Senate
2 June 1976

30th Parliament · 1st Session

  1. Senate
  2. 30th Parliament
  3. 1976

The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Condor Laucke) took the chair at 11.15 a.m., and read prayers.

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PETITIONS

Social Security Matters

Senator GIETZELT:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition from 84 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate, in Parliament assembled, the Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That distress is being caused to social security recipients by the delay in adjusting pensions to the Consumer Prices Index months after prices of goods and services have risen, and that medications which were formerly pharmaceutical benefits must now be paid for.

Additionally, that State housing authorities’ waiting lists for low rental dwellings for pensioners grow ever longer, and the cost of funerals increase ever greater.

Your petitioners call on the Australian Government as a matter of urgency to-

Adjust social security payments instantly and automatically when the quarterly Consumer Prices Index is announced.

Restore pharmaceutical benefits deleted from the free list.

Update the State Grants (Dwellings for Pensioners) Act of 1974, eroded by inflation, to increase grants to overcome the backlog.

Update Funeral Benefit to 60 per cent of reasonable cost of funeral. (This benefit was 200 shillings, 20 dollars, when introduced in 1943. It was seven times the 1943 pension of 27 shillings a week).

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Australian Heritage Commission

Senator COLLARD:
QUEENSLAND

– I present the following petition from 27 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned members of Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland, Maryborough Moonaboola Branch, respectfully showeth that:

There is a growing interest and concern in all sections of Australian society for the conservation of the environment, natural and man-made.

That there are also rapidly growing pressures by powerful forces tending towards the destruction of the Australian heritage.

That it is therefore urgent to appoint the Australian Heritage Commission, which was approved by both sides of this Parliament and to give the Commission sufficient independent staff, resources and funds.

That Technical Assistance Grants and Administrative Support Grants to community organisations are needed to partially redress the gross imbalance in technical expertise and resources suffered by community groups in pressing the community’s case against the exploiter.

That a proper balance between the Governments programme of public austerity and the need for action in conservation would be a modest increase in the budget allocations in these areas over that of 1975/76.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Overseas Development Assistance

Senator WALTERS:
TASMANIA

– I present the following petition from 34 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that many Australians are concerned at the announced decision by the Australian Government to reduce the 1975/76 Overseas Development Assistance vote by $21 million, and by the abolition of the Australian Development Assistance Agency.

We your petitioners do therefore humbly pray that the Australian Government:

as a matter of urgency, reverse the decision to cut the 1975/76 Overseas Development Assistance vote, so as to ensure that the full amount appropriated by Parliament for Overseas Developent Assistance is spent this financial year to meet the pressing needs of those in the developing countries;

reaffirm Australia’s commitment of Overseas Development Assistance being a minimum of 0.7 per cent of GNP, and

establish a fully independent statutory authority to administer Australia’s official Overseas Development Assistance.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Education Allowance Scheme

To the Honourable the President and Senators of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned students and staff at Christ College Victoria respectfully showeth:

That the Commonwealth Government Tertiary Educational Allowance Scheme, be raised from $30 per week to $48 per week.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Minister for Education, Senator Carrick will carry out this Petition.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Australian Assistance Plan

Senator MELZER:
VICTORIA

– I present the following petition from 209 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That since the Australian Assistance Plan is making it possible for citizens to help themselves, thereby ensuring best possible use of limited Government resources, as shown by the fact that over 200 community projects have been initiated or funded through the A.A.P. in the Outer Eastern Region

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament will take immediate steps to continue the Australian Assistance Plan as recommended in the Report tabled by the Honourable the Minister for Social Security, Senator Margaret Guilfoyle in Parliament on the 4th of March, 1976.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Family Planning

Senator MELZER:

-I present the following petition from 136 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the Family Planning Association and similar organisations throughout Australia contribute to the welfare and wellbeing of a great proportion of the Australian people both in family planning and in an advisory capacity on the prevention and control of social diseases.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, give urgent consideration to a favourable decision on the continuation of Federal Government finance to enable the activities of the Family Planning Associations and like organisations to proceed unimpaired throughout Australia.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Immigrant Teachers

Senator MELZER:

– I present the following petition from 25 students and staff of Christ College, Victoria:

To the Honourable the President and Senators of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned students and staff of Christ College and State Colleges of Victoria respectfully showeth

That the Immigration of teachers recruited from outside Australia be prevented while students with similar University classifications are refused entry into Diploma of Education courses, and school leavers are refused entry into the State Colleges of Victoria.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

The Clerk:

– The following petitions have been lodged for presentation:

Social Security Matters

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled: The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That distress is being caused to social security recipients by the delay in adjusting pensions to the Consumer Price Index months after goods and services have risen and that many medications, formerly a pharmaceutical benefit, must now be paid for.

In addition, State Housing Authority waiting lists for low rental dwellings for pensioners become never less and funeral costs increase ever greater.

Your petitioners call on the Australian Government as a matter of urgency to:

Adjust social security payments instantly and automatically on announcement of increases in the quarterly Consumer Price Index.

Restore pharmaceutical benefits deleted from the free list.

The States Grants (Dwellings for Pensioners) Act 1974, eroded by inflation, be updated and increased to overcome the back-log.

The funeral benefit be updated to 60 per cent of a reasonable funeral cost. This benefit when introduced in 1943 at 200 shillings ($20.00) was seven times the pension at that time of 27 shillings ($2.70) per week or more than twice the basic wage of 97 shillings ($9.70).

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Senator Gietzelt. Petition received.

Social Security Matters

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate, in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth-

That distress is being caused to social security recipients by the delay in adjusting pensions to the Consumer Prices Index months after prices of goods and services have risen, and that medications which were formerly pharmaceutical benefits must now be paid for.

Additionally, that State housing authorities’ waiting lists for low rental dwellings for pensioners grow ever longer, and the cost of funerals increase ever greater.

Your petitioners call on the Australian Government as a matter of urgency to-

Adjust social security payments instantly and automatically when the quarterly Consumer Prices Index is announced.

Restore pharmaceutical benefits deleted from the free list.

Update the State Grants (Dwellings for Pensioners) Act of 1974, eroded by inflation, to increase grants to overcome the backlog.

Update Funeral Benefit to 60 per cent of reasonable cost of funeral. (This benefit was 200 shillings, 20 dollars, when introduced in 1943. It was seven times the 1943 pension of 27 shillings a week).

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Mcintosh and Senator James McClelland.

Petitions received.

Income Tax: Immigrant Teachers

To the Honourable the President and Senators of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned students and staff of Christ College and State Colleges in Victoria respectfully showeth-

That teachers recruited outside Australia by the Victorian Education Department have their income taxation exemption for the period of their stay in Australia cancelled.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Senator Tehan. Petition received.

Milk Substitutes

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. We, the undersigned citizens of the

Commonwealth of Australia by this our humble petition respectfully showeth:

  1. That reduction of the age limit from six years to eighteen months for patients eligible to receive cows’ milk substitutes as a pharmaceutical benefit under the schedules of the National Health Act will cause serious financial hardship to many families;
  2. That the Government ‘s action is responsible for a severe increase in the cost of cows’ milk substitutes which penalise parents of children aged eighteen months and over who have a medical need for these substitutes.
  3. That there is an urgent, humane need to restore cows’ milk substitutes to children up to six years of age to the schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that cows’ milk substitutes be restored to the Schedule of Pharmaceutical Benefits for children up to the age of six years as soon as possible.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Senator Colston. Petition received.

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SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE ON TRADE AND COMMERCE

Notice of Motion

Senator SHEIL:
Queensland

– I give notice that on the next day of sitting I shall move:

That the following matter be referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Trade and Commerce for inquiry and report: The effect on the winemaking and grapegrowing industries of variations in the tax structure.

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QUESTION

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

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QUESTION

ABORIGINAL LAND RIGHTS

Senator KEEFFE:
QUEENSLAND

-I remind the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs that the Minister in another place was reported recently as having stated that the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly would be permitted to draft and pass complementary legislation associated with the Federal Government Bill for Aboriginal land rights in the Northern Territory. Will the Minister advise the nature of the complementary legislation as proposed by the Minister?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · VICTORIA · LP

-I am unable to advise in fine detail the nature of complementary legislation to be passed by the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. A requirement of the legislation would be that it complement in the Territory the legislation which had been passed through the Commonwealth Parliament. If there are details of the legislation which can be provided I shall obtain them for the honourable senator. But the normal term ‘complementary legislation’ means legislation which is consistent with Commonwealth legislation passed through this Parliament.

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QUESTION

EMPLOYMENT OF ABORIGINES

Senator CHANEY:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations: In the past few months has the Government withdrawn transport facilities from Aboriginal vocational officers operating in Western Australia? Is there also a shortage of staff in Western Australia operating the Department’s employment services for Aborigines? For how long is the Government prepared to tolerate the severely adverse effects on Aboriginal employment in Western Australia which results from withholding these necessary resources?

Senator CARRICK:
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Federal Affairs · NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

-I sought and obtained some information on this matter recently because of the publication of figures of unemployment of Aborigines throughout Australia. This is a matter which must concern us all. The advice I have is that it was necessary to impose staffing restraints on the Public Service and to reduce public expenditure in order to prepare the way for anti inflationary measures. The Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, along with other departments, had to examine its priorities in this matter. The honourable senator will be aware that the Government has been engaged on an examination of departmental expenditure programs and has reached certain conclusions relating to priorities. It has given consideration to the employment problems at present confronting a significant number of people in the work force. It has decided that special consideration should be given to the operations of the Commonwealth Employment Service, including the work of Aboriginal vocational officers and assistant vocational officers, to ensure that the placement of people in employment is not restricted by a lack of funds or facilities for necessary travel. As a result transport and other travel facilities have been restored to the Aboriginal employment section in Western Australia. The Department is also now within the ceiling imposed upon its staffing and will be moving, in the very near future, to fill vacancies for vocational officers and assistant vocational officers that exist in various parts of the country,

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QUESTION

STAFF OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SECURITY

Senator GRIMES:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Minister for Social Security. Is it a fact that officers of the Department of Social Security have been instructed to increase their field officer staff? Is it also true that the field officer staff has been complemented by officers transferred from the Postal and Telecommunications Department? Have these officers been employed to investigate recipients of unemployment benefit with a view to reducing their number? What evidence does the Department have of widespread abuse of the system calling for such increased staff?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– I am unaware that officers have been transferred from the Postal and Telecommunications Department to my Department to supplement field officer staff employed in my Department. The field officer staff has a variety of duties and responsibilities, many of which are related to assisting people whom they visit to obtain the benefits to which they are entitled because of their circumstances. I do not believe that there is evidence of widespread abuse of unemployment benefit which would lead to the transfer of officers from another department to my Department as a matter of urgency. I think that what has been established as a result of my representations to the Government is that my Department provides a service to the people and that any restrictions which are placed on the growth or number of public servants at this time would not necessarily be applicable to my Department in the way in which they may be applied to other departments. In other words, we want to maintain the service that is provided, and some flexibility has been given to me in this instance. I will check whether the matter that has been mentioned refers to a transfer of staff of which I am unaware. It certainly has not been done so that we can carry out a large scale investigation of some suspected abuse. Our efforts are to maintain the service of the Department in all areas of work.

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QUESTION

MEETING BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AND UNIONS

Senator BONNER:
QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. Has the Government cancelled a meeting with the Australian Council of Trade Unions that was to be held next week?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– No, the Government has not cancelled the meeting. I understand that the basis of the honourable senator’s question is certain newspaper reports. Those reports have caused Senator Bonner to ask this question. When the discussions were being arranged recently it was expected that the Parliament would be meeting next week on the dates arranged. Now that the Parliament will be rising at the end of this week, the Government has raised with the Australian Council of Trade Unions the desirability of the talks being conducted on successive days rather than being split over the week. It has now emerged that it would be more convenient to have the discussions on Friday 1 1 June, and on Saturday 12 June.

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QUESTION

PUBLICISING OF GOVERNMENT DECISIONS

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I preface my question to the Minister for Administrative Services by reminding him that yesterday I asked him whether he had seen a report that the Australian Government intended spending several hundred thousand dollars a year on publicising its decisions and announcements, and that from 1 July next the Government would be producing a weekly booklet in the form of a digest setting out all Government decisions and policy announcements. The Minister said he was unable to comment from his recollection on the accuracy of the report. I now ask him: Has he had an opportunity to refresh his recollection? Can he say now whether the report is correct?

Senator WITHERS:
Minister for Administrative Services · WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

-I apologise to the honourable senator. Really, his question went straight in one ear and out the other when he asked it yesterday. I will refresh my memory from the report afterwards and see whether I can give him a reply, if not later today, then tomorrow morning.

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QUESTION

DARWIN-LARRIMAH RAIL LINK

Senator KILGARIFF:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. Following the statement by the Government that it is its intention to close the north Australian rail link between Larrimah and Darwin, there has been much concern and speculation in the Northern Territory in regard to freight services, particularly because of further statements indicating that the Australian National Line may stop the vessel Darwin Trader from operating and bringing freight to Darwin from Perth and other Western Australian ports. Can the Minister indicate what is the true situation? Is it correct that no early decision will be made and that the Darwin Trader will continue to call at Darwin at regular intervals?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– I can understand the concern of Senator Kilgariff to obtain clarification on this matter. Whilst I have some information, I have not a full answer. I will seek that answer and let him have it as soon as possible,

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QUESTION

OZONE LAYER

Senator MULVIHILL:
NEW SOUTH WALES

-I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. By way of preface I refer to the rather unusual decision of the Minister for Transport in relying heavily on United Kingdom environmental criteria to permit nights of the Concorde aircraft into Australia. In view of my frequent representations in relation to the Jamaica environmental conference about ozone displacement, what has been done to have our committee of cancer experts to bring down a report on the displacement of the ozone layer, with specific emphasis on the southern hemisphere?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– I am unaware of any steps that have been taken with regard to our committee of cancer experts on this matter. I will obtain the answer that is required from the Minister for Health and see that the honourable senator is advised on the matter.

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QUESTION

TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES

Senator MISSEN:
VICTORIA

-I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications a question which refers to the Melbourne yellow pages telephone directories which have in recent years replaced the previous pink pages and which are now the subject of considerable criticism in Melbourne. I ask: Is it a fact that the replacement Melbourne Buying Guide has been divided into 4 regions and the replacement Commercial/Industrial Guide has been divided into 2 regions thus constituting 6 separate directories of approximately 2Vi times the size of the previous pink pages? Has the Minister received complaints from Melbourne businessmen and other subscribers as to the inconvenience, added costs and illogicalities created by this new system? Is the Minister aware of the many difficulties experienced in obtaining additional directories from post offices in Melbourne? In view of the approaching closing date for entries, is the Minister recommending to Telecom Australia, as an urgent matter, the return to the previous pink pages system?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– As one who cut his teeth on pink pages, as no doubt Senator Missen did, I can understand some of his despair regarding the bulk and size of the yellow pages and the need for a search warrant to examine them. I will respond to his question, which like Gaul was divided into 4 parts. The first question -

Senator Wheeldon:

– Gaul was divided into 3 parts.

Senator CARRICK:

– I correct myself and say that the question is divided into 4 parts -

Senator Wheeldon:

– I correct you.

Senator CARRICK:

– Thank you. The answer to the first question is that this has been done in both Melbourne and Sydney. Representations have been received from a number of citizens in both cities. The policy of Telecom Australia has been explained. I am advised that the explanation has been accepted. That is the answer to the second point. It should be noted that the change has led, so I am told, to a saving of $980,000-almost $lm-based on 1975 prices. This has been possible because only 26 1 8 million pages were printed instead of about 4000 million pages which would have been required if a single directory were printed. So obviously there is some saving. I am not aware of the difficulties experienced by subscribers in obtaining additional directories. But I will communicate that complaint and have the matter rectified. I will certainly draw to the attention of the Minister and Telecom the concern that the honourable senator has expressed in this regard.

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QUESTION

MEDIBANK

Senator GIETZELT:

– Has the attention of the Minister for Social Security been drawn to the various statements made by the State Premiers commenting on the suggested problems regarding the legality of the Medibank scheme as it relates to State hospitals? Even if there are some doubts about the operation of the scheme, could not the Australian Government take steps to draw up a new agreement with the States or, alternatively, amend the legislation and so overcome the confusion and division which now exist between the Federal Government and the various States?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– I am aware of the statements that have been made by State Premiers and their difficulties. I think it would be agreed that the most desirable steps that could be taken to obtain agreement on which we could operate in the future should be undertaken without delay. As I understand it, the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health will be undertaking those negotiations with the States to ensure that our agreements with them enable the standard of health care and hospital care to be maintained at a level that is desirable in the Australian community.

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QUESTION

RADIO TELEPHONE EQUIPMENT

Senator MAUNSELL:
QUEENSLAND

-My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. Is the Minister aware that Telecom Australia has in recent weeks sent out officers to seize radio telephone equipment used in outback areas of Queensland? Is the Minister aware further that in many cases these are the only available means of communication in times of sickness, floods, fires and other disasters? Is there any way that the Minister for Post and Telecommunications or the Government can reverse this decision; or is this an example of a statutory commission usings its powers to discriminate against people- in this case people in isolated areas- without the knowledge of Parliament whence it obtains its funds?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– Until Senator Maunsell asked his question I certainly was not aware that any Telecom officers had been seizing radio equipment in outback areas. I am not aware whether my colleague, the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, has that knowledge. I will certainly be grateful if Senator Maunsell will convey his specific knowledge to me and therefore through me to my colleague in another place. I am aware how important this equipment is to people in remote areas. There should certainly be no harassment, if any such harassment should exist. As I do not know the facts, if the honourable senator will give them to me I will take the matter up immediately.

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QUESTION

ABORIGINAL LOANS COMMISSION

Senator CAVANAGH:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I ask a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Can the Minister advise whether the company ‘Comalco Ltd’ in which in its annual report the Aboriginal Loans Commission discloses it has a $ 1 5,000 investment is the Comalco Mining Company? Will the Minister discuss with the Commission the advisability of such an investment in view of the relationship between that company and Aboriginal settlements? I also draw to the attention of the Minister the statement of the Commission in its report that the tremendous interest displayed in the housing loans activities of the Commission since its inception augurs well for the future should adequate funds be available. In view of that statement, I ask the Minister whether she will ensure that there is no reduction in the level of funds made available to the Commission to carry on the work of which it speaks so highly among Aboriginal communities.

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– I will refer to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs the matter of the Aboriginal Loans Commission and the report of the investment relating to the Comalco company. Also I will refer the remarks of the Commission with regard to the availability of adequate funds for housing loans. They are both matters which, I am sure, will have the early attention of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. I will see that the honourable senator gets the information that he requires.

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QUESTION

TELEPHONE CONTACT WITH LEBANON

Senator MARTIN:
QUEENSLAND

– Is the Minister repressing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications aware that many people are claiming that they are having difficulty in achieving telephone contact with Lebanon? Since there are many Lebanese people in Australia who are urgently seeking news from their country of origin, does the Minister have any information on this matter?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– During the last 2 days I have had queries raised with me regarding this matter. I understand that heavy traffic was in evidence all day yesterday when a single circuit operated through Zurich, but at 8.30 this morning traffic was suspended until noon. It is expected to be resumed after noon without difficulty.

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QUESTION

EAST TIMOR

Senator WHEELDON:

-I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Minister may remember that on 19 May last I asked him a question without notice relating to a statement made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs some weeks ago that he had been given assurances by the Indonesian Government that there would be a genuine act of self determination in East Timor before any steps were taken to amalgamate East Timor with the Republic of Indonesia. As the Minister would no doubt know, I have now received a written reply from him dated 1 June. I received the letter this morning. It is signed ‘R. W. Withers’. I take it that that is the Minister writing under an alias and not some other person.

Senator Withers:

– That is my funny signature.

Senator WHEELDON:

-The letter has ‘R. W. Withers’ typed on it. It was a little bewildering to me when I received it. The Minister may recollect that his reply in the letter that he has written to me is to the effect that assurances have been given by the co-called Provisional Government of East Timor that any steps that are taken in this act of self determination which is described in the letter would include representatives of the United Nations and that, according to the letter, it is understood that invitations have been or are soon to be conveyed to the special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Winspeare Guicciardi, and to the United

Nations Decolonisation Committee for this purpose. As this letter was written to me yesterday, as the Indonesian Government has already said that the act of self determination has taken place and as the Minister for Foreign Affairs has said that the United Nations did not take part and that, for that reason, Australia would not be represented at the ceremony in Dili, can the Minister explain to me precisely what is going on.

Senator WITHERS:
LP

-The question has become so long and so involved that I suggest that the honourable senator put it on the notice paper and get a reply from the Minister for Foreign Affairs himself.

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QUESTION

EAST TIMOR

Senator KNIGHT:
ACT

– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I refer to a report in the Canberra Times yesterday that officers of the Department of Foreign Affairs have been accused by a member of the Opposition in another place of ‘calculated deceit’ over East Timor. Is this not an unwarranted slur on officers of the Public Service in the Department of Foreign Affairs? I ask whether it is in fact the case that the deceit referred to was the result of decisions made by the Labor Government last year. Is this not another example of calculated concern by supporters of a government which, as the evidence now shows, was well aware of direct Indonesian intervention in East Timor but refused to say so? Is it not therefore an attempt to avoid the responsibility which the former Labor Government must accept for its part in recent tragic events in East Timor and an ignominious effort instead to blame public servants?

Senator WITHERS:
LP

-Senator Knight was good enough to give me some prior notice of his intention to ask this question. I have been advised by my colleague in another place whom I represent here that the policy of the Government on Timor has been rigorously consistent and based upon fundamental principles- firstly, the withdrawal of Indonesian forces; secondly, the resumption of international aid; and, thirdly, the conduct of a genuine act of self determination. This policy has been not only proclaimed publicly but also urged privately upon the Indonesian Government. There have been no double standards on the part of tb;.s Government. There has been no private deception behind a public facade.

The same cannot be said of the Opposition. As the article to which the honourable senator refers further proves, the former Government’s policy was one of shame and deception. The former

Prime Minister and every member of his Government must take responsibility for their Government’s action on Timor, which amounted to an open invitation to Indonesian forces to invade. I would make it clear, however, that no blame attaches to the Public Service on this matter. It is the duty of heads of mission and of public servants to give the best, most objective and frank advice they can. We would not wish to see a situation where, for fear of unauthorised disclosures, Australian representatives were reluctant to convey such advice to the Government.

I am aware of public statements about the handling of the Timor question by the Department of Foreign Affairs. The only comment I have to make on that is that it is the Government, not departments, which make policy decisions and that any sound system of administration requires that public servants should be able to put forward their advice frankly and impartially. Finally, the report to which the honourable senator refers is further proof of the former Government’s perfidy on Timor, and I include a condemnation of all those in the Opposition who may be noisy on the issue now but who were so quiet when they had the opportunity to do something about the situation.

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QUESTION

MEDIBANK REVIEW COMMITTEE

Senator COLSTON:
QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. I refer the Minister to her answer on behalf of the Minister for Health on 27 April to my question on notice relating to the Medibank Review Committee inquiry. The Minister will remember her advice that at that time a decision had not been made as to whether the report and recommendations of the Medibank Review Committee were to be tabled in the Parliament. Will the Minister now advise the Senate whether the Government intends to table the report of the Committee in order that an informed debate on the alterations to the Medibank concept proposed by the Government can take place?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– I will seek guidance from the Minister for Health as to his intentions with regard to any reports which he wishes to table in the Parliament. It will be understood that several Bills are before the Parliament at the present time which represent the decisions made by the Government on the review undertaken by the Medibank Review Committee. I believe that the decisions which have been taken reflect much of the information that came from the Review Committee. However, as I have said, I will seek guidance from the Minister with regard to any matters which he wishes to table in the Parliament.

page 2196

QUESTION

NEW SOUTH WALES GOVERNMENT: TAX ON INSURANCE PREMIUMS

Senator MESSNER:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

-My question is addressed to the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Federal Affairs. Is the Minister aware of reports that the Premier of New South Wales, Mr Neville Wran, intends to impose a tax on insurance premiums? Was this stated as Australian Labor Party policy before the New South Wales election? Will it not represent a serious disincentive to small investors whose confidence is vital to the development of the emerging economic recovery? Is not such a proposal a device to avoid coming to terms with the Federal Government’s new federalism policy, against which Mr Wran conducted such a virulent campaign prior to the New South Wales election?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

-I read in the Press a statement, as yet unverified, that the New South Wales Labor Government proposes to raise some $50m of revenue by way of indirect taxation by an impost on insurance policies- and assurance policies as well, I presume. I have no confirmation of that, but of course it is in line with the former Federal Labor Government’s policy of making imposts on insurance, and in fact weakening the capacity of the 8 million Australians who have insurance policies to get a return for their savings, My understanding is that no such statement was revealed in Mr Wran’s policy speech. My clear recollection of the campaign is that Mr Wran, being challenged that his policies would cost something like an additional $150m, claimed that he could finance his expenditure policies without any further taxation at all. As to the third question asked by Senator Messner, yes, it would be a great disincentive. But the very rebate system of the previous Government was aimed to create such a disincentive. The fourth question asked whether it was a device to get around and to avoid federalism. We have, of course, a schizophrenic situation in New South Wales, where the State Treasurer, Mr Renshaw, is keeping his options open about federalism and is saying that he may see some virtue in it. In my view it is such a device, but we shall see the device emerge at the next Premiers Conference.

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QUESTION

TAX ON INSURANCE PREMIUMS

Senator WRIEDT:
TASMANIA

-My question, which is directed to Senator Carrick, follows from the answer he has just given. I am assuming that the statement about the proposed tax that has been referred to in the previous question is in fact correct; I have not seen reference to the tax. I ask the Minister Can he indicate in what way that tax does not represent precisely the additional taxing rights which will be given to the States? If the tax does represent those additional taxing rights, in what way is it likely to differ from subsequent similar taxes which will have to be imposed by the other States in the course of the current Government’s federalist policy?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

-If the honourable Leader of the Opposition cannot distinguish between an indirect and hidden tax, which is regressive and thoroughly oppressive on the poor, and a progressive tax- an income tax- who am I to seek to help him except to remind him that the Labor Party platform does so differentiate and, in fact, used to inveigh against hidden, indirect taxation as being regressive and an impost upon the poor? So there is indeed a very real difference between seeking to take from the public purse by indirect taxation and the aim of federalism to disclose clearly to the public on a tax assessment form how much direct taxation a Federal, State or local government shall take. The difference is vast and indeed the proposal is seriously regressive.

page 2196

QUESTION

TASMANIA: APPLE AND PEAR INDUSTRY

Senator JESSOP:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

-I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry: Has his attention been drawn to a report in the Adelaide Advertiser today regarding the views of the South Australian section of the Apple and Pear Growers Association on the report of the Industries Assistance Commission on future Government involvement in the apple and pear industry? Has the Minister studied the 5-point plan for rationalisation of the industry as proposed in the article? Can the Minister inform the Senate of the Government’s reaction to the 5-point proposal? Does the Minister have an alternative proposal to save the industry from the collapse that is predicted by some sections of the industry? Has the Minister been asked to discuss the IAC report with representatives of the industry? If not, will he ask his colleague in another place to initiate moves to see that such discussions are carried out as a matter of urgency?

Senator COTTON:
Minister for Industry and Commerce · NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

-It will be a matter of lasting sadness to me that I did not see this morning’s Adelaide Advertiser. But I understand the apprehensions that the people of South Australia have, as expressed in the Adelaide Advertiser, on behalf of the apple and pear growers. It is true that there is an Industries Assistance Commission report. It is true that the Government is studying it quite earnestly. Equally it is sensible that arrangements have been made for various people in the industry to talk to the Government about this, because if there are alternative plans that can be availed of that would help the industry then the Government would certainly want to take an active interest in them. I am grateful to the honourable senator for raising this matter with me.

page 2197

QUESTION

EAST TIMOR

Senator GEORGES:
QUEENSLAND

– My question, which is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, follows on from a question which was asked of that Minister by Senator Knight. I refer to the same article in the Canberra Times to which Senator Knight referred. It stated that Mr Woolcott, the Ambassador to Indonesia, had advised the Australian Government against any public acknowledgment of the fact that Indonesia had troops in East Timor at the end of October. Is it not a fact that similar advice was passed to the caretaker Prime Minister and caretaker Minister for Foreign Affairs on and after 1 1 November? Is it a fact that in spite of this knowledge the caretaker Prime Minister told a Four Corners interview on 15 November that he did not see a major blow up occurring in the Timor area? In spite of the knowledge which the Government had at that time, no protest was lodged by the caretaker Government after the publicised invasion of early December. Is it not a fair conclusion to draw that this Government must share equal responsibility for the tragic mess that has occurred and is continuing to occur in Timor?

Senator WITHERS:
LP

-I think the substance of the honourable senator’s complaint, which is wrapped up as a question, comes in the last part where he asks whether it is a fair conclusion to draw that the present Government should share the blame equally with the previous Government for the present mess in Timor. To that I would say no. The caretaker Government was sworn in on, I think, 1 1 November. The honourable senator will recall the conditions under which the caretaker Government was sworn in; namely, no new policies and the continuation of current policies. We were then stuck with the previous Government’s policy from then until the election. Try as the Opposition may, the simple fact remains: Did Senator George’s party know or not. That is none of my business. It is for honourable senators to find out in Caucus. The then Prime Minister embarked on a course of action knowingly, may be even wilfully- I do not know-that has led to the present mess in East Timor. Whether the Prime Minister had the support of his Party room is none of my business. Honourable senators opposite can go and find that out in their own Party room. Whether the Prime Minister took the matter to his Cabinet is again none of my business. That is a matter for honourable senators to find out in their own Party room. It is a matter or notoriety that most of the present tragic situations in East Timor arose out of the policies and non-activities, I suppose, of the previous Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam. It is no use at all the present Opposition attempting to shift the blame.

page 2197

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN COASTLINE

Senator YOUNG:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

-I ask the Minister for Science whether he has seen a report in today’s Press that there are humps and valleys on the ocean surface on the east coast of Australia and that the sea level is not the same? Can the Minister say whether this applies only to the east coast of Australia or whether it applies also to other parts of the coastline around Australia, including the southern area of South Australia? Have studies been undertaken in this regard? If not, will studies be undertaken concerning the rest of the Australian coastline?

Senator WEBSTER:
Minister for Science · VICTORIA · NCP/NP

– I am unable to say whether the coastline of South Australia has been studied in this way. The news report that prompts the honourable senator’s question has arisen from a study made by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s Division of Fisheries and Oceanography during voyages to study the East Australian Current. Whether in actual fact the study has extended down into South Australian waters I am not sure, but undoubtedly the waters would intermix. The discoveries, I believe, are of considerable importance. The honourable senator would be interested to note that CSIRO has discovered that the current travels down the coast from the Coral Sea into the Tasman at speeds up to 4 knots. It was believed until recently that this was a continuous flow. The Fisheries and Oceanography Division is located very close to Port Hacking in Sydney and its research has shown that the flow is a series of huge cells or eddies of water which swirl slowly southward at about 80 kilometres per month. The humps and valleys noted by the oceanographers are at the centre of these rotating water masses. Those rotating clockwise have ‘valleys’ of dense highly saline, or salty, water while those rotating anticlockwise have extreme humps of low density, low salinity water.

The height difference between the hump and the valley, whilst too slight in gradient to be detected by the eye, can be as much as 50 centimetres. The warm Coral Sea waters literally flow downhill into the cooler Tasman through a relatively fast flowing marine ‘river’ off the New South Wales coast. Temperature measurements have been made by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation since 1966 and CSIRO scientists have found evidence that the western Tasman is gradually becoming warmer.

Senator Georges:

– This is a hand-out by CSIRO.

Senator WEBSTER:

– It is of interest to some honourable senators, I know. The average temperature has risen by half a degree Celsius and the CSIRO ‘s Division of Atmospheric Physics suggests that it is linked with the increased rainfall along the New South Wales coast. I have no information in relation to South Australian waters but I will see whether there is any and forward it to the honourable senator.

page 2198

QUESTION

LEGAL AID

Senator SIBRAA:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. Has the Minister seen reports in this morning’s Press that the Federal Government is to end its direct involvement in the provision of legal aid services and will press the States to take over the functions and staff of the Australian Legal Aid Office? Is this an attempt eventually to disband the Australian Legal Aid Office or is it part of the new federalism policy which will place an even greater financial burden on the States?

Senator WITHERS:
LP

– I have not seen any such report.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– You have been reading the Border Watch again.

Senator WITHERS:

-No, I did not even read the Border Watch this morning. I suggest to Senator Sibraa that he should not get overexcited about what he reads in the newspaper and come in here and base questions on what I believe are false premises.

page 2198

QUESTION

COUNTRY TELEPHONE SERVICES

Senator TEHAN:
VICTORIA · NCP

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications and relates to the conversion of manual to automatic telephones in country areas. Is the Minister aware of the grave hardship which this process involves for subscribers who happen to reside outside the radius to be served by the new automatic exchange? Is he aware, in particular, of a number of farmers who are only 8 lA miles from the new automatic exchange at Donald in Victoria and who have been denied connection to that exchange but have been connected to a small country exchange at Wooroonooke, a similar distance away? The hardship falls into 2 categories, that created because they are outside the radius fixed for either exchange and are each required to pay in excess of $100 to be connected to the automatic exchange and because the telephone communication with their normal business centre of Donald is by way of trunk line connection and not local call. Will the Minister investigate the situation with a view to ensuring that subscribers to an existing manual service can be transferred to an automatic exchange without individual financial contribution?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

-Whilst I am not aware of the particular problem in Donald, Victoria, involving the choice of one exchange over another, I am aware that there are hardships involved with the conversion from manual to automatic exchanges and that considerable cost is involved. I will invite my colleague in another place to investigate the matter that Senator Tehan has raised with me.

page 2198

QUESTION

MOUNT ALLEN STATION

Senator ROBERTSON:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

-My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Is it a fact that the Department recently purchased Mount Allen Station? If so can the Minister tell the Senate who carried out the valuation of the property, whether the valuation included stock, what price was paid for the property and what assistance will be given to the Aboriginal people who will run the property?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– I do not have the information sought by the question with regard to Mount Allen Station but I will obtain it from the Minister and see that the honourable senator is advised accordingly.

page 2198

QUESTION

SCHOOL TEACHERS

Senator PRIMMER:
VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. Did some 384 American school teachers arrive in Melbourne secretly last Wednesday at a time when 650 Victorian teachers have been declined entry to the Diploma of Education course? Is it planned that 100 teachers from the United Kingdom will arrive in Victoria on I September this year?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– The question is properly directed to me in my capacity as the Minister for Education. I remind Senator Primmer that the whole of the answer is contained in several answers which I gave in recent times to his Leader, Senator Wriedt. There is no question of the arrival of these teachers being secret. The simple fact is that investigations were made during the tenure of the then Australian Labor Party Government- his Government- by the departments concerned in consultation with the teaching unions concerned.

Senator Primmer:

– With the secretary of the union.

Senator CARRICK:

– It was in consultation. Senator Primmer, in saying that, is suggesting a defect in the consultation by the then Government. The situation is that it was a decision of his Government to allow the visas for the 2 batches of people who have been mentioned by him. Let me make this clear: The problem of teachers coming to Australia is, first of all, for the State governments which have sovereignty regarding education in the primary and secondary fields. It is for the State governments to decide and for the community to discuss with them whether there is a need for an importation of teachers. The problems, as I understand them, have been threefold. In the first place, there has been a supply of teachers in numbers but not in either mobilitythat is to go to particular areas- or in specialties such as English, science, mathematics, etc. Last year the States undertook the recruitment of teachers from abroad in the belief- it was a correct one for them to assume at the time- that the amount of money recommended for the triennium in the report of the Schools Commission was a projection upon which they could work. Of course, sadly for them the amount was cut substantially. But basically the answer is contained in the answer which I gave Senator Wriedt. It devolves from decisions made by the previous Government.

page 2199

QUESTION

SONIC BOOM OF CONCORDE AIRCRAFT

Senator McLAREN:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the Minister representing the Minister for Transport noticed a warning by the Swedish aircraft designer, Bo Lundberg, which was reported in the Bulletin of 29 May, that the sonic boom of the Concorde aircraft could be heard in subsonic aircraft, thus causing alarm to pilots and passengers? Has the Minister any information on whether this will be a problem for subsonic aircraft operating in Australia?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

-I do read my Bulletin. In fact, I read this article. I noted there was a suggestionI think it is one which needs to be looked at- that a supersonic aircraft by creating a boom and a side ripple might have effects in terms of turbulence or other disturbance on subsonic aircraft flying in the vicinity. Anyone who knows anything about flying and aviation will be aware that light aircraft suffer this in a minor way today if they come anywhere near the path of jet aircraft. So this is a symptom which is not unknown. It is a fact, of course, that the supersonic path to be plotted by Concorde has been designed in corridors to be away from population and to be away from the normal path of other aircraft. Nevertheless, I take the question seriously. I shall refer it to the Minister for Transport and to the technical advisers. If there is any authoritative information I shall bring it forward for the honourable senator.

page 2199

QUESTION

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S YEAR

Senator RYAN:
ACT

– I ask a series of questions of the Minister representing the Prime Minister which arise from the news of the cancellation of a grant of $100,000 made under the International Womens Year program for the purpose of investment in a television series on human reproduction to be produced by Dr Germaine Greer. Who was responsible for the decision to cancel the grant? By what authority was this contract made by the Labor Government cancelled? To what extent, if at all, were members of the International Women’s Year Committee consulted regarding the breaking of this contract? What has happened to the $100,000 investment grant previously held in trust by the Australian Film Commission? If the grant is still being held in trust by the Australian Film Commission how will it be administered and for what purpose?

Senator WITHERS:
LP

-That is an interesting set of questions. I will have to obtain most of the answers from the Prime Minister. The honourable senator asked: Who cancelled the contract? I regret to say that it was not 1. 1 would have been delighted to do it. It was someone else. Then she asked: What authority do we have to cancel the contract? I do not know whether any proper contractual arrangement was ever entered into. In any event, funny things happened under the previous Government. Next she asked: Who was consulted about the breaking of this contract? I will have to discover that. Finally she asked: Where is the $100,000 which was held in trust? I would say that it has been saved- that is where it is- and not wasted as it would have been on this lunatic project.

page 2200

QUESTION

SHIPBUILDING

Senator BISHOP:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question, which is directed to the Minister for Industry and Commerce, refers to the shipbuilding inquiry and more particularly to the deputation from Whyalla which the Minister met. Can the Minister give any indication to the Senate of when his submissions will be finalised and when recommendations will be made to the Government? In particular, can the Minister estimate whether any short term provisions may be made for the Whyalla shipbuilding industry? Has the Minister had an opportunity to follow up the suggestion made by the deputation that to keep the subcontractors busy consideration might be given to making an amount of offset work available from various departments or other industries?

Senator COTTON:
LP

-I will take the last part of the question first because it deals with one of the matters that is under study at the moment. More material and information are still coming in on the whole question of shipbuilding, ship repair, docks and the defence aspect. This is a very complicated matter. The work is very close to finality but is not yet completed. One of the reasons for this is that following on the meeting with the deputation and a few other things that I have been able to ascertain I have sought extra information.

page 2200

QUESTION

TELEVISION TRANSLATOR AT KOOLYANOBBING

Senator WALSH:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications concerns the proposed television translator at Koolyanobbing in Western Australia. According to my information the company, Dampier Mining, has substantially provided finance for the equipment but the project is being blocked, whether intentionally or otherwise, by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board. If this is so, will the Minister take whatever action is required to speed up the provision of television services in that area?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– I do not have particular knowledge regarding the translator to which Senator Walsh has referred. Of course, I will seek information to see whether there is any delay and whether, as he asserts, the Australian Broadcasting Control Board is putting any obstacles in the way of the translator functioning or indeed whether, as he asserts, Dampier Mining is financing the translator. I am very well aware of the value of translators in remote areas, particularly in the mining districts. I have seen them operating on the west coast of Western Australia.

I will pursue the matter, as the honourable member suggests.

page 2200

QUESTION

SCHOOLS COMMISSION

Senator HARRADINE:
TASMANIA

– My question, which is addressed to the Minister for Education, follows a question asked by Senator Wood concerning the decline in standards of basic mathematics amongst students. My question, however, refers to the Schools Commission. The Minister will be aware of the concern felt by independent schools in Tasmania about the fact that they were short changed by an amount of $250,000 as a result of the combined operation of the Schools Recurrent Resources Index-the SRRI-of the Schools Commission and the level of grants in the State of Tasmania. Is the Minister further aware of the grave concern felt by senior Tasmanian Government educationalists that the Schools Commission’s recommendation short changed the Tasmanian education system by $1.5m as a result of the fact that it was based on unsatisfactory mathematical criteria? In view of this error, will the Minister ensure that the Schools Commission undertakes a compulsory course in basic mathematics or, alternatively, will he ensure that his headmaster makes the Schools Commission write out ‘we owe a debt to Tasmanian education’ 1.75 million times?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– What was presented in the latter stages of the question as an attractive whimsy is a deadly serious matter in one aspect which I shall identify. It is clear that the Tasmanian State Government gave a public undertaking that it would match on its part 20 per cent of Commonwealth funds provided. It is also clear that the Tasmanian State Labor Government has failed to do so and has fallen behind in this undertaking by about 10 per cent. Let me identify quite clearly matters which have been brought to my notice in Tasmania in recent weeks. The honourable senator may know that I visited Tasmania recently. I visited various schools organisations, including independent schools organisations, and received deputations from them. Their main thrust of argument to me was that they are suffering, badly because the Tasmanian State Government had robbed them. The honourable senator may well know that the Archbishop -

Senator Wriedt:

- Mr President, I rise to order. I ask that the term, that the Tasmanian Government has robbed the education system of Tasmania, which was used by the Minister be withdrawn. It is a completely unwarranted statement.

The PRESIDENT:

– Under the Standing Orders, the person who is aggrieved is the person who may request that remarks be withdrawn. Senator Carrick, continue with your reply.

Senator CARRICK:

– Since Senator Wriedt is tender about the word ‘robbed’ but not about the words ‘short changed’ which Senator Haradine used many times, I withdraw the word robbed’ and say emphatically that the Tasmanian Government short changed -

Senator Grimes:

– Nonsense.

Senator CARRICK:

-Let it be noted that Senator Grimes, a Tasmanian Labor Party senator, is saying that is not true. The Archbishop of Tasmania, Archbishop Guilford Young, said from a public platform which I shared that these are the facts. Senator Grimes is saying now that Archbishop Young was not stating the facts. This ought to be known. It is a basic fact that there was a major short changing by the Tasmanian Government. It has never been put to me that the application of the Schools Commission formula has resulted in under payments to Tasmanian education by any amount even approaching $ 1.5 m. I am interested in the suggestion. If the honourable senator will give it to me, I will have it investigated.

page 2201

QUESTION

CONFISCATION OF RADIO TRANSMITTER

Senator McINTOSH:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question, which is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, follows on the question asked by Senator Georges earlier on. Is it true that this Government was responsible for the confiscation of a radio transmitter in Darwin and that this radio transmitter was the only means of communication between the Fretilin forces in East Timor and the outside world?

Senator WITHERS:
LP

– I suppose that one could describe that question as a red herring. The confiscation of an illegal radio operating in Australia without a licence has nothing whatever to do with the fact that the previous Prime Minister sold the East Timorese down the drain. It is a simple as that. Honourable senators can wrap it up as they like or disguise it as they may wish. But the position is as simple as that. I say to Opposition senators that their former Prime Minister had the opportunity to bring about self determination in East Timor. He failed. Because of that failure, East Timor is in its present mess. If Opposition senators want to continue that fight they should take it back into their Caucus room where it rightly belongs. Do not come into this Parliament and raise other issues which have nothing to do with the present plight of the East

Timorese. The fact that an illegal radio transmitter without a proper licence was operating in Australia to communicate with one group has nothing whatever to do with the fact that the previous Prime Minister openly encouraged Indonesia to invade East Timor.

page 2201

QUESTION

INTERSCAN SYSTEM

Senator WRIEDT:

-My question is to the Minister for Science. I might say as a brief preface that we have all been very impressed by the rapid grasp of the technicalities of his subject which Senator Webster has displayed in question time. I refer to the questions which were asked about the interscan system last week. Can the Minister tell the Senate whether, if the interscan system is adopted and introduced, this will render obsolete the VOR, NDB, and DME systems which currently are operative throughout Australian aerial transport?

Senator WEBSTER:
NCP/NP

-The interscan system which has been developed mainly by Dr Wild from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is one of the great achievements in Australian science. InterScan is being evaluated at present. This is an on-going proposition at the Tullamarine jetport. I had invited the honourable senator to come with Ministers including Senator Cotton and Mr Nixon who are deeply involved in this scheme to inspect the system.

The proposal that this landing scheme should eventually be accepted throughout the world is one which is the basis of discussion in international circles at present. I have pointed out earlier that there was international competition to decide a proper landing scheme. We believe that Australia has the potential through this system to provide a scheme that will be embraced throughout the world. The question arises whether this scheme will apply in all areas. For instance, whether an installation such as this would be applicable in very remote areas, I am unable to say. I would consider that it would be appropriate for present landing systems to continue for some time. But I would confidently predict that interscan will become the future Australian landing system. I sincerely hope that it will be supported and used throughout the world.

page 2201

QUESTION

WATER HYACINTH

Senator MELZER:

-Is the Minister for Science aware that there is a report by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the United States of America to the effect that water hyacinth may be nature’s answer to man’s sewerage pollution problem as it has been shown to be able to absorb pollutants from sewerage and literally to clean the water? In view of this fact, will the Minister reconsider the proposal to import exotic insects aimed at the destruction of this plant, which insects may on past experience become a pest? Will he initiate studies to utilise this extraordinary plant to assist outer metropolitan areas where it appears sewerage works will not be available for a very long time to come?

Senator WEBSTER:
NCP/NP

-The honourable senator’s question and the previous question highlight the broad nature of my Department’s activities. I had noted the article. I believe that in America there has been some progress towards the realisation that the water hyacinth plant can be very much a purifier of water. It has been viewed in Australia as one of the worst infestations of weed that we have had. In New South Wales currently moneys are being spent by the State Government and the Federal Government in an attempt to control the weed. I am unaware as to how a procedure could be adopted whereby sewage treatment plants that are based on a weed that could purify water to the extent that is needed in the major cities could be developed, but it may be possible for this weed to be put to the purposes that the honourable senator has mentioned in lagoons.

page 2202

VETERANS RESIDENCES TRUST

Senator WITHERS:
Western AustraliaMinister for Administrative Services · LP

– Pursuant to section 10A(2) of the Royal Australian Air Force Veterans Residence Act 1953-65, 1 present the annual report on the Royal Australian Air Force Veterans Residences Trust for the year ended 30 June 1975.

page 2202

JACKSON COMMITTEE

Senator WITHERS:
Western AustraliaMinister for Administrative Services · LP

– For the information of honourable senators, I present volumes III and IV of the report of the Committee to Advise on Policies for Manufacturing Industry, which is commonly known as the Jackson Committee. Volume II of the report, containing statistical material, is expected to be available in about 2 weeks.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

- Mr President, I seek leave to propose a motion.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I move:

I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage.

Leave granted, debate adjourned.

page 2202

INDUSTRIES ASSISTANCE COMMISSION

Senator COTTON:
New South WalesMinister for Industry and Commerce · LP

– For the information of honourable senators, I present the report by the Industries Assistance Commission on copper ore and concentrates.

page 2202

KATHERINE RURAL COLLEGE

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– For the information of honourable senators, I present the report of the Katherine Rural College Planning Committee. Due to the limited number available, reference copies of this report have been placed in the Senate Records Office and the Parliamentary Library. I seek leave to make a brief statement relating to this report.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Senator CARRICK:

– As the result of a survey initiated by our Government in 1972 a planning committee was commissioned by the Commonwealth Government in 1974 to plan in detail the development of a residental rural college at Katherine in the Northern Territory. The rural college proposed for Katherine is seen as an open’ institution of technical and further education which will emphasise training for the agricultural and pastoral needs in the Northern Territory but also include other vocational areas of a rural technical nature. The report also envisages the college ultimately developing as a further education centre for the Katherine region. The report recommends that the college be established by legislation with a council as the governing body.

The college is seen as having a diversity of courses which are accessible, practical and related to the vocational needs of the Territory’s rural community. Entry requirements are intended to be flexible and the levels range over the field of post-school training at the subtertiary level. It is intended to provide courses to meet the training needs of Aborigines. The planning Committee sees the facilities required to enable the college to fulfil its objectives as including educational, administrative, residential and communal. These facilities, to be progressively introduced through a staged development program, will cater for up to 500 students, including 150 residential students. The Planning Committee was chaired by Mr Les Dodd, a former Deputy Director of Education in South Australia who has had wide experience in the Northern Territory. Its membership was wide ranging and included persons from the fields of rural education, administration, the pastoral and agricultural industries and the wider Northern Territory community. I intend to give careful consideration to the recommendations made in the report and would welcome comments from interested members of Parliament.

Senator ROBERTSON (Northern Territory) Mr President, I seek leave to make a short statement relating to the report.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Senator ROBERTSON:

-This report will be welcomed in the Northern Territory. Those of us who have an interest in technical and further education, particularly that of the Aboriginal people, have looked for some time for provision for the rural areas. In my evidence to the Katherine Rural College Planning Committee I suggested that there be some decentralisation with the courses presently being offered in Darwin being located in Katherine. I congratulate Mr Dodd and his Committee on the work that they have done and I look forward to studying the report in some detail. When the Labor Government commissioned the report in 1974 there was strong pressure from local people for a college at Katherine. There seemed to be a strong need for this facility. The report on postcompulsory education in northern Australia presented by Dr Anderson and his team raises some doubts. On page 15 of the report they note that the terms of reference of the Katherine study suggest that there will be a college of independent status at Katherine. Anderson’s study casts considerable doubt on the validity of this assumption. They put forward evidence to suggest that the population of the region would not provide sufficient students to make the college viable. They also suggest that the college would have difficulty in attracting and retaining the right sort of staff.

I have no wish to cast a damper on the idea of a college at Katherine, but I raise this matter simply to suggest that the Minister will have the advantage of additional information when he makes his decision on the most appropriate facility to meet the needs of the region. More data will also be forthcoming from the working party which has been set up recently to look at Aboriginal employment and the training facilities which could be developed in this area. In this regard, I am particularly pleased to see that the efforts of a small group of people over the last three or four years have not been in vain, and I commend them for their endeavours. Without any doubt there is a need for some sort of training and further education for all people of the region, both Aboriginal and others, and I look to the Government to provide appropriate education at all levels. I cannot conclude without making another plea for itinerant trainers, properly equipped, to move into isolated communities as part of any scheme. I move:

I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 2203

NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON DISCRIMINATION IN EMPLOYMENT AND OCCUPATION

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– In my capacity representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, for the information of honourable senators I present the annual report of the National Committee on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation for the year ended 30 June 1975.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I seek leave to move a motion.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I move:

I seek leave to continue my remarks. Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 2203

HOSPITALS AND HEALTH SERVICES COMMISSION

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– For the information of honourable senators, I present the report of the Hospitals and Health Services Commission entitled Review of the Community Health Program, together with a summary of that report.

page 2203

NATIONAL SUPERANNUATION COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– For the information of honourable senators, I present Part I of the final report of the National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry. I seek leave to make a statement relating to that report.

The PRESIDENT:

– Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– I thank the Senate.

Background

Honourable senators may recall that in October 1972 the then Prime Minister, the Rt Hon. William McMahon, announced the establishment, membership and terms of reference of the National Retirement Benefits Committee of Inquiry. The Committee comprised Sir Leslie Melville, Chairman, and included Mr T. P. Scott and Mr J. E. M. Dixon. The Committee was asked to advise on the appropriate means of financing free of means test retirement benefits associated with a possible national superannuation scheme and the relationship between free of means test retirement benefits and any national superannuation, to private schemes and life assurance.

The previous Government, on taking office, discontinued the National Retirement Benefits Committee of Inquiry and in March 1973 announced the appointment of the National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry, comprising Professor K. J. Hancock, Chairman, Mr K. J. Hedley and Mr J. B. Wright who subsequently withdrew and was replaced by Mr R. G. McCrossin. The National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry was asked to examine and report on overseas and Australian proposals for national superannuation schemes, the relevance of these proposals to Australian needs, the financial, economic and social implications, and to recommend to the Government a national superannuation scheme for Australia. The Committee was also asked to examine several matters, including the most equitable way of financing any recommended scheme, the treatment of entitlements under existing superannuation schemes and the most appropriate way free of means test benefits could be replaced by or integrated into any recommended national superannuation scheme.

Interim Report of National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry

As honourable senators will recall, in July 1974 the then Minister for Social Security, the Honourable W. G. Hayden, presented to Parliament the interim report of the National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry entitled National Superannuation in Australia’. At that time the Committee advanced two basic alternative schemes for consideration. One was a universal, flat-rate scheme with pensions financed from general revenue. The other was a nonfunded partially contributory scheme with pensions bearing some relation to past contributions.

Final Report of National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry

The final report of the National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry consists of two parts. An advance copy of Part I, entitled, ‘A National Superannuation Scheme for Australia’ was provided to me on 23 April 1976. On 4 May 1976 I forwarded a copy to the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) suggesting that the Income Security Review Committee examine it. Honourable senators will be aware that the Income Security Review Committee is required to consider specifically reports that have previously been commissioned, including that of the National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry.

Part I of the final report is primarily concerned with the provision of income to the aged through government provided benefits. In Part I the Committee did not reach unanimity in its recommendations. Part I of the final report therefore contains a majority report- representing the views of Professor Hancock and Mr McCrossin-and a minority report- representing the views of Mr Hedley.

The majority of the National Superannuation Committee believes that, given existing revenue resources, it would not be possible in the forseeable future to meet the two objectives written into the Committee’s terms of reference by the previous Government of abolishing the means test and raising the basic rate of pension to 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. Consequently a partially contributory scheme of national superannuation is recommended in the majority report. The majority report has said that revenue generated by the recommended compulsory contributions would make possible the provision of increased pensions above the level of flat-rate pensions likely to emerge under any noncontributory alternative. The gross cost of implementing the scheme recommended in the majority report was estimated by the Inquiry to be about $3,600m at the beginning of 1975-76 compared with an estimated $2, 150m under existing pension arrangements. Gross revenue from the recommended compulsory incomerelated contributions were estimated by the Committee to be about $ 1,500m a yearapproximately the additional cost of the recommended scheme over existing age benefits. The liability to pay such compulsory contributions would begin in the financial year in which a person reaches 19 years of age and end in the financial year in which he or she reaches age 63. The majority report recommends that contributions be income related and collected with income tax. For a person on average weekly earnings the recommended compulsory contribution would be equivalent to about 3.5 per cent of taxable income. The scheme recommended by the majority of the Committee would be financed from general revenue. Contributions of employees and the self-employed would be paid into general revenue: no special fund would be created.

Part Two of the final report is in the course of preparation. The Government has agreed to extend the date for receipt of this report from 30 June to 31 December 1976. Part Two will deal with occupational superannuation and will cover the need to integrate national and occupational schemes, as well as the vesting and preservation of superannuation rights. It should be noted that the Committee in its reports to date, strongly favours a continuing and expanding role for occupational schemes. It views occupational superannuation as complementing its recommended national scheme by providing for those who cannot maintain previous living standards on national superannuation pensions alone and by providing additional options, such as early retirement.

Principal Provisions of the Scheme

The principal provisions of the scheme recommended in the majority report are:

page 2205

QUALIFYING AGE

Under the proposed scheme, all persons 65 years and over would qualify for a free of means test national superannuation pension. It is recommended in the majority report that the age pension currently payable, on a means-tested basis, to females aged 60-64 be phased out gradually.

page 2205

PENSIONS

The majority report recommends that the national superannuation pension due to any person would be the sum of 3 components: Firstly, a universal pension; secondly, a purchased pension; and, thirdly, supplementation. The universal pension would be identical for all pensioners and would be equal to about 25 per cent of average weekly earnings. Purchased pensions would depend upon past contributions and would therefore differ between pensioners. Supplementary pension would be paid, on a need basis, to ensure that all persons receive a minimum total pension equal to about 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

page 2205

ANCILLARY BENEFITS

The majority report recommends that additional benefits subject to a means test, would be payable as follows:

A dependant spouse ‘s allowance, equal to the universal pension, would be paid in respect of the spouse of a pensioner if the spouse is below age 65.

An allowance would be paid to a pensioner with dependent children. The allowance would be 20 per cent of the universal pension for each dependent child.

A pensioner living alone would be eligible for a living-alone allowance equal to 1 5 per cent of the universal pension.

A pensioner living alone with one or more dependent children would be eligible for an additional guardian’s allowance equal to 10 per cent of the universal pension. This would be 1 5 per cent if any child is aged below six or is an invalid requiring full-time care.

Although these ancillary benefits would initially be means tested, the majority report recommends that the means test be removed at the earliest opportunity.

The minority report, written by Mr K. J. Hedley, rejects the concept of a contributory income-related national superannuation scheme. His preferred approach to future age pension provision is the further development of existing arrangements, accompanied by the abolition of the means test for persons aged 65 years of age and over. The minority report’ approach would include three broad aspects: Firstly a universal pension for all from age 65, irrespective of sex, marital status, workforce status, housing arrangements, wealth or income to provide a basic level of security; secondly, a selective supplement ideally based on needs, which could include consideration of housing, sharing of household expenses and any special circumstances, but directly or indirectly based on income if this were more expedient for harmonisation with other social welfare arrangements and the personal income tax system; and, thirdly, greater encouragement of voluntary savings for old age by way of personal savings, especially those of a contractual nature, through normal long-term investment media, including home purchase, and fair occupational pension plans for workforce members, including selfemployees.

As honourable senators will recognise part one of the final report of the National Superannuation Committee of Inquiry raises very complex issues which are already receiving detailed examination. As I have mentioned, the Government has referred the report to the Income Security Review Committee. Any conclusions regarding part one of the Committee’s report must naturally await receipt of part two of the final report on occupational superannuation later this year. The tabling of part one of the report at this stage will enable all interested persons and organisations to assess the implications of the two recommended schemes. I move:

Senator GRIMES:
Tasmania

– I wish to make a few remarks in support of the motion moved by Senator Guilfoyle. As Senator Guilfoyle has said in her final remarks, part one of the report is obviously- from the superficial look I have had- a very complex document and presents difficulties to us all. Members of the expert committee have looked long and hard at this problem and have come out considerably divided on possible solutions to the problem of providing national superannuation. The proposition that we should supply to the citizens of this country a superannuation scheme which is protected from erosion by inflation is an attractive one and an important one, we believe. It must be looked at carefully, as I am sure it will be, by both sides of the House. It must be looked at to make sure that any scheme of this type coordinates with other social welfare schemes in the provision of income security and in the prevention of poverty in all sorts of people. We have a committee which is divided, despite having had a long look at the problems involved.

Obviously further investigations by the Income Security Review Committee and all members of this Parliament will be necessary and a careful study of the alternatives must be made. We must be careful because schemes like this are potentially very expensive and we must be careful also that they do not pre-empt the further development of other worthwhile schemes involving government expenditure. The Opposition welcomes the tabling of this report. We will view it with great interest as will the rest of the community. I am sure that some of the suggestions I have seen will cause some controversy amongst various vested interests in the community. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Debate adjourned.

page 2206

STANDING COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND THE ARTS

Senator DAVIDSON:
South Australia

-by leave- I move:

  1. That if the Senate be not sitting when the Standing Committee on Education and the Ans has completed its report on the education of isolated school children the Committee may send its report to the President of the Senate or, if the President is unavailable, to the Deputy President who are authorised to give directions for its printing and circulation, and in such event the President or Deputy President shall lay the report upon the table at the next sitting of the Senate; and
  2. That the foregoing provisions of this resolution so far as they are inconsistent with the Standing Orders have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the Standing Orders.

I seek the indulgence of the Senate for a moment to make one or two observations on the motion I have put before the Senate. The reference on the educational problems of isolated school children was given to the previous Committee on Education, Science and the Arts in September 1972. At that time the Committee was well advanced into a lengthy inquiry on all aspects of broadcasting and television and although the reference was advertised in October 1972, it was not until August 1973 that the Committee was ready to hold public meetings. Apart from this initial delay, there have been other factors outside the control of the Committee which have held up this inquiry.

The Committee has had to cease its operations for lengthy periods on a number of occasions. Firstly, the prorogation of Parliament and the opening of the new Parliament by the Queen in February 1 974, this was followed by the dissolution of the Parliament in April 1974 and the May elections. Finally, we had the dissolution of the Parliament again on 1 1 November 1975 and the subsequent elections which led to a change of Government. I recognise of course, that all Standing Committees have had their work seriously disrupted because of these events but they have been particularly frustrating to this Committee on Education and the Arts because they have occurred at crucial stages of the inquiry resulting in field trips having to be postponed on at least two occasions.

These delays notwithstanding, the Committee has continued to enjoy widespread support from interested organisations and parents of isolated school children and to date has received more than 600 submissions. Naturally, the people who have given written and oral evidence, some of it quite some time ago, are anxious to see the results of the Committee’s work. We feel we should keep faith with these people by getting the report out as early as practicable. The report is in the draft stage and is at present being considered by the Committee. It was the intention of the Committee to present its report to the Senate before the end of this session but time needed to assess the results of the recently completed tour of Western Australia and the matters raised in the draft report have simply made this task impossible. We have arranged meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week to consider the draft report and I expect that it will be completed at the end of that time. As soon as the report is presented to the President it will become a public document and therefore available to all those who are interested in its contents.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

- Senator Davidson gave me, as manager of Opposition business in the Senate, notice that he would be moving this motion as Chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Education and the Arts. I am speaking personally now. I do not object to the proposal moved by Senator Davidson on this occasion. But I do not want it to be taken as a general precedent that committees can or should report to the President of the Senate or to the Deputy President of the Senate when the Senate is out of session. After all is said and done, committees are established by the Senate. They are the property of the Senate. The references which go to committees are made by the Senate, either by way of formal notice or as a result of general discussion.

I think it should remain the responsibility of committees to report to the Senate when it is in session unless there are extreme difficulties or special reasons for committees not doing so. I understand the difficulty on this occasion. The reference was made as long ago as 1972 and there is great public interest in the report. On this occasion I can see justification for the Committee reporting to the President or to the Deputy President when the Senate is not sitting. I mention this matter because I regard it as of great importance. I think members of the Senate take a great deal of interest in the workings of the committees. I believe they are entitled to express their points of view publicly at the time the committees tender their reports.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 2207

AUSTRALIAN HEALTH AND WELFARE SERVICES

Reference to the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare

Motion (by Senator Baume) agreed to:

That the following matter be referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare for inquiry and report:Evaluation of the adequacy of Australian health and welfare services with particular reference to:

standards of performance and provision of health and welfare services;

the pattern of current practices in the provision of such services in terms of need and demand;

mechanisms for evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of health and welfare services; and

requirements for on-going evaluation as an integral part of the development of health and welfare programs.

page 2207

CONCILIATION AND ARBITRATION AMENDMENT BILL 1976

Bill received from the House of Representatives.

Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay.

Bill (on motion by Senator Carrick) read a first time.

Second Reading

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– I move:

Sitting suspended from 1 to 2.15 p.m.

Senator CARRICK:

- Mr President, before I explain the Bill I would like to make some general comments. This is the first Bill introduced by the Government to give effect to aspects of the Government’s industrial relations policies and its electoral commitments in this area. The Government is committed to genuine consultations with employers and trade unions on its industrial legislation. The Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) has consulted with the peak trade union organisations, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council for Salaried and Professional Associations and the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations, and the National Employers Policy Committee, representing the employers, on the Government’s proposals. As honourable senators will know, there were detailed discussions here in Canberra on 5 May. In keeping with its constructive approach, the Government has been prepared to recognise the merits of arguments put to it, and make substantial modifications to its legislative proposals, where this has been possible, consistent with maintaining the Government’s basic policy objectives.

I turn now to the Bill itself. The proposals which it incorporates have the following purposes: Firstly, to rectify weaknesses in the Aci regarding representation by the Minister of the public interest, in relation to appeals and references; secondly, to extend the present requirement that in Full Bench proceedings, the Commission must have regard to the state of the economy and the likely effect of any award made, to include specifically the level of employment and inflation; thirdly, to make sure that every member of a union or employer organisation has a real opportunity to choose, without intimidation, who should conduct the affairs of the organisation; fourthly, to limit the term of office of office bearers of organisations to a maximum of 4 years; and, finally, to provide for the appointment of an additional judge of the Industrial Court.

Appeals and References in the Public Interest

The Government has the right to intervene in the public interest in national wage and other cases, including appeals and references, once they come before Full Benches. However, it is in the anomalous position that it does not have the opportunity to express a view as to whether there should in fact be an appeal or reference to a Full Bench in the public interest. Clauses 4 and 5 of the Bill remedy this omission. It will of course still be for the Commission to decide whether to hear an appeal or reference in the public interest; the Government will be in no different position from any party in this regard.

The Government had also proposed that it should be a ground of appeal that an award is not in accord with decisions of principles by a Full Bench. While accepting that such decisions should, be observed and applied by individual members of the tribunals, whether Commonwealth or State, the employers expressed concern about the problems that might arise because there is no one Full Bench. The Government has concluded that the proposal that I have already explained, relating to appeals and references, would be adequate. Similar provisions for appeals and references are to apply within the Flight Crew Officers Industrial Tribunal jurisdiction as a result of clauses 9 and 10.

The State of the Economy

I do not need to emphasise the importance of the wage fixing principles enunciated by the Commission in relation to the general economy. They are all the more significant in the context of the present levels of inflation and unemployment. The Act already requires a Full Bench of the Commission to have regard to the state of the national economy and the likely effects of any award that might be made. However, the Government has in clause 6 of the Bill widened this provision to require Full Benches to take account specifically of the likely effects on the level of employment and on inflation. This change does not in any way erode the authority of the Commission or change the character of its functioning. It does, however, recognise- as recent experience has highlighted- the nature of the nexus between the rate of increase in labour costs, especially wages, unemployment and inflation. I do not need to stress the importance of this in the overall interests of the Australian community.

Ballots

The Government’s intentions to provide for secret postal ballots was one of the issues most commonly discussed during the election campaign. It is evident that there is widespread support for the proposal. Essentially the Government is concerned that every member of a union and employer organisation has a real opportunity, without intimidation, to choose who should conduct the affairs of the organisation. The Government had proposed that all elections for officers should be conducted by the Australian Electoral Office, with the cost of the election being paid for by the Government. As honourable senators will know, it is already the practice to provide for officially conducted elections at Government expense- provisions which, I might add, the unions indicated, when they saw the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations on 5 May, had their support.

During the Minister’s discussions with the unions they expressed very strong opposition to the proposal that the Electoral Office should conduct all elections. They emphasised in particular their concern that the affairs of organisations were being taken out of the hands of the organisation. They also questioned whether the International Labour Organisation Convention on Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise, which the Australian Government had ratified, would not be contravened. There can be no gain saying that members of organisations do not, for various reasons, participate in the ballots for officers within their organisations. For example, in the last election of a Commonwealth chairman of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union, less than 2 per cent of the total membership exercised its prerogative to vote. The AMWU had had similar experiences with elections for other office holders. The Government sees a major solution to this problem being through a secret postal ballot.

At the same time the Government has appreciated the real concern expressed by the unions and has sought to meet their objections, consistent with its policy objectives. What it therefore proposes is that all organisations, whether of employers or workers, will be required to have elections conducted by secret postal ballot, and that these arrangements should have the opportunity of a 2 year trial. There may in special circumstances be other methods of election in which all members would have an adequate opportunity to vote, the ballot would be conducted without intimidation, and it would result in a greater participation by members. The Industrial Registrar may, on application from the organisation in respect of a ballot, give an exemption from the postal ballot provisions, where he is satisfied that all of these conditions are met. There will also be provision for the making of regulations in relation to the conduct of postal ballots. Where an organisation’s rules do not provide for postal voting, its rules may not be appropriate for the conduct of elections by postal ballot. This amendment will enable appropriate provision to be made by regulation. Clauses 3, 12 and 13 of the Bill give effect to the proposals on election ballots. It will, of course, still be open to organisations to use the present facility to have election ballots conducted on their behalf by the Industrial Registrar or Commonwealth Electoral Officer at Government expense.

Before leaving the matter of ballots, I should perhaps refer to the difficult and controversial question of collegiate voting. As things stand, as a result of amendments introduced in 1973, organisations which provide for collegiate voting are required to move to direct election for full time officers by mid November. The Government accepts in principle a form of collegiate voting, but the system adopted must be consistent with its policy of fullest participation by members. As I have indicated, the issue is a very complex one, and the Government believes that further detailed consideration is necessary, so that it can properly examine the large numbers of representations which it has received.

Term of Office

The Government considers that a maximum term should be fixed for office bearers in organisations. Its initial disposition was to favour a 3 year term. However, in the light of the views which are expressed, particularly by the unions, it has opted for a maximum term of 4 years. Organisations will have 12 months within which to comply with this provision. The change will apply, prospectively, to elections when the present term of office of current office holders expires. Clause 12 provides for this.

Appointment of an additional Judge

Clause 1 1 of the Bill provides for an increase in the maximum number of judges of the Industrial Court. The Government is anxious that the person appointed to be President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal should be of the highest calibre, and thus it is appropriate that he should have judicial status. The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has already announced that the Government proposes to bring the Act establishing the Tribunal into operation this year. The increase by one in the permissible number of judges in the Industrial Court will enable the President of the Tribunal to be a Judge of the Court. He will also be available to take part in the work of the Court other than appeals on administrative matters.

Machinery Matters

The Bill further proposes some machinery changes. I would be pleased to explain these at the Committee stage. I am also happy to add that up to date copies of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act are available from the Bills and Papers Office for those who desire them. I indicated at the outset that the Government is committed to genuine and constructive consultations with employees and trade unions on its industrial legislation. It has demonstrated again its willingness to work with employers and workers, that it is flexible and prepared to recognise the merit of arguments put to it.

As a result of the Government’s initiatives, the ACTU has agreed to take part in wide ranging discussions with the Government on the state of the economy, with particular emphasis on wages policies. Such a spirit of co-operation is vital in the interests of the Australian community. Wage restraint is essential for economic recovery. As a further evidence of the Government’s good faith, we have agreed not to proclaim the legislation, other than that relating to the appointment of the additional judge, pending the holding of the discussions. I commend the Bill to honourable senators.

Debate (on motion by Senator Button) adjourned.

page 2209

STATES GRANTS (AIR QUALITY MONITORING) BILL 1976

Bill received from the House of Representatives.

Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay.

Bill (on motion by Senator Carrick) read a first time.

Second Reading

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– I move: That the Bill be now read a second time.

With the concurrence of honourable senators, I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The speech read as follows)-

This Bill seeks to allocate grants to the States in 1975-76 to facilitate the monitoring of air quality. I am sure that all honourable senators would be aware that air pollution in our major cities is causing concern. Air pollution levels in some of our cities are approaching, and on some occasions have already exceeded, safe community health levels set by the World Health Organisation. The need for monitoring of air pollution as a precursor to stricter controls in some locations is therefore urgent.

Where high levels of pollution occur, the cost of such pollution is met by the community in the form of higher health bills and work absenteeism, lowered property values, and general loss of amenity. In order to alleviate these problems and to develop appropriate control measures, it is necessary that the levels and sources of pollution be clearly identified. This requires the establishment of adequate monitoring facilities. Current metropolitan air monitoring programs in each State differ in instrumentation and procedure. Under the aegis of the Australian Environment Council, agreement has been reached between the States and the Federal Government on the measures needed to achieve standardisation of methods of measurements, types of pollutants to be measured and formats for recording data. Funds provided under this Bill will help to implement this nation-wide approach to air monitoring.

Apart from air pollution control, data from the national monitoring system will be used for the planning of future urban or regional developments. Assessment of air pollution potential is now one of the prime considerations in planning for any venture involving the location of new centres, industry and transport networks. The data collected under the program will enable more accurate assessments to be made in relation to locational decisions. The information will be collected centrally and made available to appropriate authorities for their use.

This Bill proposes a Commonwealth appropriation of $200,000 for the year 1975-76. Appropriations for each subsequent year will be considered according to future needs and within budget context. This program is necessarily an activity aimed at continued vigilance on air quality and at checking that any control strategy undertaken has been effective and efficient. Funds were appropriated under the 1974-75 Budget for the purchase of three mobile air monitoring vans. These vans will be loaned to the various States for the inter-comparison of instruments, determination of sites for permanent monitoring stations and other special projects. The mobile monitors are equipped with modern automatic instrumentation and are capable of taking continuous recordings of pollutants and meteorological conditions. This Bill will implement the second stage of the national monitoring program.

The need for a national approach to air quality was first expressed in the Senate Select Committee Report on Air Pollution in 1969. The National Health and Medical Research Council and the Australian Transport Advisory Council have also emphasised the urgency for improved air quality monitoring. The Government has accepted a responsibility to foster a uniform, nation-wide approach to air monitoring. In our election platform on Environment and Conservation Policy we stated ‘we will examine with each State Government the need for and cost of monitoring air, water and noise pollution standards and where necessary criteria for measurement of standards . . .’. Honourable senators will recall that the States Grants (Water Resources Assessment) Act was enacted in December 1974 to amend the 1973 Act for the provision of grants to all the States for the monitoring of water quality. The present Bill complements the Water Resources Assessment Act by extending monitoring to cover both media- that is, water and air- which are vital to human life and well being. There will be very few in Australia who will not be able to share in the benefits derived from this Bill and I am sure it will receive the support it is due. I commend the Bill to honourable senators.

Debate (on motion by Senator Button) adjourned.

page 2210

INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INCENTIVES BILL 1976

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second rime.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-The Opposition does not oppose the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Bill. I propose to speak briefly to it. I begin by indicating certain salient features of the Bill. There seem to be about three, although one might expect from looking at the Bill that there would be more. The Bill provides for a new program of research incentives to industry to operate from 1 July 1976. In so doing, it replaces the existing system which has operated since 1967. As I understand the Bill, the system will operate by the appointment of an Australian Industrial Research and Development Grants Board which will have responsibility for the administration of the grants made under the legislation, to make recommendations about grants on the application of various companies and so on and for the Board to have the services of an advisory committee to assist it in technical matters and, I suppose, other matters which the Board thinks fit to refer to such a committee.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce (Senator Cotton) drew attention in his second reading speech to the fact that it is the Government’s intention to try to limit the entitlement to grants, in amount, in the first financial year and that that intention is expressed at the moment in accordance with the Government’s general budgetary strategy of restraint. Insofar as this piece of legislation is concerned, the Opposition sees some very sound reasons for that restraint, quite apart from the Government’s overall economic strategy. I will illustrate what I mean by that by referring to one or two passages in the Minister’s second reading speech. I do not want the Minister to jump out of his chair when I say this, but his second reading speech really was a dreadfully boring speech.

Senator Cotton:

– That is not unusual.

Senator BUTTON:

-Senator Cotton says that it is not unusual. I suppose he is speaking for himself when he says that. But I would be more charitable and make my statement wider than that. It is not unusual, but it is not only Senator Cotton who is at fault.

The point I want to make about the Minister’s second reading speech is simply this: It is clearly a speech which has come out of a sort of bureaucratic sausage machine into the Senate and the Minister delivered it. The fact of the matter is that the speech really does not tell us very much about the scheme which has been in existence since 1967 and the scheme which is to come into existence as from 1 July 1976. Perhaps I can illustrate my point by referring to a couple of passages in the Minister’s speech. The Minister stated, as recorded at page 2014 of Senate Hansard of 27 May 1976:

The Government has decided that although the current incentive has been reasonably successful, it is now appropriate for a new program of incentives to be introduced which will permit a more effective use of public funds allocated for the purpose of stimulating industrial research and development.

We are talking about replacing a scheme which has been described as having been only reasonably successful. It is a ‘reasonably successful scheme’ which since 1967 has resulted in the expenditure of $ 104m of public money. At the end of that time we are told that it was reasonably successful and that we now propose to replace it with another scheme which the Government legitimately hopes will be more successful. We share the Government’s hopes and aspirations in regard to that.

Anybody listening to the discussion on this Bill either in the Senate or the House of Representatives really would not have any idea what it was all about or where that $104m had really gone. The point I am trying to make is that in this type of matter perhaps we could go about illustrating to the Australian people a little more seriously where their money is being spent. If the Minister could have said in his speech that the $104m which has been spent over the years gone by has resulted in this benefit and that benefit to Australian industry in terms of new technology and design and if he could point to specific examples, the members of the public listening to the debate would know what it was all about. But they can have no idea what it is all about in the absence of that sort of information.

I shall quote from the same page of the Minister’s speech when he had this to say about the old scheme:

As well as stimulating more companies to undertake more research and development activities, the scheme has been effective in a broader context. It has increased the employment opportunities for qualified and skilled research workers in this country.

There is not one tittle of evidence to back that statement. Perhaps it is true. Of course, I am prepared to assume that it is true. But again, it would be very helpful for the Parliament and for the people of Australia when we are talking about large sums of money being spent if we were to have some examples of how this statement is true. We as a Parliament are now being asked to implement a different scheme, a scheme which the Government hopes will be more successful, to provide incentives to industry for research. We are really being asked to do that very much in the dark. We are not opposing the legislation because we have confidence in the Government’s goodwill in relation to the matter. We do not have any confidence in the established data because there is not any relating to the type of thing on which this money is being spent.

I ask the Minister quite seriously to consider those points so that the actions of this Parliament in terms of the spending of sums of money like that do not become a meaningless exercise but that that expenditure becomes a reality for the Australian people. I make that point because when we look at technological development in the last 25 years the success stories are all very clear to see. Sweden, West Germany, Japan and other similar countries have made vast technological advances and vast advances in industrial design. In economic terms, as a result of those sorts of developments theirs have been tremendous success stories. When people in Australia talk of Sweden they know that it produces the Volvo car and the Viggen fighter. They know these things about Sweden. They know what its technology means in real terms. People understand what Japanese technology, particularly in the electronics industry, means in real terms. They see the product. They know that it is well designed. They know that it represents a great technological advance.

There is really nothing in this country since the stump-jump plough to which we can point in the same way and say with the same degree of national pride about it: ‘Look, as a result of this $104m of public money being spent in the last few years we have achieved these sorts of advances in technology in Australia’. This is the essential point that I am concerned to make because I would like to see this country able to make such a claim demonstrating that as a result of these incentives to industry, industry was producing research, was developing projects and designing successful products in a way of which we could speak proudly as a people by saying that part of this was due to the expenditure of public money on such an incentive scheme as this legislation proposes.

Might I make one other point? Clause 19 of the Bill gives the Minister a power to express directions and views to the Board from time to time about the sorts of criteria which it should be considering in making grants available. I hope that the Minister will keep an eye on this situation in the years remaining to him in office- and I assume that that will be 2 years-and that he will use that power to give the Board some guidance in matters of the type which I have raised. I am sure that he will because I believe that he is concerned about the same matters that concern me although with his back-up staff he might have expressed that concern differently. I hope that, if he feels it appropriate to use that power to direct the Board, he will use it to ask the Board to take account of industrial design consideration. I think that we vastly under-emphasise the importance in this country of sound industrial design and importance in the manufacture and sale of products. If the Minister feels it appropriate to take these sorts of matters into account, Australian industry and Australia as a whole can only benefit from legislation of this kind. That is why we do not oppose it, but I hope that in not opposing it the views which we take about the expenditure of public money on such development without proper accountability to the Parliament are quite clear.

Senator COTTON:
New South WalesMinister for Industry and Commerce · LP

– in reply- I thank the Opposition and Senator Button for their willingness to let this piece of legislation pass without opposition. I think Senator Button summarised some of the factors of the legislation very well. Not only did I enjoy listening to him but also I valued the comments that he made many of them strangely, honourable senators may find, consistent with my own views.

One or two points might be made very briefly on this legislation. For a start, a great deal of information is available on what is going on in this area through the years since 1967. There is an annual report tabled in the Parliament. It lists all the people who receive help. It does not, as I think Senator Button quite fairly concludes, document perhaps the area of precise advantage that a company might have achieved or the precise contribution that a piece of research has made to new design, new technology or new product method, which has added advantage to the company and through it to the nation. This might well be put into a new position with the new Board. I will take that matter up seriously with it. I think we will all appreciate that there will be some areas here where confidentiality of a company’s processes would have some bearing on this approach. But, in general, if we can persuade the society in which we live that part of the public revenues can be usefully devoted to improving technology, design, capacity, working methods and the units which are being produced for consumption, the achievement of that end will be a useful development. If it is true that public revenues are being devoted to this purpose the more the public can be made to understand the fact that it ought to benefit in due course, so much the better. I am arguing strongly in the direction taken by Senator Button to try to achieve this sort of position.

In relation to the new Board which will be the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Board as distinct from the old Board, he does quite correctly mention clause 19. It is included to try to see that through the Minister the Government and the Parliament can make some comments from time to time on the effectiveness of the public revenue as it is being utilised in this area. I would take that observation of his as being very useful comment. There are some general comments in the latest report of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. These aspects are referred to in one or two places in the OECD work and comments on the Australian scene. There are OECD figures on the total contribution that Australia makes to what might be called research and development across the general Australian scene. There are some notable deficiencies. I suppose this is one of those areas where governments could always spend a great deal more money, as could industry itself. There is a strong case here for, first of all, strong industry-Government co-operation and a second case for strong government, Federal to State, cooperation. We ourselves are working solidly in that direction to try to achieve that type of total balance.

One also ought to pay one’s proper share of credit by saying that this re-thinking process in relation to the Australian industrial research program was begun by the previous Government. The work that I inherited when I came into office I pushed along, but the thinking has been going on for some time. The general area of reconstruction has been the product to some extent of some sort of bipartisan approach.

I believe that those are probably the only matters that I need to mention specifically except once again, speaking for myself and the Government, to say: ‘Yes, I do regard it as important that the new Board should have clearly fixed in its mind that it is having public revenues put at its disposal to make effective use of those revenues, and that the effective use in the end must be of benefit to the Australian public, including the consumer, the producer and the exporter. In one way or another this work must add in some way to what they achieve and make their work more useful, more productive and less costly, call it what we will.’ To the extent that we get that sort of final result known to people in the community through the actions of the Parliament, I am sure that we will all be better off. I thank honourable senators.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 2213

INCOME TAX ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT BILL 1976

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 June on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time

Upon which Senator Wriedt had moved by way of amendment: at end of motion, add “, but the Senate notes that:

  1. The legislation involves the breaking of election promises with the removal, for many, of home mortgage interest deductions and the inadequate alterations to wine makers’ tax liability; and
  2. The promises for the introduction of the investment allowance have created a chaotic situation in the economy”.
Senator COTTON:
New South WalesMinister for Industry and Commerce · LP

– We were dealing with these conjoint measuressix in number- late last night when it was indicated by the Opposition that, although it did not oppose the Bills, it was going to move an amendment and the Government indicated briefly that it welcomed the Opposition’s non-opposition and would seek to defeat its amendment. I think that that disposes of that. I was making some comments last night about Senator Walsh’s remarks- it was really a kind of interchange across the chamber- when he was talking about the Australian level of total taxation per head of population and making some comments about its level in comparative terms to countries round the world and I was responding to him. I think that I should finish that off briefly before I begin to make some general comments in answer to the remarks of various honourable senators about this matter.

I think that one also ought to bear in mind when one talks about the general level of taxation per head of population in total terms in any relative sense that what one is talking about is raising revenue for the purposes of the people. One can do it directly, indirectly or by a combination of both, which is what happens in this country. But when one is seeking in effect to increase the revenue it is not necessarily the case that one has only to put up the rates. This is one of the attitudes that I always find interesting. There are 2 ways of improving the revenue for public purposes. One is to have what I call a negative approach and to keep on putting up the rates. The other approach- I believe that it is a better approach-is to get oneself into a positive position to try to get economic growth and development, to try to get rising prosperity and to get increased revenue out of enhancements rather than out of negative positions. I make that comment to Senator Walsh, who has a great interest in these things and whom, I think, is a student of some of these problems.

The amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Wriedt) is in similar terms to that moved without success by the Opposition in another place. It touches on two aspects of the Bill. Substantial changes are proposed by the Bill to the housing loan interest tax deduction scheme that was introduced by the former Government. That scheme had some serious defects. It continued the tax relief into the later years of a home loan, when the interest may have become much less of a burden. The revenue spent in this way would be much better spent in assisting a would-be home buyer to get together enough money to enable him to put a deposit on a home. The scheme is to be altered by the Bill so that the tax relief is provided for first homes and during the first 5 years of ownership. Hand in hand with this will go the new, more generous home savings grants scheme to help future home buyers to br/die the deposit gap. This is a more realistic approach to the problem of helping people to acquire their own homes.

As to the wine making industry, the Bill will extend by at least a further 4 years the period over which taxpayers in the industry can pay their deferred tax liability. If the adjustment raises the tax rate by more than 10 per cent, there will be a further deferral of tax and, also, private companies will be relieved of the need to distribute dividends out of the deferred income that is now to be brought to account. In a budgetary context we will look at the general basis of stock valuation. Any changes that are made in this area will, of course, apply to the wine making industry.

I would also like to refer briefly to some of the points raised in this debate. Senator Wriedt suggested that the Government had no idea of the cost to revenue of the investment allowance over the full period. The Treasurer (Mr Lynch) has been quite firm about this. He has said that the full year cost to revenue of the investment allowance would be of the order of $500m. This annual cost was mentioned by, I think, Senator Messner and Senator Walsh. Senator Walsh and

Senator McLaren suggested that the Government had broken election promises to wine makers.

As the Treasurer said in a second reading speech, the Government promised during the election campaign to review the taxation arrangements that applied to wine and brandy stocks. I am informed that the Government made no commitment to forgive tax deferred in the past. Forgiveness of that tax would not have been the appropriate step.

As Senator Messner explained in his speech, this Bill provides for far more generous transitional arrangements than were provided by the Labor Government. The remaining 4 years of the transitional period for recoupment of the deferred tax has been extended to 8 years with the provision for further extensions where the adjustment in any year results in a tax increase of more than 10 per cent of the taxable income before that adjustment. In addition, private company wine makers will not have to pay additional dividends because a part of the deferred income is included in an assessment for a particular year. At the same time, all tax payable on a primary tax assessment, including that payable in respect of the deferred income adjustment, will be taken into account for the purposes of calculating the distributable income of a company for Division 7 purposes.

Senator Walsh was slightly critical of the Government’s tax indexation proposals and said that broadly the same effect had been achieved by tax cuts made by the previous Government. I do not think that that is strictly the case, but the point about the Government’s indexation proposals is that taxpayers know that indexation will apply next year and the years after. They do not have to hope that there will be ad hoc tax reductions year by year if at all. Indexation will automatically prevent the rise in effective tax rates which would otherwise come about as a result of rising incomes and will act to keep the Government of the day honest enough by having to go to the taxpayer for more money if it wants to spend more money.

Senator Walsh also criticised some aspects of the proposed investment allowance. He suggested that the investment allowance should have been made available for perhaps only one year- -certainly not for the lengthy periods provided in the Bill. This completely ignores the practical realities of the long lead time that applies in respect of the delivery or construction of very many large items of plant, such plant may have to be imported or constructed to order.

It may take 4 or 5 years for it even to get into the actual commissioning stage beyond the planning stage. No one is going to order plant that may not be delivered in time to meet the requirements of a restricted allowance.

Senator Walsh also referred to the exclusion from the investment allowance of plant costing less than $500. The earlier investment allowances specifically provided for the exclusion of many small items of plant in the manufacturing and primary production areas. With the new, wide-ranging allowance extending to all industries, it was not practicable specifically to exclude small items, as was done with the earlier allowances. The $500 limit was inserted to achieve somewhat the same result. I refer to things like pocket calculators, fountain pens, wastepaper baskets and so on. I saw an attempt that was made to compile a list of what might be called exclusions. One realises when one looks at it that the purpose always would be defeated by somebody renaming something and therefore excluding it from the list. It would be a perpetual exercise to reshape the list. I think that such a restriction was therefore necessary to contain the cost of the allowance within reasonable bounds. It will contribute to the efficient operation of the new law.

Various comments were made during the debate about what sort of economic recovery one is going to get- consumer led or investment led. I think that these things are very largely irrelevant. They are often the product of misunderstandings by people as to what the total scene is about. The critical factor is to have a situation in which it is worthwhile for a purchaser to buy- to feel that his future is in a country in which things will grow and develop and that therefore he can start to buy things to enhance his living standards and opportunities. When that begins to take place, and it is beginning to take place, people will be encouraged to make those things or to get hold of those things for other people to buy.

That is beginning to happen. It happens out of a situation of confidence and general development towards growth. Therefore one has a mixture of what one might call a consumer led recovery which of itself is involved in an investment led recovery. One may well move ahead of the other. But if one has a consumer led recovery which in due course did not have some inducement to people to invest in new capacity all one has really done is to defeat oneself in the end. One has not achieved the purpose. So they must go together. They are very much involved in people believing that it is worthwhile to work, that it is worthwhile to buy things and that it is worthwhile to invest. In the scene that was achieved in Australia in the preceding 3 years when most companies were in effect losing money there was not much inducement to people to invest in any new capacity. So the total scene is one that is involved and that does not really lead itself to simple categorical assertions about how things will come about.

I am a believer- I always have been-in the view that Australia will move into a recovery phase. I believe that it is beginning to be seen now. Equally, I believe that it will take some time and I believe that it ought to be very carefully managed by all those who are involved. I repeat what I said the other evening: The Federal Parliament and the Federal Government have taken a certain number of steps in this direction which the Government announced on Thursday night a couple of weeks ago. The matter now is very much in the hands of other groups of people in the community- the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, the unions, the broad body of consumers and savers, the business people who invest and make capacity available, and the State and local governments. They now have a responsibility as well because no recovery is ever achieved in a society like this without a lead from the principal government and the willing help and co-operation of society totally, which is of course the principal beneficiary of recovery.

Amendment negatived.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 10- by leave- taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 1 1.

Senator WRIEDT:
Leader of the Opposition · Tasmania

– The Opposition will oppose clause 1 1 of the Bill, and we will do so on the voices at the conclusion of the debate on it. The issue with which we are concerned is that the Government is working in the mistaken belief that it is the deposit gap which is denying home ownership to the majority of Australian people. The real problem, of course, is the problem of interest rates. The existing scheme provides the Government with an opportunity of maintaining current interest rates but provides selective relief for home buyers. It should not be forgotten that this measure will be a further blow to the building and construction industry. Not only has the finance which is channelled into that industry been cut, but this provision could also prevent the continuing recovery of the residential sector of that industry. This is another example of the Government’s muddled thinking in relation to economic recovery. The Government introduces tax indexation to encourage consumer spending but takes away the benefit of that by increasing the tax burden on home owners. The Government has wiped out tax savings, which could amount to $10 a week for a family with a housing loan of approximately $20,000. The Opposition does not believe that this measure reflects the sort of policies which the Government ought to be following. Of course, it is consistent with comments made by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) after the election which implied that statements and promises made during the election campaign were not necessarily binding on the Government after the election.

Senator Wright:

– The Government has never said that.

Senator WRIEDT:

– A notable comment was made during a recent Monday Conference interview with the Prime Minister from which that inference could fairly and reasonably be taken. I invite Senator Wright, who objects to my saying that, to read the transcript of the interview, which I will give to him if he is not able to obtain it. For those reasons, Mr Chairman, the Opposition will seek the deletion from the Bill of clause 11.

Senator COTTON:
New South WalesMinister for Industry and Commerce · LP

– This clause does not need to have a lot of time spent on it. I mentioned it in my general reply during the second reading debate and it was adverted to by the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Wriedt) when he spoke. One is always fascinated by observations made about interest rates. Perhaps a little earnest study by the members of the previous Government would give them some knowledge about the matter. When they took office in 1972 we had one of the lowest inflation rates in the free world and one of the lowest unemployment rates Australia had ever seen. It was a country in a state of economic growth and development. All those things were real and satisfactory and achieved. After 3 years, the Labor Government had achieved the highest inflation rate almost within measured sight, and an unemployment rate which was the greatest since the depression. Anybody who takes any time at all to consider this matter will realise that concomitant with high inflation rates are high interest rates. Australia is not a country which can afford high interest rates for very long. That is the way to destroy a country like this which has so much commitment to development and expansion. The way to get interest rates into reasonable balance, as they used to be, is to have a low inflation rate. That is why this Government’s principal trust has been to get things into balance and to bring down the inflation rate. When that comes down the interest rate will come down. It will not come down by misunderstandings and mouthings of empty economic jargon that mean nothing.

Clause agreed to.

Remainder of Bill- by leave-taken as a whole, and agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Senator Cotton) read a third time.

page 2216

SUPERANNUATION AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 25 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 2216

INCOME TAX (INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS) AMENDMENT BILL 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 25 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 2216

INCOME TAX ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 25 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 2216

INCOME TAX (RATES) BILL 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time and passed through its remaining stages without requests or debate.

page 2217

INCOME TAX (INDIVIDUALS) BILL 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time and passed through its remaining stages without requests or debate.

page 2217

HEALTH INSURANCE LEVY ASSESSMENT BILL 1976

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– At the present time there are 6 Bills on our notice paper which relate to the Government’s proposals with respect to the Medibank health insurance scheme. They are the Health Insurance Levy Assessment Bill, the Health Insurance Levy Bill, the Income Tax (International Agreements) Amendment Bill (No. 2), the Health Insurance Amendment Bill, the National Health Amendment Bill and the Health Insurance Commission Amendment Bill. May I suggest that we have a cognate debate on these 6 Bills?

The PRESIDENT:

-Is there any objection to that course being followed? There being no objection, it is so ordered.

Senator GRIMES:
Tasmania

– In essence the Bills before the Senate at the moment represent in basis the Government’s proposals to dismantle the health insurance program which was initiated by the previous Government. These proposals have been introduced with the excuse that there is some necessity to cut government expenditure in the field of health insurance and under the phoney pretence that the new proposals will provide freedom of choice in the field of medical care. But in fact the proposals will bring about the destruction of Medibank, despite the promise made by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in his last policy speech, when he said:

We will maintain Medibank and ensure that the standard of health care does not decline.

We submit that these proposals in fact will greatly increase the administrative costs of and the difficulties in health insurance in this country.

They will increase the total cost of health care and will cause confusion and uncertainty in the minds of patients; they have done that already. Together with the cuts in hospital expenditure and the cuts in community health expenditure they will downgrade the standard of public health care in Australia. Injustices will be done to low income earners and, especially in Victoria where the provision of public ward beds is inadequate, the proposals will force low income earners to pay more than their fair share for health care. Further, we believe that the proposals will remove the possibility of gaining important statistical data to plan for the future and will limit the ability of health authorities to detect those doctors- however few they may be- who rip off the public purse and the individual’s purse by their immoral behaviour. The Opposition therefore opposes those Bills which have as their purpose the destruction and dismantling of Medibank.

We do not oppose those measures which have as their aim the more effective registration and regulation of the private health funds, nor do we oppose those measures which will enable the Health Insurance Commission to prevent insurance companies and others involved in workers’ compensation insurance and other fields from gaining benefit from the health insurance scheme. We certainly do not oppose the measures to increase the regulation of and the conditions imposed upon registration of voluntary health funds. Why should we oppose those measures? They were largely our proposals. They were introduced by us when we were in government; bitterly opposed by honourable senators opposite; defeated by the then Opposition- defeated, we were told, on a matter of principle. We were told that that legislation would lead us down the rocky road of socialism and it was dictatorial. In fact, one of the Bills was cited by the Governor-General as a reason for the last double dissolution.

The Health Insurance Levy Bill provides for a levy of 2.5 per cent of taxable income on all incomes above a minimal level. For this standard ward accommodation will be available in hospitals and the reimbursement of 85 per cent of scheduled medical fees will be provided. This is the same as Medibank provides at present. Exemption from the levy can be obtained by paying a Medibank premium which the Government thinks- I repeat the word ‘thinks’- will be $300 per annum for a family and $150 per annum for a taxpayer without dependants. This premium has been set up by the Government on the assumption that the voluntary health funds will supply intermediate ward cover and medical insurance at $350 per annum.

Senator Devitt:

– Have they said that yet?

Senator GRIMES:

-The funds have grave doubts about their ability to do this, Senator Devitt. We have grave doubts about the ability of many funds to do this. The premium is apparently set at a level of $50 below the existing voluntary health fund cover with the deliberate intention of forcing- I do not believe we should be euphemistic and say encouraging- people into the voluntary health funds.

Senator Walters:

-I thought you said that they could not cope with the price.

Senator GRIMES:

– There is no choice in being forced, Senator Walters. Exemption can also be obtained from the levy by purchasing private medical and hospital cover from the voluntary health funds, thus severing all connections with Medibank. The third alternative is to pay the levy plus a premium estimated at $135 per family to obtain intermediate ward cover as well as Medibank cover.

These changes and other changes allegedly arise from the investigations and findings of the Medibank Review Committee. This Committee was set up allegedly to investigate Medibank and suggest improvements. Its findings and reports have not been made public and, according to the Prime Minister, they will not be made public. This great change in the health insurance scheme of this country is to be made only 10 months after the scheme started. It is not to be made after public discussion or after public debate but after secret reports and negotiations. The reason for this is obvious. The main reason is that the Committee was instructed not to review Medibank but to produce a scheme which forces at least 50 per cent of the community out of Medibank. hose were the Committee’s terms of reference, and that is what has happened. We believe the Treasury has even modified the Committee’s scheme and in doing so has produced anomalies which have disadvantaged some low income earners.

I think it is important for honourable senators to remember that the recent change in the tax rebate system has put many people previously not in the taxable income range into the taxable income range and therefore into the range at which they will pay the levy. The result of these changes which were hurriedly conceived on an ideological rather than on a practical basis is public confusion-who can deny it-and indignation. There is confusion even in the minds of members of the Government. In their haste to allay this confusion, members of the Government have produced a document explaining the options, but these options are hedged with ifs and buts which only add to the confusion. This is not surprising, I believe, when we consider that the pamphlet was drawn up by the Prime Minister and the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt), assisted by the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Baume) who is an expert at producing documents like this.

The Opposition opposes the imposition of the levy, but not because we oppose the principle of a levy. After all, we tried to impose a levy in the first place but were prevented from doing so, allegedly as a matter of principle, by the same people who now sit opposite. We oppose the levy first of all because we believe it is too high at 2.5 per cent. At this level it defeats the purpose of tax indexation and the new family allowance scheme for the vast majority of wage earners who are on or about the average weekly wage. The purpose of the new indexation proposals and allowance proposals is to put more money into the pockets of these people. We oppose the levy because the legislation provides for opting out, thus destroying the universality of Medibank. As well as the opting out clause the levy, by its nature, forces people out of Medibank on economic grounds. When forced to do so by the then Opposition, we funded Medibank from Consolidated Revenue which at least had the virtue of being roughly proportional- within the limits of our very imperfect taxation system- to people’s ability to pay.

I believe first of all we should look at who will go out of Medibank, who will be forced out of Medibank. On the Government’s estimate those who have incomes exceeding $ 12,000 a year will opt out completely and those receiving an income in excess of $8,000 a year will opt out partly.

Senator Baume:

– Will you opt out?

Senator GRIMES:

-I will not opt out. Many, who for philosophical or ideological reasons may wish to support Medibank but also wish to retain some intermediate cover, will be forced out. They will be given the choice of paying the premium of $135 a year for intermediate hospital insurance-a total of $435 a year- or of buying intermediate cover from the funds at $350 a year, thus incurring a penalty of $80. This is just a ruse to present phoney alternatives and to force people into the funds.

A particular difficulty will arise for the citizens of Victoria, particularly those who live in Melbourne. As a result of a succession of conservative governments in Victoria there is a chronic and disgraceful shortage of public standard beds. In fact, in Victoria the number of public beds per capita is practically half that of any other State. The difficulty of getting a public bed when one is ill is well known to the citizens of Victoria. The decreasing funds that will be made available by this Government will mean that this situation will worsen. Members of the public in Victoria know this and realise that to have any sort of chance of getting a bed when they are ill they must take out insurance with voluntary funds, no matter how unwilling they are to do so.

Senator Walters:

– There is no force about it whatsoever.

Senator GRIMES:

– The cruel fact, Senator Walters, is that at least in Victoria people on relatively low incomes will be forced to take out private insurance when they can ill afford to do so, because they know that is the only way in which they can get a bed in reasonable time. So much for the Government’s freedom of choice.

Senator Walters:

– You just said you are not being forced out.

Senator GRIMES:

– I am a Tasmanian, Senator. I will come to that. The effect of the tax levy and the health insurance premium on the consumer price index in this country is interesting. I am sure it will interest the Treasurer (Mr Lynch), the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Howard) and others. It will interest other people if attempts are made to remove such significant areas of personal expenditure from the CPI. I believe that there will be many more people in the country, including the trade union movement, who will be very interested in this sort of thing, but I would like to know from the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) what is planned there.

We are also concerned about the administrative changes which will be caused by this new scheme. A not inconsiderable problem will be caused to various organisations in deciding who is in Medibank and who is not. The Health Insurance Commission will have problems continually altering its records and programs. The voluntary health funds I am sure have indicated to honourable senators opposite the problems they will have which will increase their difficulties of keeping records. They will have to notify the Health Insurance Commission of who is in and who is out and will have to provide proof for taxation purposes of who is in and who is out of the scheme. Also, the Taxation Office will have the added responsibility of determinig the liabilities of citizens to pay the levy. Also the much maligned and much harassed paymaster in various firms, including small firms, will have trouble determining who is to have these levies deducted from his wages and who is not. All this is to be introduced instead of retaining the simple and unified system we have now. The general publicwill have trouble, and is having trouble, deciding whether to be in or out of this scheme. A person with a varying income and the self-employed person with an uncertain income who does not know what he will earn for the rest of the year will be faced with the problem of assessing whether to be in or out of Medibank. That anyone will be helped by the explanatory pamphlet which has just been produced is a very moot point. Nobody can be helped now until he has some idea of what the voluntary health funds will do.

Medibank this year had administrative costs of some $90m less than predicted and the number of claims were roughly as predicted. I believe that is extraordinary. I believe that it was incredible that even the number of claims could have been as close as predicted. With the settling down of the program the turn around of claims has been excellent. The much maligned computerscomputers which Senator Sheil is so keen on describing as sinister machines- are working very well. So, why should we replace this present scheme with such a cumbersome and administratively difficult scheme as the one which has been suggested. If choice and competition were the ideal for the Government, why not allow Medibank to offer private and intermediate hospitalisation insurance? At least then the competition that is so sacred to the Government would be between competitors offering the same goods. Perhaps the reason is that the Government and the funds realise that in his 1969 report Nimmo ‘s comments on the inefficiency of the various voluntary health funds were accurate.

The aims of Medibank and the various CommonwealthState hospital agreements were to introduce a universal health scheme-I do not think anyone will question that they did this-to introduce an equitable system of health insurance compared with the gross inequities of the old scheme which combined a flat rate contribution and tax deductions which were of more benefit to the high income earners than to the low income earners; to give the States a better deal in funding hospitals; and to provide an administratively efficient scheme. The total cost of health care in this country will not be altered by the new changes.

Senator Walters:

– But some of it will be borne by the private funds.

Senator GRIMES:

-The health funds, I might add, are not producers of goods or of wealth. They are producers of services and as such it makes no difference from where the expenditure comes, whether it is from Government or from these funds. Before Medibank was introduced the harbingers of doom in this community, particularly in the medical profession, had 2 very firm and great objections and predictions. The first was that the public hospitals would be flooded with patients and overloaded and that the private hospitals would be empty and go broke. We heard that many times in this chamber and throughout the country. The second was that patients in their thousands would over-utilise the scheme. I will not accuse Senator Baume of making that prediction. The simple fact is that public hospitals have not become overcrowded. They are not flooded with patients. In some States, including Tasmania, the complaint is that there are too many people in private hospitals. All investigations have shown that patients have not grossly over-utilised the scheme, but some doctors have and this has been admitted by people on both sides of this House and in both chambers of this Parliament. The system, through its efficiency in detecting these fraudulent practitioners, has resulted in charges being laid. I suggest that there will be little hope of detecting such breaches under the new proposals.

Senator Walters:

– How many have been charged?

Senator Primmer:

– Not enough.

The PRESIDENT:

– Order! The honourable senator will have an opportunity to speak later on.

Senator GRIMES:

-For Senator Walters information, there are charges in the pipeline but I suggest that as the Government is hers she ask her Minister. It is inevitable that the new system of health insurance will increase the total cost of health care- the toal cost to the community, that is, Senator Walters. The Government may be able to point proudly, as I am sure it can, to book entries of public expenditure and say that costs have been reduced but it certainly will not be able to in view of the predictions of certain members of the Government when increased administrative costs of departments other than the Department of Health are taken into account. Inevitably the public will pay more in toto through the plethora of voluntary health funds and through the increased cost of private care.

The strangest proclamation we have heard is the Minister’s pious hope that the levy and premium arrangements will put a brake on medical fees. This pious hope is doomed to failure and would bring hollow laughs from ex-Prime Minister Gorton, certainly from Mr Justice Nimmo, and cynical laughs, as we have heard, from members of the General Practitioners’ Society in Australia. The provision for doctors to bulk bill and still charge the 15 per cent gap to patients will be a bonanza for some unscrupulous practitioners who now demand payment first and run what we call cash register practices. The system of health care we have in this country is not efficient, I believe. It emphasises treatment rather than prevention. The charging of specific fees for specific operations and treatment leads to the performance of unnecessary procedures, a fact recognised all over the world and even in the home of free enterprise, the United States of America, where the development of health maintenance organisations has caused a new look in medical practice. It is known by all doctors, and admitted by more and more, that the incidence of all sorts of operations is higher under a fee for service system than under a system of health maintenance organisations or salaried service. But we in this country have become used to the fee for service system. We have been subjected to a barrage of propaganda that the crossing of the palm with silver preserves a sacred doctor-patient relationship and somehow leads to more efficient medical service. Public hospitals have been given the stigma of a charity or a workhouse. In the past public hospitals have been neglected in respect of finance and facilities.

Medibank, particularly in Queensland and Tasmania, has changed this situation dramatically. More and more doctors- in excess of 40 per cent and increasingly- are now entering salaried service. The percentage is increasing despite the richer financial gains in private practice. Public hospitals have improved their general facilities as a result of public pressure and increased Commonwealth funding in recent years. The Government now plans to force more and more people out of Medibank and out of public hospitals in an attempt to downgrade the public sector. Propaganda by honourable senators opposite and by some members of the Australian Medical Association, particularly members of the General Practitioners Society in Australia, is aimed deliberately and falsely at holding up private health care as the most desirable and efficient form of health treatment. This assertion is not true but is the main aim and exercise of some who are trying to dismantle Medibank.

The provision of health maintenance care in both private and public form is the only way forward for health care in this country. The provision of economic disease prevention and treatment programs will come but while they are coming I suggest that the provision of equitable universal health insurance, as is provided by the present Medibank system, is essential and should not be destroyed by the sort of philosophical prejudices of those who seek to perpetuate the archaic differences of the past. In attempting to dismantle Medibank in this underhand way, without discussion and without consultation with interested parties, including State governments, the Commonwealth Government has created enormous confusion which, as I have said, is not relieved by the pamphlet which has just been released because the pamphlet is nothing more than a political document produced far beyond the time when decisions have to be made and far before the time that information on which decisions can be made should be available. The decisions that have to be made by people do not have to be made until October and because of the gaps in information available, the explanatory pamphlets do not help.

The Opposition believes that until the facts are known the public and the Parliament are not in a position to judge the situation. We believe that the recommendations of the Review Committee should be made public so that we can judge where and why the Government’s proposals differ from what is presently provided. The members of the Review Committee almost certainly propose a phasing in of the levy over the low income scale. The Treasury almost certainly equally opposed this on economic grounds. In doing this the Government has left some low income groups paying almost as much in levies as in tax. Until the voluntary health funds can produce figures we will not know what is happening. We can be certain, however, that the figures will vary from fund to fund. We can be certain they will vary from State to State. In some States, because of low medical fees, the intermediate fund premiums of the voluntary health funds may well be as low as the suggested Medibank premiums. In other States, such as Tasmania, where there are no private and intermediate beds in public hospitals the fund charges may be disproportionately high.

State governments, both Labor and conservative, are expressing concern and outright opposition to the proposals. One can quote the remarks of Mr Bjelke-Petersen, of all people, on the weekend. The reneging on the hospital agreements under the pretence of this last minute legal technicality we believe is a fraudulent and immoral act. These changes were conceived in haste. We believe the ramifications have not been thought through. They depend on the ability of the health funds to produce a service at a low enough premium which we believe is a doubtful ability. They depend on the cooperation of the doctors which in the past has been non-existent with all governments of all persuasions. But even with both these conditions fulfilled the Government has destroyed the universal nature of Medibank. It destroyed an efficient system which was built up in only 10 months and accepted by the people of this country. This proposal does nothing for the standard of health care. In fact, it will increase the total cost of health care. It will destroy the basis on which reforms can be made in the future. Therefore we oppose the 4 Bills which we believe cause the dismantling of a good and efficient scheme. We do not oppose the other 2 Bills. We will deal with them in Committee. We ask the Government to think again and to consult with those concerned, including the State governments, and to produce the reforms at a later date when everyone has had a chance to consider them.

Senator BAUME:
New South Wales

– The Senate is debating cognately 6 Bills, namely, the Health Insurance Levy Assessment Bill, Health Insurance Levy Bill, Income Tax (International Agreements) Amendments Bill, Health Insurance Amendment Bill, National Health Amendment Bill and Health Insurance Commission Amendment Bill, which together form the basis of the Government’s new proposals for health insurance. These proposals have been the subject of much abuse, much deliberate misunderstanding and much deliberate confusion. The kind of speech which we have just heard for Senator Grimes has made no attempt to put to the people of Australia the real facts about the Government’s program. It has sought to confuse and to make more difficult for the people the understanding of what is proposed.

We have heard that the levy proposal is wrong. We have heard that the levy level is wrong. We have heard that the option of increased choice is wrong. We have heard Australian Labor Party people say in true socialist style that they believe that the private beds in the great public hospitals should continue to be subsidised by the wage earners of Australia. They oppose any attempt to bring the fees for those beds up to realistic levels.

We have been told by Mr Whitlam in speeches in another place that we are dismantling Medibank. We are told by Mr Whitlam that we will make it too expensive for many taxpayers to remain in the scheme. All this is incorrect. It is untrue. We have had some criticisms of Medibank which have been nothing short of disgraceful. The new Minister for Health in New South Wales, Mr Stewart, actually went so far as to say that people in New South Wales would now be forced to carry the full burden for heavy costs of health care without any Federal financial assistance. That is just not true. The same Minister in a Press release, cynically designed to confuse Australians, claimed that only the indigent, the pensioners and the elderly would be able to remain in Medibank. That is not true. Mr President, I remind you that by way of interjection I invited Senator Grimes to indicate what he would do in relation to Medibank. He made it clear that he would stay in. So can every Australian. No Australian will need to leave the Medibank system if he or she does not want to. What is being proposed by a series of socialist spokesmen is a load of nonsense designed to confuse the people of Australia.

It is reasonable to examine the essence of Medibank. What is Medibank? What is the Medibank program? If we are to be accused of dismantling the program we believe that we should set out what is the core of Medibank. I believe it is not as Senator Grimes stated. The core of Medibank is that every Australian should have health insurance cover. That cover should be universal and automatic. Every Australian in need should be relieved of any financial barriers in seeking care. Every Australian should have the right to a bed in a standard ward. Those are the features of Medibank. That is the core of Medibank. It is the automatic enrolment which made it attractive. It is the automatic enrolment which provides the only social equality which the scheme really has. I remind honourable senators that we can look to no less a spokesman than Senator Douglas McClelland. When introducing the Bills in this place on 1 1 December 1973 to set up the Medibank program the honourable senator attempted to set out what constituted this program. At that time he was describing the features and he stated: social equity, universal coverage and cost efficiency which form the Government’s intentions in this legislation are central to our -

That is the Labor Government of the day- whole philosophy of social progress. Further on Senator Douglas McClelland stated:

The program will enable all residents of Australia to be automatically covered by medical and hospital benefits. Pensioners at present eligible for general practitioner consultation services under the pensioner medical service will have their eligibility extended to a full range of medical services, including specialist services. … All other residents will be entitled to receive medical benefits which will total at least 85 per cent of the cost of medical services for which doctors charge the appropriate fees.

These are the core elements of Medibank. The social goals for which the Medibank program was designed were to give universal cover to Australians, to make sure there was automatic cover, to make sure the poor were protected, to make sure that individuals got beds in standard wards. These are features which are being retained. No Australian will be left without health insurance cover. We are retaining universal cover. As Senator Grimes has so eloquently pointed out, it does not matter whether one gets cover from the Government or from a private fund. They are both providers of services. There is no difference. We are retaining the universal health insurance cover for all people in Australia. So how can honourable senators opposite say that we are dismantling Medibank from that point of view? We are retaining automatic cover so that Australians will be automatically in Medibank unless they take deliberate and affirmative action to have themselves enrolled outside. So those Australians who do not get on well with bureaucracy and government will still be protected. The poor and the disadvantaged will automatically be enrolled in Medibank. The Australian Labor Party knows that. But it insists on putting up a fiction that in some way Medibank is being dismantled. That aspect of Medibank is not being disbanded.

The poor will be protected. No levy will be paid by families earning less than a bit over $4,000 a year. No levy will be paid by the poor of Australia. The very idea of a levy relating to income- a levy which the Labor Party supportedwas to make sure that the poorer Australians paid less. We will retain the right to standard ward accommodation for every Australian. Senator Grimes told us a few minutes ago that he is staying in Medibank. If Senator Grimes on his parliamentary salary does not have to get out of Medibank, what is his justification for alleging that anyone will have to get out? The fact is that every Australian can stay in Medibank. It is a fiction to pretend that anyone in this country will be forced anywhere by what we do. There is a wealth of difference between the restoration of choice and the introduction of compulsion. Compulsion, if I may say so, is basically a feature of the policies of honourable senators opposite while choice is something which characterises our programs. Let us not forget that the Medibank program is not a perfect program. I remind honourable senators opposite that a member of their Party, the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman), when speaking in a debate in another place on 3 1 July 1974 had this to say about the Medibank program:

I think it will be a significant improvement but I certainly do not feel that it will be the cure-all of the difficulties . . .

We all know that the honourable member for Prospect has never ceased to speak his mind about health insurance matters and to criticise the Medibank program when he wishes to do so. The Medibank program has other disadvantages, and we alluded to them before the last federal election. I remind honourable senators that on 2 September 1975 the honourable member for Hotham, Mr Chipp, who was then our spokesman on matters affecting Medibank, issued a Press release concerning Medibank. Since this Press release outlines some of our policy approach I intend to read it. It is a very short Press release. It states:

Medibank is now a fact of life.

The Opposition parties accept that the Government has enacted the laws to establish it. It is now in operation.

Our concern that it will provide a lesser health service at greater costs remain.

In government we will preserve the beneficial qualities of the scheme and enact reforms to overcome its weaknesses.

That is what was stated in our Press release and that is exactly what we are proceeding to do at present. We are concerned about the costs of the previous Government’s health insurance program and the future cost implications of it. We are concerned about the total failure of anything in the previous Government’s program to put a brake upon the escalation of medical costs. We are concerned because the previous Government’s program does nothing to encourage user or provider restriction on services. There is no involvement of those who receive services in cost or quality control. We believe that our programs will help to bring some cost control into Medibank.

Since there has been some claims that we have abandoned our policy commitments I remind honourable senators of what we promised. During the recent federal election campaign we made it clear that our first commitment was to fighting inflation and to righting the economic ills which afflicted this country as a result of 3 years of socialist irresponsibility. The people endorsed our decision that the fight against inflation was the first fight to be undertaken. We made it clear before the election that in order to win the fight against inflation we would need to cut government expenditure in all sectors except education. Medibank, as it was set up, has been too open ended. There has been no possibility of cost control in Medibank, and it is completely in keeping with our promise to control inflation that we have had to examine Medibank. In his policy speech on 27 November 1975 the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Fraser, said:

We will maintain Medibank, and ensure that the standard of health care does not decline.

In the pamphlet which summarises our election pledges again we said:

Medibank will be retained.

That is our position. It is a position which we have held consistently, and the present program honours that commitment to the full. The Health Insurance Commission remains; the core of Medibank remains. Medibank has not been destroyed. We have sought to do more than just retain Medibank. We have sought to give back to the Australian people some of the things they have lost. We have sought to create a better scheme. We need to look now to some of the questions of compulsion and choice which the Labor Party refuses to face. As Liberals we believe in choice. In looking at Medibank we have had to set the right that we believe people have to choose or not to choose to be involved in a program, against the needs of society for an effective health insurance program.

Some people from our side of politics would say that we have not gone far enough because they want to retain the right to carry their own medical costs in their entirety. I appreciate the point of view they put forward but, on balance, I believe that this is an instance where we must put the total needs of society first and where the question of compulsion on all Australians to have some form of health insurance cover, as was proposed in Medibank and as we promised to maintain, must take precedence. We have decided that all Australians should have some health insurance cover. We have moved away from the position where those of our friends and other citizens who wish to opt out of health insurance entirely should have that right. They no longer have that option open to them. Given that compulsion in health insurance, we can ask the question: Need there necessarily be uniformity? Need there necessarily be everyone in the same program, operating through the same computers? There is no philosophical reason why it is necessary.

The advantages of Medibank relate to the existence of insurance cover and to the fact that that cover should be automatic. It is totally irrelevant and unimportant whether that cover is provided through the Health Insurance Commission or by some other insuring agency. Our concern is to see that all Australians are covered by health insurance and we have taken steps to ensure that those who want to provide their health insurance cover outside the Health Insurance Commission should have the option to do so, provided the voluntary funds can offer some suitable package. I am not particularly worried about what tariff the funds charge for this cover. It is of no importance. If they offer prices that are too high, the Austraiian people will not avail themselves of that cover. In offering a choice this is exactly what we are doing. We are saying to people: ‘There is a government scheme and here is what it will cost’. We are creating an opportunity for the voluntary health organisations to put up a scheme and we do not care what they are going to charge. It does not matter. If they charge too much, no Australian will use their programs. If they charge at a competitive rate, some Australians will use their programs. It is a matter of no concern to us. We want the Australian people to have the choice of going to the Health Insurance Commission if they so wish or of going to the funds if they so wish. Because we have imposed a Medibank premium, because we have created a Medibank package which even the wealthiest can buy at a cost of only about $300 a year -

Senator Grimes:

– About.

Senator BAUME:

-About $300 a year. We have ensured that no Australian, not even Senator Grimes, has to get out of Medibank if he or she wishes to remain in it. No Australian family will pay more than $300 a year to remain in Medibank. Anyone who says that people are being forced out of Medibank is deliberately muddying the water and deliberately misstating the truth. The fact is that Australians will make their own choice, depending on what they want to pay and on what they see as best. Many Australians like the Medibank scheme and will stay in it, while others find Medibank obnoxious and will opt out. That is their choice. I have never understood why we should be so keen on seeing public resources used to pay the health care costs of those who wish and are able to pay for themselves. If I wish to pay for my own health costs and if those costs are no longer concessional deductions against my income tax, this represents a choice on my part as to how I will use extra disposable income in my possession. Why it should cause howls of rage from the socialists is more than I can understand. After all, the extra cost is not in terms of health care. It is in terms of accommodation which some people want and in terms of choice of their own doctor instead of the very excellent salaried staff at many of the great hospitals in this country. I am delighted that we have a scheme under which those who are better off and those who want to exercise choice are able to do so and, if they wish, are able to bear some of the cost themselves. This is entirely proper and entirely healthy.

Our new scheme will still ensure that every Australian will retain an automatic right to be covered under Medibank. It will ensure that no Australian family will need to pay more than about $300 a year for a total Medibank cover. We will ensure that low income earners will be heavily subsidised. I am sure that Senator Georges would find that acceptable. We will ensure that pensioners and those people with dependants earning under $4,100 a year will pay nothing for medical cover. We will ensure that standard ward accommodation will remain available to all Australians as part of the Medibank program. If we look back at the 1 974 debates on the subject, we will see that this is what the Australian Labor Party was seeking. These are the features which made up their social package of Medibank. We are retaining the features. In retaining them, we are retaining Medibank. Because of the Medibank premium and because no Australian has to leave it, it is a mockery and a distortion of the truth to try to claim otherwise. I believe that those who are attempting to confuse the argument are doing so in a cynical disregard of the best interests of the average Australian citizen. They are determined to confuse and frighten people when there is a program being offered which is clear, simple and just.

I am reminded that in April 1974 a program similar to the one we are offering now- an optional program- was proposed. It was a dual system of national health insurance with the Government helping an insurance commission to offer one package and the private funds offering the other. This was proposed in 1974. It was proposed, would honourable senators believe, by a Dr John Deeble. He was one of the 2 architects of the health insurance program which this Government introduced. I refer honourable senators opposite to the report in the Sydney

Morning Herald of 4 April 1974 which set out what Dr Deeble proposed. He proposed what we are now offering. He had his fingers smacked by the Government of the day which did not like choice and which did not want anyone of Dr Deeble ‘s eminence and sense proposing any alternatives.

Let us not forget that when we introduced our new program a couple of weeks ago support was expressed for it. I remind those honourable senators who watch television and listen to the radio that among those who found our program acceptable was Dr Scotton who expressed qualified support for it. So we have Scotton and Deeble, the architects of the health insurance commission, expressing their support for the options we are putting forward. We have taken great care in proposing our alterations to Medibank to avoid removing the core which was the essence of the Medibank program and which gave protection to a small number of Australians who were in special need.

It makes me wonder when I read in the daily Press that the unions will take a hard line on Medibank. I ask: A hard line on what? Is it to make sure that every Australian retains a universal entitlement to health care? Is that what the unions want? That is what we have now. Is it to make sure that the low income earners will be protected? If that is what the unions want, that is what we are getting now. Is it to make sure that standard ward bed entitlements in hospitals will remain. That is what we have now. Of course, what is happening is that certain of the radical unions are just attaching themselves to a slogan for their own purposes which have nothing to do with Medibank and which have nothing to do with the interests of the Australian people. The objections are largely ideological.

I believe that it is equitable in present circumstances and with the present cost increases ahead of us to look at a separate levy. As the members of the Australian Labor Party pointed out to us on a number of occasions in the past, it will identify the health cost to taxpayers. It will reduce the drain on the public sector in the provision of health care. I must say that when I and others opposed the introduction of the tax levy in 1974 we did so as part of a total program of opposition to the attempts of the Labor Government at that time to steamroller Medibank over us, as we thought then, to prevent many Australians having any choice at all. I believe in retrospect that we may have been wrong. I hope that the Labor Party will acknowledge now that it should support the imposition of a health insurance levy as it did 2 years ago. I hope that it will recognise that Australians want a choice, just as they have wanted it throughout, and that 70 per cent of Australians have kept themselves insured up until now for private hospital and for intermediate ward cover and will continue to do so.

The only other major point to be made is that the program we have advanced is the first one which offers any prospect of cost control in health care. Unless the voluntary health funds can offer packages which are competitive with those offered under the government scheme, people will not buy them. The main elements in making those packages competitive are the fees charged by doctors and the fees charged by hospitals. The medical profession has a real stake in examining its fee structure because those costs will flow through now to the largely unsubsidised insurance which those people using the voluntary funds will be purchasing. The debate in Australia has been about health insurance. But our main concern has remained the quality , of health care. The real concerns are questions of accessibility, access and comprehensiveness of care. The question of quality care will be resolved by a number of things apart from health insurance. But this is at least a start.

I remind honourable senators opposite that one of their colleagues, Senator James McClelland, writes a column for the Australian newspaper each week which is entitled ‘Politicsa personal viewpoint’. This week the honourable senator drew to our attention some thoughts on parliamentary debate. He said:

Intelligent and discriminating electors are not as rare as some politicians imagine. To such electors nothing in the behaviour of politicians is so tedious as their knee-jerk condemnation of everything what their opponents say and do.

I endorse that statement by Senator James McClelland as I endorse this next statement which he made:

So once more, I enter a modest plea, addressed particularly to the politicians of both sides, to raise the level of debate. If each side, like kids in the schoolyard, keeps screaming at the other side ‘ It ‘s all your fault! ‘ they will merely reinforce a growing tendency among many voters to say: ‘A plague on both your Houses.’

The health insurance program which we have proposed is just, fair, comprehensive and above all retains the core of the Labor Medibank program because we promised that it would. The Australian public is entitled to understand that. I hope that our colleagues opposite in their contributions to this debate will concentrate specifically on those aspects of the program which have given them concern. But let us not pretend that we have in any way destroyed Medibank. What we have done is to retain Medibank. We have increased the choice open to

Australians. We have increased the options open to them. Perhaps we have loosened the grip of government on the health insurance care of all Australians.

Senator MELZER:
Victoria

– I begin my contribution to this debate by quoting from the Press release put out by the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) dealing with the Government’s action on Medibank. He said:

Although Medibank in its present form has serious weaknesses it has achieved universal coverage but at the expense of largely disregarding the need for economy and efficiency in overall health care and expenditures by individuals and the community.

That claim, I believe, it patently untrue. Three weeks ago the Health Commission reported on Medibank. The Commission stated that Medibank was well within its budget. A little over half of its budget had been used in twothirds of the financial year.

My friend who has just resumed his seat- I refer to Senator Baume- in dealing with health services mentioned his feeling that the Government is in danger of giving lesser health services at greater cost. I would remind him of 2 facts. The first is that Medibank is within its budget. The second is to recall to his mind the report of the Nimmo Committee in which the worthy gentleman who headed that body stated:

Unduly high proportions of contributors’ funds are absorbed in operating health funds.

Private health funds’ administrative costs at the moment run in the order of 15 per cent. Medibank runs in the order of 5 per cent.

As we are talking about the efficiency of Medibank may I quote from the ACOA Journal. In a recent letter, Ray Williams, the General Manager of Medibank, stated:

In a period of 10 months, we moved from a staff of 22 to a staff of 3700, opened 81 offices, installed 31 mini-computers, 633 terminals, 10 medium sized computers, hooked them up by land line to our central system, developed and tested the programmes, wrote 18 different training manuals, installed 50 planetary cameras, 26 rotary cameras, 25 microfilm viewers, established 7 film processing laboratories, trained our staff and stood ready to receive claims from 1 July. On the 14th day of July we received 100 000 claims and have never been below that figure.

Certainly we have had our teething troubles, but by working quite prodigious hours and spending every effort of which we are capable to give service to the public we are getting on top of things.

That is what was involved in setting up a system that has run so well that the present Government has not been able in this or other debates to point a finger at one deficiency of Medibank, one area where it is falling down on the job that it must do. Now who is talking about efficiency and economy?

There has been no major increase in the demand for hospital and medical services. Patients’ habits have altered little. So, all of the terrible predictions which were made to us about what would happen to people when Medibank was introduced are revealed to be as spurious now as they were then. As we claimed at the time of introducing Medibank, this is because the Australian people are not stupid. They will not rush out and have their appendix removed and legs chopped ofT because they can get those services more cheaply. They have treated Medibank as the good system that it is and have behaved responsibly. The only rip-off which can be reported has come from medicos. These practices are being stopped.

Speaking of economies and the actions of medicos, I point out that if all doctors charged at the moment the full amount as they will under the private health insurance funds, instead of receiving 85 per cent under bulk billing, the extra cost will be $30m. From statements that the Government has made, it appears that the Government hopes that its new proposals will force 50 per cent of the Australian people out of Medibank. The cost to the community will be another $15m. One wonders whose pockets the Government is worrying about in this instance.

Senator Baume made a great deal about members of the Opposition saying that people would be forced out of Medibank. There are 2 options under Medibank- or at least I think from reading the pamphlet that there are 2 options under Medibank. One is to have a levy deducted from one’s salary. The other is to pay a premium. The premium payment is reported to be $300. In fact, Senator Baume has guaranteed that it will be $300. How Senator Baume can guarantee that, I do not know because it is reported also that the amount of money involved depends on an averaging of all private health insurance fund contributions. These can obviously be changed. Already, for example, the Hibernian organisation has said that it could not possibly provide this service under $417. So, we will leave the $300 with a question mark beside it, despite what Senator Baume says.

The pamphlet says that the premium will be $300 which will be $50 less than the supposed payment to private funds. So we are told that if a person opts out of Medibank the payment to the private fund will be $350. If the Medibank premium is taken, the charge will be $300. The only problem is that for $350 with a private fund a contributor receives 85 per cent refund of costs of medical care and intermediate ward care. Under the Medibank premium, a person receives 85 per cent of all medical costs and standard ward care. As has been pointed out already, if a person opts for the premium under Medibank and also for intermediate ward care, another S13S a year must be paid. This means that to join a private fund and opt out of Medibank a person must pay $350. But to stay in Medibank and to receive intermediate ward care a person must pay an extra $80 on the $350 that a person contributing to a private insurance fund pays. That is why we say that people will be forced out of Medibank on the basis of sheer economics alone, unless they have a great devotion to Medibank.

While people may have a devotion to Medibank they still must look to their bank accounts. By staying in Medibank and seeking intermediate ward care, they will be paying $80 more under the Government scheme for the same care which they will receive from a private fund for $350. No explanation is given why this distinction is drawn or in relation to the denial of freedom of choice. Freedom of choice seems to be the holy grail of the Government parties this year. If the Government believes in freedom of choice, that choice should be between the payment of the same amount of money to private funds or to the Government fund for equal services.

I remind the Senate that we are talking about economy and efficiency. I point out that 73 private funds remain of the 113 private funds that existed before Medibank was introduced. We know, the Government knows, and above all the public knows that that means that for 73 funds 73 staffs are needed. For 73 funds, there is a requirement for 73 buildings and 73 sets of branch offices together with 73 sets of running costs and administrative salaries. I remind honourable senators that, for all the administrative costs that they paid out, the private health funds that existed before Medibank- there is no evidence to show that this situation has changed -could not tell us how many contributors they had or what age or sex those contributors were. The only thing that they could tell us at the end of the year was the amount of money that they had paid out. So much for their efficiency!

For the 73 funds which remain there will be 73 separate costs for advertising. The HBA in Victoria has an annual advertising appropriation of approximately $500,000. In the light of the current climate, may I quote from the Australian Financial Review which recently reported:

Private health care funds in 3 States have stepped up Press and radio advertising campaigns to ‘keep our name before the public’ until new contribution rates are announced and major TV campaigns launched.

I ask: Whose money will be used to pay these advertising costs? Who pays for this choice of “private health funds? People have more sense than the Government, I am afraid, and long ago they decided that they did not really want to pay out money to provide them with the health insurance cover and find that money spent on full page advertisements in the daily newspapers.

Contributors’ money is used in more ways than one. Apart from the charges to contributors that have increased month by month when the private health insurance funds held a monopoly, they also received a Commonwealth subsidy which they do not like to talk about and which the Government has not brought up. The allocation to Medibank for 1975-76 was $l,439m. The subsidy to the private health funds in the last year before the operation of Medibank was $ 1 ,000m. Where is the economy and efficiency?

The people of Australia, through government subsidies or their own contributions, were subsidising the construction of buildings, overseas trips and the purchase of private aeroplanes- the whole build-up of private empires by what was a total of 113 and now is a total of 73 private health insurance funds. It has been reported that the Government will not now subsidise the private health insurance funds. So what will be the cost of those private health insurance funds to the contributors? From where will the $ 1,000m that they used to get come? The only source of income other than the Government is the contributions that individuals make to them. So one’s mind boggles as to what the actual cost of private health insurance will be in the future.

The Government is sending the people of Australia back to the inconsistencies, vagaries and pettiness that went on while the private health insurance funds held the field and, I remind honourable senators, back to the days when moral judgments were made by private health insurance funds as to whether they would make payments and when refunds were refused because a service had come from a salaried or sessional doctor, even when it was in areas in which no private doctors were available.

The private health insurance funds made no provision for illnesses that ran for longer than 12 weeks. One could have been paying contributions for year after year but when one had the misfortune of oneself or a member of one’s family becoming very seriously ill with an illness that went on for month after month one received no assistance from the private health insurance funds, despite the amount of money that one had paid in. Counter clerks prevented people from having access to senior officers when there was some dispute over the claims that those people were making. Confusion reigned then and confusion is reigning now.

May I say humbly that the pamphlet that has been circulated needs another pamphlet to explain it. Perhaps that is not strange, seeing that it was prepared, as I have been told, by a former partner of Patrick Partners. But why the confusion? Because, as my colleague Senator Grimes has said, the Government does not properly understand what it has done and does not care what it has done. It has a stated desire to promote competition between Medibank and the private health funds, which is a stupid, moneywasting exercise that will benefit nobody. Why? We are told that it is because the Government wants to give the people of Australia a choice.

In the confusing situation in which the people of Australia now find themselves in relation to medical care how is the policy on the imposition of a 2½ per cent levy to be policed? There will have to be rigid policing in this respect, otherwise how will those providing the services know whether people are in the levy fund- that is the Government fund- or a private health insurance fund? In the bad old days people would claim that they were in, say, the Hospital Benefits Association when they were not, would claim that they were in the HBA when they had made only one payment and had forgotten to make the rest and would find when sickness occurred that they had forgotten to make the HBA payments, had fallen behind and never had the money to catch up. What will hospitals do when people sign forms saying that they are in the HBA and they then find that those people are not in the HBA and do not have the money to pay them? Who will pay the hospitals’ bad debts?

How will the situation be coped with when people leave one fund to go to the other fund and then go back to the first fund? How will the situation be coped with when people do not join either fund? It is very likely that there will be people who will do that. How will the hospitals cope with those people who arrive at the casualty department in no condition to tell them whether they are in the government-run fund or the private fund? How will the private funds cope with the people who take advantage of the fact that there is no delay now :.n joining the private funds and who join the private funds and have an expensive operation almost immediately thereafter and then opt out of them and go back to Medibank before the private funds have had a chance to get their money out of them?

As Senator Grimes has said, pity the poor paymaster, who will not know from week to week what funds his people are in. Pity the worker who moves from one area to another or who changes jobs and, as used to happen, believes that all firms take out money for medical insurance, only to find to his sorrow when he needs assistance from Medibank or the private health insurance funds that his payments had stopped months before? There will be confusion supreme. Why?

I believe that people accepted Medibank with relief. All that confusion, all that extra cost and all that inefficiency were part of the only health insurance funds that they knew and when the Medibank proposition was put before them they overwhelming supported it. As politicians we know that they supported it through 2 elections. A gallup poll conducted last year- we know that gallup polls are not favourably disposed towards the Australian Labor Party- came up with the finding that 74 per cent of the people said that they approved of Medibank and wanted it to stay. Does that indicate in any way that they wanted freedom of choice? Are they interested in private health funds building empires?

The Government said that it would not interfere with Medibank. To quote my friend Senator Baume, the Prime Minister said that it would maintain Medibank and that the standards of health care would be maintained. But I quote the words of the Prime Minister on Monday Conference last Monday week when, on being asked to comment on part of his policy speech in another area, he said:

That policy speech was obviously specifically directed to the circumstance in which it was made.

How very true. The Government would not have been game to go to the people in that election and say that it was going to do away with Medibank, that it was going to threaten Medibank in any way. So, for the purposes of the election, it said: ‘We will maintain Medibank and the standard of health care will be maintained’. But in what form is Medibank being maintained? It is being whittled away. People are being enticed, because of cost, to go back to the private health funds and by the time they find out that the private health funds are in no way better than they were- in fact, that they will be providing less care than they provided previously- the Government will have found it necessary to wind up Medibank because obviously it is not needed and the choice will be between the type of second-class pensioner medical service that we had before and the inefficient, wasteful, over-priced private funds that we had prior to Medibank.

Senator Baume wonders why the unions are taking up the cause of Medibank. The unions represent a very large proportion of the people in this community. The unions know that that very large proportion of people in the community welcomed Medibank, welcomed its efficiency and economy and welcomed the fact that it took the terror out of being ill and took the terror out of having to pay excessive private health insurance funds, and because they care for their members and because they know that 74 per cent of the people of Australia want Medibank retained they are going in to bat for it. What else does one do when a government disregards such a large proportion of the people of a country and their wishes? In conclusion, I urge the Government to stick to its election promise. I urge it not to throw the community back into the chaos and confusion that existed prior to Medibank. I ask it to promote Medibank for the millions, not millions for the private health funds.

Senator TEHAN:
VICTORIA · NCP

-The Senate is debating cognately a group of 6 Bills, all of which implement matters within the portfolio of the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) which were foreshadowed in the statement of the Treasurer (Mr Lynch) which was debated in the Senate last week. Before proceeding with what I have to say, I think I ought to deal with some of the statements made by Senator Grimes, who led for the Opposition, and by Senator Melzer, who followed him. Confusion is a word which has loomed large in the statements that have fallen from the lips of those on the other side of the chamber. Before we go any further, I think it is worth looking at what the Minister had to say. I join issue with Senator Grimes at the outset. There is no attempt by the Government or by anyone on this side of the House to destroy or dismantle Medibank. We are not seeking to do that, and I say that to the people of Australia who are listening to this broadcast. We support Medibank. For Senator Grimes’ benefit, I will refer to what the Minister said. Mr Hunt stated that the Government had endorsed the principle that every Australian citizen must be protected against medical and hospital costs. In modifying the operations of Medibank, the Government had ensured that this basic principle was upheld. Every Australian citizen would be able to exercise his right to remain in Medibank. There would be access to health care for everybody because cover for medical and hospital costs would be assured. There will be no means test at the point of service, Mr Hunt said. Medibank will be retained. I do not think there could be a more definite or positive or clear statement than that. Honourable senators opposite who talk about the destruction and dismantling of Medibank are not dealing with the facts of what the Government has proposed.

I remind the Senate that these measures will take effect from 1 October, so there is time for people to look at them and assess them. I suggest that the only confusion that exists has been generated by honourable senators opposite who have spoken in this debate. I point out that 70 per cent of people in Australia stayed in the private funds when Medibank was introduced by the previous Government. I also wish to refer briefly to Senator Grimes’ statement about hospital beds in Victoria. Under Medibank beds are reserved for public patients certainly in every country hospital in Victoria. The fact is that a person who comes in as a public patient has an equal chance of admission with a private or an intermediate patient.

Senator Grimes:

– You should go home and ask the people of Victoria.

Senator TEHAN:
VICTORIA · NCP

-I have been on the board of a hospital for 28 years and I know what I am talking about. Dealing with the points made by Senator Melzer, who extolled the virtues of Medibank, let me say that no attempt is being made by the Government to force people out of Medibank. I have referred to the Minister’s statement, and the facts are that the Government is supporting and maintaining the system. If we concede for the moment that private hospital fund fees are going to be above the fees of Medibank, people will stay in Medibank. People are not fools. They will shop around and take the cheaper deal. If it is cheaper for them to stay in Medibank they will stay there, and many of them will. Senator Melzer also dealt with the 73 private health funds and their staff. Those funds are all in existence now. As I have said, 70 per cent of the people stayed in the private funds, and the situation of those funds will not be greatly different from what it is now or what it was before Medibank began. There has been a serious attempt to confuse the people of Australia and to draw red herrings across the trail. Senator Melzer made the statement, with which I join issue, that people could be without cover. The fact is that they cannot be without cover. They will be in either Medibank or a private fund. If they are not in a private fund they are automatically in Medibank, and they are automatically in Medibank until they opt out into a private fund, even though there is no waiting time. If a person in Medibank wishes to opt out, it is going to cost him 2 months premiums to opt out. It is going to cost him something to get out of Medibank, and I suggest that that will be a deterrent to people opting out of Medibank. I repeat, and I think it is important that the people of Australia should know, that everyone will still be covered and no one will be forced out of Medibank. On the contrary, many people are going to stay in Medibank, including Senator Grimes on $20,000 a year.

The reason this levy has been introduced, and I suggest to the Senate that it is probably the main reason for the change, is the cost of the existing system. The levy has to be looked at in the context of the state of the nation when this Government came to office last December. There was an enormous deficit and inflation was rampant. Naturally, when looking at the broad picture of all government departments, including the Department of Health, the Government rightly took the decision that as health costs were $ 1,400m or 6.4 per cent of the total Budget, and the forward estimate for 1976-77 was $2,000m, there had to be some limit or the country would go into bankruptcy. The alternative was that money which was needed in other areas of government would be spent on health. So the Government took the decision to impose the levy. That is the main thrust of the legislation. Apart from the payment of the levy, the average citizen will be in the same position. Indeed, if one looks at the much maligned pamphlet which was issued yesterday, I think, a single person or a family if they wish to stay in Medibank do not have to do anything if their income is below $12,000 a year. They just keep on doing what they are doing now. No positive action is necessary by any citizen in Australia so far as his present Medibank cover is concerned. Naturally, if he wants private fund cover for additional benefits such as a private hospital bed or his choice of doctor he will have to pay for it, and again that is perfectly reasonable. He will pay for it on an escalating scale as his income increases. Again, that is eminently reasonable.

Senator Grimes:

– How did you work that out? There will be an increasing scale for private care as your income goes up? Is that what is coming in?

Senator TEHAN:
VICTORIA · NCP

-That is broadly what will happen. There is a ceiling. Likewise, there is a ceiling on the amount a person can be charged. When one considers total expenditure on health in Australia, which was $4, 700m in 1975-76 and $5,400m in 1976-77, action was needed to modify Medibank, and that is precisely what this Government has done. That is all that the

Government has done, and it has done it at a saving of $800m to the taxpayers of Australia. I think it is important that we look at the alterations again and see the differences in the options that are now available. I again emphasise that anyone can stay in Medibank and that if people do nothing they will still be covered by Medibank, because the levy will be imposed on income unless the taxpayer demonstrates that he is covered by a private insurance fund. Those above a certain rate of income can either pay the levy and stay in Medibank or can opt out and join a private fund. They could do that if they wanted the additional cover for shared intermediate accommodation. They can insure themselves with a private fund for cover for private ward accommodation and choice of doctor, but they cannot insure for above standard fees for either doctor or hospital. The same excellent service will still be available as exists under the present system.

Honourable senators will remember that people on low incomes- up to $4,300 in the case of a family and up to $2,604 for a single personwill pay no levy. As the Minister for Health said, in the case of those people who pay only the Medibank levy and those just mentioned who, because of their low incomes, do not pay the levy, the States will be asked to continue to make single room accommodation in public hospitals available without extra charge where a patient’s medical condition indicates that this is essential. So, in essence, there will be no change in the service provided to people who say in Medibank.

Before I close I want to say a few words in relation to the benefit funds. A great deal has been said about them and I think it is important that we understand them. I hold no particular brief for benefit funds in this debate but I do say that, consistent with the philosophy of people on this side of the chamber and of those people who sent us here, people should have the freedom of choosing their own doctor. The proposed scheme does ensure that this will be the case. It will ensure also that if people want private hospital accommodation they can pay for the privilege. This is a reasonable enough proposition. Insurance for the added cost of private hospital accommodation will be provided by the benefit funds, which are already in existence. But the legislation does provide- I think very properlyfor stricter control of the operations of benefit funds than has been the case hitherto. I suppose that the private health funds and Medibank could be likened to the 2-airline system which operates in Australia, where Trans-Australia Airlines and Ansett Airlines of Australia operate side by side. I think it is proper that the Government should provide in this legislation for reasonable controls over the operations of, and charges made by, the funds, and the general conditions under which they will operate. I say this for 2 reasons. The first is that the benefit funds have a monopoly of operation in their field. None of the private insurance companies can compete with them. Also, the benefit funds are all non-profit organisations. I think it is very important in looking at this legislation to realise that these private medical funds, as they are called, are virtually mutual benefit societies. Under their rules any profits that they make must go back to the contributors.

Senator Melzer made quite some point of the fact that a lot of money is spent by these funds on advertising. In the last analysis it will be the contributors who will pay for the operations of the funds and for any inefficiencies that might develop in the funds’ operations. So it is that the Government- as I said, quite properly- will impose certain restrictions on the funds by way of audit, the right to send inspectors to the funds and by way of various measures which are provided for in the legislation which we are debating. These restrictions are designed to ensure that the funds will remain solvent and operative and to ensure that if a fund does get into financial difficulties the responsible Minister will be able to take appropriate steps to apply the necessary surgery- if that is the correct word- to the fund before a situation develops in which money will be lost. I think that these restrictions are eminently reasonable.

In conclusion I return to what I said at the outset, that is, that Medibank is being retained. It is not being dismantled. The essential change, if honourable senators like, will be that it will become a contributory scheme. I make no apology for that. I am sure that the people who support us and who put us here in December will understand that with the nation on the verge of bankruptcy and with a need to look at spending, the fortunate who can pay must be asked to pay and the poor and underprivileged- those below a certain level of income- should be allowed to continue not paying. That surely is just and equitable. I think that there will be a saving of $800m in the operation. I commend the Bills to the Senate.

Senator SIBRAA:
New South Wales

– A number of questions which have been raised so far in this cognate debate should be answered now. Senator Grimes and Senator Melzer raised a number of problems associated with the introduction of the new scheme. As someone who was involved in personnel work and in paying a large number of people, I agree with what has been said. I agree that the procedures will be a nightmare and that the people who will lose out will be the people who need the cover the most. I think one point was missed by both Senator Grimes and Senator Melzer that should be mentioned. That is the situation where both partners in a marriage are working and one partner stops work and then starts again. This happens quite often with working wives. The bureaucracy that would be involved in the proving of this employment will be staggering. Senator Baume and Senator Tehan said in this debate that no member of the Australian public will be forced to leave the scheme. They did not say how many would be forced out because of the cost factor. As Senator Melzer has said already, time will prove that many will be forced out because of the cost factor. Senator Baume said also that approximately $300 per annum will be the cost for a family to stay in Medibank. But, as Senator Georges interjected, this amount was said rather quickly, and to a lot of people in Australia it still remains a very large sum of money. Senator Baume mentioned also that Dr Scotton had given the new scheme his qualified support. I saw Dr Scotton interviewed on television and I must say that the support was very qualified. The previous speaker, Senator Tehan, mentioned twice that $800m will be saved. I hope somebody in the debate will mention how this money is going to be saved. Senator Tehan made a statement also- I hope I heard him correctly- that people would have the freedom to choose their own doctor. I always thought that this was the situation under the existing scheme.

I rise to speak in this cognate debate because I think that no sharper contrast between the philosophies and attitudes of the Liberal and National Country Parties and the Australian Labor Party can possibly be drawn than on this Medibank issue. In the plans to reduce government expenditure by approximately $2,600m, the heaviest burden of expenditure cuts are among those to which we on this side of the chamber accorded the highest priority, and universal health care is perhaps the most important area in the cuts to which I have referred. It seems strange to me that at this time the Government has announced that defence spending will increase in 1975-76 to a total of $2,200m. I am not questioning the necessity for strong defences; however I am questioning the timing when it is telling the public to exercise self restraint but simultaneously is introducing this Medibank levy and allocating large amounts to defence.

Senator Baume:

– Do you disapprove of the levy?

Senator SIBRAA:

– I will come to Senator Baume ‘s interjection in a moment. The Government’s decision to force half the Australian people back into private health funds can only be interpreted as breaking, in the most blatant manner, the Liberal-Country Party’s assurance to the Australian people in November and December 1975 that Medibank would be retained and strengthened. I emphasise ‘strengthened’.

The 2.5 per cent levy on incomes to fund Medibank, which is nearly double the figure proposed by Labor- I am not arguing about the levy that we were going to introduce, Senator Baume- I believe will serve only to make a mockery of the previous Government’s aim of universal and equal health care for all Australians. Senator Baume also mentioned that the New South Wales Minister for Health had made a number of statements dealing with Medibank. The New South Wales Minister for Health has made the very important statement that the proposed new scheme will mean the existence of one private health care system for the wealthy and an inferior, inadequately financed public health care system for everyone else. All this is from a government which, to quote the Treasurer (Mr Lynch), is ‘firmly committed to the concept of Medibank’. Perhaps more appropriately this is a government firmly committed to ensuring that a financial bonanza goes the way of the implacable foes of universal health insurancethe private health funds.

I listened the other evening with interest to Senator Sheil talk about the fact that he had been to look at the Medibank office and had been terrified or scared by the giant computer, by the thousands of cheques being processed and by the millions of forms being printed. As Senator Melzer said, about 73 private health funds are still operating in the Australian community. I must say that I am terrified when I think of the 73 computers being used by the private health insurance companies and the 73 lots of duplication as referred to earlier by Senator Melzer. The 2Vi per cent tax levy to finance Medibank will place an even greater strain on the wage packet of most Australian families. Medibank was to be financed by a 1 .35 per cent levy on taxable incomes with a maximum payment of $ 1 50 a year. The Liberal-Country Party senators rejected this approach. The Whitlam Government then funded Medibank through general taxation. The levy for Medibank was included in the new tax levels announced by Mr Hayden in the 1975-76 Budget with operative effect from

January 1976. The 2Vi per cent levy is an added impost on the Australian taxpayer which would have been avoided had Labor stayed in power. I think an important point is that the added tax levy will have a highly inflationary effect as it will be reflected in the consumer price index in the next quarter and will result, pursuant to wage indexation, in higher award wages.

The Government’s economic policies, of which Medibank is an integral part, will mean that the wealthiest section of society will benefit most from tax indexation and the Medibank levy. Those on middle and lower incomes will gain little or nothing at all. I asked Senator Cotton a question yesterday and he directed my attention to figures published by his Department on the introduction of tax indexation, the Medibank levy and increases in child endowment. These figures show that a taxpayer on $120 a week with 3 dependants gains only $1.68 in his weekly take home pay, whilst the taxpayer on $460 a week with 3 dependants gains an extra $8.33 a week. As I said earlier, this is a blatant breaking of the Government’s election manifesto and these are temporary arrangements to last until September. What will happen to the hospitals under Medibank after that date? What more will be sacrificed?

It has been said that a number of agreements between the Commonwealth Government and the States might not be valid. I wonder whether in the future Medibank could turn out to be one of those agreements. I certainly hope not. I realise that qualms were expressed by the Attorney-General’s Department at the time of the introduction of Medibank. However, the Department of Social Security advised the Minister, Mr Hayden, to go ahead with the scheme. This whole issue is an important part of the Government’s federalism policy in my opinion, a policy that is rapidly coming apart at the seams. This policy will cause massive unemployment and financial disaster. The policy on Medibank is the classic short, sharp shock theory. Shock treatment is usually reserved for those with severe mental disorders. Rather than applying this shock treatment to the Australian people, business, industry and commerce, the Government would be well advised to subject itself to this shock treatment. If it does not heed the warning it will receive a shock before the end of 1978 when it faces the Australian electorate.

Senator JESSOP:
South Australia

– I have listened with interest to various speakers in this debate. I believe that speakers from this side of the House have pointed out quite clearly that our objective is to provide a universal health program in Australia with a far greater choice than has existed previously. I would have thought that the former Labor Government would have used the United Kingdom health scheme as an example. Over there, due to over utilisationthere are long waiting lists for surgical procedures in hospitals- there has been a drain of United Kingdom doctors overseas. This has occurred because of the frustrations caused by over utilisation. If it were not for 22 000 migrant doctors in England the scheme would completely fold up. This has resulted in the emergence in that country of a private health fund called BUPA-I think it is the British United Provident Association. Hundreds and thousands of people are flocking to join that fund because they will then be able to have their medical treatment more quickly by the doctor of their choice in a hospital of their choice.

Of course the same could be said about Canada which, for a long time, has had the type of scheme that was introduced by the Labor Party in Australia. Canada has recognised that the scheme became a great problem economically. In fact a year or two ago I looked fairly critically at the scheme in one State. The inflation rate at the time in Canada was something like 9 per cent and the hospital and medical costs were increasing at a rate of 1 S per cent. Because of that the Canadian Government is now phasing out the program that was so closely allied to the Medibank scheme which was put into effect by the previous Government. Sweden has been mentioned. For the information of honourable senators, 56 per cent of the patients in Sweden belong to private health funds. We have undertaken to retain Medibank but, of course, we had to look carefully at the way Medibank was operating in view of the tremendous economic difficulties that faced the Liberal-National Country Party Government when it took over. It was clear that Medibank had to be modified. I have looked at the operation of Medibank in South Australia and I am impressed with the efficiency of the organisation. I took the trouble to look at its headquarters in Adelaide and also at the branch at Northunley. In my view the organisation has a right to exist but, as I have said, in a modified form.

These Bills before us have to be passed in order to allow the Government to take appropriate action during the Budget session so that the funds can start operating by 1 October under the new scheme that has been enunciated. However, there are some aspects of the Bills that give me some cause for concern. I have already spoken to the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) about them and I must say that he is always ready to listen to any proposition that is put to him. But I feel that I must make some comments on the fears that I have about some of the clauses in the Bills. I am concerned, of course, at the tremendous administrative problems which face the funds in reorganising their programs by 1 October. I want to deal for a moment with some clauses of the National Health Amendment Bill that I believe do present some difficulties for the funds.

Throughout the Bill the Minister seems to have what I regard as too much say about what funds and contributors should do. For example, he is able to impose a fine of $2,000 for certain breaches. Proposed new section 73ba gives me some concern and I am sure that the funds would be worried about it. Proposed new section 73BA ( 1) (A) provides: a condition that, where, under the rules of the organisation, the benefits to which a contributor to a medical benefits fund or a hospital benefits fund conducted by the organisation, being a contributor for benefits in accordance with the standard table, is entitled are benefits in respect of services, treatment or care only if given after the expiration of a waiting period commencing on the day on which the contributor became a contributor, that waiting period does not exceed 2 months;

Let me take the case of elective surgery, which represents 80 per cent of surgical procedures, according to information I have been given. This provision allows contributors to opt out of Medibank because they are unable to have the doctor of their choice, join a fund, select their surgeon or the doctor they wish to treat them and be admitted to a hospital of their choice. After a period of time they can get out of the fund and go back into Medibank.

Senator Grimes:

– That is real choice, is it not?

Senator JESSOP:

– Yes. That causes me some concern and I believe we ought to look at that clause in the Bill. There are other clauses in the Bill which I consider give the Minister too much power. Proposed new section 73BA ( 1 ) ( k) of the National Health Amendment Bill 1976 states that as a condition of registration of an organisation ‘the organisation will comply with any direction of the Minister under this Act served on the organisation’. It seems to me that that gives the Minister quite incredible powers and I fear would give him a capacity to dictate to the funds. A fund that seeks to continue to operate after 1 October must completely surrender to the Minister its rights to establish not only policy but also administrative procedures. The only recourse the fund would have would be not to agree to the provisions of that proposed sub-section in which case the Minister may refuse its registration. The fund then could appeal to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which would be established under part VIIa of the Bill. It seems to me that this also ought to be looked at. Perhaps my legal friends may assist me but it would appear that the supreme courts in the States may be able to deal with such situations. Proposed new section 73ba(1) (j) states:

A condition that the organization maintain, in such form and manner as are determined by the Minister from time to time, a record of the contributors, and the dependants of the contributors, to the medical benefits fund or hospital benefits fund conducted by it or, if it conducts more than one such fund, the contributors, and the dependants of the contributors, to each of those funds;

Proposed new section 73ba ( 1 ) (k) states:

A condition that the organisation will comply with any direction of the Minister under this Act served on the organisation.

Matters such as this could be dealt with by regulation. This would enable the actions that are proposed by this Bill to lie on the table of either House for IS days and be subject to scrutiny by and, if necessary, disallowance by the Parliament. This would be a much better way to handle this matter. There are many other points in the Bill that cause me similar concern although I would not oppose the Bill in any way. I believe it is necessary to get the Bills through. However, I suggest to the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) that she take these matters up with her colleague the Minister for Health with whom I have already discussed them. Hopefully he will find a solution during the Budget session and will suggest certain changes which might meet my concern and the concern of some of the funds. I support the Bills and trust that the Minister will convey that message to the Minister for Health.

One other point I should mention before I resume my seat relates to the element of compulsion. I do not know whether we can do anything about it. I was approached by the Christian Science organisation which has a religious opposition to going to a doctor or to hospital, I understand, and it seems to me that it has a reasonable complaint about this provision. If there is a way to overcome that problem which is faced by religious organisations I would be grateful for the Minister’s suggestion.

Senator RYAN:
Australian Capital Territory

-We are debating the 6 health Bills which affect the operation of the Medibank system and the Medibank levy. I oppose those 4 Bills which will interfere with procedures which have been developed under the Medibank system. We on this side of the chamber oppose those Bills because they constitute a violation of the major election promise of the Liberal-National Country Party coalition. That promise was to maintain Medibank. By Medibank we mean and the community recognises a universal health coverage- a system of universal health insurance. The Government’s proposals, contained in these 4 Bills, will undoubtedly destroy that system. Obviously the intention of the Government is to force 50 per cent of the people out of Medibank back into the private funds. There is no social or economic justification for tampering with Medibank in this way. Medibank has been accepted by the community. Many surveys and polls have demonstrated a very high levelalmost a complete level- of acceptance of Medibank by the community.

Medibank as a national health insurance system is working remarkably well; so well that the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and the coalition parties included it in their election platform. It is simply ideological pigheadedness, party politics of the worst kind, which is motivating the Government to interfere with this system which is serving the community so satisfactorily. It is this sort of behaviour which brings politics and politicians into disrepute in the community. When a major program like Medibank is working efficiently for the benefit of all members of the. community, regardless of income, a responsible government should maintain that program regardless of who introduced it. Medibank is successful in providing automatic health insurance for everybody. It was a major triumph for the Labor Government. For that reason alone it appears that this conservative Government now feels that it must bring in some changes which are illogical, confusing and costly. These changes show that this Government will not live with a Labor program no matter how good it is.

By this stage people have become used to the ease and efficiency of Medibank. Some of us have short memories so perhaps we should cast our minds back to the pre-Medibank days. Let us think about the situation with regard to health insurance then. What did we have? We had a proliferation of private funds and of rates and tables within those funds. We had a huge waste of contributors’ money in administrative costs in running those numerous funds. In 1969 the Nimmo Committee reported that between 1 5 per cent and 20 per cent of every contributor’s dollar went on the running costs of the private funds. Of course, in the case of Medibank, it is less than 5 per cent. A number of services were not covered properly by private funds. As well as the contributor’s personal cost there was great cost to the community because the private funds were subsidised by the Government for 50 per cent of their costs. But perhaps the worst feature of the old private funds system was the fact that about 10 per cent of Australians- something like 1 million- at that time were not covered at all. They were not covered by any kind of health insurance. Most of the people in the one million were among the poor and disadvantaged in our community. They were the people most at risk and least able to bear the cost of huge medical expenses.

Because of the high cost, administrative confusion and the lack of health insurance cover for many people, the Labor Government introduced Medibank. There still seems to be some confusion on the other side of the chamber over what Medibank was and is. Medibank is not a health system. It is not a system of health services. It is not nationalised health. It is not a system which interferes in any way with the practice of medicine by private practitioners. It is not a system which denies choice to people seeking medical attention. In fact, it increases choice. Medibank is simply a system of universal health insurance which gives automatic cover for health and medical charges to all Australians. At this stage it is paid for out of general revenue. Of course, it is true that the Labor Government intended to pay for Medibank by a modest levy which would have been at the rate of 1.6 per cent. This would have spread the burden very fairly over all wage earners. I point out that a calculation shows that a universal 1.6 per cent levy with a cut-off point of $200 would have saved $700m.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Wood)- Senator Ryan, it appears to me that you are reading your speech. Speeches should not be read in the Senate.

Senator RYAN:

– Yes, I was reading that figure because I did not wish to mislead the chamber by misquoting the result of the 1.6 per cent levy. That would have been the result of the lew imposed by the Labor Government if the Bill had not been obstructed in the Senate. The situation now is that there will be a much higher levy of 2.5 per cent which will apply to wage earners below a certain point. Above a certain point of income the wage earner can opt out for what appears to be some kind of Budget package. So we now have the situation where the low to middle income earners will pay 2.5 per cent for Medibank coverage whereas the upper middle and higher income earners will pay much less than 2.5 per cent for the same kind of coverage. Here we have a reversal of the principle of progressive taxation. We have a situation where the lower income earners will pay a higher proportion of their income for the standard medical cover than will the upper income group. For this reason alone we on this side of the chamber oppose these changes.

Even though there were a number of obstructions to the implementation of Medibank, as a health insurance system it cannot be claimed to be costly. The sorts of impediments which add to the cost of Medibank include the refusal of some doctors to bulk bill, the refusal of some private insurance agents to act as Medibank agents, the over-claiming by some few doctors- probably very few with respect to services- and the use by some doctors in some situations of a fee for service method of charging rather than a salaried method or a sessional method. These factors have undoubtedly added to the cost of Medibank. Despite all these things, at the moment Medibank is costing somewhere between $80m and $90m less than was anticipated for this year. Certainly, as Medibank is administered, running costs consume only 5 per cent of contributions as opposed to 15 per cent to 20 per cent of contributors’ money which was consumed in administrative costs under the private health schemes. There can be no doubt that the Medibank system of health insurance is less costly than the old private system. Inevitably it must be less costly than the dual system, the complicated, complex system now proposed by the Government.

There has been no significant evidence of overuse of Medibank services by patients. Apparently there is some evidence of overuse or perhaps abuse by some doctors. I understand that the Minister for Health, Mr Hunt, is investigating this matter but that sound data is not yet available. The problems I mentioned about overuse, the costly use of the fee-for-service method of charging and so forth could be overcome by procedural reforms to the Medibank system as it stands rather than by undermining and changing the whole system or by interfering with the universality and automatic nature of the coverage and the relatively low cost of the coverage. If we look at some of the specific proposals which are causing a great deal of concern we find that the first proposal is the claim that this will save $800m. As yet there has been no satisfactory explanation by members of the Government as to how this figure of $800m was reached and how the Government can be sure that is the amount that is to be saved. It seems to me to be impossible for the Government to know at this stage just what it is letting itself in for by way of financial commitment under these new proposals.

The Government cannot possibly know at this stage who will stay in Medibank and who will get out of Medibank. Certainly the Government has intentions in this regard, but it cannot possibly know these things because it is still unknown what requirements the private health insurance funds will have by way of subsidies and what fees they will set for particular kinds of packages. Until those things are known the Government cannot ascertain how many people will be covered for health insurance through the public Medibank system. Although the Government has gone to the trouble of producing some kind of brochure which claims to give information to clarify the situation for the general public, I think that the Government’s claim of savings of a specific figure is still totally unjustified. I will give an example of the kind of information in the brochure that is supposed to help people to make a decision. The brochure reads:

Both (A) and (B) -

These are the 2 tables being explained- are estimates and are subject to confirmation by private funds. A higher table will apply for private rooms.

How can anyone make decisions as to what course of action to take in respect of health insurance when these imprecise speculations represent the only information on which they can base their decisions? The Government certainly cannot be sure at this stage that its plan to force 50 per cent of people out of Medibank will succeed. Other increases in costs will undoubtedly arise from the establishment of a dual system of health insurance.

I will not refer again to the huge administrative costs which were incurred under the previous system. Increased costs must also arise under the new system because of the need to review the premium annually. The Minister for Health, Mr Hunt, has announced that it will probably be necessary to review the premium annually. Indeed, with inflation and spiralling medical costs it must be done. That review alone will involve administrative costs. Other costs that we can expect have been referred to by my colleague, Senator Sibraa. These include the costs associated with people changing thenincome level, by being sacked, by dropping out of the work force for domestic reasons or by dropping out of the work force to become full time students; or by students leaving full time time study and entering full time or part time employment. All these changes will affect the levy a person may pay or, in the case of a premium, will affect a person’s eligibility to pay the premium. It seems to me that there will be a need for a proliferation of forms, calculations and computations to work out just what each citizen is required to pay by way of health insurance cover, either private or public, each year. As yet we have had no indication from the Government as to what sorts of costs it envisages will be required to cope with these changes.

The other disturbing aspect of the Government’s claim that it is saving a large amount of public money by these proposals is that the proposals do not come to terms with what were really the main causes for the large costs incurred under the Medibank program. These costs were not incurred, as I have said, in the actual running of the health insurance program; they seemed to stem largely from the very rapid increases in doctors fees over the last few years and the increases in hospital charges. They also came about through the insistence by many members of the medical profession to work on a fee for service basis rather than on a sessional payment basis. There is nothing in the present proposals which show a genuine commitment by the Government to control doctors fees or to rationalise the provision of health services by a commitment to sessional, rather than fee for service payments where it is medically desirable. I do not suggest that there should be sessional payments in all cases but obviously there are some cases, particularly with regard to hospital services, where a sessional payment is quite desirable in medical terms. It does not detract from the kind of service a doctor can give and, of course, is much more rational in economic terms. These 2 areas of costs- the doctors, fees and the method of charging, which are the main causes for the increased costs associated with Medibank- are not encountered by the Government’s proposals.

The costs incurred by the community in its need for health services will continue. People will not get sick less often and they will not require hospitalisation less often as a result of the Government’s proposals. The cost must be borne by the community one way or the other. It seems to me- I think this is a view held generally by honourable senators on this side of the chamberthat as costs for medical and hospital services must continue to increase they should be paid for in a way which is most equitable and most efficient, and which rationalises the resources available for the purposes of providing medical and hospital services to the general community. I submit that the system established under Medibank did all of those things. It rationalised the collection of health insurance contributions; it rationalised the payment of rebates to people; it offered convenient and efficient methods of allowing doctors to claim if they wished to bulk bill; and it generally spread the cost of the provision of health services equally throughout the community.

The effects of the latest proposals on individual members of the community apart from the effects on a person’s health, are, I think, very disturbing. I am sure all honourable senators have been besieged with inquiries from their constituents as to where they stand with regard to the new proposals and what sort of action they should take in order to ensure that they and their families are properly covered for all eventualities. Some of the questions that remain unanswered include the following: Will private patients receive preferential treatment over Medibank patients? Will some doctors refuse Medibank patients? Will the over-taxed public hospitals find that they have to refuse private patients, thus forcing private patients to use private hospitals which in some cases are very definitely inferior to public hospitals? Will private patients find that they have to pay for services at present offered free at health centres, such as those in the Australian Capital Territory? Will the allocation of only $108m to the hospital development program for 1976-77, which is a reduction in real terms on last year’s allocation, mean that the future development of the public hospital system is in jeopardy? Will this result in a 2-class system of health care in Australia- one for the rich and one for the poor? As any possible answer to these questions at this stage are not reassuring, to say the least, we on this side of the chamber persist in our opposition to the Government’s proposals and strongly condemn its efforts to destroy the efficient and popular system of automatic and universal health coverage which was established by the Labor Government when it set up Medibank.

Senator WALTERS:
Tasmania

– I rise to support the Bill bearing in mind that the modifications to Medibank will not come into operation until 1 October. This delay is, deliberate. The Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) has given an undertaking that this time lag will be used to enable the Government to discuss the details of the Bill with the voluntary health funds and other interested parties. Already some details are being looked at in the light of some injustices which were pointed out in early meetings. As Senator Jessop has said, the Minister is still meeting with various bodies for further discussions.

I would like to answer just a few of the points raised by previous speakers from the other side of the chamber. Firstly, I refer to the objection raised by Senator Melzer regarding her 73 funds and their 73 administrative costs. It sounds like a true socialist doctrine to me. She forgets that with true competition between the funds the tariffs imposed will be kept within reason.

Senator Melzer:

– It has not to date.

Senator WALTERS:

– Just listen to me. I gave Senator Melzer a fair go.

Senator Button:

– Ha!

Senator WALTERS:

-Well, I did after I was called to order by the Chair. The honourable senator forgets that the competition between these funds keeps the cost within reason, as is the case with all other private enterprise.

Senator Melzer:

– I wish that it would start working.

Senator WALTERS:

– That sounds like a true socialist doctrine to me. The honourable senator said also that there was no delay period allowed for in the Bill. She should read the Bill a little more carefully. If she does, she will find that there is a 2-month delay, so someone who wants to opt out of Medibank and join a private fund has 2 months in which to do so, during which time that person pays into the fund but is not entitled to claim benefits.

Also Senator Sibraa said that there will be one system for the wealthy and an inferior system for the poor. Is the honourable senator suggesting that the present Medibank system is an inferior one? I point out that this is exactly what the Medibank system will be when people pay a levy. If he thinks that the present Medibank system is an inferior system, I point out to him that it is the system under which people will receive care in the future. The honourable senator then went on to cite the Government’s financial package under which he admits that everybody will benefit, some to a greater extent and some to a lesser extent. But let us face the fact that this Government package includes the payment of that Medibank levy. So people are still receiving the benefit. Thus, they are still better off. I wish that the honourable senator would try to explain to me what he was getting at.

However, I would like to discuss the main aims of the Bill. As I have said, the Australian people will be given for the first time a real choice. It will enable those who can afford to pay for their health care to pay for it.

Senator Ryan:
Senator WALTERS:

-Just listen, Senator Ryan. Those who cannot afford to pay for it will not be paying for it. This includes the pensioners. As honourable senators have pointed out previously, the only compulsion is for someone to remain in a scheme, either Medibank or a private health system. I point out to Senator Melzer that if a person opts out of the private health system, that person will come back under the Medibank system. So nobody will be left out in the cold, as the honourable senator hinted. As we all know, the previous costs under Medibank passed all expectations. Senator Ryan says that the original system should have been kept, no matter what the cost. We have found from experience in other countries which have similar open-ended medical schemes that these costs would have accelerated until they nearly sent the country broke. Let me take as an example England and look at the mess in that country. It has the same open-ended system -

Senator Ryan:

– It is a different system. It is not the same system as we had in Australia.

Senator WALTERS:

-It is exactly the same open ended system. These modifications that we are bringing in will save the country an estimated $800m in the Budget. That is a very considerable amount. We have not had a free medical scheme to date. There is no free scheme. This is something that the previous Government did not stress at any time. It lead the people to believe that we have had a free medical scheme. There is no such thing as a free medical scheme. Senator Sibraa and Senator Melzer said that the people will not be able to afford to pay for medical cover. Who on earth is paying for the medical cover at the moment if it is not the people? They are paying for it with their taxes. I wonder what percentage of their taxes are paid into the Medibank system at the moment. At this time we are paying $ 1 ,400m into Medibank. No taxpayer knows how much he is paying or what percentage of his taxes go into the Medibank scheme. At least -

Senator Button:

– That is the fault of your Party.

Senator WALTERS:

-This may well have been a fault. At least now we will know what we are paying and to whom we are paying the money. There will be no hidden costs.

Senator Grimes:

– You should have been here for the previous debates.

Senator WALTERS:

– I wish I had. However, there is now a choice available to the people. They can either pay for their health cover with their taxes or join the private health funds if this is what they want to do.

Senator Ryan:

– Keep it for the rich.

Senator WALTERS:

-We have had that interjection, Senator Ryan. The new modifications create fair competition between the Government Medibank scheme and the private health schemes. This is in line with all our Government’s policies. The $300 Medibank premium will cover 85 per cent of the doctor’s salary in his surgery plus public hospital care with a public hospital doctor. This compares very favourably with the expected $350 premium for the private family insurance.

Senator Melzer:

– What will be the case in regard to -

Senator WALTERS:

– I ask Senator Melzer to listen for a minute. The private family insurance premium will give private hospital care with the doctor of your choice with 85 per cent cover for the scheduled fee of the doctor in a surgery. I would like to stress at this point that the single person’s premium will be exactly half of those premiums I have quoted. I have quoted $350 as the premium for private family insurance. The Minister has this as an expectation of what it will be. The Victorian Hospital Benefits Association has already made a rough estimate that has set the insurance premium at $330 a year. So I am not quite sure what Opposition senators are talking about -

Senator Grimes:

– Well, wait and see.

Senator WALTERS:

-We will wait and see. The amount of $330 is the estimate of one of the funds. I know that Senator Grimes would not like that figure to be advertised. This gives the lie to the distorted and exaggerated claims by some Labor Party members, such as Mr Farquhar, the Minister for Health in my State of Tasmania, that Medibank will cost in the vicinity of $1,000 a family. This is not only dishonest but also is calculated to panic the Australian community, for there are few people who honestly believe that a Minister of any government would seek political capital by making such wild and dishonest accusations. I only hope that the Tasmanian people realise that an election is imminent and that this is the reason the Minister for Health in that State is coming out with these exaggerated comments.

As has been explained already, there are 4 options. The first is staying in Medibank and paying a levy. The second is staying in Medibank and paying the Medibank premium of $300. The third is staying in Medibank, paying the levy and an additional estimated $2.60 a week for private health insurance for hospital cover for a family. The fourth option is opting out of Medibank altogether and joining a private health scheme. As I have said, that will cost roughly $350 a year for a family cover. For those who are on lower incomes and who do not earn enough to pay the levy, they will receive full Medibank cover. Bulk billing under Medibank will remain available to the doctors. They will be entitled to charge the extra 15 per cent above their scheduled fee about which the Opposition has been complaining so bitterly. The maximum difference between the benefit and the scheduled fee for any one item will still remain at $5. Any patient is entitled to seek tax deductions for the remaining part of the doctor’s fee not covered by Medibank or the private system.

There are other modifications which have been considered necessary. I am certain that even Senator Grimes will not object to this one. Medibank will continue to pay benefits incurred by patients eligible for third party insurance and workers compensation. However, Medibank will seek reimbursement when compensation has been paid. This has not been done in the past and has caused a tremendous drain on Medibank funds up to date. Also it is proposed to repeal section 1 8 of the Health Insurance Act to allow diagnostic services such as X-rays to be performed on private patients who for some reason or other find themselves in public hospitals. The doctor will now be able to charge them on a fee for service basis as a private patient in a public hospital.

I do not want to go into all the detail contained in the Bill. It has been done already throughout the debate. But there are some areas that are being re-examined. However, I would like to stress that the main aim of the Bill is to create fair competition between the private and public sectors by keeping the prices down to a reasonable level. This has always been the aim of the private health funds and the Government. This will be maintained. The private health funds will act as a vehicle to enable individuals to exercise that noble quality which has been notably lacking in society today, namely, that of personal responsibility for a person ‘s own welfare rather than relying on the State. I commend the Bills to the Senate.

Senator COLSTON:
Queensland

– I believe that the previous Government made a major social advance when it introduced the Medibank system. The principle behind Medibank was widely debated before 1972 as it was debated after 1972 when the previous

Government was elected. Even though that principle was debated and widely announced, there was a concerted attack on it by the then Opposition, by those people who are the current Government, and by forces outside. There was a concerted attack not only upon the principle but also upon the principal parliamentary architect of the scheme. I think he is to be congratulated for seeing this system through and for bringing it to fruition in the term of the previous Government.

I can remember watching this process as an outside observer. At that time, I was not a member of the national Parliament. I can remember seeing then some things which disgusted me. I can remember seeing some of the attacks which were made on this proposal by members of the medical profession. If one went to a private medical practitioner and sat in the waiting room, one could see large signs which read: ‘Do not be fooled. Say no to socialised medicine.’ In the waiting rooms of private doctors’ surgeries there was this propaganda put before the people. I do not mean my next statement in jest: If one was not ill before one entered a doctor’s surgery, one certainly became ill while sitting in the waiting room.

Despite all of these objections by the parliamentary opponents of this scheme and despite the objections by certain areas of the medical profession, the system which was called Medibank came into operation. It was not long after it was introduced that Medibank was universally accepted, or it was accepted at least by the majority of Australians. Some people pointed out some difficulties in Medibank. I had some people come to me recently to point out what was then and what still remains a difficulty with Medibank. These parents pointed out to me that they had a daughter who suffered from scoliosis. It is necessary for most children suffering this medical complaint- it is more prevalent in young girls than it is in young males- to wear a brace on their back. This brace can cost approximately $300. This charge was not covered by Medibank; it had to be borne by the parents in the case that I have mentioned. Certainly there were some deficiencies such as this in the scheme. Despite these deficiencies the scheme was widely accepted.

I have some figures which were produced in the Bulletin in February of this year which show the change in the popularity of Medibank between 1975 and 1976. In 1975, of those interviewed 39 per cent favoured Medibank over benefit funds. Benefit funds were favoured by 33 per cent. A large percentage of those interviewed 28 per cent of the people- were undecided. By comparison, in January 1976, of those interviewed 46 per cent favoured Medibank, 35 per cent supported benefit funds and 19 per cent were undecided. At the beginning of this year, the majority of people favoured Medibank over benefit funds.

To illustrate that it is not only the Bulletin which has mentioned this increase in the popularity of Medibank, I quote also from the National Times which pointed out that those who were very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with Medibank comprised 62 per cent of the people polled. Further, 14 per cent were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied; they were in the centre. Only 20 per cent of those polled were somewhat dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with Medibank. I compare that with the 62 per cent of those polled who, as I mentioned earlier, were in the satisfaction category. Finally, 4 per cent of those polled did not know. This example illustrates the popularity and acceptance of Medibank.

It appears to me now that Medibank will not continue in the style that the people have accepted but will be mauled in the name of freedom of choice and also to achieve savings. I will detail more about freedom of choice later. I wish to mention briefly now some aspects of what happened in the course of the 1975 election campaign and what the present Government said it would do with relation to Medibank. In his policy speech, Mr Fraser said:

We will maintain Medibank and ensure that the standard of health care does not decline.

The key words are:

We will maintain Medibank . . .

But Mr Fraser did not say how he would maintain Medibank. It was not long after that that people started to question what would happen to Medibank under a new government.

On 28 November, before the election campaign concluded, on This Day Tonight, Richard Carleton asked Mr Fraser:

Sir, will Medibank stay on unchanged under you?

Mr Fraser said:

We will keep Medibank but we don’t say it wouldn’t be unchanged.

He then went on to explain that a little more fully. Finally Richard Carleton asked on this point:

You may change it but you do not know how; is that the upshot of it?

Mr Fraser said:

Well, this is a question of examination with the profession and with the States, and our position in this has been quite plain.

But we were still not sure what was going to happen to Medibank.

At least one member of the caretaker government at the time was honest about what he thought would happen to Medibank. He made it plain. In making it plain, he probably ensured that he did not enter the Ministry after the election in December. The Australian Financial Review reported the matter on 10 December in an article headed Snedden’s Medibank Gaffe. The article reads:

A suggestion yesterday by former Liberal leader Bill Snedden that a Fraser government elected on Saturday might have drastically to change Medibank brought a swift and sharp response from the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser. Mr Snedden said that government expenditure would have to be cut back right across the board. The only area where cuts could be avoided was pension payments, he said. The cost of Medibank would be beyond the means of a Liberal Government. ‘It is just too big’, he said. The public who are making use of the service must make some contribution to it.

At least Mr Snedden was honest. As the report goes on to say: Because of his honesty he probably made sure that he would have to wait a long time before he was returned to the Ministry. Indeed, that turned out to be correct. So, we were not quite sure what was to happen with Medibank, but we are certainly fairly sure now. I say ‘fairly sure’ because not all of the implications of the changes, I believe, have been brought out. If they have been brought out, the people are confused. Not only the millions of people who will have to make some decision about what they are going to do but even people in this Parliament find some aspects of what is proposed difficult to follow.

I wish to make some remarks about the Medibank levy. There has been a definite reversal of opinion on the Government benches about a levy. When the Labor Government first proposed a levy to pay for Medibank, it suggested a levy of 1.35 per cent with a maximum premium of $150 a year. But that proposal was opposed by the then Opposition and the Labor Government could not get the levy through the Parliament. In this respect I refer to a typical statement in relation to the imposition of this levy by one of the people who were in Opposition at the time but who is now a supporter of the Government. It is interesting to note who this person is, but I will quote what he said first. This person said:

The Opposition is opposed to the whole system by which this levy has been proposed. We place on record once again and we will keep placing on record for as long as we can our objection to the kind of scheme under which every wage earner will be charged a levy of 1.35 per cent. As Senator Sheil has said, let us ask the people of Queensland, who at the moment have some of their health services provided to them free, how they are going to feel about paying a levy of 1.35 percent.

This person who in Opposition last year vehemently opposed the imposition of a 1.35 per cent levy spoke earlier today. I am referring to Senator Baume. Today he extolled the virtues of the current scheme. He has come around and is now accepting the imposition of a 2.5 per cent levy on incomes. Is he worried about what the people of Queensland will think about it now? No. He is willing to accept what last year he would not accept.

We are now to have a levy of 2.5 per cent with a maximum payment of about $300 a year, but the maximum is applicable only if people are wary. I say ‘wary’ because if one has a look at the pamphlet which was released in tabular form at the weekend, one will see that it says in principle that if one has a taxable income of $12,000 a year or upwards one will have a Medibank premium of about $300 a year. One table says what one must do. It says that one must advise one’s paymaster or any Medibank office or one will be charged 21/2 per cent of one’s taxable income however large. I wonder how many people in the community are going to be caught, and there will be people in the community who will be caught, because they do not know the complexities of this matter as well as others? Some people who stay in Medibank will, because they do not know the complexities, be paying more than $300 a year.

As well as having a levy there will be provision whereby we will be able to contract out of Medibank. We will be able to do so by taking out full private insurance. I believe that is just not possible to determine how many people are l ikely to opt out. The data just are not available to enable one to make an accurate assessment. I tried to make some calculations about how many people would opt out because of what the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) said a couple of weeks ago. He said that he believed that about 50 per cent of the people would opt out of Medibank. He was quoted in the Canberra Times as saying:

About half the population would choose to have their health insurance wholly within private funds.

Another article, which was probably written after consideration of the same Press statement, went a little bit further and said:

Confusion about the new Medibank tax levy is expected to drive millions of people back into private hospital and medical funds. The Minister for Health, Mr Hunt, added to the confusion Yesterday when he said that people earning more than $14,000 a year would be better off in a private fund.

This contradicted his earlier assertion that no one would be forced out of Medibank because of financial pressure. He predicted that perhaps 50 per cent of Australians would take out private insurance.

I tried to make some calculations about how many people would be likely to take out private insurance and opt out of Medibank altogether. If all of the data were available it would be possible to make this sort of prediction because we know that when single people reach a taxable income of $4,280 it is better for them to opt out in some fashion if they want to take out additional insurance to cover themselves in intermediate or private wards. For a one-income family the critical point is an income of $8,600 a year. The same applies to a 2-income family.

The sort of information that is needed is how many single persons in the community are above that income, which is able to be determined, and how many one-income families are in the situation of earning $8,600 a year or more, which is able to be determined, but statistics just are not available to show how many 2-income families are earning above $8,600 a year. Another statistic that is needed is the number of people who are currently in private insurance funds of some sort to get cover for intermediate or private ward accommodation. Quite surprisingly to me, that sort of statistic also is not available. So at this stage it is just not possible for one who wants to attack the problem in a scientific manner to know precisely how many people are likely to opt out. But I have had some people working on this matter. After having been told that it just could not be done with the statistics available I was told that it looked most likely that about half of the population will opt out. Maybe that will be the case. But that is the figure that I arrived at just using the sort of guesstimate that apparently the Minister for Health has used.

It was mentioned earlier in this debate that savings will be made because of the changes to Medibank. I think that the savings are going to be illusory. Many people are apparently going to be forced into private insurance, so the expenses incurred by them will not be met by Medibank. The payment still will have to be made but it will be made by a different organisation or by different people. In fact, it seems to me to be something of a book-keeping trick to try to say that savings will be made because of the changes. There may be savings to the Government. There may be savings in the Medibank field. But there will not be savings in the community as a whole. In fact, it is my belief that the total community will face higher charges due to the administrative difficulties that will arise because of the changes.

I believe that most of the higher charges to the community will occur because of management expenses within the private health insurance funds.

If one goes back and looks at what the Nimmo Committee said in 1969 about the management expenses of the private health insurance funds one gets a fair idea of what they are in terms of a percentage of the contribution income. Certainly they may have changed since 1969, but I do not think that they would have changed significantly enough to dispel the argument that I am presenting that these funds are nowhere near as efficient in terms of using their contribution income to its maximum effect as Medibank. The Nimmo Committee reported on the 1967-68 financial year. In terms of hospital funds it said that the expense rates of the majority of them as a percentage of the contribution income ranged from 11 per cent to 13 per cent. The lowest fund had a percentage of contribution income used as its management expenses of only 6.2 per cent. The highest was 20.24 per cent. As I have said, the majority were in the range of 1 1 per cent to 13 per cent. But, taking 1 1 per cent as an example, it means that of every $1 that came into the insurance funds 11c was spent on management expenses.

There was a somewhat similar situation in respect of the medical funds except that the percentage of contribution income that was used as management expenses was higher. The lowest in one fund was 10.86 per cent. The highest was 2 1.29 per cent. The majority were in the range 14 per cent to 16 per cent. That brings me to the question: What percentage of contribution income is spent by Medibank on management expenses? Unfortunately, again no one can really say what the exact figure is, but it seems to be accepted that it is about 5 per cent. The figure of 5 per cent was well accepted in the debate in the House of Representatives, but in case it is not accepted here let me mention some of the figures which suggest an amount of 5 per cent for Medibank administration costs. Apparently about $50m per annum is incurred in administration costs in Medibank at the moment. That $50m covers both the medical and hospital sides of Medibank. The amount is made up of computer costs, expenses for payment centres, and other internal costs. The total cost of Medibank is about $ 1,400m per annum. About $800m of that is spent in hospital grants to the States, which leaves about $600m for the medical side of Medibank. If all of that $50m for administration costs was debited against the medical side of Medibank, there would be a total administration cost of 8.3 per cent of income. But 8.3 per cent is high because the $50m obviously includes some aspect of the hospital side. It is generally accepted by people in departments connected with Medibank, or so I have been informed, that about 5 per cent of contribution income is used in Medibank for management expenses. That being the case, in terms of efficiency alone the Australian community would be far better off, looking at it in a businesslike way, if all health insurance fund payments were collected through Medibank because less would be spent on management expenses through Medibank.

In moving back to the old system we will get not only the inefficiencies of the old system which relate to management costs. Management costs never come back to the contributor because a part of his fund is used. Further inefficiencies will also be created because Medibank will have to take certain management procedures which one would think normally it would not have to take if it were not covering 100 per cent of the population. I have been informed that Medibank will have to keep records for 100 per cent of the population, even though 50 per cent might opt out of Medibank altogether. I have been informed also that returns from the health insurance funds will be forwarded to Medibank so that Medibank will know whether a particular person in the community is covered by a health insurance fund. Even though only 50 per cent of the community might be in Medibank, it will have to retain funds for 100 per cent of the community. I am sure that will add to its administration costs by comparison with total contribution income. There will also be other administrative costs. Certificates will have to be presented to the Australian Taxation Office by health insurance funds so that the Taxation Office can be assured that people do not have to pay their 2.5 per cent levy. I imagine that there will be other costs associated with paymasters having to contact the Taxation Office to advise that people do not need to pay the full Medibank cost. It is because of those things that there will be extra administrative costs involved in having a dual system.

I believe that the people of Australia want a simple and easy to understand system of health insurance. They want something they can follow easily. They certainly want to be covered by medical insurance of some sort.

Sitting suspended from 6 to 8 p.m.

Senator COLSTON:

– Before the suspension of the sitting for dinner I was nearing the conclusion of my comments. I should just like to make a few more comments before I do conclude. I was making the point that people want a simple, easy to understand system of health insurance. People want health insurance, but they want to be able to understand it quite easily. They do not want to be confused by false concepts of freedom of choice, as my colleagues have said previously. The current proposal is outlined in a pamphlet which has been distributed and which most people in the community will read. This pamphlet seems to me to be like a complicated flow chart for a computer program. Indeed, I think one almost needs to be a systems analyst to be able to follow it.

Even the Queensland Premier has become confused, or perhaps I should say he has become more confused. One can remember last year when for a long time he said that his State would not enter the Medibank system. But now, his State having been in it for some time, he has made a plaintive call to senators from Queensland, on the opposite side of the chamber from where I sit, to make sure that Queensland’s free hospital system is retained. But where have the Government senators from Queensland been during this debate? I have heard nothing from them. I certainly want Queensland’s free hospital system to be retained. I think that my colleague from Queensland who will speak shortly will say similar things. But no one really knows whether Queensland’s free hospital system is going to be retained because of the confusion that surrounds the whole system.

In conclusion let me say that I predict that before and after 1 October there will be confusion about this new system that is to be introduced. Indeed, I predict that after 1 October there will be cases of personal distress brought about by the confusion. I do not say this lightly or in any political sense. I think that most honourable senators in this chamber at the moment know my thoughts about people, and they know that I care for people and care that they get a fair deal. I care that they do not run into the sorts of financial problems that many people often do in times of distress. I am mindful of the fact that this confusion could occur. Wherever I am able possibly to do so I shall try to take away any confusion that people have. But I still think that confusion will remain. Because of this I think it is important that the Government should consider any comments that have been made by the Opposition in the hope that’ this confusion will not remain. I hope that in the months ahead, and particularly during the recess, the Government will take into account the comments that have been made from honourable senators on this side of the chamber. Then, hopefully, when the system is finally brought in on 1 October there will be less confusion than, I am fearful at present there might be.

Senator ARCHER:
Tasmania

– I feel rather inadequate to follow such a complete and well presented statement as was produced by Senator Baume. Senator Baume stated the facts very clearly and thoroughly. There was only one item that he missed, and that was the complete summary of where the Liberal-National Country Party Government stands on the Medibank issue. I am very fortunate in that Senator Colston covered that completely for me. His summary of the statement made by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) was the only thing that I needed to add to what Senator Baume had said.

I am a little disturbed that, in my opinion, the problems that are likely to arise are far more in the mind than in the practice. I believe that if there is going to be any confusion and chaos it will be confusion and chaos that has been engendered. The general comments that have been passed are not likely to settle the issues down but are far more likely to make the whole issue become more emotive. There is always a certain amount of emotion when we start to talk about health or housing or employment. I think that we all have the same concept of health and the handling of it- we all expect to have the best of health and the best of health services. Medibank was quite a good concept but, like a lot of good theories, it requires good practice to see it through. We always have to deal with the human element. Wherever we have the human element we have openings being created and then jobs being created for people to fill those openings in ways that it would have been better if they had not been filled.

Nobody from any party or from either House of Parliament would deny, in or out of Parliament, that changes are necessary now that the Medibank system has been going for the time that it has. When one considers the financial burdens that are being placed upon the country at large I believe it is evident that there is no future in having the country full of healthy people if the country is dying financially. I think that we have to take a pretty simplistic approach for those who do not understand the problem already, and point out that the country in any one year has only so much to spend. Once it is spent it is gone, and if we overspend we have to pay it back. If we spend it on one thing we cannot spend it on another. So it depends on government developing a system of priorities and ensuring that they can make the amount of money that they have to go around.

I believe that I am in this place, and on this side of this place, because of the public’s objections to the financial management of the country up to November last year. Changes are needed, and they have to be considered. But by and large there is wide acceptance of the proposed alterations that are before us. There are objections and there always will be. The genuine ones will certainly be considered. Most of them, though, are largely politically motivated. I am finding that the objections that we are getting that cannot be dealt with are designed either to build support for other points of view or to try to embarrass the Government in what it is doing now. We receive letters from people from time to time and we have people visiting us. Telegrams are sent to us. For instance, even today we received a telegram, which I shall read. This was addressed to B. R. Archer, Parliament House, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, and read as follows:

People in Chisholm angry at destruction of Medibank. Demand your vote against any legislation that interferes with present system.

It was signed ‘Citizens of Chisholm’. Receiving a telegram like that is enough to make a person a bit upset at the time, because it is not the usual tenor of requests that electors are likely to make, particularly when one takes into account that the electorate of Chisholm is a strongly held Liberal seat it is rather unlikely that a spontaneous telegram like that would arrive from people living within an electorate that is strongly Liberal. We all get telegrams like this. If this telegram were to go to all members and senators it would cost $557.72; if it were to go only to the Liberals it would cost $367.92; or even if it were to go only to all Liberal senators it would cost $78.84.

Senator Cavanagh:

– It is Arab money. There is no shortage.

Senator ARCHER:

– It is Arab money; that is the whole point. The telegram is based on an inaccuracy and is deliberately intended to mislead. It implies that it speaks for people for whom it does not speak. The most important thing about the telegram is that when I had it checked out I found not only that it was spurious in every respect but also that it was sent by a member of the Opposition in the Senate. As honourable senators opposite say, it is Arab money. But it is charged to a Department of Administrative Services telephone account by a member of this House.

Senator McAuliffe:

– Tell us who it is.

Senator Mulvihill:

-Tell all.

Senator ARCHER:

-It was Senator Melzer.

Senator Mulvihill:

– You are not a chivalrous senator.

Senator ARCHER:

– Honourable senators asked who it was. I had not intended to divulge who it was. When we start to look at the Medibank system and investigate it in a practical and feasible non-political way we realise that these changes had to be made. While things such as this telegram float around trying to inflame the situation, it is difficult for us to get a dispassionate and sensible look at the matter. The amendments that are being made to the system must be considered in the context of tax indexation, family benefits and allowances, and the effect on the family taxes both now and in the foreseeable future.

It has to be considered also that the prime requirement of the Medibank system is welfare, and welfare must go to the places it is needed most. In this regard low income earners and those dependent on pensions still get the full benefits. There will be no change. Pensioners will receive the same concern that we give to other low income areas. I do not see why it is that the only people who seem to have any real doubts about what is proposed sit on my right. Everybody else who has seen this pamphlet finds it quite easy to understand and quite clear. I will make the pamphlet available as far and wide as I can in my area so that everybody will have the benefit of seeing what is involved. They can then make their own choice.

We hear over and over again that Medibank is to be dismantled. Nothing of the sort will happen. We hear that people are to be deprived of Medibank. Nothing of the sort will happen. Like this telegram things which are deliberately untrue are pushed around. Perhaps I should say, if I am getting close to the line, that it is probably wilful misunderstanding. Information which is known to be untrue will do nothing towards achieving consideration of this matter in a reasonable, logical and non-politial manner. There is nothing about the legislation which is not completely in line with what the Government said before the election and has said since. We certainly have a responsible enough attitude to know that we cannot keep on spending money without it coming from somewhere. There is no free medicine. There never was. There is no free anything. There never was. If we can rationalise the matter and get it back to some reasonable plane we can get the Medibank system working hand in glove with the other scheme to the benefit of the whole of Australia.

Senator MCAULIFFE:
Queensland

– Before I say anything about Medibank I must take up the remarks of Senator Archer. He said that the telegram to which he referred was sent by Senator Melzer. I thought there was some confidentiality between a person who sends a telegram and the Australian Postal Commission or the Australian Telecommunications Commission. I do not intend to pursue the matter this evening because we have the important matters of Medibank to discuss, but I foreshadow to the Senate that I will be inquiring to find out how Senator Archer was able to learn that this telegram was sent by Senator Melzer. I will reveal my findings to the Senate. So much for that.

Because several Bills are being debated cognately I would like at this stage to indicate that I will be addressing myself to the Health Insurance Levy Assessment Bill 1976. This Bill provides for the payment of the Medibank levy and also provides for the levy to be collected in conjunction with the payment of income tax. In simple words, the Bill makes certain provisions. One of them concerns exemption from the levy or tax- whatever we may like to call it- for low income earners. For instance, a single income earner who is earning a taxable income of $2,604 or less a year, or a married income earner who is earning $4,299 or less a year, is exempt from the Medibank levy or tax. The second provision in the Bill grants exemptions from the levy for taxpayers who pay an appropriate premium to Medibank for themselves and their dependants. In the case of a single person the premium is $ 1 50 per annum. In the case of a married person the premium is $300 per annum. The third provision exempts taxpayers who have appropriate insurance cover with a registered health benefit organisation, such as the Medical Benefits Fund of Australia Ltd, and who are prepared to pay a premium of $350 a year. In the main that is what the Bill provides.

This Bill introduces changes to the Medibank system. For this reason it is of the utmost importance to us on this side of the chamber. The greatest asset any political party can have is credit. The electorate should believe that a Party, whether through good report or ill report or through good fortune or ill fortune, stands for certain principles. Time and again during the last election campaign the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and other Government spokesmen on welfare gave assurance after assurance, when challenged, that Medibank would remain, that it would not be disturbed and that most certainly it would not be dismantled. Previous speakers this evening have confirmed that assertion. What do we now find? The Bills before us, I claim, have struck a tremendous blow at the very heart of Medibank. The proposed changes are remarkable when considered against the background of what the Government previously stated.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Government has set out to ringbark the whole of the Medibank system. That is not entirely surprising to us on this side of the chamber, because Government supporters have a history of repudiating promises. They seem to be able to twist and turn and although I have said this before in the Parliament, I will continue to say it until their performances are different. They change their minds and opinions every full moon. They are the experts in bally-hoo. I used to think Lloyd George was the prince in this field because he contested and won an election in Great Britain with the slogan ‘Hang the Kaiser’. Twenty years later the Kaiser died peacefully in his bed in Holland. Lloyd George was a novice compared with these exhibitionists. In 1952, do we need to be reminded, we had the Menzies slogan ‘Put value back into the pound’, but he knew full well that he could not do it.

Twenty-four years later the Liberals are still telling the electors of Australia that they are going to put value back into the dollar and rein in inflation. In 1975 the present Prime Minister when he was on the hustings made certain pledges. Among them was wage indexation. Do I need to remind the Senate what happened when he had his first opportunity to approach the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission? Among other things the Liberals promised that they would maintain Medibank. The Liberals, whether of the era of Lloyd George or of the present time, are the same. They are all tarred with the same brush. Only one conclusion can be drawn from these observations: The Liberal promises regarding Medibank and the Liberal pretensions of support for Medibank have turned out to be absurd. They have turned out to be most insincere. Blind Freddy can see from reading the Bills or the second reading speeches that the Liberals are intent on one thing only- to destroy Medibank. I do not want honourable senators to take just my word for that. I propose later on in this debate to illustrate most conclusively the point that I am making.

There is another important point. From time to time those of us, particularly on this side of the chamber, who attend meetings of the working class and trade union meetings, hear it stated that the inequalities, the social inequalities of our time are on the increase, that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. I now pose the question to honourable senators opposite: Are not these Bills before us for our consideration another evil on that path? I claim that by allowing the rich to opt out of Medibank we are introducing into legislation a principle that is extremely bad. We are moving away from the long accepted principle that those who can afford most should pay most. We are moving away from the principle of progressive income tax, a principle for which the late and revered Labor Prime Minister, Mr J. B. Chifley, won national acceptance and acclaim. We are moving away from the principle that those who get most out of society should be obliged to put most back into it. The rich are the ones who should pay most to meet the general cost of keeping the nation in good health just the same as they are now obliged to meet a greater share per dollar earned than the poor need for the cost of defence, roads, schools and other items of public expenditure.

I worry about this charge which is sought to be imposed. I am one of those optimists- I suppose an incorrigable optomist- who thinks we have become less patient with inequalities than formerly we were and who is determined to lessen them. However, I am sorry to say that the record of this Government in the 6 months that it has been in office is that it has made more raids and sorties into the welfare of the underprivileged than any other government. Let me instance a few of these raids. There was the attempt to rob the pensioners of the $40 funeral benefit, the failure to allow the consumer price index increase to flow on to dependent children of pensioners, the decision to give the consumer price index increase to pensioners in July rather than April. They are a few examples that come to mind. What about the threat, the threat that was well known, to reintroduce television and radio licence fees in such a way that the poor would have to pay the same as the rich for a licence to listen to the radio or to watch television.

I am convinced that the Government is determined to destroy Medibank ultimately. Mr Chipp let the cat out of the bag in the last election campaign when he disclosed the Government’s intentions regarding Medibank. I heard my colleague Senator Colston tell the Senate earlier of how Mr Snedden also let the cat out of the bag. Of course, Mr Chipp suffered the same fate as Mr Snedden for his disclosures. He, too, was not allowed to enter the Ministry of this Government. The aim of the Government is ultimately to destroy Medibank and that must be abundantly clear to anybody who has read the Bills or the second reading speeches of the Minister. Permit me to illustrate my point with a few figures. The family premium cover under Medibank is $300. If one wishes to exercise an option and take out private health insurance for intermediate hospital cover the extra cost is $135. That is a total of $435. The $300 Medibank cover ensures only public ward attention in a public hospital and private medical care.

If one wishes to go beyond that, that is, into intermediate or private ward cover, one has to take out additional insurance. I repeat that the total cost of Medibank cover for a family is $300 plus $135 in private health insurance for intermediate cover, making a total of $435. However, if one opts out of Medibank and takes out cover with the private health insurance funds for private medical care and intermediate hospital cover the premium required is $350. Taking that a step further, the difference is $85 a year. There will be a moral commitment on many people on this side of the chamber to stay in Medibank. If a person wanted to exercise that option the final penalty- it is nothing less than a fine or penaltywould be $85. Certainly, to use the language of honourable senators on the Government side, that would be a sweetener to join the private funds. We on this side of the chamber oppose the measure because we believe that the levy and the way in which it is drawn up is the thin edge of the wedge as far as the Medibank scheme is concerned. We claim that the Government gives lip service in support of the Medibank scheme. Its actions, as evidenced in the contents of these Bills, show otherwise. We all know- I do not need to tell honourable senators opposite- that actions speak louder than words.

I commend the Government for correcting a serious weakness in the Hayden Medibank scheme. This is not provided for entirely under the Bill to which I have addressed myself but it is provided for in one of the Bills which we are debating cognately. I congratulate the Government for saving the taxpayers $30m. I refer to the $30m rip-off which insurance companies received from Medibank for workers compensation and third party insurance by being relieved of those payments. I enthusiastically congratulate the Government for correcting that serious weakness. I am prepared to say that there are other valuable contributions and improvements which the Government has made in the Medibank Bill but of course the overriding thing which cancels out all the pluses and establishes a big majority for the minuses is the way in which the Government has tried to ultimately destroy Medibank by the levy system. The provisions of the Health Insurance Amendment Bill 1976 which was introduced into this chamber by the Minister for Social Security, Senator Guilfoyle, took care of that $30m rip-off to insurance companies. I congratulate the Minister and the Government on correcting this area.

Queensland was the beacon for free hospitalisation. Queensland showed the way to all other States in these matters. Decades ago free hospitals were introduced by a Labor government. I am proud to say to the Senate this evening that this system has been retained by a long list of successive Labor and Liberal-Country Party governments. But free hospitalisation in Queensland did not come to the Queensland people cheaply. We had to bear certain restraints in education, schools, roads, and other utilities in order to keep the system intact.

Senator Wright:

– Free to the rich and the poor?

Senator MCAULIFFE:

– So it is not surprising to hear any Queenslander get on his feet in this chamber and oppose the 2.5 per cent levy which will be imposed to finance Medibank. Queenslanders are being called upon to pay for a service, which, in the main, they already have free of cost. Surely nobody can blame a Queenslander for that, even the most patriotic of Tasmanians. I sincerely hope that Queensland honourable senators of the National Country Party, now fortified by an appeal from the Queensland Premier, will raise their voices and, more importantly, raise their arms in protest against the levy. Who knows? Perhaps Liberal senators like Ian Wood and Senator Bonner, two of the gallant six who were courageous enough to rebel and to give great assistance to the restoration of the funeral benefit to the pensioners, might protest. As Queenslanders this evening we may see them stand on their feet and also oppose this levy. We may even see the greatest miracle of all happen. Senator Kathy Martin for once might come out of bond and vote according to her conscience and her conviction.

The PRESIDENT:

– Order! Senator McAuliffe, you are reflecting on an honourable senator. You will withdraw. A person will vote according to her conscience. That is a reflection on the honourable senator.

Senator MCAULIFFE:

– I will withdraw the remark about Senator Martin and her conscience and conviction. But can she remain in bond?

The PRESIDENT:

- Senator McAuliffe -

Senator MCAULIFFE:

– Out of respect to you I withdraw, Mr President. In conclusion I point out that we on this side of the chamber will watch with interest the performance of Queensland honourable senators opposite for the rest of this evening’s proceedings, as we see them unfold. I enthusiastically support Senator Grimes, the shadow Minister, in his opposition to this measure on health benefits.

Senator WOOD:
Queensland

-Mr President -

Senator Cavanagh:

– Now, here is a confessional.

Senator WOOD:

– This is no confessional. I am deeply concerned with the Health Insurance Levy Assessment Bill and the Health Insurance Levy Bill because they could mean the abandonment of something which has operated in Queensland for many years; namely, the free hospital scheme. I think this is something which Queenslanders, over a period of years, have looked upon with a degree of pride. The scheme has given a service to those people who are not so very well financially placed. Because this proposed levy will be uniform throughout Australia it means that those people who previously secured hospital services free will now have to pay through this levy. I feel that the Government should give consideration to the existence of that scheme in Queensland. I think it should consider every possible way for the maintenance of that scheme. My own view is that there will be deep resentment in Queensland at the loss of this scheme. 1 know that the present Queensland Government- like the governments before it- wants to see this scheme maintained. I am pleased to see that Government take this stand because I think this levy is a downward step for those of us in my State of Queensland.

I think the Government should consider very deeply before it proceeds with this scheme if it means the elimination of free hospitalisation in Queensland. The Premier of Queensland made the suggestion that possibly there might be a differential in the rate of levy in Queensland, say a half rate levy, which would give the opportunity for such a free hospital scheme to continue to operate. I have discussed this matter with the present Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) and while he has not given any indication of acceptance of the suggestion, I do not feel that he is hostile to it. I do not want to commit him in any way because he gave no commitment. But I felt that he listened to my suggestion and I do not believe that he showed any antagonism towards it.

Senator Grimes:

– Good vibrations.

Senator WOOD:

– No. I am concerned about this matter because as a Queenslander I am proud of the scheme operating in Queensland. I am not taking part in this debate because my friend Senator McAuliffe mentioned my name in his remarks. My name was already on the speakers’ list. I think it needs to be stated that we in Queensland stand firmly on this matter. Therefore, I think that the Government should give every consideration to Queensland’s position. I will not be happy with the Bill which imposes the levy for Medibank until we get something clearer from the Government in this regard. I do not think that we should take a backward step. I think that the Government might well consider extending throughout Australia the system that has operated in Queensland. We know that the service that is provided in Queensland has to be paid for by somebody, but the people who use the service receive it as a free service. Because of the satisfaction that the scheme in Queensland has given over the years I feel strongly that the Government should give consideration to the continuation of the scheme. If there is any difficulty in having one State in and the other States out, why not look at the possibility of extending the scheme to the whole of Australia. Under those circumstances I am very concerned about the Bill which imposes the Medibank levy. I will not be in favour of it unless we get some indication that the free scheme in Queensland can continue.

Senator HARRADINE:
Tasmania

– The answer to the question that I am about to ask the Minister will influence not only my vote but also, I believe, the attitude of a great many people outside this chamber, including a large number of members of trade union organisations. I would like the Minister when she replies to the debate to indicate whether the Government intends to give a guarantee that the levy will be maintained at no more than the level set out in the Bill, and whether the premium also will be maintained at the level set out in the Bill.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

– I rise at a very late stage in this debate to say a few words about the concepts which have been bandied about during the course of the debate. On a number of occasions in this Senate I have said that if there was one thing that the Labor Government had a mandate to do- during the life of the Labor Government there was a lot of discussion about what it had a mandate to do- it was to do something about a national health insurance service in Australia. That mandate, insofar as we were capable of doing so, having regard to the function of this chamber, was discharged with Medibank. If there is one thing that the present Government did not have a mandate to do, in view of the statements made by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in December 1975, it was to alter Medibank in the way in which it is now being altered.

One of the concepts which has been much discussed during the course of the debate relates to freedom of choice. In the three or four years leading up to the introduction of Medibank there was continual discussion in the Australian community about what freedom of choice in terms of health care meant. It was suggested by the then Opposition that, as a result of the introduction of Medibank, people would be denied freedom of health care choice not only at the hospital level, where there is an argument to be put on that score, but also at the private practitioner level. I find it very strange that after this period there is once again a discussion about what freedom of choice in relation to health insurance in Australia means. Not one Government senator who has contributed to this debate has really said anything about this question; rather honourable senators opposite have uttered ba-ba sorts of slogans about freedom of choice.

What is the sort of freedom of choice about which they are talking? Many Australian citizens have been interviewed on television in the last few years, and particularly in the last few months, regarding their attitude to Medibank. Some of them have said that the service is slow; some of them have said that they would like the service to be improved in various ways or they would like a Medibank office in their area. But I believe that nobody on any of those programs has said: ‘Look, we want to be free to choose who is going to pay our medical bills for us when we get ill’. None of them has ever said that. The freedom of choice which is being offered by the Government in this legislation is the freedom of choice of the private health funds to rip it off Australian citizens. That is the only new freedom of choice which is being offered by this legislation. I see Senator Baume is getting very white and heated about this matter. I must say that it was he who provoked me after lunchtime today to come into the Senate and talk on this subject. He is still waffling away about this alleged freedom of choice which the Liberal Party proposes to offer the Australian people in relation to their health insurance. No doubt in later debates Senator Baume again will get back to that concept because the Liberal Party, as he pointed out, has this curious belief that it is the only political party in Australia- indeed probably the only political party in the whole of the Western world- which understands what freedom of choice means. Let us look at the sort of freedom of choice in relation to health insurance which was offered by the private health funds in Australia prior to Medibank. The LiberalCountry Party Government in the 1970s appointed the Nimmo Committee of Inquiry into Health Insurance.

Senator Baume:

– In the 1960s.

Senator BUTTON:

-A11 right, in the 1960s. Senator Baume ‘s command of technical detail is outstanding. What I am challenging is his command of conceptual matters. The fact of the matter is that it was the Nimmo Committee which talked about the private health funds in these terms: That they were inefficient; that they were undemocratic insofar as their members were concerned; that they offered no genuine freedom of choice to the Australian people; that there were too many competing funds, and that they were wasteful for that very reason. That is what the Nimmo Committee, which was appointed by the Liberal-Country Party Government, said about the private health funds, and it is the private health funds to which this Government now is offering freedom of choice. No honourable senator opposite can really tell us what genuine freedom of choice is being offered to Australian citizens by the changes which will be made to Medibank. No Australians really want the privilege of deciding who will pay their bills for them when they get sick. It does not matter twopence to them, and every honourable senator opposite knows this to be true. There are 2 matters in relation to this question. The first is that the notion of freedom of choice as it has been expounded is an utter phoney. The second is that freedom of choice, if it exists, is being offered to the private health funds, and the Nimmo Committee so eloquently expressed the capacity which the funds had to offer that freedom of choice to the Australian people.

I wish to say something about one other issue which has been the subject of debate for many years in the Senate and elsewhere. It involves the question of the escalating costs of health care in the community. This has been a sort of political football, or poison ball, if you like, thrown back and forth. It was suggested all through the debate during the time of the Labor Government that somehow Medibank really would be responsible for escalating the cost of health care. This sort of thing is still being suggested in the Senate today. The fact of the matter is that none of us on either side of the Senate have really faced up to the essential things which are causing the escalating costs in health care. Of course, the essential things which are causing these vastly rising costs, quite apart from the personnel involved in health care, are the rapid technological advances which are being made by medicine and which are being used to keep people alive perhaps after they should no longer be alive. They are being used to keep people in expensive cardiac care units at $300 or $400 a day when perhaps they should not be there. These are the sort of escalating costs with which we ought to be concerned. Honourable senators might not like this, but it happens to be so.

Senator THOMAS:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– Do you think we should kill them off?

Senator BUTTON:

-I am asked whether we should kill them off. I know people- sometimes old people- whom I believe to be of great dignity. They have said to me, ‘Look, I am being kept alive. I cannot get a terminal illness. ‘ People have said that to me. I believe that to be a statement of great human dignity and one which we will have to think about in the future. We cannot just blame the Australian Labor Party or the Liberal Party in relation to the rapidly rising costs of keeping people alive in circumstances in which perhaps as human beings we ought to be capable of making different judgments. I think that when one looks -

Senator Baume:

– That is not necessarily a statement upon which you will find much disagreement.

Senator BUTTON:

-Except that, Senator Baume, you have not said so. In all the speeches of the honourable senator -

Senator Walters:

– What has it got to do with Medibank?

Senator BUTTON:

– In all the honourable senator’s speeches and in most of Senator Walter’s interjections there has been the suggestion that the rising costs of health services is somehow something to do with the Labor Party. Of course, that is quite apparent rubbish.

The point I am wanting to make is this: If we are not prepared to make this stand in 1976, we will have to be prepared to make it by about 1986. If the Borrie Report is correct the population of Australia will age as rapidly as- I hope I am not upsetting Senator Wright -

Senator Wright:

– You cannot upset me, old man.

Senator BUTTON:

– I have not suggested a cut-off age at which medical services should be denied to people like Senator Wright. Indeed, I have no doubt that in his case there would be exceptional circumstances which even a Labor

Government would take into account. The important point I am wanting to make is that we have been debating this matter for about a day in the Senate. It was debated for about a day in the other place. Yet nobody has really said anything about this important subject. I think we have to face up to it at some time. We have to face up to the sort of implications of where the Christian Barnards of this world are taking us in terms of social costs and in terms of the dignity and reality of human life.

Senator Baume:

– Hear, hear!

Senator BUTTON:

-Thank you, Senator Baume. It is our first moment of agreement in 2Vi years. I will cherish it. The other much less important point which I want to mention very briefly is the other reality. I refer to the question of doctors’ incomes. So long as technology continues at the pace at which it is continuing now, so long as pathology services become so involved and more costly as they are becoming every day, and so long as doctors’ incomes continue to spiral on an open market, we will have difficulties in relation to the problem of delivering health care in the community.

Senator THOMAS:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– What about lawyers?

Senator BUTTON:

-The honourable senator can make a comment about lawyers. Perhaps he thinks it will upset me. It does not upset me at all. I make precisely the same observation about lawyers and politicians. So long as we continue to debate in the Senate whether people working under awards administered by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission should receive $3 a week extra but we are quite happy to enjoy an income which is amongst the top 3 per cent of incomes paid in the community, as are the incomes paid to lawyers and doctors, we will never solve these problems of escalating health costs or of escalating legal costs.

The other important point which I seek to make following on those comments is that so long as we have a fee for service system, so long as we continue to operate as we are in this area and so long as we continue to reject the notion of an incomes policy for anybody except those on award wages, we will have these problems in health care delivery and we will have these problems with a legal service, and so on. Madam Deputy President, I must say that I was provoked to make these few remarks by some of the things that I have heard from the lips of Senator Baume and others today.

Finally, let me say one other thing: I believe the health of every Australian to be a national responsibility. I do not believe national responsibilities are fulfilled by our looking after the interests of private health funds in the way the Government proposes. I was hopeful that the Government would have seen fit in pursuance of its apparently egalitarian objectives in regard to the cost of health care to impose a levy with a much higher cut-off amount than was suggested by the ALP when we were in government. It has been said in the Senate on numerous occasions by Labor senators and Liberal senators that Medibank is not perfect. I do not think we ever claimed that for a moment. But we did claim that it was a better system than the system that existed previously. We are very fearful of the confusion which would be caused to the Australian people, the hidden costs which will be involved in dismantling or dismembering Medibank in the way in which it has been done. There are substantial hidden costs. We will have these confusions all in the name and in the pursuit of the idological myth about freedom of choice and all this sort of rubbish. It is for those reasons that I wanted to raise these questions very briefly in the debate and towards the end of it.

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– We have been debating the 6 Bills which provide for the modifications to Medibank while retaining the principle of universal coverage for health care. Every Australian will continue to have the right to remain in Medibank, despite the fears that have been expressed at various points of the debate this afternoon. I believe that at this stage of the debate I should remind everyone that what we are talking about is a health insurance levy of 2.5 per cent of taxable income to be imposed on those people who remain in the Medibank scheme. This is to be payable by Australian residents who do not have appropriate medical cover for themselves and their family with a registered private insurance fund or through payment of a premium to Medibank. The legislation proposes a basic levy on the taxable income of taxpayers. I think that those who have been close to the debate and to the Bills would recognise the other provisions which are contained in the Bills for exemption from the levy for that part of an income year in which a person has appropriate cover for both hospital and medical benefits with a registered private insurance fund or through the premium that is paid direct to Medibank. There are other provisions which relate to dependants and which make this Medibank scheme an appropriate cover for any person who wishes to remain within it. At the same time, we have introduced an opportunity for people to have alternative cover.

Many points have been made by honourable senators with great sincerity during the debate. I believe that when Senator Grimes was leading the debate for the Opposition he made it clear that the Opposition opposed the imposition of the levy at this stage. He believed that its imposition meant that the scheme was no longer a universal one. I think that what we should be talking about is universal coverage for health care and not whether we should have one scheme in which people have only a standard care that may be appropriate for some people but not for all people and which eliminates any alternative which they may have. Senator Grimes mentioned that the levy was too high at 2.5 per cent and that this led to defeatism of tax indexation, which we believe is so important at this time. I would suggest that it is important that we have tax indexation and that it is important that we have as great a level of take home pay for every person in this country in terms of moving towards wages restraint and levels of income which enable people to maintain their purchasing power.

To suggest that a Medibank scheme is free is to overlook the fact that it has been a general burden on expenditure of $ 1,400m in this year and that if nothing else had been done at this stage the burden next year would have been approaching $ 1,800m. To suggest that by identifying a levy for those people who remain within Medibank and do not choose to have alternative cover we are in some way obscuring the cost of the Medibank scheme seems to me to be an unrealistic proposal and one which does not stand up to honest argument.

Senator Grimes in speaking of the need for private hospital cover did acknowledge that in some Australian States it is absolutely essential to have private hospital cover if there is to be access to hospital accommodation. To suggest otherwise would mean that those people who are within the Medibank scheme, who are covered for standard ward care in public hospitals and who take no other cover would not have access to hospitals when they need them. It is for this reason that a very high proportion of the Australian people, despite the Medibank scheme, has chosen to be partially insured for those other aspects of care which they required to give them security of health care when they needed it.

Senator Baume, I believe, in his speech clarified many of the points that were made by Senator Grimes. He made it clear that within the scheme that has been proposed there is protection for the lower income groups of people. The way in which the levy has been devised has been that the lower income groups of people will have cover without the burden of cost that those who are able to pay will have. He did make it clear that there is now a compulsory cover for health insurance. There is a universal cover despite the fact that there is more than one scheme to which people may belong. I think it is clear that anyone who regards the 2.5 per cent levy as too high has the opportunity to understand that these services need to be paid for and that those who believe that the costs of the private funds are too high have the opportunity to stay in Medibank despite the level of income which they may have. This is the alternative about which we have been speaking.

When Senator Ryan was speaking she mentioned a 1.6 per cent levy which the former Government had proposed. To my knowledge this was a 1.35 per cent levy which had been envisaged by the former Government. Perhaps that does not compare with the 2.5 per cent levy of which we have spoken in our Bills. But I think it would be understood that at the cost of Medibank as we have experienced it over the past 12 months a 2.5 per cent levy is realistic, fair and one which only partially covers the cost of the very costly health insurance which we do have in this country.

Senator Ryan did pose a question with regard to the savings of $800m which it was claimed the proposal of the Government would make. I think this matter should be explained to her and to other honourable senators who have raised the same points. We have estimated that the levy will raise some $330m and that there will be a saving from those people who opt out of the Medibank scheme to take private insurance of approximately $440m. There will be administrative savings and the savings, as Senator McAuliffe said, of $30m in payments to insurance companies for workers compensation insurance, third party insurance and other aspects which no longer will be automatically covered under the Medibank scheme.

Mention has been made from time to time throughout the day that confusion exists in the minds of the Australian people with regard to the alternative schemes and the new Medibank proposals. The Government acknowledges that this is not a simple matter. It is vital that people do understand what the options are, what the alternatives are and what their responsibilities will be. The Government has undertaken between now and 1 October to conduct an intensive scheme of education and information for the public so that members of the public will understand what their alternatives are and what steps need to be taken by them to ensure that they have the type of cover which they choose for themselves and their families.

Much has been made of the Medibank Review Committee and the work that it has undertaken since January of this year. It was an early announcement from the Government that this Committee would undertake a review of the existing Medibank scheme to endeavour to provide some restraint on the burden of cost that it was to the total taxpaying public and to look at ways in which we could offer the alternatives that we have chosen to do. It has been suggested that this was a Committee which met in secret and did not report publicly. I think it should be said that the Medibank Review Committee was a Committee which reported to Cabinet. Cabinet received its recommendations and required work to be done on specific areas. It was a continuing committee in the nature of committees which do serve Government. Arising from the continuing work of the Medibank Review Committee since January, the recommendations have been accepted by the Government as they have now been outlined in the legislation which is before the Senate.

It should be said that most Australians have chosen to maintain insurance coverage which would allow them to be treated by their own doctor in their own intermediate or private ward in a hospital. I do not think anyone would argue this point because, despite the universal nature of Medibank, a very high proportion of people, as I mentioned earlier, did choose to have some additional private insurance cover. What has now been done is to extend the opportunity for insurance for basic standard care as well as the additional care which may be required in those circumstances which are clear to us all.

Senator Jessop brought forward some points which concern him with regard to the National Health Amendment Bill and the concern that he had with regard to some of the measures that related to the private health funds. I know that he and other members of the Senate have had discussions with the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt). The Minister has given me his assuranceand I know gave this assurance to the honourable senators concerned- that during the next 3 months every effort will be taken to consider carefully the provisions of the Bill, to overcome some of the objections which have been raised with regard to it and to make sure that the Bill which relates to the private health funds is one that can have the support and understanding of everyone in its objectives.

It is important to say this because the legislation is being introduced and passed at this time not to have effect until the changes which will take place on 1 October, but to give time for the community at large and for members of Parliament to make their representations to the Minister and to have his assurance that consideration will be given to them. Indeed, in relation to all of the legislation which has been introduced with regard to the Medibank proposals, I know that the Minister for Health would welcome close consultation with individuals, with professions and with all of those people who may have representations to make when the full effect and understanding of the complex nature of the legislation is known by the community.

Senator Colston said that the savings which were made were illusory. It could be that people would talk of savings as we relate them to public expenditure as being illusory and that that claim could be substantiated. But again we talk about the cost of the scheme and where the burden of the cost must be spread. We believe that what has been done is to spread the cost as fairly as can be achieved and that this action has given protection to those who are unable to sustain their own burden of cost and to provide the nature of care which they require.

We have said again and again that no one will be compelled to insure privately if they wish to remain in the Medibank scheme which has the undoubted support of members of the Opposition and the support of many members of the Australian community. It will be competent for those people who wish to do so to remain within the scheme. It should be equally competent for those who wish to have alternative cover to have the right to do so. By introducing a system of direct entry into Medibank by the payment of a contribution, those who have a personal preference for Medibank and who have high incomes will be able to stay within it. They will be able to exercise that preference.

There is a difference between Medibank and private insurance coverage, but this difference will be no greater than already exists because Medibank has a certain coverage and private insurance has provided additional coverage. Despite the claims that we are dismantling or dismembering Medibank, this is not the case because the existing Medibank proposals can be sustained by any member of the Australian community who chooses to do so. In addition there is the opportunity to take advantage of the alternative schemes if a person chooses to do that.

Senator McAuliffe spoke of the exemptions for low income families. I am pleased that he made mention of this aspect. It is important in the plans that we have for health care in this country that low income families not be deprived of the quality of health care that we would want to see for everyone. But I think that those whom he mentioned in the trade union movement who are looking at social inequities should note that there is a burden of cost in this respect and that social inequities cannot always be met simply by a universal burden that is expressed in terms of those who pay taxes in the way in which the Medibank levy would require for a universal cover as we have seen in the past. The fact that it has not had an identified levy does not mean that it has not been paid for. By taking the burden off the public expenditure in the way in which we have there is still an opportunity to maintain equity as far as the distribution of cost is concerned. I believe that that is our aim in the proposals that we have put before the Parliament at this stage.

Senator McAuliffe also mentioned the hospitals in his own State. This brings us to the fact that Senator Wood is also concerned about the hospitals in Queensland. I know that Senator Wood has had consultations with the Minister for Health. We all have knowledge of the statements that have been made by the Premier of Queensland. I have knowledge of the statements made by my own Premier. I think that it is understood by everyone that a great deal of negotiation needs to be undertaken with the State governments with regard to the sharing of hospital costs that will arise from the total Medibank agreements. Those consultations -

Senator McAuliffe:

– Will Mr Hunt do this?

Senator GUILFOYLE:

- Mr Hunt understands Queensland’s position. Mr Hunt would understand equally the position of every other State. I think that the Treasurer (Mr Lynch), the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and those who will be conducting the negotiation of the financial agreements in the next month or so will be giving very close attention to the hospital sharing costs that need to be considered.

Senator Georges:

– You will have to do a lot of walking and talking.

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– I think that they will all meet around the one table. I do not think that there will be a need to have separate consultation on all of these matters. The Premiers and Treasurers will have to confer on how many of these matters, particularly the major matter of the sharing of hospital costs, are to be undertaken.

Senator Wood:

– There are to be meetings with the States.

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– That is right; there are to be meetings. In view of the complexity of the matters that have to be considered I think that it is understood that these meetings will not be superficial but will give a great deal of attention to the matters that have been raised, particularly to those that have been raised by honourable senators from Queensland.

Senator Harradine spoke briefly in seeking an assurance that the level of the levy will be maintained. It is appropriate to say here that the basic levy for a whole year is 2.5 per cent, with the provisions that already have been mentioned, and that the basic rate for the forthcoming year, because the new scheme will start on 1 October, is 1.875 per cent. The annual rate of 2.5 per cent is the rate that has been mentioned by the Government as being the levy that will be applied to Medibank. This levy has been assessed as being equitable and reasonable as far as cost sharing between government and the taxpayers is concerned. Regarding assurances into the future, I know of no other proposal to change that rate. I think that it is understood that what has been attempted, because there is a levy on Medibank and because premiums will be paid to private insurance funds, is of a competitive nature. I feel sure that it will be in the interests of sustaining the levy at that rate for Medibank. It will ensure that the private insurance companies need to be placing themselves competitively with that rate.

Senator Button became very agitated about freedom of choice. Perhaps he does not understand it as well as we do on this side of the House. He mentioned that people have suggested that the service is slow and that the opinion of people ranges from arguing about the quality of service that Medibank has given to criticising or praising other aspects. Then he said that he could not really see how anyone could call it freedom of choice if a person were free only to choose who is going to pay his medical bills. I think that the other choice that is there as an elective is the way in which one is to be covered- whether one is to have a Medibank cover with the standard care that that provides or whether one chooses to have an alternative form of cover. There are lots of ranges of choice in the proposals that are before the Senate. It is not really a matter of who is going to pay one’s bills; it is a matter of whether one is going to identify a cost oneself and accept that responsibility in the levy that is to be paid in the future. An attempt has been made to end the open-ended and costly scheme upon which we were embarked and to remind members of the Australian taxpaying public that at 2.5 per cent of their taxable incomes or at the premium they can get a certain level of cover. If one sees that it does not cover the insurance that one needs one would then start to wonder where one’s choice would lie if the community as a whole was unable to sustain such a costly medical scheme.

Senator Button talked about a lack of choice and seemed to show that he thought that a universal coverage was the only way by which this could be given. What he was really talking about was a uniform coverage. We are talking about a universal coverage, but we are talking about alternative choices that can be made. He was talking about a uniform coverage, which is quite different from a universal one. I think that that point should be made again and again when we are talking about this proposal. There is to be no opting out altogether from health insurance any more. It is a matter of being covered. But it does not have to be uniformly imposed upon people. There can be a choice and an alternative. I do not want to comment at great length about the other matters that were raised by Senator Button, but I do say that we accept that there are escalating costs in the field of health care.

Senator Primmer:

– There are escalating costs in everything.

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– There are escalating costs in everything, but Senator Button used the escalating costs to question advances in modern medicine, which is a very complex subject. It is one which I think is basic to the values of the society in which we live. I do not know whether there are many people who would suggest in a personal sense that advances in modern medicine should not be applied to that area or to the members of their families. It is a complex subject. Perhaps the whole range of one’s own personal values would be placed aside by the escalating costs about which Senator Button spoke.

Senator Button spoke also of the Borrie report. Perhaps he misinterpreted it in one sense because, as I understand it, we are not in trouble just yet with our aging population for we have a diminishing burden on our younger population. Those who quote the Borrie report at random seem to be overlooking the fact that, although we might be experiencing the burden of an aging population, we have a diminishing burden on school costs and such costs for the younger population, which itself has decreased to almost a zero population growth.

I could talk about the incomes of doctors, which Senator Button mentioned, and I could talk about the interests of the private health insurance funds, but I think that what we are really talking about is the best way by which we can give adequate and improving health care to the Australian community. We believe that the 6 Bills which have been introduced provide a Medibank scheme for every Australian who chooses to remain within Medibank. They also provide an opportunity for the health funds to attempt to be competitive with the Medibank scheme. I do not believe that the Australian people will be convinced that they should have one form of health cover or another unless they are convinced that it is the one which best suits them and their families. That choice is now before them, and I commend the Bills to the Senate.

Question put:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

The Senate divided. (The President- Senator the Hon. Condor Laucke)

AYES: 32

NOES: 23

Majority……. 9

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

In Committee

The Bill.

Senator GRIMES:
Tasmania

– I believe that this is as appropriate a time as any to ask this question, although it is hard to know where it fits into the legislation. I ask the Minister, as did Senator Harradine, whether we can have some idea of how the proposed Medibank premium will be fixed. Is it going to be fixed in relation to the private health costs? For the period from 1 October to the end of June next year, will the premium be calculated in proportion to the length of the year, as the levy will be?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– Is the honourable senator referring to the premium for the private health funds?

Senator Grimes:

– I am speaking of the Medibank premium. Is it going to be fixed in relation to what the private health funds will charge? What is the formula for fixing it?

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– As has been announced, the medibank premium is to be within the range of $300 for family cover or $150 for cover for a single person. As far as the proportion of the year is concerned, the levy is to cover a period from 1 October at a rate of 1.875c or 2.5 per cent for the year. In relation to negotiations with the private health funds, they are still continuing and until the Government has further negotiations I am unable to give any specific answer as to the premium that will be charged by those funds. The negotiations still have to be undertaken.

Senator GRIMES:
Tasmania

-The Minister may need to ask the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) for the information. I am afraid that she has misunderstood my question. The Minister announced that there would be a Medibank premium, set at approximately $300, which people could pay to avoid paying the levy. Senator Harradine and T would like to know how that sum of $300 is fixed and what guarantee there is that the premium will remain at the sum originally fixed. We want to know particularly whether the Medibank premium is going to be fixed by some calculation of the Government on costs, or is it going to be fixed at a figure relating it to the charges of the private health funds? In other words, it seems at the moment that it is fixed at $50 below what the private health funds are expected to offer for intermediate insurance. If the private health funds find that they can only offer that insurance for $400 a year, is the premium for Medibank going to go up to $350 a year? I think this is a vital question. The Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) has said that the aim of the exercise is to get 50 per cent of the people out of Medibank. Is this the means that the Government is going to use to do that?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

-The Medibank premium would be fixed at a rate which allowed for treatment in public hospitals rendered by doctors engaged by hospitals and, in addition, providing coverage against 80 per cent of the scheduled medical fees. The Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) has further stated that the precise contribution rates will be determined when the contribution rates for the major private health insurance funds are known. The annual contribution rates to Medibank are expected to be about $ 1 50 for a person without dependants and about $300 for a family. The Minister said that he wished to emphasise that this contribution places an effective ceiling on levy demands.

I think that I understand the purport of the honourable senator’s question. I can see that he is trying to determine whether we will decide what the contribution rate will be prior to the major private health insurance funds deciding what their premium will be. These matters are the subject of negotiation at the present time between the Minister and the health funds. Until we have completed another stage in those consultations I am unable to be precise in the answer that I can give to the honourable senator. But I do believe that the objective of the Government is to have a cost of about $300 a year for a family and $150 a year for a person without dependants. Negotiations with the health funds are proceeding on that basis at the present time.

Senator GRIMES:
Tasmania

– I thank the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) for her answer. She has gone closer than the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) has gone at any stage to admitting that in fact the premium that will be paid to opt out of Medibank or to avoid paying the Medibank levy if staying in Medibank will be fixed in relation to the fees set by the private health funds and not in relation to anything else.

Senator Young:

– She did not say that.

Senator GRIMES:

-Well, if it can be explained to me by any honourable senator on the opposite side how those premiums will be fixed I shall be happy to accept the explanation. But obviously this could not be explained in another place and it is not being explained now. It is obvious that the premium will be fixed at a rate which bears a relationship to the fees of the private health funds in order to keep 50 per cent of the people out of Medibank.

Senator CAMERON:
South Australia

– I am still not satisfied with the answer that we have been given by the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle). We have been told that the Medibank premium for a family will be in the vicinity of $300 a year and for a single person $ 1 50 a year. But on past records the private funds sometimes have increased their premiums three times a year. If it is going to be accepted that in future the private funds will be allowed to increase their premiums once, twice or three times a year, then I understand that the premiums we will be expected to pay to remain in Medibank will escalate at the same rate as the private health funds’ premiums are increased. I think the Senate is entitled to an answer as to whether the premiums are going to remain at $ 1 50 a year for a single person and $300 a year for a family or whether they are going to to keep pace with the increases in premiums that we know the private funds will impose now that they have a free hand to enter the scheme.

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– I feel that I have to respond to what has been said. I think that what has been said is an unfair representation of what was said by the Minister for Health (Mr Hunt) and by me. In making an explanation to the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) in another place on 27 May the Minister for Health said that the premium of approximately $300 that was set for the standard Medibank package, as it is called, will provide a family with public ward accommodation in a public hospital and also with benefits covering 85 per cent of the scheduled medical fee. In other words, people receive Medibank benefits under the package. A single person will pay half of that $300. The $300 not only meets the cost of providing that service but it also provides an effective ceiling. This is what we are talking about. The Medibank benefits that are being covered and dealt with within this package cost approximately, it is estimated, $300 a year. That is the figure with which the private health funds will need to compete if they are to attract any of the community into their funds. It is not a matter of our allowing the health funds every so often to change their rates and us competing with them. Medibank is there, and the cost of $300 a year provides that cover. It is for the health funds to be competitive with Medibank. I think that it is unfair for anyone to say that the Minister has not given that explanation, because what I have read is taken from remarks made by the Minister when dealing with the matter in the House of Representatives.

Senator Grimes:

– Is $300 a firm figure, Minister?

Senator GUILFOYLE:

-$300 is the one that needs to be -

Senator Grimes:

– About?

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– Let us be precise on what we are talking about- something that will come in on 1 October. The Minister for Health has mentioned that that will be the approximate cost of the benefits that have been described. It is the objective of the Government to prescribe that cost and to place the funds in competition with that if they are to attract people to pay premiums to them. To suggest otherwise, I think, is to be quite misrepresentative. I think that what has been said now should clarify the question that has been raised.

Senator CAVANAGH:
South Australia

– This issue is getting more confused. As I understood the position there was to be a levy of 2.5 per cent on incomes. Beyond a certain level of income one could take out the Medibank package which, as the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) has just said, would cost in the vicinity of $300 a year. If 2.5 per cent of a person’s annual income exceeded $300 in a year- this might particularly be the case in a twopaypacket family- it would pay him to buy into the Medibank package for $300 a year. The package would exempt him from paying the levy. As I understood the position, people would not go into a private hospital unless they wished to have- for want of a better term- a superior service, insofar as they wanted their own doctor or to be in an intermediate or private ward in a hospital. Therefore, they would be getting a higher priced service than Medibank covered, in which event they would take out full coverage at a cost which must of necessity be somewhat higher than the $300 a year, because they would be getting a more expensive service.

I thought that Senator Grimes was asking: If the package deal is to cost $300 for a full year what is it going to cost for the proportion of the year from October until the end of June next year? I think we would want to know that. I do not think it is anticipated that people should have to pay $300 for a portion of the year. I think we want a definite statement that there will be no consideration of the amount that the hospital benefit organisations might charge in determining the cost of the package deal. As I understand the Minister, $300 a year is to be the cost of the package deal, and I do not think that people can expect to receive any more than what the actual deal costs.

Senator BAUME:
New South Wales

– I rise to respond again to what Senator Cameron said, because what he said is the exact reverse of the truth. The funds will not be making the running. The Government will be setting the levels, as the Minister has said, and the funds will have to go to the Minister at every stage to get approval for the rates that they wish to set. The Government will be setting what it considers to be a fair and reasonable level, and if the funds are not competitive that is their problem. There is no truth at all in the statements that the funds will put their rates up 3 times a year. They will not. The funds will put their rates up only when they can get approval of the Minister to a set of proposals.

Senator Mulvihill:

– They have always wanted to do so in the past.

Senator BAUME:

-That is not so. The funds will have to go to the Minister. The Government will make its own decision on when it puts up the cost of this Medibank package. If the funds do not remain competitive, that is. their problem. Our concern is to make sure that the Government package offered is a fair and reasonable one. It is not right for Senator Cameron to make a suggestion which is 180 degrees removed from the truth.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Senator Guilfoyle) read a third time.

page 2257

HEALTH INSURANCE LEVY BILL 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without requests or debate.

page 2257

INCOME TAX (INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS) AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1976

Consideration resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Cotton:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 2257

HEALTH INSURANCE AMENDMENT BILL 1976

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 June, on motion by Senator Guilfoyle:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time.

In Committee

The Bill.

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

– I rise only to make the comment that these important Bills are passing through the Senate this evening when the proceedings of the Senate are supposed to be broadcast to the nation. These Bills are of vital importance to many people in the nation yet we find that the Senate is not being broadcast. I think that something about this should be recorded in Hansard. Something ought to be done. Surely there is an emergency system. The Senate goes on air one day out of three, and when there is a failure, whether it is a power failure or otherwise, emergency facilities should be available. The people who intended listening to the broadcast have been deprived of hearing the debates that have taken place on these important Bills.

The CHAIRMAN (Senator DrakeBrockman) There has been a fault for 25 minutes. The technicians are working on it now. I will report the honourable senator’s remarks to the President.

Senator MULVIHILL:
New South Wales

– I seek guidance from you, Mr Chairman. When this fault is detected and corrected is there any way in which the Australian Broadcasting Commission could give us an extra 30 minutes broadcasting time on the adjournment debate tonight to make up for the loss of earlier broadcasting time?

The CHAIRMAN:

– Order! I would think that that is contrary to the broadcasting rules. The honourable senator will have to take it up with the President.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Senator Guilfoyle) read a third time.

page 2258

NATIONAL HEALTH AMENDMENT BILL 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 1 June on motion by Senator Guilfoyle:

That the Bill be now read a second time. Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.’

page 2258

HEALTH INSURANCE COMMISSION AMENDMENT BILL 1976

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 1 June on motion by Senator Guilfoyle:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 2258

SOCIAL SERVICES AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1976

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 May, on motion by Senator Guilfoyle:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator GRIMES:
Tasmania

-The Social Services Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1976 provides for increased child endowment or family allowance payments to mothers or, in some cases, fathers of children. These increases are allegedly being paid for by the removal of tax rebates for children on our present tax scales. There is some doubt in my mind and the minds of the other Opposition senators about the mathematics of this last claim but I will come to that later in my speech. The Opposition does not oppose this measure. It recognises it as an advance in the evolution of family and income support services in the community. Neither do we oppose the change in the tax rebate system to the family allowance payment system. I contrast this attitude of the present Opposition with the attitude of some honourable senators opposite when last year we changed the tax deduction for children to a tax rebate system. There were a few people who were in favour of the tax deduction system and these people are now silent even though the tax rebate system has gone too. The measures in this Bill are a modification of some of the recommendations put forward by Professor Henderson in his poverty report. They were recommended as interim measures to relieve ‘ poverty in families, particularly large families, in our community. The pity of it is that in too many cases the effect of the increase in endowment payments and the effect of the tax indexation measures are cut back and, in some cases, wiped out by the unnecessary Medibank levy.

There has been much publicity to this change in our system of family allowances. There has been much trumpeting and excitement among members of the Government parties in their praise of these measures and their proclamation of them as the greatest advance in social welfare since the industrial revolution. We recognise that these measures involve a transfer of money to large families, to rich families as well as poor, and also a transfer of money within families which is an innovation in this country. They give increases in money paid to some very poor families. However, I impress upon the Senate, and I would not like the publicity that has been given to these measures to get away from it, that the measures do not solve the problems of poor families. Most members of the Government parties would admit that they are not the be all and end all of welfare services and do not remove the obligation on the Government to look at other measures.

Along with these measures there needs to be an increase in child care and family support services in general as well as an increase in the mother’s and guardian’s allowance. This was recognised by Professor Henderson. I would not like a sense of complacency to arise amongst members of the Government parties or amongst the community about the provision of family support services now that we have had this change in family allowances. So many of our large families and single parent families live in areas devoid of family support services and the extra money supplied to mothers in this way will not buy the services. I know that the views of people like Professor Friedman are very fashionable in the higher echelons of our Government. In his view the problems of the disadvantaged can be overcome by giving them cash. Somehow this is supposed to retain their independence. It is supposed to give them the ability to buy the services they need.

Senator Baume:

-It is not bad stuff.

Senator GRIMES:

– I am not criticising it in that way but there is a desperate need for these services which will not be satisfied by the provision of a number of dollars. We all have to look at the need for a balance between the necessity for cash and the necessity for services for I believe that this balance is an important one. I am sure that many members of the Government parties will do so but I am also frightened that some will use this change in the endowment system as an excuse to avoid looking at the further provision of services.

There are a few questions about the outcome of the legislation which I would like to ask. Firstly, we are told that these changes balance out, that the increase of $780m in endowment payments is balanced by the gain of $780m in revenue from the cutting out of tax rebates for children. It certainly would seem that cutting rebates will result in increased tax revenue of some $780m but we understand that the agreement between the States and the Commonwealth at the Premiers Conference guaranteed the States 34 per cent to 35 per cent of general tax revenue. On my reckoning that means that some $2 50m of this increased revenue should go to the States, or the States will claim it should. I ask whether it will. If it does there will be another $250m to be found to pay for this family allowances program. The exercise fascinates me. The answer may be obvious but I can see interesting discussions between the States and the Treasurer (Mr Lynch) if it is decided not to give this increase in tax revenue to the States.

Secondly, I am sure that every honourable senator has received letters and telephone calls about the problem of the separated or divorced husband who is paying maintenance for children. I suppose there may even be some cases of the separated or divorced wife paying maintenance to her former husband for their children. These people would lose their tax rebate while still paying maintenance to the parent who is looking after the children and getting this increased endowment. One would hope that in the investigations of the difficulties between the Family Law Act and the Social Services Act some way would be found to allow these people to get a decrease in their maintenance payments in line with any increase in endowment the supporting parent may get.

Another problem was raised today. I am not a lawyer, nor am I an accountant who indulges in tax avoidance, but perhaps Senator Wright or some of the other lawyers in the Senate can help the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) to clear up this problem. It seems that there are people in this country who set up trusts for their children to avoid the payment of death duties. These people, therefore, do not now get the benefit of the tax rebate. However, when the rebate is abolished they get the extra endowment. I suppose the best example of this is the Premier of Queensland who claims that he will not pay any death duties because all his funds are in trust for his children. One wonders whether the Treasurer or the Taxation Office should not look at this situation. There seems to be a loss of revenue here and an unnecessary assistance to those who are wealthy enough or skilful enough to put all their money into endowments for their children.

Senator Wright:

– This may be a presumption of mine but I think it is a bit presumptuous of you to suggest that the Premier of Queensland has deductible children.

Senator GRIMES:

– The Premier claimed this in a speech.

Senator Wright:

– He said that he had arranged for his estate. I do not remember him saying that he had children of eligible age to be deductible.

Senator GRIMES:

-I am not well enough up with the Premier of Queensland. I do not know. If those remarks do not apply to the Premier of Queensland then I apologise to him. I hope that those 3 problems-perhaps minor to us but major to some people- can be answered. However, I return to the report of Professor Henderson. He recommended increases of this order in child endowment to relieve poverty in families with children. The recommendations have been varied somewhat by the Government; not that I offer criticism about this. More has been given to the first, second and third children. But if the rise in the consumer price index or inflation, which has occurred since Professor Henderson’s report, is considered the increase is not that much more. Less has been given to the fourth and later children than Professor Henderson recommended if inflation is taken into account.

This recognises the fact which many people forget- that in absolute numbers there are more families in poverty with one or two children than with four or five children. Of course, this obviously reflects the spread of children throughout families in our community. It also results in the measures costing the Government, on its own reckoning, no increase in expenditure. As Professor Henderson recognised, as we recognise and as the Government recognises, this is not all that is needed. Professor Henderson’s recommendationsthey were only interim- did not mention only increases in endowments. In the same chapter of the major report he recommended changes in other fields. He recommended that mothers’ and guardians’ allowances should be increased to ensure that pensioners and beneficiaries would be protected from changes in inflation. Honourable senators will remember that earlier in this session we moved an amendment to a Bill to provide that these allowances should be indexed to keep up with inflation.

Professor Henderson recommended that supportive family services of all types should be made available on a local basis to allow more independence and to give an increased range of choices to such families in terms of allocating times between earning and staying at home. He recommended as of considerable importance that home help services be made available to those who needed them rather than to those who could afford them. He recommended many other things, such as the necessity for infant welfare services and protection services for children. All these matters are stressed by Professor Henderson in this package of recommendations. It is a pity that the Australian Assistance Plan is to be more or less abolished as it was one of the means available for the local development of many of these services. I do not make these comments to gain political points or to denigrate the changes which have been made in our endowment services. I wish merely to point out that the changes should be put into perspective as they were by Professor Henderson as an interim and evolutinary change on the way towards developing a comprehensive income support scheme.

I hope that these changes will not be used us an excuse for not looking at the problems of mothers’ or guardians’ allowances and all the other things we have mentioned. We believe that these matters should be looked at and indexed and increased from time to time, if the Government will not have it that they be increased automatically with changes in the consumer price index. I impress on the Senate that we do not believe that this change relieves the necessity for the provision of supporting services. Poverty, and the inward-looking hopelessness it provokes, needs more than the provision of a few dollars. It involves more than the Department of Social Security with its relief, because child care, transport, education, housing, health and legal aid are all involved in getting over this problem. I think that all thinking people on both sides of the Parliament recognise this. Reports which have come out on this subject recently certainly recognise it. Ultimately, we need a more comprehensive and general plan of income support. We need a scheme which involves less categorisation in our welfare services. We hope that some day someone will come up with a scheme of a guaranteed minimum income with the need for very few supplementary services. We support the Bill but express the hope that the euphoria expressed by some honourable senators opposite will not lead to neglect in these other fields.

Senator BAUME:
New South Wales

– The Social Services Amendment Bill (No. 2) deals with the new system of family allowances. I appreciate Senator Grimes’ concern that in any program there should be a balance between cash and the provision of services. Nevertheless, I suggest that it is only occasionally in the life of any government, and not too frequently in the life of any country, that there is a major revolutionary change in the way in which welfare services are provided. We have in this measure a social welfare concept of major importance and innovation. I am pleased to see that I am to be followed in the debate by Senator Coleman. I mention, as I am sure she will mention, that we have in this measure one of the first and most major efforts to redistribute cash resources in favour of women in Australian society. In fact, this is a major measure. It is appropriate on such occasions to recognise the advance being instituted and the new possibilities which it creates for welfare in this country.

This Bill is radical in concept and in its intentions. It is a major endeavour of which my Government will be proud. I would be proud to be a member of any party which introduced this measure. It is a major innovation which will assist families and the poor. The Bill is allegedly about child endowment but of course it is about a lot more than that, as Senator Grimes has already indicated. It is a Bill about allowances to families. A number of very important reports on welfare services and poverty have been produced in this country. I instance the Henderson Commission of Inquiry into Poverty, the research papers which were commissioned by the Henderson Commission, the various reports of the councils of social services, the reports of the archbishops and the landmark report of the Archbishop of Sydney in 1972. This led to the establishment of the Henderson Commission. Of course, there are reports like those produced for the former Department of Urban and Regional Development by Le Breton which dealt with urban poverty in various aspects.

This Bill is about income maintenance. It has, as the main part of its proposal, the maintenance and preservation of cash resources for poor families. In this country we already have some categorical forms of a guaranteed minimum income. Senator Grimes talked about income security in general. We have guaranteed minimum income programs for everyone over the age of 70 years. It may not be an entirely adequate program. However, it is a categorical guaranteed minimum income program. Another guaranteed minimum income which we have had in this country for some years has been our child endowment program. We can argue about quantum, but there is no doubt that there has been provision for the payment of allowances in respect of all children in this country for some time. What has emerged is the fact that the child endowment which is paid may not be effective in achieving what it is meant to do.

I turn to the main report of the Henderson Commission of Inquiry into Poverty which, in its way, is an outstanding landmark report. This is the first time in Australia that we have really identified the scope and extent of poverty, deprivation and need. The report has given to all governments an opportunity to establish a benchmark against which they can set their programs and plot their future courses. This extremely important report has made a number of observations about poverty and families. I refer honourable senators to pages 208 to 210 of the main report where the following general propositions were established: That there is a relationship between poverty and the size of families, and it is important that we should understand this; and that there is no relationship between poverty and the earning capacity, the single wage of the heads of families. That is to say, the breadwinner of a large family tends to earn in general terms the same as the breadwinner of a small family. It merely shows that the resources, the wages, the cash available to large families is inadequate for their needs and that the size of a family tends to be the determinant of poverty in that family. If these are facts we have to recognise them. Then we have to tailor our programs to meet those recognised facts.

Professor Henderson and his group pointed out that child endowment or family allowances are more useful to poor families than to wealthy families; that the allowances are more critical in providing the cash resources available to poor families; and that the provision of family allowances is the appropriate way to increase the cash resources of poor families. The rebates or concessions which are being abolished of course are of more value to wealthy families who can gain more from the rebate system. If poverty and its alleviation is what we are about, we have to look at a system which will place less emphasis and reliance on rebates and more emphasis and reliance on endowment. This is exactly what is proposed in this measure. We know that a child allowance or endowment is paid irrespective of the income of the family. It is not subject to a means test. That makes it different from pension arrangements; it makes it more suitable for the propositions that we have before us.

If we examine the report of the Henderson Commission and some of the papers that come from it we see that a number of common threads emerge. Looking first at the papers we find in many of them the recommendation that some form of income security on a national level is a worthy objective at which we should aim. I refer, for example, to the paper entitled Resources for Poor Families: An Experimental Income Supplement Scheme. That paper contained the recommendation that a guaranteed minimum income should be established in Australia, and that the payments made should be simple and non discretionary. Of course, what is proposed in this Bill would meet those particular demands. Next I look at the paper entitled Chronic Poverty: City and Country Families which refers to a guaranteed family income as being one means of alleviating the poverty which is recognised in the paper. Then I look at the paper entitled Poverty Among Aboriginal Families in Adelaide. In that paper it is recommended that there should be an increase in child endowment which would make an attack on the problem which is measured and recognised in that paper. Through many of these papers the quest for income security and family cash support runs as a common thread. Finally, I look at a paper entitled Poverty- An Urban Paper, which was prepared by Peter Le Breton for me for the Department of Urban and Regional Development. We find in that paper a recommendation that asks that public expenditure should be based on social equity; that it should aim to achieve something which is equitable, which will achieve some worthwhile social aim rather than something in narrow efficiency terms. I am sure that very few honourable senators would disagree with that recommendation.

If we then look at the whole question of family allowances we find that the Party which I represent and the Coalition Parties in general have a fairly proud record in this regard. It was Mr Menzies, as he then was, who in 1941 introduced child endowment for the first time, but at that stage it was payable only in respect of second and subsequent children. Although the level of child endowment was increased, it was not until 1950, when Mr Menzies was again Prime Minister and in order to honour an election pledge, that any endowment was introduced in respect of the first child. So again it has been the Liberal and National Country Parties side of politics which not only introduced but also extended child endowment. In 1964 Mr Menzies’ Government increase the rates of child endowment in respect of third and subsequent children. In 1967 a government of our persuasion again increased the rates of child endowment, but this time in respect of fourth and subsequent children. There was a further increase in child endowment in 1971. But from 1950 onwards there has been no change in the structure of the child endowment scheme. This Bill looks at the general and social purposes of family allowances to determine whether they are adequate and what kind of changes are needed.

It has already been pointed out by Senator Grimes- I agree with what he said- that a major recommendation of the Henderson Commission related to alterations in child endowment. It placed great stress upon the social good that would flow from those alterations. It also recommended the abolition of the concessional tax rebates allowable in respect of children. We are now taking up these Henderson Commission proposals. Senator Grimes also pointed out that we are varying slightly the exact rates of child endowment which were recommended by the Henderson Commission. Nevertheless, cash will be mobilised into families. This is the first occasion for some considerable time when families as such have been favoured in welfare matters. We have taken the view that child endowment will flow to family units. It will provide cash for them. It will help to support them. The giving of assistance to families in this way is a high priority matter and one which I am glad our Government has taken up.

Another important provision in this Bill seeks to amend another part of the principal Act to raise the age of a dependent child who is a student from 21 years to 25 years. Again it is a provision that will help to put cash into the hands of families in need.

This Bill, by favouring large families- Professor Henderson has told us that they are the families who often are poor- seeks to redistribute income in 2 ways. It will redistribute it from the richer families who previously had the benefit of the rebate towards the poorer families who require cash assistance. It will also enable a redistribution of income within families by giving money to women. This Bill will, in an economic sense, work towards the liberation of women in a way which has not been tried in Australia previously. We have implemented proposals from the Henderson Commission in a way that the Labor Party did not implement them and I do not believe could have implemented them. The proposals have gained widespread support. I note, for example, that the Australian Council of Social Service has put out a Press release in which it says:

The Government’s proposed action in changing the amount and structure for family allowances is a forward step towards social justice in Australia.

If it is fair that we should take criticism from the Council when it thinks we do not measure up, it is also fair that we should be allowed to receive praise if the Council believes that some action which we have taken is socially just. I was pleased to see that Senator James McClelland stated in his column in the Australian newspaper this week that he also approved of these measures. He also thought they were socially just and would assist people in need in this country.

The only other point that I wish to make is that this Bill is the first that I have seen which gives recognition in any major way to the economically productive role of the homemaker. There has been an artificial division in this country. We have considered small businesses, for example, to be economically productive. I do not deny that they are. But at the same time we have denied that family enterprise has any productive value. We have had some artificial view to the effect that a laundry, a restaurant or a boarding house may each be economically productive and should be recognised as such. They may attract various government benefits by way of the taxation laws. But if a person runs a house, which is at the same time a laundry, a restaurant, a hostel and a whole lot of other things -

Senator Coleman:

– And a hospital.

Senator BAUME:

– Yes, and a whole lot of other things, that person is not seen as providing any productive enterprise and is discriminated against in taxation terms. This Bill gives recognition to the productive nature of home making. I would refer Senator Georges and other honourable senators to the written works of Patricia Apps in the University of Sydney who has explored this matter in depth and who has shown quite clearly that the preservation of, and caring for, the family is productive in economic terms and should be seen as productive. It is because of the taxation disadvantage which many families suffer that they have been driven out of the inner cities. They cannot compete in terms of buying properties and homes or in caring for themselves because they are discriminated against in a taxation sense.

The other advantage of the Bill is that women will receive a direct and major benefit from these proposals. I believe that the poor are victims of a structure and a system in society as much as they are victims of any failings which they personally may have. I believe that it is necessary in our social thinking to recognise that we must do something to attack structural defects and not to blame people if they are poor. I believe that Professor Henderson has given us facts and a basis upon which we can work and in respect of which we hope we can be effective in what we may do.

I believe that this Bill contains measures of great importance. They are measures of which we are proud. It is very fashionable to label people. It is fashionable to call our present Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) an extreme conservative. It is fashionable to describe our Government as a high tory Government. Yet, this is the most radical income redistribution in this country in a quarter of a century. It is scarcely the program of a very conservative government.

Senator Missen:

– Which it is not.

Senator BAUME:

– It is in fact a radical program. I take up Senator Missen ‘s interjection. The Government is not a conservative government. It is a progressive Government. This and other legislation go to make this point. This legislation, within the framework of Liberal philosophy, is radical liberalism at work. I put it to honourable senators opposite that it does not matter from which side of the Parliament these measures come. They are measures which we will all support and which we will all endorse. They are measures by which we will give to women something which has been too long denied. They are measures which will give to families something which they will need. They are measures which will fit into the general framework which the inquiry into poverty set as being necessary for the alleviation of this condition in Australia.

I hope that this Bill represents the first of a number of steps which our Government will take to alleviate poverty and to try to attack some of the problems which the commission of inquiry into povery recommended to aid the poor, to improve the status of women and to sustain families. In the same way as a Liberal government introduced child endowment and extended that benefit, including the way we are extending it now, which has not previously been done, I hope that this is just the first of numerous measures which our Government will introduce. I hope that it will continue to direct its social welfare concern towards people in need. I commend the Bill.

Senator COLEMAN:
Western Australia

– I was very interested in a number of the remarks made by Senator Baume in his speech on the Social Services Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1976. One of the things that Senator Baume said was that the Government will be giving the money to women and that this will liberate women more than the provisions of any other legislation. I put it to Senator Baume that it will not liberate women any more if some of the other essential social services in actual fact are taken away from them. Unfortunately, this is one of the things that the Government has also done. Senator Baume also said that running a house is productive in economic terms and that women who run houses are discriminated against in the taxation sense. Let me assure Sentor Baume that whether a woman stays at home or goes out to work, she is still discriminated against under the existing taxation system, as I have just found out. The Taxation Commissioner has just deemed it necessary to make me pay a sum of money because I intend going out to work- because I joined the work force to do a job that I felt was a necessary one. It is a job that I considered I could do reasonably well. He has deemed that I cannot claim a housekeeper’s allowance. I can only presume that unless in some way the Government will provide me with child care services, which would include facilities to enable a housekeeper to live in, I will still be penalised under the existing Income Tax Assessment Act.

Quite frankly, I have no quarrel with the Bill as it is presented to the Senate. But I do question whether in actual fact it will provide an advantage to the great mass of Australian people whom Senator Baume sees it assisting. Because that question is raised in my mind I must ask whether in actual fact it is not a sop to some of the people in the hope that they will not ask for the things that I believe are their rights in the other areas of social services. I question how many people will be advantaged now that child rebates have been withdrawn from income tax. I have looked through this extremely complex document entitled: ‘Indexation, Child Rebate and Child Endowment Changes 1976-77 Rates

Compared with 1975-76’. I must admit to being more confused having read the paper than before I started reading it. I understood that the Bill, as described by Senator Baume, was designed to put more money into the pockets of the people on low incomes. I do not find that in this document.

Senator Walters:

– Read it again, Senator.

Senator COLEMAN:

-I point out to Senator Walters, if she will give me a chance, that the benefit depends entirely on what is determined as a low income family. As I understand it, the national average of children in a family is 2.7 children. I can never understand how a family can have seven-tenths of a child; so I will take the case of a taxpayer with a dependent wife and 2 children. I am citing these figures from a document which has been issued. If such a taxpayer has a weekly income of $80 a week, which is a low income, the net gain from tax and child endowment changes will be $7. If the weekly income is $ 100, which is still in this day and age a low income, the benefit is reduced to $4.39. But if the taxpayer happens to be earning $400 a week and has the same dependent wife and 2 children, he will gain $10.95. That is not putting the benefit into the pockets of the low income families. That disturbs me more than a little because I expected something more out of this Bill.

Senator Baume:

– That is the tax indexation.

Senator COLEMAN:

– This is the tax indexation and child endowment. It is included in the one document.

Senator Baume:

– But within families, it still goes to the women.

Senator COLEMAN:

-What about supporting fathers? Are they going to be ignored for the rest of time? In any event, they are not taken into consideration in this Bill. We have had the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) say that in actual fact when a father was supporting children and established that this was the case, he would receive child endowment. I am talking about single fathers who are on low incomes and who will not benefit if they are in receipt of an income of $100 a week. If a single father has 2 dependent children he will not benefit by the same amount as a person who is on a higher income with 2 dependent children; nor will he benefit as much as a person on a lower income with 2 dependant children.

As I said, this seems to be an extremely complex document. It certainly does not give the assistance to the low income families that I hoped it would. I do not know how much detail has been used in compiling the figures and I will not endeavour to prove that they are wrong. I am just saying that I am confused by the figures. I doubt very much that I will be the only person in Australia who will probably remain confused until after I have completed my next tax return. Then I hope I will be able to assess whether in actual fact I have been advantaged or disadvantaged by the provisions of this Bill

I am querying whether the additional cash that will go into the pockets of the Australian people will compensate parents for the myriad other actions which the Government proposes to take. Will it, for instance, compensate the Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory who, I understand, are now to be deprived of approximately $200,000 which was originally provided to cover infant food supplements? I do not think quite frankly that an additional $3 a week will compensate an Aboriginal parent if he or she despairs at their children’s health as it deteriorates. I do not think, for instance, that the Aboriginal children who are already suffering because of the previous decision to cut back on the meal program will feel that they are being adequately compensated by getting another $3 in their pockets each week. I do not believe that a Bill such as this has any substance at all if at the same time other social welfare programs are either discarded or cut to shreds.

I think the Government has put forward this Bill in the hope that the people will believe that they are really gaining something from it. I think the Government also hopes that the people will not know that in actual fact they will not be advantaged to any great extent. The statement by Mr Lynch that the new arrangements will be of particular benefit to Aboriginal families and his documentary evidence in his fiscal policy on last Thursday week that there are drastic cuts in Aboriginal programs do not match up. That is cause for concern. If there is an indication that the benefits for Aboriginal families under this Government are to be better than they were before- and this is one of those programs- quite frankly I do not want to see any of the disadvantages which may still be up the Treasurer’s sleeve.

There are other considerations which need to be taken into account when discussing this Bill. For instance, the grants scheme for low cost accommodation has now been terminated. Will this Bill with its provision of $3 a week compensate a person who is not able to afford his own home? Of course it will not. Members on this side of the Senate and those on the Government side know that it will not. I mention next those people who will feel the effect of the $ 15m cut to child care, the arts and other programs administered by the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Will those people who are affected by this section feel that they are adequately compensated by the increases provided in this Bill? I do not believe that they will.

The Attorney-General (Mr Ellicott) and the States are now looking at the legal aid program and the possibility of its being phased down. Will the people who nave a need for this service feel that they have been adequately compensated by this Bill? I believe that the Government has determined that the unemployed and those who receive sickness benefits, widows pensions and supporting mothers benefits are to be taxed. Does the Government really think that the provisions of this Bill will compensate them? As I said before, I believe that this Bill is a sop and a pretence. It is pretending to people that they will actually gain by a single stroke of the pen when what is really happening is that other pens are striking out social welfare programs which would have benefited many more of the people of Australia.

I would be interested to know how the Government sees this Bill as a compensation for the new young family in the outer suburbia which spring up outside every major capital city in Australia. Such young families already feel that they are disadvantaged. They are now to be further disadvantaged and deprived of so many essential services. I refer to the cutback in roads, in child care centres, in kindargartens and all of those amentities which are now being discontinued under this Government’s plan. For the information of the Government, I classify ‘essentials’ as made roads, sewerage, transport, communicationsall of those facilities which are extremely difficult for young people in new suburbs to find. I should mention also the feeling of being part of a community and not being isolated. I do not believe that there is any way in which this Bill will compensate those people.

I do not accept that the people in the areas that I have covered- and there are many more that I have not mentioned- will feel that they are receiving something from the Government because they have extra cash in their pockets when other social welfare benefits are being taken away from them. I believe that this Government has the idea in the back of its mind that it must create an independence among Australians and make them stand on their own 2 feet. That would be a very good plan but I do not think that Australia is ready for it. I do not accept that the Australian people are ready for such a plan. I know an awful lot of people who are dependent on governments to provide them with the necessary social services and social benefits to which they have a right and entitlement.

I wish to touch on a number of queries that have been raised in this chamber in the last few days. One concerns a question asked by Senator Devitt on 1 June and a reply on the same day by the Minister, Senator Guilfoyle. It relates to children under school leaving age. I refer to the case where a girl under the age of sixteen becomes pregnant. The mother of that girl will be receiving $3.50 a week in respect of her. But the girl is entitled to a special benefit of $10 a week. I ask whether this will mean that the girl will receive only $6.50 a week? That is what I understand the answer from the Minister to mean. How does the Minister honestly believe that this young woman who is about to give birth will cater adequately for the needs of her baby under those circumstances? Does the Minister believe that the payment of $3.50 a week to the mother of the mother-to-be will compensate her for what she will need to provide for the coming child? I think a great deal remains to be desired in this Bill, certainly a great deal more than it provides.

As I said earlier when touching on this matter very briefly, nothing has been done for single or supporting fathers except that now the Minister has said that payments will be made directly to them if they can establish that they are supporting a child or children. I am concerned that this Government or any previous government has not done anything to enable a deserted husband, or the father of dependent children, to be able to cope more adequately with a situation that leaves a lot to be desired. I know of a case where a relatively young man, an unskilled labourer on approximately $100 a week clear, has been left with 3 children, two under school age. He is now seriously contemplating leaving his position and becoming unemployed so that he can afford to stay at home and look after his children. He may not be able to afford to eat, but he will be able to afford to stay home and look after his children. There is nothing in any of the Bills which have come before the Senate from this Government which has made provision for a man in such a position to be able to employ a housekeeper and to pay a housekeeper to live in and to look after his children. I would like to think that the Government will take that aspect into consideration in future determinations as to what can be done to assist in the community.

We heard from Senator Baume that Professor Henderson’s report covered tremendous areas; and it did. All of the reports which have come down on related matters have covered wide ranging areas. One of the recommendations, of course, was that there be an increase in child endowment. But nowhere in those reports is there any mention of a decrease in relation to the essential social services that should be made available to people who are not in a financial position- some of them are not even in a physical or mental condition- to be able to provide those things for their families and themselves. I believe that the Government should pay less attention to reducing the deficit, less attention to the magic dollar and more attention to people’s needs. I anticipate that later on, in the Budget session, we will have an opportunity to gauge whether in actual fact this Government has the feelings of the people at heart or whether it is just going to continue to hand out little bits and pieces in the hope that people will not notice that the very large programs are being cut away from under their feet.

Senator BONNER:
Queensland

– I rise to support the Social Services Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1976. In doing so I say that the Liberal-National Country Party Government is once again to the fore in the introduction of major social welfare reform in what can only be termed a sensible and rational way. It is certainly not introducing schemes like some of the wild, hare-brained ones that we saw introduced during the reign of the previous Government. I want personally and publicly to congratulate the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) for daring to tread where no Minister has dared to tread for some considerable time. The Bill increases the amount of money allocated to families for their children. The increases as we see them and as they have been presented by the Minister for Social Security are quite substantial. They are higher than any increases that have been made for some considerable time.

I feel that this is a very important measure, particularly to poor people and those who are working for a living but not always able to provide for their families the necessary items that they would like to provide. I speak from a wealth of experience in this respect. Having been a labourer all of my life until becoming a member of this Parliament and having reared quite a large family, I know the problems at first hand. As a father of some 7 children and having some 20 grandchildren, I believe that I can rightly claim to speak from wide experience in this field.

Senator Primmer:

– Your mob is trying to breed us out.

Senator BONNER:

– That is perhaps one way in which we Aborigines might be able to get control of this country, as we had prior to 1788. It might be the hard way of doing it, but it is perhaps one way of doing it. We hear wild accusations about what is being done for the Aborigines. Maybe this is being taken into account by many of those people who criticise the Government for what it is doing for Aborigines because, as I understand it, we have one of the highest birth rates of any race in this country at the present time.

Be that as it may, I want to deal with the Bill. I believe it is going to have a tremendous effect in particular on the mothers of the poorer families. This measure is going to give some sense of independence to mothers. They will be able to look at their budgets and say: ‘I know that I have a certain amount of money coming in. I know that it is going to be paid directly to me’. Previously many of the menfolk- I might have been guilty of this myself at one stage- would come home with a pay packet and say: ‘I am going to take so much, mum. This is for me. You can have the rest. See what you can do with it to feed, clothe and educate the children’. That may be all right in some families but I know of many families in which it is not working out or has not worked out very well. The mother has been trying to make the little amount of money she has been given stretch. The previous amounts that were paid in child endowment were only very small. Of course, rather large increases are now proposed.

When one looks at the scale one sees that a family with one child will receive $3.50 a week and that the amount received by a family with 2 children jumps up to $8.50 a week. If one goes right down the scale to the second highest rate one can see that $34.50 a week is going to be paid to some mothers. Those mothers will know that they are going to get a substantial amount of money at the end of a month. They know that they will be able to use the money as they see fit to buy clothes and text books for their children and to do all of those things that they have always felt that they would like to do. Surely this is going to give some sense of independence to the mother. She will be able to say to her husband: ‘That money is mine to do for our family as I see fit’. I believe that this is a major reform and one that should be supported on both sides of the House.

As my colleague Senator Baume said earlier, does it matter which government brought in this measure and which government has come forward with this major reform in social benefits? It does not matter one iota. What matters is that this has now been done. I believe that honourable senators on both sides of the House should be supporting this legislation. There has been some criticism levelled at it from the other side of the chamber. I suppose that is understandable enough. But by the same token, I believe that we should be supporting it. I know that it will be welcomed by the community at large. I give my wholehearted support to the Bill and commend it to the Senate.

Senator MELZER:
Victoria

-In rising to support this Bill I must correct the Government speakers in their supposition that this is the first time that women in Australia have received some recognition. I should have thought that the people who have been so concerned with women’s rights and the role of women in society, as Senator Baume has been, would have remembered the supporting mothers’ benefit which the Labor Government introduced and which for the first time gave mothers a real chance to choose between staying at home and looking after their children or parking them somewhere and going out to work. I hardly think that an increase in child endowment is in any way in the same class as the introduction of the supporting mothers’ benefit.

In talking about paying some extra money to women, let us look at the sorts of things that governments should be doing to support women who are contributing so much to our society by being mothers and home makers. Think of the supporting services that young mothers in new suburbs need to make their lives livable. Think of the child care services that the mothers in those areas need so that they can go to a doctor or hospital. Think of the child care services that should be given so that young mothers going to hospitals to have their new babies can go with some peace of mind rather than wondering how on earth they are going to manage while they are in hospital. Think of people in the outer suburbs of the large cities of this country who in this day and age when we can put a man on the moon do not have sewerage connected to their homes and have to worry about all the things that worry young mothers with small children when they do not have sewerage systems. Think of the houses that people with Targe and small families need to have provided for them at a price they can afford. Think of the scheme that is in existence at the moment whereby people have to save $40 a week to get enough money to be able to receive the $3,000 grant that this generous Government will give them to help fill the deposit gap.

Will these people be able to spend more because we have increased the child endowment? Poor women have always needed the money badly and have always spent it and will continue to spend it. Women who are better off have always put the money away for their children and they will continue to do the same thing. Senator Bonner has said that we will be giving women money that they can spend as they see fit. Does he not know how the women who need child endowment deal with it? They are not in any position to spend money as they see fit. Women who need the money will have to spend it as they have always spent it-on paying the milk bills and the grocer’s bills and buying children’s shoes. The family income is not enough. How much better off will they be if their husbands’ wages are reduced by extra tax and extra Medibank costs?

In families where husbands and wives work as a team, in many instances the Government is taking from the husband and giving to the wife. Perhaps it is giving her a little more. In families which are not a team, the Government is giving to the wife but she will lose because her husband will take from the housekeeping money the extra amount he sees her getting in child endowment. What has the Government really done for women in need? Some of the statements made by members of the Government smack of playing God. The Government has not played God and it has not brought a new liberty to women. This Bill does not give recognition to women as homemakers. How could it? By a little extra cash? Does that recognise the valuable role played by homemakers and mothers? This Bill gives some money to some people who need a lot more. The Government should not get carried away. It has not finished. It has to give people a real chance. To people in need, any money is better than no money at all.

Senator Baume talked about large families and poverty, large families and cash. What do large families need? How many payments of child endowment would it take to give everybody proper sewerage? How many payments of child endowment would it take to provide efficient economic public transport systems which would meet the needs of large families? How many child endowment payments would it take to give families, large or small, the chance to start life with a home of their own at a cost they can afford, not spending long years in the hopeless cause of trying to save the money for the deposit on a house while paying rent which are rarely a fair percentage of their incomes? We could talk about consumer protection. What do these women go out and spend money on? They buy shoes for their children which fall apart after the first couple of wearings. Governments can do something about that. They buy jumpers to keep their children warm which fall apart after the first washing. Governments can do something about that. What about relieving these pressures on people with families?

The Government has placed some more cash in the hands of some people, but it should take the matter further. Do not keep people in poverty with handouts. The Government should recognise what people in these circumstances really need and give them the choice that it is so keen people should have to manage their own affairs. This scheme is no alternative to proper income stabilisation. Do it properly, and not with this padding, this window dressing. In conclusion, may I say that I do not believe that for people in need there is any new world dawning by giving large families an extra $15 or so a week.

Senator WALTERS:
Tasmania

– I rise with great pride to support these Bills. As honourable senators may remember, a large part of my maiden speech was devoted to the need for a large increase in child endowment. I felt at the time that it was the only method open to the Government to give women the real choice they have been seeking for so long. Whether we like it or not, we live in an age of materialism where the value of the contents of a home is sometimes considered to be over and above the value of the atmosphere in that home. Society is putting great pressure on the average mother to join the already over-taxed work force. This is being done in many ways, both blatant and insidious. Some radical liberationists preach that the freedom of women is the eradication of family responsibility. At a women’s centre in Hobart the words ‘A Family is Woman’s Bondage’ depict this attitude better than I can describe it. Women are assured that their brains will stagnate and that they are real no-hopers if they stay at home and bring up their families in the time-honoured tradition.

Past governments have joined these pressure groups, and again women were told what fools they were if they did not work. Federal governments have supported working mothers by providing subsidised child care centres and maternity and paternity leave. Many mothers who bring up their children in the home have stopped and wondered if they could really afford to do what they have always wanted to do. Recently I attended a seminar in Hobart relating to women in the unions which was conducted by the trade union movement. Many women present claimed that, given a real choice, they would much prefer to stay at home with their children but that up to date a real choice had not existed. This Government has taken the first step in allowing them such a choice. It is the first time since 1 94 1 , when Mr Menzies brought in the original child endowment, that any government has given serious thought to the mother in the home. We have heard criticism of this scheme by those who are objecting to the fact that the child rebate will no longer be an allowance against the father’s tax and that the mother is now the one who has the money.

Senator Grimes:

-Not from this side of the House.

Senator WALTERS:

– I have heard it from Senator Melzer. To me, that is the beauty of the scheme for at last the mother will have money of her own to spend on her own priorities, despite what the honourable senator said. To some degree, the mother now will have that feeling of independence which her working counterpart has always had.

Senator Cavanagh:

– On $ 10 a week?

Senator WALTERS:

– If the honourable senator will wait I will tell him how much a week it will be. This feeling of independence is most important, no less to the mother in the home. It is interesting to note that honourable senators opposite loudly acclaim that they are the ones who care for the underprivileged and that this Government is interested only in the wealthy farmers and so on. However, if we look back into history we will find that the first Government to introduce a non-contributory old age and invalid pension was not a Labor Government but Mr Deakin’s protectionist Government in 1908. Again, the first Government to bring in child endowment was the Liberal Government of 1941.

Senator Grimes:

– It was Jack Lang.

Senator WALTERS:

-But on a Federal basis it was a Liberal Government in 1941. That too was done at a critical time when people were called to make sacrifices because our country was at war. The Government of the day recognised that in times of crisis it is the mother with a family who is in need of help. This legislation represents a great social change. However, the Bill involves a greater redistribution of social welfare benefits than any previous legislation has attempted. It will bring substantial increases to the incomes of 300 000 low income familiesSenator Melzer wondered whether they existwith 800 000 children. This increase comes without strings. It is completely tax free and goes directly to the mother. The old rebate system was of no help to these families because their earnings were not high enough to take full advantage of the tax rebates. As the Minister has pointed out, the increases are really meaningful and will be of immense assistance to the low income families. A family with one child will receive $14 a month; with 2 children $34 a month; with 3 children $58 a month; with 4 children $82 a month, and with 5 children $110 a month. As I have said, the payment is normally made to the mother, but in the case of separation it will go to the parent who has custody of the children. It will be paid to single parent families as well. Full time students will be treated as dependent children.

Debate interrupted.

page 2269

ADJOURNMENT

Immigration

The PRESIDENT:

– Order! It being 1 1 p.m., in conformity with the sessional order relating to the adjournment of the Senate, I formally put the question:

That the Senate do now adjourn.

Senator MULVIHILL:
New South Wales

– I shall try to be brief, mindful of the condition of my voice box. The story begins on 17 February, when I placed question No. 7 on the Senate notice paper. In very simple language, I wanted to find out if we had a uniform processing method as far as tourists intending to visit Australia were concerned. I might say at the outset that the caustic remarks I have to make are not directed at Senator Guilfoyle, who was probably instrumental in getting me the long delayed answer to this question. But to re’turn to the basis of the complaint: In my question, which I shall have incorporated at the end of my speech, I mentioned the case history of a Slovenian girl who resided as a tourist in Smithfield, New South Wales, named Nada Svigelj, who complained to me initially about having to come 500 kilometres from Ljubljana to Belgrade to be interrogated. On that basis I indulged in a 2- pronged attack. I put a question on notice in which I asked about the broad concept of uniformity, and I also included in the question the case of 2 Thai bar girls who had been arrested in Sydney for prostitution. I asked, virtually, if a girl had been brought 500 kilometres to Belgrade and interrogated, probably politically, why had we not taken a look at the mercenaries coming in from Thailand. Time went on and nothing was happening. As I said, it was a 2-pronged attack. I spoke to Miss Svigelj. By letter to the Minister for

Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (Mr MacKellar) I asked if a person were to be brought in from Ljubljana to Belgrade could there not be a set time slot for interrogation rather than that person having to wait all day after making a long trip. Whilst I raised this issue in respect of the Slovenian community, it could have applied equally to people coming from Titograd, Dubrovnik or Skopje, or somewhere like that, as Senator Lajovic would agree. I got a letter back which confirmed that the girl had been brought up and interviewed and that the sole defence was that she had not selected any particular time.

I am not tonight harbouring any grievance against the Foreign Affairs people in Belgrade or, for that matter, in any overseas post. The answer to this question, which I received today, stated:

It is not a standard procedure in any country for all intending tourists to be interviewed in connection with their visa applications.

There is an admission of broad policy. But nowhere in this answer, or in the letter I received from the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Mr MacKellar, did anybody tell me why Miss Svigelj was brought 500 kilometres to be interviewed. I say- and I did hint this to at least one Opposition senator earlier- that we get back to the question of whether there is an Australian Security Intelligence Organisation officer in Belgrade. I think there is. I am not one of those who is airy-fairy about defence or security. I have never objected to ASIO, but I like my people to be competent. It was stupid for a man to pick out a girl who worked for the equivalent of Medibank in Yugoslavia- I think this is very appropriate in view of the issues we have dealt with tonight- and who was a public servant in Yugoslavia. Because she came from Yugoslavia apparently somebody thought that she might be plotting against the Australian Government. That is the only interpretation I can place on the answer of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs which indicates that what happened in this case was not usual practice. Unwittingly I set up an ambush, and somebody fell into it. I shall come back to that particular point later.

In relation to double standards-I know that Senator Coleman in her usual style would make a very pertinent comment about this- I refer to the case of 2 girls from Thailand. An Australian named McClory brought the 2 girls into Australia. They were subsequently sent home in disgrace. I asked: What about Mr McClory? What has been done about his passport? I know that Senator Withers has something on this. The answer from Senator Guilfoyle was:

I have been informed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs -

That would not be Senator Withers, but Mr Andrew Peacock- who is responsible for passport matters that Mr McClory’s Australian passport has not been cancelled. Information available about Mr McClory does not provide sufficient grounds to justify the passport being withdrawn.

As a Sydney-sider all I can say is that if honourable senators read the ‘paper you can trust’- the Daily Telegraph- or even the Sydney Morning Herald they would know that the magistrate’s comments on this racket, to say the least, would have hardly made Mr McClory’s name likely to appear in trie next royal honours list. If we want to add to the caricature of the ugly Australian these people who go overseas in this particular field would help to do so. I am one of those who say that a woman, like a man, has a right to lead her own life. I am not taking a pious stance, but I am saying that anybody who exploits anybody else, including their bodies, has no right to use an Australian passport to go in and out of this country. That is the point I make.

I am being pretty general on this because on one occasion under my own Government a Filipino national was exploited on an immigration matter. I wanted the Commonwealth Police to deal with the matter but the responsible Minister was much kinder than 1. 1 repeat, it is becoming a case of the male pig- if I can put it that way- being able to exploit Asians while we do not do anything about it. That is a side criticism.

I get back to the question of people coming here from east European countries as tourists. I question the justification for Miss Svigelj having been interrogated. I repeat that there has been a lot of dissatisfaction about the juveniles who masquerade as ASIO officers. Senator Lajovic would know the Svigelj family. They came here in the 1950s. Any dollar that they got they earned the hard way. Nada Svigelj ‘s brother, whom I spoke to at 9 o ‘clock tonight, was very irate and was quite happy for me to ventilate this matter in the Senate. I know that Senator Lajovic would lap up the fact that in the 1 950s this girl ‘s brother was one of the people who shovelled coal into a 36-class locomotive over the Blue Mountains of New South Wales. I do not think that as an Australian he should have his family appear on ASIO records as being subversive. The only impression that I can gain from the answer to my question of why delay occurred is that the family must be considered to be subversive. It happens to be a Yugoslav girl today, but it could be an Italian girl tomorrow treated this way because of double standards, inefficiency or lack of uniformity.

I did say to Senator Guilfoyle that I did not expect her to have an answer on this matter tonight. I have gone through the records of the Senate and I find that away back in the 1 930s a Senate committee was set up to inquire into why a Captain Conway who served in World War I never got his pension. The Committee came up with some very interesting evidence. I simply say this tonight: I am not one of those people who like to be trifled with after following the right procedures. The very answer to the question to which I have referred indicates that it is general policy to treat apparently bona fide applicants with a minimum of formality and delay and not to bring them a long distance for interrogation.

In relation to the episode concerning the girls from Thailand, the answer indicates that my comments- I had written an earlier letter-had been conveyed to the Australian Embassy in Bangkok. I do not know our Ambassador over there, but I say here that our people in Bangkok must have been pretty naive to let bar girls come in with a minimum of checking. On the other hand, the officers in Belgrade or the ASIO operative went to the other extreme. I wind up on this note, because I have certain instructions to finish speaking at 11.10 p.m. Put very simply, I want a detailed answer to my query and if 1 do not have it when we come back in the middle of August I shall emulate the Senate inquiry into the case of Captain Conway. I will probably want people like Senator Durack, who served on another committee, to serve with some of my colleagues to find out who was the guilty person in Belgrade. I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard question on notice No. 7.

The PRESIDENT:

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The document read as follows)-

Senator Mulvihill: To ask the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs-

  1. 1 ) Is it standard practice for all intending tourists to Australia to be interviewed in their home country if Australia has a diplomatic establishment in that nation, or does such a procedure only operate in selected countries.
  2. How does the Minister reconcile the preliminary interview procedures which apply to east European tourists with the apparent laxity that exists wilh regard to tourists from Thailand.
  3. Did the Minister investigate how Thai prostitutes received visas to enter Australia as stated in the trial of Mr Owen James McClory and a Mr Shottishunk which was reported in the Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph of 13 December 1975.
  4. What passports did Messrs McClory and Shottishunk possess.
  5. If Mr McClory had an Australian passport, has it been revoked.
  6. What happened to the prostitutes involved; were they returned to their homeland.
Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · Victoria · LP

– An answer to question on notice No. 7 will appear in the Hansard which is published tomorrow. The answer was released today by the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (Mr MacKellar). Many remarks were made by Senator Mulvihill tonight concerning the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. I will undertake to bring those matters to the attention of the Minister and to obtain whatever information I can on the matters that have been raised. As far as the answer to question on notice No. 7 is concerned, I will draw the Minister’s attention to the areas where the honourable senator requires further information to see whether we can get a more satisfactory and complete answer for him.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Senate adjourned at 11.11 p.m.

page 2272

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated:

Overseas Tourists: Interviews (Question No. 7)

Senator Mulvihill:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice:

  1. Is it standard practice for all intending tourists to Australia to be interviewed in their home country if Australia has a diplomatic establishment in that nation, or does such a procedure only operate in selected countries.
  2. ) How does the Minister reconcile the preliminary interview procedures which apply to east European tourists with the apparent laxity that exists with regard to tourists from Thailand.
  3. Did the Minister investigate how Thai prostitutes receive visas to enter Australia as stated in the trial of Mr Owen James McClory and a Mr Shottishunk which was reported in the Sydney newspaper The Daily Telegraph of 1 3 December 1975.
  4. What passports did Messrs McClory and Shottishunk possess.
  5. If Mr McClory had an Australian passport, has it been revoked.
  6. What happened to the prostitutes involved; were they returned to their homeland.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. and (2) It is not standard procedure in any country for all intending tourists to be interviewed in connection with their visa applications. In fact the visitor visa procedures which operate on a world-wide basis require that apparently bona fide applicants are to be granted visit visas with a minimum of formalities and delay.This accords with the Government’s policy that the travel to Australia of genuine visitors should be facilitated to the greatest possible degree.

The procedures also require, however, that where there are doubts concerning the bona fides of any individual visitor applicants or where there are other doubts all necessary inquiries, including personal interviews if appropriate, are to be conducted before decisions on visa issue are taken.

  1. It is not the practice to grant visit visas to persons from any country where it is known that the object of a visit is for purposes of prostitution or for any other illegal purposes. However, the case to which the honourable senator has drawn attention has been brought to the notice of the Australian Embassy in Bangkok.
  2. Mr McClory held an Australian passport. Mr Shottishunk held a Thai passport.
  3. I have been informed by the Minister for Foreign Affairs who is responsible for passport matters that Mr McClory ‘s Australian passport has not been cancelled. Information available about Mr McClory does not provide sufficient grounds to justify the passport being withdrawn.
  4. The two persons concerned left Australia on 18 December 1 975 under private arrangements.

Immigrants: Croatian Origin (Question No. 221)

Senator Baume:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice:

How many people identified as being of Croatian origin have in each of the past seven years-

a ) applied to migrate to Australia,

been approved for migration to Australia, and

had applications to migrate to Australia refused or deferred.

Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

Yugoslav applicants for migration are not identified by regional groupings or origins and, therefore, it is not possible to provide the information requested by the honourable senator.

Croatian Migrants: Citizenship Applications (Question No. 222)

Senator Baume:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice:

How many people identified as being of Croatian origin have in each of the past seven years-

applied for Australian citizenship,

been granted Australian citizenship,

had their application for Australian citizenship deferred, and

been refused Australian citizenship.

Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

Yugoslav applicants for citizenship are not identified by regional groupings or origins and, therefore, it is not possible to provide the information requested by the honourable senator.

Overseas Telecommunications Commission (Question No. 312)

Senator Missen:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Is the Government aware that the Overseas Telecommunications Commission has been using television commercials during prime viewing time for public relations purposes, rather than for the advertisement of the services.
  2. Has the Commission an Australian monopoly on international telecommunications; if so, what justification is there for the waste of these resources in creating a public- image of a Government monopoly enterprise.
  3. If the answer to ( 1 ) and (2) is in the affirmative, in the light of present needs for restrictions on expenditure, will the Minister take action to restrict this expenditure.
Senator Carrick:
LP

-The Minister for Post and Telecommunications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. and (2) The Overseas Telecommunications Commission has engaged in advertising for a number of years. Like any organisation which has a product to sell, the Commission attracts substantial additional business by advertising. Market research has shown that there is considerable advantage to be gained from identifying the Commission’s role in the minds of the public in order to make its direct product advertising more effective. A carefully controlled limited amount of institutional advertising is therefore undertaken. While OTC has an Australian monopoly of international telecommunication services, its services compete with other means of communication and with other calls on consumer resources. Direct monitoring by the Commission has shown that, far from representing a waste of resources, the cost effectiveness of such advertising is clearly demonstrable.
  2. Although its overall advertising budget was less than 1 per cent of its turnover, the Commission has responded to the Government’s call for general restraint on expenditure and has reduced this budget.

Council of Aboriginal Affairs (Question No. 424)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What is the composition of the Council of Aboriginal Affairs.
  2. What is its function.
  3. 3 ) How often does it meet.
  4. Does the Council present regular written reports to the Minister: if so, what reports have been submitted since November 1975.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for. Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following reply to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 1 ) The members of the Council for Aboriginal Affairs are Dr H. C. Coombs, Emeritus Professor W. E. H. Stanner and Mr B. G. Dexter.
  2. Since 1973 the Council has concentrated on issues of critical policy importance and has undertaken particular projects referred to it by the Minister.
  3. The Council meets as required, usually at least once every three weeks.
  4. Yes. The Council has resubmitted to me its written report on visits to Arnhem Land in 1975, and has made oral submissions to me on a number of other matters.

Quality Control (Question No. 440)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce, upon notice:

  1. I ) Has the Minister seen a statement in the Australian of 3 April 1976 by Mr K. J. Peterson, Chairman of the New South Wales Division of the Australian Organisation for Quality Control, that nearly 160 000 small businesses in

Australia are in danger of collapsing, many because of poor quality control of products.

  1. Is poor quality control a major reason for the economic problems facing small businesses.
  2. What action can the Department of Industry and Commerce take to ensure that small businesses do not collapse because of poor quality control and poorly made products.
Senator Cotton:
LP

– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) I am aware of the statement by the New South Wales President of the Australian Organisation for Quality Control which relates to the dangers that Mr Peterson considers can confront Australia’s small businesses because of poor quality control.
  2. The Department, in conjunction with the Australian Organisation for Quality Control, will shortly be conducting a general survey of quality control activities in manufacturing industry. Quantitative data is not available on the extent of quality control activity of small businesses. It is not possible therefore to demonstrate quantitatively the significance of poor quality control on the economic health of the small business sector.
  3. The Department of Industry and Commerce sponsored and financially supported a seminar which was organised by the New South Wales Division of the Australian Organisation for Quality Control and held on 6 April 1976. This seminar, which was designed to appraise manufacturing enterprises of the need for, and the value of, quality control systems and procedures was attended by approximately 300 company representatives. Many of these representatives came from relatively small firms. Further activities will be considered in the light of the findings of the quality control survey mentioned in (2) above.

Fraser Ministry (Question No. 471)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Did a Mr Warren Beeby in a review of the Fraser Ministry in the Australian of 3 April 1976 claim that ‘strained relations’ exist between the Minister and his colleague, the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs.
  2. Are these ‘strained relations’ basically caused by vague portfolio boundaries relating to the Ministries concerned; if so, is the Minister taking any action to ensure that the functions of the two portfolios are clearly defined.
Senator Cotton:
LP

-The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:

  1. Yes.
  2. The question is based on the supposition that so-called strained relations’ exist between my colleague, the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, and myself. As no strained relations’ exist, the question is without meaning. My colleague and I, and our respective departments, are working closely and harmoniously in all areas.

Aboriginal ‘Embassy’ in Canberra (Question No. 524)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has the Department of Aboriginal Affairs received an official request for financial assistance from the newlyestablished Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra; if so, what financial and other assistance has been sought.
  2. Is the Minister aware that the Vice-President of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee, Mr Keith Saunders, has claimed that two foreign governments have approached the Embassy with offers of financial aid.
  3. Is the Minister aware of the identity of the two foreign powers concerned; if so, will he identify them.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following reply to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 1 ) My Department has not received an official request for financial assistance from the Aboriginal ‘embassy’ in Canberra.
  2. Yes.
  3. I am not aware of the identity of the two foreign powers concerned.

Aborigines: Health Care (Question No. 568)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to the results of a survey on the ‘Physical Health of Aboriginal Children in Bourke, N.S.W.’ by Dr Max Kamien, published in the Medical Journal of Australia of 10 April 1976; if so, does the survey conclude that 72 per cent of all Aboriginal children in Bourke in 1 97 1 were in need of medical attention.
  2. What steps have the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the former Office of Aboriginal Affairs taken since 1971 to ensure the provision of more effective health care for the Aboriginal children living in the Bourke area of New South Wales.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following reply to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 1 ) Yes, and that Dr Kamien has been correctly quoted.
  2. The provision of health care in the Bourke area of N.S.W. is primarily the responsibility of the Health Commission of N.S.W. The Commission is concerned at the low health status of Aborigines in the area and attributes this to multiple deprivations in the socio-economic sense, especially the high rate of unemployment and associated alcoholism. This situation will not be overcome by health means alone. However, with Commonwealth Government financial assistance, the Health Commission has endeavoured to take special measures to alleviate the health situation of the Aboriginals in the area and these include the employment of a medical officer and of a nurse and full-time Aboriginal health worker. In addition special arrangements have been made to enable medical specialists to visit the area from time to time. Further, the introduction of Medibank with effect from 1 July 1975, would have removed some of the financial constraints that might otherwise have restricted health care for Aboriginals in the area. Apart from these measures I have already announced, in February of this year, the national campaign against trachoma and other diseases, which is to be undertaken by the Australian College of Ophthalmologists is aimed at treating eye conditions in remote areas of Australia, including places such as Bourke in N.S.W.

Department of Aboriginal Affairs: Program Division (Question No. 575)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

  1. What is the function of the Program Division of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs.
  2. Is the Program Division headed by an Assistant Secretary or a First Assistant Secretary.
  3. Is that position currently vacant; if so, when is it expected that an appointment will be made.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following reply to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 1 ) The functions of the Program Division are to develop programs, both qualitative and quantative, and to evaluate the effectiveness of those programs. The Division provides also a statistical service for the Department.
  2. The Department’s establishment provides for a First Assistant Secretary to head the Program Division.
  3. The position has been physically occupied since 19 January following its vacation by the nominal occupant. Recently, a nominal occupant was provided by transfer.

Television: Cunnamulla Region (Question No. 587)

Senator Colston aswed the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, upon notice:

Is the Minister aware that a substantial number of people living on properties and in townships in the Cunnamulla region of Queensland are at present receiving poor television reception; if so, will the Minister investigate suggestions recently made at the Annual Meeting of the South West Graziers Association that television reception be extended to a 160 kilometer radius of Cunnamulla.

Senator Carrick:
LP

– The Minister for Post and Telecommunications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

I am aware that there is a need to improve television coverage in many parts of Australia, most particularly in some of the rural areas. However, the planning of television services designed to serve outback communities is being undertaken within strict economic guidelines which the Government determined several years ago. In the case of the suggestion by the South West Graziers Association, I advise the honourable senator that since the per capita cost of extending television coverage to a 160 kilometer radius of Cunnamulla would far exceed the economic guidelines adhered to by the Government as a basis for the extension of television services, no prospect can be offered of extending television coverage to the districts surrounding Cunnamulla at this time.

Public Service: Staff Transfers (Question No. 313)

Senator Coleman:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many staff have been transferred, or are to be transferred, from the Department of Social Security to the Department of Health as a result of the changes undertaken since December 1975.
  2. 2 ) What were the levels of the staff transferred.
  3. Will the Minister provide the figures on a State by State basis.
  4. How many of these staff, dissected by their levels, and staff at central office were employed in the subsidised health benefits plan administering the $2 and $5 payments under the National Health Act.
  5. Will any of the staff referred to be retrenched as a result of the amendments to the Act.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. to (3) When appropriate amending legislation is passed two Divisions and one Branch from the Central Office of the Department of Social Security and a Branch from each of its State Offices will be transferred to the Department of Health as a result of changes in administrative arrangements announced in December 1975. Part of its Central Office ADP Branch and other support staff will also be transferred to the Department of Health. Because of normal staff wastage that wilt continue to occur from these areas up until the transfer actually takes place, it is not practicable to be precise about the number and levels of staff who will take up duty in the Department of Health. However, it is estimated at this stage that approximately 640 staff will transfer. It is estimated that some 220 Central Office staff and 420 State office staff, made up as follows, will transfer:
  1. Staff to be transferred to the Department of Health and engaged in administering a range of programs under the National Health Act and the Health Insurance A”t also, as a small part of their work, performed duties connected with the subsidised health benefit plan or with the $2 and $5 hospital benefits payments. Rearrangement of duties of relevant staff has taken place and additional work arising out of the new Medibank and private health insurance arrangements will necessitate retention of this staff.
  2. No.

Local Government Finances (Question No. 528)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has the Treasurer’s attention been drawn to a statement by the Queensland Minister for Local Government, Mr Hinze, in the Courier Mail of 20 April 1976, that Queensland local government bodies might get $27m a year initially from the new Federal income tax snaring scheme.
  2. What is the official Treasury estimate of the total amount that Queensland local government bodies can expect from this scheme.

Seanator Cotton- The Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  2. In my Economic Statement on 20 May 1976 I announced that the Government had decided to make $140m available through the States, to local government in 1976-77 in untied general revenue assistance. This amount represents an increase of 75 per cent on the general purpose assistance provided to local government in 1975-76 and should be seen as a major contribution towards making local government a genuine partner in our federal system.

It is expected that decisions as to the appropriate division of the SI 40m between the States, and the appropriate break-up of individual State funds as between per capita amounts and amounts to be allocated by State Grants Commissions, will be taken after consideration of the Report of the Grants Commission and after discussion between the States and the Commonwealth Government at the forthcoming Premiers ‘Conference on 10 June.

Drug Smuggling (Question No. 650)

Senator Mulvihill:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice:

  1. Is the Minister satisfied that passport control is sufficiently vigilant in the face of increasing narcotics smuggling and with regard to the recent case involving King Wong and Yuen Foon, Honk Kong residents.
  2. Does any liaison exist with local authorities to deny entry to suspected drug pedlars.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 1 ) Immigration controls are sufficiently effective to prevent entry into Australia of people known to be involved in smuggling narcotics.
  2. Yes. Any information received by my Department is passed to the appropriate authorities.

Health Insurance (Question No. 713)

Senator McAuliffe:

asked the Minister representing the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Will the new Medibank arrangements persuade many people on higher incomes to rejoin the private medical funds and pay the premiums charged.
  2. Will these charges increase the Consumer Price Index and thus result in more inflation.
  3. Is the Government determined to implement what it regards as correct principles irrespective of the economic consequences.
Senator Cotton:
LP

– The Treasurer has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. A premium paid either to Medibank or to private medical funds would cost people on high incomes less than the levy would, and they could be expected to choose the former. Whether, in that case, they would choose to pay a premium to Medibank or to private funds would be entirely a question of their preferences for the packages, having regard to the difference in the level of premium.
  2. and (3) I expect that the changes to the Medibank scheme will affect the CPI, but the particular changes affecting the index, and how much they might affect it, will not be known until the Statistician has compiled and published the index for the December quarter 1976. I should add, however, that any such change would not be a change in the underlying rate of inflation any more than was the change associated with the introduction of Medibank last year.

Tax Indexation

Senator Cotton:
LP

-On 19 May 1976, Senator Walsh addressed a question without notice to me as the Minister representing the Treasurer in the Senate. The question related to tax indexation and fiscal drag. I undertook to obtain an answer to the question and the Treasurer has provided the following reply:

The term ‘fiscal drag’ is applied to the tendency for individual income tax revenues to increase proportionately faster than taxable income, because of the progressive structure of the individual income tax system. The proportion of personal incomes taken in tax increases as incomes grow. This is so whether the growth in income reflects real growth or only nominal increases in income attributable to inflation. In the absence of discretionary changes in tax rates or expenditures, budgetary surpluses or reduced deficits will emerge as a result. This outcome is seen as constituting a ‘drag’ on the growth of the economy which may be desirable or otherwise, depending on the overall level of economic activity and the rate of inflation.

The purpose of tax indexation in this context is to eliminate fiscal drag arising purely from inflationary, as distinct from real, increases in taxable income. Indexation ensures that average rates of tax remain unchanged at constant levels of real income. In other words, it ensures that, except where there are real increases in taxable incomes, tax payable does not increase disproportionately faster than income.

As I announced on 20 May 1976, the cost of indexing the personal income tax system will be almost $ 1 ,050m in 1 976-77 and almost $ 1 ,2 10m in a full year. That pan of the increase in income tax revenue which would have occurred in 1976-77 if the personal income tax system had not been indexed- estimated to be almost $ 1,050m- could, from one viewpoint, be described as an ‘unlegislated increase in taxation’.

Report on Laverton Incidents (Question No. 602)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, upon notice:

When will the report of the Joint Royal Commission of the Federal Government and Western Australian Government into the Laverton incidents be tabled in the Federal Parliament.

Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Aboriginal Affairs has provided the following reply to the honourable senator’s question:

The report was tabled in the Senate on 6 May 1976 and in the House of Representatives on 5 May 1 976.

Deportations (Question No. 675)

Senator Mulvihill:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice:

Was an assertion made in the ‘ Insider Column ‘ of the Sydney Morning Herald of 12 May 1976, that several United Kingdom nationals are facing deportation, although they have no criminal records; if so, what is the basis of such deportations.

Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Acting Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

The item to which the honourable senator refers did infer that one or two people from Britain who did not have criminal records were facing deportation.

There was not, at the time, any basis for that inference.

However, United Kingdom citizens who enter or remain in Australia in circumstances in which they become prohibited immigrants render themselves liable for deportation. This would apply for example in the case of ships’ deserters irrespective of whether they have criminal records.

Pensioner Funeral Benefits (Question No. 690)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to an article in the Brisbane newspaper The Telegraph dated 30 April 1976, in which it is claimed that the administrative costs which resulted from the original decision by the Government to abolish pensioner funeral benefits were as heavy as the total cost of the actual benefit; if so, how many pieces of correspondence have been received by the Department of Social Security on this matter since the date of the original announcement that funeral benefits were to be discontinued.
  2. How many departmental officers were involved in answering the correspondence relating to funeral benefits, and were any of them transferred to Canberra from interstate for this purpose.
  3. What was the estimated cost of answering the correspondence, including salaries and overtime for those departmental officers involved, postage, and other administrative expenses.
Senator Guilfoyle:
LP

– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) The article mentioned by the honourable senator cannot be taken as factual. It is not possible to give a precise answer on the number of pieces of correspondence received by my Department on any one subject since many of the letters refer to several subject matters.
  2. No officers were detailed to answer exclusively letters commenting on the Government’s original decision to abolish funeral benefits.
  3. See 1 and 2. Information in the form requested is not available.

Tyre Companies (Question No. 699)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, upon notice:

Is the Minister aware that the Brazilian Government has taken action against the Brazilian Affiliates of three international tyre companies, Firestone, Goodyear and DunlopPirelli, relating to price fixing and other prohibited business practices which in effect had created an internal cartel of the three companies; if so, is the Department of Business and Consumer Affairs aware of any similar activities by these three companies in Australia.

Senator Cotton:
LP

– The following information is provided in answer to the honourable senator’s question:

I am aware that action by the Brazilian Government, of the type referred to by the honourable senator, has been reported in the Australian Press.

In Australia these matters are regulated by the Trade Practices Act 1974-75. That Act provides for enforcement in the Australian Industrial Court which is, accordingly, the proper place for the Government to bring any similar matters occurring within Australia to public notice.

Australian Tourist Commission (Question No. 709)

Senator Rae:
TASMANIA

asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) When did the Chicago Office of the Australian Tourist Commission effectively close.
  2. When did staff last leave the building.
  3. When was the last contract for the renting of the Commission’s premises negotiated and signed.
  4. For what period and until what date did that contract extend.
  5. What was the total cost to the Commission of the last rental contract.
  6. What was the weekly cost of renting the premises in that contract.
Senator Cotton:
LP

– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:

  1. 31 December 1973.
  2. 31 December 1973.
  3. 23 June 1971.
  4. Ten years to 30 June 1981.
  5. US$137,280 plus a provision for rent adjustment based on: increased operating expenses; increased real estate taxes; and the consumer price index.
  6. US$264 plus escalation costs.

Frequency Modulation Broadcasting

Senator Carrick:
LP

-On 28 April 1976, Senator Wheeldon asked the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications the following question, without notice:

Will the Minister tell the Senate when it is likely that frequency modulation broadcasting by the Australian Broadcasting Commission will be extended to Perth and those other cities which do not at present have this service? Are the proposed cuts in ABC expenditure likely to have any effect on the extension of frequency modulation broadcasting to Western Australia and those other States and the Northern Territory which do not at present have this service?

The Minister for Post and Telecommunications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

It is intended that the ABC’s frequency modulation broadcasting services be extended to areas beyond Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra as soon as possible. However, it was announced on 20 May 1976 that funds cannot be made available for this purpose in 1976-77.

Radio Station 2JJ

Senator Carrick:
LP

– On 6 May 1976, Senator Button asked the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications the following question, without notice:

In view of the fact that an appropriation was made in the last Budget to cover the relay of broadcasts of Radio Station 2JJ to Melbourne, why was the expenditure for this item not made at the time of the much vaunted expenditure cuts in February this year? If the reason for not providing the relay is not connected with expenditure cuts but is related to the current inquiry into broadcasting and television, will the Minister tell us what aspects of the terms of reference of that inquiry are relevant to an administrative decision which could nave been made by the Minister?

The Minister for Post and Telecommunications has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

The ABC did not provide for the relay of broadcasts of Radio Station 2JJ to Melbourne in its estimates for the 1975-76 financial year and therefore it is not a fact that an appropriation was made in the last Budget to cover this item. The Commission has however approved in principle the provision of the relay at a time when funds permit and the appropriate facilities are available.

International Women’s Year

Senator Withers:
LP

– On 6 May 1976 (Hansard page 1618) Senator Ryan asked me, as Minister representing the Prime Minister, a question without notice concerning the tabling and publishing of the Report of the Australian National Advisory Committee for International Women’s Year.

The Prime Minister has now supplied the following information for answer to the honourable senator’s question.

The Report of the Australian National Advisory Committee for International Women’s Year was tabled in the House of Representatives on 25 May 1976. Copies are available through the normal distribution channels.

Mosque in Darwin

Senator Webster:
NCP/NP

-On 18 May (Hansard page 1666) Senator Kilgariff asked the following question, without notice:

I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for the Northern Territory. I understand that the Department of the Northern Territory on 18 December 1975 advised the Moslem community in Darwin that a block of land in Vanderlin Drive, Casuarina- blocks 6257 and 6258-was to be made available for a mosque. I further understand now that the Government of Arabia has agreed to assist the Moslem communities of Australia by providing finance, that it has in the last 2 weeks investigated the situation in Darwin and has agreed to assist the Moslem community there. I understand that there may be some difficulty in the allocation of that land. Will the Minister take up this matter with the Minister for the Northern Territory to ensure

CSIRO is conducting research in solar energy relating to the following applicationswater heating, domestic and industrial space heating and cooling power production distillation of water controlled environment horticulture production of energy from crops, forests and other organic material.

The work carried out under ARGC grants complements the work of CSIRO.

  1. It is too early to estimate in detail the outcome of the projects listed; however, taken as a whole, solar energy research over the last 20 years has resulted in the development of a type of solar collector and its integration into a solar hot water heating system which is the basis of a new industry. Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the annual production rate in square metres of solar collectors for water heaters to have been-

These figures do not include units constructed by small manufacturers or privately.

This industry is exporting its products and /or technology to other countries, including Japan, New Zealand and Fiji.

Other advances ready for commercial use are solar stills for desalination of salt or brackish water, a solar timber drying kiln, and solar air heaters suitable for general application.

The Senate Standing Committee on National Resources is currently inquiring into solar energy; the results of that inquiry will provide guidance concerning future solar energy research programs.

Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 2 June 1976, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1976/19760602_senate_30_s68/>.

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