Senate
18 November 1909

3rd Parliament · 4th Session



The President took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.

PERSONAL EXPLANATION.

Senator Colonel NEILD. - I desire to make a brief personal explanation with reference to something which is reported on Page 5769 of the Hansard issued to-day. Referring to myself, Senator Turley is reported as having said -

I do not know whether that officer “ sooled “ the honorable senator out of the forces or took his uniform away from him.

I think I may recall to the majority of honorable senators the fact that I have been seen in uniform by them a great 5968 Press Cable Service : _ [SENATE.] Select Committee. many times since Major- General Hutton left Australia, that he had no power to remove any one from the Defence Forces, that he left Australia in 1904, and that eighteen months afterwards a Ministry to which I was politically opposed, caused me to be promoted in the forces.

page 5968

MILITARY TATTOO

Senator PEARCE:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I beg to ask the Minister representing the Minister of Defence whether, in view of the serious nature of the charges made in another place by the Honorable S. Mauger, against those who conducted a military tattoo which, I understand, was supervised by the Defence Department, the Government propose to have a strict and searching inquiry into those charges with a view to seeing whether they are substantial or not.

Senator MILLEN:
Vice-President of the Executive Council · NEW SOUTH WALES · Free Trade

– I am in a position to state that the matter is occupying the attention of the Minister of Defence.

page 5968

QUESTION

DUTY ON AEROPLANE

Senator KEATING:
TASMANIA

– I desire to ask the Minister of Trade and Customs whether, as is stated in the press this morning, it is correct that on the introduction of the first aeroplane into Australia£800 was demanded by the Customs Department in Sydney; whether that is the correct amount of duty, and, if so, whether, in the event of those who have introduced the machine for educational purposes taking it out of the Commonwealth, the duty will be refunded?

Senator Sir ROBERT BEST:

– The statement that £800 was paid for Customs duty is incorrect. An approved guarantee has been secured for the payment of the duty if the aeroplane should remain here. But, as we know, it was introduced simply for business purposes, and probably it will leave our shores very soon. In these circumstances, there will be no duty payable. I have not tackled the problem whether, if it had come here by air we could have demanded any duty.

page 5968

PAPER

Senator MILLEN laid upon the table the following paper -

Conference with Representatives of the Selfgoverning Dominions, Naval and Military Defence of the Empire, 1909.

page 5968

QUESTION

PRESS CABLE SERVICE : SELECT COMMITTEE

Senator Colonel NEILD (New South Wales) [2.35]. - In pursuance of standing order 281, I move -

That Senator Colonel Neild be discharged from attending the Select Committee on Press Cable Service.

I do not know that it is necessary for me to give any reasons. But I am quite prepared to do so if need be.

Senator PEARCE:
Western Australia

– I am curious to know why the honorable senator wishes to be discharged from attendance on the Select Committee. This is the first I have heard of his intention to take the step, and I think that we might be favoured with his reason. I am sorry that he did not mention the reason when he addressed the Senate, because that would have afforded me an opportunity to reply if necessary.

Senator Colonel NEILD (New South Wales) [2.37]. - I understand that there will shortly come before the Senate a question which will enable this matter to be discussed if’ that is necessary.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

The PRESIDENT:

– Standing order 281 says -

Senators may be discharged from attending a select committee, and other senators appointed, either by nomination or ballot, after previous notice has been given.

It is competent for any honorable senator to give notice of a motion for the appointment of some other senator to take the place of Senator Neild. We have a rule that Select Committees shall always consist of seven senators, and I think that in the face of that rule it will be very desirable to fill the vacancy.

Senator Sir Robert Best:

– “ Unless otherwise ordered,” every Select Committee is to consist of seven senators.

The PRESIDENT:

– Yes. A Select Committee of seven senators was appointed; one senator has been discharged from further attendance; and there has been no order of the Senate that the Select Committee shall continue the inquiry with only six senators.

Senator Pearce:

– May I remind you, sir, that the order was, not that the Select Committee should consist of seven senators, but that it should consist of Senators So-and-so?

The PRESIDENT:

– That is provided for in the Standing Order, which says -

Unless otherwise ordered, all select committees shall consist of seven senators.

It would not have been competent for the Senate to have appointed a Select Committee of six senators, unless a specific order to that effect had been made.

Senator PEARCE:

– 1 ask leave of the Senate to nominate a successor to Senator Neild upon the Press Cable Service Committee.

Senator Millen:

– I object.

Senator PEARCE:

– Then I beg to give notice that to-morrow I will move that Senator Chataway be appointed to succeed Senator Neild as a member of the Committee.

page 5969

QUESTION

PRINTING COMMITTEE

Report (No. 5) presented by Senator Henderson, and read by the Clerk Assistant.

Senator HENDERSON:
Western Australia

– I ask the leave of the Senate to move the adoption of the report.

Leave granted.

Senator HENDERSON:
Western Australia

– I move -

That the report be adopted.

In doing so I desire to say by way of personal explanation that this morning I inadvertently omitted to convey to the members of the Printing Committee a request from an honorable senator that a paper relating to cadet battalions in New South Wales should be printed. If the honorable senator to whom I allude will move an amendment to my motion with a view to securing the printing of that paper I shall support him.

Senator Colonel NEILD (New South Wales) [2.48]. - I beg to thank ‘ Senator Henderson for his courtesy in mentioning this matter. It is true that he did promise to recommend the printing of the document in question to the Printing Committee. It has already been laid upon the table of the Senate, but unless it be printed the valuable information which, it contains will be lost. Acting upon the suggestion of the Chairman of the Printing Committee, and, I hope, with the concurrence of every member of that body, I move -

That the motion be amended by the addition of the following words : - “ and that the return re particulars of Cadet Battalions in New South Wales, which was laid on the table of the Senate on 27U1 October, be printed.”

After what Senator Henderson has said it will be recognised that I am in no way seeking to interfere with the decisions of the Printing Committee, but merely wish to repair an accidental omission.

Amendment agreed to. Senator CHATAWAY (Queensland) [2.49]. - Seeing that the Government have definitely promised to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the sugar industry in Queensland, I wish to know why a petition from certain sugar growers in that State, which was presented to the Senate, has not been ordered to be printed?

Senator Henderson:

– The honorable senator himself has supplied the reason.

Senator CHATAWAY:
QUEENSLAND

– Then I move-

That the motion be amended by the addition of the following words : - “ and that the petition from certain sugar growers of Australia praying for the appointment of a Koyal Commission be also printed.”

Amendment agreed to. Question, as amended, resolved in the affirmative.

page 5969

QUESTION

PREMIERS’ CONFERENCE : FINANCIAL AGREEMENT

Senator GIVENS:
QUEENSLAND

– I wish to ask the Vice-President of the Executive Council whether he will lay upon the table of the Senate copies of all reports and minutes of proceedings of the Premiers’ Conference, at which the financial agreement now before the Senate was arrived at?

Senator MILLEN:
Free Trade

– Such a document has already been made available to members of both branches of the Parliament.

page 5969

NORTHERN TERRITORY ACCEPTANCE BILL

Bill received from the House of Representatives, and (on motion by Senator Sir Robert Best) read a first time.

page 5969

BILLS OF LADING

Senator MACFARLANE:
TASMANIA

asked the Minister of Trade and Customs, upon notice -

  1. The reason for the new demand of the Customs that steamers’ bills of lading must be left in the keeping of the Customs?
  2. Is this demand made in all the States?
  3. Is he aware that the bill of lading is sim ply a contract between the shipper and the ship’s master or agent, and states contents of packages are usually unknown.
  4. That the absence of ships’ bills of lading causes great inconvenience to the right delivery of cargo?
  5. Are not the three copies of the ship’s entry of cargo now required to be delivered to the Customs sufficient?
Senator Sir ROBERT BEST:

– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow :: - 1 to 5- The Customs have always had power to require production of bills of lading for all cargo, and, when deemed necessary, such demand has been always made. Owing to an oversight in a recent order (the wording of which directed universal production) some misapprehension arose on the part of officers, which, however, was set right so soon as discovered, some days since. Bills of lading are not now required as a rule.

page 5970

QUESTION

TORPEDO DESTROYERS

Senator PEARCE:

asked the VicePresident of the Executive Council, upon notice -

In view of the fact that cutlery is not at present manufactured in the Commonwealth, will the Government, in accepting tenders for the supply of such articles for the torpedo destroyers, give a preference to such firms as have established agencies in Australia?

Senator MILLEN:
Free Trade

– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -

The requirements of this nature are likely to be small, and supplies will be made at Home. Instructions will, however, be given to the officer in charge of the Commonwealth office in London to arrange for them to be obtained, if possible, from firms having agencies in Australia.

page 5970

QUESTION

AMMUNITION WAGGONS

Senator PEARCE:

asked the VicePresident of the Executive Council, upon notice -

Is it the intention of the honorable the Minister of Defence to call for tenders for the construction of ammunition waggons?

Senator MILLEN:
Free Trade

– The answer to the honorable senator’s question is as follows : -

Yes, very shortly, for field artillery requirements.

page 5970

QUESTION

PATENT OFFICE : FINES

Senator PEARCE:

asked the Minister of Trade and Customs upon notice -

  1. Is it his desire that the Commissioner for Patents should strain the regulations so as to inflate the revenue of his Department by inflicting fines and penalties on applicants for patents in connexion wilh delays caused entirely by himself? 2 Will he ascertain whether it is a fact that in connexion with patent application No. 11396, the Commisioner for Patents compelled the applicant to pay a fine of ^3 because his application had lapsed through not being “accepted “ within the statutory period, and whether the delay had not been caused by the Commissioner himself?
  2. Is it not a fact that after the applicant’s patent attorneys; on the 15th of March last, replied to some objections raised by the Examiner, no further action was taken by the Patents Office for several weeks, and that the Commissioner’s letter consenting to hear argument on the matter was not received by the applicant’s attorneys till after the application had lapsed, i.e., on the 3rd May last?
  3. Did the applicant’s attorneys apply to the Commisioner for Patents to remit the ^3 chargeable for the restoration of the application, under the powers conferred on him by section 3 of the Patents Act 1906, on the ground that the delay which caused the lapsing of the application was solely the fault of the Commissioner ?
  4. Did not the Commissioner refuse to grant this remission?
  5. Did the applicant’s attorneys, when applying for restoration of the application (and paying the prescribed fee) give the following as the ground for the application : - “ That on the 15th March, 1909, immediately on receipt of an adverse report from the Examiner, we replied fully thereto, but the Commissioner of Patents allowed the matter to lie in abeyance for some six weeks, and we did not receive his decision in the matter until the 3rd day of May, a.d. 1909, three days after the prescribed time for acceptance had expired ?”
  6. Did not the Commissioner accept this, and grant the application ; and, if so, what was the ground for his exacting a heavy fine from an applicant for a patent?
  7. Will he take steps to prevent a recurrence of this sort of thing?
Senator Sir ROBERT BEST:

– I am ‘ getting the information which my honorable friend seeks, and if he will be good enough to repeat his question on Wednesday next I think that I shall then be in a position to supply it.

page 5970

QUESTION

POSTAGE STAMPS

  1. What is the rate of commission allowed by the Department on the sale of its postage stamps ?
  2. What rate of discount is charged by the Department on the purchase of its postage stamps ?
Senator MILLEN:
Free Trade

– The answers to the honorable senator’s questions are as follow : -

  1. 2^ per centum, on purchases of not less than £3 in value at any one time.
  2. Postage stamps, in strips of at least two, in good order and condition, are repurchased from the public at the General Post Office of the State of issue only, at their face value, less
*Precedence of* [18 Nov., 1909.] *Government Business.* 5971 a discount of 2s. in the pound, providing no single stamp exceeds 5s. in value. Applications for the repurchase of stamps of denominations above 5s. must be made to the Deputy PostmasterGeneral. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel NEILD: -- Will the VicePresident of the Executive Council cause an inquiry to be made as to whether, at the General Post Office, Sydney, a demand has not been made for 20 per cent. discount, and not 10 per cent., as indicated in the honorable gentleman's reply ? Seator MILLEN. - I will cause an inquiry to be made. {: .page-start } page 5971 {:#debate-12} ### PREFERENTIAL VOTING BILL Motion (by **Senator Millen)** agreed to - >That leave be given to introduce a Bill for an Act relating to preferential voting at elections of members of the Parliament. {: .page-start } page 5971 {:#debate-13} ### PUBLIC SERVANTS PENSION OR SUPERANNUATION FUND Motion (by **Senator E.** J. Russell) agreed to - >That there be laid on the table of the Senate copies of all papers in connexion with the establishment of a pension or superannuation fund, including a report of the interview between a deputation of civil servants and the late Minister of Home Affairs, on 27th March, 1909. {: .page-start } page 5971 {:#debate-14} ### QUESTION {:#subdebate-14-0} #### PRECEDENCE OF GOVERNMENT BUSINESS {: #subdebate-14-0-s0 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
New South WalesVicePresident of the Executive Council · Free Trade -- I move - >That during the remainder of the present session, Government business, unless otherwise ordered, take precedence of all other business on the notice-paper, except questions and formal motions. In submitting this motion it is only necessary to remind honorable senators that we are now nearing that period when, in the ordinary course of events, Parliament will terminate its labours for the session. Naturally our desire is that those labours shall terminate upon such a date as will enable honorable senators from distant States to reach their homes in time for the Christmas festivities and gatherings. If honorable senators will look at the business-paper, they will notice that there is not very much business upon it which will call for our attention during the brief period which remains to us. Whilst I can understand the desire of hon- or able senators to take the sense of the Senate upon matters in which they are interested, I venture to ask them to consider whether the importance of private business is not overshadowed by that of Government business, and upon that ground to assent to the motion which 1 am now submitting. {: #subdebate-14-0-s1 .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE:
Western Australia -- I do not intend to oppose the motion, which was to be expected at this period of the session. But there are one or two matters under the heading of private business to which I should like to draw attention. One is a motion standing in the name of **Senator Lynch** for 25th November, instructing the Government to request the State Governments to furnish returns with reference to land holdings. I understood, from the remarks of the Minister, that he objected to the form of the motion. I should, therefore, like to have an undertaking from him that **Senator Lynch** will have an opportunity of submitting it in an amended form, in which it would not be likely to cause debate. It relates to a subject of considerable interest. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- It is impossible to obtain the information in the form in which **Senator Lynch** asks for it. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- Will the Government afford **Senator Lynch** facilities for submitting the motion in an amended form ? {: #subdebate-14-0-s2 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- The difficulty can be got over if **Senator Lynch** waits till the 25th November, and then gives fresh notice of motion for the next sitting day. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator PEARCE: -- If **Senator Lynch** re-drafts his motion so as to bring it into conformity with what the Government desire, they might give him an opportunity of moving it. I offer no protest with regard to the loss of my opportunity to submit a matter standing in my own name; because I am to some extent to blame for not bringing it forward at an earlier period. At the same time, I may point out that, as the question with which it deals affects an alteration of the Constitution, it could not have been dealt with at an earlier period of the session. I recognise, however, that the numbers are probably against me, and that I should be taking up time unnecessarily if I proceeded with the subject. **Senator Colonel NEILD** (New South Wales) [3.3]. - I wish to ask whether the motion submitted by the Vice-President of the Executive Council is to apply forthwith? If so, I point out that there is a possible difficulty in the way. A considerable amount of business has already been ordered by the Senate to be considered on specified dates. I submit that the carrying of the motion cannot affect orders that have been made. I know that I am raising an unusual point ; but I consider that it is a valid one- As the Senate has ordered certain business to be considered on certain dates, I submit that the motion under consideration is not sufficient; in its present form, to cancel the orders which the Senate has made. At the same time, I am not seeking to create the slightest difficulty. There are four Orders of the Day standing in my name for to-day. I placed them there in the hope that I should be able to deal with seme of them, at least. But I recognise that, whatever the Senate might do, the business which I have placed upon the paper could not be proceeded with elsewhere during this session. Therefore, nothing would be gained by pressing these matters forward. I am quite willing to consent to the abrogation of the orders that have been made by the Senate in respect of private business for which I am responsible. I also recognise that honorable senators, myself included, want to get away within a reasonable time. The session has been prolonged, and has been fairly arduous. I am quite sure that a large majority will be willing to vote for **Senator Millen's** motion, provided it is in a form that meets the difficulty that I have mentioned. {: #subdebate-14-0-s3 .speaker-KRZ} ##### Senator LYNCH:
Western Australia -- **Senator Millen's** motion fatally affects an item of business standing in my name for 25th November. The Government objected to that motion being taken as formal. I consider, however, that they have no excuse for not furnishing the information for which I have asked. The Government, on a former occasion, allowed an honorable senator on their own side of the Chamber to occupy time that might have been alloted ' to Government business, causing my motion to be shunted. I do not consider that that was fair treatment. Consequently I shall vote against the motion, unless at this eleventh hour a reasonable opportunity is afforded to me by the Government to obtain as much of the information as can be furnished. {: #subdebate-14-0-s4 .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator MILLEN:
Vice-President of the Executive Council · New South Wales · Free Trade -- **Senator Lynch** is entirely mistaken as to why objection was made to his motion going as formal. The reason was that the information he asks for cannot be obtained in the form in which he wants it. If, however. **Senator Lynch** will confer with me, and enable me to place before him the headings under which the information is obtainable, I shall be only too pleased to allow his motion to go without objection in an amended form. That is the most that I am in a position to assist him to do. It would be impossible for me to consent to a motion going as formal knowing that it would take a very long time and involve the Commonwealth in tremendous expense to obtain the information in the form in which the honorable senator wishes it to be supplied. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- I desire to obtain a ruling from you, **Mr. President,** as to whether you consider that the passing of **Senator Millen's** motion in its present form will cancel the orders already made by the Senate as to private business? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I draw attention to the fact that the sessional order itself is contingent, and contains the words " unless otherwise ordered." We are now "otherwise ordering"; and, therefore, I suggest that the present motion, following the usual form, is quite in order. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- In order _ that there may be no doubt as to :he opinion of the Chair on the point raised by **Senator Neild,** and in case the same issue should be mentioned again, I' desire to say that **Senator Millen's** motion is the usual form of motion submitted) at this period of the session. It has been the invariable custom to regard such a motion as being in order, and I take that view of it. The original sessional order provided that on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, during the present session, " unless otherwise ordered," Government business should take precedence of all other business, except questions and formal motions; and except that private business should take precedence of Government business on Thursdays after 7.45 p.m. So that the sessional order is an order providing for the placing of business on particular days. We are not now dealing with a matter of repealing, in so many words, orders made bv the Senate with regard to the taking of private business on certain days. In my opinion the action which the Government have invited the Senate to take will have the effect of overriding all orders with regard to various items of private business. If there is no Government business to be transacted on Thursdays, private business will be proceeded with, but if the Government have business to be disposed of it will take precedence of private business. {: .speaker-JXT} ##### Senator Colonel Neild: -- Quite so ; I never suspected that there was a doubt about the matter. Question resolved in the affirmative. {: .page-start } page 5973 {:#debate-15} ### CONSTITUTION ALTERATION (FINANCE) BILL {:#subdebate-15-0} #### Second Reading Debate resumed from November 17 *(vide* page 5879), on motion by **Senator Millen** - >That this Bill be now read a second time. **Senator Sir JOSIAH** SYMON (South Australia) [3.14J. - I have to thank my honorable friend, **Senator McGregor4** for his great courtesy in permitting me to resume the" debate to-day, in order to enable me to proceed elsewhere had it been possible to do so. I am afraid that that is not possible now, but that fact does not in any way lessen my recognition of the courtesy which the honorable senator has extended to me. I wish, as of course every honorable senator does, to express my views as to the significance and effect of this Bill, and the difficulties which it seems to me lie upon the face of it. I must say in the first place that I very much regret that the Bill in the shape in which it now stands, has been brought before the Senate at all. At the same time I do not intend - in fact, I should shrink iu a matter of this kind, from doing so - to view it from any party stand-point. Even if I were associated with any party, I should be averse to taking a course of that description. In point of fact I agree with what has very effectively been said in relation to this question, that it is far above any question of party, and that all thought of cleaning with it on party lines can only obscure the real and important issues involved. In view of the announcement today of a message from another place I should have been especially glad if, having regard to the view I entertain of this measure, it had been possible for me to have assisted the Government in connexion with it. I refer to their effort, and I am glad to be able to say their successful effort, in another place to secure the passage of the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill, which amounts, in my view, to so much. {: #subdebate-15-0-s0 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- I point out that, on this question, the honorable senator can hardly debate the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I do think, sir, that you might have permitted me to finish what I was going to say. I did not propose to discuss the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill in any way. But surely I may say that I should have been glad if it had been possible for me to assist the Government in connexion with this Bill, if my judgment had permitted it, because of the appreciation I entertain of their efforts in securing the passage in another place of another Bill which has just reached the Senate? {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- I do not object to the honorable senator saying that; but it seemed to me that he was going to debate the matter. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I hope I may suggest, with great respect, that you might, sir, have waited until you saw what I intended to do instead of acting upon what I seemed to you to be about to do, because, really, I had no intention whatever of debating the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill in any shape or form. I am sorry that I should seem to be in any way in antagonism with you in connexion with a matter of this kind. I was going 'to say, further, that if it is proposed to put legislation, no matter in what form, into the Constitution in order to secure stability and permanency, to insure that it shall be free from interference by succeeding Parliaments, it might be contended that if that should be done in one case it should be done in another, and we might have a proposal made to embody the Northern Territory Acceptance Bill in the Constitution in order to give it that stability and permanence which is sought for the measure now under consideration. I think that is a fairly legitimate matter for consideration, although it could have no effect upon the substance of the objections made to this Bill. Then, if it is not irregular, and I hope it will not be considered so, I offer my sincerest congratulations to the Vice-President of the Executive Council upon the most admirable and eloquent speech which he delivered yesterday. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- I hope he convinced the honorable senator. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I shall come to that. My honorable friend knows quite well the esteem in which I have always held, and still hold, him. He will believe that I am sincere when I add to that that I always do, and always shall, rejoice in his success, whether in the matter of effective speaking, as to which we know his gift and capacity, or in any other matter 'to which he lays his hands. The honorable senator would probably be glad if I could add that his speech, besides being admirable and eloquent, was also convincing, but I am sorry that I cannot- gratify him, because I am afraid that his speech, brilliant as it was, to a large extent was irrelevant and inconclusive upon the points that are really in issue. I listened with great attention to all of it that dealt with the controversial aspect of this matter. I particularly rejoiced at the very just eulogy he pronounced on the patriotism, and I was going to say the large heartedness, but, at any rate, the fairness of the smaller States. The honorable senator urged that we should trust the smaller States, that we should believe in their sense of fair play, and in their readiness when the time arose to do in connexion with this question what is right and just. I do not take exception for a moment to anything which my honorable friend said in that respect. I think we all concur in the belief that the small States and the large States would desire to view questions of great public interest in a public spirited way. But I listened in vain for one word, one single eloquent tribute, or one attempt on the honorable senator's part to establish that there is not the same degree of patriotism, and the same sense of fair, play, and the same public spiritedness to be expected from the Commonwealth Parliament in the exercise of its powers and functions as are to be expected from the small or' the large States if this Bill passes. That second point is the first which my honorable friend was called upon to establish. If we pass this Bill the other point wil-1 arise, and the honorable senator's eulogy will become appropriate. But the first step is to establish that this Commonwealth Parliament is not to be trusted. The first step is to show that there may be well founded apprehensions that the powers given to this Parliament will not be fairly exercised. If we pass the Bill the question of what the States may or may not do will arise, but to justify our passing the Bill, and the placing of the small States in a position in which their fairness may be appealed to in relation to its subject-matter, we must show that the powers which it is assumed they would exercise fairly ought to be taken away from the Commonwealth Parliament, because it would not exercise them fairly. I am sure that the Vice-President of the Executive Council will believe me when I say that I have been very desirous of being convinced on that point. Every member of the Senate should desire to hear some reason why this power is to be taken away from the Commonwealth Parliament and handed over to the States, or to any other body who will exercise it if they are given it fairly and justly, an anticipation which apparently cannot be expected of the Commonwealth Parliament. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- Has not the Federal Parliament been restricted ever since it started until now? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I can assure the honorable senator that I am not going to overlook anything. There must be a dominant Parliament somewhere, and the essence of this Bill is to invite the National Parliament of Australia to strip itself of a power given to it by the people under the Constitution and essential to it as the supreme governing body of the Commonwealth. More than that, it is a power that is vital, I think, to its existence as the Parliament of a self-respecting nation. This will be, in my humble opinion - I should be glad to be convinced if I am mistaken - the first serious step to denationalize the National Parliament. Whatever fate awaits this Parliament, and no one can foresee what the future may have in store, ± "sincerely hope that it never will consent to be the instrument of its own emasculation. In this measure we are asked, apparently, to lay down a function and a power which have been assigned to us. We are asked to be our own executioners, because we are going to appeal to the people of the country under this Bill, not to take the initiative in condemning this Parliament, but to confirm, so to speak, our own sentence and our own condemnation of ourselves. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- Is it not desirable that we should be friendly? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I quite agree with the honorable senator that it is desirable that we should be friendly, and not merely friendly, but liberal and generous. I am here as one who desires to be, as the Constitution enjoins us, fair and just to the States; I wish to be liberal and generous to -the States. I am as much a State Righter in the true sense as is any man in Australia, and I always have been. **Senator Trenwith** will bear me out that in the Conventions no one fought harder or with greater persistence for the rights of the small States generally. But the wrongs of the Com- monwealth Parliament are not the rights of the States. It is not a right of the States to do wrong to the Commonwealth Parliament, and we are not called upon to do a wrong to ourselves because we happen to be here elected by the people in a particular way. That is the large question with which I propose to deal as briefly as I can. The issue here is momentous, but it is simple. I rejoice in the abolition of the book-keeping system. I welcome the *per capita* distribution. I have no objection to the amount of 25s. per head. On the contrary, I am not going into pounds, shillings, and pence, but if 25s. is not enough, or if the Commonwealth authorities in association with those of the States are convinced that it should be 30s. or 35s., or whatever is fair and just as the Constitution provides, I am prepared to agree to it. I take no exception to the substance of the agreement. I believe that is the bargain, and that that bargain would receive harmonious and unanimous acceptance. In that regard 1 take leave to observe that there is nothing at all to refer to the people, because, if the Parliament is unanimous on the terms of this bargain, for what purpose is it to go to the people, and why should it go to them? T have never heard of a referendum as to the details of a financial agreement, nor has any one else. Nobody in his senses - I venture to say that no man in this Parliament - would think it necessary to send this agreement to the people but for the other thing which is associated with it. As **Senator Millen** truly said yesterday - and with a great deal of what he said on this point I am in thorough accord - there is no duration in this agreement, and it is inferentially admitted that at some time or other it may require to come up for revision and alteration. It is not necessary to say that it "shall," but it may, for the excellent reason that, as my honorable friend said, you cannot dive into the future of this country. We have a fluctuating revenue, a fluctuating population, and changing conditions. We may have, as my honorable friend put it, emergencies and times of stress. We must recognise all these things as the foundation of the possibilities of revision and alteration. As my honorable friend said, " You cannot see ahead ten years." " This arrangement," he said, "is to be continued until other circumstances arise." He confessed his inability, as we all must do, to say what is going to happen in ten years' time. Is any one prepared to predict even what South Australia may be in twenty or thirty or fifty years? You cannot tell what will be the state of this country in the future, and therefore every statesman, in fact, every one, must frankly admit the possibility of this agreement having, in some shape or form, to come up for revision, and, as I say, for alteration. The Prime Minister's opinion is : - " The chances are that the Bill as it stands will last at least from ten to fifteen years, as the case may be." And again, " If the circumstances continue to resemble those of past years, it will last considerably more than ten years, but it will continue only so long as it remains advantageous to the people of Australia." I say "Amen" to that, but what does it establish? It establishes that, in the history of the nation, tea or fifteen or twenty years is a mere iota of time, and that in a comparatively short period in the life of this country, this question must revive for re-consideration. We cannot forecast the definite time. In the face of these things, it is absurd to talk, and no one does talk, of this agreement being absolutely permanent, and in perpetuity. We cannot fix, perhaps, a definite time, but we can forecast a minimum time ; and it is a minimum time which would give stability while it lasted. Make the term as long as you possibly can, provided that it is fair and reasonable, and subject to any crises which may arise. It is impossible for me, even if I felt inclined to attempt it, to say what time would govern all the circumstances and the fluctuations of this country. But name a time as wide as you like, and that, of course, is absolutely consistent with the maintenance of a Federal power to take the initiative in connexion with any alteration. That is where the difficulty comes in. There being no limit as to time, the question of change arises, as **Senator Millen** pointed out yesterday. Whether you fix a limit of years, or whether you leave the time indefinite, undoubtedly the same question arises. But that is not the point of controversy on which we are engaged. The disadvantage of no limit is that you perhaps tempt a change earlier than you otherwise would do. The advantage of a term is that there is a moral, if not a legal, obligation to allow the term to run its course. 5976 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) Bill.* {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- But if there was a dire necessity to alter the arrangement in the meantime, what then? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- We could alter it, and every word which **Senator Millen** used yesterday on thatpoint was a word of wisdom. If we fix a term, I agree with him that it is less likely to be altered, and it is more likely to invite confirmation, and, so to speak, exhaustion. In other words, as **Senator Fraser** has just indicated, it is more likely that the term will run out unless there is some very overriding national crisis. Probably every one recognises that. {: .speaker-K8T} ##### Senator Trenwith: -- Just as the present arrangement will run its term. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- No better illustration could be given. When men suggest the possibility of unfairness or unscrupulousness on the part of the Federal Parliament, there is the refutation that the ten years' term is about to run out without alteration. Surely we may take heart of grace that this great Parliament is not likely to do injustice when we have behind us an illustration of a ten years' term which was imposed, and which has not been sought to be interfered with. It follows, as **Senator Millen** said, that a time limit is better for the States. Undoubtedly that is so, because, subject to any national crisis, it is the minimum, and the probability is that it will run out. It is not the absence of a time limit which is the trouble here. In his speech, my honorable friend put it that the great controversy was that the agreement would be acceptable but for the one fact that no time limit is set to its operation. That does not state the issue in controversy. The issue is that you are proposing to put this agreement into the Constitution without a time limit, and, therefore, by that very act, you are taking away from the Federal Parliament a power which it now has. That is the issue. If you put the agreement into the Constitution with a time limit, the power of Parliament will revive to do justice, as it is trying to do now. That is the statesmanlike and the constitutional way. But the State Premiers prefer no limit. Why do they prefer no limit, which is, according to them, and according to us, more disadvantageous than a time limit? Because with a time limit the power will remain with the National Parliament, subject to the term, whereas, without a time limit, the power will be taken away. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- It will rest with the people then. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- It will be taken away from the Commonwealth Parliament, which got it from the people. The Commonwealth Parliament would betray, their trust if they relinquished that power; if they, so to speak, shook off this power which was given to them, and threw it down at the feet of the people, and said, " Take back this which you have given us ; we are not worthy to hold it." No one disputes the right of the State Premiers to exercise a choice. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- The honorable senator does not; but many people have. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- Those who are cheering the honorable senator dispute it. They, regard the State Premiers as nobodies. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -I repudiate the State Premiers as the voice of the people on this matter. But 1 do not dispute their right to say whether they will have the agreement without or with a term. All I dispute is their right to dictate the condition on which they will have the agreement, and to accept it without any limitation of time for the indirect and sinister purpose of taking the power from the Commonwealth Parliament. When the time comes for the change, and we all admit that it may come, who is to have the dominant control - the National Parliament or the States? {: .speaker-KSH} ##### Senator Macfarlane: -- Is not this a States House? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Of course it is a States House, in one sense ; but I am not here as the slave of a State Premier. I am not going to take any instructions from the Premier of my State. I am here for the purpose of doing what 1 believe to be right to my State, and also what is right for the Commonwealth Parliament. I do not think that I should be doing justice to my State if I humiliated the Commonwealth Parliament and was a party to the surrender of this power of financial control. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- The people made the Constitution. Cannot they alter it? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I knew that quite as early as did my honorable friend, and I have not forgotten it, and perhaps I may be pardoned for thinking that I know as much about how it was done as he does. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- More. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- The undoubted constitutional power of financial control, the power to say that the time and need for change has come, belongs to the Federal Parliament - not to the present or the next Parliament, but to the Parliament so long as it lasts and this country endures. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- And Parliament itself is the creation of the people. **Senator Sir JOSIAH** SYMON.Exactly. The people confided this power to the Federal Parliament, and when they see that it is abused and insist upon our giving it up, will be time enough for us to take into consideration whether it should be surrendered. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- We are exercising it. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- My honorable friend says that we are exercising this power. We are exercising it with one hand and surrendering it with another. We are exercising it in agreeing to the bargain, but its exercise is accompanied by a surrender, and the worst feature of it is that we are not surrendering it merely for ourselves. We are actually asked to surrender it for succeeding Parliaments, because, forsooth, they will not be as fair as we are. That is the position. This Bill asks us to sit in judgment on the future National Parliaments of this country and on their *personnel.* ' The State Premiers say, in effect, " We have come to the conclusion that future Commonwealth Parliaments cannot be trusted." They ask us to arrive at the same conclusion and to strip those Parliaments of this power on the ground that they are likely to be of bad faith, and to exercise it improperly. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- There has been a great deal of haggling over it, and yet it is not settled. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Does my honorable friend think that in order to stop that haggling we ought to surrender our power ? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- We ought to do what is straight and honest. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- We will do that. Of course, we all recollect the old lines - >In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch > >Was in giving too little and asking too much. Whenever we have to strike a business bargain we shall find differences of opinion, and each party to the bargain will think that he ought to get the best of it. Bargaining must continue so long as we have business arrangements to make as between the States and the Commonwealth. Some persons are wont to exclaim, " Oh, hu* the Commonwealth and .the States an one." It is true that the States are the component parts of the Commonwealth, but from the stand-point of the ambit of their jurisdictions they are just as different as are two individuals. The States have surrendered certain powers to the Commonwealth, and they have retained certain powers. Can we blame them if they de"sire to aggrandize their position, and can we blame the Commonwealth because it may wish to get a little more than the States think it should get? We cannot blame either party for doing that. Our endeavour should be to see that justice is done. But, undoubtedly, the constitutional power to control the national finances rests with us. The people have not asked us to denude ourselves of that power. There is no allegation - otherwise I am sure that the Vice-President of the Executive Council, in his exhaustive address, would have mentioned it - that this Parliament and successive Parliaments are not fit to exercise it. I defy any man to establish the proposition that this Parliament is not to be trusted to do justice to the States. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- We have not yet appointed a High Commissioner, although nine years have elapsed since we federated. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- What has that to do with the question ? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I will answer **Senator Mulcahy's** question. **Senator Fraser's** inquiry serves to illustrate the extraordinary arguments which are being used to support this extraordinary measure. I repeat that the constitutional power to control the national finances belongs to the Commonwealth Parliament. The State Premiers require us to surrender that power not merely so far as this Parliament is concerned, but so far as future Parliaments are concerned. They ask us to hand this power back to the people - to surrender our supremacy in matters of national finance by parting with the power to deal with the revenue and expenditure in a way that we think fair and just. Are we going to do that ? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- No, we are exercising that power. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- We are not. The Vice-President of the Executive Council has already made the statement which **Senator Dobson** is now echoing. We are exercising that power by putting an end to the book-keeping period, by introducing the *per capita* system of distributing the Customs and Excise revenue, and by fixing the rate *per capita,* irrespective of whether or not that rate is 25s. That is an exercise of our power. But the surrender of a power is not an exercise of it. We do not require to amend the Constitution except for the purpose of ignominiously parting with a power which the people have given us. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The States want some security and desire to arrive at some finality in reference to their future -financial relations with the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Why should the National Parliament surrender its control of the national finances? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Let the honorable senator put himself in the position of a State Treasurer. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I am now in the position of a. member of the Commonwealth Parliament, and I am not going to be dictated to by the Premiers or the Treasurers of the States. If they can show me that an annual contribution by the Commonwealth to the States of 25s. *per capita* is not sufficient, their title is clear, and the Commonwealth should certainly give them more. But are we going to surrender the power ' of this Parliament to deal with its revenue and expenditure in the way that .it deems fair and just - a power which the States and the, people have expressly confided in us? Are we at the bidding of the State Premiers to request the people to take that power from us? If any honorable senator is inclined to do that, certainly I am not disposed to do it at present. That seems to me to be the reason why the State Premiers desire no limit to be imposed upon the operation of the proposed agreement. If a time limit were imposed upon it, at the expiration of that limit, the power of this Parliament to control the national finances would remain just as it is at present. An amendment of the Constitution is the method by which the State Premiers insist - because insist they do - on the condition which they attach to the agreement. They subscribe to the proposed agreement only on condition that it is accompanied by a surrender of our power. To my mind, that involves an abdication of our duty to the States, and also of the duty which we undertook to discharge on behalf of the people. It is a relinquishment of the trust which we accepted from the people. In order to show what the postion really is I intend to read the words of the Constitution itself. Until the imposition of uniform duties of Customs and Excise a certain mode of distributing the Customs and Excise revenue was adopted. For five years afterwards, another method was prescribed by section 93 of the Constitution. Then section 94 provides - >After five years from the imposition of uniform duties of customs, the Parliament may provide, on such basis as it deems fair, for. the monthly payment to the several States of all surplus revenue of the Commonwealth. We ought not to overlook the words " on such basis as it deems fair," which appear in that provision. Of course, a power of that kind has to be exercised not once and for ever, but from time to time. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The section does not say " on such basis as from time to time the Parliament deems fair." {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Does the honorable senator think that when once we have exercised that power it is exhausted ? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- I think that as the Braddon section was implanted in the Constitution the provision substituted for it should also be embodied in the Constitution. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I have not come to the Braddon section yet. Section 94 of the Constitution empowers this Parliament to distribute the surplus revenue of the Commonwealth "on such basis as it deems fair." I come now to the restriction which was imposed upon our expenditure by what is known as the Braddon section - a restriction which, in the judgment of Parliament and of successive Ministries, made it undesirable that any change should be made in the method of distributing the Customs and Excise revenue until it had ceased to operate. We might have changed the method of distributing that revenue to the *per capita* system some four or five years ago, but it would have been foolish to attempt to do so until after the expiry of the Braddon section. That section reads - >During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth, and thereafter until the Commonwealth otherwise provides, of the net revenue of the Commonwealth from duties of customs and of excise, not more than one-fourth shall be applied annually by the Commonwealth towards its expenditure. There, again, the discretion and power of the Commonwealth Parliament are very carefully preserved. I now hark back to sections 93 and 94 for a moment for the purpose of saying that the Bill to which we are asked to invite the people of Australia to assent, seeks to repeal those sections in express terms. That is to say, this Parliament is asked to go to the people who have not, so to speak, a free hand in this matter at all - the referendum which is proposed is a most extraordinary one - who are in the position of a man who has to fight with his arms tied behind his back,and to say to them " The Commonwealth Parliament wishes to relinquish this power of financial control, and desires you to take it back and put it in your cupboard." In this connexion I am reminded of the position which is pictured in the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah. The State Premiers, if they will forgive me for so likening them, are the Philistines, and my honorable friend, the VicePresident of the Executive Council, as the voice of the Government, is a most attractive Delilah. He is endeavouring with all that eloquence of which he is a master, to induce this Parliament - the Samson - to consent to have its financial locks, which are the source of its strength, shorn - locks which, from its youth up, have never been touched by a barber's shears. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator Pearce: -- He said they will grow again. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Does the honorable senator think that the payment of 25s.per *capita* will do all that? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I have said, again and again, that I would be liberal to a degree with the States. If 25s. is not enough, or if some of the States think they are entitled to 5s. or 10s. per head more, I am willing to consider their request, and to add to the amount which they have named. SenatorFraser. - They want enough to pay the interest on their loans. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- That is not the question. It is not a pleasant thing to witness the strenuous efforts that are being made to induce the National Parliament to surrender its supremacy. That is what concerns me. The Parliament is asked cheerfully to sanction the disintegration of its own financial powers, and, in my judgment, to belittle its prestige. SenatorFraser. - The supremacy is in the people. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- But there is a certain supremacy in this Parliament. {: .speaker-K8T} ##### Senator Trenwith: -- The people, in the exercise of their power, have handed their supremacy in this matter over to the Federal Parliament. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- For the time being. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- If the people liked to-morrow to get up an agitation - I do not mean an expression of opinion by half-a-dozen Premiers - for the purpose of taking away any of our powers, they could do so. It is the people who are our masters, undoubtedly. But the people look to us to maintain the honour of Parliament. The honour of Parliament is the honour of the people ; and I say that if the Federal Parliament, without rhyme or reason, surrenders a power which the people have given to it - if wesay, " Take it back; we are not fit to exercise it," - that is. dishonoring to the Parliament and dishonoring to the people. {: .speaker-K6M} ##### Senator Clemons: -- Is there not another reason ? Some people say that it would be for the benefit of the Commonwealth to enter into this agreement. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- How can it be for the benefit of the Commonwealth for this Parliament to lower itself and surrender the power which the people gave to it? The people have not asked for the surrender of this power. Not a single soul has attempted to convict this Parliament of an improper use of its power. Not a soul has come forward to give reasons as to why the Parliament should give up this power. Why should we give it up? Why are we to tell the people that we do not want this power any longer, that we ought not to have it, and that they ought to take it back? {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- We recognise that the States share our financial obligations. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -My honorable friend has had some Ministerial experience, and must know that if you have several Parliaments in the country - the Parliaments of the States, together with a National Parliament - one of them must be dominant. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Not necessarily. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -I think, so, in a Federation. I am afraid that I do not agree with my honorable friend. There cannot be seven National Parliaments. There must be one. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Each dominant in its own domain. 5980 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) BilI.* {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Exactly so; and our domain is defined by section 94 of the Constitution. It is the States which are seeking to invade our domain ; and not merely to invade it, but to conquer it, and to take it away from us. I think that this Parliament ought to resist that attempt to the utmost of its ability. SenatorFraser. - Nothing is taken away that given up voluntarily. Sena tor **Sir JOSIAH** SYMON.- Oh ! SenatorF raser. - We are proposing to give up what we know to be just. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- To whom is it just? SenatorFraser. - To the States. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- What! Just to give back what the people gave to us, to surrender our trust?How would my honorable friend, as a trustee, like to be told that he was distrusted and ought to give up his trust? No one would resent it more than he. He would at once say, "You must bring me some proof of that; I am not going to allow myself to be held up to condemnation in that way." At any rate, we are not left in any doubt as to our position. 1 am sure that some of my honorable friends will attempt to give reasons why we should acknowledge that we ought no longer to enjoy the power which the people gave to us under the Constitution. The Premiers have told us - these gentlemen who are parties to this agreement - with what I may be pardoned for calling effrontery- I hope that is not too strong a term - that they distrust the Federal Parliament. They admit the power, but they say, in effect, that the Federal Parliament is not fit to be trusted with its exercise.. They say that future Parliaments will be likely to be guilty of bad faith, and that if a term were fixed for the operation of this arrangement, some future Parliament - consisting probably of ruffians - would take it into their heads to determine the arrangement without rhyme or reason. Well I do not believe that ; and whether I believe it or not, the onus as the lawyers say, is upon those who say it to prove it. They simply say, in bare terms, that they will not trust us with the exercise of the power which the people under the Constitution gave to this Parliament ; and Parliament, if you please, is meekly to pocket what I think most people would regard as an insult, and to ask the people to take back the power which they gave to us ten years ago. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- We exercise the power by giving permanency to the arrangement. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- But the honorable senator has admitted that we cannot give permanency to what is open to review. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Yes; subject to an alteration of the Constitution, the arrangement would be permanent. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- By whom would the initiative be taken to revise the arrangement? Who has the power of initiative? It is said that if this provision be put into the Constitution, it can be taken out again. How? Of course, you can amend the Constitution. But what are you going to put in instead ? If an occasion arises, demanding a change of the situation, are you going to take out this provision, and restore the power to the Commonwealth Parliament? Is that it? Does any one think that the States would do that? Does any man think the States, if we consent to this power being taken away, would give it back to us? I think not. The only way of changing it would be to substitute some different bargain, with different terms, which would be the result of negotiations between the States and the Commonwealth. But in that case the States would have an advantage, and the Commonwealth would be at a disadvantage. The States at present are, so to speak, in the position of dependents, as they must be to a certain extent; that is to say, the control is with the Commonwealth Parliament, which, of course, is bound to do what is fair and just. But you are going to reverse that position, and make the Commonwealth dependent upon the States, and upon the State Parliaments, which do not represent the people of Australia in the sense in which the Commonwealth Parliament does. This is the only body which is representative of the Democracy of Australia. The State Parliaments are not representative of the Democracy of this country in the same sense. You have nominee Upper Houses, and you have Upper Houses elected on a property qualification. But you have in this Commonwealth Parliament, rightly or wrongly a body elected upon the broadest franchise in the world, the adult franchise of Australia. Surely that is the most complete representation of Australia you can have. This Parliament,I say, now occupies a position of advantage in any such negotiations, but you are going to take that position away, and give the advantage to the States. In other words, the State Parliaments now have to come and ask the Commonwealth Parliament for their share of the Customs and Excise revenues, but the Commonwealth, if this agreement is carried out, will become the suppliant of the States. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The honorable senator is not putting the matter with his usual fairness. The Braddon section is going out of the Constitution, and what is asked for is that the section which is to be substituted for it shall go into the Constitution. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- -I have no objection to a provision relating to a term going into the Constitution. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Then why should we not put the provision into the Constitution permanently ? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I have not the slightest desire to object to putting into the Constitution for a term an arrangement which might be considered just and fair. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Then the honorable senator is giving away his whole argument. I suppose he would not object to a provision to last twenty-five years going into the Constitution ? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I have said that I would not object to a term. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- I think the honorable senator said "any term." Let us say a thousand years. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I did not say " any term." ' My honorable friend's imagination is running away with his judgment. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The honorable senator has given away his whole .argument. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- It is satisfactory to know that my honorable friend has arrived at that conclusion. The position is, as I say again, that we propose to confer the position of advantage which we now occupy, upon the other parties to the negotiations - the States. All I can say is that we shall be eating a very large leek indeed if we agree to that. The position on the part of the Premiers is that they come to us accompanying their extraordinary request with menaces. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- Oh, no. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- With menaces and threats, I say again, they come to us and ask us - they demand, so to speak; they order us - to give up this right which we possess, very much as Cromwell said : " Take away that bauble." {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- More begging than ordering. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I will give an illustration of the "begging." This is what **Mr. Kidston** said - >For the benefit of those who were trying to interfere with the carrying out of this agreement, he would just like to point out that it was quite possible that, if they succeeded in their present aims, and prevented that agreement from being submitted to the people for ratification, this very undesirable result might come about - that the State might elect senators who would prevent any alteration of the Braddon clause whatsoever until a reasonable settlement was come to. That, I suppose, would not be called a threat. I find that in my own State - and perhaps I ought to tremble - **Mr. Peake,** a most able gentleman, whose ability is never tetter shown than when he is doing what was done by a famous Ministry here, namely, carrying on with a majority of one, said - >Some of them might think it advisable, rather than accept a further abatement, to rely upon appealing to the electors to safeguard the interests of the States and by seeking to capture Senate seats pledge the Senate to hold the position by declaiming against any repeal of the Braddon clause until an arrangement could be fixed up that would be satisfactory to the States. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGregor: -- He must have got that from Kidston. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Then4 ten days later, according to the extract I hold in my hand, **Mr. Peake** said - >The States had a right to look to the Prime Minister to stand by the agreement to the last, or frankly to tell the Premiers of the States that he could not carry it. The State Governments could then deci'de whether, rather than have any modification of the agreement, they would not choose to put the whole question before the electors at the time of the Federal elections. Again I say, "Amen." Let them put the agreement before the electors, but not accompanied bv a surrender of its power by this Parliament. **Mr. Peake** went on to say - >And urge them to elect members, particularly senators, to the Commonwealth Parliament pledged to stand by the Braddon clause until some scheme that would give financial stability and security to the States could be agreed upon. That of course would be a far less satisfactory state of things for the Federal Treasury than what was given to it by the agreement. I do not know what term other than "threats" can be applied to these observations. I think that in view of such menaces as these from the. State Premiers, the best thing that could have been done was to have torn up this agreement in their fanes and thrown it to the winds. That we should legislate upon a demand, such as that, to part with our power, without its -being shown that there is any just reason why we should part with it, or that .there is any just reason for believing that this or any future Federal Parliament would not do what is fair and just as the Constitution provides, is to me an unheard-of proposition. To make such a demand upon us without that being shown, and to accompany the demand with these threats in the event of any member of this Parliament, and particularly of the Senate, getting up to express his opinion about the impropriety of this proposal, is unheard of. It brings about a situation which should provoke nothing but the very gravest resentment. I think that the highest statesmanship would be shown in leading a unanimous Parliament to resist this demand, certainly when accompanied bv such threats if it is not complied with. I ask honorable senators to consider how different was the attitude of the Convention. The sections of the Constitution which are intended to be repealed are clear and emphatic enough, but the history of those sections, I think, requires to be a little better understood than it has been. The underlying sentiment which influenced the Federal Convention in dealing with these financial problems was, "Trust the Federal Parliament." Not " Trust the people." We trusted the people with the entire question of the framing of the Constitution, but the solution of these problems was deliberately intended to be intrusted to the Federal Parliament which we were assembled in Convention to create. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The Braddon clause was afterwards inserted in the Bill. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I shall not forget the Braddon clause at all. At the Sydney session of the Convention it was admitted that the problem was a very difficult one, and that the solution was also very difficult for this reason - :that it was impossible to fix for any long term an arrangement of this kind. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- We have gained experience now, and we can fix a term. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- We cannot fix it for ever. That is admitted all round. **Senator Fraser** will admit that it may have to be revised, and when it comes to be revised I am sure the honorable senator will not suggest that the Federal Parliament will not do what is just and fair. If the honorable senator admits that it would do what is just and fair, why take this power away from it? Why should it' be proposed to draw the teeth of the Commonwealth Parliament, because, so to speak,, it is going to tear and rend the States, unless it can be shown that it will do so? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- It is always right todo what is right. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Certainly, and I think that the Federal Parliament will always do what is right. I shall assume that it will until the contrary is shown. I am not going to sit in judgment upon our successors here. My time here may not be prolonged, but there are other honorable senators present who may see the issue of these things ; in fact, in the history of this country I believe that if we put this into the Constitution as is proposed we shall be sowing the seed of conflicts between the Commonwealth and the States which may be dreadful in their consequences, and which I should be very sorry to live to see. There are younger generations growing up, and I should be sorry that they should be witnesses of the conflicts which will be possible if this alteration is made which would give the whip hand to the States instead of retaining it for the Commonwealth Parliament, representing fully the people of Australia. We failed in the Convention to deal with these problems. The difficulty was recognised. A debate took place, which **Senator Trenwith** will remember, at the opening of the Sydney session of the Convention on the whole question of these financial difficulties. It was initiated by **Mr., now Sir George,** Reid - and I may here be permitted to do what I am sure we all desire to do, and that is congratulate the right honorable gentleman upon the honour which His Majesty has conferred upon him. It was initiated by him on the occasion I refer to in connexion with amendments proposed , for New South Wales. An amendment was proposed by the Legislative Assembly of that State to the effect that certain words should be omitted from what was then clause 92 of the Bill, and that other words should be inserted, leaving the Parliament of the Commonwealth free to raise whatever revenue it pleased and to distribute any surplus on a basis to be determined by that Parliament. Member after member of the Convention, whatever views they took upon the various suggestions made with regard to a sliding scale, a minimum return, and so on, agreed that the Federal Parliament was to be trusted, -and that as to the distribution of any surplus it could be relied upon to do what was just and fair. No member of the Convention put the matter more strongly dr better than did **Mr. Reid.** I make no apology for quoting a few sentences from what he said, because, really, his speech on the occasion w as one of the finest I ever heard in my life. It was, at the same time, one of the most statesmanlike utterances that could be delivered, and on this point was really the Magna Charta of the Federal Parliament. **Mr. Reid** said - >Our Parliament does not profess to supply a better scheme ; it makes the suggestion that in view of the fact that no solution has been discovered by the Convention, or any other method proposed which can be adopted, it would be infinitely wiser to leave the whole matter to the Federal Parliament. That is the effect of the recommendation of our Houses, and I must say that the necessity of bringing about a Union of the Australian people being pressed upon me, I am there again prepared to trust the Federal > >Parliament..... I am prepared - and I really think we can all do so - to leave the whole financial question to the Federal Parliament. ... I ask every honorable member whatever his views or interests or policy to follow my example, or rather I am prepared to follow the example of others, the example of all who are prepared to trust these financial matters to the Federal Parliament. ... I am prepared, believing that it will_ be better for the project, to let all the fiscal problems go, and to adopt the spirit of the amendments suggested by the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council of this Colony, is simply conferring power on the Commonwealth to raise revenue to pay its expenditure and to distribute the surplus. My honorable friend., **Senator Fraser,** who was a distinguished member of the Convention, made an interjection at that point which the reporter did not hear, and it is represented simply by a line. But, in reply to it, **Mr. Reid** went on to say - >There again, our trust in the Federal Parliament comes in. The Federal Parliament takes away from each of the five Colonies its almost sole source of revenue. This is all done in ehs interests of Federal Union. It is done because we cannot retain this source of taxation and have Federal Union. No stronger obligation under such circumstances could rest upon any body of honorable gentlemen - no matter what Colony they represent - than that of not exposing the constituent parts of the Federation to financial- **Senator Fraser** interjected " Insolvency." And it is an obligation which rests upon us to relieve the States from such a possibility, remote though it is. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- And that is what is looming now if we do not trust them. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Does the honorable senator say that this Parliament will not treat them fairly in the arrangement to be made? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- Some apparently are not prepared to treat them fairly. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Will the honorable senator say that we are not treating them fairly now so far as regards the business part of this arrangement? **Mr. Reid,** after answering **Senator Fraser's** interjection, went on to say - >Those persons who appear in the Federal Parliament will be there on the franchise which we provide, and will be elected by the men whom we know in Australia, and with those persons sitting in that Parliament, and having the financial interests - indeed, as my honorable friend **Mr. Fraser** suggested the solvency or insolvency - of the colonies in their hands, in it is inconceivable that they would begin their existence as an Australian Legislative body by a course of finance which would immediately throw all the colonies into difficulties. The situation, I think, is inconceivable. 1 still think that it is inconceivable. It is inconceivable that the Federal Parliament, at any time of its existence, would do that which my honorable friend foreshadowed yesterday, and that is starve- the States so as to bring about practically their financial ruin. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Or unification. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Unification is not to be thought of in connexion with this matter ; it is of no consequence of any sort or description. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- Does the honorable senator know that a petition, signed by 53,000 persons, has. been presented to the other House, praying for unification? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- What are those persons out of a population of 4,000,000 ? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- That is all very fine. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Is this agreement to be put in the Constitution in order to prevent future Parliaments from considering any question which might lead to unification? What right have we to legislate for future Parliaments, and to take away their powers because we think that they will do wrong with them? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- We are not legislating. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Yes, we are. If this Parliament is to be trusted, which Parliament is to be distrusted? Which Parliament is going to give unification, or to Starve the States? It is the. merest figment of a disordered imagination to suggest such a thing. **Mr. Reid** continued - >The situation, I think, is inconceivable. If we are not prepared to believe that the outcome of this movement will be a Parliament which will protect the colonies from such obvious danger, not to say . disaster, then I say that we cannot believe in the thing itself. I adopt that view absolutely. If honorable senators can satisfy me that the Federal Parliament, not to-day or to-morrow, but fifty years hence, or at any time, is likely to be a corrupt, a wicked, an unscrupulous, wrong-doing body, then I shall go with them in abolishing Federation. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- I should say that everybody would. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- There is no danger of any of those things happening; still there might be wrong-doing. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Wrong-doing ? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- Yes; there might be unification. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Is this a precautionary measure against unification ? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- I believe it is. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- If it is, that is net our function. We are travelling outside our rights to go and tie up the Federation because of some remote apprehension of the possibilities of what the Federal Parliament would do in the direction of unification. After **Sir George** Turner had made a slight comment, **Mr. Reid** continued - >Having perhaps an equal knowledge - I will not say a greater knowledge - of the popular view with the right honorable member, knowing the views of Australians and the way in which Australians take things, I say, without hesitation, that I believe this project will come to the Australian people with infinitely greater force if those who recommend it to them show by the constitution they frame that they, at any rate, have confidence in the machine they have constructed. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: asked, " What is the objection to a minimum refund?" and this is **Mr. Reid's** answer - >There, I say again, you would, by any such proposition, in view of the extremely divergent situation of the different colonies, nullify the advantages which a free hand would give to the Federal Parliament. We must begin by believing that that body, representing not this little clique, or that little clique, but representative of a great national constituency, coming for the first time into the home of Australian nationality - that these men may be safely trusted to maintain the financial position of each of these colonies as one of the most sacred things committed to their charge. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- That is very eloquent. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Do we believe that? If we pass this Bill, it will give the lie to our belief in the sacred honour and justice of the things committed to the Federal Parliament. **Mr. Reid** also dealt with another matter, and that was the putting of a provision of this kind in the Constitution. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- What does he say today? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I think it would be better that my honorable friend should not introduce that matter, because I am not making these quotations with a view to showing anybody's inconsistency. **Senator Walker.** - The honorable senator is quoting what **Mr. Reid** said in the Convention. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- My honorable friend asked, " What does he say to-day?" I do not want to go into that matter, and I am willing to assume, if my honorable friend likes, that **Sir George** Reid is supporting the agreement to-day. I am merely showing what was in the mind of the Convention and its leaders - that there was the most absolute trust in the Federal Parliament, and that if it had not felt that most absolute trust in the Federal Parliament it would not have framed the Constitution at all. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Is the Braddon section an evidence of that absolute trust in the Federal Parliament? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- If my honorable friend will pardon me, I shall come to that matter in a moment. I am not going to overlook it. The circumstances connected with the adoption of that provision are very fresh in my memory. **Mr. Reid** objected to putting things in the Constitution when we cannot feel sure that we are making a permanent arrangement. He said - >My fear would be - and I confess it - that in an anxiety to meet the varying circumstances of the different colonies, there might be, perhaps, too great a sum taken from the people in the shape of federal taxation. There are difficulties, look which way you will. There are uncertainties, look which way you will. But looking at the fact that we are composed of gentlemen representative of so many widely divergent views as to what the policy of this future parliament should be, we ought, I think, to enter now into a tacit understanding that the spirit in which we will approach these difficulties is this : when we cannot feel sure that we are solving them properly in the interests of the constitution, we will hesitate to put there provisions, which will be very difficult of alteration, and which may work, not for good, but for ill to the whole of the colonies. I do not object to this proposal on the ground that we could not alter the Consti-turton. Of course it can be altered. But . that is not the point. The States may put this provision in the Constitution readily enough with the requisite majorities when the Federal Parliament intimates that it desires to surrender this power. But it cannot be taken out of the Constitution so easily, not because of the small States only, but because of the large States. It is necessary to secure a majority of, not only the electors voting in all the States, but in a majority of the States. A majority can put a provision in the Constitution ; but a minority can keep it there. If the provision is not put in the Constitution, then in a case of emergency the Federal Parliament can act at once and make a modification. Otherwise it would be necessary to pass a Bill and take a referendum on a proposal to amend the Constitution. It would be absurd to do such a thing. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- According to that argument, the honorable senator would not put the agreement in the Constitution, even for a term. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Why not? {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- Because it would take that power out of the hands of the Federal Parliament for the time being. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I am willing to put it in the Constitution for a term, because it would not destroy the power of this Parliament when the term had expired. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- It would temporarily destroy the power of this Parliament. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- The power would be held in suspense. My honorable friend thinks, apparently, that because a member is willing to do a thing for a little while that, therefore, he had better do it for ever. It is no argument that, because you do a thing for a time, you should do it for ever. **Mr. Reid** continued - >I do not presume to know what the voice of the Federal Parliament will be. I say that that body of men, elected by the people of Australia under federal conditions, will be infinite 1 better qualified to bring about an equitable solution than we shall, because our solution, re member, is one which is stamped in letters of iron, whereas their solution would be capable of alteration. That is exactly the position which I contend, for. If we have an agreement for a term it will be capable of alteration at its expiration without an amendment of the Constitution. It is inconceivable that this Federation will shirk its obvious national duty in that way. The struggle may be a bitter one. There may be many disappointments, but I feel convinced the Federal Parliament would loyally and faithfully discharge its duty, not so soon as we might like, but, at any rate, without great delay. I say, in a word, that many of our difficulties will disappear if we all agree to confide the different interests of our localities to the wisdom and justice of this great Parliament representing the Australian people. That is what I say to the Senate. The power has been confided by the Constitution to the wisdom and justice of this great Parliament. There is no -more reason to-day to say that the Federal Parliament will not loyally and faithfully discharge this duty than there was when we were engaged in the task of creating it. Unless my honorable friends can show that it will not loyally and faithfully discharge its duty in the future there is no justification whatever for this condition to be attached to a bargain to which we all agree. I immediately followed **Mr. Reid** on that occasion and congratulated him on his speech, and followed his lead in the sentiment which he had expressed. That was the sentiment animating the Convention. That was the sentiment under which we proceeded throughout the Sydney session, and the Melbourne session until towards its close. At the close of the Sydney session it was recognised by the press, as well as by those engaged in the Convention, that we had done right in assenting to the principle which **Mr. Reid** embodied in that great speech, and the Sydney *Daily Telegraph* of 23rd September, summarized the work done in these terms - >In connexion with the finances, it was found impossible to arrive at a conclusion. **Mr. Reid** proposed that the whole financial problem should go over to the Federation to be solved by the Parliament when it shall be created. It was seen by **Mr. Reid** that reliance would have to be placed on the patriotism and judgment of the Federal Parliament. This view .met with acceptance from a large number of the delegates. In the Melbourne session the first who suggested that the States should receive some special consideration was not **Sir Edward** Braddon, but **Mr. John** Henry, a most eminent man, possessing great financial ability. Not in conflict with- this principle of trusting the Federal Parliament, but in order that it should have more power and more discretion, he moved a provision 5986 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) Bill.* which I assisted him to draft, that the Commonwealth Parliament should be empowered to go to the assistance of any State which might require financial aid. His proposal was defeated on the ground, amongst others, that the Federal Parliament would have a discretion, that it might be trusted to do what he proposed, and would not stand by and see any Statein financial straits without aiding it. Accordingly his proposal did not pass then into the Constitution, but it subsequently did. On the last business day of the Melbourne session, and in the middle of the night when only thirty-nine out of fifty members were present, a good many having gone home, **Sir Edward** Braddon submitted a proposal. Recognising that it was not a good time to discuss a financial or constitutional question of that sort, he apologized for not being able, owing to his condition of sleepiness, to do justice to the question, and moved what is called the original Braddon clause. There was no debate. His motion was seconded by, I think, **Mr. Grant,** who was another representative of Tasmania. I voted against it, as did a good manyothers, including **Mr. Barton** and **Mr. Reid.** It was carried by a small majority - a majority, I think, of three - and the Convention rose about 4 a.m., to re-assemble at 11 a.m. on the same day. Immediately upon its re-assembling, **Mr. Barton** moved the recommittal of the clause for the purpose of inserting a limitation upon its operation for a term of years, or " until the Parliament otherwise provides." In doing so, he said - >This clause amounts to a guarantee, and I have all along been, and I am still, opposed to implanting in this Constitution any financial guarantee to the States for the plain reason that there could not be a stronger argument afforded to the enemies of Federation than to ask for guarantees. Those remarks are as applicable to-day as they were then. The proposal to insert this agreement in the Constitution is an antiFederal one. Parliament is asked to pillory itself before the world as unfit to exercise this power. **Mr. Barton** went on to say - >The Federal Parliament is to be free to deal with the finances and the distribution of the surplus as it pleases after five years have elapsed from the imposition of the uniform Tariff. If there is to be any guarantee at all, it should not extend beyond that limit, and for this reason that the States being all represented in the Federal Parliament on a basis which we deem fair, when the five years of uniform Tariff have elapsed, the Federal Parliament has leave to deal with the distribution of the surplus as it deems fit. It knows best how to do that, and therefore any condition of this kind should not last beyond the limit of those five years. I think that those words represent sound wisdom and statesmanship. My honorable friend, **Senator Fraser,** encouraged me very greatly on that occasion by taking a similar view as to the confidence which should be reposed in the Commonwealth Parliament. He said - >I heartily support the clause as passed last evening. But I would like to draw attention to what I conceive to be a danger in it. The clause contains a cast-iron provision, and it may lead to the Commonwealth being in dire necessity for money at some future time. Suppose an invasion took place, or the Commonwealth requires to enter upon a very large expenditure for some public purpose - an expenditure which the whole nation would unanimously say "Yea" to - it will be hampered by the provisions of this clause, because the clause says that the Commonwealth shall only take a certain proportion of the Customs revenue. . . . I conceive that the clause will create a great difficulty. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- But we are not now getting rid of that difficulty entirely. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- We are only reducing it. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- We may be increasing it; it is a leap in the dark. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- It is proposed to embody the agreement in the Constitution. Will it not then be a castiron provision? {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- No; the Commonwealth will merely hand over to the States a little *douceur.* {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- But is it not cast-iron? **Senator Fraser** proceeded - >I conceive that the clause will create a great difficulty. The Commonwealth would have to resort to other taxation than is provided for in. the clause, and I think some safety-valve should be provided. That is what I say. A safety-valve was eventually provided, and is now in the Constitution. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The people are the safety-valve. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Ifmy honorable friend chooses to throw away the powers of this Parliament, I cannot help it. But I shall be no party to any such proposal. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- In case of dire emergency we can amend the Constitution, and do so expeditiously. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Exactly. If we want to carry out certain public works, I suppose we can amend the Constitution? I repeat that the Braddon section was inserted in the Constitution in the dead of night, and without serious con sideration. I believe that if it had been, proposed in a full Convention a month previously, it would not have appeared in the draft Constitution. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- There was always a feeling that some provision of that sort should be inserted. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I am not aware of it. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- In its absence, I do not think that we should have had a Federation. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I think that we should. Little Tasmania was jumping at it. The fact of the matter is that the Convention had done its duty. It had completed the draft Constitution, and most of its delegates had gone to their homes. It did not wish to re-open the question, and for the sake of union was prepared to recommend the acceptance of the Constitution with that blot in it. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Was it a " blot " ? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- It was a distinct blot, and we are indebted to our friends in New South Wales for so stigmatizing it. Had the Braddon "blot " been a. permanent provision in the Constitution, Ave should never have ' had Federation. New South Wales would have none of it. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- She accepted it. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- She did not. The required statutory majority was not reached on the first referendum there. {: .speaker-K8T} ##### Senator Trenwith: -- That was because the statutory majority was altered. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Quite so. On the first referendum in New South Wales a majority of the electors approved the draft Constitution, but the statutory majority was not reached. That majority had to be secured before New South Wales could join the Federation. {: .speaker-KKL} ##### Senator Fraser: -- She was very much inclined to block 'Federation. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- -That is so, and she would have blocked it had the Braddon section been made permanent. As a result, at the beginning of 1899, a Conference of Premiers was held, at which, in order to place the control over the distribution of the surplus revenue in the hands of the Federal Parliament at the ex piration of a limited period, the Braddon clause was remodelled, assented to in its changed form, and submitted to the people, who accepted it in that form. Under this Bill we are now asked to undo all that was done by the people, who, by their acceptance of the Constitution Bill, signified their wish to intrust the control of the national finances to the Federal Parliament. We are asked to surrender that power, and to substitute something else for it. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- We are asked to do exactly what we did before. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- We are asked to do exactly what the people, on the second Federal referendum, declared it was not desirable to do. They substituted a better provision which is now in the Constitution, and which provides that the Customs and Excise revenue shall be distributed in a certain way for a limited period, and that thereafter the management of any surplus shall be vested in this Parliament. Why is the good faith or justice of the Commonwealth Parliament doubted? If it can do what is- fair now, why can it not do what is fair in the future? Why is it to be asked to confess its inability to exercise this power which has been confided to it? The proposal to embody the agreement in the Constitution is a sort of vote of want of confidence in the justice and good faith of the Commonwealth Parliament. Yesterday the Vice-President of the Executive Council referred to the small States and to their representatives. I am the representative of a small State from the stand-point of population. But whether we represent large or small States we are all members of the Commonwealth Parliament, and it is our duty to vindicate and maintain the rights and powers of that Parliament, unless it can be shown that those rights and powers are being exerted to the disadvantage of the States. As a member of this Parliament, I am not going to give South Australia something for which she has never asked. Her people are not entitled to it, and I am not entitled to give it. Besides, it seems to me entirely unnecessary that we should make this surrender - a surrender which involves an abandonment of its powers by the National Parliament. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Does not the South Australian Parliament ask for some provision under which that State will be guaranteed the amount of revenue from Customs and Excise which it has hitherto received? **Senator Sir JOSIAH** SYMON.Whether South Australia asks for it or not, I say that she is entitled to it, and I am prepared to grant it. So far as the distribution of this money is concerned, 1 am here to support the claim of South Australia to every shilling to which she is justly entitled. If the Government of South Australia told me that 25s. *per capita* was not enough, I should be willing to assist them to the utmost of my power to get more. That is the true State right. The right of the States is not to take away power from this Federal Parliament. What possible right have they to do that ? I repudiate the claim of the Premiers to represent the States in that respect. If at the next election the people choose to send in senators and representatives pledged to steps to take away the financial powers of this Parliament, that will be a new and very different state of things. But the people have not done that yet. We are asked voluntarily to denude ourselves of this power and surrender this function. The fact that the Premiers make this, a condition is not a subject of complaint from me. They are entitled to do the best they can "for their States. But we have a right to consider, whether it is proper for us to make the concession asked for. I make no complaint against them, if they ask for the surrender of any power. But I never yet heard of a National Parliament that was willing to surrender its powers. I do not believe such a thing has ever occurred in the history of Christendom. The people gave us these powers as the foundation of our existence, and to ask us to surrender them is - -I do not like to say a piece of impudence, but it is, at all events, inconceivable that we should yield to the demand. The fact that they have asked us, however, does not preclude me from saying that, if the Federal Parliament does voluntarily surrender this power to those who gave it, they are not likely to restore it to us. It is one thing to make a present to an individual who deprecates receiving it ; but it is quite another thing to get it back again from him when he has once got it, or, if it is money, has spent it. If we surrendered this power, I do not think that it would be returned to us; certainly not as it now exists. Because, if there is to be an alteration at all, so far as the Commonwealth is concerned, it will probably be in the nature of a reduction. In that case, if we pass this Bill, the States would have to negotiate, not as to what they should receive, but as to what dole they should give to the Commonwealth. That would be a situation quite different from that which now arises under the Constitution. What reason is there for taking this course? The only one of which I am aware is that which has been expressed by **Mr. Kidston,** and others, and which I see has been made the text for an article in an influential newspaper in my own State - that the Premiers do not trust the Federal Parliament. I have also seen it suggested in other portions of the press that there is some political object in view. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- To kill the Labour party. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I do not know whom it is proposed to kill ; but if the intent be to kill any part)' - if there be any political object in view - all that I can say is that we are paying too much for our whistle. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- It would be wrong, anyway. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- It would be wrong, as my honorable friend says. I would ask **Senator Dobson** whether he thinks it would be right that we should depart from the Constitution or surrender the powers given to us for some fleeting electoral advantage? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- I think that the honorable senator's words and arguments are wholly unsubstantial^ and I also think that it is inexpedient to hurl such words at the Premiers, as "impudent" and " audacious." {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Does not my honorable friend think that they are audacious? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Certainly not ; they are men of business. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Are they not audacious in asking us to deprive ourselves of the power given to us by the Constitution ? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- They are not. They are asking us to make the Constitution complete. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- That is quite a new phase. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- Did the honorable senator ever himself invite these " audacious " gentlemen to a Conference? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I do not think I did ; but I should be very glad to see them. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- The honorable senator was a member of a Ministry that did, any way. *Constitution Alteration* [18 Nov., 1909.] *(Finance) Bill.* 5989 {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I am delighted to hear that. Does my honorable friend say that I have ever expressed any objection to Conferences with the Premiers ? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- What is the use of a Conference unless an agreement is sought ? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I have no objection to making an agreement. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- But when an agreement is made, my honorable friend assumes that it has been made at the dictation of one side. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I must assume that the abandonment of our power has been proposed at the dictation of one side. Was the suggestion that the Commonwealth Parliament should surrender its power an emanation from the Commonwealth Ministry? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator has no right to say that anything was proposed at the " dictation "of either side. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Will the honorable senator answer my Question? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I will not answer it in that way. SenatorSir JOSIAH SYMON.- I do not' think that the honorable senator cares to answer it at all. If he tells me that the suggestion that we should abandon our powers was an emanation from the Commonwealth Ministry, of course, the object ofmy remarks will be entirely changed. But until he tells me to the contrary I venture to say that that suggestion was an emanation from the State Premiers. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator called it " dictation." {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I do still. Further than that, my belief is that the Premiers have been extremely hard on the Ministry of which my honorable friend is a distinguished member and ornament. I think that they were cruel on the Government and on the Prime Minister, and for this reason. There was a postponement of this financial business for a considerable time after the measure had been introduced in the House of Representatives. It was generally understood that there were, not formal, but informal, communications, and the belief was that the Premiers were being asked - or, if not asked, at any rate, being conferred with - in the hope that they would agree to a limitation of time for this agreement. That is my belief. Unless my honorable friend denies the statement I shall continue to hold that belief. Further, I will say that some of the Premiers, at any rate, were perfectly willing to consider the proposal for a limitation of time, but one of them was obdurate; or perhaps I should say he was firm, for I do not want to offend **Senator Dobson** by using a hard word. The result was that the Premiers insisted on the Government going on with the agreement; and then came the threats to which I have incidentally referred. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- Does the honorable senator think that the Premiers simply wanted some guarantee that their State finances would not be upset? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- A guarantee for how long? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Something put into the Constitution. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- For how long? Personally, I rather object to any bargain of this sort going into the Constitution. I object to any bargain on a mere financial matter being made a constitutional enactment. There have been only about twenty amendments of the American Constitution, and nothing of so commercial a character as this has formed the subject of one of them. There is no need for it, in my opinion. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The honorable senator said, a little while ago, that he had no objection to a financial provision going into the Constitution for a limited time. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- Nevertheless, I object, in principle, to what my honorable friend **Senator Millen** called "tinkering" with the Constitution. I do not think that there is the slightest need for this financial arrangement going into the Constitution at all. I am willing to concede my own judgment on that point, however, as long as, at the expiration of a given term, Parliament is left free to provide as it chooses. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- That is to say, the honorable senator would submit to a temporary indignity, but not to a permanent one? {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- My honorable friend thinks that that is an excellent argument, no doubt; but if he considers that an inconvenience to which a person is prepared to submit temporarily is as bad as an indignity which is inflicted upon him permanently, I do not agree with him. If these Premiers consider that an arrangement to last ten or 5990 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] (Finance) *Bill.* fifteen years should be embodied in the Constitution, 1 should not object, although I do not think it necessary. If the Prime Minister, with his greater knowledge and experience, thinks it desirable that a provision should be put in the Constitution, let it be done. But let it be for a term, and let us still preserve the power of the Federal Parliament to make immediately that term runs out another arrangement without having to go to the people with another referendum for an alteration of the Constitution. We should then be extricated from the position of making a surrender, when we ought merely to be making an agreement just as we might make a lease. If we are to trust the States to be reasonable and fair, should a crisis arise, is there any reason why the States should not trust us to be reasonable and fair when circumstances demand it ? It has been suggested that what is proposed ought to be done, because we have full powers of taxation left to us. But we have now two powers. We have the power of expenditure - the power of disposing of the money - and also the power of taxation. The power of expenditure is to be taken away. Does it not seem a curious argument that when a person possesses two things and is asked to give up one - I will not say, is to be robbed of one - some one congratulates him upon having the other left? It is an argument that would commend itself to a pickpocket, who had taken a man's purse, and who, when handed over to the police, said " You have no reason to complain because I have left you your watch." Another argument that is used is that the agreement proposed makes for Free Trade. Now, I do not object to a revenue Tariff at all. I should like to see our present Tariff converted into a revenue Tariff. But I decline to sacrifice the powers of the Federal Parliament in order to get that. I will say, further, that if this agreement makes for Free Trade, and if the maintenance of our present power makes for Protection - if that surrender means Free Trade and the retention Protection - the choice to me is clear and easily made. I prefer to retain the power at the risk of continued Protection. But what I chiefly object to is that to yield on this matter would be a victory, it seems to me, for anti-Federalism. It is all the more mischievous because it comes at a time when,I am sorry to say, we must all recognise that there is some passing discontent with Federation. To carry this agreement before the people now would be to take advantage of that discontent. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator means to say that he thinks that they would carry it. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I shall do all that I can to prevent it. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator's statement means that he fears it will be carried if it goes to the people. {: .speaker-K7V} ##### Senator Sir JOSIAH SYMON: -- I say that we should not ignominiously put our surrender before the people. What we are invited to do in this Bill is to ask the people to take back from us a power with which, according to the statements to which I have referred, we are not fit to be trusted. That is all I desire to say for the present. I hope to have later opportunities of dealing with the subject further, if it should become necessary. I wish, however, to refer to one or two matters which, perhaps, do not go quite to the heart of the question. I think that the issues with which we are dealing in this Bill will complicate the situation very much at the approaching elections. The measure may split up forces which might otherwise act together. I regret, and I say it with a feeling to some extent of pain, that I am compelled to take this view, because I am aware that it may not be shared by some personal and political friends of my own. Honorable senators will agree that it is a much harder thing to stand up against one's friends than to stand up against one's opponents. But my fealty to Federation and my loyalty to the Federal Parliament, as created by the people, must be, and will be, my watchword in the whole of this controversy? I say, let us be true to ourselves. The men of England draw inspiration from those old familiar words - {: type="i" start="1"} 0. . nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true. I say, let us apply that to ourselves in this Parliament, of which we have the honour to be members. Let this National Parliament be true to itself. If it is, there is in my opinion nothing whatever to fear. The States will have nothing to fear, and the people, as the people of the States, will have absolutely nothing to fear. It is because I believe that, and because I believe that we shall not be faithful to the Constitution, to the Federal Parliament, to the people who framed the Constitution, and have sent us here, if we pass this Bill, that I shall be found, to the utmost of my humble ability, resisting it. {: #subdebate-15-0-s1 .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD:
New South Wales -- I think that we may congratulate ourselves that the case for the opposition to this Bill has been put by the most eminent advocate it was possible to find for it in this Chamber. But, at the same time, I think that honorable senators will agree with me. that the main point, and almost the only point, which has been made by the honorable and learned senator, in the course of his two hours' address, was the statement that the Parliament of the Common weal th is giving up its power to control the finances. The honorable senator returned again and again to that point. One matter after another was referred to, but only to lead up again to the statement that the Parliament of the Commonwealth was being deprived of this power. {: .speaker-K0F} ##### Senator Pearce: -- Is not that serious enough ? {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- It would be very serious if it were true. The honorable senator suggested that the people of the Commonwealth were being asked to surrender something to the people of the States. I think that in this Chamber we might certainly have expected to hear from so able a man as **Senator Symon** some clear exposition of the position and needs of the States at the present time and in the future! When we were dealing last week with the Defence Bill, I referred to the greatness of our task of defence, and as an illustration 1 mentioned that the State of Victoria exceeds in area by some thousands of square miles, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, and Greece combined. That is a matter of very great importance, because it gives us some idea of the developmental work which has to be done in this State. If Victoria, which is in area the smallest of the continental States of Australia, is so big and the possibilities and work of its development are so great, what must the developmental needs and possibilities of all Australia be? Should we. as a legislative chamber, be anything but false to those who sent us here if we forgot the necessities of the States? We cannot forget them. The fact that the Premiers nf the six States of Australia met together and urgently sought to have those needs recognised is entirely to their credit, and ought to be commended and recognised by every member of the Senate. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- How do we know that? {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- Judging by speeches which have been delivered here to-day, and by interjections which have been made, there are honorable senators who are prepared to be scornful of the State Premiers because of their just and proper anxiety for the future of the States. **Senator Symon** confined himself almost solely to one point - that we were giving up our power in connexion with finance by putting into the Constitution this agreement providing for the payment to the States of 25s. *per capita* in perpetuity or so long as the people permitted the arrangement to remain. It is well to remember that this is a great agreement. It terminates a period of strife, stress, uncertainty and friction between the States and the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Tt is the coping stone of Federation. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- As has been recognised, it puts an end to the bookkeeping system which has been an unfortunate accompaniment of Federation up to this date. It separates Commonwealth and State finances, arid surely that is a gain which we must all recognise. State Treasurers under this agreement will have an assurance of some fixity of revenue. They will be able to bring their annual financial statements before their respective Parliaments at a time which suits them without having to wait until the Federal Treasurer has first of all delivered his Budget. 1 take it that that is a matter of no little' moment. In the third place, this agreement does clearly give the States in perpetuity certain revenue. Here I would say that the principal object of the Braddon section was to secure to the States a certain revenue, and to secure it in perpetuity. Because the term of ten years was put upon, its operation that did not ' mean for a. moment that at the close of that period the right of the States to a share of the revenue from Customs and Excise should cease. The ten years' period is closing now, and it is absolutely compulsory that some agreement shall be made for the future. This agreement effects another thing. During the nine years of Federation we have had separate postal systems in the different States. **Senator Symon** has, during the last two or three weeks put several ques-' tions on the subject of postage showing the necessity for some alteration, but the honorable senator apparently has not recognised that this agreement will solve the question of Federal postage, and that as soon as it is carried into effect we shall have a Federal system of penny postage established throughout Australia. That will be a gain which the honorable senator has been anxious to secure for the people of South Australia. It is said by some people that this agreement ought not to have been made apart from some arrangement for the taking over of the State debts. In the *Age* of to-day the statement is made - >Every Federal Treasurer has been persistently contending for the transfer of the State debts as a *sine qua non* of any financial agreement. Every financial expert has concurred in this. . '. . It is a surrender of the Commonwealth's policy of taking over the State debts and regulating the States borrowing system. I deny absolutely that that is a Commonwealth policy. If any party in the Commonwealth Parliament were to bring that forward as a policy I should feel it to be my duty to denounce it to the utmost of my ability. 1 am not prepared, and I do not think that any one who believes in the rights of the States and foresees the immense work before the State Governments in development and in the construction of railways and public works would be prepared to question the rights of the States with regard to their borrowing policy. 1 desire, with all the strength of which language is capable, to dispute the statement in the *Age* of to-day on that subject. A number of statements have been put forward in which attempts have been made to balance the debts on one hand and the revenue on the other. But most of those statements have had merely the effect of giving one a headache. I do not know of any better recipe for a headache than a sight of a scheme such as, for instance, that which **Mr. Harper** has brought forward. If we were to go to the country with a scheme of that kind, I think that it would be bound to send half of the men and all the women into lunatic asylums. Under our finances there are so many points in which the States and the Commonwealth are necessarily at variance that we should be delighted at an opportunity to bring the differences to a termination. The statistics show that the ner head receipts in the States vary time after time ; the figures for one State rising and the figures for another State falling. A State which pointed to its revenue to-day and said, " We ought to have so much in a year or a few years " would very soon have to confess that its claim, based simply on .revenue, was not sound. The production of wealth in one State is great in one year and poor in the following year, and the revenue receipts rise or fall. There are all sorts of complications which make it most difficult to decide what is fair in the mere distribution of revenue. I differ absolutely from **Senator Symon** as to the position of the Commonwealth under this agreement. I think that it will make the position of the Commonwealth clear and strong, and that, so far from surrendering our powers, it will increase them. It will terminate foi ever the provision under which we can take only a fourth -of the net Customs and Excise revenue. How can it be contended by anybody for a moment that we shall surrender any power in accepting this agreement? Where is the ground for making that statement? It will really extend our taxing power in regard to Customs and Excise, because henceforward we shall be able to impose duties without having to share the revenue with the States. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- Oh 1 {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- Does the honorable senator recognise that? {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- Yes. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator PULSFORD: -- Of course, everybody recognises that. . If we get the right to increase our taxation we shall have strengthened, not surrendered, our power. I was surprised at the statement which emanated from **Senator Symon** to-day. We are not absolutely bound to take from the Customs and Excise revenue the amount which we undertake to pay to the States *per capita.* Under the Constitution to-day we are bound to pay over a certain proportion of that revenue, but if the alteration sought is made those provisions will be swept away, and there will only remain an obligation to pay to the States 25s. per head from revenue which may be obtained by Customs and Excise duties, or which may be obtained partly from those sources and partly from other sources of taxation. Honorable senators must recognise that if a time did come when 25s. per head was found to be too onerous, and the States were not willing to consent to an alteration of the rate, the Commonwealth could say, " Very well, we will go on paying you ; but we must protect ourselves by imposing some other taxation to enable us to find the money." By the insertion of this agreement in the Constitution the Commonwealth will be made stronger in all directions. Its powers will be increased, not decreased. Of course, it will have to defray the ' cost of defence, old-age pensions, penny postage, the administration of the Northern Territory, and other new matters. That the revenue which is collected will- be wanted I have no doubt, but the Commonwealth will have power to obtain revenue which it does not possess to-day. I want to put the position of Tasmania. . I find that the 25s. per head will about balance the amount which it is now receiving, so that it will have the advantage of the enormously increased expenditure on defence without any further deduction. I also find that the State receives the benefit of old-age pensions without having a deduction made from its revenue. In proportion to population it has more claimants for old-age pensions than has any of the other States. I reckon that the agreement will probably insure to Tasmania a sum equal to about £70,000 a year for old-age pensions. Then it will get the benefit of penny postage without having any deduction made from its revenue. It will mean a reduction of State expenditure by a sum of probably £10,000. I do not think it is quite fair that I should cease my remarks about Tasmania at that point. When we find that these amounts will be annually a matter of adjustment, then we are led to the conclusion that so far that State has been suffering very much, and that this agreement will only do what is fair and reasonable to the State. I do not suggest for a moment that the large payments which the Commonwealth must make either directly to, or in the interests of , Tasmania are gifts. I am only showing that the action of the agreement will be to bring about something which is fair and which is due to Tasmania on a simple *per capita* basis. I may add that to Tasmanian statesmen we owe the provision which is known as the Braddon section in the Constitution, and in the circumstances which have developed, it is a tribute to their wisdom. Under this agreement, Western Australia is to get a special payment of ,£250,000 a vear, and that is only because it has a specially large revenue per head. To those causes are due the fact that, in proportion to population, the oldage pension claims in that State are less than half the average in the other States. If they were as large in Western Australia as they are in Tasmania, then the payments to the former would probably be £80,000 more. The large payment of £250,000 a year explains itself, and becomes reasonable and defensible. If we look at the figures for New South Wales, we are startled at finding that that State will have to give up at once the enormous sum of £1,300,000. But it will be relieved of the payment of old-age pensions to nearly half the amount. The introduction of penny postage will relieve its citizens of the personal payment of, I suppose, £70,000 to start with. On looking at the accounts for New South Wales, I have observed that, owing to the bookkeeping system, it has been paying a smaller sum per head for defence than Victoria, and a good deal less than Queensland. Under the system which the *per capita* arrangement will introduce, we shall secure a better balancing of the accounts, and more justice to the States. At present New South Wales is enjoying a period of remarkable prosperity. That, to some extent, accounts for its large revenue, and for part of the very large sum which it seems to be giving up. If this agreement had been made six or seven years ago, it would not have shown so large a sacrifice on the part of that State, but a larger sacrifice on the part of Victoria. That is a fact which it is well worth while to bear in mind. We have heard talk about the Commonwealth and the States, but, in regard to revenue and expenditure, honorable senators should bear in mind that Australia has a Commonwealth pocket and a States' pocket, and that it can distribute, as it thinks well, its revenue, putting a certain amount of revenue in the States' pocket, and debiting accordingly. . Is not that fair ; is it not reasonable? It should also be remembered that the Commonwealth can only take out of the revenue what is suggested if the electors of the Commonwealth - that is, the electors of the States - agree to it. Is not that fair? I cannot understand any objection to the proposal, much less can I understand it emanating from those who declare themselves to be followers of, and believers in, Democracy. The *Age* of to-day says that the agreement is "an insidious Free Trade blow at Protection. ' ' That is a very extraordinary statement to read in that newspaper. I believe that it is especially intended for consumption by **Senator Trenwith.** I recognise that I am about the last person in the world to convince him of the truth or otherwise of the statement. I am sure that he is competent to judge for himself on that point. I also recognise that if he felt that the statement was true there would be only one course open to him. I have been looking at the figures relating to our imports, and I find that during last year merchandise to the value of £19,644,223 was admitted free. That opens up a large taxable area. During the same year, our dutiable imports were valued at £^8,952, 223. If it be necessary to reduce importation by the imposition of high duties, we can make good any deficiency in our revenue by taxing the goods which are now admitted free. I note, also, that the imports for 1908 include £3,000,000 worth of goods on which the *ad valorem* duties range from 5 per cent, to 12J per cent., £8,000,000 worth upon which they vary from 4 per cent, to 20 per cent., and £4,000,000 worth upon which they range from 22 * per cent, to 25. per cent. We also have a wide margin between the Customs and Excise duties upon revenue-producing articles. By increasing or decreasing that margin, we can move either in the direction of Protection or of Free Trade. I may also mention that last year under the preferential Tariff with the United Kingdom, a rebate was made of duties representing more than £800,000. These facts prove the utter fallacy of the statement that either Free Trade or Protectionist members of the Fusion have been false to their faith. In the proposed agreement there is an elasticity which will enable either party to push the Tariff in the direction of its particular fiscal faith. Therefore, there is not the slightest necessity to meet the bogy which has been raised by the Age.* There is only one other point with which I desire to deal. It has been repeatedly stated that, since the establishment of Federation, the Commonwealth has made the States a present of £6,000,000. I utterly deny the accuracy of that statement. The Constitution provides that the Commonwealth may retain up to one-fourth of the net receipts from Customs and Excise for its own purposes, but does not say that it shall retain that amount. Obviously, the intention of the framers of the Constitution was that the States should receive at least 75 per cent, of the net Customs and Excise revenue ; but if, after the Commonwealth had paid its way, 80 per cent, or 90 per cent, of that revenue was available, they were to get it. The Commonwealth, therefore, has not returned to the States a single penny which was not their property. {: #subdebate-15-0-s2 .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator MCGREGOR:
South Australia -- A good deal of misapprehension has been created by speeches which have been delivered upon this Bill, and by interjections which have emanated from various parts of the Chamber. It has been suggested that certain honorable senators, and certain members of another place, are earnest advocates of unification. Speaking for myself, and those with whom I am associated, I wish to say that we are not advocates of unification in the sense in which that term has been used- in the Senate. I have always been a Federalist, and I am not in favour of unification. It was stated to-day that a petition in favour of unification, and signed by tens of thousands of persons, had been presented in another place. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- A similar petition was presented here. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I do not think that it was presented here. But. even it it were, I would like honorable senators to understand that the signatories to that petition are not unificationists in the sense in which that word has been used in this Chamber. They are restrictionists, not unificationists. They desire a Federation, but they wish the powers of local government to be distributed in a different manner from that in which they are distributed at present. They want other forms of State government substituted for the existing forms. Although I have always been a home ruler, I still believe in the efficacy of State government. I hold that the States wil-1 be able adequately to discharge their functions when those functions are clearly defined. I would like honorable senators who support this agreement to disabuse their minds of the impression that those who oppose it do so because they are in favour of unification. Further, if anything in the nature of unification were looming in the distance, the embodiment of cast-iron provisions of this description in the Constitution, would tend to hasten rather than to retard it. As an ardent Federalist I am opposed to any agreement of this character being placed in the Constitution. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- Is the honorable senator aware that at a meeting of the Labour party the other day a motion in favour of unification was adopted ? {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I know more about that matter than does the honorable senator. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Is not unification on the official programme of the Labour party in South Australia? {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Certainly not. It may be advocated by an individual member or two, but in a general sense it is not championed by the Labour party anywhere. Honorable senators opposite may rest assured that I shall always support the maintenance of the Constitution in its present form. Before criticising the very able and admirable speech of the VicePresident of the Executive Council, I wish to dispel the idea which Senators Pulsford, Gray and Walker entertain of the views which were advocated by **Senator Symon.** I agree with almost everything that that honorable senator has said in reference to the proposed financial agreement. He did not for a moment resent the suggestion that it was the duty of the Commonwealth to stick to the States just as the Constitution contemplates that it should do. He did not oppose an annual return of 25s. *per capita* to the States. On the contrary, he declared that if that sum should prove to be insufficient he was prepared to support an increase. I think that in present circumstances the amount is sufficient, and though I am not prepared to increase it, I am quite willing to grant it. I do not think that any honorable senator desires to repudiate the proposed agreement. But I object to surrendering the powers of this Parliament over the control of the Commonwealth finances. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- Surrender to w horn ? {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- If the honorable senator is not in too big a hurry I may tell him. It does not matter to. whom they are surrendered. The people gave us those powers, and if we hand them back, the people will have a right to refuse to restore them to us at any future time. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- The position is like that of the man who was endowed with only one talent. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: **- Senator Pulsford** has stated that the proposed agreement wiM extend the powers of the Commonwealth, and will give it greater freedom. He added that if it were adopted the Commonwealth would be able to do a great many things which it has not previously been able to do. I quite agree with him. We all recognise- that the operation of the Braddon section of the Constitution restricts the powers of this Parliament, and that all the sections which hinge upon it have a similar effect. Under it the Commonwealth has to do certain things. It has to return to the States 75 per cent, of the Customs and Excise revenue. But will **Senator Pulsford** tell me that under the proposed agreement we should have greater control over the national finances than we should have in 19 10, when the Braddon section will expire? The honorable senator is in error when he imagines that the proposed agreement will give the Commonwealth any power whatever. Yet we are asked to go to the people and say, " So far as the finances of the Commonwealth are ' concerned, we do not wish to have any more control over them in the future than we have now." We are, in fact, asked to surrender the power that we should obtain on the expiration of the Braddon section of the Constitution. I do not wish to have any misunderstanding in the minds of honorable senators as to my attitude. I have heard no one on this side of the chamber say that he is not prepared to deal fairly with the States. It is not contended that 25s. *per capita* is not a fair payment. The Labour party at the Conference in Brisbane was ready to give to the States, according to the admission of the Vice-President of the Executive Council, just as much as the Government are proposing. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- But the Brisbane Conference wanted to make the 25s. *per capita* a maximum. The Conference laid it down that £5,500,000 per annum was to -be the maximum payment. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- When the honorable senator hears a statement about his opponents his mind is so biased that he makes no further investigation. The proposal made at Brisbane was a fairer one than is the agreement we are now discussing. What it was proposed to pay amounted to nearly the same amount as the present Government propose to pay. A sum of £5,500,000 was to be paid to the States permanently, and the revenue unspent by the Commonwealth was also to be divided *per' capita.* {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- But there was an intention to pay for public works out of income, and that would have left very little surplus. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- There was no intention to do anything unfair. It was recognised that the Commonwealth had certain functions to perform, and they were to be paid for out of revenue. We were prepared to pay 25s. *per capita* to the States, and to bear the cost of Commonwealth government out of the balance. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- There was no proposal to pay that amount for ever. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- It was not proposed to insert a provision in the Constitution. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The whole terms of the Brisbane proposal show that the arrangement was to be permanent. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- There is no necessity to haggle about the question of permanency. The £5,500,000 was to be a permanent payment, and the remainder, after bearing the cost of Commonwealth services, was to be divided *per capita.* {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- I think that the honorable senator is. wrong as to the £5,500,000. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator MCGREGOR: -- No ; but no provision was to be placed in the Constitution. {: .speaker-JXJ} ##### Senator Needham: -- The statements made at the Brisbane Conference were published, but the statements made at the Melbourne Premiers' Conference were not. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- And the members of the Brisbane Conference cannot now agree amongst themselves as to what their proposal meant. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- It is useless for the Minister to say that we cannot agree about our resolution. I am prepared to hand him a copy of the report. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I have it. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Then the honorable senator knows that what I am stating is true. ' I {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- That the arrangement proposed was to be permanent - yes. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- No, it was not; and nobody .at the Brisbane Conference said so. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- The question of permanency or otherwise depends upon whether the agreement is to be placed in the Constitution or not; indeed, it has been admitted that even the placing of a provision in the Constitution will not make it permanent. **Senator de** Largie may be perfectly right in the view he takes, and so may I. The real point is that the placing of a provision in the Constitution takes power away from the Federal Parliament. I maintain that once we surrender that power, the people will have a right to refuse to return it to us if we apply for it. 1 have heard no serious objection to the 2 5s. *per capita* proposal . The whole ground of objection is to the proposed amendment of the Constitution. The Vice-President of the Executive Council yesterday made a great point of some statistics with respect to the United States, Canada, and Germany. He stated that in Canada, while the population had increased, there was a greater proportion of increase of Customs revenue. I think the figures were that, although the population had increased by 36 per cent., the Customs revenue had increased by about 109 per cent. But he omitted to give a true view of the facts. I have not had time to collect all the information available, but the main point to recollect is that the Vice-President of the Executive Council did not tell us what was the percentage of increase of expenditure in the countries he mentioned during the same period. He did not tell us that in Germany there was almost a revolution in consequence of the proposed increase of taxation for naval purposes; which indicates that the expenditure of that country has increased at a much greater rate than has the revenue or the population. In Canada Tariff alterations had a great deal to do with the percentage of increase of revenue. But the Australian figures are much more to the point. In the first half of the financial year at the commencement of Federation, the revenue, from Customs and Excise duties, per head of population was £1 2s. That is to say, it was at the rate of £2 4s. per head per annum. In the next year the amount was £2 4s. 5d. ; in the ensuing year it rose slightly ; and in the following year it fell. During the first five years of the existence of the Commonwealth there was very little fluctuation in the revenue. But the Tariff was altered in 1907-8, and the revenue increased to £2 15s. 6d. per head of population. During the last year the revenue has fallen 10 per cent. After remaining stationary for five or six years, it rose with the new Tariff, and has since begun to fall again. But what about Commonwealth expenditure? In the first year of Federation the expenditure was £1 os. 7d. per head of population. It has .steadily increased until, in 1907-8, it reached £1 9s. 6d., showing an increase of nearly 50 per cent. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- The increase is partly accounted for by additional services controlled by the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- But we have a lot of fresh work to do yet, and the expenditure of the Commonwealth is likely to increase in a far greater ratio than the Customs and Excise revenue. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- The expenditure of the States might have been reduced, so that the taxation of the population as a whole need not have been increased. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- That is what the Vice-President of the Executive Council said. He pointed out that the Customs revenue in the three countries he mentioned had increased to a greater extent than had the population, and he, therefore, assumed that the same result would follow in the Commonwealth. I have shown that that conclusion is" not justified. Although I have not been able to mention the exact amount in the other three countries mentioned of the increase in expenditure, I have shown that in the first eight years of the Commonwealth our expenditure increased 50 per cent., and the Commonwealth Customs revenue remained almost stationary. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- But on the whole the Customs revenue of the 'Commonwealth has increased, although we have a Protective Tariff. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- -If **Senator Dobson** had been paying attention he would have learned that between 1901-2 and 1905-6, the Commonwealth Customs revenue remained almost stationary. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- It was steadily increasing. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- It did not increase by more than a couple of shillings one way or the other, and in 1905 it fell to what it was in 1903. {: .speaker-JU7} ##### Senator de Largie: -- The honorable senator is referring to the *per capita* return. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I am referring to the *per capita* return. The aggregate revenue has gone up and down in exactly the same way as the *per capita* return. If **Senator Dobson** is not aware of that he should consult *Knibbs.* I pointed out that in 1907-8, when the new Tariff was introduced, the revenue increased to £2 16s. 6d. per head of the population. Is **Senator Dobson** not aware that that was due to the higher Tariff? Is the honorable senator not also aware that in one year it fell off by nearly 10 per cent. ? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Owing to depressed times. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Will any honorable senator tell me that. during the last financial year, when we had a plentiful harvest and prosperity in every one of the States, we suffered from depressed times? It was the most prosperous year we had had during the existence of the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Not in trade. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I must tell the honorable senator what happened, because he seems to be intentionally dense. Under the new Tariff- and' the honorable senator has only to consult *Knibbs* on this also - the revenue collected on apparel and textiles fell off by over £750,000. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- For the two years? {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Yes. I may further tell honorable senators that under the operation of the first Tariff there was a slight fluctuation which was owing more to production in Australia than to anything else. In 1903-4 the revenue derived from agricultural produce fell. There were bad times in Australia, we did not import so much, and the duty on agricultural produce helped the producers of the Commonwealth. I am making this statement in order to show that the facts in support of the argument adduced by tha Vice-President of the Executive Council with regard to the increase in revenue at a greater ratio in America, Canada, and Germany, were only partially given, and I am laying before the Senate as completely as possible the facts bearing upon the same aspect of the question as affecting the Commonwealth itself. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator Pulsford: -- Does the honorable senator not recognise that it is impossible to gain clear lessons as to revenue from the returns for a few years? {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I admit that. Iti will be a great many years before we shall have any permanency of revenue in the Commonwealth. *lt* is just because of the difficulty to which the honorable senator refers that I object to the proposed settlement for all time in view of the fluctuating conditions of the Commonwealth and its increasing requirements. The time is not far dis'tant when the Commonwealth Parliament will require to be able to command more revenue. The Vice-President of the Executive Council to-day laid upon the table of the Senate a report of the Naval Conference held in Great Britain. Honorable senators will have noticed that it contains certain recommendations, and **Senator Millen** has given notice that he will move that effect be given to them. That will involve an additional expenditure of over £3,500,000, and an annual expenditure of £758,000. Should not that expenditure be considered in the near future? We have now a Defence Bill before the Senate. In the Commonwealth and in the States for years past there has been a great deal of talk and show, but very little provision for effective defence. I ask honorable senators to say how we could possibly have had it, when twenty-two years ago we were paying 5s. id. per head of the population in expenditure upon defence, and in 1907-8 we were paying 5s. 3d. per head. We had increased our expenditure upon defence in Australia by 2d. per head in twenty-two years. If the Defence Bill at present before the Senate is passed, and is effectively administered, it will involve an increase in our annual expenditure of another 5s. per head of the population. That will mean an expenditure of considerably over £1,000,000 per annum, which will have to be provided for. Then honorable senators are aware that one of the greatest difficulties confronting the Prime Minister and Treasurer has been due to the legislation passed by the Commonwealth Parliament. The Invalid and Old-age Pensions Act passed last year came into operation this year. The expenditure rendered necessary by the provisions of that Act forced the present Treasurer to say in his Budget that there would be a deficit at the close of this financial year of £1,200,000. It is well known that, up to the present, old-age pensions are estimated to involve an expenditure of £1,500,000. Is there any sincerity in the members of the Federal Parliament who passed that Act ? Are they never going to insist that the sections providing for the payment of invalid pensions shall be brought into force? Do they never intend by proclamation to reduce the qualifying age in the case of women to sixty years ? When these provisions are given effect to, the cost of invalid and old-age pensions will amount to £1,750,000, if not more. Then development is necessary in connexion with our postal, telegraphic, and telephonic services, and this will involve further expenditure. What merit is there in the statement by the Vice-President of the Executive Council that under this agreement we shall have about £2,500,000 more next year than we had last year, in view of the fact that it will all be swallowed up before we get it? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- We should be worse o:T without it. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I am mentioning these things in order to show that the time must come in the history of the Commonwealth when, if we are to continue to pay 25s. per head of the increasing population of the States, we shall have to look somewhere for additional revenue. We do not object to the payment at the present time of 25s. per head of their population to the States, but we do object to be bound to make the payment for ever. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Would the honorable senator review the matter every year? {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Certainly not. If the Vice-President of the Executive Council will move as an amendment upon the Bill, and embody it in the Constitution, that the terms of the agreement are to continue foi ten, fifteen, or even twentyyears, I shall be prepared to support it. The Commonwealth Parliament would then have an opportunity to review the matter again, and might agree to put the next agreement into the Constitution as well. I say, however, that we should not deprive the Commonwealth Parliament entirely of iis power. If a time comes when the balance of the revenue left to .the Commonwealth is insufficient to meet Commonwealth expenditure, what is to be done? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- Impose direct taxation. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Would **Senator Walker** support it? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- In the shape of an income tax, yes. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I am glad to hear that the honorable senator is becoming so liberal. The Fusion has evidently done him good. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- I have always believed in an income tax. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- If, in the course of ten or fifteen years, or in less than that time, an emergency occurred and the urgent demands of the Commonwealth exceeded the amount of revenue at our disposal, what would happen? We should have to amend the Constitution, or resort to direct taxation, as **Senator Walker** has indicated. I am sure that the honorable senator would not be able to get £2,000,000 or £3,000,000 from the imposition of an income tax. The honorable senator would never support an income tax that would return that amount of revenue. He would then be called 'upon to support other taxation, it might be a poll tax, or a land tax, and judging by his past expressions of opinion, I think the honorable senator would be found diametrically opposed to the imposition of a land tax. *Sitting suspended from 6.30 to 7.45 -p.m.* {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- When the adjournment for dinner took' place, I was endeavouring to show that our greatest objection is to the insertion of the agreement in the Constitution. I do not think that any one considers that the amount which it is proposed to pay to the States is unfair. Let us glance at the history of the negotiations between the Commonwealth and the States. I am not one of those who would characterize the State Premiers or the State Treasurers as robbers or villains, and 1 have never done so, but from the very commencement of Federation, they have exhibited an amount of selfishness which, to my mind, has been most astonishing. If we recall the history of the different Premiers' Conferences, we find that originally the State Premiers would hardly be satisfied with anything. It was only with very great difficulty', and as the result of secret argument and negotiations that they were induced to accept a payment of 25s. per head of the population. Even at the commencement of the last Premiers' Conference, there was some talk about a payment of 35s. or 30s. per head. By what persuasion they were induced to accept a payment of 25s. per head, I can scarcely imagine. Of course, I can imagine a good deal, but this is not the place or the time to give expression to my imaginings. I may speak my mind when the time comes to which **Senator Millen** referred. When I happened to make an interjection about putting some matter before the people, he said that I would be before them very soon. His expression contained an amount of vindictiveness and cruelty which ought to appeal to many honorable senators hesides myself. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I meant that remark as a kindly warning to the honorable senator. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- I know that my honorable friend's kindly warnings often take the form of threats, but threats or warnings of that description have very little effect upon me. I shall always do what I think is right, and in the interests of the Commonwealth and its people, irrespective of the consequences to myself at" election or other times. When the honorable senator throws out a threat, or an insinuation, of that kind, he ought to recollect that it applies equally to some supporters of the Government. Senators Pulsford, Gray, and Neild are in exactly the same position as myself. I feel confident that Senators Trenwith and Best are just as badly off as I am. I do not think that it was nice or fair on the part of **Senator Millen** to make such a cruel remark as he interjected. The strongest argument which he advanced when he was endeavouring to induce honorable senators on his side to support the Government, was that because this was an agreement, it ought to be accepted. If a burglar entered the home of **Senator Walker,** deprived him of one-half of his wealth, and spared his life on the understanding that he would not make a complaint, would he observe that understanding simply because he had agreed to do so ? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- It would not be a voluntary agreement. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Was this a voluntary agreement so far as the Prime Minister was . concerned ? Does not every one in Australia know that he went to the Premiers' Conference with ideas entirely different from those which he brought away with him? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The State Premiers went there with the idea of getting a payment of 30s. per head. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- The State Premiers went to the Conference with a number of ideas. We have been told that because this is an agreement, it must be accepted. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I did not say so. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Who is the burglar, any way ? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The State Premiers, according to the honorable senator. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- On a previous occasion, I pointed out that the States have always wanted to treat the Commonwealth unfairly. If any selfishness has been displayed in the past, it has not been shown by the Commonwealth. **Senator Pulsfoj,-d** was very emphatic in connexion with the payment of £6,000,000, which somebody said the States were not entitled to receive. Legally the States were entitled to the money. But the Commonwealth Government, in order to make that payment, starved some of their public services, and have been cursing themselves ever since. The people have also been cursing them for acting in that way. The post, telegraph, and telephone services have been neglected from the want of the necessary funds to keep them up to date, simply because the Commonwealth has been far too generous to the States. I do not wish to unduly occupy the time of the Senate. I do not believe that there is an honorable senator on this side who desires to stonewall a measure of this kind, which deals with a national question, and concerning which we have the right to hold independent views. The Vice-President of the Executive Council clothed his -ghosts in the garb of angels. He is very clever in that regard. His ability was admirably displayed by the way in which he put up bogeys, and endeavoured to knock them down. When he was discussing the question of putting the agreement in the Constitution, or adopting a time limit, he argued both ways. Really he would have done credit to the legal profession. In the first place, he said that there would be no rigidity if the agreement were put in the Constitution, because it could be amended more easily if adopted without, than with, a time-limit. On the other hand he said that a time-limit would make the arrangement too elastic. Apparently it did not matter- how the agreement was dealt with. The honorable senator was in a similar position to the man who told his wife that if his dinner was not ready there would be a row, and that if it was ready there would be a row. The conclusion of his speech was, I think, beautiful, and no doubt some persons would call it a peroration. He advised us to vote for the Bill because, begging **Senator St.** Ledger's pardon, the potentialities of the Commonwealth were of such a character that no matter what we might do it would survive. " It does not matter," he said, " whether you do right or wrong. Do not be afraid. Australia is such a great country that even if you do wrong it cannot be hurt. It will recover from any blow which you may inflict upon it at any time." Was not that a beautiful kind of argument for the honorable senator to use? It evidenced a doubt in his own mind as to whether he was doing right. If that was put forward as an argument why we should surrender the powers of the Commonwealth, then I think that arguments were very scarce in the. mind of the honorable senator. {: .speaker-K7D} ##### Senator Stewart: -- He has more than one mind. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- Yes. I could discern that he had two minds. I want to remind him of. what he said regarding the question of putting the proposal to the people. " Here is a great Democratic crowd on that side," he said, " who are always prepared to put things to the people." I feel sure that when the people of Australia hear . that **Senator Walker, Senator Gray,** and other honorable senators on the opposite side have talked about put ting a question to the country, a very large proportion of them will imagine that they spoke with their tongues in their cheeks and for a purpose. On a number of questions arrangements are made in the Constitution " until the Parliament otherwise provides," obviously meaning that the right of alteration rests with the Parliament, but on other questions the people have to be consulted. Some time ago the Parliament, acting within its rights, increased the allow a nee to its members. What argument did **Senator Millen** use with respect to that proposal ? When somebody said that it ought to be put to the people, did he not use the very argument which I have used, namely, that the power to deal with the question was intrusted by the Constitution to the Parliament, and to the Parliament alone? There is an inconsistency in those who advocate the reference of one such matter to- the people and not another. The right to deal with the Parliamentary allowance and the payment to the States was left exclusively to the Parliament. Although we are quite willing that at present the States shall receive a *per capita* payment of 25s., yet we think that the Parliament ought to retain the power to vary the amount whenever the exigencies of the Commonwealth might require an alteration to be made. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- Stop it next week. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- No. The honorable senator knows that the Commonwealth Parliament is not as hysterical as he is. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- I have an idea as to how soon the honorable senator would stop the payment if he got a chance. {: .speaker-KTF} ##### Senator McGREGOR: -- The honorable senator is making a 'very grievous mistake if he imagines that any member of the Labour party would at any time endeavour to do an injustice to the States, even to little Tasmania. I desire to clear up a misunderstanding which may have arisen in the minds of some of my honorable friends. It has reference to the Brisbane Labour Conference. When I stated that the scheme which was approved by that body imposed no time limit, I meant what I said. It left the control of the national finances to this Parliament, and to future Commonwealth Parliaments, and that is exactly what I wish to do. In Committee I hope that such alterations will be made in the Bill as will afford honorable members elsewhere an opportunity of coming to their *Constitution Alteration* [18 Nov., 1909.] *(Finance) Bill.* 6001 senses and of putting the Bill into the form which it ought to take. {: #subdebate-15-0-s3 .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER:
New South Wales -- I am sure that we are all delighted to see our old friend, **Senator McGregor,** back amongst us in such good health. I wish to say a few, words in reference to the Braddon section of the Constitution. It reads - >During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise provide, of the net revenue of the Commonwealth from duties of Customs and Excise not more than onefourth shall be applied annually by the Commonwealth towards its expenditure. > >The balance shall in accordance with this Constitution be' paid to the several States or applied towards the payment of interest on debts of the several States taken over by the Commonwealth. That does not prevent this Parliament from passing a Bill to enable it to consult the constituencies. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- But the Parliament did not take the initiative in this matter. It was taken by the State Premiers. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- At the time Federation was accomplished, the electors of Australia consisted of the adult males of all of the States, with the exception of South Australia, where female suffrage was in vogue. So that if we remit this Bill to the constituencies we shall remit it to a more numerous body than we consulted in regard to the establishment of the Commonwealth. If that does not represent Democracy I do not know what does. It has been suggested that during the past eight years we have returned to the States *£5,000,000* or£6,000,000, to which they were not entitled. Yet the Braddon section distinctly provides that the Commonwealth shall retain not more than onefourth of the net Customs and Excise revenue. It does not specify that it shall retain even that one-fourth unless it requires it. So far from the States being financially hungry, they have agreed to hand over to the Federation *£600,000* towards the payment of old-age pensions this year. I am surprised that the representatives of Western Australia do not regard this measure as a fair one. Under the proposed agreement that State will receive exceptionally generous treatment, and I cannot understand why its representatives are not supporting it. {: .speaker-KOS} ##### Senator Henderson: -- Who says that they are not supporting the Bill? The honorable senator is talking absolute nonsense. They may not be supporting his particular fads, but there is a difference between those fads and the principles of the Bill. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- **Senator Symon** expressed wonder as to why the States desire this amendment of the Constitution. I think it is very natural that the State Premiers should wish to know what income they may expect to receive from Customs and Excise duties, seeing that the whole of the revenue from that source at one time belonged to the States. We appear to forget that the States and the Commonwealth represent the same people. It is all nonsense to argue that under the proposed agreement the Commonwealth Parliament will be surrendering its powers. We shall be consulting our masters. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- We shall be giving away the power which they reposed in us. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- Do we desire as a Federation to upsetthe finances of the States ? Certainly not. Then let us give the States some certainty as to what will be their annual revenue from Customs and Excise duties. {: .speaker-K3E} ##### Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917 -- Does the honorable senator believe in consulting the electors upon constitutional questions? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- Certainly. {: .speaker-K3E} ##### Senator E J RUSSELL:
VICTORIA · ALP; NAT from 1917 -- Then why did the honorable senator oppose a proposal to consult them upon an amendment of the Constitution in regard to the control of industrial legislation? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- I voted for the proposal to remit the question of the consolidation of the State debts to the people. The statistics which were quoted yesterday by the Vice-President of the Executive Council are extremely interesting. They show that the States have acted in a very liberal fashion by agreeing to accept from the Commonwealth an annual return of 25s. *per capita.* Only to-day I was speaking to a prominent Victorian politician who assured me that the States would have been quite justified in demanding the return of 30s. *per capita,* and I may mention too that he is a Free Trader. We must never forget that the Senate is the States House. The States have certain rights which it is our duty to maintain. Some honorable senators have ridiculed the idea of unification. I quite believe that **Senator McGregor,** and some other honorable senators opposite, are thorough Federalists, but I think that other members of the same party have advocated unification both in their writings and speeches. We are now told that that unification is not the sort of unification that it is supposed to be. I think I have heard one honorable senator say that he should like to see all taxation begin and end with land taxation. I have heard others say that at the expiration of ten years from the establishment of the Commonwealth, this Parliament would have a perfect right to retain all the Customs and Excise revenue. They have chosen to ask, " What have we to do with the States?" Yet this Senate is the States' House. Such conduct is truly extraordinary. In such circumstances I can well understand the State Premiers saying " There are those in the Commonwealth Parliament who have such a regard for the Federation that we have a perfect right to distrust them in the allocation of the Customs and Excise revenue." {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- To whom does the honorable senator refer? {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator WALKER: -- I do not refer to any particular individual. I believe that "the honorable senator is a good, honest Federalist, but 1 cannot say the same thing of my honorable friend, **Senator Stewart.** He would like to do away with the States altogether. We must recollect that it is our duty not to inconvenience the States unnecessarily. Undoubtedly we shall be justified- in adopting a loan policy in connexion with reproductive public works. If the Customs and Excise duties do not insure us an adequate revenue, I shall, with pleasure, vote for the imposition of a Federal income tax. I have always maintained that the man with an income can afford to pay taxation. Such a tax would touch the landed proprietor in common with other people, whereas a mere land tax has always impressed me as being a class tax. **Senator McGregor** has stated that the VicePresident of the Executive Council has spoken upon this question with two minds. But in all my experience I do not think that I ever met a man who can speak upon any question with two minds better than can **Senator Symon.** Had he been where **Senator Millen** is to-day, I suspect that his sentiments would have been very different. I do not say this in any way in disparagement of **Senator Symon,** with whom I am on the most friendly terms. But he is a first-class -lawyer who can identify himself thoroughly with his case. Another reason why I hail with satisfaction the prospect of the States being assured a re turn of 25s. annually *per capita* is that it will enable them to embark upon a vigorous immigration policy. Judging by the experience of Queensland in days gone by not more than *£15* is required to bring an immigrant to Australia. Interest on that amount, at the rate of 4 per cent., represents about 12s. annually. I trust, therefore, that in the future a good many immigrants will be introduced into the various States. I repeat that if this Bill be remitted to the people we shall be consulting a broader constituency than that which we consulted when the Commonwealth Constitution Bill was submitted for their acceptance. I trust that we shall agree to the second reading of this measure by a good majority, and that within a very brief period we shall be able to consult all the constituencies upon this very excellent settlement of an outstanding difficulty between the Federal and the State Governments. {: #subdebate-15-0-s4 .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS:
Queensland -- Upon this very important Bill it is only right that honorable senators who feel strongly should express their views as tully and freely as possible, so that every side of the proposed agreement may be fairly put before the country. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- That is what everybody wishes us to do. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- That is what I propose to do to-night. This is the most serious measure with which the _ Senate has been called upon to deal during the period that I have occupied a. seat in this Chamber. That being so, I shall approach it with becoming gravity. In my opinion, any outside interference in a grave Federal matter of this kind, instead of tending to develop the national feeling which we all desire to foster, is calculated to retard its development. It has been said that in this matter, the States and the Commonwealth have separate interests. That is something to which I do not subscribe. I can conceive of no separate entity as between the States and the Commonwealth. "The States" and "the Commonwealth " are merely abstract terms, which in themselves have no meaning. The States represent the people, and the Commonwealth represents the people. Both derive their whole importance and their character from the people. As the same 1 people are represented in each case, I cannot see how there can be any possible conflict of interests. *Constitution Alteration* [18 Nov., 1909.] *(Finance) Bill.* 6003 {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Then there is no justification for the existence of the Senate. {: #subdebate-15-0-s5 .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- For my own part, I have never believed in having two Houses of the Legislature. I am free to confess that forthwith. The Senate was established in the first instance as a concession to that State feeling which has been somewhat of a bar to the full acceptance of Federation in Australia. It was said that the smaller States would beunfairly and unjustly treated unless they had equal representation in the Senate. But, as **Senator Symon** pointed out to-day, and as **Senator Millen** urged cogently and forcefully yesterday, there has been no combination on the part of the big States or the lesser States to accomplish a certain purpose, either in the Senate or in another place. So that, when a provision was made to safeguard the rights of the States, it was somewhat in the nature of a work of supererogation, seeing that parties in either House of Parliament have not resolved themselves into lines coincident with those of their several States. Holding the opinions that I do, and believing that the interests of the whole of the people of Australia are indissolubly bound up with the Commonwealth and the States, and that they have no conflicting interests, I Hold that it was a piece of unwarrantable impertinence on the part of any one outside the Federal authority to interfere in a matter of purely Federal concern. Suppose that we accept the point of view that the States have separate interests from the Commonwealth. Even then no State Government and no State representative has a right to interfere in a matter of Federal concern. There is an old maxim, and a very good one, that every person should mind his own business. The State Premiers were not appointed to interfere in Federal matters. They have absolutely no more authority than has any other citizen to poke their noses one inch into Federal affairs. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- But they represent the people of the States, do they not ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They represent the people for a special purpose. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- One of their duties Is to look after the finances of the States. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Let us examine the position, and see whether I am right, or whether **Senator Gray** is right. We have in Australia two separate systems of government for the one people. We have the Federal authority and the State authority. The ambit of the Federal authority is strictly prescribed in the Federal Constitution ; and all functions which are not intrusted to the Federal authority are left to the States. That is a fail statement of the case. Now, even if the States be regarded as separate entities, having separate rights, it must still be admitted that the people of each State have a full opportunity to elect members to represent them in their Federal capacity. They also have opportunities to elect persons to represent them in their State capacity. Did they elect the State Premiers to have anything to do with Federal politics? {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Certainly. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They did not; they appointed the State Premiers to look after State functions. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- They appointed them to look after the State finances, amongst other matters. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I do not forget that aspect of the case. The State Premiers were appointed to look after State affairs. It is their business to do so, and not to interfere with the Federal authority. If there are State interests to be looked after in the Federal Parliament, the electors of the States have chosen senators to transact that business for them. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- Are their representatives always doing their duty in the Senate? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: **- Senator Walker** can speak for himself. As far as I am concerned, I have faithfully and honestly tried to do my duty to my State. Speaking from my experience of State Governments and the men who compose them, I am bound to say that there are men in this Senate, representing every State, and belonging to all parties, who are quite as capable of looking after the interests of their States, and who know just as well in what direction the interests of their States lie, as do the State Premiers. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- The honorable senator is quite right as to the principle, but what about the members of his own party, who travel from State to State interfering in State elections? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- That is an entirely different matter. When I became a member of this Parliament, I did not by that act give up any one of my rights as a citizen of the State which I represent. As an elector of that State, I have a perfect right to go round and take part in any State election. I am not denying the right 6004 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) Bill.* of the State Premiers to take part in any Federal election. In fact, I have plainly admitted that they have the same right to interfere in Federal affairs as has any other citizen, but not a whit more. That argument is unanswerable. {: .speaker-K6M} ##### Senator Clemons: -- The question of **Senator Keating** had reference to going into other States. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- " Let the gall'd jade wince, my withers are unwrung," in that respect. I have not denied the right of the State Premiers to take part in Federal affairs as citizens. I am denying their right to interfere as Premiers. The State electors appointed the Premiers to perform specific duties, and it is no part of their duty to interfere, as Premiers, in Federal affairs. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Not in affairs that affect the States? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Why do the people want a Federal Parliament and a Senate if the Premiers are to interfere in these matters? {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator Pulsford: -- Is it not part of the duty of the State Premiers to look after the collection of revenue from the Commonwealth? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They have no responsibility whatever beyond that of receiving the revenue. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- They want to know what they are going to receive. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- That is provided for by the Constitution under the direct authority of the electors of Australia. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St LEDGER:
QUEENSLAND · ANTI-SOC -- Why did the honorable senator's party submit their financial proposals to a conference if the Federal Parliament is supreme? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have not objected to anybody submitting any proposals to a conference. I have not objected to the State Premiers as citizens, conferring together on Federal affairs. I simply deny their right to dictate to this Parliament in regard to proposals emanating from them as State Premiers. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- Why did the honorable senator agree to submit the policy of his party to a conference if this Parliament is the only authority that could deal with the matter? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -We have a right to consult each other as to what is best for the country in every respect. These Premiers, in addition to having, as **Senator Symon** said, audaciously dictated to the Commonwealth Parliament-- {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- It was audacious of him to say it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The honorable senator had better repeat that remark in **Senator Symon's** presence; it is useless for him to make it to me. In addition to that, the manner in which the Premiers submitted their proposals made the matter infinitely worse. When the Senate met to-day I asked the Vice-President of the Executive Council whether he would lay on the table a copy of the reports and proceedings of the Premiers' Conference at which the agreement which we are now discussing was arrived at. The honorable senator had the absolute audacity to get up and say that the document had already been placed before this Parliament. The rules of the Senate will not permit me to characterize that statement in the language which alone could properly describe it. {: #subdebate-15-0-s6 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- Order ! {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -I should like to know, sir, in what respect I am out of order? {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- The honorable senator must not say indirectly what it would be disorderly to say directly. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Who has the right to draw inferences from anything which I say ? I am now stating plainly a fact with regard to the limitations placed1 upon my powers of description by the Standing Orders of the Senate. There was no inference whatever. If I have anything to say about the Vice-President of the Executive Council, he knows me well enough to be aware that I have sufficient courage to say it straight out without implying anything which my words do not precisely convey. It is well known to all of us that the agreement under discussion was arrived at in a secret caucus of the Premiers at which I believe - though I have no proof of it- {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- : The honorable senator ought not to find fault with a secret caucus. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I think that the manner in which that Conference was conducted was absolutely reprehensible. The secret caucus met, and, we are told, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth and the Treasurer took part in the proceedings. Whether they did or not we have no official knowledge. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- The official report shows it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- That document is not worth the paper it is printed on. It consists merely of the *ex parte* say-so of the people who were there. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- All official reports are of the same nature in that respect. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- We have, records of other conferences which were held in a public manner and which minute every incident which took place. But of this particular Conference we have no true report at all. We do not know what arguments were brought forward. We do not know .what motions were moved. We do not know what compromises were suggested. We do not know anything about the proceedings But we do know the final result. We are asked coolly to abrogate the powers with which this Parliament was clothed by the electors, and to accept the dictation of those irresponsible State Premiers who have nothing whatever to do with Federal affairs. I shall presently examine the agreement in order to determine whether, it is desirable from any point of view to accept it. As to the Bill itself, honorable senators will find, if they look at clause 3, that it proposes to repeat several sections of the Commonwealth Constitution. It proposes to repeal sections 93 and 94. It j also proposes to alter in a drastic fashion 5. section 105. I do not desire to quote those sections. It is sufficient to indicate that they are the sections of the Constitution which clothe the Commonwealth Parliament with full financial power. They give this Parliament complete control of the finances of the Commonwealth, at the expiry of the operation of. section 87 of the Constitution, which is known as the Braddon " blot. " If we repeal those sections, the Commonwealth Parliament will be left with but a very limited power over Commonwealth finances. Instead of being supreme, the State Governments will be made supreme, and will have the right to say that this Parliament shall do certainthings for them before it has the right to do a single thing for itself. I challenge the Vice-President of the Executive Council to deny that statement. In speaking on this matter last night, the honorable senator used . some most extraordinary language. Here I wish to say that he was absolutely contradictory in, at least, two of the statements which he made. In one portion of his speech he said - >The interjection almost suggests a point of view with -which I have no sympathy. I refer to the attitude of those who seem to regard the Stales and the Commonwealth as two bodies seeking the one to plunder the other. I resent altogether the idea that this is Commonwealth money being given to the States or State money being retained by the Commonwealth. It is the money which belongs to the people of Australia. In that statement, the honorable senator took the view which I expressed at the opening of my remarks, that the Commonwealthy and the States are not separate entities in the ordinary acceptation of the term. The people of both are the same people. It is their money all the time, and they cannot be regarded as in antagonism with themselves.. Immediately afterwards, **Senator Millen** went on to say that there was a conflict of interests between the States and the Commonwealth, and he used these extraordinary expressions in that regard - >It is impossible to conceive of the States going on if they are reduced to a state of insolvency. I wish to know who proposes to reduce the States to a state of insolvency ? In order to secure their solvency it appears to be absolutely imperative at the present juncture that the interest which the Constitution gave them in the Customs' and Excise revenue shall be continued, at any rate, until other circumstances arise. The alternative to that is the crippling of the States financially, thus making them impotent to carry out the large responsibilities which devolve upon them, with the result that, from sheer force of circumstances, they would have ultimately to be transferred to the Commonwealth. That would be securing unification not by a direct appeal to the people, but by the simple process of starvation. Here the honorable senator attempted to emphasize the allegation that there is antagonism between the Commonwealth and the States, and suggests that the Commonwealth desires to bring the people of the States to its feet by a process of starvation. It is extraordinary that he should have declared that the Commonwealth and the States are not separate entities, and immediately afterwards referred to the Commonwealth as if it were a foreign power, desiring to subjugate the States and bring them to heel b> a process of starvation. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I did not so depict the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- 1 have not misquoted the honorable senator. I have quoted the complete statement made. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The words quoted were an attempt to describe the Commonwealth as represented from the honors hie senator's side of the Chamber. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- It may be very convenient for ihe honorable senator to say that now ; but his speech does net bear it out, and honorable senators can read it for themselves. I have read sufficient to show that I gave a fair statement of the attitude which the honorable senator assumes. If the process of starvation is to go on because the States do not receive a certain amount of revenue per head of their population from the Commonwealth, it must be because they have no other sources of revenue. I cannot be starved because I am prevented from eating bacon, if I have plenty of beef to fall back upon. I cannot be starved if I am not allowed to eat potatoes so long as 1 have good porridge and milk. But that is the idea of the revenue-Tariffist all the time. The people are starved, and are rendered financially insolvent unless revenue is raised indirectly. That is what is at the root of the whole of this business. I( is a conspiracy on the part of the wealthy corporations and the- Governments of the Commonwealth and of the .States to fasten the burden of taxation upon the poor people of the Commonwealth for all time. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- Is the honorable senator looking to some of his new associates to remove the burden from the backs of the poor people? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I would much rather rely upon them than upon the Vice-President of the Executive Council. Will the honorable senator tell me how we can be said to injure the States or to starve them if we refuse to tax them ? How shall we injure them by leaving the money in their pockets ? {: .speaker-K6M} ##### Senator Clemons: -- I wish the honorable senator would refuse to tax them. He is always talking about leaving the money in their pockets unless when a Tariff is being considered. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I shall deal with that Free Trade argument by-and-by. We have had statements made about the sacrifice that New South Wales is being asked to make,, and how New South Wales is being robbed. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- No one has said that. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I could take the honorable senator to the Library and show him extracts from the press and from speeches in which the actual words which 1 have referred to are used over and over again. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- It may be a fact. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Well, let us examine it and see. Let us get down to hard facts and see whether New South Wales is being robbed by the Federation. I need not go further than Coghlan's *Seven Colonies* for the year immediately prior to Federation to find that in that year New South Wales, who, we are now told, is going to be robbed, derived a total revenue from Cus toms and Excise of *£i* 5s. 7d. per head of her population. Now that the Govern^ ment of the State have been relieved of enormous expenditure involved in the cost of collection of Customs revenue, and the maintenance of an army of Customs officers and officials, relieved also of the cost of defence, and of a thousand and one other matters of expenditure, which have been taken over by the Federation, they still want £1 5s. per head of the population, and when it is proposed to give them that amount they say that New South Wales is making an enormous sacrifice. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator just now said something about leaving the money in the pockets of the people. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- That is what I wish to do. {: .speaker-K6M} ##### Senator Clemons: -- The honorable senator says that at the wrong time. He never says it when a Tariff is under discussion. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- **Senator Clemons'** idea is that of good old Free Traders, that if you impose a protective Tariff you are taxing the people. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Of course you are.' {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Nothing of the kind. The object of a protective Tariff is not to raise revenue from the people. It is to establish new industries and to foster those already 'in existence. If goods are made here, as every Protectionist desires, they need not be imported, and it is unnecessary for the people to pay a single shilling in Customs taxation. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- They complain that they have to pay 20 per cent, more for their clothing now than they had to pay before Federation. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- We have the Free Traders of the Commonwealth Parliament in power now. The old Protectionists are now merely a joint in the tail of the Free Trade party. That is why we have Free Traders crowing now on the floor of the Senate. I noticed that the figures quoted by the Vice-President of the Executive Council with regard to the revenues of the various States do not correspond exactly with the figures given by *Coghlan* for the year prior to Federation. The honorable senator might inform me, by a friendly interjection, where he got his figures, and if he did not get them from *Coghlan,* who is a better authority on the subject? {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- If the honorable sena.tor wishes to know where I got my figures, 1 may tell him that I asked the officials of the Treasury to work them out. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have taken the figures very carefully from *Coghlan.* It will, I think, be admitted that, with all the sources of information at his disposal, and everything fresh in the minds of public officials at the time, *Cog /dan* was quite as likely to be correct in his figures for the year prior to Federation as are the Commonwealth Treasury officials of to-day. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- There would not be much difference between the two sets of figures; Any discrepancy that is disclosed is due, I think, to the fact that one set of figures includes, and the other set excludes, the cost of collection. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I admit that the discrepancy is not great. According to the figures quoted by **Senator Millen** last night, the revenue from Customs and Excise of New South Wales for the year prior to Federation amounted to £1 6s. 4d. per head of the population. According to *Coghlan* the amount is *j£i* 5s. 7d. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- That figure probably excludes the cost of collection. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The average Customs and Excise collections for the whole of the Commonwealth for the year prior to Federation, according to *Coghlan,* and, I think, also according to the figures quoted by **Senator Millen,** amounted to *£2* is. per head of the population. I propose to return to those figures again, and show that, unless the Commonwealth is to unduly tax its people through Customs and Excise, it cannot be expected to continue for all time t0 Pay £1 5s- Per head of the population to the States, as desired by the sponsors of this agreement. Before dealing with that, I wish to emphasize the statement that, in this matter, there is no conflict between the people of the Commonwealth and the people of the States. They are the same people, and can enter into no contest with themselves. It is their money which will be raised by taxation in some form or other which will have to be dealt with. The advocates of a large return to the States from Customs and Excise taxation are the advocates of high indirect taxation, which inevitably falls with crushing severity upon the great masses of the people, and saves the skins of the wealthy who are deriving such enormous advantages under our present system. {: .speaker-K6M} ##### Senator Clemons: -- Let the honorable senator look at the revenue. There is the answer. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I shall deal with the revenue by-and-by if **Senator Clemons** will permit me to state my case in my own way. The States cannot be starved, as suggested by **Senator Millen,** unless he puts forward the statement that there is no other source of taxation as worthy of acceptance by an intelligent people. I am one of those who do not desire that we should derive a large revenue from Customs ' and Excise taxation. I am one of those who believe rather in direct taxation as opposed to indirect taxation. In my view indirect taxation is the most wasteful, extravagant and corrupt method of raising revenue, and as far as possible it should be eliminated. Under our system of collecting revenue by indirect taxation we make every hotelkeeper, storekeeper, merchant, and dealer in wares a collector of the tax. The man who hawks a barrow about the streets, or who carries a pack of wares through the country, the big merchant who runs a warehouse in Flinders-lane, the hotelkeeper, and everybody else who deals in goods of any kind, is a collector of the tax. I never knew anybody who performed' a function willingly without getting paid for it. Seeing that the persons I mentioned are performing the function of collecting taxes for the general public, it is safe to assume that they are getting paid. Who pays them? They are paid by the general public every time. Suppose that the average indirect tax on £100 worth of goods is £25. In addition to paying £100 for the goods, a storekeeper has to pay £25 in Customs duty, and instead of making a profit on £100 he has to make a profit on £125. The unfortunate taxpayer has not only to pay the tax, but a profit thereon. That is one of the results of indirect taxation. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- Did not the honorable senator know that when he was putting on duties of 40 per cent. ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I voted for 40 per cent, duties, not to impose taxation, but to create industries. When it suits **Senator St.** Ledger he will pose as a Protectionist, although we know that all the time he is a rabi'd Free Trader, like two of his colleagues. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- He is not a rabid Free Trader, anyhow. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Did the honorable senator ever rise here to give us a tirade and lecture on the beauties and merits of Free Trade? {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- I only pretended to do so. 6008 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) Bill.* {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I can turn up *Hansard* and quote the honorable senator on the beauties of Free Trade. Following out my argument, which has been assented to by Free Traders, that indirect taxation means the payment of not only the tax by the consumer, but also a profit on the tax, I would point out that it also means the payment of interest on the tax. Most storekeepers have to work on accommodation or bills from banks or other financial institutions. Even if they have their own money to use in trade they must get interest thereon. They have to include in their profit a sufficient margin to allow them to get a decent interest on their money, and they have to earn interest, not only on the tost of the goods, but on the amount of duty as well. Thus the unfortunate taxpayers have to pay, not only the tax, but also a profit on the tax and an interest on the tax. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Why does not the honorable senator attack his own friends, not the senators on this side? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I shall be very pleased if my remarks will have the effect of making any Free Traders on this side eschew for evermore the false doctrines which they have hugged to their bosoms as Free Traders. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- I think that the honorable senator said that a Protective Tariff does not mean more cost to the people, but he is making out a very good case that it does. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I did not admit for a moment that a Protective Tariff was in any respect an engine or machine for raising revenue. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- The honorable senator has proved that up to the hilt._ {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -I have not done anything of the sort, and if my honorable friend is so wilfully dense that he cannot see the drift of my argument I do not think it is worth while to waste any time in trying to explain the matter to him individually. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- I can see the argument, but not the drift of it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have no use fora Tariff as a means of raising revenue. My idea is that indirect taxation is a wasteful and extravagant, and in many respects a corrupt, method of raising revenue. I would not have a Tariff at all except for the purpose of creating certain industries and fostering those already in existence. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- The honorable senator is a Free Trader. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am nothing of the sort. I would put on the highest duty I could to insure effective Protection to all Australian industries, as the honorable senator knows perfectly well. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- Or kill them. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The honorable senator says, "or kill them," {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- I never was a Free Trader. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- If that is true the honorable senator has made the most misleading statements here that I have ever listened to. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- The honorable senator would be accurate if he said that I havealways been a Revenue-Tariffist. SenatorGIVENS. - From my point of view a Revenue-Tariffist is infinitely worse than a Free Trader. The honorable senator has been a Free Trader, or he has misrepresented himself in former speeches. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- I always said that I was a Revenue Tariffist. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have explained what is my position in regard to the Tariff. In regard to raising revenue by indirect taxation I think that about the only legitimate subject of taxation is spirituous liquors, and then only because it is desirable to restrict or confine within reasonable limits the use of articles which might be objectionable if they came into general use. These being my views, I can only regard this agreement as a sort of organized conspiracy to retain for all' time an inordinately high Tariff for revenue purposes. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The honorable senator knows that the Tariff was intended for Protectionist purposes. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- No Tariff can bring in revenue and at the same time be effective for Protective purposes. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The honorable senator is contradicted by the experience of every Protectionist nation in the world. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Before I have finished I intend to quote the figures for the nations which have the highest Tariffs in the world. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Quote New Zealand {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- In the case of New Zealand the honorable senator must not forget that an enormous debt is incurred every year entailing an enormous importation of goods. I shall quote the figures for Russia, Germany, France, United States, Canada, and other countries, including even Free Trade England, and will show the honorable senator that he and his *confreres* who are in favour of the agreement want to fasten upon the people the highest burden of indirect taxation endured by any people in the world. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- We are not discussing the Tariff, but a division of the duties. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The honorable senator will have to discuss the Tariff so far as it relates to this Bill, because, in addition to its other evil effects the agreement, if it becomes law, will take from this Parliament the power of so dealing with the Tariff as to make it an effective Protectionist engine for the fostering and creating of Australian industries. It is undeniable that Australia has determined that its policy shall be a Protective one. It has come to that decision in spite of a long, and, I may say, a very ably-conducted fight on the part of honorable senators opposite, who were especially strong in New South Wales. I believe that if a poll of its people were taken to-morrow it would be found that that State had given the go-by to its Free Trade fetish, and adopted in its entirety the doctrine of effective Protection for Australian industries. I do not think that its Free Trade representatives here would dare to ask for re-election on the Free Trade ticket, as they did on former occasions. Anything that is calculated to militate against the fulfilment of that ideal of the Australian- people should not receive either encouragement or support in this Parliament. It is not very hard for anybody to see that if the agreement which we are now considering is carried into effect the people of Australia will not be able to have an effective Protective Tariff. On the question of sacrifices by the States, there has been much prating and talking at large by persons who are either irresponsible or do not know any better, or that are too reckless to care, it is just as well to emphasize the fact that, notwithstanding the enormous costly services of which it has been relieved by the Commonwealth, New South Wales is now demanding the payment of £1 5s. per head for all time, whereas the total revenue which it received from Customs and Excise before Federation was *£1* 5s. 7d. per head. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- New South Wales is not demanding that for all time. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- So far as it can it is demanding that amount for all time. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- That is only a figure of speech. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- We know as plainly as words can convey that it wants the payment for all time. {: .speaker-K5F} ##### Senator Sayers: -- The honorable senator knows better than that. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- New South Wales could not have the amount for all time if it wanted it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I know that in the last resort we could have a bloody revolution. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Oh ! {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Years ago those words were used by one of the celebrated statesmen of England, and yet the Honorable senator pretends to be horrified because I use them. In the House of Commons Lord North said that if he dared to propose to raise by direct taxation the money which he was proposing to raise by indirect taxation the attempt would result in a bloody revolution. That will show honorable senators that indirect taxation, in addition to these other evils, has the result of insidiously robbing the people and oppressing them in a way which they would not otherwise submit to. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- It was not a choice expression to use. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Quite right : it was not a choice expression. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The expression is absolutely accurate. I quoted the exact words which were used by a celebrated British statesman, and even if I did not have that example I used the words in their literal sense, and they require no explanation or apology to **Senator Chataway** or to anybody else. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- May I suggest that the honorable senator should have used the phrase " sanguinary revolution." {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- That does not express the matter more clearly. I fail to see why any honorable senator should be so finnicky. Of course, if a man wants to act the part of a pedantic pedagogue like **Senator St.** Ledger, and use a hifalutin'" word when a plain English word would do, he is. at liberty to do so, but why he should require me to do so I do not understand. {: .speaker-KPE} ##### Senator Keating: -- The honorable senator is not a Chesterfield. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- It is sufficient for the Senate to be burdened with one Chesterfield in the person of **Senator St.** Ledger. With regard to the question of sacrifices by the States, their total average revenue from Customs and Excise prior to Federation was £2 is. per head. If the proposed agreement becomes law, the amount available for Federal purposes, in the absence of increased taxation, will be only 16s. *-per capita.* Everybody knows that is not sufficient to enable the Commonwealth to discharge its proper functions. To pay old-age pensions, we shall require at least 7s. *per capita,* and for defence purposes we shall need 12s. *per capita,* so that under this agreement we shall be 3s. *per capita* short upon those two services only, unless we are to have a far greater burden of indirect taxation imposed on the people than before Federation. Therefore the supporters of this Bill desire to pile more and more indirect taxation on the people. On the other hand, the opponents of the measure wish to leave that money in the pockets of the people. How we can render them -insolvent by adopting that course it will require a Philadelphian lawyer to explain. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Then the people will not vote for the agreement ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- If the case be properly presented to them they will not. But with the support of a large and influential daily press, the position will not be properly presented. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- What about the Labour press? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The Labour party is too poor to run an influential daily press, [f such a press existed, the electors of this country would not look twice at the proposed agreement before they would incontinently kick it into the gutter. During the course of this debate, we have heard a great deal about trusting the people. As a matter of fact, the agreement makes absolutely in an. opposite direction. Instead of trusting the people, this Bill invites them to put themselves in shackles. **Senator** Millen. They hold the key. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They do not. If the proposed agreement be once embodied in the Constitution, even if four-fifths of the electors subsequently favour its removal, "the hands of the Commonwealth will be tied so long as a majority of the electors in three of the smaller States oppose its removal. I have no objection to the amount *per capita* which it is proposed 0 annually return to the States. I believe hat the Commonwealth can afford to return 25s. per head to the States at present. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- And a little more. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Probably. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- Does the honorable senator believe that Queensland should not exercise as much power as New South Wales in determining this matter? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am merely pointing out that a majority of the electors may not be able to alter the Constitution when once the proposed agreement has been embodied in it. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- The honorable senator may answer or evade my question just as he pleases. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am not here to accept any ultimatums from **Senator St.** Ledger. I prefer to state my own case in my own way. {: .speaker-JYX} ##### Senator Findley: -- Let **Senator St.** Ledger put that question at afternoon tea parties. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- I will put it at other places, too. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The honorable senator will probably be in a queer fix shortly. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- I shall get out of it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The honorable senator has seen many changes, and if he lives sufficiently long, he will see a few more. I have no quarrel with the general tenor of the proposed agreement. Possibly, the Commonwealth could afford to return to the States a little more than 25s. *per capita* at present. But when it is proposed to embody this agreement in the Constitution for eli time, I say that we should call a halt. It has been said that the people can amend the Constitution at any moment. But, as I have already pointed out, in certain circumstances a majority of the electors cannot amend it at all. I would remind honorable senators opposite that an amendment of the Constitution is a matter upon which the electors have no direct voice, because they cannot take the initiative. Sentor St. Ledger. - A majority of the electors put the position" in that way. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- And a majority of the electors put our financial powers in the form in which they appear in the Constitution. The people have no direct power to alter the Constitution. It is idle to exclaim, " Trust the people," when we are inviting them in this Bill to handcuff themselves. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Unless they choose to use the key which they possess. *Constitution Alteration* [18 Nov., 1909.] *(Finance) Bill.* 6011 {: #subdebate-15-0-s7 .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They cannot use that key because they cannot take the initiative. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- They can bring influence to bear upon their representatives in this Chamber. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- But the need for an amendment of the Constitution may arise within a year after a general election has taken place. Half of the members of the Senate would not then be required to seek re-election for six years, and it would be difficult to bring pressure to bear upon them. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Why cannot the honorable senator trust a majority of the people? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have already pointed out that even although four-fifths of the electors may favour an amendment of the Constitution, they may be unable to effect it. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St LEDGER:
QUEENSLAND · ANTI-SOC -- Then wipe out the States. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I do not wish to do that. **Senator St.** Ledger may speak for himself in that connexion. I say that the people have endowed this Parliament with certain powers. Yet the Government are using all the forces at their command to effect a surrender of those powers. The people, I repeat, cannot take the initiative in regard to an amendment of the Constitution. That must come from the Parliament. Any proposed amendment of the Constitution must obtain a statutory majority in both Houses of this Parliament. Within a certain period after securing that majority it must be submitted to the electors, and it must then obtain the approval, not only of a majority of the electors but of a majority of the States, before it can become law. Consequently it is exceedingly difficult to amend the Constitution. I have no objection to the amount *per capita* which it is proposed that the Commonwealth shall return to the States. But we must have some regard to what we shall be able to pay in the future. In this connexion we ought to bear in mind the amounts which arc raised by indirect taxation in other countries. When the Vice-Presidentof the Executive Council was moving the second reading of this Bill in his very able and eloquent speech, I asked him to tell us the amounts per head which were being raised from Customs and Excise in the countries which he quoted. Either he did not know what those amounts were or he was careful to evade replying to my query. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- -I say that it did not affect my argument. {: .speaker-K78} ##### Senator St Ledger: -- The figures are available in the speech of the VicePresident of the Executive Council so that any schoolboy can make the calculation. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I venture to say that **Senator St.** Ledger does not know the amounts per head which are raised in the countries to which the Vice-President of the Executive Council alluded. I hold in my hand an authoritative list of those amounts from two sources- {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Both of which are the same? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The lists are the same, but they were not obtained from the same source. One list was compiled in the Commonwealth Statistician's office, and the other is taken from the *Statesmen's Year-Book* - an unimpeachable authorityand was published in the press. From these lists I learn that in tyrannical Russia 7s.1d. *per capita* is the amount which is raised from Customs and Excise duties. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- It is all that the people there can pay. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They are fortunate that they have not to deal with our Government, otherwise they might be required to pay much more. Germany, which has a really effective Protective Tariff, collects 15s. 2d. per head from Customs and Excise, or 10s. per head less than we propose to return to the States for all time. In Italy the amount collected from the same source in 1907, was 19s. 8d. per head ; in Austria-Hungary it was 25s. per head ; in Sweden, *£10s.* 8d. per head ; in Denmark,£11s.10d. per head ; in Norway, *£1* 2s.11d. ; and in the United States, *£1* 9s. 6d. per head. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- But there are 20,000,000 negroes in the United States. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The negroes there are highly paid. They are not like the kanakas, whom the honorable senator used to employ and about whom he used to prate so much. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- Can the honorable senator specify any occasion on whichI have employed a kanaka ? {: #subdebate-15-0-s8 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -I must ask honorable senators not to carry on these conversations. I would point out that this trouble arose out of interjections. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- I rise to a point of order. **Senator Givens** has stated that 6012 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) Bill.* the negroes of America are paid better wages than the kanakas, whom I used to employ. When I say that I have never employed a kanaka during the whole of my existence, I wish to ask you, sir, whether the honorable senator is not bound to accept my statement ? {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: **- Senator Givens** must accept the assurance of **Senator Chataway** that he has never employed a kanaka. The trouble arose out of interjections which have been very much more frequent than they ought to have been. I ask **Senator Givens** to accept the denial of **Senator Chataway.** {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I accept the honorable senator's denial ; but, at the same time, [ do not think he will deny that he was a consistent and persistent advocate of the employment of kanakas in Queensland for many years. {: .speaker-K6L} ##### Senator Chataway: -- I deny that also. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The statement is correct, whether the honorable senator denies it or not. He was the editor of a newspaper which persistently advocated that policy. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- That statement has teen denied by **Senator Chataway,** and his denial must be accepted. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I accept the denial ; and I will go further and say that the honorable senator is capable of denying anything. Let us take the United States, which has the most highly and effectively Protective Tariff in the world. It realizes *£19s.* 6d. per head. When our population rises in the future to, say, 20,000,000 people, as we who have high ideals and aspirations for Australia hope it will do, if we are to return to the States 25s. per head, and still retain sufficient money for Commonwealth purposes, it will mean that we shall be raising twice as much per head as the United States Government are raising to-day. If that be so, it is evident, on the face of it, that we cannot maintain a Protective Tariff, which, as every one knows, when it gets properly to work, will not bring in a large amount of revenue. We shall, therefore, have to let our Protective Tariff be set aside and institute purely revenue duties. I am, therefore, justified in saying that this is an organized scheme on the part of Free Traders and Revenue Tariffists to attack our Protectionist policy by insidious means. SenatorMillen. - Is that why **Mr. Bruce** Smith is so hostile to the scheme? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Probably it is why **Senator Millen,** who once denounced **Mr. Deakin** and **Sir John** Forrest more strongly than any man in Australia, has taken to that genial occupation which **Sir John** Forrest described some time ago as "eating dirt." {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- Order! Such language ought not to be used towards an honorable senator. I must ask **Senator Givens** to withdraw his last remark. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I will withdraw it, sir, and say that the Vice-President of the Executive Council is following the good example of his colleague in another place, concerningvhom the statement which 1 used was made. Let us take the case of the only Free Trade country in the world, the United Kingdom. The total Customs collections there amount to£111s.5d. per head. If we were to tax our people to the same extent, even under a revenue Tariff, and were to return to the States the amount mentioned in this Bill, we should, on our population attaining 10,000,000 or 15,000,000, have to tax them about twice as much as the people of the United Kingdom are taxed. In France, the total yield under a highly Protective Tariff is *£1* 13s. 2d. per head. In Canada, a country, the conditions of which closely approximate to our own, and where the population is only slightly larger than that of the Commonwealth,£ 2s.11d. per head is the yield of the highly Protective Tariff now in operation. If we were to tax our people to that extent, and were still to return to the States *£1* 5s. per head, it would leave us only 17s. 6d. per head with which to carry on the whole of our Commonwealth functions. ' {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- How do the exports of Canada compare with those of Australia ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The exports have nothing to do with the revenue collected. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- They affect the total exchange. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The yield of our Tariff is, roughly speaking, *£211s.* per head. With the exception of New Zealand, we are more highly taxed through Customs and Excise than any other people in the world. It appears to me that this is an organized conspiracy to maintain a high rate of indirect taxation, and also to limit our power to deal with the Tariff from a strictly Protectionist stand-point. If that be so, it is plain to me that, by allowing this provision to go into the Constitu- tion, and by fastening it upon the people for an unlimited time, we shall produce the effect of absolutely crippling the operations of the Commonwealth Parliament We shall have taken away from this Parliament the power to regulate the Tariff from the Protective stand-point; because, if we are to maintain a Protective Tariff which will be effective, it will inevitably have the effect of producing not more than half the revenue per head of population that is produced at the present time. As population increases, and as our industries grow, we. shall produce each year more and more of the goods which we require for our own consumption. We shall import less and less of the necessities of life in the way of things to eat, drink, and wear. Consequently, less revenue will be collected, whilst we shall still have to pay 25s. per head to the States. Obviously, we shall have too little for ourselves to carry on the Commonwealth activities. {: .speaker-KAH} ##### Senator Walker: -- What about direct taxation ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- There will be onlyone alternative, and that will be to alter the incidence of our taxation so as to make our duties revenue producing, instead of protective. I have not the slightest doubt that that is what my honorable friends opposite desire. I do not desire that. I am perfectly satisfied that the people of Australia have no wish to give up their Protective Tariff. Their desire is to make it Protective in its entirety. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- We have all accepted that policy now. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- It is time that the honorable senator did; but while he says to the ear that he accepts the Protective policy, he is, nevertheless, doing his best to insidiously destroy it. It is not unreasonable to expect "that Australia will have, in the course of some years, a population of 40,000,000 people, leading prosperous and happy lives in this fine young country. If this agreement becomes law, we shall, when we have a population of 40,000,000, have to raise £50,000,000 per annum to meet the payment to the States; and shall, probably, in addition, be compelled to raise as much for our own purposes. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Commonwealth activities will grow until they cost £50,000,000 a year, when our population increases to that extent. In that event, under this agreement, we shall have to raise £100,000,000 per annum by indirect taxation. The thing is unthinkable; and yet honorable senators opposite will consent to the possibility of committing such an enormity. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- Not a bit of it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Will the honorable senator show me where my figures are wrong ? Is it not a fact that, with a population of 40,000,000 we should, if we had to pay to the States 25s. per head, have to raise £50,000,000 per annum for that purpose? Is it not also fair to assume that we should, with the spread of Commonwealth activities, have to raise another £50,000,000 for our own purposes? {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- The honorable senator and his party, by preventing immigrants from coming here, would not allow the population to rise to 40,000,000. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- If I were as " touchy " as honorable senators opposite are, I should ask for the withdrawal of that remark, which is totally unwarranted. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- It is a fact. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- It is not a fact, and if the honorable senator makes that statement again, I shall give him a retort which he will not like. With regard to the position of the States, I wish to point out that there will be no need whatever to return a farthing to them, unless there is a desire to raise money by indirect taxation. That is a plain statement of facts which there is no denying. It is only the desire to raise money by indirect taxation which induces the States to ask for any return from the Commonwealth. It is quite true that if we were suddenly to cease the payment of this money, there would be an awkward dislocation. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- " A bloody revolution ! " {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- There might be; but I have never heard of a people rising to the height of "a bloody revolution " because their Government refused to tax them. I have never heard of a people rebelling because their Government left money in their pockets. But there might be, as I have admitted a dislocation if any violent change were made. Fortunately, no change is needed. Yet it must be an ideal to keep in view that we should 'not raise money by indirect taxation, which certainly is not a good thing in itself. We should, as far as possible, endeavour to free our people from indirect taxation. The way in which we can best do that is by raising from Customs and Excise only sufficient money to keep in full force and vigour our Protective Tariff, and free the people from the burdens of indirect taxation. We shall inflict no hardship upon the people if we leave their money in their pockets, and if it is left there it will be for the authorities charged with the raising of revenue to devise the most equitable means of raising it from the people who have the money in their pockets. I wish to emphasize the statement that we cannot rob, injure, or starve the people of the States by . refusing to tax them. Yet the VicePresident of the Executive Council would have us believe that that is what will be done, unless we consent to pass this precious agreement. What I advocate, and what I believe is unanimously advocated on this side, is that the 'Commonwealth Government should tax the people as little as possible ; that we should leave the money in their pockets. The State Governments have ample authority to raise taxation in any way' they please with but one exception. They must not touch Customs or Excise. The Commonwealth Parliament has the exclusive right to raise revenue from that source. With that exception the State Parliaments are absolutely free to raise money in any way that they please. If that be true, and it cannot be denied, and if the State Parliaments do not desire to derive a large portion of their revenue from Customs and Excise, there is no need for them to ask that one shilling shall be returned to them by the Commonwealth. But it is because they do desire that an undue proportion of the burdens of taxation shall be placed upon the backs of the poor people, by means of indirect taxation, that we have this demand for a large return from the Commonwealth to the States. {: .speaker-K1U} ##### Senator Pulsford: -- Is the honorable senator aware that the Customs and Excise revenue of New Zealand represents about £3 per head of the population? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Yes, I pointed that out in the course of my speech. I' said that with the one exception of New Zealand, the Commonwealth is the most highly taxed country in the world. I was careful to make the exception of New Zealand, and I pointed out that the high revenue in the Dominion is due to the inordinately large sums of borrowed money which the New Zealand Government is spending. I quoted figures for other countries also, and I am willing to allow them to stand. There is a general principle which it is very important to remember in this connexion. It is a highly objectionable, and, indeed, even a demoralizing practice to have one autho rity responsible for the raising of revenue for another authority to spend without any responsibility at all. That is a demoralizing system, which must inevitably lead towaste, extravagance, and corruption. That it leads to corruption we have evidence in* this agreement which the Government are trying to force down the throats of honorable senators. It was openly stated by the Premiers that they would force the Commonwealth Government to heel, because if they did not do what was demanded of them, every one of their supporters would find himself opposed by nominees of the State Governments at the next election. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Who said that? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- It was said by Kidston in Queensland for one. The statement was openly published in the press, while the Conference was being held in Melbourne. Much against my will, **Senator Gray** was enjoying a holiday in Sydney at the time, and, therefore, did not see what was published in the Melbourne press. The Premiers openly stated that they would run candidates against the nominees of the Federal Government unless they acceded to their wishes in this matter.. They' have been asked to modify their demands in view of the difficulty which the Prime Minister has experienced in connexion with this Bill in another place, where he had to bludgeon it through with the "gag." The statement was made publicly in the press that the Premiers would' stuff the Senate after the next election with men pledged to the .maintenance, in its entirety, of the Braddon section until such time as the Commonwealth Government came to heel. This should show honorable senators that the demoralizing system of one authority being responsible for the raising of revenue which is- spent by another authority without responsibility gives rise to corruption. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator said he was willing to continue the system by paying 25s. per head to the States. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- For a time, because I believe that we could afford to do so. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- The honorable senator is willing to continue what he regards as arn iniquitous system, for a time. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Because we could not avoid it at present without a violent dislocation of the finances. I have said that all politics is a matter of compromise ; we have to give and take, and I am not by any means such an extremist as **Senator** *Constitution Alteration* [18 Nov., 1909.] *(Finance) Bill.6015* Millen used to be when from these benches he objected so violently when his pet Free Trade views were not given effect to. I have shown that the system to which I have referred brings about corruption. It has already led also to waste and extravagance. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- The honorable senator has not proved that. {: #subdebate-15-0-s9 .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am going to prove it if **Senator Vardon** will have a little patience. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- If the Premiers appeal to the people and are successful in their appeal, it will be because the people are behind them. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I wish to point out now how this system has led to extravagance. In every one of the States prior to Federation there was a stated amount of revenue and expenditure in each year. We have absolute knowledge of the amount spent by each Department, we know the number of Ministers that were in each Cabinet, we know the various details of Government expenditure, and one would imagine that when the State Governments were relieved of a large portion of their expenditure by the transfer to the Commonwealth of large and costly Departments they would do with fewer Ministers, and be less extravagant in other directions. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- South Australia made a reduction. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I intend to give credit to South Australia for that. With the exception of the Government of South Australia, there are more Ministers now in the Governments of the States than there were before Federation. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Because the States have developed, and a greater number of Ministers are required. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They have been relieved of large and costly Departments. They have been relieved of the enormous cost of the 'Post Office, of the Defence Department, which returns no revenue at all, and of the cost of the collection of Customs and Excise taxation and the maintenance of Customs Houses and an army of Customs officers. But has the expenditure of the State Governments correspondingly decreased ? It has not, and, as a matter of fact, they are spending *£6,000,000* per annum now more than they spent before they were relieved of the expenditure to which I have referred. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- And they receive good value for it. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They do nothing of the kind. We find the State Premier going around the country, skiting about maintaining the dignity and importance of the States. That is merely their euphonious way of referring to the dignity and importance of twopenny-halfpenny pettifogging State Premiers. The dignity of the State Premiers or of the Commonwealth Prime Minister does not matter a straw to the people of Australia. What really does matter to them is that they shall be well governed, and the affairs of the country properly administered. The State Premiers go round the country saying that the Commonwealth desires to shear the States of their dignity and power. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Who has said so? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They have all said so. **Mr. Wade, Mr. Carruthers,** and **Mr. Kidston** have said so. No one has any desire to attack the States. I do not wish to interfere with them in any way at all. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- The honorable senator is continually doing so. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- No, but I have resented the interference of State Premiers in Commonwealth affairs. The Premiers are also continually prating about Commonwealth extravagance. I have had some experience of State Governments and of the Commonwealth Government, and I can say honestly - and I believe the statement will be indorsed by every member of the Senate - that, as compared with the State Governments, the Commonwealth Governments have been absolutely mean and parsimonious in their expenditure. They have been so. largely in order that we might have large surpluses to return to the States. Yet all the gratitude which the Commonwealth Government and Parliament receive because of this self-denial is to be roundly abused by the State Premiers. Itake one instance of State extravagance. I know of no Premier from the Honorable John Murray, of Victoria, to the Honorable William Kidston, of Queensland, who has not two or more State motor cars, beautifully got up and upholstered, to carry him around the country. They fold their arms, and loll back on the soft cushions, and call upon the people to admire their dignity and importance, and to regard them as a sort of benign legislative providence from whom all political blessings flow. {: .speaker-KVD} ##### Senator Mulcahy: -- Does the honorable senator notdo that when he takes a free ride in a railway carriage? 6016 *Constitution Alteration* [SENATE.] *(Finance) Bill.* {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The State Premiers do all these things, and many people are foolish enough, because of the airs of importance they give themselves, to take them at their own estimation. {: .speaker-KUL} ##### Senator Millen: -- I can see that the honorable senator is a genuine reformer. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Let us compare this with the extravagance of the Commonwealth Government. We have had some comparatively great men leading the Government of the Commonwealth. **Sir Edmund** Barton, who now adorns the High Court Bench, is a man immeasurably superior to most of the State Premiers; **Mr. Deakin** has a European reputation as a statesman, and our friends on the other side are now glorifying him as something very superior. That **Sir George** Reid is a man of great ability no one will deny. He is a very eminent Australian, and **Mr. Watson** and **Mr. Fisher,** who have also been Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth, are inferior to none of the State Premiers. Yet not one of these Prime Ministers has had as much as a State wheelbarrow to carry him around. Yet the State Premiers have the unblushing effrontery and the cast-iron cheek and audacity to talk about the extravagance of the Commonwealth. I could in the same way compare State with Commonwealth expenditure all night, and every illustration would be pregnant with meaning for the taxpayers, and would show whether the State or the Commonwealth Governments have been extravagant. It is inevitable that State extravagance and waste will continue if the Commonwealth must for all time be raising revenue for the State Governments to expend without responsibility. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- The State Governments are not extravagant merely because the honorable senator says so. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have cited an instance of extravagance on the part of State Governments which the honorable senator cannot get away from. But the fact remains, and whether it is worthy of the meaning I assign to it and which I say is undeniable, the honorable senator must try to make the best of it. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The argument is not worthy of a baby. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The honorable senator has been set down very nicely once or twice this evening when he has ventured to interject, and I dare say that I also could do the setting-down process if I had time or thought it worth while to do so. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The members of the Federal Parliament have no schools or lands to visit; they have no use for a motor car, but they would very soon have one if they had. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- For years I and other honorable senators have been advocating that we should be supplied with proper means for keeping our papers and systematizing our work, but we have not been able to get the necessary accommodation because of the alleged desire of the Commonwealth to save money. The conveniences provided for honorable senators are only such as were fit for men who played with legislation - usually the fat commercialist, who stopped in his office all day, came up here at night, sat down on *x* lounge, and voted to order. We who want to do our work properly and effectively cannot obtain the necessary means for keeping our papers together. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- That is right ; rub it in. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am glad to have that indorsement. Surely that shows the mean and parsimonious way in which the Commonwealth has treated questions of expenditure. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Especially in regard to the Post Office. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Yes. Instead of being mean and ungenerous, we have returned to the States no less than *£6,058,000* over and above the amount which we were compelled to return by the Braddon section. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- We have returned too much. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- We could have spent every farthing of that sum, and the States could not have said a word. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- What about the interest on the transferred properties ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- If we had taken over State debts representing transferred propei ties to the extent of£9, 000. 000 we could, under the Constitution, have deducted the interest thereon from the money which we were returning to the States. {: .speaker-K9T} ##### Senator Vardon: -- It would have been a debit all the same. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- An interjection by **Senator Dobson** reminded me of another aspect of this question which I think deserves more than passing consideration. He said that the Commonwealth has no railways to look after, no lands to develop, and no schools to maintain. He pointed out that it has not a thousand and one other things of a similar nature which he is always very fond of talking about. It is true that the States have all these things to look after, and it is a very proper function for them to have. I hope that they will continue to do good work in regard to the development and maintenance of all those activities which are within their sphere. But is it necessary that they should raise money by indirect taxation for the purpose of maintaining their railways and schools and administering their lands? Must it be regarded as a. maxim of sound government that the money for maintaining schools must be raised by" indirect taxation? {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The States are not raising money by indirect taxation, but the Commonwealth is. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Yes, but the honorable senator wants this Parliament to continue raising money by indirect taxation and to return it to the States for that purpose. I, on the other hand, want the Commonwealth not to do so {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- You have made two Tariffs in the course of nine years. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I did not make either Tariff. I never advocated that either Tariff should be framed for the purpose of raising revenue. It is very likely that the honorable senator may have wanted to raise revenue by that means, but I did not, and I am quite sure that the people of Australia did not. The view which he inadvertently brought under my notice is one which has been largely put forward by socalled State Righters. I do not admit that the Commonwealth has any rights, or that the States have any rights, apart from the people. It is the people who have the rights. However, it is convenient to use the phrase " State Righters," because it perhaps more accurately describes these people than does any other phrase. The idea put forward by them is that the States have the interest on the national debt to pay, schools to maintain, and lands to administer and develop, and that, therefore, they should get a large revenue from the Commonwealth. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- Quite right. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I deny emphatically that it is the duty of any Government to raise the revenue for those purposes by means of indirect taxation. I go further, and say that that method is not in accordance with equity or justice or any sound principle of government. I invite **Senator Dobson** to cast his mind back to the history of Great Britain, and ask himself whether, when the idea of maintaining and developing the various functions and activities of government was first brought under systematic sway, the money for the purpose was raised by' indirect taxation ? Is it not a fact that in the early history of our race not a shilling was raised by that means ? Is it not a fact, which can be verified by a reference to history, that the whole burden of defence and of maintaining the church and' the schools was thrown on the lands of the country? It was not until the reign of the Stuarts, in comparatively recent times, that this cunningly devised method of raising money by indirect taxation was brought into vogue. Originally, and for many years after the Conquest the barons and the landlords of England held their lands on the condition that they contributed certain revenue to the Crown, and maintained so many men-at-arms for its service. Every honorable senator who has studied history knows that that is a fact, and that there was no indirect taxation. It was only when the need of money became acute and pressing, and no more could be squeezed out of the landlords without incurring the danger of a revolution, that the Stuarts resorted to the system of indirect taxation. That is the origination of our present system of indirect taxation. The lands were all held then with that express condition attached. There were priories within two miles of each other maintained by landlords. At one time any man who came along had the right to stay for three days without question at a priory. He also had the right to use the schools, which were also maintained at the expense of the landed interests. Have we any such laws now? No. The landlords, when they obtained power, relieved themselves of that responsibility, and removed the burden of taxation on to the backs of the poor, while they collared the lands which they formerly held on the condition of service to the Crown and forfeited them to themselves. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- Is the honorable senator advocating a return to those days ? {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am pointing out a historical fact. I am not advocating the putting back of the clock in the way of civilization. We can have all the good things of present day civilization, and the advantage of whatever was good in those times, without any sacrifice on our part, if we are only wise enough to take a lesson from history, and to be guide.(J by experience. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- According to the honorable senator, indirect taxation has lasted for 300 years. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Yes; several things have lasted for that time, and then have had to give place to others. The honorable senator has lasted for the greater part of the allotted span, and he, too, .will have to give way by-and-by to somebody else, as we all will. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- But the principle of indirect taxation is not giving way to anything. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- It is giving way very rapidly. It is being attacked with more force now than ever it was. It was because the land-owners formerly had all political power in their hands that they were able to maintain the system of indirect taxation. That is the only reason why it has been in force for 300 years. In Great Britain we have a systematized attack being made on the stronghold of the landlords, and I believe that it is going to be successful. Yet we have had the House of Lords entrenched and fighting it tooth and nail. They would even go to the length of forcing the country into a revolution. In Australia we have had exactly the same thing. In each State we have had an Upper House which represented nothing but property, and its members have refused to make property pay. its due share of taxation. Consequently, we have been unable, so far, to relieve the people as they should have been relieved, from an unjust and inequitable burden of taxation. But now that we have a Parliament which in each Chamber represents the spirit of Democracy, we hope to relieve the poor people of some share of this unjust burden, which hitherto they have been called upon to endure. That was the position in regard to the duty of property in days gone by. We who believe that population adds inordinately to the value of private property, think it is time that private property was persuaded, by mild and gentle means, to resume even a small share of its just liabilities and responsibilities. I intend to show that it would be much better for the development of this country, and would add much more to its security from foreign attack, if we changed our system of taxation. When we are told that the schools and the railways should' be maintained out of indirect taxation, we should not forget for a moment that a great deal of the value which now attaches to private property is due to the expenditure of public money. If that be so, then undoubtedly land and; other private property, especially land; which has been so largely enhanced in value, should yield to the people somelittle return for the vast outlay which they have incurred in creating that enhancement. I think that that is undeniable. Take the enormous increase in the valueof private property from one end of Australia, to the other owing to public expenditure. {: #subdebate-15-0-s10 .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- Order ! I hope the honorable senator is going to connect these remarks with the Bill, because heseems to be getting away from the subject under discussion. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The connexion is soobvious, sir, that I do not think there isany need for me to 'point it out. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- The connexion isnot so obvious to the Chair, and I should like the honorable senator to connect hisremarks with the Bill. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I shall explain tothe Chair what the connexion is. The Bil)" proposes that' a certain proportion of the Customs and Excise revenue shall be handed back to the States. I am combating that view with the idea of showing that there is a more just, equitable, and desirable way of raising the money, and I an* quoting particular facts. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- I would point out to the honorable senator that the Bill doesnot state where the money is to come from. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I am advocating that the Commonwealth should raise the money bv means of a land tax. {: .speaker-10000} ##### The PRESIDENT: -- The question is,, whether we shall propose an amendment of the Constitution, so as to provide for the payment of 25s. per head of the population to the States. That sum will come out of any source of revenue which the Commonwealth may have. It will, of course, be entitled to retain the whole of the Customs and Excise revenue by reason of the repeal of those provisions . of the Constitution which now require a proportion of that revenue to be returned to the States. The honorable senator is perfectly entitled to make an incidental reference toa system of direct taxation, but he is not at liberty to discuss any such system in detail. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- The claim made by the States is that as the Commonwealth possesses exclusive control over the Customsand Excise revenue, they should be insured' a fair annual return out of that revenue. I think, therefore, that I am entitled to point out that there is no need for the States vo be guaranteed a return from the Customs and Excise revenue, inasmuch as they can secure revenue by more equitable means. If my remarks in that connexion are to be curtailed, 1 shall have to deal with some other aspects of the question which will occupy the attention of the Senate for a longer period. This Bill is so important that, in discussing it, we ought not to be " cribb' d, cabin'd, or confined " in any way. It has been repeatedly stated that the Commonwealth should guarantee the annual return to the States of a fair proportion of the Customs and Excise revenue. But, if the States do not desire to obtain money from indirect taxation, they have the whole field of taxation wide open to them. There is nothing to prevent them from raising money from any source other than from Customs and Excise. {: .speaker-K3G} ##### Senator W RUSSELL:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA · ALP -- Except the Legislative Councils. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- They have incurred debts to the extent of £250,000,000, and it is urged that, in order to enable them to pay interest upon those debts, they should be insured a fair annual return from Customs and Excise revenue. I say that that interest should be paid by property, the value of which has been enhanced as the result of the expenditure of that money. Has not the building of our railways doubled, trebled, and quadrupled the value of property in big cities like Melbourne and Sydney? Has it not increased the value of land throughout Australia two, three, and four fold? Have not the landowners been able to exact four times as much for their lands after a railway has been constructed in their vicinity, 'than they were previously able to get? Yet, they do not contribute anything like an adequate return for the benefits which they have received. Under this agreement, we are asked to say that a man who is getting £2 per week, and who has a wife and four or five children to support, shall be obliged to contribute £12 or £15 per annnm out of his scanty income, whilst big land-owners who have received enormous advantages, whose properties have been increased in value by hundreds of thousands of pounds, shall make only a very small contribution through the Customs House. The crying need of Australia to-day is a larger population. We possess a paltry population of 4,250,000 in a country which is capable of supporting in comfort and happiness at least 40,000,000. Those 40,000,000 we must have ; and, in order to get them, the land monopolist must go. This Bill has been brought forward in the interests of the land monopolist for the purpose of further fortifying his position, and of rendering it impregnable. It is an insidious attempt to prevent the people from dealing with the bloated land monopolist, who frequently has the audacity to say, " You shall not occupy a single acre of this land without my consent." It is the land monopolist who isopposed to immigration, and to the development and progress of Australia. I desireAustralia to be populated by 40,000,000 souls. I do not suppose that I shall live to see that development; but I hope that my son will.. I trust that his position will be rendered secure by the presence of 39,999,999 others who will be prepared to fight beside him in the defence of this country. We all know that the land monopolists frequently say, " We will not sell our lands." In some cases, wills are executed which absolutely prohibit the cutting up and selling of estates for twenty or thirty years after the death of the testator. Were it not for the prohibition against perpetuity, the law of *primogeniture* would be enacted again. But the dead hand is laid upon lands now, by reason of the testator willing ' that his property shall not be subdivided for thirty or forty years after his death. Why are such provisions inserted in wills? Simply because the land-owners know that the value of their lands will increase enormously as the result of the enterprise and industry of the nation. That being so, they wish to insure that their lands shall not be split up until their descendants have reaped the full advantage of the unearned increment. So long as we permit the bulk of our revenue to be raised by indirect taxation, this condition of things continue, the land monopolist be a bar to progress, our population will remain practical]lly stagnant, and Australia will be denied the position which she ought to occupy amongst the nations of the earth. In regard to indirect taxation, I wish to point out to **Senator Gray** that, even in New South Wales, prior to Federation, the moment a child was horn it became a tax upon its parents. They had to contribute more to the revenue of the country on account of the presence of that child. Thus, instead of a man being encouraged to add to the population, he was actually punished for doing so. {: .speaker-KMT} ##### Senator Gray: -- It is rather unfair to attack me, seeing that I cannot interject. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- I have no objection to the honorable senator interjecting. As a matter of fact, he did interject a little while ago when he stated that the Labour party were opposed to immigration. The truth is that it is his own party which desires to punish a man for adding to our population. I repeat that, the moment a women gives birth to a child, she has to contribute more to the revenue of the country. Yet, forsooth, the honorable senator prates that he is in favour of attracting a larger population to Australia. I am aware that the hour is getting late, but this subject opens up such a wide area, that it was almost impossible for me to do justice to it within the limited time at my disposal to-night. I believe that, in their own ambit, the State Premiers and the State Parliaments should be supreme, and, as a corollary, the Prime Minister and the Commonwealth Parliament within their ambit should also be supreme. Any sort of meddling, or interference with each other's affairs can only prove a source of friction. As I have already pointed out, the States never elected a single Premier to interfere in Federal politics any more than they elected a Commonwealth Prime Minister to interfere in State politics. It is also a fact that the States elected a number of members in another place to safeguard their interests. When the question was put to the electors directly, they clothed this Parliament with power to legislate upon all matters which were delegated to it by the Constitution. There is no doubt about that. The Commonwealth Government was fully charged with authority. That authority was not given to any one else. Why should 'we, under those circumstances, flout the people, and say to them, " Although you have given us this authority, we are going to be cowardly enough to shirk the exercise of it?" The proposal of the Government practically means that the Commonwealth Parliament is incompetent to exercise the power the people gave to it. Now, the power which the people gave to us in this connexion is defined in sections 87, 93, and 94 of the Constitution. I wish to draw attention to these sections in order to show how false this Parliament will be to the trust reposed in it if we consent to this Bill. Clause 87, which is generally known as the " Braddon blot," reads as follows - >During a period of ten years after the establishment of the Commonwealth and thereafter -until the Commonwealth otherwise provides, of the net revenue of the Commonwealth from duties of Customs and of Excise not more than one-fourth shall be applied annually by the Commonwealth towards its expenditure. The balance shall, in accordance with this Constitution be paid to the several States, or applied towards the payment of interest on debts of the several States taken over by the Commonwealth. The latter proviso is very important. It relates to a question upon which I have not yet touched, although it has an important bearing upon the whole subject. The Commonwealth Parliament, by that section, was given full power to deal with the whole matter in the light of the experience gained in ten years after the establishment of Federation. Yet we are now asked to say that we are incompetent to discharge our duties. The Premiers of the States are merely concerned with conserving their own peculiar interests. They have concocted the terms of an agreement at a secrecy Conference, and the Commonwealth Government, to save their own political skins 'at the next election, have meekly accepted the agreement at the dictation of the Premiers. **Senator Symon** was quite right in saying that this proposal amounts to a base surrender of power and practically means asking this Parliament to emasculate itself at the behoof of the State Premiers. I point out to the Vice-President of the Executive Council that the people cannot alter the Constitution when they (like. Even a majority of the people in a majority of the States cannot alter it when they like. The people, as a whole, have no power of initiation in the matter. In order to get an amendment of the Constitution, Parliament must move; and it is very difficult to get a Parliament to move sometimes. The position is even more difficult with regard to the proposal to repeal sections 93 and 94 of the Constitution. Section 93 provides for the payment to the States for five years after the establishment of a uniform Tariff of balances of revenue; and section 94 provides that after five years from the imposition of uniform duties Parliament may provide on such basis asit deems fair for the monthly payment to the Departments of surplus revenues. Those sections intrust to this Parliament the adoption of a fair method of distribution. But under the proposal now submitted by the Government, Parliament is asked basely and weakly to acknowledge that it cannot be trusted to maintain a fair and equitable basis of distribution of surplus revenue. Another section which it is also- proposed to repeal is number 105. That is the section which has regard to the talcing over of the debts of the States. That opens up a very large matter, upon which I do not propose to enter. But there are many leaders of public opinion in Australia who are firmly convinced that the taking over of the State debts if- inseparably bound up with any proper settlement of the distribution of the finances. **Senator Symon,** in his admirable speech today, took the very highest ground when he argued that this Parliament having been intrusted with a duty, should not basely desert its trust. His contention was unanswerable when he said that though the present Parliament may be willing to surrender powers, privileges, and duties, it has no right to bind any future Parliament to a like course of conduct. Though we may basely desert the position intrusted to us/ we have no right to force future Parliaments into the same position. But the proposal of the Government means that future Parliaments will not have the same rights and privileges that we possess. What ethical right have we to do that? There has not been any demand from the people that we should surrender our power. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The people are going to approve of what is proposed. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- Let me recommend **Senator Dobson** to take to heart a remark of **Senator Millen,** that it is unwise to prophesy. The honorable senator's prophecies are sure to be falsified by events. There has not been a single public meeting in Australia that has demanded from us the surrender of the powers intrusted to us by the Constitution. The matter has not been mentioned at any State election. At the last election in Queensland, **Mr. Kidston** carefully kept it in the background. The only demand has come from the Premiers, and they, as I have said, have no more right to speak than have any other six people. If six ordinary citizens, one from each State, met at a street corner, and came to a resolution, we should have just as much right to take notice of them as of the six State Premiers. But there has been a conspiracy to induce this Parliament to evade its rightful duty. It is because of that conspiracy that the Government have weakly given in, and are trying by every means in their power to shear this Parliament of its control over national finance. The Commonwealth Parliament is to be placed at the mercy of the States. In future, supposing that this agreement is embodied in the Constitution, the necessities of the Commonwealth will be subordinate to the demands of the States, and that will inevitably lead to another violent squabble between the States and the Commonwealth. That is above all things to be avoided. We find that the Commonwealth Government, instead of safeguarding the interest.1!, of this Parliament, as they might reasonably have been expected to do, weakly caved in to the demands of the State Premiers. Why? It has been said over and over again, published in the press, and mentioned by the State Premiers, that if the Commonwealth Government did not accede to their request, and if they did not try to bludgeon the agreement through this Parliament, they would have to count upon the violent opposition of the State Premiers at the next Federal election. The threat was held out that if they did not accede to the agreement as dictated by the State Premiers, those gentlemen would stuff the Senate at the next election with men pledged to compel this Parliament to adhere to the Braddon section until such time as it was prepared to concede to their demands. That was the threat held over the Federal Government, and in order to save their political skins, the Commonwealth Ministers weakly caved in. Is it right that any terror of this kind should be held over the Commonwealth Parliament or Government? Should members of this Parliament be asked to legislate under that kind of duress ? It is. as I have said, a sort of corruption, and we should do our utmost to resent it. On every ground, I say that this agreement, if embodied in the Constitution, will remain a shackle on the people of the Commonwealth. It will be a constant hindrance to the Commonwealth Parliament in the proper discharge of its duties. We were told by the VicePresident of the Executive Council that the Commonwealth Parliament has already found itself in some difficulty. I wish to quote the honorable senator correctly ; he said that we have been obliged to introduce old-age pensions too early. Is it not a fact that, under the Constitution, this Parliament was empowered to legislate for a Federal system of old-age pensions. The Constitution did not provide that this should be done at a certain time, or within a certain number of years, after the Braddon section had expired, or when we had sufficient money to finance the scheme. The Constitution empowered this Parliament to provide for old-age pensions whenever il might think it desirable to do so. Yet **Senator Millen** tells us that we introduced old-age pensions too early, because we had not sufficient money at our disposal to finance the scheme. Why had we not sufficient money to finance it? It was because we were hampered by the operation of the Braddon section, which was limited in point of time to ten years. Yet honorable senators now desire coolly and calmly to put upon us a shackle which will hamper us for all time. The Braddon section, with a limited operation of ten years, hampered this Parliament in the attainment of so beneficent an object as the establishment of a system of pensions for the aged poor of the Commonwealth. We were " cabin 'd, cribb'd, confin'd," because cf that provision of the Constitution. If this agreement is embodied in the Constitution, whenever in the future we wish to do something else in the interests of the people, we shall find ourselves " cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd " in the same way. We shall be hampered in all our efforts to discharge the duties cast upon us by the people of Australia when they agreed to the Constitution. We have no right to take the initial steps to hamper ourselves in this way. {: .speaker-JVC} ##### Senator Dobson: -- The agreement will give the Commonwealth £2,500,000 a year more than we receive under the Braddon section. {: .speaker-KLS} ##### Senator GIVENS: -- But the honorable senator is aware that the new naval and military expenditure, and the cost of oldage pensions, will more than absorb the whole of that additional amount of revenue. He knows that the payment of oldage pensions will absorb £1,500,000, and that we are relieving the State Governments of that expenditure. We are informed in the papers placed at our disposal to-day that the new naval scheme will cost the Commonwealth about £760,000 per annum. That amount, added to the cost of old-age pensions, will make a total of over £2,250,000. In order to make our land defences effective, we shall require to expend £750,000 over and above our previous expenditure. This makes a total of £3,000,000, and how will **Senator Dobson** get that £3,000,000 out of the £2,500,000 additional revenue which he says the Commonwealth will receive under this agreement? It is abundantly clear at the present moment that the Commonwealth is going to be "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd," by this agreement. I know of nothing which **Senator Dobson** so much desires as that the proposed naval scheme shall be carried into effect, and that we shall have an effective defence of Australia. I give the honorable senator credit for that. Yet in order that the State Premiers' demand may be acceded to, the honorable senator apparently is willing to sacrifice the great interests of the Commonwealth in this regard. -He is willing to give up all freedom of action by the Commonwealth Parliament to secure sufficient revenue to finance so beneficent a scheme as the provision we have made for the payment of old-age pensions, so necessary a project as the establishment of the naval unit on the basis recently laid down, and the establishment of an effective land defence, in order that he may weakly cave in to the State Premiers. The whole thing is due, as I have already said, to an organized conspiracy to raise all the money required by the Commonwealth by indirect taxation. **Senator Gray** or **Senator Walker** interjected that we might resort to direct taxation. I am as well aware as any one else that the Commonwealth Parliament has unlimited powers of taxation, and can turn to any source of taxation. But I ask honorable senators why we should turn to other sources of taxation to raise revenue when, at the same time, we are returning large sums of money to the States? There is no need for us to do so. If the States require revenue, they have ample power to impose direct taxation. I say that the first thing which the Commonwealth Parliament should do is to carry out the responsibilities cast upon it by the people, and pay its way out of its own revenue, raised according to its own desire in the interests of the people. It was suggested by the Brisbane Conference, which our honorable friends opposite are now so willing to quote, that after we have provided for the needs of the Commonwealth, and after we have made provision for the effective protection of our industries, it is proper that we should return to the States all we can afford to give them, and in such manner as in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution shall be fair and just. We have the power to do all this at the present time, but this agreement proposes that we should give up that power, and should bow to the behests of the State Premiers. I object to do that. I entered this Parliament as an ardent Federalist. I was an ardent supporter of Federation from the initiation of the movement. I hope to continue to be an ardent Federalist to the end. As sucK I wish to conserve the power and dignity of this Parliament, and also of the State Parliaments, each within, its proper sphere. I -do not desire that the one authority should interfere with the other. I desire financial independence for both Commonwealth and States. But this agreement will not give it. It is because it would, on the contrary, perpetuate the imposition of undue burdens of taxation upon the people, and be an endless cause of bickering and quarrelling between the States and the Commonwealth, that I declare, for the reasons which I have given at some length, that I do not intend to support this Bill. I may say that I have no great objection to the amount proposed to be .returned to the States under the Bill for the time being. But this Parliament cannot say what Commonwealth Parliaments of the future should return to the States, because we can have no knowledge of what the needs of the Commonwealth may be in ten or fifteen years' time. Therefore, while I agree that we should be within our rights in making a tentative agreement, we have no right to bind future Parliaments, and no right to place shackles on the people of the Commonwealth for all time. For these reasons, I cm opposed to the embodiment of the agreement in the Constitution in its present form. I am prepared, for the sake of peace and quietness, to let it be embodied in the Constitution for a limited period. But I shall oppose to the uttermost the proposal to fetter for all time the power of the Commonwealth Parliament to conduct the affairs of this country for the peace, order, and good government of the people. This power was given us by the people; we should not abrogate it in the slightest degree, and I shall be no party to doing so. Debate (on motion by **Senator Dobson)** adjourned. Senate adjourned at 10.43 p.m.

Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 18 November 1909, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1909/19091118_senate_3_53/>.