House of Representatives
1 September 1970

27th Parliament · 2nd Session



Mr SPEAKER (Hon. Sir William Aston) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

page 747

PETITIONS

Social Services

Mr GARRICK:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned citizens of New South Wales respectfully showeth.

That due to higher living cost, persons on Social Service Pensions, are finding it extremely difficult to live in even the most frugal way.

We therefore call upon the Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of average weekly male earnings, plus supplementary assistance in accordance with A.C.T.U. policy and by so doing give a reasonably moderate pension.

The Average Weekly earnings for adult male unit wage and salary earner means the figures issued from time to time by the Commonwealth Statistician and published quarterly.

Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to bring about the wishes expressed in our Petition; so that our Citizens receiving the Social Service Pensions may live their lives in dignity.

And your Petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Kangaroos

Mr FOX:
HENTY, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The bumble Petition of the residents of the State of New South Wales respectfully sheweth:

The Red Kangaroo and many other marsupials, through shooting for commercial purposes, have been reduced to a numerical level where their survival is in jeopardy.

None of the Australian States have sufficient wardens to detect and apprehend people breaking the laws in existence in each State, and in such a vast country only uniform laws and a complete cessation of commercialisation can ensure the survival of our National Emblem.

It is an indisputable fact that no natural resource can withstand hunting on such a concentrated scale, unless some provision is made for its future.

We, your petitioners, therefore humbly pray that:

The export of all Kangaroo products be banned immediately, and the Commonwealth Government make a serious appraisal of its responsibility in the matter to ensure the survival of the Kangaroo.

And, your petitioners, as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Price and Profit Control

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I present the following petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully sheweth:

That the introduction of legislation for price and profit control would protect consumers from exploitation through unwarranted inflation of prices.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House will take immediate steps to introduce price and profit control legislation to protect the citizens of this nation.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Kangaroos

Mr MacKELLAR:
WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the follow ing petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the residents of the State of New South Wales respectfully sheweth:

The Red Kangaroo and many other marsupials, through shooting for commercial purposes, have been reduced to a numerical level where their survival is in jeopardy.

None of the Australian States have sufficient wardens to detect and apprehend people breaking the laws in existence in each State, and in such a vast country only uniform laws and a complete cessation of commercialisation can ensure the survival of our National Emblem.

It is an indisputable fact that no natural resource can withstand hunting on such a concentrated scale, unless some provision is made for its future.

We, your petitioners, therefore humbly pray that:

The export of all kangaroo products be banned immediately, and the Commonwealth Government make a serious appraisal of its responsibility in the matter to ensure the survival of the Kangaroo. And, your petitioners, as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Kangaroos

Mr CHIPP:
Minister for Customs and Excise · HOTHAM, VICTORIA · LP

– I present the following petition:

To the honourable Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of residents of the State of Victoria respectfully sheweth:

That because of uncontrolled shooting for commercial purposes, the population of kangaroos, particularly the big red species, is now so low that they may become extinct. There are insufficient wardens in any State of the Commonwealth to detect or apprehend those who break the inadequate laws which exist.

As a tourist attraction, the kangaroo is a permanent source of revenue to this country. lt is an indisputable fact that no species can withstand hunting on such a scale, when there is no provision being made for its future. We, your petitioners, therefore humbly pray, that:

The export of kangaroo products be banned immediately, and the Commonwealth Government take the necessary steps to have all wildlife in Australia brought under its control. Only a complete cessation of killing for commercial purposes can save surviving kangaroos.

And your petitioners, therefore, as in duly bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– 1 present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Wannon respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of (he increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in “Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Kangaroos

Mr ROBINSON:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– 1 present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembed. The humble petition of residents of N.S.W., respectfully sheweth: Australians, custodians of the world’s largest marsupial, the red kangaroo, have allowed it to be reduced so low numerically that even CSIRO research has had to be suspended in some areas and alternative means of research employed in others.

The kangaroo is being exploited whilst facts on populations and numbers of kangaroos is unknown - any day the numbers can bc reduced below that level needed for survival of droughts and natural mortality. At this date neither the number needed for survival nor the number of kangaroos left is known.

Pending the outcome of investigations by the Select Committee, it can bc logically assumed that shooters, fearing restrictive legislation in the future, will intensify their efforts to obtain as many animals as possible, while they can.

We, your petitioners, therefore humbly pray that you will:

Immediately ban the export of products made from kangaroos.

Strongly urge the State Governments to ban the shooting of kangaroos for commercial purposes, at least until the Select Committee has made is investigations and recommendations.

Add to the Constitution a clause giving power to the Commonwealth Government to act to safeguard any species of wildlife that is endangered through any cause.

And we, your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr CREAN:
MELBOURNE PORTS, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of. the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Melbourne Ports respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence iti films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution.’ page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on ‘14th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr CHIPP:
LP

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House ‘ of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Hotham respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to bc the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbec, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are Contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution,’ page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased’ -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members’ of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever. pray.

Petition received and read.

Social Services

Mr COHEN:
ROBERTSON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned citizens of New South Wales respectfully showeth.

That due to the higher living cost, persons on Social Service Pensions are, finding it extremely difficult to live in even the most frugal way.

We therefore call upon she Commonwealth Government to increase the base pension rate to 30 per cent of the Average Weekly Male Earnings for all States, as ascertained by the Commonwealth Statistician, plus supplementary assistance and allowances in accordance with A.C.T.U. policy and adopted as the policy of the Australian Commonwealth Pensioners’ Federation, and by doing so give a reasonably moderate pension.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to bring about the wishes expressed in our Petition: so that our citizens receiving the Social Service Pensions may live their lives in dignity.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
FARRER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Farrer respectfully showeth.

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standard’s in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes.

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution,’ Page 951); and.

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that honourable members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr STEWART:
LANG, NEW SOUTH WALES

– 1 present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Lang respectfully showeth.

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as I. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly al) nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being “part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, Page 951); and

That, in accordance wilh the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your Petitioners, as in duly bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr GARRICK:

– I present the following petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and Members of the Home of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Batman respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned al what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes.

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay: and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Austalian Constitution’, page 951): and

That, in accordance wilh the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in I he Melbourne Herald on 14 November 1969. the majority of Australian citizens Kant censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that honourable members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr HUGHES:
Attorney-General · BEROWRA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I present the following petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Berowra respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider lo be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes.

That their concern arises partly from the fact thai historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay, and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than R0 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries «n the Australian Constitution’, page 951); and

Thai, in accordance wilh the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 1.4 November 1969. the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that honourable members of the House of Representatives will seek lo ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of (tinto, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as lo preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr JEFF BATE:
MACARTHUR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The Humble Petition of electors of Macarthur respectfully showeth -

That they are gravely concerned at v/hat they consider lo be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian’ community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

I am proud to say .

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member is not allowed to make any comment and I suggest that Hansard strike out any reference made by the honourable member.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr COHEN:

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The Humble Petition of electors of Robertson respectfully showeth -

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse’ effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that honourable members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr PEACOCK:
Minister Assisting the Prime Minister · KOOYONG, VICTORIA · LP

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members oi the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Kooyong respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the tact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in “Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr REID:
HOLT, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Holt respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscentiy, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes.

I hat their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. O. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in “Commentaries on the Australian Constitution,’ page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr BROWN:
DIAMOND VALLEY, VICTORIA

– 1 present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Diamond Valley respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution,’ page 951); and

That in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr McIVOR:
GELLIBRAND, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Gellibrand respectfully showeth.

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, lo a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution,’ page 951); and

That in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on ; 4th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr STREET:
CORANGAMITE, VICTORIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Corangamite respectfully showeth.

That they are gravely concerned al what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, Page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr WALLIS:
GREY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of ‘ Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Grey respectfully showeth.

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent television and radio programmes;

That their- concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are. contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, Page 951); and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and’ television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr MacKELLAR:

– 1 present the following petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Warringah respectfully showeth.

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes.

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, page 951) and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that honourable members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of ‘films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr REYNOLDS:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition:

To the honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of electors of Barton respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes.

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly all nations which have perished have done so because of internal moral decay and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is die acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land* (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution’, page 951) and

That, in accordance with the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that honourable members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received.

Censorship

Mr HAMER:
ISAACS, VICTORIA

– 1 present the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The Humble Petition of electors of Isaacs respectfully showeth:

That they are gravely concerned at what they consider to be the adverse effect on moral standards in the Australian community of the increasing portrayal and description of obscenity, sexual licence, promiscuity and violence in films, books, magazines, plays and, to a lesser extent, television and radio programmes;

That their concern arises partly from the fact that historians, such as J. D. Unwin and Arnold Toynbee, have shown that nearly ali nations which have perished have done- so because of internal moral decay; and partly because obscenity and indecency are contrary to the teachings of Christianity which is the acknowledged religion of more than 80 per cent of Australians, besides being ‘part and parcel of the law of the land’ (Quick and Garran in ‘Commentaries on the Australian Constitution,’ Page 951): and

That, in accordance wilh the findings of the Australian Gallup Poll, published in the Melbourne Herald on 14 th November, 1969, the majority of Australian citizens want censorship either maintained or increased -

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that Honourable Members of the House of Representatives will seek to ensure that Commonwealth legislation bearing on censorship of films, literature and radio and television programmes is so framed and so administered as to preserve sound moral standards in the community. And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition 1 received.

Consumer Protection Legislation

Mr ENDERBY:

– I present from 1,242 residents of the Australian Capital Territory, collected in the last 2 weeks, the following petition:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament Assembled:

The humble Petition of the undersigned residents of the Division of the Australian Capital Territory respectfully sheweth -

That there is a great need in the Australian Capital Territory for legislation giving comprehen sive benefits and protection to consumers. There are many cases where consumers suffer because of onesided contracts which may easily be misunderstood, particularly by newcomers to this country. There is also great hardship because of defective laws when equipment is sold that is faulty and when it is installed badly and with faulty workmanship.

We believe that the Government’’! proposed Consumer Protection Council for the Australian Capital Territory with a minority representation for the consumer can not adequately light for our tights. An independent body is needed, responsible primarily to the consumer, so that our just grievances may be thoroughly investigated and appropriate measures taken.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that comprehensive consumer protection legislation be enacted in the Australian Capital Territory.

And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

page 754

INJURED ARMY CADETS

11r WALLIS - I direct my question to the Minister for the Army- Were Regular Army personnel in charge of the 17 Army cadets who were injured in an explosion at El Alamein camp in South Australia last Thursday? Has he seen a statement by one of the cadets that there were many shells lying around the camp? When was the safety of the area where the cadets were camped last checked? Has he investigated this tragic incident and what precautions is he taking to prevent a recurrence?

Mr PEACOCK:
LP

– lt is impossible to give detailed answers to the matters raised by the honourable member but I hope it will be only a short time before 1 am able to do so. I directed that a court of inquiry examine the whole background of this matter, including conditions at the camp and everything that had occurred, lt will, of course, be some days before I receive the results of that inquiry and it would be improper lo discuss the incident at this juncture while the court is inquiring into it. Without reducing the care that is taken in regard to the court, I will ensure that the matter is expedited as much as possible and I will convey answers to the honourable member. I might add that my last report, received at about 2.30 p.m. today, was that the young boys concerned are all now in a satisfactory condition. The honourable member may be assured that I am taking a very deep interest in their health.

page 755

QUESTION

MIDDLE EAST

Mr REID:

– Can the Minister for External Affairs let the House know the up to date position in the Middle East and the objectives of the Australian Government?

Mr McMAHON:
Minister for External Affairs · LOWE, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The 3 governments concerned - that is, the Governments of Israel, the United Arab Republic and Jordan - have all agreed with an initiative taken by the United States Government, supported by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that a cease fire and peace negotiations should be agreed to in the Middle East. Subsequently Dr Jarring was appointed as a mediator on behalf of the United Nations. He has agreed to act to see whether he can achieve the purposes of the United States, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and other United Nations countries. Regrettably at the moment there has been considerable disquiet because of an alleged breach of the cease fire negotiations by the United Arab Republic and a movement of SAM 3 and 2 sites into the area where the cease fire was proclaimed to exist, but it is hoped, and there are strong grounds for believing, that the 3 governments still wish to carry on the negotiations and that shortly the negotiations under the mediation of Dr Jarring will be continued. We strongly hope that these negotiations will be completed and will lead to peace in the Middle East.

Regarding the Australian Government’s position, we have not changed our opinions from those expressed in this House either by the Prime Minister or by my predecessors in office. We want peace in the Middle East and we particularly want peace in the interests of Israel, but one of the conditions of peace is that wc should ensure that Israel should have the right to live free from aggression and with its own territorial integrity remaining intact.

page 755

QUESTION

NUCLEAR POWER STATION

Mr STEWART:

– 1 address a question to the Minister for National Development, ls it a fact . that Canadian nuclear power experts are claiming that the only tender for the nuclear power station at Jervis Bay which can be costed accurately is the tender submitted by Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd for a CANDU type reactor using natural uranium? Are all the other lenders still under consideration for re actors which would require slightly enriched or enriched uranium? Did the invitation to tender specify a reactor using natural uranium? Is natural uranium still the fuel which the Government prefers? ls the Minister aware that the United Kingdom, West Germany and Sweden have discarded the use of natural uranium for future reactors? If so, are the Canadian experts entitled to be confident of being the successful tenderers?

Mr SWARTZ:
Minister for National Development · DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND · LP

– First of all, at this stage no tenderers can be confident that they will be successful in gaining the contract for the nuclear power station at Jervis Bay. On the question of Australian fuel, it was not expressed in the tenders that this should be natural uranium. A condition relating to tendering was that Australian uranium should be used. This does not mean of course that the initial charge in the first reactor which we install would necessarily be fuel from Australian uranium. I should qualify that by saying that some reactors could be installed on the basis that the guarantee would be provided only if the initial charge of fuel were provided by the manufacturer at that time. This is understandable in view of the complexities involved in the fuel systems. However tenders must bc related to the use of fuel from Australian uranium in the future. This does not mean that the reactor contract will be restricted to the use of natural uranium. Australian uranium could be processed either here or overseas dependent on the type of fuel required.

As I announced last week, we have now a short list of tenders. Out of the 9 original tenders 4 remain on the list for further consideration. They are at present being subjected to an intense study and before the end of the year we will have reached a decision and made a recommendation to the Government on the one that should be accepted. The 4 tenders involve 4 different countries, 4 different manufacturers and different types of fuel system. Until studies are completed it will not be certain what type of fuels will be used. But there is a condition with which all tenderers will have to comply, and that is that they use Australian uranium in the future, whether it be in the form of natural uranium, partly enriched uranium or enriched uranium. That condition will apply to whichever contract is awarded.

page 756

QUESTION

BANKS ISLAND: WOLFRAM

Mr BONNETT:
HERBERT, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister for Social Services and Minister-in-Charge of Aboriginal Affairs. I refer to the wolfram deposits in the Banks Island group which are worked in a small way by the Torres Strait islanders. I know that the Queensland Government is concerned to improve the situation for the islanders and has asked the Commonwealth Government for advice and possible assistance. Can the Minister tell me whether the Commonwealth Government will help and, if so, what is the present situation?

Mr WENTWORTH:
Minister for Social Services · MACKELLAR, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– As the honourable member said, Banks or Moa Island, which is about 30 or 40 miles from Thursday Island, has wolfram deposits that have been worked for some time sporadically by Torres Strait’ islanders. The price of wolfram has risen dramatically recently very largely due to the withholding of major supplies by Communist China so that the world market is very greedy for it. The Queensland Government some weeks ago called for tenders for the exploration and perhaps development of the deposits on the island. It indicated when calling for tenders that it would be concerned with the degree of participation allowed lo the Torres Strait islanders in this venture. A co-operative of Torres Strait islanders was formed and the Office of Aboriginal Affairs indicated that it would make available from its capital fund up to $100,000 for exploration work if the islanders should be successful with their tender. It further indicated that if that tender were successful it would be in a position to help in the financing of any viable industry which could be established on Banks Island or Moa Island as it is otherwise known. On 29th July I wrote to this effect to the Queensland Minister responsible for Aboriginal affairs. Although I do not propose to read that letter out I shall be happy to table it immediately after questions so that the Commonwealth Government’s position in this matter can be publicly known.

We of course recognise that this is a matter for the Queensland Government to determine but we should be glad for the Aboriginals and the islanders to have the maximum participation in the exploitation of these deposits. To that purpose, as I have said, we are prepared immediately to make available $100,000 for the exploration work, if they be the successful tenderer. We have given an assurance that if a viable industry can be established there we would be prepared to increase that sum. As I have said this is a matter for the Queensland Government to determine. At the conclusion of question time I propose to table a copy of my letter to the Queensland Minister dated 29th July. I am confident that the Queensland Government, which the Minister has assured me will have the interests of the Torres Strait islanders at heart, will be doing its utmost to see that their participation in this venture is assured to the maximum extent, and the Commonwealth Government will assist in that very desirable objective.

page 756

QUESTION

INSTITUTE OF CRIMINOLOGY

Mr WHITLAM:
WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the AttorneyGeneral a question. Fifteen months ago his predecessor made, and I applauded, a ministerial statement in which he announced that the Commonwealth and the States had reached agreement upon a joint scheme to establish a National Institute of Criminology, a Criminology Research Council and a Criminal Research Fund. In particular I have no doubt that the honourable gentleman will recall his predecessor’s saying that if overseas experience in the increase in the incidence of crime is to be avoided in Australia it will be necessary for action to be taken now. Since I can find no appropriations for the Fund in last year’s Budget or this year’s Budget and no appointments to the Institute and Council in the Commonwealth Guide and Gazette, I ask the honourable gentleman: What appropriations or appointments have in fact been made under this joi.it programme? Furthermore, what progress has been made in securing the participation of New Zealand, as his predecessor also promised 15 months ago, and of Singapore, as I suggested at that time?

Mr HUGHES:
LP

– The examination made by the Leader of the Opposition of the appropriations in this Budget is quite an accurate one. There are no appropriations. The setting up of a National Institute of Criminology and the associated Council and Fund was in fact agreed upon in principle, as the Leader of the Opposition has said, between the Commonwealth and the States some time ago. A great deal of detail was left to be worked out. This is a project which is of very great interest to me. Since my accession to this office of Attorney-General I have been progressing it as fast as I can. We have now reached the stage where instructions have been given to the Parliamentary Counsel to draft the appropriate legislation. There are matters of detail which still remain to be resolved between the Commonwealth and one State. I am hopeful that those matters can be resolved in the near future and that the legislation which is being drafted can soon be introduced. The position taken up by the New Zealand Government at present is that while it is interested in the work of the Institute it does not have it in mind for the time being to become a fully participating member.

page 757

QUESTION

DROUGHT RELIEF

Mr HUNT:
GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– 1 direct my question to the Prime Minister. In view of the serious drought situation in northern New South Wales and the approach made by the New South Wales Premier to the Commonwealth for financial assistance, can the Prime Minister give any information additional to that given to the honourable member for Cowper last week as to the extent to which the Commonwealth may help New South Wales in drought relief measures?

Mr GORTON:
Prime Minister · HIGGINS, VICTORIA · LP

– It is normal Commonwealth policy in the case of all States to expect the States to bear the costs of natural disaster up to a point which is considered reasonable for their State Budgets to be able to cover. In the case of New South Wales we have informed the Premier that we are prepared, should drought develop - and it is not yet clear that drought would develop; it is still possible that rains would make a difference to the degree of drought in that area, but I say that by the way - to bear all the cost of agreed drought assistance which in general we would expect to follow the kind of agreed drought assistance which applied to Queensland and to other States; we would be prepared to bear all the cost of such agreed drought assistance in excess of $4m.

page 757

QUESTION

EDUCATION: NURSES

Dr GUN:
KINGSTON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the attention of the Minister for Health been drawn to the report of the Truskott Committee, tabled in the New South Wales Parliament, recommending the establishment of colleges of advanced education for the training of nurses? Has the Commonwealth received any approach to support the establishment of nursing-training institutions with the status of colleges of advanced education with the appropriate Government assistance? Does the Government have any plans in relation to the establishment of such colleges either in the Australian Capital Territory or in the States? If so, what are the plans and how firm are they?

Dr FORBES:
Minister for Health · BARKER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP

– In relation to the general question, Mr Speaker, 1 point out that this question should be more appropriately addressed to the Minister for Education and Science, for whom I am acting at the moment. In that capacity, I do not know the answer but 1 will find out. In relation to the Australian Capital Territory, a report has been made on the future of nursing education in the Australian Capital Territory. One of the recommendations made in the report is that part of the training of nurses should be undertaken at a college of advanced education. This is being actively discussed at the present moment between my Department and the College of Advanced Education in the Australian Capita! Territory and the Department of Education and Science with a view to introducing a course in the next triennium.

page 757

QUESTION

POTATOES

Mr ERWIN:
BALLAARAT, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Customs and Excise a question. Recently this House was informed by the Minister for Primary Industry that an interdepartmental meeting was to take place to consider an application to import 500 tons of New Zealand potatoes. Can the Minister for Customs and Excise inform me now of any decision which may have been made as a result of this meeting?

Mr CHIPP:
LP

– As the honourable member for Ballaarat has said, the Minister for Primary Industry on Thursday last said that an interdepartmental committee would consider this matter last Friday, which it did. As 1 understand it, an agreement exists between New Zealand and Australia that Australia will take surplus New Zealand potatoes - I understand that these potatoes are for crisping purposes - only when that particular commodity is in short supply in Australia. The interdepartmental committee found that there was no such short supply at this stage and has recommended that I refuse the application to import the 500 tons of potatoes. I have agreed with the committee’s recommendation.

page 758

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY

Mr GRIFFITHS:
SHORTLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is addressed to the Treasurer. I ask: Do the estimates show an anticipated domestic surplus of $633m in the current year? Does this imply, in the light of last year’s surplus of $578m, that the heat in the Australian economy is rising as surpluses increase and that industry and home purchasers can expect no improvement in the economy in the foreseeable future? Was the investment of last year’s surplus at between 5.5 per cent and 7 per cent necessary, in view of the fact that it has been invested in Commonwealth Government inscribed stock, or is that the most appropriate way of convincing the general public that the action of the Government in increasing interest rates a few months ago was justified? Alternatively, is this a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Mr BURY:
Treasurer · WENTWORTH, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The fact that we have had such a rise in prices and such very full employment indicates that the domestic surplus last year in fact was very necessary. The rest of the question asked by the honourable member consists of kite flying activities. He will have an opportunity during the course of the Budget debate to expand on his comments.

page 758

QUESTION

INDUSTRIAL STOPPAGE

Mr IRWIN:
MITCHELL, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Did the Minister for Social Services recently receive a deputation from certain south coast unionists? Did the Secretary of the South Coast Trades and Labour Council claim that this was the direct result of last Tuesday’s stoppage? Was this claim true?

Mr WENTWORTH:
LP

– The claim was definitely untrue. The circumstances were as follows: On the Friday preceding the stoppage the honourable member for Macarthur asked me to receive a deputation of south coast unionists who were very properly concerned with, among other matters, the establishment of an aged persons home in the Bulli area and the establishment in that area of rehabilitation facil ities particularly for the victims of industrial accidents. Subsequently a Mr Hibble who is, I understand, both the secretary of the Liberal Party conference for the area and also the deputies and shot firers representative on the Trades and Labour Council, arranged for the calling of this meeting. A Mr Nixon, who is the secretary of the Trades and Labour Council, made a statement in the Press to the effect that my consent to receive the deputation was directly due to the pressure caused by Tuesday’s stoppage. This was utterly untrue because the meeting was arranged, as I have said, prior to that date. I issued a statement to the effect that, since Mr Nixon’s claim was untrue, although I would be prepared to receive the deputation I would not be prepared to receive him as a member of it unless he withdrew that statement.

Yesterday the deputation came to my office. Mr Nixon was a member of it. At that meeting before other business started he told me that he had been misreported and that he withdrew the claim. I am not in a position to say whether Mr Nixon had been misreported or not. but I am in a position to say that at that meeting before the business started he withdrew the claim that he had made. I want to make it quite plain that this meeting was a proper meeting, that it is proper for the people of the south coast - trade unionists and othersto be concerned with the welfare of their old people and to be concerned also with the consequences of industrial accidents, and that if they wish to say something about the Budget at the same time then I am perfectly happy and willing to receive their proper representations. This is a matter in which I hope that the real things to be considered - namely, the welfare of the old people on the south coast and the welfare of people who may be the victims of industrial accidents - will not be made a political football, as would seem to have been the consequence of the published statement of Mr Nixon which he said was a misreport of what his words were.

page 758

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH ACTUARIES

Mr BARNARD:
BASS, TASMANIA

– I ask the Treasurer: What is the strength of the Commonwealth Actuarial Branch? What legislation and what Commonwealth agencies does the Branch administer and supervise? Is the establishment considered adequate to carry out these functions? If not, what is the Treasurer doing to recruit more actuaries?

Mr BURY:
LP

– The last words of the honourable member’s question suggest that he knows the answer. The difficulty with which the Commonwealth Actuary is faced is that of recruiting additional actuaries. It is not to be supposed that necessarily the ideal actuaries will arrive here in Canberra just because we adopt the usual prescription of vastly increasing their salaries. For some time an effort has been made to recruit additional actuaries. If the honourable member is aware of any promising Tasmanians for the position will he kindly talk them into it? I will be very pleased to see them.

page 759

QUESTION

MEAT INSPECTORS

Mr TURNBULL:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

– The Minister for

Primary Industry will recall discussions in connection with difficulties in successfully marketing fat stock, especially sheep and lambs, in Victoria owing to insufficient meat inspectors and his undertaking to endeavour to overcome the problem. Has any action been taken in this regard?

Mr ANTHONY:
Minister for Primary Industry · RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I am very aware of the concern of the honourable member for Mallee about the forthcoming lamb killing season in Victoria and the pressures that have been placed upon members of this Parliament and industry leaders to ensure that the meat works can cope with these animals because if they cannot be slaughtered the market will slump considerably. Unfortunately we have had a major problem in recruiting and holding the number of meat inspectors we need. When 1 answered a question asked by the honourable member for Gellibrand I stated some of the things we have done. There have been constant negotiations with the Public Service Board to improve the conditions of meat inspectors and to make that occupation more attractive. The number of permanent positions has increased substantially from, I think. 615 to 1.100. The Board has also established positions for another 100 temporary personnel. The wage level has been increased considerably as have the grades of meat inspectors so they can get a higher salary. We have had to come to some arrangement to give them recreation leave. To enable this to be done there have been discussions with the Meat Industry Advisory Committee. A roster has been provided at all meat works so that they could give leave to some of the inspectors. However this meant that the meat works could not kill at rates they were normally used to and we got ourselves into a very difficult corner.

To try to overcome this i approached the New Zealand Government to see whether it could make available some of its meat inspectors, knowing that this is a slack time of the year for them. During the past few days while the New Zealand Minister for Agriculture, the honourable D. Carter, has been in this country I have been able to come to an arrangement with New Zealand for 50 meat inspectors to come from that country for 2 to 3 months to try to ease the position. 1 know I would bc expressing to New Zealand the gratitude of all honourable members and all people associated with the industry from the meat workers to the farmers for making them available. This is the sort of continuing co-operation there can be between the 2 countries on all sorts of matters. I would certainly like it recorded thai we are very appreciative of this effort. The final details for the meat inspectors will have to be worked out this week but it is hoped they will bc able ro commence coining over immediately.

page 759

QUESTION

INDUSTRIAL A L PHARMACEUTICAL RESEARCH

Mr COHEN:

– ls the Minister for Trade and Industry aware that the only basic industrial pharmaceutical research organisation, Riker Laboratories Ply Ltd, has been closed down after being taken over by Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (Aust.) Pty Ltd thus placing 30 highly qualified Australian scientists out of work? ls he also aware that this company has received over $500,000 in research grants since 1967? ls it proposed that this company refund these moneys to the Commonwealth?

Mr McEWEN:
Deputy Prime Minister · MURRAY, VICTORIA · CP

– I am not familiar with the facts to which the honourable member refers. I will make myself familiar with them and see what action, if any. is called for.

page 760

QUESTION

TREATMENT OF JEWS WITHIN THE USSR

Mr HAMER:

– My question is directed to the Minister for External Affairs. Is he aware that a deputation from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry is to meet members of the Government and Opposition parties to permit the delegates to submit their views about the treatment of Jews within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Can the Minister let me know the views of the Australian Government?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I have been informed that there is to be a meeting called by members of the Government and members of the Opposition in order to meet delegates from the Council. I understand that the subject to be discussed will be discrimination practised against people of a particular religion in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. I think our position has been made abundantly clear by the Government over and over again, that is, that we do not believe in discrimination of any kind practised in any country because of a person’s religious beliefs or because of his race. That applies in the case of the USSR in exactly the same way as it applies to any other country. As to the action taken by the Commonwealth Government, we have protested in the United Nations and I can assure the honourable member that we will continue to do so.

page 760

QUESTION

BANKING

Mr ARMITAGE:
CHIFLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Treasurer aware of reports that the Japanese Ministry of Finance is now likely to approve of the Fuji Bank’s plan to join with the Commercial Bank of Australia and 5 overseas banks to set up a Melbourne-based Euro-Pacific Corporation- and that the Bank of Tokyo will take a 20.4 per cent interest in the Adelaide-based Beneficial Finance Corporation? Is he also aware that other Japanese banks, including Mitsui, Mitsubishi and Sumitomo are also considering a financial invasion of Australia? Will the Treasurer indicate whether he has discussed this matter with the Reserve Bank and also what steps he intends to take to maintain Australian - influence in the banking and fringe banking systems of Australia?

Mr BURY:
LP

– I have seen Press references to this proposed move. I have not yet received any official communication on the subject, but if I - did it would be quite a usual experience. There are now a number of merchant banks throughout the United States, Europe, Britain and Japan which have shown a very great interest in Australia. The honourable member referred to an invasion but it is a question of what we are invaded with. In many cases these institutions have invaded Australia with large amounts of capital which have been put to our own good use. In due course, if and when I do receive some official letter or request from this institution I will deal with it in the normal way. I say ‘in the normal way’ because it has become a very normal experience in the last 15 months, owing very largely to the faith that overseas investors and institutions have in the good government and stability of Australia.

page 760

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH GRANTS COMMISSION

Mr GILES:
ANGAS, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I address my question to the Prime Minister. The right honourable gentleman will be aware of the great interest shown by South Australian senators and members in the matter of an application to the Commonwealth Grants Commission by the South Australian Government. Has he yet any announcement to make on this application for special assistance?

Mr GORTON:
LP

– Yes, the Commonwealth Grants Commission has made a recommendation, to the Government, which has considered the recommendation, which has agreed to it and which has so informed the Premier of South Australia. The recommendation was for an initial grant for 1970-71 of $5m. This will be, of course, according to the Commission’s normal practice, reviewed and the subject of a report in 1972-73 after it has had that time to consider the State’s financial position.

page 760

QUESTION

TULLAMAKINE AIRPORT

Mr Lionel Bowen:
KINGSFORD-SMITH, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

-I direct a question to the Prime Minister. Was his decision not to have any curfew at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport in accordance with the wishes of Ansett Airlines of Australia? Has this organisation for some time past been pressing for a lifting of the curfew at Sydney and will he give an undertaking that this curfew will be retained?

Mr GORTON:
LP

– My decision in relation to not the lifting of the curfew at Tullarmarine, but the non-imposition of any curfew at Tullamarine, was taken in accordance with the wishes, as 1 would believe, of all sensible people in Australia who would find it utterly ridiculous that an airport out in the country and therefore not causing a noise damage to anybody should not be able to be used for 24 hours in the day. It was a simple commonsense decision. 1 believe it received acclamation from the people of Victoria and all other sensible people. I am afraid 1 cannot give undertakings in the other areas to which the honourable member referred.

page 761

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr TURNER:
Bradfield

– I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr TURNER:

– Yes. Last week the Editor of the ‘Sun Herald’, or some person on his behalf, invited me to write an article for his newspaper. This I agreed to do, specifying ‘in my own way’. The article was duly published in the newspaper last Sunday, 30th August, under the Editor’s dramatic heading: ‘Why I’m Quitting Parliament by H. B. Turner, M.P.’ He added a splendid photograph. He offered me space for 1,200 words. The article comprised, including ‘a’, ‘and’ and ‘the’, precisely 1,197 words. Not a sentence, not a phrase, not a word, not a comma was altered in the item as published from the article asI had written it, except for the omission of one significant sentence. Having argued that debate on public issues was, for a variety of reasons, moving from the floor of Parliament into the columns of the Press and on to the TV screen, I wrote this -I quote from a carbon copy of the script I submitted to the newspaper:

The situation has its dangers: the media, however valuable, have also their own interests to serve, can distort and can be manipulated.

This omission neatly, ironically and significantly makes my point. The article misrepresents my concern for the institution of Parliament by omitting any reference to my clearly expressed misgivings about the media. This is a patent distortion of my position, serving the interests of the medium concerned.

page 761

MOA OR BANKS ISLAND

Mr WENTWORTH:
Minister for Social Services · Mackellar · LP

– I lay on the table of the House a copy of the letter written by me on 29th July to the Queensland Minister for Conservation, Marine and Aboriginal Affairs regarding Moa or Banks Island.

page 761

APPROPRIATION BILL (No.1) 1970-71

Second Reading (Budget Debate)

Debate resumed from 28 August (vide page 741). on motion by Mr Bury:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Upon which Mr Whitlam had moved by way of amendment:

That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to inserting the following words in place thereof: ‘This House condemns this deceptive and negative Budget because it falls to meet the real needs of the Australian people, especially with respect to (a) standards of social service and war pensioners, (b) assistance to school, hospital and urban authorities and (c) restructuring of stricken primary industries and because it introduces and increases taxes and charges of a regressive and inequitable nature’.

Mr LUCOCK:
Lyne

– The House may recall that when I commenced speaking on the Appropriation Bill(No. 1) 1970-71 on Friday I stated that Bill was a presentation of the economic policy of a government taking into consideration all the factors related to the responsibility of the government to look after the fiscal policy of the nation. Before developing my thoughts on the Budget itself I would like to comment about the advance of tourism in this country. A great deal of thought is being given to this subject. One factor that contributes to the advancement of tourism is the availability of television sets in motel rooms. But, asI understandit, Mr Deputy Speaker, if a hotel or motel has a television set in each room it has to have a television licence for each set. I think there should be some rationalisation so that there is a basic charge for so many sets. A price could be assessed and it could vary according to the number of sets. The imposition of a licence fee for each television set should not be accepted. There are times when the sets are not being used.It might be argued that the cost of the licences for television sets in hotels and motels is covered in the tariff. To this degree the money comes from people touring or staying at the hotel or motel. 1 think this matter should be looked into and a different decision made.

I want to make a brief comment on education. Later on I will have more to say about the Commonwealth’s entry into the field of education. I think that the State Ministers for Education and the Commonwealth Minister for Education and Science (Mr N. H. Bowen), together with the heads of their departments, should set up a committee of which the Ministers themselves are members, and confer with the aim of introducing some rationalisation of examinations and the standards for the various forms and classes in each State. Sir, I realise that there is some co-operation in this field but there is a danger - and I will go further into this later - of the Commonwealth entering more and more into State activities and so having more and more control. I realise that there is an advantage in co-operation but I would not like to see the Commonwealth Government take much greater control of the education system throughout Australia. Too much centralisation of control in any sphere is a disadvantage. The education system is an important matter and it should be under the control of State governments with regional areas within the State department concerned.

In some quarters there has been criticism of this Budget but, as I said on Friday, any budget can be criticised and anybody can say that more money should be given for this or that or something else. If my memory serves me correctly, when I first entered this Parliament in 1952, the Budget reached £1,000- $2,000m - for the first time in the history of Australia. The Budget presented by the Treasurer (Mr Bury) a couple of weeks ago was of the order of $7,883m. There comes a time when expenditure must be seriously examined. Running through the Budget speech and the presentation by the Treasurer, wc see certain of the factors which contribute to the increase in the total cost of the Budget. For example, in relation to the expenditure, the Treasurer said:

Total expenditure this year is estimated at $7,883 million, an increase of $795 million or 11.2 per cent.

It is interesting to compare the total expenditure for this year with that of last year. The increase last year was $5 19m or 7.9 per cent. I want briefly to cover some of the departments and some of the factors involved in this expenditure. Under payments to the States, which is outstanding in this year’s Estimates, there is a very large increase. The Treasurer said:

These payments, including the funds required for the State works and housing programmes, are estimated at no less than $2,708 million or $291 million more than last year. They will absorb onethird of this year’s Budget and account for more than one-third of the estimated increase of $795 million in our total expenditures this year. This represents a massive diversion of the nation’s material resources to help meet the needs of the State governments.

The Treasurer proceeded to detail some of the expenditure to the States and the taking over of certain financial responsibilities. He concluded by saying:

Much has been said in the past year about the working of our Federation. May I suggest that the very magnitude of the provision we are making in this Budget for additional payments to the States is proof of our real desire to ensure effective working of the Federation.

I would agree with that, but there is also an urgent necessity for a conference of Commonwealth and State authorities. This is a field in which, with the complexities of government at the moment, there is need for a conference whereby there can be discussion of how we can make the Federation in which we live work more effectively.

The proposed expenditure of $l,137m on defence is 3.1 per cent greater than the expenditure in 1969-70. Social welfare payments will account for $ 1,820m. I mentioned earlier that the first Budget that was introduced in the House after I become a member provided for a total expenditure of £l,000m. Today we see the social welfare provision amounting to almost that total. I believe it would be advantageous to increase further the amount of pensions. I regret that in the Cabinet discussions that preceded the Budget it was not thought possible to be able to increase pensions beyond the amount provided. However I should hope that at some later stage an opportunity might be found to do so. Consideration should be given also to various other aspects of our social welfare programme. The tapered means test, supplementary assistance, homes for the aged, sheltered workshops and Meals on Wheels have resulted in increased expenditure on social welfare. These facilities work to the advantage of those people who are in receipt of age pensions. I appreciate that the pensioner who lives in the metropolitan area and who is faced with a high rental charge for a room is certainly in difficult circumstances. I believe that it is through the provision of the tapered means test and the other facilities I have mentioned that we can assist him more than through granting a broad increase in the actual pension payment. The homes for the aged, sheltered workshops and Meals on Wheels have far greater value to a pensioner than even monetary increase in his pension. This is one of the fields in which the Commonwealth Government should concentrate in assisting these people who are in need.

I have already congratulated the Minister for Repatriation (Mr Holten) on the moves he has made in relation to the men who have served in Vietnam. We have a tremendous responsibility to these men and I believe that there must be further investigation and consideration of repatriation assistance for them. I have received a few telegrams from people on this subject. The telegrams were most interesting. One that I received reads:

Please introduce amendments to the Federal Budget to (a) provide an increase in the old age pension of $5 a week per pensioner and (b) reduce the expenditure on defence by the amount incurred in the increase in pension payments.

It is obvious, of course, that it is impossible to move an amendment to increase the amount of the pension payment. This would mean defeating the Budget. There are many reasons why I would never do that, particularly with the political situation in Australia and the international situation being as they are at this time. But it is interesting to note that to increase pensions by more than the proposed amount would require a reduction in defence expenditure. Anybody who has any thought for the safety of Australia would realise that this is something we cannot do, because the most important thing in this world to us at the moment is the defence of Australia.

I would like to refer to the comments made by members of the Australian Labor Party and some trade union leaders - I say some because there were many decent, sensible, intelligent union men who did not go on strike last Tuesday - in support of the strike called by the Australian Council of Trade Unions as a protest against the Budget. The hypocritical attitude of the Australian Labor movement was evidenced in the fact that it called on ,his strike - and a few of the members of the ALP here supported it - knowing that the strike would have no benefit, knowing that it was completely and absolutely a political trick and realising - or they should have realised - that it would also make a contribution to increase costs. As I said, I might have thought more of some sections of Labor if they had objected to the Budget but had not carried out this farcical strike.

When my colleague the honourable member for Hume (Mr Pettitt) was talking about a reduction in the working week to 35 hours the honourable member for Batman (Mr Garrick) made the following interjection:

That is what they said when the 40-hour week was brought in.

May I point out to the honourable member for Batman that whilst w. do not oppose these things there is certainly a time and place for them. When the 40-hour week was introduced that was not the time and place for it because it was one of the major contributing factors to the inflationary spiral that commenced in those days.

I spoke earlier about education. Besides providing indirect assistance to the States for education Commonwealth expenditure specifically related to education is expected this year to exceed $3 12m, which would be an increase of $63m or 25 per cent. This shows exactly how much the Commonwealth is prepared to assist in this field. I comment briefly on the assistance to woolgrowers, because this was something that was also covered in many aspects by my colleagues. This Budget proposal shows again the continuing interest of the Government in woolgrowers and the appreciation and understanding that the Government has of the problems that confront the woolgrower.

There has been criticism of the increased charges to be made by the Post Office. One only has to look at the expenditure of the Post Office on capital works and on meeting increased costs to which the Post Office itself is subject to realise that these are factors that pose a problem in the running of the Post Office and in keeping the charges down. I want to make a brief comment in regard to the Postal Department assisting with telephone services in country areas. As intimated, the position will be that the Department will construct and fully maintain the telephone line from the exchange to the subscriber’s property up to a radial distance of 15 miles at no cost to the subscriber. Beyond this distance the subscriber will be expected to pay $40 per radial quarter mile as his contribution, with the Department paying the balance. The revised conditions will also be extended to upgrading private sections of subscribers’ lines as the opportunity permits, and the new conditions will be retrospective to 1st January 1969. As one who is out in the country area and realises the assistance this will give to country people, 1 congratulate the Postmaster-General on this move. We have had many discussions with him on this matter and I am glad to see that the Department has been able to bring this about. There are other ways in which the Postmaster-General’s Department can assist decentralisation, but again the real problem is the problem of increased costs.

The Leader of the Country Party, the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr McEwen), spoke the other day about the European Economic Community and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Many times I have spoken in this House about the urgent need for what I have called the major industrial countries to assist the major agricultural countries. I have said that there is not much point giving assistance to some of the newly developed countries and the underdeveloped countries and seeing the value of that assistance lost because an underdeveloped country cannot sell its products on the world market. In this regard I. think GATT itself is of vital importance to every country in the world. I include the United States of America and the European Economic Community. Those countries which are in a major position in the world in regard to industrial and perhaps even agricultural production must realise that one of the contributing factors to stability in the world is to see the smaller nations being given an opportunity. All the words that we might utter will be of no value unless we also take a step to assist in the economic sphere.

For that reason, I believe, the United States of America, as well as the United Kingdom and the countries of the European Economic Community, has an interest to see that GATT works, lt is not merely a matter of the Minister for Trade and industry putting forward a proposal that is of advantage to Australia alone. He is putting forward a proposal that brings sanity lo this economic and international situation in which we find ourselves at the moment. I would sincerely hope that the leaders of those other countries will pay attention to his words and that those who are responsible and in control in the European Economic Community and those who are responsible and hold responsible positions in the sphere of international trade will realise that these words are spoken by a man who has had - I think I. can safely say - more experience in the field of international trade than any other man in world politics today. We know the battle that he has put up on many occasions, not only for Australia but also for New Zealand and the other countries in this Asian area, against a lack of thought and lack of vision by countries such as the United States and, I am afraid, in certain instances the United Kingdom and other European countries. That is why I believe there is an urgent need for a fuller and deeper consideration to be given to the matters of international trade and that a conference of GATT members and other countries in other spheres of international trade should be held as quickly as possible. In 1957 I had the privilege to attend the meeting of the United Nations in New York when the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was established to assist developing countries. All of those people who had the opportunity to take part in that conference know that its aim was not only to help these smaller and undeveloped countries but also to contribute to international trade and international understanding in the world.

The next matter that I would like to mention has been referred to in some instances by some of our news media in a rather cynical manner - the matter of law and order. It has been inferred that in certain instances this Government is merely using this issue as a political weapon to try to establish itself and regain some of the popularity that some of these people say it has lost. Let me say this: A Budget is something that can be altered, that can be improved upon, that can be criticised; the safety and security of this country cannot. I would say that there are many times when the excuse that we are undermining freedoms is used by those who themselves would desire to undermine the freedom and security of this country. In the case of some of these conscientious objectors the Government has endeavoured almost to bend over backwards to try to help them. In the recent case of the young lad who was before the court, consideration was shown by the magistrate. The magistrate did everything that he could to assist and this young man refused to make any comment. I am afraid that that would make me question the sincerity of that young man.

We saw in this House some people - and I use the word ‘people’ in the broad sense - chain themselves to the aisle rails in the public gallery. The only thing that those people have achieved is to stop visitors to Canberra entering the public gallery and seeing the : Parliament in session because, as a result of the action of those people, visitors to the public gallery have been unable to sit in the aisles at a time when, because of school holidays, seating accommodation in the public gallery is under pressure. I hope that the people who did this and who achieved nothing by so doing will recognise that possibly, by the stupidity of their actions, they have stopped some youngsters being able to enter this House and to see this House in action.

I hope that, in the broader sphere of our international policy, we will give serious consideration to participation in the Asian Parliamentarians Union. I think that this is a group through which we can play an important part. Asia is a significant area in our region and in the world. It is an area in which the role that we can play is tremendously important. I know that a number of conferences are held but the meetings of the Asian Parliamentarians Union are at the parliamentarian level. Surely, while it is important that conferences between Prime Ministers, Ministers for External Affairs and various other

Ministers are held, it is important also that parliamentarians themselves should get together at gatherings where they might be able to discuss some of the problems and the difficulties that they face.

Might I come back to one of the comments, cynically put sometimes by members of our media, in the last couple of weeks in relation to the question of law and order. First, I wish to quote portion of a speech made by the Minister for External Affairs (Mr McMahon) when he spoke in this House on Tuesday, 25th August 1970, during the discussion of a matter of public importance concerning Vietnam and Indo-China. In that speech, the Minister said:

Let me mention first of all this question of international action to achieve peace. What have we been doing to achieve peace and who have been the opponents of the peace movement? It must be known that our objectives are clear cut and that we are willing to come to an accommodation provided only 2 objectives are achieved. The first one is that we should have a just and fair peace. . . .

The Minister ges on to ask: ‘What has happened?’ He says:

Let us look at what we have done.

Over and over again, the plea has been made: Make some concession or offer to the North Vietnamese and, in time, they will come to the conference table and will come to a just and sensible settlement’. What happened? The bombing of North Vietnam ceased. Immediately afterwards, a conference was called in Paris. With what result?

The right honourable gentleman goes on to list a number of concessions that were made. The achievement was nil.

I bring again before the notice of the House a comment made by the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Jess) when speaking on this subject of law and order on Thursday, 27th August 1970. The honourable member said:

Let us remember the Are bombs that were thrown into the General Electric Co. building in Melbourne. Nobody seemed to be terribly concerned. It appears that it is quite all right in this country to throw petrol bombs into a building. It does not matter that there could be people in that building or that, if a fire broke out, those people could be killed. It would not matter if that fire spread to other buildings.

The honourable member for La Trobe continued by quoting one or two further examples of recent happenings in this regard.

I had the privilege of travelling in Asia with a priest of the Roman Catholic

Church who had just been released by the Communist Chinese. That man was a wasted figure; fortunately, his mental capacity was still there. These are the things which happen, ls it remarkable that honourable members who are against the policy of the Government quote only that which is in their interests and not that which is in the interests of the policy of the Government? ls it remarkable that these people put forward only that which would assist their claims? I think in one sense of the tragedy of the World Council of Churches commenting on the fact of food being sent to Rhodesia and saying that food should not be sent to Rhodesia, as well as a number of other things that it has said. Commentators criticise us and say that we are using this law and order issue only as an aid for election purposes. Might there not come a time when people will realise that this policy and thought of the Government is right not for the sake of an election factor but because it is for the safety and security of this country? The mere fact that we can lose democracy not because we are standing for these things and being firm against those protecters but because we are allowing them to take control should be of concern to us all. I ask my friend and colleague, Mr Frank Chamberlain, to give consideration to that aspect. If demonstrators wanted to be effective and really sincere they would observe the law. Let me refer to an article entitled ‘Vandals hit Memorial’. Mr Keys said that unfortunately this could be blamed on the phoney peace groups, the moratoriums and such bodies. He said that by their self-styled anti-war activities they have created an atmosphere of danger for this country.

Mr GRASSBY:
Riverina

– Five years ago when I rose for the first time in the mother Parliament of our Australian Commonwealth it was against a background of difficulties for rural Australia caused by drought. Despite the drought and the difficulties, there was then no lack of confidence in the future. There was in fact a desire everywhere to push ahead with rural development and to improve rural productivity. There was no serious doubt that when the drought broke the sun would shine again on rural Australia. But as I rise today in the Commonwealth Parliament to debate the affairs of the nation

I find the scene has changed quite dramatically. There is a new drought holding the countryside in its grip - a drought of money and a drought of confidence. Just the other day 600 people representing the 75,000 people of the Lachlan Valley gathered to urge the Commonwealth to take steps to end the economic depression in the countryside. There was no doubt there as to what was needed and the Mayor of Parkes said:

All that is required is a will to win and clear leadership with a positive determination to find an answer.

But rural Australia today faces a crisis that has implications going far beyond the confines of the farm or the country community. The crisis has brought the nation to the crossroads of its own future. We are already the most urban nation on earth. We have already retreated, in terms of our population, to the south east corner of the continent. We are confronted with a clear choice. If the crisis in the countryside goes unresolved and if the family farm is abandoned, and with it many rural communities, we will create a vacuum in the countryside. Nature abhors a vacuum. International interests are ready and willing to take over the abandoned countryside. We have already seen it become an international fashion for overseas millionaires and interests to buy a bit of Australia.

Today we have the spectacle of our biggest landowner, with 1 1 million acres, living and operating from Los Angeles in the United States of America. The trend to sell Australia was never better illustrated than by the sale of the most famous single property, the Elsey cattle station which was featured in the classic novel ‘We of the Never Never’. Today it is owned by a syndicate which includes Hong Kong interests. So we have the tragic paradox of Australian farmers facing dispossession by forces generated by Government policies. I am firmly dedicated to the proposition that to develop our country we do not have to give it away. If there is any doubt in this Parliament about the dangers of this policy of selling the country, let those honourable members listen to the words of the former Lord Mayor of London. Sir Denys Lowson, who heads Australian Estates, an overseas company which owns about 5 million acres of Australia. In a moment of generous candour he said:

Don’t give too much of your resources to anyone, the British or anyone else. Accept money for investment by all means but retain control. Australians today are subsidising the British Treasury. The British Treasury gets a cash surcharge on Australian development.

To those who would condone the sale of Australian land and water resources to outside interests I commend a study of foreign ownership of the national resources in many of the 21 nations of South America. There one finds entire nations in economic bondage. Some gave up control of their future for a temporary capital inflow. They have paid the price for their economic independence.

In North America the Canadians have some experience of this sell-out of their country. Sixty per cent of Canadian secondary industry and two-thirds of Canadian primary resource industries are controlled by foreigners. Canada has lost the” power to control the rate of inflation and the level of employment. United States prices roll across the border and United States economic worries come with them. The situation has led to the interesting suggestion that an income tax surtax should be instituted in Canada to build up a fund to buy back Canada. These are the lessons to be learned from beyond our shores, while at home foreign buyers in some localities are taking advantage of the rural depression to offer $37 for land which was worth $120 only a short time ago. The crisis in the countryside is just as much the concern of our city population. If overseas takeovers of Australian food processing industries and farming land continues then the cost of living in. Australian cities could double. The farmer and the city housewife are being exploited with fine impartiality. The housewife pays more for bread and the farmer receives less for wheat; the city consumer pays more for wool and the grower receives less. It is against the best interests of the nation to abandon the daily bread of the family to foreign control and to leave the housewife at the mercy of foreign faceless corporations.

This is the background of the Budget. And what did the Treasurer (Mr Bury) say in the Budget about this crisis in the countryside? He said:

The farm outlook is not encouraging.

The only concrete proposal was a handout to wool growers which was later explained by the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr

Anthony) and which emerges as one of the most inadequate, hopelessly ineffective gestures that could have been conceived. It is no substitute for a proper price for the product. This is the high urgency of the Government on the crisis in the countryside - a single sentence, an anomalous handout and a promise to give some thought to the problems.

The Budget was a slap in the face to rural Australia but its defence by Government supporters is strong and consistent. With one honourable exception, the Treasurer’s sycophants kissed the hands that introduced a wheat rationing scheme that has been described as ‘rotten to the core’; the hands that betrayed wool growers to the exploitation of foreign buyers; the hands that imposed on the one primary industry not in trouble a damaging tax, the wine tax. There is no sense of urgency from the Minister for Primary Industry. There is more rural poverty in his own electorate than in any other area in Australia and his solution is to encourage his own people to get out. This is a striking demonstration of political cannibalism. There is no sense of urgency from the honourable members on the Government side who represent what has been called the ‘heart break corner’ of Queensland. James Cunningham wrote:

It is a chilling experience to watch a country waste and die. The desolution of men’s spirits dried by the crippling drought which has gone on for years is reflected wherever one goes in this immense country.

Then he quoted a grazier who asked: ‘How am I going to carry on?’, and Cunningham wrote:

The only answer was the hiss of the dust blowing in the wind.

But what was the answer by the Government? What was the answer by Government supporters? They too just hissed in the wind. They blamed everyone but themselves. They blamed the British for applying to join the European Economic Community, they blamed Europe for its trading; they blamed the Opposition. Yet they have been in undisputed power for 21 years. They have dictated every policy, every decision, and their answer to the worst crisis in the countryside in 2 generations is to put a tax on wine, and hit the one primary industry not in trouble. They are going to collect more in tax than the growers will receive for their grapes. Yet they leave Australia’s doors wide open to a flood of foreign wines and spirits. They hit our home industry and permit foreign industry to make further inroads. This is the pattern of their concern.

Hundreds of acres of potatoes have been plowed in and the Government allows hundreds of pounds of North American potatoes to flood in. We have a rice industry exporting 80 per cent of the production with no Government support in the face of world competition and the Government leaves the doors open to quarantinedoubtful foreign rice. Foreign cheese floods the market; yet the Government tells dairymen: ‘You produce too much’ This is the measure of care, the measure of concern. And to complete the picture of rural betrayal is the Government’s refusal to take action which would nave prevented the loss of 8 million sheep to Queensland.

While the Minister preaches wheat surpluses he denies wheat to starving stock; while the Minister preaches and practises wheat rationing he did not even have the courage to take the money made available by the Treasurer and pay for all the 1969-70 crop. We did not meet the national ration last season and we will not this year but we have a small army of officials running around with bits of paper which say: ‘Cut back production’. In the last couple of weeks Australia has sold 9 million bushels of wheat, apart from the major sales to Egypt. By 30th November our wheat stocks could be down to 250 million or 270 million bushels. With a harvest failure in many locations it has been estimated that we could be down to a carryover of 85 million bushels in 1972 - not enough to ensure our own position against drought, let alone maintain supplies for our customers abroad. Yet against this dramatic change in the situation, this Government still talks rationing of reduced production this year and refuses to pay for wheat that was planted last season before it brought in its rationing system.

The Government’s incredible inaction over wool completes the indictment. It has stood by idly while prices have dropped 40 per cent in 12 months. It has stood by while the whole industry cried for marketing reform. The Prime Minister (Mr Gorton) in replying to me the other day set his high seal on the betrayal. He said, in effect, that it would be impetuous to do anything at this time. Contrast this Government betrayal with the firm program and commitment by the Opposition.

Our 11 point wool reformation plans to establish a statutory authority are clear and definite. Our action on wheat will take m and pay for wheat last season within the national ration. We will establish strategic national drought storages. We will bring local government to the national revenue distribution and the Australian Loan Council.

The Government compounded its betrayal of the nation in this Budget by ignoring the crisis in local government. For instance Cobar Council has $356,000 outstanding in rates and charges. It began this year with a deficit budget of $82,000 and had to add $12,000 for fighting 2 bush fires. Some of the ratepayers have not paid tax for 7 years, and have not paid rates for 6 years. Many shires face disaster but their plight was ignored in the Budget, ignored by the Government and, more tragically, ignored by nearly every Government supporter but one who acknowledged rates have risen 840 per cent since 1.947 and who expressed his disappointment with the Budget. It seems that the Government is preparing Australia to accept a permanent depression in the countryside. The grand alibi has already been prepared. And it was designed and unveiled by the veteran giant of government, the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr McEwen). With consummate skill he set the scene for the Budget, and for the permanent depression to which reference has been made. Firstly, he made his last grand tour as the Deputy Prime Minister; then he fired his preliminary salvos in the capitals of the world. Finally came the moment in the Parliament of the nation when he unveiled the grand alibi for all the drift and bad policy which have brought rural Australia to Ms knees. What was the alibi? It was entry of Britain into Europe.

In his statement the Deputy Prime Minister took on the role of the Gloomy Dean and unfolded his gloomy assessment of what confronts us. His only 2 remedies were to tell Britain that Australia expected Britain to put Australia’s interests to the fore because of ‘our historical association with Britain in all fields’. Coupled with this touching faith was the other answer he put forward. He said:

Any stand Australia takes must be on the ground of impairment or threatened impairment of our rights under GATT.

So he predicts disaster and says the answer is to rely on sweet charity in London and the uncertain mercy of GATT. He made the same speech of gloom nearly 10 years ago and in all that time there has been apparently nothing learned, nothing forgotten. There is no doubt that at one time for Britain to sever her traditional trade links and enter Europe would have been a disaster. But for some time Australia has been moving away from the economic colonialism in which the nation was born.

It is true that if we sit down and lament and fail to act until Britain does enter Europe, there will be inimical effects on our sales of wheat, dairy products, canned and fresh fruit, sugar, meat, dried fruits and jams. It is true that if we take no action the very survival of towns such as Griffith, Leeton, Mildura and Shepparton could be threatened. It is also true that if we take no action then $400m worth of Australian sales might be affected. The Deputy Prime Minister himself says we can face serious economic and social difficulties. But what is the reply by the Deputy Prime Minister in his role as the Gloomy Dean to the disaster he sees on the horizon? I repeat that his answer is reliance on sweet charity in London and uncertain mercy from GATT.

It is evident that the crisis in the Australian countryside will be blamed on European Economic Community, blamed on the callous British and blamed on the tendency of the world to divide into trading blocs. So, says the Deputy Prime Minister, let us attack this trade bloc concept, and let us go to GATT. We are going to put our trust in GATT, we are going to put the future of the Australian towns and cities I have mentioned in the lap of GATT. We are going to GATT with 70 per cent of our butter, 60 per cent of our canned fruit, one third of our fresh fruit sales and a third of our dried fruit sales.

The Gloomy Dean preached the same story, as I said, 10 years ago - perhaps the British will not be admitted, but if they are, let us hope that somebody somewhere will look after us. Ten years ago he pinned his faith completely on London; now he shifts with touching faith and confidence to GATT. I reject the gloom; I reject the dictum of inevitable diasaster, I reject the surrender of the future of our inland towns and cities, and, in the final analysis I reject the grand alibi being created now as an excuse for bad policy.

I believe we should be realistic, tough and confident. Above all, I think we should accept the inevitability of Britain’s entry into Europe. Britain has to go somewhere because she is in between 2 giants - North America and Europe. She must join one or the other or make an accommodation with them. So we must act to stop the predicted disaster and seek a substitute for the formula simply to rely on GATT.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– You reject the policy of the Country Party.

Mr GRASSBY:

– I do. I recall that GATT was invoked to rob us of the fruits of our commercial enterprise in building a canned fruits market in Germany. GATT has never held open the door of US markets for our mutton and lamb, and GATT has never been invoked when the US has used quarantine as an excuse to satisfy her own domestic beef lobbies. By all means let us go to GATT, but let us also take independent action now to secure long term coverage for our own products and our own industries.

This is the realism to which I referred. The toughness has now to come. We do 40 per cent of our overseas shopping in Britain and Europe and 30 per cent of it with the USA. Under the present arrangements we enjoy concessions in Britain which we more than match. The value of what we give in concessions and in trade advantages to Britain I would put at not less than $200m. These preferences I submit are now negotiable. The volume of trade runs in Britain’s favour.

In 1969-70 we sold $492m worth of products to Britain but bought 55846m worth, plus preference to British goods, British shipping, British insurance and British banks. In hard cash alone there is a balance of $354m running against us, or running for us, depending on which way one looks at it. And in return for all this, we have sales of $30m worth of butter, $40m worth of wheat, $40m worth of sugar, $25m worth of canned fruits, $12m worth of fresh fruits, $7m worth of dried fruits and $4m worth of coarse grains. That is our shopping list.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Are they official figures?

Mr GRASSBY:

– They are official figures. It has been submitted that all the imbalance is acceptable because of desired capital inflow, but this is rubbish. The United Kingdom, United States, European and Asian capital has and will come because Australia gives a good return. It has given a good deal. The preferences just do not balance. Today they must be regarded as a negotiable asset by Australia. But once Britain goes in the preferences lose much of their negotiability. So the tough dealing must come now. We must use these British preferences to negotiate long term agreements covering access to sure markets by people who will take the products we have available in exchange for those that they have to offer. In other words, it has to be mutual reciprocity in trade. We are in a strong position and we have only to cover the export of some $158m worth of products now being sent to Britain. But we are buying two for one in that market. We are giving $200m in preferences; and there is $354m in a trade margin to cover this sum total of the products in trouble. That is the first step to avert disaster.

The second step is to devise a new fabric of trade. We must recognise that our future as a nation lies in our own region in the world. We will soon have 200 million people in our own region, and between us some of the richest lands and resources on earth. So while we trade preferences and markets with the major sophisticated nations of the world, we should be acting as a catalyst for progress in our own region and this means new forms of trading and, in fact, new products with which to trade.

We must reappraise our trade with USA which today sells us nearly $ 1000m worth of products while we can only gain entry into that country for half that amount. We must learn from their use of Public Law 480 under which they have been selling in our own region of the world on 20-year terms with payments in local currency. Today, we are losing trade opportunities because of a lack of a new flexible agency to pioneer trade in our own region.

We need a national commodity corporation to replace the ad hoc decisions on Asian aid which led to such gestures as the presenting of buses to Djakarta with no spares, no replacements and no maintenance, which became a laughing stock until they were replaced, I am sad to say, by Chinese vehicles. Let us create links by trade. Let us use trade as an instrument of aid, to build friendship and build our own great community of the southeast. Let the risorgimento of Australian trade now begin. Let us renegotiate the basis of our trade with USA, let us renegotiate British preferences on a long term binding basis and let us establish a national commodity corporation to promote, facilitate and develop regional trade to replace our ad hoc and casual forays and enable us to meet and beat the government supporting trading of our competitors.

Certainly we reject the abandonment of the Australian countryside. We reject the Gloomey Dean’s retreat on trade. We put forward a positive blueprint for the future of Australia and our southeast region. Perhaps as a final word I could say something about the Government’s performance in one unhappy sphere, that isthe sphere of the wine which gladdens the soul so well. 1 think 1 should warn the Government of the words of a group of once happy liberals who wrote a poem dedicated to the Treasurer. It goes like this:

Sir, we are liberal when drinking dry red But no longer from what we hear said, Well, you’ll add to your booty. by imposing a duty, But we’ll down it with Labor instead.

I support the motion moved by the Opposition in regard to the tragic Budget we have before us at this time.

Mr JEFF BATE:
Macarthur

– The honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby) has been putting forward his anxieties about the rural industries, but if he would take the time to look at his Party’s policy he would see where the troubles of the rural industries come from. In the wool industry the cost of labour intensive shearing would wipe out the whole of the wool industry’s results in not many years. This year out of a return of $6m or$7m it cost $lm for shearing. On the present trend in 10 years it will cost $2m for shearing, in 20 years it will cost$4m and in 30 years it will double again to $8m. So there will not be anything left for the wool industry. This is the effect of militant trade unionism. Increases in wages for storemen and packers and workers in the shipping industry apply further crippling imposts on the wool industry. Every rural industry is in trouble because of the policies pursued by the party to which the honourable member for Riverina belongs and because of militant trade union policy. Unions claim that workers in Australia have a right to strike, but strikes create an enormous cost to rural industry. In turn, rural industries have to sell overseas at lower and lower prices. The Australian Labor Party is entirely responsible for the complete recession in the rural industry. The honourable member for Riverina, who rushed out of the chamber when I began to speak, ought to know that this is true. Each day a new strike occurs and each day the costs of moving goods produced by the rural industry increase by 12-J per cent.

Wages in Australia are rising by 10 per cent per annum. Under this Government Australia has become extremely affluent. Mr Hawke and the trade unions are represented in this House by the very few honourable members opposite who are present in the chamber. The Australian Labor Party and the militant trade unions have combined with natural phenomena, such as drought, to cripple the rural industry. The honourable member- for Riverina is very fluent in describing the problems of rural industry. He referred to the tax on wine, which is produced in his electorate. In the past wine was the only alcoholic beverage that had completely escaped an impost. Now the honourable member for Riverina is upset because there is an impost on wine.

Mr Jacobi:

– Was-

Mr JEFF BATE:

– The honourable member for Riverina belongs to the same party as the honourable member opposite who is interjecting - a party which encourages militancy in the trade union movement. So we have a situation which very gravely concerns the people of Australia. We have a situation of uninhibited dissent and protest in the streets and uninhibited taking over of public arteries and thoroughfares’ by a few people activated by a certain group.

Mr Clyde Holding, the Leader of the Opposition in the Victorian Parliament, has said that any government in Australia, Federal or State, which takes orders from the Australian Labor Party Executive is not a government at all. He said: ‘If you compel us to take orders from you - day to day orders in our government - it would not be a government at ali’. Of course, poor Mr Clyde Holding and his followers were ignominiously defeated in the Victorian elections. The same thing is happening in this Parliament. The honourable member for Hindmarsh (Mr Clyde Cameron) - a pretty savage debater; he will probably enter the chamber soon to attack mt verbally - has suddenly become aware of the situation after his long career of interference with the trade unions; a long career of causing trouble in the Australian Workers Union. He and the honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns) went to Mount Isa and supported Eugene Martin, the man who cost the miners of Mount Isa their homes. The strike was so bad that the miners had no income. They were forced to sell their homes for half their value. If honourable members care to go to Mount lsa they will see for themselves what happened as a result of the efforts of the honourable member for Hindmarsh and the honourable member for Lalor. One of those gentlemen supports the Victorian Executive and the other is trying to purge that organisation.

Mr Pettitt:

– One is trying to organise a moratorium.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Of course, one Ls concerned with the Vietnam Moratorium, which I will deal with later. Let us look at the Victorian Executive for a moment. A deal has been arranged between the Victorian Executive and the Federal Executive of the Australian Labor Party, which has suddenly realised that the concept of the light on the hil) has to be put aside for the moment. The Australian Labor Party has had to put aside the dedicated Chifley concept of the light of socialism on the hill proposed in 1946. Incidentally, part of that concept was to keep costs down so that we might be able to sell on overseas markets. But the honourable member for Hindmarsh has suddenly given away all those principles. He now wants power. He wants the Australian Labor Party to become the government of Australia. He believes that the greatest impediment to power is the Victorian Executive.

There are 5 groups of different foreign ideology which are powerful in Australia. Two of those groups are strong in the Victorian Executive. The Muscovites have promised the Federal Executive that if it gets rid of the Maoists who are in charge of the Victorian Executive they will back the Federal Executive in dissolving the Victorian Executive. There is to be a meeting of the Federal Executive of the Australian Labor Party on Saturday next to decide whether the Victorian Executive will be dissolved. If this happens there will be a tremendous change because the Muscovites will take over from the Maoists. In other words, there will be a different type of foreign ideology. The honourable member for Brisbane (Mr Cross) is very amused by my remarks. Of course, in his view it pays to be amused because if you accuse someone in Australia of being a red baiter you get some sort of support in the trade unions.

The great philosophers of the Australian Labor Party have suddenly decided that the Party cannot win an election while the Victorian Executive exists in its present form. They now realise that they cannot win an election while a certain Victorian gentleman represents their Party in the other place. The situation with the Victorian Executive is very interesting. It is not elected by the Australian Labor Party branches. It is appointed by the Trade Unions Defence Council. If we look at the Trade Unions Defence Council we see that it is composed of activists - I think this is what they are called - who run the trade unions from the platform at trade union meetings. Laurie Short, who is a pretty good authority, has said that you can run a meeting of a trade union from the platform. The Trade Union Defence Council in Victoria, which is made up of Paisleyites - that is a new term - Muscovites and Maoists, can get a special executive elected. This is the Executive of the Australian Labor Party in Victoria which has told the Victorian Labor Party that if it gets into government it will have to accept day to day direction from the Executive. The Australian Labor Party must cleanse itself of the Maoists, the Muscovites, the Trotskyists and all the other characters who are involved in this great schism in the Federal ideology that runs the Australian Labor Party at the top level.

When the honourable member for Riverina speaks he speaks as a champion of the wine grower, the wheat grower and the wool grower. But most wine growers, wheat growers, wool growers and dairy farmers know about the snarling tiger in the background of the Australian Labor Party - the Victorian Executive. The Victorian Executive for years and years was backed by the Australian Labor Party. However, suddenly the Australian Labor Party was fed up with the Victorian Executive - fed up with the undemocratic appointment of the Victorian Executive. So now we are to have a purge. In other words, we are to have a face-lift for the Australian Labor Party, which has said: Look chaps, we have to take power somehow - by hook or by crook. It cannot do it if the Victorian Executive is still functioning or if the gentlemen who represent it are on this body. The honourable member for Hindmarsh has turned on his palls in the left wing. He wants to destroy the left wing. But what is going to happen? There will just be a little change from the Maoist philosophy to the Muscovite philosophy and we will still have the Victorian Executive. Yet this will be extolled in the Press. The gentlemen in the Press gallery will be saying that the great Australian Labor Party has now changed and that it will no longer represent a foreign ideology. What is meant by foreign ideology?

Mr Griffiths:

– Why do you not talk about something you know something about?

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Very well. One of your colleagues, the honourable member for Riverina, has been talking about the inequities of the Common Market and other things but he did not say anything about the Socialist objective which he signed. He signed an undertaking to socialise the means of production, distribution and exchange. He referred to the troubles in the rural industries and the high costs which, of course, have resulted from the activities of militant unions which have been striking day after day. There is no deterrent to a man refusing his labour. In Australia there is the right to strike. If a union strikes and gets a wage increase of 10 per cent or I2i per cent then its members are that much better off except for the fact that another union will strike. This results in costs going up. This sort of activity is like the dog chasing his tail.

Australia is described as affluent and as being a boom country and a lucky country. However there is no such thing as luck; you make your own luck. We found minerals and we are extracting them. But Australia’s export income is in danger. Already the rural industries have been flattened because of the effects of strikes, rising costs and droughts. I hope that the droughts are over because it is raining at the moment in many parts of Australia. If we have an unstable country and a succession of strikes we will very quickly lose this boom condition that we have at the moment. We will lose foreign investment in Australia because overseas investors would not trust an Australia which was activated by the Hawkes.

Let us consider Mr Bob Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. Somebody said that Mr Hawke cannot lose. Well, to win would be a new experience with him because he lost in the Corio electorate. He stood for the seat of Corio against Mr Opperman and his supporters organised a big victory party. They arranged the usual trappings for a victory party - plenty of gallons of the cup that cheers from the Riverina, some beer and so on - but 1 understand that it was not held and that there are still some problems about paying for it. It would be a new experience for Mr Hawke if he did have a win because he lost when he stood for the seat of Corio. Tt is now held by another member of the Labor Party. The honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes) is another member of the Labor Party who professes moderate tendencies. He won the seat but Mr Hawke lost out. If Mr Hawke succeeds in achieving the things he is trying, then it will be a new experience for him.

Why is Mr Hawke conducting this kind of activity? He is an industrial advocate of some competence and he has suddenly found himself under pressure from the unions to take on the mantle of radical militancy. The foreign ideology which has been operating in Australia has split into 5 and has begun to lose its mantle of militancy. Therefore the Australian Labor

Party and the trade unions themselves are now adopting this mantle. Mr Hawke gets tremendous publicity for his trade union meetings which, as I mentioned earlier, are run from the top table. Normally the boys in charge make the decisions and they get a yes vote from the chaps in the hall. The men in the trade union hall and those members who are not present would not vote for this kind of radical militancy because they know that the minute a Labor Government gains power Australia will be in an impossible situation.

I want to refer honourable members to something that Mr Chifley often said, lt was referred to in Professor Crisp’s book. Mr Chifley said that the moment Australia has a deficit in the balance of payments there will be unemployment. There will be a deficit in Australia’s balance of payments if this militancy continues, if these strikes continue and costs continue to rise. Already the people involved in this kind of activity have flattened the rural industries which sell produce overseas. Soon they will generate a loss of confidence in the great mineral undertakings which are at present nourishing Australia’s balance of payments. Those of us who care for the interests of Australia believe that Australia is in danger. This militancy is being backed by the Australian Labor Party in its desperate bid for power. Of course the Australian Labor Party has generated a situation which will result in the people voting against it. Its members are not yet convinced of this but they will be at a later stage. The Australian Labor Party is generating support for the moratorium. Lel us consider the Vietnam Moratorium Campaign. We understand that an honourable member on the Opposition side of the chamber has invited representatives of the National Liberation Front to come to Australia to take part in the Vietnam Moratorium. A member of the Australian Labor Party has asked a member of the National Liberation Front, or its representatives, to come here.

Mr King:

– Which member?

Mr JEFF BATE:

– The honourable member for Lalor. I understand that after 10 days consideration he has been denounced by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam). The honourable member for Lalor asked a member of the National

Liberation Front to come to Australia. This group - the National Liberation Front, the Vietcong, North Vietnam, Hanoi or whatever you like to call it - has stated, through its spokesman, that it will conquer the world by using the peasant guerrillas in the jungles of South East Asia. Eventually this involves Indonesia and Australia. That statement means that these people aim to conquer the world. They aim to take over Australia and the South West Pacific. A representative of this group is being invited to Australia by representatives of the Australian Labor Party to attend a meeting of or a demonstration for the Vietnam Moratorium. A few years ago this situation would have been described as treachery to the well-being of Australia.

There is a demand for us to defend this country, to keep it for Australians and to ensure that peace is ours. There is a demand that we control this country and run it in our own way. Yet there are people on the Victorian Executive of the Australian Labor Party who read the great sayings of Marx, Lenin, Mao, Trotsky and all the others and who, through their magnificent organisation in the trade unions, are starting a movement aimed at defeating Australia’s resolution to defend itself. This is the real picture revealed in the Budget. The Australian Council of Trade Unions suggests that there be a protest. If one reads the reports of the last meeting of the ACTU in 1969 one finds that there was an almost emotional request for taxation deductions but nothing about pensions. When taxation deductions were announced there was an immediate protest about pensions. If the Budget had included increased pensions there would have been a tremendous protest about taxation deductions. There was to be a protest anyway and the subject of it did not matter. It did not matter that they asked for tax reductions and got them. They swung to something else, If there had been a big rise in pensions they would have swung to something else. This was not a protest to improve conditions and pay of workers, for which the trade unions were formed. It was a protest to get political power for the Australian Labor Party, for the Leader of the Opposition and for Mr Hawke, if he can win a seat some time after having failed in Corio. An honourable member has interjected about a foreign ideology. It is clear that in Australia there is a foreign ideology - an absolute enemy of Australia - that wants to control the whole world. It is an ideology which, it has been stated publicly in writing and has been signed, can win the world through the peasants and guerillas in the jungles of South Vietnam and now in Cambodia. This is the ideology which is seeking to control Australia through its minions in the Australian Labor Party.

We have all seen the new members coming into the Parliament. They have been chosen not for their brilliance but for their loyalty; chosen because they have signed the pledge; chosen so that they will carry out the dictates of the Federal Executive, which has now changed, of course, and of the various State executives which control their pre-selection. When the Federal Executive speaks the Parliamentary Labor Party has to jump to its dictates. There are now 3 or 4 members of the Parliamentary Labor Party on the Federal Executive and there has been a change. The old Federal Executive wanted to carry out the written policy of the Australian Labor Party which provided for the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and, of course, obedience to the dictates of the foreign ideology which rules the Victorian Executive and is moving into the New South Wales Executive and other executives. Now we have a different kind of Federal Executive. Members of it are the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard), the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate (Senator Murphy), his Deputy Leader (Senator Willesee), the honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley) and the honourable member for Hindmarsh.

These gentlemen have persuaded the Federal Executive to dress up the Labor Party, to give it a face lift and to make it appear possible that it could govern in the interests of the people of Australia. This is what is going on.

Mr Graham:

– It sounds like ‘Little Red Riding Hood’.

Mr JEFF BATE:

– Big Bad Wolf is smiling in the background, clad in grandma’s cloak. There is no doubt about this. This is what we are witnessing. Honourable members opposite go to flower shows and to meetings. They shake hands with Mrs Bloggs and do all these things but in the background is the Big Bad Wolf who comes from Peking, Moscow, the poor old Trotskyites or the building labourers who have a slogan ‘Occupy and Destroy’. Their policy is to have a strike, to go into an 8- storey building, pull it down and then say: Well, this is part of our freedom. We built it for pay: now we are pulling it down for no pay.’ This, of course, is what is going on with people of this kind. The people of Australia have shown at elections that they are pretty wise and that they are not going to be caught by this kind of face lift, this kind of activitity, in the Victorian Executive. The attack on this Budget is the product of the militants in the alternative government which would destroy, betray and be treacherous to us.

Mr CROSS:
Brisbane

– 1 feel obliged, somewhat reluctantly, to spend some small portion of the time allotted to me in replying to some of the things that were said by the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Jeff Bate). His electorate bears the distinguished name of a person who was noted for his activities in the field of wool growing - he was a pioneer in this field - just as the honourable member for Macarthur is noted for wool gathering. He represents a great rural electorate and the rural sector of the economy is not without its problems. We learned with some interest from the honourable member that the problems of the wool industry are brought about principally by the policies of the Australian Labor Party as espoused by the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby) and a few others. I find this rather interesting. The Australian Labor Party has been out of government in this Parliament for over 20 years.

I do not normally make personal allusions to honourable members, as I think you will agree, Mr Deputy Speaker, but the honourable member for Macarthur took the opportunity to direct attention to the fact that the honourable member who preceded him in the debate left the chamber . when he started to speak. I draw attention to the fact that the honourable member for Macarthur has followed the same practice and has left the chamber. The point I make is that the honourable member for Macarthur, who represents a great rural constituency - a great dairying constituency - at no time during his speech raised any specific matter which would be of advantage to the people of his electorate. On the other hand he referred to the situation in the trade union movement - more particularly the situation in the Victorian Branch of the Australian Labor Party. He mentioned demonstrations in the streets and foreign ideologies, and he made some derogatory references to newly elected members of the Australian Labor Party in this House. it is true that there has been much unrest in the Australian community. The reason for this is, of course, 20. years of Liberal and Country Party government. If there are tensions in the Australian community; if there are people who are dissatisfied with the way in which the affairs of Australia are being conducted; and if there are people demonstrating in the streets and breaking the law, surely it is the responsibility of the Government which has been in office for 20 years that such a set of circumstances has developed in which these things are happening. Just for the sake of setting the record straight I should say that the Australian Labor Party espouses no foreign ideology: It encourages and fights for a respect for law and order. Individuals in all parties do things, at times, that we may not agree with, but no member of the Australian Labor Party has encouraged violence in the streets. Of course, a number of demonstrations has taken place in recent times. The honourable member for Macarthur made no mention of those occasions when farmers demonstrated in the various capital cities. I would be interested to know what ideology motivated these gentlemen from the soil in carrying out demonstrations to register their protest at the way in which governments of the colour of the Government in this House and in the States have treated primary industry.

I return now to the Budget to deal more particularly with the way it affects the people in the Federal Division of Brisbane whom I have the honour to represent. This Budget has not been well received. We were told that the two previous Budgets were social welfare Budgets. The Prime Minister (Mr Gorton), the Minister for Social Services (Mr Wentworth) and others told us that they were social welfare Budgets. At that time it seemed to them to be the tight thing to have but now, of course, the Government has decided to acquire a new reputation: It is now a tax concession government. I believe that the Budget is a shocking document because the whole question of tax concessions and redistributing income to those people who need it most is a sham. I will, perhaps, spend some time dealing in more detail with some of these situations.

The Brisbane Division contains many elderly people and many pensioners. At the other end of the age range it has a fairly small percentage of children, far below the Queensland and national averages. Many of these pensioners have expressed great concern to me about the very small increase of 50c made to most of the pensions in the current Budget. I am referring not only to social service pensioners but also to those men and women who have served their country in two world wars and in other wars in which we subsequently have been involved and who receive this same measly increase of 50c a week. The only substantial increase in the social services field was in the long term sickness benefit. People who are unfortunate enough to be receiving the sickness benefit for more than 6 weeks will now receive an additional $5.50 a week and an entitlement to a supplementary allowance if they pay rent. Certainly this is a useful increase and I for one appreciate this lone increase in social services.

But the problem remains for all those other people whose income comes entirely from the Department of Social Services or the Repatriation Department or whose alternative income or additional income merely consists of savings or a small superannuation. Let us look at the position of these people. First, to make up for the fall in the value of money throughout the year, an increase of $1 in the pension would have been justified. I do not think any government should introduce a Budget which makes pensioners worse off in terms of purchasing power than they were a year earlier when the previous Budget was introduced. After all, a Budget should not only redress the disadvantages that have occurred to pensioners in the previous year but should also add some margin to cover the year ahead when similar disadvantages will occur.

Indeed, the Budget imposes some of the disadvantages to which 1 am referring. An age pensioner receiving a full age pension, an A class widow receiving a full widow’s pension or an invalid pensioner receiving a full pension will under this Budget receive an increase of 50c a week in their pensions. But a pensioner may have a telephone installed. The rental on that telephone is to go up by $4.68 for the year. So 9 weeks of the increase made in the pensions in the Budget and an additional 18c will go into paying the telephone rental increases imposed in the same Budget. Most postal charges are to go up by lc. I agree that to most pensioners this would not be an inordinate amount to pay, but it is still part of the increase in costs. Customs and excise duty on cigarettes and tobacco has gone up and excise on motor spirit has been increased by 3c a gallon. In addition, sales tax on a whole range of items has gone up from 25 per cent to 27i per cent. These are the increases that the Government has brought down as part of its programme for the coming year.

In addition to this, the effect of the Budget on the general community will be to increase rates and taxes at State and local levels and of course rents will go up. Pensioners have come to my office in the last few days and pointed out the anomalous position with regard to the payment of the increased pension. They have said to me: ‘It is all very well, but can you get us the increase straight away. Immediately the Budget came out and our landlord found we were to get an extra 50c a week he put up our rent by 50c a week, but we do not get the increase in pension until October’. Every man in this House knows this is the sort of thing that goes on from one end of Australia to the other.

The Australian Labor Party at the last election put forward a policy for increasing the pension by $1 in February of this year and by $1 in this Budget with a view to bringing the pension up to one-quarter of average weekly male earnings. At the last Federal election we intended to take the pension progressively up to $18.50, and it would have been closer to $20 today had we been put in office. So if Labor had been returned at the last election pensions would have been substantially better off than they are. I believe that the Government has miscalculated the degree of concern in the Australian community for people on pensions, people on small incomes from superannuation and people on fixed incomes. The Government has concentrated on tax concessions; it has granted concessions to people with annual incomes up to $32,000. The Prime Minister in his policy speech said that his Government would bring in income tax concessions for people on low and middle incomes, it is interesting to see that the Prime Minister has extended the concessions as far as people on $32,000 a year. 1 would have hoped that the Government would have made meaningful concessions to people earning, say, under $5000 a year. It could have done this, because the commitment that the Prime Minister made in his policy speech was to bring about tax reforms over a 3 year programme. Surely it would have been much better to make more modest concession in the income tax of people on over $10,000 a year and to put more value into social service payments. lt is not only the pensioner but also the man on a fairly small income or on a middle income, say a person under $5,000 a year, who will be affected by the Budget. Lel us look at the effect of the Budget on him. The reduction in tax for a taxpayer with an annual taxable income of $2,500 will be $32.90. For a man with a taxable income of $3,000 a year the reduction will be $46.12 and for a man on $3,500 a year the reduction will be $60.58. That means that the person on the basic wage or a little more will receive less under these tax concessions than the pensioner will receive from this Budget. This man, very often a family man with children to keep at school, a wife to maintain and a house to rent or pay off, will face increases in sales tax and in the cost of a telephone - it will be $7 a year for him - which the Budget imposes. lt is of the nature of things in a Budget debate that we draw attention to anomalies and things that are not covered by the Budget. I would like to mention 2 cases in the social services field. One relates to farmers affected by drought. One of the things that interest me in this place is that this Liberal-Country Party coalition Government has been in office for so long and yet so many problems associated with rural industries have not been solved - for instance, the problems of finance, i know that no-one will solve the problems of drought. But generally speaking a farmer or. for that matter, a business man with a small business who becomes ill, even for a long period, has no entitlement to social service benefits because he is a self employed person. When we get a drought situation such as exists today in western Queensland, north western New South Wales and throughout the Northern Territory there should be some way - I do not think it is beyond the power of our legal people and legislators to work out the appropriate ways - by which unemployment benefit can be paid to people in rural industries. I know that the Queensland Treasury in times of drought may give concessions to rail transport for starving stock and for fodder and in other ways. Surely it should be possible to do something for the men on the land who are normally self employed but who by virture of the drought are not earning anything and who also by virtue of the drought are not able to dispose of their properties or the other assets that they have.

I would like to raise another anomaly in the social services field, ft is one that I have referred to the Minister for Social Services on several occasions, and it relates to people who come to this country from Australian Territories after having been there for a considerable period. We all know that the Social Services Act provides that one should live and be taxed in this country for 10 years before being entitled to an age pension. A person who came to Australia healthy and actually worked, hut who suffered an accident or became ill, becomes entitled to an invalid pension after having been in Australia for only 5 years.

But I know of a case - and I would not think there would be very many people in exactly the same position- of a man who is now 75 years of age and who is a naturalised Australian citizen, having been naturalised in 1962. He previously lived in New Guinea. He came to Australia in April 1968 and at that time he had a certain amount of money in the bank. He had been in New Guinea for 11 years and paid tax there but not actually to the Australian Treasury. He is in the position that he cannot be assisted by an age pension until be has been in this country for 10 years. He cannot be assisted by an invalid pension at the end of 5 years because he has not worked in this country.

The only form of assistance available to him is the special benefit of $10 a week - now $10.50 a week under the present Budget. But in order to bring this about this man has to be destitute. The sad part about our social services system is that problems are solved only in the mass. There are plenty of small anomalies under the social services legislation whereby people are excluded from any assistance at all. I have mentioned the case of the farmer in a drought situation. I have also mentioned the case of this gentleman whose name I will not state but it is well known to the Minister for Social Services. This man spent a considerable period in New Guinea carrying out work which was very important to Australia and an Australian territory. I think it is an anomalous position. In fact, it is a shocking situation that he has to be destitute before anything can be done for him. When he gets down to having $100 in the bank he can then get the princely sum of $10.50 a week. This has to last him until April 1978 when he will have the age pension entitlement. At that point of time this man would be 83. Our social services system recognises that people, through hard work and prudence, may accumulate a certain amount of capital. A person can have $5,600 in the bank but no income and still draw a full pension. It seems to me an anomalous position that a person who has come to this country after having served in an Australian territory and having a modest degree of savings has to render himself destitute before he can be assisted.

Of course, there is also the question of child endowment which has not been increased. The Government has made taxation concessions principally to people who on the standards by which I have been brought up would be regarded as having large incomes. But there are ways in which people on low incomes could have been helped. One of them is by an increase in child endowment and another, of course, is an increase in the allowable deductions for wife and children. The Federal electorate of Brisbane has a substantial number of elderly people. It also has a substantial number of nursing homes, as we call them.

I very much regret that the Budget does not give any increase in the general rate of subsidy for patients in nursing homes. The subsidy has remained at $2 a day since 1953, with the exception of the intensive care subsidy which has been increased to $5 a day for people who require a greater amount of nursing. I think this increase was granted in the Budget about 2 years ago. When this legislation was first brought down by the Government in the early 1950s I was one of those people who were fairly sceptical about the setting up of private nursing homes and convalescent homes with Government assistance to do the work that had been previously carried out by organisations such as Eventide Home in Sandgate, which is in the electorate of the honourable member for Lilley (Mr Kevin Cairns), and similar institutions throughout Australia.

I have seen conditions as a result of collecting postal votes and from many other contacts before I was elected to Parliament and since. Because of the problems that are raised to me as a member of Parliament I have seen that the small nursing home does a good job. It provides a degree of contact with the local community which is not possible in the case of a large institution situated 20 or 30 miles away. A great number of nursing homes have been built and a great measure of capital is going into them at the moment. Many people have found that it is highly profitable to build a nursing home to cater for 100 or 150 patients. I wonder whether this sort of enterprise is not defeating some of the positive features of the nursing home scheme. It seems to me that a nursing home which caters for fewer than 40 patients best produces that relationship of personal care and friendly atmosphere - the lack of an institutional atmosphere which we regret to note in some of the larger institutions run by State governments. There is a very real need for an increase in the subsidy paid to those people who are inmates of nursing homes.

Recently in Queensland substantial increases in salaries were paid to nurses. I do not think there would be any person in the Queensland community or in this House who was not pleased to see this. We have had a great problem in the nursing profession right throughout Australia because of the low level of remuneration to these young girls. Many of them - perhaps most of them - approach their work with a great deal of dedication and sacrifice in terms of long hours worked. Sometimes, too, they work under poor working conditions. But the result of this increased remuneration has been that many elderly people are calling on their sons and daughters to help maintain them in nursing homes. In some cases nursing homes have evicted some of these old people, and there are record waiting lists for all of the State government institutions and various institutions conducted by churches and charitable concerns. So I would like to express my concern and regret that no increase was made in this Budget in the subsidy paid in respect of people living in nursing homes. I feel it is one of the greatest anomalies of this Budget and it certainly affects a great number of people with whom I have had contact over recent times.

There is another matter which is of concern to Commonwealth public servants, namely that there is no increase in this Budget in the rate of superannuation paid, despite the fact that the Government some years ago said that it would increase and adjust superannuation on a notional salary basis from time to time. It is several years - I think it was in 1967 - since that was last done, and many Commonwealth public servants, particularly those who retired a great number of years ago and whose superannuation is only small, are suffering from the same discrimination from which the pensioners suffer, excepting that in many cases they do not receive such concessions as rate concessions and concessions on the registration of motor vehicles that pensioners frequently receive.

In the short time available to me I would like to mention briefly 2 other points. I support the remarks made by my colleagues the honourable members for Bowman (Mr Keogh) and Ryan (Mr Drury) in which they sought further financial assistance for the University of Queensland to overcome the very serious problems of overcrowding and the unsatisfactory staff-student ratio at the University of Queensland at St Lucia. I wish to draw attention also to the anomaly whereby the university at Mount Gravatt - the so called Griffith University - which was to have been admitting students now will obviously not be built until 1978 or later.

Finally, I would like to register my concern that no appropriation is proposed in this Budget for the Eagle Farm Airport. We in Queensland have been waiting for a long time to have something done at Eagle Farm, not just for the sake of giving us a more attractive and beautiful air terminal - however important that is to a tourist State such as Queensland - but also because the moving of these facilities to the other end of the airport will be a very important factor in reducing the level of noise and inconvenience to people in the area. We see that an additional amount of over$1 5m is to be appropriated for expenditure at Tullamarine in Melbourne. For my part I should like to register my concern as the member representing the federal division of Brisbane - and I think 1 speak on behalf of all metropolitan members from Brisbane - that no start has been made on the Eagle Farm terminal. We have been told that that this project will be completed by 1975. Because of the time that has been shown to be necessary for the development of the new facilities at Sydney and at Tullamarine, it is obvious that the Government has broken its undertaking in this matter, as it has in so many other matters.

Mr ROBINSON:
Cowper

– Let me begin by congratulating the Treasurer (Mr Bury) on his first Budget. As usual, of course, we have heard and will continue to hear throughout this debate a barrage against the Budget from Opposition members. No constructive budget is ever popular, yet judged against the economic conditions which exist this Budget is less restrictive than the nation expected. Economic writers, Press tipsters and many others painted a gloomy picture indeed in the weeks leading up to the presentation of the Budget. But they were wrong. I am sure that the Opposition is disappointed that more restraint is not contained in the Budget. It sees this as an opportunity to cash in on the nation’s problems for political gain. The Opposition has been proved wrong once again.

This afternoon, we listened to the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby). The ‘modern Messiah’ might be a better description of him. He went to great lengths to tell us of the problems which plague the rural industries of this nation. But did he propose any fundamental cure for these problems? Certainly he did

Dot. He ranted and raved as he has done on several previous occasions, following precisely the same theme that he has developed on those earlier occasions - with one modern addition. He described the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr McEwen) as a man of gloom. The Gloomy Dean’, I think he described him. He went on to say that the Minister for Trade and Industry had had his last grand tour around the world to try to solve our problems. Then the honourable member for Riverina reflected in a very, very shabby manner his lack of appreciation, understanding or grip of the circumstances as we find them when he referred to the proposal that we, as a nation, should raise these tremendous problems with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade as approaching GATT for ‘uncertain mercy’. The honourable member said that no hope was to be found in this direction.

He went on to eulogise his own prowess, as someone who - perhaps he alone believes - could solve these problems by going straight to the major trading nations of Europe and North America and saying: Look, you fellows are all wrong. We are very good customers. We want a new deal and that new deal should take into account that our trading is running at approximately 2 to 1 on our favour purely on an arithmetical dollar basis as expressed in terms of trading. This is good and sufficient reason for you to change completely our trading arrangements and to renegotiate the whole of the framework of Australia’s overseas trade’. What sheer humbug and utter rot to talk in this Parliament!

First and foremost, 1 think that it must be recognised that we, although a large primary producing nation, do not possess a big stick which we can brandish at other countries and say threateningly: ‘Look, we have the power; you do as we say’. The fundamental of trade negotiations is no different from the fundamental of business negotiations, the ordinary ways and means of livelihood in this nation or any other nation. The sooner the honourable member for Riverina realises this the better it will be because he is letting his constituents down and he is misleading the people of Australia who happen to listen to him in this matter. He is misleading them because he is painting a picture of inactivity on the part of the Government. He is claiming failure on the part of the Government. He is quite wrong. At no point in time has he recognised the real problems. I wish, as briefly as I can, to deal with some of these difficulties. 1 have said that the Budget is less restrictive than the nation expected. I wish to express now a view on the problems which Australia faces. It is true, as the Treasury survey entitled The Australian Economy - 1970’ states that expectations of growth in the 1970s are great indeed. The performance of the Australian economy in the inaugural year of the decade will not belie these hopes. However, droughts in Queensland, northern New South Wales and Western Australia, lower wool prices, the constraints of marketing difficulties in respect of the wheat crop, the non-profitable prices for dairy products and the difficulties of small crop growers - be they banana growers, fruit growers or small agriculturalists - have produced a devastating scene on the rural side. However, the aggregate of other forms of production showed a notable gain. The cities and the industrial areas are booming. Yet the countryside is in chaos.

It is true that employment is running at a higher level today than ever before. This is to the credit of the Government. On the other band, when we look at the problems as we find them caused by the pure circumstances of international trade and of productivity in this country which have affected the rural scene, we see that there is chaos in the country. Let me quote relative figures which, I believe, spell out crystal clear the position in which we find ourselves and which we face in Australia today.

Gross national product at factor cost and the percentage change each year since 1966 reveals that the non-farm sector has risen gradually from 8.8 per cent in 1966-67 to 12.3 per cent in the first threequarters of 1969-70. Yet, if we look at the farm sector figures we see dramatic changes beginning in 1966-67 with a 20.5 per cent situation, a position of minus 21.9 per cent in 1967-68, a figure of 27.8 per cent in 1968-69 brought about by the huge wheat crop and then, because of the effects of severe drought, a figure of minus 12.5 per cent for the first three-quarters of 1969-70. What does this mean? It spells

Out very clearly that there is buoyancy on the one hand and great difficulty on the Other.

During the past decade, prices received by Australian farmers on the domestic market have tended upwards. On the other hand, export prices have moved downwards with some particularly marked declines occurring since 1963-64. The overall result has been that the average price received by farmers has changed little in this period while prices paid by farmers have increased at an annual average rate of 2i per cent since 1960-61. Movements in prices received by Australian farmers are the result of the demand and supply forces in both the domestic and overseas markets. But, for the majority of products, export prices are of first importance. This is because of the great bulk commodities of wheat, woof and so on which go onto the export market.

Technological developments have presented farmers with the opportunity to expand their output considerably. This responsibility has been encouraged by the effect on prices of relatively inflexible demand and the existence of a market structure in the farming industries which has encouraged individual producers to expand output even though such action must have been against their interests. Further, the highly competitive nature of farming means that any technological advance is rapidly and widely accepted. This is true of Australian farmers whose efficiency is without question despite criticism that inefficiency has occurred.

The result has been that the output of farm commodities has grown at a faster rate than demand. This has created a strong downward pressure on prices. In Europe and North America, which are high income countries, highly protective agricultural policies have been adopted in an attempt to shield farmers against the cost price squeeze. I do not think that the honourable member for Riverina even knows about this fact. If he does, he did not admit it this afternoon. Economic growth and the resulting increase in real income per head have led to an upward trend in the price of labour as well as goods and services. The Australian farmer thus has been faced with a steady and, in total, steep rise in production costs. For those export producers who rely principally upon prices on overseas markets over which they have no control, the result has been a narrowing of the margin between prices received and prices paid.

The effect on primary producers has been very severe indeed, as I said a moment ago. An indication of the effect of this cost price squeeze can be obtained by comparing the movement in average real net farm incomes with average real incomes accruing in non-farming selfemployed sectors and the average real income per wage and salary earner.

Since 1960-61 the incomes of selfemployed and wage and salary earners have risen at an average annual rate of something less than 3 per cent whilst farm incomes have fluctuated, without showing a marked upward or downward trend. The ratio of farm incomes to non-farm incomes has declined. Assistance to farmers to best serve the economic interests of the countryside has been in the form of attempts to hinder the movements of cost pressures. Many proposals have been implemented by this Government. Not the least of these were to make available more credit to farmers; to assist through the Commonwealth Development Bank and the farm loan fund; to hold down interest rates at a preferred rate - which is a tremendous help but does not solve the problem; and such measures as the proposed marginal dairy farm reconstruction scheme. That is the kind of assistance which is achieving the transfer of resources to a basis which will better equip the farmer to meet the problems with which he is confronted.

But what do we see today in Australia? Despite these efforts and this approach to the problems we see on the broad spectrum a situation which reflects that we are almost two nations, one rural and one urban, with separate problems, separate solutions and separate destinies. But in fact we are one nation, and we should realise this. However, the Opposition, the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Mr Hawke, and so many others would have the situation the other way. They would like to see a 2-nation approach to these problems. They would like to see the community split right down the middle and the farmers left completely out of the progress and prosperity of this country. I would remind the honourable member for Riverina of something that 1 read the other day. I have no doubt at all as to the facts. The Labor Party met in Caucus and apparently it was proposed to move a motion of urgency in this House on rural problems. What happened? There was a split vote - 34 each side - as to whether the problems of rural industries were worth the time of the Labor Party in this House. What has the honourable member for Riverina to say about that? It is real evidence that there is no concern on the total front of the Labor Party, and certainly there is no concern on the total front of the trade union movement, for rural industries in their great fight for survival.

The honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Jeff Bate) disposed of this argument very effectively earlier in the debate this afternoon. 1 do not propose to take time dwelling upon it. Suffice to say that there is a task which concerns this nation and which the Government is taking very seriously. I point out that the Budget has provided a greater degree of assistance for rural industries than has any previous Budget. I believe that the pattern set in the Budget is but the beginning of the tremendous task which has to be undertaken, and is being undertaken, to save the countryside in this day and age. If primary industry collapses then the rest of the country, and everyone in it, will suffer great harm and feel the consequences most severely. There is great danger that the economy - the security of the nation which is basically dependent and will continue for many years to be dependent on the wealth of rural industries - is being undermined slowly but surely by those who do not have a proper regard or a proper concern for the farmers and the primary industries. We must get away from the tendency to think that the countryside can look after itself.

The Budget provides a basis for a movement forward to help the problems of rural industry. The provision for rural industry has increased by more than 55 per cent on last year, which is the biggest percentage increase of any section of the Budget. This assistance includes an emergency grant of $30m to help the wool growers: S29m for wool promotion and research: S2.9m towards the costs associated with price averaging: and 3650,000 for research into pre-sale objectives and wool measurement. I do not represent a wool growing electorate but I am one who, along with primary producers throughout the nation, recognises the great problems of the wool industry. At the same time I recognise that there are other industries. In the main my concern is for those other industries. Direct financial assistance for the wheat industry under the stabilisation plan amounts to $30m in the Budget; there is $45m for the dairy industry; $56.5m for fertiliser bounties; $21m for devaluation compensation; and $3. 8m for agricultural research. These are but a few of the significant points that the Budget discloses in the great task that the Government has undertaken, to try to salvage and assist the rural industries. There are those who say: ‘Why did the Government leave it until now? Why did the Government not act at an earlier time? Why did it fail to foresee these problems?’ The answer is a pretty simple one. The Government did foresee these problems, lt did attempt from time to time to introduce new approaches. About 3 years ago the Government p,1 forward a proposition for the wool industry which was sponsored, very strongly, by the industry. It was voted out by the wool growers. I ask: ‘Whose fault was that?’ It was certainly not the fault of this Government. I could enumerate many other examples of attempts made to assist the wool industry.

Dr Patterson:

– It was the fault of the Liberal Party.

Mr ROBINSON:

– The honourable member for Dawson is a great advocate of reform after the job has been done. He opposed everything that was put forward by the Minister for Trade and Industry to assist the sugar industry in its time of dire trouble. Now he comes in and says what a remarkable industry the sugar industry is; it is the best organised industry in Australia; it sets a pattern; it is an example we should follow. He said this in his speech on a recent discussion of a matter of public importance. Yet in earlier debates in this House every move the Government made was wrong, according to the honourable member. He said that the Government did not know how to tackle the problems of the sugar industry. I would say to the honourable member for Dawson that he is yet another calamity howler who says that the Government has not acted as it should have and does not know how to do its job. The honourable member is never prepared to recognise what is being done.

In the last few minutes available to me I want to cover briefly one or two other points. It is ray firm belief that the answer to the problems of primary industry is that we must have a sound base from which to move forward and deal with these problems. It requires determined recognition of the importance of world production control. To exercise production control and bring it into the balance of productivity realisations in a way that will accord with price return, much effort, co-operation and ingenuity is required. There was and still is a tremendous problem in the wheat industry. It will not be solved simply by introducing quotas. The Government admits that quite readily; it always has. The same will apply to the dairy industry. A plan for the management of that industry will have to emerge during the next year or so. I say quite categorically that other forms or assistance proposed by this Government will make these approaches possible. 1 am delighted to know that the dairy industry reconstruction scheme has been accepted by 3 States, Tasmania, Western Australia and Queensland. I am disappointed that my own State, New South Wales, has not yet accepted this very important scheme. I hope it will do so within the next few weeks because every day lost means further detriment to the industry. In the case of the wool industry the proposed $30m assistance scheme is purely stop-gap and the other measures of marketing and so on that have been proposed will have to be quickly implemented. I hope that this matter of striking a balance between productivity and price return realisation will be taken into account because it provides the only answer to this problem unless massive sums of money can be raised to pay out unprofitable production or to dump the produce somewhere around the world if. in fact, it. is even moved off the farms.

There is no other solution beyond, of course, the very worthy objective of transferring all the available production for utilisation in under-developed nations. A tremendous amount has already been accomplished in this direction and there is no further field of opportunity of great magnitude that one can seek. This is recognised by world traders and the major nations. There is no hope for any primary industry that just goes on producing without recognising that there is a limit that should be set on a programme of productivity. There is no doubt at all that these are the factors that will be taken into account in the negotiations that, I am sure, will be launched at the hand of the Minister for Trade and Industry with GATT to try and bring about a better understanding of where we are going with the European Economic Community problem. A better understanding is needed not only by this country but also by our sister country, New Zealand, as well as Canada, the United States and all other traders in the great bulk commodities which will be so adversely affected if the European Economic Community proceeds on the course it has already set and which it has not, at this point of time anyhow, indicated it will moderate in any way. These are the important considerations and I am sure that this Budget provides a basts from which there can be a very effective approach to these problems.

In the field of social welfare there can be some disappointment with what is provided by the Budget. Again it is a matter of national resources. How far can the Government go in providing assistance in these fields? I would like to have seen the pensioners receive more than 50c, but a $22m outlay for every 50c is a very considerable sum of national expenditure. In the fields of decentralisation and development 1 would like to have seen massive sums provided. It would be a matter in this Budget of choosing between the necessary assistance for primary industry and the desirable assistance to other industries. The field of local government deserves financial help but it can be given only if the Government has the resources available. The Government has to take into account on the other side of the balance sheet the effect of such expenditure on the economy from the point of view of inflation. These are all important considerations. They cannot be glossed over merely by saying that the Government has introduced a sleight of hand Budget, that the Government could have acted in some other way. Someone has to take the responsibility. Every critic fa prepared to point to things he believes have not been done but very few are prepared to say what they would have done as an alternative to this Budget.

I support the Budget. I deprecate the Opposition’s very poor criticism of it and the lack of consistency shown by the Opposition in the manner in which it has attempted to deal with the Budget on this occasion. I suggest that the action taken in this Budget is the right approach to the national economy. It is yet another sound, responsible and proper approach to the needs and aspirations of this nation.

Dr PATTERSON:
Dawson

– I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock)Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Dr PATTERSON:

– Yes. The honourable member for Cowper (Mr Robinson) stated quite clearly that 1 had opposed every move by the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Mc Ewen) with respect to the sugar industry when it was in trouble. For the record, that is not true.

Mr Hulme:

– You have a thin skin.

Dr PATTERSON:

– To satisfy the postmaster-General 1 state that what I did oppose on every occasion was the Government’s penalising of the sugar industry by the imposition of high interest bearing loans.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Dawson said the honourable member for Cowper had misrepresented him. He is now making a general comment. Were the alleged remarks referred to by the honourable member for Cowper made by the honourable member for Dawson during a speech in this House?

Dr PATTERSON:

– No. The honourable member for Cowper knows it was not true.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-The honourable member for Dawson is going outside the limits of a personal explanation. [Quorum formed]

Mr BARNARD:
Deputy Leader of the Opposition · Bass

– The Budget proposes a defence vote of $l,137m. This is slightly higher than last year’s spending. The incidence of overseas spending is about the same as last year with approximately $233m flowing overseas. I do not want to examine in detail the strategic comments of the Treasurer (Mr Bury). The Minister for Defence (Mr Malcolm Fraser) made a comprehensive statement on these aspects in March and his remarks were fully canvassed in this House. It is reasonable to assume the Minister wilt make a similar statement either late this session or early next year. In future the defence vote will be susceptible to the impact of the 5-year rolling defence programme. It is too early to judge what effect the new system of planning will have on defence spending and administration. In the past I have expressed some scepticism about the nature of the changes, but the new scheme should be given a chance to prove its effectiveness. The House will have a better opportunity to look at the new concepts of programming and planning in the Department of Defence after the defence report which I understand outlines the organisation in some detail.

The first significant point to be noted about the defence vote is that it represents a lower share of total Commonwealth spending. The estimate of defence spending in the current financial year is about 14.4 per cent of Commonwealth spending, compared with 15.56 per cent of spending last year. As a percentage of the gross national product defence spending is fairly steady at around 3.7 per cent. Opinions may vary on what is an acceptable level of defence spending, bearing in mind the need to allocate resources over a host of Commonwealth agencies, ft does not accord with repeated statements by successive Treasurers and Ministers for Defence that there would be a steady increase in defence spending in the interests of long-term security. This year’s planned spending does not bear this contention out. This defence spending contains a disguised element - the Vietnam war.

There has never in any Budget been an attempt to assess the impact of Vietnam on the defence budget. The Government has usually given the cost of the Vietnam war as the simple accounting difference between the cost of maintaining the task force and the other units in Vietnam and the cost of keeping them in Australia. On this sort of calculation the cost of the Vietnam war to Australia is usually given at around $40m a year. But obviously there are hidden costs which have never been assessed and attributed to Vietnam. Certainly the defence forces had to be built up and reequipped in the early 1960s.

The Government had adopted a deliberate policy of letting them run down so resources could be diverted elsewhere. Inevitably with the employment of such a policy the stage is reached where the forces either have to be regenerated or they have to be disbanded altogether. This was the state of atrophy reached in the early 1960s and no responsible government could tolerate, the degree of deterioration which had developed as a deliberate choice of policy.

Unfortunately the need for rebuilding and re-equipping was distorted by two things: the expedient resort to selective conscription, then the tragic commitment to the Vietnam war. This has meant that resources which should have flowed to reequipment and to improving pay and conditions of service were switched to the national service machinery and to the prosecution of the war. This makes it impossible to sift out from the items of defence spending how much was unavoidable spending on re-equipment and how much was spending generated by the conduct of the war.

With the course of the war changed dramatically in the past 2 years and with the Government reluctantly acting to liquidate the commitment, there are signs that again the Government will put the squeeze on essential defence spending. This shows up in the estimates for pay and equipment in each of the three Services. There is not the slightest indication in the Budget that significant expenditure is to be incurred on improving military salaries or essential items such as housing.

The table on the defence services at the end of the Treasurer’s Budget Speech is most revealing in this aspect, lt shows that the estimate for spending on :i Vii salaries in the Department of Defence is up by 14 per cent. In the other Service department manned by civilians, the Department of Supply, civil salaries are estimated to rise by around 10 per cent. In the three Service departments, Army, Air and Navy, Service pay and civil salaries are lumped together. Here the total increase for the 3 departments is less than 6 per cent.

It is reasonable to assume that civil workers in the Service departments would be getting comparable salary increases to their colleagues in the departments of Defence and Supply. Yet the overall increase because of new awards, determi nations and approvals is substnatially less. Quite plainly this difference in relativity derived from the heavy weighting of Service pay and increases here are so negligible or even non-existent that the whole relativity of these departments is dragged far below the increased estimates for the civil departments. This whole question of Service pay compared to comparable civilian employment has erupted in the past few weeks. It can only continue to be a serious embarrassment to the Government and a potential threat to the structure of the Services.

Unless improvements to Service pay and conditions are made quickly, there will be hundreds of officers and enlisted men voting with their feet and returning to civilian employment. This is one of the lethal after-effects of conscription; a Government can ignore Service pay and conditions if it has the national service machinery geared and well-oiled. It is also one of the consequences of the commitment to a bad war and the pointless luxury of stationing Australian troops in Singapore.

There are other elements of defence spending which show the influence of these distorting elements. Spending on naval construction is down quite sharply from $33m in 1969-70 to $14m in 1970-71. There may be specific reasons for this very great decrease but it is hard to reconcile with the emphasis on expansion in the March speech of the Minister for Defence.

Also, there is no indication in the Budget of any significant commitment for the Cockburn Sound base. It is not mentioned in either the Treasurer’s speech or the attached documents. This seems significant because works projects such as the Royal Australian Navy receiving station at Darwin, the Army Aviation Centre at Oakey and the Learmonth airfield get specific mention in the Treasurer’s statement. No doubt the Minister for the Navy (Mr Killen) will be able to explain the reason for the drastic reduction in the naval section of the defence vote and certainly the Minister will have the opportunity to give some indication as to why other essential defence services, particularly those areas upon which the defence Services are so dependent, will receive consideration as outlined in this Budget but no mention is made at all in relation to Cockburn Sound. If there is any firm intention to develop Cockburn Sound beyond the commitment to a feasibility study for the preliminary causeway development that the Minister referred to in a debate in this House during the last session, surely this should have been outlined in the Budget.

In his March statement the Minister for Defence referred to the need for a greater maritime capability in the waters around Australia, the Pacific Ocean and the seas of the north. There is no evidence in the Budget of the application of this guideline to specific planning and spending. There is also a marked falling off in spending on arms, armaments and equipment for the Army. The estimated spending for 1970-71 is SI 2.1m below that of the previous year and some $40m below 1968-69.

The whole emphasis of defence planning has been towards the equipment of one division, again motivated by the Vietnam war and the Malaysia/Singapore commitment. The Army is not being equipped beyond this to the detriment of the Citizen Military Forces. There have been many criticisms of the sort of equipment available to this back-up element of the Army. Taking into account criticisms of insufficient and obsolete equipment, it is hard to reconcile a sharp drop in budgetary provisions.

Once more the inescapable conclusion remains that this pari of the Services is languishing because of Vietnam. With the major effort of the Regular Army geared to support the Vietnam war and to a lesser extent the Singapore post, only meagre resources of equipment and manpower arc available to the CM”F. In March the Minister for Defence imposed a major emphasis on the role of the CMF stressing that follow-up forces were essential in defence planning was to have credibility and substance.

Last year’s Defence Report states the composition of the Australian Army in the following terms:

The Army now comprises a substantial Regular Army and Citizen Military Force, welded together to form a Field Force, organised and equipped primarily for operations in South East Asia, and backed by an Australian Support Area structured to support the Army as a whole.

By any criteria this is an extremely optimistic assessment of what the Army is. In particular, it is hard to see how the CMF has been welded to the Regular Army to form a field force. At toe moment the Government has a substantial component of the Army in Vietnam; it has a battalion in Singapore; the rest of the structure is strained to the utmost in backing up these commitments. Loosely linked with this structure geared for war and overseas posting is a neglected CMF dwindling in numbers, inadequately equipped and uncertain of its place in the overall design and its future role. If the Regular Army has the duties of fighting and training overseas, preparing relief forces overseas, training national servicemen, and servicing the CMF something has to take the crunch.

Under the present structure the CMF has been the bunny. With the present inadequate structure of the CMF there are further distortations. Its numbers are badly balanced between the eastern States and the west where there are only 3 or 4 battalions. In the eastern States there are remarkable variations in the size of units; ranging from a mere handful of enthusiasts in some depots to units of adequate size in others. This was pointed up by General Brogan of Eastern Command when he opened a new CMF training depot at Gosford a few weeks ago. According to the General the Gosford company had a strength of 35 in a district of some 20,000 people. This lack of strength would be repeated in many other units. Overall numbers have fallen by some 20 per cent in the past few years. Unless this drift can be arrested and numbers lifted it seems pointless to provide new depots on the lines envisaged by the Treasurer in the Budget. The Minister for Defence seemed to recognise the importance of the CMF in his March statement: unfortunately identification of the problem does not constitute a solution.

The Budget provides for only marginal increases in the total strength of the Forces. Provision is made for an overall increase of around 1.400 with 516 going to the Navy, 817 to the Army and 58 to the Air Force. This seems a rather meagre increase in terms of the recruiting effort. According to the estimates for 1970-71 the recruiting campaign will cost $ 1,836.000. This works out at about SI, 250 for each man added to the total strength. The difficulties of recruiting in the present context must be acknowledged, but it seems that either the targets are too low or the expense is pitched too high. In crude terms a cost benefit ratio of 1,250 to 1 would be regarded as disastrous in any field of commercial endeavour.

Another source of disappointment with the defence aspects of the Budget is the absence of any intimation that procurement from Australian industry is to be stimulated. The Minister for Defence and his predecessor have made great play over the past few years of new policies to obtain offset and co-production agreements and sub-contracting arrangements for Australia’s industry. Mr Deputy Speaker , at this stage I ask for leave to continue my remarks at a later stage.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 787

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (QUORUM OF MEMBERS) BILL 1970

Bill - by leave - presented by Mr Snedden, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr SNEDDEN (Bruce - Minister for

Labour and National Service) [5.55.] - I move:

That the Bill be now read a second lime.

Mr Speaker, the purpose of this Bill is to reduce the quorum of the House of Representatives from one-third of total membership to one-fifth. The House will recall that, on 20th August, a vote was taken on the principle of a reduction in the quorum from one-third to one-fifth. It was recommended by the Standing Orders Committee consisting of Mr Speaker (Hon. Sir William Aston), the Chairman of Committees (Mr Lucock), the Prime Minister (Mr Gorton), the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr McEwen), the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard), the honourable members for Wills (Mr Bryant), Ryan (Mr Drury), Wilmot (Mr Duthie), Capricornia (Dr Everingham) and Corio (Mr Scholes) and myself. The vote on the principle was carried by 66 votes to 39 on a non party basis.

In speaking on the report of the Standing Orders Committee on 20th August 1 outlined to the House in detail the considerations influencing the Committee in its recommendation to reduce the quorum. This matter was also discussed very fully during the debate on the matter and I shall not traverse the arguments again at this time. On adoption of this Bill the quorum will be 25 members or 20 per cent of the membership of the House. This may be compared with, for example, a requirement of 21 per cent for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 6 per cent for the British House of Commons, 7½ per cent for the Canadian House of Commons and 10 per cent for the Indian Lok Sabha. 1 should remind the House that until now, the quorum of the House of Representatives was laid down by section 39 of the Constitution. This section states:

Until the Parliament otherwise provides, the presence of at least one-third ofthe whole number of the members of the House of Representatives shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the House for the exercise of its powers.

The object of this Bill is to ‘provide otherwise’ - that is, to reduce the quorum from one-third to one-fifth of the members. It should be noted that this Bill provides for a reduction in the quorum of the House of Representatives only. This Bill does not affect the quorum for the Senate which is laid down by section 22 of the Constitution. 1 commend the Bill to the House.

Debate(on motion by Mr Barnard) adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 to 8 p.m.

page 787

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1) 1970-71

Second Reading (Budget Debate)

Debate resumed.

Mr BARNARD:
Bass

- Mr Deputy Speaker, prior to the suspension of (he sitting I had begun to discuss the Government’s policy in relation to offset agreements and the procurement overseas of defence orders. Another source of disappointment with the defence aspect of the Budget is the absence of any intimation that a procurement from Australian industry is to be stimulated. The Minister for Defence and his predecessor have made great play over the past few years of new policies to obtain offset and co-production agreements and subcontracting arrangements for Australian industry. These new policies have secured immense publicity and a great deal of praise for these gentlemen. However, if we look behind the mass of words at concrete results, the achievement has been very disappointing.

I questioned the Minister for Defence earlier this year about sub-contracts and offset arrangements negotiated with the United States since 1966. The Minister was able to list 4 sub-contracting arrangements with an approximate total value of $4.6m. With regard to co-production and offset deals the Minister pointed to negotiations over the range of helicopters whose procurement was announced in the March statement.

This is a distressingly small counterweight to throw into the scales against the mass of defence spending which has flowed to the United States over the past few years. In broad terms it is doubtful whether even a half of 1 per cent of the Governments defence spending in the United States has been offset in any way since 1966. In contrast to previous years, spending on new aircraft for the Royal Australian Air Force rates little attention. The Treasurer referred to the outlay of $l3m in 1970-71 for the lease of 24 Phantom aircraft from the United States.

Sir. the dreaded words Fill were not mentioned once in the Budget Speech. However, there are very important aspects of Air Force procurement which should be mentioned and examined in some detail now. These relate, for example, to the replacement of the Mirage 1110 aircraft. It may seem strange to be initiating discussion of this matter at this stage. The last Mirage was delivered to the Air Force early in 1968. By even the most conservative standards they should have a very effective life at least until the end of the 1970s.

The Minister acknowledged this in answer to a question from me on Friday last. He said it would be about 2 years before any replacement would be recommended to the Government. When this was done emphasis would be put on the need to ensure maximum Australian production. In the meantime detailed assessment was being made of possible replacements. He said that the Mirage FI was one possible replacement under consideration; other aircraft were being developed in the United States.

This statement of the Minister’s is interesting because in the past few months there have been kites flown about the replacement of the Mirage. One Press story in January claimed the Air Force was looking at the FI 5 being developed in the United States and expected to be delivered to the American Air Force by 1975. This has a ‘not to be exceeded’ ceiling price of $US15.3m. At a quick calculation, replacement of 100 Mirage Ills with 100 F15s would work out at around $1.5 billion which would make even the Fill project look like a modest bit of procurement. Also under development in America is the Navy’s FI 4 which is relatively cheaper with a unit price estimated at the moment at $US13.5m. Multiply by 100 and we get an estimate of $1.35 billion for a Mirage replacement.

These are the only planes under development in the United States which could fill the bill; so the Minister seems to indicate that the F14 and the F15 are under serious consideration as replacements. He did concede he was not quite sure of all the types. The Minister said that the RAAF would be intensifying its evaluation of aircraft which would closely meet Australia’s requirements. I would suggest that on even the most preliminary basis the F14 and the FI 5 be excluded from this examination, whether they meet Australia’s requirements or not.

Another story which gave all the appearance of being inspired appeared in the technical journal of ‘Flight International’ on 18th June of this year. This claimed the RAAF was concentrating its Mirage 111 replacement on the Mirage FI. According to this report the FI had been accepted in principle as Australia’s replacement. This was the report on which I based my question to the Minister; it has the appearance of authority and it has not been explicitly denied by the Minister.

In one very important respect there is a case to be made for deferring the decision of the Mirage replacement as long as possible. Fighter design, which evolved very slowly during the 1960s, seems to be on the verge of some revolutionary advances in the late 1970s. The experience gained from the air wars in Vietnam and the Middle East is being applied in all current aircraft development. In addition there are signs of a technological breakthrough which could make all aircraft in existence more quickly obsolete than is usual even for these quickly obsolescing items of equipment.

If these technological innovations are realised expensive new fighters would become clumsy white elephants easily outflown by their successors. New areas of aeronautical technology promise a vastly improved performance through the application of new improved aerodynamic design. These regions of technical advance are only just beginning to be investigated and their introduction to Service aircraft could be several years away. However, they do offer major improvements and threaten the effective life of aircraft without them. These factors could form the basis of a case for delaying selection of a fighter replacement until later in the decade when these areas of technology have been more fully evaluated.

Against this situation must be set the present state and future prospects of the Australian aircraft industry. The Minister stressed that maximum Australian production would be required. The plain fact is that if a decision is delayed for too long Australia will not have an aircraft industry to produce these aeroplanes. This was put in stark terms by the Minister for Supply (Senator Sir Kenneth Anderson) in the Senate last Wednesday when he outlined the situation at each of the 3 major defence aircraft establishments. This boiled down to the basic conclusion that after the middle of 1972 each of these establishments would be in a pretty desperate plight. The Minister also made the point that the Mirage replacement would not have any impact on the state of the industry for at least 4 years.

If the survival of the aircraft industry is considered a dominant factor then the Mirage FI can be seen as a logical replacement. There would be many advantages in replacing the Mirage 1110 with the Mirage FI for an aircraft industry already familiar with the contractor and the production line. The difficulty here would be stopping the rundown in the aircraft industry until such a sizeable project could be begun.

I have raised these alternatives in this debate because one of the most important defence issues in the next few years will be aircraft procurement. At the moment the Air Force has 100 Mirage fighters intended for interception and strike-ground attack roles. The future of the Fill is still very doubtful. At least until 1973 the Air Force will have the Phantom F4Es on a leasehold basis from the United States. It will be a task requiring much careful analysis to bring into focus and define precisely and coherently what aircraft we will need and what their functions will be. This entails an early definition by the Royal Australian Air Force of its requirements for the Mirage replacement and the maximum explanation and public debate of these requirements. The Fill has ensured that never again can the debate over choice of an aircraft be confined to the Cabinet room and the upper echelons of the Royal Australian Air Force and the Department of Defence. For some 6 years we had the situation where Government spokesmen said that the FI 1 1 had to be bought because it was the only plane that met the requirements of the Air Force. When asked to define these requirements the stock reply was that these requirements were embodied in the Fill.

What is needed now is a precise statement of what aircraft are wanted and what their roles should be, bearing in mind the strong chance that we will never get the Fill. This means that the Mirage replacement will need to be assessed in the light of the presence of the F4E which has the versatility to double in most of the roles of the fighting aircraft. With requirements rigidly defined they could be examined on the basis of cost, advancing technology and the future of the Australian aircraft industry. This is the key issue and it will be analysed and developed in some detail by the Opposition in the months ahead. The debate on the Budget and, one would hope, the debate on the Estimates which will follow will provide opportunities not only to consider in greater detail the Government’s defence programme as it relates to the Royal Australian Air Force, the Navy and the Army - the branches of the Services with which I have dealt in some detail today - but also to discuss at greater length the need to establish, as I pointed out during the last session of the Parliament, an aircraft industry in Australia. I hope that both the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Air (Senator Drake-

Brockman) will take the opportunity during this session to indicate what the Government plans in respect of the establishment of an aircraft industry.

As the Minister for the Navy has had the opportunity this afternoon to listen to a number of matters that were put to him concerning his own Department, particularly on the question of Cockburn Sound and the reduced expenditure proposed for his Department during this financial year, I hope that he will offer some explanation not only to members of the House but also to the public as a whole of what he proposes this financial year.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr KILLEN:
Minister for the Navy · Moreton · LP

– I begin on a mild note of praise. I praise the skill of my friend, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard), for having avoided speaking on the Budget. This may rouse my honourable friend to a mild state of indignation but I hope he will restrain himself in the same manner as I have restrained my display of disappointment. The honourable gentleman spoke about defence. I do not quibble with bis right or the right of any other member in this House to speak about defence but I have thought, with great respect to my honourable friend, that the most appropriate time for an argument on defence to be delivered to the Parliament would have been either on a statement on defence made by the Minister for Defence (Mr Malcolm Fraser) or, alternatively, on the defence estimates. This may seem to be a mild error on the honourable gentleman’s part, and I am not seeking to cane him in any political sense for that, but I shall take one or two comments that he has made. First, he seems to be stirred up - I hope he is not too stirred up - about the fact that in the estimates dealing with the Department of the Navy there is on the figures - I emphasise ‘on the figures’ - a fall in the vote related to naval construction. If the honourable gentleman does not mind my saying so, he has a rather quaint view of the way in which defence procurement proceeds. One does not simply put in an order today for a ship, pay the money tomorrow and get it on the next day.

Mr Barnard:

– With the Fill you put the money in and do not get the plane.

Mr KILLEN:

– I sat here in what I can only describe, with a massive sense of modesty, as unbelieveable quietude while the honourable member was speaking.

Mr Barnard:

– You have already spent millions on the FI 1 1 and you have not got one yet.

Mr KILLEN:

– The branding has not started yet, so do not complain too quickly. The honourable gentleman surely must realise that in the Budget for last year and in the Budget for the year before, massive sums of money were devoted to meeting the expense of the DDG destroyers, Oberon submarines, aircraft and a whole host of equipment, so this year the Navy, in terms of equipment and in relation to orders, passes down into the slope. Next year it undoubtedly will be up and I wonder what the honourable gentleman will say then.

Mr Hayden:

– Is this on the record?

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

– Order! The honourable member for Oxley will cease interjecting.

Mr KILLEN:

– The braying of animals has never really worried me and I think it does not worry anyone else.

Mr Webb:

– Get on with the job.

Mr KILLEN:

– I will indeed and 1 anticipate the honourable member’s infinite discomfiture. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition proceeded to speak about aircraft. If I were a member of the Labor Party-

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– You would be expelled.

Mr Webb:

– There would not be a Labor Party.

Mr KILLEN:

– I agree. Honourable members opposite would be brought to a sense of decency. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition spoke about aircraft. I should have thought that the last thing in the world I would have heard from any member of the Labor Party was something about aircraft. Who can forget that splendid prophecy made by the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) in relation to the TSR2. Honourable members remember the words. I am sure that the

Deputy Leader of the Opposition goes to sleep each night with the words ringing in his ears. The Leader of the Opposition said: ‘The TSR2 will fly across the Indian Ocean and it will land at Woomera long before the Fill ever flies. To use the language of one I admire on the racecourse: If you were to back the Labor Party on form and on prophecy you would finish up with a patch in your tie’. Unlike the Deputy Leader of the Opposition I want to have something to say about the Budget. 1 do not know why it was that the honourable member shied so clear of the Budget, but he did shy clear of it. He did not want to have anything to do with it. The Leader of the Opposition last Tuesday night made a speech on the Budget, It began with an amendment and it finished with a hope. In between the two there lay a quite amazing collection of words. In terms of a speech it could be described as being meretricious, quite reckless and plainly specious. The speech was the speech of one desperately in search of power, and as a consequence of that desperation the honourable gentleman did not greatly care what restraints disappeared, what responsibilities were spurned or for that matter what realities were trampled upon. The House will recall that for 64 minutes we listened to him.

Mr Kennedy:

– The Minister has taken 5 minutes and has said nothing.

Mr KILLEN:

– Well, I do not know. Light takes a while to travel and sound takes a while to travel. Who knows, truth may ultimately reach the honourable member who is interjecting. During the course of his speech the Leader of the Opposition made a great variety of challenges; he made threats. One could sec the lucubration of his ghost writer marking out the threats and implications. He probably sweated around the clock for a whole week. The Leader of the Opposition during the course of those 64 minutes spared no-one and no department. He had a crack, to put it in homely language, at us all. Not even the voice of my friend the Treasurer (Mr Bury) escaped his stricture. According to the Leader of the Opposition the Treasurer spoke in oracular and funereal tones. 1 hestitate long to say anything about any person’s voice, but I would like the Leader of the Opposition to know that I have a distinct preference for the Treasurer’s voice. At least it is not a conglomeration of broken down repertory, adenoids and plain sneering. 1 will deal with some of the major blemishes of the arguments put forward by the Leader of the Opposition. I cannot deal with them all. I will pick out what certainly loom as the most conspicuous blotches.

Mr Cope:

– Oh dear.

Mr KILLEN:

– The honourable gentleman releases not only a sigh of body but a sigh of intellect. The honourable gentleman finds the greatest effort in following any argument.

Mr Barnard:

– Give us some argument.

Mr KILLEN:

– All right, I will.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock:

– Order! I call the honourable member for Bendigo and the honourable member for Oxley, who are now interjecting, to order.

Mr KILLEN:

Sir, exuberance manifests itself in a variety of forms. The Leader of the Opposition gave over more time to an argument dealing with receipts tax than he did to any other matter in the Budget. This was an extraordinary thing, and I hope all honourable gentlemen will bear that in mind. He devoted more time to the receipts tax than he did to any other measure. Central to the honourable gentleman’s argument on the receipts tax were the words I am about to read. For the sake of greater accuracy I will put on my spectacles. To the honourable gentleman who is now trying to interrupt my speech I say, listen to this, my boy. Who knows, you may profit by it. It is a wild hope but hope still springs eternal. This is what the Leader of the Opposition had to say:

Thirdly, the receipts tax exemplifies the fundamental fraudulence of Liberal budgeting.

That was the charge made by the Leader of the Opposition - the receipts tax exemplifies the fundamental fraudulence of Liberal budgeting. That was the charge made by Her Majesty’s Leader of the Opposition - fraudulence. lt is a very harsh word. It has a very precise technical meaning, and I propose to advert to it in a minute. It was not merely in respect of the receipts tax that the Leader of the Opposition was roused. He referred to all Liberal budgeting - and that with respect would include my friends in the Country Party - when he made his accusation about fraudulent budgeting. Fraudulence has a very harsh meaning and the Leader of the Opposition, as one of Her Majesty’s counsel learned in the law, would surely be aware of the meaning of fraudulence. May I say what it means, because it is important as far as this argument is concerned, and it certainly is important as far as assessing the Labor Party’s presentation in this debate is concerned. Fraudulence is a false representation made, firstly, knowingly; secondly, without belief in its truth; and, thirdly, recklessly, careless of whether it be true or false. That was the charge which the Leader of the Opposition levelled against the Government last Tuesday night - fraudulence of Liberal budgeting. We will see where the fraudulence lies. The honourable gentlemen went on to argue - and I will cite his own words as they appear at the bottom of page 467 and the top of page 468 in Hansard:

There was no obligation upon the Commonwealth - no undertaking by the Commonwealth - to impose receipts tax.

That is the charge which the honourable gentleman made - false representation made knowingly without belief in its truth, made recklessly, careless of whether it be true or false. Surely the Leader of the Opposition would be aware of the fact that before the High Court of Australia settled the matter of the validity of the receipts tax the 6 State Premiers of Australia asked the Prime Minister whether, should the tax be declared invalid, the Commonwealth would come to their aid. I will cite what the Prime Minister said. It is on public record. Let no person be under any misapprehension about it. This is what the Prime Minister had to say on the 18th November last year:

Further at the request of all the State Premiers the Prime Minister and the Treasurer agreed to put to Cabinet a proposal that in the event of the present taxes being found invalid in some form or all respects the Commonwealth should pass legislation on a uniform basis imposing a like tax and enabling the States to receive it.

No mention of that was made by the Leader of the Opposition the other night. Is that fraudulence of Liberal budgeting? I say to the honourable gentleman that that charge deserves to be repudiated. If ever there was a fraudulence of presentation the fraudulence of presentation came from the Leader of the Opposition last Tuesday evening. Not one mention was made by the Leader of the Opposition of the fact that all the State Premiers had asked the Prime Minister to assist them. The honourable gentleman must have known that. He knew it. He did not mention it. Was he careless about it? Was he reckless? To use the celebrated words, did he not have any belief in its truth? What the Premiers made to the Prime Minister in November last year was a plain call for help. No one person as of today can be certain of what will be tomorrow the fields of validity in the Commonwealth Constitution. This is one of the facts of political life, and no State Premier 3 or 5 years ago would have taken the view that the receipts tax would be declared invalid. The 6 State Premiers all asked the Prime Minister to do something about the invalidation of the tax and the Prime Minister gave an undertaking to do something about it.

Let us look, in the light of what happened, at the display by the Leader of the Opposition on behalf of his Party. The 6 State Premiers, having gone through the experience of a court challenge and having found that a very sizable part of their objectives had been sloughed away, went along to the Prime Minister of the country and said: ‘Please help us. We are in a difficulty’. The Prime Minister of the country said: Mf things turn out as you think they will, we will help you.’

Should the Prime Minister having given that undertaking, say: ‘No, we will do nothing of the sort.’ Let every State Premier in this country be warned. What the Prime Minister did was to give an undertaking on behalf of the Commonwealth Government and - I would have thought - on behalf of the Commonwealth Parliament, that if during this difficulty this event did come to pass assistance would be given to them.

I want to move on to other illustrations of fraudulence on the part of the Labor Party as far as its presentation is concerned. During his speech the Leader of the Opposition made great play about a table which he said was a table which disclosed ‘Budget impact on family income and spending’. He said:

Naturally, the table involves a number of assumptions, even guesses, about probable family spending.

Then he went on to say:

But I suggest that the table is irrefutable as regards the general trend it shows.

Since when is an argument irrefutable when it is based on a guess? If honourable members will look at the table presented by the honourable gentleman they will find out precisely how unsteady he really is in terms of his argument. The table was prepared obviously by a university which has more to do that merits real attention. This table, on a series of assumptions and - to use the language of the Leader of the Opposition - guesses which are trotted out as being irrefutable, argues one essential point. It says that as income goes up the expenditure on various items goes up - notably on petrol, cigarettes and so forth. There are some rather quaint conclusions, if 1 may say so. But it is upon this assumption that the Leader of the Opposition has built his case. An assumption or a guess is a rather strange sort of base, I would have thought, to build upon. Upon an assumption the Leader of the Opposition is prepared to try to build an arch of truth. I think that is a revelation of the sort of builder that he really is.

But let me illustrate some of the points that the honourable gentleman has made. He said, amongst other things, that those persons with an income between §7,000 and $9,000 will pay an extra $13.40 in petrol tax a year. To those earning between $9,000 and $12,000, he pleaded to us to accept, it will represent an increase in tax of $17.10, and to those earning more than $12,000 it will represent an increase in tax of $15.40. Why is the amount less for those on $12,000 than those below $12,000? This I suggest points up the spurious nature of the honourable gentleman’s chart. To take another illustration, he says that to those on an income between $2,000 and $3,000 a year it will represent an increase in excise tax of the order of $4. For those on over $12,000 it will represent $10.20. To my knowledge, my honourable friend the Leader of the Opposition himself docs not smoke. I mention this not in any way to ridicule the honourable gentleman but merely to advert to the vulnerability which permeates his argument and is the dominant characteristic of the table which the Leader of the Opposition says is irrefutable. This leads us towards the truth. Fraudulence of Liberal budgeting indeed. 1 submit again that it is fraudulence of Labor presentation.

Let me take another illustration. The honourable gentleman said:

Since 1947 the Commonwealth’s debt has fallen; the debts of the States have increased. .

He left the statement there, plainly implying that the Commonwealth was completely and utterly disinterested in the position of the States. There is no mention of what my friend the Treasurer had to say in his Budgel Speech. For the sake of accuracy I will read what the Treasurer had to say on this matter. He said:

We shall also bc meeting debt servicing charges on $200m of State debt this year at a cost of S12m. and on a further (200m of State debt in each of the next 4 years. This will lead to the formal transfer of $ 1,000m of State debt to the Commonwealth in June 1975.

There was no mention of that by the Leader of the Opposition. 1 come back to the definition of fraudulent behaviour - a false representation made knowingly without belief in its truth, reckless or careless as to whether it be true or false. Surely the Leader of the Opposition knew about that, or are we to assume that he condemned the speech of the Treasurer without having read it? The next thing with which 1 want to deal as an illustration of the fraudulence of Labor presentation as far as this Budget is concerned, is the approach of the Leader of the Opposition to the question of revenue and expenditure. The House will recall that the Treasurer during the course of his speech said:

  1. . as the cornerstone of our policy, 1 am bringing in a balanced Budget. . . .

What is the implication to be drawn from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition? He has completely rejected that argument. If honourable members go through the speech of the Leader of the Opposition they will not find one suggestion for a cut in expenditure. On the other hand the Leader of the Opposition proposes a number of rather expansive expenditures. For example, to my knowledge and belief there was no suggestion on the part of any person who has spoken from the Opposition on the Budget that the payments to the States should be cut. The payments to the States out of this Budget represent $2,708m.

Mr Cope:

– Not enough.

Mr KILLEN:

– There it is. The honourable member for Sydney says it is not enough. Where would the honourable gentleman’s sense of satisfaction be met? Obviously he wants to put it up but the point is that the Leader of the Opposition has never suggested cutting it. I move on to the second point. There was no suggestion about cutting the vote on social welfare. That represents an amount of $l,820m. All of the speeches to which I have listened from honourable gentlemen opposite have argued for the vote being put up. In relation to the vote on defence, on listening to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition this afternoon and this evening, one would be left with the distinct impression that nol enough was being spent. If those 3 items are taken together it will be found that they represent S5,665m out of a total expenditure of $7,883m. There was not a word from the Leader of the Opposition about trimming any of them.

But let us look at some of the suggestions that he has made. For example, he said that petrol tax should be abolished - $79m. He said that postal charges are dreadful - S53m. Customs and excise - $31m - he did everything but paw the floor about that; sales tax - $20m. In relation to social services he left us with an unestimated amount as to how much would be involved. Civic finances indeed - his own electorate which was referred to the other evening in a most conspicuously perceptive speech by the honourable member for Lilley (Mr Kevin Cairns) was shown to be the highest rated civic area in Australia. There was no mention of that. He grizzled like anything about education and said that not enough was being provided. Pollution control, urban roads, public transport, overseas aid - on it went. There was an unstated amount as regards rural industries. All of these can be taken together and added up. The most conservative estimate that a person possibly could come to, taking what the Leader of the Opposition has said, and propping it up for what it is worth by what some of his followers have said, is that to achieve his purpose the Leader of the Opposition would put Si, 200m onto this Budget. He has made no suggestion about cuts-

Mr Foster:

– What about Mount lsa’s profits?

Mr KILLEN:

– Look, Screaming Lord Sutch, back to the theatre for you, for you have no place here at all. The Leader of the Opposition would tack SI. 200m onto this Budget. No cuts are proposed

Mr Foster:

– Tell us about Mount Isa.

Mr KILLEN:

– I would hope the honourable member will understand what 1 say. I have here a Chinese abacus. I wish to present it to the Leader of the Opposition because I think that he is desperately in need of some means whereby he can do his sums. Obviously, orthodox methods have failed. Obviously, the cuisennaire method of mathematics has failed. What the honourable gentleman needs-

Mr Webb:

– I rise to take a point of order. Is the Minister allowed to bring a weapon into the Chamber?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock:

– Order! The point of order is without substance. I call the Minister for the Navy.

Mr KILLEN:

– I have this abacus which 1 show to the House. At the first opportunity, 1 will present it to the honourable gentleman, it has a simple tag with it which reads: To Gough, I hope your sums will improve’.

I refer now to the only 2 suggestions made by the Leader of the Opposition during the course of his speech as to how he would find the extra $ 1, 200m. I ignore the fact that he did not suggest any cuts, but I hope that the House and the country will not ignore that fact. On sales tax, for example, the Leader of the Opposition said that sales tax should be a source of control. Goodness only knows what that means. Whether the honourable gentleman suggests that sales tax should be used so savagely as to control the purchase of motor cars and in fact to deny to people the opportunity to buy motor cars, he left us in a state of doubt. The second thing upon which the honourable gentleman did not elaborate was untaxed capital gains. He mentioned it. But let every person in this chamber and every person outside be under no sense of misapprehension as to what would be involved if ever the Leader of the Opposition had his way. He and the Australian Labor Party would commit themselves to a completely untrammelled policy of capital gains. This is the only inference that can reasonably be drawn from the speech made by the honourable gentleman.

The sense of extravagance of the honourable gentleman would give one the impression that, by way of contrast, the prodigal son could well have emerged as the ardent savings bank manager of the Pharisees’ bank. His sense of extravagance is such that, if he had the opportunity, complete and utter ruin would be brought to this country. The Budget presented by the Treasurer is a Budget introduced in tremendous difficulties with a state of drought previously unknown in this country. It is against that background that this Budget has been introduced. The Treasurer has said that the cornerstone of this Budget is the fact that it is a balanced Budget. The Leader of the Opposition would disturb it - and disturb to the nation’s peril.

Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle

- Mr Deputy Speaker, it was surprising that the Minister for the Navy (Mr Killen) took the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard) to task for talking about defence. The Minister is usually a stickler for tradition. Surely it is one of the oldest conventions of this Parliament that, before the grant of supply to Her Majesty, any grievance may be aired. So, in a debate on the Budget it is possible for an honourable member to speak about anything. Now, the Treasurer (Mr Bury) had unlimited time when he spoke on the Budget.

Mr Hulme:

– So did the Leader of the Opposition.

Mr BEAZLEY:

– As did the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam). But the Minister for the Navy has taken to task the Deputy Leader of the Opposition who did not have unlimited time. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition confined himself to certain subjects and was attacked by the Minister for the Navy for confining himself to the subject of defence.

Mr Jarman:

– He did not have unlimited time cither.

Mr BEAZLEY:

– Who did not have unlimited time?

Mr Jarman:

– The Minister for the Navy.

Mr BEAZLEY:

– I said the Treasurer. When we are discussing the Budget, we can discuss all the subjects that the Treasurer covers in his Budget. If I take random headings from the Treasurer’s speech, I see: ‘Defence’, ‘Payments to the States’, Social Welfare’, ‘Sheltered Workshops’, Repatriation Benefits’, ‘Mental Health Institutions’, ‘External Aid’, ‘Assistance to Woolgrowers’ and ‘Aboriginal Advancement’. Any member of this Parliament is perfectly entitled to speak in the confined time that he has on any one of those subjects without being expected to cover in a short time all the points raised by the Treasurer.

The Budget is actually a standstill Budget, not substantially different from the Budget of last year. It reduces income tax and increases indirect tax. It could be described as a computerised balance of penalties and rewards designed to add up to no change. And that is what it is. The Government has decided that it is not budgeting for a large surplus for deflation; it is not budgeting for a deficit to stimulate the economy. It stands still. I think that what we have had in this debate from the Minister for the Navy is a speech on his personal opinion of the unworthiness of the Leader of the Opposition. 1 say to the Minister for the Navy in all seriousness: You have had a mutiny in the Navy and it is time you stood up to tell us why the situation drifted for that grievance.

Mr Killen:

– Well, you make the charge. You effect to know something about the Navy and you do not.

Mr BEAZLEY:

– I do not effect to know anything. I know that there was unrest and that this was because a situation was allowed to drift that should not have been allowed to drift. The same thing happens from time to time with the Pacific Islands Regiment. A series of mutinies have occurred in that Regiment because situations have been allowed to drift that should not have been allowed to drift. It is up to the Minister for the Navy to explain it in the House and to explain what he is doing to restore morale. I do not wish to say anything personal about him any more. But 1 do think that, if he spends his entire time on personalities directed at the Leader of the Opposition, he should vindicate his own administration as well.

Mr Killen:

– Your Leader makes a charge of fraudulence against us and we are expected, I take it, just to sit here and not to reply?

Mr BEAZLEY:

– Oh, no; you are perfectly entitled to answer it. But you have gone on and on and on with no defence of your administration of the Department at all.

Mr Irwin:

– Why do you not get back to-

Mr BEAZLEY:

– Now, you stop shouting or the Rotary Sergeant-at-Arms will be fining you.

Mr Irwin:

– Well, you get back to Moral Re-armament and tell the truth.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Mitchell will cease interjecting.

Mr BEAZLEY:

– I wish to draw attention to one of the most modest statements ever made by a Treasurer in introducing a Budget. For that reason, I welcome it because it is a tremendous blast of commonsense and fresh air into the usual claims which are made. The Treasurer said:

For these reasons it would be rash to claim that the Budget will prove to be exactly suited to the requirements of the Australian economy through 1970-71. In any case, strong and pervasive though its effects can be, the Commonwealth Budget does not determine the whole course of our economic affairs. A multitude of initiatives and decisions on the part of others have a share in that.

Then, with great joy, the usual theme follows:

In particular, excessive demands for increases in money wages and other incomes - especially when pushed ruthlessly in conditions of full employment - could jeopardise prospects of balanced growth.

I live for the day when some Minister in the Government will make a speech and explain why it is that good wages are such a menace and good profits are such an advantage. Please explain to us sometime when are the circumstances when people should get good wages. The circumstances are not in a depression, because we cannot afford them: not in a time of boom because they will add to inflation. Never! And where we have the whiphand of complete power, as in Papua and New Guinea, the philosophy is worked out to its completeness. A plantation worker’s wage is $5 a month and he receives rations worth $12.50 a month, making a total of $17.50. In French New Caledonia which is competing for the same commodities in the same world market the minimum wage is $120 a month, which is 7 times what we are paying in New Guinea. 1 feel that philosophically that is what the Government wants.

In Papua and New Guinea the trade unions can put in claims until they are black in the face. They are not acknowledged by the employer. They are not acknowledged by the Ministerial Member for Labour. As a log of claims they do not lead to any process of arbitration but leave us with a workers organisation which appears very good to the United Nations but which can have very little effect. Then the Ministerial Member for Labour produces a speech in which he says New Guinea - whoever that is - cannot afford to pay higher wages. I ask: Who is New Guinea? 1 thought that Burns Philp paid wages. I thought that Carpenters paid wages. I thought that Conzinc Riotinto of Australia paid wages. The wages they pay ought to be a matter for arbitration. But the Ministerial Member trotted out this wisdom. The man is given something that is prepared for him by expatriates and he tells us that New Guinea - whoever that is - cannot afford to pay better wages. I say that only because I am tired of this philosophy. I agree, of course, that the statement is unexceptionable that if wage claims are pushed ruthlessly in inflationary circumstances it may lead to dangers. But when will we ever hear a Minister of the Government regard good wages as something other than disastrous?

I do not want to take away from commendation of the Minister’s modesty. We pretend very often that in our budgeting we are doing decisive things for the economy. We cannot do anything to alleviate the drought. We did not create the drought. We cannot do much about the fall in the world demand for wheat. The truth is that our economy is moving with disasters and windfalls, none of which have been produced by the Government. The disaster of drought was not produced by the Government. The windfall of mineral discovery was not produced by the Government; the resources were here. These are the decisive things in our economy. But for years and years, when wool prices and wheat prices were booming, it was said that this was a virtue of the Government and especially the corner party. Now that there is a slump, of course, it is not their fault. This is very human. It is very natural.

But when we have finished sneering at one another what can we do? Do we have to sit here and acquiesce in the disappearance of the small farmer? Is that the truth? Is he finished? Are we afraid to say it? Well, if the small farmer is not finished, what are the policies that can salvage him? How can he withstand drought and disaster as well as the larger units with lots of capital, with the ability to finance machinery and so on, and the necessary capital equipment? Whatever the country is producing, it seems to be producing fewer and fewer farmers who may be producing more and more goods. But we pay lip service all the time to the survival of the small farmer. Recently I was received at a country town in Western Australia where the population for the district had dropped from 2,500 to 1 ,700 in a very short time. That situation is representative of country areas.

I could stand here and pretend that I had a formula for these problems. I have not. T do think that we should give our best consideration to deciding whether or not the small farmer is retrievable. If he is not, then it is foolish to go on raising hopes and the wisest policy would be to adjust him. This has happened many times with the wage earner. Capital has quicksilver mobility. It can go as fast as the decision to invest. But labour does not have quicksilver mobility. It can shift from place to place. It can watch the demand for certain skills disappear. Older men cannot be retrained to catch up, and they have to face this fact. I think we might all be more modest about the economy of the country if we bore in mind the point I have made about disasters and windfalls. Let us be perfectly clear about one thing. Can we be honest enough to admit it that income tax reduction is not a method of benefiting the poor? It is simply not a method of benefiting the poor, whoever else it benefits. If a man is so poor that he pays no income tax at all, obviously the way to assist him is not to reduce income tax. That means precisely nothing to him. I think it is time that we faced the fact that in certain sectors of the community there needs to be what I would call negative income tax, a direct grant to some people who need assistance.

Let us face our vaunted tax deduction system. The allowance of $208 for a child is a confidence trick. I do not say it is a confidence trick by the Government. It is a tremendous example of self-deception. How lovely it is to write ‘S208’ on one’s income tax form. One can even kid oneself that it is $208 off one’s tax. A taxpayer who pays lc in the $1 gets back $2.08. A man who pays 50c in the $1 would get back through his income tax deduction a child endowment benefit of $104 compared with the poorer man’s benefit of $2.08. Sir Arthur Fadden once admitted to me that if we abolished income tax deductions for children altogether we could double child endowment. That would be a way of benefiting the poorer person, the man who now gets back $2.08 if he is a lc in the $1 man. This is not done but we know that for social equity it ought to be done. I think it is something we ought to start considering. People are beginning to regard a lot of the things that occur in politics as rather incredible and deceptive. I think we should go through all of the customs that have arisen around taxation. We should consider honestly whether they do or do not correspond with equity.

I cannot understand why the Minister for the Navy was so excited about the receipts tax. The Commonwealth Government is collecting the tax. It has made it a Commonwealth tax. Maybe it is going to use the receipts tax as part of its grants to the States, but it is a Commonwealth tax. As far as the States are concerned, it is unconstitutional. I am not sure whether it would be an equitable tax even if it had been constitutional. It is a tax on the turnover of the sale of goods, which will ultimately be passed on to the consumer in the usual undiscriminatory way. The Treasurer spoke about education at some length. The percentage of people receiving scholarships is declining. The cost of education is increasing.

I am sorry that the Minister for the Navy has left. I wanted to ask him a question. Recently when I visited Manus Island I noticed that the patrol boats of the Australian Navy were there. I forget the name of their class. The ‘Samarai’ was one of those in the harbour at Manus Island. The vessels have small guns and operate at a speed of 26 knots, which would not have been considered particularly startling in 1914. The ‘Emden’ had a speed of 24 knots and it was more powerful than the ‘Samarai’. The ‘Sydney’ which engaged the ‘Emden* could do 25 knots. So 26 knots would not have been particularly startling even in 1914. These patrol boats seemed to be engaged in general law and order activities in the islands and also in fishery patrols in Australia. It is said - and I hope that the Minister will comment upon it - that when going to intercept a Russian prawning boat in the Gulf of Carpentaria the prawner moved off at 29 knots - which is a pretty good speed for a bona fide prawner - and the so called intercepting vessel watched it disappear. Why in buying a patrol boat of this size was this type selected? I could not meet anybody in the Navy who regarded these boats as a success. This situation is like that of the mine sweepers that were used during confrontation. They have since been disposed of, and I could not find anybody in the Navy who regarded them as successful. The British have a patrol boat of the ‘Gay Bombadier’ class which has a speed of 50 knots and which carries missiles that can inflict major damage on an aircraft carrier. It also has guns equivalent to those on these slow patrol boats that we use. Why was the ‘Gay Bombadier’ class, which was not very much more expensive, passed over in favour of these boats? It appears to be a case of purchasing second rate equipment.

The Treasurer in the course of his speech referred to external aid and to Papua and New Guinea. Therefore, I want to raise certain grievances before this grant of supply is made to Papua and New Guinea. Today the news is that the International Commission of Jurists, a body of the most significant lawyers of this country and abroad, at a meeting in Port Moresby analysed the Public Order Bill which is being proposed to the House of Assembly. It said that in certain vital characteristics the Bill follows the pass laws of South Africa. The trouble is that the South African law may well be the influence for the Territory law. When a large number of police moved into the Gazelle Peninsula in January we heard complaints from within the Administration that the senior native constables were not consulted on tactics or anything like that but that certain police from South Africa who were appointed there were consulted. The Australian police tradition is an extremely good one. It is a tradition of very great restraint and T am glad to say that restraint was used in the Gazelle Peninsula during the recent troubles there.

Under this Public Order Bill the police have the right to seize what are called dangerous weapons. That is perfectly reasonable if we are talking in an Australian context. Unfortunately, the implements used for clearing land in Papua and New Guinea look to me like cutlasses that Jack Tars used to have back in the days of Nelson. They could be extremely formidable weapons, such as a sugar cane cutting knife is. If people were riotous and the police had an obligation to move in and try to disarm them, that in itself might be a major cause of trouble. This is an aspect that should be handled very delicately. It is disappointing when the best legal minds in the world can categorise legislation before the House of Assembly as a repetition of South African pass laws and I hope the reconsideration which is promised will be given.

There is a perennial problem in the Gazelle Peninsula which needs solution. We have too often been told that in all other areas the natives have accepted a multiracial council and that the Tolai should. We are asked: Why do the Tolai not do so? I do not want to go into all that controversy but there is one distinct difference that has to be faced. The Tolai developed a cocoa project worth Sim. Because under the laws of Papua and New Guinea local councils could borrow from the banks, they put their cocoa project under the control of the Gazelle native council which had governed for 19 years without any trouble. Then the multi-racial council was established and certain members of this council were expatriates who were planters and who had always, according to the Tolai, opposed their cocoa project. The control over a very important economic asset of theirs passed significantly into the hands of Europeans and this disturbed them.

If the Government will not face the simple fact that that is one of the elements which is causing the people of the Gazelle Peninsula not to accept a multi-racial council which is acceptable elsewhere, it will not face the issues which are causing unrest among the Tolai in general and the Mataungan Association in particular. These people have shown very great discipline. They have now paid into a fund $40,000, which is the amount of tax they owe and will pay it to a council that they regard as a legitimate council. They are not trying to evade their taxes but they do not regard the multi-racial council as a legitimate council and will not pay taxes to it. I welcome very much the indication in today’s Press that the Government will consider this, that it is not going ahead with the prosecutions and that there may be discussions.

But 1 want to warn the Government about the philosophy that somehow or other it is disastrous for Papua and New Guinea if everybody is paid proper wages. I do not know the details of the project operated by Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd on Bougainville. One of the most reputable geographic publications in the world is the English ‘Geographic’ magazine, it pointed out that by March 1970 the value of CRA’s arrangements for the disposal of copper had reached the level of $2,000m. It said that in the extraction of this copper 480 million tons of overburden will go down the rivers and ruin a considerable amount of land because toxic substances are used in the extraction of copper. It is hoped the company will be able to neutralise this but that is by no means certain. It is also said that by 1972 120,000 tons of pure copper a year and 500,000 ounces of gold will be extracted. The gold will pay for the extraction of the copper so that the copper will be all clear profit.

So far as I know a standard or common wage for a native there is $16 a week and he works alongside an Australian workman who gets 12 to 15 times as much. I could not imagine a more perfect formula for unrest. We are told the whole economy would be threatened if proper wages were paid to the people of Bouganville. Apparently it is far better for the economy of Papua and New Guinea for all the money to be taken out by an expatriate firm in the form of profits and only a minimum left for the people in the form of wages. I would be grateful to meet the economist who can explain that paradox. Why is the lack of purchasing power for the people of Papua and New Guinea so disastrous for the economy of Papua and New Guinea? Why is it that the more that is taken out the better off they will be. It is a very mystic explanation; yet it is the explanation we are asked to believe is true. This system will not last 10 minutes after independence. I should think that any government worth its salt would want a fairer share for its people than that wage level in the presence of an industry deriving such immense benefit.

The Government’s proposals for assisting primary industry follow very much a pattern over many years. No doubt more intense assistance is given because of the special circumstances of drought. But the Budget speech in fact leaves unanswered the question as to the future of the wheat industry. We should be told whether the Government feels that we can ever get back to maximum production and whether there will ever be a market for the maximum production that developed during the period when there appeared to be no clouds on the horizon for the wheat industry. However, 1 think some realistic things have to be said about the future of the wheat and wool industries. I think we all might modestly stand here and admit that if it had not been for the mineral discoveries we would now be in the depths of a depression. If Australia’s economy were as dependent upon primary industries as it was in the past we would be in a very serious position. But somehow or other there seems to me always to be the hope being held out to the farmer of turning the corner while I suspect that privately it is believed that the small farmer does not have much of a future and that Australian agriculture is turning more and more to the larger units.

I do not know whether or not the Australian farmer is an incurable individualist. I do not know whether it is still true, but many years ago when I was up in the north of Queessland I was told that Italian sugar growers were a better risk from the point of view of the banks because if they had ten 80-acre farms alongside one another they would have 1 set of machinery that would go right through and do the lot. Because of this these people were not in debt. But the Australians were far more individualistic, everybody wanted a complete set of equipment for his own farm and was therefore over capitalised and was not a good risk as far as the basks were concerned. He tended to disappear steadily as a sugar grower in certain areas. I wonder, if we believe in assisting the small farmer and if we believe he is a desirable type who should be helped to survive, whether one form of assistance that could be added should not be adopted. We have already had agricultural advisers going through their farms to make them more efficient. Could it be possible to have Government financed machinery teams with tractors, harvesters, combines and what not paid for by agricultural departments to go through and do some of the work of the farms to get rid of the burden of heavy capital expenditure? This could be done with groups of farms. I do not know whether or not this is practical but it seems to me that this is one of the things which causes the small farmer not to survive and the larger farmer to survive. I suppose that if one thinks in strictly economic terms then the weakest goes to the wall, but normally in Australia we have not been inclined to do that. We have regarded the preservation of certain towns and so on as socially desirable. I do not really see in the Budget any fundamental solution to the change which is coming over the rural economy and I feel that on this question we are moving very much in the dark.

Mr GILES:
Angas

-1 will deal very briefly, if 1 may, with one or two of the comments made by the honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley). I do not complain that he told any untruths at all but I think perhaps there is another half to what he said that needs to be patched up briefly. I have forgotten the exact level of the trust funds provided by Conzinc Riotinto of Australia Ltd to the Administration of Papua and New Guinea but it represents a very extensive equity holding in the mine. As well as that there is quite a large fund made available for the local people of Bougainville in many forms. New houses have been built for them. If a road or any other type of work upsets their form of life in their villages, their paddy fields or whatever they are, those discrepancies are made up by the company and this is watched over very carefully by the Administration. Furthermore, the component of local employment on the mines at Bougainville is of an extremely high order.

The second comment of the honourable member for Fremantle refers to the Royal Australian Navy. I hope he will forgive me for presuming to answer his query in place of the Minister for the Navy (Mr Killen) but he was referring no doubt to the patrol vessels used by the

Papuans and by the Royal Australian Navy for the various purposes he described. He made the comment that he did not know why they were bought in preference to some other type of vessel and he poohpoohed the fact that they did only 24 knots when some other vessel back in World War 1 did 25 knots. But the facts of the matter are that they were not considered in comparison with something else. They were built in Queensland; I mention that because I see the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) sitting at the table. I would not have thought that the honourable member for Fremantle would be so prepared to condemn these vessels if he knew that they were built in Australia to our specifications. These vessels were not built as high speed motor torpedo boats or high speed destroyers; they were built to be an economic form of patrol vessel and they exactly fulfil that function.

I must touch very briefly on the Budget because 1 wish to speak on a matter of grave consequence to my own electorate, namely, the excise placed on wine. But I would like, if I may, just to remind the House once again that this Budget was brought down against a background of a growth at constant prices of 5.5 per cent per annum and against a background of full employment in this nation - a position rarely achieved by any other country, whether it be in the free world or behind the Iron Curtain. It was brought down against a background of average wage increases at a level never known before in this country. Only last week-end in the course of my duty I contacted 2 people as I drove towards the airport to come to Canberra. One was an employee of Chrysler Aust. Ltd whose wages had doubled in 4 years and the other was a driver whose wages had doubled in 5i years. This Budget was brought down against a background of these things and it would be as well for the people of Australia to remember that this is so. Perhaps, as the honourable member for Fremantle says, so very frequently, things are fortuitous. So very frequently governments cannot help world surpluses. So very frequently it is impossible to feed starving people in India, which I know is close to the heart of the honourable member for Fremantle. The best thing that ever happened to the Indian people was when the Americans about 6 years ago

Jacked up. if 1 might use that phrase, and through Public Law 240 which refers to surplus disposals said to the Indian people: You are no longer in the grip of drought. You have not done much to feed yourselves and it is time you got off the proverbial part of your anatomy and did something about it.’ What do we see today because of this action? In this age of miracle grains such as miracle rice and irrigation wheat which have a huge yielding capacity India is pretty nearly self-sufficient in foodstuffs. This is a country which used to have to borrow, beg or get in some other way if it could not afford to buy with its own currency. So these things are not simple and I appreciate what the honourable member for Fremantle has said about them.

As regards small farmers I can appreciate that if the honourable member has recently been to a small country town in Western Australia or anywhere else it could well be a shock to him because I suppose he does not go there so often. But there are those of us who have small towns in our electorates and their wellbeing is vital to the districts we represent, whether these districts have as their major industries wineries, packing sheds, aluminium can production to cope with the produce, or dairy factories. No matter what they do, these things are of very great importance and so are the people who support them. I make no apologies for taking this point of view. In fact, I intend to make the same point in a little while when I deal with the wine industry itself. There is no question that in many of these towns some of the local industries have not quite moved with times. Looking at the south eastern sector of South Australia and the north coast of New South Wales - almost anywhere in Australia except most sections of Victoria - there just is not enough throughput in some of the processing sheds to make them economic, having regard to the costs in industry, particularly primary industry, today.

Tn passing I would like to support what the honourable member for Macarthur (Mr Jeff Bate) said today. He said that it was all very well for members of the Opposition to point to increased costs. Far more honourable members opposite have been involved in industrial action than have honourable members on this side of the

House. 1 go along, to one degree or another, with the honourable member for Macarthur when I say that every time there is a strike costs go up; every time there is a strike there is less real value in the pay packet of the people of Australia. This applies whether they be workers in industry or whether they be people in primary industry struggling along with the huge increased costs and having to put up with the vast tariff protection which prohibits the import of cheaper goods that they need to fulfil their function.

The chief items of expenditure in this Budget are the enormous increases in payments to the States on the one hand and the very vast remission of income tax to lower and middle income groups on the other. Many of these people will have a sufficient remission of income tax to make up - in some cases to overcome - any increase in costs arising out of increased indirect taxation in this Budget. This fact alone must be taken into account when looking at the wine industry. South Australia produces 70 per cent of Australia’s wine requirements. There is no shadow of doubt that in South Australia the greatest percentage of the State’s wine production is in the electorate of Angas. Wine is grown in 2 major areas of my electorate. Firstly it is grown in the Barossa Valley where high quality wine production is carried out without much aid from irrigation. It is a natural area capable of growing the highest quality juice in this country. Barossa Valley wine ranks very high by any world comparision. The top end of my electorate is quite different from the Barossa Valley area. There primarily gordo and sultanas, as well as a certain number of irrigated wine varieties, are grown. The wine from this area might have been said in years gone by not to be of the same quality as that produced in -the Barossa area. A tremendous amount of it goes to firms such as Lindermans in New South Wales and you, Mr Deputy Speaker, possibly drink some of this wine imagining that it to be the product of the Hunter Valley, under which name it is labelled and sold.

But we must go further than this and decide what the industry is composed of. Fundamentally, contrary to beer production, for example, the wine industry is composed of grass roots growers. These are people, some of them small vignerons with 15 acres of vines, who grow grapes for a living. A high proportion of these grapes finish up in wineries and distilleries. The second level of the wine industry is made up of wine makers who fall into 2 distinct groups. There are the wine proprietaries on the one hand and the wine co-operatives on the other. The differences in attitude between these 2 groups are legion. Of great consequence to the wine industry and of great retarding effect to my own interests and the interests of South Australian wineries and grape growers are the merchants and blenders of New South Wales. I can remember not long ago the industry proposing a scheme to tax itself for purposes of promotion.

Mr Foster:

– You are only trying to justify the Government’s action.

Mr GILES:

– Might I remind the honourable member that he is a great sender of telegrams. Not only did he send me one of 47 words the other day from 2 doors away but lately I have discovered that he sent one of 88 words to a signatory of a petition. If there were 200 names on the petition I hate to think of the cost he has run up to the taxpayers of this country. Let him chew on that for a while and decide whether he is not the biggest single factor in the increased cost of services provided by the Postmaster-General’s Department.

The problem is: What damage will this excise do to the grower? There is no question that the other sectors of the wine industry are well and truly covered. They have had their problems over the years but they have had times of affluence and with increased throughput and increased economies of sale their position is assured.

In South Australia attempts have been made over many years to assure the position of the grower. Many members on both sides of the South Australian Parliament have supported, peculiarly enough perhaps, a system of prices control which puts a value on the future trend of great varieties. If there was a greater requirement for cabernet sauvignon, riesling, the rarer wines or the newer wines such as pinot, the comparable rating each year was altered to achieve an effect that will lead towards the highest quality of grape production in those areas. The next point I want to make is that it is generally assessed that of the table wines - the wines some of us may buy at a dining room table - only one-third are quality wines in the high price bracket. Two-thirds are in the low price bracket, and under this legislation will carry a tax of between 20 per cent and 35 per cent. Of the fortified wines, 80 per cent are in the low price bracket and again will carry an increase in price at the rate of 20 to 35 per cent. Therefore, it is a mistake to think that we are taxing to any real extent in the legislation before us the wines that we see on a dining room table. We are not. We are taxing them very little indeed - possibly 5 per cent of their price value.

Since the local wine industry in recent weeks has seen what is contained in the Budget it has wanted to know whether it is not possible for this impost or tax to be put on the industry in general as a sales tax or at an ad valorem level instead of as a fiat charge per bottle. At first glance this seems to be quite a reasonable idea. But I would think the Minister for Customs and Excise (Mr Chipp) is quite correct when he says he sees difficulties in such an arrangement because there is no earthly use in penalising the very people who are prepared to produce quality wines in this country by singling them out for the same level of tax as would be applied to the production of sweet sherries, muscats and cheap ports.

Mr Beazley:

– Plonk.

Mr GILES:

– The honourable member for Fremantle is right on the ball. 1 did not know he was such an expert on this topic. I think it would be quite wrong after serious consideration virtually to penalise those people who are prepared to put down wine in their wineries, some of which is valuable wine - wine used for blending purposes. In retrospect I think that if people stop to consider this they would agree that this would be an undue impost on those prepared to store wine and to build in time, by blending or by straight production of that juice, a high quality wine. I do not believe that it would be in the best interests of the wine industry to adopt an ad valorem method of tax.

I want to get down to a study of the present effect of this tax. No doubt when the legislation introducing this excise is before us we will have a further opportunity of studying what has happened. This morning my secretary rang a series of wine shops to see what was happening in terms of wine through-put. I will tell the House what her inquiries revealed. The first shop was in Adelaide. It is one which professional people tend to patronise. The inquiries revealed that the new price has beer added to some lines but not to others. There has been no difference in the weekly wine sales in the period from prior to the Budget to the second week after the Budget. This again shows that people seem to be quite oblivious to price changes. So far I suppose we should feel rather encouraged.

The second wine shop was in the area of my friend, the honourable member for Boothby (Mr McLeay). The proprietor said that there was a tremendous rush prior to the Budget. Since then sales have remained normal but there is a trend to purchase slightly cheaper varieties of wine. The next wine seller contacted is situated in the centre of Adelaide. He reported having had double sales before the Budget. The week after the Budget was introduced sales were slightly higher. At present they seem to be running at about 15 per cent above normal sales prior to the Budget. There does not seem to be much rhyme or reason for that. The next man contacted operates in a lower class area in Adelaide and he reported that there was some panic buying. After the Budget, sales returned to normal and last week sales were better than normal, for some reason or other.

Mr Beazley:

– Are you saying that it is a good tax?

Mr GILES:

– Just be patient and I will tell you what I think of it. The insinuation to be drawn from the report of that seller seems to be that customers are not particularly interested. This seller is in an area of Adelaide where incomes wold be considerably lower than in the other areas I mentioned. I would point out that the 4 persons I have referred to applied the new prices. The next person contacted operates in Western Australia. It was reported that the lowest priced flagon wine, a sweet sherry, rose from $1 to SI. 40; yet sales remained the same. I do not know what the honourable member for Adelaide (Mr Hurford) is saying but I do not think that 1 would like to drink that wine. However sales remained the same. in considering whether this tax is having a deleterious effect we have to remember that the persons my secretary contacted would represent only a very small proportion of sales. Sales have slumped in hotel bottle departments. This may be because people bought wine before the Budget was announced but I do not know. Sales have not altered in dining rooms. This would be because people who go to dining rooms buy a bottle of wine and I have no doubt that they will continue to do so. This area of sales is not of great consequence. I do not know details of cellar door sales but it is at that level and others that the wine industry runs into direct competition with breweries. I think honourable members recognise that the wine industry is very sensitive to price variations. This can be proved by any honourable member who likes to look at past Tariff Board inquiries relating to brandy excise, a matter on which the Government made a decision some time ago. 1 want to refer honourable members to an article by a Dr Taplin which appeared in a pamphlet issued recently by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. He made a great study in depth of many aspects of the wine industry. If one attempts to forecast what is going to happen to the wine industry, as I am forced to do now, then one must look very carefully at this article by Dr Taplin. Basically he said that price sensitivity and demand responses are of very great consequence to the wine industry. I will not weary honourable members by delving too deeply into his tremendously learned dissertation which is very difficult to understand. What he said suggests to me that on his graph results relating to price sensitivity there should be a 20 per cent drop in wine sales during the next 12 months. The price variations result from the 8.29 per cent tax imposed by the Government. Normal markups, whatever they may be said to be in a state of increased through-put and further economies of scale which should eventuate, involve 4 per cent and in South Australia there is an extra 3 per cent mark up for extra costs to be incurred in the future.

One of the delightful situations of this enormous problem involves the South Australian Prices Commissioner. At present there is an Australian Labor Party Government in that State. I imagine that the function of the Prices Commissioner is to protect the consumer and to ensure that price increases within the field for which he has responsibility are subject to proper scrutiny and proper decision. I gather that in New South Wales, under a free enterprise government, the wine industry has put up the cost of wine per bottle by 13c; but the asinine situation that has occurred in South Australia - the home of the wine industry - is that the Prices Commissioner, protecting the consumer, has permitted the price to go up by 15c a bottle. I am unable to discover the bush logic of this.

Mr Hurford:

– What is the starting point? You have not told us anything about the comparative costs.

Mr GILES:

– I have dealt with the starting point; I want to get to the finishing point. If we accept Dr Taplin’s forecast of a 20 per cent drop in sales, remembering that this was made before this excise was imposed, ‘then there will be a fall in the amount of excise paid to the Federal Government from $15.2m to Slim. Quite frankly I do not know why the Government is taking the risk of fiddling with one of the few viable industries in Australia at this time, even if price control is meant to govern returns to the growers. If in due course my fears eventuate, then I hope honourable members from all sides will join with me when I move in this House that there should be some remission in this form of taxation. I want to thank honourable members from all parties and all sides of the House who sent telegrams to the Prime Minister (Mr Gorton) and to the Treasurer (Mr Bury) when the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby) tried to get up to some of his hanky panky and political practitioning. If my fears eventuate then I propose to move for the remission of this form of taxation. I am making my position plain. T am not going to blame my Party.

Mr Foster:

– Why do you not vote for the amendment?

Mr GILES:

– Hold your horses. I am not going to resign from my Party or do anything dire, if there is a surplus of grapes that would have eventuated in any event. If I think that this tax is responsible for bringing the wine industry to its knees, as has happened to other industries, 1 intend to move for the remission of the tax. I will not for one minute - and let me make my position plain-

Mr Grassby:

– 1 support it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock:

– Order! The honourable member for Riverina and the honourable member for Sturt will cease interjecting.

Mr Grassby:

– I am sorry, Sir, I was only supporting him.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Mr GILES:

– If I may use my last couple of minutes in peace and quiet I would say that it must be borne in mind with this type of tax that we are not dealing with beer, which is made of water and is not over expensive even in South Australia, and barley, which is not the entire end product of the barley industry; we are dealing with wine. We are dealing with grapes grown by people who have invested $40,000, or whatever they have had, in the industry. Their outlets are the brandy and wine industries. The only other possible outlet is the dried fruit industry. Some members of the House may not keep up with that industry as much as other members - and I am not looking at anyone in particular - but only a fortnight ago Turkey del valued its currency and it has a big surplus production of the dual varieties of gordos and sultanas, and the International Sultana Agreement has been broken. The placing of these grapes is another important factor involved in this unfortunate action, and I deliberately refer to it as such. It is my intention to watch the position of the Australian wine industry closely because none of us can be sure precisely what the effects of this tax will be at least before the end of the next 12 months.

Mr HAYDEN:
Oxley

– No-one has been inspired by this Budget. Many have despaired, however, at its utter failure to come to grips with the immediate challenges which must be discharged if the economy is to be soundly based for long term accelerating development into the twenty-first century. Even more, though, have been appalled at its complete bankruptcy in acknowledging a moral obligation to propose meaningful measures to combat and overcome cultural, social, and economic deprivation which is altogether too extensive in this prosperous community to justify the apparent complacency of this conservative Government. This Budget should have been a documentation of national aspiration indicating the goals we aim at as progressive markers guiding our national path forward into the next century. It should be a clear, intelligible statement to the community of the course this country is being set on as part of a programme of achievement into the future. But it fails. Instead of clear objectives it gives blurred uncertainty, lt focusses on nothing.

This Budget is Bury’s strategy for stagnation in the seventies. The promised delivery of programmed budgeting, publicly conceived by the Treasurer in the last session, has proved to be a stillbirth. Consequently, departments are ridden with the prospect of the continuing uncertainties and frustrations of the yearly pre-Budget estimate haggle. There is no major national development programme in this Budget in spite of the great capacity of our country’s resources for further development, and in spite of the urgent need for extensive urban renewal and planned decentralisation programmes. Business must operate in an atmosphere of doubt and caution, uncertain as to whether budgetary policy will take us forward or set us back. As a result investment decisions will be modified or deferred with consequential losses to economic growth. Worst of all the Treasurer and his gang of financial dilettantes captained by goodtime Johnny Gorton have shirked the most crucial challenge of all in our economy.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock)Order! I remind the honourable member for Oxley that a member of the Opposition took a point of order when a reference was made by a member of the Government to the Leader of the Opposition. I suggest that the honourable member for Oxley might also observe the Standing Orders of this House.

Mr HAYDEN:

– Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will continue. They have shirked the need to rationally allocate and utilise our scarce economic resources in order to maximise for the community the social and economic benefits which those resources are capable of providing. For too long we have sponged off the successive profits of fortuitous wool, wheat, beef and mineral booms. But luck can be fickle and can run out at the most inconsiderate times. It has run out on wheat and it is running out on wool. The current annual rate of increase in beef production of 5 per cent indicates that exports will have to grow by about 8 per cent a year - even more if there is a rapid recovery in Queensland from the drought. As markets alternative to the United States of America do not appear to offer sufficient absorption to sustain this sort of growth and as the United States market, which is our biggest, taking 80 per cent of our beef exports, will not accept an increase in our exports of this magnitude, it seems that there will be disruption in the beef industry in the near future. This leaves minerals for the Government to poll on as the last prop to its distressing bankruptcy of constructive economic growth policies. In any event good luck should be no substitute for consciously sought, responsibly fostered and practically developed economic growth generated from an efficient allocation and use of our economic resources.

When one appreciates that there are almost as many people in the single city of Tokyo as in the whole of Australia, that the United States of America pours more into the Vietnam war in 12 months - S29,000m according to a recent, official statement - than our economy is capable of generating in a year - our gross national product last year was $27.000m - one understands how relatively scarce our economic resources are and why we cannot afford to squander them. Yet with peculiar complacency the Government distributed $470m last year as direct financial props of various forms to shore up several sectors of primary, secondary and tertiary industry. These payments were in the form of subsidies, bounties, tax concessions, etc., and they gorged nearly 7 per cent of total Budget outlay. Indisputably some of this expenditure can be justified, but little real economic justification has been given for any of it by the Government. Precisely how much can be justified is not known to the public. No-one disputes that it keeps men and capital employed in industry of some form, but the real question is: Are the men and capital used in the most efficient manner? I use ‘efficient’ in the economic sense to indicate that in comparison to other uses to which these resources can be put the current use maximises return.

If the Government persists in maintaining subsidies and other expensive financial props under inefficient industries then it imposes unnecessary sacrifices on taxpayers who ultimately pay for this form of political chicanery. The sacrifice, incidentally, is greater than the living standard surrendered as represented by the tax payment made. There is also the loss of additional improvements in living standards which could have been netted by a responsible, efficient use of those resources. Simply stated, this system of financial props represents a policy of income transfer from one section of the community to another. Bluntly expressed, those industries propped up in this way are in receipt of a social security payment.

As the Government has made a massive switch of about $200m from direct to indirect taxes this means, rather appallingly, that the burden of providing the funds for these support programmes will fall more onerously, and because of the nature of indirect taxes, quite unfairly on low income recipients. That is, pensioners, superannuitants and large families supported on low incomes will have a proportionately greater burden cast on them to support much of these costly programmes. If it is established that the factors et production tied up in any such industry could produce a better return to the community, net of the subsidy, bounty, or what have you, in another industry then the community is quite unwise to allow the Government to persevere, at great public expense, with this less efficient allocation of resources.

While an exception to this rule may be upheld on grounds of defence or social need, the exception should be sparingly conceded and only after stringent evaluation of the case proposed; not as now when the public purse is unrepentantly pilfered by the Government to buy political patronage. Our objective ought to be to establish where we have a comparative advantage in production over other countries. We ought then to specialise in producing in those fields where this advantage lies and importing where we have disadvantage. The same argument can be made on tariffs.

As subsidies, bounties, concessions, tariffs, etc., are a cost borne by taxpayersconsumers - the same people really - some thorough going economic analysis is needed of these forms of assistance to establish whether economically and socially a more beneficial return can be provided for the community from the use of the financial, physical and human resources imprisoned by these divers means of protection. The same point can be taken on freights and power charges and on development projects which have not been settled on according to economic criteria. What I am urging is that we get away from the traditional practices of the current Government of bidding for votes with handouts to sectional pressure groups and that we start working responsibly in handling the public’s money.

Above all, I am urging that for a change the neglected man in our community, the long suffering and much exploited Australian consumer, be given consideration. I am talking about the rights of people in a consumer society. Regrettably, too much do we think of our obligation as being in relation to sectional pressure bodies - manufacturers, farmers, trade unions, and so on - and not enough about the people who really count in the long run and about whom the duties of Government and the aims of society aught to be - that great mass of private people, the consumers.

It is alarming that no assessment is ever made of what effect decisions on various forms of industry supporting protection have on the rest of the economy. After all, the economy does not consist of a series of totally disparate elements. There is interdependence between the various sectors and it is futile to charge the Tariff Board with the responsibility of establishing what are economic and efficient industries and then restrict its inquiries to a single line of production. This is why the Tariff Board’s current review of the tariff structure is so welcome. However, the Board cannot work in isolation from all those other agencies which influence the performance of the economy. As things stand at present there is too much competitiveness between them for resources. They are not encouraged to see their role as interrelated with the whole economy and indeed, even if they are aware of this, their separateness is a bar to the development of such practices. The problem is compounded by the short run nature of budget guidelines, which are restricted to 12 months. Additionally, the subjectively inspired and impulsively applied by-law policy of the Department of Customs and Excise was inadroitly confessed in the

Senate in April 1969 by the then Minister for Customs and Excise to exculpate himself from criticism for this practice when he said:

The Department of Customs and Excise, of which 1 am the Minister, is anxious to establish industries in Australia.’

This positively strikes at the foundations of any stability goals at which the Tariff Board might be aiming. What Australia urgently needs is a system of national economic planning to give long term purpose to the arrangement of our economic development and to maximise the rational allocation of resources and the rate of economic growth. National planning ought to be of the indicative type with partial enforcement in the public sector and encouragement through co-operation in the private sector. Under indicative planning a provisional growth rate is selected. Projections are then made for the various sectors of the economy, public and private, inputoutput tables are assembled, and then internal consistency, balance and coordination between the sectional projections is obtained.

Planning ought to be based on and applied through regional committees comprised of representatives of public and private enterprise, labour and community interest. The planning should be coordinated by a federal economic advisory committee, backed up by a full time, expert staff and drawing on the advice of specialist committees on agriculture, natural resources, small industries, large industries, power, transport and communications, overseas trade and foreign investment, social services, labour, urban development and scientific and technical research. In the final result, of course, the Government of the day should take the decision on the nature of the plan and precisely how it will be implemented. Without such an approach there will be a lack of co-ordination of economic and social goals, that is, in identifying priorities, and also a lack of co-ordination of resources required to reach these goals.

There are 3 broad objectives to be served by economic planning in Australia. Firstly, in comparison with other developed countries such as Japan. Germany, France, and Sweden, Australia’s rate of economic growth per head of population during the last 20 years has not been impressive. All groups of the community stand to gain from the increased rate of growth which could result from the introduction of an economic plan. Secondly, fluctuations in national income and employment are caused mainly by fluctuations in investment in the private sector of the economy. A coherent economic plan with clearly defined targets would encourage greater stability in private investment, since firms would be able to make their own long range plans with greater confidence. Thirdly, the tendency for an imbalance to develop between the private and the public sectors in developed capitalist societies is well known. The resulting comparative stagnation of the public sector contributes to continuing inequality in our society, and has led to neglect of such matters as education, cultural affairs, urban planning, hospitals, and public transport systems for which the whole community suffers. Professor Gates, Dean of the Economics Faculty, University of Queensland, set the situation out very neatly when he said:

Planning for economic development means surveying the potentialities and needs ofthe economy for some years ahead, establishing a set of integrated and co-ordinated growth targets, and expressing them in the form of particular values for various indicators which can be watched much us an aeroplane pilot watches his instruments. The mere announcement of targets is likely to have some selffulfilling effect, so anxious are businessmen and consumers and people training for jobs to have the future read for them and to behave accordingly. There is a multitude of implements that governments can wield to keep the indicator needles on target, provided only that the targets have been set.In addition, of course, a growth programme will require direct investment and expansion on the part of many government agencies. It is critically important to maintain flexibility in such planning, continuously revising the targets up to five or ten years ahead as events unfold.’

Until the proposition for economic planning is accepted our economic progress will continue to be blighted by the shifting, too often unpredictably so, kaleidoscopic arrangements of successive budgets. Blunt implements of economic control will continue, for example, unselective monetary policy which operates on aggregate equilibrium, ignoring sectoral disequilibria, fiscal imposts based on a sharply regressive income tax scale which falls disproportionately heavily on middle and lower income groups still and which through its marginal rates of increase gives the greatest benefit, through deductions, to high income earners, instead of where it is needed most - in the lower groupings.

May I exemplify what 1 mean, using the new scale of tax incidentally. The cash reduction in income tax which a minimum income earner, that is someone earning $42.50 a week, gains through the deductible item for a wife and 2 children is $120; for a person on $10,000 it is $322, and for a person on $20,000 it really becomes lucative at 433. This is clearly a system which discriminates against need and which gold plates opulence. Even the new tax reductions give most to those with least need. The minimum wage earner will receive a concession equivalent to 1 per cent of his income; the average weekly earnings recipient 1.8 per cent; the person on $10,000 a year 3.5 per cent. If you look at it another way, the man on $20,000 a year receives 9 times the minimum wage but his saving will be 16 times that provided for the minimum wage earner. Again, using Treasury estimates, one can calculate that the average weekly earner in the current year will pay tax equivalent to 7 weeks income. In 1954-55 his tax bill was equivalent only to 5 weeks income. It will be a matter of only a few years before, in fact, he is paying as much in tax in terms of weekly income as he was last year.

In considering the fact that the concessions granted through income tax are equally offset ‘ by withdrawals from consumers’ living standards through indirect taxes, on the basis of what I have just pointed out, in a few years time income earners will be much worse off than they were last year. Not only will they be paying as much tax in terms of weekly income as they were paying last year, but they will also have imposing on them savage indirect tax imposts introduced into the Budget this year. The inequality against those with need and the favouring of the wealthy, in conjunction with what I said earlier about the greater sacrifice placed on the living standards of low income earners by indirect taxes, to which the Government has turned with a vengeance, exposes the Government’s slavish conformity to the biblical injunction in Matthew that is: In modern paraphrase you slug the poor and pander to the rich.

Our whole approach to taxation has to be rethought. Indirect taxes cannot be abolished, but they should be used sparingly and only after careful consideration of their effects on the living standards of consumers as well as their contribution to inflation.

They should not be grasped, as they have by the present Government, as a completely dishonest device aimed at soaking up any minute chance that the unctuously promised direct income tax relief would benefit anyone. The structure of direct income taxes has to be recast so that it is progressive in its impact and so that deductions do not give advantage to the rich over the more needful. But to revert to the subject of economic planning. It fills me with dismay that in spite of our high investment rate - about 24 per cent of gross national product, one of the highest in the world, we do not have one of the highest per capita growth rates. I refer honourable members to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition for authoritative tables on this. It gravely disturbs me that on a per capita income basis, other countries whose affairs are managed more responsibly and by, contradistinctively, competent governments, Australia is losing ground vis-a-vis the rest of the world. In 1950 only the United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, Switzerland and Ireland, in that order, had a higher per capita national income than Australia. By 1965 Kuwait, Sweden and Denmark had been added to this list, with several other countries within striking distance of Australia. Indeed, of those countries within striking distance of Australia, Norway increased its per capita national income nearly 3 times over between J 950 and 1965, and the Federal Republic of Germany nearly 4 times over. Australia’s increase had been slightly less than twice over for the same period. In ordinary, blunt terms, we are not getting value for our money!

Proportionately, we are investment spending as much as the other top investment spenders in the world but we are losing ground to them. Our problem is that because of the crass incompetence of successive conservative national Governments our real growth pattern reads like a crazy, convulsed graph pattern of manic peaks of optimism and troughs of despair. Even last year’s growth, broken down to real per capita terms, is disappointingly low. The imposing 10.7 per cent increase was in tact made up of S.2 per cent increase in the cost of living, a post-war record incidentally, and 4 per cent growth in the work force. That is, real per capita growth was an unimpressive 1.5 per cent last year, clear evidence of an inefficient use of scarce economic resources. Again under indicative planning the crude and discreditable deceit of the Government’s presentation of the Budget as its economic intent for the year would be replaced by candid representation of the economic objectives sought on a sectoral basis, as well as in aggregate, for the year. Regular adjustment of the plan would allow the public and private sectors to be fully versed in economic trends and to adjust their investment/output programmes accordingly.

In contrast, could anything be more dishonest, misleading and dislocative to the performance of business than for a government to claim, as this conservative one frequently does, that its economic intent is clearly portrayed in the Budget and then, when the Budget clearly propounds expansion or balance, to clandestinely impose recessionary measures through the back door of monetary policy? This was precisely the case last year. The building industry has been brought to its knees by tight and expensive money policies in spite of last year’s almost balanced budget. In these circumstances the Budget becomes a fairly meaningless instrument and what becomes of more importance is the devious and unannounced intent and practices of the Government. Even worse, the hopeful young marrieds - our most important asset for the future of this country - are asked to bear the full severity of the Government’s economic restraints. Meanwhile business earns exorbitant profits which concentrate so much spending power into a relatively few hands that sectoral disequilibria follow and inflation becomes rampant. But profits come before people with this conservative Government, even record high profits. So the young marrieds bear the full force of the Government’s assault against the economy. This is truly the Government of privilege and selfishness. It is not the Government of the Australian people who have a long tradition of commendable personal values of fair play, of giving a man a go, of look ing after the battler whether the battler is the young married couple trying to build a home for the future, the wage and salary earner struggling to raise and educate a family, or the pensioner trying to establish security and human dignity - his right - in retirement.

But this Budget treats these people as outcasts in the pointed way in which it discriminates against them. Again inflation insidiously erodes their living standards. Last year’s explosive movement up of 5.2 per cent is frankly frightening. Clearly this sort of thing also disadvantages our export industries. Incidentally, I am not opposed to controlled, mild inflation of around 2 per cent. There are, it seems to me, clear advantages to economic growth through the money incentive this provides to investors and consumers. But inflation of an order exceeding 5 per cent as in the year just past, is altogether another matter and fills me with horror. In any event, on the score of inflation we could well do with some fairminded, constructive discussion from the Government on causes and remedial action. For instance, with single-mindedness the Government’s chief economic spokesman, listless Leslie Bury, persistently damns the wage and salary earners as the seemingly sole cause of this blight. On 19th March last for instance, he said:

Quite clearly a major factor in price increases is increased costs, which in recent months have come mainly from increased wages and higher salaries.’

In this case, the defects of Government economic policy are quickly shelved on to someone else; the wage and salary earners. They are the sinister villains dedicated to subverting the economy, according to the Treasurer. The Treasurer compounds this offensiveness in his recent Budget Speech. This is artful nonsense by the Treasurer and he knows it! Average weekly earnings increased by 8 per cent and the gross national product by 10.2 per cent, that is average weekly earnings did not expand commensurately with the volume of increased goods and services produced plus the cost of living movement during that year. In fact they were more than 2 per cent behind this level. In other words some other group than wage and salary earners picked up a bonus from the growth in the economy at the expense of those people.

Or is it Liberal Party philosophy that blue and white collar producers are not entitled to fully participate in the benefits of the increased wealth they have helped create for the community? In contrast, at page 15 of his speech the Treasurer is at his restrained best confessing that company income increased by 14 per cent for the year, or nearly 4 per cent more than did the gross national product. Why did he neglect to be consistent and relate this to inflationary forces? Instead, his heart full of compassion, he stated:

The Government appreciates that gains in productivity depend in large measure on business investment and that prospects of good profits have a big part in incentives to investment.

The honest position for him to have adopted was to admit frankly that the inordinately high level of profits last year was the largest single contributor to the biggest inflationary movement we have had inflicted on us in the post war period. On this subject the Treasury White Paper, The Australian Economy 1970’, states significantly that a number of factors have contributed to price increases and - larger profit margins probably more than most.

Rebuking the Treasurer’s fondly disseminated attacks on blue and white collar wage and salary earners the paper adds:

Also any tendency for demand to run to excess quickly reflects itself in the elements making up costs but the directly consequential rise in wages are the symptons rather than causes of the prevailing inflation.

The want of candour and veracity, it seems, lies not with the Treasury. In addition to profits, export income, subsidies and tariffs and bounties, restrictive trade practices, taxes - especially indirect ones - inefficient management, and a whole range of other factors contribute significantly to inflation. The Treasurer never mentions them. It is always the blue and white collar wage and salary earners he has in his sights when he attacks on inflation. He is qualified in the field of economics and he is therefore well aware of these fundamental economic facts. His aversion to raising them in the context to which I refer clearly exposes where his sympathies lie and against whom his antipathies are directed. But for goodness sake, the good life we are all concerned about, surely, is not gauged by higher output levels.

The distribution of that wealth is equally important and here, once again, Australia’s performance under a conservative Government is clearly shoddy. That conservative Government clings to a miserable 50c handouts to pensioners when a full-scale war against poverty and deprivation is needed. They cling to an unnecessarily expensive system of health insurance which must collapse, because of its costliness, within 5 years. In the meantime they shun the needs of our State public hospital services which are on the verge of collapse in many areas for want of funds. In health and welfare Australia led the world nearly 50 years ago. Today we rank lower than twentieth in the proportion of gross national product we allocate for these purposes. From my recent observations overseas it is clear that in this important field of humanitarian commitment we are disgustingly backward and conservative.

This conservative national Government sturdily averts its face from the just claim of the Aboriginal to land rights. Only in South Australia indeed, and then only under a Labor Government, have land rights been granted to Aboriginals. In Canada and the United States of America the Amerindians enjoy land rights to their reserves. We deny this fundamental entitlement to the Aboriginal, whom our forefathers dispossessed without compensation, in doing so often abusing the Aboriginal women, murdering the men and corrupting and cruelly destroying the Aboriginal’s culture and self respect. Today, as if our past were not enough, we dispossess him of his reserve land to make way for international mining giants who plunder his land for enormous profit, at best conceding a minute payment to the Aboriginal. Then he is made a second rate citizen in a company town which denies any recognition of the Aboriginal’s prior claim of right to land. This is a most peculiar practice for our society based as it is on recognition of property rights.

Education stands as a symbol of the marked class basis of our society. Commonwealth secondary scholarships granted to applications received fell from 19 per cent in 1965 to 12 per cent in 1968. Four out of 5 of our State secondary school pupils drop out before the full term of secondary schooling is finished. On the other hand 4 out of 5 of non-Catholic private secondary school pupils continue through to matriculation. The private non-Catholic secondary school pupil attracts$50 per capita direct grant. His school environment is superior in every way to his State school counterpart. His State school compatriot, often in overcrowded and unattractive surroundings, sometimes even in slum surrounding, receives no direct grant from the Commonwealth. As things stand now the Commonwealth gives the biggest handicaps to the slowest runners. The physical environment in which we live we vandalise, poison and defile in a way which ravages nature as only some infernal brute would. No other animal so abuses his environment as does man. In spite of the findings of the Senate Select Committee on Air Pollution - or the report of the Senate Select Committee on Water Pollution - no mention has been made of these subjects in the Budget. The Budget neglects these matters and is aimed at appealing to selfishness and cupidity. As democratic socialists we of the Australian Labor Party reject this objectionable philosophy of pandering to personal selfishness by ignoring the human want and qualitative needs of our society and environment. I support the amendment.

Mr (O’KEEFE (Paterson) [10.12]- Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise to support the Budget. It is fair to say that any Budget brought down by a government cannot please all sections of the community. One of the main features of this Budget has been the reduction of personal income taxation especially in the lower and middle income groups. This must surely be pleasing to taxpayers in those categories. This substantial income taxation relief to such a large body of taxpayers means a reduction of $289m in a full financial year. This appears to have been overlooked by critics both inside and outside the Parliament. The promise made by the Government to give relief in this field was to the effect that it would take place over a period of 3 years. But the Government has granted this reduction in its Budget for the first financial year of its term of office. This means more take home pay for all employees and, irrespective of indirect taxation on some other items, must mean a net gain to the taxpayer.

This Budget provides for increased payments to the States and includes funds for State works and housing programmes estimated to cost $2,708m or $29 lm more than last year. This represents 36 per cent of Budget expenditure and should assist the

States with their development programmes and result in better Federal-State relationships. Housing is, without a doubt, one of the most important items confronting the Australian Government. With the influx of migrants and with thousands of young Australians reaching marriageable age, the demand is considerable from the private sector, from building societies and from housing commissions. Many towns in my own electorate have large waiting lists for housing commission accommodation. This situation exists right throughout Australia. In many instances, homes are required for key personnel associated with various industries and are an important factor in assisting decentralisation.

This year, $142,550,000 has been authorised to be raised by way of loan as advances to the States during the 1970-71 period for housing in accordance with the provisions of the Commonwealth-State housing agreement. Advances made to the States under the agreement are repayable over 53 years and bear interest at 1 per cent per annum below the long term bond rate. So, this Commonwealth-State housing agreement is extremely important for the provision of houses throughout our Commonwealth. The loan raising this year represents an increase of 8 per cent over the figure for last year. This is the concluding year of the period covered by the present housing agreement. It is very heartening indeed to see the increase in funds under the Commonwealth-State housing agreement. When the new agreement is formulated, every consideration must be given to increases for the provision of additional houses.

The Budget provides for an estimated expenditure of $312,357,000, which is an increase of 25 per cent on expenditure during 1969-70, for the purpose of education. This clearly indicates the concern of the Commonwealth to provide more funds for education which is undoubtedly one of the most important items of Government administration. I would venture to say that every government in Australia, irrespective of its political allegiance, is allocating the greatest proportion of its budget to education. The funds provided by the Commonwealth Government for education mark the commencement of further assistance to the States for the construction of teachers colleges. Every

Australian State will benefit in this facet of education. There will be increased numbers of training teachers, a most important and desirable section of the education field. The expected increase in primary school enrolments from 1973 onwards, together with increased retention in secondary schools, has influenced the Government to ensure that an increased number of fully trained teachers are available to meet this situation.

Another very pleasing feature of the Commonwealth’s education programme is the aid to provide additional Commonwealth university scholarships. The new scholarships available in 1971 will total 12,500. Many other educational benefits were enumerated recently in this House by the Minister for Education and Science (Mr Bowen) when he made a ministerial statement on this subject. Grants to colleges of advanced education are expected to total almost $40m whilst those to universities will total SI 10m. These amounts are in excess of the amounts for previous years.

Once again, it is evident that the Government considers education as one of its most important priorities. This must be a source of satisfaction to educationalists and to the Australian people. We often hear it said - no doubt there is a lot of truth in the statement - that educational facilities throughout our country could be improved considerably. There is no doubt that this Budget will assist greatly in providing better educational facilities throughout the country. I have no doubt that the States will welcome this assistance from the Federal Government at the higher educational levels.

The Country Party has welcomed the Government’s decision on the construction and maintenance of country telephone lines. In future the Postmaster-General’s Department will construct and wholly maintain all telephone lines from the exchange to the subscriber’s residence up to a distance of 15 radial miles when the service is being changed from manual to automatic. The Country Party has been seeking this policy for some time. It pays a tribute to the Postmaster-General (Mr Hulme) who recognised the problem of country people living in remote areas. The Department’s responsibility for the implementation of this service will be of great benefit to primary producers. The Department will construct and fully maintain a telephone line up to’ a radial distance of 1 5 miles at no cost to the subscriber. Beyond that distance the subscriber will be responsible for paying $40 per quarter radial mile as his contribution, with the Department paying the balance. These lines will be more efficient as they are being built by the Postal Department staff and they will give primary producers an excellent telephone service. Previously many lines were partly constructed by the primary producer himself and partly by the PostmasterGeneral’s Department. This caused many problems because often the lines were not built to the required standard. Consequently the service and maintenance needs and requirements were excessive.

The financial plight of local government bodies in Australia is very well known to honourable members and is causing concern to all those connected with the third tier of government, in particular the councillors and ratepayers. I know that this third tier of government is the responsibility of the State governments. Nevertheless we must play our part in the promotion of local government Rates have reached saturation point and this has been brought about by 2 different but not entirely unrelated causes. The first is the changing role of local government and the increasing demands made upon local government authorities. The second is the absence of compensating revenue sources of a just and equitable nature. In short, local government is expected to provide modern amenities, to provide swimming pools, sporting ovals, libraries, baby health centres and many other projects, lt is expected to provide these on an outmoded method of finance.

In country areas throughout Australia drought has also caused a great problem for ratepayers. Many shire and municipal councils arc in dire need of financial assistance. The Commonwealth Government must take a serious view of this situation and give every consideration to the provision of financial assistance for local government, through the States, to keep this most important third tier of government in operation and to help to provide services and amenities so essential for the development of cities and towns alike. In New South Wales a Local Government Grants

Commission distributes $4m a year by way of grants to local government bodies in that State. But this is not sufficient. I know that other States are probably thinking along the same lines, but this is not sufficient to help local government over its problem. We have to take a realistic view of this matter even though it is possibly a State government responsibility. Funds must be provided to keep going this important section of Government which is so close to the people and which provides the services I have mentioned.

I am sorry that the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Grassby) is not here at the moment. When speaking on the Budget he said that it is a slap in the face for rural industries. With all due respect to the honourable member, it is quite evident that he has not examined closely in the Budget we are at present debating the help that has been given by the Government to the primary industries. A study of the 1970 Budget reveals that this year’s provision for the rural industries is 55 per cent more than last year is. The rural industries take the biggest percentage increase of any section of the Budget. The assistance being provided for them has increased by $77m to $215m. The wool industry has been assisted materially.I will speak on this and some other rural matters shortly. Some of the other major budget provisions for the primary industries include over $30m for the wheat industry under the wheat stabilisation plan; $45m for the dairy industry; $56.5m for fertiliser bounties; $21m for devaluation compensation; and $3. 8m for agricultural research.

The 1970 Budget is clear evidence of the great concern of the Government at the serious difficulties facing the rural sector. It also clearly shows the determination of the Government to take steps to help overcome these difficulties. In this debate members of the Opposition have not made a great contribution concerning rural industries. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam), who was the first to mention them, devoted possibly 2 or 3 minutes to them. This afternoon we heard the honourable member for Riverina, and he concentrated mainly on this field. It is essential to maintain the prosperity of our rural industries. There are four main reasons for maintaining this prosperity. Firstly, these industries are vital to the welfare and interests of the Australian community, and more particularly those who live outside the metropolitan areas. Secondly, they give reality to policies of decentralisation and arrest the population drift to the cities, bearing in mind that Australia is one of the most urban communities in the world. Thirdly, they supply food and raw materials for an increasing Australian population. In 1967-68 Australians spent about $3, 000m on food, while foodstuffs to the value of a further $2 10m were imported. But imports amounted to only 7 per cent of the value of the total food consumed which means that local production accounted for 93 per cent of the food consumed in Australia. Fourthly, rural products still make up by far the largest component of Australia’s export income. In 1967- 68 they accounted for 62.3 per cent of Australia’s export income while in 1968- 69 they accounted for 57.5 per cent.

While there is a healthy and growing export of minerals and manufactured goods in Australia the balance of payments situation is heavily dependent on the inflow of capital. There is no doubt that at the present time minerals are making great gains in this country and will continue to do so. But any reduction in the value of rural exports could have a disastrous effect on the economy. The balance of payments situation may be summarised by saying that in 1969-70 rural exports accounted for $1, 986m as compared with $968m for mining exports and $728m for manufactured exports. There is no guarantee that the present rate of capital inflow will continue. An examination of the capital inflow into Australia over the past few years has shown great fluctuations. Nevertheless it plays a very important part in Australia’s balance of payments. In spite of the increase in exports there was an adverse balance of payments of $2 13m for the first 9 months of the last financial year. It is quite evident that if the export of rural products cannot be maintained at least at their present levels there could be a continuous erosion of the country’s overseas reserves. This would be a very serious situation in which to find ourselves.

I turn now to the great wool industry which has been our biggest export earner and has played a great part in the income and economic development of this country. However, with high costs of production, droughts and falling prices the wool producer throughout Australia is feeling the cost-price squeeze and the consequent decline in finance, lt is of national importance that assistance be given to this industry. For the financial year 1969-70 the value of greasy wool exported totalled $687m and represented approximately 20 per cent of our total trade. If this great industry should fail the drastic effect on Australia’s finances can be easily seen. In this current Budget the Treasurer (Mr Bury) and the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Anthony) have announced a grant of $30m to help graziers suffering the effects of low prices and drought. This is timely and is certainly a start in giving assistance to the industry. An amount of $29m has been allocated for wool promotion and research and this will be very helpful. However, the most important matter for the wool industry is the immediate investigation of the proposal for a statutory wool marketing authority to administer the marketing of Australia’s wool clip. I support this proposal wholeheartedly and the Government has under examination all aspects of the setting up and operation of such an authority, ft has been very interesting to read in the Press in the past few days that representatives of the International Wool Textile Organisation are at present in Australia in an attempt to dissuade the Commonwealth Government from implementing such a scheme. Whilst they have every right to express opinions, the Government should be acting for the wool growers of Australia. T have no doubt that the Government will support the wool growers who, over the years, have built up a fine reputation as producers of wool which is required world-wide and which has been of such great importance to us.

Over the last 10 years there has been a steady worsening in the terms of trade as they affect the Australian farmer. The level of prices received is now no higher than it was in 1960-61, but farm costs have increased at an average of 2i per cent a year. Australia is facing a declining farm income situation. Wool prices have fallen drastically. A serious situation has developed in the wheat industry, thus reducing the earning capacity of wheat growers. Adverse seasonal conditions over a wide area of Australia have caused serious financial loss. Farm costs have advanced by 5.4 per cent since 1967. Many farmers are in serious financial difficulties. The Minister for Primary Industry has indicated very clearly in this place that long term debt reconstruction and financial assistance to the farmers are being investigated immediately.

In New South Wales assistance to the farming industry is given mainly through the Rural Reconstruction Board, and it is known that a considerable number of applications for financial assistance are being received from farmers. Other States of the Commonwealth have not a rural reconstruction board but nevertheless will be requiring financial help and will be making applications to the Commonwealth. I have no doubt that sympathetic and serious consideration will be given to assist with this problem. With the serious drought affecting wool returns and wheat quotas a serious economic situation has developed in many of our country towns, particularly in northern New South Wales and Queensland. Only this week 1 heard my colleague the honourable member for Calare (Mr England) mention this state of affairs in his electorate. Previous speakers in this debate also have drawn attention to this state of affairs. In these country towns many businesses, including stores, machinery houses, garages, steel fabricators and machinery manufacturers have financed farmers lo their maximum limit and have had occasion to retrench staff, including qualified men such as mechanics and machinery experts. Many of them are leaving these towns for city employment and, I regret to say, possibly will be lost to these towns forever. This will create a difficult situation. I with some of my colleagues have brought this matter to the attention of the Government and the Parliament so that, when assistance is asked for by the States, the Cabinet and the Government will be fully aware of the situation existing in many country towns.

I should like to refer now to pensions. Although pensioners receive many fringe benefits, such as pensioner medical cards, concessions in respect of radio and television licences, telephone rental and rates, it was extremely disappointing to find in the Budget that an increase of 50c only was made in age, invalid and widow pensions.

Pensioners are citizens who formerly assisted to build and develop Australia. They paid their taxation commitments and reared their families here. They now desire to live in dignity and independence for the remainder of their days. I ask the Government to reconsider this inadequate increase as it will be swallowed up immediately by the increased cost of living. I feel sure that the Government can look again at the matter of age, invalid and widow pensions.

I refer finally to the decentralisation of industry. No mention was made in the Budget of Federal Government assistance to the States specifically for the decentralisation of industry. I feel that this is a most important facet of government as it is in the interests of our national preservation that we should develop centres away from our capital cities where 75 per cent of the present population is situated. At the present time some State governments have set up Departments of Decentralisation - notably in New South Wales and Queensland and possibly in other States. They have small funds at their disposal and they are endeavouring to attract industries to country centres and thus spread industry and population over the whole of our countryside. Many industries have been set up most successfully in country centres and have received financial assistance from State and local governments with land, building, machinery and freight concessions. I feel that the Federal Government should be looking at this subject of decentralisation in a more objective way and earmarking funds for this special purpose to spread our industry into these areas. This Government does help exporting industries by way of concessions in payroll tax and this could be extended to country industries with advantage. I have much pleasure indeed in supporting the Budget and in taking part in this debate here tonight.

Mr KEOGH:
Bowman

– This evening I have listened to the remarks of the honourable member for Paterson (Mr O’Keefe) and I find that in two particular instances he has expressed opinions which would conform to the views of all members on this side of the House. He is dissatisfied with the shocking deal that local government is getting from the Commonwealth Government, the Government that he has the unhappy task of trying to defend because it has ignored local authorities. I noted also that he expressed his concern with the meagre pittance of an increase handed out to pensioners by the Treasurer (Mr Bury). He knows, and I know full well, that the only way the pensioners of Australia will get a just deal will be if the majority of the members of this House support the amendment to the Budget moved by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam), and in carrying that amendment defeat the Government. On behalf of the people of Bowman I support that amendment which was moved last Tuesday evening by the Leader of the Opposition and, in his words, condemn this deceptive and negative Budget because it fails to meet the real needs of the Australian people. One by one speakers from this side of the House have capably and effectively outlined the wide variety of reasons why we oppose, deplore and totally reject this obnoxious and ill conceived Budget.

This Budget continues in the pattern of the now tragically long list of Liberal budgets to rape and plunder the broad cross section of average Australians. Once again the dead hand of Liberalism has fallen heavily on the nation. We sincerely believe that the injustice and inequalities of this Budget are such that for the sake of our nation we must take this almost unprecedented step announced by our Leader of opposing it both here and in the Senate. Make no mistake; we intend to seek to destroy this Budget. We seek to destroy this Government and to save this nation. While a succession of speakers on this side of the House have risen to support the amendment and have capably and effectively destroyed any vestige of sincerity and honesty that the Budget may have falsely projected, many speakers in the ranks of Government supporters, and in fact even in the ranks of the Ministry, have chosen to ignore it completely. They devoted their remarks to subjects which have not even been remotely connected with the contents of the speech made by the Treasurer or the attached statements. But while criticism from coalition supporters in this House has been, as usual, veiled in hypocrisy the same cannot be said for criticism elsewhere. Only last Thursday a prominent Country Party member, Mr Cory, the member for Warwick in the

Queensland Parliament, said in no uncertain terms what he thought of the Budget. A report of his remarks reads:

The Federal Budget was one of the most unsympathetic documents and completely without feeling for human beings, I believe it was a mathematical calculation come hell or high water.’ He said that he could see why some actions were taken in the Budget, but he could not regard them as justified. Furthermore he added- The Budget was supposed to curb inflation but in fact it aided inflation. It placed a greater burden on people not causing the inflation - the primary producers, the store keepers, the professional men in rural communities, and anybody depending on them. It also placed a greater burden on the manufacturing industry supplying primary industry and on pensioners. These were the sections not benefiting in any way by inflation. Their burdens had been increased by higher petrol prices- which meant increased freights - increased telephone charges, postal charges and sales tax.’

It is indeed refreshing to see such an honest appraisal of this deceptive, despicable Budget from the ranks of the Country Party. Those words 1 have quoted were uttered only last week in the Queensland Parliament by a Country Party member of that Liberal-Country Party coalition. Perhaps there is still time for someone honest enough to give an honest Liberal assessment of the Budget - that is, of course, if there still remains anyone honest in the Liberal Party. Some months ago the Treasurer made a surprising announcement. It was surprising to all who realise that nothing done by this Liberal Government has ever had much basic planning. We were told that in a major departure from usual practice this Budget would see the introduction of programmed budgeting. This would involve forward estimates by the Treasurer of budgetary items for several years ahead. It would give the nation an honest forecast of future estimated receipts and expenditure. In fact, no such estimates were published.

The Treasurer has made no reference in the Budget to his failure to carry out this plan. Perhaps he decided it would be bad enough for the people to realise how the Government intends to rob them this financial year without being factually aware how that robbing will multiply in the next few years. Perhaps the Treasurer decided not to be honest after all. No doubt he remembered, as I am sure all honourable members will remember, how he was thrown out of Cabinet a few years ago for being honest.

In the 25 years since World War II we have seen our population increase from approximately 7 million to almost 124 million. This growth has been in the main accelerated by the establishment of the immigration policy by the then Labor Government and its continuation over the years by a succession of coalition governments. 1 have the honour to sit in this House next to a truly great Australian, my colleague the right honourable member for Melbourne (Mr Calwell). His place in our history is assured as our first Minister for Immigration. The policy to bring European migrants, initially in the unfortunate category of displaced persons, to Australia was developed by the right honourable member for Melbourne and has basically remained unchanged through the years.

The immigration policy critical to the prosperity, development and security of Australia in the 50’s was equally admirably suited to our requirements in the 60’s. Today that policy is in need of a genuine re-appraisal and review for adaption to suit our requirements in the 70’s. 1 consider that it is in the national interest to continue a programme of migration for an indefinite time into the future. 1 consider the problems that have been revealed in recent years in relation to migration have developed, not simply as some suggest, because of the continuation of the policy, but rather because of the inability of recent Ministers for Immigration to adapt the policy to what may be most readily, although perhaps not most suitably, described as the principles of supply and demand. The announcement by the Minister for Immigration (Mr Lynch) that a review of immigration policy is to be undertaken is most timely but 1 suspect it was not very well considered before being determined. In a manner of complete ineptitude, typical of the actions we have come to see as the general pattern of this present Government’s operation, the appointed committee of inquiry, consisting no doubt of people whose experience and integrity I would not question, is to be on a departmental level. This is a regrettable decision, a.s 1 believe there will be a strong possibility of justice not appearing to be done in the considerations and conclusions ultimately disclosed. The forthcoming inquiry should be aimed at investigating and understanding the costs and benefits, both social and economic, of migration. It should enable Australia to pursue the highest possible intake geared to our economic capacity for migrant absorption. The review should lead to determining the benefits in terms of matching our needs in skills and experience within the highest desirable intake. The whole important question of future migration policy for this nation should I believe be placed in the hands of a joint party committee of this House. This committee unfettered by departmental restrictions could ensure that future migration policy in this country would remain basically acceptable to all political parties and continue its important contribution to the future development and prosperity of our nation.

However, migration is not a subject on which I wish to expand any further during this particular debate - important though it is. I have merely mentioned it for 2 reasons: firstly to bring to the attention of honourable members one item in the Budget which, over the years, has continued to receive in my opinion adequate attention in the overall context of finance allocation; secondly, to bring to the attention of honourable members that while this important means of population growth has never lagged in the attention of successive governments, another perhaps even more important means has been shamefully neglected, and at times completely disregarded. Of course I refer to the population of this nation by the propagation of our own Australian family growth. In this Budget the Government, has once again ignored the vitally important consideration of assisting young marrieds to have or rear children. The Treasurer has not provided one single measure aimed at encouraging families living in this country to bear the unjust taxation burden that grows progressively as the family increases in size. This Budget clearly serves notice that this heartless Government is anti-family. The honourable member for Denison (Dr Solomon), while perhaps not an official spokesman for the Government, has surely and clearly profounded their philosophy when he said in his remarks on the Budget:

The Australian Labor Party’s opposition to taxation in almost any form except way up the scales is often based in terms of the specific example, on the low wage large family complex. as it were. Most people assume that the ability to have children is a Cod-given right. I would equally assume that the intelligence of homo sapiens is a Cod-given right and I would further assume that there is no compulsion on somebody on $3000, $2000, $1000 or any number of thousands of dollars a year to have 10 children if he cannot afford them, and facilities are available these days to eliminate any necessity to have them.

I hope that not only all the young families in the electorate of Denison but the many thousands of young families throughout the length and breadth of Australia who happened to have missed those stark words when spoken by the honourable member for Denison may at least have had the opportunity to hear them repeated this evening. The attitude they reveal is positive proof that the family man, the wage earner, just does not rate in this Government’s estimation. This Government is an anti-family bunch of bunglers masquerading as a democratic government.

By way of illustration I take the case of a man on an average weekly wage in 1961 and compare his position then with his position in this year, taking into consideration the 10 per cent taxation reduction. It is clearly obvious from the figures I will quote that his tax burden increases with the more dependants he has. I have based the calculations on average weekly wage rates - that is, wage rates prescribed by various Commonwealth and State awards, excluding overtime, etc. In 1961 the average weekly wage rate was $35.80. In 1969 - the last year for which figures were available - it was $49.60. So while the wage has increased by 39 per cent over that period the tax burden has increased as follows: For a single man by 79 per cent; for a married man by 94 per cent; for a married man with 1 child by 105 per cent; for a married man with 2 children 114 per cent.

Where in this Budget can it be claimed that the Government has shown even a hint of concern for the family man. Once again there has been no decision to increase the maximum deductions allowable for the taxpayers dependants. These remain at $312 for his spouse, parent, parent-in-law, or daughter-housekeeper; $208 for his first child, invalid relative or student child; and $1.56 for each other child. The last increase in these rates was in the 1967-68 Budget. We should consider how costs of the family man have increased since then. Similarly the heartless attitude continues. Maternity allowance, long overdue for review, have once again been ignored. Child endowment payments have also been shamefully neglected in this anti-family Budget. The present taxation law acts to the detriment of those who most need help.

In his policy speech for the 1969 Federal election the Prime Minister (Mr Gorton) said:

With rapidly rising incomes the existing taxation structure needs to be reformed.

What hypocrisy that statement reveals! The promised reform that resulted in the illogical general 10 per cent tax cut on incomes under $10,000 is patchwork confusion tragically directed against the family man. More tragically, the lower down the tax scale a man is, the less than new tax rates will help him in actual moneyinthepocket terms.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! It being 11 o’clock p.m. in accordance with the order of the House of 26th August I propose the question:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr Hayden:

– We are adjourning now, are we?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Yes. The honourable member for Bowman may use his unexpired time tomorrow if he so desires.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

House adjourned at 11.1 p.m.

page 819

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE

The following answers to questions upon notice was circulated:

Health Insurance: Cost of Alterations (Question No. 1023)

Mr Hayden:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice:

  1. What was the estimated cost of the alterations to the voluntary health insurance scheme, operated under the National Health Act, proposed by the Government at the 1969 General Elections (a) in total to contributors and (b) to the Government.
  2. What is the estimated cost of the alterations now before the House (a) in total to contributors and (b) to the Government.
  3. Was any increase in costs caused by additional proposals to those detailed at election time; If so, what are the additional proposals and in each case what extra cost do they involve (a) in total to contributors and (b) to the Government.
Dr Forbes:
LP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (I), (2) and (3) In his 1969 Election Policy Speech the Prime Minister promised that Commonwealth medical benefits and fund benefits would be increased so that the difference between benefit entitlements and the common fee charged by doctors would not at any time exceed $5 even for the most complicated and costly surgical procedures. He indicated that in order to achieve this there would be an overall increase in Commonwealth medical benefits at a cost of $16ra a year and that there would be small increases in the rates of contribution to the health insurance funds. The increases in contributions foreshadowed were 15 cents a week for family contributors and 7 cents a week for single contributors to the highest table in New South Wales and amounts not exceeding 10 cents a week for family contributors and S cents a week for single contributors to the highest tables in the other States. During the period of development of the reconstructed medical benefits scheme major improvements were introduced. In particular, it was decided to provide differential benefit rates for many services provided by general practitioners and specialists. This involved the separate specification of most common fees for services by general practitioners and specialists and a substantial alteration in the application of the common fee concept to the services as listed in the benefits schedule. This decision to refine and improve the ^Scheme in this way involved additional Commonwealth expenditure of the order of $13. 5m a year based on available data and utilisation rates then applying. The decision did not, however, involve any further increases in the rates of contributions to the health insurance funds over and above those foreshadowed in the Election Policy Speech. The total increase in contributions resulting from the contribution adjustments made is estimated to be $20.4m a year, lt was also decided to further, liberalise the Subsidised Medical Services Scheme which, since 1st January 1970, has provided full insurance coverage for persons in receipt of unemployment and sickness benefits, newly arrived migrants and families whose incomes did not exceed $39.00 per week (since amended to $42.50 per week). The legislation passed by Parliament in June 1970 extended this Scheme so that families whose income do not exceed $48.50 per week need to meet only a portion of normal health insurance contributions to insurance organisations to be covered for their hospital and medical expenses. The additional cost to the Commonwealth of this amendment was estimated to be $1.6m for the medical coverage and $1.4m for the hospital coverage.

Immigration: Cost of Services (Question No. 1114)

Mr Uren:
REID, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. Can he state what is the estimated additional cost which each additional migrant imposes on State, semi-government and local government instrumentalities for the provision of (a) water supply, (b) sewerage and drainage, (c) road, (d) education, (e) health and (f) welfare services in each major urban area in Australia.
  2. Can he provide details of Commonwealth assistance to State, semi-government and local government authorities to compensate them for the burden imposed by the Commonwealth Government’s immigration programme.
Mr Lynch:
Minister Assisting the Treasurer · FLINDERS, VICTORIA · LP

– The answer to the honour able members question is as follows:

  1. Figures are not available for the cost of providing these services in each urban area of Australia. Increases in expenditure iti these areas result not only from increases in population, but from a wide variety of other causes - for example, increases in wages, changes in consumer preferences, increases in school leaving age, and increases in the proportion of young people undertaking secondary and tertiary education; they may also bc associated with improvements in standards (or reduction of backlogs) in provision of services to existing residents of these areas. Population increases in the urban areas also result from natural increase, and from the movement of native-born persons to urban areas as well as from immigration. For these reasons it has not been possible to measure the additional expenditure, on services of the types specified, required for the purpose of absorbing new migrants into the community. However it is proposed to examine this whole question, not only the costs but the benefits conferred by migrants in the cost-benefit analysis which T have arranged to be undertaken.
  2. Most financial assistance provided by the Commonwealth is designed, inter alia, to help State Governments cope with the increasing demand for State services occasioned by the growth in population whether from immigration or natural increase. In particular, the financial assistance grants, which finance nearly one-half of State current budget expenditure, increase each year in proportion to the increase in total population of each State. (These grants also increase in proportion to the increase in average wages as well as a betterment factor). In assessing the level of borrowing programmes for State works it is prepared to support, the Commonwealth also takes account of the need of the States to expand services to meet the requirements of a growing population. As semi-government and local authorities are constituted and function under State laws, the Commonwealth does not normally provide direct assistance to these authorities.

External Aid Programmes (Question No. 1392)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for

External Affairs, upon notice:

On what dates have there been meetings of the interdepartmental committees established to consider

external aid programmes and

UNCTAD matters.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

As the Honourable Member will know it is not the policy of this Government to disclose the type of information for which the honourable member asks.

Ambassadors (Question No. 1393)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for

External Affairs, upon notice:

  1. Which of Australia’s ambassadors and ministers are accredited to more than one country and to which countries are they accredited.
  2. Which ambassadors and ministers accredited to Australia are also accredited to other countries and to which other countries are they accredited.
  3. Which countries have ambassadors or ministers accredited to Australia but do not have Australian ambassadors or ministers accredited to them; when did those countries first accredit ambassadors or ministers to Australia.
  4. Which countries have Australian ambassadors or ministers accredited to them but do not have ambassadors or ministers to Australia; when did Australia first accredit ambassadors or ministers to them.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

  1. Australian High Commissioner to Pakistan is also accredited as Ambassador to Afghanistan.

Australian High Commissioner to India is also accredited as Ambassador to Nepal.

Australian Ambassador to the Argentine is also accredited to Uruguay and Peru.

Australian High Commissioner to Kenya is accredited to Uganda, and as Ambassador to Ethiopia.

Australian Ambassador to Sweden is also accredited to Finland.

Australian Ambassador to Yugoslavia Is also accredited to Romania.

Australian Ambassador to France is also accredited to Portugal.

Australian Ambassador to Austria is also accredited to Switzerland.

  1. Argentine Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Austrian Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Brazilian Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Burmese Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Ceylon High Commissioner to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Finnish Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Greek Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Indonesian Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Irish Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Israeli Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Korean Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Laotian Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to South Viet-Nam (where he is resident) and to New Zealand.

Nepalese Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to Japan (where he is resident) and to New Zealand.

Norwegian Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Pakistan High Commissioner to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Philippines Ambassador to Australia is accredited as Minister to New Zealand.

Romanian Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to Japan (where he is resident) and to New Zealand.

Spanish Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

Thai Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

United Arab Republic Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand. Vietnamese Ambassador to Australia is also accredited to New Zealand.

  1. (i) NORWAY- A Norwegian Minister was first accredited to Australia on 24th September 1947, but the Legation was closed in April 1950. An Embassy was established in 1969 and the first Norwegian Ambassador presented his credentials on 5th May 1969.
  2. DENMARK- A Danish Minister was first accredited to Australia on 18th March 1947. The Legation was raised to Embassy status in 1967 and the first Danish Ambassador presented his credentials on 6th February 1967.

Chemical and Bacteriological Warfare (Question No. 1395)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for External Affairs, upon notice:

What progress has been made in concluding a new convention to ban chemical and bacteriological warfare since his predecessors answer to me on 19th August 1969 (Hansard, page 423).

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

The United Nations General Assembly, at its 24th Session in 1969, and the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament at Geneva in 1970 have continued their consideration of the question of chemical and bacteriological (biological) warfare since my predecessor’s answer on 19th August 1969. The 24th Session of the United Nations General Assembly bad before it under the relevant item 2 draft conventions. One tabled by Britain in the Disarmament Committee (and referred to in my predecessor’s reply of 19th August . 1969) concerned the prohibition of biological methods of warfare. A second tabled in the General Assembly by the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries would have called for the prohibition of the development production and stockpiling of chemical and bacteriological (biological) weapons and the destruction of such weapons. Australia was 1 of a number of cosponsors of a draft resolution asking the Disarmament Committee to study further these various proposals. This resolution, adopted as resolution 2603b (XXIV), also requested the Disarmament Committee to give urgent consideration to reaching agreement on the prohibitions and other measures referred to in the draft conventions and requested the Disarmament Committee to present a report on progress on all aspects of the subject to the 25th General Assembly. The 24th Session of the General Assembly also approved a second resolution which declared as contrary to the generally recognised rules of international law, as embodied in the Geneva Protocol of 1925, the use in international armed conflicts of any chemical agents of warfare and any biological agents of warfare. Details of this resolution are contained in my reply of 17th March 1970 to a question upon notice (Hansard pages 524-525). At its meetings to date in 1970, the Disarmament Committee has discussed this subject, but an early agreement on a new convention to ban chemical and bacteriological warfare is not expected.

World Intellectual Property Organisation (Question No. 1397)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for External Affairs, upon notice:

  1. Which countries have become panics to the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organisation, drawn up at Stockholm in June and July 1967, and when did they do so.
  2. Has the Government decided that Australia should accede to the Convention.
Mr McMahon:
LP

– The answer to the honourable members question is as follows:

  1. 1 am informed that as of the 17th August 1970 the following countries had become parlies to the Convention -

Bulgaria (19th February 1970)

Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (19th March 1969)

Canada (26th March 1970)

Chad (26th June 1970)

Denmark (26th January 1970)

Finland (8th June 1970)

East Germany (20th June 1968)

Federal Republic of Germany (19 June 1970)

Hungary (18th December1969)

Ireland (12th January 1968)

Israel (30th July 1969)

Malawi (11th March 1970)

Romania(28th February 1969)

Senegal (19th September1968)

Spain (6th June 1969)

Sweden (12th August 1969)

Switzerland (26th January 1970)

Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (12th February 1969)

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (4th December 1968)

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (26th February 1969)

United States of America (25th May 1970)

  1. The question of Australia’s acceding to the Convention is at present under consideration.

Immigration Ministers Conference: Workers Compensation (Question No. 1457)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

What requests or suggestions were made by the

Immigration Ministers at their last meeting for legislative or administrative action by (a) the

Commonwealth, (b)the Territories and (c) the States.

Mr Lynch:
LP

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

  1. (i) AM Stales asked the Commonwealth to continue its efforts to seek the most favourable financial terms for any form of travel which would enable migrants and their familiies at home to be reunited for ‘holiday’ periods. (ii) New South Wales suggested, with particular reference to the United States, that the requirement of visas for tourists staying less than 30 days in Australia should be abolished.
  2. Nil.
  3. The Commonwealth asked the States to examine their provisions within Workers’ Compensation Acts, so far as such Acts affected migrants, with a view to reaching uniformity of conditions.

Drug Offenders (Question No. 1527)

Dr Klugman:
PROSPECT, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Customs and Excise, upon notice:

  1. Did he in answer lo a question on 19th August 1970 suggest that in the cases of alleged possession of drugs the bail fixed was too low.
  2. If so, was he suggesting that the setting of bail should be a punishment.
  3. Can he say how many persons charged with possession of drugs have failed to appear in court.
Mr Chipp:
LP

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

  1. Yes.
  2. No.
  3. Since August 1968 there have been four persons charged with offences under the Customs Act who have failed to appear in Court after having been released on bail - details of these cases are

    1. Asian seaman arrested in possession of i lb heroin and 21 lb opium. Bail was set at $1,000. The seaman left Australia and is still at large.
    2. Australian trafficker arrested in possession of approximately 32 lb cannabis. Bail was set at $300. This person was recently rearrested in company with known drug distributors after being at large for some 5 months. At the time of his arrest he was negotiating the purchase of a further large consignment of cannabis.
    3. Asian Seaman (courier) arrested after he delivered 1 oz of heroin to a Sydney purchaser. Released on his own recognizance. This seaman left Australia and is still at large.
    4. Female juvenile arrested in possession of small quantity of cannabis. Living conditions and physical condition of this person could only he described as appalling. Released into custody of her parents on her own recognizance. Has again disappeared and is still at large.

Passports: Rhodesia (Question No. 561)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. Did the Australian Embassy in Pretoria seek advice from his Department before issuing a passport on 23 June 1967 to Mr Stan O’Donnell, whom the Southern Rhodesian regime describes as its Secretary of External Affairs (Hansard, 19 March 1970, page 721); if so, when did it seek advice.
  2. Did the Australian Embassy in Pretoria issue the passport on 6 December 1967 to LieutenantColonel William M. Knox, whom the regime describes as its diplomatic representative in Portugal (Hansard, 22 May 1969, page 2228); if so, did it seek advice from his Department and when.
  3. Have Australian passports been issued since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence to officials of the regime other than Mr O’Donnell, Lieutenant-Colonel Knox and Air Vice-Marshal Hawkins (Hansard, 27 August 1968, page 610, 16 April 1969, page 1137 and 22 May 1969, page 2228); if so, when, where to whom and by whom were the passports issued.
Mr Lynch:
LP

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

  1. The passport issued to Mr Stan O’Donnell on 23 June 1967 was issued by the Australian Embassy, Pretoria after his claim to Australian citizenship was established.
  2. The passport issued to Lieutenant-Colonel William Knox an 6 December 1967 was issued by the Australian Embassy in Pretoria after seeking confirmation from the Department of Immigration on 21 November 1967 that the applicant had not ceased to be an Australian citizen.
  3. No.

Housing (Question No. 1338)

Mr Kirwan:
FORREST, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

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

  1. What is being done to alleviate the problems associated with housing following the recent increase in interest rates.
  2. Has the Minister been approached by the Minister for Housing in Western Australia to work out a united approach to the problem.
Dr Forbes:
LP

– The Minister for Housing has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. Recent action to assist the home-building industry wilh its forward planning and to maintain a high level of activity includes -

    1. Frequent discussions between officers of my Department and the Treasury and representatives of the Master Builders’ Federation of Australia, the Housing Industry Association and the Associated Chambers of Manufactures of Australia;
    2. The undertaking by my Department of a wide survey of home builders to ascertain their views on the trend in future dwelling commencements;
    3. An increase in the allocation of funds for housing under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement to $142,550,000 for the current financial year. This is almost 8 per cent more than the sum allocated for 1969-70; and
    4. On 23rd July 1970 the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia announced that it had, in the course of its contacts with savings banks, trading banks and life offices, asked these institutions to maintain, and in the case of savings banks to the extent practicable to increase, their volume of housing loans in the coming months. I have since been informed that, overall, the savings banks hope to approve significantly more housing loans in the current quarter than in the preceding June quarter.
  2. No.

Wood Chips (Question No. 402)

Mr Kirwan:

asked the Minister for National Development the following question, upon notice:

What stage has been reached in negotiations for trade in wood chips with Japan.

Mr SWARTZ:
DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND · LP

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

Two wood chip export projects have been approved and the associated facilities are at the construction stage, one in New South Wales and one in Tasmania. Harris-Daishowa (Aust.) Pty Ltd has approval to export up to 600,000 tons of green chips per annum; shipments will be from Twofold Bay; the project is running behind schedule and it is hot known when the first shipment will take place. Tasmanian Pulp and Forest Holdings Ltd has approval to export from Triabunna in eastern Tasmania, 600,000 tons of green chips per annum for 15 years commencing in 1971. A second Tasmanian group, Northern Wood Chips Pty Ltd, failed to gain Commonwealth approval for a contract because the price proposed was too low and there was no firm processing proposal. This preliminary contract has now expired. Press reports indicate that Northern Wood Chips Pty Ltd is endeavouring to negotiate another contract and that it is proceeding with the building of a wood chip plant in northern Tasmania. Associated Pulp and Paper Mills Ltd is also operating in northern Tasmania and on 15th July 1970, the Premier of Tasmania announced that this company bad made firm arrangements covering the supply of 600,000 tons per year of wood chips from Bell Bay. However, as yet, no proposal has been received by the Commonwealth for approval. The W.A. Chip and Pulp Co. Pty Ltd (an associate of Bunning’s Timber Holdings Ltd) al Bunbury has timber rights granted by the Western Australian Government for the production of chips and is understood to bc negotiating with potential Japanese purchasers, lt is also understood that there are several other possible projects under examination in Victoria. New South Wales, Queensland and Northern Territory.

War Service Homes (Question No. 1439)

Mr Whitlam:

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

What were the amounts in the last financial year

advanced for War Service homes,

received in principal and interest on War Service homes and

received in respect o£ War Service liabilities discharged before the end of the repayment period.

Dr Forbes:
LP

– The Minister for Housing has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. Expenditure under the War Service Homes Act in 1969-70 was $55m.
  2. The amount of principal and interest received in 1969-70 was $77,392,779.
  3. The amount received in 1969-70 in respect of liabilities discharged before the end of the repayment period was $24,545,725.

ABC: Overseas Visits by Staff (Question No. 1296)

Mr Bonnett:

asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice:

  1. Mow many employees of the Australian Broadcasting Commission have made overseas visits on official business in the past 2 years.
  2. Was the purpose of each visit related to (a) current affairs programmes, (b) news progammes, (c) management purposes or (d) other purposes.
  3. What was the cost of these visits as they related to (a) current affairs programmes (b) news programmes and (c) management purposes.
  4. IX overseas visits were made to obtain material for current affairs programmes, how many people went on each trip and what were their individual functions.
  5. Does the Commission maintain resident stall’s at various centres throughout the world.
  6. If so. where are they based and what are their functions.
Mr Hulme:
LP

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

  1. One hundred and twenty-three (123) in the period 1st July 1968 to 30th June 1970.
  2. Yes.
  1. (a) On five assignments there was one person - a reporter;

    1. On two assignments there were two people - a reporter and cinecameraman;
    2. On thirteen assignments there were three people - a reporter, a cinecameraman and a sound recordist
  2. Yes.
  3. The ABC has resident staff in London, New York. Washington, Singapore. Djakarta, Saigon, Tokyo, New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur. They are primarily responsible for (a) the collection of news for the ABC’s domestic service and Radio Australia; (b) the collection of material for current affairs and general programmes for the ABCs domestic service and Radio Australia.

Staff in London and New York are also responsible for negotiating tours by celebrity artists for ABC concerts, and the purchase anil sale of programme material fur a wide variety of programmes.

Academic Salaries (Question No. 1341)

Mr Hurford:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

  1. Why were Commonwealth Post-graduate students awards not included among those matters to be reported upon by Mr Justice Eggleston when he recently considered academic salaries in universities.
  2. Is it a fact that the last adjustments to these awards at the end of the 1967-68 year did not increase the remuneration for most postgraduate students because the supplementary grants were at the same time discontinued.
  3. When were the previous adjustments made to the awards and what has been the percentage rise in wages following national wage decisions since that time,
  4. When will the next adjustments to the awards be made to cope with increases in the cost of living,
  5. Will the Government arrange for automatic adjustments of the awards following national wage case decisions.
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

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

  1. Holders of Commonwealth Post-graduate Awards are not paid a salary but receive a living allowance, which is not subject to taxation. It is not considered appropriate that the level of living allowance should be related to academic salaries. However, the Government maintains a continuing review of the living allowances paid under the Commonwealth Post-graduate Awards Scheme to ensure that the level of allowances is maintained at a satisfactory level.
  2. Prior to 1969 the Commonwealth Postgraduate Awards Scheme was administered by the universities. The Commonwealth made a grant to each university of $1,800 per. annum as a contribution towards the stipend of each scholar. Stipends were paid by the universities and varied from one university to another ranging from $1,800 to $2,350 per annum in the first year of an award. In addition the Commonwealth made an annual contribution to the universities of S50i) per student to cover the costs of research expenses.

In 1969 the Commonwealth assumed responsibility for administering the Scheme and introduced a general rate of living allowance of $2,350 per annum, with a per capita research grant to universities of $400 per annum. In addition students were granted additional allowances for dependants, thesis costs, travel and accommodation. Where it appeared that an award holder might receive less living allowance under the new provisions his stipend was supplemented to bring it to the level which he would have enjoyed. Since 1969 the majority of students have received a higher rate of allowance than would formerly have been paid.

  1. Before 1969 the universities made their own decisions about the rates of living allowance to t>e paid to holders of Post-graduate Awards. These varied from university to university and no records are available to me of the rates , paid at individual universities since the inception of the Scheme. Since 1969 there has been no variation in the rates paid. The living allowances paid under all Commonwealth Scholarship Schemes are kept under continuing review. In recommending variations regard is paid to wage levels, increases in living costs and other relevant factors. However, variations are not directly related to changes in any particular index such as national wage decisions.
  2. A review of the living allowance payable to Post-graduate award holders is currently being undertaken. Should the Government decide to vary the allowances, any increase would bc expected to take effect from the commencement of 1971.
  3. As mentioned above, variations in living allowances are not related directly to decisions in national wage cases. However, the Government will continue to maintain a continuing review of the benefits payable under the Commonwealth Post-graduate Awards Scheme.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 1 September 1970, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1970/19700901_reps_27_hor69/>.