House of Representatives
23 May 1972

27th Parliament · 2nd Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 27th Parliament
  3. 1972

Mr SPEAKER (Hon. Sir William Aston) took the chair at 2 p.m., and read prayers.

page 2857

PETITIONS

The Clerk:

– Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows and copies will be referred to the appropriate Ministers -

Social Services

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned electors of the Commonwealth of Australia respectfully showeth:

That on 10th December 1948 Australia signed the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, Article 25 reads: ‘Everyone has the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age and other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’

Yet, 23 years later, in our country of great national wealth and abundance it is to the nation’s shame that many thousands of our people live in a state of being inconsistent with the dignity and worth of the human person - languishing in poverty and want, neglect and the lack of proper care necessary for their health and well-being.

We, the undersigned, respectfully draw to your attention that the conscience of the nation is not at ease while the records of our country show that social services are not comparable with that of other advanced countries administering such services, therefore, we call upon the Commonwealth Government to immediately legislate for:

Base pension rate - 30 per cent of the average weekly male earnings, all states, plus supplementary assistance and allowances based on a percentage of such earnings. Unemployed benefits equal to the foregoing.

Completely free health services to cover all needs of social service pensioners - hospitalisation, chronic and long-term illness, fractures, anaesthetics, specialist, pharmaceutical, hearing aids, dental, optical, physiotherapy, chiropody, surgical aids and any other appliances.

Commonwealth Government to promote a comprehensive national scheme in cooperation with the States and make finance available to provide for the building of public hospitals, nursing and hostel-type homes necessary to effectively meet the special requirements of aged people, in conjunction with a comprehensive domiciliary care programme to enable aged people to stay in their homes.

Mental illness placed in the same position as physical illness.

Substantial Commonwealth increase in the $5 subsidy a day per public bed pensioner patient in general hospitals.

Ten per cent of Commonwealth revenue to local government for general activities which now include social welfare, health, conser vation and other community needs. Commonwealth subsidy for the waiving of rates for pensioners.

Commonwealth Government to increase the non-repayable grant to the States for low rental home units for pensioners.

Royal Commission or other form of public inquiry into Australia’s social welfare structure that Australia may be brought into line with accepted world standards of the most advanced countries.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Duthie, Mr Foster, Mr Hansen, Dr Jenkins, Mr Keith Johnson, Mr McIvor and Mr Webb.

Petitions severally received.

Postmaster-General’s Department

The Honourable the Speaker, and Members of the House of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the Postmaster-General’s Department Central Office policy, of centralising Post Office affairs and activities under the various titles of Area Management, Area Mail Centres, Area Parcel Centres and similar titles is resulting in both loss of service and lowering of the standards of service to the public, directly resulting in the closing of Post Offices, which is detrimental to the public interest.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled will take immediate steps to:

  1. Call a halt to all closing of Post Offices and reorganising within the Post Office until full details of the proposed savings and all details of alteration to the standards of service to the public are made available to Parliament, and
  2. Initiate a joint Parliamentary inquiry into the Postmaster-General’s Department, to assess the degree on which it should be run as a normal business undertaking and to what extent its unprofitable activities should be subsidised as a public service charged more correctly to national development.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. by Mr Sinclair and Dr Forbes.

Petitions severally received.

Australian Aircraft Industry

To the Honourable, the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the employees of the Australian Aircraft Industry and citizens of the Commonwealth respectfully sheweth:

  1. That the Government has allowed the Australian Aircraft Industry to reach a state of serious decline, threatening the future of the industry and undermining any possibility of Australia having an independent defence capability.
  2. That owing to inconsistency in defence policy, the Government has not encouraged Service Departments to tailor their equipment needs with the necessary lead lime for local design and manufacture.
  3. That the Government should make it mandatory that offset manufacturing provisions be written into all invitations to tender documents for the supply of civil and military aircraft from overseas.
  4. That the Government should stipulate that all high rate usage spares for service equipment be manufactured by the local industry.
  5. The need to provide finance at ExportImport Bank rates to assist the sale of high value Australia manufactured military equipment to foreign countries.
  6. The need for Government initiative to assist the Australian Aircraft Industry to secure and undertake collaborative research and development work in major overseas aerospace projects.

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

Petition received.

page 2858

MINISTERIAL ARRANGEMENTS

Mr McMAHON:
Prime Minister · Lowe · LP

– I wish to inform the House that the Treasurer, Mr Snedden, left Australia on Saturday, 20th May to attend a meeting in Paris of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. He is expected to return to Australia on 29th May. During his absence I will act as Treasurer.

page 2858

QUESTION

PRICE CONTROL

Mr REYNOLDS:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Prime Minister aware of the onset of another splurge of price increases for a wide variety of goods in everyday consumption? Do these increases also affect rents, land prices and building costs? Do these increases threaten to erode further the sparse living standards of people on low and relatively fixed incomes? When might the House expect to receive the Government’s long promised White Paper on price control? Does the Government have any real plans to combat the threatened renewal of inflationary trends?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– If the honourable gentleman has any concrete information to give as to this alleged splurge I would be only too happy to receive it and send it on to the Treasury for examination.

Mr Reynolds:

– Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Am I not entitled to an answer to the fundamental part of my question relating to the White Paper on price control?

Mr SPEAKER:

– The Prime Minister or any other Minister is entitled to answer a question in the manner he thinks fit. In fact, he need not answer a question at all.

page 2858

QUESTION

TAXATION INQUIRY

Mr KELLY:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question is addressed to the Prime Minister in his position of Acting Treasurer. Will he consider appointing to the taxation committee of inquiry a member of the similar body which recently completed a similar inquiry in Canada, which faced very similar problems to those existing in Australia? If this is not possible, will he consider the secondment of some of the expert staff of over 100 qualified people who serviced the Canadian inquiry so that they may service our inquiry and possibly cut some corners in what necessarily, even with this assistance, will be a mammoth task?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I am not particularly attracted to the proposal at first glance, because I think we should be able to find in Australia people of comparable quality to those in other countries to carry out this task. After all, in the past we have handled tasks equally as great as this one and we have been able to rely upon our own efforts. Nonetheless, now that the suggestion has been made by the honourable gentleman, I will refer it to the Treasury and also to the Commissioner of Taxation to see whether they feel it is desirable to have secondment or recruitment of overseas personnel for this purpose.

page 2858

QUESTION

PRICE CONTROL

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– Mr Speaker, referring to the question asked by the honourable member for Barton, I will have the second part of it referred to the Treasury, too.

page 2858

QUESTION

USTASHA MOVEMENT

Mr WHITLAM:
WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for the Interior a question. Can he confirm that a registered club in Canberra displays the flag of the Ustasha terrorist movement which dominated the puppet. Croatian state created by the Germans in 1941 - I quote the description by the former Minister for Foreign Affairs - and a portrait of its leader Ante Pavelic? Is he aware that such a display causes as much offence as would a swastiska flag and a portrait of Hitler displayed in any registered club in Australia and is extremely provocative to thousands of migrants in Australia? How long will he or bis Department continue to condone this action in the national capital?

Mr HUNT:
Minister for the Interior · GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I am unaware of the points that the Leader Opposition has raised. I will take it upon myself to take into account the points that he has brought 10 my attention.

Mr Whitlam:

– Friday’s ‘Canberra Times’.

Mr HUNT:

– I am also unaware of this. I have not seen the flag. I have not gone looking for it. I will give the honourable gentleman Information in due course, after I have considered the matter.

page 2859

QUESTION

DEFENCE FORCES RETIREMENT BENEFITS

Mr KILLEN:
MORETON, QUEENSLAND

– I direct to the Minister for Defence a question relating to the report of the Joint Select Committee on Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Legislation. I preface my question by observing that it would appear that ‘.he Committee’s recommendations, if implemented in their present form, could give rise to a number of anomalies. Will the honourable gentleman make it clear to the serving members of the forces that the recommendations made by the Committee do not as yet represent Government policy or the views of this Parliament? Secondly, could the honourable gentleman be encouraged to make a declaration of intention that, if in their final implementation the recommendations of the Committee give rise to anomalies, the burden of those anomalies will fall upon not the contributors but upon the Government and ultimately upon the taxpayers?

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

– I have not yet bad an opportunity to study this report fully. It has been put to study in particular by the Service departments and by the Department of Defence. As soon as those studies are completed the matter will be brought to the Government for a decision. But of course, as the honourable gentleman would realise, until the Government does make a decision the report is not Government policy at all. It is only when the Cabinet and the Government have finally decided what action will be taken that this will apply as a matter of policy to the Services.

page 2859

QUESTION

TRAVELODGE AUSTRALIA LTD

Mr BARNARD:
BASS, TASMANIA

– I ask the Prime Minister a question. Has he any information on reports that certain overseas companies are taking advantage of the depressed state of the stock exchange to make a takeover bid for Travelodge Australia Ltd? Does he believe that such a takeover of a remarkable example of Australian enterprise would be in Australia’s interest?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– This morning representatives of Travelodge on their own initiative saw officers of the Department of the Treasury and put their case to Treasury. I have not yet received a report from them. I hope to be able to do so either this afternoon or tomorrow, and then I will be in a better position to make a comment. But I think that at this moment it is not practicable for anyone to make a sensible comment, because apart from the Treasury officials, representatives of Travelodge and other people intimately involved, I am not and I do not think any other Minister is aware of the details. But what I can say in very strong language is that within the course of the next 2 days the AttorneyGeneral will be making a statement in the Senate relating to monopolies and takeovers, and I think that this will indicate very clearly to the House and to the Australian public where we stand on these matters and the course of action we intend to follow.

page 2859

QUESTION

WHEAT

Mr PETTITT:
HUME, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Has the Minister for Primary Industry seen recent allegations by the honourable member for Riverina of widespread black market wheat sales in border areas? Will the Minister inform the House whether sales are taking place to the degree stated by the honourable member and whether these sales could lead to a breakdown of orderly international marketing of wheat? Additionally, can the Minister confirm the allegation that he is blocking efforts to determine the extent of racketeering in the insurance of wheat and the extent of wheat thefts from silos?

Mr SINCLAIR:
Minister for Primary Industry · NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– I can recall the honourable member for Riverina making statements, I think about 12 months ago, about across the border sales amounting to SO million bushels. I notice that his latest allegations have been contracted to about IS million bushels. It is true that there has been across the border trading of wheat. It is also true that it is extremely difficult for the Australian Wheat Board to identify exactly where that wheat is moving and for the Board to contain within existing constitutional restraints the movement of wheat away from the obligatory point of delivery, the Australian Wheat Board. The Australian Wheat Board is the vehicle through which wheat stabilisation arrangements in Australia operate, and I think it is of interest to wheat growers to know that any policy which encourages the sale of wheat outside the Wheat Board is directly contributing towards returning to growers a lower price for their wheat than that which is available under the existing wheat stabilisation arrangements. So any action taken by any member of this place or anybody else to encourage marketing of wheat outside the existing stabilisation arrangements is to the disadvantage of the wheat grower.

The honourable member’s question suggested some manipulation of insurance. There is no understanding or comprehension on the part of the Wheat Board of any such allegation. I understand that all wheat within Australia is covered by the Board’s land risk policy and that the Board is not aware of any insurance manipulation or variation within the existing provisions. Apparently, there is supposed to have been on my part some resistance to Commonwealth prosecution on thefts of wheat from silos. I think I should inform the House that I understand a number of persons have in fact pleaded guilty to charges relating to theft of wheat from silos, and a number of other persons are now awaiting charge with respect to the same issue. Any individual member who hears of thefts from silos can contribute towards the enforcement of the law by helping to identify wheat that is moved in any way unlawfully and by helping to trace it back to the person who has sold it. One of the difficulties with wheat is, of course, that one grain of wheat looks very much like any other grain of wheat, and it becomes remarkably difficult to identify differences and to prove whether a particular bag or quantity of wheat has been stolen from a silo. Identification is one of the problems which obviously inhibit police prosecutions. It is that, rather than any action on my part, that has meant, in some instances, that we have not been able to launch sufficient prosecutions on this matter.

page 2860

QUESTION

NEWCASTLE PORT DEVELOPMENT

Mr CHARLES JONES:
NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA

– I direct a question to the Minister for Shipping and Transport. Did State Ministers for Transport, at a meeting held in Melbourne on 12th May, reverse a previous decision of not requiring Commonwealth financial aid for the development of ports? Now that State governments want Commonwealth aid for port development has the Government any plans for immediate financial assistance? The Minister will recall that in Newcastle on 13th May I introduced to him a delegation which asked the Minister, amongst other things, to make available sufficient funds so that the port could be deepened to cater for larger and more modern ships. Having in mind the serious unemployment position in the Newcastle district, aggravated by the withdrawal and closure of many established industries, has the Government any plans for immediate financial assistance for the deepening of the port of Newcastle?

Mr NIXON:
Minister for Shipping and Transport · GIPPSLAND, VICTORIA · CP

– Recently when I was in Newcastle to open the Carrington Slipway the honourable member introduced a deputation to me consisting of the Lord Mayor of Newcastle and a couple of aldermen. They raised the question of the problems of Newcastle in relation to the drydock and also the port. I explained to them that the Commonwealth Government has not interested itself financially in the port works as requested by Newcastle. If I remember correctly, they wanted to deepen the port from 36 ft to 40 ft to take the much larger tonnages now serving the Australian coast as well as to attract overseas ships into Newcastle for direct loading for overseas. 1 understand that the estimated cost of this project was about $ 18.6m. There has been no request from the Premier of New South Wales to the Prime Minister for financial assistance for the project nor has there been a direct request to me as the Minister for Shipping and Transport from the comparable Minister in the State.

It is a fact that the matter of port finance was discussed at quite some length at the ministerial meeting of the State Ministers and the Commonwealth on port and marine affairs. It was pointed out at that meeting that, in the main, port authorities throughout Australia historically have been able to finance the work arising from any port problems that they have had, supplemented where necessary by State government financial assistance. I pointed out to the meeting that the Commonwealth has not financially assisted ports except for a couple of special policy reasons such as to assist with the development of ports in the north of New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. Apart from that, no conclusions were reached about general port assistance from the Commonwealth and no requests were made for assistance from the Commonwealth to the States for specific ports.

page 2861

QUESTION

TRADE PRACTICES

Mr HUGHES:
BEROWRA, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Will the Prime Minister make arrangements for the AttorneyGeneral’s intended statement on trade practices to be either read to this chamber by the Minister representing the Attorney-General or tabled so that it may be debated in this House?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– If I can make arrangements to have it read simultaneously I will attempt to do so. As to the balance of the question, I will take it up immediately with the Leader of the House.

page 2861

QUESTION

STATE AID TO SCHOOLS

Dr CASS:
MARIBYRNONG, VICTORIA

– Has the attention of the Minister for Education and Science been drawn to an article by Mr Henry Schoenheimer in the Press entitled ‘The Swim- ming Pool State Aid Built’? Is the Minister I thrilled with experiments in state schools i where very large classes compared with those in non-Catholic private schools, in inadequate buildings compared with the same private schools, are being taught mathematics and science by English and home economics teachers or are expected to learn these subjects on their own at home during nominal school time? In view of the latest proposals for State aid - which at best give equal amounts of funds to all sectors, according to the Minister, or at worst, according to every other commentator, give an overwhelming preponderance of funds to the posh private schools compared with the rest - what action does the Minister contemplate to overcome the lag in buildings, facilities and staff in state and poor Catholic parish schools?

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

-The honourable member for Maribyrnong is persisting with a device which was used initially, I think, by the Leader of the Opposition and which is designed to divide wealthy schools from poor, Catholic from nonCatholic and government from independent. Members of the Australian Labor Party quite deliberately are pursuing a policy which is designed to try to divide one group of school children from another group of school children. They ignore every effort and every proposal of the Government to improve the facilities in government schools. They quite deliberately ignore these proposals.

The funds which late last year the Prime Minister announced would be provided were funds to go into the primary and secondary school construction area in government schools only. The honourable member for Maribyrnong in his question ignored the fact that SI 67m of additional capital on top of roughly $130m that the States spend themselves each year will be made available over the next 5 years for increased construction of government primary and secondary schools at the discretion of the States in accordance with their own priorities and needs as they see them within their system. This will give the States discretion because they will perhaps make differing judgments, one State from the other, of their highest priority requirements.

The honourable gentlemen also ignores the fact that no capital funds have ever been made available by this Commonwealth Government, nor will they be, out of the $48m announced by the Prime Minister a few days ago unless there is a demonstrable requirement set against objective standards, and that has always been done for capital funds in the science laboratories and library areas. The honourable gentlemen should know that committees have been established in this capital expenditure area to define those objective standards. Committees are associated with the respective school systems which have established priorities of payments for non-Catholic independent schools, for Catholic schools and, of course the State governments have established their own priorities within the government schools system. That has always been done and this practice will be continued in respect of the $48m. It is our hope that this sum largely will go towards new construction and the expansion of the independent schools system.

I would have thought that the honourable gentleman is drawing the conclusion which in political terms he would like to draw but which in factual terms would be the wrong conclusion about the direction in which independent schools capital funds should go. He also spoke in terms which suggested we were providing as much support on a recurrent basis for independent schools as one does for government schools, or that was the way in which I interpreted the tenor of his question. Of course, the honourable gentleman would know, if he had listened to the Prime Minister’s speech, that what we have sought to do is to give the independent schools as a whole some security of tenure. We have sought to establish a situation in which they can plan ahead for the future, giving them a programme which, if the States joined with us - and Queensland already has - will give independent schools 40 per cent of what it costs to educate a child in an equivalent government primary or secondary school. Of course, the whole contention of the Opposition in this matter is that governments have an obligation for children in government schools but no obligation for children outside government schools. If one examines the philosophies and policies of the Australian Labor Party, one would know that this is a view that is entrenched very deeply within that Party, especially in the Senate. It was only a short while ago that the Queensland Branch of the Australian Labor Party moved a resolution at the Launceston Conference that government schools be built up to a standard and that-

Mr Keogh:

– Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. I realise that last week you warned me about taking frivolous points of order but I am endeavouring to ask a question of the Minister and the Minister for Education and Science is wasting the time of the House.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! There is no substance in the point of order. The honourable member will resume his seat. I suggest to the Minister that he should co-operate with what I believe is the overwhelming wish of the House and shorten his answers.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Mr Speaker, I certainly will seek to do so, if I may conclude on this point.. However, I suggest that the tenor of the question was to distort completely the basis of the policy announced by the Prime Minister. To conclude on the one point to which I have been coming, the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party at the Launceston Conference moved a resolution–

Mr Keogh:

– Mr Speaker, I move:

That the Minister be no longer heard.

Mr SPEAKER:

– If you do that you will waste so much time that there will be no question time. Do you wish to pursue that motion?

Mr Keogh:

– No.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I ask the Minister to conclude his answer.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I want to conclude on this one point.At that Launceston conference, the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party wanted moved a resolution that would have led to a building up of the scope of government schools so that state aid could be phased out. On the recommendation of the education committee that proposal was not rejected; it was put aside on the ground that it was covered under existing policy headed ‘Australian Schools Commission’.

page 2862

QUESTION

SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS

Mr MacKELLAR:
WARRINGAH, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the PostmasterGeneral aware of the increasing interest being taken by overseas countries in the establishment of national communications satellite systems? Have inquiries been made by officers of his Department to investigate in depth the benefits and costs associated with Australia acquiring its own communications satellite system? Does he agree that personnel undertaking any such study should include representatives of a number of government departments, such as the Departments of Defence, Education, Civil Aviation, etc., and that this wide-ranging inquiry should take place as soon as possible?

Sir ALAN HULME:
Postmaster-General · PETRIE, QUEENSLAND · LP

– When I became Minister for Supply in 1958, members of that Department spoke to me about satellite communications and pointed out to me that eventually Australia could have a communications system which provided for satellites spread at 120 degrees 22,300 miles from the Earth so that they would be stationary in relation to Earth. As honourable members know, that system has come into being. When I became PostmasterGeneral some 8 years ago I made a representation to Cabinet that Australia should become a member of the international satellite consortium and the Government agreed that £3m, as it was at that time, should be made available as Australia’s contribution to the capital of that organisation. Australia is now a member of the consortium and the 3 earth stations which we have in Australia at Moree, Ceduna and Carnarvon on the west coast are an indication of Australia’s increasing interest and dependence, if I may use the term, on satellite communications.

It has been suggested that Australia is an ideal country for national satellite communications. I think that this may be correct. The PostmasterGeneral’s Department and other organisations within and outside the Government have interested themselves in this science, knowing that there are thinly populated areas of Australia for which satellite communications of one type or another will be the only means by which they will receive appropriate telephone and television services. So, investigations have continued in relation to the matter. As I understand it, there are 2 types of satellites. There is the one to which I have referred, which is stationary in relation to the Earth and which is 22,300 miles from the Earth, and there is another type which would be much nearer to Earth but which would not be stationary in relation to Earth. This would require a considerable number of satellites because of their changing position in relation to the Earth. At the present time, this would be a very expensive operation. I believe that the investigations to date indicate that no country has undertaken this. America, roughly the same size as Australia but with a much bigger population and much greater national resources, has been contemplating it. I believe, and the advice to me is, that it will be perhaps near the 1980s before this can be contemplated in Australia as a practical and not too expensive operation.

page 2863

QUESTION

EUROPEAN COMMON MARKET

Mr WHITLAM:

– I ask the Minister for Trade and Industry a question without notice. A week ago, in answer to the honourable member for Murray, the Minister stated that he was aware of only minor newspaper reports of a letter to Mr Leslie Huckfield, M.P., in which Sir Alec Douglas-Home said there had been no representations from Canberra concerning the protection of Australia’s interests during the transitional period of Britain’s entry into the Common Market, and the Minister said that he just did not believe that Sir Alec was not aware of his criticism of the British Government about the transitional arrangements. I ask the Minister whether he has since checked that on 12th May Sir Alec sent a letter to Mr Huckfield, and on 15tb May gave him an answer in Parliament in these terms:

You ask what representations the British Government have received on this subject. The simple answer is that we have received no formal communication from the Australians since the time the negotiations were completed.

I ask: Does the right honourable gentleman now wish to correct his answer of a week ago?

Mr ANTHONY:
Deputy Prime Minister · RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP

– Let me first of all say that I have not done any further checking on the question that was asked of me, because 1 really did not think it needed it. I think I was profound in my remarks when I was in Britain. They certainly got wide coverage in British newspapers, as they did in Australian newspapers. Also, my comments were supported by a memo that went from the Prime Minister to the British Prime Minister, and there has been a statement in this House on our criticism of the negotiations and what eventuated from them. So I think that no more need be said so far as Australia’s attitude is concerned. If the British Government has not assessed our reaction, then I would be quite happy to tell it again.

page 2864

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN TRADE DIVERSIFICATION

Mr DRURY:
RYAN, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister for Trade and Industry. I ask the Minister whether the further diversification of Australian trade is proceeding satisfactorily in anticipation of Britain’s entry to the European Economic Community.

Mr ANTHONY:
CP

– There has been a very successful programme in operation to diversify our trade away from the United Kingdom. Back in 1958-59 about 32 per cent of Australia’s total exports went to the United Kingdom. For the year just concluded, 11 per cent of our trade went to that market. This has been due to wideranging government programmes to promote other markets in the world. Our biggest market today is Japan. In 1966 Japan overtook the United Kingdom as our principal market. However, we have been anxious not to concentrate solely on that market, but to seek markets elsewhere. By means of trade missions and promotion we have managed to’ gain access to many markets around the world. I believe that my recent trip to South America, which included visits tn Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico, will this year show very substantantially increased sales in all those markets, which offer great opportunities for the future. Already we are making very good sales of wheat and meat to places like Chile and also we are doing well in our sales of heavy engineering equipment. Only last week VVabco Australia Pty Ltd, a very big manufacturer of earth moving machinery, gained a contract to supply heavy ore carriers worth $6.5m to Chile against competition from North America, Japan and Germany. VVabco sold the largest ore carrying vehicle made in the world. It says something for Australian industry when it can go out and win markets like that. All round, our trade promo tion campaign, in seeking to diversify away from the United Kingdom, is working satisfactorily.

page 2864

QUESTION

AIRCRAFT: PROJECT N

Mr BARNARD:

– I direct my question to the Minister for Defence. Last week, in reply to a question asked by the honourable member for Wentworth, the Minister indicated that he had received a report concerning Project N, the light aircraft being produced by the Government Aircraft Factories, and that he would soon be in a position to make a statement. I now ask the Minister: Has the report been considered by the Government and, if so, when will the Parliament be informed of the intentions of the Government in relation to Project N?

Mr MCMAHON:
LP

– I will answer this question. The Cabinet gave very careful consideration to the proposal relating to Project N and decided to go ahead with the proposal. My colleague the Minister for Defence will make a statement to the House on it just as soon as he can.

page 2864

QUESTION

WHEAT

Mr MAISEY:
MOORE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Minister for Primary Industry: Is it a fact that the introduction of the wheat quota delivery plan necessitated the removal from the State wheat marketing legislation of those clauses which required that a grower may and shall deliver all his marketable wheat to the Australian Wheat Board? Is it the removal of those clauses which has now weakened the authority of the Board to police interstate trade in wheat? Is this interstate trade taking place at prices as low as 70c a bushel delivered and making possible a trade in prepared stock and poultry feed at a price with which legitimate processors cannot compete? Will the Minister give consideration to negotiating with the States for the restoration of the original clauses in the interests of restoring the authority of the Board to control this undesirable activity?

Mr SINCLAIR:
CP

– There is common agreement that any across the border trading is undesirable in the interests of the wheat growers and the wheat industry. However, there is some dispute as to the basis on which across the border trading can be controlled. Unfortunately, due to the present constitutional restraints it is not possible, even by including the specific clauses to which the honourable gentleman referred in his question, to restrain across the border trading or to enforce delivery of wheat to Australian Wheat Board. As I explained in answer to an earlier question this afternoon, part of the problem is related to the introduction of wheat quotas. With a very considerable expansion in the available quota this year from 339m bushels in the last wheat growing year to 407m bushels this year, I believe that all wheat growers will enjoy the opportunity to sell within their available State quota that quantity of wheat which they are able to produce. I explained before that part of the problem of the wheat industry is for it to be paid for the wheat it produces sufficient to cover the cost of production and to return to the wheat grower a price which enables him to meet the escalating costs with which he is faced in every sector of his activity. Part of the problem in across the border trading is that to the degree to which individual producers engage in this practice they are undermining the stabilised returns which the wheat stabilisation plan provides for growers. Unfortunately it is not constitutionally possible to apply legislative restraints that are completely satisfactory, but it is very much in the interests of every Australian wheat grower to know that if he takes advantage of this constitutional situation he is doing himself a disservice.

page 2865

QUESTION

CONSUMER PRICES

Mr NICHOLLS:
BONYTHON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I direct my question to the Prime Minister in his capacity as Acting Treasurer. Does he agree that lower consumer prices are in the national economic interest? If he does so agree, will he ensure that efforts by supermarkets to offer the public a wide range of pharmaceutical products, until now restricted to pharmacies, at greatly reduced prices are not frustrated through any precipitate action by his Government?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– The answer to both questions is yes.

page 2865

QUESTION

DEFENCE FORCES RETIREMENT BENEFITS LEGISLATION

Mr JESS:
LA TROBE, VICTORIA

– I ask the Minister for Defence a question. He will be aware that the Joint Select Committee on the Defence Forces Retirement Benefits Legislation took approximately li years to reach its findings into a most complicated matter. Will the Minister call a conference of Service representatives, at which members of the Press could be present and at which members of the Joint Select Committee could answer questions and give a briefing on the scheme, so that the scheme could be clearly understood by the Services and not misrepresented, as appears to be happening in certain quarters?

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
LP

– I certainly will look at the proposal which has been brought forward by the honourable member. I do not really feel that it is necessary because I think that the Government will be giving consideration to this matter-

Mr Scholes:

– I take a point of order. Mr Speaker, could you direct the Ministers to address their remarks to the Chair so that they can be heard by all honourable members. When Ministers tura their backs to the Chair the microphones do not pick up what they are saying and honourable members cannot hear them.

Mr SPEAKER:

– There is no point of order, but I think that the point is well taken. I shall also ensure that this is done by everyone in the House during the course of debate.

Mr FAIRBAIRN:

- Mr Speaker, I apologise. I will direct my reply towards the Opposition. I will take up the matter that the honourable member for La Trobe has brought forward. I do not believe that it is necessary to do what he suggests, but nevertheless we will be giving consideration to this matter over the next few weeks, and if the Government feels that it is necessary for this matter to be further explained, I shall take up the suggestion which has been made by the honourable member.

page 2865

QUESTION

ARMY LAND HOLDINGS

Mr BENNETT:
SWAN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I direct my question to the Minister for the Army. Subsequent to his recent visit to Western Australia and his inspection of 18 acres of land currently held by the Army in the Belmont Shire, with a view to evaluating the request of the Belmont Shire to have those 18 acres returned to it for public use and for the establishment of aged persons homes for local residents, what steps has the Minister taken to meet the request for return of the land made by the Shire deputation headed by Councillor Wheatley? Does the Minister agree that the land owned by the Belmont Shire since 1913, and compulsorily acquired in 1940 by the Commonwealth for wartime purposes and not now used, should be returned for this very worthy cause? Further, is the Minister aware that Commonwealth land holdings in the Belmont Shire amount to 25 per cent of the total Shire area and will rise to 33 per cent with further airport resumptions, thus restricting the development of the community amenities for the Shire?

Mr KATTER:
Minister for the Army · KENNEDY, QUEENSLAND · CP

– May I first thank the honourable member publicly for the manner in which he assisted me to probe rather deeply into this matter when I was in Western Australia. I would say that the land referred to is probably amongst the finest acreage still available, more precisely as a residential area, in the city of Perth. The position, as explained to the council at Ashfield, more particularly to my friend with whom I have a lot in common, Councillor Wheatley, is - and I want to give the honourable member this undertaking publicly - that if the Army does not use this particular area of 18 acres within a reasonable time - I do not mean 10 or 20 years - then my submission would be that the Army no longer has any use for it. Let me assure the honourable member - and he can take this back to the council - ‘that we do not mean that we would use it, say, for an ordnance depot. It is in what is rapidly becoming a first class residential area. But if we require it for additional housing purposes - and, after all, you cannot have it all ways - we must must make use of this land. If the Army does not need such facilities I will most certainly agree that it has no further use for the land. But let me make it perfectly clear that it is Commonwealth land and it will be a matter for consultations between the council and the Department of the Interior as to what is done with H. The Army can merely say that it does not want to use it any more. However, the Commonwealth might have other plans for it. My colleague, the Minister for the Interior (Mr Hunt) would most certainly be the man involved in those circumstances.

page 2866

QUESTION

RESALE PRICE MAINTENANCE

Mr BUCHANAN:
MCMILLAN, VICTORIA

– I address a question to the Minister representing the AttorneyGeneral. I refer to recent legislation dealing with resale price maintenance. Is the Minister aware that the section dealing with so-called ‘loss leadering’ is capable of being interpreted loosely, since there is no precise definition of the term ‘cost’? Is the Minister aware that certain discount retail stores interpret the term ‘cost’ as the figure at which they purchase the goods from the manufacturer plus a nominal amount which can under no circumstances be regarded as a fair and reasonable apportionment of selling costs and overheads thus, in effect, loss leadering’ the manufacturer’s product without his concurrence? Does the Government propose to counter the situation by amending the appropriate section of the legislation to clarify the situation and thus avert expensive impending litigation, the cost of which eventually must be borne by the consumer?

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

– Before the Parliament rises my colleague, the AttorneyGeneral, will present a statement in another place on the strengthening of the Trade Practices Act. It is true that this will deal with matters other than resale price maintenance - the part which was inserted a short time ago. This statement, as I understand it, will be open for consideration by members of the public and members of the House during the recess. When resale price maintenance was being considered by the House the question of loss leadering was given very careful attention. As I no longer hold the portfolio of Attorney. General I have not received or seen any complaints about the operation of tha law regarding resale price maintenance, but I have no doubt that this matter can be looked at at the same time as other amendments to the Act. I will certainly refer the matter to my colleague.

page 2866

QUESTION

LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE

Mr KIRWAN:
FORREST, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Prime Minister whether he is aware that local government bodies throughout Australia face serious and mounting problems of indebtedness. Is he aware that the problem confronting local government is beyond the capacity of the States to contain? Will the Prime Minister explain to the House his Government’s policy for meeting the problems facing local government throughout Australia and how that policy applies?

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! In the way the question has been framed the honourable member is asking about policy. If the Prime Minister wishes to make some comment he may do so.

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– Thank you, sir, for answering the question for me.

page 2867

QUESTION

APC POWDERS

Mr IRWIN:
MITCHELL, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Prime Minister: Now that caution statements have to be given on radio and television regarding cigarette smoking will he request the Premiers to see that APC powders are wrapped in red papers with ‘Danger* signs thereon? Is he aware that the various banks of kidneys and livers have not the required number to meet the present situation?

Mr McMAHON:
LP

– I will give very careful consideration to what the honourable gentleman says and I will discuss it with him privately.

Mr Kirwan:

– Mr Speaker, I rise to a point of order. I draw your attention to standing order 144, the second part of which states that questions may seek an explanation regarding the policy of :he Government and its application. I asked for an explanation of policy and I asked how it applied.

Mr SPEAKER:

– An honourable member may ask for information on matters before the House and on matters which are based on fact and on which he is seeking information. A question relating to a direct policy of the Government may be asked of a Minister or even of the Prime Minister. The position is that I draw the attention of the House to the fact that a question concerns policy and I then give the opportunity to the Minister to say whether he wishes to answer that question. I did that in this instance.

page 2867

NATIONAL HEALTH ACT

Dr FORBES:
Minister for Immigration · Barker · LP

– Pursuant to section 76a of the National Health Act 1953-1971, I present the first annual report by the DirectorGeneral of Health on the operations of the registered medical benefits organisations and the registered hospital benefits organisations for the year ended 30th June 1971.

Mr Whitlam:

– Mr Speaker, I raise a point of order. May I ask why the Minister representing the Minister for Health has tabled this report only today, whereas it was tabled in the Senate last Thursday?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! There is no point of order in relation to whether there should be a direction from the Chair.

Mr Whitlam:

– Is it not possible to have synchronisation?

Mr SPEAKER:

– This is not within my province as, I think, the Leader of the Opposition knows.

page 2867

LIFE INSURANCE ACT

Mr GARLAND:
Minister for Supply and Minister assisting the Treasurer · Curtin · LP

Pursuant to section 11 of the Life Insurance Act 1945-1965, I present the twenty-sixth annual report of the Insurance Commissioner for the year ended 31st December 1971.

page 2867

AGREEMENT ON TRADE RELATIONS WITH CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Ministerial Statement

Mr ANTHONY:
Minister for Trade and Industry · Richmond · CP

-by leave - I table a copy of the Agreement on Trade Relations between Australia and Czechoslovakia, signed by me on behalf of -the Government on 16th May in Canberra. This Agreement will come into force on the date on which the 2 countries notify each other that their respective constitutional and ‘Other requirements necessary to give effect to the Agreement have been complied with and, upon its entry into force, will terminate and replace the Treaty of Commerce concluded in 1936 between Australia and Czechoslovakia. The conclusion of this new Agreement follows a period of slackening in trade between Australia and Czechoslovakia and signifies the intention of both governments to give strength to their trading relationship and to encourage a substantial increase in the volume of 2-way trade.

Czechoslovakia has one of the most sophisticated industrial complexes among the East European states, with a high ratio of foreign trade to gross national product. Yet Australian exports to Czechoslovakia in 1970-71, consisting almost entirely of wool and pig iron, were only $A5.4m; while imports from Czechoslovakia, though covering a much wider range of products, were valued at only $A8.3m. These are very low figures considering the status of both countries as major trading nations. Czechoslovakia’s imports from Western developed countries currently total about $ 1,000m a year and, as stated iri the joint communique issued on 16th May at the conclusion of the visit of the Czechoslovak Government delegation, considerable scope exists for expanding trade and diversifying the present narrow range of Australian exports to Czechoslovakia.

The Agreement now tabled brings up to date the trading relationship hitherto embodied in the 1936 Treaty of Commerce between Australia and Czechoslovakia. Mutual exchange of most-favoured nation treatment which was provided specifically by the former Treaty is in this Agreement now guaranteed through application by the 2 countries of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. An important clause in the Agreement provides for the establishment of an Australia-Czechoslovakia joint trade committee to promote the aims of the Agreement. The Committee will consider steps to be taken to encourage mutual understanding of the 2 countries’ trading policies and practices, will review the progress of trade, examine problems hindering the development of trade and consider measures to facilitate growth in the trade between the 2 countries. Another significant clause proclaims the support by both Governments for the principle of concluding and adhering to international commodity agreements.

The new Agreement is an important document which reflects developments in the country’s thinking in the changing situation of world trade. Since the 1950s an increasingly large proportion of Australia’s total exports has been sold in new markets outside the United Kingdom and

Western Europe, and enormously increased sales to Japan in particular have brought about a situation of relative dependence on the Japanese market for a number of major export items. The entry of Britain and other West European countries into the enlarged European Economic Community will have serious implications for our exports of certain agricultural commodities. The Government sees the development of new growth markets in Eastern Europe as a desirable means of both cushioning the effects of current European moves and also lessening Australia’s dependence on other individual markets. The Government hopes that the new Agreement will encourage Australian and Czechoslovak business enterprises to show increasing interest in each other’s country not only as a market and a source of supply, but also as a partner in the area of industrial and technical cooperation. Czechoslovak enterprises have already indicated to the Government their particular interest in co-operation and trade with Australian firms in power generating stations and equipment, textile machinery and non-ferrous metals.

Czechoslovakia’s highly developed industry and technology and its high gross national product per capita make it a market particularly worth the serious attention of Australian exporters. Indeed, traders should be aware that the whole of the East European area, including the Soviet Union, constitutes a very large market of some 350 million people whose rising incomes and living standards represent a valauble potential market for Australia. The East European countries have traditionally purchased Australian wool and wool tops, wheat, meat, rutile, hides and skins and other raw materials. Australian exporters should now be seeking to take advantage of the opportunities to supply minerals and manufactured goods to meet the demand generated in Eastern European countries by continuing industrial development and economic growth. Marketing in Eastern Europe may pose a number of new problems to many Australian exporters and importers. Commercial success will depend largely upon the negotiations between our traders and the centralised importing organisations in these countries and it is hoped that, through the joint trade committee established by the new Agreement, a fuller understanding will be reached on the appropriate means of making and maintaining contact with those organisations. My Department of Trade and Industry will be ready to assist businessmen in their endeavour to increase trade with the Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union. I present the following paper:

Agreement on trade relations with Czechoslovakia - Ministerial Statement, 23rd May 1972.

Motion (by Mr Swartz) proposed:

That the House take note of the paper.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– I have listened with care to the speech made by the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Anthony). The Opposition approves of this development, and we note with interest that even in detail it accords with the position taken by the Opposition 5 or 6 years ago in respect of both the need to explore the realities of trade with the central European countries and the Soviet Union and the need to build into such trade the new negotiating principles and advisory bodies to take advantage of the kind of trade that the central European countries and the Soviet Union represent. This is not normal business activity. A number of characteristics are present in these countries. First of all there is a central body or bodies with which negotiations have to be undertaken. The disadvantage for Australia is that Australian businessmen are not accustomed to dealing in this way with such bodies. The advantage, of course, is that once contact is made with such bodies, as distinct from what happens in other countries, one can enter through these organisations completely into trade with the whole country. It is not just one or two large companies, as it is in a capitalist country; it is the whole economy.

This approach, which has been set out in the Minister’s speech, recognises the existence of this situation and opens very considerable opportunities and avenues for trade which the Opposition outlined in detail at least 5 or 6 years ago. The only regret that the Opposition has is that the initiative was not taken earlier because of an atmosphere of political prejudice, which seems to have prevailed in and around the Government, in which it was difficult for the Government to undertake trade with countries like Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union and still to dispense the kind of foreign policy that it required. This repre sented a conflict which, I am glad to say, has gradually but definitely been overcome and will increasingly be overcome. The problem that remains is not so much the problem of obtaining markets for Australian exports but of finding room in the Australian economy for the kind of imports that have to match those exports. The Minister mentioned a number of large scale industrial commodities that the Czechoslovakians will be interested in exporting to Australia. This will have to be done on a contracting or tendering basis. So far the countries with centralised economies - called socialist or communist countries - have had very little success in Australia in negotiating for those tenders. I cannot omit mentioning that I consider some of the reasons for that lack of success lie in the political prejudice that T have already mentioned. lt has often been said that Australian government instrumentalities and other similar bodies are not anxious to accept or are not comfortable in accepting tenders from the Soviet Union or from Czechoslovakia because these countries are not experienced in working in the Australian environment. If their tender happens to be the lowest, as it very often if not invariably is, that tender cannot be accepted because the Australian party does not feel confident that they would be able to meet the normal requirements and understand the associated supply problems. This may be a factor which is fairly general in this country. The Government has the responsibility for taking a lead. Unless this kind of trade with the countries called communist or socialist can become more normal and can be accepted as part; of the reality of the modern world - much more so than it has been so far in this country - the potential in these agreements, such as the one the Minister has spoken about today, will not be realised.

I think it is time that we realised the nature, of the world in which we live. The conditions in Europe are vastly different from what they seem to be here. The relations between the socialist or communist countries on the one hand and the capitalist countries on the other in western Europe are now normalised and there is not the atmosphere that exists in Australia. Here is a very considerable opportunity for improvement in Australia’s trade relations. It is not in conflict in any way with realistic political considerations. Any idea of conflict has to be removed from the field. This is a very important step in that direction. It is welcomed by the Opposition. It is the kind of development that must take place. I congratulate the Minister not only on what one might call the principles mentioned in his statement but also on the substantial details which seem to have been built into it already.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 2870

PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE

Mr ERWIN:
Ballaarat

– I have the honour to bring up the seventeenth report of the Publications Committee sitting in conference with the Publications Committee of the Senate. Copies of the report have been circulated to the honourable members in the chamber.

Report - by leave - adopted.

page 2870

QUESTION

AUSTRAIIAN PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC

Report

Mr BARNES:
McPherson

– I ask leave of the House to present the official report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the South Pacific and to move that the paper be printed.

Mr SPEAKER:

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

Mr BARNES:

– I present the following paper:

Official report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the South Pacific - 16th June to 10th My 1971.

Ordered that the paper be printed.

page 2870

QUESTION

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

Motion (by Mr Swartz) proposed:

That Government Business Order for the Day No. 1 be postponed until a later hour this day.

Mr BRYANT:
Wills

– I wish to make a brief comment. Two or three days ago the notice paper was printed. Standing order 105 gives the Minister the right to adjust the order of business. Why is it that we must have these last minute arrangements about the order of business? Why could it not have been arranged last Thursday, before the notice paper was printed, that this was to be the order of debate today? I think it is time that the Minister in charge really looked at this question if he wants to run the Parliament as a representative sample for the community.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 2870

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN FOREIGN POLICY

Ministerial Statement

Debate resumed from 9 May (vide page 2232) on the following papers presented by Mr N. H. Bowen:

Australian Foreign Policy-Ministerial Statement, 9th May 1972;

Annex to the statement - and on motion by Dr Mackay:

That the House take note of the papers.

Mr FOX:
Henty

– There has been a tendency over recent years for foreign affairs debates to be dominated by discussion of the war in Vietnam. I would like to refer to that matter later. One could be forgiven for believing that Vietnam was the only trouble spot in the world. It is certainly nearer to Australia than are quite a lot of other areas of trouble. But we would have cause for optimism if it were the only area in the world in which peace did not prevail. This is far from being the position. For example, the question in the Middle East is far from being resolved. I think everyone would agree that the position in Ireland also is far from being resolved. We have problem areas on the continent of Africa and in the Indian area. I do not believe that things are as good in Europe as all of us would like to think they are. Also, South America rarely is free from strife of some kind.

It could be that some of the countries which are involved in disputes around the world are merely pawns in a power game which is being played by some of the greater powers. But whatever way we in Australia look at the world picture we are left with only 2 alternatives. We cannot sit on a fence and we cannot have a bob each way. There are 2 great philosophies in the world today, and these are democracy and communism. I think that we have to make up our minds, as do other countries, as to whether we are on the side of democracies or on the side of communist countries.

Whether Russian or Chinese communism prevails, the result will be the same - that is communism. I have a very good friend in Melbourne who is an anti-communist Russian. He has often said to me that there is no point in Australians drawing any consolation or comfort from the serious differences of opinion which exist between Russia and China. He said that they are arguing only about who is going to be boss and, whichever one wins, the result will be communism. If it is our desire to follow the democratic way of life I believe it is essential that Western democracies be united, and I include in that category Great Britain, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and those European and Asian countries which want democracy. I think it is essential for these countries to stand together. I believe also that democracy requires a strong South Africa. In mentioning those countries, I do not mean to imply that we in Australia fully endorse all of their internal policies. But I do believe that the old adage that unity is strength still prevails. I believe that this phrase still is as true today as it was when it was first coined.

However much Australia might like to do so, it cannot stand on its own feet. We have to be realistic about this. We cannot have the best of both worlds. We have to make up our minds about which philosophy we support - democracy or communism. We have the right to choose for ourselves, just as every other country should have the right to choose for themselves the type of government which we want. But the Australian Labor Party apparently does not believe in this right because it is prepared to deny to the people of South Vietnam the right to choose their own form of government. The Australian Labor Party says that Vietnam is one country. I may be wrong, but I believe that this attitude is inconsistent with that adopted by the Labor Party in regard to Bangladesh because until the people of that country broke away - and I believe they were quite entitled to do so - they formed a part of one country, the country of Pakistan. Why does the Australian Labor Party deny to the people of South Vietnam the freedom of choice which it has endorsed for the people of Bangladesh?

Since the end of World War II the United States has carried the burden of the free world. It has contributed tremendous amounts of money to put the defeated nations of World War II back on to their feet and also to help raise the standards of living of poorer countries. But the United States has received no thanks for this. Not only has it received no thanks for the vast amount of money that has been provided by its taxpayers, but on the contrary it has been abused and reviled for this assistance.

There are a great many young Australians who damage United States consulates and business premises. They shout and print the slogan: ‘Go home Yank*. I do not deny the right of people to protest provided that in doing so they do not deny other people the freedom which they demand for themselves, and provided they protest without senselessly damaging property belonging to other people. I think it is obvious that young Australian who shout ‘Go home Yank’ have not stopped to think that most of them would not be here today if the United States had not come to Australia’s assistance during World War II. So much for gratitude. Only a few weeks ago we commemorated the Battle of the Coral Sea. It was that battle, for which the United States paid in . ships, men and human suffering, that saved Australia from invasion. The young protesters ought to go down on their knees and thank God for what America did for Australia during World War II instead of behaving in the thoughtless and thankless way in which they do.

I believe that it has been due to the United States, and the United States alone, that many countries of the free world have not fallen under communist control. My advice to those who believe that communism is worthy of a trial is for them to go and live in a communist country. I have talked to far too many migrants who have fled from communist countries to have any illusions about those countries being a workers’ paradise. Workers and strikers in communist countries do not get away with what they do in Australia.

Mr Irwin:

– They would be shot if they did that.

Mr FOX:

– I am interested to hear what my honourable friend said. A migrant in Melbourne told me about strikes which were held in his former country. He said: They have a way of ending strikes in the country from which I come. They take the man who began it down to the village square and hang him”. It is very easy to be a knocker, and the United States has far too many knockers. What hope would the rest of the free world have in containing communism without the United States? Europe is not united. There are some trade organisations in existence but a great deal of enthusiasm is not shown in regard to uniting for defence. I know that also there are one or two defence treaties and one or two defence organisations. But I believe that without American aid their value is open to question. Trade organisations and agreements are well enough but without security there cannot be any trade.

I would like to turn to Vietnam. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) has accused the United States of escalating the war in Vietnam. I believe that it is doing the very opposite. The Leader of the Opposition has not denied that Russia is the chief source of war materials that are going into North Vietnam. The sole purpose of the Haiphong blockade is to shut off supplies of war materials to North Vietnam with the object of shortening the war and saving lives. The United States has laid down 2 conditions for complete withdrawal of all of its forces in Vietnam. The first is the return of United States prisoners of war. The second is the implementation of an internationally supervised cease fire. I ask whether the Leader of the Opposition considers that either or both of these proposals are unreasonable? If he does, would he be good enough to say which is unreasonable and why he holds that belief? On the other hand, I am not aware of Russia having made any offer whatsoever. If the Leader of the Opposition is aware of Russia having made any undertaking with respect to a cease fire in Vietnam, he should say so.

The Leader of the Opposition should say unequivocally in this House where he stands with regard to recent statements which were made by the left wing controlled executive of the Australian Labor Party in Victoria. I am referring to the statements which were made by this body in support of the recent invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnamese forces. Those statements expressed support for an ultimate military victory by the North Viet namese forces. The Leader of the Opposition is reported in the Press as having been disturbed and politically embarrassed by these statements. I have no doubt that this is true and that he has been embarrassed. But he should tell the House where he stands as the leader of the alternative government in this country. In the past he has criticised the Prime Minister for making policy statements outside the House. But the Australian public, and in particular the Australian voters, are entitled to know where he stands on all of these issues. Noone in his right mind could seriously accuse the West of having territorial ambitions because history records that since the end of World War II both the United Kingdom and the United States have been giving independence to their former colonies. On the other hand, . Russia, which frequently has accused the West of colonialism, has taken away the freedom which previously was enjoyed by independent countries. I name only some of them - Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. I believe that the people of every country should be free to choose the form of government that they wish, free from outside influence, in elections where any party has the opportunity and right to stand candidates; where any individual has the opportunity to offer himself as a candidate, if he wishes to do so; and where people have the right, by means of a secret ballot, to vote as they please. They do not have this right in communist countries; migrants who have come here from Iron Curtain countries will testify to this.

I think it is time that the Australian Labor Party made it quite clear where it stands. If Australia were threatened in the future and if, by some mischance, a Labor government happened to be in power, I am quite sure that it would turn to the United States for assistance, just as it did, and rightly so, during the last war. Yet the Opposition equivocates about giving the United States free and unfettered use of bases in Australia - bases that are necessary and vital. These are not wanted to enable it to make war or to attack anyone, but are needed as essential parts of an effective defence system. How can any self-respecting Australian say to the United States: ‘We hope you will always be ready to come to our assistance when we need you, but please do not expect any help from us because our policy is isolationism’. Where are the left wing spokesmen of the Australian Labor Party who are usually very vocal in debates on foreign affairs? Why are their names not listed to speak today? The Australian voters are entitled to know, before they cast their votes in what I believe will be one of the most important elections in our history - an election in which defence and foreign policy must be a major issue - where the Government and the Opposition stand on these matters. The Liberal-Country Party Government will not sit on the fence. Where does the Australian Labor Party stand?

Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle

– The honourable member for Henty (Mr Fox) who has just spoken in this debate made the point that the world was divided between the communist powers and the democracies. The world’s largest democracy is India and India’s relationship may as a minimum be described as an ‘entente cor.diale’ with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. These are certain neighbours, with one of which we are allied. Pakistan with which we are allied through the South East Asia Treaty Organisation. Pakistan is neither a democracy nor a communist power. We have close relationships with Indonesia, which is neither a democracy nor a communist power. If one surveys right around the world, from Brazil in Latin America and to many Asian countries, the honourable member’s simple division of the world into democracies and communist powers will be seen not to be valid.

There are 8 new factors which have developed over the last year. The first is India’s abandonment of non-alignment in favour of an accord with the Soviet Union. This involves Indian doubt of the prospects of an accord with China and Indian fear of China, and also Indian criticism of the United States made because of the United States detente towards China. The second new factor is the partition of Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh. The third factor is a consequence of the American detente towards China - a new emphasis by the United States on the value of Pakistan as an ally and a chill in Indian-United States relationships. The fourth new factor to develop is the United States detente itself towards China. The basis of this detente is that the Soviet Union could destroy China and could destroy the United States. Equally, the United States could destroy the Soviet Union. The foreign policy of a nation tends to be an insurance against the power which can destroy that nation. Hence the emergence of a common interest in the United States and China, despite idealogical differences.

I would like to say to the honourable member for Henty that I think the assessment by his friend that the dispute between China and the Soviet Union is a dispute as to who is to be ‘the boss’ of the communist world is a very serious error in analysis. China fears the Soviet Union because the Soviet Union could destroy China. What is operating in Chinese foreign policy in this respect is not an ideological consideration but a national consideration. Equally, the Soviet Union suspected that Chinese policy over Cuba in 1962 was an attempt to involve the Soviet Union in a war with the United States in which they would both destroy one another, leaving China as the gainer. The analysis of the dispute between the Soviet Union and China is not as trivial as the honourable member’s friend says. I think it is an inadequate analysis.

Another new factor is involved. I refer to China’s growing significance as a distraction to the Soviet Union, forcing a Soviet military concentration on the eastern border of the Soviet Union. This is significant in allowing the emergence of, perhaps, a united states of Europe. Eastern border clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops have been serious. Chinese claims that have been put forward for an abrogation of the unequal treaties imposed by the Czars seriously worry the Soviet Union. Another new factor is the defeat of China’s strategy to disintegrate India. The main instrument in China’s strategy to disintegrate India was our SEATO ally, Pakistan. A less obvious factor is the Soviet fear of a Chinese strategy to disintegrate the Soviet Union. Many of the people in the Soviet Union - Ukrainians, Georgians and so forth - in essence are colonial people and ideological comments from China aimed at those people are interpreted by the Soviet Union as an attempt to disintegrate the Soviet Union.

The eighth new factor, of course, is the resumption of the invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam and, as a consequence, the bombing and mining by the United States. American commentators have pointed out that the conditions mentioned by the honourable member, namely, that the United States will withdraw if her prisoners are released and if she can obtain an internationally supervised ceasefire, is an abandonment by the United States, under terms consistent with her honour, of her South Vietnamese ally and that in that situation it would be only a matter of time before South Vietnam was overwhelmed. The most difficult thing to understand in North Vietnamese policy is that they do not seize this chance. That the North Vietnamese do not seize the way out which, in point of fact, President Nixon has been offering them seems to argue that North Vietnam has some, long term ideological interest in creating revolutionary situations around the world as a consequence of the Vietnam war. Those American commentators who have pointed out that, in fact, President Nixon has abandoned all those positions in Cambodia which a year or so ago were said to be essential are, in my view, correct in their analysis.

Krishna Prakash Gupta, who is one of the leading thinkers in the field of Indian foreign policy, had this to say about China and the over-simplifications of Chinese policy that are sometimes put forward:

This brings us back to the enigma of China’s basic motives.

He asked why China, on the one hand, embraced military dictatorships like Pakistan and, on the other hand, spoke in terms of liberty. He asked why there were all these inconsistencies. He continued:

Substantially similar states can be appreciated or condemned; substantially similar leaders can be applauded or denounced; substantially similar movements can be accepted or repudiated.

For instance, they repudiated the Bangladesh revolutionary movement. He continued:

The internal character of these ‘objects’ is not a crucial variable in Peking’s decision to endorse or not to endorse. On a broad canvass, what one sees is all ‘tactics’ and no firm commitment to any intrinsic socialist goals. It is through these tactics that China’s strategy can be easily inferred.

In other words, most of China’s external postures have to do with internal politics.

Is China unique in that respect? If a communist government carried out a massacre equal to the massacre carried out in Bangladesh by our ally, Pakistan, the Australian Government would have been turning handsprings in vehement denunciation. But we went along fairly quietly.

Mr Graham:

– What about Tibet?

Mr BEAZLEY:

– You did denounce cruelty in Tibet because it was the action of communists; you do not denounce it if it is not the action of communists. You did not check by representations massacre of Chinese in Indonesia. I am only saying that these attitudes are rather similar to China’s. The attitudes that we strike in external policy are in’ fact often for internal consumption, precisely in the same way as is the case with China. There is a lot of mileage to be gained by the Government in denouncing communist atrocities; there is no mileage to be gained in denouncing atrocities by others. While I am on this subject, I draw attention to the reports of Peter Hazelhurst of the ‘London Times’ concerning starvation, cruelty and massacre beginning to develop ‘ in Bangladesh. Peter Hazelhurst was highly respected in Bangladesh when I was there because of the absolute accuracy of his reports, as a very brave correspondent of the ‘London Tiroes’, and because of his courage in reporting Pakistan’s terrorism in East Bengal. Some leaders of Bangladesh spoke to me about his absolute integrity and courage. Now Peter Hazelhurst speaks out about disastrous events in Mohammedpur and Mirpur, suburbs of Dacca, killing, starvation and break up of families of Biharis who have remained in Bangladesh.

I would be interested ‘to- hear what the Minister for Foreign Affairs has to say about the representations of the Government on this matter. I hope that the Government is using its good offices with the Government of India on this question. The Government of India intervened in the Bangladesh situation because, among other reasons, of the atrocities, .which were being perpetrated in Bangladesh. The Government of India would have enormous influence with the Government in Dacca and, as well as making direct representations itself, I hope that, the Government of Australia will be making representations to the Government of India to use its good offices to allay the terror which - if Hazelhurst’s description is correct - is beginning to develop in the suburbs of Mohammedpur and Mirpur in Dacca.

The Government will apply a single standard if its motivation is humanity. Atrocities are atrocities whether they are perpetrated by communists or noncommunists, and the aim of our foreign policy basically should be to create a sane world. The honourable member for Henty reminded us that we were an ally of the United States during the Second World War. We were also an ally, willy nilly, of the Soviet Union during the Second World War. We did not say: ‘Germany is noncommunist and the Soviet Union is communist*. Other considerations operated. In the same way, I think, we do not just make the simple test that some State is communist or non-communist. The United States is not making that test at the present time. President Nixon is making approaches to the Soviet Union and to China. I would have thought that the basic aim of a foreign policy was not to make classifications of the world as communist or non-communist, but to create a sane world. What else ought to be the cardinal aim of any foreign policy? In the process of making a sane world, I hope that we can make representations both to Bangladesh directly and through the good offices of the Government of India to end the terror. I trust that the Minister will do that; and that be may make these representations directly when he visits Bangladesh.

Foreign policy debate, surely, is not primarily electoral propaganda; there are surely some constructive things that we believe ought to happen in the world, and one of the things that ought to happen in the world is the completion of the battle for sanity into the position in the Indian sub-continent. It would be a tragedy if Bangladesh, having been freed because of world reaction, and because of India’s reaction in particular, to a campaign of terror, was itself now to become the perpetrator of terror. It is easier for me to say this than it is for the Minister to say it, but that it be said, I am certain, is quite important in the world.

The United State’s foreign policy is changing. The United States, despite what is being said opposite, is seeking disengagement from the Vietnam situation. A basic reason why she is seeking disengagement from the Vietnam situation, apart from the difficulties of interveing on the mainland of Asia and attempting to deprive the enemy of supplies, is that the United States is beginning to realise that much more important areas of the world in terms of her foreign policy are the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Her attitude towards Pakistan, and a quite surprising United States general support of Pakistan while Pakistan was pursuing its Bangladesh policy, was governed by the fact that in the Islamic world Pakistan is the United State’s best card to play, best ally and clearest field of influence.

The United States policy towards Israel deprives the United States of the support of Islam almost everywhere. The one US asset in the Islamic world is therefore her relationship with Pakistan. Pakistan has a powerful influence in the Jordanian army. She has powerful influence in the Saudi Arabian army. Saudi Arabia for the US is particularly important in relation to oil and the whole strategy of the Persian Gulf. Similarly is Jordan a key area. I do not believe that the simplicities that the honourable member referred to in his speech will be the basis of the United States foreign policy in the future. The United States is seeking to allay tensions and to disengage from Vietnam and the difficulties that she has on the way will not stop her detente towards Moscow and her detente towards Peking, nor will the United States desist from its irreversible policy of a total disengagement from the situation in Vietnam.

Mr CALDER:
Northern Territory

– The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) began his statement with words that I will repeat because they are the basis of what our ideas should be, looking from Australia out on the rest of the world. He said:

If true peace and national integrity are to be secured on the world scene, the countries constituting the European Communities, the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and the People’s Republic of China, will need to arrive at some balance.

He then proceeded to give a sound and solid appreciation of the facts that must be taken into serious consideration as Australia forms and develops its foreign policy to fit today’s changing world scene.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) opened his statement in reply by saying: ‘The ears of the world are on Moscow’. The Minister for Foreign Affairs continued in his statement to cover a very wide range of areas including the European Economic Community. Of the United States of America he said:

A partnership with the United States, based on friendship, trust, self reliance and a close similarity of interests and objectives, remains the central element of our foreign policy. The relationship, which had its origin in the Second World War is underpinned by common interests, one reflection of which is the ANZUS treaty.

The Leader of the Opposition did not deal with this. What is his policy, and what is the policy of the Australian Labor Party with regard to the American alliance? We have heard some df his colleagues say that the American alliance and the ANZUS treaty should be scrapped and/or that the treaty is useless. Yet the United States Secretary of State reported in his policy statement that the alliance of Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America- that is the ANZUS treaty, 20 years old on 1st September 1971 - is as vital to the 3 partners in the changing circumstances of the 1970s as it was during the cold war.

This is a vital difference between the Government’s policy as stated by the Foreign Minister and the Opposition’s policy. The Foreign Minister continued to speak of New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, the Indian sub-continent, the South Pacific, Indo-China, the People’s Republic of China, Africa and the United Nations. But the leader of the Australian Labor Party spent most of his time virtually justifying the downward thrust of communism or the invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.

Mr Keating:

– Why do you not send the troops back if you think you are right?

Mr CALDER:

– The attack is from the North to the South. Have the South Vietnamese invaded North Vietnam? Let me say to the honourable member who interjected and asked about sending the troops back: Has he asked any of the troops whether they consider that the job they did was worthwhile, whether they consider that people should do national service, and whether they consider that the troops should go back to South Vietnam? The Leader of the ALP spent much of his time justifying this downward thrust of communism and some of his supporters have come out and openly supported it. This thrust has been assisted by heavy wartime hardware from both Russia and China. The Leader of the ALP went on to say that the current operation in Vietnam is quite specific in its scope’. He said: its object is to detach the 2 northernmost provinces.

Evidence of Hanoi’s current . aims can be found. only in the nature of the current military campaign. Hanoi has attacked in the central highlands, in the ‘Parrot’s Beak’ area and in and around An Loc, 60 miles from Saigon. Is this detaching the 2 northern areas? The Leader of the ALP continued: less than one-third of the Soviet equipment being supplied to North Vietnam has come by sea. Even the 300 tanks collected by General Giap for the present offensive came by rail, overland through China. Therefore the ability, of Russia and China to supply Hanoi will not be drastically reduced in the long run by the interdiction.

On 8th May, when President Nixon announced the mining of North Vietnamese ports and the interdiction of the delivery of supplies within the internal and territorial waters of North Vietnam he also announced that rail and all other communications would be cut off to the maximum extent possible. When questioned on the proportion of war essential imports that could come into North Vietnam over the rail or road lines from China, even if all imports by sea were denied and a strong effort made to interdict ground transport, the State Department reported to President Nixon as follows:

We . . . believe that interdiction of Haiphong and heavy attacks on the rail line from China would over time prevent North Vietnam from receiving sufficient economic and military aid to continue the war effort.

During a Press conference on 18th May a Pentagon spokesman pointed out that United States Defense Department officials estimated that 80 per cent of North Vietnam’s war equipment for the invasion of South Vietnam was brought in bv sea. So much for the remarks of the Leader of the ALP about the effect of the blockade. The Leader of the ALP continued:

So what we have to ask ourselves is whether the very limited military impact of the blockade provides sufficient justification for it.

Then he went on with quite a lot of supposition. He asked questions and answered them in the following way:

Will it save the 2 northernmost provinces . . .? It will not. Will it decisively affect the impending battle for Hue? It will not.

The United States aim in the blockade was not to affect the immediate military situation. The Secretary of Defense stated on 10th May 1972, 2 days after President Nixon’s announcement of the blockade:

  1. . in some areas the North Vietnamese have supplies on hand of 2 to 3 months. In other areas they may have supplies of certain items for a longer period of time . . .

But they will be affected by this blockade. We all know the situation. In some areas the North Vietnamese managed to build up fairly strong forces of heavy armament. In others they must be relying on getting these armaments through the port of Haiphong. The United States Secretary of Defense went on to say that the question is whether the North Vietnamese are willing to use their supplies in a much more measured manner depending on the success or failure, as they see it, of the supply movement and the logistics movement into North Vietnam. In other words, the current United States aim in interdicting the supplies is to limit the enemy’s goals in the current offensive and to steady his will to persist. It aims at least as much at long term results as at short term results.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs in his statement showed a very sound appreciation of the situation, and, in a very comprehensive supplement to his statement, dealt with many of the areas in our foreign policy today which should be very important. I mention especially Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines - the Association of South East Asian Nations or ASEAN countries immediately to our north - which were completely ignored by the Leader of the Opposition, as were most of the other facets of foreign affairs. The Leader of the Opposition concentrated on the war in Vietnam and recognition of China. The Minister for Foreign Affairs put down a very able state ment on affairs as they are today and laid a very sound base from which Australia can move forward in all areas. The area to which I refer particularly is the Indonesian Archipelago or the ASEAN area where we are moving towards greater understanding and co-operation. I consider that the Minister’s statement is a very clear indication of what we propose to do in this area.

Mr MORRISON:
St George

– The point under discussion today is the statement made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen). Regrettably, it is a very disappointing document because it seeks vainly to justify a policy which is demonstrably bankrupt. In fact, the foreign policy of this Government is in shambles. This is not only the point of view of the Australian Labor Party and of Australian commentators, but also the point of view that has been expressed by learned commentators overseas. I want to refer to a recent production of ‘Current History*, dated 11th March 1972, which is an academic journal published in the United States of America, and in particular to an article by Professor Bernard Gordon of the University of New Hampshire. In the article Professor Gordon had this to say about the Government’s foreign policy:

  1. . there is no strong sense of direction in Australian foreign policy, and in some instances in recent years there has been considerable disarray.

That, I think, is putting the matter mildly, because this Government’s foreign policy, and particularly its policy towards Vietnam, has blown up in its face. All that we have heard in earlier speeches is an indulgence in mock heroics. Perhaps we can go back some years. Until after the United States’ bombing of North Vietnam, following the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident - and I am referring here to what was said by the United States Defence Department - there were only 400 North Vietnamese combat forces in South Vietnam. At that stage Australia decided to commit Australian forces, when there were only 400 North Vietnamese there. But now, when there are several divisions of North Vietnamese in South Vietnam, all that this Government can do is to throw up its hands in horror; but it does precisely nothing. If this Government and the previous speakers really believed in their own propaganda they would be sending Australian forces back to South Vietnam. But of course the Government will not. The whole point of this is just to show what a gang of humbugs this Government is and has become.

But the height of hypocrisy is reached in the Minister’s comments on Communist China. This Government has actively opposed the recognition of Communist China. It has actively opposed in the past the admission of Communist China to the United Nations. The Government’s whole attitude has- been to exploit one-quarter of the world’s population for its narrow, domestic, political purposes. The Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) has been reported as saying that China has served the Liberal Party well. What a remarkable comment to make about one-quarter of the. world’s population - it has happened to serve a declining party well. But the members of the Labor Party were branded as traitors for raising in this country many years ago precisely what all other countries have now come to accept. On China, as on every other foreign policy issue, this Government is hopelessly out of step with reality. As the Prime Minister and other members of the Government have said, Communist China still has the smear of the mud that this Government has thrown on it in the years past. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, in his speech, could not help but try to make some of that mud stick. He said that Communist China was still carrying out its subversion and insurgency in other countries. Let us look - and the Minister referred specifically to it - at the speech made by the Communist China delegate to the United Nations. He said:

It is our bounden duty to support the just struggles of the people of various countries. For this purpose we have provided aid to some friendly countries to help them develop their national economy independently. . . . We provide free military aid to countries and people which are fighting against aggression. We will never become munition merchants. .-. . However, as China’s economy is still comparatively backward, the material aid we have provided is very limited, and what we provide is mainly political and moral support

This would hardly go down as a fire brand speech. But the Minister is trying desperately to get some of that mud which has been thrown in the past to stick. But, of course, every time that question of subversion has been raised, honourable members opposite reply back to Lin Piao, who is now somewhat in eclipse in Communist China but who has been a whipping horse for this Government in times past. Let us take what I suppose is, for this House, the unprecedented step of having a look at what Lin Piao actually said about subversion. In a statement entitled ‘Long Live the Victory of People’s War’ written back in 1955, Lin Piao said:

In order to make a revolution and to fight a people’s war and be victorious, it is imperative to adhere to the policy of self-reliance, rely on the strength of the masses in one’s own country and prepare to cany on the fight independently even when all material aid from outside is cut off. If one does not operate by one’s own efforts, does not independently ponder and solve the problems of the revolution in one’s own country and does not rely on the strength of the mases, but leans wholly on foreign aid-

And I will read this very slowly -

  1. even though this be aid from socialist countries … no victory can be won, or be consolidated even if it is won.

That is an observation made by the renegades, by the subversives of Communist China. The point I want to make here is that if Communist China is regarded as an enemy - and obviously the Government regards China as such - then one should analyse very carefully what it says, what it does and what it is capable of doing.

Mr Beazley:

– And also, it is the Country Party’s trade partner.

Mr MORRISON:

– And the Country Party’s trade partner, as the honourable member for Fremantle points out. This Government has been crying ‘wolf’ for so long and so often that it is likely, as in the fable, to cry wolf once too often. It seems to me that we do ourselves - and I think this is important - a great disfavour by creating threats or attempting to make threats more than they are in a mythical sense, because what this does is to distort our own defence preparedness, our own force structures. Chasing phantoms and tilting at windmills has no place in the foreign policy or the defence policy of a responsible government.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs in his speech referred to the five Power Defence Arrangements. I have been subjected to many attacks for pointing out what in fact is the reality of the situation. Malaysia does regard the Five’ Power Defence Arrangements as temporary, Singapore would not be overly concerned if our forces were withdrawn, and Indonesia does not care one way or the other whether our forces remain there or not. I mentioned earlier a statement by Professor Gordon. I refer again to this document in which Professor Gordon said:

Today, however, the so-called ‘5-nation’ arrangement is meaningless: As Singapore’s Defence Minister said recently to this writer, ‘the 5-nation arrangement is a farce - it is worthless.’

A footnote says that Singapore’s Defence Minister said that in Singapore in June 1971. That statement, I think, substantiates the points of view that I gathered during my visit to South East Asia. Honourable members may also be interested to know that a leading member of the governing party in the Malaysian Parliament, Mr Musa Hitam, in a speech earlier this year in the Malaysian Parliament, fully agreed with the statements that I have made on the Five Power Defence Arrangements.

I have had reason to comment before in this House on the curious but highly significant procedure of practice of this Government of introducing a defence statement before a statement on foreign affairs. This is a classic case of putting the cart before the horse. This practice shows, more eloquently than words, that military interventionism is this Government’s substitute for foreign policy. It has been a policy of foreign military interventionism - nothing else and nothing more. I am very glad to say that there has always been a philosophical difference between the Labor Party’s approach to foreign affairs and that of the anti-Labor groupings. The last Labor government in this country attached itself very firmly to the spirit of the Atlantic Charter which was signed by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill in 1941. That Atlantic Charter sought to respect the rights of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live. President Roosevelt’s son, in commenting on a conversation between Prime Minister Churchill and President Roosevelt at that Atlantic meeting in 1941 had this to say of his father’s point of view:

I am firmly of the belief that if we are to arrive at a stable peace it must involve the development of backward countries. I cannot believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery and at the same time not work to free peoples all over the world from a backward colonial policy.

What happened was that when the Japanese were defeated - Roosevelt was dead at this stage - the colonial countries came back into South East Asia and tried to turn the clock back to 1941 as if nothing had happened in the interim. This Government supported and continued to support the French in Indo-China. When the Labor Government went out of power, after the Labor Party had actively supported Indonesian nationalists in Indonesia, the Government immediately turned and supported the Dutch colonialists. The Prime Minister will visit Indonesia in the near future. He will bathe in the reflected glory of what the Australian Labor Party did when it was the government of this country to build a firm understanding with the peoples of Indonesia. One would only wish that the Labor Party had been in power when the Vietnam question came upwhen this Government was supporting the French before Dien Bien Phu. The Government continued to support the United States after 1954. What a difference it would have made if Australia could have presented the same sort of philosophy, the same point of view as the Labor government presented in the case of Indonesia.

I only wish that we could relate ourselves, not to the concept of stability that this Government sees as a desirable end but to the concept of change and the concept of support for peoples who engage in justifiable opposition. We cannot turn our backs on change. We cannot continue to support and bolster regimes that do not allow justifiable opposition because what we have done with the opposition in so many countries in South East Asia has been to give them one alternative and one alternative only; that is to join forces with, and on many occasions to be exploited by, the communists. We have fought against change because it changes the status quo. This Government, if it is anything, is in favour of the status quo in Australia. It is in favour of the privileged of this country and so its philosophy is to support the status quo and support the privileged in the countries of South East Asia.

The history of Vietnam - the history of many parts of South East Asia - would have been vastly different if the spirit of the Atlantic Charter and the thoughts of President Roosevelt had been implemented.

But this Government has never comprehended those thoughts and has never understood what it is that motivates the peoples of South East Asia. It is not this dichotomy between communist and noncommunist. These countries feel that they are small and they do not want to have anything to do with big powers whether they be capitalist big powers or communist big powers. Their policy is to live at peace and to keep the big powers out of the area. But nowhere in the Minister’s statement does one find any support for the ambitions and aspirations of the people of South East Asia. The Labor Party supports the contention of keeping the big powers out, whether they be communist big powers or capitalist big powers.

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

Mr BROWN:
Diamond Valley

– After some preliminary remarks I should like to come back to the concluding comments of the honourable member for St George (Mr Morrison) with respect to some of the forces at work in Asia and particularly in South East Asia at this time. I substantially agree with him that if one is trying to articulate and determine a sensible policy towards Asia one must identify these forces - in some cases the forces of neutralism that are at work in South East Asia - to understand them fully and to take them into account. But more of that later.

I was very disappointed to hear the honourable member for St George downgrade the Five Power defence arrangements that apply with respect to Singapore and Malaysia. It was very disappointing to hear him endorse, with approval, statements by an American academic that the Five Power defence arrangements were meaningless and farcical. Both of these statements are quite incorrect. The arrangements are neither meaningless nor farcical. They are a very substantial contribution to the defence of those 2 countries and they are a very substantial contribution to the forces of stability and cautious, sensible progress in this region in which we live.

I was also disappointed to hear the honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley) say that Indonesia was not a democracy. I suppose it all depends on the inter pretation or definition that one gives to the word ‘democracy’. But what we should not be doing in this national Parliament is pointing the finger at one of our Asian neighbours and saying: ‘You are not a democracy. You do not live up to the same high standards of parliamentary democracy that prevail in this country.’ What we should be doing, surely, is recognising that there are democratic forces at work in Indonesia, and that they have been catered for by the present Indonesian Government. We should also recognise, acknowledge and approve publicly that, after ail, there has been an election in Indonesia, that that election was conducted with candidates, that there were political parties involved, that there was a fairly hot contest in that election and that it was run along fairly democratic lines. One also should say publicly that we recognise that the Indonesian Government has had the courage, in view of its recent history, to hold the election along generally democratic lines. To the credit of that Government it does not pretend that the election was completely democratic, using the definition of ‘democratic’ that we would use in Australia. What it has said is that now it has achieved a measure of stability, now that it has come through an election along generally democratic lines, it will continue at each subsequent election along those lines until there is a completely civilianised and democratic government in that country. I should like to think that more honourable members of this Parliament would stand and commend the Indonesian Government for taking that courageous stand.

I turn now to some other issues and leave this region to discuss another region that perhaps does not get very much attention - the region of Africa. This area is considerably overlooked in Australia, particularly in debates on foreign affairs. It is an area where the great issue of our times is being thrashed out and determined. It is perhaps unfortunate that the Australian Government does not make more public statements on this particularly important area of the world. I made a speech in this House-

Mr Foster:

– Yes, we know.

Mr BROWN:

– If the honourable member will contain himself for a few minutes he will be able to speak himself.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Drury)Order! The honourable member for Sturt will cease his constant stream of interjections.

Mr Foster:

– I never said a word.

Mr BROWN:

– 1 can excuse interjections if they have some relevance to the debate. Some time ago I made a speech in this House on the importance of establishing closer relations with some of the countries of Africa with which we do not presently have relations. Of course we have relations with South Africa, but not with many of the other countries of Africa. As I have said before, the great issue of our times is being determined in Africa. Frankly - I know it is not easy to say this sort of thing - I am not at all happy with the policy of the Government towards South Africa and Rhodesia. I am not at all convinced that it is wise, in Australia’s interests, to be identified in the way it is on some occasions, and when broad issues arise, with the forces of the reactionary Government of South Africa. I am not at all satisfied that we take as strong a stand as we should on the issue of Rhodesia. 1 do not want to go into the involved complicated and detailed resolutions of the Security Council relating to Rhodesia, but I do want to draw the attention of the House to the resolution that was passed by the Security Council in 1970; that is, Resolution 277. In paragraphs 2, 3 and 9 (a) of that resolution there are set out the obligations of member states so far as relations with this regime are concerned. Paragraph 2 reads:

Decides that Member States shall refrain from recognising this illegal regime or from rendering any assistance to it;

I suggest that the operative words are ‘any assistance’. Paragraph 3 states:

Calls upon Member States to take appropriate measures, at the national level, to ensure that any act performed by officials and institutions of the illegal regime in Southern Rhodesia shall not be accorded any recognition, official or otherwise, including judicial notice, by the competent organs of their State;

Paragraph 9 reads:

Decides, in accordance with Article 41 of the Charter and in furthering the objective of ending the rebellion, that Member States shall:

Immediately sever all diplomatic, consular, trade, military and other relations that they may have with the illegal regime in South ern Rhodesia, and terminate any representation that they may maintain in the Territory;

I apologise for taking up the time of the House in reading those paragraphs of that resolution, but I think they are particularly important. I do not know, and I would cot presume to know, what detailed investigations the Government made when it was considering the position of the Rhodesian Information Centre in Sydney, but 1 hope that the Government, if it has not already done so, will look very closely at the wording of those paragraphs and consider whether perhaps we are offering some succour or some assistance to the Rhodesian authorities or the regime, as it is at the moment, by allowing that office to remain open.

I know that there is a case for saying that there should be a complete and untrammelled introduction of material and literature so that people in Australia can weigh both sides of the argument - the Rhodesian argument or any other argument on domestic or international politics. That is a very persuasive argument. But I am also very concerned about this fact: We are a member of the United Nations and we realise that it is important for us to play our role in the world by remaining a member of the United Nations. It is a simple matter: If we are to remain a member of the United Nations we must act in accordance with the resolutions passed by the United Nations, in accordance with the letter and the spirit of its resolutions. Quite frankly, I am not at all convinced that that is what we are doing at the moment. So, I hope that the Government will have another look at this very important matter. I again make the plea that I made on an earlier occasion; that is, that Africa is the continent where one of the great issues of our time is being determined and I venture to say that Australia will be assessed by the world substantially on the stand Australia takes on that issue in that very significant continent.

I turn now to another region which is closer to home - the region of Asia.I will make a few remarks about it. I do not want to go into the Vietnam debate because, if I did, it would take up the time allotted to me in this debate. But I suggest that there are 3 lessons that we should learn from the Vietnam experience. The first is the importance of local military involvement rather than leaving military involvement completely or almost completely to outside forces. I suggest that this is the type of attitude that is now reflected in the Five-Power Defence Arrangement and it is perhaps a pity that it was not seen and recognised earlier in the case of Vietnam. The second important lesson is that we must encourage governments in South East Asia to introduce more democratic reforms and to introduce them more quickly than has been done in the past.

The third lesson is this: The unfortunate thing about the Vietnam debate in Australia is that it was conducted in too simplistic terms. Unfortunately, the domino theory was put forward by some people as if it were something like this: Mao Tsetung would pirouette his way through South East Asia and suddenly appear on Bondi Beach. It is not, of course, as simple as that. The lesson we should have learned from this whole unhappy exercise in Vietnam is that what happens in one Asian country, particularly one South East Asian country, inevitably affects what happens in another country and in neighbouring countries. One can see that in the case of Vietnam in the effect what has happened in Vietnam has had on Laos and Cambodia. Who knows, we may yet live to see an unfortunate consequence in other neighbouring countries of South East Asia. So, it is important for us to look at this part of the world as a region and to recognise that forces at work in one country, such as South Vietnam, may and probably will have very definite consequences in neighbouring countries. I hope that those 3 lessons have been learned from the whole history of the Vietnam experience.

I want finally to turn to another aspect of our attitude towards Asia. Honourable members will recall that I indicated that if we are to articulate a sensible and practical policy towards Asia, particularly South East Asia, we must have regard to and recognise the forces that are at work in that region. I would like to mention 4 of them. Each of these 4 forces or present situations in South East Asia, can, I think, be coloured by a general attitude held by Asian countries, particularly South East Asian countries. The attitude is that they are very concerned to determine their own destiny. I have visited many of those countries and a common theme that comes from all of them is that they want to determine for themselves what happens in their own country; they want to determine for themselves what are the forces at work in the region; and they want to determine for themselves the economic, social and political structure of the region and of their own country.

I turn to these 4 examples; that is really what they are once one understands the basic proposition of the concern of the people in the region for determining their own future. The first of them is the issue of neutralisation of South East Asia. This proposal has been put forward principally by Malaysia and has been accepted in varying degrees by all of the other member states of the Association of South East Asian Nations - Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. It is true that one of the ingredients of this proposal is a very healthy dose of idealism. Nevertheless, it must be recognised that the Malaysian Government has accepted this principle of Neutralisation, that it intends to pursue it and that other countries in South East Asia support the principle. It will be pursued, and it would be wise for us to take into account that policy of the Malaysian Government.

The second is the proposal for a peace zone in the Indian Ocean. This has been put forward principally by Ceylon. It was pursued by that country at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in Singapore last year; it was pursued at the recent session of the United Nations General Assembly; and it was pursued and, indeed, adopted at the 1970 Lusaka conference of non-aligned nations. Again, this is perhaps a long way from achievement, but it should be recognised that many countries in the region recognise that the Indian Ocean can become a competing playground for big power involvement and that countries in the region are not happy about it. That again is a factor that should be taken into account. The Ceylonese Government said in its official statement on this matter:

It also means that the Great Powers will likewise voluntarily limit their involvement in collective security arrangements and will not seek or use any facilities for militarising the Indian Ocean.

The third of these aspects is the very existence of the Association of South East Asian Nations, or ASEAN. This Association consists of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand. It has developed beyond what it started out as - a regional economic and cultural union - into a body that is becoming increasingly concerned with foreign affairs and security issues. It is important to consider the proposals that come forward from that body. It is important to consider that it is a responsible and respected body in the region. We should take account of it and of its policy attitudes.

Finally, there is the proposal for a declaration by Malaysia and Indonesia that the Straits of Malacca are territorial waters. This again, I suggest, is an indication by just 2 of the countries - it is a small example, but it is an indication - of their attitude of determining for themselves the sequence of events in this region. Unfortunately I cannot elaborate on these matters any further. I merely emphasise, as I did earlier, the point that there are forces at work within the countries of Asia, particularly South East Asia, which we must recognise if we are to articulate a sensible and practical policy towards that region.

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

Mr HURFORD:
Adelaide

– I congratulate the honourable member for Diamond Valley (Mr Brown) on a very thoughtful speech in this foreign affairs debate. I only wish that the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) had been here to listen to it, and I hope that it will be drawn to his attention. It was in marked contrast with a couple of other contributions we have heard, those from the honourable member for Henty (Mr Fox) and the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Calder). I particularly agree with him in what he had to say about Africa. I will concentrate on Australia’s role in Asia. During the past couple of years very many and fundamental changes have been taking place in the attitudes of Asian countries in their relations with each other and with powers outside the region. However it seems that these radical changes in thinking have not yet greatly influenced the attitudes of the Australian Government in its foreign and defence services. In fact, what the honourable member for Diamond Valley had to say was in marked contrast with the attitudes of the Government which he supports. We can see this clearly from the ministerial statement of the Minister tor Foreign Affairs which we are debating here today.

The new thinking in Asian countries amounts to a questioning or in some cases a rejection of the belief that the security of individual nations can be protected and national interests promoted on the basis of alignment with great powers and the cold war style of confrontation and containment of communism. In question are those policies that require considerable defence effort and involvement in military treaties or other defence arrangements, often at the expense of the nation’s international reputation for political and military independence. In a sense the 2 major super powers themselves have been responsible for stimulating the new thinking in international relations. The meeting taking place right now between President Nixon of the United States and the Soviet’s Brezhnev in Moscow is an example of this. Both the Soviet Union and the United States have for some years been searching for ways of reducing the tensions between them, particularly those tensions that have buttressed the super power confrontation and have from time to time erupted into serious disputes that exposed the danger of nuclear war. China has now also moved into a more active diplomatic role that should encourage the normalisation of her relations with other Asian countries on the basis of peaceful coexistence, though she will enter into sharper competiton diplomatically and ideologically with the. Soviet Union and the United States.

These developments are manifestations, in my view, of a new realism in international relations based on a growing conviction that the present international situation is favourable for the working out of alternative arrangements to hostile confrontations between contending ideologies and different political systems. In effect at last there appear to be grounds for believing that the much discussed concept of peaceful coexistence can be negotiated into a realistic framework. There is a greater awareness of the dangers as well as the enormously wasteful cost of military confrontations and some optimism at the prospects of diplomatic and political means generally, rather than military strategies, for the promotion of the national interests of those countries anxious to assert themselves in international affairs. I trust that the present increase in hostilities in Vietnam is a temporary aberration on the part of America and that there will be a continuation of what earlier seemed to be a decline in the hostilities in that unfortunate country. For some time, a realisation that the approach to national security has been too negative has been growing. The enormous expenditure on defence - (According to the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1970 it was $US204,000m or the equivalent of one year’s income of the entire population of the developing countries - has in most cases complicated national security problems rather than offer solutions to them. Despite great effort and expenditures, few countries would boast that a truly effective security system has yet been attained. At the same time, the belief is that good prospects exist for a new, stable balance in international relations, offering in the form of interlocking relationships, perhaps with super-power guarantees, an alternative to heavy defence expenditure as a measure to a better and more realistic security, and a future basis for disarmament and arms control.

The implications for Australia of recent developments and the new thinking in internaional relations are of great significance. Clearly the time is propitious for a searching re-examination of our foreign policy assumptions and for a thorough-going review of how our long term foreign policy objectives might best be attained. From this should emerge a clear outline of a new independent Australian foreign policy, one that is not rooted in the assumptions of the past, some of which appear to have been discredited, or too heavily influenced by direct reliance upon the experiences of friendly countries, with whom we have been closely linked culturally and politically. This new foreign policy framework would be based on the reality that Australia’s position in the world is a unique one, and her foreign policy should therefore be formulated and expressed accordingly. It may be true that the experiences of our traditional friends in internatonal relations hold important lessons for us, but these lessons should serve rather as instructive experience than as models or inspiration of our policies and aims.

Before setting out on the taks of formulating new attitudes and objectives it is necessary to take stock of the current perceptions of Australian foreign policy and the reasons why they fall short of effectively promoting our national interests. It is true that the foreign policy of the nation is based upon its national interest, but what really matters is the way in which this national interest is analysed and translated into policies. Although there has been a perceptible change in recent years, since the end of the Second World War the preoccupation of Australian Governments has been the search for security against external attack. The advent of the cold war, and the aggressive style of the leadership of President Sukarno in Indonesia stimulated the fear that Australia might at any time be invaded by an aggressive Asian power from the north. The war in Indo-China and the fostering of such concepts as the so-called domino theory have added fuel to Australian fears.

The Australian reactions to the turbulent developments in Asia since World War II have reflected a greater preoccupation with the securing of our own defences than with the seeking of a deeper understanding of the changing scene and the developing of better relations with the countries of the region. These were the sorts of things about which the honourable member for Diamond Valley was talking. Australia has been enormously affected by its experiences in the Second World War and the belief that to survive in this region it must have a protector. As a result of these preoccupations the governments have followed a policy that could be described as one of defence before diplomacy. In fact my colleague, the honourable member for St George (Mr Morrison), would have perhaps described it as military interventionism before diplomacy. Not surprisingly the policies that have emerged from this thinking have been mostly of a negative character. Australia under successive LiberalCountry Party Federal Governments has sought protection from the United States and to a progressively lessening extent, from Britain, in the form of treaties and other commitments, seemingly based on the assumption that without this protection we would soon fall victim of some aggressor. Another plank of our foreign policy has been to develop treaty relationships with selected pro-Western countries in Asia, but it is probably fair to say that in reality these treaty relationships have been regarded by the Asians concerned more as efforts towards the defence of Australia, in the sense of a forward posture, than as efforts to help those Asian countries defend themselves.

These traditional themes of our foreign policy now appear to have been substantially questioned or in some cases discredited. In the case of our treaty relationships, it is not that relations with the United States, for example, have deteriorated but that there is a more rational appreciation of the nature of international relationships and of the strengths and limitations of the expressions of even the closest friendships. In a given international conflict it may be impossible to enforce or invoke a treaty because of the dangers involved and/or because priorities have changed, substantially weakening the spirit of the treaty. There is an impermanence in the strength and force of treaties such as ANZUS whose signatories are unequal in size and are separated from each other by great distances. The spirit of such treaties may decline into ineffectiveness as a result of changes in the interpretation of national interests. What was seen as a binding obligation or insurance policy 10 years ago might now be treated lightly, even cynically, by a party to it. Also, if taken too seriously, a treaty such as ANZUS can create a false sense of security, in that the real basis for the commitment of one country to another - close friendship and the identity of interests - may be ignored or treated too lightly. In effect, the ANZUS Treaty is worth no more than the state of the relationship between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. On the other hand it can be argued that if a close friendship and community interests have been established the need for a formal treaty scarcely exists.

If a genuinely independent and forward looking Australian foreign policy is to evolve, a comprehensive review of how

Australia’s national interests might best be promoted should be carried out on the basis of these more rational considerations. The document we are debating today is no such review. A number of basic points suggest a framework for a new policy. The first is that we should accept that Australia’s position is unique in many ways, necessitating a departure from the Western European traditions which have hitherto so strongly influenced Australian perspectives. Uninhibited by the prejudices of the past, we should adjust ourselves to the new trends in international relations, particularly those developments impinging on the attitudes and interests of the region in which Australia is situated. It will be contended by some that this is already the case and that Australia has moved closer to the major powers of Asia in recent years. But have we moved so very much closer? It could be argued that our policies have in truth been designed to keep Asia away from Australia. The Australian apprehension of a threat from the north - a threat from some Asian country - erupting amid conditions of political and economic instability has impelled the policy makers towards negative conclusions.

Political developments in Asian countries have been followed closely by the Government, but its paramount concern has been to determine whether Australian security has been endangered, whether communist objectives have been furthered and what defence measures should be taken to deter a possible threat. Seldom has the Government looked beyond these narrow objectives in an effort to discern the other elements in the situation and perhaps to encourage the countries concerned to meet these challenges in a more positive way.

How do we formulate more positive strategies? Firstly, we need to adjust ourselves to the realities of Australia’s position and seek by more positive and active diplomacy to project a more progressive image of Australia to our neighbours. Ours is a prosperous and politically stable nation on the periphery of one of the most populous, economically depressed and politically unstable areas of the world. But the image we have, of a nation aloof and detached, is not one that inspires the respect and confidence of our neighbours. In order to improve this portrayal Australians need to make a sustained effort to move closer to our neighbours and to gain their confidence. This means the undertaking of more purposeful steps to acquire a deeper understanding of the countries of the region and to participate with them in their search for greater co-operation, such as the search for a system of collective security that would obviate the need for heavy defence expenditures.

As a sincere demonstration of Australia’s involvement in the problems of the region, it would be a progressive move for Australia to assume the leading role among developed countries in development assistance. About 15 months ago I had the privilege to attend with an Australian delegation a debate on this very subject in the Council of Europe. The Government should aim at formulating a much expanded aid programme, more than doubling our present level of expenditure. This step conceivably would be a radical and constructive alternative to the existing reliance on defence support. For example, Australian military assistance to South East Asia is more than twice the current level of our development assistance to the region. This development assistance programme would range beyond the present concept of rendering aid, which, as far as Asian countries are concerned, resembles an international charity.

Although there is much more I would like to say about aid, let me merely say that I hope that the Minister for Foreign Affairs in his forthcoming trip to Bangladesh will take a new lead in aid to that country and that this will be the first step in a new era of aid for our Asian neighbours.

Mr MacKELLAR:
Warringah

– I find myself in agreement with the honourable member for Adelaide (Mr Hurford) on one point - probably on only one point - and that is that the Government should carry out positive diplomatic action. I am convinced that the statement by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) proves that this Government is carrying out positive diplomatic action. But for sheer cheek I think the honourable member for Adelaide’s speech takes some beating. I noted down a couple of phrases that he used. He said that we should make our decisions, unencumbered by the past. That must not be very comforting for people who have some reason to depend upon Australia. I believe that Australia, as a nation, has built up a tremendous amount of credit throughout the world as a strong and reliable ally. In times of crisis we have been dependable. But what does the honourable member for Adelaide say? - That we should be unencumbered by the past in considerations of national policy. He said that the Government puts great emphasis on a threat to us. On many occasions we have heard members of the Opposition say: There is no threat to Australia. Where does the threat come from? Why do we adopt the policies that we do, because obviously there is no threat?’ On the face of it, that is a fairly plausible argument, but I would like to pose to the honourable member for Adelaide and perhaps to his other loquacious friends, that if one had examined the statements of people throughout the world 10 years prior to either the First World War or the Second World War, one would have found that they had said there was no foreseeable threat. The honourable member for Adelaide went on to say that perhaps Australia’s foreign policy has resulted in the communist objectives being furthered. How can the honourable member possibly lay that charge on the Government?

Mr Hurford:

– I did not say it.

Mr MacKELLAR:

– Perhaps I misheard the honourable member. I understood him to say that even if he did not. A senior member of his own front bench, the honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns), stood in the streets of Melbourne and in this House praising the efforts of the North Vietnamese. If that is not furthering the objectives of communism, I do not know what is. He said that we were aloof and detached from our Asian neighbours. We have a policy of close co-operation and close integration with our Asian neighbours. It is the Australian Labor Party that wants to withdraw from Asia. It is the Australian Labor Party that wants to break down the 5-power defence arrangements. It is the Australian Labor Party that does not want to take part in the SEATO and ANZUS treaties. It is not the Government. And yet he accuses the Government of being aloof and detached. Obviously, the honourable member for Adelaide is a little confused about his own party’s policy.I am not at all surprised. I am quite convinced that a whole range of the people of Australia are confused about the Labor Party’s foreign policy. I would welcome a considered statement of Labor’s policy so that everybody would have a clear idea of exactly where it stands.

I welcome the Minister’s statement because I think it gives a very good basis for and a clear exposition of the policy of this Government in relation to foreign affairs. It is a very broad ranging statement. Like other honourable members speaking in this debate, in the time available I can concentrate on only some points of it. Any consideration of Australian foreign policy must obviously take cognisance of Australia’s geographic position, its traditional allies, its neighbours and their opinions about the way things should be handled, its own capacities and the views that its neighbours have of Australia as a nation. We all know that, geographically, Australia is a reasonably isolated place and it is peculiarly vulnerable to interdiction of its sea and air routes. This is why the establishment of a potentially hostile environment in either the Pacific or the Indian Oceans must be viewed with very great care.

I listened with great interest to the honourable member for Diamond Valley (Mr Brown) in his exposition of the views of states neighbouring on the Indian Ocean. I agree with what he said, but I think it would be wrong for Australia and it would be a dereliction of duty if, in considering Australia’s foreign policy, due weight were not given to the possibility of a hostile environment being developed, particularly in the Indian Ocean. We are concerned about it and the Minister in his statement has made clear this concern. Again, I would like to point up the difference between the Government’s policy and the Opposition’s policy in relation to this. The Opposition is not concerned about it. A hostile Indonesia and a hostile South East Asia would be particularly worrying. Again I join with the honourable member for Diamond Valley in his statements about the very real progress that is being made in Indonesia. I agree with him that we should not downgrade the efforts being made in countries such as Indonesia in their endeavours to attain what we would regard as a truly democratic state. I do not think they should be derided because they are not as far advanced along this path perhaps as we are. I am very concerned about the resurgence of communist insurgency in areas of South East. Asia, particularly in Thailand. Of course, we know what is going on in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. However, we should be concerned also about what is happening in Malaysia. Here again I would just like to point up the difference between the Government’s approach to these problems and that of the Opposition. We consider these situations should be watched with great care. We are worried and concerned that these areas of the world which are of particular significance to us should not fall into communist hands. I cannot think of one Government supporter who has ever been seen marching down an Australian street carrying a Vietcong flag.

Mr Foster:

– Why did the honourable member not go to Vietnam?

Mr MacKELLAR:

– The honourable member over there might carry a Vietcong flag. I would not be surprised if this were the case. But no-one from the Government side has ever done this. On the other hand, a senior shadow minister from the Opposition is totally involved in promoting the causes of the communist people of North Vietnam. The honourable member for St George (Mr Morrison) spoke in the House today about the fact that we should downgrade the importance of the Five-Power Arrangements. We totally disagree with this. Again I think that the people of Australia should be made very much aware of the great gulf between the foreign policies of the Government and the Opposition. There is no use anyone trying to put forward the proposition that the foreign policy of the Government and the foreign policy of the Opposition are pretty similar. They are not.

The Minister in his statement made some reference - and I was glad about this - to the European Economic Community. With the importance, and the rightful importance, that is given to South East Asia, the events in Europe tend to become a little neglected. But the EEC is a most interesting development and I think it does need further clarification. I am not at ail sure that people realise exactly what the EEC is, and more particularly what it hopes to lead to. We all know that it is primarily a customs union covering trade in all goods. There is a ban on customs duty on imports and exports between member countries and there is established a common external tariff. The Treaty of Rome also calls for a common agricultural policy, the free movement of persons, goods and capital and the balancing of social service provisions, amongst other common policies. It is important to note that this arrangement is designed to lead finally to full political union. The original aim was to promote the idea of a fully united Europe. The Minister made mention of this in his statement when he talked about a common foreign policy. Britain originally refused to sign the Treaty of Rome. One of its reasons for this was the fear of loss of national sovereignty. The same fear is still expressed today.

We all know that there are arguments for and against Britain’s entry. Because Australia and Britain have a traditional relationship, Britain’s entry into the Common Market must have significant effects upon that relationship. Arguments against entry abound, but I believe, having been over there reasonably recently, that the principal discussion centres around the question of national sovereignty. To my mind there is no question that accession does involve a loss of national sovereignty. Also there is no doubt that full political integration is a long term aim of the more altruistic of the pro-marketeers. There is also the question of the Commonwealth of Nations and this concerns Australia. The view frequently is expressed that we think that Britain is terribly concerned about the Commonwealth of Nations and about places such as Australia and New Zealand. But I believe that this is subsidiary to the main issue. The British have strong emotional and, of course, economic ties with, especially, white Commonwealth countries. We have a tradition of reliability in times of major test which is greatly appreciated by the British people. I believe that the emergence of radical and disruptive elements in many of the new Commonwealth nations has resulted in a weakening in Britain of a desire to maintain what has been described as the Commonwealth ideal.

I believe with respect to Australia that British pro-market politicians are harshly practical and realistic about Britain’s entry. The generally held view is that Australia is an advancing, sound and sophisticated country with a broadly based economy and huge natural resources. It is close to what is regarded as a vast Asian market with growing trade and political ties with Japan and the United States of America. No real relationship is seen between the problems of Australia and New Zealand and Britain’s entry. It is said - and I believe said quite justifiably - that, if Australia was so concerned about Britain’s entry, Australia has left it very late to express its concern forcefully. I have said that Britain’s entry into the Common Market will make a great deal of difference. But I think that this entry while hurting some sections of Australian trade, also will provide enormous possibilities. If the countries of the EEC continue to develop and to raise their standard of living at anywhere near the rate they have so far achieved, the demand for many Australian goods, particularly goods such as wool, metals, meat and some manufactured items, will continue to grow. The seasonality of production could ensure a continued market for other food products such as dairy products, sugar and fruit.

I come back to the point about positive initiatives. 1, think the main opportunities could be considered as arising from any positive initiatives we take, particularly in establishing more significant diplomatic and trade groups and establishments within Europe. We cannot expect Britain to act for Australian interests within the EEC. Therefore we must work towards the creation of closer economic and trade ties with individual EEC nations in the Community itself. I was glad to see that the Minister in his statement talked about the increased Government representation in Brussels. I agree with this wholeheartedly. I would like to see this occur in other European capitals. I believe that a very strong working relationship must be built and maintained between trade officials and the various industry organisations, both overseas and here.

The Minister in his statement also mentioned that Australia House would come under the control of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Whilst I agree with this completely, and keeping in mind what I have just said about Australian representation in EEC countries, I would urge the Minister to have a very close look at the establishment within Australia House. I took the trouble to have a look at the Australian based and locally engaged staff which this country has in this area. In Britain we have 961 personnel and in Common Market countries we have 268. I think that there could be an imbalance here.

Mr Cross:

– How many migration personnel are involved in that figure?

Mr MacKELLAR:

– I do not have a breakdown of the figures. But I think that even the bare figures require that the establishment should be looked into with a view perhaps to transferring some to what 1 would regard as posts of growing significance throughout the EEC countries. T see that my time has almost run out. I would like to conclude on the note that 1 believe Australia has a most significant part to play in the South East Asian area of the world. We have a tradition of stability; we have a tradition of positive commitment to the future political stability and economic security of South East Asian countries. 1 think that we as a nation and as a people should realise that people living in the countries around us look to us for leadership in these fields.

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

Mr CROSS:
Brisbane

– All I can say is that as this debate progresses the performance of Government supporters improves. The last 2 speakers did not to any serious extent attempt to smear the Australian Labor Party. The honourable member for Diamond Valley (Mr Brown) did not smear the Australian Labor Party at all and the honourable member for Warringah (Mr MacKellar) did so in a very minor way only. The statement on foreign affairs made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) on 9th May differed from previous statements on foreign affairs in that his statement was not nearly so simplistic as were previous statements. It is not nearly so exclusively devoted to the situation in Vietnam or Indo-China; it makes a wide-ranging attempt to look at the situation throughout large areas of the world and to give Australia’s attitudes towards these various situations. So, we should welcome this foreign affairs statement, which is rather broader than any we have had for some time. 1 am one of those people who regret that the pressures of other responsibilities in the Department of Foreign Affairs have precluded the issue of an annual report over the last couple of years. When our present GovernorGeneral was Minister for Foreign Affairs it was decided to bring down an annual report. No doubt this occupied a great deal of the time of some officers of the Department, but certainly it placed before us a great deal of information by way of what one might call an annual review, which is not given in the type of ministerial statement which is made in this House and which, of course, takes into account political considerations, quite apart from administrative considerations.

There is no particular aspect of foreign affairs to which 1 wish to devote my attention, but 1 felt that I should answer some of the things which have been said by speakers on the Government side. The first thing to which I should like to reply is a statement made by the honourable member for Henty (Mr Fox). He said that his Government acceded to the principle that all people have the right to choose their government. I have not noticed the honourable member for Henty being invited to Queensland to speak in the current election campaign in that State where, at the last election, the Country PartyLiberal Party coalition won about 44 per cent of the votes, which was slightly less than the percentage won by the Australian Labor Party, but which gave it a majority of 11 seats. Although I feel that the honourable member’s principles are very fine, I hope only that he will go to Queensland before next weekend and make the people realise that members of his Party from States other than Queensland adhere to views such as the one that he expressed. The honourable member said also- this rather interested me because of his position as Government Whip - that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) should speak out in the House about statements made by the Victorian Council of the Australian Labor Party on the situation in Vietnam. As honourable members will recall, a motion was moved in this House by a Government supporter, in response to which the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Barnard) spelt out in considerable detail their repudiation of the decision made by the Victorian Council.

Another interesting thing that the honourable member for Henty said was that the Labor Party opposed the free and unfettered use by the United States of bases in Australia. This is a statement with which I thoroughly agree. The Labor Party does oppose the free and unfettered use by any nation of bases in Australia. The attitude of the Labor Party is that there are times when it is necessary to have bases in this country - we all remember the circumstances of the Second World War - but we do not believe that anybody should be given a blank cheque for free and unfettered use of a base on Australian soil. I would like to ask the honourable member for Henty or any other honourable member opposite whether he can tell me why members of the United States Parliament are allowed access to these facilities in Australia while members of this Parliament are denied similar access?

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– You would have the same facilities as members of the United States Congress.

Mr CROSS:

– I am aware of a statement

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Your Leader has been there.

Mr CROSS:

– Yes, he has. Am I to take it that, upon request, other members of this Parliament would be allowed to visit these facilities?

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– If equivalent members in the United States Congress were, yes.

Mr CROSS:

– That is rather interesting because there are going to be some applications. The fact of the matter is that, under a Labor government, Australian members of Parliament would be given the same rights that members of the United States Parliament have had but which so far have been denied to members of the Australian Parliament.

The honourable member for Northern Territory (Mr Calder) made the comment that the Labor Party does not regard the ANZUS Treaty as vital. It is true that, at its Launceston Conference, the Labor Party changed what it had said previously about the ANZUS Treaty. It said that the ANZUS Treaty was important - indeed, every member of the Labor Party believes the Treaty to be important - but the significant difference is that the Labor Party is now responding to the Nixon doctrine and it no longer follows that we can place the same dependence on ANZUS as we could in the past. In other words, it is obvious that Australia must develop and continue its capacity to defend itself and play a much more positive role. The rewording of the Labor Party policy was not to suggest that we did not regard the ANZUS Treaty as being important - we do regard it as important - but rather to show that we did not want to put all our eggs in the one basket, if I might use that term, and say that the Treaty was absolutely vital. The Treaty is one of a number of elements of foreign policy that are very important to Australia.

The honourable member for Northern Territory said also that the Leader of the Opposition justified the downward thrust of communism in South East Asia. It is strange how this term is thrown around m this House just before elections. I think we can all remember that, when the Mao Tse Tung administration took over in Peking at the end of 1949, it was the view of this Government and the United States Government that it was an agent for the Soviet Union and that this was the eastwards thrust of Soviet Communism into China. In more recent times we heard from the ex-Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, the idea of a communist Chinese thrusting down between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. We probably are too close to the Vietnam war to look at this situation as rationally as we might, but the lesson of history will probably be that the French, the Americans and Australians have all in various ways played their part towards turning nationalism into a resurgence of communism in that part of South East Asia. The desire of people to obtain their own independence and to run their own affairs as the people of Indonesia, India and the Indian sub-continent, of Ceylon, Burma and many other places were able to do was denied to the people of Indo-China and, from that decision made by the French, all these things have followed through. The Labor Party does not wish to encourage, enhance or justify in any way the downward thrust of communism in this or any other part of the world. What the Labor Party says is that people should be allowed to elect the governments of their own choice, that it is not for us to interfere where people obviously are making their choice and that there are always great complexities in any of these situations.

The speech made by the honourable member for Diamond Valley was like a breath of fresh air. He wanted Australia to live up to its commitments to the United Nations on the matter of the Rhodesian information service. He said that the Vietnam debate was carried on in this country in terms that were too simplistic. This was true, but one could well ask oneself why it was carried on in terms that were too simplistic. The reason is that with the whole issue of Vietnam, the Government sought to extract the last ounce of political advantage from the situation. I can remember in the 1966 elections when, under the leadership of Mr Calwell, the Labor Party took a very courageous and costly stand on some of these issues in Vietnam. I do not pretend to be entirely satisfied with the way that the Labor Party’s policy was spelled out in that election, but the facts of the matter were that many of the things that Mr Calwell was saying and which certainly were the policy of the Labor Party have been vindicated by subsequent developments. But the Government sought to spell out the situation in Vietnam as being communism thrusting down from the north, lt placed no value on nationalism, the incapacity of the Government in Saigon, the propping up of a whole series of military regimes and all these other factors.

The next question raised by the honourable member for Diamond Valley was the neutralisation of the Indian Ocean. I found it an interesting thought. I can remember when the former member for Parkes, Mr Haylen, was in this House and the foreign affairs committee of the Labor Party adopted the principle of a nuclear-free southern hemisphere. The Government went berserk. This idea that perhaps neutral isation of the Indian Ocean might be a desirable thing if it could be brought about, is put forward in rather the same spirit as that in which the Labor Party adopted its policy on a nuclear-free southern hemisphere. 1 say again that the views expressed by the honourable member for Diamond Valley were like a breath of fresh air.

The honourable member for Warringah (Mr MacKellar) started off saying that there were people who claimed that there was no threat to Australia in the immediate future. If one racks one’s brains to recall the last prominent person who said that, one thinks of the ex-Prime Minister, the right honourable member for Higgins (Mr Gorton) who, speaking only slightly more than one year ago, said that he could see no threat to Australia in the next 10 years. Although I do not have it with me, I can supply the Press statement chapter and verse, because I filed it upstairs for occasions like this.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– I think you will find the word ‘direct’ interposed in front of it.

Mr CROSS:

– That is true. I would not like to misrepresent the right honourable gentleman in any way. He said that there was no direct threat to Australia in the next 10 years. It is not true, however, as the honourable member for Warringah said, that the Labor Party want to withdraw from SEATO and ANZUS.

Mr MacKellar:

– I said-

Mr CROSS:

– I am going to deal with what the honourable member said when Dr Evatt, then member for Barton, was Minister for External Affairs he fought very hard to get a treaty with the United States, but the climate in the United States at that time was still one of withdrawal and isolation.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– Dr Evatt drove them out of Manus Island because of a deliberate refusal-

Mr CROSS:

– If the Minister will restrain himself, I will be happy to give him an article by the Honourable J. J. Dedman, previously member for Corio, that sets the record straight, and no doubt we can debate that at some time in the future. Dr Evatt fought hard to get a treaty with the United States. The United Slates became amenable to a Pacific treaty only at the time of the Japanese peace treaty when it was necessary for the Americans to give guarantees to the Philippines, to ourselves and to New Zealand because what was called a soft peace treaty was being entered into with Japan. The Labor Party welcomed ANZUS at that time, supported it all the way through, and still supports it. What we have said about SEATO since the Hobart conference of 1954 is that it is a toothless tiger, and this is what every intelligent person realises it is today. It has not achieved what it set out to do. It was not a legitimate South East Asian treaty because the majority of its members did not come from South East Asia. Many of the nations that entered into SEATO have now either completely withdrawn or have given only token support. One could mention France and Pakistan as 2 of these. That is the Labor Party’s position on SEATO. If you like to go back to the position taken at the Hobart conference, you can see that every single word in the position of the Labor Party taken then has proved to be correct.

There is very little time left to me, but there are some major deficiencies in the statement of the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen). One of them is that although it analyses the role played by the United States and by other nations, it makes no significant mention of the role played by Britain. I think this is a serious oversight. The British influence in Indonesia, in the recent happenings in Bangladesh and in Malaysia - the British contribution there as part of the Five Power treaty that has been mentioned on several occasions is not insignificant. It is a pity that the British role has not been recognised in the statement made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

I was interested to learn that the Australian Prime Minister was among the first of the leaders of the friendly countries to whom President Nixon expounded his plans and hopes before embarking upon the last historic year in United States foreign policy. I wonder if the Prime Minister said anything to him about the disastrous United States foreign policy in Pakistan, a policy which has set American influence in this part of the world back many years. It would be interesting to know just what the Prime Minister’s views were on that occasion, because if he did have this opportunity to speak to President Nixon as one of the leaders of friendly countries, then obviously somebody let the side down, and one rather suspects it was the Prime Minister.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
Minister for Education and Science · WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

– The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) gave this House an admirable review of the world situation, in which Australia must work out her own course in the present and in the years ahead. But the positive side of what the Government is doing, which was depicted in the Minister’s statement, is not the only thing that members on this side of the House ought to lay before the Australian public, because an alternative is available - an alternative that is trying to present itself as a respectable and responsible alternative - to the Government of Australia.

If one examines from the documents that are available the shifts and changes in Australian Labor Party policy over recent years, one comes to the conclusion, I believe, that their policies would not be responsible and would not work to Australia’s advantage. Therefore, I want to devote my time to an analysis of those changes in policy. In 1968 the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Whitlam) published a document entitled ‘Beyond Vietnam’. (Quorum formed). In that document the Leader of the Australian Labor Party quoted a document issued on 18th February 1965 which was alleged to give the definitive view at that time of the Labor Party in relation to Vietnam. I want to quote some part of it:

In its statement to the Security Council on 7 February, reporting the air strikes against military installations in the south of North Vietnam, America insisted that its object in South Vietnam, while resisting aggression, is to achieve a peaceful settlement maintained by the presence of international peacekeeping machinery and that it would not allow the situation to be changed by terror and violence.

This statement of American purposes is unexceptionable and the case for the American action of recent days is based on the aim of shortening the war and achieving a negotiated settlement, which would establish and maintain the rights of the South Vietnamese people, and deserves sympathetic Australian understanding.

The statement continues:

The demand of the Soviet Government for the immediate departure of all American and other foreign forces from South Vietnam would be in the interests neither of the people of South Vietnam nor the people of Australia.

It goes on:

The presence of those forces is necessary and justified . . .

That was the statement - that was the policy - in 1965, enunciated again in 1968. However, if we compare those sentiments with the sentiments of the Leader of the Opposition in this recent debate, we find a very serious change in the situation. The Leader of the Opposition in this recent debate says that we have a situation now which is highly dangerous, in which there is confrontation between 2 great world powers and, be said, that that has come about essentially because in 1954 after the General agreements, which recognised Vietnam as a single country, the United States chose Indo-China as the place where China was to be stopped. A little later the Leader of the Opposition said:

This was the rationale. This was the justification. The hollowness, the mistaken assumptions, the blunders and crimes of 20 years culminated in the statement that President Nixon found himself forced to make today, and that statement itself contained a clear acknowledgment of these blunders.

There was more in the Leader of the Opposition’s statement indicating that the recent action of the President of the United States would not achieve any of the objectives which the United States wants to achieve. It was a statement highly critical everything that the United States has done in Vietnam and in South East Asia. The questions that we need to ask ourselves are: Why has there been this change? How has it come about? Has it been a mere change of heart, or has it been something accomplished by design? The honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley) gave us the answers to those questions in an article in ‘Australian Outlook’ in 1966. Writing after the original Labour Party statement on Vietnam which I have mentioned, he had this to say:

Communism in Australia works for the withdrawal of the United States military presence in South East Asia so that Communism abroad can occupy the vacuum.

A little later he said:

The Communist Party has a tripartite strategy, every point of which involves the Labour Party in a dilemma of extrication. The Communist Party policy points are:

Later in the same paragraph he said:

  1. To make Marxism-Leninism the thinking of the Labour movement.

The policy objective of making Marxism-Leninism the thinking of the ALP may ultimately have foreign policy consequences, and that undoubtedly is an objective, but it is long-term. The second point is more direct.

  1. To have the Vietcong accepted as the negotiating authority in Vietnam. This is regarded in the Labour Party and Movement as an idea, not a strategy. It means, of course, despite our general inability to see it, a great advance in Communist power.

Later in that paragraph he said:

It is the seal of approval on the strategy of war by subversion to accept them as the negotiating authority.

Indicating the third point of the Communist Party’s objective, the honourable member for Fremantle said:

To ensure that at every significant political meeting in Australia on Vietnam and conscription there is a trained corps of professional Communist demonstrators. This is to counterfeit indignant public opinion. One wonders if the primary aim of this is to lead the Labour Party up the garden path and induce it to concentrate on the issues most acceptable to the Communist Party.

So, we have the objectives of the Communist Party, we have the changes in the Labor Party policy, as announced by the Leader of the Opposition recently in this debate, and we have the explanation for those changes given by the honourable member for Fremantle. This is a serious situation which the people of Australia should note.

However, it is not only in these matters that we see the difficulties of the Opposition. We have seen what the Opposition would do to the five-power defensive arrangement between Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom. Ignoring the fact that Australia is the linchpin in this arrangement - ignoring the fact that if Australia were not involved it is most unlikely that New Zealand, being too small, or Britain, being on the other side of the world, would be able to become involved - the Leader of the Opposition would destroy the arrangement by giving vent to the Opposition’s isolationist policies and withdrawing the Australian contribution in that area. The Government recognises that we must be involved in these matters because it believes that our environment will change and that, therefore, it is necessary to be involved in those changes to see that they occur in ways that will advance our cause and the general security of our region. But the Labor Party would deny all this.

The other matter on which there has been a most significant shift in Labor Party policy is the ANZUS Treaty. The Minister for Foreign Affairs on earlier occasions has drawn the attention of this House and of Australia to these changes. These changes were encompassed at the Launceston conference which has had much too little publicity. In its impact and changes of policy it was as important as, if not more important than, the notorious Hobart conference which preceded the split in the Australian Labor Party. Tn the Australian Labor Party’s 1969 ‘Platform Constitution and Rules’ there was a reference to the American alliance as being crucial. There was also a reference to the ANZUS Treaty. It said:

The alliance with the United States and New Zealand is essential and must continue.

Both of these references have been changed very substantially in the much more recent version of the ‘Platform, Constitution and Rules’, the policy document from the 1971 Launceston conference. The reference to the word ‘crucial’ has been deleted and the reference to the ANZUS Treaty has been taken from its area of separate mention. The ANZUS treaty is now referred to in these terms:

The Labor Party seeks close and continuing cooperation with the people of the United States and New Zealand to make the ANZUS Treaty an instrument for justice and peace and political, social and economic advancement in the Pacific area.-

The ANZUS Treaty is a defence treaty, but there is not one mention of the word defence’ in the Labor Party’s policy on the Treaty. If we want to provide additional foreign aid to countries in our region, there are many organisations for and means of doing it. An additional aid organisation is not necessarily required for that purpose. However, there is only one defensive arrangement which involves Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and the Opposition does not use the word ‘de fence’ in connection with that treaty. We need to compare the words in the present Platform, Constitution and Rules’ with the words of the Leader of the Opposition spoken in November 1967. In a newspaper article he is reported as saying:

That the American alliance is crucial’ was the overriding statement in Labor’s foreign policy whatever may be said from time to time by individuals or conference,’ the Federal Labor Leader asserted in Perth yesterday.

Why do we have the changes? Why have they been brought about? We need to give attention to those questions. The honourable member for Fremantle has given an indication of why the policies in relation to Vietnam have changed in his analysis of the involvement of the Labor Party and the Communist Party in the intricacies of foreign policy. But when we come to the ANZUS Treaty we find that at the Launceston conference there was a move for non-alignment of the Labor Party’s policy in relation to the divisions between East and West. The Leader of the Opposition was reported to have said that that would place an intolerable burden on him as Leader of the Party and, therefore, a compromise was found and the compromise is the one to which I have just referred. The honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns) has made it quite clear that this is a deliberate policy to remove any connection with the American alliance. It is the policy of the Left. He is on record as having said not so long ago in answer to a question:

The ALP left wing has a very good chance of winning Federal Conference and Executive leadership of the ALP. Among the changes in policy this would bring are:

An end to the principle that the United States alliance is crucial-

That has already been achieved - . . and a beginning of support for the human rights’ revolution, around the world most often expressed in the national liberation movements.

This is an indication of support from the Labor Left not for our traditional friends and allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, but for the national liberation movements supported by Hanoi and Peking. Honourable members know what the logical conclusion of that kind of policy would be in relation to the United States. It would be the end of the ANZUS Treaty and surely if the honourable member for Lalor had his way it would involve arrangements with Hanoi, Peking or Moscow in place of the ANZUS Treaty. This is the deliberate policy of the Labor Left.

There is another myth which is not unrelated to these matters. The Leader of the Opposition has sought to say that the Labor Conference no longer controls members of Caucus and no longer tells them what to do because it has been changed and restructured. There were 36 members of the Conference but now there are 49, and 4 of those are leading members of the Labor Party. But can 4 among 49 affect the dominance of the left wing? Can 4 among 49 affect the basic union control? We found that when directions were given over the North West Cape radio station they were obeyed and that when directions were given on the industrial policy announced shortly before Christmas they were obeyed. And if directions were given again to the Labor Party, either in opposition or in government, they would be obeyed. This would create a disastrous situation for Australia in a fast changing world, when this country needs a government that can exhibit judgment, commonsense and an understanding of Australia’s objective and purposes in South East Asia, of the kind that was demonstrated by the Minister for Foreign Affairs in his statement.

Mr BRYANT:
Wills

– That was a disappointing speech from such a distinguished member of the Government parties, a member of the Cabinet and a former Minister for Defence. The only thing that the Minister for Education and Science (Mr Malcolm Fraser) talked about was a misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the policies of the Australian Labor Party. I for one hope that the Labor Party’s policies have a Left bias. 1 think that the world has had enough of the reactionaries, right wingers and all the rest who say that there are some values greater than human beings. For the last quarter of an hour the Minister has been spreading a McCarthyist doctrine across the floor of this chamber. ] do not think that it has done him much credit, 1 do not think that it does this Parliament much credit, and it certainly has not added anything to the debate. Why have we not heard from the honourable member for Bradfield (Mr

Turner) this afternoon. He holds the exalted position of Chairman of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs. 1 think that 1 can discharge most of the remarks of the honourable member for Wannon and Minister of State for Education and Science from much further discussion.

We are discussing Australia’s position in the world. The honourable member for Wannon wants to know the genesis of the policy of the Labor Party, of which I am just one member. But for 16 or 17 years I have sat in on discussions in committees of this Parliament and discussions outside in the non-parliamentary area of the Labor movement. Firstly, we are anti-war. Secondly, we believe in the constructive development of peaceful relations between human beings. Some 27 years ago I stood on a hill in Borneo and heard the announcement of the end of the war - a most ferocious war against the Japanese in which no quarter was given. Within a few weeks one found that the people with whom one had fought with great savagery were human beings like everybody else. After a few weeks the people who had fought against one another so furiously had to be prevented from fraternisation. I do not know why they were prevented from fraternisation, but orders were orders. I made a personal resolve then that as far as I was concerned there would be no more wars for young Australians to fight. So I am minded of the noble words contained in the United Nations Charter:

We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to affirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small. . . .

The preamble to the Schedule of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation states:

  1. . that since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed. . . .

The sad thing about the speeches from the other side of the chamber, with 2 notable exceptions, is the failure to express the hopes and aspirations of humanity and the failure to do anything about dragging this Government into 1972. The honourable member for Wannon and Minister for Education and Science referred to a few items of Labor Party policy. He referred to the crossing out of the word ‘crucial* from our reference to our relationship with the United States. I took a little part in doing that. It was not generated in the Communist Party at all, but in the foreign affairs committee of the Labor Party in Victoria a couple of years ago. The proposal was sent forward to the State conference of the Labor Party and from there it went forward to the Federal conference. I believe that the idea that somebody else is crucial to our defence, our welfare and our strength is an abdication of our sense of self-reliance.

What of the statement of the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen)? I personally wish that the name of his Department had not been changed. I think that the term ‘Foreign Affairs’ is a piece of 19th century vanity. I should like to think that we were setting out to try to prevent anybody in the world from being foreigners. The Minister’s statement contained the old stuff that we have heard for years. The right honourable Lord Casey, when he was Minister, used to give us travelogues. The present Minister gives us catalogues. He went round the world and he has described to us what is happening. He did not look at the world as a laboratory in which Australia could practise some social adventure and try to develop new attitudes in the world. He treats it as a museum. The Minister wanders around and looks at things that are happening. He has no prescriptions for anything. His statement is negative, descriptive and unhopeful. Of course, in a world of change the Minister has nothing to change. He has a treaty neurosis. If we look at the statement we see that he is obsessed with military treaties. 1 believe that while military treaties are handy, they ought to be in the background. They are not the elements which make foreign policy or produce a peaceful and co-operative world.

The Minister approaches every constructive proposal from everybody else with an attitude of scepticism. This happened to the proposals from the Government of Ceylon, which is now the Republic of Sri Lanka. I thought that the honourable member for Henty (Mr Fox) expressed the phobia of honourable members opposite when he talked about the world being made up of communists and others, and he said that the ‘others’ were the democrats. There are 14 or 15 communist countries. There are perhaps 14 or 15 democratic countries, even judged by the present Victorian or Queensland standards. The rest of the countries have governments which are a long way away from the governments under which most of us live. After the J 6 or 17 years for which he has been a member of this Parliament, the honourable member for Henty is still obsessed about the Cold War and an attitude of Australia’s helplessness. I have never believed that we are helpless. I have never believed that basically we cannot look after ourselves. I believe that in the last few years there has become an increasing realisation that we do not need to be fearful of the people to our north, that we do not need to look around to find somebody’s apron strings to be tied to.

I believe that this is a time in which we should be examining the seeds of war. Where are they? Once upon a time it was almost anything. In the last 10, 15 or 20 years there have been countless operations which, if they had occurred in the 1930s, would have brought countries to war instantly, but that did not happen. I suppose that the present operation in Vietnam is a case in point. The Americans and the Russians are almost totally involved materially but not personally. There is a charade going on in Moscow; the 2 leaders of these great nations are sitting down perhaps to a late supper, early supper or afternoon tea at the same time as their machines of destruction are destroying the Vietnamese people. If both of them refused to supply the materials of war, the war would come to a halt. I believe that the principal mischief of war lies in the retailing of arms between nations and between private individuals. But in fact if something can come out of this muscovite meeting, if there is some rapprochement or detente - I think that is the word we use now - between these 2 nations, probably we will not get the seeds of war, which presently exist, but the seeds of peace.

I believe that there is an unlikelihood of the kind of war that we knew in World War I and World War II developing between other nations, but in the next 10 or 15 years there could be a conflict between the Russians and the Americans. I believe that the mischief makers of the world at the present time are the international arms suppliers, of which Britain, France and Eastern European countries are the principal ones, and that the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are the principal villains. It seems to me that Vietnam is the country in which we test this out. What is the war in Vietnam all about? Honourable members on both sides of the chamber know full well my attitude to the war. I am not on either side. I was horrified when the Americans dropped bombs on Dong Hoi in 1965. I am equally horrified at the decision of the North Vietnamese command to launch its forces into South Vietnam, knowing full well that they cannot do this without destroying countless thousands of hapless citizens. I do not believe that national unity is worth the destruction of humanity. I believe that 1954 produced a stack of myths which have flowed on down through history and in which we have all become involved. Apart from the people of Vietnam, we have the poor, forgotten people of Laos and the embroiled people of Cambodia or, as it is now called, the Khmer Republic. Somehow it is our duty as a Parliament, and surely it is the duty of this Government, to try to find a way out of this morass - to try to do something constructive to prevent these people destroying one another. I know the difficulties.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam - North Vietnam to all of us - is one of the world’s most isolated countries. It is almost unknown. I am told that at the Convention of Orientalists in Canberra last year when an American rose and made statements about North Vietnam a Russian attacked him and asked: ‘How can you know how it works? Even we do not know’. It is totally intransigent and, of course, it has the Chinese and the Russians on the hook. They cannot get off the hook. The South Vietnamese have the Americans on the hook and the Vietnamese are destroying one another because these countries cannot find some way of solving the problem, of stopping the flow of arms and arriving at some point of neutrality because of their relative powerlessness to hurt one another. Of course it is a difficult proposition to intervene, but we should be doing something. We should be exercising all our diplomatic strength to try to create around the world the kind of public international atmosphere which does produce some response from the big powers. International opinion can prevent some things happening. I instance the projected execution of some people in Russia a couple of years back. Surely international public opinion should be brought to bear upon the Russians and the Americans to arrive at some more satisfactory conclusion of this war.

Australia is in a unique position. My principal complaint about honourable members opposite and the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr N. H. Bowen) is that they fail to recognise this fact. Australia is prosperous, largely free democratically and strategically secure, and possessed of advantages which no other country has. New Zealand probably is as geographically secure but it is not as big and is not in as good a position to look after itself. Australia should be taking the prescriptions of peace and trying to generate world public opinion in support of them. There must be 40 to 50 other Foreign Ministers who could be induced by our Minister for Foreign Affairs to support such proposals. After all, if the Minister for Foreign Affairs can con the people of Parramatta into returning him to this place he should be able to do something with the other Foreign Ministers of the world.

Somehow we must get accepted the view that the sanctity of human life which we have in domestic affairs applies to international affairs. Where should we start? Should we not get some international agreement that boundaries are sacrosanct - that frontiers will be recognised and no armies allowed to cross them? We must develop some kind of international respect for sovereignty and neutrality. I know it will be a long haul, but we should have started in Cambodia some 5 or 6 years ago. When I returned from visiting that country in 1966 I said - this is on the record - that the next threat was to Cambodia and that we should start to develop an international protection for its neutrality and sovereignty. We should have started in 1966. By 1970 or 1971 we might have generated an international atmosphere so that Cambodia was preserved from the horrors of war. I have a deep pity for the people of Cambodia and Laos.

We should work at trying to stop the international trade in arms. I must admit that I have come to the conclusion that Australia should not sell arms to other countries. Certainly there may be a level on which it can be said that there are arms of aggression and arms of non-aggression. Some things cannot be used for aggressive purposes; some can be. We should be trying to generate throughout the world an international treaty, perhaps of the same order as the one concerning the nonproliferation of nUclear weapons, towards this end, so that Britain will not sell arms to South Africa and no country will supply arms to Israel or the Arab countries. Australia is in a unique position to seek the determination of such a treaty. Australia can be more objective, because it is safer than other countries. Of course in the first instance people will say that this is cynicism on our part, but we must face this. It is important that the war in Vietnam be stopped. A victory for North Vietnam is not a victory for communism but a defeat for the peaceful settlement of international disputes. It is not American foreign policy which is on trial in Vietnam nor is it ,hi success of Vietnamisation: It is the world’s capacity to prevent war. The great disappointment I have at present is that Australia has taken no concrete steps so far in determining to generate the kind of opinion that Australia, as part of the 40 or 50 nations like itself, should support. We must try to provide the dynamics to create this kind of world opinion.

If I can make a personal appeal across the floor of the House to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, I do so now, particularly for the people of Cambodia and Laos but also for the people of Vietnam who are being slaughtered, I believe because of the sheer, abstract, inhumane attitude to world affairs of the 2 great powers, Russia and America.

Debate (on motion by Mr Giles) adjourned.

page 2898

PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE BILL 1972

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 April (vide page 2 105), on motion by Mr Chipp;

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– The Bill before the House is significant in that it facilitates the continued operation of the Joint Committee on Public Works. The Opposition does not object to the Bill in any shape or form but 1 take the opportunity to make a few comments about the function of the Public Works Committee. As honourable members probably know, the Public Works Committee is a joint committee comprised of 9 members - 3 senators and 6 members of the House of Representatives. The Committee has a prerogative, on behalf of this Parliament, in respect of the continuation, completion, repair and construction of Commonwealth projects involving expenditure of over $750,000. This covers a wide range of projects. lt is interesting to note that the Clerk of the Senate, Mr J. R. Odgers, in a recent paper, said that the difference between the Australian Parliament and the United States Congress was that every Bill in the United States was subjected to the examination of a committee. I would not be at all surprised if highly beneficial results accrued from that process. In order to explain the American thinking behind this public examination of the Bills by committees, Mr Odgers quoted Mr Alexander Wiley, former Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, who said:

History has shown us that the best law is the one which is based upon the most widespread human knowledge and proper ascertainment ot the facts. The rule made by one man is not nearly as good as the one a man would mab”, after consultation with those who are intimately acquainted with the situation the rule is designed to cover.

I think that is the underlying philosophy of the Commonwealth Joint Committee on Public Works and other joint committees such as the Joint Committee of Public Accounts which renders a valuable service on behalf of this Parliament.

The limited purpose of this Bill is to lift the annual expenditure, which the Committee utilises, from $20,000 to $30,000. This involves an amendment to section 36 of the principal Act. Without going into great detail I think it is worth mentioning that this Act is most remarkable in many ways and, in fact, has unique chacteristics. Time could be spent by the House beneficially in having a good look at the terms and terminology of the Act. It seems to me that the Act perpetuates a lot of attitudes which were first encompassed in the principal Act in 1913. It is quite amazing to see the penalties which are provided under this Act. To enable honourable members to understand what I am talking about I shall mention briefly several of these penalties. I refer, for example, to the power to require appearance and the production of documents. This power may be exercised by the chairman or a member of the Committee. He may require any appropriate person to come before the Committee at an appointed time to produce documents. If there is a non-compliance with this request the chairman or a member of the Committee may issue a warrant for the apprehension of the person concerned. The chairman or a member of the Committee may cause that person to be detained in custody until he is released by order of the chairman or a member of the Committee.

The Act enables a warrant to be executed and provides that a person in executing a warrant may break and enter a building, place, vehicle or vessel for the purpose of executing the warrant. There is also in this Act a section dealing with the failure of a witness to attend an inquiry. I was surprised to find that failure to appear at an inquiry may attract a penalty of $400 or imprisonment for one year. I am not terribly au fait with the legal processes that prevail at the present time but I would not be surprised if this provision were a little bit exceptional. There is also provision in the Act relating to a person who fails to answer a question at an inquiry. Such a person can be fined $400 or imprisoned for one year. Also if a person gives false evidence on oath or affirmation before the Committee he may be imprisoned for 5 years. A number of other provisions in the Act are just as surprising. Glancing through the Act I can see a provision which deals with the type of court in which offences under this Act are to be dealt with. It seems that offences under this Act are brought before a court of summary jurisdiction, which court may commit the defendant for trial or determine the proceedings.

It is interesting to note also that a section in this Act provides for a penalty of $400 or imprisonment for one year for any person who discloses information which was made available to the Commute in private. I see that the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Kelly), who is Chairman of the Public Works Committee, is sitting in the House. I am pleased to see that he is present. I just want to give him some indication that before this week is out I will probably talk about a person who has disclosed information. I am referring to an honourable member who holds a very high position in this Parliament and who has, in my opinion,breached section 23 (5.) of the Public Works Act. Although he is a member of this House he may be in a position to attract the imposition of a $400 fine or imprisonment for one year. I am sure that the honourable member for Wakefield knows what I am referring to. When the Committee is discussing the report concerning the HMAS ‘Stirling’ naval base I will be able to put the matter into sharp relief.

The volume of work carried out by the Public Works Committee has increased quite steadily and to a very large extent, if not phenomenally. If one looks at recent reports of the Committee it will be seen that whereas 3 reports were tabled in 1960, the number increased to 22 reports in 1970. In 1970 the Committee as an extraneous operation, additional to the work that is generally undertaken by honourable members, conducted 57 meetings. The 21st Public Works Committee in its 33rd general report of 1971 referred to the fact that meetings took place in Canberra, in every State capital city, in Alice Springs, Darwin and at Manus Island. The Committee did not have just the one meeting at those places; it went around Australia and visited the Northern Territory on many occasions. I notice that the value of works which the Committee rceommended to the Parliament for approval amounted to $125m. In 1971 18 reports were presented by the Committee, 1 1 of which related to the Northern Territory, and 61 meetings were conducted by the Committee. These reports and meetings covered a wide range of subjects. This is a point which 1 want to emphasise especially. Surely there must be a breaking point for a committee of this kind.

Mr Bryant:

– Perhaps we could have 2 committees.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– This is the point. As the honourable member for Wills indicates, we may well have reached the time when consideration might be given to affording to other members of this Parliament the opportunity to be involved in Public Works Committees. I suggest that if the process of examining proposals to undertake Commonwealth projects involving more than $750,000 continues to involve the presentation of 22 reports a year, il should be apparent to everyone that this Committee will have to be very highly specialised and that members of the Committee who undertake this specialised work will virtually be doing it at the expense of their other parliamentary duties. There is nothing at all to prevent the appointment of a second Public Works Committee. 1 am sure that there would be a very real willingness on the part of members of both Houses to participate in such a committee.

One of the difficulties which faces the Public Works Committee is that it is not concerned with just one category or subject of inquiry. The matters for inquiry range very widely and are shifting very rapidly from one specialty to another. In one week the Committee may be inquiring into proposed works at the tactical training naval base in Sydney, which is a highly technical subject. It may be that the very next day the Committee could be inspecting a beef road, a power station in the Northern Territory or perhaps a residential college for Aboriginals in the Northern Territory. lt may be inspecting an Air Force base in some part of Australia. It may be a naval base or some other defence facility. There is an enormous amount of specialisation involved in the work undertaken by this Committee.

In connection with this specialisation I just want to make some reference to the extent of servicing of the Public Works Committee in Australia compared with what takes place in the United States of America. 1 notice in the United States Legislative Re organisation Act 1970 provision for an increase in the number of personnel serving the committees. The United States has committees representative of both the Congress and the Senate. 1 was very interested to note that there is provision in the United States legislation to enable staff members or research members to be selected by a majority of the minority party on a committee. Of course the matters which come before the Public Works Committee reflect Government priority on matters which have been decided upon by the Cabinet. Many of the proposals before the Committee involve philosophical and other important principles. The emphasis placed on these principles by a member on one side of this House might be different from the emphasis given by a member on the other side of the House. It is very interesting to note that not only are members of the United Slates committees serviced with impartiality but also, it seems, there is an implication that Government supporters are serviced by people of their own choice and persuasion and thai Opposition members, who compose the minority group in the Committee, are likewise given the opportunity of having that kind of logistical backup. lt is very interesting to note that the Standing Public Works Committee of the United States Senate has a staff of 31 personnel and that the United States House of Representatives Public Works Committee has no fewer than 23 personnel. In that country specialised and highly trained people are involved with the Committee in an advisory and logistical capacity. These people include engineering consultants, counsel, project consultants and the like. I do not want to take any more time than is necessary. The other few points I want to make concern some tendencies and trends in the Committee which I believe ought to be the subject of very sensitive reaction. I have already given some indication of the fact that there seems to be a tendency on the part of some senior people in the Government to utilise and make advantage of information which comes before the Committee both in private and in public. Associated with this is a noticeable tendency to pre-empt the decisions of the Committee. I draw attention to that in the hope that members of the Parliament generally might come to understand the traditions of the

Public Works Committee and so that this indelicate practice and behaviour already in evidence, as I say, might cease.

There are other matters which all the Parliament would be concerned about, and they especially involve an increasing tendency to relegate the role of the Committee to that of a rubber stamp. This is especially brought about by the timetabling process. There is a steam-rollering process resulting from the time-table, and it virtually has the effect of putting the Public Works Committee over the barrel; that is to say, because of the limited time available and because the Committee is anxious to co-operate as it should with the Government, some decisions are taken which possibly would not be taken if more time were made available. I remember one classical case in point. It concerns the Avalon air training facility. We were told that a new aircraft was coming and that people had to be trained for this aircraft. We were told also that there was nowhere else in Australia where the training could be undertaken. Although a number of members, possibly a majority of members, of that Committee were not at all enthusiastic about the proposal to locate that training base at Avalon we felt we were obliged to decide on this site even though people might be adversely affected by aircraft noise in that area. We felt we were obliged to make this decision because this aircraft would be arriving in Australia and otherwise we would have insufficiently trained pilots and personnel. Other examples of this could be brought to light in the course of this debate. There is also a tendency for the Committee to be taken for granted in that there is sometimes a complete preparation of plans and schedules before the Committee’s inquiry is completed.

I make those points because I believe that the Committee’s work is becoming of increasing importance, and therefore there should be an increasing emphasis on the impartiality of the Committee, the need to prevent the pressurisation and the need properly to time-table the Committee’s work. I notice from a schedule that has been made available to me that a very considerable time elapses between when Cabinet has a look at a project and decides that the matter has to be dealt with, and when it is referred to the Committee.

Some 3 months elapses from when Cabinet looks at a proposal until it in fact comes before the Public Works Committee. I have a feeling that the Public Works Committee is degenerating into something like a nuts and bolts committee and is being encouraged, if not diverted, to look at a lot of matters that ought to be regarded as the substantial prerogative of the expertise that is available in the Department of Works. In other words the members of the Committee do not want to look at the size of reinforced steel joists, the specifications of concrete foundations or what kind of scantling timbers are to be used in the walls or ceilings of a building.

The Committee ought to provide very early opportunities for the public and others to express their views about the need of the facility. I believe that from the time when the matter comes before Cabinet until Cabinet gives its preliminary approval for the work we should be thinking of the need to conduct a needs hearing. This should go on for some time, if necessary, well before the time when the Department of Works sets about the preparation of detailed plans and specifications. At the present time the work of the Committee is more or less pre-empted by the fact that the very detailed planning is undertaken and the plans are often prepared by the Department of Works at the time when the proposed work actually comes before the Committee for public investigation. 1 commend the Bill to the House. It is of little consequence in itself but it affords this rare opportunity to say a few words in a more public way about the work of the Public Works Committee than it is usual for members to do.

Mr DOBIE:
Assistant Minister assisting the Prime Minister · Cook · LP

– While this is a very restricted debate, my purpose in rising to speak briefly in it is to remind the House not only of the value of the Public Works Committee, which is obviously known to members on both sides, but also to remind this House in our bicameral Parliament of the value of having joint statutory committees. I believe that the matters raised by the honourable member for Hughes (Mr Les Johnson) will be adequately and more properly answered and commented upon by the Chairman of the Committee, the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Kelly). I would like to remind the House that when public works items are referred, as they must be under the Public Works Committee Act, to the Public Works Committee for scrutiny they are not being referred to some select committee or standing committee being a lesser part of one House or the other. They are in fact referred to a legally constituted statutory authority of the whole Parliament, thereby representing both Houses, operating conjointly through a committee and encompassing also capacities available from both sides of each chamber. The importance of this lies in the fact that the views of the joint statutory committees truly reflect the views of the Parliament as distinct from the views of one House or the other.

It might be noted that the importance of this cardinal principle of parliamentary operations has been recognised lately, it would seem, by the United Kingdom Government as well. We are all very much aware that through its long struggles the British Parliament has developed into 2 distinct Houses. This has given rise historically to the development of committees in one House or the other. Because of this it is now most interesting to note the recently expressed views of the United Kindom Government that there would appear to be scope for the development of joint House committees designed to consider matters that are not controversial in a party policy sense. As recently as last year the British Government was known to be considering proposals for this purpose.

As honourable members are aware, the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia has 3 joint statutory committees, including the committee whose appropriation is under review today. The other two, of course, are the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings and the Public Accounts Committees.

In passing, I would hope that the work of select and standing committees of either House of this Commonwealth Parliament is not underestimated or understated. But we should be very much aware that the role of the joint committees, including the joint statutory committees, should likewise not be understated or underestimated by any member of this House or the Senate. There can be no doubt that the joint statu tory committees are engaged in work which is clearly in the public interest. However, there are only 9 members of the Public Works Committee and only 10 of the Public Accounts Committee. These Te indeed slender resources of membership, having regard to the growth areas of responsibility confronting these committees. At a time when we are considering an increase in the appropriation of the Public Works Committee from $20,000 to $30,000, as outlined in the Bill before us, to meet the increased allowances and travelling costs of the existing membership, I put it to this House that it might turn its mind with considerable advantage to the question of providing not only the Public Works Committee but also the Public Accounts Committee with increased membership from both Houses.

The governing Acts of these 2 committees provide for sectional committee operations. While it is pleasing to me as a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee to note that that Committee has recently decided to make maximum use of its sectional committee powers, I believe, based on my personal experience of 5 years membership, that this Committee would benefit greatly from increasing its membership from all represented parties in both Houses.

Sitting suspended from 6 to 8 p.m.

Mr DOBIE:

– Before the sitting was suspended I had been mentioning the need and the advisability for the 2 joint standing committees - the Public Accounts Committee and the Public Works Committee - to use more of their sectional committee powers. Allied to this I see a pressing need for both committees to be adequately serviced by professional staff of the highest quality. The efforts of present and past staffs should be properly acknowledged by this House, and these resources should be further strengthened, not only in the interests of this Parliament but also in the interests of sound public administration.

Unfortunately, time does not permit me to canvass these issues in greater depth, but in acknowledging the increasing workload of the Public Works Committee by passing the Bill which authorises a proper increase in expenditure in payments to its 9 members, this House will be implicitly accep- ting my thesis relating to the abiding importance of joint statutory committees which reflect, in very real terms, the views of the Parliament and not those of either this House of Representatives or the Senate alone. Mention was made by the honourable member for Hughes of the desirability for these parliamentary committees to remain non-political. I would suggest that, unless they are strictly non-political, the role of all parliamentary committees in reporting to the House will be doomed. I support the Bill and commend both committees for the fine work they are doing on behalf of this House.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

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

page 2903

PAPUA NEW GUINEA LOAN (INTERNATIONAL BANK) BILL 1972

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 April (vide page 2107), on motion by Mr Garland:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr CREAN:
Melbourne Ports

– The Bill is one of a series that we have come to expect in recent times. It is for a loan to Papua New Guinea from the International Bank and guaranteed by the Government of Australia. The Minister for Supply and Minister assisting the Treasurer (Mr Garland), when he introduced this measure, referred also to a second loan from the Asian Development Bank. The last time that this sort of measure was before the House some reference was made to the rate of interest at which these loans are financed. After all, Papua New Guinea is a developing country - I suppose that in many respects it is one of the most undeveloped areas of the world - yet the interest rate payable in respect of this loan is li per cent. This indicates some of the difficulties that face development projects.

About a week or so ago I spoke about these difficulties, but that was in relation to what was described as a short term loan where the interest rate was 3 per cent or less. But on this occasion the loan is to service postal development - telephones - in the area and yet the interest rate is much the same as would be paid by well developed areas. We are caught in something of a dilemma here. At this stage Papua New Guinea is becoming independent. Heaven knows what independence is supposed to mean when the Australian Government still provides that country with something like Si 00m annually. We are in the position where we cannot insist much upon the terms and conditions under which >these loans will be repaid. We underwrite them in a sense, although I hope that that country will be able to fulfil its interest commitments and so on.

In the course of his speech the Minister assisting the Treasurer referred to the other loan where the sum was being made available at a nominal rate of interest. This in turn was to be advanced to the Port Moresby Harbour Authority which would be expected to pay interest at the the rate of li per cent per annum. This raises a matter which is significant even to countries like Australia. At times we all have arguments about the Post Office paying notional interest in respect of sums which are advanced directly from the revenue to that undertaking. Here at least, presumably, it is expected that even developing countries should be expected to earn from their commerical operations an amount to be able to service the borrowing at an interest rate of over 7 per cent. I think that this is a pretty substantial burden to ask developing countries to bear. A couple of years ago, on the last occasion a similar matter was before the House, my colleague the honourable member for Wills (Mr Bryant) said that he deplored the fact that Papua New Guinea was expected to pay 7i per cent interest to service the debt. Of course, the question that one has to ask is how else is one to get capital unless the developed areas of the world are prepared to pay money in greater sums.

Another Bill will be presented during the next day or so which deals with Australia’s subscription to the Asian Development Bank. I am glad to know that we will increase our capital subscription. The Asian Development Bank is one of the bodies that provide interest at either low or nominal rates of interest or no interest at all. lt seems to me that this is the kind of burden that developed countries have to accept in the case of Papua New Guinea. I would have been happy in a sense to have seen a proposition in which Australia might have subsidised the rate of interest from the Bank, which is 7£ per cent, to the extent of 3 or 4 per cent so that at least the actual rate of repayment both of amortisation and interest would have been somewhat lower for Papua New Guinea.

The Minister for External Territories (Mr Peacock) is relatively new to his portfolio. I am sure that he is beginning to get an appreciation of what the great development problems in this area are. I think I have said on many occasions that I do not think it is appreciated by most Australians that Papua New Guinea has a population higher than any of the States of Australia, with the exception of New South Wales and Victoria. Papua New Guinea has a population of over 3 million people and this number is rising pretty rapidly. It has an area of about 180,000 square miles which is about twice the size of Victoria. It also has one of the most difficult terrains in the world. This is the kind of area for which wc still have some moral and economic responsibility. We have, I think, a 5-year development plan for the area. Nevertheless, quite substantial amounts of capital have to be invested there. I think that the Bil) indicates that we have borrowed something like $60m from the International Bank and its allied branches. However, there is very little perspective in the sum of $60m. One might take as a comparison the situation that in Australia in terms of investment we spend something like one-quarter of our gross national product which is a sum of around $8,000m. Proportionately that would mean that if a country like Papua New Guinea is to achieve the stages of develop- f”“.v.i of other countries it ought to have an investment programme that would be me-‘N red m thousands of millions of dollars rather than in tens of millions of dollars. I know that this is a pretty impossible task to achieve quickly. But I think occasionally we should set out sights on the perspective of this problem. lt has been said often that if the world would devote to reconstruction the same sort of dedication and enthusiasm that it devotes to destruction, when it actually occurs we might begin to reduce this sort of problem to a manageable size. We are prepared to spend considerable sums of money in areas such as Vietnam. At one stage the United States of America was prepared to spend in Vietnam about $23,000m or £25,000m or something like the then gross national product of Australia. If we had the same kind of enthusiasm to raise the standards of living of people in a constructive sense as we have for one reason or another when we get into military conflicts with them we might get on top of this problem.

The other great difficulty that faces places like Papua New Guinea is that for the most part they depend on extending their external trade for any improvement in their internal standards. Most of the sort of things that Papua New Guinea has to sell are in the nature of tropical products such as tea and coffee. However, this country does not grow sugar for external trading purposes. The prices of the tropical products are not determined by the costs of production in Papua New Guinea but on the hazards of world markets. The other evening when we were discussing the proposed visit of the Treasurer (Mr Snedden) to the international monetary discussions we were heartened to hear in his speech that at least it was acknowledged that trade was in many respects just as important as aid. Often the sums we give to undeveloped countries in the form of various kinds of loans can be set at nought because the price of rubber in the case of Malaysia, the price of tin somewhere else or the price of tea or coffee falls by a few cents per lb. We take away with one hand what was supposed to be given benevolently with another. These are the kinds of problems which face us in this area. Whoever is in government in Australia in the period after the next election will have this problem.

I think that the new Minister is handling the situation diplomatically. For good or ill we have embarked Papua New Guinea upon the hazardous kind of path of what is called self-determination or independence. I think in many respects we have been very foolish in relations with those countries which have inherited Commonwealth institutions such as the Westminster pattern to say that this system is necessarily the best for them. There is a scheme of that kind in New Guinea now. For the first time that country has a Chief Minister. 1 think at least there has been some degree of friendly compromise in setting up the Government in that country. Following the recent elections, no party in terms of a majority had a clear mandate. 1 think that sensible arrangements were made to get a workable Government. I sometimes think it is rather odd that we think we should have parties in some of these systems. At least in our kind of system there is a fairly broad dividing line between the parties and we accept or challenge what is called the existing social system. It is capitalism versus something else. I think that this is a fairly realistic dividing line between the parties. But I am not quite sure what the parties would represent in the Papua New Guinea system. It seems to me in many respects that the only common bond is one of relative poverty and rather low economic development. They have more in common on which to secure an agreed path than to be divided on what might be called ideological party grounds.

At least the measure that is before us attempts to improve the communications system of that area. Papua New Guinea is one of the most difficult places in the world for communications. I suppose that a sophisticated telephone system will be of considerable advantage in that area economically, commercially, culturally and so on. The Opposition offers no objection to the measure. However, I again highlight the difficulties created by financing the development of undeveloped areas at what really are quite high interest rates. It adds an intolerable burden to what is already a very difficult situation.

Mr PEACOCK:
Minister for External Territories · Kooyong · LP

– This is a Treasury Bill dealing with a loan in order to provide telecommunications. It is not a Bill introduced into this House by myself or dealt with by my Department per se as a guarantee Bill on Papua New Guinea. As a consequence, 1 shall not deal generally with the development of Papua New Guinea in the broad but shall relate my brief remarks to matters covered by the Bill and flowing therefrom. There are one or two points arising from the speech of the honourable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean) to which I should like to refer. I shall mention the major points which arose near the end of his speech before returning to the matters under discussion. I point out that both my predecessor and I stated that, although Papua New Guinea has what generally is regarded as a Westminister system of government, this is the provision of a system of government which is not immutable or inflexible and, indeed, it is capable of adaptation by a future government of Papua New Guinea as it sees fit. At this juncture, I shall leave that point. A fortnight ago 1 mentioned a short background description to recent events in Papua New Guinea - the formation of the new Government - and I shall not traverse that area now.

International lending agencies are playing an important role in the provision of finance for Papua New Guinea. Total Papua New Guinea borrowings from international agencies including those negotiated this year for telecommunications and ports amount to $60.6m. This is made up of $39. 3m from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, $ 17.5m from the International Development Association and $3.8m from the Asian Development Bank. The greater part of these borrowings has been for telecommunications, roads, ports and hydro-electricity projects. Further borrowings are expected to be made in future years for additional infrastructure development.

With the help of Australian aid and international financial assistance the Papua New Guinea economy has expanded at a remarkable rate over recent years and has gained greater stability through a successful policy of diversification. Gross national product - outside the subsistence economy - increased by over 14 per cent per annum between 1965-66 and 1968-69 and by 33 per cent in 1969-70, although that was largely as a result of the development of the Bougainville copper project. New agricultural crops have been introduced, mining has achieved major significance, large forestry and fisheries projects are under way or have reached an advanced stage in planning while the expansion of secondary industry continues at a fast pace

Transport facilities and telecommunications are of critical importance - the latter was mentioned by the honourable member for Melbourne Ports - to both economic and social development and contribute to the cohesiveness and national consciousness of the country. In this financial year expenditure on communications in the broadest sense - roads, bridges, ports, airfields, telephone and radio links - will exceed $55m. This is a considerable investment and there will be continuing demands for better access to remote areas and improvements to existing facilities to reduce the burden of costs. It will of course be difficult for Papua New Guinea leaders to find the means to meet these needs. The demand for funds for these needs will compete with other equally pressing social, urban and other demands.

The rapid development of the economy therefore has placed great strain on port facilities. Cargo handled at Port Moresby increased from 354,000 tons in 1967-68 to 464,000 tons in 1970-71, and cargo handled at Lae port increased from 292,000 tons to 544,000 tons over the same period. Despite a 3 shift system, ship delays are serious and are increasing at Lae. At Kieta significant growth in cargo traffic has accompanied the Bougainville copper mining development, whilst at Alotau a new port on the mainland at Milne Bay is being developed to replace the old island port at Samarai.

Port improvements to be made with International Development Association financial assistance will include land reclamation and storage facilities at Port Moresby; construction of a deep water berth at Lae as an extension of the existing wharf; construction of coaster berth facilities at Kieta; and construction of a wharf at Alotau. The loan to which the Bill under consideration relates is to further improve telecommunications following the 4 year programme, proceeding since 1968 with World Bank assistance, with the aim of improving the local network and access to international communications.

The framework for expansion and diversification of the economy has been laid down in the Papua New Guinea development programme which covers the period 1968-69 to 1972-73. Under the pro gramme Administration expenditure is expected to total about $ 1,000m of which about half will be contributed by the Commonwealth Government. In addition to this, net expenditure by Commonwealth departments in Papua New Guinea should be of the order of SI 60m over the period.

The present 5-year programme will be completed in 1973 and a new 5-year national development programme is being prepared. Later this year the Administration will present the main issues of the new programme in a White Paper to the House of Assembly. The preparation of the programme can then be guided by the reaction of the House and of the wider public to the White Paper. The draft plan itself will again be fully debated in the House of Assembly.

Once the plan has been approved, the House of Assembly members will no doubt be active in encouraging their people to work towards its fulfilment. The success of the plan will depend also on contributions by Australia and on other foreign aid so that the national programme will not only need to be acceptable to the people of Papua New Guinea but also must inspire confidence beyond Papua New Guinea and attract outside support. The new programme will seek to further strengthen Papua New Guinea’s capacity increasingly to mobilise its own domestic resources for continuing economic growth.

Approximately a fortnight ago I informed the House of the sale of the Commonwealth’s interest in Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers Ltd to the Papua New Guinea Investment Corporation and mentioned the important role of the Corporation in encouraging foreign investment whilst providing opportunities for a significant local share in the ownership of major new enterprises. The Government’s guidelines for foreign investment in Papua New Guinea seek to promote increasing opportunities for Papuans and New Guineans in both ownership and management of major enterprises and encourage the optimum use of Papua New Guinean resources.

I have no doubt that the new Papua New Guinea coalition leaders have the wisdom to continue with a policy of actively encouraging the introduction of foreign investment and know-how subject to the appropriate guidelines. I am confident, too, that Australians will continue to avail themselves of promising investment opportunities in Papua New Guinea, thereby demonstrating their confidence in Papua New Guinea’s future to investors from other countries. I commend the legislation to the House.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

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

page 2907

CUSTOMS TARIFF VALIDATION BILL 1972

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 27 April (vide page 2105), on motion by Mr Chipp:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

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

Clause 3.

All duties of Customs demanded or collected, whether before or after the commencement of this Act, but on or before the thirtieth day of June, One thousand nine hundred and seventy-two, pursuant to Customs Tariff Proposals introduced into the House of Representatives on any of the following dates shall be deemed to have been lawfully imposed and lawfully demanded or collected: 29th February 1972 2nd March 1972 13th April 1972.

Amendment (by Mr Swartz) agreed to:

After ‘13th April 1972’ insert ‘18th May 1972’.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported with an amendment; report - by leave - adopted.

Third Reading

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

page 2907

TARIFF BOARD BILL 1972

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 10 May (vide page 23 1 1), on motion by Mr Anthony:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– This Bill gives effect to the proposals to increase the size of the Tariff Board by the appointment of 2 additional members. I said much about this proposal on 13th April when the House debated the progressive review of the tariffs under a ministerial statement. I do not intend to cover that ground again. Now we have reached the stage of considering legislation and the Opposition welcomes this Bill for the appointment of 2 additional Tariff Board members. There is one thing wrong with it: it should have been introduced 2 or 3 years ago- but that is not bad for this Government.

Of course, this Bill does very little to help develop the system that is needed for effective tariff-making in Australia. Tariffmaking is not just an economic matter, not just a matter of statistics or econometrics. It is a social process and the most important one available to the national Government in Australia for the development of Australian industry and, thereby, social life. Tariff protected industry is about 70 per cent or more of all Australian industry, and much of the rest of employment and, therefore, of our way of life, depends directly and indirectly upon this 70 per cent or more of industry that is protected.

What is done within this vital section of the economic system will set standards, patterns and even customs for economic life, and for much of social life as well. It will determine the environmental conditions in which we live. I want to stress that point because this is more than a matter of just economics and statistics. It is a matter of building an environment that we are concerned with when we are concerned with tariffs, because with tariffs we are concerned with the development of industry, the pattern and the type it will be. It is time some radically new concepts were introduced into the field of tariff-making, for it is through this that Australian industry - and especially industrial relations and relations between government and industry and workers- can be advanced both in efficiency and in social democracy. Unless emphasis is laid on social democracy, there can be little advance in efficiency or productivity.

Given the proportion of the gross national product that is used for capital in Australia, Australia’s productivity is one of the lowest among comparable countries in the world. I do not believe that this is because of a lack of capital or a lack of up-to-date capital. I do not believe that this is because of lack of intelligence. I do not believe it is because of a lack of hard work. People can and do work hard in Australia, but I think it is wise to note that hard work is not usually associated with high productivity. I think the low productivity in Australia, despite the favourable conditions, is the result of a social pattern of relations in industry in which conflict has been unduly institutionalised. Tariffmaking is not just an economic matter, not just a matter of statistics and money. Tariff-making is a process of social engineering and development. At present both the Tariff Board and its staff and advisers are far too strictly economists. Economists have been educated or, better still, trained in a discipline that has become narrow and unreal. It is not the economics of Adam Smith or Alfred Marshall; it is the economics of numbers, curves and equations, and if a thing cannot be measured it cannot be taken into account at all. This simply means that the most vital and important things are completely left out. We certainly must ascertain and know everything that can be measured accurately. We also must know those things that can be measured only approximately. But, much more importantly, we must know the difference between them. We must know the many things that cannot be measured at all.

The making and unmaking of tariffs in Australia has always been far too much a narrow economic matter. It is even more so now than in the past. The making of tariffs is an important matter in the making of society in Australia. Society is far more than an economic affair, despite the fact that economics is allowed to dominate far too much of it. The Labor movement and, indeed, the people in Australia were well aware that Australia was a country favoured bv nature and circumstances, lt became the ideal of the Australian people to establish in Australia a standard that was not to be determined solely or mainly by economic or social conditions in the old world. Australia was fortunate enough to be a new country and the Australian people believed that they could establish here standards that were better, not because we were better people but because we had far more favourable opportunities. In a significant sense the Australian people have succeeded in establishing those standards.

In the past, protection of Australian industry was a crucial and critical factor in the establishment of those standards, and I believe that today it is a crucial and critical factor in the maintenance of those standards. But in some things Australian standards are not high. In some things standards are higher in other countries, and we in Australia should be more discriminating and more ready to learn than we are. But we have established a material standard, with many good social consequences, which has justified the ideal of seeking to do so. Our starting point in making tariffs should be that we must be determined not only to maintain that standard but also to improve it. I believe that any approach to the question of making tariffs, by the Tariff Board or anyone else, which starts from anywhere else is misguided. Our starting point in making tariffs should be that we must be determined not only to maintain the standard that has been established in Australia but also to improve it. We can do so. I emphasise that our capacity as a nation to maintain and improve that standard is greater today than ever before. If we are to hold to our determination to maintain and advance our material standard and to accentuate its social advance, then we cannot allow the price of goods on our market to be significantly determined or influenced merely by the price of goods produced elsewhere at standards far lower than our own. At no stage in the past would we have succeeded in establishing either our material standard, such as it is, or our population if we had been willing to do so. At present we cannot maintain our standard or our population or, as another way of putting it, full employment if we simply have regard to that factor.

One of the vital factors necessary ro maintain and advance our standards >s protection of the standards we have. This must be the starting point for any acceptable trade and tariff policy in this country, and it is certainly the starting point for the policy of the Australian Labor Party. Furthermore, no party in this Parliament can do other than start from the principle that it will never consent to the disemployment of any Australian worker unless it is satisfied at least that a number of conditions exist. 1 shall point out now some of those conditions. The first is that any such worker will have at least a living wage in any change from one job to another. The existing unemployment pittance, called a benefit, is completely unacceptable as an income for a worker moving from one job to another as a result of the application of public policy through a decision of the Tariff Board because an industry is held to be insufficiently efficient or economic.

Mr Beazley:

– lt is about one-third of Canada’s benefit.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– That is right. It is completely unacceptable and nobody on this side of the House will give any consideration to accepting a policy concerned with the public interest if it has that consequence to the employed worker.

The second condition is that any such worker must be offered an effective course of training to improve his productivity and earning capacity. Fitted into changes that must come about as a result of changes in tariffs and their application must be an effective system of retraining in this country because hardly anyone who is disemployed as a result of a decision of this kind could not be improved considerably in efficiency and earning capacity if a sensible scheme were available. But here in 1972 we have nothing like it. We have a kind of unemployment pittance which, as the honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley) interjected a moment ago, is about one-third of the unemployment benefit paid in Canada. We have no effective retraining scheme for a situation of this kind, lt is totally unacceptable in 1972. Nobody on this side of the House is prepared to accept recommendations by the Tariff Board for a reduction in tariff which will disemploy perhaps hundreds of people, unless we have those 2 conditions met.

A third condition is that no reduction of tariff can be accepted unless it is preceded by a thorough and adequate inquiry. I say in passing that an inquiry by the Special Advisory Authority is not a thorough and adequate inquiry. It is a makeshift, ramshackle, horse-and-buggy provision that is not adequate for a temporary purpose. I believe that Sir Frank Meere, within the scope of what he has to do, submits some extremely well worded and, within the limits of them, effective reports. But this kind of procedure is used far too frequently to justify such an inadequate inquiry as a basis of a decision which can be widespread in its effect. There must be a thorough and adequate inquiry. By ‘an adequate inquiry’ 1 do not mean one limited only to economic facts. Industry, employment and productivity are social matters. They have a social relationship, and facts other than bare economic facts must be ascertained and fully taken into account.

At the lowest level, of course, there are external economies and diseconomies. Sometimes an industry, especially if it is one which has reached a high degree of concentration, will benefit very considerably from something which is done outside the industry and for which it pays nothing at all. On the other hand, there can be significant external economies both of an existing situation and especially of any change in tariffs.

A clear case of external diseconomies are the effects of pollution and economic contamination. The costs of pollution and economic contamination must be met. They are not being met now, and they must be met by the industry concerned alone or with assistance from the State, from the community or from the Government. We must build into the kind of research that is being done a procedure which will result in recommendations being made to deal with the question of pollution and economic contamination by industries that we are protecting. At the present time we have no regard to this. In effect, we allow them to be protected and to pollute freely. What should be done about this has to be reported by the body that inquires to ascertain whether tariff protection should be given, and that body must report what is necessary to deal with such things as pollution, economic contamination and other external diseconomies.

In order to do this the inquiry body and its fact-finding research sections must be more than a body of economists and statisticians. What I would call the industrial research bureau must have economists and statisticians, but it also must have sociologists, ecologists and behavioural scientists, and it must be environmental. Their job is not just to find out how people can work in industry, but to find out how people can live with industry. Unless far more is done along these lines Australian productivity will continue to be low on comparable world standards, because it is the absence of many of those things that are giving us the low productivity record we now have. Some countries achieve better productivity records because wages are low or because compulsion can be more effectively used than it is here. But we are caught between 2 worlds. The worker in Australia is sufficiently independent to have won higher wages and to be somewhat invulnerable to compulsion, but we have not yet worked out a way, as they have in some countries and in some industries in Australia, to be able to do without compulsion. The more industry relies upon compulsion, the lower is its productivity.

The Industrial Research Bureau of the Department of Secondary Industry would be staffed by people not of a narrow econometric range of training but of a comprehensive range of education that would allow the protection commission or industrial development commission, whatever it may be called subsequently, and the Government to be given facts and advice that would allow industry to be treated as a valuable social process and not just a place for making money. The productivity problem will remain with us for a long time; it will remain with us until we can change our attitude in this way and make this change effective.

Yet another significant factor in the question as to who is to carry costs is the one that arises when people lose their jobs, and I have mentioned this already. We must guarantee that such people will have a living wage very little different from that to which they have been accustomed in work. I personally, and I am sure the Australian Labor Party, would never accept any report from the Tariff Board or anywhere else that would put people out of work unless at least these provisions exist. One point that deserves emphasis here is that it is most important that we make efficiency and improvement of productivity in Australian industry a top priority objective. We can be sure that if we are unable to do this it is not only our living standards and full employment but our capacity to conquer poverty and create a better society that will come to nothing. We need efficiency and we cannot get it without change. Change is the law of life.

But one other point is vital: Those who see that tariff changes will help very much in getting better efficiency and productivity and with maintaining our living standards must realise that the old semi-laissez faire method of trying to reduce tariffs will not succeed. If the old semi-laissez faire method is used - and by that I mean the method that all Australian governments have used up to now - then the resistance, and the justified resistance, to tariff reduction will be so great that tariff reductions will not be brought about or, if they are, it will be only at great cost and with unnecessary difficulties. Tariff reductions will be essential in Australia for many reasons. Perhaps the most apparent reason and one given most emphasis is that discussed by the Chairman of the Board, Mr Rattigan - perhaps with greater precision of accuracy than the evidence justifies, but generally in a correct manner.

I think that 2 more points ought to be made. The first is that the Government has been most uncomfortable at the prospects of a comprehensive tariff review by the Tariff Board because it feels sure that in some cases there would be recommendations for tariff reductions, and the Government itself does not know how to handle the resistances that would come if those recommendations are put into effect. I believe that for that reason there has been a lot of dilatoriness about this comprehensive review. Secondly, the Board believes that the tariff review would increase the rate of growth and solve other problems. I say to the Tariff Board and to the Government: If that review is done as it has been done in the past, and with the limits of today’s assumptions and practices, it will make little difference in the next 10 years to economic growth and to the solution of these other problems.

It will not be enough to recommend reduced tariffs. We must have the social, industrial and government machinery that can handle the situation that results from such a policy. We do not have it today, and we cannot afford to wait much longer. Unless we have this machinery the resistances to tariff reductions will be so great that we will not be able to get them in the interests of what is economic and efficient. 1 stress that as 1 have stressed it now for several years. It is only in recent times that I have begun to notice in the speeches of the Chairman of the Tariff Board any reference at all to such things as retraining. After so many years I have not begun to notice them anywhere at all in speeches of Ministers or honourable members opposite.

Mr Street:

– Would you accept adult tradesmen?

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– Yes, of course. The scheme has to be one that is thoroughly acceptable to those involved. I know that the honourable member is aware of the resistances that would be given to this, but these resistances have to be overcome. It is our responsibility, when we are considering the making of tariffs, to set up ways and means of overcoming these resistances. This, I think, is not the end of it. I have given emphasis for a long time now to what the Tariff Board has been saying, that there are wide areas of industry where tariffs have not been reviewed for over 40 years and where those tariffs are excessive. I stress that the fault lies with the Government for nol having, until now, brought about the machinery necessary to tackle a comprehensive review in less than 20 years, and now it is down to 6 years. But having said that, that is not the end of it. lt is correct to emphasise the extent of excess and unused protection. Unneeded protection would be a better term, for one is never sure whether the Tariff Board and others are talking about unused protection or protection that is unnecessary but is nevertheless used, and that is even worse.

It is correct to have a comprehensive review, and it is correct to equip the Board so that the review can be completed within a reasonable time. But I submit that that has not been done yet. The present appointment of 2 additional members to the Tariff Board does not achieve that result. Even if the membership of the

Tariff Board is increased still further the staff of the Board below the level that is necessary to undertake that task is not there. In my opinion, it cannot be done. But there are other matters that need emhasis equally as great, and it is on this point that I wish to conclude.

Important sections of Australian industry are now, and will be in the future, subject to intense competition from overseas, and existing protection will not allow them to survive. Apart from the goods that may emerge from socialist or communist countries, to which capitalist cost of production has no relevance at all, but which can be negotiagted by agreements - like the one with Czechoslovakia, which was announced today by the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Anthony) so that things can be kept under control - there are the goods which more and more will come from countries in which wages are low but in which America and Japan have already introduced the most up to date equipment; and capitalists always seek the lowest wages. When techniques are able to use the low wages of Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Vietnam - one of the important purposes of fighting the war in Indo China always has been to bring Japanese and American capital together with low wage workers - the result is one with which Australian industry cannot ever compete. At present several Australian industries are directly affected, namely, textiles, footwear, plastic products, apparel and a part of metal manufacture. The part of these industries affected would have had a value of production in 1970 of not less than S 1,400m, or about one-fifth of total secondary industry in Australia.

Just as it is necessary to take action to see that excessive and unused protection does not continue, it is equally necessary to warn the nation that large and important sections of industry probably will not be able to continue operations beyond the next 2 or 3 years with existing levels of protection. But it is essential that much of this industry be preserved. The belief that large sectors of industry such as these could be allowed to disappear and still allow full employment and alternative employment to be maintained in Australia is a dangerously naive view. It must not be accepted. It will not be accepted by the

Australian Labor Party as a government. Australian industry today faces a new era. lt is as important in its development as the epoch making one of the 1870s, when industry was established or that of the first decade of this century when industry was extended. Australian industry faces today vast new opportunities and threats equally great. We need a national policy to require Australian industry to take full advantage of the opportunities and to protect it from the threats. We do not today have that policy; nor do we have the means to apply it. We cannot afford to wait much longer.

Mr KELLY:
Wakefield

– This Bill gives the Government power to add 2 members to the Tariff Board for one main reason, that is, to speed up the process of review of those areas of the tariff which have not been explored for some years. In a recent speech I spelt out the need for this. Anyone who can imagine the pressure that will be brought to bear on the metal manufacturers - which is one of the main groups that has not been looked at - by the new amalgamated metal workers union in its demands for over-award payments can see the need for this progressive review. The Government wisely is taking the opportunity to appoint 2 extra members of the Tariff Board to speed this process. I will not argue about the need for this. The honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns) did not either.

There are 4 particular points that 1 want to raise with the Minister for Customs and Excise (Mr Chipp) and with the Government as to what they should bear in mind when considering those appointments. The first point I have mentioned before. I would strongly recommend that the Government pay more attention to the quality of the men appointed to the Board rather than the particular industry whence they come. I think that it is quite obvious that the Board’s responsibility will increase in the future and will become even more important than it has been in the past. For that reason the quality of the men who go on to the Board will be most important, so I hope that the Government will depart from its usual procedure of going to the industry groups rather than looking as a first requirement for quality above all, because quality above all will be required.

The second thing I bring to the mind of the Government is the quality of the reports which the system brings out. I want to refer particularly to the special advisory authority reports. I give as an illustration the special advisory authority report on man made fibres which the Minister presented last Thursday. I will not debate this report in any detail, but I bring to the Minister’s attention one specific fact, namely, that there was recommended by the special advisory authority a 45c a lb duty without any arithmetic or guidance in the report as to what was the ad valorem incidence of this specific duty. No-one, who is not in the textile trade, would be aware of the significance of a 45c duty. We have seen some arguments in the newspapers as to whether it is 60, 80 or 100. I would strongly urge the Government to ask the special advisory authority what is the significance of a specific duty when he recommends it. The special advisory authority has the arithmetic and information within his command. He knows the situation. This action would make the understanding of honourable members much clearer. We would then have more knowledgable and understandable debates, because 1 defy anybody in the House to say that he really understands the significance of a recommendation of 45c a lb duty without any relationship to what it really means in ad valorem terms.

The third point I raise with the Government is that it is no good increasing the membership of the Tariff Board if the Board’s workload is increased by a kind of shuttle service where a report from the Tariff Board is received but is quickly passed to the special advisory authority and subsequently is returned to the Tariff Board again. If there were 500 members on the Tariff Board and they were given this kind of increased workload by passing references backwards and forwards we would not get the important progressive review accomplished. We had a recent illustration of this in the special advisory authority report on man-made fibres which was presented by the Minister last Thursday.

I understand that this will be the sixth time within 10 years that a temporary duty has been imposed on man made fibres. I should not like to be held to that definitely, but this is my understanding of the position. On 18th September 1969 a Tariff Board report was received. In April 1970 it was accepted by the Government and brought before the House. In September 1970 the Minister for Customs and Excise submitted a reference to the Tariff Board concerning dumping. A report was received on that reference in 1971. It showed that no damage was being done but that dumping did indeed occur. Then the matter was passed to the special advisory authority on 30th March. On 18th May customs tariff proposals recommending the imposition of temporary duties were introduced in this House. We could not have a better illustration than this of the way in which a system can be stopped working.

The other proposal that was brought into this House by the Minister last Thursday concerned propylene. This is a remarkable illustration of the way the system gets bunged up. However many members there are on the Tariff Board it is not likely that we will receive the kinds of results that are expected. Although I have not studied this matter thoroughly I understand that synthetic resins were the subject of inquiry in the general report on chemicals in April 1966 and that a 40 per cent duty was made available to the industry. But the industry did not take advantage of this. No-one was producing propylene powder at that stage but the industry had available to it a 40 per cent duty. An industry started up and, having got its head within the tent, it asked for a 60 per cent duty plus a support value of $595 per ton for popolymers. Yet on 3rd May 1971 the Tariff Board received a reference on propylene. On many occasions I have had reason to praise the Minister for Customs and Excise for the way in which he has tried to help our understanding of these kinds of tariff proposals, but in this case, if he will forgive me for saying so, I think he has erred because there was in these 2 instances a need to spell out, firstly, the past history and, particularly in relation to propylene, what is going on now. No-one knows what is going to happen to the Special Advisory Authority report on propylene.

As the Minister would know, once the Special Advisory Authority report is received by the Government it is obligatory upon the Government to refer the report back to the Tariff Board, but the Tariff Board hearing is already in progress and the report has yet to be signed. I guess that the Minister will tell me, when he speaks in reply, what is now going to happen, but it would have helped honourable members to understand this matter if he had spelt it out when he introduced these proposals last Thursday. I hope that the Minister will forgive this soft impeachment. He has been an exemplary Minister in helping us to understand matters in this difficult area, but these proposals are an example of a situation which I would have understood more clearly if the Minister had earlier spelt out what will happen.

Mr Chipp:

– May I ask the honourable member what he means when he says that the Minister for Customs and Excise will spell out what is now going to happen?

Mr KELLY:

– When the Minister replies in this debate.

Mr Chipp:

– Yes, but what do you want to know?

Mr KELLY:

– What is going to happen now that the Special Advisory Authority report has been presented? Will it go back to the Tariff Board which is now considering the matter which was referred to it on, I think, 3rd May 1971. The Board has not yet reported on that matter. Will this go back to the Board yet again? This is the kind of technical information which I would like to have to enable me to understand. In regard to the report on the whole tariff system, it is clear that we are up against problems of protection. Although we know what ought to be done, the difficulty is in how to make the changes. Most responsible people - all economists and indeed most honourable members - agree that the policy of tariff protection that we followed in the past was probably unwise, although perhaps I should not say that, but at least we now know that they are different from the ones that we ought to follow in the future. I am not going to belabour the fact that I have asked for a more realistic approach towards the tariff question, but one thing is clear and that is that future policies - I think that the honourable member for Lalor mentioned this - must be different from the ones that we adopted in the past. Most people agree with this.

There are a few people in this House - and I shall not refer to them by name - who think that very high tariff protection is a good thing. They believe that by having tariff protection we necessarily create more employment. There are only a few of these people but their views have to be listened to with respect because they are sincere people. But they ignore the fact that the employment opportunities which are gained by these lavish protection policies which they recommend are obtained always at the expense of employment and development in other industries, be they export or secondary industries whose general costs and raw material costs are increased thereby. These people ignore the fact that we are now one of the most urbanised countries in the world and that we are now a truly industrialised country with a greater percentage of our workforce employed in secondary industry than has the United States of America.

This group - and I wonder whether I should now put the honourable member for Lalor back into this group because quite often I am uncertain as to exactly where he fits in - also justifies a policy of limitless protection by saying that it protects our industries against the imports from cheap labour countries, ignoring the awful truth of the ever-widening gap that is opening up now between the developed and underdeveloped countries and that our whole civilisation will tumble into this gap unless by some means or other we succeed in closing this gap. The people in this group also ignore the plain fact that many of these undeveloped countries are good customers of ours and that their ability to purchase more from us would be enhanced if we bought more from them. The people in this group are entitled to their point of view but. as I said, there are not very many of them. Most honourable members, all economists and most other people now realise that there will always have to be a price paid for high tariff protection. We now realise that trade always benefits both the exporter and the importer. We realise also that employment gained in the highly protected sector is paid for by the loss of employment in other industries. In short, this diminishing group of people will not realise the economic sense of this argument, but most people now realise that opportunities for employment are enhanced if there is a greater flow of trade.

This brings me to the situation which I wanted to raise particularly. If an industry in the electorate of any honourable member is threatened by a reduction of tariff duty there is a tendency for the honourable member to react strongly to protect the industry. There are always forces operating to slow down the inevitable and beneficial lowering of our trade barriers. We can speed up the process. We can speed up this process by making the change more acceptable. It is not easy to show where employment has been gained. It is easy to point out where employment has been lost if a factory gate is closed, but it is hard to point to employment that has been gained if opportunities in other industries are enhanced, if they are encouraged to expand. How can we make this change more acceptable to a democratic Parliament such as this? I suggest that we should try to bring about changes gradually. The Tariff Board has made some steps along this line, notably in the case of woven shirts and malleable cast iron pipe fittings. Perhaps we should follow this line more often. If we phase out gradually a duty or if we have a programme of lowering a duty and this is done gradually, it will give to the industry a chance to look around for other ways of employing its capital and it will also give to the people employed in the industry an opportunity to seek other employment in other industries, which opportunities may be enhanced by having the cost of raw materials in those industries reduced. We ought to be looking continually for some way which, although it may be slower than the economic theorists and particularly some of my farmer constituents would like, is really better than achieving our objective by trying to knock great holes in the tariff wall suddenly.

Let us have a look at the process of gradual change. Another way we could do it is by compensating industries for change. Many industries have been encouraged to set up by unwise State government action and indeed sometimes by Federal Government action, with the acceptance that lavish protection will always be available. It may well be desirable to ease these industries out of production by compensating them. The classic case is the case of the Imperial Chemical Industries of Australia and New Zealand subsidiary. Fibre Makers Ltd, in the field of man-made fibres. Through no fault of its own it seems to be uneconomic - not inefficient - because of its throughput. It seems that if it continues in production we will have an increasing load on the textile industry that will inhibit development or the chance of the textile industry to expand. This is an example that I give quickly off the top of my head. It is one thing that we ought to be looking at. We may proceed more effectively in the process of lowering tariffs if we look at compensating industries that are already in existence. 1 do not think for one minute that we are ever going to go back to the silly policy of protecting everything that moves as we did in the past. I think those days are gone. At least I hope so. Knowing the democratic process perhaps more clearly than I did in the past, I think we ought to consider bringing about changes more slowly but surely inevitably in regard to existing industries.

The other point I make is that one of the greatest pressures for change in the future will come from an active consumer organisation. One of the things I would hope from the visit of Ralph Nader to the country is that he will bring it home to the consumers that they and they alone are the ones paying the extra cost for some of this unwise protection. There has to bc some change. We all recognise this, except perhaps a few diehards on both sides of the House. We have to work within the economic processes to bring it about. We need a process of more gradual change, particularly in the phasing out of duties. Gradual phasing out of duties, slow though it may appear to the economist, is something that appears increasingly attractive to the practising politician.

Mr CONNOR:
Cunningham

– A debate on tariffs always provokes quite a divergence of opinion. I have heard the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Kelly) on many occasions, and he no doubt believes that he has all the answers; but I feel that today more than ever the whole principles that underlie the present tariff structure, the means of assessing tariffs, are becoming outdated. I am making no reflection whatever on the competence or integrity of the members of the Tariff Board, but we are in a new economic era and it is time that this Government woke up to it. We are today in the era of the multi national corporations, and they are capable of playing hob with any tariff structure. Last week a White Paper on overseas investment was presented to this House which contains some very fine information as to just what can happen in respect of the activities of multi-national corporations.

Lest I be thought to be straying from the subject matter of the debate, I make this point: When we are calculating a tariff and its impact we need to know the profits of the companies which are being sheltered by it or benefiting from it. Even on the statements, guarded as they may be, of the Treasury officials who were responsible for the compilation of the White Paper, the truth is there crystal clear. This Government, with its present methods of taxation and its present methods of investigation of the affairs of some of the overseas companies in Australia, is not capable of collecting the full company tax. If the Government cannot do that, neither can the Tariff Board assess the correct profits of these companies. My thinking has been greatly influenced by a work of a certain Charles Levinson called Capital, Inflation and the Multi-nationals’. He had this to say:

The view is growing that for large firms the interest in exports today extends largely to benefiting from transfer-pricing opportunities made possible through intra-company shipments. By manipulating the prices the parent charges for intra-company transfers among subsidiaries, profits can be managed so as to benefit from favourable tax laws by having the largest amount in tax-haven countries and a minimum in those with high profit taxes.

This is of significance:

Already nearly 60 per cent of US manufacturing shipments are from the US parents to overseas subsidiaries. Nearly a quarter of UK exports are carried out under transfer-pricing conditions. Undoubtedly, a larger percentage still applies to French, Dutch, German and Belgian exports, but the practice is not controlled by the governments at all rigorously.

This is the nub of the chapter from which I am quoting:

Physical exports in classical terms are, therefore, already out of date, as management and capital rather than goods now cross frontiers, oblivious to and unaffected by tariff barriers and non-tariff restrictions on trade.

If honourable members want confirmation of that I refer them to the Gray report on foreign investment in the dominion of Canada, which is under consideration by the Canadian Government at the present time. That report states that it is impossible by orthodox means, whether by tariffs or by fiscal or monetary means, to control these companies. Further than that, the forecast is made - and this is gaining strong support amongst thinking economists today - that within 20 years there will be 300 major multi-national corporations, some of them employing as many as 1 million people, which will literally control world trade.

Unless and until this Government or the one that succeeds it comes to grips with the problem of the multi-national corporation, tariffs and many other of our present forms of economic controls can go very much into the discard. Instances as to how far profits are being manipulated are to be found in the White Paper. The commonest one, of course, is to syphon it off by excessive charges for technology, by royalties, interest and licensing fees. For example, let us have a look at what is happening in respect of borrowing by Australian companies. A fortnight ago we had the first report from the Bureau of Census and Statistics in this field. Nearly $5.000m is being borrowed by Australian companies. Eighty-nine per cent of that is borrowed by overseas companies, and those overseas companies have borrowed it, in the main, from their principals - and for the best of reasons. We come to the principle of what is called shadow capitalisation. In other words, if you want to start an industry in Australia today, do it with the absolute minimum of capital - say, $lm. Borrow $ 1 00m from your parent company overseas and then let it charge you interest on the amount. That, of course, is tax deductible. If it wants to be reasonably honest the Australian company will pay a withholding tax of only 10 per cent on that.

As for the switching around and the swinging of profits from one company to another, it is becoming a major international scandal. With a set-up like that it is worth examining, even at the present time, some of the statistics as to the relative strengths of these multi-national companies and major nations today. Let us take as a case in point the figures in respect of the year 1969, which will illustrate my theme. Let us look at the top 100 gross national products and the turnovers of multi-national corporations like General Motors. The gross national product of the United States was$US931 billion in 1969. The gross national product of Japan was $US164 billion. Then we come down the list to Australia, where the gross national product was$US29.9 billion. The General Motors turnover was$US24.3 billion: Standard Oil’s was $US15 billion; Ford Motors’ was$US14.8 billion. General Motors, in fact, carries more economic clout than countries like Belgium, Luxembourg, Argentina, Switzerland, South Africa. Pakistan and Denmark. Royal Dutch Shell comes next on the list.

There it is. These companies will grow in strength. They will grow in sophistication. What are we erecting against them? What are we proposing to do really to get to grips with these companies? What has this Government done? What is the position in Australia today? The Treasury admits that the statistics are defective and that it can give only an approximation, but it admits that 35 per cent of the profits of Australian companies are being remitted overseas. That being so, it would appear that we are second only to Canada in terms of economic subordination to overseas investors. The honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns) made reference to productivity. This is another matter that should be well considered. Sixty per cent of the Australian work force today is in tertiary industry. It is not in productive industry. The percentage is growing rapidly. There are many reasons for it, the basic one being that, in a country as huge as Australia, the basic and the minimal infrastructure of government as a percentage of population must be higher with our area than is the case in almost any other of the advanced industrial countries. That being so, those who are critics of the output of Australian industry should consider these facts very closely.

The Gray report also suggested that there were new means needed for major companies to come to grips with the problem of the multi-national company. This Government has nothing to offer. It can be seen from the White Paper that, in respect of the overseas mineral companies operating in Australia, it would be very advisable for there to be Australian management. In many cases there has been pre-emptive obtaining of leases so that the companies could keep opposition out of the field. The Treasury stressed the difficulty - in some cases the comparative impossibility - of even collecting company tax from them. That is the position we face today. I would like to hear the Minister for Shipping and Transport (Mr Nixon), who is at the table, give his version.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:
Mallee

– I have said that I will speak for only 10 minutes because the Government and, I think, the Opposition want to get through the business of the House. Also, anything I say will be something that I have said on a previous occasion. This may sound like tedious repetition, but everything I have heard so far in this debate I have heard on other occasions. In a debate on tariffs something new does not crop up all the time. Therefore one keeps saying the same thing one has said before in the hope that somebody will listen, take notice and take action. First of all I want to point out. as it has not been said in the last few minutes, that the main purpose of the Bill is to enable the Tariff Board to comprise 1 1 instead of the present 9 members. This was foreshadowed in a statement by the Minister for Customs and Excise (Mr Chipp) on 12th April 1972. He also said that the Government had decided that there should be a progressive review of the tariff. I am in full agreement with that, and I think most honourable members are.

The debate tonight seems to have been a very moderate one. I have agreed with most of what has been said, up to a point. But it would appear from the speeches made that we have only secondary industry in this country needing protection. That is why I, as a member of the Australian Country Party, have come into the debate. It is a well known fact that the more excessive protection is given to secondary industries, the more harm is done to the economy of the primary industry. I have stated in this House before that when a very big profit is made by some company, the Opposition immediately cries out that the profit is too big. But the Opposition never speaks about the reason for the profit. There could be 2 reasons for a profit. One would be very great efficiency and the other would be an excess of tariff protection which would allow the company to charge high prices and therefore make high profits. Why does the Opposition not draw attention to this? It appears to me to be very clear that the moment these high profits are made a case goes to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission for an increase in wages on the basis of what an industry can afford to pay. If the industry is highly protected, the profits will be very high. When the Arbitration Commission makes its decision on what an industry can afford to pay, the rises given to the employees in the industry must accordingly be high. High costs must be passed on somehow. They are passed on by the manufacturer and the retailer just changing their price tags.

I represent a great number of primary producers, as does all this fine body of men sitting behind me. We believe that if tariffs are to be raised and kept at a high level, primary industry must be protected in some way. This is why on the first day that the right honourable member for Higgins (Mr Gorton) became Prime Minister I asked him a certain question which T have raised again since the present Prime Minister (Mr McMahon) has been in office. I asked: As the division between the economy of secondary and primary industries is widening will the Government reduce tariffs in certain instances or will it grant to primary industry price support on its exports? If the Government decides that it will not do either of these things primary industry will continue to be in a very bad financial position. It must be remembered that it has not just been bad seasons and droughts that have brought primary industry to its knees, but it has been the very high costs in Australia-

Mr Cohen:

– Bad management.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:

– One honourable member is saying ‘bad management’. I have referred to efficiency in industry. He says ‘bad management’, but of course he means bad management by the Government. Although a certain primary industry which has contributed significantly to Australia’s growth may have had good management, because of high prices it could be put in a position of great financial difficulty. [ believe that the progressive review of tariffs must continue and that it is about time tariffs were examined very closely. I do not know whether the appointment of an extra 2 members to the Tariff Board will make much difference. However, I am hoping it will. The honourable member for Lalor (Dr J. F. Cairns) spoke quite well on this Bill. However, I did not hear him mention primary industry at any stage. As prices go up primary industry gets into more and more difficulty. General Motors Holden’s Pty Ltd were mentioned. Of course, this company was established in Australia by the efforts of Mr Chifley. I think that there are at least 2 Holden motor cars for every other type of car on the roads today. If we had to buy these motor cars from overseas the amount of money built up almost exclusively by primary industry in what we call our overseas reserves would soon be exhausted. If this had occurred we would not have been able to import earth moving equipment and many other things into this country. We would not have been able to import raw materials for secondary industry which are not available here because we would not have had the overseas balances with which to pay for them.

Someone said that Australia is just about self-reliant as far as goods are concerned. However, what is the position in the case of rubber? How long would this country last without that commodity? If we did not import rubber from overseas as an instance, most honourable members in this House would not be able to drive or be driven home this week. It is essential that we have this raw material. There are many other goods that we require in this country that we cannot produce. Tariffs must be imposed in such a way as to foster the export of enough goods to accumulate enough money overseas to buy the products of which I have spoken.

The general outlook for primary industry at present is anything but all right. Without something being done to pay what I have called price support for exports, I do not know what else can be done if we are to continue with the present tariff system. I am fully aware, as was stated by the honourable member for Lalor, that one of Australia’s great needs is to have full employment and to provide work for more and more people. Of course we must endeavour to achieve this. Also I want to admit very freely that the home market is the best market for the Australian primary industry. The more people we have working in Australia the more primary products can be sold in Australia. But at present the market is not large enough. In fact, it is only very small. Only a very small percentage - about 10 or 12 per cent - of our wool and only a small percentage of our wheat and other major primary products are sold in this country. By a strange twist of fate a lot of primary products are sold to countries which have a low standard of living and which cannot pay the Australian standard price for those goods. These are the very countries from which our secondary industries are protected by the tariff. So we have a dual opposition to progress by way of better prices and better conditions for primary producers. We have a dual advantage for secondary industry for the simple reason that secondary industry has become protected and it can and does sell its good to primary industry when primary producers can afford to buy them at all.

Mr Cohen:

– The honourable member wants us all to get out and work for the farmers for nothing.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:

– A certain honourable member has interjected. I will not mention his electorate because I do not want to disgrace him. But there is a certain honourable member from Sydney who says that we should all go out and work for the farmers for nothing. If anyone has his mind so muddled as to think I am saying that tonight, he is very far from the mark.

Mr Cope:

– I rise to a point of order. I think that anyone listening to the broadcast might think that the honourable member for Mallee was referring to the honourable member for Sydney and not a member from Sydney.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:

– I am sorry. I said a member from Sydney. I certainly did not mean the honourable member for Sydney. Perhaps the honourable member concerned might care to say what electorate he represents, if he is so proud of what he is saying.

Mr Cohen:

– The honourable member for Robertson.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:

– There we are, the honourable member for Robertson is the man who interjected and that cleans the matter up. It was good of the honourable member to say so, because I did not want to name him. Not only is what the honourable member is interjecting not accurate but, of course, he is trying to interfere with my train of thought on this subject. I can assure honourable members that he is not going to be very successful. I know that some members of the Opposition laugh at a case such as the one I am putting up tonight. As a matter of fact, they are laughing now.

Mr Cope:

– That is a current topic.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:

– I admit that it is a current topic with me. It is a current topic with honourable members opposite to try to foster secondary industry and forget primary industry and that is why we are sitting on opposite sides of the House. I said that I would speak for only 10 minutes and I think that I have just about spoken for that length of time. 1 appreciate the opportunity for saying these words. I hope to continue my remarks about this matter before I leave the Parliament because I think that primary industry is still the greatest factor in Australia’s present standing and progress.

Mr STEWART:
Lang

– I always listen with a great deal of interest to the honourable member for Mallee (Sir Winton Turnbull). He always entertains and amuses me. This evening he did both of these things again. He started his speech by saying that the only industry that had been mentioned in this debate so far was secondary industry. I would have thought that the honourable member had been in the House long enough to know that only secondary industries go before the Tariff Board. Not one primary industry has ever been before the Tariff Board to see whether it is economic and efficient. Not one primary industry has ever had to prove that it is economic and efficient before getting a handout from the Government. I suggest to the honourable member for Mallee that he would be well advised to realise that no longer is this country of ours living off the sheep’s back. The primary industries are no longer nearly as important to the Aus tralian economy as they were. If the honourable member wants to maintain country areas he will have to maintain them by decentralised secondary industries. So when the honourable member gets up and espouses primary industries, as he did in the last few minutes of his speech, I suggest that he should bring his thinking up to date and realise that it is secondary industries now on which our economy relies. There were years when primary industries were absolutely important to Australia. But as the years go on they are getting less and less important. The Australian Country Party above all should realise that. It will have to realise that country areas in the future will rely a lot on secondary industries and other development coming into those areas in order to keep the working population there.

Having said that, let me now concentrate on the Bill before us. This Bill proposes to add 2 members to the Tariff Board for the specific purpose of expediting the review of tariffs which the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Anthony) said he commenced last year. I do not think that the Minister should claim all the credit in this way because his predecessor, when he was Minister, despite the things some people said about him, had the review under way for a number of years. It seems to me that the review was effectively started when Sir John McEwen referred to the Tariff Board such wide and important industry areas as industrial chemicals, motor vehicles, farm machinery and equipment and mining and metallurgical machinery, to name just a few. What the present Minister did last year was to step it up a bit. 1 suggest that he should give some credit to Sir John McEwen who, after all, did a great deal towards encouraging Australian industry. It was quite obvious after listening to the honourable member for Mallee that often he was fighting against members in the Australian Country Party and against other Government supporters.

In the last few months, the Government has found it convenient to pretend that it had made a great decision to put a progressive tariff review in hand and to pretend that the review started with the 10 references announced by the present Minister for Trade and Industry. The Government had to play that game; it had to do something dramatic in the area of tariffs because it had been under pressure from all sections of the community and did not know quite what to do. I do not think that the Government yet knows what to do. We have had the Tariff Board taking the lead in laying down a tariff policy to which manufacturers object. Manufacturers have been demanding that the Government outline a positive and understandable tariff policy, but the Government has failed to do this. The Government has a real dilemma before it. If it said that its policy was the same as the policy of the Tariff Board, the manufacturers would quickly withdraw the support which they give to the LiberalCountry Party Government. The support that the Government receives from the manufacturing industries would no longer exist. So, the Government could not say that.

If the Government had declared that it had a policy different from that of the Tariff Board, it would have caused whiteheat anger among the rural industry supporters and again, I think, the honourable member for Mallee demonstrated this during his speech. Until now, Country Party supporters have been delighted with the policy of the Tariff Board because they believe that eventually, some Australian industries will be closed down and that this will enable the rural industry to buy imported goods at much cheaper rates. Again, the honourable member for Mallee underlined that point. He suggested a price support scheme so that the primary industries could buy their goods at a cheaper rate. However, members of the Country Party do not take much notice of what the closing down of secondary industries in Australia would do to the rest of Australia. What we have before us is a government without a policy. The situation would be hilarious if it were not so damaging and wasteful for Australia. It is a government that cannot have a tariff policy for fear of offending one or other of the 2 sides. So, the Government had to keep on saying that its tariff policy was unchanged and that it would always make the final decisions.

The present Minister for Trade and Industry even made a statement to the Parliament on 28th April last year which called on the Tariff Board to give in its reports all the information needed by the

Government to make its own decisions. The Minister referred to that statement in his second reading speech in a way which could make one believe that the Tariff Board took some notice of his call in April last year and that the Board now gives sufficient information in its reports to enable the reader to understand the basis for the Board’s recommendations and, more particularly, what effect they will have on industry. The Minister suggested that the reports enable the Government to take a decision different from the Board’s recommendation should it see reason for doing so, yet tonight we heard the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Kelly) - a nonprotectionist - saying that the Government is not giving sufficient information to the House in order to allow him to follow the decisions that have been taken.

I ask the Minister to demonstrate in which way the Tariff Board has taken notice of his clarion call of 28th April last year. Whatever his reason for wanting to make it appear that the Tariff Board now is giving the information for which he asked, I invite him to take any Tariff Board report that has been released in the last 6 months and to explain to this House the grounds on which the Tariff Board made its recommendations and the effect on the industry concerned when the recommendations were accepted, and to point to the fund of information given in the report which would enable the Government to take its own decision. The Opposition has been steadily opposing tariff Bills for some time because Tariff Board reports do not explain how the recommendation was arrived at and what effect it is likely to have. To pretend that members of this House are able, after reading a Tariff Board report, to make a personal decision on whether the proposed action is right or wrong, good or bad, is just plain nonsense. Of course, some members have no trouble with this and I think that the honourable member for Mallee is one of those members. Several honourable members have a firm and unwavering formula for dealing with these matters. If a report reduces duties it is a wonderful report and the Tariff Board and the Government deserve congratulations. If it increases duties, the industry which receives the increase in duties is condemned. I ask the Minister to take note, if be does not know already, that the Tariff Board has ignored his call of 28th April last year for reports that we could understand. I ask him to do something about it.

To come back to the subject of the 2 additional members who will be appointed after the passage of this Bill, I fear that the results to be expected from this addition to the Board, while they no doubt will do something to increase its output, have been somewhat overstated by the Minister. It can be expected that more public inquiries will be able to be held in a given time. However, as 1 understand it, the public inquiry is simply the tip of the iceberg and the real work - the collation, the analysing, the researching and so on - is carried out by the staff of the Board. In fact, if we considered the build-up of econometricians on the staff of the Board and looked at the sort of thing being turned out by this staff, we could ask whether the Board members themselves are of any use at all. I would doubt that many members of the Tariff Board or of this House really understand econometric decision making and, if the Board’s recommendations are being based on these decisions - I understand they are - I do not know how Board members can do anything more than simply sign reports which are wholly and solely the work of the staff of the Board. The Board members hear an inquiry and, after the inquiry, move on to another inquiry. While they are hearing that inquiry, the staff of the Board are writing the report for them. The report then would be put before the Board members, perhaps in its concluded stages, and the Board members certainly would not have the time to query the report that is before them. lt is only common sense that the rate of progress of the Tariff Board depends on the performance of the staff of the Tariff Board and not so much on the number of members of the Board. This demands that the best possible use be made of the staff and that their methods and procedures be economical and efficient. I have said before in this House that there is evidence that this is not so. Only a couple of weeks ago, a member of the Press who takes an interest in these matters seemed to have obtained some informtation which bears out what I have been saying. It has become commonplace for some people to berate the

Minister for not giving the Tariff Board enough staff. His predecessor suffered a lot of abuse on the same grounds. This criticism has been made by people who obviously have not examined the situation.

The newspaper article which I have in mind and which was in the ‘National Times’ of 1st May, said that the staff of the Tariff Board had given an output of 1.33 reports per staff member in 1959-60 and that this had dropped to 0.28 reports per staff member in 1970-71. This seems to bear out what I previously drew attention to in the debate last year on the Bill which added a ninth member to the Tariff Board. I pointed out that in 1950-51, with a staff of approximately 15, the Board produced 38 reports. In 1962-63, with a staff of about 60, it produced 58 reports.

In 1970-71, with a staff of about 160 and with part-time assistance of academics from Monash University and other universities, the Board produced the astounding total of 25 reports. I note that the newspaper report said that the figures for output of reports per Tariff Board staff member had been compiled after taking into account the differences in time and complexity as between one inquiry and another. I repeat those figures: 1.33 reports per staff member in 1959-60 and 0.28 reports per staff member in 1970-71. In other words, the Board’s staff in 1970-71 was giving one-fifth of the output per staff member that it was giving in 1959-60. So the answer is not that tariff inquiries are getting more complex and reports are getting bigger.

I understand that the Board’s staff is now around 200. I put to the Minister that he has a responsibility to find out how the Tariff Board staff is being used. It is quite obvious that until it is being used economically and efficiently - and they are favourite words of the Tariff Board - he is unlikely to obtain much of an acceleration of the progressive tariff review, no matter how many members he adds to the Tariff Board. I repeat that the key to the situation is in the way the Tariff Board staff is doing its work, and not in the speeding up of public inquiries. The speeding up of public inquiries is merely the face-saving formula that appears before the public. As I said earlier, the analysing, the collating and the investigating are all done by the Tariff Board staff.

In the January-February 1971 issue of the Australian Industries Development Association bulletin a plea was made for the development of tariff policy criteria and guidelines. I quote the article here in full for the simple reason that time after time in this House the manufacturing industries and their representatives are painted as the big, bad bogeyman against primary industry and our community generally. In this article its author wrote:

The Australian Industries Development Association supports the sound development of Australian industry. It is opposed to any action on the part of government or industry which condones inefficiency or which imposes an unjustifiable burden on the economy.

In the area of tariff protection, AIDA supports a policy of protection for economic and efficient industry, in the measure necessary to attain sound industrial growth at the fastest rate compatible with economic stability.

AIDA believes that a systematic review of the tariffs applicable to industries or to classes of manufactures, particularly where protection has not been reviewed for many years or perhaps not at any time, is in the interests of sound industry development.

AIDA does not support a policy of protection for all who choose to produce. Protection should not be given when the costs seriously outweigh the benefits, and when the withholding of protection would not impair achievement of our major national economic objectives.

Protection must be selective, but selective in a way that aids the achievement of our major national economic objectives of a high rate of economic growth with rapid population increase, full employment, a rising standard of living, external viability and stability in costs and prices.

Any basis of selectivity that leaves those objectives to chance, that is not supported by adequate knowledge of the likely result, is unacceptable.

Decisions on protection must be made by the government of the day, and approved by the Parliament, with a knowledge of all the facts of the particular issue. They are decisions which cannot and must not be delegated, or left by default or by imperfections in the machinery of tariff making, to a body other than the Government.

Few people, if any, could disagree with that declaration. The author goes to to suggest a set of guidelines which would have to be followed by the Tariff Board in its inquiries. Some of the guidelines seek to have information published on the value of the capital invested in the industry, the extent to which local raw materials are used, the extent of overseas ownership and control of the industry, the import replacement value of the industry, the record in export and the future prospects for export, and the num bers directly employed in the industry. There are 26 points in the suggested guidelines, and it seems to me that any government would require information on them before being in a position to make a sound decision on whether the industry deserved protection, and the rate of that protection.

It should be remembered that manufacturing industry employs 26 per cent of the work force. It provides 26 per cent of the gross national product and about 20 per cent of exports. Using an arbitrary figure of 500 employees to distinguish between smaller and larger establishments, the statistics for 1967-68 show that of factories with under 500 employees there are 62,671, with a total of 1.013,117 employees. Of factories with more than 500 employees there are 283 with a total of 326.428 employees, giving a total figure of 1,339,545 employees in 62,954 factories.

Sir WINTON TURNBULL (Mallee)- I wish to make a personal explanation.

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

Sir WINTON TURNBULL:

– Yes. The honourable member for Lang (Mr Stewart) said - I wrote it down as he said it - that the honourable member for Mallee advocated price support schemes so that primary producers could buy their goods at cheaper rates. This is completely wrong. What I advocated was price support enabling primary producers to secure the Australian standard of living price level for their exports.

Mr Stewart:

– I apologise to the honourable member for Mallee for having misunderstood what he said.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

Third Reading

Motion ( by Mr Nixon) proposed:

That the Bill be now read a third time.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– In relation to the third reading of this Bill I think it is to be regretted that no-one on behalf of the Government - neither the Minister nor anyone else - has made any reply to the speeches that have been made tonight. Quite a number of significant questions have been asked, and quite a number of significant criticisms have been made; and quite a number of statements have been made by honourable members on both sides of the House that this Bill is not going to do something that is adequate. Yet we have had no reply from the Government in any way. Indeed, the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Anthony) has not even been present in the House. The Minister for Customs and Excise (Mr Chipp), who has a good deal to do with this Bill, has been in and out of the House, but it has been in the charge, presumably, of the Minister for Shipping and Transport (Mr Nixon). One must remark that this is a very odd arrangement, and I think it is a most unsatisfactory way of dealing with Bills of this sort.

Mr NIXON:
Minister for Shipping and Transport · Gippsland · CP

– in reply - There is a perfectly good explanation why this procedure has been followed. First of all, as I understand it, an arrangement was made with the Opposition by the Leader of the House (Mr Swartz) that would, I think, actually preclude me from speaking.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– There was no arrangement of that kind at all.

Mr NIXON:

– That was my understanding. Irrespective of that, what I will make sure about is that my colleague, the Minister for Trade and Industry (Mr Anthony) - who unfortunately has another engagement and is unable to be here tonight, but did ask me to take the Bill for him - notes the points that have been raised by the various speakers in the debate and replies to them himself.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a third time.

page 2923

DAIRYING RESEARCH LEVY COLLECTION BILL 1972

Bill returned from the Senate without amendment.

page 2923

STATES GRANTS (ADVANCED EDUCATION) BILL 1972

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 27 April (vide page 2104), on motion by Mr Malcolm Fraser:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr BEAZLEY:
Fremantle

– This is a minor amendment to a major piece of legislation. It simply gives effect to the consequences of a change in an award for a section of the staff of colleges of advanced education, permits States to reshuffle some funds between institutions and follows a change in nomenclature in some instances in colleges and governing bodies. As such, the measure is, as it were, inevitable and the Opposition supports it. However, we could wish that some of these changes were of greater significance and that they followed upon research and development to clarify what we are aiming at in colleges of advanced education because we have not yet fully clarified what our aim is.

There is a need for research into teaching methods generally, into the method of examinations and into ways in which efficient approaches to study can be taught - a study of study itself. The colleges of advanced education would be ideal centres for this sort of research and study. There is also a need for research into remedial teaching. Necessary also is research into the subject of external studies for colleges of advanced education- external studies being, according to the Murray report, a distinctive feature of the Australian scene. There is a need for the development in colleges of advanced education of centres for parttime studies and centres for external studies to make both part-time education and external education more efficient and more just to the students concerned. These centres are needed in almost all tertiary institutes of education; they certainly are needed in universities.

The colleges of advanced education must not be allowed to develop the shortcomings of universities which themselves now need to be remedied. Universities tend to neglect teaching and often are inflexible and impersonal in their relationships with students. Colleges of advanced education must have a staffing capable of teaching and taking a personal interest in their students. 1 realise that these statements are outside the range of the Bill, which merely makes simple adjustments in salaries and names of colleges and governing bodies; but I wanted to make those points. The Bill is too narrow to pursue these interesting paths; but, such as the Bill is, the Opposition supports it.

Dr SOLOMON:
Denison

– Once again I find myself unable to disagree with quite a deal of what the honourable member for Fremantle (Mr Beazley) has said, except perhaps in one respect. One might well take this opportunity to make some remarks which perhaps fall just outside the content of the Bill which as the honourable member has rightly said deals only with quite minor matters although they are of sufficient consequence to the institutions involved. As the Minister for Education and Science (Mr Malcolm Fraser) pointed out in his second reading speech, the main purpose of this Bill is to make corresponding supplementary grants Jot colleges of advanced education in the States in respects of costs arising from exceptional increases in non-academic salaries and wages. The grants correspond with those already passed by this House with respect to universities. Of course, that in itself is something of a problem which in the future has to be solved by the governing bodies of these institutions and, basically speaking, by the Government.

The problem is one of university or, as in this case, colleges of advanced education boards or councils providing in advance for wage increases which, in the past at least, they have not been able to foresee with as much success as they have been able to foretell the likely moves in academic salaries and salaries which are closely tied to academic salaries. Of course, when the total budgets of these institutions come into the melting pot these non-academic salaries and wages are important because in these institutions and many others like them the people who are there to service, in one way or another, the people who carry out the central functions of the colleges or universities, namely teaching and research, are more numerous than the people carrying out the central functions.

I would like to take this opportunity to make a few remarks. As I said earlier, the honourable member for Fremantle very briefly made some quite useful comments, and I look forward to the time when he will develop those somewhat more fully. For example, he mentions his belief that there should be a considerable development of external or part-time studies in most tertiary institutions, and other proposals of this kind. He further said that colleges of advanced education should not be allowed to develop the universities’ shortcomings. He did not spend much time elaborating that, but I think I understand what he is talking about, as do some other members. He talked about relationships within universities being impersonal and suggested that this should be avoided in the case of colleges of advanced education. I agree with that insofar as it applies, but I do not want to develop that line of thinking now. What I do want to say is that we are still unclear as to the true function of colleges of advanced education as distinct from the function of universities in particular and any other tertiary institutions that happen to be around in small numbers. Even though there was a reasonable amount of soul searching some years ago when the proposal to establish colleges of advanced education first came forward, we have not yet developed a philosophy on the matters involved to the degree which they deserve. We have now a body for the administration of the whole area of colleges of advanced education. It was set up recently as a counterpart of the Australian Universities Commission, and I believe that so far it has carried out its functions quite reasonably and will continue to do so.

I would like to put it on record, even if it has been done before - I think it has - that there is a fundamental problem of discretion, discrimination and philosophy of education concerning these 2 groups of tertiary institutions - the colleges of advanced education and the universities. The problem fundamentally is that we have to define the proper function of colleges of advanced education, albeit in relation to the existing universities. It cannot be done in vacuo. We have to define that function and avoid as far as possible the implications of snob value, exclusivism and any other matter of that kind which seems to operate differentially, in the public or private mind, as between different types of tertiary institutions. It is not good enough to say, as has been said before and questioned afterwards, that colleges of advanced education stand for applied courses and applied fields of interest, and that universities stand for the theoretical and even abstract pursuits and that in the main they are not there for the purpose of application of knowledge gained and methods devised. I think at the broadest level that is not too questionable, but one does not have to go very far deeper than that to find that there is a bit of a problem in further defining whether that is real or not or whether that distinction is sufficient.

Of course, the problem is vexed by the fact, as has been said many times in the past here and overseas, that, for example, the faculty of medicine at the university was in on the ground floor. It was one of 2 or 3 faculties to be founded in the universities of the world, and if anything is applied it is medicine. So if the faculty of medicine has been in the universities from the word go, why are we talking about universities being essentially theoretical institutions dealing with concepts, abstract matters and research, whereas we want colleges of advanced education to be dealing with hard and fast, down to earth applied knowledge? We have to allow for the fact that there are exceptions to prove the rule, but I would still bold that in the main the generality is true. But our problem here is that we want to pretend that colleges of advanced education are, in effect, universities under another name. I know that there are other and probably better ways of expressing that, but, because of the social content of this question, we are not really prepared to face up to the fact that the cause of education in Australia is not, 1 think, properly served or best served by trying to duplicate universities in the colleges of advanced education.

What we have to realise, and realise very thoroughly to a greater degree than I believe has so far been realised, is that we have the established universities fulfilling a fairly well recognised function which I do not need to go into again and we have institutions developing now in considerable numbers and at a considerable rate of expenditure which should be in as many respects as possible, to my way of thinking, complementary to universities, not duplicates of the functions of universities. I could be wrong, and doubtless people will question this, but to me that does imply a very considerable accent on applied courses which have almost immediate community application; in other words, courses in the field of business tuition, business administration, accountancy, journalism and so on. Those things have been recognised, but I do not believe that at the philosophical base, as it were, they have been sufficiently recognised, nor do I believe that a thorough going policy is being applied to all of those colleges. At the same time I recognise that there is quite a range of differential among the individual representatives under that fairly broad title now of colleges of advanced education.

But there are some things which, as far as I know, are not being done in colleges of advanced education which I think could be done. There may be individual instances, of which I do not know, which would prove me wrong, but certainly some of the colleges of advanced education are not, for example, making the same sort of provision for what is usually known as provisional matriculation, as has long been done at some of the universities, if not at all of them. What I mean by this, in some elaboration, is that there are coming through our high school system students who are reasonably able. I might say parenthetically that 1 am not in any sense advocating any lowering of standards; I am trying to catch the people who get outside the higher educational net and who may, if persevered with a little longer, be brought back into the net for their own and the community’s good. But generally speaking, colleges of advanced education are not allowing provisional matriculation for people, for example, who have just failed matriculation or the equivalent examination. That means that they go out into the community searching for other jobs - it might be nursing or clerking or what have you.

But there is certainly evidence to show that some of these people who have just missed out at that formal level of testing would, if persevered with and given a little chance to mature - and this is true of the universities, and it should be true of the colleges of advanced education - prove their worth and develop their particular attributes and abilities, as I said earlier, to the betterment of themselves and the community. I look forward to that being worked not in the sense that standards are dropped but in the sense that we are searching for every possible means to get people into the system which is developing. It seems to me that in the sense that we are developing in colleges of advanced eduction a very considerable system as a complement, if that is what it is, to the university situation, then we should ensure that there is capacity, by which I mean capacity for places in those institutions so that people can do what I am talking about.

To illustrate the point, since 1967, which was the time of the effective advent of colleges of advanced education, the proportion of the 17 to 22 year old age group in those institutions has risen from 2.2 per cent in 1967 to 3.4 per cent in 1971. The comparable figures for universities in the period 1961-71 show an increase from 6.5 per cent to 9.4 per cent in the 17 to 22 year old age group. So it is pretty clear that in those 4 short years from 1967 to 1971, colleges of advanced education have taken in a proportion of the relevant population which already reaches one-third or thereabouts of the university intake. So we are not either in that sense or in the sense of expenditure, as is well known to honourable members, talking unrealistically; we are dealing with a considerable area of higher education, and I should like to see us make the best possible use of that particular field.

The honourable member for Fremantle referred to the fact that there are changes in the nomenclature of some of the institutions listed in the Bill. That is so, and I do not take any particular offence at that. But I should just like to mention one point in relation to that matter which I hope bears on what I have been saying. There are illustrations around the world where changes in name are supposed to represent changes in function or in level. I am not sure whether I have the name precisely right, but I recall some years ago visiting what had been the Illinois State Normal College, *Normal’ relating to teaching functions. It became, as it were, by administrative decree the Illinois State College. The word ‘Normal’ was dropped. Then oy a further decree and, as I understand it, without any change being made in the structure of the courses or anything else, it became the Illinois University, or it might even have become the Illinois State University. In other words, it progressed from being a designated teachers college to a general tertiary college to a university by changes of name.

That need only be accompanied by changing the degrees or changing diplomas to degrees, or what have you. As we know, this is an area of some commentary .in relation to our colleges of advanced education which have widely adopted degreegiving practices - giving degrees as degrees, not just an award of some other nomenclature. So I think that we ought to keep a weather eye on that, so that a change in name, if it implies changes in the academic function or academic standards, will be accompanied by changes in standards and not merely by words on paper in the titular descriptive sense.

I do not want to continue at any greater length on this matter. As I designated earlier, this is essentially a question of catching up with salary problems in these institutions. They are potentially flourishing institutions. Some of them are flourishing, and some are languishing slightly in the sense that building programmes are behind. This is perhaps somewhat unusual in most areas of construction these days. As we know, these institutions in some places have been trying to catch up. The amount of money involved here is relatively small. On the other hand, the amount of money involved in the total development of colleges of advanced education is quite considerable; it is in excess of $100m at the present time. As the honourable member for Fremantle said, we are dealing with a very considerable field of major educational interest. I hope that my plea for the utmost possible definition - I hope in the optimum sense - of the function of these bodies as distinct from universities in particular may be heeded and pursued. I believe that it is and it will be, but I am not yet satisfied that we know precisely where we are going in this field, and I think there is every reason to find that out as soon as possible.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

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

page 2927

GOLD MINING INDUSTRY ASSISTANCE BILL 1972

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 26 April (vide page 2001), on motion by Mr Garland:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Mr COLLARD:
Kalgoorlie

– Members of the Australian Labor Party support this Bill to amend the Gold Mining Industry Assistance Act, but at the same time we deplore the Government’s failure, or perhaps ft may be more correct to say the Government’s refusal, to recognise and accept at a much earlier date the obvious and urgent need to provide additional assistance to the industry to prevent the serious economic and population disruption which was so rapidly developing in the areas concerned and which, in fact, already has happened to a large degree. We also deplore the Government’s attitude in that the delay in taking some positive action has destroyed much of the benefit that would have otherwise flowed from this additional assistance had it been granted much earlier.

The amendments proposed in the Bill will increase the maximum subsidy of $12 per oz. but it must be remembered that that increase of $4 per oz was sought in June 1968 - 4 years ago - and asI will show later, the situation over that 4 years, due to the Government’s failure to grant any increase at all, has deteriorated quite considerably. The amendments will also bring about an alteration in relation to the effect upon subsidy of any gold sold on the free market. This amendment is now, I believe, by far the most important of the amendments proposed by the Bill. Under the existing Act the subsidy is reduced by 75 per cent of any amount above the official Australian price which is recovered from sales of gold on the free market. As a result of the amendment, the reduction in subsidy will be 50 per cent on any such amount and that 25 per cent, which is equal to 25c per oz difference, will be very valuable indeed because the subsidy alone now is not sufficient with the official price to allow the continuation of the industry for any length of time. Much will depend upon the free market, how much gold can be sold upon it and how much can be gained from it. Because a fairly substantial free market price will be necessary if the industry is to live and because of the reduction in subsidy which will result from any such sales, it is extremely doubtful that the Commonwealth Government will be called upon to pay out the full $12 subsidy.

Another reason, of course, is that if a producer reaches the stage where he becomes entitled to the full $12 he will not be in production for very long because his operating surplus will be too small or otherwise he will be operating at a loss. I believe that in the circumstances the Government, without fear of any significant increases in overall payment, could have quite safely either increased the subsidy at that stage to $15 or otherwise reduced the amount of deduction from the subsidy still further in relation to sales above the official price. However, I would hope that, in the interests of the industry and more especially in the interests of the people dependent upon the industry, whether it be direct or indirect, as a result of a substantial price on the free market or, better still, a substantial increase in the official price for gold the subsidy pay out will be a great deal less than $12 per oz. I say that because every dollar above the official price of $ A3 1.25 which is received from sales on the free market in relation to full production will mean that the producer will be 50c per oz better off.

This is why we need a healthy free market until such time as the official price itself is much higher than it is at the moment. For instance, if the free market were to collapse completely and the official price to remain as it now is, the producers who were entitled to the full subsidy of $12 per oz would receive in total an amount of only $43.25 which at the very best could give them only 25c per oz working surplus. On the other hand, if they recovered, by way of sales on the free market and sales at the official price, an average of $37.25 for each ounce they produced - which would be $6 above the official price - they would receive a total amount of $46.25. As a result of this they would be $3 per oz better off even though the subsidy payment was only $9 rather than $12.

If the average price obtained from the free market and official sales meant $10 above the official price for all gold produced, the producer would be entitled to only $7 subsidy, but as he would receive a total amount of $48.25 per oz he would be $5 better off than if he received full subsidy and no free market. So it can be readily seen that as far as the producer is concerned in the best interest of the industry generally, and as far as the general community is concerned and as the Act stands, the lesser the subsidy the better pleased everyone will be, including, no doubt, the Treasurer (Mr Snedden). However, with regard to the subsidy, the Government, as it now proposes to amend the Act, has once again allowed the deterioration to continue in relation to its real value in the same way as this has occurred on every other occasion the subsidy has been increased. I want to explain to the House that simply by increasing the subsidy but without, at the same time, amending the formula, the real value of any such increase, as compared with the early years of the Act, is swiftly being eroded.

Large producers are the only producers who will be affected by these amendments. As far as they are concerned the formula for determining the amount of subsidy payable each year on each ounce of fine gold produced is three-quarters of the excess of the average cost of production over $27 per oz. That is exactly the same formula as applied in 1954 when the Act was first introduced and it will not be altered by the Bill now before the House. Also, the official price for gold in Australia today is the same as it was in 1954, namely, $31.25 per oz. When the Act was first introduced the maximum subsidy was $4 and that was payable when production costs as per the formula reached $32.34 per oz. This meant that such a producer received $31.25 for his gold plus $4, making a total of $35.25 per oz, which gave him a working surplus of $2.91 per oz. But more importantly it allowed him to continue producing to well beyond the cost of production point at which he received maximum subsidy. It left him with a very reasonable safety margin and as a result allowed a number of mines to continue for some time after reaching the maximum subsidy stage.

In 1957, however, the maximum subsidy was increased to $5.50 with no alteration to the formula. As a result a large producer became entitled to the $5.50 when his average cost of production reached $34.34. This in turn gave him a working surplus of $2.41 which was 50c less than the previous surplus. This was where the rot commenced. In 1959 the maximum subsidy was increased to $6.50 but again without any change in formula. This meant that the $6.50 was paid when average production costs reached $35.67 per oz, but the working surplus at that stage became only $2.08. In 1965 the maximum subsidy moved to $8 and again there was no change in formula. So the $8 was payable when production costs reached $37.66 but the working surplus at that time had dropped to $1.59, or $1.32 less than what it was in 1954. In other words the length of time, on a production cost basis, by which a mine could continue to produce beyond the maximum subsidy stage had been more than halved. Surely that was bad enough, but let us look at what the situation now will be.

The present amendment, as we all know, will provide a maximum subsidy of $12 per oz. But also, as we all know, there has been no alteration to the formula and therefore the maximum will be payable when the average cost of production reaches $43. But the total amount the producer will receive will be only $43.25. so the producer will be left with an operating surplus of a mere 25c - $2.91 in 1954 but only 25c today, $2.66 less than when the Act was first introduced and, indeed, $1.26 less than when the subsidy was last increased. This 25c leaves no room at all in relation to costs and will mean that no company will be able to continue if it reaches that stage. So, as I said earlier, it is most unlikely that the maximum subsidy will ever be paid even if the price of gold does not improve. So, it would seem either that the Government has failed to realise this gradual deterioration in the end value of the subsidy or that it has been prepared to deliberately bring about this deterioration. But, whatever the case, the situation now has been reached where the producer, once he arrives at the point of entitlement to maximum subsidy, has nowhere to go and can only work at a loss or commence closing down his operations.

If it was considered fair and reasonable when the Act was first introduced that there should remain an operating surplus of nearly S3 when the maximum subsidy point was reached, surely there is no reason why that principle should have been changed and certainly there is no reason why it should have changed to the extent that it has. The surplus could have been retained over the years simply by slightly increasing the subsidy and at the same time slightly altering the formula. For instance, to regain the 1954 principle today we would need only to increase the subsidy to $14.66 and to alter the formula to three-quarters of the excess above $23.45 instead of $27; or the base cost of production could be left at $27 and the percentage of 75 per cent of excess increased to 91 per cent. This is what should have been done, one way or the other, because as a result of the delay in granting additional subsidy it will now be necessary to recommence and step up development and therefore the cost of production will go well beyond the break-even point of $43.25 and will be more like $46.50 to $47. As there is no tolerance beyond the point of maximum subsidy, the continuation of the industry, even for the immediate future, is dependent upon a substantial sale of gold on the free market at a very substantial price.

Actually, to meet the estimated costs for this year the industry will need to sell sufficient gold on the free market at a price which will bring an average return of at least $5.50 above the official price for every ounce produced. This in turn will mean that the subsidy payment will be not $12, as the amendment provides, but only $9.25 per oz, even though the production costs are $2.60 above the cost at which the maximum subsidy would otherwise be paid. Even if the maximum subsidy were $14.66, as I suggested it should be to hold its 1954 value, the payment in this case would still be less than $12. It would still be less than the maximum which the Government claims it is prepared to pay but which it never will pay while any gold is being sold on the free market.

I have said in previous debates on gold mining that I was firmly convinced that there would be a substantial rise in the price of gold during this decade. Both the

Treasurer (Mr Snedden) and the Minister for Labour and National Service (Mr Lynch), in replying, have strongly disagreed with me. But I believe that what 1 said would happen is now actually happening. I am certain that there will be a further rise in the official United States price above the recent $3 rise. I believe that that increase was but the beginning of what will occur in the not too distant future, and I believe also that the free market price will eventually rise above its recent record and that before long no subsidy at all will be required. But, unfortunately, the free market is a fluctuating market and it could drop significantly before it finally reaches a reasonably firm level.

But, because it appears certain that before too long it will reach and remain at a price equal to what the industry requires and because it is certain, in my book, that due to industrial use demand alone the official price must also rise. I believe that to ensure that the industry survives over what could be a critical period the Commonwealth should guarantee the industry for at least 3 years a subsidy which would ensure a return of at least $46.25 per oz. This would mean that even if the free market collapsed entirely - and surely noone would suggest that - the Commonwealth would be obliged to pay a maximum subsidy of only $15 per oz, because it is absolutely unthinkable that the official price could drop. If it did, of course, the industry would go out of existence. On the other hand, if the free market price were such that the industry obtained an overall $6 average above the official price, then the Commonwealth subsidy need only be $9 per oz or in fact exactly the same amount as would be paid under the proposed amendment. If an average of only $4 per oz over the official price were obtained, then the subsidy would need to be $11 instead of $10 as provided by the amendment contained in this Bill. In other words, only $1 more per oz would be required. If the average price were only $3 per oz above the official price, the subsidy would still need to be only $12 rather than S 10.50 and would still not be above the maximum which the Government claims it is prepared to pay.

Under the proposed amendments the industry has a guarantee of only $43.25 per oz which is less than the actual cost of production. Therefore, the collapse of the free market could, if the industry were able to continue, cost the Commonwealth the $12 subsidy anyway. So, my proposal for a $46.25 guarantee would cost very little even if the worst happened. Actually, I believe that in the long run it will cost next to nothing. The value of the $46.25 guarantee is that the industry could plan at least 3 years ahead in relation to opening up ore bodies which could subsequently be mined at lower cost and which in turn would give the mines a life of production several years ahead of what could be - not necessarily will be - the case under the existing proposals. On the other hand, it could carry them through to the time when, if my contentions and those of several well known economists are correct, the price of gold both officially and on the free market will have increased substantially.

Therefore, I put it to the Government that having now recognised that in the interests of all concerned it is necessary to give further assistance to the gold mining Industry, it should do the job properly. It should not just provide a half-baked cake but should give immediate and favourable consideration to the proposal of increasing the guarantee to a more realistic figure. I would like to point out that notwithstanding that the Minister for Labour and National Service in his capacity as Minister assisting the Treasurer in October 1970 - apparently he was speaking for the Government - said that he saw little prospect in the foreseeable future of any increase in the official price for gold because it was not in America’s interests, shortly afterwards we learnt that America was considering the situation and a $3 increase. This has now happened without, unfortunately, increasing the Australian price. The Minister also said:

Even if there were an increase in the official price of gold which frankly I do not foresee I doubt whether the industry could exploit any such increase.

Of course, the fact is that any increase in the United States official price will cause an increase in the free market price. The industry is well placed to take advantage of any such increase. That is exactly what it is doing and just as well, because otherwise it would have collapsed long ago. The situation today is that with the increased demand for gold for industrial purposes and because of the recent upward movement in the price it is even more necessary in the national interest to ensure the survival of the industry over its present critical stage. The comment of Mr Menzies in 1954 that the importance of the gold mining industry to Australia needs little emphasis is even more valid today. I trust that the Government will recognise this and change its ideas about allowing the industry to perish.

At the beginning of my remarks 1 said that the 4-year delay by the Government in arriving at a decision to grant additional assistance had caused the general deterioration of the whole situation and destroyed much of the benefit which could otherwise have been gained. In support of what I said I now refer to the 1970 report of the proceedings at the annual general meeting of the Chamber of Mines of Western Australia. It clearly shows that by that time the industry was rapidly approaching a complete cessation of its operations. I would like also to remind the House that it was at that time the Government decided that the industry should be allowed to phase out. The report stated:

Great Boulder Gold Mines Limited ceased milling gold ore on 8th December 1969, and the plant has been converted to the concentrating of. nickel ore.

Lake View & Star Limited, in February 1970, and North Kalgurli (1912) Limited, in April, 1970, announced that virtually all development work on their gold mining leases would cease, and unless there was a marked improvement in the economic position of goldmining, their operations were expected to cease in approximately 4 years and 2 years respectively.

That was 4 years and 2 years from 1970. The report continued:

Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie (Australia) Limited have stated that development and mining of the Mount Charlotte ore body below the 1,150 feet level is unlikely in view of the high capital cost involved. Current ore reserves give the mine a life of J to 6 years.

The Great Boulder mine which, as the report stated, was obliged to close down its underground operations in December 1969, carried an average work force of approximately 750 men. It is fairly safe to say that had the Commonwealth Government introduced the present amendments to the Gold Mining Industry Assistance Act approxiately 4 years ago instead of waiting until now Great Boulder would still be producing gold and would still be employing a very substantial number of men to produce that gold. The Lake View and Star, which over the years has constantly employed between 900 and 1000 men, quite naturally required a much lesser number of employees when it found it was necessary to reduce production costs by cutting down almost completely its development work. The same situation applied with regard to North Kalgurli, which normally employed about 500 men. Here again the reduction in work force and the curtailing of development work would not have occurred if the additional assistance had been provided 4 years earlier. Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie, whose overall work force was normally in the vicinity of 900, was also obliged to reconsider and change its intentions in relation to further development which again had a reducing effect in relation to employees.

The 1970 report of the Chamber of Mines made it quite clear that unless additional assistance was provided the whole industry would fold up within 3 or 4 years from then, not only in Kalgoorlie but over the whole of Western Australia. But the Government, largely no doubt because it had no real appreciation of the true situation and because it refused to take any heed of what people who had the knowledge said, continued to refuse any further help. Naturally as a result of the amendments now before the House, and more particularly as a result of the improvement in the price on the free market, the situation today is healthier than it was in 1970. But unfortunately the fact remains that those shafts which have already closed are unlikely to reopen, and those companies which are still operating have as a result of the forced tapering off actions lost certain and in most cases very substantial sections of their mines which could otherwise have been kept in production for quite a considerable time. Therefore this Bill to amend the Gold Mining Industry Assistance Act and which contains only 2 amendments of any real consequence should have been introduced at least 3i to 4 years ago to have had the required effect.

Perhaps I should point out at this stage that as early as May 1967 an industry deputation sought an increase in subsidy to $16 and were later advised by the Treasurer that a decision was deferred for 12 months, which I suggest makes it clear that the argument advanced by the deputation had considerable weight even at that time, 5 years ago. Yet despite the fact that the situation was gradually worsening the Government’s only action was to allow the producers to retain 25 per cent of what was received by way of premium above the official price. That magnificent concession, of course, had no value at all unless the free market price was substantial, and this was not the case at the time. Even if there had been a substantial increase the Treasury would have been the main beneficiary because of the resulting reduction in subsidy.

I must also point out that in June 1968 the industry lodged a submission seeking a $12 maximum subsidy, the amount which is now to be provided, but the submission was rejected. In June 1969 the industry sought the retention of a higher amount recovered from premium sales, and even this was refused. In March 1970 a further submission was made for a $12 subsidy, and was again rejected by the Government. In October 1970 the Government was asked to reconsider its earlier decision, but this appeal also failed. In addition, over the years referred to, other honourable members on this side and I have on several occasions made it perfectly clear to the Government that unless further assistance was provided large numbers of people would soon be unemployed and a serious population disruption would occur. But the Government remained unmoved. Also, various people and organisations in the areas concerned made submissions and pleas to the Government. All were treated with contempt.

I draw the attention of the House to those facts simply to make it known that the Government was constantly made aware of the serious situation developing in the gold mining areas and to show also that the Government just as consistently treated the several requests, submissions and appeals as though they meant nothing. The House will recall also that on 24th November last year on behalf of the Australian Labor Party I submitted for discussion a matter of public importance in the following terms:

The urgent need for the Government to provide assistance to the gold mining industry to prevent large scale unemployment and population and economic disruption which must otherwise occur in the goldfields of Western Australia.

The House will recall also that on that occasion I was strongly supported by both the honourable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean) and the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Webb). In reply the Treasurer said that hrs Government recognised certain changed circumstances and had therefore submitted the matter for further consideration. He was referring to the nickel industry, but actually it was not a change in circumstances which had occurred but the bringing to light of the Government’s failure to recognise, in the first place, that the nickel industry could not possibly develop either in time or in size to absorb anywhere near the total work force of the gold mines nor prevent a serious disruption in the economy and the population.

The Government’s failure or refusal to recognise the real situation became clear by the remarks of the Minister for Labour and National Service on 15th October 1970 when he said:

The industry should be allowed to phase out.

He also said that in the judgment of the Government there was no lack of employment opportunities for goldfields miners, that economic activity in the area does not, in the view of the Government, require any stimulus, that labour demands in the area would remain strong and that there are plentiful opportunities offering in connection with nickel mining. Those remarks and others that the Minister has made on the subject, when considered against the submissions presented by people with a long and practical knowledge of the mining industry, and when measured against what has occurred over the past few years and also against what the situation actually is today with regard to both gold and nickel, show just how little the Government knows or cares about the gold mining industry and what that industry means in relation to supporting a very substantial population, as a decentralised industry. They also show just how far away the Government is from having a proper realisation or appreciation of demands in relation to mineral markets generally.

So I make it perfectly clear that while we welcome the fact that the Government has finally realised and admitted its errors in previously refusing any further increase in subsidy, while the proposed amendments, even at this late stage, are helpful and are welcomed by everyone associated with the industry or dependent upon it in any way, and although the Act is to operate from 1st January this year, the fact remains that the Government’s failure to recognise the seriousness of the situation at a much earlier date and to act accordingly has caused considerable damage to the future life of the industry and, worse still, has caused not only a considerable amount of worry and suffering but also, in many cases, a considerable financial loss to a fairly large number of people. However the Government can still rectify, to some extent, its earlier failings and help retrieve some of the losses that it has caused if it now accepts my suggestion of an increased guaranteed return. So T again ask the Minister and the Government to give that proposal immediate and serious consideration, with a view to giving a favourable decision.

In conclusion 1 quote from a document titled ‘International Letter’ of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago which is dated as recently as the 12th of this month. It says:

The price of gold on the London market reached an all time high of $54 per oz this week, after rising steadily for about 2 years. According to some observers, the steady rise in the price of gold in the absence of any turmoil in the international monetary system (as in 1967-68, when speculative demand precipitated sharp increases) reflects the steady rise in demand for gold for industrial uses, jewellery and long term investment.

The article also states:

Over the longer term, however, market analysts feel that a much higher free market price than the current one will be necessary to produce new supplies to meet the steadily rising demand. Marginal mines of the world’s major producer, South Africa, are becoming exhausted, and new, less economical to exploit lodes can be tapped only at a higher gold price.

I suggest that that article should be considered seriously by the Government because it makes clear that in the not too distant future there almost certainly will be a substantial increase in the price of gold and a substantial increase in demand. Therefore, we should be absolutely certain that when that occurs the Australian industry is in a sound position to take advantage of the situation. To do this the Government should confer with the industry to determine exactly what is required.

Mr CREAN:
Melbourne Ports

– I support my colleague the honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Collard) who, over the years, has been an advocate of greater assistace for the gold mining industry. As all honourable members know, most of the gold that is currently produced in Australia, comes from Kalgoorlie. Whilst the yields from that area are nowhere near as great as they used to be years ago - nor are the real returns as good because the costs of production have risen considerably - nevertheless gold is still a very substantial industry as far as Kalgoorlie is concerned. In his second reading speech the Minister for Supply and Minister Assisting the Treasurer (Mr Garland) said:

The Government then expected that this would enable gold mining activity in Kalgoorlie to continue to phase out gradually without serious disruption to the population and economy of the area.

It was hoped that, just as the gold mining phased out, the nickel would begin to come in. But such are the hazards of mineral production, as the Minister knows. He said:

The recent weakening of the demand for nickel in world markets has, however, made it difficult for prospective producers to obtain sales contracts.

What we have here is, in many ways, a combination of measures. The subsidy, in essence, keeps the marginal areas in production and preserves the population of Kalgoorlie. In terms of preserving that area the cost of the subsidy is quite insubstantial. If the Government would take the same sort of attitude about decentralisation generally it would be much better for the community. But the tendency, unfortunately, is to work out only the cost that you can calculate and ignore some of the social costs that cannot be evaluated. Kalgoorlie has been kept in existence with a reasonable population for a good number of years now because of the Gold Mining Industry Assistance Act, which has operated for over 25 years now and, according to the Minister’s second reading speech, has cost only $32m in that period. The fact that an area has been preserved for so small a sum indicates, I think, that if we rethought the question of decentralisation and compared it with the problems of aggregations in city areas we might begin to get a new approach.

My friend the honourable member for Kalgoorlie has just quoted from the weekly letter of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago which indicates that the price of gold has reached $US54 an ounce and is likely to increase even further. I have even seen estimates that the price may reach as high as $US85. I certainly would have no regrets if it reached SUS85 but I would have considerable regrets if, at that price, it was still sought to use gold as an international currency unit. I suggest that it is crazy in the 1970s, and in the light of the economic development that is required, to suggest that we cannot devise a system which is entirely independent of gold. I for one have welcomed the new movement - the special drawing rights - that has been in existence now for some 3 years or so, which provides for the automatic creation of credit at an international level to allow for the fact that in a growing world population with rising standards, the volume of international liquidity must continue to rise and that it ought not to be dependent upon the price of gold as a metal.

The honourable member for Kalgoorlie has shown that the recent increase in price has been due to the industrial use of gold rather than to its monetary aspects. The Treasurer (Mr Snedden) is overseas at the moment attending a conference on international monetary arrangements. Before he left Australia he gave the House an outline of what he thought the present monetary problems were. 1 do not think that the price of gold was really one of the central problems of those deliberations. However important gold may be to Kalgoorlie it is not as dominant as far as international trade is concerned. As I have already indicated, I do not want to say very much because the hour is late. But I do support the remarks of the honourable member for Kalgoorlie on a subject which affects his electorate. He has been a very great advocate on the importance to that area of the guaranteeing of a viable existence for this industry. I do not think the people of Kalgoorlie worry very much whether the upsurge that is now occurring in the price of gold is due to the fact that it is an international monetary unit or that it is being used for industrial purposes. As long as they get the higher price both they and the economy of Australia will be advantaged. I saw a suggestion the other day that some of the mines in Kalgoorlie, which have been closed over the years could come back into production because of the higher price being received for gold. I think that there are areas in Victoria and elsewhere in Australia which might do likewise if the price being received at present were to be maintained at that sort of level for any priod of time. The Opposition supports this measure and hopes that it goes through this House and the other place because it is a measure which will be to the advantage of Kalgoorlie.

Mr GARLAND:
Minister for Supply and Minister Assisting the Treasurer · Curtin · LP

– in reply- This Bill seeks to amend the Gold Mining Industry Assistance Act by, firstly, increasing the maximum rate of subsidy paid to large gold producers from $8 an ounce to $12 an ounce, secondly, increasing the proportion of the premium by which the prices obtained for gold exceed the official price of $3 1 .25 an ounce from 25 per cent to 50 per cent and, thirdly, extending the operation of the Act by 2 years from 30th June 1973 to 30th June 1975. It also seeks to make to the Act the administative amendment to which I referred in my second reading speech.

The honourable member for Melbourne Ports (Mr Crean), who just spoke in the debate, put his finger on the point of the speech made by the honourable member for Kalgoorlie (Mr Collard) when he said that this is a matter which affects the electorate of the honourable member for Kalgoorlie. 1 listened to a very party-political speech from the honourable member for Kalgoorlie. It was no surprise to learn from him that he did not think that the Government had done enough. That is always his cry. Indeed, with respect, it is always the cry of all members of the Opposition. 1 have never heard the honourable member for Kalgoorlie praise or approve of anything the Government has done. Of course, as has been said many times but which it is apparently necessary for me to repeat, the Government has a responsibility for the management of the whole economy and to see each proposal in the context of the whole. The honourable member for Kalgoorlie asked for a guarantee over a period. I am not sure that the Opposition’s shadow Treasurer would agree with that. I think, if pressed, I could find remarks in some of his speeches which would put him in opposition to such a proposition. I think it ought to be recorded that the personal interest of the honourable member for Kalgoorlie in this matter is not really shared by his Party. There were only some 4 members of his Party in the House listening to his speech. Indeed, I think it is only fair to state that as soon as he finished the honourable member for Kalgoorlie immediately left the chamber. Apparently there is not a great deal of interest in this matter.

As I have said, the Government has seen the need to make these amendments and to put forward these proposals in order to support the gold mining industry in Kalgoorlie. I think that the honourable member for Kalgoorlie recognised that the premium revision was most important and, by implication, he supported it. The position of the goldmining industry has been much improved by the dramatic price rise that is currently taking place in the free market. The Government, of course, is pleased for the gold producers to see that rise take place. The honourable member for Kalgoorlie complained about the free market price and speculated on what would happen if that price fell dramatically. However, it must be said that it is very hard to see any sign of that happening at present.

The honourable member went on to make a number of references to the industry in his electorate. I think it is only fair to say that Kalgoorlie gold mines have congratulated the Government on its amendments, as has the Western Australian industry generally. The industry seems to take a much kinder view of the amendments than does the honourable member for Kalgoorlie. This revision should in part achieve the Government’s objective and aim of keeping the Kalgoorlie gold producers going until the nickel producers can be phased in.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Message from Governor-General recommending appropriation announced.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

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

House adjourned at 11.14 p.m.

page 2935

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE

The following answers to questions upon notice were circulated:

Education: Commonwealth Secondary Scholarships and Grants (Question No. 5118)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Edu cation and Science, upon notice:

  1. What are the names of all secondary schools in the Electoral Divisions of Diamond Valley, La Trobe, Casey, Holt and McMillan.
  2. What has been the enrolment at each of these schools in each year since the inception of the Commonwealth secondary scholarships scheme.
  3. What has been the (a) number and (b) percentage of pupils at each school in each year who (i) sought and (ii) gained Commonwealth secondary scholarships.
  4. Which of these secondary schools have received assistance under the States Grants (Science Laboratories) Act or the States Grants (Secondary School Libraries) Act and what was the (a) date and (b) amount of assistance in each case.
  5. What amount has been received each year by each of these schools under the States Grants (Independent Schools) Act.
Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

  1. and (2) Lists of names of individual schools within electoral districts and statistics on enrolments at specific schools are not kept by my Department.
  2. In view of my answers to Parts (1) and (2) of the question, I am unable to provide the honourable member with information in the detail requested on pupils who sought and gained Commonwealth Secondary Scholarships. However, in my answer to Question No. 3847 (Hansard, 7th October 1971, page 2124) I was able to provide details of the numbers of candidates who competed for and were awarded Commonwealth Secondary Scholarships each year since the scheme was introduced according to the category of school attended in the year they applied for the scholarships, by State. If the honourable member wishes to obtain details about individual schools I shall see what information can be provided for any particular school which he names.
  3. In my answer to Question 3848 (Hansard, 9th September, 1971 page 1101) I explained the arrangements for informing Parliament of developments in the Science and Libraries Programmes including the listing of schools receiving or expecting to receive facilities under these programmes.

In respect of the Science Facilities Programme, the most recent statement to the Parliament was presented on 8th December 1971. This set out details of expenditure under the Programme for the three years ending 30th June 1971. It listed the names of government secondary schools which had received facilities under the programme and the names of non-government schools together with the amounts of money which were approved for payment during the three year period.

In respect of the Libraries Programme the most recent statement to the Parliament was presented on 5th May 1971. This lists the names of government schools which are receiving facilities under the Programme and the names of non-government schools, together with the amount of each grant that has been approved by the Commonwealth Minister.

I suggested previously that if moredetailed information is required on grants to individual government schools, an approach should be made to the State Minister for Education concerned. If information on a particular non-government school is required, I undertook to provide it.

  1. In accordance with Section 7 of the States Grants (Independent Schools) Act 1969 I am required to table each year a statement which indicates the amount paid to each school after the Act in the previous year. The report in respect of the 1970 Calendar Year was tabled in the House on 19th August 1971, and the honourable member can obtain the information he requires from that report. A similar report will be tabled this year.

Senior Citizens’ Centres (Question No. 5232)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Minister for

Social Services, upon notice:

  1. How many senior citizens’ centres have been provided in each State and Territory under the provisions of the States Grants (Home Care) Act.
  2. Does capital expenditure incurred in respect of senior citizens’ centres by (a) local government authorities, (b) service clubs, (c) churches, (d) trade unions and (e) aged persons organisations qualify for subsidy under the Act.
  3. How many welfare officers are now subsidised under the Act.
  4. Are any subsidies paid in respect of the salaries of welfare officers or social workers employed by local government authorities.
Mr Wentworth:
Minister for Social Services · MACKELLAR, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

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

  1. Fifty-eight (58) grants have been made to date under the provisions of the States Grants (Home Care) Act, to help meet the cost of constructing or extending senior citizens’ centres, as follows:
  1. The Act provides that where a State or local governing body has incurred expenditure for the purpose of meeting in whole or in part the approved capital cost of an approved senior citizens’ centre the Commonwealth may pay to the State an amount equal to one half of the amount so expended, up to a maximum of one-third of the approved capital cost of the project. Contributions to projects by service clubs, churches, trade unions and aged persons organisations are not eligible for reimbursement.
  2. Eleven.
  3. Yes. Two.

Employment Training Scheme (Question No. 5240)

Mr Kennedy:
BENDIGO, VICTORIA

asked the Minister for Labour and National Service upon notice:

  1. What were the numbers and percentages of

    1. married, (b) single and (c) all women in (i) each State and Territory and (ii) the Commonwealth who (A) applied for training in the employment training scheme to assist married and single women, (B) were accepted, (C) were rejected, (D) commenced training, (E) completed training and (F) were placed in employment by the end of February 1972 or at the latest date for which figures are readily available.
  2. On what date did the scheme commence.
  3. On what grounds were applications rejected and what were the numbers and percentages involved in each category of reasons.

  4. What number and percentage of (a) married,

    1. single and (c) all women in (f) each State and Territory and (ii) the Commonwealth had had partial or full (A) professional training (B) commercial/clerical training, (C) craft or trade training and CD) training of any other kind, specifying details.
  5. What number and percentage had had no vocational training of any kind.
  6. Will he provide details of the education qualifications of those accepted for training showing what numbers and percentages of these had had (a) primary education only, (b) secondary education to the (i) second, (ii) third, (iii) fourth, (iv) fifth and (v) sixth year, and (c) tertiary education of (i) one year, (ii) two, (iii) three, (iv) four and (v) five years or more.

  7. What were the numbers and percentages of the single adult women accepted for training in

    1. each State and Territory and (b) the Commonwealth who were (i) single women over 21 years of age, (IQ widows, (iii) divorcees, ‘iv) single mothers, (v) deserted wives, (vi) women with husbands in mental institutions, (vii) women with husbands in penal institutions and (viii) others, specifying categories and numbers involved.

  8. What number and percentage of (a) married,

    1. single and (c) all women accepted for training in the- Commonwealth had (i) no dependent children, (ii) one child, (iii) two, (iv) three, (v) four and (vi) five or more dependent children at the time of being accepted.
  9. What number and percentage of women in the Commonwealth referred to in part (6) were in receipt of Commonwealth pensions.
  10. What were the types of pension and what numbers and percentages were receiving supplementary assistance from the Commonwealth.
  11. What was the average weekly income from Commonwealth sources of those receiving this income.

  12. What were the numbers and percentages of

    1. married, (b) single and (c) all women accepted for training in the Commonwealth who were (i) less than 30, (ii) less than 40, (iii) less than SO, (iv) less than 60 and (v) over 60 years of age, and what was the average age.
  13. What numbers and percentages of (a) married, (b) single and (c) all women accepted for training in (i) each State and Territory and (ii) the Commonwealth were living in (A) metropolitan and (B) non-metropolitan areas.
  14. What numbers and percentages of (a) married, (b) single and (c) all women accepted have been given training for (i) up to 3 months, (ii) up to 6 months, (iii) up to 12 months and (Iv) up to 2 years in (A) correspondence courses, (B) parttime, (C) full-time courses of study of educational or training institutions or CD) on-the-job training programmes with approved employers.

  15. What has been the total (a) allocation and

    1. expenditure, excluding administrative costs, by the Commonwealth on the scheme up to the end of February 1972 or the latest date for which figures are readily available.
  16. What numbers and percentages of (a) married, (b) single and (c) all women accepted have been granted (i) the weekly maintenance allowance, (ii) the allowance for dependent children, (iii) payment for fees, fares, postage, essential books, equipment and other associated costs, (iv) the full-time allowance of $4 per week and (v) the $5 per week living-away-from-home allowance.
  17. What has been the cost to the Commonwealth for each and all of these items.
  18. How many dependent children have there been in respect of whom an allowance was granted.
  19. What sum has been paid by the Commonwealth to employers as reimbursement for onthejob training women.
  20. What are the categories of employment for which women have been trained under the scheme, and what numbers and percentages of women have been trained for each category.
  21. What sum has been (a) allocated and (b) spent on advertising the scheme and in what ways has this money been spent.
Mr Lynch:
Minister for Labour and National Service · FLINDERS, VICTORIA · LP

– The purpose of the Employment Training Scheme for Women Previously Restricted from Employment by Domestic Responsibilities is to assist married women who wish to re-enter the workforce by providing them with the necessary vocational skills. Adult single women who have previously been unable to accept employment because of domestic responsibility are also assisted under the scheme.

My Department does not collate on a continuous basis any information that is not relevant to evaluating the success of the Scheme in fulfil ing this purpose. For this reason without some intensive research being done, I am unable to provide complete answers to parts (1), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (14) (16), (17), (18) and (20), of the honourable member’s question. Complete answers involve a detailed analysis, which has been commenced, of such factors as trainees’ ages, marital status and dependants.I shall write to the honourable member when the information is available.

A partial answer to (1), and answers to (2), (15), (19) and (21) are as follows:

  1. Statistics as at 31st March 1972 apply to all women. All percentages shown in A-E are percentages of applications in each State and the Commonwealth. Statistics under (F) apply to those women who had responded to post-training questionnaires as at 30th March 1972: percentages shown refer to the percentage of respondents to those questionnaires who indicated that they had obtained employment.
  1. 14th September 1970.
  2. (a)$588,000- total allocation to the end of the current financial year. (b) $389,594- total expenditure as at 31st March 1972.

(19)$2,179.

  1. $2,745 was allocated and spent on leaflets advertising the Scheme. Leaflets were forwarded to women’s organisations, professional associations, welfare organisations, and to all offices of the Commonwealth Employment Service for distribution to the public.

Handicapped Persons: Inter-departmental Committee Survey (Question No. 5359)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Social

Services, upon notice:

Is the inter-departmental committee established to consider the recommendations of the Senate Standing Committee on Health and Welfare in its report tabled on 5th May 1971 on Mentally and Physically Handicapped Persons in Australia, whose membership was disclosed by the Minister for Health in the Senate on 9th December 1971 (Senate Hansard, page 2560), the same as the inter-deparimental committee established to make a survey of handicapped children and the facilities available for their use, whose membership he himself refused to disclose on 28th September 1971 (Hansard, page 1602).

Mr Wentworth:
LP

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

It is not the policy of the Government to give information on these matters, which concern advice to Ministers and arrangements between Ministers and their advisers.

Bankstown Airport: Expansion (Question No. 5572)

Mr Keating:

asked the Minister represent ing the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice:

  1. Did the Commonwealth secure a Special Purpose (Aviation) zoning from the New South Wales State Planning Authority for the Riverwood Golf Course adjacent to Bankstown Airport.
  2. Does the Commonwealth still intend to acquire the golf course to expand the Bankstown Airport; if so, when.
  3. If acquired, what is the intention of the Department of Civil Aviation regarding the use of the land in the immediate term.
  4. If immediate development of the land is not envisaged, would the Minister consider leasing the land for continued use as a golf course until it is required by the Department.
Mr Swartz:
Minister for National Development · DARLING DOWNS, QUEENSLAND · LP

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

  1. The Riverwood Golf Course Pty Ltd, as the land owners, initiated an approach to the Department of Civil Aviation advising that it had in mind to sub-divide and sell the land for industrial purposes and inquiring whether the Department would be interested in acquiring the land which was adjacent the Bankstown Airport. The Department advised that it was interested in acquiring the land for use in the longer term to enlarge the building or aviation industrial complex of Bankstown Airport.

The State Planning Authority, knowing that the owner of the land had offered it to the Commonwealth, asked the Commonwealth what it was intending to do about the land. The Planning Authority was told that the Commonwealth intended to purchase the land and suggested to the State Planning Authority that the land be zoned Special Uses (for Aviation purposes)’.

The State Planning Authority considered the objection lodged by Riverwood Golf Course Pty Ltd, against the proposed zoning of its land under the Bankstown Planning Scheme and the Minister for Local Government determined that, in the Scheme to be prescribed, the subject land would be reserved for Special Uses (Aerodrome) purposes.

  1. Yes, subject to an acceptable price being agreed. The Commonwealth is at present negotiating with the golf course owner about the price of the land.
  2. The precise timing with which the Bankstown Airport building area will be extended into the golf course land, subject to successful price negotiations, will depend upon a review which is currently being undertaken of the master plan for Bankstown Airport and on the timing of requests from existing or new aviation tenants. Any revision in the master plan will not alter the building area category within these extended airport boundaries but it could alter the priority with which land within the airport as a whole is made available for additional building development.
  3. It is unlikely that the whole of the golf course land will be required for immediate use. When the land has been acquired, consideration will be given to leasing it on a short terra basis for continued use as a golf course. The terms under which the land can be leased will be negotiated by the Department of Civil Aviation.

Adopted Vietnamese Children (Question No. 5611)

Mr Grassby:
RIVERINA, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Immigration, upon notice:

  1. How many applications have been lodged by Australian residents for the entry into Australia of their adopted Vietnamese children.

  2. How many applications:

    1. have been approved;
    2. have been refused; and
    3. remain to be processed.
  3. On what grounds were applications refused.
Dr Forbes:
LP

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

There is no objection to the entry of children legally adopted overseas where the adoption would be deemed valid in the intended State of residence. The only immigration requirement in such circumstances is sound health.

Proxy adoptions in Vietnam are not valid under adoption legislation of the States of Victoria.

Children who have not been legally adopted overseas in compliance with the legislation of the States, may be approved for entry for adoption in Australia provided the adoption plans have the full support of the adoption authorities in the State of intended residence.

No statistics are available of the number of applications lodged by Australian residents for the entry of children adopted by them overseas where the adoption is deemed valid in the State of intended residence in Australia.

and (3) All applications lodged for the admission of children whose adoption in Vietnam is deemed valid under State legislation have been approved. No cases in this category are known to be outstanding.

All applications have been approved where the plans for children’s adoption in Australia have had the support of the State adoption authorities. The number of Vietnamese children approved for entry on this basis is 6.

No statistics are maintained of applications refused where the adoption plan does not have the support of the State adoption authorities.

One application is at present under consideration involving a Vietnamese child whose entry for adoption has been sought.

Education: Kealba High School Library (Question No. 5662)

Dr Cass:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

  1. Has a library been constructed at Kealba High School from moneys provided under the States Grants (Secondary Schools Libraries) Act.
  2. If so, have all funds for the acquisition of library material and equipment for the library yet been provided by the Commonwealth; if not, why not.
  3. If all funds have been provided by the Commonwealth, to whom were they paid.
  4. If all funds have not been provided, when may the balance be expected for the full establishment of the library.
Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

  1. The States are responsible as far as their own secondary schools are concerned for the administration of funds made available to them under the Commonwealth Secondary Schools Libraries Programme within a broad general programme which is submitted to the Minister for Education and Science by the State Minister for Education concerned for his approval. The States take their own decisions as to which of their own secondary schools will receive assistance under the Programme and they decide also on the extent, nature and timing of such assistance.

Under these circumstances the information sought by the honourable member would be best sought from the State Department of Education concerned, as the detailed information sought is not available to my Department.

  1. , (3) and (4) Not applicable.

Official Overseas Visits (Question No. 4940)

Mr Daly:
GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. How many official overseas visits have been made by (a) Ministers and (b) office holders of the Parliament during the 27th Parliament.
  2. What were the names and designations of the persons accompanying each Minister and office holders.
  3. What was the (a) purpose, (b) length of visit and (c) total cost of each visit.
  4. On how many occasions was the wife of the Minister or office holder included in the delegation and what were the names of the persons concerned.
  5. What was the cost for the wife of those concerned on each occasion.
  6. What is the total cost of all these overseas visits during the 27th Parliament to date.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

  1. to (6) Between the commencement of the 27th Parliament on 25th November 1969 and 21st April 1972 - a period of 2 years and 5 monthsthere has been a total of 72 overseas visits by Ministers (44 of these accompanied by wives) and 7 by office holders of the Parliament (5 of these accompanied by wives).

So far as Ministers’ visits are concerned, it is the practice to announce details of each visit at the time in Parliament or, if Parliament is not sitting, by means of Press statements.

Information on each individual visit over the two and a half years is not centrally recorded in the form required by the honourable member’s question. To compile it would be a substantial task and I am reluctant to authorise the administrative effort that would be involved.

Costs incurred on ministerial visits and visits by office holders of the Parliament during this financial year will be shown in Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1972-73; costs in relation to earlier visits have already been published in the relevant Appropriation Bills.

Physical Education (Question No. 4872)

Mr KENNEDY:
BENDIGO, VICTORIA · ALP

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

  1. In which (a) universities and (b) colleges of advanced education are (i) diploma and (ii) degree courses in physical education provided in each State and Territory.
  2. What is the length of the course in each case.
  3. What was the total number of (a) full-time and (b) part-time students enrolled for these courses in each case in 1971 or the last year for which figures are available.
  4. How many eligible students (a) have applied for admission to these courses, (b) have been accepted and (c) have been rejected in each case in each year since 1965.
Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

Universities

The information which follows is based upon material supplied to me by the Universities of Melbourne, Queensland, Adelaide, Sydney, Western Australia and Tasmania.

  1. (a), (2), (3) (a) and (b).

No university provided a Bachelor of Physical Education course in 1971. However, the Universities of Sydney, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania offered physical education units as part of Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Education degree courses.

page 2939

COLLEGES OF ADVANCED EDUCATION

Estate Duty (Question No. 4957)

Dr Klugman:
PROSPECT, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. What is the amount of Commonwealth estate duty payable in cases where an estate passes to a widow, widower, children or grand children, and where the dutiable value of the estate is (a) $19,999 or less, (b) 25,000, (c) $30,000, (d) $40,000, (e) $50,000 and (f) $100,000.

    1. On how many estates was probate granted during each of the years 1967-68, 1968-69, 1969- 70 and 1970-71.
    2. How many of the estates referred to in part (2) were assessed for Commonwealth estate duty in each of those years.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

  1. The rates of Commonwealth estate duty payable on the value for duty of an estate of a deceased person are the same irrespective of whether or not the estate passes to close relatives. However the law provides for a concession to be granted in favour of estates passing to close relatives by way of specifying higher levels of statutory exemptions for estates passing to other persons. The statutory exemption and any other special exemption are deducted from the ‘value of the estate’ (i.e., the value remaining after deducting from the gross value of the estate, debts and taxes due at the date of death and probate and succession duties payable under a State Act) to arrive at the ‘value of duty’ of the estate.

The statutory exemptions allowable are:

  1. where the whole of the estate passes to the widow, widower, children or grandchildren of the deceased person -

  2. for qualifying estates of deceased primary producers - $24,000

    1. for other estates- $20,000 decreasing by $2 for every, $8 by which the value of the estate exceeds $24,000 or $20,000 as the case may be;
    2. where no part of the estate passes to the abovementioned relatives -

  3. for qualifying estates of deceased primary producers - $12,000

    1. for other estates- $10,000 decreasing by $2 for every $8 by which the value of the estate exceeds $12,000 or $10,000 as the case may be; and
    2. where part only of the estate passes to the widow, widower, children or grandchildren of the deceased person - an amount calculated proportionately under (a) and (b) above.

In addition, a rebate of part of any estate duty attributable to rural property included in the estate of a deceased primary producer may be allowable if the value of the estate (before deducting any statutory exemption) is less than $250,000 and certain conditions are satisfied.

The amounts of duty payable on estates (other than qualifying estates of decreased primary producers) passing to the widow, widower, children or grandchildren of the deceased person where the values for duty of the estates are the amounts specified in the honourable member’s question, are shown below. The schedule below also shows the value of the estate’ corresponding to each amount of value for duty specified, and the amount of the statutory exemption allowable on such values of estates passing to close relatives.

As the amount of duty payable on the value for duty of an estate of a deceased primary producer varies depending on the amount of any rebate allowed in respect of the amount of the duty that is attributable to the rural property included in the estate, it is not possible to specify any one amount as the duty payable on a given value for duty, of such an estate.

  1. The Commonwealth Statistician has supplied the following information.

The only information available on the number of estates on which probate was granted during each of the years 1967-68 to 1970-71 is given in Table 1 below.

Table 2 shows for each State except New South Wales the number of estates on which probate or letters of administration were granted. For New South Wales, the details shown relate to the number of estates of deceased persons assessed for death duty during the year. Probate or letters of administration would not be applied for in respect of all these estates. Separate figures for the number of estates on which probate was granted are not available for New South Wales (except for 1967 - see Table 1 above). Victoria or Western Australia.

  1. Includes cases (treated as separate estates) where property subject to interests limited to cease on the death or a specified person became assessable because of the death of the specified person. The number of such cases were as follows:

1967-68. 1046; 1968-69, 765: 1969-70, 812;

and 1970-71, 762.

  1. Details for Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania are for the Calendar years 1967 to 1970.

  2. Estates dealt with by the Tasmanian Taxation Department.

    1. The available estate duty statistics, which are compiled in respect of the financial year in which the assessments were issued, do not indicate the year in which probate was granted on the estates assessed. However, some statistics are available of estates classified by year of death of the person in respect of whose estate the assessment was made. The relevant numbers of assessment* are summarised below, based on statistics of assessment issued up to 30th June 1971:

General Rate War Pension (Question No. 5167)

Mr Stewart:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. When was the last increase granted in ‘.he general rate of war pension.
  2. How many ex-servicemen and women receive the general rate war pension.
  3. Why has the general rate of war pension been allowed to remain static for so long.
Mr Holten:
Minister for Repatriation · INDI, VICTORIA · CP

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

  2. As at 31st January 1972-193,345.
  3. Government priorities in the Repatriation field have, in the main, directed available resources to the dependants of deceased exservicemen and to those who have suffered the most severe Incapacity because of the demands of war service, as well as to those whose means are such that they qualify for service pension. In accordance with these principles the Government, in 1968, introduced the special compensation allowance payable at varying rates to most exservicemen already receiving war pensions for severe actual incapacity assessed at 75 per cent to 100 per cent. The allowance has been increased twice since then, and the current maximum amount is $6 a week. In deciding its war compensation priorities the Government has been mindful that, within the limits imposed by their disabilities, general rate war pensioners are able to work and thus share in normal community prosperity.

Public Service Salaries (Question No. 5247)

Mr Lloyd:
MURRAY, VICTORIA

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. What percentage salary increases have been granted to the various divisions of the Commonwealth Public Service hi each of the last 3 years.
  2. What has been the percentage increase in the (a) consumer price index (b) Australian average income, (c) national minimum wage and (d) national productivity in each of those year:,.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

  1. The Public Service Board has provided the following information:
  2. Officers of the First Division of the Commonwealth Public Service have received no increase in any of the last three year;., i.e. 1969 to 1971.
  3. It is the Public Service Board’s practice to adjust the salaries of officers and employees of the Commonwealth Service (other than First Division.) in accordance with the decision of tha Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in the annual National Wage Case. In the 1969 National Wage Caac the Commission decided that salaries should be increased on economic grounds by 3 per cent. In the 1970 National Wage Case the increase awarded was 6 per cent on and from the beginning of the first pay period commencing on or after 1st January 1971

The relevant date of effect in the Commonwealth Public Service was 14th January 1971.

  1. In addition to those increases resulting from decisions in the National Wage Case, the Second Division officers of the Commonwealth Service received increases of 18 per cent with effect from 22nd September 1969 and approximately IS per cent with effect from 4th November 1971.
  2. Apart from the application of the National Wage Case decisions mentioned above, the salary levels of Third and Fourth Division Commonwealth Service employees are considered on a group by group basis. The Commonwealth Service salary structure is not a monolithic one but comprises a large number of separate employment groups which are not related for pay purposes. The Board’s policy is to review each group separately from time to time and fix rates which are reasonably competitive with the rates paid for comparable staff by other public and private employers.
  3. The Board’s Annual Reports for 1969, 1970 and 1971 in the chapters named ‘Rates of Pay’ include summaries of the groups which received increases in the relevant years. A complete list of the pay decisions in each year is in each report in the appendix named ‘Pay Determinations and Decisions’.
  4. The following table shows percentage increases in the Consumer Price Index, in Personal Income per Head and in Cross National Product at average 1966-67 Prices per Person at Work for each of the last three years.

There is no national minimum wage as such in Australia. However, the following table shows percentage increases in the Six State Capital Cities average minimum weekly wage for adult males under Awards made by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission since the minimum wage was introduced on 11th July 1966.

Overseas Investment in Australia (Question No. 5276)

Mr Barnard:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Is he now able to answer part 3 (b) of Question No. 4739 (Hansard, 9th December 1971, page 4620) which asked what was the percentage of paid up capita] actually subscribed by Australians, compared with the percentage equity obtained by Australians, in each overseas owned company operation in Australia which has made some degree of Australian equity participation available by an offer of shares to the Australian public during the last 5 years; if so, what are the percentages.
  2. If not, why is this information not available.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

As was pointed out in the answer to Question No. 4739 (Hansard, 9th December 1971, page 4620) information is not collected on overseas companies in the detail requested. However, the following information relating to the share issues listed in the answer to Question No. 4739 has been assembled from published sources.

Provisional Tax (Question No. S277)

Mr Barnard:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice :

  1. What is the amount of tax for which assessments have been Issued against provisional taxpayers for the income year ended 30th June 1971.
  2. How much of that amount remained unpaid at the end of February 1972.
  3. What are the corresponding figures for (a) the year ended 30th June 1970 and the end of February 1971 and (b) the year ended 30th June 1969 and the end of February 1970.
  4. What is the State breakdown for these figures.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

  1. The amount of income tax payable by taxpayers subject to provisional tax whose assessments in respect of 1970-71 Income year returns were issued to the end of February 1971 was $431,550,000.
  2. Statistics of tax outstanding are not available in sufficient detail to provide information on the amount outstanding at the end of February 1972 in respect of the assessments referred to in part (1) of the honourable member’s question. Tax on these assessments was not due for payment before 31st March 1972. However, the total amounts outstanding al the end of February 1972 in respect of assessments of individuals (including those not subject to provisional tax) based on 1970-71 and prior income year returns was $529,447,000.
  3. and (4) The total amounts of income tax payable by taxpayers subject to provisional tax in respect of assessments based on income tax returns for the income years 1968-69. 1969-70 and 1970-71, are set out below:

From 1 July 1969 assessments in respect of Northern Territory taxpayers were issued from South Australia Office.

Statistics of tax outstanding at the end of February 1971 in respect of assessments of taxpayers subject to provisional tax based on 1969-70 income year returns, and of tax outstanding at the end of February 1970 in respect of assessments of taxpayers subject to provisional tax based on 1968-69 income year returns are not available. The amounts of tax outstanding at the end of February 1970 in respect of assessments of all individuals based on 1968-69 and prior income year returns, and the corresponding amounts for the end of February 1971 (in respect of assessments for 1969-70 and prior income years) and February 1972 (in respect of assessments for 1970-71 and prior income years) are set out below by office of assessment.

Service Pensions (Question No. 5279)

Mr Hayden:
OXLEY, QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. What sum has been allocated in 1971-72 for service pensions, exclusive of wife’s allowance, children’s allowance and other ancillary benefits.
  2. How many beneficiaries were drawing (a) maximum rale service pension at (i) married and (ii) standard rate and (b) reduced rate pension at (i) married and (ii) standard rate in 1970-71.
Mr Holten:
CP

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

  1. Service pension payments are not appropriated separately for ex-service personnel and dependants. Of the $48,740,000 allocated in Appropriation Act No. 1, 1971-72, it is estimated that some $42,000,000 would be payable as service pensions to members, the balance being payable, in respect of dependants.
  2. The following table indicates an estimate as al July 1971 of the numbers of ex-service personnel in the categories requested:

Overseas Investment in Australia (Question No. 5281)

Mr Uren:
REID, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Can he say what sum has been invested by overseas investors in office buildings in the central business district of each capital city in each of the last S years.
  2. Can he also say what is the major source of that investment.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

  1. and (2) The Commonwealth Statistician has advised that, although a survey of overseas investment in Australia is conducted by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, information is not collected in the detail which you require.

Statistics on overseas investment are classified by broad industry group on the basis of the major activity of the company in which the overseas funds are intially invested. No attempt is made to classify inflows of investment according to the end use of the capital. Companies which are predominantly engaged in investing in office buildings together with companies engaged in investing in other types of property and in finance (other than insurance and banking) would generally be classified to the industry entitled ‘Other finance and property’ as shown in the statistical bulletin ‘Survey of Overseas Investment’ (ref. no. 5.20). However, there may be other companies which invest in office buildings, but which :,re predominantly engaged in other activities and accordingly would be classified to industries other than ‘Other finance and property’. Information at present collected would not permit separate identification of such companies. In addition, statistics on overseas investment are collected on in Australia-wide basis and cannot be used to obtain information relating to particular States or cities.

Gosford-Wyong Area: Taxation Office (Question No. 5289)

Mr Cohen:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Has his attention been drawn to the tremendous growth rate of the central coast area of Gosford-Wyong and the proposal by the New South Wales State Planning Authority to plan for a population of 500,000 by 2000 A.D.
  2. If so, will he give consideration to the opening of a branch of the Commonwealth Taxation Office in the area.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

  1. I understand that this is the case, subject, of course, to the necessary detailed feasibility studies.
  2. The Government fully recognises the advantages to taxpayers and their representatives of the location of a regional taxation office in close proximity to their place of residence or business.

Unfortunately, it is not yet practicable, for a number of reasons, including die cost factor, to set up regional offices in all the major centres of each State.

In the progressive decentralisation of the Commonwealth Taxation Office, preference is being given to the establishment of regional offices in centres of commerce and industry. The Gosford-Wyong area does not fall in this category since the district is at present predominantly residential.

Nevertheless, the development of the Gosford-Wyong area will be closely examined when the question of additional regional offices in New South Wales is again under consideration.

Education: Taxation (Question No. 5347)

Mr Kennedy:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. In view of his advice in answer to question No. 5106 (Hansard, 21st March 1972) that it would be impracticable to supply a complete list of applications made under section 78 (1.) (a) (xv) of the Income Tax Assessment Act, which have received consideration in each year since 1960, will he give the names and addresses of schools in respect of which applications were (a) made, (b) approved and (c) rejected in 1971.
  2. What was the (a) purpose and (b) estimated value of (i) each project and (ii) all projects on which a taxation deduction was allowed in 1971.
Mr McMahon:
LP

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

  1. The Commissioner of Taxation has stated that, because of the secrecy provisions contained in the Income Tax Assessment Act, he is unable to supply the names and addresses of school building projects in respect of which applications for approval under section 78 (1) (a) (xv) have been lodged. During the calendar year ended 31st December 1971, 105 applications on behalf of school building funds were considered, of which 101 were approved and 4 refused. As the provision applies equally to government schools and private schools regardless of denomination, the Commissioner is unable to provide an exact dissection of the 101 applications approved in 1971 along the lines previously, requested in Question No. 5106. It is estimated, however, that the 101 approvals related to 27 government schools, 15 pre-schools, 54 private schools and 5 other schools not readily identifiable as falling within any of the categories mentioned.
  2. In each instance where approval was given, the purpose of the fund was the acquisition, construction or maintenance of a building used, or to be used, as a school or college. As section 78 (1) (a) (xv) does not impose a limitation on the amount that may be raised by a school building fund, a record is not kept of the estimated value of each approved school building fund project.

Assistant Ministers (Question No. 5396)

Mr Daly:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

Is it a fact that he is anxious to avoid providing the information I sought concerning allowances to Assitant Ministers in questions Nos 5081 and 5082 which were placed on the Notice Paper on 24th February 1972; if not, will he provide the information without further delay.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

These questions were answered on 9th May 1972 (Hansard, pages 2266-7).

Assistant Ministers (Question No. 5397)

Mr Daly:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

When may I expect an answer to Question No. 5081 which was placed on the Notice Paper on 24th February 1972.

Mr McMahon:
LP

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

This question was answered on 9th May 1972 (Hansard, page 2266).

Law Reform Commission of the Australian

Capital Territory (Question No. 5468)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. When does he expect to table the first report of the Law Reform Commission of the Australian Capital Territory on any of the matters he referred to it on 17th September 1971 (Senate Hansard, 7th October 1971, page 1235).
  2. Has the commission yet consulted with its counterpart in any of the States (Hansard, 2nd November 1971, page 2881).
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The AttorneyGeneral has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. Of the 6 matters referred to the Commission on 17th September 1971, the Commission has 3 under present examination (review of Imperial Acts in force in the Australian Capital Territory review of New South Wales; Acts in force in the Australian Capital Territory; and review of the civil procedure of the Court of Petty Sessions). It is not possible, however, to say at this point when the first report of the Commission will be tabled.
  2. Yes. The Commission has consulted with its counterparts in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. The Chairman of the Commission intends that there should be continuing discussions with the State bodies.

Sewerage Services (Question No. 5544)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

Will he supply later information on sewerage services in each State capital (Hansard, 7th April 1971, page 1639).

Mr Snedden:
LP

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

The Commonwealth Statistician has advised that it is not possible at this time to up-date the information on sewerage services in each State capital as provided in answer to earlier questions on this subject. A question was asked about sewerage services and method of sewerage disposal in the 1971 Population Census, but tabulated results of this question will not be available until later next year. As soon as information is available it will be forwarded to the honourable member.

Tax Havens: Cabinet Committee Investigation (Question No. 5552)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Which Ministers belong to the committee established to investigate tax havens (Hansard,9th December 1971, pages 4385 and 4387).
  2. Has the committee yet made recommendations to the Government.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

  1. and (2) It is not normal constitutional practice to answer questions on such matters as these. I believe the deliberations and proceedings of any Cabinet Committee ought to be treated as being in the same position as those of the Cabinet itself (see Halsbury’s Laws of England, 3rd ed.. volume 7, page 354: Jennings, Cabinet Government, 3rd ed. (1959), page 267: Keith’s British Cabinet System, 2nd ed. (1952).. page 123).

Australian Commission on Advanced Education (Question No. 5646)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Education and Science, upon notice:

On what dates and matters has the Australian Commission on Advanced Education consulted with the Australian Universities Commission under section 14 (2.) of the Australian Commission on Advanced Education Act 1971.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:
WANNON, VICTORIA · LP

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

Since the establishment of the Australian Commission on Advanced Education on 9th December 1971 there has been frequent consultation between the Chairmen and officers of the 2 Commissions on virtually a daily basis. These consultations have largely concerned the development of proposals for the forthcoming 1973-75 triennium in the respective areas of tertiary education, and the development of policies in that field.

General Insurance (Question No. 5884)

Mr Jacobi:
HAWKER, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. In relation to legislation covering general (non-life) insurance, did he state on 9th March 1972 (Hansard, page 764) that policy decisions had been taken, that it was a matter of translating them into written words of a Bill and that it was hoped to have draft legislation before too many weeks had passed.
  2. If so, will he advise whether it is intended to introduce the legislation into the House during the present period of sittings.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

The proposed legislation for the supervision of general insurance companies will not be completed in time for introduction during the present Session.

This is despite strenuous efforts by all concerned and the taking of some exceptional measures to speed up the work. For example, when it became apparent early this year that Commonwealth drafting resources could not be diverted to the general insurance legislation owing to the pressures on the Office of Parliamentary Counsel for the preparation of other important legislation, an approach was made to the Victorian Government for drafting assistance. The Victorian Government responded readily to the request by making a senior draftsman available.

The length and complexity of the drafting is due essentially to the nature of general insurance business. General insurance is not a simple homogeneous commercial activity, but one of great variety and flexibility, in which many different types of business organisations, small, medium and large, offer insurance cover against a great variety of risks, including through reinsurance the protection of direct insurers themselves. One of the main problems in preparing the legislation has been to ensure that it embraces equitably all the different types of insurers and their businesses.

While it is just as disappointing to all those who have been waiting for this legislation as it is to me not to have a completed Bill ready for this Session, considerable progress has been made.

As I anounced in my statement of 9th December 1971 it is proposed that the transitional arrangements for bringing existing insurers within the scope of the new legislation should apply to insurers legally carrying on insurance business on the date of the statement. This means that those wishing to commence insurance business after 9th December 1971 would come under the full provisions of the legislation when it enters into force and should arrange their affairs with this in mind. The statement should thus have had the effect of discouraging the further entry of small unsound companies into insurance business and seems already to have made a contribution towards meeting the problems in the insurance industry which were causing concern.

Furthermore, the statement has put the industry on notice that the time is approaching when it will have to measure up to minimum solvency standards. It has thus given insurers an opportunity of thinking about the business effects of the introduction of a comprehensive supervisory system and of discussing among themselves some of the general implications.

Taxation: Building and Construction Industry (Question No. 5352)

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Why has the Government discriminated against the building and construction industry by excluding it from the Initial Investment Allowance as restored with effect from 24th February 1972.
  2. Has his attention been drawn to the complaint on this matter by the Master Builder’s Federation of Australia in its Canberra Newsletter of February 1972.
  3. If so, did the Federation state that it has been pointed out forcibly to the Government that individual members of the organisation have been consistent and substantial supporters of the Government in its election campaigns in the past and that it would expect the Government to acknowledge that support and the role and significance of the industry in the general economy.
  4. If the merits of the claim of this industry are to be reconsidered prior to the introduction of legislation amending the Income Tax Assessment Act, will he ensure that the attitude of the Government will reflect the significant economic factors involved rather than the financial support received by the Government from master builders at election time.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

When the investment allowance for manufacturing industry was introduced, it was on the basis that the allowance would not extend to the building and construction industry. Although this industry several times made representations to have the allowance extended to it, there was no change in the law on this account up to the time the allowance was suspended in February 1971. The allowance has now been restored on its previously existing basis.

The decision to restore the allowance was taken on broad economic grounds and, although the building and construction industry made representations to have the coverage of the allowance extended while this legislation was before the Parliament, the legislation has been enacted, as the honourable member will be aware, on the basis originally proposed.

A committee on which the Master Builders’ Federation of Australia is represented is preparing a report to the Government on the levels of plant usage in the building and construction industry and the possible increases in efficiency that might be brought about by the use of additional plant. It is in this context rather than any other that further consideration of the matter by the Government will be undertaken.

Chip Mill Project (Question No. 5361)

Mr Grassby:

asked the Treasurer, upon notice:

  1. Is there any Australian participation in the chip mill project operated by Daishowa Harris at Twofold Bay, New South Wales.
  2. Did the Commonwealth Government approve the necessary import of capital.
  3. Was there any limitation set upon overseas ownership; if not, why not.
Mr Snedden:
LP

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

  1. I understand that there is at present no Australian equity participation in the project referred to.
  2. All necessary approvals under the Banking (Foreign Exchange) Regulations in connection with the project were granted by the Reserve Bank.
  3. I am advised that, when Harris- Daishowa (Aust.) Pty Ltd was established, it was owned as to 51 per cent by Harris Holdings Ltd and as to 49 per cent by Japanese interests. Because of a number of difficulties, including rising costs, Harris Holdings Ltd subsequently sold its shareholding in the company to its Japanese partner and another Japanese interest. At the time of the sale Harris Holdings Ltd was understood to be owned as to 49 per cent by Australian interests and as to 51 per cent by American interests. The partners in Harris-Daishowa advised the Department of National Development at the time that the survival of the venture depended upon transfer of sole ownership and control to the Japanese interests. I am advised that HarrisDaishowa has retained its approval to export wood chips on the understanding that the company will again seek Australian equity participation in the venture when capital expansion is taking place to establish a pulp mill.

Education: Living-away-from-homc Allowance (Question No. 5372)

Mr Barnard:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. What has been the living-away-from-home allowance for tertiary education for (a) a single person, and (b) a married man with a wife and one child, under the Soldiers’ Children Education Scheme, in each of the last 10 years.
  2. What were these allowances expressed as a percentage of average weekly earnings in each of those years.

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

National Labour Advisory Council, Moore v Doyle (Question No. 5119)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

Since the Attorney-General’s answer to question No. 3334 (Hansard, 6th May 1971, page 2868) on what occasions and with what results have (a) the National Labour Advisory Council, (b) its committee and (c) its sub-committee met to examine the urgent action recommended by the Commonwealth Industrial Court in Moore v. Doyle on 25th February 1969.

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

en - The Attorney-

General has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

Since my predecessor’s answer to question No. 3334, the sub-committee set up to examine this matter has continued its work and met on 26th August 1971, 25th and 26th November 1971 and 16th and 17th March 1972. The sub-committee has consisted of representatives of the Commonwealth and the States of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia and of employer organisations and the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The work of the sub-committee is well-advanced and it is expected that a report of the sub-committee will shortly be available for consideration by the National Labour Advisory Council. The Council has been kept informed ofthe progress made by the subcommittee.

Repatriation: Local Medical Officer Scheme (Question No. 5210)

Mr Kennedy:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

What was the (a) number and (b) percentage of general practitioners enrolled in the Local Medical Officer Scheme in (i) each State and Territory and (ii) the Commonwealth, in 1970-71 who received in reimbursement for treating persons covered in the Scheme (A) less than $500, (B) $500 to $1,000, (C) $1,001 to $2,500, (D) $2,501 to $5,000. (E) $5,001 to$ 10,000 and (F) more than $10,000.

Mr Holten:
CP

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

Some Local Medical Officers who are in partnership do not receive a separate payment. Other Local Medical Officers submit accounts at irregular intervals (beyond twelve months) or do not claim payment. In the case of partnership practices the number of Local Medical Officers in each practice has been estimated and the payments made to the practice for the year ended 30th June 1971 have been converted to an estimated amount per Local Medical Officer. The following table incorporates this estimate in addition to the number of Local Medical Officers in single practices to whom payments were made for the year ended 30th June 1971.

Repatriation: Medical Practitioners (Question No. 5212)

Mr Kennedy:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. Can he say how many general practitioners there were in (a) each State and Territory and (b) the Commonwealth in 1960, 1965 and 1970 or in the latest year for which figures are available.
  2. Can. he also say what (a) number and (b) percentage was practising in (i) metropolitan and (ii) non-metropolitan areas in each case.
  3. What (a) number and (b) percentage was enrolled in the Local Medical Officer Scheme.
Mr Holten:
CP

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

  1. and (2) I note that on 7th March 1972 my colleague the Minister for Health provided information concerning these two questions. I am unable to expand on that information. (Hansard, 7th March 1972, page 662.)
  2. (a) The numbers of medical practitioners enrolled in the Local Medical Officer Scheme are maintained on a State basis wilh Territories included as appropriate. Commonwealth figures at 30th June 1960, 1965 and 1971 were as follows:

Repatriation: Medical Practitioners (Question No. 5211)

Mr Kennedy:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. Can he say bow many (a) general practitioners and (b) specialists there were in each State and Territory in the latest year for which figures are available.
  2. What was the (a) number and (b) percentage of (i) general practitioners and (ii) specialists who were registered in the Local Medical Officer Scheme.
Mr Holten:
CP

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

  1. I note that on 10th May 1972 my colleague the Minister for Health provided information concerning general practitioners and specialists. I am unable to expand on that information. (Hansard, 10th May 1972, page 2382.)
  2. The Local Medical Officer Scheme is designed to provide a full scale general practitioner service for eligible patients, and is supplemented by specialist services as required. The number of doctors enrolled in the Scheme who have specialist qualifications is not separately maintained. At 30th June 1971 there were 6,206 doctors enrolled in the Scheme. This is about 84 per cent of the estimated number of general practitioners in private practice in Australia.

Drought Relief: Use of Funds (Question No. 5291)

Mr Hansen:
WIDE BAY, QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. Can the Attorney-General say whether the Queensland Government has investigated claims for freight rebates on grain in 1970-71, allegedly for drought relief fodder, which was instead used as stock feed, mainly for pigs.
  2. If so, can he also say whether prosecutions are being initiated against offenders.
  3. As funds were provided by the Commonwealth for freight rebates on drought relief fodder, will the Commonwealth be entitled to a refund of moneys fraudulently paid out as drought relief freight rebate.
  4. Were Commonwealth investigators involved in any inquiry.
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. I am informed that Queensland police conducted a lengthy investigation into the alleged misuse of funds for drought relief in 1970-71.
  2. Two persons have been committed for trial at the current sittings of the District Court, Brisbane, on a number of charges of false pretences. A substantia] number of further charges is yet to be heard in the lower court.
  3. As this question calls for the expression of a legal opinion I do not propose to answer it.
  4. No. (See answer to Question No. 2910, Hansard, page 2871, 7th May 1971).

Repatriation: Local Medical Officers (Question No. 5309)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for

Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. What was the cost of administering payment to local Medical Officers in 1970-71.
  2. What is the estimated cost for 1971-72.
Mr Holten:
CP

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

  1. The estimated cost to the Repatriation Department of administering payment to Repatriation Local Medical Officers in 1970-71 was $106,000.
  2. $109,000.

Repatriation: Payments (Question No. 5343)

Dr Everingham:
CAPRICORNIA, QUEENSLAND

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

  1. What was the estimated average payment per family by his Department for (a) the provision of drugs and dressings, (b) local medical officer and private medical services and (c) hospital and ancillary, including prosethetic, services, to (i) repatriation patients and (ii) other patients in the latest year for which figures are available.
  2. What percentage do these payments represent of estimated costs to these families for the goods and services in each case.
Mr Holten:
CP

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

The Repatriation Department’s records are not structured in a way which would enable me to provide meaningful information along the lines requested. However, in addition to the statistical information provided in the Repatriation Commission’s Annual Reports, various other statistics are compiled. If the honourable member could advise me of his particular interest in this regard I will try to provide him with relevant statistics or estimates.

Prosecutions: Attorney-General’s Consent (Question No. 5469)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

What progress has been made in preparing the list of Commonwealth and Territory laws which render the consent of the Attorney-General a necessary requisite to a prosecution for an offence (Hansard, 5th May 1970, page 1640 and 3rd May 1971, page 2414).

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

– The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

As the honourable member has previously been informed the detailed examination of the Statutes and Statutory Rules of the Commonwealth, the Ordinances and Regulations of the Territories and the other laws in force in the Territories, which would be necessary for preparation of the list requested,is a task that would need a considerable amount of time. In view of other more pressing requirements of my Department it has not yet been practicable to prepare the list requested.

Australian Police College (Question No. 5470)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. From what police forces did officers come for training at the Australian Police College in 1970-71 (Hansard. 24th February 1971. page 631).
  2. How many officers came from each force.
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The Attorney-General has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. and (2) In addition to the attendance of 351 members of the Commonwealth Police Force for training at recruit, investigator, non-commissioned officer and officer levels, officers in the numbers stated below came to the Australian Police College for training in 1970-71 from the following Police Forces:

Penal Reforms and Programmes (Question No. 5472)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

What further progress has been made with the reforms and programmes decided on by the Ministers concerned with penal administration since his predecessor’s answer on 16th February 1971 (Hansard, page 70).

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

– The AttorneyGeneral has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

Reference was made, in the answer to the honourable member’s previous question, to draft legislation being prepared in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory for the release of offenders on probationary supervision subject to payment of a penalty.

That legislation is now in force as the Crimes Ordinance 1971 of the Australian Capital Territory and the Criminal Law (Conditional Release of Offenders) Ordinance 1971 of the Northern Territory.

In addition a Parole of Prisoners Ordinance 1971 was made, and is now in force, in each Territory. Each Ordinance provides for a minimum term of imprisonment to be fixed as part of a Court’s sentence and for the release of prisoners on parole after serving a minimum term.

Criminology Research Act (Question No. 5473)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. Why has the Criminology Research Act, which his predecessor introduced on 24th February 1971, not yet been proclaimed (Hansard, 10th November 1971, page 3226).
  2. Have any appointments been made to the Institute of Criminology; if so, have any international arrangements been made by the Institute.
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The AttorneyGeneral has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. and (2) The Criminology Research Act will be proclaimed as soon as a Director of the Institute is appointed. Applicants for the position of Director are currently being interviewed. Each of the 6 States has named its representative on the Council of the Institute of Criminology but the new Tasmanian Attorney-General has been asked whether he would wish to review the name put forward by his predecessor. The members of the Council may not be formally nominated and appointed until Regulations have been made and the Act has been brought into force. The Regulations are now being drafted. Since 3 members of the Board of Management of the Institute of Criminology are appointed on the nomination of the Council, it will not be possible to appoint the Board until the members of the Council have been formally appointed and the Council has met to decide on its nominations to the Board of Management.

Death Penalty: Northern Territory (Question No. 5474)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

In what cases and on what dates have death sentences been (a) imposed (b) deferred and (c) commuted in the Northern Territory in the last 20 years.

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

– The Attorney-General has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. On 12th June 1952 John Novotny and Jerry

Koci were sentenced to death for the offence of murder. Execution of the sentence was deferred until 7th August 1952 when both men were hanged.

  1. On 6th August 1952 Terence Charles Stapleton was sentenced to death for the offence of murder. Execution of sentence was deferred pending determination of his appeal against the conviction. On 19th September 1952 the High Court set aside the conviction and ordered a new trial. On 7th May 1953 Stapleton was found nol guilty of the offence of murder on the grounds of insanity.
  2. On 7th October 1964 William Thomas Moore was sentenced to death for the offence of murder. Execution of the sentence was deferred and on 26th November 1964 the sentence was commuted to one of life imprisonment.
  3. On 15th May 1968 John Manuel Da Costa was sentenced to death for the offence of murder. Execution of the sentence was deferred and on 6th November 1968 the sentence was commuted to one of life imprisonment.
  4. On 2nd December 1970 Leonard John Pemble was sentenced to death for the offence of murder. Execution of the sentence was deferred pending his appeal against the conviction. On 25th May 1971 the High Court set aside the conviction for murder, and directed that a verdict of guilty of manslaughter be entered.

Public Lending Rights (Question No. 5479)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. What progress has been made with the legislation on public lending rights (Hansard, 20th August 1971, page 468 and 9th December 1971, page 4564).
  2. Which other departments are involved in the matter (Hansard, 20th August, 1971, page 468).
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The AttorneyGeneral has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. The proposal that a public lending right should be established and a fund set up for the making of payments to Australian authors has continued to be the subject of investigation by, my Department in consultation with other interested Departments. Additional material has recently been received from the Australian Society of Authors. This material has been supplied to enable some estimate to be made of the likely cost of the proposals made by the Society. The next steps to be taken are now being considered.
  2. The other Departments presently involved in the matter are the Departments of the Treasury and of the Environment, Aborigines and the Arts.

Northern Territory Ordinances (Question No. 5529)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for the

Interior, upon notice:

Will , he bring up to date the information on Northern Territory ordinances which he gave on 16th March 1971 (Hansard, page 965).

Mr Hunt:
CP

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

Repatriation: Pensions (Question No. 5587)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

What percentage of average male weekly earnings will (a) the special (TPI) rate pension and (b) the general (100 per cent) rate pension represent at the new rates announced by the Treasurer on 11th April 1972 (Hansard, 20th September 1967, page 1175; 28th August 1969, page 917; 16lh October 1970, page 2363 and 28th April 1971, page 2213).

Mr Holten:
CP

– The answers to the honourable member’s question are as follows:

Related to the December 1971 quarter average male weekly earnings ($95.60) the percentages were

46.55 per cent

12.55 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 represents 18.83 per cent of average male weekly earnings for the December quarter of 1971.

Police Commissioners Conference (Question No. 5703)

Mr Whitlam:

asked the Minister representing the Attorney-General, upon notice:

  1. Which police forces were represented at the conference of police commissioners in Perth in April 1972.
  2. What requests or suggestions were made at the conference for legislative or administrative action by (a) the Commonwealth (b) the Territories and (c) the States.
Mr N H Bowen:
PARRAMATTA, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– The AttorneyGeneral has supplied the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. New Zealand, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory, Territory of Papua and New Guinea, Commonwealth.
  2. At the conclusion of the conference the Commissioners issued a statement in the following terms:

The discussions of the Commissioners centred around the many problems of common interest to all Police Forces, with special emphasis on co-operation and common action between Forces to the maximum possible extent.

Prominent, of course, was crime in all its forms, the techniques for combating criminal activities, and the best ways of achieving interaction between Police Forces in these days of rapid mobility. The Commissioners agreed to direct the attention of the heads of their respective Crime Departments to undertake research in depth into a number of areas of serious crime currently causing concern to the community. The integration of technical resources where possible, including the specialised trainig of technicians, as well as the best means of arriving at uniformity in crime statistics came under review.

Because of the availability of rapid means of transport, efficient communications are of vital concern to all Forces and consideration was given by the Commissioners to improving means of communication between Forces in Australia as well as those abroad, including the facilities available through Interpol. Special emphasis was given to the need to retain intrastate radio communications. “The support of the Commissioners for establishment of a Police National Planning and Research Unit, in which all Forces would participate, was reaffirmed and a proposal for the establishment of a National Forensic Science Institute is being examined.

Conference supported the action taken by the Commonwealth Government in seeking the holding of a General Assembly of the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) to be preceded by an Asian Regional Conference in Australia, and noted with satisfaction the announcement by the Commonwealth AttorneyGeneral that these Conferences have been arranged in Australia in 1974.’

Repatriation Psychiatric Hospitals: Patents Allowances (Question No. 5707)

Mr Barnard:

asked the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice:

What is the allowance given to patients at Repatriation psychiatric hospitals for (a) week-end leave and (b) such things as cigarettes, magazines and toiletries.

Mr Holten:
CP

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

There is no set amount. The allowance for each patient is assessed having regard to his needs, capacity to handle money and financial situation, after consultation with the hospital’s Medical Superintendent.

Telephone Charges (Question No. 5778)

Mr Hayden:

asked the PostmasterGeneral, upon notice:

What would be the cost of a time unit if the surplus of income over expenditure of the Telecommunications Branch of his Department, excluding any interest liability to the Treasury, was used so that telephone calls cost a uniform amount per time unit throughout Australia and between any points in Australia.

Sir Alan Hulme:
LP

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

A study is currently being made of the implications of having a uniform rate for all telephone calls throughout Australia. The study is nearing completion. Any announcement about the results of the study will be a matter for decision by the Government.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 23 May 1972, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1972/19720523_reps_27_hor78/>.

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