31st Parliament · 1st Session
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator D. B. Scott) took the chair at 2.15 p.m., and read prayers.
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– I inform the Senate that the Minister for Productivity (Mr Macphee) leaves Australia today to attend a meeting of Commonwealth Industry Ministers in India. He is expected to return on 10 March. During his absence the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife) will act as Minister for Productivity.
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– I present the following petition from 84 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled should:
Initiate necessary action for a referendum to be held to amend the Constitution to provide for Citizen’s Initiative, on the following conditions:
If a specified percentage of the voters ( for example 2 per cent) sign a petition asking that a referendum be held on a certain question, then the Federal Government would be obliged to hold that referendum, and the result would become law.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 163 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of South Australia respectfully showeth:
That whereas the Fraser government was elected in December 197S after promising that pensions would be adjusted instantly and automatically in relation to quarterly consumer price index figures;
And whereas that government subsequently announced that pension adjustments should properly be made half yearly each May and November;
And whereas the government has now legislated for pensions to be adjusted only once a year, and this constitutes a serious breach of generally accepted ethics of democratic government and also deprives many needy pensioners of increases that are essential to their subsistence.
The foregoing facts impel the undersigned petitioners to request the Australian Government to uphold the principle that the trustworthiness of governments should at all times be above question, and to appeal to the parliament to reintroduce twice yearly pension adjustments and that the amount allowed for earnings by single and married pensioners be increased to a more comparable level to the high cost of living before it affects the pensions.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 6 1 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 restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.
The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.
Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.
Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:
Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 24 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:
Objection to the Metric system and request the Government to restore the Imperial system.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
-I present the following petition from 27 citizens of Australia:
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:
That the decision of the Australian Government to depart from its 1975 election promise, a promise re-affirmed during the 1977 election campaign, that pensions would be increased twice-yearly in line with increases in the CPI, will seriously add to the economic burdens now borne by those citizens who are wholly or mainly dependent on their pensions.
Your petitioners are impelled by this fact to call upon the Australian Government as a matter of urgency to review the abovementioned decision, and to determine:
That pensions will be increased twice yearly in line with rises in the CPI as promised by the Prime Minister in his 1975 policy speech.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 78 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 restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.
The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.
Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.
Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:
Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 61 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 restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.
The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.
Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.
Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:
Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 7 citizens of Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth:
That inspite of numerous measures taken by various governments, unemployment in the country has not significantly declined.
As a result, supplies of both goods and services have declined; human resources are wasted, capital resources are not used and natural resources are left under-developed.
Both local and overseas experience shows that prosperity is encouraged when taxes, which penalise production are replaced by taxes which provide incentives for productivity. These also provide disincentives to idle speculation such as that which results in so called ‘windfall profits’ from land price increases.
The reduction of Income-tax, Sales-tax and Payroll tax is known to reduce the costs of production and to stimulate demand.
It is also known that when Land Tax or Council Rates are raised on the unimproved site value of land, then the development of vacant land and under-developed slum areas is stimulated.
It follows then, that the gradual replacement of taxes on production with taxes on non-production will create new employment, reduces the costs of production, reduces the rate of interest, the cost of housing and stimulates all industries.
We wish to point out that the replacement of production penalising taxes is a very practical proposal. According to official Municipal Valuations, it is estimated that unimproved site values have increased from $37,000m in 1973-74 to $67,000m by 1976-77. This represents $30,000m so called windfall profits’ which was completely unrelated to productive improvements.
Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should act to relieve unemployment by a Taxation Reform to replace taxes on production with taxes which provide incentives for the increased supply of both goods and services.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 59 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 restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.
The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.
Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.
Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:
Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 83 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 restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.
The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.
Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.
Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:
Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received.
– I present two petitions from 2046 and 2599 citizens of Australia, respectively:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the provision of payments for abortion through items of the Medical Benefits Schedule is an unacceptable endorsement of abortion which has now reached the levels of a national tragedy with at least 60,000 unborn babies being killed in 1977.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will so amend the Medical Benefits Schedule as to preclude the payment of any benefit for abortion.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petitions received and read.
- Mr Deputy President, owing to the presence in the Gallery today of representatives of the Aboriginal community of Wreck Bay, who have travelled 200 miles to be here, who cannot be present in the Parliament tomorrow and who are signatories to petitions presented to Senator Ryan and me, I seek leave to present these petitions, which are identical in wording, and to have one of them read. These petitions, under Standing Order 76, were received too late for formal presentation this day because of the journey to Canberra of the people from Wreck Bay. It is because of these circumstances that Senator Ryan and I seek leave of the Senate to follow this procedure while the people of Wreck Bay are present and ask that the petition be read.
Leave granted.
The petition read as follows-
The Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled, the petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth:
We are the members of the Aboriginal Community of Wreck Bay.
In 1952 Mr Robert Brown SM(Retd.) then acting for the Commonwealth Department of the Interior surveyed the boundaries of the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Reserve.
The understanding has been that the land as then surveyed should be set aside in toto as the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Reserve.
The Wreck Bay Aboriginal Housing Company Limited is the duly constituted body representing the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community.
Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should initiate legislation for the granting of freehold title to all that land surveyed in 1952 by Mr Robert Brown to the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Housing Company Limited.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
– A petition has been lodged for presentation as follows:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray, by Senator Messner.
Petition received.
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-I give notice that on the next day of sitting I shall move:
That the Senate is of the opinion that the Government should take immediate steps to remove the discrimination directed at certain Queensland residents whose property is insured under the Defence Service Homes Insurance Scheme.
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– I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:
That the following matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Operations:
All expenditures incurred since February 1977 by and related to the Silver Jubilee Commemorative Organisation, the Silver Jubilee Appeal and the Bureau of International Expositions in Paris and all expenditures incurred in anticipation of a Bi-centennial Celebrations Organisation.
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-I advise the Senate that I now wish to withdraw Notice of Motion Number 4 standing in my name. If I may be permitted to ad lib, I say to the Minister representing the Treasurer that he will know the industrial involvement relating to that matter and that certain promises on behalf of the Commonwealth Bank Officers Association will be honoured.
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-I ask the Leader of the Government, representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs: Has the Government given consideration to the political and international legal implications of one country’s declaring its intention to punish another where such punishment involves military force? If so, what is the Government ‘s attitude to such a principle? If it has not considered the matter, will he ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs to do so and to make a statement to the Parliament in respect thereof?
– I take it that Senator Wriedt is raising the question of China’s punitive action against Vietnam because of China’s claim that certain action has taken place on its southern border; and as well, Vietnam’s invasion of Kampuchea. The principle was clearly stated by the Prime Minister, by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and by me in this Senate yesterday that the Government abhors the principle of violence in all such matters. The Government has made it clear that in fact China should withdraw its forces from the northern provinces of Vietnam and that Vietnam should withdraw its troops from Kampuchea. That principle has been stated. If Senator Wriedt has other matters in mind I would be happy to seek answers for him.
-I wish to ask a supplementary question, as perhaps the Minister misunderstood. I am not asking a question concerning any specific instance of conflict that we are witnessing at present. I am asking whether the Government will declare a position on the principle involved. That is the issue, as distinct from the subject of conflict between two nations.
-I believe that the principle was stated generally, that the Government is opposed to the use of punitive force; that it believes that matters of international consequence should be settled in the proper international fashion; and that it adds its good will and practical arguments towards that end.
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– I preface my question to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs by stating that I learned just recently that the Government intends to spend a considerable amount of money developing the tourist potential and facilities around Ayers Rock in the Northern Territory. Will he as Minister responsible for Aboriginal affairs, ensure that the traditional owners of that land, who have made claims to certain areas of it, will be protected and properly and fully consulted as to any development that takes place there, in particular in the area of their sacred sites?
– Certain Aboriginals claiming to be Aboriginal traditional owners of that area have already moved to some extent to protect their own interest by lodging a claim before the Aboriginal Lands Commissioner. The claim is expected to be heard later this year. So the legislative provisions which have passed through the Parliament, with the consent of both sides, are being used by those people to establish their position. As far as anything beyond that is concerned, obviously my Department will be concerned with the development of the park and with its impact on the Aboriginal people in that area. We will certainly be watching closely to ensure that the interests of the Aboriginal people are protected.
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-I ask the AttorneyGeneral whether the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act, assent to which was reported in Parliament on 16 August 1977, has yet come into operation? If not, what further consideration has been given to this legislation by the Government and what stage has that consideration reached? How many requests for exclusions of decisions of an administrative character- to use the definition contained in the Act- are being made by departments and authorities in the Government? I remind the Minister that I asked an identical question in October last year and I wonder whether there is any alteration to the Minister’s answer then given?
– In relation to this matter, I certainly recall the question being asked by Senator Button towards the end of last year. The answer is that the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act has not yet been proclaimed so the situation in that sense has not changed since the question was asked. I am not quite sure when the question was asked, but I think I recall telling the honourable senator at about that time that I had received a report from the Administrative Review Council.
– You were going to read it.
– Yes, that is right. I have done that. It is a very substantial report from the Administrative Review Council covering the whole area of government operations, and in particular the report is concerned with the obligations placed upon public servants to give reasons for decisions. The Administrative Review Council spent a considerable time in preparing its report. I think reference was made to it many months before the report was given to me at the end of last year. I have submitted the report to the departments of the Government and I have invited them to give me their comments on the recommendations contained in that report. That is being done. I cannot say how many requests for exclusion have been received because that process has not been completed. Certainly in the consideration that has been given to this problem within the Government quite a number of requests or claims have been made, in many cases supported by substantial reasons that there ought to be an exclusion of this or that agency. What I really emphasise to the Senate is that this is a major proposal indeed and every decision made by Government, at whatever level, could result in reasons being required. It is a major exercise when one thinks of the enormous number of decisions that are being made every day by public servants. This situation varies at all levels of government activity. It is a proposal which cuts right across Government and it has been the subject of a considerable study by the Administrative Review Council.
The departmental reaction is now being sought and the information is being collated. I will be taking the matter for recommendation to the Government as soon as that work can be completed.
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– My question is addressed to the Minister for Social Security. My attention has been drawn to the plight of one parent families, and in particular, to the differences which exist in the benefits paid to children who are under the auspices of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and those cared for by the Department of Social Security. Is the Minister aware, for example, that a civilian widow with a child of 14 years is paid a mere $66.70 a week, compared with $8 1 .70 received by a war widow in the same circumstances? Will the Minister explain the reason for this difference? Does she agree that it is indeed a deep injustice for such discrimination to exist between children? I refer the Minister to the United Nations declaration which states that it is the fundamental right of all children to have equality of educational opportunities’. In view of this, will the Minister investigate the possibility of the children of civilian widows being paid an education allowance similar to that paid to the children of war widows? Does she agree that in so doing the justification for the Year of the Child will be given more merit?
– I had noted the variation referred to by Senator Missen between pensions paid by the Department of Veterans ‘ Affairs and pensions paid by the Department of Social Security. What Senator Missen said with regard to the differing rates is broadly accurate. I can say only that it needs to be emphasised that the payments made by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs have an important compensation element in them, as they are payments made to the dependants of certain deceased veterans. It has long been recognised that the Commonwealth has a special obligation to these widows. I think that has been reflected in the pattern of payments for a very long time. I note what was said by Senator Missen with regard to the education allowance for the children of civilian widows. All matters are capable of being reviewed when the Budget is considered. The amount of assistance which is paid to social security pensioners and their children will, of course, be reviewed at Budget time. I have taken note of the suggestion that the honourable senator has made and the context in which he has made it. I shall see that account is taken of that suggestion when the Budget decisions are made.
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– Is the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications aware that as a result of the Government’s cutbacks in the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s funding and staff the Commission is no longer able to offer a most important service to the public, namely, the provision of transcripts of programs? Is the Minister aware that a private company in Melbourne, known as Australian Reference Services, is offering for sale typed transcripts and audio cassettes of ABC programs? Is the Minister aware that this company is offering for sale for $ 1 7 an audio cassette of the comments made by Mr Staley on the television program Nationwide on Wednesday, 21 February? I ask the Minister: What is the Government’s attitude to this use of public material for private profit?
– I do not agree that as a result of the cutbacks in the Australian Broadcasting Commission it is no longer able to offer this service. In fact, if the ABC wants to offer that service it can do so. The Australian Broadcasting Commission receives an allocation of funds, and that allocation is a matter of public knowledge. I think it is in excess of $100m. What the Commission does with that money is very much a matter of its own discretion. Apparently it has decided in its order of priorities that it does not intend to continue to offer that service. The honourable senator who asked the question will remember that some discussion on this subject took place at the hearings of the Estimates Committees last year. I think those discussions showed that the Commission had rather mixed feelings about the value of the transcript service, although my colleague, Senator Watson, I think expressed very great enthusiasm for transcripts of the Commission’s science program. In any event, that decision has been taken by the Commission and it is a matter for it. I have heard that a private company- I was not aware of its name- is offering transcripts for sale. If there is a market for transcripts or for tapes of the comments made by my colleague, Mr Staley, at $ 1 7 a throw, I can only congratulate that company for showing such extraordinary prescience. I would have thought that almost any politician who found that his words could be peddled at the rate of $17 a cassette would be filled with enormous self-satisfaction.
– I wish to ask a supplementary question, Mr Deputy President. Is the Minister aware that by selling copies of Mr Staley ‘s broadcast and other broadcasts this private company is breaching Australian Broadcasting Commission copyright? Does the Minister have an attitude on this question?
-I must say that I was a little puzzled about the copyright aspects when the question was asked. I am fortified by the fact that the Standing Orders prelude me from offering a legal opinion. Therefore, I have no intention of answering the question.
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-My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It relates to damage caused by space debris crashing to earth in a number of parts of the world. Examples include the recent episode in Canada, the crash of a 10 tonne satellite called Pegasus I in the Atlantic off Angola in September 1978, the crash of a smaller radioactive piece of debris in France and the death of a cow from a satellite fragment in Cuba. Where does responsibility for space debris rest? What international agreements have been made to ensure that those responsible for placing satellites in orbit are also responsible for damage caused? What procedures have been set up to cope with any special problems which crashes of space debris might present to the Australian community?
-Whilst I was not aware until now of the sad fate of the cow in Cuba, nevertheless the remainder of Senator Baume ‘s question raised some important matters. I am advised that under the 1972 Convention on Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects a launching State is absolutely liable to pay compensation for damage caused by its space object or its component parts on the surface of the earth. Provision is also made in the Convention for the presentation of claims for compensation for such damage. Australia acceded to the Convention on 20 January 1975. No special domestic procedures have been adopted so far to deal with the possibility of the crash of space debris affecting the Australian community. Existing procedures for dealing with such incidents have been considered adequate, but should some unusual situation arise with the serious risk of harm to the Australian community then the Government, of course, would adopt all such special procedures as would be necessary to cope with it. Clearly, the owner of the late lamented cow in
Cuba can claim from the nation or person who launched the space vehicle.
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– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. I refer to the figures which were revealed yesterday by Mr Nixon, as a result of a question asked by the Shadow Minister for Transport, indicating a very steep increase in near misses of aircraft- breaches of separation standards in the airline industry. The Minister will be aware that over the last 12 months a number of representations have been made to him by pilots, air traffic controllers and others in the industry. As this is a very serious matter concerning the industry itself, the operators and, in particular, the public, can the Minister tell us what action is contemplated to improve the situation? Is it a fact that it has been caused by a reduction in funding to the Department of Transport?
– A number of other questions on safety measures have been asked. The information I have received from the Department of Transport about those questions has been that there has been no restriction on funding in connection with safety measures. With respect to the matters which were raised by the honourable senator, I am advised that there has been a preliminary analysis of the incidents to which he referred with a view to determining the reason for the increased numbers. It is a matter which requires analysis because there was no dramatic change in procedures or traffic characteristics during last year which would explain the increase. Although there was some change in the rules, it was something which was not effective until late November. So that is not regarded as having any relationship to the figures referred to by the honourable senator. There is no apparent trend in regard to a specific location or any particular industry group, but the greatest increase is in respect of operations outside controlled air space where judgment of separation is more likely to be subjective rather than scientific, lt is possible that the increase is a consequence of greater awareness of the problem and a greater reporting of incidents, although that is not something of which we can be certain. A further detailed analysis is in progress and 1979 developments have been closely monitored. I think the Minister has this matter under close examination.
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– I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs: Is it correct that the Customs vessel positioned in Darwin is to be transferred to a Western Australian base? If so, what arrangements are to be made to ensure that Customs surveillance is properly maintained in the Darwin area?
-I think it would be better if I were to obtain some details about that question and provide an early answer to Senator Kilgariff.
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– Is the Attorney-General aware of the concern held by thousands of newsagents throughout New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory about a recently issued restrictive trade practices draft determination relating to their industry which, if implemented, will have very serious economic implications for them, particularly those who have sunk the family’s life savings into the purchase of the business? Is it a fact that if the determination comes into effect those who will benefit most will be the large retail outlets and supermarkets and that the practice that we now know of a newspaper being thrown over the front fence in the mornings is likely to become a thing of the past? Can the Minister say what is the latest position concerning this draft document? If he cannot, will he ascertain the position? Finally, will the Minister see that all steps are taken to protect these small businesses which exist in every town, suburb and city of Australia and which, in the main, are family concerns?
– I have heard in a general way of the concern to which Senator Douglas McClelland has referred. The document is a draft document of the Trade Practices Commission. The whole question of the application of the Trade Practices Act and the institutions that are set up to enforce that Act is one which is within the area of independent action by the bodies that have been created for that purposethe Trade Practices Commission itself and the Trade Practices Tribunal, which is presided over by a Federal Court judge as President of the Tribunal. Ultimately, of course, there are avenues for action to be taken on legal grounds in the Federal Court or the High Court of Australia. I simply want to emphasise that very elaborate institutions are established under the Trade Practices Act- an Act which was passed by this Parliament on the initiative of the Labor Government of which Senator Douglas
McClelland was a member. I should have thought that the proper processes under that Act would be the ones to be followed. As to the provision of information concerning the actual position of the newsagents, I will refer the question to the Minister and endeavour to get an early answer for the honourable senator.
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-Has the Minister for Science and the Environment seen recent Bureau of Statistics figures which indicate that spending by Australian companies on research and development fell by 18 per cent between 1973-74 and 1976-77, that is, from $190m to $157m, and that the number of man-years involved fell by a figure of 40 per cent? Does the Minister recognise the potentially disastrous situation which Australia could face if this trend continues? As part of the reason for this decline may be attributed to the phasing out of the Research and Development Incentive Grants scheme by the Whitlam Government, will the Minister now give some consideration to the reintroduction of some similar scheme to try to reverse this unfortunate situation?
– I certainly did see the article. My Department had some part in getting the research carried out. Senator Puplick refers to the new Australian Bureau of Statistics publication Research and Experimental Development by Private Enterprises 1976-77. The bulletin represents the first statistics on research and development published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. It has been compiled from data basically supplied by private enterprises in respect of that particular year. The Bureau conducted this survey at the request of my Department. The data forms part of the Department’s survey in comparisons of research expenditure for what will be known to honourable senators as Project Score. We have had the publication previously of some of Project Score’s work. Comparable data for 1976-77 for the Commonwealth Government, State governments, higher education and the private non-profit sectors again will be published shortly by my Department. The honourable senator, having shown great interest in this matter, will find interest in that particular publication.
Senator Puplick is correct. The trend evident in the ABS statistics confirms surveys undertaken by such private organisations as the Australian Industrial Research Group and the Associated Chamber of Manufactures of Australia. The Government has been aware of the trend and shares the honourable senator’s concern that this situation should be remedied. In many ways the fall-off of private research and development expenditure is a direct result of the economic downturn of recent years. As the economy picks up and confidence returns to the private sector the Government expects that there will be some upturn in investment in the longer term activities in which research and development expenditure is a very important part. When the Government became aware that research activity in the industrial sector was declining- I think the honourable senator had referred to the fact that it was occurring in previous years- it was prompted by a number of members of the back bench to take early steps to stem this particular trend. The Senate will recall that it was announced in July last year that an allocation of about $24m had been made available for industrial research and development through the Industrial Research and Development Incentives Program administered by my colleague the Minister for Productivity.
In a Budget that was marked by maximum expenditure restraint in response to economic circumstances, the Government has shown its concern through this initiative and will continue to monitor the response of industry to the increased incentives through continued surveys in the IR and D activity. There are indications that there has been very good industry response to the new arrangements for the Industrial Research and Development Scheme and although it is early days yet since this was introduced, the Government’s reaction to the problem appears to be bearing fruit.
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– I direct my question to the Minister for Social Security. Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to an article in the Bulletin, dated 6 March, by Peter Samuel entitled ‘The Huge and Costly Dole Estimate Foul-up’? Is the Minister aware that Mr Samuel claims that the Head of the Department of Social Security, Mr Pat Lanigan, has announced ‘that application of the “works test” has become almost impossible’, that a sample survey carried out over a year ago by her Department has confirmed that an enormous amount of dole cheating has been going on and that this was used to increase the staff of her Department? Is the statement attributed to Mr Lanigan correct? Was such a survey made? Could she have the results of such a survey made available to members of Parliament so that they may judge the situation for themselves?
– My attention was drawn to the article in the Bulletin of 6 March. I have not read it fully as I saw it earlier today for the first time. I noted some of the comments in it and have asked for a comment from my Department with regard to the article. I understand that the paper to which the Bulletin refers is a draft departmental paper that was prepared for the forthcoming International Social Security Association conference. The paper was not prepared by the Director-General although I understand he is to present it at the conference. The draft paper on which the article in the Bulletin was based, I think, was one that is not in its final form. It was not prepared by the DirectorGeneral, nor could the comments in the report be attributed to him. As far as the survey mentioned by Senator Grimes is concerned, 1 will check on that matter. I do not know whether that related to the review of the Department or not. I have not fully read the article but I will see what further information I can give to the honourable senator on an unemployment benefit survey.
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– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry. Is the Minister aware of the concern expressed by the fishing industry over the delay in the final implementation of Australia’s 200-mile exclusive economic zone legislation? Is it a fact that Western Australian Government lawyers have discovered constitutional loopholes in the draft legislation that present difficulties in the implementation of agreements between the States and the Commonwealth? What is the current position with respect to the matter and when does the Minister anticipate that the difficulties will be overcome and the legislation enacted?
-My understanding is that concern has been expressed by the fishing industry about the delay in the proclamation of the 200-mile fishing zone. The zone cannot be proclaimed until the regulations are prepared and administrative arrangements have been completed. This is taking longer than was expected by the Department and my understanding is that the Government is not, as yet, in a position to set a date for the implementation. I can assure Senator Jessop that work on the regulations and administrative arrangements is being treated as a matter of priority. He can convey that information to his constituents who raised the matter. With regard to the implementation of the agreement between the Commonwealth and the States on offshore fisheries’ jurisdiction, this is not a matter that has to be settled before proclamation of the zone.
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– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Trade and Resources. Does the Minister agree that the proposed petrochemical works in both Victoria and New South Wales would depend largely on imported feedstock for their operation? Because of the rising cost of oil and the uncertainty of supplies from the Middle East and elsewhere, can the Minister foresee difficulties for these works in the future? Because the Redcliff project would use indigenous natural resources as feedstock, would it not be to the advantage of Australia for the Government to encourage the setting up of a chemical plant at Redcliff in South Australia? Does the Minister also agree that, because the effect of the project on the balance of payments over the first 10 years of operation has been estimated to exceed $2,000m on present prices, there would be other benefits to the State and Federal governments in tax revenues? If the Redcliff proposal does not go ahead, in which case in all probability liquid hydrocarbons would have to be flared off, does the Minister not agree that in a world which is increasingly short of energy this would be a waste that Australia could not afford?
- Senator Elstob has asked a series of questions which call for detailed answers. I will refer the question to the Minister for Trade and Resources and ask him to provide an early answer.
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– I address my question to the Minister for Education and refer to the high degree of concern within the community and the Government at the problems of youth training and employment. Is the Department of Education represented on a task force set up to help establish a national voluntary youth community service scheme? If so, can the Minister inform the Senate what recent steps have been taken to establish a viable youth community scheme?
– My Department is represented on a task force concerned with a proposed national program, the Voluntary Youth Community Service scheme. Honourable senators will know that the scheme will be administered by my colleague Mr Viner, the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs. I understand that the task force has recently despatched letters throughout Australia and has officers visiting the Australian States to assess whether charitable organisations, schools, hospitals and local government bodies would be prepared to offer unemployed young people the opportunity to undertake voluntary work. Although young people would not be paid for their work the experience should enhance their chances of obtaining paid employment. If sufficient community interest is shown in the proposals and the unions find the scheme acceptable, it is expected to operate from 1 July this year.
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– Because my question deals with a variety of issues I direct it to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Is the Minister aware of the report assembled by Dr J. N. Santamaria of Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital which reveals that Australia now leads the English-speaking world in per capita alcohol consumption? Is the Minister aware that the latest available figures show that the average expenditure on beer, spirits and wine now totals 16 per cent of all retail sales, exceeding spending on meat, medicines and electrical appliances, and represents a 13 per cent increase in beer drinking and a 29 per cent increase in wine drinking a year? Does the Government see any connection with the growth in alcohol advertising in the mass media aimed especially at young people? Does the Government deem it necessary to take any steps to place such advertising under responsible guidelines, or is the Government content to let consumers remain fair game for alcohol manufacturers and distributors, restricted only by the illusory guidelines of advertising self-regulation?
– I believe that I have seen statements from Dr Santamaria in Melbourne, but I have also seen statements from a wide variety of authoritative sources, including the Academy of Science and the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare, which amount to the same thing. I think that the Senate Standing Committee reported that alcohol is the most widespread and insidious of all drugs in the community.
– Worse than tobacco.
– That is true, and I think Senator Baume would agree with that, although tobacco is not innocent. My memory is that at a function on nutrition which I opened it was said that obesity is the real ill of bad nutrition in this society and that alcohol is the main contributor to obesity and therefore a villain in terms of cardiovascular disease and, in an arithmetical sense, of malignancies or neoplasms. Alcohol has a bad track record altogether. I say that as a person who gave up drinking 20 years ago. So I can say it with all the purity of the reformed sinner. I therefore say it without prejudice. Senator Gietzelt asked me about the influence of the media. That, of course, comes under another responsibility than mine. It also crosses State boundaries. The printed media basically is covered by State legislation. I have no immediate answer to the question. I take it that the Senate Standing Committee has given thought to it. I will refer the question to the responsible Minister and seek a reply.
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– My question, which is directed to the Minister for Education, concerns the provision of facilities for continuing education for nurses in Tasmania. Can the Minister say whether any consideration is being given to establishing external studies for nurses in the community health field? This matter is particularly important to my State of Tasmania as there are no facilities there for continuing nursing education.
– The matter that Senator Walters has raised is being considered in the context of the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Nurse Education and Training- the Sax Committee- which I set up in co-operation with my colleague the Federal Minister for Health. The report will be considered by the Government following advice from the Tertiary Education Commission and the States. The Government will need to give this complex matter careful consideration in the coming months. It is important that post-basic nurse education courses in such fields as community health are widely available in all States. I am well aware of the keen interest of Tasmanians, particularly Tasmanian members of the nursing profession, in the need for external studies in that State. I will keep that in mind. I will certainly bring Senator Walters ‘s question to the attention of the Tertiary Education Commission.
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– Is the Attorney-General aware that there is a serious delay in the determination of matters referred to the office of the Deputy Crown Solicitor in South Australia by Federal Government departments? As these delays cause inconvenience to many citizens, can the Attorney-General say whether the delays are due to the Government’s fiscal policy and the resultant staff ceilings? If so, will he undertake immediate action to rectify the matter?
– The question was asked in very general terms indeed. I would be assisted if specific instances of the alleged delays were given to me by Senator McLaren. In any event, I will make inquiries in relation to the matter and inform the honourable senator as soon as I can.
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– I address a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. I refer to a pamphlet which sought ‘fair play’ for Australian records on Australian radio stations and to the case put yesterday by representatives of the Australian Music Makers Association. Can the Minister say whether the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal has yet decided whether the quota for Australian records should be lifted to 30 per cent with incremental increases to 40 per cent? Does the Minister agree that Australian musicians and recording artists deserve fair play and that the 20 per cent quota has already shown that this system can substantially encourage the growth of Australian talent? Does the Government support the proposed 30 per cent quota as a minimum requirement for Australian artists?
– I understand that the group mentioned by the honourable senator met with the Minister for Post and Telecommunications yesterday. I am advised that the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, in its report on self-regulation for broadcasters, recommended that there should be increasing percentages of Australian content and that from 1 May 1979 stations should increase Australian performances to 30 per cent of the time occupied by the transmission of music. So I suppose the answer to the first part of the question is yes. The Tribunal also recommended that of the time occupied by music programs not less than 10 per cent should consist of the works of Australian composers. The Government, for its part, has indicated its general endorsement of the Tribunal’s recommendations in this area and has asked the tribunal to consider specifically the desirability of continuing to foster programs which are Australian in character and which provide opportunity for Australian talent.
The Minister indicated to the delegation that he met yesterday that their objectives are not inconsistent with the Government’s policy as has been advised to the Broadcasting Tribunal. It does appear that the views of the Government, the Tribunal and the recording industry are compatible in this area. The Tribunal itself is currently discussing with the commercial radio industry the detailed implication of this recommendation. This is a matter which is properly for that industry rather than the Government.
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– I direct a question to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Have the directors of Flinders Petroleum NL called on the Minister to ensure that Aboriginal land claims do not hold up the exploitation of oil deposits in the Northern Territory? If they have, will the Minister assure the Senate and the people of Australia that any land claims on the area in question made by the Central Land Council will not be subjected to undue pressure?
– I have read somewhere -I do not know whether it was in the media or in a direct communication- that there has been a call of the sort indicated by the honourable senator. Of course, as the honourable senator would know, from time to time there have been similar requests from different mining interests. There was some publicity about this general area some time ago in a newspaper and I had to issue a statement, which no doubt the honourable senator saw, about the Government’s attitude to the Aboriginal Land Rights Act. In that statement I re-expressed, as has the Prime Minister, our commitment to the principles of that Act. I am giving this slightly longer answer to the question than the honourable senator might have wanted because I think it is important that our commitment to those principles is understood.
Certainly there should be no question of any undue pressure on any community which is seeking to advance its application for land rights before the Land Rights Commissioner. The honourable senator would be aware that last year the Northern Territory Government indicated that it would continue to freeze such applications for a period of two years to enable claims to be lodged and to be proceeded with. Certainly I have been making it clear in the discussions that I have had with the land councils that I am hopeful that they will proceed with claims in good order and at a good rate. Again, I think that is a view that the honourable senator would share with me. Certainly any question of improper or undue pressure would strongly be resisted. I do not think there is any suggestion that there is any of that about.
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– My question, which is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, concerns the China- Vietnam war and the Australian Government’s intelligence assessments as reported in yesterday’s newspapers. For example, I note a paragraph on page 1 of the Australian which reads:
An intelligence assessment of the Sino-Viet war given to the Federal Government in Canberra says the Chinese have assured senior NATO governments they intend to restrict the conflict with Vietnam to the border regions and to a short time span.
Was this Federal Government intelligence assessment of the Sino-Viet war officially or unofficially given to the Australian media by the Government? Which department gives such briefs and on what basis are they given? Will the Government present such intelligence assessments and media briefs to this Parliament and in particular give clarification of the contents of Chinese communications with Australia and other countries as to China’s intentions and goals? Finally, can it be confirmed that the media’s reporting of such well-placed intelligence assessments is not in breach of the intelligence security of the senior North Atlantic Treaty Organisation governments or of this country with whom the Chinese Government has communicated?
– I can inform the Senate that since the recent outbreak of hostilities in Indo-China, officials have given a number of background briefings to members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery and to parliamentary committees about the situation in Indo-China as it has developed. These briefings have been consistent with the policy of keeping the Australian public informed through the media about important international issues. They have been conducted in accordance with standard practice accepted both in Australia and overseas for such briefings and they in no way breach arrangements for the exchange of information which exist between the Australian Government and the governments of friendly states with which Australia has diplomatic relations. The Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate have all been offered briefings on this situation and I understand that they have responded. I cannot respond with particularity of information to Senator Teague. He did draw attention to a particular point. I can, of course, seek confirmation of it for him, but I must say that the intelligence gathering service that has been available to this Government, and to which
I have been a party by way of receipt, has shown a remarkable degree of accuracy and moderation in its reporting. It has shown great accuracy over recent months. I think it only fair that that degree of accuracy should be conveyed to the media, and that will continue to be the case.
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– My question follows that just asked by Senator Teague. Since the Minister has indicated that he will obtain specific answers for the honourable senator, I also ask whether in fact the briefings which are given to the Parliamentary Press Gallery carry with them certain requirements as to confidentiality. Will he ascertain whether the report that was quoted by Senator Teague was based on information given by a person employed by the particular newspaper who was present at the briefing and was in breach of the Government’s requirements concerning confidentiality?
– Yes, I will seek that information. Let me make it clear, in regard to my response to Senator Teague, that I will certainly seek the information requested but that would be subject to one being informed that the nature and source may be confidential and thus I may not be able to deliver it. As to Senator Wriedt ‘s question, I will be happy to comply. It is true that, as he would very well know, a certain degree of confidentiality applies to the supplying of certain information. One would hope that the media would respect it.
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– I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Transport whether the Minister is aware that Bass Strait is one of the most heavily trafficked seaways in the Southern Hemisphere and, for that matter, in the world? Is the Minister also aware that significant oil and other exploration and research activity is being undertaken in that area, together with heavy fisheries and recreational activities? Further, is he aware that the waters of Bass Strait will be the major training waters for the Australian Maritime College? Is it a fact that there are no modern navigation aids in Bass Strait? Will the Minister request the Minister for Transport to consider establishing Loran, Decca or some other modern navigation aid in the Bass Strait area, in the interests of not only maritime safety and environmental protection from oil spillage but also increased efficiency of operations and training?
– I am aware of the activities taking place in Bass Strait with respect to oil, fisheries and recreation, but I am not aware that it is one of the most heavily trafficked seaways in the Southern Hemisphere. I will take Senator Rae’s word for that. I know that he traffics through the area a good deal and has direct experience of it. I am also aware, because of the placement there of the Australian Maritime College, that it is a major training area. I will refer his statement that there are no modern navigation aids in the area to the Minister for Transport and seek a response on the specific suggestions that he has made.
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– I ask the Minister representing the Minister for Finance the following question: In view of the Minister’s statement, in his letter of resignation, that he could not give unqualified support to the Prime Minister, and in view of his statement in re-accepting the position that he fully supported the Prime Minister, am I to take it that his attitude is that whilst he gives the Prime Minister his full support he does so with qualifications? If this is a correct interpretation, what are the qualifications that the Minister puts on the support that he gives to the Prime Minister?
– Two statements were made by the Minister for Finance. One was his letter of resignation and the other was his statement to the Parliament yesterday. In the latter he asserted his loyalty to the Prime Minister and to the Government. I have nothing to add to that. He made no qualification of the support which he gave to the Prime Minister or to the Government and I believe that the statement which he made yesterday adequately describes his own attitudes at present.
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– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. I ask the Minister whether he has heard reports that, of the doctors registered to practice in Australia, one in three do not actually live here and that they are paying the registration fees as some sort of insurance should they decide to return to Australia. I ask: Can the Minister say whether these figures are correct? If they are, will the Minister take steps to see thai doctors registered in Australia practise in Australia, or have good and valid reasons why they remain on the register even though they are living overseas?
– That question is one I will need to direct to the Minister for Health. I will see that Senator Young’s inquiry is drawn to the Minister’s attention and see what response he wishes to make to it.
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– My question is directed to the Minister for Science. Can the Minister inform Parliament of the likely date that his Government will declare the Great Barrier Reef a marine park?
-The short answer to that question is that I am unable to give a date on which that will be done. I think the honourable senator will be aware that in the matter of defining the responsibilities in relation to off-shore waters and the constitutional problem that came up following the High Court judgment, giving the Commonwealth right over territorial waters, it has been necessary for the Commonwealth and the Queensland Government to enter into discussions relating to this matter. Of course the proclamation of the Reef as a marine park will await the outcome of those discussions.
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– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. Government-funded inquiries have in the past made recommendations and findings which have often called for the creation of boards, commissions or other statutory authorities. Frequently the inquirers end up as appointees to the statutory bodies which are virtually children of their own creation. Will earnest consideration be given to excluding those who sit on boards of inquiry from positions on statutory authorities created as a result of their deliberations? Will the Government ensure that those who make recommendations are not seen to subsequently benefit from them?
– I think we are all aware of Parkinson’s law and I think Senator Rae and his committee have added something to our store of knowledge in the recent past. I must say that long years ago as a student I cut my teeth on the teachings of a then Professor Bland, later a member of this Parliament, who believed that statutory corporations were one of the great new and developing instrumentalities for government. I think we would need to qualify that judgment now. I am not aware of the selfperpetuating tendency about which Senator Rocher speaks. I have not been aware of persons on inquiries finding themselves on the board or statutory authority which they recommended, but I shall certainly take the question of Senator Rocher and bring it to the attention of the Prime Minister and other responsible Ministers.
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– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. I wonder whether the Government has devised any revision of its family reunion policy in regard to those Australian sponsors of Iranian origin who are seeking to bring relatives here who happen to be of nonMoslem belief and who are a bit apprehensive that the new Government will discriminate against those people who are not Moslems.
– The Government keeps potential refugee situations around the world under continuing review. The situation as it might affect people in Iran is still confused and no clear indication of the new government’s attitude to Iran’s religious and ethnic minorities has yet emerged. The matter is under continuing study. It is not believed that any general relaxation of normal migration policy relating to residents of Iran is warranted at this stage, but all individual applications will be considered in the light of the particular circumstances. Senator Mulvihill is very active on behalf of people who wish to make representation. In particular circumstances the Minister will take into account all the matters that will affect such applications.
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– I ask a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry. Press reports have stated that the British trawler Othello has been taken into port in Hobart by the Tasmanian Fisheries patrol vessel acting as agent for the Commonwealth Fisheries. Can the Minister advise why the Othello was taken into port? What is the nature of that vessel ‘s current charter in relation to fishing in Tasmanian or other State waters? Have any charges been made? Is the Othello still detained?
-My understanding is that the Othello was ordered to Hobart for investigation of a suspected contravention of the terms of its Commonwealth boat licence. The Othello is currently licensed under the Fisheries Act 1952 to fish in proclaimed waters adjacent to Western Australia and to the south of Australia as far east as 135 degrees east, which is in the approximate vicinity of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. No charges have been laid at this time as reports of the investigation have not yet been finalised. The Othello departed Hobart on the afternoon of 23 February 1979.
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– My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Is he the other Minister who was on the brink of resigning last Friday? Did he discuss the matter with his parliamentary colleagues?
– The answers to the honourable senators questions are no, no.
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– My question is addressed to Senator Carrick in his capacity as Leader of the Government in the Senate and also in his capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Defence. The Leader of the Government will appreciate that, despite increasing sales of wine, most Australians still prefer a glass of beer. I draw attention to the effect on the Victorian hotel industry of the increase in penalties for drunken driving which were introduced by the Victorian Government prior to the Christmas season. I refer to the tragic and all-too-frequent instances of injury or loss of life due to alcohol-linked driving accidents and, perhaps on a slightly less sombre note, to the fitness and fatness of some Australians, including Defence personnel and even some people in ministerial offices. I ask: Will the Government consider pressing Australian brewers to produce a new low alcohol content and low calorie beer as an alternative to present beers? In the interests of physical fitness and public safety, will the Minister for Defence assist in promoting the introduction of such alternative beers into Service canteens and other outlets under his control?
-I think the question of low alcohol content beer and low calorie beer has been investigated on many occasions. No doubt it was investigated by Senator Baume ‘s Committee. A great deal of thought has been given to this matter throughout the world. However, as I understand it, not many conclusive results have been achieved. I understand that the brewers themselves are interested not only in the alcoholic content of beer but also in its dietetic content; in other words, the ability of the human system to handle large volumes of beer. That matter in itself might well be looked at. I have no specific knowledge of the matter at all. I will refer the matter to the Minister concerned.
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The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter dated 28 February 1979 from Senator Harradine:
Dear Mr President,
Pursuant to Standing Order 64 I give notice that today I shall move-
That in the opinion of the Senate the following is a matter of urgency:
The post-Depression record levels of unemployment and the failure to face the social as well as economic aspects of the problem. ‘
Yours sincerely, BRIAN HARRADINE Senator for Tasmania
Is the motion supported?
More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places-
– I move:
I make no apologies for placing this matter before the Senate as a matter of urgency. The question of unemployment has attracted only one urgency motion in the last 12 months. I believe that on this the first occasion after record postDepression unemployment figures have been posted it is necessary for the Senate to give its attention, if only for three hours, to this very pressing issue. I raise it not in anger but in the hope that the debate will produce some informed and unemotional contributions which will go to the heart of the matter. The motion is deliberately worded. It does not say ‘the failure of the Government to face the social as well as economic aspects of the problem’. I believe that the Government is only one of the parties which have failed to do so.
The community is looking for answers. More and more people are becoming concerned with unemployment and its growth. These are not just the unemployed, the parents of teenagers looking for work, one of the family of the breadwinner out of work or one of the growing number genuinely concerned that the danger lights are already flashing; the concern is widespread throughout the community. It is justly placed. What did we see last Friday? We saw an announcement by the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs (Mr Viner) that nationally almost 500,000 persons are registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service as seeking full time jobs. I emphasise the words ‘full time’. In my State of Tasmania the figure topped the 15,000 mark for the first time. In Tasmania 15,344 persons are registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service as seeking full time work.
– In South Australia there are 45,000.
– In South Australia there are 45,000 of them. I do not denigrate for one moment the work of the officers of the Commonwealth Employment Service or the Minister. Indeed, in my State the Commonwealth Employment Service has had a successful job search campaign. But they would be the first to admit that job search is no substitute for job creation. What happened after the announcement of those record unemployment figures? We had the usual spate of statements that full employment would return when the economy came good. That has been repeated again this week. Depending on who made the statement, it is all the fault of the Government or it has all been the fault of the Opposition, the unions or the multinationals. These things are only partly true. The whole truth is not being told and, therefore, is not being faced.
Simply stated, the problem is that there are more people in paid employment or seeking paid employment than there are jobs at a time when new job creation continues to be slashed by technological change. Unless we realise that the problem has a social aspect as well as an economic aspect I believe that Australia will have more than one million permanently unemployed by the mid-1980s. (Quorum formed).
The current preoccupation with economic solutions alone will not overcome the problem. It is not that a concentration on the economic attack is not warranted. Of course it is warranted to reduce inflation. Of course problems arose in the 1973-74 period. Preoccupation with the economic aspects alone will not reduce and has not reduced the problem. Do not forget that in the last five years unemployment has increased more than five times. In a position paper the Australian Council of Trade Unions indicated the enormity of the problem if only the economic aspect is considered. The position paper that was forwarded to affiliated unions for discussion and comment- I will refer to it in detail later- when referring to unemployment had this to say:
The reality is that with the level of unemployment expected to soar past the 500,000 mark in February 1 979, the task of bringing down unemployment will be extremely difficult. The appropriate reaction may therefore involve harder options, more effective concentrated union activity and changed priorities within our objectives.
Then the ACTU position paper continues:
The medium term prospects for the Australian economy are bleak. We face an environment where at least 700,000 new jobs need to be found over the next seven years even if we were concerned simply to contain unemployment at existing high levels.
Achievement of a two per cent unemployment rate by 1984-85 requires an output growth rate of between six per cent to seven per cent each year for the next seven years- a growth rate twice our historical average and almost three times as great as our most recent experience.
The biggest percentage of the unemployed is made up of young people. We hear people say that they are a lot of dole bludgers and that anybody who wants work can get it. That is just not true. Certainly some of the unemployed, and some other people as well, could not work in an iron lung. There are certain groups amongst the unemployed who are politically exploiting the unemployed but they are in a minority. Just ask any parent with a school-leaver daughter. With the labour market over supplied and new jobs being taken by automation, including word processors, teenage girls are the hardest, and will be the hardest to place in jobs. Of all the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, next to Italy Australia has the highest unemployment rate amongst people under the age of 24 years. It is not only the ACTU that expresses concern. Mr George Polites, director of the National Employers Consultative Council, said this last year:
If this situation is allowed to continue for any extended period, the economic costs will pale into insignificance compared to the price we will eventually pay in terms of social, economic and political disruption and dislocation.
Faced with this gloomy outlook, would you, Mr Deputy President, allow jobs to be destroyed by the wholesale application of automation and technological change? Would you force people to stay in the paid work force when they have good reasons to be out of the very jobs which could be taken by the unemployed? That is precisely what is happening and nothing is being done about it. Too many people at both State and Federal government level worship at the altar of automation. For example, the Premier of Tasmania, Mr Lowe, had this to say so far as automation was concerned at the recent computer conference. I did not believe this until I picked it up in the media. Under the heading Computers Worth Job Cost’, the Premier was reported as follows:
The Premier, Mr Lowe, yesterday supported the development of computer technology- even at the cost of losing jobs.
Mr Lowe said it was beyond dispute that computers replaced labour. But to discourage computer industry could also now make unemployment worse.
On Tuesday, 20 February, the Minister for Productivity (Mr Macphee), said:
No one pretends that there are not problems inherent in the introduction of new technology.
He went on to say:
The solution to these problems does not, however, lie in delaying technological progress. Feelings of fear, insecurity and pessimism, while understandable emotions, must not be allowed to cloud people’s judgment, or make them lose sight of the positive and inevitable advantages of technological change.
He then made this bold statement:
Put simply, more jobs are put at risk by failing to introduce new and innovative technology than by grasping the nettle and ensuring that we keep abreast of technological innovation.
I am the last person to put my head in the sand on the question of technology, technological change and automation. Many years ago when I was involved with the Federated Clerks Union, its Federal President, Mr J. P. Maynes- he is still Federal President- was the first person to see the problems that would emerge as a result of automation and technological change, particularly in the computer area. He laid down a plan which was later adopted by the trade union movement but, unfortunately, not put into effect overall. That plan included the establishment of a technological change committee which would monitor the application of technological change to ensure that the change was for the good, both industrially and socially.
No doubt in response the Minister will point to the establishment by the Minister for Productivity of a committee of inquiry into technological change. That is too late. Let that committee go ahead but let there be some committee with powers, both in the States and federally, to call a halt to the wholesale application of technological change in those industries which do not have to compete overseas. Admittedly, industries which must compete overseas must keep abreast of change. However, in the Public Service and in the banking and insurance industries, for example, why go to the length of introducing word processors which destroy the jobs of 22,000 people? Ah, but no existing employee will lose her job, assure the heads of the Public Service departments and those in the banking industry. Sure, but those thousands of jobs are denied forever to the young school-leavers. This is the very thing that has closed off many thousands of job opportunities in other fields over the last ten years. Why not call a halt to the introduction of job destroying technology in the public services and in at least those industries which do not have to compete overseas so that the social and economic costs can be fully considered? The committee established by the Minister for Productivity is not empowered to do that.
Last year while overseas I visited a supermarket being run by seven people- five in the front and two at the back. An equivalent supermarket in Australia would employ from 60 to 80 people. The customer uses a metal disc to register items taken off the shelf which automatically refills and the bill falls out of the computer into the hands of the solitary check-out cashier. As President of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, I give honourable senators the assurance that that sort of thing will not be permitted in our area until we are certain that it is necessary for the good of the whole community. We should be supported in that effort.
What are the other social problems? While there are more people in or seeking employment than there are jobs the unemployment level will remain high. There is a simple answer- reduce the number of people seeking work. Over 43 per cent of all married women are in the paid work force. Most recent surveys have shown that most of them have been forced there through economic pressures. Indeed, the results of the surveys that are available to me indicate quite clearly that this is the case. Why not give those people the option of leaving the paid work force if they wish? No person should be compelled to leave the paid work force; nor should any person be discriminated against. There should be a true freedom of choice. But that freedom of choice is not available to the vast number of married women with dependent children who are forced into the work force through the economic circumstances. Nor should any family be forced, by economic or other reasons, to have both partners of a marriage working in the paid work force if that is to the detriment of the family. These are the issues that should be raised and raised in a logical, unemotional fashion so they can be examined. Let us look at the results of the surveys that have been undertaken. There is no time, in speaking to this urgency motion, to detail the results of all of those surveys that have been undertaken, but they are available to the Government, to the trade union movement, and to the employers. Why not consider the lifting of family allowances and the payment of a realistic homemakers allowance which would relieve the economic pressure and provide an opportunity for thousands of married women to leave the paid work force? Their jobs, theoretically, could be taken by the unemployed, who this year will be paid almost $1 billion in unemployment benefit. It has been estimated that if only 9 per cent of the married women in the work force responded to this opportunity there would be no teenage unemployment. Of course, there are other factors which influence an employer to employ a mature person rather than a teenager.
One of the problems, of course, is the problem of a lack of education. It was interesting to note that last year the Council for Adult Literacy asserted that in Tasmania there were likely to be 50,000 illiterates. As a Tasmanian I would assume that that figure, in percentage terms, would be greater in other States. Before that the Chairman of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Specific Learning Difficulties released the details of a survey that showed that more than half the nation’s illiterates were between 15 and 25 years of age, that 25 per cent of the 14-year-olds tested could not cope with reading a newspaper and that only 18 per cent of the 10-year-olds tested were able to transcribe a passage of 48 words without errors of spelling or facts.
If these claims were only half true it would be a damning indictment of” those trendies who have substituted educational fairy floss for the achievement of basic skills. Honourable senators know the type. They dish up to their students material in which fact and opinion are inexplicably mixed and they do so at a stage in the lives of those students when they are incapable of judging the validity of either. The net result is that many students leave school actually knowing very little and full of half-baked opinions about what they do not know. We have a situation now where some people are saying as was said during the Hamer employment conference, that we should be educating people for unemployment. I was amused at the response made by Mr Polites when he said:
At this point I think I should say something about the view being expressed in some circles that with lower economic growth and consequently fewer employment opportunities being created, educational institutions should begin ‘educating people for unemployment’. Let me say that there is nothing new about this . . .
– It is a pretty narrow sort of statement from the conference.
– Let me make it perfectly clear that these are the minority but concern must be expressed.
As well as giving married women a true freedom of choice, my suggestion would do something for the population. The Minister for Productivity (Mr MacPhee) quite rightly has said that Australian industry already faces enormous competitive pressures in both domestic and export markets. He has made the point that we have a small domestic market. We need to look at just where we are going with our population rate. We need to encourage a greater number of people in this country in both senses of the word. Again I ask: Why not look at the question of changing the hours of work? Why not look at the question of phasing in to retirement those people who desire to retire and prepare them for the new lifestyle that, for them, retirement presents?
Instead, so often we hear panaceas being prattled to the Press, such as panaceas about sharing the work, extending trading hours and abolishing penalty rates.
– Work sharing.
– Work sharing. These are panaceas and they should be exposed as such. I still have not received the assurance that I sought from the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs that his undertaking to the employers that he would support them in a reexamination of the penalty rates situation would not result in casualisation and moonlighting of the industries mentioned. I have a reply to that question, but nowhere in the reply is that assurance given. It is an assurance that surely must be given before any realistic approach to the problem can be expected. The Minister may say that there has been established by the National Labour Consultative Council a committee under the chairmanship of Mr Trethowan, to examine the effects on the labour market in Australia, with particular reference to young people, of the following factors: The effect of particular aspects on unemployment of labour costs such as penalty rates, rates of pay for juniors, other labour costs affecting the employment of young people and so on. The union representatives on that committee justifiably say that its considerations are preempted by the bias of the terms of reference. I will give one figure for consideration. My union in Victoria, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association, has done its homework and research, and since the extended trading hours pattern came into effect in Victoria 10,000 permanent jobs have been destroyed. Let us as a Senate raise this issue. Let us ensure that, as well as the economic factors and the drive for overseas exports, those social aspects are also considered. Unless we do that, the problems of unemployment will not go away, they will only increase.
- Senator Harradine has introduced for debate this afternoon as a matter of urgency the following proposition:
The post-Depression record levels of unemployment and the failure to face the social as well economic aspects of the problem.
I must concede that Senator Harradine has presented his case in a very thoughtful and restrained manner and has not sought, as so often happens in debate in this chamber on subjects such as unemployment and other lively political issues, to blame the Government entirely for the problem that he sees. However, he has implied that blame is to be attached to the Government as well as to other institutions and bodies in the community. On behalf of the Government, in speaking this afternoon, to this debate, I propose to mention some of the policies and initiatives that the Government has taken in regard to these matters and to dispel any suggestion that the Government is to blame for the state of affairs.
Judging from some of those senators who rose to support Senator Harradine, I have no doubt that later in this debate we will hear some pretty strong criticisms of the Government. It is for that reason that I propose to confine my remarks to the policies and initiatives which the Government has taken. Senator Harradine has referred to the failure to face the social as well as the economic aspects of the problem. I certainly agree that there are social as well as economic problems in regard to the levels of unemployment we have today. Senator Harradine said that unemployment is not an economic problem alone, and certainly it has social consequences and effects on many people, particularly young people. Nevertheless, it is clear from his speech, and this is undeniable, that the solution to the problem resides largely, if not entirely, in economic policies.
Senator Harradine spent a good deal of his address, and I thought that this was one of the more refreshing aspects of it, dealing with certain issues that go to deeper considerations than those that are usually brought forward in debates on this subject. He referred particularly to problems relating to the structure of the modern Western work force- work practices, hours of work, retirement levels and so on. He also stressed his concern about technological change. Senator Harradine foreshadowed that the Government would make reference to some of its own initiatives in this area, and I propose to do so because I think that they are important and timely initiatives. It is wrong to say, as Senator Harradine has said, that they have come too late. I think that they have come at a time when these subjects are appropriate for deeper consideration than is given to them in the ordinary political debate.
On 1 December 1978 the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) announced two initiatives of significance in the Government’s determination to gain the postive benefits of technological innovation and a better understanding of labour marker questions, both points that Senator Harradine stressed. I think it is important to emphasise that the Government is not seeking to arrest the development of technological change, which we have had with us for decades, if not centuries. We will and can benefit greatly from technological change, as modern Western society has benefited greatly over the years. We need to organise our affairs not in order to arrest change or to prevent it occurring but in order to benefit from it. One of the committees announced by the Prime Minister is a tripartite committee comprised of government, union and industry representatives under the chairmanship of Mr B. Trethowan. I want to refer to its terms of reference because Senator Harradine did not do so. They state:
The Committee’s terms of reference are to examine the effects on employment, particularly of young people, of the following factors:
1 ) the effect of particular aspects of labour costs on employment, e.g. penalty rates, rates of pay for juniors;
the effect of working patterns on employment, e.g. weekend work, part time work;
the importance and utilisation of qualifications, especially trade skills, obtained through migration;
the labour relations aspects of technological change;
the effect on job opportunities of different sectors of the labour force of changes in participation rates of other sectors.
The other committee of inquiry announced on the same day by the Prime Minister is under the chairmanship of Professor Myers, the ViceChancellor of the University of New South Wales. Its terms of reference state:
Committee of Inquiry to examine, report and make recommendations on the process of technological change in Australian industry in order to maximise economic, social and other benefits and minimise any possible adverse consequences.
In particular, Committee is to:
identify and make detailed studies of important aspects arising from:
technological change which is occurring or is likely to occur in Australia;
new technologies which have the potential for substantial impact in Australia.
examine relevant overseas experience and studies of technological change and to assess mechanisms used to introduce and evaluate new techologies
review the effectiveness of Government policies and programs in facilitating the introduction of new technology.
The Government’s awareness of these problems is not confined simply to the initiatives announced on 1 December last year. Some time ago- I do not have the date with me- the Government established a most important committee under the chairmanship of Professor Williams, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney, to report to it on the relationship between education and training. I understand that that committee is about to report to the Government after having conducted a most wide ranging inquiry into this whole area. I think that the report will be of great importance and interest to the Government, to the Parliament, and, no doubt, to those many people in industry and unions who are so concerned about this problem. I think part and parcel of the problem we face is the difficulty young people from educational institutions experience in endeavouring to move smoothly into the work force and to acquire the skills necessary to meet the modern demands of employers.
I would like to refer to some statistics about the employment of school leavers. We have heard a lot about the problem. The Government is not running away from it. As I have indicated from the initiatives that we have taken, the Government recognises that a problem exists. I think that we ought to be fully conscious of the success of young people in moving into employment and should not just concentrate on the problems. If we do so I think we could lose perspective in this area very easily. The latest survey of the Australian Bureau of Statistics on school leavers was announced in August 1978. The Bureau defined school leavers as persons leaving schools, universities or other educational institutions. It found that 94.9 per cent of all school leavers were in the labour force. Of the total of 256,000 school leavers, 80.5 per cent were employed full time, 6.7 per cent were employed part time and 12.8 per cent were unemployed. The overwhelming proportion of school leavers- 87 per cent- was employed, and 80 per cent of them were employed full time.
Despite the problems that exist, the overwhelming proportion of what was the largest number of people to leave educational institutions and enter the work force in 1978 was employed. In 1977 the total number of school leavers was 218,000. The percentage unemployed in 1977 was 15 per cent as against 12.8 per cent in 1978. In 1976, 17.7 per cent of the 157,500 school leavers were unemployed. In 1975, 16.3 per cent of the 182,000 school leavers were unemployed. The percentage of school leavers who failed to obtain employment in the years 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1978 decreased. I simply cite these figures not to run away from the problem and not to deny that a problem exists but to show the perspective of the problem and to show, as I have done, that the overwhelming proportion of young people entering the work force obtained full time employment.
I think that I have referred sufficiently to the points that Senator Harradine raised. I have given the Government’s response to those problems. I now propose to turn to some matters of economic policy. It is the Government’s view, despite what may be achieved by the initiatives it has taken, by attempts to grapple with the problems and by some of the solutions suggested by Senator Harradine, that nevertheless the problem of unemployment can be solved only by the Government’s pursuing sound economic policies which lead to the creation of new jobs in the community and not to the loss of jobs which is the experience we suffered dramatically in 1974 and 1975 under our predecessors. In 1974 the completely misguided economic policies, the rapidly rising government expenditures, the rapidly rising inflation, the across the board tariff cuts and the other matters all resulted in a most dramatic increase in the level of unemployment in Australia in modern times.
We believe that the only way in which we will be able to return to lower levels of unemployment is by achieving lower levels of inflation and higher levels of investment demand. Thereby real jobs will be created, not artificial jobs, not the palliatives which have been suggested such as the sharing of jobs, the reduction of hours of work, of getting married women out of the work force and so on. These matters at best can be only palliatives. The Government is seeking to achieve real and secure jobs for as many people in the community as desire to work and are prepared to take advantage of them. That is the policy that the Government is pursuing.
The Government has concentrated, we believe rightly, on reducing the high level of inflation which we consider to have been the basic cause of the problems that we have been facing in recent years. We consider that some signs indicate that we have turned the corner and that we are returning to higher levels of investment and the creation of new jobs and demand in the community. I think this is clear from some recent statistics. They reveal that firstly, that the levels of inflation have been reduced. Figures show that for the year ended 1978 the level of inflation was the lowest it had been since 1972. Further, the figures for the last few months of 1978 showed an increase each month in civilian employment. As at November 1978 the number in civilian employment was 21,500 over that of the previous month. The total increase for the period June 1978 to December 1978 amounted to 34,800. This increase in civilian employment, mostly in the private sector, is a very encouraging sign indeed. There have been other indications also. For example, the amount of overtime that is being worked is increasing. The Bureau of Statistics’ seasonally adjusted figures on overtime reveal that in June the average hours of overtime worked per employee per week in the larger private factories was 2.5 while in December it was 2.99.
– Doesn’t that only prove that there is considerable under-manning?
– Of course the first indication of any upturn in that area would be an increase in the amount of overtime being worked. That would be the way in which people would first seek to solve the problem of increased demand. I am simply saying that it is a sign of recovery and ultimately, if it continues, people will want to take on more employees. They will not be using increased overtime as the way in which to solve the problem. In December retail sales rose by 4.4 per cent. Production statistics released in January 1979 show strong growth in basic materials and some consumer durable components. There also has been an increase in the number of vacancies registered at the Commonwealth Employment Service. For instance, in January 1979, the last month for which figures are available, the increase in the number of vacancies was 6,918.
From the examples I have given it can be seen that there are some very encouraging indications that the economy at last is getting back onto sound levels of activity and that there is considerable support for the policies that the Government has been following. I think that there are some very sound reasons for confidence in the future. Incidentally, I think it is important to emphasise that there is growing confidence in the business world. It is very difficult to measure in statistical terms a matter such as confidence, but no doubt statistical evidence, such as that which I have just been citing, helps to generate greater confidence. Certainly it has been observed by many people that for the first time in a long time there is increased confidence in the business sector of our community.
The Department of Industry and Commerce does a survey twice a year of major manufacturing and mining projects. On the basis of committed and final feasibility projects, the Department has produced a national figure of $7.5 billion being committed to investment in mining, manufacturing and related sectors. I do not propose to go through all the details but I did want to mention that figure. Some of the major activities now taking place probably would be well known to all honourable senators but it may be worth reminding the Senate of them. For example, ICI Australia Ltd is proposing to build a new plant, costing $400m, at Botany, New South Wales, for its petro-chemical industry. General MotorsHolden’s Ltd is building a car engine plant in the Melbourne area estimated to cost over $200m. Comalco Ltd, in conjunction with other companies, is proposing an investment of $500m in an alumina smelter at Gladstone, Queensland. As I said, I do not propose to go through all the details because they are contained in the survey released by the Department of Industry and Commerce, but I do make the point that the investment committed to final feasibility projects amounts to $7.5 billion.
This is a clear indication of the success of the Government’s policies. They have been pursued vigorously by the Government in the face of a good deal of criticism, certainly from the Opposition. But it has been necessary to pursue these rigorous policies of expenditure restraint in order to effect reductions in the level of inflation. Clearly inflation was the root cause of our economic problems. These policies have succeeded in reducing inflation, as I have said, to a level which at present is lower than we have known in Australia since 1972.
– It has increased unemployment to record levels.
– The dramatic increases in the rates of unemployment occurred in 1974- the same time as there were dramatic increases in inflation. We had the two together. But by reducing inflation and thereby encouraging investment, increasing confidence and increasing demand, more jobs will be created and the level of unemployment will be reduced.
This still leaves us with some of the problems regarding unemployment to which Senator Harradine has been referring. There are the problems associated with technological change and proper education, training and employment. Further, there are problems within the structure of the work force, the organisation of the work force and so on. The Government is not denying that these problems exist and that they will continue for some time. But it is our belief- I think we have sound grounds for it- that the situation will improve. As I have said, the levels of unemployment that we have been experiencing in Australia and their associated problems, which Senator Harradine has pointed out and which we do not deny, are levels which we are most anxious to reduce. But the basic solution to those problems will come with the development of a sound and strong economy, and the creation thereby of solid and secure jobs for all those in the community who wish to take advantage of them.
However, as I have said, that will not be the sole solution. I know that there are other problems and to tackle these problems the Government has taken the initiative of establishing the committees to which I referred in some detail at the beginning of my speech. Certainly it is of advantage that we should have a discussion about them here but I want to emphasise- I have not had an opportunity in the time available this afternoon- some of the measures that the Government has taken in other areas to deal with the accompanying social problems. I have in mind the Special Youth Employment Training Program, the Community Youth Support Scheme, the Relocation Assistance Scheme and other programs which I have outlined on a number of occasions in answer to questions in debates on the subject.
The Government, by those schemes, has revealed its concern for the social aspects of the problem. It has further revealed that concern by the committees that it has established and their terms of reference. It will continue to pursue amelioration of the social aspects of unemployment and its problems as well as pursuing economic policies which, there is already clear evidence, are working and concerning which I believe in the near future even greater evidence will be provided by way of investment levels, as I have indicated, and the confidence that is at last being restored in our community. (Quorum formed)
-Mr Deputy President-
– Where are the members of the Opposition?
– How many Labor senators are present?
– I realise that those honourable senators opposite who interject have no concern about the problem that we are debating; but that is their business. They continue to joke about the problem of unemployment. Senator Harradine, in putting down his motion of urgency this afternoon, worded it deliberately, as he said, in a non-provocative and nonattacking manner. The subject matter of the motion reads:
The post-Depression record levels of unemployment and the failure to face the social as well as economic aspects of the problem.
The honourable senator called for an unemotional debate on the subject and asked the Senate to take a calm and serious look at what is a very real problem. It is a pity that the first speaker to respond on behalf of the Government took the motion to be an attack and replied by merely defending the Government’s record and reciting some of the things that the Government claims to have done for the unemployed in the three years that it has been in power. As Senator Harradine has said, we are facing a very serious problem. It is one, I might add, which members on this side of the chamber have been talking about for three years and which until relatively recently- in the course of a major speech by the Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Street- the Government did not recognise as such. Until then we had Ministers denying that unemployment existed at all in this country.
– What nonsense.
-The term used by the Minister for Finance, Mr Eric Robinson was that unemployment was a myth. That was said some 12 months ago. So my statement was hardly nonsense. Senator Harradine pointed out that we should look at the question in an unemotional manner. At times that is difficult. It is difficult when many of us have teenage children who are about to leave school. It is difficult when many of us have so many young school leavers and the middle-aged people who have been put out of work by the sort of technological changes that Senator Harradine talks about seeing us in our constituency offices and seeking work or help with their problems. It is also difficult to treat it in an unemotional manner when it is treated, in the media of this country and by members of various political parties, in a very emotional way. It is appropriate that this debate should be held on a day when an article has appeared in the Bulletin over the by-line of one Mr Peter Samuel. The article represents a continuation of the attack that we have seen, over the last four or five years on the unemployed of this country. I shall come back to that article, but it is full of statements which have no backing or evidence to support them in any way.
Whatever we say about unemployment and whatever statistics we throw around, it is cleardespite the statements of Senator Durack and the claim of many on the Government side and in the community that unemployment is not as bad as it may seem to be- that all of the figures that we have seen over the last few years, no matter how quantitatively accurate, go in the same direction. They have continued to go in the same direction for the last 3Vi to 4 years. Inexorably the rate of unemployment in this country has increased. The number of people receiving unemployment benefit has increased at about the same rate as has the number of unemployed, whether that number be measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics or the Commonwealth Employment Service. I repeat, the percentage of people receiving unemployment benefit has remained at about the same level over the same period, and the number of unfilled vacancies has increased. A figure that has increased even more seriously is that for the duration of the period for which people receive unemployment benefit. This has risen until now it is on the average some 23.2 weeks.
Therefore, the problem has increasingly become more serious. I am glad that members on the Government side agree with us on that. There are real social, economic and technological problems involved in unemployment. Senator Harradine touched on them and in the very short time that I have available to me I shall touch on one or two of them also. Like most people in this Parliament, I am not a Luddite. I do not believe, nor should any member of this Parliament, that we can turn our backs on technological change, but we are as Senator Harradine has said, confronted with a very real problem in the nature and rate of technological change as it affects the employment situation of this country. Technological change, which started in the industrial revolution, seemed to be the answer to many of man’s problems. At the time it was. It replaced man’s labour; it replaced his misery; it made his work life more tolerable; it increased productivity; and it was responsible for many of the improvements which have taken place in our civilisation over the last couple of hundred years. As we know, the people who were then displaced by technological change went into communications, into the service areas and into the clerical areas. As has been pointed out by many people, the problem that now arises is that it is in these areas that the technological changes are eroding employment prospects. Where do these people go who are being displaced from communications, from service industries and from clerical industries? They have nowhere to go at the moment and as a community we have not done anything to assist them. In fact I suggest that the Government has accelerated this change and this tendency to move people out of these areas by the introduction of technological change and by allowing some $500m each year on investment allowances. This has resulted in an increased use of technology and the displacement of men and women in the work force.
This problem is serious and it is getting more serious. It is not just confined to the areas of word processors as Senator Harradine mentioned. It goes through all the tertiary sectors in our community. It is very nice that Senator Durack can get up and say that we have committees looking at that situation, at technological change in government departments, and at the need to educate people in the community to enable them to cope with this technological change. What we also need to do is to look carefully at how much of this technological change is occurring just for the sake of change and at how much we can arrest or slow down the change while the community prepares itself which it has not done in the past. If we do not do this we will get to a situation in many areas of our country, such as we have in the western suburbs of Sydney, where some 50 per cent of our youth is unemployed. These are children from unemployed families where unemployment is becoming a way of life for several generations who live in the same street, the same house and the same suburb. People will tolerate unemployment and being disadvantaged only if they can see a hope at the end, if they can see a reason for their unemployment and if they can see a light at the end of the tunnel. The Prime Minister says that we must all suffer and that life must not be easy so that we can get out of this situation. If people can see no hope then we will get real social problems. We then get a situation in the community where people want to start pulling things down. They want to replace the society in which they live with another society and they are frequently not sure with what they will replace it. We need more than just committees. We need more than shortterm panaceas. I suggest we need more than attempts- like the one suggested by Senator Harradine- to take 9 per cent or so of the married women out of the work force.
In other countries such as the United Kingdom, Denmark and Belgium, schemes of voluntary early retirement have been tried and are being tried at the moment in an endeavour to overcome the very difficult problem we have of structural unemployment. They have not succeeded because they have been introduced too late. We are not the only country that is looking at this problem too late. Such schemes have been introducedatastagewhenpeopleinthecom- munity have not been able to prepare themselves for the possibility of early retirement. If we introduce voluntary early retirement- I believe we should- we must introduce with it an opportunity for members of the community to educate themselves in order to cope with that situation and to cope with the problem which, five or ten years ago they thought they would not have to face.
I agree with the mover of the motion that we must look at this problem in an unemotional manner and as a united society if we can. We must stop denigrating the unemployed and condemning them for the state that they are in, implying that they are cheats and that the reason for their state is their own fault. That brings me finally to an article today by Mr Peter Samuel which is called ‘The huge and costly dole estimate foul-up’. Mr Samuel makes several assertions in his article which I believe should be exposed as assertions only, and at times should be corrected. For instance he states:
On recent trends it will not be long before those on the dole exceed the Bureau of Statistics estimates of the unemployed . . .
The implication is that the number on unemployment benefits is increasing and, if the rest of the article is read, it will show that the number is increasing because people are cheating. I point out for the benefit of members of this chamber that since 1976 the percentage of registered unemployed getting unemployment benefits, in fact, has averaged about 70 per cent. There is no trend to suggest that it is getting any higher, let alone that it will overtake the number of unemployed. The figure for November 1978 was 69.9 per cent; for December 1978, 68.9 per cent; and for January 1979, 69.2 per cent. Mr Samuel further states:
Dole-cheating has become quite an industry in its own, with estimates of its extent ranging between50,000 and 150,000 of the 340,000 on the dole.
He produces no evidence to support this statement. In the 15 months between January 1976 and March 1977 there were only 123 prosecutions for fraud for unemployment benefits and 16 of these failed. My time has run out. I am sorry that I cannot complete my criticisms and corrections of Mr Samuel’s article. I will do so at a later date and I thank the Senate for this short opportunity to speak. (Quorum formed).
-I draw the Senate’s attention to the fact that every time unemployment and the Depression is mentioned, we get an emotional tirade from honourable senators opposite that things have never been so bad since the days of the Depression. By implication they are comparing the figures of today with the figures of the Depression years. When Senator Harradine moved this motion and before he explained it, my immediate reaction was that here we go again comparing the Depression days with today. What he said following his moving of the motion really does not explain why he is comparing today’s figures with those of the Depression days. So I would like to draw the Senate’s attention to the figures for those years. The total number of people employed in the work force in 1933 was 2,681,000. Now it is 6,367,000 people. There is quite a difference between those figures. In 1975 the total number of people in the work force was 6,078,200. As I said previously, it has gone up to 6,367,000. That represents an increase of 288,800 people employed in Australia. So, if one has a look at the figures for the years between 1975 when the Australian Labor Party left government and today, one finds that private enterprise has created jobs for 288,800 people. The unemployment rate has increased in that same period. But in 1974, in one year alone, the Opposition when in government increased the unemployment rate by 3. 1 per cent. Since the Labor Party left government the unemployment rate has increased by 1.5 per cent.
-But you still have 500,000 unemployed.
-Senator Georges should bear in mind that although the unemployment rate has gone up by 1.6 per cent we have found an additional 288,800 jobs in that period of time. That figure represents the difference between the total number of people in the work force today and the total number of people in the work force in 1975.
– At least you are trying. The others didn’t ‘t even attempt it.
– You are telling me. At least we are trying. The Opposition when in government did not even attempt it. Senator Georges is now on record as admitting that the Labor Government made no attempt but that at least we are trying.
– I didn’t say that at all. You will finish up with a short speech of explanation in a moment.
-Senator Georges seems pretty upset at what he just said. Perhaps we could look at the cause of the increase in unemployment. Various reasons have been given for this but perhaps the most important one is the increase in wages. We all know what happened to wages. We know that the Labor Government’s Minister for Labor said that an increase in one person’s wage costs another man his job. The Labor Party itself was quite horrified at the increase in wages and, towards the end of its time in office, was trying to curb it. We also know that industrial disputes have caused a tremendous amount of unemployment. The figures are quite incredible. I have them with me. Perhaps honourable senators will hang on while I get them.
– I am not prepared to hang on for too long.
-Here they are. I will not keep Senator Button waiting any longer. In 1974 industrial disputes were responsible for 6,292,500 days lost. That is an incredible number. The number of working days lost is dropping. This Government has created a climate in which the number of industrial days lost has dropped considerably. In 1977 it was reduced to 1,654,800 days lost. That is a considerable drop. Nevertheless, industrial disputes created the position- Senator Harradine was talking on this point- where, if there is to be disruption and if there are to be incredible wage rises, the employer would rather take on extra technology, machines to do someone else’s job. So we have reached the position where the militant workers are working themselves out of a job. They are doing that by causing industrial disputes and upheavals and by their demands for unreasonable wages. If we face that fact which, I believe, is the greatest cause at the moment of the unemployment situation, perhaps the blame should be laid at someone else ‘s doorstep.
I do not want to be taken the wrong way by any means when speaking on this subject but we have to look at the number of married women in the work force. There is every justification for a woman who wishes to work to seek a job and to hold down a job. But if we want to see why this incredible number of jobs is still being demanded and why in three years we have had to find 288,800 jobs- this is a large number of jobs to find in three years- we have to look at the figures. Let us go back to the Depression years to which the Opposition keeps referring. In 1933, 54,800 women were employed in the work force. That number represented 2.04 per cent of the married women in Australia. It represented 4.2 per cent of the total work force. In 1975 the number of married women in the work force increased quite considerably. The increase in the number between 1973 and the end of 1975 was quite significant. In 1 973, 1 , 1 7 1 ,200 women were employed in the work force. That figure increased to 1,429,200 in 1975. Since then it has increased to only 1,436,800. The percentage of married women in the work force has also risen quite considerably. In 1933 the participation rate of married women in the work force was 4.2 per cent.
– Good luck to them.
– In 1975 it increased to 41.9 per cent. The figure is still increasing and now 42 per cent of married women are in the work force. As Senator Georges said, good luck to them.
– Yes, of course they have to work in order to survive.
– I could not agree with that statement. A very large increase has occurred in the number of married women in the work force. There is no reason why women should not work. I disagree with Senator Harradine ‘s remark that married women have been forced into the work force. I believe that people today, receiving the wages that they do, are better off by far than were people employed in the pre-Depression years when only 4.2 per cent of women were in the work force. It is not a case of women being forced into the work force. They enter it because they desire to do so. Women today have a far higher expectation for their families than did women in the past. They want the material things of life in a far greater capacity than was ever considered before. I do not agree with Senator Harradine ‘s comments. I do not believe that they have been forced into the work force by any means. I believe that they have chosen to enter the work force. Bearing in mind that they have chosen to enter the work force, they have every right to be there.
– Why don’t we give them support and make it easier for them than it is at the moment?
-Senator Georges is saying that we should make it easier for them to get the material things they want without having to work. I believe that considerable recognition should be given to the woman who stays at home and looks after a family. This Government is very sympathetic towards that view. However, we must first get the economy and inflation completely under control. Senator Grimes talked about dole bludger bashing. One question still remains unanswered. A considerable number of young people are legitimately looking for full time work. A tremendous amount of part time work is available. Vacancies for seasonal work are very difficult to fill not only in Tasmania, but also in all other States. People do not want to take part time jobs. There are regular complaints from soft fruit growers who cannot get people to pick their soft fruits. I know this applies throughout the whole of Australia. Young people are not seeking part time jobs; they are seeking full time jobs. They are not particularly interested in giving up their unemployment benefit to take a part time job and then go through the rigmarole of reapplying for the unemployment benefit once that part time job is finished.
However, I am quite sure that all Opposition senators who visit places of industry come up with exactly the same thing as I do. The other day I returned a car which had been hired. A person from the hire service said: ‘Do not talk to me about unemployment. I put an advertisement in the paper for a young lad to come and wash cars. Three people applied, none of whom wanted the job. I applied to the Commonwealth Employment Service office. It sent people down. One lad walked in, looked around and said: “What, wash cars all day? Not me”.’ He walked off. That firm has now taken on two other lads. This is the sort of feedback we get from industry. Yet we know all too well that there are unemployed people, particularly young people, who are legitimately looking for a full time job and not finding one. But there is no getting away from the fact that there are those who can work but are not willing to do so.
Perhaps we could look at the reason why some young people do not want to work. This Government came under criticism when it froze the unemployment benefit for a single person with no dependants at $5 1.40. There are three categories of unemployed single people. There is the young unemployed person who comes from the country to the city legitimately looking for a job. He has to find accommodation and pay fares while he is doing that. I do not know how he gets by on $5 1 .40 but it appears that he does. He finds a job pretty soon. Other young unemployed people live at home. The sum of $51.40 makes it quite easy for them to pay board while they are looking for a job. They are quite comfortable. There is a third group of unemployed people- those who live together. We can compare those people with the man with a family on the minimum wage. The unemployed are far better off. Four unemployed young people living together can bring into one household each week $229.60 which represents their combined unemployment benefit, plus $6 each which they are allowed to earn without losing any benefit. They pay no tax on that amount. A man with a family on the minimum wage earns only $183 each week and pays tax.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Collard)- Order! The honourable senator’s time has expired.
-The Senate is debating a motion concerning the record levels of unemployment and the failure to face the social as well as economic aspects of that problem. After listening to Senator Walters ‘s speech I took her point to be that if the young people of Australia could all be motivated to be car washers there would be no further unemployment Of course the problem is more deepseated than that. Her explanation of the problem revolved very much around her discovery of a number of social phenomena which have happened in Australian society in the last 30 years such as the increased employment of women in the work force. Of course, the discovery of those social phenomena provides no solution to the problems about which the Senate has been talking.
Let me deal firstly with the facts of this matter. According to the latest figures from the Commonwealth Employment Service 493,000 people in Australia are unemployed. That represents 7.5 per cent of the work force. Senator Durack who represents the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs (Mr Viner) referred to a number of employment training schemes. A total of $126m was allocated in the present Budget towards those schemes. That seems a fairly small amount to provide for employment training schemes when the Government yesterday announced that it would be spending $250,000 on refurbishing ministerial toilets in Melbourne. It is a relatively small sum compared with approximately $965m which is paid out annually in unemployment and sickness benefits. The level of unemployment has very real economic costs for this country.
What I find extraordinary about the contributions to this debate are remarks such as the one made by Senator Durack who said that he wanted to dispel any suggestion that the Government is to blame for this state of affairs. I shall tell him why the Government is to blame for this state of affairs and remind him of a few things. The Government in which he is a Minister came to power in 1975. In 1974 the present Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) upbraided the previous Labor Government for not having adequate and effective manpower policiessomething we are still waiting for in 1979. The present Government came to power in 1975 with the promise, amongst other things, that there would be jobs for all people in Australia who wanted to work. In 1977 the same Prime Minister condoned the remarks that unemployment in Australia was a myth. In 1978 he orchestrated an attack on the unemployed in the form of the dole bludger syndrome. He implied that unemployment was the responsibility of dole bludgers. In 1977 the Prime Minister predicted a steady and regular fall in unemployment. In the same year we were told that if uranium mining went ahead in the Northern Territory 500,000 extra jobs would be created.
In Question Time in the House of Representatives today the Prime Minister attacked the Opposition because it is committed to abolition of the investment allowance. He said that the Opposition would impose a capital gains tax. He made a number of other remarks which indicate that it is still the predominant concern of this Government to raise issues which have nothing to do with tackling unemployment and, in fact, fly in the face of the possibility of tackling unemployment. Previous speakers in this debate have referred to the investment allowance. There is no doubt that it has a big impact on employment, particularly in white collar industries. If we look at the question of a capital gains tax, another matter which was raised, it is quite clear that Australia is perhaps the only country in the Western countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which does not have a capital gains tax of some form. I am not quite sure why these things are regarded as reprehensible in the context of a discussion on unemployment.
The response of this Government since 1975 has been to describe unemployment, firstly, as something it will cure and, secondly, something which is a myth anyway and is the responsibility of all sorts of people in this community but not the Government. Only last week we had the extraordinary situation of the Minister who, in 1977, was describing unemployment as a myth, Mr Robinson, taking two days unemployment. He was sent home in a taxi instead of an LTD vehicle. He did not like it and very hastily took up his employment again. That is the sort of response we have had from Ministers of the Government. Only five weeks ago the Australian Manufacturing Council predicted in its first annual report that from now until 1986 Australia can expect an annual increase of 80,000 in the number of people unable to get jobs. In commenting on the publication of that prediction the Melbourne Age had this to say:
The production figures re-enforce the picture of recovery shown by higher levels of overtime in factories and a 9,000 increase in employment in manufacturing in the two months to November. However, the improvement should be seen in persepctive, in that manufacturing employment is still about 80,000 less than at the end of 1975 when Mr Fraser became Prime Minister.
I think we should take heed of the warning of the Australian Manufacturing Council and take heed of the comments made by the writer in that article which appeared in the Melbourne Age. They are very important comments. The essential point which I want to make in the context of this debate is that it is no longer very good for a Minister of this Government to go on with the sort of glib rationalisations in which Senator Durack indulged today. He should remember that all the time last year while Ministers of the Government were saying that unemployment was going to be reduced, there existed a submission from the appropriate Department, the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, to the Crawford committee on structural adjustment, in which it had this to say:
The trend toward an increasingly higher level of unemployment shows no signs of abating in the near future and there are few signs which would indicate a return to pre- 1 974 levels of unemployment in the next 2-3 years.
It went on to state:
What can be stated with certainty is that there is currently a gross deficiency of job opportunities; a situation shown to be a good deal worse when account is taken of ABS surveys of those not in the labour force.
Senator Durack stood up today and said glibly, as I indicated earlier, that he would dispel any suggestion that the Government is to blame for this state of affairs. I put it to him quite sincerely that in view of statements made by bis own Prime Minister and statements made by him in this Senate, the Government is to blame because again and again the Government has, by implication, accepted responsibility for the situation. Senator Durack stood up today and said that the Government is not to blame. I do not really know how he can do it. He whistled away in the dark about figures concerning retail sales in December without making any analysis of the significance of those figures. I think he ought to have a look at some of the analyses that have beeen made of the figures of retail sales in December.
As I said, he whistled away about these sorts of things in the traditional lines of the Fraser Government. He referred briefly to penalty rates and their effect on employment. I really think he ought to take that argument first of all to the Australian Medical Association and tell it that this Government is not in favour of penalty rates. That is the organisation to which the Government should start selling that argument. Senator Durack said that there may be some technological impact on unemployment figures. He did not say anything about the sorts of reports which the German Government and the French Government have published which indicate that the impact of technological change on unemployment and the white collar work force is likely to be about 20 per cent in the next two or three years.
– Try to be constructive. You have a duty to be constructive.
-Thank you, Senator Thomas. Welcome to the debate. I am very glad that you are going to participate. The most constructive point I can make in view of the debate which has taken place to date is that the Government cannot grapple with this issue if it is obsessed with all sorts of arguments which have no relevance to it. That is the form of this Government. Quite recently, in an important statement, Mr Viner said that our economic strategy means hardship. He did not, of course, go on to say whom that hardship would befall.
This motion also contains a reference to the social effects of unemployment. The social effects of unemployment are generally, and always have been, debilitating and distressing but they are more distressing and debilitating to young people who are unemployed. They can induce chronic depression about the sort of society in which young people now live. The answer to that problem by Ministers in the Government is that young people are not motivated. Who is responsible for motivating young people in a society? Is the responsibility to be exercised by the car washers in this world to motivate the young people to wash cars, or is it the responsibility of the Government that young people of this country are not motivated towards the work ethic, if one likes, in the so called rugged society?
– They learned that between 1973 and 1975.
-Yes, Senator, exactly the same in terms of these matters of fact but not exactly the same in terms of attitudes towards them. That is the important point which I think Senator Walters should remember. Perhaps she will refer to it the next time she makes a contribution to a debate of this type. The social effects are very well recognised and understood, I think even by the present Prime Minister. The Prime Minister, when writing in the Australian Quarterly in 1975 of what he thought Government was about, stated this:
Government is about people. Nations have no life but the life of their people. Whatever purpose I have in politics is rooted in that conviction. I reject utterly those concepts of the state that grant the state some superior status . . .
He went on to say:
Politicians too often forget that they are the servants and not the master -
– Who was voicing that opinion, senator?
-Mr Fraser said that. He said:
Politicians too often forget that they are the servants and not the master of the people they presume to govern.
It is not so long ago that, when discussing this question of unemployment in particular, a Liberal Minister in Victoria had something very specific to say about it. When referring to the Prime Minister’s attitude in relation to these matters he said:
No one apart from Churchill or de Gaulle could be so secure as to do what Fraser ‘s doing.
What does he want to be . . . the next Pope?
This man has gone mad.
He said that the Prime Minister had done something to the economy which, because of my limited vocabulary, I am unable to explain to the Senate. He continued:
Unemployment was rising and Mr Fraser didn’t care -
Mr Dunstan said:
Fraser will cause a greater calamity in the next 12 months in the building industry than Gallagher has caused in the past five years.
Over the next 12 months there 11 be more Mainlines caused by Fraser ‘s fiscal madness than in the whole period of the Whitlam Government.
That Minister got sacked for saying those things as a result of a telephone call to Melbourne at the instigation of the Prime Minister. Last week another Minister who became temporarily unemployed, and to whom I referred earlier, said much the same sort of thing. He resigned and he was reinstated. The important point to remember- I think this is something which Government Ministers should remember- is that it is probably not good enough to be hell-bent in loyalty to a Prime Minister who is bent on this destructive course in relation to this particular issue of unemployment. Unemployment clearly is very low in the priorities of the Prime Minister. It is very important in his rhetoric and very low in the actions this Government has taken in relation to the matters raised in this motion. I commend the motion to the Senate.
– The motion before the Senate is about the level of unemployment in Australia. I shall address myself to that problem. Australia has a record population and a record work force with wage levels which are affecting the employment prospects of many Australians including juveniles, particularly female juveniles. As Senator Walters quite properly pointed out earlier, this is due to some large measure to the entry into the work force of keen, reliable women. I have no quarrel with their participation in the work force. By the middle of this year we can expect 9 out of 10 of last year’s school leavers to be asborbed into the work force, relying on the previous year’s experience. We have a record level of unemployment in a time of record turbulence in industrial relations and wage demands which do not take into account increases in productivity.
Let us deal with some of the more positive aspects. A revival of the economy will have a beneficial effect on the number of people employed and hopefully will reduce the number of people unemployed. Recently, the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd said about its business survey that the Australian economy is facing its most promising outlook since the recession began in mid- 1974. In an article in today’s Australian there are comments about and extracts from a survey of the Bank of New South Wales. The article states:
The bank warns that the rate of wage increases has been slower to fall than the rate of price increases and that the granting of a full indexation increase in December ‘places at risk the chances of achieving greater stability of costs in the year ahead’.
On unemployment the Bank of New South Wales says ‘a rapid transformation of the labour market is unlikely to occur in parallel with increased economic activity early in the year’.
In conclusion, the article states:
Nevertheless, a more streamlined and efficient industrial sector is an essential pre-condition for increased job opportunities in the longer term.
Let us deal with some of the positive aspects of the employment situation in this country. I believe that they were also touched on by Senator Walters. The fact is that there are 152,700 more people in the work force in Australia than there were when the Labor Government lost office in 1975. This is not a feature that is reported by our friends in the media and that is to be regretted. It is understandable in the context that bad news seems to be of more public interest than good news. But the facts are there for everyone to see. Official statistics show that civilian employment in Australia reached a record high of 6,367,000 in December of last year. It is about time that the facts of the employment situation in Australia were recognised, particularly as so many people, both inside and outside this Parliament, are now trying to play politics with the question of unemployment.
Over the past three years the number of people coming into the work force has gone up by 288,000 to a record level. That is a result of both an increase in the population and the fact that many wives have decided that they want to go back to work. Up to two-thirds of this record Australian population are now either working or wanting to work. The result is that many more jobs are needed per head of population than in the past to satisfy the demand for jobs. Despite recent economic difficulties, despite the world oil price disruption, despite increasing automation and despite demands for levels of wages that are not commensurate with increases in productivity, it is remarkable that more than half of the extra demand for work has been satisfied by the provision of some 152,700 jobs over the past three years. Contrast that with the fall in the number of jobs available under the previous Government. In one year alone high inflation and wage rises priced thousands of workers out of their jobs. In 1974 and 1975 the rate of unemployment in Australia almost trebled. The present Government has chopped down that rate to an average increase of about 1 1 per cent per annum as its economic policies have started to bite. The big question is not whether government policies are working and not whether they should be reversed but whether even further encouragement should be given to the private sector to expand faster and employ more people. I contrast that opinion with the policy of the Labor Government and its attempts to overcome problems with short term palliatives, such as the Regional Employment Development scheme. The question industry is asking and will continue to ask unless we are clear and unequivocal is: Will the continuation of a comparatively high level of unemployment induce the Government to soften its resolve against inflation, to defer plans for freer trade or to attempt quick-fix employment solutions that will add confusion rather than jobs? Despite the high level of unemployment as it is currently measured, there exist widespread shortages for skilled labour, semi-skilled personnel and manual operatives generally. It is in that area that the Government can make and is making a great contribution to the employment prospects of Australians of all ages. The Government’s policy of steady economic recovery is working, with the result that more and more jobs are being and will continue to be created. There is no doubt that the unemployment situation is a matter for serious concern. Equally, there is no doubt that the Government has faced the issues involved. I move:
The Senate divided. (The Deputy President-Senator D. B. Scott)
AYES: 32
NOES: 26
Majority……. 6
AYES
NOES
Question so resolved in the affirmative.
Original question resolved in the negative.
page 351
Motion (by Senator Durack) agreed to:
That Standing Order 127 be suspended for the remainder of the day’s sitting.
page 351
Assent to the following Bills reported:
Poultry Industry Assistance Amendment Bill 1 979.
Quarantine Amendment Bill 1979.
Commonwealth Authorities (Northern Territory Pay-Roll Tax) Bill 1979.
Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Amendment Bill 1979.
page 351
– For the information of honourable senators I present the Ord River Irrigation Area Review 1978, a joint Commonwealth and West Australian review.
Senator WALSH (Western Australia) 5.41)- by leave- I move:
One of the things the report clearly demonstrates is that it is fortunate for the Premier of Western Australia that he left the private sector when he did. He left the private sector in 1952 and the report demonstrates very convincingly that if the Premier had not left and had applied the same level of managerial incompetence to running his own business as he devoted to masterminding the Ord River scheme he would have been bankrupt a couple of decades ago. It is very lucky for him that he left.
The Premier, of course, has been obsessed with this project for about 20 years. In 1959 he was the architect of the construction of the diversion dam and the construction which was finally completed in 1971 of the main Ord River dam. The report details the whole sorry story of political expediency piled on political opportunism through the late 1950s and 1960s in the manner in which this scheme was funded. Against the best available technical and economic advice the Commonwealth announced that it would fund the diversion dam in 1958. One may have been able to justify that on the basis that it would have permitted adequate agricultural research to be carried out in the area. However, as a final piece of political cynicism in 1967, the Holt Government at the time promised to construct the main Ord River dam as it thought it was in danger of losing the fifth Senate seat in Western Australia. That was constructed but, in fact, none of the water has been used for agriculture since that construction. At current values a total of between $120m and $160m has been sunk into this scheme, not counting the continuing subsidies paid by the West Australian Government to maintain a project that has now shrunk to six farmers who are still operating in the area.
To compound this tale of infamy, of political opportunism and political expediency, the failure of the agricultural settlement which was supposed to follow the construction of the main dam in the late 1960s was not only predictable, it was in fact predicted in considerable detail by Bruce Davidson in the Northern Myth. In a more fragmented way, it had been demonstrated from time to time by various people associated with the Institute of Agriculture at the Western Australian University. I might mention that the Economics Department of the Western Australian University, on the other hand, having been stood over by Sir Charles Court, who at the time was the Minister for Industrial Development, prostituted itself and produced a shonky document which purported to provide an economic rationale for the Ord scheme. History proved that Davidson’s version was correct, with the one minor reservation that Davidson grossly understated his case. The agricultural settlement based on cotton was a more spectacular failure than Davidson had anticipated.
This particular scheme is one of the Western Australian Premier’s many developmental disasters. The settlement, with inadequate technical data, of fringe south coastal land east of Albany in Western Australia was the subject on an Industries Assistance Commission report in 1975 in which the IAC correctly laid the blame and responsibility squarely at the feet of the Western Australian Brand-Court Government of the 1 960s. The release of land within the catchment areas of the Kent and Denmark Rivers in the 1960s, which was the subject of a famous boast by Sir Charles Court that Western Australia was developing one million acres a year. That boast has now been turned right around and Sir Charles Court, far from boasting about the development of one million acres a year and the clearing of land in the river catchment areas, has now banned any further clearing in those areas. It is quite likely that the State will be stuck with a very expensive replanting program to undo some of the damage that Sir Charles Court’s policies have inflicted on it. In that case also he is unable to plead ignorance because the effect of the destruction of the perennial vegetation on salinity levels in those catchment areas has been known and published since the 1920s. The selfindulgence of the Premier is becoming extremely expensive for the people of Western Australia.
In summary, the report reflects the composition of the people on the committee. It is in itself a political compromise. I was particularly struck by a passage in chapter 9 at page 98 which said that money ought to be provided by the Commonwealth, either under the 1968 Act or some other Act, for the provision of processing and transport facilities which would lower the cost of delivery of agricultural products, providing it has been demonstrated that the production of these crops is economically viable. On the one hand the report states that funds should be made available for investment in processing facilities when there is no evidence of economic viability. It then adds the qualification, which seems to emasculate and negate the original recommendation.
That sort of contradiction is repeated in a number of places in the report, and I expect that it reflects the fact that one member of the committee was an economist from the Industries Assistance Commission, who would be presenting a rational assessment of the project, and another member was an appointee of the Western Australian Government, who would be doing what the Premier told him to do. What has finally emerged from that fundamental contradiction in the personnel of the committee is double-speak in a number of places in the report. However, the really sad thing about the report is that, apart from the enormous amount of public money that has been wasted needlessly in the area, the real needs of the people of the Kimberleys have been neglected. Their real needs are roads and better communications, and those needs continue to be neglected because the Ord gobbles up all the available cash. This is the Premier’s private obsession, and the rest of the Kimberleys are neglected while the Premier continues to pour more and more public money into trying to make his grand vision of agricultural development in the Ord valley materialise.
A specific demonstration of the crazy priorities of the Western Australian Government appeared about 18 months ago when it constructed a bulk loading facility at the port of Wyndham. When asked why $500,000 had been spent on a bulk loading facility, the Premier said: If we are going to have a viable grain growing industry in the Ord we will need a bulk loading facility.’ There was no sign at that stage, and there is still no sign, that we will have a viable grain growing industry in the Ord, but the bulk loading facility is there. The Premier then said that there were a number of promising mineral prospects in the area, which is true, but as yet there is no need for a bulk loading facility to load minerals. If there is a need for one at some time in the future it could be constructed then. At the same time as the Western Australian Government was spending $500,000 on a bulk loading facility, the port of Wyndham was without a container handling facility for which there was a pre-existing demand. That facility has now been provided, but the point is that the Western Australian Government had its priorities upside down. It built first a bulk loading facility for the non-existent but anticipated demand for bulk loading of minerals or grain or something, so the Premier said. It failed to provide a container handling facility for beef, which has been a traditional Kimberley export. The former was associated with the Premier’s personal obsession, the latter was not.
The report’s recommendations and conclusions are somewhat fuzzy, again I think because of the positions held by the people who comprised the committee. It recommended unequivocally that research should be continued, and there is unlikely to be any serious quarrel with the recommendation that agricultural research be continued in the area. I certainly support the recommendation that such research should continue. It also states unequivocally that there is no justification for further expansion of agricultural settlement in the area. No sane person would quarrel with that recommendation, and I notice that even the Premier seems to have become educated on this matter to a marginal degree. Even he is not saying that the whole 60,000 hectares should be settled and irrigated. On the question of maintaining a commercial agricultural settlement, the report displays elements of ambivalence. I am not sure whether the committee is recommending that some 10,000 hectares, which is about the area being farmed at present, ought to continue to be farmed. Whilst there is undoubtedly a clear-cut case for continuing research work in the area, it is doubtful, to say the least, on the evidence avail.able now, whether there is any justification for continuing commercial agriculture in the area, granted that it may be difficult at the margin to separate one from the other.
What I do find somewhat disturbing in some sections of the report, and there are other sections that tend to contradict it, is that capital expenditure of unstated but presumably significant magnitude should be sunk into processing and handling facilities for particular crops. It would be extremely foolish to do so in the absence of clear experimental evidence that those crops would be commercially viable after processing and handling facilities were constructed. I would be disturbed if significant amounts of capital were to be provided in this way. It would smack of sending good money after bad.
As the report acknowledges, no evidence at this stage indicates that any particular crop is economically viable in the area. It is worth noting that the report specifically rejects the idea that sugar production is viable at this stage. This is not the first time that the Premier has argued that the Ord would be viable on the basis of sugar production. He first started saying that in 1962. He then said that rice would provide the backbone of the agricultural settlement. He then said that it would be cotton. In 1970, under the aegis of the Western Australian Government, wheat was planted. Even by the eccentric record of the Court Government, or various governments in which Sir Charles Court has been the prime mover, the notion of planting wheat in the area, particularly the temperate zone variety which was planted, was rather extraordinary. The Premier in the late 70s said that sugar was viable. The Committee has scuttled that notion as well.
The really sad thing is that the Kimberleys is an extremely remote and, in many respects, inhospitable area. People who live there suffer severe disadvantages. Their very real needs are being neglected because of the Premier’s selfindulgent commitment to try to make his vision of irrigated northern agriculture materialise. Already more than $100m of public capital-in current value dollars, it would amount perhaps to $ 1 50m- has been sent in pursuit of that vision. It has not materialised. It was predicted and supported by logical argument and hard evidence that the vision would not materialise. The Premier pressed ahead regardless. He now leaves behind in this area, as he has in so many other areas, a trail of disaster, and the people who have been induced by his extravagant optimism and jingoism to go to the area have suffered. The rest of the people in the Kimberleys who are not associated with the township of Kununurra or the Ord scheme have suffered also from neglect and discrimination against all of the other towns in the Kimberleys in favour of this region and the Premier’s self-indulgent obsession. I seek leave to continue my remarks.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
Sitting suspended from 5.59 to 8 p.m.
page 354
Motion (by Senator Webster) agreed to:
That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent concurrent consideration of Government Business Orders of the Day Nos1 to 4, House of Representatives messages Nos 22 1 to 224 relating to certain joint committees, and the questions in relation to those Orders of the Day being put in one motion.
page 354
– I move:
That the following matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Science and the Environment: Oil Exploration in the Great Barrier Reef area, including all the possible effects of any such exploration.
At the outset I say that I am disturbed to learn that neither the Liberal Party, the National Country Party nor the Labor Party is prepared to support the Australian Democrats in this motion. We believe that that is a very disturbing development in the arguments surrounding the Great Barrier Reef and the exploration for oil therein. To those who read Hansard and to those who are listening to the broadcast of this debate, might I explain why the Australian Democrats believe that the reference of a matter as important as this to a Senate standing committee is so vital. Those who listen to these broadcasts might sometimes get a little disgusted or, if ‘disgusted ‘ is too strong a word, a little disenchanted with the way in which politicians behave when they are in the chamber of the House of Representatives or the Senate. I readily concede that the behaviour of honourable senators, their decorum and their dignity are not to be compared with the outrageous conduct that quite often takes place in the House of Representatives. But sometimes listeners to these broadcasts do become disenchanted with Parliament per se.
One of the few remaining features of the Westminster system as we have it in Canberra is that even though partisan politics are practised on the floor of the Senate and in the House of Representatives, when matters are referred to a committee such as the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment, the members of the committees quite often- in fact, more often than not- lose their political identity and are able to reach a consensus. In my view the most valuable work done in Canberra by parliamentarians is done on such committees. In my view, while the Executive is all powerful and, as I pointed out in a speech last week, while the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, says: ‘I do not care what Parliament passes in relation to the indexation of pensions; the Executive or the Cabinet won’t fund it’, as he said recently, it is beyond doubt that Parliament is simply a rubber stamp. Sometimes I wonder why we do not save the taxpayers a lot of money and have Parliament meet just a few times a year, say about twice a year, and simply rubber stamp the actions of the Executive, because that is the total result anyway, and devote the taxpayers’ money to such valuable exercises as the activities of the Senate standing committee that I have just mentioned.
If the Senate were to accept my proposition tonight that this most important matter of drilling for oil on the Great Barrier Reef or in the area of the Great Barrier Reef should be referred to a Senate standing committee, that would virtually put a stopper on any deal that might have been done with oil companies by the Government, by a Federal Minister, by the Queensland Premier, by a Queensland Minister or by anybody else surreptitiously to drill for oil not on the Reef, because to my mind the assurances have been categoric enough to ensure that even the Prime Minister would not break that promise, but in the Reef area. It is the suggestions of drilling in the Great Barrier Reef area that disturb me. The suggestions that have been made as to the exploration for oil in the Reef area bother me almost as much, if not as much, as the suggestion of drilling on the Reef itself. So the operative word in the motion I have moved tonight on behalf of the Australia Democrats concerning oil exploration in the Great Barrier Reef area is ‘ area ‘.
Let us just explore what the word ‘area’ means. I did not get much joy from the Prime
Minister’s answer to a question last week from Mr Barry Cohen in the House of Representatives. Mr Cohen posed this question to the Prime Minister
Is the Prime Minister aware of any exploration, drilling, testing or rnining proposed for the Great Barrier Reef? If not, will he give an unequivocal denial that there will be any such actions on the Reef and proceed with the declaration of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park?
I hope I do not misquote the Prime Minister, but he certainly did give an unequivocal assurance. He said:
There will not be drilling on the Reef.
For that we can be pleased. But he then went on to say- and this significant remark gives the Australian Democrats great concern:
Quite plainly honourable members will understand that if we are talking about the environment of the Reef but not the Reef itself we have to ask the question: Where does it begin; where does it end? Are we talking about one or two kilometres, 20 kilometres or SO kilometres?
That remark rather terrifies me.
– Shouldn’t you read the rest of the question, senator?
– I propose to do so in a moment. But I say to Senator Missen that what I do read further on only compounds and exacerbates my fears, which I hope to explain in a moment If we take that particular remark by the Prime Minister, it means that the Prime Minister, in his own mind, does not exclude the possibility that it may not be harmful to drill one or two kilometres from the Reef. I repeat the words ‘may not’. I hope that I am not being unfair to the Prime Minister, but I repeat that he said:
Where does it begin; where does it end? Are we talking about one or two kilometres, 20 kilometres or SO kilometres?
One must assume from that that at least in the Prime Minister’s mind the outside limit at the moment is 50 kilometres. The Australian Democrats believe that it would be catastrophic to allow drilling that distance from the Reef. The Prime Minister then made what we regard as another significant remark. He said:
There is a view that more technical knowledge is required in the areas off the Reef.
With that we would not disagree. That conforms with the report of the Senate Select Committee on Off-Shore Petroleum Resources in 1970 or 1971 from which I will read in a moment. I do not want to denigrate the Prime Minister and it is not my intention to do so. I put it at its lightest when I say that I am at the very least suspicious when the Prime Minister of this country, with his previous record of upholding promises or, to put it another way, of not upholding promises, makes a statement like this:
There is a view that more technical knowledge is required in the areas off the Reef.
If the Prime Minister wants that technical knowledge to be obtained, why has he asked his Liberal senators not to agree to the motion moved by me tonight on behalf of the Australian Democrats? That is precisely the matter with which my motion deals. It refers to oil exploration in the Great Barrier Reef area, including all the possible effects of any such exploration. That is all that we wish. One would think that all Liberal senators, particularly those from Queensland, would find that resolution totally unobjectionable.
I go now to some of the historical aspects of oil exploration on the Great Barrier Reef. The first rnining lease on the reef was granted in August 1865 for seven years by the then Governor of New South Wales to a fellow named Crowther to mine guano- I hope that nobody asks me what guano is because I think I would be offending the forms of the Senate if I described it- on Raine Island, which is at the northernmost tip of the Reef. In 1967 a mining application was lodged to remove coral from Ellison Reef, for purposes of sugar cane farming. After an uproar the mining warden recommended against the application. That same year saw the first moves towards oil exploration on the Reef. The Gorton Government, to its eternal credit, instituted a royal commission on the area. It reported in 1974. Sub.sequently, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority was established and in 1975 the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act was passed. If I am not mistaken, credit for that should be given to the Labor Government of the day, so I pay tribute to Prime Minister Gorton’s vision and to the wisdom of that Government for introducing that Act, which allows the Authority to recommend that an area from just north of Fraser Island to the tip of Cape York be commissioned as a national park. The Senate ought to know that already various rnining leases have been granted but that they have not yet been acted upon. Those leases lie in the hands of Australian Gulf Oil, California Asiatic Oil Company, Texico Overseas Petroleum and Gulf Interstate Overseas Ltd.
The issue again came to a head on Christmas Eve last following an outrageous statement by the National Party Minister for Mines, Energy and Police in Queensland, Mr Camm. That statement was then endorsed by the National Party Premier of Queensland, Mr Bjelke-Petersen, but was contradicted by various scientists, by the Queensland Conservation Council, the Australian Littoral Society and many members of various other societies, including the Marine Park Authority. This issue may be divided into two parts: first, whether or not oil has deleterious effects on coral or fish; and, secondly, why the Government has stalled in regard to declaring the area as a national park, which would preclude mining operations. I will come to that in a moment. I would like to deal with the statement of Mr Camm in some detail. On Christmas Eve he said:
A number of experiments on the possible effects of crude oil on coral has shown no damage has been caused. In some instances growth had been encouraged.
The inference from Mr Camm’s statements is that one of the best things that could happen to the Great Barrier Reef would be for some sort of oil spillage to occur and thus encourage the growth of coral. That has only to be stated to be seen as totally absurd. He went on:
Off-shore oil drilling is going on throughout the world with no damage to marine life, and I can see no possible reason to oppose off-shore drilling in this State.
He further stated:
As far as the Australian Democrats are concerned, we believe that the Great Barrier Reef belongs not only to Australia but also to the world. I will not deliver a speech couched in such flowery phrases as ‘It is our national heritage’. One does not have to state that, but one must say that we in Australia owe a debt to the world for the precious asset of the Great Barrier Reef. I will not be satisfied with the claim of some National Party Minister, ‘We have virtually eliminated the possibility of a major spill. Let us trust private enterprise. They won’t get us into trouble. Technology today will stop a major oil spill, will prevent any damage.’ If ‘Let’s trust private enterprise or bureaucrats controlled by Ministers’ is the only criterion we are to have in considering oil drilling on the Barrier Reef, I should quote from page 1 of tonight’s Melbourne Herald the report of an occurrence which to me borders on a scandal. The heading is: ‘Oil Pipe Breaks in Strait’. As I understand it on Saturday last- and today is Wednesday- at 6 o’clock or thereabouts in the morning an oil pipeline was broken in Bass Strait at the Esso-BHP well. It was the first spill from Victoria’s Bass Strait drilling field. The report reads:
It happened when a work boat accidentally dragged its anchor across the pipeline between the Halibut and Mackeral Rigs.
That is how easily an oil spill can occur. It can occur because of human fallibility. One wonders about the degree of care that is taken in Bass
Strait when an anchor dragged by a work boat can cause a spill. Fortunately, the size of this spill, by world standards, was not great, but it was not small. The slick was 1 Vi kilometres long by half a kilometre wide. It moved a distance of 10 kilometres before breaking up of its own accord off Sale. I wonder why that sort of information was suppressed from early Saturday morning until Wednesday afternoon. Did the Victorian Government suppress it? If so, why? If Esso-BHP suppressed it, it would be even more unpardonable.
So that I can put into context the way in which private enterprise, and indeed bureaucrats, sometimes regard oil spills almost with nonchalance and gay abandon, let me amuse the Senate by reading a few other explanations. A spokesman for the Department of Minerals and Energy, which I presume is a State department, was asked whether his department had planned to make a public statement about the shek. The spokesman said:
No, it was a non-event as far as we were concerned.
That is the danger of bureaucracy. An oil slick lib kilometres long by half a kilometre wide, proceeding for a distance of 10 kilometres is, according to a bureaucrat in the Victorian Public Service, a non-event. The report states that he added:
There was no need to make a statement- my concern was to get the pipeline repaired as soon as possible.
Well done, but I would have thought that he had a bounden responsibility to make a statement. The following incredible comment by him is also reported:
He said no sea life or beach areas had been damaged by the oil.
How the hell would he know that no sea life had been damaged by the oil? The spill was Vh kilometres by half a kilometre in area. How would he know? Then, to add a little charm to the amusing statements concerning this mishap, the spokesman for Esso added this pearl: There was no danger to sea life because some seals who lived in a mooring barge near where the breakdown occurred had not moved and did not appear to have been affected by the slick. That shows with what nonchalance private enterprise, and indeed the bureaucracy, can treat the danger of oil slick. That is why the Australian Democrats are even more deeply concerned about some of the more outrageous statements of Queensland Ministers concerning drilling on the Great Barrier Reef. The Sydney Morning Herald, one of our most responsible newspapers, said on 26 December in relation to Mr Camm ‘s comments: the Premier, Mr Bjelke-Petersen, is understood to have strongly endorsed Mr Camm’s views after discussing the issue last week.
But then that notorious small 1 liberal, Mr Russell Hinze, Queensland’s Minister for Local Government and Main Roads had to weigh in. He called immediately- at a meeting on 12 February 1979- for a beginning to off-shore drilling in the Great Barrier Reef. He criticised as selfish the attitudes expressed by Queensland conservation movements. He dismissed warnings of a possible threat to the reef as alarmist nonsense. Within 10 days the news services carried extensive reports of two major oil spills overseas. I have brought to light in the Senate tonight another one much closer to home. When the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act was passed in 1975 by the Australian Labor Party Government people around Australia who feared for the future of the reef, and its exploitation by political and commercial bandits, breathed a sigh of relief and thought: ‘Thank God the reef is saved’. But nearly four years later, up to this time, not one square kilometre of reef has actually been declared as a marine park. While the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act is in existence it is virtually non-effective until a Federal Minister declares a certain area as a marine park. That declaration by itself prevents any drilling for oil of any description.
I cannot vouch for this source, but it is from one of Australia’s most responsible newspapers, the Australian Financial Review. On 2 January 1979 it stated:
The Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, has intervened to stop the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority from making a decision which would prohibit oil drilling on a section of the reef. Mr Fraser has written to the Authority directing it not to declare the Capricornia section of the reef a marine park until an interdepartmental committee has reviewed the relevant legislation.
– That has been denied.
-By Mr Fraser?
– Yes.
– I apologise to the Prime Minister for even quoting that article. Had I known that I would not have quoted it. That statement certainly conflicted with the proposal by the then Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development, Mr Groom, to declare the first part of the marine park. I hope that Senator Missen will contribute to this debate, and I thank him for his interjection. But I plead with him or with Senator Jessop that when they speak, will they please advise the Senate as to why, four years after the passing of that Act, not one kilometre of the reef has been declared. I would be very pleased to hear an explanation from Senator Missen or Senator Jessop.
– I have not promised to explain that.
-Mr Deputy President, may I ask the honourable senator why not?
– I will speak on this subject and express the view that it should be. I cannot explain why it has not been done.
– I thank you for your indulgence, Mr Deputy President. I am sure Senator Missen and I would agree that a declaration within the terms of that Act equals protection from oil drilling and that has not been denied. The reason for our immediate concern is that again, from a most respectable Australian newspaper, the Australian Financial Review, dated 16 January 1979 there is a banner headline- I think that is the way to describe itwhich states:
Something very sacred ‘. Anthony rejects mining on reef.
It goes on to state:
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Doug Anthony, yesterday firmly rejected any proposal for mining or oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr Anthony is Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the National Country Party of Australia and is presumably close to the deliberations of Mr Bjelke-Petersen, Mr Camm, and Mr Hinze. The very next day, 17 January in the Australian Financial Review we have a photograph of the handsome countenance of the Minister for Science (Senator Webster). The headline states:
Drilling off reef ‘possible ‘-Webster.
Senator Webster is in the same party as Mr Anthony and he is speaking on the same subject, but the statement is entirely different. On the same day in the Melbourne Age, another newspaper noted for its responsibility, respectability and integrity we find the statement:
A spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anthony, said drilling could in future be allowed.
In the light of those statements I do not think that the Australian Democrats, and those who support this motion, could be blamed for confessing utter confusion about the intentions of the Government or of the National Party on this question of the Great Barrier Reef. We are even more disturbed to read a statement attributed to Mr Bjelke-Petersen. I quote from an Australian Associated Press summary which goes to Party leaders and Whips in this place. Senator Missen, in spite of the Prime Minister’s repeated denials- I accept the honourable senator’s statement on behalf of Mr Fraser- it states:
And yesterday, Mr Bjelke-Petersen confirmed reports that the Queensland Government was negotiating with the Commonwealth to be given back its rights of control over at least limited areas of the coastal seabed, with the possibility of future oil drilling in mind.
I can only draw one of two conclusions from that evidence. The first is that Mr Fraser has forgotten or had not been informed that somebody in his Government is negotiating with Mr BjelkePetersen, or that Mr Bjelke-Petersen has fantasised the whole affair and that no discussions or negotiations are going on. The other conclusion is that one or other of those gentlemen is misleading the public. To put it at its worst, he is telling lies.
– That would scarcely be possible.
-I concede that that would scarcely be possible. If Senator Missen is not prepared, able, or does not have the information to respond to the former challenge that I issued to him of why a declaration has not been made- I respect his reasons for that- I ask him to please clear up this apparent inconsistency. I simply ask him a question in crystal clear terms. Are negotiations taking place between the Queensland Government and the Prime Minister about taking over parts of the Great Barrier Reef or its area for oil drilling? Mr Deputy President, I again ask for your indulgence. Will Senator Missen be able to respond to that question when he speaks in this debate?
– I shall try.
– Honourable senators on the Government side are notorious for the thunder of silence they keep in such matters. I turn briefly to the excellent report that was presented by a select committee of the Senate in 1971. There were so many distinguished senators on it. We note with sadness that some of the members of that committee have died since the report’s publication. It is called the Senate Select Committee on Off-Shore Petroleum Resources. There is a special section which is excellent on the Great Barrier Reef. Among other things it states:
That, to date, no single method or combination of methods of cleaning upoil spills has been completely successful and all such methods are expensive.
It goes on further to say:
That the toxicity of detergents available to counteract oil spillages may at times be of paramount importance . . .
It goes on to say how incredibly expensive those detergents are. Then it states:
That current knowledge of the Reef, including charting, charting of tides, geology, biology and ecology is inadequate.
That the knowledge of the effect of oil or other . . compounds on coral and other marine life in the area is extremely limited.
Those are the findings of the Committee. This is what it concludes and recommends:
That an intensive research campaign, in which all the marine disciplines must be involved, be proceeded with immediately. This program should be extended to enable assessment of the long term value of the Reef and its environs as a major tourist project and food producing area.
The Committee’s final recommendation is this:
That, until sufficient information has been gathered and it can be proved beyond reasonable doubt that off-shore exploration for, or exploitation of, petroleum fields on the Reef or in the waters surrounding the Reef is unlikely to cause damage to the Reef and its marine life, appropriate legislative action be taken to prohibit exploration for, and exploitation of, petroleum in the province area of the Reef.
To my knowledge, that sort of intensive research campaign has not been conducted. We still do not have sufficient information to justify going against the recommendations of that report. I just wonder, in conclusion, whether I have the authority of my colleague, Senator Jessop, to comment on the wording of his amendment. I was given a copy of it but I do not know whether it was given to me in private.
– I did you the courtesy of-
- Senator Jessop would prefer that I did not mention it.
– You can refer to it.
– No, I will bow to Senator Jessop ‘swishes.
– It is all very courteous, isn’t it?
-We all like to adhere to the courtesies of the Senate. Senator Jessop paid me the courtesy of giving me a copy of the amendment he proposes to move. His amendment is totally unacceptable to the Australian Democrats. An editorial in the Melbourne Age reads:
The Government -
That is, the Fraser Government- stood up to the miners on Fraser Island, and won public credit for doing so. Likewise, it should stand up against the potential despoilers of the Barrier Reef. There is no room for compromise.
That editorial, more than anything else, eloquently sums up the position of the Australian Democrats and the reason that we ask the Senate to pass tonight this motion which seeks to refer this matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT-Is the motion seconded?
– Yes, I second the motion. I shall speak to it only briefly in order to raise perhaps one question of importance to the Australian Democrats which Senator Chipp has not covered. Obviously we regard the basic issue as being terribly important. It is terribly important. However, there is another issue involved. The Australian Democrats believe -
– I take a point of order, Mr Deputy President. Something unusual seems to be occurring. It is not traditional for the seconder of a motion to speak to the motion at the time he seconds it, because that effectively cuts across an arrangement which has been made between the various Whips in the various parties. I would have thought that the seconder of the motion would have placed his name on the speakers list to be called at the appropriate time.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Order! Under Standing Order 409 it is permissible for the seconder to speak to the motion at this point. Senator Mason is in order.
– We have experienced some difficulty in the Senate recently over the matter of seconding motions. I felt that it was a matter which I would certainly like to get clear in my mind, whether or not Senator Chipp ‘s motion is seconded in this place, because it appears that sometimes it is in order for the seconder to speak to the motion and at other times it is not. I believe that it is rather nice to have things done in the same way all the time. My remarks will be brief. I believe that in most public assemblies of this world- I say this with respect to Senator Georges- seconders of motions do speak to them at the time when such motions are seconded. I suggest that conventions other than that are not necessarily correct. I point out to Senator Georges that just because something has always been the case it may not necessarily be right.
As I was saying, the question of public knowledge of an important issue is at stake here. I believe that we in the Australian Democrats have information and knowledge, as I think any perceptive person would have, which indicates that there is a wide degree of concern in relation to this matter in the Australian community. It is a matter of concern to many responsible, reasonable, decent Australians. We cannot agree that this kind of matter should be decided by executive government, either here in Canberra or in Queensland. I have reason for holding that view. I was astounded to learn of the attitude of responsible people in government in Queensland.
This is relevant to my argument. They described the land being developed at Yeppoon by Mr Iwasaki as being useless wasteland. When I had a look at that pan of the Capricornia coast I realised that, far from being a useless wasteland, the Iwasaki land forms one of the most beautiful pieces of coastline in Australia. Indeed, most nations in Europe would give millions of dollars for something half as good.
It struck me then quite forcibly that apparently there are people in government in Queensland- I refer to those people who described that area as useless wasteland- who can probably see value only in land on which one can grow cattle, sheep, cane or possibly peanuts or from which one can permit some foreign organisation to extract minerals. There is good reason to believe that those are the values of those people. It is an unfortunate accident of fate that for the time being they are in control and have the ability to destroy or to maintain one of our most valuable national assets and, as Senator Chipp has said, one of the assets of the world.
We in the Australian Democrats believe that we have the Australian public squarely behind us on this issue. I leave that thought with honourable senators on both sides of the chamber. No oil drilling, or even discussion of oil drilling, should take place anywhere in the Great Barrier Reef area unless a full and public inquiry is held into all its implications. Most Australian democrats are opposed to exploitation of the Reef area in this way. We believe at best that it would defer only briefly the time when we have to face up squarely to the fact that we will need renewable resources in this world. The best professional assessment I can find of what might be under the Barrier Reef suggest that it would be nothing like that which was found in Bass Strait. We could ruin the asset we have in the Reef for very little reward.
The Reef, as Senator Chipp said, is held in trust by us for the world. It is one of the great wonders of the world. As the years go by it is being increasingly recognised as such. When one talks of Australia in one’s travels, one finds that people say: ‘The Great Barrier Reef. I would like to go there and see it some time ‘. It is the one feature of Australia about which people overseas know. It should be the greatest, the best known, the biggest and the best cared for marine park in the world, and it should be declared so forthwith. It certainly has the natural potential to be that. I believe that we should not tolerate the mere possibility that any shortsighted, moneygrubbing interest will be permitted to damage it or to destroy it by blasting across the Reef in order to lay pipelines to get oil to the shore, by risking major blowouts resulting in enormous oil pollution or by risking the possibility of a super tanker having an accident.
As Senator Chipp has said, this matter is very close to the hearts of the Austraiian Democrats, as I believe it is close to the hearts of the Australian people. I commend the motion to the Senate.
– I wish to make one or two comments on the motion before the Senate which seeks to refer this matter of oil exploration on the Great Barrier Reef to the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment, of which I am Chairman. I commend Senator Chipp, who moved the motion, on his initiative in doing so. Although I do not support the motion, I certainly share his concern about a very precious national asset which we have to guard very carefully. I was interested also in his initial remarks about debating this matter in the Senate. I support what he said. I believe that the Senate debates in a constructive way matters of importance. Like Senator Chipp, I was a member of the other place. I too believe that the debates which take place in this chamber do far more credit to the Parliament than do some of the debates which take place in the House of Representatives.
I acknowledge also his statement that the work of the Senate committees is most important. I take some pride in the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment following its inquiry into the effect on the environment of the woodchip industry. I believe that our follow-up procedure is most important. We wrote to the various Ministers concerned with that matter three months after the report was published, asking what they were doing about the matter. We also wrote to the responsible State Ministers asking them how they reacted to certain proposals we made.
– And we re-visited the Gippsland area about the habitat of Leadbeater’s possum.
-That is right. Senator Mulvihill is one of the very energetic members of the Committee. What he says is perfectly right. Senator Melzer and Senator Mulvihill were asked to look at that area. It was of great interest to Senator Mulvihill in particular. The Committee followed up the matter. I think it is very important to remember that Senate committee reports are valuable. They should be of great significance to any government in formulating longterm policy. We have to make sure that the government concerned takes notice of them. I believe that it was as a direct result of our follow-up process that the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) announced that he had given his Ministers an instruction to respond within six months to recommendations contained in parliamentary committee reports. I think that six months is a little long. Ministers ought to be able to react more quickly than that. I commend the work of the committees. I suggest that more of them should follow-up their recommendations. This would be of benefit not only to the government of the day but also to the people who express views publicly on matters of great concern to the people of Australia.
I regard the work of committees in gathering facts as important. If committees are to act, and to be seen to act, as fact finding bodies to aid decision making, their references must be such that their inquiries are able to elicit new facts. Several inquiries have related to oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef or the effect of marine oil spills. In 1971 the Senate Select Committee on Off-Shore Petroleum Resources brought down its report. Chapter 13 of that report covers conservation and the marine environment. It devotes no less than 84 paragraphs to the Great Barrier Reef. The first paragraph on page 50 1 states:
During its work the Committee was presented with submissions emphasising the dangers which could be posed to the Great Barrier Reef (hereinafter referred to as the Reef) by the threat of oil pollution from off-shore wells. A considerable amount of evidence was volunteered and gathered concerning the Reef from many witnesses, including Professor C. Burdon-Jones, Professor of Marine Biology at the University College of Townsville- now known as the James Cook University- Dr G. R. Orme from the Great Barrier Reef Committee . . .
That paragraph of the report mentions several other eminent scientists and engineers interested in that area of our national heritage. It is also notable that page 503 of the report emphasises that there is a lack of knowledge of the Reef. I think that Senator Chipp referred to that point. I agree with him. Much more research is required to determine the exact dangers to that marine park. I think that the park ought to be declared as such. In 1975 a report was produced by the Royal Commission into Exploratory and Production Drilling for Petroleum in the Area of the Great Barrier Reef. That report consisted of 1,054 pages. Two impressive volumes were produced by that royal commission. The cost of that inquiry- this is another matter we have to look at-was $863,056. About $843,000 was provided by the Commonwealth and the rest, about $19,000, was provided by the Queensland Government. That report also referred to the need for further research. In 1978 the House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation reported on the prevention and control of oil pollution in the marine environment.
Perhaps it is also relevant that the woodchip report to which I referred initially has a chapter devoted to national parks and reserves, their selection, preservation and management. I believe that this would include marine parks such as the Great Barrier Reef. The Parliamentary Library Research Service commented that there is no point in an inquiry to bring new scientific facts to light because no substantial new research has been done since the Royal Commission of 1975. If it is argued that more research is needed there would be little disagreement. An inquiry would not be needed to establish that point. The decision on whether to drill is a political one. It is difficult to see how another fact finding inquiry on the subject now could materially assist that decision. I understand also that there is consultation between the Commonwealth and the Queensland Government with respect to offshore activities. In the spirit of federalism, as we have come to know it, there is an attempt to define responsibilities in that area.
I recognise the concern of Senator Chipp and the Australian Democrats. I recognise that there is a need for far more research work to be done in the area of marine science and oceanography. It is an area which I believe has been sadly neglected. A fragmented effort is being made at present. That is why I have tried to by sympathetic with the intent of the Australian Democrats in moving this motion. I should like to see far wider and more constructive research in the area of marine science in Australia.
– We think that while it is with your Committee at least it is safe. Even BjelkePetersen would not be game to have a go then.
– The honourable senator is very kind to pay that sort of tribute to our committee. With this in mind and in the spirit of cooperationI am a reasonable man who is fairly easy to get on with- I should like to go some way towards accommodating the concern that has been expressed by Senator Chipp. I propose to put a reference before my Committee for its consideration. Senator Mason is a member of the Committee. We will talk about the reference. If we need to refine it a little I will be flexible. I thank Senator Chipp for treating my information with confidence. In my view a helpful and constructive reference to the Committee of which I am proud to be Chairman would read as follows:
In view of increasing development of natural resources in the marine environment of particular interest to Australia, such as proposals to explore for oil on the Great Barrier Reef, and also because of the growing risk of pollution of Australian coastal waters, the following matter be referred to the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment: Australian marine science, including the development of a marine science program for Australia, in the tropical, temperate and sub-Antarctica waters and the coordination of research efforts between the various agencies involved in these areas of marine science, fisheries development and oceanography’. My deputy chairman is now sitting in the chair of the Senate. I referred to him today. I think he has some sympathy towards my view.
– He cannot interject.
– I am putting him in an awkward position. I suggest that my proposed reference would be a reasonable compromise for Senator Chipp and his colleagues to accept. I believe that this is a matter of great significance to Tasmania and places like that.
– Are you moving that formally as an amendment?
– No, I am just foreshadowing it. I have not yet discussed this matter with my Committee. I am just flagging this proposition. It may well be that the wording I have suggested will have to be altered. That is my view. I cannot support the motion as presented by Senator Chipp. I sympathise with the general thrust of it and I hope that what I have suggested will go a long way towards satisfying the concern expressed by the Austraiian Democrats.
– I indicate on behalf of the Opposition that we will oppose the motion moved by Senator Chipp. I want to stress at the beginning of my remarks that we do not oppose the sentiment that is expressed in his motion. I think that will be apparent during the latter part of what I have to say. The Australian Labor Party has consistently opposed oil exploration in the area of the Great Barrier Reef. Our position is clear; it is unequivocal. Our position is based not only on our demonstrated concern for the environment but also on the numerous reports of inquiries which have been presented to this Parliament on this matter, particularly the report of the Senate Select Committee on Off-Shore Petroleum Resources and, of course, the report of the royal commission which inquired into this matter. We feel that by supporting a reference to another committee for a further report we may raise doubts as to the firmness of our opposition and our clearly stated position on the matter. There are no doubts as to where the Labor Party stands in respect of protecting the Great Barrier Reef. We do not wish our position to be misunderstood in any way.
I want to discuss some aspects of the issue itself and to substantiate the point I have just made as to why we are not supporting this motion. The point I would like to establish as a preliminary point is that there is no doubt that the party with the only real record of protecting the environment at the Federal level is the Labor Party. I think that implicitly that was conceded by Senator Chipp. It was the Labor Party which drew up all the significant environmental legislation which now exists at the federal level. It passed the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act which resulted in the saving of Fraser Island and it initiated the Fox inquiry into uranium. It established the Australian Heritage Commission and directed it to put on a register all the things we wished to preserve. It made grants to various organisations involved with the environment. More importantly, it established the concept of the National Estate and provided funds and support for that concept. Significantly, it brought into law the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act. Against that record there is so little of note at the federal level that it is clear that the party which is interested in the environment is the Australian Labor Party. It has established its credentials by doing things. It is true that honourable senators on the other side of the chamber often have talked about the environment but their track record of achievements is limited. As Senator Chipp rightly pointed out, the action taken by the Gorton Government is to be commended but since then we have seen little action indeed.
– By John Gorton himself.
-Credit has to be given to John Gorton. The next point I want to establish is that there is no need for the issue of the exploration of the Great Barrier Reef to go to another parliamentary committee. The major reason is that all parties at the federal level are now opposed to mining of the Barrier Reef and, in particular, to drilling for oil. The Labor Party’s position on this subject is quite clear. When in government, the Labor Party put an embargo on oil drilling of the Barrier Reef. This was done following the report of the Royal Commission into Exploration and Production Drilling for Petroleum in the Area of the Great Barrier Reef. This Commission, which was set up in 1970, brought down its report in 1974. Unfortunately, the report of the Commission was equivocal and there was a division within the Commission. However, even those commissioners who were more in favour of drilling than the Chairman, drew the Government’s attention to the need for substantial research before any exploratory drilling is carried out. From the report, one thing was clearly obvious: There was a decided lack of information on the effects of oil spills on coral reefs.
I do not need to remind the Senate just how important the reef is to this country. It is not only one of the most exciting parts of our heritage but also a very significant area in world terms. Actions which could damage the Barrier Reef could only be contemplated in the most extreme circumstances. Most Australians would not have a bar of risking the reef merely for the prospect of some small commercial gain.
Following the findings of the Commission, the Labor Government of the day decided that no drilling should be allowed on the reef and that drilling should not even be contemplated unless reliable scientific information was available on the effects of oil on the reef and its organisms. I stress the word ‘reliable’. For this reason, my party’s objection to mining the reef are as strong today as they were in 1975. Although expressed in equivocal terms, the Government’s position also is that the reef should not be mined. In recent times we have had statements from the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) and the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Anthony) that there would be no drilling on the reef. In the Parliament last Wednesday the Prime Minister said:
The Government’s position is unequivocal. There will not be drilling on the Reef.
On that basis there is absolutely no need for the matter to go to a parliamentary committee. Both major parties clearly are opposed to any mining or drilling on the reef. Therefore, it would serve no purpose for this motion to be carried and for the matter to be considered further by another parliamentary committee. However, there is considerable justification for the concern that has been expressed by Senator Chipp. I want to refer to the matters raised by Senator Chipp. A number of related circumstances are involved. Firstly, the Government has a dubious interest in protecting the environment. Secondly, sad as it may be, the Prime Minister just cannot be believed in what he says. Thirdly, other members of the coalition are in favour of mining the reef. Fourthly, under his federalism policy the Prime Minister is trying to transfer control of the matter to the Queensland Government, which wants to drill the reef as quickly as possible.
I want to deal with these issues in turn. Senator Chipp touched on one or two of them but I wish to state quite clearly the Labor Party’s position in my contribution. Ever since it came to office this Government has been trying to water down the environmental safeguards established by the previous Government. To its credit, the present Government did carry out the findings of the inquiry into Fraser Island and it stopped the mining on that Island but it did not relish the criticism it received from the mining lobby over that decision and, no doubt, decided that it would not be placed in that position again. For that reason, it allowed to remain in the environment portfolio a Minister who had no interest whatsoever in the environment and who was prepared to buckle under pressure.
On the uranium issue, the Government notionally adopted the recommendations of the Fox report but it has been busily subverting those recommendations ever since. The real test on uranium is yet to come but there is waning confidence in the community that the Government will insist on adherence to proper environmental standards. The Government was stuck with the issue of Fraser Island and uranium because of the actions of the previous Government in establishing inquiries into those activities. Those activities, of course, were carried out under the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974. In more than three years in office this Government has not referred a single matter for inquiry under that Act. If the Prime Minister had had his way the Act would have been repealed following pressure from both the State governments and the mining lobbies. Because of the political significance of such an action, the Government decided not to repeal the Act but to let it he dormant. Even that had political risks as the Government ultimately would be accused of doing nothing.
The solution was found and that was to transfer the functions to the State governments. As a consequence of that decision, the Prime Minister gave Mr Newman, who was then the Minister who had the national responsibility for the environment, instructions to transfer the powers under that Act to the State governments. Agreements were entered into with most State governments which effectively mean that environmental issues will be taken seriously only in those states where there are in fact Labor governments. Transferring environmental control to Sir Charles Court is tantamount to saying that environmental issues in Western Australia are of no signficance at all. Even that did not satisfy the mining lobby which still wants the Act repealed.
As the National Country Party now effectively has control of the environmental issues through the Deputy Prime Minister and Senator Webster, no environmentalist could be very optimistic about the results of that review. For some time the Minister for Science and the Environment (Senator Webster) has played no real role under the Act.
On nearly every issue the Deputy Prime Minister has won in Cabinet with the result that environmental issues have no significance for this Government except that they occasionally become a nuisance. It is important to realise that the Commonwealth has 2 important pieces of legislation which apply to the Barrier Reef. Most of the reef has been put on the register established by the Australian Heritage Commission. Under that Act no Minister can take any action which adversely affects, as part of the National Estate, a place that is on the register unless there is no feasible and prudent alternative. Those words appear in section 30 of the Act.
As a result of the decision of the High Court in the Seas and Submerged Lands case, the Commonwealth has authority over the reef. The effect of that Act is that the Commonwealth could not, consistent with its obligations under the Act, take any steps to endanger the reef. Drilling for oil and mining would clearly be caught up by that provision. In addition, the previous Government passed the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act which is an authority to administer the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. That Act was assented to in 1975. It has been nearly 4 years since that Act was passed but no action has been taken to establish the marine park. Again the Government has avoided pressure to declare the park and as a result the park has still not been established. There is a real worry that the Government does not want to establish the park as its establishment would effectively prevent mining of the Great Barrier Reef. Under section 38 of the Act, no operations for the recovery of minerals shall be carried out in the marine park and I think the Act provides for punishment of $ 1 ,000 for every day during which an offence is committed.
Therefore, we can see that the declaration of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park would effectively prevent drilling for oil on the reef. Failure by the Government to declare the park is further evidence of just how soft it is on this issue. There is even a further worry for those who are concerned about the environment. The Government now proposes to review the operations of the Heritage Commission Act. One would have thought that merely putting things on a register was hardly a very radical step to take, yet even that is too much for mining lobbies and certain State governments.
The second aspect concerns the credibility of the Prime Minister. It is becoming one of the tragedies, I suppose and certainly one of the acceptable facts of Australian politics that the Prime Minister is no longer believed, not only by the public but I would think not even by members of his own party after the events of the last few days. He has established an almost unparallelled reputation for unreliability. On this specific issue one only has to go back on the answer he gave to the Opposition spokesman on the environment last Tuesday to which Senator Chipp referred in his speech. The operative words of the Prime Minister were: ‘Where does the environment of the reef begin and where does it end?’ So we are left with considerable uncertainty about the Prime Minister’s own views.
– Don’t those words terrify you?
-They do. I concede the point that you made earlier in your speech. You are quite right and we are concerned about it. He has left himself what could be described as a big out. He can order drilling close to the coral reefs at great risk to them and still be acting within the terms of the answer he gave last Tuesday. Mr Fraser ‘s tricky answer has eroded people’s confidence that he is serious about protecting the reef. I have a particular interest in this matter. In the last election campaign of 1977 1 made a public statement disclosing the existence of a Cabinet submission signed jointly by the Deputy Prime Minister and the then environment Minister, Mr Newman. The statement that I put out said that it was recommended that oil drilling on the reef proceed. There was evidence that the submission had been called for by the Prime Minister. In response to my disclosure Mr Anthony defended the submission by saying publicly during an election campaign:
If there are areas away from the reef which, after close examination, they believe can be drilled without any damage whatsoever, then you have got to give consideration to a considered report’.
I suggest that this is very much the same line that is now being pursued by the Prime Minister. We will not allow drilling on the reef but we do not necessarily object to drilling adjacent to the reef, a point that was made earlier in the debate- and quite rightly. Not only can the Prime Minister not be believed but we know there are many members of the Government parties who favour the mining of the reef. The anti-environment lobby is very strong in these circles. After all, the Prime Minister appointed
Mr Newman to look after the environment. It was well known that Mr Newman had no particular interest in this matter. He was constantly backing people like Sir Charles Court against his own Department. The current Minister for Science and the Environment has said very little to date. Maybe we will see him project himself as a strong environmentalist but there is nothing at this stage to suggest that he will. With people like this in the Ministry there is a real worry that their views may be adopted eventually by the Government.
The views of the Queensland Government are well known. That Government wants to drill the reef as soon as it gets the green light from the Commonwealth. Only the establishment of the Royal Commission prevented the Queensland Government permitting considerable drilling on the reef some time ago. Now that it has friends such as the Deputy Prime Minister in Federal Cabinet it is flexing its muscles in an attempt to get approval to go ahead with drilling. Just prior to Christmas the Queensland Mines Minister called for oil exploration on the reef. Under these circumstances this Government’s federalism policy could be disastrous for the Barrier Reef. However since this Government came to office the Premiers of Queensland and Western Australia have insisted on taking a very hard line on States’ rights. They want complete control over the areas in and around their States with no federal interference. Those States suffered a set back when the High Court found that all waters below the low water mark belonged to the Commonwealth. Ever since then the States have been trying to reverse that decision. The most vocal States have been Queensland and Western Australia.
At last year’s Premiers Conference the Commonwealth agreed to transfer to the States substantial control of off-shore waters provided an appropriate way could be found that would be legal. If the Commonwealth transfers control of the waters of Queensland to the Queensland Government, mining of the reef is inevitable. Already there is some indication that the Prime Minister is prepared to accept the consequences of this step. Recently he intervened to stop the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority from declaring certain sections of the reef a marine park until an interdepartmental committee had reviewed the legislation.
– You have no proof of that, have you?
– I did hear your reference earlier; I am awaiting your comments which you indicated you would make later on. That section of the marine park would be the Capricornia section, the area most likely to be drilled. As I said at the outset, both parties are committed not to mine the reef. If that commitment remains there is no need for a reference to a parliamentary committee. If the Government changes its mind for the reasons I have mentioned, the reef will not be saved by the actions of another parliamentary committee. Those of us who have the interests of the reef at heart- I am sure that constitutes the great majority of us- must ensure that this Government honours its commitment to protect the reef. That will be the best safeguard that can be obtained. It can be easily misunderstood when any party opposes the move that has been suggested by Senator Chipp. We in the Australian Labor Party want to make it quite clear that under no circumstances do we support, condone, or approve of any exploratory work being done in the Barrier Reef area. I want to indicate to Senator Chipp that, as much as we sympathise with the motive of his intentions in this particular motion, we feel nothing is to be gained by setting up another parliamentary committee. All of us should be stating clearly and without equivocation our opposition to any exploratory drilling on the Barrier Reef.
– We are debating a motion to refer to the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment an inquiry into oil exploration in the Great Barrier Reef area, including all the possible effects of any such exploration. Senator Jessop has stated already that oil exploration on the Great Barrier Reef has been the subject of two quite large inquiries. I hope that at some time more money can be made available to the Australian Institute of Marine Science near Townsville which has a 24-metre vessel, the Lady Basten, available for investigation into all forms of marine biology. I hope that more money can be made available to the Institute so that it can look at all aspects of possible pollution of the reef, not only oil pollution but human pollution- pollution from substances that are washed down the rivers and the creeks which flow into the area. We know already that some pesticides and fertilisers could be having some sort of effect. I would hope that the Australian Institute of Marine Science would look into this matter quite thoroughly. I see no reason for any further parliamentary investigations at this stage.
Much has been said about the Fraser Island decision. I would say that we in Queensland are getting a little bit tired of the gratuitous advice we seem to be getting from the south about the management of our natural resources. I stated when the Fraser Island decision was made that it was a bad and unnecessary decision. I stand by that statement. I also say that all those prophets of doom should go back there and see that all the things that they said would happen because of the mining have not happened. As a matter of fact the regrowth has been quite amazing. Those prophets of doom should go up there and see just how wrong they were in the first instance. I would hope that the people in the south who keep giving us this gratuitous advice would do more to support the economy of Australia rather than try to prevent a State such as Queensland from getting on with its work.
Of course the Great Barrier Reef is an emotional subject for all Australians. It is a beautiful wonderland and everybody agrees that it should be looked after. But, of course, if mankind never took any risk at any stage we would never have progressed beyond the cave. Judging by some of the speeches tonight, I suppose that if people had looked ahead and seen what damage the wheel would wreak on humanity over the passing centuries they would never have gone ahead with its developments.
The Great Barrier Reef is a vast area. It stretches for about 1,200 miles along the Queensland coast and varies in its distance from the Queensland coast to in excess of 100 miles. The Barrier Reef is what its name indicates- a barrier or outer reef. Very seldom is it exposed and very seldom is it seen by human eyes. On the continental reefs, such as Swain’s Reefs off the Queensland coast, there are reef slopes, outer rims and lagoons. Then there are the coral cays and the islands and channels. It is a vast ecosystemvast beyond the comprehension, obviously, of most southerners who have never been up to see it.
This debate presumes that there will be some danger, to a greater or lesser extent, if oil drilling is carried out. First of all we should consider what happens when oil spills occur. We already have a fair idea of what happens in the intertidal areas. That, of course, could happen on the inter-tidal area along the Barrier Reef whether there was a reef there or not. Such a happening is pretty well documented. But tonight we have to differentiate from that because we are worried about the effect on the Barrier Reef.
Oils from different parts of the world differ appreciably in the proportions and varieties of hydrocarbons they contain. It is thought likely that any oil discovered on the Barrier Reef, if there is any oil there, would be similar to oil found at Moonie and possibly Bass Strait. Fortunately, or unfortunately, no oil seeps have been recorded along the reef, either because there is no oil present or because there has been no earthquake in times past to allow any oil that may be there to seep up to the ocean floor. We know that Moonie oil has a high petrol, kerosene and light oil content relative to the heavier crude oils that come from the Middle East. Like Bass Strait oil, Moonie oil contains almost no lubricating oils, tars or asphalts. There seems to be very little information on whether an oil with light fractions and low armatics, such as Moonie oil, is more toxic than oil with heavy fractions and high aromatics, such as the Middle East oil. This is crucial information in relation to Australian oils because the smaller molecules of the lighter fractions tend to be more poisonous because of their greater solubility in water.
One of the great difficulties in discussing effects on marine eco-systems is the very wide range of sensitivities of the various animal and marine life found along our shores. Possibly as a result of millions of years of oil seeps, or entirely by chance, some marine organisms have developed surfaces that resist wetting by oil or can, in one way or another, shut themselves away from pollution. Others exude protective substances when they are confronted by oil. When we look at the weathering of any oil that might appear in the open sea, in the absence of wind, tides or currents it would be expected that there would be quite a large round slick. However, because of the action of winds and tides, it usually ends up in quite an elongated shek. It drifts naturally with the tides and currents. Weather conditions play a large part. Over the first day or so, depending on the weather, you can get a fair idea of what is going to happen to the slick. It is influenced by the air and water temperatures, the humidity at the time, wave action and so forth. Certain amounts of the oil can emulsify and hang in that emulsion a few inches below the surface. Some can even dissolve. Quite a lot- fortunately the more toxic substances- can evaporate, given the right conditions, in a day or two. There is also a possibility that some of the oil can sink to the sea floor. If any of the toxic substances remain they can, over a period of time, leak and cause some damage to marine life. They can also be dissipated, or their dissipation can be helped, by biodegradation. There is a wide range of bacteria, yeast, fungi and protozoa which actually are capable of breaking down the hydrocarbons. Eventually there may be a means of cultivating bacteria that can eat these hydrocarbons. I know this has been experimented with overseas. Then we can get away from the idea of using dispersants which themselves can be quite harmful.
This biodegradation could be faster in the Great Barrier Reef waters because of the higher temperatures which prevail. One possible subeffect which we know little about, especially in the case of chronic spills, is the concentration of hydrocarbons which are in the food chain. We all know the problems associated with such things as mercury, DDT and chlorine when they get into the food chain and go right up the chain. With hydrocarbons, fortunately, some are maintained by the marine organisms. Some are also metabolised and excreted. So there is a breaking of the food chain. It is quite likely that the problems associated with mercury and DDT might not affect marine organisms when there is a large spill of hydrocarbon or crude oils.
Getting back to the Barrier Reef and recognising the problem of oil spills, the maximum time of continental shelf reef exposure during low spring tides is considered to be one or two hours daily. During exceptionally low tides this may increase to two to four hours. Of course, the best part of the reef is on the slopes. It is there that the more luxuriant fish life is found, and that area is never exposed to air at any time. In other words, oil spills will not affect it. The area seen by tourists when they walk around the reef, if they are lucky enough, is by far the lesser of the reef areas in terms of beauty, animal life, coral growth and so on. It is generally accepted that at least 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the reef is never exposed to air. In other words, any oil spill would go right over the top.
– Come on! You just said that it could emulsify.
– I said that emulsificanon occurs only in the top few inches of water. I think it was stated in the Royal Commission’s report that from 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the reef is never exposed. At the lowest tide the maximum exposure is from two hours to four hours and the average exposure is one hour to two hours. Of course, if drilling on the reef is necessary because it is thought that there is oil underneath, it is quite feasible that those concerned would not have to drill through the reef but could stand off and go in at an angle. No one wishes to destroy this wonderland wantonly in any way. Corals make up a small area of the biomass of the reef and the continued health of the rest of the living area there depends on live coral. It provides food and helps to maintain a diversity of species.
When looking at the effects on coral, it is necessary to look at the unfortunately small amount of work that has been done on assessing the effect of oil on the reef. Much drilling and oil production occurs in coral provinces right around the world. Strange as it may seem, having heard the sort of emotional talk that has gone on today, no well-established damage to reefs by oil can be quoted and drilling is carried out in South East Asia, the Middle East, the Red Sea, the southern United States and so on. There are about 8,000 off-shore wells around America and to date only 16 have had blowouts. Of those, 12 were gas well blowouts, which caused no pollution whatsoever, and only four were oil accidents. lt was only in the Santa Barbara case, which I will mention shortly, that any significant amount of oil escaped. Some biologists have experimented with oil on the Barrier Reef. Two biologists from the Queensland Department of Primary Industries have carried out a series of tests using Moonie oil, recognising that if any oil is there conceivably it could be of the same type as the oil at Moonie. The tests involved spraying up to 47 gallons of Moonie oil on a small portion of the reef in very shallow water and then watching the effect over a period of time. After three months, no harm to the reef was detected. Of course, that is really not enough to go on, and I return to what I said originally. The Australian Institute of Marine Science should have more money made available to it to carry out more work on this aspect. At face value, these experiments indicate a considerable resistance by Australian coral colonies to oil floating above and on them. The corals are able to excrete a type of mucus which cloaks them and gives them some protection for a time. If I could quote from the report of the Royal Commission, it states:
Oil passing over the reef would be unlikely to settle more than momentarily on even the more exposed parts of the reef surface under the conditions of wave surge which normally prevail at the shelf edge.
As I indicated previously, the area exposed is not exposed for any great length of time and a large area is never exposed. Strange as it may seem, it is estimated that 600,000 metric tons of oil seep to the surface throughout the world every year through natural seepage from the oilfields underneath. Areas of the highest potential damage contribute about 45 per cent of the worldwide seepage. The circum-Pacific area, which is the area of greatest volcanic and earthquake activity, contributes about 40 per cent of the world’s total seepage, and of course the California coast is part of that area. The Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez are also noted for their corals, yet they contain a number of natural oil seeps. It is said of the
Gulf of Suez that although beaches along the approaches to the Suez Canal are heavily coated with oil, with deposits up to 200 metres wide, corals growing in nearly two metres of water appear to be flourishing.
On 28 January 1969 there was a blowout in the Union oil well in the platform in the Santa Barbara Channel, about which we have heard a great deal. The oil spill was not the first major spill to occur through either an off-shore drilling rig or a shipping mishap. The accident highlighted more than any other single event the pollution problem associated with the oil industry. It must be said that the Santa Barbara area also has natural oil seepage all the time. It is estimated that about 600 barrels a year seep to the surface there. The spill involved unrefined oil, in other words, crude oil, in an area of active oil seeps, and it occurred during a period of heavy fresh water rain run-off. The results of the spill have been documented and they indicate that after the spill it was apparent that animals in the inter-tidal area that were not covered by oil survived. Many species with calcareous shells also survived when covered by oil. Recolonisation commenced in the inter-tidal zone areas as soon as oil was washed from the sub-strata. Unfortunately, a lot of the plant and animal deaths that occurred were attributed to the oil spill when in fact they were already dead from the fresh water run-off caused by the high rainfall in the area at that time, and that has also been documented. Whether they died because of the low salinity or the high fresh water content or because of pesticides, in view of the fact that a lot of the citrus areas had been sprayed previously, is not known. Unfortunately, the deaths were attributed originally to the oil spill, but ultimately it was found that that was not so.
The effect on marine life of detergents or dispersants, as they are now called, is not yet known, but it is thought that it could be quite deleterious and a better method should be found. Having mentioned that there are oil seeps in the area, it is quite conceivable that over the years the animal and plant life there have worked up some compatibility with oil and are able to live with it. The oil took some time to reach the shore, of course, and the toxic components of the oil would have evaporated by then. The Santa Barbara spill involved unrefined oil, and the Torrey Canyon and Tampico, two of the large tankers that went down, carried diesel oil as well as crude oil. The vastly different amounts of oil that come from a spill from a wrecked ship and from an oil blowout are worth noting. The supertanker Amoco Cadiz, which went down off the coast of
Brittany, released 220,000 tonnes of oil. The Torrey Canyon, which went down off the coast of England, released 100,000 tonnes of oil. The blowout or the Ekofisk Bravo Oil platform in the North Sea which continued for some days released only 22,500 tons of oil. The Santa Barbara blowout released only 10,000 to 20,000 tons of oil. Honourable senators can see that we have a far greater problem with our shipping than we have from actual oil blowouts. I must confess that I was surprised at the difference between the amount of oil released from blowouts and that released from ships.
Oil has a varying and quite disastrous effect on some of our marine organisms. Let me mention the bird life which I think suffers the most. We are all aware of the films that have been shown recently in Australia of people who are interested in bird life collecting the birds and trying to clean them up. Unfortunately oil spills will always have a bad and great effect on bird life. Less oil damage of course occurs in the open sea. The more important eco-systems are found in the shallow waters-in other words the intertidal areas- where oil pollution can be more persistent. This occurs right around the coast and not necessarily on the Great Barrier Reef. If oil drilling on the reef is to be considered a team of scientists from government departments, universities and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisations should look at the program and examine the problems of oil spills and their interaction with coral over a period.
Let me sum up by saying that if the world runs short of oil the whole argument basically becomes academic. If it is proved that there is oil under the reef, if there is a vast shortage of oil and if another energy source has not been discovered then there is no way in the world that oil will not be sought under the reef. In any case, as I stated before there is no reason to drill through the Reef. Crude oil has less effect on the ecosystem than the diesel or refined products that could conceivably come out of a spill. As I have said, a team of scientists should look at the effect of oil spills on coral. What is more important is that the whole problem is basically academic. Even if we do not drill the reef for another thousand years the very thing that we fear could happen tomorrow, the next day or the day after because of all the shipping movements up and down the coast. We have a far greater problem on our plate because of ship movements around the world than we are ever likely to have from any oil drilling.
– The Australian Labor Party decided this morning not to support the proposition. The Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Wriedt) made it clear that the Party had taken a determined stand on oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef and had come out strongly against it. Its policy has been determined. It has not changed its attitude. The Party rests on that position and understands, of course, that a variety of eminent committees have investigated the possibility, the feasibility or the desirability of drilling on the Great Barrier Reef and have come out strongly against it. If Senator Collard ‘s speech had been heard by members of the Caucus this morning it is quite possible that we would have changed our minds. It seems to me that perhaps those who support the proposition are correct in their concern. If that is the sort of case that has been put by people in responsible positions- Senator Collard holds a responsible position- then the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from mining interests which wish to exploit the area is real.
I assure the Senate that various forces which are at work will prevent drilling within the precincts of the Great Barrier Reef because they take a far greater responsibility for the future of the reef than does Senator Collard and the interests which he supports. It seems to me astonishing that for many years we could go through a campaign in Queensland and decide on a ban on oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef, on a withdrawal of the oil explorations companies from their intention to drill and on the establishment of a royal commission. That royal commission came down with positive conclusions which were reinforced in the Senate and which led to the setting up of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and a consultative committee. It desired to protect the whole area of the Great Barrier Reef, to establish it as a national park and to protect it as part of the national heritage and, in fact, as part of the world heritage. Yet that sort of case is again being trotted out by members of the National Party in Queensland and by members of the National Country Party in this Parliament.
We may consider that the proposition of Senator Chipp is timely. Nevertheless, I believe that any talk about oil drilling on the Great Barrier Reef is idle. Any expenditure of money on research in this area is a waste because the people of Australia have clearly declared that they do not want oil drilling in the precincts of the Great Barrier Reef. Having made that determination, I would have thought that we would have proceeded quickly to the point of establishing the area as a great national marine park. There seems to be some sort of hesitation. It seems that the Government has pulled away from its resolve. The great question is why. Is it because of the influence of the National Party? Is it because of the interests that support the National Party? After hearing Senator Collard tonight I am beginning to believe that that is the case. Therefore I say to those members of the Government who have taken a principled stand on this matter in the past that they ought to be wary of what is occurring within the Party room. What is the intention of the parliamentary Executive? What is the intention of the Cabinet? Does the Cabinet intend to surrender the responsibility for the off-shore area from the low water mark for which this Parliament fought for so long? That responsibility was embodied in legislation which was challenged in the High Court. The High Court ruled in favour of the national Parliament. Now, by arrangement and by some trading off, the responsibility for the offshore areas, which include the Great Barrier Reef, may pass back to the Queensland Government and be at the mercy of one of the worst parliaments that one can imagine. It is supposedly a parliament run in the style of the Westminster system yet in operation it is a parliament controlled by an executive which is dominated by one man, and that one man has personal interests in this area which have been revealed in this Parliament before.
– Revealed and denied, weren’t they?
– I say to Senator Rae that evidence of those interests was starkly revealed by a young interviewer on a Four Corners program. The interviewer asked Mr Bjelke-Petersen about bis interests. Mr BjelkePetersen did not tell the truth on that program and the young interviewer revealed that very starkly. Mr Bjelke-Petersen ‘s interests in Queensland have changed very little since that time. I have never argued about his rights as an individual to have interests of that sort. I have only argued that he should not have those interests as Premier of a State and as a Cabinet Minister because it places him in an area of serious conflict of interests.
I do not want to be diverted to the subject of Mr Bjelke-Petersen. I think the responsibility for this matter rests here in the Parliament. We have the legislation and we have the responsibility for it as a parliament. I think that there are sufficient people of goodwill to ensure that the Great Barrier Reef is protected. The concern that I have is that the Cabinet may be moving away from its firm resolution of the past. A question on this matter was asked of Senator Missen by, I think, Senator Chipp. Senator Chipp asked whether there was some shift in the Government’s position concerning the operation of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act of 1974. I do not know whether Senator Missen gave a clear answer to that question.
– That wasn’t ‘t the question.
– Let me ask that question anyway. If Senator Missen is going to answer Senator Chipp ‘s question he can also answer my question because I am clear on what I want to ask even if I do not recall properly what Senator Chipp asked. I ask Senator Missen: Is there a secret sub-committee of the Cabinet existing at present which is reviewing the operation of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act of 1974? Is Senator Missen prepared to acknowledge the existence of that sub-committee and what are the implications of the existence of that sub-committee?
– You flatter me as to my knowledge senator.
-Senator Missen, if you are not aware of that sub-committee perhaps you are more misled than I am. The advantage that I have is that I have less trust in your Government than you have and I can understand that you, being a member of a Government party, would exercise some loyalty. But I would say that loyalty may mislead you in this regard. To my belief and if my information is correct, there is a subcommittee looking at this very Act and there is a sub-committee which possibly will recommend an amendment to the Act which will remove much of the protection that the environment needs and which it has received under this Act. It is a very important Act. As far as the Great Barrier Reef is concerned, it is essential that such an Act should prevail.
If this Act and the requirements of it had been applied properly to the Iwasaki project, that Iwasaki project would not have got the goahead. If there is to be some move to exploit or to explore the oil possibilities of the Great Barrier Reef, perhaps this Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act will be amended retrospectively or in some way compromised to facilitiate that. Senator Missen, with his close contact with the powers of the Cabinet, may be able to elicit whether that is the proposal.
– Perhaps you could tell him who are the members of the committee so that he would know whom to ask.
-No I cannot tell him the members of that committee but I can tell him of the existence of that committee. However, I can speak of another committee which concerns me very much and whose operations are related to the future of the Great Barrier Reef, and that is a consultative committee. It seems to me astonishing that the Government has not as yet appointed the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. At present the chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is chairman only in an acting capacity. He is an ex-member of the Department of Defence. He is a person who, although he has sincerity and applies that sincerity, has not the expertise that is necessary to protect the future of the Great Barrier Reef and to understand that it is one vast and delicate ecosystem that needs to be protected.
In order to take the correct positions to make the right decisions, and to interpret the advice that is given to the Authority, the chairman of that Authority ought to be a person of great scientific standing. I do not think that anyone would be prepared to deny that. Yet it seems that the Government has been unable to find someone suitable. In fact it recently amended the rules to make it easier to find someone suitable, but it still has not discovered a person suitable for the position.
Let us move away from the Authority and take a look at the consultative committee. The consultative committee was a committee set up to represent the various interests that were concerned about the future of the Great Barrier Reef. I have spoken on this matter before. The positions on that consultative committee were taken up largely by representatives of departments, both State and Commonwealth, who were there merely to protect their own narrow interests. The environmentalists on that committee were in a minority. What worries me and what may add t» the concern of Senator Chipp is that the representative of the Department of National Development is the person on that committee who is blatantly pressing for oil exploration on the Great Barrier Reef, research or no research. When there is an important person on that consultative committee representing the Department of National Development and that person is leading a move for oil exploration on the Great Barrier Reef, of course one must express concern.
– Would the senator care to name him?
-He is the representative of the Department of National Development. I am just not quite certain of his name but that can be ascertained quickly. I have given his position but I am not going to give his name. He is a member of the consultative committee and my information is that he leads a fairly determined lobby for oil and mineral exploration on the Great Barrier Reef. If I am wrong and if I need to be corrected, I will accept that correction. I make the declaration that the Department of National Development, through its representative on the consultative committee, is pressing for immediate exploitation of the Great Barrier Reef and that Department is supporting the search for oil on the Great Barrier Reef.
There are alternative sources of oil that have not been fully exploited and we ought to investigate those first. We ought to push our energies and our funding behind those projects and leave the Great Barrier Reef alone. We ought not to fall into the trap of being pressured by increased oil prices and petrol prices to forsake a position that has been carefully taken and so well supported; that is, the protection of the whole of the Great Barrier Reef and its precincts from oil drilling and oil exploration. It is understood that we cannot just stop at that point; the reef is under threat from a variety of directions. But let us not diminish our argument by putting forward the case that because there are other threats to the Great Barrier Reef we should add yet another. The threat that has been proposed by those who support oil drilling on the reef would be major and we should dispose of it here without further debate and without further referring it to a select committee.
I know that the intentions of the Australian Democrats are honest but I believe that we have investigated the matter and already come to a conclusion. The Australian Labor Party is firmly against oil drilling being permitted on the Great Barrier Reef. We believe that further investigation may lead to the trotting out of a whole series of submissions such as those we heard from Senator Collard tonight, and perhaps some others also. We would again engage in an investigation. We would set in train again massive lobbying and, who knows, may by error allow to intrude some decision or recommendation which may prejudice the protection of the Great Barrier Reef. I must admit that my last argument does not go down particularly well; perhaps I could word it better. Perhaps I ought not to be opposing further inquiry. It could be argued that inquiry, no matter how often repeated, serves the best interests of the cause that one is supporting; but I believe that in this case it is unnecessary.
– Our only point is that if this is sent to a committee not even the Prime Minister would dare to make a decision while it was under reference. We are only looking at it as a means of interim protection.
– I think that it would be sufficient to bring before this House an urgency motion which would receive the unanimous support of the Senate and would reinforce previous decisions of the Senate against drilling for oil on the Great Barrier Reef. If we slip this proposition to a standing committee, that committee may already be overloaded with work. Standing committees are able to embark upon short-term inquiries. If a special inquiry is necessary a select committee is the best vehicle to use; but we have already had our select committees and they have come down with recommendations. Circumstances have not changed. The opinion of the Australian people is that the Barrier Reef should be protected. It is not a matter of only 5 1 per cent being in favour of adopting that course. We took opinion polls back in 1969 and 1970 and were coming up with a 95 per cent vote against oil drilling being permitted on the Great Barrier Reef. I do not think that we should allow companies to go into the Barrier Reef in a speculative way, to carry out in-depth exploration for oil. The risks are far too great, and are unnecessary. Also the opinion of the people has already been well expressed.
If I might say so, the proposition that Senator Mason is about to put to this House concerning citizen-initiated referenda, and which he so strongly supports, should lead him to the conclusion that what he is now suggesting is not necessary because we have already had one of those referendums. It was not a formal referendum but an opinion poll which was carried out in Queensland, and almost 95 per cent of participants voted against oil drilling being permitted in the Great Barrier Reef area. Perhaps we should rest on the people’s opinion. The Australian Labor Party is ‘agin it’. It reaffirms its position. It does not need a further inquiry.
– I rise to speak against Senator Chipp ‘s motion. I do so because it is far too narrow. It fails to recognise the magnitude of the problems involved in managing the Barrier Reef. In only one dimension does it attain any size at all, and there it goes beyond all bounds. It calls for ‘all possible effects of oil drilling’ to be considered. It simply is not within our resources to look at all of the possible effects. I support Senator Jessop ‘s suggestion foreshadowing an amendment which would refer the matter to the Science and Environment Committee in due course. An excellent bibliography, from a research point of view, exists on this issue. As the Parliamentary Library pointed out per medium of Senator Jessop, there has been no substantial research since the last major publications in this field which gives us any justification for accepting the motion. I would particularly like to support Senator Jessop ‘s plea for further marine and oceanographic research in the reef area.
The Great Barrier Reef is a most valuable asset. Like all assets it has to be protected. Previous speakers have covered most of the important points and I do not wish to re-cover them, but I would like to re-emphasise certain aspects. First, there is the vast scale of the reef itself. It really is a huge physical structure which extends for more than 1,200 miles and is quite unique. Its huge size gives it in many ways an emormous potential- for tourism, for recreation, for education and for research. In the fullness of time it may be a very important source of protein, produced and harvested, in ways that will not harm the reef’s ecology in any way with techniques yet to be developed. It may have a most important part to play in feeding the overcrowded humanity of this world. Man has lived on land and has drawn most of his support from it, with very little reference to the sea. That is particularly true in Australia. I do not know why it is but Australians take very little interest in their marine environment. Most of them live within 50 or 100 miles of the shoreline. Most of them swim. Most of them sail. But there is very little evidence that Australians take much interest at all in the sea that surrounds them. One can see this in the paucity of the marine research that Australia has carried out over the decades.
At the outset I would like to declare my interest in this reef. As a Queenslander I want to see the reef preserved-at the very least in the condition it is in today, without being subjected to degradation or depradation in any way. I am opposed to oil rigs being placed on the reef itself but I would like to stress the great lack of scientific knowledge concerning what is involved in maintaining the reef in its present state.lt represents a dynamic situation. It is a dynamic biological system. It is not a glass fish tank in someone ‘s suburban house. It is subject constantly to change. It is subject to change which sometimes improves it and sometimes destroys it. For instance, the effect of a major cyclone going down the reef is quite enormous. These are matters that we trust to be aware of, that we are dealing with a dynamic situation. Some people think that if they put a barrier around the reef they can leave it and it and it will be safe in perpetuity without the need for any maintenance at all.
One of the risks inherent in this debate is that the subject of oil spillage will be seen as representing all of the issues involved. There are many broader issues. Since we have been talking about oil we have really been thinking about energy. It is time to get back to basics on this point. The first priority for this country is to greatly accelerate the policy laid down by the National Energy Research, Development and Administration Council on 26 May 1978, as outlined by the Minister for National Development (Mr Newman). Broadly, that policy is designed firstly to conserve energy, and secondly to develop supplementary and alternative sources. It is a good and valid program but it has been the product of more leisurely times. It pre-dates the changes in Iran. After Iran, with the encirclement of Saudi Arabia, who knows what comes next for the oil supplies of this world. As a Parliament we need to press for an acceleration of the programs of NERDAC which have already been outlined, because that is a matter of national importance.
Although we have this pressing need for oil, with respect to those arguing about the risks of oil spills on the reef I gently suggest that their priorities are wrong. Surely the first thing is to find out what is out there? When we know what is out there then we can decide what needs to be done in the national interest. It is a popularly held lay-belief that there is oil in vast quantities in the Barrier Reef and as proof of that assertion there has been the debate tonight, the correspondence in the newspapers and the general level of discussion in the community about whether we drill for oil on the Reef. The fact that the argument goes on means that most people think that there is oil out there. I have spoken to some very experienced and senior oil geologists around the place. All of them make a point of qualifying their judgment. The qualification they place upon their judgment is the fact that there has been very little geological survey work done on the offshore areas of Queensland. With that qualification they say that it is very unlikely that there is oil in the Barrier Reef area. They base that opinion on the fact that with the known geology the basement rocks are so shallow that they do not provide the reservoirs that are usually needed for oil deposition. One of the risks of going along with the folklore that there is a lot of oil out on the Reef- the consequences of this position of ignorance as a result of not knowing the true geological picture- is that people view this as a reserve of oil to be kept for hard times. They may very well plan things on the basis of having some oil out there if things get difficult in the field of international oil supply. Their attitude may be: ‘Well, then, we can go out and look at the Barrier Reef. For all we know there may be no oil there at all.
I will stress a few points about the history of geological exploration off the Queensland coast. Very little exploration has been carried out and some of the information on which predictions are made about domes and all the rest of it are based on land-based geological surveys which have been extrapolated off the coast. My knowledge on this subject may well be incomplete, but it is significant that Senator Chipp, who has gone into the history of oil drilling and drilling on the reef most exhaustively, did not come up with any of the points that I am going to come up with now. He jumped straight from the 1860s to 1967. In the 1930s two drill holes were placed at Michaelmas Bay and Heron Island. Neither of those went to bedrock. They were confined to coral and yielded little, if any, geological information. In the 1950s one drill hole was placed on Wreck Island which was a test for hydrocarbons and it yielded negative results. Later on two holes were drilled in the Capricorn ChannelAquarius and Capricorn- and they were drilled down to bedrock. Again, they were negative in their findings.
The seismic survey work which always accompanies drilling has been very sparse off the Queensland coast. It has been very partial. It has not covered the whole area and this is a consequence of the vast size involved. It has been limited in scope and finance and it has been confined to the open waters. No seismic survey work has been done in any of the reefs areas. In summary the seismic work has been of a reconnaissance nature, not a continuing survey. So we are really bankrupt for geological evidence as to the structures off the Queensland coast. The indications are that there is probably no oil there at all. I suggest that it is in the national interest and that it is the responsibility of the Government to know precisely what is out there.
I think there should be a geological survey of all the offshore areas around Australia- not only the Queensland coast areas- because they are part of our extended economic zone. Whether or not we are going to use them is really irrelevant. The point is that it is just good housekeeping and good management practice that we know what we have and what we do not have. This geological survey can be done off the Queensland coast without any harm at all to any of the reef structures. The seismic surveys are absolutely harmless. Test drilling can be done on areas remote from a reef, and technically it is a very safe procedure. I believe it is our responsibility to know our own country. Secondary to that, we should decide what we need to do in terms of the national interest. That does not preclude the fact that we may ban drilling for oil if indeed there is any oil out there. Let us arrive at a decision in a logical way. Let us find out what is out there first and then let us have a debate as to whether we use those resources if they exist.
I return to my starting point which is basically a plea for an increase in the scientific knowledge of the marine environment off the coast. Not only do we know very little about the sea-bed off the Queensland coast but also we know very little about the waters above it. This is an enormous task that falls to us. We were talking about oil spills earlier tonight but no one took much notice of the depredations that the Taiwanese and other Asian fishermen are making on the reef with the removal of the innards of clams. There is probably more evidence to show that this is more harmful to the reef than any other form of human activity. Yet the governments involved seem to do very little to check this. A lot of this is going on and the people are not being apprehended.
– Should not the proclaiming of the reef be the job of the marine park authority?
– I think legislation is already on the books, for that situation. It is a matter for the Government to put these resources to it so that the laws can be enforced. Fortunately we do have a situation that gives us some hope. Recently the Government has commissioned the Australian Institute of Marine Science at Cape Ferguson and that is a superb research establishment. It was built at a cost of around $14m and has excellent equipment, excellent laboratories and it has an outstanding Director. The Director has an international reputation in scholarship and a lifelong experience as a marine biologist. But it does not have the staff to operate properly. It is a matter for this Government to see that some staff is assigned to the Australian Institute of Marine Science at Cape Ferguson so that it can operate in the way in which it was designed. If it does that it can fulfil what Senator Jessop was talking about and that is carrying out of scientific investigation of the waters around the reef to provide us with the equipment and knowledge we need to preserve this structure.
Debate (on motion by Senator Chaney) adjourned.
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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 Chaney) read a first time.
– I move:
I seek leave to incorporate the rather lengthy second reading speech in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The speech read as follows-
The Patents Amendment Bill 1979 represents a further new development in the Australian patent system. Its purpose is to bring into operation an optional form of patent protection that has been devised specifically to assist small Australian industries and businesses. It will achieve that by encouraging the inventive activity of Australians in fields that are particularly suited to commercial exploitation by small Australian enterprises. To that extent, therefore, this Bill reflects the continuing commitment of the Government to upgrading Australia’s industrial property laws through a process of reform which we believe will make them more responsive to the economic needs of the nation.
Access by inventors and entrepreneurs to quick, easily obtainable and inexpensive patent protection is the major feature of this measure. The Bill introduces into the existing patent system provision for the statutory protection of patentable inventions by means of the grant of a new short-term patent to be known as a petty patent. The form of this new Australian petty patent system is unique and has no counterpart in other industrial property legislation around the world. The new petty patent will be an additional form of protection to the grant of a patent as traditionally provided for under the present Patents Act. A petty patent will have a minimum term of one year and a maximum of six years, by contrast with the existing patent which has a 16 year term. The existing, traditional patent will in future be known as a ‘standard ‘patent.
The technological developments which are most likely to qualify to this new form of petty patent protection are those suited to protection by means of a single patent claim. This means they would normally be inventions which have only one inventive characteristic and which usually consist of only one product. Honourable senators will appreciate that the new petty patent system proposed by this Bill is therefore intended to provide a form of protection which will positively encourage innovation in Australian industry plus the creation of small industries based on innovation. The kinds of innovation aimed for will involve the rapid development of inventions which individually have a short commerciallyexploitable life, such as household or office accessories, gadgets, small appliances, and so on.
Honourable senators will better appreciate the real significance of the changes to our patents system proposed by the Bill if I explain that existing Australian patents law is founded upon principles developed within the British patent system at the time of the introduction of a national patent system in Australia in 1904- almost 75 years ago to the day. Until now, Australia’s patent law had been comprehensively reviewed only twice- in 1937 and in 1952, on both occasions by committees established by the Attorney-General of the day. In the course of these reviews, investigations were confined largely to the legal aspects of patents laws without regard to the underlying economic basis of the patent system which is being recognised here today. Additionally, those early reviews relied heavily on the reports of counterpart reviews of the British patent laws; again without regard as to whether the results of those reviews were relevant to the specific needs of the Australian industry. These attitudes have changed with the growing awareness of the economic value of the patents system as a source of technical information. Britain’s patents laws have been amended to accommodate the needs of British industry in its new relationship with the European Economic Community. This Bill similarly recognises that here in Australia, reform of our industrial property system can provide a significant contribution to improving the productivity of industry.
The existing patents law is based on a system of uniform, relatively long-term protection for inventions. Prior to the grant of a patent, every application is subjected to extensive and lengthy investigations within the patent office. The purpose of such precise and drawn-out procedures is to provide patent grants which have a substantial presumption of validity. The system provides certainty, but at the cost of delays and expense. Because of the time required to perform the operations involved- and their complexity- plus the large numbers of patent applications being lodged the grant of a patent in Australia is subject to extensive delays. Obtaining a patent does involve considerable expense and difficulties for applicants. I hasten to add that Australia is, of course, not the only country facing such problems in its patent system nor are all such problems entirely new. Similar difficulties have led others to a number of solutions including the provision in some countries of a more narrow form of protection generally described as ‘petty patents’ for technically simple developments, which are generally described as ‘utility models’.
To determine whether similar measures might be appropriate to Australian circumstances, the Designs Law Review Committee- the so-called Franki Committee- established in 1970, was authorised under one of its terms of reference to consider
The Franki Committee reported in 1973 recommending the introduction of a petty patent system within the existing patents legislation and that report has been widely circulated. Not all the features of the petty patent system recommended by the Franki Committee received unqualified support from industry in Australia. In view of these divided opinions on an appropriate system among the users, I referred the question to the Industrial Property Advisory Committee for resolution. This Advisory Committee, established last year as an industryoriented body to advise me on questions of industrial property, is itself another example of patents and industrial property law reform I referred to earlier. In considering petty patents the Advisory Committee received submissions from industry, inventors and patent attorney organisations, with only one exception, the recommendations of the Committee are incorporated in this Bill. The Committee’s report to me on this question is available in the Parliamentary Library or my office will supply honourable senators who are interested with copies.
Having provided that background to the Bill let me go on to a brief explanation of the major features of the petty patent system which it introduces. Obviously, a basic feature is the scope of the technological developments for which petty patent protection can be obtained under the Bill. The existing standard of inventiveness required for an invention to be patentable has not been changed whether for a standard patent or a petty patent. But an important feature of the new petty patent system is that an application for a petty patent will not automatically be subjected to the rigorous examination applied to applications for standard patents. I wish to emphasise that this distinction does not mean that the Commissioner of Patents will be issuing petty patents with a low presumption of validity. In fact, the Bill requires that he should not do so. But it is anticipated that the nature of inventions covered by a petty patent will be in mechanical and electrical area with perhaps some simple chemical-type inventions. It is therefore expected that it should be relatively easy to have quicker examination of such applications for petty patents. The result of this should be that a petty patent will issue well within one year of lodgment compared to about five years for a standard patent. There will be tangible benefits from this greatly reduced period of examination; a manufacturer or inventor will be able to market or license his petty patent far more expeditiously; secondly they will have a far higher degree of confidence in such commercial negotiations without the previous long delays, and; finally, the cost involved should generally be reduced by half or perhaps more. As I mentioned, the time now taken to grant letters patent for a standard patent is about five years.
The Bill further expedites the grant of petty patents by the absence of opposition proceedings prior to grant. But, in order to preserve the rights of both competitors and the public, the Bill limits the initial term of a petty patent to 12 months from the date of grant. It makes extension of that term conditional upon the Commissioner being satisfied that there is no ground for refusing to extend the term. To avoid the extension beyond 12 months of the term of petty patents, considered by interested parties to be valid, the Bill has provisions for such persons to notify the Commissioner, during the initial term, of any published matter that affects the validity of a petty patent. To provide petty patent protection which is consistent with the short commerciallyexploitable life of simple inventions, the period of extension of the initial 12 months term of a petty patent is limited to a maximum 6 years from the date of lodgment of a petty patent application- that is, an extension of five years.
This limited term is a disincentive to unnecessary use of the petty patent system in respect of complex inventions.
This Bill will provide a new and optional form of patent protection for Australian industry. The nature of this protection means that it is primarily directed to the many small businesses which are active in commercial innovation. The Bill also allows further choice by permitting an applicant to convert a petty patent application into a standard patent application or vice versa. The Bill also provides that on the grant of the petty patent, the Patent Office file becomes available for public inspection. This is an important departure from the previous Patent Office practice and will enable interested parties to examine the correspondence between the Patent Office and the applicant.
Another important feature of the Bill, and one which will be of considerable value to applicants for both standard and petty patents is the inclusion of a provision for the lodgment of all patent applications in the State capital cities. This will help many applicants for patents to avoid the delays and expense involved in the present requirement to lodge patent applications at the. Patent Office in Canberra. Applicants for trade marks and designs have been able to lodge applications in the State capitals for over 60 years. Inventors will now have the same rights.
I will not go further into the procedural aspects of the petty patent system in the Bill. However, it is of considerable practical importance that the new system is capable of immediate use by applicants. In this regard it is important to emphasise that the operation of the new petty patent system will not involve radically new procedures. It will be based on existing expertise and practices in the Patent Office. Business should therefore be able to exploit the full benefits of the system as soon as it is introduced.
I hope it is clear to honourable senators from this brief description that this measure is an extremely innovative development in the Australian patent system. The fundamental purpose of the new petty patent system is to encourage the commercial exploitation of inventions which now go largely unexploited or unprotected or both due to deficiencies in existing patent protection. In the past it has been too easily overlooked that the simple kind of inventions involved constitute a big proportion of patentable inventions. They encompass many areas, particularly in consumer-oriented products which collectively have considerable marketing potential. When the number of inventions involved and the extent of their potential use is considered it is clear that our failure in the past to provide adequate protection for such inventions seriously diminished the effectiveness of the patent system. A large part of the inventive effort of Australians has always been directed to such inventions. It follows that the patent system has not been utilising the product of that effort.
An indication of the great contribution which petty patent protection may make is available from the experience of other countries. In West Germany 41,000 applications were lodged in 1976 for petty patents as against approximately 62,000 applications for ordinary patents. In Japan 179,000 applications for petty patents were lodged as against 161,000 applications for ordinary patents. The majority of the world’s inventions are in these consumer oriented fields. Because the particular petty patent system of this Bill is unique and has no counterpart in other industrial property legislation in the world, the introduction of the system is to a large degree experimental. In view of its unique character, it is not possible to predict the exact effects which the system will achieve in practice, although its broad impact is clear enough. This factor is well understood and I assure honourable members of my intention that the system will be continuously monitored with a view to making such alterations as from time to time appear necessary to ensure the basic aim of assisting innovation and productivity in Australia is fulfilled. I commend the Bill to the Senate.
Debate (on motion by Senator Grimes) adjourned.
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Debate resumed.
– I do not intend to detain the Senate for long because I wish to make only a few remarks. However, a number of pertinent points ought to be raised in this debate. I was appalled at Senator Collard ‘s contribution to the debate. I have criticised him before in this chamber in relation to such matters as the Iwasaki project and the mining of uranium. I think I mentioned on those occasions that it was obvious that his speeches had been written for him-at any rate, lengthy notes had certainly been made available to him- by the mining council. His contribution to the debate tonight did not seem to be any different from his contribution to those debates, because transnational organisations whose interests are outside this area are dying to get their hands on the Barrier Reef. Obviously if there is no oil there the clear indications are that there are other types of hydrocarbons available on the Reef, to wit natural gas.
Senator Collard claimed that the argument in which we are involved tonight is an academic one. It is not an academic argument; it is a case of whether we are to save the Barrier Reef or whether we are to rape it in the same way as we do many of our other natural assets. Senator Collard ‘s arguments would be understandable if he were in the old brigade, in his 70s or 80s, because then he would not be too worried about what was done to our natural assets. But it is unfortunate that he is somewhat younger than that by several years. He has taken the conservative attitude that if there is oil on the reef it will be mined; if it is not done now it will be done in the foreseeable future.
It is true that two major reports have been compiled and that both of them point out quite sharply the great risks involved in carrying out exploratory drilling or exploitative drilling on the Barrier Reef or in the vicinity of the Barrier Reef. I refer in particular to the first report which was compiled by the Senate Select Committee on Offshore Petroleum Resources. Then, of course, there were the volumes produced as a result of the very lengthy investigation carried out by the Royal Commission on the Barrier Reef. The reef is one of the great wonders of the world. I am sure that about 80 per cent of the Austraiian population want to see it preserved untouched. The money that would otherwise be used either in the exploitation or the exploration of the Barrier Reef area would be much better expended on searching out alternative sources of energy, and I am not talking about the mining of uranium.
We in Queensland are in a serious situation. No doubt this discussion has been sparked off by the first statement that was made by the Minister for Mines and Police, Mr Camm. As my colleague, Senator Georges, said earlier in this debate, Mr Camm is supported by Mr BjelkePetersen who has a vested interest in ensuring that the area- for that matter any area- is mined if there is a prospect of obtaining hydrocarbons. I wonder why Senator Collard has decided to join these people. I know that Senator Webster, in a statement he made some few weeks ago, also referred to mining in the reef area. I hope that as Minister for Science and the Environment he was a little emotional and did not mean what he said. However, I can assure the Senate that members of the Queensland Government mean every word they say. They will exploit the reef if they get half an opportunity. Only this Parliament and the Australian people can prevent them from doing that. It will be recalled that on a previous occasion when an attempt was made to do extensive drilling in the area the trade unions came to the rescue. I think Senator Georges was the chief organiser of the opposition to drilling on the reef at that time.
I also wish to express some doubts in relation to recent discussions which have taken place. I know that the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) went to Queensland to celebrate the 10 years in office of the Premier of that State. I understand that on the occasion of that visit to Queensland discussions took place as to how the seas around the Queensland coast and the minerals under and on the seabed would be divided up. The national Government appears to have capitulated from previous stances it has taken with the State Government. If that capitulation has occurred, of course, the reef is in very great danger indeed.
Senator MacGibbon made rather a shocking speech. It is a pity that two Queenslanders had to adopt the attitude that the reef has to be exploited. Senator MacGibbon was slightly less detailed in expressing his attitude, because he relied for his speech on notes compiled for him by the Parliamentary Library. The Library compiles very good notes, but it was the honourable senator’s interpretation of them which upset me very considerably. I imagine that he is one of those Australians who has a piece of coral on his mantlepiece or on his dining room table and who points to the coral with some pride when people visit from overseas. The are not to know, of course, that it is dead coral, that he and other people have assisted its exploitation by buying it and using it as a mantlepiece ornament.
Senator MacGibbon said that he was opposed to oil rigs being placed on the reef, but he did not say that he was opposed to oil rigs being placed in the waters adjacent to the reef. Of course, that is one of the points on which those who desire to exploit the reef are resting their argument. They are saying: ‘We are not going to drill through the reef. That is all right. In the Bass strait, where some of the rigs are situated, the pipes do not go straight down to the seabed; they go off at all sorts of angles from the rig. In some cases two or three wells are hooked in to the one rig. Of course, that can be done on the Barrier Reef. The pipes can run for several miles so that the drilling occurs under the reef. In the process, of course, we are taking no cognisance of the fact that if a major cyclone or some other marine upheaval occurs those pipes could be ruptured, with the resultant oil spill doing a tremendous amount of damage.
– That happened in Bass Strait the other day.
-That is right. That is a clear example of what can happen. It has happened in other parts of the world. Senator MacGibbon laid great importance on the fact that tankers are travelling up and down the coast on a course between the reef and the coast. I too disagree with that occurring. They ought not to be travelling in that area because in many instances there are insufficient safeguards against a spillage occurring. We recall, for example, the Torres Strait spillage in which an overladen tanker hit the reef because the water was not deep enough to cater for that type of ship. Immense damage was done in that area.
Shortly after that accident I put an argument in the Senate. The Minister of the day who was handling the debate in this chamber is, of course, now the Consul-General in America or the Ambassador to America, or whatever title he has in America. He said that no damage was done, that nothing was happening, that everything was per.fectly safe. Of course, that was not true. We were never told the full story of the tremendous damage that was done in the Torres Strait, particularly to the pearling industry which was being revived and which was proving to be very economic for the local area. Damage was done not only by the oil but also by the detergents used to clear the oil spill. They probably did as much or more damage than did the oil. So the cultured pearl industry in that part of Australia was almost totally wiped out.
Another point that the honourable senator made was that test drilling away from the reef is technically a very safe procedure. Technically we can make anything a safe procedure. We saw this the other day when the Minister for Finance (Mr Eric Robinson) needed time off to go fishing and perhaps to explore the reef. He resigned on Friday and took up his job again on Monday. That gave him a free weekend. Technically he did not do anything wrong because he was immediately brought back into the breast of the Government and everything was forgiven. Technically we can do a lot of things and get away with them but there will always be the time when something which appears to be safe technically will go wrong. That is where the damage starts.
The honourable senator also complained that there had not been enough investigation of the Geat Barrier Reef and in fact of the marine environment generally. With this I totally agree. I agree with his words of praise for the Australian Institute of Marine Science which is situated at Cape Ferguson outside Townsville. That Institute is staffed with some of the most capable scientists and technicians associated with any similar organisation anywhere in the world. But what has this Government done? It has not given the Institute the opportunity to carry out such investigations. It has only half the necessary staff. The staff ceiling of the Institute is being ruthlessly applied. It is not being given the money it needs to do the type of investigation it needs to do so that its aims, for all practical purposes, are bound hand and foot. It is not able to do the investigating, cataloguing and tabulating that it was designed to do. This is bad for morale; it is bad for Australia; but in particular it is bad for the investigation of the marine areas along the Queensland coast and other parts of Australia.
The final thing he did was to complain about the Government doing nothing about the Taiwanese. The Government cannot do a thing about them because the Taiwanese fishing junks can outpace just about any type of naval vessel we would be likely to put into the region and in any case we do not have enough of such vessels. We have started coastal surveillance using small aeroplanes. We do not even know who is flying those aeroplanes. We do not know whether the people owning or flying them have vested interests in the exploitation of the marine areas. This should be a job for the Royal Australian Air Force but that is not the case under this Government. It is looking after the pockets of some of the people from private industry. The job will be only half done. The Taiwanese are clever people. They are much cleverer than honourable senators on the other side of the chamber. Before they send a fleet of junks into the area they put in one of their oldest and slowest vessels with holes in the bottom. It is a big deal when somebody sights it. We send off the one patrol boat which we have in the area. That takes a week to escort the junk back to harbour. As soon as the patrol boat is over the horizon another dozen junks come in. They are doing tremendous damage to the reef. The exploitation of the clams has to be seen to be believed but the Government is not really worried. It does not care. In the same way it does not care what happens to the Barrier Reef as long as Government members and their friends make a buck out of it.
Let me go back to the technical side of the matter. I am sorry that the Mining Industry Council did not write my speech. I think that every interested Australian knows of the damage that will result. He should not need to refer to technical papers. Why has the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park not been declared? This should have been done at least two years ago. The Government keeps pussyfooting around. It has done nothing about it. I am not talking about a section of the reef. The marine park should be declared from the most northern part to the most southern part of the reef. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been established. Again, this organisation is staffed with very competent people who know what the marine park is all about. Their hearts are in their jobs. They want to get on with them. This Government makes deals with the Premier of Queensland about which of his friends and which of the Government’s friends can exploit the reef area and leaves the part undeclared. That is the easiest way that it can exploit it.
Another speaker- I think it was Senator Collard- said that crude oil was not nearly as damaging as refined oil. So what? That is a great big technical detail. A person can pour a can of kerosene, refined petrol or something else over a piece of coral and it will die just as surely and just as suddenly as it would if a pipe burst and oil spilled out over the reef. Both actions would do precisely the same thing, they would kill the coral. My colleague, Senator Georges, said that the Cabinet was moving away from its previous hard line resolution. The whole Government has moved away from it. In 1975 when the Government came into power its members made all sorts of pious utterings about how they would protect our natural wonders, including the Great Barrier Reef, but they have progressively moved away from that stance ever since. What worries me is that the situation is getting worse because of the Government’s unwillingness to declare the Great Barrier Reef a marine park and to stamp on the toes of Mr Bjelke-Petersen. I believe that one of his terms of settlement in the Robinson affair was to say that there ought to be a majority of National Country Party members in the Senate team.
– Is that just your imagination?
– It is not imagination at all. The Government will not tell us what happened. If it wanted to come clean with the Australian people it would tell the truth. If these sorts of deals are going on under the counter what are the Australian people to think? They must have a very serious doubt about whether the Government is fair dinkum about wanting to protect the reef. As I have said, I will not speak at great length as I know that there are a number of other speakers to follow me, but I want to make two or three final points. The Australian Labor Party is absolutely clearcut and unequivocal in its approach to the matter. There will be no mining on the Barrier Reef. There will be no rnining in the waters surrounding the Barrier Reef. As a government we shall institute that policy. At least we have some values in respect of the natural wonders of the world. The reef is one of the natural wonders. That is our attitude; we do not intend to change it. That is the policy of the State and federal branches of the Labor Party.
I sound this note of warning: While the Government is adopting its present pussyfooting attitude, while it is pandering to the transnational and while it is not prepared to declare the Great Barrier Reef a marine park, obviously it is on the side of the people who want to exploit it. The Premier of Queensland has a vested interest in exploiting the reef. Cement companies want to get at the coral to manufacture cement. Other people want to get at the minerals on the seabed, excluding the hydrocarbons. The Government is pandering to them too. In a debate of this nature Government speakers should not make apologies and postpone matters as they have done. They have adopted a mirror attitude. They say that the Government will look into it tomorrow. The Government will not look into it today because it might find something to frighten it. It will go on with this sort of attitude indefinitely in spite of all the evidence. Apart from the two reports to which I have referred there are a dozen other volumes which have been compiled on the subject by people with great credibility in the area of marine science. If government supporters did a little weekend reading they would not agree to anyone touching the reef. Most of them have never even seen it. They are like Senator MacGibbon, who keeps a bit of coral on his mantelpiece to remind him of the Great Barrier Reef.
– Would you mind being accurate? I don’t have any coral.
– I am just saying those sorts of things to get Government supporters to be fair dinkum. They are not being fair dinkum now. I hope that the Australian people will ensure that this Government has a change of heart.
– It is necessary at this stage of the debate to remind those who are listening to it that what we are debating is a motion by Senator Chipp suggesting that there be a reference to a committee. This matter has been lost sight of by Senator Keeffe and other speakers tonight. The motion states:
That the following matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Science and the Environment: Oil exploration in the Great Barrier Reef area, including all the possible effects of any such exploration.
I enter this debate tonight realising that a number of Queensland senators have seen fit and will see fit to speak on the matter. I believe that it is a matter of national and international importance. The question of a great national and international asset, namely, the Great Barrier Reef, is of concern for us and for each of our constituents. Therefore, one does not expect that this matter can be confined to those who come from Queensland. I think that we must recognise that we are dealing with the largest and most complex system of coral reefs known on this planet. It consists of about 2,500 reefs in an area of 272,000 square kilometres along 1,900 kilometres of coastline. It has recently been stated by the Australian Littoral Society, which is a society interested not only in Queensland but also in the coastline of Australia, that despite its vast size biologists consider that it is an interdependent system of reefs which probably is also ecologically linked to the estuaries, mangrove forests and tidal marshes along the Queensland coastline. For this reason we cannot protect the reef by simply giving a few representative areas national park status. I will come to that point later. What I want to say particularly is that this is a matter of great importance -
– Why not make the whole reef a national park?
– I do not intend to spend too much time on that, senator. I will come to the question of the national park. I will discuss these matters later. This is a matter in which we are all involved. There are people in my State who are particularly concerned that the reef should be protected. In addition, so far as this motion is concerned I do not concede for one moment that, if passed, it would protect the reef. I heard Senator Chipp say that if it is passed it will stop any deals which the Premier of Queensland might make with the oil companies. I suggest that that is quite unsound and quite unlikely.
– I said the Prime Minister, not the oil companies.
– You mentioned the oil companies because I wrote it down at the time. I suggest that to send a matter like this for further inquiry by a Senate committee would not solve that problem. It would mean, of course, that the committee would be likely to suggest an excuse why determined action should not be taken at this time. Of course, in saying this I realise that Senator Jessop, the chairman of Senate Standing
Committee on Science and the Environment, expressed supportive views. A political decision must be made now. It is hard to see how an inquiry would affect such a decision. Senator Jessop was supported in that comment by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Wriedt, who said that such action would not be saved by reference to another committee.
A fair amount of agreement exists that the course proposed by Senator Chipp is not one that is desirable or acceptable. That does not mean that there should not be much discussion about this matter and that there should not be determination and will on the part of this Parliament and members in it to ensure that the reef is protected in every possible way. Reference has been made tonight to the fact that a royal commission was established in 1970. We know that at that time less was know about the effects of oil spills and the effects of blowouts of oil than is know today. I think it is useful to remind ourselves of comments made by the Royal Commission into Exploratory and Production Drilling for Petroleum in the area of the Great Barrier Reef when referring to blowouts. It stated:
Blowouts
Chronic and Random Spills
It is almost certain that some measure of chronic and random spills and leaks of oil will from time to time occur. The amount of pollution caused thereby will range from small to substantial, that is to say from a few gallons to hundreds of barrels- or more if a leak from a tanker during loading operations near the production site occurred.
I think that is correct. In my argument I propose to prove that the facts since then have indicated a much greater risk than that. I think that we have learned a lot more since that time. I think that the danger is greater now. This situation was recently referred to in an editorial published by the Melbourne Age. When referring to the royal commission, the article pointed out that there were two separate but related issues. It stated:
One is drilling on the reef itself; the other, drilling in the waters surrounding it. The 1 970 Royal Commission was emphatic that there should be no drilling for oil on any reef, cay or island within what it called ‘the Great Barrier Reef Province ‘. Any change in this position is unthinkable.
That is the view expressed by the newspaper and I agree entirely with it. The article continued:
The Great Barrier Reef belongs not only to Australia but to the world. It is part of what has been called ‘the world heritage’, and we are duty bound as such to do everything we can to preserve it. Any move in the reverse direction would stamp Australia as a mercenary and thoroughly irresponsible society.
In the same editorial reference is made to the royal commissioners. It referred to the section of the report of the royal commission from which I quoted briefly. The article then stated:
They also said that the research then available was not sufficient to say what the effects of massive and chronic amounts of freshly spilled crude oil would be on the coral and associated organisms. Their uncertainty is itself a reason why the Federal Government should not yield to pressure from the oil companies to permit drilling in the vicinity of the reef. We have a priceless asset in the reef, and nothing should be permitted which might remotely endanger it.
I hold strongly to those views because I believe it is important that we recognise the danger that exists. I refer also to statements of the Australian Littoral Society and to its recent conclusions in a statement issued on 4 February of this year. It indicated that the problems still remain and the issue was still of national importance. The document issued by the Australian Littoral Society stated:
We believe (and we are supported by Queensland amateur and professional fishing organisations and skindiving clubs) that it would be quite irrresponsible for any government to jeopardise the future of the Great Barrier Reef by allowing oil exploration anywhere within the Region. Neither the oil spills associated with a Reef oil industry nor the biological changes induced by pollution could be confined to an area specifically designated for drilling.
My understanding from that, without going into it at any length, is that there is not a great deal of knowledge in existence at the moment about the reef and the areas surrounding it and that a great deal is not known about tides and the effects of spillage. It is very difficult to say where it would be safe to drill in any circumstances. Since 1970, of course, there have been some rather startling examples of the effects of blowouts. One example which has been referred to tonight is important. I refer to the Ekofisk oil drilling accident which occurred in the North Sea area on 22 April 1977. Despite the views which were expressed to the royal commission by some witnesses who said that these things were unlikely to happen, an uncontrolled blowout took place in April 1977. The accident left a great deal of oil in the middle of the North Sea.
It was very fortunate that at that time the weather conditions were such that the damage was not as great as it otherwise might have been. I think the cost alone to the oil industry in trying to deal with this matter was nearly $10m. The conclusions which were arrived at by writers in respect of that particular blowout were conclusions which surely must be important to us in considering whether any action should be taken on or near the reef. An article written by Mr Bengt Wallenberg, the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s
Energy and Environment Division, appeared in the Observer in September 1977. He reached the following conclusion:
Concerning the environmental effects, there is no doubt that the series of tanker accidents off the coasts of the United States, French and Spanish coasts and the blow-out in the North Sea have reinforced public concern and scientific interest in the long-term effects of oil on marine and estuarine ecosystems. OU spills, whether from production or shipping accidents, are in general relatively localised episodic events and are known to be capable of having an immediate and catastrophic impact on recipient ecosystems. There have been very few long-term follow-up assessments of areas impacted by oil spills, and the rates and levels of ecosystem recovery are not generally known.
That is a view as late as 1977. Even as late as today we read in our newspapers of an oil spill, certainly not a major one, that happened so close to home in Bass Strait. This was due to a boat anchor breaking the line. In the Herald tonight there is reference to two things. The first I believe is an unfortunate statement by an official of the Department of Minerals and Energy who said, in reply to a question about why there was no statement on this since it happened several days ago: No, it was a non-event as far as we were concerned. There was no need to make a statement- my concern was to get the pipeline repaired as soon as possible’. I prefer the remark made by a State Government inspector who said: ‘This is the first time we have had a pipeline oil escape in Bass Strait and, fortunately, this one was very minimal’. It was fortunate that this one was very minimal but the next one could be very serious.
– Do you want to stop drilling in Bass Strait?
– No. Obviously you have formed the most curious conclusion. Of course we do not stop drilling in Bass Strait.
– Is that because it is off Victoria?
-No, it is not. I find the argument so incredibly puerile -
– We understand what you mean. It is a good point.
-I think it is a good point. It shows there is a great deal of danger in this field. That sort of danger must influence any decision on drilling for oil near the reef. We are considering something which was done by this Parliament a few years ago. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act is on the statute book and I find it incredible that at this stage that Act is not in active operation. If one looks at section 7 ( 1 ) of the Act one finds that the functions of the authority are:
the areas that should be declared to be pans of the Marine Park; and
It then has to carry out certain works. We know that no parts of the Marine Park have yet been declared. I deplore that situation. I have said before, and I say it again, that I think that that stage should surely have been reached. Even the area which was to be the first park, in Capricornia, comprising 6 per cent of the whole of the Barrier Reef has not been proclaimed.
We have annual reports by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Authority because it exists but it is so limited in its present powers. In its first report it was pointed out that the Act was carried in 1975 with the support of all political parties. I had great pleasure in supporting that Act because I thought it was a most important one. I thought the authority ought to come into practical operation. In its second report, in 1977-78, that Authority had this to say:
The members considered that drilling should only be permitted in the light of full scientific knowledge of all the effects of oil pollution on the delicately balanced ecosystems of the Reef. Research should encompass oils’ direct and indirect effects, both short and long term, on corals and othermarine life.
The threat to the Great Barrier Reef from oil is not limited to proposed oil drilling activities. Of more immediate concern are the risks associated with the passage of oil tankers and other shipping through the region. The Authority is seeking a co-ordinating role in the development of research into this potential problem as well as monitoring research by other organisations.
I believe it is important that this particular Act come into effective operation. I am not alone in this view. I warmly commend the letter which my Victorian colleague, Mr Barry Simon, the honourable member for McMillan, wrote to the Australian on 15 February 1979 in which he said, amongst other things:
Not only should there be no commercial drilling for oil (if in fact any exists) but there should be no experimentation or exploratory work undertaken in the Reef area.
He went on to say:
However, I do believe that the Government should now indicate its intention to protect the whole of the reef as it U defined in the Commonwealth Act from the point near Bundaberg right through to Cape York, thereby removing any doubts as to the Commonwealth Government’s intention regarding oil exploration.
There is, however, a need for greater research of the marine environment, both within and outside that defined area.
This fact was recorded by an all-Party House of Representatives committee in a report tabled in Parliament last year on the subject of oil and the marine environment.
The Commonwealth Government recorded its bonafides in relation to the protection of significant environmental features in Australia when it stopped sand mining on Fraser Island.
I believe that there is strong support in the Liberal Parliamentary Party for a similar declaration on the Great Barrier Reef.
I could not agree more with the views which Mr Simon expressed with regard to that matter.
Earlier this evening Senator Chipp asked me some questions and I think he thought that I should be able to answer them all. I said that I would indicate that I believe that the Government and the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) have repeated their declarations with regard to the fact that this oil mining would not be permitted to commence on the Reef, and I hope not in the immediate vicinity. Because of representations which I received in January, on 24 January I wrote a letter to the Prime Minister referring to representations which the Australian Littoral Society had made. It was concerned about Press reports that the Government had directed the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority not to proceed with the declaration of the Capricornia section of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. I then expressed my view that early action should be taken to expedite the implementation of the Act and that the Australian people could be assured that the speculations of this matter are unjustified. I think that is basically the question which I was asked.
In a reply to me dated 19 February, referring to and repeating those allegations which had been made, the Prime Minister said:
I also received representations from the Society and replied on 24 January pointing out that the Press reports were quite inaccurate. The actual position is that the Queensland Premier has agreed that talks be held between Commonwealth and State officials to resolve any possible difficulties that could arise in relation to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park following the Premiers Conference agreement on extending the powers of the States into the territorial sea.
Senator Chipp did not quote the latter part of his answer to the question.
– What does that mean?
-It means that those statements are wrong and that there is no direction given not to proceed. I wanted to see something more positive and I rely upon the latter part of the Prime Minister’s answer in which, on 21 February, he said to Mr Barry Cohen:
But let me give a complete and unequivocal guarantee that this Government would not allow any drilling or any mining that would do anything to damage the reef. If there were to be any doubt about that, activity would not take place. At the moment I know of no proposals. I will make inquiries to see if there are any proposals as regards drilling or mining.
I believe it is quite essential that that position be maintained. I am concerned at the somewhat vague statements which the Minister for Science and the Environment (Senator Webster) made earlier this month when discussing the possibility of drilling. I do not feel very happy about the idea of any joint authority that may have some separate control in the area of the reef. If in fact three-mile authorities are given to the State of Queensland and there are coral reefs which are partly under Queensland control and partly under the Commonwealth’s control, I think this would be a matter of great concern. It must be made quite clear that the powers which the Commonwealth has, and which the High Court has declared, are such that the marine park can operate effectively. There is therefore, some danger in the joint control. I believe that there is danger in the statements which members of the Queensland Government have made about their intentions. I remind members of the Senate of what the Queensland Minister for Mines, Mr Camm, said on 24 December last. He said: a number of experiments on the possible effects of crude oil on coral had shown that no damage had been caused. In some instances growth had been encouraged . . . offshore oil drilling is going on throughout the world with no danger to marine life and I can see no possible reason for any objection to off-shore exploration in this State, and technological developments in offshore drilling had improved tremendously in the last decade virtually eliminating the possibility of a major spill.
I am concerned with that sort of statement. I am concerned with any suggestion that is made that Ministers like that will have some control over the marine authority and will be able in any way to meddle with the possibilities of oil drilling on and around the reef. We know that there are oil companies that had permits before and that they have been deferred. We know that there are some that were interested in this area. Therefore, I do not regard this matter as being in any way unimportant. I oppose the motion to send this reference to a committee because I think it will send it for some further period into a state of vagueness. I believe that we have certainty in this area and that we must keep that certainty and ensure that the policies which have, led us in the past to create the marine authority ensure also that it becomes effective and has areas of the reef within its direct control. Because I hold those views, I oppose this motion and hope that the Senate will take the matter very much in hand as a matter of importance to this country.
– I briefly enter this debate about oil exploration of the Great Barrier Reef to endorse what Senator Jessop, the Chairman of the Senate
Standing Committee on Science and the Environment has foreshadowed will be put at a meeting of the Committee tomorrow and that is that the Committee should continue to have a watching brief not only of the Barrier Reef situation but also of the Kakadu National Park situation as well. I think that the Barrier Reef will always be under siege from mining interests. It will have the same career as the Florida Everglades. On many occasions committees of the United States Senate, have had to protect that area from certain greedy commercial interests. I simply want to have a number of documents incorporated in Hansard primarily for the purpose of refuting some of the submissions of Senator Collard, who virtually said that nature is so robust that it can overcome oil spills. I have shown these documents to a Minister. Firstly, I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard a clipping from the Toronto Star headed Britain Still Shows Scars of Oil-Spill Clean-up.
Leave granted.
The document read as follows-
London- Nearly 10 years after the tanker Torrey Canyon broke up on Seven Stones Reef off Lands End, traces of detergent are still found a foot or so deep in the sand of nearby beaches.
The detergent was used to break up the oil so that it could be washed away, the same as detergent would on greasy hands.
But little was known at the time about the effect of detergent on marine life and experts now say that more damage was done in the clean-up operation than by the oil spill itself.
The Torrey Canyon deposited 30,000 tons of oil- half its load- on beaches at England ‘s westernmost tip in three days in mid-March, 1967.
The spill was estimated at more than 36 million gallonsabout S times the spill that occurred yesterday when the Argo Merchant broke up off Nantucket Island, Mass.
Canada’s worst oil spill came seven years ago when 1.9 million gallons poured out of the Liberian tanker Arrow in Chedabucto Bay, N.S. It still fouled shorelines four years later.
A US study once showed there were 30 tanker spills of more than I million barrels each from 1967 through 1972.
When the Torrey Canyon broke up, Royal Navy planes bombed the wreck and dropped napalm to keep the oil slick burning.
Detergents, the only means then known for attacking oil spills, were collected from ail over England.
Now it is recognised that they were more toxic than the oil and did more to kill marine growth and undersea life.
Seaweeds, in particular, were affected, and marine animals living on the seaweed almost disappeared for several years. However, new seaweed has grown and the marine animals have recolonised
All this took several years, but there now have been three or four generation of new marine life and the sea bottom has been returned more or less to normal.
According to David Moulter in charge of the marine pollution centre at the Marine Biological Society Headquarters, Plymouth, the traces of detergent still found one to two feet down in the sand have very little effect. There is no marine life there to speak of.
It is now acknowledged that, while detergent still has its use in oil spills, it is a toxic substance and should be used sparingly.
As a result of the Torrey Canyon experience, plans were devised here for dealing with future spills in any area.
These plans take account of differences in the local environment. For instance, in some areas no detergent would be used at all, but the oil would be left to disperse on its own.
– Perhaps I should deal at once with the other three documents I wish to have incorporated. The first is a Newsweek clipping that deals with the ecology cycle when an oil spill occurred in the Nantucket area on the coast of the United States of America. It further strengthens my case. The real crux of the matter is the laxity about keeping up penalties against oil spills whether they be from oil drilling or a tanker mishap. A former Minister for Transport, the Hon. Charles Jones, did strengthen the Navigation Act. I know that in replies to questions the Government has banked on the fact that TOVALOP private enterprise indemnity fund would meet the situation but it has never been fully” tested. To indicate how we have to have forward thinking, I ask that a letter which “I received from Senator Ed Muskie, who, as honourable senators know, represents the coastline State of Maine, also be incorporated in Hansard, together with a further clipping from the New York Times which refers to the current climate in the United States Congress. I seek leave to incorporate those documents in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The documents read as follows-
Newsweek Clipping
THE WORST OIL SPILL?
Viewed from the cockpit of a U.S. Coast Guard spotter plane flying at 5,500 feet, the vast oil slick off Nantucket Island glittered evilly, like an enormous stain of phosphorescent glue spread out over the stormy waters of the Atlantic. On a shoal just 27 miles southeast of Nantucket, 20-foot- high waves pounded ceaselessly at the hulk of the wrecked Liberian-registered tanker Argo Merchant. Each time the water crashed into the hull, more gouts of heavy No. 6 industrial fuel oil gushed out. Soon, almost al! of the Argo Merchant’s cargo of 7.6 million gallons of oil would be spilled into the sea.
Already, the slick covered an area up to 44 miles wide and 141 miles long, and it posed the threat of an environmental disaster of enormous magnitude: economic ruin for many fishermen along the New England coast and hard times for the area’s multimillion-dollar summer tourist industry. For the moment, fishermen and residents in the threatened area took what comfort they could from the fact that the oil slick seemed to be moving out to the open sea. But the experts- U.S. Coast Guard officials, National Marine Fisheries Service biologists and scientist at the University of Rhode Island- said that even if the huge spill should be carried out to sea, the aftereffects in the immediate area could still be immense and long-lasting. At best, a significant part of the annual 485,000-ton catch of flounder, cod, scallops, lobster and other food fish could be lost in five years ‘ time; at worst, much of the Georges Bank spawning ground, perhaps the richest in the world, could be temporarily destroyed.
Experts think that they know how the slick will eventually break up. First, under the continual battering of the winter waves, the flat, glutinous “pan cakes” that make up the bulk of the slick will split up into tar balls whose sizes will vary from that of a 50-cent piece to that of a trash barrel. Plankton, sand and ocean debris will slowly collect on the tar balls, increasing their density and causing them to sink. What is critical to the fate of the New England fishing industry is how far the slick will travel before the tar balls start to sink. The effects will be worst if a substantial part of the oil sinks before it travels beyond the relatively shallow waters of the continental shelf (diagram).
At present, the most endangered creatures- apart from sea birds whose feathers are begrimed with oil- are the larvae of the region’s huge population of finfishcod, pollock, haddock, yellowtail, flounder and halibut. After these fish spawn, their larvae float up to the surface. If they encounter oil there, the larvae will simply smother to death. Marine biologists fear that the oil could wipe out a substantial portion of the 1976 fish hatch, and thus cause a massive reduction in the “year class” of 1981, when the survivors among this year’s larvae will be harvested.
Toxins: But the impact of a decrease in the finfish catch in half a decade appears minor when compared with the damage that could be caused if the bulk of the oil sinks onto the continental shelf. According to Howard Sanders of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the oil will embed itself in the sediment on the bottom and then start to degrade slowly, giving off toxic chemicals in the process. That will trigger a textbook example of ecology in action.
First, tiny plants and animals living on the sea bottom will ingest the toxins from the oil. The fish will consume the tainted organisms and start to react to the oil-based poisons. Their heartbeats will increase; their metabolisms will speed up; their growth will be stunted, because they will have to expend most of their energy on simply staying alive; they will reproduce less often, and their offspring may turn out to be weaker than normal. Conceivably, one complete link in the marine food chain could be destroyed in this way, causing, over a number of years, an upset of the area’s ecological balance.
New York Times Clipping
The National Academy of Sciences has estimated that, of some 2 billion tons of oil (a ton representing about seven 42- gallon barrels) produced worldwide in a year, upward of 6 million tons eventually went into the ocean. In United States coastal and inland waters alone there are as many as 13,000 spills, large and small, every year, aggregating around 20 million gallons.
Several significant points grow out of these reckonings. One is that worldwide averages aren’t much consolation if a spill occurs on your doorstep, as happened here in the big drilling blowout of 1969. Another point is that too large a portion of the transportation spillage is motivated.
A major reason tankers have been coming to grief at a worldwide rate of one or two a month is cheap-john practices of some oil and transport companies. Adequate antispill features are skimmed in vessel construction; tankers are handed down like used cars to less and less scrupulous operators until they are ready to fall apart, and manning and navigation are sometimes shockingly bad. On top of this, many vessels have made a practice of flushing their tanks at sea, releasing tons of waste oil at a time.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that spilled oil costs an average $25 a gallon to clean up. The Federal Government has spent many millions on spillsoutlays that were never recovered. Either way, in taxes or oil prices, the citizen pays.
The ecological damage of oil spills is still a subject of great debate. The oil industry tends to depict the damage as minimal. But many scientists think oil can obliterate some species, harm others in passage through the ocean food chain and ruin habitats.
A general statutory tightening, in which the Cape Cod hearings were one item, is now in progress. The Oil Pollution Compensation and Liability Act now before Congress would make oil companies and carriers, both offshore and onshore, liable for spill clean-up and damage up to $300 a ton, which could mean as much as $30 million in the case of a ship owner. Amounts beyond this would be covered by a $200 million fund derived from a three-cents-a-barrel levy on imported and exported oil. Also .before Congress is a tanker safety bill laying down requirements for construction, personnel and navigation equipment for any vessels that want to enter United States ports.
Congress further is fashioning amendments to the original Outer Continental Shelf Act of 1953, which laid down industry-oriented ground rules for offshore development.
Letter from Senator Muskie
Muskie and Biden Reintroduce Oil Spill Liability Bill
Maine Senator Ed Muskie joined Sen. Joseph Biden D-Del. Monday in introducing a comprehensive measure fixing responsibility for cleaning up and paying for damage from oil spills.
Muskie and Biden introduced a similar measure in the last Congress. The bill would establish unlimited liability for the cost of cleaning up spills, and set specific liability limits for vessels, facilities and ports.
It would also require the federal government to act immediately to clean up spills unless it is determined that the party at fault will assume that responsibility. And the measure would establish a $250 million federal oil pollution compensation fund, with the money coming from a 5c per barrel tax on oil transfers.
The wreck of the Argo Merchant, and the rash of other oil spills along our coast have made us dramatically aware once again of the risks of oil transportation and offshore drilling and shipping,’ Muskie said in a statement. ‘Inconsistencies in present law give neither oil companies nor the people a clear idea of what their rights and responsibilities are when spills occur.
Our bill would not only protect the interests of those involved, and remove the inconsistencies which now exist, ‘ he added. ‘It would also make certain that Maine and other states which have tough oil handling laws of their own can continue to enforce those laws, and enact new laws which they feel are necessary to protect their people and their state resources.’
The Muskie-Biden bill would also establish fines up to $ 10,000 for discharging oil in harmful quantities, and a similar fine for failing to report a spill. Oil companies would be required to demonstrate financial responsibility sufficient to meet the liability limits. Those limits are set at $ 1 50 per gross ton for vessels, $50 million for offshore or onshore facilities and $100 million for deepwater ports. Liability for both damages and clean-up would be unlimited in cases of gross negligence or willful misconduct. The attorney general could initiate class action suits to recover damages.
In addition, the staff of the Environmental Pollution Subcommittee has been instructed to begin a review of the limits of liability on vessels for oil spill cleanup costs to determine whether the limits established by a 1970 law are adequate. Further the staff has been instructed to begin immediately to determine whether broader oil pollution liability legislation is needed, both to cover the costs of damages caused by such spills and to discourage the kinds of negligent action which result in spills both within our waters and beyond our coast.
It is long past the rime for comprehensive legislation which provides not only for adequate liability for oil spills but also for establishment of minimum standards for the construction, operation and maintenance of vessels which want to use the ports of the United States. We can no longer afford the luxury the shipping industry enjoys of shopping for countries in which to register vessels solely on the basis of least cost in terms of ship design, operation and maintenance and cheapest crews. If the ships are going to use the ports of the United States- if they are going to ply our waters- then they should meet the same level of performance demanded for ships which operate under the American flag. While we recognise this will increase costs, it is better insurance to pay those increased costs directly in the vessel construction, operation and maintenance, than indirectly in damages to our environmental resources- damages which cannot be corrected after the fact.
We hope that you will join with us in these efforts first by cosponsoring the legislation, a copy of which is attached, and subsequently any new legislation to deal with the broader problems we have outlined.
Sincerely,
Edmund S. Muskie, U.S.S.
William D. Hathaway, U.S.S.
page 385
by Senator Edmund S. Muskie
Over the past six years, I have made several attempts to rationalise federal law dealing with oil spills, and to improve the safety features of oil tankers which call at American ports.
Those efforts have for the most part failed, through a combination of heavy lobbying, legitimate disagreements about the details of legislation and public apathy toward the problem.
The wreck of the Argo Merchant off New England, and a half-dozen other oil spills and tanker groundings over the Christmas holiday season, have awakened the public, and the government, once again to the risks taken every day off our coasts. The fact that most of these incidents involved flag of convenience’ vessels dramatises the need for federal action.
The Argo Merchant disaster will be almost a blessing if it lends to new, tough legislation designed to assign liability for spills and require safety standards which protect our coastal environment, rather than protecting the pocketbooks of the tanker owners, as they do now.
I have cosponsored again this year a bill to clarify existing federal law concerning oil spills, fixing liability for clean-up and damages from spills, and raising the liability limits. In addition, Senator Bill Hathaway and I will be re-introducing a measure I sponsored last year to extend the U.S. jurisdiction over pollution out to 200-miles offshore.
The Argo Merchant disaster occurred outside current U.S. jurisdiction.
I have also asked my subcommittee on environmental pollution to begin a thorough review of the current law governing liability for spills, and governing tanker safety.
There is already a demonstrated need for some safety measures such as construction of tankers with a ‘double bottom’ so that a rupture in the hull would not automatically mean a rupture of an oil tank. I have been urging this requirement for years; it would have prevented disasters like the spill in Portland Harbor from the tanker M.V. Tamano. Other safety measures have been proposed, and should be considered as pan of a comprehensive review of oil handling legislation.
The review is long past due- we have had no major oil spill legislation since Congress adopted my bill in 1971 setting liability for spills. We can no longer afford the luxury the shipping industry enjoys of shopping for countries in which to register vessels solely on the basis of least cost per ship. A little money spent now could save millions later.
– These documents strengthen the cause of those of us who feel that we cannot remain in a complacent attitude.
– It is my pleasure to join in the debate this evening and to note that a number of Queensland senators have made a contribution to the debate, which is hardly surprising as the Great Barrier Reef is, of course, off the coast of Queensland. That may sound a terribly trite statement but I would like to make the point that whilst Queenslanders feel a particular pride in the Great Barrier Reef I think we should all acknowledge that it is part of a national asset which has some particular relevance to Queensland and the things that the Queensland Government do in relation to it have a very particular relevance but I think that should always be in context of the fact that that reef is an Australian asset and part of the Australian heritage.
We are, of course, speaking to a motion by Senator Chipp to send a reference to the Standing Committee on Science and the Environment for investigation. It has already been indicated this evening by the Chairman of that Committee, (Senator Jessop) that it is not thought appropriate for that reference to go to the Committee. In that context I would only like to make a couple of brief statements. I shall be brief because other members of the Committee have commented on it. I support the proposition that it should not go to the Committee in general outline. I would also like to take the opportunity to make my position clear in relation to certain matters affecting the Great Barrier Reef.
The subject of the reef is, of course, a matter of considerable political interest in Queensland and has been for a long time, but it is particularly so at the moment with talk about marine parks and the possibility of oil drilling. It is not a recent phenomenon that this great interest exists in Queensland or elsewhere in Australia but I believe that the depth of public interest in Queensland is probably the strongest in Australia because it is an issue which is constantly mentioned to me as I travel round the State. It is not an issue which is mentioned to me with any regularity at all when I travel through other States of the Commonwealth of Australia.
A few years ago there was, of course, a royal commission into the subject of oil drilling on the reef. It was commissioned within Queensland. The report is a very formidable report, a very long report, and a very difficult one I am told, by those who tried to read the whole report which, I shall admit, I have not done because of the technicalities and the size. However, I am aware of the general conclusions of the report and I hope I can summarise them- again, I hope not too crudely- by saying that I think, essentially what the results of that royal commission would convey to us is that firstly, as far as we know, there are not good prospects of finding oil on the reef. Secondly, it is virtually impossible under present circumstances to tell what are the prospects of successful oil drilling and furthermore, what the results of oil drilling will be. I, along with many others, welcomed the statement made by the Premier of Queensland Mr Bjelke-Petersen, yesterday that there is no question of the reef itself being drilled. There are, of course, other issues including the matter of drilling within the vicinity of the reef, even if that be in terms of 100 or 200 kilometres. In general terms I am persuaded as a result of that royal commission, firstly, that there is no compelling reason to drill for oil on the basis of the information that we currently have of the prospects of finding oil in that area. To use the recent events in Iran as a basis for urging further oil exploration on the reef, is an emotive argument and is not one which appears to be well founded in fact.
In the second instance, I do not feel that it is good enough to say that there is always some risk in oil drilling and that finally we cannot be sure what those risks are. We could avail ourselves of a great deal more information if the experts undertook more research on the subject of the potential dangers of drilling anywhere in the vicinity of the reef- I have already indicated that in my opinion the vicinity could be a matter of hundreds of kilometres- and that research must be undertaken. I appreciate Senator Chipp ‘s sentiments on the subject when he said that perhaps we are just dodging the issue. He has claimed that we could achieve something in that direction by having a Senate committee consider the problem. I do not believe that that is appropriate. I do not think that Senate committees are used properly in areas which clearly require a great deal more research and investigation of a very specialised nature. I think such committees are better used when the information is available and can be brought together by a committee.
page 386
The DEPUTY 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.
– I hope not to delay the Senate very long, and I regret having to do so at all. Last night Senator O ‘Byrne sought unsuccessfully to involve the Senate in the now 12-year-old attempt by the pro-communist Left forces and their political quislings to capture control of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council. Senator O ‘Byrne has long been the Canberra mouthpiece for these forces, and last night he slavishly played his part in the relentless campaign of vilification, innuendo and character assassination of the TTLC officers, past and present. The childish whisperings by the friends of Senator O ‘Byrne suggesting that I used education funds for my Senate campaign are laughable. Indeed, I cannot find a single correct statement in Senator O ‘Byrne’s speech. To suggest that funds provided since 1973 by the State Government specifically for trade union education for all unions and associations in Tasmania should somehow be part of TTLC funds shows his ignorance of the basis upon which the funds were provided originally. It is also a reflection on respected trade union leaders, both present and former officials of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council and the State Branch of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
Senator O ‘Byrne’s attempt to involve the Commonwealth Government by suggesting that the State Government’s funds were intended for use by a Commonwealth authority, and that was the burden of what he was about, is plainly humbug. When the funds were sought early in 1973 and arrangements made, the Commonwealth instrumentality referred to by Senator O ‘Byrne, namely, the Trade Union Training Authority, did not even exist. Expenditure from the Tasmanian Trade Union Education Fund has been strictly in accordance with the purpose for which it was provided. It enabled the establishment of a professional training program, adequately staffed and equipped, the direction of which was ultimately taken over by the Commonwealth Trade Union Training Authority. Expenditure was provided only for those courses approved by successive training councils, upon which the State Education Minister was represented. To suggest that Doug Lowe sought information last year on the Tasmanian Trade Union Education Fund is just not true. His inquiry related to TUTA and was passed on to it. Why would Mr Lowe seek such information on the Tasmanian fund activities when the information is readily available through the proper channels of the State Education Department which provided the funds? Those honourable senators who are trade unionists will find it most noteworthy that the politically inspired attacks emanate from those people who have not lifted a finger to help in what surely must be regarded as the most successful trade union training program of its size in the whole of Australia. But, of course, the issues go far deeper. Those of us who are aware of the issues know why the attacks have been made when clearly all of the information is available through the appropriate and proper channels. The funds are taxpayers’ funds, not part of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council’s funds.
The real issue is the attempt by members of the pro-communist Left to undermine the central authority of the trade union movement in Tasmania. Their aim now is also to capture control of the accumulated funds of the Tasmanian trade union education account, which they know contains considerable amounts of money, and to build their own counter course of political indoctrination. That is what the matter is all about. They seek to obtain these funds to establish a counter training course of political indoctrination not subject, as the present courses are subject, to rigorous scrutiny by bodies upon which the State Education Department is represented.
Furthermore, it is an attempt by the local socialist Left controllers of the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Labor Party to flex their muscles to see just how far members of parliament and Ministers are prepared to ingratiate themselves in order to obtain parliamentary preselection at the end of this week. They are prepared to use their parliamentary quislings, including Senator O ‘Byrne and the gang of four. Incidentally, Mr MacKinnon, M.H.A., is the leader of the gang of four and one of the enforcers of the Left controllers of the Tasmanian ALP. At the last election he received 656 votes out of a total enrolment of 51,886 voters. Honourable senators might ask how he was elected. He was elected on a recount.
But, worse still, this action represents a veiled attack on successive State Labor governmentsthe Reece Government and the Neilson Government- which were instrumental in negotiating for trade union education. They knew that this was a means of ensuring a commonsense approach to industrial problems, which has been the policy of the leaders of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council for some years.
– You were caught with your finger in the till, you crook.
– I hope the Hansard reporter picked up that interjection. This is a diversion. It is totally laughable, as will be shown. I expect, but do not guarantee, that Senator O’Byrne will apologise to me and to the Senate in due course over that remark. This is a veiled attack on the type of Labor Government represented by Mr Reece and Mr Neilson. If the matter is followed through it will be a nail in the coffin of the current Labor Government. Honourable senators should bear that in mind. That is one of the more ominous aspects of this sort of attack. I do not propose to go into all the inaccuracies in Senator O ‘Byrne’s statement. However, in conclusion, I say that one of the most contemptible of the misstatements made by Senator O’Byrne last evening was a personal one in which he stated:
Normally I would have waited for him -
That is for me- to be present but his attendances here are becoming less frequent.
I have regard for someone far and above any person in the world. Tomorrow night if I have to leave this Parliament and go home in order to see that that person is taken to hospital to get treatment, I will do so. The President knows the situation. Let me leave that aspect to one side. Let me table for the information of the Senate a document which was prepared by the Senate Journals, Records and Bills Office on my attendance between 15 August 1978 and 28 February 1 979. It was given to me today. It states:
I refer to a request from your office in regard to your attendance in the Senate between 15 August 1978 -
That is the Budget sittings- and 28 February 1979. In this period there were 40 sitting days of the Senate of which you attended all but two days.
I think that gives the lie to the last misstatement made by Senator O’Byrne last evening.
-Last night I drew the attention of the Senate to a grave situation in Tasmania. Senator Harradine who has just resumed his seat was asked to answer a series of questions concerning a considerable amount of money, namely, $55,000.
– And he evaded every question.
– He evaded every question. Senator Harradine said that he could not find one correct statement in the charges that I made last night. I will reiterate them and confront Senator Harradine to show that he will lie his way out of anything. We know from a long way back that he can twist the truth -
- Mr Deputy President, I take a point of order. The use of an accusation of a lie is against Standing Orders.
– I did not say that he was a liar. I said that he would lie his way out of anything.
– Speaking to the point of order, this debate last night and tonight has been vigorous and Senator Harradine during the debate has used of Senator O ‘Byrne such terms as quisling’, ‘member of the pro-communist left’, et cetera. If we are going to get a little sensitive about such statements, debates will get nowhere in this place.
– Speaking also to the point of order, the Standing Order referred to is Standing Order 418 which relates to offensive words being used against another member of this place. They were not offensive words; it was an expression in explanation of the action of an honourable senator. Senator O ‘Byrne did not call Senator Harradine a liar or anything derogatory. It was an expression of what this man will do. It has not been denied. If it were offensive I would expect an application for a withdrawal to come from the man who felt offended. I do not know why Senator Carrick wants to interfere in a domestic dispute in Tasmania
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- I believe that there has been the use of words that could have been much more moderate in the case of both honourable senators. I would ask Senator O ‘Byrne to continue in more moderate terms.
-I reiterate that Senator Harradine has not answered the questions that were posed. Until he comes clean and is prepared to table a statement about what happened to the $55,000 that went into his control and afterwards into the control of Mr Watling in the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council, I will not give up this search for the truth. Senator Harradine is notorious in Tasmania for being able to worm and squirm out of any situation. He is not a bad operator. It has been said that he is a political gyroscope who rotates on his own verbosity. Tonight he gave an exhibition of saying a lot but finishing up having said nothing.
I would like to reiterate the situation and I would like Senator Harradine, if he is a man, to deny what I am going to say. The money was granted over a period of five years. In reply to a letter directed to him from the State House, on 19 January the Minister concerned, Mr Holgate, said:
I refer to your letter dated 18 December requesting information on grants paid by the State Government to the Trade Union Training Authority and I am pleased to provide you with the following information: Payment date, 18 January 1974. $15,000 forwarded to 41 Davey Street, Hobart.
That was the address where Senator Harradine had established an ersatz branch of the Tasmanian Trades and Labor Council after having taken over the Council by the use of what would be classified as the most sophisticated type of fascist and mafia tactics. He displaced a very fine old man, Jack O’Neill, who was Secretary of the Trades Hall Council in Hobart. He took over all the small unions that Jack O’Neill had been looking after and used these small unions without having to give a statement of the membership or the affiliation fees that were paid by them. This is the way he took over the trade union movement in Tasmania- by the use of every underhand and snide method that has been known in the trade union movement in Australia.
However, it was on 18 January that he received this first payment. Then on 12 December 1974 there was a further payment of $10,000. That was sent care of the Trades Hall, 41 Davey Street, Hobart. Senator Harradine signed for both of these cheques. It is on record that he signed personally for both of these cheques. On 15 December 1975- that is, after his election to this place- a further $ 10,000 was paid in, not care of the Trades Hall but just ‘The Trades Hall, 219 New Town Road, New Town’. This was after Senator Harradine had organised to cash in on the Trades Hall building. At some later stage I will enlighten the Senate as to how Senator Harradine, through a devious method, formed companies with three directors, with a quorum of two, and now has control of the funds from the old Trades Hall in Hobart. He sold the other place that he bought to the Trade Union Training Authority. This fellow has track form. After I have told the Senate of the way in which this man goes on, he will not be so verbose in future in trying to bluff his way out of the situation in which he finds himself. On 29 November 1976, a further $ 10,000 was paid in care of the Secretary, ‘Carolside’ 219 New Town Road, New Town. This further cheque was signed by him as ‘Senator Harradine’. Then there was a change. On 9 November 1977, a further $10,000 was sent care of the Secretary, ‘Carolside’, 219 New Town Road, New Town. That cheque was deposited and signed for by a Mr Robert Watling, the successor to Senator Harradine as secretary of the Trades and Labour Council in Tasmania. The Minister says:
Ail cheques were payable to the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council.
Why was Senator Harradine signing cheques for the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council in November 1976 when he was a member of this Parliament? The Minister concluded by saying:
I trust this information will be of assistance.
It is certainly of assistance to me tonight to nail Senator Harradine to the mast as regards his attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the Senate.
– Who were the auditors of that fund?
-Unfortunately, Senator Harradine will not divulge who are the auditors of the fund. I understand that the auditors who have been looking after the affairs of the Trades and Labour Council are the firm of Garrott and Garrott. The auditors have given a limited audit of the affairs of the Trades and Labour Council but there are many queries within these limits. On another occasion 1 will develop the situation about the affiliations and the payment of fees from affiliated unions, but that is another matter. These funds have never been audited. One cannot find out where the account is or what is the name of the account. These are the questions I posed last night and Senator Harradine has not answered one of them.
Let me just elaborate a little on this matter. The State Government gave these sums of money for trade union education to the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council in good faith. The money was not deposited in an audited Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council account or sent by the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council to the Trade Union Training Authority. The only public knowledge of any of this money being given to the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council prior to this year was when the initial $15,000 grant was made in January 1974 to enable Mr Sean Kelly to be employed in the trade union training field as the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council’s education officer prior to the commencement of operation of the Trade Union Training Authority, to which he was transferred in April 1 974.
It is easy to see that Senator Harradine, in his usual devious way, wanted to forestall the efforts of Mr Clyde Cameron to set up the Trade Union Training Authority on a national level. Senator Harradine got a job for his own little stooge from the Electrolytic Zinc Co. It was a job for which he had no qualifications. I believe he did have a schools board certificate. But this man now is the Tasmanian Director of trade union training. He is one of the proteges of Senator Harradine who came in on this first $ 1 5,000 or part of it.
Then there were certain people who were aware of what had transpired. The panel that appointed Sean Kelly was Arnold Currie, the Tasmanian Secretary of the Building Workers Industrial Union, then President of the TTLC Brian Harradine, then Secretary of the TTLC and Des Lavey, the then Division Secretary of the Australian Council of Salaried and Professional Associations and a man who has been persecuted by Senator Harradine. His own union has nominated him for this training authority and Senator Harradine is making certain that the union’s delegate cannot be given his rightful position. The panel also contained David Llewellyn from the Council of Australian Government Employee Organisations and Peter Imlach, the Tasmanian Secretary of the Hospital Employees Federation.
– You are reflecting on all of them, are you?
– I am saying that they were members of the panel that appointed Kelly. Senator Harradine was the executive officer responsible for moneys disbursed from the $15,000 grant and was subject to the abovenamed Trade Union Education Committee. When later TUTA got under way, Mr Bill Mcpherson, the Regional Director of the Commonwealth Department of Labour and Immigration and Mr John Evans, representing the State Education Department together with Messrs. Currie, Harradine, Lavey. Imlach and Gerald Griffiths, who replaced Llewellyn from CAGEO, became the Tasmanian Interim Council for Union Training with Senator Harradine, then Mr Harradine, representing that body on the National Interim Council for Union Training. Senator Harradine is using these little steps up the hill for his own purposes. It was believed that TUTA had replaced the Trade Union Education Committee. All these people whose names I have mentioned believed that the interim committee was replaced by the general committee on the national scale. Currie and Lavey were unaware that any further State Government grants were given to the TTLC even though they were members of the Interim Council for Union Training. They were officers of the TTLC. Currie was the President until October 1977 and Lavey was Minute Secretary until October 1975.
The Australian Trade Union Training Authority’s first annual report of 1975-76 makes no mention of Tasmanian Government financial assistance to trade union education and the same is the story in the second annual report of TUTA, for 1976-77. I ask the question: Has Senator Harradine deceived TUTA? Senator Harradine is still a member of the Trade Union Training Authority’s national and Tasmanian councils for union training. I pose the question that last year the trade union audit procedures were raised in the State Parliament by Mr MacKinnon whom I mentioned earlier. He said that the auditors Garrott and Garrott attached a qualified audit to the TTLC’s annual report and announced that no audit procedures have been applied to determine the accuracy of the amounts receivable from affiliation fees’. In the report the auditors say:
The scope of our audit has been limited in that no audit procedures have been applied to determine the accuracy of the amount receivable from affiliation fees.
I wonder how Senator Harradine is going to answer these things. He did not answer them tonight. Last Thursday night when he went to Tasmania he told everyone here that he went home. The newspapers have it on record that he went directly from here and controlled a packed meeting in the Trades Hall in Hobart; that after 85 minutes of fierce debate he was responsible for moving a motion that the meeting- at which he had the numbers- set up a sub-committee to try to stop leaks to the Press. That was the outcome of the meeting. I ask you. What a farcical situation. He has dragged the trade union movement in Tasmania down with these conscientious people wanting to know of the affairs of their own organisation and being fobbed off with such stupidity as that.
The trade unions affiliated with the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council asked about its audit procedures. This is not new. In 1977 the Australian Workers Union disaffiliated over the same issue. Can the honourable senator answer that one? It is interesting to learn that as far back as June 1971 the honourable senator, as TTLC secretary, wrote to John Swallow of the Australian meat industry stating:
We would request that this balance sheet be not discussed in the presence of persons outside of the trade union movement, for example the Press.
Mr Ian Doolan, Tasmanian branch president of the right wing Federated Ironworkers Association, and also TTLC executive member from November 1976 until October 1978, wrote to the Launceston Examiner on 9 December 1978 as follows:
A secret meeting was arranged before the TTLC executive met to work out what we would do at the executive meeting. Maybe people at the secret meetings knew about the $55,000 but Tasmanian trade unionists were never told about it at the official executive meeting of the TTLC and it was never reported to the full council meetings of the mc
New Weekly, the National Civic Council organ, of which Senator Harradine had been, with his colleague Mr Santamaria and Mr Maynes, Mr Watling and Mr Imlach -
– Are they the Gang of Four?
-Chairman Moo. News Weekly, on 2 1 February, quotes Mr Watling as follows:
Late in 1977 -
I would like Senator Harradine to answer this one- . . consideration was given to the calling of applications for a union education officer separate from the federally-funded Trade Union Training Authority but the plan was not feasible because there was not enough money due to the refusal of left wing unions to pay affiliation fees.
So this fund that was supposed to have been available for trade union training has also been mixed up here with the National Civic Council. The plot thickens. This is the situation that is being investigated. Where is the money? Senator Harradine has not answered that question. Rex Hevy, recognised in the Tasmanian community as an industrial moderate union official and senior vice-president of the Tasmanian Trades and Labour Council during the years 1974 to 1977, the period of the State Government education grants, asked Senator Harradine and the TTLC officers who it was late in 1977 who gave consideration to the calling of applications for a union education officer separate from the Trade Union Training Authority. Who authorised, and who conducted, the feasibility studies that Watling ‘s media statement referred to? When the Premier wrote to the TTLC secretary about how the $55,000 had been spent, why did Mr Watling send the letter to TUTA, which is a separate organisation? I have a file here that undoubtedly gives a comprehensive history of the last five years of the administration of the Trades and Labour Council in Tasmania, of which Senator Harradine was for some years the secretary. Many questions on different aspects of the administration there have been asked, but on this one there has been deception on a scale that needs public scrutiny. I have challenged Senator Harradine to come clean; to give us the figures; to give is details of the account, the income through interest and the expenditure from this account. I have asked why he has not had the account audited; and how they got the money in the first place. But he would not tell us. This was a pretty well thought out scheme. It anticipated the setting up of a national scheme. They scored off it and got their own stooges in on it before the Commonwealth set up its own Trade Union Training Authority.
I would say in conclusion that Senator Harradine has failed miserably to answer questions about his responsibilities as a public figure, as a senator, or to respond to charges that he has not been able to present an audited statement on this very important matter of public funds. I have asked that the Attorney-General and the Commonwealth Auditor-General look into the question of whether the funds were made available from the State Government of Tasmania for the national body, the Trade Union Training Authority; if not whether funds were made available from separate funds; and where the money has been expended. Until these questions are answered honourably and in a straightforward way I am not going to let up on the matter and I will continue to bring it up until Senator Harradine is prepared to speak the truth.
– I move:
– I raise a point of order, This motion can be moved at any time. It can be moved tomorrow. I would question the right of the Senate to deal with two motions at the one time. At the moment the motion that the Senate do now adjourn is before the Senate. If Senator Harradine wants to use the machinery of the Standing Orders to have any documents tabled he has all day tomorrow before he has to go home very early to do so. I suggest therefore that we have a motion before us already and that we are unable to deal with another until we have decided the one we are dealing with already.
- Mr Deputy President, on the point of order, Standing Order 364 says quite clearly that the order may be made without notice immediately upon the conclusion of the speech of the senator who has quoted therefrom.
This is nothing more or less than an attempt by Senator Cavanagh to prevent the motion being dealt with.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- I believe that Senator Harradine is in order. Senator Harradine, do you seek to have the documents tabled?
– Yes, pursuant to Standing Order 364. They are the documents from which Senator O ‘Byrne quoted.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
- Mr Deputy President, it is unusual for anyone to get up twice in an adjournment debate.
– I raise a point of order.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Senator Harradine, I can permit you to speak briefly only on a matter of a misrepresentation.
– It is a matter of misrepresentation, Mr Deputy President. If these matters were in any way connected with Commonwealth funds, they would be the property of the Senate.
– I raise a point of order. Mr Deputy President, I would ask under what Standing Order you can permit a senator to make a personal explanation without leave of the Senate.
– I merely wish to make the same point. I believe that under the Standing Orders one should seek leave to make a personal explanation if one has been misrepresented in the Senate.
– I have just been challenged, Mr Deputy President, and I seek leave to state my point of view. I will not have the opportunity of doing so tomorrow night.
-Why not?
– That is not your business. I simply make the point-
- Mr Deputy President, I ask that you rule on my point of order.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Order! Leave is not required on a matter of misrepresentation. Senator Harridine, do you claim to have been misrepresented?
– I do claim to have been misrepresented.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- I ask you to speak briefly to that point only.
– I will. A claim has been made and the burden of the claim is that funds were paid for the purpose of transfer to a Commonwealth authority. That is not so. It has nothing to do with Commonwealth funds and therefore has nothing to do with the Senate.
– I now raise another point of order. The claim is that money was paid to the Trade Union Training Authority. How does that misrepresent Senator Harradine? He is not mentioned.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Senator Harradine claims to have been misrepresented.
– Yes, because it was said that money was paid to the Trade Union Training Authority.
The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Senator Harradine you may continue with your claim.
– That is the point, Mr Deputy President. It has nothing to do with Commonwealth funds or Commonwealth instrumentalities. It has everything to do with the Education Department in Tasmania.
Original question resolved in the affirmative.
Senate adjourned at 11.42 p.m.
page 393
The following answers to questions were circulated:
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, upon notice, on 24 November 1978:
– The Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:
asked the Minister representing the Minister for Industry and Commerce, upon notice, on 2 1 February 1979:
– The Minister for Industry and Commerce has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:
asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 2 1 February 1979:
– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:
asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 2 1 February 1979:
– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:
During the first 26 weeks of total incapacity a Commonwealth Government employee receives compensation at a rate equivalent to full pay at normal sick pay rates. At the expiration of that period the flat-rate benefits currently applying are:
asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 2 1 February 1 979:
What circumstances justified the initial grants of money to this particular group, and why have these expenditures been continued by the present Government.
– The answer to the honourable senator’s question is as follows:
Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 28 February 1979, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1979/19790228_senate_31_s80/>.