House of Representatives
1 September 1959

23rd Parliament · 1st Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 23rd Parliament
  3. 1959

Mr. SPEAKER (Hon. John McLeay) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 723

SOCIAL SERVICE BENEFITS

Petition

Mr. CLYDE CAMERON presented a petition from certain electors in the States of the Commonwealth praying that the House will take immediate steps to increase social service benefits for mothers and their children.

Petition received and read.

page 723

QUESTION

INDIA AND CHINA

Dr EVATT:
HUNTER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Can the Minister acting for the Minister for External Affairs give the House, either now or at some other early time, the latest information available in relation to the situation faced by India in connexion with Tibet and China, a situation that is described from time to time in the press, but as to which I am sure every honorable member is seeking more accurate and definite information? In this connexion will the Minister consider the possibility - again I suggest this - of action being taken through the United Nations to see whether the issues can be resolved? I ask the Minister to prepare a statement, which can be made to the House at an early date, and to keep the House informed in the meantime.

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
Attorney-General · PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I am not able to add much, if at all, to the knowledge which the right honorable gentleman can gather from the press as to the situation in India at present. The right honorable member will know that there had been some difficulty between China and India about the publication of certain maps which delineated, unfavorably to India, the borders in respect of portions of which there is difficulty at the present time. There is, as the right honorable gentleman has learned from the press, some activity on the part of troops from the Chinese side, but I cannot add very much to the right honorable member’s knowledge in that respect. So far as intervention through the United Nations is concerned, we do not intend at this moment on our own initiative to attempt to bring the matter before the United Nations. The question of whether India desires to do so will no doubt be considered by the Indian Government. We would wish to respect what it desires to do and to leave the question of bringing the matter before the United Nations, if that is to be done, to the Indian Government.

page 723

QUESTION

SALES TAX

Mr DEAN:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question, which is addressed to the Treasurer, concerns the increased use of safety belts by motorists. Are these articles subject to sales tax? If so, will consideration be given to the removal of the tax because of the element of safety involved in their use?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Treasurer · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– My attention was directed to this matter as a result of correspondence which appeared in the press. I confess that, at first sight, it did seem a little odd to me that sales tax should be levied on an article which was designed to save human life or to reduce injuries in the event of a motor collision. However, as is so frequently the case in these matters of policy, the more I probed into the question the more complex and difficult it became. I found that sales tax is levied on many items in a motor car which are designed to reduce the risk of damage or injury. I instance unbreakable glass, special steering wheels, rubber padding around the dashboard, and even bumper bars. Then, when I wandered a little further afield, I found that lifebelts on pleasure craft also carry sales tax. I realized that if I were to adopt the principle that any item which could reasonably be said to have the effect of reducing the risk to the human person should be relieved of any sort of Government impost, there would be no saying where it would end.

I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that I could not sensibly recommend a reduction or the abolition of sales tax on safety belts without at the same time being prepared to move so far in the direction of revenue remissions as to reduce the amount collected quite considerably. I can hardly imagine that the relatively small tax addition to the cost of an item of this sort would discourage any one who had come to the conclusion that its installation was a desirable precaution.

page 724

QUESTION

SUGAR

Mr UREN:
REID, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for Primary Industry whether it is a fact that Queensland had a sugar surplus last year of 1,500,000 tons and that enough sugar cane to satisfy the demand in New South Wales for six months was ploughed into the ground. Also is it a fact that Mr. E. T. S. Pearce, secretary of the Australian Sugar Producers Association Limited, said recently that there is likely to be an increase in the price of sugar to the Australian consumer? If these are facts, what action does the Government intend to take to maintain stability of price to the Australian consumer and to provide an assured market for the producers?

Mr ADERMANN:
Minister for Primary Industry · FISHER, QUEENSLAND · CP

– I think that there was about 1,000,000 tons of sugar cane over and above requirements for the season’s crushing. However, two factors must be taken into consideration. The first is the possible market and the second is the capacity of the mills to crush. I think all the mills were fully occupied for the full term of the crushing. Apart from that, the main factor in deciding not to crush the additional 1,000,000 tons was the position of the world markets. The decision was reached more or less by arrangement with other nations and was implemented in the International Sugar Agreement. I do not know what Mr. Pearce said, but I do know that the representatives of the sugar organizations have not as yet made any application for an increased price.

page 724

QUESTION

POSTAL DEPARTMENT

Mr BLAND:
WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is addressed to the Postmaster-General. Why did the Postmaster-General’s Department grant to the Big Bear Super Market at Neutral Bay the privilege of a post office known as the Neutral Bay Junction Post Office? Is it not a fact that the Postal Department has property at the corner of Military-road and Barry-street, Neutral Bay, awaiting the erection of an official post office for Neutral Bay? Will the Minister tell the House why no other private business organization in Neutral Bay was given the opportunity of having a post office on its premises? Is it the practice of the department to grant privileges of this character without first consulting the local chamber of commerce, the local municipal council, the local progress association, or even the local member? Will the granting of such a post office to the Big Bear Super Market preclude the Minister from establishing an official post office on the Barry-street site agreed to by the local organizations and the department some years ago?

Mr DAVIDSON:
Postmaster-General · DAWSON, QUEENSLAND · CP

– The honorable member has made representations to me on this subject on several occasions during the last twelve or eighteen months. As I understand the position, the department has a site at the junction of Military-road and Barry-street, and it is intended, as the honorable member was notified some considerable time ago, to establish, ultimately, a new post office there. So far, the limitation of funds for capital works has precluded a start being made on that work. However, I understand that the department has provided post office facilities at the Big Bear Super Market at Neutral Bay Junction. A few weeks ago, the honorable member got in touch with me again on this matter, and I remember advising him within the last day or two that I was still awaiting further information from the central office of the department, and that when that became available I would pass it on to him. That is still the position.

page 724

QUESTION

CENSORSHIP

Mr ALLAN FRASER:
EDEN-MONARO, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I ask the Prime Minister: Does he know the songs of Tom Lehrer? I am not inviting him to sing them. Is it a fact that a fortnight ago a recording of these songs was suddenly withdrawn from sale in Australia? Was there governmental or departmental intervention to bring this about? It is the method of alleged backstairs censorship in which I. am interested.

Mr MENZIES:
Prime Minister · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

– I regret to say that I have no knowledge of the songs of this gentleman, nor have I any knowledge of this particular case; but if censorship is involved, presumably I should refer the question to my colleague the Minister for Customs and Excise. Do I gather that these songs are romantic or what? The honorable member must tell me.

page 724

QUESTION

SALES TAX ON PARKING LIGHTS

Mr HAMILTON:
CANNING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question to the Treasurer is supplementary to that asked a few moments ago by the honorable member for Robertson. In some States it is obligatory for owners of motor trucks to provide extra lighting facilities for parking at night in an endeavour to save loss of life through accident. As most of the owners of these vehicles earn their living by using them, will the Treasurer consider removing sales tax from these extra parking lights since the purchase and installation of them is necessary to conform to State laws?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
LP

– I shall have the matter examined, and I shall see whether I can obtain some information for the honorable member.

page 725

QUESTION

TRADE WITH CHINA

Mr BEAZLEY:
FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I address my ques tion to the Minister for Trade. Was he making a considered statement of the basis of Government trade policy when he said last week that if we did not supply goods to Communist China others would? Is it strictly accurate to suggest, as he appeared to suggest last week, that steel sent to China has no military significance?

Mr McEWEN:
Minister for Trade · MURRAY, VICTORIA · CP

– I was not making any statement of policy on the occasion to which the honorable member has referred except in respect of those points which clearly related to policy. But I turned then to statements of fact. It is a fact that the United Kingdom and other countries of Western Europe have supplied and will, I have no doubt, continue to supply steel of certain kinds to mainland China. It is a fact also that the steel items which, by permission, have been exported from Australia to China have not any obvious military characteristic. Clearly, any kind of steel may be used for certain types of military equipment. In illustration of this I refer to the simple rollings of sheet steel which have no particular military significance.

page 725

QUESTION

TYPHOON DAMAGE ON TAIWAN

Sir WILFRID KENT HUGHES:
CHISHOLM, VICTORIA

– I ask the Prime Minister whether the Government has sent to the President of the Republic of China either a message of sympathy or any funds for the relief of the distress and damage caused by the worst typhoon to hit Taiwan in 60 years. If not, will the Government consider sending at least a similar amount of money to that which was sent to Madagascar on 16th May last for a much less serious reason, especially as the population of Madagascar is only two-fifths of the population of Taiwan?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I know that this matter has received some attention, but I cannot answer the question offhand. I shall obtain an answer and inform the honorable member of the position.

page 725

QUESTION

HOUSING LOANS

Mr GALVIN:
KINGSTON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Is the Treasurer aware that the Commonwealth Bank, which for years led the way in making available the maximum amount of money for home-building purposes, is now lagging behind many other institutions in South Australia? The Savings Bank of South Australia and the State Bank of South Australia now lend a maximum amount of £3,000, which is in excess of that made available by the Commonwealth Bank. Will the Treasurer confer with the responsible Commonwealth Bank officers with a view to having the maximum amount of the loan increased to at least the amount made available by the banks in South Australia?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
LP

– I take it that the honorable member is not referring to the total amount that has been lent in the aggregate?

Mr Galvin:

– No. I am referring to individual loans.

Mr HAROLD HOLT:

– I shall see whether I can obtain from the Commonwealth Bank some explanation of its present policy. I shall also bring to the bank’s notice the honorable member’s comments.

page 725

QUESTION

DISPOSAL OF LAND USED FOR ARMY PURPOSES

Mr STOKES:
MARIBYRNONG, VICTORIA

– I direct my question to the Minister for the Army. In view of his recent decision to dispose of land in New South Wales that was previously used by the Department of the Army and is now surplus to requirements, is the Minister yet in a position to say when similar action may be expected in respect of the Williamstown rifle range in Victoria, or any portion thereof?

Mr CRAMER:
Minister for the Army · BENNELONG, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– As I indicated, I think, about a week ago in reply to a similar question, a review of land held for defence purposes in all States is taking place. The position in Victoria is under examination at present. I expect that the next report I receive will be in connexion with land held by Central Command in South Australia, followed by a report in relation to Victoria. I cannot hold out any hope in the matter to which the honorable member has referred, but all land now held will be the subject of review. It is a question of the amount of land that we need and the amount of land that is surplus to our requirements. I shall let the honorable member know the position when I receive the report that I am awaiting.

page 726

QUESTION

HIRE PURCHASE

Mr GRIFFITHS:
SHORTLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Minister for Social Services or the Attorney-General aware that some hire-purchase finance companies are preying upon age and invalid pensioners who enter into agreements with unscrupulous salesmen to purchase new or second-hand goods? In view of the fact that some agents of these companies even break and enter pensioners’ homes to regain possession of goods, and as hundreds of pensioners are unable to understand the legal jargon of hire-purchase agreements, will one of the Ministers inform me whether hire-purchase companies are allowed to use the processes of Australian courts to enforce payment by pensioners of moneys alleged to be owing by them on goods that they no longer possess? I point out that section 144 of the Social Services Act provides that a pension payable under the act shall be absolutely inalienable.

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
LP

– I do not know whether, if all the facts were known, they would bear the same complexion as the honorable member places upon them. In any case, the question of the regulation of hire-purchase transactions is entirely a matter for the States and neither I nor the Commonwealth Government has any warrant to interfere.

page 726

QUESTION

TRADE WITH FRANCE

Mr BARNES:
MCPHERSON, QUEENSLAND

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Trade. I understand that the French Government has recently opened up new import opportunities for a number of commodities which are still subject to import licensing. Will the Minister say whether this measure will be of benefit to Australian importers?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– It is a fact that, early this year, the French Government announced and put into operation a quite extensive relaxation of its import licensing restrictions. Most of the benefits of this action have flowed, as I think they were designed to flow, to the European Economic Community. But there will be some benefits for Australia. For instance, I think that the French Government’s action will improve our opportunity to sell lead, tungsten, meat, dried vine fruits and dried tree fruits to France. We are, naturally, keeping in continuous touch with the French Government on these matters, and the honorable member may be assured that Australian interests will be watched.

page 726

QUESTION

PENSIONS

Mr LUCHETTI:
MACQUARIE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– In view of the hardship that is being endured by many pension recipients, will the Prime Minister assure honorable members that Parliament will not go into recess for a week or any other period until the social services legislation has been considered? I ask the Prime Minister to give favorable consideration to my suggestion in view of the fact that many pensioners are awaiting a determination of this matter.

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– I had understood that the House would not sit next week and that that represented a common agreement.

Mr Ward:

– No.

Mr MENZIES:

– That is not so?

Mr Ward:

– No.

Mr MENZIES:

– In that case I shall have to invite my colleague, the Treasurer, to reconsider the matter.

page 726

QUESTION

HOSPITAL BENEFITS

Mr SWARTZ:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND

– I address a question to the Minister for Health. Will Commonwealth hospital benefit be paid to cover patients in a hospital wing in an aged persons’ home which is conducted by a public committee? Will it be necessary for such a hospital wing to be registered by a State government as a hospital, in order to attract Commonwealth benefit? What are the conditions under which Commonwealth hospital benefit and Commonwealth additional benefit are paid? What was the total amount paid in all States by the Government during the last financial year? Will the Minister also state the amount of capital subsidy which was paid by the Commonwealth to all States for mental hospitals during the last financial year?

Dr DONALD CAMERON:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

– If a section of a home for aged persons run by a committee or organization was set aside as a hospital and recognized as such by the government of a State, it would normally attract the Commonwealth hospital benefit. This benefit is paid for every occupied bed in a recognized hospital. That amounts to 8s. a day and it is deducted from the account a patient receives from the hospital if an account is presented. It is paid to the hospital whether a patient receives an account or not. Commonwealth additional hospital benefit is contingent upon the patient who receives it being a member of a benefit organization. The total amount of Commonwealth benefit, both ordinary benefit and additional benefit, paid in the past twelve months was a little under £15,000,000. That is for the whole of Australia. That money was made available by the Commonwealth Government for the payment of hospital benefits. The total amount of capital subsidy paid in the last financial year for mental hospitals by the Commonwealth Government to the States was about £1,120,000.

page 727

QUESTION

DEPARTMENT OF WORKS

Dismissals

Mr COSTA:
BANKS, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I direct a question to the

Minister for Works. Is it a fact that approximately 50 employees of the Department of Works in Sydney have received or are about to receive notice of the termination of their services? Is it also a fact that another 50 employees are to be given notice next month? If these are facts, will the Minister state the total number of men to be retrenched under the present proposals and what arrangements have been made to absorb them in suitable alternative employment?

Mr FREETH:
Minister for the Interior · FORREST, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– The situation as it applies to numbers of employees changes almost from day to day, and I am not able to give the honorable member the exact figures he has requested, but I shall ascertain the numbers and let him have them. It is true that we will be dispensing with the services of some men in the Department of Works. So far as possible, an attempt is being made to place them in other jobs, but that is not always possible. In other cases, we have delayed retrenchment so that the men may seek other employment I shall give precise figures to the honorable member as soon as possible.

page 727

QUESTION

TETANUS

Mr WHEELER:
MITCHELL, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I preface a question to the Minister for Health by stating that there has been a campaign in New South Wales to encourage the use of anti-tetanus serum. A large industrial undertaking in my electorate wishes to make arrangements for its employees to be supplied with this serum, but there is a scarcity of supplies. Will the Minister state whether the Department of Health may be able to help supply this anti-tetanus serum?

Dr DONALD CAMERON:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

– If the proposal is an attempt to immunize the employees of the firm mentioned by the honorable member against tetanus, the correct term is not serum but tetanus toxoid, which is a different substance. I rather think there would be very little difficulty in making arrangements for supplies to be available. Certainly it is something the Department of Health would be very glad to encourage. It would be a very good thing if immunity to tetanus could be procured for the whole population.

page 727

QUESTION

BOLSHOI BALLET

Mr WARD:

– I direct a question without notice to the Prime Minister. Is the Government in possession of any information whatever which supports in the slightest degree the charge of the honorable member for Moreton that the Bolshoi Ballet, which recently performed in Australia, contains a Russian M.V.D. agent? Will the Prime Minister state whether the honorable member for Moreton has furnished him or anybody else associated with the Government or with a Commonwealth department or service with any information which would provide any justification for the honorable member’s parliamentary utterances? If not, will the right honorable gentleman state whether the honorable member for Moreton has been invited to furnish to the Government whatever evidence he claims to possess in respect of this matter, or is it proposed to extend such an invitation? If no action by the Government is proposed, is it because the Prime Minister is satisfied that there is no factual basis for the allegation, and that the charge made by the honorable member for Moreton is completely irresponsible?

Mr MENZIES:
LP

– If the honorable member is really anxious to know whether we have any information, and what it is, I shall do my best to find out.

page 728

QUESTION

CHINA

Mr ANDERSON:
HUME, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I address my question to the Minister acting for the Minister for External Affairs. Having regard to recently reported acts of aggression and rumours of the massing of troops and warlike stores on the frontiers of India, has the Leader of the Opposition made any further requests to the Government for the diplomatic recognition of red China?

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
LP

– The answer to the question is, “ No “.

page 728

QUESTION

PURCHASE OF MILITARY AIRCRAFT

Mr CAIRNS:
YARRA, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Defence a question about the purchase of defence aircraft from the United States. Is it a fact that when Neptune bombers were obtained from the United States conditions were imposed by the United States limiting their use to certain areas? Further, was Australia required to undertake the supply of food and other commodities in the event of emergency, in order to obtain these aircraft? Is it likely that similar conditions will be considered in relation to the purchase of any other aircraft from the United States?

Mr TOWNLEY:
Minister for Defence · DENISON, TASMANIA · LP

– The terms and conditions of the purchase of the P2V5’s to which the honorable member refers were arranged some years ago, and I am speaking from memory when I say that the terms and conditions which were imposed were those which are always imposed by America when it supplies warlike stores to another country - namely, that the stores that are provided will not be used in any act of aggression anywhere.

page 728

QUESTION

COLOMBO PLAN

Mr FORBES:
BARKER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– The question which I now address to the Minister acting for the Minister for External Affairs is supplementary to one I asked him a fortnight ago. My previous question referred to the fact that a request by the Singapore division of the University of Malaya for law books had not been met by Australia, although it had been met by the other Colombo Plan countries which received similar requests. I now ask the Minister whether he has anything further to tell the House on this matter.

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
LP

– When the honorable member asked me that question a fortnight or so ago, I was under the impression that the request to which he referred was a request which had been received from the Chief Justice of Malaya. I then said I was endeavouring to find the books which would be suitable to send in response to the request. On further examination - and I examined further because the honorable member’s understanding of the facts differed from mine, and I thought that the honorable member would be right, as I discovered he was - I found that there had been a much earlier request, as long ago as 1956, which had emanated from the university, and that it was unsatisfied. I immediately asked our representatives in Singapore and in Malaya to confer with the university authorities and with the Chief Justice with a view to settling what books were required so that we might answer the request as soon as possible.

page 728

QUESTION

TELEPHONE HANDSETS

Mr J R FRASER:
ALP

– I ask the PostmasterGeneral: Why are telephone subscribers who desire to have a white or coloured handset instead of the normal black handset telephone required to pay additional annual rental of £2 5s.? Will the honorable gentleman say whether the plastics industry has developed to such an extent that white and coloured handsets could be produced in numbers at approximately the same cost as black handsets? Will the honorable gentleman consider obtaining quotes for the purchase in bulk of these instruments so that a choice may be offered to intending subscribers? If an increased charge is found to be necessary, will the honorable gentleman consider it adequate to have that charge imposed in the first year and not repeated each year during the life of the telephone?

Mr DAVIDSON:
CP

– It is the intention of the department steadily to build up supplies of instruments of different colours in order to meet a developing demand by subscribers. However, in the first place the cost element enters into the matter. Because of low supply coloured telephones cost more than black telephones, and an extra charge is made for them. I have no doubt that as further demand develops it will be possible to consider a reduction in the cost of coloured telephones, and the honorable member’s suggestions will be given attention.

page 729

QUESTION

BUNDABERG AERODROME

Mr BANDIDT:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

– My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation. In view of the fact that Bert Hinkler was an outstanding pioneer of aviation, will consideration be given to naming the Bundaberg aerodrome “ Hinkler Airport “, so that the wishes of the Bundaberg residents to honour Bundaberg’s most famous son may be realized?

Mr TOWNLEY:
LP

– Normally I would refer a question such as that to my colleague in another place, but the answer is quite an easy one. I can understand the honorable member’s interest, and that of the people of Bundaberg, in wishing to perpetuate the name of one of their most famous sons - Bert Hinkler. But we must remember that most countries have wished to name aerodromes after some of their famous airmen. So, by international agreement, it was decided that all airports in the world would be known by their geographical location and not by the name of any person. The one exception in the whole world, to the best of my knowledge, is in relation to another Australian - the late Sir Charles Kingsford-Smith. Sydney international airport is known internationally as Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport.

page 729

QUESTION

SALES TAX

Mr FULTON:
LEICHHARDT, QUEENSLAND

– Has the Treasurer given serious consideration to my request that persons who have lost limbs through accident in industry or on the roads, or because of some affliction, should be enabled to purchase motor vehicles free of sales tax in order to transport themselves to and from work? I remind the right honorable gentleman that this privilege is accorded to limbless returned soldiers.

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
LP

– This matte, was one of many considered in connexion with the preparation of the Budget, but, as the honorable member is aware, it was decided on this occasion that no remission of tax could be made in the case of the range of sales tax items. However, I shall see that the honorable gentleman’s previous representations are again brought under review before the preparation of the next Budget.

page 729

QUESTION

TARIFF BOARD

Mr FORBES:

– I ask the Minister for Trade whether the changes made last year in the structure of the Tariff Board resulted in a reduction in the back-lag of applications for tariff protection. If so, can he say whether the board will soon be in a position to undertake the urgent task of reviewing the level of tariff protection afforded to industries that are no longer in the infant class?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– The strengthening of the Tariff Board and of its secretariat, which took place a year or so ago, has resulted in a considerable speeding up of the processes of board hearings. About a year ago, there was a back-lag of 59 unresolved references. That has now been reduced to a back-lag of 44 references. To put it in another way, whereas, the year before last, 30 references were dealt with by the board, last year 50 were dealt with. The board’s ability to deal with something like that number of references in a year would produce a situation in which, on the average, there would be no undue delay in the cases referred to the board. However, I am bound to point out that the Government decided, two or three months ago, to refer to the Tariff Board a mass item covering 270 tariff items under which, as a result of the renegotiation of the United Kingdom-Australia Trade Agreement, we have the right to reduce the margin of British preference as against the most-favored-nation rates of duty - commonly known as the M.F.N, rates. This will throw a quite considerable additional burden on to the board and will delay for some period - perhaps almost a year - the time when the board will again be in a situation in which it can deal expeditiously with every reference.

I should point out further, however, that there will be great potential advantages to come to the Australian economy if the Tariff Board decides that, in the majority of (he 270 items referred together, it is practicable to reduce the margin of British preference as against the M.F.N, rates, because this would result in great savings, which would be added to the savings already being enjoyed as a result of the Government having already reduced the B.P.T. rates on 800 items which did not involve articles manufactured in Australia. That is the balance of the advantage under that heading that came from the re-negotiation of the old Ottawa Agreement.

page 730

WOOL

Mf.. CLYDE CAMERON. - My question is directed to the Minister for Trade. Is it true that the. Government is planning to seek the approval of the wool-growers of. Australia for. a. proposal to establish, a government wool-buying organization to compete against the wool-buying ring which i& now tying up the auctions at Australian wool sales; and that the Government proposes to use1 the wool so purchased by trading it with other governments on a governmenttogovernment basis?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– The whole suggestion is a figment of some one’s imagination.

page 730

TRADE WITH NEW ZEALAND

Mir. IAN ALLAN. - I desire to ask the Minister for Trade a question. Can the Minister indicate what increase in Australia’s exports is likely to occur as a result of the recent relaxations of import controls by New Zealand? Also, can the Minister say which commodities are most likely to benefit from this action?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– When the Government of New Zealand was obliged last year to tighten its import restrictions, the volume of Australia’s exports to New Zealand fell from £55,000,000 in the previous year to £50,000,000, but we continued to hold our percentage of New Zealand’s total import trade. The relaxations that have been announced now will go a good way, I think, towards re-establishing the Australian trade, and I am advised that they will be of particular advantage in respect of a number of items such as dried fruits, oranges, rice, plaster of paris and galvanized iron, all of which are traditional and not unimportant items of Australia’s exports to New Zealand.

page 730

QUESTION

SYDNEY (KINGSFORD-SMITH) AIRPORT

Mr CLAY:
ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I desire to direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation. Have any investigations been made into the cost and practicabilty of building a promontory out into Botany Bay in order that a runway of the length necessary for the satisfactory operation of Boeing 707 aircraft may be constructed, as was done at Hong Kong, where a runway was built out into Kowloon Bay? If the matter has not already been investigated, will the Minister have it investigated?

Mr TOWNLEY:
LP

– I shall be’ pleased to convey the honorable member’s question to my colleague in another place and to see that the honorable member is given an adequate reply.

page 730

LEAVE OF ABSENCE

Motion (by Mr. McEwen) agreed to -

That leave’ of absence for two months- be given to the right honorable member for Cowper (Sir Earle Page) owing to his absence from Australia, and to the honorable member for Lawson (Mr. Failes) on the ground of parliamentary business overseas.

Motion (by Mr. Harold Holt) agreed to -

That leave of absence for two months be given to the Minister for External Affairs (Mr. Casey) on the ground of public business overseas, and to the honorable member for Isaacs (Mr. Haworth) on the ground of parliamentary business overseas.

Motion (by Mr. Carwell) agreed to -

That leave of absence for two months be given to the honorable members for Kennedy (Mr. Riordan) and the Northern Territory (Mr. Nelson) on the ground of parliamentary business overseas.

page 731

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr DALY:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

-I ask for leave of the House to make a personal explanation, because I consider that I have been misrepresented by the Sydney “Daily Telegraph “. Before making the explanation, Mr. Speaker, let me say to you and to the editor of the newspaper concerned that I do not consider the misrepresentation warrants the dismissal of, or even the taking of disciplinary action against, the employee concerned.

I refer to a photograph which appeared in the “ Daily Telegraph “ under date 14th August, 1959. The photograph is of a man wearing a cowboy hat and a check shirt. The person pictured is a toss-up in appearance between Gary Cooper and Clark Gable, and actually is almost as goodlooking as myself. The heading over the picture, in bold type, is, “He seeks an answer “. Then beneath the photograph appear the words, “ Drover Fred Daly, who wants aboriginal Gladys Namagu to tell him whether she still wishes to marry him”. In view of the publicity that has been given to the case of Gladys, Daly, Arthur and Ward, and having in mind the confusion of the public on this affair of the heart, I take this opportunity of advising the House that I am not the drover Fred Daly mentioned in the newspaper article in question.

page 731

POST AND TELEGRAPH RATES BILL 1959

Motion (by Mr. Davidson) agreed to -

That leave be given to bring in a bill for an act to amend the Post and Telegraph Rates Act 1902-1956.

page 731

TARIFF PROPOSALS 1959

Excise Tariff Amendment (No. 3)

In Committee of Ways and Means:

Mr OSBORNE:
Minister for Air · Evans · LP

– I move- [Excise Tariff Amendment (No. 3).]

That the Schedule to the Excise Tariff 1921-1959, as proposed to be amended by Excise Tariff Proposals introduced into the House of Representatives on the thirteenth day of May, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine, be further amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that on and after the first day of September, One thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine, at five o'clock in the forenoon, reckoned according to standard time in the Australian Capital Territory, Duties of Excise be collected in pursuance of the Excise Tariff 1921-1959 as so amended. **Mr. Chairman,** the Excise Tariff Proposals which I have tabled reduce by 3d. per ton the excise duty on coal mined in Australia. The new rate will be 5d. per ton and will operate to-day. As honorable members are well aware this duty provides a trust fund from which payment for long service leave benefits to coal-miners may be made. The fund at present is in a very healthy financial state. The Government has recently examined the expected demands on the trust fund in the foreseeable future, and considers that its stability can be assured with the reduced rate of 5d. per ton excise duty now proposed. I commend the proposals to honorable members. Progress reported: {: .page-start } page 731 {:#debate-32} ### ESTIMATES 1959-60 In Committee of Supply: Consideration resumed from 27th August (vide page 713). {:#subdebate-32-0} #### Parliament Remainder of proposed vote of £1,204,000. {: #subdebate-32-0-s0 .speaker-KGX} ##### Mr HAYLEN:
Parkes .- Having scanned the estimated appropriation for the Parliament of £1,204,000, I thought that this might be an appropriate time - I have been wanting to do it for a long time - to direct attention to the way in which this Parliament has lost seaway, as it were. It is out of character with the rest of the community because of its archaic practices. The way in which we address each other, the way in which our debates are conducted, the manner in which Standing Orders are implemented, all are more appropriate to the first Queen Elizabeth than the second, and for that reason democracy is getting a thrashing in this place. The time allotted for speeches is, in most cases, quite inadequate. This is obvious when we consider that an honorable member is allowed ten or fifteen minutes to speak on items in the Estimates that run into millions of pounds. The time allotted for speeches in general debates on other matters has also been reduced because of the increase, some years ago, in the numbers of members. To-day we are, as a Parliament, oldfashioned. We are out of date. We have the spectacle of **Mr. Speaker** moving in and out of the chamber like a teetotum whenever the House resolves itself into a committee and the latter reports progress, until the honorable gentleman looks rather like the widow Twankey, with a little sheepskin, climbing in and out of a little turret. These things do not impress the people, nor do they give an indication of the role we should be playing at this time in this century. We ought to have a streamlined Parliament, and we ought at least to dismiss the archaic language and methods by which we attempt to rule ourselves in this House, and, incidentally, to rule the nation. I believe we should take another and considerably hostile look at the whole question of Standing Orders. An honorable member " rises in his place "; nobody ever stands up here. An honorable member " passes on "; nobody . ever dies. It is all archaic and is, as I said, more appropriate to the first Elizabeth. It is Tudor English, and it must amaze the visitors who come to this Parliament in vast numbers to see us in action, when they realize that we can impose such drastic taxes and place so many impositions on the people, while they see us working under this old-fashioned, motley method. This is an appropriate moment to consider seriously whether we should streamline the procedures of Parliament. First we have the question of the old traditions which we still continue. I cannot see any reason why **Mr. Speaker** should wear a full-bottomed wig in a temperature of 103 degrees, as we sometimes experience in this Territory. I cannot see why men should go about in knee breeches and buckles or with little rosettes on their backs. Surely if we are to give some semblance of modernity to parliamentary procedures we should at least dress the part and live in this century, although we appear to be legislating for the last century. This question will have to be considered in all parliaments sooner or later. The overbearing trouble in our attitude is that all these things are good enough for the House of Commons and hence should be good enough for us. They appear to be right in the House of Commons but here in the bush capital they appear to be very wrong. They appear as an imposition upon the blessed sanity of the sunshine and the outofdoors Australian, and they are a poor reflection of our attitude when considering legislation. This may appear to be a small matter and may be brushed aside by some people with the comment " Well, does it matter? " But it certainly does matter. I would like the Parliament to look more businesslike and the functionaries and factotums of the Parliament to look as though they belong to this century in their dress. I would like to get rid of all this fuss of a knock on the door and a summons to some other place. We seem to regard the Senate as being an untouchable body and we must refer to it as " another place ". All these expressions are only gobbledegook. The modern approach is a more sane and sensible approach, and I am sure that honorable members will agree with me. I return to the question of Standing Orders, because that is where We find our procedures. They should be reviewed at the earliest possible moment. The administration of the Parliament is costing nearly £1,500,000 and it is time that we cut out the atmosphere of pantomime. We should give the people of Australia something for their money. A lot of money is wasted and a lot of fusty precedent is lying atop of the procedures of the Parliament, and we could well dismiss them summarily. The debate on the Estimates gives me an opportunity to raise this point and I say now that we should at the earliest opportunity appoint a committee to consider the Standing Orders and mercilessly cut out the frippery and foppery. This would cut down the waste of the taxpayers' money and give us a streamlined method of running the Parliament. If we cut out the archaic language, the kid-stakes, and the overgrown weeds of last century's procedures, we may be able to get people to appreciate what the Parliament means. Democracy is engaged in a struggle; it is being assaulted from various parts of the world. The thinking of some governments is against it, and it is up to us as a young, strong and growing democracy to show that we believe that the time has arrived when procedures should be streamlined, institutions pruned and pumiced and our methods brought up to date. It would be a very good move if we were to drop the use of " the honorable member for this " or " the honorable member for that ". What is wrong with calling **Mr. Daly, Mr. Haylen, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Wheeler** or any other honorable member by his name? That is how the electors know us. They send us here to do a job and they would be refreshed to hear that their representative is in his seat or on his feet, as I am at the moment, protesting on behalf of his electorate. The anonymous call of the honorable member for this or that electorate is all part of the fustiness about which I am protesting. Let us bring Parliament up to date. Let us streamline it and bring it up to 1959. We can do that by revising our Standing Orders and bringing a common-sense approach to bear on the procedures of the Parliament. This is the repository of the rights of the citizens of Australia, and we should cease to look like something from 1759 instead of 1959. We must bring our procedures up to date, and the first mode of attack, to save money, is to see that Parliament is not overloaded with all this nonsense, all this dressing up and all this guyver. If this is done, thousands of pounds will be saved. This is the first essential in pruning the Budget and I draw attention to it in speaking to the Estimates now before the committee. {: #subdebate-32-0-s1 .speaker-KCU} ##### Mr DRURY:
Ryan .- I am afraid that the honorable member for Parkes **(Mr. Haylen)** has scant appreciation and understanding of the significance of, and depths behind, the centuries of British parliamentary tradition. If he had, he would not have made the speech that he did this afternoon. I deplore reference to the archaic practices and the oldfashioned procedures. We should love and cherish those parts of our parliamentary life. They have evolved over at least 700 years, and I do not think that any one who is sincerely interested in maintaining our high British parliamentary traditions would lend an ear to thoughts such as those that have been expressed this afternoon by the honorable member for Parkes. It may be that in certain respects some procedures can be streamlined with advantage, but by and large I am entirely against the approach of the honorable member for Parkes. I am one of those who believe that the roots of the present lie deep in the past, and the fact that Parliament, through the centuries, has had many ups and downs, has gone through many periods of trial and error, and has passed many acid tests, speaks volumes for the work of the institution as we enjoy it to-day. I believe that we should strive to uphold the best parliamentary traditions of the past and not suddenly decide to scrap them and look for something better. Indeed, I do not think that we could find anything better. In the Parliament, with all its faults, we have the fulcrum of the nation. We are sent here by the electors to express their thoughts and our own thoughts, based on our studies, researches and discussions with our colleagues, and to hammer out on the anvil of this democracy whatever we think at the time is best in the interests of the nation. I do not think that this can be done by scrapping centuries of tradition and trying to formulate some new 1959 approach to parliamentary procedures, Parliament is a highly significant part of our democratic society. I do not feel that the honorable member for Parkes can regard it as such. If he did so regard it, he could hardly say that we are old fashioned, that democracy in this place is getting a thrashing and that we should become sane and sensible in our approach. I believe that on the whole we are sane and sensible in our approach. While we may have differing views on political topics, I believe that these old forms, ceremonies and procedures help to bind us together in. this, place and to remind, us of all that has gone before us. I should like to quote Abraham Lincoln, who said - >True government of the people for the people, involves a maximum of interest in government by> every citizen. I would like to see a new approach outside this place to the life of Parliament and to the meaning of Parliament itself. Too many people in the community are always only too ready to knock at Parliament and parliamentarians. We have our faults, of course, but I believe that Parliament, as an institution, must be upheld and protected from these insidious attacks. It seems to be quite fashionable in some quarters to lampoon and belittle Parliament and parliamentarians at every opportunity. I do not suggest that we should be exempt from criticism. Of course, we should not, and, similarly, Parliament should not be exempt from criticism. It is of the essence of democracy that free and just criticism should be voiced, but I deplore the tendency, in some quarters, to engage in unjust, even, violent and unbased criticism such as we experience from time to time. More and more encouragement should be given to schools and universities to take an interest in our parliamentary institutions. I am pleased to notice from time to time bus loads* of schoolboys and schoolgirls coming to this Parliament, perhaps for only a short period but long enough to give them, I hope, a lasting impression of some of these ancient forms, ceremonies and procedures which are part, and parcel of the British parliamentary system which we enjoy. One of the greatest authorities on parliament and parliamentary procedure, **Sir Courtenay** Ilbert had this to say - and I invite the honorable member for Parkes to consider it in relation to the context of his remarks - >The Parliament is not only a busy workshop, it is a museum of antiquities. Examples are the mace, the Speaker's chair, the Speaker's robes, his full-bottom wig and the wigs worn by the clerks of the House. All these things, and the procedures of Parliament play a most valuable and useful part in keeping up the atmosphere of. the parliamentary tradition which many of us' in. this place appreciate and admire. This Parliament is a citadel of freedom and democracy. It is far from being a place id which democracy gets a thrashing. The honorable member for Parkes must have been speaking with his tongue in his cheek when he said that. I believe that we do have freedom in this place. The Speaker, the Chairman of Committees and the Temporary Chairmen of Committees who take, their place in the chair from time to time, always display a fair-minded attitude. I say that just as sincerely about honorable, members from the Opposition side who, from time to time, take their turn of duty as temporary chairman. There is something about this service which is over and above the party atmosphere. This is one of the occasions when we can think of the Parliament apart from the atmosphere of party politics. Rudyard Kipling once wrote - >What stands if freedom falls? I remind the honorable member for Parkes that the democratic freedom which is symbolized in this Parliament is something that many millions of people in other parts of the world would give their right hand to be able to enjoy. I wonder if there are not many hundreds of millions of people behind the iron curtain who would be only too grateful to have the opportunity of casting a democratic vote and having a freely elected member come into a national place such as this to represent them. I should like to make particular reference to the cost of the Parliament. I notice that the total estimate for Parliament for the year 1959-60 is £1,204,000. If my arithmetic is correct that works out at just under 2s. 6d. a head of the total population of Australia and at approximately 5s. 4d. a head of the taxpaying population. Surely that is not a high price to pay for a very valuable democratic institution such as this. Stated in another way, the total cost of Parliament in this current financial year is approximately the same as the cost of an increase of the pension of a shilling a week to all age pensioners in this country. Such an increase would cost £1,250,000 a year. I think it is a pity that on account of the complexity of modern government there is a growing tendency to leave more and more authority in the hands of the Executive and of civil servants. This is a salutary occasion for us to remind ourselves that the Queen in Parliament is really supreme, that Parliament is the supreme governing authority and that private members, including members of the Opposition, as well as Ministers, all have a positive and constructive role to play in the general scheme of things. I wish to pay a warm tribute to the officers of the Parliament - the Clerk and his assistants^ the attendants, the " Hansard " staff, the Librarian and his staff, the Joint House Department and all those other people who help to keep the machinery of Parliament well-oiled and in good running order. I pay special tribute also to the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and in particular, to my friend and. distinguished colleague the honorable member for Warringah **(Mr. Bland).** He has played a most important part in this Parliament over a number of years as chairman of this very important and valuable committee. {: #subdebate-32-0-s2 .speaker-JF7} ##### Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle .- The Estimates concerning Parliament cover payments made for the international associations to which Parliament belongs such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I do not agree with the implication in the statement of the honorable member for Ryan **(Mr. Drury)** that procedure is a vital thing about Parliament. If we analyse Parliament as a. safeguard of freedom we will find that it comes to two very simple points. The first is that the parliamentary system is one in which the right is given to organize to oppose a government, and the second is the right to dismiss a government. Every honorable member here knows, that the theory that the electorate actually directs the Government in the preparation of what it brings down as legislation is nonsense. The checks that the electorate have on a government are negative, not positive. If the people dislike what is being done they throw the Government out. If we in this Parliament transmit to the world any idea that the essence of parliamentary democracy is not the right to oppose or to dismiss a government, we betray the parliamentary institution in the only senses it has real meaning. I believe that that is exactly what we have done in the Inter-Parliamentary Union. In Africa and in Asia at the present time there is a constant and steadfast line being promulgated, which originates in Moscow, that the only way that backward areas can advance is through a one-party dictatorship state. That is the philosophy which is being pressed upon **Dr. Nkrumah** of Ghana. It is the philosophy which was expressed by the Government of Kerala until it was ejected by the Federal Government of India under **Mr. Nehru.** In this Parliament we should be exactly like the British Liberals in 1910 who refused to accept the Czarist Duma as a parliament because it had no essential control or power to remove the Government of Russia which was the Government of the Czar. Just as none of the people who were democrats at that time would accept the Russian travesty of parliament as being a parliament, neither should we, being in the Inter-Parliamentary Union consent to the acceptance into that union of what are called parliaments in places like Russia, where nobody has the right to oppose. There is no election there, for the candidate has no opponent and consequently what is called a parliament is not a parliament. This controversy in Russia goes back to the year 1917, to Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. Rosa Luxemburg was a distinguished German Communist and probably she was the most distinguished woman Communist of all time.. In her correspondence with Lenin she used words to this effect - " It is fine, that we are establishing a Communist state but we as Communists are not infallible. The safeguard against our own errors is the right to dismiss our own government, which is the properly elected government. You should realize that parliament does not carry out the details of administration. The only safeguard that human beings have found for1 freedom is that a government may be dismissed. The parliamentary institution1 insures that." Lenin, who usually resorted to abuse when he had no argument, called that statement a " manifestation of bourgeois ideology ", an expression which does not mean anything. But he did not answer the point. He insisted that there should be no parliamentary- institution'. The presidium of the Soviets, which permits no opposition; which has; never voted other than unanimously; which voted unanimously for everything that Stalin did, and then voted unanimously to condemn the things for which it had previously voted unanimously when a different regime was in control in Russia, is not a parliament and it should not be in the Inter-parliamentary Union. Were it a Czarist parliament of exactly the same character and servility not a person in this chamber would rise in his place to speak in its favour. The Inter-parliamentary Union is meeting at present in Warsaw. One would need to be very naive not to realize why Warsaw has been chosen by the Communist powers as the venue. The reason is that prior to the Hungarian rising Poland also was on the verge of a complete revolt which, as every one knows, was averted only by the presence of Russian troops. The basic demand that was voiced in the Polish press was that the Polish parliament should be real. The Poles were tired of following a line emanating from Moscow because, when that line was promulgated in the parliament nobody dared contradict it. That demand for a real parliament was blazoned all over the Polish press during a " thaw ". What do we, as members of Parliament in a Western country do? No person in this Parliament really believes that the Interparliamentary Union is of any real use, but because we want a trip we send to Poland, on the invitation of the Communist powers, representatives of real parliamentary institutions as a demonstration to the people of Poland that we in the West accept as a parliament what they themselves have called a travesty of a parliament. Our action is a betrayal of the parliamentary institution. Compared to that betrayal, this talk or that talk about Standing Orders is quite unimportant. I repeat that where there is not the right to organize opposition to a government and the right to dismiss a government, there is no parliament. We in this Parliament have betrayed the parliamentary institution by our behaviour in respect to the Inter-parliamentary Union. I concur with the honorable member for Parkes **(Mr. Haylen)** in his references to fustion speech. But he has very unjustly accused Elizabethans of being responsible for our pompous English. I do not believe that any Elizabethan or Tudor era person, if Cranmer is an example, would use such language as - >Almighty God, we humbly beseech Thee to vouchsafe Thy blessing upon this Parliament. All we need say is: " Bless this Parliament ". What He vouchsafes for - which sounds like a test in inebriacy - I do not know. We should expunge those words and ask the Almighty to bless this Parliament. Then there is the absurd expression: " direct and prosper our deliberations ". If the Almighty were to direct our deliberations He would also prosper them. If He were not directing them, He should not be asked to prosper them. I do not believe that such language is of the period of the first Elizabeth. Cranmer did not believe in using six words instead of one. The examples that I have cited are pure Victorian English, not Elizabethan English. {: #subdebate-32-0-s3 .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN:
Moreton .- The honorable member for Fremantle **(Mr. Beazley)** has directed the attention of the chamber to the relationship of the Interparliamentary Union to parliamentary tradition. I shall not pursue that matter other than to express the hope that the committee will heed very carefully the honorable member's statement. It is perfectly true that the selection of Warsaw as the venue for the conference is of more than passing interest because attending that conference will be representatives of the union who have as much claim to being supporters of democratic government and the parliamentary institution as I have of being the next chief of the presidium of the Soviet Union. The honorable member has given us a timely warning. I join with my friend, the honorable member for Ryan **(Mr. Drury),** in his mild clash with the honorable member for Parkes **(Mr. Haylen),** who this afternoon rose in his place or, as he would have it, stood up, and asked the committee to accept the point of view that everything that is done in this place is out of date and completely useless. The honorable member for Ryan touched a nerve centre when he said that every tradition in this place is a reminder - in many respects, a very solemn reminder - of the character of the struggle that has taken place in the development of the parliamentary institution. Many people criticize the Parliament and say that it is simply a place where a lot of talking goes on. That is perfectly true, but Parliament was meant to be a talking place. The origin of the word " parliament ", as I understand it, is the great parley. This is a talking shop, and no person in this talking shop need apologize for that fact. I do not believe that any person outside this Parliament who understands the nature of the struggle that preceded the establishment of parliamentary democracy, and the sacrifices that have been made to maintain it, would treat lightly the parliamentary institution. I was somewhat intrigued by the illustration of out-of-date practices that was given by the honorable member for Parkes. He said that we should dispense with the practice of referring to an honorable member by the name of his electorate. As an alternative he suggested that we should refer merely to **Mr. Haylen** or **Mr. Ward** or **Mr. Killen.** Why stop at that? Why not refer to the honorable member for Parkes as Leslie or, better still, why not use a few colourful expressions? Possibly we could refer to the honorable member as " the bold centurion for Parkes who a few moments ago stood up and is now talking. We expect that he will soon sit down " - not resume his seat. The honorable member plays with words in a most engaging fashion, but for him to say, " Let us forget all about parliamentary tradition and get on to a basis of sheer egalitarianism ", is ridiculous. This is the supreme economic council. The honorable member is suggesting that we do away with the parliamentary institutions. If he were to spend a few hours in homework and establish in his own mind the nature of the parliamentary institution, the tradition that lies behind it and the sacrifices that are being made to preserve it, I am sure the honorable member, being such an accommodating person, would modify his views. I join with the honorable member in requesting the House to consider one modification in our present habit. I refer to the hours of sitting of this Parliament. Frankly, I believe it is completely absurd that we should spend two and a half days a week in this place when the House is in session. Let me take last week as a case in point. We finished late on Thursday night and most of us went back to our electorates on Friday. I spent Friday afternoon in my office. I spent Friday night attending a meeting with the result that I got to bed at about 1 o'clock. Then there was the week-end with various engagements. On Monday I was again in my office and I travelled to Canberra this morning. Then we will be here for another two and a half days and so it goes on. I am a young man but I find that sort of habit a little tiring. I do not know how members such as the honorable member for Perth **(Mr. Chaney)** and the honorable member for Herbert **(Mr. Murray)** find it. They travel immense distances. Occasionally, the honorable member for Herbert is not back in his electorate until late on Saturday. Then, on Monday, he has to come back here to Canberra - back to this muchmaligned talking shop. My proposal is that the House should meet five days a week for a fortnight and then have a week off. I ask the honorable member for Scullin **(Mr. Peters),** who is interjecting, to listen to this because I will be interested to hear his point of view on it. We spend two and a half days a week in Canberra when the House is in session. If we sat for ten days that would mean, in effect, that we had sat for the equivalent of four of our present sitting weeks. The saving involved in that procedure would be enormous. The fares and expenses of members in going back to their electorates every week-end would be greatly reduced. We should also make some attempt to recognize reasonable hours. If we had a few women in this chamber we would have a far more sensible approach to this matter. I am, at least, bold enough and, I suppose, in a sense, I am honest enough, to say that a lot of the common sense in this world is resident in the minds and hearts of our womenfolk. If we believe that we are showing exemplary sense and any degree of reasonableness in observing the hours that we observe in this place we should have another think. That is my plea to the committee and to the Government. I do not criticize the Leader of the House **(Mr. Harold Holt)** in any way. He has given the Parliament a number of improvements in relation to its programmes and dates of sitting. But I earnestly suggest that we should make an attempt, at least to try my proposal for one session in order to see how it works out. I believe that there would be less fatigue in members. I believe a lot of money would be saved, and I believe that the business of the Parliament would be proceeded with in a far more satisfactory way. Finally - and this is no afterthought - I would like to join with my friend the honorable member for Ryan **(Mr. Drury)** in thanking those people in this chamber who are responsible for keeping it running - the Clerk and his assistants, and the attendants. In particular, I would like to pay my own humble tribute to those in the Parliamentary Library. They provide an excellent service for members. They show great patience and diligence and, above all, a willingness to assist members in fossicking out and tracking down obscure things which may not, on the surface, mean very much but which, to the member making the inquiry, amount to a very great deal. {: #subdebate-32-0-s4 .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr PETERS:
Scullin .- The Parliamentary institution has changed during the last 700 years. Things that have been considered unnecessary have been cut away. Traditions, as they are called, have gone by the board; and so they should. They have gone by the board in order that the Parliament may be improved. I suppose that when these things were being debated over the centuries, there rose in their places political troglodytes who said that they were against all change and who advocated preserving everything exactly as it was. But alterations have taken place and they have been for the better. I heard the honorable member for Parkes **(Mr. Haylen)** talk about the Speaker's wig. In this committee, we are sitting under the presidency of an honorable gentleman who has neither a wig nor a gown, but nobody can say that he does not preserve the dignity of this Parliament. If one man can preside without a wig and without a gown, why cannot another man do so without a wig and without a gown? Yet the honorable member for Ryan **(Mr. Drury)** and the honorable member for Moreton **(Mr. Killen)** have risen in their places and said that the foundations of the British Empire will be destroyed if we take the wig off the man who sits in the upper chair and make him as the man who sits in the lower chair. That is utterly absurd. Another honorable member has spoken of the importance of the mace as though a mace had any influence upon what occurs in Parliament! I remember a time in the Victorian Parliament when the mace was lost for quite some time. Ultimately, it had to be replaced by a wooden one, whereas previously it had been of gold. But Victoria -went on in spite of the fact that the mace was lost for a time and it continued to go on in spite of the fact that the mace was transmuted from gold into wood. I think that the mace that we have in this chamber is of brass. I presume that some honorable members would say that we should not change the material of which the mace is made and that it should still be of gold, as it was in the past. Of course, that is utterly absurd. It is equally absurd to say that a mace in any way contributes to the wisdom or lack of wisdom in a parliament. This Government would not be any better off if it had 150 maces in the Federal Parliament. However, 1 did not rise in order to discuss such irrelevancies as this. I rose to discuss a question which I regard as being important. Some time ago, I initiated a discussion in this chamber of the emoluments and privileges granted to an individual in this Parliament who was the sole representative of a particular political party. He was treated as the leader of a party and he was given all the consideration, at that time, that a leader of a party should get. Since then, he has been joined by another member of his party. I do not know what privileges this member gets. But I do know that a motor car is at his disposal when he arrives in Melbourne by train. I know that a chauffeur walks onto the platform at Spencer-street station, takes his case, carries it to the motor car, places it in the motor car, opens the door and ushers this person into the motor car. {: .speaker-KGC} ##### Mr Hamilton: -- Are you jealous? {: .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr PETERS: -- The honorable member suggests that I am jealous; but I am defending members' rights. After all, why should the Government of this country give these costly privileges to two members of Parliament who have no following whatsoever in the Parliament? Would the Government give the same privileges to two members of the Communist Party if, by chance, they got into this Parliament? I say that it would not. I, for one, would fight against two members of the Communist Party getting such privileges from the Government. I am consistent in fighting against the members of the so-called Democratic Labour Party getting privileges that other members of this Parliament do not receive. It is in relation to the costs of Parliament that I bring this matter up. I say that Parliament already costs ample. The people of this country have to pay more than sufficient for the Government that they have at the present time. I would not like to pay half that amount for a government of this description. We have to reduce the cost of the parliamentary institution, if we can do so, to bring it within a reasonable amount. We must do it intelligently. We have to say to the Government, "What do you get from these people that justifies your giving to them special privileges? " The Richardson committee stated that no emolument should be given to any leader of any party unless he led a party of at least ten members. I believe that the Government does not pay extra money to these particular individuals. It does not give them the increased daily allowances or the emoluments of a party leader or deputy leader, but it does give them extra secretarial assistance, which is very costly, extra office accommodation, and additional transport facilities. If the Government really believes that they are a leader and deputy leader of a party, it should do for them what it does for every other leader and deputy leader. On the other hand, if it does not believe they are the leader and deputy leader of a party because they have no following, it should not give them any extra advantages whatever. It is dishonest to do so, and it is dishonest for these persons to accept the additional advantages I have indicated. Once again, I enter my emphatic protest, not that I think it will fall upon receptive ears, but in an attempt to get rid- {: .speaker-JSY} ##### Mr Buchanan: -- You have got it off your chest. {: .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr PETERS: -- Yes. I make that protest although I know the Government will continue the practices which I unhesitatingly describe as dishonest. {: #subdebate-32-0-s5 .speaker-KGC} ##### Mr HAMILTON:
Canning .- The honorable member for Scullin **(Mr. Peters)** has again raised a matter to which he has referred previously. As this is a democratic institution, he can test the feeling of the committee if he so desires. Those of us who have been in this place for some time recall that it was touch and go whether the same gentleman might not have been associated with the two individuals in another place to whom he has referred. He has never made a clear-cut- {: .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr Peters: -- Irise to order, **Mr. Chairman.** Is the honorable member for Canning entitled to tell deliberate lies? The **CHAIRMAN (Mr. Bowden).Order!** There is no substance in the point of order, but I remind the honorable member for Scullin that he is not permitted to state that another honorable member has told a deliberate lie. If any honorable members take exception to that statement, the honorable member will have to withdraw it. {: .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr Peters: -- I did not say that the honorable member told deliberate lies; but I can think what I like. {: #subdebate-32-0-s6 .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- Order! It is useless for the honorable member to argue. He cannot think aloud. {: .speaker-KGC} ##### Mr HAMILTON: -- The honorable member for Scullin can test the validity of the Government's actions concerning certain persons if he so desires, but I remind him that the Parliament itself made the decision that the two gentlemen in another place should have the privilege of using a government motor car only on limited occasions. I do not agree with the views of honorable members on the Opposition side concerning the forms and procedures of the Parliament. I incline rather to the opinions that have been expressed by the honorable members for Ryan **(Mr. Drury)** and Moreton **(Mr. Killen).** In particular, I should like to support the suggestion of the honorable member for Moreton that the Parliament should sit for ten days straight - that is, from Monday to Friday for two weeks - and then rise for a week or ten days, but I would go further. Many years ago I suggested in the Parliament that instead of sitting as we do until all hours of the night, the Parliament should work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. as do most other persons in the community. All the committees we have on both sides of the Parliament could then meet at night until 10 o'clock and everybody could get home to have a normal night's sleep. The Cabinet could operate in the same way. Instead of rushing off as Ministers do - and this applies to all parties when they have been in office as the government - for a Cabinet meeting lasting two and a half hours on Tuesday morning and then meeting in between times when Parliament is sitting, Ministers could sit in the evening and get home to bed at a reasonable hour. Those who have followed this calling for a number of years know very well that there is no greater destroyer of health. More men have destroyed their health in politics than in any other calling. Therefore, I strongly support the suggestions of the honorable member for Moreton but would go further and advocate sittings of the Parliament for ten days straight, Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. I believe that has been done in Queensland, but I do not know whether the practice is still followed there. Reference has been made by the honorable member for Moreton to the strain of travelling, and he referred particularly to the honorable member for Perth **(Mr. Chaney).** He is a comparatively new member. The honorable member for Fremantle **(Mr. Beazley)** and I have some idea of the strain of travelling to and from Perth in aircraft. We know what it is like to leave Perth at midnight and arrive in Canberra between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. next day, and almost immediately attend the proceedings of the Parliament. I hope that before it is too late, honorable members will realize that they will have a much better chance of enjoying longer life and better health if they get down to some sensible arrangement for the working of the Parliament. I wish to refer now to another matter which concerns the members of this Parliament. Honorable members will recall that about three years ago, the Parliament set up a committee to inquire into the Constitution and to bring to the Parliament the benefit of their deliberations and investigations into the Constitution, how it has worked and what might be done for the future. On 1st October, 1958, a report was brought down by that committee. Apparently it was of such a nature that the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** said, as recorded in "Hansard", volume 21, at page 1851 - >I hope, too, that as a result of the investigation that has been made, much good will come to this country and that progressive and positive proposals will emerge in this Parliament. The right honorable gentleman mentioned the work that had been done by the committee, and it was only because of various things that happened in the life of that committee that the full report was not brought down. At present, the Constitutional Review Committee is engaged in writing the reasons for the report. I only hope that when they are brought before the Parliament they will be read and seriously considered. I was agreeably surprised early this year when the Prime Minister, in announcing the appointments to his Cabinet and Ministry, said he had appointed the honorable member for Parramatta **(Sir Garfield Barwick)** as Attorney-General because he wished to avail himself of the services of this very brilliant constitutional lawyer. We all thought we could look forward to a period of real consideration of the reports of the Constitutional Review Committee, but it is somewhat surprising when we find that people outside tend to prejudge what might be the decisions of discussions in this Parliament. Some people have said that there will not be a change of any magnitude in the Constitution over the next ten or fifteen years. I only hope that feeling does not grow too widely before the report is brought down and members of this Parliament are given the responsibility of having a look at it. I wonder how many people outside and inside this Parliament realize that this Parliament has no real power under the Constitution in respect of aviation in Australia. To-day Australia is the most airminded country in the world. In aviation, this country is developing as fast as any other country and, if our population increases in the next few years as we hope it will, obviously aviation activities in Australia will increase. So I think that each and every one of us, realizing the speed with which modern aircraft move, and the danger arising from any careless handling of them, will agree that Parliament should have an overriding authority in respect of aviation. Let us move to another example - an institution that has done a remarkable amount of good for this country in both the primary industry field and the secondary industry field. I remind honorable members, and you, **Mr. Chairman,** of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. We have no constitutional right to have that organization in operation. Then consider the new things that are coming along - television, nuclear energy and so forth. Surely this Parliament will realize that we must very shortly see to it that we have a power residing here for the control of those new inventions and others that will follow. The procedure of the Parliament has been discussed. During the last eight years we have experienced deadlocks between the Houses. Surely we are going to try to overcome such happenings. All this will mean constitutional alteration. The honorable member for Gwydir **(Mr. Ian Allan)** has repeatedly asked this Parliament to reconstitute the Interstate Commission. There is plenty of work that a commission of that nature could carry out. So I think it is wrong for people outside, no matter how well informed they might be, no matter how kindly disposed they might feel towards this Parliament and the powers that should be resident within it, to prejudge anything before the report is actually tabled. We deal with many things, such as orderly marketing. It is surprising how many people in this country think that because we have a scheme for the orderly marketing of wheat the continued existence of the scheme is quite safe. I take the liberty of reminding honorable members that not so very long ago one State refused to join in the orderly marketing scheme, so the scheme was held up for a considerable time. I admit that finally that State decided to participate. That is an example of an arrangement that was possible only by the Commonwealth and the six States acting in unison and subscribing to one policy. Therefore, if we want to protect, not only the primary producers, but also the consumers, in those matters - and the orderly marketing scheme for wheat is an example of what can be done - honorable members should give serious consideration to whether or not we should have power in respect of orderly marketing. I trust that there is in the minds of honorable members the realization that they have a responsibility to the community in this matter. I am not in any way proposing to condemn the Constitution, as that document is now, because it has proved itself to be a very fine document. An excellent job was done by the founders of the Constitution, but it has lasted us for 58 years, and we ought to bring it up to date, lt is later than we think - much later than we think. We all have a job to do in seeing whether we can make the alterations that may be required to cater for new ideas and new scientific achievements - those already here and those which, if not already here, will be with us shortly. I hope that members of the Parliament will not forget that. It was this Parliament which created the committee, and it is to this Parliament that the committee must make its report. So it is the responsibility of members of this Parliament, whatever government may be in power, if they think something should be done, to take a hand themselves and see that the government of the day does it. {: #subdebate-32-0-s7 .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr BRYANT:
Wills .- Let me remind the honorable member for Canning **(Mr. Hamilton)** that it is nearly always later than the Australian Country Party thinks- However, it is interesting to find.a member of that party advocating so vigorously more power for this Parliament. More power to his elbow in the councils of his party while he continues to do that. He has been a part, and his party has been a part, of the machinery which, in effect, has prevented this Parliament from achieving its full stature in the realm of sovereignty. This is a very important debate. To-day we meet for the thirty-ninth time this year, but it is only in a relatively few minutes, on this particular day, that we can discuss in detail the Parliament as such. Where are the Ministers who ought to be here to take part in this debate and to hear what honorable members have to say? We are in a particularly difficult position now. I presume that when we are discussing the estimates for every other division, the Minister responsible in each case will be here. Because of questions which have been resolved earlier, **Mr. Speaker** himself cannot be here, although he is responsible for the conduct of the Parliament and its business. Certainly I think it is: a poor show that the Leader of the House **(Mr. Harold Holt)** is not here to take heed of what honorable members say about the procedures of this place. I agree with some of the statements made to the effect that he has brought a. little more organization to the management of things here than his predecessor did. Indeed, it would be very difficult to imagine any one capable of bringing more disorganization to the affairs of the House than the predecessor of the present Leader of the House. He showed a complete, disregard, on most occasions, of the rights of members and of the procedures of the Parliament itself. I believe, also, that this is a very important debate because the Parliament stands in a special relationship to the whole community. It is unique in that regard. Every one of us, as an individual member, is in a special relationship to the community. I suppose that, immediately, each of us is the advocate of last resort for any citizen who wants help in tussles with the bureaucracy, in his fight for rights or in the expression- of any particular viewpoint that he wants to express. We, as members, are more or less treated as equals by people in the community, whether of high estate or lowly estate. Most members make it possible for people to come to their offices and see. them as individuals, and those who visit us in that way are treated with the respect and dignity due to any citizens. So in that particular field, we play an important role. But this Parliament itself, I believe, should play a much more important role. I believe that an historic struggle is still being carried on, almost on the lines of that carried on 300 years ago against the Stuarts in England. You will recall, **Mr. Chairman,** that the struggle 300 years ago was against what was known as the divine right of kings. The Stuarts were Scots too, like the Minister for Social Services **(Mr. Roberton),** who is now at the table, and they showed as much sense of responsibility to Parliament as that Minister shows. At that particular stage of British history, there was a man in authority who said that he had a divine right to rule, that he was answerable to none but God. It was terribly difficult even to get to him. Even tually the question was resolved on a cold January morning outside Whitehall. I am not going to suggest that the authorities with which we have to contend at this moment will have to lose their heads before they lose their power, but I am suggesting that this Parliament has to devise a better- system-, so that we can exercise, first of all, a more rigorous control over the machinery of government. None of us can convince- ourselves that we are a very effective instrument of government. There is surely some machinery we can set up which will allow individual members, as such, to play as important a part in the organization of government as, on some occasions, the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Works Committee are managing to do. I believe we must devise some system which will give individual members the right to take a greater share in government - not perhaps at the policy-making level where Ministers are responsible, but in such a way that the organization of the community, the control of the public accounts and of public works, and so on, can be brought under closer surveillance. It is ridiculous to think that the 22 Ministers of this Government can control alone all the machinery of government. The Commonwealth Public Service employs 170,000 people, controls onequarter of the national welfare and is responsible for the management of the largest section of the community's efforts. It is impossible for 22 Ministers to control such a huge organization on their own. They need the assistance of every member of Parliament. Admittedly history has revealed a feeling amongst Ministers that they must keep their power to themselves. But there has been plenty of evidence in this place that committees such as the Public Works Committee and the Public Accounts Committee do good and valuable work, and I think that every member of Parliament is capable of adopting a similarly responsible attitude towards the Government and towards the country. The Government should use all the resources at its disposal. Just as 300 years ago the Parliament had to deal with the. Stuarts, to-day we must devise methods by which we can control more adequately the work of the Public Service. I believe that, in some respects, there are two almost sovereign groups in the Public Service - the Public Service Board and the Treasury officials. In some way we must devise some better system so as to bring these groups closer to the administration of government. The Prime Minister is a very busy man. He is nominally responsible for the functioning of the Public Service Board but he cannot be expected to control the Public Service Board in the same way as the Minister for Social Services is expected to control his department, although I do not concede that the latter does control his department in the way he should. We cannot expect a Prime Minister - even a Labour Prime Minister - to exercise the type of authority over the Public Service Board that is essential if such a large body of officials, representing a very large proportion of the Australian work force, is to be effectively organized. So we should be devising either some committee system or another ministry to control the Public Service. The Treasurer has a similar problem. He cannot possibly be personally responsible for all the decisions of his departmental officials. There is probably a case for a division of the work of the Treasury into two parts. One part would be the policymaking part, for which the present Treasurer is perhaps partly responsible - although for the sake of his own future I hope that he is not totally responsible. The Treasury, in its scrutiny of public accounts, should in some way be made more responsible to this Parliament. As I have said, two large almost irresponsible powers - politically speaking - have developed inside the Public Service. We must devise some more effective way of controlling them. They are in a sense almost as irresponsible, politically, as was Charles Stuart. So far, I have referred only to the public sector of the community. Outside the Parliament huge irresponsible organizations are developing. They have always been there and there have always been efforts to control them, but so far without success. I believe that the historic struggle carried on against the Stuarts, the Tudors and their predecessors must now be continued against the people who control the commercial and industrial power of the com munity. These people, in their own way, speak as if they had a divine right to carry on, free from any restrictions imposed for public benefit. {: .speaker-JTP} ##### Mr Bury: -- What about the trade unions? {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr BRYANT: -- If you could make the banks - your banks: - and the other commercial enterprises including television interests, as responsible to the shareholders who own and control them as the trade unions are to their members, I would be very happy. The trade union movement is meeting in Melbourne this week. Some 400 of its leaders are meeting. That number is almost three times the total assemblage of this Parliament. Every week and every month, in offices throughout the country, the trade union movement meets. It is in the public eye and it makes decisions in the public eye. This is not so with the great banking institutions. There are seven private banks and between them they have 48 directors. If you want to go to an annual meeting of one of the banks- {: .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- Order! I think the honorable member should confine his remarks to the proposed vote for the Parliament. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr BRYANT: -- The directors of the private banks are thousands of miles away and are in no way responsible to the people of this country. We must devise some system whereby these great powers are made answerable to this Parliament. That is one reason why honorable members should be present in full force this afternoon. We should be turning our minds to this matter. I agree particularly with the points raised by honorable members who oppose the nature of our sittings, lt is ridiculous for Parliament to meet for only two and one-half days each week and for honorable members from Western Australia to be expected to fly home each week-end. There should be some reorganization of the meetings of Parliament so that they will be more businesslike. Parliament should meet more often. It is not much to our credit that to-day is only the 39th day of sitting this year. But if the honorable members have sat here for 39 days, they have probably spent a total of aproximately 100 days either sitting here or travelling between Canberra and their home State. I believe that it would be to the advantage of Parliament and of the Government if we devised a better system of meetings and a greater length of sittings. I believe that it would also be an advantage to have better machinery for the introduction of private members' bills. We should also have some of the parliamentary machinery that exists in other places. I do not agree with the honorable member for Fremantle **(Mr. Beazley)** about participation in the Inter-parliamentary Union. I believe that it is a good thing for the peoples of the world to sit and talk together, even if they are in complete disagreement. I believe that if we applied too rigorously the honorable member's tests for a parliament, we would disregard the South Australian, Western Australian, Victorian and Tasmanian Parliaments because of their Legislative Councils. The essential point of a parliament is that there should be one vote one value, and responsibility of Ministers. We have not quite got one vote one value in this Parliament, but of all the Australian Parliaments I expect that the Commonwealth Parliament gets closest to that ideal. The remarks of the honorable member for Scullin **(Mr. Peters)** opened up interesting vistas. If we are to have leaders and deputy leaders of parties of two, there is the possibility that we could form 38 more parties on this side of the chamber and gather the emoluments of those offices to ourselves. I agree with honorable members who have spoken of the importance of controlling the discussions in this Parliament so as to enable a closer watch to be kept on the public purse and public works. {: #subdebate-32-0-s8 .speaker-KWR} ##### Mr TURNER:
Bradfield **.- Mr. Chairman,** my remarks will be directed to another matter. The amount payable by way of parliamentary salaries is small when regard is had to the total Budget figure of about £1,600,000,000, but the implications for the prestige of the whole system of parliamentary government are great. Few honorable members and few members of the public will forget the furore that signalized the publication of the Richardson report in April this year. So recent is the memory that it is not necessary for me to recall the details. Indeed, limits of time preclude me from doing more than stating two categorical conclusions and advancing a remedy in bald terms. The first conclusion is that neither Parliament nor the press emerged unscathed from the whole sorry business. The second conclusion is that nobody should suppose the embers to be cold. The issue cannot fail to be raised at the next election. Any attempt to alter parliamentary salaries in the next Parliament, or at any other time, no matter by what means and no matter how justified, would result in the same kind of outburst. You cannot brand members of Parliament as rogues and thieves, nor the controllers of the press as irresponsible men grasping for power, without doing immense, and perhaps in the long run irreparable damage to our representative institutions. This, then, is an issue that all men of goodwill would wish to see resolved with good sense and free from prejudice. The solution must command broad assent from the people. Is this impossible? It is worth recalling that the community does agree on the method adopted in this country of fixing wages by reference to arbitration tribunals. Individuals and sections may disagree on the detailed machinery or on the precise wage fixed from time to time, but the method is generally accepted. This, then, appears to me to be the nub of the matter: How do we find an agreed way to fix parliamentary salaries - a way agreed to by the community as well as by the members of the Parliament? My proposal in this regard consists of two parts. First, **Sir, I** believe that the Government should give an unequivocal undertaking that in the next Parliament, if in office, it will not attempt to alter parliamentary salaries, and that, if in opposition, it would oppose any such attempt by another government. Such a declaration would, I hope, clear the decks for a dispassionate examination of the crucial question: What, in the future, would be the most equitable method of fixing parliamentary salaries - just to members of the Parliament, just to the public, and calculated to secure the best kind of parliament in this country? Secondly, **Sir, since** parliamentary debate and press debate have not found, and are not likely to find, the answer, I believe that the community should commission three or four eminent men to meditate on the problem, and to communicate their reasons and their conclusions to the public, in the hope that they might command some general measure of assent. This may not, at first sight, seem either original- " Just another committee ", it may be said - or even very practical. " Who would select them ", the cynic might ask. I believe that if I give examples of the sorts of men that I mean, few sensible people would demur. I have in mind men like **Sir John** Latham, **Sir Richard** Boyer, **Sir John** Medley, **Sir Owen** Dixon and **Sir Edmund** Herring. There may be many others. It will be seen that I envisage, say, " three wise men ", of capacious mind, of wide experience, who have rendered this country great service, and who are respected and esteemed by all Australians. The initiative, of course, would have to come from the Government; and I hope that such men would be left to pursue their inquiries, inform their minds, and brood over their reasons and their answers in their own way. I do not believe that a committee representative of various interests, or a royal commission, would, after hearing interminable "evidence", do anything but produce a second-rate report and stir up animosities calculated to prejudice any calm assessment of their reasons and their findings. No doubt, the kind of " working party " that I propose would consider whether the Parliament should fix salaries simply as the result of an executive proposal agreed to by members, or through a select committee, or whether, for advice, recourse should be had to a committee composed of Arbitration Court judges, or some other kind of committee, and, if so, how it should be constituted and by whom it should be appointed. Or the men that I envisage might put forward some other proposal altogether. But whatever the method they might advise for arriving at a decision, they would at least, one may hope, be able to frame a set of principles and criteria capable of definition in an act of Parliament that would be wise and proper, and acceptable to the com munity at large. At worst, **Sir, a** valiant attempt to break an impasse would have failed, as, unhappily, so many brave assaults on prejudice have failed in the past, to the sorrow of mankind. {: #subdebate-32-0-s9 .speaker-JYJ} ##### Mr CLAY:
St. George **.- Mr. Chairman,** this debate provides honorable members with an opportunity to discuss quite a large number of diverse problems, matters, subjects and grievances. I have the honour, **Sir, to** represent an electorate which bears a most illustrious name which has been much honoured in British song and legend. It is also an electorate with a nicely balanced opinion. If I may presume to say so, it is at the moment an opinion correctly balanced in my favour. Therefore, I think it is appropriate for me to suggest that something should be done to enable me, as the member for St. George in this place, and the honorable member for Yarra **(Mr. Cairns),** together with the honorable member for Gellibrand **(Mr. Mclvor)** and the honorable member for Cunningham **(Mr. Kearney),** both of whom happen to be absent from the chamber at the moment, to assume a perpendicular position while they address the Chair in this honorable place. It may have escaped the notice of the designers of our seating and standing accommodation that there is in this chamber a great dearth of thin dwarfs. Only an emaciated African pigmy could stand with comfort in the places provided for the honorable members whom I have mentioned. We are compelled to assume an attitude like that of the famous leaning tower of Pisa, in Italy, while we make our contributions to the proceedings here, clutching meanwhile at the bench before us in order to preserve our balance. I think it speaks volumes for the patience and the spartan fortitude of these honorable members that no worse complaints have issued from their lips before this. I trust that alterations will be made in order to alleviate the distress felt by these spartan members in the not too far distant future, and that we shall not have to await the construction of the new building for the Parliament in order to obtain some improvement. Also, **Mr. Chairman,** I want to mention the great distance from this chamber of the room that I occupy together with the honorable member for Newcastle **(Mr. Jones),** the honorable member for Barton **(Mr. Reynolds)** and the honorable member for Reid **(Mr. Uren).** Thanks to the peculiar manner in which this city has been laid out, I am never quite sure whether I am travelling in a south-easterly or a northeasterly direction when proceeding to the upper floor on which our room is situated. I can point in the correct direction, but I cannot name the appropriate point of the compass. It takes a full two minutes even for athletic people like myself to reach this chamber when the bells ring for a division, so far away is that room. I conclude, **Sir, by** expressing the hope that, at some not too far distant date, steps will be taken to provide a building befitting the dignity of the members who come to this Parliament and big enough to accommodate in comfort the increased number of members of the Australian Labour Party who will occupy the benches in this chamber when Labour become the government in a few years' time. {: #subdebate-32-0-s10 .speaker-KFH} ##### Mr FORBES:
Barker **.- Mr. Chairman,** I do not often find myself in agreement with the honorable member for Wills **(Mr. Bryant),** who has now left the chamber, but I do agree with the general thesis that he put forward in the discussion of these estimates. The situation which he described of a large executive with great power - the civil service, and that sort of thing - which is inadequately controlled by this Parliament, I agree, requires remedying. For this reason, **Sir, I** want, once again, to take advantage of the opportunity that we have in debating these estimates, to make a plea for the extension and the development of the committee system in this Parliament. I know that this subject has been raised before, **Mr. Chairman.** I heard the honorable member for Batman **(Mr. Bird)** make a splendid speech on it last year, and you will find, if you look back at the debates over the years on the estimates for the Parliament, that this matter has been raised almost every year since federation. I make no excuse for raising it again now, because, as far as I can make out, no attempt has been made to answer the arguments put forward by members of this Parliament for the development and extension of the standing joint committee system. The history of suggestions that this be done goes back a long way, **Sir. In** 1911, on this matter, Alfred Deakin said - >If this is going to be a practical working legislature f ot Australia we shall have to develop more and more the Committee side of this great House. If this was so in 1911, how much more is it applicable to-day when the range and complexity of the affairs dealt with by the Commonwealth Parliament have increased so enormously? In 1911, the Commonwealth Parliament did little else but hold the reins. To-day, the responsibilities of the Commonwealth Government and Commonwealth Parliament extend into every aspect of our national life. I believe that there are some powerful arguments in favour of the development of a series of specialist committees on which members of both Houses of this Parliament would sit. First, as J have already mentioned, the range and complexity of the matters dealt with by the Commonwealth Government are so great that few members of the Parliament can have the specialist knowledge needed in order to scrutinize the Government's actions adequately. This particularly applies to matters of a technical and semi-technical nature, which are becoming increasingly the responsibility of governments. I need only mention instrumentalities such as the Atomic Energy Commission to illustrate my point. I believe that committees, by establishing a continuous process of education for their members, could provide a group of what I might describe as amateur experts in this Parliament on each of the topics that we have to deal with. I do not believe that we have such well-informed members at the moment. At least part, anyway, of the progressively serious failure of the Parliament to control adequately the executive department of government is due to the helplessness of members in the face of the complexity of modern affairs. Surely the answer to this is a series of specialist committees with authority to examine matters of administration, as well as the resources to enable their members, where necessary, to make judgments on questions of policy. Surely this is the answer to the problem of the all-powerful public servants who increasingly, I believe, usurp the responsibilities of Parliament. If such committees existed, their members would be educated to the point at which they would be able to deal with these public servants on something like equal terms. Conversely, such a committee system would promote a closer understanding and co-operation between professional public servants and members of this Parliament. This is something which, in a number of conspicuous instances recently, has been noticeably lacking. In so far as such committees conducted public hearings, articulate public opinion could be brought to bear on the preliminaries to legislation, instead of coming in at the stage when everything connected with the legislation is cut and dried. In short, I believe that the committees that I advocate could serve the country well as the eyes and ears, and, to some extent, as the brains of the Parliament. I am aware that many objections have been made to the extension of the committee system. I know that for a short period during the war the system- was tried, and, for a number of reasons, did not work particularly successfully. I must say, however, that at least two of the committees in operation at that time worked very well indeed. One of the objections that have been made over the years is that the Parliament has not sufficient members to enable such a system to be operated adequately. Perhaps that argument was true prior to 1949, but since that time the membership of the Parliament has been increased by no fewer than 77 members, and I do not believe that this argument can now be said to be valid. But by far the most serious argument that has been put forward is that such committees would usurp the functions of executive government. This is the argument that is put forward, at any rate, by governments themselves when the proposition is made. It is said that the committee system would weaken the control of Cabinet over policy and of Ministers over their departments; in short, that it would undermine the ministerial responsibility which is rightly regarded as the cornerstone of parliamentary democracy as we practise it. Certainly, if such a committee system were to do this r would not stand here. as its advocate. I believe that the principles laid down by Lloyd George when he was Chan cellor of the Exchequer in 1912, when moving for the appointment of a select committee on the Estimates, remain valid in relation to the committees that I am suggesting. He said that the Government must not be deprived of its responsibility by a committee. He said, too, that the House must not be divested of its authority. He said, finally, that the committee must not accept responsibility for policies adopted. I do not see why committees cannot be set up with terms of reference based on these principles. The critics usually point to the American Congress and the French Parliament of the Fourth Republic as examples of the dreadful things that are likely to happen to the system of parliamentary government when you establish a system of specialist committees. In the case of the French Parliament of the Fourth Republic and in the case of the American Congress to-day those specialist committees did and do exist, and certainly in both cases the committees have usurped the functions of the executive and have frequently abused their powers. I do not deny this, but it is important to remember, in connexion with those cases, that it is not so much that the committee makes for weak government, as the criticis contend, as that the existence of weak government dictates the actions of the committee. In the French case this was due to a multiplicity of parties and other reasons, and in the American case to the separation of powers in the Constitution, which keeps the executive out of Congress altogether. In both cases the committees move in to fill the vacuum that is created by a weak governmental system. In our case that vacuum does not exist. Strong executive control is firmly established. It is part and parcel of the nature of parliamentary government based on the British model. This is true in the United Kingdom and it is true here, and I cannot see the slightest risk of a strong executive government being undermined by the establishment of such committees. If it were undermined, then I believe this would be the fault of the government of the day and not of the system. I do make a plea for the Government to examine very closely the possibility of extending our committee system, because I believe that if this were done the Parliament could perform its important functions very much more efficiently than it does at the present time. {: #subdebate-32-0-s11 .speaker-K6T} ##### Mr COSTA:
Banks .- I recollect very clearly, **Mr. Chairman,** the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** in 1949 advocating strongly the need for an amendment of the Commonwealth Constitution in order to clothe this Parliament with sufficient powers to enable it to operate efficiently in the national interest. That was a long time ago, and if we do not make better progress in the next ten years than we have done in the ten years since the Prime Minister made that statement, I am afraid that we will continue to live on in the horse and buggy era in which we are operating at present. I realize that a Constitution Review Committee has been set up, and I know that it has been examining closely this very important matter. I do not think there is any matter more important to the people of Australia than that which is being considered by the committee, and I look forward to the implementation of the committee's recommendations when it brings them down. The honorable member for Canning **(Mr. Hamilton)** mentioned the fact this afternoon that w£ have a Department of Civil Aviation to control air transport systems in Australia, but that our Constitution, which is more than 50 years old, makes no reference to this means of transport. We are, therefore, operating under laws relating to civil aviation that are unconstitutional, although nobody would dare to challenge the right of this Government to do what it is doing, because that would be just too silly. But it is also silly that our Constitution does not give us power to do what we are doing. I agree with the honorable member for Canning that it seems ridiculous. We had an instance of this lack of power recently when the Commonwealth wished to develop the great Snowy Mountains scheme. If any of the States involved in that development had objected, this Parliament could not have proceeded with it, because it was unconstitutional. That is an absurd situation. If the National Parliament sees the need for a great development anywhere within the borders of Aus tralia, it should have the power to carry it through, but a backward-thinking State, or a State with vested interests, could prevent such a development, if it chose to do so. The sooner we remove this kind of obstacle from the Constitution, the better it will be for Australia. This Parliament needs much more power than it now has. The National Parliament should be above all other Australian parliaments. I have no quarrel with the work done by the States, but we have too many law-makers in this country, and we must be a laughing stock to many other nations because of this. We have six States with a lower House and five of them have an upper House. That' means that eleven State institutions have power to make laws, and that is quite absurd. At least, we should dispense with the upper Houses; they went out of date with straw hats. I am pleased that the New South Wales Government is moving towards the abolition of that absurd, out-of-date, useless chamber in that State. We have too many parliaments making laws. {: .speaker-KID} ##### Mr Luchetti: -- What should we do with the Senate? {: .speaker-K6T} ##### Mr COSTA: -- We should do the same with the Senate as I hope the people will do with the upper House in New South Wales; it is just as absurd. These upper Houses are not democratically elected. We are supposedly living in a democratic community, but many of these State Houses are not democratically elected. Members of the upper House in New South Wales are elected not by the people, but by the representatives of the people in the New South Wales Parliament. A stretch of the imagination is needed before one could say that that chamber is democratically elected. Other upper Houses are not democratically elected. In Tasmania, a person must be of some standing, some financial means or some military degree before he can stand for election to the upper House. The degrees of qualification there are such that many ordinary persons are disqualified and deprived of the right to elect the people who make the laws in another chamber. Nothing could be more absurd! The Constitution should be amended to bring it up to date. I hope that the people of Australia do not imagine that they have much power. This Parliament does not rule the country because, under section 92 of the Constitution, a still greater power is vested in the High Court. The judges of the High Court have the final say. If our right to act as we have is challenged, the judges of the High Court say whether we have acted rightly or wrongly. I have seen many of these judgments brought down and I know that only on rare occasions is the decision unanimous. I would not mind this if the High Court were composed of judges who were infallible, but who could say that they are infallible when their opinions differ on almost every occasion that they deliver a judgment? The decision on the banking issue was not unanimous. The Chief Judge of the High Court at that time said that the Parliament had the power to nationalize the banks, but others on the High Court bench said that it did not have the power. Clearly they are not infallible. Any institution that has the power vested in it that is exercised by the High Court should at least be democratic. But the position is even worse than this. If any one disagrees with the decision of the High Court, he can go further and take the matter to the Privy Council in the United Kingdom. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- What a farce! {: .speaker-K6T} ##### Mr COSTA: -- Nothing could be more farcical. We are a grown-up nation; we have existed long enough to prove our capacity and our ability to do the right thing and we should move to eliminate this absurd provision. We have remote control of this country; the big issues can be decided completely outside Australia. I agree with the honorable member lor St. George **(Mr. Clay)** that accommodation in this chamber is inadequate. I saw this afternoon more than 200 people waiting in King's Hall for more than two hours for an opportunity to listen to the debate in this democratic place. If we are to make this place more democratic, it is time that we made it bigger. When people come to Canberra and wish to hear the proceedings of Parliament, ample room should be provided for them. I suggest that the Joint House Committee move on this matter and provide more room not only for the general public but also for members. I am happily situated, of course. I am, certainly, in a room with two other honorable members but I enjoy their company very much. 1 am in the same room as the honorable member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward)** and the honorable member for Kingsford-Smith **(Mr. Curtin).** Sharing a room with them helps me to suffer the inconvenience caused by over-crowding. There is one other matter on which I should like to say a few words. I agree that representatives should go from this Parliament to other countries. The Australian Labour Party believes that we should participate in overseas conferences. This year, we will have a meeting in Australia of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. This will bring to this country members of the Parliaments of other countries in the British Commonwealth of Nations. That is completely in keeping with the policy of the Australian Labour Party. We have many things in common with the members of other Parliaments and it is helpful to get together occasionally and talk about our common interests. Members of the Parliaments of the British Commonwealth of Nations will meet in this chamber within a few weeks to discuss their common problems. The interchange of views between the elected representatives of these countries must be of considerable value. I agree entirely with our association with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. At present six members of this Parliament are in Warsaw participating in a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. I happen to be an executive member of our Australian group and I have read the report. I think it is important for us to be at this conference. There are about 52 nations affiliated with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Nearly every country behind the iron curtain participates and our delegates report to us that they regard it as a sounding board for what will be discussed at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this month. The countries behind the iron curtain do not miss any opportunity of mixing with each other and we should not isolate ourselves. If we are to be understood and promote peace and goodwill among all the peoples of the world the right way to go about it is to mix and discuss problems common to people in all parts of the world. I applaud the Government for seeing that Australia is represented at this conference. I do not think it matters where the venue is. The conference at Warsaw is behind the iron curtain, but if we want to prove to other people how good are our ideologies and our way of life - and I think ours is the best way of life - we have to mix with them and tell them about them. They will never know if we remain in isolation. I am speaking in place of the Whip this afternoon and I have appreciated the opportunity so afforded me of saying a few words about the honorable institution of Parliament. {: #subdebate-32-0-s12 .speaker-KKU} ##### Mr MACKINNON:
Corangamite -- I wish to draw the attention of the committee to the fact that in the Estimates relating to the Inter-Parliamentary Union no provision is made for the next conference which will be held at Tokyo. I understand the explanation is that provision was made in last year's figures to cover the financial requirements of our delegation at present in Warsaw. However, I do not wish to discuss these details but rather some of the matters raised by the honorable member for Fremantle **(Mr. Beazley).** The honorable member advanced the theory that Australia was being unfaithful to the principle of parliamentary government by sending delegates to conferences which were attended also by delegations from parliaments, or so-called parliaments, behind the iron curtain whose countries, in fact, have no system of representative government. I know that the honorable member is completely sincere and that he is expressing an informed body of world opinion which derives mainly from dispossessed people from iron curtain countries. At the Rio de Janeiro conference, which I attended, and again at the Warsaw conference, it has been pointed out that the delegations from iron curtain countries were not representatives of a proper parliamentary system. It is obvious that what the honorable member for Fremantle said about parliaments in iron curtain countries is completely true. They have a oneparty system and, frankly, there is no future in belonging to the opposition even if one got so far as that. Nevertheless, whether we like it or not, those countries call that system a parliamentary system. Several honorable members this afternoon have drawn attention to the fact that all representative government systems within Australia are not uniform and that there are variations within our own community. Although I accept the honorable member's sincerity on this subject I feel that the arguments he advances are so pedantic and academic and so far from the reality of world requirements that I should like to spend a few minutes refuting them. I accept his point about the choice of Warsaw as a venue, but it is obvious that none of these things is done without thought. The Communist part of the world is just as thorough as any other part, and possibly more thorough in some directions. From the propaganda angle, as the honorable member pointed out, Warsaw was an ideal place to initiate the first conference of this body to be held in a Communist country. We know that Poland's attitude generally towards the Communist world has been slightly lukewarm at times and this has even raised in our hearts a hope that possibly into the darkness which exists to-day may come a little sunlight. It is essential for many reasons that Australia should be represented at these overseas conferences. First, we can put our view to other countries; secondly, we can inform ourselves of conditions in those countries; and thirdly, we can get to know people within those countries - and that is of tremendous value. At this time, when there is so much accent on summit conferences I should like to draw the attention of the committee to the belief that in many ways contact with the ordinary man will, in the long term, probably be far more valuable in breaking down distrust throughout the world than a summit conference. Of course every one realizes that the time involved in the interchange of ideas between the ordinary men of the various countries would take far too long to overcome the immediate requirements, and this would probably be more effectively accomplished by a summit conference. I believe that there is real value in this conference, first because delegates can meet and discuss their ideas. From my personal observations I know that it is extremely difficult to make direct personal contact with the delegates from Soviet Russia. They move around in a team. They do not allow their members to talk to people individually. Every action and speech is watched and listened to and they are under fairly tight control. But that condition does not apply to every delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union conference and I found that it was possible to get close to many representatives and to discuss matters of mutual interest. I believe that we would be advancing the objectives of Soviet propaganda if we did not take the opportunity of sending representatives to such conferences and taking part in the discussions. If we left such conferences entirely to that section of world opinion which we oppose so bitterly, we would fail to discharge our responsibilities as a Parliament. I .have vivid memories of what took place at the conference in Rio de Janeiro when **Mr. Herbert** Morrison, probably one of the most outstanding Labour leaders in Great Britain during the last decade or so, made a most sincere and impassioned speech on the question of trust and confidence throughout the world. He made the point that world peace was endangered to-day mainly because of lack of confidence among countries. I cannot quote his exact words, but in his appeal to the delegations from the Soviet and other Communist-controlled countries he said, in effect, " Go back to your parliaments and tell them that the Western world has no aggressive aspirations against your country. Tell them we want peace, even if to do so costs you a certain position in your country." If any honorable member, even the honorable member for Fremantle, had been there on that occasion he would have appreciated the opportunity to inform the minds of those delegates of what the Western world wants. I believe that it was availed of to great advantage. It would be a very retrograde step if we were to dismiss our responsibility to attend the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference just because it would involve associating with delegations from parliaments which we believe do not conform to our system of representative government. When the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association meets in this chamber in the near future, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that certain delegates may represent the system of government which has already been criticized by many of us, particularly the honorable member for Fremantle. If that should happen, would he advocate that Australia should drop out of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association? {: #subdebate-32-0-s13 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr WARD:
East Sydney .- The first matter to which I desire to direct attention is the lack of interest displayed by Government members in this debate. I have sat in this chamber since the sitting commenced at 2.30 p.m. and I have kept a check on the number of Government members who have been present. The number has been as low as nine and the highest has been twenty. Of a total of 22 Ministers, only two have been present at any one time. Honorable members will realize, therefore, that the Government has not displayed a great deal of interest in this debate. The honorable member for Banks **(Mr. Costa)** has referred to the lack of suitable accommodation for visitors to Parliament House. If this were a truly democratic parliament and if it were functioning as such, I should say that the greater the number of people who saw it in action the better it would be for the parliamentary system. But, having regard to the failure of the Government members to take any interest in the proceedings, it is better, for the sake of the parliamentary institution, that as few people as possible see it in operation. I have waited with a great deal of interest and patience to hear a contribution to this debate by the honorable member foi Warringah **(Mr. Bland).** Some Government members have adopted the habit recently of saying many things on television, on radio and in public meetings that they are not prepared to repeat in this Parliament in the presence of all honorable members, and where Ministers may answer any criticism that has been levelled al them. Instead of honorable members talking about democracy, they should examine how the parliamentary system in this country is functioning. The honorable member for Warringah said recently that bureaucracy has defeated democracy; that Ministers were confused and that they were seldom able to comprehend the contents of the spate of papers submerging them. He said also that Ministers were not specifically qualified for their positions, and he referred to the weakness of Ministers who found themselves in the hands of ambitious officials. Does that statement indicate that we have in Australia a parliamentary system of democratic government that is functioning successfully? Rather the reverse is the case. The Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** must take some of the responsibility for the lack of ability of members of his Ministry to which the honorable member for Warringah has referred, because in the antiLabour parties the Prime Minister directly selects his Cabinet and determines who shall enjoy ministerial rank. If all honorable members in this chamber were to express frankly their opinions and were to assess the relative worth of some of the people at present in the Ministry, the rating given to those Ministers would be very low. The reference to the influence of ambitious officials brings to mind the treatment meted out to the honorable member for Chisholm **(Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes)** and the honorable member for Paterson **(Mr. Fairhall).** The former honorable member was much more forthright in his statements than the honorable member for Paterson. He made it quite clear that he had been removed from the Cabinet because of the antagonism or prejudice of an official with whom he had come into conflict. He did not name the official, but his statement indicates how serious this matter could become. The Government should begin to take a little interest in the proceedings of this Parliament. Other matters associated with the Parliament require attention. For some time I have been trying to obtain a properly collated statement showing the number of Ministers who have made visits overseas since this Government came into office in 1949. Although some honorable members may use the term facetiously, there is no doubt in the world that the Government has a priority list. When a member's turn comes, he gets a trip overseas, irrespective of whether there is a good reason for it or not. Members of the Government, relying on the numbers that they command in this Parliament, completely neglect their parlia mentary duties. In my opinion, a visit overseas - I do not care whether it is by an elderly member who wishes to go on a honeymoon trip or by any other honorable member who wishes to travel abroad for some other purpose - should be made during a period when this Parliament is in recess. Surely it is in recess frequently enough and for periods long enough to meet the convenience of any honorable member. After a long recess, when Ministers have had ample opportunity to go abroad, I am always amazed to find that some of them suddenly discover reasons why they should absent themselves from the Parliament and go overseas. I am certain that if the number of overseas visits - not the names of individual Ministers who have made the trips - was made public, members of Parliament and the community generally would be amazed. I have endeavoured to obtain details of the number of overseas visits that have been made by Ministers since 1949. If I had the time to go carefully through all the records, I suppose that I could obtain the information myself, but it should be readily available in the records of this Parliament. I recently directed a question on notice to the Prime Minister, requesting information as to the number of Ministers who had gone abroad; how the cost of their tours had been computed; what had been included and so forth. In reply the Prime Minister has said - >I direct the honorable member's attention to my replies to similar Questions by him and which he will find in the "Hansards" of 17th February, 1953, and 31st May, 1955. I see no reason to add to what I have already said on the matter. He had said nothing on the matter, and in his reply he said he had nothing to add to that. On a previous occasion, when the Prime Minister tried to avoid giving the information that I had requested, he said, as a sort of a threat, that he would furnish the information but that he would go back as far as 1941, to cover the period when the Labour Party was in office. I accepted the Prime Minister's challenge and invited him to go back to 1941, but we still have not got the information. When it does come it will be most interesting. I have some knowledge of how the accounts covering overseas visits are collated. I know that the true position is never revealed in the Budget papers. Any Minister who has been abroad knows what is done in order that the actual cost of the trip will not be revealed to the .public. The cost is spread. Transport is covered in one vote, accommodation and maintenance in another vote, and so on. It is almost impossible to estimate the actual cost of the trip because it is spread over a wide field. The honorable member for McMillan **(Mr. Buchanan)** has referred to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. I accept the view of honorable members that there is some value in these talks and conferences that are held from time to time, but I believe that the venue of the conferences is not as important as some honorable members would have us believe. Their value lies in the fact that there is an exchange of visits between representatives of various countries. Some Government members, however, have adopted a peculiar attitude when people overseas have wanted to visit Australia to take part in conferences, whether trade union conferences or conferences at any other level. We have heard them raising objections to the issue of vises to people from other countries, simply because those people have a form of government that is different from ours. We are thus denied the opportunity to exchange views. A reference to " Hansard " will reveal question after question directed to Ministers by Government members raising objections to the issue of vises to visitors from overseas. The Chinese Opera Company, which was in Australia during the period of the Olympic Games, was prevented from performing in Melbourne because it was stated that that would give offence to some of the competitors in that sporting engagement. That was a most ridiculous attitude for this Government to adopt. By all means let us discuss various matters. We may have differences of opinion, but I believe that no harm will be done by various sections of the community discussing various subjects with the people who visit us from time to time. I hope that the Government will adopt a more sensible and realistic attitude towards the matter of issuing vises to people who wish to visit Australia. As honorable members are aware, the honorable member for Moreton **(Mr. Killen)** is fanatical about communism. Without producing one tittle of evidence, he has suggested that a member of the Bolshoi Ballet is an M.V.D. agent. I must admit that I watched the Bolshoi Ballet on television the other evening. I certainly could not locate any M.V.D. agent among those who were performing. If the honorable member for Moreton has evidence that there is an M.V.D. agent travelling with the Bolshoi Ballet, why does he not make the information available to his own Prime Minister or to the Government? That would be the manly and reasonable thing to do. Why does he not demand that some action be taken on this matter? I am of the opinion that the honorable member stunts from time to time because he wants to create the impression, particularly in his State of Queensland, that he is the greatest anti-Communist that his country has ever known. Let us be fair and frank and reasonable about these matters. When artists come to this country from overseas, they come, in many instances, as the Bolshoi Ballet came, by invitation. They are brought to Australia to perform and to show their art to the Australian community. Therefore, I do not think that while they are here they should be subject to insults or suggestions of improper conduct by any honorable member unless he has evidence to produce. If we want to create goodwill we have to get away from the red-baiting and smearing which is indulged in by some Government supporters from time to time. When one notices the number of Ministers who are absent from this chamber one realizes the difficulties that we labour under in bringing matters to the notice of the Government. I suppose that the present Cabinet has a longer tail than any Australian cricket eleven ever had. At the moment, in charge of the chamber, we happen to have two Ministers who are on the extreme end of the tail. Yet we have to expect that these Ministers will give some reply to the criticism offered in respect of the vote for the Parliament! All that I ask them to do is to read " Hansard " and take up with the respective Ministers the matters raised by the various members in order to obtain some consideration of our complaints and provide some satisfactory reply. {: #subdebate-32-0-s14 .speaker-JF7} ##### Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle .- I think that the honorable member for Corangamite **(Mr. Mackinnon)** seriously misrepresented the argument that I put forward. We are not discussing the form of government which people choose to have. Some countries may have a dictatorship. Some countries may have a travesty of a parliament. Peron's Argentina had a travesty of a parliament and so has Portugal at the present time and these countries are not in the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The issue that I am discussing is whether we should have some standard as to what constitutes a parliament in the InterParliamentary Union. This has nothing to do with the question of whether we should go and see people who are Communists. It has nothing to do with whether we should meet people. Nobody would argue that an international swimming club should not consist of swimming organizations. A suggestion that a basketball club should be accepted into it would be seen as obviously not appropriate. By the same token, the statement that the honorable member for Corangamite made, by all the standards of the British Parliament to which he has often referred in the past, is a betrayal. I may be putting an unpopular point of view, but it stands on. certain principles. In the nineteenth century the British Parliament would; not accept travesties of parliaments on the continent of Europe as being parliaments. It would not accept, as I said before, the Tzar's Duma and, by its affirmation that that parliament was a sham, it deliberately sought to further the cause of liberty in another country. It is by making a stand on a principle which people will come to understand that you advance democracy. Democracy is not advanced by sentimental exchanges that are never, in fact, exchanges. {: .speaker-KKU} ##### Mr Mackinnon: -- Freeze them off! {: .speaker-JF7} ##### Mr BEAZLEY: -- It is not a question of freezing them off. Diplomatic relations and all sorts of other relations are still conducted. But you affirm,, as the. British affirmed in respect of the Duma, that these bodies are not accepted as representing liberty or as representing a parliament. That advances liberty. The issue concerning Poland is a clear question that requires an answer because the people of Poland do not accept their Parliament , as a parliament. The essence of their unrest at the time of the Hungarian revolution was to say " This Parliament has no freedom. It had no real capacity to debate. We want a real parliament". Even Communists were beginning to say that. In both Poland and Hungary there had come a point when communism was making certain rational tests. When the Hungarians revolted, because they had not freedom and because their standard of living was not advancing, they were making a rational test. But the basic definition of communism as put forward by Lenin admits of no rational test. It is that the dictatorship of the proletariat is power - power gained and maintained by violence and power unlimited by any laws. You do not freeze them off. You continue to have diplomatic relations or any other relations. But you do affirm your principles by saying that because there is no opposition in the parliament, and because no one has the right to organize an opposition, it is not a parliament. It is no use the honorable member for Corangamite arguing. The InterParliamentary Union did just that with respect to Peron's Argentina. It does just that with respect to Salazar's Portugal. We have affirmed standards as to what constitutes a parliament. It is not a question of being snobbish nor of being "anti ". It is a question of the respect for the liberties of other people who are aspiring to have a real parliament and advancing their aspirations. That is clearly so in the case of Poland. It is not true to talk about the Parliament in Poland as a firm government. The complaint of the Polish people is that their Parliament is not a government; that the government is not dependent on their Parliament; and that they want it to be dependent on the Parliament. {: #subdebate-32-0-s15 .speaker-KEE} ##### Sir WILFRID KENT HUGHES:
Chisholm -- I do not propose to answer the honorable member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward)** in full because I made certain statements in this chamber last Wednesday night: in regard to the Olympic Games. If the honorable member wants to see what I said he canlook: up " Hansard ". But the honorable member mentioned the Chinese Opera in relation to the Olympic Games. He criticized the Government for having asked the entrepreneurs not to present the opera in Melbourne while the games were on. It was staged in Melbourne after the games were over. The cultural activities such as drama and the art festival which were associated with the games were intended to be and were - as far as I know - almost entirely Australian. We had been offered an Italian opera company. We refused the offer because there were over 70 competing countries represented in the Olympic Games and if we had arranged for an opera, a ballet or anything else from one or two countries to perform in Melbourne, then other countries would have asked why they had not been invited to send singing, dancing or other artists to perform in Melbourne at the time of the games. That was the real reason why the entrepreneurs were asked to switch the programme of the Chinese opera company so that it would not be staged in Melbourne during the games'. I am prepared to take full responsibility for having put that request to the Government on that basis. I think the Government acted rightly. The position was exactly as I have stated it. That is why I approached the Government to see whether it could use its influence to have that programme changed. I think that the opera company then performed in Adelaide and visited Melbourne after the games. An interesting aspect of the visit to Australia of the Chinese opera company is that about twelve months ago a paragraph appeared in a newspaper saying that it was the secretary or one of the high officials of the Communist Party in Melbourne who had invited the opera company to Australia and arranged the tour. So perhaps the honorable member for Moreton **(Mr. Killen)** is not quite so far wrong as the honorable member for East Sydney thinks he is. {: #subdebate-32-0-s16 .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN:
Moreton .- Briefly, I want to say to the member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward)** that if he were to read, along with the remarks of the honorable member for Chisholm **(Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes),** my own remarks of last Wednesday night, he would have a clear understanding of the point of view I have expressed concerning an ensemble that visited this country. If the honorable gentleman reads those speeches and fails to understand the point, all I can say is that he well and truly personifies the metallic age - silver in the hair, gold in the teeth, lead in the feet, and iron in the heart. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- Order! Honorable members have wandered from the question before the Chair. The discussion has resolved itself into a debate about the rights of the Chinese opera company. {: #subdebate-32-0-s17 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr WARD:
East Sydney .- I shall not mention that matter, **Mr. Chairman,** but I am not going to allow the honorable member for Moreton **(Mr. Killen)** to escape his responsibility in another matter he has mentioned. I have not only read what he said, but I also tortured myself by listening to him. There is no doubt that the honorable member made it quite clear that in his opinion there was an M.V.D. agent travelling with the Bolshoi Ballet, and that the agent was in Australia to get information which would be of value to the Russian Government when he returned home. I suggest to the honorable member that instead of rising in this Parliament and shrieking from time to time on this theme, he should produce his evidence. Or has he produced it? Has he given the Government any evidence? Has he given any evidence to any government department or organization, including the Security Service? From time to time in this Parliament the honorable member smears certain people under the .protection <df parliamentary privilege, and then he . does nothing further about it; but a section of the press which co-operates with :the honorable member, gives publicity to his remarks. No honorable member, in my opinion, would approve of anybody using a visit such as that of the Bolshoi Ballet for the purpose suggested by the honorable member for Moreton, but that does not mean that we have to sit here silent and hear honorable members smearing people outside the Parliament without producing any evidence. All I say to the honorable member for Moreton and the honorable member for Chisholm **(Sir Wilfrid Kent Hughes),** or any other honorable member who raises these matters from time to time is this: In making their allegations, let them produce their evidence to support their charges, or else keep quiet. {: #subdebate-32-0-s18 .speaker-KWE} ##### Mr TIMSON:
Higinbotham .- I wish to change the subject, **Mr. Chairman,** and I promise not to keep the committee very long. I was interested in some remarks by the honorable members for Moreton **(Mr. Killen),** Parkes **(Mr. Haylen)** and Canning **(Mr. Hamilton)** who suggested that the hours of sitting of the Parliament should be altered. The honorable member for Moreton, who originated the discussion on this matter, suggested that we might sit for two weeks of five days and return to our electorates in the third week. The House of Commons sits on five days and five nights a week from 2 p.m. or 2.30 p.m. until 10 p.m. I think it meets for approximately eight months of the year. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP -- The hours of sitting include the lunch hour. {: .speaker-KWE} ##### Mr TIMSON: -- I do not think they include lunch because the House of Commons does not meet until 2 p.m. or 2.30 p.m. The House certainly sits through the dinner period, and it is traditional that no quorums are called during that period even though there may be only ten members present in the House of a total exceeding 600. If anybody should call a quorum during those two hours from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., which are known as the dinner period, I do not think he would ever again catch the Speaker's eye. But there are several suggestions I should like to make about the present sittings with which, generally, I find no fault. I think the present arrangement of sitting for four weeks and returning to our electorates for the fifth week is very good. It is the Wednesday night adjournment debate which annoys me. I believe the adjournment of the House could be moved at an earlier hour - say, 9.45 p.m. - and we could carry on the adjournment debate until 11 p.m. Honorable members could then get home at a sensible hour. Last week, the adjournment debate was not started until nearly 11 p.m. and it ran until midnight. On Thursday, we have committee meetings at 9 a.m. before the House sits at 10.30 a.m. It does not seem sensible that honorable members and the parliamentary officers who serve them should be engaged in deliberations up till midnight. If the suggestion for a sitting of five days each week were adopted, I wonder how we would manage with the officers who serve us in the Parliament and who would have to work from 9 a.m. to 1 1 p.m. or midnight five days a week. It would be quite impossible. I direct the attention of the committee to the fact that when the House of Representatives was formed in 1900, this House was served by a clerical staff of ten members. The number has not changed. We are still served by ten officers. Certainly, the number of attendants has been increased because the Parliament is much larger than it was in its early Victorian home. We now have fourteen attendants under the supervision of the SergeantatArms, but the size of the clerical staff has remained the same for nearly 60 years. A compliment should be paid to our officers. We ourselves constantly say that the demands on members of the Parliament have increased considerably over the years and that the pressure of work is far greater than it ever was previously, yet the work of those who serve us still devolves on ten officers as it did in 1900. We should never have carried on so efficiently if the calibre of those officers had not been of the highest. {: #subdebate-32-0-s19 .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr DUTHIE:
Wilmot .- I should like to refer to the accommodation in Parliament House. Because of aircraft delay, I have only just arrived in the building. The honorable member for Banks **(Mr. Costa)** spoke on this matter on my behalf earlier, and I thank him for having raised this matter in my absence. The Whips of the three parties in this Parliament are only too conscious of the fact that too many members have to share rooms in Parliament House. The time is long overdue for a new wing to be added or, preferably, for the construction of a new Parliament House, but so far as we know that proposal is something for the dim and distant future. Earlier this year, I believe plans were prepared for the construction of a wing of Parliament House to cost £90,000. This wing was to accommodate Ministers and, by removing them from this building, to provide more room for private members who, in their own way, have just as big a responsibility to individual persons as Ministers have to the nation. I have not heard any more about this project. It was before the joint parliamentary parties, I understand, but there have been no developments in the past five months. Reference was made to the proposals in the press which reported as follows: - >Plans have been prepared for a new £90,000 wing to Parliament House to provide room for 40 members. They have not yet been approved. I do not know where those plans got bogged down, but if the plan has been approved by the Government, surely it is incumbent upon it to bring the proposal to fruition. After all, Parliament House has been extended only once. That was m 1949 when the Labour Government added the new top of a wing on the southern side of Parliament House to provide offices foi private members for the first time. Before that, 20 to 30 members had to occupy rooms which are now used by the Government parties. There were -20 or 30 of us stacked in there all the time. We had no private office. The extension of the building in 1949 helped a lot by giving us some privacy for the handling of our electoral business, but now the increase in the number of Ministers has led to an increase in ministerial encroachment on this place. Not only that, but this Government's mania for giving each Minister a secretary, an assistant secretary, a typist and an assistant typist - the position is nearly as bad as that - means that accommodation that became available to private members with the last extension is being eaten away. As Whip of the Labour Party, I know that it took me three weeks of arranging and planning to get my team into reasonable accommodation, and I am not pleased with it now. It is still too crowded. There are three members to some of the rooms, and I know that on the Liberal side there is one case of four or five members to a room, which is even worse. I think there is far too much distinction in this Parliament between Ministers and private members, as anybody realizes who sees cars going off to the aerodrome at the end of the sitting week. There is one Minister, or one Minister's private secretary, to a car, while four members have to share a car. Seeing such things, we can all realize that the Government is building up a new class distinction in this place between Ministers and private members, and none of us is very happy about it all. Then there is the encroachment on our space for ministerial rooms. Three rooms are given to one Minister. When the Labour Government was in office, we considered that two rooms to one Minister was fair, and in one case one Minister had only one room. I consider that what is happening is quite wrong, and the only answer to it, if the Government intends to continue this separation between Ministers and members, is to build the £90,000 wing as soon as possible. A new bridge is to be built in Canberra at a cost of £3,500,000, and new defence establishments have started to go up near the American War Memorial which are to cost £2,000,000. All we are asking for is a new wing, costing £90,000, in order to provide proper and adequate accommodation in this place, so that we can carry on the work for which both Ministers and private members alike were elected. At this stage of the Budget session, therefore, I make a plea for consideration to be given forthwith to bringing down plans for the extension of Parliament House in order to accommodate the 40 members to whom I have referred and so relieve the congestion in this building. {: #subdebate-32-0-s20 .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr TURNBULL:
Mallee .- Recently in this chamber I drew attention to the fact that an increasing number of members were reading their speeches. My statement did not meet with a very popular reception, because many members who habitually read their speeches kept interjecting. As far as I am concerned, there was nothing personal in my remarks on that occasion, as there is nothing personal in them now. Standing Order No. 61 provides that a member shall not read his speech. I ask the Leader of the House **(Mr. Harold Holt)** and the Standing Orders Committee to say whether that standing order shall be enforced in this chamber. If it is to be enforced, then every one must comply with it; but if some members are to be allowed to read their speeches, then Standing Order No. 61 should be abolished. I am not directing my remarks against any particular honorable members, but I do not think that it is in the best interests of the Parliament for members to read their speeches. 1 am: more convinced than ever, since I made my speech the other night, that there are ghost writers, because I am now in a position, if I decide to do so, to name some of the ghost writers. This is very important to the Parliament. Honorable members are interjecting now, which shows very clearly that I am hurting some one, andI do not intend to do that. {: .speaker-KYC} ##### Mr Pollard: -- This is just rubbish. {: .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr TURNBULL: -- What I am saying is quite true. It is not rubbish. As a matter of fact, this is most important to the Parliament of the Commonwealth. I am only asking whether Standing Order No. 61 is to be enforced or not enforced. Surely to goodness that is reasonable. It would be quite easy for me to write out a speech and read it in this chamber if I so desired. {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: -- Nobody else would read it. {: .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr TURNBULL: -- I could read a prepared speech that would be much more accurate in phrasing than an impromptu speech. The honorable member for Werriwa **(Mr. Whitlam)** has adopted his usual form of being insulting. Of course, we in this chamber know that he is an expert at that, so I will not attempt to fight him on this issue now. When members go to public meetings and some one interjects, they can say, " I am not worrying about this, because I have been insulted by experts ". The expert by whom I have been insulted in this place more often than any one else has insulted me is the honorable member for Werriwa. Whether he takes pride in it, I do not know, but every one in the House has heard him make insulting remarks. Even the honorable member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward)** is much more moderate and, furthermore, is much more accurate. My plea to the Leader of the House is that he make a statement in this chamber saying whether this standing order is to be enforced. If it is not enforced, then honorable members may all expect me to have my. speeches written out and read word for word. If the standing order is enforced, I am quite prepared to throw away any notes or anything of that kind that I have and do the best I can under the circumstances. There are many subjects that come up for discussion during the debate on the Estimates for the Parliament, but I suggest there is nothing more important than the subject that I am dealing with now, because after a while, if Standing Order No. 61 is not enforced, every one who speaks in this chamber will be reading his speech. I believe that many of the speeches that are read here are written by people outside, who are thus able to convey their ideas and advocacy into this chamber through the medium of those speeches. It becomes a case of remote parliamentary control by ghost writers. The members reading speeches know who writes them. I know some of the men who write speeches. They have told me that they have written speeches for certain members. It is on record that a certain man has written speeches for members on both sides of the House. That man is known to have said, " All the speeches I wrote for certain members were praised ". He was quite pleased about it, with some justification, but I cannot see how any member can take to himself any pride for a speech that some one else has written. I think there is nothing in the world better than to make a speech of one's own and convey one's own ideas to the people. So I ask the Government and the Standing Orders Committee to give this matter some attention. It is very marked indeed that I have received no support from any honorable member in relation to this. {: .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr Peters: -- Hear, hear! {: .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr TURNBULL: -- I have had no support at all. The honorable member for Scullin says, " Hear, hear! " in a derisive manner. {: .speaker-KGC} ##### Mr Hamilton: -- They have not disagreed with you. {: .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr TURNBULL: -- The honorable member says that they have not disagreed with me. Surely if some members think it. is the right thing to try to provide that speeches shall either be allowed to be read or not be allowed to be read, they should be prepared to stand up and say so. But apparently they are not prepared to do so. I am the only person who has brought this matter forward and who is prepared to stand up to it and ask for something to be done so that speeches in this Parliament shall be appreciated for their real worth, not only by other members, but by the people generally. Progress reported. Sitting suspended from 5.58 to 8 p.m. {: .page-start } page 759 {:#debate-33} ### POST AND TELEGRAPH RATES BILL 1959 Bill presented by **Mr. Davidson,** and read a first time. {:#subdebate-33-0} #### Second Reading {: #subdebate-33-0-s0 .speaker-KCA} ##### Mr DAVIDSON:
PostmasterGeneral · Dawson · CP -- by leave - I move - >That the bill be now read a second time. The purpose of this bill is to amend the Post and Telegraph Rates Act 1902-1956, to adjust certain postal charges. Some other charges for postal services and for telephone and telegraph services are also to be adjusted. Although, as is customary, these will be effected by amendment of the appropriate regulations or by executive action, I shall outline briefly, for the information of honorable members, the major variations proposed. In addition, I shall circulate statements setting out the changes in some detail. The new charges have been developed with the object of ensuring an equitable return to the Post Office for the services it provides. As honorable members will recall, it is now three years since Parliament approved a variation in Post Office charges and many of the present rates have remained unchanged since July, 1951. In recent years there have been progressive increases in costs due to factors quite beyond the department's control. For instance, since 1951, increases in the basic wage have added more than £22,000,000 to the yearly costs of operating and maintaining services. Other inescapable extra expenditure associated with higher wages and prices of materials has raised these extra yearly costs to something like £30,000,000. The 1956 tariff adjustments were designed to bring in an additional £7,250,000 yearly whilst the 1955 increase in the public telephone fee gave an additional annual return of £475,000. No other adjustments have been made to offset the inescapable extra yearly costs, which, as I have stated, are currently £30,000,000. This figure includes more than £3,000,000 which will be added to annual operating costs as a result of the recent adjustment in the basic wage. Higher costs do not in themselves justify nor make inevitable an increase in charges. The Post Office, as an efficient undertaking, could reasonably be expected to absorb at least some of these higher costs by improved methods of traffic handling, higher output and greater technical efficiency. That it has done so with considerable success is indicated by the fact that, although there has been an overall rise of 20 per cent, in all classes of traffic during the past three years, staff has grown by only 8 per cent. In my view, no organization, public or private, has done more in recent years to reduce its costs. The Post Office will continue to explore all possibilities of providing improved service at the lowest possible cost. Several moves in this direction have already been announced. At the same time, however, it has had to seek increased amounts for capital expenditure in an endeavour to keep pace with the growing demands of an expanding economy, and to take advantage of the operating and maintenance savings possible with the development of new techniques and new policies. As honorable members are aware, I have already distributed a paper on "The Australian Post Office - Progress - Policy - Plans " and I believe they will have found it both informative and stimulating. I believe, **Mr. Speaker,** that the summary of Post Office problems and progress in that paper offers a most useful background against which this bill may be considered. On the postal side, **Mr. Speaker,** I would like to explain a step of major significance in the operation of services in Australia, which has already been mentioned by the right honorable the Treasurer **(Mr. Harold Holt)** in his Budget speech. The policy of the Post Office is to provide the best possible means of conveying mails, consistent with reasonable economy. It is therefore proposed to convey by air. without surcharge, letter-form articles of small or medium size, posted in Australia for delivery within Australia, where delivery will be expedited as a result of air carriage. This will give an improved service to many people, at a lower charge, particularly where long distances are involved. Under the scheme, air carriage will be given to letter-form postal articles, in both sealed and unsealed envelopes, which can conveniently be handled in departmental postmarking and sorting machines, and where air conveyance would result in earlier delivery. The service will be given between capital cities, and between capital cities and provincial centres on commercial air routes for mail addressed to these centres, or normally distributed through them. The maximum dimensions of an enveloped article carried without surcharge should not exceed a length of ten inches, a width of five inches and thickness of three-sixteenths of an inch. I consider this step to be one of major importance in the history of the Australian postal service and in line with the ideals of post office administrations throughout the world of having mail reach its destination as quickly as possible. The existing surcharge of 3d. per halfounce will, from 1st October, be reduced to 3d. per ounce. Because it will take some time to organize, the improved service cannot be introduced on 1st October, but will commence on 1st November. During October, therefore, all mail to be carried by air will need to bear the airmail label and and the airmail fee at the rate of 3d. per ounce. From 1st November this rate will be retained to provide a surcharged air mail service for articles not eligible for air carriage without surcharge. Naturally, the introduction of the new scheme will mean that airlines will carry a greater volume of mail. In view of the fact that this should give some economies in their operating, it has been decided to reduce the general rate per lb. mile payable to the airlines by the Post Office from .05 pence to .04 pence. The loss of revenue and additional expenditure involved in the provision of these improved facilities will be about £1,450,000 in a full year. Partly to offset this and also to cover inescapable higher operating costs of the postal services, the Government has decided to adjust certain postal rates to bring in additional revenue of £3,400,000 in 1959-60 and £4,600,000 in a full year. In spite of the successful efforts to achieve higher efficiency, the postal side of the department's operations resulted in a commercial loss of £1,950,000 in 1957-58. Although the loss will be slightly lower in 1958-59, the effect of the recent rise in the basic wage and certain higher costs for materials and services generally would result in an operating deficit of something like £2,500,000 in 1959-60, on the basis of present tariffs and costs. Allowing for the loss of revenue and additional costs associated with the introduction of the air carriage scheme, this loss would rise to close on *£4,000,000.* **Mr. Speaker,** the bill provides for the following revision of rates: - Letters and lettercards - The existing rate of 4d. for the first ounce will be increased to 5d. The charge for each additional ounce will be raised from 2id. to 3d. As already mentioned, these articles, within specified size limits, will be entitled to air carriage anywhere within Australia and the extra air rate of 3d. for the first half-ounce will be abolished. Postcards - Postcards will be eliminated as a specific category of mail and the letter rate will apply. Publications registered at the General Post Offices - The existing general rate of 2£d. for the first 6 oz. and 2d. for each additional 6 oz. for registered Australian books, newspapers and periodicals posted as single copies will become 5d. for each 8 oz. The rate for these publications, except books, when posted in bulk, will be 5d. for each 12 oz., but on the total weight of the consignment, irrespective of the number of individually addressed postal articles contained in it. Other articles - The existing charge for commercial papers, patterns, samples, and merchandise, of 3id. for the first 2 oz. and 2d. for each additional 2 oz., will be increased to 5d. for the first 4 oz. and 3d. for each additional 4 oz. The same rates will also apply to printed matter, which is at present charged at 3id. for the first 4 oz. and 2d. for each additional 4 oz. Honorable members who are following me will notice that the weight units in the three sub-categories which I have just mentioned have been altered from the weight units included in the first schedule which I distributed to honorable members after the Budget Speech was delivered. I commend that to the attention of all honorable members. Certain principles designed to give a rationalized tariff schedule have been followed in developing proposed rates. I should like honorable members to pay attention to these, too, because they demonstrate a rationalization and a simplification of the charges and the work in the Post Office. These include (a) a uniform charge for the first weight unit of each category of mail, that unit charge being 5d.; (b) concessions on existing second and thirdclass mail by allowing larger weight units than for first-class mail; and (c) amalgamation of the commercial and printed paper items. The existing higher charge for first-class mail had its origin in the days when the carriage of the King's letters was the prime consideration of the postal service. The situation to-day is different, since the community uses the post extensively for the conveyance of papers relating to commercial and industrial affairs. These are often at least as important as personal letters, and they demand, and receive, equally prompt treatment. In any event, the great and rapidly growing volume of mail now makes it operationally and economically impracticable to separate personal letters from other letter-form mail during handling. All such mail receives identical postal service and therefore warrants a similar basic charge. Larger articles, sent in packet or similar form, are more expensive to handle than letters, and have yet borne, in the past, a lower basic charge. A packet, on the average, would cost more than 6d. for processing, carriage and delivery; the minimum charge has been 3id., and the average revenue yield at current rates would approximate 4d. There is, therefore, no cost basis for the Post Office to handle the heavier articles at a basic minimum fee below that imposed for letters. Because handling cost does not rise in direct ratio with increase in size or weight, it is practicable to permit a larger weight unit of 4 oz. for packet material. Under modern conditions, packets are frequently as important as, and often more important than, letter-form articles, and call for prompt treatment in the posts. Within limits imposed by their larger size, the Post Office endeavours to give all articles an equivalent grade of service. A substantial concession is being retained for registered Australian publications. Cheap rates for the distribution of newspapers had their origin in history and all available evidence suggests that the object of such rates was to encourage the dissemination of news and information and to develop greater literacy in a generally illiterate population. The cheap rates for newspapers, first introduced in the Australian colonies, and taken over by the Commonwealth, were in the tradition of the United Kingdom. The means of communication available in the early days of postal services everywhere were limited. However, regularity of mail despatches has always been a prime aim, and the postal service therefore became the principal medium for providing written contact between persons, and among communities. Progress in the fields of science and technology in modern countries like Australia has overcome the barriers of distance and time. With social and economic development and the introduction of compulsory schooling to fourteen years of age, or later, illiteracy has virtually disappeared in Australia. This, in conjunction with the availability of extensive library services, local and overseas newspapers, magazines and books, broadcasting and television, has afforded to all Australians ready access to news and information. It would seem, therefore, that the original social reason for assisting, through the Post Office rate structure, the distribution of newspapers, magazines and the like has lost its significance and, in effect, the cost originally carried by the Post Office in aiding such distribution has assumed the form of a subsidy to the local publishing and printing industry. Eligibility for the special concession rates for books, newspapers and periodicals - including the most favorable bulk rate - is confined to publications wholly set up and printed in Australia. When the overall volume and variety of such publications are small, low concession rates of postage for them may not be an unduly serious burden on the postal service as a whole. However, once the printing and publishing industry in a country develops, and the circulation and distribution of its output rise, the extent of the loss on the concessional services can seriously threaten Post Office financial stability. This situation has emerged in Australia. At the present time, the cost of handling the average newspaper or periodical posted in bulk is more than 6d., and the average revenue derived is about lid. The subsidy is about 5d. for each individually addressed newspaper or periodical. This subsidy will be reduced by 10 per cent., to approximately 4id. per item, under the proposed rates, but it will be noticed, **Mr. Speaker,** that a considerable subsidy still will remain. The current annual number of separately addressed newspapers and periodicals posted in bulk is about 150,000,000. At a subsidy of 5d. each, this represents a total .annual concession of the order of £3,000,000. If postings decline, as could be the case with an increase in rates, about 130,000,000 articles may be posted in the next twelve months, representing, at a subsidy of 4id. each, a total concession of about £2,500,000 on this class of mail. For 1958-59, the anticipated surplus on first-class letters is about £3,500,000, but a loss of a similar amount can be expected on publications, posted singly or in bulk. The extent to which losses on publications have affected postal financial results is we'll illustrated by the figures since federation. During this period, the trading accounts of the Postal Branch have shown an aggregate surplus of about £26,000,000, but losses on bulk postage alone have been £57,000,000. These are striking figures, **Mr. Speaker,** you will agree. In the circumstances, the Government feels that the proposed rates are a move in the right direction. In fact, the proposal is not out of line with similar previous rate adjustments. Honorable members are probably aware that before the introduction of Commonwealth postage rates in 1902, the rates of postage on newspapers varied in the different States. The New South Wales bulk rate adopted by the Commonwealth was Id. for each 20 oz. In 1920 the bulk rate was increased 50 per cent., to Hd. for each 20 oz. In 1949 it was increased by 108 per cent to 2id. for each 16 oz., and in 1951, when the last adjustment was made, it was again doubled to 2?d. for each 8 oz. The proposal now is to increase the rate to 5d. for each 12 oz. in order to reduce existing substantial operational losses on this class of mail. The increase of 334 per cent, is therefore a smaller proportionate increase than each of the two previous adjustments in July, 1949, and July, 1951. The form in which newspapers and periodicals are normally posted makes their processing more expensive than letters, and, because similar urgency of treatment is normally accorded and, indeed, expected, it is clearly logical to charge the same basic fee per unit of weight on any consignment. The proposed initial fee is 5d.; the unit of weight for publications posted in bulk is 12 oz. compared with 1 oz. for letters. With the .proposed rates, all registered books, newspapers and periodicals posted by members of the public, as distinct from publishers and newsagents, will be charged at the general rate of 5d. for each 8 oz. on each postal article. The minimum charge will thus be 5d., as for each other postal article. Bulk postage concession rates, however, permit all individually addressed newspapers and periodicals, posted at the same time by publishers and newsagents, to be paid for on the total weight as if they collectively constituted one postal article only. This means that if each paper or periodical weighs 1 oz., the postage on each would amount to 5/1 2d. only. Many small publications, such as church papers, weigh less than 1 oz.; 30 to 40 papers to the pound are common, so that the Post Office will, in many cases, even at the proposed rates, be processing and delivering as many as five individually addressed items for a return of only Id. The proposed letter rate is 5d. for 1 oz.; the proposed bulk rate is less than id. per oz. The proposed bulk rates for Australia are cheap compared with charges applicable in other countries. In the United Kingdom, under the domestic internal rate, no singly addressed publication is conveyed for less than 2d. sterling. A United Kingdom publisher distributing 1,000 separately addressed papers, each weighing 1 oz., would pay postage equivalent to £10 8s. 4d. Australian. At the new bulk rates in this country, an Australian publisher would pay £1 14s. 9d. for the same service, lt is important to observe that few major postal administrations in the world, beside Australia, continue to offer a bulk rate for newspapers in their domestic postal service. It is also proposed, as part of the new provisions, that " Hansard " be no longer eligible for special concessional rates, but that it be charged at the printed papers rate. Braille articles intended for the use of the blind will continue to be carried by post without charge. With one exception, the new postage rates covered by the bill will apply from 1st October, 1959. However, as announced by the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies),** the new bulk rates will not operate until 1st March, 1960, in order to give publishers an opportunity to adjust subscription rates, where necessary. Turning to postal charges not covered by the bill, **Mr. Speaker,** I would like to invite the attention of honorable members to certain variations which it is proposed to effect through amendment of regulations or executive action and which will apply from the 1st October, 1959. These include charges for parcels and registered articles and commission on money orders. Parcel rates have not been increased since 1951, and operating costs are well in excess of the revenue received. It is therefore proposed to increase the charges by about 20 per cent, overall. Late fees charged for mail posted on country railway stations will be abolished and mail will be accepted at these stations up to the last possible moment without extra charge. The late fee will not however be abolished for mail posted at other centres where additional costs are incurred in its handling. The fee for registered articles was increased from 9d. to ls. 3d. in 1956, and at the same time a scheme for certified mail was introduced. This scheme has proved popular and, in the light of its success in catering for the needs of the public in cases where use of the full registration system is not essential, and also of the high costs of handling articles under the registration system, action is being taken to increase the base registration fee from ls. 3d. to 2s. The certified mail fee of 6d. will remain unchanged. The commission payable on money orders has not been varied since 1951, and the fee will be raised from ls. to ls. 3d. for the first £5, with corresponding adjustments for money orders of higher values. Certain adjustments are also proposed for mail addressed to overseas countries. The changes will be effected by executive action but details are shown in a statement which I have distributed for the information of honorable members. The new international charges, **Mr. Speaker,** will have regard, as far as possible, to the proposed changes in domestic rates. Generally, the existing categories of international mail have been retained, because of the provisions of the Convention of the Universal Postal Union, to which Australia is a signatory. The Australian inland rates of postage will, where appropriate, be applied to mail addressed to countries in the British Commonwealth. The existing parcel-post rates to overseas countries have also been reviewed, and five simple and logical zonal rates will replace existing separate rates of postage for parcels to nearly 200 places overseas. Summarizing the position, **Mr. Speaker,** since 1949 postal trading losses have totalled nearly £17,000,000. While postage rates for first-class letters have been sufficient to give revenue in excess of handling costs, surpluses so derived have been more than offset by losses incurred in handling other types of mail and on money orders and postal notes. Heavy losses are currently being incurred on most types of nonletter class mail, including publications, patterns, samples and merchandise, printed matter, registered articles and parcels. In 1958-59, the expected total loss on these classes of mail is of the order of £5,000,000. The loss on bulk postage alone is expected to exceed £3.000,000. With the introduction of the proposed rates, receipts from all letter-form mail will exceed costs, even after allowing for additional expenditure and loss of revenue associated with the conveyance of small and medium-sized letter-form articles by air, without surcharge, where delivery will be expedited as a result. For most packetform mail, including commercial papers, printed matter, patterns, samples and merchandise, costs will be slightly in excess of revenue. For publications, Post Office costs will still greatly exceed revenue, especially for those posted at bulk rates on which yearly losses will approximate £2,500,000. *Losses* will continue to be shown on registered mail, parcels,, money orders and postal notes, even though the charges for these, with the exception of postal note poundage, are to be raised from 1st October, 1959. Although, in the aggregate, the surplus on letter-form mail at the proposed rates may not be sufficient to offset losses on other postal operations in 1959-60, the position will be improved in 1960-61 when the benefit of a full year's operations at the higher rates will be available. Turning now to the Telegraph Branch, **Mr. Speaker,** I am sure the House will be pleased to learn that in spite of higher wages and materials costs, the operating deficit of the telegraph service has been progressively reduced from £1,200.000 in 1955-56 to £638,000 in 1956-57 and £330,000 in 1957-58. The progressive introduction of the handling of telegraph traffic by the new automatic teleprinter switching system (Tress) will ultimately have achieved savings of about £450,000 a year in operating costs. No change is proposed in the basic rates for telegrams, but there will be some variations in rentals charged for leased telegraph services and in certain fees for miscellaneous items. These adjustments are expected to bring in £290,000 in 1959-60 and £390,000 in a full year. Although in the telephone service operating profits have been recorded in recent years, the need for expanded and additional facilities to meet the growing demands of industry and the community generally has been increasing and will continue to increase. This inevitable trend in our buoyant economy has involved the provision of large amounts of capital expenditure by the Post Office on telephone exchanges, trunk lines, cable, telephone subscribers' services, and the like. In fact, during the past five years, Post Office capital expenditure has totalled close on £200,000,000. These funds have been provided from Consolidated Revenue and the Government has decided that it would not be inequitable to expect the charges paid by users of the telephone service to recoup all operating and maintenance costs incurred by the Post Office in running that service, and also to ensure a reasonable annual return on the new capital used. As mentioned by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, the need for such capital, already great, must continue to grow as Australia develops. The Government is satisfied that the Post Office is operating efficiently, and that it is a competent organization, constantly overhauling its practices and procedures and achieving real and substantial economies in the costs of installing and running its facilities. Some of these economies are summarized in the White Paper recently distributed. All avenues for reducing costs will continue to be explored. The present proposals for adjustments in telephone charges, which will apply from 1st October, 1959, are designed to bring in additional revenue of £7,030,000 in 1959-60 and £12,400,000 in a full year.- Details of such adjustments will be circulated to honorable members. More importantly perhaps, **Mr. Speaker,** these proposals must be looked at against the approved completely new national telephone policy which will give telephone subscribers extended local service' areas - known as ELSA - and ultimately, in the long term, the advantages of full automatic working. Although this policy will involve additional capital, the Post Office has established that it is preferable to spend money in this way rather than expand manual handling facilities, with resultant increased annual charges. Indeed, if Post Office plans for automatizing the telephone services are not progressively implemented, avoidable operating costs of between £35,000,000 and £40,000,000 will almost certainly be incurred over the next ten years in meeting normal developmental demands. This new policy will bring undoubted benefits to telephone users. It will permit of local calls on an untimed basis over longer distances and to a greater number of subscribers than at present. The policy provides for exchanges to be grouped in zones, based on community of interest, calls within a zone and to adjoining zones being treated as untimed local calls. The distance covered by a local call fee "will be increased so that this charge will apply to most calls of up to 25 miles and many up to 35 miles, providing the exchanges concerned are in adjacent zones. Calls between non-adjacent zones will be charged at trunk rates. Subscribers grouped in those zones adjoining metropolitan areas will have access at the local call fee to metropolitan subscribers. Similarly, metropolitan subscribers will be able to make calls to these nearby zones at the local call fee. These real and substantial benefits will be available to subscribers when the new plan operates as from 1st May, 1960. A new and simplified trunk call charging basis will also be introduced. At present, trunk call charges are arranged in 22 separate mileage steps, depending upon the radial distance between the two exchanges concerned. For economic and technical reasons associated with automatic trunkworking, it is important that the number of mileage categories be reduced. There are now only three categories of trunk line charges for the whole of the United Kingdom. In Australia, because of longer distances involved, it would obviously be undesirable to reduce the mileage and charge categories to three, and it is intended that eight separate rates should apply from 1st May, 1960. As an interim measure, the number of mileage charging steps will be reduced to eleven from 1st October, 1959, the actual rates applicable being shown in the statement distributed to honorable members. The three categories covering charges up to 25 miles will be abolished in May, 1960, when the full advantages of extended local service areas will be available to the public. At present, a meter is installed for each subscriber in all automatic and the larger manual exchanges, the meter operating once for each local call. Under a method known as multi-metering, which will be introduced progressively, the same meter will be used for recording trunk-line call charges, the meter operating at a predetermined rate during the progress of a trunk-line call, the frequency of its operation being governed by the distance over which the call is made, the charge being recorded in multiples of the local call fee. On these calls, the minimum charge related to three minutes' speaking time will no longer apply. This will mean that at some future date a subscriber could have a call, say from Sydney to Melbourne, for a local call fee, provided the duration of the call were only a few seconds. This new method will encourage subscribers to make more calls of shorter duration and will enable the Post Office to conserve and make the best and most efficient use of its plant. Adjustments will be necessary in some of the annual rentals for telephone exchange services. Broadly, these are now based on the number of subscribers available to each subscriber within local call distance. The introduction of the proposed zoning arrangements and extension of local service areas will result in substantial increases in the number of subscribers available for the local call fee. The present rental table contains five categories for rural exchange services, with two further categories for metropolitan areas. If the five rural categories were retained under the zoning plan, increases in rentals in some country areas would be too severe. To avoid this, country rental categories will be reduced to three, namely: 1-2,000 subscribers, 2,001-7,500 subscribers, and 7,501 subscribers and upwards. Subscribers in zones adjoining metropolitan areas will pay the same rentals as metropolitan subscribers from 1st May, 1960, because they will then share local call access with them over wider areas. The trunk charges applicable over the shorter distances will be abolished. The principle of having a higher rental for a business service, which at present applies only in the metropolitan and larger provincial centres, will be applied in all areas. Although all the adjustments associated with the regrouping of districts and zones to provide for larger local call areas and fewer trunk charging categories will not become effective until 1st May, 1960, certain variations in telephone charges are proposed from 1st October, 1959. In metropolitan areas, there will be a rise of £4 in the existing annual rental for a business service and £2 for a residence service. Increases in rentals in country areas will range from' 5s. to £2 12s. 6d. and details of these adjustments are also shown in the statement circulated to honorable members. Total additional revenue from rentals is expected to be £3,150,000 in 1959-60 and £3,740,000 in a full year. On the trunk-line side, overall charges will be increased by about 10 per cent, but reductions of up to 5s. will apply to calls over distances in excess of 600 miles. As from 1st May, 1960, practically all calls of distances up to 25 miles will become untimed local calls, with the abolition of the trunk-line charges therefor. This will be of real benefit to both business and residence subscribers. The extra revenue expected from the adjustment of trunk-line charges, and associated fees for particular person calls and fixed time calls, is £910,000 in 1959-60 and £1,470,000 in a full year, the disparity being due to the fact that some extra revenue actually earned during 1959-60 will not be received by the Post Office until subscribers' accounts payable after June, 1960, are settled. The local call fee will be raised from 3d. to 4d., irrespective of whether the call is made from a subscriber's service or from a public telephone. The additional revenue expected is £2,300,000 in 1959-60 and £6,310,000 in a full year, the comparatively substantial difference in the two estimated amounts being due to the fact that payments for much of the local call traffic made in 1959-60 will not be collected until the following year. Certain miscellaneous telephone tariffs are also being adjusted from the 1st October, to bring in £670,000 in 1959-60 and £880,000 in a full year. These charges have not been varied since 1951 and, indeed, some of them have remained unchanged since 1939. The rentals for items of auxiliary telephone apparatus such as extension telephones, alarm equipment, portable services, private branch exchange equipment and non-recurring charges, including the rates for statements of calls and diversion of calls, will be raised overall by about onethird. Certain other items such as charges for deaf aid equipment, and for block type and other insertions in the alphabetical directories will not be varied. Telephone service connexion fees will also remain unchanged. The extra mileage fees on telephone services will be abolished. These fees apply where exchange lines in rural areas exceed a radial distance of 2 miles from the connecting exchange and were introduced originally to recoup the department, to some extent, for the additional maintenance costs incurred on exchange lines in country districts. Present-day economics governing the provision of rural telephone services favour longer subscribers' lines rather than the establishment of small exchanges and it seems only proper to pass these savings on to subscribers. Summarized, **Mr. Speaker,** the adjustments covered by this bill, together with those which have to be made by regulation and executive action, will bring in £10,700,000 extra revenue in 1959-60 and £17,400,000 in a full year. The difference between these figures and those quoted by the right honorable the Treasurer in his Budget speech are, of course, due to the decision of the Government not to proceed with the minimum charge of 2d. for each singly addressed newspaper and periodical posted in bulk, to defer the general increase in the bulk rate until 1st March, 1960, and to retain a somewhat greater concession for bulk postings and unregistered books, printed matter, packets, etc., than was originally contemplated. On the other hand, the abolition of the surcharge on letter-form domestic air mail will result in a loss of revenue of about £700,000 in 1959-60 and over £1,100,000 in a full year. Thus, the net gain in revenue will be about £10,000,000 in 1959-60 and £16,200,000 in a full year. As a result of the proposed adjustments, the Post Office is likely to return revenue of £119,700,000 in 1959-60, compared with estimated ordinary services expenditure of £109,000,000. The cash surplus of £10,700,000 will, of course, be paid into Consolidated Revenue, from which £39,400,000 is being provided this year for Post Office capital works on the extension of postal, telegraph and telephone services and on the buildings required for such extension. Taking into account changes in the purchasing power of money, nearly all the proposed rates are relatively lower than they were before the war. Indeed, it might not be out of place to observe that the penny post of **Sir Rowland** Hill's days was a very dear service when considered in its true relation to purchasing power. Its presentday equivalent would be about ls., compared with the proposed letter rate of 5d. Honorable members will be interested to know that, if Post Office charges had risen in the same ratio as the basic wage since 1939, the letter rate would be 7d. instead of the 5d. proposed, the local telephone call fee would be 4id. as against 4d. and the fee for a trunk-line call between Melbourne and Perth 42s. 3d. in lieu of the 15s. proposed. [Extension of time granted.] The rental for a residence service connected to a small rural exchange would be £10 10s. as against the proposed £6 and the Sydney and Melbourne business rental £19 4s. instead of the £17 5s. proposed. The introduction of the new charges for postal and telephone facilities will be accompanied by simplification of rate structures and real improvements in service. Although somewhat higher rates will be chargeable, they will not be unreasonable taking into account the cost of installing and operating Post Office facilities as a whole, the substantially liberalized postal and telephone policies to be implemented and the improved grade of service the department will be seeking to render. I commend the bill to honorable members. Debate (on motion by **Mr. Crean)** adjourned. {: .page-start } page 767 {:#debate-34} ### PETROLEUM SEARCH SUBSIDY BILL 1959 {:#subdebate-34-0} #### Second Reading {: #subdebate-34-0-s0 .speaker-126} ##### Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
Attorney-General · Parramatta · LP -- I move - >That the bill be now read a second time. This bill is designed to assist the search for petroleum in Australia. The issues at stake in the search for oil are plain. We are all aware that imports of petroleum and petroleum products cost the nation a great deal of money. We are even more aware that supplies may be reduced or cut off at any time by circumstances beyond our control. Our balance of payments, our development, and our national security would all benefit greatly if oil fields were found in Australia or its Territories. We know that oil has been found in Australia, and we have it on sound professional authority that there is no apparent reason why commercial accumulations should not exist. It is our business to assist and stimulate exploration so that these commercial accumulations may be discovered. Exploration for oil demands a complex and rigorous scientific programme. Attention must be directed to areas of marine sediments in which oil may have formed and accumulated. These sedimentary basins must be examined in a logical sequence - topographic mapping, geological surveys, geophysical surveys, drilling for information and, finally, production drilling. All this requires time, money and effort. The Government's policy is to participate in basic survey work, to stimulate surveys by exploration companies, to encourage and assist drilling for information, but to leave production drilling to private interests. It implements this policy by both direct and indirect means. Direct assistance is given by two divisions of the Department of National Development - the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics and the Division of National Mapping - and through the operations of the Petroleum Search Subsidy Act. Indirect assistance takes the form of taxation concessions. These concessions were greatly extended in 1958, and in May of this year the Treasurer **(Mr. Harold Holt)** announced that it is proposed to extend them still further. The Petroleum Search Subsidy Act has made a major contribution to oil search in Australia. To assess its importance, it is necessary to review not only its results to date, but also the circumstances which led to its being introduced and the objectives at which it was aimed. Oil was struck in Rough Range No. 1 in November, 1953. This transient success gave rise to a boom in exploration and investment, which gradually subsided as the years passed without further discoveries. In 1957, not only had public interest waned, but exploration seemed to be losing impetus for lack of basic information. Much of this information could only be obtained by stratigraphic drilling - that is, drilling aimed at obtaining information concerning the geological sequence at depths at which reliable deductions cannot be made from surface investigations. The high cost of drilling, and the necessity for obtaining basic information which only stratigraphic drilling could provide led to the introduction of the subsidy act. By the provisions of this act the Government undertook - putting it bluntly - to buy significant new stratigraphic information by paying half the approved costs of drilling operations which would provide it. The Petroleum Search Subsidy Act has been in operation for a little more than a year and a half. During that period, £800,000 has been made available to subsidize stratigraphic drilling, and of this sum £727,019 has actually been paid out in respect of approved operations. These operations, incidentally, included Puri No. 1, in which oil flowed in November, 1958, touching off a fresh burst of interest and activity. Much new and valuable geological information has been provided by the drilling done under subsidy. Possibly of equal importance has been the interest excited overseas, particularly in North America. This is evidenced by the appearance in the Australian field of several major oil companies which have not previously operated here. We welcome the technical and financial resources which powerful overseas companies can bring into play, and we do not attach any conditions to overseas investment in the search for oil in Australia. We would all like to see Australian skill and Australian capital do the job. But our own resources are limited, and therefore it is gratifying to see not only many ventures which are entirely Australian in character, but also an increasing association of Australian and overseas interests in exploration projects. We regard the Petroleum Search Subsidy Act as signally successful. However, much remains to be done, particularly as regards the basic work - surveys of various kinds and drilling for information - which is essential to the exploration programme. The position at the end of 1958 was that £56,500,000 had been spent on oil search, and 443 holes had been drilled, including holes designed to find oil and holes designed to obtain stratigraphic information. But our knowledge of the geology of the sedimentary basins is still limited, and none can yet be dismissed from consideration as a possible source of oil. I have made only a brief reference to what is involved in the search for oil, and what the Government has done to assist it. There will be in circulation at the conclu sion of my speech a paper which sets out additional information, so that honorable members may be acquainted with the background of this complex question, and with the facts on which the Government's proposals for further assistance to oil search are based. The Government proposes to spend an additional £1,000,000 a year to assist the search for oil. An undertaking to this effect was given by the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** in his policy speech prior to the general election last October. In May of this year my colleague, the Treasurer, announced that the Government was ready to fulfil this undertaking. The additional £1,000,000 a year will be provided in each of the financial years 1959-60, 1960-61 and 1961-62. **Mr. Speaker,** £1,000,000 is by no means a negligible item in our national budget. Expenditure of this order would by itself be a substantial contribution to oil search. However, existing Government commitments represent almost another £1,000,000 - made up of annual expenditure of almost £500,000 on oil search activities by the Bureau of Mineral Resources and the Division of National Mapping, and an annual vote of £500,000 under the Petroleum Search Subsidy Act. Direct Commonwealth assistance to oil search will thus be about £2,000,000 per annum, and most of this will be applied in assisting companies to undertake the more expensive types of exploration work. This expenditure of £2,000,000 per annum may be compared with the present annual expenditure by exploration companies of about £6,000,000. But that is not all the story. This £2,000,000 does not include taxation concessions. When taxation concessions are considered, it is seen that the total annual contribution by the Government probably will amount to something between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 - in other words, nearly half of the total annual expenditure of £8,000,000 on oil search. The bill now before the House has been formulated after careful consideration by the Government of the ways in which this additional £1,000,000 per annum might be spent to the best advantage. The Government has considered the advice of its technical officers, has taken account of the views of the Government Members Mining Committee, and has the opinion of an eminent American consultant. The bill does not cover the whole of the proposed expenditure. The additional £1,000,000 will be spent partly in subsidy under the bill and partly in expanding those operations of the Department of National Development which directly assist the search for oil. I think it is necessary, however, to consider the whole of the Government's proposed additional contribution to the integrated pattern of exploration to see the bill in its proper context. I therefore beg leave of the House to discuss, very briefly, proposals for additional surveys and associated work by the Government before I pass to an examination of the proposals of the bill itself. I have pointed out that exploration for oil follows a recognized and logical pattern. In the first place, we must have topographic mapping, to provide the base maps which all subsequent surveys require. The succeeding stages in exploration are geological survey, geophysical survey, drilling for information and, finally, production drilling. Geological exploration has been retarded by the lack of topographic maps of the less accessible parts of the larger sedimentary basins of Australia. It is therefore proposed to increase the rate of topographic surveying and map production by the Division of National Mapping. The regional geology of some of the sedimentary basins is fairly well known, and we are gradually building up the picture in some others. But much remains to be done. The Bureau of Mineral Resources is to increase the amount of regional geological mapping being done in the sedimentary basins. Regional geophysical surveys also provide valuable information as regards the depth and structure of the sedimentary basins as a whole. Seismic surveys of a regional nature are not generally undertaken by exploration companies, and the responsibility for carrying out these essential projects falls largely on the Bureau of Mineral Resources. It is proposed that the bureau should carry out additional regional seismic surveys, the results of which will benefit all companies operating in any particular area. **Mr. Speaker,** it is important that exploration companies should be able to see the results of geological and geophysical surveys by the Bureau of Mineral Resources in published form as soon as possible. It is therefore proposed to let contracts for the processing of data and to increase and accelerate the output of maps and reports relevant to the search for oil. I have, so far, given only a brief outline of how part of the additional £1,000,000 will provide for increased technical assistance by the Government. I shall now discuss, if I may, the manner in which the bill before the House will give effect to the Government's subsidy proposals. The provisions of the bill are an extension of those of the Petroleum Search Subsidy Act 1957-58. They will enable additional phases of oil search to attract subsidy at different rates. The bill will not repeal the 1957-58 act. All applications for subsidy made before the commencement of the new act will be dealt with as provided for in the 1957-58 act - the present act. This bill adheres to the principle of payment of subsidy, in terms of an agreement between the Commonwealth and the company undertaking an approved operation, only in respect of work in an area where the Department of National Development considers that the stratigraphic information is unknown or incomplete. This is the guiding principle of the 1957-58 act. Certainly, applicants for drilling subsidy tend to select a location which will afford some prospect of finding oil, as well as qualifying as a stratigraphic test. However, the sole criterion on which all decisions are based is that the operation to be approved shall provide significant new stratigraphic information, irrespective of whatever other merits a company may see in the project. **Mr. Speaker,** the bill provides that, subject to any provision in an agreement laying down a maximum amount, subsidy shall be payable on the following basis: - {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Payment by the Government of onehalf the costs of approved drilling operations which will yield stratigraphic information likely to increase our geological knowledge at depth. This provision is the same as under the 1957-58 act, and it is proposed to add some £225,000 per annum in this respect to the present allocation of £500,000 per annum. 1. Payment of two-thirds of the costs of a particular type of approved drilling operation, termed " offstructure " drilling. I shall explain the reasons for this higher rate of subsidy presently. 2. Payment of one-half the cost of an approved geophysical survey, and, lastly, 3. Payment of part or the whole of the cost of a bore-hole survey, that is, geophysical logging of bores which are drilled for oil or for water in the sedimentary basins. In the case of water bores, the subsidy to be paid will be fixed in the agreement and will not exceed the whole of the cost of logging. In the case of other bores, the subsidy payable will be one-half of the cost of logging. The cost of geophysical surveys, which may employ magnetic, gravity or seismic techniques, is high-. Yet these surveys are essential to the location of subsurface structures which might contain oil and to the extension of the information acquired by surface investigations. Not enough geophysical surveys are being carried out in Australia because costs are high. Contractors cannot lower their charges unless continuous employment for their crews is assured. As a result, the smaller exploration companies find these charges prohibitive. It is hoped that subsidy of approved geophysical operations will keep contract parties continuously employed and thereby reduce costs. Geophysical logging of bores drilled in the sedimentary basins is of great value in making stratigraphic correlations between one part of a basin and another part. Unfortunately, geophysical logging is expensive, and much information is lost because smaller companies cannot meet the high cost involved. Payment of half the cost of logging holes drilled for oil should go a long way towards rectifying this situation. Many water bores are drilled each year in the sedimentary basin, but few, if any, are geophysically logged. The information to be obtained from logging of water bores is essentially regional in character and will probably be of no immediate benefit to any permit holder. The Government feels justified, therefore, in proposing that it should meet up to the whole cost of the logging. Of course, this will only apply to water bores from which useful information will be obtained. I have left subsidy of " off-structure " drilling to the last, because this is a type of subsidy provision that calls for a little more explanation. It is designed to encourage deep drilling in localities where the obtaining of stratigraphic information will materially assist the search for oil, but where present information suggests that structural conditions favorable to the accumulation of oil in commercial quantities do not exist. It is proposed that something of the order of £250,000 per annum will be provided to subsidize holes off-structure, to depth of anything up to 10,000 or even 15,000 feet. It is considered that the high cost of deep drilling and the absence of evidence favouring the discovery of commercial oil warrant a higher rate of subsidy to encourage this type of drilling. Accordingly it is proposed that the Government should pay two-thirds of the costs incurred in approved off-structure drilling operations. The information obtained by all these subsidized operations - drilling operations, geophysical surveys and bore-hole surveys - will be made available to the Commonwealth. It will be held by the Department of National Development and published in due course. It is intended that a period of about twelve months should elapse before publication of this information. We consider it only just and reasonable that a company carrying out an operation should have this opportunity of evaluating and benefiting from the results of its work. Subsidies will be paid in accordance with agreements which the Minister will enter into on behalf of the Commonwealth with suitably qualified persons who will undertake to carry out approved operations. The existing subsidy act operates in this way. The present act is administered in two stages - the applicant seeks Ministerial approval of his proposed operation, and then having received this, applies for the grant of subsidy. This has proved a somewhat cumbersome method, and it is proposed that under the new act an application for approval of a proposed operation should be considered also to be an application for the grant of subsidy. In other words, administration would be a single-stage operation. Certain information will be required from applicants. This will include the location of the proposed operation, particulars of the estimated cost, the applicant's financial capability to carry out the operation, the nature of the work proposed, and the reason for carrying out the operation. This urformation will enable the value of the proposed operation in relation to the search for oil to be assessed by the department and advice to be tendered to the Minister recommending whether it should be approved or refused. Provision is made for the secretary to defer making a recommendation in respect of an application. We may well receive more applications than we can possibly subsidize out of the funds available. It may, therefore, be necessary for the Minister to defer approval of an acceptable proposal. The costs which may attract subsidy will be those which are normally incurred in carrying out the type of operation for which approval has been requested. For drilling operations, these will include direct drilling costs, and costs of coring, running and cementing casing in the hole, testing and other down-hole surveys. They will also include costs of site preparation, construction of access roads or air strips, provision of camp accommodation, and delivery, installation and removal of plant and personnel, etc. Similar provisions will cover allowable costs and geophysical surveys and bore-hole surveys. In general terms, the costs which may attract subsidy will be those incurred in entering the area, carrying out the programme, and withdrawing from the area. Details of costs to be covered in any particular operation will be set out in the relevant, agreement, as is the case under the present act. It is proposed to make progressive payments on account of subsidy. In general, no subsidy will be payable until the secretary certifies that in his opinion at least one-quarter of the operation has been completed. Subsequent progress payments will be made as each one-fourth of the total operation is completed, with the proviso that the progress payment at each stage will not exceed 20 per centum of the amount of subsidy specified in the agreement. This means that at any stage, the aggregate progress payment will not exceed 80 per centum of the estimated amount of subsidy earned at that stage. The balance will become payable when the Minister is satisfied that the whole operation has been completed in terms of the agreement. It is intended, however, that the number of progress payments should be left to the discretion of the Minister. This would enable progress payments to be made less frequently, in the case of such operations as geophysical surveys- of short duration. The Minister might deem it necessary to withhold payment of subsidy if, for example, the operator is not fulfilling his obligations under the agreement. The rights and obligations of the parties concerned will be specified in the agreement, which will thus provide for any variation of the original programme. Should the person carrying out a subsidized operation not wish to complete the whole project as described in the agreement, it may be necessary to protect the investment made by the Commonwealth up to that time by continuing the operation at Commonwealth expense, provided funds are available. Provision is made for this contingency, as in the existing Act. I have mentioned that my colleague, the Treasurer, gave the first intimation of the Government's intentions regarding the expenditure of the additional £1,000,000 per annum in a public announcement on 1st May, 1959. The Department of National Development immediately received a number of inquiries from interested quarters. We consider that even although an opera-, tion may have been commenced before the passage of this bill, it should not for this reason be disqualified from consideration for subsidy, as long as no commitment had been entered into before 1st May, 1959. It is recognized also that although subsidy agreements may be entered into up to 30th June, 1962, some operations in respect of which agreements have been made may not be completed by that date. The bill, therefore, provides for such an operation to be completed, and thus to qualify for payment of subsidy up to 30th June, 1963. Any such payment, of course, will be made from the £1,000,000 which is being provided for each of the three years 1959-60, 1960-61 and 1961-62. No new agreement will be entered into after 30th June, 1962. It is important to note that this bill does not commit the Government to a specific programme. The provisions permit some flexibility, so that we may adjust our thinking and our actions as time goes on and we see what results are being obtained. The proposals for expenditure of the additional £1,000,000 per annum reflect the pattern of oil search - the complex procedures which link up to provide an integrated exploration programme. There is one feature of the search for oil in Australia which must be emphasized, and that is the most important of all. It is cooperation - co-operation between the Commonwealth and the States, between Government and private enterprise. It is gratifying to see this co-operation at work, to see overseas consultants being impressed by the oil potentialities of Australia, to see overseas capital being attracted to strengthen our effort, and to see those who have through the long and disappointing years continued their courageous and painstaking work receiving fresh incentive and encouragement. The provisions of this bill, the proposals which have been framed for increased technical assistance by the Government, and our liberal taxation concessions all show the Government's intention to encourage and assist investment and activity in oil search as much as possible. As an earnest of the Government's faith in the ultimate success of this great venture, I commend this bill to the House. Debate (on motion by **Mr. Pollard)** adjourned. {: .page-start } page 772 {:#debate-35} ### QUESTION {:#subdebate-35-0} #### ESTIMATES 1959-60 In Committee of Supply: Consideration resumed (vide page 759). {: #subdebate-35-0-s0 .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY:
Grayndler .- I want to say a few words in relation to the Estimates for the Parliament. I join with those honorable members on both sides, but particularly from the Opposition side, who have criticized the duration of the meetings of this Parliament. It is my considered opinion that the meetings of the Parliament are altogether too irregular. I think that the Parliament should sit more consistently, and for longer, in order to give adequate time for discussion by honorable members of the many problems that come before the Parliament. At a later stage of my speech I intend to say something in regard to sitting hours, which I think could be improved, with beneficial results to members and to the country at large. Let me say now that I think that the Parliament is sitting for too short a period during the year. The Government calls the Parliament together to sit for two or three weeks and then adjourns it. Then it calls us back for a couple more weeks and then adjourns Parliament for another week. I think that the Government is following that practice only in order to give the impression to the public that we are meeting for lengthy periods, when such is not the case. I see no reason why we should not sit from Monday to Friday consistently until the business of the Parliament is concluded. I see no purpose at all in bringing people here from all over the length and breadth of Australia to sit on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays for three or four weeks and then to adjourn for a week. Like other honorable members who have spoken, I see no reason why the Parliament should not sit exclusively in the day-time, if necessary on every weekday. I see no purpose in having debates in the middle of the night, and I do not see why, with the time at our disposal, sittings should not be more lengthy and extend over longer hours. I do not see why a complete review should not be made of the whole approach to this problem of the sittings of the Parliament. There is no doubt that at the present time the rights of private members are being continually whittled away. Very little time is provided for discussion on other than Government business. " Grievance Day " and other opportunities that might be used by honorable members to bring forward subjects of particular account to their electors are being cut down and members are being denied these rights. There is an adjournment debate on a couple of nights perhaps, but the gag is used quite liberally by this Liberal Government, and many members are denied opportunities to address the Parliament on matters of importance to their electors. I have not the figures with me, but I do not have to be a mathematician to know that this Government has broken records in the use of the gag in order to curtail discussion. In my opinion, these matters call for a practical approach to the problems of this Parliament. There are now about 120 members, and it takes time for matters to be discussed fully. I summarize my opinions by saying that the Parliament should sit continually by day when in session. This practice of adjourning after a few weeks should finish. The sittings should go ahead until the business of the Parliament is determined. There should not be a use of the gag so consistently by this Government, thereby denying members on this side their right to criticism of the Government's legislative programme. There is another matter upon which I wish to touch. We have a Ministry which must be the most-travelled Ministry of our time. I do not doubt that some Ministers have to go away, and that there are important occasions which require them to be abroad. {: .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: -- But they don't have to come back. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY: -- No, they do not have to come back, but, unlike the Sputnik, they do return to earth. We must acknowledge that they do travel and they do come back. However, I cannot by any stretch of the imagination see any justification for so many Ministers leaving this country to go abroad for lengthy periods when the Parliament is sitting. There are months between sittings which they could use for the purpose of going abroad; yet we find the Treasurer **(Mr. Harold Holt)** going abroad at the very time when he should be here, when the debate on the Budget that he brought down is going on. The one man who ought to be here at this time to give the answers required by the people is the Treasurer, but he has now left for abroad. I do not know what his business abroad is on this occasion, but, whatever, it is, this is an occasion when he should have sent a substitute. I do not know who is acting for him, but, no matter how bright the Minister acting for him may be - and bright people are very hard to find in the Ministry - he would not have the grasp that the Treasurer has of these financial matters. I am sorry if the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** is acting for the Treasurer. He would agree that he would be acting only, because, with his other duties, he would have only a broad knowledge of the subjects that we wish to discuss now in an intelligent and intimate way. Whilst realizing the importance of the Treasurer's overseas trip, I must say that he should at least have postponed it until all the matters arising from the Budget were dealt with by the Parliament. The Minister for External Affairs **(Mr. Casey)** is so seldom in this country that I think he will have to stay here for a lengthy period in order to qualify for naturalization. The Minister has now gone abroad. And when does he choose to go? Not in the three or four months' recess that finished just recently. His most lengthy trips are taken as soon as the Parliament meets. He goes because he is afraid to face criticism by members of this Parliament of his handling of his External Affairs portfolio, and the reason for that is that he is wide open. He could easily be shot down in flames in that portfolio. So the Minister for External Affairs - that much-travelled Minister - must easily have broken all records, even those established by the Prime Minister and others, and must also have created a record for absenteeism from this Parliament. Therefore, I offer this criticism, although I qualify it by saying that possibly Ministers have to go abroad because it is most important for them to do so from time to time. Why do two Ministers with most important folios - the Treasurer and the Minister for External Affairs - have to leave this country immediately Parliament resumes after a lengthy recess? The only answer that could be given to that question is that they are seeking to escape their responsibilities and to escape criticism from this side of the Parliament. {: .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: -- They are not on their honeymoons, either. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY: -- No, they are not on their honeymoons, as the honorable member says. I should imagine that, to use an old expression, honeymoons are good anywhere, and they could perhaps stay in Australia and have them. The fact is that Ministers are constantly leaving this country and they are leaving it at a time when the Parliament is sitting. So in those circumstances I think we are entitled to criticize them. I shall be agreeably surprised if in the course of this Estimates debate there are more than one or two Ministers in the Parliament. It will be difficult to find the Minister in charge of the department under discussion at any particular time, if precedents are any guide, as they obviously are in the case of this Government. Turning to another matter that concerns the Parliament, I want to agree for once with the honorable member for Mallee **(Mr. Turnbull).** Prior to the suspension of the sitting, the honorable member mentioned the case of members who read their speeches, and insisted that the standing order prohibiting this be enforced. To the honorable member for Mallee, who said that he does not read his speeches, I say, with all charity, I think it would be better if he did. But the fact of the matter is, I think, that there is a great infringement of the Standing Orders in respect of the reading of speeches. As the honorable member for Mallee was too bashful to do so, I shall mention a few of the members who read prepared speeches here. The honorable member for Phillip **(Mr. Aston)** is a classic example of an honorable member who reads written speeches. They are prepared for him by the monopoly interests that he seeks to represent in this Parliament. The honorable member for Barker **(Mr. Forbes)** is another honorable member who consistently reads to the Parliament written documents, probably given to him by investment companies and the like. The honorable member for Perth **(Mr. Chaney)** continually reads from prepared speeches, undoubtedly prepared by insurance companies or the other interests that are behind him. The honorable member for Bruce **(Mr. Snedden)** reads his speeches from time to time. He represents the oil cartels and monopolies in this place. The **CHAIRMAN (Mr. Bowden).Order!** It is the province of **Mr. Speaker** to enforce the Standing Orders and the honorable member is now casting reflection on **Mr. Speaker.** The honorable member will confine his remarks to the Estimates before the Chair. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY: -- Naturally I bow to your reasoned judgment on this matter, **Mr. Chairman,** but I seek your indulgence to reply to the honorable member for Mallee by stating that a number of honorable members read their speeches, and I do not include any member of the Australian Country Party. {: #subdebate-35-0-s1 .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- The honorable member for Mallee did not refer to particular honorable members. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY: -- The honorable members that I have mentioned are examples of members who infringe the Standing Orders. The honorable member for North Sydney **(Mr. Jack)** never infringes the Standing Orders in this respect. He has not broken the sound barrier in this Parliament up to date. That is probably because he has sufficient intelligence not to read the speeches that have been prepared for him to read. I think that the honorable member for Mallee has made out a good case why honorable members should not read their speeches. When the estimates for the Parliament are before us it is right that these matters should be deliberated and brought to the attention of honorable members. The honorable member for Mallee is to be congratulated for once on bringing before Parliament a matter of this nature which is of importance and which is dealt with in the Standing Orders. Most of the speeches that I have heard from Government supporters could be summarized under three heads. First, the speeches were read. Secondly, they were badly read. Thirdly, they were not worth reading. I think that is a fair summary of most of the speeches that have been presented by honorable members opposite. **Mr. Chairman,** I have craved your indulgence and no doubt contravened slightly the Standing Orders, but I wished to deal with the charges made against honorable members by the honorable member for Mallee. {: .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr Turnbull: -- You were one of them. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY: -- The honorable member for Mallee deliberately indicted certain honorable members for reading their speeches. I agree with him that the Standing Orders should be enforced to deal with this practice. The honorable member for Mallee is very difficult to get on with, because although I am now in agreement with him, nevertheless he is still disagreeing with what I have said. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The CHAIRMAN: -- Order! The Chairman is also in disagreement with the honorable member, who will obey the ruling of the Chair or sit down. {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr DALY: -- I have no intention of wasting my valuable time by sitting down at this stage. I should like to conclude my few brief remarks by summarizing what I have said. I agree with the honorable member for Mallee on the subject of the Standing Orders. They should be enforced. I am in agreement with honorable members who have insisted that Parliament should sit more regularly. The days of sitting and the length of sittings should be such as to allow us to deliberate and debate on all matters under discussion. I make a serious appeal to the Prime Minister tobring some of his wayward children back to this Parliament from time to time, so that we may deliberate before them and hear their answers, when they have any, particularly as they affect the Budget and international affairs. We seldom see the two Ministers concerned, and we would like to hear from them more often. Remainder of proposed vote agreed to. Prime Minister's Department. Proposed Vote, £3,228,000. {: #subdebate-35-0-s2 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr WHITLAM:
Werriwa .- In the debate a year ago on the estimates for the Prime Minister's Department under the heading of the Commonwealth Office of Education the Opposition sought an explanation for the anomaly of the Commonwealth concerning itself with university education but refusing to concern itself with any other form of education. To put it another way, hitherto the Commonwealth has concerned itself only with the education of those whose parents can afford to support them to matriculation standard. It has not concerned itself with the education up to that standard of young people or with their education for careers for which university education is not required. It was agreed that the same constitutional powers that enable the Commonwealth to pay benefits to university students and to make grants to States for university staffs and buildings are sufficient to enable the Commonwealth to pay benefits to students and to make grants for staff and buildings engaged in other forms of education. In the debate a year ago the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** gave explanations for the Commonwealth's interest in one field and its refusal to interest itself in any other form of education. To-night the Opposition seeks to ask him whether, in the light of subsequent events, he will reconsider his attitude. His reasons for refusing to interest the Commonwealth in other forms of education were threefold. First he said - {: type="i" start="1"} 0. . the Commonwealth Government of the day-- That is, after the war - very wisely provided the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. For that reason the Prime Minister said that the Commonwealth was committed to a continued provision for universities. Secondly, he said - >We instituted the Commonwealth scholarships scheme. It had been adumbrated before we came into office, and we put it into operation; I am not denying that this was, in reality, a piece of joint effort on behalf of our predecessors and ourselves. For that second reason it was necessary for the Commonwealth to continue its sole interest in university education. Thirdly, the Prime Minister said - >At the conference between the State Premiers and Commonwealth representatives in August, 1953, the Premiers raised this matter of the universities and pointed out how profoundly embarrassed they were .... it is the only time I remember when the State Premiers raised the question of Commonwealth payment for education as a specific subject. May I comment on the first reason concerning the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme. That scheme did not provide only university education; it also enabled ex-servicemen to complete education of other kinds. It is true that university education bulked more largely than any other in the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme, but there were other features of education; if the Commonwealth must for this reason continue its interest in university education, there is also a considerable ground, even if not as strong a ground, for its continuing its interest in other forms of education. Secondly, although the present Commonwealth scholarships had been adumbrated by the Chifley Government, it is only fanto point out that the Chifley Government had adumbrated a scheme for scholarships not only for university students, but also for secondary students. The Walker committee and later the Commonwealth Office of Education had reported on the wastage of students in the later years of secondary education. An interdepartmental committee was set up to investigate the subject. Late in 1949 that committee made a submission to the Chifley Government. Consideration of its submissions was deferred until after the elections and a final report was made to the new Government in May, 1950. The report was entitled "A Report on Educational Wastage at the Secondary Level". It contained recommendations for a scheme of Commonwealth bursaries for secondary school pupils. The incoming Government adopted the proposals for Commonwealth scholarships for university students and rejected, or has consistently deferred, any proposal, in particular this specific proposal, for Commonwealth scholarships for secondary school students to cover the gap between the school leaving age and the university entry age. Thirdly, **Sir, the** Prime Minister relied on the fact that the Premiers had brought to the notice of the Commonwealth the difficulty of financing universities but had not mentioned any other financial difficulties in education. There, the position has certainly changed in the last year. Last March, **Mr. Hawke,** who was then Premier of Western Australia, put forward at a Premiers' Conference the suggestion that a joint Commonwealth-State commission of inquiry should investigate secondary, technical and primary education in the States. The Prime Minister spoke first of the fact that the proposal did not attract him because it could easily have the most tremendous results on the Commonwealth's own finances. He went on to give the same historical reasons as I have already read from his contribution to the debate a year ago, and he then promised to give full and categorical reasons to the Premiers, in writing, for the Commonwealth's refusal to appoint this commission of inquiry which the Premier of Western Australia had sought. At the next Premiers' Conference, in June, the Premier of New South Wales asked the Minister for Trade **(Mr. McEwen),** who was then Acting Prime Minister, whether he could expedite this considered reply which the Prime Minister had promised three months before. The Acting Prime Minister said that **Mr. Brand,** the new Premier of Western Australia, had communicated with him on the matter before the Premiers' Conference had assembled, and that he would see that the reasons were given. They were, in fact, sent by the Acting Prime Minister on 2nd July, **Sir. The** Prime Minister's first instinctive, impulsive reaction against the proposal - that it would cost the Commonwealth a lot of money - was not mentioned in those reasons. The reasons were, first, the same historical ones as previously given, and, secondly, the fact that the States have large resources of money of their own and also by way of Commonwealth grants, and can decide how they will allot those resources on current and capital expenditure on education, among other responsibilities. In fact, **Sir, educational** expenditure has grown much more quickly and to a much greater degree than has any other form of expenditure by the States. The increase can be seen very readily from tables IX. and X. in appendix C of the White Paper on National Income and Expenditure 1958-59, which was presented with the Budget. You will see there, **Sir, that,** in the year 1948-49, the States spent £26,000,000 on education. Last financial year, they spent £109,000,000 - over four times as much. In 1948-49, they spent on schools and the like, by way of capital expenditure, £3,000,000, and last year, £29,000,000- almost ten times as much. It is quite obvious, on looking at all other figures of revenue and outlay for and by the States in the tables that in no other respect has State expenditure increased four-fold, let alone ten-fold, and in no respect has the States' income from their own resources, let alone from the Commonwealth's grants, increased four-fold, let alone ten-fold, lt is quite plain, **Sir, that** education is accounting for a proportionately increasing amount of the States' capital and current expenditure, and I believe that still further expenditure in this field is required if education is to meet the needs of the community. There is a shortage of teachers and accommodation and, at the same time, there is an increasing flow of students. The people who were born in the flush years after the war are now in secondary education or are wanting to complete it or go further. It is not sufficient to rely on static formulas or to compare the sum total of capital and current expenditure or revenue of the States now with the figures of some years ago. The plain fact is that the demand in education has increased much more than has any of those other items. I suggest, therefore, that the parallel is not a valid one. The historical reasons which the Prime Minister has given - the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme and the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme - are only part of the story, and the third reason which he gave - that the States had never sought any inquiry or assistance in this matter - no longer applies. I hope that those facts will lead him to review the attitude which he took up a year ago. But more than that, **Sir, in** the year since he last spoke on this matter, there has been introduced in the United Kingdom and the United States of America legislation which shows how seriously those countries regard the problem. In the United Kingdom last December, there was presented a White Paper which detailed a five-year programme of school building and teacher training. In the next five years, the United Kingdom Government will spend an additional £300,000,000 on school buildings. There, of course, schools are administered by local authorities, but the Government itself is coming more into the field. It is providing, in the next five years, an additional £300,000,000 for school buildings - not for universities. Secondly, **Sir, it** is providing for a 50 per cent, increase in the output of school teachers by the end of 1962. That will be achieved by providing £15,000,000 for new teachers' colleges and by providing 12,000 additional places in the existing teachers' colleges for the training of school teachers. The problem in the United Kingdom is not as great as is the problem in Australia, because the age distribution of the population is different from ours, and their population is not increasing as is ours. The United States, having a federal system of government in which the States conduct education, is still more appropriate for a comparison with the position here. There, in September of last year, the federal Congress passed an act entitled " The National Defense Education Act ". I shall briefly detail the responsibilities which the federal Congress has accepted under an act whose expressed object is to identify and educate more of the nation's talent. First, the act provides for loans to students in institutions of higher education, special consideration being given to students who express a desire to teach in elementary or secondary schools or who have a superior capacity or preparation in science, mathematics, engineering or a modern foreign language. Secondly, the act provides for grants for State projects for strengthening instruction in the same subjects. Thirdly, the act provides for fellowships for graduates interested in teaching in institutions of higher education. Fourthly, it provides for grants for State programmes for identifying secondary school students with outstanding aptitudes and abilities, and for advising and encouraging them to complete their secondary education and to pursue a higher education. Fifthly, the act provides for grants to institutions of higher education to establish and operate centres to teach modern foreign languages and inculcate a full understanding of the countries in which those languages are commonly used. Sixthly, it provides for grants to develop television, radio, film and related media foi educational purposes and to train teachers in their use. Seventhly, the act provides for grants to States to give training as highly skilled technicians to persons who have left school. Lastly, it provides for grants to establish a Science Information Service to index, summarize, translate and pool scientific information. You will see, **Mr. Chairman,** in the United States federal participation is not restricted to universities, but extends to education preparatory and parallel to the universities. The- CHAIRMAN.- Order! The honorable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-35-0-s3 .speaker-JTP} ##### Mr BURY:
Wentworth **.- Mr. Chairman,** the honorable member for Werriwa **(Mr. Whitlam)** has pointed out, in a rather lengthy fashion, what we already know - that our educational facilities in Australia, particularly at the school level, are inadequate. He could even have said that, proportionately to our national income, we spend on education about half as much as does the United Kingdom. However, this does not in any degree prove his case, which is that the Commonwealth should interfere in the process. To show that education is inadequate in the schools and then to go on to suggest that therefore the Commonwealth should interfere is, of course, to use the lack of adequate educational facilities as a weapon for enforcing centralization. In all the measures that it has adopted in this connexion, the Commonwealth has done at least two things which are of very substantial help. In the first place, by taking over so much of the financial responsibility for the universities, it has freed considerable resources to the States to spend on education in other forms. Secondly, it has vastly increased the funds that flow to the States. New South Wales, which, no doubt, the honorable member for Werriwa, like myself, knows best, and with the Government of which he might be expected to exercise some kind of influence, being of a like political complexion, has fallen behind the mark. One of the reasons is that although the amount of money devoted to education in New South Wales has increased, the proportionate increase has still not been sufficient. There are many ways in which the Government of New South Wales could pick up extra funds. For instance, if it made its transport system pay, this alone would free quite as much money as it could possibly expect to spend on education for many years to come. It is unfortunate that those who are genuinely concerned with education should have their energies diverted from the State governments - and particularly the Government of New South Wales - which are at fault to the Commonwealth Government, the standard excuse being that the States do not spend more money on education because the Commonwealth will not provide sufficient funds. If the States were in such trouble with their finances for education, one would have thought that as one band they would have approached the Commonwealth to get additional grants. The one government which did recently approach the Commonwealth on this matter, that of Western Australia, was very promptly defeated at the next election. There is very little doubt that the people of this country as a whole would prefer to see primary and secondary education remain firmly in State hands. It is to be deplored that properly directed agitation towards improvement should be used for political reasons to enforce centralization. Let me now turn to the matter on which I originally rose to speak, that of the Estimates. It is noteworthy that in the case of the Prime Minister's Department, as of other departments, there is a considerable increase in the proposed vote for this year, compared with expenditure last year. The Estimates for this year show an expected expenditure of about £3,250,000, which is about £250,000 more than expenditure last year. Within the Prime Minister's Department there is a large collection of different agencies. Some of them, particularly the Public Service Board and the National Library, though they enjoy ministerial representation at the very top level, suffer because no Prime Minister could possibly devote sufficient ministerial time to them if he were to do his job as Prime Minister. It is, on the whole, far more important that he should fulfil his role as Prime Minister than that he should spend undue time on some of these agencies. I refer to three of them in particular, the Public Service Board, the National Library and the Office of Education. As to the last-mentioned, of course the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** has made his own mark and his own peculiar contribution in the field of university education. However, we find in the case of the Public Service Board that there is delay in applying some very necessary reforms. With regard to the National Library, the unfortunate fact is that we really have not got one. More than thirty years after this Parliament House was built, we still have not built a proper and effective National Library. It is unreasonable to expect that all these functions should be discharged to full effect by the Prime Minister. These remarks of mine do not apply only in the case of the present Government. They are directed towards the general structure of departmental organization which has been handed down through successive governments. An increase of 11 per cent, is shown in the amount required for running the Public Service Board. The various departments, which the Board is in turn responsible for staffing, show a like increase of 1 1 per cent, in estimated expenditure. Total departmental expenditure for the Public Service has increased from about £65,000,000 last year to an estimated £72,000,000 in the current year. It is worth noting that this is a larger proportionate increase than the increase in total revenue for the whole of Australia, which is of the order of £97,000,000. There are many things which could be done to improve the working of the Public Service. Let me refer, first, to the report on Public Service recruiting with which this Parliament has not yet had an opportunity to deal. As to staffing, there are still such archaic practices as the immediate sacking of women upon their marriage, resulting not only, in many cases, in personal injustice, but also in great losses of trained and skilled employees. Because this practice operates under the Public Service Regulations, it spills over into many of the ancillary organs of government, including such institutions as the Commonwealth Bank. Because the Public Service preserves this archaic system of dismissing women, and not effectively recruiting replacements, at higher levels, these other institutions are forced to adopt the same line. There is one particular aspect of Public Service organization which leads to undue expenditure. I refer to the practice of effecting changes in the establishments of single departments without reference to their effects upon other departments. A certain department might happen, for the time being, to have a strong Minister, or to have its activities in the public eye. The department becomes fashionable for a time and very often succeeds in carrying out a scheme of re-organization. In the process a large number of offices are created at higher salaries than prevailed previously, and skilled men are then drawn from other departments to fill those vacancies. The Public Service Regulations very often militate against bringing in new blood, and the result is simply that the existing talent is spread more thinly. This leads to discontent in other departments, in which it is naturally felt that the roles that they perform are of equal importance. An example of this is to be found within the Prime Minister's Department itself. Unfortunately the Audit Office tends to become somewhat of a Cinderella. As members of the Public Accounts Committee are well aware, the fact that other departments are being constantly re-organized has meant that the Audit Office has lost numbers of trained employees. We should try to keep our departmental establishments on an even keel. If salaries for particular grades of offices in one department are raised, they should be raised through the Public Service. There should be no chance of one department leap-frogging another, drawing off staff and disorganizing other departments. {: .speaker-KXZ} ##### Mr Peters: -- Do not get so excited! {: .speaker-JTP} ##### Mr BURY: -- If the honorable member were to get a little more excited about these issues and some others, we might effect some improvement. Unfortunately, he lacks interest and understanding. I shall refer now to the Prime Minister's Cabinet secretariat. This could probably be (improved if it copied the method used in the United Kingdom. The Cabinet secretariat there is staffed by other departments Officers from other departments are brought in to service the Cabinet, Cabinet committees and the sort of work that is performed by the Prime Minister's Department in Canberra. The big advantage is that the Prime Minister's Department or the Cabinet secretariat draws on experience in other fields and the officers of the other departments gain a greater understanding of the processes of central government. One department that could be greatly improved in this way is the Department of External Affairs, whose officers largely are abstracted from the rest of the Public Service and unfortunately in many cases, because of long stays overseas, from the conduct of Australian affairs generally. This department would be greatly strengthened if a sequence of its senior officers had practical experience in the work of the Cabinet secretariat in the Prime Minister's Department. This would apply also to almost every other major department. This is something to which, I suggest, consideration could well be given. The National Library this year will spend £256,000, which is an increase of £56,000 on the amount expended last year, and we should all welcome the increase. I suggest that before we have gone very much further we should do what we can to establish a proper national library in its own building. This has been spoken about around these corridors ever since I have been here. We tend to become concerned with our own affairs in the Parliamentary Library, but we should establish, as soon as we can, a properly housed national library. {: #subdebate-35-0-s4 .speaker-KID} ##### Mr LUCHETTI:
Macquarie .- In speaking to the Estimates for the Prime Minister's Department, I wish to refer to Division No. 128 - Office of Education £207,200. I notice that £188,660 was voted last year but that only £177,015 was spent. This contains a lesson for us in the conduct of the affairs of the Parliament. Some of the vote for last year remains unspent, and it would seem that there was insufficient appeal for money from the Office of Education. Yet it is on record from honorable members on both sides of the committee that an adequate appeal exists for the spending of money. The honorable member for Wentworth **(Mr. Bury)** said that the amount allotted to the Office of Education was inadequate. I think the committee generally will agree with that comment. But if this is so, the question that immediately arises is: What do we intend to do about it? Will we find the money necessary for education or will we do nothing and let the matter rest there? Involved in most of these considerations is an attack on the various States. It would be a tragedy if we were to become involved in a comparison of one State with another or in a defence of what the Commonwealth has done. We should consider whether sufficient is being done. In general, it will be admitted that we are not doing enough. Since uniform taxation has been introduced and as the Commonwealth has accepted the responsibility for financing the activities of this nation, I think the obligation to find the essential funds for education rests upon the Commonwealth. I feel that it ought to be stated that the 1958 report of the Commonwealth Grants Commission showed that New South Wales spent more per head on primary education than any State except Western Australia, more per head on secondary education than any State except Tasmania and more per head on university education than the average expenditure in all States. That seems to indicate that New South Wales is doing very well, but the fact that we must still face is that sufficient is not being done. I rise to-night to make an appeal for the youth of this country who, through neglect, are being denied opportunities for additional education in the tertiary, secondary and technical fields. In this world to-day, there is a dire need, especially in a country such as Australia which has a small population, to develop the latent qualities of all children who go to school to-day, who will go to school next year or who will go to school in all the years that lie ahead. Whatever qualities they possess must be exploited and developed to the full, and we must try to build a broad highway of educational opportunities which will be available to every Australian child. There must be no barriers or obstacles to restrict the progress of the students to the ultimate goal. The only consideration should be the mental capacity of the child to respond to good teaching practices. In this regard, I make one comment, although it does not deal with the major problem: I sometimes wonder whether too much emphasis is being placed on teaching aids in helping children to reach a required standard. I feel that the children should be taught to use their brains and develop their capacity to be more resourceful and useful. The Australian Labour Party has consistently advocated a thorough inquiry into all aspects of education on lines similar to the Murray inquiry into university education. An evaluation should be made in the fields of primary, secondary and technical education. However I must emphasize that the best teachers, the best schools and the best teaching aids will be of little value if the parents, because of financial stringency, cannot afford to allow their children to remain at school. The honorable member for Perth **(Mr. Chaney)** recently said that there were very few instances of a brilliant child leaving school to supplement the family income. I hope in the course of the next few minutes to prove that a substantial number of children leave school and do not continue their studies. Children should be given the fullest opportunities to develop their talents so that they can meet the difficulties that exist in the world to-day. I have here the report of the committee appointed to survey secondary education in New South Wales. It is known generally as the Wyndham report. The committee consisted of outstanding people in the field of education, with exceptional academic qualifications, and their views are worthy of consideration. On page 80 this comment appears in the summary of conclusions and recommendations of the committee - >Perhaps the more significant aspect of the fact that little more than one-half of pupils entering secondary school complete three years of the course is that, among those who leave during the junior years, there is a considerable number of pupils of undoubted talent. I want to see those children of undoubted talent given an opportunity to continue their studies and be permitted within the measure of their capacity and intellect to play their part in the new challenging world that faces mankind at the present time. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- Who made that statement? {: .speaker-KID} ##### Mr LUCHETTI: -- The honorable member for Perth made the criticism and in reply 1 have read this statement from the Wyndham report submitted to the Parliament of New South Wales. The recommendations of this report are being adopted by that State at the present time. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- How long ago was that report presented? {: .speaker-KID} ##### Mr LUCHETTI: -- It is only a recent document. It was presented to the Government in 1957 and its recommendations are now being implemented. On the broad question of education a statement has been circulated from the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies).** On a number of occasions he expressed a different view on this subject. Not many years ago he addressed himself to the question of the need of additional education for the young people of our country. Honorable members in this chamber have received a circular excusing the Commonwealth Government and referring to the constitutional situation. I want to say to the Prime Minister, at once, that what has been done with regard to the Murray report is of exceptional value to this country. We believe that by making available the best universities, the people who are able to attend those places and benefit from their teaching and facilities will be greatly helped in their education. But we remind the Government that these opportunities are still confined to the few. It would be better if they could be thrown open to the great mass of students free of cost so that the greatest possible number might be enabled to reach the higher branches of the tree of learning. In August, 1946, when the Prime Minister was Leader of the Opposition, he had the following to say on education, when delivering his preelection policy speech in the Camberwell Town Hall, Victoria: - >Education is at present, for all practical purposes, a State matter. But the Uniform Tax laws have meant that the States can no longer regard their direct revenues as flexible, while they have no powers of indirect taxation at all. Under these circumstances, if the educational needs of our people are to be satisfied, a measure of Commonwealth financial assistance will be required. There is much work to be done in the improvement of country educational facilities, in technical and University education, in adult education, in the raising of the qualifications, status, and remuneration of the teaching profession. > >The Liberal Party, if returned to office, will confer with the States with a view to devising ways and means of supplementing the States' financial capacity to make a real attack upon these problems. Indeed, we cannot be satisfied that we are even beginning to build a postwar world unless we can say that the training of the minds, bodies, and characters of. boys and girls for useful, intelligent and unselfish citizenship is taking a leading place in our policies and actions. That is not being done at the present time. I have before me figures issued by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics showing the number of pupils who left school at 14 years of age and upwards. The date is 1st August, 1955, which was the latest available. In that year pupils who left school at 14 years of age numbered 1400 in New South Wales, 7,127 in Victoria, 6,040 in Queensland, 2,456 in South Australia, 2,424 in Western Australia and 296 in Tasmania, making a total of 19,743. Whether they were compelled or for other reasons left school at that time, the fact is that they were denied the opportunity of further education. Surely these figures are a challenge to the members of this committee. They are certainly a challenge to every person concerned about the advancement and development of this nation. They are certainly disconcerting. The Prime Minister acknowledges the problem. He knows that although the Commonwealth Government is not clothed with the constitutional power and authority in this respect, it did something with regard to university education. I submit that if it was good enough to help the universities it ought to be good enough to help boys and girls to avail themselves of further educational opportunities. I have in my hand further tables of figures which I have received from the Commonwealth Office of Education which are enlightening and stimulating. They are not provocative; they simply show the number of boys and girls who left State schools and non-State schools. With the concurrence of the committee I shall incorporate them in " Hansard ". They are as follows:- When the honorable members have the opportunity to peruse these figures they will see that they include the numbers of students who began at secondary schools in New South Wales and left at various stages. The average commencing age was thirteen years and two months. For the first year there was a 100 per cent. enrolment but in the second year the attendance dwindled to 71.3 per cent., in the third year to 40.6 per cent., in the fourth year to 9.9 per cent. and in the fifth year to 7.5 per cent. That happened in 1945. True, a better system of education has developed since then and the States have given encouragement to students to go right through their secondary training. But in 1954, although there was a 100 per cent. enrolment in the first year, the attendance dwindled in the succeeding years. {: #subdebate-35-0-s5 .speaker-JWV} ##### The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Mr Chaney:
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA -- Order! The honorable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-35-0-s6 .speaker-KEE} ##### Sir WILFRID KENT HUGHES:
Chisholm -- I wish to refer to page 24 of the Auditor-General's report dealing with the Sixteenth Olympiad, Melbourne. This is an item covered by the Prime Minister's Department. The report reads - >Details of commitments and expenditure incurred by the Commonwealth were given in previous Reports. The net operating loss incurred in promoting the Games has still not been ascertained, consequently the Commonwealth's contribution has yet to be finally determined- {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: -- What did you do with the money? {: .speaker-KEE} ##### Sir WILFRID KENT HUGHES: -- I will tell you in a minute. Owing to a misinterpretation and partly on account of unfortunate phraseology used during a press interview with the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** headlines appeared in the newspapers of 1st February, 1957, of which the following was typical: - ?300,000 Games Loss Reported After Check On Mess. The Prime Minister did not use the word " mess " in his press interview. Other similar headlines appeared and unfortunately similar reports were sent even overseas. The " London Times " of 1st February, 1957, carried the following report: - > **Mr. Menzies** said today that there were disturbing symptoms of extravagance in the financial results of the Olympic Games. The operating loss would be very much more than the ?A200,000, which the Commonwealth and Victorian Governments had guaranteed as an overdraft for preliminary expenses. The Commonwealth Government had no obligation beyond ?A200,000. If it accepted any it would only be after examination. " It is all very astonishing " **Mr. Menzies** said. The Commonwealth had not asked for the Games and did not come into them until very much later. It had contributed very heavily to their capital expenses. That statement is not correct because the late J. B. Chifley did play quite a significant part in the original application that the games be held in Melbourne. He was the Prime Minister at the time when the request was first made. It was unfortunate that the expressions to which I have referred were used because, after the reference to some disturbing symptoms of extravagance, the statement did not give an accurate account of what the Prime Minister had said. He stated: " But I may be wrong ". We shall find out whether the statement is correct. I have here an analysis of what are practically the final accounts of the promotional side of the Olympic Games. The balance-sheet shows a loss of ?318,000. In the first place, the loss that was incurred due to the Suez incident and the tragedy of Hungary, both international events which occurred just prior to the Games being held, as a result of which some 200 or 300 athletes - perhaps more - did not come to the Games, cannot be laid at the door of the organizing committee. We were not responsible for these international events. I should think that the loss resulting from those two unfortunate incidents was somewhere about ?40,000, but I shall take into account only half of that amount - ?20,000. Another expense which was not a promotional expense, was the cost of keeping the village open for ten days longer than we should normally have done to look after the 44 athletes who had asked for political asylum. With transport charges and all the other associated expenses of their prolonged stay - I do not think that a single honorable member in this chamber would begrudge the expenditure incurred in looking after those athletes - let us put the cost down at ?10,000. So that is ?30,000 in expenses which were not the direct responsibility of the organizing committee. Now let us analyse the remainder of the non-promotional items which appear on the expenditure side in that part of the balancesheet. Discount on tickets to members of the Melbourne Cricket Club amounted to £37,500. Members of the club were allowed a 25 per cent, discount on tickets, as well as priority booking. In addition, the club was paid £40,000 rent, if I remember rightly, and had its ground remodelled at a cost of not less than £150,000, which it would have had to spend in any case unless it wanted the bowlers to run up-hill. The bowlers would almost have had to put on seal-skins like skiers who want to climb up a mountainside on skis. The club was given two extra acres of land and a grant of £100,000 as a gift to meet the cost of construction of an olympic stand. Those expenses total £327,000. I am not complaining; good luck to the club! However, the discount on members' tickets amounting to £37,500 could hardly be regarded as a promotional expense because that deduction was granted in addition to the rental, which, in my opinion, was quite sufficient reimbursement to the club. The onganizing committee also suggested that tickets- for the opening and closing ceremonies were priced too low at £3 each. Treasury, officials said that we would not sell the tickets if the price was too high, and we replied, in effect, " You are taking the profit or the loss. We shall leave the matter at that." I think that £7 a ticket is being charged for admission to the opening and closing ceremonies at the Games to be held, in Rome. Then there were at least three constructional items. The first was the basketball court, for which we paid £15,000. The asset remains and the court is being used for professional basket-ball games. The second constructional item was the Heidelberg track, which cost £21,000; that track is still in use. The third item was the university track, which cost £20,000; that track also is still in use. It is a great asset to the university. Those three items total £56,000. I suggest - I think with a considerable amount of justice - that those three are constructional items, not promotional items. Then there were the expenses of the Australian team - uniforms, fares, transporting members of the team to Cortina and Stockholm and to and from the Olympic village - which total £80,000. Whether the Games had been held in Melbourne or in any other part of the world there would have been these charges for sending our team to the Games. Actually, that cost could not be regarded as a promotional charge when considering the expenditure on the 1956 Games. In other words, that amount debited to the promotional side would have had to be paid whether or not the Games had been held in Melbourne. Finally, the taxation collected by the Federal and State Governments which should be offset against any loss because, after all, the Federal and State Governments received the taxes as direct revenue, amounted to £65,000 for amusement tax, £15,000 for pay-roll tax and, at a conservative estimate, another £70,000 in other forms of tax such as customs and excise duties and sales tax. We even paid customs duty on a film when it came into Australia; we sent it back to Germany for processing, and paid customs duty again when it came back into Australia. I estimate that £200,000 was collected in taxes, but I shall cut the figure to £150,000. Therefore, the total non-promotional expenditure under these heads amounts to £323,500, including the discount to the Melbourne Cricket Club members of £37,50.0 plus £30,000 loss because of events at Suez and in Hungary. In England the Games were exempted from payment of amusement tax and many other taxes, but in Australia because the Federal and State Governments had guaranteed to meet any loss, they wanted to collect all their own taxes. I can understand their attitude because of our Federal-State financial arrangements. Without taking into account the losses due to the Suez incident, the Hungarian tragedy and the political asylum that was granted to the 44 athletes, the promotional side just about balanced its accounts or even showed a small profit. The Melbourne Cricket Club made a very handsome profit in the vicinity of £300,000, as recompense for certain matches which could not be played - there were not many - and the revenue that the club would have obtained from those matches. I have not taken into account sales tax that would have flowed to the Government from visitors' expenditure. According to the Commonwealth Statistician the additional foreign funds that came into Australia amounted to £2,000,000. Profit on the special Olympic stamps which were issued by the Post Office, and which I believe was very high, have not been taken into account because these kind of things were offset by the tremendous amount of work that was done not only by Postal Department officials but also by many government departments, particularly service departments, which helped to make the Games a success. I have limited my remarks to the items which I have enumerated. On the constructional side the organizing committee was not responsible for any expenditure because we were told that we could not handle the work involved and were asked to appoint a committee of business men to do so. That committee did a magnificent job. A loss of £100,000 resulted from the donation to the Melbourne Cricket Club for their stand; a loss of £50,000 on interest on the village - which amount the Federal Government very kindly did not charge until the Games had been concluded - and other losses amounted to about £100,000, in all a total of £200,000. When one reviews the complete financial situation and realizes the tremendous publicity that Australia received and the amount of international goodwill that was created, not by the organizers, not by the athletes and not by the officials singly, but collectively, and by all the Australian people who created such an atmosphere of sportsmanship and goodwill which is still talked about practically all over the world, one must admit that the Olympic Games were the cheapest event that has ever been staged in the peace-time history of Australia. I should like to take this opportunity to thank not only the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition **(Dr. Evatt),** the then Treasurer, **Sir Arthur** Fadden, and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr. Calwell),** but also every honorable member of this Parliament for the support that they gave in financing the games. That, of course, was in addition to the members of the State Parliament and of the Melbourne City Council. I do not think that any of us will begrudge the financial result Naturally, there may have been one or two cases of extravagance. I stopped one or two myself. I know that we lost a lot of money on the village, but how were we to know that at least 20 per cent, of the athletes would not turn up to dinner because they had been invited to go out to so many Australian homes. If they had turned up and the food had not been there, we would have been in trouble. The Olympic village was one of the best advertisements for us. It is still talked about. When T was in the Far East last year the talk was not of the games themselves but of the atmosphere, the Olympic village and the whole setup that created such goodwill for us. We could not have bought that goodwill for £20,000,000. In fact, I do not think that we could have bought it for any price at all. Therefore, I am delighted that the results are as I have fairly and factually stated them to the committee to-night. I should like to congratulate the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies),** as president of the games, on having received the highest honour from the International Olympic Committee - their diploma for the man who did the most for the Olympic spirit and the Olympic Games of 1956. May I make one final plea? I hope that, in view of what amateur athletic officials and competitors have done for Australia, the Government will reconsider the question of making donations to Olympic funds to send athletes to future Olympic games overseas a deduction for income tax purposes. In the meantime, I hope that nobody will cavil at the financial statement which has been prepared by the winding-up committee. It did not do things in quite the same way as we would have done them if we had had our own winding-up committee. But the Government asked that this work should be carried out by a representative of the Federal Treasury, a representative of the State Treasury and a representative of the Australian Olympic Federation. This relieved me and those under me of a lot of responsibility. I say to these three people, "Thank you for the job that you have done. It has not been an easy one. Far be it from me to criticize this or that phase of it." Now that the games have been completely wound up I wanted to say these few words and to render thanks on behalf of the organizing committee to the Federal Parliament as a whole. {: #subdebate-35-0-s7 .speaker-1V4} ##### Mr CAIRNS:
Yarra .- I should like to take up again, at this point, the question of education as it comes within the limits of the Commonwealth Office of Education. There is an issue between the Government and the Opposition in relation to education. The Opposition endeavoured to make that issue quite clear on 26th August, 1958, during the debate on the Estimates of that year and we desire to make that issue between the Opposition and the Government equally clear in this year, 1959. The matter at issue in relation to education between the Government and the Opposition is this: The Commonwealth Government has entered the field of what is called State education by directly assisting education in universities - at a tertiary level. But, so far, the Commonwealth Government has resisted in every way a similar entry into the fields of secondary and primary education. We of the Opposition believe that the Commonwealth Government should enter into the field of secondary and primary education as it has entered the field of tertiary eduction. There can be no doubt now that the Commonwealth has full constitutional power to do this. On a previous occasion, the Prime Minister **(Mr. Menzies)** said that education was a State responsibility. He meant, I assume, that it was, in fact, a State responsibility and not that it was a State constitutional responsibility because, in the debate last year, at page 745 of Hansard he is reported as follows: - >Constitutionally, of course, we can make a grant to a State in respect of practically anything, attaching such conditions as this Parliament thinks fit. So it is quite clear that there is adequate constitutional power and that both sides of this committee are in agreement on that point. We say, though, that this power should be used to enter the field of secondary and primary education as it has been used in the case of universities. Let me look, for the moment, at the position of university education, before I go on to secondary and primary education. First of all, there has been, in recent years, a considerable advance in university education. To-day, there are about 1,000 more members of university staffs in Australia than there were in 1949. There are about 100 more professors than there were in 1949. Between 7,500 and 8,000 more students attend universities than attended ten years ago. Our universities now have an additional 10,500 students, approximately, each year and there are about 600 more graduates a year than there were ten years ago. This is quite rapid development but I think that we tend to be too complacent about it. We think that what happened before the Murray report was not so bad, and that what has been happening since is simply wonderful. That is not the position. There has been a growth in university facilities, numbers of students, expenditure and so on, which has probably been more rapid than the corresponding growth in secondary and tertiary education. That much is certainly true. But in universities all over the Commonwealth many faculties have quotas and restrictions on the entry of students- The facilities which are not adequate to-day will be less adequate in two or three years time even if they continue to expand at the present rate. In the next ten years, it is expected that there will be an extraordinarily rapid increase in the number of students of university age. Even if there is no great increase in the proportion of those attending universities, the facilities will have to be more than doubled in that space of time to provide for those requiring them. If we continue to finance universities, even at the better rate established following the Murray Committee, this will not be done. It is a matter of catching up with a moving target - a target which has not been moving much more rapidly than the rate of increase in assistance in the last two or three years, but which will commence to move, in 1961, at a much more rapid rate than that. So, even in the case of universities, the rate of development is not nearly rapid enough. We must not be complacent about the pattern that has been laid down as a result of the very fine and adequate - for its time - Murray report. In fact, the Murray report was four or five years later than it should have been. University staff associations all over Australia had been advocating this course of action for four or five years before it became a reality. When we turn to secondary and primary education the position is much worse. There is a tendency for Governments all over Australia to quote the kind of figures that are found in the White Paper on National Income and Expenditure. In this we find that whereas total expenditure on education as a whole in Australia in 1949- 50 was £32,000,000 it has risen to £111,000,000 to-day, an increase of about three and a half times. We see money figures of this sort bandied about, not only in relation to education, but in relation to pensions, social services, and other things. This appears to be done in the belief that it constitutes substantial evidence of increased assistance to these services. But increased expenditure on education must be associated in our minds with the increased number of students. In 1949 there were 810,800 students in attendance at government schools. This would probably represent three-quarters of total school attendances. That figure had risen to about 1,375,000 by 1958, an increase of about 75 per cent. Then there is the increase in the costs of running these schools. The current costs - not the capital costs - of running these schools have gone up by about 100 per cent. When we take into account the increased number of students and the increased costs of running schools at the same real level, we find that the increased amount of real money spent on education per head of the students in the schools has fallen in the last ten years, despite this extraordinarily large, apparently increased amount of money spent. That is the position with regard to primary and secondary schools in general. Let us now look at some particular aspects of these schools, such as the aspect of technical education. We find that the number of students in 1949, for example, was 153,547, and this had risen to no more than 188,000 in 1958, an increase of about 25 per cent, in the number of students attending technical schools. Although I have not available the separate amount of expenditure throughout those years for technical schools, I know that the amount of expenditure on technical schools has fallen very considerably per head of students involved. Then there are what one might call the extra school activities such as libraries, public museums, art galleries and adult education. Although there has been development in all these spheres, with the full time employment of a few more people in them, that development has not kept pace in any way with the development of the economy in general, or with particular aspects of the development of the economy in general. The concern displayed a few years after the war for things like adult education has almost completely atrophied to-day, although a far greater need for these extra school activities exists to-day than ever before. I was pleased to hear the honorable member for Wentworth **(Mr. Bury),** who was the first speaker in this debate on the Government side, agree that expenditure on education in Australia was completely inadequate. I should like to hear the view of the Prime Minister on that question. Implicit in the speech he made on 26th August last year was the statement that expenditure on education in the States was inadequate. The honorable member for Wentworth went on to say that this was no argument for the entry of the Commonwealth into the fields of primary and secondary education, and the Prime Minister, last year, when reviewing the amount of expenditure on education, justified what the Commonwealth had done by saying - >We have in fact made tax reimbursements that far exceed the amounts provided by the formula on which all the States had agreed in 1947. > >So our withers are unwrong on this matter. Apparently because the Government has satisfied itself that the total amount of tax reimbursements exceeds the formula requirements or in totals are adequate, no doubt it follows from that that it is satisfied with the situation with regard to education. I should like to have the Prime Minister's view of whether he considers sufficient is being spent on education in the Commonwealth to-day. Of course, there are various arguments raised against the proposition that the Commonwealth should enter in some way into the field of secondary and primary education. There is the argument, first of all, that was raised by the honorable member for Wentworth in this debate. Once he had uttered that frightening word " centralization ", he seemed to think he had answered everything that the Opposition had said. I think people to-day are far too easily put off by words. Apparently the entry of the Commonwealth into the field of university education has not produced any terrible centralization. It seems to me that the universities are much happier as the result of the entry of the Commonwealth into their field, and I do not see any reason whatever why the entry of the Commonwealth into the fields of secondary and primary education should produce any more centralization than has been produced in the university field. I think it is rather inappropriate that there should have been seriously raised in a debate of this sort the idea that we might get some centralization from something the Commonwealth does and therefore that should be raised as an irremovable objection to the Commonwealth's entry into this field. The objections raised last year by the Prime Minister are perhaps of a somewhat more substantial order. His first objection was that education was a State problem and the Commonwealth faced the resistance of State governments and State Premiers. He told us that no Premier had ever asked for assistance. Perhaps that is some kind of a problem. He said, as is recorded on page 746 of last year's " Hansard " - and this seems to be the crowning point in his answer - that when you get to the last resort you have to face the practical problem of where to get the money. Where do you get the money to spend on education? I will give one answer to the Prime Minister. He could have saved the £20,000,000 he has given to the taxpayers by way of a reduction in taxes of 5 per cent., a reduction which nobody asked for, which nobody expected, and which nobody will much appreciate. It would have been possible to use that £20,000,000 to far, far better purposes than the Government intends to use it. It seems to me that this inquiry as to where the money is to come from is raised only in connexion with things that have some really good purpose. We do not wonder where the money is coming from to develop Can berra, perhaps a little bit ahead of its time in some respects. We do not worry where the £192,000,000 for war and defence is coming from in a year which follows the Prime Minister's own statement that war is less likely than it has ever been before. The Government intends to spend more on defence this year than it spent in the year the Prime Minister said we had to prepare for war within three years. On matters of that sort, the question of where the money comes from is never seriously raised. I think that given good intent on the part of all those involved and a willingness to try to remove some of the difficulties, there would be no real problem to the entry of the Commonwealth into the primary and secondary fields of education. I feel that the main reason for this is that there is no other way to get sufficient money. The Prime Minister, in his policy speech in 1946 - he was Leader of the Opposition and his speech was read by the honorable member for Macquarie a few minutes ago - showed that he then believed there was no other way of getting adequate money for education except by the entry of the Commonwealth into some fields of educational finance. The **CHAIRMAN (Mr. Bowden).Order!** The honorable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-35-0-s8 .speaker-JLU} ##### Mr ANDERSON:
Hume .- I will not delay the committee long, but I should like to answer some of the remarks made by the honorable member for Macquarie **(Mr. Luchetti)** and the honorable member for Yarra **(Mr. Cairns).** I remember that during the last budget debate an identical speech was made on the Office of Education by the honorable member for Macquarie. Those who were present at the time will recall how he extolled the virtues of New South Wales. The State has not done a bad job in the education field. It has a splendid body of men and women on its teaching staff. The honorable member for Macquarie asked for more money for New South Wales. Let us have a look at the way that the State government has spent money that it could bc spending on education. The arbitration court in New South Wales followed the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration and suspended quarterly adjustments to the basic wage. By legislation the New South Wales Government overruled its arbitration court, and in some years the cost to the State has been up to £3,500,000. The Commonwealth is being asked to supply money to the State in order to enable it to develop a political manoeuvre. I refer to the granting of three weeks' annual leave. Whatever the virtues of three weeks' annual leave may be I do not want to debate them now, but the fact is that the granting of three weeks' annual leave costs money. The Commonwealth Government is expected to provide more money for education while the New South Wales Government uses its money to give three weeks' annual leave. In the case of equal pay for men and women, the pattern is the same. More money is demanded from the Commonwealth for education, but the New South Wales Government uses the money it gets for party political purposes. I do not think it is right that this move should be made continually against the Commonwealth Government. We should examine these matters more carefully. When the Minister for Education introduces his Estimates in the Budget debate in New South Wales it will be found that he will speak in glowing terms of the magnificent work that the Education Department in that State is doing. He will not say that there is a shortage of money. Only honorable members of this House say that. The Premier of New South Wales, **Mr. Cahill,** has never asked for more money but as the debate on the Estimates develops in this chamber, the Opposition will continually seek more money for the States and for New South Wales in particular. When we are discussing housing, it will be found that more money will be sought from the Commonwealth Government by the Opposition for that State. That will be seen also in the discussions on war service land settlement and on hospitals. During the discussion on every single head of expenditure, the charge will be levied against this Government of being a mean, ornery government opposed to New South Wales. The fact is that this year, £35,000,000 more will be provided for the States following ten years of generous treatment of the States by this Government. A halt must be called. The argument in the case of the universities is quite different. The Commonwealth Government has some responsibility in respect of the universities because of the post-war reconstruction and training scheme for ex-servicemen. That is one of the reasons why the Commonwealth Government stepped in, and it treated the States with the same generosity it has always shown towards them. There is a reason for this continual pressure from the Opposition side for more help for education. I am convinced that it is because of the Opposition's political philosophy. It believes that the Commonwealth Government should dip its hands into every walk of life in Australia. This desire for a uniform cover for education is extremely unhealthy. Every country diversifies its education but the Opposition in this Parliament approaches all problems along the lines of its own philosophy. I assure the committee that during the discussions on every heading in every department, there will be the same groaning and moaning from the Opposition for more money for the States. I say that the States have been treated generously. They have ample funds at their disposal and their own taxing fields. I would strongly oppose the interference of the Commonwealth in State education. It is a State job. We, as a federal government, must remain a federal government. {: .speaker-KID} ##### Mr Luchetti: -- I rise to make a personal explanation, **Mr. Chairman.** In opening his speech, the honorable member for Hume **(Mr. Anderson)** said that I made the same speech as I made last year on the vote for the Prime Minister's Department concerning the Commonwealth Office of Education. I give that statement a categorical denial. I say to the honorable member and to the committee that I did not speak on that subject last year. The facts, however, remain the same. There still exists a need for the Commonwealth Government to redeem its promises. Progress reported. House adjourned at 10.55 p.m. {: .page-start } page 791 {:#debate-36} ### ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS The following answers to questions were circulated: - {:#subdebate-36-0} #### Superannuation {: #subdebate-36-0-s0 .speaker-KDA} ##### Mr Duthie: e asked the Treasurer, upon notice - >Will he prepare a statement setting out the following information concerning the Commonwealth Superannuation Fund: - (a) The amount of accumulated funds; (b) the manner in which these funds are invested; (c) the annual income from Commonwealth contributors, (d) the annual payments made from the fund; (e) the amount contributed by the Commonwealth Government since the inception of the fund; and (f) the number of contributors? {: #subdebate-36-0-s1 .speaker-009MC} ##### Mr Harold Holt:
LP -- The answer to the honorable member's question is as follows: - {: type="a" start="a"} 0. At 30th June, 1959- £62,844,079; (b) a complete list of the investments is given on pages 58 to 63 of the Statement of Receipts and Expenditure for the year ended 30th June, 1959; (c) year ended 30th June, 1959- £6,456,263; (d) year ended 30th June, 1959- £2,344,958; (e) £39,433,235; (f) at 30th June, 1958-104,731. {:#subdebate-36-1} #### Government Loans and Finance {: #subdebate-36-1-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the Treasurer, upon notice - 1, What was the amount subscribed to Commonwealth Government loans raised in Australia during the year ended on the30th June, 1959? {: type="1" start="2"} 0. Of this amount, how much was directly subscribed by (a) private banks; (b) private insurance companies; (c) other private financial organizations; (d) the general public; (e) Commonwealth Trust Funds; and (f) other sources? {: #subdebate-36-1-s1 .speaker-009MC} ##### Mr Harold Holt:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. During the year ended 30th June, 1959, £174,316,000 was received in cash subscriptions to Commonwealth Government public loans issued in Australia. The composition of this total was as follows: - In order to complete the 1958-59 borrowing programme approved by the Loan Council, and to finance advances to the States for War Service Land Settlement, the Commonwealth on 30th June, 1959 subscribed £10,000,000 to a specialloan from the Loan Consolidation and Investment Reserve. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. As explained in replies I gave in the House on 11th March and 8th April, 1959, to similar questions asked by the honorable member for Melbourne Ports and the honorable member for Yarra respectively, it has not been the policy of this Government, or of preceding Governments, to release details of subscriptions to Commonwealth loans unless publicity is specifically requested by the subscribers concerned. Standardization of Railway from Marree to Alice Springs. {: #subdebate-36-1-s2 .speaker-ZL6} ##### Mr Hasluck:
Minister for Territories · CURTIN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP k. - On 19th August, the honorable member for Grey **(Mr. Russell),** asked the following question - >I desire to direct a question to the Minister for Territories. I ask: What action has the Government taken to standardize the railway line from Marree to Alice Springs? Can the Minister say when it is contemplated that a start will be made on this important work, which will be of immense benefit not only to the Commonwealth and the State of South Australia but also to the very important division of Grey? In my reply I said that the matter was one which came within the jurisdiction of my colleague the Minister for Shipping and Transport and that I would bring it to his notice.I have now been informed by the Minister that the Railway Standardization (South Australia) Agreement Act 1949 contains the following provision: - " 21. The Commonwealth shall undertake - {: type="a" start="a"} 0. the conversion to standard gauge of the 3 ft. 6in. gauge lines of the Commonwealth Railways from Port Augusta to Alice Springs, the conversion to standard gauge of existing locomotives and rolling stock suitable for conversion, and the construction of standard gauge locomotives and rolling stock to the extent necessary to replace the existing capacity of all units unsuitable for conversion to standard gauge; 1. the construction of a new standard gauge railway from Alice Springs to Birdum and the construction of the standard gauge locomotives and rolling stock necessary to operate this line; and 2. the conversion to standard gauge of the 3 ft. 6in. gauge Commonwealth Railway line from Birdum to Darwin, the conversion to standard gauge of existing locomotives and rolling stock suitable for conversion and the construction of standard gauge locomotives and rolling stock to the extent necessary to replace existing capacity of all units unsuitable for conversion to standard gauge." Some preliminary investigation work has been carried out in respect of the standardization of the line between Marree and Alice Springs but no decision has yet been reached as to the date of commencement of this project. {:#subdebate-36-2} #### Indonesia {: #subdebate-36-2-s0 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the acting Minister for External Affairs, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Was the Government consulted and kept fully informed by the United Kingdom before that nation entered into contracts to supply equipment and arms to Indonesia? 1. Can he state whether the United Kingdom proposes to place any limit on the quantity, or any restrictions on the type, of armaments to be supplied; if so, what are the details? 2. Is it the intention of the Government to attempt to maintain parity in armaments with Indonesia, or is it satisfied with the assurance of that country that these armaments are to be used only for internal security purposes and the defence of its own independence? {: #subdebate-36-2-s1 .speaker-126} ##### Sir Garfield Barwick:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. This part of the question has already been dealt with in a reply given on 7th April, to a question on notice asked by the honorable member. 1. The Government does not propose to enter into any speculative discussion of the future policy of another Commonwealth Government. 2. As Australia relies on collective defence arrangements, the question of maintaining parity of armaments with any country does not arise. The matters dealt with in the remainder of this question were fully covered in the reply to the earlier question by the honorable member referred to above. {:#subdebate-36-3} #### Shipping {: #subdebate-36-3-s0 .speaker-KDV} ##### Mr Jones:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA s asked the Minister representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Were four Australian National Line river class ships recently disposed of for £60,000 each? 1. Was the cost of delivery £30,000 per ship? 2. If so, is this delivery cost to be met by the Australian National Line or the purchaser? 3. Can the Minister state if an Australian shipping company has purchased the old Norwegian ship " M.V. Slevik "7 4. Is import duty applicable; if not, was a special by-law made to declare the transaction duty free? {: #subdebate-36-3-s1 .speaker-KIF} ##### Mr Hulme:
Minister for Supply · PETRIE, QUEENSLAND · LP -- The Minister for Shipping and Transport has furnished the following replies: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Four Australian National Line vessels were sold to Albert G. Sims Limited for £A55,000 each and one to Djakarta Lloyd for £A87,500. 2 and 3. No costs of delivery were involved in the sale to Albert G. Sims Limited as the contract required the buyer to accept delivery in Australia. The contract for the sale of the " River Burdekin " to Djakarta Lloyd required the Australian National Line to deliver the ship to Djakarta. The estimated cost of delivery for this vessel is £A28,000 which will be met by the Australian National Line. 1. Approval has been given to Coast Steamships Limited to import the four year old vessel " Slevik " for use in its service to ports on Eyre Peninsula previously served by the vessel " Yandra " which was wrecked early this year. 2. An application made to the Department of Customs and Excise for by-law admission of " Slevik " is being examined by the department. {: #subdebate-36-3-s2 .speaker-KX7} ##### Mr Ward: d asked the Minister representing the Minister for Shipping and Transport, upon notice: - >Can he state whether two of the four river class vessels which were sold to Messrs. A. G. Sims Limited by the Australian National Shipping Line because they were regarded as being of no further use are to continue in service under their new ownership? {: #subdebate-36-3-s3 .speaker-KIF} ##### Mr Hulme:
LP -- The Minister for Shipping and Transport has replied as follows: - >The vessels sold to Albert G. Sims Limited were overdue for survey at the time of the sale and were granted extensions of their classification certificates by Lloyds to enable them to be sailed from Australia. It is understood to be the intention of the new owner to scrap two of the vessels on their arrival in Japan and to operate the other two on foreign articles until their extended certificates expire and then scrap them. Sale of Commonwealth Vessels. {: #subdebate-36-3-s4 .speaker-N76} ##### Mr Menzies:
LP s. - On 19th August, the honorable member for East Sydney **(Mr. Ward)** asked me a question without notice about the recent sale of four " River " class ships by the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission. I said at that time that I would have the matter looked into urgently, and I am now in a position to provide the honorable member with the information he requested. The legislation under which the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission was established recognizes the right of a member of the commission to be interested in a contract made by the commission provided that, except when his only interest is as a shareholder in an incorporated body of more than 25 members, he discloses his interest to the commission. This rule applies to a number of Commonwealth authorities. The sale of these four vessels was negotiated on behalf of the commission by Westralian Farmers Transport Limited of London and the commission accepted the offer of Albert G. Sims Limited made through J. P. Williams and Associates, brokers. This was the best offer received both as to price and other conditions. Captain J. P. Williams, the chairman of the commission, is a member of the firm of J. P. Williams and Associates, but the commission is aware of his interests in the firm and of the fact that, following his appointment to the commission, Captain Williams arranged with his partners that in future he would take no share in any business which the firm might have with the commission. The deputy chairman of the commission is **Mr. K.** W. Edwards, an employee of and holder of a small number of shares in Westralian Farmers Co-operative Limited, Perth, of which Westralian Farmers Transport Limited, London, is a subsidiary. **Mr. Edwards's** position is also known to the commission and Westralian Farmers Transport Limited has for many years acted for the commission and its predecessor and for other Commonwealth instrumentalities. I have looked into this transaction and I am satisfied that no member of the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission has lodged a claim for brokerage on the sale of these vessels, and that no member of the commission has had a financial interest in the transaction. {:#subdebate-36-4} #### Trans-Australia Airlines Repair Workshop {: #subdebate-36-4-s0 .speaker-KYS} ##### Mr Reynolds:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES s asked the Minister representing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Has Trans-Australia Airlines decided to carry out its own overhaul and repair work in Melbourne instead of having it carried out by the Rolls-Royce Company Limited, at Mascot? 1. If so, what is the value and type of RollsRoyce equipment to be transferred to Melbourne? 2. Is the test house plant and equipment of the Rolls-Royce company, which is capable of handling two engines on test at the same time, to be transferred; if not, what is the estimated cost of building and equipping test houses in Melbourne? 3. What is the total estimated cost of the proposed transfer? 4. Under the new arrangement, will TransAustralia Airlines continue to receive the preferential discount of 31 per cent, on all Dart engine spares? 5. Has consideration been given at any stage to taking over the Rolls-Royce works at Mascot as a going concern as the repair and overhaul workshop for Trans-Australia Airlines? {: #subdebate-36-4-s1 .speaker-KWH} ##### Mr Townley:
LP -- The Minister for Civil Aviation has replied as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Yes. The decision is in line with the practice followed by all major overseas operators of Rolls Dart engines, including British European Airways, who recently made a similar decision. The transfer was discussed with and agreed by the RollsRoyce organization. 1. Negotiations are proceeding between TransAustralia Airlines and Rolls-Royce of Australia Proprietary Limited for the purchase of general equipment, an engine test bed, tooling and associated equipment of the approximate value of £100,000. 2. It is not practicable to transfer the existing Rolls-Royce test house, as this is a permanent building and it is equipped to handle the Rolls-Royce Avon pure jet engine as well as the Dart. The estimated cost of the Dart test house which is now under construction for T.A.A. in Melbourne is approximately £80,000. 3. The total estimated cost of the physical removal transfer and re-installation of equipment and tooling from Rolls-Royce, Mascot, to T.A.A. workshops, Melbourne, is approximately £5,000. 4. T.A.A. will continue to pay the same net prices for spare parts as are now in force. 5. Yes, but greater savings can be effected by the integration of Dart engine overhauls into its principal workshops at Melbourne. Tabling of Reports on Development of the Territories. {: #subdebate-36-4-s2 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: m asked the Minister for Territories, upon notice - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Did he table, on 13th March, 1956, a report by the Honorable F. J. S. Wise on the prospects of agricultural and pastoral development in the Northern Territory? 1. Has he refused to table a report which he received on 19th November, 1958, from **Mr. A.** L. Rose on the prospects of pastoral development in Papua and New Guinea? 2. What is the reason for these contrary decisions? 3. Did he, on 25th July last, appoint a committee to report on the prospects of agriculture in the Northern Territory? 4. Will he table the committee's report when he receives it? {: #subdebate-36-4-s3 .speaker-ZL6} ##### Mr Hasluck:
LP -- The answers to the honorable member's questions are as follows: - {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Yes. 1. No. In reply to a previous question asked by the honorable member I explained that the report by **Mr. A.** L. Rose does not fall within any category of papers which would normally be presented to Parliament. 2. The report by **Mr. F.** J. S. Wise covered inquiries and investigations made by him on an overseas visit and was a study of the methods used in the development of areas in other countries having conditions and problems similar to those in the Northern Territory. The report contained many recommendations concerning the lines of development which could be adopted in the Northern Territory and was tabled for the information of members. The report by **Mr. A.** L. Rose was an administrative report by a departmental officer and dealt with technical and confidential departmental matters. It is not customary to table departmental papers. 3. Yes. 4. This will be decided when the report of the committee has been received.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 1 September 1959, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1959/19590901_reps_23_hor24/>.

View PDF View XML View in Voyant