clear that it did not wish this package to proceed. The Australian Merchant Bankers Association, also in July of this year, called upon the Government not to proceed. It also made reference to the lack of proper and effective consultation which is something that causes us concern. If I can be parochial for a moment, I will look at my home State of South Australia. I have submissions from the Australian Stock Exchange Adelaide Ltd; the Law Society of South Australia; the South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy; the Institute of Directors, South Australian branch; the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, South Australia; the Australian Society of Accountants, South Australia; the Institute of Chartered Accountants, South Australia; the South Australian Employers Federation; and the Insolvency Practitioners of Australia, South Australia branch. They all oppose what the Commonwealth is seeking to do. Similar bodies in each of the States also have a similar view. I do not have time to go through their arguments today but they are concerned about the loss of accessibility to regulatory authorities. They are concerned about the loss of expertise within the professions that would occur. They are concerned about the extra costs that the business sector would incur in complying with a central scheme and the need for travel, possibly to Melbourne, as Senator Macklin said in relation to these matters. We have business and the professions throughout Australia opposed to what the Government has been doing. If the Government is not going to consult with them, why should not the Parliament consult and therefore be of some assistance in this legislative process? The Government should find out what their concerns are, find out if there is a way of building their confidence, putting forward a scheme that can achieve objectives that we want but with its support. The Government set up what it called its consultative procedure, a series of four subcommittees including accounting, administration, implementation, legal and securities. They were to consult within their relevant professional areas and advise the Government. On 6 July I wrote to the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) and asked whether we, the Parliament, could have copies of these reports upon which the Government was going to act. I have not received a reply. I certainly have not been able to see any of the reports. We do not know what advice each of these groups gave the Attorney-General. Why can they not be on the table so that we can all have their views or is it the case that the subcommittees rarely met and produced little? In other words, it became a sham. As my colleague Mr Moore, the honourable member for Ryan, said, two members of the advisory committee rang him after the Government put forward its amendments and asked him what the Government was seeking to amend. They were not involved in the process to any great extent at all. It was a sham to produce an image that business and the professions were supporting this package and it has not worked. The business and the professions simply are not supporting it. The States are opposed to it. The vast proportion of the business sector is opposed to it, with the possible exception of the Business Council of Australia. We have the professions opposing it; we have the consultative process which became a sham; and we have a constitutional question which is highly doubtful. In all of these circumstances the Government and the Democrats are going to refuse the Parliament the opportunity to look at these fundamental questions. As I said, it is our view that the Parliament should be looking at the wider questions. With some regret I say that I suspect that the Senate Committee erred in so readily accepting the opinion of Sir Maurice Byers. Now that we have so many other eminent lawyers that have questioned that opinion I regret that we did not seek further opinions before we came to our conclusions. Perhaps we acted from a frustration which we have found in this place that the Senate is being turned into a rubber stamp by the existing scheme. Not surprisingly, we in this place believe in proper parliamentary accountability. We would like to see progressive moves towards greater parliamentary accountability in this area. We said that the system requires reform but what we are saying is that the Government is going about it the wrong way. If the Government, with the support of the States-I believe it could have got the support of the States and business-had looked at a transfer of takeovers and securities law that would have been another large area which would have come within proper Commonwealth parliamentary accountability and would have been a move in the right direction. It would have been done with the support of all these bodies rather than them being against it. That would have been a better way for it to go. Alternatively, no doubt there are very worthwhile reforms within this package. They could have been introduced within the cooperative scheme and given an opportunity to work in practice before the more fundamental changes were brought to the Parliament. That would have been a constructive move the Government could have undertaken. What the Government could have done, and still can do, is make considerable administrative improvements to the existing system. It comes to us wanting this massive reform at a time when due to failure on its own part the existing system is not working as well as it could be. For example, I mention the funding for the National Companies and Securities Commission (NCSC). We are all critical of aspects of the NCSC from time to time but it is inadequately funded. It cannot carry out the function that it is legislatively required to carry out because this Government will not allow it sufficient funding to do so. Similarly, the Corporate Affairs Commission in each of the States, particularly in relation to the investigatory arms of the CAC, is unable to carry out its functions adequately because it is starved of resources. Officers within those sections are unsure of their future and are unable to be presented with adequate career structures so the best personnel are leaving. We have a situation where administratively the Government could have much improved the situation in corporate law in this country. Instead, it seeks to bring to us such a major and fundamental change which is so very doubtfully constitutionally valid. In conclusion, the Opposition is seeking to refer this matter to the Committee for wider consideration, that is, for consideration of the legitimate needs of the business community and the States; to look at the potential for a split scheme; to modify the present cooperative scheme; to look at the question of constitutional validity; and to look seriously at the concerns that have been raised in each of the States by business and professional bodies. I urge that the Senate accept the amendment that has been moved. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator MacGibbon) —Order! The honourable senator's time has expired. Senator HARRADINE(Tasmania)(10.36) —I will be very brief. The Senate is considering the reference of a package of some 16 Bills to a joint select committee of both Houses of Parliament. The second reading speech on the Corporations Bill 1988 which was incorporated in Hansard by the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) states: This Bill amalgamates into one law the areas presently covered by the separate cooperative scheme codes, namely the Companies Code, the Acquisition of Shares Code, the Securities Industry Code and the Futures Industry Code. Further on it states: In the drafting of the national law, the opportunity has been taken to introduce a number of substantial reforms in areas of the law that have been bedevilling the business community because of the excessive and unnecessary regulations imposed. These reforms, incorporating the amendments moved in the House of Representatives during the committee stage, reflect substantial input from the business community and the considered recommendations of the Companies and Securities Consultative Group after detailed examination of submissions on the Bills from business organisations and professionals, generally. It is generally regarded by all sides of this chamber that there is a need for more consideration of these Bills and more input not only from the business community but the community generally and indeed from the States. Therefore, I applaud the action taken by Senator Macklin in bringing this matter forward and suggesting that there be established a joint select committee for that purpose. I understand what he has been saying about the Electoral Reform Committee which is now known as the Electoral Matters Committee. That Committee, of which I am a member, goes very substantially into the areas of electoral matters. We consider the questions as to how the legislative recommendations made by that Committee are operating in practice. In hindsight and after a proper examination of how the legislative amendments have operated in practice and after receiving information from various interested parties we make further recommendations. It all goes to show that none of us is perfect. It is clear in this particular case that there is a need for a committee to be established so that there can be further input from persons in the community who are interested in these Bills. Essentially and ultimately, everyone in the community, not only the business community, but also consumers, people with big money at stake and more particularly, small shareholders, will be affected in one way or another by the measures in these Bills. Therefore, I applaud the action taken by Senator Macklin in bringing this forward. However, having listened to the debate thus far, I feel at present that the proposal by Senator Macklin is a little bit narrow. It may well be that what is being suggested by Senator Hill can be squeezed in under the Senator Macklin proposal. On the face of it, it does not appear to me to be so. We have heard Senator Hill prove that there is a substantial body of opinion, including that of the Attorneys-General of most of the States, who consider that a centralised scheme may not be constitutionally well-founded. As he has indicated, what would be the consequences of that? If there is an appeal, that is, if there is action taken by the States to the High Court after these measures have gone through, the whole of the business community in Australia will be in utter chaos. It is important to have a look not only at the details of the Bill as proposed by Senator Macklin but also at the other areas of principle that are exercising the minds of various States, the business community, and also other interested persons in the community. Senator Macklin's motion states: . . . the Committee inquire into and report on the Bills for the regulation of companies and the securities and futures industries with reference only to the adequacy of the proposed legislative provisions to: (a) improve the regulation of companies; (b) facilitate the performance of the securities and futures markets; and (c) ensure adequate protection for investors in companies and the securities and futures markets; and, in particular, report on the adequacy of the fund-raising provisions. So far so good. Senator Hill has moved an amendment which would enable the Committee to do all of that. The amendment makes it clear that there should be an examination and report to us in the Senate to examine the Bill for unintended legal and commercial consequences and to report whether the Bills and the scheme thereby created meet the legitimate needs of the business community, all State governments and other interested groups within the community. I will not read it but it does open the field quite broadly. It has benefits but it has one problem. The scheme of select committees in the Parliament is a method of exercising the representative function of individual members of parliament. In other words, there is an advertisement for the calling of submissions; the submissions are made and the committee considers them thoroughly and makes recommendations to the Parliament. That is very helpful for those of us who will not be on the committee. It is particularly helpful in a case like this where we have 16 Bills covering a very substantial number of pages and clauses. Frankly, it would be most beneficial if the inquiry was able to go into these areas of principle and not stick strictly to the technicalities of the legislation. The difficulty with that is that it could be an inquiry which could go on from here until the end of this century. Probably that situation also exercised the mind of Senator Macklin when he drew up his motion. I wonder whether there is not a possibility of marrying the two proposals and putting a report date. I do not see a report date. Senator Macklin —It is the first day back. Senator HARRADINE —Under those circumstances, I am satisfied with the proposal put forward by Senator Hill. That was one thing I was concerned about because there are very grave questions bedevilling not only the business community but also consumers in this whole area. That being the case, at this stage I would hope that having taken the initiative, Senator Macklin might consider whether it would be appropriate to take on board the amendment put forward by Senator Hill on behalf of the Opposition. Senator TATE(Tasmania-Minister for Justice)(10.46) —The Government will be supporting Senator Macklin's motion to refer the Corporations Bill and related Bills to a joint select committee. Therefore, of course we will be opposing the amendment to that motion moved by Senator Hill. We will do so because we believe that the process of deliberation on this very considerable package of Bills will be greatly enhanced by the use-I think it is a very innovative, sensible and creative use-of the committee system of this Parliament. The fact is that the package of Bills, as has been stated many times, is a very large one and I believe that no senator in this chamber, in which we take our deliberative and review duties very seriously, could very sensibly claim that he was ready for a debate on this package without the aid of his colleagues on a committee, perhaps to go through it in the sort of detail and with the sorts of witnesses that would help, as I say, to clarify, and perhaps make more sensible, some of the very difficult and technical drafting that occurs. However, in saying all that I do not want to give the impression, which I know is perhaps being put by Senator Hill, that a committee set up under the terms of Senator Macklin's proposal would somehow be confined merely to checking on the terminology that is used-I think Senator Hill referred at one time to the `sensible use of words'-the plain English and the certainty in law that Senator Hill was seeking by the actual use of terms and expressions that carry definite legal meaning. The role of the committee as proposed by Senator Macklin would not be merely a narrow, technical review of the terms and expressions used. If we look at the wording of his motion we see that it would be somewhat wider. At the end of the preambular paragraph he states that the task of the proposed committee would be to: . . . inquire into and report on the Bills for the regulation of companies and the securities and futures industries with reference only to the adequacy of the proposed legislative provisions to: (a) improve the regulation of companies; (b) facilitate the performance of the securities and futures markets; and (c) ensure adequate protection for investors in companies and the securities and futures markets; and, in particular, report on the adequacy of the fund-raising provisions. I believe that in that terminology, talking about the adequacy of the provisions to achieve those ends, the committee in its deliberations will have the capacity to bring in qualitative judgments as to the way in which the Bills achieve those particular ends. I believe in that sense the role of the committee goes far beyond a merely technical review of the drafting. It will be looking at the adequacy of the legislative provisions to achieve those very important ends. The proposed ends-to improve the regulation of companies, to facilitate the performance of the securities and futures markets and ensure adequate protection for investors in companies and the securities and futures markets-give the committee a very wide capability to undertake the sort of qualitative scrutiny of the legislation of which I speak. Of course, in looking at those terms of reference (a), (b) and (c), one realises that in a sense (c) should precede (b) because it is only if we are satisfied that the legislation adequately ensures protection for investors that the performance of the securities and futures markets will be facilitated. The protection of investors will engender the confidence that will facilitate the performance of those markets. Therefore, there is plenty of scope for qualitative, not merely technical, drafting scrutiny to be undertaken by the committee as proposed by Senator Macklin. The constitutional status of the legislative package has been raised. Of course, that is a proper question to raise. Indeed, there have been expressions of opinion from various sources as to the constitutional validity of the whole scheme. However, I will repeat what was said by the Attorney-General (Mr Lionel Bowen) in letters to all the State Attorneys-General on 29 April this year: It is the Government's intention that, following passage, commencement of the legislation would be held back if it has become clear by then that a State or Territory Government proposes to initiate a comprehensive challenge to the constitutional validity of the legislation. In these circumstances, the Government would seek to have the resolution of any such challenge handled as expeditiously as possible. This was made a public document back in April. In other words, the Government recognises that upon the enactment of this legislative package by the Federal Parliament a State or Territory may well indicate that it wishes to test the matter before the High Court of Australia. It would be sensible in that situation that the proclamation of the commencement of the legislation be delayed until that particular matter was resolved. In other words, we would not be seeking an advisory opinion on the Bills but a decision by the High Court on the constitutional validity of the legislation. It would not be brought into operation in a way which would induce or require action by people in reliance on it which, as has been pointed out, could then be undone if a comprehensive challenge to the constitutional validity succeeded. In that regard there has already been an indication of the way in which the underlying validity of the scheme could be properly tested in a way which would not wreak the havoc that, it has been put to us, would occur under the scenario put forward by Senator Hill. Having said that, of course the Government has brought this legislation into the Parliament in the view and with the confidence that it can be supported by constitutional power. As the Senate would expect, not only has the corporations power been relied on in the undergirding power base for this legislation but also it is reinforced by a wide range of other powers, such as the powers to regulate interstate trade and commerce, post and telecommunications, banking, insurance, cheques and negotiable instruments. Indeed I believe that if tested the legislative package would survive. I think those points deal with the worst scenario put forward by Senator Hill and indicate why the Government is not minded to support a proposition that the whole question of constitutional validity be sent to a Senate committee. We do not think that that is a proper way for that matter to be dealt with and determined. In fact, it could not be determined by the Senate committee. Senator Crichton-Browne —That is only one of the items. Senator TATE —I know it is only one of the items, and I will come to the others in a moment-I will come to them now if Senator Crichton-Browne likes. I believe that the idea of the joint parliamentary committee proposed by Senator Macklin not only has merit for the task it is being asked to perform by the terms of reference he has proposed that it be given but also, as he has indicated, it could well be a forerunner to a standing committee which would have the superintendence and supervision of this whole body of legislation once it is passed. I can see great merit in that. I believe that such a standing committee would achieve an expertise that would be extremely helpful to the Parliament when it came to the amendment and passage of new legislation within the framework that we are trying to establish in this package. Senator Crichton-Browne —You mean a committee set up to make bad legislation good? Senator TATE —Not at all. As put forward by Senator Macklin there have been examples in the electoral law area, the National Crime Authority area and, I think, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation area of standing committees being established for the superintendence of legislation and these have proved to be very successful. I believe that that would certainly be the case here. It would help meet one of the great concerns which led to the former Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs first concluding and recommending, as a result of a very comprehensive inquiry, `that the Commonwealth Parliament should enact comprehensive legislation covering the field currently regulated by the cooperative scheme'. That is the sort of committee support which Senator Macklin's Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs foreshadows would be very helpful in enabling this Parliament to discharge properly its democratic role in taking responsibility for the regulation of these areas. The actual terms of reference put forward as an alternative by Senator Hill, I believe, on the whole are not fully reflective of the reality. For example, his amendment speaks of the passage of the Bills resulting in `the loss by the State regulatory authorities and their respective business communities of accessibility and the ability to influence policy and law-making', which, as Senator Crichton-Browne will know, has been a very strong claim, particularly in Western Australia, but also in some of the regional areas of Australia. Once again, in the document of 29 April to which I have already referred, the Attorney-General, in writing to his counterparts in the States and the Northern Territory, made this point, which I think is worth reading out: The legislation will provide that where the Government of a State or Territory, by agreement with the Commonwealth Government, makes available an agency of its administration to administer the legislation as a delegate of the ASC, the ASC shall, in performing its functions and exercising its powers, including the power of delegation, ensure that the administration of those laws is carried out, to the maximum extent practicable, by that agency of the State or Territory administration, subject to direction of the ASC (cf. Formal Agreement, Cl. 37). Importantly, it goes on: It is envisaged that such agreements would recognise that State and the Northern Territory Government agencies, in addition to administering laws as delegates of the ASC, would be able to administer other State and Territory laws. Terms and conditions of the employment of personnel of the State and Territory Government agencies would be a matter for the respective governments, subject to the ASC having a capacity to arrange for officers employed by one Government to be seconded to work for extended periods, if necessary, in the companies and securities agency of another Government (e.g. as a member of an investigation task force involving officers from the ASC and more than 1 State or Territory). In other words, there is an understanding there of the very real role that the regional offices will be playing and, in that situation, the accessibility of and the ability to communicate quickly with the locally available office of the Australian Securities Commission would be secured. I believe that that is something which a State which was minded to ensure that accessibility and easy communication would take up, to ensure that the particular offer by the Attorney-General became a reality. Perhaps one of the key clauses in Senator Hill's terms of reference speaks of `the interests of shareholders and the broad community being adequately protected by the Bills', and that is very much at the heart of what Senator Macklin proposes and is almost word for word one of the terms of reference put forward by Senator Macklin. That is one of the key areas which, as I have said, will be able to be reported on by the committee within Senator Macklin's terms of reference. I believe that the terms of reference put forward by Senator Macklin at least make an innovative use of the parliamentary committee system. I think the terms of reference are such that they will enable the committee to get beyond technicalities-they are much wider than that-and will enable it to make qualitative judgments about the accuracy of the proposed legislative provisions to achieve their primary ends, which are very important ends. Indeed, those objectives, goals and ends were recognised as important, as we have a national securities and futures market engaged in international trade and commerce to the ever-quickening degree that has been apparent in our community over the last several years. I believe that there is great scope for this committee to give a very useful report to the chambers of this Parliament before we come to debate the matter. I think Senator Macklin is to be congratulated for putting before the Senate in this first instance a mechanism which will enable this Parliament to discharge its duties so much better. Senator BISHOP(New South Wales)(11.00) —The Opposition is opposed to the limited nature of the proposed committee to inquire into and report upon the Bills making up the corporate package and thus has offered the amendment, as moved by Senator Hill, which will broaden the inquiry and look at the real problems and issues in the massive tomes of legislation which will so fundamentally alter the law governing the activities of corporations and business generally in this country. Senator Tate, in his response, has sought to eulogise the terms of reference used by the Australian Democrats and has stressed that he believes that they are not as narrow as they would first appear. He seems to be saying that he would like it both ways. He has done a deal with the Democrats, so he has to support their motion, but he is saying that he is in a difficult position, just as he was with regard to the referendums, and he does not really believe in what he has to espouse. Thus, he says, the terms of reference put forward by the Democrats will allow for the wider terms of inquiry that our proposal sets out so clearly. That being the case, the clear and proper course of action would be to put the breadth of the inquiry beyond doubt and simply to accept the amendment as we have put it forward. When looking at the reasons why we require the broader terms of reference, I think three points need to be covered. The first is the Government's assertion that there has been a great consultative process with business and with other parts of the community on the advisability and desirability of this legislation. Secondly, there is the drafting question: not only the new use of the so-called plain English terms but also the manner in which it is drafted with overlapping provisions. Thirdly, there is the constitutionality question-whether or not there is power for the Commonwealth to make a takeover from the States. As I am a senator from New South Wales, I would like to put clearly the New South Wales Government's position: the New South Wales Government holds the view that any change that comes about should be through an in-depth consultation. Changes should be made to the individual State's laws, not overridden by the Federal Government. That view is shared by all other States. So we are coming to the conclusion again that, whereas the Government is asserting that it has support for its proposal, the reality is that it does not. The Government initially set up a small consultative group and said that it was looking at a proposed eight or nine areas of reform which basically people in industry agreed needed to be looked at. A steering committee was established and then various subcommittees were established. The evidence that is available seems to show that the consultative group and, in particular, the subcommittees have not met in anything like a regular fashion and that the examination of work simply has not gone through. I think Senator Hill and Mr Moore in the House of Representatives pointed out that two members of those groups had to ring Mr Moore to ask him about the nature of the 280 amendments that were introduced into the House of Representatives because-surprise, surprise!-they had not been consulted. Just as the Government claimed in the referendum issues that it had business support for the so-called four-year term proposal, which, as we all know, was a grab at trying to lessen the powers of the Senate, what we saw was a public relations exercise in an attempt to say that business was on side. Again, we have the same public relations exercise by the Government, trying to make this assertion. Quite clearly, the various business groups that may have been interested in the question of reform when it was initially put forward and covered eight or nine topics have seen the size of this enormous package of Bills. The size of the Corporations Bill itself will be beaten in size only by the taxation legislation. They took a look at the size of the pile of Bills-if we had television in this chamber I could demonstrate by putting them on a desk-and, looking at the size of them-- Senator Crichton-Browne —A hurdle. Senator BISHOP —Yes, a hurdle might be the way to describe the size of them. The various industry groups have now deserted the Labor Party's push for power. Indeed, as Senator Hill mentioned, the Confederation of Australian Industry has taken a very strong stance. In its Press release dated 29 September it stated that it: . . . favours positive reforms being made to the existing co-operative scheme in order to achieve these objectives. CAI believes that both State, Territory and Federal Governments should work together not merely to achieve political expediency but to deliver real benefits to the whole community . . . It is just the same as the proposition in the referendum debate-the Government said it was desirable for the whole community but it was really only in the interests of the Government. We have an analogy here. Again, this is government driven. The community at large does not want the legislation introduced, yet the Government is pushing ahead at all costs and, of course, this time it does not have to ask the people. It is interesting that the referendums and the proposed corporate package have another thing in common. Lionel Bowen is clearly in his dying days of being in the Parliament. He wanted to retire in glory with his memorials intact. He wanted to say he was the man who had been able to bring about constitutional change and had dramatically altered the face of corporate law in this country. The people were involved in the first part, and they gave him a resounding, an overwhelming, no vote-the greatest no vote, the greatest rebuff, to any government at any time in a referendum. This time we are looking at trying to let the people have a voice, by setting up a committee to inquire into those aspects which will adversely affect the community and the business climate in general. The second point I mention is the drafting question and the use of new plain English. Many people would like definitive meanings to many terms that are used in drafting legislation and regulations and interpretations that flow from that. Over the years a collective body of words with precise meanings has been used in drafting legislation. By using this new form of plain English drafting, which I think first came into vogue in Victoria, the meaning of sections of Acts will be uncertain. It will be up to the litigants to underwrite the cost of expensive litigation to find out finally what this new legislation will mean. When one couples that with the way in which the legislation has been drafted, with overlapping provisions, so that in the event that one provision is struck down another one may come into operation, one sees that the draftsmen are using what is very much a lazy man's way of trying to express, in legislative form, what is debated in this chamber. This was commented upon by Sir Garfield Barwick when he was Chief Justice. He warned against this type of drafting, adding that it was no doubt convenient for parliamentary draftsmen to avoid the risk of unconstitutionality by using statutory definitions, but he warned that it was not in the interests of the community at large. However, the draftsmen have chosen-no doubt with the concurrence of the Government-to use this form. I now turn to the much more vexing question of constitutionality and whether the Federal Government has power to introduce legislation to cover the field in corporate law. It is interesting that the Government has, once again, trotted out its pet legal guru, Sir Maurice Byers, who first entered the fray on this question in 1974-75 when the Whitlam Government tried to introduce similar legislation. Sir Maurice Byers wrote an opinion in 1974 that it was constitutional to regulate in the area that this legislation proposes. That proposed legislation lapsed on 11 November 1975. So this is not a new try, a new debate. Sir Maurice Byers was then invited by the Attorney-General's Department to give a legal opinion to the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs. It is quite clear from paragraph 5.6, at page 66 of its report, that the advice provided by Sir Maurice Byers, QC, was provided to the Senate Committee at the request of the Federal Attorney-General's Department. The Committee had no choice as to who was to provide the opinion. Again, the Attorney-General trotted out his pet guru-Sir Maurice Byers, who has left the legal arena behind and is now in the political arena-to give a legal opinion which would support the Government's proposition that there was power to introduce legislation covering the corporate law field. When that Committee reported it relied very heavily on that opinion. Today Senator Hill said that the Committee, with hindsight, perhaps regretted that it had relied too heavily on that opinion and if it had its druthers, or another opportunity, it clearly would not do so. It is interesting to note that Sir Maurice, after the devastating defeat of the referendums in which he again was so intimately involved as Chairman of the Constitutional Commission-he was involved in debating the issues in public forums, both on television and in public meeting places-was quoted as saying on the front page of the Australian that we were in a very dangerous economic position. He said that the only way out of it was for the Constitution to be altered to give the Commonwealth Government control over industrial relations, incorporation of companies, trading and financial and other markets. It clearly indicates that his overall original opinion cannot really be relied upon. He originally said that we had to alter the Constitution to allow those things to happen. He is now purporting to say that, indeed, there is power under the Constitution to introduce this legislation. Even on his own admission, there is much doubt. As I pointed out before in this chamber, Sir Maurice has been known to be wrong on several, if not many, occasions. On a previous occasion I cited two cases-Clunies-Ross v. The Commonwealth, and the Collector of Customs v. Lawler Automotives Pty Ltd-in which he, when he was Solicitor-General, was found against. The reliance that the Government places on Sir Maurice Byers for saying that it has the power to introduce its legislation and it knows what it is doing is clearly not a sound proposition. Senator Macklin —I think that's a bit tough. Senator BISHOP —The reality is that Sir Maurice has moved out of the legal arena and has become a political player. On a Face to Face encounter I had the opportunity to say to Sir Maurice that when one moves out of the legal arena into the political arena the rules change. It is not at all a bit tough. It is interesting to note the remarks of Mr William Beerworth, Executive Director of Wardley Australia Ltd, who, in a speech delivered on 29 September in Melbourne, said: There was a time when I was regarded as an angry young Turk in companies and securities law in Australia. But that was in 1973, when I was working with Lionel Murphy and after I had spent years studying and working in securities regulation in the United States. He then went on: 15 years later, I must recognise that the wheel has come full circle. Like some of you, I have an enormous sense of deja vu. This is not a new debate. In that speech, which was several pages long, he concluded: Regrettably, we appear to be on an absolute collision course between the Commonwealth and the States with the Commonwealth unable to accept that there really are major constitutional problems which will cause enormous expense, uncertainty and inconvenience for business. I am very much afraid that the Commonwealth has taken the same approach in relation to these issues as it took in relation to the constitutional amendments: it has rushed them on, misdescribed them, over-promoted them and been surprised by the public reaction. Those remarks are really quite interesting when the Government claims that it has business support. Of course, the Government has a fall-back mechanism. The Government has acknowledged that the legislation will be challenged. It says that it welcomes the challenge and will deal with it expeditiously. But the manner in which those Bills have been drafted means that should the memorandum of understanding pursuant to the closer economic relations arrangement with New Zealand take on the nature of a treaty, the Government could use the external affairs power to introduce its entire corporate package. Sir Maurice Byers has gone on record as saying that to achieve the things that he wants to see-that is, the total transfer of power in this area to the Commonwealth-it would require constitutional change. He has looked defeat in the face when constitutional change was tried in relation to giving more power to Canberra on other issues. We are now seeing the spectre of an attempt by the Government to render the Constitution irrelevant. We have seen the external affairs power used in the dams case. There are those who might think that that power is limited in its operation to areas concerning the environment, but that is clearly not the case. The external affairs power is wide and unbridled in the way in which the High Court has interpreted it. It could well be that this legislation will be passed, challenged by a State or Territory government, held to be unconstitutional under the corporate affairs power of section 51, and yet subsequently found to be able to be passed under the external affairs power. That is the nature of the real objective of this Government. It is determined to snatch the area of corporate law away from the States and to centralise it here in Canberra. But as usual, the Attorney-General, Mr Lionel Bowen, is not on top of his brief. He was not on top of his brief on the constitutional referendums and he clearly put his foot in it quite often. He was one of our best assets. In relation to this corporate legislation, he is also not on top of his brief. We saw the introduction of 280 amendments after the Bills were introduced in May. I put it to the Senate this way: the sloppiness of the Attorney-General's Department is such that if one's life depended on it and the only legal advice and representation available was from the Attorney-General's Department, one would be better off appearing for oneself. The nature of the Department's work is clearly sloppy. The amendment that the Opposition has moved to the Australian Democrats' motion this morning would allow the proper examination of the whole ambit of constitutionality and drafting questions and allow proper consultation. It would offer a fair involvement of the community, both business and people at large who are interested in this debate. But once again it seems that we are to be forced into debating this legislation in a premature way without a proper examination because the Attorney-General wants his monument. This is not the way to run a government. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia)(11.20) —I rise to support Senator Hill's amendment and to reflect in a not particularly generous way on the restrictive nature of the Australian Democrats' proposal. The contrast between the two is striking, but predictable. I was interested to hear Senator Macklin describe this package of Bills-the 1,300 clauses, the 3,000 pages-as fascinating reading, fascinating Bills. Only the Democrats would find fascination in legislation of this nature, designed again to centralise in the rarefied air of Canberra what have been historically and intrinsically State responsibilities. It is interesting that the Democrats are concerned only with the fundamental contents of the Bills and in ways of ensuring that these are varied or modified, but not substantially or fundamentally changed. The difference between Senator Hill's proposal and that of the Democrats is that Senator Hill is not committing himself to support the legislation and the Democrats are. The reason why the Minister for Justice (Senator Tate) has congratulated the Democrats and Senator Macklin and is congratulating himself for getting the legislation in the chamber is that both he and the Democrats support it. That is why he supports the Democrats' proposal, because unless he does he will not get the Bills. If our proposals were supported, the Bills-their integrity, competence, merit and justification-would come into question. The fundamental principles of the Bills and the philosophy behind them would be questioned. The general merits of the legislation would all be subject to scrutiny under Senator Hill's proposal, which is certainly not the case with Senator Macklin's proposal. Senator Tate tells us that this legislation is a new and enlightened step towards enhancing the committee system of this chamber. He referred to previous examples and talked about the Joint Statutory Committee on the National Crime Authority and the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, saying that they were two examples and this was to be a third. Again, the underlying point is that in respect of the National Crime Authority and the matters touched on by electoral laws, there is bipartisan support in general principle. That is why those committees, by and large, have functioned effectively. This is quite different. Philosophically the Liberal Party of Australia is opposed to the natural gravitation and centralisation of power, the inexorable trip on which the Government takes itself on a regular basis. The Opposition questions the efficiency of the legislation, but neither the Government nor the Democrats will do that. That leads one to ask why this legislation is before us and what are its justifications. Let us remind ourselves of those matters which Senator Hill proposes we examine and which the Government refuses to entertain. Senator Hill asked that a committee should examine the Bills for unintended legal and commercial consequences and that it should report on whether all State governments and other interested groups in the community support them. I think that without exception-and honourable senators should correct me if I am wrong-every single State government and the Northern Territory are opposed to the legislation. Am I right about that? Senator Hill —Yes, including the Labor governments. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —All those bodies, including the Labor governments, that make up the components of the Federation, of the Commonwealth of Australia, are opposed to this. The very founding States which joined together to create this monster are opposed to the legislation. So of course it is unlikely that the Federal Government will include in its terms of reference whether the legislation is satisfactory to the State governments or whether it is in the best interests of a cooperative federalist system. I am reminded of the comments made by the Victorian Attorney-General who, when he was elected Attorney-General, thought that the idea of centralising the system had merit. He said at the outset that he was a centralist rather than a States righter-one of the natural qualifications that one has to have to be a member of the Australian Labor Party. When he became Attorney-General he said that he thought there should be national legislation. He is now of the opinion that a better scheme than the present one could not be evolved. He has said he does not believe that the bureaucrats in Canberra are as close to the business community or the real world as the State people. For most people that would be a very obvious and logical conclusion to arrive at, but the fact that the Labor Attorney-General of Victoria is now so enlightened demonstrates the scope of the opposition to the legislation. The Attorney-General says that he considers it the private view of most members of the Ministerial Council that it works better than the average Cabinet. He says that the problem of accountability is troubling but that the decisions of the Ministerial Council are achieved only after extensive consultation. Of course that is true. If my memory serves me correctly, we embarked on this new system because Senator Tate was sitting in the chamber of the provisional House one day when the Ministerial Council report was tabled foreshadowing legislative amendments. Senator Tate took grave exception to the fact that legislative changes were being foreshadowed to which he had not yet made a contribution as a member of the Senate. Of course, the truth of the matter is that that is a very modest price to pay for having a cooperative arrangement between the Commonwealth, the States and the Territories. It has been argued that there has been a diminution of ministerial accountability by having the present cooperative arrangements administered by the Ministerial Council. Of course, it is fundamental to misplace the facts in order to maintain that principle. The truth is that every Minister is still accountable and responsible and each of the decisions of the Ministerial Council is made as a result of a majority view of the Ministerial Council. So in fact ministerial responsibility is widened to embrace all the States, the Commonwealth and the Territory. In that way we have total accountability. Before I leave the question of State government responsibility, let us remember that this proposal by the Commonwealth can succeed only if in some diabolical way we distort the fundamental principles, the underlying intention of the Constitution at the time it was written by the founding fathers and the time it was agreed upon by all States. It was never intended that the Constitution be used in the way which is presently intended by this Government. I assume that the head of power it is looking for primarily flows as a result of the Tasmanian dams decision. That in itself undermined the very principle of federalism. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Senator BUTTON(Victoria-Leader of the Government in the Senate) —by leave-The Minister for Local Government, Senator Reynolds, will be late for Question Time today due to a combination of the bringing forward of Question Time to 11.30 a.m. and a delay in arrival of her aircraft from Sydney, where she has been on Government business. During her absence questions in relation to her portfolio can be directed to Senator Ray. Senator HILL —I ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade why he did not raise the Blenkinsop matter with the Indonesian Foreign Minister when he met him in New York last week. Senator GARETH EVANS —The very simple answer is that at that stage there had not been a response, either formal or informal, from the Indonesians to the diplomatic note we had passed over, I think, from memory, on 26 September, requesting detailed information as to the nature of the investigations that had occurred and the findings and the proposed course of action in relation to the individuals concerned. The Indonesian reaction which generated the Prime Minister's public statements on this matter came, after I had met with Mr Alatas, from the Indonesian Embassy official here who really generated the Australian concern by saying-as it turned out, quite wrongly-that the case had already been investigated and closed by the Indonesians and it was simply an accident. That piece of misinformation was certainly not in my mind when I spoke to Mr Alatas. If that had been the known Indonesian response at that stage I certainly would have raised it with Mr Alatas because it would have become apparent that we had a problem which was more than simply a run of the mill consular problem, which is what it seemed to me when I went to New York. I had been briefed on it but there was nothing to suggest that it was a problem out of the ordinary that could not be solved by ordinary consular and diplomatic channels. One does not raise matters at the most senior possible level unless one has a serious problem, and at the stage I spoke to Mr Alatas we did not. Senator HILL —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. The Minister raised in his answer the action of the Prime Minister in this matter and we learn that the Prime Minister was reacting to a local Indonesian official. I ask therefore: What was the breakdown in communications between the Prime Minister and our own advisers that caused him to abuse Indonesia on Australian national television when at the same time the United Kingdom Government was indicating that it was satisfied the matter was being properly handled? Senator GARETH EVANS —I do not accept that premise. The Prime Minister was not abusing Indonesia. He was saying some robust things about particular individuals who could not remotely be thought to have been acting on behalf of the Indonesian Government. There was certainly no hint of suggestion, explicit or implicit, in what the Prime Minister said that the Indonesian Government was at fault, except in so far as the Prime Minister was responding, perfectly understandably, to statements which at that stage were the only official statements we had from the Indonesian Government, namely, the statements of the embassy official here that it was simply an accident and that the investigation had been closed. It became rapidly apparent that that Indonesian official's statement was based on misinformation. It has subsequently been corrected by the embassy and the whole affair has obviously been thoroughly overtaken by subsequent events. Senator Hill —It is pretty embarrassing. Senator GARETH EVANS —It is not a question of any embarrassment to anybody. It has been completely overtaken by events. The Indonesian Foreign Minister has responded in the terms that I announced to this chamber yesterday. It is the Indonesian Foreign Minister who is expressing the hope that this incident will not have any adverse effects on Australian-Indonesian relations. It is obvious that the matter has been the subject of intervention and involvement at the highest level in Indonesia. There is general goodwill on both sides to get the matter resolved, and I am sure it will be. Senator FOREMAN —Is the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories aware of reports in which Senator Boswell reportedly claimed at Ravenshoe on 8 October 1988 that the Federal Government is attempting to turn the wet tropics World Heritage area into a Federal territory? Can the Minister tell the Senate whether there is any substance to this claim? Senator RICHARDSON —I have heard from some sources that Senator Boswell made this claim. I heard his personal explanation in the Senate the other day which was made in response, I think, to someone, who is said to be a spokesperson for me, having the temerity to suggest that Senator Boswell's claims were nonsense. Senator Boswell must have been feeling particularly fragile on that occasion. I would have thought that most shadow Ministers would have been able to handle that without jumping up with a personal explanation. Nonetheless, that is what Senator Boswell did and I think that has confused a few more people, so I would like to put the record straight. There will be no new Federal territory. Obviously, some people took it seriously. One Australian Democrat senator asked me whether he could be appointed as administrator. I had to inform him not to get too hot to trot just yet. Senator Boswell based his claim on the October report which Australian authorities had put to the World Heritage Committee. Back in June and July was, of course, the time when the Queensland Government sent 22 people on the public purse over there to see whether they could upset the nomination. Of course they failed dismally. If one looks at what was said in that October proposal one will see that Senator Boswell selectively quoted from it and deliberately distorted it. The actual statement reads: The Federal management approach is founded on a policy of minimal interference with existing agency responsibilities within the wet tropics in so far as this is compatible with effective management of World Heritage principles. The report says that Australia could give effect to its management obligations through a number of mechanisms such as the existing World Heritage Act, new legislation, appropriate State legislation, or complementary Federal and State legislation. We gave a whole series of options. Senator Boswell, of course, chose to grab one of them, the one, I might say, that is the least favoured, and say that it was a certainty, that it would happen. Australian World Heritage areas are administered under a variety of management regimes. They can be under State legislation as they are in places, under joint legislation as they are in places, or if one looks at Kakadu under Federal legislation. Fortunately, not all those people who represent conservative politics in Australia are as ignorant as Senator Boswell is about this question. I was discussing with the New South Wales Minister for Environment, Mr Moore, only this morning the possibility of a joint management regime for World Heritage areas in New South Wales. He, of course, supports the concept. So Senator Boswell is, as is so often the case, alone again. Senator Walsh —He is on to the League of Rights, though. Senator RICHARDSON —He got on to that very late. And he was with it for too long. If we look at the management regimes that are available in the wet tropics, obviously the one that the Commonwealth would favour is cooperation with Queensland. That is what we have been pursuing for a very long time. Senator Boswell would do his constituents in Queensland no end of good if he stopped rabbiting on with nonsense about new Federal territories and looked at what we are trying to look at, the protection of rainforests and of course that being done with an assurance of a sound economic future for north Queensland. That is what the Commonwealth's $75m will do. I can recall former Premier Bjelke-Petersen-I think Senator Boswell will remember him-saying that he would never ever cooperate with us on the Great Barrier Reef. But of course he did and I am sure that in the end we will get that cooperation in Queensland. Senator CHANEY —I direct my question to the Minister for Justice. I refer him to prominent reports in this morning's media that the yacht on which the late Mr David Blenkinsop was travelling at the time of his death in Indonesia was under surveillance by Australian drug authorities. I also refer to the apparent confirmation of this fact on the AM program today by Mr Bob Spanswick of the Customs Officers Association who said that Customs intelligence indicated that the bilges of the vessel concerned had been modified to accommodate the transport of narcotics. In view of the pain these reports are causing to members of Mr Blenkinsop's family, and in light of the very high profile the Government has given to this matter this week, can the Minister tell the Senate whether there is any firm evidence linking the deceased with illegal activities or whether these reports have exaggerated the situation and reflect unfairly on his activities? Senator TATE —The Australian Federal Police has become aware of certain allegations that have been made in relation to Mr Blenkinsop and drugs. There has been no link whatsoever between the death of Mr Blenkinsop and the suggestions and allegations referred to. I certainly know of no firm evidence of such a link. As I said, the Australian Federal Police has certain intelligence, but certainly there had been no surveillance-I think that was the terminology Senator Chaney took up from some radio broadcast-of Mr Blenkinsop by the Australian Federal Police. Senator CHANEY —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I ask the Minister to try to give me some answer to the question which I have asked him. Is he in a position to clarify this position for the public, given that the Government has raised this to a very high profile through the Prime Minister's rather extraordinary intervention? Can the Minister clarify whether there is any concern or evidence of the sort which has been reported and confirmed by an official who is after all an agent of this Government-he is a public servant. He has suggested that there is evidence of modification of this vessel. Can the Minister also tell us whether the report in this morning's paper is correct, that the Prime Minister learned of this surveillance only after his strong attack on the Indonesian authorities' handling of this matter? There seems to be a most extraordinary incapacity of the Government to deal with this matter in a simple, factual way when it has raised it to the highest possible level of public concern through the Prime Minister's intervention. Senator TATE —No, I cannot confirm that there is any evidence linking Mr Blenkinsop with the sorts of allegations that have been made regarding drug running and the use of the vessel C-Ment. As to the question of the Prime Minister's knowledge of these matters, I am sure that his awareness of the intelligence interest of the Australian Federal Police-and it goes no further than that-did arise only in the last 48 hours or so. Senator CHILDS —I direct my question to the Minister for Industry, Technology and Commerce. What are the prospects for increased trade and investment in manufactured goods with Thailand? Senator BUTTON —I visited Thailand in March of this year and there was some concern, I believe, in Thai Government circles and the business community that there was lack of recognition by Australian companies of the tremendous growth which has been occurring on a very steady basis in the Thai economy. The achievements there are very considerable. It is very encouraging that in recent months there has been a considerable increase in interest by Australian companies in that growth rate, which has consistently been 5 per cent to 6 per cent for most of this decade. I must make the point that, although Thailand has traditionally been an agricultural economy, manufacturing now accounts for about one-quarter of Thailand's gross domestic product and about 60 per cent of its exports. In the past two or three years, Australia's imports from Thailand increased at an annual average rate of about 50 per cent. Our exports, on the other hand, have grown at a much slower rate, less than 10 per cent annually, and we run a trade deficit with Thailand. Other regional economies are responding actively to the opportunities in Thailand and the restructuring of the Thai economy. For example, Japan and Taiwan have been investing very heavily in the manufacturing sector there. I personally see the best prospects for Australia in areas such as telecommunications, agricultural equipment and services, port development, materials handling and services and some equipment for new power stations. It is encouraging that earlier this year General Motors-Holden's Ltd began to market the Commodore in Bangkok again after, I think, some 10 years absence from that market. I think that should be seen as a symbol of the resurgence of Australian manufacturing and the renewed competitiveness of some of our industries. There are several large Australian manufacturers operating in Thailand: for example, Ansell, Safcol and the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd, which already have factories in Thailand or are planning to establish them there. This is also a promising development. More recently the Australia-Thai Business Co-operation Committee had a very successful meeting in Thailand, attended by about 30 Australian companies and some 70 Thai companies. That meeting was held in July. It was regarded as very successful and there will be continuing meetings of that body. I expect that Australian Ministers will lead at least two business missions to Thailand in 1989. In summary, the opportunities are enormous for Australian companies and they should be encouraged in every way to take part in both investment and trade activities with Thailand. Senator McLEAN —I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Transport and Communications to question on notice No. 410 standing in my name as of 1 June 1988, which is still unanswered. As this matter has developed an additional urgency with the imminent return to seasonal service of airships over northern Sydney suburbs, and with the intensification of the unpleasant conditions being experienced by the residents of north Sydney due to propeller-driven aircraft and helicopters, I ask the following question: Is the Minister aware of any environmental impact statements having been undertaken by either Federal or State authorities on the question of noise caused by aircraft, helicopters or airships over northern suburbs of Sydney? Does the Department normally undertake environmental impact statements on the noise produced by aircraft, helicopters and airships; if not, why not? Would the Minister not agree that the residents of the northern Sydney suburbs have incurred, without their having had the opportunity to put their feelings to the relevant departments, a degree of noise pollution normally associated with living in close proximity to a major airport? Is the Minister aware of proposals for floating and fixed helipads in and around Sydney Harbour? Could the Minister inform the Senate of the authority under which airships have been operating in Sydney and the date on which this authority imposed regulations governing their operations? Senator GARETH EVANS —As to the first two parts of the question, I am informed that formal environmental impact statements have not been prepared in relation to the operations of aircraft, helicopters and airships over the northern suburbs of Sydney. However, the then Department of Aviation undertook an environmental assessment of the noise impact of proposed helicopter routes in the Sydney Harbour and north Sydney area. It also undertook noise measurement studies in relation to the operation of helicopters and airships. While it was concluded from these studies that the operations would be likely to give rise to complaints by some residents, the overall assessment was that the environmental impact would not be significant. As to the third part of the question, the noise levels generated over the northern suburbs of Sydney by helicopters and airships cannot, I am advised, reasonably be compared with the very much louder noise levels experienced by the residents of suburbs in close proximity to the very busy Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport. Fourthly, I am aware of proposals for floating and fixed helipads in and around Sydney Harbour. The matter is one largely for the State Government. The Civil Aviation Authority sets certain operational standards for helipads which must be met before operations will be permitted, but the siting of the helipads and the associated environmental effects are the responsibility of the State. Finally, there are no special requirements for the operation of airships. They are treated the same as any other aircraft and their operation is governed by the Civil Aviation (Offenders on International Aircraft) Act and the civil aviation regulations. Airships Pacific Pty Ltd was first authorised to operate in January 1987 and has an air operation certificate which entitles the company to operate its airships commercially, as with other aircraft. Senator McLEAN —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I direct the Minister to the second part of my question, which was: does the Department normally undertake environmental impact statements? The Minister has made reference to environmental assessments. I ask the Minister: Is there provision under the procedure of environmental assessment for formal community reaction to that assessment? It would seem that there has been no provision for the thousands rather than the few northern Sydney suburban residents to react. Senator GARETH EVANS —I will seek what further information the Minister wants to provide in relation to that. But the question is so general-does the Department normally undertake environmental impact statements on the noise produced by aircraft, helicopters and airships-that I think it is incapable of answer. There are provisions under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act for assessments to be conducted in particular circumstances where the exercise of Commonwealth powers is involved. Those procedures are well known and well set out in the legislation, with which I am sure Senator McLean is familiar. If one is going to build with Commonwealth money a new airport somewhere, obviously those provisions are potentially triggered. But in the context of the question, I do not believe there is any legal obligation. The practical resolution of the matter is that it depends on case by case circumstances, and in this instance it has been as I have described it. Senator JONES —I refer the Minister for Justice to the alleged murder of David Blenkinsop and the wounding of his wife-to-be, Joanne Mist, by Indonesian officials, and the reported statement made by Mr Salim in Canberra: There is some suspicion that Blenkinsop was involved in drug running but I haven't any confirmation at this moment. I ask the Minister, further to the question asked by Senator Chaney: Was David Blenkinsop under investigation or surveillance by the Australian Federal Police for drug involved offences, or for any other offences? Secondly, has any investigation been commenced by the Australian Federal Police in regard to the alleged murder of David Blenkinsop? Has any person or have any persons been questioned by the Federal Police in relation to these matters? Senator TATE —In reply to Senator Jones's question as to whether Mr Blenkinsop was under investigation or surveillance by the Australian Federal Police for drug involved offences or for any other offences, the answer to both parts of the question is no. As to whether any investigation has been commenced by the Federal Police in regard to the alleged murder of David Blenkinsop, and whether any person has or persons have been questioned by the Federal Police in relation to these matters, once again the answer is a very definite no. Senator BOSWELL —My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Did the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, or a member of his staff, make it generally known last week that the meeting of the Aboriginal Development Commission (ADC) to be held in Adelaide would result in the Chairman being disciplined and the General Manager being sacked? At what stage was the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs provided with copies of typewritten motions circulated at the ADC meeting dealing with the actions of the Chairman? Were those typewritten motions provided to the meeting by the Minister's own departmental head? Finally, will the Minister now provide answers to the questions I asked yesterday and on 11 October? Senator TATE —I am asked whether the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs had a staff member who backgrounded the media as to what might transpire at a meeting of the Aboriginal Development Commission. Senator Boswell —No, I did not say that at all. You misunderstood the question. Mr President, may I repeat the question? Obviously the Minister did not understand it. The PRESIDENT —I call Senator Boswell. Senator BOSWELL —Did the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, or a member of his staff, make it generally known last week that the meeting of the ADC to be held in Adelaide would result in the Chairman being disciplined and the General Manager being sacked? That is exactly what happened. At what stage was the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs provided with copies of typewritten motions circulated at the ADC meeting dealing with the actions of the Chairman? Were those typewritten motions provided to the meeting by the Minister's own departmental head? Finally, will the Minister now provide answers to the questions that I asked yesterday and on 11 October? Senator TATE —I will have to refer the fresh questions raised by Senator Boswell today to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. I do not by any means wish to agree with the proposition that the Minister or his staff made I know not whom generally aware of what might transpire at a meeting of the Aboriginal Development Commission. I will ask him what typescripts of proposed motions may have been supplied to his office. Once again, obviously I will have to seek an answer from the Minister in respect of this matter that has been raised by Senator Boswell. This undertaking embraces the further question of whether those typewritten motions were supplied by the departmental head. I will try to get an answer to those questions as soon as possible. I undertook to seek information from the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs relating to the matters that were raised by way of question yesterday and the day before. I now have some information, which is as follows: as a result of questions in a letter sent to the Aboriginal Development Commission on 12 October by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and a reply from the ADC the same day, it can be confirmed that at a meeting of the ADC commissioners held in Adelaide this week a motion of no confidence in the Chairman of the ADC was passed. No such motion was passed in relation to the then General Manager of the ADC, Mr Mick O'Brien. It is understood that the board of commissioners did not seek to dismiss Mr Mick O'Brien and he remains an employee of the Aboriginal Development Commission. However, the Minister today by letter has sought clarification from the Commission of the details of the current position held by Mr O'Brien. I can table a copy of the letter. Senator Boswell —But he is not the Chairman of the ADC. Senator TATE —We are getting the information in the proper way, Senator. The Minister was not aware whether the board of commissioners sought legal advice from the Attorney-General's Department in relation to the purported removal of Mr Mick O'Brien from the position of General Manager of the ADC, nor was the Minister aware whether the Public Service Commission was consulted on the proposed appointment of Mr Cedric Wyatt. However, he has written to the Chairman and the ADC seeking answers to these questions. I can table a copy of the letter. As a general principle, it should be clearly recognised that matters relating to the ADC are the responsibility of its board of commissioners and not the Minister. I can confirm that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs did not have prior knowledge of any action, taken by the ADC commissioners at their meeting this week. I think that sufficiently indicates the scope of the more particular answer I will get in respect of the questions the honourable senator asked today. In relation to industrial action taken by Administrative and Clerical Officers Association (ACOA) members, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs was advised by telex of proposed action by ACOA members in the New South Wales region, Sydney branch offices, of the ADC. A number of statements contained in this telex were incorrect, a fact which would have been known by at least some of the senior ADC staff. However, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs will be meeting with Mr Peter Robson, National Secretary of the ACOA, in Canberra early next week to discuss industrial relations and work practices in the ADC. The PRESIDENT —Senator Tate, are you tabling those letters? Senator TATE —Yes, Mr President. Senator GILES —Has the Minister for Justice seen news reports of the indictment of a major international bank on charges of taking part in a worldwide drug money laundering ring, particularly dealing with the profits of cocaine smugglers? What steps is the Federal Government taking to combat the smuggling of cocaine into Australia? Senator TATE —It is becoming apparent to law enforcement agencies that Australia faces a much more vigorous push by South American cocaine producers to open up larger markets in this country. To the extent that northern American and European markets are becoming saturated, our intelligence suggests that Australia has been targeted as a market to exploit. Being concerned, as we are-and I am referring not only to the Federal law enforcement authorities and Government but also to my colleagues in the States, as evidenced by the fact that at the last meeting of the Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy held in Brisbane last Friday a matter was put on the agenda for our next meeting seeking a very full briefing on this matter-the fact is that the spreading of the use of this drug into a broader socioeconomic spectrum, into sections of society which formerly favoured heroin and cannabis, is of just as great concern to the Health Ministers as it is to the law enforcement Ministers. We aim to upgrade our attack on drug trafficking in relation to the smuggling of cocaine into Australia. We are actively considering the establishment of an Australian Federal Police (AFP) liaison officer post in South America. The network of overseas liaison officers has been one of the great successes of the Australian Federal Police. Only last week in Sydney an estimated $6m worth of heroin was seized in an operation which directly resulted from AFP liaison work in Singapore. It is thought that the expansion of that liaison network expertise and capability into South America would be a very useful response to the fact of, and concern about, cocaine flowing westward across the Pacific. This proposal is in harmony with the recent report of Mr Justice Stewart, the head of the National Crime Authority, who recently returned from a visit to South America, amongst other destinations. I believe that it is a very good response by the AFP in relation to this very disturbing matter. The laundering of illegal profits that can be derived from the sale of cocaine is something which needs to be attacked, as suggest- ed in Senator Giles's question. This Parliament, in passing the proceeds of crime legislation, introduced an offence of money laundering. The cash transactions reports legislation, which has been in operation since 1 July, makes it an offence for persons to operate bank accounts in false names. In these ways the Parliament, in that sense in cooperation with the Government and in harmony with the wishes of the community, is engaging in a fight against criminal activity in the drug smuggling area which I believe is beginning to have some good results. Naturally, we have to maintain our vigilance and be creative in our responses, and I believe that the Federal law enforcement agencies are acquitting themselves well in that regard. Senator WALTERS —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. During a meeting of Estimates Committee C, officers of the Australian Bureau of Statistics admitted that information supplied by the chief statistician to the Attorney-General's Department was incorrect. As this letter was seeking a legal opinion from the Attorney-General on the question of illegality or otherwise of the household expenditure survey and, as the Senate would understand, such an opinion, without correct information, would be impossible, will the Treasurer request the Attorney-General's Department to review the opinion in light of the new information? Senator WALSH —The question and the allegations within it were answered at the Estimates Committee meeting on Tuesday night. But I will ask the Treasurer whether he will comply with the request. My belief is that he will not, because there is absolutely no sense in doing so. Senator WALTERS —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question: Mr Skinner from the Australian Bureau of Statistics admitted that the Bureau's letter to the Attorney-General claimed that the only significant difference in the methodology between the 1974 and 1988 surveys was the change in collection from households in capital cities to rural households. Mr Skinner then admitted that the very significant additional alteration was that the 1974 survey was voluntary while the 1988 survey is regarded as compulsory. As this was not mentioned in the letter to the Attorney-General, will the Minister press the Treasurer to seek a review of the Attorney-General's opinion? Senator WALSH —The short answer is no. The expanded answer is that the letter the Statistician sent to the Attorney-General's Department did not have in it every bit of information that the Statistician has at his command. It did not tell the Attorney-General when the next full moon would be, either-which would be about as relevant as the question that has been raised. Senator McMULLAN —Did the Minister representing the Treasurer hear the AM program on Monday morning in which the Leader of the Opposition, Mr John Howard, asserted that improved productivity is the only way to improve average living standards in Australia? Is this statement true, and what action is the Government currently undertaking to improve average living standards? Senator WALSH —I did hear the discredited former Treasurer on the wireless on Monday morning. Senator Bolkus —Wireless? Senator WALSH —Yes, the wireless. That is proper English, uncorrupted by North American cultural imperialism. He said that he agreed with what I had said in a speech in Adelaide the previous Friday-that the only way to improve living standards was through increased productivity. Of course that is not what I said at all. I said: Essentially average living standards in the long term are determined by three things: the terms of trade, the level of employment relative to the size of the population, and productivity. By definition, in the long term those three factors are what determine the average standard of living. Mr Howard chose to refer to only one. I explicitly did not say that increasing productivity is the only way of improving average living standards. Of course, there is nothing new in a bit of misrepresentation; indeed Senator Stone accused me privately a couple of weeks ago of grossly misrepresenting something he had said. If not misrepresentation then certainly selective quotation is quite common in politics. So I am not particularly alarmed by the comments of Mr Howard. But what does alarm me is the ignorance the Leader of the Opposition displayed in making that statement. Even after five years as Treasurer he has apparently failed to pick up some of the most basic economic logic. It is no wonder that Senator Stone despaired of him and decided he was ineducable and being guided or advised by a meretricious player to boot. It is true, as I did say, that increased output per worker, or labour productivity, is one of the bases for sustainable improvements in average living standards, but there are other factors. Even Mr Howard and the meretricious player should be able to understand-- Senator Bishop —I rise on a point of order, Mr President. The Minister has chosen to use the term `meretricious' on a number of occasions to cast reflection on Dr Hewson. The definition of that term in the Macquarie Dictionary states, in part, `of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a prostitute'. That is unparliamentary language and I ask that the Minister withdraw. The PRESIDENT —Order! I do not regard the term as unparliamentary. Senator WALSH —I did not mention any names, but if Senator Bishop has any complaint about a former adviser being described as a meretricious player, I suggest she take it up with Senator Stone, who in fact is the author of the remark, charge or whatever one likes to regard it as. I do thank Senator Bishop, however, for having placed on record precisely what meretricious person, or player, is-I think she cited the Macquarie Dictionary, but various other dictionaries have a similar definition-therefore identifying for the whole world what Senator Stone thinks of the Opposition finance spokesman. Senator Alston —He was misquoted. He said `meritorious'. Senator WALSH —He did not. He said `meretricious'. I understand that when Senator Stone wrote that letter containing that succinct definition of Dr Hewson many public servants who received copies of it-I think there are about 69 of them altogether-were sent scurrying for their dictionaries to find out what `meretricious' meant. The PRESIDENT —Order! I think the Minister's answer is straying from the question. Senator WALSH —You are quite right, Mr President. I will cease doing so. Obviously if half the work force is thrown out of jobs, the productivity of the remaining half-again, other things such as the terms of trade being equal-would have to double just to maintain average living standards. The last part of Senator McMullan's question asked what the Government is currently doing to improve living standards. The point I just made is particularly relevant to that. The Government is doing many things, including restructuring awards, which will have long term benefits. But the most spectacular contribution this Government has made to the improvement in living standards which has occurred over the last five years, as demonstrated by household disposable income, is the enormous increase in employment. Over the last 12 months full time employment increased by a staggering 230,000 persons, while total employment increased by 313,000. Total employment for the month of September as against the month of August increased by an equally staggering 46,000 persons. The enormous increase in employment is the major reason for the increase in average per capita household income over the last five years. That is in distinct contrast to the quarter of a million people who lost their jobs in the last year in which Mr Howard was Treasurer; employment actually fell by around a quarter of a million. As I said earlier this week, measured household disposable per capita income in real terms fell by 1.8 per cent in 1982-83 principally because of that enormous decline in employment. To use the definition preferred by the shadow Treasurer, real household disposable income per capita net of capital sourced income declined in 1982-83 by a staggering 2 1/2 per cent. I repeat: in the last year Mr Howard was Treasurer, average real per capita disposable income net of capital sourced income fell by a staggering 2 1/2 per cent. Using the same definition, this Government has reversed that and there has been a net increase, after the correction for that 2 1/2 per cent lost in 1982-83, of 1 1/2 per cent. Senator TAMBLING —My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. The Minister will be well aware of the considerable and exhaustive consultations by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs since December of last year when he put forward the Foundations for the Future document. In April he brought an amended document before this place and more recently tabled legislation creating the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). As part of those consultations throughout Australia the Minister has distributed various maps of zones and regions, and the one most recently distributed makes the Whitlam regionalism of Australia pale into insignificance. My specific question is: how was this map prepared; and was it prepared in the office of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs with the use of texta colours and broad maps, or was it developed with the use of professional cartographers? In what way will it be able to be used in any decent form by the Australian Electoral Commission? Does it create a new form of electoral division for some 1,200 new parliamentarians in the new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission? Can the Minister indicate whether the professionalism that has been applied to the preparation of this map was discussed subsequently with Aboriginal people throughout Australia and whether their attention was drawn to the very significant differences between this map and the maps that were distributed earlier by the Minister? Senator TATE —Honourable senators will not be surprised to know that I do not know exactly how the map that was flourished by Senator Tambling was prepared-whether it was done by a particular methodology. He spoke of texta colours in a rather disparaging way. I do not know what professional expertise was drawn upon in the compiling of the coloured areas across the map of Australia. However, I will make inquiries as to how the map was prepared. I think that that will be answered at the Estimates committee next week. I will make inquiries regarding the discussion of the boundaries with Aboriginal communities and ascertain whether their attention was drawn to the fact that the boundaries differ from some boundaries in a formerly circulated map. I understand that it has always been the intention and the practice of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to put as much information as is possible before the various Aboriginal communities concerned so that, if the Parliament passes the ATSIC legislation, those communities will have made a major input into our deliberations and will be well positioned to act within the very democratic and representative structures designed to enhance their self-determination for which that legislation provides. Senator TAMBLING —I ask a supplementary question, Mr President, relating to the subsequent discussion with Aboriginal communities. Can the Minister guarantee that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs will ensure that at least an equal level of exhaustive discussion will take place on the changes that have been instituted on this map as was done with previously indicated zones and regions? Senator TATE —I have indicated today, as I have on previous occasions, that the Minister has a practice, which is well known, of consulting as widely and as comprehensively as possible with all ranges of Aboriginal communities, both in the most remote areas and the most urbanised areas of Australia. I am sure that he will undertake a similar practice in relation to the matters raised. Senator VALLENTINE —My question, which is directed to the Minister for Resources, relates to the greenhouse effect. In light of evidence that dollar for dollar investment in known energy efficiency measures is seven times more effective in reducing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere than a similar investment in nuclear power, can the Minister clarify the Government's position with regard to the development of nuclear power as a replacement for fossil fuels to reduce the greenhouse effect; the implementation of efficiency standards in industry, transport and household energy consumption to reduce the greenhouse effect; the provision of adequate funds for research and development of alternative, clean, low risk energy systems to reduce the greenhouse effect; the provision of adequate funds for reafforestation to reduce the greenhouse effect; and financial and technical assistance to developing nations in the provision of appropriate technologies for low-risk energy systems and the preservation of forests to reduce the global greenhouse effect? Senator COOK —I share with Senator Vallentine a concern about the impact of the greenhouse, or global warming, effect on our climate and temperature and the effect that will have on other activities on this planet. The Government believes that the best way of dealing with the energy implications of that is to pursue a course of increasing our energy conservation and energy efficiency. That is one of the most positive initiatives that can be taken. It is central to this Government's philosophy in approaching the problem; it is reaffirmed in our Energy 2000 policy statement that I tabled in the Senate in April; and it is part of our obligations, as an affiliate of the International Energy Agency, which is a subagency of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, to pursue a conservation strategy in terms of our energy resources. The Government has put considerable resources into the promotion of energy conservation and achievement of energy efficiency. It has done that for some of the reasons that I have referred to and which were referred to in the question. But it has other longer term benefits for this country in terms of self-sufficiency of our liquid fuels and as a way of extending the life of existing reservoirs. As a result of our Energy 2000 study, I set up a National Energy Consultative Council on which all the energy organisations and industries, as well as State governments, have been invited to serve. I have also invited the Australian Conservation Foundation to serve on that body. The first item that I as Minister have referred to it for consideration is the implications of the greenhouse effect on our energy strategy. As to Senator Vallentine's particular question, it is true that the advocates of nuclear energy argue that this is a way of ameliorating the impact of the greenhouse effect. I note that. I find those comments interesting. However, I observe that it is not as simple a panacea as that. I cannot support the comparisons put by the honourable senator in the early part of her question but I can say, from our own calculations, that if nuclear energy were doubled worldwide at the expense of coal or oil energy sources, the net reduction in the greenhouse effect would be only about 3 per cent. In the May economic statement we allocated further funds for reafforestation. An additional $15m has been allocated over three years for those projects under the national afforestation program. That meshes in with our other soil and land conservation programs. This week I started the process of developing a forests accord with the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the forest industries and the Conservation Foundation. One of the elements of that will be the establishment of plantations. I think that that too will add to the stock of tree cover in Australia, thus helping the area to which Senator Vallentine referred. Finally, Senator Vallentine asked about assistance to foreign countries. The Government has already undertaken significant steps to assist countries in this region in monitoring and coping with the challenge of the global climate change. The Prime Minister announced a significant initiative at the South Pacific meeting last month to assist with the establishment of a sea level monitoring network. Senator MacGIBBON —My question is directed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. I refer to the notations on official papers made by his predecessor as Foreign Minister which have been so utterly destructive of Australia's relations with its regional neighbours, as evidenced by the reactions in their respective capitals. Given that all the regional governments see those notations as the official, if tacit, policy of this Labor Government in relation to them since the Government has bestowed the office of head of state on the former Foreign Minister, will the Government follow the only course open to it in trying to salvage the situation and withdraw the commission for the new head of state? Senator GARETH EVANS —No, we will not. I note, once again, the breach of the undertaking given by Mr Howard that Mr Hayden's appointment would not be subject to further criticism by the Opposition in the interests of maintaining the dignity and decorum that is appropriate to that position. I know that Senator MacGibbon is incapable of either honouring an undertaking given by his Leader or observing loyalty to his Leader. The latter quality is, of course, one that he shares with most members of his Party, for entirely understandable reasons. I would hope that we hear no more of this kind of thing from the Opposition because it is manifestly destructive of the credibility and integrity of that position. I do not accept the premise of the question that the material in question did have any lasting or damaging effect of any significance in terms of our relations with our regional neighbours. I say that on the basis of visits to several of the countries that were involved in those references immediately after this matter came to public knowledge. I am sure that, as a result of those visits and the frank and open discussions that I had with people there, any question of possible transient damage in relation to those matters has well and truly passed. I make the final point that the damage to our relationships in the region that may have been thought to have been caused by that episode is as nothing compared with the damage to our relationships in the region that is directly and immediately attributable to the kinds of racist outpourings that we have had from so many members of the Opposition which have not been resiled from, which continue to be espoused on every available occasion, and which are absolutely destructive of the kind of reputation and credibility that this country has sorely won for itself over the past two decades by its hitherto bipartisan, non-discriminatory immigration policy. The way in which Australia's reputation has been put at risk has been an absolute unmitigated disgrace. The implications for our trade, in particular the implications for the kind of trade in services which depends so much on a confident personal relationship between individuals in these countries and ourselves-- Senator Stone —Humbug. Senator GARETH EVANS —I note that Senator Stone has entered the fray yet again with the description that what I am saying is humbug. It is a demonstration that he is incapable of learning, he is incapable of sensitivity and he is incapable of behaving in any way that would do credit to this nation. Senator MacGIBBON —Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Mr President, that was a gross, wilful and malicious misrepresentation of what the question was about. There was no breach of the undertaking not to attack the office of Governor-General of this country. My question, as an Australian who is vitally concerned about the security of this country, relates to the enormous damage that the Government has done in endorsing as official policy the views of a former Minister. The question is directed at the incompetence of the Government with respect to defending Australia's interests and is not in any way an attack on the Governor-General. The PRESIDENT —Order! What is the supplementary question? Senator MacGIBBON —The Minister for Foreign Affairs should address the real question and not try to wriggle out of it in some dishonourable way. The PRESIDENT —Order! Senator MacGibbon will resume his seat. There was no supplementary question. Senator DEVEREUX —I address my question to the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories. Is the Minister aware of recent press reports concerning the financial difficulties being experienced by the Australian Confederation of Sport for the Disabled in its preparation for sending the Australian team to the Paralympics in Seoul? In light of these problems can the Minister inform the Senate of the level of assistance provided to the Confederation by the Government and advise what steps have been taken to assist the Confederation in overcoming its shortfall? Senator RICHARDSON —I am aware of the difficulties which those associated with sending the Australian team to the Paralympics in Seoul have experienced. Senator Alston —Turn your tie down; we can't hear you. Senator RICHARDSON —It is a very tasteful tie, Senator. It is very quiet. My wardrobe dominates the thinking of honourable senators opposite, not the question of what assistance can be provided to the athletes attending the Paralympics. The Paralympics are open to blind, wheelchair, amputee and cerebral palsy athletes. The Australian team consists of approximately 180 athletes accompanied by 56 officials who have gone to Seoul during the last few days. Forty countries will be represented and there are 15 sporting events on the agenda. The 1988 Paralympics appeal was established in 1987 by the Australian Confederation of Sports for the Disabled. It set a target of $2m. The Federal Government's contribution to the appeal was $125,000 in cash in 1987-88. A further $25,000 was provided by way of assistance in the form of the use of the facilities and the programs available at the Australian Institute of Sport. There have been a number of press reports about the financial difficulties which the Confederation has experienced. Because of those, on Wednesday morning I spoke with Mrs Barbara Worley, who is the manager of the team to Seoul, about the financial situation. It is still unclear how much money will be required to make up the shortfall, because the Confederation is not yet sure what the figure will be. Nevertheless, I have assured Mrs Worley that the Commonwealth will make available a further $20,000 in cash. Should that be insufficient to meet the needs of the team, I will discuss with her on her return what other assistance the Commonwealth might be able to provide. On behalf of the Government and, I hope, all honourable senators and the Australian people, I also sent a letter of support to the team wishing them well in their endeavours. Senator TATE —During Question Time Senator Boswell asked me a question in several parts about the possible role of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and/or members of his office in relation to the meeting held earlier this week at the Aboriginal Development Commission. I said in my general answer to questions asked yesterday-and I now confirm-that the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs did not have prior knowledge of any actions taken by the Aboriginal Development Commissioners at their meeting this week. In relation to the more specific questions raised by Senator Boswell, the answer from the Minister's office is an emphatic no. Senator GARETH EVANS —Yesterday, Senator Haines asked me a question, amongst other things, on the capacity of Australia's rural sector to benefit from the increased meat exports to European countries following the European Parliament's recent decision to ban United States beef containing hormone residues. I am happy to give her the answer that she sought. I am advised that the European Parliament does not ban United States beef containing hormone residues. The European Community does have in place a directive which effectively prohibits the sale of meat treated with hormonal growth promotants. That directive came into force on 1 January this year. Its application to third countries was suspended for one year. The European Parliament on its own does not have the power to ban meat exports from the United States or any other country. There remain considerable differences over the ban. Like the United States and other countries, Australia is opposed to the ban on scientific grounds. The recent scandals within the European Community about hormone treated meat provide further evidence that the system as established by the Community cannot be effectively policed among its own producers. Unfortunately, the European consumer is not able to choose meat on the grounds of its wholesomeness, or, for that matter, competitive pricing. The European Community operates a highly restrictive and complex quota system for meat and many other food imports. Under the terms of such arrangements, Australia has few, if any, opportunities to increase its exports of primary foodstuffs to the European Community. The PRESIDENT —Earlier in Question Time I ruled that the word `meretricious' was not unparliamentary on the basis of the primary current meaning, that is, `showy'. The meaning which Senator Bishop attributed to the word is stated by the Macquarie Dictionary to be archaic. I therefore affirm my ruling. I cannot rule out an expression on the basis of an archaic meaning. The PRESIDENT —Yesterday in the House of Representatives the Hon. Andrew Peacock stated that I had alleged at the Joint House Committee meeting that he had made a complaint about aerobics classes being held in the area adjacent to the swimming pool. To make the position entirely clear, I table a copy of the report dated 11 October which I received in my capacity as President of the Senate from Mr David Hood, Assistant Secretary, Property Management, Joint House Department. With the concurrence of honourable senators I propose that the report be incorporated in Hansard. I believe that all honourable senators, having read the report, will agree that it was reasonable for the staff in the swimming pool area to interpret Mr Peacock's actions as those of a person registering a complaint. The senior management of the Joint House Department acted in the only way possible, given the circumstances of Mr Peacock's actions. Senator LEWIS(Victoria) —Mr President, I certainly do not want to refuse you leave to do something in the chamber, but I do not believe that any Opposition senator has had an opportunity to peruse the statement which you have sought to have incorporated. In those circumstances I would ask you to defer the matter for a few minutes to enable us to look at the statement. The PRESIDENT —I will do that. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia) —by leave-This morning, by way of a personal explanation, Senator Vallentine claimed that during a debate when we were welcoming American naval ships to our shores I had claimed that she was in her room scribbling anti-American notes. That is not what I said. I said that I presumed that in her absence as usual from debates on these matters she was in her room scribbling notes to herself of an anti-American nature. What I did not say was that when Senator Vallentine visited the Brewton to register her protest in Albany she was given three caps by the Captain of that ship which were symbols of the American naval crewmen's hats. She took them ashore and when she saw the media she stuffed them up her jumper. Bill received from the House of Representatives. Motion (by Senator Robert Ray) agreed to: That the Bill may proceed without formalities and be now read a first time. Bill read a first time. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria-Minister for Immigration, Local Government and Ethnic Affairs)(12.36) —I move: That the Bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to incorporate the second reading speech in Hansard. Leave granted. The speech read as follows- The purpose of this Bill is to authorise the Treasurer, on behalf of the Commonwealth, to guarantee borrowings raised by Qantas Airways Ltd to finance the purchase of three Boeing 767-300 extended range aircraft. The aircraft will be delivered in October, November and December of this year. These aircraft, which are the latest development of the 767 series, will provide Qantas with greater flexibility in meeting the requirements of the rapidly growing inbound tourist market. Unlike Qantas' existing 200 series, these aircraft provide for first class passengers and carry 231 passengers compared with 208. The aircraft will be utilised primarily on the Tasman and Japanese routes, two of Qantas', and Australia's, important markets. Qantas has brought forward delivery of these aircraft to meet the end of year peak demand for travel. The Company plans to operate 154 extra round trips this summer to accommodate the anticipated higher demand. These extra flights will be in addition to a substantial increase in regular scheduled capacity. New schedules to take effect in November reflect an increase each week of about 6700 seats, equivalent to 17 jumbo jets compared with last summer's schedules. In addition to the early acquisition of the 767s, the airline has arranged to lease two 747 aircraft, which will be in the Qantas livery, to help operate the supplementary flight program. The provision of a guarantee for Qantas' payment of, and payment of interest on, amounts borrowed for these new aircraft and related spare parts and equipment will be limited by the Bill to $US235 million or its equivalent in other currencies. This represents 85% of the total project cost for the three aircraft. The provision of the guarantee does not involve the Government in any cash outlay, but does create a contingent liability for the Commonwealth. The terms and conditions on which the moneys are borrowed will be subject to the Treasurer's approval. The Bill also provides for proper security to be given to the Commonwealth over such property as the Treasurer deems satisfactory, and Qantas is to undertake to maintain adequate insurance of the items under the loan guarantee, and to protect the Commonwealth against the sale or mortgage of the property offered as security. The Bill also allows the Treasurer to require the fulfilment of any other conditions he thinks necessary before he gives a guarantee. The previous Minister for Transport and Communications announced on 25 May 1988 a new reform package which included the primary aim of giving Qantas directors greater commercial autonomy to direct the affairs of the Company. The appropriateness of further guarantees for Qantas aircraft is to be reviewed in the process of implementing that package. I commend this Bill to the Senate. Debate (on motion by Senator Reid) adjourned. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(12.38) —Mr President, thank you for allowing me to peruse the document on aerobics classes. The Opposition parties have no objection to the incorporation of it. Leave granted. The document read as follows- MR PRESIDENT AEROBICS CLASSES Due to a number of requests from Staff, Aerobics Classes commenced on 30 August 1988, with Joint House Department approval, in the Gymnasium within the Recreation Area. Classes were programmed for 7.30 am and 5.30 pm and at some stage later, a lunch time session was introduced. Classes were well attended with up to 20 participants, including the Hon. Ros Kelly MP on frequent occasions. On or about Thursday 29 September 1988, a sitting day, the Hon. Andrew Peacock MP approached Ms Merryn Hibben (one of our temporary attendants employed to supervise the Recreation Area) after swimming in the pool and stated that he didn't think that it was right for Aerobics Classes to be held where participants could view Senators and Members using the pool. Apparently he had received complaints from other members. He quite correctly pointed out that the recreation facilities were for the private use of Senators and Members during sitting periods (as endorsed by the Joint House Committee). When Mr Peacock's complaint was notified to the Secretary Joint House Department, it was decided to suspend Aerobics Classes until an alternative location for the classes could be found. The suspension of Aerobics Classes resulted in media coverage throughout the Macquarie Network News Service on Thursday 6 October and this week on FM104.7 in Canberra (an interview with Mr Peacock during which he apparently denied having complained to Madam Speaker about the classes) and this morning in the Age Newspaper (see attached). The holding of Aerobics Classes in the Gymnasium was an interim arrangement as this area is to be filled with exercise machines and weight training apparatus (this equipment is being installed this week). We are currently examining an alternative location for the Aerobics Classes in the Ground Floor of the unfinished Senators' suites (Construction Area 3D) and expect that classes could resume from early next week pending resolution of some issues. Items currently being checked are safety, ventilation, security (the area is still under control of the Parliament House Construction Authority) and equipment requirements, e.g. matting for the floor. I anticipate that Joint House Department will undertake any minor works to make the area acceptable and purchase the matting ($1000). Cost of purchasing the matting will be recovered via a small charge per person per lesson. I have advised Madam Speaker in similar terms. For your information. D. A. HOOD Assistant Secretary Property Management The Age, Tuesday 11 October 1988 p. 3. JOURNALISTS OFFEND PEACOCK'S MODESTY By CARMEL McCAULEY, Canberra Mr Andrew Peacock, known for his attention to appearance, has complained that workers at the new Parliament House-particularly journalists-attend aerobic classes next to the swimming pool in which he and other members swim. Mr Peacock's complaint resulted in the aerobics classes being cancelled indefinitely yesterday, and a vital question being raised: do the aerobic pupils really peep at the swimmers? The only politician to attend the aerobic classes regularly, Mrs Ros Kelly, the Minister for Defence Science and Personnel, said no one in the classes was interested in who was in the swimming pool. ``I think the whole thing is absolute nonsense. You're not there to perv on other members' bodies,'' she said yesterday. ``I'm too busy sweating and puffing to notice who's next to me or who's in the swimming pool. All you can see anyway is the top of their heads.'' She would be discussing the issue with the Speaker, Mrs Child, to ensure that a new room for aerobics was found, but said: ``It seems a nonsense to have a facility and then not to use it''. The co-manager of the fitness centre, Ms Merryn-Lee Hibben, said Mr Peacock had been adamant that he did not like the aerobic classes, although she pointed out that very few journalists attended them. ``He was funny about the possibility that members of the media would be commenting about how the Members of Parliament looked in their swimming costumes,'' she said. ``He said others had complained to him that journalists were there and that they would probably write nasty things about them.'' The $1-million fitness centre includes a pool, two squash courts, a spa and a sauna. The pool is closed to the building's estimated 3500 staff members when Parliament is sitting. A spokeswoman for Mr Peacock said she did not know anything about his complaint. Motion (by Senator Robert Ray) proposed: That, when next the Order of the Day for the resumption of the debate on the motion for the second reading of the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill 1988 is called on, General Business Notice of Motion No. 70, standing in the name of Senator Powell and relating to the establishment of a Select Committee on Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals in Australia, be called on at the same time and, upon the motion being moved, the motion shall be considered together with the motion for the second reading of the Bill at the second reading stage but shall be voted on separately after the question for the second reading has been determined. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(12.39) —I alert the Manager of Government Business in the Senate (Senator Robert Ray) to the fact that I am totally opposed to this motion. We on this side see no reason for these matters to be debated together. If this motion is put I will have no alternative but to call a division. Because of a funeral taking place in Adelaide today certain arrangements have been entered into in the Senate with regard to divisions. Senator Ray is pushing me into a situation where I will have no alternative but to take the action that I have outlined. I had anticipated that Senator Powell, or one or her colleagues, would seek leave to have this matter debated cognately. I would have then objected and that would have achieved my aims. If Senator Ray pushes us to a division I am afraid that the arrangements he has entered into will break down. Senator ROBERT RAY(Victoria-Manager of Government Business in the Senate)(12.40) —in reply-I assumed that some agreements had been made on this. Senator Lewis —Not on our side. Senator ROBERT RAY —Senator Lewis now informs me that there have been no agreements and I apologise for that. We are left in a fairly vexatious position. Senator Lewis —I suggest we proceed with the Bill and deal with the other matter when we can. Senator ROBERT RAY —I intend to proceed with the Bill. I withdraw this motion but I will be having discussions to straighten out where the breakdown in communications has occurred. We will leave our options open at this stage. The PRESIDENT —Is leave granted to withdraw the motion? There being no objection, leave is granted. Motion withdrawn. The PRESIDENT —For the information of honourable senators I table the report of the Commonwealth of Australia Branch Delegation to the Thirty-third Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in September 1987. Senator CHILDS(New South Wales) —I present the report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology on the proposed change to the southern bluefin fishery management plan. Ordered that the report be printed. Senator CHILDS —by leave-I move: That the Senate take note of the paper. I seek leave to incorporate my short statement in Hansard. Leave granted. The statement read as follows- Mr President, this matter was referred to the Committee on 25 August 1988 following representations made to a number of Senators concerning the effect of the changes to the plan on some fishermen. The changes remove the rights of a number of fishermen to take southern bluefin tuna. The Committee sought information concerning the reasons for the changes. It was informed that they were necessary to prevent a possible expansion of this fishery that seemed likely to occur as a result of the recent dramatic escalation in prices that can be obtained for this fish in the Japanese sashimi markets. Top quality sashimi grade tuna can sell for more than $100 per kilogram. One fish recently returned $23,000. Southern Bluefin Tuna has, however, been severely overfished. Catches have declined from a peak of eighty one thousand tonnes in 1961 to twenty five thousand tonnes in 1987. Scientific studies indicate that the parental biomass, that is, the tonnage of spawning adult fish, has declined dramatically, possibly to as little as one fifth of what it was originally. There are major concerns that the decline in the parental biomass may have led to a severe reduction in the production of young fish. If this has happened, the stock may never recover. The Committee is in total agreement that dramatic measures must be taken immediately if there is to be any prospect of salvaging this resource. On 6 October, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy announced that the three main countries which catch southern bluefin tuna, namely Australia, Japan and New Zealand, have agreed to substantial reductions in the global catch. The new catch limit is approximately half the previous year's limit. The reductions announced by the Minister partially answer one of the complaints of the small fishermen, namely that they were being forced to endure all the cuts while the larger operators were apparently untouched. A problem remained, however. Some smaller operators were going to lose their fishing rights totally under the changes proposed. While agreeing that catch reductions must be made, the Committee was concerned to ensure that the reductions were made equitably. I am very pleased that, following discussions with the Minister, a more equitable arrangement is being put in place. The Committee considers that it is deplorable that the fishery has been reduced to such a parlous state, particularly when the scientists have been warning of what was happening for some time. There are other fisheries which are of considerable value to this country, including the yellowfin and bigeye tuna fisheries. One hopes that sufficient resources are being devoted to the study and management of them, and that the countries which exploit them do so in a more responsible manner than appears to have been the case with the southern bluefin tuna fishery. Senator CHILDS —I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned. Debate resumed from 24 May, on motion by Senator Tate: That the Bill be now read a second time. Senator LEWIS(Victoria)(12.41) —The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill 1988 is an attempt to provide national legislation for the clearance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals through the system. Before I turn to this Bill I would like to make a short reference to a procedural matter which was raised a few moments ago. The Government and the Australian Democrats have apparently entered into some arrangement to enable this Bill to be debated cognately with a proposal by Senator Powell to establish a Senate committee of inquiry into agricultural and veterinary chemicals. The matters are totally unrelated even though the subject is the same. As I have mentioned, this Bill is about the clearance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals for use in fields of primary production, whereas the other proposal by Senator Powell is to establish a Senate committee of inquiry. There is no relationship between the subject matters. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the coalition parties are totally and irrevocably opposed to the establishment of the committee. I also want to make it clear to the Government and the Democrats that the coalition parties will take every step possible to prevent the establishment of this committee, which action we believe will be diabolical for the primary industries around Australia. We believe that the establishment of that committee will create opportunities for the nuts in this society to come before the Senate committee and give evidence, alleging that the chemicals being used by our primary producers in Australia are poisoning our food and our primary produce. That is the sort of evidence that will be called before this Senate committee at the instigation of the Democrats. It will receive worldwide publicity to the detriment of the sale of our primary produce on world markets. It is for that reason that the Opposition is totally opposed to the establishment of this committee. Until now the Opposition has taken every step possible to oppose the establishment of the committee and to defer debate on this motion by Senator Powell. We will continue to do so throughout the course of this debate until such time as the Government and the Democrats have joined together to force this committee on the primary producers of Australia. I give the Government a warning-I have already given the Democrats a warning in the past-that we will not consent to some sort of proposal which will enable them to establish this committee. We think it is disgraceful that the Government and the Democrats have agreed to this proposal. We believe that it was done as a result of a backroom deal entered into by the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) with Senator Powell in order to get the votes of the Democrats on some other matter not related to this at all. Our suspicion is that it was to enable the Government to carry the resource rent tax legislation. The Democrats gave the Government their support to the resource rent tax legislation in exchange for the Government's support for the establishment of that committee. Senator Macklin —Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I think it is appropriate under Standing Orders that senators cannot make references that impute improper motives to other senators. As Senator Lewis was imputing that we traded our vote for another vote I think that that is an imputation of improper motives to senators. I ask him to withdraw those comments. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator MacGibbon) —There is no point of order. Senator LEWIS —If Senator Macklin thinks that I have offended under the Standing Orders in some way or other, even though there is no point of order, I will withdraw that imputation. I do not know what deals the Government does with the Democrats but it is clear that they certainly do some deals on some things because they talk to one another. The reason that I have been explaining my position on this matter is that the Government and the Democrats have been talking about whatever procedure they will enter into now. Senator McLean —I saw you talking to Senator Cook earlier today. Senator LEWIS —I have explained my position and made the coalition parties' position perfectly clear. We are totally opposed to the establishment of this committee. We will be taking every step possible to prevent the creation of this committee. Senator Coulter —Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. My understanding is that the motion regarding a cognate debate was not proceeded with. The honourable senator is now debating the establishment of a committee and not the Bill, which is the matter that should be before the Senate. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Senator Lewis, will you speak to the second reading speech of the Bill? Senator LEWIS —Certainly. I was just about to say, `I now turn to the Bill'. I heard an interjection from Senator McLean that he saw me speaking to Senator Cook in the chamber just prior to the commencement of this debate. That is right. I did see Senator Cook, who is the Minister in the chamber responsible for this Bill. I wanted to make it perfectly clear to him just before the commencement of this debate that I would not be consenting to the proposal that the Bill be debated cognately with Senator Powell's motion, which I believe is the Government's proposal. Senator Robert Ray —We were told there was an agreement. Senator LEWIS —Senator Ray says he was told that there was an agreement. That may very well be so. I do not deny that Senator Ray was told that there was an agreement. Clearly, there was a misunderstanding and I acknowledge that there was one. My position is perfectly clear. Senator Macklin —We will make it perfectly plain. We won't negotiate with you. Senator LEWIS —Since 1967 the Federal and State governments have been involved in a voluntary cooperative system for the assessment and clearance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals before registration for use in the individual States under separate State legislation. Recently the Northern Territory has entered into the scheme. There are some in the community who question the use-- Senator McLean —There are a lot. Senator LEWIS —I might say that Senator Macklin, who accused me a few moments ago of taking some action and criticised me for saying that the Democrats entered into a deal with the Government, is now going around threatening our side about future deals with them. Let me assure Senator Macklin that we have never been able to pull off a deal with the Democrats that was not what the Democrats wanted. Ninety per cent of the deals done in this chamber are for the Democrats to support the Government so that they can achieve some quasi-political gain. All we have ever asked of the Democrats is that they occasionally support some reasonable motion which might amend some piece of legislation properly. There are some in the community who question the use of chemicals in food production. I believe that most people agree with Minister Kerin that the controlled use of chemicals in food production has been justified. I heard an interjection from the Democrats confirming what I said before. There are lots of people who object to the use of chemicals in food production. That demonstrates the point I was trying to make. The Democrats are proposing to set up a committee so that they can bring evidence from these people who object to the use of chemicals in primary production in Australia. That will be to the detriment of our international sales of primary produce. They will, if they can, destroy our sales of wheat, wool, beef and mutton in the course of a prolonged Senate inquiry at which we will get all the idiots in this community coming forward to give evidence about the fact that they are frightened that there might be some chemical on their foodstuffs. That will be to the detriment of the sales of our products. Senator Coates —Haven't you got contradictory evidence? Senator LEWIS —Let me also say to Senator Coates on the Government side, who seems to want to interfere in this matter, that it has already been dealt with and inquired into by the Australian Science and Technology Council. There is no reason for the Government to support the Democrats' proposal. The Minister agrees, as I have indicated, that the controlled use of chemicals in food production has been justified. The Government believes that the increasing complexity of chemicals and the realities of international trade require a more extensive regulatory framework governing the clearance and registration of such chemicals. This legislation is an attempt to provide that framework. The Australian Agricultural Council recommended a legislative approach and the Minister has advised us that this legislation is based on the detailed considerations of a working party of that Council and on earlier recommendations of the Industries Assistance Commission (IAC). Senator McLean —The Government has acted responsibly. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Senator McLean, if you wish to speak in the debate I will call you later. Desist from interjecting at the moment. Senator LEWIS —This Bill establishes a council which will operate as a coordinating and clearing organisation, recommending the conditions and restrictions which are to apply to agricultural and veterinary chemical products. To support the legislation, the Commonwealth proposes to enter into agreements with individual State and Territory governments along the lines of a draft agreement which is included in the schedule to the Bill. The Opposition does not oppose the Bill. We have a number of amendments which I will come to in the committee stage. The Opposition has some reservations as to whether the Bill as proposed by the Government is the best way of achieving the aims, particularly in view of the position adopted by the Queensland Government and the concerns of industry. I think it is a great pity that Minister Kerin is not involved in this debate because I would like to draw the attention of the chamber to what has happened. A couple of months ago, the Minister for Primary Industries in Queensland, Mr Harper, wrote to Mr Kerin and said, `We in Queensland have some difficulty with this Bill. You are proposing an agreement which is included as a schedule to this Bill. Here is an alternative agreement. If you could change your mind, if you would accept my alternative proposed agreement, the Queensland Government would be prepared to accept the proposal and join in the scheme'. The last letter that Mr Harper wrote to Mr Kerin on this matter was dated about 14 August. Half an hour or so ago I checked with Mr Harper's office and Mr Kerin has not yet responded to Mr Harper's letter. So as far as we are aware at this stage, when this legislation is carried, notwithstanding that the whole principle of this legislation is based on the support of all of the States, Queensland will not be a party to it. Senator Crichton-Browne —That is a great pity. Senator LEWIS —I think that is a great pity, as my colleague Senator Crichton-Browne said. I think Minister Kerin ought to have a look at the possibility that the Government could introduce an amendment to substitute for the proposal in the schedule to the Bill a proposal that would be satisfactory to the Queensland Government, so that all the States in Australia could come into this scheme. The Queensland Government indicated it was prepared to support a coordinated and cooperative system but it had some reservations about its own rights and protections. It offered this alternative to Mr Kerin and so far Mr Kerin has not responded to it. It may be that in due course he will agree to that proposal. However, at this stage, we do not know. I hope that the Minister for Resources, who has responsibility for the handling of this matter in the Senate, will be able to tell us at some stage or other what Mr Kerin's response to the Queensland Minister for Primary Industries is. If Queensland does not go along with the proposal, that will create great difficulties, especially for the chemical companies. This Bill does nothing to address the current bottlenecks in obtaining clearance of new products. The need for time periods in evaluation and grant of clearance by the Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council remains an omission from this Bill. The problem in this area is the time it takes to get these products evaluated and clearance granted. There is a danger that this legislation will lead to further significant delays, although the intention is supposed to be to ensure: . . . that evaluation of such products is carried out in a timely and efficient manner. In the present IAC inquiry into the chemical and plastics industry it was pointed out that at any given time around 50 per cent of the agricultural chemicals used by Australian farmers are based on active constituents for which the patents have actually expired. These products have an important role in Australian agriculture because of their proven efficacy, their ready availability, cost effectiveness and user familiarity. In addition, they lend themselves to local manufacture and the development of substantial export markets. Under this Bill it will be necessary for companies to provide additional studies on a range of commodity compounds and other information to comply with the clearance and registration system. The industry response to the demands of the various regulatory agencies has resulted in the formation of significant international groups to share the costs. I mention clause 20 (3) because that allows the Council and the chairperson to divulge confidential commercial information to such persons as the Minister certifies in writing, and to divulge information to a prescribed authority or person, or to a person who, in the chairperson's opinion, is either expressly or implicitly authorised by the proprietor of a chemical product to obtain information. That subclause provides wide-ranging and unreviewable discretions where disclosure could cause irreparable commercial harm to the owner. There appears to be little recourse that such an owner would have to prevent or challenge such a disclosure. The principal concern of the Veterinary Chemicals Association of Australia Ltd is the severity of clause 22 (1) and the fact that it has the potential to be open to a wide range of interpretations and that it would be impracticable, if not impossible, to implement in its current form. This is reinforced under clause 22 (1) (b). I have amendments to those clauses which I will bring up in the committee debate. I will terminate my remarks at this stage because the Senate is about to suspend for lunch. I have amendments which I will move and speak to in the committee stage of the debate. Sitting suspended from 12.59 to 2 p.m. Senator MacGIBBON(Queensland)(2.00) —The Liberal and National parties will be supporting, after amendment, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill 1988. We will not be supporting the reference of the whole of the use of agricultural chemicals in Australia to a committee, which the Australian Democrats will be moving, with the support of their parent party, the Australian Labor Party, at a later stage. Our grounds for doing that are simply that we have confidence in the licensing programs that have existed up until the present and in the steps that are entailed in this Bill to further refine the situation. Let me inject a personal note into this debate. As a primary producer, a beef producer in the export trade, I certainly do not wish to see all of Australia's agricultural and pastoral exports put at risk, as they certainly will be when the luddites of the Democrats and their allies embark on a witch-hunt based on fantasy and supposition, as we have witnessed from the Democrats on previous occasions in this chamber in debates concerning the use of chemicals. As Senator Lewis said prior to the suspension of the sitting for lunch, this will have an enormous impact on our export market, and it is not only the producers who will suffer. We have been reduced to bankruptcy by this Government. This country now has an enormous debt. As we say continually in this chamber, not only do we have this debt position but also our standards of living have gone down and everyone would now have to get a rise of at least $56 a week to compensate for the increase in taxation in the five years of this Government. So the country is in no position to suffer an attack on our export earnings. The people who are promoting this reference to a committee seem to think that there are queues of buyers in other countries for our rural exports. That is not true. We move in an intensely competitive market. We sell on quality and price; we do not sell on friendship or any favoured deals at all. We face the rest of the world, and the rural export market is the toughest market of all to operate in. We operate in that area successfully and the last thing we want is to be stabbed in the back by a few ignorant and uninformed minds. To return to the Bill before us today: in a nutshell this Bill has as its purpose `to provide national legislation for the clearance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals'. Secondly, it will establish the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council. The Minister for Justice (Senator Tate), in his second reading speech, said that the Government had four basic objectives: (i) to ensure that agricultural and veterinary chemical products perform as intended (ii) to minimise any possible hazard to the public, the environment, users or to agricultural produce and livestock from the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals (iii) to enhance the export market potential of our agricultural products, and (iv) to enhance the uniformity of assessment and registration of these products within Australia. The Liberal and National parties sincerely hope that the objectives of this Bill are achieved. At present, the situation with respect to agricultural and veterinary chemicals is that there is no specific overriding Commonwealth legislation for the assessment and clearance of new products. There is a non-statutory scheme of clearance carried out by Commonwealth and State representatives in the technical committee for agricultural chemicals and the technical committee for veterinary chemicals. Since 1967 the Federal Government and the States have voluntarily looked at assessment and clearance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals prior to registration for use in the individual States and the Territories under separate State and Territory legislation. The Australian Agricultural Council and the Industries Assistance Commission recommended that clearance and registration of agricultural and veterinary chemicals should have a legislative foundation at a national level. This was supported by the State governments, the National Farmers Federation and other farmer organisations, and the agricultural and veterinary chemicals industry. The importance of this legislation is that in the future we will certainly face increased pressure in the form of more and more rigid specifications on chemical and herbicide residues in the food chain. As analytical techniques become more precise, smaller residues of chemicals will be detected in food samples. Buyers of food will have threshold levels for these residues. At present, many are measured in parts per million, but we will have very much finer tolerances in the years ahead. If Australia is to sell in the world markets we have to show, without any doubt at all, that our food complies with these stringent specifications. This legislation should go a long way to taking us down the path to meeting those increased standards. As well as the consequence of chemicals on the food chain, a secondary matter is involved: the environmental issues. We are aware that some chemicals have a long term effect on the environment and that some chemicals and drugs have an effect that is quite different to that for which they are prescribed. Again, this legislation will do something to control the unwanted effects by careful research of products that are used in the agricultural and veterinary fields. It is worth mentioning that because these agents are in themselves biologically active. The very purpose of using veterinary chemicals and chemicals in the agricultural field is to improve the quality of the crop or the beast in some way or another. They therefore play an active part in the metabolism of the plant or the animals to which they are applied. In those circumstances, it is quite understandable that they have effects on other organisms that are not intended when they are initially employed. There is a very real need to look at the broad field. While we are talking about the negative effects, it must be emphasised that, overall, the use of chemicals in the agricultural and pastoral field has had enormous benefits for mankind. It is terribly important that we maintain a sense of balance. We must be cautious and careful in the use of these chemicals. We must not be stampeded by the hysteria of quite vocal although minor sections of the community who say that anything that interferes with nature in any way at all-and the definition of nature among proponents of this argument is very vague and very woolly-is bad and we will all die a horrible, painful death. That is not true at all because mankind has benefited enormously from the use of agricultural chemicals. We could not sustain the population in the world today were it not for the increased food production that has come through the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. It is not only a matter of food; it is a matter of the quality of life. Think of the application of chemicals in the control of parasitic vectors and all sorts of human afflictions. The most common disease that the world has suffered from is malaria-a disease which has been largely wiped out through the use of chemical agents, although it is true that in some countries it is starting to come back. Overall the benefits for humanity from the use of chemicals can be seen in the quality of our lives-in infant mortality rates and, above all, in human mortality rates. Whatever the proponents of the `back to nature' argument may say, the fundamental point that they cannot refute is that through this century, which has seen the application of chemicals to agricultural and veterinary activities, the age span has increased significantly on what it was at the turn of the century. That could not have happened had what was being done to the food chain been as harmful as some people make out. Therefore, I emphasise that while we support this legislation, we do so in a balanced, intelligent and reasoned way. We certainly do not believe that mankind is at risk as a result of what has been done in the past. We do think that it is time to move on and adopt more sophisticated techniques in so far as they are possible. The legislation also sets up a council to administer it. That council will be composed of up to 12 part time members-a chairman from the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, a member from each participating State or Territory in the Commonwealth, one member representing the National Health and Medical Research Council, one member representing both the Australian Environment Council and the Council of Nature Conservation Ministers, and one member representing the National Occupational Health and Safety Commission. We have no objection to the membership of that council but we think that it does not go far enough. There is no representation at all of the users of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. It is absolutely indefensible that the Minister should put forward a proposition in which the clients are denied a say in what is going on. There should be at least two members from the agricultural and pastoral community, one representing the agricultural side and one the pastoral side. I am surprised that the Minister has not come up with this. The other people who should be represented are the manufacturers of the chemicals. There is nothing dishonourable or dishonest about being a user or a producer. They have legitimate and proper interests in the decisions of the Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council. They should be represented on the board because there are many aspects of the manufacture and application of these chemicals which, with the best will in the world, none of the members of the council could reasonably be expected to know. When this council comes into existence we would like to see its representation extended to include those people. On a personal note, I hope that when this Bill becomes an Act it does not create a monster on the Australian scene. I remember very well the situation in the United States in relation to drugs in the medical profession 10 or 15 years ago. The United States Drug Evaluation Agency became so impossible to deal with that, to all intents and purposes, it was terribly difficult to get any new drug onto the market in a reasonable time. I hope the bureaucrats who will be involved with this have a cooperative point of view, not an obstructive one, in dealing with the introduction of new chemicals, because this is what it is all about-the licensing of new chemicals for use in Australia. There is much more to the safe use of these agents than laboratory testing and stringent sampling. One of the things I have in mind is the provision of adequate directions on the chemicals when they are packaged. I find it difficult just to use lawn and grub killers around my domestic garden. I have enough educational background to be able to prescribe drugs for human beings, but I find it hard to read the directions on a can of weedkiller. One of the things the Council ought to do is direct that the instructions on these materials are printed in plain English and that measures, quantities and mixing techniques are in practical terms, so that people who want to use the agents safely can do so, particularly if they do not have much education. At the end of the day we have to recognise that no one can stop people who are uninformed and irresponsible and who, either through ignorance or commission, use agents in an inappropriate way. One of the ways to move to control that is to package things in bigger sizes so that they cannot be used randomly or capriciously, but even that has its limitations. They are some of the matters that I hope the Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council will turn its mind to. Some of the people who will be using these chemicals, the people who are busy, who are getting on with the job, may have spent a lifetime devoted to rural pursuits with not too many years in higher education. It is important that we go down the path of developing better testing techniques so that the Australian export industries in the pastoral and agricultural fields, which still provide nearly half our export earnings, can be competitive in the export market. As I said at the beginning of my speech, we sell on the export market on price and on quality, and that means we have to be super-efficient. It is not for the rural industries to get protection in the form of tariff loadings. It is not for rural Australia to have the 140 per cent tariff protection that, for example, the clothing, textile and footwear industries have. We have to produce a product which has to be better than anyone else's, and we have to be able to deliver it into overseas markets, without any support at all, at the best price. In attaining that goal, maximum production, whether in the grains industry, the meat industry or any of the protein industries, and maximum efficiency are absolutely essential. That is the real relevance of this Bill before us. What we have had up to the present is a loose agreement between the Commonwealth and State governments, with individual licensing agreements for the release of the chemicals into each State. There is no agreed national standard. That means that the producers of the chemicals have very high costs in meeting at least six different standards in this country, because there is no reciprocity between the States on this matter. This Bill seeks to overcome that. It will go a long way to avoiding the problems that we had over 12 months ago with the pesticide residues in beef. We found that there was a very wide variation in the legislative controls that were in existence on the use of chemicals in different States. We found, furthermore, that there was a difference in the way that legislation was applied. Some States applied it and some did not. I can quite clearly remember that one State, which fortunately was only a minor supplier on the export market, claimed that it had no problem at all. The only reason it had no problem was that it was not looking in the right places. If we are going to be a reliable supplier on the export market, we have to have national standards. It is the hope of the Senate that the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill will bring that about. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE(Western Australia)(2.19) —We are debating the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill 1988, which seeks to provide a national legislative scheme for the clearance and use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals in Australia. The introduction of such a scheme is well overdue. Honourable senators will be well aware that we are debating this legislation at a time when Victorian beef farmers are organising a fighting fund in order to mount a test case in the Victorian Supreme Court for compensation for losses arising allegedly as a result of incorrect advice from the Department of Agriculture concerning the pesticide dieldrin. A report by the chief manager of the Department of Agriculture in that State reveals that departmental officers may have known of the consequential effects of the persistent organochlorine chemicals in beef cattle since 1971. Similar allegations have been made in respect of other State governments. In New South Wales, for example, in 1986 it was alleged by a dairy farmer at Kempsey that the Department of Agriculture had deliberately withheld information about pesticide residues in soil. At the same time a random survey of properties on the north coast of New South Wales revealed that the soil on nearly half of the cane farms and three-quarters of the banana plantations contained critical levels of dieldrin. In my own State of Western Australia it has been suggested that the Department of Agriculture also may have been aware of the effects of dieldrin residues as far back as 20 years. I am aware that the Department at that time conducted tests on sheep grazing in dieldrin affected areas and recorded no positive results. Unfortunately, no such tests were conducted on cattle, which of course would have produced positive results simply because of the varying styles of grazing. The residue, of course, is found in the soil rather than in the grass. Because of the manner in which cattle graze they often consume up to a kilogram of dirt each day. It is in that dirt that dieldrin is found. It is perhaps appropriate to reflect upon the state of crisis into which Australia's meat industry plunged last year owing to the organochlorine pesticide residue problem. For many years in Australia chemical residues in our food have been monitored by the national residue survey, a large component of which is related to meat products. Owing to what has been demonstrated to be a very ineffective system used in the national residue survey, a number of chemical residue violations were discovered in Australian beef which was being exported to the United States. The residues were detected by the Federal Safety and Inspection Services of the United States. As a result, exports of our beef to the United States were suspended and future exports were placed in serious jeopardy. The industry of its own volition commenced an intensive testing and trace-back regime to isolate the chemical residue problem. The cost of this intensive program was met by voluntary levies from producers which were pooled into a trust account that went towards paying the cost of reimbursing meatworks for laboratory testing. I think Senator Panizza would agree that Western Australia had the most effective voluntary arrangements. An independent fund operated until March this year at which time the Government's compulsory $3.50 a head levy on cattle slaughtered was introduced by the Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation. Under the scheme, all lots of cattle offered for sale were tested. As a result of the voluntary arrangements entered into in Western Australia, 400,000 tests were undertaken and over 1,000 properties in that State were quarantined. As a result of the intensive testing program, Australia's violation rate dropped from 0.4 per cent to 0.2 per cent. The pesticide crisis has had a lasting effect on the industry, particularly in terms of ongoing and increased costs. The Federal Government proposes upgrading the national residue survey and has deemed that the meat industry will carry half the cost required to fund the upgraded program and the annual recurrent expenditure. These funds will be met on an ongoing basis by the new slaughter levy imposed on the industry by the Government. There is no doubt that had the beef pesticide crisis not eventuated last year nothing would have changed and this legislation would not be before us. It took a crisis of that magnitude to stimulate this Government into positive action. That is despite the fact that, as far back as 20 October 1986, the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) announced in a press release that clearances for agricultural and veterinary chemicals would be placed on a legislative basis. He made the following point: Such a framework does not exist at the Commonwealth level for agricultural and veterinary chemical clearance procedures. However, he foreshadowed that prompt action would be taken; of course, it was not and we have seen the consequence of that. The need for such a uniform cooperative national scheme was no more starkly illustrated than by the total failure of the present Commonwealth-State consultative arrangements which failed last year to prevent the beef pesticide disaster which involved the persistent organochlorins such as DDT, dieldrin, heptachlor, aldrin and chlordane. As far back as 1972 the Standing Committee on Agriculture reported to the Australian Agricultural Council that the persistent organochlorins should be phased out as and when alternative controls were put in place. That was not to be and it was not until 5 June 1987 that the Australian Agricultural Council finally passed a resolution agreeing to accelerate and coordinate the implementation of a national ban on the sale and remaining uses of DDT. An integrated plan was then put into place at the Council's next meeting on 14 August 1987. As part of that plan the Australian Agricultural Council required the immediate step of banning the sale and use of DDT in all States. Further, dieldrin was then only to be available to registered pest operators. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a table showing the dates on which DDT was finally banned totally in the respective States. Leave granted. The table read as follows- Queensland 29.6.87 New South Wales 15.7.87 Victoria 1.8.87 (decision announced 21.7.87) Western Australia 27.7.87 South Australia 30.10.87 (decision announced 18.8.87) Tasmania early 1980's Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I thank the Senate. As a further measure the Agricultural Council also required the Commonwealth to place persistent organochlorins in the Customs (Prohibited Imports) Regulations. Until that point there was no inhibition and certainly no prohibition on the importation of organochlorins of this nature. It is clear that the whole issue of pesticide residues in meat provides a classic example of shutting the door after the horse has bolted. Such a situation should never have been allowed to occur and would not have occurred had there been an effective process in place for reviewing the clearance and registration of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. Senator Powell —It was never put in place by a coalition government, Senator. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I am not seeking to score political points. I think this issue ranges above that. While I understand the inclination of the Australian Democrats to seek to appeal in the trivial and small minded way they do to the radical group in the community, I would have thought they could have approached this legislation in a responsible and reasonable way, recognising the magnitude of the problem. However, we have seen by the proposal that they have put before the Senate at present to set up a committee that the least of their concerns is with the rural economy or the consumers. It is rather intended to appeal to a ratbag group of people who believe, as Senator MacGibbon said, in a type of lifestyle which excludes any intellectual contribution by human beings on this earth. Senator Powell —Like the people who wanted to ban dieldrin. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —No, it was not the ratbags who wanted to ban dieldrin. Where were the Australian Democrats when this debate was going on? We have heard from the Democrats in this debate only since the pesticide crisis last year. Where was their proposal up until that time? They were too busy burying their heads in the ground. Senator Powell —You were in government before. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Yes, we have been in government and we will be in government again. Senator Powell's party will never be in government. It is worth remembering the ad hoc way in which these chemicals were first cleared for use and then later withdrawn from specified uses. Senator Powell's party has so far shown no empathy for the future of the beef industry. Her party voted with the Government to impose upon the beef industry the full cost of the national residue survey not only in terms of its upgrading but also in terms of ongoing costs. That was her party's concern for the industry, although I notice that one member of her party, from Western Australia, crossed the floor for political reasons. But where were the rest of the members of her party? They were not with the industry, an industry worth $2 billion. Senator McLean —We put the public interest above the industry. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —The honourable senator says that his party put the public interest above the industry. I wonder what the difference is. What public? I do not suppose you eat red meat either, do you? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator MacGibbon) —Order! Senator Crichton-Browne, please address your remarks through the Chair. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Mr Acting Deputy President, thank you for taking me away from temptation. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics estimated that in 1987-88 the average member of a beef farming family had a gross income of just $11,400 per annum. That is less than half the national average for male wage and salary earners. If we contrast that with the value of the industry to the Australian economy and the way in which it maintains a lifestyle to which the Democrats have become familiar, we will understand the importance of the industry to Australia's economy as a whole in terms of export dollars and also the precarious financial position into which some of those beef farmers have now been plunged. As a consequence, they have been completely exposed in any circumstances such as those surrounding pesticide residues. In my view, we ought quite properly to ask what role the Commonwealth and States have played in the use of pesticides up until this point. In that regard I again seek the indulgence of the Senate to incorporate in Hansard two diagrams explaining the Government's involvement in the regulation of farm chemicals which were prepared by Rhone-Poulence Rural Australia Pty Ltd. Leave granted. (For technical reasons the diagrams have not been incorporated). Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I thank the Senate. The Commonwealth has a cooperating and coordinating role with the States through committees established under the Australian Agricultural Council which, as I said before, is a council of Commonwealth and State Ministers. Interestingly enough, as far back as 1969 the technical committee on agricultural products was set up as a subcommittee of the Coordinating Committee on Agricultural Chemicals, which in turn is responsible to the Standing Committee on Agriculture, which makes recommendations to the Australian Agricultural Council. These committees are all joint Commonwealth-State bodies which include expert representatives. The technical committee was set up in an attempt to rationalise the various legislative controls of the States and to establish a clearance procedure before any new chemicals could be registered by the States. I make the point that this involved only new chemicals. Such a clearance procedure also operated for existing chemicals where they were to be put to a significant new use, not the traditional use to which they had been put. Unfortunately all of the persistent organochlorins were registered by the various States for their respective uses before this committee was established, and it appears that no clearance mechanism was put into place in respect of any of these chemicals already registered in the States. So, sadly, under this grandfather arrangement it was agreed that the present use of all these existing pesticides could continue. Accordingly, even though new overseas data may have been considered by the Coordinating Committee on Agricultural Chemicals any action to restrict the use of pesticides could be carried out under that procedure only by the individual States. As a result a coordinated approach to the withdrawal of any chemical was extremely difficult to achieve. Again the persistent organochlorins have proved to be in my view an apt example. Apart from Tasmania, which moved in 1982 to prevent the use of organochlorins-except for their restricted use on timber to prevent insect attack-the States have each acted in a completely ad hoc fashion since the mid-1960s in arranging for the withdrawal of these chemicals from specified uses. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a two-part table showing the permitted use of organochlorin pesticides before and after the meat residue crisis last year and the action taken by the different States to withdraw these chemicals from the specific uses allowed when they were introduced. Leave granted. The table read as follows- PESTICIDES BEFORE (B) AND AFTER (A) THE 1987 MEAT RESIDUES SCARE DDT Dieldrin Heptachlor Chlordane WA (B) Webworm in cereals; dimpling bug in apples and pears; potato moth WA (A & B) Termites WA (B) Soil insects in potato; curculio beetle in fruit trees. (A & B) Termites WA (A & B) Termites (and Aldrin) VIC (B) Carrot weevil; strawberry pests; vegetable weevil in seedling tomatoes; ants in eucalypts; human head & body lice VIC N/A VIC (B) Potato pests VIC N/A NSW (B) Pome fruits NSW (B) External use & termites (A) Subfloor only on termites NSW (A) Subfloor only on termites NSW (B) Termites & borers in urban settings. (A) Subfloor only on termites (and Aldrin) QLD (B) Apple dimple bug; Scab moth in bananas QLD (B & A) Soldier fly in sugar cane (A) Termites by permit QLD (B& A) Funnel ant in sugar cane (a) Termites by permit QLD (A) Termites in buildings not associated with livestock SA (B) Human lice SA N/A SA N/A SA N/A Source: Parliamentary Library Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —After perusing the table honourable senators would readily agree that the present and past arrangements for chemical clearance and deregulation have demonstrated a total lack of uniformity. It is also useful to compare the action taken by the Commonwealth and the States in regard to products restricted or prohibited in other countries. In the United States the use of DDT, dieldrin and heptachlor, except for a few restricted purposes of the type I referred to in Tasmania, was banned in 1972, 1974 and 1978 respectively because the United States Environmental Protection Agency recognised the risks to humans, animals and the ecosystem from the toxicity and persistence of the chemicals. So it recognised the two important dangerous characteristics. Of course the United States does not stand alone in this regard. The 1986 United Nations consolidated list of products whose consumption and/or sale have been banned, withdrawn, severely restricted or not approved by governments lists many countries, from all parts of the world, which have taken action against organochlorin pesticides over the past 20 years. It is significant to note that Australia does not appear on this list. By this evidence the ineffectiveness of the existing arrangements for the continual assessment of these chemicals is beyond doubt. Hopefully clause 17 in the Bill before us will overcome this deficiency. This clause provides that where the Council becomes aware of any new information in respect of any chemical, it is able within the terms of the legislation, to reconsider its clearance. For this purpose clause 18 provides that the Council is entitled to take into account `the results of any experimental trial already carried out in a foreign country in relation to the chemical product.' If the Council is of the view that the chemical does not meet the requirements of clause 15, it may then withdraw the clearance given to that product. Accordingly, in this respect at least, the proposed clearance scheme would overcome the present defects. However, other criticisms-I say this in a charitable way-can be levelled at the existing clearance arrangements. Rhone-Poulenc makes the point that the process of clearance and registration is inordinately long. The company states: Up to two years with a current average of around 12 months for a product to move through the clearance process is . . . a long time, especially when one has a market place . . . waiting for a new piece of technology. The primary reason I am able to discover for the delay is the two-tiered clearance required, first at the Federal level and then by the State in which the chemicals are finally registered for use. The multiplication of time and effort is clearly inefficient and wasteful. It is hoped that the new Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council will streamline the clearance process. This will be done via subclause 4 (3), which provides for States and Territories to become scheme participants by entering into an agreement with the Commonwealth in the terms set out in the draft contained in the schedule. In effect, therefore, once the chemical product is subject to a clearance certificate issued by the Council, that product will be registered for use as set out in the certificate in all States which have become scheme participants. As a result, there will be a very satisfactory Commonwealth-State cooperative arrangement and clearance will require only one step. However, the problem remains that the Bill imposes no limit on the decision-making time of the Council before an application for clearance is either approved or rejected. By any measure, that is clearly unsatisfactory, despite the Minister's assurances that `the need to ensure the evaluation is carried out in a timely and efficient manner is already noted in the objectives of the Bill'. Noting the objectives of the Bill as recording that concern does not translate in a tangible way to the legislation. Without some sort of operative time limit, the present inefficiencies in processing applications will continue, with delays in the granting of clearance operating to the detriment of the farm sector. It is for that reason that the coalition seeks amendments which will specify quite clearly that the time limit shall be but 12 months, notice of which shall be given to the applicant under clause 15. That amendment, along with a number of others, will be moved at the committee stage. The amendments deserve the support of the Senate. If the recent meat industry experience has taught us anything it is that far greater attention and emphasis ought to be placed on the proper management and application of chemicals, for whatever purpose they are used. One must not lose sight of the benefits of farm chemicals and the role they play-as Senator MacGibbon noted-in the production of food and in farm development in all parts of the world. Rhone-Poulenc estimates that farm chemicals are worth in excess of $5 billion in value-added production on farms in Australia. Other advantages, apart from agricultural use, have been in the control of human disease. That was pointed out by the previous speaker. Senator Powell was to participate in this debate, but her name has gone off the speakers list. She has a motion to set up a committee to inquire into chemicals, but she finds the subject so compelling that she has again excused herself from the chamber. With her obsession with DDT she should understand the role it plays. Senator McLean —Look at your speakers list. You will find her name is further down. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —Her name has come back again? Senator McLean —It was never off. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —It was removed earlier this afternoon. If Senator Powell were to reflect on DDT she would understand the major role it played in the decline in the number of world deaths from malaria-bearing mosquitoes. Senator McLean —The intention is to set up a committee to reflect on DDT. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —The intention of the committee is not to reflect on the use of DDT; it is to embrace the absurd proposals and crazy, lunatic ideas of these people. It has nothing to do with management of chemicals on farms; it has nothing to do with the primary sector; it has nothing to do with the rural economy. It is a harebrained, lunatic idea from these fringe people that the Democrats seem to pick up in their obscure travels through life. Senator Richardson —Do you feel strongly about them? Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —I do not feel strongly about the Democrats, but I have moments of sympathy for them on my better days. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT —Order! Senator Crichton-Browne, you are speaking to the motion for the second reading of the Bill. Senator CRICHTON-BROWNE —In the past the problem has been the way in which chemicals have been managed. Essentially, there is nothing wrong with them. It is their application that has been the problem. In the past neither the Commonwealth nor the States have engaged in instituting effective control of the mixing or use of pesticides generally. In Western Australia, for instance, the State Energy Commission has been roundly condemned for its indiscriminate spraying of aldrin around telegraph poles which traverse vast reaches of agricultural land in that State. Those telegraph poles have since been found to be responsible for the high levels of organochlorin found in beef. I understand that some form of compensation is being looked at. That does not solve the problem of farms which, unfortunately, have been unable to run stock. To this end, in my view, the chemical industry, farm advisers, both private and government, and farmers have a responsibility to work more closely to ensure that both proper tools and techniques are provided for individual needs and that care and responsibility are exercised in the proper use of chemicals. I note in that regard that clause 9 of the Bill sets out the functions-the very useful functions-of the Council. In particular, subclauses (e) and (f) provide for the establishment of codes of practice, standards and guidelines for the use of chemicals and the publishing of information relating to the use of these products. In conclusion, I strongly recommend that, when fulfilling its legislative functions, a high priority be given by the Council to these issues. If proper attention is not given to these matters, in the future other areas of Australia's agricultural sector may not be so fortunate as the beef industry, which was able, in many respects, by accident and then by its own dedication and commitment, to avert financial disaster. As I say, subject to the amendments we have proposed, which I trust the Government will see as commonsense and practical, we support the legislation. Senator PANIZZA(Western Australia)(2.48) —The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill 1988, though tardy, has come about because of the need to standardise the uses and practices of registering agricultural and veterinary chemicals-and veterinary chemicals are just as important-throughout Australia. This legislation is tardy because there have already been great problems in Australia, as has been pointed out by honourable senators previously, in regard to registration of chemicals. Some of the holdups have been necessary to make sure that the chemicals have been tested properly and to ascertain their effects or malfunctions. Of the chemicals which are eventually registered, 95 per cent have been tested overseas. So it is not just testing in Australia which, in the final analysis, decides their release. The legislation has been accelerated in the last 12 months because of the detecting of pesticides in beef. I refer particularly to the fiasco concerning the export of Australian beef to America. Trade was thrown into jeopardy at the time because America had discovered traces of pesticides in one of our beef shipments. This came about because DDT had been picked up by cattle in various places. It had been used in the horticultural industry for the last 30 years. The horticultural industry was the industry which made use of DDT but unfortunately in the final analysis the industry which got the stick was the beef industry. Honourable senators will also remember that just before last Christmas the Opposition attempted to set up a Senate select committee. Senator Crichton-Browne —A sensible one. Senator PANIZZA —Yes, it was a sensible one. That proposed committee was to inquire into and ascertain where the blame lay for this pesticide in beef. Senator Powell —It was a witch-hunt. Senator PANIZZA —I thank Senator Powell. The committee was also to look at where compensation was to come from-that is, whether it was to come from government or chemical companies and whether the users were to blame themselves. It was narrow and to the point. Of course, we did not get support from the Australian Democrats or the Government. I do not say `Of course we did not get support' for any principle but they did not happen to support us at the time. Senator Crichton-Browne —They did a grotty little deal behind the door. Senator PANIZZA —The honourable senator said it; I did not. But that could have been the reason. At the time the Democrats seemed to think it was not a bad idea and then all of a sudden they supported the Government. We withdraw our support for a committee to show the farming population of Australia that we were not going to be involved in any wide-ranging witch-hunt. I will come back to that point later. In an attempt to get that wide-ranging witch-hunt it has taken since December for this legislation to come before us. We saw it only this morning. It seems peculiar that it came forward at this time and the Government attempted to make it part of a cognate debate. Senator Powell —They are casting aspersions on-- Senator PANIZZA —I will come back to Senator Powell a little later. The Government knows that Australian agriculture needs the legislation that we have in front of us now which the coalition supports. Obviously it is trying to get this witch-hunt Senate select committee established without much debate on a Friday afternoon. This Bill that we are supporting will standardise and expedite the procedures by which agricultural and veterinary chemicals will be cleared for safe use in Australia. This means that we will not have a multiple testing system. To date each State has done its own testing. We cannot have uniform applications and conditions throughout Australia. I understand that Queensland is not necessarily going to pass complementary legislation but that may come in time. Of course, getting this system through quicker and being able to apply these regulations and measures will enable us to use these chemicals much quicker. It will also bring us overseas recognition of our clearance control with our trading partners, which is most important. As pointed out in the second reading speech of the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin), the State governments will be asked to pass complementary legislation which automatically will affect registration throughout Australia after initial clearance in each State, except Queensland, in the very near future. Agricultural chemicals more than any other factor have provided the greatest beneficial advantage to agriculture in the whole world in the last eight years. It was in the 1960s that chemicals began to be used on a wide scale in the agricultural and veterinary industries but the big progress has been in the 1980s. There was the introduction of those, well known now, knockdown chemicals which would allow one to graze one's land up to virtually a few days before one wanted to cultivate it. One could then apply this knock-down chemical such as Sprayseed or Roundup and within days one could plough that ground and in another day or two one could plant it. In this way one avoids the problem of soil breakdown from multiple cultivation. The other advantage is that one has kept using that ground for grazing. Of course one then starts off with a fairly clean crop. We have also seen the advent of pre-emergent sprays which are sprayed on the ground just before the crop goes in. As a result, the crop will come up totally clean. I have used these pre-emergents extensively since 1981. It has been proven that one is able to increase the crop and get one's full potential from the land. I have done tests myself where the difference is 300 per cent. In other words, instead of three bushels an acre one can get a total of nine. If one has a dirty crop without the use of these chemicals the yield will drop to about a third. It is well proven that these chemicals have their use in agriculture if one uses the proper methods, and hopefully farmers will be using them for many years to come. As I have said already, these chemicals are definitely a tool to stop the breakdown of the soil, which is a problem in Australia, as evidenced in parts of Victoria with the Murray Valley problems. It is also important, of course, because it allows conservation of fuel with minimum cultivation. I do not mean direct drilling. I am talking about minimal cultivation where one gets the ultimate crop and uses less fuel, which is a good thing as fuel supplies run down in the world. It has been said in the rural and city press over the years that if there is a ban on knockdown herbicides there would be far more starvation in Third World countries. These knockdown herbicides are used a lot in high rainfall countries of Africa and South America. These herbicides therefore can enable these countries to grow crops which go somewhere toward feeding their population. The use of agricultural chemicals in Australia has resulted in increased production. As a result, Australia can easily feed itself with grains it produces. It also increases exports and boosts much needed foreign income. Australia would be a far poorer country without the use of these chemicals. As pointed out by Senator MacGibbon, primary industry alone provides 50 per cent of Australia's export income, yet this is achieved by only 5 per cent of the population. That 5 per cent of the population is producing roughly $4 billion in wool. At the last known figures it was producing $2 1/2 billion in wheat; $2 billion in beef; and there are other products such as sugar. That 5 per cent of the population is less than the number of people-around 6 per cent-who vote for the Australian Democrats throughout Australia. One can see the representation that the Democrats have in this chamber. One can also see how underrepresented the agricultural producers are in this chamber. It is that 5 per cent of the population which returns over 50 per cent of foreign income. Of course, our cousins in the mining industry, which represents about 3 per cent, produce another 35 per cent of Australia's income. So it is from those country areas that 85 per cent of Australia's income is derived. There is a great element in Australia that does nothing but decry the efforts of these primary industries and, in fact, sabotage their produce. This 85 per cent of Australia's total income is produced in spite of the incentives given to other industries in Australia. I heard one honourable senator say that there is almost 150 per cent tariff protection on textiles. I know that there is around 100 per cent tariff protection on motor vehicles, and so on. However, the tariff assistance for agriculture could be as low as minus 2 per cent. The use of veterinary chemicals adds to the health and production of our sheep and cattle industries. As I have already mentioned, wool and meat are Australia's top export commodities. There are many critics of the use of chemicals on farms. However, these critics are the very beneficiaries of their use because they allow our agricultural industries to provide the high standard of living that Australians expect and have become accustomed to. There has been a lot of debate in the last few by-election campaigns about falling living standards in Australia. I can assure honourable senators that if the type of witch-hunt pursued by the Australian Democrats, and supported of course by the Government, succeeds, living standards will fall further still. Australian chemical companies have also played their part in the Australian agricultural industry. I note that as far back as 1967-21 years ago-there was concern about uniform registration. At that time only a voluntary scheme was in operation; it is probably still in operation today. As pointed out by Senator Crichton-Browne, when the pesticide level in beef was detected we had the stupid situation in which some States did not immediately ban the use of DDT, the chemical that caused the problem, further threatening our world market for beef worth billions of dollars. It was revealed at the time that the Federal Government's national residue survey had failed to discover the contaminated material. That was picked up in America. That scheme, in failing to detect the chemical residue, let the industry down badly. The Federal Government, having failed us then, also failed to compensate the affected members of that industry. This criticism can also be levelled at some of the States. There has been no marked response to the demands for compensation in the eastern States. As an earlier speaker pointed out, a farmer, I think in Kempsey, New South Wales, has started his own action. However, I can say that our State of Western Australia immediately gave some help by making carry-on finance available at the time. It has given additional help in the last few weeks. I must commend the work of the Western Australian Minister for Agriculture, who saw the need for compensation for an industry that has had this disaster foisted on it through no fault of its own. As Senator Crichton-Browne pointed out, the State Electricity Commission was at fault-but there was also a slight question mark over Telecom Australia-because of the chemical, I think it was heptachlor, that was sprayed around the base of telegraph poles. The cattle then picked up this chemical when they ate the grass and picked up some of the soil with it. It is not possible to cultivate the land close to the telegraph poles. The guy wires add to the problem. These areas cannot be cultivated but they receive fertiliser every year resulting in grass growth that is a lot more lush than the grass further out from the pole. The stock seem to go for the grass around the poles and thus pick up the highly concentrated chemical contamination there. That is where a lot of the problems were. If they had been grazing well away from those poles, it might not have been so bad. I know that, after much debate, the State Energy Commission in Western Australia accepted some responsibility and Telecom Australia was found to have been not too responsible. This occurrence affected the beef industry dramatically and highlighted the use of chemicals 30 years ago by the horticultural industries. As I have already said, the chemical mainly used was DDT. If one is to be critical of DDT at all, it is that it was a little too cheap. Thirty years ago its methods of application used a lot of manpower, namely, knapsack sprays, et cetera. As time went by, because of the cheapness of this chemical, it was simply inserted into the spraylines when farmers were irrigating their crops. Of course, not enough testing was done in the lead-up to that and we had a build-up of DDT which left that industry and also the beef industry, which works alongside it and uses the same ground, with a sad legacy. As I mentioned earlier, the coalition wants a Senate select committee to inquire into chemical residues in beef with a view to putting measures into place not only for compensation but also to make sure that history does not repeat itself. Unfortunately, everybody knows what happened in regard to compensation. We have withdrawn our motion to set up a select committee to inquire into this Bill. In this way we are letting the country know that we are not interested in a witch-hunt. If the Australian Democrats had been as interested as we are in attacking this problem they would not be seeking such a wide-ranging inquiry. As has been pointed out by previous speakers, every nut around the countryside will be wanting to make an input, whether it is for the good of the industry or not. I think a lot of those people will be concerned more for the retrospective, rather than the prospective, nature of the industry. Senator Coulter —It is better to have nuts than-- Senator PANIZZA —I will come to the honourable senator later. Of course, this witch-hunt includes the greenies. Senator Richardson —Hang on! Senator PANIZZA —Does the honourable senator want me to repeat that? Senator Richardson —Yes. Senator PANIZZA —For the benefit of Senator Richardson, I repeat: this witch-hunt will include the greenies, who are continually attacking farmers but still seem to be well fed. Senator Powell —All farmers are greenies. They care. Are you saying that farmers do not care about the environment, Senator? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT(Senator Morris) —Order! The honourable senator will address his remarks through the Chair. Senator PANIZZA —Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I repeat: this witch-hunt will include the greenies. It seems to me that these greenies are well fed. Senator Richardson —I am better fed than most. Senator PANIZZA —The Minister may be, but I did not say that he was a greenie. Senator Brownhill —He only acts as though he is. Senator PANIZZA —That is right. He normally wears a green tie, but he does not have it on today. Perhaps these people should be reminded of who fills their bellies, for want of a better word. Let me just get back to those greenies. The farming community, the pastoral community and the mining community are continually attacked by these small groups, although they take the benefit of the standard of living that we have in Australia. I know that living standards in Australia are falling, but when we compare them with the rest of the world they are not too bad. But these minority groups, including the greenies, are hell-bent on bringing us down. Senator Richardson —Rubbish! Senator PANIZZA —They are attempting to eliminate the beef industry in the Kimberleys. Senator Richardson knows that. Senator Richardson —I do not know that. Senator PANIZZA —Senator Richardson has been told about it often enough. He also knows that the greenies have attempted to eliminate the sheep industry in and around Shark Bay. Senator Richardson —The fishing industry? Senator PANIZZA —No. I said the sheep industry, the pastoral industry, around Shark Bay. They are also attempting to interfere with the fishing industry around Shark Bay. They have interfered with the cattlemen in Tasmania and the timber-getting in the Queensland rainforest. The record is there to be seen. I have two points of concern about the machinery of the Bill. I have already mentioned that the States are to retain registration, and I agree with that. According to the report by the Standing Committee on Agriculture to the Australian Agricultural Council, part of the proposal for this legislation received in-principle support from the States. I hope that it will go beyond the in-principle stage. The Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council will determine the registration of chemicals. Presumably, the Council will consist of an agricultural oriented person from each State, a person from the Australian Environment Council, one from the Council of Nature Conservation Ministers, one from the National Health and Medical Research Council, one from the National Health and Occupational Safety Commission and a chairperson from the Minister's Department. But it appears that representatives of the most important sections of the industry-the farmers, the users of the chemicals and the chemical manufacturers-will be missing. Senator Coulter —Self-regulation. Senator PANIZZA —I would like to have written the legislation but I did not. Senator Powell —That is the point. No such legislation was written by coalition governments. Senator PANIZZA —From that corner of the chamber Senator Powell will never get a chance to write the Bill. The farmers, the veterinary users, and the manufacturers are the ones pouring millions into the industry for the benefit of all. They are creating jobs. The rest of society makes full use of the benefits but then criticises those responsible. In conclusion, the coalition supports the legislation-a measure long overdue. We look forward to seeing an improvement of the present situation and no repeat of the pesticide fiasco. As I have said, we support the Bill but in the committee stage we will be moving certain amendments that we think are needed for the proper running of this legislation and proper registration. The Australian Democrats are bent on a witch-hunt. We will do everything in our power to explain to the agricultural industry in Australia exactly what the Democrats are attempting to do. They are attempting to bring down Australia's greatest industries, not through a valued scientist such as Senator Coulter from South Australia but through the nuts that will follow him. That is what I am afraid of. It does not matter whether these nuts or, for that matter, the greenies have valid or scientific evidence to back up their submissions. But the scaremongering tactics that they will use to try to wreck the greatest industry that Australia has ever had do matter. For 200 years the agricultural industry has held that position; alongside the mining industry it is Australia's main export income earner. We will do all we can to make sure that those industries are not interfered with by these rebel greenie nut groups. Senator BROWNHILL(New South Wales)(3.16) —I support all the remarks that have been made by the previous Opposition speakers-Senator Lewis, Senator MacGibbon and Senator Crichton-Browne. We have just heard Senator Panizza from Western Australia speaking in his normal forthright way on behalf of the people whom he represents. It does him great credit that he is looking after the people of Western Australia through the parliamentary process. He made a couple of remarks about the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society and some of the radical people who attach themselves to those groups. I do not make any attack on either the Australian Conservation Foundation or the Wilderness Society, but I remember well the time when I addressed them both about a year ago at the Seymour Centre in Sydney on the importance of the rainforests to Australia. In that address I mentioned that soil conservation was probably the most important matter facing this country in the environmental debate. I was booed and slow handclapped by those people when I said that because they were very critical of the Australian farming community and they did not recognise the contribution that that community had made to the wealth of Australia. I think that Senator Panizza has established that point rather well this afternoon. The Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill was designed in cooperation with the States and the Northern Territory and it follows recommendations from both the Australian Agricultural Council and the Industries Assistance Commission. The legislation has been considered necessary because of recent incidents involving pesticides. We all know about that; it has been very well documented and much talked about in the past year or so. The Bill seeks to improve the present regulatory framework governing the registration and clearance of chemicals used in agriculture and for animals. The legislation will establish a national council for the clearance of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. The council will be responsible for coordinating the evaluation of chemicals proposed for registration for use in Australia and will look at the various parameters-toxicology, efficiency, dangers and so on. It aims to minimise the risk to users, agricultural produce, livestock, the public and the environment. We all know that the environment is very important. I have often told the Minister for the Arts, Sport, the Environment, Tourism and Territories, Senator Richardson, that we can have protection and production going hand in hand, but in a modern society we just cannot have preservation. A modern society cannot preserve something which has already been touched. So preservation is not something we can have in a modern society; but protection of a modern environment, yes. This legislation will test the efficiency of manufacturers' claims and will provide a more uniform approach to chemical registration in Australia. Until now there has not been such a uniform approach. That may appear absurd in a country the size of Australia, but it is a situation about which little has been done until recently. It has taken a series of events to highlight the inadequacy of existing regulations. Therefore, I am pleased that in future there will be a national approach to the question of registration and the use of chemicals. That, without doubt, is something we all agree with. One would hope that the result would be the enhancement of the export market potential of Australia's agricultural products and not what the select committee the Democrats are proposing would do-put into the international forum all the accusations that could be made by radical groups around the country. That is what the Democrats want. They want some of their supporters to have the chance to come to a Senate committee and make radical comments and accusations. Mr Acting Deputy President, you know what accusations can be made at some of the committees we sit on together. Accusations are very easy to make but they could be very damaging to Australia's export income. That is something Australia cannot afford to suffer. We all know what our balance of payments figures are. I would be getting a little off the subject if I entered into a discussion of the problems of the economy, which is going down the gurgler under this Government. The pesticide scare last year, when supposedly increased levels of pesticide were found in Australian beef exports to the United States of America (USA) and Japan, had the potential to decimate our most valuable rural export commodity. As we all know, whether we are riding on the sheep's back, the mining industry's back or the agricultural industry's back, our export markets are very important to our standard of living. Meat exports are expected to earn Australia some $2 billion this year-double what they yielded only four years ago. That $2 billion in one year is an income that this country cannot afford to lose. That income could be lost if the other motion the Democrats wanted to move in this debate, which was to be a cognate debate but which is no longer, had been put to us. Whilst the USA is a strong market for Australia and the pesticide scare last year sent shock waves through the entire industry, it is by no means our only market. In 1991 Japan is to abolish totally import quotas, and Korea has recently decided to reopen its market to beef imports. Taiwan has an expanding demand for beef, and other South East Asian markets are also increasing their demands. Australia is in an excellent position to capture a healthy share of all these markets. We could lose the lot if our image is perceived to be that of a country with chemically infected products. Of course, we in Australia know that that is not the case. Australia produces some of the purest products in the world-in fact, I would venture to say probably the purest-be it dairy produce, vegetables or meat. The two incidents last year in Japan and the USA concerning Australian beef will be remembered in the minds of some overseas buyers long after the facts are forgotten. I remember speaking to this chamber a year ago and criticising the Federal Government for not supporting Australian beef producers as much as it should or could. There was a general assumption, which the Federal Government did little to dispel, that Australian beef producers were irresponsible, chemical-happy farmers. No wonder the Australian Labor Party has been getting such heavy swings against it in rural seats, the Australian farmers are expressing their disappointment. Senator Richardson —How did you go in Groom? Senator BROWNHILL —It was won by the coalition. Senator Richardson —Won by whom? Senator BROWNHILL —It was won by the coalition. It was not won by the Labor Party and it nearly lost a seat a Saturday ago in another area. The Government failed to acknowledge that any chemicals farmers used in the past may have been used in ignorance; ignorance, because farmers used them believing they were safe. They had been approved and in many cases the farmers had been advised to use them by State agricultural departments. Whether the various State agricultural departments were in a position to know any better is open to debate. Certainly from records I have obtained from the Parliamentary Library, it appears that some States took years longer than other States to ban certain chemicals. One may ask why that was so. In any case, the result was little comfort to farmers. In my own State of New South Wales we have a publication which has been out for some time about pesticide residues and the stock owners. It is not only the farming community that can contaminate and put residues into livestock; many other people can do it as well. Lawn clippings and other things are also found to have residues. Recent news carried a story of a potato and cattle farmer from Whittlesea in Victoria who has been forced to sue the Victorian Government because his property is being quarantined. He has lost his source of income as a result of using a fertiliser containing dieldrin recommended by the Victorian Department of Agriculture. The farmer had claimed that the Department owed him a duty of care to know about the dangers of using dieldrin and that it failed to keep up with research done on the subject. Had the various State departments of agriculture been more alert to the dangers of various chemicals which were freely available and which were being recommended for pest and weed control, this situation need not have happened. And what is the situation at the moment? The Federal Government has already imposed a tax on the cattle industry to fund 50 per cent of the beef component of the national residue survey which was traditionally a service to the Australian community funded out of Commonwealth funds. This was, of course, on top of the millions of dollars that beef producers had already started to pay to clean up a problem which was not of the industry's making. Of course we still have over 1,000 farms quarantined and the future viability of those farmers is very much at risk. I will quote from Mr Allen Morley's address which he gave recently about the chemical industry: AVCA- that is, the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Association- has opened its membership to the reseller/distributor sector of the industry. Many of these companies are now members of the Association and all of them are in full support of the accreditation scheme. The scheme reflects a realisation on the part of the Australian farm chemical industry that it must accept responsibility for its products beyond the factory gate. Not only must we improve the level of our services, we must accept a role in the education of the users of our products. The chemical industry itself, I believe, has been responsible to the the people of Australia and I think it has played its part in trying to look after the chemical industry, although we probably all have some worries about the fact that some of the States did not always legislate the same way. The irony and the injustice of the American scare last year was that the United States applies far stricter testing to our meat than it does to its own. In fact, American authorities only take somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 samples across their entire 100 million head of cattle which supplies 90 per cent of its beef. This contrasts with the United States taking 4,000 samples a year from Australian beef which makes up only 3 per cent of its annual consumption. In other words, it is sampling us at a rate 6,000 times higher than its own. While we talk of chemicals affecting the beef industry, we must also remember the chemicals involved in grain production and horticultural production, which Senator Panizza has already mentioned. Again, our own authorities test far more strictly for Australian food products exported than they do for imports of food into Australia. A recent Australian Broadcasting Corporation program highlighted the absurd situation currently in Australia. It claimed that Australia was `a bunch of amateurs' with the usual `she'll be right' attitude which would ultimately result in a major food contamination scare. It seems that of the $1,500m of food imported into Australia last year, only a small fraction underwent official chemical or other testing, even though previously many imports were found to be unsafe. There is apparently no coordinated system of monitoring and testing food products coming into Australia. So why should we even contemplate the Australian Democrats proposal for a full inquiry into the chemical industry in Australia? Current statistics show that we have an average of 1,000 cases of food poisoning a week. We do not know how many are caused by imported foods. We do not know that we have problems with spices and herbs from South East Asia, and seafood from China, but even countries with good hygiene records, such as Switzerland, have sent us infected cheeses. Perhaps there is a strong message there only to buy and eat Australian foods which are most probably, the most chemical free foods in the world. Certainly, while we continue to have no Commonwealth food inspection programs, we are running the same risks with food coming into the country as we are with uncoordinated programs for chemical use which affected food exports. I do not believe for a minute that the answer is, as some groups suggest, that we abolish all chemicals and revert to organically grown foods. Foods produced 200 years ago had just as many impurities, and probably more. We just did not have the technology to tell us that they were impure, so there is nothing particularly virtuous about so-called naturally grown food. I will quote again from Allen Morley's address recently before the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Association of Australia. He stated: Regardless of industry's repeated attempts to steer the media away from the emotional arguments and towards scientific facts, we are still perceived to have too big a vested interest in the issues to have real credibility. . . . . . Our own extensive market research clearly shows that the Australian public is far from convinced that farm chemical products are adequately regulated. Despite the fact that consumers are protected by the world's most stringent regulatory system, the perception persists that these vital products are an untested and unknown threat to people's health and the environment. The industry is prepared to promote and defend the regulatory system to the point where this Association recently took the unprecedented step of paying to advertise that fact in a major metropolitan newspaper. The chemical industry is playing its part. As a wheat farmer and a producer, I have a great respect for the virtues and dangers of chemicals, but I think that without the use of them, and if they were taken away from our agricultural community, we would all have much dearer foodstuffs and we would not have as pure and good foodstuffs as we have now. I do not believe any responsible food producer would think otherwise, but it is important that appropriate controls be put in place. While this legislation has flaws, which Senator Lewis has already mentioned-he will be moving amendments to deal with those-I think it is a move in the right direction. Senator KNOWLES(Western Australia)(3.34) —Today we are debating the Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Bill 1988. The coalition is rather pleased to support this legislation that establishes a clearance procedure for the evaluation of new chemicals prior to their registration by the States. I might qualify my pleasure in supporting this Bill by saying that it is very much overdue. However, this is a mechanism that the events of last year showed is very much overdue. While all too often this Parliament creates unnecessary and expensive regulatory systems of very dubious benefit, there can be no question that Australia needs a strong and effective means of assessing the impact of agricultural chemicals. We have learned the lesson that, even if it is highly debatable that chemical residues are a real threat to health, a world climate of sensitivity to chemical pollution means that the customers for our primary produce will turn elsewhere if dissatisfied with our standards. I think we really should have learned that lesson a long time ago, but it took the events of last year, when our export market was put in great jeopardy by chemical residues being found in beef, to teach us that lesson. The Australian Agricultural and Veterinary Chemicals Council which this Bill will establish will provide one-stop shopping for clearance and thus streamline the assessment process. Equally important is the development of guidelines for the use of chemicals. As a senator for Western Australia, I am very conscious of the damage that has occurred to primary producers largely because these mechanisms did not exist and chemicals were used in Australian agriculture years after they were banned for agriculture in the United States. That is where we should have learned the lesson. The organochlorins that caused the residue problem of last year were in fact banned in the United States during the early 1970s. DDT was banned in 1972 and dieldrin was prohibited in 1974, but neither of those two products was banned in Australia until August of last year. In the most literal sense, we cannot afford to have a repeat performance of this kind of lapse. Government does have a responsibility to set rules and to establish cooperative mechanisms with the States to ensure that they work. It would not be reasonable to allege that the lack of previous action was the particular fault of this Government. The responsibility belongs equally with the State departments of agriculture that were actually recommending the use of dieldrin. I find that quite amazing, considering, as I have already mentioned, that dieldrin was in fact prohibited in the United States way back in 1974. So the State departments do have to carry a lot of the blame in this area. What I do blame the Federal Australian Labor Party Government for is the lack of support given to the primary producers who collectively and individually ended up carrying the can for a failure of assessment of chemicals for which they were not responsible. Farmers who used chemicals according to official advice and procedures or whose stock grazed on land where they had been used have met the cost of a national responsibility, through increased levy payments and the quarantining of properties. Of course, we had a great debate last year about the increased levies in all States. In fact, in my State of Western Australia there was a very sensible system that the producers and the State departments were happy with. Everyone was happy with it except this Federal Government, which wanted to impose an even greater levy on the producers of Western Australia. The cost to the beef industry, which earns $2 billion worth of exports for Australia, was $35m. That is a sizeable amount in anyone's language. Nationally, 1,000 farmers are still quarantined. In Western Australia, 250 farms have been released from quarantine and 340 are still presently under quarantine. Therefore, a total of 590 properties were affected by this problem. These are certainly not insignificant numbers, even if the issue no longer gets press headlines every day, as was the case. Unfortunately, all of these farms are concentrated in the south-west of my State. The biggest problem that primary producers had at the time was getting answers out of any government instrumentality. These farmers have every reason to complain that the assistance that they have received from this Federal Labor Government is totally and utterly inadequate. It has never been my contention that when farmers have a problem the taxpayer has an automatic duty to come to their rescue, but unfortunately this Government does everything it possibly can to make sure that farmers get a hard life. As my colleague Senator Brownhill said a moment ago, is it any wonder that there are swings against this Government all over the place? The people of rural Australia are not silly. They know which policies are affecting them. This Government has experienced more swings in by-elections this year than one expects to find in a kiddies' playground. The Government will not learn a lesson. It will still not help the farmers. There is a very strong case for taking a sympathetic attitude to producers whose losses are caused not by their own unwise decisions, not by the fluctuations in world markets, but by the failings of governments that do not have adequate assessment and regulation of agricultural chemicals. It is therefore relevant to this Bill to inform the Senate that the Federal Government has not cooperated with State authorities in Western Australia in a plan to give fair and practical assistance to those producers affected by quarantine-an action that puts them out of business as beef producers. The Western Australian Farmers Federation and the State Government agreed that an interest rate subsidy should be given to commercial loans of $50,000 for properties under actual or foreshadowed quarantine, provided that a commercial lender was prepared to advance the loan. The Federal Government, however, has not been prepared to alter rural adjustment scheme guidelines that would supply the Federal contribution to this assistance. The scheme regulations that preclude many producers from receiving this help are the requirements that their situation must in effect be so desperate that they cannot obtain commercial loans and that they must demonstrate long term viability. Of course, the great difficulty with that is that the first of these criteria disqualifies those producers who while not unable to obtain loans are nonetheless in grave economic difficulty because of past government inaction in the policing of agricultural chemicals. The question of strict viability applies to those semi-retired farmers whose properties when quarantined have lost capital value and who, of course, have been deprived of income from their small herds. It is absolutely ludicrous for the Government to say, `We will lend you more money, lend you more money and lend you more money' when in fact these people are already paying back money on properties that are producing little or nothing. On a wider level this Government has been negligent in its duty to assist those bearing the overwhelming cost of our national mistakes regarding chemicals. The second reading speech of the Minister for Primary Industries and Energy (Mr Kerin) makes reference to the Senate select committee foreshadowed by the Australian Democrats to examine the use of agricultural and veterinary chemicals. If we want another sad aspect of this whole saga, it is the simple unadulterated fact that the Australian Democrats do not care about the rural sector. They are prepared to put up a proposal for a committee that will have serious and long term side effects for the agricultural industry. The industry simply cannot afford that. The fact that the Democrats care so little about the agricultural industry that they are prepared to make life even tougher than it has been in the industry in the last 12 to 18 months is nothing short of a national disgrace. But of course, as we always know, the Democrats can promise everything to the world while not being forced to deliver anything because they will never be in the position of being in government. Of course, that is fortunate for everyone. The debate on this proposed committee is a debate for another day but it is still worth mentioning in the context of this debate how sad it is that the Democrats are prepared to cripple this industry even more. It is timely to recall that the reference for the committee will be the result of a deal between the Government and the Democrats-yet another deal-which has thwarted a coalition proposal for a select committee that would examine the role of Federal and State governments in administering the use of those chemicals that caused the residue problem in the beef industry in the first place. That was a very responsible suggestion, but of course, it was thwarted by the Democrats' deal and we are now confronted with this other option, the ramifications of which will be most serious. The PRESIDENT —Order! It being 3.45 p.m., the debate is interrupted. I propose the question: That the Senate do now adjourn. Question resolved in the affirmative. Senate adjourned at 3.45 p.m. The following answer to a question was circulated: (Question No. 473) Senator Jones asked the Minister representing the Minister for Housing and Aged Care, upon notice, on 24 August 1988: (1) Has the Minister's offer, made in June 1988 to the Queensland Government of $1 million to provide additional benefits to the homeless of that State with shelters, refuges, half-way houses and counselling and referral services, been taken up. (2) Has the Queensland Government agreed, or failed to respond, to the dollar for dollar initiative from Canberra to provide new facilities and up-grade existing ones. Senator Cook —The Minister for Housing and Aged Care has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question: (1) No. However, a formal response to the Commonwealth's offer is expected after the State Budget. Full acceptance of the Commonwealth's 1988-89 Supported Accommodation Assistance Program (SAAP) offer will mean additional funds of $2.06 million for the program in Queensland this financial year. (2) The Queensland Government has, to date, abided by the terms of the SAAP Agreement with respect to the provision of State funds for the program. State matching obligations under the SAAP Agreement are not on a dollar for dollar basis but rather on a 90 cents of State funds to each dollar of Commonwealth funds above a Commonwealth base figure.