House of Representatives
28 March 1973

28th Parliament · 1st Session

  1. House of Representatives
  2. 28th Parliament
  3. 1973

Mr SPEAKER (Mon. J. F. Cope) took the chair at 2 p.m., and read prayers.

page 767

ABORTION

Petition

The Clerk:

– A petition has been lodged by Mr Jarman as follows and a copy of the petition will be referred to the appropriate Minister:

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of certain citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That they are concerned for the protection of human life from the time of conception and are opposed to legalisation of abortion in any part of Australia.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House oppose any liberalisation of the law on abortion beyond that which is permitted in Victoria at the present time.

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

Petition received.

page 767

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION

Mr GRAHAM:
NORTH SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– In view of the unprecedented nature of the visits on 16th March by the Commonwealth Police to Australian Security Intelligence Organisation premises will the Prime Minister assure the House that the visits of the Commonwealth Police will not be extended to other Government departments? If he is unable to give this assurance, will he disclose how and by whom such future visits will be authorised? Would the Prime Minister have prior knowledge of such visits in the future were they to take place at all?

Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– The answer to the first question is yes. Therefore the second and third questions do not arise.

page 767

QUESTION

HOUSING: AGED PERSONS UNITS

Mr DOYLE:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND

– Is the Minister for Housing aware that the construction of aged persons units has fallen behind the requirement in Queensland? Is he in a position to provide information on arrangements made with the Queensland Government for future construction of these units?

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– The honourable member is referring, I think, to the States Grants (Dwellings for Aged Pensioners) Act as distinct from the Aged Persons Homes Act. The Queensland Government got off to a late start. This legislation was introduced in 1969. At that time the Queensland Housing Commission was not providing homes for aged pensioners. It is now and it is making very considerable progress in providing these homes under the relevant legislation. I think the other thing to say is that the Government has now decided to re-enact this legislation from 1st July 1974. In taking this decision it has had regard for the fact that there have been some deficiencies in the legislation in the past - as there are at present for that matter - and up until 1st July 1974 this Act is restricted to the recipients of social service and repatriation benefits, that is, age pensioners and Service pensioners who are eligible for supplementary assistance. This represents a very considerable restriction on eligibility. The Government has decided to reenact the legislation and in the near future I and my colleagues will be giving consideration to the terms and conditions upon which the legislation will be re-enacted. I should say precisely that the Queensland Government has been dragging the chain for the reasons that I have mentioned. It is making progress and I hope that, as a result of its endeavours and the proposals that I have now outlined, the very serious deficiencies in aged pensioners accommodation in Queensland will be soon alleviated.

page 767

QUESTION

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MINISTERS

Mr KILLEN:
MORETON, QUEENSLAND

– I address a question to the Prime Minister. Does he accept the convention of government that correspondence passing between Ministers is not revealed until such time as is appointed by law for the consideration of historians, archivists and so forth? If the honourable gentleman does accept that convention, can he give an assurance to the House that henceforth that convention will be observed no matter how tempting it may be to breach it?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– Except in quite exceptional circumstances I accept the convention and I assure the honourable gentleman that I will observe it. However, there were completely exceptional circumstances in the last few weeks. I must confess that it has taken a regrettably long time for the Commonwealth Police Force and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to adjust themselves from such momentous activities as the pursuit of draft dodgers and Vietnam demonstrators to the new situation where we ought to revive our interest in terrorist activities in our midst. The position came to a head when, in the course of a wide tour throughout southern Asia and, he hoped, to Australia and New Zealand it appeared that the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia would be no safer in Australia than he would have been when the previous Government was in office. It is a matter of shame to us that the President of Yugoslavia, Tito, can go with complete safety to the United States of America, while, on the other hand, we have the advice that the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia is not safe in Australia.

Furthermore, the Department of Foreign Affairs had unfinished business to pursue in the light of a protest note received in about August last year from the Government of Yugoslavia. The Australian Government at the time had given an interim reply. It obviously fell to me to consider this matter because the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia intended to call on Australia and would see me. Obviously he would be interested in what I had to say as Foreign Minister as well as in my capacity as Prime Minister. I examined the files. I saw that despite the protests of several preceding Foreign Ministers, and incidentally Ministers for Immigration, the then Attorney-General had not accepted their advice or pursued the inquiries which they had raised with him. Therefore there were thoroughly exceptional circumstances. It was essential that our guest should be as safe in Australia as he was in India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore on the way to Australia, and as he was to be in New Zealand and Bangladesh on the way back. The matter obviously was urgent, and therefore the conventions were not observed in this case.

page 768

QUESTION

RESTRICTIVE TRADE PRACTICES

Mr MORRIS:
SHORTLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the AttorneyGeneral. Is the Minister aware that anticompetitive practices such as discriminatory dealing and refusal to supply goods are widespread in industry? In particular, is the Minister aware of complaints made by Mr John Watts, proprietor of Hunter Wholesaler Confectionery of Hamilton, New South Wales, that the RowntreeHoadley group has refused to supply Mr Watts’ business with a wide range of goods? Will the Minister have Mr Watts’ complaint investigated? Is it the Government’s intention in the proposed strengthened restrictive trade practices legislation to control anti-competitive practices such as discriminatory dealing and refusal to supply goods?

Mr ENDERBY:
Minister for the Northern Territory · ALP

– Yes, I think every honourable member would be aware of the extent of restrictive trade practices throughout Australia, and, yes, I am also aware of the complaints made by Mr Watts because they were brought to my attention by the honourable member for Shortland. I have had the opportunity of seeing the correspondence on this matter. I certainly will ensure that action is taken. I shall draw the matter to the attention of the Attorney-General in another place so that he can take appropriate action. As to the last part of the honourable member’s question, the Government does intend to introduce strengthened legislation dealing with restrictive trade practices. Australia would be one of the few countries in the world with effective legislation in this field. The countries with most experience in this area would be the United States, Canada and Britain. I can inform the House that the Attorney-General has made arrangements for experts in the field, who can draw on their American experience, to come to this country to give the Australian Government the benefit of their expertise and experience in the preparation of new legislation.

We were not impressed with the amendments proposed by ‘the previous Government at the end of the last Parliament. We favour instead a strengthened and up to date Australian Industries Preservation Act. Honourable members may recall the remarks of Mr Hughes who, when he was Attorney-General, reminded everyone of the healthy distaste that the old common law had for practices in restraint of trade and said that politicians could well be reminded of this healthy distaste and have it reflected in their legislation. The Government intends to give effect to it.

page 768

QUESTION

MR BIJEDIC: VISIT TO AUSTRALIA

Mr SINCLAIR:
NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Prime Minister aware of any personal association between the recent visit to Australia by the Yugoslavian Prime Minister and the Yugoslavian secret police? Does the Prime Minister accept that information collected by secret police and by governments overseas, particularly in communist countries, does not always accord with practices that we in Australia see as necessary and just? Is the Prime Minister prepared to assure this House that no action will be taken against any individual only on the basis of recommendations or advice tendered by overseas governments? Finally, does the Prime Minister agree that there being no other adequate evidence available as a result of the inquiries undertaken by the Labor Government, that is the reason why no prosecution has as yet been launched against any alleged Yugoslavian nationalist organisation?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– I am not aware if there were any secret service people accompanying the Yugoslavian Prime Minister or, if there were, how many accompanied him. Any action taken by the Australian Government against any individuals or organisations will be taken as a result of the Australian Government’s own assessments. Quite clearly any action that was taken in the courts would have to be on the basis of witnesses called in the courts. I do not want it to be thought that I approve of action against organisations in general terms. I do not subscribe automatically to guilt by association. The honourable member should not rush to the conclusion that there will be no prosecutions. Prosecutions which would appear to be justified on the facts as now disclosed might be a bit more difficult to launch than should be the case because our predecessors let the trails go cold.

page 769

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN OVERSEAS RESERVES

Mr ARMITAGE:
CHIFLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I address my question to the Minister for Social Security in his capacity as Acting Treasurer. Has the Minister’s attention been drawn t: a page 1 article in today’s Australian’ headed ‘AIDC Rebuffs Hayden’? The newspaper is not rebuffing the Prime Minister this time; it is rebuffing the Acting Treasurer. The article claims that the Executive Chairman of the Australian Industry Development Corporation, Sir Alan Westerman, had rebuffed statements by the Acting Treasurer that Australia’s overseas reserves of $500m could be better used to finance local development. Obviously someone has made a mistake there because Australia’s overseas reserves would be nearer $5,000m than $500m.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I ask the honourable gentleman to get to his question.

Mr ARMITAGE:

– I therefore ask the Minister: Has he been suitably chastened by this rebuff and does he confess his guilt, or will he now put his point of view before the House?

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security · OXLEY, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– Actually, I have been rebuffed many times in my life, especially when I was younger, but much smaller amounts of money were involved. I think there has been some misunderstanding on the part of the person who has written the article. I certainly do not see any area of conflict between what Sir Alan Westerman has said and what I have been saying. What I have been saying is that there is more than adequate liquidity in Australia at the present time. One of the requirements is to mobilise that effectively within the economy. But if foreign loans are raised for development purposes in this country, which bring in no goods and services, all they do is inject further inflation into the economy, and this is undesirable.

What 1 suggested was that, to the extent that goods and services were required from outside the country, these could be paid for from our rather vast accumulation of overseas reserves which are moving towards the $5,000m mark. Nothing I have said is inconsistent with what Sir Alan Westerman has said, and vice versa. I added that the Australian Industry Development Corporation was to be expanded and that the Treasurer and the Minister for Overseas Trade were working towards that end. Their purpose is to mobilise effectively more of our domestic resources for the development of this country, to overcome the institutional deficiencies presently operating in the financial structures.

page 769

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH PUBLIC SERVANTS: SUPERANNUATION

Mr BURY:
WENTWORTH, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is addressed to the Prime Minister in his capacity as the Minister responsible to the Commonwealth Public Service. Has the Government any plan for revising the scale of superannuation payments made to retired Commonwealth public servants? Is he aware that this scale has not been adjusted for a considerable number of years during which the value of superannuation has been eroded considerably by the process of inflation? In fact the last occasion on which an adjustment was made, which was some years ago, was almost as far back as the last occasion on which parliamentary salaries were adjusted.

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– I am indebted to the honourable gentleman for reminding me of this. I must confess that I had thought that the last adjustment was made before he himself was Treasurer. We are trying as hard as we can to overtake the arrears of 23 years. We have not yet reached the arrears of 5 years ago. In respect to the other matter which the honourable gentleman mentioned, we hope to take action today. However, as regards superannuation, I shall be happy to look into the matter and to write to him about it.

page 770

QUESTION

TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES: PINK PAGES ADVERTISING

Mr COATES:
DENISON, TASMANIA

– My question is directed to the Postmaster-General. Is it a fact that firms advertising in the Pink Pages of telephone books are not allowed to mention the price they charge for their goods, services or facilities? Is this a PMG rule or a rule of the private firm which has the Pink Pages contract? Is this so that people have to ring all or many of the firms in a particular classification in order to compare charges, thus boosting revenue? Does this policy make it difficult for hotels and motels, for instance, in a tourist area to advertise their tariffs if they are at competitive rates? Does he agree that terms such as ‘cheapest in town’, ‘reasonable rates’ and so on are meaningless? Will he have this policy reviewed?

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

– It is true that, apparently for some years past, a restriction has been placed on Pink Pages advertisements that tariffs should not be inserted, because when a tariff is moved - usually upwards - the prospective client blames the Post Office for incorrect or what might be termed false advertising, I can understand in this day and age that advertisements could be suitably worded and that if specific amounts were mentioned it could be stated that the amounts were subject to variation. If that were done I think it would overcome the problems raised by the honourable member. The matter is worthy of investigation. I undertake to do that to see whether some satisfaction can be obtained.

page 770

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION

Mr SNEDDEN:
BRUCE, VICTORIA

– I ask the Prime Minister: Has a complaint or have complaints been made to him directly, to him through any member of his staff, or to his Government, by any member of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation about the raids - termed visits’ by the Attorney-General- on 16th March by the Attorney-General with Commonwealth Police on the Melbourne and Canberra offices of ASIO? If the answer is yes, will he table the letter or other document in which the complaint or complaints were made?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– The only member of ASIO, or the only person whom I know to be a member of ASIO, with whom I have had any communication since the AttorneyGeneral’s visit to the headquarters of the organisation in Melbourne on 16th March has been the Director-General himself. He made no complaint at all.

page 770

QUESTION

GENERAL PRACTITIONERS

Mr KEATING:
BLAXLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Minister for Health aware of the widespread dissatisfaction of people who are unable to obtain adequate medical attention after hours? Does the Government have any plan to encourage general practitioners not to neglect their patients after business hours?

Dr EVERINGHAM:
Minister for Health · CAPRICORNIA, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– My Department has no specific plans to overcome this problem. I know that the problem is widespread and growing, not only in this country but also, probably, world-wide. It is bound up, among other tilings, with the shortage of general practitioners and the mal-distribution of doctors generally. One of the solutions sought in some European countries has been to increase the incentives for doctors to take up general practice. For instance, Holland has made it mandatory for doctors not only to have more community medicine content in their undergraduate courses but also, before they are recognised to practise as general practitioners, for them to undertake 2 years’ full time training in a position which is subject to supervision by qualified general practitioners. This course, I understand, has stemmed the flow out of general practice. There is now a relative rise in the proportion of doctors entering general practice.

My Department is looking at the possibility of encouraging medical schools which are making moves in this direction, of increasing the content of general practice in undergraduate courses and of making available Government sponsored community health centres staffed by salaried or fee-for-service doctors with ancillary workers and other team facilities to upgrade the standard of general practice. These centres would be used, among other things, for the training of undergraduates. I am also having discussions with the Post-graduate Federation in Medicine, the College of General Practitioners and other bodies concerned with post-graduate training in genera] practice so that we can upgrade the status and the standards in this field. Another solution is to improve domiciliary services in order to take the load off doctors in cases where a specific medical qualification is not necessary for home visits. There is a very great backlag in this country compared, for instance, with Britain in the provision of domiciliary nursing, which has been left virtually to voluntary organisations. This whole question will come within the sphere of interest of the Sax Committee, which has already made some preliminary investigations of health needs and priorities in this country.

page 771

QUESTION

FREIGHT ON FUEL

Mr FISHER:
MALLEE, VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Minister for Minerals and Energy. In view of the fact that to achieve decentralisation of industry and population effectively the standardisation of commodity prices is essential, I ask: Will this Government urgently investigate the cost of the freight differential on all sources of energy - liquefied petroleum gas, distillate, petrol and so on - to country industries and people, and take steps to have this cost item equalised with metropolitan counterparts?

Mr CONNOR:
Minister for Minerals and Energy · CUNNINGHAM, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– When the honourable member for Mallee gives me information on the matters that are of grave concern to him, I will be very pleased to investigate them.

page 771

QUESTION

TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

Dr GUN:
KINGSTON, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Minister representing the Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to a summary of documents attached to a statement made by the AttorneyGeneral in the Senate yesterday referring to a statement in 1964 by the then AttorneyGeneral, the present Leader of the Opposition, concerning prosecutions for offences against the Passports Act and the Aliens Act in which the then Attorney-General said:

There is a period of public quiescence at present. I would not want to see the whole issue revived by prosecutions which are not in themselves of great proportions. . . .

Is it the legal prerogative of the AttorneyGeneral to prosecute or not to prosecute according to political and ideological motives?

Mr ENDERBY:
ALP

– My attention has been drawn to the papers. In fact, I adverted to them in this House yesterday, and as soon as copies are collated and made available I will be presenting them to this House. The question of the discretionary role of an AttorneyGeneral, the chief law officer of the Crown, in deciding whether to prosecute or not to prosecute is sometimes a difficult one. That must be said. But I do not think there can be any doubt that if the discretion is exercised on the basis of the proposition put forward by the honourable member it would bi exercised wrongly.

Mr Snedden:

– Which honourable member?

Mr ENDERBY:

– The questioner.

page 771

QUESTION

TARIFFS

Mr KELLY:
WAKEFIELD, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the Prime Minister, in his capacity as Minister for Foreign Affairs, received a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development which dealt with Australia’s economic performance? Does this report make some very critical comments about Australia’s policy of tariff protection, as indeed I have been doing for some years, if I may say so with due modesty, -which is a quality that commends itself to both the Prime Minister and to me? Because of the general importance of this report and the particular importance of that portion dealing with tariff protection and the most efficient allocation of our limited resources, will he see that the report gets as wide a circulation as possible, particularly to members on both sides of this House? If I may give him some fatherly advice, it would not be a bad idea to leave some copies of the report in the Cabinet room.

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– There is no need for the honourable member to be modest about his interest in tariffs. Nobody in the Parliament, during his years in it, has devoted so much interest and attention to this matter as he has, and whether honourable members on either side agree with him wholly or partly or not at all, they are all in his debt for having alerted them to the very large issues involved. I believe that one great value of Australia’s joining the OECD has been the examination which the OECD made in association with Australian officials, the results of which it has published. I certainly commend to honourable members the comments that the OECD made on Australia’s unusually high and elaborate tariff structure. There are copies of the document in the Parliamentary Library. I had thought of tabling it but there is some doubt whether a document produced by an international organisation should properly be tabled in this Parliament. It is not our copyright. If honourable members want more copies I certainly will obtain them.

page 772

QUESTION

MIGRANT EMERGENCY TELEPHONE SERVICE

Mr INNES:
MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Postmaster-General. As a result of the timely action taken by the Minister for Immigration a service is now rendered to migrants who are experiencing difficulties of communication in matters of urgency. The arrangements made involve a 24-hour telephone service and I am informed that migrants generally are delighted with this facility. In the light of this action by the Minister for Immigration, will the PostmasterGeneral give consideration to having the telephone number of the service placed in the telephone directory with a similar status to emergency calls which are made by dialling 000 free of charge?

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

– The honourable member has asked a very good question. The Post Office is very anxious to meet the needs of the community and this is obviously a facility that is being well patronised. It is true that it would be more advantageous if this facility were brought to the notice of migrants by having it inserted in an appropriate place in the directory and I undertake to see that this is done.

page 772

QUESTION

TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

Mr LYNCH:
FLINDERS, VICTORIA

– I ask the Prime Minister: In view of the Attorney-General’s claim that there has been and still is overwhelming and incontestable evidence of Croatian terrorist activities by organisations and individuals, will the Prime Minister direct the AttorneyGeneral to institute proceedings and thereby establish the adequacy and sufficiency of the evidence he claims to have? If not will the Prime Minister clearly explain what must be regarded as an abandonment of duty by the Attorney-General in his Government?

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– At last Australia has an Attorney-General who is intent on doing his duty to see that Australia is not subjected to attacks on individuals, public and private, and is not made the base for attacks on other countries. The present Attorney-General, my Attorney-General, is unquestionably doing his duty to see that the full rigour of the law is applied to those who flout it.

page 772

TELEPHONE SERVICE INSTALLATION FEE

Mir DUTHIE - I ask the Postmaster-General whether the Government has any plans to remove or reduce the $50. installation fee for telephones. If this relief cannot be granted at present to all subscribers, will the PostmasterGeneral have this $50 fee removed for our pensioners, especially invalid pensioners to whom the telephone is a life link with the doctor?

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

– The whole gamut of the financial structure of the Post Office is under review at present. It is true that the $50 installation fee has been regarded as a harsh penalty, particularly on pensioners. It is true also that retired people in the community feel that for health reasons a telephone is an essential aspect of living and is required in order to obtain urgent medical assistance. It is recognised that previous governments have given certain concessions in certain areas. It follows, therefore, that in the review of all the tariff structures of the Post Office, which is not likely to take place this year, this matter should be the subject of review, with sympathetic consideration being given to pensioners.

page 772

QUESTION

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE

Mr O’KEEFE:
PATERSON, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the. Minister for Health: Have outbreaks of foot and mouth disease occurred in some European countries? If this disease spread to Australia could it ruin our great cattle industry? Can the Minister say what precautions are being taken to prevent this disease entering this country and will he ensure that these precautions are stepped up to prevent such a happening?

Dr EVERINGHAM:
ALP

– There is no guarantee that foot and mouth disease cannot enter this country, no matter how stringent are the measures taken. However, I believe that the measures adopted by Australia are as stringent as those applying anywhere else in the world. In fact, there are constant complaints about the stringency of these measures, particularly from cattle breeders who have to contend with long waits before they can import blood stock into this country. These stringent conditions have been stepped up on occasions, particularly on one or two occasions when foot and mouth disease obtained a very temporary hold in this country and cost a lot of money. As the honourable member said, there have been outbreaks of foot and mouth disease from time to time in Europe and, for example, it has cost the United Kingdom many hundreds of millions of dollars to stamp out the disease when it has entered that country. If such an outbreak occurred among the wild stock in this country, for instance among the buffaloes, it probably would be impossible ever to eradicate the disease from this continent.

One of the things at which my Department ls looking is the possible provision of an offshore island such as Norfolk, Cocos or Christmas Island, so that the long quarantine period in Britain would be done away with and we could have cattle, sheep, goats and pigs imported into this country, particularly for breeding purposes, with a wait of only 6 to 9 months instead of the wait of, from memory, 9 to 18 months that is required under the present arrangements. This would also result in substantial savings for people importing stock and would make it possible for the stock to be imported without any relaxation of the stringent requirements Australia has.

page 773

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN SHIPBUILDING INDUSTRY! EVANS DEAKIN SHIPYARD

Mr KEOGH:
BOWMAN, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister for Transport. I ask the Minister whether his attention has been drawn to an article in this morning’s Brisbane ‘CourierMail’ which again raises the hardy old rumour of the impending closure of the Evans Deakin shipyard at Kangaroo Point. Will the Minister affirm the Government’s policy to ensure the long term stability of the Australian shipbuilding industry and also assure honourable members that the Government will do an within its power to guarantee immediate continuity of work at the Evans Deakin shipyard, contrary to the attitude of the last Government, which failed to do this?

Mr CHARLES JONES:
Minister for Transport · NEWCASTLE, VICTORIA · ALP

– I have not seen the article in Hie ‘Courier-Mail’ referred to by the honourable member for Bowman but 1 am aware of the problems associated with the Australian shipbuilding industry which, I believe, would have closed down if there had not been a change of government. When I took office as the Minister for Transport, I was placed in the most unfortunate position of finding that there was only one ship to be allocated - a sea coaster for the Australian National Line. On top of that a rig for the Santa Fe company was to be allocated to an Australian shipyard, but there were distinct 11110/73- il - PO] problems associated with that rig. Since we came to office we have given an undertaking to the Santa Fe company and to Evans Deakin, which was the lowest tenderer for the rig, that the Government would be prepared to pay a 45 per cent subsidy on the building of the rig.

A further problem was handed to us in connection with the rig, that is, whether work would be available for it when it was completed. We were faced with the question of being prepared to pay a subsidy for the building of a ship or a rig which was to be exported. As a result of a decision made recently by the Cabinet, the Government has given the Santa Fe drilling company an assurance that, if the rig is built in Australia and on completion is held on the coast for a reasonable time, no attempt will be made by the Government to recapture the subsidy on the building of the rig. This in itself should ensure continuity of employment at the Evans Deakin shipyard for some time, at least until the Government can get orders for the building of ships in Australian yards moving again. What I have done further to guarantee work for rigs built in Australia is to notify the oil drilling industry that in future permits will not be given to drill for either gas or oil with imported rigs until such time as orders are lodged to replace the imported rigs on the coast. With this policy being pursued the Government will have drilling for oil or gas on the Australian coast rigs built in Australian shipyards thus guaranteeing continuity of work in the shipyards for the men employed.

page 773

QUESTION

REVALUATION OF AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR: MINING INDUSTRY

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
FARRER, NEW SOUTH WALES

– When the Minister for Minerals and Energy referred to leaders in the mining industry as hillbillies and mugs, was this a reference to the fact that these people were unable to prevent heavy losses to their companies when the Australian dollar was revalued? Is he aware that most of these companies attempted to cover themselves against revaluation but that such cover could be arranged only under limited conditions and at a significant cost? Is he also aware that at the time when most of the iron ore contracts were written it was virtually impossible to write them in anything but United States dollars and that any clauses on revaluation would be legally unenforceable? If this is so, what does he think the mines should have done to cover themselves against these losses?

Mr CONNOR:
ALP

– There are none so blind as those who will not see. For quite a number of years it has been common knowledge that the American dollar was on the downgrade. For a similar period it has been well known that the former government was prepared to adopt a wholly subservient attitude to the United States. As far back as 1959 the First National City Bank was issuing warnings as to the stability of the United States dollar. The Bank of International Settlements was doing exactly the same, as was the International Monetary Fund. The late President Kennedy was gravely concerned about maintaining the amount of the gold reserves of the United States. In 1965 General de Gaulle insisted on getting $4 billion worth of gold from the United States. In 1966 the former Government chose to impose, through the Reserve Bank of Australia, this obligation on quite a number of people. The so-called captains of industry were, in fact, hillbillies, and that goes for quite a number of members of the then Govenment which was supposed to be advising them.

page 774

QUESTION

DROPOUTS AND FAILURES IN UNIVERSITIES

Dr JENKINS:
SCULLIN, VICTORIA

– Has the Minister for Education any recent information available on the number of dropouts and failures in each year of each school or faculty of each Australian university or other tertiary institutions? Can this information be made available to honourable members? Is any follow-up done of such failures and dropouts to ascertain whether they transferred to other courses or whether use is made of the training such students have received? In view of the large expenditure of private and public moneys involved with such students, will the Minister consider an investigation into the various aspects of the problem?

Mr BEAZLEY:
Minister for Education · FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I have no statistics with me concerning what the honourable member calls dropouts and failures. I think that there could be unfortunate consequences of linking the two as if everyone who left a tertiary institution did so because he was a failure. However I will treat the honourable member’s question as being on notice and seek the information for which he asks.

page 774

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION

Mr ANTHONY:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask a question of the Prime Minister. Since his Attorney-General raided the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation quarters in Canberra and Melbourne on 16th March - 12 days ago - the only explanation by the Government has been that a statement would be made in Parliament when it resumed. In view of Senator Murphy’s reluctance and failure to explain in his statement and to reply to repeated questions in another place as to why he raided ASIO, and in view of his statement made yesterday that he was not denied information by ASIO, will the Prime Minister now respond to repeated requests by the Opposition and the Press to explain to the Parliament and to the Australian people why Senator Murphy’s action was necessary? I believe that as the Prime Minister is the Minister responsible under the Act for ASIO he should answer the question.

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– The Attorney-General was asked in the Senate on 1st March, whether he would make a statement about terrorist activities in Australia. He said he would. He made the statement yesterday. It was a beauty and it was repeated in this House by my colleague who represents him here. It is very significant that no questions have been asked about this statement by any of the Ministers from the previous Government who were quoted in support of the propositions which my colleague has now done something to put into effect, namely, that We should counter political terrorism in Australia. The AttorneyGeneral

Mr Snedden:

– Answer the question.

Mr WHITLAM:

– The Leader of the Opposition has asked a question. There was a reference to him in the statement. He does not challenge it, nor does my immediate predecessor.

Mr McMahon:

– I have tried to get a question in. Give me a chance.

Mr WHITLAM:

– Will somebody please help him up?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The House will come to order.

Mr MacKellar:

– Now, answer the question.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! Some honourable members will be talking to themselves outside the House if they are not careful.

Mr WHITLAM:

– I cannot be expected to speak while there is such a threatening attitude against me from the other side of the House.

page 775

COMMONWEALTH PUBLIC SERVICE:

page 775

QUESTION

SUPERANNUATION

Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · Werriwa · ALP

– I ask leave to make a supplementary reply to a question which the honourable member for Wentworth (Mr Bury) asked me.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is leave granted?

Mr Snedden:

– Leave will be granted to the Prime Minister at any time to answer questions.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! There can be no qualification in regard to the granting of leave. It is either granted or it is not. Is leave granted?

Mr Snedden:

– Leave is granted to answer a question.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! There can be no qualification. It is either granted or it is not. Is leave granted?

Mr Snedden:

– Leave is granted to answer a question.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Order! Leave is not granted under those circumstances.

Mr WHITLAM:

– I table a paper giving additional information in answer to a question from the honourable member for Wentworth about superannuation for Commonwealth public servants. May I make the personal explanation that I was unjust to the honourable gentleman and he was unjust to himself because the last time there was an adjustment to superannuation payments was in October 1971 which was after he had ceased to be Treasurer.

page 775

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Mr GARLAND:
Curtin

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

Mr SPEAKER:

– Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr GARLAND:

– Yes. I claim to have been misrepresented twice in the grievance debate held on Thursday of the last sitting week. During the general debate on the motion to note grievances 1 was engaged in citing examples of the evasion, misrepresentation and treatment of Parliament and members of Parliament with contempt, by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), the Minister for Labour (Mr Clyde Cameron), the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) and the Minister for Secondary Industry (Dr J. F. Cairns). I think that that list adequately covers the matter.

Firstly, you, Mr Speaker, referred at tha conclusion of my remarks to the fact that it is within the province of a Minister during question time to answer a question as he thinks fit. As will be seen from Hansard, of all the examples I cited I referred only briefly to questions without notice, and even then criticised those Ministers for lack of responsiveness, the employment of evasion and peremptoriness. At no time did I suggest that the Standing Orders had been breached. Secondly, I briefly state that the Leader of the House then rose and, in the guise of taking a point of order, commented about the answers I had given when I was a Minister. If he cares to consult Hansard he will find my answers to have been prompt and fully responsive. I do not think the Leader of the House was aware at the time of that. His comment was entirely malicious.

page 775

FIBRE BOARD

Tariff Board Report

Dr J F CAIRNS:
Minister for Overseas Trade · Lalor · ALP

– For the information of honourable members, I present a Tariff Board report on Fibre Board - by-law.

page 775

WHEAT RESEARCH ACT

Dr PATTERSON:
Minister for Northern Development · Dawson · ALP

– ‘Pursuant to section 18 of the Wheat Research Act 1957, I present the fourteenth annual report on activities under the Act for the year ended 31st December 1971.

page 775

INCOME TAX (INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS) BILL 1973

Bill presented by Mr Hayden, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security · Oxley · ALP

– I move:

That the Bill be now read a second time

This Bill is a measure to give the force of law to 2 double taxation agreements. One of the agreements is with Italy and applies only to profits derived from international airline operations. The other is with New Zealand and replaces the agreement concluded with that country in 1960. It covers all forms of income flowing between Australia and New Zealand.

The 2 agreements were signed for the respective governments during 1972 but cannot take effect until the passage of enabling legislation. A comprehensive double taxation agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany, which was also signed towards the end of 1972, is at present being considered by the Government.

The limited agreement with Italy provides that each country is to exempt, from its tax, profits derived from international traffic by the other country’s international airline. In effect, each country will have the sole right to tax profits from international traffic derived by its international airline in the other country. This is the basis for avoiding double taxation of airline profits recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization in order to spare international airlines the difficulties raised by the taxation in a number of countries of the profits from a single flight. It is the basis generally adopted in international double taxation agreements, whether of the comprehensive or the limited type, including Australia’s existing double taxation agreements, On entering into force the agreement will apply as from 1966, the year in which the possibility of entering into these mutually convenient arrangements was first discussed between the 2 countries.

The revised agreement with New Zealand brings up to date the agreement concluded with that country in 1960. Basically, the revision was made necessary by changes since 1960 in Australian and New Zealand taxation laws but it also takes account of subsequent developments reflected in Australia’s more recent double taxation agreements, notably those with the United Kingdom and Japan. In particular, the new agreement includes provisions that will resolve cases of unrelieved double taxation that have occurred under the 1960 agreement due to each country claiming to be the source of certain interest and royalty income. The relevant provisions require the country of residence to recognise the other country’s source rules for the income years concerned. They will also prevent cases of this nature arising in the future.

Provisions of the new agreement dealing with income such as business profits and shipping and airline profits will have substantially the same practical effects as those of the 1960 agreement. Other provisions of the new agreement were not included in the 1960 agreement but follow the same lines as corresponding provisions in Australia’s more recent agreements.

The tax which may be levied by the country of source on dividends remains generally limited, as in the 1960 agreement, to 15 per cent of the gross payment. Under new provisions broadly equivalent in scope to those in Australia’s more recent agreements, a corresponding limitation will generally apply in relation to royalty income. The tax of the country of source on interest is to be limited to 10 per cent. The limitations will not apply to dividends, royalties or interest that form part of the business profits Of a branch that a resident of one country has in the other country, or to interest payments between associated persons.

The agreement introduces provisions that, for the purposes of the agreement, will resolve the residential status of persons who are regarded by each country as resident for taxation purposes under its own domestic law. It also introduces a provision - now commonly adopted in double taxation agreements - which exempts certain payments from overseas sources to visiting students. It also includes usual provisions governing the taxation of visiting businessmen, teachers and professors, public entertainers, government employees and pensioners.

Turning to the measures for the relief of double taxation that will apply as a result of this Bill, the country of residence will provide relief, by way of credit for the other country’s tax, in respect of income that would otherwise remain taxable in both countries. Thus interest and royalties derived from New Zealand by residents of Australia, and in respect of which the New Zealand tax is limited to 10 per cent and 15 per cent respectively, will be taxed in Australia with credit being allowed for the New Zealand tax. Dividends from New Zealand received by Australian individuals will be eligible for a tax credit, while those received by Australian companies will remain tax-free by reason of the rebate allowed on inter-corporate dividends. Other income of Australian residents derived in New Zealand will be exempt from Australian tax if taxed in New Zealand.

When given the force of law on assent being given to this Bill, the agreement with New Zealand will generally have effect in Australia from 1st July 1972, and in New Zealand from 1st April 1972. The agreement also has some back-dating to cover the dual-source interest and royalty cases that I referred to earlier. In addition, the agreement will continue - for income years commencing before it enters into force - any provisions of the 1960 agreement that give a result more favourable to a taxpayer than the new agreement does.

A memorandum containing more detailed explanations of technical aspects of the Bill and of the agreements is being made available to honourable members. I commend this Bill to the House.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! Is leave granted to proceed with the debate forthwith? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Mr SNEDDEN:
Leader of the Opposition · Bruce

– Both of these agreements were concluded during the period when I was the Treasurer. It is therefore to be expected that I would give the agreements the support of the Opposition, and I do that. I am glad to see the agreements given the legislative basis which will enable them as a matter of law to apply in Australia. I do not know whether the New Zealand Government has legislated yet but I hope that it will do so and that the matter will be finalised. Over a considerable period of time Italy and other European countries have been calling for the conclusion of double tax agreements with those countries. It has not been possible to conclude all those agreements with the rapidity that those countries would have liked. I notice that sitting in the officials’ box is one of the officers who has been engaged in the highly complicated task of negotiation. It is not possible just to pick up an officer and declare him to be a negotiator on these double tax agreements because of the complexity of them and because those officers carry with them a very important negotiating and bargaining duty so that Australia’s interests will be protected and will not be subservient to the interests of other countries.

I fully support the concept of double tax agreements even though they may be, as in the case of Italy, of a limited kind. That is all that can be negotiated at present. I look forward to the wider spread of double tax agreements. I know that the Treasury, the Commissioner of Taxation and his staff have a program for negotiating these double tax agreements with other countries. I have come across a number of businessmen in Australia, businessmen from other countries and diplomatic representatives from other countries who have expressed some doubt as to whether the present Government intends to go for ward with the negotiation of these double tax agreements. Their uncertainty will have an effect on the level of the flow of trade between Australia and those countries. Quite clearly, one of the matters to be taken into account in trading operations by private trading organisations is the significance to them of the incidence of taxation in their country of residence and in the country in which the operation occurs and the profit is earned.

Negotiations took place last year culminating in the successful conclusion of a double tax agreement with Germany. The West German Ambassador to Australia and I signed the agreement in late November last year. I regret that there is no legislation which would give the force of law to that agreement. I hope that the Acting Treasurer will inform me whether legislation will come in to give confirmation to that agreement. I make the point that negotiations for a double tax agreement between France and Australia were concluded last year. There were reasons why that agreement could not be signed. I ask the Minister to inform me whether the Australian Government will put its signature to the double tax agreement with France. I also ask the Minister to inform me whether it is the Government’s intention to go ahead with the negotiation of double tax agreements according to the order of priorities established last year by the Treasury and the Taxation Office. I know that the Minister is acting as Treasurer and that this information may not be within his immediate knowledge. I have not given him forewarning of these questions. I do not want to embarrass him. If he needs to consult his officers I will be happy to receive that information, because regardless of the effect of that information I still believe that this Bill to give effect to these agreements should go through. The Opposition will support the Bill.

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security · Oxley · ALP

– in reply - I would like to reply to the questions which the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden) has asked. The only information I can convey to him, in my capacity as Acting Treasurer, is the statement I made in my second reading speech, that the comprehensive double taxation agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany, to which he referred, is at present being considered by the Government. I am afraid that I will have to defer answering the other matters. I will certainly bring to the notice of the Treasurer (Mr Crean) the reasonable requests which the Leader of the Opposition has directed to me.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Third Reading

Leave granted for third reading to be moved forthwith.

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

page 778

STATES GRANTS (ADVANCED EDUCATION) BILL 1973

Bill presented by Mr Beazley, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr BEAZLEY:
Minister for Education · Fremantle · ALP

– I move:

That the Bill be now read a second time. The purpose of the Bill now before the House is to give effect to a number of Government decisions to provide additional funds for the development of advanced education in Australia during the current triennium. Honourable members will recall that the Australian Commission on Advanced Education recommended, in its third report, that the Commonwealth should provide an unmatched grant of $5m for libraries in colleges of advanced education during the 1973-75 triennium. The late Government did not accept the recommendation. The present Government accepts the view of the Australian Commission on Advanced Education that present library resources are inadequate in colleges of advanced education, and it is therefore prepared to make available for college libraries the sum of $5m during the current triennium. No matching contribution will be required from the States in respect of this grant.

Present day living is becoming increasingly more complex and this complexity produces social problems, especially in urban communities, which demand the expertise of the professional social worker for their solution. Education is a field where social workers are needed. There is, at the present time in Australia, a severe shortage of trained social workers. To help overcome this shortage the Government is providing an unmatched grant of $40,000 in 1973 to enable the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education to establish a postgraduate course in social work to commence in 1974. This course will enable graduates in disciplines such as arts to become professionally qualified social workers. Additional finance will be provided in 1974 and 1975.

The Government has approved an allocation of $3m to universities and colleges of advanced education to enable them to provide financial assistance to needy students. Of the $3m, $806,000 is for students attending colleges of advanced education in the States. The amount of $29,000 has been allocated for the Canberra College of Advanced Education. The provision of these funds will enable students who are suffering financial hardship to receive assistance sufficient to enable them to continue their college courses. The Government decision to provide these funds was taken in the knowledge that tuition fees have risen significantly in many tertiary institutions. This assistance too is being provided entirely by this Government and no contribution is sought from the States. I would like to repeat what I said in connection with legislation assisting needy university students about the Government’s hope in regard to the administration of the scheme. The assistance scheme is to be administered by the respective colleges of advanced education and assistance will be given in the form of grants or loans, depending on individual circumstances, and will be available to pay fees, living allowances and other approved educational expenses. It will be a matter for each college of advanced education to determine who shall receive assistance, but I would expect that the grants would be made available to students who are in extremely difficult financial circumstances following misfortune outside their control, such as death, injury, serious illness or desertion by bread-winners of families on ordinary incomes; the annihilation of family income in flood, drought or bushfire; seasonal or chronic unemployment of the bread-winner; loss of earning power by the bread-winner or any other reason; unreasonable refusal of financial support by parents; and to the children of age, invalid or widow pensioners.

The present Bill, together with other Bills on education listed for introduction during this autumn session of Parliament, underlines the importance which the Government and, I believe, the Parliament attach to the whole field of education, a view which Parliament knows is shared by the nation. I commend the Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Lynch) adjourned.

page 779

STATES GRANTS (WATER RESOURCES MEASUREMENT) BILL 1973

Bill presented by Dr Cass, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr CASS:
Minister for the Environment and Conservation · Maribyrnong · ALP

– I move:

That the Bill be now read a second time. This Bill concerns grants to the States over the next 3 financial years to continue acceleration of measurement of discharge of rivers and investigation and measurement of underground water resources. Following a recommendation by the Australian Water Resources Council, the Commonwealth and State governments in 1964 adopted an accelerated program of surface and underground water investigations to establish a comprehensive network of stream gauging stations and to improve substantially knowledge of underground water resources. Besides implementing its own accelerated program in the Northern Territory, the Commonwealth has assisted State programs by making available grants of $2. 8m, $4.5m and $8. 2m over successive 3- year periods.

The success of the overall program to date has been shown by the fact that the States have continued to undertake annual programs considerably m excess of requirements to attract the full Commonwealth subsidy. Accordingly this Bill, in contrast to previous Acts where maximum Commonwealth grants have been calculated as a proportion of less than the full proposed State expenditure, provides for the Commonwealth to meet fully half the cost of proposed programs submitted by the States. The governments involved had reason to be satisfied with progress so far. However, it was apparent to the Water Resources Council that, if the objectives of the program as envisaged were to be achieved, a further expansion of effort was needed, and this is reflected in the programs planned by the States for next triennium.

Surface water measurement programs total $13. 7m, an increase of $5.2m on programs for the period just completed, and underground water measurement programs total $16.5m, an increase of $5.9m on the programs covered by the 1970 Act. These proposed increases in expenditures are due to both general increases in costs of labour and materials and also increases in the scope of the works being undertaken. In many authorities for the first time in several years sections concerned with resource assessment are now operating at full staffing strength.

The Government now proposes to make available a total of up to $ 15.1m by way of grants to the States, to assist in implementing the planned programs in the next 3 years. This figure represents an increase of almost 85 per cent over the level of Commonwealth aid in the past 3 years and almost a sixfold increase in assistance when compared with the first 3-year program. In making this increased contribution, the Commonwealth is confident that the States will increase their own commitments so that the objectives endorsed by the Water Resources Council may be achieved. The current legislation does not of course cover the Northern Territory, which will be provided for in appropriations for the Department of the Northern Territory.

I turn now to the Bill itself, the provisions of which are similar to the 1970 Act which it is designed to follow. Provision for grants in respect of expenditure by the States on water resources investigation and measurement is contained in sections 4 and 5. Commonwealth grants will be provided, in accordance with the amounts specified in the schedules, to assist the States to undertake the programs of expenditure necessary to meet the aims of the accelerated program. In respect of each State, the Commonwealth grant will be the amount by which the expenditure exceeds a base amount until expenditure is double this base amount. The grant for expenditure greater than this is on a dollar for dollar basis until the ceiling set out in the schedule is reached. Grants have been allocated between the States on the basis of their own proposed programs.

The Bill contains also a number of machinery provisions which are similar to the previous Acts relating to this program. These include provision for approval of the proposed programs by the Minister in section 7, provision for submission of progress reports in section 8, and provision for advance payments to the States in section 9. The developmental works to utilise the nation’s water resources must be preceded by thorough

Investigations of these resources and this requires adequate basic data. The program of water resources assessment in which all governments in Australia are participating has been devised with this end in view. I have pleasure in commending the Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Lynch) adjourned.

page 780

SOUTH AUSTRALIA GRANT (LOCK TO KIMBA PIPELINE) BILL 1973

Bill presented by Dr Cass, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Dr CASS:
Minister for the Environment and Conservation · Maribyrnong · ALP

– I move:

This Bill is concerned with a grant which was announced by the previous Government for inclusion within the national water resources development program. In accordance with normal practice this Government is prepared to implement the promise and in fact is pleased to do so. We have agreed to provide up to $2.1m to South Australia to assist in the construction of the pipeline scheme. The LockKimba pipeline project involves the construction of about 69 miles of trunk main between the towns of Lock and Kimba on the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. An additional 170 miles of distribution branch mains will serve properties not alongside the trunk main and replenish, when necessary, storage tanks along their routes. Water will be supplied for stock and domestic purposes and for townships, in particular Darke Peak and Kimba. The total estimated cost of the pipeline is $5.05m. As I have already stated, the Commonwealth will provide a grant of $2.1m out of about $3m required to complete the work.

Further details of the scheme are contained in the explanatory memorandum distributed with the Bill. Members will note that the project is already partly constructed. Commonwealth payments under the grant will be made for expenditures incurred on or after 7th November 1972. An environmental impact statement prepared by the South Australian Government is also provided for the information of honourable members. In accordance with the policy of this Government information on the economic analysis of the project prepared by the Bureau of Agricultural

Economics, has been published. Copies may be obtained from the Bureau.

Turning now to the Bill itself, section 4 provides that the grant will be non-repayable. Section 6 sets out requirements in connection with the implementation of the project, and covers the provision of information requested by the Minister, ministerial approval of the works, and approval by the Minister of contracts in excess of $500,000. The project will be designed and constructed by the Engineering and Water Supply Department of the South Australian Government. The requirements for information by the Treasurer, in respect of expenditure are set out in section 7 and the general provisions for the Treasurer to make advance payments, and for repayment of overpayments are made in section 8. I have pleasure in commending the Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Lynch) adjourned.

page 780

QUESTION

JOINT COMMITTEE ON PRICES

Debate resumed from 15th March (vide page 630), on motion by Mr Crean:

That a Joint Committee be appointed to inquire into and, as appropriate, report on -

complaints arising from prices charged by private industry;

movements in prices of goods and services in particular fields or sections of private industry, for example, as measured by price indices; and

such other matters relating to prices as may be referred to the committee by resolution of either House of the Parliament.

That the committee consist of four Members of the House of Representatives nominated by the Prime Minister, two Members of the House of Representatives nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives, one Member of the House of Representatives nominated by the Leader of the Australian Country Party in the House of Representatives, two Senators nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate and one Senator nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

That every nomination of a member of the committee be forthwith notified in writing to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

That the members of the committee hold office as a joint committee until the House of Representatives expires by dissolution or effluxion of time.

That the Prime Minister nominate one of the government members of the committee as Chairman.

That the Chairman of the committee may, from time to time, appoint another member of the committee to be the Deputy Chairman of the committee, and that the member so appointed act as Chairman of the committee at any time when the Chairman is not present at a meeting of the committee.

C7) That the committee have power to appoint subcommittees consisting of three or more of its members and to refer to any such sub-committee any of the matters which the committee is empowered to examine-

  1. That the committee have power to send for persons, papers and records, to move from place to place and to sit during any recess or adjournment of the Parliament.
  2. That the committee have leave to report from time to time and that any member of the committee have power to add a protest or dissent to any report.
  3. That five members of the committee constitute a quorum of the committee, and two members of a sub-committee constitute a quorum of that subcommittee.
  4. That in matters of procedure the Chairman or Deputy Chairman presiding at the meeting have a deliberative vote and, in the event of any equality of voting, have a casting vote, and that, in other matters, the Chairman or Deputy Chairman have a deliberative vote only.
  5. That the committee be provided with all necessary staff, facilities and resources.
  6. That the committee recognise the need for co-operation between the Commonwealth and consumer protection bodies in the States.
  7. That the foregoing provisions of this resolution, so far as they are inconsistent with the standing orders, have effect notwithstanding anything contained in the standing orders.
  8. That a message be sent to the Senate acquainting it of this resolution and requesting that it concur and take action accordingly.
Mr LYNCH:
Flinders

– The Opposition recognises that inflation is, of course, Australia’s major economic problem, but we on this side of the House totally reject the concept and the desirability of establishing a Joint Committee on Prices. We see such a Committee as, in a sense, a form of economic back, seat driving, and we believe that in practice and in application it will prove to be impracticable. A committee which is established to examine prices without at the same time examining wages must, in our view, prove to be ineffectual because it will be necessarily concerned with the symptom rather than with the basic cause of inflation. A committee which seeks to examine price levels in the private sector without having regard to the inflationary impact on the economy of the public sector will not have the capacity to examine the overall nature of Australia’s inflationary experience. Moreover, it is a clear indication of the Government’s continuing desire to denigrate private industry and, at the same time, to seek to absolve itself from its own economic responsibilities.

A parliamentary committee is, in fact, singularly inappropriate to examine questions of this type, particularly when the Government has at its disposal the expertise of Government departments such as the Treasury which have a particular competence to provide accurate and meaningful information as to the extent and the cause of this country’s inflationary difficulties. A brief examination of the problems which were apparent during Mr Justice Moore’s recent evaluation of the Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd’s price submissions can only demonstrate beyond doubt the difficulties and complexities inherent in any committee examination of the pricing policy and structure of a particular company or industry. The fact that the Government is seeking to establish a series of organisations and procedures designed to examine prices rather than the overall nature of our inflation problem, is evidence of the traditional outdated thinking within the Australian Labor Party that the problem of inflation can best be met by the control or restraint of prices. The major flaw in the argument that the introduction of tribunals and committees to control prices is an effective method of curbing inflation, proceeds from the premise that price control is the logical corollary of wage control by arbitral machinery. This, of course, is a fallacious and untenable proposition. Wages are not fixed in this country. Award rates in different classifications of labour are determined by the various tribunals but they are minimum, not maximum, rates. Actual wages are far above the minimum, and of course are set by market forces - the supply and demand for various types of labour.

One of the major problems in the conciliation and arbitration area in recent years has been the attempt by both employers and trade unions voluntarily to reach negotiated agreements, without reference to the concept of public interest, which they then seek to have legitimised by the machinery of arbitration. In addition, although minimum rates for various skills are determined by wage fixing bodies, individuals remain free to increase their incomes by acquiring greater skills or by their promotion to positions carrying additional responsibilities or by working overtime. The claim that wages are fixed while profits are not controlled ignores the basic differential between these 2 types of income. For the great majority of employees in industry wages are a guaranteed reward, and the wage earner knows with some degree of certainty the level of his minimum yearly income. In contrast, profits are far from certain, and the difficulties inherent in the attainment of both short and long term profit goals need no elaboration in this House. Economists generally concede that profits are the reward for risk, and those who choose to invest their money in industry must of course incur an element of chance.

The argument that wages are controlled and that, therefore, in the interests of equity, prices and profits should likewise be controlled assumes that there is one section of people who receive their incomes in the form of wages and another section who receive their income from company dividends. This assumption has, I believe, no direct relevance to the experience of a modern western economy. Company profits have very little to do with the distribution of income. The major shareholders in modern industry are no longer individuals but substantial financial institutions such as life assurance companies, pension funds, investment companies, unit trusts and so on.

Profits largely determine the level of capital investment in industry. If profits are inadequate, industry is unable to attract funds for the expansion of its activities and the introduction of advanced technologies. Before assuming office the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) stated that one of his major priorities in government would be to increase substantially the level of productivity. To achieve substantial productivity gains, however, it is clearly necessary to apply greater capital and technological inputs to available labour resources. Over recent years increases in unit prices have been markedly overshadowed by increases in unit labour costs, with a subsequent reduction in the rate of return on investment. It is not, in my view, reasonable to expect a continuing commitment of shareholder funds without a reasonable certainty that the rate of return will exceed the level of inflation. As inflation increases tend towards the rate of Investment return on capital, spending can be expected to decline in conjunction with a slow down in the growth of the gross national product in real terms.

The final consequences of this situation can only be the diminishing capacity of the economy to pay for higher real wages and the diminishing real benefits derived from social welfare programs. In addition, it is increasingly true that due to the concentration of capital and the consolidation of small companies into corporations, profitability levels are now very closely associated with the general economic circumstances prevailing at a particular time rather than the entrepreneurial expertise of a particular company. Excess profits cannot be justified in any circumstances but a community must stand to benefit from a fair and real level of profit return. Enterprise will be encouraged, industrial growth will be accelerated and productivity will be enhanced. The freedom of business to determine its prices is the central feature of economic systems characteristic of all Western countries where people enjoy living standards far in advance of those in economies where no such freedom exists.

Our recent inflationary pressures cannot be ascribed to the existence of excess demand in the economy. In recent years most economists have accepted that the problem has been caused by cost push factors. Economic indicators comparing levels of demand, prices and earnings clearly show that the acceleration in earnings has been coincidental with the acceleration of inflation rather than with those factors associated with demand. An examination of the movements of the components of the implicit price deflator for gross non-farm products - unit labour costs and unit profit margins - demonstrates clearly that the impetus in the acceleration in prices has not emanated from unit profit margins. The movements in prices and unit labour costs were generally in line with each other until 1968-69 but since that time unit labour costs have risen at a much higher rate than implicit prices. The figures demonstrate that the acceleration in labour costs has preceded the acceleration in prices and that the increases in labour costs have been of greater magnitude than the increases which have occurred in the price area. The argument that inflation is due to profit push, that is, prices rise essentially as a consequence of attempts by producers to increase their profit margins and that wage rises represent merely an effort to restore relative equity, cannot be sustained by fact. During the last 4 years total wages and salaries have increased at over twice the rate at which private business income, excluding depreciation and interest, has increased.

In spite of the overwhelming evidence concerning the causes of our inflationary problems and the well documented failure of prices policies adopted by other countries, this Government remains intent upon establishing a series of tribunals and organisations to examine and control prices in a vacuum, of course, without reference to the essential labour input ingredients. At the same time the Government has committed itself to a heavy program of expenditure and to the support of unpredecented levels of industrial concessions which include a 35-hour week, 4 weeks annual leave and equal pay. No responsible government in this country can seriously expect to address its mind to the question of inflation if its own policies entail such massive inflationary consequences in themselves. The Opposition believes that the Government has a primary responsibility to appeal for restraint throughout the general community in the interests of the total community and particularly the wage and salary earners who work within it. The Government must ensure the continued maintenance of an arbitration system wherein these wage and salary demands which are clearly inconsistent with the national interest can be effectively challenged. To argue that we should look simply at the question of prices and not simultaneously at the question of wages is to treat the symptom of inflation rather than the cause. Because of this the proposed committee will be unworkable; it will prove to be impracticable because it will be unable effectively to address its mind seriously to the essential question of inflation. Therefore, in terms of the proposal before the House and the alleged logic of the case which the Government has put, the Opposition parties reject the concept of the committee because of its impracticability.

We believe that the thinking upon which the concept is founded is erroneous. We believe that the function of the committee would be wholly inappropriate to the task with which it is charged and that it is nothing more than a simple veneer, a cosmetic device brought down by the Government which can have no directly useful function in the control of inflation in this country. Having said that I want to make it perfectly clear that although we reject the concept of the committee and believe that it is totally impracticable and simply will not function effectively, we on this side of the House are not prepared to allow the Government to make this committee a creature of Labor Party policy. For that reason, without obstructing the working of the committee in this House by a vote of the

House, we are certainly prepared to be directly involved in the operation of the committee although, as I mentioned before, we have very serious doubts as to its short and long term impact. We believe that its workings will be totally impracticable as a remedy to the problem it seeks to solve. Equally we believe that the committee must address itself to the question of the public sector and not simply the private sector and I seek leave to move in that context 2 amendments together which have been circulated to the Government.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Is leave granted?

Mr Hayden:

– Yes.

Mr LYNCH:

– I move:

  1. In paragraph 1 sub-paragraph (a) after the words private industry’ add ‘and by the public sector’.
  2. In paragraph 1 sub-paragraph (b) after the words private industry’ insert ‘and the public sector’.
Mr SPEAKER:

– Are the amendments seconded?

Mr Gorton:

– I second the amendments.

Mr WHAN:
Monaro · Eden

– The proposal to create a prices justification tribunal gives rise to the suggested establishment of this committee. The 2 must be seen together. We have heard from the Opposition a case based on the old mentality of a conflict approach. It is not even true to say that we are talking about competition between prices and wages. Wages are a component of prices and if there is a conflict it is within the various components of prices that it should be identified. It is because of the lack of knowledge of the components of prices that we have had to make the judgments of the past and it is in order to develop a body of knowledge to give us an intelligent basis for judgment that this motion has been brought before the House. In elementary terms we might consider that prices consist of the components of wages, rent, overheads and profit. One could perhaps develop different arguments for different terms but the price we pay across the counter takes into consideration those costs. It is in order to identify those costs that the Government has suggested the establishment of this committee.

The causes of rising prices can be many. They can involve any one of those components. They might be due to a change in productivity, a lack of competition in the market place, or undue rises in any one of the individual components. By attacking the whole proposal today on the basis of a competition between capital and labour the Opposition has over-simplified the position. It has oversimplified it to the point where we cannot take a comprehensive and objective approach to the whole matter. The prices justification groupthat is, the committee and the tribunal - will be collecting facts to analyse the factors influencing price rises. It will be able to identify the source of the price rises. It will be able to identify the type of market system in which those price rises take place. This identification may be enough in itself. It may point to the cause and, having revealed the cause, public action in itself may be enough. The housewife and the shopper, knowing the reasons for the price rises, will be able to discriminate in their shopping procedures in order to avoid the areas of exploitation.

On the other hand the analysis may point to the need for new legislation which may not necessarily be confined to the restrictive trade practices Acts. Such legislation may be directed towards Increasing the rate of flow of innovation into our community because quite often price rises are due to a restriction not necessarily on prices charged but on ideas that are accepted in the market place. Certain economic concentrations prevent innovators from developing ideas in the market place. It may be that such an examination of price structure will point to the need to encourage innovation in those various areas. It may be that we need to examine very carefully the relative concentration of economic and political powers in various parts of our market system. All these factors will emerge from a close examination of the prices situation in various areas. It is for this reason - the reason of illumination - that the proposal has been put before this Parliament.

In order to achieve this correctly, it is absolutely essential that the communication between the buying public and the various elements in the market system be kept open. The whole question of communication is one which requires attention not only in this field but also in many fields of endeavour in our social structure. I suggest to honourable members that one way of looking at this is to consider the need for public contact to identify areas of increasing prices and to feed back to the public information that the proposed committee and the subsequent prices tribunal determine. There needs to be a flow of information and the best way to carry out that flow and to have a sensitive contact with the community is through this House and its members. They are the people who must justify this decision to their electorate. This will be yet another area in which the communication between the member and his electors will take place in a very meaningful way. This public contact which is so essential can be achieved by the committee which we now are proposing to establish.

Having made this contact, it should be recognised that we are not fully qualified research people. We need to be able to discriminate between the issues which are placed before this committee by the public that are identifiable. We need to sift out various proposals put before the committee and pass these on to a research group. It is not so easy to identify a research group in a simple way. We must have a research group which is applied and another more fundamental in its approach to various issues. The field officers and the applied research workers should, 1 believe, be identified fairly closely with the parliamentary committee. More fundamental and basic research needs to be identified with the prices tribunal. The need for legislation and the definition of that legislation can come from the tribunal.

So, we have this transition in the communications process from members of the public who believe that they are being subjected to undue price rises, through this House and its members. We are able to act as the sounding board for their objections, sift out these objections and classify them, perhaps in terms of the type of market system in which the price rises are taking place. For example, it could be a fully competitive system; it could be a cartel; it could be a monopoly. One could enumerate various market systems. The parliamentary committee will be in a position to classify these price rises in those terms and present the prices justification tribunal with fundamental problems that arise in terms of price justification.

I believe that this will be a very important committee, not only because of its economic implications but also because of the contact that it will establish with the general public It will bring government closer to the public. It is a sensible project, both technically and politically. It is sensible politically because it removes from the arena of these discussions a great deal of emotion that is generated on the basis of labour versus capital. We on this side of the House do not need to be told that capital requires a return. We do not need to be told that people who invest in property require rent for that property. We do not need to be told that, from time to time, wage demands get out of line. But we on this side as well as on the other side of the House need to know the relative balance between each of these components in prices. To identify prices and wages as a part of the conflict is to over-simplify to the point of being completely wrong. If this argument is to be presented at all, it needs to be identified in terms of the return on capital - if you like, profit - versus wages, both pf them being a component of price.

The issue of price control has been examined by various groups and various parliaments. This Government has acknowledged the restrictions that must be placed on the control of prices. It is quite clear that restrictions on price control must exist and that is why we emphasise the concept of price justification. To talk of price control is to miss the point that we have presented for the consideration of the House, namely, the concept of price justification. Price control requires a very large bureaucracy. It is an expensive operation to carry out and, indeed, is an almost meaningless operation in the absence of an understanding of the prices themselves. It is because we realise that it is a meaningless, expensive operation that the concept of price justification is being presented to the House under the proposal to establish this committee.

I commend the proposal to the House. I believe that the amendments proposed by the Opposition have been covered in the terms of reference of the proposed committee. Item (1) (c) of the motion moved by the Treasurer (Mr Crean) is in these terms: such other matters relating to prices as may be referred to the committee by resolution of either House of the Parliament.

Such a suggestion in the committee’s terms of reference obviously will give the committee the necessary scope to consider prices charged by public enterprises. It is also obvious, of course, that the cost or price structure within a public enterprise will be known to the governments controlling that enterprise. The question of access to these costings does not arise. The question of access to private enterprise costings has been the subject of Bills introduced by the Opposition when it was in government. In the Wool Industry Bill the. Australian Wool Commission was given the power to examine and request prices and costs charged by groups which were operating in competition with the public utilities owned and run by the Wool Commission. Presumably, it was not necessary when the now Opposition introduced that Bill to point to the differences between prices charged in the private sector and those charged in the public sector. The power given to the Wool Commission was restricted to the private sector. Members of the Opposition established their own precedent when they were in government and it was unnecessary to move this amendment in the light of the terms of reference which are now before the House. I commend the proposal to the House.

Mr SNEDDEN:
Leader of the Opposition · Bruce

– There is no question that inflation is one of the most serious problems facing Australia today and certainly is the most serious economic problem. Inflation misallocates resources, erodes savings, puts at a disadvantage the economically weak and aids speculators and those prepared to exploit ruthlessly their industrial power. It is a cancer, eroding proper balanced and rational economic development. But it comes down to the question of how serious we, as the Australian people, are in our determination to handle inflation, how capable and genuine we are and how realistically we approach the problem. No economist would argue the proposition that price increases can be isolated and identified as an element for treatment without affecting a whole range of other questions. No policy can be undertaken on an issue without considering the reverberations of that action on the whole mix of economic, political and social factors that are affected by it. No treatment of the problem of inflation - that is, of price increases - can be properly predicated on the simplistic premise that prices can be meaningfully controlled by dealing with the question of price rises alone without dealing with their cause. But the whole Labor movement and its instrument, this Government, is doing just this. There is this myopic concentration on prices alone. Price increases have other things behind them. Is it the improper extension of profit which is the basic cause of inflation today? Are costs pushing prices, or is it competition for resources by an excess of demand over availability of commodities? Systems which deal with prices alone beg these important questions. I have repeatedly said that the Labor Party approach to inflation is a cosmetic sham. This is all the Price Justification Tribunal will be. This is from an understanding of its workings that have been stated so far. This is all that a committee of Parliament on prices will be - a pretence at dealing with the problem.

What are the causes of inflation today? Anybody who thinks that rising prices have been the result of capitalistic greed might contemplate figures drawn from the White Paper on National Income and Expenditure. Wages and salaries between 1969-70 financial year grew from about $ 15,500m to about $20,000m in the 1971-72 financial year - an increase of almost one-third in the base figure. In those 3 years company income declined in absolute terms. If we look at a comparison between wages and salaries and supplements as a percentage of the national income we have some indication of what is happening. The National Accounts Statistics reveal that in 1948-49 wages, salaries and supplements accounted for 60 per cent of national income. In the financial year 1971-72 it was 70 per cent, an increase of 10 per cent during that period. The table of figures which 1 shall seek leave to incorporate in Hansard shows the increases in average weekly earnings in comparison with movements in the consumer price index. It shows how increases in average weekly earnings over the last 15 years have been dramatically higher than the consumer price index movements over the period and particularly in recent years. I have a table which gives the figures from 1956-57 through to 1971-72 with movements in the consumer price index in one column and average weekly earnings per employed male unit and the percentage increase on the same period of the previous year. I seek leave to incorporate this table in Hansard.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Lucock)Order! ls leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Mi SNEDDEN- I thank the House. (The document read as follows)-‘

Mr SNEDDEN:

– ‘Labor Party apologists keep attempting to distract from the issue by insinuating that the Opposition blames increases in wages and salaries as the sole cause of our inflation. This is not true. Neither 1 nor any member of the Opposition has said that. I have said that wages are the prime cause of our current inflation, and the orthodoxy of respectable economic opinion totally agrees with me on that proposition. It is only members of the Labor Party, because of their power position, who are unable to make that objective statement. They know it, but refuse to acknowledge it. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in its survey on Australia recently published, said:

The basic cause of accelerating price inflation in recent times has undoubtedly been accelerating wage inflation, first mainly, through wage drift, and then from late 1970 increasing through wage awards by arbitration authorities. lt continued: . . concern with inflation will need to move to top priority in the Federal Government’s list of economic problems.

In those 2 statements clearly the OECD is saying that the Federal Government must be concerned with accelerating wage inflation. Each utterance gives new momentum to the process which exacerbates wage inflation. Of course this comes as no surprise to us. The lack of objectivity of the Government was tangibly demonstrated right throughout last year’s election campaign. Its pamphlet, which was entitled: ‘It’s Time - Prices’ was a prime example. It said:

Prices go up - you get fleeced at the supermarket - that’s what inflation is all about.

This is a myopic concentration on prices. The Opposition says that when prices go up there is a cause. That is what inflation is really all about. If a kettle is boiling over one does not stop it by forcing the lid down; one removes the source of the heat. That is what inflation control is all about. The pamphlet goes on to repeat the utter nonsense that has been used to justify a one-sided approach by trade union leaders, particularly by Mr Hawke, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and Vice-President of the Australian Labor Party - with a mere echo by the Minister for Labor (Mr Clyde Cameron) - the fallacy that maximum wages and salaries are controlled.

The arbitration system establishes minimums and this protects the economically weak. These minimums do not represent wages control at all. They set the base from which over award payments and improved conditions are negotiated. The Conciliation and Arbitration Commission does not control wages; it sets a minimum which is the platform from which increased wages accelerate. The wage drift is very considerable. The arbitration system protects wage earners; it does not constrain them. It was not created to hamstring wage earners; it was created to protect wage earners. To maintain that the Arbitration Commission holds down wages must cause a wry smile when we read of strikes to force higher wages and a refusal to go to arbitration. Is there not a person in this House who does not read almost daily of a refusal to go to arbitration and to force a wage or conditions increase by direct action of strike? This causes a wry smile, but it is not very funny.

Why do trade union leaders, many in the highest positions in the Labor Party, continually say: ‘We will not go to arbitration.’? They constantly do this. Why do they continually say: ‘We will enforce our claims by direct action’? Have they not been successful in enforcing their claims by strike action - that is, if they possess industrial power? Only those unions with industrial power can enforce claims. What the trade union movement and the Labor Party are acquiescing in is the creation of class distinctions in this community among wage earners, depending on whether as an organised trade union they possess industrial power. Any member of the Labor Party who talks about a classless society is talking against what is being done. There is a constant willingness by the Labor Party in government and the trade union movement to ignore the claims of the industrially weak, but on the other hand to pay obeisance to the demands of the industrially strong.

The fallacy of wage control should not have survived so long as it has, but it has been constantly put as a propaganda exercise and it has sunk into people’s minds. It should be eradicated from their minds because it is the very people who are going to be harmed by inflation who are economically powerless. It was the economically powerless who elected this Government to office. The Government will ignore the proper claims of those people who elected them to office. The Labor Party is continuing to co-operate, as a government, with the ACTU in distracting attention from the current economic orthodoxy from which we are suffering - a cost inflation largely based on the wage push. This is not deniable, and anyone who claims to deny it is not arguing from fact but from the position of being commanded by the political power of unions. Members opposite have attempted to abuse our intelligence by seeking every other explanation but the real one. The most fanciful and most desperate attempt to distort the issue occurred last year when they latched on to the thesis of a discredited American academic. This is called the Johnson thesis. This thesis said that essentially inflation was caused by Americans financing the Vietnam war and by some means caused by that was exporting inflation to other countries.

Firstly, that could relate only to demand inflation and our problem has been cost and wage inflation. Secondly, there is no explanation of how this inflation could have been transferred to Australia. But now that the Vietnam war is over what is the current Labor orthodoxy for our burgeoning inflation? What excuses will it find for it from some external foreign manifestation instead of the reality of the wage push in this country? When I was Treasurer I had the Johnson thesis examined very closely and there was just no way in which that thesis could have explained our problems. I raise it only to demonstrate the length to which the Labor movement and the Labor Party politically have gone to disguise the issue. The current approach is to look at prices alone. How can Labor pretend to manage the economy properly when it continues to ignore and refuses to treat the root cause of our worst economic problem?

The only glimmering of an acknowledgment about the reality of wages and inflation was when the current Minister for Labour (Mr Clyde Cameron) at an executive meeting of the ALP last year in Adelaide planned a policy of freezing the wages of public servants as a means of halting inflation. He may, of course, have been motivated by his anti-public servant attitude which has been expressed continually in his unsubstantiated charges against public servants. One would have hoped that it was a glimmer of reality. But I regret to say thai within hours of it becoming known that he proposed this he received an avalanche of hostile telegrams from the trade union movement and other members of the Labor Party. With the flick of a finger his crusade was abandoned because of the power that he encountered and the end of economic realities was writ clear in Neon signs. Because of the trade union base and the Government’s capitulation to it, we are left with the Government dualism. There is to be action on price maximums. There is to be no action on wage maximums.

Australians will not be fooled by a captive government supporting a free grab for the militants on wages while there is government or Labor control on prices. There have been experiments overseas on policies to control the serious inflation that has afflicted developed Western economies of the world. No other government has dreamed - not for a second has it passed through its consciousness - that it could have a one-sided policy, a prices policy, only. Whenever you hear of it, you hear of it as an incomes and prices policy and so of course it must be. I have made a number of statements on prices and incomes policies. I have publicly discussed the problems and the advantages of these policies. I examined the question of a prices-incomes policy for Australia quite seriously in an address to the South East Asia Treaty Organisation. I did not believe that our inflation was so intractable that these fairly extreme measures were required. (Extension of time granted.)

In fact, by our alternative approach to the adoption of prices and incomes policies, us a government last year, we broke the back of accelerating inflation and we were one of the first developed economies to achieve a significant reduction in the recent rash of international inflation while still maintaining real economic growth. In the 1971 calendar year inflation was at a rate of 7 per cent. In the 1972 calendar year we brought it down to 4.6 per cent. That was an achievement which was truly outstanding in the world scene. At the same time we were able to maintain real growth in constant price terms in excess of 3 per cent. We set the platform for an increasing rate of growth in the year 1973. The Labor Government has inherited an economy in very good shape for continued growth. I regret that I have no confidence in their maintaining the health of that economy. We need to consider our position very carefully today. We need to determine whether we are interested in a short term freeze with all its problems or whether we see a new and fundamental role for the States as a permanent feature. We would need to make decisions about enforcements. One thing is certain and that is that we cannot have a one-sided policy, and that is what the Labor Party is asking us to do.

I turn now more specifically to the question of the Committee. Our basic attitude is that we do not know how the Committee will possibly have an effect on the control of prices. We are concerned that its interference in relation to some areas of prices will cause- equity problems in relation to other areas. We do not know in what way recommendations of the Committee can exercise and influence price fixation and the market. It is a mechanism, according to the Treasurer, to assist in the regulation of prices and to try better to adjudicate the social equation as between prices and wages. But how is it to act? We do not know that. How is it to enforce its decisions? Apparently it will not directly enforce them but will do so indirectly by using the whole mechanism of the Government.

Mr Chipp:

– Blackmail.

Mr SNEDDEN:

– It is blackmail, says the honourable member for Hotham, and I cannot help but agree with him. It will be a committee which is capable of terrorising. It will be a committee capable of giving lopsided results. The Committee is destined by its terms of reference not to consider the whole mix of economic and social issues and it runs the risk of sanctifying rises. In itself prices justification is an indication of the incapacity of the Labor Government to look at the issue and to come up with the right answers.

Another point about this Committee is whether the Labor Party in government has forgotten about the separation of the powers of the legislature, the executive and the judiciary which is fundamental to our constitution. There is an attempt in the setting up of this Committee to make the legislature do the executive’s job. There is no capacity for the legislature to do the executive’s job. How can a committee of this Parliament have access to the necessary range of staff for research and the accumulation of information in order to make effective judgments? It will be done on a political basis, not on an objective basis. It is a frightful intrusion of executive action into the legislature.

As 1 have said, to impose inflation is rather like being in favour of mothering. The necessity is to identify its cause and operate against it. We are extremely sceptical about the merits of this Committee. However, we will join it. The Government has the numbers. We will join it and take our place on the Committee in order to ensure that more objectivity is brought to bear on the problem of price control than has hitherto been the case in the councils of the Labor Party. We feel that we ought to exercise our influence to ensure that an irresponsible approach is not adopted to those areas of the economy which will be under the scrutiny of the Committee. We will be watching to see that there is no prejudice, no intimidation and no false conclusions.

Inflation is the major economic problem. We have no fundamental objection to policies directed against inflation. Indeed if we were in government we would continue to take action against inflation, I would hope as successfully as we did last year. However, we reject policies towards prices alone because they are an empty sham and, as one newspaper suggested in relation to this Committee, it is an exercise in political relations - an attempt merely to show that the Government is doing something about prices’. If the Government is serious about inflation it will receive our wholehearted endorsement. It must acknowledge the causes of inflation and attempt to deal with them as real, total issues. The terms of the motion deal only with private sector prices. This is yet another closure of the eye to a specific area, because public sector costs have just as real an impact on personal expenditures and price structures. My colleague, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition (Mr Lynch) has already moved to amend the terms of reference to include the public sector. We will not oppose the motion. We-will sit on the Committee for the reasons I have given. We have no confidence that the Committee will serve any worthwhile purpose. But we will not let it terrorise, abuse or falsely use the power of government against the industrial sector of Australia, which is the sector which provides jobs and growth and is the hope for the continuing growth of the great Australian nation. We believe that the Government is both unable and unwilling to deal with the insidious evil of inflation. I believe that inflation will be this Government’s Waterloo.

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security and Acting Treasurer · Oxley · ALP

– In the course of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden) which for some strange reason seemed to be largely irrelevant to the real issue to which his remarks should have been addressed, at least some light relief was provided by the way in which he discoursed. When he referred to breaking the back of inflation between 1971 and 1972, I could not help but think that it would have been more appropriate for him to have said that he had broken the back of the economy with the disastrous economic policies that he introduced in 1971, against the advice of every economic authority in Australia, outside of the Treasury, I understand, certainly against the advice of the Reserve Bank, academic and practical economists, and industrialists. To achieve what? To break the back of inflation? Rather he created massive unemployment, a complete flattening out of demand and a complete destruction of the rate of growth and investment in the economy. So, that was the back-breaking that occurred in this period.

The Government’s move to set up the joint Committee on Prices is so obviously sensible that it is only possible to wonder why it has not been done before. Any criticisms which the Opposition may make of the proposal should be considered in this light. For years we have been talking in this House about inflation and rising prices, arguing about the causes and effects of inflation, defending or attacking large firms like the Broken Hill Co. Pty Ltd when they raise the prices of the commodities that they sell. Nobody has questioned, or could question, the fact that it is the proper function of Parliament - indeed one of its major functions - to consider such things. Who then can object to a move to enable Parliament to deal with prices in a more profound and better informed fashion?

The terms of reference proposed for the Joint Committee have been drafted deliberately so as not to restrict the inquiries of the Committee, which will have the power to discuss any matter relevant to prices, and to receive expert evidence from economists, accountants, lawyers and others, from within the Public Service or elsewhere. Inevitably, some of the evidence which the Committee will hear will support Government policy, and some will be critical of Government policy. It will be for the Committee to decide its collective opinion on such evidence, and in doing so it will be helping to raise the level of discussion in the Parliament, and assisting the Government in the formulation of policy. We, the Government, have no fear of criticism, still less of the provision of information for public use. Why the previous Government did not wish to encourage the informed discussion of issues of great public importance it is not necessary to discuss now; but members of the Opposition might well feel some sensitivity on the subject.

The proposed Joint Committee will have the dual function of considering complaints about prices from the public in specific cases and, as the Treasurer (Mr Crean) pointed out when he moved the motion to establish the Committee, of considering ‘standard barometers’ such as the consumer price index and the various components of that index. That is, it will be able to move freely from the general to the particular. Rather than being in the position of not being able to see the wood for the trees it will, to stretch the metaphor, be able to consider the wood and the individual trees, separately and together. This function of considering complaints might be criticised as being a waste of the time of the Committee or, on the other hand, as being a kind of political public relations gimmick. But such criticisms would be misconceived.

There is obvious merit in the establishment of a committee of Parliament to which the public can address its grievances about movements in the prices of particular goods, the pricing practices adopted by manufacturers or retailers, or even the pricing practices of a particular shop. In many cases such complaints will be better dealt with by consumer protection bodies, or perhaps the Trade Practices Tribunal. If so, the staff of the Committee can pass on the complaints to the appropriate authorities. But the fact that the complaints have come to the Committee will mean that it will be better informed about the multitude of business practices which are relevant to price movements. It is quite clear, for example, that a major contributing factor to inflation in Australia, and indeed elsewhere, is the ability of sellers to avoid absorbing cost increases or to avoid looking for ways of increasing their own efficiency as a response to cost increases. They can avoid this because of the existence of high levels of unused protection against imports in certain sectors of the economy, the prevalence of monopolistic and oligopolistic market structures, and restrictive trading practices generally.

It will not, of course, be the function of the Committee to investigate all complaints received by it. Nevertheless the fact that the Committee will exist and will express its willingness to receive and to take note of complaints will be a valuable contribution to increasing the responsiveness of the Parliament to public concern on price movements and pricing practices. As well as considering complaints, the Committee will be able to consider on its own initiative any particular price, or price structure, or pricing practice. It is hardly necessary to stress the potential importance of the proposed Committee. The study of the movement of the prices of some groups of commodities relative to others, and the study of movements in the general price index level as expressed in such indicators as the consumer price index, embrace virtually the whole scope of the discipline of economics, and impinge on every area of economic policy. To a large extent that answers some of the concern which has been contrived by the Opposition in the amendment which it has moved. The amendment states that the Opposition feels that the Government has wilfully and malevolently excluded the public sector from consideration. This is not so, and I will indicate later further reasons why this is not so. Thus, for the first time in the Australian Parliament, the Government is proposing that facilities for the Parliament to concern itself directly and on a continuing basis with the Important economic questions of the day should be provided. But let it be understood that the Government does not claim that the Joint Committee will be a major instrument of Government policy in combating inflation. The main use of the Committee will be to enable the Parliament to inform itself and the public on price movements. If the resulting publicity which may arise concerning price increases in a particular industry, or by a particular company, is such as to make companies hesitate before raising prices, or even to forego price increases, this is all to the good. We shall be delighted if the effect of the deliberations of the Committee is along these lines. But we do not intend to depend on moral force alone, strong though that may be in the new context of a Government concerned with the welfare of the community. We have under way a body of legislation and administrative action which will provide the framework for a tough and efficacious anti-inflationary policy. We began, of course, by recognising the realities of the international monetary system and our own enormous balance of payments surpluses, and revaluing the dollar. The correctness of this decision has since been generally acknowledged. For example, Professor Paul Samuelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, currently visiting Australia, who is winner of the Nobel Prize for economics and one of the best-known and most respected economists in the world, has expressed his agreement with the Government's decision. He was, in fact, pictured in a newspaper this morning with a smiling Leader of the Opposition, which no doubt confirms that gentleman's private agreement with revaluation, and his tacit acceptance of the correctness of a move which the Country Party would not allow him to make during his own less than glorious term as Treasurer. The revaluation will act to relieve existing and potential inflationary forces originating from overseas, and will reduce costs for Australian industry. Further, we are establishing a prices justification tribunal which will be able to investigate and to act upon proposed price increases in a particular industry or by a particular company. The relationship of this tribunal to the Joint Committee on Prices will, of course, not be direct. Nevertheless, the existence of both bodies and their mutual knowledge of each other's activities will undoubtedly contribute to the effectiveness of the Government's anti-inflationary policy. But this is not the occasion for discussing the proposals for the price justification tribunal. It is sufficient to point out that the Government is not going to stop at the setting up of the Joint Committee on Prices. What it is proposing in the present resolution is a quite epoch-making addition to the operation of the Australian Parliament. It is proposing the establishment of a joint parliamentary committee which has the potentiality, with the goodwill and effort of the members of both Houses, of becoming a body comparable to the highly respected Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress. Surely this is an aim in which all members of the House can concur. Finally, we reject the amendment which has been proposed by the Opposition. What is being proposed in the amendment, if it is interpreted in its broadest context, is that this committee, for instance, would investigate the fiscal and monetary policies of the Government. The fiscal and monetary policies of the Government are regularly subjected to assessment and intensive scrutiny within this chamber. This is part of the functioning of this chamber. It would be pointless writing in such broad terms of reference as would allow such an unnecessary duplication to take place in the operation of this parliamentary system. Again, one could conceive a situation where an effort could be made to sidetrack the whole effort and value of this committee by proposing that an investigation should be made of a public undertaking, for instance such as the Post Office. This can be done separately, and is in fact being done currently by this Government. If the Opposition does in fact harbour this sort of suspicion and concern then a legitimate question arises in one's mind as to why it did not act in the past 23 years if it is so concerned about the contribution of the public sector to inflation to prevent any unnecessary inflationary tendencies from that sector. Of course, what the Opposition says is spurious and of course it has merely been put up as a debating point by probably the most debatable debater in this House, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Lynch).** The very fact that the economic components of the consumer price index, for instance, can be subjected to scrutiny would give a wide-ranging opportunity to the committee to assess not only the private sector but also the public sector at least to the extent - and it is a considerable one - that there are components of the public sector in the regimen of the consumer price index. The committee in the final analysis anyway has considerable power of determination because a power of authority is given in section (1) (c) of the terms of reference which reads: >Such other matters relating to prices as may be referred to the committee by resolution of either House of the Parliament. That is an authority which is fully and always available to the committee. If the committee is of the opinion that some section of the public sector is such that it deserves the committee's attention, then the committee accordingly has full authority to act on its own judgment to ensure that adequate analysis is made in that direction. I support the motion which has been moved by the Treasurer and I reject the amendment which has been put forward by the Opposition. The amendment contributes nothing to the very valuable proposals that have been embodied in the Treasurer's motion, and given the stringent and, one would say, acidic criticism of this proposal by members of the Opposition, one cannot genuinely believe that those members want to improve the effectiveness of this committee in any way. {: #subdebate-31-0-s5 .speaker-K9L} ##### Mr GARLAND:
Curtin -- The object of appointing a joint Parliamentary committee on prices is to make that committee part of the machinery that the Government wants to set up for prices justification in the community in order to inhibit price rises and thus reduce the rate of inflation and increase purchasing power. The Government and its trade union supporters believe that existing levels of prices are too high and that wage rises can be absorbed by companies very readily without damage to their investment policies and that price rises are indeed the cause of inflation. Government supporters have stated that wage and condition increases are justified and that they have little to do with inflation. Perhaps there are those who do not think so in Labor ranks but who are, nevertheless, not prepared to say so. Other countries with comparable economies to Australia's have imposed prices and incomes policies with restraints of a significant nature which have had a deep effect on all sections of their communities. It is arguable whether these policies will be of much value in the long term. But in the short term they seem to have been of considerable benefit in the United States of America. This Australian Government's policy is directed entirely at one side - that of prices. There has been no mention of wage restraint, although references are made from time to time to the arbitration system, implying that some sort of control of wages exists. Indeed, the Treasurer **(Mr Crean)** made such an implication in answer to a question as recently as 2 weeks ago at a meeting in Melbourne. But, of course, the arbitration system is not a control on wages - on maximums. It only sets minimums of amounts and conditions. Furthermore, the policies of the present Minister for Labour **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** are encouraging more collective bargaining agreements outside the arbitration system which, of course, weaken the system and lead to excessive wage and condition increases on top of the increases allowed by the arbitral authorities. Indeed, this policy has a greater effect than that because collective agreements do not involve only the immediate rises. They also have an impact on the whole range of arbitration decisions because clearly the Arbitration Courts try to keep up with outside increases or else they will lose their influence. Thus a few collective bargains can mean a big overall change. It seems odd that at the moment when other Western countries are trying hard to find new institutions to implement prices and income policies as a means of stopping or inhibiting inflation rises, the Australian Government should bring more and more pressures to bear on the arbitration institution, and indeed one gets the impression and idea that the Government wants to dismantle it; when it is the only means of restraining wages. Just what powers are open to a Commonwealth government to control prices and wages? This is a matter of considerable concern and legal complexity in this country. However, those countries which have no legal difficulties in regard to controlling prices and wages do not seem to have found the use of a prices and income policy to have in the result greatly inhibited the rate of inflation which, after all, has been prevalent overseas for the last 3 years or so and which came to Australia somewhat later on, and until recently in a less virulent form. Many Labor supporters have called for price control. But the Government's present policy is to form a prices justification tribunal and a joint parliamentary committee on prices. It is apparently its belief that there are enough prices which are unjustifiable to make public knowledge of the details result in fewer and lesser rises. But can that be generally sustained? We know that during the war there was price and manpower control under the national emergency regulations and that sustained efforts Were made to control all aspects of the economy. The result of this was, firstly, a great bureaucracy investigating the books of every firm in the country, and incidentally those many inspectors who were overzealous and seemed to delight in unreasonable behaviour; secondly, the formation of black markets and/ or hidden cash payments; and, thirdly, constant price rises. A further strong argument against a prices justification policy is that in many areas justification of price is relatively easy. Indeed, the endorsed price takes on an official aura which allows those who are clever in justification to apply for more rises than they otherwise would be able to carry out. This surely discourages a search for increased efficiency since it reduces cost pressures and even competition. The Government's concentration on prices and the exclusion of wage control is in essence an irresponsible attack on a section of the economy because it ignores the other essential sector which would give the whole scheme any chance of success. Clearly the Government has put forward this proposal because it is not prepared to face the criticism and to contest the ambition of leaders of the trade union movement. The Government's proposal is political grandstanding and a sham of a policy because a greater number of economists in Australia and outside Australia who have knowledge of Australian conditions would advise the need for a joint prices and incomes policy. Effective responsible policies must involve both wages and prices. The first report on Australia by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - an objective, detached body of the highest competence - referred to by the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden)** makes that assertion clear. Incomes and prices policies of restraint are of the highest economic complexity. To be effective as part of the Government's policy, employing all the economic tools, available to a government, both fiscal and monetary, requires the most skilful management by any government. Yet it is most necessary if the objectives of higher eco nomic growth, lower rates of inflation and even lower rates of unemployment are to be achieved instead of just being talked about. AH political parties here are agreed that these are important objectives, so to say that all that is needed is a justification of prices policy in this area is not a serious attempt to tackle the problem. The Government has failed completely, today and previously, to make a case to demonstrate that this parliamentary committee will be effective in any way. It is only propaganda. One recalls a similar type of proposal being put forward by the last British Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, in his first year of his Labour government, speaking of the need for the United Kingdom to increase its growth rate. He merely urged greater efficiency. That was all nonsense. It was laughed at at the time, and the growth rate did not go up. Nor will prices go down under this measure. The Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam),** not noted for an interest in economics let alone an understanding of it, has made scathing comments from time to time about economic management as the use of stop-go policy. He has implied that the Government can plan the economy, foresee all the influences, and efficiently ensure smoothness. Does that mean that he will ignore the tools of control in his hands for greater growth, for diminishing inflation and for encouraging investment and employment and use those tools he has, such as interest rates, levels of government expenditure, the level of raising revenue and directing it into particular sectors, currency rate variation, bank lending through the Reserve Bank, variations in the flow of foreign investment, and all the influences and control available to the Government and its instrumentalities? The answer is that he has already used some of those tools. They are essential to economic management, and it is complete nonsense to pretend that they will not have to be invoked, sometimes suddenly. As a former Prime Minister of Britain once so aptly answered to a gibe about stop-go policies, 'How else can you drive a car in busy traffic?' To make a general observation, it seems to me to be tragic and ironic that, while this Government has expressed its intention - most formally recently in the speech it wrote for the Governor-General's Address - to initiate policies for greater growth and employment and less inflation, all its policies are aimed in the oppoosite direction. Although it has revalued the Australian dollar in a deliberate unilateral act, all its policies internally have the effect of reducing the value of the Australian dollar. Successive wage rises are supported by the Government, tacitly or directly, no matter what quantity they are. There is no regard for whether the productivity increase is sufficient to meet them. In reality no steps have been taken to improve productivity. The Australian Labor Party, led in this instance by its Minister for Labour, is encouraging collective bargaining, encouraging firms to give 4 weeks annual leavel, encouraging a rise in the minimum wage and encouraging the spread of the 35-hour week. The claims go right across the board. The Government complains about mineral export prices being too low, but promptly revalues the dollar - deliberately once and later by acquiescence - against the United States dollar and reduces export prices by 20 per cent within 6 weeks. It is most pertinent to this debate to note the recent re-statement by **Mr Justice** Kirby - he quoted the late **Mr Justice** Dixon - in support of his view that the arbitral authorities cannot and will not accept any responsibility for economic management in making their awards and determinations. He said unequivocally that that is the duty of the government of the day. That has not always been the attitude of the courts but if it is to be the attitude throughout, I believe that the Party which I represent, which has always, had a policy of supporting awards and determinations of the arbitral authorities, believing that the handling of disputes is best left to arbitration and conciliation, may have to review that policy and outlook. Times are changing. We have an unacceptable rate of inflation. In view of the overspending and other policies of this Government, I have no hesitation in predicting an increased rate of inflation to an even more unacceptable level of perhaps *Si* per cent or 9 per cent within the next 18 months. The impact of the decisions of arbitral authorities is not insignificant in this and the Commonwealth Government has a limited number of options open to it in controlling the economy. It has by no means full power over wages, yet the Australian people look to it alone to provide stability, growth and opportunity. It is long since settled that the Commonwealth is responsible for that policy. In future Commonwealth governments will have to imple ment effective prices and incomes policies. In seeking ways to combat the awful attrition of unacceptable inflation which we have seen in comparable economies in Europe and North America, perhaps that attitude I referred to of my Party towards awards and determinations cannot be sustained. If it is the judgment that a particular comprehensive set of prices and wages policies of restraint will have a beneficial effect in the areas I have mentioned, apprehension about all government involvement in the private sector becomes less and less a philosophical problem for me. The foreshadowed rise in the March quarter of the consumer price index is at an annual rate rising from 6 per cent to 8 per cent. But the restraint on the inflationary pressure through the revaluation of the dollar must be recognised to be quite minor. A parliamentary committee or any other committee will have to solve some very thorny issues before criteria can be laid down for determining whether any price rise is justified. The Government has not laid down any target for price increases. The full problems of inflation, and growth equity will emerge in the next year or two. I believe they are the greatest of our economic problems. This motion of the Government is mere window dressing, an insult to serious consideration and is inconsistent with its policies of vast spending without increased productivity in which it is at present engaged. Its new policies exacerbate the difficulties and bring us closer to a more tragic economic condition. {: #subdebate-31-0-s6 .speaker-JP8} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Berinson:
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA -- Order! The honourable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-31-0-s7 .speaker-AV4} ##### Mr HURFORD:
Adelaide -- The contribution of the Opposition to this debate sadly reminds me of the 1930s. Then the great economic problem in this country was the recession - the terrible period of unemployment. There was a body of theory formulated by John Maynard Keynes, which was completely ignored by the men who were in control at that time throughout the world. For a number of years the great economic problem in our community has been stagflation*. There is a body of theory which has been ignored and which continues to be ignored by people like the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden),** the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Lynch)** and the honourable member for Curtin **(Mr Garland),** who have spoken in this debate. The Keynes economic philosophy in the area of economic policy, which was right for the 1930s, is not right today, lt rests on the dependence of monetary and fiscal or budgetary policies to reduce aggregate demand in order to stop inflation. At least the Opposition has agreed with the Government that inflation is a problem. That philosophy seeks to activate demand on other occasions in order to pull the economy out of a recessionary phase. Monetary policy operates on the availability of credit while fiscal policy operates firstly on disposable incomes - incomes which are left in people's pockets to spend - and, secondly, on the relative role of government expenditures. These are the sorts of policies which have been used, as we know, by the Liberal Party and the Australian Country Party. They still claim that they are the only policies which should continue to be followed. We know what sort of results they brought. They brought about an unemployment level of over 2 per cent when following these philosophies, demand was suddenly cut to an enormous extent by budgetary and monetary policies. More recently, John Kenneth Galbraith and some others have contended that monetary policy has contributed to rather than modified postwar economic policies. The modern school of thought points out that monetary policy is not selective in its impact and causes market distortions and even social inequities. I mention in this context the effect of interest rates on housing, which is a social welfare area. The monetary authorities' role is reduced to very short term financial manipulations which ensure orderly securities markets and an adequate growth of money supply. In listening to the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden),** the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Lynch)** and the honourable member for Curtin **(Mr Garland)** one would think that the whole' theme of what we are doing in setting up this committee is window dressing. My thesis is that it is built on very sound economic theory. Galbraith who, as I mentioned, is the apostle of the more modern theory I referred to, argues that Budget policies are similarly non-selective - at least as they are practised by non-Labor governments - that they are capable of selection, but in the areas of resource allocation and the setting of appropriate social and welfare priorities these budgetary policies have been remiss. However, it is true that budgetary policies have more relevance to inflation control than do monetary policies. It would not be correct to say that Keynes's principles are being discarded for Galbraith's. At certain stages of the business cycle under certain conditions and in terms of community problems, the balance of payments situation and *so on,* one mixture might work better than another. The best that can be said at this stage is that Galbraith adds another tool to the kit of economic policy makers, a tool which the Opposition wants to deny us. The Opposition's own policies in the field of inflation have been completely bankrupt. Just because the Opposition did nothing while its members were in government, it now wants us to do nothing. The Opposition is not going so far as to oppose this measure but it is going so far as to sound like people at a wailing wall when it comes to talking about this measure. Let us have a further look at Galbraith's policy. I add that what I am saying about the theory on which this proposition is built applies to the prices justification tribunal mainly, but this proposal to have a parliamentary committee is an integral part of the operations of the Government prices justification tribunal which will be set up later. Gal.braith's first point, which he made quite clear, is close to the hearts of all of us. He said that high employment is necessary for sustained economic growth since low output and idle capacity are a disincentive to investment. That point is close to the hearts of honourable members on this side of the House but we would not know whether it is close to the hearts of Opposition members because they were responsible, by their budgetary policies and by their being happy only with outworn economic attitudes, for the growth of unemployment to the shocking stage that we had it from this time last year until near the election. Galbraith said also that no policy of prices stabilisation has any chance of permanent success if it argues that there must be deliberately manufactured and continuing unemployment. 1 repeat that the opposite attitude to the one which the Government is putting before the nation in proposals such as our prices justification tribunal, backed up by the proposal of having a parliamentary committee, is to use the blunt weapons which were used by the previous Government and which created the unemployment which we had. Professor Galbraith argues that in the United States and in Australia during times of high employment, prices are unstable - we have seen this - because of a defect in the economic machine, particularly in one sector. This sector is the one in which firms are very large and control by them over prices is substantial. There is opportunity for large discretionary increases in prices whenever demand is favourable. Is this not the situation in the steel industry where at the moment there is only one large producer - Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd? Galbraith said that there is, furthermore, a powerful incentive to exploit this price discretion when wages are raised, particularly when we have a monopoly situation. So long as demand is at or near full employment limits, prices and wages will react on each other in a steady upward spiral in industries characterised by strong firms and strong unions. Inflation has been characterised by increases, particularly in the prices of steel, steel products, machinery, cars, paper, rubber and so on in this country. Budgetary and monetary policies of the kind used by the previous Government as part of its bankrupt policies do not deal with these problems of inflation appropriately because their impact is too general; they attempt to reduce aggregate demand and depend on a reduction of employment levels to achieve an easing of aggregate demand. Consequently, they are quite unacceptable to honourable members on this side of the House. Although inflationary tendencies tend to find their outlet in concentrated industries, the solution does not lie in breaking up such industries, such as was the policy of the previous Government by creating unemployment, because of structural and political problems that such actions do raise. So the one course of action is for some form of public intervention in that part of the economy where full employment or an approach to full employment means inflationary price and wage increases. This is what we intend the prices justification tribunal to do, to intervene in those areas. We want the parliamentary select committee to act as a clearing house from the community to feed material to the prices justification tribunal. Among the principles governing this intervention is that it should be limited to the concentrated sector; the machinery for intervention should be simple and its aims should be restraint, not rigid price and wage fixation; and the effort to achieve stability should, if at all possible, be carried out in a conciliatory spirit. I have said most of this on previous occasions in debates on the Budget. It is a great delight for me - as on previous occasions when I was in opposition - to put forward this theory and to point out to the House these well developed theories of an economist of the great stature of John Kenneth Galbraith. It is a great delight to me to be in the House today talking in this debate when the Government is making its first moves to carry into effect this body of theory by setting up this parliamentary committee. I remind honourable members of what I said earlier. The sad fact is that in the 1930s there was a body of theory to overcome the great recession that was taking place at that time. That theory was not used. We now have a body of theory to attack stagflation. For years we have had this body of theory but we have not had the men to bring it to fruition. We now have the men to do so and it is a great delight to be speaking in this debate and supporting that theory. This theory does not presuppose that the starting point gives a fair breakdown between labour and capital of the rewards of their enterprise. The whole of the Galbraithian theory rests on a partnership between labour, industry and government in these concentrated sectors particularly promoted by government. So whereas we heard the Opposition ranting about wages being the only reason for inflation in our community- {: .speaker-KB8} ##### Mr Giles: -- That is not so. That is incorrect. {: .speaker-AV4} ##### Mr HURFORD: -- I invite the honourable member for Angas to go back over the speeches of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Lynch)** and the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden)** and to look in a cold, objective way, which I am sure he is sometimes capable of doing, at what they said. They have not brought to this House any alternative method of attacking what we know to be the great ill in our community economically, namely, inflation. Both of them mentioned wages as being the great cause of inflation. They were completely bankrupt of any way of attacking the problem of inflation other than to confront the unions. I repeat that the theory is there to back up our prices justification tribunal, but it is our contention that a committee of the Parliament of this kind is essential. I am glad to find that even though the Opposition is moving amendments to the proposition at least members of the Opposition will serve on the Committee. We think it is essential as the clearing house in the community. A lot of the information which comes from the community will not necessarily go to the prices justification tribunal. In order to get greater efficiency and to stimulate productivity there are other areas where the information could go. It might go to a monopolies commission, a restrictive trade practices tribunal or the protection commission, as 1 believe the Tariff Board will shortly be called. It is Important that we should have the link of the Parliament between the people and these commissions and tribunals of the Government. A lot of people are talking very good sense about participatory democracy. Here is a means of bringing that about. It is not only for that reason that I support the setting up of this parliamentary committee. There is. and here I agree with the Leader of the Opposition, a great deal of ignorance in the community as to the cause of inflation. Why should this Committee not use the information coming to it through these reports to educate the community about the nature of inflation? Of course it should, and of course it will. I draw to the attention of the House that what I have had to say as being the opinion of the Opposition relates to the Leader of the Opposition and of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, from whom we have heard, but I suggest that it is a very marked omission in this debate that we have not heard from the honourable member for Berowra **(Mr Edwards),** a former university professor of economics. It is sad that we have not heard from him or from anybody in the Country Party. {: .speaker-KET} ##### Mr King: -- Wait until the debate has finished. {: .speaker-AV4} ##### Mr HURFORD: -- I looked at the list of speakers, and I saw that no member of the Country Party was listed to speak. I will welcome it if we hear from the Country Party. I will welcome it if the Country Party supports us in attacking prices rather than just following the leaders of the Liberal Party, who are mouthing the attitudes of the businessmen whom they represent. {: #subdebate-31-0-s8 .speaker-KB8} ##### Mr GILES:
Angas **- Mr Deputy Speaker,** I wish to make a personal explanation. **Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Berinson)Does** the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? {: .speaker-KB8} ##### Mr GILES: -- Yes. The honourable member for Adelaide **(Mr Hurford)** stated that I was incorrect when I argued against his statement that members on this side of the House said that wages were the only ingredient in increased prices. That is an absolute fabrication. It is a dishonest, gratuitous, fatuous and stupid remark by the honourable member. I would like him to withdraw that remark because it is unfair to the Opposition in this House and is a deliberate distortion of the facts. **Mr HURFORD** (Adelaide)- **Mr Deputy Speaker,** I wish to make a personal explanation. {: #subdebate-31-0-s9 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: -Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? {: .speaker-AV4} ##### Mr HURFORD: -- Yes. If I heard the honourable member for Angas **(Mr Giles)** correctly, he said that what I had said was a fabrication. Is that correct? {: .speaker-KB8} ##### Mr Giles: -- That is true. Now you are talking. {: .speaker-AV4} ##### Mr HURFORD: -- I will go back over Hansard, but I suggest that this is something he ought to withdraw until he has had a look at Hansard in the light of day tomorrow. {: #subdebate-31-0-s10 .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR:
New England -- I am sorry to disappoint the honourable member for Adelaide **(Mr Hurford)** about the non-participation of the Country Party. However, I am delighted to be able to make some contribution to this debate. {: .speaker-KFU} ##### Dr Gun: -- We embarrassed him into getting to his feet. {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR: -- I am not at all embarrassed in your presence, my friend. The whole operation of inflation in our society is of fundamental concern to those whom we represent. In terms of those who produce the goods which make this country profitable and which have enabled it to grow and to survive, there is probably no sector of the Australian community which has a greater interest in prices than has the rural community. Indeed, in the past those whom we represent, our constituents, have suffered to an inordinate degree because of the price fluctuation in markets abroad. They have suffered because of the variability in conditions of sale and the quantity of goods available for sale, and because of seasonal conditions. These have affected the returns which they have received from the goods that they have produced. Indeed, I think there are 2 sectors of the community which suffer more than others from inflation - those in the export industries and those on fixed income. There is no doubt that the pensioners and those who receive the benefits of social services are equally affected by price escalation. Unlike many others in the community, they are unable to pass on the costs that they have to meet to survive. They are in no different position from those who produce and export and who themselves are dependent on unreliable market conditions. For many years we in the Country Party have sought with our Liberal colleagues to negotiate international commodity arrangements designed specifically to try to offset the variable circumstances of prices overseas, and with some success. The International Sugar Agreement, for example, is one of those agreements which has brought for the sugar industry a greater degree of price stability than would otherwise be possible. Whilst it is true that the International Grains Arrangement collapsed and exists now in only nominal form, during the time it operated effectively it provided a similar stability for the grains industry. So if we go through all the areas where it has been possible to negotiate international commodity arrangements, we can see the benefits of such a process. Regrettably it is not practical in most circumstances to provide a guarantee against price escalation at home when selling in overseas markets. Of course, in the last round of negotiations on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, when efforts were made to reduce significantly tariff and non-tariff barriers against the entry of goods, particularly those from the agricultural sector but also manufactured goods, into the countries of the world, it was found that while some concessions were available for manufactured goods the concessions for agricultural goods were minimal. So the negotiation later this year in a broader GATT round is, 1 think, of tremendous importance in terms of trying to secure better and more secure access to overseas markets and perhaps better price returns for those in the export industries. This measure is designed to provide in this Parliament an opportunity, through a committee system, to inquire not into prices paid overseas, not into prices specifically relating to all the goods which are inputs of the cost structure within the rural industry, within the Australian productive industry or indeed within the Australian community, but only into prices charged by private industry about which complaints have been made. I, with the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden),** deplore the narrowness of that constraint, and completely endorse the amendment which has been moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Lynch)** to include the public sector and prices affecting the goods and services provided by the public sector in the terms of reference of the Committee. I would hope that if the supporters of the Government are sincere in their concern for prices and the effect of prices on the community and particularly on those on fixed incomes, they will see fit to accept this amendment. It is true that in the private sector there is a variation from one area to another. At the moment there seems to be a great deal of concern about food prices and justifiably so. Unfortunately the concern for food prices is not always seen when those in rural industries are affected by adverse seasons or adverse market conditions abroad. There is little recognition then of the marked seasonal pattern in returns of those in the rural sector. There is little realisation, for example, that the higher grain prices prevailing abroad at the moment, and consequently in Australia, is a factor which is only to a minimal degree offsetting the constant seasonal variation in growers' returns. There are many wheat farmers who in the last few years have had virtually no crop. The fact that this year they will get a high price for what they produce needs to be seen against the spectrum of one of the smallest crops for many years. So prices in the grains sector need to be seen in relation to supply and demand and the same is true in relation to meat prices. It is true that meat prices affect every housewife in our community. All of us who live in this community are concerned about high prices in one area or another. But it is remarkable that there is not the same concern for the escalation in prices in some fields of consumer durables. It is remarkable that there is not the same concern at the increase in wages beyond the level of productivity. It is necessary to say in relation to meat prices that for the first time in about 4 years in the lamb and mutton industry there is a capacity to produce goods and to sell them at a profitable level. People who have been in the fat Iamb and sheep industries have suffered very significant losses in the last few years and if we are to look at the level of meat prices it is no use our ignoring the adverse effects of seasons when reviewing the prices paid by the housewife. Similarly when looking at the level of beef prices we need to recognise the fundamental problem with which this committee will be faced - that is, the whole field of supply and demand. It is true that the domestic market has only a minimal effect on export goods, particularly rural commodities. The domestic market has an effect only upon the quantity of goods which is customarily consumed in this country and its significance becomes greater according to the degree to which by promotion and marketing we can expand that market. Today only 40 per cent of Australia's agricultural production is sold domestically; 60 per cent is sold at export. A significant factor in determining the price level of agricultural goods is not the domestic market but the circumstances of supply and demand abroad. What I have said about the price of meat and agricultural commodities and the economic law of supply and demand to my mind applies also to the whole field of prices in the Australian community. It is extraordinary difficult to introduce any form of government intervention which will effectively overcome those normal forces which affect the price and supply of goods in the community. If by direct intervention we try to place a restraint on the price which industry or the manufacture of a commodity can charge and if we are to place an arbitrary restraint on the price of a service or a fee charged by those who provide a service, those who provide the goods or the services will remain in business only according to the degree to which it is profitable for them to do so. If it is not profitable they will cease production. Adverting again to the rural sector, one of the reasons why many of the small farmers in Australia have found themselves unable to carry on is because prices have not been satisfactory and because costs have risen beyond their capacity to survive. So they have gone out of business and any direct government intervention in the fixing of prices needs to be seen in that context. If the result of the law of supply and demand is that a person is unable to operate profitably, he will not continue to operate at all. He will go out of business. That is one of the real problems which I Can see in price fixing. Of course, we are not discussing a price fixing body; it is a parliamentary committee. We need to recognise that we are not talking about a prices justification tribunal although the honourable member for Adelaide **(Mr Hurford)** spoke a great deal about the way in which the recommendations of this committee would go to such a tribunal. I would regard that as a wrong basis for this committee to act on. I doubt whether this committee will have a meaningful function. I go along with those who see it more as a facade for the implementation of what the Australian Labor Party has said is its drive to contain prices. To me it seems a direct way in which the Government is to pursue its objective of reducing initiative and opportunity in private industry. I do not see it as in any way a meaningful attack on the inflationary forces in our community. If we are to attack inflation we need to look at it in a much broader spectrum in terms of tariffs, the Government's budget policy and the arbitration system. Through some form of prices justification tribunal perhaps we will be able to complement those activities. However, I first of all doubt the role of a parliamentary committee in price relativity. This is a role which is not properly one for the legislature. We do not have the expert knowledge or the expertise to participate meaningfully in a field where prices are determined by supply and demand in an industry in view of the wage levels applicable in it or the circumstances of overseas markets or whatever other factors may affect it. We are not experts. Those of us who come into this place with some particular expertise are no longer able to practise that expertise if we are to do our job as members of Parliament properly. For that reason I do not believe that this sort of committee is anything more than a facade to try to placate those forces within the community which are justifiably concerned at the increases in the cost of living. If the Labor Party were sincere in its attempts to try to control inflation it would be looking at this stage far more critically at its general budget policy and it would be looking as critically as we in the previous Government attempted to do at the application of the arbitration system. The support the Government has given to the recent total wage application before the Arbitration Court would indicate that the Labor Party might well be divided on this issue. I often wonder whether the Minister for Labour **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** consults the Treasurer **(Mr Crean)** on policies of that order. One hears the Treasurer come forth with statements of concern about the way in which general activity within the community ls starting to build up, thus foreshadowing a concern that inflationary forces may well be rife later this year. Yet in the same breath as we received the report from the Treasury we heard from the Minister for Labour, per medium of the submission to the Arbitration Court, a request for a very significant increase in the total wage. In the proposal to establish a joint committee there is no meaningful attempt by the Government to do anything other than provide a brave front in an area where it sees itself as incompetent to act immediately. I very much regret the fact that the Government has neglected public industry in the terms of reference of the proposed committee and would urge that the Government accept the amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Any inquiry of this nature should take into account the relativity of wages to prices charged. It is obvious that there are many factors that affect the price structure of an industry. I tried earlier to identify some of those factors which affect the rural sector. The rural sector, of course, is very much affected by the wage levels not only of those who are employed in it directly but also of those whom they keep in business by their purchasing policies. This gets back to the whole field of tariffs embracing the cost of tractors and the cost of agricultural requisites such as insecticides, vermicides, fertilisers and other inputs which enable the primary producer to carry on his business. This committee is not being given the responsibility of looking at the relativity of wages in either a direct or indirect sense. I deplore the fact that it is concentrating on such a narrow part of a very broad problem. The honourable member for Adelaide spoke of the Galbraithian theories of the co-ordination between labour, industry and government in an attack upon inflation. I would not disagree that it is necessary that there should be this co-ordination between the 3 sectors of principal significance in this arena. But I hope that it is recognised that labour and industry have a role to play and that in any price fixing or determination it is not the role of the Government to intervene arbitrarily or without consultation or consideration of the circumstances of labour and industry. Those 2 other arms are most important in the opportunities they should enjoy for the private presentation of their arguments in both fields. **Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Berinson)Order!** The honourable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-31-0-s11 .speaker-JM9} ##### Mr ARMITAGE:
Chifley -- The honourable member for New England **(Mr Sinclair),** a former Minister of the former Government, obviously from the remarks he has just made supports the extortionate price of meat in this country today. This is something about which every housewife knows. As the only speaker from the Australian Country Party in this debate today, he has been very careful in putting forward his case to maintain these extortionate prices. The honourable member for Cook **(Mr Thorburn)** mentioned to me a short while ago the case of a woman who returned from the United States of America only a week ago after having spent 5 years there. She remarked that the price of meat in the United States was the same as it was in Australia. {: .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr Katter: -- That is not correct. {: .speaker-JM9} ##### Mr ARMITAGE: -- She said that it was the same in the United States as it was here in Australia, while wages were twice as great. For this reason, I should like some members of the Country Party who obviously represent in this House a sectional interest - not the interests of the community as a whole or of the majority of the housewives in Australia - to visit my electorate or the electorate of many other honourable members on both sides of the House. They would realise that today meat is off the menu in many homes because of the extortionate prices being charged. Honourable members opposite really do oppose the establishment of this committee. This can be seen by a careful look at the way they put forward their amendment. They are not opposing the Bill outright because they know that the Government has a mandate from the people. Honourable members opposite know that the proposal now before the House was one of the issues that the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** put to the people during the recent Federal election campaign. Members of the Opposition know that we have the support of the people on this matter and that, if they opposed the proposal outright and it went to the Senate, it could be the subject of a double dissolution. That is what honourable members opposite really fear. So, instead of opposing the proposal outright, they moved an innocuous amendment with which I shall deal shortly. If ever there were an example of how this proposed committee could be used, it is on the question of the price of meat. The public would be able to make contact with the committee to show the disgraceful situation that exists with regard to the price of meat today. They would be able to submit a case for quotas to be placed on the export of meat. The fact is that, because of the shortage of meat in other countries, practically any price can be and is being claimed for meat. A sound case could be made to lay down quotas on the export of meat in order that the Australian housewife would not be charged so much for meat. This is one of the types of proposals which could be investigated by the proposed committee. Such a proposal may not be adopted, but at least it could be investigated by an authoritative body and not just completely wiped aside as it has been by the representatives of the Australian Country Party. So these are the types of cases which could be considered. As I said, the Opposition cannot oppose this proposal outright because it knows that the Government has a mandate from the people to institute such action. The Opposition has moved its minor amendment claiming that the terms of reference of the committee should include public authorities. Members of the Opposition have shown by moving that amendment that they do not understand the basic principles of the framework of the Australian Labor Party's prices legislation. For a start, we are not going to have only a committee of this Parliament to investigate prices; we are also going to establish an organisation known as a prices justification tribunal. As suggested by the honourable member for New England, such a proposal is going to be adopted. I am glad to hear that at last he supports something to do with Labor's policy. We will be implementing legislation to establish a prices justification tribunal. The prices of services charged by public authorities already is covered by another committee of this Parliament. I refer to the Joint Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Honourable members opposite have forgotten that. They completely ignored that aspect. In other words, their amendment if carried would cause a clash between the activities of 2 committees of this Parliament, namely, the Public Accounts Committee and the proposed prices committee. That would set up an extraordinarily confusing and impossible situation. So the amendment moved by the Opposition is absolutely unnecessary. Such activities already are fully covered by another committee of the Parliament. The attitude, expressed by honourable members opposite throughout has been a completely destructive approach to this issue. They have offered nothing constructive as an alternative to the massive price increases ot recent times. They are acting in exactly the same manner as they acted for 23 years in government. They are acting in exactly the same, way now as they did when they brought about the destruction of their government at the end of last year. Honourable members opposite blame high price only on wages. They claim that wage increases are the only cause of inflation. However, they completely ignore the fact that the demand for wage increases has been brought about by the extortionate, price increases of late. The demand for wage increases was brought about also by the desire of the workers to share in the greatly improved technological ability of the country in recent years - that is, automation. A fortnight ago we heard through the lobbies that members of the Opposition were not only going to oppose this legislation; they were, also going to refuse to serve on the committee when it was established. {: .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr Katter: -- Who said that? {: .speaker-JM9} ##### Mr ARMITAGE: -- A few messages came back to us. Evidently, honourable members opposite now have had second thoughts and have decided, as was stated by the former Treasurer, the present Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden),** earlier this afternoon, that they will serve on the committee in order to protect the interests of the various companies that the committee might have before it. In other words, members of the Opposition are not going to serve on this committee to be watchdogs for the housewives and for the community as a whole; they are going to serve on this committee for one purpose only - to protect the interests of the 100 top companies of this country. {: .speaker-DRW} ##### Dr Jenkins: -- They are going to serve as lapdogs for those companies, not as watchdogs. *Mi* ARMITAGE - That is quite obvious. In other words, honourable members opposite will serve on the committee to look after the industrial giants; that is the reason for their change of attitude. This committee will act as a restraint on price rises because the 100 large organisations whose price increases have a continuing effect over the entire range of the economy will know that the committee will be a watchdog of this Parliament. It will be a committee which the public can approach and which will scrutinise the activities of these companies and which will, of course, be a source of consequent publicity in the event of extortionate price rises occurring. These companies know that this will happen and that is why honourable members opposite oppose the setting up of the committee. Irrespective of what they say and irrespective of their amendment, basically honourable members opposite are opposed to this action in respect of which this Government has a mandate. Let honourable members keep that in mind. Furthermore, the committee will be an important link between the people, the Parliament and the bureaucracy, particularly when the prices justification tribunal is established. Honourable members should keep in mind that this proposal is only a part of the prices framework which will be established in the months to come by the Government. I should tike to quote to the House some figures relating to the rate of inflation in recent times. This is a ratio of current to constant prices, the constant prices being based on the year 1966-67. It covers a 10-year period. The increase from 1961 to 1962 was 1.1 per cent; in 1963, 1.1 per cent; in 1964 there was a sudden jump to a 4.5 per cent increase; in 1965 the increase was reduced to 2.2 per cent; in 1966 it was 3.2 per cent; in 1967 it was 3.1 per cent; in 1968 it was 3 per cent; in 1969 it was 2.9 per cent; there was a big jump in 1970 to 4.7 per cent; a further increase in 1971 to 5.4 per cent and in 1972 the increase was 6.8 per cent. These increases occurred under the previous Government. The greatest increases occurred at about the time the honourable member for Kennedy **(Mr Katter)** was appointed to the Ministry. Over the 10-year period there was an overall increase of 44 per cent. A point to note is that at the beginning of the 10-year cycle the increase was only 1.1 per cent whereas at the end of the cycle it was 6.8 per cent. Is it not obvious that it is time for some corrective action to be taken? I have already instanced what has happened to meat prices. This is one article in respect of which something should be done. We should examine various proposals. The public should be able to appear before a properly staffed body. The proposed committee will not have merely a few typists but will be fully staffed and will have research officers. It will have the opportunity of examining various proposals put before it. The committee will be able to recommend action and suggest the use of various instruments which the Commonwealth Government has at its disposal. The committee will become a continuing economic inquiry into trends in the Australian economy. It will be able to recommend that the Government use various instruments at its disposal, including the taxation instrument, the tariff instrument, export controls and so forth. Is it any wonder that members of the Opposition are somewhat fearful of this committee? For 23 years they continued with their laissez-faire approach, hoping that the situation would correct itself. Instead it has grown progressively worse. In the last 10 years the rate of inflation has increased from 1.1 per cent to 6.8 per cent. This is a disgraceful situation and, as I said, inflation accelerated at about the time the honourable member for Kennedy was appointed to the Ministry. It is important that this motion should be supported. It is important that honourable members realise that there must be some watchdog. There must be some means of communication between the people and the Parliament. It is important that the Opposition should realise the framework of the prices legislation the Government intends to introduce. This proposed committee of the Parliament will be a committee which the public can approach. It will be an investigating organisation adequately staffed with research officers and others. It will be able to give publicity to restrictive practices and to extortionate price increases. It will be able to recommend to the Government action which should be taken. It will be able to refer matters to various other bodies, including the prices justification tribunal which is to be set up by later legislation. It is well and truly time, as was expounded in the policy speech of the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** when he was Leader of the Opposition at the end of last year, for the establishment of some ombudsman-type organisation to act as a link between the people, the Parliament and the bureaucracy to ensure that justice is done to all in the community and not simply to one section of it as, for instance, the Country Party. {: #subdebate-31-0-s12 .speaker-DB6} ##### Mr WENTWORTH:
Mackellar -- The House has seldom heard the honourable member for Chifley **(Mr Armitage)** in better voice. It is a pity he was lacking a little in facts, logic and consistency. I think everybody would agree that the present rate of inflation is alarming. However, this is true not only in Australia; it is also almost a universal phenomenon. It is particularly worrying that inflation is getting to a point where it is becoming self-generating in that people are anticipating further price rises and, because they anticipate price rises, are ordering their affairs accordingly. So the nightmare becomes self-perpetuating. Remedial action is necessary on many fronts. This proposal, introduced by the Government, is one df them but not, I think, a very effective one. However it is something which may have some partial effect. Of course, even in the field of prices justification the effects of this committee will cover only a small part of the field. Nevertheless, in view of the serious situation which faces not only Australia but also most countries, even if this is ineffectual perhaps it should be considered. It represents, I suppose, some extension of what we would normally call a parliamentary function. It is not necessarily to be condemned for that reason but we must regard with caution extensions of parliamentary functions which can end up by being oppressive. The possibility of big brother looking over everybody's shoulder must be weighed against the problematical advantages which can come from a committee of this character. The committee will be judged by its results. Its bona fides will be assessed by what it does and by the way in which it behaves. If some honourable members have misapprehensions it does not necessarily follow that those misapprehensions are well founded. The event will show that. This committee - I turn now to the terms of the motion before the House - will be entirely under Government control. The Government will appoint 6 of the 10 members and will also appoint the chairman. The chairman and the majority will determine procedures. The committee will have great powers, including power to compel attendance before it, to send for persons and papers and things of that character. It will have a large and perhaps even an unwieldy staff, but the fact that it will have staff will add to its powers. Its quorum is to be 5 members only. Since the Government will be appointing 6 of its members the committee will be able to form a quorum without the presence of members of the Opposition. I am worried about the possible exercise of the power to appoint subcommittees consisting of 3 members without the precaution - and perhaps this will not happen in practice - of ensuring that the Opposition is represented on those subcommittees. It is possible - and again I say that this is not a certain result - that we shall have to be looking at the way in which this committee behaves. It is possible that it will develop into a kind of kangaroo court of the most objectionable character but this is not necessarily inherent in the motion before us. It is a possibility that one must consider and *we* will see the result. Whether these apprehensions are borne out or not will depend upon how the Committee behaves. Insofar as this is not set out in the motion the Committee, of course, will be acting under the Standing Orders of this House. I am a little bit worried about 2 matters. Firstly, the possibility of secrecy and the possibility of abuse of the secrecy provisions. Secondly, the lack of any effective machinery for a minority report to be brought into this House. However, the implications of these things, as I say, will be more apparent as the committee develops. All of us on this side hope that it will be an effective committee and I am sure that on this side there will be every effort to make it an effective committee. I hope that on the Government side there will not be any tendency to abuse the great powers and authority of the Committee. This, I say, must wait on the event and I believe that the House should very carefully scrutinise the operations of this Committee as they proceed. As has been stated, very rightly I think, by the Minister for Social Security **(Mr Hayden),** the matter before this Committee which is set out in paragraph 1 of the motion before us is very wide. The Committee will be able to range very widely. Here again I think that the House should take note of what the Minister for Social Security said because he implied, and 1 think quite rightly, that such things as wages and wage conditions insofar as they affect prices would properly be before this Committee and it will, if the. words of the Minister mean anything, be able to investigate any price rises which are caused through wages or industrial conditions. I am not one of those who believe that all price rises are due to wages. I think that we have to preserve some sense of proportion in this regard and in looking at the position, particularly the Austraiian conditions but not exclusively Australian conditions, one would say that there ire 3 components in the price rise and I name them in descending order of magnitude. By far the greatest component is of course the rise in wages. It is not the only component but it outweighs the others. The second component is the industrial practice where restrictive practices, rolling strikes deliberately planned in some cases to sabotage production jnd to put prices up become effective and cause rising prices. But there are other factors coo. They are not as important as the 2 factors 1 have mentioned but they certainly are important and they certainly require to be considered. So if one can preserve a sense of proportion this Committee will be looking firstly, I think, at the cases where rises in wages have outstripped the rises in relevant productivity. Secondly, it will be looking at unjustified over-award payments which go to the root of higher costs and it will be looking at industrial practices, strikes, sabotage, unnecessary featherbedding and all that kind of thing. Let me make my own position clear on this. 1 am in favour of high and increasing real wages. I am not one of those who want to keep wages down or even one of those who is always going around saying that wages are too high. Industrial efficiency is increasing. For a given input of labour we can produce more and more real goods and, as this is so, real wages should continue to rise. I am not speaking just in terms of money wages. Money wages have to take account both of the real productive situation and of the price situation which is properly before this Committee but real wages should be pushed up to the highest possible level and this has to be done in a way which does not involve an increase in prices which absorbs all the money wage increases given from time to time. So do not write me down and do not write this side of the House down as low wage advocates. I believe in the highest possible level of real wages and furthermore I believe that we should be thinking in terms of improving industrial conditions whether this be by shorter hours or more holidays or things of that character. I hope when there is more time to debate this to return to this subject in this House. I am left in some doubt as to whether the terms of reference should be expanded and should be made more direct. It is quite true that if one takes what the Minister for Social Security said in this House a moment ago, all the matters that I have talked about will come properly within the scope of this Committee. Let me hope that there is good faith on the Government side. Let me hope that honourable members opposite mean what they say. It just seems to me that perhaps it would have been better if they had said what they meant and it would perhaps have been better if the protestations of the Minister for Social Security were in fact included in the draft terms of reference in paragraph 1 of this motion. In regard to the amendment moved by the Opposition I do not see that there is any reason why the House should not carry it. It does not go beyond the type of thing that the Minister was talking about. It may be true that the House examines in financial measures at other times matters of public policy but there are times when the effect of public policy on prices should be examined concurrently with the other factors which affect them and this could be done without any impairment of the other financial procedures of this House or any derogation from its other authority. I am surprised that the Government finds in any way obnoxious the amendment that has been moved by the Opposition. I would rather have thought that the Government would welcome it because it makes clearer what the Government professes to say through the mouth of the Minister for Social Security is the real impact and import of this motion before us. I should have liked to have said a great deal more in regard to the possibility of establishing a prices and wages policy. I believe that in the short term the establishment of this Committee is a reasonable proposal; in the long term it is self-defeating. Unhappily, **Mr Speaker,** you are about to say that my time has expired. Let rae anticipate that and now conclude my remarks. {: #subdebate-31-0-s13 .speaker-KFU} ##### Dr GUN:
Kingston -- *1* have much pleasure in supporting the motion moved by the Treasurer **(Mr Crean).** I believe that the Committee this Parliament will set up to examine prices will be very valuable. Its work will not only assist the members of the Committee and other members of the Parliament in apprising themselves of the various factors that go to make up the pricing structure but also will achieve some positive gains through examining the prices, in certain cases, of individual goods and services. The main reason I rise to speak in this debate is to deal with 2 assumptions that are frequently made by members of the Opposition, though 1 noticed that the previous speaker, the honourable member for Mackellar **(Mr Wentworth),** dissociated himself from the assumptions I will mention which are in relation to wages. The 2 propositions that I want to deal with are frequently raised by my Party's political opponents. The first assertion is that inflation is wholly or nearly wholly due to wage increases. The second is that the way to overcome inflation in the community is merely to increase the forces of competition and to allow the free interplay of market forces. I believe that both of those propositions require fairly heavy qualification. I deal firstly with the assumption that only wages are responsible for inflation. If one follows on from this assumption one might therefore go on to assume, as is often assumed by the Opposition that somehow the greedy wage earners should restrain themselves from avaricious wage demands. I believe and this Government believes that in a democracy wage control is neither desirable nor practicable. Wage earners do not operate by taking a conscious decision to plunder the rest of the community. Wage demands are made by a group of employees in an industry in response to a specific set of circumstances. To suggest that such demands should be restrained artificially seems to me to be an unusual proposition from the champions of private enterprise and free enterprise, because they seem to be saying that we should not restrain the free forces of the market except in the case of labour. Labour really operates in the market place too. The price received for labour is largely a reflection of the demand for labour in various fields. If one tries to interfere with this mechanism with such things as penal provisions in the Conciliation and Arbitration Act one interferes only with the market mechanism. This attitude seems to be an extraordinary anomaly on the part of people who advocate unrestrained private enterprise. This Government is not prepared to make a stand in principle against wage increases. We believe that wage increases in themselves are intrinsically a good thing. It is only if they cause price increases that they can have deleterious effects on the rest of the community. These effects will occur only when wage increases are in excess of increases in productivity. In such cases price increases can occur. That does not mean that if we do not achieve the necessary increase in productivity we should restrain wage increases. The Government's job is to try to improve the rate of economic growth so that productivity increases can cope with wage increases so that price increases will not occur. But if price increases do occur we do not think it is our job to try to restrain wages. We should try to improve productivity. This is our belief and it is the belief which has mostly been held by the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission over the years. There have been a couple of lamentable lapses from this policy but by and large the Commission has held the view that if prices rise without an increase in productivity, it is nonetheless incumbent upon the Commission to increase wages to maintain and to sustain the purchasing power of wage earners. This is a policy to which this Government subscribes also. It has been said earlier in this debate, and 1 would agree, that price rises can result from causes other than wage increases. I think that a good example of this was the recent case involving proposed increases in steel prices by Broken Hill Pty Co. Ltd which was heard by **Mr Justice** Moore. T do not wish to argue the merits one way or the other of the BHP case. However, one of the facts which did come out of that case was the extraordinarily arbitrary nature by which price increases are determined by the large companies, particularly if the situation in respect of their activities is not very competitive. Having regard to the fact that so many price increases are decided on a completely arbitrary basis, surely it would be a remarkable coincidence if it was never the case that the price increases were excessive in some way or, in other words, if they did not represent an unseemly high level of profit. One of the purposes of the proposed Committee will be to establish a mechanism additional to that which already obtains to ensure that excessive price increases which may represent an excessive level of profits will not occur. The other assumption that is frequently made by the champions of private enterprise is that all that -we need to do to control excessive price increases is to have an adequate degree of competition. They say that prices should not be fixed artificially because this will cause bottlenecks and so forth. They contend that the only action to be taken is to increase the competitive forces in the economy. I agree that excessive price increases do occur if competition is limited. But this also needs very heavy qualification. Just to say that one is against competition will not stop these things happening. In fact, the introduction of anti-competitive practices legislation in itself is not sufficient to restrain price increases. I invite honourable members to consider what happened following the introduction of resale price maintenance legislation in the last Parliament. One might have hoped that the passage of that legislation would have meant a downward pressure on retail prices. But, in fact, the effect of this legislation has been minimal. Prior to this legislation a wholesaler would say that he would supply to a retailer only if that retailer undertook to sell the wholesaler's goods at a specific price, and if the retailer did not sell at that price, supplies would be withheld by the wholesaler. Under the resale price maintenance legislation it became illegal for a manufacturer to threaten to withhold supplies from a retailer who did not conform to his demands. But the point is that it was not even necessary to have this threat of a sanction by which supplies were withheld because it was in the interests of all retailers to operate a little collusive practice whereby they all agreed that they regarded it as in their own interests to maintain resale price maintenance. So, the threat of retaliation by wholesalers was not even necessary. The same could be said in respect of any attempt to outlaw collusive practices among manufacturers. We passed legislation to try to eliminate collusion, but that legislation was ineffective as well because collusion was not even necessary. Manufacturers understand what is in their own interests. They do not wish to cut each other's throats. They have nice cosy little arrangements. Whether those arrangements are made openly or privately does not make any difference. They come to a common agreement. The passage of legislation, therefore, does not make any real difference to the existence of monopoly and anti-competitive practices. This is referred to in Galbraith's book 'The New Industrial State', in which he refers to the activities of companies which enter into collusive practices. He says: {: type="i" start="1"} 0. . the 3 majors in the automobile industry, as he result of long and intimate study of each other's behaviour within the confines of one city, are able to establish prices which reflect the common interest. And they can do so with precision. No consultation is required. The procedure is legally secure. Not much would be changed were the companies allowed, in fact, to consult and agree on prices. The point that I am making is that merely passing anti-competitive legislation is no guarantee that these practices will not continue. For that reason I believe that we must have an extra mechanism which will be supplied in the form of this committee to examine the prices of goods and services and subsequently in the establishment of a prices justification board. I believe that we have pretty ample evidence already of what can be done by examining the prices of particular goods and services and then the Government threatening to use its power to give?* contracts, subsidies and so forth to force prices down. I refer honourable members to the report of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits which was presented to the previous Parliament. The report contains a couple of tables which show what the Commonwealth Department of Health has been able to achieve in the field of prices. The Department can go to the individual drug companies and say: 'We are examining the price of a particular drug that you are manufacturing. We believe that you could charge a lot less. Other companies which manufacture the same drug charge less and we believe that you should do the same.' The Department can then say: 'If you do not reduce the price of your product which is of an equivalent quality to other products on the pharmaceutical benefits list and if you do not conform to a reasonable pricing arrangement your product will be delisted. Nobody will ever convince me that we cannot have a very effective mechanism to restrain price increases by just examining these things and then making recommendations to the manufacturers by saying: 'We require you to lower your prices, otherwise the favoured arrangement that you are getting from this Government will be withdrawn'. As evidence of the effectiveness of this approach I seek leave to incorporate in Hansard tables which appear on page 55 and pages 64 and 65 of the Report of the Select Committee on Pharmaceutical Benefits. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The documents read as follows) - {: .speaker-KFU} ##### Dr GUN: -- If honourable members look at these tables they will see that very significant gains can be made in this field. I believe that the proposed parliamentary committee will be able to extend this inquiry to examine a whole range of goods and services with a very beneficial effect in exerting a downward pressure on the price of goods and services supplied throughout the economy. Therefore I have very much pleasure in supporting the motion moved by the Treasurer. Question put: That the amendment **(Mr Lynch's)** be agreed to. The House divided. (Mr Speaker- Hon.J. F. Cope) AYES: 55 NOES: 61 Majority . . . . 6 AYES NOES Question so resolved in the negative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. {: .page-start } page 808 {:#debate-32} ### REMUNERATION AND ALLOWANCES BILL 1973 {: #debate-32-s0 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Is leave granted? {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr Sinclair: -- No. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Leave is not granted. {: .page-start } page 808 {:#debate-33} ### PUBLIC SERVICE BILL 1973 {:#subdebate-33-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from 13 March (vide page 469), on motion by **Mr Whitlam:** >That the Bill be now read a second time. {: #subdebate-33-0-s0 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- The other matter has been dispensed with. Leave was refused. {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr Sinclair: -- 1 will speak on the Public Service Bill. {: .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: -- **Mr Speaker,** I seek leave of the House for the debate on the Public Service Bill to be adjourned. Leave granted; debate adjourned. {: .page-start } page 808 {:#debate-34} ### SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS Motion (by **Mr Daly)** put: >That so much ofthe Standing Orders be suspended as would prevent the Prime Minister introducing the Remunerationand AllowancesBill 1 973 forthwith. Question put: >That the motion **(Mr Daly's)** be agreed to. The House divided. (Mr Speaker- Hon. J. F. Cope) AYES: 98 NOES: 18 Majority .. ..80 AYES NOES Question so resolved in the affirmative. {: .page-start } page 809 {:#debate-35} ### REMUNERATION AND ALLOWANCES BILL 1973 Bill presented by **Mr Whitlam.** {: #debate-35-s0 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! There is no such standing order. {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr Sinclair: -- **Mr Speaker,** I move dissent from your ruling. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! The Chair cannot accept the motion of dissent. {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr Sinclair: -- I take a point of order- {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! Once a Bill is presented it must be read a first time. Bill read a first time. Sitting suspended from 6.25 to 8 p.m. {:#subdebate-35-0} #### Second Reading {: #subdebate-35-0-s0 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · Werriwa · ALP -- This Bill brings together salaries proposals for members of Parliament including Ministers and office holders, judges, permanent heads of departments and statutory office holders whose salaries are related to First and Second Division salaries in the Public Service. I need not remind the House of the sorry history of salaries proposals for members of Parliament. Sufficient to say that when proposed in December 1971, salary increases were overdue and the proposals came at the end of wage adjustments for most other sectors of the community. The 1971 proposals, arrived at after the inquiry by **Mr Justice** Kerr, now Chief Justice of New South Wales, were not implemented. Members of Parliament have had no salary adjustments since 1968. The same goes for permanent heads. Judges' salaries were last adjusted inJune 1969. The measure before the House, therefore, is more than timely. The legislation will, if approved, have the effect of amending the Parliamentary Allowances Act 1952-1970 and the Ministers of State Act 1952-1971. I turn now to the detail of the Bill. The current salary for members and senators is $9,500 a year. In December 1971 **Mr Justice** Kerr proposed that the salary should be $13,000 and that there should be a further review soon after the next general elections. We have now reached that stage and taking into account the trends over the intervening period, it is the Government's view that $14,500 a year is the very minimum towhich the basic salary for members should be raised. Members receive electorate allowances designed to help them meet those costs which arise from the duties of their office. The Government's opinion is that the distinctions which have been made in the past between the electorate expenses of members representing city and country electorates and between members and senators are not justified. Accordingly, the legislation proposes that all members of Parliament - senators and members of this House alike - should receive the same electorate allowance. The amount proposed is $4,100 - the amount recommended by **Mr Justice** Kerr for country electorates. Under the previous administration there were Ministers and senior Ministers. In addition to their salaries as members, senior Ministers received $10,500 per annum; other Ministers received $7,500. **Mr Justice** Kerr proposed that these amounts should be raised to $13,300 and $9,500. The Government has decided that there should not be this distinction between Ministers. We are also proposing that the ministerial salary should remain at $10,500 per annum - the amount paid under the former Government to senior Ministers. The Deputy Prime Minister will also receive the same salary as his predecessor, $12,500 per annum. **Mr Justice** Kerr recommended that the Prime Ministerial salary should be raised to $27,000. The Government has adopted this recommendation. As far as the special allowance for Ministers is concerned, the legislation now before the House basically applies **Mr Justice** Kerr's recommendations. The allowance proposed for the Prime Minister is $10,900 per annum, for the Deputy Prime Minister $5,200 per annum and for Ministers $4,875 per annum. The amendments proposed to the Ministers of State Act will provide for an appropriation to enable the payment of salaries to members at the levels I have mentioned. I add that during the period before the swearing in of the full Ministry - that is, from 5th to 18th December - the Deputy Prime Minister **(Mr Barnard)** and 1 received the same salary as we had received as Deputy Leader and Leader of the Opposition, together with special allowances at the rates paid to our predecessors in ministerial office. Since the swearing in on 19th December, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Treasurer **(Mr Crean)** and I have been paid the same salaries as were received by our predecessors. All other Ministers have been paid at the one salary level based on an equal apportionment of the remainder of the annual appropriation under the Ministers of State Act 1952-1971. The Deputy Prime Minister and I continued to receive the special allowances which were paid prior to 19th December and all other Ministers since swearing in have received special allowance at the lower rate prescribed under the Act. I do not propose now to list all details in respect of the other office-holders of the Parliament. These are contained in the Bill and honourable members will see that, in the main, a close relationship exists with the figures contained in the Kerr report. To assist honourable members further, however, I have had circulated a table setting out current parliamentary salaries and allowances and indicating where those rates will be varied by the proposals now before the House. I ask leave to incorporate this table in Hansard. {: #subdebate-35-0-s1 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The table read as follows) - {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr WHITLAM: -- I add that the Government also proposes that the travelling allowances for members, Ministers and office-holders will in future be laid down by regulation and thu-, subject to the scrutiny of the Parliament. Before 1 deal with the other major proposals in the Bill, I want to mention 2 further matters in relation to parliamentary salaries and allowances. The Government believes that machinery should be established for the future regular review of parliamentary salaries. Honourable members are aware that in the past there have been independent committees making recommendations to the government and governments putting proposals before the Parliament without independent inquiry. There have also been suggestions that parliamentary salaries should be tied automatically to some index. It is this Government's view that a tribunal should be established in order to put this whole matter on a regular basis with automatic reviews and, in respect of members' salaries, probably having automatic effect. Legislation to give effect to this intention will be put to the House as soon as possible. The Government will also be bringing forward legislation to amend the Parliamentary retiring allowances scheme. The details have not yet been worked out but the legislation will be a considerable improvement on the current scheme - including, I would hope, adoption of the principles that, subject to a qualifying period, members should receive in their retirement a retirement allowance equal to half the salary determined from time to time for sitting members of Parliament and this retirement allowance will be increased by 2 per cent per annum for every completed year of service beyond the qualifying period up to a maximum of 75 per cent of a sitting member's salary. I turn now to the salaries of the permanent heads of Public Service departments. Honourable members will recall that in 1971. proposals to increase the salaries of permanent heads were introduced into the House but did not go forward. The government at that time was continuing to give effect to a 2 level approach to the top Public Service positions. We do not believe that such a structure should be retained. The salary proposed for the senior level in 1971 was $29,250 per annum plus $1,750 per annum allowance. The legislation proposes that these amounts be applied to all permanent heads. The legislation also deals with those statutory officers who are regarded as having a status related to that of First Division public servants. These positions have also been considered and the recommended salaries and allowances for these office holders are listed in the Bill. There is also a group of statutory office holders whose salaries are related to the level of salaries paid to Second Division officers in the Public Service. Bills dealing with these statutory office holders were also introduced into the Parliament in 1971 and 1972 but not passed. It is now proposed to proceed with the salary adjustments which were then proposed thus retaining the relationship between these positions and the Second Division of the Public Service. The Bill lists these officeholders and the salaries proposed together with any annual allowances currently paid. Additionally the Bill covers the salaries of Conciliation and Arbitration Commissioners and Deputy Public Service Arbitrators. The new salaries included for them are those which appeared in the legislation in 1971 and 1972. The Government also proposes that the salaries and annual allowances for Commonwealth Justices and Judges including Presidential Members of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission should be adjusted, the last adjustment having been made in June 1969. The relevant salary increases for these high judicial offices are scheduled in the Bill. The measures which the Government is now putting forward, particularly in respect of parliamentary salaries and allowances will, no doubt, come in for the usual criticism from certain sections of the community. The Government believes however that its proposals are reasonable, justified and timely. We make no apologies for recommending to the Parliament and to the people of Australia that members of Parliament receive an adequate salary commensurate with the importance of the task they are elected to perform. I commend the Bill. I move: Leave granted to proceed with the debate forthwith. {: #subdebate-35-0-s2 .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr SNEDDEN:
Leader of the Opposition · Bruce -- There has been no movement in parliamentary salaries since 1968. During that time there has been a very considerable decline in the spending power of members' salaries and their relativity to the incomes of the rest of the community but no reduction in their necessary personal and political expenditure. Their reduced relative income has been dramatic due to the rapidity n wage hikes and relative inflation rate. The parliamentary salary as a percentage of average weekly earnings has declined from 7.80 per cent in 1968 to 196 per cent in 1972. This has led to the need for large percentage increases to restore their earlier position. The restoration of relativities in the 1968 increase was 35.7 per cent. The increase now has had *o be more than 50 per cent. The reason is of course that there has not been the gradual improvement that has benefited other sectors in the community. Average weekly earnings have moved from $65.30 in 1968 to $104 in 1973. This has been an increase of almost 60 per cent. To keep up with those average weekly earnings members' salaries would have moved by $5,600. The duties of a member of Parliament are very important to the welfare of this country. Back benchers and front benchers alike must be men of quality. The Parliament provides the men to be the Executive for the management of this country. The quality ot our national management is dependent on the quality of the elected members of this Parliament. From them comes the Ministry who make the most important decisions affecting life in Australia and also the Opposition parties who try to make those decisions better. We do not know the detailed submissions that have been considered by the Government when they were making the decisions on this Bill, but in general terms the Opposition has decided to support the Bill. At the end of 1971 we as Government moved to increase the members' salary from $9,500 per annum to $13,000 per annum, but the legislation was not proceeded with. This was $1,000 less than the amount Judge Kerr in his report recommended, although we believed his recommendations were not excessive. There have been significant wage movements since then. We will support also the establishment of the tribunal recommended in the Bill, but we do this subject to examination of its actual provisions when presented to the House. In December 1971 we recommended the establishment of a tribunal generally along the lines proposed by the Kerr report. The major difference between the concepts is that the tribunal then proposed would have made recommendations but would not have had authority to make determinations as to salaries and allowances. The responsibility of those determinations would have rested with the Parliament. As referred to in the speech of the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** it may be automatic. Hence we will look at that provision when it comes before this House. There certainly is merit in finding a system which will prevent members from suffering a dramatic erosion of their incomes over periods of up to 5 years without the accompanying public trauma, when the situation is corrected. The increases do not appear excessive; they are less than would have resulted from catching up with movements in average weekly earnings since the last increase in 196S. The Prime Minister, in speaking to the Bill, mentioned the commitment that has been given by the Government in relation to pensions and which will be introduced as legislation in the future. I wish to say to him now. as I have said to him outside the House, that when that matter is being considered I think it would be appropriate that the present anomaly which applies to women members of the House of Representatives and the Senate should be corrected. {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: -- I agree. {: .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr SNEDDEN: -- I understand that the Prime Minister, as he has now indicated by way of interjection, agrees with me. I am glad to hear that and I look forward to that anomaly being corrected in the legislation. I support the Bill. {: #subdebate-35-0-s3 .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR:
New England -- In stating the attitude of the Australian Country Party to this Bill 1 point out that throughout this afternoon we have been discussing the inflationary impact on the community of changes in prices and of wage relativity to prices. This afternoon there was introduced into this Parliament with little prior notice a measure which covers significant factors that have been before this House before but in relation to which we could see no particular reason for accelerating the normal processes of examination, lt was for that reason that we took the rather unusual step of not granting leave to the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** to introduce the Bill forthwith. We believe that it is necessary that the salaries and allowances of parliamentarians and all the other persons referred to in this Bill should be reviewed. Obviously, as both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden)** have already stated, in areas where there has been no review since 1968 and because of the adjustment of the cost o£ living and the added responsibilities which every member of this House bears, it is necessary that the members of this place be paid sufficient salary and accorded sufficient allowances to enable them properly and efficiently to carry out their responsibilities. We do not oppose that principle. We believe that, similarly, the salaries of other persons covered by this Bill need to be examined in the light of changing prices and circumstances and in the light of changing wage conditions. In accordance with those principles, we as a Party do not oppose the Bill in its entirety. We believe, however, that there are some aspects of the Bill which need to be considered adequately and effectively. That our dispute is not one relating only to the personality of the leader of the Australian Country Party **(Mr Anthony)** I think is best represented and reflected in the fact that f am leading in this debate for the Country Party and that he is not the person who is, on behalf of my Party, stating the principle which we hold dear. That principle is that we believe that country people throughout Australia need to be given a right equal to that of their city brothers, cousins and colleagues to representation in this, the national Parliament. We believe that, in accordance with that principle, the Party to which I belong and which essentially represents people outside the major metropolitan areas, that is in the big towns and the big cities of the country and in the rural areas that form their hinterland, should be accorded a status which reflects their opportunity to give that equal representation. Accordingly, I move: This aspect of the Bill, of course is why the Leader of the Country Party **(Mr Anthony)** is nol speaking to the Bill. This is a Bill, however, which does not reflect his personal point of view. This point of view is held by all members of the Australian Country Party. It is a point of view which reflects the principle, which I enunciate as the right to equal representation. The right to equal representation in this national Parliament of people living in country areas is essential for the maintenance of democracy in Australia. The general trend of the policies of the new Labor Government has been antagonistic to those people. The trend in policies is one which necessitates constant and forceful representation on behalf, of country people. If they are to be given the opportunity to maintain an equality of voice in this place it is necessary that my Party, through its Leader, enjoys the status which we believe is necessary. That this is not a frivolous or irresponsible approach is best reflected in the text of a letter dated 5th February 1972 which the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** wrote to the Leader of the Australian Country Party. In that letter the Prime Minister stated that he accorded to the Leader of the Country Party equal status and entitlements with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in this chamber. It is true that in that letter he did not say that he committed himself as to future legislation, but the principle remains that in that letter he recognised the status of the Australian Country Party, through his recognition of the salary and emoluments accorded to its Leader. It is necessary that I spell out in full detail the way in which we, as a party, see this cause. The changing trend of population in Australia has not in any way lessened the difficulties and responsibilities of those who represent the large rural electorates of this country. For example, the honourable member for Kalgoorlie **(Mr Collard),** a member of the Government party, necessarily travels great distances to represent his people effectively. All members of the Australian Country Party are in a similar position. Each member of my Party represents many small towns as well as, in many instances, several very large towns and cities. Each citizen of those communities deserves the same measure of representation as every person who lives in a suburban electorate. The Minister for Services and Property **(Mr Daly)** has, as his responsibility, an electorate which I have no doubt he, in his youthful virility, can walk around in the compass of an afternoon. Wherever members of the Australian Country Party are located, they find it necessary to travel many hundreds of miles to service their people. Some members travel thousands of miles throughout their areas. The honourable members for Kennedy **(Mr Katter),** Maranoa **(Mr Corbett),** Northern Territory **(Mr Calder).** Darling **(Mr FitzPatrick)** and Kalgoorlie **(Mr Collard)** are in that bracket. This Bill is a direct reflection on the status and position of every person in the country. A similar attitude has been expressed in the second reading speech of the Prime Minister in respect of other matters. We see, for example, that the past division in representational allowances accorded to members in city and country electorates is to be no longer preserved. **Mr Justice** Kerr, when he examined the situation in December 1971, said that he believed it was necessary for country members to be accorded a greater electorate allowance. This is not to continue, ft is true that both city and country members need an increase in the electorate allowance, but to my mind the decision taken, as I understand it, by Caucus this morning, reflects the fact that within the Labor Party there is no recognition of the difficulties that some of its own country members, in this House, along with other country members in the Country Party and the Liberal Party suffer. These members have difficulty in covering large distances and adequately servicing their constituents. This is another instance of the distinction which the Labor Party is trying to make between people who live in the country and people who live in the city. So it is not only in the salary and conditions pertinent to the Leader of the Country Party but also in other aspects of this measure that we see the distinction which the Labor Party is drawing in the opportunity for representation that is permitted to members coming from country areas. It is important that there should be processes of regular review for salaries and allowances and the Country Party is in accord with the necessity for laying down adequate procedures for constant reexamination of their adequacy. I note that it is proposed that a tribunal be established. I look forward to seeing the legislation to establish the tribunal. My Party and I will look closely and critically at the basis on which this tribunal will act in order to ensure that there will be a consideration of all factors affecting the rights and responsibilities of members of this Chamber. It is important that we have a process of regular review. As I explained earlier, I am completely in accord with the contention that it is now past time for adjustments in salaries and allowances, but I believe that the actual processes and functions of the tribunal need to be considered accurately, closely and critically by this House before complete support is given to them. Like the Leader of the Opposition I am in complete accord with the necessity to amend the parliamentary retiring allowances scheme. It is a scheme which has prejudiced adversely the opportunities of members of this place in the past. For many members it would have been far better had we invested the funds privately and used them in some other way than through the parliamentary retiring allowances scheme, if we were to provide adequately for those years when we were no longer members of this place. Accordingly my party and I are in complete accord with the undertaking given by the Government that legislation should be introduced to amend the scheme. We also support the proposed amendment suggested by the Leader of the Opposition, to which the Prime Minister has given his approval, that women members in this place and in the Senate should be accorded equal status with those of us who are males. There are 2 other aspects of the Bill to which I should like to draw attention. The first is the suggestion that we should dispose of the 2-level approach to the top Public Service positions. I believe that is more than justified in the present circumstances of the responsibilities that each permanent head enjoys. The only difficulty I can see is that all of the permanent heads at this stage seem to find it extremely difficult given the multiplicity of co-responsibilities that their Ministers carry. In some cases permanent heads can be responsible to 2 or 3 Ministers, lt therefore does make it difficult to establish an adequate line of command, lt has been my opinion lor a long time that we should take the opportunity to look not just at the salaries and allowances payable to permanent heads but to give them the same executive responsibility as any managing director of a major corporation has, including the right to hire and fire. Given the responsibility of those who are the administrators of the Public Service, I believe this is an area well worthy of examination. Another suggestion in the amending legislation relates to the basis on which the payments should be made in accordance with the scale prescribed by **Mr Justice** Kerr but varied in some instances according to later circumstances. My Party does not disapprove of the variations which are proposed. There are, in the scale laid down by **Mr Justice** Kerr, some recommendations applicable to the circumstances in December 1971 which have changed over the course of the 1.8 months since it was laid down. It is true that some of the allowances and some of the relativities are not justified in the Prime Minister's statement to this House. It is true that in relation to some of those allowances there has been a significant increase in the adjustments which have been made. The one in which there is no significant increase is the one to which my Party objects. When **Mr Justice** Kerr examined the circumstances of the leader of the third major party in the House of Representatives he spoke of the fact that at the time the salary was not appropriate because a coalition government was in office and the then leader of the party was in fact enjoying the salary of a Deputy Prime Minister. But **Mr Justice** Kerr did recognise the circumstances of difference which apply to the leader of the third major party in this p'ace. I do not believe that the change which has been made in other areas is any reason why an adequate change should not be made in the salary and emoluments to be paid to the Leader of the Australian Country Party. Indeed the Prime Minister has been aware of the concern which my Party felt as to the difference in the rates. He was aware earlier in the day that we did intend to object to the Bill if no change was made in this area and it is for that reason, amongst others, that 1 believe it is necessary for adequate time to be given to the whole of the circumstance of change which is involved in this legislation. lt is. of course, easy for us, because we have control in the place of the provision of funds, to provide for salary increases but it is irresponsible for us not to examine effectively and adequately those salaries and allowances and their variations, lt is necessary for us to look at the circumstances of what we are doing. 1 believe that one of the circumstances is the relative position of those of us in this place who represent different types of areas. I believe that the Bill as it is now spelt out does not effectively provide for the status of those members who represent country electorates. I believe that the Bil) does not recognise the contribution which my Party which represents people in the far-flung parts of this continent makes. Consequently, through the salary of its leader it is not afforded the recognition which that letter of the 5th February from the Prime Minister spelt out. Accordingly, 1 believe that this Bill should be changed to permit the adjustment of salary and allowances in that respect. The Country Party supports the Bill with reservations in those areas to which I have referred but it opposes that part of the Bill which does not accord to the leader of the ACP the status through the salary and allowances payable to him which would equate him to the position of Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Accordingly, I suggest that the House might now reexamine the measure in order to give to the Leader of the Country Party the entitlement which I believe is no more than his due. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! Is the amendment seconded? {: .speaker-009OD} ##### Mr Nixon: -- I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak. {: #subdebate-35-0-s4 .speaker-009OD} ##### Mr NIXON:
Gippsland **- Mr Speaker-** {: .speaker-KFU} ##### Dr Gun: -- I rise to order. I draw your attention, **Mr Speaker,** to standing order No. 292 which relates to appropriation proposals. The last sentence of standing order No. 292 reads: >No amendment of such proposal shall be moved which would increase, or extend the objects and pur poses or alter the destination of. the appropriation so recommended unless a further message is received. I therefore ask you to rule whether the amendment moved by the honourable member for New England **(Mr Sinclair)** is in order. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! This is not an amendment to the Bill. It is an amendment to the motion that the Bill be read a second time. {: .speaker-009OD} ##### Mr NIXON: -- Earlier in the day the members of the Australian Country Party took the step of forcing the delay of the Remuneration and Allowances Bill so that we could have a proper discussion on its various clauses. Some of the clauses were not in accordance with the information given to us earlier in the day and we felt that it was only proper that we should take time to consider that Bill as a whole, the various clauses and their implications. The Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party **(Mr Sinclair)** has moved an amendment to the Bill. He has done this, firstly on the basis of precedence in this Parliament itself. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that in 1947 when the Australian Labor Party was last in government and a salary Bill was brought into this place the salary attaching to the office of the Leader of the Opposition was S 1,200. At that time the Deputy Leader of the Opposition was given nothing. The leader of the third party - with 10 members at that time - was given $800. That is the first point I wished to establish: That there is a precedent, we believe, for the step thai we are taking tonight. Secondly, we believe that the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** clearly accepted that there ought to be a proper position recognised and accepted for the Leader of the Australian Country Party. He said so by way of a letter dated 5th February 19/3 in which he set out what the salary and emoluments would be for the Leader of the Country Party. It states inter alia - and this is not out of context: >In the expectation, however, that the Act will be amended to take account of changed circumstances, I have authorised the same payments to you as to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. . . . It is quite clear that the Prime Minister himself believed at that time that the leader of the third party - a significant party in Australian politics - should have a standing and status equivalent to the position of Deputy Leader of the Opposition. The provisions of this Bill are different in a number of ways to the recommendations of the Kerr report. 1 want to establish one new point that was conveyed to us very late this afternoon. I understand that the Caucus decided this morning to make the electoral allowance for representatives of country electorates the same as the allowance for representatives of city electorates. I do not argue for one moment that there should not be a heavy increase in electoral allowances. That is not the point 1 wish to establish. But the point I do wish to establish is that in the Kerr report it was said that there ought to be a differential in favour of country electorates because the Kerr inquiry found in its study that the work load of country members was heavier in some respects than the work load of their city counterparts. This finding has not been acted upon. This is somewhat in line with other actions which the Government has taken and which are of concern to people in country areas generally. We have seen the revaluation of the Australian dollar. Then we had the devaluation of the American dollar. We have seen the Government rejecting assistance, in the first case, to exporting industries affected in this way. People in country areas have been concerned at actions taken by the Government particularly when they saw an 18 per cent difference in the value of the Australian dollar compared to its value prior to the Labor Government coming into power. We have seen other action taken such as the appointment of the Minister for Primary Industry **(Senator Wriedt)** who was almost completely unknown in the Parliament. Industry organisations once again have been concerned at the action of this Government in appointing as Minister a senator who is unknown in primary industry when there are well known and established Labor spokesmen on primary industry matters in this place. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The remarks of the honourable gentleman are moving away from the subject matter of the Bill before the House. He is in order in making a passing reference to these matters but he shall not debate them. {: .speaker-009OD} ##### Mr NIXON: -- This matter is bound up in the one fear that people in country areas have, that is, that the Government is trying to demean them. We believe that proper recognition of the status of the office held by the Leader of the Australian Country Party is important. Please understand this fact: The amount of money that the present Leader of the Party will receive does not matter 2 hoots to him. The simple truth is that he could buy or sell most honourable members in this Parliament. The Prime Minister knows that, as do many other honourable members. Let us not be carried away on that point. The provisions of this Bill may well set a precedent for many years ahead. It is important, therefore, that the proper precedent and the proper position be established. At our Party meeting this morning the Leader of the Country Party was not a party to the unanimous decision that was taken by all other members of the Country Party to support this approach. I ask honourable members *to* understand that clearly. The stand that Country Party members have adopted comes from their hearts and minds. They believe that justice has not been done in this case. For that *reason,* we say that the attitude taken by the Labor Party in respect of this measure shows a brand of meanness. There is an attitude of meanness in attacking and in trying to denigrate and to downgrade this great Party. That is why the Deputy Leader of the Country Party has moved the amendment, and I support it. {: #subdebate-35-0-s5 .speaker-K5O} ##### Mr CORBETT:
Maranoa -- There has been so much noise from the other side of the chamber and criticism of the Country Party attitude that I felt that it might be as well for me to add something to the remarks of the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party **(Mr Sinclair)** and the honourable member for Gippsland **(Mr Nixon).** {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: -- Tell us whether you will take the salary. {: .speaker-K5O} ##### Mr CORBETT: -- Your curiosity will be satisfied in due course. The Country Party accepts that the salaries of members of the Australian Parliament have fallen well behind the relative positions of those salaries at the time of the last adjustment of parliamentary salaries. Because of this, we recognise fully the need for an increase in parliamentary salaries. An increase is fully justified. There is no argument as far as we are concerned on that aspect of the matter. The point that I should like to make in connection with this legislation is that the Labor Party has taken the opportunity in this Bill to try to denigrate the Country Party. It also hopes, **Mr Deputy Speaker,** by this measure to try to drive a wedge between the Liberal Party and the Country Party. This was mentioned in the Press only tonight. If those honourable members opposite who are trying to interject would only listen to me they would hear what I have to say. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! I am **Mr Speaker,** not **Mr Deputy Speaker.** I ask the House to note that in case the salary increases come about. {: .speaker-K5O} ##### Mr CORBETT: -- I did not wish to demote you, **Mr Speaker.** The Labor Party has endeavoured to gain some political capital by its action. The Country Party is determined, so far as it is within its power, to maintain the status of the Country Party in this Parliament. We will not be a party to any lessening of our status. If the Government thinks that by introducing such a precedent in conjunction with a salaries Bill it will weaken our attitude in this respect, it has badly misjudged the calibre, the standing and the principles of the Australian Country Party and the honourable members who represent it in this Parliament. We will not weaken simply because we may suffer some penalty if we do not weaken. We have taken the stand as is expressed in the amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Country Party. The Country Party always has been prepared to fight for its standing within the Parliament. We appreciate the attitude taken by our Leader, at the time when the new Parliament had not been called into session in attempting to establish the position of the Country Party in this Parliament. We believe now that we should stand, as we have done, as a team and support our Leader in this matter. We feel that he has played his part. It is up to us now to show, as the honourable member for Gippsland has said, . that this amendment represents a unanimous decision taken by the Country Party. It has been moved with the intention of showing this Parliament and the Australian people that the Leader of the Country Party was fighting, not for his personal rights but for the Country Party to be accorded its proper status in this House. The outstanding feature of the Australian Country Party throughout its history in this Parliament has been its solidarity. That has been exhibited again in this case. We stand solidly behind what we believe to be right for the Australian Country Party. We are prepared to do that whenever we feel it is necessary to do so, and that is what we are doing tonight. I believe that there is a growing dissatisfaction with the Government. It has shown many weaknesses. Rebellions have occurred in the ranks of its Ministers. It has presented conflicting views. The Prime Minister has had his job cut out trying to hold his Government together. The Government probably realised that the only real hope that it had of being returned at the next election would be to cause a division in the ranks of the Parties opposing it. It has grabbed this opportunity to try to do just that. It feels - I think rightly so - that unless it can demonstrate to the people of Australia that there is not the unity on this side of the Parliament which is necessary for effective government, it will not be returned at the next election. This legislation represents a miserable attempt to promote that angle. No matter how one looks at it, it is hard to explain this action of the Government in any other way, especially in the light of the letter written by the Prime Minister to the Leader of the Country Party, and in the light of the whole history of our Party in this Parliament. The leader of a third Party always has been recognised in a much stronger and more satisfactory way over the years than is proposed in this Bill. The provisions of this Bill represent a new approach. No doubt the Government has its reason for this approach, lt is not just to gain the paltry saving which is achieved by reducing the salary of the Leader of the Australian Country Party. We know only too well that the eminence of the positions of office holders in this Parliament is gauged in relation to the salaries and allowances that they receive. We will not have the office of the Leader of the Australian Country Party reduced in status just to satisfy some of the ideas of the Government. We are not prepared to allow that. Honourable members opposite may make as much noise as they like. They can scream about it as much as they like. Country Party members have their views and we will have them heard. If honourable members opposite do not accept that argument, perhaps they might accept another theory which was put to me this afternoon, namely, that the Prime Minister and the Government have some fear of the growing acclaim that the Leader of the Australian Country Party is receiving throughout this great nation. He has been referred to in many circles as one of the great Australian statesmen. The tactics adopted by the Prime Minister, if my theory is right, represent shrewd thinking. The Minister for Services and Property **(Mr Daly)** in particular is noted for his astuteness in this field. I am glad to be able to nail the possible basis of this action. I believe that the Prime Minister would have been most pleased if he had been able to get away with this tactic without the true position as we see it being ventilated. This is what we have done. All we ask for is what the Prime Minister himself accepted earlier - an equality. We have not asked for anything more than the Prime Minister agreed was reasonable. All we have asked for is for the Leader of the Australian Country Party to have equality with the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Surely that is reasonable enough. We told the Gov.eernment about our attitude on this matter and we put up a fair and reasonable proposition which the Government turned down. We are not prepared to take the Government's decision lying down, and we are not going to. Honourable members opposite will find that we are on our feet tonight in defence not of **Mr Anthony** as such but of the Leader of this Party and the status and standing of the Austraiian Country Party. I cannot emphasise that too strongly. This is where members of the Country Party stand. I endorse the points made in the excellent speeches by the Deputy Leader of the Country Party and the honourable member for Gippsland in putting the position of the Country Party before the House. I wanted to put forward a number of other arguments in support of the case of the Country Party. However, I will not be able to do so because I have limited my time to 10 minutes. T believe that what has been said already has amply demonstrated the solidarity of this Party. Members of the Country Party are prepared to accept whatever penalty might be attached to taking this stand, which we believe to be fair and reasonable. But the Government has ridden roughshod over our proposition. It could have acceded to our request but now it is not prepared to do so. We are not opposing the Bill as such. We believe that the salaries and allowances provided for in this Bill are overdue and should be provided to members of the Parliament. But we cannot accept the position in which we have been placed by the Government. I say that the Government deserves the severest criticism for the miserable attack which it has made on our party through our Leader. {: #subdebate-35-0-s6 .speaker-DB6} ##### Mr WENTWORTH:
MacKellar -- I remember reading a long time ago the most famous of all poems, namely, the 'Iliad'. It referred to the contest which occurred through the throwing of a golden apple. The Australian Country Party and the Liberal Party surely are united. The Labor Party has thrown a golden apple with the objective of dividing us. I regret that some people are more inclined to think of the apple than of the substance. The great thing to do is to oppose the tactics of the Labor Party in trying to divide the Liberal Party and the Country Party. {: #subdebate-35-0-s7 .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr KATTER:
Kennedy -- **Mr Speaker,** may I first of all pay a tribute to your patience and impartiality. I know that you have been tried, particularly by members of the Opposition because they are drooling, they are happy and they are jubilant. They are working out what they are going to do with their big fat pay cheques. {: .speaker-KEI} ##### Mr Keogh: -- You mean members of the Government. {: .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr KATTER: -- That is right, the Government. I cannot get used to it, and I am not trying because it is only a temporary situation. What I would like to make perfectly clear is that, as has been mentioned here by my 2 colleagues, in the Country Party room today there was a display of complete loyalty not only to our Leader **(Mr Anthony)** but to the great number of people in the vast wealth producing areas we represent. We consider the Government's attitude a slight on our Party and on its great and tremendous responsibilities. We were united to a man that we could not possibly accept the Government's proposition. We have before us tonight the proposition which was originally placed before our Leader by the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam).** If one were inclined to be a little suspicious *one might* perhaps think that the Prime Minister suffered a change of heart because some of the polls that have been published show that our Leader is rapidly gaining ground. They show that he has the confidence of the whole nation. I suppose that because of this any Prime Minister would be getting a little concerned. The other telling argument is that in 1942 there was a clear and precise precedent, as was mentioned by my colleague the honourable member for Gippsland **(Mr Nixon),** when the then Leader of the Opposition was paid £1,200. {: .speaker-009OD} ##### Mr Nixon: -- Does the honourable member mean dollars? {: .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr KATTER: -- Dollars? If that amount is in dollars, then it was not enough. At that time his deputy was paid nothing. I am not suggesting for a moment that we should revert to this position. But the precedent is that the then Leader of the Country Party was paid $800. Surely to goodness we have here a clear cut indication of status. There are one or two matters that I think have not been mentioned in the House tonight which relate to facilities provided to honourable members. 1 refer to secretarial assistance, which all of us need so desperately, and to office accommodation. All of this is tied up with the general conditions applying to honourable members. {: .speaker-KEI} ##### Mr Keogh: -- I rise to a point of order, **Mr Speaker.** It might be advisable to bring the honourable member for Kennedy back to the contents of the Bill that we are discussing? {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The Chair will decide that. The honourable member is »n Older. {: #subdebate-35-0-s8 .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr KATTER: -- In addition there is a rather confused state of affairs in regard to the operations of the various Commonwealth departments. It is very obvious that there is confusion as to who are the actual departmental heads and more precisely who are the advisers to the Ministers. I am sure that this situation has created great difficulty for the less senior departmental officers who are confused about where they are going and who are the actual advisers to the various Ministers. All of this is tied up with salaries. I would like to make just one final point. Members of the Country Party are constantly insulted by comments and remarks about the areas we represent, lt would be very interesting to measure the production per head of population in areas represented by the Country Party as against the production per head in areas represented by supporters of the Government and to see just what value they are to this country. Again, if I were suspicious of the Government's motives in introducing this proposition I would wonder why we were given a set of figures this morning which indicated that there was to be a variation between the allowance paid to members in country areas and that paid to members in city areas. God bless them- -they have their 3 J square mile electorates. They have a tremendous task in covering them. My electorate is 230,000 square miles and 1 feel confident that the size will be greater after the proposed redistribution of boundaries takes place. But I will not go into details on that. What I want to say is that it is rather strange that this morning it was well known around the corridors that figures were out which showed a variation between the electorate allowances for people in rural areas and those in city areas. Again, if I were suspicious, 1 might think that a little bit of spite had come into this because members of the Country Party were claiming the status that our party demands. Never mind about Doug Anthony - the Leader of our party might be someone else. The Leader might be a shearer next time because the people in the Country Party have something in common with the workers. We have din under our nails. Government supporters - Oh! {: .speaker-1V5} ##### Mr KATTER: -- Government supporters find that amusing because they do not know what I am talking about. I conclude on this note: We are completely united in the matter of principle that our party will not be denigrated or downgraded. We are determined on that issue. {: #subdebate-35-0-s9 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr WHITLAM:
Prime Minister · Werriwa · ALP -- I hope that the House will pass this Bill promptly because, if it does not, I will be still subject to surcharge for my generosity to the Leader of the Australian Country Party **(Mr Anthony).** I took it upon myself to authorise the payment to him of S5.000 a year. There is no statutory authority for doing so. The only statutory authority up to this stage has been for an income of S2.500 a year for him. I have been warned that I may be surcharged for the difference. 1 cannot afford to be out of pocket at that rate. I rise, apart from that purely personal plea, throwing myself on the mercy of the House, to answer one matter and that is the subject of the amendment moved by the Deputy Leader of the Country Party, the honourable member for New England **(Mr Sinclair).** It is proposed that the Leader of the Country Party should have the same salary and allowances as the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Let me go through the present position of the Leader of the third Party - the Leader of the Country Party; the proposals that were made by **Mr Justice** Kerr: the Bill that was brought in by the previous Government; and the present Bill. The present Act provides that the Leader of the third party should have a salary of $2,500 a year and an allowance of S750 a year. **Mr Justice** Kerr recommended that he should have a salary of S4.800 a year and a special allowance of S 1,400 a year. The Bill which the previous Government introduced provided for him to have a salary of $4,150 a year. The present Bill provides for him to have a salary of $5,000 a year, an allowance of SI. 500 a year. His travelling allowance will increase from S28 a day to $36 a day. The leader of the third party is the only office bearer in the Parliament for whom this Bill makes more generous provision than was recommended by **Mr Justice** Kerr. The principles that have been enunciated by members of the Country Party - that the salary and allowances of the leader of the third party should be equivalent to those of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition - never occurred to anybody before. They have occurred only when the present holders of those positions were elected to them. **Mr Justice** Kerr recommended that the Deputy Leader of the Opposition should have a salary not of S5.000 but of $7,500, and the leader of the third party should have a salary not of $2,500 but of $4,800. The Country Party proposition is that the leader of the third party should have a salary of $7,500. **Mr Justice** Kerr recommended that the salary of the leader of the third party should be a little less than doubled; the Bill provides that it should be doubled; and the amendment is that it should be trebled. The Government does not accept that proposition. In no other case has the Government proposed a salary greater than that recommended by **Mr Justice** Kerr. In this case alone we are recommending a salary greater than that recommended by **Mr Justice** Kerr - admittedly only $200 more - but we believe that the proposition that the Parliament should be asked to grant an increase of $2,700 more than recommended by **Mr Justice** Kerr is unreasonable. Personalities do not come into it; it is the position that counts. All the recommendations and all the precedents establish that there should be a differential. We do not believe it is reasonable to treble the present salary for this position alone. We have made a more generous increase for it pro rata than for any other position. Let me sum up: The leader of the third party in the House will receive not $2,500 in salary as at the moment but $5,000 under the Bill. He will have an allowance not of $750 as at present but of $1,500 a year under the Bill. He will have a daily travelling allowance not of $28 as at the moment but of $36. More than any person in the Bill, the leader of the third party is being treated with generosity. {: #subdebate-35-0-s10 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Before putting the question I would like to clear up some of the points made by the honourable member for Kennedy. I think he was referring to office accommodation in the House. The 3 Whips met just after Christmas and decided on the various amounts of accommodation to be allocated to each party. Each Whip was quite satisfied that everything was done fairly. Admittedly, when the alterations to this building are completed the position will be relieved quite considerably, and we are waiting for that date. In the meantime a lot of honourable members have complained to me about accommodation, but I have not complained about my accommodation as yet. {: #subdebate-35-0-s11 .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr SNEDDEN:
Leader of the Opposition · Bruce -- **Mr Speaker-** {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: -- I thought I had closed the debate. No-one was rising. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- The original question was that this Bill be read a second time. To this the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to inserting other words in place thereof. The immediate question is that the words proposed to be omitted stand part of the question. {: .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr SNEDDEN: **- Mr Speaker,** I do not want to hold up the passage of this Bill. May I have the indulgence of the House to say a few words? {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: -- Yes. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- There being no objection I call the Leader of the Opposition. {: .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr SNEDDEN: -- I did not realise -I should have realised, having been Leader of the House for a number of years - that the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** was closing the debate, but I was thinking of the issues. The status of my friend and colleague, the Leader of the Australian Country Party **(Mr Anthony)** in this House will not be determined by salary. The status of the Leader of the Country Party is that of leader of a significant party who leads a significant number of members in this House - 20, in fact. {: .speaker-AV4} ##### Mr Hurford: -- He has been wagging the dog for a long time. {: .speaker-DQF} ##### Mr SNEDDEN: **- Mr Speaker,** I would be glad if that inane interjector would not disclose himself to be so inane. I will start again. The status of the Leader of the Country Party, who is a friend and colleague of mine, will not be determined by the salary which is assigned to him by the Government. The status of the Leader of the Country Party will be determined by his own standing as the leader of a significant national party and the leader of 20 members of this House and 5 members in the Senate. My own personal regard for the right honourable gentleman is known generally to the House and particularly it is known to him, as we are close friends. I hope and expect that we will remain friends for many years to come in the service of the national Parliament. He has been a colleague of very great value to me in opposition and he was a colleague of very great value in government, where he occupied the distinguished office of Deputy Prime Minister of this nation. These things are manifest. I say them proudly in this House but, of course, they have been known as being my attitude in the past. But 1 owe a duty to my own Party to see that this Bill is passed. I believe that members of this House and of the Senate have been paid less than has been fair over a number of years and that this is the opportunity to correct that. Before the election I made it quite clear that I believed, whether we were to be in government or in opposition, that a salaries Bill ought to be presented early in this Parliament. I adhere to that view; I do not depart from it or retreat from it in any way. I owe that duty to my own Party and 1 will fulfil that duty to my own Party. From what the Prime Minister has said it is apparent to me that to vote for this amendment would hold up the Bill and would hold up the payment of what I believe to be a fair and proper remuneration to members of this House and the Senate. I have listened to the debate. The Country Party does not oppose the Bill except for the particular issue which relates to the status - as the Country Party sees it - of the Leader of the Country Party measured in terms of salary. I am saying that his status will not be determined by salary. The Country Party does not oppose the Bill; neither can we. I said we supported the Bill; we continue to support it. The Government opposes the amendment. We will not hold up the passage of the Bill. To vote for the amendment would have that effect. Therefore, against the background which I have just described, we will oppose the amendment. Question put: >That the words proposed to be omitted **(Mr Sinclair's amendment)** stand part of the question. The House divided. (Mr Speaker- Hon. J. F. Cope) AYES: 100 NOES: 20 Majority 80 AYES NOES Question so resolved in the affirmative. Amendment negatived. Original question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time. Message from the Governor-General recommending appropriation announced. In Committee The Bill. {: #debate-35-s1 .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR:
New England -- I rise in the Committee stage to respond to 2 points made by the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** in his speech on the second reading of the Bill in relation to the changes in the salaries recommended by the Kerr committee of inquiry. There are a number of changes, other than those affecting the leader of the third party in the House of Representatives, which have been made. The 2 most significant changes are in the allowances pertaining to the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. If one turns to the recommendations of the Kerr committee of inquiry one finds that the special allowance recommended for each of those positions was $1,800. The amount that the Government has decided now to provide in the Bill is $4,230. When that is compared with the recommendations in respect of the leader of the third party, namely, $1,400 a year, contained in the Kerr committee's report, one sees the marked dissimilarity between the increase from $1,400 to $1,500 granted to the leader of the third party and the increase from $1,800 to $4.250- {: .speaker-6V4} ##### Mr Daly: -- What page is that on? {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR: -- That is on page 54 of the Kerr committee's report, recommendation 14. The second point is that in the correspondence dated 5th February 1973 - I misstated the date before - from the Prime Minister to the Leader of the Country Party, the Prime Minister stated: >In the expectation, however, that the Act will be amended to take account of changed circumstances, I have authorised the same payment lo you as to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition . . . The point I seek to make- {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: -- You may as well read the rest of the sentence. {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR: -- It reads: . . - an additional salary of $5,000 p.a. and allowance of $1,500 - as from 5th December. I was not seeking to obscure that increase but there was an indication at that stage that legislation was foreshadowed. My Party believes that in these circumstances there is justification for change and that the letter from the Prime Minister to the Leader of the Country Party justifies that expectation. My Party does not seek to move an amendment in Committee. It believes that the principle for which it has voted strongly and which it supports vehemently has been adequately expressed in this place and I am grateful to the Leader of the Opposition **(Mr Snedden)** and the honourable member for Mackellar **(Mr Wentworth)** for their contributions. However, we believe that the Government party is the villain of the piece. It is the Government which is ignoring the rights and the difficulties of persons representing country areas. We have no quarrel with our colleagues on this side of the chamber. We believe that together there is every reason to expect that, come the next election, we will again be the government and can formulate policies which will be to the betterment of persons in country areas, unlike the policies being implemented today by the Labor Government. It is of concern that there should be this variation in the salary level payable to the Leader of the Australian Country Party. The Country Party believes quite strongly in the principle that this is a position symptomatic of the status of the Party. It is not the money alone but the position which is important. It is for that reason that we believe that in a salary adjustment there should be a recognition of the changed circumstances. We are all conscious that although there has been reference to a recommended increase in the salary allowances payable to the leader of the third party, the Kerr inquiry did not consider the circumstances existing at that time. Circumstances are quite different for a third party in opposition to those of the Labor Party being, as it was, one party in opposition. On the earlier occasion of a change of government one can see a consideration of exactly the same circumstances. In other words, at the time **Mr Justice** Kerr made his recommendations he was considering the Leader of the Australian Country Party as the Deputy Prime Minister. He was not considering his responsibility or his status in terms of the role he performs in opposition. There is a distinction which needs to be recognised in this legislation. Because the letter which the Prime Minister wrote to the Leader of the Country Party might be pertinent to this debate I seek leave of the House to table the document. {: .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr Whitlam: -- Let us incorporate it. It would be easier and it can be read in Hansard. {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR: -- I seek leave to incorporate the letter dated 5th February 1973 in Hansard. {: #debate-35-s2 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Is leave granted? There being no objection leave is granted. (The letter read as follows) - >Dear **Mr Anthony,** > >I am writing about the salaries and allowances of office-holders under the Parliamentary Allowances Act 1953-1970. > >As from 5th December when your government resigned, your position became that of the Leader of the third party in the House of Representatives and under the Parliamentary Allowances Act 1952-1970 you are entitled, in additon to your salary and allowance as a member of Parliament, to a salary of $2,500 p.a. and an allowance of $750 p.a. In the expectation, however, that the act will be amended to take account of changed circumstances, I have authorised the same payment to you as to the Deputy Leader of the Opposition - an additional salary, of $5,000 p.a. and allowance of $1,500- as from 5th December. > >As far as other office-holders of your party are concerned, **Mr England** will continue to be paid as Country Party Whip and **Senator Drake-Brockman** (as well as **Senator Gair)** will receive the additional salary and allowance of $1,000 p.a. and $500 p.a. paid under the act to the Leader of the second nonGovernment party in the Senate.I would add that the Secretary of the Attorney-General's Department has advised that **Senator Gair** and **Senator DrakeBrockman** can both be paid the additional salary and allowances under the act only because both the Democratic Labor Party and the Country Party have equal numbers of Senators. Were the numbers not equal then, under the law, payment would be made to the Leader of the larger party. > >A cabinet sub-comittee under **Senator Willesee** is considering amendments to the act. He would welcome any suggestions from you. > >Yours sincerely, > >G. Whitlam {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr SINCLAIR: -- I believe that the principle that the Country Party supports has been effectively demonstrated. Therefore, we do not oppose the measure at this stage. However, we still strongly maintain the principle we enunciated earlier. The Bill should have been changed to give adequate recognition of the status of the Leader of the Australian Country Party in his salary and allowance. Bill agreed to. Bill reported without amendment; report adopted. {:#subdebate-35-1} #### Third Reading Bill (on motion by **Mr Whitlam)** - by leave - read a third time. {: .page-start } page 824 {:#debate-36} ### INCOME TAX (INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS) BILL 1973 Bill returned from the Senate without amendment. {: .page-start } page 824 {:#debate-37} ### PUBLIC SERVICE BILL 1973 {:#subdebate-37-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed (vide page 808). {: #subdebate-37-0-s0 .speaker-EE6} ##### Mr VINER:
Stirling -- Having passed the Bill which increased salaries and allowances to members of this House it would not be the place of the Opposition to oppose this Bill and it does not intend to do so. Nevertheless, it has something to say about the manner in which this Bill now comes before the House. If I can take honourable members back to the time prior to the election, the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** in his policy speech promised to. give all Commonwealth employees 4 weeks annual leave in lieu of the existing 3 weeks leave. The Senate has compelled the Government to honour that promise by disallowing the Public Service Arbitrator's determination by which that promise was to have been implemented. The Government should be happy that the Opposition has allowed it to act with some semblance of integrity. In his policy speech the Prime Minister without equivocation said that all Commonwealth employees would receive 4 weeks annual leave but within those first heady days of power the Prime Minister backed away from his promise. How he thought he could get away with it is beyond comprehension. After a Cabinet meeting on 20th December1972 the Prime Minister said: >The first meeting of Labor's Cabinet decided not to oppose the claim for extra leave by Commonwealth public servants. The extra leave provisions will apply only to members of recognised unions and associations involved in work within the Service. Here was the Government in one of its first acts after the election dishonouring an election promise made to Commonwealth employees who were not members of a recognised union or association. The fraud on these public servants was obvious to anyone and brought forth the expected public outcry against it. The hypocrisy of the Government's changed stance on its election promise and the peculiar political logic which guided its actions were revealed by an answer by the Prime Minister to a question asked in this House on 28th February. He said: >One of the first decisions the Government made . . was to implement that promise. We are resolute that it shall be honoured. The principle that we have in mind- I repeat the words 'the principle that we have in mind'- is that this industrial benefit should go to those who, through their membership of organisations, have fought for it and secured it. The members of this House, as well as the public of Australia, are entitled to assume that the Prime Minister had this principle in his mind when he spoke to the public during the election campaign and made his promise to all Commonwealth public servants without discrimination. In that case, the conclusion is inescapable: Either the Prime Minister knowingly and deliberately misled the people of Australia or this so called principle is of recent origin, wantonly introduced by him under union pressure. The seriousness of the matter goes further. This Government sought to introduce 4 weeks annual leave by a determination of the Public Service Arbitrator rather than to introduce the Bill we now are debating. It is a very simple Bill which proposes to change the word 'three' to the word 'four'. But by this manoeuvre of referring the matter in the first place to the determination of the Public Service Arbitrator, the Government obviously sought to bypass the Parliament and tried to avoid debate in this House. We should be thankful that the Senate caused the Government to debate the matter in that House and caused it to bring the matter now before this House. By this manoeuvre, the Prime Minister and the Australian Labor Party have openly contradicted their own actions in this House when, in 1966, they were proposing 4 weeks annual leave for Commonwealth public servants. In that year, the present Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, moved an amendment to a Public Service Bill to do precisely what the Bill now before the House will do, namely, alter the word 'three' to four' in section 68 (4) (a). In 1966 the Prime Minister as Leader of the Opposition recognised and declared that annual leave was a matter on which public servants could not resort to arbitration. Yet here in 1973 the actions of the Government which he leads would deny his own statement. I quote from Hansard of 18th October 1966, at page 1892. The Prime Minister said: >We are often told that employees should resort to arbitration. This is not a matter where public servants can resort to arbitration. He continued: >Commonwealth public servant; cannot ask the Commonwealth Public Service Arbitrator or, on appeal from him. the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, to determine their annual leave. By statute the Commonwealth places a ceiling upon it. Again, later in the debate at page 1895 of Hansard, the Prime Minister said- >It is not possible for Commonwealth public servants, for instance, to have their annual, long service or sick leave determined by arbitration tribunals. The conditions relating to leave are laid down in the Act. The Commonwealth does not take, in respect of its own servants, the attitude that the employees should go to arbitration. It enacts provisions dealing with the principal industrial conditions. The Opposition agrees with what was said then by the Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, in 1966. The Commonwealth does not take, in respect of its own servants, the attitude that the employees should go to arbitration, lt enacts provisions dealing with the principal industrial conditions. We believe that that is where the provisions should stay and if they are to be altered, those basic industrial conditions should be altered by this Parliament. Again, at page 1897, the Prime Minister, as Leader of the Opposition, was recorded as saying: lt is impossible for Commonwealth employees to go to arbitration to have their annual leave determined. Three times the Prime Minister confirmed that fact and yet, in such a short time after being elected to Government, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Labour **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** and the honourable members who support him have denied his own statements. Who are we to believe - **Mr Whitlam,** the Leader of the Opposition, or **Mr Whitlam,** the Prime Minister? Perhaps we should believe the Minister for Labour. In the Senate, this shoddy trick - this fraud upon the people of Australia and the Commonwealth public servants - to deny to all public servants the benefit of a promise openly made by the Prime Minister to the people of Australia has been exposed. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- You sound like a lawyer to me. {: .speaker-EE6} ##### Mr VINER: -- 1 happen to have been one. I happen also to have been an advocate for unions and you look like one, too. The Government, by its action, sought to favour unionists and sectionalise the Public Service. We in the Opposition do not consider it is right that entitlement to such a fundamental condition of employment as annual leave should be subject to membership of some chosen organisation - an organisation chosen by the Goverment. It should not be the vehicle for dividing the work force or any part of it between the haves and the have-nots. Annual recreation leave, as it is called in the Public Service Act, is something which all members of the work force earn by the work they do and the time they do it in, not by the organisation to which they belong. The Government might just as well say to public servants: 'You can work, but you won't get paid unless you belong to the XYZ union', or put a premium on union membership and deprive a worker of some part of his wage if he does not belong. The action of the Government has the most insidious implications for industrial relations in this country, lt is discrimination of the worst kind by a government which in other areas preens its feathers of pride under a banner of non-discrimination. Nothing could have been more calculated to divide the Public Service than the determination which the Senate disallowed. It would have created bitterness and resentment by sec.tionalising the Public Service which could have operated only to the detriment of the Australian people through diminished efficiency flowing from that sectionalisation. It is of no good the Minister for Labour saying, as he has on other occasions, that the determination was not back door compulsory unionism brought about by industrial coercion, industrial blackmail and ministerial interference. It is known that thousands - some have put the figure as high as 10,000 or 20,000 - of public servants joined industrial organisations in the 2 months after 20th December and before Parliament resumed, in order to qualify for 4 weeks' annual leave. These people had well and faithfully served the Commonwealth and were, without being conscripted into unions, as entitled as anyone to the extra week's leave. The provision of leisure time for which the Public Service Act provides for work done each year in the Public Service is a simple proposition finding simple expression in section 68 of the Act and, since the formation of the Commonwealth Public Service in 1901, it has been applied on an equal basis to all public servants. As I pointed out, this proposition was acknowledged and acted upon, by the Prime Minister when he was the Leader of the Opposition in 1966, but it was denied by him and by this Government in 1972. What was right for 71 years is not made wrong by 18 days of Labor government. The arrogance of this Government's approach to government was eloquently displayed by the open conflict which the Minister for Labour provoked with the Public Service Board over the implementation of the determination. The Board is established by statute to be, and to be seen to be, independent of the Government, applying its determinations with an even hand to all public servants. In this, the 4-week affair', the Board first had the principle of union favouritism foisted upon it and then had to face the blatant public attack upon its independence by the Minister for Labour **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** when the Board ruled that the extra week's leave would be received only by those public servants who were members of a recognised union or association on 1st January this year. The Minister is reported to have said: >I would find it inconceivable that **Mr Cooley (Chairman of the Public Service Board)** would defy a decision of Cabinet. {: .speaker-KSB} ##### Mr McLeay: -- Be kind. {: .speaker-EE6} ##### Mr VINER: -- I am being kind by quoting only the one occasion. To the credit of the Chairman and the Board they refused to be intimidated by this attempted ministerial interference. For the Chairman to have yielded would have put him and the Board in an untenable position in the future when confronted by joint Government-union pressure. For the Minister to have accused the Chairman of defying a Cabinet decision was an absurd proposition. Once having put the matter in the hands of the Public Service Arbitrator and the Public Service Board, Cabinet was not in a position to dictate to them. The Arbitrator was free to make his determination and the Board was free to initiate its own action to implement the determination. The kindest thing that can be said of the Minister's outburst is that he did not understand what he was doing when the matter was referred to the Public Service Arbitrator, nor appreciate the role of the Arbitrator or the Board in the procedures initiated by him. The whole episode shows 3 things: Firstly, that the Minister has been cut down to size; secondly, the independence and integrity of the Public Service Board must be protected by Parliament - and it will be by a vigilant Opposition - from ministerial interference; thirdly, the public is not a plaything for the Prime Minister's electoral confidence tricks. In bis second reading speech the Prime Minister said: >The Government has now decided that the only satisfactory way to implement our longstanding undertaking is by legislation. lt is the only way to do it - not the only satisfactory way - as the Prime Minister himself said in 1966 in the passages from Hansard to which I have already referred. There is another aspect of the Prime Minister's second reading speech which is deserving of serious comment. It is another example of the inconsistency, contradictions, inaccuracies and equivocation which pervade the whole approach of this Government to this issue. I again quote from the Prime Minister's second reading speech: > >In the early years after Federation, employees of the Commonwealth Public Service set a standard for the rest of Australia in conditions of employment. lt is simply not the case that the Commonwealth Public Service sets the standard of working conditions for the rest of Australia - certainly not in respect of annual leave and certainly not in respect of private industry. The most elementary knowledge and minor excursion into Australian industrial history will show that Commonwealth and State industrial tribunals have not accepted Public Service conditions as setting any standard for private industry. In 1960, when dealing with the claims by the metal trades unions for 3 weeks annual leave in a case which would have set the standard for private industry throughout Australia, the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in unmistakable terms repudiated the proposition that conditions in the Public Service set a standard for industry generally. For the benefit of the Prime Minister, his speech writer and the Minister for Labour I give them the reference of that case. It is: Re metal trades award; re Annual Leave 96 CAR 206. The Commonwealth Arbitration Commission in all its hearings on annual leave has, whilst approving the desirability of increased leisure time, nevertheless been vitally concerned with the economic impact of granting increased annual leave, particularly in 1960 by one week from 2 to 3 weeks. The Commission refused it then but granted it in 1963 as the general standard within private industry. In the view of the Opposition it is right. proper and necessary for the exercise of responsible government that this Government should have considered the economic impact of granting 4 weeks annual leave to public servants. I have no doubt that the refusal of the former governments of **Sir Robert** Menzies, **Mr Holt** and **Mr Gorton** to grant 4 weeks annual leave was based on the economic consequences of doing so. Nowhere, in any published statement by this Government or by any Minister to this House to the public, has the Government displayed any regard for the economic consequences of its proposal. The extra leave now to be granted can only add to inflationary cost pressures building up within the economy by inevitably leading to an increased Public Service and a higher wages bill. The Prime Minister's second reading speech continued: >We want the national Government to continue to set the pace in improving the working conditions of Australians. Hie implications of this are indeed serious, for what he is clearly saying is that this grant of one week's additional annual leave should De passed on to private industry. It is an open invitation to unions to follow the Commonwealth without regard to the economic consequences. This flies in the face of all the principles on which the Commonwealth Arbitration Commission has acted - principles as important, let alone valid, today as they have been for the past 40 years or so. Time and again the Commission has decided that the capacity of the economy to provide increased leisure time by extra annual leave to the private industry work force, must control its decision. The Government apparently wants to throw all that overboard. Its whole approach to this question and the conduct of its Minister for Labour show a contempt for established arbitral authority. Australia has established a system of industrial arbitration for private industry unequalled in the world for achieving wage and industrial justice. It has that established system of arbitration also for the Public Service. The Government tried to by-pass this system by referring the matter to the Public Service Arbitrator in a way which, if allowed to succeed, would have had dangerous and farreaching consequences for this country. This concept of pace setting, now espoused by the Government, has clearly dangerous implications for it can only be an open invitation to unions to entice the Minister for Labour to join in concerted action against private industry by the irresponsible use of Commonwealth economic power and indirect industrial pressure. Whilst the Opposition does not oppose the granting of 4 weeks annual leave to public servants, which will again put them in front of employees in private industry, it has a duty to expose the repudiation of an election promise; the attempted disruption of the independence of the Public Service Board; the erroneous propositions of the Prime Minister and the dangerous consequences of pacesetting by the Commonwealth for private industry at the expense of established industrial tribunals througout Australia. {: #subdebate-37-0-s1 .speaker-KN9} ##### Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Martin:
BANKS, NEW SOUTH WALES Order! The honourable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-37-0-s2 .speaker-ZJ4} ##### Mr WILLIS:
Gellibrand -- In my comments on this Bill F will be referring to aspects of the economic impact of the measures undertaken in this Bill which were mentioned by the honourable member for Stirling **(Mr Viner).** Other aspects raised by him will be mentioned by later speakers on the Government side. This Bill seeks to grant Commonwealth public servants one additional week's leave and in considering the Bill it is imperative to bear in mind that when it is passed by this Parliament it will result in the first increase in annual leave for Commonwealth public servants since Federation. That is almost three-quarters of a century ago, during which time this nation has made immense economic progress, but despite their important contribution to that progress Commonwealth public servants have not had their annual leave entitlement increased one iota. That is the broad context in which this Bill comes before the House and forms an important argument in its support. However, before going into any detail on arguments in support of the Bill I should like to make it clear that the previous Government had plenty of opportunity to implement 4 weeks annual leave for its employees but constantly refused to do *so.* It was formally approached regarding 4 weeks annual leave for Commonwealth public servants by a joint deputation of the 3 national trade union councils, namely, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Council of Salaried Professional Associations and the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations, 3 times in its last 7 years in office. On each occasion there was a different Prime Minister and on each occasion the claim was rejected. On the first occasion in October 1965 Prime Minister Menzies gave some reasons for refusing the claim, and I shall have something to say later regarding those reasons. But the subsequent deputations to Prime Minister Holt in 1966 and to Prime Minister Gorton in December 1969 had their claims summarily rejected. Prime Minister Holt merely endorsed the reasons given by Prime Minister Menzies the year before and Prime Minister Gorton deemed it appropriate to convey his rejection of ' the various claims by way of a pithy telegram in which he said: >The Government has concluded that having regard to the existing relevant circumstances it would be inappropriate to grant an extra weeks annual leave at this time. That telegram was sent on 1 1 th December 1969. **Mr Gorton** did not bother to say what were the 'existing relevant circumstances' that made it inappropriate to grant 4 weeks leave at that lime but whatever they were they were apparently still applicable in the previous Government's view in 1971 when the 3 national trade union bodies lodged claims before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission for an additional week's leave, not just for Commonwealth employees, but for all employees under Commonwealth awards who were not already receiving 4 weeks leave. These claims were strenuously opposed by the previous Government which intervened in the case supposedly in the public interest. In any event, the Commission refused to grant the additional week's leave and perhaps this was not surprising given the vehemence of the Commonwealth's opposition. This then is the recent history of attempts by employee organisations to obtain 4 weeks leave for Commonwealth public servants and it is a history of implacable opposition by the previous Government. That opposition has been principally based on the alleged cost of an additional week's leave. That was the main reason used by Prime Minister Menzies in 1965 and it again formed the basis of the previous Government's opposition in the 1971 annual leave case. In fact, this cost has been vastly overstated and does not represent a valid reason for rejecting the sound arguments which had been put forward by unions in the past in their deputations for the granting of an extra week's leave for Commonwealth employees. It is impossible in the time available to spell out all the reasons which support the action contemplated by this Bill, but I would like quickly to mention some of these reasons. Firstly, there is the fact, as I have already mentioned, that Commonwealth public servants have not received an increase in annual leave in the history of the Commonwealth. They were awarded 3 weeks leave at the time of Federation at which time State public servants received 3 weeks leave and in fact had done so since the 1860s. The Commonwealth merely established the same standard. Since then, despite the tremendous expansion in the economic prosperity of the nation, annual leave for Commonwealth public servants has remained unchanged. However, in the rest of the community annual leave entitlements have changed considerably in the last 35 to 40 years. In private industry annual leave was virtually non-existent until the late 1930s when one week's annual leave became general and was expanded to 2 weeks immediately after the end of the Second World War. The 3 weeks standard was generally obtained in 1963 and in1964 the NSW industrial commission upheld, in appeal proceedings, the award of 4 weeks leave to employees of the Murrumbidgee County Council by the County Councils (Electricity Undertakings) Conciliation Committee. In the same year - 1964 - NSW Government employees were granted 4 weeks leave and in 1967 the South Australian Government granted 4 weeks leave to its wages employees. Since then salaried employees of the South Australian Government have also received the additional week's leave. The incidence of 4 weeks leave has continued to increase in recent years with 4 weeks leave being obtained by agreement by many employees in a wide range of occupations. I have mentioned that public servants in New South Wales, and government employees working for New South Wales State instrumentalities, commissions and authorities also receive 4 weeks leave as do employeesof New South Wales universities and employees of local governments in New South Wales. In South Australia, apart from public servants, employees of State instrumentalities, commissions and authorities also receive 4 weeks leave. In Victoria 12 municipal councils awarded their employees 4 weeks leave. All employees in the coal industry receive this benefit as do employees under the artificial fertilisers and chemical workers award in the carbon black industry. Employees of the Rural Bank of New South Wales are covered by 4 weeks annual leave as are employees in the amusement and theatrical area covered by agreement with cinema proprietors. Employees under the Western Australian government executive officers award which covers town clerks, shire clerks, engineers and so on receive 4 weeks leave. So too do the employees of the State Bank of South Australia and of the Australian National University. All school teachers - at primary, secondary and technical levels - receive considerably more than 4 weeks leave. All foreman stevedores in Australia receive 4 weeks leave as do waterside workers and other employees working in container terminals. Employees in the oil industry receive 4 weeks leave. It can be seen from that information that the benefit of 4 weeks leave applies to employees over a wide range of employment. But it does remain true that in the main this covers Government employees. In fact, 37 per cent of Government employees in Australia receive 4 weeks leave. It can be seen then that the Commonwealth Government is now providing a standard of annual leave that is less than that which is received by many other government employees. Indeed it is providing a standard less than that which now applies to some employees in private industry who 40 years ago would not have received any annual leave at all. Given that their annual leave entitlement has not increased in threequarters of a century, that almost two-fifths of government employees in this country now receive an extra week's leave and that that standard is gradually expanding into private industry, Commonwealth public servants can be seen to be well overdue for the receipt of 4 weeks annual leave. If Jong service leave is taken into account Commonwealth public servants are seen to be in an even more adverse situation vis-a-vis the general position of State public servants than on a direct comparison of annual leave. Except for Queensland, long service leave entitlements of public servants in the States are at least as good as those applying in the Commonwealth and in Western Australia they are markedly better. Thus there can be no suggestion that long service leave entitlements of Commonwealth employees in some way make up for the fact that they receive less annual leave than New South Wales and South Australian government employees. Overseas comparisons are difficult to make but it is relevant that a number of developed overseas countries have 4 weeks as the minimum standard for annual leave. Norway and Sweden passed legislation in 1964 giving a minimum 4 weeks leave to all employees - not just to government employees but to all employees. In France legislation in 1968 provided for a minimum of 4 weeks leave for all employees and many employees receive additional days leave, according to a publication from the European Economic Community called Trade Union News, No. 5, Winter 1970/71 - a publication of the European Economic Community press and information office in London. The same publication shows that in other European countries the minimum annual leave is generally 3 weeks with many employees receiving a greater amount by collective agreement. In the public service specifically there is no European country that has a lesser amount of annual leave than the Australian Commonwealth Public Service and most of them have considerably more. Thus a standard of 4 weeks leave for Commonwealth public servants would not create some revolutionary high standard beyond anything applying overseas. The fact is that 4 weeks leave is common in Europe so it cannot be said that that standard is impractical in any way. Indeed the countries to which I have specifically referred seem to be flourishing economically with at least that standard of annual leave applying to all employees. Despite this evidence and many other subsidiary arguments supporting this claim for 4 weeks leave the previous Government - (Quorum formed). {: .speaker-ZJ4} ##### Mr WILLIS: -- 1 was making the point that the arguments to which I have been referring supported the claim for 4 weeks annual leave. Despite those arguments the previous Government rejected the claim mainly on the basis that this would lead to an increase in labour costs and therefore, it was said, in prices. That was **Sir Robert** Menzies' argument in rejecting the unions' claims in 1965. {: .speaker-2E4} ##### Mr Lloyd: -- He was probably right. {: .speaker-ZJ4} ##### Mr WILLIS: -- I am coming to that. He maintained that the granting of the additional week of leave would require recruitment of a large number of additional Commonwealth employees, thereby substantially increasing the wage and salary bill of the Commonwealth and 'straining the labour resources of the community'. **Sir Robert** claimed that an additional 5,800 employees would be needed at a cost of SI 8m per annum. He arrived at that amount by assuming that with one week less in work time production would fall in proportion, that is, he assumed that there would not be any increase in employee productivity as a result of reduced working time, whereas in fact there are good reasons for assuming that such a consequential productivity increase would occur. The previous Government continued that line of argument in the 1971 annual leave case but I will not repeat exactly what was said in that case. To say that this approach of the former Government overstated the cost of 4 weeks leave would be indeed euphemistic. For a start, the Commonwealth in the 1971 case made no allowance whatever for the fact that at least 10 per cent of Australian employees already received 4 weeks leave. That alone has resulted in a substantial costs overestimate. But in addition, as I have said, no allowance was made for increased productivity of employees as a result of increased leave. This consequential increase in productivity is quite likely. The reason for it was well expressed by counsel for the State of New South Wales in intervening in the 1962 annual leave case before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. I had intended to refer to the statement by the counsel for New South Wales. Briefly, he spells out 4 reasons why there would be a consequential increase in productivity if increased leisure were granted to employees, but in view of the hour I will not bother reading his comments. That argument was put forward by New South Wales in 1962. In 1964, following the general spread of 3 weeks leave, the New South Wales Government decided to grant 4 weeks leave to New South Wales public servants. Tt is relevant to note what happened in New South Wales following the increase of annual leave from 3 weeks to 4 weeks. If the arguments of the previous Government had been valid one would have expected a substantial increase in the recruitment of additional public servants in New South Wales following the implementation of this increase in annual leave. In fact this did not happen, as a table which I have clearly shows. I seek leave to incorporate it in Hansard. **Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Scholes)Order!** Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The document reads as follows) - {: .speaker-ZJ4} ##### Mr WILLIS: -- I thank the House. The table shows that when the increased leave was granted the percentage increase in recruitment compared with recruitment in the previous year was 6.5 per cent. In the following year, the rise was only 5.1 per cent. Debate interrupted. {: .page-start } page 831 {:#debate-38} ### ADJOURNMENT {:#subdebate-38-0} #### Industrial Relations - Primary Industry - Waterside Labour **Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Scholes)Order!** It being 15 minutes past 10 o'clock, in accordance with the order of the House, I propose the question: >That the House do now adjourn. {: #subdebate-38-0-s0 .speaker-KZ7} ##### Mr RIORDAN:
Phillip -- It would be impossible to stay in this House for too long without strongly resenting some of the comments which have been made by members of the Opposition. In the last several sitting days constant attacks have been made on trade union organisations in Australia. Those attacks do little credit, either to the intelligence or to the standing of members of the Opposition. They show every element of suffering from invincible ignorance of the way in which industrial relations are conducted in Australia. This leads one to the inescapable conclusion that it is no wonder that industrial disputations were on the increase during the latter years of the previous Government's term in office. Honourable members opposite do not seem to understand the provisions of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act, or its purposes, or what the trade union movement is about. They seem to have the opinion - they have expressed the view - that to ask a person to join a union, if that person is an employee of a defence establishment is, to quote one honourable gentleman, a security risk. That is a ludicrous proposition if ever one could be heard. It is the sort of proposition one would expect from extreme right wing reactionary organisations and extremist groups found elsewhere in the world. One would hopefully express the view that such groups are not in Australia. Constantly the proposition has been advanced in the course of recent debates that to give preference to a union member somehow or other involves the disturbance of his civil liberty, and involves also an improper compulsion on citizens to join a union. What honourable gentlemen who have suggested such things do not understand is that during the 23 years of government of the Liberal-Country Party coalition and almost since Federation and the existence of industrial legislation in Australia, one of the principal objects of that legislation, both State and Federal, has been the encouragement of the formation of representative bodies of employees and employers, and their registration pursuant to the provisions of those acts. I put it to this House that that is public policy. It has been the policy of this Parliament and it has been the policy of respective governments irrespective of their political complexion. It ill behoves the lunatic fringe to malign in this place under parliamentary privilege the Australian trade union movement which has done more than have any honourable gentlemen opposite or their predecessors put together to lift the standard of living of the Australian community to the level at which it is today. I put to this House that it is grossly unfair, to say the least, for honourable members opposite to criticise the trade union movement in this way. It would not be putting it too highly to say that it is contrary to the Australian concept of fair play to suggestthat those who choose freely to join a union and to undertake the task of obtaining industrial regulation through the processes of conciliation and arbitration, should carry the whole of the obligations and responsibility involved under the provisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Act and receive no advantage and no benefit or preference over those who choose to be free riders. The objection is put forward in this place and elsewhere by those who know no better, or those who have a vested interest in misquotation and misrepresentation, that it is a breach of so-called principle that there should be any form of compulsion or any form of active encouragement for non-unionists to join a registered trade union organisation. But there is no objection - none at all - raised by the same people to the compulsion of those who do join a union to carry out the obligations imposed on them by legislation adopted by this Parliament. Similarly there is no objection to the compulsion of those who either join or do not join to accept decisions made by those registered organisations by way of agreement with employers in various industries. Nor is there any complaint about the compulsion in requiring all of the employees in an industry, whether they be members of a union or not, to accept the benefits and perhaps the disadvantages associated with awards that are made by arbitration tribunals. There is no consistency in this approach, and if honourable gentlemen opposite, or those few who have spoken in this quite irresponsible manner, are sincere in their approach let them be heard to say that they really favour industrial anarchy, because that is the course and the principle which lie behind their foolish and irresponsible advocacy of no encouragement and no preference to union members over those who choose not to join a union. What they seek to establish is the right of every person in this community to exercise licence to determine whether or not he will embrace the system of conciliation and arbitration that this community has decided shall be established. I am staggered and bewildered at times to hear some people, including honourable members of this Parliament, advocate strongly and vigorously the concept of adherence at ail costs and under all circumstances to the principles of conciliation and arbitration, and yet deny the very basic concept on which it is built. Without the existence of strong, vigorous and responsible trade unions in this country the concept of conciliation and arbitration cannot exist, industrial tribunals in Australia throughout this century and authorities on industrial regulation throughout the free world have recognised that there cannot be a system of responsible and legitimate industrial regulation unless there exist responsible, vigorous, strong and representative trade union organisations. I could quote to this House decisions of the New South Wales Industrial Commission in 1904 and 1926 and of the Commonwealth Arbitration Commission in the earliest days of its existence, in the early 1900s through the 1920s and the 1930s until this very month, which all say the same thing - that it is one of the chief responsibilities and primary objectives of conciliation and arbitration tribunals and of industrial legislation to encourage the growth of trade unionism. I suggest to honourable gentlemen opposite who lose no opportunity to attack this concept that it would do them well and it would educate them well to read some of these decisions and rid themselves of some of the ignorance under which they are at present labouring. {: #subdebate-38-0-s1 .speaker-JUS} ##### Mr MCVEIGH:
Darling Downs -- I stated recently in this House that a very great problem exists in the older established farming lands of the most fertile tract of land in the world, the Darling Downs. 1 am very concerned at the insidious effect that erosion is having on the livelihood of many people >n the Darling Downs. I am concerned at this problem because history reveals that many civilisations have foundered because the fertility of their soil has been destroyed by the destruction of timbers and because people have not paid due respect to good husbandry measures. History shows that the early pioneers of the Darling Downs were very good farmers. They produced on their own properties everything to satisfy their daily wants. Because the higher lands were frost free and warmer for stock these were the lands that initially were cultivated. In order to keep their stock and horses alive the farmers left large areas of grassland. With the introduction of the machine age it was no longer necessary to keep these grass areas which were in effect barriers to soil erosion. Through economic necessity the people in these areas, some of whom are living on farms that their grandfathers and great grandfathers selected 50 years ago, have found it necessary literally to mine the soil. I do not know whether honourable members opposite realise that an increase of 2c in the price of a loaf of bread would, if related to the price paid to the farmer for wheat, represent an increase of 60 per cent in his gross income, because the amount of wheat contained in a loaf of bread has been calculated to be worth about 5c and 30 loaves are made out of a bushel of wheat. The remainder of the cost of the loaf is made up by manufacturing and distribution costs and other associated costs. However, as I was saying, farmers in the Darling Downs have literally had to mine their soil because of the problem of costs over which they have no control. It is estimated that some 8 to 9 million tons of soil moves away from these highlands each year, particularly in the high summer rainfall periods. The area has an international reputation for producing absolutely top quality hard wheats, barley, sunflowers and small seeds. It has been said that instead of farming this type of soil we should be selling it as fertiliser. However, **Mr Speaker,** you have my assurance that we would not sell this soil to overseas countries. The area has a tremendous reputation also for the quality of its livestock. The former member for McPherson, the Hon. C. E. Barnes, who graced this chamber for many years as a member of the Australian Country Party, which is the greatest party in Australia, was the owner of that great racehorse 'Tails'. I am proud to be associated with the quality of livestock in my electorate just as I am proud to be associated with men of the calibre of the Hon. C. E. Barnes. The point I am making is that the quality of the product from the Darling Downs, whether produce of men, is absolutely top quality. We must do everything in our power to maintain the soil so that in the years to come it can give us the same quality of produce. The Allora Shire Council in Queensland has been declared a soil erosion hazard area, the first such area to be so declared. It is anticipated that the Shires of Clifton, Cambooya, Jandowae and Pittsworth will follow shortly. The Queensland Government has recognised this serious problem. One would expect the Queensland Government, so ably and well led by the Honourable J. BjelkePetersen, to appreciate the problem that has arisen. The landholders in the declared areas will become eligible for a 50 per cent subsidy, again from the State Government, on a dollar for dollar basis up to S1,000 a farm. 1 rise to speak in this adjournment debate mainly because an approach was made to the Minister for Primary Industry **(Senator Wriedt)** - the man who has admitted that he is very inexperienced in primary industry matters, the man who has admitted that he would not know the difference between a corriedale and a merino, the man who is in charge of the destiny of Australian primary producers. His answer in this instance was what one would expect - stone cold nothing. We have not even heard from him. So I am making an appeal tonight. With the application of modern technical knowledge and finance, this land can be saved through sound planning over a period of between 10 and 30 years and then it will probably last for another 1,000 years. It will be a problem to reclaim it and it will take up to 30 years. To do this we need an injection of Commonwealth finance and I ask for sympathetic government consideration. It is well to remember that these farms are the homes and properties of people. On these farms there are more than windmills, haystacks and trees that the Minister for Services and Property **(Mr Daly)** talks about. People are involved. They live on these properties. We want approval from the Federal authorities for a subsidy for urgent help. An associated problem is that the silt from these farms causes pollution in the rivers and is killing the fish population. Only the other night here in Canberra some people told me that they still prefer inland fishing and that they will drive 300 or 400 miles to the inland rivers to fish. I would like to suggest to the Minister for Primary Industry that he negotiate for the importation of Nile perch from Egypt. The Nile perch is a cousin of the barramundi. It is a freshwater fish. I understand that it will live in the inland rivers. Having the rivers of inland Australia stocked with large numbers of edible fish which make good fishing ,nc sport would be an added attraction for tourists to go into these areas. If we can stop the silt from running down and polluting these rivers we will have a ready-made tourist attraction. In that way people from the overpopulated city areas who live on each other's doorsteps, who have great social problems, could get out into the fresh air, enjoy themselves and come back to life. ! would like honourable members to be cognisant of these things and take a great deal of interest in them. Erosion is an insidious problem. It is a very important problem and it causes great difficulties for the local authorities in clearing roads and bridges. It also results in a washdown of weeds which causes a problem for the grain growing industries. {: #subdebate-38-0-s2 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-38-0-s3 .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
Wannon -- I would like to raise a matter which has been raised in this House on a number of occasions by the honourable member for Petrie **(Mr Cooke)** and me. I do so against the apparent background of inaction by the Minister for Labour **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** who I am glad to see is in the chamber tonight. The matter concerns the question of levies on a number of outports. These will make it extremely difficult for outports to maintain their general cargo, the labour and the business that has previously been operating through those ports. For a number of areas they are the main avenue of transportation. They are most important for decentralisation, which I thought the present Government pursued and which State governments certainly support. It is true that the Minister for Labour sent his troubleshooter, **Mr Norman** Foster, to Portland allegedly to learn at first hand the importance of the changed levies for the port of Portland. This is not only a Victorian matter; it is also a matter that affects a number of ports in Queensland and ports in other States as well. I would have thought that it was unnecessary to send **Mr Foster** to Portland to see what the position was, although I appreciate that action, because the matter had been fully and accurately ventilated in this Parliament on a number of occasions and by approaches from Victoria to the Commonwealth. I understand that approaches were made to the Prime Minister **(Mr Whitlam)** and certainly to the Minister for Labour. I would like to remind the Minister for Labour of resolutions carried at a meeting convened by the Honourable Murray Byrne, the Minister for State Development and Decentralization in Victoria. The meeting was attended by most of the interested parties. A **Mr Allan,** a representative from the Minister's Department, was present and no doubt he reported on what happened at that meeting. The meeting carried the following resolution: >That this Meeting unanimously supports the Victorian Government's direct approach to the Federal Government on behalf of the Port of Portland and urges the Federal Government to take immediate action not only in the interests of Portland and other similar ports throughout Australia but also in the interests of Decentralisation. That was moved by **Mr Halliday** and seconded by a Labor member of the Victor ian Parliament, **Mr Lewis.** The second resolution was moved by me and seconded by another Labor member of the Victorian Parliament who also was a **Mr Lewis.** The second resolution reads as follows: >This Meeting to ask the Honourable Clyde Cameron, Minister for Labour, to make direct approach to the AEWL and to use his influence to have the decision to increase the levy reversed. The second part of the resolution reads: >And if satisfactory replies to both the first and second resolutions are noi received within one week of today's meeting- that was last Friday - then **Mr Byrne** is to arrange a deputation of responsible people and representatives (through **Mr Fraser** or the Premier) to meet **Mr Cameron.** That was moved by me and seconded by the Labor member of Parliament for a Western Victorian electorate, **Mr Lewis.** I have today received a telegram from the Honourable Murray Byrne which I would like to read to the House. This was a copy of a telegram sent to the Minister for Labour. It reads as follows: >I wish to inform you that the following motion which I moved in the Legislative Council on 21st March after extensive debate was unanimously supported by all members and all parties. The Legislative Council of Victoria condemn the recently announced discriminatory levy imposed on shipping using the port 0f Portland and strongly, urge the Federal Government to take urgent action to safeguard the employment of some hundreds of people presently employed at the Port of Portland by ensuring that such levies as are proposed are uniform in effect on all ports. I respectfully request you to bring this matter before your Government as soon as possible. The position regarding Portland is desperate. The employment not only of those associated with the port but the employment of all persons in Portland is dependent upon urgent action by, your Government. Assuring you of mine and my government's support- That is, the Victorian Government's support. The telegram was signed by Murray Byrne. The public knows that the action that has been taken so far has been to send **Mr Foster** to Portland to examine the position. The Minister for Labour might be able to give the House some indication tonight of additional action. It needs to be remembered that the Minister for Labour said in this House that the individual levies, as opposed to the previous uniform levy system, were against the spirit of the Stevedoring Industry Charge Act. He emphasised that it had been taken without consultation with him or his Department. He gave the view that that ought not to have happened. He did say that there were some good effects from the changed levy system and some bad effects. It was impossible to tell from his words whether he thought the good effects outweighed the bad effects. I have no doubt that the honourable member for Corio would regard the good effects as outweighing the bad effects, but his view, as the member for an extra suburb of Melbourne, is perhaps a prejudiced view in this instance. What we are fighting for is the true decentralisation of ports right around the Australian coastline. I hope it is not true, but 1 would suggest that the Minister for Labour needs to answer the point made by **Mr Craig,** the Executive Director of the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour, in a telecommunication to the Honourable Murray Byrne, Minister for State Development and Decentralisation in Victoria, and reinforced bya letter to the Honourable Murray Byrne. In that original teleprinter message **Mr Craig** had this to say - {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- What was the date? {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- The date of the letter was 19th March. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- No, the date of the teleprinter message. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- The teleprinter was sent a day or two earlier, I think. It reads: >This investigation covering all small ports would not be completed for some months but you should also know that at the preliminary meeting on Friday, 16th March- After the action had been taken, but no doubt in explanation of and in attempting to gain support for the decision of the AEWL- the parties to these discussions, which included the WWF and the ACTU, condemned the arrangements which had been applied by AEWL up until 5th March. Any arrangement which required some of the smaller ports to subsidise other smaller ports was rejected as being inequitable and entirely unacceptable. The same view was repeated in a letter which I would like the permission of the House to have incorporated in Hansard. That letter was sent by the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour to the Honourable Murray Byrne. It was dated 19th March. I seek leave to incorporate it in Hansard. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The document read as follows) - >The Hon. Murray Byrne, M.P., > >Minister for State Development and Decentralisation, 232 Victoria Parade. > >EAST MELBOURNE 3002. > >Dear **Mr Byrne.** > >PORTLAND > >Whilst in Melbourne last week, a copy of your telegram was telephoned to me. The main purpose of my visit to Melbourne was to confer with **Mr R.** Dunstan, the Minister for Works, who had written to AEWL on 8th March on the subject of the guaranteed wage levy in Portland. > >Although your telegram confirmed your discussions with me, in fact 1 have not spoken to you nor had I received any communication prior to your telegram of 15th March. Had I known in advance of your involvement in this matter, I would have sought an appointment with you whilst in Melbourne last Thursday. > >However, in my interview with **Mr Dunstan,** the history and background of the levy for guarantee wage purposes was fully explained. I was able to demonstrate beyond question that the problems of the guaranteed wage levy in Portland arise from lack of cargo which occurred before any change in the levy arrangements commenced. The changed circumstances which necessitated the recent variation in the AEWL arrangements in all States, was appreciated by the Minister for Works. In addition I explained fully why it is not possible for AEWL to revert to a uniform Australian levy which has developed to the point where that system is now inequitable and discriminatory against the more active outports. > > **Mr Dunstan** put certain requests to me on 15th March involving an average of guaranteed wage costs among Victorian outports. Whilst not being optimistic of the results.I undertook to investigate the possibility of this proposal and to advise him within a week or two as to whether agreement could be reached. > >We then discussed the meeting you have called for next Friday. I pointed out that because of earlier commitments and pressure of other matters, it would not be possible for me to be in Melbourne on Friday 23rd March. However, we both agreed that the wide representation of interests mentioned in yourtelegram had been invited to the meeting to discuss the future of Portland. Accordingly, it is assumed you would wish the meeting to tackle the real problem of the lack of cargo available for shipment from Portland and the economic viability of continued operations in such circumstances. > >Whilst regretting my inability to attend the meeting on Friday next, it does seem the AEWL participation is not essential as problems arising for the guaranteed wage levy will be substantially reduced or eliminated with reasonable volume of cargo movement. > > **Mr Dunstan** offered to discuss this with you and explain the position. However, although unable to be present on Friday, 23rd March, I would assure you that I would be pleased to discuss this with you at any convenient time including calling on you in Melbourne on some other day, if you so desire- > >Finally, you would be aware that since my discussions with **Mr Dunstan** on 15th March, other developments have occurred. The question of continued operations of smaller ports and the matter of funding of such ports is now under consideration elsewhere. Such enquiries are not confined to Victoria and although no firm recommendation would be expected for some time, there is no doubt that question of funding of guaranteed wage could not be progressed further at the meeting on Friday next. > >However, I must hasten to assure you that it would be wrong to conclude those discussions could result in AEWL reverting to a common Australian levy for guaranteed wage costs. In fact on Friday, 16th March, any, arrangements whereby some casual outports were subsidising others was rejected entirely by the parties to the discussions, including the WWF and the ACTU, on the grounds that it was improper for some smaller ports which may well have problems of their own, to be forced to carry additional costs to maintain another port or ports. > >Yours faithfully > >L. CRAIG > >Executive Director {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- The point that I think needs to be emphasised is that the arrangements for waterfront labour, guaranteeing minimum wages in a number of ports around the coast, had until this time been national arrangements with a national implication. Now, apparently with the agreement of the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation reached at a meeting held in Sydney, where the representatives of the proper port authorities most intimately concerned and the representatives of the State governments intimately concerned were not present, the old system has apparently been condemned and, implicitly, support has been given to the changed levy system which the AEWL has introduced. It is strange enough to have the Minister for Labour being on the same side as a group of overseas shippers, significantly controlled by overseas container interests which are dedicated to the centralisation of port trade around Australia. But if the allegations or the suggestions in **Mr Craig's** letter are correct, that is, that the WWF and the Australian Council of Trade Unions also have supported the actions that have been taken by **Mr Craig** as the Executive Director of the AEWL and by that Association, it is a strange alliance indeed when we find the main sections of the trade union movement involved denying any responsibility for the smaller numbers of branch members in decentralised ports and when we find the Minister for Labour apparently unwilling or unable to act. If he is unwilling to act, it is clear that he is unwilling to act because the AEWL, controlled by overseas shippers, controlled by people dedicated to the centralisation of the port trade around Australia, has won the agreement of the ACTU and the WWF. If that is the position, it is quite clear that it has resulted from the actions of a city based party which is concerned with large numbers of people in the great centres of population in Australia but which is not concerned with ports like Cairns, Mackay, Coffs Harbour, Esperance, Portland, Hobart and others that have been intimately and adversely affected by these changed circumstances. There are matters that the Minister for Labour needs to explain. He cannot say this situation is the result of something which occurred when we were in Government; it has occurred during the time in which his Party has been in Government. Therefore it is his responsibility to do something about it. The Victorian Government is waiting for this response to the telegram from the Honourable Murray Byrne. There has been no response to this point of time. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Order! The honourable member's time has expired. {: #subdebate-38-0-s4 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Tonight we have seen another bit of electioneering by the honourable member for Wannon **(Mr Malcolm Fraser).** The honourable member has always been able to present himself as a man with a fair amount of confidence in his ability to put a case. He usually looks confident even though his speeches have not always deserved the confidence that he seems to acquire when delivering them. But tonight his speech was quite poor. It was only mediocre and he lacked that ring of confidence and certainty that he usually is able to muster when he talks at this table. I was trying to analyse the change that has overcome this gentleman. I was not quite able to work out the reason for the change but I have just been informed that for the whole of the period that he was a backbencher in the Parliament he did not bother to ask one single question about the port of Portland. He never bothered to write to any of the Ministers- {: .speaker-5E4} ##### Mr Sinclair: -- Yes, he has. He wrote to me when I was Minister for Shipping and Transport. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Did he? In that case, I have to drag the honourable member for New England into it also. I have been through all the Cabinet submissions from the Department of Labour concerning this matter. Since the honourable member has chosen to attack me, one would assume that the Department of Labour is blameworthy or praiseworthy for whatever goes wrong or goes right in the industry. I have caused a search to be made extending back to 1964 - 8 years now - and 1 can find not one Cabinet submission from the Department of Labour that would support the views now put by the honourable member. The honourable gentleman has evinced absolutely no interest in this subject for as long as I can remember. I was here when he first came into this Parliament as an upstanding, bright, eager-eyed young man from Wannon, but never once have I heard him say anything about Portland until now when a State election is pending. Why is Portland going through the trouble that it is now experiencing? It is going through the trouble because the Government that he actively supported in Cabinet and in the Parliament was responsible for altering the Stevedoring Industry Act which this Government inherited. It is not our Act; it is the Act for which the parties to which he and the Leader of the Country Party belong are responsible and which brought about the present state of affairs. The present state of affairs could not have happened unless the law permitted it to happen. Who made the law that permits it to happen? None other than the honourable member for Wannon and his Liberal and Country Party colleagues. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser: -- I rise on a point of order. The Minister for Labour is contradicting the remarks that he made in this Parliament a few nights ago when he said that what has been done by the Association of Employers of Waterside Labour was contrary to the philosophy of the Stevedoring Industry Charge Act. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! There is no point of order involved. The Chair is not fully aware of what has been going on. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The honourable gentleman who is looking around as though he made a great point ought to look this way and hear my point. He made great play of a statement made by the Honourable Murray Byrne who is the Minister for State Development and Decentralisation in Victoria and who is fighting desperately to try to win the seat of Portland from the Labor Party. So the Honourable Murray Byrne will do anything and say anything at all in misrepresenting the situation in Portland as being the result of this Goverment's failure to act in the interests of the port rather than the failure of the former Goverment, because the Act about which we are talking was not an Act that was passed by the Labor Government but an Act that was passed with the active support of the Federal member for Wannon. I decided to write to **Mr Byrne** on 27 th March, this is, as soon as I heard about the meeting to which the honourable member for Wannon refers. I said this: >In the present controversy over the future of the port of Portland, a number of matters have been misrepresented, and in particular, the Commonwealth's role and the Commonwealth's responsibility. > >I have been disturbed, for example, to notice the statements attributed to you in the Press attacking me as though Portland's problems were of my, creation; and I was disturbed, too, on being informed that at a meeting concerning Portland which was chaired by you on Friday 23rd March, to which the Department of Labour was not initially invited- That is how much interest the Honourable Murray Byrne had in the Department of Labour. He did not even bother to invite representatives of the Department to be officially present at the meeting, and neither did the honourable member for Wannon. So it is quite clear that all they are trying to do is to make political capital out of this matter. At this meeting to which representatives of my Department were not even invited- {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser: -- **Mr Speaker,** I rise on a point of order. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Do not carry on as if you are the only son of a wealthy Western District squatter. You have been spoilt. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser: -- The Minister for Labour can say what he likes, but he should not be allowed to go unchallenged on a matter to which reference has become common on the Government side of this House- {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The honourable member is not in order. If he believes he has been misrepresented he is entitled to take other action, but it is a frivolous point of order that he has taken. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser: -- May I make a personal explanation now? {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- The honourable member may do so when the Minister has finished his speech. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The honourable member is interrupting me because he is trying to prevent me from reading the rest of this letter. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr Malcolm Fraser: -- Have it incorporated in Hansard. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I want the people in the gallery and other people to hear about it. At this meeting a motion was adopted which attempts to shift the responsibility for the viability of Portland entirely off the State Government's shoulders and entirely on to my shoulders. That resolution read: >This meeting asks **Mr Cameron** to make a direct approach to the AEWL and to use his influence to have the decision reversed. If no satisfactory reply is received within a week, Murray Byrne is empowered to send a representative group through **Mr Fraser** to see **Mr Cameron.** Nothing could be more ridiculous than that. Fancy sending anybody from Portland to represent Portland's interests through the honourable member for Wannon, who has not lifted a finger to help Portland in the whole of the time he has been in Parliament. In my letter I went on to say: >Let me say that I find the basis on which the motion was adopted on Friday quite erroneous. This is because it bears no relation to the true cause of Portland's problems. I think you know that I have already asked **Mr Norman** Foster to investigate the situation at Portland and I expect to have his report in a few days. However, it is clear to me, at this stage, that the problems that exist at Portland have been evident for months and even years before the change in AEWL levy. I have some news for the honourable member for Wannon. I shall be seeking leave to make a statement in this Parliament concerning the Portland situation as soon as I receive the report from **Mr Norman** K. Foster, who will be reporting to me, I hope, by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. My letter continued: >As I am sure you are well aware, the viability of a port is ultimately determined solely by the volume of cargo which can be shipped through it. This in turn depends upon the industries which carry on their activities in the surrounding district and the arrangements which they make to obtain their raw materials and transport their products. The honourable member for Wannon who is the biggest and richest wool grower in the Western District sends all of his wool through the port of Geelong. Here is a man who has the audacity to pretend that he has some interest in the port of Portland and in the viability of that port. I go on to state to **Mr Byrne:** >For some time cargo through-put al Portland has been declining and the cause of this is the way in which local industries have chosen to operate. The honourable member and his wealthy friends have decided to send some hundreds of thousands of bales of wool through Geelong instead of Portland. Why does he not send it through Portland which is the wool centre? That is the proper place from which to send it. I continue in the letter: >So long as through-put continues to decline, the change in the AEWL levying system is of marginal significance - of less significance, for example- {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The honourable member's time has expired. {: .page-start } page 838 {:#debate-39} ### PERSONAL EXPLANATIONS {: #debate-39-s0 .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
Wannon -- I wish to make a personal explanation. **Mr Speaker.** {: #debate-39-s1 .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Does the honourable gentleman claim to have been' misrepresented? {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- Yes, completely and utterly. When the Minister for Labour **(Mr Clyde Cameron)** has a position from which he cannot argue from fact, and when he has a position in which he is trying to change his responsibility- {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- **Mr Speaker,** I raise a point of order. Is the honourable gentleman entitled to resume the debate under the guise of making a personal explanation, or must he show where he has been personally misrepresented? {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -The Chair will decide if the honourable member gets away from a personal explanation. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: **- Mr Speaker,** if it were not for your presence and for the respect which I have for you I would say that the Minister for Labour has lied. But because of the respect I have for you- {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! That is unparliamentary. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- I withdraw that and say that what the Minister has said in many respects is completely untrue. For example, he said that I had sold all of my wool through Geelong for a number of years. When we first had a fight to establish wool sales at Portland we shipped wool through Portland when there were no sales there so that it could be sold at London. This was done at a good deal of disadvantage. For years our wool has been sold or shipped out of Portland. {: .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Yours? {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- Yes. This shows the quality of the kind of attack which the Minister for Labour makes upon members of the Opposition when he knows that the facts are against him. He knows that responsibility in this matter rests between himself and the Australian Employers of Waterside Labour. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! The honourable member is debating the matter. He has made his point so far as a personal explanation is concerned. {: .speaker-QS4} ##### Mr MALCOLM FRASER: -- There is another matter in which I have been misrepresented, **Mr Speaker.** It was sugested that I had said that a matter which was a State responsibility was in fact a Federal responsibility. The position which the Minister takes is not supported by all Australian Labor Party members of the Legislative Council in Victoria. Two Labor members who represent Western Victoria have accepted and supported the resolutions which I and others have raised asking the Minister for Labour, at first politely and not politically, to take his proper responsibilities for these matters. He resolutely refuses to make an approach to the AEWL. I believe that this is because the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Waterside Workers Federation have supported the AEWL. The Minister does nothing for decentralised ports around Australia. {: #debate-39-s2 .speaker-5J4} ##### Mr SCHOLES:
Corio **- Mr Speaker,** I wish to make a personal explanation. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -- Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented? {: .speaker-5J4} ##### Mr SCHOLES: -- Yes. The honourable member for Wannon during his remarks said that I had advocated and was actively supporting action to close the port of Portland. That statement is totally untrue. If the honourable member had taken the trouble to examine the remarks I made in this House only yesterday he would be aware that his remarks were untrue. What I have said is that there is no advantage to the port of Portland in deliberately advocating policies which could close both the port of Portland and the port of Geelong. That is what the honourable member has done. {: .speaker-10000} ##### Mr SPEAKER: -Order! It being 11 p.m., in accordance with the order of the House, the House stands adjourned until 10 a.m. on Thursday, 29th March 1973. House adjourned at 11 p.m. {: .page-start } page 840 {:#debate-40} ### ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE The following answers to questions upon notice were circulated: {:#subdebate-40-0} #### Commonwealth Employment Service: Former National Servicemen (Question No. 21) {: #subdebate-40-0-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many former national servicemen sought the facilities of the Commonwealth Employment Service in seeking employment in 1972. 1. How many national servicemen were awaiting placement in employment at (a) 31st December 1972 and (b) 27th February 1973. 2. How many former national servicemen have sought the facilities of the Commonwealth Employment Service in finding suitable employment since 1st January 1973. {: #subdebate-40-0-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. During 1972, 1,786 unemployed former national servicemen registered for employment assistance at offices of the Commonwealth Employment Service. An additional 269 former national servicemen who were employed but who were seeking alternative employment also registered for assistance. 1. (a) The number of unemployed former national servicemen awaiting placement in employment at 29th December 1972 was 138. Former national servicemen who were already employed but were seeking alternative employment at the same date numbered 43. {: type="a" start="b"} 0. At 2nd March 1973 the corresponding numbers were 172 and 64, a total of 236. 2. At 2nd March 1973, 419 unemployed former national servicemen and 72 who were seeking alternative employment had sought the assistance of the Commonwealth Employment Service in obtaining suitable employment since the beginning of the year. {:#subdebate-40-1} #### Industrial Disputes: Statistics (Question No. 23) {: #subdebate-40-1-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >How many strikes occurred in each State during (a) December 1972, (b) January 1973 and (c) February 1973. {: #subdebate-40-1-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >The latest available industrial disputes statistics published by the Commonwealth Statistician are the preliminary figures for December 1972 which were released on 9th March 1973. The number of industrial disputes (as defined and reported in that publication) in Australia during December 1972 was 121. Figures for the number of disputes are not published for each State monthly, but are published quarterly. The latest quarterly statistics that have been published are for the September 1972 quarter. {:#subdebate-40-2} #### Industrial Disputes: Statistics (Question No. 24) {: #subdebate-40-2-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: -asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >What was (a) the number of man days lost, (b) the amount of wages lost and (c) the number of workers involved in stoppages caused by industrial disputes in each State during (i) December 1972,(ii) January 1973 and (iii) February 1973. {: #subdebate-40-2-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >The latest available industrial disputes statistics published by the Commonwealth Statistician are the preliminary figures for December 1972 which were released on 9th March 1973. The relevant statistics (as defined and reported in that publication) are given below. Figures for the number of man-days lost and of the number of workers involved are not published for each State monthly but are . published quarterly. The latest quarterly statistics that have been published are for the September 1972 quarter. > >the number of man-days lost- {: type="a" start="b"} 0. the amount of wages lost- Aust. 8933,700. 1. the number of workers involved - Aust. 29,000. {:#subdebate-40-3} #### Labour: Turnover (Question No. 25) {: #subdebate-40-3-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice:' {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What is the estimated cost of labour turnover in the manufacturing industry. 1. What is the cost of labour turnover for industry as a whole. 2. What were the labour turnover figures in Australian industry for (a) manual and non-manual workers and (b) males and females in the years 1971 and 1972. 3. Has his Department carried out any surveys to show the cost per separation of (a) skilled employees, (b) semi-skilled employees and (c) unskilled employees. 4. Can he say how the Australian labour turnover rates compare with those of comparable countries in the Western world including the United States of America and Great Britain. {: #subdebate-40-3-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The last estimate made of the cost of labour turnover in Australian manufacturing industry was in 1970. On the basis of the figures available at the time of calculation was made that the overall cost of labour turnover for the 1967-68 financial year was at least $45. 5m, This is only a very approximate estimate due to inadequacies in the data available. 1. Because relevant data is not available it is not possible to arrive at a figure for the cost of labour turnover in Australian industry as a whole. 2. Labour turnover rates in Australian industry are surveyed for the month of March each year by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics. The rates for 1971 and 1972 were as follows: {: type="1" start="4"} 0. Enquiries by my Department into the cost of separation have taken the form of case studies in individual firms. A total of thirteen studies have been carried out over a number of years and employees covered in the studies have included skilled employees, semi-skilled employees and unskilled employees. 1. My Department attempted in 1970 to arrive at international comparisons for the years 1967-69. Because of such difficulties as the lack of uniformity in method of computing labour turnover statistics, variations from country to country in the industry groups and occupations covered by statistics and differences between countries in climatic, social and economic conditions which may influence labour turnover at a given time, the amount of usable information obtained was limited. In summary, the findings were: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. Australian labour turnover rates for all males and females in manufacturing industry were considerably higher than those for Great Britain and Japan, slightly higher than those for New Zealand and approximately on a par to those for the United States. 1. Australian labour turnover rates for nonmanufacturing industry were higher than those for New Zealand. 2. Australian labour turnover rates for all industries were higher than those for New Zealand and Japan. {:#subdebate-40-4} #### Personnel Selection Procedures (Question No. 26) {: #subdebate-40-4-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. From surveys carried out by his Department what (a) number and (b) percentage of Australian firms has designed personnel selection procedures. 1. What (a) number and (b) percentage has developed ability or aptitude testing programs. 2. When was the last survey completed in the field of selection procedure. 3. Will he update this information to cover 1972. {: #subdebate-40-4-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. A survey of personnel practices undertaken by my Department in 1967 found that out of568 firms drawn from all States of Australia, 400 or 70 per cent reported that they had designed the personnel selection procedures they were using. 1. This survey also found that 259 or 46 per cent of the 568 firms had developed ability or aptitude testing programs. 2. and (4) As recently as September 1972 my Department carried out a survey to examine aspects of recruitment and selection procedures in a range of Australian firms. The results of this survey are currently being analysed. {:#subdebate-40-5} #### Commonwealth Employment Service: Counselling Interviews (Question No. 33) {: #subdebate-40-5-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >How many counselling interviews were provided for persons under the age of 21 years by the Commonwealth Employment Service in each of the last 10 calendar years. {: #subdebate-40-5-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >Figures were not maintained for persons under the age of 21 years for the period 1963-1971. However figures for persons under 19 years were kept and these account for a very high percentage of the young people counselled by the Commonwealth Employment Service. The figures for the period are: In 1972, 157,273 persons under 19 were counselled as were 2,259 persons between the ages of 19 and 21 years. {:#subdebate-40-6} #### Incentive Systems (Question No. 35) {: #subdebate-40-6-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What information has his Department on the percentage of employees covered by incentive systems. 1. What is the basis of these systems. 2. When was this information obtained. 3. If the details are not up-to-date as at 1972, will he initiate a survey to provide the latest information. {: #subdebate-40-6-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. and (3) A survey conducted by my Department in 1969 on wage incentive systems in 1,327 firms in private industry showed that 26 per cent of 623,344 employees employed by the firms were working under an incentive system. The employees constituted 21 per cent of the Australian non-government workforce. 1. 74.5 per cent of the incentive schemes were those which directly related bonus payments to measured performance. Other systems included bonus payments on merit ratings (11 per cent of schemes), indirect bonuses where employees not directly engaged on production work were paid a bonus based on the performance of direct workers (6.5 per cent), profit-sharing (3 per cent) and systems providing for a regular bonus (2 per cent). 2. The results of the survey when compared with those of a 1949 survey conducted by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on the extent of the use of incentive schemes suggests that the incidence of these schemes has shown little change over 20 years. In 1949 28 per cent of employees covered by the survey received incentive payments whereas in 1969 the figure was 26 per cent. There is no reason to believe that there has been a significant change since the 1969 survey. {:#subdebate-40-7} #### Industrial Disputes: Man Days Lost (Question No. 49) {: #subdebate-40-7-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >In which years since industrial statistics on man days lost were first compiled has the number of man days lost because of industrial disputes exceeded those lost during 1971. {: #subdebate-40-7-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >Statistics of industrial disputes published since 1913 by the Commonwealth Statistician show that the number of working days lost during 1971 was exceeded in the years 1917, 1919, 1920 and 1929. {:#subdebate-40-8} #### Weekly Wage Rates: Adult Males (Question No. 51) {: #subdebate-40-8-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >What were the weekly wage rates for adult males under Commonwealth and State awards during each calendar year from and including 1966. {: #subdebate-40-8-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >Published statistics on weekly wage rates to adult males under the Commonwealth and State award for calendar years as such are not available. However, the Commonwealth Statistician's publication 'Wage Rates and Earnings, December 1972', which was released on 13th March 1973, gives end-of -month figures for the weighted average minimum weekly rates payable to adult males in Australia for a full week's work (excluding overtime), as prescribed in awards, determinations and collective agreements. The mid and end point figures for each calendar year are as set out below: {:#subdebate-40-9} #### Employees under Awards and Unregistered Collective Agreements (Question No. 52) {: #subdebate-40-9-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >How many employees are covered by (a) Federal awards, (b) State awards and (c) other means such as unregistered collective -agreements. {: #subdebate-40-9-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am;informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >The Commonwealth Statistician's most recent survey of the incidence of industrial awards, determinations and collective agreements was made in May 1968. This survey excluded all employees in the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, rural industry: and private domestic service. Detailed results of the survey were published in Labour Report No. 55, 1970. > >The estimated number of employed civilian wags and salary earners in Australia in January 1973 (excluding employees in the Australian Capital Territory, the Northern Territory, . rural industry and private domestic service) derived from the Commonwealth Statistician's preliminary , statement 'Employment Wags and Salary Earners: Australia, January 1973', was 4,467,500. > >The number of these employees' in each of the 3 categories as set out below, was calculated by applying the relevant proportion established by the abovementioned survey. {:#subdebate-40-10} #### Papua New Guinea: Unilateral Declaration of Independence. (Question No. 111) {: #subdebate-40-10-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for External Territories, upon notice: >Will he publicly reject the possibility of a unilateral declaration of independence for Papua New Guinea by Australia before (a) 1974 (b) 1975 or (c) 1976. {: #subdebate-40-10-s1 .speaker-009DB} ##### Mr Morrison:
Minister for Science · ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >The question of independence for Papua New Guinea ls the concern of both the Australian and Papua New Guinea Governments. It is also the concern of the United Nations which by General Assembly Resolution 2977 of 14th December 1972 called upon Austrafia to prepare, in consultation with the government of Papua New Guinea, a timetable for independence. > >The Government's policy regarding independence was stated in the Governor-General's speech on February 27th in the following terms: > >My Government will move with all due speed towards the creation of an independent, united Papua New Guinea. It proposes to achieve this in the closest consultation with the Government and House of Assembly of Papua New Guinea within the life of this Parliament'. Armed Forces: Re-engagements (Question No. 150) {: #subdebate-40-10-s2 .speaker-K9L} ##### Mr Garland: asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What (a) number and (b) percentage of servicemen re-engaged on completion of initial engagement in each of the Services during (i) 1970-71 and (ii) 1971- 72. 1. For what period did they re-engage. (Hansard, 25th September 1970, page 1756 and 30th September 1971. page 1833). {: #subdebate-40-10-s3 .speaker-JO8} ##### Mr Barnard:
Minister for Defence · BASS, TASMANIA · ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The information sought is as follows: {: type="1" start="2"} 0. (a) For 1970-71 individual re-engagements in the Navy were for a period of 3 years with the exception of 19 personnel from whom specified returns of service were required for training provided. In the Army 162 re-engaged for 6 years and 755 for 3 years. For the Air Force 229 re-engaged for 6 years, 52 for 5 years and 471 re-engaged for 3 years. {: type="a" start="b"} 0. For 1971-72 individual re-engagements in the Navy were for a period of 3 years with the exception of 9 personnel' from whom specified returns of service were required for training provided. In the Army 194 re-engaged for 6 years and 912 for 3 years. For the RAAF 237 re-engaged for 6 years, 23 for 5 years and 638 for 3 years. {:#subdebate-40-11} #### Armed Forces: Married Personnel (Question No. 151) {: #subdebate-40-11-s0 .speaker-K9L} ##### Mr Garland: asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice: >What percentage of married personnel in each of the Services was required to move between locations during (a) 1970-71 and (b) 1971-72. (Hansard 21st March 1972, page 947). {: #subdebate-40-11-s1 .speaker-JO8} ##### Mr Barnard:
ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >The information sought has been provided in answer to earlier questions on notice. The percentages are al follows: {:#subdebate-40-12} #### Boer War and World War I Veterans (Question No. 156) {: #subdebate-40-12-s0 .speaker-K9L} ##### Mr Garland: asked the Minister representing the Minister for Repatriation, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many veterans of (a) the Boer War and (b) World War I are still alive. 1. What would be the cost of extending repatriation benefits to all survivors. 2. Does the Government regard this figure as being beyond its resources: if not, will it extend repatriation benefits to all survivors. {: #subdebate-40-12-s1 .speaker-JO8} ##### Mr Barnard:
ALP -- The Minister for Repatriation has supplied the following answer to the honourable member's question: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Estimated survivors as at December 1972 were: {: type="a" start="a"} 0. less than 200 1. 58,100 1. and (3) Repatriation legislation already provides a wide range of benefits for many veterans of the Boer War and World War I. Listed high in the priorities in the Government's promised program of improvements in the Repatriation field, is the provision of medical treatment (including hospitalisation) at Repatriation expense for all veterans of the Boer War and World War I. The estimated cost of providing this additional benefit will be approximately S8.95m per annum. {:#subdebate-40-13} #### Perth Airport: Aircraft Movements (Question No. 177) {: #subdebate-40-13-s0 .speaker-K9L} ##### Mr Garland: asked the Minister for Civil Aviation, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What was the daily number of flights in and out of Perth Airport in January 1973. 1. What percentage of take-offs and landings took place in the various directions available for (a) inter.ternational flights and (b) domestic flights. {: #subdebate-40-13-s1 .speaker-KDV} ##### Mr Charles Jones:
ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: Papua New Guinea: Assistance (Question No. 185) {: #subdebate-40-13-s2 .speaker-K9L} ##### Mr Garland: asked the Minister for External Territories, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What was the (a) nature and (b) extent of assistance for Papua New Guinea by all United Nations bodies in 1971 (Hansard, 17th August 1971, page 151 and 6th October 1971, page 2001). 1. What was the (a) nature and (b) extent of assistance for Papua New Guinea under the Commonwealth Co-operation in Education Scheme and other Commonwealth programs in 1971 (Hansard, 6th May 1971, page 2842). {: #subdebate-40-13-s3 .speaker-009DB} ##### Mr Morrison:
ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question will be found in the answer to question 5741 (Hansard, 26th October 1972, pages 3470 and 3471). Australian Capital Territory: Population Growth andHousing (Question No. 243) {: #subdebate-40-13-s4 .speaker-GH4} ##### Mr Hunt:
GWYDIR, NEW SOUTH WALES asked the Minister for the Capital Territory, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What is the expected population growth rate In the Australian Capital Territory in 1973. 1. How many blocks of landwill be available for purchase in 1973. 2. How many, of these blocks will be available for (a) flats, (b) town houses and (c) detached housing. 3. How many new Government houses will be built in 1973. 4. Approximately how many people will these new dwellings accommodate. {: #subdebate-40-13-s5 .speaker-8H7} ##### Mr Enderby:
ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. The population growth rate in 1973 is expected to be about 9.3 per cent, that is, about 15,000 persons. 1. About 3,530. 2. (a) About 20 sites which will provide up to 490 residential units, (b) about 50 sites, which will provide up to 200 residential unite, (c) about 3,460. 3. About 1,050. 4. On present statistical averages, about 17,000. Australian Capital Territory: Government Houses (Question No. 247) {: #subdebate-40-13-s6 .speaker-GH4} ##### Mr Hunt: asked the Minister for the Capital Territory, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Is it the intention of the Government to sell Government homes to tenants in the Australian Capital Territory without restriction. 1. How many houses are available in the Australian Capital Territory to meet the needs of compulsory transferees and low income families. {: #subdebate-40-13-s7 .speaker-8H7} ##### Mr Enderby:
ALP -- The answers to the honourable member's questions are as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Policies affecting the future of Government housing in the Australian Capital Territory are under review. 1. There are no groups of houses specifically, designated for particular purposes. Houses are stockpiled from time to time to meet the needs of compulsory transferees. Allocations of houses to low income families are made from suitable houses which may be available at the time. {:#subdebate-40-14} #### Country Apprentice Training Scheme (Question No. 19) {: #subdebate-40-14-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many persons were employed under the country apprentice training scheme in each of the years from 1963 to 1972 inclusive. 1. In which trades were these people employed in each of those years. 2. What sums were paid in allowances to employees in each of those years. {: #subdebate-40-14-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. In successive fiscal years from 1963 onwards the number of apprentices employed under the Scheme were 1; 432; 709; 570; 457; 617; 778; 818; 970 and 1,167. 1. 1963- Engineering and Electrical, 1; 1964- Engineering and Electrical 383, Building 49; 1965 onwards under the same two trade groups, 452 and 257: 374 and 196; 280 and 177; 371 and 246; 478 and 282; 511 and 286; 586 and 358; and in the year 1972, 724 and 415 respectively. With effect from 1969 printing trades were included and numbers employed were 18; 21; 26 and 28. 2. The annual sums paid to employees in allowances for the fiscal years 1963 onwards were $68; $29,098; $85,350; $74,987; $98,784; $89,446; $105,054; $31,181; $151,384 and $261,467. {:#subdebate-40-15} #### Commonwealth Employment Service: Staff (Question No. 28) {: #subdebate-40-15-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. What was the (a) increase in number and (b) percentage increase of officers in the Commonwealth Employment Service during each of the last 10 calendar years. 1. What (a) increase in number and (b) percentage increase is planned for 1973. {: #subdebate-40-15-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. My Department advises that increases in staff of the Commonwealth Employment Service and the percentage increase are as follows as at 31st December 1972: {:#subdebate-40-16} #### Commonwealth Employment Service: Officers and Agents (Question No. 27) {: #subdebate-40-16-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many officers and agents of the Commonwealth Employment Service are there in each State. 1. What is the distribution of these officers and agents between metropolitan and country areas. {: #subdebate-40-16-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. (a) The number of officers in the CES in each State is as follows: {: type="a" start="b"} 0. The number of agents in the CES in each State is as follows: {: type="1" start="2"} 0. (a) Departmental records do not provide for a metropolitan/country distribution of CES officers. (b) Of the above number of agents all except two are located in country areas. {:#subdebate-40-17} #### Commonwealth Employment Service: Placement of Persons under 21 Years of Age (Question No. 30) {: #subdebate-40-17-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >How many people under the age of 21 years were provided with employment through the Commonwealth Employment Service in each of the last 10 calendar years. {: #subdebate-40-17-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is given by the following table: {:#subdebate-40-18} #### Department of Labour: Psychologists (Question No. 32) {: #subdebate-40-18-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. How many psychologists were employed in each of the Department's regions in each of the last 10 calendar years. 1. What (a) increase and (b) percentage increase In the number of psychologists to be employed by his Department is anticipated during 1973. {: #subdebate-40-18-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: {: type="1" start="1"} 0. Positions designated Psychologist have existed in the Department only since 1967. The number of officers employed in operational positions of psychologist in each of the past 6 years is as follows: {: type="1" start="2"} 0. No precise figure can yet be given; any increase in staff will depend on the outcome of the planning referred to in my answer to part 4 of the honourable member's question No. 34. {:#subdebate-40-19} #### Overtime (Question No. 58) {: #subdebate-40-19-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >What was the average number of overtime hours worked by employees in each calendar year from and including 1966. {: #subdebate-40-19-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- 1 am informed that the information requested by the honourable member is shown In the following table: {:#subdebate-40-20} #### Tirade Unions: Membership (Question No. 60) {: #subdebate-40-20-s0 .speaker-KIM} ##### Mr Lynch: asked the Minister for Labour, upon notice: >What percentage of wage and salary earners were members of a trade union during each of the calendar years from and including 1966. {: #subdebate-40-20-s1 .speaker-2V4} ##### Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- I am informed that the answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >The latest available Trade Union Statistics published by the Commonwealth Statistician show the following proportion of total wage and salary earners in Australia who were members of a trade union: {:#subdebate-40-21} #### Ministers: Payments other than Salary (Question No. 226) {: #subdebate-40-21-s0 .speaker-NH4} ##### Mr Keating: asked the Prime Minister, upon notice: >What payments other than salary were made to each Minister in 1971-72. {: #subdebate-40-21-s1 .speaker-6U4} ##### Mr WHITLAM:
WERRIWA, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP -- The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: >In 1971-72 the following payments were made to Ministers in addition to Ministerial salaries: > >'Electorate Allowance > >Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer, Senior Minister, Minister - $2,750 per annum (Members and Senators representing city electorates) or $3,350 per annum (Members and Senators representing country electorates). > >Ministerial Special Allowance > >Prime Minister - $10,300 per annum. > >Deputy, Prime Minister, Treasurer, Senior Minister $4,600 per annum > >Minister - $4,000 per annum. > >Travelling Allowance > >Prime Minister - $42 per day except for whole days in Canberra. > >Deputy Prime Minister, Treasurer, Senior Minister, $36 per day away from home base except for whole days in Canberra. > >Minister - $33 per day away from home base except for whole days in Canberra.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 28 March 1973, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1973/19730328_reps_28_hor82/>.

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