House of Representatives
17 October 1974

29th Parliament · 1st Session



Mr SPEAKER (Hon. J. F. Cope) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers.

page 2483

PETITIONS

The Clerk:

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

Universal Health Scheme

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

That the proposed Universal Health Scheme is essential to the well being of all Australians, in so far as it will-

  1. Provide that all Australians irrespective of their means will have access to a high standard of health care.
  2. Every Australian will be automatically covered for doctors’ and hospital bills thus ensuring that citizens will no longer be burdened with additional psychological strains because of inability to meet the high cost of medical treatment.
  3. It is committed, in principle, towards the ideal that an individual’s contribution to the cost of health services should be based on his or her capacity to pay- that people who derive the most financial benefit from our society should give the most for its support.
  4. It guarantees freedom of choice so that every Australian will be able to attend the doctor or hospital of his or her own choice.
  5. v) In the long term it will take the politics out of medical care and will thereby allow dedicated members of the medical profession to return to the occupation of their choice- The care of the ill and the prevention of disease.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will hasten to introduce this much needed scheme so that health care services in Australia can begin to function equitably, efficiently, and economically.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Charles Jones and Mr Reynolds.

Petitions received.

Child Endowment

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

Child Endowment received by families has declined relative to average earnings so that today it is about 20 per cent of its value in 1949.

The Interim Report of the Australian Government’s Commission into poverty recommended a substantial increase in Child Endowment as a way of alleviating poverty.

This report pointed out that increased Child Endowment deserved priority and would be advantageous to the community in the long run.

It specifically recommended increasing child endowment from 50 cents to $ 1.50 for the first child; from S1. 00 to $2.00 for the second child; from $2.00 to $4.00 for the third child; from $2.25 to $7.00 for the fourth child; and to $8.00 for subsequent children.

Your petitioners humbly request that the Government increase Child Endowment in the September Budget.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Garrick and Mr McKenzie.

Petitions received.

Marriage

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

  1. 1 ) That the whole principle of the Family Law Bill 1974 is aimed at destroying the entire concept of marriage as traditionally recognized in Australia, with its special obligations between husband and wife and between parents and children.
  2. That the bill fails to recognize or provide for the equal rights and responsibilities of both parties to a marriage, such as are provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the rights of parents to choose the type of education they desire for their children.
  3. That this bill appears to express the desires of only a minority of Australians.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled should not admit into the law of this land the principle that marriage is only temporary and the family no longer the fundamental unit of society.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Mr Kevin Cairns.

Petition received.

Taxation: Educational Expenses

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

  1. 1 ) That we strongly oppose the introduction of legislation which would lessen the $400 education rebate to $ 1 50;
  2. That we require the members of Parliament to keep to the spirit of section 1 3, 4 ( b), of the Australian Schools Commission Act which states that the Government: “Asserts the prior right of parents to choose whether their children are educated at a Government or at a nonGovernment school.”
  3. That the reduction of the education rebate would prejudice the practice of this prior right as stated in section 13, 4(b), of the abovementioned Act.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will take no measure to reduce the education rebate.

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

Petition received.

Family Law Bill

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

  1. We are strongly opposed to any reduction in the present 24 month separation period requirement now to be fulfilled prior to the date of commencement of the hearing of an application for the dissolution of a marriage.
  2. We believe that evidence should be produced that genuine attempts have been made at reconciliation.
  3. We believe both parties are entitled to equitable distribution of family property and assets.
  4. We urge the inclusion, in this Bill or in other legislation, of positive steps to provide funds for Family Life Education in schools, and in post school years, for Preparation for Marriage programmes and for the decentralising of approved guidance facilities and for education in Marriage Courses for young marrieds.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will amend the proposed Family Law Bill in accordance with the points contained herein.

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

Petition received.

Human Rights Bill

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that the Human Rights Bill:

  1. Insofar as it attempts to legislate regarding the exercise of religion and religious observances, is in contravention of Section 116 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia,
  2. Will tend to deprive free Australian citizens of religious liberty and freedom of worship, and parents and guardians of the right to choose the moral and religious education of their children in that:

    1. 1 ) The Government could introduce regulations as to the time, place and manner in which people may manifest their religion and beliefs.
    2. The Bill excludes the recognition of the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society, and its right to protection by society and the State.
    3. The Bill does not explicitly recognise the liberty of parents, and when applicable, legal guardians, to ensure the religious and moral education of their children.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House not proceed with the Human Rights Bill.

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

Petition received.

Family Law Bill

To the Honourable the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth that they support the Family Law Bill 1974 which provides for

  1. Irretrievable breakdown of marriage as the sole ground for divorce based on one years separation.
  2. Maintenance to be based on the needs of all the parties in a failed marriage with effective automatic permanent entitlement to an ex-wife to be abolished.
  3. Emphasis to be placed on rehabilitation and retraining of estranged wives to enable them to be independent.
  4. Custody to be awarded in disputed cases on the basis of a qualified panel recommendation and to only take into account the material, moral and psychological well being of children involved, not the possessive demands of their parents, and
  5. Costs of matrimonial proceedings to be divided equally.

Your petitioners humbly pray that the House will pass the Family Law Bill without delay.

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

Petition received.

Uranium

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

That whereas uranium found in vast quantities in Australia is the raw material for the nuclear fission reaction,

And whereas presently assured reserves of uranium in Australia represent a potential production of over 540,000 kilograms of Plutonium 239 if utilised in Light Water Reactors overseas,

And whereas the Maximum Permissible Inhalation of Plutonium 239 is 0.00000025 gram,

And whereas Plutonium 239 is one of the most dangerous substances human society has ever created, causing mutations and cancers,

And whereas there are no methods of safely and absolutely confining Plutonium from the biosphere for the requisite quarter of a million years,

And whereas Plutonium coming in contact with the air forms an aerosol cloud of micron-sized particles, its most dangerous form,

And whereas the export of uranium may return to us an import of Plutonium particles dispersed in the global environment via the circulation of the atmosphere,

And whereas there are no sure safeguards against the military use of nuclear fission, and the nuclear proliferation represents a prime environmental threat to all forms of life on the only earth available to us,

And that it is therefore an act of self-preservation to demand a halt to all exports of uranium except for bio-medical uses,

Your petitioners humbly pray that the members, in the House assembled, will take the most urgent steps to ensure:

  1. That further mining and export of uranium from Australia except for bio-medical purposes be banned,
  2. That the Australian Atomic Energy Commission be transformed by the rewriting of its charter into an Australian Energy Commission to further the understanding of energy flows through our society and to promote national economic independence and self-sufficiency.

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

Petition received.

Taxation: Education Expenses

To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia, parishioners of St Patrick ‘s Church, Walcha, respectfully showeth:

That the right to educate their children in an independent school is the inalienable right of all Australian citizens.

That the reduction in education expenses allowable as income tax deduction, as announced in the 1974 Budget, will disadvantage all parents of children attending independent schools and especially those who live in outlying areas who have special problems associated with the education of their children.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will restore these allowances and increase them to keep pace with the rapidly increasing costs borne by independent schools.

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

Petition received.

Family Law Bill

To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled: The humble petition of certain citizens (electors of the Division of Hume), hereby respectfully showeth:

That citizens of this Division place great value on the sanctity of marriage, and are greatly concerned that under the proposed provisions of The Family Law Bill 1974, a woman who has performed her duties of wife, mother and home-maker in a praiseworthy manner, can nevertheless find herself placed in a most unjust and unfair position, even if an innocent party.

Your petitioners therefore humbly request that greater consideration be given to preventing such positions of injustice from occurring.

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

Petition received.

Education

To the Honourable the Speaker and members of the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

  1. Your petitioners believe in the principle that every Australian child, irrespective of the school he attends, is entitled to economic support for his basic education needs from the funds placed at the disposal of the Australian Government through taxation. Further, they believe that this economic support should be in the form of per pupil grants which are directly related to the cost of educating an Australian child in a government school.
  2. Your petitioners believe that in addition to this basic per pupil grant additional assistance should be provided in cases of educational disadvantage, but they believe that the appropriate instruments for reducing economic inequalities are taxation and social welfare systems which deal with individuals and families and not with schools.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that, as an interim measure, the Government will immediately increase the current grants being made to children in non-government schools to at least 50 per cent of the cost of educating children in government schools, thus enabling the nongovernment schools to continue to exist and fulfill their function of educating Australian children.

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

Petition received.

Baltic States

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

Whilst the Australian Government is granting freedom and independence to Papua and New Guinea, the once free Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are occupied by the Soviet Union and their citizens are continuously and brutally deprived of personal civil and religious freedoms We humbly beg to draw the attention of the House of Representatives to this fact and ask that the matter be raised in the United Nations by the Australian Government. The annexation and incorporation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union has not been recognized by any Western democracy, including Australia. We beg the House of Representatvies to continue such non-recognition and to disallow any steps by Australian Government which would amount to recognition of aggression.

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

Petition received.

National Health Scheme

To the Honourable, the Speaker, and Members of the House of Representatives in Parliament The humble Petition of undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That the proposed ‘ free ‘ national health scheme is not free at all and will cost four out of five Australians more than the present scheme.

That the proposed scheme is discriminatory and a further erosion of the civil liberties of Australian citizens, particularly working wives and single persons.

That the proposed scheme is in fact a plan for nationalised medicine which will lead to gross waste and inefficiencies in medical services and will ultimately remove an individual’s right to choose his/her own doctor.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will take no measures to interfere with the basic principles of the existing health scheme which functions efficiently and economically.

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

Petition received.

Taxation: Education Expenses

The Petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully shows:

That the reduction of the allowable deduction of education expenses under Section 82J of the Income Tax Assessment Act from $400 to $150 is $50.00 below the 1956/57 figure.

That this reduction will impose hardships on many parents who have children attending school, whether nongovernment or government; and particularly on parents with more than one child at school.

That this reduction will further restrict the freedom available to parents to make a choice of school for their children.

That some parents who have chosen to send their children to a non-government school will have to withdraw their children and send them to government schools already overcrowded and under-staffed.

That the parents to benefit most relatively from educational income tax deductions, in the past and even more in the future, are the parents of children in government schools and this has a divisive effect in the Australian community.

That parents should be encouraged by the Australian Government to exercise freedom of choice of the type of school they wish for their children. The proposed reduction means an additional financial penalty is imposed on parents who try to exercise this choice and discourages them from making an important financial contribution to Australian education over and above what they contribute through taxation.

That an alternative system, a tax rebate system, could be adopted as being more equitable for all parents with children at school.

To compensate for the losses that will follow from the proposed reduction and to help meet escalating educational costs faced by all families your petitioners humbly pray that the House of Representatives in Parliament assembled should take immediate steps to restore educational benefits to parents, at least at the 1973/1974 level either by increasing taxation deductions or through taxation rebates.

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

Petition received.

Family Law Bill

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

That we strongly oppose the introduction of the Family Law Bill into our Australian Parliament.

That we believe it undermines in a totally unacceptable way the institution of marriage and accordingly right order in our Australian Society.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray and strongly urge that you will resist its becoming a law of Australia by opposing it in Parliament.

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

Petition received.

The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology

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

That the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology which has catered for tertiary needs of Melbourne for nearly 100 years is still without any location where students can gather in a social context

That a properly constituted meeting of students supported the policy of the elected Students’ Representative

Council that Union Facilities should be the First priority of the Institute.

That the S.R.C formulated a Definitive Plan that is an acceptable constructive and reasonable amendment to the present planning schedule at the Institute.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the House ask the Australian Commission on Advanced Education to consider in their 1976-78 Triennium Report on allocation of funds to ensure the provision of Union Facilities at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

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

Petition received.

page 2486

QUESTION

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

page 2486

QUESTION

PRIME MINISTER’S VISIT TO EUROPE

Mr LYNCH:
FLINDERS, VICTORIA

– Does the Prime Minister intend to undertake a visit to Europe of approximately 6 weeks beginning in December and including such countries as Russia, West Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom? Is the Prime Minister aware that the Australian public believes that the problems of inflation and unemployment are sufficiently serious to demand the full time attention of the Prime Minister and his senior Ministers? Will he, therefore, instruct the Minister for Foreign Affairs to undertake the European visit in his place or, at least, to undertake some proportion of the trip on his behalf? I might say by way of final comment that, of course, I do not question the right of, and need for, an Australian Prime Minister to travel abroad for purposes of consultation, but I do question it at this time.

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

-The visit will be of approximately 4 or 5 weeks. I cannot mention precisely at this time or in this place the countries that I shall be visiting but among them clearly will be the Soviet Union which for some time has been pressing for a visit, particularly since I have already visited the United States of America, Japan, China and Britain. Also I shall be visiting, as I said two days ago, the Common Market. I give my full-time attention to the affairs of this country whether I am in it or outside it. There are a very great number of matters which have to be dealt with outside the country and at my level. I should add that Mr Menzies, as he then was, and Mr Holt were away for just as many days as I have been away during the comparable periods after they became Prime Ministers.

page 2487

QUESTION

WOOMERA ROCKET RANGE

Mr WALLIS:
GREY, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the attention of the Minister for Defence been drawn to reports that the activities at the Woomera rocket range in South Australia are to be phased down and the range is to be placed in mothballs? Is there any substance in these reports? If so, what steps does the Government intend to take to safeguard the employment and other interests of the people now stationed at Woomera who are likely to be made redundant through any phasing down of operations at the rocket range? What effects are likely on other Weapons Research Establishment operations in South Australia?

Mr BARNARD:
Minister for Defence · BASS, TASMANIA · ALP

– It is not correct to say that the Woomera rocket range will be closed down but it has been evident for some time that the workload foreseen for the range after 1976 could not sustain the present level of operations there. The workload, of course, is primarily dependent on British requirements. It is not something over which the Australian Government has much control. The Government therefore has decided to run down range activities after that date but to hold instrumentation and facilities in readiness for revival. The whole operation will require a great deal of administrative and technical planning and consultation with the British who are our partners in the Woomera project. Woomera village will continue to operate, although probably at a reduced level. In particular staff who may be declared redundant will be deployed elsewhere in the Australian Public Service.

page 2487

QUESTION

PRIME MINISTER’S OVERSEAS VISIT

Mr PEACOCK:
KOOYONG, VICTORIA

-My question to the Prime Minister follows a question asked earlier by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. If the Prime Minister’s visits overseas are of such value to him will he inform the House, recognising that he is answerable to the House and to the Australian people for these visits? We would like to be informed.

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

-The visits I have made overseas are, of course, of benefit to me, but they are also of benefit to the country.

Mr Lynch:

– What about Niagara Falls?

Mr WHITLAM:

– I think the honourable gentleman would be too wet for that. There never has been a Prime Minister who has conducted such strenuous visits overseas as I have. There are very few spare moments during my visits. I make no apologies at all for going to Niagara Falls as guest of the Canadian and Ontario governments. I notice somebody was surprised I went to Williamsburg. A recent Prime

Minister spent four times the length of time at Williamsburg as I did. I do not remember any fuss about it. (Opposition members interjecting)-

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I will take the appropriate action immediately if there are these incessant interjections each time a Minister is answering a question. I call the Prime Minister.

Mr McMahon:

– I rise to order, Mr Speaker. While you are on your feet is the Minister for Labor and Immigration justified in pointing, pointing, pointing?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I call the Prime Minister.

Mr WHITLAM:

-The right honourable gentleman reminds me of some of the effigies at Williamsburg.

Mr Charles Jones:

- Mr Speaker, will you arrange to have -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I have not called the Minister. The Minister will resume his seat. I call the Prime Minister.

Mr WHITLAM:

– I have concluded my remarks.

page 2487

QUESTION

NATURAL GAS

Mr WILLIS:
GELLIBRAND, VICTORIA

– I address my question to the Minister for Minerals and Energy. Has the Minister noted the comments made in Melbourne earlier this week by the President of the International Gas Union, Mr Clark, to the effect that using natural gas to fuel power stations, as is proposed by the Victorian Government for the projected Newport power house, is a wasteful practice and justifiable only in the early years of development of a natural gas field? Can the Minister inform the House whether these comments by this world authority on energy are in line with the policy of the Australian Government? If so, can the Minister say whether the Australian Government is able to take any action to prevent the Victorian Government fuelling any future power stations with natural gas?

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

– The honourable member for Gellibrand raises a matter of national importance. Quite frankly, natural gas is a high premium fuel. It is a matter for regret that in a State such as Victoria, where an outstanding job is being done in the utilisation of its brown coal reserves- mark you, that utilisation was carried out under the auspices of a State government without the intervention of private enterprisethe State should, for some reason best known to itself, turn to the use on a major scale of natural gas for the generation of electricity. Not only is it a tragedy but also, in terms of economics, it is criminal to do so. Brown coal is in Victoria in tremendous quantities. It is possibly the largest deposit of lignite in the world. A brilliant technology has been developed over the years in that State that could be well used for that purpose.

While I am speaking I shall digress to make reference also the grandiose schemes for the reduction of iron ore in Western Australia by the utilisation of natural gas. If the steel were to be produced by these methods it would be the dearest steel in the world in terms of fuel cost. Natural gas has its use- a very real one- not only for domestic purposes but for general industry as well. In Australia, where our imports of crude oil will have risen in cost to between $680m and $750m this year, it is essential that natural gas should be utilised very carefully and specifically for the purpose of improving our energy usage by from 7 per cent to 21 per cent. Unfortunately we have no direct control over the State of Victoria, but whatever can be done by moral suasion and by reasoning with these people will be done for that purpose.

page 2488

QUESTION

BEEF EXPORTS

Mr SINCLAIR:
NEW ENGLAND, NEW SOUTH WALES

-Is the Prime Minister aware that yesterday the beef cattle market crashed to the lowest point for 30 years? If he has, as he apparently has, no intention of reporting to the Parliament on his overseas journey, will he now take steps to visit the cattle producing areas of northern Australia and elsewhere which are now subject to very real economic pressures as a result of this beef cattle market collapse? Will he in turn report to this Parliament on what steps he intends to take to help the industry?

Dr PATTERSON:
Minister for Northern Development · DAWSON, QUEENSLAND · ALP

– It is a fact that the Australian export cattle industry centred on northern Australia has always been in a precarious economic position. Firstly, it is a monoculture, unlike the cattle industry in southern Australia where cattle production is actually a series of enterprises complementary and supplementary to other forms of primary production. In northern Australia the land use is a specialist enterprise and virtually all of the cattle product has to be exported to precarious world markets. It is a fact, because of policies within Japan, which are related to its own domestic problems, because of over-supply of beef as a result of increased prices a year or so ago in the United States, that there are still large stocks of meat on hand in those countries that import beef from Australia. The Government recognises this problem. It has been active for some time now in consultation with the industry, particularly in the north, in an attempt to get the industry to take the initiative to bring forward proposals for some type of a stabilisaton scheme such as those of which other Australian industries have the benefit; that is, a scheme which will assist in stabilising producers’ incomes. Several years ago, when prices were, relatively speaking, very high, was the time when a stabilisation scheme should have been looked at to ensure the security of the industry when prices dropped at a later stage. This matter is under investigation. I can assure the Deputy Leader of the Australian Country Party that particularly in places like the Northern Territory, the Gulf country of Queensland and the Kimberleys this is a serious problem, but it is an inherent problem. It is a problem which has been faced by the cattle industry ever since it started in those areas.

page 2488

QUESTION

HOUSING INSURANCE

Mr THORBURN:
COOK, NEW SOUTH WALES

– Is the Minister for Housing and Construction aware of the widespread concern among home purchasers about the practice of lenders requiring borrowers to take out insurance with companies nominated by the lenders? Can he say whether any action is contemplated to protect the borrowers from this practice?

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

-The Government is concerned with this practice which has been in operation for a long time and which has the effect of requiring borrowers to pay insurance at a far higher premium rate than often is available from alternative sources. As a result of a large number of complaints and inquiries I have asked the Attorney-General for advice about this matter. He has indicated to me that section 47 of the Trade Practices Act, which prohibits exclusive dealing, empowers the Government to take action. This section is to take effect from 1 February next year. It will be possible, I understand, for lending institutions to apply for exemption from these provisions on the grounds of public benefit or public interest. I think honourable gentlemen would be aware that some of the lending institutions claim to derive benefit from the practice of being tied to insurance companies. In fact part of the arrangement involves the flow of funds into building societies and other lending institutions. In addition to that, the corporate body often receives the benefit of commission rates. I know that there would be some concern on the part of the terminating building societies if they were unable to obtain exemption as they are able to offset their overheads by the commission received from the insurance companies. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly the fact that, in these times, people should be free to choose their own insurance company. The Government is anxious to pursue that course. I have no doubt that many thousands of Australian home buyers will derive very great benefit from the operation of section 47 of the Trade Practices Act when it is given effect to on 1 February next year.

page 2489

QUESTION

EMPLOYMENT

Mr Kevin Cairns:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

-I direct my question to the Minister for Labor and Immigration. It is short. Without the effective direction of labour under his RED or NEAT schemes or the dole, will he guarantee full employment to the Australian work force, including school leavers, by March-April next year?

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

-The answer is no.

page 2489

QUESTION

PETROLEUM SUPPLIES

Mr CONNOR:
ALP

– The Royal Commission’s urgent special report on the petroleum position in north-west New South Wales and southern Queensland needs urgent consideration. For that purpose we believe that the various sectors of the petroleum industry- the major oil companies and the trade unions associated with marine and land transport- should be brought together so that we can get a co-ordination of effort, and goodwill and understanding.

Australia’s fuel demand is supplied essentially by local industry. There is a very small margin; there would not be more at any time than 14 days supply of petrol and the various distillates which are required. A further distorting factor is that the major oil refineries are located in Victoria and the major consumption is in New South Wales. Further problems arise from the fact that particular refineries are structured to deal with particular types of crude. So, industrial trouble, the shortage of tankers or even other matters such as bad weather can have a very serious and quick impact.

There is a need for a greater storage capacity. There is a need for a better transport system. In particular, there is an urgent need for a greater number of rail transport cars for this purpose. In addition to that, there is a need for more careful co-ordination. Let me deal with the attitude of particular companies. I might cite here the example of the Transport Commission of New South

Wales which called for tenders. The Ampol company was the successful tenderer. Under the products swapping arrangement the Commission was to get its supplies from Caltex. I had complaints- I think there was some substance in them- that Caltex in a period of shortage was more interested in supplying its own customers than those to whom it had obligations under the terms of the product-swap arrangement.

This is a matter which transcends matters of mere political advantage. It is essential that we should secure the fullest co-operation of all sectors of industry associated with the gathering of the crop and soil cultivation. We will take the same energetic steps to ensure that the situation is adequately covered as we did in December of last year and January of this year when we were able to solve the bunkering fuel shortage. Our action then enabled us to export successfully the Australian wheat crop.

page 2489

QUESTION

RETAILERS’ MARK-UP

Mr CHIPP:
HOTHAM, VICTORIA

– I ask the Prime Minister a question. I hope he will recognise it has the refreshing novelty of being non-political. My question concerns retailers’ mark-ups. It has particular reference to the reported profit of the Myer emporium, which exceeded $27m. I would like the Prime Minister to reaffirm that the activities of retail mark-ups do come within the scope of the Prices Justification Tribunal and the Joint Parliamentary Committe on Prices. If I presented evidence to the honourable gentleman that the company that I have mentioned bought a large quantity of cheese cloth blouses from India at $1.62 each and sold them over the counter for up to $8 each, would he have inquiries made to establish that this is a king sized rip off which benefits neither the Indian worker nor the Australian consumer? Would he agree that action such as this negates the intention of both the cottage industry imports scheme and the 25 per cent cut in tariffs which the Government introduced last year, and also seriously adds to inflation.

Mr WHITLAM:
ALP

– Any information the honourable gentleman has on such matters I will be very happy to process insofar as it comes within my jurisdiction. Such evidence can certainly be given directly to the Prices Justification Tribunal and would be relevant to the periodic inquiries it makes into retail profits. I would think also that the evidence can be given directly to the Prices Committee of the Parliament, which has members from both sides in each House. I would not presume to comment on the validity of the facts that the honourable gentleman expresses.

As I understand it, the very large profits of that company and of a few other companies are a factor of their very large scale of operations. They have to report regularly to the Prices Justification Tribunal on their operations. I have no doubt that the Prices Justification Tribunal within the limits of the time scale in which it has to operate and the staff available to it, does its very best to check these matters. I shall be very happy to pass on any information that the honourable gentleman gives to me.

page 2490

QUESTION

ELECTORAL: OFFICIALS AND VOTING BOOTHS

Mr REYNOLDS:
BARTON, NEW SOUTH WALES

-My question is directed to the Minister for Services and Property. The Minister will recall the very difficult conditions imposed on divisional returning officers and their permanent and temporary staff at the last elections in May. Does he also recall the use of rather unsatisfactory makeshift voting booths caused by the emergency situation associated with the double dissolution? I ask the Minister if action has been taken or is likely to be taken to remedy these unsatisfactory conditions? Can he also indicate that the status and remuneration of electoral officials, permanent and temporary, have been or are likely to be increased so as to be more commensurate with their responsibilities and work load?

Mr DALY:
Minister for Services and Property · GRAYNDLER, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– I think the honourable member for Barton will agree that the last election made unprecedented demands on the staff of the Australian Electoral Office. First, there was an election for the Senate and in some cases the number of candidates was a record. In addition to that there were 4 referendum questions and an election for the House of Representatives. That, unprecedented event imposed demands on the staff to which they responded remarkably well, I think. But it was inevitable that certain arrangements had to be made to meet this situation and one of them was that the Government called in a firm of consultants. In co-operation with the Chief Electoral Officer, Mr Ley, certain arrangements were made for additional booths and in the circumstances I think they worked reasonably well. I am not unmindful of the fact that the Electoral Office has been a neglected office after a long period in office of those who sit opposite, and probably other governments for that matter. The Electoral Office has in effect been looked upon as the Cinderella department when in fact it ranks in a democracy as possibly the most important because the highest degree of integrity is required of its staff. The Office renders to parliament > people services for which it gets little crt many people.

I have endeavoured to remedy this situation and I have supported increases in remuneration for all sections of the Australian Electoral Office. The Government is in the course of building up not only the remuneration of the staff but also improving the facilities available, the staffing of the office and all that goes with it. Recently W. D. Scott and Co., a firm of consultants, was commissioned to investigate and bring back a speedy report on all facilities and conditions associated with the Electoral Office. It has visited all parts of Australia and asked for submissions from the leaders of all political parties in this Parliament. I am hopeful that individual members of the Parliament and the Opposition parties generally will co-operate with the company. I think that we will not only improve the status and efficiency of the organisation but also in every other respect there will be an improvement all round of benefit to the public and members of the Parliament. I am hopeful of that co-operation being given. I am also hopeful that out of this will come a more efficient system, more happy staffing arrangements and in every way an uplifting of the status and efficiency generally of the Australian Electoral Office.

page 2490

QUESTION

CAPITAL GAINS TAX

Mr ADERMANN:
FISHER, QUEENSLAND

– My question, which is addressed to the Treasurer, deals with the Treasurer’s Budget announcement and explanatory paper on the capital gains tax, and the fact that it will operate from valuation day, 17 September. Is it reasonable for the Treasurer to announce such a tax which is already operative before many very vital details in relation to it have been announced or even worked out? Is it a fact that as yet no decision has been made about disposal of depreciated assets and about assets under section 75 and section 76 of the Income Tax Assessment Act? Is it also a fact that it has not yet been decided whether provisional tax will apply to capital gains? When will those details be announced? When will we know the answers? Is it reasonable to introduce a tax that will operate retrospectively before announcing the details of it?

Mr CREAN:
Treasurer · MELBOURNE PORTS, VICTORIA · ALP

– The honourable member has put a lot of technical information into a single question. All I suggest is that we thought it prudent to announce the particular date from which this tax will operate, that is, the valuation day. That is the single, most essential matter to be determined. I issued a memorandum which explained broadly enough the areas in which the tax is to operate. It indicated that the Bill in its final form had not yet been drawn, and the various matters that the honourable member has mentioned in his question are under consideration.

page 2491

QUESTION

ROAD SAFETY

Mr McKenzie:
Diamond Valley · ALP

– My question is directed to the Minister for Transport. In view of the continuing terrible cost of road accidents in terms of human suffering and finance, and the recommendation of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Road Safety in its first report, can the Minister inform the House when it is intended to establish the proposed National Road Safety Authority so that the present largely unco-ordinated approach to road safety can be tackled at a national level?

Mr CHARLES JONES:
ALP

-As far as the proposed National Road Safety Authority is concerned, the point has been reached where the Cabinet has decided that it should be located at Albury-Wodonga. We are having discussions with the Department of Urban and Regional Development as to its exact location. What I want to do is to establish it in conjunction with other transport modes so that there will be a complete transport operation. Whether it is to be adjacent to the railway siding that is being built at Albury-Wodonga or whether it is to be adjacent to the airport, which I hope is to be relocated, are some of the things that are being examined at the present moment. As far as cost is concerned, it will cost something like $10m or $12m. It will deal with road safety, the standard of vehicles, emission control and that type of thing. It is well advanced. All we have to do is get a priority for it. After the Minister for Urban and Regional Development and I have determined the exact location in Albury-Wodonga, it will be a case of getting a priority for it, having in mind that the Minister for Services and Property has announced that already something like, I think, ISO Bills have to be disposed of during this session.

Mr Cohen:

– What about putting it up at the top.

Mr CHARLES JONES:

-It is not a question of putting it up at the top. It is a question of getting it in its correction location. This is important. As far as I am concerned we want to regard the proposed Authority as part of the total transport complex, an objective which is in accord with the policy of the Government.

page 2491

QUESTION

FUEL SHORTAGE ON NORTH COAST OF NEW SOUTH WALES

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975

-I direct my question to the Prime Minister and refer to the critical fuel shortage on the north coast of New South Wales where service stations at Coffs Harbour, Grafton and many other centres are dry, causing chaos for all sections fo the community in that area. In view of the answer given earlier today by the Minister for Minerals and Energy, I now ask the Prime Minister: In view of the fact that the Royal Commission detailed no action to overcome fuel shortages quickly through rationalisation of deliveries, will he immediately take action to set up an emergency committee involving the oil companies, distributors and sellers in order to speed deliveries and so protect the livelihood of many Australians affected by this crisis in the areas where fuel supplies are now exhausted?

Mr CONNOR:
ALP

– The honourable member is either deaf or he does not want to hear. I suggested that precisely such a committee would be set up, and set up immediately. I also refer the honourable member to the full text of the urgency report which has been received from the Royal Commission where the remedial measures that would be taken are clearly outlined. They are quite adequate and there for the first time in that report is a complete, factual and unbiased analysis of the combination of reasons which have created the situation.

Mr Ian Robinson:
COWPER, NEW SOUTH WALES · CP; NCP from May 1975

– What about the petrol?

Mr CONNOR:

-You will get it.

page 2491

QUESTION

PARLIAMENT

Mr KERIN:
MACARTHUR, NEW SOUTH WALES

– I direct my question to the Leader of the House. In light of the fact that the Australian Parliament is one of the few major national parliaments whose procedures have not been thoroughly reviewed for over 20 years and having regard to the Government’s decision to seek advice from the Royal Commission into the Public Service on parliamentary scrutiny and control of the Administration, I ask the Minister whether he will consider establishig a special committee of this House with substantial back bench representation to consider and report on methods of improving consideration of legislation and oversight of government activity by this House?

Mr DALY:
ALP

– I think that the suggestion of the honourable member for Macarthur would meet with the general support and approval of this Parliament. It is true to say that it is some time since there was a review of procedures. Of course one factor to be considered is that Parliament still functions under almost the same conditions as it did when the membership of the House was about 75 members. The membership has almost doubled and the procedures have become somewhat complicated. I would like to advise the honourable member, though, that a major review of the procedures of the House was undertaken in the early 1960s and that this culminated in extended alterations of the Standing Orders effective as from 1963.

A joint committee has recently been established to inquire into, report and make recommendations for a balanced system of committees for the Parliament and its integration into the procedures of the Parliament. I might suggest that that committee could well give consideration to the factors that the honourable member has mentioned. I think that the proposal that the committee should take the suggestions outlined in the honourable member’s question within the scope of its activities is one which would be worthy of consideration. If his suggestions were submitted to that committee I have no doubt that in the course of deciding how the committee system should work, the question of the proceedings of this Parliament must inevitably be covered. I therefore naturally support the suggestion of an inquiry. I would suggest to the honourable member that he might take into consideration what I have suggested and refer this matter to the committee during the course of its deliberations. That action may bring about the desired results.

page 2492

QUESTION

BROADCASTING OF WEATHER FORECASTS

Mr STREET:
CORANGAMITE, VICTORIA

-My question is directed to the Minister for Science. Does the Minister agree that weather forecasts broadcast from radio stations and those issued for aircraft and marine operations play a most valuable role in preserving life and property in times of natural disaster and in the safety of the day to day air and sea operations over and around Australia? If so, why has it been decided to cut down the number of daily weather forecasts? Has he consulted with his colleague the Minister for Transport on the safety aspects of this decision? How much does the Minister intend charging radio stations for the privilege of broadcasting weather forecasts? Will the Australian Broadcasting Commission be charged the same amount?

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · ST GEORGE, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– There is no question of cutting down on weather forecasting or the broadcasting of forecasts. The intention is to rationalise present programs. There is no question of charging broadcasting companies for the material they use. If the honourable member has any particular questions that he wants pursued I shall be happy to oblige him.

page 2492

QUESTION

COAL MINERS

Mrs CHILD:
HENTY, VICTORIA

– My question which is addressed to the Minister for Minerals and Energy follows on his statement to the House the day before yesterday that Australia’s coal export trade is increasing rapidly. Can the Minister tell the House what steps are proposed to recruit and train coal miners who will be needed in excess of those that we now have in order to cope with the increase in the coal export trade?

Mr CONNOR:
ALP

-I am indebted to the honourable member for her question. There is a very urgent need to relate an increase in the labour force in the coal industry not merely to our prospects but also to the certainty of substantial increases in the export of coal. For that purpose there are 3 alternative avenues. The first is to induce men who are trained and experienced miners to return to the industry. The second one obviously is to recruit young men to come into the industry, to upgrade it and to give them the certainty of a career. The third one, of course, in default of a sufficient number being available from either of those sources would be to recruit from overseas skilled miners from the traditional mining counties in the north of the United Kingdom. In respect of the first group, I have already approached the Miners Federation and put the position to it. I have removed for all time the fundamental fear that it has had of a redundancy of labour. We have had information from the Japanese as to their exact requirements. We will step by step and in close co-ordination with them expand production from our existing mines and, where necessary, we will open new ones.

We need to attract to the industry men who normally could be going into other trades. We need to explain to them that there are excellent opportunities in what will be the most important industry in Australia. Let me remind the House that during World War I men who were skilled coal miners were brought back from the trenches. Today, more than ever, we depend heavily in Australia: -

Mr Lynch:

– I raise a point of order. With the greatest respect to the Minister, may I draw to the attention of the Chair the fact that this Minister has been on his feet for a series of Dorothy Dixers throughout all of question time today.

Mr SPEAKER:

-There is no point of order.

Mr Lynch:

– Specifically, Mr Speaker, you have previously asked Ministers to be reasonably brief in their answers. I think this Minister has in fact shown contempt for the chair.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I can only request Ministers to make their answers to questions as brief as possible. I have no jurisdiction over the length of an answer. I can only make a request.

Mr CONNOR:

– I am not interested in sour grapes. There are 18,500 black-coal miners in Australia. On present prospects we will need to add at least 50 per cent to that number. We will take the necessary action to do so, despite the cynicism, the contempt, the frustration and the sabotage that will undoubtedly come from the Opposition.

page 2493

QUESTION

UNEMPLOYMENT RELIEF

Mr HODGES:
PETRIE, QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister for Labor and Immigration. Notwithstanding the fact that some work of a grass clipping nature was carried out, does the Minister consider the method of distribution of funds for unemployment relief in 1972-73 was made on a needs basis and therefore satisfactory? Why has this method been departed from and why have committees set up by some States to examine projects and allocate funds virtually been ignored? Does the Minister concede that some Labor Party political patronage has taken place under the regional employment development scheme with the ad hoc allocation of funds?

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– There are many honourable members on the other side of the House who will support me when I say that there has been no political patronage shown by the RED Ministers and I -

Mr Hodges:

– What about Ipswich?

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! What about you?

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I say again what I said the week before last. Honourable members from both sides of the House have been extremely helpful in providing programs to the RED Ministers. The honourable members from the Country Party corner who represent areas most affected by regional unemployment have been particularly helpful, and I pay tribute to them all for the way they have assisted. I would challenge any person to say truthfully in this Parliament that the RED Ministers have shown any favouritism as between one area and another. We have not rejected one single project that has complied with the criteria set down by the Ministers and which have been published for everyone to see. Ipswich, which was mentioned by way of interjection, was one of the places which presented its projects attractively, giving all the information that was needed. Its case was backed up, as many other projects have been, by members from both sides of the House, with very compelling representations from the Minister for Social Security, who presented an excellent case. The case was irresistible. I am glad to have this opportunity, by way of answering the interjection, to place on public record the deep appreciation which the RED Ministers have for the able manner in which the honourable member for Ox;ey has looked after his area.

We are not satisfied with the way the previous scheme was operated. It was not operated according to need as we see it. We are not prepared to spend public money on chipping grass as was the case previously. We are not prepared to denigrate unemployed people by putting them in a position where they become little more than members of a chain gang. That is not what we intend to do. We want people to maintain their dignity and to feel proud of the fact that they have been chosen to engage in one of the RED programs because the RED programs will give to certain areas social benefits that they would not have received for perhaps another 50 or 60 years. We are proud of the RED scheme. The people who are working under it are proud to be working under it. The local government councils are proud to be associated with it, and the members of this Parliament, I am pleased to say, are proud, as they have every right to be, of the way they have contributed to the success of the scheme.

page 2493

QUESTION

PARLIAMENT

Dr KLUGMAN:
PROSPECT, NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is addressed to you, Mr Speaker. I draw your attention to an advertisement appearing on page 11 of today’s ‘Australian Financial Review’. It is an advertisement illustrated with a picture of a former Prime Minister, the right honourable member for Lowe. The wording below and adjacent to the picture states, inter alia: ‘Money-back guarantee ‘ and ‘your money back at any time within 12 months if you are not entirely satisfied’. I realise that the reference is probably to the contents of a book which is illustrated with the picture of the right honourable member for Lowe. But I was wondering, Mr Speaker, whether you would look at the matter from the point of view of contempt of Parliament.

Mr McMahon:

– And from my point of view too, Sir.

Mr SPEAKER:

-This matter will be considered.

page 2494

AUSTRALIAN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

Mr CONNOR:
ALP

– (Cunninham-Minister for Minerals and Energy)- Pursuant to section 3 1 of the Atomic Energy Act 1953-1973 I present for the information of honourable members the 22nd annual report of the Australian Atomic Energy Commission.

page 2494

SUPERANNUATION BOARD

Mr CREAN (Melbourne PortsTreasurer)Pursuant to section 134 of the Superannuation Act 1922-1974 1 present the annual report of the Superannuation Board for the year ended 30 June 1974.

page 2494

HOUSING LOANS INSURANCE CORPORATION

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
Special Minister of State · KingsfordSmithSpecial Minister of State · ALP

– Pursuant to section 39 (3) of the Housing Loans Insurance Act 1965-1973 I present the annual report of the Housing Loans Insurance Corporation for the year ended 30 June 1974, together with financial statements and the Auditor-General’s report on those statements.

page 2494

COMPENSATION AND REHABILITATION IN AUSTRALIA

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
KingsfordSmithSpecial Minister of State · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present volume 3 of the report of the National Committee of Inquiry into Compensation and Rehabilitation in Australia together with a brief statement by the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation on that document.

page 2494

INTERNATIONAL LAW

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
KingsfordSmithSpecial Minister of State · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present the text of a statement by the Attorney-General and the following documents entitled:

Summary of papers and discussion of a meeting on international trade law.

Report of the Australian delegation to a United Nations conference to adopt a Convention on the Limitation Period in the International Sale of Goods.

Explanatory memorandum on a Convention on the Limitation Period in the International Sale of Goods.

page 2494

HOME SAVINGS GRANTS

Mr Les Johnson:
Minister for Housing and Construction · HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present an interim statement on the operations of the Home Savings Grants Scheme for the year ended 30 June 1974.

When the final report is available it will be pre.sented in accordance with statutory requirements.

page 2494

AIR ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REPORT

Mr CHARLES JONES:
Minister for Transport · Newcastle · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present the Department of Transport, Air Safety Investigation Branch, accident investigation report on the collision between a De Havilland Dove and Twin Comanche aircraft near Bankstown, New South Wales, on 13 March 1974. Due to the limited number of copies available I have arranged for copies of this report to be placed in the Parliamentary Library.

page 2494

AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF MAKINE SCIENCE

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · St George · ALP

– Pursuant to section 44(3) of the Australian Institute of Marine Science Act 1972 I present the report of the Council of the Institute of Marine Science for the year 1973-74 together with financial statements and the report of the Auditor-General on those statements.

page 2494

ORGANISATION FOR ECONOMIC CO-OPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · St George · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I present the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Examiners’ Report on Science and Technology in Australia, together with a statement by the Minister for Minerals and Energy on the subject.

page 2494

AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING COMMISSION

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · St George · ALP

– In accordance with the provisions of section 78 of the Broadcasting and Television Act 1 942-73 1 lay upon the table the forty-second annual report of the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

page 2494

AUSTRALIAN FILM DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · St George · ALP

– In accordance with the provision of section 28 of the Australian Film Development Corporation Act 1970 I lay upon the table the fourth annual report of the Australian Film Development Corporation.

page 2495

DEPARTMENT OF THE MEDIA

Mr MORRISON:
Minister for Science · St George · ALP

– For the information of honourable members I lay upon the table the second annual report of the Department of the Media.

page 2495

APPLICATIONS FOR PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN AUSTRALIA

Mr SPEAKER:

-The indulgence of the chair is granted to the Minister for Labour and Immigration to enable him to clarify a matter.

Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I thank you, Mr Speaker. In my answer to question on notice No. 363 from the Leader of the Oppositionan answer circulated on 18 September 1974 -it was stated in part (1) that in the period January to June 1 974, 65 persons had applied for migrant entry from Indonesia. In part 2 it was stated that 1,5 17 persons had been approved for migrant entry to Australia from India. I am now advised that regrettably an error occurred in the preparation of the answer to the right honourable member’s question and that the figures referred to should have been 598 and 1,096 respectively.

page 2495

BILLS RETURNED FROM THE SENATE

The following Bills were returned from the Senate without amendment:

States Grants Bill 1974.

Adelaide to Crystal Brook Railway Bill 1 974.

Tarcoola to Alice Springs Railway Bill 1 974.

page 2495

REMUNERATION TRIBUNALS BILL 1974

Assent reported.

page 2495

QUESTION

WIDOWERS AND DESERTED HUSBANDS

Mr WENTWORTH:
Mackellar

– I move:

That, in the opinion of this House, some provision should be made for assistance to widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children.

We have a system of social services in Australia which has been progressively improved over the years. This has gone on under governments from both sides of the House. Nevertheless there are still and there always will be, I think, gaps in our system which should be filled progressively by new and improved services. While I was Minister for Social Services I believe I filled some of these gaps. Others I should like to have filled. Honourable members will notice that I have on the notice paper today 5 motions which relate to gaps in our social services structure. I have moved the first of these motions because I believe it is the most urgent. The things which I have put on the notice paper are the things which I would have recommended as Minister had I so continued. I cannot, of course, guarantee that our Government would have carried them out, but I believe it would.

The next cab on the rank, and one which I would have hoped to have moved off the rank earlier, was the matter of help for widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children. These are people who really deserve the sympathy of the House and of the country. I want us to consider the position of the young husband with children whose wife has suddenly died. He has lost his wife. He now may have to face up to the breakup of his family. If he remains in employment who is to look after his young children? Unless he has a fairly big salary he cannot afford a housekeeper. He may be lucky enough to have a mother or a sister who will come to his aid and housekeep for him. Some are fortunate in this regard; some are not. But young husbands whose wives have suddenly died find themselves in this appalling predicament. They have lost their wife- that is perhaps as big a tragedy as can occur to any man- and they then find the position compounded by the fact that their young children cannot be kept at home because they have not the means to do so. This is an appalling position in which no Australian should be placed. It is, I think, a shame to all of us that it has not been remedied previously.

Then there is another class of people, not quite so tragic perhaps but tragic enough nevertheless. I refer to the deserted husband with young children. I say with some regret- unfortunately the statistics establish this- that although the deserted husband with young children was comparatively rare a few decades ago, he is now becoming more common. He suffers the loss of a wife- perhaps not the same tragedy as the loss of a wife by death, but still a tragedy, and in some cases almost as severe for him. He is then faced with the same possibility that his family will be broken up because there is no financial means to support it. If, as I said, he has a relative to housekeep for him maybe he can cope, but not all have that assistance.

What are the numbers of these people? In the last census some figures were taken out on families where husbands did not have wives and there were dependent children under 21 years of age. There were 12,000 families where there was one such dependent child; 7,000 families where there were 2 such dependent children; 3,500 families where there were 3 dependent children; 1,500 families where there were 4 dependent children; and 1,000 families where there were S or more children thus dependent. In round figures there were 25,000 families and 50,000 children involved. That means that there are 75,000 Aus- tralians-25,000 of them adults, 50,000 of them children- who are thus suffering. They deserve immediate relief. I do not say for one moment that nothing has been done by the present Government. I shall be as factual as I can about this and I hope to approach it in a non-partisan spirit because this is a proposal which, as I said, I believe we should have introduced when we were the Government. I believe we would have done it last year if we had remained in government and I believe it should be done here and now.

I know that special arrangements have been made by this Government and I give it credit for the maintenance of children in institutions. This has helped. But it is not quite what the young husband who wants to keep his children with him would prefer. I know that provisions have been in the Act for a long time for the application of what is known as a special benefit which is given in cases of hardship and in accordance with rather severe departmental practice. The Minister for Social Security (Mr Hayden) issued a statement, I think last August, in regard to this and I was hopeful that it would have presaged a relaxation of departmental practices in this regard. I hope still that it will. But it is still not quite what is wanted, I suppose for 2 reasons. Firstly, there is a discretionary aspect in the granting of such benefit which is not really suitable for the kind of federal bureaucracy which we have. Secondly, it is not given as a right; people have to beg for it and establish special hardship. The granting of the benefit would seem to be incompatible with the maintenance of any kind of employment. I say that there is provision under the Social Services Act for a more generous administration of this special benefit, but even if it were administered in that way I do not think that it would quite meet the case. I shall not take up further time of the House by emphasising the plight of these people and that something should be done to help them.

I now come to the question of what should be done. The first and most readily available remedy would be to make such fathers eligible for widow pensions on the same basis as women with dependent children are thus eligible. I think this could be supported as an interim measure for 2 reasons: Firstly, it is logical in these days of women’s lib that we should not have discrimination against men. If a widow with dependent children is eligible for financial help should not a man similarly situated also be eligible? I find that this is not altogether a watertight argument because if one followed it to its natural conclusion one would say that a widower without dependent children should be eligible in the same way as a widow without dependent children. I do not think any of us would say that. There are differences in earning capacities and family practices, but still there is some logical basis for introducing this benefit as an interim measure.

Secondly, as honourable members know, there have been deputations to this House by representatives of the Supporting Fathers Association and they have asked for this as a first measure. Because it is readily available and could be done quickly I think that this should be done here and now. I believe that here and now we should make widowers with dependent children eligible for pensions on the same basis as widows with dependent children. But I would regard this as an interim measure and not a completely satisfactory one. It has its defects, particularly by reason of the operation of the present means test which would reduce the capacity of a family getting pension relief to receive additional income. I shall give the top limits for the payment of any kind of pension- the bar, as it were, beyond which you cannot proceed if you take any advantage at all of the pension. For a one child family it is $100 a week; 2 children $110; for 3 children $120; 4 children $130; and 5 children $140. These levels are something above starvation wages.

Such payments are helpful to those right at the bottom of the scale, but it is not satisfactory. I do not think that anybody would really say that a 5 child family on $140 a week is doing very well indeed. This is particularly so because of the peculiar situation of the widower or deserted husband. If he is working he has to have some kind of housekeeping arrangements unless some of his children are old enough to sustain the burden of housekeeping themselves. Housekeepers would cost money, and even some kinds of ad hoc arrangements would cost money. So I would regard this proposal not as a satisfactory solutionit is not- but as an immediate interim measure which should be introduced here and now. It is not good enough simply to maintain the special benefit provisions, for the reasons that I have given. I appeal to the Government to do this immediately and, perhaps, to amend the Bill relating to social services, which is before the House for consideration, to include a provision of this character. Under the provisions of the

Constitution I could not move such an amendment to the Bill. But I ask the Minister for Social Security whether he would consider moving, when that social services Bill is being debated, an amendment which would put the widower or deserted husband with dependent children on the same footing as the widow with dependent children.

As I have said, I do not regard this as the final or even a fully satisfactory solution. It does not meet the position of the man who needs to go out to work if his children are to be raised above what is in reality a threshhold starvation level. Nevertheless, it will be of immediate relief. Even if it allows a little income for the men who work to enable their children to be home at weekends, that would be something.

Let us look at this from a human point of view and remember that a man who has lost his wife should not be subject to the additional strain of having his young family broken up. For the future, I believe that our policy has to be tied up with a review of the means test as it applies to widows with dependent children. Honourable members will recall that I have on the notice paper at present a proposal to debate exactly that position. I will not have time to deal with it now. But it does seem to me that we have to be looking at the widow with dependent children as well as the widower and that the means test as it applies to the widow as well as the widower is defective and in need of fundamental overhaul.

The question will be asked: Where is the money to come from? That is a very reasonable question. I do point out to the House that the position now with respect to the Budget is quite different from what it was even a few months ago. A few months ago, we were worried as we should have been with the over liquidity of the banking system. It was leading to inflation. Because of that fact, we did not want to run a Federal deficit which would add to the liquidity of the banking system and increase inflationary pressures. This was a natural brake on the activities of our Government when we were in power and it should have been a natural brake on the activities of this new Government in its early months of office. But the situation has now changed.

We do not want to detract from the liquidity of the banking system; we want to add to it If we are to avoid wholesale bankruptcy, the banking system has to be made more liquid. There are many ways of doing this. This is not the time for me to go into them. I hope to discuss them further at another stage. There are many ways of beating slumpflation, or of beating the present slump, by adding to the liquidity of the banking system. This can be done by the bills market, by open market operations, by Federal deficit or by lender of last resort. There are a number of options. One of the ways of achieving this is to have an increased Federal deficit. This may be a desirable thing in its own right now as a means of adding to the liquidity of the banking system. It is one means, but not the only means, of adding to the liquidity of the banking system and preventing the wholesale bankruptcy which will occur if we do not restore liquidity to the banking system.

I would say that the financial brakes which, only a few months ago, might have been quite reasonable, are not reasonable today. In this context one needs perhaps the accelerator rather than the brake. For that reason, I believe that here and now we could make widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children eligible for pensions on the same basis as women who are widowed or deserted. Do it now, even though it is only an interim measure and even though more fundamental matters should be dealt with when we come to revise the structure of our social services. As an interim measure, please, Mr Minister, do it now. Put this provision into the social services Bill which awaits the consideration of the House now. I cannot move an amendment to that Bill, because of the provisions of the Constitution, but you can. Mr Minister, will you do it now, please? These people need help. They deserve help. I think that their area of need represents the biggest gap in the whole system.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. Is the motion seconded?

Mr Kevin Cairns:
LILLEY, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I second the motion and, with considerable doubt, reserve my right to speak later.

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security · Oxley · ALP

– I would agree with the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth), who has just spoken, that the subject of the needs of widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children is one which gives most people in the community considerable cause for worry. We want to make sure that not only these people but also all people in the community who suffer adversity, whether it is a crisis need or something more deepseated than that, can feel secure in the knowledge that a system of support is available. Financial support may be what is needed. It can be physical service if that is appropriate. It could be a combination of both if that further alternative is appropriate. In most cases it is that additional alternative which is the most likely need.

The honourable member for Mackellar was Minister for Social Services for S years between 1968 and 1972. He would recognise that it is not easy to select all of the priorities which should be supported and to take action immediately to see that they are adequately supported, and that the programs are instituted. After all, limited resources are available to any government to meet unlimited demands. I feel some embarrassment about mentioning that rather simple point again, but I think that it needs to be stated as a reference point in this discussion.

May I make the observation in passing that I found the concluding remarks by the honourable member not without their irony. He was advocating that the Australian Government should now move into a position of deficit budgeting. He, among others, in the Opposition were not so many days ago- not weeks ago, not months ago but not so many days ago- condemning this Government for having too great a provision of expenditure in the public sector. Today it is convenient for him to argue that there should be a greater proportion of such expenditure. I guess that next week he will be arguing the opposite again. In any case, the point I am making is that we have these competing demands and it is difficult to make the choice of which is the priority at the moment.

I would throw the question open to discussion by any member of the Parliament. I ask them: Which of these priorities that we have so far chosen in the social welfare area would they argue should not have been chosen so that some other action could have replaced what we did? I refer first to the allowance for handicapped children. That was a long time coming, was it not? But we introduced it. The honourable member for Mackellar, who was Minister for Social Services for 5 years, took no initiative in that respect. I mention next the double orphans’ allowance which surely is something which was well and truly overdue in this country. Its absence was a blot on the social conscience of this community. We introduced this allowance- it is now $11 a week- for children, both of whose parents are dead or one of whose parents is dead and the whereabouts of the other parent is not known. I repeat: We introduced this allowance. I do not think that anybody would suggest for a moment that these priorities should not have been acted upon.

A little later, I want to go through the range of priorities that we have taken up. I will challenge honourable members on both sides of the House, in the friendliest way possible, to indentify which of those priorities we have taken up we should not have taken up. As the honourable member who has just resumed his seat would know better than anyone else in the House, it is difficult to get these priorities included in the range of competing priorities that must be financed from the limited resources available to any government. He knows, I repeat, because he was the Minister for Social Services at the time of the 1968 Budget. I wonder if honourable members would mind if I reminded them of what the then Treasurer, a subsequent Prime Minister who had a disastrous fall from grace in office, said in that Budget Speech on 13 August 1968- words which would have been included at the direction of the then Minister for Social Services. He said:

The Government is aware of the difficulties that can be faced by widowers of relatively small means who are left to care for a family of young children. It is hoped that measures of relief for these widowers will be formulated and announced soon.

So the issue was taken up, as the former Minister for Social Services said. What he neglected to conclude his remarks with was that the issue was quickly put down again. If the matter is as easily concluded as he suggests, I wonder why he did not take .the opportunity of asserting his position then with the full support of his Government to carry to the final conclusion the promise which was included in that 1968 Budget.

I say the Government is sympathetic about the position of the people we are talking about today- the widowers and deserted fathers, either of whom have dependent children. It has not neglected them. As the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth) pointed out, the Government pays special benefits. Sure, it is a tighter means test than applies for pensions, but it is an easier means test than applied under his administration. I am reviewing the whole system of special benefits at the present time to make it a simpler arrangement and to make it a more liberal arrangement in terms of establishing eligibility, and that is consistent with things that I have done in the short time I have been Minister for Social Security. But that is not good enough; I concede that freely. The Government wants to go further than this. One of the things that has consistently worried me is the proliferation of benefits of various types, the categorisation of these types of benefits under the Social Services Act. There is a whole range, widows class A, widows class B, widows class C. Then there are unemployment benefits, sickness benefits, long term and short term benefits, the different types of pensions. Then there were some odious requirements about people of good moral character being eligible. This was a criterion for getting a pension, a condition of eligibility. These things are in the Act and the honourable member might know that these, among a number of other things, represent change because I am having them excised from the Act. I find them quite odious.

We have this situation of proliferation. We have had a situation of different rates of payment for people with somewhat similar conditions of need. The Government moved fairly quickly to overcome this sort of uneveness. Additionally, there are different means tests, different rates of payments, the categorisation. It is all very confusing for the public. How the heck they ever work their way through this system has always been beyond my comprehension. I do not think it is any secret to the honourable member for Mackellar or anyone else in this House, because I have said it ofter enough before. The Social Welfare Committee of the Government under the distinguished and inspiring leadership of the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) has a working party thoroughly researching a system of guaranteed income. The Government is not saying it is proposing to do it; it has been doing it for some time. In my inimitable way I have written a paper which perhaps is not as over-powering as the persuasiveness of my claims on the Regional Employment and Development scheme as outlined by the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) today, but at least it is a concrete contribution. The Government has other working papers. It intends to broaden the way in which it will carry out this inquiry. Believe me, there are some technical problems about this because of the mess the Social Services Act is in, and I put there in parenthesis that I do not condemn previous Ministers for that; it was an evolutionary development. But the time is right now to bring the pension benefits together in a simpler, more easily understood form, and I would suggest a much more liberal arrangement.

At the present time the Government is investigating ways of trying to get a guaranteed income scheme. I do not want to go over the range of possibilities here, but I do want to refer very quickly to negative income tax, an area which the Government has quite diligently explored. It would be an ideal scheme for this country or for any country if it could be brought in, but there are administrative problems. We do not have family income provisions, for instance.

There would be difficulties about administering it for a range of reasons which should surely present themselves immediately, at least to members of this House. But it would seem there is also a possible constitutional barrier in the way of introducing negative income tax. There are limits as to which categories of people in need we can provide benefits for under the Constitution. Accordingly, the advice I have is that there may be a very big and a very real barrier: There may be a constitutional barrier. In any case, the Government is exploring this area and when it brings in this system of guaranteed income it will cover people such as widows, widowers and deserted fathers with dependent children. The Government is working on it and a lot of progress has been made. At the same time, I should put on record the excellent work being carried out in this field by Professor Henderson. So there will be a range of proposals which can be explored and Australia in the not too distant future should have a system of guaranteed income.

There are a few factual things I ought to put on record here too in relation to the proposals of the honourable member for Mackellar. Cost: The cost of expanding the widows pension scheme to cover these people would be .at least $3Sm, on the conservative estimates of the Department of Social Security. Now, it is not possible to have precise estimates, but there it is. It is in writing and it is the best that can be done in the circumstances. Who would be eligible if we were to expand the widows pension scheme to cover-

Mr Chipp:

– A point of order, Mr Speaker. Can I ask the Minister to table the document from which he just quoted? He said he had a document from the Department on the costing in writing.

Mr HAYDEN:

-No, I do not have it here; it is in my office. The honourable member might remember that before it was updated he found a copy of it somewhere or other and indicated that tome.

Mr Chipp:

– I am sorry, I press the question.

Mr HAYDEN:

-No, I am not tabling it.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! If the Minister is quoting from a document, unless he actually claims it is a classified document he must produce it.

Mr Chipp:

– But he has not done that, Mr Speaker. He is not claiming confidentiality. He has quoted from the document. I now ask for it to be tabled in accordance with Standing Orders.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I have not quoted from a document. I said it was a costing carried out by my Department. The honourable member does not know whether it was conveyed to me verbally or how it was conveyed. If the honourable member instead of making a fool of himself at the moment puts a queston on notice I will answer it for him.

Mr Chipp:

– I do not know if there is any necessity for the Minister to get abusive. Hansard will clearly show that the Minister said he had an estimate from his Department in writing.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister is not actually quoting from a document, therefore there is no point of order involved.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I am quoting now on another matter, the income eligibility limits of these men we are talking about if the widows pension scheme were to be expanded to cover them. The figures are somewhat higher than the honourable member for Mackellar outlined to the House and, of course, there were some changes last night For a widower with one child the income limit would be $107 a week, with 2 children $124, with 3 children $141, with 4 children $158, with 5 children $175. Now, there are a lot of questions of equity raised in this sort of thing which I think would readily present themselves to honourable members’ minds. Of course we want to help the people in this position and we are exploring possibilities, as I mentioned, and we have an interim arrangement with special benefit. There are also other people we are concerned about and we are exploring ways of helping them- families on low incomes, impact families. We have got to do something to help them. There would be many of them with 5 or 6 children on an income of much less than $100 a week. I know of many such families, with a husband and wife too, and we have got to help those people. The Government has done a lot and it is quite proud of its record. We will hold our record in social welfare up against the record of any previous government. In fact the 20 years prior to the election of this Government was a period of neglect.

Accordingly, to test the feeling of this House I will move the following amendment:

That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: ‘this House condemns the neglect of the real needs of social service pensioners and beneficiaries over two decades up to December 1972 and commends the many initiatives taken by the Australian Government since then to rectify the defects and injustices within the social services benefits system caused by that earlier long term neglect. The House also commends the undertaking of the Australian Government to continue improving the system of social services benefits and particularly its concern about the needs of widowers and deserted husbands with dependants.’

Mr Daly:

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

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! There is no need to second any amendment moved by a Minister.

Mr HAYDEN:

– Finally, to establish beyond any doubt the credentials of this Government, I point out that in the 1 972-73 Budget the previous Liberal-Country Party Government increased expenditure on social security and welfare by 15.8 per cent. In the 2 Budgets which we have introduced we have increased expenditure over its expenditure in that Budget by better than 66 per cent and we are not satisfied. We will be spending about $3, 500m this year in that field. We regard that as being a quite creditable achievement and as an incentive for us to try to do even better in this community so that we can provide the sorts of standards that are normal in other advanced, concerned countries of the world.

Mr Wentworth:

– I rise to a point of order, Mr Speaker. I submit that this amendment is not relevant to the motion.

Mr SPEAKER:
Mr Wentworth:

– Let me speak to the point of order, Mr Speaker. This amendment is not relevant to the motion. The motion was specifically directed towards the needs of a particular section of the community. The Minister for Social Security- I will not say that he is being entirely dishonest- is dodging the issue. He has moved an amendment which is out of order. If the House rules that it is in order it is a corrupt vote. The Minister is trying to run away from this matter. He is raising all sorts of -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable gentleman will resume his seat. He has taken a point of order and I am not going to allow him to debate the question whether it is or is not in order.

Mr Wentworth:

- Mr Speaker -

Mr SPEAKER:

-The honourable member is debating it. The honourable gentleman has raised a point of order. My ruling is that the amendment -

Mr Chipp:

-Before you rule on the point of order, Mr Speaker, may I speak to it?

Mr SPEAKER:

– I call the honourable member for Hotham.

Mr Chipp:

– Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to support my colleague the honourable member for Mackellar, who moved:

That, in the opinion of this House, some provision should be made for assistance to widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children.

That motion is clear, precise and means something. Sir, if you read carefully the amendment moved by the Minister for Social Security (Mr Hayden) you will see that it states:

That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: ‘this House condemns the neglect of the real needs of social service pensioners’-

And so on. I think that any common understanding of the English language- I appeal to your fairness here- would lead one to the conclusion that that is a direct negative of the motion of the honourable member for Mackellar, that it is completely irrelevant and that it is therefore unacceptable to Standing Orders. It would virtually preclude the House voting on the motion of the honourable member for Mackellar. If you allow this amendment, Sir, it will mean that this House will not be able to vote on the honourable member’s motion.

Mr Hayden:

– I rise to a point of order, Mr Speaker.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I have already ruled that the amendment is in order.

page 2501

QUESTION

OBJECTION TO RULING

Mr WENTWORTH:
Mackellar

-Mr Speaker, I move-

That the ruling be dissented from.

I draw your attention to standing order 173, which reads:

Every amendment must be relevant to the question which it is proposed to amend.

The amendment moved by the Minister for Social Security (Mr Hayden) is not relevant to the question which I have brought forward. I am well aware that there are dragooned votes in this House. I say with all seriousness that I know that your ruling will be upheld, irrespective of whether it is right or wrong, by the House because your colleagues have the numbers. But your ruling is wrong, Sir. It is in direct conflict with standing order 173, which, I repeat, states:

Every amendment must be relevant to the question which it is proposed to amend.

I tried to make my speech as non-political as possible. My colleagues and I are trying to help a section of the community which is deserving of help immediately. I ask the Minister for Social Security: Does he not have any compassion? Does he merely want to play politics? Apparently he does.

Mr Daly:

– I rise to a point of order, Mr Speaker. I take the point that the honourable member is not debating your ruling but is debating the actual issue on which he moved a motion this morning. Therefore I consider that he is out of order.

Mr SPEAKER:

-I realise that in speaking to a motion of dissent it is sometimes almost impossible to make out a case without making some small reference to the subject matter of an earlier debate. That has been done. I ask the honourable member for Mackellar to confine his remarks to the motion concerning why my ruling should be dissented from.

Mr WENTWORTH:

-Yes, Sir. I have really nothing further to add. I think I will satisfy myself and the House by simply saying that the amendment is not relevant to my original motion. It is complete bushrangering and a use of the forms of the House. The Minister should be damned well ashamed of himself.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! Is the motion seconded?

Mr Gorton:

– Yes.

Mr DALY:
Leader of the House · Grayndler · ALP

– Exception has been taken that the amendment moved by the Minister for Social Security (Mr Hayden) is not in conformity with an addendum or addition to the motion moved by the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth). The deathbed confessions on this issue of the honourable member for Mackellar and his colleagues on the other side of the House are surprising. You always follow the procedures followed by your illustrious predecessors, Mr Speaker. I well recollect that on one occasion the Opposition moved in effect a motion of no confidence or a motion of censure on the then Prime Minister and the then Speaker allowed the motion to be turned around and it ended up as a vote of no confidence in the then Leader of the Opposition. Taking those precedents which have been established into account, this amendment follows completely along the lines laid down in the Standing Orders in relation to all debates, that is, that it is in conformity with the usual procedures of the House.

To what does the Opposition object in relation to your ruling, Mr Speaker? Does it condone the neglect of the real needs of social service pensioners? Does it condone all of these matters? The honourable member for Mackellar, in trying to take a rise out of the Government, has found that he has had a rise taken out of him. Today he wanted to stand up in this chamber as the saviour of those unfortunate people, but when he was in a position to do something about that section of the community he did nothing. Today he has sought to sheet all the blame of 23 years of neglect onto this side of the Parliament and, because we have condemned his actions, he has objected to an amendment that seeks to place on record his record and at the same time give effect to his motion.

Mr Garland:

– I rise to a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister took a point of order a moment ago in relation to exactly the same offence as he is committing now when he said that the honourable member for Mackellar was not speaking to the motion before the House.

Mr SPEAKER:

– Yes. I ask the Minister to speak to the motion as to why my ruling should be dissented from.

Mr DALY:

– I have just pointed out that your ruling is one which I think is sound, Mr Speaker. If you study this amendment carefully- I will read is for the benefit of the House- you will see that it states:

That all words after ‘That’ be omitted with a view to substituting the following words: ‘this House condemns the neglect of the real needs of social service pensioners and beneficiaries over 2 decades up to December 1972 -

Does the honourable member for Mackellar say that the people mentioned in this respect- the husbands, wives and others- are not pensioners so that they are not covered by that section of it - and commends the many initiatives taken by the Australian Government since then to rectify the defects and injustices within the social services benefits system caused by that earlier long term neglect.

Surely he does not mean that that does not exclude widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children. They are all social service recipients. Therefore the amendment clearly relates to the motion that has been moved by the honourable member. The amendment continues:

The House also commends the undertaking of the Australian Government to continue improving the system of social service benefits and particularly its concern about the needs of widowers and deserted husbands with dependents.

Has that no relevance to the motion that the honourable member has moved? It is:

That, in the opinion of this House, some provision should be made for assistance to widowers and deserted husbands with dependent children.

This dissent motion has been moved, Mr Speaker, not because your ruling is wrong, but because the amendment has sheeted home completely the blame for any neglect in respect of these matters right where it belongs, and that is to the person who moved the motion.

If honourable members opposite play the game the hard way and try, by a motion of this kind, to take a rise out of a Government that has done wonders in the field of social services they cannot object when we move an amendment which says that we have in mind these questions and which at the same time puts on record their neglect. I say no more. The motion moved by the honourable member for Mackellar is a clever way for the Opposition to try to dodge its responsibilities, but we have sheeted home the responsibility for any shortcomings. Accordingly I believe that the ruling is in order.

Mr GRAHAM:
North Sydney

– I rise to support the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) because I am confident that the integrity of his argument will not escape the honourable members who sit on this side of the House. I would remind you, Sir, as the member for Sydney as well as the Speaker of this House, that during ancient times in an earlier Parliament an equally distinguished person of equal standards of integrity representing the Australian Labor Party, namely the honourable member for Dalley who was a very distinguished Treasurer of this House, was accused by five of his colleagues, including the father of the present honourable member for Hunter (Mr James), of what one might describe as a subtle form of embezzlement. They accused him of using funds that were for people- pensioners, unemployed and so on -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I should like to remind the honourable gentleman that the motion before the chair is dissent from the Speaker’s ruling. The honourable gentleman is entitled to speak only to that motion directly. He is not entitled to introduce any extraneous matter.

Mr GRAHAM:

– I understand, Sir. I was merely inferring that there was a measure of integrity in this motion that has been put by the honourable member for Mackellar. Whilst I am sure that it is impossible for you officially to comment on what I am saying I have no doubt that the point of my words is not lost on the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth).

Mr HAYDEN:
Minister for Social Security · Oxley · ALP

– I oppose the motion of dissent moved by the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth). I want to put 2 propositions quite firmly to honourable members. The first is that the amendment in fact gives strength to the motion moved by the honourable member for Mackellar which is seriously defective. In fact I would go so far as to say it is meaningless, and in its present form is a waste of the time of the House. The reason for that is simple. The honourable member’s motion is that in the opinion of this house some provision should be made for assisting widowers, deserted husbands and so on. Tin motion says ‘some provision’. But that in fact is already done by way of special benefits. So that is a fairly meaningless and fairly useless sort of motion. We have sought to help the honourable member. We have sought to strengthen the proposition which he is putting to the House. I come to the second proposition I would assert, that is that I can see nothing wrong with the democratic test of the feeling of the House by putting this matter to the vote. After all, this is the traditional and democratic way to test the views of the Parliament. If a vote is taken we will then see what views members of the Parliament hold on this issue. I am not certain of the outcome of a vote but I tend to suspect that the majority of members will be intelligent enough to support the view I am putting and that is that this amendment really strengthens and gives point to the whole course of the debate this morning. The amendment ties together in a highly relevant way what I think the honourable member for Mackellar was trying to get to. The first point that came out by implication from what he said and from the motion that he moved is clear. It is neglect- a shocking record of neglect. Twenty years of it, the worst 5 years under his administration -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister is debating the subject matter. I ask him to keep to the question, which is that the Speaker’s ruling be dissented from. The Minister is not entitled to debate the subject matter itself.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I apologise, Mr Speaker. It was quite innocently done. I was seeking to defend your ruling which I think is eminently reasonable and just. I want to justify the relevance of the amendment which is a condemnation of the neglect of the real need of social service pensioners and beneficiaries over 2 decades. It may be- and I am not clear, Mr Speaker- that members of the Opposition do not want to condemn the neglect, that they do not mind the neglect I find that hard to accept. Therefore I do not think that there is any real quibble about this.

Let me move therefore to the second part of the motion. May I remind you, Mr Speaker, that it is important to tie together what the essential ingredients of the point moved by the honourable member for Mackellar are. The essential ingredients are that these unfortunate menwidowers and deserted husbands with dependent children- do not have adequate benefit at this stage. They do not have it because there has been neglect in the past. So the 2 things do tie together and they are highly relevant. Of course, the neglect did take place consistently over 20 years.

Mr Chipp:

– I rise to order. There is a tradition in this House that the Opposition’s spokesman is given an opportunity to speak. This is obviously a dirty, grimy, political tactic where the Minister is now filibustering to stop the Opposition’s spokesman from speaking. If he moves that the question be put -

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member for Hotham will resume his seat. I will not permit language of that nature. I ask the honourable gentleman to contain himself when he is speaking and not to use such words.

Mr Chipp:

– I will not withdraw those words, Mr Speaker.

Mr HAYDEN:

-A dirty, grimy, political tactic? My hands are clean. Is your mind? The second part of the amendment states:

The House also commends the undertaking of the Australian Government to continue -

Mr Garland:

- Mr Speaker, this is private members day. You know that this debate will conclude at 12 o’clock sharp and that this allows only another 14 minutes for debate. I ask you, in accordance with the practice of the House, to appeal to the Minister to sit down and to let the spokesman for the Opposition speak on this matter.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister has a certain amount of time in which he can speak if he so desires. He can speak as long as he keeps to the motion before the chair, which is that the Speaker’s ruling be dissented from.

Mr HAYDEN:

– I have a very real and bounden duty to defend the distinguished position of the Chair in this matter. Finally I want to say, if I am not interrupted by members of the Opposition who initiated this debate and therefore eroded their own speaking time, that I do not think anyone in the Opposition would oppose the second part of the amendment- the commendation of the undertaking of the Australian Government to continue improving the system of social service benefits and particularly the Government’s concern about the needs of widowers and deserted husbands with dependants. Does anyone oppose that? Of course not.

Mr Sinclair:

– Yes, completely.

Mr HAYDEN:

-Do you oppose that?

Mr Sinclair:

– Yes. It is nonsensical.

Mr HAYDEN:

– The honourable member opposes the undertaking of the Australian

Government to continue improving the system of social service benefits.

Mr Sinclair:

– I rise on a point of order. The Minister is addressing you, Mr Speaker, on a question of dissent from your ruling. The matters he is now raising have nothing whatsoever to do with the motion of dissent.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister would be aware that the motion before the chair is dissent from a ruling.

Motion (by Mr Nicholls) agreed to:

That the question be now put.

Mr SPEAKER:

-The question now is, ‘That the Speaker’s ruling be dissented from’.

Question resolved in the negative.

page 2504

QUESTION

WIDOWERS AND DESERTED HUSBANDS

Debate resumed.

Motion (by Mr Nicholls) put:

That the question be now put.

The House divided.

AYES: 0

NOES: 0

AYES

NOES

Ayes . ……… 58

Noes . ……… 52

Majority……. 6

In Division:

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! It is just a technical point.

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Question put-

That the words proposed to be omitted (Mr Hayden’s amendment) stand part of the question.

The House divided. ( Mr Speaker- Hon. J. F. Cope )

AYES: 52

NOES: 59

Majority……. 7

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

Motion (by Mr Daly) proposed:

That the time for discussion of notice No. 1, general business, be extended.

That so much of the Standing Orders be suspended so as to permit the honourable member for Hotham to speak.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Mr CHIPP:
Hotham

– I seek to move an amendment.

Motion (by Mr Daly) proposed:

That the question be now put.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The question is that the question be now put.

Mr Lynch:

– Shame! This is outrageous. You cannot take it.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Those of that opinion say aye, to the contrary no. The ayes have it. The motion is carried. The question now is: “That the words to be inserted be so inserted’.

Mr Sinclair:

- Mr Speaker, on a point of order. The gag needs to be put first.

Mr SPEAKER:

– It was put. I put it but nobody was interested on that side as to whether they wanted a division.

Mr Chipp:

– On a point of order. I strongly resent that reflection which you just made on this side of the House when you said -

Mr SPEAKER:
Mr Chipp:

- Mr Speaker, you will not sit me down on this. You said no one on this side of the House was interested.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The honourable member will resume bis seat. I make it quite plain that when the Leader of the House moved that the question be put I put it straight away.

Mr Sinclair:

– It was not put.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! I put the question and declared that the ayes had it, but nobody asked for a division.

Mr Sinclair:

– We do ask for a division.

Mr SPEAKER:

– I did put the question, nobody asked for a division and I declared the motion carried. To save confusion, I will put it again. The question is: ‘That the question be now put’. Those of that opinion say aye, to the contrary no. Is a division required?

Mr Sinclair:

– Yes.

Question put:

The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Hon. J. F. Cope)

AYES: 58

NOES: 51

Majority……. 7

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Question put:

That the words proposed to be inserted (Mr Hayden’s amendment) be inserted.

The House divided. (Mr Speaker-Hon. J. F. Cope)

AYES: 59

NOES: 51

Majority……. 8

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Question put:

That the motion, as amended, be agreed to.

The House divided.

AYES: 0

NOES: 0

AYES

NOES

Ayes………. 59

Noes………. 51

Majority……. 8

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

page 2507

PARLIAMENT BILL 1974

In Committee

Consideration resumed from 26 September.

Clause 3.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 4.

Except in accordance with a resolution of both Houses of the Parliament, no other building or other work shall be erected upon Capital Hill or Camp Hill.

Mr UREN:
Minister for Urban and Regional Development · Reid · ALP

- Mr Deputy Chairman, I seek leave of the Committee to move both amendments circulated in my name together.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Lucock)-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.

Mr UREN:

– I move:

After ‘work’ insert ‘excepting therefrom incidental or minor alterations, additions or rebuilding of existing buildings or works’.

There are obvious problems in getting a resolution of both Houses of Parliament to allow for minor changes and alterations to plans. It would not detract in any way from the powers of the Parliament to supervise the building of a new Parliament House to allow a measure of flexibility. There should be scope for incidental or minor alterations, additions and rebuilding of existing buildings or works to proceed without reference to the Parliament. Quite clearly, we could reach an intolerable situation if every minor detail included in the plans had to be thrashed out in this Parliament. This amendment will give a measure of discretion in the daytoday fulfilment of the Parliament’s plans for a new Parliament House. I stress again that it will not detract from the Parliament’s overall powers of surveillance.

For the other amendment to clause 4,I move:

After ‘Camp Hill’ add ‘that is, in the area delineated by hatching on the plan set out in the Schedule ‘.

The purpose of this amendment is to identify more clearly the area covered by the designations of Capital Hill and Camp Hill. In simple terms, we want to know clearly what we are talking about when we refer to Camp Hill and Capital Hill. The map to be included in the schedule sets out the area where Parliamentary responsibility extends and where only the Parliament can authorise building.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Mr UREN (Reid-Minister for Urban and Regional Development)- I move:

Honourable members will note that on the back of the circulated list of amendments is printed a schedule. This provides a map of the parliamentary triangle, with the Camp Hill and Capital Hill area indicated by hatching.

Amendment agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report- by leave- adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Mr Scholes)- by leaveread a third time.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Dr Jenkins)Order! The chair will be resumed at 2. 1 5 p.m.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

-Order! The time being 12.45 p.m., I call on Government business.

Dr Forbes:

– I rise to a point of order. I distinctly heard you, Mr Deputy Speaker, say that the chair would be resumed at 2.15 p.m. Honourable members on this side of the House acted on that basis. Now, presumably, you have revoked your previous decision that the sitting be suspended to 2. 15 p.m. I ask you: What is your authority for doing that? On what basis is it done? Are we to expect this sort of thing to go on in the future? Members practically have the nosebag on and they are called back in here.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER:

– The honourable member for Barker has made his point. I did make that statement. I did not vacate the chair because there was some misapprehension. My attention was directed to the fact that at that stage the time was not yet 12.45 p.m. There was in General Business a motion still standing in the name of the honourable member for Mackellar on which he could be called to speak. I did not vacate the chair. The honourable member for Wimmera drew attention to the state of the House. A quorum was present at 12.45 p.m. at which time the honourable member for Mackellar was not required to proceed with the notice standing in his name. I called on Government Business.

page 2509

QUEENSLAND GRANT (BUNDABERG IRRIGATION WORKS) BILL 1974

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

Second Reading

Dr PATTERSON:
Minister for Northern Development and Minister for the Northern Territory · Dawson · ALP

– I move:

The purpose of this Bill is to amend the Queensland Grant (Bundaberg Irrigation Works) Act 1970 to provide additional financial assistance of $4.4m to the Queensland Government towards the cost of completing certain works in phase 1 of stage 1 of the Bundaberg irrigation project. Under the 1970 Act, a grant of $ 12.8m was provided for the construction of Monduran Dam, which will provide the main storage of the project, Gin Gin Channel and an associated pumping station which will link the Kolan River and Burnett River sections of the project. The state undertook to finance the balance of the works in phase 1 out of its own resources, involving the construction of tidal barrages on the Kolan and Burnett rivers and water distribution systems.

It became clear by mid- 1973 that the cost of the works being financed by the Australian Government would considerably exceed the funds available under the Act and the Queensland Government submitted a request for a further grant of $4.4m. The cost increase was attributed, in the main, to the unusual and rugged nature of the terrain through which Gin Gin Channel is being constructed, to the limited experience in Australia in the design and cost estimation of the pumping equipment to be installed in association with Gin Gin Channel, and to substantial increases in construction site allowances which were not envisaged when estimates for the project were finalised. The general escalation in salaries, wages and construction materials also contributed to the increased cost of the works being financed by the Australian Government. The Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation was engaged by my department to advise on the revised cost estimates.

Monduran Dam will provide a storage capacity of 584,000 megalitres and provide an assured supply of water of 128,000 megalitres annually. The dam is virtually complete, Gin Gin Channel is about 60 per cent complete and the pumping station is at an advanced stage of design. The State has completed the Kolan tidal barrage, construction has commenced on the Burnett tidal barrage and one of the supply channels is likely to be in operation by the end of this year.

Over the past year, the Australian Government has undertaken a comprehensive evaluation of the whole of the Bundaberg Irrigation Project (phase 1 and phase 2). The Department of Northern Development, the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, various State Departments and the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations have all contributed to this evaluation. It is now nearing completion and the Australian Government will closely examine the final report. However, to ensure that the progress of phase 1 would not be held up pending the finalisation of this report, the Australian Government offered emergency assistance to the Queensland Government in April 1974 of up to $350,000 to enable the State to carry on with essential work on Gin Gin Channel. In the event, this fund was not called on because of the slackening of progress due to the unusually wet conditions. Work on the various components of phase 1 is now in full progress.

Phase 1 of the project is aimed principally at providing a surface water supply to a large number of cane-growers in order to reduce the pressure on groundwater resources to levels commensurate with the long term yield of these valuable aquifiers It will enable other canegrowers currently with insufficient or unreliable sources of water, to stabilise production to the capacity of their sugar assignments, and it will also provide water to a number of growers at present totally reliant on rainfall. In all, phase 1 will enable the stabilisation of production on 23,300 hectares, mainly under cane, and will also assure a supply of about 12,500 megalitres of water annually from ground and surface sources for urban and industrial uses in Bundaberg and the neighbouring shire of Woongarra. Phase 2 of the project has not yet been commenced. Together with phase 1, it will almost completely protect the sugar industry in the Bundaberg region against the ravages of long dry spells at critical stages of plant growth. Those familiar with the Bundaberg region will vividly recall the enormous losses sustained by the industry during the 1 964, 1 965 and 1969 droughts when the six mills in the region between them only achieved 64 per cent of their aggregate mill peak allocations.

Recent seasons have been most advantageous to canegrowers throughout Australia. Seasonal conditions have been good and sugar prices, particularly during the last year, have been very high. In fact, the present London daily price is at an all time record level of £390 sterling per ton. I understand that today it reached £400 sterling a ton. But the sugar industry has a long history of widely fluctuating returns from exports. In the absence of a fully effective international sugar agreement, we must secure market outlets by way of bilateral arrangements and at the same time underwrite our supply commitments by secure levels of production.

In this context, the provision of financial assistance to the Queensland Government for the construction of key elements of the Bundaberg irrigation project and for Kinchant Dam in the Mackay sugar producing region is an important aspect of our plans for the industry.

I commend this Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Dr Forbes) adjourned.

page 2510

APPROPRIATION (URBAN PUBLIC TRANSPORT) BILL 1974

Bill presented by Mr Charles Jones, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr CHARLES JONES:
Minister for Transport · Newcastle · ALP

I move:

This Bill seeks to appropriate funds for allocation to the States under the Urban Public Transport Agreement for a further series of projects directed towards the upgrading of their urban public transport systems. The amount to be appropriated is $66.11 million, of which $27.85 million is expected to be allocated in 1974-75 and the remainder during the balance of the program. The funds are additional to the $71.91 million allocated under the States Grants (Urban Public Transport) Act 1974. It means that in the first two years of the Australian Government’s five year assistance program, $138.02 million has been allocated to the States by way of grants to improve our major cities’ transport systems. The series of projects approved for commencement in 1974-75 and details of the phasing of total expenditure are:

I seek leave to incorporate a lengthy table which sets out just what the program is.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Dr Jenkins:
SCULLIN, VICTORIA

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The document read as follows)-

Mr CHARLES JONES:

-I thank honourable members. When this new program of projects is added to that approved in the attachment to the Urban Public Transport Agreement it will be seen that the Australian Government has agreed to support public transport improvement projects involving assistance of $138.02 million. These projects cover the various modes and analysis of the programs approved to date by State and mode is as follows:

I again seek to incorporate a small table.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Dr Jenkins:
SCULLIN, VICTORIA

-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The document read as follows)-

Mr CHARLES JONES:

-I thank honourable members.

Our initial assistance program will enable the States to eliminate much of the ancient rolling stock which is still being used as part of our urban transport systems. For example, over 550 carriages in Sydney’s urban passenger rail system are at least 45 years old and more than 500 of the Melbourne carriages are over 45 years old with some having been constructed in the last century. Many urban passenger buses are over 20 years old and half of Melbourne ‘s tram fleet is over 40 years old. In this way we hope to achieve some immediate improvement in the quality of public transport. In the longer term we will be looking more to an overall system approach which integrates the various transport modes, with each performing the function to which it is best suited. Included in the provisions for this year are the first allocations for the cities of Newcastle, Wollongong and Geelong. In announcing the Urban Public Transport Assistance Program I indicated that, based on comprehensive studies of their transport needs, assistance would be extended to cities with populations over 100,000 and to the corridors linking these cities to State capitals. Appropriate studies are in progress and I expect that major projects for these areas will be included in the future assistance programs. However, in the meantime there are minor improvement projects which can be undertaken independent of such studies and $1.0 million has been provided for this purpose in 1974-75.

When the Treasurer announced the first ever Australian Government contribution to urban public transport in his 1 973 Budget Speech it was expected that the States would spend $46.64 million during 1973-74, attracting Australian

Government assistance of $31.09 million. However, the Australian Government was not able to appropriate these funds in that year. And the States have the honourable gentlemen opposite to blame for that situation. As the States respect this Government as one which will honour its promises some $18.46 million was spent on the program during 1973-74. This promise was honoured when I re-introduced the States Grants (Urban Public Transport) Bill into this House on 1 1 July. It is now being enacted.

We expect to make payments to the States totalling $67.49 million during 1974-75. This amount is made up of $12.32 million being reimbursement of moneys expended by the States in 1973-74, $26.98 million being the 1974-75 expenditure on projects approved for commencement last year, $27.85 million for projects approved to commence in 1974-75 and $0.34 million for planning and research projects undertaken in 1973-74. I am conscious of the requirement for the States to meet their contribution and this factor has been taken into account in formulating the extent of our assistance. I have been assured that the States are in a position to match our planned allocations in 1974-75. As I mentioned, very limited progress was made under the scheme in 1973-74 because of delays in the provision of Australian Government funds. However, I would like to comment on the benefits of one project which has been implemented. The project to which I refer is the Adelaide Terrace bus way in Perth. It involved the construction of a segregated road way for the exclusive use of buses on the approaches to the Causeway round-a-bout at the eastern end of Adelaide Terrace. Cost of this project was not high at less than $20,000, yet during the p.m. peak period buses are taking up to 8 minutes less to cover this small section of their journey as compared with those vehicles that use the Adelaide Terrace roadway.

Sitting suspended from 1 to 2.15 p.m.

Mr CHARLES JONES:

-One of the most effective means of encouraging additional patronage onto public transport will, I believe, be projects such as this where the benefits are obvious. What will attract people to public transport more than being forced to sit waiting in heavy traffic as public transport vehicle after public transport vehicle speeds past on their way to their destination.

I would now like to make a few comments on projects included in the 1974-75 assistance program. As I said earlier, our initial program reflected an emphasis on new rolling stock. Our projects this year cover much more of the urban transport system. Workshop facilities have been included in the program as recognition that maintenance of systems is vital to their efficiency. Improvements to these facilities also take account of the human element of the systems by including appropriate amenities for employees. We of this Government do not believe that we could provide massive funds for improvements to the standard of service offered to the travelling public whilst at the same time continuing to have the people who operate these systems work under conditions that resemble nothing so much as a Dickensian workhouse. Much has been said about the attitude of the people who operate public transport. Is it any wonder that morale is so low when conditions are so primitive? By supporting improvements to workshops and staff amenities the Australian Government believes that a significant step forward will be made in providing greater job satisfaction for our public transport employees.

Over recent times I have received numerous representations concerning the problems being experienced by the private operators of urban public transport services. I am sympathetic to their problems and have noted the action taken by the Victorian Government to provide assistance to the private operators in Melbourne. I do not believe that I could justify to my colleagues and to the Australian public that the Australian Government should take a similar initiative at this stage. Instead I propose to have a comprehensive investigation undertaken of the private operators ‘ industry. At the present time I am considering the terms of reference for this investigation and the Australian Government’s policy to this industry will be determined following the completion of this study.

However, in the case of some private operators events have overtaken the Australian Government’s approach. The Manly ferry and hydrofoil services were to be closed by the Brambles organisation and in Adelaide the majority of the private bus operators threatened to withdraw their services unless the State Government assumed responsibility for their services. Some 22 million passenger journeys were performed annually by these services. Rather than have these services disappear from the total urban transport system the respective States decided they must act urgently to acquire these services. To reduce the financial burden placed on the States by these rescue operations, the Australian Government has approved assistance to New South Wales and South Australia to defray the expense incurred in acquiring these services. I would add that in the South Australian case it was essential for the State Government to act rapidly to prevent the sale of buses interstate.

I would now like to comment on a few issues that have attracted a good deal of public attention in recent time. I have often condemned increases in public transport fares and I do so again today. I had hoped that with the financial aid under the Urban Public Transport Agreement the States would have accepted the logic of keeping fares at a reasonable price. But no, we still find the Premier of New South Wales incorporating quite unjustifiable increases in public transport fares in his Budget because he considers that the Australian Government is not providing sufficient assistance. I cannot agree. It is a fact that to increase public transport fares is to cause significant losses in patronage. I must applaud the actions of the Victorian Premier to keep fares as low as possible. It is a tragedy that this approach is not more widely adopted by the States.

Considerable comment has been made on the plans for the reintroduction of trams to central Sydney. I endorse the concept of giving the centre of the city back to the people but I am not yet persuaded that the tram is the optimum vehicle to provide this service. My Department is examining the report prepared by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board for the New South Wales Government on this proposal. The Australian Government’s examination will also cover alternative means of providing this service. It may be worth while investigating whether electric buses or some similar vehicle should be used.

New South Wales has come under fire recently regarding ferry services on Sydney Harbour. I hold the view that our natural highways should be utilised to the maximum extent practicable and would not therefore wish to see Sydney’s ferry services wither away as has happened to so many public transport services. Honourable members will observe that assistance has been approved to enable the New South Wales Government to acquire the 4 hydrofoil and 3 conventional ferries which provided the Manly services. The future of one of the conventional ferries, the ‘South Steyne’, which has been damaged by fire, is uncertain and there seems to be a prima facie case for concern at the level of services provided to Manly. I am therefore arranging for officials of my Department to discuss the overall question of a future strategy for ferry operations on Sydney Harbour with New South Wales officials. Subsequent discussions might eventually extend beyond the immediate question of public transport to that of freight movements.

This Government is not prepared to rely solely on the urban public transport assistance scheme to upgrade public transport in our major cities. Complementary to the urban public transport assistance scheme, the Government has initiated numerous activities which will all have a direct impact on the urban transport systems of our major cities. The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) has offered to construct, at no cost to New South Wales, a distinct railway system using the Australia urban passenger train- AUPT- based on Parramatta and radiating to Hoxton Park, Castle Hill and through Carlingford to Epping. Agreement has not yet been reached but in anticipation of New South Wales accepting our offer $3.5m has been provided in the Budget. On 13 September the Prime Minister wrote to the Premier of Victoria inviting him to consider the potential for a similar initiative in Melbourne.

The Australian urban passenger train is being developed so that Australians can have the best public transport vehicles possible. The Government has been concerned that the trains being acquired in recent times ale not a great advance, technically, or in terms of passenger comfort, on those they are replacing. For this reason the Government, in co-operation with the States, has set up a design team which is developing the Australian urban passenger train, which, with the modifications, will be able to run on all State urban systems. We intend that the new train will incorporate the best in proven rail technology. For the traveller this simply means high standards of comfort, safety and reliability and an attractive alternative to the automobile.

Good progress is being achieved with the AUPT. Stage 1, a preliminary study on the possibilities of the AUPT, has been successfully completed and stage II, the development of specifications for the train, has commenced. I expect to have a prototype on the rails in 1 976. A mock-up of the train to gauge commuter reaction has met with most gratifying success. Some 80,000 persons visited the exhibit in Adelaide and 50,000 in Perth. In Melbourne each day about 10,000 people are inspecting the model on display near Swanston Street railway station. The purpose of exhibiting the display car in the various capital cities is to show people the different carriage layouts so that a market survey can be made to assess passenger preferences. We want the people to say what type of seating they want; whether or not they prefer air conditioning or natural ventilation; whether they want more seats per train or more standing room. Public reactions will be taken into account in finalising designs. I have been gratified and encouraged by the reaction of the vast majority of visitors to date. This program also has achieved another first in that train drivers and guards are being involved, through their unions, in the design of those compartments of the vehicle in which they must operate.

At the request of the Australian Transport Advisory Council my Department is examining the feasibility of developing a standard urban passenger bus. A basic problem is the differing legislation and regulations which apply to bus construction and operation in each of the States. With a view to developing a standard specification I hope to arrange for a conference of government and private operators and unions to be held to attempt to rationalise the requirements of each jurisdiction. The activities I have listed indicate the sincerity of this Government’s determination to contribute to the quality of life in our major urban centres by improving the quality, capacity, efficiency and frequency of public transport services. We are not content merely to assist the States with finances which are desperately needed but where necessary we are also prepared to undertake projects ourselves which have the potential to vastly improve urban transport systems. I commend the Bill to the House.

Debate (on motion by Mr Katter) adjourned.

page 2515

AIRLINE EQUIPMENT (LOAN GUARANTEE) BILL 1974

Bill presented by Mr Charles Jones, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr CHARLES JONES:
Minister for Transport · Newcastle · ALP

– I move:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

The purpose of this Bill is to seek authority for the Treasurer (Mr Crean) to guarantee, on behalf of the Australian Government, loans raised by Ansett Transport Industries to finance the purchase of 2 Boeing 727-200 series aircraft. These aircraft will comprise the fifth and sixth aircraft of this type to be operated by the company. Each of the major domestic airlines, TransAustralia Airlines and Ansett Transport Industries currently operates 12 DC9, 6 Boeing 727-100 and 4 Boeing 727-200. Each airline is acquiring an additional 2 Boeing 727-200 aircraft. This is the larger and later version of the Boeing 727-100 aircraft. They are planned for delivery in November 1974 and April 1975.

Such aircraft are required to cater for the continuing traffic growth on the trunk routes. They have a noise level which is acceptable for that generation of aircraft. They are quieter than the earlier Boeing 727-100 models in use in this country. Nevertheless, I expect the Australian airlines to provide the community with the most suitable modern aircraft types. Hence, I look forward to the earlier practicable introduction of wide-bodied jets, together with the greatest possible spreading of timetables.

In more detail, the wide bodied jets are particularly attractive for our domestic airline purposes because they are noticeably quieter than the present jets in operation here. It will be recalled that this Government has taken definite steps to ensure an alleviation of the noise nuisance to people living near airports, particularly when the noise occurs at night. Another favourable consideration is that the greater passenger capacity of wide body aircraft, which will be used on the very high density routes, will enable airline schedules to be reduced, say to a level of once every 2 hours for each airline between Sydney and Melbourne. With sensible timetabling a resultant spread on this route could provide the public with a service every hour without parallel flights. I see no reason why services on other routes should not become more attractive also.

Another real benefit of wide bodied aircraft is that they are less demanding on energy and resources. Fuel required per passenger/kilometre on these larger aircraft will be less than that on present airline aircraft. This cost saving will not necessarily result in lower fares but should retard the rate of future fare increases. When wide bodied aircraft are purchased by the airlines we will be looking to the overseas manufacturers for offset procurement arrangement satisfactory to the Government. For the present purpose that is, the purchase of 2 727-200 aircraft by Ansett, the overseas manufacturer, Boeing, is providing offset arrangements equivalent to 10 per cent of the purchase price. I might add that to date Boeing has, in respect of its total offset commitments, placed orders totalling A$25m with the Australian manufacturing industry and is keeping well ahead of its commitments. I understand that Boeing is satisfied with its part of the deal including the quality and delivery rate of Australian manufactured aircraft components.

The Australian Government is currently proposing to raise loans of US$1 9m for TAA which would comprise 80 per cent of the purchase price of its 2 additional aircraft and spares. Ansett has sought a Government guarantee for its comparable loan of US$1 9m for the same purpose. The Australian Government, in its even handed attitude to the 2 airline policy, is willing to grant the privileges of a Government guarantee to the Ansett organisation for this purpose, subject, of course, to the approval of Parliament.

Furthermore, I would be delighted to receive the same co-operation from the Ansett organisation in respect to TAA’s entry into Western Australian services. It is an absolute disgrace that Ansett, by producing lengthy and phoney submissions is able to use a Commission to delay TAA’s entry into Western Australia and by taking out injunctions in the Victorian Supreme Court. That entry would result in huge savings for the people of Western Australia- a State where air travel’s advantage can be used to the maximum. Under the present monopoly situation MacRobertson Miller Airlines Ltd offers only one fare and TAA will offer first and economy class with the economy fares 20 per cent below current MMA fares. An example of fare savings is: From Perth to Port Hedland, a saving of $48.20 on a return ticket; and from Perth to Darwin, a saving of $85.40 on a return ticket.

In the area of freight, people and companies will be offered standard rate for air cargo instead of having to pay the higher express cargo rate. Add to this the extra freight carrying capacity of the DC9 aircraft-2,182 kilos more than the F28. It is time Ansett Transport Industries stopped this humbug, withdrew its opposition and gave the people of Western Australia an even handed 2-airline system to which they are entitled. I commend the Bill to honourable members.

Debate (on the motion by Mr Katter) adjourned.

page 2516

AIR NAVIGATION (CHARGES) BILL 1974

Bill presented by Mr Charles Jones, and read a first time.

Second Reading

Mr CHARLES JONES:
Minister for Transport · Newcastle · ALP

– I move:

The Air Navigation (Charges) Act imposes charges on the operators of aircraft for the use of aerodromes, airways facilities, meteorological services and search and rescue services provided,, operated and maintained by the Australian Government. The purpose of this Bill is to increase the rates of air navigation charges, and to make other changes in the Act which the Government feels to be desirable.

In 1973-74, the cost of providing, operating and maintaining air navigation faculties and services throughout Australia amounted to $140m. Revenue received from the users of those facilities and services totalled $75m. Of this amount, $33m came from air navigation charges paid by aircraft operators, $ 11.5m from hangar and building rentals and terminal concession charges and the like, and $30.5m from aviation fuel taxes. This left a deficit between revenue and expenditure of $65m, a deficit which the Australian taxpayer was called upon to bear. Put another way, the Australian taxpayer was asked to pay more than $6 for each passenger who travelled by air within, to or from Australia.

In 1960, the then Liberal-Country Party Government adopted as a long term objective the eventual full recovery of the cost of air transport facilities provided by the Government. That Government set no target for achieving its objective, either in full or in part. Last year, this Government decided to accelerate the cost recovery program. It decided on a policy aimed at raising the then unsatisfactory rate of recovery- something like 49 per cent- to 80 per cent by 1978. This, despite recent speculation that the timetable has been stepped up to achieve the recovery aim by next year or the year after, is the Government’s clearly defined 5-year target. In progressively increasing these we are not being unfair. In the marine field we have a total cost recovery policy on navigation aids. Last year, this Government succeeded in raising the recovery rate to 54 per cent. There is still a long way to go.

Basic to this approach, and equally applicable to all transport modes, is that the user and the beneficiary should pay. The Government cannot accept that the general taxpayer must subsidise people who travel. To this end, the Bill provides for an increase of 15 per cent in air navigation charges. These higher charges will become effective from 1 December 1974. They are payable ‘across the board’, that is, by all operators, domestic and international, making use of our facilities and services. General aviation makes heavy demands on aviation facilities and on the funds to provide and maintain them. Special aerodromes for general aviation aircraft, Archerfield, Bankstown, Cambridge, Essendon, Jandakot, Moorabbin and Parafield, have been provided in all capital cities- by the taxpayer. Last year, these aerodromes alone cost $10m to operate and maintain. In addition, facilities have been provided at other airports largely for general aviation aircraft, things like light aircraft aprons and taxiways, traffic control and flight service units, communications and fire units.

In 1954, there were 168 airline aircraft in Australia. By 1974, this number had fallen to 138. In sharp contrast, in the same period, the number of general aviation aircraft increased from 677 to 4,012. The airlines flew some 265,000 hours in 1954, and the same in 1974-a reflection of greatly increased productivity through the operation of larger and faster aircraft. But hours flown in general aviation increased almost ninefold, from 145,000 in 1954 to 1.3 million in 1974. About 30 per cent of this represents private and business flying. Light aircraft movements at most airports throughout Australia have increased more rapidly in the last 20 years than airline movements. Last year, Tamworth had about 7,000 airline movements, and 30,000 light aircraft movements. Canberra had 21,000 airline movements and 42,000 light aircraft movements. General aviation places an exceptionally heavy demand on our airways and airport facilities. The Government believes that the contribution which general aviation makes towards the cost of those facilities should be more closely related to the demands which this section of the aviation industry places upon them.

Honourable members might be surprised to learn that at Sydney (Kingsford-Smith) Airport, for instance, an estimated cost allocation for 1973-74 shows that the domestic airlines contributed some 77 per cent- $9. 7m- of the costs attributable to their own operations, international airlines also contributed some 77 per cent or $ 1 1 . 1 m towards the cost of their own operations, whereas general aviation only contributed some 0.4 per cent towards the cost of their own operations at that centre. I might add that the general aviation cost in this context was calculated on the basis that it was the minimum unavoidable increment to cater for these aircraft at Sydney airport. Such things as general runway costs and interest and depreciation were not included. Accordingly, the cost was the lowest cost that could reasonably be calculated. Despite the large expenditure on facilities for general aviation, all that the Government recovered last year from general aviation operators was about $5m- just half of what it cost to operate and maintain the general aviation airports in the 6 capital cities alone.

It is proposed, therefore, to increase the charges payable by general aviation operators. The charges in respect to general aviation aircraft weighing less than 9,000 kilograms will be increased by an additional 50 per cent over and above the basic 15 per cent increase in air navigation charges. Aircraft above 9,000 kilograms, on which higher additional charges were imposed last year, will not be subject to this increase. At the same time, the amount of remission granted on aircraft not ordinarily kept at government aerodromes, or aerodromes in receipt of government financial assistance, will be increased from one-third to one-half of the charges payable. A small but active element is emerging in general aviation which places few demands on the aviation infrastructure. I refer to aircraft enthusiasts who have a hobby concerned with historical aircraft. Owners of private aircraft of an historical nature, used for pleasure and not for the purpose of personal transportation, may apply to the Department for special consideration in regard to the level of their charges. I am referring to those few historical aircraft that are kept on the register from time to time and which would fly some 20 to 30 hours only in any year.

While on the subject of special groups, I should add that the 1 5 per cent across the board increase that I mentioned earlier does not apply to very small aircraft with weights less than 500 kilograms. However, the 50 per cent increase does apply. It is proposed to impose additional charges on foreign-registered aircraft used for private or aerial work purposes in Australia. These aircraft will be subject to an additional charge, over and above the basic 15 per cent increase in air navigation charges, of 50 per cent and 25 per cent respectively. No additional charges are proposed for aircraft in the international charter category.

The proposed increases in air navigation charges are expected to yield an additional revenue of $3m in the remainder of the current financial year, and $6m in a full 12 months. This estimate takes no account of traffic growth, which may be expected to result in a higher additional revenue. Certain other changes in the Air Navigation (Charges) Act are proposed. They will have no significant effect on revenue, but are desirable to facilitate the administration of the charging system.

It has been suggested that the Government’s cost recovery program, and its effect on air navigation charges, is forcing domestic air fares upward. Whilst this could be true to some extent, it should be noted that increases in air navigation charges have been no more than 1 5 per cent at the most a year. In any case, only 2.8 per cent of the recent domestic fare increase can be attributed to increases in air navigation charges and 7.5 per cent to fuel tax. Some 78 per cent of the latest fare increase represented nothing more than a response to the significant wage increases affecting the airlines.

We should not exaggerate the cost burden of air navigation charges on air travel, domestic or international. Air navigation charges paid by Trans Australia Airlines amounted to about $6.7m in 1973-74. Its total costs exceed $150m. In percentage terms, air navigation charges . represented some 4 per cent only of the airline’s total cost. Perhaps the following simple illustration will place these charges in their proper perspective: If air navigation charges were reduced by half, the cost of a journey between Sydney and Melbourne could be reduced at the most by about 70c, and of a journey between Sydney and San Francisco by $9- at a cost to the taxpayer of about $ 1 6m.

It is often claimed that Australian air navigation charges are amongst the highest in the world. Let there be absolute clarity about this: Our charges are all-inclusive. Charges in many countries are not. Landing charges are only one of several charges and taxes, payable by the airlines and their passengers, which affect the cost of operating to and from other countries. For example, on top of the landing charge for a Boeing 747 of $A449 at Honolulu there is a communications charge of $A53, a passenger holding area charge of $A25, a baggage claim area charge of $A13, a customs overtime charge of $A48, plus a United States transportation charge, paid by the passenger of $3 per head. At an absolute minimum, these costs would total $1,096. At San Francisco, where the landing fee for a Boeing 747 is $216, the communications charge is $31, passenger holding area charge is $109, plus amortisation and interest on the capital expenditure made there by Qantas of $193, a baggage claim area charge of $41, customs overtime $137, United States transportation tax of $3 per head, once again paid by the passenger, plus a San Mateo County property tax of $ 1 34. These costs could total $1,369 at the absolute minimum. This compares with an airline terminating in Sydney which is charged a total of $2,9 12.

May I say that Australian air navigation charges are based on a consistent pricing structure for both domestic and international airlines. Further, there is absolutely no discrimination, in the treatment given, between our own international airline and any other international airline, or between any international airlines. The increased charges for which this Bill provides are a further step towards the eventual recovery of 80 per cent of the costs involved inmaintaining our aviation infrastructure. But increased revenue is not the Government’s sole concentration in this area. The Government is rigorously pruning every cost associated with that infrastructure. The Department of Transport is critically reviewing all of its air transport activities with a view to effecting economies wherever they can be made in consultation with the airlines , the general aviation industry and representatives of the various employee organisations concerned. In addition the provision of services at the less busy provincial centres is being examined in order to effect further cost savings. As an example, flight service units have been withdrawn from Flinders Island, Woomera and Mangalore at a saving of about $60,000 a year. In addition fire services have been withdrawn from Mangalore, Derby, Narromine and Broken Hill at a saving of about $ 100,000.

The Department of Transport believes that to justify the retention of these costly facilities, the airports where they are located should cater for certain minimum traffic demands. In the case of fire services and rescue facilities, it believes that, as a minimum, aerodromes should be served by F27 aircraft, should handle at least 8 regular movements a day and cater to at least 25,000 passengers a year. In the case of flight service units, the aerodrome should accommodate at least 12,000 aircraft movements a year. Naturally there are other factors which will influence any decision to withdraw such existing facilities at aerodromes as do not meet these basic minimum requirements. The gap is being narrowed from the cost side. The Australian community will no longer have to bear the cost of inefficient allocation of resources.

The Government will achieve a balanced, coordinated transport system with a proper allocation of resources based on demonstrated community needs. It will achieve a system in which every transport method performs the role for which it is best suited, to provide the maximum benefit to the nation. I commend the Bill.

Debate (on motion by Mr Katter) adjourned.

page 2518

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1) 1974-75

In Committee

Consideration resumed from 16 October.

Second Schedule.

Parliament

Proposed expenditure, $9,952,000.

Mr KING:
Wimmera

-Mr Deputy Chairman, you may recall that last evening when I was speaking on this subject I was referring to the problems of the individual members of this place in relation to their parliamentary duties and responsibilities, how difficult it was for some of them to get to this place, and other problems that they confront whilst trying to operate efficiently and effectively as members representing various constituencies. I instanced the assistance that the Australian Country Party receives in this place. I speak on behalf of my own Party because I am not so familiar with the members of the other parties represented in this Parliament. One typist is allocated to the Country Party in this place. I do not want to imply that her efficiency is not enough for the job. On the contrary, I believe she does a magnificent job, but she is completely overworked. It is not uncommon for members who go along to see her to find that they have to get in a queue to get their dictating done. Finally, they may have to wait, in many instances, for days before they can secure her services, which are sometimes urgently needed. That this problem exists can be proved by the fact that many members of the Liberal and Country Parties have to employ staff themselves privately. I think it is disgraceful that members of a political party have to employ private staff and pay the salaries of staff themselves so that the work that is necessary in this place can be carried out. I do not know how many staff are privately employed by the ruling Labor Government. I would doubt that any are employed doing the same type of work as is carried out by private employees of the Liberal and Country Parties. However, that is by the way.

I want to refer to some figures under division 101 in the estimates for the Parliament. The appropriation for salaries and overtime for people who operate within the Senate totals $1,161 ,400. Under division 102 the appropriation under the same item for the House of Representatives is $1,322,000. You might say that there is not a great deal of difference. How true. Yet the total membership of the Senate is 60 whereas this House has a total of 127 members. Surely to goodness that proves the point- I am not suggesting that we should have double the staff of the Senate- that at least members of the House of Representatives should be given a little more consideration in terms of the workload that is carried in this House. That is after all what we are dealing with.

Finally I make mention of parliamentary procedure. What has been concerning me is that the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) has made statements outside this place, and indeed inside it, threatening to call the Parliament out before the people in the event of certain legislation not being passed by the Senate. We have heard about the so-called obstruction of the Senate. If ground exists for a government to resign because parties or Houses reject a Budget, what is the difference between that situation and members in this chamber making alterations to Budget decisions brought down by the Treasurer? The question is: Who does make the decisions? I always thought it was the Cabinet, but it appears today that Caucus has a very big say. Finally we see a situation in which individual party committees almost have power in this place. Recently the chairman of a committee suggested that this and that should be altered and finally the Treasurer agreed. I believe that this committee system eventually will break the procedures and principles of the Parliament itself and that is why I draw attention to it.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr SCHOLES:
Corio

-I can sympathise with the problems of the honourable member for Wimmera (Mr King) related to staff in Parliament House as I have had considerable experience in Opposition under a former government. Adequate staff in this place and in the electorates has never been available to honourable members but the position is no different with different governments although there may be times when staff is increased but those increases are usually for members at the leadership or ministerial level. I think, however, that the Parliament should pay some tribute to the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) who has done more for backbench members than any other Minister, irrespective of his term of office as Leader of the House or of his political colour. The one exception may possibly be the Minster who originally provided staff in electorates for members. That was a major break through and was an enlightened decision at the time it was made. However this is not the subject to which I wanted to refer in this debate.

My concern, in speaking to the estimates of the Parliament, is related to the standing of the Parliament and its members. The honourable member for Wimmera has echoed what I consider to be the most dangerous situation the Parliament faces at the moment. Over a considerable period the Australian Press has embarked on a clear policy of denigration of the Parliament and its members. Only last weekend we saw Press articles purporting to suggest that members of Parliament had different rights in relation to taxation from other persons when, in fact, every person in the community who receives an overnight allowance does not have that questioned provided he does not claim more for expenses than the amount allowed. Members of the Press are included in this category, but they always seem to forget their own privileges when talking about the excessive privileges of others. I do not want to discuss this aspect at length but it should be pointed out that the articles which were published were of a scurrilous nature and were deliberately biased against members of the Parliament. The people who wrote them knew they were untrue and also clearly knew that many other people in the community- in fact all people who receive expense allowances for various reasons; tax free allowances- do not have to vouch for such expenses provided they do not claim in excess of the allowance. I mention this matter because I think it important to point out the exact position.

Another matter which concerns me seriously is the campaign, which has been going on for as long as I can remember but which has moved strongly in recent months, to suggest that only certain persons elected to this Parliament have any right to any say in decisions of the Government. Many of the articles which I have read suggest that only one person has any right to a say in the government of the country- on economic and fiscal decisions and on government policy. It is not unusual, in fact it is quite regular, to read Press articles suggesting that if the Prime Minister makes a decision no other member of Parliament, especially a Government supporter, has any right to query it. It is being portrayed that if members collectively of the Government Partymembers of the present Opposition never had this problem because they had no say when in government but were only ciphers for those at their head- disagree with the decisions of their executive,, they should have no say. I disagree with that contention. The people of my electorate elected me to come to Canberra and accept responsibility for Government decisions, and I do whether I like them or not. That is what this business is all about and it is what we have to do.

Mr King:

– What happens when your members disagree with Government policy? Do they ever cross the floor?

Mr SCHOLES:

-They have their say in the Party room, the same as does any other member.

Mr King:

– They never cross the floor of the House.

Mr SCHOLES:

-I do not doubt the sincerity of the honourable member, but I have never seen a member of the Opposition parties cross the floor when in government and that government ‘s position was on the line. It is usually a paper tiger operation for good publicity and the honourable member knows it. My concern is that proper democratic processes should be carried out. Members who are expected to vote for Government policies in the Parliament should be entitled to exercise their rights to challenge matters when they consider it necessary and to express opinions on decisions of a smaller group of their members, no matter what positions they may happen to hold. But when they express their opinions they are denigrated as being disloyal and not carrying out the functions of government. It is my opinion that members who sit in this Parliament and support government decisions- as members do, no matter which party sits on this side of the House- are entitled to challenge the decisions of government within the proper confines of their Party rooms.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– Before those decisions become legislation?

Mr SCHOLES:
Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– You introduce a Budget, then you change it.

Mr SCHOLES:

-No matter included in Appropriation Bill (No. 1 ), which we are presently discussing, has been altered in any way. Subsequent legislation mentioned in the Budget statement may have been altered, but none of it is included in this Bill. The honourable member should understand the processes of the Parliament before he makes interjections of that type. The danger I talk of is not a danger which comes from within the Parliament; it is a danger from without. A series of articles continually appears in the Australian Press seeking to prevail on supporters of the Government not to express an opinion and not to dissent from any decision of the Cabinet or the Prime Minister irrespective of whether they think it right or wrong. To my knowledge, and I may be wrong, there have been about 2 occasions only in the last 2 years when an opinion of the Prime Minister has not been carried in the Caucus room. That, I think, is reasonable, but it is irresponsible to say that Caucus and members should have no right to express an opinion within their own Party on matters on which they are expected to vote in the House. In my opinion this constitutes the greatest danger that could possibly exist to democratic government in this country.

What these Press articles are saying is that the only rights that members of the public have in electing members to Parliament- this applies equally to Opposition members- is that they shall vote on election day, that those they elect shall come to Canberra and vote for a leader and having chosen that leader for the next 3 years they will have no right to exercise any authority over that leader or members of the Cabinet. In the case of the Opposition their leader chooses his Cabinet but our Party elects the Cabinet. What the articles suggest is not what parliamentary representation is all about. Those newspapers which carry these stories are mischievous in the worst possible way. They are seeking to establish, under the guise of a democratic parliament, a principle whereby there is an elected dictatorship. I do not care which side of politics is involved, I believe that members who are elected to Parliament should seek to represent their constituents in the best possible way the system enables to do so.

The Westminster system is a crisis system. Every time the bells ring in this House there is a crisis for the Government. That is what the Westminster system is all about. It is a competent system. There is no provision in the Westminster system for a government to be defeated and survive. This is not like the system in Washington where the President stands above the Congress and can be defeated every day of the week but stays in office for 4 years unless something happens as happened to recent Presidents. While we have the party system we will have, of necessity, members voting in blocs in the Parliament. They must therefore be able to express their opinions elsewhere, and elsewhere is in the Party room. If that is denied the democratic system does not exist and cannot exist. In the Labor Party members have that right. It is an unalienable right and one which, I think, ought to be defended, not denigrated, by people who profess to defend democracy but in fact attack it on a daily basis.

Mr GILES:
Angas

– I accept the speech by the honourable member for Corio (Mr Scholes) as being a sincere description of his own problems. I suppose that it is now open knowledge that his Party is a hopelessly divided and unhappy one under its current leadership. He has to accept that that is so. The honourable members talked a little while ago about who crosses the floor and who does not. I remind the Committee that the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Calder), for one, crossed the floor the other day. I have not yet noticed the honourable member for Wilmot (Mr Duthie), who is now shaking his head, or any of his Tasmanian colleagues cross the floor on matters pertaining to superphosphate. I look forward to seeing that happen. If any Party can be held responsible for the fact that the Senate is no longer a States house but has become a purely Party house it is, of course, the members of the Labor Party. It was not until they banded together that the significance of the Senate as a States House was negated. Other parties out of sheer self protection from time to time have had to adopt the same policy. Let us have no more nonsense in relation to that problem.

I refer now to the estimates for the Parliament which is the matter now before the House. I think it is fair to say that this House continues to act in a somewhat more colourful fashion than its equivalent House in, say, the United Kingdom, Canada or New Zealand. I noticed the other day an article printed under the name of Mr Bridgman of the Parliamentary Reporting Staff in a manual for the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association which I think is called ‘Parliament’, in which he draws attention to a list of phrases allowed by precedent in this House in contradiction to others. The one that attracted my attention most, regrettably, was one that states: ‘He would not know if he sat on a corkscrew’. That may be amusing to some initially but a plethora of similar phrases probably would detract from the priorities and needs of proper debate in this House, and indeed would detract from the peculiar and necessary role of this House as a check and balance on Executive action.

The problem of the public image of Parliament in the eyes of the community is a factor that this House must not forget, as it must not forget the Parliament’s authority in the eyes of those who listen to and view its proceedings. From my point of view, I do not seek major reform nor any less colour in phraseology which I think is needed in a lower House, but I think that a lot more thought should be given by all members of Parliament, including Party leaders, to their behaviour in this chamber as it will be judged by an increasingly intelligent and perceptive outside viewing and listening body. In this, the people’s House, we must more than ever mirror the best attitudes of the community and not the worst. The honourable member for Ryan (Mr Drury), in a thoughtful speech yesterday, doubted the wisdom of televising parliamentary procedures except perhaps on special occasions. Because of the physical problems of heat from necessarily powerful lighting and because of the artificiality or stage-managed nature of televised proceedings in the past, he felt we should not take the step of televising proceedings on a regular basis. He may well be right, particularly when the more colourful ‘colour’ of the House is prone to be exaggerated. Nevertheless, I believe we will, and I believe we should, take this step in due course.

The advent of the political commentator has totally castrated the reporting of individual members’ speeches and questions. These commentators, hard working, if sometimes a trifle inexperienced, perceptive if not heavily endowed with proper training for their job, do not worry any more about reporting political facts. They interpret the facts in the daily or weekly commentary which cuts across the capacity of the backbencher in this House to identify with his electorate. Backbenchers rarely today warrant a mention. This illustrates the difficulty of the average member of Parliament whose city electorate, for instance, must wonder whether he ever says or does anything to represent its views and aspirations. It is primarily for this reason that I believe the interests of Parliament, as an essential part of the democratic process, will be best served by opening up the process to the scrutiny of the community by such action as televising parliamentary sessions with careful consideration being given to those sessions selected for viewing.

Cheap political capital can, I think, always be made by ridiculing the Chair. I did not always hold that view. I suppose to one degree or another these attempts to ridicule have always been made by an Opposition that feels frustrated. However, I believe it behoves all members to meditate on the erosion they may cause to the institution by taking frivolous or undue political action with the Chair. This leads me to the matter of quorums. On any international comparison the quota needed for a quorum in this House of one-third or 43 members is too high. This in turn becomes a tactical weapon in the hands of an Opposition subject to insufficient debating time and to gags and guillotines on important Bills which the Opposition regards as unreasonable. It is worth consideration by this House that other parliaments have taken away the power of individual members to call quorums. Certainly, and not only in this Parliament, quorums are called frivolously and constitute a serious erosion on the capacity of various parliamentary and party committees to operate efficiently. On the other hand, before the sitting of the House was suspended for lunch the bare minimum of one Minister, who was ponderously introducing his Bill, one Opposition front bencher, the honourable member for Barker (Dr Forbes), and the Speaker constituted the entire number present. It is obvious that the responsibility of the Opposition in these circumstances should be to call a quorum, and it is equally as obvious that the responsibility of a government is at all times to at least hold a reasonable number if not a quorum on such occasions.

In any viewing of the operation of other parliaments the first main difference that is made quite apparent to any intelligent observer is the programming of the procedures of the House. It is well known to honourable members that a three-line whip in the United Kingdom states that a division on the Budget will take place at 9.30 p.m. the week after next and the members turn up for such a major division in their complete numbers. Certainly there are sociological and distribution differences between the United Kingdom Parliament and the Australian Parliament. I get the feeling that the average member of Parliament in the House of Commons tends to be more of a part-time person and not such a captive audience as people who travel vast distances in Australia and live in Canberra at least for the time of the sittings. I think that the larger the membership of this Parliament becomes and the more immense the work it undertakes, the more necessary it will be to attempt to program the proceedings accurately. The business of Bills listed but not eventuating, of new Bills coming from the clouds and appearing for debate creates practical problems to the efficient and effective functioning of the Parliament.

In the minute remaining to me I should like to get personal. Honourable members will appreciate the fact that I am the newest comer to join the illustrious people such as yourself, Mr Deputy Chairman, who deputise for the Chairman of Committee. I want to make a few terse comments. When one sits in the Chairman’s chair one notices that people like the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) and the honourable member for Phillip (Mr Riordan) always pay respect and observance to the Chair as they come and go in this chamber. Many members of this chamber strut arrogantly past, do not stop to check when crossing in front of the table, and take no regard of the Chair whatsoever. In general they make one feel that one is quite redundant when one sits up high in that important position.

Dr Klugman:

-That is right.

Mr GILES:

– I am glad to hear the honourable member for Prospect dare to comment on that aspect.

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

Mr MALCOLM FRASER:
Wannon

– I should like to support the honourable member for Angas ( Mr Giles ) in the last remarks that he made. For a few moments 1 want to take a little further some remarks I made in a similar debate in the Parliament last year. I firmly believe that the Committee system which this House uses is 40 years out of date, that the Parliament and the House of Representatives in particular are resolutely refusing to look at experiences overseas in a proper way to bring themselves up to date. That might be an odd thing to say when we have just agreed to form a joint committee with the Senate to look at the problem of parliamentary committees, but I think that is one of the problems- the proposed committee is a joint committee with the Senate. The Senate, I believe, would probably be happier having separate Senate committees. This Parliament, if it wishes to carry out its business properly- governments, I do not say this Government, may not wish that to happen- should have separate House of Representatives committees and separate Senate committees.

The Senate is meant to be a house of review, and in many cases it is. On many occasions it scrutinises legislation much more closely than does this chamber, although the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) by his grace yesterday allowed one piece of legislation to be scrutinised quite closely, and I thank him for that. His normal character seemed to be in abeyance for a while. If the Senate is a house of review, reviewing what this House does, how can the Senate sit on joint committees with the House of Representatives? There may be odd occasions where there could be special purpose committees with members from both Houses, but broadly speaking, I believe that should not occur. One of the problems is that although there is a great deal of experience in the United Kingdom and a good deal of experience in Canada, where the parliamentary system is roughly similar to ours, so far we have not established an effective committee system. A number of things could easily have been done.

We need some special purpose committees which at present do not exist- for instance, a House of Representatives committee on expenditure in addition to the Public Accounts Committee. In the United Kingdom there are both. A Public Accounts Committee checks basically to see whether money has been spent as this Parliament orders, but an expenditure committee is designed to see that policies are carried out within the guidelines of Government policy as effectively and economically as possible. This Committee in the United Kingdom does not sit just for a few days between the introduction of - the Budget and the passage of the Estimates. The House of Commons Estimates Committee began in that way about 40 years ago and very soon learnt that that was a very ineffective way of doing business. Now, that Committee sits throughout the year and really gets to the grass roots of what happens within a department. This might be uncomfortable for departments and Ministers but it is good for the Parliament and good for the nation because it stops people padding votes in this area or that area in a manner that no Minister can really unravel and makes sure that the Parliament understands what is happening. The very fact that 4, 5 or 6 departments are examined throughout the course of the year in this way puts all departments on their toes in relation to expenditure. I know that people who like to pad votes will not like this sort of proposal and this sort of parliamentary activity, but for the better government of Australia and for the status of the Parliament surely the wider objective can be accepted.

I think that in this Parliament, with the amount of debate that there is on tariffs, there could be a special committee on tariffs to examine Industry Assistance Commission reports, to judge the reports for their consistency in relation to the guidelines and criteria established by governments. At the moment the debates take place on these matters in this Parliament but too few people pay attention to them. A smaller committee that reported to the Parliament its deliberations could oversight in a proper manner what happens in what is now the Industries Assistance Commission.

These are examples of special purpose committees. By and large what this Parliament needs is some mechanism that would enable it to decentralise its business so that there can be more debates of the kind that there was on the Conciliation and Arbitration (Organisations) Bill last night. For that purpose we would need 2 special purpose committees. There would be a floating membership so that when a matter was before a committee which honourable members had an interest in they could attend the committee. Obviously the appropriate balance of numbers between the Government and the Opposition would have to be maintained. But in the United Kingdom there are 4 general purpose committees and, as I understand it, there is a steering committee which allocates the business of the House of Commons to the different committees. Even second readings are given in a second reading committee and thus the business of the House of Commons is kept free for matters of major importance.

If there were 2 committees of this kind they would enable matters of lesser importance to be referred to committees of the House and we could have 2 committees sitting contemporaneously. In every hour one could do 2 hours of the work that is now done and in a smaller, more intimate forum I think it is very likely that the work would be done much better. There would be less debate and, if I might say so, on occasions, less grandstanding and more commitment to the particular matter in question.

There would need to be a steering committee. For the decisions of that committee there would have to be unanimity. Otherwise the matters would have to come into the full House to be decided. That steering committee, comprised of Government and Opposition members, would determine which matters were of sufficient significance to be referred to the full House and which should go to one of the 2 general purpose committees. I argue for general purpose committees following the United Kingdom practice because there are just not enough members of this chamber to establish a whole series of specialist committees dealing with the whole ambit of governmental affairs. If there is not a specialist committee a matter automatically has to be decided in this chamber if it is a matter involving legislation or something of that kind. Therefore the less important business could not be moved to a committee as could be done if special purpose committees were established.

In addition, if one followed the French practice where there have been specialist committees of the French Parliament through at least the first 4 Republics- I have not kept pace with the Fifth or Sixth Republic- one saw that fact of having special purpose committees breathing down the necks of Ministers was one of the things which led to the instability of Ministers and of governments in the French Parliament. I do not think it is a good practice and in any case members of Parliament rarely want to specialise specifically in one issue. It is much better for members to have a broad knowledge and understanding of several issues so that they can develop the capacity for judgment over a wider field. A wide acceptance of special purpose committees as a way of solving the problems we have would not work and would not lead to an effective decentralisation of business, which is the only way we can have adequate time for debate and at the same time make sure that honourable members have time to do things which are necessary and must be done away from Canberra. In the present circumstances we will be sitting longer and longer and other parts of our activities, therefore, will get cut back.

We would need somewhere for the 2 proposed committees to sit. I am talking about committees not of five or six, or nine or ten members each. For general purpose committees we would need a substantial membership. I think in the United Kingdom the membership might be between forty and eighty. I do not want to be held to ransom because it is some time since I have read the papers on the subject, but in this Parliament if there were 2 committees of say thirty eachagain they would need a floating membership so that the particular interests of honourable members could be met if they wanted to attend for one particular subject and one alone- we would probably need to construct an additional place where the second committee could sit. Probably the closest and best place, if an underground railway were established, would be the bowling green. I know that a number of people might not like that, but the effective business of this Government and Parliament is more important than the bowling green. That could probably be moved slightly further afield.

I conclude on this point*. Nothing that is done in relation to committees will be effective unless there is a government which wants the committee system to work. If the Government wants a committee system to make members busy and so stop them getting in the way of governmentthat is often the view of governments- there will never be a committee system that works. But if the Government wants to see a committee system which will contribute to the good government of this country- if we had a government of that kind- it would co-operate in developing a committee system for the House of Representatives that could be effective and that could work.

Earlier, I showed to the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) a paper. It is a lengthy one. It is a paper prepared by a Party Committee of the Liberal Party and the Country Party two or three years ago. I have asked those members of that committee who are still members of this Parliament whether they have any objection to that paper being made public. None of them have. It contains some remarks in relation to the committee system and it draws information from the United Kingdom practice. Therefore, I think, especially in view of the joint committee that this House has established with the Senate to inquire into the parliamentary committee system, that there could be some advantage in this paper being incorporated in Hansard.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Lucock)-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted. (The document read as follows)-

REPORT OF THE GOVERNMENT MEMBERS’ HOUSE PROCEDURES COMMITTEE WHICH MET IN CANBERRA ON 13 AND 14 JULY 1971

The Leader of the House referred six matters to the Committee for report:

Days and hours of sitting.

Allocation of times for speeches.

Procedure for the suspension of Standing Orders.

The quorum.

Parliamentary committees.

Methods by which Party Members may be better informed of the House program.

The Committee wrote to all Members of the Government Parties in the House of Representatives to canvas their views on these and other matters which Members felt should come before the Committee. As a result several additional matters were discussed. These included:

Measures that might be, taken to reduce the last week’s rush.

Matters of public importance.

Petitions.

Secondment of motions and amendments.

Procedures relating to private members’ motions.

Days and hours of sitting- A significant majority of members who wrote to the Committee supported a return to the old system of days and hours of sitting in the four week cycle. Arguments put forward and discussed by the Committee included the following:

It was felt that the three week cycle system made a proper division of time between parliamentary and electoral work more difficult. It was strongly felt that Members liked to know that Mondays and Fridays will remain clear for their own commitments.

Whatever may be the merits in theory, the new system just did not work. Very many Members sought to get leave on Fridays and few use the weekend in Canberra for its intended purpose. It was significant that reversion to the old system was supported by a number of Members from remote areas.

The Committee recommends that the present sitting arrangements be abandoned as soon as possible and that we return to the old system of three weeks on and one week off.

The Committee further strongly recommends that Government business should not be pursued after 1 1 p.m. unless the circumstances are truly exceptional. If the rule is to be broken the Parties should be given an explanation, preferably before the event, by the Leader of the House or by the Minister concerned, who must take responsibility.

The Committee also strongly recommends that the House should sit for more days, rather than late at night.

The Committee also discussed the adjournment debate.

The Committee believes that we should seek to reach arrangements under which as many Members possible could go home once the adjournment debate has started. The Committee believes that the Government parties should, however, maintain a majority in the House during the adjournment debate and suggests that substantial pairing by roster may be arranged.

The Committee was not in favour of an arbitrary time limit on the adjournment debate.

The allocation of time for speeches- The Committee recommends that no change be made in the present arrangements.

Procedure for the suspension of Standing Orders- The Committee recommends that the time for speeches on a motion for the suspension of Standing Orders be reduced from twenty minutes for the mover and fifteen minutes for other Members, to ten minutes for the mover, ten minutes for the first reply and five minutes for all other Members. The Committee is not in favour of a definite time limit on the length of the debate.

Quorum- The Committee recommends that the quorum be reduced to one-fifth for all purposes.

Seconding of motions and amendments- The Committee recommends that a seconder for motions and amendments be no longer required, because the provision achieves no effective purpose. The House of Commons dispensed with the requirement ten years ago.

The House Program- The Committee strongly believes that the Government must avoid the traditional end of session rush. The Committee understands that its recommendations may require some alteration in the methods and procedures of Cabinet or departmental business, but nevertheless is strongly of the view that if alterations are required to achieve the Committee’s recommendations, then these alterations should be made.

The Committee recommends that no bill should be introduced into the House less than four weeks before the end of the session, if it is to be passed through all stages in that session. The Committee accepts that emergency situations could arise, but suggests that in such situations the Minister concerned would need a good explanation.

The Committee recommends that bills be introduced into the Party Room in one week and debated therein the next week, or alternatively that bills be introduced into the Party Room, that some preliminary debate takes place, that the bill then be referred to a committee of the Parties and that that committee should then report back to the Party Room in the following week.

The Committee also recommends that the Leader of the House should at the end of each week inform the Parliament of the intended business for the following week, detailed day by day. This recommendation follows House of Commons practice.

Petitions- The Committee recommends that a petition in a particular form be read only once in each sitting week and that if petitions in a similar form are received, the Clerk should merely announce that such a petition has been received from the Member concerned.

The Committee does not recommend other changes in the petition procedure.

The Committee believes that Question Time should not be reduced because of petitions, especially if the new procedures are adopted.

Matters of Public Importance and Private Members’ Motions- The Committee discussed matters of public importance and the procedures for handling private members’ motions, but recommends no change.

  1. Messages- The Committee strongly believes that the means of getting messages to Members quickly in the Parliament Building should be greatly improved, and expresses the view that the present system of pink slips is not working and is too slow. The Committee also suggests that the question of electronic devices should be further examined.

Parliamentary Committees- The Committee had lengthy discussions concerning the development of a committee system for the House of Representatives. It was conscious of the fact that our parliamentary system is markedly different from that in some other countries. The Committee leant, therefore, towards British experience and practice rather than the experience and practice of the United States. In many respects the two systems are not compatible. Our executive is directly responsible to, is in and part of the Parliament. Ministers are responsible to the Parliament for all matters under their administration. In the executive in the

United States’ system their members of cabinet are responsible to the President, but at the same time they are subject to questioning before congressional committees. The division of power and responsibility between the legislature and the executive is clearly denned in the United States. In the Australian and British system the executive is directly responsible to and is part of Parliament. It should also be noted that many of those who appear before United States committees for questioning are presidential appointees rather than career public servants. In the Australian system it is important to avoid the possibility of the anonymity of public servants being destroyed by Parliamentary enquiry. Our system depends upon senior public servants being able to serve alternative governments. For these reasons the Committee believes that British practice arid experience is much more applicable to ours than would be the American. The Committee strongly recommends after much deliberation that an Expenditure Committee with terras of reference similar to that of the House of Commons’ Expenditure Committee, should be established from the House of Representatives. Its prime purpose should be to see how, if at all, policies implied in the figures of expenditure and in the estimates may be carried out more economically. It should be noted that our Public Accounts Committee’s prime task is to determine if moneys have been spent as Parliament ordered. There is also a House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee which serves a similar purpose to ours.

Standing orders relating to the United Kingdom Expenditure Committee and to the Public Accounts Committee are attached, as is the relevant extract from our Public Accounts Act. An extract from May 1971 edition is also attached.

Establishment of an Expenditure Committee would involve close co-operation with the Public Accounts Committee. In the United Kingdom this used to be achieved by the Chairman of one being a member of the other.

There would be no diminution in the importance of the Public Accounts Committee. Its prime task would not be touched. An Expenditure Committee’s task would be of a different nature.

A House of Representatives Expenditure Committee would achieve a better examination of the means and manner of the preparation of plans for departmental expenditure within the guidelines of announced policy. An Expenditure Committee of the kind established in the House of Commons would not stand in the way of or replace our normal Estimates debate, but it would provide a continuous and an in depth review of the expenditure plans of different departments. The Committee strongly believes that such a parliamentary committee established in the House of Representatives would provide more effective parliamentary scrutiny of expenditure plans and departmental estimates than has so far been achieved.

The Committee also recommends the formation of two general purpose Standing Committees of the House of Representatives. The purpose of these committees would be to decentralize the business of the Parliament to achieve a better and more intimate debate on many matters that now pass through the Parliment virtually without scrutiny, and to relieve pressure on the House itself. Such committees would not detract from the powers of the House: they would be servants of the House. Generally such committees would not examine controversial matters in which the House would be strongly divided on Party lines but legislation which has the general support of both Parties could be referred to such committees. If the joint Parties were attracted to this idea a good deal of additional examination would need to be undertaken but the Committee has attached to this report an extract from the Standing Orders concerning the working of the standing committees for the House of Commons.

The Standing Committees of the House of Commons have a floating membership which varies depending upon the matters referred to the Committees. This makes sure that any members with a particular interest in a matter would have an opportunity of being on the Committee concerned.

It should also be noted that the House of Commons now refers the second reading of certain Bills to a Second Reading Committee. This practice could also be adopted to the House of Representatives. An extract from May, 1971, concerning this Committee is also attached.

As the Committee understood it, it is only committee stages of Bills that are referred to the Standing Committee while the second reading of non-controversial Bills is referred to the Second Reading Committee.

Both practices could be adopted here. While different forms would be required for Second Reading at Committee stages, the same Committees could be used for both purposes. In addition, other matters that now pass through the House only cursorily could be referred to the Committees by the House. An example may be departmental annual reports which now receive virtually no notice.

The House Procedures Committee believes that two general purpose Standing Committees would be preferable at this stage to a system of special purpose committees covering all departments. In our small Parliament there would be difficulties in having too many Committees, and the work load could be very uneven, depending on Parliamentary business. The Committee felt that its own recommendations would achieve the best use of available resources.

If these recommendations are accepted, the Committees would of course be additional to those now operating.

The Committee strongly recommends that any Committees now existing, or to be established, should be equipped with adequate staff. The Committee points out that adequate Parliamentary scrutiny and an effective Committee system depend significantly on provision of staff.

page 2526

GOVERNMENT MEMBERS’ HOUSE PROCEDURES COMMITTEE

Chairman:

The Honourable Malcolm Fraser, M.P. Member for Wannon, Victoria

Members:

Mr H. B. Turner, M.P. Member for Bradfield, New South Wales

Mr R. C. Katter, M.P. Member for Kennedy,

Queensland

Mr J. D. Jess, M.P. Member for LaTrobe, Victoria

Mr G. O’H. Giles, M.P. Member for Angas, South

Australia

Mr R. V. Garland, M.P. Member for Curtin, West Australia

Mr E. M. C. Fox, M.P. Member for Henry, Victoria

The Honourable G. D. Erwin, M.P. Member for Ballaarat, Victoria

Mr E. N. Drury, M.P. Member for Ryan, Queensland

Mr S. E. Calder, D.F.C., M.P. Member for Northern Territory

Dr R. J. Solomon, M.P. Member for Denison, Tasmania

Mr R. S. King, M.P. Member for Wimmera, Victoria. Mr W. G. Turnbull, C.B.E., M.P. Member for Mallee, Victoria

page 2526

GREAT BRITAIN: HOUSE OF COMMONS

Votes and Proceedings: 21 January 1971

  1. Business of the House.- Ordered, That the Proceedings on the Motion relating to Industrial Training may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day’s Sitting at any hour during a period of one and a half hours after Ten o’clock, though opposed.- (Mr Hugh Rossi.)
  2. Guardianship of Minors Bill (Lords).- The House, according to Order, resolved itself into a Committee on the Guardianship of Minors Bill (Lords). (In the Committee)

Clauses Nos. 1 to 20 agreed to.

Schedules Nos. 1 and 2 agreed to.

Bill to be reported.

Mr Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair; and Mr Hugh Rossi reported, That the Committee had gone through the Bill and directed him to report the same, without Amendment.

A Motion was made, and the Question being put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No.55 (Third Reading), That the Bill be now read the third time:- It was agreed to.

The Bill was accordingly read the third time, and passed.

  1. Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply).- Ordered, That Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply) be amended as follows:-

Line 56, leave out ‘Estimates’ and insert ‘Expenditure’. (Mr Hugh Rossi.)

  1. Standing Order No. 80 (Estimates Committee)Ordered, That Standing Order No. 80 (Estimates Committee) be repealed, and that a new Standing Order be made, as follows:-

Standing Order No. 80 (Expenditure Committee)

There shall be a select committee to be called the Expenditure Committee, to consider any papers on public expenditure presented to this House and such of the estimates as may seem fit to the committee and in particular to consider how, if at all, the policies implied in the figures of expenditure and in the estimates may be carried out more economically, and to examine the form of the papers and of the estimates presented to this House; to consist of forty-nine Members, who shall be nominated at the commencement of every session, and of whom nine shall be a quorum:

The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time:

The committee shall have power to appoint persons with technical knowledge either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee’s order of reference:

The committee shall have power to appoint subcommittees and to refer to such sub-committees any of the matters referred to the committee; three shall be the quorum of every such sub-committee:

Every such sub-committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place:

The committee shall have power to report from time to time the minutes of evidence taken before subcommittees:

The committee and any sub-committee appointed by the committee shall have power to admit strangers during the examination of witnesses unless they otherwise order.- (Mr Hugh Rossi.)

  1. Industrial Training.- Resolved, That this House takes note of the Industrial Training Levy (Road Transport) Order 1970 (S.I., 1970, No. 1062).-Mr Marcus Fox.)
  2. Adjournment,- Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.- (Mr Paul Hawkins.)

And accordingly the House, having continued to sit till four minutes to Twelve o’clock, adjourned till tomorrow.

Adjourned at 1 1.56 p.m.

page 2527

SELWYN LLOYD

Speaker

Mr Speaker will take the Chair at Eleven o ‘clock.

page 2527

APPENDIX I

Thursday, 2 1 January 1971

Papers presented and ordered to lie upon the Table:

Secretary Sir Alec Douglas-Home:

  1. Aviation (Miscellaneous. No. 5, 1971).- Copy of a Con-‘ vention signed at the Hague on 16 December 1970 for the suppression of unlawful seizure of aircraft ( the Convention has not been ratified by the United Kingdom) (by Command).
  2. Treaty Series (No. 109, 1970).-Copy of the Third Supplementary List of Ratifications, Accessions, Withdrawals, etc. for 1970 (by Command).
  3. Treaty Series (No. 5, 197 1 ).-Copy of a Schedule to the International Whaling Convention 1946 revised to include the Amendments adopted at the twenty-first meeting of the International Whaling Commission (by Command).

Mr Secretary Davies:

  1. London Airport.- Copy of the Report of the Commission on the Third London Airport (by Command).

Mr Christopher Chataway:

  1. Commonwealth Telegraphs.- Copies of Regulations, dated 8 January 1971, entitled-

    1. the Commonwealth Telegraphs (Cables and Wireless Ltd. Pension) Regulations 1971 (S.I., 1971, No. 61), and
    2. the Commonwealth Telegraphs (Pension Rights of former Cable and Wireless Ltd. Staff) Regulations 1971 (S.I., 1971, No. 60) (by Act).

page 2527

STANDING ORDERS

Appropriate, to lobby journalists, and to such other press representatives as the committee think fit, after those reports have been laid upon the Table but not more than forty-eight hours before the intended time of publication of such reports.

Public Accounts

  1. There shall be a select committee, to be designated the Committee of Public Accounts, for the examination of the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by Parliament to meet the public expenditure, and of such other accounts laid before Parliament as the committee may think fit, to consist of not more than fifteen members, who shall be nominated at the commencement of every session, and of whom five shall be a quorum. The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to report from time to time.

Estimates Committee

  1. There shall be a select committee, to be designated the Estimates Committee, to examine such of the estimates presented to this House as many seem fit to the committee and report how, if at all, the policy implied in those estimates may be carried out more economically and, if the committee think fit, to consider the principal variations between the estimates and those relating to the previous financial year and the form in which the estimates are presented to the House, to consist of forty-three members, who shall be nominated at the commencement of every session, and of whom seven shall be a quorum:

The committee shall have power to send for persons, papers, and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place, and to report from time to time:

The committee shall have power to appoint sub-commit- . tees and to refer to such sub-committees any of the matters referred to the committee; three shall be the quorum of every such sub-committee:

Every such sub-committee shall have power to send for persons, papers, and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to adjourn from place to place:

The committee shall have power to report from time to time the minutes of evidence taken before sub-committees and reported by them to the committee.

Sittings of Committees

  1. All committees, other than committees of the whole House, shall have leave to sit at any time on any day on which the House sits, but

JOINT STATUTORY COMMITTEES

Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings

Sections S and 12 of the Parliamentary Proceedings Broadcasting Act 1946-1960 provide: 5- (1 ) As soon as conveniently practicable after the commencement of this Act, and thereafter at the commencement of the first session of every Parliament, a Joint Committee of nine members of the Parliament, to be called the Joint Committee on the Broadcasting of Parliamentary Proceedings, shall be appointed according to the practice of the Parliament with reference to the appointment of members to serve on Joint Select Committees of both Houses of the Parliament.

  1. One of the members of the Committee shall be the President of the Senate, one member shall be the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and, of the other seven members of the Committee, two shall be members of, and appointed by, the Senate and five shall be members of, and appointed by, the House of Representatives. 12- (1) The Committee shall consider and specify in a report presented to each House of the Parliament, the general principles upon which there should be determined the days upon which, and the period during which, the proceedings of the Senate and the House of Representatives shall be broadcast.
  2. The Committee shall, in accordance with general principles specified by the Committee and adopted by each House of the Parliament, determine the days upon which, and the period during which, the proceedings of either House of the Parliament shall be broadcast.

Membership

Appointed in accordance with sub-section (2) of section 5 of the Act

The Speaker of the House of Representatives (Chairman)

The President of the Senate

Senator Douglas McClelland

Senator John Peter Sim

William Tevlin Arthur, Esquire, M.P.

Miss Kay Cathrine Millin Brownbill, M.P.

Dominic Eric Costa, Esquire, M.P.

Anthony Sylvester Luchetti, Esquire, M.P.

Winton George Turnbull, Esquire, C.B.E., M.P.

Public Accounts

Sections 5 and 8 of the Public Accounts Committee Act 195 1-1 966 provide: 5- ( 1 ) As soon as practicable after the commencement of this Act, and as soon as practicable after the commencement of the first session of each Parliament, a joint committee of ten members of the Parliament (to be known as the Joint Committee of Public Accounts) shall be appointed according to the practice of the Parliament with reference to the appointment of members to serve on joint select committees of both Houses of the Parliament.

  1. Three members of the Committee shall be members of, and shall be appointed by, the Senate, and seven members of the Committee shall be members of, and shall be appointed by, the House of Representatives.
  2. Each member shall hold office during .the pleasure of the House by which he was appointed.
  3. Either House of the Parliament may appoint one of its members to fill a vacancy amongst the members of the Committee appointed by that House.
  4. Each member shall cease to hold office when the House of Representatives expires by effluxion of time or is dissolved. 8- The duties of the Committee are:

    1. to examine the accounts of the receipts and expenditure of the Commonwealth and each statement and report transmitted to the Houses of the Parliament by the Auditor-General in pursuance of sub-section (I) of section fifty-three of the Audit Act 1901-1950;
    2. to report to both Houses of the Parliament, with such comment as it thinks fit, any items or matters in those accounts, statements and reports, or any circumstances connected with them, to which the Committee is of the opinion that the attention of the Parliament should be directed;
    3. to report to both Houses of the Parliament any alteration which the Committee thinks desirable in the form of the public accounts or in the method of keeping them, or in the mode of receipt, control, issue or payment of public moneys; and
    4. to inquire into any question in connexion with the public accounts which is referred to it by either House of the Parliament, and to report to that House upon that question, and include such other duties as are assigned to the Committee by Joint Standing Orders approved by both Houses of the Parliament.

Membership

Appointed in accordance with sub-section (2) of section 5 of the Act

Richard Cleaver, Esquire, M.P. (Chairman) Senator Joseph Francis Fitzgerald Senator James Joseph Webster

Senator Dame Ivy Evelyn Wedgwood, D.B.E

Frederick Walter Collard, Esquire, M.P

James Donald Mathieson Dobie, Esquire, M.P

Edmund Maxwell Cameron Fox, Esquire, M.P. (Discharged 26 February 1969)

George Henry Gray, Esquire, M.P. (Deceased 2 August 1967)

Edward William Peters, Esquire, M.P

Ian Louis Robinson, Esquire, M.P

Appointed- 23 August 1967

James Francis Cope, Esquire, M.P

Appointed- 26 February 1969

Donald Scott Jessop, Esquire, M.P

Reports presented

Ninetieth Report- Treasury Minute on the Eightieth Report together with Summaries of that Report- 1 8 May 1 967

Ninety-first Report- Treasury Minutes on the Seventy-third, Seventy-fifth and Eighty-seventh Reports, together with Summaries of those Reports- 5 October 1967.

Ninety-second Report- Index to the First to the Eighty-ninth Reports of the Committee- 5 October 1 967.

Ninety-third Report- Expenditure from Advance to the Treasurer (Appropriation Act 1966-67)- 27 October 1967.

page 2529

EXTRACT FROM 18TH EDITION OF MAY 1971 EDITION

Select Committees

Public Accounts Committee- The Committee of Public Accounts is appointed under S. O. No. 86 ‘for the examination of the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by Parliament to meet the public expenditure, and of such other accounts laid before Parliament as the Committee may think fit. ‘ The number of members of the Committee is fixed by the same standing order at fifteen. They are nominated at the commencement of each session. The main function of this Committee is to make sure that the parliamentary grants for each financial year, including supplementary grants, have been applied to the object which Parliament prescribed, and to consider the matters brought to the notice of Parliament in the reports made by the Comptroller and Auditor-General as a result of his audit. For this purpose they have the assistance of the Comptroller and Auditor-General. The Committee also scrutinizes the causes which have led to any excesses over parliamentary grants. The researches made by the Committee, and the publication of their reports, ensure, on behalf of the House of Commons, an effectual examination of the public accounts.

The Committee was appointed for the first time in 1861 ( C. J. ( 1 86 1 ) 1 30 ). It does not take evidence in public.

Estimates Committee- An Estimates Committee was appointed regularly from 1912 to 1970 (f). Its most recent order of reference was to examine such of the estimates as seemed fit to it, and to report how, if at all, the policy implied in those estimates might be carried out more economically. The Committee had power also to consider the form of the estimates, and the principal variations between the estimates and those relating to the preceding financial year. The Committee conducted its investigations by means of subcommittees which in their inquiries were concerned with matters arising from the estimates other than those of policy which fell within the scope of business of supply in the House. In recent years, the scope of the Committee’s order of reference has been subject to some criticism (g) in response to which certain alterations were made to the ordering of its business by the Committee (h). In 1970, however, a report of the Select Committee on Procedure (i) recommending that the Estimates Committee should be replaced by a Select Committee on Expenditure was substantially accepted by the government. It was hoped that the changes proposed would enable a strengthened Committee to focus its attention on public expenditure rather than on the supply estimates and to examine a wider selection of issues arising in this field._

  1. In the war years 1914-20 and 1939-45 examination of war expendi ture was entrusted to the Select Committee on National Expenditure (see Fifteenth edition, p. 658). In 1960 the appointment of an Estimates Committee was laid down by Standing Order. For a general survey of the development of the Estimates Committee, see Select Committee on Procedure, 1st Report H.C. 410 pp. 87-96 ( 1968-69).
  2. Select Committee on Procedure, 4th Report, H.C. 393 ( 1 964-65): Estimates Committee, 1st Special Report, H.C 21 (1965-66); H. C. Deb. (1964-65)718, c. 182-86.
  3. In 1965-66 and 1966-67, sub-committees were assigned titles and fields of responsibility. This arrangement was terminated in order to avoid any appearance of duplication of the work of ‘specialist’ committees. 1st Special Report, H.C. 28, p. 4( 1967-68).
  4. lstReport.H.C.410(l968-69).

page 2529

APPENDIX

Public Bills

  1. – ( 1) A Member may, after notice, present a bill without previously obtaining leave from the House to bring in the same.

    1. When a bill is presented either in pursuance of an order of the House or under the provisions of paragraph (1 ) of this order, the bill shall be read the first time without any question being put, shall be ordered to be read a second time on such day as the Minister presenting it shall appoint, and shall be ordered to be printed.
    2. If a Member informs the Clerks at the Table of his intention to take charge of a bill which has been brought from the Lords, the bill shall be deemed to have been read the first time on the day on which the Member so informs the Clerks, and to have been ordered to be read a second time on such a day as he shall appoint, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having been read the first time and ordered to be read a second time on the day so appointed, and shall be ordered to be printed.
  2. – ( 1 ) Where a public bill (not being a bill to confirm a provisional order or certificate) is ordered to be read a second time on a future day, and it appears that the standing orders relating to private business may be applicable to the bill, the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills shall be ordered to examine the bill and they shall proceed and report with all convenient speed whether the said standing orders are applicable thereto. If they find that the standing orders are applicable, they shall further report whether they have been complied with.

    1. If the Examiners report that any standing order applicable to the bill has not been complied with, and the Standing Orders Committee report that such standing order ought not to be dispensed with, the order of the day relating to the bill shall be discharged.
  3. – ( 1 ) If on an amendment to the question “That a bill be now read a second time (or the third time)” it is decided that the word “now” stand part of the question, Mr Speaker shall forthwith declare the bill to be read a second or the third time as the case may be.

    1. When the question has been proposed “That a bill be now read a second (or the third time)” and the question on any amendment to leave out all the words after “That” and insert other words has passed in the negative, the main question shall be put forthwith.
  4. – (1) When a public bill (other than a Consolidated Fund or an Appropriation Bill, or a bill for confirming a provisional order) has been read a second time, it shall stand committed to a standing committee unless the House otherwise order.

    1. A motion to commit a bill to a committee of the whole House or to a select committee, or a motion that it is expedient that a bill be committed to a joint committee of Lords and Commons, may be made by any Member and if made immediately after the bill has been read a second time shall not require notice, and, though opposed, may be decided after the expiration of the time for opposed business, and the question thereon shall be put forthwith.
    2. A motion to commit a bill to a standing committee in respect of some of its provisions and to a committee of the whole House in respect of other provisions may be made by the Member in charge of the bill and, if made immediately after the bill has been read a second time, shall not require notice, and may, though opposed, be decided after the expiration of the time for opposed business. If such a motion is opposed, Mr Speaker after permitting, if he thinks fit, a brief explanatory statement from the Member who makes and from a Member who opposes the motion shall, without permitting any further debate, put the question thereon.
    3. If the question on a motion made under paragraph (2) or paragraph (3) of this order is negatived, Mr Speaker shall forthwith declare that the bill stands committed to a standing committee.
  5. Whenever the House is adjourned for more than one day, notices of amendments to bills, new clauses or new schedules or of amendments to Lords amendments received in the Public Bill Office at any time not later than half-past four o ‘clock on the last day on which the House is not sitting (excluding any Saturday or Sunday) may be accepted as if the House were sitting.
  6. All committees to which bills may be committed or referred for consideration on report shall have power to make such amendments therein as they shall think fit, provided they be relevant to the subject matter of the bill; but if any such amendments shall not be within the long title of the bill, they shall amend the long title accordingly, and report the same specially to the House.
  7. There shall be a committee, to be called the Business Committee, consisting of the members of the Chairmen’s Panel and not more than five other members to be nominated by Mr Speaker in respect of each bill to which this order or Standing Order No. 44 (Allocation of time to bills) applies. The quorum of the committee shall be seven. The committee-

    1. shall, in the case of any bill in respect of which an order has been made by the House, allotting a specified number of days or portions of days to the consideration of the bill in committee of the whole House or on report, divide the bill into such parts as they may see lit and allot to each part so many days or portions of a day so allotted as they may consider ;
    2. may, if they think fit, do the like in respect of any bill to the consideration of which in committee of the whole House or on report a specified number of days or portions of days has been allotted by general agreement notified orally to the House by a Minister of the Crown; and
    3. shall report their resolution (or resolutions) to the House, and, on a motion being made for the consideration of such report, the question thereon shall be put forthwith and on consideration of the said report the question “That this House doth agree with the committee in their resolution (or resolutions)” shall be put forthwith and, if that question be agreed to, any such resolution shall have effect as if it were an order of the House.

Proceedings in pursuance of this sub-paragraph, though opposed, may be decided after the expiration of the time for opposed business.

  1. -( 1 ) Where, in respect of a public bill either-

    1. a) Mr Speaker has been informed that no general agreement to allot a specified number of days or portions of days to the consideration of the bill in committee or on report has been reached, or
    2. any general agreement of which Mr Speaker has been informed is, in the opinion of a Minister of the Crown, working ineffectively, a motion may be made by a Minister of the Crown that the committee on the bill shall report the bill on or before a specified day, and that the Business Committee shall make recommendations to the House as

page 2530

CHAP. XX1-PROCEEDINGS IN PASSING PUBLIC BILLS

It is a general principle of legislation that a public bill, being of national interest, should be debated in Parliament upon the grounds of public expediency; and that the arguments on either side should be restricted to Members of the House, while peculiar interests are represented by the petitions of the parties concerned. Questions of public policy can be discussed only by Members; but where protection is sought for the rights and interests of public bodies, or others, the parties have been permitted to represent their claims, either in person or by counsel. Counsel have also been heard at various other stages of bills, as well as on the second reading. In the case of bills of pains and penalties, disabilities, or disfranchisement, it has been usual to order a copy of the bill, and the order for the second reading, to be served upon the parties affected, and to hear them by counsel (t). The Attorney General has also been ordered to appoint counsel to manage the evidence, at the bar of the House, in support of the bill (u), or to take care that evidence be produced in support of the bill (a).

Bills Referred to a Second Reading Committee

Under the provisions of S. O. No. 66, adopted in November 1967 following experiments with sessional resolutions in sessions 1965-66 and 1966-67, a public bill, instead of being debated on second reading in the House, may be referred to a Second Reading Committee on motion made by a Minister of the Crown at the commencement of public business. At least ten days’ notice must be given of any such motion, and no motion can be made until the bill to which it relates has been printed. The question on the motion is put forthwith and must be decided without amendment or debate; but if not less than twenty Members signify their objection by rising in their places, Mr Speaker must declare that the noes have it ( b ).

When a Second Reading Committee (see p. 600) has reported to the House whether or not they recommend that the bill ought to be read a second time, a note of their recommendation is appended to the order for the second reading of the bill among the Remaining Orders of the day; and when the bill subsequently comes before the House, the question for its second reading is decided without amendment or debate (c).

Since its first introduction this procedure has been generally regarded as suitable only for bills “which are not measures involving large questions of policy nor likely to give rise to differences on party lines” (d)._

Government Bill, L. J. (1839) 446: C. J. (1839) 208. 213: Jamaica Laws Bill, ibid ( 1839) 318; Ecclesiastical Duties and Revenues Bill. L. J. ( 1840) 545, SSI: Sudbury Disfranchisement Bill. ibid. ( 1844) S60: Newfoundland Fisheries Bill. ibid. (1890-91) IS8: C J. ( 1890-91 ) 308. 313: Pari. Deb. (1891) 3S2. c. 1131. For explanations of the principle upon which Parliament has permitted counsel to be heard against public bills and precedents cited, see Lords’ Debate on Australian Colonies Bill, Pari. Deb. (1850) III. c. 943.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

-I hope not to take the 10 minutes allowed each speaker to discuss the estimates for the Parliament. May I take up a couple of points made by the honourable member for Angas (Mr Giles)? I did not hear the whole of his speech. I support his reference to, and I assume to some extent approval of, the proposition that there ought to be fixed times for divisions. What happens at present is quite ridiculous. I do realise at the same time that it is in the interests of the Government to have fixed times for divisions. Oppositions expect to lose divisions whilst governments require to win divisions. Therefore, having a fair knowledge of when divisions will be called or will become necessary obviously is in the interests of a government.

An opposition has nothing to lose if the number of its members present for a division is down by 2, 5 or 20. An opposition expects to lose a division anyway. But a government must always have a majority. It is therefore in the interests of a government to have established times for divisions. At a time when many people see some volatility in the political processes of this country with the possibility of changes in those in government and those in opposition, it may well be in the interests of the managers of this House and of parliamentarians as a whole to get together and to come to some agreement on the question of fixing times for the holding of divisions or, at least, of having some range of times within which divisions are likely to be held or are not likely to be held.

I did not accept the point made by the honourable member for Angas who seemed to deplore the fact that some members fail to pay special courtesy to the Chair. If the honourable member meant by his remarks what we consider to be the normal courtesies in any situation of taking note of what the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker or the Chairmen of Committees have to say, I have no quibble. But I do deplore the proposition that we are supposed to bow and scrape to the occupant of the Chair when we come into this chamber or leave it. I object to propositions of that type. I must admit that I try to avoid those situations whenever possible. I know that they are traditions. I suppose that that is part of the reason why I oppose them. I consider that such practices are quite pointless.

I wish to take a couple of minutes now to deal with a touchy subject as far as the general public is concerned. I refer to the question of remuneration for parliamentarians. Earlier this year- I think it was in July- a report was table from the Remuneration Tribunal which, in effect, made a new award for parliamentarians. Legislation to establish this tribunal had been previously agreed to by the Parliament. I think that it was passed unanimously in this place. That legislation provided for the setting up of a Remuneration Tribunal before which people would be entitled to give evidence both for and against salary rises and improvements in conditions for parliamentarians.

When that report was presented, the Liberal and Country Parties were panicked by a sanctimonious and hypocritical Press into disallowing the regulations which were necessary for the recommendations of that report to be adopted. I emphasise that that was the reason for the behaviour of those Parties. I think that probably many Liberal Party and Country Party members now will agree with me in what I say, having seen the ‘beneficial’ results which flowed from their action.

The denial of parliamentary increases has not led to any restraint on the part of any other parliamentarians or public servants. I think I read in a newspaper yesterday that Queensland parliamentarians are receiving higher salaries than we receive. Aldermen in the Brisbane City Council also receive higher salaries than we do. State parliamentarians in New South Wales and Western Australia, I believe, also receive salaries which are higher than the salaries paid to us. In many cases, these parliamentarians live in the capital city in which the State Parliament is located. Their parliamentary work is performed in their city of residence. In other words, a large proportion of State parliamentarians in New South Wales have their homes in Sydney and attend Parliament there on the days when it sits. Members of this Parliament must travel to Canberra every week that Parliament sits to attend parliamentary sittings. I deplored at the time and I still deplore that panic reaction on the part of the Opposition -

Mr McVeigh:

– What panicked the Prime Minister?

Dr KLUGMAN:

– Well, it is not the usual thing to criticise people on your own side; and I will not -

Mr McVeigh:

-We will show a little bit of intestinal fortitude.

Dr KLUGMAN:

-AU right. I am prepared to make my remarks broader. I deplore the fact that some parliamentarians- a minority on our side and a majority on the Opposition side- were panicked by what I called earlier a sanctimonious and hypocritical Press.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– Hear, hear!

Dr KLUGMAN:

– I thank the honourable member for Griffith for his support. It is important to remember just how sanctimonious and hypocritical the journalists of that Press and the Press itself were. Sob stories were run- completely untrue stones-about the sort of income that parliamentarians receive. The ‘Canberra Times’, the local newspaper, was leading one of the attacks on increases in parliamentary salaries. It ran big editorials on the subject. In the very week that we were discussing the report of the Remuneration Tribunal it increased its advertising charges by a greater percentage than that by which it was proposed parliamentary salaries should be increased.

Soon after that, the Fairfax organisation increased its charges very significantly for a number of its publications. I suppose other similar organisations did too. In my remarks now, I am criticising not only, as I normally do, the owners of the Press but also the individual journalists and reporters who behaved abominably. These same reporters had recently received a salary increase and at the time when this matter arose were putting in an application for another 30 per cent increase in their award wages. They were attacking us hypocritically.

I was not expecting to speak on this issue. If I had expected to do so, and if time was available to me, I would have brought into the Committee with me an article which appeared in the financial pages of last week’s Sydney ‘Sun’. It dealt with so-called perks for parliamentarians. The article was completely wrong and if the reporter researches his financial articles as well, it is no wonder his followers lost a lot of money. Many of the statements which appeared in that article, as all parliamentarians here would obviously know, were completely wrong. I was pleased to hear the honourable member for Griffith make the point that it is just ridiculous to say that there are a large number of perks associated with being a parliamentarian. At present we receive about $22 a day as a living away from home allowance. I would be surprised if many people who receive living away from home allowances, whether they be journalists or public servants, are paid allowances for that purpose of less than $22 per day. If you calculate your expenses you find that actual expenses are much more than the $4100 which is provided as a tax free allowance to members. I was a medical practitioner before I came into this Parliament and, as I have said before, I earned more in 1969 as a medical practitioner than I earn now as a parliamentarianand medical incomes have increased quite considerably since then.

The other point I make is that, unlike the honourable member for Wakefield (Mr Kelly) I do not have 2 other incomes. I do not vote myself wool subsidies and wheat subsidies and then deplore in the newspapers handouts by governments and get paid for writing that. I try to be reasonably consistent in my attitude, but I am not the slightest bit ashamed to say that members of Parliament deserve more, that many of us have made a significant financial sacrifice and that the ridiculous action taken by the Opposition earlier this year will make it extremely difficult for us to get any more increases, because there will never be a time when we can adopt the next report from the remuneration tribunal. If it performs its job as a remuneration tribunal, the increase next time will be so huge that again we will not be able to accept it.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Lucock)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired. I call the honourable member for Hume.

Mr McVeigh:

– This will be good. All he wants is his mail and they will not give him that.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! The honourable member for Darling Downs will cease interjecting or he will not be here to know whether it is good or otherwise.

Mr LUSHER:
Hume

-Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I thank the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh). As a new member I am particularly pleased to take part in this Estimates debate. I think everybody has initial reactions when one comes into this place and, although one may become hardened by experience over the years, it is probably worth recording what those initial reactions are. The most noticeable thing that I found on coming to Canberra is the conditions that exist in Parliament House. I am one who supports the construction of the new parliament house and I voted for the Capital Hill site. I am very pleased that this site has now been agreed upon and I sincerely hope that planning will start very shortly for the construction and early occupancy of the new parliament house. The average member of Parliament probably spends something like 15 ‘A hours a day in this place, cramped into a very small room- sometimes sharing a room- and with not terribly adequate facilities. This often, and I think probably quite unreasonably, causes unnecessary hardship for members. As a younger member it does not concern me so much, but I am at least aware of it.

The accommodation which members are given is far from satisfactory and the assistance that members are given is also far from satisfactory. I have heard a lot about what the Minister for Services and Property (Mr Daly) has done for the back bencher. I do not have anything to compare it with but, insofar as I have heard those statements made, I commend the Minister for the improvements that he has been able to afford to back benchers in this Parliament. I think we have to take into account a number of things when the new parliament house is being planned, and adequate accommodation obviously must come fairly high on the list. I think that secretarial assistance also must come fairly high on the list. I do not necessarily mean that every member should have a secretary, but we ought to be able to devise a workable system whereby a secretary is allocated perhaps to every three or four back bench members. A similar comment would apply in relation to research facilities. It would be a very great boon to back bench members and it would certainly improve the standard of debate in this place if a little research assistance were made available to groups of six or eight back bench members. These are 2 things which should be borne in mind particularly by those who are given the charter to plan the new parliament house.

Another thing that could be taken into account by the Government is the question of the expansion of the number of members of Parliament, both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives. This may be a touchy subject but it seems to me that the time has come, as the population continues to grow, when a sizable increase should be made in the number of members in the chamber. This is something which can obviously be planned in the light of the construction of the new building in which to accommodate the Parliament. I speak as a country member and as a country member who is facing a redistribution, and the comments that I make have some relevance to the fact that a redistribution is going on. My seat is by no means the largest seat in the Commonwealth; as country seats go it is not all that big- about 13,000 square miles. I have an enrolment in my electorate slightly in excess of 50,000 people. As I understand it, the quota will be 66,000 in this redistribution and, with the 10 per cent variation which the Government has imposed upon us, electorates will be drawn up within boundaries of between 60.000 and 72,000 -

Mr Daly:

– Sixty thousand and seventy thousand in 1957. The quota is 64,000.

Mr LUSHER:

-The quota is 64,000; I thank the Minister for that. This will mean that the traditional argument will be applied to country electorates and country members will probably be rated at the top end of the scale when it comes to drawing the boundaries and allocating the number of electors. In a seat like Hume that is going to mean perhaps another 20,000 electors.

Dr Klugman:

– At least.

Mr LUSHER:

– Yes, at least. That is going to involve a significant addition to the size of the seat.

Dr Klugman:

– Join the seats of Hume and Riverina.

Mr LUSHER:

-I will join the honourable member for Prospect in a minute, join him with pleasure. The point I am trying to make is that in a seat like Hume and in the adjoining areas where there are no significantly large towns it is going to involve the tacking on of a great number of small towns. This will vastly increase the geographic area in order to bring in the numbers of new electors that will be necessary, and that is assuming that the seat of Hume is one of those seats which is staying. The increase in electoral area is going to impose serious difficulties not only on the member but also on the electors. We have a situation in Hume where there is no centre for the electorate. There are about 12 towns which, broadly speaking, are of equal importance and if other towns are added this will add to the number of comparable sized towns. A member has to travel incredibly long distances now to serve an electorate of this size. I place on record for the information of honourable members that I have travelled 10,000 miles in 3 months, and that has been during a period when most of my time has been spent in Canberra. I hate to think what mileages will be involved when I am spending two and three months at a time back in the electorate.

I raise this point because I believe the standard of representation is obviously going to suffer and the work load which is applied to individual members is also going to expand. I realise that there are differences which will apply between city and country areas. When I say that it may be time to think about increasing the number of members in this chamber and reducing the size of electorates, I say it with particular reference to country areas and also in the knowledge that there are many city electorates which cover vast metropolitan areas. It may be in the interests of the electors- and that it what it is about reallyand in the interest of a member being able to do his job more efficiently that there be an increase in the number of members in this chamber.

The honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman) drew attention to the subject of parliamentary salaries and allowances. That is a field in which I have little inclination to get involved, but I would mention the allowances section of it. It does seem to me that there are a significant number of members of this Parliament for whom $4,100 is merely a pittance when it comes to trying to meet the cost of running and getting around one’s electorate in a manner over and above the use of those services provided by his eminence the Minister for Services and Property. I estimate that there are a large number of members who are probably exceeding their electoral allowance by 150 per cent. I do not think that it is at all reasonable for any member of Parliament, no matter what his colour, creed, race or nationality, to be penalised from his salary for the cost of his out-of-pocket expenses. I conclude on the note that when a charter is given, if another one is to be given, to the Remuneration Tribunal it be requested to take this matter into account and that we not be left in a situation in which, because of rampant inflation, the cost of staying at a motel and making a couple of telephone calls runs as high as $20 a night and in which members of Parliament are being penalised one against another according to whether they have a large electorate to cover and service adequately or the traditional pocket handkerchief size electorate which we know some members of Parliament do have.

Mr WENTWORTH:
Mackellar

– Several matters have been raised in this debate so far. I agree that members of this chamber are, on the whole, very poorly paid. I think it was inevitable that the last proposed salary rise would be knocked back because of the circumstances in which we found ourselves. But I do not see that that should in any way be a precedent for the future. It should be remembered- to our credit, I suppose- that we are one of the few groups in the community not to accept an award of a properly constituted tribunal. We are not even going on strike for extra pay. Perhaps the country would be grateful if we were to do so.

Mention has been made of the facilities available to members of Parliament. I take this opportunity of saying how much I and I think other honourable members appreciate the research services of the Parliamentary Library, which have been built over past years. The Parliamentary Library is really providing a tremendous service to members of this Parliament. I, at any rate, would like to say that the officers who are providing the services are showing a quite remarkable degree of competence and initiative.

I have risen this afternoon really to draw attention to the necessity for Ministers to be truthful and to carry out the promises that they make in this chamber. As honourable members will know, I have a motion on notice for the future about the truthfulness of Ministers. I do not intend to follow that proposed motion, but I do want to draw attention to an incident that occurred in this chamber fairly recently. On 2 October- honourable members will find this recorded at page 2034 of Hansard- I asked the Minister for Overseas Trade (Dr J. F. Cairns), who at that stage was the Acting Prime Minister, about the various interest rates being charged by the Reserve Bank of Australia as the lender of last resort to the trading banks. He replied:

I am aware of the widespread view that the rate of interest in this respect is high and may cause difficulties that could be avoided. I am not specifically aware of the rate of interest that is charged but I will have that checked and inform the honourable member.

That definite commitment to give information to me was made publicly in this chamber by the man who at that time was Acting Prime Minister and who therefore had full authority to give it. I have tried since that time to extract from the Minister for Overseas Trade the information that he promised to give to me. His acting private secretary telegraphed me yesterday to this effect:

In Dr Cairns’ absence I am acknowledging your telegram of 4 October requesting information as to rate of interest charged by the Reserve Bank to the various member banks for last resort facilities. Dr Cairns has asked me to pass on the following information. ‘In accordance with traditional banker/customer relationships their terms and conditions of loans by the Reserve Bank under the terms of LGS convention are not made public. The bank may charge “penal” rates on such loans if it considers this justified.’ I apologise for the delay in transmitting this advice.

I wrote back to the Minister for Overseas Trade yesterday to this effect:

Dear Dr Cairns,

Thank you for your telegram of 1 5 October signed on your behalf by your secretary refusing to give me information regarding the rates of interest charged to various member banks by the Reserve Bank in its capacity as lender of last resort.

You will recall that on 2 October, as recorded at page 2034 of Hansard, you as Acting Prime Minister gave me an unequivocal assurance that you would ascertain the rate of interest and inform me of it.

The question at issue is whether you intend to welsh on this promise or not.

I put this forward both as a substantial matter and as one which goes directly to the honour and credibility of the Minister in this House and in regard to his proceedings in this House. It was in this House that he made a promise to me publicly at question time. He made it as Acting Prime Minister. Therefore he made it with full authority. But I go further than that. He made it as a man who has some experience of public finance. Indeed, he holds himself out to be a doctor in this and related subjects. It would be expected, therefore, that he was not speaking as somebody who was uninformed- even an Acting Prime Minister may sometimes be uninformed- and that he was speaking on a subject on which he knew nothing. He spoke in this House on a subject on which he was expert at a time when he was Acting Prime Minister and therefore had full authority. He made a promise in this House. Two alternatives are open to me. Either he was quite culpably ignorant of what was going on and made a promise without knowing what it meant- I find that difficult to believe- or he made a promise in order to put me off and used the forms of this House in order to cover up something. It is very important that a Minister should not be allowed to use the forms of this House for a cover-up operation of this character. This is not a matter of triviality; it is a matter of very grave importance because the nature of the credit squeeze and the miscalculation of the Government which is causing so much economic disaster follows very much from the policy of the Reserve Bank.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Drury)Order! I point out to the honourable member for Mackellar that he is digressing from the estimates for the Parliament.

Mr WENTWORTH:
MACKELLAR, NEW SOUTH WALES · LP; IND LIB from Oct 1977

-I am simply pointing to the conduct of the Acting Prime Minister in this House and am trying to illustrate the importance of the fact that when a promise is made in this chamber it should be honoured. This is an important matter which goes right to the root of government in this House.

Mr Daly:

– You gave a promise that you would abolish the means test and you never fulfilled it in 23 years. You let us all down.

Mr WENTWORTH:

– I never gave a promise of that character.

Mr Daly:

– Yes you did. You were elected on it.

Mr WENTWORTH:

-Oh no. I gave a promise that I would do everything I could to have the means test abolished.

Mr Daly:

– Oh no you did not.

Mr WENTWORTH:

– Yes I did. I can assure the Minister that I am still of the same mind and that belatedly I will succeed in foisting this policy even on the reluctant Labor Party. However, I will not be diverted by the Minister’s interjections. Let me come back to this most serious matter. I believe that there has been a gross miscalculation by the Reserve Bank and I do not believe that this would have happened without direction from the Government. I am almost driven to the conclusion that the Acting Prime Minister deliberately took a course of action to cover up in this House. He made a promise to me in this House which he had no intention of carrying out.

This is not a trivial matter. It is a matter of the gravest importance. It relates to the solvency of big and small people who are being squeezed by the credit squeeze. When a Minister- an Acting Prime Minister- makes a promise in this House it is important for the conduct of this House that he should be held to it and that he should honour that promise. I ask now that the information which the Minister is trying to cover up should be revealed.

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

Mr STALEY:
Chisholm

-We are discussing at present the estimates for the Parliament. There has been some discussion in this debate about the role of the Press in transmitting the proceedings of Parliament and of politics to the community. I must say that I find myself gravely troubled by some of the remarks which have been made by some honourable gentlemen about the Press. It seems to me that the attacks which have been mounted in the Press in recent days have a most unsavoury element about them. It is true that the Press sometimes gets politicians and Parliament wrong. We do have some means of redressing these wrongs, although perhaps not enough. But I find that the atmosphere of attacks on the Press which has been created has most worrying authoritarian overtones. There is legislation around which, if implemented, would have the gravest consequences for the freedom of the Press and in particular, of course, for the freedom of commercial television in this country.

It is fair to say that honourable gentlemen should have a concern about some of the features of modern mass communication. There are matters in this area which should trouble us all. The trivialisation of so much of politics should trouble us. The tendency of much of the media to rely on the creation of a sort of psychological climate where personalities are more important than policies and issues should worry us. The way in which the media often seems simply to appease baser psychological instincts in individuals should worry us. But we must never forget that it was the Press that saved the day as far as Watergate in the United States of America was concerned and it is the Press which can do as much and I am afraid to say very often more than we in this Parliament can do to prevent Watergates in this country.

In so many ways the Press has taken over the role of opposition to the government in our community, in the modern Western political community. I do not deplore- indeed I applaud- the role that the Press has played in taking on the role of opposition to governments because this is a proper function of a Press in a democracy. What I find to be tragic is the way that those of us who sit in Parliaments have allowed the Press to take over from us the predominant role in safeguarding the rights of people in the modern community. In so many ways- and this comes up every time we debate the estimates in this Parliament- we seek to get democracy on the cheap, and if we seek to get democracy on the cheap we will get cheap democracy. We give our Parliament the puniest of weapons with which to tackle the bureaucracy for this is where the problem lies today. The great threat to people is not so much that they cannot read books or that they are not given religious freedoms, but that they just do not know what is happening and have insufficient means of redress when that which is happening is bad.

We fight battles with people who know so much more than we do as members of Parliament. All of us know a bit about something and some of us know quite a lot about a few things. But not many of us know anything like all that a Parliament would need to know in the interests of the people if democracy is to function properly in our society. The problem in this battle involving the vast reaches of modern government and bureaucracies- and I say this in no disparaging sense in terms of bureaucrats because this is a modern phenomenon which has been written and spoken of by many people- is that Parliament is being left for dead. Parliament basically still works along lines which were drawn up fundamentally in an earlier century and in particular, of course, in the 19th century. So Parliament in 1974 is fighting the bureaucracy with the puny weapons of the 19th century, and this just will not do.

I was delighted to hear the comments made by the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in particular. He isolated some of those things which need to be done if Parliament is to come into the modern era. As I see it many issues are simply not amenable of solution in party political terms. We are too often too party political in this chamber. The very chamber itself creates on some issues the wrong sort of atmosphere. It puts us out of touch with reality- out of touch with the reality of the community which we should be serving. The very geography of the chamber can create conflict when it would be better if conciliation were the order of the day. A gladiatorial sort of atmosphere is created when it would be better if we could sit down and seek to reason together, seek to know, to examine, to understand and to come up with answers.

I can well understand the weariness that so many people in the community have with us as politicians because we seem so often to be too party political. Their weariness is understandable because when we stand in this place and when we work as members of Parliament we should be Australians first, members of Parliament second and members of parties third. This is where the suggestion made by the honourable member for Wannon is so important. When legislation is presented to us, for instance, we should not always seek to fight over it in the chamber on our feet; we should take it out of the chamber into a different atmosphere altogether where we can sit down and seek to understand and reason together. We can only do this if we are provided, of course, with procedures and also with assistance. Without people to assist us, without experts to advise us and without the opportunity to question people who would come before us we will not achieve the desirable reforms mentioned by the honourable member for Wannon. This is a matter which goes beyond any party which happens to be in power for the moment.

It is hard to talk any government into agreeing to such an arrangement, and that makes it all the more important. I come back to my basic theme. It is the government and it is the bureaucracy which has everything going for it. It is we in the Parliament who have the puniest of weapons with which to challenge the government. It needs to be said again and again that Parliament is not the government. Parliament creates a government. Out of Parliament a government is elected, and fundamentally the Parliament’s job is to scrutinise, to attack and to criticise the government, to provide an alternative. But above all it is, if you like, to be an opposition to the government of the day.

It is in this area that one often despairs when we come to discuss the Estimates and we find that the resources simply are not voted to enable us to perform our tasks properly as members. People in the community might well say that it is a matter of perks and privileges for members of Parliament, but it is so far from that that it is not funny. It is a matter of the rights of people; it is a matter of bringing people back into the democratic process. Unless we reform and bring the whole of the parliamentary procedures up to date it will not be we who will suffer; it will be the people.

Mr VINER:
Stirling

-The honourable member for Chisholm (Mr Staley) has touched upon a very important aspect of Parliament. He referred to the machinery by which members of the Parliament may participate in the activities of government so that members themselves may scrutinise, as he said, attack and oppose where necessary. What he has said might well be comprehended in the question of what happens when government continues to accelerate the growth of boards, authorities, commissions and so on, thereby expanding the Public Service and increasing the bureaucracy of the country. The question becomes: Who will control the controllers? That is what the members of these boards, commissions, authorities and so on are. They are the controllers of so many aspects of our daily life. Who then will control them? If at least in some sense Parliament cannot control them, what hope is there for the people themselves? So it is of the utmost importance that the Parliament of Australia has a close look at the machinery by which the Parliament itself operates. That is why the committee which has been established to look at a system of committees for the Parliament is so important.

In the short time available to me in this debate I wish to speak on another aspect of the activities of members of Parliament. This is something that has been touched upon by other honourable members. It concerns the facilities for members themselves, both in Parliament and in their electorate. I was elected to the Parliament in December 1972 and, like other honourable members who also were elected at that time and those who have since been elected, it did not take very long to realise that the facilities for members were totally inadequate if they were to carry our their functions properly. Like other members, I praise the efforts of the Minister for Services and Property (Mr Daly), who is sitting at the table, for what he has done for members and in particular the dealings I have had with him because he has been courteous and prompt in attending to matters that I have raised with him.

The accommodation for members in this building is appalling. It is appallingly inadequate, however one might look at it. Some members have a room to themselves; they are fortunate. In other cases 2 members occupy the one room. In my own case, 3 members occupy the one room. As a new chum to Parliament I am often told by older members: ‘Well, you are lucky. You are well off. You should have been here 20 years ago.’ I am fortunate that I am both younger and a more recent member of Parliament.

Mr Daly:

– And you got a good majority too.

Mr VINER:

– I got a very good majority and I tell the Minister that I am going to double it the next time, have no fear about that. So when we get our new parliament house it is of the utmost importance that more rather than less accommodation be provided for members of Parliament. If there is to be any skimping of space or scraping to provide accommodation for others in the new building certainly it should not be in respect of accommodation for members, nor should accommodation for them be reduced in order to provide for someone else. It would be better to erect another building close to the chamber itself for use by members of Parliament or for the parliamentary staff and the people who provide the ancillary services for the operation of the Parliament.

Not only is there a lack of accommodation here but also there are difficulties back in the electorate. I am fortunate in that I have a new office in the heart of my electorate. For that I am extremely thankful. But if a member is to do his job properly I firmly believe that he must have not only more staff in the Parliament but also more staff in his electorate, and that would necessarily require more accommodation. I have one secretary- a very good secretary- who handles the inquiries of constituents who approach my office while I am in Parliament, and for that I am exceedingly thankful because without an efficient and capable secretary at home in my electorate all hell might break loose upon my politician’s head.

In respect of secretarial staff in this Parliament, I have access to 3 typists who are available to all the back bench Opposition members. That is totally inadequate. Some members have a lot more daily correspondence than others which they must attend to continuously in the Parliament. But there are simply not enough secretarial services available to the ordinary member to fulfil all the work that he requires to be done. It has been suggested that there should be a pool system of secretarial staff which would mean an expanded pool system compared with what we now have. I do not think we ought to accept that proposition for one minute. I think the proper thing is for each member of Parliament to have his own secretarial assistance that he can call upon at any time. He should not be put in the invidious position of lining himself up in a queue. The same idea applies in respect of a proposal for research assistance. I think it was the honourable member for Perth (Mr Berinson) who briefly touched on this and suggested the same kind of thing. Again I believe it is totally inadequate for a member of Parliament to have to line up in a queue to get some research assistance. As the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth) has said, the Parliamentary Library staff do a wonderful job but how can they satisfy all the demands of members of Parliament? They cannot.

When one looks at the range of very significant legislation that is brought before this Parliament one sees Bills which are currently before it, such as the National Compensation Bill, the Family Law Bill and the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Bill. Just think of legislation such as the Trade Practices Bill, with its wide ranging consequences on the community in respect of commerce, business and consumers themselves, the Australian Industry Development Corporation legislation, its associated Bill the National Investment Fund Bill and the number of Conciliation and Arbitration Bills that have been brought into this House. I mention them as some that immediately come to mind because of my interest in them. But I cannot possibly cope with the work that I would like to do upon the various Bills hat I have mentioned. The National Compensation Bill is a massive piece of legislation which has far reaching consequences within the community. It is designed to change a system of compensating people for injury which has been long established within the common law jurisdictions of British speaking nations.

Members have their own areas of special interest, but they like to spread their wings for a very good reason and diversify their interests to extend their knowledge and their experience, but they simply cannot do this unless they have staff who have direct access to them and who are responsible to the individual members. I could engage two or three qualified people to look at the Bills I have mentioned and come up with suggestions for me. I would expect them to be able to make a much more effective contribution to the operation of this Parliament. But apart from that, back in one’s electorate, where I believe that a member of Parliament must be a representative of the people within his electorate, how can he represent them when he has only one person to do the typing for him, to answer the telephone and take account of the daily correspondence that comes in? Every member needs more people to back him up at home so that those people can go out into the electorate and find out what the thinking is within the electorate on specific issues as well as the attitudes and the opinion of his people, because they are his people whilst he remains their member of the House. Unless he knows fully what those attitudes, views and opinions are, then he cannot represent them effectively in Parliament. If we had that kind of representation then I believe that some of the trenchant criticisms that are heaped upon the party system of government would be overturned because the member would be more truly a representative of the people and could more effectively operate within the party system.

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

Mr FAIRBAIRN:
Farrer

-We have been speaking this afternoon on the estimates of the Parliament and in particular on various aspects of the machinery of Parliament. I wish to speak about one aspect of the machinery of Parliament, namely, question time. I do this for 2 reasons. Firstly, you, Mr Deputy Chairman, one of our most senior Liberals in this place and a member of the Standing Orders Committee raised this matter last night. You said, and I agreed with you, that there is much room for improvement in the procedure of question time. You mentioned various aspects such as the length of questions and in particular the unnecessarily long answers.

I notice that the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) must believe there is much room for improvement because he has on notice paper now a proposal that some Senate Ministers should be rostered to attend in the House of Representatives and that some House of Representatives Ministers should be rostered to attend in the Senate for the purpose of answering questions without notice. I believe that there would appear on the face of it to be considerable merit in the suggestion. I have always found it incomprehensible that Ministers in the Senate representing a Minister in this place should be questioned, sometimes at great length, for some hours, about a department when, with the best will in the world and the hardest work in the world, they cannot know fully the ins and outs of that department. But unless the Ministers from the House of Representatives give better answers in the Senate than they give in the House of Representatives then I do not think the Senate will be much better off.

I think that at a time like this we should not only consider some minor change of that nature but also look at the whole aspect and machinery of question time. Should we have a Westminster system? In other words, should we have questions on notice rather than, as happens here, questions without notice and questions on the notice paper? As we know, in the Westminster system notice is given of a question. This enables the Minister to check the details and get his figures accurate. No Minister, no matter how well he knows his Department, can always have on hand every figure that he requires. I know that a considerable amount of time is spent by Ministers looking for example, at the daily newspapers and wondering what sort of question is likely to be asked and considering whether they have the answer to it. Time is spent which I think can on occasions ill afford to be spent.

Under the Westminster system notice is given of a question. When the Minister is ready to answer it, the member who gave notice of the question says: ‘I ask question No. 20’ or whatever it is. The Minister reads the reply, very often prepared by the department. I was told that on one occasion a Minister had not read through the reply before he read it out and did not realise that at the end the department had written: ‘We believe that a supplementary question will probably be asked by Bloggs. We find him a tedious bore’. I feel that a system like that is worth looking at because I think Ministers would be better informed, supplementary questions could be asked and members would get better answers than they get at the moment.

A second question is whether adequate time is devoted to question time. I realise that we have nominally 45 minutes, but of course prayers and petitions probably cut that down to about 40 minutes. This week we have had a reasonably good record. Yesterday 19 questions were asked and on Tuesday there were 15 questions. The previous week on which the Parliament sat was not as good. On the Tuesday of that week there were 14 questions, on Wednesday nine and on

Thursday eleven. There was a total of 34 questions in the week of which Opposition members asked eighteen. Of those 18, of course, the Leader and Deputy Leader of the 2 Opposition Parties asked half. That left 9 questions to be divided amongst the 57 members of this Parliament on the Opposition side who are not entitled to a call every time they stand. It is not difficult to work out that at this rate they are able to ask one question about every 6lA sitting weeks. But of course the Parliament does not sit for 2 weeks in every six so that would mean they would be able to ask one question every 2 calendar months. That is simply not adequate under any standard.

So I believe something should be done to see that adequate time is made available for questions. There are various ways in which this could be done. The first is to see whether we can cut out some of the excessively long answers which you mentioned, Mr Deputy Chairman, in particular. Looking through Hansard for the last 2 sitting weeks I found that answers taking 4’A to 5 minutes were not uncommon. We have limits imposed on the length of most speeches. Why should there not be a limit on the length of answers at question time. If necessary Ministers can give supplementary written replies or make a statement after question time. We know that very often question time is used by a government to make statements. Dorothy Dix questions are handed around to members on the Government side in reply to which a Minister makes a statement which he could just as well make after question time.

Then, of course, we are asked to put questions on notice. This is farcical. As I pointed out yesterday, I have had questions on the notice paper for about a year, although only a small number of them, because I do not believe in cluttering up the notice paper. When the Parliament was dissolved I put them on the notice paper again. The Minister to whom they were directed has no intention of giving me answers to those questions and there is nothing I can do to get them. In the old days when a member put a question on the notice paper, as you will recall, Mr Deputy Speaker, he received an answer fairly quickly. But then the Leader of the Opposition in the 27th Parliament decided that there was some merit in having a fantastic list of questions on notice. In the 27th Parliament there were all told something like 6,577 questions on notice, of which the Leader of the Opposition asked 2, 1 1 7. I do not believe for a moment that he thought them all up himself. I think that he would have been flat out even signing that number. It was quite obvious that he asked that number of questions to clutter up the machinery of government. A large number of questions on notice does clutter up the machinery of government, because if Ministers are to prepare answers they must divert unnecessarily members of their department from working on more important matters.

I have said that we should get answers. Should there be a limit on the time taken to give answers? I have said that this could be done. Perhaps 2 minutes would be quite long enough. It would be quite easy for the Clerk at the table to turn on a machine which would show when the 2 minutes were up. I am sure that if Ministers had to provide a reply in 2 minutes their answers might be more relevant. I have not gone into this matter fully. I do not know the answer. All I know is that no member of the Parliament can adequately carry out the duties entrusted to him if he does not have sufficient time for speaking either in the House or in any future committees that may be established. I do not know whether the new committee, of which I have the honour to be a member, will be able to come up with an answer. Members must have more time to question Ministers. I would welcome the ability to have Senate Ministers brought into this chamber but if the present conditions continued it still would be unlikely that I would be able to get an opportunity to question them. While I support the motion to be moved by the Leader of the House I believe it goes only a small way towards answering the much larger question of how question time can be altered to make it better for the private member and for the Parliament to function as it should function.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– Having listened to the plea of the honourable member for Farrer (Mr Fairbairn) I should like to remind the Government that one day it will be back on this side of the chamber so while it is in the position to rearrange question time it should utilise that chance. My Party was in government for 23 years and it suited us for 2V4 decades to persist with question time as it exists today. Undoubtedly he who is in government has the numbers and has the game sewn up and he who sits in Opposition wallows in squalor. Since the last elections this is the tenth parliamentary sitting week and I still have had only one call at question time. My colleague, the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh) is shaking his head. I do not know whether he has had even one call at question time. The system is all wrong and regrettably many Ministers in this Government, as in former governments, use question time to spill propaganda out to the masses. They do not have the courage to make a statement and are not prepared to face a subsequent debate on it.

We have heard comments about the running of this Parliament. If any businessman conducted a fish shop with the efficiency with which we face the task of administering the nation he would go broke as quickly as we are all going broke under the present Labor Party Government. I do not necessarily blame the Parliament for what is happening in Australia today but if the electors of Australia realised how inefficient an organisation was this House, they would squirm with horror. With today’s means of rapid communication- with the local member only a telephone call away- an increasing burden is imposed on members. When the previous Government was in office mail deliveries were more frequent but even now a person can write to his member and receive a reply within a few days. As a result the work confronting a member makes his task more difficult.

I know that I have fought with the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) as I have fought with no other man, especially on a matter which I will not raise today, but I give him credit for having made more advances than any other Minister in the provision of facilities to members of this Parliament. My friend, the honourable member for Stirling (Mr Viner) from Western Australia reflected on the difficulties of members. I came to the Parliament in 1966 and in those 8 years I can reflect on vast improvements which have been made, but the position still is not good enough. A member is granted one electoral secretary but thanks to the Minister, when a member is overburdened he can obtain the services of another secretary if he is lucky and the relieving pool is not snowed under. As an individual I am not worried by the amount of work which comes in because if I cannot answer a letter today, tomorrow or next week, it has to wait, but the regrettable fact is that democracy in Australia is slowly grinding to a halt. The excessive burden of work on members results in members spending more of their time in Canberra working on electorate matters and this is where damage results. Legislation is introduced but there is less time for members to examine the ultimate ramifications of that legislation. Legislation which has the effect of changing an entire life style sneaks through or passes this House with only a cursory glance because members do not have time to give it the study it deserves.

I promised the Leader of the House that my contribution would be short and sweet. Despite the degree of illwill which he bore me earlier this year I ask him to keep going with facilities the way he has been going because he has been doing a pretty good job. He is more realistic in his approach than has been any other Minister I have known with his powers. I know that he sat in Opposition for 23 years. He knew what it was like to have very little. He is now in government and has a chance to do something. I advise him to do it fast because I have the feeling that after the next elections he might be back in Opposition and, unfortunately, I have not seen too many glimmers of hope from this side of the House which would indicate that when we are returned to government there will be a continuation of the progressive outlook in respect of facilities for members that we have seen in the last 18 to 20 months.

Mr DALY:
Minister for Services and Property and Leader of the House · Grayndler · ALP

– After listening to the last speech I am almost stuck for words. I thank honourable members for their complimentary remarks to me regarding some of the facilities I have been able to provide. I thank the honourable member for Lyne (Mr Lucock) who expressed similar thoughts the other day. As honourable members opposite have said, I was a long time in Opposition but I still believe there is a tremendous amount to be done in providing facilities for members. I am not unmindful that the public believes that every facility a businessman enjoys is available to members of Parliament. As honourable members know, this belief is wrong, but in some chastening way I would suggest that in many respects we have only ourselves to blame. Whenever it is necessary that something be done some honourable members oppose it for political advantage and some say they do not want it. In every way we write ourselves down and we suffer accordingly. When it was suggested that apartments should be provided for members who have to live in Canberra there was a great outcry in the Press which completely misrepresented the situation. There have been Press articles concerning taxation benefits in respect of facilities and travelling allowances available to members. Those who wrote the articles should be called to book. Some of those people who wrote leading articles in the Press recently might well be called before the Parliament for misrepresenting the facilities that are available to members.

The debate today has been most informative both in respect of the methods of running the Parliament and the provision of facilities. I do not intend to answer all the questions that were raised but I will see that they are recorded and studied to determine whether out of today’s deliberations we cannot get something to improve the running of the Parliament and the facilities available. Facilities for members have been bad for a long time. Today members have asked about the provision of additional secretaries, more accommodation and matters of that nature. I do not say this in any political sense, but for the time being and almost indefinitely my hands are tied in respect of those matters. The salaries tribunal report that was tabled in this Parliament covered not only the question of salaries and electoral allowances but also matters such as research officers, additional staff and other items. However that tribunal’s report has been disallowed.

I feel certain that immediately anything is done in regard to that report some member somewhere will take advantage and say that the report is being subverted. One member in another place already has indicated that the present stamp allowance should not be paid and that he may, in due course, challenge it himself in many respects. Consequently to intrude on anything contained in that report now leaves the Government very vulnerable. Much as I regret it, I must say that until the Opposition publicly announces its intentions on these matters no change -can be made to them simply because we may well be, as a government accused of subverting the report. Therefore the question of additional staff, additional research officers and additional stamp allowances and things of that nature may well be in the limbo of things forgotten for a indefinite period. Members of the Opposition may well have considered these matters when the Tribunal’s report was before the Parliament.

I have always supported increases in parliamentary salaries. I have always supported increases in facilities. I also accept the fact, after 30 years here, that it is never the time to do anything for parliamentarians but always the time to do things for other people. I mention those matters not in any threatening way but to show the problem that we face. Also I mention the fact that a ceiling has been placed on the growth of the Public Service. The only suggestion that I can make at this stage in regard to facilities would be that we may extend somewhat that excellent section that provides secretarial assistance to members. I repeat- my friend the honourable member for Wimmera (Mr King) mentioned this- that those secretaries are available in country districts and other places. They are not tied to members who are in city electorates. If members opposite feel that they need additional assistance they should apply to that pool. We will see that they get extra assistance where possible and possibly we may be able to extend it. I mention those matters for the benefit of members. This will be investigated again but honourable members can see the problem that we face on this side of the Parliament particularly when a challenge already has been made to me in writing that allowances which were made available should not be made available even at this stage. Personally I see no reason why members should pay for any of their stamps. Not one businessman in Australia ever meets all his own postage costs. I think that parliamentary salaries and the facilities for members should be such to allow a member of Parliament, like every other section of society, a take home pay free of the necessity to spend his own money on resources and things of that nature.

Other matters were raised in regard to the running of the Parliament. That is a question on which we have fairly common ground. One of the facts of life is that with the legislative program and the demands made at these times it is well nigh impossible to give all the time that is necessary for debate. We may have to get round to what the honourable member for Wannon (Mr Malcolm Fraser) said today in an excellent speech, and as the honourable member for Ryan (Mr Drury) and other honourable members have mentioned. We may have to have some form of committee system to allow participation in debate at greater length in this Parliament after inquiry at the Committee stage. Being of cheerful disposition and of reasonable temperament and a friendly kind of fellow, one of the most upsetting experiences for me in this Parliament is when I have to curtail debate. I feel as though I am cutting off my right hand when I do that. So, if it pains honourable members opposite they should remember that my pain is greater than theirs. Liking to talk myself, I can appreciate what happens on that side of the fence.

I say to my friend the honourable member for Hume (Mr Lusher) that I would not worry about the effects of the redistribution in Hume because the Leader of the Country Party (Mr Anthony) has already said he is not going to accept it any old way. I say to the honourable member: ‘If you get the best of the worst seats in Australia you have no chance of getting it because your Party will not take it’. Consequently the honourable member’s problems are not great in that respect. The honourable member for Farrer (Mr Fairbairn) mentioned questions on notice and things of that nature. I might have been in a different Parliament from him but I remember some lengthy delays and some lengthy replies to questions. On one occasion 2 of our members had questions on the notice paper for two full

Parliaments. I think the time of the second Parliament expired before the questions were answered. I think the honourable member would have been on much better ground had he not had such a sorry record with his Ministry. It probably was not so much that the questions were not answered but the answers were really awful. Consequently not only were they delayed but also they were unacceptable when we received them. The honourable member for Griffith (Mr Donald Cameron) said that a businessman in a second rate fish shop would not run this Parliament like it is being run. I am pretty pleased we do not have the businessmen from Cambridge Credit, Leyland or Mainline runnning the Parliament otherwise we might all be out of work in a very short time. To say that businessmen run everything perfectly is hardly applicable to the Parliament.

I thank honourable members for what has been said in a very constructive debate. Some politics were introduced, which is inevitable. On the question of facilities I will keep in mind what has been done and in every way try to meet the wishes of honourable members. I still agree that a considerable expansion can be made in regard to staff, travel facilities and things of that nature. Those demands are not unreasonable. I appreciate that honourable members in country districts are entitled to additional secretarial assistance. 1 was in agreement with the Tribunal’s report which would have given members certain opportunities for travelling allowances in respect of their activities.

I am not unmindful of the huge areas of the electorates of Kalgoorlie and the Northern Territory and other electorates in far western Queensland. Members from those areas have demands made on them which must impose great strain not only on their physical capacity but also on their monetary capacity. I assure them, having in mind that I might go back to Opposition some day, that I will adopt the views of the honourable member for Griffith. Even if it is very late in the piece and I look like going into Opposition, honourable members can expect that week a considerable improvement all round in members’ facilities.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Proposed expenditure, $88,85 1,000.

Department of the Special Minister of State

Proposed expenditure, $66,296,000.

Mr RUDDOCK:
Parramatta

– Although it may seem unusual in relation to estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to be discussing matters relating to child care, such is now the case. The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) has assumed the responsibility for matters relating to child care. I intend to refer specifically to the appropriation of $187,000 to establish an interim committee for the Children’s Commission. Child care undoubtedly is a very important matter. This is recognised, I believe, by members on both sides of the chamber. There is a great and growing concern in the community that child care should, firstly, be made available to those people who have a real need but ought to be available also to any woman and to any family wishing to have facilities for minding their children if those people wish to be employed or wish to exercise some freedom of choice in regard to working or undertaking other activities.

I am not complaining that moneys are allocated for child care or for child care facilities. I note that in the Budget an appropriation of $75m was made for child care. It is important to observe the rather brief history that we have seen in this area. It is of some anguish to me. Honourable members will recall that in 1972 the Child Care Act was introduced into this Parliament. Certain development was undertaken and certain programs were developed to meet special needs. I note particularly the special needs in the Dundas Valley in my own electorate that were being met. The Telopea Church of Christ was establishing a child care centre with a grant pursuant to this Act. Unfortunately the area was not clear from the point of view of what would happen and what programs would be developed. We saw a multitude of reports. We saw firstly, the Fry report of the Pre-Schools Committee. Secondly, we saw the report of the Social Welfare Commission and more recently and thirdly, the report of the Priorities Review Staff. It was certainly clear that the Government did not know where it was going, did not know what programs it wished to adopt and did not know which Ministers should be responsible for the administration of programs. The Priorities Review Staff report was designed to tie together a lot of these loose ends and problems and to reach a solution. The solution offered was to set up another commission, another committee. Honourable members will recall that on 22 July it was indicated that the proposed programs for child care promised in the April policy speech of the Prime Minister could not be introduced. In fact it was said that they would be postponed until 1975-76 in terms of the administration of the Government’s promises in the policy speech of the Prime Minister in April 1974.

As a result of the great public concern the Government became aware of the need to review its policies in this area once more. We therefore saw in this Budget the grant of $75m, presumably to meet the need. But although the need is there and is evident to everybody, the program was not available. There was no program to be administered. So the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen), who is now in the chamber presumably to deal with these matters, made a ministerial statement on 19 September in which he detailed the reasons for the establishment of the Children’s Commission. What he said was that an interim committee would be formed ultimately to establish the Commission which will take over responsibility for administering all existing commitments in the areas of child care and pre-schools, and will immediately set to work to enable a substantial beginning to be made on the new program no later than January 1975. I think that statement made it quite clear that there was no program to be administered and that an organisation had to be created to bring into operation a program to meet the great public demand that I know exists.

But what has been the effect of the establishment of another commission?

I draw the attention of honourable members to a report titled ‘Social Issues News Statement’ by the Brotherhood of St. Laurence commenting on the child care proposals. In paragraph 3 the author of the statement, David Scott, states:

The creation of another commission outside existing departments will further fragment social policy making and the administration of child care and family welfare programs. It will also create a precedent for establishing other commissions with executive functions to provide services for other age groups or people with specific categories of handicap. The trend should be to integrate and not fragment family and child care programs.

He went on to say:

The Government should be aware of the difficulties created by a semi-autonomous commission with policy making functions which has to rely on Public Service departments to implement its policies. This division of responsibility leads to delays, confusion, cumbersome procedures and can encourage misunderstandings and conflicts between the policy making commission and the executive departments.

He concluded by saying:

If the Government proceeds on its present course of action, it will fragment policy making and administration, create confusion and slow down the introduction of urgently needed, locally-based child care services.

It has become evident from the way in which this program is being administered in my own electorate that the real problems are being overlooked and this commission is being used as a means to fob off important developments that ought to be occurring. I mention the first child care centre that was to have been established in my electorate in the Dundas Valley at Telopea, a housing commission area which certainly has self-evident and widely acknowledged social problems. This centre was designed by the Telopea Church of Christ and in accordance with standards supervised formerly by the Minister for Education (Mr Beazley). A grant was made available. This worthy group of people that is endeavouring to open a child care facility in January of next year has found that it is almost impossible for a church working in the area with limited facilities to be able to gather together the funds necessary for it to commence operations from the completed centre. The group sought through a letter to the Minister for Education, who was formerly responsible for the administration of these programs, a grant for the establishment of personnel in the centre. When I talk of a grant for the establishment I mean funds to meet the costs in the initial period before fees and before the government subsidies that will be payable towards the salaries of officers start to flow to the church committee. Of course the obvious answer in the past was that an organisation such as this that would receive government funds by way of subsidy should go to a bank and get an overdraft to see it through.

As Reverend J. Bacik for the management committee of the Telopea Church of Christ Child Care Centre has pointed out, it is not possible in the present economic climate for the organisation to go to its bank and to borrow funds for this purpose. The application to the Minister for Education- I believe it was back in July- for an establishment grant has been fobbed off, by a reply which stated that there is no provision under the present Act whereby such grants could be made available. The Telopea Church of Christ wrote to the Special Minister of State on 4 October and mentioned specifically the problem that it is suffering. The answer received to date is that this matter has been referred to the interim committee. This child care centre has to be operating by next January. I believe there is no way that a committee or a commission not directly responsible to this Parliament can act fast enough when matters are referred to it for report in this way, and bring about a situation where the child care centre in Telopea and the many others that are seeking to be operational next year will be able to function and be functioning to meet these urgent needs that are evident to us all.

Mr MATHEWS:
Casey

-I sympathise very greatly with the problems which the honourable member for Parramatta (Mr Ruddock) has just been outlining. They occur in his electorate as they do in my electorate and in many other electorates across the country where expanding urban populations and increasing numbers of working mothers are creating the demand for child care centres. But I think the complaints which he raised in the latter part of his speech are a very clear example of the way in which members of the Opposition often want to have things both ways. When the allocation of funds for faculties such as child care centres is determined by Government departments under direct ministerial control, the complaint of the Opposition is always that political patronage is being exercised and will become the basis on which facilities are made available.

In this instance, as in so many other areas in which the Government is allocating substantial funds for social amenities, we have chosen to set up an independent, expert, investigatory, recommendatory and advisory committee which will ultimately become a commission. In other words, we have made sure that the allocation of funds for child care centres and pre-school centres will be determined on an expert and impartial basis. And the honourable member for Parramatta criticises us on that score. As I said before, this was a very clear instance of members of the Opposition wanting to have it both ways, being prepared to jump on the Government in whichever direction it moves, to say the Government is damned if it does and damned if it does not.

The foreshadowed establishment of the Children’s Commission, the appointment of the interim committee for this Commission, and the initiation of the national pre-school education and child care services program is a momentous step forward in the social history of Australia. It began in the face of a very real demand indeed. Honorable members will be aware that no fewer than 365,000 Australian children under 6 years of age have mothers who are engaged full time in the work force and that there are places available in child care centres at present for no more than 34,500 of those children. What is more, those 34,500 places which are available are very often administered and financed under present conditions by charitable organisations, municipalities and the like which are operating under conditions of great financial stringency. It is no exaggeration to say that if the Australian Government were not stepping in to fill the breach the number of places available, far from increasing, would be very likely to decline.

On the pre-school education side, the position is almost as bad. While it is most difficult to obtain precise pre-school education statistics for Australia as a whole, it seems certain that the position is still one in which there is a pre-school place available for fewer than one in every four of the children whose parents would wish to take advantage of it if it were there. It is notorious that pre-school education has become available most readily in the areas where the need for it is least acute, that is, it is in predominantly affluent areas where the people are already sufficiently highly educated to appreciate the value of pre-school centres that those centres are being provided. It is those areas of the inner and western suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney and certain rural areas where the overwhelming majority of our low income families or our non-English speaking migrant families are concentrated which lack proper provision for pre-school education. The Government is presently setting out to remedy both of these deficiencies in our social arrangements. It is the aim of the Government to see within half a dozen years that there is a place in a pre-school centre free of charge for every child whose parents want to take advantage of it and that there is a place in a child care facility of one kind or another available for every child whose parents want to take advantage of it, at a charge related to income -

Mr McVeigh:

– Of a relatively high standard.

Mr MATHEWS:

– They must indeed be of a high standard, as the honourable member for Darling Downs interjects. If the honourable member for Darling Downs has read closely the 3 reports that the Government has commissioned on this matter- the report of the Interim Committee for the Pre-school Education Commission, the report of the Social Welfare Commission and the report of the Priorities Review Staff- he will know that the maintenance of standards has been a matter of very great concern to the Government and its advisers and that very properly provision has been made to see that standards are maintained.

I am always a little surprised to hear members such as the honourable member for Parramatta complain that undertakings such as the child care facility to which he referred a few moments ago will be delayed when, under the government in which the party that he supports last participated, the prospects of such an organisation being financed at all would have been very remote indeed. The honourable member for Parramatta is well aware that it took many years of urging on the part of members who now sit on this side of the Committee before the last

Government moved in the matter of pre-school education and child care at all and that, indeed, it was only in the last year of office of the former Liberal-Country Party Administration that a child care program was launched. Significantly, it was launched under the administration of the then Minister for Labour and National Service. It was tied very strictly and very exclusively to the idea that more and more women should be encouraged to go back into the work force. It was purely a facility for working mothers.

The concern of the present Government is a good deal more comprehensive than that. While we recognise on the one hand that there is an enormous number of mothers in this community who are obliged to go out to work by economic circumstances and who have a pressing need for child care centres, equally there is an enormous number of women in the community who would simply welcome an occasional break away from their families. That is why we are emphasising the provision not only of full time day care centres but also of occasional day care centres, of play groups organised on a voluntary basis under expert guidance and supervision, and a variety of other forms of child care.

I must say that one of the examples which has commended itself most to me is the program being implemented by the City of Knox on a project basis- family day care. Mothers who do not want to go out of their homes to work provide care for the children of mothers who do go out of their homes to work on the basis that the charge is $12 a day for each of the children who are minded and that the sum of $12 a day for each child is paid to the mother providing the care. This is an admirable arrangement under which the needs of both groups of mothers in the community are met and one to which I would hope to see energetic support given under the program which the Government is now sponsoring. I cannot too strongly emphasise that in allocating $7 5 m for the first year of this program the Government is taking very seriously a community deficiency which has given us such problems -

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Giles)Order! The honourable gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr McVEIGH:
Darling Downs

-The estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet give accurate proof of the way this country is being railroaded. Expenditure by this Department in 1973-74 was $53.855m. This year the proposed expenditure has increased to $88.85 lm. The Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) will not set an example of restraint and obviously is living up to the opinion quite widely held of him that he is the last of the great spenders. His reign has become that of a substitute- a substitute for leadership- and he is the presiding officer of a party ripping itself to shreds and plagued by internecine jealousies. No wonder he has assumed the mantle of a globetrotter. He is a . Prime Minister who endeavours to stay afloat, flitting around the world, where he is neither accepted nor wanted. Unlike his Deputy, the Minister for Overseas Trade (Dr J. F. Cairns) who at least pleases someone- as he did when he went to the Peoples’ Republic of China and declared there to the world that he admired the revolutionary tactics of that country- the Prime Minister loses credibility wherever he goes.

An examination of the estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and also of the Department of the Special Minister of State indicates that a sum of $lm has been set aside for overseas junketing by Ministers of State together with their personal staff and others.

Mr King:

– Good heavens!

Mr McVEIGH:

– The sum of $lm is provided for overseas junketing. As the honourable member for Wimmera says: Good heavens! Why can the Government not give this money to the. poor starving people in certain areas of Australia? With the economy tottering on the brink of a precipice it behoves the itinerant, travel-loving Ministers to be at home to preside over the cremation of the ship of State. They just have to be made to realise they are to forget about perks and be alive to their responsibilities. Time does not allow me to detail their trips abroad, but they do come and go like the seasons. It amazes me how the Prime Minister endeavours to create high sounding initiatives. One that really surpasses all adequate expression, at least with respect to the decorum of this place, is an allocation of $84,000 to the Australian National University for research on Federal-State financial relations. There is no need whatsoever for research into this area. All we need here in this situation is that old fashioned bush cure- money to the States with no strings attached. Surely it is impossible to imagine research required into this.

One thing that can be said about the Whitlam Administration is that it has taken a firm line over the past 22 months. A firm line, yes, with a paternal eye on the power of political patronage. It has created an all-engrossing bureaucracy that allows a very liberal sprinkling of ‘jobs for the boys’. We still see the ghost of Mr Al Grassby haunting the place, with his salary of $26,000 a year.

Mr Katter:

-$26,000? You have got to be joking.

Mr McVEIGH:

-$26,000 for Mr Grassbyand he has a staff of fifty-one. As the honourable member for Kennedy says, you have to be joking. If honourable members listen there is more to come- Mr Grassby is getting more publicity than the Prime Minister himself. We note that Peter Westerway, Frank Doyle, Normie Foster, Frank Kirwan, David Kennedy- all defeated candidates- have been allowed to cool their heels in Canberra-appointed sinecures at the expense of the Australian taxpayer. But time is running out for them. The appointment with the greatest political overtones was the appointment of Mr John Menadue as Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. As I am reminded by the honourable member for Kennedy, Mr Menadue is a former private secretary to Mr Whitlam and a defeated Labor candidate at the 1966 Federal elections. I object on behalf of the electors of Darling Downs to the appointment of people like Mr Grassby to a plum job, newly created, with negligible responsibility and doubtful value, after he has been floored by the democratic count in an election campaign. I pay a tribute to the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Sullivan) who has displayed in this House the gentlemanly characteristics that the people of Riverina want in their representative in this Parliament. The Prime Minister’s results from his overseas trip last year, which created a record spending of $532,501, were nil. He achieved as much as a bikie pedalling without a rear wheel. One remembers Cecil Rhodes’ great words: ‘So little done and so much to do. ‘

The Grants Commission, in injecting $56.3m into local authorities, has become functional in the administrative sense but the local authorities have not been able to cut through the red tape and obtain the finance to start the physical works. There have been too many delays and promises not backed up by action. Whilst in no way criticising the personnel of the Grants Commissionin fact we congratulate them on their meticulous approach to a serious problem which is accentuated by the unrealistic attitudes of a centralistic government- it nevertheless must be stated here in the national parliament that the brief and the guidelines given to them were both limited and obscure. These need updating and polishing. An analysis must start at first base. I would very seriously doubt the ability of the Commission to update at a given time the valuations of all shires in a region through States and the nation so that valuations are in line. That is an impossible task completely incapable of solution on a fair base. Valuing authorities are always subject to challenge and it has been proved that they are not the sole repository of all knowledge, judgment and wisdom. Additionally, the Commission admits it was restricted by lack of precise quantitative information. However, it should have provided incentives for those dedicated people associated with local government to renew their energies in endeavouring to bring top class facilities to their respective areas.

The operations of the Grants Commission, on the results achieved so far, with no money received as yet, the differences decided between like councils in the same region, have still left the aim of dedicated shire councillors as still only a tantalising dream. No provision was made in the Grants Commission decisions for efficiency or for sacrifices over many years through high rates paid by residents. There was no acknowledgment of this. The process needs updating. The formula adopted for the revenue equalisation component was to divide the total valuation by population and if this fell above or below the norm the shire was classified as being not in need. This obviously mitigated against highly valued and low populated shires.

On the expenditure disability side, no allowance was made where the cost of providing services is passed on to the ratepayers- they are making sacrifices- but allowance is made for shires where a proportion of the cost of providing services is charged partly to general revenue. There does appear to be a curious plurality in the system the Commission was asked to administer. Much injustice has been done and I hope it will be rectified in future years. Some consideration must be given to those local authorities who, through efficiency and sacrifice by their ratepayers, have built up good roads and bridges and essential services. They should be rewarded, otherwise inefficiency and retarding is encouraged. Effort must be taken into account. In fact, as the position is established that the local government debt is growing an eminently logical case can be presented and argued that a base allocation should be granted to all shires and allowances then made to bring the various shires to a standard. Again we run into difficulties in defining a standard. There is obviously no one shire which is of average standard. By necessity, it must be either above or below.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Dr KLUGMAN:
Prospect

-Mr Deputy Chairman, I was certainly interested in listening to the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh). It is a pity that reading slowly earlier the speech which had been written for him and having some trouble with it, as my 7- year-old daughter often has, he then did not have enough time to complete it when he finally started reading it more quickly. Listening to him, I certainly was not surprised at the story he told me last night about buying a pair of water skis a couple of years ago. When I asked him whether he had used them or not he said he had not been able to because he had not found a lake with a slope.

Mr McVeigh:

– A point of order, Mr Deputy Chairman. I claim to have been misrepresented.

Dr KLUGMAN:

-I will accept that the honourable member has found a lake with a slope.

Mr McVeigh:

– Will you sit down when someone else is standing up. The truth of the matter is that on a visit to Government House -

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! I thought the honourable member for Darling Downs was taking a point of order. He is not, so I suggest the honourable member for Prospect continue his speech.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– I accept the point of the honourable member for Darling Downs that he has now found a lake with a slope and I hope that he gets to use his water skis soon. He referred in passing to the provision in the Estimates for Federal-State finances research at the Australian National University. He has not been here for very long, but he may be interested to know that that particular item was introduced by the McMahon Government some two or three years ago when the previous Prime Minister panicked on the question of Federal and State relations and decided that, instead of setting up committees and commissions in the way some people do, it was better to refer the question to a university because it took even longer to get a result. That is what happened on that particular issue.

I would like to deal with some of the items appearing in the estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of the Special Minister of State. The first item with which I would like to deal concerns the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. I note that an amount of $5.5 m has been set aside for administrative expenses. I know that no specific explanation is ever given as to how money is spent by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and I do not dispute the need for the existence of some form of security intelligence organisation, but I do dispute the argument that the Parliament and, through the Parliament, the people of Australia should not be given some indication of how large the Organisation is. Honourable members will note that there is no indication on page 89 of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 1974-75 of the amount spent on salaries and payments in the nature of salary. I take it that that is intended so as not to let us know approximately how many people are employed by that Organisation from year to year. I think that is wrong. If there were a sudden increase or decrease in the number of people employed by ASIO I think it is important that the Parliament should know about it. The Parliament should be entitled to ask questions about ASIO in relation to general issues and the sort of work it is doing. I deplore the fact that the Government, which was elected on the basis- I strongly support that basis- of open government as far as possible, does not co-operate more in relation to this item.

In passing I mention the item in division 430 which relates to state funerals. I note that last year an amount of $9,000 was appropriated for state funerals and that $8,346 of the appropriation was expended. This year the appropriation is for only $2,400.

Mr Katter:

– People are most healthy these days.

Dr KLUGMAN:

– It must be due to the introduction of the Government’s health scheme that there is a more optimistic approach to the subject of state funerals. I hope that whoever is responsible for setting the figure is right. In relation to the subject of the conveyance of the Governor-General by aircraft, I notice that the appropriation to the Royal Australian Air Force last year was $1,015,574 and expenditure was $1,015,573. That is nearly up to the standard of ASIO, in relation to which the appropriation and the expenditure are exactly the same. I think it is a pity if that is not really an accurate figure.

I turn to division 447, which relates to the Prices Justification Tribunal. I congratulate the Government on establishing the Prices Justification Tribunal. I think that generally speaking it is making a good job of a very difficult position, particularly in view of the debate about the powers of the Tribunal. I think it important that there should not be any suggestion that things are not completely above board as far as the Prices Justification Tribunal is concerned. In that connection I note that the Prices Justification Tribunal normally deals with applications concerning Sydney companies in Sydney and Melbourne companies in Melbourne but that the application in relation to the Fairfax organisation- a Sydney organisation- was dealt with in Melbourne. Because the hearings by the Prices Justification Tribunal of the application by the Fairfax organisation were held in Melbourne it was much more difficult for some people to participate and submit evidence in that case.

I turn to the appropriations for the Department of the Special Minister of State, which appear at page 1.13 of Appropriation Bill (No. 1 ). I refer in particular to the item concerning the royal commission which is inquiring into the maritime industry. I am pleased that a royal commission has been set up by the Government on the initiative of the Minister for Labor and Immigration (Mr Clyde Cameron) and the Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) to inquire into this matter. I know some of the people who are involved in the royal commission and I have the utmost confidence in them. I refer to Mr Justice Sweeney and Mr R. St. John, Q.C. I have one reservation and it is a significant reservation. Being one who feels very strongly that the trade union movement should, as far as possible, be a separate organisation- a completely separate entity- I think that the Government should have as little power over the trade union movement as possible. If we want to preserve liberty in a democracy we must insist that in a pluralist society the different sources of power have as much power as possible. Therefore I deplore one of the terms of reference of that royal commission. I refer to the one concerning the legality of the payments or demands and their propriety having regard in particular to Australian trade union principles and ethics. Superficially that may be a very simple and reasonable thing to ask a royal commission to decide, but I do not feel that a royal commissioner should decide the ethics and principles of the trade union movement in Australia. I have the utmost confidence in the royal commissioner in this respect but I think that it is a wrong precedent to set to leave it to a non-member of a particular organisation somehow to decide fundamentally the principles and ethics of the trade union movement of Australia. With those few minor criticisms of the items presented in the estimates, I congratulate the Government on its excellent performance generally, and specifically on the performance of the 2 departments which are now under examination.

Mr McVEIGH (Darling Downs)-Mr Deputy Chairman, I wish to make a personal explanation.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Giles)Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr McVEIGH:

– I claim to have been seriously misrepresented by the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman). The honourable member stated that I had bought a pair of water skis for use on a slope. The true position is that last evening, on returning from being the guest of the Governor-General at a delightful function, I had the privilege of being in the same motor car as the honourable member for Prospect.

Mr King:

– That is very unfortunate.

Mr McVEIGH:

-I would like Hansard to note that my colleague, not I, said that that was unfortunate. The honourable member for Prospect, indicating his very deep appreciation of the manner in which all members in this chamber of the Australian Country Party and the Liberal Party of Australia apply themselves most assiduously and diligently to their parliamentary responsibilities and realising that those who sit beside him have plenty of time in which to practice water skiing and can afford to own -

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! I think the honourable member should tell the Committee in what way he has been misrepresented.

Mr McVEIGH:

– I have been misrepresented insofar as I do not own a pair of water skis. The honourable member for Prospect said he realised that in view of the very hard work we do, we do not have the opportunity to participate in such a very expensive sport as do his colleagues on his side of the chamber, and that consequently if we did we would have to have some assistance by being allowed to water ski downhill.

Mr GARLAND:
Curtin

-The Committee is debating the estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of the Special Minister of State. I pay tribute to the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen), who is at the table, for his presence in the chamber. I criticise the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) for his absence from the chamber. Surely it is a primary responsibility of any Minister to be in the House of Parliament in which he sits when the estimates for his Department are being debated so that he can hear the views being put forward by honourable members. The debate on the Estimates is one of the few occasions on which the representatives of the people have the opportunity of asking questions and commenting upon the many items that make up the Estimates. I would like to know what is of greater importance to the Prime Minister than being present today in the chamber of the Parliament of which he is a member.

Mr Sherry:

– He is water skiing!

Mr GARLAND:

-The honourable member for Franklin who is a supporter of the Government, says that he is away water skiing. I hardly think that is likely. It is more likely that he is at a museum and more likely still to be at a museum overseas. This brings me to the first point I want to make. As the Leader of the House (Mr Daly) will know, the Prime Minister or his Department was good enough to provide honourable members with some short notes on various items which are covered in this vote. I can comment briefly on some of them only because I have only 10 minutes in which to speak.

Firstly I support and join with those who criticised the Prime Minister’s too many visits overseas and, what is of course of much more importance, his extended absences from this country. I certainly believe that a Prime Minister should travel overseas to attend important conferences. But these conferences need to be impor.tant because there are many other demands on the Prime Minister’s time. I do not believe that it is necessary for him to go away as much as he has. Also, I do not believe it is necessary for him to visit all of the tourist attractions that he has visited. If he wants to see tourist attractions he should visit Australian tourist attractions equally. But it is certainly of the utmost importance to the country and its people that he spends more time addressing himself to the main problems that affect this country, and the major problem that affects this country today is our economy- the condition of stagflation which the Prime Minister in his own speeches has admitted to be the main problems facing his Government. He is away too much and he attempted to defend himself when questioned about this at question time today and yesterday by making a lot of misrepresentations about the visits and activities of former Prime Ministers. Today he went so far as to say that some former Prime Minister had spent much more time than he did at Williamsburg in the United States of America. I do not know whether the Prime Minister was referring to Sir Robert Menzies when he said that. Sir Robert Menzies, of course, was in residence at the Richmond university there for many months, but he was not the Prime Minister at the time. He gave 6 very erudite lectures in that historic place in the United States which were recognised by scholars and the legal profession in the United States as being of a very high order.

Mr King:

– He was a former Prime Minister.

Mr GARLAND:

-Sir Robert Menzies was not there when he was in office. He was there as a former Prime Minister and constitutional authority. We have the spectacle of the Prime Minister making these misrepresentations day after day. Mr Deputy Chairman, I do not wish to introduce a matter which is not the subject of the estimates we are now considering but I would just like to mention that the Prime Minister yesterday, when speaking of the Baltic States, gave an illustration that disproved his case and did not substantiate it.

One can speak of the standard in which he lives in this country and travels overseas. No one denies that he must have adequate facilities and advisers. But consider the vast entourage that he takes with him when he goes overseas; the apparently limitless chartering of aircraft; the keeping of a residence in Canberra and in Sydney which are manned all the time by servants; and the purchasing of the second largest Mercedes car that was available after he had said when he was elected to office that a Galaxy LTD would be good enough for him. All of this shows a recklessness of conduct and an irresponsibility in the expenditure of public funds which -

Mr Cohen:

– What sort of car did McMahon have? Do not be such a knocker.

Mr GARLAND:

– It was a 15-year-old Bentley, if the honourable member is interested. But the point I am making is that the Prime Minister says that the Government’s policy is one of economic restraint, but what we see is just the reverse. The Prime Minister has set up a lifestyle, to use the modern jargon, in a most expensive way and he does not limit himself at all in time or in facilities which go far, far beyond what any Prime Minister would need.

Page 1 of the document prepared by the Prime Minister or his Department, which I mentioned earlier, refers to the creation of 107 new positions in the Department of the Prime Minister and 45 more which I gather at present are vacant. Page 12 of the document refers to the acquisition of art. I just briefly say that if art is to be acquired surely considerable emphasis should be put on encouraging Australian art and large sums should not be spent on a few pieces of overseas art when there are so many pieces of art available here. There is a reference on page 14 to the entertainment of heads of State and other dignitaries to Australia. I agree with such expenditure. But I believe it is going a bit far for the Prime

Minister to stand here as he has and say to members of the Commonwealth Parliament: ‘I have invited you to my function and you will behave in the way that I set down’. After all we are being invited to a public occasion which is being paid for by public money.

Mr Kelly:

– I thought he was paying for it himself.

Mr GARLAND:

-Yes, you would get the impression that he was paying for it himself. In fact the taxpayers are paying for it. People are invited to the function because of the office they hold and not because of his generosity. Page 2 1 of the document gives the last instalment of the cost of the survey to determine the national anthem and everyone in this country who has taken an interest in this matter knows the survey was cooked.

Mr Kelly:

– It was a farce.

Mr GARLAND:

– As my honourable friend says, it was a farce. The survey was not fair but it did cost a lot of money.

I refer briefly to the fact that the Government since it first was elected to office has set up approximately 1 10 commissions for the purpose of investigating. We must be the most investigated country of all time. But this is perhaps the least important thing. The important thing is that the Government’s legislative program is so full, so packed and so overflowing that it has no hope, even if it intends to do so, of bringing in for decades the findings of these commissions. Bill after Bill has been brought into this Parliament in haste and the backlog is tremendous. In many cases legislation has been poorly drafted. We in this place and then senators in the other place have had to look at this legislation and have it amended. The Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) must have the course record in this respect because I think that every Bill he has brought in here has had to have the heart cut out of it as a result of its being found to be completely impractical. The chambers have the role to look at such legislation and certainly the Senate has a role to review it.

The fact of the matter is that the Government is trying to do too much too quickly. This is where I disagree with the political philosophy of the Government and the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister believes that progress should be made in certain areas he should bring in the relevant legislation at a pace at which it can be digested here and in the country. The legislation should be thought out before any attempt is made to have it implemented. If the Prime Minister avoids making such a mess of things when introducing policies he will not run the risk of a reaction occurring which sweeps away what progress has been achieved and perhaps puts objectives further back.

I must refer briefly to that part of the 1973-74 annual report of the Auditor-General which deals with the Australian Council for the Arts. Some very critical comments were made in this area in the report. Some of them were: No procedures or instructions for uniform processing of grants; conditions applying to grants inadequately stated; inadequate support for expenditure from grants supplied by organisations; evidence of expenditure from grants for the benefit of the Council for the Arts rather than to grantee organisations; grants used for payment of staff engaged on duties for Council or boards; and so on. I would like to quote from a papagraph which appears on page 191 of the report which states:

Numerous unsatisfactory features and errors were located in the accounts for travelling allowances and similar payments made to members of the Council and the Boards and to members of the staff. The incidence of error disclosed by the audit indicates an unsatisfactory standard of accounting.

I believe that so much has been said publicly about waste, the high administrative costs, the high expense accounts by administrators in this area and about too little getting through to the artists and the performers, that it is time that the Prime Minister himself- it is his responsibilitydid something to have this matter cleaned up.

Finally I join with those who have criticised the Government’s policy to make the Public Service, as they are attempting to do in other fields, a political arm of the Government instead of recognising the great tradition in the Public Service of independent advice that is given to the government of the day. Mr Menadue who is partisan in favour of the Australian Labor Party has been appointed to the Prime Minister’s Department by the Government. This appointment is breaking down the system. The Prime Minister is apparently impervious to the rightful criticism which thinking people have made of that decision.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Giles)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mrs CHILD:
Henty

– I have heard in this debate quite a bit of petty criticism about the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam). In fact criticism has been made to such an extent that I wonder whether the contrast between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden) is not putting a little bit of green eye on the other side of the House. There were also one or two nights of fancy from members of the Australian Country Party in regard to the Prime Minister not being accepted or acceptable in the countries he has visited. This is atypical of Country Party flights of fancy.

I wish to refer to that part of the estimates for the Department of the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen) which concerns the Grants Commission. Local government bodies, as all honourable members will know, are being called upon to play an ever-increasing role in our community, and rightly so, because this is the level of government closest to the people. It is regrettable that over recent years, due to pressure of finance, loans and repayments, councils and councillors have been forced into being more business oriented rather than community oriented. The involvement of the community in determining their own destiny and planning their own future in their cities is or has been declining at a time when it should be on the increase. All councils would welcome, and many do welcome, more and more communication with their ratepayers and more and more help with the numerous problems that councils now have to face. The years when garbage, roads, parks and gardens were all that councils had to deal with are gone forever. They are now involved in providing a huge range of social welfare services on a very closely integrated basis. They are heavily involved in preservation of the environment as their ratepayers become more conscious of the problems of pollution. Garbage disposal in 1974 is no longer just emptying bins and driving the trucks to the tip. It is becoming a problem of a lack of available holes and the need for destructors. Councils are now providing open space for recreation, adventure playgrounds for children, increased parklands and gardens, and as their role in society has changed dramatically over the past years their opportunities for raising money have stayed back in the Victorian era.

They have been starved of finance for many years, and they were the level of government consistently ignored by the Opposition when its members were in government. I was interested to hear the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh) who has now left the chamber, speak of how the grants should be allocated to local councils. One would think that the previous Government which he supported could have found out how to do so in the 23 years during which it had an opportunity to allocate grants but did not care to do so. Despite that period of 23 years in office when the present Opposition could have set up a scheme of assistance for local governing bodies it preferred to give sympathy and understanding because that cost less. It is only since Labor was elected that any attempt has been made to give practical help to local government to meet the increasing demands which are made upon it. Labor has consistently tried to elevate the status of local government and the recent grants recommended by the Grants Commission which are included in these estimates confirm this. An amount of $56.3m has been distributed throughout councils in Australia. I point out that this money was distributed by the Grants Commission which is autonomous and the claims that have been made throughout the country that there are political overtones and political patronage are an insult to the Chairman of the Commission.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– What has this got to do with the Prime Minister’s Department?

Mrs CHILD:

– It comes within the Department of the Special Minister of State.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Giles)-If I may explain, this comes under the estimates for the Department of the Special Minister of State.

Mrs CHILD:

-They are bracketed together on the blue sheet. The honourable member could have read it earlier. The granting of this money is an example of how Labor delivers the goods and how we redeem our election promises. One hopes that councils are now formulating their submissions to be put to the Grants Commission next year. One hopes also that those who missed out this year are reading the terms of reference and will see themselves as regions and not as cities. One also wonders whether, in the event of the Opposition’s pipe dream coming true and it regaining government, this is one of the areas in which it will cut government spending. It would be in line with its track record of neglect of that tier of government that serves the peoples closest for it to do so. Local councils should take heed of this warning. If $900m is to be cut off Government spending under a mythical Snedden government, will councils be the first casualty? After all, local government was neglected and downgraded for years under previous governments. It is a wonder to me that many of the dedicated men and women who give their services voluntarily in local government were able to keep pushing on in view of the debts which had been accumulated. Their problems are continually compounded and their debts continue to rise. We have tried, as you would probably know Mr Deputy Chairman, to give local governments their own voice on the Australian Loan Council. We were obstructed by the State Premiers, as usual, and the referendum on this matter did not get through. It did get through in New South Wales which evidently has very well informed local governments which were very anxious to get a voice on the Loan Council. We want local government to have adequate and reasonable access to the nation’s financial resources. We do not want, as we are constantly misrepresented as wanting, a take-over of local government. We want it elevated to its proper place in Australian society and given the means to carry out its work for the lasting benefit of the people for whom and with whom the councillors work.

I congratulate the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen) and the Grants Commission for their foresight in making these grants available without any strings tied to them so that councils can go ahead and get on with the work that has been held up for quite some time. The debts of local councils have multiplied 12 times since the last war. Councils still do not really have any access to proper and reasonable financing. I think they should form a lobby and come to Canberra to try to get that voice on the Loan Council because it is very obvious they are not going to get any help from the States. I would like to comment briefly on the crocodile tears of the honourable member for Darling Downs in regard to the perks, as he calls them, within the estimates for the Prime Minister’s Department. In my time in this chamber I have not seen a group of people more anxious to look for the perks than Country Party members, particularly where cars are concerned.

Mr SNEDDEN:
Leader of the Opposition · Bruce

– The honourable member for Henty (Mrs Child) mentioned the distribution of funds to local government bodies under the Australian Grants Commission scheme. I understood her to say that the Government has distributed the money. Something which I think ought to be put without any sense of controversy is that the Government has not yet distributed the money, nor can it distribute the money until the legislation goes through this chamber and through the Senate. When the legislation has been passed the money would go to the local government bodies through the States.

Mr King:

– There is no sign of it yet.

Mr SNEDDEN:

– There is no sign of the legislation yet. The Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen), who is sitting at the table, may give me some indication of when it is likely to come. I know, Mr Chairman, that you do not like interjections but I invite an interjection by the Minister in the form of giving information. I wonder whether the Minister could tell me when that legislation is likely to be coming through.

Mr Lionel Bowen:

– I will reply to you.

Mr SNEDDEN:

– I am told that the Minister will reply. Local governments have very great need for this money and the sooner they get it the better they will be able to conduct their affairs. Now they are able to proceed only on the expectation of receiving the money. That is not the matter about which I intend to talk. These estimates are for the Prime Minister’s Department. As is well known, the Prime Minister’s Department is a rather grab bag Department and embraces a large number of outrider organisations, including such diverse things as the Industries Assistance Commission and even the Children’s Commission. I assume that the Children’s Commission is to go into the Prime Minister’s Department.

I did not find anything in the Estimates about any site for a monument for the Prime Minister ( Mr Whitlam). After the way he has been talking lately I would have thought it would have been a prime requirement of his Department to locate a suitable site for bis monument. It has been suggested that he wanted it to be in a holy place and when they examined the price he said: ‘Well, that is far too high a price to pay. After all, I am only going to be there 3 days’. But the old story is one which has certainly got a ring of truth about it these days. I do not think the Government of Australia is going to be advantaged by these sorts of claims. What we want in Australia today is an examination of the real issues and we want real solutions so that the people of Australia can be advantaged and can achieve their aspirations.

I am taking this opportunity to speak about the allocation of moneys for the arts. My intention is not to question the validity of the purchase of such paintings as ‘Blue Poles’ or ‘Woman V, which as I understand it is closely identified with the tastes of the Director of the National Gallery, Mr Mollison. He has a great sense of art, but I do not know that he is the best man to send out on a purchasing mission. I think he may very well indentify the art, but we would be much better off with a rather harder-headed man doing the dealing. It was most disturbing to a great many people to read that the agent who sold us one of the works- I think it was de Kooning’s worksaid that we could have got it cheaper if we had sent the right sort of person to negotiate the deal. However that is something which ought to be corrected. Nor will I not spend time criticising the purchases of tea sets supposedly on loan from the Crafts Board, but I will question the desired objective of an Australian arts policy.

The total allocation in this Budget for the arts exceeds $31m and increase of more than $10m, almost 50 per cent. An amount of $7.7m has been allocated for the Australian National Gallery and collection, and $4.6m of this is for the acquisition of works for the National Gallery and the remainder for the construction of the National Gallery. An amount of $20m has been set aside for the funding of programs under the Australian Council for the Arts. The money involved is a very significant amount. I have supported the provision of that amount. At this point in the development of public patronage of the arts in Australia, it is of the utmost importance that Parliament clearly defines the objectives it feels the community wishes to see pursued. It should not be left to personal tastes, whether they be the tastes of a Minister or an expert appointed to conduct these affairs. It is for the Parliament expressing the public will to set down these guidelines. To question at this stage the way in which the funds are being distributed is a very necessary exercise, because it is only through wide-ranging public debate that those to whom falls the task of distributing the funds will be guided. I am quite sure that those people would welcome guidance.

To date, the level of public debate has been disappointing and has tended to centre around personalities rather than the substance of what we expect of our creative talent in this area. It is not surprising that it should have been centering around not only personalities but also spectacular purchases- and spectacular purchases do not make a national policy in relation to the arts. The plain fact of the matter is that in many ways they are counter-productive because people see these spectacular purchases, and in the present environment they see them as unnecessary and they react to them. When they react to them they react adversely, and it means that the whole concept of a proper arts and cultural policy for Australian can be put back and can be injured.

While excellence is a worthwhile objective, it is important that our overall objective is to encourage the creative spirit in all the art forms among all the Australian people. It is also important that the forum for this exchange of ideas be as wide as possible and not be centralised in a small way. There should be involvement of creators, the teachers, the critics and the community. We defeat our purpose if we concentrate the determination of our arts policy too narrowly and, therefore, there must be flexibility in the length of appointment of administrators to ensure that in appointing people to the various posts they have a sufficient tenure to allow them to make a worthwhile contribution. There is value in disseminating our culture overseas, but I feel that we must, in the first instance, show more concern for our domestic audience.

It is important, as a major objective in any arts policy, to heighten the awareness of people, not only to other people’s creative spirit but also to their own creative spirit. Attention must be directed towards involving children in all the arts expressions because, as T. S. Eliot has said, culture is basically the way of life of any community and if we are to increase the expectations and cultural aspirations of our people, we must involve the young. We must, therefore, provide finance so that the children of parents of all socio-economic levels are able to express themselves. We must involve the community, widen access and widen opportunities for free expression. One area in which it is important to do it is in the tertiary institutions. There is teeming energy and tremendous ability- almost ferment, one might say- in a cultural and creative sense in the universities and tertiary institutions. Funds must be channelled to promote student theatre and art creativity at the tertiary institutions. At the present time I know that many of the universities do not have adequate money for their creative art forms, and with the sort of allocation of money we have now it is very important that the universities, instead of going it alone on a shoestring, have better access to money.

I note that there are developing in Australia very real and very capable expressions of art through the theatre. For instance, the Pram Factory in Melbourne has produced a play called ‘The River Jordan’ which has been written by a man without any formal literary training. He is a person who has a long criminal record and is at present serving part of a long sentence in a Queensland gaol. I cite this only to show the fact that this expression of creativity is able to come to light, and it shows the importance of community theatre. I believe this could be extended far more widely. In other words, we must maximise our access points into the funding system. Whether it be through theatre, literature, ballet or art or craft, we need to develop wider expressions of our culture. My favourite form of art expression is ballet, which I like to watch, not participate in.

The CHAIRMAN (Mr Scholes:
CORIO, VICTORIA

-Order! The right honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr SHERRY:
Franklin

– I did not intend to enter this debate on the estimates of the

Department of the Prime Minister, but I could not resist the incredible challenge thrown out by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden). It is always fascinating to listen to the right honourable gentleman discussing the arts. I want to take up one or two points that he made. First of all he suggested that Parliament- I do not really think he was serious about this, but nonetheless he said it- makes a decision on artistic direction. I suppose his next suggestion will be that he form a sub-committee of the Country Party to advise us on artistic directions in this country. That, in short, would be disastrous.

There has been a lot of comment by the honourable gentlemen of the Opposition about the purchases of works of art. So many people do not understand the appreciation of art. I know that this would not affect members of the Country Party who are interjecting. It would not even penetrate. Appeciation of art is a highly personal matter. What appeals to me may not appeal to somebody else. But the plain fact is that as a result of overseas purchases of art there has been a remarkable stimulus and interest in those purchases. The honourable member for Griffith (Mr Donald Cameron) who is trying to interject, would not know how to get out of an art gallery, let alone get into one. The simple fact is that these overseas purchases have stimulated public interest in the arts. There has been a great deal of criticism of the gentleman responsible for the purchases, Mr Mollison, the Director of the National Gallery. I remind the Leader of the Opposition, as he leaves the chamber and goes to read more books on the theatre, that in fact Mr Mollison was appointed by the former Prime Minister, the right honourable member for Lowe (Mr McMahon), not by the present Government. So when honourable gentlemen opposite become so critical about purchases of works of art overseas they should remember the simple, fundamental point that in fact it is an appointee of a Liberal Prime Minister who is making these purchases.

Mr Young:

– And a very good one.

Mr SHERRY:

– It was a very good appointment. We have seen in the past couple of years under this Government a remarkable interest in and allocation of funds for the arts in the whole broad spectrum of the arts. Nobody denies that that policy has been a good policy. We have seen for the first time an international acceptance of Astralian artistic creativity and performance.

Mr Lusher:

– Where?

Mr SHERRY:

-The Country Party asks where. One only has to recall the tour which is currently taking place by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, which is receiving the accolade of the critics throughout the artistic world of western Europe. One has only to remind honourable gentlemen opposite about the performances and international standing of the Australian Ballet and reflect with justifiable pride on the very rich reservoir of talent that resides in this country that has been stimulated by this Government. But it is not enough to recognise it; we have to encourage and support it and not continually criticise it. For far too long there have been extraordinary attitudes to the performing and creative arts. There can be no disputing the fact, no matter what is said by the Opposition, whether it be in the field of theatre, ballet, music, composition, literature, painting, conducting and design, Australia has now reached the pinnacle of success in a fiercely competitive and demanding area of creativity. One of the saddest commentaries of our past attitude has been the effect it has had on individual Australians who, in sheer desperation and frustration, through a total lack of cohesive policy in the past, have left Australia. I am glad to say that that is now not happening. While not suggesting for one moment that all the things the Government has done will arrest that exodus immediately and overnight create the sort of climate we hope to establish for artistic endeavour, I say that the measures adopted by this Government are on the right track to achieve that particular result.

The Leader of the Opposition made some passing references to the Australian Council for the Arts. He talked about teapots and tea sets. That is about the measure of his artistic appreciation. I would not invite the right honourable gentleman to afternoon tea even if I had a tea set. The main thrust of the whole program of the Government in the artistic field- of course it now comes through the Australian Council for the Arts-is that it creates infinitely more opportunities not only for performers but also for our society and audiences to associate with and participate in the exciting rewards and satisfaction that flow from a vibrant and creative artistic environment.

Mr LUSHER:
Hume

– I listened earlier to the honourable member for Prospect (Dr Klugman). I am glad that he has returned to the chamber. I think f should suggest to him that he ceases being critical of the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh) because the honourable member for Prospect is unable to speak unless he is on the slope. Many honourable members have idiosyncrasies, others have afflictions and yet again some are fairly normal. But the honourable member for Prospect is suffering from the big lean. That should in no way be taken as a comment either way on the member’s weight. I ask: What prospect is there for Prospect?

It is no reflection on the honourable member for Darling Downs and I should not like the Committee to think that there is any friction between me and my colleague and room mate if I take a different tack on the question of the Grants Commission. There are 4 shires in the electorate of Hume which received no grant from the Grants Commission. Obviously there was a degree of disappointment and on behalf of those particular shires I made representations to the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen) who was kind enough to arrange for a delegation to meet with the Permanent Head of his Department and with officers from the Grants Commission. On Tuesday the Permanent Head and the officers of the Grants Commission received a delegation of 16 councillors, shire presidents and clerks. The meeting was most worth while and satisfactory and I place on record my great degree of appreciation of the Minister for arranging that meeting. It is a shame that there are not more Ministers opposite as competent and as keen to assist as is the Special Minister of State.

Without wishing to beg the question of the Australian Council for the Arts I think it is worth pursuing some of the items related to it, particularly those raised in the report of the AuditorGeneral which was presented in this House on 26 September. In that section of the report relating to the Council for the Arts we find that expenditure in 1973 on support for the Arts totalled almost $14m compared with a figure in 1972-73 of almost $6.7m. This represents an increase of slightly more than 100 per cent over the previous year’s expenditure. I nave no particular problems about art purchases. In fact, I like to think I understand some of these things. I know I get some enjoyment from them.

Mr Duthie:

– You are human.

Mr LUSHER:

-Indeed I am. What does concern me is the fact that there seem to be problems of administration and of handling funds provided under this particular appropriation, If we are to spend amounts of $ 14m in support of the arts I think the Government has a responsibility, and the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) as the Minister in charge, has a responsibility to see that these grants are administered in a fashion in which they cannot be criticised.

Mr Cohen:

– Will you tell us how that will occur with art? How will we not get criticism?

Mr LUSHER:

-I am not suggesting that there will not be criticism about items purchased; what I am saying is that when money is spent, the way it is allocated and the way the grants are administered should be beyond criticism. If we spend amounts of $ 1 4m it is obvious that there is a need to see that there can be no questions about the way the money was spent. We do not want to see a situation such as that which developed in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs over the way lavishly provided funds were expended. I think this is not an unreasonable request to put to the Prime Minister and the officers responsible for administering the Council for the Arts.

I comment now on a few of the points to which the Auditor-General referred. One of his comments was that the financial statements supplied by some organisations were inadequate as regards accounting for grants received. This is a matter of great concern because a lot of money is at stake and if we cannot ensure that the funds are being adequately administered and that the administration is beyond reproach we are heading for a dangerous situation. In another paragraph the Auditor-General says:

There was also evidence that arrangements had been made with some grantee organisations for the expenditure of funds from the grant at the direction of the Council or a Board for its own purposes and not for the purposes of the grantee organisation.

This is starting to smack awfully. much of the situation that developed in the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. It has occurred in other instances beforehand and I think we should all be aware of this factor and make every effort to ensure that it does not happen again.

As a smaller example, and with due deference to my friend the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Sherry) who is interested in the musical side of life, an amount of $27,000 was made available by way of grant to the Musica Viva Society for the purpose of paying the salaries of three trainee administrative and three secretarial staff employed by the Music Board. The AuditorGeneral states:

The terms of the grant to the Musica Viva Society approved by the Minister were ‘Training scheme for professional art administrators’.

This is the type of area where we are starting to get into problems. In this instance the grant was $27,000. 1 dare say that in time, if things are not quickly brought into line, it will be $270,000, and other significant sums of money will show up as having been improperly administered. When we are talking about estimates I think it is important to keep in perspective just what are estimates. They are amounts of money made available to departments under specific headings. They are supposed to be administered properly. When they are being sought they have to be sought as a result of submissions and bids which are as accurate as can be foreseen in the circumstances. A fair degree of responsibility must be exercised by the departments, councils and other bodies which are in a position of receiving funds from the Government, to see that moneys are administered wisely and that no suggestion of criticism can be levelled against those responsible for them.

Mr COHEN:
Robertson

– I do not suppose the Press has had more of a field day than it has had over the last 12 or 18 months at the expense of the Council for the Arts and the purchases of art from overseas. The Press has been stimulated by our colleagues in the barnyard section of the chamber and in general from the other side of the chamber. It is Australian ockerism at its very worst. A similar sort of thing happened back in the days of the Opera House when the New South Wales Labor Government was lambasted in every way shape and form by the New South Wales Liberal and Country Party ockers as wasters and spenders of money. But as the Opera House emerged members of the New South Wales Liberal and Country Parties were prancing up and down with royalty proudly boasting of what they had done for Australian Art.

We see exactly the same sort of thing spurred on by the less responsible sections of the Press. There was a headline in the ‘Melbourne Herald’- the sort of paper from which we would have expected something better- which stated: ‘We will spend an extra $77,000 on that woman’. Other headlines were: ‘ “Painted Ceiling” here on approval’ and ‘Gallery’s next buy $1.35m’. These are some of the milder headlines. It is a great time for the cartoonists. Like many members of this House, I suppose, I do not propose to have any great knowledge of art. I try in my limited way to appreciate it. I regret very much that my education as a child at a number of schools, both country and city, was sadly neglected in this area. I wish I had had more education in this field at school and after school. I think it is one of the cheapest forms of politics that is being played now with this area in which the Australian Government has shown new initiatives. Honourable members opposite will be able to score off every purchase that is made, I have no doubt. If they want to do that with the possibility of winning a few votes they should go right ahead. When the National Art Gallery openshopefully it will be one of the finest an galleries in the World- I am sure honourable members opposite will be justifiably proud of that gallery and the works of an in it as they were of the Opera House.

I have heard the suggestion that we might buy Picasso’s ‘Guernica’. I do not know whether the suggestion is realistic. I recall when in New York last year that there was one thing the family with which I was staying wanted to show me, and it was that work of art. It is one of the great works of art, possibly Picasso’s greatest. I hope that the rumour in the newspaper is a reality. I have no doubt it will cost a hell of a lot more than ‘Blue Poles’. Probably it will cost enough to send our Country Party colleagues squawking from the barnyards in a way we have never seen before. I notice that some of our colleagues from the other side of the Chamber have constantly reiterated, as I think some Queensland art critic has said, that we ought to be spending the money on Australian art.

Let us look at what has been done. From the beginning of the national collection until 1971-72 works of Australian art dominated the acquisition program. Between 1965-66 and 1971-72 some $834,365 out of a total of $1,185,180 was spent on Australian art- about 70.4 per cent. Between 1969-70 and 1972-73 an average of $201,610 was spent. That was mostly in the period of the previous Liberal-Country Party Government. In 1973-74, under this Government, spending on Australian art acquisitions for the National Gallery rose to $374,29 1 . Hopefully that refutes the stupid allegations and the half-witted comments made by some previous speakers, in particular the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden) who made great play on this matter. Again it was cheap politics, probably good politics, but not strictly an honest collection of the facts.

I understand that other members of the Committee have been interested in what is happening. They have a lot of other things to occupy their minds in politics and perhaps they have not paid as much attention to the program as they should have but because, I suppose, of criticism and publicity which the program has received we have taken the time and trouble to contact the Council. I understand the honourable member for Parramatta (Mr Ruddock) recently visited the Council for the Arts. I have arranged to be the guest of Dr Battersby when she returns from her forthcoming trip. I want to have the program fully explained to me because I am particularly interested in what it means not only to Australia but also to the people I represent. My electorate is one of the major growth centres of Australia. Some 80,000 adults live there. It is a provincial area between Sydney and Newcastle lacking any recognisable facilities for cultural performances, art displays or exhibitions of any type. I want to see in what way the Council for the Arts can bring forward these works upon which we have spent a considerable amount.

I have an interesting report which shows that some very exciting and attractive programs are on the way. I should like to see- I think this is true of most of the people I represent- what we can receive by way of exhibitions, displays and so on in the central coast area of GosfordWyong. I am sure that is true of most honourable members here. I am sure it is true of the honourable member for Hume (Mr Lusher). I am sure he probably would benefit as much as I did from a visit to the Council for the Arts. It is important that the people involved with the Council for the Arts do not forget the provincial areas such as Gosford-Wyong and Newcastle, and hopefully when it is discovered how desperately short we are of facilities -

Mr Lusher:

– What about Cootamundra?

Mr COHEN:

-Yes, and Yass, Gundagai, Griffith -

Mr Sullivan:

– And Booragul.

Mr COHEN:

-I would not go that far. We have to draw the line somewhere. I know from talking with Dr Battersby that quite a number of sponsored programs are visiting parts of Australia but, as has been pointed out, there is a great shortage of facilities in these areas. Perhaps the next part of our program ought to be to build facilities in these areas so that people can share them.

The honourable member for Franklin (Mr Sherry) made an important point. I noticed a lot of hilarity on the other side of the chamber when he said that the purchase of ‘Blue Poles’ and ‘Woman V has created tremendous interest. I understand people are going along in their thousands and standing and scratching their heads and saying: ‘Well, I do not know what it is all about. I would not have spent that money on it. ‘ But the important thing surely is that they are going along to look at the paintings. That is part of the beginning, I would hope, of art appreciation and an interest in art. The Council for the Arts has had more publicity and more discussion in the Australian Press, radio and television than probably any other department over which this

Parliament has control. Art probably has been discussed more than ever before in the history of this country. I think that is a good thing. Let people go along and hate the works of art or love them, but at least let them go along.

I commend the Department and the Minister for the wonderful job they are doing in stimulating art appreciation. I do not want to see them buckle down to the ockers and the bazzas in this community, whether they be outside this House or in the Press Gallery. Certainly by all means listen to criticism but do not let us buckle down and become as isolationist and insular as we have been over the past couple of hundred years when this great new initiative has been taken.

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

Sitting suspended from 6.15 to 8 p.m. (Quorum formed)

Mr HOWARD:
Bennelong

-In speaking to the Estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of the Special Minister of State I should like initially to direct a few remarks to the Committee about the nature of the office of Prime Minister. This office symbolises the real distinction between the type of government that we enjoy in the Westminster parliamentary system and the alternative methods of democratic government around the world. In a legal sense the Prime Minister in Australia holds his office at royal pleasure. In a practical sense a Prime Minister in the Westminster system holds office while he enjoys the support of the party commanding a majority in the lower House of Parliament. With all its faults, I make a very strong plea for the value of tins parliamentary system of government.

Over the past 12 months we have seen the incredible agony and travail of the greatest illustration in the Western world of the alternative system of democratic government. I refer, of course, to the presidential system of government. The real difference between the 2 systems of democratic government in the world is in the nature of the powers, privileges, responsibilities and weaknesses of the head of government, in our case the Prime Minister. The alternative system of government offers an attempt to combine the functions not only of a head of government but also the ceremonial functions of a head of state. It. also offers an inflexible, difficult to change, and at times extremely embarrassing situation as we have seen illustrated only too recently in the United States.

In a complex modern democracy I do not think it is possible effectively to combine the powers and privileges of a head of government with those of a head of state. For that reason I think that all honourable members should take note of the events of the past 12 months. They illustrate that although there are many weaknesses in the parliamentary system of government, some of which were spoken about this afternoon in the debate on the estimates for the Parliament, the parliamentary system of government based on a party system- I make no apology for supporting a party system of government, and I do not have any undying allegiance to a 2 party system of government as many of those who sit opposite have- contains flexible, responsive checks and balances carried through into the chamber of Parliament which other systems of democratic government throughout the world do not have. I think the past 12 months have demonstrated the inherent values of our system and the need to separate the office of head of government from the office of head of state. In my view, and I believe in the view of the great majority of the Australian people, there is no better way of doing that than by having a system with a constitutional monarch as the head of state, as we presently have.

During the debates on these estimates for the Departments of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and Special Minister of State there have been, I think quite correctly, a number of references made to the number of overseas trips and so forth undertaken by the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) and his advisers. I base my position quite simply on the attitude taken by the Deputy Leader of the Oppostion (Mr Lynch) this morning at question time when he asked the Prime Minister about his plans for future overseas visits. He emphasised in his question that he did not dispute the right, the prerogative and in fact the duty of an Australian Prime Minister to make frequent trips overseas. I join him in that view. I have no cavil at all with the right of the present Australian Prime Minister to make overseas trips. The only quarrel we on this side of the chamber have with the actions of the Prime Minister in this respect is that he demonstrates a deplorable lack of perspective. If indeed the most pressing problems facing the Australian nation at the moment were problems of our international relations which demanded the Australian Prime Minister being away from this country, we on this side of the chamber would willingly and enthusiastically support the proposition that he should journey overseas frequently and stay there for long periods of time.

But the sad fact is that the problems that really concern Australia at the moment are domestic economic problems. These are our major problems at the moment. We do not challenge the principle of the Prime Minister going overseas, but we challenge his lamentable lack of perspective.

Another matter that was dealt with earlier in the debate on these Estimates is the question of political appointments. I think the honourable member for Darling Downs (Mr McVeigh) and the honourable member for Curtin (Mr Garland) have fully categorised the charges that the Opposition makes against the Government in this respect. I do not dispute the need, in fact, the right, of a Prime Minister, be he a Labor or a Liberal Prime Minister, to have on his staff people whose sole purpose or overriding purpose is to provide political liaison between his Department, his members of Parliament and himself, and his party organisation. In fact, I think the system of party parliamentary government demands that there be much closer liaison between the organisational sections of parliamentary parties and the parliamentary parties themselves. Our only quarrel with the Government in this respect is the extent to which it has used the public purse to finance the employment of persons whose sole role is the maintenance in office of the Australian Labor Party. It is a practice that I hope is not repeated when we return to Government. It is a practice which I think will lead in time to an undermining of the party system of government and it is a practice that I completely oppose.

I think a useful precedent that could be followed in our system of government is that system which is followed in the United Kingdom with Conservative Party Governments, where in every Minister’s office there is a political secretary who is paid for out of party funds. He is not paid for out of government revenue. He provides a liaison and a link between the Minister and the Party organisation. I think that it is a valuable thing for a Party, a Prime Minister or any Minister to have such a person in his office. But I think it is an important breach of principle for that person to be financed out of government funds.

Mr RIORDAN:
Phillip

-The Opposition has used this debate to attempt to engage in a cheap and cynical attack on the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam), to try to appeal to prejudice and to try to bring out a very base motivation in the Australian public. It will fail. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden) chose to disparage the missions that the Prime Minister has undertaken overseas. It is about time that these matters were put in their proper perspective. It is about time that the Leader of the Opposition grew up. Australia has grown up, and so should the Leader of the Opposition.

We have come a long way since the days when Prime Ministers of Australia made annual pilgrimages to London and Washington to receive the blessing from the heads of ‘great and powerful friends’. I might add that at least with respect to one former Prime Minister the times of his visits overseas regularly coincided with the playing of cricket test matches. I could supply the Leader of the Opposition with comparative figures which would show that Sir Robert Menzies and Mr Harold Holt were, in the same period of leadership, absent from Australia for almost precisely the same length of time as our present Prime Minister. I could refer to the fact that Mr Gorton, when he was Prime Minister, was absent from Australia 8 times in 3 years. That is one perspective.

But the true perspective in which the Prime Minister’s missions should be seen is the perspective of their importance to Australia and what they have achieved for Australia. Under this Government and under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Australia’s standing abroad has been transformed. Old friendships have been strengthened. They have been put on the basis of a mature relationship. Australia has a voice of its own and is heard with respect throughout the world. The Prime Minister ‘s visits have been an important part of this transformation. Leaders of Asian nations no longer telephone Washington to find out what Australia ‘s attitude is, as they used to do previously, because there might have been a change that we had not heard of. Now those leaders telephone the Australian Prime Minister to find out what our attitude is, correctly and directly.

Which of the Prime Minister’s overseas visits would the Leader of the Opposition say should not have been undertaken? Does he suggest that the Prime Minister should not have made his visit to New Zealand on taking office? Does he suggest that he should not have gone next to Indonesia, our largest and closest neighbour, or visited Indonesia again for the informal but very fruitful talks that he had for 3 days last month with President Suharto? Does he suggest that the Prime Minister should not have attended the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Ottawa last July and, at the same time, taken the opportunity to have discussions with the then President of the United States of America? Does he suggest that the Prime Minister should not have headed the ministerial talks in Japan last October- a valuable arrangement with our largest trading partner, established by the Government of which the Leader of the Opposition was a member? Or does he suggest that it was inappropriate for the Prime Minister to go on then from Tokyo to Peking to set the seal on the relations that he had established with China during the period when he was Leader of the Opposition? ‘ Does the Leader of the Opposition suggest that the Prime Minister could have delayed his visit to South East Asia, this vitally important region for Australia? The Prime Minister made that visit last February and it was the most successful visit any Australian Prime Minister has ever made to South East Asia. Earlier this year, in speaking in this Parliament, I referred to the statements made by the President of the Philippines, the Prime Minister of Thailand and the Prime Minister of Singapore who praised and welcomed the Australian Prime Minister to their countries. They welcomed him and wished him to come back again. They were pleased to see the new relationship which had been established since the Labor Government was elected and the present Prime Minister was elected to office.

Does the Leader of the Opposition suggest that the Prime Minister was wrong to address the United Nations General Assembly? Or was he wrong to take the opportunity which that invitationthe first ever accepted by an Australian Prime Minister- presented to confer also with the re-elected Prime Minister of Canada and to talk with the new President of the United States? Was it not thoroughly proper that the Prime Minister should maximise the value to Australia of that journey which took him twice across the Pacific to represent this nation at the meeting of the South Pacific Commission in the Cook Islands, the centenary celebrations in Fiji and the bi-centenary celebrations in Norfolk Island?

The fact is that what the Opposition resents about the Prime Minister’s overseas missions is not their frequency but their success, not his absence from Australia but his achievements on Australia’s behalf. The difference between the present Prime Minister and his predecessors is not that he leaves Australia longer or more often but that, when he does, he serves the interests of this nation with distinction and purpose. It is the envy and the jealousy that comes out when the Leader of the Opposition and those who follow him attack the Prime Minister for his absence. What a cheap and petty attack it was. The Prime Minister spent a day at Niagara Falls. He spent a day at Williamsburg looking at a display of antiques. Does any member of this House seriously suggest that this Prime Minister does not apply himself day and night, week in and week out to the duties of his office?

Mr Katter:
Mr RIORDAN:

– I have never heard any sensible member of this Parliament or any intelligent person whom I know suggest that this is not a very hard working, dedicated Prime Minister indeed. It would be difficult to imagine any person applying himself harder and with greater dedication than the present Prime Minister to the onerous tasks of that office. I believe that it would be impossible for any man to do more. So, this cheap, stupid attack which is made that the Prime Minister should be concentrating more on the problems of inflation and employment and not travelling overseas leads me to ask: Do not these narrow-minded, shallow people realise that what is occurring’ today in Australia is a reflection of what is occurring in Western Europe and in North America?

Mr McVeigh:
Mr RIORDAN:

– My friend makes the most intelligent interjection that he has made so far. He says: ‘Rubbish! ‘ That is about the level that I have come to expect from the honourable gentleman. I turn to the other attack that was made. Somebody- I think it was the honourable mem.ber for Curtin (Mr Garland)- referred to the fact that the Prime Minister had arranged when he assumed office for the purchase of a Mercedes car. Let us look at the facts of that matter. A Mercedes car was purchased for the Prime Minister. The fact is that the little run-about that the former Prime Minister had, a Bentley Type S- as honourable members all know that is a little family run-around- was sold for $11,200. The Mercedes cost $9,800. So, by making the transfer the Australian Government gained $1,400. They say that is extravagance.

Then, honourable members opposite talk about charter flights being used. On 3 October, the Minister for Services and Property (Mr Daly) provided an answer to a question on notice about charter flights. I commend it to honourable members. Here we see evidence of some extraordinary amounts being spent on charter flights for honourable members who were formerly Ministers. In fact, the honourable P. J. Nixon must be the greatest flyer Australia has had since Kingsford-Smith. In 1972 he made 47 flights at a cost of over $9,000.

Mr Katter:

– A point of order!

Mr RIORDAN:

– The honourable R. J. D. Hunt, who sits at the table now, was a pretty close competitor.

Mr Katter:

– A point of order!

The CHAIRMAN (Mr Scholes:
Mr Katter:

– This is a reflection on the honourable member -

The CHAIRMAN:

– Order! The honourable member will resume his seat.

Mr Katter:

– The honourable member for Phillip well knows that the honourable member for Gippsland was obliged to fly -

The CHAIRMAN:

– Order! The honourable member will resume his seat.

Mr Katter:

– There is no way that he could -

The CHAIRMAN:

– Order! The honourable member will resume his seat.

Mr Katter:

– He could not get home without those charter flights.

The CHAIRMAN:

– Sit down.

Mr RIORDAN:

– The honourable R. J. D. Hunt was not far behind with 23 flights at a cost of $5,700. And so it goes on. The answer printed in Hansard commences at page 2245 and I commend it to honourable gentlemen for their consideration.

I conclude by saying that this Prime Minister on his last trip when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly and performed on the television program ‘Meet the Press’ in the United States was a great ambassador for this country. His contribution to the reputation of this country was unparalleled. It was unsurpassed by any of his predecessors. It ill behoves ignorant people to criticise now the magnificent job that this man has done for this country.

Mr CADMAN:
Mitchell

-I rise to speak about the Department of the Special Minister of State and particularly in regard to child care. I trust that my remarks may be considered by the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen) to be somewhat of a constructive nature. This is an area which no doubt concerns all parties represented in this chamber. I must say in my opening remarks, however, that I feel that in some ways the Minister may be a compromised Minister in that his portfolio seems more closely related to either education or social security. However, I do not wish to reflect on his personal ability.

The definition of terms in this area is to my mind most difficult. Reading the publications of the Australian Government Social Welfare

Commission or other documents related to the child care area, I find that the terms used seem to conflict at times. Pre-school care, child care, long-day care, play groups and many other terms are used to describe the functions of the care of young children. I would suggest to the Minister that we get firm definitions so that the general public knows what is meant when these terms are used in reports or by people who are expert in the field. Furthermore, I would suggest that we use the term ‘child care’ to apply as it generally has and traditionally does to long term, long-day child care, where parents may leave their children at a centre from early in the morning until reasonably late in the evening, certainly for 5 days a week. No doubt honourable members are all familiar with the pre-school kindergarten system. The play groups organisation is a new organisation that is gaining great force and is perhaps the fastest growing organisation in the country. Two years ago there were no members of that organisation, and I believe there are now 1 5,000 children involved in play groups.

In reading the reports I feel that, whilst there has been great expertise brought to play in the preparation of the reports, the people who are vitally concerned have been given only a somewhat limited chance to have a say in the direction that these proposals are going. I would suggest that the Minister find the needs, look at the needs, and refer to the people who are involved so as to find out what their needs are. In particular, I would refer him to a recent initial survey done in the Blacktown-Mount Druitt area of Sydney where it was definitely indicated by mothers in a random survey that 90 per cent of mothers would like sessional care of their children or a play group situation. The long-day care to most mothers does not seem to be attractive, and this is not unusual. Mothers right across the country are the same. You cannot divide mothers or motherhood by saying that there are deprived areas or wealthy areas. Their concern for their children and the young Australians that they are fostering is the same no matter where they live. I would like the Minister to keep this point in mind when referring to the Commission any matters in the child care area. The project care book that has been prepared has an innuendo in relation to long-day child care that it is something that will take the children, look after them and deny the parents the responsibility that is rightly theirs. In fact, in searching the booklet I found that there are sections that definitely state this.

I would also refer the Minister to surveys of married women who are wives of members of the Electrical Trade Union. These surveys, done in 1971, indicated that 96 per cent of the women would prefer to stay at home with their children, certainly until they reach the age of three and many said until they reach the age of five. A further survey done in 1973 supported this earlier finding. If the Government is moving in the direction of total day care for children I would suggest that it consider its position very carefully and look to Hungary and Czechoslovakia for some guidance in this matter. Comparatively recently Hungary had 50 per cent of its children in child care centres. The Hungarian Government is now using television advertising to encourage parents to stay at home with their children. It is providing a form of child endowment to encourage parents to do so. It has found that the cost of the scheme is so gigantic that it is difficult to foot the bill. There are also problems with the children who have been through this system for some years who are now teenagers. The Government and society has found that the problems of children who have difficulty in the fixation of a family way of life are really great indeed.

I would refer the Minister also to the comments of Dr Mean on Czechoslovakia which indicate that a similar attitude is being adopted by that country. It no longer encourages mothers to leave their young children in centres provided for them but encourages them to stay at home with their families. In this matter too we must consider costs. It will be seen from the project care booklet that a round figure for on-going costs per child seems to be $1,000 a year. I think it is a little under that, but the report is constantly becoming dated by recent salary increases for people who are expert in that field. My investigations indicate that the capital expenditure could be something like $2,500 per child, which amounts to something like $250,000 per 100 children. Therefore you have a capital cost of $250,000 per 100 children, an on-going cost of something like $ 1,000 a year per child.

I would draw the Minister’s attention to the situation of our established system of child care. I would suggest to him that if new initiatives are to be taken m the field of child care they cannot be taken at the expense of existing systems. There should be retained a freedom of choice and a certain amount of flexibility so that parents have the right to decide, to make a choice between alternate forms of child care.

In relation to the States and the fostering of existing schemes I would like to quote from the booklet that came with the Treasury documents entitled ‘Payments to or for the States and Local

Government Authorities 1974-75’. The booklet states at page 57:

At the time this document was prepared details of the scheme, including such matters as the extent to which the assistance would take the form of payments to the States (as distinct from grants direct to local government authorities and private organisations) had not been settled. It is therefore not possible to conclude what grants might be paid to the States for these purposes in 1974-75. However, for purposes of budget documentation only, an estimate of $37.5m for grants to the States has been made. For the same purpose, it is assumed that, of this total, approximately $20. 5m could be for recurrent purposes and $ 17.0m for capital purposes. No commitment to the provision of these amounts is implied. As both the total allocations and allocations to individual States will depend on decisions as to needs as seen by the Interim Committee and the Commission when it is established, it was not possible, at the time this document was prepared, to provide useful -estimates on a State by State basis.

I would urge the Minister to turn his attention immediately to this area. I am told that organisations that have on-going expenditure are in dire circumstances at the moment and there is a possibility that fees will increase rapidly if traditional support is not supplied very soon. I would suggest to the Minister that some of the sunshine talk in the documents from which I have quoted should be translated into some form of activity which is tangible, which can be seen by the community and which is available to children now in this area.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr YOUNG:
Port Adelaide

– It is interesting to note the points which members of the Opposition wish to discuss in relation to the estimates for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of the Special Minister of State.

Mr Sullivan:

– We were friends.

Mr YOUNG:

– We will remain friends because we are doing a lot for the honourable member for Riverina and his colleagues. We are educating their children, we are introducing all of the people in their electorates to the arts and we have also given them one of the finest leaders Australia has ever had. We are doing it bit by bit. Honourable members opposite will come to understand that.

It is very interesting to note the point upon which the honourable member for Mitchell (Mr Cadman) presented his argument to the House. It related to expenditure on child care. This is perhaps the first time that such a debate has been able to take place because on so many occasions in the past very little money has been allocated for that purpose. On this occasion, however, the sum of $75m has been set aside for the setting up of child care centres, with the emphasis on education, in the areas of greatest need. This is the crossroads between the people who sit on this side of the chamber and the people who sit on the other side of the chamber. Honourable members opposite would continue, as they did between 1949 and 1972, to spend money in areas not of greatest need but quite the opposite, that is, in areas that are affluent and that perhaps already have these facilities.

As a member of this chamber who represents a disadvantaged area, an area of great need, I will fight to ensure that the principles upon which the present Government was elected to office in 1972 will continue to guide its policies. The money that is made available must be spent in the areas of greatest need. The principles laid down in the Karmel report and the principles laid down in the Social Welfare Commission’s report on the ways in which these things ought to be done are the means by which the present Government will stay in office. Of course, they are the great principles that have been enunciated by the present Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) ever since he took over the leadership of the Australian Labor Party early in 1967. Of course, they are the principles that have come to be accepted by the majority of the people of Australia. Those principles took us into government in December 1 972, they consolidated that position in May 1974, and, I predict without any hesitation, they will keep us in office for many years to come. So on the question of child care honourable members opposite ought to appreciate greatly what the present Government is doing for the women, children and families of this country.

I shall be very brief in my remarks on the subject of overseas trips. I agree with the honourable member for Phillip (Mr Riordan) in that I cannot think of a more shallow attack upon a Prime Minister than to say that he goes overseas too much when problems are adding up at home and that the problems would not be so large if he were to remain here. What honourable members opposite have to understand is the philosophical difference between the approach to foreign affairs of their stale, conservative government of 23 years and our young, enterprising government of almost 2 years and the differences between their and our approaches to the people of this world. The Liberal and Country Parties never understood in all the years that they were in office the problems of Asia and the relations that ought to exist between Australia and Asia. They continued to build their hopes on the alliances that may have existed between ourselves and the United States of America, and ourselves and the United Kingdom. So it was always the case that previous Prime Ministers- in the last couple of years they were in office’ the Liberal and Country Parties kept changing them, depending upon the actions of some of the members of their front bench- went running off to Washington and London and ignoring what was happening in. Asia, becoming frightened of what was happening in Asia and, of course trying to solve their problems with military intervention.

The present Prime Minister has done a great deal to heal the scars that were left by the previous administration in Australia. The commencement of the Chinese trade fair in Australia tomorrow and the opening of the Australian trade fair in Peking some days ago are material evidence of the bonds of friendship that have been built between, ourselves and the largest country in Asia which the conservatives continually ignored for all the years in which they were in office. It is also evidence of the success of the policies of the Australian Labor Party led by the present Prime Minister. I do not think that any country has been ignored by us in the manner in which we approach our foreign policies. It has been made quite clear to the people of Africa, Latin America, North America, Europe and particularly of our own region- South East Asiathat we stand for self determination, that we stand for proper relationships between the government of our country and the governments of their countries, and that we stand for nonmilitary intervention and for the retention of friendship with the countries with which we have had alliances over a long period.

They are proper, constructive policies which have been consolidated by the fact that the Prime Minister of this country, a person who is held in great esteem throughout the world, has been able to visit them personally and to speak to them at that level. It is rather beyond comprehension that people should come into this chamber and say, as a means of trying to criticise the present Prime Minister, that he travels too much. The only other point I would like to make about that is that I have been led to believe from inquiries I have made- I have not been a member of this chamber for very long-that whenever delegates are called for from the Opposition Parties for a parliamentary trip overseas there is never any shortage of candidates. Apparently the travel bug must also exist on the other side of the House.

I do not want to be critical of the Government ‘s style of government and I am not going to be. The honourable member for Bennelong raised the question of political appointments being made by the Government. If kings can lose their crowns and popes can lose their thrones, surely public servants have to shift over occasionally for people from outside the Public Service. I think that the present Prime Minister has made some very excellent appointments. I think that his judgment in that area is just as good as it is in many other areas. I count myself among those he appointed during the period when I was serving outside this chamber. I know that this matter has been raised in the Parliament on a number of occasions but when one takes into account the fact that a political party such as the Australian Labor Party has been out of office from 1949 to 1972 for all sorts of reasons, including the actions of and collaboration between the Australian Democratic Labor Party and the present Opposition Parties, one must concede that it only stands to reason that a Prime Minister coming into office after such a period would want to have serving under him a mixture of people he has worked with previously and people to whom he has been introduced after he has taken up his new post. That is very shallow criticism.

I am quite sure that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden), if he were ever to serve this country as Prime Minister, would follow the lead of the present Government in terms of such appointments. It is not as if anybody has been able to stand up in this Parliament and be critical to the degree of being able to say- I leave myself out of this category- that the Government is employing incompetent people. No one has suggested that. But if honourable members opposite want to present a case on that perhaps we can argue about it. The British system of having a political secretary in every Minister’s office has been put up as being the ideal system. We do not want it and the Opposition does not want it. It might be a good idea in Britain. It may be a tradition in Britain, as is the appointment of parliamentary secretaries, but it is the sort of system which I think can be ruled out in Australia. Public servants are citizens of this country and they are subject to the Government of this country. If the Government of this country wants a mixture of people serving it, the Government of this country has every right to do so.

I turn to the subject of the arts. A number of people have, unfortunately, said outside of this chamber and in this chamber that the Government can be judged as if the Prime Minister himself was travelling around the world buying paintings or as if, in effect, every painting or every object of art which the Government has purchased has become the subject of a debate in this chamber. Quite frankly, this chamber does not have the expertise for that. But this chamber ought to look at the conduct of the Council for the Arts or the body that may be set up by legislation to be put forward in this House in the future, to see whether it serves the community in the manner in which this Parliament wants it to serve the community. I reiterate what I said at the outset of this address: It ought to be done on the basis of need. If any criticism can be made of the actions of the Council for the Arts in the past, it is for the fact that the majority of the people of Australia have yet to be introduced to the arts. We are doing that by spending a great deal more money, by putting a lot more people back into the arts and by encouraging Australian artists. There can be no doubt that in the short term a lot more Australians are going to have access to the arts, access to a good education and access to good government leadership by virtue of what has happened since December 1972.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– It was not my intention to speak during this debate. However this afternoon we saw the introduction of some fairly shallow red herrings which were drawn across the trail. Perhaps the most provocative speech of all was that which was made by the honourable member for Phillip (Mr Riordan) who told us where the Prime Minister (Mr Whitlam) travelled in the last couple of years. His speech sounded more like a travelogue or someone calling out the ports of call of Pan American Airlines. Only last Sunday an article of mine appeared in the ‘Sunday Sun’, the Brisbane Sunday newspaper, which I concluded by saying that I was one who normally did not get too. excited about Prime Ministerial or ministerial trips. But what I am starting to get excited about of late is the Prime Minister’s tremendous sense of timing. His last trip of 17 days duration was staged at a time when the nation was yearning for leadership. It was staged at a time when the Deputy Prime Minister (Dr J. F. Cairns) was up with Mao Tse-tung and was visiting Peking and Hanoi If honourable members care to name any places in that region, the Deputy Prime Minister would have visited them. Our No. I man visited the United States of America, Norfolk Island, Fiji, Honolulu, Niagara Falls and Nashville on his visit overseas. It is a wonder that he did not stay for a country and western show when he was in Nashville after he had seen the Greek exhibition which was the purpose of his visiting that city.

I come back to the point that I was making. The Prime Minister’s sense of timing is completely out. Last January and February supporters of the Government were vocal in their criticism of the Prime Minister because he made a trip to Indonesia at a time when this country was in the middle of the greatest disaster ever to confront it, namely the floods in Brisbane and Queensland. As the water rose so did the Prime Minister. He went off to Indonesia. He left us all behind. He could not care less. He has no sense of proportion. I do not really mind the Prime Minister taking trips but he should take them only when the country does not need a Prime Minister to be in Australia

If ever we needed a man prepared to come to grips with the problems of this nation it is right now. The Prime Minister came back to this Parliament and told us that he was in touch every day. Is he trying to tell me that a direct telex link was connected between Niagara Falls and Canberra? The honourable member for Phillip who spoke a few minutes ago was one of those who tried to reverse the Prime Minister’s decision in the Caucus room yesterday. Yet tonight he is defending the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister was interviewed on the NBC program ‘Meet the Press’ while he was in the United States. This program was staged at 5 o’clock in the morning. The only people who are watching television at 5 o’clock in the morning are policemen, the women they are locking up, and milkmen. During the interview at that time in the morning the Prime Minister was asked a question by Mr Brandon, who is the Washington correspondent of the ‘London Sunday Times’. Mr Brandon put the question:

There is a strong group on the left of you, Mr Prime Minister, in the Cabinet -

That is an understatement. It is known right around the world- and I gather in the Party Caucus -

We could not say that the honourable member for Phillip was one of those- that sometimes it is very difficult for you to control, and I was wondering whether there is a danger that they might oust you.

The Prime Minister answered- and get on to this:

They would be cutting their own throats.

Well, what a pompous man he is. The Prime Minister said that they would be cutting their own throats.

Mr Riordan:

– You are distorting it. Read the rest of it.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– I am not distorting it. I will keep going. The Prime Minister having made this pompous cut and dried statement sat back with his usual smug attitude. Then Brandon asked:

Why would they be cutting their own throats?

The Prime Minister replied:

Well, I- you come from England, don’t you?

Brandon replied:

Yes.

The Prime Minister then went on to tell the panel:

Well, you know perfectly well that this is the stockintrade of any criticism of any Labor Government- that it is faction ridden, that the right and the left are at arms length and the Leader is about to topple; well, it doesn’t ‘t apply.

This is another falsehood. Labor has so many troubles I think that the Prime Minister travels overseas to get away from it all. He does not go away because he feels that he is a great ambassador for this nation but he wants to get away from all the problems.

The honourable member for Phillip made a nasty comment about the honourable members for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) and Gippsland (Mr Nixon) in regard to charter nights they had made. These members who come from the bush chartered flights to get them to Canberra or to the main cities where they could connect with other flights. The honourable member for Gippsland spent in the vicinity of $9,000 when he was a Minister and the honourable member for Gwydir, $5,000. If we are to be small minded about this, let us compare their expenditures with the expenditures of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister’s expenditure in 1974 for tripping around was $137,939. As fas as I am concerned this is a legitimate expenditure but if we are going to be small minded men on these matters let us present both sides of the story.

I simply conclude this telling contribution to this debate by saying to the Prime Minister: We do not mind you going away but make your trips at times when we are not in trouble. Everybody knows that at the moment inflation is reaching record proportions. Let us reflect on this: When we went out of power there were 2 1 other nations in the world which had a worse inflation rate than Australia. Since the Labor Government came to trouble- I meant to say ‘power’ but these 2 words are synonymous- our inflation rate has soared to such an extent that only seven or eight other countries have a worse inflation rate than Australia. That is not a bad record for people who thought it was time.

The other point I want to make is that unemployment in this country is now in excess of 150,000 people. It is time to tighten belts, not to grandstand in the United Nations, at Niagara Falls or at Nashville, Tennessee. Only when this country gets back on its feet will a Prime Minister, no matter from which party he may come, be entitled to say: ‘I am going abroad’. I do not notice this country being beseiged by visits from other national leaders to the same extent as our Prime Minister goes overseas. I know that Mr Tanaka will be visiting Australia in a week’s time and that the Shah of Iran has visited this country. Sure, they are big men. But have we had return visits by the President of the United States? We have not had such visits because the Australian Labor Party and in particular the Deputy Prime Minister spent half of last year hurling insults about the people of the United States being murderers and a great many other unsavoury terms. They want to forget about Australia. The only reason that the Americans let our Prime Minister visit their country these days is because the United Nations is on neutral ground in that country and they cannot stop him from entering.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti): I call the Special Minister of State.

Mr Giles:

– Is he closing the debate? I was on my feet seeking the call.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN:

– It will take a decision by the Committee to close the debate.’

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:
KingsfordSmithSpecial Minister of State · ALP

– There has been quite a fair deal of debate on this matter. I want to make it clear that it was agreed that the debate would run for 2 hours. However, the debate has ensued for over 2 1 ours now. This arrangement was well known by the Opposition. A number of matters have been raised and I would have thought that some honourable members would have wanted an answer to the points which they put.

The leader of the Opposition (Mr Snedden) took part in the debate briefly to indicate some of the issues which he felt were most important. I think that he was effectively answered by the honourable member for Franklin (Mr Sherry) who indicated to him the Government’s policy in regard to the arts. It seemed that the main weight of the right honourable gentleman’s complaint was that someone else should be buying the paintings and that he felt those paintings we had bought were not significant enough. I want to make this point clear to the Leader of the Opposition: I would have thought that if he wanted to downgrade the Prime Minister, which is his forte, he would not have said that the Prime Minister regarded himself as being someone who would rise up again after 3 days. That is an insult to a number of people in this community. It is about time that the Leader of the Opposition realised that people who might accept that sort of philosophy spend much time looking after orphanages, people in need, the blind, the sick and the infirm. To use that sort of jocular expression does him very little credit indeed. One of the things on which he could better spend his time would be to make some effective contribution instead of making some half-baked snide remark about people’s beliefs or what the Prime Minister might be associated with in order to joke. The Prime Minister himself would never stoop to that position. I am amazed to think that it was raised in the course of a debate on the Estimates.

A matter on which the Opposition wants an effective answer is when Government grants are going to be made available to local government councils. I would have thought it was obvious that the $56m is part of this appropriation. Until such time as the appropriation Bill is passed and approved we cannot, of course, introduce the legislation to release the money. But it is very clear that once this legislation is approved the grant legislation will follow. That is the position because until such time as the Parliament approves the appropriation legislation we will not be introducing the grant legislation. It is grant legislation and that is quite clear. I cannot for the life of me understand why a Leader of the Opposition does not know that elementary fact.

Let me deal with some of the other matters that were raised. One was the Prime Minister’s trip overseas. Surely to goodness honourable members opposite can talk about matters other than that. The real issue is that he represented this nation. He did it in the forums of the world. He did it in countries that matter. They matter not only because of their political significance but also because of their economic significance. He went to nations with which we want to establish better trading relations. One of those nations was China, to which we are anxious to sell wheat and we are delighted to do so because honourable members opposite could not do it when they were in government. Because the Prime Minister was successful in being able to go to China before anybody else on this level, honourable members opposite are a bit jealous. It is amazing to think that former President Nixon made his trip to Peking after our Prime Minister.

The criticisms that are effective from the point of view of the Australian nation can give value to the world. If we do speak up as a nation on behalf of the people in Australia when we criticise the bombing of Hanoi it is in the interests of the American people. If honourable members opposite had been in Hanoi they would have seen the hate concept engendered there against the American people as a result of that mistake. The role for Australia is to say what it thinks and that is the right sort of attitude to adopt in international affairs. It can only be done if we have a Prime Minister who is respected, who has integrity, who believes what he says is right and who believes that in the interests of humanity it should be said. On every occasion, no matter where honourable members opposite want to point the finger, that has been his role. It is a very arduous role. Talking in the forums of the world is not a role that one could say one could accept lightly.

It is significant, is it not, that the leaders in the world are coming here alio to meet us. Within a matter of days the Prime Minister of Japan will pay his visit to us. All honourable members opposite welcome that and we welcome it too because Japan is a great trading partner for us. We must encourage this co-operation and collaboration. It can happen only by an exchange of ideas, not by some Prime Minister going to the United States and not even being known by his correct name or, as happened on one occasion, having his surname mispronounced. Again there was an incorrect reference here today when somebody said that we were referring to Sir Robert Menzies in respect of somebody who stayed in a place called Williamsburg. It is not so. The reference is to a former Prime Minister who is still a member of the Opposition. So you work it out for yourselves.

Mr Staley:

– They thought Whitlam was Vorster of South Africa.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-It is not a question of that. The significant part is this: The United States accepts Australia’s role in the world, values its advice, looks for its support in South East Asia and is guaranteed to get it. We recognise the effectiveness of democracy. We practise it here in this country. We recognise that in many other countries the democratic institution does not apply, but nevertheless it does not follow that we would ignore them or abhor their regime. The real interest is humanity and what should be done. If the Prime Minister is in the United States it would be for the purpose of saying ‘Can we encourage a better life for the people of the world?’ because that country is a major power. If he does go to Russia it would be on the basis that he in turn would ask for more collaboration there. Is this not effectiveness from the point of view of Australia’s role in international affairs? Honourable members opposite want to drag it down, as the honourable member for Griffith (Mr Donald Cameron) said, onto the basis that the Prime Minister has to stay here because a flood is coming. By the same token the honourable member for Griffith was away when there was a flood. He is back here now but he was away when the floods occurred in Brisbane.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

– And I came home. I cut my trip.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

– He had to come back because he knew he would have lost his seat. When I went to Brisbane I did not see the honourable member. He was still overseas, on his way back. That is how quickly he got back. What about the $100m we gave for flood relief? Did we get any credit? There was not one iota of credit. One would have thought that BjelkePetersen found the money himself.

Honourable members opposite talk about the attitude of the Australian Government and what it has done. Let us make it clear that we are Australians. We help every aspect of Australia Those who sit opposite paint a picture of this place as though they are the only people who identify themselves with people who are in need. Their record is very much against it. Let us have a look at the issues that were stated. Child care was mentioned. What did those who sit opposite do about child care during the 23 years they were in government? What did you ever do about it from the point of view of finding out the needs? Where did you ever allocate $1 for child care? Where did you ever find what you wanted to do?

Mr Street:

– Twenty-three million dollars.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! I ask the honourable member to remain silent. If he does not do so I will not hesitate to name him.

Mr Street:

– I was correcting a misapprehension.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- The honourable member will remain silent.

Mr Street:

– The Minister is wrong.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-I am not wrong. The allocation you were referring to related to a Child Care Act which was associated mainly with assisting people in industry.

Mr Street:

– It was not.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-In fact, it was introduced by your Minister for Labour and Industry and you know it.

Mr Street:

-I do know.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-And it was associated on that basis. Therefore you will find that when we have the report as to what is needed in child care, as the honourable member for Casey (Mr Mathews) said, the figure will be enormous. There are 365,000 children in need. Not a thing was done. I will pay some tribute to the new members of the Opposition who are now taking an interest in this matter. Perhaps if they had been members when the Opposition was in government they might have done something about this, but give credit where it is due. Let us make it clear that the program for child care will be an effective one. It is not going to be solely education. It has to be the care of the child throughout the day. Therefore it cannot be either virtually social welfare or education. There has to be a fair concept of what is the best way to do it.

There will be experimental projects as to what is the best way to look after the child because the child is at various stages of developmentperhaps under 2 years of age and perhaps going to pre-school for part of the day. But there have to be various projects. We need the help of the community. We need the talented mother and the talented grandmother. Do not deny the fact that they have expertise. We do not necessarily need every graduate from the point of view of giving pre-school training. There are many people who are experienced in the practicality of looking after children. That is the sort of person we can encourage to take an interest in this field. That amount of $75m that we are going to spend within 6 months will, of course, be absorbed. We do not want it all absorbed in bricks, mortar and buildings. We have to get it to the people who need it. That is one of the criticisms of one of the first reports, because it had mainly as its significance the establishment of buildings, land and training and there was not a great deal in the way of results from the point of view of child care for the need that now exists. That is why there had to be a review. That is why there can be a combination of factors.

The honourable member for Parramatta (Mr Ruddock) was anxious to mention Telopea and asked about the problem there. Let me answer him because I have had a chance to find out. As I understand it, an amount of $72,000 has been approved. The organisation concerned has been paid $42,600 already. It has been paid $4,000 for its architects and at the present time has a progress payment of $17,400 coming to it. So a fair amount of money is going into that project.

Mr Ruddock:

– That is the bricks and mortar.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-Yes, it is the bricks and mortar, but the money is being paid under the scheme instituted under the Act that the former Government introduced. The honourable member for Parramatta might be right. Perhaps we could make $70,000 go a lot further if we did the job another way, but we cannot stop that project. One of the things the honourable member must recognise about the New South Wales Liberal Government, of which he is such a strong supporter, is that it did nothing for preschool education. In Sir Robert Askin’s Budget there is a minus item when it comes to pre-school education. One of the great problems of the Budget allocation for New South Wales was that the New South Wales Government could not afford the salaries of the staff at the few pre-schools it had which had been established by the Kindergarten Union of New South Wales (Inc) and the Sydney Day Nursery and Nursery Schools Association (Inc). The people could not keep the payments up. It was somewhat fortunate that the Australian Labor Party was in government because it had promised some aid. If the Opposition had been in government there would have been no aid and the pre-schools that had been established would have been closed. So the money that was given to New South Wales was absorbed immediately in keeping open those few pre-schools that existed. Those pre-schools were in the main in the most privileged areas. The areas that need them most have no pre-schools at all. This is the problem of the philosophy of the Opposition.

Where did the Liberal Party have in its platform any undertaking to do anything about child care? Its policy on this subject did not exist. Any suggestion that it did is a furphy. It was never used by the Liberal Party in the State administration in New South Wales. One of the problems was that when New South Wales received money from the Commonwealth to be allocated in a certain way it could not spend it in the specified time. That is the criticism, and yet tonight the honourable member for Parramatta has the audacity to talk about pre-schools.

Mr Garland:

- Mr Deputy Speaker, the Minister has had 1 5 minutes.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-I have had 15 minutes trying to answer points raised in 2 hours.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! I ask the Minister to address the Chair and I ask honourable members to cease interjecting.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-I have been asked to answer certain questions and I have answered them to the extent that they were raised in the course of criticism of this Government. I have spent a fair bit of time on the question of child care.

Mr Street:

– You are wrong.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-I am not wrong. It is quite clear.

Mr Street:

– You do not know the Act.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-The honourable member can argue for as long as he likes.

Mr Street:

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! I will not warn the honourable member for Corangamite again. If he continues to interject I will name him.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-The position is clear. The money for Telopea is the money that comes under the former Act and would have to be allocated as that Act provides. The indictment of the Askin Government is that it did not allocate any money for pre-schools. There is no argument about that. It did not have any pre-school program and it had to use the money the Australian Government gave it to prop up the programs that had been established by the Kindergarten Union and the Sydney Day Nursery. There is no argument. That is the position. The Government is seeking with the new scheme to guarantee that an effective program is introduced that needs the co-operation of all State governments. Admittedly some State- governments in Victoria did have a pre-school program but not the Government in New South Wales. That is the reason why we now have to have a full program for the complete period.

Mr Cadman:

– Where is it?

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-The program is in the process of being developed by the interim commission which will be announced shortly.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:

– You will have to appoint more public servants.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-We do not have to appoint more public servants. I tried to tell you that we will encourage a program in which we will use the people in the community.

Mr Malcolm Fraser:

– You are not doing it.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-We will do it, though!

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! I ask the honourable member for Wannon to cease interjecting. I ask the Minister to speak through the Chair.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-I will. Thank you, Mr Deputy Chairman. All I want to say is this. The criticism has been on the basis that not sufficient attention has been given to need. We are the first Government to establish the needs in education, whether it be in tertiary, secondary, primary or pre-school education. By having surveys and inquiries and taking evidence we have established the need. This is something the previous Government never did, and that is the real problem. That is why honourable members opposite are so upset tonight. They are upset about how the previous Government failed. If we have any claim to credit it is in the fields of child care, education and local government. In the field of local government the position is clear. The previous Government did nothing for local government authorities. It denied them.

Mr Garland:

– You have had 20 minutes.

Mr LIONEL BOWEN:

-If the honourable member is anxious that I should close, I am anxious to do that, because there are many other more important matters to deal with. Let me make it clear that the child care program is not the subject of criticism. It will be the subject of praise within a period of 6 months.

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

- Mr Deputy Chairman, I have been misrepresented.

Motion (by Mr Lionel Bowen). agreed to:

That the question be now put.

Proposed expenditures agreed to.

Mr DONALD CAMERON (Griffith)-Mr Deputy Chairman, I wish to make a personal explanation.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! Does the honourable member claim to have been misrepresented?

Mr Donald Cameron:
GRIFFITH, QUEENSLAND · LP

-Yes, I do. I am sorry that I irritated you, Mr Deputy Chairman, but I did not know whether I would get an opportunity to explain that I have been misrepresented. The Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen) made the claim that I was overseas and did not try to come home when the floods occurred in Queensland earlier this year. I am very sorry that the Minister was not in the Parliament earlier this year when I explained my position. You were with me, Mr Deputy Chairman, at the time. We were in Sri Lanka as members of a parliamentary delegation and it was unknown to us that Queensland was suffering as it was. I went into a shop wearing a kangaroo lapel badge indicating to the world that I was an Australian, and the shopkeeper- you will remember him, Sir- said to me: ‘Do you come from Australia, Sir?’ I said: ‘Yes’. He said: ‘God save Brisbane’. I said: ‘Why?’ He said: ‘Brisbane was declared a disaster area. Only He can help now’. Mr Deputy Chairman, you can testify to the fact that I made every effort to come home immediately from Sri Lanka. It is a long story and I will not hold up the proceedings of the Committee relating it, but the Minister has been most unfair. He has tried to make cheap political capital at my expense trying to get the Prime Minister off the hook for all the trips overseas he has made.

Mr BRYANT:
Minister for the Capital Territory · Wills · ALP

- Mr Deputy Chairman, I suggest that the order for the consideration of the proposed expenditures agreed to by the Committee on 15 October be varied by next considering the proposed expenditures for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Department of the Capital Territory. . The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Is the suggestion of the Minister agreed to? There being no objection, that course will be followed.

Department of Aboriginal Affairs

Proposed expenditure, $69,809,000.

Department of the Capital Territory

Proposed expenditure, $30,639,000.

Mr STREET:
Corangamite

-In the very limited time available to me it is obviously not possible to canvass all the issues involved in the Australian Capital Territory, but in view of the speech made by the Special Minister of State (Mr Lionel Bowen) a moment ago, I want to refer specifically to the child care program before I get on to the main topic of my speech, which will be housing in the Australian Capital Territory. I will give the Special Minister of State the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did not know the legislation about which he was speaking because if he did he was dishonest. If he did not know what he was talking about he should not have spoken in the terms he did. I would like to make it quite clear that the child care program -

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! The honourable member should know better. He should be discussing the items before the Committee. The proposed expenditures before the

Committee are those for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and the Department of the Capital Territory.

Mr STREET:

– I would like to discuss for a moment the child care program.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- Order! The honourable member is not in order.

Mr STREET:

– I would like to discuss child care in the Australian Capital Territory.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN- The honourable member must relate his remarks to the Australian Capital Territory.

Mr STREET:

– I will indeed, because under legislation introduced by the former Government and which the present Government is enactingand such legislation indeed applies to the Australian Capital Territory- there are 3 criteria which determine the eligibility for assistance under the child care program. The first is that the centre applying for’ assistance has to give preference to children in need. The second criterion that has to be met is that the centre must be open to all children and not merely children of any particular category such as employees of a factory. I refute absolutely the allegation of the Special Minister of State, who said that the system was designed to help employers. The third criterion which has to be observed in getting assistance under the child care program is that the organisation applying for it must be a non-profit organisation. If a firm has a creche or kindergartencall it what we will- for its employees, it has to incorporate that as a non-profit body before it is allowed to apply for any assistance. It was a disgraceful performance by the Special Minister of State to try to allege that the program of child care was other than on the lines I have just outlined.

In the time remaining to me I should like to refer to housing in the Australian Capital Territory. Under the Liberal and Country Party Government there was a continuing development in the production of land made available for building and for housing. A high level of government housing construction was maintained mainly because we allowed the private sector to build an increasing proportion of the houses. Under Labor the construction of government housing has already declined substantially from a total of 965 units in 1972-73 to about only 800 units in 1973-74. The Opposition believes the rate of construction of government houses must be increased to accommodate more rapidly all those currently on the waiting lists. Under Labor the completion of serviced land for detached houses increased by only 7 per cent in 1972-73 compared with 20 per cent the previous year. This, together with the sharp decline in construction of government houses, has led to a great pressure on available resources to cope with Canberra ‘s rapidly growing population.

It is not surprising that people are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain suitable accommodation in Canberra. Rents have soared because of this pressure. The excuses given for this poor performance include inadequate supplies of labour and materials, industrial unrest and wet weather. Government policies were certainly responsible for the first two but I must accept that despite its obvious delusions of omnipotence and omniscience it is not responsible for the third. The average cost of housing rose by about 25 per cent a square- a direct reflection of the disastrously high inflation rate throughout the economy. I understand that the honourable member for Canberra, the Minister for Manufacturing Industry (Mr Enderby), gave an undertaking that 1,500 detached houses would be built last year. The total housing figure achieved, as I mentioned a moment ago, was about 800, of which 686 were detached houses. What are the promises of this Minister worth? They are worth nothing more than the promises of this Government in all fields. They are worth nothing. The actual performance was well under for the reasons I have stated. The next year’s target is 1,400 or 100 less than last year’s target. That seems extraordinary in the light of the present acute shortage of houses, because housing is a fundamental requirement in any city and in one developing at the rate of Canberra it is a vital factor in the city’s growth.

Above all, proper provision must be made for housing for those transferred to Canberra. The Opposition believes it should be the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government to provide adequate housing for compulsory transferees. The Labor Government has failed to meet the crucial test of housing in the Capital Territory where it has direct and clear power and cannot blame the States, multi-nationals or some other bogy. The Government has a duty to step up the provisions of housing, particularly through the expansion of the construction of government housing and through incentives to private operators. There cannot be any excuses m this area. The Government has failed and has dishonoured its promises to the people of the Capital Territory. This is emphasised when it is realised that the Government has planned to provide Public Service office accommodation costing about $80m over the next 3 years. As I have pointed out on previous occasions, the

Government has its priorities back to front- $ 80m for office accommodation for 12,000 public servants and, at the same time, a reduction in its housing target. Since 2 August I have had a question on notice to the Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant). I take this opportunity of drawing his attention to it. It is question No. 901. 1 will not read it fully but part (2) of it reads:

What is the estimated decrease in demand for housing resulting from the above decision?

Incidentally the words ‘and office accommodation’ should have been included after the word ‘housing’. The decision referred to was the Government’s decision to put a ceiling of 2.6 per centum on the growth of the Public Service. I have not had an answer to that question. I also have on notice a question relating to the average price charged for government housing over the last 5 years. I have not had an answer to that question. My point is that the Government has been proved incompetent in this area.

Mr Bryant:
Mr STREET:

– If the Minister wants another illustration I will give it. Another illustration of the Government’s ineptitude is the situation concerning housing loans. Confusion has now been compounded through a means test which is not only discriminatory and arbitrary but is also hopelessly unrealistic. Because of the interest rates applying according to earnings, many people will be put in the ridiculous situation of not being able to accept a rise in pay since doing so would result in them paying over 4 per cent more in interest. At the same time only about 25 per cent of applicants will be eligible for loans because of the criteria applying, but what happens when, as envisaged by this Budget, average weekly earnings rise by 22 per cent this year? The percentage then eligible will be so small as to be irrelevant. The latest move will do practically nothing to improve the situation of 3,000 families now looking for accommodation in Canberra. I believe the Minister has his heart in the right place. The great pity is that he cannot translate his good intentions into sensible actions. There just is not enough accommodation available even for those willing to pay more than the average rent. I note a reference in the ‘Canberra Times’ to one agent who said that he had 100 houses available at this time last year but now he has five.

Mr Bryant:

– Five houses?

Mr STREET:

– Yes, five available in September this year. This is a reflection on the rent assessment system in Canberra where investors feel they are not able to get a reasonable return on their outlay. They stop investing. It is typical of the Government’s philosophy of putting quite impossible conditions on private enterprise and then blaming private enterprise for not being able to do the job. It is the new technique for achieving nationalisation and socialistic aims. It is a lot more insidious than trying to get in through the front ‘door. Approximately 13 per cent of all - .

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr MATHEWS:
Casey

– -It is a source of considerable satisfaction to members on the Government side that so great a sum should have been provided in this Budget for the use of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, but I hope that nobody in this chamber, and indeed nobody in the wider community outside, will suppose that the problems with which our country is confronted in this field of Aboriginal affairs can be solved by the expenditure of money, no matter how great a sum. Money alone will not serve to wash away the blood and the muscle which have been accumulated by successive generations of Australians of European extraction through their treatment of those Australians who are indigenous to this country.

In discussion of this portfolio of Aboriginal Affairs we are constantly bedevilled by our tendency to think that there is only one problem. There are at least 3 problems which deserve and demand very different solutions. There is the problem of that now very small group of Aborigines still living in something like their traditional tribal life style. There is the problem of those Aboriginal communities, in some cases still proud and independent people, who manage to combine the traditional patterns of the tribal heritage and the authority of the elders with an acquaintance with the forms and skills of European society. There is the problem of those Aborigines, those unhappy people, neither tribalised nor truly urbanised who live in the twilight zone of Australian society.

It is chiefly to that group I want to address myself in the short time that is available to me. Having recently had the opportunity to visit some of the Aboriginal communities of the Northern Territory, and in particular to spend some time as a guest of the Gurindji people at Wattie Creek, I am encouraged by the prospects in the Northern Territory. I believe that some at least of the people there, given a modicum of assistance and allowed to follow through the policy of selfdetermination which has been the great contribution of this Government to the field of Aboriginal affairs, can indeed build new lives for themselves. I am satisfied that when, as we now know will be the case, the Gurindji people receive the land rights for which they have been waiting at Wattie Creek for the past 6 years they will go ahead and build a viable community, and that they will go ahead and develop a viable cattle enterprise on the land which they take over. No group, having displayed the indomitable courage and determination that they have displayed over years of government delay and inertia in the meeting of their just claims, could come to grief over commercial obstacles alone.

In other parts of Australia, in particular in east Gippsland in my own State of Victoria, we have Aboriginal people who have none of the advantages of those’ in the Northern Territory.” We have Aboriginal people who are detribalised who have never gained admission to the conventional Australian society of east Gippsland and who have been robbed not only of their tribal identity but also indeed of their self respect. I think it is to these people that we owe a special concern which lamentably has not been forthcoming from the Victorian Department of Aboriginal Affairs to which so far their welfare has been entrusted. I raise the question of their welfare tonight because the takeover of the affairs of Aborigines in Victoria by the Australian Government is now so imminent. I hope that in taking over responsibility for Aboriginal affairs in Victoria, the Australian Government will see itself as having a special charge to do something about the Aboriginal people of east Gippsland and particularly those unfortunate people in the settlement at Lake Tyers.

Mr King:

– It is a pity you do not know what you are talking about.

Mr MATHEWS:

– I know exactly what I am talking about. I have visited Lake Tyers frequently. I have in front of me the report of the Committee of Inquiry into Lake Tyers which sat in 1966 and reported in 1966 under Professor Colin Tatz. If the recommendations of that Committee had been put into effect at the time the story in subsequent years might have been very different.

For many years Lake Tyers was an Aboriginal reserve and operated as such. It operated under a policy which encouraged the most independent and self-sufficient Aboriginal people on the reserve to get off it, to go out and make their own way in the community outside as normal working people and as normal family groups. This policy had a measure of success inasmuch as it led to the depopulation of the settlement. Then the Victorian Government had a change of heart and decided to vest in those people who remained- the least independent people, the least enterprising people, a group of people very heavily in the grip of the disease of alcoholismthe responsibility for turning that beautiful and productive area of land in east Gippsland into a viable farming community. The result has been utterly predictable. Forced before their time and beyond their capacities to stand on their own feet and to create this viable farming community in east Gippsland, the Lake Tyers community has steadily gone downhill till tonight as I speak, having visited Lake Tyers less than a week ago, it is on the verge of total collapse.

I want to draw the attention of the Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant) to recommendations that were made by the Committee under Professor Colin Tatz 8 years ago. He recommended in the first part of the report that the Lake Tyers reserve be developed:

  1. 1 ) As a rehabilitation centre for those families experiencing difficulty in adjusting to an urban European environment, for others in need of special help and as a home for the aged;
  2. As a general training centre for unemployed and apparently unemployable men and women in Gippsland;
  3. A rural, agricultural and forestry training centre for men;
  4. A re-afforestation scheme;
  5. A general educational and social centre for the resident and neighbouring populations; and
  6. A cattle-fattening farm.

Those are the things that could have been done with Lake Tyers 8 years ago. Those are things which could still be done with Lake Tyers today if the authorities would abandon the approach that they have been taking in recent years and bring about a re-infusion of Aboriginal people who still have the capacity to accept the responsibilities which were thrust on this unfortunate group. A single experienced community development worker with a group such as that could bring about wonders there.

I have great sympathy with the Ministers who undertook the responsibility for Aboriginal affairs in former governments. I have great sympathy for the Ministers who have that responsibility today. No Minister and no government in our lifetime will completely surmount the problems involved in this area. Acquiring that portfolio will be a sentence of political oblivion, I suspect, for each Minister unfortunate to get it because the expectations and the hopes will always exceed what is realistically possible but our duty to those people demands that we take the responsibility seriously.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Luchetti)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr McLEAY:
Boothby

-I want to bring the debate back to the estimates for the Department of the Capital Territory. In particular I want to talk about what I believe to be the utter shambles in which the housing industry finds itself in the Australian Capital Territory. A recent claim by the Government was that a 4- bedroom government house could be bought in the A.C.T. for $24,000. The Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant) may remember something about this. As a result of that claim and those reports I have received some mail which indicates something of the true position of housing, and in particular government housing, in the A.C.T. I received a letter from one person who sought to buy the 3-bedroom home- not a 4-bedroom home- in which she was living. She was quoted $25,000. 1 happen to have bought a home in the A.C.T. also. I can assure the Minister that everybody in the A.C.T. knows it is pretty hard to get any sort of home for $25,000; in fact it is virtually impossible. This particular one was a government home. It was 47 years old and had no hot water in the kitchen. There was hot water in the bath but no hot water in the hand basin in the bathroom. The doors were buckled, the woodwork was buckled, the ceiling and the architraves were all twisted and half the doors could not be closed. That is one example. The second letter referred to a two-bedroomed government house in the A.C.T. which was quoted to the occupier at a price of $24,000. This house was only 27 years old. In this case there was no hot water in the kitchen or in the laundry.

We are talking about housing right here in the A.C.T. I should like the Minister to tell us what these houses would have cost the Government, one 47 years old and one 27 years old- possibly £1,000 or £2,000. 1 pose the question: Does the Government wish to place itself in the position of being a speculator? Does the Government think that it ought to make handsome profits, and if so why rubbish developers and others who do just that? I think the Government will find out that it will have to make profits if it is to buy more houses and speculate. Or is it the official policy of this Government- which is more likely, and certainly is so in the A.C.T.- to make us a nation, or a Territory, of renters? I think this is the more likely philosophical approach of the Minister for the Capital Territory, who is at the table. The attitude of the Liberal and Country Parties in this area is that we believe in home ownership- we do not make any pretence about it- for all those who wish home ownership. We acknowledge that there are some people who wish to rent accommodation.

I should like to quote from a speech made by the Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr Les Johnson) a couple of weeks ago, which would seem to support my contention. He said that home building would be encouraged in ways that would help low income people first. He went on to say:

The little voices should not be drowned out by the thunderous noise of the big institutions.

That is fairly typical of the sort of Press and media releases that he puts out. We say that Ministers like the Minister for the Capital Territory and the Minister for Housing and Construction want to impose their socialist philosophies on all of us. They want to represent themselves as representing the little man, the poor man, the man the Minister described as the one with the little voice, who is admittedly now dependent on the Government. But they want to make us all dependent on the Government forever. That is the difference between our philosophies.

The Minister for the Capital Territory put out a Press release the day before yesterday which was given considerable publicity. It was headed ‘Government Housing Loans’ and was mentioned by my colleague the honourable member for Corangamite (Mr Street). The proposal is alleged to provide tremendous benefits at the reduced interest rates which will apply in the A.C.T. Having mentioned that it is practically impossible to buy a home even for $25,000 in the A.C.T., let us assume that one could buy a home here for $20,000. With the amount of money that this generous Minister has made available, according to this Press release, anybody who is eligible for the loan proposed would have to find $8,000 deposit. I suggest to the Minister that there are very few people- one could count them on one hand- who are earning $122 a week and thus eligible for the 5 per cent interest rate, or who are on less than $136 a week, who will save $8,000 as long as they live. These same people have no hope of arranging mortgage finance. Few of them- few of us- could afford it with bridging finance at 20 per cent interest. It is just not on. Even if they could get past all these barriers they would have no possible hope of servicing the loan on their sort of salary. So this low interest loan announcement of the Minister for the Capital Territory is no joy whatsoever for anybody in the A.C.T., particularly those on low incomes whom he purports to be concerned about.

Assuming that someone on $136 a week can raise $8,000- by robbing a bank or somethingjust the interest alone at this low rate is $19.23 a week, which is quite reasonable for these days. But if this man’s income goes up by $ 1 to $ 1 37 a week he will then have to pay $35.58 a week in interest alone. His penalty for increasing his income by $ 1 a week is $ 1 5 a week. In the Minister ‘s same Press release he said:

A borrower who qualified for the lower rates of interest and subsequently received a higher income could expect to have the interest rate adjusted upwards.

Anybody in the ACT who is eligible for one of these low interest loans- I do not think there are many- would be downright crazy to take advantage of it because with rising incomes, the moment that person’s income went above 95 per cent of average weekly earnings- which is the relevant level in the case I am citing- he would be liable for 9lA per cent interest instead of 5Vi per cent. I just do not see how the Minister can claim that there is any common sense in that whatever.

There is not very much time to go into some of the other statements. He mentioned comparison with the States. There is no comparison with the States in this area because if one negotiates a loan with a terminating building society or State bank the interest rate is virtually fixed forever, or is certainly not related to one’s income, although it might move according to other influences in the interest market. We say that this policy has the opposite effect to that desired. It destroys incentive and with incomes going up at the rate of 22Vi per cent annually- foreshadowed by the Treasurer (Mr Crean)- really nobody in the near future will be eligible for these low interest loans. In the Press release the Minister also said that he will review the matter every 2 years. But who wants to make a commitment at 5’/4 per cent interest today and 2 years from now be up for whatever the Minister then chooses- 9 *V** per cent, lO’/i per cent, 12 per cent, who knows? That is just not on.

I should like in the moments left to me to say something about the position of the home building industry in the ACT. Already literally dozens of home builders have closed down and many more will leave the Territory by Christmas time. This I give as a firm prediction. Living units will become dearer and scarcer. Unemployment will increase dramatically as a direct result of the gross mismanagement, not only of the affairs of this Territory but also the affairs of the nation by this Government and these Ministers. I suggest that by next March almost half the work force engaged in the building industry will be out of work.

Mr James:

– Oh, no.

Mr McLEAY:

– For the information of the honourable gentleman, the Department of Labor and Immigration has already telephoned builders in the ACT asking them to put on apprentices. This is just not on. Not only are apprenticeships not available now, but when students reach the school leaving stage there will be a very serious situation all over the country, not only here in Canberra. The Government, through these 2 Ministers, is double-crossing the low income earners it purports to represent.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Martin)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr WALLIS:
Grey

-I should like to address my remarks to the estimates for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. In his Budget speech the Treasurer (Mr Crean) states:

The Government accorded a high priority to Aboriginal Affairs in Budget allocations in 1973-74. We propose a further substantial expansion of activity this year.

The Budget allocation for Aboriginal advancement last year was almost $ 100m; this year it has been raised by another $64m to about $164m. This will allow a very big advance in Aboriginal welfare in all the fields in which it has been assisted in the past. Since the referendum on Aborigines in 1967 when the Australian people gave the Australian Government the right to legislate for Aboriginal advancement there has certainly been a big increase in the Government’s activities in this field. In this respect, I think that we must pay tribute to what was done by the honourable member for Mackellar (Mr Wentworth). We may not agree with a great many of the remarks that he has made. But we do appreciate the fact that he has a great knowledge of Aboriginal matters and has a great concern for the Aboriginal people. We know that his actions led to progress in this area. This is something that was needed for many, many years. The referendum in 1967 led to the Commonwealth entering into this field. Although we have a long way to go, much has been done in the time in which the Commonwealth has been engaged in Aboriginal affairs. It is obvious that the legislation relating to Aborigines is better in some States than it is in others. There was no uniform policy throughout Australia on Aboriginal affairs. The passage in 1967 of the referendum on Aborigines permitted the Federal Government to accept a national responsibility and to adopt a national approach to the problems of Aborigines. The Commonwealth has been able to undertake negotiations with most of the States in respect of Aboriginal needs. But problems still exist in Queensland. We certainly hope that these problems can be overcome. However, the position at this stage does not look too good. The Australian Government intends to proceed with its proposals in respect of Aborigines in Queensland regardless of what the Queensland Government intends to do.

The Australian Government has made certain promises with respect to health, education, employment and housing. Although action has been taken in these areas, certainly the Australian Government still has a long way to go. However conditions in respect of these areas of activity are certainly much better than they were some time ago although many hurdles still remain to be overcome. The new Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Senator Cavanagh) has conscientiously applied himself to his job as did his predecessor. By his work and the work of the previous Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, the present Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant), these problems will be overcome.

Let me indicate the concern that has been expressed by this Government for Aborigines. Yesterday, in the Senate, Senator Cavanagh introduced the States Grants (Aboriginal Assistance) Bill. Looking at the figures included in that Bill, we find that the amount provided by the legislation has increased from $5.4 lm in 1969 to $40.79m at present. The provision of these funds will permit more assistance to be given to the States to provide housing, health, education, employment, welfare and community services for Aborigines.

Quite recently, as a member of the Joint Committee on the Northern Territory, I was able to visit some Aboriginal settlements in the Northern Territory. Much of the work that is taking place in various areas in the Northern Territory is something for which the people connected with it can take credit. Most of the work is being done by the Aborigines themselves. This shows that given an impetus, the wherewithal and with interest being shown, they can do the job. I refer in particular to the Warrabri settlement which is half way between Alice Springs and Tennant Creek. We were rather amazed to see the number of vegetables growing there. There were acres of cornfields. Cattle were being raised. It was a real oasis in the desert. I do not say that this Government can take all the credit for these things coming about. The previous Government did start work on some of these projects. But the fact that more finance is being provided in these areas by this Government permits these improvements to take place.

Possibly one of the initiatives that has been a great advance for Aboriginal people in these areas has been the setting up of housing societies. I have had the opportunity to visit quite a few of them not only in my own electorate but also in the Northern Territory. Under the supervision of white carpenters and other tradesmen, the Aboriginal people are building their own houses mostly out of cement bricks which they make themselves. The work of those connected with this activity certainly reflects credit on them.

When this Government came to office, it took one step for which I believe the Minister for the Capital Territory, who is sitting at the table, can take credit. Realising that the Aboriginal people could never speak to the Australian Government with one voice, the Minister proposed the establishment of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee. I know that this proposal was criticised left, right and centre, by some pretty narrow minded people. But the Minister went ahead, did his best, and the NACC organisation was set up. Aboriginal representatives from various areas throughout Australia were elected to that body. For the first time, Aboriginal people had a forum in which they could as one body express their wishes and aspirations.

Any organisation such as this, which represents a new initiative, must suffer teething troubles. But I am sure that the common sense of the people involved in the NACC will lead to its becoming a body which will assist the whole of the Aboriginal people. Those elected as representatives of their people to the NACC have come from various areas throughout Australia. They have connections with those living in these areas. They know the problems that exist. Also they will have direct contact with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. As they are known to the Minister, they will be able to advise him directly on problems in specific areas.

I wish to refer now to some of the matters which affect my electorate. In South Australia, the largest Aboriginal population is concentrated in my electorate. Certainly the Aboriginal population there is not as large as the Aboriginal population in the Northern Territory, Queensland or Western Australia. The biggest percentage of Aborigines in South Australia are in my electorate. The Aboriginal population ranges from those who still have strong tribal ties in the north-west reserve area to some sophisticated Aborigines who live in some of the larger cities in my electorate.

In Port Augusta, for example, some great advances have taken place through the initiative of this Government. Some of the Aborigines in that area, with the aid of money from this Government, purchased an old house in Port Augusta in which they sought to set up their own social club. This proposal was very strongly criticised by a great many people in the town. What has happened since then is certainly to the credit of those Aborigines. They have renovated that old house, built new fences and completely upgraded the whole area. They propose to purchase another house close by so that they can extend their activities. Anybody connected with that Aboriginal social club can be quite proud of what has been achieved.

Let me outline the types of activities in which these Aborigines indulge. Rooms have been set aside for pensioners, a television set, etc. Pensioners can come, sit there and enjoy themselves. Previously, they sat in Gladstone Square, a park directly opposite where no shelter was provided. Special attention is paid to school children. Many years ago in Port Augusta few Aboriginal children went to high school. Now I think more than 120 Aboriginal children attend high school. The Aborigines are striving to provide the Aboriginal children attending primary school with a hot midday meal. By providing this hot midday meal, they are ensuring that these children will get at least one nourishing meal a day. These people also are active in organising sporting activities. Legal advice is provided there. Because of this, we find that relations between the police and the Aborigines at Port Augusta have never been on so high a level. Certainly there are problem areas, but, generally speaking, relations with police officers are not a great problem.

Quite recently, again with the assistance of the Australian Government, these Aboriginal people bought out an earth moving firm in Port Augusta. They have worked very strongly indeed on this enterprise. I am informed that it is going well. The work is under the control of Aborigines who have the assistance of a former employee of the earth moving firm. These people can be proud of what they have achieved. The whole undertaking is run completely by full blood Aborigines. From my association with them I have gained the feeling that they are jealous of what have achieved and that they want to keep things as they are. They do not want anybody else offering paternal advice for they have shown that, given an opportunity, they can do what they have to do.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Martin)Order! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr HUNT:
Gwydir

-As one who represents one of the largest Aboriginal populations in New South Wales- and in my home town of Moree I have the largest Aboriginal population outside Redfern -

Mr James:

– Moree? Is that where they barred Aboriginals from swimming in the baths?

Mr HUNT:

-The honourable member is back in prehistoric days. I would like to take him up to Moree and introduce him to a community where people respect each other and work with each other, a community that is becoming well integrated. I think it is to the credit of the Aboriginal people and the Moree people generally that they have seen fit to try to work together as good Australians. I enter this debate to make some comment upon the administration of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. I do not do this in any destructive sense because, as one who had the responsibility as Minister for the Interior for nearly 2 years, I am well aware of the very serious problems that confront not just the Minister but the Department in trying to come to grips with what is one of the biggest social problems confronting this country. So anything I do say I hope is taken with a degree of understanding.

The appropriation last year of $59,613,000 was not in fact spent. I think an amount of $55,151,800 was expended. It could not be expended for a variety of reasons- no doubt shortages of materials and difficulty in trying to fulfil certain programs. In this year’s program we see nearly $70m appropriated to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and no doubt there will be some difficulty in expending that amount. Of course, one of the problems in looking at bald statistics and at the amount of money that is being spent on Aboriginal advancement is that there is a very big percentage of that money going into administration, virtually going into the pockets of white Australians. When you do a break up of the figures they do become revealing, and I have heard so many Aboriginal people say this. Looking through the Appropriation No. 1 accounts one finds that $6.7m has been spent on salaries and wages and administration expenses. The administration of the National Aboriginal Consultative Committee has cost a further $ 1 .08 1 m, bringing the expenditure up to close to $8m. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies has had appropriated $1.6m, which brings us close to $9,400,000. The balance is split up between the Aboriginal Trust Account, $33.5m, and projects many of which have been put into operation without proper reference to the Aboriginal people.

So many Aboriginal people complain that they are encouraged into activities- commercial undertakings and so on- without proper consultation. Very often they question whether this sort of investment is coming to grips with their greatest needs. In assistance to mission settlements and Government settlements $10m is being spent. Needless to say, a very considerable percentage of the funds that were appropriated last year and no doubt of those that will be appropriate this year in fact will not reach the Aborigines themselves.

I make some reference to the revelations that have come out again in the Auditor-General’s report, which indicates that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs has not yet given good reason why some of its expenditure has been in excess of approved programs. In the Aboriginal Advancement Trust Account, for instance, nearly $lm was spent in excess of an approved program. With respect to control over grants, the Department has not yet completed its follow-up of grants due to staff shortages. With regard to the now well known turtle and crocodile project, most audit queries remain unresolved pending completion of departmental examination. In the Legal Aid Services replies are still awaited from queries detailed in the March special report. The Operations Management Branch, the control branch of the Department, handicapped by serious staff shortages, was the subject of a comment rather than a criticism. Of course, this has followed on from serious allegations that were made by Senator Georges and others about the maladministration within the Department itself.

One of the victims of the whole exercise is the Minister sitting at the table, who was removed from the portfolio, and I dare say that he suffered some anguish as a result of it. He did approach the task of trying to advance the Aboriginal people with perhaps more zeal than any other Minister has ever approached the task. I think it is probably unfair to cast too much blame on him or on the Department for some of the problems that have occurred, some of the mistakes that have been made. But I do believe that the Department now has a responsibility to answer all the queries that have been levelled at it by the Auditor-General and to clean up some of these untidy areas that have left it open to continuing criticism.

I agree with the honourable member for Casey (Mr Mathews) who made the observation that money in itself will not solve the Aboriginal problem. That is a very true statement. Money can lift hopes falsely and it can cause very great frustrations, because if the Aboriginal people are led to believe that expending $ 100m or $ 1 50m is going to be the cure-all, and if they do not get advancement or do not get what they expected to receive, then they sink back into a deeper frustration, and that ultimately leads to even greater and deeper human suffering. We have seen evidence of this frustration from Mr Charlie Perkins down. He has come out with a proposition that I think should be taken seriously, that is, to administer Aboriginal affairs through a statutory authority. This has not been advocated by many people. There is one great advantage in doing this, in my view, and that is that it would probably take some of the political sting out of the area. It is a suggestion that I do not think the Government should cast aside.

I have on the notice paper a notice of motion calling for a royal commission to investigate the administration of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. It reads:

That this House believes the Government should set up a Royal Commission to examine the administration of Aboriginal Affairs believing that the Government have misled the Aboriginal community by denying them the right to achieve their aspirations.

After a lot of thought I have decided to remove that from the notice paper. I will not proceed with it because I do not think it will serve any great purpose. I think it will probably stir up a lot of unnecessary party political debate. But I do believe that the Government should look at the prospect of establishing a statutory authority and putting more of the responsibility for the expenditure on, and the administration of, their own affairs upon the Aboriginal people themselves. It is better for them to make the mistakes than for us to make them because, out of good intention, we can make the mistakes, take the blame, become embittered and cause even greater divisions.

The other problem I want to touch on is this dreadful problem of alcoholism that abounds in the Northern Territory and elsewhere. It is a problem that must be faced up to. It is a symptom of the frustrations and the deprivation of the people and I believe that much research needs to be done to try to overcome this very big problem. While ever they are addicted to alcohol their own human progress will be slow, indeed will be tragic, and I do not think we are doing enough to try to face up to this great tragedy of alcoholism amongst the Aboriginal people at the present time.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr MartinOrder! The honourable member’s time has expired.

Mr BRYANT:
Minister for the Capital Territory · Wills · ALP

– I intend to make a brief reply to some of the questions that have been raised this evening. I would like to thank the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt) for his kind remarks about my administration and efforts in relation to Aboriginal affairs. Those of us who have had a part to play in the task that has been placed upon this Parliament to ameliorate the lot of the Australian Aboriginal people will know that it is an enormously difficult task, compounded not so much by the Aboriginal people themselves but by a couple of hundred years of search or no search on the part of governments, of the great difficulties of the continental scope of the question and the sheer fact that in relationships between people of different cultures, different races and so on humanity has not really found an answer in many parts of the world.

I will take a few moments now to answer some of the questions that have been raised about the Australian Capital Territory, in particular, in regard to housing. Firstly, let me make it clear that the Government believes that the house, as the home, is the fundamental social unit and that any suggestion that we are attempting to inhibit home ownership in the A.C.T. or anywhere else is just plain nonsense. The figures are clear enough. In Canberra over the last few years the previous Liberal-Country Party Government and the present Government have been selling Australian Government houses to their tenants on varying terms. Usually they are about the most liberal terms that can be obtained for home ownership anywhere in Australia. In 1973-74 some 931 houses were sold. In 1972-73-5 months of that period was administered by the honourable member for Gwydir and the other 7 months of it was administered by my colleague, the present Minister for Manufacturing Industry (Mr Enderby)- 1,293 homes were sold. In the year previous to that 1,380 homes were sold.

The point about that, of course, is if we are to retain a stock of rental housing and rental flats in Canberra we cannot sell houses quicker than we can build them. Therefore, the opportunities that were offered a couple of years ago and that we continued until the middle of last year meant that we were reaching the stage where the stock of Government housing accommodation was becoming rapidly depleted. It is our belief- I believe that it was the belief of our predecessorsthat the Australian Government must keep a stock of houses for rental in Canberra. At the present moment that runs at somewhere about 8,000 houses. Last year we received 810 houses from the National Capital Development Commission. The system is this: The National Capital Development Commission is the constructing authority for Canberra. It produces the houses in accordance with programs that have been laid down and the finance that has been made available. It then hands them over to the Department of the Capital Territory. So we have become the administrator of one of Australia ‘s largest housing projects. But if we started selling 1,000 houses when we have received only 800 it would not be many years before we would have depleted our stock of rental housing. At the present moment we are looking at a formula of sale which will place the stock of housing continuously in front. We have not decided yet as to exactly what the figure ought to be, whether we should sell 80 per cent of the number of houses we have or some lesser proportion.

Then we come to the question of the sale price. One of the afflictions of the Australian social system is the difficulty in controlling the cost of land and the selling price of housing. Despite the fact that we own the land in Canberra and despite the fact that we have been the major housing construction authority, we are in no better position really to control the actual cost or price of built houses than we are anywhere else unless we implement some system of housing price control, which we are finding difficult to implement at the present moment. So that it might be said that there are in fact 3 costs associated with a house. There is the amount it costs to build the house.

The honourable member for Boothby (Mr McLeay) quoted some figures in relation to some houses built 47 and 37 years ago. I think the ones built 47 years ago may well have cost about £1,200 or £l,300-say $2,500-and the ones built a few years later not all that much different in price. That is what they cost then. At that time it probably cost $400 or $500 to develop the land on which they stood. It now costs $3,000 to develop a block. Then there is the actual cost of putting a house there today. If the house were removed by a bulldozer and another house were put back on the block, I estimate that it would probably cost $17,000 or $18,000 for the same type of house. Then there is the other price- the market price. My friends opposite are addicted to the market place. I am not.

Mr McLeay:

– What does that mean?

Mr BRYANT:

– I think that it is an infliction upon the social system in this regard. In other words, the seller gets the price he can get no matter what the cost in social terms to the buyer. That, of course, is what is happening to housing throughout the country. We have not been any more successful in producing enough houses for Canberra than has anyone else anywhere in Australia. The people who come to Canberra because of the general desirability of Canberra are increasing the pressure on the city. It is a much more desirable and comfortable city in which to five than most others. The people who have standing houses to sell have managed to get a good price for them. The price has risen enormously in, I suppose, the last four or five years. It should not be said that the price has risen only in the last 12 or 15 months. In the last four or five years the price has practically doubled. So a house that probably cost $8,000 to build seven or eight years ago and that was sold for perhaps $17,000 or $18,000 5 years ago, would now bring in the market place perhaps $32,000 or $33,000. There has been some gratification in that in the last few months that price has tended to level out and, in fact, fall.

Mr Lusher:

– There is the demand side of the equation as well as the supply side.

Mr BRYANT:

– I thought I had made the point about the demand side of the equation, that we had not in fact caught up with it any more than anybody else had. But some of the responsibility for that lies in the past. As I pointed out earlier, the actual house probably could be bulldozed and replaced for perhaps $17,000 or $18,000. The position in which we find ourselves, and which bothers me a great deal, is the conflict of principles and opportunity, and the chance for speculation or profiteering. I do not believe that the Government should exploit or profiteer at the expense of the citizen; nor do I believe that the citizen ought to be able to exploit or profiteer at the expense of the community- in this sense the Government.

So far one has not been able to find a formula which satisfactorily solves the problem of selling a house to a tenant at anything less than the present market value because, if one sells a tenant a house at anything less that the present market value, one hands him a profit on the plate. I will quote an instance. The system has been to sell a house to a tenant with a 5-year covenant on resale. But if, for example, there is some desperate urgency- a person is leaving the city and must sell the house- this is administered with reasonable compassion and understandingthe Government will permit him to sell it himself or will buy it back from him. One such person came to me the other day. He had paid something like, I think, $14,000 or $15,000 only 3lA years before for the house and he had to leave the city. Somebody had offered Mm about $40,000. We exercised our right to repurchase it and we paid him the amount of our valuation, which is a reasonable valuation- $27,000. 1 am shocked at that The person is gratified at it. He has achieved- I suppose it is happening all the time in other ways- a profit of $12,000 or $13,000 at the public expense.

Mr McLeay:

– What about the replacement cost?

Mr BRYANT:

-That is the point I am about to come to. On the other hand, of course, the house on which we spent $8,000 on building four or five years ago and which we offered to people at $14,000 three or four years ago, is now in the vicinity of $22,000 or $23,000 and that shocks me too. My suggestion is, and this is what we are examining in order to find a satisfactory formula for the future, that we ought to sell it to the tenant at replacement value. That value is what it would cost to put that house there now with a covenant over it for the life of the house enabling us to purchase it back at the replacement value in the future. So people would have the advantage of the value of their equity in it which will rise in accordance with the inflationary cost of housing but will not be able to speculate or profiteer. I have no doubt that this is a difficult formula to work out. But this is the only solution that I can see to the problem.

On the other hand, of course, we can reduce the deposit ratio and let people have the houses without having to find anything else. That is what we have decided to do. People will buy a house on 5 per cent deposit and we will supply the mortgage for the other 95 per cent. Last year we lent more money than ever before to finance homes. We lent all that we had available. The amount we lent, which was made up of money from the Budget and money that was ploughed back into the system came to around the $24m mark. Some criticism has been uttered about the announcement made in the last few days in regard to interest rates. Nobody is more concerned about the system of interest rates and the cost of money for housing than this Government. In this instance we have decided that the principles that will apply shall be that interest rates for people in the low income bracket shall be low. The rate will vary from about 5 per cent for people earning 85 per cent of average weekly earnings to the Commonwealth Bank rate for those earning more than 95 per cent. This Government is dedicated to the proposition that it should reduce interest rates but it is an enormously complicated system as everyone would know.

At least in the last few days some citizens of Canberra have been greatly advantaged. Some honourable members might say: ‘Well, who can afford to pay the deposit, who can afford to raise the money and so on? ‘ Eight or nine people a day in this city apply for land. We do not include the wife’s income when assessing applications. We try to make the system as liberal as possible. Therefore while we have not managed to close the gap in land or housing we are gaining ground. I would think that this year we will turn off more land at a better price than can be found at any other place in Australia. It will probably be in the order of some 4,000 more blocks of land. When we became the Government land in Canberra was being auctioned. The average price being obtained for a block of land 2 years ago was rising to $10,000. Now a person can almost get a block of land on demand. All a person has to do is to submit his name and within a few weeks he can pick a block of land from about 30 blocks. The price of land ranges from $2,500 and $3,000 to $12,000 and $13,000. The average price being paid for a block of land in Canberra is about $5,500. Therefore, despite the disadvantages at present, we have managed to create for many people in this city advantages that they cannot get anywhere else.

We will resume the debate on these estimates on Tuesday. At that time there may well be other matters which honourable members might wish to raise on this question as well as on the Department of Aboriginal Affairs. I hope that there will be adequate time to debate them. Any member of this House is quite welcome to take advantage of all the facilities that we have at our disposal to have explained to him what is going on in this city which is remarkably well administered as everyone admits. The city is a demonstration that successive governments have been able to achieve a quality of life, a standard of community development and an environment that is not available in many other parts of this continent. The Government is pretty satisfied with the way things are developing here, but there are many other things that we have to do. One of the great difficulties was the failure 4 or 5 years ago to put adequate funds into the development of housing and land so that we would now be able to meet demands. I will conclude my remarks by just reminding people of the deficiencies of our predecessors.

Mr SULLIVAN:
Riverina

– I thank you, Mr Temporary Chairman, for the honour of allowing me to speak and to follow the Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant) who is the Minister representing the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Senator Cavanagh) in this place. I, like the honourable member for Gwydir (Mr Hunt), have many Aboriginals living in the electorate which I represent and like all thinking Australians I would like to see these people live with dignity. No one would question the need for the allocation of funds for Aboriginal advancement. Because there is a pressing and urgent need for such funds to be made available I believe that we must agree with such an allocation. The allocation of such funds must be related to a policy, but if the policy or the application of the policy is wrong there can be a waste of the taxpayers’ money.

We have in this budgetary program the real possibility of a massive and inexcusable waste of the taxpayers’ money. Furthermore, and more importantly, we may see the disintegration and the destruction of a very fine race of people. It appears that self-determination is the basis of the philosophy for the current Aboriginal policy. It is essentially a humane, well thought-out, theoretical doctrine, but a doctrine with very little practical application. How can people of any race or at any stage of development make qualitative decisions on matters of which they have little or no knowledge? More importantly, the unfortunate recipient of the present policy- and I stated this in my maiden speech the week before lastwhich is based on too many handouts is all too human. He is finite and he is now being destroyed in a far more insidious fashion than ever before. The tragic result is inevitable. The things that attract the Aboriginal are usually some of the worst aspects available from within the white society. I refer in particular to alcoholic drink. If this is taken in excess it will lead to tragedy.

I make the point that alcohol as far as the Aboriginal is concerned now is causing a problem of the same magnitude as the Aboriginal problem itself. It will not be too long before we will need massive funds to try to cure the problem of alcohol among Aboriginals. I refer to some papers in this respect. The Minister himself stated that alcohol was disastrous as far as Aboriginals are concerned. The Minister said again that the policy was a disaster. Unfortunately in no papers could I find an indication that the present policy had any hope to offer for the future. The policy itself must be based on the needs of the Aboriginal people. Mr Charles Perkins stated that when he said: … the needs of the Aboriginal people should form our policy, administrative and budgetary guidelines.

The policy should be based on the needs of people, not the wants of people. Unfortunately the basis of this present policy appears to be in the area of the wants of Aboriginals. If the policy is taken as far as the needs of the people are concerned and is based on understanding and compassion, has an educational program and is given sufficient time to work the policy has some chance of success. There is a Service axiom that says: ‘A commander should never reinforce failure’. Service axioms, unlike political axioms, are born on those hardest possible arenas in the world and they have a tremendous element of truth. In this policy we have today we have exactly that. We are reinforcing failure.

This year we are spending an additional $ 14m on a policy which has proved to be a failure. I think it is necessary for us to look very carefully at the policy itself. I am not standing here to criticise because of the mistakes that we are making based purely on expenditure. I am standing here because I believe the real mistake we are making is that we are destroying the Aboriginal people. If that is the purpose of the policy then it is a bad policy. A complete reappraisal of this policy must be made before we decide how much money we should allocate in this area. It is not too late. But if we continue with the present policy it will be too late and not much time has to pass before it will be too late. I do not think any honourable member on either side of the chamber would like to sit in this place and be a party to a policy which leads to the death and destruction of a race of people. That is exactly the position we are in today with the present Aboriginal policy. Give back to the Aborigine his dignity and the rest will follow.

Mr BRYANT:
Minister for the Capital Territory · Wills · ALP

-First of all I would like to begin to answer the honourable member for Riverina (Mr Sullivan). What on earth was he talking about- waste, denigration of the policy? Every word he uttered implied that everything that has been done was wasteful, pointless and destructive. What nonsense. Let us take some of the aspects of his speech. First of all, housing. There are about 25,000 to 30,000 Aboriginal families in this country. Over a period of a century and a half or more a handful have been adequately housed. The previous Government began a program. We have accelerated it. There are now hundreds of Aboriginal families in homes who were denied them in the past. People need homes. They not only need houses but also they need homes. I am talking about the thousands of people in about 400 communities in Australia in which Aboriginal people can be found. Some of them live on the edge of country towns. Some of them live in the heart of suburbs such as Redfern and Fitzroy. Thousands of them live in a community of which they are the total membership. In many cases the conditions under which they live are a disgrace to the nation. Every one of them offers a social challenge, a physical challenge, an administrative challenge and a financial one. We are the last people to say that we have achieved success in all those areas. But there is no doubt in my mind- and I have been very closely associated with this for a long while indeed- that thousands of Aboriginal people are grateful that the Labor Government was returned to office and also that it is pressing on regardless. Last year we published in Hansard- and we will do it again later this yearthe names of the areas in which programs were being developed. It took up some 17 or 18 pages. I have said to people: ‘Which ones should not have been done and which ones are waste’. Of course in a program such as that which was spread across a continent such as ours, some of the money is not going to be returned as a clear dividend.

Mr Lusher:

– Ask the Auditor-General.

Mr BRYANT:

– Yes, we can ask the AuditorGeneral. If the honourable member reads the Auditor-General’s report very carefully he will find that it was not so much that there was anything wrong with the program but that someone did not do the paper work properly. But, of course, the people who sit opposite are more concerned with paper than with people. From one end of this continent to the other the search goes on for a solution. There are members oppositeone is sitting in the House now; perhaps two of them- who I know applied themselves with vigour and compassion to the same task. There are more Aboriginal people receiving substantial health benefits now than ever before. In the field of education there are thousands more in secondary schools and they are going to be the ones who in the future will supply leadership for the Aboriginal communities. We have established Aboriginal communities on their own land. We are going to establish more of them on their own land. There are other areas.

The honourable member for Riverina raised the question of alcohol. Fancy anybody in the Australian community, anybody in the nonAboriginal Australian community, anybody in the previously, led Liberal Australian community. attacking somebody because they had become a victim of alcohol. Tonight in this place we sit opposite people who when in government gave knighthoods to brewers, yet they talk about alcoholism. Of course it is destructive. The difference between white people and Aboriginal people is that after the Aborigine has been to a hotel he has nowhere to go so he goes out into the streets and everybody sees him. But alcoholism exists throughout our own community. It is one of the great destroyers of Australian social life, black or white. So that is one of the problems to which we are applying ourselves. We have not found a solution to this problem in the rest of the community. We are not going to find it any easier in the Aboriginal community. I believe that we ought to acknowledge it and we ought to do what we can about it. But for the honourable member to make that the principal burden of his speech on Aboriginal people is to make it just all the more difficult for the rest of the community to accept the fact that 1 per cent of the Australian community belonging to the original Aboriginal race are still with us.

My principal criticism in relation to the speech by the honourable member for Riverina is the sense of gloom he put into this matter. This has been one of the very serious aspects of some of the comments that have been made over the last 12 months about the Auditor-General’s report. People wrote commentaries on this subject. The leader writers of the great Australian daily newspapers only have to get out of their seats and walk 2 miles down the street to find what sort of things were being done. The ones in Melbourne got out of their seats in Spencer Street and looked in Fitzroy to find what the legal service and health service centres were doing. There are other centres elsewhere. Some of these things have created great difficulties. We know that when an Aboriginal hostel is opened somewhere in the city it will, unless we are very fortunate, create social tensions around the place. Some of these projects have been successful. There are several in Brisbane. Some have been very successful. We know that others are causing tension throughout the community. That is part of the challenge we all face. All I would say to honourable members opposite- and I hope that this debate can go on next week because I think there are some other people who might want to speak- is that what they have to do is look at this subject not just with compassion but with some optimism. I believe that the National Aboriginal Congress, as it is now called, is going to be one of the great contributors to Aboriginal progress and advancement and out of that will come the future leaders of the Aboriginal people. In fact what happened, of course, was that in the course of setting up that body- which was a continental operation in scope and involved thousands of people- a good deal of criticism was made. Some 30,000 to 40,000 Aboriginal people enrolled, including thousands who had never enrolled for ordinary elections. Thousands of them voted across the continent and they elected 41 members to that Congress. I believe that the Aboriginal people of Australia have a struggle on their hands, as has any minority group, but this Government has taken the path which will change the shape of their future and offer thousands of them opportunities they would never have had otherwise. While there are still great areas of poverty and difficulty, in fact optimism has to be the order of the day.

The DEPUTY CHAIRMAN (Mr Martin)Order! It being 10.30 p.m., and in accordance with the order of the House of 1 1 July, I shall report progress.

Progress reported.

page 2583

ADJOURNMENT

Mr SPEAKER:

– It being after 10.30 p.m., and in accordance with the order of the House of 1 1 July, I propose the question:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr Daly:

- Mr Speaker, I require that the question be put forthwith and without debate.

Question resolved in the negative.

page 2583

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1) 1974-75

In Committee

Consideration resumed.

Proposed expenditures agreed to.

Progress reported.

page 2583

ADJOURNMENT

The Budget -Meat -Northern Territory- Australian Capital Territory: Housing

Motion ( by Mr Daly) proposed:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr HEWSON:
McMillan

-I do not want to be called a prophet of doom because the profits have gone and left us with the doom. Headlines in the newspapers today state: ‘Beef prices again dropped sharply at Newmarket sales yesterday’. The falls ranged from 14c to 20c per lb. The leading article in tonight’s Melbourne ‘Herald’ states: ‘Big questions on meat prices’. These reports are ample reason for my entering the debate tonight on the adjournment motion. I take the opportunity to place before this Parliament the plight of those associated with the beef industry. I do so because of the indifferent attitude of the Government. When it took office on 2 December it was said by many that it would be a sad day for the primary producers of Australia. The sad day has been with us now for nearly 2 years, and today this is a sad country. When we compare today’s economic situation with that of 2 years ago the rural scene is appalling. The second Labor Budget has been delivered, remodelled and is now being perservered with by a disgruntled Caucus, but there was not one recognition in the Budget of the present economic plight of rural Australia. Surely it must be evident to all that country people are a forgotten people.

I do not want to dwell on the overall poor performance and the failure of the Government to recognise the difficulties facing the rural communities which my colleagues and I represent in this Parliament. What I especially want to draw the Government’s attention to tonight is the precarious and almost impossible position of our beef producers. We on the Opposition side of the House cannot let the present situation continue. Therefore what I am about to propose has been very carefully considered by my colleagues and me. I want the Government to heed what I have to say and act upon it. It is abundantly clear that there needs to be a royal commission into the beef industry. One reason would be the attitude of the Government, which unashamedly stands by while the beef farmers head towards bankruptcy. Another reason would be that the Australian consumer is not a beneficiary of the producers ‘ low prices, which incidentally are the lowest for 30 years. This is an anomaly which must be solved.

Rural people are becoming tired of the present Government and sick and tired of seeing everyone except themselves being compensated for the effects of inflation. Every wage rise is based on costs. Primary producers, particularly beef raisers, are in the hands of the export market. Their incomes are never subject to review when there is a downturn in prices. They believe, and I agree, that there should be a guaranteed stabilised price. They wonder at the present policy of the Government to pay full wages for 6 months to employees being retrenched when their employing industry has gone broke because of the Government’s inability to keep the industry operative.’ But the Government does not include the primary producer, even if he goes broke. This is an indictment of the Government. Why should the producers be forced to supply this nation and the world’s food under such precarious circumstances? The cattle industry needs credit urgently. It needs at least $50m carry-on finance, free of interest, as an interim measure whilst the royal commission carries out its survey and produces a report. An emergency fund should be established so that primary producers with financial difficulties brought about by uprecedented and unpredictable causes which embarrass them can be assisted.

The industry itself estimates its immediate need for about $50m for carry-on finance. I repeat that the cattle industry in Australia urgently needs credit. About one and threequarter million fewer head of cattle will be killed this year because of the export downturn. If the market had not collapsed to such an extent these cattle would have brought in about another $200m to producers. For producers who are dependent entirely on cattle this situation creates very serious liquidity problems, and there are 13,000 producers whose operations are based solely on cattle. The Australian National Cattlemen’s Council estimates that many producers will suffer up to a 50 per cent drop in their gross farm incomes even before meeting a 25 per cent rise in their costs. How the devil are they supposed to live? They cannot get money from the banks or the stock agents and if they owe the money for cattle purchased and they cannot sell they are charged up to 15 per cent interest on their account.

Mr Sullivan:

– How much?

Mr HEWSON:

-Up to 1 5 per cent.

Mr King:
Mr HEWSON:

-It is daylight robbery-there is no doubt about it. Calculations in some specific regions show that producers are getting for their meat a price that is little more than half the cost of producing it. With all the expertise in cattle raising, and with all the wisdom of Government experts and the advice of long-term beef raisers who have been in the industry all their lives, no one could have advised me last year that there would be a slump in prices this year. The great danger of all this is that producers will be forced to sell off their basic breeding stock to get a little cash to carry them over. The industry is not asking for special treatment, merely that the Government sees that funds are available through the normal sources at ordinary commercial interest rates. Unfortunately, I believe it has to be recognised that any action to make large sums available will have some inflationary effect. But this must be weighed up against the very serious long-term consequences that would flow from the sacrifices of valuable breeding stock to help producers meet what seems likely to be only a short-term liquidity problem. There is a very urgent need in the beef industry today for some financial assistance to be offered to producers in their time of peril. I say ‘peril’ because these people have a great financial investment which they must look after; they must service it. They find themselves in a most difficult position at this stage and I would request the Government to take urgent and sincere action to help them over this hurdle.

Mr CHARLES JONES:
Minister for Transport · Newcastle · ALP

-On 24 September the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Calder) directed a question to me concerning Commonwealth Railways freight rate increases in the Northern Territory and their effects on the economy of the Territory. At that time I promised I would give him a reply but until this point it has not been possible for me to give him it in the House. It is true that the Commonwealth Railways has increased its freight charges by 40 per cent on livestock, by 15 to 35 per cent on some building materials and by 10 per cent on bulk fuel as stated by the honourable member. However, it is a complete fabrication by him to suggest that these increases were imposed by the Commonwealth Railways as ‘another vicious attack on the people of the outback’ and it was ‘a continuation of the vindictive attitude of the socialist government in an endeavour to smash private enterprise and, in so doing, to injure all classes of people living in these outback areas’. That is typical of the type of distorted questions with which Ministers in this House have to contend.

Such misstatement of fact concerning the Australian Government’s policies is typical of the irresponsible statements that are continually being made by the honourable member for the Northern Territory to Territorians in an attempt to direct their attention away from the many progressive initiatives taken by this Government and, in particular, by the Minister for Northern Development (Dr Patterson). It is also typical of him that while he complains of increases in Commonwealth Railways charges he is strangely silent about increases imposed by private enterprise transport operators. He is always also very careful not to compare Commonwealth Railways charges with those of the private road operators. For example, Co-ord Ltd in its contract with the Commonwealth Railways increased its road rates by an average of 26 per cent on 1 June 1973, by 8.7 per cent on 1 September 1974 and by 7.7 per cent on 1 October 1 974. In respect of insulating material and plastic pipes the percentage increase in its charges since June 1973 has been 20 per cent.

Mr Fairbairn:

– That was because of the petrol price equalisation.

Mr CHARLES JONES:

-It is remarkable that the honourable member for Farrer should make such an interjection. I say to him: ‘When you interject, for heavens sake know what you are talking about. As a Minister you did not know’. The honourable member referred to the increase in petrol prices but the price differential did not come into operation until after the date to which I have just referred. When road and rail rates are compared the low level of Commonwealth Railways charges is particularly noticeable. Some specific examples are as follows: For the carriage of livestock from Alice Springs to Port Pirie the cost per semi-trailer load is $690 whereas the equivalent bogie van load by rail costs $242.65c; a semi-trailer load of livestock by road over 502 kilometres costs $376.50 whereas a similar load over a similar distance by Northern Australian Railways costs $149.40. Do I hear any more interjections? The cartage of bulk fuel by road over 1,001 kilometres costs $39.79 per tonne as compared with the rail charge of $20.01 per tonne. The cost of transporting cement from Port Pirie to Alice Springs is $59.89 per tonne or $31.09 per tonne in 20 tonne lots. The comparable charges by rail are $22.09 and $21.23 per tonne respectively.

In the Commonwealth Railways financial statements for 1973-74 which I tabled in the House on 26 September it was shown that the railways lost $7,205,726 as compared with $3,246,571 in the previous year. In these circumstances it is ludicrous to suggest that any increase in charges was a vicious attack on the people in the outback. No industry can absorb losses of this magnitude without affecting its continued operations. If the honourable member for the Northern Territory wishes to see the Commonwealth Railways continue to accumulate losses of this magnitude he would be doing a disservice to the Territory. To see the results of such a policy one has only to look at the State railways with their huge losses, inefficient rolling stock, poor tracks and inefficient services.

We, as a government, are committed to a policy of improving transport services to the Northern Territory. For instance, although the Liberal Country Party government, of which the honourable member was a member, was in office for 23 years it did nothing of its own volition in respect of the Tarcoola-Alice Springs railway. It was the

Commissioner for Commonwealth Railways who had to take the initiative and examine the advantages of a completely new route. After that it was then up to the Liberal-Country Party Government to reach agreement with the South Australian Government for the construction of this line. Even to that extent it failed miserably. Since we became the Government we have reached agreement with South Australia for the construction of this line. On 2 October 1974 I introduced the Tarcoola-Alice Springs Railway Bill 1974 into this Parliament and only this week it was passed through this House and the Senate. That Bill seeks the ratification of the agreement reached between the Australian and South Australian Governments. It is estimated that the railway line will cost $145m to build. Funds have been provided in the 1974-75 Budget for the initial planning and construction of the line.

In addition, the present Australian Government has increased the assistance for roads from $868m for the 3-year period 1971 to 1974 to $l,126m for the 3-year period 1974 to 1977. It is interesting to note that the rural-urban distribution of funds under the previous roads arrangements of the Liberal-Country Party Government was 47 per cent for rural roads as against 53 per cent for urban roads. Under the current arrangements, the ratio of the distribution is 61 per cent for rural roads and 39 per cent for urban roads. One never stops listening to complaints, whingeing and whining from members of the Australian Country Party that expenditure on rural roads has been reduced.

I ask them to examine the facts. If they do so, they will get one clear result: It is that this Government has made greater sums of money available for rural roads than the Country Party did when it was in government for 23 years. Honourable members also should take into consideration the $400m which has been allocated for maintenance and construction of national highways. Included in this category of roads will be the Port Augusta-Alice Springs road which was ignored completely by the previous LiberalCountry Party Government. What did honourable members opposite do about the construction of that road? For 23 years they had the opportunity to do something about the road, but they did not do one thing about it. In the 1974-75 Budget the total outlay for rural industry was $487m. This is some $150m more than the last Liberal-Country Party Government provided for rural industry.

From these few instances it is obvious that the honourable member’s claim that the present Australian Government is working against the interests of the rural sector and the people in the Northern Territory in particular is a complete fabrication. This Government is concerned with the people of the Northern Territory. For that reason we have got on with the job of providing a rail service at freight rates which are fair and reasonable and which compare more than favourably with the freight rates that are charged by the private enterprise road operators. Do the members of the Country Party want to transfer the rail system to private enterprise? Do they want to see the exorbitant charges that are imposed upon the people in the Northern Territory by private enterprise or do they want to retain the Australian Commonwealth Railways with its fair and reasonable freight charges to which they, as members of the Parliament, have access? Honourable members have a right to question, as did the honourable member for the Northern Territory, my decision and the decision of the Government to increase freight rates which do not even reach half the rate charged by private enterprise road operators. I am certain that any fair-minded reasonable thinking person in the Northern Territory would be quite happy to have the Commonwealth Railways operating and providing a service at a reasonable freight rate. Even though we have increased the freight rate, the railways will still operate at a loss. Is that persecution of the Northern Territorians? Of course it is not. The freight rate is fair and reasonable.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! The Minister’s time has expired.

Mr KATTER:
Kennedy

– I shall take only a few minutes. Obviously it was the intention of the Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) in attacking my colleague, the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Calder), in his absence to make a great splash on the eve of an election in the Northern Territory. To impress the people of the Northern Territory he had to make an attempt to explain away the vicious effects of the removal of the differential subsidy on fuel. The removal of the subsidy will overflow into every aspect of the lives of people of the Northern Territory. Let him explain also why the Government has removed the freight subsidies which were of such tremendous assistance in the Northern Territory. Let him go a little further and explain why only one ship of the Australian National Line will be serving the port of Darwin, again reducing the service to the people of the Northern Territory and again contributing to the rise in prices. It is little wonder that the people of the Northern Territory have made up their minds on what they will do on

Saturday. I will go a little further. Television services have been promised to Tennant Creek and other places. Where are those services? There is contempt for the people of the Northern Territory. The Minister has made his run too late. The Labor Party has withdrawn its star of the firmament, Mr Ward, and made him a judge. Obviously the Labor Party has capitulated. It recognises that in the Northern Territory, it will get the same vote as, or even a more disastrous vote than it got in the Australian Capital Territory. The wife of a public servant in the Northern Territory has to be a mathematical genius to try to balance her budget. What about price fixing? I paid 40c for a bottle of Coca Cola in the Northern Territory. What utter rot. The Labor Party has devastated the whole of the prospects of people in the Northern Territory. I come now to housing. People at Tennant Creek have been wading in flood waters and living in shambles waiting for adequate housing. On the eve of the election the Labor Party has approved a number of houses purely as an election gimmick. The Minister has made an attack on my colleague, but he will not make one iota of progress in affecting the intentions of the people of the Northern Territory, and that is to put our Party into office on Saturday.

Mr STREET:
Corangamite

-Very great difficulties are confronting what has come to be regarded regrettably as the traditional house seeker- the married couple. It is dangerous, however, for policy planners to concentrate all their attention on this traditional aspect of the housing market. I particularly draw attention to the needs of single people in the Australian Capital Territory. I believe far too little attempt has been made by this Government to come to grips with the very difficult problems that single people face, and the need to adopt policies in all areas including housing to assist them. In many ways single people moving to Canberra give up more than residents who come as a family. The environment they face and the life style to which they are required to adapt is unique. They lose the benefits of having immediate family relatives and friends with whom they have grown up. Approximately 13 per cent of all people seeking accommodation in Canberra are single.

The Liberal-Country Party Government set up hostels in the Australian Capital Territory as low cost accommodation for single public servants. Over the last 12 months tariffs in those hostels have increased by 55 per cent or about 3 times the rate of inflation. This is putting hostel accommodation out of the reach of many young people. It has also been reported to me that standards have fallen. I submit that this is just not good enough. The figures suggest that the management is not nearly as efficient as it should be. I ask the Minister for the Capital Territory (Mr Bryant) to institute an immediate inquiry into the running of Australian Capital Territory hostels. Many young married people who come to Canberra have the advantage of regulation 97 of the Public Service Act, but a similar concession is not available to single people.

I believe that every opportunity should be taken to encourage open dialogue with the young people in Canberra to establish their needs. I believe that the Minister should appoint an advisory panel of youth workers and young people in Canberra, with representatives from hostels, to advise him regularly on the needs of single people in Canberra. I believe that the Minister should be devoting much more attention to the area of co-operative housing which can provide a very attractive and less financially burdensome way for young people to attain some independence without committing themselves to some of the burdens of the traditional suburban home. Mr Speaker, the Government claims that the Australian Capital Territory is the social laboratory for its policies throughout Australia. I do not approve of such an attitude, but at least it demonstrates to the people in the rest of Australia what is likely to happen to them if the Government stays in power. The disastrous results which so far have been confined to the Australian Capital Territory would become general. They will not become general because fortunately the Government will not be in power much longer.

Mr JAMES:
Hunter

– I listened with interest tonight to the debate between the Minister for Transport (Mr Charles Jones) and the honourable member for Kennedy (Mr Katter). The honourable member for Kennedy made a feeble attempt to defend the honourable member for the Northern Territory (Mr Calder), but I wish to point out to the Parliament that the honourable member for the Northern Territory has been absent all the week from this Parliament. It is obvious to me, as Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Northern Territory, that he has been campaigning throughout the Northern Territory in connection with the election there on Saturday next. I hope that this information gets through to the people of the Northern Territory.

Mr Hewson:

- Mr Speaker, I take a point of order. The honourable member for the Northern Territory was here on Tuesday this week.

Mr SPEAKER:

-That is not on the point of order.

Mr JAMES:

– The honourable member for the Northern Territory has been absent since Tuesday for obvious reasons to attend to campaign duties on behalf of the Australian Country Party. I am grateful for the honourable member’s correction, but I allege that for the remainder of the week the honourable member for the Northern Territory has been campaigning in the Northern Territory in connection with the election on Saturday next. His bounden duty to his constituents is to represent them in this Parliament when the Parliament is sitting, not to be campaigning in the Northern Territory. That is where his primary duties lie. That is why he receives a lucrative salary, and his duties are in this Parliament, not campaigning in connection with a local election in the Northern Territory. I hope that every fairminded member of this House would agree with me.

The Labor Party has been criticised for not showing an interest in the affairs of the people of the Northern Territory, but an ultra-modern sewerage system is being installed at Tennant Creek and a super ultra-modern sewerage system is being installed for the people of Darwin. I have not the privilege of having sewerage system at my home in Coal Point which is much more thickly populated than some of the areas of the Northern Territory. The residents of Coal Point are deprived of a sewerage system. The Commonwealth Government is granting, rightly or wrongly, a higher priority to the people of the Northern Territory. It is true, as the Minister for Transport said, that spending by this Government in the Northern Territory exceeds by far the expenditure by private enterprise. Only a few weeks ago I found in the Northern Territory an ordinary home for sale by private enterprise at $47,000. The occupants of the home were a decent Melbourne family who went there recently. They are paying $80 a week in rent and are seriously considering rescinding a contract with a private enterprise firm because of the exploitation by private enterprise of the people of the Northern Territory. Something drastic should be done about the exploitation of the people. In the Northern Territory, which produces probably the largest amount of beef in Australia, the price of beef is dearer than it is elsewhere. I paid 80c a lb for buffalo fillet steak because certain friends asked me to bring them back some buffalo fillet steaks. Yet today one can buy first class beef in New South Wales we know, for 35c to 40c a lb. These are 2 instances- housing and beef as the exploitation.

Mr SPEAKER:

-Order! It being 1 1 o’clock the House stands adjourned until Tuesday next at 10.30 a.m. or such later time as Mr Speaker takes the Chair.

House adjourned at 11 p.m.

page 2589

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS UPON NOTICE

The following answers to questions upon notice were circulated:

Department of Repatriation and Compensation: Grants for Research (Question No. 85)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Will the Minister provide a list of all grants, to any organisation or individual, that are provided from moneys appropriated to his Department, or authorities under his control, to undertake research.
  2. To what bodies have such moneys been advanced, and what was or is the nature of the research being undertaken as a result of the grants in each of the last 3 years.
Mr Lionel Bowen:
ALP

– The Minister for Repatriation and Compensation has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question:

  1. and (2). No grants for research purposes have been made during the past three years to any organisation or individual for moneys appropriated to the Department of Repatriation and Compensation, or to authorities set up under Repatriation legislation.

Department of Repatriation and Compensation: Employment of Women (Question No. 113)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many women have been appointed to senior positions in the Department of Repatriation and Compensation since 2 December 1972.
  2. Who are they.
  3. 3 ) To what position has each been appointed, and what is the function of the position.
Mr Lionel Bowen:
ALP

– The Minister for Repatriation and Compensation has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question: (1), (2) and (3). I refer the right honourable member to the reply provided by the Prime Minister on page 625 Hansard dated 24 July 1974 to Question No. 97.

Department of Social Security: Inter-departmental Committees (Question No. 276)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. Does his Department maintain a record of interdepartmental committees in which it participates.
  2. 2 ) If not, then ho w is he aware of all the interdepartmental consultations in which his Department is involved through inter-departmental committees.
  3. Will he ensure that such a list is in future available to him.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

– The answer to the right honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3). I refer the right honourable member to the Prime Minister’s answer to question No. 964 on the 1 973 Notice Paper (Hansard, 27 September 1973, page 1714-15).

Department of Repatriation and Compensation: Training in Financial and Auditing Procedures (Question No. 377)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation, upon notice:

  1. How many officers in the Department of Repatriation and Compensation have been given some form of formal training in financial or auditing procedures used in Commonwealth departments in the last 12 months.
  2. What is the division and classification of these officers.
  3. How many of these officers were in operational, as distinct from financial or accounting, positions in the Service.
Mr Lionel Bowen:
ALP

– The Minister for Repatriation and Compensation has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question: (1), (2) and (3) I refer the right honourable member to the reply provided by the Prime Minister on pages 626-627 of Hansard dated 24 July 1974 in answer to Question No. 329.

Assistance Plan Grants (Question No. 540)

Mr Connolly:
BRADFIELD, NEW SOUTH WALES

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. How many Australian Assistance Plan grants were made available to (a) Hornsby, (b) Ku-Ring-Gai and (c) Warringah local government bodies since 2 December 1972.
  2. ) If grams were made, what were they to be used for.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. and (2) Grants under the Australian Assistance Plan are not made available to local government bodies to the exclusion of all other community bodies, nor to a series of separate community bodies including local government ones. This would aggravate the fragmentation of community welfare services, weaken the capacity for co-operation between such bodies, and defeat the objective of community involvement in regional decision-making on such matters. The concepts on which the Australian Assistance Plan is based are outlined in Discussion Paper No. 1 published by the Social Welfare Commission. Regional Councils for Social Development are the bodies to which grants are directed. Their structure and function is outlined in the discussion paper referred to. No grants were made in Hornsby, KuRingGai or Warringah Councils.

Repatriation Tribunals (Question No. 566)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Repatriation and Compensation, upon notice:

Further to the answer to Question No. 1 149 of 22 October 1 973 in which it was indicated that it was not then possible to introduce regulations requiring authorities under the Repatriation Act to give reasons for their decision on claims and appeals, (a) which authorities can now do so and (b) which authorities cannot do so, and when will they be able to.

Mr Lionel Bowen:
ALP

– The Minister for Repatriation and Compensation has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question:

  1. The War Pensions Entitlement Appeal Tribunals began recording and providing reasons for their decisions as from 1 June 1974. This follows the amendment to the Repatriation Regulations of 1 1 April 1974.
  2. Repatriation Boards, the Repatriation Commission and War Pension Assessment Appeal Tribunals are not yet required to give reasons for their decisions but the necessary procedures will be introduced as soon as practicable to require them to do so. This will be a gradual process so as to avoid delays and inconvenience in the determining process.

Space Research (Question No. 703)

Mr Street:

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice:

  1. Has the Space Research Section at the Weapons Research Establishment received international recognition for its radio astronomy work, particularly on the behaviour Of quasars.
  2. Has the Government closed down this Section.
Mr Barnard:
ALP

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

  1. Members of the Space Research Group at the Weapons Research Establishment have had several papers published in internationally distributed scientific journals, including papers dealing with research into the characteristics of quasars.
  2. The Government’s priorities have necessitated staff reductions in the Defence Research Laboratories and these are being achieved by non replacement of wastage. All available manpower resources are now required for essential Defence activities. The activities of the Space Research Group were non-Defence in nature and its activities have been terminated and the staff redeployed to other defence research duties.

Housing Finance: Interest Rates (Question No. 720)

Mr McLeay:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What steps are being taken to reduce interest rates as promised on 13 March 1974.
  2. What steps are being taken to reduce the escalating costs in the building industry as promised on 25 July 1974.
  3. What steps can the Opposition take to assist the Government as suggested by him on 25 July 1974.
Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

  1. 1 ) The Government intends to promote a general reduction in interest rates as soon as this is practicable without returning to a position of excessive financial liquidity such as that allowed by the Liberal-Country Party Government in 1972. Regarding the effect of high interest rates on home purchasers of limited means, we will introduce in the current Parliamentary Session legislation to allow income tax deductions on mortgage interest payments which will have the same effect as a reduction in interest rates of up to 3 per cent. We are also negotiating with lenders to make arrangements in appropriate cases to reduce the cost of paying off a housing loan during its early years; and we have still further plans to make available additional finance for housing using institutions which will be able to lend at a moderate rate of interest. Among these is the creation of the Australian Housing Corporation, for which an initial allocation of $2 5 m was made in the 1 974 Budget.
  2. In a situation of world-wide inflation it is not realistic to talk about ‘reducing ‘ costs. Steps being taken to check the upward escalation of costs include the successful limitation of excessive demand on the building industry through financial policy; extensive continuing research by my Department with the object of promoting the application of low cost building techniques; and attempts through indicative planning to arrange that the supply of resources to the building industry matches the demands on the industry.
  3. In considering what steps it might take to assist the Government in this regard, the Opposition might begin by realising that the Government in its anti-inflationary policy is attacking a difficult problem, the solution of which must necessarily involve measures which may be both painful and slow-acting. If I may quote my colleague, the Treasurer, speaking in the House on 13 March 1974: ‘Every attempt that was made to do something to control the volume of money, to do something about the exchange rate, to do something about restricting the volume of money coming into Australia from overseas, to set up the Prices Justification Tribunal and to set up the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Prices, has been resisted on that side of the House ‘.

Migrant Women: Tutor Scheme (Question No. 765)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) How many women have volunteered to be trained as home tutors assisting migrant women with the national language?
  2. How many migrant women are receiving such assistance in each State?
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I am informed that the answer to the right honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) The response from women to act as voluntary tutors in the home tutor scheme has been most encouraging. To date 962 women have volunteered. Of these 1 10 have withdrawn for various reasons (some only temporarily) and 576 have attended training sessions.
  2. As at 1 August 1974 472 migrant women were receiving assistance in their homes under the scheme-

Others will be paired with trained tutors shortly in what is an ongoing and expanding scheme.

Livestock Exports: Rejections (Question No. 923)

Mr Anthony:
RICHMOND, NEW SOUTH WALES

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

  1. 1 ) What was the volume of ( a ) beef and ( b) mutton destined for the United States of America and rejected after inspection during (i) 1973 and (ii) the latest period of 1974 for which figures are available and the comparable period of 1973.
  2. What proportion of the comparable volume of exports did these rejections represent during the periods mentioned in part ( 1 ).
  3. Was the rejected meat re-sold on the domestic market; if not: for what purposes was it used.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. All livestock submitted for slaughter at export abattoirs and the meat derived from such livestock is inspected during all stages of the production process- from the live animal to the production of meat. Meat imported into the United States is subject to inspection before entry is permitted for human consumption, and it is assumed that it is the details of meat refused entry by the United States authorities that is sought by the right honourable member. Details of meat refused entry into the United States are published in the Annual Report on Foreign Meat Inspection presented to the U.S. Congress. For 1973 the quantity of Australian beef rejected was 7,782,037 lb and mutton and lamb 2,638,567 lb. The details sought in regard to 1974 have not yet been published by the United States Meat Inspection Service.
  2. The rejections mentioned in (1) above comprised 1 .08% and 10.92% respectively of beef and mutton and lamb imports from Australia in 1973.
  3. State authorities in Australia are responsible for the disposition of meat passed as suitable for human consumption but not passed for export. In so far as the United States is concerned it is not possible to say for what purposes the meat refused entry was used, but very little was returned to Australia for any purpose.

Social Welfare Commission (Question No. 935)

Mr Ruddock:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. Has the Social Welfare Commission established committees to inquire into various matters.
  2. If so, what specific committees of inquiry have been established to date.
  3. What reports, both interim and final, has the Government received from these committees.
  4. If any interim or final reports have been received by the Government, when will they be tabled for consideration by Members.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. The Social Welfare Commission has established three Committees under Section 17 of its Act-

    1. The permanent Working Party on Social Welfare Manpower
    2. b) The Committee of Enquiry into Aged Persons ‘ Housing
    3. The Research Grants Advisory Committee

In addition to these formally established committees, the Commission has set up a Committee of Evaluators of the Australian Assistance Plan and has recommended the establishment of a series of State Advisory Committees on the Australian Assistance Plan.

Also a project team of consultant experts was set up to report to the Commission on child care policy.

  1. and (4). The Government has so far received an interim report from the Committee of Enquiry into Aged Persons’ Housing which was tabled on 4 December, 1973 and the report on child care “Project Care: Children, Parents, Community “ which was tabled on 30 July, 1 974.

Wool. Sales to China (Question No. 951)

Mr Bungey:
CANNING, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

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

  1. What were the terms of sale, prices received and amounts and types of wool involved in the recent sale of wool to China by the Australian Wool Corporation.
  2. Were the sales on credit.
  3. ) If the Minister is unable to supply the information, will he give an assurance that (a) the wool was not sold at prices below those paid by the Australian Wool Corporation for the wool, (b) the wool sold came from stocks held by the Australian Wool Corporation, (c) the wool was not keenly sought by other wool users and, (d) the sales were a commercial decision of the Australian Wool Corporation and not at Government direction.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. By agreement between the two parties, the terms of sale, prices received and amounts and types involved in the Corporation’s recent sale of wool to the Peoples Republic of China are confidential matters between the Corporation and the Chinese authorities.
  2. The sales were not on credit.
  3. The wool was sold at the same prices as were available at the time to all other users of Australian wool. It will be drawn from the stocks of the Corporation.

The Corporation’s decision to sell this wool followed detailed technical discussion in Peking between officials of the Australian Wool Corporation and representatives of the P.R.C. on the latest developments in Australia on the system of selling wool on the basis of objective measurement. The sale was of a trial nature and based on full objective specification. The Corporation considers that this sale was useful in that it opened the way to acceptance by China of the new selling methods based on objective measurement now being strongly promoted by the Corporation.

Australian Wool Corporation (Question No. 952)

Mr Bungey:

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

  1. 1 ) In what way did the Australian Wool Corporation depart from the guidelines agreed to between the Minister and the Corporation in its activities in the month to 23 July 1974 (Hansard, 23 July 1974, page 467).
  2. How is the expenditure of taxpayers money on wool purchases by the Corporation to 23 July 1974 calculated as $16m (Hansard, 23 July 1974, page 47 1 ).
  3. Did the Corporation finance its wool purchases from its own reserves and borrowing capacities in the period to 23 July 1 974; if not, why not.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

-The Minister for Agriculture has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question:

  1. 1) In accordance with the provisions of the Wool Industry Act 1972-73, the Australian Wool Corporation was operating a flexible reserve price scheme at wool auctions during the period referred to. Guidelines provided to the Corporation in respect of the conduct of reserve price activities require the Corporation to test a declining market but not to defy a genuine downward trend in the market.

Prices of wool at auction had declined progressively throughout most of the 1973-74 wool selling year and towards the end of the year the Corporation had been testing the market to ascertain whether the decline represented a short term or long term trend. During this period the Corporation had not been forced to purchase more than 24.3% of offerings in a week.

When sales resumed in July last the Corporation continued to test the market at the closing level of the 1973-74 season and in doing so purchased in excess of 60% of auction offerings which had been considerably enlarged because of the cancellation of earlier sales.

Whether in following such action the Corporation departed from the guidelines turns on a judgement as to whether the Corporation should have continued its testing role as long as it did. The Minister for Agriculture had not been formally consulted on the Corporation’s policy during the July auctions, but had been advised of the likelihood of a weak market during July.

The Minister has stated that whilst in his view the actions of the Corporation could have been regarded formally as outside its guidelines, he accepts that the Corporation did not have the power to cancel or significantly reduce wool supplies at auction without the concurrence of other members of the Joint Wool Selling Organisation. The Corporation in fact had made representations to J.W.S.O. to defer all sales. Also it urgently requested the Board of Principals of the National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia to reduce quantities rostered for sale in Sydney, and was refused. The Corporation was in close consultation with the Chairman of the Australian Council of Woolbuyers and ascertained that buyers were willing to accept postponement of sales.

  1. During the July sales, the Corporation purchased some 8 1 ,000 bales of wool in its reserve price activities. The overall average cost of the Wool approximated $200 per bale.
  2. To finance its purchase in July, the Corporation drew on credit from the major Trading Banks, the repayment of which is guaranteed by the Australian Government.

Road Fatalities: Motor Cyclists (Question No. 983)

Mr Coates:
DENISON, TASMANIA

asked the Minister for Transport, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has his attention been drawn to a Report of the Traffic Accident Research Unit that the very great majority of motor cyclists killed in New South Wales are travelling on roads subject to an absolute speed limit, in most cases 60 kilometres per hour.
  2. If so is this trend followed in all other States, including Tasmania.
  3. Did the Report also say that any counter measure against motor cycle accidents which relies for its effect on the limitation of the speed at which motor cyclists choose to travel will have little if any effect on their death rate.
  4. If so is there any need for the 70 kilometres per hour pillion limit for motor cyclists which exists in States other than New South Wales.
Mr Charles Jones:
ALP

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

  1. Yes. The Report referred to is Traffic Accident Research Unit Report 5/70: Deaths on Motor Cycles- a study of 120 fatalities.
  2. Detailed statistics are not readily available for other States except Victoria where it appears that approximately three-quarters of all motor cycle accidents occur within builtup areas.
  3. Yes.
  4. At present the National Road Traffic Code, endorsed by the Australian Transport Advisory Council, provides for a 70 km/h limit for motor cyclists carrying pillion passengers. This limit has been adopted by South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory while Victoria has a 80 km/h limit. The other States and the Northern Territory have no specific limits for motor cyclists.

Following the repeal of the New South Wales limit from 30 July 1971, the Australian Transport Advisory Council asked its Advisory Committee on Road User Performance and Traffic Codes to examine the necessity of the limit. Based on examination of the available data, the Committee has been unable to justify deletion of the limit. Further information is however still being sought and the matter is still under consideration.

Meat Imports from New Zealand (Question No. 990)

Mr Street:

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

  1. What quantity of meat has been flown from New Zealand to Brisbane during the last 12 months.
  2. What types of meat have been involved.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

– The Minister for Agriculture has provided the following answer to the honourable member’s question.

According to details published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there were no direct shipments by air of fresh, chilled or frozen meat from New Zealand to Brisbane during the 1 2 months ended July 1 974. Import data for August 1 974 are not yet available.

Details of transhipments of meat from New Zealand through other States are not available.

Slow Learning Children’s Group (Question No. 1010)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for the construction of a centre for the Murray Districts Slow Learning Children’s Group submitted by the Murray Community

Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.

  1. If so, what is the decision.
  2. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. No.
  2. 2 ) See answer to Question 1 .
  3. The application for assistance for the construction of a Centre for the Murray Districts Slow Learning Children’s Group is currently receiving the attention of my Department. A letter has been forwarded this week to the Southern Region Social Development Board advising details of the Handicapped Children (Assistance) Act and the procedure for application for assistance through that Act. This action will not preclude further consideration of the project under the Australian Assistance Plan.

Ravensthorpe Kindergarten (Question No. 1015)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. Has a decision been made on assistance for improvements to ablutions facilities and the installation of a telephone at the Ravensthorpe kindergarten submitted by the Ravensthorpe Community Centre to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Beazley:
Minister for Education · FREMANTLE, WESTERN AUSTRALIA · ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: ( 1 ), (2) and (3) No decision has been made. This matter was referred to me under cover of a letter dated 10 September 1974 from Mr Chappell, Chairman, Southern Region Social Development Board.

The responsibility for the Government’s childhood services program is being transferred to the Honourable Lionel Bowen as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister. These new arrangements were set out in a statement tabled in the House of Representatives by Mr Bowen on 1 9 September.

Mr Chappell ‘s letter will be passed to the Honourable Lionel Bowen so that this request may be considered in the context of the new arrangements.

Pingrup Kindergarten (Question No. 1016)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for the purchase of equipment for the Pingrup kindergarten submitted by the Kent Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Beazley:
ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3). I refer the honourable member to my reply to question number 10 1 5 for an answer to this question.

Nyabing Kindergarten (Question No. 1017)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. Has a decision been made on assistance for the construction of a kindergarten building at Nyabing, Western Australia, submitted by the Kent Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Beazley:
ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3) I refer the honourable member to my reply to question number 1 0 1 5 for an answer to this question.

Borden Kindergarten (Question No. 1019)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for the erection of two toilets at the kindergarten at Borden, Western Australia, submitted by the Gnowangerup Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Beazley:
ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3) I refer the honourable member to my reply to question number 1015 for an answer to this question.

Jerramungup Pre-school Centre (Question No. 1020)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for the construction of a pre-school centre at Jerramungup, Western Australia, submitted by the Gnowangerup Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Beazley:
ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3) I refer the honourable member to my reply to question number 10 1 5 for an answer to this question.

Ongerup Kindergarten (Question No. 1021)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Education, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for alterations to the kindergarten building at Ongerup submitted by the Gnowangerup Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Beazley:
ALP

– The answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3). I refer the honourable member to my reply to question number 10 15 for an answer to this question.

Radar (Question No. 1063)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Does the radar deployed at military installations in Australia have low level tracking and/or over the horizon capability.
  2. If not, what plans exist to acquire this capability.
Mr Barnard:
ALP

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

  1. Radars presently deployed at Australian military installations are designed for surveillance, and possess no limited low level capability. They have no over-the-horizon capability.
  2. A program of research into over-the-horizon radar and its application to Australian defence- known as Project JINDALEE- was announced in April 1974.

Sheep: Exports (Question No. 1070)

Mr Anthony:

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

  1. 1 ) Is there any Government restriction on the number of live sheep that may be exported from Australia in 1 974.
  2. If so, is any similar restriction envisaged for 1975.
  3. If there is a restriction in 1974, is it administered by the Department of Agriculture or by the Meat Board, and what are the mechanics of the administration.
  4. What is the reason for the restrictions.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. No.
  2. , (3) and (4) On 16 September a meeting was held between representatives of the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union, the Australian Departments of Agriculture and Overseas Trade, the Western Australian and South Australian Departments of Agriculture, producers and exporters. This meeting, which followed representations I had received about the export trade in live sheep and the impact it might have on employment in Australian abattoirs, was chaired by Col. McArthur, Chairman of the Australian Meat Board, at my request.

The purpose of the meeting was to fully discuss all major issues concerning the trade in live sheep. The meeting decided to establish a sub-committee to look at the future shipment of live sheep from Australia. The sub-committee is to comprise representatives of the organisations mentioned above and is to meet in the near future in an effort to reach agreement on the future of the live sheep export trade.

Meat: Exports (Question No. 1071)

Mr Anthony:

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

  1. What is the estimated total export of (a) beef and veal and (b) mutton in tonnes product weight to the United States of America in 1 974.
  2. ) What were the equivalent totals for 1 972 and 1 973.
  3. What is the estimated total import of meat by the United States of America, of items covered by the Meat Import Law, in 1974.
  4. On the basis of the estimates given in answer to parts (1) and (3), what would be the percentage of total United States of America imports supplied by Australia, and how does this percentage compare with the recorded performance in 1972 and 1973.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. In June the Australian Meat Board estimated that exports of beef and mutton to the United States of America in 1974 would be 50,000 tonnes less than for 1973. Since making that estimate industrial stoppages have affected slaughterings and it is probable that the final exports for 1974 will be appreciably less than the Board’s estimate.
  2. Imports from Australia of beef and veal and mutton compiled from United State official statistics were as follows: 1972: 330,000 tonnes 1973: 32 1,000 tonnes
  3. On 1 July the Acting United States Secretary of Agriculture announced that imports for 1 974 were estimated to be 549,000 tonnes but see ( 1 ) above.
  4. 1974: 49.6 per cent 1973: 52.3 per cent 1972: 53.7 percent.

Beef: Exports to Canada (Question No. 1072)

Mr Anthony:

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

  1. 1 ) Given the Canadian application of meat import quotas, what would be the permitted import by Canadian importers of Australian beef into Canada during 1974 and 1975.
  2. Is the quota allocation to Australia inclusive of any subsequent trans-shipment to the United States of America; if so, why.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. ) and (2) There are no country quotas established under the beef import quota scheme recently introduced by the Canadian Government.

Australian Cow Beef (Question No. 1073)

Mr Anthony:

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

  1. 1 ) What was the average monthly Meat Board c.i.f. quotation for Australian cow beef in the United States of America, in United States dollars during (a) July 1973, (b) December 1973,(c) July 1974 and (d) August 1974.
  2. On the basis of those quotations, what was the equivalent Australian f.o.b. return in Australian currency during the same months taking into account currency changes, freight rates and various associated charges.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. (a) July 1973: 184.99 U.S. cents per kilogram

    1. December 1973: 193.78 U.S. cents per kilogram
    2. July 1974: 147.20 U.S. cents per kilogram
    3. August 1974 141.92 U.S. cents per kilogram
  2. The approximate f.a.s. equivalent of the prices in ( 1 ) as published by the Australian Meat Board were as follows:

    1. 1 16.73 Australian cents per kilogram
    2. 1 12.39 Australian cents per kilogram
    3. 80.35 Australian cents per kilogram
    4. 76.35 Australian cents per kilogram

The above f.a.s. equivalent excludes any allowance for rejection insurance premiums.

V.LP. Fleet (Question No. 1092)

Mr Connolly:

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What types and numbers of aircraft comprise the VIP fleet.
  2. How many times have these aircraft been used to transport troops or equipment for military exercises

    1. within Australia; and
    2. overseas since 2 December 1972.
  3. How many QANTAS charters have been arranged to carry troops or equipment

    1. a ) within Australia; and
    2. overseas, excluding the withdrawal of Australian forces from Vietnam, since 2 December 1972.
  4. What was the total cost of the QANTAS charter.
Mr Barnard:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) BAC 1-11 -Two, Mystere 20-Three; H.S. 748-Two.
  2. These aircraft have not been used to transport troops or military equipment during the period 2 December to 30 September 1974.
  3. QANTAS charters to carry troops or equipment within Australia have not been used. 71 QANTAS charter flights overseas were made during the period 3 December 1972 to 25 September 1974 inclusive.
  4. The cost of QANTAS charter flights made during the period 3 December 1972 to 25 September 1974 inclusive was $2,373,605,

World Food Conference (Question No. 1098)

Mr Lloyd:
MURRAY, VICTORIA

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

  1. 1 ) What Government and other Australian representatives are to attend the World Food Conference in Rome in November 1974.
  2. Has the Australian Government any proposals to put to the Conference on (a) the need for a global grain stockpile, (b) ways and means of overcoming the shortage and escalating prices of fertiliser particularly in developing countries and (c) international income stability and minimum price arrangements to encourage food production and help reduce the difference in standards of living between rural and non-rural people.
Dr Patterson:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) The Minister for Agriculture will lead the Australian Delegation. Its full composition is under consideration.
  2. Australian Government representatives have taken an active and constructive part at the three sessions of an intergovernmental preparatory committee for the Conference. Against this general background the following comments relate to the specific questions.

    1. The Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Conference Secretariat have each made proposals related to a global grain stock pile and Australia is currently engaged in discussions with a view to achieving a viable scheme.
    2. The Australian Government will be making a substantial contribution of up to $A2.7m to fertiliser aid to developing countries this financial year within the context of the FAO International Fertiliser Supply Scheme.
    3. It is to meet the objectives outlined in the question that the Australian Government favours the negotiation of international commodity arrangements with price provisions. The Australian Delegation will encourage the Conference to call for negotiations where positive results are likely to be achieved.

Pharmaceutical Corporation (Question No. 1102)

Mr Lloyd:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What are the terms of reference of the Interim Committee on the Production of Pharmaceutical Products.
  2. Who are the members of the committee.
  3. When is it expected to submit its report.
Dr Everingham:
Minister for Health · CAPRICORNIA, QUEENSLAND · ALP

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

  1. 1 ) To exercise the Government’s interests in the operations of any pharmaceutical company in which the Government acquires an interest, until the proposed Pharmaceutical Corporation is established, and to carry out preliminary planning for the Corporation.
  2. To date only one member has been appointed namely Mr D. G. Dunlop formerly of the Australian Department of Health.
  3. As foreshadowed by the Governor-General in his address to Parliament on its opening in July last, it is proposed to introduce legislation to establish a Pharmaceutical Corporation. Until the Government acquires an interest in any pharmaceutical company and further members of the Interim Committee are appointed, it is not expected that there will be a report.

Pensioners: Canning Electorate (Question No. 943)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. How many people in the Electoral Division of Canning were in receipt of a pension as at 30 June 1974.
  2. What were the different categories of pension, and how many pensioners were there in each category.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

Parts ( 1 ) and (2)- Regular statistics of pensioners by electoral division are not maintained. However, a survey by postcode districts of people receiving pensions as at 30 June 1974 showed that there were 14,587 pensioners in postcode districts which approximate the area of the Electoral Division of Canning. Details of these pensioners are given in the table below.

The distribution of persons receiving supporting mother’s benefit and double orphan’s pension, for geographical areas smaller than the State is not available.

The approximate number of recipients of Age, Invalid, Wives’ and Widows’ pensions in the Electoral Division of Canning-30 June 1974.

Borg-Warners: Retrenchments (Question No. 978)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration, upon notice:

  1. How many (a) males and (b) females formerly employed at Borg-Warners, Villawood, registered as unemployed in (i) June, (ii) July and (iii) August 1974.
  2. How many of them were still registered as unemployed (a) 1 month, (b) 2 months and (c) 3 months after registering.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– I am informed that the answer to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

  1. 1 ) and (2) It is not feasible to, and my Department does not, maintain on a regular basis, statistics of registered unemployed who were formerly employed by individual firms. However, a special count of registered unemployed taken in early September showed that a total of 1 15 persons formerly employed by Borg-Warners had registered with the Commonweath Employment Service since the retrenchments were effected, of whom 84 were awaiting placement at 17 September 1974. It is understood the company had retrenched 156 persons.

Department of Social Security: Rockingham Regional Office (Question No. 1009)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Who issued invitations for the official opening of the regional office of the Department of Social Security at Rockingham, Western Australia, on 1 3 September 1 974.
  2. To whom were invitations sent.
  3. Did the Federal Member for Canning receive an invitation; if not, why not.
  4. Does he intend to follow the procedure of not inviting Federal Members to similar ceremonies in their electors in the future.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) Invitations for the official opening of the regional office of the Department of Social Security at Rockingham, Western Australia, on 13 September 1974 were issued by the Director of Social Security in Western Australia.
  2. Invitations were sent to members of Parliament, to local government leaders, to churchmen and other officials in the local community, and to representatives of community and welfare organisations.
  3. I regret to say that the Federal Member for Canning did not receive an invitation to the opening of the Rockingham office. This was due to an oversight in the Perth office of my Department and I understand that a personal apology has been made to the Member for Canning by the appropriate officer. I have asked my Department to ensure that there is no recurrence of this kind of error, and I express my personal regret for any embarrassment the omission has caused. I assure the Honourable Member that no personal affront was intended by either myself or my Department
  4. Federal Members of Parliament are, as a matter of normal procedure, invited to the opening of any regional office of my Department occurring within their electorates. It is my intention that this should continue to be the practice.

General Election 1974: Forfeiture of Deposits (Question No. 1189)

Mr Hunt:

asked the Minister for Services and Property, upon notice:

  1. How many candidates forfeited their deposits in (a) the last 2 elections for the House of Representatives and (b) the Senate election in May 1974.
  2. What were their political affiliations.
Mr Daly:
ALP

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

I refer the honourable member to my reply to Senate question nos 56 and 57 asked by Senator Withers and which appeared in the Senate Hansard of 15 August 1974 on page nos 1040-1044 (No. 56) and 1044-1053 (No. 57).

Film and Television Board: Appropriations (Question No. 510)

Mr Giles:

asked the Prime Minister. upon notice:

  1. What funds will be allocated to the Film and Television Board in 1974-75.
  2. What funds were allocated in previous years.
  3. What has been the distribution of the funds in each State in each financial year.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. $2,100,000 (including $210,000 from the allocation for ‘Council program and activities’).
  2. The Film and Television Board came into existence early in 1973 when the Australian Government announced new arrangements for support for the arts. The allocation for the period for which the Board operated in 1972-73 was $80,000; that for 1973-74 was $1,857,765 (including $176,782 transferred from ‘Council program and activities’).
  3. The distribution of funds by States for each year is as follows:

Film and Television Board- Appropriations (Question No. 511)

Mr Giles:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) With reference to the Film and Television Board, what has been the breakdown between funds used for (a) experimentation and (b) general production in each financial year.
  2. How have these funds been distributed, and what has been the allocation to each State.
  3. What firms and individuals have been recipients of these funds.
  4. On what basis are priority assessments made, and what percentage of applicants have received grants.
  5. What qualities have the assessors for their job.
  6. How many ex-writers or journalists sit in judgment on the film industry applications.
  7. Are their judgments purely opinionative.
  8. Can any judgment be made as to the effect of the expenditure of these funds on the promotion of art.
  9. Can any judgment be made on a State to State basis.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. 1) and (2) The Film and Television Board of the Australian Council for the Arts came into existence early in 1973 when the Australian Government announced new arrangements for support for the arts. The Board is concerned with the development of film and television as an art form and with experimentation in new techniques of film production.

It does not engage in film production as such. The Board ‘s budget is allocated over 29 main categories of which the Experimental Film Fund and General Production Fund are the two funding areas directly concerned with film production.

The allocation of funds through the Experimental Film Fund and the General Production Fund since the inception of the Board has been as follows:

  1. ) General Production Fund grant recipients:

    1. Non Individuals

Australian Performing Group (Vic.)

Das Films (W.A.)

Manly Warringah School for Seniors (N.S.W.)

South Australian Film Corporation (S.A.)

  1. Individuals

    1. Baker (Vic.)

G.Bardon(N.S.W.)

D. Bilcock(Vic)

J. Bird (Vic.)

J.Bruer(S.A.)

G. Burton (N.S.W.)

L. Castle (N.S.W.)

A. Cavadini(N.S.W.)

V.J. Davy(N.S.W.)

P. Drummond (Vic.)

J. Duigan (Vic.)

M.Edels(N.S.W.)

B. Foldner(Vic.)

C. French (N.S.W.)

F.Heimans(N.S.W.)

B.Hill(N.S.W.)

J. Hughes (Vic.)

P. Kennedy (N.S.W.)

A. Kuyululu(N.S.W.)

K. Mattas (N.S.W.)

R. Murphy (N.S.W.)

P. Nicholson (Vic.)

M.Price (Vic.)

D. Stammer (N.S.W.)

P.Tammer(Vic)

S.Townsend(N.S.W.)

R.Turnbull(Qld)

E. Van Der Madden (N.S.W.)

W. D. Young (Qld)

Experimental Film Fund grant recipients:

D.Ahern(NSW)

I. Allan (Qld)

J. Allan (Qld)

K.Anderson (Vic.)

K. Andrianakis (Vic.)

A. Arthur (N.S.W.)

  1. Aston (N.S.W.)
  2. Bakos(Vic)
  3. Balasaitis(Vic)
  4. Barry (N.S.W.)

J.Barry(N.S.W.)

  1. Beauman (N.S.W.)
  2. B. Becking (A.C.T.)

W.Bibrowski(Vic)

  1. Bishop (Vic.)
  2. Black (Vic.)
  3. Blonski(Vic.)
  4. Bridge (Vic.)
  5. Bridgland (S.A.)
  6. Bubner(S.A.)

N.Buesst(Vic)

  1. Burnett (N.S.W.)

W.Callan(N.S.W.)

  1. Cameron (N.S.W.)

A.Carr(Vic.)

  1. Celestino(N.S.W.)

P.Cigna(N.S.W.)

J.Clayden(Vic)

J.Coates(S.A.)

  1. Collins (N.S.W.)
  2. Conquest (Vic.)

R.Cornish (N.S.W.)

  1. Corke(Vic)

J.Correy(Vic)

V.Coventry (Vic.)

P.Crayford(S.A.)

  1. Creecy(N.S.W.)
  2. Creed (Vic.)

L.Crennan (N.S.W.

  1. Curr(N.S.W.)

L.Cutts(Vic)

  1. Davidson (N.S.W.)
  2. Dee (Vic.)

J.Delacour(N.S.W.)

  1. De Lorenzo (N.S.W.)
  2. Dimpsey (Vic.)

W.Dobrowolski(Vic)

P.Dodds(Vic)

  1. Doig(N.S.W.)
  2. Dryga(S.A.)
  3. Duncan (N.S.W.)
  4. Eagle (N.S.W.)

G.Eiffe(S.A.)

  1. Ehrlich(S.A.)

N.Ellamoos(N.S.W.)

  1. Evans (Vic.)
  2. Evans (N.S.W.)
  3. Fabinyi(N.S.W.)

K.Fell(N.S.W.)

T.FentonKerr(N.S.W.)

  1. Findlay(Vic)
  2. Finny (Vic.)

C.Fitchett(Vic.)

S.Ford (Vic.)

  1. Gaal(Vic.)
  2. Gauci(S.A.)
  3. Glasheen (N.S.W.)

G.Glenn (Vic.)

G.Gordon (Vic.)

K.Gordon (Qld)

  1. Gough (S.A.)
  2. Green (N.S.W.)
  3. Grieg(Vic.)
  4. Griffith (Vic.)
  5. Gross (N.S.W.)
  6. Grounds (N.S.W.)
  7. Gurfinkel(Vic.)

G.Gurr(N.S.W.)

  1. Harmon (N.S.W.)
  2. Harvey (N.S.W.)

L.Hexter(Vic.)

  1. Hicks (S.A.)
  2. Hobbs(Vic)

B.Hodson(N.S.W.)

  1. Horowitz (N.S.W.)
  2. Howard (Vic.)
  3. Howard (N.S.W.)

M.Hudson (Vic.)

  1. Hughes (Vic.)
  2. Huw(S.A.)
  3. Ingram (S.A.)
  4. Irving (Vic.)

G.Jackson(N.S.W.)

K.Jaritz(N.S.W.)

  1. Jasper (Vic.)

T.Jennings (S.A.)

  1. Jolley(S.A.)

D.Jones (Vic.)

  1. Jenes(Vic.)
  2. Kay(N.S.W.)
  3. Kelk (Vic.)
  4. Knapman(S.A.)

D.Kynoch(S.A.)

  1. Lander (Vic.)
  2. Langer(Vic)
  3. Laurie (Vic.)

M.Lee (Vic.)

B.Levy(N.S.W.)

J.Lewis(N.S.W.)

  1. Liebel(Vic.)
  2. Llewellyn (S.A.)
  3. Lord (Vic.)
  4. Lourie(N.S.W.)
  5. Luithle(N.S.W.)
  6. McAlphine(N.S.W.)
  7. McCann (N.S.W.)
  8. Macrae (Vic.)
  9. McCullough(N.S.W.)
  10. MeGuiffie (Vic.)
  11. McIntyre(N.S.W.)
  12. McLennan (Vic.)

T.McMahon(N.S.W.)

  1. McNaughton (Vic.)

R.Manouge(S.A.)

  1. Mares (S.A.)
  2. Marjason (N.S.W.)
  3. Martin (Vic.)
  4. Mason (N.S.W.)

R.Mathews (Vic.)

  1. Menton(Vic)
  2. Mitchell (S.A.)

T.Molomby(N.S.W.)

  1. Morgan (Vic.)
  2. Morrison (Vic.)

O.Munn(N.S.W.)

  1. Nicholls (S.A.)
  2. Nicholson (N.S.W.)
  3. Nicholson (Vic.)
  4. Noble (W.A.)
  5. Noonan(N.S.W.)

V.O’Donnell(N.S.W.)

B.Oldfield(W.A.)

R.Owen(N.S.W.)

  1. Pannan (S.A.)
  2. Papadopoulos (N.S.W.)
  3. Parsons (S.A.)
  4. Pascoe(W.A.)
  5. Patterson (Vic.)

R.Pendlebury(S.A.)

  1. Phillips (N.S.W.)
  2. Pitson (Vic.)

K.Quinnell(N.S.W.)

G. Radley(Vic)

F. Regan (N.S.W.)

R.Riauba(S.A.)

R. Riccola (S.A.)

S. Richardson (N.S.W.)

J.Ricketson(N.S.W.)

B. Roberts (S.A.)

C. Roberts (Vic.)

D. Roberts (N.S.W.)

F.Robertson (Vic.)

C. Rowe (S.A.)

M. Ruben (Vic.)

R. Saunders (S.A.)

L.Scarles(N.S.W.)

D. Scheckowski(Qld)

R.Scholes(Vic.)

H. Schute(Vic)

M. Scott (Vic.)

B. Scrobogna(Vic)

C. Smith (S.A.)

J. Smith (Qld)

D. Stocker(N.S.W.)

I. Stocks (N.S.W.)

V.Stojanovic(A.C.T.)

B. Stretch (N.S.W.)

C. Suggest (Vic.)

V.SumegiN.S.W.)

P.Tammer(Vic.)

A. Thoms (N.S.W.)

P.Trahair(Vic.)

A.Tzannes(N.S.W.)

J. Van Bommel (Vic.)

  1. VanDalen(S.A.)
  2. Van Der Leslie (N.S.W.)
  3. Vial (Vic.)
  4. Wallace (N.S.W.)
  5. Watson (N.S.W.)

R.Westfield(N.S.W.)

B. Williams (N.S.W.)

K. Williams (Vic.)

P. Williams (S.A.)

E. Wilson (Qld)

J. Wilson (Vic.)

L. Wilson (N.S.W.)

P.Winkler(N.S.W.)

P.Wooley(N.S.W.)

R.Wyatt(Qld)

K.Wynn(N.S.W.)

  1. Applications are assessed on a national and comparative basis having regard to such considerations as the quality of the project, level of creativity and development and the competence of the applicants to realise their intentions.

At present approximately 17 per cent of applications put to the Board receive some measure of support.

  1. to (9) The members of the Film and Television Board are drawn from a number of areas largely connected with film and television and bring a variety of talents and expertise to the tasks of assessing projects that might receive support. Changes are made in the composition of the Board each year so that new ideas, new approaches and new talents can be brought to bear on these matters.

In making assessments on the grounds indicated in (4) above the Board members have the assistance also of creative personnel within the film industry in order to make the best kinds of judgments to promote the arts in the area of film and television in the best interests of the whole community.

Film and Television Board: Administrative Costs (Question No. 512)

Mr Giles:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Will he make available a comprehensive breakdown of administrative costs and other expenses incurred by the Film and Television Board in each financial year.
  2. In what profitable ventures has the Board been involved.
  3. In these instances, what investment has the Board made, and what proportion is this investment to total investment from other sources.
  4. Will he name these other sources.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. With the exception of costs for meetings and consultations the administrative costs of the Film and Television Board and all other constituent Boards of the Australian Council for the Arts are borne by the Australian Council for the Arts under functional categories. There are no ready means for extracting the administrative costs of one Board. Total expenditure by the Board in 1973-74 was $1,857,765 including $ 1 76,782 from the allocation for ‘Council program and activities’. Of this total expenditure $28,323 was allocated for the cost of Film and Television Board meetings, including sitting fees, travel and accommodation, and the balance was directed to support for the arts.
  2. (3) and (4) The Film and Television Board is not concerned with considerations of financial profitability as such and does not engage in investment-type activities or in productions in commercial terms.

Women: Public Service Promotions Appeal Committees (Question No. 6)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

How many (a) women and (b) men have sat as union representatives on selection panels, tribunals and other appeal boards established under the Public Service Act in the last 12 months.

Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

Staff association nominees are included on Promotions Appeal Committees but not on selection panels or tribunals established under the Public Service Act.

Information on the numbers of women and men who have sat as staff association nominees on Promotions Appeal Committees in the last twelve months is not available.

A recently conducted survey of the A.C.T. Promotions Appeal Committees revealed that over an eight week period there were seven female and 102 male staff association nominees on Committees. Further surveys are being conducted of the representation of men and women on Promotions Appeal Committees in New South Wales, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

Public Service Regulations (Question No. 734)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Did the present Minister for Labor and Immigration say, with the authority of the present Prime Minister, on 17 September 1972, that a Labor Government would adopt the 1970 submission of the Council of Commonwealth Public Service Organisations to repeal sub-regulation 34(a) and regulation 35 of the Public Service Regulations and to substitute a regulation recording it as a disciplinary offence for an officer to disclose or make use of information gained by him by reason of his office.
  2. 2 ) If so, has this been done; if not, why not.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. The right honourable member is obviously referring to a speech entitled ‘Official Secrecy, Open Government and Making Democracy Democratic’ delivered by the present Minister for Labor and Immigration on 1 7 September 1 972.
  2. Under the Public Service Act, Public Service Regulations are made by the Public Service Board subject to the approval of the Governor-General in Council. Regulation 34 (b) was repealed in this manner- and a review of similar statutory authority regulations etc is now being made with a view to their repeal.

I am informed that the Public Service Board is conducting a review of Public Service Regulations 34 (a) and 35 in the ‘ light of the Freedom of Information Act foreshadowed by the Government. The outcome of this review will depend upon the final form of the Freedom of Information Act. Statutory authority rules similar to Regulations 34 (a) and 35 will also be examined in the light of the legislation proposed.

Overseas Travel by Public Servants (Question No. 547)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. How many public servants travelled overseas on official business during 1973.
  2. What was the total cost of such travel.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. 1 have been informed that during 1973 1 196 persons employed in departments and associated authorities under the Public Service Act travelled overseas on official business. This number excludes persons who travelled overseas to take up long-term postings.
  2. The total cost of that travel, including fares and accommodation, was $2,710,780.

Maternity Leave for Public Servants (Question No. 819)

Dr Klugman:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

How many employees of the Australian Government applied for maternity leave benefits between 1 July 1973 and 30 June ->‘“4.

Mr Whitlam The question to the honourable member’s question is as follows:

The Public Service Board has advised me that, between 1 July 1973 and 30 June 1974, a total of 3582 Australian public servants started maternity leave. Of these, 2954 were officers, 252 were temporary employees and 376 were exempt employees.

Statistics on the application of the Maternity Leave (Australian Government Employees) Act are not centrally collected but the Public Service Board has provided the above information on staff employed under the Public Service Act. Although this information is not expressed in terms of employees who applied for benefits but covers only those who received benefits, the Board has pointed out that, under the Maternity Leave (Australian Government Employees) Act, eligible persons have a statutory entitlement to the maternity leave provisions. The statistics provided above should therefore reflect the number of eligible public service applicants.

Public Service Statistics (Question No. 988)

Mr Holten:
INDI, VICTORIA

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. How many Australian Government Departments were there as at (a) 30 November 1972 and (b) 30 June 1974, and what was the title of each.
  2. How many persons were employed (a) in each Department and (b) in total on the same dates.
  3. What was the salaries and wages bill (a) of each Department and (b) in total for each of the years 1971-72, 1972-73 and 1973-74.
  4. What was the percentage increase in (a) the number of Departments, (b) the number of persons employed (i) in each Department and (ii) in total and (c) the salaries and wages bill (i) of each Department and (ii) in total from 1 July 1969 to 30 June 1974, and what is the estimated percentage increase in each case for the period 1 July 1974 to 30 June 1976.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. (2) and (4) The information sought by the honourable member may be derived from the sources mentioned in my answer on 24 September 1 974 ( Hansard p. 1 756 ) and he will readily be able to make the calculations from that information.

No estimates have been made for 1974-76. 1 would, however, refer the honourable member to the Treasurer’s statement concerning the ceiling on the growth of full-time staff employed under the Public Service Act during 1974-75 (Hansard, 17 September 1974, page 1286).

  1. In respect of the financial year 1973-74 see 1974-75 Budget Paper No. 4, ‘Estimates of Receipts and Summary of Estimated Expenditure’, (page 72). Figures for the financial years 1971-72 and 1972-73 were published similarly and tabled as pan of the Budget Papers for those years. I also refer the honourable member to ‘Table 8: Cash Expenditure’, page 40, of the Postmaster-General’s 1974 Annual Report. The Report was tabled on 24 September (Hansard, pages 1647-48).

Civil Defence Exercises (Question No. 1130)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

  1. With reference to the answer to question No. 548 (Hansard, 19 September 1974, page 162 1 ) in which he indicated that the form and frequency of exercises in Government Departments in civil defence preparedness are as determined by individual Departments, on what dates in the last 18 months have exercises in this nature been conducted in his Department
  2. ) Which officers and employees took pan.
  3. How many officers and employees took pan.
  4. What was the purpose of each of the exercises.
  5. Does he accept that this is an area where the Australian Government can give a lead to other employers.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

  1. No exercises have been conducted in the last 18 months.
  2. (3) and (4) See answer to (1).
  3. See my answer on 19 September 1974 (Hansard, p. 1621).

IAC Report on Pharmaceutical and Veterinary Products (Question No. 1159)

Mr Lloyd:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

When will the Industries Assistance Commission report on the level of protection for the pharmaceutical and veterinary products industry be presented to Parliament.

Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

The enquiry into the level of protection for the pharmaceutical and veterinary products is part of the Commission’s continuing tariff review program and the report is expected to be received by the Government towards the end of 1975.

Flood Mitigation: Victoria (Question No. 1205)

Mr Lloyd:

asked the Prime Minister, upon notice:

Has the Premier of Victoria requested support for or consideration of flood mitigation proposals, as distinct from flood reclamation assistance, for the State of Victoria.

Mr Whitlam:
ALP

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

No. I have, however, suggested to the Premier a joint Australian Government/Victorian undertaking to avoid future flooding in the Seymour area. As a result of this initiative Victoria has proposed a works program to reduce the frequency of flooding to an acceptable level. The proposal is being studied by the relevant departments.

Passenger Car Booking Service: Staff Rosters (Question No. 36)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Manufacturing Industry, upon notice:

  1. How many staff are rostered for duty each day of the week to receive passenger car bookings in each capital city.
  2. What is the comparative work load on each person in each state.
Mr Enderby:
Minister for Manufacturing Industry · ALP

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

  1. and (2) The passenger car booking service provided by the Stores and Transport Branch of the Department of Manufacturing Industry operates on a 24 hours, 7 days per week basis. The number of staff rostered to receive and allocate passenger car bookings varies between busy and quiet periods. Additionally, in quiet periods the staff perform other duties. Thus it is not practicable to arrive at a meaningful comparison of workload of each of the staff in each State for the continuous service provided.

However some indication, although with limitations, may be obtained by taking as the basis for comparison the average daily bookings during a recent period of eight weeks. Most bookings are received during the hours 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Retraining Scheme (Question No. 705)

Mr Malcolm Fraser:

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration, upon notice:

  1. How is it intended to predict future labour market requirements for his retraining scheme.
  2. What acceptance does the retraining scheme have from the trade union movement and industry.
  3. How will the existing apprenticeship schemes be affected.
  4. Will unions be prepared to abandon their traditional objections to adult training in skilled trades.
  5. How will the retraining scheme affect training programs conducted and financed by industry.
  6. Given that there will be limited resources to finance the retraining scheme, will finance be adequate to cope with the demand for training.
  7. Can the retraining scheme be assembled in sufficient time to cope with the significant number of workers already retrenched due to tariff cuts and other Government decisions.
  8. Have studies been undertaken to ensure that people, especially older people, have the ability to be retrained and relocated in new jobs, and to undergo the necessary social and psychological adjustments.
  9. Without explicit elegibility criteria, will the Government ensure that the unemployed with the greatest needs or those with the greatest potential for training receive it under the retraining scheme.
  10. How is it expected the criteria will work out in practice.
  11. 1 1 ) To what extent will country workers participate in the scheme, and how far is the Government prepared to take relocation of country workers.
  12. Given the limited resources available to the retraining scheme, how will older people, say over 55, be regarded in relation to training.
  13. Will a woman whose husband continues to provide adequately for the family and who is able to undertake training on her own behalf, be given the same opportunity to take advantage of the retraining scheme as for example a woman with dependent children.
  14. 14) Will child care facilities continue to be provided for women after they have completed training and entered the work force; if so, will such child care facilities be extended to all working mothers.
  15. Have studies been undertaken into the reaction of mothers, who choose to stay at home and care for their children, to the provision of Government child care facilities to women who are being paid allowances to undertake training; if so, will they be provided with an equivalent grant.
  16. What conditions will be imposed upon people accepting training and allowances, both during and after the training period.
  17. Will people who are refused training be able to appeal against the decision.
  18. Have studies been undertaken into the reaction of students at tertiary institutions, particularly mature-age students, when they find themselves studying alongside trainees under the retraining scheme who are receiving substantially higher allowances.
  19. Have studies been undertaken into the reaction of the public service unions to the Australian Government taking a lead in extending part-time work opportunities and granting permanent status to part-time employees.
  20. Will the Government be able to guarantee people jobs after they have completed training.
  21. How often can a particular person be retrained.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

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

  1. 1 ) My Department has at its disposal a wide range of labour market information which is available through the work of the national employment agency, CES. This information is supplemented by a continuous short-run assessment of the economic situation. Steps are being taken to expand the Department’s capacity for long-run forecasting through the establishment of a manpower forecasting unit; this unit is being provided with ADP facilities which will enable it to undertake manpower forecasting based on longrun econometric models of the Australian economy. The capacity of the CES to provide labour market information is presently the subject of extensive developmental work designed to pave the way for the introduction of ADP techniques which will enable data on job vacancies and job seekers to be circulated rapidly between offices of the CES.
  2. There is a general acceptance of the need for retraining by both trade union and employer sectors of industry.
  3. Existing apprenticeship schemes will continue as before and I expect they will be further supplemented by provisions of NEAT.
  4. In several areas, there has already been an acceptance and encouragement of adult training schemes, subject to safeguards for the apprenticeship system. However, some unions have not abandoned their traditional objections to adult training in skilled trades. I am hopeful that as the application of NEAT develops, suitable arrangements will be made to accommodate the attitudes of these unions.
  5. NEAT is not primarily concerned with industry’s responsibility to train its staff. The Government encourages that, however, under other programmes administered by my Department. NEAT will have capacity to utilise training facilities in private firms as part of the overall effort to provide training opportunities to the community.
  6. It is not anticipated that finance will limit the scope of retraining.
  7. Training assistance is but one of the measures available under the Government’s Structural Adjustment Assistance Scheme. Moreover, training assistance has been available under the training schemes which NEAT supersedes since before the Government cut tariffs by 25 per cent in July 1 973. With the introduction of NEAT the training assistance available to workers retrenched directly as a result of Government-induced structural change will be greatly enchanced and, as a consequence, a greater proportion of these workers may be expected to benefit from training to help them secure further employment. The honourable member may rest assured that NEAT is ready to cope with these demands.
  8. Findings of relevant studies conducted in other countries indicate substantial success achieved in the training of older workers. Through its administration of existing training schemes, my Department has had experience with providing training opportunities for older workers. It will be one of the functions of the new Manpower Divisions of my Department to carry out and arrange for studies of the nature referred to by the honourable member.
  9. It is not true to say that there will be no eligibility criteria attached to NEAT. The principal criteria will be the requirements of the labour market, the applicant’s ability to complete the form of training sought, and to whether the training proposed is necessary or desirable to obtain suitable employment. These are deliberately broad and flexible criteria.

As NEAT develops, it will gain in its capacity to provide training for all persons who require it irrespective of age, sex or location. But, in the initial stages, there may be a need to give special attention to, for example-.

  1. persons rendered redundant by Government action such as tariff cuts;
  2. persons rendered redundant by technological changes or other redundancy-causing situations;
  3. persons whose employment prospects are affected by residence in an area where employment opportunities are limited or declining;
  4. persons who are unemployed for reasons such as health, incapacity, imprisonment, inadequate or inappropriate work skills or for lack of job opportunity;
  5. persons who enter approved forms of training designed to alleviate specific labour shortages;
  6. persons already in employment who on their own initiative wish to upgrade their skills.

    1. 10) See answer to question (9), above.
    2. Country workers will be eligible to participate in retraining and will be entitled to receive appropriate fares and living-away-from-home allowances. The Government has already announced its intention to provide relocation assistance to workers affected by structural change.
    3. See answer to questions 8 and 9, above, which indicate that older workers will be eligible for assistance under NEAT.
    4. A basic tenet of NEAT is that there is no discrimination on the grounds of sex, nor is level of income in itself one of the criteria on which an application for training is considered.
    5. and (15) I suggest that the honourable member directs these questions to the Minister whose portfolio covers child care facilities.
    6. Those undertaking training will be expected to make satisfactory progress.
    7. Yes, they will be able to have their cases reviewed by me or by the Central Office of my Department.
    8. My Department will certainly conduct appropriate investigations as the need to do so emerges, but I would add that for some years now, under existing training schemes administered by my Department, persons undertaking courses for the purposes of labour market training have been undertaking them alongside students and without difficulties arising as to different levels of allowances.
    9. 19) The honourable member refers to a recommendation of the Committee of Enquiry into Labor Market Training (the Cochrane Committee). The recommendation has my full support. The Public Service Board is currently conducting a full review of part-time employment in the Australian Public Service, which includes an examination of the feasibility of permanent part-time employment.
    10. No. But, since choice of appropriate training will be assisted by counselling by CES in conjunction with its asssessment of short and medium range labour needs, it will be unlikely that a person completing his training successfully would have serious difficulty in obtaining employment.
    11. 1 ) A person will be entitled to be retrained to the extent that training will be a realistic and viable means of assisting that person to cope with the needs and problems of the labour market. With increasing technological and other changes taking place in our society it could be expected that opportunities for training and re-training will have to be made available to people throughout their working lives.

Maternity Leave (Australian Government Employees) Act (Question No. 764)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Labor and Immigration, upon notice:

  1. Is it a fact that the Maternity Leave (Australian Government Employees) Act does not make adequate provision for women seeking part-time employment in the Public Service at the conclusion of maternity leave.
  2. Was it his intention that women who seek such parttime employment and who previously held permanent positions will be required to resign or to forego their permanency and accept temporary employment.
  3. If not, does he intend to take steps to correct the situation; if so, how and when.
Mr Clyde Cameron:
HINDMARSH, SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP

– The answer to the right honourable member’s question is as follows: (1), (2) and (3) I presume his question relates to women who have been in full-time employment, have been absent on maternity leave and at the conclusion of their entitlement to maternity, sick, recreation and other leave wish to return to part-time, rather than full-time, employment.

The Maternity Leave (Australian Government Employees) Act provides that a permanent officer returning from maternity leave must be re-employed in her former position or in a position at a level as near as possible to that held by her at the commencement of her maternity leave. At present there are no permanent part-time positions in the Public Service and therefore the opportunity for transferring from a full-time to a permanent part-time position does not exist.

The Committee of Enquiry into Labour Market Training (the Cochrane Committee) which reported to me in May of this year, recommended that the Australian Government take the lead in extending opportunities for part-time employment by granting permanent status to its part-time employees. I fully support this recommendation.

The Public Service Board is currently conducting a full review of part-time employment in the Australian Public Service, which includes an examination of the feasibility of permanent part-time employment. Any questions on the progress of this review should be directed to the Prime Minister.

Dentists (Question No. 781)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What is the ratio of dentists to population in each State and Territory in Australia.
  2. ) What is considered to be a satisfactory level.
  3. What is the projected enrolmentratioindentistry courses in Australia in the next10 years.
  4. What is the projected ratio of dentists to population in the next 10 years.
Dr Everingham:
ALP

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

  1. According to a publication of the Australian Dental Association entitled ‘ Facts and Figures 1 973 ‘, the estimated active dentist/population ratio at 31 December 1972 in each State and Territory was as follows:

New South Wales- 1/2,870

Victoria-1/3,408

Queensland- 1/2,7 13

South Australia-1/2,922

Western Australia- 1/2,587

Tasmania- 1/4,357

Northern Territory- 1 /4,462

Australian Capital Territory- 1 / 1 , 909

  1. , (3) and (4) I have been advised by my colleague, the Minister for Education, that total enrolments in all years of bachelor degree courses in Australian dental schools now number slightly less than 1,500. The output of qualified dentists is expected to increase from 195 attained in 1973 to 270 in 1980.IwouldaddthattheAustralianUniversitiesCom- mission, in conjunction with my Department, is looking at the question of the dental requirements of the Australian community and is examining the dental manpower situation in Australia with a view to including proposals for the expansion of facilities for teaching dentistry in its recommendations for the 1976-78 triennium.

Department of Manufacturing Industry: Management Consultant Firms (Question No. 811)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Manufacturing Industry, upon notice:

  1. For what purpose has the Department used management consultant firms in the last 12 months.
  2. ) Which firms have been used.
  3. What was the total cost.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) The services of various management consultants have been utilised from time to time to provide highly specialised assistance to the Department as follows:

    1. To undertake in-depth studies and surveys of specified aspects of Australian industry operations, and to submit reports and recommendations thereon.
    2. To provide support to the Consultative Services Section of the Technical Services Branch. This section’s role is to contribute to the achievement of continuous improvement in the efficiency and effectiveness of production and management operations by the application of the management sciences.

Because of the diverse range of activities in which the Department’s many establishments are engaged, it would prove extremely costly to maintain a permanent capability in the areas of skills available as required from private consultants. Accordingly, as the proposed program of improvements progresses, negotiations are entered into with private organisations possessing the expertise most appropriate to particular assignments.

  1. and (3) Consultants engaged during 1973-74, a brief description of the assignments they each undertook and the cost, are as follows:

    1. Davy Ashmore Pry Ltd

To undertake a study and to submit a report on the decentralisation of industry- $50,000

  1. Arthur D. Little (International) Incorporated Massachusetts, U.S.A.

To study and report on the electronics components industry-$50,430

  1. W. D. Scott & Co. Pty Ltd

To conclude and to ensure the successful implementation of a management information project for Stores and Transport Branch-$93 1

  1. P.A. Management Consultants Pty Ltd

    1. To provide assistance in planning and implementation of a structured approach to the design of management information systems- $800
    2. To provide assistance in a survey of departmental industrial engineering needs- $400
    3. To carry out an assignment leading to the design of a management information system at Australian Government Engine Works- $600
    4. To provide training courses for departmental officers in internal consultancy techniques$2,945
    5. To undertake an initial study leading to the introduction of a comprehensive management information system at Government Aircraft Factories^ 10,000
  2. John P. Young & Associates

To conduct a value analysis/value engineering assignment at the Victorian Regional Office of the Department^ 1,600

  1. Stuckey and Beale Pty Ltd

    1. To conduct a seminar at the Australian Government Clothing Factory Coburg on new garment technology-$620
    2. To conduct an industrial engineering project in the cutting room section of the Australian Government Cothing Factory-$ 1 1,3 10

page 2604

TOTAL COST OF ABOVE ASSIGNMENTS $ 1 29,636

Royal Australian Navy: Ship Refits (Question No. 852)

Mr Connolly:

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Did he announce on 22 July 1974 that HMAS PERTH would leave for the United States of America to have a major refit which would include a new combat data system for its Tartar Missile Fire Control System, replacement of the Sin. gun mounts, modernized radar, etc.
  2. Did he also announce that the PERTH’S sister ships HMAS BRISBANE and HMAS HOBART, would also be modernised but in Australia.
  3. If the position is as stated, will HMAS BRISBANE and HMAS HOBART have a refit to the same standard as HMAS PERTH.
  4. If so, why is it necessary for HMAS PERTH to be refitted in the United States.
  5. If not, why are not HMAS BRISBANE and HMAS HOBART also being refitted in the United States.
Mr Barnard:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) Yes. HMAS PERTH departed on 3 1 July 1 974 for the USA for modernisation and essential associated refit work which commenced on 3 September 1 974.
  2. Yes.
  3. HMAS BRISBANE and HMAS HOBART are programmed to be modernised to the same standards as HMAS PERTH.
  4. and (5) The expertise and experience to install the Naval Combat Data System and the Tartar Digital Update does not currently exist in Australia. HMAS PERTH is being modernised in the USA so that a baseline may be developed for utilisation at Garden Island Dockyard. The USN has agreed to provide and demonstrate to the RAN an operable weapon and control system when installed in a US shipyard. The USN does not have any responsibility for the operability of the systems which will be installed in Australia. Therefore, it is most important that Garden Island Dockyard be provided with an operable system which can be used as a comparison during systems installation and checkout in HMAS BRISBANE and HMAS HOBART.

Furthermore, the RAN is taking the opportunity to train appropriate personnel by on-the-job training at Long Beach Naval Shipyard during HMAS PERTH’S modernisation.

Gas Reserves (Question No. 908)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

What are the proved and probable gas reserves at (a) Gidgealpa, (b) Palm Valley and (c) the North West Shelf in Western Australia.

Mr Connor:
ALP

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

Estimated Proved and Probable Gas Reserves are:

Crude Oil (Question No. 916)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What is the current level of crude oil stocks held by refineries in Australia.
  2. What is regarded as a minimum safe level to be held at one time by refineries.
  3. Are current stocks and storage capacity regarded as acceptable in view of refinery capacity.
  4. Given average monthly refinery throughput, what level and period of refinery operation would the current stock level sustain given a complete dependence upon these stocks by refineries.
Mr Connor:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) The level of crude oil stocks at a refinery varies from day to day due to the steady consumption at the refinery and the intermittent arrival of fresh stocks by tanker or pipeline.

Crude oil stocks held by refineries in Australia average about 5,750,000 barrels, or the equivalent of 10 days consumption.

Some refineries are connected to oil fields by pipelines. In these cases, the entire recoverable contents of the oil field can be regarded as refinery stocks, to be fed into the refinery as required.

  1. For those countries completely dependent on imported oil, the OECD is striving to ensure that 90 days storage of crude plus products is held at all times. However, Australia, because two-thirds of its crude supplies are indigenous, does not need this amount. Ninety days reserve of Bass Strait crude at the fixed price of $2.08 per barrel would involve $1 14m tied up in stocks plus approximately $250m capital cost of tankage at present construction costs.
  2. Yes.
  3. Answer contained in ( 1 ).

Fire Fighting Procedures (Question No. 1132)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Minerals and Energy, upon notice:

  1. With reference to the answer to question No. 548 (Hansard, 19 September 1974, page 1621) in which the Prime Minister indicated that the form and frequency of exercises in Government Departments in civil defence preparedness are as determined by individual Departments, on what dates in the last 1 8 months have exercises of this nature been conducted in his Department.
  2. Which officers and employees took part.
  3. 3 ) How many officers and employees took pan.
  4. What was the purpose of each of the exercises.
  5. Does he accept that this is an area where the Australian Government can give a lead to other employers.
Mr Connor:
ALP

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

  1. 3 August 1973.
  2. Departmental officers and employees located in Hobart Place, Canberra City.
  3. Building evacuation.
  4. Yes.

Civil Marriage Ceremony Fees (Question No. 1172)

Mr McVeigh:

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

  1. 1 ) Is there a set fee to be charged at weddings performed by a civil marriage celebrant.
  2. If so, is the fee of $30 reportedly charged for each wedding by Mrs Angela Burn; wife of the State Australian Labour Party Member for Lytton, Queensland, within the set charge.
Mr Enderby:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) Yes. The fees payable for a civil marriage ceremony, including one solemnized by a State or Territory official attached to a registry office, are set out in the Marriage Regulations. To provide for varying circumstances, there are several fees prescribed, rather than a single amount. A fee of $5 is payable upon lodgement of the Notice of Intended Marriage. Upon solemnization of the marriage a further fee of $10 is payable if the marriage is solemnized between the hours of 9.00 a.m. and 5.00 p.m. on a weekday that is not a public holiday (or during the normal hours of duty of a registry office celebrant). If the marriage is solemnized at any other time this fee becomes $15. An additional amount is payable if the marriage is solemnized at a place other than the home of the celebrant (or the normal place of employment if the celebrant is a registry office official). This additional amount is $10 if the distance away from the home (or place of employment of the official) is not more than 30 kilometres. For greater distances the additional amount is one for negotiation.
  2. Yes. It will be seen from (1) that $30 would be the total fee payable in respect of a ceremony conducted out of normal hours away from, but within 30 kilometres of, the celebrant’s home.

Australian Government: Lease of Office Space (Question No. 1187)

Mr Hunt:

asked the Minister for Services and Property, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What is the annual cost to the Australian Government - of leasing office space in the Sydney metropolitan area.
  2. How much space is leased, and for what purpose.
  3. What are the addresses of the properties leased, and who are the proprietors of each property.
  4. What is the current rental of each of the premises.
  5. 5 ) What is the term of each lease.
  6. How much have rentals increased for Government accommodation in the City of Sydney since 30 June 1 972.
Mr Daly:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2 ) The annual cost of leasing office space in Sydney as at 27 September 1974 and the area involved was:
  2. to (5) The information requested by the honourable member is tabled regularly in an abridged form in both Houses of this Parliament in accordance with Section 7 (3) of the Lands Acquisition Act. I do not propose to provde further details for a number of reasons, particularly that to do so would be an unwarranted intrusion into the private affairs of individual lessors; nor would it be in the interests of the Australian Government in negotiating further leases.

More importantly, however, the information is not readily available and would require an inordinate amount of time and effort to provide the information sought by the honourable member. This situation arises because of the neglect of previous Governments where adequate information concerning Australian Government owned or leased premises was never collated. I announced recently that my Department had initiated a programme designed to produce a computer record of all Australian Government owned and leased property. This is a mammoth task. Nevertheless I am hopeful that the record will be completed within the next six months when it will be maintained up to date and detailed information will be readily available to the Government.

  1. Compared with the information given in answer to sub-paragraphs (1) and (2) of the question, the relevant figures as at 30 June 1972 are as follows:

As might be expected there are no adequate statistics available to provide a break-up between central business district and suburbs.

Australian Government: Lease of Office Space (Question No. 1191)

Mr Hunt:

asked the Minister for Services and Property, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) What is the annual cost to the Australian Government of leasing office space in the cities of (a) Brisbane, (b) Melbourne, (c) Adelaide, (d) Perth and (e) Hobart.
  2. How much space is leased in each city, and for what purpose.
  3. What are the addresses of the properties leased, and who are the proprietors of each property
  4. What is the current rental of each property.
  5. 5 ) What is the term of each lease.
  6. What has been the total increase in rentals in each city since 30 June 1972.
Mr Daly:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2 ) Following is a schedule of areas leased by the Australian Government and costs of leasing at 27 September 1974:

(3), (4) and (5) The information requested by the honourable member is tabled regularly in an abridged form in both Houses of this Parliament in accordance with Section 7 (3) of the Lands Acquisition Act.

I do not propose to provide further details for a number of reasons, particularly that to do so would be an unwarranted intrusion into the private affairs of individual lessors; nor would it be in the interests of the Australian Government in negotiating further leases.

More importantly, however, the information is not readily available and would require an inordinate amount of time and effort to provide the information sought by the honourable member. This situation arises because of the neglect of previous Governments where adequate information concerning Australian Government owned or leased premises was never collated. I announced recently that my Department had initiated a program designed to produce a computer record of all Australian Government owned and leased property. This is a mammoth task. Nevertheless I am hopeful that the record will be completed within the next six months when it will be maintained up to date and detailed information will be readily available to the Government.

  1. Compared with the information given in subparagraphs ( 1 ) and (2 ) of this answer, the relevant figures as at 30 June 1972 are:

As might be expected there are no adequate statistics available to provide a break-up between central business district and suburbs.

Ministerial Councils: Contact with States (Question No. 46)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice:

  1. Will the Minister provide a list of all formal committees, councils, etc., that have been established which enable him or officers of his Department to maintain contact with State Government Ministers or State Government officers.
  2. When was each body established and by whom.
  3. What is the (a) composition and (b) function of each body.
  4. On what occasions has each body met in the last 2 years and for what purpose.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

– The Foreign Minister has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question: 1, 2, 3 and 4. 1 refer the right honourable member to the Prime Minister’s answer to question No. 41 (Hansard 3 October 1974, pages 2233-2239) in which he provided details of Councils upon which both Australian Government and State Ministers are represented.

Yugoslavia Trial of Australian Citizens (Question No. 219)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice:

  1. With reference to the Minister’s answer to question No. 967 of 25 September 1973 concerning details which have been made available to the Government on the trials in Yugoslavia of 8 men holding Australian citizenship, has the translation of the material referred to now been completed.
  2. If so, will the Minister now make those records available to the Parliament; if not, why not.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

– The Foreign Minister has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question: 1 and 2. Translations necessary to enable an anlysis to be made of the material in the light of information already held by the Australian authories from their own sources, have been made. This anlysis necessitates the obtaining of clarification on a number of points before an overall assessment can be made of the material. Until this clarification has been obtained and proper assessments can be made, it would be detrimental to the interests of individuals concerned if premature release were made of the material.

Export Incentives: Interdepartmental Committee (Question No. 272)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Overseas Trade, upon notice:

In relation to the reference by the Prime Minister at his press conference on 30 January 1973 to an interdepartmental committee dealing with export incentives, what is the committee’s (a) membership, (b) timetable and (c) charter.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

– The answer to the right honourable member’s question is as follows: (a), (b) and (c) An IDC consisting of officials from the Departments of the Treasury, Overseas Trade and the former Department of Secondary Industry was set up to examine the need for a satisfactory export incentives scheme and report as soon as possible to the Treasurer and the then Minister for Overseas Trade and Secondary Industry. The Committee’s report was presented to Cabinet on 13 March 1973.

Export Credits: Interpartmental Committee (Question No. 274)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Overseas Trade, upon notice:

In relation to the reference by the Prime Minister in a press conference on 30 January 1973 to an interdepartmental committee to consider the general question of export credits, what is the committee’s (a) membership, (b) timetable and (c) chaner.

Dr J F Cairns:
LALOR, VICTORIA · ALP

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

  1. The membership of the Committee comprised representatives of the Department of Overseas Trade, the former Department of Secondary Industry, the Treasury, the Reserve Bank and the Export Payments Insurance Corporation.
  2. and (c) The Committee’s charter was ‘to examine the need for any new facilities to provide export finance and to report to the Minister for Overseas Trade and Secondary Industry and the Treasurer as soon as possible’. The Committee completed its report in June 1973. Following Cabinet’s consideration of the Committee’s report, I announced in August 1973 the Government’s intention to establish an Export Bank.

Department of the Media: Training in Financial and Auditing Procedures (Question No. 347)

Mr Snedden:

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

  1. How many officers in the Department of the Media have been given some form of formal training in financial or auditing procedures used in Commonwealth departments in the last 12 months.
  2. What is the division and classification of these officers.
  3. How many of these officers were in operational, as distinct from financial or accounting, positions in the Service.
Mr Morrison:
ALP

- Senator McClelland, the Minister for the Media, has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question:

  1. 1 ) Three (3) in the period 30.6.73-1.7.74.
  2. Third Division-One (1) Clerk, Class 9; Two (2) Clerks, Class 8.
  3. Nil.

Sydney, New South Wales: Grants under Australian Assistance Plan (Question No. 539) Mr Connolly asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. 1) Will he list the grants that have been made to municipal bodies in the Sydney metropolitan area under the Australian Assistance Plan since 2 December 1 972.
  2. ) What were these grants for, and in which suburbs were they used.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2) Grants under the Australian Assistance Plan are not made available to local government bodies to the exclusion of all other community bodies nor to a series of separate community bodies including local government Such an arrangement would aggravate the fragmentation of social welfare services, weaken the capacity for co-operation in the social welfare field, and defeat the objective of community involvement in regional decision making on such matters. The concepts on which the Australian Assistance Plan is based are outlined in Discussion Paper No. 1 distributed by the Social Welfare Commission. Regional Councils for Social Development are the organisations to which grants are directed. Their structure and function is also outlined in the Discussion Paper. No grants were made to the municipal bodies in the Sydney metropolitan area.

Defence Services Homes Loans (Question No. 573)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for Housing and Construction, upon notice:

When will the Government increase the loan limit on defence service homes loans from $12,000 to $15,000 as promised.

Mr Les Johnson:
HUGHES, NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

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

As indicated in the Treasurer’s Budget Speech on 17 September it is proposed to make a number of important changes to the Defence Service Homes Act, including an increase in the maximum loan to $15,000. It is the Government’s intention to introduce the amending legislation required to give effect to this decision, during the present sittings of Parliament.

Department of the Media: Research and Development Staff (Question No. 887) Mr Snedden asked the Minister representing the Minister for the Media, upon notice:

  1. How many officers or employees of the Department of the Media or of authorities under the Minister’s control are employed on research and development work.
  2. Where are they employed.
  3. ) What is the nature of the work being undertaken.
  4. What is the total expenditure per annum in maintaining this research and development program.
  5. Who decides the nature of the programs or projects included in this research and development work.
Mr Morrison:
ALP

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

Set out are answers to the points raised in the question as they refer to my Department, the Australian Broadcasting Commission and the Australian Broadcasting Control Board respectively. The Australian Film Development Corporation has one officer employed on research.

Officers of the three organisations consult in order to provide each other with any useful research information and also to provide an avenue for a creative exchange of ideas. Co-operation also is taking place in the purchase of syndicated audience survey information.

My Department also is having discussions with the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations and the Federation of Australian Commercial Broadcasters with respect to new approaches to research in the relevant areas.

Department of the Media

13

Head Office, North Sydney

The planning and Research Section is concerned with anticipating the scope and direction of changes in the overall media field, including broadcasting, television, film and audio-visual means of communication.

The section provides me with advice on a great variety of subject matters.

Specific project areas for governmental planning purposes and for all media forms, are as follows:

Audience Studies

a ) Qualitative measures of audience reaction

Monitoring of commercial research surveys

Theatre audience testing

Audience research advice to the Government of Papua New Guinea

Automatic metering of television receivers.

Sociological Studies

Public access, accountability and participation

Uncatered for musical needs for under 25 year olds

Role of broadcasting

Communication needs of communities

Aboriginal communication program.

Ownership, Control and Trade Practices Studies

Interlocking Patterns of Media Ownership and Control: Schematic and narrative descriptions of interlocking patterns of shareholdings and directorships are being produced for public information.

Comparative Study of Media Ownership in the U.S.A.

Assessment of ‘Top 40’ popular tune charts: An examination of the process which determines the ‘Top 40 ‘records.

Broadcasting Planning

Radio planning

b ) Newcastle TV reception study

Media industry statistics

Media data bank.

v) Australian Government Advertising Evaluation

Studies of the effectiveness of Government advertising campaigns have been designed and are about to be carried out for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and for the Department of the Australian Capital Territory. A series of such studies is being negotiated with the Department of Labor and Immigration.

$156,172 (including salaries and allowances).

) The Secretary of the Department.

Australian Broadcasting Commission

  1. 24
  2. The Head Office of the Australian Broadcasting Commission, 145-153 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.
  3. (a) Research and recommendations regarding new

Commission projects.

  1. Statistical research and analysis of Commission program and audience measurements.
  2. Design of discreet non-commercial items of technical equipment to fulfill special Commission broadcasting requirements; arrangement of manufacture and testing of prototypes.
  3. Research into the application of advanced organisational practices in the Commission. Development and implementation of strategies for improving effectiveness.
  4. Research into and analysis of various broadcasting matters related to the development of the national service in Australia.

    1. $383,000 per annum (including salaries and allowances).
    2. The Commission, General Manager and senior officers.

The above information does not take account of research associated with program preparation, which is carried out by program researchers and other staff within the Commission’s program division as an integral part of program building.

Australian Broadcasting Control Board

(1)11

  1. Australian Broadcasting Control Board, Marland House, Melbourne.
  2. The social, cultural, educational and other effects of current commercial broadcasting and television programs on the community and the adequacy of commercial programs generally.
  3. Of the order of $ 100,000 including salaries and allowances.
  4. Australian Broadcasting Control Board.

The above information is subject to the qualification that the statutory functions of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board embrace the development of commercial broadcasting and television services. This involves day to day research into technical, socio-economic, regulatory and other aspects of development in these areas. Within these confines, therefore, it should be noted that the Board has only one unit which could be regarded as being engaged full time on research activities.

Unemployment Benefits (Question No. 985)

Mr Malcolm Fraser:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. How many people are in receipt of unemployment benefits for periods of 1 , 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 months respectively.
  2. What is the comparative situation in respect of each of these periods over the last 10 years.
  3. How many people have been on long-term benefits.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2) Information is not available as to the number of people in receipt of unemployment benefits for the particular periods mentioned. However, the data in the following table may be suitable for the honourable member’s requirements.

Mandurah Meals on Wheels (Question No. 1011)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for equipment for the Mandurah Meals on Wheels submitted by the Mandurah Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department.
  2. If so, what is the decision
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. No.
  2. See answer to question 1.
  3. This project has implications for the policy applied to projects assisted under the States Grants (Home Care) Act. Accordingly additional information is being obtained from the Southern Regional Social Development Board to enable the matter to be decided as soon as possible on a full consideration of the relevant circumstances.

Mandurah Pensioners League: Conversion of a Hall (Question No. 1012)

Mr Bungey:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. 1 ) Has a decision been made on assistance for conversion of a hall for the Mandurah Pensioners League submitted by the Mandurah Community Committee to the Southern Region Social Development Board under the Australian Assistance Plan, and subsequently referred by the Social Welfare Commission to his Department
  2. If so, what is the decision.
  3. If not, when will a decision be made.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. No.
  2. See answer to question 1.
  3. This project has implications for the policy applied to projects assisted under the States Grants (Home Care) Act. Accordingly additional information is being obtained from the Southern Regional Social Development Board to enable the matter to be decided as soon as possible on a full consideration of the relevant circumstances.

Royal Australian Navy: Acquisition of Surface to Surface Missiles (Question No. 1069)

Mr Anthony:

asked the Minister for Defence, upon notice:

  1. 1) Is consideration being given to the acquisition by the Royal Australian Navy of surface to surface missiles such as the ‘Exocet’ or ‘Gabriel’; if not, why not?
Mr Barnard:
ALP

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

  1. Yes. In fact the Patrol Frigate which the Government plans to purchase for the RAN from the United States will be fitted to take an advanced type of surface to surface missile.

Mental Health Benefits (Question No. 1083)

Mr Lloyd:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

Did he refuse the request of the States for hospital benefits to be paid for short-term patients in psychiatric hospitals; if so, why.

Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

The question of hospital benefits for short-term patients in psychiatric hospitals was pan of a general request made by the State Ministers at the recent Australian Health Ministers Conference for increased Australian Government assistance in the mental health field.

I indicated that an examination of the States’ request would necessarily include consideration by the Australian Government Treasury. In turn the Treasury examination would necessarily cover the question as to whether any new

Australian Government financial assistance to the States for the mentally ill would involve corresponding adjustments to the general revenue allocations made to the States. This attitude is the same as that of previous Liberal-Country Party Governments on this matter.

Ambulance Subscriptions and Charges: Tax Deductibility (Question No. 1089)

Mr Lloyd:

asked the Minister for Health, upon notice:

What is his attitude to the request of State Health Ministers for tax deductibility for ambulance subscriptions and charges.

Dr Everingham:
ALP

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

My attitude towards pressures for tax deductibility for ambulance subscriptions and charges is that, if support is needed for ambulance services, some direct form of assistance should be considered rather than the indirect assistance afforded by tax deductions with all their disadvantages. However, at the meeting of Health Ministers held in Canberra on 17 and 18 August 1974, all State Health Ministers urged that the Australian Government make ambulance subscriptions and charges tax deductible, and I undertook to take up this matter with the Treasurer. As the honourable member will be aware, no assistance in this regard was provided in this year’s Budget.

The Hospitals and Health Services Commission is currently examining the needs of ambulance services.

Civil Defence Exercises (Question No. 1154)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister for the Capital Territory, upon notice:

  1. With reference to the answer to question No. 548 (Hansard, 19 September 1974, page 1621) in which the Prime Minister indicated that the form and frequency of exercises in Government Departments in civil defence preparedness are as determined by individual Departments, on what dates in the last 1 8 months have exercises of this nature been conducted in his Department.
  2. Which officers and employees took part.
  3. How many officers and employers took part.
  4. What was the purpose of each of the exercises.
  5. Does he accept that this is an area where the Australian Government can give a lead to other employers.
Mr Bryant:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) Tuesday 20 November 1973.
  2. All Departmental employees located in Electricity House.
  3. 250/300 officers and employees.
  4. Practice fire evacuation- also valid for evacuation of building for civil defence, in the event of a bomb threat.
  5. 1 refer the right honourable member to part 3 of Mr Whitlam ‘s answer to Question No. 548, which appeared in Hansard of 1 9 September 1974, page 1 62 1 .

Hostel Bed Entitlements: Transferability (Question No. 1161)

Mr Lloyd:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice:

  1. When will the Government allow transferability of hostel bed entitlements under the Aged Persons Hostels Act 1972 from those organisations not willing to use the grants to other organisations able and willing to build hostels.
  2. As the Act is limited to 3 years, will he take heed of the need for early approval of transferability.
Mr Hayden:
ALP

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

  1. 1 ) and (2) The Aged Persons Hostels Bill introduced on 2 October 1974 provides for the Aged Persons Hostels Act to be amended to enable hostel bed entitlements to be ceded between unrelated eligible organisations. Upon passage of the legislation I will announce what action organisations must take to require or cede the entitlements. No delay in approvals is anticipated once the Bill receives Royal Assent.

International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (Question No. 1222)

Mr Snedden:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice:

  1. Has Australia joined the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
  2. If so, what are the aims of the Union, when was it first established, and by whom.
  3. Who are the other members.
  4. What action has Australia taken in the Union since joining.
Mr Whitlam:
ALP

– The Foreign Minister has provided the following answer to the right honourable member’s question:

  1. Yes, Australia is a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources.
  2. IUCN ‘s aims are to promote international co-operation in applying ecological concepts to the conservation and management of nature and natural resources, and in preserving from disappearance all kinds of animals and plants, their habitats and other natural features of land and landscape. It does this with the intention of paying direct attention to the ethical, aesthetic, scientific, educational and economic values of these natural resources and by facilitating the understanding of ecological principles, land capability and biological productivity which is essential for their conservation.

    1. IUCN was founded on 5 October 1948.
    1. It was established at a conference held at Fon.tainebleau, in France, convened by UNESCO and the French Government.
  3. Other members of IUCN are governmental and nongovernmental organisations in the following countries: Angola, Argentina, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad, Chile, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dahomey, Denmark, Ecuador, Ethopia, Finland, France, Federal Republic of Germany, German Democratic Republic, Ghana, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, India, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Ivory Coast, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Khmer Republic, North Korea, South Korea, Laos, Lebanon, Luxemburg, Malagasy Republic, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Netherlands. New

Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Rhodesia, Rumania, Western Samoa, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, United Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela, South Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Zaire, Zambia. Various international organisations are also members.

  1. Australia only joined the 1UCN in 1973 but since then we have adopted the broad principles and aims of the IUCN which are in line with the Australian Government’s environmental and conservation policies. Australia has contributed to the United Nations list on national parks and equivalent areas prepared by the IUCN and has become parties to the following conventions initiated by the IUCN

Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially Water Fowl Habitat.

International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.

We are also taking an interest in the preparation of a draft convention on the conservation of certain islands for science. Australia also receives publications of the IUCN.

Cite as: Australia, House of Representatives, Debates, 17 October 1974, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/hofreps/1974/19741017_reps_29_hor91/>.