House of Representatives
16 October 1970

27th Parliament · 2nd Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 27th Parliament
  3. 1970

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

page 2317

PETITIONS

Kangaroos

Mr STALEY:
CHISHOLM, 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 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.

It 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 duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Education

Mr JACOBI:
HAWKER, 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 the undersigned citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully sheweth:

That the Commonwealth Parliament has acted to remove some inadequacies in the Australian education system; a major inadequacy at present in Australian education is the lack of equal education opportunity for all; more than 500,000 children suffer from serious lack of equal opportunity; Australia cannot afford to waste the talents of one sixth of its school children; only the Commonwealth has the financial resources for special programmes to remove inadequacies; and nations such as the United Kingdom and the United States have shown that the chief impetus for change and the finance for improvement come from the National Government.

Your Petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives make legal provision for a joint Commonwealth-State inquiry into inequalities in Australian education to obtain evidence on which to base long term national programmes for the elimination of inequalities; the immediate financing of special programmes for low income earners, migrants, Aboriginal, rural and inner suburban dwellers and handicapped children; and the provision of pre-school opportunities for all children from culturally different or socially and economically disadvantaged backgrounds. And your Petitioners as is duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

page 2317

VICTORIAN BRIDGE TRAGEDY

Ministerial Statement

Mr GORTON:
Prime Minister · Higgins · LP

– by leave - I think it might well be appropriate if I were to express as I believe 1 can not only on behalf of the Government but on behalf of the Federal Parliament great shock and regret at the tragedy which has occurred during the construction of the bridge in Victoria. I believe that we should as a Federal Parliament extend our sympathy to the dependants of those who have been killed on this occasion.

Mr WHITLAM:
Leader of the Opposition · Werriwa

– May I associate the Opposition with the expressions the Prime Minister (Mr Gorton) has just made. He in fact does speak for the whole of the Parliament and the people we represent in referring to this tragedy, the most serious that Australia has had in industry for half a century. Men will always be enterprising and adventurous. Disasters like this show how vulnerable we still are to all the machines and inventions we devise.

Mr McEWEN:
Minister for Trade and Industry · Murray · CP

– I should not like this occasion to pass without registering on behalf of my Party, the Australian Country Party, that we wish to join with the Prime Minister (Mr Gorton) and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) in the expression of deep concern and deep sympathy in respect of those who have lost their lives, those who have suffered, and in particular the families and relatives of the men involved in this tragedy, and at least to have the survivors and dependants understand that all Parties in the Commonwealth Parliament have expressed deep distress and sympathy. This happening has drawn once more to the attention of the appropriate authorities the great necessity for the most intimate scrutiny and watching of all safety precautions in regard to these engineering projects.

Mr Crean:

– Mr Speaker-

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! In these particular circumstances I have permitted the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Australian Country Party to speak without obtaining leave of the House. If the honourable member wishes to seek leave he may do so.

Mr CREAN:
Melbourne Ports

– by leave - The honourable member for Gellibrand (Mr Mclvor) and I, in whose electorates this structure is being built and many of the victims resided, would like to be personally associated with the expression of sympathy.

page 2318

QUESTION

OVERSEAS SHIPPING FREIGHTS

Mr WHITLAM:

– The Prime Minister will recall telling the House nearly 2 years ago that negotiations for Australia’s entry into the container shipping consortia were opened by the Minister for Trade and Industry. And he will recall saying that we would be inside all these shipping conferences which dominate our trade with Europe, the United States of America and Japan and we would participate in their management and that the information so gained would be of great value to Australia. I ask him: Was this his own view or the view of the Minister for Trade and Industry? In the light of the Government’s failure to prevent recent increases in container freight and on-shore handling charges or to persuade the consortia to honour their undertakings in the matter of outports, does he now believe the view, whoever held it, was well-founded? If so, will he say in what way the situation would be different if the Government had not joined the consortia?

Mr GORTON:
LP

– I think that any reasonable person must admit that if a company or a government or an individual is a member of an organisation carrying on some commercial activity and therefore has access to the costs of that organisation carrying on that activity then they must be in a better position to judge the accuracy or otherwise of cases put forward for increases in freights. I think that the Minister for Shipping and Transport might well elaborate if the Leader of the Opposition wishes to pursue the matter, but in my understanding of it, contrary to what has appeared in print, the costs of shipping in container ships are less than the costs of shipping in the conventional types of ships.

Mr Foster:

– No fear!

Mr GORTON:

– Very much lower, and many of the conventional ships are still engaged in the trade to which the honourable the Leader of the Opposition refers. The statement I have made that the cost of the sea freight on conventional ships is much higher than the cost on container ships has been questioned. That is a matter of fact. That is a matter on which the Minister for Shipping and Transport I think might well, as the Minister responsible, inform the Leader of the Opposition at this time if he extends his question to that responsible Minister and to the Minister for Trade and Industry.

page 2318

QUESTION

EGGS

Mr IRWIN:
MITCHELL, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I direct a question to the Minister for Primary Industry. Is the Minister aware of the plight of the small poultry farmer - the family unit - who has a flock of up to 10,000 birds? Is it possible to establish a system of registration of farms and a quota system? Is there any other way in which the industry can be rehabilitated to ensure its survival, or is it just a matter of where the chicken got the axe?

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

– I am very conscious of the growing difficulties of the small poultry farmer in obtaining a satisfactory net farm income. In recent years the governments of Australia have introduced a scheme controlled by the Council of Egg Marketing Authorities. This scheme has brought about a degree of stability and equalisation of prices, but the effect of the scheme in helping to stabilise prices has tended to create a decline as production has increased. There have been moves within the industry to try to bring about some control of production firstly, by the licensing of farms, and secondly, by the implementation of what is known as the French plan by which a supertax is imposed on anybody who produces more than his quota of eggs. Both of those proposals have been examined by the Australian Agricultural Council. The first proposal on the licensing of farms was rejected because there was no unanimity between the States on the proposal and a restriction on production could not work effectively unless all States were in agreement This agreement could not be reached. As to the second proposal, known as the French plan, it was shown to be unconstitutional for the Commonwealth to organise such a plan, so that was not workable. As a result of the Australian Agricultural Council having examined both proposals and deciding that nothing could be achieved, it felt that a firm decision should be taken and made known that there was not any likelihood of a quota system being introduced to control the production of eggs. The need to make a firm statement was to prevent people trying to boost their egg production level so that if a quota system did come into operation they would then be entitled to their higher quota. That is the situation obtaining at present. I have been told that New South Wales is again looking into some scheme of which I have no knowledge, but I do not know how any scheme can be brought into operation without the consent of all States.

page 2319

QUESTION

OVERSEAS FREIGHT RATES

Mr BARNARD:
BASS, TASMANIA

– I preface my question which is directed to the Minister for Trade and Industry by saying that he will recall telling us 18 months ago during the container shipping debate that he wanted to see the Government right in the middle of this business so that when an argument occurred as to what should be a fair freight we would know as much about it as would any other shipping operator in the world. I ask him whether the Government partnership in the overseas container consortia has convinced him that the recent freight increases are indeed fair, and if not, what effect the Government partnership has had in obviating or moderating such freight increases.

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– I make it clear that I accept the primary responsibility for having advised the Government and the Parliament in respect of participation of the Government in the container shipping service. Let me remind the Australian Labor Party that this was warmly applauded by that Party. There are factors in respect of shipping services that are beyond the control of the Government. For instance, there was an industrial dispute in respect of the container terminal at Tilbury in London which led to the whole Australian-British container service having to go to Rotterdam and Antwerp for, I think, almost 18 months, and bearing the cost of the tremendously expensive terminal at Tilbury which was not in use for the whole of that period. But within the freight rates of that period was absorbed the cost of transporting the container cargoes from the Continent to London or to other British ports. That matter was quite beyond the control of this Government or, as far as I know, any other government. I am informed that seamen’s wages have increased over that period by 40 per cent.

Mr Whitlam:

– What about containers to the United States and Japan?

Mr McEWEN:

– There is no container service to America. So I do not know what the Leader of the Opposition thinks he is talking about. There has been an increase of 31 per cent, I am informed, in stevedoring costs in Australia. The increase in seamen’s wages and the increase in stevedoring costs are primarily to the advantage of those whom the Labor Party believes to support it. I do not know whether the Labor Party believes that these tremendous expenses can be incurred without being reflected in the charges made by those who have to pay the higher rate. The truth of the matter is that higher wages have a vastly lesser impact upon a container ship than upon a conventional ship in the carrying of cargo, because we know very well that the proportion of manpower to tonnage is very much less in a container ship than it is in a conventional ship.

It is not for the Government to say whether it enjoys the higher freight rates. The Government knows that the higher freight charges substantially are a reflection of the costs of the shipping companies. It was not the Government which approved of the freight rate increase; it was those who, to a large extent, owned the freight, thai is, the wool, the fruit and so on. It is true that the owners of general cargo did not approve the 10 per cent increase. I think it would be useful if on an early occasion, possibly today or on the next day of sitting, I were to make a short explanatory statement of the factors that bear upon the container service to Australia, the costs, and the advantages which have come or which we are sure are still in prospect

page 2320

QUESTION

DRUGS

Mr McLEAY:
BOOTHBY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the attention of the Minister for Customs and Excise been drawn to the extraordinarily mild penalties which are consistently imposed on convicted drug pedlars in most courts throughout the Commonwealth? In view of the increasing numbers of drug thefts from both retail and wholesale pharmacists, what steps can be taken to strengthen security? Finally, is there any evidence of drug addiction amongst school children in Australia?

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

– In answer to the last part of the honourable gentleman’s question, unhappily there is evidence of school children being peddled drugs of certain descriptions by those creatures who seem to have no conscience about selling anything for money. Fortunately, to this stage, the situation has not reached alarming proportions; but, as I have said before, the trends are such that they cause us deep concern. Security in chemist shops is another matter that is causing us great worry. As the efficiency of the Narcotics Squad of the Department of Customs and Excise, working in co-operation with the State Police drug squads, increases and we manage to clean Sydney out of pot or marihuana, for example, or Melbourne out of marihuana for a period, the increase in the outbreak of robberies or chemist busts, as they are called, is comparable with the increase in the sale of ice cream when there is a rise in temperature. When one looks at the security arrangements that exist in most pharmacies in Australia one has cause to feel concern. In some States, for example, the law provides that all dangerous drugs should be locked safely in a certain place. I have inspected these certain places and find that they are simply cupboards which I, not experienced in safebreaking, could open with a screwdriver in about 10 seconds and there, conveniently exposed for any thief, are all the dangerous drugs ready to be parcelled up and taken away.

But the National Standing Control Committee on Drugs of Dependence has asked each State Government to legislate for drugs to be placed in safes which would provide some deterrent to a thief. I understand that New South Wales already has some legislation on this question and that other States are following. It is my hope that they will follow as quickly as possible. As far as penalties are concerned, I have mentioned before in this House the deep concern that I and State Ministers charged wim this responsibility are showing for the lightness of penalties imposed by courts on drug pushers. I am now not speaking of those who are simply users but of drug pushers who are not users. It just goes beyond my comprehension how, when parliaments both State and Federal set a maximum penalty of 10 years for such an offence, a pusher who is convicted with virtually no extenuating circumstances can be released by a court on payment of a $1,000 fine or is sentenced to 2 months imprisonment. I have said before in this House that Parliaments are loath to introduce minimum penalties for any offence hut I must say that my personal view is that unless some more realistic action is taken by the courts on this national problem the temptation will be placed before parliaments to legislate in that way.

page 2320

QUESTION

CONTAINER SHIPPING

Mr CHARLES JONES:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA

– I direct a question to the Minister for Shipping and Transport. I remind the Minister that on 22nd April 1969 he said in regard to information gained through Australian participation in container shipping:

We can ensure that Australian exporters who pay the freight will receive the protection that this information will confer. 1 remind him that the Leader of the Opposition in reply indicated that:

The Government’s action will bring about a result-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member is using a fairly long preface and giving information. I suggest that he ask his question.

Mr CHARLES JONES:

– I am coming to that now.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I suggest that the honourable member come to it.

Mr CHARLES JONES:

– The Leader of the Opposition on that occasion said:

The Government’s actions will bring about a result directly opposed-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! If the honourable member does not ask his question I will ask him to resume his seat.

Mr CHARLES JONES:

– Can the Minister say whether the recent 50 per cent increase in onshore container handling charges, or the increase of 4 per cent in freight for wool, 6 per cent for sheep skin? and 10 per cent for refrigerated and general cargo would have been greater if the Government had not joined Associated Container Transportation Ltd? Is this the sort of protection which the Minister had in mind or will he now concede that the warning of the Leader of the Opposition was well based?

Mr SINCLAIR:
Minister Assisting the Minister for Trade and Industry · NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I frankly did not hear, nor was I aware,of the warning the Leader of the Opposition gave. I believe that the Leader of the Opposition, together with members of the Australian Labor Party, very strongly supported the participation by the Australian Government in overseas shipping trades. As to the substance of what I understand to be the question of the honourable member, that is. whether or not there would be a lesser increase in costs if the Australian National Line had not participated in the overseas trades, perhaps the honourable member might be interested to pursue the statement which the Minister for Trade and Industry has indicated that he will make in this House either later today or on the next day of sitting. In this statement we can set out categorically the several areas within which costs have moved very substantially against the ship owners. It is these costs, of course, which were recognised by Interlaine and the British Wool Federation, being the owners of wool at the point of shipment, and as a result of these increased costs they agreed to the establishment of the 4 per cent freight increase. There is no doubt that there have been cost movements but these have moved far more in the conventional sector than in the container sector.

Over the past 12 months of operation there have been and in the next 12 months there will continue to be a very substantial percentage of cargoes and goods carried from Australia to the United Kingdom and Europe by conventional vessels. It is because of the industrial troubles at Tilbury, to which my colleague referred, because of the taint problems in refrigerated containers and of this blend of conventional and container vessels that the cost factors have moved so adversely against conference line freight rates in the United Kingdom-Europe trade. I believe that the participation of the Australian National Line in overseas shipping will give the Government some opportunity to follow the trends both on shore and in the sea legs in future freight negotiations. I believe this is very much in the interests of Australian shippers. I am surprised that members of the Australian Labor Party who initially came out in support of participation by the Australian Government in the overseas shipping trade are now so critical of it.

page 2321

QUESTION

LOANS TO RURAL INDUSTRIES

Mr ROBINSON:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Treasurer a question which concerns the marked increase in demand by the farm sector of the community for bank loan accommodation. Is consideration being given to the need for long term bank lending through the Farm Development Loan Fund to which the trading banks have access, and term lending through the Development Bank for the purpose of making loans over periods of 15 years or more with suspension of repayments during seasonal difficulties where necessary? In view of the liquidity difficulties facing many primary producers could this means of assisting them be facilitated by the Government as a first step towards debt reconstruction foreshadowed in the recent Budget?

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

– As the honourable member may be aware, the Farm Development Loan Fund and Term Loan Fund were recently replenished to the extent of $63m. This arrangement was announced recently by the Governor of the Reserve Bank. Loans from these Funds are directed towards farm development and improving productivity rather than debt restructuring or any other such end. The honourable member will be aware also that a number of farm development loans have been granted for a period of 15 years or more. My colleague the Minister for Primary Industry is currently engaged in a study of farm reconstruction problems which, of course, would include debt restructuring. But this range of problems is rather separate from the area covered by term loans and farm development loans. As soon as the studies being conducted by the Minister for Primary Industry have been completed - they are being pursued as fast as is practicable - the results will come up for examination and review.

page 2322

QUESTION

DRUGS

Dr CASS:
MARIBYRNONG, VICTORIA

– I address a question to the Minister for Customs and Excise. How many drug pushers have been apprehended in the last 12 months? How many of these pushers have been selling drugs for a profit? How many have been selling drugs in order to provide themselves with drugs for their own addictions? Rather than talk of increased activity to clear Melbourne or Sydney of pot and then bemoan the increase in robberies of chemist shops, might it not be more intelligent and humane to offer supplies to drug addicts while they are medically examined and treated for their illness?

Mr CHIPP:
LP

– I am sure the honourable member would not expect me to carry in my head the statistics that he sought in the early part of his question. Might I say that a great number of pushers are also in fact users. But I think the honourable gentleman would be making a mistake if he said that these people deserve only sympathy - which they do - but that the community should not be protected from them. I think that a pusher who is not a user is a person without conscience and is wreaking havoc on his fellow man. The user-pusher has an even greater compulsion to sell drugs than the pusher because he must sell them to get money to feed his habit.

If the honourable gentleman recognises that, I would readily agree with him that treatment is the proper course of action for that person. I doubt whether, to rush in to provide a solution by simply giving killer drugs to people who happen to be addicts would be an act of responsible government

Mr Hayden:

– It is being done in the United States today.

Mr CHIPP:

– The honourable member for Oxley suggests that it is being done in the United States of America. I suggest that he might look more carefully at what is being done in the United States. I presume that the honourable member is talking about the administration of methadone.

Mr Hayden:

– That is right.

Mr CHIPP:

– A controversy is raging throughout the United States today as to whether that particular treatment is correct. As I understand it, it is treatment that goes on forever; there is no stopping it

Mr Hayden:

– How much do you pro-, vide?

Mr CHIPP:

– As I understand it, the treatment means a lifetime addiction to another kind of synthetic drug. Whether that is the solution to the problem, I do not know. But research is being done on this matter. I think it would be an act of sheer irresponsibility for any government to administer an addictive drug - no matter what it was - to people without first having deep research into it.

page 2322

QUESTION

DRUGS

Mr JESS:
LA TROBE, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Customs and Excise a question. It has been reported to me that chemists are concerned at the increasing demand for hypodermic syringes made to them by young people. Is there any check or control on such sales? Should some control be introduced to ensure that only people with a legitimate need - doctors, dentists, nurses, diabetics, etc - are supplied?

Mr CHIPP:
LP

– The honourable member asks an interesting question. When talking with them myself, young drug addicts have put to me that stricter control should be placed on the sale of hypodermic needles and that they should be made available only on prescription. However, there are a great number of people in the medical profession who would oppose this. They believe that this stems from an artificial premise, that if you simply prevent a child from getting a hypodermic syringe that child will no longer take drugs. But such is the compulsion of a drug addict to administer a drug intravenously that the problem goes far deeper than simply cutting off the mechanics of administering the drug.

We have had evidence - I have seen it myself - of children who have an addiction to or a compulsion to take hard drugs - to mainline - and who when they cannot get a syringe use a most extraordinarily unhygienic and terrible implement to open up their arms and arteries to administer the drug. Whilst I acknowledge that the question has merit, there is by no means unanimity among members of the medical profession as to whether this is the best way to combat the problem.

page 2323

QUESTION

CUSTOMS

Mr BEAZLEY:
FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Minister for

Customs and Excise whether his attention has been drawn to the complaints of John Guise concerning his treatment by Customs officials. I ask whether an inquiry has been made and, if so, with what result. Is there any means whereby Customs officials know when any representative of Papua and New Guinea is travelling through Australia or to Australia and treat him accordingly?

Mr GORTON:
LP

– The Minister for Customs and Excise has supplied me with an answer, anticipating that this question might come, because it is a question of some importance - certainly prima facie. The advice we have received is that Dr Guise arrived at the Customs office carrying a number of gifts in a hessian bag. These gifts were for other persons. He stated that he did not know the nature of the gifts. Because of a strong and, I think, thoroughly reasonable presumption that quarantine problems might be involved, the bag was inspected by a Customs examining officer and one article was found to be a club with bird skins and feathers attached. That was referred to the quarantine officer on duty who informed Dr Guise that it was subject to appropriate treatment before it could be admitted into Australia.

I think that no matter from where anybody comes, or whatever position they hold, there is an overriding responsibility on the Department of Customs and Excise to see that diseases that could be introduced into Australia with disastrous effects should not be risked being introduced by allowing any subject matters of this kind. At that stage and not before it, as I am informed, Dr Guise informed the Customs officer that he was in fact only in transit and not seeking to come into Australia - in transit to Fiji. So the Customs officer advised him that he could take that club and take it to Fiji, which he did. No other baggage of Dr Guise or his wife was inspected in any way.

page 2323

QUESTION

TRADE PUBLICITY

Mr IRWIN:

– I ask the Minister for Trade and Industry: Has the Government considered the desirability of embarking on a public relations and advertising campaign in the United Kingdom, extolling the high quality and reasonable prices of Australian primary products, especially food, and if possible drawing attention to the possible increases of food prices should Great Brittain enter the Common Market, when Australian produce, especially foodstuffs, would be excluded from entry to the United Kingdom?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– The Government does aid in maintaining a constant trade publicity campaign in the United Kingdom and, from the United Kingdom, largely in Europe. I do not recall immediately the amount that is set aside ‘in this year’s Budget to support this campaign, but it will be found to be of the order of some hundreds of thousands of dollars. The campaign is conducted by a committee known as the Overseas Trade Publicity Commitee. The funds provided by the Government, which, as I say, will amount this year to some hundreds of thousands of dollars, are supplemented by very substantial sums provided by the statutory marketing boards such as the canned fruit and dairy boards, and further supplemented by funds provided by either private commerce or expenditure by private commerce tailored to fit into the total publicity campaign. On the whole, this is an immense and very effective campaign. It is directed to drawing attention to the existence of goods and Australian food products and to the value of the food products. By and large it has been very successful.

I would think it improper for the Government to appear to be trying to influence a political decision in the United Kingdom by canvassing the fact that if Britain should join the Common Market food products there would be dearer. There is not the slightest doubt about this. They would be dramatically dearer. But that is a matter of controversy in the political field in the United Kingdom and it is not a matter in which we have sought or ever would seek to intervene and participate. We express our views, as I am expressing my own now, in this place.

page 2323

QUESTION

UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA

Mr DUTHIE:
WILMOT, TASMANIA

– Is the Minister for Education and Science aware of the bombshell dropped by the Tasmanian University Council last week when it announced that 32 first year medical students will not be permitted to continue their course or career in medicine because of the shortage of s:<.: and facilities? Will the Government guarantee sufficient emergency funds to enable the University to recruit staff an<? to provide extra facilities before the 1>?1 academic year commences? Does the Minister realise that those 32 students who passed then medical examinations this year will be forced to register for science courses which they do not wish to do and, as a result o[ which, Australia and Tasmania will lose 32 prospective medical practitioners? Can Autralia afford this erosion of potential doctors?

Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

-I do not have a report on the particular case in Tasmania to which the honourable member for Wilmot refers. But I would point out that supplementary grants to assist in the payment of the increase in academic salaries recommended by the Eggleston Committee have been promised by the Federal Government. This is our share of the matching grant to assist the universities in meeting the increase in academic salaries. I hope to introduce a Bill, perhaps next week, on this subject.

The only other thing that has affected the triennial amounts which the university has, if it orders its affairs properly, is some rise in non-academic salaries. When the Australian Universities Commission plans for the 3-year period the amount that it is prepared to recommend to particular universities, it incorporates in the figure an amount for rises in prices and rises in the case of non-academic salaries. I have not seen any representations through the Commission in relation to the University of Tasmania on non-academic salaries. Academic salaries have risen following the Eggleston report and we have promised to supplement them. So, I do not see any justification at the moment for the proposed course of action of the University of Tasmania.

page 2324

QUESTION

WHEAT SALES TO MAINLAND CHINA

Mr HUNT:
GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Minister for Primary Industry aware of the speculation taking place relative to Australia’s future wheat trade prospects with Mainland China? I*, the Minister concerned that future Australian wheat sales to Mainland China could be in jeopardy because of the decision of the Canadian Government to grant diplomatic recognition to Mainland China?

Mr ANTHONY:
CP

– The question asked ii whether I think there would be any t>. percussions in Australian sales of wheat ic China because Canada has now recognised her diplomatically. My answer is that I doubt very much whether it W1 make any difference. The fact is that we have been making very good sales to China since s first started making sales in 1960. During that period, Canada has talked of recognising China and of extending her diplomatic relationships with China, but this in no way has affected our sales.

Indeed we have made larger sales to Mainland China than Canada has. Although in the last 12 months, we have sold 2.2 million metric tons of wheat to Mainland China as against a Canadian sale of 2.3 million metric tons of wheat to Mainland China, if one looks at the period since sales first started to Mainland China in September 1960, one sees that Australia has sold 19.7 million metric tons of wheal and Canada has sold 17.5 million metric tons of wheat to that country.

I believe that China buys wheat where she gets the type she requires and at the prices that she considers most favourable to her for that type of wheat. If one wishes to speculate as to what might happen, one also can ask: What will be the consequences to Russia’s sale arrangements - they have expired - and will Canada’s recognition of Mainland China have any effect on Russia? I do not know. I doubt whether it would. Members of the Opposition seem to take glee in speculating on this sort of thing, but I think they are wasting their time.

page 2324

QUESTION

CENSORSHIP

Mr GARRICK:
BATMAN, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Customs and Excise: What is the number of officers employed by his Department who are authorised or required to ascertain whether literature is indecent or obscene? Is the perusal of this literature made necessary by legal restriction on material which may tend to corrupt or deprave the readers? On what basis are such officers chosen, what tests are applied to assess the corrupting or depraving effect upon them and what action has been taken as a result of any such effect?

Mr CHIPP:
LP

– Imports which are in the form of ‘literature’ - I use that word in inverted commas - and which are regarded as obscene can be divided into 2 parts. The first part consists of literature which is obviously hard core pornography, or rubbish as you might call it, and the other part consists of those works which do contain literary merit. Books of literary merit are referred by my Department to the National Literature Board of Review which is a body consisting of 9 people who are distinguished in letters - there is a poet, a publisher and people of that calibre - and who work in a part time capacity. Their recommendations are made to me and on the basis of those recommendations, I decide whether a work should be classified as a prohibited import or not. I understand the honourable gentleman is referring particularly to the first category I mentioned. These are banned at departmental level but only by an extremely senior officer. There are some who believe that customs officers all around the country can grab an importation and ban it. This is not so. There is no officer at State level who has the duty to do that. Everything is referred to the central office in Canberra and then to a senior officer who only after looking at it carefully makes the overt decision to declare it a prohibited import.

page 2325

QUESTION

AROMATIC POLYAMIDE

Dr SOLOMON:
DENISON, TASMANIA

– I ask the Minister for Trade and Industry whether his attention has been drawn to the recent commercial development of a nylon-type substance known as aromatic polyamide. Its greatest value is that it can resist temperatures of the order of 1,200 degrees centigrade. Will the right honourable gentleman investigate the possibility of introducing or producing this material within Australia for use inside aircraft, for pilots’ uniforms and in industry in relation to furnaces and that sort of thing? As this material is in distinct competition with wool which is largely used in those areas will the Minister look at the possibility of finding a manner in which wool may be treated to give it the same sort of qualities?

Mr McEWEN:
CP

– I do not know of the product to which the honourable member refers. I do know, of course, of the qualities of wool in respect to inflammability and heat resistance. They are very high indeed. To that extent it is turned to very much by the aircraft and other industries. It is really not the function of government to take the initiative in persuading industry and business to use a new product. It certainly is part of the function of government to see that every opportunity is made available for there to be knowledge of these products and then for business to make its own judgment in its own sphere on whether they should be used.

page 2325

QUESTION

TRADE PUBLICITY

Mr McEWEN:
CP

- Mr Speaker, could I now quote a figure which I did not have available when I answered the question asked by the honourable member for Mitchell. The funds provided in this year’s total budget for the Overseas Trade Publicity Committee amount to $1,350,000. In accordance with the work that I have been doing over the years, this fund provided by the Government has attracted to it for associated expenditure from the statutory marketing boards a further sum of $1,250,000. This year that Committee will spend in Britain and the Continent $1,600,000 in promoting Australian food products.

page 2325

PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! Does the Leader of the Opposition seek leave to make a statement?

Mr Whitlam:

– I have been misrepresented. I am entitled to do so.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! If the Leader of the Opposition wants to make a personal explanation he must claim to be misrepresented.

Mr Whitlam:

– I claim to be misrepresented.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Leader of the Opposition will confine his personal explanation to the way in which he claims to have been misrepresented.

Mr WHITLAM:
Leader of the Opposition · Werriwa

– As I recollect it, the Minister for Shipping and Transport (Mr Sinclair) said that he had not heard what I said on the subject of shipping conferences and then proceeded to state what he thought was my view. Therefore, to correct the position, I wish to quote what I said on his statement on 23 April last year, I said:

The Government has allowed itself to be inveigled into this position at a time when the prospects for increasing competition in overseas shipping have seldom seemed brighter. Developments in train at the time the Government was reaching its decision would have brought up to ninety-six vessels into service on the Australian run. The Soviet Union was showing an interest. At the same time tensions within the Conference had raised the probability of a breakaway by some European operators. Such developments could not have done other than bring about a sharp reduction in freight charges. The Government’s decision to ally itself with the Conferences inevitably strengthens Conference solidarity and weakens the impetus to independent operations. Its decision to favour container vessels of a particular type strengthens British shipping interests against their continental competitors. In these circumstances there will be no breakaway, no increase in competition and no reduction in freights. The Government’s actions will bring about a result directly opposed to its professed objectives.

Mr DALY:
Grayndler

- Mr Speaker, I desire to make a personal explanation as I feel that I have done an injustice to some members of the Government party.

Mr Gorton:

– Mr Speaker, I do not think anybody on the Government side would take any notice of anything the honourable member said and therefore no personal explanation is necessary.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! The honourable member for Grayndler, in accordance with practice, came to me and informed me about his personal explanation prior to seeking to make it. The honourable member for Grayndler will be in order in making the personal explanation.

Mr DALY:

– I thank you, Mr Speaker. With due deference to the Prime Minister, members of his Party did take notice of this and that is why I want to make the explanation today. During a debate in the Parliament on 4th September I referred to certain members of the Liberal Party and said:

Young Turks of the Liberal Party are the present-day vanguard of the movement towards Nazism in Australia.

On reflection I realised the gravity of this statement which I made in the heat of debate. I regret and withdraw the imputation against the members concerned.

page 2326

MARGINAL DAIRY FARMS AGREEMENTS ACT

Mr ANTHONY:
CP

– Pursuant to section 12 of the Marginal Dairy Farms Agreement Act 1970-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! On the last 4 occasions immediately after question time I have had to ask for the co-operation of the House to enable the House to proceed with its business. I would request that all honourable members co-operate with the Chair in this regard because Ministers and members from time to time, even in the course of personal explanations, have a right to be heard in this chamber. I would suggest that immediately after question time, if members want to leave the chamber they do so as quickly, but particularly as quietly, as possible.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Mr Speaker-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister for Primary Industry has the call.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– Mr Speaker, I was only trying to support what you have said.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I should be glad if you would do so at the appropriate time, but I have already called the Minister.

Mr ANTHONY:

– Pursuant to section 12 of the Marginal Dairy Farms Agreements Act 1970 1 present a copy of an agreement made between the Commonwealth and the State of Queensland in relation to the marginal dairy farms reconstruction scheme.

page 2326

MEAT RESEARCH ACT

Mr ANTHONY:
CP

– Mr Speaker, pursuant to section 17 of the Meat Research Act 1960-1968 I present the Fourth Annual Report of the Australian Meat Research Committee for the year ended 30th June 1970. An interim report of the Committee was presented to the House of Representatives on 15th September 1970.

page 2326

ABORIGINES ENTERPRISES (ASSISTANCE) ACT 1968

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

– Pursuant to section 13 of the Aboriginal Enterprises (Assistance) Act 1968 I present the Second Annual Report by the Office of Aboriginal Affairs on the administration and operation of the Act for the year ended 30th June 1970.

page 2327

COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY INTO FINANCIAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SERVICE EMPLOYMENT

Ministerial Statement

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– by leave - Honourable members are aware that I have been very concerned for some time to ensure that there is a detached and comprehensive review of some of the more fundamental aspects of the financial conditions of service of the armed forces. The Government has decided to appoint a committee of inquiry to make a thorough study of the duties and responsibilities of officers of the Australian armed forces and to recommend appropriate salary rates; to review the working of the group pay system whereby industrial award rates in respect of civilian employment are translated into rates of pay for skilled other ranks of the armed forces; and- no less important - to examine the demands and exigencies of Service life as they affect all ranks and their families in order to see whether any revision in financial recognition is called for.

Officers’ salaries have never been the subject of a comprehensive study as to their qualifications, skills, functions, responsibilities and the variety of conditions and circumstances under which they are called upon to serve. A short time ago, I announced some modifications to officers’ salary rates. But as I stressed then, this was essentially a restructuring of the officers’ salary scale within existing parameters to provide a more ‘balanced and equitable pattern of pay and increments. It was not intended as a definitive job evaluation. On the other hand, there is an established rationale behind the pay structure for other ranks as this is based on the rates approved under industrial awards for the trade skills which are assessed as having equivalents in the armed forces. However, there are a number of important matters associated with the working of this system of paygrouping which produce anomalies and need to be examined. These problems are mainly those which arise in translating to a different Service environment rates which have been assessed in a civilian context. The questions deserving consideration are such matters as rank structures, and the significance to be accorded to military skills possesed by qualified Service tradesmen.

Nor have the demands and exigencies faced by all personnel as an integral part of their commitment to disciplined service been examined in sufficient depth by advisory machinery in the past. These demands and exigencies - the disabilities of commitment to service - are being compensated by allowances assessed on a fairly broad view taken some years ago. We shall ask the committee of inquiry to make a more exhaustive study of all aspects of the nature and incidence of disabilities of Service employment and recommend the most appropriate form of compensation.

The structure of, and the way of expressing remuneration - although naturally not the level - have remained basically unchanged since the mid-1 940’s. The pay code is complicated and quite difficult to understand. In announcing adjustments to Service pay last month, I referred to the Government’s concern to have the present system translated into a form more comprehensible and recognisable to servicemen and civilians alike. There is a need for a careful and searching examination of all of these matters to reflect modern day principles applying to wage and salary fixation and the vast changes that have occurred in our armed forces. The Government has been considering ways in which detailed examination of all of these matters might best be sought. It has come to the conclusion that the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee is not best suited to the task of large scale examination these matters require. Since it began effectively to function less than 7 months ago, the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee has done much important and constructive work in the area of pay and general conditions of employment of Service personnel and it will continue to do so. I have announced in the last few months a number of substantial improvements and modifications across a broad range of terms and conditions which have been based on recommendations from the Committee. However, a major review would place intolerable demands on the time the permanent heads of the Defence and Service departments and a senior member of the Treasury, and of the personnel members of the Service boards.

Moreover, the Government believes that servicemen and service women would wish to have the major aspects of their pay and financial conditions of employment given a thorough examination by a body sufficiently detached from their employing organisations in the government area and equipped to draw relevant comparisons with pay and conditions in the civilian community. The principles and concepts developed by the Committee will, I would hope, provide lasting guidelines for the determination of Service remunerations in future. Whilst the matters I have mentioned will constitute the immediate and primary areas of the Committee’s work, the Government recognises that, in the course of its investigations, the Committee may find attention focussed on other conditions of Service employment which it may consider warrant examination. In that event I may, if it is considered desirable, ask the Committee to take up and consider such questions.

The specific terms of reference of the Committee of Inquiry are as follows:

  1. To inquire into and establish the principles and concepts which should apply in determining the remuneration of officers of the regular armed forces and to recommend salary rates appropriate for such officers having regard to their qualifications, training, levels of skill, functions, responsibilities, and other attributes or factors related to the functions required to be performed.
  2. In making recommendations under (i) the Committee should have regard to rates of salary in other areas of Commonwealth employment and in the community generally, to the rates paid to other rank personnel of the armed forces, and to the relationship as determined by the Government between the emoluments of Chiefs of Staff and those of heads of Commonwealth departments.
  3. To review the practical working of the group pay system applicable to other ranks pay, including the basis of assessment in a Service environment, the significance of rank and military skills and the implications of the concept of automatic application of civilian wage adjustments.
  4. To inquire into the nature and incidence of the inherent demands and exigencies of Service life as they affect all ranks and if it is deemed appropriate to recommend revised financial recognition in suitable form.
  5. As requested by the Minister for Defence during the course of the inquiry, to inquire into and report on any existing specific allowances intended to cover financial costs which from time to time fall upon service men and service women when meeting Service requirements.
  6. To inquire into and report on such other aspects relating to terms and conditions of employment as may be referred by the Minister for Defence after consultation with the Prime Minister and Treasurer.
  7. In making recommendations, the Committee of inquiry should have full regard to the national requirement to attract and retain men and women with needed qualities, skills and experience for the armed forces, (viii) In making its recommendations upon the system of emoluments the Committee of inquiry should have it as an objective that emoluments payable to the members of the regular armed forces should be readily com. prehensible and their value fully identifiable.

The Committee will be under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Kerr, C.M.G., a judge of the Commonwealth Industrial Court since 1966. His Honour has had extensive experience in industrial relations and wage fixing matters and has played an active part in a wide range of community affairs. He has been a distinguished member for many years of the legal profession and has held high office in legal councils and associations. His Honour was a member of the 2nd AIF from 1942 to 1946. I envisage a total Committee of 5 or 6. The remaining members will be selected with a view to producing a balanced, capable and experienced Committee. I will announce the full composition as soon as negotiations with individuals are complete.

To assist in the inquiry, each of the Services has been asked to appoint a special consultant to be available full time to provide technical and specialist information on Service matters that the Committee may require. The Government expects that the inquiry will proceed with a minimum of formality in preference to the more procedural approach of industrial tribunals and that it will visit and inspect a wide range of Service establishments and installations and seek the views of interested persons inside and outside the Services. The Government has decided that the proceedings of the inquiry should not be open to the public. It is not desirable that servicemen or others assisting the Committee should be inhibited by the public nature of the proceedings in giving information or explaining themselves to the Committee. The investigation will be pursued vigorously. However, this is an inquiry of historic importance in the life of Australian Services and a very thorough examination is essential and necessarily time consuming.

I stress that the process of examination of some aspects of conditions of Service employment by the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee will continue during the currency of the inquiry. The Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee is well placed to consider and to bring forward prompt recommendations on a number of matters related to terms and conditions of service. The Committee will be taking up matters such as removal entitlements, disturbance allowances and rentals charged for Service housing unless otherwise referred to the inquiry. I add that, while the inquiry is processing, the process of applying variations in the pay of civilian classifications to aligned Service categories will continue. And, following on the Government’s decision which I announced last month, any general movement in the salaries of the administrative and executive area of the Third Division of the Commonwealth Public Service will be extended to Service officers up to and including Colonel and equivalent ranks. Of course, senior officers are aligned with the Second Division of the Commonwealth Public Service. In short there will be no freeze on terms and conditions of employment while the inquiry is under way.

The Government has made clear its belief that there is a need to continue the national service scheme. It is fundamental to the Government’s position that all servicemen and servicewomen should be adequately recompensed for the service they give. The Government’s decision to appoint a Committee of Inquiry further demonstrates the Government’s determination upon this matter. Financial conditions, in the form of pay and allowances and related provisions, are but one aspect of the totality of terms and conditions under which members of our armed forces serve. I am very much alive to other aspects which have a marked impact on servicemen and their families. More needs to be done to meet the problem of providing housing in adequate numbers and of adequate quality in suitable locations. A high level interdepartmental committee including uniformed representatives has been established to give high priority to this task. When it has completed its work I will be submitting recommendations to the Government. Yet a further matter which is under close and active consideration is the effects of frequent reposting of servicemen in the form of family disruption and interruption to children’s education. I am pursuing this matter with the Services. It is not an easy problem to solve. The Government’s objective is to develop further the defence force Australia requires and in the words of the terms of reference ‘to attract and retain men and women with needed qualities, skills and experience for the Australian forces’. The Committee of Inquiry will make its contribution to that end in a situation of formidable competition from civilian employment.

I present the following paper:

Service employment - Committee of inquiry - Ministerial statement, 16 October 1970.

Motion (by Mr Barnes) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Mr BARNARD:
Deputy Leader of the Opposition · Bass

– The Minister for Defence (Mr Malcolm Fraser) said in the opening sentence of his statement that the House is aware that for some time he has been very concerned to ensure that there is a detached and comprehensive review of some of the more fundamental aspects and financial conditions of service of the armed forces. The House is aware of no such thing. Certainly the honourable member for Herbert (Mr Bonnett) is unaware of the Minister’s determination to have such an inquiry. He gave notice as recently as 12th August that he would move that a select committee of this Parliament be appointed to inquire into and report upon the pay, conditions and housing of the defence forces. Earlier in this session a select committee to review the defence forces retirement benefits scheme was set up. On behalf of the Opposition I sought to widen the terms of reference of this committee to cover Service pay and conditions. This was rejected by the Government, although it provided an excellent test of the Minister’s sincerity in wanting to have a comprehensive review of pay and conditions in the Services.

The Minister’s concern for such a review was not evident to the Returned Services League earlier this year when it pressed him to set up such an independent review. Honourable members will recall that the Minister for Defence begged the RSL to defer the matter for 3 months; in other words, to get the heat off him. Doubtless he hoped that a number of short term variations in pay and allowances would stifle the very serious criticism of his administration developing in the Services. The RSL reluctantly agreed to defer the matter. Some changes were made in pay and allowances. These did not deter servicemen from expressing their resentment at years of neglect of their pay and conditions. The Minister burned his fingers very severely in his intemperate and unwarranted comments of flying pay allowances. He had to resort to some sort of public relations compaign wandering around the messes and barracks of Canberra making atonement.

In the past the Minister has always dismissed complaints about pay and conditions by reference to the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee. According to the Minister this Committee would provide a cure-all for all complaints and conditions. He neglected the basic fact that any substantive result from this Committee would take years of work. He also neglected the fact that this Committee simply was not trusted by servicemen who believed they were not adequately represented on it. I make no criticism of the members of this Committee; undoubtedly they have done much devoted and dedicated work. But this Committee has the signal disadvantage that it is an internal committee of the Department of Defence; its functions are prescribed by the Department of Defence and this must limit its effectiveness. It has not the power to initiate inquiries or to make comprehensive assessments of conditions in the 3 armed services.

This is why the Opposition moved for the setting up of a select committee of this Parliament to look at the whole range of service pay and conditions. What we had in mind was a comprehensive inquiry into the whole social enviroment of the serviceman and his family; into pay; moves and reposting, re-settlement and reestablishment in civil life, family separation and disruption, housing and education. I submit that the committee of inquiry envisaged by the Minister is no substitute for such an inquiry by a select committee. The basic flaws of the committee recommended by the Minister are firstly, that its terms of reference are not properly based, secondly, the inquiry will be conducted in secrecy, and thirdly, as an ad hoc committee it cannot be regarded as machinery for keeping service pay and conditions under constant review.

The Minister has summarised the terms of reference in the opening paragraphs of his statement. I restate this summary rather than the fuller account of the terms given later in his speech. The first task of the proposed committee is to study the duties and responsibilities of officers and to recommend appropriate salary rates. The second is to review the working of the group system for skilled other ranks. The third is to examine the demands and exigencies of Service life as they affect servicemen and their families in order to see whether any revision in financial recognition is warranted.

The Minister goes to some pains to emphasise that the terms of reference are flexible; that the committee can wander down whatever avenues of inquiry it likes. However, it is a pretty safe bet that the committee will not stray too far from the lines indicated by the Minister. This will confine the committee’s lines of investigation in the main to a work value study of what servicemen do. Supplementing this would be a sociological examination of the day-to-day life of the serviceman and his wife and children with a view to making cash compensation. Despite the Minister’s insistence that the terms of reference would not be frozen, it is likely that the committee would draw up its duty sheet on the lines I have indicated.

No-one disputes the value of this kind of analysis. It would turn up as a mass of invaluable data about the peculiar nature of Service life. But it seems too wrong to me to link this sort of work value and sociological study with specific recommendations for improved pay, allowances and conditions. This sort of work could best be done in the form of pilot studies by universities, research foundations or industrial consultants. It is a matter for great regret that this work has not been done before but it should not be done in association with an inquiry into pay and conditions. It cannot be stressed too strongly that this is a very urgent matter.

In the past few weeks we have seen the unique spectacle of what amounts to industrial action by groups of servicemen. I refrain from using the term ‘mutiny’ to decribe what happened at Garden Island and at Williamtown air base. This terminology has been denied by responsible Ministers but by any standard of Service discipline these actions bordered on mutiny. There have been no comparable incidents in the Army but there has been a heavy rate of resignations, particularly among officers. This is the highly dangerous situation in which the Minister proposes this committee to remedy these problems.

He has abandoned his reliance on the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee. Now he proposes a committee which will undertake major in-depth studies of the Australian Services. It is in effect a Vernon report on the Army, Navy and Air Force. On the most optimistic assessment this committee would not be able to undertake the survey outlined by the Minister and recommend specific remedial measures in less than a year. From 18 months to 2 years is not improbable. Given the present inflammatory mood of the Services this is much too long to wait for effective action, even if other improvements flow from the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee.

In essence, this committee will be working on long-term solutions which will take a long time to prepare. This is not the way to solve extremely pressing problems which require action now. I suppose one solution would be to grant an across the board increase on the lines of the 25c increase in allowances the Minister announced last month. This would be regarded as an interim step until the committee reported and its recommendations could be implemented.

It is impossible to believe that in the absence of such immediate benefits, the Services will be mollified by the promise of this committee. Furthermore, it will have no impact on the problems of manning and recruiting manifest in all services but principally in the Army. These difficulties must intensify if a solution is deferred until this committee reports and the practical results of its investigation start to be felt through the Services. This would take at least two years. It should be remembered that what servicemen say about their jobs is one of the major influences on recruiting. What they are saying at the moment would not induce many to the colours.

The second criticism I listed earlier was the hearing of evidence in camera. I think this is a serious mistake. The Minister’s reason for this is that servicemen and those assisting the committee would be inhibited by the public nature of the proceedings in giving information or explaining themselves to the committee. I would say that the chances of any witnesses from the Services being reticent or inhibited on the subjects of pay and conditions in the present climate are nil. If the Minister for Defence has any lingering doubts about this he should study again the letters columns of the ‘Canberra Times’ in recent months. I am sure they have already provided him with considerable material for quiet meditation.

If this committee is appointed, something on these lines will happen. The committee will start its hearings in a blaze of publicity and then go promptly into camera. It will hear evidence over the next 6 months or so but because the proceedings are not public it will quickly pass into the limbo of the forgotten. Ultimately the committee will produce a report which may or may not produce decisive action. In such an atmosphere of secrecy and uncertainty how can such a committee serve as a dampener on discontent and unrest in the Services? How can servicemen be expected to wait patiently for what may be illusory improvements when they do not have a jot of information about what is going on in the committee hearings?

The third criticism I made was that this committee is conceived as a one hit exercise. It does not establish any sort of precedent or any sort of machinery for a continuing review of Service pay and conditions. Even if the report of this committee is an excellent one and it overcomes many of the existing difficulties, how can we be sure the improvements it makes will be consolidated and sustained?

An off the cuff committee of this sort compares most unfavourably with the Standing Reference on the Pay of the Armed Forces established in the United Kingdom. This committee has linked annual reviews of salaries and conditions with recommendations for improvements and studies of Service jobs and Service life.

Admittedly, this Committee has worked within the broad guidelines of a prices and incomes policy, a framework which is lacking in Australia. But it is the sort of model that should be considered by the Government. In summary, the Opposition does not think the approach adopted by the Minister is the correct one.

He has made a tacit admission that the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee is not up to the job of restoring equity and sanity to pay and allowances. But he has failed to put forward any remedies for short term improvement which will satisfy the Services until more sweeping and comprehensive reforms can be adopted. Undoubtedly, a committee of this sort would do much valuable work in assessing job values in the Services and the peculiar strains and stresses of Service life.

This is work that needs to be done; it should have been attempted years ago. But the Opposition does not see why the Services should have to wait for these surveys to be made before pay and allowances can be increased or conditions improved. The approach favoured by the Opposition is the appointment of a select committee of this Parliament to examine pay and conditions. This could be done more quickly than the independent committee; with the Parliamentary recess coming up it would be possible to get a series of recommendations for short-term improvements within a few months. There is enough evidence available to assess pay and conditions and recommend changes which could be brought in quickly and effectively. With the public hearings of a select parliamentary committee, servicemen would be assured that their problems were getting the urgent attention of this Parliament. There would be palpable evidence that pay, allowances and conditions were under scrutiny and that changes would be made. I believe this is most important for the morale of the Services in the light of the present serious crisis in recruitment and manning. By all means let us have the sort of analysis the Minister envisages in his terms of reference. We must have this sort of information if future policies are to be correctly based and the errors of the past avoided. But this work could best be done by other agencies such as a university department of sociology or a firm of industrial consultants. This side of the investigation should be divorced completely from the immediate problem, which is how to stop serious unrest and dissatisfaction, in some cases bordering on mutiny, in the armed Services.

Therefore, against this background I submit on behalf of the Opposition that because substantial improvements are needed and needed quickly, Service pay and conditions should be put under the immedi ate scrutiny of this Parliament. I move, as an amendment:

That all words after That’ be omitted with a view to inserting the following words in place thereof: ‘this House is of opinion that, instead of the proposed committee, a joint select committee of both Houses be appointed to inquire into and report upon the Australian Defence forces in relation to (i) pay and allowances of all personnel, (ii> provision for the retraining of officers and men, (iii) housing and (iv) educational facilities for .the children of servicemen’.

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

– Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. Is the amendment seconded?

Mr Hayden:

– I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Mr JESS:
La Trobe

– I have listened with great interest to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard) and I am in agreement with many of the points that he has made. I think it may be admitted that during my period in this House one of my main interests has been the terms and conditions of service in the 3 Services. It is interesting to note the concern in the Services over the terms and conditions under which members serve. I believe it is necessary, as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said, to examine the morale of the Services today. In my opinion in the 10 years I have been in this Parliament and over a long period of parliamentary government in Australia the Defence Services have never been understood and have never had the consideration that they should have had from governments or from oppositions.

It is interesting that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has now decided to take a great interest in the Defence Services. However, if one goes back over the debates during the years when the Australian Labor Party was in government and since that Party has been in opposition one can see how little interest members of the Labor Party have shown and how rarely, if ever, conditions of service have been brought up by them. In fact, the records show that the majority of their statements are almost aimed at lowering the conditions of services. Members of the Opposition have made reference to ‘brass hats’ when talking about officers. They have referred to officers as people dressed in uniforms who glide around in cars. Therefore, I cannot take seriously the matter raised by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. It is my intention in the Estimates debate today to speak about the terms and conditions of services. When I speak during that debate I intend to draw to the attention of honourable members the fact that a defence statement made by the Minister for Defence (Mr Malcolm Fraser) many months ago has not been debated. I have heard of no pressure from the Opposition to have it debated. It is claimed that this defence statement is the most far reaching that we have had presented in this House, but there has been no demand from the Opposition to discuss it.

A ministerial statement was made last session by the Minister for the Army (Mr Peacock) on the Royal Military College. However, this has not been debated and I have not heard any interest in this matter expressed by the Opposition. Today during the Estimates debate we will be discussing the 6 Defence Services. Honourable members will each be allowed 10 minutes in which to debate those estimates. This means that we will have 1 minute 50 seconds to speak on each Defence Service. I have not heard the Opposition complain about this. When we look at the Notice Paper we find that there has not been one move by the Opposition to discuss matters relating to defence. I contend that there has been delay. I contend and I have contended over the years that I have been here that there has been a lack of understanding of what it means to be in the Services. There has been a lack of understanding of what it means to be an officer, an NCO or a serviceman who has to move from State to State and from theatre to theatre, with consequent disruption of family life. The Opposition has never objected to the fact that a serviceman has to live in housing commission houses while his counterpart in civilian life, who might have gone to school with him, is living in a nice home somewhere else. The Opposition has never raised this point.

I give credit to the Minister for Defence - and I do not give credit when I do not think it is deserved. I think the Minister has done a good job. I think he has endeavoured to move the Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee to bring forward quick decisions. It is interesting to realise that already this year Service pay has been increased by $30m. This is not a bad record. I accept the contention that in the past there has not been sufficient Service representation on the various committees. I think this is a reasonable complaint. It has been pointed out that on these committees there is always a representative from the Treasury, from the Department of Defence or from the Department of External Affairs. If members of the soldiery are asked a question they are allowed to put in their oar but otherwise they sit on the sideline in silence. I have heard no objection to this from the Opposition.

It fills me with horror and dismay to hear the Deputy Leader of the Opposition talk about select committees. When he does this I do not think that he is speaking with the knowledge that he should have. When we look at this question of select committees we find that every senator in the Senate is a member of about two select committees and a member of one of the Estimates Committees which have been established. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition talks about the delay which may be occasioned by this inquiry being conducted by an independent committee, on which will be Service representatives and people who have served and have known or do know the factors and conditions which affect a serviceman’s life. He says that a delay will be occasioned by the appointment of an independent committee because it will not be able to submit a report within 12 months. He claims that a select committee would be able to submit a report in a much quicker time. I think that is absolute rubbish.

At the present time, together with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, I am a member of the Joint Committee on the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Legislation. We are finding that it is difficult to arrange a full Committee meeting because senators and others are members of other select committees. We find that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition - I do not blame him for this - has other duties to perform and that it is not always possible for him to be in attendance at Committee meetings. On the Committee are three senators who are standing for re-election at the forthcoming Senate election, and therefore their prime objective is to get re-elected. So the Committee cannot sit. If the Senate result should be as Labor hopes it will be, but I am confident it will not be, am I to believe that the Senate, with the present Opposition in control, will not endeavour to create chaos in this House? Is it not possible that next year could be one of the most vital years in parliamentary history? Do I take it that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition will want the proposed committee to press on and that Labor senators will be allowed to be absent from the Senate in order to conduct inquiries which, of necessity, will have to be held throughout Australia? I think that is absolute rubbish.

The Minister has decided that there should be an importial committee, not a political committee. Let us not think that politics do not enter into select committees; they do. It will be an impartial committee under the chairmanship of a distinguished judge. There will be businessmen and servicemen on the Committee and they will have one duty, and one duty only to perform - that is, to get to the hard core of the question of rates and pay and conditions in the Services. I accept one point which the Deputy Leader of the Opposition has made, that is, that those things that are in the pipeline in respect of conditions of service and on which decisions are about to be made should not be delayed. If the Treasury or anybody else decide that because a committee had been set up we should delay a decision in respect of such matters as temporary rental allowances and educational allowances which are presently in the pipeline, I believe that this Parliament - I am sure the Minister and I would hope the Government - would see that the decision was not put into effect.

This could be the most far-reaching inquiry into the Services ever conducted. I think that the method of endeavouring to adjust the pay scales between the Services and civilian industries has not been successful. I believe that it has created problems. It has not taken into account the facts concerning a servicemen’s life. It has not taken into effect the officer-other rank relationship. It has not taken into effect the fact that at the present time certain engineers of non-commissioned officer rank, with diploma degrees, are receiving higher rates of pay than officers with graduate degrees. There are anomalies. Let it also be realised that we have the technical arms of the Services - the signallers, the medicos, the electrical and mechanical engineers and so on - who are given high rates of pay. But at the present time the infantryman, the rifleman, is to a certain extent at the lower end of the pay scale. But surely everybody realises that all these specialists are there basically in time of war to do one thing, that is, to service the rifleman who is in time of war the most important man in the whole team. I think that these are the things into which there has to be a deep and full inquiry.

I welcome the Minister’s statement and I think that the Services will welcome it. I think that the Services should be reassured that things such as allowances will not be held up pending this inquiry. There is no reason why they should be held up. Let this be the fullest inquiry and let it be impartial. I agree that its findings should be made public. I would object if, at the end of the inquiry, the findings were not made public. I think that the hearings could well be held in camera, but the report must be made available to this Parliament

I conclude by saying, as I said before, that the appointment of a select committee comprising members of this House and of the Senate, under the conditions which obtain in the Parliament at the moment, would be detrimental to the whole question. Although the Deputy Leader of the Opposition said that it would take this independent inquiry 12 months to make its investigations, I guarantee that we would not get a convincing and realistic result from a select committee in under 3 years. Some of the select committees that are operating at present, such as the committee that is inquiring into aircraft noise, seem to have been going for an incredibly long time. I think that the servicemen should be reassured that this matter is now to be looked into and that the other matters - such as disturbance allowance and the educational allowance, about which I will speak when we are debating the estimates for the Defence Department - about which they are concerned at the moment are at present under review and close to a decision. I should like the Minister to stress that these matters will not be held up pending the overall review.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– That is part of the decision.

Mr JESS:

– The Minister says that this is part of the decision. I welcome his statement and I oppose the Opposition’s amendment. The amendment is nothing more than a political manoeuvre, and in my opinion it would be completely detrimental to achieving a quick result for the soldiers, who deserve it.

Mr HAYDEN:
Oxley

– For quite a period now the Opposition has been condemning the Government for the inferior conditions of service for our men in the fighting forces. Today in the statement of the Minister for Defence (Mr Malcolm Fraser) we have a confession of guilt. There is nothing like an impending election to flush out a little action from an otherwise tardy Government when the rights and entitlements of sections of the community are concerned.

In reply to the points made by the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Jess), who has just left the chamber, we believe that it is absolutely essential that a joint parliamentary committee should be appointed and that the investigation - the hearings and the findings - should be submitted openly to the public. We have too much evidence to indicate that the Government suppresses the reports of the various committees of inquiry which it has set up. The most recent one, of course, is the nationwide survey which was made into Australia’s educational needs. That survey was conducted with the support of the 6 State governments. The findings of that survey have been completely suppressed. A condensation of some of the less salient points - certainly the criticism was exorcised from that report - has been submitted to the Parliament. Is this going to occur on this occasion, too? Again, there are other indications-

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I raise a point of order. There was a gross misrepresentation here by the honourable member because this was a report to the State Education Ministers, and it is for them to decide what they do with it; it is not a decision for the Commonwealth.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-(Mr Locock)- Order! There is no substance to the point of order.

Mr HAYDEN:

– Let us proceed to other reports. The Loder Committee’s report on transport costs in northern Australia was suppressed. The report of the Vernon Committee of Economic Inquiry was suppressed for many months and finally buried in haste and without respect by the then Prime

Minister. The report of the Nimmo Committee on medical and hospital costs was held in limbo for many months by the Minister for Health (Dr Forbes) because of the embarrassing contents of the report, and then it was released only because of public pressure. Quite clearly, if the findings of the proposed committees are embarrassing to the Government, its report will be suppressed or, at the very least, severely truncated by the Government This is clearly apprehended in the statement of the Minister. In his statement he said:

The Government has decided that the proceedings of the inquiry should not be open to the public.

He has no intention of allowing anything that will embarrass the Government, as undoubtedly it would as a result of the quite unjustified treatment of and discrimination against our fighting men, to be released to the public. In any event, he has already prejudged the situation. How can one possibly expect that the men of our fighting services will receive any justice from him when he says that one of the main points of this committee of inquiry will be to investigate pay conditions, and when only yesterday in the House of Representatives he damned the suggestion of the Labor Party that our fighting men were entitled to better pay and conditions than they have at present. The Minister indicated in his statement in the House yesterday that only if we have a pool of unemployed can we attract people to join the defence services.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Mr Speaker, I wish to make a personal explanation.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-(Mr Locock) - Order! If the Minister claims to have been misrepresented, I point out that a claim of misrepresentation can be made only when the honourable member for Oxley has finished.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I will make a personal explanation when the honourable member for Oxley is finished, because of gross misrepresentation and the falseness of the allegations.

Mr HAYDEN:

- Mr Deputy Speaker, you know that this has to be done at the end of a speech, and the Minister is using up my time. He said yesterday in the House that because the United States of America had unemployment it was able to have a voluntary defence service. We do not have a great degree of unemployment, therefore, he says, we cannot have an all volunteer defence service. Does he think that only those people in the gravest financial, social and economic need in the community would stoop to join the Services? I find this obnoxious. I find it offensive. On behalf of the fighting men of Australia I reject it completely. The Minister then went on to say:

If we were a country that sought to buy defence, which is what the Labor Party would do if it wanted any defence, we would have to pay higher salary and wage rates in an attempt to attract people into the armed forces to get the numbers we needed.

He has already prejudged the situation. He is opposed to salary increases. Then he excelled himself by going on to say:

If you could do this -

This is what we are talking about, higher pay and better conditions - it would mean that we would then be insulating the privileged, the better educated -

Mark those words, ‘the better educated’ - and the wealthy from the obligations of defence and from the obligations of doing something to protect their own country.

The Minister then goes on to say:

It is likely to appeal to the underprivileged and to the worker who is in a less fortunate situation.

So he argues that, if you improve conditions and pay, those people whose intellectual capacity has been developed - the better educated - would be too wise to join the defence forces even then. Why? Why does the Minister believe this? What is wrong with the defence Services under him, that the better educated people would not want to join even with better pay and conditions? If he argues that better pay and conditions will attract only the underprivileged of the community - this statement appears at page 2200 of Hansard - what sort of people does he argue will be attracted now to the defence Services when the pay and conditions are so gravely inadequate and totally unacceptable to the men of the fighting Services? I reject his statement. As I said earlier, I find it offensive. I find it objectionable. It is totally unworthy of the Australian Minister for Defence to regard the men of the fighting Services in this way.

The intransigence of the Conservative Government at Canberra towards the reasonable and long standing claims of the armed services for improved conditions ha; undermined the morale and depleted the ranks of out fighting Services. The lamentable deterioration in re-engagement rates is frankly alarming. In 1963-64 the reengagement rate for the Royal Australian Air Force was 61 per cent. By 1968-69 it has fallen to 57 per cent - this is under the Conservatives; for the Army the fall was even more pronounced, from 60 per cent to 47 per cent; but the Navy’s rate collapsed to a perilous level, that is, from 68 per cent, the highest, to 18 per cent, the lowest. In 5 short years Conservative neglect has wrought havoc on the confidence and elan of our serviceman’s sense of professional self respect. The downgrading and erosion of the professional status of our armed Services have been caused by long spells of Government unconcern about conditions of pay and provision of reasonable benefits for our servicemen.

The effect of this defenceless neglect by the Conservative Federal Government is dramatically revealed by its failure to meet recruitment targets; its unsuccessful, albeit expensive policy of seeking to pilfer manpower from the ranks of Britain’s Services; and the dismayingly high and rapidly increasing resignation rate of commissioned officers below retiring age. In 1969-70 the recruitment target set for Australian defence forces was 2,864. The actual level reached was 758; that is, recruitment was nearly 75 per cent down on the projected goal. The Air Force actually suffered a loss of manpower. The Army gain to personnel strength of 462 men was less than a third of the intake target set. The Navy’s extremely modest recruitment target was still 25 per cent down on its enlistment goal. Quite clearly the career prospects in our armed Services no longer attract the interest, confidence and support of young people. This comes about as a result of the inertia of the Conservative Federal Government towards a long overdue policy of improvement in conditions of service. I suspect that this may well be a cover up because of the points I made earlier. For the first half of this year overall recruitment has achieved only one-quarter of the target set. There is patently no abatement, indeed only aggravation of this serious problem. If this clearly apparent and distressing rundown of manpower is not halted and reversed the capacity of our armed Services to maintain their function of a meaningful defence preparedness will be seriously impaired.

Efforts to plug up the cracks in the system by attempted filching of manpower from the British Services have produced nugatory results, but at considerable public expense. This practice was introduced 2½ years ago, and up to the middle of this year fewer than 40 British officers had been enticed from their home Service. As Royal Australian Air Force officer strength alone is more than 440 down on quota, the meaninglessness of the overseas recruitment programme in comparison to need is forcibly illustrated. On the face of it, recent pay increases plus general conditions and benefits for married men seemingly make engagement in the British Services a superior proposition to the rundown in conditions of service in Australia. There is additionally the mass exodus of middle-rank commissioned officers from the Services which has become acute in the past 18 months. These men are resigning their commissions before reaching retiring age, through utter disgust and frustration with the conditions under which they labour and which, in many unhappy respects, affect their families. For them the idealism and dedication of the career officer has been shattered beyond repair.

Between 1965 and 1970 there was nearly a 1,000 per cent increase in resignations of such Army officers below the rank of colonel. There was almost a three-fold increase in RAAF officer resignations for the same period. The trend is accelerating at a startling rate. For the first 6 months of this year, 80 RAAF officers left the Service. The Navy suffered, too, with a resignation rate in 1969-70 over 100 per cent greater than 5 years earlier. The rot is setting in here, too, for officer resignations for the first 6 months of this year, numbering 33, exceed the total for last year already. In a desperate effort to avert critical breakdowns in the operations of the Army this Conservative Government at Canberra has stampeded into pressing more than 100 Citizen Military Forces officers and nearly 80 retired list officers into regular service. This is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and neither Peter nor Paul is satisfied with the result

Major General Paul A. Cullen, President of the CMF Association, is on public record asserting that the CMF aimed at reaching a planned strength of 36,000 last year. It in fact lost strength and fell to 31,000 personnel. Even more startling is his declaration that this organisation should have a strength of 40,000 to 50,000 men to fulfil a meaningful role in our defence arrangements. Depleting the CMF in this way not only undermines a gravely run down area of the services but also fails to plug up the gaps in the regular Services. Additionally, the practice is causing widespread resentment among career officers who find that the truncated training of CMF officers place the CMF officers on the same footing as 4-year trained Duntroon graduates. In some cases the CMF officer ever becomes their superior.

Again, justified and long standing complaints on pay, housing, transfers, retirement and family benefits have impaired many career servicemen’s assessment of their chosen profession. It is an inexcusable exploitation of a Royal Australian Air Force pilot’s dedication to expect him to bear with the present pay levels when he can earn 2 to 3 times as much with an international airline in a somewhat less onerous job. The Minister for Defence rose to unprecedented heights of arrogant offensiveness when he said of the RAAF claim to have pay rates strike parity with Department of Civil Aviation personnel:

But the DCA people have responsibilities not required by RAAF personnel and that is performing and observing standards of civil aviation flying.

The Minister thus displayed an alarming degree of ignorance concerning the duties demanded of our RAAF pilots. The recent pay increases give little relief. They mean $4 to $5 a week extra to a lieutenant. Out of this contributions to the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Fund will claw off about $1. 50, tax will remain about the same, mess fees and rent will go up by about 15 per cent of the increase. The hapless officer will be fortunate to rescue a dollar out of the increase. What the Government is seemingly incapable of understanding is that top quality, well trained and experienced administrators - the qualities of middle-Tank officers - will not tolerate long a salary of $6,500 for a major, for example, when his skills can command nearly double that rate in civilian life. Officer engineers pay was supposed to be tied to that of a class- 5, engineer in the Commonwealth Public Service in 1964. An Army colonel engineer is now nearly $2,000 behind a class 5 engineer. May 1 have incorporated in Hansard this table?

Mr Killen:

– May I have a look at it?

Mr HAYDEN:

– 1 will pass it across, but I he Minister has already had a look at it.

Mr Killen:

– 1 have not seen this at all. How dare you say that.

Mr HAYDEN:

– But it will take mors than pay to hold manpower. A service”man pays 15. per cent of ‘his salary for Government housing while the Commonwealth Public Service pays only 10 per cent. The Serviceman is most likely to be pushed into unattractive, unsuitable accommodation after a long wait and after his selection by a lucky dip’ process. In moving furnishings are damaged and deteriorated. Some, such as floor coverings and curtains, become useless and have to be replaced at considerable expense, m contrast, vastly superior conditions are provided in the United States and the United Kingdom for servicemen.

Again, Australian servicemen are blighted by too frequent postings. This, incidentally, disrupts home life and plays havoc with young children’s education and their personality development. The contributory DFRB system as last is being investigated. It should be scrapped and replaced by a non-contributory scheme. Last year the Government’s contributions to the scheme were $9.9m but gratuities paid out were only $1.8m. That is, the burden of a noncontributory scheme seems mild and the benefits in terms of satisfaction in the -Services far exceeding the cost. Britain and the United States have non-contributory schemes. Again, there seems to be a case for less civilian control of servicemen and less of their interference. The ratio of civilians in defence departments to servicemen is 73.96 to 100, a glaring lopsidedness. Further, the five man Defence (Conditions of Service) Committee - all members arc public servants - should have high level representation from each of the Services. There needs to be a development of benefit; for servicemen’s dependants and for retired servicemen and their dependants along the lines of those available to the United States and British Services. .

A Labor government would promptly act to establish wage justice for our servicemen. It has pledged itself also to: Provide War Service home entitlements to all servicemen after 2 years regular service or 6 years of CMF service; minimise the incidence of postings so as to give more stability to home life; provision of health services from the Repatriation Department to servicemen and their dependants; scholarships to children whose education would be disrupted otherwise by shifts; availability of adequate life assurance and elimination of special loading charges which currently penalise our fighting men: injuries sustained other than on active service would be covered by the Repatriation Act and not the Commonwealth Employees’ Compensation Act which is less generous; and non-contributory pensions to all exservicemen to replace the present costly, unwieldly and unintelligible DFRB contributory system.

The Labor Party proposes a practical programme of reform aimed at rooting out the grave debilitating defects which now impair and pose a critical threat to the operation of our defence forces. I suspect, however, that the Government intends to do very little, especially as the Minister has prejudged the case for salary increases in his statement in this House, which is frankly offensive to the righting men of Australia

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

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Mr Deputy Speaker-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! I call the Minister for Defence.

Mr Hayden:

– Did you allow the incorporation?

Mr Killen:

– Yes, but I had not seen it. Mr Hayden - You had. Mr Killen- Don’t tell fibs.

Mr Hayden:

– The Minister for Defence had seen it. This is just another little ploy to waste more of my time.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! To clear the point, leave is granted now for the incorporation in Hansard of the document referred to by the honourable member for Oxley.

Mr Hayden:

– Thank you. The document reads:

EXECUTIVE COMPARISONS (Consolidated)

The table below gives an indication of executive salaries in private industry, the public service and the -army, along with an indication of the number of men controlled by industry and army executives as a base figure. Thus a comparison of different salaries paid to executives with control of equal numbers of men is possible. The Commonwealth Public Service 'equivalent status' is that normally regarded as operative in the defence group of departments.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock:

– I again call the Minister for Defence.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Mr Deputy Speaker, the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) has grossly distorted my view and has grossly distorted the view of the Government. The view that I rejected yesterday was the view that the only consideration that the Government should have is that it should buy defence and that there were no obligations on the people of Australia and no obligations to see that the burdens of defence fall equitably on the people-

Mr Bryant:

– I take a point of order. The Minister is debating the issues which were raised. This is not a point of order or a-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister for Defence has claimed a misrepresentation. I point out to the Minister that, in speaking to a claim of misrepresentation, the Minister must indicate the point on which he claims misrepresentation but must not debate the merits of the issue before the House.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– No. That is precisely what I wish to do.

Mr Bryant:

– I take a point of order.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

-The honourable member for Oxley claimed that I had rejected-

Mr Bryant:

– I have taken a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– -Order Mr Bryant - I am entitled to take a point of order on this, the Minister has the right of reply in this debate. That is the appropriate time to raise the issues that he is raising now. They may well be valid. The fact is that what he is doing now in my belief has nothing to do. with the system of debate established in this House. If he wants to answer the points raised in that manner, he can do that later when he has the right pf reply.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! In reply to the point of order raised by the honourable member for Wills, the Minister, has the right to point out where he claims to have been misrepresented. I have pointed out to the Minister that he cannot debate the subject matter but he can point out where he claims to have been misrepresented.

Mr Hayden:

– ls this possible?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Oxley will resume his seat.

Mr Hayden:

– J was referring-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Mr Hayden:

– I was going-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! ] warn the honourable member for Oxley. I call the Minister for Defence.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

-The honourable member for Oxley claimed that I had rejected pay claims for the Services as a result of something that I said yesterday. I was only saying that yesterday I was rejecting the view that the only consideration the Government ought to have in mind is that it can buy defence, establishing a position in which the privileged can insulate themselves from the effect of defence. A question of equity is involved in this matter This is quite clear in the statement that I made today and in the terms of reference of the inquiry which point to the need to attract and retain appropriate personnel in the services. This is quite clear in the statement in which J said: ‘This is fundamental to the Government’s position that all servicemen and women should be adequately recompensed for the service that they give’. That is the Government’s objective-

Mr Hayden:

– A point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You know as well as I do that this speaker is now debating the issue.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Oxley will resume his seat.

Mr Hayden:

– Well, I will move a vote of no confidence in you-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Oxley was here this morning at question time-

Mr Hayden:

– . . . if you do that -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Mr Hayden:

– I am warning you.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! I. call the honourable member for Oxley to order. The honourable member will withdraw that remark.

Mr Hayden:

– 1 have merely indicated that I am about to move a vote of no confidence on the Chair:

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member will resume his seat. The honourable member for Oxley was in this House at question time today and should have noted the occasion when the Leader of the Opposition made a personal explanation and in order to explain the basis of the alleged misrepresentation read from a portion of a speech that he had made in this House. What the Leader of the Opposition did is exactly the same as the Minister for Defence is doing at the moment. If the honourable member for Oxley sees any difference between the 2 circumstances, I am afraid bis disagreement with the Chair again is incorrect.

Mr Hayden:

– A point of order- -

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Oxley will resume his seat.

Mr Hayden:

– 1 have an entitlement to raise a point of order.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Mr Hayden:

– You do not know what my point of order is.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Oxley raised a point of order and I have given a ruling on it.

Mr Hayden:

– How do you know what I am going to raise now?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Mr Hayden:

– You have no idea at all.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! Is the honourable member for Oxley raising another point of order?

Mr Hayden:

– I am raising a point of order following on what you said was your interpretation of what was the procedure this morning. You have said specifically that the Leader of the Opposition read a previous statement by him which he said had been misrepresented by the Minister concerned. The Minister is not reading any previous statement at all. He is debating the issue-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! Mr Hayden - Mr Deputy Speaker-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Oxley will resume his seat. At the time when the honourable member for Oxley took his point of order the Minister was reading from the statement that he made to the House this morning. I call the Minister for Defence.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I read from the statement that I made this morning as I was earlier before the honourable member for Oxley interrupted me.

In making recommendations, the Committee of Inquiry should have full regard to the national requirement to attract and retain men and women with needed qualities, skills and experience for the Armed Forces.

Further, I repeat that:

The Government has made clear its belief that there is a need to continue the national service scheme. It is fundamental to the Government’s position that all servicemen and women should be adequately recompensed for the service that they give. The Government’s decision to appoint a Committee of Inquiry, which the Opposition opposes, further demonstrates the Government’s determination upon this matter.

Mr Speaker, the position of the honourable member for Oxley is that he obviously and clearly objects to his false allegations being picked out and noted-

Mr Hayden:

– A point of order

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister is going beyond the point of a personal explanation.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I apologise for that, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have finished my personal explanation.

Mr HAYDEN (Oxley) - Mr Deputy Speaker, I claim to have been misrepresented and to have been offended. The Minister said that I had misrepresented him when I quoted his statements. Following on your interpretation - and I know from experience that you will be consistent and uphold that interpretation when it applies to this side of the House too - I point out that what I quoted was this:

If we were a country that sought to buy defence, which is what the Labor Party would do if it wanted any defence, we would have to pay higher salary and wage rates in an attempt to attract people into the armed forces to get the numbers we needed.

That is, he is saying that if one wants more numbers than one has now one has to pay more money.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Mr Deputy Speaker-

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:
Mr HAYDEN:

– I am quoting from the statement, Mr Deputy Speaker, with respect.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! I call the honourable member for Oxley.

Mr HAYDEN:

– He also said:

It is likely to appeal to the underprivileged and to the worker who is in a less fortunate situation.

The only point that I make then is: If the improved salary, situation and conditions of work and so on will appeal to the underprivileged and the worker, what sort of appeal do the inferior standards of the moment make? What sort of people do they appeal to? I am pointing out the convoluted logic that the Minister is trying to impress upon the House.

Mr KILLEN:
Minister for the Navy · Moreton · LP

– I think the House could better understand the pyrotechnical language of the honourable member for Oxley (Mr Hayden) if I were to acquaint it with the fact that within his electorate there is the largest Royal Australian Air Force base in Australia, lt is a matter of notoriety that the honourable member for Oxley gets his poorest vote from the RAAF base at Amberley. Therefore, the honourable gentleman has set out this morning to try to stir up goodwill.

Mr Bryant:

– Where do you get your best vote, from the Manly ferry?

Mr KILLEN:

– At least it has not had the advantage of colliding with you. The honourable member for Oxley, who has set out to try to retrieve that position and stir up goodwill, -came along this morning with a speech that I have not -the slightest doubt he started to prepare a week after the last election when he looked at the results and saw that his vote at Amberley was down. So he put his speech on the despatch box and read it funning almost as though he was in the Caulfield Cup on Saturday. I congratulate the honourable gentleman at least upon the fact that he contrived to finish his speech. But he roused my sensitive collection of feelings when he asked for leave to ‘ incorporate something in Hansard. I said: ‘I have not seen it’. He said: ‘You have seen it’. I am not in the habit of saying I have not done or seen something when in point of fact J have:

Mr Hayden:

– Can I apologise?

Mr KILLEN:

– 1 hope the honourable gentleman will apologise. I have no doubt he could overhear the sob that came from me when he mentioned it. I had not seen the table and I did not wish to be discourteous to the honourable gentleman but 1 think it reasonable in the circumstances before one could agree to anything for one to have seen it. So much for the speech of the honourable member for Oxley. Perhaps I could make one or two other glancing blows in its direction before I leave it. The gravamen of the honourable member’s complaint this morning was that the Government refuses to accept the proposal for a select committee. I thought that was handsomely dealt with by the honourable member for La Trobe (Mr Jess). I could think of no more atrocious way of dealing with this problem than to set up a select committee. I invite my honourable friend, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard), to reflect upon the fact that the Senate today is hopelessly engaged on committee after committee on a great variety of subjects. There are more select committees in operation today than 1 can remember in my time in this Parliament. Would the honourable gentleman seriously suggest that the wishes of the Senate should be ignored in this matter? 1 would be surprised if that were the point of view of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, if I may make the assumption that a select committee could be set up embracing the whole Parliament then I would say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that it would be unreal to say to the Senate: ‘You, of course, have no interest in this’. I think it is & pretty practical basis upon which to reject the proposal. What is more, . as the honourable member for La .Trobe pointed out, with a Senate election in the offing it would be impossible to expect candidates for election to attend to this business.

While I am on that point may I advert to the suggestion made by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition that the universities should be consulted in this matter. I do not wish to cast the slightest aspersion upon the universities but 1 would respectfully submit to my honourable friend that universities would not be the best providers of competent people to deal with this matter. It is a matter which involves the Services and if there is Service representation by people who understand the Services 1 think this would be far better than to have someone with a mere academic approach. I do not wish to be offensive or insulting but if we were to have a purely academic approach I do not think the problem would be solved. With stronger force let me say that if we were to have a purely political approach the problem, far from being solved, would be grievously exacerbated. My colleague, the Minister for Defence (Mr Malcolm Fraser), has not attempted to disguise his and the Government’s anxiety as far as the Services are concerned. It is one of the difficulties of our existence to be able to translate into the political arena the realities of Service life, ft has always been the case. Here is an attempt being made by the Government to establish a committee to examine in complete depth - 1 hope that is not a solecism - all the difficulties associated with Service life. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has sought to reproach the Government because - I think he used this phrase - it will be a secret inquiry.

Mr Barnard:

– In camera.

Mr KILLEN:

– Well, in camera. I will look at that argument for one moment. Let us take the reverse of that and assume for the purposes of this examination that we were to have a public inquiry. Would the honourable gentleman suggest that witnessed should be paraded, that counsel should be there to assist the inquiry and that it should have all the accoutrement of a judicial inquiry? I have a preference for providing members of the legal profession with activity but it would seem to me to be an inept way of proceeding with this inquiry to give it all the trappings of a judicial inquiry. It is with infinite respect that I say that the man who will preside over this inquiry has one of the best furnished minds in this country.

Mr Barnard:

– I agree.

Mr KILLEN:

– -He is a person who has had wide experience in his profession. He is one who commands the utmost respect wherever he has been, he is one who has seen al! walks of life in Australia and one whose personality has been submitted to Service life. These are admirable qualities for anyone who is to preside over such an inquiry. I would not accept for one moment the view that because the inquiry proceeds in camera there will be the slightest suggestion of putting to one side any matter which may embarrass the Government. If the honourable gentleman turns back on the case he sought to make out I think he will be disposed to agree with me that such a suggestion verges on being an affront to the integrity of His Honour Mr Justice Kerr. I would think it quite beyond Mr Justice Kerr for him in any way to say: ‘No, I must not accept this because it may embarrass the Government’. Mr Justice Kerr’s integrity is completely beyond question.

Mr Barnard:

– The Opposition does not suggest it is not.

Mr KILLEN:

– I find it difficult, therefore, to accept the honourable gentleman’s view. I will proceed to deal with some of the other points which my friend has made. If we are to have the inquiry open to the public we could well have some person come along with a completely way out view on Service life. We must concede the possibility of that happening. This could be magnified in such a way as to disturb the morale of the Services and to give an impression of Service life which is quite eroneous. Do not say these way out views do not exist. Let me refer to one or two of them. There was an occasion when it was observed for the dubious benefit of the country that the best defence measure we could take would be to ensure we had a railways system of uniform gauge throughout the entire continent. That was a view on defence. Do honourable members know who gave that view? It was not a member of the public; it was the former honourable member for Parkes, Mr Leslie Haylen. I do not say this unkindly, but I thought that was a rather cranky view on defence. That brings me to a further view that was expressed. The honourable gentleman will recall on one occasion in this House - I rarely interject and when I do I try to do so with the utmost courtesy - the honourable member for Hunter (Mr James) was making a powerful forward-looking speech and he said that the country was spending £204m on defence. In those days the country was dealing in pounds. I asked, with my customary courtesy: ‘Would you cut it? The House will recall what he said to me. He said that he would cut it and expand his surgery in other directions. That was a rather odd view.

What I put seriously to my honourable friend is that this will be a competent committee. The Minister for Defence has given that assurance. It is readily conceded on all sides that the one who will preside over it, Mr Justice Kerr, is able, highly intelligent and a man of the utmost integrity and of wide and varied experience. Without making any commitment on the publication of the report I suggest that this will be a matter for decision at the appropriate time. I do not think any purpose is served by seeking to pre-empt a decision with respect to it. The. terms of reference of the committee are wide. I do not think this can be gainsaid. Take, for example, the first term of reference, which is:

To inquire into and establish the principles and concepts which should apply in determining the remuneration of officers of the regular armed forces. . . .

I cannot, for my part, see any tether to that. That is a very wide expanse. What is the honourable gentleman’s complaint about that term of reference? Let us go further and I turn at random to another term of reference. It reads:

To review the practical working of the group pay. system applicable to other ranks pay. . . .

It would be no disturbance of the corporate existence of the Government if I said that for my part I think the group pay system is inclined to be over refined. It is a very complex system. I do not . know whether this is a view which may be substantiated or, indeed, refuted by an inquiry in depth. The group pay system never worried me in the Royal Australian Air Force, but it worries the Royal Australian Navy. And . why does it? Because the Navy was not used to it. The honourable gentleman will recall that in about 1947 the Dedman pay committee cut out the marginal differences that existed in the Navy. There was only something of the order of 6d between the remuneration of people of various skills and of various callings in the Navy. That committee cut. that out and set up, in effect, 3 broad bands of groupings within the Navy . lt became clear to the administration that as changes , were taking place in the civil society many people in the Navy were being disadvantaged, so in 1968 the Government made the decision to introduce group pay. I can well understand the sense of vexation that this caused. I have found anomalies as I have gone around ships and establishments. I have, quite deliberately, encouraged people in the Royal Australian Navy to tell me bluntly about their concern. Some of the anomalies I have discovered I readily concede are real and should never have been tolerated, ‘ but in abandoning the old system after so long and introducing a completely new, radical and quite revolutionary system so far as the Navy was concerned, it was inevitable that these problems would be created. I say to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and to my friend, the honourable member for Oxley, that their argument for a select committee is not a well-sustained or merited argument. This will be a competent committee. It will be a committee that will, I have not the slightest doubt, produce first class results.

Mr BRYANT:
Wills

- Mr Speaker, before the suspension of the sitting we were discussing the appointment of a select committee to–

Motion (by Mr Giles) put:

That the question be now put. The House divided. (Mr Speaker- Hon. Sir William Aston) Ayes . . . . . . 42

Sitting suspended from 12.44 to 2.15 p.m. Question so resolved io the affirmative. AYES: 0 NOES: 33 Majority AYES NOES Question put: That the words proposed to be omitted **(Mr Barnard's amendment)** stand part of the question. The House divided. (Mr Speaker - Hon. Sir William Aston) Amendment negatived. AYES: 0 NOES: 37 Majority AYES NOES Question resolved in the affirmative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. {: .page-start } page 2345 {:#debate-22} ### QUESTION {:#subdebate-22-0} #### SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDE3SS {: #subdebate-22-0-s0 .speaker-RK4} ##### Mr HAYDEN:
Oxley -- I move: >That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the honourable member for Wills making a statement on defence in reply to the Minister for the Navy as was arranged with the Government. The fact is that there was an arrangement with the Minister for Defence **(Mr Malcolm Fraser)** that the honourable member for La Trobe **(Mr Jess)** and the Minister for the Navy **(Mr Killen)** from the Government side would speak on the statement that the Minister made this morning and that equal speaking representation would be allowed to the Opposition side. As has eventuated, however, three spokesmen from the Government side and only two from this side have spoken. The last spokesman for the Government having concluded his speech the Government, having had the opportunity of a luncheon break to deliberate on the dishing up that it has had in the course of the debate, is now seeking to slink off with its tail between its legs instead of facing up to the issue which was being debated. This is a horribly lopsided arrangement for a debate. The Government has autocratically decided to terminate the debate in complete denial of the undertaking that was given to the Opposition at the commence^ ment of the debate. The honourable member for Wills **(Mr Bryant)** is well known in this House as a man who has a keen and informed interest in defence matters. He served for 26 years with the Australian defence Services and saw 6 years of active service. He was at the landing at Balikpapan in the last World War. He has been wounded in the defence of this country. This man has an entitlement to speak on behalf of Service personnel. His background, his service to this country, his undoubted patriotism and the knowledge which he can bring to bear on this subject justify his participation in the debate, given the fact that the Government advised the Opposition that we would be entitled to three spokesmen. It is no excuse on the part of the Government to try to skid out of its responsibility because it has had a dishing at the hands of the Opposition in this debate. We are flattered to think that the Government concedes by implication that two Opposition spokesmen to its three spokesmen is more than an equal battle. Government supporters want to depart the battlefield in haste and with a lack of dignity. But this is completely unfair. We ask them to act as men of integrity and as men who honour their commitments and to. allow the honourable member for Wills, as a man who has served this country for 25 years, who has seen active service and who was wounded while he was serving his country, to put the servicemen's point of view. It is quite clear that we want to ventilate the issues which are at stake in this debate. The issue which has been debated before this House this morning and which the Government seeks to dampen down by its impetuous rush into this decision in complete contradiction of previous undertakings to this House is a vital issue. If we are to continue to have a rundown of the defence Services in Australia as we have seen occur in the past several years . because of the relative neglect df conditions of service and pay on the part of the Government, the capacity of our defence forces to represent suitably the interests of this country 'will be gravely eroded. This matter needs ventilation. The Government aims to shuttle off into some side track out of sight and out of mind and to establish a committee which will hear evidence in secret and which will give its findings to the Government to be amputated on an extensive scale. The Parliament will be presented with a gravely diluted report which will in no way upset the Government or distress it by exposing the truth of the causes for the dissatisfaction in the defence forces. This is what the Government is aiming' at. This is what we are objecting to. We are entitled, as a matter of common justice, to equal representation with the Government on the speaking list. The Government at least should have the basic decency to uphold the previous undertakings it gave to this House,. Unless it is prepared to do this, its integrity and ethical standards are in grave question. The Minister for the Navy, who is attempting to interject, should restrain himself. He is like a fast starter at the Caulfield gates. The only ship he has seen .is a junior partnership in a legal firm. In any event, I ask the Government to uphold the undertaking it gave to us, and I ask the Minister for the Navy, who apparently is to reply to me, for this once, as an exception to the rule and as a personal favour to me, to stick to the facts in issue before the House and not wander off in fulminations and misrepresentation of the true issue. {: #subdebate-22-0-s1 .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr BRYANT:
Wills -- I second the motion, and in speaking to it I want to make it quite clear to the House that since the Minister for Defence **(Mr Malcolm Fraser)** made his statement this morning I have been preparing to participate in the debate. I have been a member of the Parliament for 15 years and a member of Party committees for all that time. The issue that the House had been discussing affects some 100,000 people, but apart from that a simple question of parliamentary ethics is involved. This morning the Minister for Defence made his statement, in accordance with long standing practice, without interruption and spoke for whatever length of time he thought was necessary. He was answered by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Barnard).** The honourable member for La Trobe **(Mr Jess)** then made his speech and he was followed by the honourable member for Oxley **(Mr Hayden).** Subsequently the Minister for the Navy **(Mr Killen)** spoke, and then we were told that the gag was to be applied. - There will be very little opportunity for this matter to be raised again. It is an issue on which I believe there is a fundamental difference of approach between the Government and members of the Opposition. Yesterday the Minister for Defence had this to say: >If we were a country that sought to buy defence, which is what the Labor Party would do if it wanted any defence, we would have to pay higher salary and wage rates in an attempt to attract people into the armed forces to get the numbers we needed. Today he made a statement announcing the Government's intention to establish a committee to look into the pay rates and conditions of the Services. We on this side of the House believe that there is a fundamental contradiction between the announcement by the Minister yesterday and his statement today. Therefore the serviceman is unlikely to get from the kind of committee he has announced the answers which are necessary for the development of the Services. On the other hand there is a contradiction between the way we and those on the other side approach these questions. On this side of the Mouse we put forward a point of view that this was a question for the Parliament to decide, that we ought to involve the Parliament itself in this. So we proposed a parliamentary select committee. Honourable members opposite said: 'No, that will not do.' The honourable member for La Trobe **(Mr Jess)** sneered at the idea. - {: #subdebate-22-0-s2 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The honourable member will not canvass the previous debate, the House has just decided to take note of the paper. The motion now before the Chair is that the honourable member for Wills have leave to make a statement. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr BRYANT: -- I would think the virtues of the motion are obvious enough. The point I am making is that there is a question of parliamentary ethics involved here. This is a consideration of the discussion before the House and the way in which we deal with one another and make constant adjustments and compromises to fit in the needs of both sides. This is government by discussion and not government by the exercise of power. There is a decision to bc made in which the whole community is to be involved through its representatives in this place. This afternoon and this morning we saw an exercise of parliamentary authority by the simple use of numbers by the other side of the House. None of us on this side of the House, as far as I can recall, has ever resisted, except in moments of crisis, a Minister making a statement about anything and we on this side ask for the right to answer such a statement Ordinarily we are in a difficult position in this because the Minister comes in here with a brief prepared for him by bis staff and places it before the House.. It is unlikely that we have bad it for more than an hour or so, although on some occasions we may have received it the day before. On some occasions the whole Party committee - the team, as it were - is not as prepared as it could be. On this occasion there was enough time for preparations to be made and sp the Deputy Leader of the Opposition followed the Minister for Defence. In the ordinary exercise of parliamentary procedure the honourable member for La Trobe spoke, which 1 think was appropriate enough. As he said, it is no good leaving a debate on this question for another 3" months. W. want to get on with the job.' "! hu give and take makes for equality between the Government and the Opposition. This has been accepted ever since I came into this place. lt is only in the last 12 months that what I might call the parliamentary ethic has been ignored by the other side of the House. After my colleague the honourable member for Oxley spoke the Minister for . the Navy spoke and this gave the Government 3 .speakers to our 2. I believe that this Ls just part of the ethical behaviour with which we ordinarily, treat one another, that we hear equally from' both sides. This, is the whole basis upon which we operate. This . afternoon some Minister may well come into the chamber, and ask for leave to make a statement on some important matter. Whilst the Standing Orders allow us as individual members to say no, it is only on very rare occasions that we have exercised that authority. If *I* did say no this afternoon the Government might not have enough members present to carry a motion for the suspension of Standing Orders. The Government relies absolutely on us accepting the right of Government supporters to speak on most matters when they wish, although the Standing Orders often give us an alternative power, but on every occasion in the last 12 months when we have asked the Government to apply the same ethic to us our request has been denied. 1 believe that we will be voting not so much on a motion to allow me to make a statement as on a principle as to how we are going to treat one another as parliamentary colleagues governing a country' by discussion and not by the simple exercise of numbers. {: #subdebate-22-0-s3 .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN:
Moreton · LP -- Minister for the Navy) (2.39) - As my name was mentioned 1 want to make it quite clear that for my part I did not enter into any arrangement or agreement with anyone at all. Indeed, it was not my intention to speak until the honourable member for Oxley **(Mr Hayden)** had spoken. I am informed by my colleagues, the Minister for Defence **(Mr Malcolm Fraser)** the Minister for the Army **(Mr Peacock)** and the Leader of the House **(Mr Snedden),** that they are not aware of any arrangement that has been made. {: .speaker-KYS} ##### Mr Reynolds: -- Just a one way traffic, eh? {: .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN: -- Well, it is a pretty serious charge to make when honourable members opposite say that an arrangment has been made and broken. If an' agreement has come into being then, of course, it should be honoured, but for an agreement to come into being there must be some demonstrable exchange of sentiment and views. I made no such exchange. I spoke to the honourable member for Oxley across the table, I spoke to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Barnard)** and I think from memory, fragile as that may be, that they are the only 2 honourable members to whom I spoke. It is all very fine for the honourable member for Hindmarsh **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** to sneer about these things. {: .speaker-RK4} ##### Mr Hayden: -- You cannot help it, can you? {: .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN: -- I am putting it to you- {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! The honourable member for Oxley will cease interjecting. I have already warned the honourable member today and, I think, during the last 2 days. I do not think the honourable member should try the tolerance of the Chair to breaking point. {: .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN: -- The simple point I want to make is that for my part I am aware of no agreement or arrangement. This has to be expressed in some form. I know of no arrangement or agreement that was made, and if one had been made I would be distressed to think that it has been broken. But there is no evidence at all before us as to how it was made. It is all very well for the honourable member for Oxley to get up and say. that an agreement has been made. When was it made? By whom was it made? How was it made? These are the questions that have to be answered. The honourable member for Oxley had his opportunity to speak on this. He mentioned no 2 people in this place who had made an agreement or how they had made that agreement. The honourable member has to give grounds. He cannot simply make an agreement by sitting still like a toadstool. {: .speaker-009DB} ##### Mr Morrison: -- By a sign? {: .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN: -- Well, by a sign, any sign at all. There was no sign. What form of words was used? Who used the words? What signs were made or what agreements were entered into? The honourable member has made the charge; let him listen and take his medicine as an ex-cop. {: .speaker-009DB} ##### Mr Morrison: -- I find that remark offensive. {: .speaker-4U4} ##### Mr KILLEN: -- I withdraw it. I just want to say that there has been no arrangement entered into at all. I would have thought that it would have been incumbent upon the honourable member to have said how the arrangement was entered into. If the honourable member had done that I think he would have had solid grounds for grouch. But as things stand at the moment I think that what basically disturbs him is that in my own gentle way I ran the shearing blades over his hide. {: #subdebate-22-0-s4 .speaker-KKB} ##### Mr JESS:
La Trobe -- I wish to make a personal explanation. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? {: .speaker-KKB} ##### Mr JESS: -- Yes. The honourable member for Wills **(Mr Bryant),** I am sure unintentionally, used the phrase that 'the honourable member for La Trobe sneered at select committees'. What I said was that there were so many select committees in the Senate at this stage and so many Estimates Committees that most honourable senators were sitting on 2 or 3 and that a joint select committee in respect to this matter would take many years before it could reach any conclusions. That is not sneering at select committees. {: #subdebate-22-0-s5 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I rise to try to inject some sense of responsibility into the remarks made so far by most of the speakers in this debate, except the honourable member for Oxley **(Mr Hayden)** and the honourable member for Wills **(Mr Bryant).** Motion (by Mr Giles) put: That the question be now put. The House divided. (Mr Speaker - Hon. Sir William Aston) AYES: 43 NOES: 37 Majority .. .. 6 In division. AYES NOES Question resolved in the affirmative. Question put: >That the motion **(Mr** Hayden's) be agreed to. The House divided. (Mr Speaker - Hon. Sir William Aston) Ayes , . . . . . 35 43 AYES: 0 NOES: 0 Majority AYES NOES Question so resolved in the negative. {: .page-start } page 2350 {:#debate-23} ### LEAVE OF ABSENCE Motion (by **Mr Whitlam)** agreed to: >That leave of absence for 1 month be given to the honourable member for Corio on account of parliamentary business overseas. {: .page-start } page 2350 {:#debate-24} ### BILLS RETURNED FROM THE SENATE The following Bills were returned from the Senate: Without requests - >Sales Tax Bills (Nos 1 to 9) 1970. Without amendment - >Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Bill 1970. {: .page-start } page 2350 {:#debate-25} ### APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1) 1970-71 In Committee Consideration resumed from 15" October (vide page 2293). Second Schedule. Postmaster-General's Department Proposed expenditure, $64,988,000. {: #debate-25-s0 .speaker-JAG} ##### Mr CREAN:
Melbourne Ports -- I wish to raise two aspects of television in Australia. I refer to family and children's programmes on the one hand, and to the Australian content in television programmes on the other hand. Paragraph 478 of the most recent report of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board states: >By far the greatest proportion of programmes in family viewing time consisted of general entertainment from overseas. Although many of these programmes attract the young audience it is clear that in family viewing time there are unused opportunities for developing a wider range of Australian programmes of both an entertaining and informative character to interest children and adolescents. The Australian -culture, in its broadest sense, should rank much higher than it does in subject matter presented by television to developing young Australians. That observation by the Board raises this question: Whose responsibility is it to see that these sorts of things are done? It is my view that while the control of television is so much in the hands of commercial interests it is unlikely that there will be any improvement in children's programmes, at least at the commercial level, and it is unlikely that there will be any improvement in' the Australian content. By Australian content' I do not mean filling up time by replays of football and what are called sporting events. Some real attempt should be made to help creative drama. I do not know whether this will be done basically by the television stations, but I think there is some obligation on them to assist more in the promotion of opportunity for Australians to participate in programmes. I do not know whether this should be done jointly by the commercial television stations and by the Australian Broadcasting Commission. This is the sort of dilemma which we presently face in Australia. I should like to quote from a rather curious document which is issued by the Commercial television people themselves and entitled 'Facts of Australian Content in Television Programme Schedules'. The 2 interpretations which have been placed, upon the same set of figures by 2 sources - the commercial television stations and by the Australian Broadcasting Control Board - defy analysis. According to the figures in the latest available report, last year Australian commercial television stations collected nearly $83m from advertisers and spent $67m, which represents a clear profit of over $15m. It is well said that when you give a television licence, in essence you are giving a licence to print money. When we look at an analysis of the programmes we see what has been done with this State-given right - the licence - when it has got into the hands of the commercial television stations. Paragraph 28 of this document rather glibly states: >The submission of the Victorian Division of Actors' Equity, as released to the Press, contended that the drama requirements should be increased for the purpose of - The opinion of the Victorian Division of Actors' Equity is quoted - encouraging Australian production and protecting the interests of Australian artists which we believe are the primary obligations and responsibilities of the Board and the TV operators.' The whole of its current campaign- That is, the campaign of Actors' Equity - is based on this misconception. The television stations erect their own view against this misconception. They say: >The primary responsibility of the television licensees is to the public and it is in their interest- That is, the public interest - that programming is selected by stations. I submit that when one reads the analysis of programmes as contained in detail in the report of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board, one finds that it is an awful reflection upon the choice of the stations and upon the opinion which they have of public choice. Virtually the situation is that on many nights the public has to choose between a variety of rubbish. People do not watch programmes on television because they like them; they watch the programmes because they are the best that arc available out a lot of rubbish. The document entitled Facts of Australian Content in Television Programme Schedules', in paragraph 7, proudly points to this fact: >Statistics prepared by Anderson Analysis covering 1969- viewing in the' capital cities estimated that: > >1.808,000 sets in 97 per cent of all homes with TV sets were turned on to commercial television for an average per set of 30 hours and 6 minutes each week. > >6,139,000 people, being 93 per cent of all people living in TV homes, watched commercial television programmes for an average per person of 18 hours and *12* minutes each week. I read an article recently in which a television set was described as a horror box. I do not go all the way with that view but, nevertheless, if ever there was a medium at the disposal of the community which is being misused it is the medium of television. I submit that to suggest, as the commercial television stations do, that the primary responsibility of television licensees is to the public and that it is in the public's interest, that programming is selected by the stations leaves a lot to be desired. On the question of Australian content in television programmes, I do not go all the way with the view of the actors. I do not say that they should necessarily call the tune, either. But I think that the way in which commercial television stations have interpreted what they regard as . their duty is wrong. I draw attention in particular to paragraph *460* of this report. In commenting on the actors' submission the Board said: >It is clear that there is no simple solution. Strongly held views about the availability of physical and financial resources and the capacity of the artists concerned vary so widely that it is not easy to determine the best policy to be adopted immediately. Many of the proposals put to the Board about, for example, the production of film arid drama in Australia go beyond the Board's jurisdiction. I submit that if the Board believes it is beyond its jurisdiction something has to be done to make that jurisdiction somebody's responsibility, lt may be necessary, just as the Government has . created funds . for assistance to the film industry, for funds-'to be made available for television. I am 'not sure that some contribution should not be made by the commercial interests, in view of the large rake-off they are taking. There should also be created something- in the nature of a drama school where full facilities would be made available. The analysis shows that serious drama is almost nonexistent on Australian television at either the national or the commercial level. Read the statistics for yourself and you will see that what is called drama consists of westerns, crime and light comedy. To develop the sort of culture referred to in the section of the report dealing with children's programmes it is necessary to experiment for quite a while, even if the acting is bad and bad programmes are made for a while It will not improve until we go through this, process of trial and error. I commend for the consideration of the Government that, just as funds have been established for assistance to the film industry, assistance in the field of drama should be looked at separately in an experimental way. {: #debate-25-s1 .speaker-KIF} ##### Mr HULME:
PostmasterGeneral · Petrie · LP -- I de not. want to detain the House long, . but first I would like to say that twice during this debate mention has been made of the profit of commercial television stations. I would like to put this in its right perspective. The report of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board indicates the gross profit, which is the revenue less expenses but before the licence fee arid taxation have been paid. All the commercial telecasting stations are public companies. For the year 1968-69 referred to in the report they all paid 45 per cent of their profit by way of taxation. So to use a figure of $15m as being their profit gives the impression to the community that this is automatically available for shareholders, for reserves and for expenditure in the area of film, production. This would be quite wrong . When licence fees are added to the taxes,, the proportion which is taken away from, tha companies is pretty close to 50 per. cent Only 50 per cent remains for other purposes. {: .speaker-JAG} ##### Mr Crean: -- Fifty per cent in income tax? {: .speaker-KIF} ##### Mr HULME: -- Forty-five per cent in income tax. {: .speaker-JAG} ##### Mr Crean: -- That is the same as anybody else pays? {: .speaker-KIF} ##### Mr HULME: -- No. I merely make that, point for the honourable member for Melbourne Ports **(Mr Crean)** because he says there is a profit of $15m. **Mr Crean** - That is taxable income. {: .speaker-KIF} ##### Mr HULME: -- That is not the' term in which one refers to company profits. Honourable members opposite come into the House and say that the profit of the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. Ltd for the year was- S50m odd. This is after taxation has been a charge against the profit. No taxation has been charged against this $15m. I am merely trying to make the point that if we want to be properly analytical in our debate in this House we should be dealing with realities and not dealing with what one might term the spurious facts which appear to flow but of a particular operation. I do not want to say any more about that. I wanted to make a comment in relation to a query raised by the honourable member for Perth **(Mr Berinson).** Earlier in the week he asked me a question which I answered broadly. He raised the matter again yesterday during this debate and I now have the answer for him. I point out to honourable members that sometimes when a question is asked without notice which relates to an administrative process it is impossible for the Minister to deal with it other than broadly. I now come to the particular in regard to the question. I am sorry that the honourable member is not in the House, but no doubt he will pick up the answer from Hansard in due course. The honourable member raised the question of some of the telephone accounts in Western Australia having been held over from September to early in October for distribution. The accounts that have been distributed included rental charges which date from 1st October. Although recognised as the October accounts, as the honourable member for Perth suggested, they are normally issued in September. The increased telephone tariffs are operative from 1st October 1970 and are payable in respect of all services as from that date. Subscribers whose October accounts did not include the higher rental charge will receive their next bills in April 1971. In addition to 6 months rental in advance at the higher rate those bills will include a rental adjustment from 1st October 1970. The experience of the Department has shown that most telephone subscribers prefer to have any . tariff adjustments included in their accounts at the earliest date so as to escape the cumulative effect of back-dated adjustments in later accounts. Before a rental tariff adjustment can be included in telephone accounts a considerable amount of preliminary work is necessary on the departmental records. On. this occasion Queensland and Western Australia were the only States in a position to adjust the October accounts, and the increased tariff for the corresponding accounts in other States will be billed in April 1971. In Queensland and Western Australia special efforts were made to include the increased rates in the October bills to avoid the effect on subscribers of adjusting the longer period in the April 1971 accounts. This has caused the normal cycle of bill despatch to be extended by about 1 week. The October bills, which would normally have been despatched during September, would not have been delivered before 2nd October. In order that subscribers would have a full 14 days in which to pay their accounts, the date was amended, and the payment terms read: 'Payable within 14 days of 2nd October 1970'. As I .indicated yesterday, I have no intention on this occasion of dealing with many of the details that have been raised by honourable members. I took up a quarter of an hour or so yesterday afternoon on very important matters relating to the Post Office and other instrumentalities. I regret only that honourable members have riot seen fit to talk about some of those important things rather than to continue to deal with details which come within the administrative area and which I believe have not a very great significance in relation to the estimates of the Post Office. {: #debate-25-s2 .speaker-K9M} ##### Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- I will endeavour to accommodate the Postmaster-General **(Mr Hulme)** in his aspiration to have matters of importance discussed on these estimates. I want to talk about the independence of the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the need to ensure that this great authority is not made subject to partisan control. I believe that the ABC should not be related to any Party. But to the extent that it is related to government, it should be related to the Parliament of the nation. I think it is very significant that at present it is not the Parliament that chooses the Commissioners; it is the Government. That is to say, at the very source, the notion that the people as a whole through the Parliament have responsibility for this matter is destroyed. The preservation of this notion and this principle is vital if the Australian Broadcasting Commission is to function pluralistically on behalf of the widespread interests and groups in the community. There are many ways that the Government and Ministers are able to manifest a political influence over this great instrumentality. Included among these insidious ways are such matters as the control which is exercised over overseas visits by people who are engaged in current affairs programmes. We can easily see that if one wishes to encourage the manifestation of an attitude on the part of Australian viewers the simple thing is to regulate what they are to view. If one does not wish them, for example, to understand the situation in Rhodesia, South Africa or, on the other hand, Communist China, one simple ensures- if, for instance, it is the Government's desire - that ' one does not send a team there so that the members of that team can be in a position to convey an effective understanding of these things. The Overseas Visits Committee - the Committee which determines the expenditure in relation to public servants going overseas - is, as I. understand it, in the hands of the Prime Minister **(Mr Gorton).** There have been occasions when it has been contended that this prerogative has been exercised in an undesirable way. If the Minister is to say anything further about these matters that are the subject of this estimates debate, I would like to see him give a clear cut and unequivocal statement that this committee is not used for the purpose of partisanship. Better still, I would like him to indicate that he is interested in contriving a means by which this subject can be brought into a more neutral area of control. Similarly, the Public Service has an Appointments Committee. This Committee can affect the calibre of person and indeed the type of person who, in terms of attitude, will prevail in this news and information disseminating authority, the ABC. The Appointments Committee of the Public Service is another means which can bc invoked and utilised to control the public expression of this great media. In a number of minor ways, the autonomy of the ABC in my view was expanded in the recent legislation before the House. But the Bill did not incorporate proposals to liberalise or to liberate the ABC from these political influences to which I have referred - this great insidious form of internal censorship which is the product of Government pressures. In view of these recent events and the widespread public disquiet which followed attempts to muzzle current affairs programmes, I believe that a declaration of independence for the ABC should be incorporated in the Broadcasting and Television Act as the main cornerstone of the controlling legislation. The recent disclosures that the Minister aspired to slash the Commission's proposed budget by half a million dollars with a specific reduction of $250,000 in current affairs programmes in my view can be regarded only as an attempt to deter the Commission from its public obligation to disseminate news on current affairs as it sees fit. In his statement on 27th May of this year, the Minister gave cause for grave concern, in my view, when he said: >I have been of the opinion that the ABC's operations in the field of current affairs programmes .'have been characterised by a lack of sufficient care hi the expenditure of public moneys. I take the view that the Minister's responsibilities are such that more than innuendo is expected from him in regard to matters of this type. I believe that it is pernicious to vilify without verification. Where specifically is there 'lack of sufficient care' - that was the Minister's term - in the expenditure of public money in the ABC and particularly in regard to current affairs programmes? I think that this term 'lack of sufficient care' means disagreement by such members as the honourable member for Evans **(Dr Mackay)** with the emphasis that comes over the current affairs programmes and which often does not suit on occasions either the political views of the honourable member or even my own views. But we are not talking about the ABC upholding in a partisan way the views of every political party - whether it be the Government or the Opposition. We are talking about the responsibility of the ABC to disseminate a fair cross section of attitudes in regard to these matters. I ask the Minister: Who precisely has been indicted for dereliction of responsibility? Does he not believe that it is necessary to justify the comments that he made? *If* the Minister knows, surely he will fulfil his own obligations and act otherwise he should not cast aspersions over this very important instrumentality. The Australian Broadcasting Commis- , sion Staff Association met on this matter on 27th May of this year. I think some 400 personnel were present. They said in a " resolution: >The ABC staff are concerned that the Government;having apparently lost its battle on the . political front, should not win an undercover victory by gaining, under threat, assurances or compromises from the ABC management. It was resolved further: >If the Government withdraws its directive, assurances be sought from the General Manager that management will defend its current affairs or other officers from unwarranted and inspired, attacks by political or other sources with vested - interests in the manipulation of the mass media. Another resolution was: >Censorship can occur at many levels. Management should affirm its confidence in its staff, should affirm its determination to allow current affairs and other programmes to explore with integrity and objectivity a wide variety of issues free from internal as well as external pressures. The way to honour these aspirations is not for Ministers or anyone else in high places in the Government to aspersionise in a general way about 'lack of sufficient care'. If someone is guilty of that misdemeanour, appropriate action should be taken by way of an effective indictment. I believe that a great need exists to proceed towards the democratisation of the ABC. I am talking here about the need to inject elements of democratisation by electing, where possible, a viewers advisory committee of the type that we have in the ACT and other places. Then, I believe that we should have a new style ABC management with the staff given a greater say, involving participative management, so that the latent potential of the staff is tapped. . In the very short time that remains, I wish to mention a matter whichI believe will become a topic for very extensive consideration in this Parliament as time goes on. I am surprised that up to this point in time we have had no indication from the Government about the emerging technology in television. I refer to what is known overseas especially and what will be known here as the 'cassette revolution', in which great technological developments will take place. This has been the subject of overseas conferences. It is contended that television broadcasting as known today is on the way out. The present collection of small numbers of licensed television channels transmitting programmes to limited areas will become obsolete. Soon a person will be able to buy video cassette playback and record machines with television screens. These will replace television. A person will playback with sight and sound and colour by using his own video cassettes or cartridges. A person will buy or borrow cassettes or cartridges in the same way as he borrows books and records. A person will be able to plug in to probably 30 different inlets so that he can invoke a concert, a feature film, a lecture, a play, an educational programme or, if it is his choice, things of a pornographic nature. These are great developments which will involve the utilisation of our co-axial cable service. I think that it is time that we had some indication of these new technological developments. The **DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Cope)** - Order! The honourable member's time has expired. {: #debate-25-s3 .speaker-KWP} ##### Mr TURNBULL:
Mallee -- I will not be very long. I wish to say one or two things. The first thing that 1 should say is that I. have stated - and this has been printed in the newspapers in the electorate that I represent - that I think that the highlight of the Budget is the section relating to the Postmaster-General's Department in which the assurance was given that 15 miles of telephone line in a direct line with the nearest telephone exchange would be built free of charge for rural subscribers. Since I came into this Parliament many years ago the farming community and rural residents generally have been saying that it is costing far too much for them to get telephone communications. As compared with the cities this was very apparent, but it was a difficult position. In the cities there are so many people close together that probably telephone connections could be made much cheaper, whereas for the long stretches in the country the cost was very high. A cost of up to $2,000 or $3,000 was' generally mentioned and people had paid that much to get the telephone onto their farms. Without the telephone they could not very well leave their families on the farms. This became a very acute problem. The Postmaster-General **(Mr Hulme)** some time ago decided to provide a further mileage of telephone line for farmers but it was not quite enough. Tn this Budget he announced that telephone line would be erected at the expense of the Postmaster-General's Department for a distance of 15 miles in a straight line from the appropriate exchange. Farmers throughout the country have been delighted with this. As a member of the Australian Country Party I want to say that all our members in all States wish to thank the Postmaster-General for the manner in which he has handled their deputations and the result which has come about. This has pleased so many people who are worthy of the best deal we can give them. These people live way out in the country and play their part in the pioneering of districts. This service should bring us a step nearer to decentralisation. We cannot expect people to live in isolated places without a telephone. The man goes away to the markets and the wife and children are left alone on the farm. With a telephone they feel some security. In addition, the amount of money spent by farmers on the additional telephone line since 1st January 1969 will be refunded by the Department. This is one of the outstanding things that has happened since I came into this House. I want to pay a tribute to the officers of the Postmaster-General's Department. I know when one starts to mention names that it is very awkward and one is bound to forget someone. The Mallee electorate is covered by 3 districts. They are the offices of the Postmaster-General's Department at Ararat, Bendigo and Mildura. I do not do much business or need to have much connection with the office at Ararat but on one or two occasions I have arranged meetings and the officers there have come along and spoken to subscribers. They have been most helpful and courteous. I want to mention the other 2 offices because I know their officers better than I know those at Ararat. I will refer to Mildura first. It covers a vast amont of the Mallee electorate. The district telephone manager is **Mr Gilshenan.** He is a most progressive citizen. Not only is he the manager of the district telephone office but he is a colonel or major in the local branch of the Citizen Military Forces and a man with great public endeavour who wishes to do what he can. **Mr Thornton** is the next man to him and both these gentlemen have come along readily when I have called meetings of subscribers. We have had no trouble at all. They have met the constituents and perhaps they have not always been able to do what the constituents want. But now with the extra 15 miles of line being provided they will be able to satisfy more people. Nevertheless the people were satisfied that under the policy at that stage these officers did what they could. Bendigo is the other telephone office that covers part of the Mallee electorate. I pay a tribute to **Mr Madden,** the District Telephone Manager, and **Mr McGregor,** who is, I think, second in charge. I could not ask for any better service than they have given. It is the same with Mildura. I am not leaving out Ararat because the officers there have given great service too. I am not sure whether there has been some change in the district telephone manager there recently. I do not do as much business in that area. As far as the postal business is concerned we also have a district postal manager at Mildura, **Mr Harry** Allen. No-one could expect to get a better man anywhere to give service. He gives great service. If I ring and ask him to come to a meeting because the people are perhaps dissatisfied, he will come at the first opportunity. He handles the meeting in a workmanlike manner and it is appreciated not only by me as the representative of thousands of people but by the people with whom he comes in contact. It may seem to some that I should not say these things in the Commonwealth Parliament but I believe in giving honour where honour is due and the work that has been done is remarkable. 1 wish to refer to Wyperfield Park in the Rainbow-Hopetoun district where there is a lot of work done on wildlife conservation. There is an increasing number of tourists visiting this park. All sorts of native bird life and animals arc being preserved there. People go there with children in caravans and for picnics and outings. They may stay there over a period so that they can go through the park and see what is happening and what is being done to preserve animal life. It may seem that this has not much to do with the Postmaster-General's Department but it has a great deal to do with it. I am advocating - I have been asked to do so by the residents in the district - that the Postmaster-General's Department install a telephone at an appropriate place in this park so that when people go there they can go to the telephone, for example, in the case of an accident and ring a doctor at Hopetoun > or Rainbow. A telephone gives a feeling of security which without it the people do not have at all. Other honourable members wish to speak so I will say finally that we appreciate the way the Postmaster-General has handled things generally. I know there is some feeling about, the rise in the cost postage of letters and of bulk postage for newspapers and periodicals. Throughout the country people are talking about the marvellous . profits made by the Postmaster-General's Department. But the mere fact that the Department will provide 15 miles of telephone line for rural residents will absorb much more than all the profits that are made in a year. It will cost a tremendous amount of money. In the electorate which I represent there have been renovations to post offices in modern times at Robinvale, Mildura, Kerang, Swan Hill and many other places. New telephone boxes have been installed and the general expense of this type of work is tremendous. I know the Government makes a very big grant to the Department each year but we cannot judge the solvency of the Postmaster-General's Department by the amount of money that is in the trading account. I speak with appreciation of the Department and the man who is at its head. {: #debate-25-s4 .speaker-NF4} ##### Mr COHEN:
Robertson -- Before I go on to what I was speaking about last evening I want to compliment the Postmaster-General **(Mr Hulme)** and his Department for the very co-operative attitude they have taken in dealing with anything f have had to raise with them. Every time I have written a letter to the Minister or asked for action I have received extremely prompt replies and extremely satisfactory solutions have been found to almost all the problems I have asked him about. I would also agree with the honourable member for Mallee **(Mr Turnbull)'** when he complimented the local officers of the Postmaster-General's Department on the tremendous assistance they give. 1 only wish that 1 could say the same about a lot of other departments. Last evening I was referring to a number of matters concerning . television and honourable members may recall that 1 quoted from a speech from **Mr Newton** N. Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission of the United States of America. I talked about the profitability of television stations and referred to the ratings which showed that Australian produced television was highly rated and that it had 6 out of the top 10 shows according to the Australian ratings. 1 hope that the Postmaster-General **(Mr Hulme)** will find time soon to announce what the new quota content will be. A couple of thousand artists are most anxiously awaiting the results of the inquiry as to whether or not there are to beincreased quotas. It is interesting to note that the Australian television commercials industry, given complete protection by the banning of imported commercials, has thrived and is highly profitable and ranked in the top 3 in the world. A few of our television commercials have won world awards. Unless drastic action is taken in the near future to protect Australian television shows, particularly drama, it is unlikely that anything remotely resembling an award will be won by Australian writers, Australian artists and Australian producers. If they do win them they will have won them for their work on English television, for that is where most, of them are working now. The complaint that I make on behalf of these people is not that the television stations do not fulfil their quotas hut that the quotas are too low, particular for drama. If the television stations had their own way there would be no quotas and consequently no Australian television industry. Only quotas have prevented the industry's complete annihilation. In recent weeks we have seen the dangerous situation that has arisen through the granting of licences to newspaper proprietors who now have almost complete control over the dissemination of nearly all news, information and editorial comment. In the current debate that has raged over Australian content, the Press, particularly the Packer Press, has been able to distort or misrepresent the arguments of one side while publishing misleading and exaggerated claims in support of their own side. One needs only to read the pontificating pomposity of a **Mr Nigel** Dick, General Manager of GTV 9, on 21st August when he attempted to hand down from the mount his view or should I say **Sir Frank** Packer's view, of what television is all about. If there is anything more sick making than a business executive trying to explain that his company's actions are motivated entirely by the public interest and not good old fashioned profits, I should like to know what it is. It is highly unlikely that any of my speech will be reported in the newspapers where there is this conflict of interest. I might add that it is the opinion of those who have visited the United States - and I cannot count myself among them - and have made a close study of television, that this is the reason for the vast difference between the amount of news, news editorial and current affairs that is broadcast on Australian television and the amount that is broadcast on American television. The major networks in the United States have li hours of news and editorial comment from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m., another *i* hour at 9 p.m. and again at 11 p.m. As well as this there are numerous quality panel and discussion shows that delve deeply into every aspect of American social and political life. This is in stark contrast to Australian television where what few current affairs and discussion programmes there were have almost ceased to exist. The Australian Broadcasting Commission provides This Day Tonight' and 'Four Corners* as the only continuous current affairs programme. The reasons for this are obvious. Too many of these programmes would lead to a drop in newspaper sales, and a well-informed public would not be in the interests of the political party that most newspapers support. One needs only to have studied the deliberate attempt by certain government backbenchers to eliminate the last vestige of political and current affairs discussion on the ABC to understand why the commercial stations have sought to stifle public debate and awareness. I mentioned earlier that the television stations, through their organisation, the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations, had waged an elaborate, expensive and factually inaccurate campaign which culminated in the production of a glossy magazine that purported to answer the critics' charges that they were not fulfilling their moral obligations to Australia's cultural heritage. The publication, called 'FACTS', was historic in that it probably contained more prejudiced, subjective and deliberately misleading and meaningless statements than any document it has been my misfortune to read. The brevity of this debate does not allow me time to mention more than a few, but let me quote a couple of examples. It stated: >The existing quota has achieved an excellent programme balance between imported and local programmes, making for a good blend of programme variety sufficient to appeal to the Australian public. What arrant nonsense! Have honourable members ever heard a more selfcongratulatory view of one's own work? It must be very convenient when a person can write his own critiques. This brings to mind a recent statement by **Sir Frank** Packer, when commenting on the disqualification of 'Gretel' in the Americas Cup, about appealing to your mother-in-law about your wife. This is like a mother giving a reference for her daughter to a prospective husband. I was going to quote another extract from this publication but the honourable member for Melbourne Ports **(Mr Crean)** has mentioned the number of people who watch television. I think that what is needed are the following requirements: We need increased quotas for Australian content - we should aim, like the Canadians, for 60 per cent; we need special emphasis to be placed on drama and the present 2-hour quota should be increased to 4 hours a week; Australian drama should be defined as that written, acted and produced by Australians; repeats should not be allowed to qualify as part of the quota and the clause that allows British Commonwealth productions to qualify" for 50 per cent of their time value as Australian content should be removed. We should introduce tariff protection with a 50 per cent loading on imported shows With the revenue directed towards subsidising Australian film production. 1 hope that the, Government and the Opposition can get together to review the matter of the 10-minute time limit during the Estimates debate. I think that all of us have agreed that we should cut the time limit on major speeches on Bills and state- ments but during the Estimates debate it is absolutely impossible to say anything at all profound or anything that has involved research in 10 minutes. {: #debate-25-s5 .speaker-K5L} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Cope:
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES Order! The time allotted for consideration of the proposed expenditure has expired. Proposed expenditure agreed to. f ' " ' Defence Services Total Proposed expenditure, $1,024,480,300. Department of Defence Proposed expenditure, $23,724,000. Department of the Navy . Proposed expenditure, $216,888,000. Department of the Army Proposed expenditure, $402,512,000. Department of Air' Proposed expenditure. $272,998,500. Department of Supply Proposed expenditure, $104,600,500. General Services Proposed expenditure, $3,757,300. {: #debate-25-s6 .speaker-009DB} ##### Mr MORRISON:
St George -For 20 years this Government has deluded the Australian people into believing that it had a defence policy but for a policy it has substituted slogans; for information, lies; and for discussion, pronouncement. In the last few weeks the Malaysian Government, in pressing for accommodatios with China - Mainland or Communist, depending on whether or not wheat is being sold to it, as far as the Aus tralian Country Party is concerned - and the neutralisation of South East Asia, guaranteed by the United States of America, the Soviet Union and China, has shown a sanity and a maturity which is sadly lacking in this Liberal-Country Party Government. How absurd our policy looks when the countries we pompously pretend and presume to protect do not accept the fallacious patterns on which our policy is supposedly formed. This Government has been extraordinarily reluctant to disclose to the House and to the people of Australia the cost of maintaining our forces overseas. A superficial . glance at the Budget papers would show the amount of $21,846,000 under the heading of Department of the Army. Under the Department of "Air it is $22,025,000. The figure for the Department of Navy does not disclose any cost for maintaining the Australian commitment in Vietnam and in MalaysiaSingapore. If we delve a little deeper we find that as from 1st July 1969. in an obvious attempt to minimise the expenditure related to the overseas commitment, the Government has transferred the expenditure on stores purchased in Australia and forwarded to Australian defence forces abroad from Division 666 'Forces Overseas' to Division 670 which deals with armaments and stores. This means that the Government has resorted to accountancy tricks to deceive the Australian people about the cost of maintaining our forces abroad. I challenge the Government to disprove that the total cost is not the sum of $43,871,000, which appears in the Budget, but is in fact closer to $1 00m. We on this side of the House regard this expenditure as a waste. It distorts not only our defence expenditure but also the whole Budget expenditure. We would prefer to channel this money to meet more urgent needs in the defence vote and in the general Budget. For instance, with these funds we could, without raising taxation, increase the standard and married rates of pension by $2 a week instead of the piffling 50c that has been made available by this Government in this Budget This Government has also shown a marked aversion to putting in writing the understandings and commitments that we have with other countries. The F111 fiasco is a notable case. But there have been cases in which the Government has sought to raise its stupidity to the rank of a virtue. When speaking in this House on 25th September 1963 the then Prime Minister said, in relation to the commitment of forces to Malaysia and Singapore: . . our vital engagements with the United Kingdom are not written or in any way formalised. Yet we know and she knows that in this part of the world we look to her, and she looks to us. We each apply in' a spirit of mutual confidence a golden rule of mutual obligation. This form of ingenuousness has cost the Australian taxpayers S20m. In June 1957 we agreed with the United Kingdom and New Zealand to share the cost of the construction of a Commonwealth base at Terendak and we paid 22.7 per cent of the total cost. This works out at nearly $6m. The Malaysian Government leased the site to the British Government. The British Government pulled out and, under the terms of the lease, the whole base returned to the Malaysian Government. But has this Government at any stage announced to the people of Australia and to this House what has happened to the $6m that we invested in Terendak? We have not heard one word from the Auditor-General. Regrettably this Government's gross imcompetence has been repeated with the Royal Australian Air Force base at Butterworth. Although it has been a predominantly Australian base in terms of. manning the United Kingdom again held the lease. The British Government has returned this base to the Malaysians along with $12m worth of Australian investment. I am at a loss to understand the apathy which condones this massive misuse of the taxpayers money. Furthermore, I am appalled at the lighthearted manner in which the Auditor-General in his report dismissed this misuse of funds. He said: >The rights of occupancy of the Air Force base, Butterworth, were transferred by the United Kingdom authorities to the Malaysian Government on and from lst April 1970. Included in the transfer were capital works and equipment which according to departmental records, had cost Australia in excess of $12,300,000. The Auditor-General has made no further comment on this misuse of funds. There has been no examination of , the reason why safeguards were not written in to safeguard our equity in both the Terendak camp and the Butterworth camp. Why is not the Minister for Defence **(Mr Malcolm Fraser),** the Minister for the Army **(Mr** Peacock), the Minister for Air **(Senator Drake-Brockman)** and the Auditor-General carrying out their responsibilities on behalf of this Parliament and the people of Australia? As to the terms of occupancy when the leasing of these bases or the arrangements with the Malaysians or Singaporeans come up, why have we not. heard what the terms of our occupancy are to be? The Minister for Defence in response to a series of questions which I put to him on this subject has completely evaded the issue. When will our occupancy be regularised? What are the terms to which we will agree to stay in Butterworth and to stay in Singapore? What will it cost the Australian taxpayers? We in this House and the people of Australia have a right to know. For too long we have put up with this monumental incompetence of the Australian Government. I also want to know when the stationing of our forces in Singapore will be regularised. When will we get these satisfactory barracks we have been told about? When will we sign a status of forces agreement? How much money do we have to pay? In the very limited time at my disposal in this debate I want to refer to a point which is of very great concern to all members of a democratic institution. I refer to a handbook that is made available to and which is required reading by Australian national servicemen and Australian soldiers going to Vietnam. This book is a deliberate attempt to brainwash members of the Australian forces. It is classified as restricted but members of the forces are encouraged to discuss it with, in the words of the handbook, 'your family and friends'. The Army has been used and is being used to propagate the political viewpoint of the Liberal Party. It is a cheap political trick. It is reminiscent of what happened when I was in the Department of External Affairs and that Department was required to send out an essentially propagandist publication called 'Questions and Answers on Vietnam* to Australian schools. To take a couple of examples of the kinds of lies, deceptions, innuendos and prejudices, it states in chapter 1, paragraph 3: >The 1954 Geneva Agreement . . . provided for the division of Viet Nam into two parts. As I have said before and I will say it again in the hope that it gets through to honourable members on the Government side, that the final declaration of the Geneva Conference dated 21st July 1954 explicitly states in section 6: >That the military demarkation line should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political territorial boundary. Time and again we can go through these statements and repeat the lies and the deception of the Government, but one point that we should keep in mind is that our forces are enjoined in this document not to think for themselves. They are told: You will be kept informed regarding the true position of the war by your officers'. So we are setting up a system of political commissars when the soldier is told not to think but to take notice of what his political commissar in the Australian Army tells him to think. We finish up with the motto - this could well apply to honourable members opposite but not to any democratic institution such as the Australian Army - that they are required to live up to, namely, constant vigilance, eternal suspicion. This is the kind of attitude we are taking to the people we are sending abroad to fight in the name of democracy. We are denying them democracy and we are denying Australian people democracy. The **DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Cope)** - Order! The honourable member's time has expired. - {: #debate-25-s7 .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK:
Minister for the Army · Kooyong · LP -- I have only a few minutes remaining before the House adjourns until next week. I have just listened to flagrantly dishonest and distorted allegations by the honourable member for St George **(Mr Morrison).** It is not the first time that he has made them in this Parliament and elsewhere since he transferred from bis position with the Department of External Affairs. I have before me a Malaysian publication of Friday, 13 th February, which scathingly attacks allegations made by the honourable member for St George, dismissing him and his allegations as being a cheap tactic, one of the cheapest found anywhere in the world. He was referring to our presence in Malaysia and making allegations that Australia should not be committed to Malaysia, and he was talking about the use of the base at Butterworth much as he did today. This is what the Malaysians think of him because you know as well as I do that there has been a specific request- {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- I take a point of order. May we ask that these papers be tabled in accordance with the Standing Orders? {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I will have them incorporated in Hansard if I am given permission, and then everyone can read them. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- I am asking for them to be tabled. It is all right for the Minister to act as though he owns the place. We have a right to ask that they be tabled. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- The honourable member is just pinching my time. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- It is the way the Minister talks. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I am prepared to have it incorporated in Hansard. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- I ask for it to be tabled. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- If I cannot have the papers incorporated in Hansard I will return to the remarks I want to make about the allegations made by the honourable member for St George in regard to the pocket book. I listened to the charges of brainwashing made by the honourable member for St George. {: .speaker-EE4} ##### Mr Uren: -- I raise a point of order. May I ask whether the Minister is prepared to have this document tabled? The **DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Cope)** - The decision rests with the Minister {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I can simply have this extract tabled but I would prefer to have it incorporated in Hansard if the honourable member would give me permission. Does he give me permission? {: .speaker-EE4} ##### Mr Uren: -- I ask the Minister whether he will table it. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! The decision whether he wants to table it rests with the Minister. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- Obviously the most effective way to answer this request is to have the extract incorporated in my speech. That is the way I would handle it. I am prepared to request that it be incorporated. {: .speaker-EE4} ##### Mr Uren: -- I am asking the Minister whether he will table it. I think he should reply either yes or no. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- lt is up to the Minister. . {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I regard this as a deliberate attempt to prevent me from talking for the few minutes that remain available to me. I want to return to the allegations made by the honourable member for St George. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- Speaking to the point of order, I point out that standing order 321 states: >A document relating to public affairs quoted from by a Minister, unless stated to be of a confidential nature or such as should more properly be obtained by address, shall, if required by any Member, be laid on the Table. Does the Minister say it is confidential or does he not? The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- If the Minister considers that the document is confidential he need not table it. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP -- May I speak to the point of order? The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Yes. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP -- The Minister for the Army has asked for leave to have the paper incorporated in Hansard, where it will be available not only to members of this place but also to other people to read. A perfectly deliberate attempt is being made, with the greatest of respect, to prevent the Minister for the Army from answering the allegations that have been made. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! There is no substance in the point of order. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I will give an answer to the request that has been made in approximately 2 minutes time, but I. ask the honourable member to hear me for 2 minutes. {: .speaker-EE4} ##### Mr Uren: -- **Mr Deputy Chairman,** with respect, the relevant standing order has been read by the honourable member for Wills and we have requested that the paper be tabled. If the document is not confidential the Minister should have no objection to tabling it. The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- If the Minister gives the reply that it is not confidential he is forced to table the document, but if it is considered confidential the decision is up to the Minister. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I. will be delighted to give my reply. I would like to leave my reply for another minute and a half. I would like to get back to the pocket book which was referred to by the honourable member for St George and which he regards as a technique for brainwashing the Army. The pocket book is a mere summary of background information on Vietnam. Good heavens, **Mr Deputy Chairman,** I have a book at home which covers in about 1,500 pages the history of Vietnam, and it is supposed to be a summary. This little pocket book which deals with all sorts of circumstances regarding Vietnam is alleged by the honourable member for St George to be brainwashing. Talk about besmirching the intelligence of every Australian officer and soldier! This pocket book was produced as useful background, and nothing more, for servicemen going to Vietnam, in many instances for the first time. Apart from the specific aspects to which the honourable member for St George has referred, the booklet contains advice about the language and customs of the Vietnamese people as well as advice about differences in tribal makeup. The geography of the country and ethnic and historical differences are dealt with scantily. The pocket, book is necessarily a summary. It is available in the Parliamentary Library. If the honourable member for Wills, who is interjecting, had been paying attention to the debates in the Parliament he would know that, as has been stated before, it is available to those who require it. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- We want it tabled. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- I will give the honourable member my answer on that later. Let me finish. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- I raise a point of order. The Minister cannot give answers later on. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- Of course 1 can give answers later on. The honourable member is trying to prevent me from replying to the honourable member for St George. {: .speaker-JSU} ##### Mr Bryant: -- Under the Standing Orders the Minister has to say whether this document is confidential or not. {: .speaker-MI4} ##### Mr PEACOCK: -- The honourable member for St George has stated the classification. Consideration interrupted. The **DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Cope)** - Order! It being 4 p.m.-, and in accordance with the Order of the House of 26th August, I shall report progress. Progress reported. {: .page-start } page 2362 {:#debate-26} ### ADJOURNMENT **Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drury)It** being 4 p.m., and in accordance with the Order of the House of 26th August, I propose the question: > That the House do now adjourn. Question resolved in the affirmative. House adjourned at 4 p.m. {: .page-start } page 2363 {:#debate-27} ### ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE The following answers to questions upon notice were circulated: Repatriation Pensions (Question No. 1520) {: #debate-27-s0 .speaker-KHS} ##### Mr Holten:
Minister for Repatriation · INDI, VICTORIA · CP -- The answer *to* the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Related to the latest available figure for average male weekly earnings ($77.80 for the June quarter, 1970) the percentages will be: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. 48.8 per cent 1. 15.4 per cent. 1. Related to average male weekly earnings for the June quarter, 1969 ($71.40) the corresponding percentages last year in respect of Budget pension increases then proposed were: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. 50.4 per cent 1. 16.8 per cent. The honourable member is no doubt aware that most ex-servicemen pensioned at the 100 per cent general rate also receive the 100 per cent rate of special compensation allowance. In such cases the total compensation will represent 23.1 per cent of average male weekly earnings for the June quarter of 1970, and last year it represented 23.8 per cent of average earnings in the June quarter of 1969. {:#subdebate-27-0} #### Immigration: Publicity (Question No. 1618) {: #subdebate-27-0-s0 .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice: {: type="A" start="J"} 0. How much of the expenditure of$2,600,000 for publicity for his Department for the year 1969-70 was spent on (a) radio; (b) television; (c) newspapers and (d) other media. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. What amount was spent (a) in Australia and (b) abroad. {: #subdebate-27-0-s1 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch:
LP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The total expenditure on publicity and information services incurred by the Department of Immigration (under Division 330/2.06) in 1969-70 was approximately $2,565,000. This amount included the following: The remaining $1,160,000 was spent on information services such as: Production and distribution of Fact pamphletsin English and 17 other languages; production of films; general,. printing;, purchase of Australian publications for overseas distribution; articles and photographs. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. The amount spent in Australia : was approximately $430,000 of which $280,000 was for material and services for overseas, with the remaining $150,000 for information servicesfor within Australia. Direct expenditure overseas was $2,135,000. {:#subdebate-27-1} #### Immigration: Soviet Citizens of Jewish Faith (Question No. 1719) {: #subdebate-27-1-s0 .speaker-NF4} ##### Mr Cohen: asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many nominations have been received by his Department for the admission of Soviet citizens of Jewish faith? 1. In how many of these cases have unexplained delays occurred in securing the consent of the Soviet authorities for the nominees to leave the Soviet Union? {: #subdebate-27-1-s1 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch:
LP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="a" start="l"} 0. In accepting nominations in Australia for the admission of new settlers from overseas, including the USSR, no information is sought by the Department concerning the religious affiliations of the nominees involved. Since the commencement of 'Operation Reunion' in 1956 persons resident in the USSR sponsored for Australian resettlement have been: For the reason given above it is not known how many of these nominees were of the Jewish faith. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. Againstthe 2,610 persons sponsored those granted exit facilities and visas have been.: Of the nominees who did not obtain exit facilities and visas it must be assumed that a number, for personal reasons, had no wish to resettle abroad or moved to countries other than Australia. With regard to the others, reports from sponsors suggest that some of these may have experienced delay and difficulty in obtaining permission from the Soviet authorities to leave their homeland. No accurate information is available with regard to the numbers concerned, and for the reason given in (1) above no information is available concerning the number of nominees of the Jewish faith whose permission to leave the Soviet Union may have been delayed or refused. {:#subdebate-27-2} #### Immigration: Assisted Passages (Question No. 1799) {: #subdebate-27-2-s0 .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Is any record kept of the number of migrants who received an assisted passage to come to Australia and who returned to their country of origin within the two-year period. 1. If so, how many (a) males and (b) females returned to their country of origin within the twoyear period in each of the last 5 years. {: #subdebate-27-2-s1 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch:
LP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. and (2) The information on which such records could be maintained is not available to the Department; as the Committee on Social Patterns of the Immigration Advisory Council noted in its report on the departure of settlers from Australia in October 1967, for various reasons some settlers do not declare themselves as such when leaving. However, all assisted settlers sign an undertaking that they will remain in Australia for 2 years. (Where assistance is given a second time- the period is 5 years.) Unless a waiver is granted, persons who depart within 2 years of arrival are expected to refund or place in trust part or all of the subsidy granted to them to travel to Australia. The numbers who departed before the expiry of 2 years and who fulfilled the requirements outlined above for the period January 1965 to June 1970, as recorded by the Department of Immigration, are shown in the following table: {:#subdebate-27-3} #### Housing: Finance (Question No. 1809) {: #subdebate-27-3-s0 .speaker-EE4} ##### Mr Uren: asked the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, upon notice: >Is the Minister able to say what weekly income is necessary as a pre-requisite to obtaining a $12,000 loan over 25 years from a permanent building society. {: #subdebate-27-3-s1 .speaker-KFH} ##### Dr Forbes:
Minister for Health · BARKER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · LP -- The Minister for Housing has provided the following *answer to* the honourable member's question: >While there is no absolute or general rule adopted by the Permanent Building Societies, they commonly limit the maximum loan they are prepared to grant, on the principle that a borrower should not commit more than a reasonable proportion of his income on interest and repayment instalments on a housing loan. Like other lenders the societies take a number nf factors into account, including the size and reliability of the borrower's income and his other financial commitments and responsibilities, lt would be unusual for a society to agree to repayment terms on a housing loan which involved commitments by the borrower exceeding 25 per cent of his income. > >The following table sets out the weekly income needed to repay a $12,000 loan over 25 years without committing more than 25 per cent of the borrower's income, lt is assumed that payments on loan are made at monthly intervals and that they are also compounded at a rest period of 1 month. {:#subdebate-27-4} #### Uniform Home Building Code (Question No. 1642) {: #subdebate-27-4-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: asked 'the Minister representing the Minister for. Housing, upon notice: >Which (a) banks, (b) insurance offices, (c) building societies, and (d) State housing authorities have made comments which the.. Commonwealth Department pf Housing invited .them to make before 31st August 1970 on the Tentative Uniform Home Building Code which it produced in .April 1970. {: #subdebate-27-4-s1 .speaker-KFH} ##### Dr Forbes:
LP -- The ...Minister for Housing has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Commonwealth Savings Bank of Australia, Rural Bank of New South Wales; Stale Savings Bank of Victoria; State' Savings Bank of South Australia. 1. Nil. ' 2. The Home Building Society, Queensland. 3. 'The Housing Commission of New South Wales, the South Austraiian Housing Trust and the Housing Department, Tasmania. In addition, comments have also been received from a considerable number of other organisations, Arms and individuals with an interest in the construction of housing, and more are continuing to be received. {:#subdebate-27-5} #### International Labour Organisation (Question No. 1941) {: #subdebate-27-5-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: asked the Minister for Labour and National Service, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. For what dates, at what places and on what subjects had the International Labour Organisation arranged meetings which have been cancelled or postponed this year. 1. On what dates did the Government learn of the cancellation or postponement in each case. 2. On what dates did the Government advise the (a) employees' and (b) employers' delegates of the cancellation or postponement in each case. {: #subdebate-27-5-s1 .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr Snedden:
Minister for Labour and National Service · BRUCE, VICTORIA · LP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The International Labour Organisation has postponed the . following meetings of interest to Australia which were scheduled to be held at the places and times indicated: 9th Session, Metal Trades Committee-^ Geneva, 14th-25th September Joint Committee on the Public Service - Geneva, 28lh September-9th October Seminar on Occupational Safety in Relation to Productivity - Tokyo, 26th October-6tb November A tripartite Australian delegation was to have attended the 9th Session of the Metal Trades Committee and Australian Government representatives were to have attended the Joint Committee on the Public Service and the Seminar on Occupational Safety in Relation to Productivity. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. Notification of postponement of the 9th Session of the Metal Trades Committee was received by cable on 27th August. The postponement of the other meetings was announced in an I.L.O. Press Release dated 4th September 1970. 1. (a) The - two worker delegates to the 9th Session of the Metal Trades Committee had left Australia before the postponement was announced. Cables were sent on 27th and 28th August to the New York hotel where they were scheduled to stay, to the Qantas office in New York and to the John F. Kennedy Airport, care of their scheduled flight number. It was afterward's ascertained that they had left New York for London on 26th August, 3 days ahead 'of schedule. Cables were also sent' to them at their London hotel on 28th . August advising them of the postponement and passing on instructions from their; Unions which had been contacted ' on 27th August. These cables were received by them. (b) One employer delegate had not left Australia and was notified of the , postponement on '27th August. The other employer delegate was contacted on 28th August while in transit in the United States. {:#subdebate-27-6} #### Housing Agreements (Question No. 2016) {: #subdebate-27-6-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: asked the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, upon notice: >Will the Minister, before the debate on the Loan (Housing) Bill, give me information on the Housing Agreements for 1969-70 corresponding to the information the Minister gave me on Mtn September 1969 (Hansard, page 1262). {: #subdebate-27-6-s1 .speaker-KFH} ##### Dr Forbes:
LP -- The Minister for Housing has provided the following answer to the honourable member's question: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Applications lodged with State housing authorities for houses (and flats) built with advances received under the 1956-1966 Housing Agreement and with other moneys were: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Includes 4,669 unclassified applications, (b) The Queensland Housing Commission advises that applications for purchase of houses are not accepted prior to construction commencing. (c) The Housing Commission, Victoria and the State Housing Commission, Western Australia, advise that applications are not divided into the separate categories of rental and purchase. (d) These figures have been provided by the Tasmanian Housing Department subject to adjustment. {: type="1" start="2"} 0. For the reasons explained in my answer to Question No. 128 on 21st April 1970 (Hansard, page 1410), it is not possible to provide this information. 1. The number of applications for dwellings lodged with the Service Departments by serving members of the Forces in 1969-70 and the number outstanding at 30th June 1970 were: Some of these applications could be for dwellings provided by other than State housing authorities. {: type="1" start="4"} 0. Advances under the 1956-1966 Housing Agreement in 1969-70, and the amounts expected to be advanced in 1970-71, are: {: type="1" start="5"} 0. The numbers of dwellings built in 1969-70 in each category were: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Purchases under the Home Builders' Account were mostly of new dwellings. *lb)* Includes a number of dwellings financed from other than Housing Agreement moneys. {: type="1" start="6"} 0. Repayments of principal and payments of interest by the States in 1969-70 under the 1945 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement and the 1956-1966 Housing Agreement, were: {: type="1" start="7"} 0. The number of tenants receiving rental rebates under the 1945 Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement formula at 30th June 1970, and the amount of the rebates in 1969-70, were: In recent years Queensland has been the only State in which the cost of the rebates has been met in part by the Commonwealth. South Australia provides concessional rentals in necessitous case, but not according to any given formula. {: type="1" start="8"} 0. In the year ended 30th June 1970 $250,000 was made available by the. Maltese Government, and $500,000 was made available by the Netherlands Government. {:#subdebate-27-7} #### Public Service Arbitration (Question No. 1899) {: #subdebate-27-7-s0 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP asked' the Minister for Labour and National. Service, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Is it a fact that the Public Service Arbitration Act requires that claims made by staff associations shall be served on each Minister of State concerned as well as upon the Public Service Board itself. 1. Does each Minister have a statutory right to present his own views to the Arbitrator. 2. If so, when was the last occasion that a Minister exercised such a right. {: #subdebate-27-7-s1 .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr Snedden:
LP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Yes. Sub-section (3) of section 12 of the Public Service Arbitration Act 1920-1969 provides that the Arbitrator shall forward a copy of the claim to the Board and to the Minister of any Department of State affected by the claim, 1. Yes. Sub-section (4) of section12 of the Act provides that the Board and the Minister of any Department of State affected by the claim may within the prescribed time lodge either jointly or separately any objections they see fit to make to the granting of the claim. 2. I am informed that 22nd September 1970 was the last occasion on which a "considered reply' was received by the Public Service Arbitrator from a Minister of a Department of State. It concerns claimNo. D0l4 and was forwarded on behalf of the Minister fur Works.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 16 October 1970, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1970/19701016_reps_27_hor70/>.

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