House of Representatives
27 February 1964

25th Parliament · 1st Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 25th Parliament
  3. 1964

Mr. SPEAKER (Hon. Sir John McLeay) took the chair at 10.30 a.m., and read prayers.

page 89

MEMBER SWORN

Sir Wilfrid Selwyn Kent Hughes made and subscribed the oath of allegiance as member for the Division of Chisholm, Victoria.

page 89

PETITIONS

Aborigines

Mr. HOWSON presented a petition from certain citizens of the Commonwealth praying that the Government remove section 127, and the words discriminating against aborigines in section 51, of the Commonwealth Constitution, by the holding of a referendum at an early date.

Petition received and read.

Nuclear Tests

Mr. BUCHANAN presented a petition from certain electors of the Division of McMillan praying that the Government make further protests to all countries bordering the Pacific, to the United Nations and to the French Government itself to halt all preparations for nuclear tests in the Pacific by the French Government.

Petition received.

page 89

QUESTION

BASIC WAGE

Mr CALWELL:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

– I ask a question without notice of the Minister for Labour and National Service. In view of the statement made in this House yesterday by the Treasurer that conditions in Australia are particularly buoyant and that the community is enjoying great prosperity, will he say why the Government has adopted a neutralist attitude in the basic wage case now before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission and why it has not supported the claim of the wage and salary earners for an increasing share in the increased productivity that the nation is supposed to be enjoying?

Mr McMAHON:
Minister for Labour and National Service · LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I gave the answer to this question in reply to a question asked yesterday.

Mr Calwell:

– Answer my question.

Mr McMAHON:

– Yes, I will answer your question. The answer is that in this particular case - that is the metal trades case - the parties to the dispute are the metal trades unions and the employers, including the primary producers of this country. The Government itself is not a party. But we have intervened in the nation’s interest to put, in the broad perspective and as clearly as we can, the economic and financial position of the country and the general trends. Not being a party to the dispute, we do not think we should be partisan. Other than in very exceptional circumstances that is the attitude that has been taken more or less consistently by the Government since 1949.

Mr Calwell:

– You opposed an increase in 1960.

Mr McMAHON:

– Opposed once only. I said “more or less”. On only one occasion did we depart from that attitude. What we propose to do on this occasion is this: In order to permit the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, which we want to remain independent, not only to be independent but to appear independent, we will put before it all the information on which it can come to a conclusion on whether any change should be made in the basic wage.

page 89

QUESTION

FIGHTER AIRCRAFT

Mr WHITTORN:
BALACLAVA, VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Air. In view of the fact that the economy of France has inflated at the rate of 7 per cent, per annum, I ask the Minister whether that inflation has affected the price that we will pay for the Mirage aircraft purchased from that country. Will the last batch of Mirages delivered to Australia cost a good deal more than the initial supplies?

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
Minister for Air · FARRER, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– No. When we were making the second purchase of Mirage aircraft - purchasing the second 30 - the business adviser to the Department of Air advised that if we were considering a further purchase we would be well advised to take up an option on these aircraft. We took an option on 40, and the price for those 40 was related to the price structure in France in 1962, plus a small, limited escalation. When we finally took up the option in the following year, the cost of manufacture in France actually had risen by between 8 and 9 per cent.: but we have to pay only the limited escalation. As a result of that, we have saved about £1,250,000.

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QUESTION

BANKING

Mr CURTIN:
KINGSFORD-SMITH, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Treasurer. In view of the heavy congestion caused by the remarkable increase in savings bank depositors at the Maroubra Junction, New South Wales, branch of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, will the Treasurer investigate the possibility of extending further the present structure back to the lane at the rear and also adding another story to it? That would allow all the banking equipment to be removed from the ground floor and make the extra space available to the longsuffering customers. Will the Treasurer direct that the present primitive fibro structure called the mess room be demolished and that a modern brick structure with all modern conveniences be constructed in its place? That would add to the comfort and welfare of the very efficient and courteous staff.

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
Treasurer · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– It is a well known fact that in the lifetime of this Government there has been a remarkable growth in the number of savings bank accounts and in the size of savings bank deposits. I think I am right in saying that there are more than 10,000,000 operative accounts in a population of about 11,000,000. Last year deposits reached a record level. Possibly that has produced congestion in some sections of savings bank administration. I will examine the case referred to by the honorable gentleman and see whether I can let him have an answer to his question.

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QUESTION

DISALLOWED QUESTION

(Mr. Jeff Bate having commenced to ask a question addressed to the Leader of the Opposition, and Mr. Speaker having disallowed the question) -

Mr JEFF BATE:
Macarthur

– I move

That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the honorable member for Macarthur addressing a question to the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member will not state the question.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Then I will submit the motion in writing.

Mr Wentworth:

– I rise to order, Mr. Speaker. How can we debate this motion if we do not know its substance?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! There is no substance in the point of order. Is the honorable member for Macarthur persevering with his motion?

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Yes.

Mr SPEAKER:

– It will be necessary for the motion to be seconded.

Mr Wentworth:

– I second the motion.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The question is, “ That the motion be agreed to “.

Mr Wentworth:

– Mr. Speaker, may I speak to this motion? The honorable member for Macarthur has raised the question of whether the present honorable member for Cunningham (Mr. Connor) is identical-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member is out of order.

Mr Wentworth:

– I think not. Why am I out of order?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member is out of order.

Mr Wentworth:

– On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I submit that I am entitled to speak to the urgency or otherwise of the motion.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member for Mackellar will resume his seat. I call the honorable member for Macarthur.

Mr JEFF BATE:
Macarthur

.- Mr. Speaker-

Mr SPEAKER:

– I point out that the honorable member will close the debate.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– in reply - This is a matter of urgent public importance. An honorable member may use the forms of the House in any way that he can to bring forward a matter of urgent public importance. The subject which I am seeking to raise has exercised the minds of the people in Australia in such a way that it ha§ become of paramount importance. The House and the people of Australia are entitled to know the answer to the question that I am seeking to ask. I have moved that the Standing Orders be suspended so that I may ask this important question. I persevere with my motion, and 1 ask those honorable members who are concerned about the matter of Communist-Australian Labour Party unity to vote to give me the opportunity to put my question.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The question is, “That the motion be agreed to”. All those who are of that opinion say “ Aye “, to the contrary “ No “. I think the “ Noes “ have it. I call the honorable member for Gellibrand.

Mr Calwell:

– Now have the backbone to call a division.

Mr Jeff Bate:

– Yes. Mr. Speaker, I call for a division.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I have already called the honorable member for Gellibrand.

page 91

QUESTION

PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS

Mr McIVOR:
GELLIBRAND, VICTORIA

– I preface a question to the Prime Minister by stating that in 1962-63 the cost of pharmaceutical benefits exceeded the cost of medical and hospital benefits. In view of this, in view of the fact that questions have been asked in this House and also in another place relating to the ramifications of the drug industry in Australia and in view of the fact that as a result of those questions there was an immediate drastic reduction in the prices of drugs, does the Prime Minister now consider that the necessity exists to accede to the request for a royal commission into the drug industry in Australia?.

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
Prime Minister · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

– This is a matter on which I would need to have some discussion with my colleague, the Minister for Health, as I am not quite in touch with later developments. I will have a word with him and then advise the honorable member.

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QUESTION

FREIGHT RATES

Mr HOLTEN:
INDI, VICTORIA

– My question to the Prime Minister relates to the request of the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia for an inquiry into the high freight costs in Australia. I strongly support this request because freight costs are perhaps the principal factor in increasing the cost of production in our great export industries and the cost of living in the inland areas of Australia. Will the Government, in view of the report by the chamber on the problems of freight in Australia, undertake a complete investigation of this problem, which is the major disability in the establishment of industry outside the capital cities?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– The proposal made by the Associated Chambers of Manufactures has yet to be dealt with by the Cabinet. When it has been considered by the Cabinet I will be in a position to answer the question.

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QUESTION

NORTHERN DEVELOPMENT

Mr NELSON:
NORTHERN TERRITORY, NORTHERN TERRITORY

– My question is directed to the Prime Minister. On Tuesday last the honorable member for Kennedy asked the Prime Minister whether the Governments of Queensland and Western Australia had placed before him proposals for the creation of a developmental authority for northern Australia, to which the right honorable gentleman replied that no such request had been received. In view of the establishment of a northern division within the Department of National Development, will the Prime Minister say what the functions of this division will be, and whether any body will be established, composed of some representatives of the new division and also representatives of the two State Governments mentioned and of the Northern Territory, to work out and implement plans for the development of that part of Australia?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– The Administration orders which allocate to each department its functions have been published, or should have been by now. I will take steps to see that the honorable member receives them.

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QUESTION

TIBET

Mr KILLEN:
MORETON, QUEENSLAND

– I address a question to the Minister for External Affairs. It relates to reports of atrocities in Tibet. Can the Minister confirm a charge made in Vienna by the brother of the exiled Dalai Lama that Communist Chinese authorities have sterilized more than 6,000 Tibetan families since 1961? If the honorable gentleman can confirm this report, can he say whether a suitable protest was made to the Communist Chinese authorities through the channels that are available? If the Minister cannot confirm the report will he please make such inquiries as may seem appropriate?

Sir GARFIELD BARWICK:
Minister for External Affairs · PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– Neither have I seen the report nor am I able to confirm it but I shall make some appropriate inquiries.

page 92

QUESTION

REPLACEMENT OF H.M.A.S. “ VOYAGER

Mr BENSON:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Minister for Defence. It concerns naval vessel replacements and follows on the statement made by the Prime Minister to this House last Tuesday, that “ Voyager “ would be replaced by “ Duchess “ for a period of four years. Will the Minister see that an order is placed with Australian shipyards for a destroyer to be built in this country? I also ask the Minister whether high-rar.king naval officers last year recommended to the Government that Australian naval air strength be built up and that Australia should obtain an aircraft carrier? If they did, does the Government intend to implement this recommendation?

Mr HASLUCK:
Minister for Defence · CURTIN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– With regard to a replacement for “ Voyager “, the position is that the question of the type of vessel or vessels required for the permanent replacement has been referred to the Chiefs of Staff Committee for examination. Until the Cabinet receives the expert opinion of the Chiefs of Staff Committee it will be impossible to express an opinion as to whether or not the permanent replacement can best be furnished by building in Australian shipyards or by acquiring from overseas. As to the other question, when the Cabinet considered the five-year defence programme it examined all aspects of the Australian defence effort and the various ways in which the interests of Australian defence could best be served. It made the decisions which were announced by the Prime Minister and my predecessor after an examination of all the alternatives.

page 92

QUESTION

NAVIGATION CHARTS

Mr TURNER:
BRADFIELD, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for Shipping and Transport whether his attention has been drawn to the statement made by an apparently well-informed speaker at the recent symposium on defence held under the aegis of the Australian Institute of Political Science, to the effect that at the present rate of progress the charting of the Australian and New Guinea coastlines would be completed at about the middle of the next century? Is the honorable gentleman aware - I can assure him it is a fact - that merchant ships moving between Port Pirie and Hobart are compelled to use charts made by Matthew Flinders about a century and a half ago? Will the honorable gentleman infuse all his youth and energy into the administration of his new department and see whether it is possible, in collaboration with the Minister for the Navy - bearing in mind not only the length of the coastline but also the time-span of a century - to halve the estimated time for the completion of the task by getting it finished by the year 2000?

Mr FREETH:
Minister for Shipping and Transport · FORREST, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– The honorable gentleman is in error when he refers to a new department. It “may have a new Minister, but the department has been in existence for some time. I have not seen the statement to which the honorable member referred but I will have a look at it and also examing the question of speeding up the charting of the Australian coastline. It is a great tribute to the work of the early explorers that their charts are so accurate that they can still be used.

page 92

QUESTION

THURSDAY ISLAND NAVAL INSTALLATIONS

Mr HANSEN:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister for the Navy. I ask: Why are the Navy jetty and installations at Thursday Island being scrapped? Does the Government consider that the naval installations, which are suitable for use by torpedo boats, are not required at this entrance to the Arafura Sea?

Dr FORBES:
Minister Assisting the Treasurer · BARKER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– I will be only too pleased to make inquiries into the matter raised by the honorable gentleman and let him have a reply as soon as possible.

page 92

QUESTION

PARKES TO BROKEN HILL RAILWAY

Mr WENTWORTH:

– My question is directed to the Minister for Shipping and Transport. It relates to a matter I have raised in this House several times over a number of years. I ask: Since the reballasting of the railway line between Parkes and Broken Hill is an integral part of the standardization of gauge programme, will finance be avilable to the Government of New South Wales for this purpose on the same basis as it has been made available for other parts of the standardization programme? What negotiations have taken place so far in this matter between this Government and the New South Wales Government and what was their date and outcome?

Mr FREETH:
LP

– An approach has been made comparatively recently to my department by the New South Wales Government for assistance in connexion with the railway section between Parkes and Broken Hill. I have asked the Commissioner for Railways to give me a report. Until I receive that report I cannot give the honorable member any further assurances in the matter.

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QUESTION

ARBITRATION

Mr E JAMES HARRISON:
BLAXLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is supplementary to the question addressed by the Leader of the Opposition to the Minister for Labour and National Service. I ask the honorable gentleman whether he agrees, in view of the Government’s attitude towards the state of the economy in 1960 when it made a specific pronouncement, that the present state of the economy as claimed by the Government warrants a change of approach to the extent that the Government might now well reverse the point of view expressed in 1960? If the Minister and his Government hold the point of view that the Conciliation and Arbitration Act is designed at present to provide for the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, as it has been constituted by the Government, to deal with the basic wage and margins as two separate issues, will he give consideration, through Cabinet, to presenting the Government’s view when a later case is heard by the commission, insisting that the system that has existed since the fixing of the basic wage and margins was proclaimed by act of parliament in Australia shall continue in spite of the point of view currently expressed by employer organizations?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– As to the first question asked by the honorable gentleman, it is true that in 1960 the Government did intervene and oppose an increase in the wage but, apart from that, we have consistently taken the view that the appropriate course is for both parties to express their points of view and for us to give the maximum assistance to the commission to assist it to make up its mind. In the present basic wage case we have no intention of departing from that practice. There has been - and I admit this quite freely - a very big change in the outlook, so far as we can see it, from the economic and financial aspects.

As to the second part of the honorable gentleman’s question - which is whether the Government should take up a specific point of view on the single basic wage as against a basic wage and margin - our attitude can be clearly stated. As yet the case has not commenced. We do not know what the arguments of the employers’ and the primary producers’ organizations for a single wage are. In the light of those considerations I think it would be imprudent, and even wrong, for the Government to make up its mind on the attitude it is likely to take after or before either the unions or the employers have put their cases to the commission. We reserve our right to act in the nation’s interest and to put whatever case we think desirable after both parties have put their cases to the commission.

Mr Calwell:

– Is the case not in the High Court at the moment?

Mr McMAHON:

– No, it is not. The honorable gentleman was wrong yesterday when he said there was a case before the High Court relating to the single wage. There is no case before the High Court at the moment concerning either the basic wage or the margins issue.

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QUESTION

FREIGHT

Mr NIXON:
GIPPSLAND, VICTORIA

– I address a question to the Prime Minister. As the Government has announced its intention to set up a committee to investigate the problems of freight in northern Australia, will it also set up a committee to study the problems of freight costs between Tasmania and the mainland?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– I will have a look at this. We have not considered that particular point. We are trying to deal with these things in some order. I made a statement earlier - indeed, in my policy speech - about examining the burden of freight costs in the northern parts of Australia, but I will be glad to look at this other aspect which the honorable gentleman has raised.

page 94

QUESTION

HOUSING

Mr COPE:
WATSON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I wish to ask the Minister for the Navy a question. I preface my question by stating that two of the wives of naval personnel lost in the “Voyager” disaster - Mrs. Reid and Mrs. Lambert - occupy housing commission flats in my electorate. I ask the Minister: Is it a fact that these two ladies will be obliged to vacate the flats? If so, what arrangements, if any, have been made to provide other accommodation?

Dr FORBES:
LP

– The honorable gentleman will be aware that these flats are made available to the defence services under the Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement on the understanding that they be occupied by serving personnel. There is also the factor that quite a number of naval personnel in the Sydney area are on the waiting list for service houses. For these reasons the normal practice in the circumstances is that the widows concerned would be permitted to occupy these houses for a period of three months after the death of their husbands. The ladies concerned were informed by social workers of this fact. They were also informed that the Navy would make every effort to find them alternative accommodation and, indeed, that the Navy had already approached the New South Wales Housing Commission on their behalf and that if at the end of three months they had not been able to find satisfactory alternative accommodation they would be permitted to stay.

page 94

QUESTION

SHIPPING

Mr COCKLE:
WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I direct my question to the Minister for Trade and Industry. Is it true that, despite the Australian Government’s subsidy, the Swedish-owned Boomerang cargo line has abandoned the direct shipping service between Australia and the west and north coasts of South America and that no other shipping company has undertaken to continue such a service? Why is there such lack of interest by the shipping companies when trade to the west coast of South America has increased from £750,000 a year to nearly £5,000,000 last year? What prospect does the Minister see of an early resumption of this trade by the provision of a shipping service?

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

– It is true, as the honorable member and the House know, that the Government was instrumental in arranging with the Swedish shipping company concerned, after having given all companies an opportunity to participate, the establishment of a special service to the west coast of South America that became known as the Boomerang service. The Australian Government undertook to pay a subsidy if the service was not profitable to the shipping company. As a result of the provision of this shipping service, Australian exports to the west coast of South America have increased in a couple of years from about £750,000 a year to nearly £5,000,000 last year, as the honorable member has said. However, because of the inability of the Swedish line to obtain sufficient freight back to Australia, the service was not profitable and the line, at the end of its engagement with the Australian Government, discontinued the service.

We immediately undertook negotiations with other lines that might have been willing to provide a service to the west coast of South America and, in fact, last December we made a contingent arrangement with an Australian company to commence a service on terms somewhat similar to those applying to the Boomerang line. Unfortunately, since Christmas, the Australian company has had to advise the Government that it was not able to go on with the arrangement. I immediately got in touch with all the shipping companies that could conceivably be willing to establish the required service. Some interest has been displayed, and I am hopeful that in the very near future I shall be able to announce that arrangements to establish such a shipping service have been made with one of the shipping lines.

page 94

QUESTION

TELEVISION

Mr FULTON:
LEICHHARDT, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Postmaster-General. Can be confirm reports that the site for the national television station for Cairns and district will be Mount Bartle Frere? If so, how will access to the station be provided - by road, or by flying fox, the possibility of which has been mentioned in the press? Will the Minister have his technicians make sure that the channel chosen for the station will not be one that will cause inconvenience to the local people? At present, they can receive programmes from the Townsville station on channels 6 and 7 and reception may be interfered with if channel 6 is allocated to the Cairns station.

Mr HULME:
Postmaster-General · PETRIE, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I confirm that the site of the Cairns television station will be Mount Bartle Frere. Access will be by road. I accept the advice given by the technical experts on the matter raised in the third part of the question, that advice being that there will be no interference with the reception of programmes from the local station. However, in view of the honorable member’s comments, I shall have the matter re-examined.

page 95

QUESTION

ROADS

Mr TURNBULL:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Shipping and Transport. As I understand that the Lord Mayors of the six State capital cities will confer with the Minister in Canberra to-day seeking road funds, I ask: Will he meet a deputation of shire councillors and ether accredited rural representatives at an appropriate place and time before 12th March so that they may have the same opportunity of presenting a case for road funds as that accorded to the Lord Mayors?

Mr FREETH:
LP

– I am not aware that I have refused any request to see any one. I have had no approach or request for such a meeting other than that submitted by the honorable member to-day. I will be quite happy to arrange a meeting.

page 95

QUESTION

SHIPPING

Mr WHITLAM:
WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask a question of the Minister for Trade and Industry, supplementary to the question last asked of him. I ask him whether he approached, among others, the Australian National Line to ascertain whether it was able to provide the service to and from South America which other companies, despite the Commonwealth subsidy, are no longer willing to provide? Will he ascertain whether the Australian National Line will carry out the functions and powers that the Australian Coastal Shipping Commission Act gave it in 1956?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– I am perfectly sure that the Australian National Line is quite familiar with Government policy in this regard and would itself make an offer, which the Government would, I am sure, readily consider if approached by the Australian National Line. The honorable member will note that I am not saying I did make an approach or 1 did not make an approach, because, frankly, I cannot remember whether a direct approach was made. I say quite confidently that the Australian National Line knows the policy of the Government in this regard. This trade requires a substantial amount of refrigerated space. I have the impression - I will check on this - that the Australian National Line would not have ships that would be able to provide the required refrigerated space. This requirement has presented difficulties to us in our efforts to discover any snipping line able to take on this trade.

page 95

QUESTION

IMMIGRATION

Mr CLEAVER:
SWAN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I address a question to the Minister for Immigration. Will the Minister advise the House as to the extent of the build-up of assisted passage applicants in the United Kingdom waiting for movement to Australia? Will the air lift and sea movement proposed to occur before 30th June next serve to eliminate the waiting lists?

Mr OPPERMAN:
Minister for Immigration · CORIO, VICTORIA · LP

– There must always be a waiting list and we have, of course, at this stage provided for another 10,000 migrants from the United Kingdom. The work force in Australia urgently needs more skilled workers and the arrangements made to bring people to Australia have strained the shipping and air services to the limit. However, discussions that have been taking place have been quite satisfactory and I can say that even the increase of 10,000 will not create a greater waiting list. Arrangements that have been made will appreciably contribute towards the reduction of the present waiting list. I cannot give the honorable member exact information at the moment, but I assure him that there will not be any increased delay.

page 96

QUESTION

CREDIT RESTRICTIONS

Mr HARDING:
HERBERT, QUEENSLAND

– I address my question to the Treasurer. By way of explanation I point out that in north Queensland at the moment there is again a good deal of speculation, mainly in the form of speculative building and land sub-division, just as there was in 1960 when, as the right honorable gentleman will remember, many firms supplying building materials suffered severe financial losses when the mushroomtype builders went broke. Is there any possibility of severe restrictive financial measures being applied in the foreseeable future?

Mr HAROLD HOLT:
LP

– There has been an encouraging increase in economic activity in Queensland over the last few years. Queensland is currently enjoying what is, I suppose, the highest level of prosperity recorded in its history. It may well be that this has produced some strains in certain directions, but I have not had any reports put to me that would suggest that any special action should be taken in relation to Queensland beyond the general action already put in train by the Reserve Bank, about which I made some comment yesterday.

page 96

QUESTION

COAL-MINING

Mr JAMES:
HUNTER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Prime Minister. Has he read, in paragraph 54 of the last report of the Joint Coal Board, that further deterioration in the employment of mine workers on the northern New South Wales coal-fields is expected in the next twelve months? Will his Government therefore give urgent consideration to inducing other industries to go into the area by granting special tax concessions or will he consider setting up a Commonwealth clothing factory there? Alternatively will he invoke some other scheme to relieve the sufferings of the unfortunate victims of these sweeping changes in this section of the coal industry?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– I have not read paragraph 54 of the report, if that was the paragraph to which the honorable member referred. These matters are within the administrative jurisdiction of my colleague the Minister for National Development. I will bc very happy to direct my colleague’s attention to what the honorable member has said.

page 96

QUESTION

WOOL

Mr TURNBULL:

– I ask the Minister for Trade and Industry whether the reported complaint by Japanese interests that our merino wool is deteriorating in quality was made by a recognized authority on wool. Has the Minister ascertained whether the complaint in fact is soundly based? Does he anticipate any wool market fluctuations as a result of it?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– I do not know whether this incident could be described as a complaint or as an observation, but to the best of my knowledge a comment was made about Australian wool by .the Japanese wool users’ association to the effect that the fine quality of Australian merino wool had deteriorated. I think the facts of the matter are that not so big a proportion of the Australian clip is superfine quality as used to be the case. A bigger proportion of particular merino types are heavier in weight per sheep and more remunerative, as the honorable member will know. I think the real answer is that one of the great advantages of selling wool by auction is that the user or buyer may discriminate in respect of the qualities that he prefers and may evidence his discrimination by paying a higher price for that wool. There is not the slightest doubt that the Australian wool industry will produce the kind of wool that the wool users of the world want when the users evidence by the price they bid the quality that they desire.

page 96

QUESTION

ELECTORAL

Mr JONES:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA

– I preface a question to the Prime Minister by referring to the GovernorGeneral’s Speech, in which he said -

Regarding the Electoral Act, my Government will introduce amending legislation to make it clear that, in making any proposed distribution of a State into divisions for electoral purposes, the Distribution Commissioners shall take into account community of economic, social and regional interests, difficulties of communication, remoteness or distance, the trend of population changes, physical features, and the relative areas of proposed divisions. No fixed quota differential is proposed.

I ask the right honorable gentleman: Does this mean that the Prime Minister will permit the Australian Country Party to gerrymander electorates in a way that he has never previously approved in his long political career?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:
LP

– I welcome the opportunity of saying that the proposed amendments to the Commonwealth Electoral Act and to the Representation Act are every bit as much mine as they are those of the Country Party. There is no difference of opinion between us on this matter. The honorable member was good enough to repeat the word “ gerrymander “, which I understand has been used by one of my good friends on this side of tie House. If a provision that enables recognition to be given to distance, to difficulties of communication and to remote areas as against compact industrial or suburban areas is a gerrymander, then I direct the attention of everybody to the fact that it has existed in the Commonwealth law for as long as I can remember, because the section-

Mr Jones:

– Are you going to carry it out?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– Yes, it has been carried out - sometimes not altogether to the satisfaction of some people. For many years, as the honorable member well knows, this provision has existed. The act has always provided, to my knowledge, a discretion as to the application of the uniform quota - a discretion up or down of 20 per cent. Under these circumstances it is a little late in the day for people to describe an existing system of electoral distribution - a system that has been operated by both sides for many years - as a gerrymander.

If the honorable member has in mind, as no doubt he has, that there should be no differential at all, fixed or discretionary - one man, one vote; one vote, one value - all I can say is that he has lost golden opportunities of advocating his proposition before because his own party has never stood for that principle. It has never attempted to apply that principle. It has never in its history, so far as 1 am aware, attempted to alter the Commonwealth Electoral Act, which, after all, it administered for a long time. Now the Australian Labour Party claims that this is a gerrymander. Let me remind honorable members that when the size of this House was increased it was increased under a law promoted by a Labour administration in this place. If ever there was a golden opportunity to deal with the Commonwealth Electoral Act in other respects, that was it. But not a word was said.

Mr Beazley:

– Is this no change?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– The changes are changes of degree; they are not changes of principle. If you do not understand that kind of language I cannot help you.

Mr Bryant:

– Did you get Tom Playford to set this up for you?

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– No, nor did

I get the former Premier of Queensland. If honorable members will merely look at the existing terms of the Commonwealth Electoral Act they will see references to the matters that may be taken into account by the electoral commissioners. On this occasion we are proposing to clarify those-

Mr Jones:

– Why don’t-

Sir ROBERT MENZIES:

– If the honorable member would listen he would learn and that would do him a world of good. What is proposed to be done here is to clarify expressions which clearly relate to country areas where they refer to means of communication and distance, which all are relevant factors, and in the case of what I will call suburban areas, to direct attention to the principle that population trends can hardly be left out of account when the electoral commissioners are working out their proposals. Take the case of a city such as Melbourne, where there has been an enormous spread of population in the eastern and southern suburbs. My friend the honorable member for Bruce has 100,000 electors in his electorate - there were more than 98,000 at the last count and a few more will have been added since then. That expansion has occurred in a relatively few years and it seems to me, if I may say so, reasonable for the electoral commissioners, when examining trends of population, to say that they will allow for that in fixing the boundaries of a particular division because they know from experience that within two or three years the number of electors will be well in excess of the quota. Is this a matter that ought not to be taken into account? Honorable members will have ample opportunity to consider this matter. In the meantime I strongly recommend that they give themselves the trouble of reading the existing provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act.

page 98

BROADCASTING

Ministerial Statement

Mr HULME:
PostmasterGeneral · Petrie · LP

– by leave - In September, 1962, the Australian Broadcasting Control Board reported to my predecessor, the Honorable C. W. Davidson, that the broadcasting service available in the Nambour area was deficient and could be improved only by the licensing of a local station. The investigations which the board had made had disclosed that the area could support a commercial station and that, despite the shortage of frequencies in the medium frequency band, a frequency channel could be made available for a station in this particular area on the basis that it would be “ shared “ with another station and that the stations would use directional aerials. Accordingly, on 8th November, 1962, the Minister invited applications for the grant of a licence for a commercial broadcasting station at Nambour.

Two applications were received in response to the Minister’s invitation and, pursuant to the provisions of the Broadcasting and Television Act 1942-1963, they were referred to the board for public inquiry and report to the Postmaster-General. The board subsequently conducted an inquiry into the applications and has submitted to me its report and recommendation which I shall lay on the table of the House.

Following consideration of the board’s report, the Government has authorized me to grant the licence to Maroochy Broadcasting Company Limited. The constitution of this company, as well as that of the other applicant, is set out in the board’s report. As provided in the act, the licence will be granted for an initial period of five years.

I present the following papers: -

Broadcasting -

Australian Broadcasting Control Board - Report and recommendation to the PostmasterGeneral on applications for a licence for a commercial broadcasting station at Nambour, Queensland.

Licence for commercial broadcasting station at Nambour, Queensland - Ministerial Statement, 27th February, 1964 - and move -

That the House take note of the papers.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 98

TELEVISION

Ministerial Statement

Mr. HULME (Petrie - Postmaster-

General). - by leave - On 8th March, 1962, my predecessor, the Honorable C. W. Davidson, announced that the Government had invited applications for the grant of a licence for a third commercial television station in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide and for a second commercial station in Perth. The licences have been granted in respect of Sydney and Melbourne and the establishment of the stations in those areas is proceeding. For the Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth areas sixteen applications were received initially but only eight of these were proceeded with - three in the case of Brisbane and Adelaide and two in the case of Perth. Pursuant to the provisions of the Broadcasting and Television Act 1942-1963, the applications were referred to the Australian Broadcasting Control Board for public inquiry and report to the Postmaster-General. The board subsequently conducted inquiries into the applications and has submitted to me its report and recommendations and this I shall lay on the table of the House.

Following consideration of the board’s report, the Government has authorized me to grant the licences as follows: -

For the Brisbane area - Universal Telecasters (Queensland) Limited.

For the Adelaide area - South Australian Telecasters Limited.

For the Perth area - Swan Television Limited (initially named Great West T.V. Limited).

The constitution of these companies, as well as that of the other applicants, is set out in the board’s report.

The licences will not be granted until I am satisfied as to the directors and shareholdings in each case and as to their compliance with the provisions of the act. As provided in the act. the licences will be granted for an initial period of five years.

I present the following papers: -

Television -

Australian Broadcasting Control Board -

Report and recommendations to the PostmasterGeneral on applications for a licence for a commercial television station in the Brisbane area, in the Adelaide area and in the Perth area.

Commercial licences - Ministerial Statement, 27th February, 1964 - and move -

That the House take note of the papers.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Whitlam) adjourned.

page 99

MEAT

Ministerial Statement

Mr. McEWEN (Murray - Minister for

Trade and Industry). - by leave - For the information of honorable members, I propose to present to the House an exchange of notes between representatives of the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States of America forming an agreement on meat.

The Australian Government has entered into an agreement with the United States Government on meat exports to the United States. Under the agreement Australia will be able to send to the United States 242,000 tons of beef, veal and mutton in 1964, 251,000 tons in 1965, and 260,000 tons in 1966. This agreement is a tremendous step forward for our great meat export industry. Uncertainty has been replaced by security. As a result our industry will be able to plan ahead and develop in confidence, assured of continued and growing access to the American market.

This would be important enough in itself. But it is not the onlyresult. The agreement also contains many other features for which Australia has been fighting for years in its trade in primary products. One feature is assured, predictable access to one of the major world meat markets - a market in which our producers are able to obtain a remunerative return. This is copy-book policy that Australia has been striving for in the trade in the bulk primary products.

For some years demand has been growing in the United States for the kind of meat which Australia can supply. There has been a trend in the United States to production of more and more high grade beef, and less low quality beef. The lower, and leaner, grades of beef which are used mainly in the manufacture of hamburgers, pies, sausage and other products of that type have been in relatively short supply. United States users of this manufacturing type of beef have, as a result, turned to imports. Australia has been in the unique position of being able to supply large quantities of the kind of lean beef required.

In order to take advantage of the opportunity to supply the United States market, we negotiated in 1958 with the United Kingdom to release us from a limitation which the fifteen-year meat agreement imposed on the supply of our meat to markets outside the United Kingdom. In the years since we obtained that release our exports outside the United Kingdom have grown rapidly. I might say that the United Kingdom on more than one occasion urged us to send meat to other markets in the interests of reducing pressure on prices in the United Kingdom. As a consequence of these negotiated arrangements we have been able to increase our meat exports to the United States from 2,000 tons of beef and veal and 300 tons of mutton in 1957 to the tremendous figure of 231,000 tons of beef and veal and 26,000 tons of mutton in 1 963.

It is a trade valued at about £80,000,000 in 1963. The United States has become our main overseas market for meats. We are the major supplier of imported meat to that market and meat is by far our most important export to the United States.

The way in which this trade has been developed reflects great credit on Australian meat producers and exporters. They have demonstrated wonderful productive efficiency and versatility. Not only has production expanded to supply this great new market but in addition the trade has been almost entirely turned over to the boneless meat pack developed to suit the needs of United States processors. As a matter of fact, if this trade had not been developed since the removal of import licensing which gave the United States access to our market, our adverse balance of trade with the United States would have been almost intolerable. This growth in our trade, a cause for justifiable satisfaction to the Australian industry, has at the same time been a cause of considerable anxiety to United States meat producers. The great bulk of our exports are not in direct competition with the choice qualities of meat which are the major production in the United States. Nevertheless, United States producers have shown a great deal of concern about imports. Protests have mounted as imports have increased.

It has been the case that the increase in production of choice beef in the United States has in some years been accompanied by falling prices. Since imports of manufacturing beef have also been increasing at the same time American producers have tended to blame the price decline on to imports even though it has been clear to most people that imports have had very little effect on choice beef prices.

Towards the end of last year the campaign against imports reached a climax. United States producers were pressing for restrictions on imports that would limit them to the average of imports in the five years 1958 to 1962. This would have meant for Australia an export entitlement of some 113,000 tons of beef, veal and mutton compared with the 257,000 tons that we exported in 1963, This obviously was a very serious situation. I would stress that the Australian industry is now extremely dependent on the continuation of its sales to the United States at something like the present levels. More than 80 per cent, of our beef exports go to the United States. Production and export are geared to that market and the continued steady demand for large quantities of meat for America has done much to stabilize Australian live-stock markets

If our exports to the United States were suddenly and severely curtailed there would be no other market to which we could quickly divert the large quantities of meat that would be affected. Our former large market in the United Kingdom is being supplied to an increasing extent by the expansion of United Kingdom production and by stepped-up exports by other suppliers. There are no other major import markets available at present outside the United Kingdom and the United States. In the absence of an agreement the best the industry could hope for was to continue in a precarious situation in its exports to the United States of America, never sure that its access to the market would continue. At the worst, if the United States had imposed restrictions on our beef exports - as it has done in the past on some of our other export commodities - at the level requested by its own producers, the first effect would have been an over-supply of ‘meat on the domestic market with disastrous prices for all live-stock - fat stock and store stock alike.

In the final event the agreement that was reached gives Australia a basic export entitlement for 1964 at the average of imports from Australia during the last two years and growing at a rate of 3.7 per cent, per annum in each of the two years 1965 and 1966. During 1966 this growth rate, but not our basic export entitlement, will be reviewed.

This is an agreement which gives the first tangible expression we have had of the practical application in a major market of principles and policies Australia has long advocated. It is significant that out of a most worrying situation has come this sensible and hopeful arrangement. It is very gratifying that in a commodity as important as this and under conditions as difficult as this, two nations were able to sit down and work out this mutually acceptable arrangement - and work it out on the basis of a concept of rational exporting and orderly development of markets. This is the way we like to do business.

It is true that initially under the agreement there will be some reduction in the quantities we may supply by comparison with the very favorable position we had reached in 1963. However, the reduction involved is relatively small. It is even smaller regarded as a price to pay for the advantages of the agreement.

In addition to discussions with the United States there have also been discussions with the United Kingdom on our export of meat to that market. Australia’s meat exports to the United Kingdom have been falling away over recent years as our exports to the United States have increased. We have never regarded this as a permanent withdrawal from the United Kingdom market. The facts are that with expanding production by the United Kingdom there has been less and less room for imports on that market. Since 1958 British imports of beef and veal have declined in total from 402,000 tons to 358,000 tons while British beef and veal production, bolstered by a system of guaranteed prices and subsidies, increased substantially from less than 800,000 tons a year to more than 900,000 tons a year. Over the same period United Kingdom imports of sheep meat have been virtually unchanged while United Kingdom production of sheep meat increased by approximately 25 per cent. As a result prices in that market have been forced to very low and at times ruinous levels.

The United Kingdom Government makes up to its producers by subsidy the deficiency between prevailing market prices and high guaranteed prices. It has been faced with steadily increasing payments of subsidies as production increases and as prices fall. The United Kingdom Government estimates that in 1963-64 price support subsidies on cattle and sheep alone will cost £stg.58,000,000 which is £A.72,500,000. In treasury subsidies, that is the measure of price support by the United Kingdom Government to he own beef and sheep meat producers. The United Kingdom Government made a proposal to restrain the volume of supplies coming on to her market and in that way to stabilize the market. For exporters this restraint was to take the form of a direct control on exports while for the United Kingdom producers Britain was proposing to introduce a form of control which would put some penalties on producers whenever certain established quantities of production were exceeded.

Multilateral negotiations between Britain and her six major suppliers took place in London for two weeks during January and February this year. They followed earlier bilateral discussions during the last twelve months between Britain and her individual suppliers. A large measure of agreement was reached between delegations on the detail of the form of arrangement which could be considered for the United Kingdom market. It was not, however, found possible to reach complete agreement at these discussions. The main unresolved issue was the level of imports that would be supplied by Britain’s external suppliers, such as Australia. The United Kingdom delegation was unable to agree to a level of exports, quantitatively, which exporters would regard as reasonable. The talks have, therefore, been suspended without any agreement amongst Governments concerned. It is expected, however, that the United Kingdom will again raise the question of arrangements for her market and will endeavour to come to agreement with her suppliers on measures to regulate supplies to the British market.

The Australian Government has been active in all negotiations on meat, both in bilateral discussions with importing countries and in multilateral meetings in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

For years we have been striving for international arrangements to bring about more assured conditions for commodity trade. We first achieved general Commonwealth support for this approach at the Commonwealth Trade and Economic Conference held in Montreal in 1958, at which I represented Australia. Since then we have been unceasing in our efforts to win international acceptance of these ideas. Over the years most of the major trading countries have been brought to subscribe to the principles that we of this Government have long enunciated and to declare their support for international commodity agreements. The provisions being stipulated by the United States in respect of commodity trade negotiations in connexion with the Kennedy round can be taken as a further and major recognition of these same principles that we have initiated.

No one should underestimate the practical difficulties of having the principles transcribed into effective international action. But if other countries mean what they are now saying it should, at long last, become possible to achieve the effective action on agricultural commodities for which the Kennedy round provides the opportunity. It is no part of our approach to disregard the legitimate expectation of producers in other countries to reasonable protection in their own market. The agreement that we have signed with the United States is fair to both domestic producers of that country and overseas suppliers.

It is to be hoped that this agreement with the United States might set the pattern for arrangements with other countries. In the European Common Market and Japan, for example - markets which maintain severe restrictions against imports of meat - this principle of a basic export entitlement combined, as in the case of the United States arrangement, with a growth factor is one that we would like to see extended. The great meat exporting countries of the world must be given the opportunity to export and grow. Unless they can find export markets developing at a sufficiently rapid rate it could become inevitable that some form of control could have to be applied to total exports of meat, leading ultimately to productions cuts also.

However, reverting to the agreement with the United States, this now assures us of stable market opportunities in a country with a high standard of living for an important proportion of our meat export surplus. This is not only very important to our meat producers; it will also represent to the Australian economy an assured £80,000,000 to £90,000,000 of export income a year.

I present the following papers: -

United States-Australian Meat Marketing Arrangements - Exchange of notes between representatives of the Government of Australia and the Government of the United States forming an agreement between those Governments.

Meat Export Marketing - Ministerial Statement, 27th February, 1964 - and move -

That the House take note of the papers.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Calwell) adjourned.

page 102

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA

Motion (by Sir Garfield Barwick) - by leave - agreed to -

That, in accordance with the provisions of the National Library Act I960, this House elects Mr. Bryant to be a member of the Council of the National Library of Australia and to continue as a member for a period of three years from this day.

page 102

TEMPORARY CHAIRMEN OF COMMITTEES

Mr SPEAKER:

– Pursuant to Standing Order No. 1 8, 1 lay on the table my warrant nominating Mr. Brimblecombe, Mr Clark, Mr. Drury, Mr. Failes, Mr. Falkinder, the Honorable W. C. Haworth, Mr. Jones, Mr. Mackinnon, Mr. Peters and Mr. Stewart to act as Temporary Chairmen of Committees when requested to do so by the Chairman of Committees.

page 102

MINISTERS OF STATE BELL 1964

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 26th February (vide page 45), on motion by Sir Robert Menzies -

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr CALWELL:
Leader of the Opposition · Melbourne

.- The Opposition does not intend to oppose the passage of this bill, but this does not mean that we approve of the ministerial arrangements made or proposed to be made by the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies). On the contrary, we think they are unsatisfactory and not in the best interests of the nation, either in its present position or in possible future danger. We on this side of the House realize that the responsibilities of the Commonwealth have increased and that they will increase further in the future. We not only recognize this increase of responsibilities but, as a party which believes that our national needs and destiny transcend State boundaries laid down generations ago by anonymous clerks in Whitehall, we applaud all enlargements of Commonwealth responsibility.

This amending bill, of which the Prime Minister gave no notice in the general election campaign, could still be said to have been made necessary partly because of the Government’s election promises. The Prime Minister made those promises because he did not dare to stand upon his record of the past fourteen years. Having realized that he had to produce some new ideas, he turned to the only source of new ideas in the political life of this country, the Australian Labour Party. As a consequence, we have the glimmering dawn of recognition of the need for national policies on such subjects as education, housing and northern development.

During tha last election campaign the Prime Minister gave us some of his ideas of the vision splendid. We hoped to see at least a reflection of the vision in this amending bill. For instance, the Prime Minister spoke about a revolution in education. That phrase was my copyright, but I do not mind the Prime Minister’s purloining the phrase “ revolution in education “, any more than I object to his purloining a good deal that was contained in the 1961 and 1963 policy speeches of the Labour Party. I ask the House to pause for one second and recognize that the Prime Minister, as crusty a tory as ever walked the political stage, is now an advocate of revolution. He wants a revolution in education. That is some advance, at any rate. I would like to see him become equally revolutionary in regard to a number of other things, including the question of the relationship of the two Houses, an increase in the size of the Parliament and other matters which are just as necessary as an amendment to the Ministers of State Act.

Do these ministerial arrangements offer us any promise of a new revolution? Surely the least we might have expected was a ministry of education. But we have nothing of the sort. A senator has been appointed to assist the Prime Minister in matters of education. If he is doing his job properly, no Prime Minister can handle the problems associated with education at the same time as he discharges his Prime Ministerial responsibility. The education of our children is one of the most difficult tasks facing the nation to-day. We spend annually on education about 3 per cent, of our gross national product. We have the advantage of being ahead of Egypt, but still we are a little behind Turkey in the amount of our national income spent on education in all its forms. If we are to have an educated democracy much more has to be done. If that is accepted as our aim there ought to be a minister for education in this Parliament and the matter of education should not be dealt with by a sub-department of the Prime Minister’s Department. It ought not to be handled by a gentleman who is not a member of this House and who, by virtue of the fact that he is a senator, can never be a Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister thinks that the two jobs can be combined, he has no understanding whatsoever of the extent of the crisis in education in Australia or the magnitude of the task to be done by his own or by a subsequent administration.

I move on to the other ministries and find that the Postmaster-Generalship remains unattached to any other department. One may suggest that this is the proper way to run the department - to give one man a full-time job administering the department that carries our mails, takes charge of all telegraphic and telephonic business and periodically hands out television licences to Reginald Ansett. In the document tabled to-day it is shown that Mr. Ansett has received the two new licences. He has a one-sixth share in one licence and a one-tenth share in the other. He is the biggest shareholder in both. I offer no suggestions about the PostmasterGeneralship because all the Postmaster-Generals I have known have ‘been very conscientious and have done their work well. However, I would like at least to point out what the

Prime Minister thinks about the job. His recorded view is as follows: -

I have yet to learn that to be Postmaster-General and nothing else is a heavy job because, on the whole, I would think that the Postal Department was best run by a Postmaster-General who was deaf and dumb.

That was the considered opinion of the Prime Minister in 1946 when an amendment of the Ministers of State Act was under discussion. He had been Prime Minister before making that statement so, presumably, he knew from experience what he was talking about. In 1941 he brought down an amendment to the act which increased the number of Ministers, if I recollect correctly, to sixteen. Later, by use of the National Security Act, the number was increased to nineteen. When the Chifley Government in 1946 was amending the act to make that number statutorily permanent the Prime Minister expressed his view of the usefulness of the Postmaster-General that I have quoted.

I do not believe that the honorable member for Petrie (Mr. Hulme) is deaf and dumb, yet he is the new Postmaster-General. Even if he is president of the Queensland branch of the Liberal Party - which would make him faceless in the councils of liberalism - I think it is worth establishing in this House what the Prime Minister thinks his job is worth.

I come now to the Immigration portfolio. It is enough to point out that for the first time since this ministry was established by the Chifley Government, the Minister for Immigration is outside the Cabinet. I still believe, as I did when Mr. Chifley appointed me to be Minister for Immigration, that no ministry is more essential to the rapid growth of development of this nation than immigration. I cast no aspersions on the competence of the honorable member for Corio (Mr. Opperman) but I protest emphatically at the relegation of his ministry to a subordinate rank.

Perhaps more significant and less justifiable is the exclusion of the Minister for Territories (Mr. Barnes) from the Cabinet. The Prime Minister had a lot to say during the election campaign about Australia’s growing importance in the world around us but it is difficult to think of anything more important to Australia’s external future than what happens in New Guinea. What we do or fail to do in New Guinea will in a very real sense determine our future and will to a very great extent decide how we are to be judged against the standards of the great destiny which we all believe to be ours. I place that task in the very front rank.

Another matter which possibly ranks in importance with the New Guinea question is that of the Australian aborigines. Both these complex matters come under the administration of the Minister for Territories, a ministry now removed from Cabinet status. The portfolio has been given to one of the best racing trainers in this country. I am not pre-judging the Minister but I am bound to say that having looked through his parliamentary record over the past year I can find no reference whatsoever to indicate that he has any interest in, much less an understanding of, the tremendous problems with which he is now called upon to deal. We all know that as leader of a coalition Government the Prime Minister has difficulties. I suppose he had difficulties in finding a post for the honorable member for Mcpherson (Mr. Barnes).

Mr Duthie:

– Who recommended him?

Mr CALWELL:

– He was recommended by the Country Party. He was its choice. I do not query the party’s right to make that choice nor will I offer observations on it, but clearly whatever the party wanted it got. That is the way to be able to stand ever the Government. When the splinter group concerned thinks that the use of power will best suit it? interests, it uses power. It does so intelligently and effectively and I have no complaint with the exercise of power in that way.

We all know that the Minister for Health (Senator Wade) has been given Cabinet rank because he happens to be a senior member of the Country Party. So it is rank in the party which determines whether a Minister is included in the Cabinet and not the importance of his portfolio or what he is trying to do. Australia stands before the bar of the United Nations and the bar of history. Neither the world nor history will be very much interested in the internal difficulties of the Liberal Party and the Australian Country Party. I believe that the honorable member for McPherson is indeed a gentleman and I would like to believe that he will measure up to his great responsibilities. I hope that time will show that he has done so but at the moment he is completely untried. At the United Nations we ought to be able to say that we have one of the highest men in the councils of the Government in charge of the Department of Territories. Obviously the Prime Minister thinks otherwise, or he would have included this important ministry or this new Minister in his Cabinet. If he does not think the holder of this portfolio worthy of inclusion in the Cabinet - if he thinks it is a portfolio to be relegated to an untried backbencher, who is known in this Parliament only for his long-standing objection to the 40-hour week - then what the Prime Minister has done will not have the backing of the people. All I can say is that the Prime Minister has failed completely to understand the importance of the Territories portfolio.

I now pass quickly over the AttorneyGeneral (Sir Garfield Barwick), for whose erudition I have a great respect, and will say only that the combination of this portfolio with that of Minister for External Affairs went on far too long. It could well have been that the honorable gentleman was the only member of the Government competent to discharge both these responsibilities. I think that is right. History may well record that such a combination was disastrous, however, because it is becoming more obvious every day that the honorable member for Parramatta could not handle both portfolios adequately at the same time. He held both portfolios during the whole of the last Parliament, and those two years were very important years, both in our external relations and in the matter of some important legislation which he was handling, namely, the bill to deal with monopolies and restrictive trade practices. In my time one other man accomplished such a task, to the everlasting honour of this nation. I refer, of course, to Herbert Vere Evatt, a giant in his time, though lesser men would like to forget his services to the nation It can be said that when the present Minister had responsibility for both foreign affairs and legal matters, when he was dealing with other nations he behaved like a lawyer and when he was dealing with big business in Australia he behaved like a diplomat.

Last on this very long list of Ministers we come to those for the Army, the Interior and the Navy. Interior we can leave to another day. The young man who will have the portfolio has not yet been sworn in. He is in petto, as it were. He will get it next week or the week after, but he has a big task ahead of him. His department used to have a number of responsibilities, such as works and information, but we all accept the fact that the honorable member for Richmond (Mr. Anthony) has been given one job and one job only. His job is to preside over the new scheme of electoral re-distribution. I do not know what the bill will contain, and I am prepared to wait and see. In fact, I am in that mood in respect of a lot of things these days.

I imagine that it is clear to everybody in this House that the Australian Country Party gave up its traditional grip on the Postmaster-Generalship only in order to get hold of the Interior portfolio. I wish the honorable member for Richmond every happiness in his elevation and every success in the discharge of his responsibilities, but I hope he has taken full note of the speech made last night by the honorable member for Bradfield (Mr. Turner). I now tell this Minister designate that we, on this side, will stand for the principle of equality of representation. We did not attempt to amend the Electoral Act at any time during the period of eight years when we were in office. We could have done so on several occasions, and certainly when we enlarged the Parliament in 1949, but we left that discretionary power with the electoral commissioners - a power which they had had for many years. The protests and the feelings that are arising in this country now are directed against a possible gerrymander, and we hope that if anything of that sort is attempted, it will be prevented. But it is good to wait and see what the bill contains before we do anything about it.

Finally, to come to the ministries connected with defence: The Prime Minister, as head of the Government, had a perfect opportunity to rationalize the administration of the defence establishments of Australia. Many years ago he appointed the Morshead committee to make recommendations on improving our defence services. The Morshead report was never published, but it is an open secret that it recommended the abolition of the portfolios of Army, Navy and Air and suggested that all the work of defence be concentrated in the hands of the Minister for Defence. The Government has done nothing to implement the Morshead report, nor has it made public what General Morshead recommended. The time has gone when it was feasible to have four separate administrations responsible for the defence services. Just imagine four separate Ministers being responsible for the defence of this country! What was reasonable and, indeed, necessary in 1946 may not be right in 1964. Therefore a reasonable and responsible Administration would be giving serious thought to combining all these departments under one effective portfolio. After all, the Prime Minister - he was Prime Minister from 1939 to 1941, as well as from 1949 to 1964 - thinks that administering the Department of the Army is a cushy job, and I suppose it was, under the recently deposed Minister for the Army. Back in 1946 the present Prime Minister said, when he was Leader of the Opposition -

If I desired the perfect definition of a cushy job, I should like to be Minister for the Army.

About the Navy he said -

All I can say is that the Minister for the Navy will not die of overwork. He will probably die of inanition.

It will be argued, of course, that all this was said in 1946. All I can say in reply to that is that in 1946 Australia did have an Army and that Australia did have a Navy, and that in 1946 Australia was fortunate in having a Prime Minister who cared more about defending this nation than about finding jobs for his supporters. The real reason for the proposed increase in the size of the ministry is that the Country Party went to the Prime Minister and said, “We are entitled to a bigger say in the Ministerial and governmental life of the country. We want another portfolio “, and the Prime Minister waited a day and then said, “Yes, of course. But for one new portfolio for the Country Party there must be two new portfolios for the Liberal Party.” So the idea was born for the increase in the size of the Ministry and that is why we have the bill now before us.

Now to get down to the kernel of the bill. There has been very little thought about the needs of the nation and a great deal of thought about the needs of the parties which happen to form the Government of the nation. So far as the Prime Minister is concerned, this is a “ spoils to the victor” bill. There is nothing in the bill and nothing in the arrangements which the bill will legalize, which gives any indication that the Government is aware of the new needs and the high responsibilities imposed upon us all in this Parliament by the people when they spoke at the last general election.

Nothing in this bill indicates that the Government really knows what the people were trying to say. We say that there ought to be a ministry for housing, and there is to be one. There ought to be a ministry for education, but there is not to be one. There ought to be a ministry for northern development, but there is not even agreement among the governments of Western Australia and Queensland and this Government about what form of organization should be established to promote the development of the northern half of Australia.

From answers that have been given in this Parliament in the last couple of days, it appears that the Prime Minister knows little or nothing about the instrumentality that he promised to establish. He just made the promise, as he made promises about education, and then found that administrative difficulties lay in the way. That reminds me of the contest that is taking place in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea now. One of the candidates in the general election there has promised that if he is elected he will make Australian doctors inject the native people with a substance that will change their skins from black to white. When he is elected, as he probably will be, he will find administrative difficulties in his way. If he wants any ideas about the way to turn black into white, he ought to seek an interview with the Prime Minister of Australia, who can turn black into white and white into black. Indeed, he can make everything look very red on occasions.

All this talk about administrative difficulties shows how dishonest were the Prime Ministers’ election promises. The proposed education grants will not be paid until next year. The housing grants are still being considered by the former Minister now returned to the Ministry, in charge of the portfolio not of Air but of Housing. This Minister, thinking of the future, dwelt on the importance of Parkinson’s law. I do not know when the Government will do all the things that it ought to do to give effect to all its promises, but if this measure will help a little to spur a tardy and dilatory government into action, the Opposition accepts the bill, though not with much enthusiasm.

Mr TURNER:
Bradfield

.- Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell) has made a highly political speech, with some flashes of realism and with his accustomed humour. I hope that the latter may long continue to be his custom. However, 1 did not rise to reply to the honorable gentleman. No doubt, the Minister for External Affairs (Sir Garfield Barwick), who is at the table, will do that in due course. I rose, with due regard to economy of time, to make one point. I congratulated separately, and I congratulate again, publicly, those of my colleagues who have been selected to occupy places on the front bench. I have no doubt that they are persons of considerable capacity who will be able to do a job for the nation.

But I ask whether this bill represents the best and the only way of giving that training which is so essential to up-and-coming young men who have to be prepared for greater responsibilities in the Government. Is this the only and the best way? There could be an alternative, Sir. That is the appointment of parliamentary secretaries - the system that prevails in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In a moment, I shall come to the means of giving effect to this system. Meanwhile, I want to discuss some of its advantages compared with the appointment of a large number of Ministers to portfolios that do not involve heavy duties.

It is important that a young Minister should serve an apprenticeship, and there is much to be said for the parliamentary secretary who can be sustained, when the need arises, by one who is, in effect, his overlord minister. The recent “ Voyager “ disaster provided an example of the events that may come upon a new minister. It is true that the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) was able to come into that matter and in fact elected to do so. Clearly, in the ordinary course, in the early days of the responsibilities of a new young minister, there may arise a serious matter in which the helping hand of a senior minister - an overlord minister - would be exceedingly valuable for the new man. This would be better than projecting him into considerable responsibility without the opportunity of apprenticeship and without the support of a helping hand. So, clearly, from this stand-point, there is an advantage in the system of parliamentary secretaries compared to the system of appointing young men with sole responsibility in minor portfolios that may, nevertheless, present certain great difficulties to new Ministers in the early stages of their administration.

The system of parliamentary secretaries offers another advantage, Sir. The parliamentary secretary can begin his apprenticeship much earlier. This could have been so, I am sure, in recent years when these young men who have come up were showing their ability. I am sure that, had this alternative been open, there would have been a disposition to appoint these men to parliamentary secretaryships much earlier than it has been possible to appoint them to portfolios.

I agree with the Leader of the Opposition, who has mentioned the Morshead report, at least concerning what we know about that report, for it has never been tabled. I agree that there is surely great advantage in the concentration of administrative responsibility for the defence forces in the hands of a Minister for Defence. Clearly, this is a field in which parliamentary secretaries would be exceedingly valuable. The Minister for Defence needs assistance, but it need not be provided by cutting up the responsibilities and dividing them among various service portfolios. Indeed, there is everything in favour of breaking down these divisions between the services so that a unified approach to defence may be implemented in every way possible, even in the very structure of the Defence ministry.

I turn now to the Department of Trade and Industry. Again, it is clear that a parliamentary secretary to deal with the secondary industry aspects of the department’s responsibilities would be highly desirable. Clearly, it would be a good thing if the Minister for Trade and Industry could have the assistance of a parliamentary secretary with a background in secondary industry. At present, this is not possible, because we have not available the device of the parliamentary secretary. Also, it is doubtful whether the Department of the

Interior represents a big enough responsibility to warrant the appointment of a separate Minister. A senior Minister in another portfolio could be assisted by a parliamentary secretary who could look after the functions at present discharged by the Department of the Interior. This would be a preferable alternative. Housing, of course, is an important matter that involves considerable responsibilities. I am indeed glad to see that my friend, the honorable member for Wentworth (Mr. Bury), is taking over a full-time Department of Housing. I do not in any way cavil at this. About education, I say only that all those who are interested in it will derive great satisfaction from the fact that the Prime Minister has this matter in his own hands, with some assistance in regard to detail. Naturally, nobody exercises greater power and influence in the Government than the Prime Minister does. Undoubtedly, education will not suffer from the fact that he is keeping responsibility in this field in his own hands.

I come now to the question of cost. With the system of parliamentary secretaries, who can get their training with certain advantages compared to the system of projecting young men into new portfolios, additional costs are not involved in the appointment of secretaries and staffs for new departments built round the new Ministers. We are saved the costs of the general operation of Parkinson’s law. This consideration is not unimportant.

But under the Constitution, the appointment of parliamentary secretaries is not possible. Some of us remember that Mr. Archie Cameron, when Speaker, refused to recognize people who were designated parliamentary secretaries. He would not allow them to have offices in this building, because under the Constitution they did not exist. Indeed, the whole concept of parliamentary secretaries fell into desuetude because it was not constitutional.

Now, for the first time in a long period, we have an opportunity to do something about the position. Within the next eighteen months, we shall have an election for the Senate. Since there must be a Senate election campaign, what better opportunity could there be to combine with an election a referendum for certain constitutional reforms that are long overdue? I can understand the disinclination of the

Prime Minister of any government, in the midst of a parliamentary term, to embark on a referendum campaign. Not only is such a campaign onerous, but also the outcome, more often than not, is unsuccessful as has been the case in the past. But if we must have a campaign anyhow, here is an excellent opportunity to do something that has been needed for a long time, and that is to deal with matters of constitutional reform.

I do not say that it is necessary to do this in a big way and to embrace every possible recommendation in the report of the Joint Committee on Constitutional Review. I say this only in passing, because you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would not permit me to enlarge upon it. However, let me give an example. If the Commonwealth is expected to concern itself with the economic climate, as indeed it is expected to do by the people, clearly it needs more power over money and credit, particularly in regard to the fringe institutions, and the time is long overdue when a referendum should be held to give the Commonwealth these necessary powers. However, I shall not trespass longer on your indulgence, Sir. I say in passing that in my view a referendum should be held to deal, among other matters, with the question of the appointment of parliamentary secretaries. I could mention many others. For example, there are two amendments to the Constitution which are important to Australia in regard to the position of aborigines. These matters are entirely uncontroversial but would be very important in our external relations. So there is an opportunity to deal in a better way with the very subject of this bill in eighteen months time, and I regret that the Prime Minister has not seen fit to take this other course. It is a real alternative to the course that is being taken in this bill.

Mr STEWART:
Lang

.- The purpose of the bill is to increase the size of the Ministry from 22 to 25. It is interesting to look at how the increase has been brought about. One would imagine that when a Ministry is increased from 22 to 25 it would automatically follow that three new portfolios would be created. In this instance, that is not so. Only one new portfolio has been created and that is the Housing portfolio. For untold years the Department of the Interior and the Depart ment of Works have been under the one Minister. It was considered by this Government and the previous Government that the work of these departments was sufficient to occupy only one Minister. This applied also for two or three years to the Department of External Affairs and the Attorney-General’s Department.

Undoubtedly the reason for increasing the size of the Ministry is to placate the younger back-bench members, who for a number of years now have been showing signs of their unrest. In the last Parliament, they could be kept under control because of the closeness of numbers between the Government and the Opposition. However, at the election last year the Government was returned with an enhanced majority and the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) and his advisers in Cabinet undoubtedly decided that the only way to prevent the unrest of the Liberal Party and Australian Country Party back-bench members from coming to the surface was to increase the size of the Ministry and to put into the Ministry some of the younger back-bench members. It has been suggested by the honorable member for Bradfield (Mr. Turner) that the reason for putting the young men info the Ministry is to give them experience so that later, should this Government survive, they mav be able to take up some of the more important portfolios.

I think that the Australian people will appreciate that this increase in the Ministry is entirely unwarranted in the present circumstances. It will create only one new portfolio, not three, and nothing will be done about amalgamating the Departments of the Navy, the Army, Air and Defence. This is completely illogical and inconsistent. The amalgamation of the departments has been recommended by various people for a great number of years. The Prime Minister in 1946 described the Minister for the Army as having a cushy job. If it was a cushy job in 1946, it is a more cushy job now. The number of members of n-r armed services is greatly reduced. The equipment available to the Army is below standard and far from sufficient. This can also be said about the Navy. It is understaffed and under-equipped. Recently we had a tragic accident which meant that 50 per cent, of our Navy was destroyed. The

Royal Australian Air Force also is understaffed and under-equipped. If any three departments could be amalgamated, surely they are the Departments of the Army, the Navy and Air. Our defence forces are well below par in numbers and equipment. It seems to me to be entirely incorrect for the Prime Minister now to use these departments in order to give young men an opportunity to gain experience.

Surely the Government and the Prime Minister should be trying to cut down expenses. If the Ministry had been increased after the 1961 election, there may have been some justification for doing so. The economy was then in a poor state and there was great need to restore the confidence of industry and to get the economy working properly. But the Prime Minister did nothing about it then. Now, when he is returned with a majority of twenty, he finds that it is necessary to increase the Ministry from 22 to 25 and to give some young members the opportunity to gain experience.

The honorable member for Bradfield suggested that there should be a system of under-secretaries. I remind the House that this was tried a number of years ago. One under-secretary, the honorable member for Franklin (Mr. Falkinder), is still a back bench member and another, the previous honorable member for Calare, is no longer in the Parliament. He became completely frustrated with the failure of the Prime Minister to recognize his services. I am reminded by the honorable member for Watson (Mr. Cope) that for many years the previous honorable member for Canning had been under-secretary to the PostmasterGeneral. He had done everything in his power to carry out his duties capably and well. Of the five under-secretaries that I can recall, three have been passed over time after time when appointments have been made to the Ministry.

If I may, I will give some advice to honorable members on the Government side as to how they can get into the Ministry. The best way to do so is to be the loyal and faithful servant of the Prime Minister, to bend your knee whenever he asks you to do so, not to criticize him at all, to continue looking upon him as the Lord Almighty and not to go against party policy for any reason. Honorable members opposite have the example of one honorable member who has now been re-instated in the Ministry as

Minister for Housing. He was in a previous Ministry but was dropped because he commited the tremendous sin of suggesting that the Common Market would not have such a disastrous effect on Australia as the Leader of the Australian Country Party especially had suggested. We are not sure to this day what the Prime Minister thought about the Common Market. He made three speeches in the House and in each speech he adopted a different attitude. But the Minister for Housing was dismissed from the Ministry. However, he learnt his lesson because since his transgression he has not done a thing wrong. He bent his knee and nodded his head whenever he was asked to do so and now he is back in the Ministry.

What has happened to some of those people, particularly members of the Liberal Party, who do the dirty work for the Government time after time in this place - those violent red baiters such as the honorable members for Moreton (Mr. Killen), Mackellar (Mr. Wentworth), Macarthur (Mr. Jeff Bate) and Ballaarat (Mr. Erwin)? At election .after election this Government has been returned because those people have vilified members of the Labour Party and branded them pro-Communist. But have they received any gratitude from the Prime Minister for the dirt that they poured on us? Have they been appointed to the Ministry as positions have become available? No, because each of them on occasion has shown that he has independence of mind. To become a Minister in this Government one must undoubtedly be a loyal and fa th.ful servant of the Prime Minister. The honorable member for Bradfield, who preceded me in this debate, has been a noted critic of the Government’s policy. He came from the New South Wales Parliament to this Parliament with a reputation which it was considered would carry him into the Ministry in a very short time; but because he showed some independence of thought and some initiative in his approach and was mot prepared to bend the knee to the Prime Minister and other members of the Cabinet, he has remained a back-bencher. To-day he has to stand in this House and congratulate some of his younger colleagues who have been appointed to the Ministry.

Let us look at some of the men who have been so appointed and at the portfolios that have been allotted to them. Take first the Attorney-General designate (Mr. Snedden). He is a young man who has certainly shown some ability in this House, but toe has been made Attorney-General at a time when most important legislation is being considered by the Attorney-General’s Department. I refer to the restrictive trade practices legislation. Undoubtedly the honorable member for Bruce has been made Attorney-General because the present Attorney-General (Sir Garfield Barwick) showed that he would not be misled by the criticism and representations of representatives of big business. A few moments ago the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell) said that the present Attorney-General acted like a lawyer in the Department of External Affairs and acted like a diplomat when he was dealing with restrictive trade practices legislation. I feel that the present AttorneyGeneral had made up his mind to push forward with his restrictive trade practices legislation and because spokesmen on the other side of the chamber for big business were aware of that they applied pressure to the Prime Minister to have the Attorney.Generalship taken from the present incumbent and given to a young and capable but particularly inexperienced man who could be wined, dined and duchessed by the representatives of big business-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock:
LYNE, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Order! I suggest that the honorable member modify some of his comments.

Mr STEWART:

– It is a noted fact that big business does these things and is prepared in some instances to stoop to any trick in the book. I do not suggest that the Attorney-General designate will deliberately fall into the traps that may be set for him. All I suggest is that he may fall into them because he is inexperienced. This is why the experienced Attorney-General is being relieved of the portfolio. This young man has been made Attorney-General so that big business may have an opportunity to ride roughshod over faim without his knowing what is happening. What we need in the restrictive trade practices field at this moment is some of the hobnail diplomacy that the Minister for External Affairs uses with countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia instead of this young inexperienced man. I do mot cast aspersions on the honesty of the honorable member for Bruce but I submit that his inexperience may allow to happen the things that I have foreshadowed.

Let me turn now to the portfolio of Minister for the Interior. Formerly this portfolio was amalgamated with the portfolio of Minister for Works. We are to have a new Minister for the Interior at a time when the all-important legislation dealing with the redistribution of electoral boundaries will be brought before this Parliament. The portfolio has been given to a member of the Country Party because the Country Party has held the gun at the head of the Liberal Party on this matter of redistribution. There is no doubt that the portfolio has been given to this young babyfaced boy for the simple reason that he will be able to be pressurized on the one hand by members of his own party and on the other hand by members of the Liberal Party. He will not know whether he is coming or going. Those are the kind of men who have been given these portfolios - one in order to answer to the dictates of big business and the other to answer to the dictates, first of Country Party representatives, and secondly of Liberal Party representatives.

The other most important appointment is that of the honorable member for Mcpherson (Mr. Barnes) as Minister for Territories. Surely everybody in this country is aware that in the next few years the most important thing as far as Australia’s external position is concerned will be the development of Papua and New Guinea. The Prime Minister has taken the portfolio from a Minister who has had vast experience in this field and has handed it to a man who is completely untried.

Mr Nixon:

– He is an able man.

Mr STEWART:

– He may be an able man, but he has no experience. The Leader of the Opposition was correct when he said that the honorable member for McPherson during his time in this Parliament has never shown any interest in the affairs of Papua and New Guinea. These appointments have been made by the Government without due regard for the importance of the portfolios. In the cases of the Attorney-General and the Minister for the Interior the appointments have been made with deliberate forethought, and in the case of the Minister for Territories the appointment has been made merely to comply with a request of the Country Party for an extra position in the Ministry.

There are a number of other matters in the bill that could well be enlarged upon by honorable members. If the new Ministers had been given portfolios of education, northern development and such like there would not have been need to quibble but dual portfolios which for years have been administered by one man have been divided in order to create new positions. There is no doubt that this increase in the Ministry is designed deliberately to placate the unrest of Liberal and Country Party backbenchers.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– The members of the Opposition who have spoken in this debate this morning have introduced some of the tactics that they probably used on their colleagues at the election for positions in their party last Monday. They have produced rumour as fact. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell), in particular, has quoted his own imagination as dogma. We have come to expect that from him over the years. The honorable member for Lang (Mr. Stewart) has given us and the Australian people one of the very best reasons for keeping the present Government in office. No doubt this is one of the things that the Australian people had in mind last November. He complained about the appointment of new and very able men to certain portfolios and tried to present an argument that older men with previous ministerial experience should have been appointed to those posts. If no new man can ever be appointed to an important job, that is an argument for keeping the present Opposition in opposition in perpetuity. That is something which the people outside the Parliament might take to heart.

The honorable member for Lang offered members of the Government parties some unsolicited and unwanted advice on how to get into the Ministry. He would do much better if he . gave himself advice on how to produce a more coherent and better opposition in this Parliament, instead of the disorganized group that we have seen in the past few days. The main reason why I wanted to speak on this bill is that I am particularly glad that this new Parliament has seen the appointment of several new, young, vigorous and energetic ministers. They will make a notable contribution to the Government. I believe that they will be in government for the next several years. The efforts of the Leader of the Opposition and the honorable member for Lang to detract from their ability, their calibre and their integrity in some respects were quite unworthy of debates in this Parliament.

Mr JEFF BATE:
Macarthur

.- The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell) rehashed the speech he made in 1956 on the Ministers of State Bill; but he abbreviated his own quotation from a speech made by the present Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) when in opposition. To-day, the Leader of the Opposition quoted these words which were said by the present Prime Minister when he was Leader of the Opposition -

I am bound to say that, if I desired the perfect definition of a “ cushy “ job, I should like to be the Minister for the Army . . .

But he omitted the additional words - a disappearing army and a disappearing job.

There was a disappearing army and a disappearing job under the Labour Government. In 1956 the Leader of the Opposition quoted those qualifying words from the Prime Minister’s speech, but to-day he left them out because it suited him to leave them out. Why did he leave them out? He left them out because he knew that in 1946 the Chifley Government had begun to disband the Australian defence forces. An earlier Labour Government got rid of the Royal Australian Naval College at Jervis Bay and put it down on the mud flats at Flinders.

Mr Cope:

– Who was in office during the war?

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Obviously the Opposition does not like this. The Chifley Government began to destroy the Royal Military College. Of course, the Minister for the Army had a disappearing job, but it did not suit the Leader of the Opposition, with his usual equivocation, to mention that part of the quotation to-day because he, as well as every other person in Australia with a sense of responsibility, knows that defence is paramount. It ill becomes him to come into this House to-day and leave out the part of the quotation, which was so important, about a disappearing army.

Mr Calwell:

– I have had enough. I am disappearing.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Go out and listen to me on the blower. You cannot take it.

Mr Cope:

– Where was Menzies during the war?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock:

– Order! The House will come to order. I suggest that there be no more interjections from either side of the House.

Mr Cope:

– The honorable member for Macarthur is being provocative.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– Order! The honorable member for Watson will remain silent.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Of course, the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour Party are playing to the gallery. The Prime Minister used the words “ a disappearing army and a disappearing job “ because the Labour Government was getting rid of our defence forces, including the instructors at Duntroon, the Royal Australian Naval College and the Royal Australian Air Force Academy, and selling up all the war material that we so painfully got together.

Sitting suspended from 12.45 to 2.15 p.m.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Prior to the suspension of the sitting I was commenting on the way in which the Leader of the Opposition had misquoted from a speech made by the Prime Minister when he was the Leader of the Opposition. When quoting the words used by the present Prime Minister about the Minister for the Army having a “ cushy “ job, the Leader of the Opposition omitted the words “ a disappearing army and a disappearing job “. I had pointed out that when the Labour Government was in office the Army was disappearing. The Disposals Commission reported that £135,000,000 worth of equipment which had been purchased in the name of the Australian people had been disposed of at cut rates. No doubt the Leader of the Opposition omitted the words “ a disappearing army and a disappearing job “ because they were eloquently descriptive of what was happening under the Chifley Government between 1946 and 1949.

The Labour government of the day dealt a deadly blow at Australia’s defences. You cannot suddenly produce instructors. You cannot suddenly produce senior officers. You cannot have a corps of staff officers without a military college in which your instructors are constantly training new men. It is obvious why the Leader of the Opposition omitted the words “a disappearing army and a disappearing job “. The present Prime Minister’s remarks on that occasion could have been applied to all the services , then. The Navy lost its magnificent college at Jervis Bay. The Parliament is interested in why the Leader of the Opposition omitted the words “ a disappearing army and a disappearing job “ because now the road back is a difficult one. It is difficult to obtain qualified instructors. Tit is difficult to obtain men with the knowledge of armour that the honorable member for Capricornia (Mr. Gray) displayed last night. His technical knowledge of his subject is something to be admired. You cannot pluck qualified personnel out of the ranks of school leavers. You just do not pluck qualified men out of the air, off the farms or out of the factories. They have to be trained. Senior officers have to be trained, staff corps cadets have to be trained and technical instructors, who are of great importance, have to be obtained.

We can be grateful to the Leader of the Opposition for alluding to this subject and thereby reminding us of what was happening in the last years of the last Labour Government. Immediately the present Government came to office there was an intense effort to restore the service departments and the Navy, the Army and the Air Force. On 30th November last the nation voted for a vigorous defence policy. The nation wants security; the nation wants to be defended. The nation knows that everything that occurs overseas, whether close to us or distant from us, affects us instantly. We have been prevented from taking the necessary steps by the hiatus which was created when the Labour Government destroyed some war material, sold other war material and disbanded the Royal Military College and the Naval College. We are suffering for the sins of the Labour Government of that time. The Labour Party only recently repeated that kind of action. I need only remind honorable members of the famous incident at the Hotel Kingston in Canberra when the Labour Party refused to support wholeheartedly our military alliance with America. The Labour Party seems to want to break down Australia’s will to resist.

We should have a Minister for the Army who is young and enterprising so that we can take up the slack left by the last Labour Government influenced by its left wing, which tried to destroy Australia’s will to be a strong nation and to have at its disposal the forces necessary in time of danger. Every one in Australia is aware of that. The last general election was fought on the people’s awareness of events overseas. This was a new issue in any peace-time election in Australia. Australians decided that they would not be fooled with talk of economic issues. They decided to listen to the argument that we have to be secure and strong and that we need a realistic defence policy. They accepted defence as a major issue, and the Government has decided to continue the operations of our service departments and to appoint service Ministers. The people will applaud us for this.

I could not allow to pass unanswered the querulous remark made by the Leader of the Opposition about a cushy job because he omitted the words “a disappearing army “ which were used quite properly by the present Prime Minister between 1946 and 1949. We will endeavour now to have a strong defence force. Instead of men equipped with only a bayonet our servicemen will have the latest technical equipment and methods for fighting, such as were described by the honorable member for Capricornia to whom great credit is due for his technical knowledge of the armour position in Australia. I was pleased to hear his remarks on the fighting equipment of the tanks to which he referred.

The bill before us seeks to increase the number of Ministers from 22 to 25. Although it does not state what portfolios the new Ministers will hold, we understand from press reports that certain Ministers who previously held two portfolios will now be required to administer only one, and that a Minister for Housing, in the person of the honorable member for Wentworth (Mr.

Bury), will be appointed. We should approach our problems along the lines that the people of our community desire. I do not think that the proposal ‘before us goes far enough. The people of Australia want to see growth, development and expansion, and we are lacking in our duty if we do -not appoint a Minister to handle such matters. At present we have a Minister for National Development in another place who has been responsible for handling matters associated with housing, war service homes, the Snowy Mountains authority and so on. He has been fully occupied administering these matters, so I believe that we should create a portfolio to handle all matters associated with growth, development and expansion. I hesitate to use the words “ economic planning “ because we know where that will lead. No doubt the Opposition, if it had the opportunity, would appoint as Minister for Economic Planning a socialist from the London School of Economics or some one like that. Perhaps we should set up some body similar to the National Income Commission which was established in Great Britain to do this job. Already we have a committee of distinguished men to advise the Government. But why stop at a committee? Why not have a minister to look after these things?

I have before me a document entitled “ Report No. 2, National Incomes Commission “, in which reference is made to “ This principle, that money incomes should rise no more than the long-term rate of growth in national productivity “. It warns that if you go for growth you have to see that it is not accompanied by dangerous inflation. You must have growth, and you must, at the same time, maintain stability. This is the dilemma that one faces in considerations of this kind. We are to have 25 ministers. We have a Minister for National Development, but we will not have a minister with the duty of ensuring that inflation does not follow growth. There will be no authority to watch such developments, except, perhaps, as a part of the Treasury or as part of the Ministry of Labour and National Service. At the present time we have a day-to-day repetition by Mr. Hawke before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission of what is happening in respect of growth in this community. Yesterday, I think, he was quoted as saying that farm income would rise by £202,000,000. So it is left to Mr. Hawke and the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to watch these developments. Why should we not have a ministry of development, a ministry of forward-looking expansion, a ministry of growth?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! There is too much interjecting. The honorable member for Barton (Mr. Reynolds) will have his opportunity to speak later.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– I heard one honorable member say to me, “You have been very lucky “. Well, it ill becomes honorable members opposite to talk about people being lucky. They are a pretty desolate, dejected, beaten crowd, and they look it. Don’t talk to me about luck, after your experience in the last couple of months.

Mr Daly:

– You had no luck this morning.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– As I said, you are a beaten crowd, and the only way you can handle this subject is by trying to laugh it off. But it is a long, hard road back for you fellows, and a lot of you will not see the end of it. So do not talk to me about being lucky.

As I have said, we should have a ministry looking after the forward growth of this country, because if we do not grow - if we do not populate the country - we will be in danger. These words, of course, have been used before. Everybody in this House has used them. We must populate the country. We must have more than 11,000,000 people in Australia. We must have growth. The Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr. McMahon) has often said that if you have too extensive an immigration programme you will get inflation. I think we rather over-play this idea. We get frightened of our own ideas of growth and development. We have too many knockers in this country - too many people telling us to be careful. Why do not we have a go? Why do not we be enterprising? We cannot stand still and accept a position in which the gross national product increases by 2± per cent, or 3 per cent, or 4 per cent, per annum. I think the

Governor-General said in his Speech that we hope to achieve an increase of 25 per cent, in five years. Is that enough? Is it true, as the honorable member for Balaclava (Mr. Whittorn) suggested, that the French have inflation, or are they actually doing things? Is France going ahead? Is Japan going ahead?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I must ask the honorable member not to get too far away from the bill.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– I thank you for the admonition, Mr. Speaker. I feel very strongly about this matter, and I am suggesting that there should be a ministry to look after it, and not just some outside commission led by Sir John Allison or another of the distinguished men who come to advise the Government. Where is the Minister to act as liaison between these advisers and the Government? Is he among the 25? I do not think so. That is why I believe that this matter is relevant to the debate now in progress.

There is another matter exercising the minds of responsible people in the community, which was adverted to by me this morning. I refer to subversion within this country. Should there not be a minister for internal security? If a great political party in Australia can do the things that we have seen done, and that we will probably see done next Saturday during the by-election for the State seat of Wollongong-Kembla, ought there not to be somebody responsible for internal security? In my own electorate there is a Communist university.

Mr Cope:

– You opened it, did you not?

Mr JEFF BATE:

– It is at Minto. I think the honorable member for Watson told the House that it was in my electorate. There is nothing that this Government can do to root it out, because the State Government has sovereign powers in these matters, and, of course, will do nothing because it is in the grip of this Australian Labour PartyCommunist unity group which is trying to run Australia and is running a great political party. Should there not be a responsible Minister? Should we not discard the old convention that because there has been a minister for this and a minister for that for many years, we must appoint such ministers again? Can we not think up something more suited to the rapid movement of public opinion and something to look after the things that the public are becoming aware of? If the public is concerned - and the people on the borders of my electorate are concerned - about this left wing-right wing show that is going on in Wollongong, should we not have something more than a secret security service? I suggest that there should be a minister for internal security in Australia. This is an important matter. We should have a ministry of defence, then of growth and then of internal security. Those are the important ones. The other ministries are matters of routine, of working with the departments, but the ones I have mentioned are the thrusting ones, the ones that would achieve an effect immediately.

I shall not take up much more time on this bill, because I know that it is wanted in the Senate. Let me say that I believe in having ministers go overseas. I believe that the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) should spend much of his time overseas, particularly in Europe and the United States of America. I believe that the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr. McEwen) should carry out such safaris as the ones he undertook in connexion with the European Common Market. I believe that the Minister for External Affairs (Sir Garfield Barwick) and other Ministers should go overseas, but I think they should have due regard to the expense of such visits. I have some information about these expenses. It appears in the Commonwealth Year Book, which is a public document. It shows a steep increase m the cost of these visits to overseas countries. I notice that in the case of the Minister for External Affairs, an amount of £10,750 was appropriated to cover his movements overseas, and of this he spent something like £4,000. We give him credit for watching costs in this fashion. He is a man who would be able to earn a good deal more in private practice in the community than he can get here, but when he goes overseas at Commonwealth expense he keeps down his costs. He has due regard to the public purse, and we give him credit for it. I would like the Treasurer (Mr. Harold Holt) and the Cabinet, the group of people who look after these matters, to ask these gentlemen who go overseas to ensure that the costs of their visits are not excessive. By all means they should go. There should be more visits to overseas countries. Let the members of the Parliament go. But keep down the costs, because to do so represents an example to the people whom we are continually asking to preserve economic stability and keep down costs in this country.

Mr BENSON:
Batman

.- The honorable member for Macarthur (Mr. Jeff Bate) talked about his right to correct the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell). I believe I have the right to correct the honorable member for Macarthur. He spoke about the Leader of the Opposition in 1956 quoting statements made in 1946 by the then Leader of the Opposition, who is now the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) about the then Minister for the Army. He said that the Leader of the Opposition in 1946 spoke of the “ disappearing army “. He was quite correct because the Army was disappearing. Men were returning from the war and were being discharged and, of course, we had a disappearing army. Now the honorable member for Macarthur is trying to imply that what the present Leader of the Opposition said was unpatriotic. The honorable member should apologize, because he knows that what he said was mischievous.

Mr Jeff Bate:

– You are all mixed up.

Mr BENSON:

– I am not all mixed up at all. Then the honorable member went on to talk about disposals. He made these references, Mr. Speaker, while you were not in the chair, so you may not be aware of what took place at that time. He spoke about the way in which the Labour Party carried out huge disposal sales. When the honorable member talks about defence matters, does he remember that in 191 1 the Labour Party, under the Fisher Government, brought in the Universal Training Act? By that means we built up our forces so that right up to 1927 we had 107,000 men under arms. After fifteen years of the present Government in office we have an army of 52,000 men. Yet the honorable member rises to say that we must have defence forces! If that is the case, it is time that he did something about it. I have given those figures simply to point out that what the honorable member for Macarthur said was altogether wrong.

It is as well to remember that the party on this side of the House founded the Royal Australian Navy and established the Royal Military College, Duntroon. The honorable member for Macarthur said that we transferred the naval college to the mud flats of Flinders. We had no option but to do so because at that time Australia was in the grip of a great economic depression. Thousands and thousands of men were out of work and could not find jobs. No matter what government was in power, steps were necessary to place the economy of the country in order. Not only Australia but also all Commonwealth countries were suffering from a depression.

I have digressed from the measure before the House in order to reply to the honorable member for Macarthur. The Labour Party feels that the Government should have done better with the Ministers of State Act. It could have extended not the number of Ministers but their responsibilities. We made it clear in our electoral platform that if we became the government we would establish a ministry of education and a ministry for northern development. The honorable member for Macarthur said that we must populate the north, but he did not propose a ministry. Of course we should have a ministry to deal with the development of the north where all sorts of major projects are being undertaken. Petitions were received in this House from Yirrkala as a result of foreign firms obtaining rights over Australian bauxite deposits. There is no ministry to look after that matter.

An argument over oil has arisen in Queensland. This Government finds it necessary to subsidize oil search. When oil is found and while it is still in the ground it is good, dinky-di Australian oil, but as soon as it comes to the surface a dispute occurs because 90 per cent, of it is foreign owned. That argument is being continued at the present time.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I point out to the honorable member that he is getting away from the bill before the House.

Mr BENSON:

– If the Government were to appoint a Minister to deal with the north he could look into those matters, Mr. Speaker. As you know, Sir, all we are gaining out of having 25 Ministers is a Minister for Housing.

As the Prime Minister told the House yesterday he has taken upon himself the responsibility of looking after education. I think that is too much for the Prime Minister, as good as he says he is and as good as other people say he is. From what I have seen during my short time here, his Prime Ministerial duties keep his plate full without taking on other jobs. We saw how the duties of the Minister for External Affairs proved too much for the AttorneyGeneral (Sir Garfield Barwick). I suggest to the Prime Minister, with great respect, that he pass on the duty of looking after education to a minister as a full-time job.

I hope that the new ministry of 25 does well. If we had attained office we would have established new ministers, as we said during the election campaign. I do not know whether we would have increased the size of the ministry but certainly we would have appointed a minister for northern development and a minister for education.

Mr DALY:
Grayndler

.- This measure is not opposed by the Labour Party, as was stated by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell), but that does not mean we cannot be critical of the proposals which are to cost over £70,000 in the coming year. The proposals were unannounced by the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) during the federal election campaign and they are a contradiction of views that he stated for many years about the enlargement of Ministries. I have not been impressed to-day by the replies made to the excellent speech of the honorable member for Lang (Mr. Stewart). Undoubtedly he highlighted a number of features of the legislation about which we are entitled to know a little more. He did not personally attack the integrity, honesty or capacity of Ministers. He said that the Government was placing in highly responsible posts, which would be particularly so in the immediate future, men without any experience of the problems that will confront them. The honorable member for Lang showed very clearly the cunning motives of the Prime Minister behind certain of his moves. The appointment to the Attorney-Generalship was one in point and was clearly dealt with by the honorable member for Lang.

We have since heard a couple of speeches from the Government side. We have heard from disappointed candidates for the

Ministry. The honorable member for Wannon (Mr. Malcolm Fraser) was so anxious to get into the Ministry and win the favour of the Prime Minister that he moved to Canberra to be closer to the gentleman who makes appointments to the Ministry. We heard another Government member saying that the Labour Party had little to do to criticize the measure before the House. We heard a remarkable speech from the honorable member for Macarthur (Mr. Jeff Bate). He stated that there should be a minister for subversion. He is well qualified to make that statement because history records that in 1951 the honorable member raided Garden Island.

Mr Curtin:

– Who was with him?

Mr DALY:

– I do not know who was with him but that establishment had a visit from the honorable member for Macarthur. I understand that he has not gone back there since. He did not bow the knee to the Prime Minister and his performance this morning will not impress the Prime Minister any more than did his raid on Garden Island. The Prime Minister has killed the honorable member’s aspirations to the Ministry - and just as well, after the honorable member’s cellar revolution here this morning. Having the honorable member’s background in mind, it was not unusual to hear him attacking the Labour Party for its criticism of the measure before us. Fancy the honorable member for Macarthur criticizing the Labour Party! He said that we abolished certain defence establishments. May I tell the House that every training establishment of the services, including the Fleet Air Arm which the Government is now disbanding, was set up by a Labour administration. And the honorable member tells us to-day that the Labour Party does not believe in defence!

In 1946 the Prime Minister said that the Army portfolio was held1 by a disappearing Minister with a disappearing Army. What else would you expect in 1946? I believe that the honorable member for Macarthur is so far behind the times, even to this date, that he does not know when the last great war ended. Let me bring him up to date; the last war finished on 15th August, 1945. In 1946 the Government of the day was busily engaged in discharging 336,000 servicemen and servicewomen who were still in the services at the date of the Japanese capitulation. That was why it was a disappearing army. The Labour Government was fulfilling its responsibilities and obligations to the service personnel by releasing them after their magnificent service for the Australian people.

Under a Labour Government, between 1941 and 1945, 1,000,000 people out of a population of 7,000,000 wore one or other of the three service uniforms. I am referring to the period between the time when the present Prime Minister walked out of office and 1946 when a Labour Government was discharging men from the services. Under Labour everything possible was done to see that this country was protected, and the Government can take no credit at all - the Prime Minister least of all - for the war effort that was put up by this nation to save the country from the Japanese.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! I ask the honorable member to confine his remarks to the measure before the Chair.

Mr DALY:

– I was just making some passing references-

Mr SPEAKER:

– I think that had better stop.

Mr DALY:

– I was just making some passing references in order to reply to the rather elaborate speech by the honorable member for Macarthur (Mr. Bate). Apparently honorable members opposite are very touchy on their Army records. I thought they were good, but evidently those are touchy matters, so I will not proceed with them. I would not like to upset the harmony which existed in the ranks of the Government this morning. Far be it from me to do anything to disturb the unanimity of thought on matters which affect members of the Government, as exemplified by the actions of the Government. So I will pass on from that.

I should like to remind the House that it is as well for these things to be said because the Prime Minister, who is now extending the ministerial numbers, did not make any announcement of it in his policy speech and it is, as I said earlier, a contradiction of his previous approach to this problem. There are many critics of the Prime Minister’s actions, not only in extending the Ministry but also, from time to time, in the selection of Ministers. I want to quote a notable former member of this Parliament - a very distinguished Liberal member in days gone by. 1 refer to Mr. Gullett, who was Government Whip and who left this Parliament because he could not win the acclaim of the Prime Minister, although he was a man of outstanding capacity. I will quote his views on Ministries, their selection and numbers. In a publication from a meeting of the Australian Institute of Political Science held in January last year, the former member for Henty is recorded as saying, when speaking of the Prime Minister -

Finally, it is very difficult to quarrel with him as an individual and you do not get much change out of it if you do. It follows, therefore, that the Menzies Government is 90 per cent. Menzies. I have always thought we are extremely lucky to have this gifted and high-principled man, even though by virtue of his very gifts themselves lesser men are even less than they might be. It must be said, too-

Members of the Ministry should note this carefully - - that he has undoubtedly foisted upon the public some extraordinarily second rate people.

That is a pretty good reference from the former Government Whip. I sat in this Parliament, in a similar capacity, when he was here. He knew intimately the comings and goings of Ministers. He knew what they were like. He said the Prime Minister had foisted on this country some extraordinarily second-rate people. I do not know whom he was complimenting or referring to in the Ministry. You can take your pick. But evidently, as Government Whip, he was able to have a look behind the scenes, and he knew that the present system - which we are enlarging to-day - contains some extraordinarily second-rate people. That opinion came from Mr. Gullett, and I commend him on that speech, because it is very frank and interesting, and one which we all ought to consider when we are spending £70,000- odd evidently for the purpose, as Mr. Gullett said, of foisting some further second-rate people on the country in general. Let me quote also some criticism levelled at this measure in the “ Sydney Morning Herald” of 1st January, 1964. This newspaper can hardly be said to support Labour. It makes a very reasonable comment, although it is a newspaper which supports the Government. The article states -

Even allowing for the passage of time since 1946, and the big growth in Commonwealth responsibilities in the intervening years, many people find it difficult to accept the fact that Sir Robert now believes it is necessary for him to have 25 Ministers to run the country when 22 sufficed since 1956, including several who were remarkably underworked. Again, to fill the 25 portfolios Sir Robert has promoted some men who will never have anything special to offer their country in the way of intellect or ability.

You do not have to be a wizard to figure out the identity of the underworked Ministers. The “ Herald “ was on the beam that day. The article continues -

There must be tens of thousands of Australians who feel like paraphrasing Thackeray’s bitter jest about the Whigs to read: “ I am not a Liberal; but oh how I should like to be “.

That is probably how the prospective Ministers are looking at the measure which is under discussion. I cast no reflection on the new men who are coming into the Ministry. I have not studied their form and I will not pass judgment. But I have had a good look at the present set-up, and I am in agreement with the Prime Minister that something had to be done, even under the camouflage of bringing new Ministers in. That is evidently the situation, because one newspaper went on record to say that the Ministry is now to be composed in a remarkable way. There are many old and ageing men in the Ministry who should at this stage be relieved of onerous responsibilities and duties and these young and vigorous exponents of the Liberal art who are being promoted will be the ones who will really do the work. In effect, we will have an ageing top-heavy Cabinet with little to do, as has been the case in the past, with a few young men brought into it who will be expected to carry the full burden of responsibility. In a way, I am a bit sorry for those who have been selected. They will be called upon to work very hard during the next few years. One can see the way the Ministry is functioning under this proposal, which is hardly what one would call an effective system, no matter how you look at it.

These things are worth mentioning, but I do not want to go over what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell) said this morning. However, the Prime Minister is on record as saying, on the Sth December, 1946, that the best man to put in charge of the Post Office would be somebody who was deaf and dumb. It does not matter how you look at it, that is hardly complimentary to the present Minister. These things are on record in the book. I will not read them out again, as I do not wish to delay the House, but the then Leader of the Opposition - the present Prime Minister - dealt very bitterly with the Navy portfolio and with those of the Army and other service departments after the war. If we take anything from his speeches at that time, wtihout doubt it would be that he would have disbanded the Ministries of the Navy, Army and the Air Force forthwith had he been in government at that date. If he held those views then, either they were irresponsible statements which he made or sheer politics. It is remarkable when the Prime Minister of the present day is on record as saying those things and now seeks to enlarge the Cabinet to 25. These sobering thoughts should be kept in mind by all while dealing with the measure under discussion. It is to be hoped that more effectiveness will come to the Ministry. I do not see why the Ministries of the Navy, Army and Air Force are not combined under one portfolio to unite them for the defence of this country. I think that should be done, because it would give effective administration and would bring together three sections of the forces which undoubtedly, at this time, are going various ways - and not very effectively, as we can see. The Prime Minister has realized that there must be something wrong with the Army. I do not know what the former Minister, whom I like personally in every other way, and who is probably more affectionately known to honorable members as “ Jungle Jack “, says about it. Whatever way we look at it, he is back in the jungle now, and that must be because of the fact that the Prime Minister realizes that something must be done about the Army. While I regret the demotion of the former Minister, and thank him for the courtesy he extended to me from time to time, I cannot help thinking that there must be a realization on the part of the Prime Minister that he will have to move sooner or later to unite and coordinate the efforts of the Navy, Army and Air Force and have one Minister controll ing them, probably with an over-riding Minister for Defence. Having said those few words critically and constructively, and, I hope, quite objectively, and regretting that I have seen a certain sensitiveness about the Government’s record in the defence field, when it is challenged, and regretting also that you, Mr. Speaker, saw fit to stop what would have been some more important revelations on that point, I conclude by expressing the hope that, whilst we are not opposing the bill, the views of Labour as expressed by the honorable member for Lang (Mr. Stewart) and others will be borne in mind and let us hope that in the interests of this country the new Ministry will be. even 25 per cent, better than the last Ministry, because we cannot put up with that type of administration much longer if we want this country to be secure.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

Bill (on motion by Mr. Fairhall) read a third time.

page 119

PUBLIC SERVICE BILL 1964

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 26th February (vide page 45), on motion by Sir Robert Menzies -

That the bill be now read a second time.

Mr WHITLAM:
Werriwa

.- Mr. Speaker, the Opposition supports this bill. In fact, we applaud the measure as far as it goes. For many years now, we have said that a housing ministry should be re-created. We have said, also, that there should be some department expressly charged with responsibility in matters relating to secondary industry, just as there is a department specifically charged with responsibility in matters relating to primary industry. The Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) has chosen one of his most talented supporters as the first Minister for Housing under this new arrangement and also the Cabinet has chosen a first-rate public servant as the first permanent head of the new Department of Housing. Their com.bined talents will be fully extended in interpreting what the Prime Minister meant by the housing proposals contained in the policy speech which he made on 12th November last, and in making those proposals credible and viable.

There was previously a Department of Works and Housing, which was constituted under the Public Service Act 1947. The act continued arrangements which had been made by regulation under war-time powers. The department was continued under that name by the Public Service Act (No. 2) 1951. On 6th June, 1952, however, by proclamation, the Department of Works and Housing was abolished and the Department of Works was established in lieu of it. The position was regularized by the Public Service Act 1957. The present measure, therefore, will re-establish a housing ministry which the present Government had previously abolished.

This bill has general significance because it recognizes the Commonwealth’s responsibility in any matters requiring expenditure by State governments or co-ordination of State activities. Members of the Government parties constantly assert that they are federalists. They constantly declare the virtues of a federal system and propound the tenet that the Commonwealth’s responsibilities should be confined to those matters which are listed in section 51 of the Constitution. They believe that any responsibilities first undertaken by governments since the Constitution was approved by the United Kingdom Parliament in 1900 automatically are State responsibilities and State responsibilities only. Therefore, it is gratifying to see that, in the two matters that I have mentioned, the Ministry at last recognizes that the Commonwealth has a responsibility to supervise the expenditure on housing of funds principally supplied by the Commonwealth, to co-ordinate the development of secondary industry in Australia and to dovetail secondary industry with our overseas trade.

The Commonwealth either provides, or regulates practically all the funds spent on housing in Australia. Ever since 1918, the Commonwealth has provided money for housing through the war service homes scheme. Since 1945, the Commonwealth Government has provided all the money spent by the State housing commissions, housing trusts and housing departments. In other words, all the money provided for government housing comes from the Commonwealth. The States spent no money on housing before the Commonwealth, in 1945, under the first Commonwealth and State Housing Agreement, gave them the money to spend. Furthermore, Sir, the Commonwealth regulates the principal sources of private housing loans to individuals. Under section 51 of the Constitution, the Commonwealth has always had power to pass laws with respect to banking and insurance. The savings banks and the life assurance societies are the principal sources of housing funds for individuals. The old field of private mortgages has relatively declined.

If we are to have good administration, it is essential that government expenditures be supervised by a minister responsible to the parliament which appropriates the moneys to be expended. It has long been anomalous that there has not been a Minister for Housing in this Parliament, since all the money that the State governments spend on housing is provided by this Parliament. Furthermore, in recent years, the Commonwealth’s historic responsibility, under the defence power, for the provision of war service homes has been a subsidiary province of the Minister for National Development.

We hope that the new Minister for Housing (Mr. Bury) and the new Department of Housing will correlate the facts on housing in general, and ascertain the demand for housing and the trends in that demand, as well as co-ordinate expenditure. The appropriation of moneys for expenditure on housing by the States is a singularly futile exercise when there is no investigation of the demand for housing and no assessment of the relative priorities and the demands for housing in the various States. It is to be hoped that the new Minister will regularly report to the Parliament on these matters. At present, this Parliament receives no reports on housing other than war service homes, although it provides and regulates most of the money for housing. There is no annual report or other regular report on the housing demands felt by the housing commissions and the co-operative building societies, which now receive most of their money from the Commonwealth via the States, or on the demand for housing for the armed forces, for which some provision is made by this Parliament under its appropriations for the State housing authorities. This information is revealed only in answer to parliamentary questions on notice.

There has long been a demand for an investigation, on a national level, of housing needs and the trends in housing. This demand has been consistently ignored by the Government and its satisfaction refused. When we on this side have proposed in this Parliament motions in favour of such an investigation, the Ministry has voted against them. We now have an opportunity for one Minister to co-ordinate the Commonwealth’s direct expenditures on war service homes and its indirect expenditures on housing provided by housing commissions and building societies as well as on dwellings for serving members of the forces. I hope that the Minister for Housing will also have some jurisdiction over the housing fund’s provided by banks, particularly the savings banks, and insurance companies, particularly the life assurance societies, but whether this will be so is not yet clear. It is to be hoped, also, that the Government will take the opportunity to investigate the demand for housing and to co-ordinate government expenditures and expenditures from private sources, such as banking and insurance, so as to ensure the best economic advantage for the country as a whole and to satisfy the individual requirements of families.

The establishment of the Department of Trade and Industry acknowledges the Commonwealth’s responsibility in matters relating to secondary industry. Supporters of the Liberal Party of Australia and the Australian Country Party, had they been asked, would always have said that secondary industry was a matter within State jurisdiction and that there is nothing in the Commonwealth Constitution which says that the Commonwealth has any responsibility in this field. This is a matter in which the Commonwealth does not expend directly nearly as much money as it expends directly in other matters. Nevertheless, there is a deal that can be done through tariffs, taxation, credit, insurance, shipping and government enterprise to promote secondary industry. Australia is in an almost unique position. Together with Canada, it is the only country in the world that is highly industrialized as regards its employment, development and investment patterns but is still primarily dependent on primary and mineral industries for its exports. The primary and mineral industries will continue to be of very great importance in Australia’s trading pattern, but, like any large trading country, we can prudently plan only insofar as we promote trade for our secondary industries. The only countries that enjoy any secure affluence to-day are those which export their secondary products. The secondary industries depend very largely on the nation’s capacity to process the mineral and primary products.

Here we will have a department that is charged with that co-ordination and promotion. The State governments are not in the best position to do it. Australians are constantly embarrassed by the competing claims overseas by the various State Premiers as to the attraction for investment that their States or rather their capital cities offer. Australia can be evenly balanced economically and strategically only if there is a good spread of secondary industry throughout the States and throughout the large cities, not only the capital cities but also the provincial cities. It so happens that Western Australia and Queensland, the States that are least industrialized, the States that have only half the proportion of their population in secondary industry that New South Wales and Victoria have, are the ones which are best suited geographically to promote the export of secondary products. They happen to be the States that have most recently developed mineral resources. Queensland happens to be the State that has the greatest variety of pr imary products. We will benefit as a nation insofar as we promote secondary industry in these States and insofar as we process their very great variety of primary and mineral products. The States are not adapted to do this, because the richest States already are well satisfied with the present distorted pattern of our industrial development. Clearly only the Commonwealth with its financial primacy and with its trade responsibilities is in a position to ensure that Australia, a great trading country, becomes great in its secondary industry trade.

The bill, as far as it goes, is a good one. As has been made plain by the speeches of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Calwell) and other Opposition members on the immediately preceding bill, the Ministers of State Bill, we ‘believe that there should be ministries dealing with other matters that are primarily, almost solely, matters of Commonwealth responsibility. Wherever finance is concerned in Government arrangements in Australia, the Commonwealth is also concerned. The Commonwealth’s responsibilities cannot be limited to those matters listed in section 51 of the Constitution. Section 96 notably makes it apparent that if the Commonwealth chooses to make a grant to a State for any purpose whatever the Commonwealth can interest itself in that matter. This has been a trend particularly since the war.

The financial primacy of the Commonwealth has been apparent ever since the Financial Agreement of 1927. Ever since then, all the public works of the States which depend on borrowed money have been financed by loans made by the Commonwealth either from moneys it borrows or moneys it raises in taxation. Since the war and the immediate post-war period, when uniform income tax was continued, it has become ever clearer that the Commonwealth has the greatest resources and the greatest flexibility in income raising. About 55 per cent, of the current expenditures of all the States except Western Australia now comes from grants from this Parliament. Western Australia is dependant on the Commonwealth for about 67 per cent, of its current revenue. More particularly, the new functions that governments have taken on since the war are principally functions which the Commonwealth has enabled them to undertake through such grants. Accordingly, if we are to have good administration and good supervision of government expenditure, if we are to have prudent and economic co-ordination of government expenditure, we must promote the Commonwealth responsibilities in these matters.

As we have done with housing and secondary industry as a result of this bill, so we should do with other matters. The Opposition has made it plain on the Ministers of State Bill that it does not believe that the Government’s own view of the Commonwealth responsibilities justifies the increase in the number of Ministers from 22 to 25. It acknowledges, however, that a proper regard of the Commonwealth responsibilities in administration would necessitate the increased number of 25 Ministers. Other respects in which we say there should be Ministerial oversight by the Commonwealth are education, national development and science and research. It is not sufficient now to make education a subsidiary responsibility of the Minister for Works. It is not satisfactory to make northern development a subsidiary responsibility of the Minister for National Development, who will set up a new section in his existing department. In these matters in particular the Commonwealth must take the initiative.

The great expansion in education since the war has been in university education, and in this field the Commonwealth now finds as much money as do the States combined. In regard to northern development, clearly the Commonwealth alone can coordinate developments with Western Australia and Queensland. The Commonwealth makes money available for the Ord River scheme, but the economics of this scheme depend on the extent to which the 30 or 40 per cent, of the impounded water which can be used only in the Northern Territory is in fact to be used in the Northern Territory. The Government has not consulted with Western Australia on the question of whether or how that water should be used in the Northern Territory. Again, the Commonwealth has made large sums available for the Mount Isa railway. The economics of this railway depend not only on the transport of minerals eastward from Mount Isa but also on the transport of pastoral products from the surrounding regions in Queensland and the adjacent areas of the Northern Territory. The Commonwealth cannot build a railway in a State without the consent of that State. The Commonwealth should clearly have made arrangements with Queensland at the time the Mount Isa arrangement was made to extend the railway to the Northern Territory border and link it with railways through the Barkly Tablelands when it was convinced of the economics of those proposals. There again the Government has not consulted with Queensland. - I limit myself to public works or utilities which we all acknowledge to be government responsibilities, on whichever side of the House we sit. I have not referred to other initiatives which the Government must clearly take, and therefore which primarily the Commonwealth must clearly take, if the north is to be developed. The point I make is that the Commonwealth, in making moneys available for public works such as irrigation and railways in the north, hitherto has conspicuously failed to take a role in co-ordinating these activities.

This is the first Public Service Bill that we have had since 1960. Accordingly I feel compelled briefly to touch upon a couple of matters that have arisen since 1960 concerning the Public Service. Since 1960 there has been a notable trend for senior public servants to leave the Commonwealth’s employ and go into private employment. Some have gone into the employ of private companies within Australia. Some have gone into the employ of international companies. One who comes to mind in this regard is the immediate past DirectorGeneral of Posts and Telegraphs. Some have gone into the employ of completely foreign companies, for example the former assistant secretary of the Department of Supply who joined the company which failed to sell the Caravelles and which succeeded in selling Mirages to the Australian Government. I first raised this matter in September and October, 1961, in connexion with the immediate past Director-General of Health. In that post he had access to confidential information concerning the drug companies whose products are prescribed as pharmaceutical benefits. Immediately he retired he became consultant to one of those companies. Two inferences could be drawn from those circumstances. The first is that while still in office the Director-General could have had in mind his future prospects. The other is that after entering private employment he could have been very useful to his new employer in imparting the confidential information that he possessed. This was an extraordinary act on the part of the Director-General. It was not a mere indiscretion; it was much worse than that. We are entitled to expect that senior public servants who retire on handsome superannuation should maintain the same high

F.456/64. - R. - [o] standards in retirement as we know they maintained while they continued to be public servants. In Britain a senior public servant cannot within two years of retirement accept a position with a company which deals with his former department unless he obtains the permission of his former Minister and also of the Treasury. It is high time a similar practice was introduced with regard to Commonwealth public servants.

The other matter to which I must refer relates to the use that is made of public servants at election times. There was a distressing tendency in 1961 and again in 1963 for some Ministers, particularly the Treasurer (Mr. Harold Holt), to say that the cost of the Labour Party’s proposals had been computed by officers of their departments. If calculations are made on social service matters they may be very readily checked by means of the annual report of the Director-General of Social Services. There is never any question as to the cost of social service proposals because the Parliament regularly is given all the information which bears upon that subject. Again, it is not very difficult to work out the cost of various tax remissions. After a greater delay than in the case of social services we receive reports from the Commissioner for Taxation. The pattern of taxes in the community, both corporate and individual, clearly emerges from his report. Therefore if any party or any individual makes a proposal on taxation it is not difficult to work out what is involved in it. In so many other aspects and notably, I suggest, in housing, where the new ministry is being created by this bill, it is not easy to work out these things because the public is not given the figures. The Commonwealth Statistician does not give them, the Treasury does not give them and the banks and assurance companies do not give them. Surely the position should apply in this country that when elections are pending, public servants should be immune from such political controversy. There is no doubt that a very great number of public servants have been embarrassed by the fact that they have been used in this way, particularly by the Treasurer. The way in which the public servants have computed their figures is never published. The Treasurer says, “ My officials have given me this calculation “. If these calculations are in fact made by the public servants and are provided to the Government parties for political purposes during the currency of an election campaign, in all fairness they should be made available to an Opposition or to any other challenging party at an election during the election campaign. But when an election campaign is in process the parties should rely on their own resources, not those of public servants. I doubt very much whether public servants have been responsible for all of the calculations that have been attributed to them. I am not an unwavering admirer of all calculations published by the Treasury in recent years but no calculations for which the Treasury has taken responsibility have ever fluctuated so greatly or so rapidly as those attributed to it by the Treasurer during election time.

Public servants in Australia should have the same status as public servants in Britain, whose best institutions as regards law-making and the administration of finance we have inherited. Politicians come and go but bureaucrats remain, but the bureaucrats cannot be expected to enjoy public respect or immunity unless in fact they abstain from politics. I certainly exempt the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr. McEwen) from any criticism in this regard, because he always takes responsibility for any statements that he makes at election time but the Treasurer in particular has on the last two occasions so frequently brought the public servants into the field of political controversy that I feel one must mention the practice and deplore it at this time when we are debating the first Public Service Bill in four years.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

In committee:

Clauses 1 and 2 - by leave - taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 3.

The Second Schedule to the Principal Act is amended -

  1. by omitting the words “The Department of Trade.” and inserting in their stead the words “The Department of Trade and Industry.’’; and
  2. by adding at the end thereof the words “ The Department of Housing.”.
Mr WHITLAM:
Werriwa

.- I move -

Omit paragraph (b), insert the following paragraph: - “ (b) by adding at the end thereof the following words: - ‘The Department of Housing. The Department of Education. The Department of Northern Development. The Department of Science and Research.’.”.

The consequence of accepting this amendment would be that the Parliament would express its view that there should be in fact not only a new Department of Housing but also new departments of education, northern development and science and research. This amendment would give effect to the attitude which the Opposition has expressed in the last bill and which I have expressed on behalf of the Opposition in this bill. We do believe that more federal ministries are required if the Commonwealth’s responsibilities are properly to be discharged and if there is to be proper supervision of government expenditure and proper co-ordination of State activities in Australia.

If I may proceed in greater detail on the particular departments I have mentioned, the Commonwealth already accepts responsibility for financing university education. It has done so ever since the Second World War when the Commonwealth Reconstruction Training Scheme was launched. For many years the present Government has taken the attitude that the Commonwealth’s responsibilities in education started with university education and were limited to it. There is no constitutional reason at all why the Commonwealth’s responsibility in education under section 96 should not extend into any form of education. The Labour Party has asserted that constantly in the House. We have put that proposition to a vote in the House. As recently as last October the Government voted against that proposition.

The Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies), in his 1963 policy speech, at last acknowledged that the Commonwealth could accept some responsibility for technological and scientific education outside the universities. If there is to be proper supervision of that expenditure, the Commonwealth should have a Minister responsible for it. Hitherto the Prime Minister has had university education among his responsibilities. Now the Minister for Works (Senator Gorton), who is in another place, is to assist him on that matter.

The new Commonwealth interest in technological and scientific education is very small at this stage - £5,000,000 per annum under each head - but if that expenditure is to be fruitful and meaningful, the Commonwealth must investigate the education patterns of which these two forms of education are only part. We cannot detach technological and scientific education from the other forms of education any more than the Commonwealth was able to preserve its attitude that university education could be detached from other forms of education. You have to get people to the stage of university education; you have to see that they have the ancillary education before education in science or technology can be fruitful.

This is a very rapidly growing field of education. It is, therefore, a field in which only the Commonwealth can make a considerable contribution. All the States’ finances are fully allocated. I am not saying that the Commonwealth’s financial resources are limitless - of course they are not - but they are very much larger than those of the States. The Commonwealth’s revenue resources are much more flexible than are those available to any of the States. Accordingly, now that the Commonwealth has come into technological and scientific education, inevitably it will increase its interest in the whole field - certainly in the whole field of secondary education and perhaps in the future in primary education.

A Commonwealth department of education is required to carry out Commonwealth responsibilities and to co-ordinate the activities of the States. One of the first functions of such a department would be to set up an inquiry into primary, secondary and technical education and teacher training as a basis for the Commonwealth’s rapidly growing interest in education, including these two new fields upon which it is about to embark. With the growing use of television for educational purposes, a Commonwealth department is urgently needed to co-ordinate State curricula and to ensure the best possible use and cheapest production of television programmes. At present there is a wide diversity among the States in teachers’ qualifications, matriculation requirements, the number of years and courses in secondary schools and so on.

One of the amusing sidelights of the Prime Minister’s policy speech was that the promise of scholarships in the final two school years is difficult to implement, because States differ on what are the last two years. Sometimes a student matriculates a year after he does the Leaving Certificate examination or the Senior examination. So which are the last two years? That is one of the problems which are now being worked out by the Minister who is in charge of this particular section of the Prime Minister’s Department.

A Commonwealth department of education is needed to undertake research into education. That certainly is one of the functions of the Commonwealth Office of Education which was established under the Education Act of 1945. but it has not been promoted in recent years. As a matter of fact, the staff of that office was largely dispersed in the 1951 pruning. The education industry is the largest industry in Australia; but the amount that we spend on educational research is trivial. We, as a Commonwealth Parliament, are embarking on new forms of educational expenditure, and now is the time to have a full-time Minister devoted to it.

The next department which I have suggested is a department of northern development. The Prime Minister has acknowledged the claims that have been made by a very great number of organizations, and by the governments of the two tropic States, for such a department. In my second-reading speech I referred to the lack of co-ordination in the railway expenditure by the Commonwealth in Queensland and the irrigation and conservation expenditure by the Commonwealth in Western Australia. The Stanford Research Institute’s report on the development of Australia, which was delivered in the month before the election, has been published, significantly, only in the last few weeks. It advocates a Commonwealth initiative in this direction. Only the Commonwealth can really co-ordinate State activities. Furthermore, the Commonwealth has its own direct responsibility in the Northern Territory. ,, ,

It is not good enough to have the whole subject of co-ordinating and developing the north in the hands of a new section of an existing department whose Minister over the years has said that he believes that the Commonwealth should get behind individual projects as they are put up to it. The Commonwealth’s responsibility should be to look out for economic or national projects, to discover such projects and to investigate them and, if they are practicable, to carry them through. Already we have bodies such as the River Murray Commission and the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Authority, and we have a great number of experts in the existing Department of National Development. Their skills should be retained and employed by a specific department, which would carry out these national responsibilities as only the Commonwealth can carry them out.

The remaining department which I have suggested is a department of science and research. We must have some national policy on this matter. In Australia we spend only .7 per cent, of our gross national product on scientific research, compared with 3 per cent, in the United States of America. The Commonwealth already spends most of the money that is spent in Australia on scientific research. It spends £33,000,000 of the total of £46,000,000 a year. The Commonwealth expenditure is in the hands of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the Australian Atomic Energy Commission, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Bureau of Mineral Resources, the Department of Supply, the Department of Health, the National Health and Medical Research Council and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. A department of science and research would offer an excellent opportunity to co-ordinate and draw together the scientific activities of government departments. Such a department, in association with a national science foundation, is required to advise the Government on the development of national policies on science and research, the support of long-term research projects in fields of national importance and the granting of scholarships and fellowships in the various branches of science.

The CHAIRMAN (Mr Lucock:
LYNE, NEW SOUTH WALES

Order! The honorable member’s time has expired.

Mr HULME:
PostmasterGeneral · Petrie · LP

– Mr. Chairman, the Government rejects the amendments moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Whitlam). Let us look at some of the suggestions he has made. In the first place, under the Constitution education is a responsibility of the States and not of the Commonwealth. Of course, that has been said from this side of the chamber on many occasions. Whilst we appreciate that members of the Opposition perhaps desire more authority to be vested in the Commonwealth than is vested in it at present and that that is basic to the policy of the Opposition, we on the Government side reject that proposition.

Over the years we certainly have given assistance to the States in relation to some aspects of education. That applies particularly to universities. Some years ago the Government appreciated that, having regard to the increase in population and the increase in the number of university students, it would not be within the resources of the States to supply all the money that would be needed. So the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) - it is his department which has the responsibility for education - decided to bring to Australia from the United Kingdom a very eminent person in the field of education and to ask him to investigate the situation in Australian university education. As a result of that investigation a very substantial amount of money was made available to the States to assist them. The Australian Universities Commission was then appointed. Each three years the commission makes recommendations to the Government about the assistance that the Commonwealth should render to the States. I believe that members of this Parliament, and I am sure members of the public, appreciate the tremendous assistance which has been given in this way.

In his policy speech the Prime Minister stated that we would give assistance for the provision of certain technical and science facilities in schools. This is an extension of the principle upon which the Prime Minister has been considering this matter. He has regarded it not as a matter of basic responsibility of the Commonwealth Government but as a matter of assistance by the Commonwealth Government to the States. This applies not only in relation to these two more recent aspects. It goes further- to assistance for education at other levels. About 1958 a new tax reimbursement formula was introduced into this place after a discussion at the Premiers’ Conference. The Prime Minister made it quite clear then that because of the additional responsibilities which the States had in the field of education the formula on which reimbursements would be made to the States would contain an additional element for education. The Commonwealth has accepted this responsibility and the Prime Minister under the Administrative Arrangements Order has the overall responsibility in relation to education. He is the right person to accept this responsibility and, having regard to all the circumstances, to determine what should be done from time to time.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has also suggested that there should be a department of northern development. We have had a department of national development since this Government came to office in 1949. That department was instituted and developed by this Government. I believe that the department has done a tremendous amount of very good work in the fourteen years that it has been in existence. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition suggested that the proposed new department should go into the field and conduct research and find opportunities for development. That is the kind of thing which has been done by the present department. I need only refer to the Bureau of Mineral Resources and to remind honorable members of the tremendous amount of scientific work done by it during the past fourteen years. A considerable amount of financial assistance has been given following reports which have been submitted by the bureau.

In his policy speech the Prime Minister indicated that a section of the Department of National Development would concern itself with northern development. I believe that more information will now be available to us and that more activity will be undertaken by the Commonwealth through this section of the department than if we were to establish a new department, as is contemplated in the amendment proposed by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition.

I indicate to the committee, as I did earlier, that the Government rejects the proposed amendment, believing that the proposal in the bill, to the effect that there should be an increase in the number of departments by one, to include a department of housing, is sufficient at this time.

Question put -

That the paragraph proposed to be omitted (Mr. Whitlam’s amendment) stand part of the clause.

The committee divided. (The Chairman - Mr. P. E. Lucock.)

AYES: 64

NOES: 40

Majority . . . . 24

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 4.

The Third Schedule to the Principal Act is amended -

Mr WHITLAM:
Werriwa

.- 1 move -

Omit paragraph (b), insert the following paragraph: - “by adding at the end thereof the following words: - ‘The Secretary to the Department of Housing. The Secretary to the Department of Education. The Secretary to the Department of Northern Development. The Secretary to the Department of Science and Research.’.”.

I move this amendment for the reasons that I gave when moving the previous amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Mr. Hulme) - by leave - read a third time.

page 128

GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S SPEECH

page 128

QUESTION

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY

Debate resumed from 26th February (vide page 85), on motion by Mr. Kevin Cairns -

That the following Address-in-Reply to the Speech of His Excellency the Governor-General be agreed to -

May It Please Your Excellency:

We, the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign, and to thank Your Excellency for the Speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament.

Mr CURTIN:
Smith · Kingsford

. -We have heard a good deal of talk during the last day or so about what this Government should do now that it has been returned for a further term of office. I am going to suggest that it should do something about Commonwealth legislation concerning workers’ compensation. I want to direct the attention of honorable members to the shocking way in which the Commonwealth

Government treats all employees of the Commonwealth when they need help most, in other words when they have been injured while carrying out their duties as employees of the Commonwealth or of private employers operating in Commonwealth Territories. The Commonwealth of Australia is the largest employer of labour in this country, but instead of providing a shining example to private enterprise of the way in which to treat an injured employee fairly, it gives a striking example of how to treat an injured employee unfairly and unjustly. But the Commonwealth, noi being satisfied just to take advantage of its own injured workers, has given the green light to other employers in Commonwealth Territories to take advantage of employees in a similar fashion. When an employee working for an employer operating in the Australian Capital Territory is seriously injured, the insurers of that employer must really rub their hands and say, “ Thank God this accident happened in the Australian Capital Territory and not in the State of New South Wales, where we would have to treat the injured worker decently “.

I shall endeavour to show how iniquitous Commonwealth legislation is when compared with New South Wales enactments covering workers’ compensation. I shall draw comparisons of a few aspects only, but I can assure honorable members that if they want further enlightenment I will be only too pleased to supply it. Various pieces of legislation have been passed by the Parliament of the Commonwealth covering the provision of compensation for injured workers. They include the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act, the Workmen’s Compensation Ordinance of the Australian Capital Territory, the Workmen’s Compensation Ordinance of the Northern Territory, the Workers Compensation Ordinance of the Territory of Papua and New Guinea and the Seamen’s Compensation Act. The various enactments contain basic provisions in respect of injury, the amount of compensation and the machinery for determining disputes. Workers covered by these pieces of legislation are not always employed by the Commonwealth. The liability of private employers is covered by insurance companies who underwrite this kind of insurance, and it may be said that very little consideration is given to the rehabilitation of injured workers by these insurance companies, which are always ready to take advantage of any legislation that will save them money, and which are always ready to terminate the rights of workers under cover of this iniquitous legislation.

It is interesting to note that all Service personnel are covered as employees of the Commonwealth, and the recent tragedy involving H.M.A.S. “ Voyager “ spotlights the paucity of payments under Commonwealth legislation. I hope honorable members opposite will bear this in mind. An amount of £3,000 will be paid to each dependent wife and an amount of £100 will be paid in respect of each child of married servicemen. Those injured will be paid weekly compensation. If the injuries are serious enough to cover an extended period, the victims will be brought before a medical board, which, in its wisdom, may strike an amount as final payment. As far as the injured serviceman is concerned, that decision is final.

As the enactments are similar I will deal specifically with the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act. Although it provides only for employees of the Commonwealth, clearly its provisions would enable insurance companies to terminate liability under the provisions of the legislation in circumstances where justice demanded that weekly payments should continue to the worker. In the New South Wales act the definition of “ injury “ has been extended to cover not only the aggravation of disease by employment but also aggravation where the employment has been a contributing factor, not to the disease itself but to the aggravation. For instance, in a case of coronary occlusion, the occlusion is always due to degeneration of the coronary arteries over many years. These arteries supply the heart tissue with its nourishing blood. It is impossible to obtain evidence to show that the disease itself was affected in any way by the employment. The coronary occlusion basically would be due to deposits on the lining of the arteries. The deposits take years to build up to a degree sufficient to be significant in causing an occlusion. In New South Wales it is necessary to show only that the disease manifested symptoms during arduous work and that the work, as it were, tipped the scales against the worker. Under the Commonwealth legislation the defence may be raised that death or incapacity following an occlusion was the result of a natural progression of the disease. This defence is obviously unfair.

It is a well-established principle of law that an employer employs a worker as he finds him. This principle is not confined to compensation law, but in the view of the courts, it is applicable to other branches of law. A relevant example is a person who was charged with manslaughter of a person who had an egg-shell skull and died from a blow on the head. The defence was raised that the victim would not have died if his skull had been normal and that his death was due to his paper-thin skull. It was claimed that he could have died from a very light blow which would not have harmed a normal person. The court held that the assailant had to take his victim as he found him and he was convicted of manslaughter.

In the interests of consistency the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act must be brought into line with the New South Wales compensation act under which a worker whose illness is aggravated by his work succeeds in his claim for compensation against his employer. This principle is applicable not only to heart conditions but also to degenerative back conditions which are aggravated at work and for which compensation is paid only in respect of periods off work in which the Commonwealth doctors say the aggravation continues. It is a well-established medical principle that a person may have a degenerative condition of his back that causes him no trouble at all until he injures his back. The injury will not only aggravate his condition but will cause the pre-existing condition to flare up and possibly prevent him resuming work. Is it fair for the Commonwealth to say that he had the condition before and he cannot receive compensation except for a small period of time off work due to aggravation? We are all aware of the pitiful search for work by men suffering from some incapacity. We all know how hard it is for such men to sell their labour.

Under New South Wales and Commonwealth legislation provision is made for lump-sum payments for specific injuries of hands, legs, eyes and ears. The definitions of hands and legs, in turn, include fingers and toes. Under New South Wales legislation the specified lump sum is not payable until the worker elects, usually on sound legal advice, to accept the specified lump sum. He may lose a leg and after a few months be fit for suitable light work. The loss of a leg is an obvious example, but many injuries of a minor nature result in severe partial incapacity. Under Commonwealth legislation the employer has the absolute right to send a cheque for the lump sum to the worker and his compensation rights there end. The provision should be amended to allow the worker the right to elect to receive the lump-sum payment, as in New South Wales. The New South Wales legislation imposes on the employer an obligation either to rehabilitate the injured worker through suitable employment or to pay the full rates of compensation as for total incapacity. No such provision exists in the Commonwealth legislation. 1 ask honorable members opposite - particularly the young members - to note that point. If medical evidence is accepted by a tribunal, a worker with a serious partially incapacitating injury may receive £2 to £3 a week compensation with little prospect of finding suitable work. This determination would be made by a tribunal upon assessing what the worker would earn if he were working, with no reference to what he actually earned before his injury. No doubt honorable members arc aware of the reluctance of employers at any time to take on the burden of employees injured in the employ of other employers.

The Commonwealth legislation limits compensation to £3,000 in cases of partial incapacity. There does not appear to be any sound reason for such a limitation as it is not contained in New South Wales legislation. The first aspect alone came into this problem as a payment of the lump sum under the third schedule of the Commonwealth Employees Compensation Act brings compensation to an end.

The Commonwealth legislation provides for injuries sustained on a journey between a worker’s place of employment with the Commonwealth and a place where it was necessary to obtain a medical certificate of treatment in respect of a prior injury. The definitions of journeys in New South Wales are much more elaborate and provide for compensation for injuries sustained when travelling between the worker’s place of abode and his temporary place of abode to which his employment takes him. J refer, for example, to the thousands of workers on major constructions where camping facilities are provided. This aspect is important as a worker may be travelling on a Sunday to a boarding house or camp in the country near his place of work. Under the existing provisions of the Commonwealth legislation he would not be entitled to compensation for injury incurred on that day. In this instance he would be travelling between two places of abode.

In a recent High Court case a worker attending a training school in Sydney was given leave to go to his home in the country for the week-end. He had to attend the training school again on Monday morning. On Sunday he left home to return to his Sydney boarding house where he was staying whilst attending the training school. He drove his own car to Sydney. When about two miles from the boarding house his car ran off the road and he was severely injured. The court held that he was not entitled to compensation as he was not on his way to work. How ridiculous and unfair is the Commonwealth legislation! The worker would not have been anywhere near Sydney if his employer - the Commonwealth of Australia - had not ordered him to attend the training school. Now, Mr. Prime Minister, you will look after the people of Australia, will you? You will not even look after your own employees! I would like you to take note of this fact : Another shocking provision in the Commonwealth workers compensation legislation relates to circumstances where the worker is injured by the negligence of his employer, the Commonwealth of Australia. A limitation of twelve months is provided for commencing the action for damages. In practice the employer has a far greater opportunity of investigating a claim in the early stages than the injured worker has, and if any prejudice were to occur through taking action after twelve months it would certainly fall on the worker. In addition, credit is taken out of damages recovered for any payment of compensation where made by way of weekly payments or hospital and medical expenses. So there it stands, li a worker is injured by the negligence of the Commonwealth of Australia or one of its employees, and he does not bring his claim within twelve months, he has had it.

How many employees have been seriously hurt and have been defrauded out of their legal rights for damages because they did not immediately get legal advice? How would the Commonwealth of Australia be prejudiced by a delay? It sends one of its special investigators to the hospital while the employee is sick and injured and gets him to sign a statement as to how the accident happened. In 99 per cent, of the cases the worker is too seriously hurt even to think clearly, and probably would not even know what day it was. Yet, later on, he is confronted with his signed statement, and the Commonwealth insists that he must bring his action within twelve months. What rot that is! This limitation must be extended to three years, as it is in New South Wales.

After a period of usually from three to five months the delegate of the Commonwealth of Australia makes a determination as to whether the worker gets compensation or not. If his claim is rejected, the worker has 30 days in which to appeal against the determination made. Thirty days! Just imagine that - a period of from three to five months for the Commonwealth of Australia to decide, and 30 days for the worker. Even when an appeal is determined by a court it is referred back to the Commonwealth and there is then no provision for control by the court. For instance, if the court held that a worker was entitled to a continuing award on the basis of total incapacity the payments would continue until the Commonwealth thought the worker was partially incapacitated. A new determination would then be made and the worker would again go through the procedure before the court, with the onus of proof on his shoulders as well as having to face many months of delay. In such a case under New South Wales legislation the employer must carry the onus of proof before the same court, without the intervention of a further decision.

I think an appropriate provision would be to set up a court for hearing all disputes under Commonwealth compensation legislation, with a limitation of, say, 21 days to by given to the employer in which to state whether or not compensation would be paid. The other great difference between the legislation of the Commonwealth and that of New South Wales is in respect of the amount received by widows and children, where a worker has died as the result of injury received in the course of his employment. In New South Wales the amount paid in cases of total dependency is £4,300 and under the Commonwealth legislation - honorable members opposite please note - the figure is £3,000. In New South Wales “ dependant “ includes a widow as well as a child. In addition, a child receives £100 under the Commonwealth legislation, but under the New South Wales legislation £2 3s. a week until attaining the age of 16 years. This could result in an additional sum of approximately £1,600 being paid to an infant dependant. Under the New South Wales legislation a widower with a dependent child would receive £4,300 and £2 3s. a week until the child reached the age of 16 years. Under the Commonwealth legislation he would receive £3,000, and there would be a payment of £100 for the dependent child. The widower would be wiped off with £3,100, whereas in New South Wales he would receive £4,300, plus £2 3s. a week for the infant. I have not endeavoured to contrast fully the provisions of the Commonwealth and New South Wales acts.

At this time, taken point by point, the Commonwealth act falls far short of the standard of fair dealing that we Australians claim is our birthright and which we expect in dealings with each other. Here we have a real illustration of what a Liberal Government does for its employees and what a Labour Government does for its employees, while insisting also that private employers do the same. I would like new members to compare what the Commonwealth Government does for its employees with what the Labour Government in New South Wales - the greatest government in the Commonwealth of Australia, the Heffron Government of New South Wales - does for its employees throughout that State. The Commonwealth workers compensation legislation must be amended and so, too, must all the other iniquitous compensation legislation relating to private employers who exploit the injured worker.

To summarize: The New South Wales legislation has kept pace with modern society, whereas the Commonwealth legislation has remained unaltered in substance since its incorporation. During the election campaign much stress was placed on this being the age of youth and progress. I suggest that the first step in our progress should be a thorough overhauling of the Commonwealth workers compensation legislation so as to give every Common wealth employee, not only in the Australian Capital Territory but throughout Australia, a fair deal - a deal comparable with that handed out to the workers of New South Wales by the greatest Labour government in Australia, the Heffron Labour Government.

Debate (on motion by Mr. Robinson) adjourned.

page 132

TARIFF PROPOSALS 1964

Customs Tariff Proposals No. 1; Customs Tariff Proposals No. 2; Customs Tariff Proposals No. 3; Customs Tariff Proposals No. 4; Customs Tariff Proposals No. 5; Customs Tariff Proposals No. 6; Customs Tariff (Canada Preference) Proposals No. 1; Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals No. 1; Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals (No. 2); Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals No. 3; Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals No. 4; Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) Proposals No. 1

Mr FAIRHALL:
Minister for Supply · Paterson · LP

.- I move - [Customs Tariff Proposals (No. 1).]

That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the Amendments operate, and be deemed to have operated, on and after the twenty-third day of December, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-three. [Customs Tariff Proposals (No. 4).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendments operate, and be deemed to have operated, on and after the twenty-fourth day of January, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. {: .page-start } page 136 {:#debate-36} ### THE SCHEDULE {: .page-start } page 136 {:#debate-37} ### THE CUSTOMS TARIFF By inserting after Prefatory Note 15 the following Prefatory Note: - " (16) Unless the Tariff otherwise provides, or the Minister otherwise directs, the expression ' made up ' in relation to textiles and textile articles means: [Customs Tariff Proposals (No. 5).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendments operate, and' be deemed to have operated, on and after the fourth day of February, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. [Customs Tariff Proposals (No. 6).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals and that on and after the twenty-eighth day of February, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. Duties of Customs be collected accordingly. [Customs Tariff (Canada Preference) Proposals (No. 1).] That the Second Schedule to the Customs Tariff (Canada Preference) 1960-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendments operate, and be deemed to have operated, on and after the thirteenth day of January, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. [Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals (No. 1).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendments operate, and be deemed to have operated, on and after the thirteenth day of January, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. [Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals (No. 4).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendments operate, and be deemed to have operated, on and after the twenty-fourth day of January, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. [Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals (No. 3).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) 1933-1963 be amended as sei out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendments operate, and be deemed to have operated, on end after the fourth day of February, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. [Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals (No. 4).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) 1933-1963 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals and that on and after the twenty-eighth day of February, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four, Duties of Customs be collected accordingly. [Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) Proposals (No. 1).] That the Schedule to the Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) 1936-1959 be amended as set out in the Schedule to these Proposals, and that the amendment operate, and be deemed to have operated, on and after the thirteenth day of January, One thousand nine hundred and sixty-four. **Mr. Speaker,** Customs Tariff Proposals Nos. 1 to 5, Customs Tariff (Canada Preference) Proposals No. 1, Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals Nos. 1 to 3 and Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) Proposals No. 1, which I have just tabled, relate to tariff alterations which have been made since Parliament rose in October last. In accordance with section 273ea of the Customs Act, notices of the proposals were published in the Commonwealth Gazette. Copies of the notices were circulated to honorable members at the time. Proposals Nos. 1 and 2 provide for temporary duties on safflower seed and soya bean oils and on synthetic organic pigments. In both instances temporary duties, which are additional to the normal duties, were imposed following reports by a special advisory authority. Safflower and soya bean oils incur temporary duties when the f.o.b. price is less than 12s. 6d. and 9s. 6d. per gallon respectively. The Australian organic pigment industry has been afforded protection against import competition by the provision of temporary ad valorem duties. The normal protective needs of the industries concerned have been referred to the Tariff Board for full inquiry and report. The temporary duties will remain in effect only until the Government has taken action on the final reports of the board, but, in any event, not later than three months after receipt of the relevant report. Customs Tariff Proposals Nos. 3 to 5 provide for amendments to the Customs Tariff on timber, pillow cases, weedicides and insecticides, iron or steel tube and pipe fittings, and electric lamps, and arise from the consideration of Tariff Board recommendations. In each case the Government has accepted the board's recommendations. Increased overall tariff protection for the timber industry takes the place of the temporary quantitative restrictions which applied to the main types of imported timber pending the result of the Tariff Board's inquiries. On pillow cases and certain weedicides and insecticides, the new duties are of the sliding scale type, the incidence of which is not greatly different from that of the combined ordinary and temporary duties which they have replaced. Increased duties of1s. 6d. per lb. now apply to imports of malleable cast-iron pipe fittings imported from mostfavourednation sources. The ordinary ad valorem protective duties on forged steel flanges have been increased by 10 per cent. ad valorem. This is in lieu of the temporary duty of 12½ per cent. which applied to some types pending the result of the Tariff Board's inquiries. In the case of electric filament lamps, new protective duties of 20 per cent. ad valorem for the larger types used in automobile lighting systems are provided. All other types of filament lamps, including glass envelopes therefor, are now subject to non-protective rates of duty, the Tariff Board considering that the Australian industry is efficient enough to compete successfully without tariff protection. Customs Tariff (Canada Preference) Proposals No. 1, Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals Nos. 1 to 3 and Customs Tariff (Papua and New Guinea Preference) Proposals No. 1 are complementary to the main proposals and ensure that preferential margins of duty are maintained. Customs Tariff Proposals No. 6, which I have also tabled, relates to proposed amendments to the customs tariff which will operate from to-morrow morning and give effect to the Government's decision following receipt of Tariff Board reports on knives with forged stainless steel blades, and on syringes and needles. In accordance with the recommendations of the Tariff Board, new protective duties are being imposed on certain table and kitchen knives incor porating a design feature known as a Waterloo bolster. The new duties are the same as those applying to other table and kitchen knives and are also at the same level as the combined ordinary and temporary duties which they will replace. The Tariff Board's inquiry into syringes and needles has shown that syringe production in Australia is now confined to plastic syringes. The current protective duties on syringes of glass and metal are therefore being removed and new protective duties are being applied to imports of plastic syringes. The existing protective duties on hypodermic needles are being retained and similar rates will now apply to other injection and puncture needles of types made in Australia. Customs Tariff (New Zealand Preference) Proposals No. 4 is complementary to Customs Tariff Proposals No. 6 and ensures that preferential treatment for the goods specified, when of New Zealand origin, will be continued. A summary of the tariff amendments is presently being circulated in the chamber. At a later stage I shall table the reports which gave rise to the foregoing tariff changes. I commend the proposals to honorable members. Debate (on motion by **Dr. J.** F. Cairns) adjourned. {: .page-start } page 144 {:#debate-38} ### TARIFF BOARD Reports on Items. {: #debate-38-s0 .speaker-KEN} ##### Mr FAIRHALL:
Minister for Supply · Paterson · LP -- I present reports by the Tariff Board on the following subjects: - >Timber. > >Weedicides and insecticides. > >Pillow cases. > >Syringes and needles. > >Electric lamps. > >Iron or steel tube and pipe fittings. > >Hardboard. > >Knives with forged stainless steel blades. > >Emulsions and pastes of vinylidene polymers and copolymers. > >Dolls. I also present reports by a special advisory authority on the following subjects: - >Aluminium and aluminium alloy waste and scrap. > >Wool piece goods. > >Safflower seed and soya bean oils. > >Synthetic organic pigments. Ordered to be printed. {: .page-start } page 145 {:#debate-39} ### GOVERNOR-GENERAL'S SPEECH {: .page-start } page 145 {:#debate-40} ### QUESTION {:#subdebate-40-0} #### ADDRESS-IN-REPLY Debate resumed (vide page 132). {: #subdebate-40-0-s0 .speaker-KIH} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock: -- Order! I call the honorable member for Cowper. I point out to the House that this is the honorable member's maiden speech. {: #subdebate-40-0-s1 .speaker-YI4} ##### Mr ROBINSON:
Cowper **.- Mr. Deputy Speaker,** I rise to exercise for the first time in this chamber the privilege of speaking on the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply to the GovernorGeneral's Speech. I fully appreciate the very great honour that has been conferred on me by the electors of Cowper, and I want to take the opportunity now to express my appreciation of the support that I was given in the recent election campaign. I come to this chamber not new to parliamentary work, but I realize that, although I served in the New South Wales Parliament for some years, I have yet to learn all the details of procedure and all the methods of approach that are fundamental in the work of this House. The Cowper electorate, which I represent, is one that I believe is very well known to most Australians because of the very long record of service as its representative by the late **Sir Earle** Page. He was the first leader of the Australian Country Party and he did so much to make the Cowper area one of the most highly developed parts of the Commonwealth of Australia. I count it a great privilege to follow in his footsteps and to have the distinction of serving the electorate. As is well known, **Sir Earle** Page passed away just before the last Parliament was assembled, and, for two years during the life of that Parliament, the electorate of Cowper was not represented by a member on this side of the House. My particular interest, as a member of this House, is of a somewhat special nature. Having served in the New South Wales Parliament, I shall direct my special interest, in the first place, to the question of Commonwealth and State relations. I say right at the outset that I believe very firmly in State rights. I believe in the system of States with their own rights allowed for in the Commonwealth Constitution. We in the Commonwealth have great responsibilities. There is no doubt that one of the funda mental needs of a successful system of government at both Commonwealth and State levels is the need to ensure that we have a workable system. I believe that to-day, unfortunately, we have a real crisis, which stems from the fact that since the war we have entered on a new phase in the operations of government. This is a direct result of the effects of the system of uniform taxation that was adopted during the war. Uniform taxation, of course, is desirable, but it brings in its wake a situation in which, as we have found, the States in particular - and other bodies, too, for that matter - have not direct responsibility for raising the funds that they expend. That creates some lack of responsibility in the spending of national funds. I believe that we will always face a real difficulty until the States accept more responsibility in their financial relations with the Commonwealth. The present system leads to a situation that is nothing less than buck-passing between the States and the Commonwealth, and this is not good for our development and expansion. We need to look very closely at this problem, constitutionally and otherwise, if Australia is to enter an era of real progress, an era of proper co-ordination of planning and development. I hope that in my term here some attempt will be made to find a worthwhile solution to the problem. No matter how sound the policy of a government may be, it is nullified unless there is cohesion between the various tiers of government within the country. Lack of cohesion in this sphere in recent times has meant that many of the advantages of proposals for decentralization and development have been lost. This Government, which I have the honour to support, has in recent years advanced much worthwhile legislation for the progress of the nation, but regrettably in some States an attempt has been made immediately to reduce the effectiveness of the Government's proposal. I hope that we will be able to find a solution to this problem. I believe in the federal system and I want to dedicate myself to the task of finding a working arrangement between the States and the Commonwealth that is better than the present arrangement. The financial requirements of the States and of local government authorities cause concern to many people, but the real responsibility resides in this chamber. Those who are charged with the task of looking after the affairs of the Commonwealth must accept this responsibility. I believe that the time has arrived when the Commonwealth should exercise more control, if I may use that term, or at least have a larger hand in the determination of the overall public works programme and in deciding what special purpose undertakings should be commenced. Even the business that has been before the House this afternoon shows that we are very rapidly reaching the point at which there is to some extent a duplication of services. If the work we undertake in the interests of the nation is to be successful, we must ensure that there is no undue overlapping and no lack of understanding as to the administrative functions of the Commonwealth and State Governments. These matters concern me particularly because of the interests of my electorate. The electorate of Cowper, like other large electorates, has many problems which must be dealt with - problems of rural development and expansion, problems of the development of secondary industries and especially problems of education and employment. These problems are frequently referred to as decentralization. Other problems concern local government. Many of the proposals put forward by the Government when it recently received from the people such an overwhelming mandate to govern are designed to introduce fundamentally new approaches to these problems. I want to commend the tremendous leadership that has been displayed by the Prime Minister **(Sir Robert Menzies)** and the Minister for Trade and Industry **(Mr. McEwen),** who is Leader of the Australian Country Party. We are here in this Twentyfifth Parliament to deal with the proposals that they put before the people. If we can see them through and find ways and means of ensuring their successful implementation in the State sphere, we will have done much for the progress of the nation. I hope that, whenever legislation affecting a special area is introduced, the need to provide for its practical implementation will not he overlooked. One of the first matters I want to mention is roads. The Government has already undertaken to increase the amount available to the States for this purpose by £100,000,000 over the next five years. To be effective, this money must find its way into the far-flung corners of the nation. The little country centres, which provide the basic production of the nation, which make possible our overseas trade and which create our national wealth, must be given a satisfactory system of communication. The small country roads, known as byroads, are becoming a problem for the local people and the additional finance that the Commonwealth will make available is intended to ensure that a road system of modern standards will be extended to country areas. When the appropriate legislation is being dealt with in this House, 1. will urge that provision be made for at least 40 per cent, of the money to be used for by-roads other than main roads, highways and trunk roads, as the present act provides. 1 hope that a very definite intimation will be given to the States that they must see that the funds are used for the provision of country roads. It is the practice in New South Wales at present for the Government to take a great slice out of road funds and put it aside for the repair of flood damage. The State Government then does not need to provide for this work from its own resources. We need to know more about such matters as this at the national level if our work is to be effective at the State level. Our shire and municipal councils in New South Wales would, under the proposed provisions, receive only an additional £7,000 or £8,000 a year out of the £100,000,000. Every time we deal with these important measures I hope that we will think in terms of what they mean in the final analysis. I would like to refer to many other matters, but I do not propose in my first speech here to speak in detail about the vast range of matters that concerns my electorate. My electorate is a large one. Activities within its borders cover most primary industries, such as dairying, grazing, timber, banana growing and fishing. I may very often speak about the electorate of Cowper. I will not do so with any parochial thought but with an underlying regard for the development of Australia. Any electorate of magnitude which develops by virtue of the things that are done in the broader sphere makes a contribution to national progress and national development. We cannot have national progress and national development unless we do something at the grass roots. The work of the Government thus far in the field of primary industry and trade has made a tremendous contribution to electorates such as the one that 1 have the honour to represent. Proposals for bringing some uniformity to petrol prices, for expanding water resources and for flood mitigation - in respect of the latter the Government has undertaken to make special funds available to New South Wales for expenditure on the northern rivers system - will make a very great contribution to national development, just as they will make a great contribution to the development of the rich and fertile area of northern New South Wales. The Government is to be commended for its action in proposing special Commonwealth assistance in these matters. In first place, the responsibility for flood mitigation is one for the State. The State had undertaken a certain amount of work but progress was so slow that it would have been another 25 years before we would have seen worthwhile results. So the Commonwealth in recent months put forward certain suggestions which will be the subject of legislation during this session. The Com.monwealth will make available to the States funds on a £1 for £1 basis provided the works are carried out within a six years period. The time factor embodied in this proposal is important because this project is one which must be carried out according to a definite plan and within a reasonable period of time if it is to be effective. There are too many examples in Australia of heavy expenditure on dams and other major public works which have taken fifteen or twenty years to build. During that time vast sums of money have been dormant and unproductive, returning nothing in the national interest - not even interest on the capital invested. We must face up to these problems in the interests of every man, woman and child; in the interests of the economy, defence and the well-being of rising generations. Development of this country is a real means of defence. The Government has a commendable record in matters of defence and the security of this country, but all that can be nullified unless we have sound progress not only at the national level but also at State and local government levels. Co-ordination is indispensable if we are to see satisfactory progress in the affairs of this country. The electorate of Cowper has one or two special problems. The predominant primary industry is dairying. The dairying industry has had the benefit over many years of a very sympathetic Government here in Canberra. Without the dairying industry subsidy the whole of the north-coast of New South Wales would be in serious trouble. But it is not good enough for us to be recipients of a subsidy without taking steps to increase productivity. To date the Government has been most generous in this field. The State also has made certain endeavours to assist the industry. Nevertheless, the industry has not been able conclusively to find ways of overcoming many of the difficulties which confront it so far as productivity is concerned. The economic structure of the industry on the north coast of New South Wales leaves cause for real concern. I hope that some consideration will bc given to the industry's problems when effect is given to the proposal, as outlined by the Governor-General, to carry out scientific research in co-operation with the States in the field of primary industry. Another matter that vitally concerns my electorate is positive decentralization. The population increase that occurs naturally in the area from year to year is almost entirely lost to us because of the drift of people to capital cities. Many proposals have been submitted for dealing with this matter but so far nobody has come up with a solution to what is in effect the one deterrent to real expansion, not only in the area to which I have referred but also in many other areas of this Commonwealth. 1 referred earlier to the proposal to equalize petrol prices. That is one way of helping the economy of country areas, but we must go much further than that. Some investigation should be made of the need for special financial assistance to all forms of industry, both primary and secondary, in regions such as the northern half of New South Wales so that these problems may be overcome. It is not good enough in an area with a population of, say, 150,000 people and with a substantial rate of natural increase in population to find that the increase is offset by the number of people who leave the area and go to other parts of the country. This trend for people to move away from country areas is serious when we bear in mind the population explosions that are taking place to our near north and to which careful consideration must be given at all times when planning our trade, defence and development policies. I hope that this Parliament will be able to take positive action to assist electorates such as the one I represent to halt the drift to the cities. In conclusion let me refer to the important proposals in regard to the redistribution of electoral boundaries. This matter was referred to in this chamber yesterday and again to-day. I deprecate the comments that were made by a representative of a metropolitan electorate - a former member of a State Parliament - who said that he did not believe the redistribution proposals were sound. Unless we have the common sense to look fairly and squarely at the developmental needs of Australia we can forget all about other aspects that may arise. The only way to look fairly and squarely at developmental needs is to ensure that representation in the Parliament provides a practical means of bringing into the Parliament the views and the requests of the people in the farflung corners of the Commonwealth. This matter, above all else, will determine the course which this nation will take in the next 25 years. The work we do in this matter will determine the future of this Commonwealth. {: #subdebate-40-0-s2 .speaker-KNM} ##### Mr E JAMES HARRISON:
Blaxland -- I congratulate the new member for Cowper **(Mr. Robinson),** who came from the New South Wales Parliament, upon the thought behind the contribution that he made this afternoon. I do not want to spend too much time on it, but it was timely that he should raise, first or all, the question of the butter subsidy, which he says has prevented great disadvantages from occurring in the electorate that he now represents. I suggest to him that he might look back on history where he will find that the fi 3,000,000 now being granted by the Government as a subsidy is the exact amount granted by the Chifley Government in 1949. The subsidy has not been increased since this Government came into office. I suggest, also, that in relation to decentralization he might ask the Prime Minister **(Sir Robert Menzies)** to give him the files which show the Chifley Government's approach to decentralization in 1945. He will find there details of a planned decentralization to correct the problem that he spoke about. From the day that this Government came into office in 1949 it has not regarded the problem of decentralization as a matter of concern for this Parliament on a national level. I congratulate you, **Mr. Deputy Speaker,** on being re-elected to the position you now occupy, and through you I congratulate **Mr. Speaker** upon his re-election to office believing that we will receive from you both the same impartial treatment that we received in the last Parliament. This is the commencement of the Twentyfifth Parliament of the Commonwealth. As I make my first contribution, and having regard to the question I asked earlier today, I cannot help but refer to the fact that this Parliament has an influence of great magnitude upon the wage structure and the wage fixing in this country. It provides the machinery to set up the federal tribunals to make wage determinations. Because of this realization, His Excellency's words at page three of the printed copy of his Speech attracted my attention immediately. He said - >Along with our favourable economic growth, there has gone a notable steadiness of costs and prices. It is to that reference that I wish to direct my remarks this afternoon. This morning I directed a question to the Minister for Labour and National Service **(Mr. McMahon)** concerning the attitude of employers and employer organizations to the wage-fixing policy which is being followed and to that which is likely to be followed. My question was prompted by a press report which was published only seventeen days after the holding of the general election on 30th November, 1963. I was astounded to find, only seventeen days after the election, that the employers, in the belief that they had won the Government and that it would give them all that they wanted, had blatantly come out with the following news: - >The employers want the Commission to abandon the traditional Australian system of adjusting wages by separate regulation of the basic wage and margins in favour of a total wage system. The paper in which this statement was published listed the names of those who were associated with the employers' organization which embraced every important type of employer in Australia. I asked the Minister whether the Government proposed to be quite positive about its attitude when the case was listed. The Minister replied to the effect that when he had heard the case argued and when he had heard the unions' view towards it the Government would give some thought about what it might do on the matter. When I heard that reply I wondered whether the Minister had lost touch with the Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which is a child of this Parliament, with respect to obligations in wage fixation in Australia. The Government is in a position now, to do something about this matter which has got beyond the press report stage. The Government knows that, at the commencement of the arbitration proceedings, it has only to indicate its point of view in order to nullify the attempt of the employers to destroy the wage fixing system. Later I shall indicate why that is so- The Conciliation and Arbitration Act provides specifically in Part III, section 33, that the basic wage can be dealt with only by a presidential session of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. In that act the Government recognizes that in Australia - it is Australia and Australians that we are dealing with - the basis of our whole economic wage structure is the basic wage. Today that is more firmly established than it has ever been, for reasons that 1 shall indicate later. 1 ask all honorable members to keep in mind that I am relating my remarks to the short extract from the Speech delivered by His Excellency, which states - >Along with our favorable economic growth, there has gone a notable steadiness of costs and prices. Who has contributed in the main to that situation? Has it been the manufacturer? He has been well taken care of so far as his profit margin is concerned. As the result of the policy followed by the Tariff Board and its auxiliary, his profit margin, as 1 will show in a moment, has steadily increased over the years. If he has not been the main contributor, has it been the importer? His profit also has improved handsomely. Let me say immediately that 1, with almost every member of every party in this House, support the policy of protection for Australian industry. However, this year the Twenty-fifth National Parliament has the responsibility of looking at all phases of the Australian working com munity. We must consider the work of the Tariff Board in protecting manufacturers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, safeguarding importers. Nationally sound though the policy followed by the Tariff Board may be, it does not help the wage group in the salary range below that of tradesman. There is a reference in His Excellency's Speech to what I would term an electoral gimmick. I refer to the £250 housing subsidy for home building that is to be given to a selected group. We are moving into a dangerous field when we begin thinking of assisting people in selected home groups. The only thing that means anything to a worker in any country is to acquire bis own home in his working life. Tn my view there must never be selectivity in that field. Every Australian worker, irrespective of age or situation, has the right to own a home. I am not condemning the Tariff Board, but immediately after that announcement by the Government came a decision by . the Tariff Board in respect of the timber industry. The importers will make more money as a result of that decision, and timber prices will rise. At this moment people who are having timber homes built are receiving notifications of increases in cost. By the time those people raise the additional capital and the interest thereon, they will find that the £250 will not meet the increased cost. Anyway, they probably will not be able to find the additional capital. {: .speaker-3V4} ##### Mr Chipp: -- In fact, you are criticizing the Tariff Board, aren't you? {: .speaker-KNM} ##### Mr E JAMES HARRISON: -- My friend cannot understand the difference between criticism of a system and criticism of a segment of that system. That is the difficulty that you have to overcome if you want to protect the group of workers who made it possible for the Governor-General's Speech to contain those words about the economic situation. One only has to look at the reports of the Woolworths and Coles organizations to see that the retail traders have not done too badly out of the events that led up to these very nice phrases about our present financial situation. I wish to refer to Australians in the wage group below the tradesmen's group. I am speaking now of the great bulk of Australian workers, the great majority of whom will never be eligible to receive this £250 but who will be paying taxes in order to make it possible for better situated people to receive the benefit of the Government's proposal. {: .speaker-JWI} ##### Mr Fox: -- Do you object to it? {: .speaker-KNM} ##### Mr E JAMES HARRISON: -- If you will listen for a moment you will see that the system will require drastic changes, if the Government has the courage to examine it. I take the case of a third-class machinist. He is a tradesman in his own right, but he is not on the same level as the fitter. Let us look at what has happened to his wages since 1947. In that year the Labour Government had to deal with the same two problems that are worrying the honorable member for Cowper. The Labour Government realized that something had to be done about the Australian wage structure, particularly in relation to people in the group to which I am now referring. Consequently, that government amended the charter of the arbitration commission and separated the fixing of the basic wage from the fixing of margins, in an effort to have margins fixed on a basis of entitlement rather than of capacity to pay. The result was that in 1947, when the federal basic wage was £5 6s., the margin of the third-class machinist was increased from 14s. to 28s. a week. The third-class machinist, as well as the large number of workers on lower wage levels, found that for the first time in his life he might be able to save some money for the future. I believed that that was the commencement of an era in which the complete wage structure of Australia would be kept fairly evenly balanced But the Menzies Government decided to destroy the machinery that the Labour Government set up. Between 1947 and 1964 - a period of seventeen years - the basic wage has risen from £5 6s. to £14 8s. The third-class machinist received an increase of two and one-half times the 1937 margin, which was granted in 1954, a marginal increase of 28 per cent, in 1959 and a further marginal increase of 10 per cent, in 1963. We read now of heads and deputy heads of government departments being in the £6,000 a year bracket because of the wage spiral over those years; but what has happened to the third-class machinist? In 1947, in an endeavour to give workers their true entitlement, the Labour Government, in its wisdom and in justice, provided the machinery to increase the margin of the third-class machinist from 14s. to 28s. As a result of the three marginal increases that I mentioned that margin has been increased by 22s. So in seventeen years our first line of tradesmen have received marginal increases of 22s. a week or less than £58 per annum. That works out at ls. 6d. a week over that period of seventeen years. These tradesmen will be some of the most important workers in the period of automation that is coming. The employers of this country, who have allowed this situation to develop, put the great majority of workers on a level no higher than that of third-class machinists. Strangely enough, between 1947 and 1964 the thirdclass machinist has received an increase of 22s. a week in his margin and, as a married man, he pays 22s. a week in tax on the federal basic wage of £14 6s. plus his margin of £2 10s. I repeat that the great bulk of Australian workers are on wage levels below that of the third-class machinist. But the marginal increases that he has received since 1947 are just sufficient to pay his tax, if he is a married man. {: .speaker-JWI} ##### Mr Fox: -- What are his total earnings? {: .speaker-KNM} ##### Mr E JAMES HARRISON: -- I thought the honorable member could add up. I repeated the figures. His total wage is made up of the margin of £2 10s. in addition to the basic wage of £14 8s. Out of that he has to pay 22s. a week tax if he is a married man. I shall deal with the proposed homebuilding subsidy when the relevant bill comes before the House. That legislation will benefit only a selected group, because a worker will have to be earning at least £25 a week to be able to save sufficient to qualify for the subsidy. Yet to raise revenue for its purpose this Government has the audacity to take from the third-class machinist and from all others on his wage the whole of the marginal increase since 1947. These people will be left in a plight which should not be tolerated in a country that enjoys an economic situation such as that claimed for Australia in the GovernorGeneral's Speech. I speak with great feeling on this matter because I see these people around me all the time, wherever I move. When I look at the latest employment figures and find that 42 per cent, of the females employed in Australia are married women, I understand why people in the churches and in public life find reason to protest about delinquency among the younger people in Australia. Our very wage structure - and everything associated with it at this stage - is forcing wives to go to work to make ends meet in order to live in what is regarded as normal comfort in this country. Consequently, many children are left almost to rear themselves. For this Government not to be prepared to say, in effect, that it will put the largest amount possible into the basic wage right now to try to relieve the pressure on this particular group, is to continue to support a system that is completely destroying the moral structure of the nation. Any honorable member opposite who has studied the situation should be prepared to tell the Minister right now that this position is bad for a growing country. Who is responsible for the development of Australia? Those who go to work at 7.30 of a morning and finish at the times provided in their industrial awards. When the Minister, as he did this morning, says that he is prepared to wait until the commission hears the employers' case before determining whether the arbitration legislation is sound or not, he is ignoring the situation with which I have been dealing this afternoon. The Australian work force has made the growth of Australia possible and not the golfers, the bowlers and the rest. For God's sake let us come down to earth and not be so critical unless we are prepared to accept our share of responsibility for those whom we care to call child delinquents and for those who are experiencing teenage difficulties. It is true that they are buying cars, old and new - some of them are real " bombs " - and getting into trouble. They can do so because they can earn high wages. They have nothing else to live for because, as a result of their mothers having to go out to work, they were not brought up in a homely atmosphere. As a nation we want to raise the kind of people that Australia deserves and requires. This morning I heard somebody talk about a person who wanted to inject a serum that would turn black people into white. What we want is to inject something into ourselves to enable us to understand the need for justice on the production line. The Australian Council of Trade Unions is facing great difficulty in the present court case, yet the Minister says that all the Government will do is merely to submit facts to the commission. In 1960 the Government unequivocally opposed the claim of the unions. The Government's words are on record. It was unequivocally opposed to any wage increase because of the state of the economy. If the Government were honest it would appear before the commission, and tell the commission that it now wants to correct the wage siuation of those in the marginal group. I am proud to be able to make this appeal for the workers, but I am ashamed of the actions of the Parliament, upon whom the responsibility rests, in respect of these matters. {: .speaker-KIH} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock: -- I call the honorable member for Bowman , and point out to the House that this is his maiden speech. {: #subdebate-40-0-s3 .speaker-KAR} ##### Dr GIBBS:
Bowman **.- Mr. Deputy Speaker,** first I wish to thank the people of the electorate of Bowman who, together with the people of Australia as a whole, expressed their confidence in the administration of the parties on this side of the House. I am conscious of the honour that the people of my electorate have accorded me, and I shall endeavour to the best of my ability to justify my position here. I am also very gratified to be serving under such a capable and brilliant executive. On a number of occasions during this debate Australia's position in the world to-day has been mentioned. Yesterday the honorable member for Moreton **(Mr Killen)** made an eloquent plea for closer co-operation between the peoples of the Commonwealth of Nations. I heartily agree with that, and I should like to examine the position from perhaps a slightly different point of view. I should like to examine our country's position geographically and culturally. It is no new observation that Australia is a European nation physically isolated in Asia. Although we live in a continually shrinking world I do not think that that detracts in any way from the validity of what I shall have to say. We are what we are because of our European, and predominantly Christian and British heritage. So far, our new environment has had a negligible part to play in our culture and in the forming of our character. In a very short time, guided and influenced by our heritage, we have done a great deal in a country whose resources have not made themselves readily available without continual struggle. Our founders discovered this when they found it so very difficult even to maintain life, so hard was it to bring food out of the earth. As technology develops and our population increases, so our rate of development " increases. To date this has been within the framework of our Christian, British institutions. The fruit of our endeavours and of these institutions is for all to see. We have just cause for no small pride in our achievements and the position we are securing for ourselves in the world. The liberty, justice and freedom from fear that we enjoy are second to none in the world to-day, and must be at least the equal of those enjoyed by any people since the dawn of time. But nothing is immutable, and we all know that relative freedom has always given way again to the darkness of tyranny and oppression. The first care of Parliament should be to endeavour to prevent this from happening here, not only by strengthening our land against external aggression but also by seeing that no legislation is passed in this chamber which may now, or at any future time, be perverted in any way. The influences which have brought us to our present stage of progress are so important that I believe that we should never lose sight of them, although I have time only to give them a passing mention now. These influences originate from lands adjacent to the eastern Mediterranean, and have been modified and moulded over the centuries until they have resulted in a highly fertile medium in which the British people and some of s their neighbours are. able to live and express themselves. The influences are many, but there are four main ones upon which I shall briefly touch today. The first three are of such fundamental importance to us, isolated as we are from their fountain heads and surrounded by countries with very different origins and traditions from our own, that no urgings by technologists, essential though their specialties may be to our development, should ever cause these three to lose their position of importance in the classroom. We are what we are by virtue of these influences, which are transmitted only by teaching. Isolated from the sources of European culture as we are, if we neglect so-called academic teaching in favour of technical teaching we certainly might become technically adept but we would run the real risk of losing the background and balance necessary to keep technology in its perspective, thus possibly weakening those institutions which safeguard what we regard as the fundamentals of decent living. I say this without wishing to detract in any way from technology per se. It is absolutely essential to us, and to show my lack of bias I remind the House that I am something of a technologist myself. Now let us glance at the influences to which I have referred. The Grecian influence is, of course, completely fundamental to us. We received it mainly through the Romans, who recognized its importance to such an extent that they retained and fostered Athens as a source of culture for many centuries after Greece had ceased to be a force to be reckoned with in other ways. Our aesthetic standards, our literature, even our music but more importantly our ideas of freedom and philosophy are well known to have originated there. The earliest recognizable beginnings of these, in those great epics "The Iliad " and " Odyssey ", are so important that I believe all school children should be familiar with them. The fact that almost daily we hear such words as " Trojan " and "Ajax", even if only as the brand name of a detergent, is a comforting tribute to Homer's durability through the millenia. I was delighted yesterday to hear the honorable member for Moreton **(Mr. Killen)** quote from "Ulysses". That was a very pleasant coincidence. Rome passed these influences on to us and added the fruits of her people's genius for law. As to the third influence - Christianity - many honorable members are far more capable and qualified than I to speak on this, but I must say that though only relatively few have succeeded in making this the real and vital way of life which it can be, nevertheless Christianity has been essential in moulding the other influences that I have mentioned into the desirable form in which we find our cultural heritage to-day. Race comes last but is by no means least. We all must freely grant that it is the genius of the British peoples, blessed by this cultural heritage, which has produced superb legal and legislative systems, systems perhaps not perfect but approaching perfection with sufficient closeness for me, for one, to be very unwilling to agree to any change in them unless there is to be a very clear-cut advantage and unless the need for change is plainly demonstrated. These remarks are not to be construed as being in any way an expression of herrenvolk philosophy or as denying in any way the brotherhood of man. I agree willingly that we all must be equal in the sight of our Creator, but we must be realistic and realize that in the beginning all peoples must have started off more or less from scratch and that many parts of the world afford natural advantages far greater than those afforded, say, to the people of the rather barren country of Greece. Yet we have seen to what heights the people of Athens raised themselves. We should respect, study and, where desirable, emulate those people, who raised themselves by their own bootstraps and contributed not only to the main stream of our culture but also to the well-being and, we hope, enlightenment of the rest of the world. Let us help our less advanced brothers in every possible way, but please do not let us be influenced too much by their cultures, which most certainly have not produced the happy results of our ' own I do not know what our educationists will have to say to these remarks but I believe that any reasonably educated person is entitled to a very strong say in what his children should be taught. It is only in the " how " that our educationists should be given a free rein. The influences which I have mentioned exert themselves in such a benign manner upon us because they have been woven into the fabric of our culture over the centuries and have evolved as we have evolved. It could be a mistake to impose rather suddenly our governmental systems and cultures upon people whose backgrounds, traditions and patterns of culture are very different from our own. The apparently expressed desires of a people to achieve independence or freedom - a word which is being misused in a most grisly manner today - might in fact be merely the misrepresentations of opportunists and power seekers and not the real wishes of the people. In such cases the removal of a benign control by largely disinterested, capable and well-trained administrators with the background that I have discussed cannot be expected to have beneficial effects upon the ordinary people of such a country, who, after all, are the ones really to be considered. Examples of the truth of this abound to-day. I ask the House whether this current urge to liberate peoples irrespective of their real capabilities and readiness for enlightened government is not partly inspired by some sinister force. To revert to my main theme, we Australians, like all peoples who have always had to exert themselves and devote most of their energies to establishing and developing their countries, have not yet developed a distinctive and firmly based culture of our own. Our culture, if cut off from its traditional sources, its tap root of growth and refreshment, must wither and decay. The product, after a time, would become as a weed compared with the present flourishing plant, a weed which might very well choke out of existence those freedoms and institutions which we prize so dearly. Let us therefore recognize the importance of continuing to teach the traditional socalled academic subjects in our schools and let us retain, and in fact strengthen, our links with those countries which have a similar heritage to our own. I thank the House for its kind indulgence and in conclusion urge it to reflect upon these points, especially when considering European relationships in general, and in particular, and most importantly, when considering our ties with Britain. I do not think we should be too easily offended by the actions of Britain on some occasions. We should realize that she recognizes us as a lusty offspring, and remember that she certainly has her own problems. If we think of these matters - >In a contemplative fashion and a tranquil frame of mind, Free from every kind of passion- remembering that, after all, Britain is the mother of our judicial and legislative systems, and of our way of life, I believe we should say - > >Some solution let us find. Debate (on motion by **Mr. Stewart)** adjourned. House adjourned at 5.26 p.m.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 27 February 1964, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1964/19640227_reps_25_hor41/>.

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