30th Parliament · 2nd Session
The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Condor Laucke) took the chair at 2.30 p.m., and read prayers.
page 181
-I present the following petition from the Corporation of the City of Elizabeth, South Australia:
To the Honourable the President and Members ofthe Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate Federal and State funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlays to 2.3 per cent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long-term policy should be to provide SO per cent of all funding for Australia s roads.
That at a minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $5,903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government funds to roads over the five years ending 1980-81, of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
-I present 2 petitions, similar in wording, from 114 and 352 citizens respectively:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate Federal and State funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlay to 2.3 per cent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long-term policy should be to provide SO percent of all funding for Australia’s roads.
That at a minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $5, 903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government funds to roads over the five years ending 1980-81, of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petitions received, and first petition read.
– I present the following petition from 143 citizens, mainly from the southeast of South Australia:
To the Honourable the President and members ofthe Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate Federal and State funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlays to 2.3 per cent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long-term policy should be to provide SO per cent of all funding for Australia s roads.
That at a minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $S,903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government Funds to roads over the five years ending 1 980-8 1 , of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads.
Petition received.
– I present 4 petitions, similar in wording, from 32,28,21 and 1 1 citizens:
To the Honourable the President and members ofthe Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate Federal and State funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlays to 2.3 percent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long term policy should be to provide SO per cent of all funding for Australia ‘s roads.
That at the minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $5,903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government funds to roads over the five years ending 1980-81, of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads.
Petitions received.
– I present the following petition from 79 citizens of the city of Glenelg in South Australia:
To the Honourable the President and members ofthe Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition ofthe undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate Federal and State funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlays to 2.3 per cent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long-term policy should be to provide SO per cent of all funding for Australia’s roads.
That at a minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $5, 903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government funds to roads over the five years ending 1980-81, of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 49 citizens of the Tatiara District in the upper South-east of South Australia:
To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate Federal and State funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlays to 2.3 per cent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long-term policy should be to provide SO per cent of all funding for Australia ‘s roads.
That at a minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $5, 903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government funds to roads over the five years ending 1980-81, of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads.
Petition received.
– I present the following petition from 229 citizens of Victoria:
To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Australia’s extensive road system is a national asset wasting because of inadequate funding.
Commonwealth Government funding of roads has fallen over the last six years from 2.9 per cent of all Commonwealth outlays to 2.3 per cent.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the members of the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government should totally finance national highways and half the cost of constructing and maintaining all other public roads.
That since current road funding arrangements have seen a deterioration in road assets, this backlog in construction and maintenance needs to be reduced by the Commonwealth
Government undertaking to make a larger financial contribution.
Petition received.
-I present the following petition from 234 citizens:
To the Honourable the President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That grave concern is expressed about the Government’s intention to dismantle the Australian Legal Aid Office which is providing efficient, readily available legal aid to all communities in Australia.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Government will undertake a full national inquiry as proposed in 1975 by the present Attorney-General, as a matter of urgency.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.
Petition received and read.
– I present the following petition from 28 citizens:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate, in the Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That the Commonwealth Government restore the Petrol Price Equalisation Scheme immediately for the benefit of those people who live away from the seaboard.
Your petitioners believe that the matter is urgent and your petitioners as in duty bound will every pray.
Petition received and read.
– Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows:
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government’s long-term policy should be to provide SO per cent of all funding for Australia ‘s roads.
That at a minimum the Commonwealth Government adopts the recommendations by the Australian Council of Local Government Associations for the allocation of $5, 903m of Commonwealth, State and Local Government funds to roads over the five years ending 1980-81, of which the Commonwealth share would be 41 per cent as recommended by the Bureau of Roads. by Senator Jessop (6 petitions) and Senator Archer.
Petitions received.
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned concerned citizens respectfully showeth:
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled, should ensure:
That the Commonwealth Government should totally finance national highways and half the cost of constructing and maintaining all other public roads.
That since current road funding arrangements have seen a deterioration in road assets, this backlog in construction and maintenance needs to be reduced by the Commonwealth Government undertaking to make a larger financial contribution. by Senator Webster.
Petition received.
To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:
That Australian Government employees strenuously oppose the provisions of the Commonwealth Employees (Redeployment and Retirement) Bill first introduced in the House of Representatives on 8 December 1976. The basis for opposition includes the following reasons:
Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should reject passage of any legislation to extend powers of compulsory retirement of Australian Government employees unless and until any variation has been agreed with staff representatives.
And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Jessop.
Petition received.
page 183
-I give notice that on the next day of sitting I shall move:
That the order of the day standing on the notice paper for 25 February 1977 relating to the motion to take note of the report of the Standing Committee on Science and the Environment entitled ‘Review of the Report of the Senate Select Committee on Air Pollution’, be restored to the notice paper and be an order of the day for the next day of sitting.
page 183
page 183
-I ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce: Is it correct that the draft White Paper on Manufacturing Industry prepared by the Minister’s Department was rejected by the Government? Does the Minister still adhere to the view that the draft prepared by his Department was a good document? Thirdly, can he tell the Senate what is the current state of confusion of Government policy in respect of manufacturing industry?
-The answer to the first part of the honourable senator’s question is that it is not correct. What is correct, as I have expressed on a number of occasions in this place, is that this is a complex and difficult matter. It really deals with a decline in employment in manufacturing in Australia which has been going on for a number of years. It reached its highest point under the previous Administration. The solution to that unemployment problem involves facing serious and difficult issues. I have been facing those issues during my involvement with the Department of Industry and Commerce and the Department and I have been seeing people and constructing evidence for the White Paper. When the White Paper was presented to the Government it became quite clear that other departments needed to have a better understanding of the general area of the problem and this has been developed in the last few months. It has to be understood that in a government process when one department works steadily towards a position it becomes a matter for overall government consideration. That is what is taking place. Quite frankly, I could not care less about Press comment on these matters. I have never cared about it in my life. I am concerned about producing a good and sensible document for the Australian people from the work that has been done. If it takes longer than expected I shall not be worried.
page 184
-I address a question to the Minister representing the Treasurer. In view of the Queensland Government’s decision to abolish death duties and the intention of the Western Australian Government to provide major relief over the next 3 years, has the Government any proposal to alter its method of assessment of Federal death duties so as to avoid a greater assessment of Federal duties as a result of the decrease in State collections?
-It is well known to the Senate that the matter of death duties levied by the Commonwealth has been seriously considered by Governments in the past and by this chamber itself. Former Senator Lawrie, Senator Guilfoyle and myself, in company with Senator Gietzelt and others, were all members of a committee that did some work on this. I think that the general findings of that committee are known. The fact that Senator Guilfoyle, former Senator Lawrie and myself were in favour of the abolition of death duties is equally well known. The Government has to consider all these matters. As I have said before, this matter comes within the area of financial and economic Government policy. In no way is it possible for a Minister of a government to comment on issues that may well become part of the Budget.
page 184
– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development. I preface the question by reminding the Minister of an answer he gave to a question asked by my colleague, Dr Jenkins, in another place on 10 March 1977 wherein the Minister stated that his Department had established a task force to monitor public debate on the uranium issue. Who are the members of the task force? What are their qualifications in terms of science and engineering skills? How often do they report to the Minister? What does the Minister mean by monitor’ public debate? Can he indicate how and where public debate is being followed by this task force in the light of the restricted printing of the first report of the Fox Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry? Will the Minister indicate which are the more important public arenas that the staff of his Department have attended to monitor this public debate?
– The question clearly seeks a whole range of detailed opinion. I shall bring it to the attention of my colleague in another place and seek an answer.
page 184
– My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. I refer to a report in the Sydney Morning Herald of 12 March which is headed ‘Few Remember Australia’s Saint’. It refers to the grave of Caroline Chisholm which is apparently in a state of bad repair and deteriorating in a cemetery in Northhamptom in England. I ask the Minister whether there is any program which the Government has that would enable it to undertake repairs or maintenance work to this grave which is of considerable historic significance to Australia?
-As the honourable senator may know, my Department is responsible for looking after the graves of ex-Prime Ministers, some of which are overseas. I shall have a look at the matter as it would appear that it is of great historical interest to Australia. It is a matter in which we ought to take an interest.
page 184
-Is the Leader of the Government in the Senate aware of the United States law which prohibits a country from using American military equipment for operations not based on legitimate self defence? In view of the possible use of Australian military aid by Indonesia in East Timor, is the Government willing to review Australia’s requirements for military aid and implement prohibition clauses similar to those currently in operation in the United States.
-I am not aware of the United States law. I shall refer the second part of the honourable senator’s question to my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
page 184
– My question is addressed to Senator Guilfoyle as Minister for Social Security and also in her capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. In the light of the growing need for the provision of adequate interpreter and translation services in hospitals, law courts, social welfare agencies and the like, and the shortage of qualified interpreters and translators, has the Government given consideration to the development of translation by computer-based and/or video machines? Will the Minister request her colleague to refer the question to his Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs for investigation?
-I shall be pleased to have the matter investigated with a view to further development of interpreter services. The adequacy of interpreter services in hospitals, government departments and other places is a matter of growing concern. If there are facilities which can be developed by computers, I shall be please to have the matter investigated and to give the report to the honourable senator in due course.
page 185
-I direct a question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate in his capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. How does the Government intend to respond to the impertinent reprimand by the Indonesian Foreign Ministry to the Australian Ambassador concerning the evidence intended to be given by an Australian citizen to a United States Congressional committee? How does the Government intend to react to Mr Malik’s threat of demonstrations against the Australian Embassy in Jakarta unless the presentation of such evidence is in some way prevented? How much longer does the Government intend to appease the Indonesian generals in their over-violent reaction to criticism within Australia of the atrocities which are continuing in East Timor?
– I shall seek that information from my colleague.
page 185
-Is the Minister representing the Minister for Health aware that last week the Minister for Health advised the organisation Population Services International to defer the setting up of an abortion clinic in Canberra until the health and legal aspects had been given appropriate consideration and the matter had been ‘debated by people at the local level’? Is the Minister aware that, despite this statement and despite the fact that this attitude was conveyed to Dr Davis of PSI by Mr Blandford of the Capital Territory Health Commission, PSI still intends to go ahead with its abortion clinic and that, in fact, staff at the clinic had training sessions last Friday? What other action is available to the Minister or the Government in view of this blatant disregard by Dr Davis and PSI in view of the statement by the Minister for Health?
– I am aware that the Minister was concerned that discussions should be held about legal and other aspects of the clinic suggested for the Australian Capital Territory. As I understand the situation, the Government currently is examining the medical and legal aspects of the establishment of any such clinic. I have no further information which suggests that Population Services International at present is conducting a service along the lines mentioned in the question. However, I shall refer the matter to the Minister for Health for a report from him on the questions raised.
page 185
– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. Is he aware that the Trade Practices Commission has determined that on an annual basis the contractual arrangement entered into between the Queensland Rugby League and radio station 4IP is a legitimate transaction and within the terms of the Trade Practices Act? In view of this, will the Minister therefore draw the decision of the Trade Practices Commission to the attention of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, and will he take immediate action to ensure that radio station 4BK ceases the illegal and pirate broadcasting of rugby league football in Queensland?
– I am not precisely aware of the implications of the decision of the Trade Practices Commission but I accept that Senator McAuliffe has outlined it correctly. He has asked me to draw the attention of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal to that decision. I will invite my colleague in another place so to do. As to the question of the implications for radio station 4BK, I also will invite my colleague to look at that matter.
page 185
– Has the Minister for Science seen a Press report relating to a new building brick developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and now being produced in commercial quantities at Albury on the New South WalesVictorian border? Can the Minister give figures relating to the cost of production of the new brick compared with other standard types of brick already in production? Have the CSIRO tests indicated that the new type of brick will have durability and quality similar to that of existing types?
-Some publicity has been given to the commercial production of sawdust bricks at Albury in New South Wales. My understanding is that the firm there aims at a production level of between 200 000 and 500 000 bricks a week by the end of this year. For the information of the honourable senator, the process involved incorporates approximately equal parts of sawdust and clay but in all other aspects it is very similar to that involved in the normal production of conventional clay bricks. It is my understanding that when the bricks are burnt at about HOO degrees celsius the sawdust burns away, leaving small cavities in the bricks. Therefore they are much ligher than conventional bricks but in all other respects are much the same as the conventional product. The process was developed by CSIRO for the purpose of using a waste product. This has been successful. Since the manufacturing process is very similar to that for normal brick I do not expect that there will be a great deal of difference between the price of the conventional brick and this brick but this new type of brick is much lighter and will use up a waste product.
page 186
-My question is addressed to the Minister for Administrative Services. I refer to a newspaper report which appeared in the West Australian of 10 March written by Ms Jill Crommelin, concerning the arrival of the pop group ABBA at Perth airport. In that article she wrote:
A small, fierce man approached the Press and said: ‘If anyone asks ABBA a single question the Commonwealth police will see that he leaves this area ‘.
Does the Minister know whether the statement attributed to the small fierce man is correct? Were Commonwealth police proposing to remove people who asked questions? What are the duties of the Commonwealth police on occasions such as this? Do their duties go beyond the preservation of order or, in fact, are the Commonwealth police behaving as employees of the commercial entrepreneurs who bring such strolling players to this country?
– I can only assume that the small fierce man was not a Commonwealth policeman because there is some sort of height requirement for Commonwealth police. I am surprised that the Commonwealth police would be used for such a purpose. I shall nave the matter looked at. I understand that the duty of Commonwealth police at airports and elsewhere is to keep order, to help in the prevention of terrorism should it arise and to carry out the normal duties of police at airports. I do not think it is part of the duty of the Commonwealth police necessarily to give to commercial groups protection from the media, unless they are misbehaving. I shall be very interested to find out who is this small fierce man. I shall let the honourable senator know as early as possible.
page 186
– Will the Minister for Education inform the Senate on what basis theological students are denied eligibility for allowances under the tertiary education assistance scheme?
– This subject has caused considerable concern to me and considerable inquiry. I have had a number of legal opinions on the matter. The basic reason why theological students are denied allowances under the tertiary education assistance scheme is that section 116 of the Constitution states:
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.
The lawyers advise me that whereas it is quite justifiable for a theological student to be at an ordinary university studying a range of subjects as a student for the improvement of that students’ education and to be eligible for TEAS allowance, to attempt to provide TEAS allowance at a theological college where section 116 of the Constitution might apply would, in the lawyers’ view, be in breach of the Constitution. In those circumstances I find it necessary to uphold the decison to deny allowances.
page 186
-My question which is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate relates to an article in the Courier-Mail of 22 February 1977. Most of the article is relevant to my question, but to put the question in proper context I wish to quote 3 sentences from the article. These 3 sentences are:
Commonwealth police have revealed that, in the first 7 months of this financial year, there have been 10 450 cases of forged, false and stolen Government cheques. The figures were produced in documents sent to the Government Deputy Whip in the House of Representatives (Mr Don Cameron, Liberal, Queensland). The total value of 100 cheques selected at random is $ 16,345.
Further detailed information is given in the newspaper article. Will the Minister advise whether it is normal practice for the Commonwealth police to provide this type of information to members of Parliament? If it is not normal practice, was this information, in fact, provided to Mr Donald Cameron? If so, why?
– I certainly provided that information to the honourable member for Griffith. I think I did that as a result of a question he asked. I shall have to check on that. Honourable senators know that quite often I write to them setting out the question and the reply. I am calling on memory, but I think it was as a result of a question Mr Cameron asked in another place or which he put on notice that I wrote to him with the answer. I shall have the matter checked and I will advise the honourable senator.
page 187
– I draw the attention of the Minister representing the Minister for Health to a revolutionary procedure being tested in West Germany for the treatment of diabetics. I refer to the microdoser which is being developed to do away with the necessity of daily disruptive injections of insulin. I understand that the microdoser will be implanted beneath the patient’s skin and will provide a regulated insulin level for a period of some 9 months. This device will constantly monitor the sugar concentration in the blood and automatically inject the required dosage to maintain the correct level. Another advantage is that the tiny reservoir of insulin can be refilled through the patient’s skin by injection each 9 months. To me, a layman in these matters, this would seem an important breakthrough and I ask the Minister, if it is not already being done, to instigate an evaluation of this innovation in order to bring added relief to the many thousands of Australian diabetics?
– I will draw the attention of the Minister for Health to the question and the information given in it and ask that he conduct any investigation which he considers desirable.
page 187
– I direct my question to the Minister for Social Security. Has the Minister read a report in a Sydney newspaper alleging that 6 men believed to have been involved in the invalid pension fraud have left the country? Is it a fact that the persons concerned received an invalid pension after paying a suburban doctor $2,000 for false medical documents? If these statements are true, what action has been taken to ensure that the medical officers from the Department of Health were not knowingly involved in the conspiracy?
– My Department, the Department of Health and others in the past week or so have been investigating closely some allegations with regard to a suggested fraud in the certification that doctors give in respect of people seeking invalid pensions. As I understand it, invalid pensions are granted by the Department of Social Security following the examination of an applicant by a Commonwealth medical officer who must certify that the applicant is 85 per cent permanently incapacitated. My Department has been aware for some time of the rumours in Sydney that false reports are being made by some doctors to assist applicants in their desire to obtain an invalid pension. These doctors are not Commonwealth medical officers.
On the advice of the Attorney-General’s Department the matter was referred to the Commonwealth Police who are currently investigating it. All the information I have at this stage is that it is doctors other than Commonwealth medical officers who are regarded as subject to investigation in respect of whether the certificates they were granting were in accordance with the requirements of the Department of Social Security and the Department of Health. I have no further information at this stage but it is a matter that is subject to very close investigation. I do not believe that Press speculation in these matters is always helpful. If people who were under investigation have now left the country it may be that the course of investigation has been impeded by some of the speculation last week. If there is any conclusion to this matter I will see that the honourable senator is advised.
page 187
– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Defence and concerns the garment which has succeeded the humble greatcoat worn in the Army. The garment is known as ‘men’s coats, field, olive green’ and is issued to members of the Army. It is alleged that it is being withdrawn from general issue to soldiers in the Army Reserve. Is it a fact that these coats will no longer be on individual issue to Reserve soldiers? Will they continue to be on individual issue to regular soldiers? I suppose I am asking really whether the same conditions of issue will apply to regular and reserve soldiers in the Army or whether it will be a case of ‘greatcoats on’ for regular soldiers and ‘greatcoats’ off for reserve soldiers.
-My colleague, the Minister for Defence, in the other place, advises me that ‘coats, men’s field, olive green’, are provided on the same conditions for all ranks of the Australian Army during field training and combat operations. The coat is issued to provide additional protection during cool weather down to minus 5 degrees celsius. The coats previously were on restricted issue to certain field force units of both the Army Reserve and the Regular Army. So that these coats can be made available to all Army Reserve units, the holding of some of the Army Reserve units has been reduced. Pools of these coats have been created in the various districts from which coats can be borrowed when needed by units for specific types of training under adverse weather conditions. Only those Regular Army soldiers in units undergoing continuous training or operations retain these coats while remaining in those units. All other soldiers, both in the Regular Army and the Army Reserve, have these coats provided for specific types of training or operations.
Issues of ‘men’s coats, field, olive green’, are made under the same conditions of need to both Army Reserve and Regular Army soldiers with the exception of Army Reserve soldiers in the tropics. All soldiers both in the Army Reserve and the Regular Army are entitled to a permanent issue of battle dress, sweaters, greatcoats and nylon raincoats. The Army Reserve soldiers in the tropics are not entitled to battle dress or greatcoats but do have an entitlement to additional tropical garments.
Mr J.DUNN
– I direct a question to the Leader of the Government in the Senate in his capacity as Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Is the Government prepared to affirm the democratic rights of Mr Jim Dunn to give evidence before a congressional hearing in America? In view of the statement made yesterday by General Yoga Suguma, the head of Indonesian Intelligence, that Mr Dunn should be prevented from so doing, will the Government undertake to provide protection for Mr Dunn? Further, will the Minister undertake to ascertain whether Australian military aid equipment has been used or is being used in East Timor?
-I will attempt to find out the answer to the last part of the question. In regard to Mr Dunn, you, Mr President, have had some questions asked about him. I think it is quite clear so far as the Government is concerned that Mr Dunn is not an Australian public servant.
– He is an Australian citizen.
-He is not an Australian public servant although in some strange way people seem to think that he is speaking as an Australian official. As far as we are concerned, this is not so. In Mr Dunn’s involvement in this whole matter he is acting in a purely private and unofficial capacity and neither he nor his report have any official status whatsoever. I am further informed by my colleague, the Foreign Minister, that whilst he has read Mr Dunn’s report and has earlier said that he finds some of the allegations disturbing, he believes that other allegations are clearly exaggerated and unsubstantiated. I reply to the general thrust of the honourable senator’s question by saying that Mr Dunn is not a person under the control of the Government. What he does is his own business.
page 188
– Is the Minister for Science aware that there is a growing demand for the use of satellite resources photo-imagery which could be of vital assistance to the community by ready access to the land satellite facilities that we have? Is the Minister aware that some State governments would like the information to assist in planning crop production, forest research and other matters such as fire and flood management? What is the current position in relation to these facilities?
-The honourable senator asks about Landsat which is the name given to the United States satellites which obtain data from the earth’s surface in the form of photographic images. As the honourable senator said, Landsat has application currently throughout the world. It is in a great deal of demand for the purposes of agriculture, forestry, geology, mining, land use mapping and oceanography. In current times more specifically Landsat has potential for improving the estimates of yield from major cereal crops such as wheat which would be a most valuable economic aid to some countries. Recently also Landsat has been capable of detecting locust breeding sites, and this is of importance to Australia.
I am aware that several State governments have asked the Commonwealth to be involved in establishing Landsat facilities. Recently the Victorian Government requested that some pictures should be obtained of the recent fires in the Western District of Victoria. At present, with the Prime Minister’s assistance, this is being done. Of course these images have to be obtained from the United States of America which has receiving facilities. The proposal for the establishment of Landsat receiving facilities has been put to the Government. The matter has been referred to the Australian Science and Technology Council for a report to the Government, and I understand that within the next month or so that report may be available.
page 189
– Is the Minister for Administrative Services aware that the Commonwealth Government refuses to accept the requirements of the Tasmanian Government’s Sub-Standard Housing Act? Is he also aware that the Commonwealth is the landlord of properties in Derwent Park Road, Moonah, in Hobart, which have no stoves, drainage or laundries, in contravention of the same Act? Is he aware that these properties are in many cases rented to middle-aged unemployed lone parents who are unable to find accommodation through the private market and that they are charged rental and also required to pay rates and taxes? Will the Minister investigate the situation to see whether it is reasonable that the Commonwealth should act as a slum landlord and refuse to comply with reasonable State legislation to bring the accommodation to the normal habitable standards?
-I shall certainly have the matter investigated.
page 189
– I address a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry. In view of the announcement by the Minister on 10 March that of grants for fishing research totalling $266,569 only $2,220 was allocated to Tasmania, and for one very minor project only, can the Minister advise what other projects from Tasmania are still under consideration or have been rejected in this financial year?
- Senator Archer was good enough to let us know that he wanted this information; therefore I have the answer for him. The application for $2,220 was the only one from Tasmania received by the Fishing Industry Research Committee for fisheries research funds for the 1977-78 financial year. For this financial year, 1976-77, 2 applications were received from Tasmania and both were accepted. These were for the hatchery rearing of bi-valve molluscs in Tasmania- I apologise to Senator Webster for involving myself in his affairs- for which an amount of $23,125 was made available for the second year of a 2-year project, and for the determination of population parameters for yield calculations in the Tasmanian southern rock lobster fishery for which an amount of $19,330 was made available for the second year of a 2-year project. I am quite sure that if anybody is interested in the leaping newt Senator Webster will be delighted to help them.
page 189
– My question which is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs follows a question asked by Senator Primmer. Does the Minister intend making available to the Senate a studied reaction to contentions, including what was claimed to be evidence that 5 Australian newsmen were in fact murdered, made by Mr Dunn during discussions on East Timor which were held between him and members of the Department of Foreign Affairs and which were later reported to the Minister? In view of the current widespread criticism by newspapers in Australia of the Indonesian Government’s attitude, and also having regard to the references made to Mr Dunn, will the Minister be good enough to ensure that some studied reaction to the complaints is made available to the Senate? I invite the Minister himself to make some observation about the matters?
-I will ask my colleague whether any work has been done in his Department on this matter and, if it has been done, whether he is prepared to make the results available to the Senate.
page 189
– I direct a question to the Acting Minister for the Northern Territory. Some weeks ago when referring to the activities of juvenile so-called petrol sniffers at Papunya I indicated my concern at the lack of detention facilities in the Alice Springs area and for those juveniles who, because of the lack of facilities, are at present committed to the Alice Springs gaol. The fact that it is their desire to go to the big house’- the Alice Springs Gaol- is considered an achievement and indicates the gaol ‘s worth in rehabilitating these lads. What action has the Government taken to provide adequate detention and rehabilitation facilities for juveniles in Alice Springs and elsewhere in the Northern Territory in order to prevent more of these teenagers becoming confirmed criminals? What number of juveniles are at present being held in Northern Territory gaols, either on remand or serving sentences?
-The honourable senator has asked a quite comprehensive question about a matter in which he has demonstrated his interest on more than one occasion in the Senate. However, the detail relating to the number of juveniles and exactly what is happening in Alice Springs at the moment in the provision of facilities for them is not known to me. I will attempt to get the information for the honourable senator in the near future.
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-My question to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications concerns the decision of the Government not to proceed with the establishment of a commercial broadcasting station in the north western suburbs of Sydney. I ask: Prior to the disbandment by the Government of the Australian Broadcasting Control Board, did the Minister for Post and Telecommunications make an approach to the Control Board asking it to review or withdraw its recommendation on the granting of a commercial broadcasting licence in the north western suburbs of Sydney? Did the Board refuse to accede to the request, and did it confirm its earlier recommendation which followed the public hearings it conducted in 1975? Will the Minister table all papers and documents relating to the decision of the Government not to proceed with the licensing of such a station?
-I ask the honourable senator to put the question on notice.
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-I ask the Minister for Education whether he has studied newspaper reports which have appeared in Adelaide and today in Canberra relating to criticism of the medical school at the University of Adelaide. I referred to this matter a few days ago in my speech during the Address-in-Reply debate. Does the Minister agree that such reports tend to create disquiet in the community in relation to standards of medical education at a university? In view of the vast sums of Commonwealth and other public money assigned to universities, will the Minister engage in any inquiries or conversations relating to the accuracy of the reports? If so, will he advise the Senate and the public the results of those conversations?
– The only information I have is the information that I viewed in the Press and therefore I am unable to give any specific comments on the matter. I should say that of course any criticism of any strength of a medical school must cause some concern and in itself must raise some queries. I think that the best plan is for me to refer the question to the Chairman of the Universities Commission, Professor Karmel. As the honourable senator may know, some years ago Professor Karmel undertook an inquiry into medical schools in Australia and he and his Commission are not without skills in that regard. I will refer the question to him and ask him to give it consideration.
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– My question is directed to the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Federal Affairs and refers to Polish born Australian citizens who fought for freedom during the last war and, in particular, those Polish ex-servicemen who fought side-by-side with Commonwealth forces and were awarded British campaign medals. Is the Minister in a position to respond to a request for the extension of repatriation benefits to those people, which request was submitted to him in a lengthy deputation to him last week by representatives of Polish exservicemen, the Rats of Tobruk Association and the National Returned Services League of Australia?
- Senator Harradine refers to a deputation which I received from representatives of the Polish community, which was supported by the Returned Services League and introduced by Senator Harradine and Mr Hodgman, requesting that consideration be given to an extension of the Service pension to certain Polish migrants to Australia who fought in the Polish Army and in particular, as Senator Harradine said, those who fought under British command. I have received a large number of representations on this matter in addition to the deputation which I received last week. There are some real problems in regard to this matter. For instance, not all ex-members of the Polish Army who are now Australian citizens and who migrated to Australia after the last war would qualify in fact as having fought under British command. A number of them were in the Polish underground and in other forces. Other residents of Australia of other nationalities who migrated here after the war may have similar qualifications or similar claims that have to be considered. All these issues present very considerable difficulties which must be carefully evaluated by the Government before any decision can be made. So the short answer to Senator Harradine ‘s question is that I am not in a position to give a firm decision in regard to this matter at this stage. No doubt in due course I shall be making a statement in regard to the matter.
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– Is the Minister for Education aware of reports that classes at Hawker College in the Australian Capital Territory will be disrupted because of rolling strikes by teachers over the need for a kitchen assistant for home science classes? Has the Minister seen a report in today’s Canberra Times that the President of the A.C.T. Teachers Federation has accused the Minister of deliberately holding up a report on ancillary staffing which supports the teachers’ case? Can the Minister indicate the background to the undesirable situation which has now arisen at Hawker College? Can he say what action can be taken to end the present disruption to classes at the College?
– I have seen reports in the Press on this matter. Indeed, I am kept informed on the matter by the A.C.T. Schools Authority. I can only hope that good sense will prevail and that the strike will be resolved so that the education ofthe children will be, as it always should be, the primary responsibility of the profession and ofthe service. The honourable senator asked a series of questions. As to the allegation that I am or my Department is holding up a report on ancillary staff, the honourable senator will be aware that yesterday in response to a question asked by Senator Ryan I indicated that a report had been made available. I now indicate that each one of the 15 members of the A.C.T. Schools Authority has been given a copy of that report. As the A.C.T. Schools Authority represents all interests in the community, that report has been made available to the representatives of all those interests. I understand that under Public Service regulations it is not normal to make a general publication of the report. But the report is available to all interest groups in the Australian Capital Territory. As I said yesterday, the report presents a new concept and a not ungenerous approach to ancillary staff.
The situation at Hawker College is that what ought to have been a domestic matter related to the College has gone further. The matter arose because in a domestic decision made at the College the Principal decided some time ago that instead of appointing a kitchen assistant within his ancillary staff he would appoint a clerical assistant. That was a matter within the ancillary staff level for the Principal to deal with. Over a period, demands for a kitchen assistant emerged. The School Board and the Principal decided that a number of arrangements could be made with working staff and voluntary help from the community. One would have thought that community involvement would have had some blessing but this has been rejected. Members of the School Board and the Principal are responsible people. They are striving to resolve this matter.
The Authority, the Principal and the School Board have put forward for consideration a resolution which appears to me to have eminent common sense. They have arranged for the transfer of a clerical assistant from Hawker to another college, thereby creating a vacancy for a kitchen assistant in order to resolve the situation within the ancillary staff level. This situation has now been exacerbated by an intervention on 2 levels- an intervention which I do not think is serious- that the creation of the post is downgrading and that the job of a kitchen assistant is lower than that of a clerical assistant. That was not said when the original situation arose. There has now been another intervention. People are saying that in any case they want one more ancillary staff member. My own clear view is that the Principal, the Board and the Authority are handling and have handled this matter reasonably and with common sense. It has to be dealt with by those 3 authorities. They have my full understanding. I can only urge all those concerned to look to the interests of the students and not just to some vexatious procedures.
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– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. It arises from the increasing industrial hazards in the port of Sydney caused by the much heavier cargoes involved in containerisation. It is summarised in the current issue of the Maritime Worker in the report of vigilance officer Tom Supple of which the Minister is aware. In view of the fact that that report indicates that manufacturers’ specifications have not lived up to what they should have been, what role is the Australian Government, through the Department of Transport, playing to combat the increasing hazard which is associated with containerisation?
-Senator Mulvihill indicated that he was proposing to ask me a question concerning the collapse of the derrick on the Neptune Fisher. Therefore, I am able to respond in more detail than I would otherwise be able to do. My advice is that the Department of Transport is fully aware of the incident referred to in the Maritime Worker and has made inquiries as to the reason for the collapse of the derrick on the vessel Neptune Fisher. The Department is following up this matter with the German Classification Society, with whose approval the derrick was extended in 1975. When the derrick was extended its safe working load was reduced from 35 tons to 25 tons. It had the required certificate to show that it had been adequately tested. The derrick and all other cargo gear on the vessel was inspected by the Classification Society in January 1976. The Department had no reason to doubt the adequacy of the cargo gear on this vessel. Although random inspections are made on vessels arriving in Australia it is not practicable to inspect all cargo gear on ships before they commence work. I think that is the information that the honourable senator was seeking.
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– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Attorney-General. It refers to a report in the Adelaide Advertiser of 1 4 March 1977 regarding the establishment of a Law Reform Committee to inquire into legal problems facing the development of solar energy in South Australia. Has the Minister been informed that the object of the inquiry is to encourage the technological development of solar energy and to ensure that possible legal and social problems arising from extensive use of solar energy are recognised in advance? Will the Minister indicate whether matters concerning legal aspects of solar energy development have been discussed at conferences of AttorneysGeneral? Is the Minister in a position to state what action is contemplated by the Commonwealth Government in regard to Territories under its jurisdiction to regulate future developments in solar energy? Did the South Australian Government discuss the terms of reference for the inquiry with the Commonwealth prior to establishing this Committee?
– I was most interested to learn of the establishment of this Law Reform Committee in South Australia to inquire into the legal problems facing the development of solar energy in that State. When I was a member of the Senate Standing Committee on National Resources which was inquiring into this questionthe Committee’s report hopefully will be made shortly to the Senate- 1 became aware of the legal problems that could arise in regard to the development of solar energy. It certainly is important that they should be given consideration at this early stage of the development of solar energy. I have referred the question to the Attorney-General whom I represent. He has informed me that, as far as he is aware, the legal aspects of the development of solar energy have not yet been discussed at the meetings of Standing Committees of Attorneys-General. He is unaware also of any action contemplated by the Commonwealth Government in regard to the development of solar energy in the Territories. However, this is properly a matter for our colleagues, the Minister for the Capital Territory and the Minister for the Northern Territory. Accordingly, I shall refer that aspect of the question to those Ministers and acquaint the Senate of their replies. The Attorney is unaware of any approach having been made to the Commonwealth at this stage with respect to the South Australian inquiry to which reference has been made. He has an interest in the matter similar to the personal one that I have expressed and he will give early consideration to any approach by the Government of South Australia, should it be made.
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– Is the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations aware of the widespread unrest that exists in the Commonwealth Employment Service due directly to the intolerable work load being imposed on Service staff by the current ratio of officers to unemployed people? Is the Minister aware further that such dissatisfaction amongst CES personnel, which prompted the current industrial dispute between the Service and the Department, will not even begin to be dispelled until the Government takes some form of positive action to relieve the situation?
-Yes, I am aware of this matter and so is the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations. However, I think it should be explained to the Senate that a new staff level for the Commonwealth Employment Service has been established at a figure of 3050 which is an increase of 300 or 1 1 per cent on the staff as at 31 January 1977. The major problem seems to have arisen in New South Wales. I think that is the situation to which Senator Sibraa is mainly referring. Of that 300, the allocation for New South Wales is 151. The recruitment of this staff is proceeding as fast as possible.
The dispute which has arisen within the Department in New South Wales has been referred to the Public Service Arbitrator and there has already been an appearance before him. He recommended further discussions and in the meantime issued instructions for the lifting of some work bans that had been placed. I understand that the matter is still under discussion with him. Hopefully it will be resolved at an early date.
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– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. It has come to my attention that in some parts of the world attempts are being made to limit the use of saccharin on the ground that it may represent a health hazard. Is it known whether these decisions are based on good evidence or on experiments involving very large doses of saccharin in experimental animals? What supervision of the existing data is there in this country? Is any position being taken by the Department of Health with regard to the continued use of saccharin in Australia?
– I understand that recent Press reports have indicated a decision by the United States of America and Canada to phase out the use of saccharin in foods and beverages. This is the result of a study conducted by the health and welfare branch of” the Canadian Ministry of Health and Welfare in which saccharin was shown to cause malignant bladder tumours in test animals. I am unaware whether the research related to extreme doses or how it was conducted. Further details of this matter are being sought. It is understood that Canada is reviewing the role of artificial sweeteners and is considering exemptions for foods for special dietary purposes and lifesaving drugs. No cases of human cancer attributable to saccharin have been identified. The use of artificial sweeteners has been under continual review in Australia by the National Health and Medical Research Council since the original work on cyclamates was performed several years ago. Saccharin again will be considered by the food science and technology and public health advisory committees of the National Health and Medical Research Council, both of which meet within the next few days. In the meantime saccharin users have no cause for alarm. The Minister for Health has stated that no cases of human cancer attributable to saccharin have been identified.
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-My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for National Resources or the Minister representing the Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development, whichever is concerned. Is it the intention of Australian Newsprint Mills Pty Ltd to establish a timber mill at Albury for the purpose of pulping timbers? Has any study been made of the environmental impact of such a mill and the possible pollution of Murray waters?
– Since the matter relates largely to an environmental study it would come within my representation. I do not know the precise details but I shall seek the information and let the honourable senator know.
-If it is any help to the honourable senator I answered such a question asked by, I think, Senator Bishop last week or earlier. I shall look through Hansard and see if I can find the question and the answer.
page 193
– My question probably falls within the area of responsibility of Senator Durack as the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs and the Attorney-General. Has the Minister seen the statement attributed to the National Country Party member, Mr R. Katter, Junior, calling on cattlemen to strike, to picket and to tear up railway lines in an effort to force higher beef prices? Can the Minister say whether these views have the support of the Government and whether the Minister condones direct action by citizens to alleviate their grievances? If the answer to these questions is in the negative, can the Minister say whether any legislative action is proposed by the Government to assist in stabilising incomes of meat producers.
– I have not seen the statements attributed to Mr Katter, Junior, nor have I had any occasion or opportunity of finding out whether he did or did not make that statement. In those circumstances I think it only appropriate that the matter be referred to perhaps two of the Ministers that I represent for investigation by them.
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– I address my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. I refer to the recent burglaries of the offices of private aircraft operators located on Commonwealth land at Parafield aerodrome in Adelaide over the last few weeks. Is it a fact that the Department of Transport provides security patrols at Adelaide airport and at all major capital city airports to protect both private and Commonwealth property? Is this security service provided for second and other lesser airports? Is the Minister aware that at such airports considerable valuable aircraft spares, equipment, as well as cash and other negotiable articles are stored? If no such service is provided, will the Minister bring the matter to the attention of his colleague with a view to investigating it?
- Senator Messner has asked me a series of detailed questions to some of which I have an answer, but not all. I suggest it would be best if I brought the matter to the attention of my colleague, the Minister for Transport and sought a detailed reply.
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-Can the Minister for Science indicate what, if any, research or development projects are being carried out under the responsibility of his Department which relate to the use of sugar cane fibres as a building material, energy source, animal stock feed or as a clothing textile source? If there is no current research being carried out in Australia in any of these fields, will the Minister undertake to study the feasibility of such projects? Will he inform the Senate if any such research is being undertaken in any other country?
– I cannot give the honourable senator exact information on this matter. A question in the Senate late last year elicited the reply from me that it had been said that if Australia grew 7 times the amount of sugar cane which it grew at present we would have no energy problem. That was stated by a scientist visiting from overseas. The honourable senator quite correctly suggests that the use of sugar cane can be of enormous importance. Research is being carried out on sugar cane, certainly by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and, I understand, by the University of New South Wales. I shall attempt to find the information which the honourable senator seeks and get an answer to him.
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-Mr President, may I add to an answer which I gave to a question asked by Senator Kilgariff. The question concerned juvenile detention and rehabilitation facilities in the Northern Territory. I have the following information for the honourable senator: A juvenile training and assessment facility has been completed in Alice Springs and recruitment of staff is being undertaken at the moment. Subject to a satisfactory recruitment and training program it is expected that the facility will be in full operation by June 1977. Plans have been completed for a similar facility in Darwin. Tenders are expected to be called in the next week or so. Temporary facilities are already in operation in Darwin pending the more permanent facility becoming available.
page 194
– I inform the Senate that the Government has for some time been considering various sites in and around Hobart for the future headquarters of the Antarctic Division of the Department of Science. Questions have been addressed to me on this matter in the Senate. The Government’s review of the various alternative sites has now been completed and a decision has been taken that the Antarctic Division will be located at Kingston, Tasmania. Planning for design and construction will now be put in hand.
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– Pursuant to section 42 of the Film and Television School Act 1973, 1 present the annual report of the Film and Television School for the year ended 30 June 1975.
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-Pursuant to section 44 of the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories Act 1961, 1 present the annual report of the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories Commission for the year ended 30 June 1976.
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Bill presented pursuant to leave granted on 10 March, and read a first time.
Standing orders suspended.
– I move:
On 9 March the Minister representing the Attorney-General informed the Senate that, concurrent with the referenda to be held on 2 1 May 1 977 in respect of the four proposed laws to alter the Constitution which were passed by the Senate on 25 February 1977, the Government intends that a poll be conducted to assist it in choosing the tune for a national song. The purpose of this Bill, which is a simple machinery measure, is to ensure that there is no legal objection to using for this poll the same ballot-boxes and polling booths as will be used for the Constitutional referenda. I commend the Bill to the Senate.
Debate (on motion by Senator Wriedt) adjourned.
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In Committee
Consideration resumed from 15 March on the Second Report of the Fifty-seventh Session.
Item 8- Estimates Committees- incorporation in the Standing Orders.
– I want to comment on this item because it arises from a report of Estimates Committee F of which I am a member and it received quite a bit of support from the Committee Chairman, Senator Rae, who is not here at present. Although the action recommended to be taken by the Standing Orders Committee does not go as far as our Committee would have liked it does at least indicate- the second report of the Standing Orders Committee referred to the spirit of gradualism- that it is a step in the right direction. Members of Estimates Committee F have been concerned for some time that some government funded authorities have been escaping the proper scrutiny of the Parliament and I believe that the establishment of this new estimates committee on a continuing basis certainly will provide an ongoing overview of government expenditure by various authorities. Certainly this proposal will inhibit the capacity of members of other estimates committees to follow through questions that they may have in their minds from time to time in view of our other Senate parliamentary duties but I hope that we will look at this innovation carefully after it has been in operation for 1 8 months and, if it is not performing the job that we believe it should perform, we will give consideration to extending it along the lines suggested in the report of Senate Estimates Committee F.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Item 9- Attendance of Committee members’ research officers at Committee meetings.
I think the position is set out quite clearly on page 12 of the second report of the Standing Orders Committee. The Committee recommends that the interpretation of standing order 305 be affirmed. It has been interpreted in this way for some time and the Committee saw no reason to depart from the previous method of interpretation.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Item 5- Questions on notice- repeat of on Notice Paper.
The CHAIRMAN (Senator DrakeBrockman) The Committee returns to deal with Item 5 consideration of which was postponed.
– I said yesterday that I would obtain some information for Senator Douglas McClelland. It concerned how late in the day questions could be lodged with the Clerk and appear in the notice paper the next day. I am informed by the Clerk, after consultation between the Government Printer and himself, that up until 8 p.m. there will be no difficulty in processing questions placed on notice. In special circumstances it may be possible to process them if they are submitted later. But certainly, questions can be accepted until 8 p.m.
– It is now 5 p.m.
-Yes. It has been 5 p.m. But questions can now be accepted up until 8 p.m. After all, they have to be processed and must be sent to the printer at a reasonable time.
-The request of the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party was that the time for the lodging of questions be extended to an hour of the day later than 5 p.m. to comply with this new proposed arrangement whereby the complete notice paper will be published on Tuesday and that on Wednesday and Thursday only the numbers of the questions without the details of the questions that are unanswered will be published. It was felt by the members of the Parliamentary Labor Party that if we agreed to have that procedure adopted, we should be given extra time to enable us to place questions on the notice paper for the Wednesday and the Thursday. We would have liked to have the time extended until the sitting of the Senate was suspended for that day. However, we appreciate that there has to be a cut-off time. Therefore, if it is to be 8 o’clock, for the sake of experimentation with this arrangement on a trial basis I think that I can say on behalf of the Federal Parliamentary ALP, because the hour is being extended from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. that we will accede to that proposal.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
Resolutions reported; report adopted.
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Address-in-Reply
Debate resumed from 10 March, on motion by Senator Lewis:
That the following Address-in-Reply to the speech of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second be agreed to:
To Her Most Excellent Majesty Elizabeth the SecondMost Gracious Sovereign:
We, Your Majesty’s loyal subjects, the members of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia, in Parliament assembled, desire to thank Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament.
The presence in Australia of Your Majesty and of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh has once again brought the greatest pleasure to your Australian people. We, their representatives in the Senate, are grateful for the opportunity to re-affirm our allegiance to you as our Queen.
– I take this opportunity to speak to the motion that the Address-in-Reply to the Speech of Her Majesty the Queen be agreed to. The previous business of the Senate has been proceeded with so expeditiously that some speakers in this debate might have been caught unawares. However, I wish to voice my concern about the economic trends developing in this country which threaten the security of every one of us in the community. This Government which has been the Government now for more than 12 months, must accept responsibility for the state of the economy.
When the Labor Party was in government we pressed the point that the difficulties that the Australian economy faced were structural and were in some way related to the difficulties that overseas economies faced, especially the economies of our major trading partners. The present Government- the then Opposition- took the view that the Labor Government alone was responsible. It took that view to discredit the Labor Party and to encourage instability, unrest and concern within the electorate, thereby creating circumstances which would bring about the defeat of the Labor Government. It went further than that, of course. If we recall all the events leading up to 11 November we realise that the then Opposition was not satisfied to go the normal course of 3 years and face the Australian Labor Party at the normal election time. It took a devious course which has been clearly described by a variety of speakers over the 12 months and which brought about the wrongful dismissal of the Labor Government.
These are matters of the past which from time to time will concern us but I do not intend to concern myself or the Senate with them too much on this occasion. I merely say to the Government that it must now accept responsibility for the state of the economy and it must also look well below the surface problems which exist and consider the possibility that the Australian economy has reached a position, after some 20 years, from which it cannot recover unless an in-depth investigation is made of the reasons for the failure of the economy to recover from the last recession. In fact Australia has remained in a recession while the rest of the world, having recovered, appears now to be going into the next recession. Something is structurally wrong with the Australian economy and the sooner the Government faces up to that and desists from using the old time methods to bring the economy into balance, the better. Unless it does so we will be faced with continuing massive unemployment to the disadvantage of us all.
The social problems which have developed because of the failure of the Government to lift us out of the economic doldrums in which we find ourselves has led to much social dislocation in the community. I am concerned with the way in which the Government in the past two or three months has been attempting to place the blame for the lack of productivity and lack of incentive upon a group of people who find themselves in the ranks of the unemployed. The Government has attempted to brush away the extent of unemployment by saying that many of those who are unemployed are unemployed because they desire to be; that they are economic malingerers. It calls them dole bludgers, a term I am not prepared to use. I have intervened merely to enable my colleague Senator Mulvihill, who has been engaged elsewhere, to take up the debate on the Address-in-Reply. If Senator Mulvihill is ready, I am prepared to concede to him.
-I am deeply indebted to my colleague, the very illustrious senator from Queensland. I was speaking last week when the debate was adjourned and I had followed Senator Scott. Before I proceed with the main thread of my remarks, I should like to join with other honourable senators in paying tribute to Senator Lewis. He made a very crisp maiden speech, and also went about asking his first question in the chamber in a direct fashion. There is no doubt that with his forceful debating he will be an asset to the Senate. Dealing with the Queen’s Speech, it is obvious to all of us that the economy is the paramount issue. Unfortunately for the Opposition, we have seen 12 months of the Government’s economic policies and I cannot help but feel that a parallel can be drawn with the period in the 1 930s leading up to World War II and the whole concept of the economy and how it would be operated. In those days we had what was called the Premiers’ Plan, but the great tragedy is that had World War II not occurred there is no doubt that, having regard to our deflation policy, we would not have embarked on the development of our modern manufacturing industry, particularly heavy industry, for the purpose of rearmament. I know that from a socialist angle rearmament seemed a very high price to pay for a shot in the arm for our economy.
There is no doubt that the Government’s economic policy has meant cut backs in the building trade and in the engineering industry. On the question of responsibilities, we have had what is popularly known as trade union baiting or union bashing. When the Government argues about excessive wage demands, I cannot help but think of the Mindful Militant, the history of the Amalgamated Engineering Union. In the period from 1930 to 1940 various sittings of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission defined a living wage and margins for skill, and during that period coming out of the depression the requests of the unions were probably very modest. It could be said that wages were not as large a component of the cost structure as they are today but, for all that, the metal trades and the mining industry have always been in the forefront of agitation.
Industrial gains in this country have generally developed in 3 stages. There have been Arbitration Commission hearings, there have been negotiations around the table with the employer and, as a last resort, there have been stoppages. In relation to stoppages, it should be remembered that the acceptance of the principle of compensation for people doing difficult work came out of industrial confrontation. I have a very high regard for the capabilities of Sir John Moore and some of his colleagues, but in assessing public opinion it should be remembered that over the last 10 to 15 years, having regard to the attitude of many in white collar industries, people in power stations, on the waterfront and in the railways were very slow to receive adequate compensation for weekend work. Those penalty rates were provided, but they were provided in the face of a number of big disputes involving power workers, gas workers and others, and when essential services were disrupted.
The point I make is that in any democratic society those situations must exist. While people are very vocal in criticising miners, transport workers and waterside workers, the same venom does not appear in their remarks in references to stoppages of middle class militants like the airline pilots. As a matter of fact, on one occasion a former Minister for Transport argued that perhaps people in those high income occupations should have a more rigid ceiling imposed. I know that there was a lot of applause and many gleeful remarks when the Minister had to capitulate because of the attitude of the airline pilots organisation. I think that the most effective way in which I can espouse the cause of acceptance of trade union militancy is to refer to the same journal I mentioned in a question I asked Senator Carrick earlier this afternoon. I refer to the current issue of the Maritime Worker which contains a letter headed ‘Apology by minister’. The Minister wrote to the viligance officer of the Fremantle branch of the Waterside Workers Federation, Jock Smith, and in his letter he said:
Dear Mr Smith:
I acknowledge your letter of February 3rd and I thank you for writing to me. The occurrences of Monday, January 24th, were of concern to you and I regret that any event took place which might affect the harmony of the working arrangements which the Antarctic Division of the Department of Science has with waterside workers.
He went on to refer to a very angry outburst by Dr Richardson, who alleged that the Nella Dan, which was leaving for the Antarctic, had been held up because of waterside workers ‘ militancy. The Minister’s letter continued:
No group of workers could be more industrious and work to the important national benefit of Australia’s research activities directed to the Antarctic.
That letter was penned by our Minister for Science, Senator Webster. It is a very fine letter and I think it rebutts in a far more eloquent fashion than I could some of the criticism of the trade union movement in Australia. I would be remiss in my duty if I did not incorporate in my speech that article from the Maritime Worker headed ‘Apology by minister’. I seek leave to have the letter incorporated in Hansard.
-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.
The document read as follows-
APOLOGY BY MINISTER
While Dr Richardson, the Liberal MHR for Tangney who represented the Minister for Science, Senator J. J. Webster, at the ‘Nella Dan’ farewell did not have the grace to apologise, Senator Webster took a very different attitude.
Senator Webster’s letter in reply to Fremantle VO Jock Smith said:
Dear Mr Smith:
I acknowledge your letter of February 3rd and I thank you for writing to me. The occurrences of Monday, January 24th, were of concern to you and I regret that any event took place which might affect the harmony of the working arrangements which the Antarctic Division of the Department of Science has with watersiders.
I have not spoken with Dr Richardson on this matter. Reports of the incident were given me and written news reports were brought to my attention. Of course the circumstances of your personal interest in the Nella Dan’s welfare were unknown to me but I thank you, personally, for your interest in preparation of the expedition vessel.
If Dr Richardson’s words were objectionable to you and to members of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, then I take the responsibility and I apologise to you.
On the occasions when I have farewelled the two ships, Nella and Thala Dan, there has been the opportunity to express thanks to the wharf workers for the excellent service they provided in the three States of Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia.
No group of workers could be more industrious and work to the important national benefit of Australia’s research activities directed to the Antarctic. As recently as last Tuesday, February 1st, I reiterated my compliments for the thorough work done by the gang which had serviced the Thala Dan’.
Again I express my thanks to you and your men and I would be pleased for you to advise them of my comment.
Yours Sincerely, J.J.WEBSTER
– After 12 months of stewardship by this Government, how are the Ministers in this restructured ministry working? I want to deal firstly, with the separation of the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs from the Department of Labor. I know that on the surface the general feeling, and I share it, is that people’s fondness for defining migrants as industrial fodder has to be resisted, but I still believe that during the period of selection before migrants come to Australia, when job opportunity is often the major criteria, we do not have the liaison we should have. The Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) would be aware of that. There have been situations in the embassies in Madrid and Lisbon when, to say the least, a lot of incompetence has been apparent. On the one hand, we have played a part in relation to Timorese refugees, but on the other hand we have the situation of girls with Australian citizenship but of Portuguese origin who go back and marry men in the country of their birth and have to wait three or four months for their husbands to join them in Australia. Those girls have undertaken a lot of menial duties in Australia in order to achieve some economic substance, and I think that that situation is not good enough.
In relation to job selection, it is accepted in the New South Wales building industry that fashions are such that Spanish stonemasons have something to contribute. As honourable senators know, a skilled operator will often need three or four assistants, so he is responsible for the creation of 4 more jobs. In one case which is well known to the Department an employer has been waiting for over 12 months for a man to come to Australia. It could be argued that the pregnancy of the man’s wife did jeopardise the position to a certain extent. But the records in Madrid are in such a parlous state that after the wife completed a successful pregnancy she was told that there was no record of her case and she had to go back to square one. I understand that that man will be flying out to Australia this week. I certainly am not renowned for taking up the cudgels on behalf of the employers but I think it is most unfair that that man in the building industry in New South Wales now has to mark time because of the ineptitude of others. To my mind the moral of the story is that we need closer liaison between the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations and the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs.
Another matter, which has been raised several times by my colleagues, relates to the obligation of this Government to provide effective dialogue on the Fox report No. 1. To keep my promise to my Whip that I would make a short discourse, I ask that a letter dated 5 February from a resident of the Northern Territory, Mr Peter Springell, dealing with questions that he asked of our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrew Peacock, in regard to certain matters arising from that momentous report, be incorporated in Hansard and brought to the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. If we want effective dialogue on the effect on mining uranium and want the arguments for and against its being mined, Ministers have a big responsibility to provide effective answers which may become part of the yeast of the bread for discussion on this matter. I ask that this letter be incorporated in Hansard as a part of my speech.
-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.
The letter read as follows-
Box 38359, Winnellie, N.T. 5789, 5 Feb. 1977.
The Hon. A. Peacock, M.H.R., Minister for Foreign Affairs, Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T. 2600.
Dear Mr Peacock,
After reading the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry First Report. I am most concerned that your Government have launched into uranium export without any regard for some of the misgivings voiced by the Fox Commission.
More specifically, I wish to point out the following:
1 ) On page 104 of the Report it is stated that Australia is not a party to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. This is despite the fact that the Soviet Union, U.S.A., U.K., Canada and N.Z. are signatories. Why not Australia? What is your Department doing about remedying this serious deficiency?
The Fox Report is particularly skeptical of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). On page 130-131 of the Report concern is expressed about resale of yellow-cake, which the NPT does not specifically forbid. On page 131a means of dealing with this aspect is outlined. Are you contemplating some measures along these lines, seeing as you did not do so before Mary Kathleen sales commenced?
The Report (page 148) is also concerned with the possibility of a state, which Australia supplies with Uranium, withdrawing from the NPT or IAEA safeguards, or from both. The Report suggests that nuclear material should only be supplied to a state on the basis that its entire nuclear industry is subject to back-up safeguards that can not be terminated by unilateral withdrawal. Has your Department any intention of following these suggestions? If not, why not?
Finally on page 1 99-200 (Appendix D) are listed possible means of limiting proliferation. Is your Department considering taking up any of these on an international level with other uranium suppliers?
It should not be necessary for the lay public to have to remind your Department of these shortcomings associated with uranium sales. It is unfortunate that you did not see fit to intercede with your colleagues to ascertain that some of these loop-holes were eliminated before the Government rushed headlong into flogging uranium. I am most disappointed that you, who were generally regarded as one of the more enlightened members of Cabinet, have let us down.
Yours sincerely (Dr) P. H.Springell
Box 38359, Winnellie, N.T. 5789, 28 February 1977
The Hon. A. Peacock, M.H.R., Minister for Foreign Affairs, Parliament House, Canberra, A.C.T.2600.
Dear Mr Peacock,
On 5 February I wrote to you expressing my concern at the lack of follow-up by your Department of the Fox Report. Your failure to even acknowledge my letter appears to also indicate a lack of interest in a very important issue. I enclose a copy of my earlier letter in case it went astray, in which case the above conclusion would be nullified.
I look forward to a meaningful early response.
Yours sincerely (Dr)P. H.Springell
-On the industrial theme, I refer to a matter that is well known to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Senator Durack) and to me. It concerns the effectiveness of the Commonwealth arbitration inspectorate to deal with award breaches. The Estimates of last
Spring indicated certain breaches of awards at the Sydney airport. It concerned a company called James Richardson Pty Ltd, which operates as a concessionaire at the airport. According to a report we received $25,000 was involved. There is an interesting side to this. We all know that in industries such as this there is a rapid turnover of the work force, which is composed largely of female workers who are hardly in a position to indulge in agitation for better conditions. About 3 weeks ago I received a letter from the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) confirming that his Department was forcing the employer concerned in this award breach to go back through his time sheets for the past 3 years to ascertain the individual underpayments. I do not think such a demand is good enough in this age of the computer. In view of the time factor involved, this material could have been obtained in a much more effective manner.
I do not disparage this section of the work force which I suggest would be rather meek, but I believe that these people certainly would be taking home no more than about $1 10 a week, and in some cases that could be the gross wage. The amount taken home probably would fluctuate between $110 and $130 a week. I think the present situation with respect to these people is not good enough. We have a Commonwealth arbitration inspectorate but it seems to be unduly slow in its administrative section. In the case to which I refer I believe that much more pressure could have been put on the concessionaire company. I am very perturbed by the impertinence of that firm in writing threatening letters to Senator Durack and myself when we have taken an oath to the Queen that we will uphold our responsibility to expose any wrong doings. As a matter of fact, the letter, which was directed more to Senator Durack than to me, was couched in such terms as to imply that Senator Durack gave false information. On the contrary, he gave true information. Until now I have deliberately refrained from saying any more on this subject because I was waiting until we were proved to be right, but I intend to talk to Senator Durack about the matter. Senator Durack knows the Standing Orders much better than I do and it may well be that he will suggest that the letter be given to the Senate Standing Committee on Standing Orders to ensure that employers such as James Richardson Pty Ltd do not threaten senators who are doing their job. I think for this company to have done so is very serious.
– It is a matter for the Senate Standing Committee on Privileges.
– That could well be so, but I should like to obtain advice from the Standing Orders Committee. If a statute of limitations applies to matters of this kind I should like to know how long we have in which to do something about it. I think there needs to be much reform in these areas.
Australia has a population comprising people from many lands. I know that Mr Andrew Peacock has made a statement on foreign affairs, but so far the Greek community throughout Australia has not been happy about the time taken in disclosing what attitude, if any, Australia has adopted towards the tragic situation in Cyprus. I notice that the American President, President Carter, has been most decisive on where his country stands on this matter. I appeal to the Government to revamp our stance at the United Nations. How countries vote on every issue at the United Nations is probably not a matter of general knowledge, but Australia has to be more clear cut in its attitudes, whether they be in relation to Cyprus or in relation to the attitude of Australia towards its minorities. I am talking about Slovenians, Croatians and others living in that general area who have relatives here who are saying: ‘Our taxes help to provide Australia with a pretty big delegation in the United Nations. Why is the Government not more clear cut in its attitudes?’ I am not suggesting that we should emulate Khruschev and take off our shoe and bang it on the rostrum at the United Nations, but I always think it takes too long for us to receive a report on just what is happening in the United Nations.
In the interests of open government I raise another matter about which I am pleased. It relates to a field in which I am interested and refers to the States Grants (Nature Conservation) Act 1974. In front of me I have a copy of an agreement between the South Australian Government and the Australian Government concerning the Danggali Conservation Park. I believe that if we are to know what we are ratifying in this case we should have a more detailed account of what is growing in the area concerned, what the botanists think about it and the like, instead of a lot of legal jargon about the Act. In other areas we receive reports which contain more detail. A considerable sum of money is involved. I welcome its expenditure, but we should have more details of where the money will be going.
I raised with Senator Durack, for him to pass on to Mr Street, the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations, my belief that the Government should tighten up considerably on some of the private employment agencies which, frankly, do not seem to know very much about employment. The closest comparison to them that I could give would be that they are like the fifth wheel on a coach: They have no particular purpose. I have received a letter from the Minister in which he admits that certainly some of these agencies mislead their clients. I am not unaware of the fact that there are some limitations on the service that can be given by the Commonwealth Employment Service officers. The serious point I raise is that some people who are seeking jobs have to pay fares to make two or three excursions around the city. I really believe that there could be a greater consolidation of employment services. I know that some employers are unduly harsh in their requirements, but I know also that the boot is not always on the one foot.
The employment situation today presents new difficulties. I think it is a matter of psychology to determine whether a person with a bachelor of arts degree should spend some time as a storeman and packer. These issues create problems in every manpower policy. I know the problems are not easy to overcome. I look from a trade union angle at the situation of people with academic qualifications having to go into manual occupations. I believe that with their ability to express themselves some of them would be valuable assets in the trade union movement as trade union officials of the future. The point is that there has been a sort of hacking off of some of the functions of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations and some matters for which previously it had a responsibility have been given to the Department of Productivity.
Recently, at the request of 6 unions involved with the operation of lifting appliances, I became involved in the quest by the Commonwealth Government to standardise crane structures. At the moment I understand that the people in the Victorian Department of Labour are the odd ones out. There seem to be some mixed functions if, on the one hand, Mr Street talks about industrial safety and, on the other hand, Mr Macphee ‘s comments overlap. I think these matters should be clarified.
The other matter to which I refer briefly- I am prompted by Senator Scott- concerns the relative merits of a presidency form of government or a monarchy. Probably relations between Australia and Britain have been different since World War II from what they were between the 2 wars. Even in the post-war world, British Labour governments- I include particularly the Attlee Government and, to a lesser degree, the
Wilson Government- introduced some legislation that was feared by vested interests in Britain. It is true that Britain has an unwritten Constitution but I think it could be said that the authorities in Buckingham Palace do not offer any impediment to Labor government. Let us consider the history of Australia between World War I and World War II. One could look at the life of James Scullin, a former Prime Minister. When he sought to appoint Sir Isaac Isaacs, an eminent jurist, as Governor-General of Australia, there is no doubt that the monarch of that time was not over-enamoured of the idea and even monarchs can fight rearguard actions.
That has not happened since. I see a couple of honourable senators on the Government side smiling. They should not think that I am about to say that Australian-born Governors-General are necessarily always right or that they are the ideal appointments. I am not saying that at all. I am simply illustrating the relationship between British monarchs and what were the Dominions but which are now defined as the Commonwealth. After all, one of the most repugnant terms that was used was that of the Dominions beyond the seas. At least Queen of Australia is an effective title. Whatever inhibitions we have had about the Crown, wittingly or unwittingly, being used to prop up outmoded ideas, even the impending referendums on the Constitution are indicative of the fact that the better elements of the Government realise that a little cheating went on at a State level with regard to the filling of vacancies in the Senate. Perhaps the Labor Party has often been critical of the Establishment. It would be a pretty poor socialist party if it were not trying to change things. But honourable senators should remember this: Premier Don Dunstan, Premier Wran and Premier Neilson may not have control of their Upper Houses at the moment but they are not waiting for a day just to get even when the angel of death strikes in order to change that situation. When a Liberal senator dies in office they have publicly stated that they would not resort to such action as was taken by the Queensland Premier and the New South Wales Premier of the day.
When we talk about the virtues of a presidency or a monarchy I think we must go a little further down the line. We must consider the type of Governor-General that we should have. When the Premier of Queensland is beating his breast, to me he seems very close at times to that celebrated man of the southern States of America, Huey Long. When he has to give some recognition to the future appointment of the Governor of Queensland he will find that under the Imperial Act, governments are much more subject to overseas control of their appointments than is an Australian government. Post-war monarchies, whether they be British or Scandinavian, have learned to live with socialist governments. It is ironical that the GovernorGeneral who was appointed recently did not live up to the standards of Sir Isaac Isaacs.
I believe that this is a testing time for this Government. The one fact that the Government cannot get away from is that it is the most violent critic of the trade union movement. It harps on the idea of extreme demands. In other words, it has suggested that any wage claims should be more or less geared to cost of living adjustments. The Government is now arguing over whether the Medibank levy should be a component in the consumer price index. The trade union movement believes that it has always had an independent role. The former Labor Government suggested a double-edged referendum on wage control. Some sections of the trade union movement feared this. They asked: ‘What will happen when there is another government?’ Some honourable senators opposite, some of them are Ministers now, got into the act and advocated a no vote. They would not agree to giving increased powers to Federal government. But since they took office the same people have frequently pleaded with the trade union movement for a wage pause. They questioned the motives of the former Labor Government and said that it was putting Australians in shackles. Now, they are not keeping their word- I am indicting the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in particularabout the Medibank component of the consumer price index. They want cost of living adjustments to be fragmented. I can assure them that in the eyes of the trade union movement their credibility has been shattered beyond belief. There are no other words for it.
The speech by Her Majesty the Queen was very brief. It expressed noble sentiments about obligations and helping people. The Government now has to bite the bullet. If it had agreed to constitutional referendums before we reached the worldwide economic recession, it may well have been that we would have had greater safeguards against the recession. There is always a lot of talk about how the West German trade unions have been more docile and more responsible. Honourable senators know as well as I do that whether it be West Germany or one of the Scandinavian countries, there is no stacking the deck when it comes to the wage index of the economy or for that matter, the national health scheme. They have been built in. People have not objected to paying for them. Those systems are much more comprehensive than we have in Australia. The Government is in a dilemma. It harps about freedom of operations. It talks about trade union misjudgment in pricing people out of jobs. Let us look at some ofthe knights of realm in Sydney. Big developers have squandered millions of dollars. A lot of money has gone into their own private fortunes. Even though some of them are so repentant now they would not go back to the jackhammers of builders’ labourers. Their wives have a lot of their money salted away. This is a double standard of morality that the trade union movement will not accept. If an air pilot, a ship’s master or a locomotive engineman is grounded or loses his ticket by some misfortune none of the knights in Sydney whom I can think of will be stripped of their titles. They will not rejoin the Builders Labourers Federation or the Builders Workers Industrial Union. They are doing all right now. These are the matters which concern the average person. The law is not just.
I shall refer to a recent incident involving the VC Mining Company in Western Australia. It did 20 workers out of their wages. I rang the managing director and he told me how much he had lost. I said: ‘You still have that posh home at Scarborough have you not?’ He said: ‘Yes’. I said: ‘You still have your Jaguar car?’ He said: Yes.’ I asked: ‘Are you going to Port Hedland yourself and work?’ He said: ‘Not on your bloody life!’ Those are the double standards which exist.
-The opening of Parliament by Her Majesty the Queen is a matter of great pride to the people of Australia. It is with great pleasure that I support the motion moved by my colleague, Senator Lewis. I should like to congratulate Senator Lewis on his maiden speech. He spoke of the decline in the income of the man on the land, the decline in his living standards and his need to be assured that there is a future on the land for him and his family and that they can plan with confidence for that future. This has been the aim of our Government since it was returned to power, as rural industry was the hardest hit in those 3 years by the Whitlam Government and by inflation. We need only to remember the Coombs report, the abolition of the superphosphate bounty which flowed from it and the attempted cut of 20 per cent in the reserve price of wool. Members of the Opposition have not changed their colours at all because they are still advocating the adoption of the Industries Assistance
Commission report on the apple industry in Tasmania.
In the course of this debate, Senator Cavanagh has been critical of the Minister for Primary Industry (Mr Sinclair). He said that the farmers of Kangaroo Island, if Mr Sinclair had his way, would be forced to rot on the dole. I am quite sure that if Senator Cavanagh gave the matter any thought he would realise that orchardists in Tasmania also would be forced to rot on the dole if the IAC report was accepted. We have heard so much so often from honourable senators opposite about wealthy farmers. Yet farmers are the only group in our community whose incomes have actually decreased while their working conditions and hours have remained the same as those of their grandfathers. Primary producers are the backbone of our country. It is time that honourable senators opposite realised that the standard of living of the city dweller is governed completely by the hard work of primary producers.
Last week, in question time, Senator Grimes asked a question of the Minister for Social Security (Senator Guilfoyle) as to whether the Government was reconsidering the automatic indexation of pensions and other benefits. When the Minister gave her answer, Senator Grimes was not satisfied. Even though she had answered in the negative, saying that the Government was not reconsidering this matter, he asked a supplementary question. All I can say is that it is time honourable senators opposite realised that our Government really felt for the people in need and assisted those in greatest need. The Labor Party professes to care for the less fortunate but actions speak louder than words.
I remind the Senate of the recent announcement by the Minister for Social Security that the increase in pensions and benefits in May would be a full 8.2 per cent indexation rise. This increase will mean that the single pension will be $47.10 a week. The rise is $3.60 a week. The married rate will be $78.50 a week, an increase of $6 a week. The 3 social security increases in pensions which have been announced by our Government since it came to office have resulted in a 2 1 .5 per cent lift in pensions. The single pension following the May increase will have risen by $8.35 a week. The married pension will have been increased by $12 a week. The married pension will have been increased by $ 12 a week.
More pensioners than ever before will be eligible because the single invalid or age pensioner without a child retains some benefit until his or her income reaches $114.20 a week, an increase of $16.70 a week. The level of permissible income for a married couple will rise to $191.50 a week an increase of $18 a week, so a married couple can now earn up to $191.50 a week without a reduction in pension. Why did not the Labor Government index pensions and benefits automatically? Again, in respect of pensions, this Government has taken the first step in the abolition of the means test in that it has implemented legislation restricting the income test only to the area of pensions.
If we trace the history of social services as we know it in Australia today as a government concern, we find that it is a fairly new concept. In fact, the first government to introduce government legislation for any social welfare in this country did so only early in this century. Prior to that this was left to voluntary organisations or the wealthier members of the community who often saw this as their responsibility.
The oldest voluntary organisation was the Benevolent Society of New South Wales which originated in 1818. The purpose of this organisation was ‘to relieve the poor, the distressed, the aged and the infirm’. From this, many voluntary organisations sprang up to provide homes for orphans and abandoned children and relief in the form of food and clothing for widows, old people, families, and the unemployed. Hospitals were built for the poor, the aged and the invalid.
Although governments have taken over many responsibilities previously carried out by voluntary organisations, this has not led to their demise; instead they are possibly more active today than they have ever been. The voluntary sector not only carries out its traditional role but also opens up new fields. It acts as the conscience of the community and is a leader in this area. Voluntary organisations and governments work together in many areas including aged persons homes, services for the mentally and physically handicapped, special services for migrants and youth, crisis centres, such as Lifeline, pregnancy support, women’s shelters and drug contact centres. All governments need this stimulation.
Australia has an enviable record for early social welfare and the Liberal Party has a particularly good record in this regard. The first country actually to legislate for any form of social welfare was Germany in 1889. I have spoken of this before in this place. Legislation was passed to enable people to insure against old age and illness. This legislation was followed 2 years later in that country when the first age pension in the world was introduced. New Zealand followed this example in 1898 and Australia then adopted the practice with Victoria and New South Wales under non-Labor governments introducing the appropriate legislation. In 1901 the new Federal Government introduced this pension through a non-Labor government, the Deakin coalition Government. Australia was the third country in the world to introduce social services as a government responsibility. In 1930, at the height of the Depression, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland legislated for special money to be raised for relief work. Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia also voted money for relief. But the emphasis was laced on work for relief. We have seen in many States that these works carried out at this time have been of great benefit to those States later.
As I have said in this place before, in 1941 child endowment was first introduced in the Commonwealth sphere by a non-Labor government, the Menzies Government. This benefit was increased to realistic proportions only last year by this Government with the introduction of the family allowance scheme which was designed particularly to help low income families, large families and the families of the unemployed. This new scheme was also a means of ensuring that mothers had money in their hands to direct to what they thought were the most important priorities. This was a great step forward in providing support for the family unit.
As a matter of fact, Australia was the first country in the world whose federal government introduced a non-means-tested universal child endowment scheme funded entirely by general revenue. This occurred under the Menzies Government. New Zealand had previously implemented a similar scheme, but it was not a universal scheme. France, Germany, Italy and Belgium also had implemented similar schemes but those schemes were either not universal or not paid for by the Government concerned; they were paid for by employers or companies.
As I look back over the last 60 years, it seems hard to imagine that such a short while ago there were just no social welfare benefits of any kind. There were no age or invalid pensions and no family allowance benefits. As a matter of fact, the population had a totally different outlook to life. From the beginning of their working lives people had a responsibility to their families. Breadwinners liked to leave their families well catered for if anything happened to them. Money was put away from that first pay day not for that overseas trip, as is the case today, but for that rainy day. How many young people today with the security of social services behind them and with the optimism of youth would give a thought to that rainy day? It is just not done any more. The community has demanded that it be relieved of that burden. Instead, money has been taken in the form of tax and the thrifty and wealthier members of the community pay compulsorily now not only for the genuinely needy but also for those who desire to spend up big because the Government will provide if things go wrong.
This philosophy may be all very well when it is applied to the wealthy but when it is applied to the thrifty, to the family which has gone without over the years, to the family which has provided for its own home, for better opportunities for the children, for retirement and generally for their priorities, and when 50 per cent of the interest their savings earn is taken in income tax, there is no justification for supporting those who will not work or the spendthrifts who live for the day with no thought of their responsibilities for tomorrow.
Because of this the Government last year tightened the guidelines for eligibility for unemployment benefit. This was found necessary because of the many abuses brought to light under the Labor Party’s too liberal eligibility criteria. While the Commonwealth Employment Service has not been able to enforce those guidelines in all necessary instances in the past year, the additional 300 members now allocated to its offices will allow a tightening in this area of abuse. The social security system originally was designed to protect people against economic hardship and insecurity. We believe that this should be accomplished in such a way as will ensure that while people’s independence is retained their working incentives, where applicable, are also maintained to the full. It is interesting to note that the total expenditure of the Department of Social Security alone represents 49.3 per cent of personal income tax collected. The Budget allocation this year for the payment of pensions and benefits is 32 per cent more than the actual expenditure in 1975-76. One can draw his own conclusions as to which Government is more interested in supporting the needy. That amounts to $140m a fortnight which is paid out in pensions and benefits alone. In 1976 there were 1.9m pensioners and beneficiaries receiving assistance. Is it any wonder that the Government wants full value for this massive expenditure? This money really must be spent on the genuinely needy.
I have said that ideally the assistance should be given in such a way as to ensure that independence and responsibility are retained. The Government should encourage self reliance so that more individuals can provide and are willing to provide for their own welfare. This philosophy seems to have vanished in the last 4 years. As an example of this, in 1972, the last year in which we of the Liberal and Country Parties were in office, 30 per cent of people registered for employment actually accepted unemployment benefit yet last year 70 per cent of those registered for employment received the benefit. This change occurred in 4 short years. Would you say that this was a product of the Whitlam era?
There have been lots of reports recently about our Government being ami dole bludgers. This is true. Our Government is opposed not only to those who cheat on unemployment benefit but also to those in the community who cheat their fellow man in Australia. But this does not mean that we do not recognise the seriousness of the unemployment problem as the Opposition would try to have people believe. We are fully aware of our responsibilities and, as I have just pointed out, we accept those responsibilities and, as I have just pointed out, we accept those responsibilities better than did the Opposition which originally caused the unemployment problem we have today. It was our Government which indexed automatically the unemployment benefit to the full consumer price index increase. It is our Government which will continue to fight those who try to abuse the system. It gives me great pleasure to support the motion that my colleague Senator Lewis moved in this place.
- Senator Walters wandered down memory lane while making her speech detailing to the Senate achievements by previous Liberal and Country Party governments. As those Parties that she supports have been in government for 4 years out of every 5 years since Federation, it is only natural that there would have been some achievements. What the Senate, the Parliament and the people of Australia would have liked to hear from Senator Walters today is when this Government is going to start doing something and to begin turning on the lights.
In ordinary circumstances I decline to take part in Address-in-Reply debates as I believe that often such debates prove to be a great waste of time. They seldom add enlightenment on either the affairs of this country or the state of the House. My only excuse for rising to take part in this debate is that I consider that the speech we heard was one of the most extraordinary ever presented to us, particularly when the surrounding circumstances are taken into account. In the speech from the throne Her Majesty was made to say:
Historic reforms are being made in the nation’s federal financial relations which will return power and responsibility to the State and local levels of government.
When we read that Speech which traditionally is deemed to outline the Government’s program we find nothing in it that has any bearing whatever upon Commonwealth-State relations except for the sentence I have quoted. In fact the Speech is extraordinary in more ways than one. In printing terms it occupies a mere 3 columns in Hansard. Surely that eloquently expresses how barren the Government really is in policy legislation. This Government seems to be continually conceiving but the strange thing is that nothing ever happens. There can be no doubt that the Parliament, the States and the electorate have been left in blissful ignorance about the new federalism program. Later on the Government may be prepared to reveal fully its intentions to the Senate. When it does, we on the Opposition side of the chamber will be able to say whether the proposals warrant our support. So much for that subject.
Now I would like to address myself to an item that received great emphasis in the Speech made by Her Majesty. I refer to the Government’s housing voucher pilot scheme. If this scheme were to help the many thousands of people in need of housing- as they most certainly are- one would be greatly impressed. But if this is the main thrust of the Government’s solution to the housing crisis- the emphasis placed on it in the address from the Throne clearly implies that it is- then this is a tragic circumstance. I ask the Government senators: ‘Who do you think you are deluding? Whose leg do you think you are pulling? Let us look at what mades this situation so deplorable. The Budget provision for this proposal is $75,000. Let us calculate the housing supplement by way of rental subsidy. Let us say that that amounted to $20, which would be a minimum amount as a rental subsidy per week for the average area throughout Australia. We find by applying mathematics and multiplying the $20 per week by 52 weeks that the cost is approximately $1,000. If we divide the $1,000 into $75,000 we find that this so called magnificent scheme which is referred to in the address from the Throne will assist 75 families only.
– How many?
– It will assist 75 families only. In sharp contrast to this proposal, the $5 a week rental subsidy which is given to pensioners costs $4.3m per annum. Yet we have the allocation in the Budget for this great pilot scheme of $75,000. Government senators should hang their heads in shame. How ludicrous; it is an insult to the intelligence of the Australian electorate. What chance do young people in our community have of getting proper accommodation when the best that is offered by this Government by way of rental assistance is a paltry, miserly $75,000 a year? I sincerely hope that Her Majesty’s Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development (Mr Newman) will look at this matter urgently and come up with a much more generous scheme in the future. While I am speaking about the Speech given by Her Majesty I refer to another matter which was given high priority in that extraordinary Speech. Her Majesty stated:
The new family allowance scheme places in every mothers hands an allowance to spend as she thinks is best for the welfare of her family.
Honourable senators will remember that this scheme is already happening. If I were a Government senator I would not be crowing that much about it either. If ever there was a thimble and pea trick performance, this is it.
– He is opposed to it.
– No, I am not opposed to it. The money is given to the mother on one hand and taken from the taxation deduction which the father can claim on the other hand. That is a David Nixon sleight of hand trick, if ever there was one. I turn to a matter which concerns Queensland, the State I represent in this chamber. In the report of the Commonwealth Grants Commission in 1976 provision was made for Queensland to receive by way of special grant under section 96 of the Constitution an amount of about $27m. At present Queensland is the only claimant State before the Grants Commission.
– What about Tasmania?
– No, Queensland is still the only State. There is no doubt that the position of Queensland has been greatly improved as a result of the operation of the Commonwealth Grants Commission. There is no argument whatsoever with that situation. It is true that Queensland suffers some disabilities because of its size and the decentralisation of its population. Because of these features special assistance to Queensland has always been regarded in this chamber as being appropriate. Another feature which must weigh heavily in favour of the Queensland case before the Grants Commission is that Queensland, and particularly Brisbane, is growing more rapidly than any of the other eastern States. Between 1971 and 1974 the Moreton region, which includes Brisbane, had a population growth of 3.1 per cent, which compares with 2.5 per cent growth for Queensland as a whole and 1.5 per cent for the rest of Australia. This population certainly will be of benefit to Queensland but it will also- this is the point I am trying to develop- place greater strain upon authorities in the State. This growth in population will require considerable administrative skill which, unfortunately, the present Government is not showing.
-I hear the interjection oh. To elaborate on my point I shall give one or two specific examples of this matter. I claim that part of the disadvantage which Queensland faces is a direct result of the attitude of the State Government. The Queensland Treasurer in his Budget Speech for this financial year pointed out that the Queensland Budget was influenced by Commonwealth actions in cutting grants to the States in general revenue and for specific purposes.
– Who said that?
– That was said by Sir Gordon Chalk. He said that the Queensland Budget was influenced by the cutting of grants to the States for general revenue and specific purposes in certain areas. These areas were Aborigines, railways and land development. Yet when one looks at the report of the Grants Commission one can see readily that the Queensland Government claimed special difficulties in the areas of Aborigines, railways and land development. In relation to Aborigines the Queensland Government claims that there is an added drain on its social welfare services because of the high Aboriginal population. This fact must be accepted by all. But here is the punch line: Despite the Government claims that there is a drain on social welfare services because of the high Aboriginal population, it persistently refuses to co-operate with the Federal Government. It does not happen only under a Whitlam Government; the same thing is happening in relation to this Government over the provision of services for Aborigines. If honourable senators opposite think that is not correct, I say to them: Consult your colleague the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Viner. Surely this refusal must cause hardship to the Aboriginal population. Also it must add to the costs of running Queensland. I wish that some Government senators from Queensland were in the chamber to hear that point which I have made. I would like them to think it over and to use their persuasive abilities with their National Country Party colleagues in
Queensland to see whether that situation can be corrected.
I turn now to the railways. The Grants Commission report indicates that there were large increases in public railway deficits and in the net impact of railways on all State finances in the 1 974-75 financial year. The Grants Commission pointed out:
The highest rate of increase was in Queensland where the net impact on the States finances increased by 63 per cent to $93m.
In particular those increases resulted from concessions being granted to the coal miners in central Queensland. During the 1974-75 financial year all States except Queensland increased general freight rates. The Grants Commission noted that and said:
The increase in freight traffic resulted mainly from increases in central Queensland coal traffic to meet export and powerhouse requirements.
Does it not logically follow that the concession to central Queensland coal miners is not only adding to the burden of all Queenslanders but also is resulting in the Grants Commission having a harder look at the level of grants paid to the Queensland Government. In this respect I claim that the Queensland Government is lacking in administrative skill in the presentation of its case to the Grants Commission.
Another serious consideration is that, notwithstanding the difficulties which the cost of the railways is placing on all Queenslanders, the Queensland Government flatly refused to cooperate with the Commonwealth in dealing with the cost of railways. I do not need to remind honourable senators of the enormous advantages which have accrued to Tasmania and to Senator Bishop’s State of South Australia following railway transfers in those States but these advantages have been lost to Queensland because of the very peculiar attitude of the Queensland Government. I remind the Senate of a subject I raised here 3 years ago. When the Liberal and Country Parties came to power in Queensland in 1957 they introduced a system of confidential freight concession rates which advantaged certain commercial interests in the country towns of Queensland as against their competitors. This was an iniquitous arrangement but the unwholesome aspect about it was that the contractual arrangements were never published for everybody to see.
Up till 1957 when the Australian Labor Party was in government in Queensland, whenever it entered into a similar arrangement the details of the contract were posted on the notice boards in the goods yards of all railway centres and appeared in the weekly notice of the Railway Department. This no longer happens. I can recall that in 1969 on the eve of a State election, pressure from the country areas of Queensland on the Premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was so strong that he promised the country people that he would have a searching inquiry into these iniquitous confidential freight rate concessions and he appointed in 1969 a management services company named Beckingsale Management Services Pty Ltd. After 8 months it had completed its report but the year is now 1977 and the report has not seen the light of day. It has never been tabled in the Parliament despite the fact that many members of Parliament have asked for the document to be tabled. Newspapers have asked what has happened to the Beckingsale report. It has been pigeonholed, never to be released for public inspection. I raised this matter in 1971 in this chamber and it is still causing considerable concern in Queensland. Yet the report is locked away, never to be seen.
I want to say a serious word about the devastating floods in north Queensland, particularly in the Ingham district. I would not be satisfied if I resumed my seat without referring to what the State Co-ordinator General, Mr Schubert, described as the ‘flood of a century’. More than 1000 people were evacuated from their homes, 3000 homes were partially submerged and the sugar industry is estimated to have lost more than $20m. But what a marvellous community response there was. The Hinchinbrook Shire Clerk, Mr Pender, best described it when he said:
Our first priority is to get people back into their homes and get the town cleaned up. The community spirit has been marvellous because as soon as people returning home find themselves out of trouble they are then going out to help people in a worse position.
It was a very commendable community effort. That leads me to ask this question of the Senate and of anyone else who can assist with an answer: Is there any solution to the financial hardship that follows such disasters? The Premier of Queensland said that he was dismayed at the lack of insurance cover and the number of people who were unprotected in the area when he visited it. I can well understand this in view of the high premiums demanded by the private insurance companies. The Premier of Queensland, however, rejected a suggestion for a State-run disaster scheme. He asked who would qualify under it. He said that everyone would want to be in the cheap insurance scheme and probably I would agree with him, but the point I make is that if honourable senators opposite had supported the scheme for an Australian Government insurance fund proposed by my colleague
Senator Wheeldon and had been more intelligent at the time and less spiteful about the Whitlam Government’s legislation for an Australian government insurance scheme, we may well now have had the answer to the financial situation that people are left in as a result of such disasters as happened at Ingham.
– The Senate is debating the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply to the Speech of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and it is an honour to join the debate to support the motion moved by my colleague, Senator Lewis. I start my speech by congratulating Senator Lewis on a most notable maiden speech, on a most thoughtful contribution to the debate and on a most auspicious start to his career in the Senate. I also congratulate Senator Tehan who seconded the motion and other honourable senators who have taken pan in this debate.
The Fraser Government is entering the second phase of what will be a very successful 3-year period in office. Already its achievements are notable and numerous. We have made many of the hard decisions which our socialist predecessors refused or were unable to make because of their structure of government. We have taken the first steps to control and reduce the rate of inflation. We have introduced a family allowance scheme which, one would gather, Senator McAuliffe does not support or approve but of which we are very proud as it is one of the most radical and necessary social welfare initiatives introduced in this country in a quarter of a century. The scheme is in keeping with the recommendations of the Henderson commission of inquiry into poverty which the Whitlam Government appointed. It is a measure of the kind of government we have today that this proposal which was suitable for meeting the needs of many families in poverty was rapidly initiated, rapidly introduced and rapidly passed by the Fraser Government.
We have introduced personal income tax indexation which has helped me and every other taxpayer in this country. We have trade union legislation actual and proposed which will assist in orderly development in this area in Australia. We have restored Australia’s credibility in the area of foreign policy. It is appropriate to refer to the most impressive document made available yesterday setting out Australia’s foreign policy position in a number of areas. It is a document which quite properly has been received with acclaim in the Press and which has been hailed as a forward-looking and comprehensive document. We have introduced and passed the first land rights legislation in this nation’s history. We have increased spending on education in real terms. We have introduced a radical federalism program for the devolution of power and have moved along the road towards implementing it. We see pensions payments in Australia higher than they have ever been. The 1 500 000 people receiving the full pension next month will receive an increased payment which in a full year will cost the Government $335m and will take pension payments to a new level automatically as a result of the indexation rules which we introduced last year.
We have done many things and we have seen signs that the economic indicators in this country are starting to reflect the careful financial management which this Government has introduced. The Round-up of Economic Statistics for the December quarter shows that private businesses increased their capital expenditure by 7 per cent in that December quarter. The housing sector of the economy in terms of approvals, commencements and completions continued to show strength. We see that retail sales are steady and that average weekly earnings have risen less rapidly than before, an important condition for the control of inflation. All of these things indicate that the Fraser Government is on the road to achieving and fulfilling the promises it made to the electorate a year and a quarter ago.
I should like to return to one matter which was raised in the speech of Senator Lewis and to develop at some length a question which I think is important. It may be appropriate to quote from Senator Lewis’s maiden speech in which he says some words which I think should be taken as a starting point for a discussion in the Senate. He said:
I am conscious of the fact that I am here only because of the tragic death of Senator Ivor Greenwood, Q.C. The late Senator Greenwood was a friend of mine. He was acknowledged by all as a man of integrity and high principle, of outstanding courage, with a passion for justice and with an enormous capacity for work. Repeatedly in and around Canberra I have been informed by car drivers and staff that he used to work until half past 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and then resume again at 8 a.m. the same day. There can be no doubt as to the cause of his death in relation to his work.
I believe that Senator Lewis has said something which is too important to be passed over by honourable senators or by the Parliament as a whole. I set the stage a little further by drawing the attention of honourable senators to some of the available statistics we can draw upon. In the first year of the Whitlam Government, when a mass of legislation was presented to the Parliament, at least three of the Ministers collapsed. They collapsed as a result of the work load and the strain under which they were trying to operate. I am saying nothing detrimental about the Ministers’ capacity. I am talking instead about the load to which they were being subjected. I remember that a former President of the Senate- he has no objection to my mentioning this fact-was sent to hospital urgently from this place. I remember last year, as one of the honourable senators with medical training, being called upon in a most awkward situation when a member from another place very nearly perished here. He was back here working when on medical grounds he had no right to do so. I remind honourable senators of the death of Hugh Gaitskell when he was 56 years of age. He need not have died. Honourable senators know also of the recent death of the right honourable Anthony Crosland. He died early this year at the age of 58 years. Honourable senators may be interested to know that the Guardian in England on 27 February this year had something to say in its editorial which bears again on the problem that I am discussing. In discussing the death of Mr Crosland, the newspaper said: for most politicians who gain high office the inevitable destiny is a long, hard, and often bitterly unrewarded slog . . . where the occasional honours and glories, which may be rich, are often bought at the cost of painful sacrifice: sacrifice of leisure, sacrifice of family life (attested by the growing toll of broken Westminister marriages), and finally- too often- sacrifice of health and strength. The tyranny of the red boxes of which Richard Crossman wrote (Mr Crosland was working on the boxes when he was struck down), the constant apprehension that crisis is no more than a phone call away- these, added to the endless round of journeys, conferences, social engagements, speeches, questions in the House and the rest put even the toughest politicians under strain. A year ago, Brian O ‘Malley, the Social Security Minister, whose name was a byword at Westminister for industry and integrity, was suddenly taken ill in the House and died soon after at the age of 46.
The question that is worth asking is whether these events are fortuitous- whether we are all due some time or other to become ill and die- or whether these events are inevitable as a result of systematic fault that exists in the way we construct and run government in this country. If there is a systematic fault, it is time for us to examine it.
I commence my remarks on this subject by making one caveat and that is that it may not just be the job which causes the trouble. I have a colleague in Sydney, Dr John Ellard, who is well known to many honourable senators. He is an outstanding practitioner in the field of psychiatry who has studied doctors and their diseases. There are similarities between the work patterns of doctors and those of politicians. John Ellard has written extensively on this subject. He has written a paper entitled: The disease of being a doctor. I suppose that he could have written it on the disease of being a politician. He told me the other day and I see no reason to doubt that he is correct, that it takes a very special kind of person to want to subject himself or herself to the rigours of politics. He used adjectives such as tough, aggresive, narcissistic and committed to work. There is probably something self-selecting about the fact that we are here, anyhow. It is probably true that as people are promoted they select themselves out further. All I am saying is that perhaps there is a group of people who are primed for self-destruction. Perhaps politicians are among them. But that does not stop us coming back to examine, firstly, how people respond to work stress and, secondly, what is the situation in politics and what we can do about it.
Dr Ellard, writing in the Medical Journal of Australia last August, pointed out that doctors, in order to cope with their stresses, resorted to a number of techniques. First of all they tend to be anxious. I might say that I am not entirely unaware of the existence of anxiety within the national Parliament. Dr Ellard pointed out that the medical practitioner, under work stress, tends to deny that there is any problem at all and uses denial as a means of not having to face up to the fact that there is in the way he lives and structures his life a problem which is very serious. He drew some conclusions which have to do with what happens to doctors- the wounded and the dead, as he calls them. He referred to the abuse of drugs, abuse of alcohol, family breakdown, delinquency problems and the high suicide rates. He pointed out, among other things, that the suicide rate in the medical profession was about equal to the lung cancer rate. It is a very serious and common problem.
The same kind of things apply to politics. In general, most politicians will deny that there is anything pathological about the kind of life that people are expected to live if they are in politics in Australia. I would not be here if I did not enjoy the life very much, if I did not find the work very satisfying and if I did not intend to stay here. That does not perhaps alter the fact that I, like everyone else, should examine- if Ivor Greenwood’s death is to mean anything- what goes on and whether it is a subject which we should regard as worthy of careful examination in case we can do something about it. What about the travelling arrangements of our Ministers? There is a condition known as trans.meridianal circadian dysrhythmia which we in the trade call jet lag. This kind of circadian dysrhythmia is a very real condition. Basically what it means is that people cannot travel long distances east and west and work at full pace when they get there or return.
– Hear, hear!
– I hear my colleague from Western Australia acknowledging this fact. Yet we expect our politicians in Australia to do that week after week. We expect our Ministers and Prime Ministers, when they travel to goodness knows where around the world, to arrive, start negotiating and meeting people and then to come back and start work again. The fact is it cannot be done. It cannot be done without cost. If a person follows that course for a while he cannot keep on doing so effectively or efficiently.
A whole lot of other factors probably operate too. It has been shown that any significant life event, including promotion, success, marriage and jobs, increases the chance of sickness.
It is probably inevitable that people who come to Parliament to work, and who operate in the conflict situation in Parliament, will be more subject than normal to certain health problems. Yet it is incredible that we are less able than most other groups in society to acknowledge that fact as a first step or to do anything about it once we have acknowledged it.
As a consulting physician for many years I used to assist certain companies by counselling their executives. There are simple rules of survival. There are certain rules of prevention which can be used in society to help people live, to stay alive instead of dying and to remain healthy. The various companies which approached me obviously considered that their executives were worth helping. The companies considered that they had an investment in the executives. It was possible to discuss such matters as the amount of relaxation, the amount of exercise, the amount of smoking and drinking, the amount of time the executives managed to spend with their families and the number of holidays- all things which might be a little threatening if we as politicians tried to examine our own performance in those areas.
The load which people can carry is finite. It was no good for Senator Greenwood to be called upon by a system of government to work till 3.30 or 4 o’clock in the morning and then be expected to carry on the next day. There is a minimum level of exercise without which we cannot remain healthy. We have needs for our own private lives and for our inter-personal relationships. Last Sunday I took my 2 children fishing. We went to Broken Bay. We sat at the end of a wharf and dangled the fishing lines in the water for a couple of hours. That probably did more for me in 2 hours than most other kinds of therapy. Yet I suppose I could have been spending that time in some political activity of a more formal kind. If our Ministers are like business executives, if they are valuable assets, we should be doing something to try to look after them, to try to preserve them. We should try to look after our leaders.
I do not know of any national leader whom I have observed on television who has not aged visibly before my eyes, whether it be a President of the United States, a Prime Minister or any national leader. Everyone knows that the office itself destroys the men.
Is this inevitable? It is interesting that there are some differences in the way in which we operate in Australia. The continental United States is about the same size as Australia but senators and representatives from California do not attempt to go home from Washington every weekend. They would tell you that it was madness. Their electorates accept that. Perhaps we in this country have a need to start accepting the same thing for some of our own representatives here. In England the parliamentarians stay in London and it is considered the only sensible thing for them to do while the parliament is in session. Let us look at the resources given to members of parliament. I find it very difficult to accept that one United States senator has available staff far in excess of the staff available to Ministers of State in this country. I am led to believe that a budget of up to a quarter of a million dollars is provided for United States senators to pay -
– United States senators have 14 staff members.
– I am indebted to Senator Coleman. That figure is far in excess of the staff allowed for any of our Ministers of State.
– And some employ more.
-I am told by Senator Sibraa that some United States senators employ more. Let us go back to what the Guardian said about Anthony Crosland:
Anyone who lives this way (and it is a way of life by no means confined to politics) imperils his health and his future.
That is true. I suggest to the Senate that we should seek to encourage a number of things to happen. First, we should seek an acceptance of what the situation really is. We should try to tear away our tendency to deny that there is any problem, any health risk, in being in politics. If we did that we might be able to approach a number of other matters. We might be able to look at our timetable. We might be able to decide to alter our sitting program and try to back up our sittings over 2 longer weeks so that we have longer periods when there are no sittings. We should look at the hours the Parliament sits so that, heaven forbid, we might expect only an absolute minimum 12-hour day from our Ministers instead of the present commitment which they are expected to make. We might introduce rules- not suggestions but rules- concerning the amount of rest required after travelling from east to west, particularly in regard to international travel and particularly if a Minister is going to represent the country in negotiations. The same rules should apply when those people return to Australia.
We should offer to people coming into the Parliament the kind of counselling which would enable each of them to understand the kind of health problems he or she might face. Politicians are sensible people, they are intelligent people, and if they were told what the problems were and what some of the solutions might be they would probably try to act, at least partially, on those suggestions. Health counselling made available to politicians makes just as much sense as does health counselling made available to executives, workers or other people in activities outside politics. If we could get politicians to accept health counselling we might even get the medical profession to accept it for itself at some time in the future.
The work which our Ministers do is not all essential. Some of it has no place in a Minister’s office. Some of the work can be delegated to other administrators. When one writes to the local council one does not get many letters in reply from the mayor. The letters which come back are signed by the town clerk, and that is right and proper too because most administrative matters have no right to go across the desk of the chief executive. We should look for ways to enable some of the other minor but still politically sensitive matters to be channelled away from the desk of the Minister. I remember when I was a candidate in 1973 that Senator James McClelland commented to me that it was distressing to see the front bench of 27 people working themselves into the ground while many of the very able men on the back bench were under utilised. There must be a way to introduce some kind of delegation in order to give our Ministers and leaders a better chance. We need to accept these goals and to look for some solutions.
It is not smart to work all night and it is not effective to ask our Ministers to do so. It is not effective to create a situation where the politicians of this country cannot get adequate exercise, where they cannot get adequate relaxation, where they cannot look forward to the minimum conditions necessary for the maintenance of a healthy way of life. Our leaders are too valuable for that to happen. Our families also deserve something better. I should like to say publicly that while it was fashionable last year to deride Mrs Shirley Cass, I believe that she spoke with great courage, accuracy and conviction about a real situation. That situation does not apply only to politics but it does exist for the families of those in politics.
Returning to the Speech of Her Majesty, she finished with these words:
With confidence that you will fulfill to the utmost of your abilities the great responsibilities placed upon you . . .
I hope that we in the national Parliament can create the kind of circumstances where it will be possible for our leaders to fulfil those conditions, where it will be possible for them to function effectively and for a prolonged period, and that we can make at least some attempt to attack the very real and serious structural defects in the way we operate our government here, which I am afraid have made and still make unnecessary illness and early death in our leaders inevitable.
– I should like to join with my colleagues in expressing my commendation of the speaker on the Government side who made his maiden speech in this debate. I express the hope that he will continue to contribute towards some understanding of the problems encompassed in the Speech delivered by Her Majesty on the opening of the Second Session of the Thirtieth Parliament. I think that Senator Baume would find a measure of agreement on this side of the House to the sensible way in which he indicated the work load of members of Parliament and the lack of resources generally available to them. I remind the honourable senator that there was a 100 per cent increase in the resources made available to members of Parliament during the period of the Whitlam Government from 1 972 to 1975. In fact, Senator McAuIiffe and I were negotiating with Mr Daly during the very week of the dismissal of the Whitlam Government to improve the resources and the facilities available to members of Parliament. I hope therefore that there will be some joint activity by members of the Parliament to make sufficient facilities and resources available so that members can more adequately carry out their parliamentary duties.
I believe that we are at a stage in our society where it is essential for us to comprehend and understand the forces that operate within our society, to propagate whatever ideas we may have in the community generally, and to engage in much more public debate about the crucial issues which face western civilisation today. It is in that spirit that I wish to make some comments about the Speech of Her Majesty just a week and one day ago. When one contrasts that Speech with the Speech delivered by her on the previous occasion, one can say only how disappointing this Speech was. What a dismal Speech it was, what a disreputable document representing the views of the Government of the day. Of course, I make no disrespectful comments about the Queen herself because she was delivering a Speech given to her and prepared for her by the Government. But let us compare that document with the document of hope and expectation prepared on the previous occasion. It set out a program, it set out some reasons why people in Australia should believe that there was a future for this country, a future under a Labor government.
I sat and watched Her Majesty a week ago and she seemed to me to falter, to be somewhat fearful of the document. Of course, it was a very sparse document. It dealt inadequately with the great problems which face us in this country and which face most of the countries of the western world. The document took 8 minutes to read and was 4 pages long, and I think it can probably be described as a narcissistic document, a document of self praise and self adulation. It was concerned with defending this Government’s political position. While I share the concern for the welfare of members of Parliament expressed a short while ago by Senator Baume in a very adequate speech, I think we should be concerning ourselves with the welfare of our fellow Australians, and this document fails to do that.
Over the last few years political interest in this country has heightened and a lot more interest has been shown in political life. Let me go back and deal with the very brief period in 1975 when we were being regaled with the problems of the deficit and of overseas borrowings, the problems of inflation and unemployment. They were the dominant issues upon which Her Majesty’s representative in this country dismissed a lawfully and properly elected Government. What is the present situation in relation to overseas borrowings? In the 15 months this Government has been in office it has borrowed more money on the overseas loan market than did the Labor Government.
Let us look at the deficit in the period under consideration, that is, from 1974 to 1977. This was the issue upon which the previous Government was destroyed. I shall refer then to the issue of Her Majesty and to the emergence of ideas of republicanism that are developing in this country. The deficit in the first Labor Budget in 1974 was only $292m. It is true that in the following year- 1975- it went up to $2,566m. The following year it went up to $3,585m. But what is it today? What is the amount shown in the document that was delivered to our boxes within the past 24 hours? The deficit is now $5,532m. In February 1977 it was $ 1,000m more than it was in February 1976. Yet Her Majesty’s representative in this country used the deficit as one of the reasons to dismiss an elected Labor Government from office. Of course, unemployment figures have risen considerably in the same comparable period.
I believe the Speech of Her Majesty is a sham. It does not attempt to deal with the issues that are facing either the Parliament or the Australian people. Because of its very lack of content, because it does not meet the requirements of adequate public debate or of adequate parliamentary debate, it will exacerbate the movement towards republicanism in this country. In the graffiti in Taylor Square in Sydney there is a slogan which this Government ought to take into consideration. It says: ‘Long live Elizabeth the last’. The events of 1975 brought a republican movement into being- it gave it life and strength. Of course, documents like this Speech fail to grapple with the very serious problems that exist in the Australian economy and will further strengthen that movement. It is a shame that Her Majesty was brought in to the Parliament to deliver such a disreputable document.
– Order! Senator Gietzelt, a moment ago when my attention was distracted you said: ‘Long live Her Majesty -
– No, he was quoting something.
-Thank you. I am sorry. Please carry on, Senator Gietzelt.
– It was a slogan; I was not necessarily associating myself with it, Mr President. The Speech sets out the Government ‘s attitude towards the economy and what the Government stands for. The Speech goes on to say- I think in a hypocritical way- that this Government is committed to a policy of full employment. In the period under review, that is, in the life of this Government, unemployment has reached very dangerous proportions. No initiatives undertaken by this Government will rectify those grave deficiencies within the Australian economy. For example, 65 per cent of the work force is now involved in tertiary industries; the rural work force has dropped to between 6 per cent and 7 per cent of the total work force; and the percentage of the work force in manufacturing industry has declined from 25 per cent to 23 per cent. Yet if we examine that sector which has grown most remarkably in the postwar years a period in which we have had conservative Federal governments- that is, the tertiary sector- we see that growth has taken place largely in the distributive, commercial and public sector. When we examine the number of persons employed in public sector activity and the deliberate policy of this Government to cut back on growth and expenditure in the public sector we can see how false is the Government’s statement in this Speech delivered by Her Majesty that the Government is concerned to maintain a policy of full employment. The Speech goes on to say:
At the heart of my Government’s policies lie . . . concern with enhancing people’s ability to make their own choices and live their own lives in their own way.
Mr Malcolm Fraser is on public record as having said that life was not meant to be easy. Millions of people in Australia today are beginning to appreciate that that is their fate- that life is not easy any more, life is difficult. An increasing number of people find themselves unable to live on the meagre resources that are available to them. This fact has to be recognised by the Government. Something like half of the work force earns less than $150 a week; two-thirds of the work force earns less than the average weekly earnings of $180 odd; and on average rural incomes have fallen to less than $ 1 60 a week.
An examination of what has happened on the incomes front in the period 1953-54 to 1975-76 shows that rural incomes rose by only 62 per cent, whereas urban incomes rose by something like 400 per cent. That is a tribute to the capacity of the trade union movement to hold the living standards of its members. Yet this Government is hell-bent on attacking the trade unions and on attacking the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. In the Government’s submission before the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission in the national wage case it is seeking to bring about a decrease in real living standards. It is doing that in the face of its philosophy that the only way to get this economy going again is for people to spend more- to increase consumer spending. Yet that objective cannot be realised to the extent that real wages are reduced. Already this Government is applying pressure to all the pressure points that make the wage earners shoulder the main burden of the economic decline. If real wages are not adjusted for increases in prices the real value of wages declines and there can be no consumer spending revival.
In 1 976 real wages dropped by 2 per cent as a result of the decisions of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. In a recent submission by this Government to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission- the submission was not debated in this Parliament but was prepared behind closed doors and submitted by the Government’s legal representative- the Government had the audacity and the temerity to suggest that only $2.90 should be added to the national wage in the present national wage case. It made this recommendation despite the fact that inflation has been maintained at the same level in 1976 as applied in 1975. In other words, it was at a rate in excess of 14 per cent. If the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission accepts the submission of the Government the net result will be a further decrease in real living standards of the Australian work force by another 4 per cent. This means that within a year real wages will have been depressed by 6 per cent. Her Majesty’s Speech goes on to say. my Government has given first priority to restoring the economy and will use all the resources at its disposal to achieve this goal.
It is not using all the resources at its disposal; rather, it seems to be hell-bent on disposing of its resources. For example, is it not a fact that this Government is seeking to sell the MoombaSydney gas pipe line to the Australian Gas Light Co. in Sydney? This pipe line is a great national enterprise that will benefit millions of Australians over the years to come. It provides a basis for a possible extended network in the future to assist regional centres, such as BathurstOrange and other such growth centres. This great concept, just because it was a concept of a Labor Government apparently is to be sacrificed to the dogma of private enterprise. I have referred already to the Budget deficit figures. One can also see how insincere this Government is when it endeavours to place its philosophy at the altar of private enterprise.
This Fraser Government has said there is no scope whatsoever for immediate tax cuts, but in the last Budget the coal export levy was cut by $2 a tonne and the Government announced its intention in that Budget to phase out the levy altogether. This act and the devaluation in November 1976- hiding behind the smoke screen of encouraging overseas investment in this country, which this Government believes is needed- has merely given a large windfall to overseas investors in ownership of our resources, with little or no benefit accruing to the Australian community. Yet the very company that profited to the tune of some $30m felt that it could salve its conscience by giving $100,000 to the Australian Opera House- a grateful acknowledgement no doubt for the $30m it received as a result of the decrease in that levy. Everyone knows and accepts, although it was vehemently denied when Labor was in office, that the impediment to foreign investment and the development of our raw iron ore and coal projects was the state of the world economy at largethe worst recession since the 1930s. The entire strategy of the Fraser Government has been directed not at trying to overcome the problems of unemployment in our country but at trying to turn the clock back and trying to improve the lot of a very small number of powerful overseas companies to make it easier for them to exploit and develop our natural resources.
Two weeks ago, John Byrne pointed out in article in the Australian Financial Review of 2 March that Alcoa, the Aluminium Company of America, managed to acquire 35 years ‘ supply of Australian bauxite for less than $6m. It was a gift to one of the largest American companies. This is the sort of deal that one expects from a LiberalNational Country Party Government. A further interesting fact on this matter of overseas investmentI refer to this fact because this Government said that the only way we can get our economy moving is to increase the rate of profits so that companies will expend their capital in developing Australian industry- emerges in an examination by Syntex on 7 February 1977 of foreign investment in Australia. It is a very reputable company. I do not think anyone would disagree with my quoting of its summation. It showed that foreign investment in the late 1 960s went most notably into the most dynamic, profitable and capital intensive areas of the Australian economy and that, as a result, in 1975-76, 55 per cent of company income is payable overseas. Syntex interpreted this information as follows:
Thus the most dramatic message of these tables looked at together is this: the fate of a large part of private enterprise productive investment in Australia now rests in board-rooms in New York, Tokyo, London and elsewhere. Thus too, the question of whether the Australian economy resumes growth or shrinks into a smaller entity, with less opportunity for employment and living standard growth, rests in these overseas board-rooms.
Yet this Government, in the Queen’s Speech delivered in this Parliament, said:
My Government is providing incentives and encouragement to the private sector, and is reducing its own relative demands on national resources so that private industry may have room to grow, provide employment and increase the well-being of all Australians.
The Government has painted itself into a corner. What did the Jackson Committee have to say about Australian industry? In its report on manufacturing industry it said:
The Australian manufacturing industry is in an acute financial crisis. Unemployment is high. Factories are running below capacity. Many firms have borrowed to the hilt . . Manufacturing’s problems are manifestations of the world economic crisis in which all countries, including Australia, are enmeshed. But in Australian manufacturing there is a deep-seated and long-standing malaise. That malaise has sharpened the impact on the industry of the current economic crisis. When it passes, the malaise of manufacturing will still be there.
Two years after the Jackson report when there has not been a revival in the world economy the problems in Australian industry are still acute. This Government in its own documents on the economy, debated in the Parliament a short time ago, pointed to the fact that profits had risen in Australia from $12.2 billion to $14.2 billion in the space of the previous year. There was a 14 per cent increase. However, according to the Syntex analysis 55 per cent of those profits are going to overseas companies and will not be applied to the structural problems facing manufacturing industry in this country.
There are a number of reasons for the basic sickness of Australian manufacturing. It is sick because of the nature of the industry itself and because of the changes taking place in the world around it. One thing is certain. It is not sick because of the activities of the unions or the wages of the workers because if they do not earn the wages they cannot buy the goods they produce. Despite all the rhetoric of the present Government that happens to be one of the facts of economic life. Companies have been reducing their investment in manufacturing industry for almost 10 years. In a report to the standing committee of which you, Mr President, and I were members, the Australian Industry Development Association indicated that there had been a fall in capital investment in the private sector for 10 years. It has not picked up and there is no possibility that it will pick up. Existing companies are not renewing their machinery or expanding and new firms are not entering the sector. The only exceptions are one or two companies which are bringing in capital extensive machines and reducing the number of workers in the particular area of manufacturing.
The sickness also stems from the fact that a large number of Australian industries are controlled by monopolies. The Jackson Committee pointed out that 30 000 medium and small firms carry out 50 per cent of all manufacturing, while a mere 200 large firms have captured the other 50 per cent. More significantly, 87 large foreign firms have taken over one quarter of all Australian manufacturing output. This concentration of ownership and control is higher in Australia than in almost any other industrialised part of the world. The profits made in Australia by foreign companies are taken out of Australia. The companies put back very little in the way of new investments that would improve manufacturing industry. My authority for that statement came from a very important conference held in Perth last year which was attended by an industry leader, Mr Johnson, the Managing Director of the Australian National Line, Austral Steel and Steel Mark Ltd. I am sure that he does not belong to the ‘infamous Amalgamated Metal Workers Union or any other such organisation ‘. I am sure that he has little in common with them. When he spoke about the problems facing the economy in this country he said:
An analysis of new manufacturing ventures supplying Australia snowed that growth was occurring not in Australia but in Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other countries where there existed low wages or high productivity. Job prospects for young people will be reduced to those of the 1930s, fishing, farming, mining or the dole- if the trend continues.
Yet there is not one word in the Queen’s Speech which indicates that this Government is grappling with the structural problems that beset manufacturing industry.
There is no legislation of any consequence before the Parliament. We know that the Parliament has been turned into a useless adjunct of the Executive Government. The only piece of legislation which is likely to have any particular significance in the next week or two will be the Apple and Pear Stabilization Bill. That legislation occupied the attention of my Party room for about an hour this morning. I understand that it occupied a similar time in the Government Party room. The same sort of structural difficulties and deficiencies are affecting the rural sector. It is being affected by world market changes, denial of access to markets and the tremendous growth of output by the United States of America. In the totality of this problem the Industries Assistance Commission has made a number of reports to the previous Government and to this Government which mean cutting back considerably on the number of farmers engaged in agriculture. ‘Get big or get out’ is the philosophy of this Government. ‘Get rid of the small farmer.’ That is what is implied in the reports of the Industries Assistance Commission. It takes the view that there is very little future left in the efficiency of our rural industries. Therefore, in these circumstances we believe that the Queen’s Speech falls short of making a contribution towards a meaningful public debate about the state ofthe economy.
Sitting suspended from 6 to 8 p.m.
- Mr President, it is with great pleasure and personal pride that I rise in support of the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply to the Speech delivered by Her Majesty the Queen, moved so ably by Senator Lewis. Some honourable senators have already mentioned the excellent maiden speech by Senator Lewis. I am glad and delighted to join them in congratulating Senator Lewis for what was in my opinion a speech which could serve as an example to many of us. It was logical and clear cut. Above all, the speech was relatively brief. I hope that many colleagues in this place will recognise and copy the example set by Senator Lewis. I am sure that if they did the Senate would be better for their action.
Mr President, this year, 1977, is the Silver Jubilee Year of the reign of Her Majesty the Queen, who has honoured the Australian people and this Parliament by her visit to this country. We were privileged to see and to hear her in the Senate. The enthusiastic welcome expressed by the Australian people demonstrated clearly the affection and respect in which the Queen is held in Australia. The 25 years reign of Her Majesty represents and without doubt demonstrates the superiority of the monarchal system of government over any other type of government in today’s world. The monarchial system stands for stability, security and continuity. Above all, it guarantees freedom to all of its people. There was loose talk in this chamber about republicanism gaining ground in this country. If the welcome expressed by Australians shows what the Australian people think about the monarchy, I am quite convinced that we will have the monarchal system, not for 10 years or 20 years as some honourable senators mentioned in their speeches, but for many hundreds of years.
Under the monarchy, every king is a citizen and every citizen is a king. There was talk about a division of our society about the monarchy. If there is a division in our society, it is in the socialist camp where there is argument about the form of government which the Australian society prefers. Let me assert that I would rather live in a society divided on this issue in the way our society is divided than to live under a united republican system where we would all be united under the machine gun. We have seen those kinds of democracies where republican prime ministers or presidents rule. Plenty of examples are to be found in today’s world. We have merely to observe what is happening in Africa. We have only to observe the kind of freedom which the people of the sub-continent of India enjoy. Therefore, I feel that there is no doubt that the monarchy as such has proved itself as the best system of government not only in past societies but also in our modern age.
I wish now to refer to the Speech delivered by Her Majesty in this chamber. The only criticism of it has come from the Opposition side. Those on the other side are well known for their rhetoricempty rhetoric which is punctuated with a dash of witticism which is usually misplaced and often in bad taste. I remind those honourable senators who like to be witty that wit and wisdom are like the 7 stars- seldom to be seen together.
Among other things in her Speech, Her Majesty said:
At the heart of my Government’s policies lie a commitment and a concern: commitment to increasing the freedom, opportunity and equality of the Australian people; and concern with enhancing people’s ability to make their own choices and live their own lives in their own way.
Those principles related in that part of Her Majesty’s Speech are extremely appropriate and applicable to the problems and needs of migrants in the Australian community.
Since the end of World War II, more than 3 million migrants have come to settle in Australia. Today about one-sixth of all Australians have been born in another country. Indeed, migrants have accounted for more than 60 per cent of the population increase and over 50 per cent of the increase in the Australian work force since 1 947. Statistics confirm that 40 per cent of the manufacturing work force are overseas born and, further, some industries have migrant membership reaching proportions of 70 per cent to 80 per cent. In some industries- I refer specifically to the clothing and vehicle building industries- the proportion rarely drops below 30 per cent.
Migrants were invited here to help to develop Australia, to supplement the work force and thus to share in the prosperity and high standard of living that this would provide. However, in entering the work force, migrants are faced with severe problems. For many of them, this constitutes an endurance test of immeasurable proportions. The Jackson Committee which was set up to advise on policies for manufacturing industry studied the problems of migrants in the work force. It referred to a number of specific problem areas. I shall try to analyse them one by one.
The first problem concerns language and communication difficulties. Most employment problems revolve around this language difficulty problem. The migrant is plagued by the inability to communicate with both his fellow employees and his employers and often relies on his fellow worker to be able to communicate his problems in his work.
The second problem is the lack of knowledge of service organisations and agencies. Some of the larger industries which employ a high percentage of migrants were wise enough to employ multilingual industrial officers. Industries which provided such a service to migrants found that problems associated with absenteeism, safety and accidents diminished tremendously because of the ability of migrants to discuss their problems with those industrial officers. I hope that many other industries will follow their example.
Another important problem relates to ignorance of cultural differences. It is a fact, unfortunately, that many supervisory staff in the big industries do not understand the behaviour of certain migrant or ethnic groups. This is especially evident in connection with the employment of migrant women. A woman migrant or a multilingual migrant in such a position would solve a lot of problems.
Another problem which the Jackson report revealed relates to the lack of recognition of overseas qualifications. It is a fact that primarily immigration was seen as a means of providing a source of semi-skilled and unskilled labour. This explains why skilled and professional migrants received no recognition here of their qualifications for many years. Fortunately the LiberalCountry Party Government in 1969 partially remedied that situation by establishing a committee on overseas professional qualifications to evaluate, to judge and to qualify tradesmen from other countries. It considered their credentials to ensure that they could comply with Australian standards. In the sphere of trade skills the local trade committees at State level, under the auspices of the Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, exist as an effective assessment body.
While these have been valuable steps in remedying this situation there are still many subprofessional or para-professional groups not catered for, and unfortunately this is the largest group amongst migrants in industry in Australia at this time.
Today the situation has changed inasmuch as newcomers to this country are limited to certain qualifications. They are selected on the ground of their trade experience to ensure that their qualifications are recognised by bodies here in Australia. I submit that if skills are recognised and are efficiently utilised in Australia a tangible economic benefit flows from migration.
Lack of institutional means of dealing with migrant employment problems is another aspect highlighted in the Jackson report. In many cases the approach is ad hoc. In many cases problems are dealt with as and when they arise. In some instances insufficient attention was paid to preventing such issues arising. Many of these problems are accentuated by the fact that on the whole migrants enter the work force on the bottom of the industrial ladder, being in the main semi-skilled or unskilled workers. The Green Paper noted:
In manufacturing, migrants undertake the least skilled, most menial tasks, both for economic reasons and because they lack personal alternatives. Migrant workers predominate in those industries, plants and jobs where conditions are worst and where jobs are physically hardest.
Why then are these problems remaining so intense and unresolved? In enumerating the problems migrants incur in entering and participating in the Australian work force I neglected to state the seventh area. It think this is the area which as been neglected for the last 25 years. This problem was highlighted in the Jackson report. The Jackson Committee found that the failure of the trade union movement to perceive and communicate the problems of migrant members is one question long overdue to be solved. The Australian Council of Social Services study into equal opportunity in Australia stated:
Generally speaking, trade unions are failing to communicate effectively with non-English speaking migrant workers and cater to their needs. There is also a reluctance to acknowledge that migrants are a particular group of members within unions with special problems.
A question often asked is: How many migrants participate in unions not only as fee-paying members but as members of the hierarchy? A recent study of this matter undertaken in Victoria covers the period from 1971 to 1974. In Victoria in that period there were approximately 300 union official representing 50 different unions. Of those 300 officials, only nine were migrants. Those 9 people worked for 6 separate unions. The proportion of migrant officials compared with others was then only 3 per cent. Nobody can contest that 3 per cent represents a leading role in the trade union movement. June Hearne, who compiled that report, noted also that there are a number of unions in industries with a large migrant component, such as sections of the building and metal trades, the food, transport, footwear and service areas, with no representation in the leadership. If we look at the Australian Council of Trade Unions Congress we find that only five of the delegates were non-British migrants. As one researcher noted:
The fact is, that after 25 years of mass immigration, one needs a magnifying glass if one is to find a migrant in the leadership of a union.
Why does this situation exist? Migrant advances within union organisations have depended, and do depend, very largely, on the initiatives of Australian union leaders. But is this leadership really interested to have migrants in executive positions, the leading positions? Certainly not. Unions dominated by communist executives conform to an idea which was clearly expressed in a conference held on 3 October 1976 in Yugoslavia, in that beautiful town of Dubrovnik on the coast, under the title ‘Socialism in Today’s World’. Amongst the figures at that conference was a famous French Marxist ideologist, Emanual Argiri. During his speech he referred very often to the workers’ aristocracy. Among other things he stated:
This workers’ aristocracy exists as the result of high incomes that today’s workers enjoy in the so-called capitalist world.
Mr Argiri took as an example the United States and West Germany. This is what he had to say about workers in those 2 countries:
These workers have been transformed from being the exploited to those who benefit from the surplus of their labour and thus become the enemies ofthe proletariat. Solidarity among the workers’ masses is possible only as long as the workers are exploited. It is therefore clear that the only solution of this problem is a new proletarisation of this workers’ aristrocracy because it is impossible to achieve a successful revolution without a proletariat.
Even more interesting was the reaction to the Argiri speech by a professor from the Belgrade University who stated:
If it is a fact that the working class in the West has lost its revolutionary zeal as they achieve a high living standard, it will be necessary to import that revolutionary spirit from outside in order to reawaken that revolutionary spirit.
Is it any wonder that some of our trade unions- I do not say all- completely ignore the majority of their members. Mr Clyde Cameron, a member of the other place, on 24 August 1 976 stated:
The officer-class of the trade union movement would have to give the orders, and the rank and file would have to obey them.
If this is democracy, then it is no wonder that our Government has been swept back into power after only 3 years of socialist paradise!
A book has been written about the power of trade unions. The title is an amazing one. It is called The New Barons. It refers to trade union leaders in the United Kingdom. I am afraid that the union rank and file and leadership feel that migrants could hardly represent their interests. This attitude, coupled with degrees of formal and informal prejudice, militates against migrant participation. It is a fact that the bigger a union becomes the easier it is for the leadership of that union to safely ignore the migrant section of its membership as potential leaders. When and where organisational survival requires it there have been concessions and migrant leaders have been sought. This general attitude of trade union leaders endorses the apprehension which many migrants feel towards unions.
Many migrants have no fundamental understanding ofthe Australian union and of the arbitration system. Often they have never known unionism before. If they have known it it was as a further arm of the state, an institution integral to officialdom to be treated with suspicion and distrust. This is how migrants feel about unions today. It is up to the union leaders if migrants are to be included in positions of decision making and authority.
If migrants do not participate as leaders then I ask whether the present leaders effectively represent their interests. If the Jackson report and the Australian Council for Social Service are to be believed, the answer is no. These reports state categorically that trade unions are not recognising or understanding, let alone communicating, the needs of their migrant members. As one writer notes, often when one talks about special migrant needs on wages, housing, social services and language communication some in the trade union movement interpret this as seeking to put migrants into a different and more privileged position than that of the rest of the workers. Yet the issue here is not for the migrant to overtake the rest of the workers but simply to attain an equal position in society.
What then can be done? In these circumstances trade unions can hardly claim to be representative of the interests of their rank and file, let alone those who make up the Australian work force. Representation depends on the initiatives of both the union leadership and of the migrants themselves. Union leaderships could be forced to encourage migrants to participate and fundamentally to assist them with organisational problems and so on. It is a pity that unions should need to be forced to represent the interests of the workers in order to survive.
When the benefits of migration to Australia are mentioned they are usually restricted to the change in our eating and drinking habits. How often do we hear any mention of the migrant contributions to the present standard of living in Australia? What would be the state of Australia ‘s economy without migration? Who would man the industries so necessary for the wellbeing of us all? Who would perform all those jobs which so often offend the more delicate, refined or choosy among our work force?
The problems of migrants in the work force need much attention. That this is so stands as a reminder that as well as purely economic considerations some more integrated social provision has to be made for a successful migration program. Mr President, I have pleasure in supporting the motion.
-The Senate is debating the Speech given by Her Majesty the Queen last week on behalf of her Government. I shall deal with one or two specific issues in that Speech, but before doing so I record my personal sadness at the content of the Speech which the Queen was invited by this Government to deliver. To me it seems something of an insult to Her Majesty that she should be asked, as a visitor to this country, to deliver a speech of such utter philosophical banality as she was asked to do in this chamber just over a week ago. The situation reminds one somewhat of an opera star in a pageantry opera being asked to sing a pedestrian pop song, because the Speech provided no solution and no awareness of the real problems with which this country is faced at the moment. Rather it was a collection of the philosophical cliches of this Government which have been reiterated over the whole preceding year.
I want to draw some attention to the various alibis which this Government has adopted since it was elected for the failure of its election promises and the failure of its economic management, but before I do I shall contrast some of the failures with the promises that were made in 1975- the promise to restore business confidence, the promise to reduce inflation and the promise to slash unemployment by 200 000 people if this Government were elected. As those promises have been seen to be incapable of realisation the alibis which the Government has sought for those failures have increased in variety and the Government’s explanation of them has increased in intensity. For example, we have had the reiterated theme that the faults of society in 1977 are the responsibility of the Labor Government of 1972-75 and thus we still have Senator Carrick answering questions in this chamber in a manner reminiscent of a cracked 78 speed record. We get it every day and always the same explanation is offered for this Government’s failure to implement the programs it announced it would implement.
The second alibi used is the failure of the business community to respond to the election of this Government and become confident immediately upon the election of Mr Fraser ‘s Government. A third alibi is the failure of Australian consumers to spend as this Government hoped and expected they would and as the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has repeatedly asked them to do. A fourth alibi is the failure of the trade union movement in Australia to appreciate that it was necessary for Mr Fraser to abandon his promise of wage indexation exactly 2lh months after it was made. So the unions are blamed for their failure to appreciate that abandonment of a promise. Another alibi is the failure of the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission to realise that its constitutional and legislative function is to settle industrial disputes, and its failure to realise that it is an arm of government economic policy. If the Government really believes that, it should spell it out, but that has never been said. On a number of occasions inflation has been blamed on the Commission and anticipated levels of inflation have been blamed on it even before its decisions have been made.
- Mr Anthony did that today.
-I am indebted to Senator Primmer for the latest information on this matter but the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission certainly has been blamed for the failure of the Government’s economic policy. More recently a new alibi has been creeping into Government statements; that is the tendency to blame not only the unemployed in Australia for the failures of this Government but also, more particularly, the compilers of unemployment statistics who have, in the words of one senior Minister, produced a myth. That is to say that unemployment in this country is a myth and all the work that has been done in compiling those statistics apparently has been in pursuance of the creation of a myth. I find it extraordinary when I look back to December 1975 to find that this Government, which now has some 354 000 registered unemployed, said then that it would slash unemployment by 200 000 people. If it is true that unemployment is a myth, as is now said, then that promise which was one of the factors contributing to the defeat of the Labor Government is presumably also a myth and a falsehood which is still perpetuated in Australian political life.
I turn specifically now to unemployment because it is a matter which has concerned the Senate in questions and in debate for some time. In the last 2 weeks I have asked of the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations 3 questions regarding the suggestion which is now emanating from the Government that nearly 40 per cent of unemployed persons voluntarily left their employment and that certain things, although it is not specified what they are, follow from that statistic. The Prime Minister said a week ago that the figure has been established as a result of a Government survey and he then asked the rhetorical question: Can it be said that these people really want to work? I have asked Senator Durack to give us his understanding of what the Prime Minister meant in that rhetorical question but I have failed to receive an answer. However, fortunately some of his colleagues are more obliging and Senator Davidson in a speech on this subject a week ago gave the answer in the clearest and most explicit terms. He referred to a Government survey which, he said, ‘discloses the fact that of the total number of 354 000 people who are unemployed in the nation, more than 141 000 people registered as unemployed voluntarily resigned from their jobs’. He continued:
In frank terms this means that 40 per cent either declined or refused to work and accepted from the taxpayer considerable amounts of money which have now been increased, with further benefits for their dependants.
I am indebted to Senator Davidson for spelling it out so carefully and I find what he said significant because I thought it was a very well prepared speech. He obviously gave a lot of thought to what he would say on this matter and spelt out for us what the Minister in this chamber has not been prepared to spell out. Although I am obliged to Senator Davidson, I find what was spelt out so difficult to understand and so reprehensible because it seems to me to be an insult to thousands of people in this country who voluntarily left their employment for perfectly legitimate reasons. It seems to me to be wrong and superficial in its imputed analysis of this problem. It seems to seek to blame people for situations which are not of their making and it contrasts very sharply with a statement in the
Queen’s Speech which the Senate is now debating and to which I wish to refer. A key part of the Speech was this statement:
At the heart of my Government’s policies lies a commitment and a concern: commitment to increasing the freedom, opportunity and equality of the Australian people; and concern with enhancing people’s ability to make their own choices and live their own lives in their own way.
If that is at the heart of this Government’s concern it should have been stated more precisely. The Speech should have said that the Government had a commitment to increasing the freedom of people except their freedom to change their jobs, and a commitment to increasing the freedom of people to make their own choices except a choice about the sort of employment in which they are to engage. That would have been a more honest statement of the Government’s intentions and policies as they were revealed by Senator Davidson speaking, I take it, on behalf of the Government in the absence of any declared statement from the Minister on the question to which I advert. So I see that approach as being not only superficial and wrong but also inconsistent with the Government’s position on this matter. What it seems to do is ignore the real issues and ignore the nature of unemployment as it now is and some of the very important changed social consequences in Australia. The notion that unemployment is a myth is an exercise in unreality, self-delusion and escapism by this Government.
I turn now to some of the facts in our discussion on unemployment which this Government and this Parliament ignore, but before doing so let me say that I believe the most profound failure of the Fraser Government is its desire to see this problem in terms of its own mythology, to look back to the halcyon days of the 1960s and to say that in those days these things did not happen and that even if they had had happened it would have had the solutions to them. The Government argues that we should look at the problems in the same way and try the same solutions to see whether those solutions will work in 1977 and if the problems will disappear in the same way as they seemed to disappear in the 1950s and 1960s. I can assure Government senators that that will not happen. For example, it is futile to talk about decreasing the size of the public sector of the economy and the private sector taking up the slack as if the economy of this country in 1977 was like a blancmange and if one side of it were pushed the other side would fall into position. It is an absolutely futile exercise to seek solutions in simplistic terms in that way. 1 think that the unemployment situation is fairly summarised as I believe it to be in 1977 in a discussion paper of the Australian Council of Social Services entitled: What happened to full employment? The Council summarises the position in this way: . . unemployment is not, in the immediate sense, a common problem’, it strikes selectively, and most commonly at those most vulnerable to social and economic disruption- the unskilled and semi-skilled, the female school-leavers, the poor, the marginal workforce members, the Aborigines and so on.
If that be correct and if the causes of unemployment be as I suspect they are, we cannot any longer look backward to old solutions. We have a different kind of unemployment. A great deal of it is due, admittedly, to the current economic malaise but much of it is due to lack of planning over many years in this country. There are certain facts in regard to lack of planning which I believe we all must face up to. They are being faced up to in this country far too late. I believe that this is the cause of many of our current problems. We now hear talk from Government supporters in the Parliament but see very little action on the question of manpower policies. But if we go back to 1967, we see that the Minister for Labour at the time, Mr Bury, was able to boast in these terms:
Australia is one of those countries which does not engage in manpower planning. We are fortunate in possessing vigorous product and resource markets in which demand and supply forces can operate freely.
The key sentence is:
Australia is one of those countries which does not engage in manpower planning.
He said that in 1967 at the time when pretty well all countries of equivalent economic sophistication were already engaging in serious manpower planning programs. Australia was in the fortunate laissez-faire and lucky country environment to be able to boast through its Minister for Labour that it did not engage in manpower planning. That inadequacy of the 1960s cannot be blamed on the brief period of Labor Government from 1972 to 1975. It was in that period- in 1974- that for the first time in Australian history an Australian government sent overseas a high-powered mission to study manpower planning. It was as a result of that task force ‘s visit to Europe that the National Employment and Training scheme with much wider ramifications than this present Government is prepared to allow it was first set up. That was the first initiative in manpower planning on a long term basis which this country has ever embarked upon. The response of this Government has been to limit the NEAT scheme and to try to tailor it to a sort of knee jerk response to the current economic situation without any forward planning or forward looking in any sense. The absence of manpower policy is a factor which has bedevilled this country for many years and which is a direct responsibility of governments of the 1960s. It remains the responsibility of this Government not to indulge in a sort of knee jerk response to the immediate situation but to try to grapple with this situation of manpower policies for the future.
The second fact which I believe we must face up to relating to unemployment in Australia- it particularly relates to unemployment amongst young people- is that for many years there have been changing social aspirations in Australia which greatly effect the situation of supply and demand in the labour market in 1977. The whole ethos of this country in the 1960s was directed towards higher levels of education. There was an education boom in the 1960s and the early 1970s. There was strong parental pressure in favour of the consequences of that education boom against participation in uninteresting jobs and jobs which were regarded as menial. In fact, those very aspirations have been encouraged by this present Government in various ways. But the Government is not entirely unaware of those changed aspirations of the young people of Australia. It is just that one part of the Government does not know what the other part is doing. The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) last year commissioned a study group on youth affairs which published its report a month or so ago. In summary form, the conclusions of that study group were as follows:
Recent developments- and especially the marked and disproportionately high levels of unemployment among the young- have dramatised the inadequacy of existing arrangements, not only as they affect the employment needs of youth, but also over a whole range of educational, recreational, housing and other programs which impinge upon youth.
Inter-related issues arising from smaller families, higher female workforce participation rates, longer periods of formal education, the stress within employment markets on accreditation, the increased affluence of many members of the community, changing life-styles etc., are impacting on youth in complex ways that deserve more careful attention than they appear to have been receiving in the past.
That Government study group seems to show some awareness of the problems which Government senators try to ignore by characterising people who voluntarily leave their employment as people who are lazy and who want to receive welfare benefits and by characterising young people who are without work in a general sense as ‘dole bludgers’. That is being done; let there be no mistake about that. But it is too simple to ignore the consequences of the Government’s own reports on this matter and to indulge in that simple sort of sneering characterisation of people who are unemployed without having regard to some of those changed aspirations which both the reports deal with and to which I have referred.
Of course, the higher levels of aspiration in relation to the son of work which people might be expected to do was encouraged in Australia by 20 years of immigration from Europe. It surely became an accepted fact in Australian society that jobs on the assembly line at the Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited and jobs with the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board digging up roads were not jobs that young Australians went into. They were jobs that migrants wanted to do. For 20 years that became a fact of life in Australian society and surely has had an effect on the attitude of Australia’s young people to this day in the regard they have for that type of work.
– Do not you think that they ought to change it?
-Change what?
– Should not they be changing their attitude?
-I am terribly indebted to the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs (Senator Durack) for his interjection because it shows that in spite of 3 questions and 10 minutes of this speech he still has no idea of what I am talking about. It might be my fault but I suspect that it is his. The point I am trying to make- I will put it again for Senator Durack- is simply this: With a higher level of education amongst young people in the Australian workforce and with changed parental pressures and values there is less incentive for people to go into jobs of a poorer manual kind. Senator Durack probably has not faced the problem in his family. But plenty of his colleagues may have faced it. I am sure that their commitment to the work ethic is not such that they would want to see their children digging up roads or working on the assembly line at Ford’s. I am putting to you, Senator Durack, that that is the sort of aspiration which I believe you would have about this matter. I am submitting that Senator Durack would inculcate in his children exactly the same sort of aspirations that are shared by thousands of Australian parents and thousands of Australian young people about what they want to do in life and the sort of work they want to perform.
I am led, by way of further illustration of that point, to ask a number of rhetorical questions about people voluntarily leaving their jobs. Is it not an inherent part of Liberal Party philosophy to encourage upward mobility in job aspiration? I would have felt very sure, Senator Durack, that it was. I feel quite sure it is written into the Liberal program. I feel quite sure that it is an integral part of the whole free enterprise philosophy. I would have thought that it was part of the rugged society philosophy that people should, in seeking to be free as Mr Fraser would put it, feel free to leave their jobs and feel free to try to get a better one. I feel those people would be encouraged in that aspiration by the continued promises of this Government that it will fix unemployment in this country. Those promises have been going on for 12 months now and show little promise in fact of being fulfilled.
– Would you leave your job before you knew that you could get a better one?
-Well, you and I might not.
– He did.
-Senator Cavanagh has struck me a blow which is mortal in its accuracy and truth. I left my job without realising that I was getting a much worse one. I am silly as far as that goes. I confess that readily. Honourable senators opposite are saying that people who are in very repetitive, menial jobs which do not satisfy them and which provide none ofthe satisfactions that we would hope people would be able to get from their working lives are stupid people. That is the conclusion I am led to draw from Senator Durack ‘s interjection. Those people may be improvident or unwise. If they had listened to Ministers in the past year they would think that there was no risk involved because this Government was going to encourage consumer spending and encourage business confidence, everything would come right within a few weeks and everybody would be able to get a job just as they did in the 1950s and 1960s.
-Unemployment is a myth.
-As Senator Cavanagh reminds me, unemployment is a myth. That remark came from the mouth of a senior Minister upon whom people might be prone to rely in their ignorance. We cannot blame people for being ignorant about Mr Eric Robinson. After all, he is one of Senator Durack ‘s colleagues. I hope the honourable senator is not blaming people for believing what Mr Eric Robinson said. That is one of the problems people have to face. People leave their jobs for all sorts of reasons but one of them is the aspirations which have been inculcated into them by the phoney promises of this Government and the repeated assurances which have been given regarding unemployment.
I think we also have to ask ourselves whether it is not a fact- I think Senator Lajovic touched on this point- that the migrant work force over many years encouraged similar aspirations and beliefs in Australian young people. I wanted to speak about this subject not so much to make political scoring points- I promised Senator Durack a long saga on the question of people who voluntarily leave their jobs- but because I do not think it is a transitory problem which we are facing. I do not think unemployment is the sort of problem which can be fixed with the sort of credit squeeze jiggery pokery which the honourable senator’s Party went on with when in government in the 1950s and 1960s. I think this matter is much more lasting and is a permanent factor of the Australian political scene.
If we look at the unemployment situation and at the economic future of this country we surely see that the industries on which we will be dependent as a nation, such as mining and agriculture, are areas of small or declining labour content. I think we should face up to the fact that unemployment, for reasons such as that and because of its current structural nature, will be a very long term problem with frightening social consequences. It will not be fixed, as I said, by the economic tinkering which occurred in years gone by. In the long term it will be accommodatedas Canada which has been living with the problem for many years has found- only by intelligent manpower planning, by meeting the response of the aspirations of people for decent jobs and working conditions, by planning for industry, by job enrichment programs and things of that kind. More particularly, the problem will not be solved in the long term by sideswiping at unemployed people in the way which this Government has been doing and in a way which was most brilliantly articulated by Senator Davidson in a very carefully prepared speech which he gave in the Senate last week. This sort of characterisation of unemployment is dangerous in social terms. When dealing with it as a long term problem it is dangerous in human terms because of the people who are involved. This is a problem which must be faced up to.
Nobody on this side of the Senate says that people in the community should be free to go on the dole in circumstances in which they refuse to take employment of a suitable kind when it is available. I say to Senator Davidson, who is trying to interject, that there is no support on this side of the Chamber for dole bludgers, but we would like some definition of what they are. We do not want all of the unemployed people in this country characterised in the way in which certain Government senators have tried to characterise them in the last few weeks. According to the figures produced by the Commonwealth Employment Service-they are the only ones available- those people who have been offered jobs and refused them to try to stay on the dole number one per cent. The figure has been found to be one per cent, after very serious endeavours- people who could be legitimately described as work shy in the sense in which Government senators have tried to characterise them. I conclude by saying that we cannot look at the problem of unemployment as it is in 1977- it is likely to be a long term problemwithout a little more compassionate understanding of the situation. This problem will continue to affect this society and all socio-economic groups in it
– I offer my congratulations to Senator Lewis for his most competent maiden speech in this House in supporting the Address-in-Reply to the Speech of Her Majesty the Queen. I have no doubt that he enjoyed the experience, especially as Her Majesty opened the session last week. It was indeed a timely visit by the Monarch and one which was welcomed by most Australians regardless of their feelings on whether Australia should be a monarchy or a republic. The visit is indeed an example of Her Majesty’s devotion to her task. While I have no doubt she enjoys the task it also involves great dedication in hours and study. I believe many people enjoyed the visit and being able to attend the session as it was opened by Her Majesty.
As to the subject of a republic, I am somewhat amused in the sense that I think recent events have removed the urgency for consideration as to whether there ought to be some other form of government for Australia. In fact, the real power is exercised through the Governor-General. This was recently demonstrated by the dismissal of a government. The Monarch does not in practice have the power of her Governor-General in Australia who is politically appointed. That fact, so recently proven, tends to diffuse or at least to weaken the immediacy of the argument as to whether we ought to be separate from the monarchy. I believe that at some future time we will be separate. However, it is not a subject which demands urgent debate at this time.
In passing, I should like to say how important I believe the passage of the referenda will be to the Australian parliamentary situation. I hope that those who oppose the passage of the referenda will realise that change takes place, whether or not we know that by our actions at the time we ourselves sometimes force it. In referring to the monarchy, it is interesting to note that the strains put on the position of Governor-General by the matters that led up to the dismissal of the Government in 1975 have so made that office one which can be put under great political pressure as to make it completely untenable in the future for a member of the Royal family. I believe therefore that in a practical sense one of the results of the necessity of the Governor-General to act was to preclude that possibility in the future, and so change has been forced on the Australian system by the action of this Parliament at that time. A change has occurred because of the vote of people in this House who now refuse change or refuse to acknowledge its need by referenda. I hope those people realise that change happens in any case and that we cannot stand immobile against the necessity to change our Constitution to meet the modern needs of government. If we cannot pass what has been approved by both sides of politics, by the major part of the 2 political parties in Australia, we are not likely in this century to have a sensible change of the Australian Constitution by referenda. I hope that the public of Australia is not led to believe that the Senate is more important in the possession of its own security against any interference from the lower House than the efficient working of government for the whole of this country.
I thought that Senator Button’s address was an astute one because, on the basis of what was not true, he built a case with which to belabour the Liberal attitude, especially to unemployment. He said quite blithely, in effect, that the Liberal and National Country Parties believe that the unemployment figures in Australia are a myth. He went on to imply, as any listener would believe, that somehow we are going to penalise those people who have voluntarily left their jobs and are now on unemployment benefit, and that in general we are attacking the unemployed. The opposite is the case, as the recent application of indexation to unemployment benefit will prove. Senator Button illustrated how difficult it is in Australia to have any sensible examination of the unemployment question. Of course, it has always been treated cynically by Oppositions of whatever colour, and I believe that in office Labor was accepting criticism which it may have ameliorated if it had been game enough to examine and dissect the unemployment figures. It accepted criticism which it need not have accepted.
It is now time to examine the figures and to get some expert knowledge of what constitutes that great bulk of people, who they are, what their difficulties are, and how they can be helped. But to imply as the basis of a speech- quite a knowledgeable speech in its delivery later on- the heartless attitude of this Government and to say that it is reducing the help available to the unemployed, that somehow it is attacking those in this community who are unfortunate enough not to be able to get jobs, is completely wrong and false. Senator Button, if he studies the practical things that have happened, must admit that that is the case. He cannot point and did not point to victimisation. He pointed simply to expressions of opinion which have surrounded the general examination ofthe situation. For my part, I reject entirely any agreement at all to penalise in any way those who have voluntarily left their jobs.
– I quoted from your newfound colleague.
-May I say to Senator Button that if he thinks he can penalise politically this Party by openly discussing the situation and its problems, he is wrong in his assumption that he will benefit. If I may say so, I do not like the word ‘dole’ and I certainly do not like the words ‘dole bludger’ if they are loosely applied. I would much sooner use the phrase ‘security payment’ in preference to something which in any way tends to denigrate those who are genuinely unemployed.
I wish to mention several things briefly, and one of them is the importance of the motor car industry in Australia, especially its importance to South Australia. Before I utter any word of criticism of my own Government’s policy, I want to say that I associate myself with that very long list of achievements which stand very much to the credit of this Government, especially in the light of its short term in office so far. The list of accomplishments from personal tax indexation to family payments to Aboriginal land rights, referred to in the excellent speech that Senator Baume gave to the Senate, stands as a tremendous record accumulated in a very short time in office. However, I do want to say that I cannot conceive of the reasons why we are about the business of supporting 5 major vehicle manufacturers in Australia. It has been acknowledged by those in the industry that the Australian market is not large enough to support 3 major manufacturers in Australia, and Sir Brian Inglis, who heads the Ford organisation in this country, is on record in an interview in the Australian some weeks ago as saying that 67 per cent ofthe motor vehicle market which Australian manufacturers have today is not sufficient to support the Australian car industry into the future. That estimation was given before the two new additions to the industry, the 2 Japanese firms, have been launched on our market to divide it further among the local manufacturers. I cannot see, and the people I talk to cannot see, the reason we deliberately set out to encourage a division from 3 parts into 5 parts in a market which by international standards would be flat out supporting only one manufacturer.
In effect, we in Australia are about the business of making some of the most expensive motor cars in the world. We are about the business of dramatically increasing their prices by diluting the market available to each manufacturer. It is a very sobering thought, when one considers how dependent Australians are on their personal transport and how dependent we are on trade with other countries, that we are about the business of forcing our people to buy some of the most expensive cars in the world and to cut off trade of a very great nature with other countries. That is not to consider, of course, the matter of the almost automatic degeneration of engineering expertise which will occur if we shut off foreign imports. I suppose it is too late at this stage, when companies are investing millions of dollars in new capital equipment and making contractural arrangements which go with future sales, but I say to the Minister that no one in industry to whom I have spoken can see the reasons we so deliberately dilute an already extremely small market.
This problem has very great ramifications for South Australia. South Australia has played a very large part in the manufacture of motor vehicles in Australia. As a general estimate, 40 per cent of General Motors-Holden Ltd manufacture occurs in that State. Chrysler Australia Ltd, of course, is almost solely based in South Australia. We have other contracting firms which do a valuable multi-million dollar business in supplying components to other car manufacturers or assemblers. It seems to me that by developing first of all two Japanese manufacturers outside South Australia- taking the selfish parochial view- obviously my State’s percentage involvement in the motor car manufacturing industry in Australia will decline. But more than that, I am concerned about the viability of the firms which will be left in it and will be in it until some adjustments are made by market pressures in the structure of the manufacturing of motor cars.
An article headed: ‘Survival may force car makers into joint ventures’ appeared in the
National Times of 7 March this year. It is an interesting review of a very expensive book which costs $900 a copy. The review has been assembled by Mr Michael Aikin and Mr Rob O’Connell, who are two analytical economists well-known, it is said, in the motor car industry. The report of that study states:
Having examined some sections of this first volume I can only say it paints a disturbing and distressing picture. By now everyone knows that out motor industry is not particularly efficient, that traditionally it has made the wrong motor cars at the wrong price but has survived because of protection that has run at giddy heights, and that its future appears conjectural now that Nissan and Toyota threaten to swell manufacturing ranks to S fully fledged members.
Another excerpt reads:
Only a few years ago when the movement to vertical integration reached its most extreme form (and the dilution from this has not been really significant since), a typical foreign-owned multinational vehicle producer in Australia made the product in a factory it owned on land it owned, drew upon supplies from subsidiaries it owned . . . sold the product through a retail outlet it owned, and financed the sale through a hire-purchase group it owned.
The article continues:
The restructuring of the automotive industry which is necessary to ensure its long-term viability,
. demands a much greater degree of redeployment of labour than is generally yet admitted- redeployment into service support and into other industries. It is dishonest to pretend otherwise.
The review finishes with a statement that Chrysler in South Australia, in fact, could go out of motor car manufacture and become a supplier of components to others. This is something which I would not like to see and which, I am sure, Chrysler would not like to see. But if we are to firmly discourage a dilution of the market I believe it would be impossible for 5 companies to divide that market and to produce cars which Australians were able to purchase. I cannot see how Australia can shut itself off entirely from the overseas market in support of those 5 manufacturers and expect those countries overseas to buy our raw materials, which are so important to sustaining our living standard. We cannot sell wool and metal ores if we refuse to take the products of other countries. The motor vehicle industry in other countries, especially in Japan, is as politically important to those countries as our industry is politically important to us.
I urge the government to keep a constant eye on the motor vehicle industry to see that we are not denied the necessary infusion of motor car imports to maintain some competitive engineering standard in Australian manufacturer, secondly, I ask it not to allow the development of motor car manufacturers to price the vehicles beyond the limits of the pockets of most Australians. Many people today as they buy their quite modest model of Australian made car fear that they will not be able to replace it in three or four years time with inflation running at the rate it is. In finalising these rambling remarks about the motor vehicle industry in Australia I simply must say that I believe the present policy is wrong. I do ne t know what can be done about it at this stage when the investment has been made and the contractual arrangements have been entered into. I fear for the future of the motor vehicle industry in my State. I just hope that the Government will be able to salvage something from what I believe to be a very wrong policy.
I want to say something about a national policy on energy in Australia, or the lack of it. It seems that when the Labor Party was in office Mr Connor involved himself greatly in the matter of fuel and energy and its development. Yet when one became close to him and pressed him for a policy one found that he did not have one. He had some deep ideological commitment to some secret view which he would not divulge to others. Indeed, it was a failing of his that having pointed the way to some long term planning in the development of our energy resources, he did not seem able to proceed with it. However, I believe that his failure to do so and the current emphasis on and argument surrounding the marketing of uranium should not divert our attention from the need to have some long term planning in relation to the development and usage of the limited petroleum resources that we have. I was pleased to see in the weekly report of the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association Limited bulletin that the first meeting of the Australian Minerals and Energy Council has been held. A paragraph in that report, referring to that meeting, states:
After the presentation of reports on mineral and energy matters in their respective areas, Ministers acknowledged the critical importance of energy resources and their efficient utilisation. They agreed that there was a need for the Commonwealth and States to consult on a wide range of energy matters including the preparation of estimates of Australian energy production and demand; the delineation of available resources having regard to probable end use; and the economic and energy implications of projected energy developments and the prices of alternate forms of energy; and energy research and development policy:
The statement that these matters are critically important illustrates that we do not have a policy. For a country which is so dependent on road transport and on the availability of fuel in all its forms it seems to me to be a great lack on our future planning not to be able to say to Australian users where the fuel will be coming from in 10 years time. In fact, I was alarmed by a report in the Financial Review of recent days which referred to the development of the northwest shelf of Western Australia and to the possible use of gas resources there. The excerpt from this article reads as follows.
The proportion of gas available for domestic use and export and the price is a vital part ofthe project’s future.
So far the parties have not discussed figures but are making good progress on the principles that would be involved.
The discussions are occurring on the basis that frequent meetings have been held between company executives and Western Australian Government officials concerning both the volume and the price of gas to be sold on the local market, as well as other issues. I do not mean to say anything antagonistic about the Western Australian Government, but I believe it is totally inadequate, having regard to the future needs of Australian fuel resources, for us to be led to believe that the amount of fuel which will be available to the Australian market in the future may very well depend on the outcome of discussions between the developing companies and the Western Australian Government. To me that is surrendering the responsibility for vital planning on a national basis to State and company interests. As I said, I say that without any antagonism towards the companies, which must be able to have a considerable market to pay for development and to provide proper profits on their investment, and in recognition of the need for the Western Australian Government to be properly involved in the legislation which covers off-shore oil and which previously has been ratified by Commonwealth and State governments. But for the Austraiian Government to stand aside from this great resource that has been discovered and to allow it to be developed on the basis of those consultations, as I have said, is neglecting entirely the great future needs of national fuel resources. At some time in the future, the need to connect the Sydney market with central Australia or even the north-west shelf resources is something which everyone who thinks about the matter must consider. The fact that this is an isolated consideration is, as I have said, a condemnation of governments in general, not this one in particular, for their lack of planning of our energy resources.
– Are you suggesting some form of rationing, such as price or quantity rationing?
– I am suggesting a national policy having regard to our needs in the first instance, our resources in the second instance and a matching of the two together in some sensible assessment of the growth of demand and the placement of our markets. Pricing, as the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Wriedt) knows, is another issue of great importance. In relation to any alteration to petroleum prices in Australia I say only in passing that if producers are to be given an increase to world parity or something near world parity the extra income they obtain should in some way be geared to extra exploration in Australia. I do not for a minute believe that producers should have a bonanza and be left on an honour system to reinvest a great deal of that finance in exploration which, of course, they may not do. I should like to see a firm arrangement in relation to such an increase. The Leader of the Opposition does not know the answers. This side of the chamber does not know the answers. At the moment we are in the formative stages of an energy policy.
I now turn to inflation. Senator Button absolved the former Labor Government of 3 years of all blame for the present inflationary situation. He said that there had been a tide of” rising expectations in Australia. I point out to him that his Government and the Ministers in that Government had more to do with raising the tide of expectation in monetary terms than any other government in the history of Australia. A government which will raise budgetary expenditure by more than 40 per cent in one year will dislocate our economic system. As much as I dislike continually harping back to the actions of other governments -
– Who are you talking about? Is it the Fraser Government?
– I am talking about the Government of which Senator Keeffe was a supporter. I repeat that any government which raises budgetary expenditure to that degree in normal times- times during the Labor Government’s administration were normal, they were not times of war or of national outside emergencybecause of an ideological approach will dislocate our economy. That financial dislocation together with Ministers such as Mr Cameron urging the work force of Australia to go outside the arbitration system and get what it can by industrial bargaining is a combination which cannot fail to dislocate the economy. It is obvious that this country still suffers greatly from that dislocation. Whilst not all of the present problems can be put at that door, obviously a great number of them can.
The importance of containing inflation is greater than at any other time when we have considered it. At this stage the Government’s policy of containment is resting almost solely for additional impetus on containment of wages. I hope the Labor Party will play its part in realising that the share of the industrial yield or industrial profits in Australia went to wage earners at a greatly increased pace during its administration. That share cannot be maintained at a time when our exports are under great pressure because of the rising costs in Australia. We shall have to succeed in moderating wage demands or else we shall find ourselves considering a prices and incomes freeze as a last resort. I hope that we do not reach that stage with all the evils that it would bring but if we cannot succeed it will be all that is left in the context of the present economic pressures.
I conclude my remarks by referring to federalism. I do not wish to criticise the Government but I am puzzled. I do not understand the full emphasis of the devolvement of powers to the States. I do not think that we can continue to talk of federalism lightly without being explicit. The disbursement of financial assistance to the States as an automatic share of the income tax collection and the inclusion of local governments in the allocation of funds are excellent and proper examples of what one would call a federalism policy. But to extend it further and to talk loosely of the devolution of power is, I believe, contradictory to the facts. I list several obvious items such as Queensland ‘s policy on the purchase of Aboriginal land and the Western Australian energy policy which I have just mentioned without criticising the Western Australian Government which is acting legitimately on this matter. It is a matter of great concern which cannot but involve us at some time in the near future. I refer to Australia’s boundary in the Torres Strait and Queensland’s involvement. There is the growth of the State governments’ public services at a rate which is about twice the rate of growth in the Commonwealth Public Service, so upsetting the fight against inflation in Australian economic management from a central source. I refer also to Fraser Island and the discipline that this Government quite rightly imposed on the Queensland Government. There are 6 industrial State development policies which are taken to such a degree at times by the favourable purchase of the manufactures processed within the State that they provide almost a new excise around Australia. I urge the Government to be more explicit in the face of the reality that this Federal Government is finding itself in the position of disciplinarian of the States more than it is providing devolution of power. I have much pleasure in supporting the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply.
– I participate in this debate with pleasure. I shall take the opportunity of talking about a number of things which I believe affect this country very closely. Before doing that I join with those who have spoken before me in extending congratulations to Senator Lewis who made his maiden speech in this chamber a few days ago. Before proceeding to the main text of my contribution I shall refer to some of the remarks that Senator Steele Hall has just made. He started with the sad story of the car industry. I think most people are aware of this situation but apparently Senator Steele Hall’s concern is not shared by his colleagues. A bigger contribution was his reference to the shortcomings of the Western Australian Government and the Queensland Government. I do not think those thoughts either are shared by his colleagues in the Liberal Party. It is only a few days since I tried to find out from the Minister for Science (Senator Webster) what was happening in relation to alternative energy sources. Over a period of 3 days that Minister seems to have forgotten what he said on the first occasion he tried to answer such a question. I think it is improper for Senator Steele Hall to criticise the energy policy of Rex Connor and the Labor Party when in government. After all, he is fully aware of the fact that we were not allowed to govern properly.
– That does not stop you changing your policies.
– We were no sooner elected with a majority, than Senator Young and his colleagues were running around with stilettos, guns and machines guns trying to get rid of us. When the Coalition Government was soundly defeated on at least 2 occasions and narrowly won, in terms of the percentage of votes, on the third occasion it still felt that as a government it was God ‘s gift to this nation.
May I say through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that the sentiments expressed by Senator Hall are quite interesting because they coincide with some of the recommendations made by a Select Committee established by this chamber quite a number of years ago. It is significant that one of the recommendations was that there ought to be a national pipeline grid for the transfer of petroleum products generally. I refer to the pipeline from an area in Central Australia to New South Wales which, under this new regime, is about to be discarded; in fact, it is about to be sold off, if this Government can get away with this action. A further recommendation of that Committee was that an Inter-State Commission be established. We can remember the cries of terror which came from the then Opposition in this chamber when the Labor Government endeavoured to re-established the InterState Commission.
The final remark which I make on this aspect is that Senator Hall obviously is terribly upset about the new system of federalism that has been instituted by the Federal Government. This policy means that the Federal Government will carry out the federal part and the States will pay all the bills. We can say, I suppose; ‘We told you so back in January-February 1976.’ The Labour Party said that this proposal would not work. The experience since then has proved that it will not work. The Federal Government will bankrupt the States before it has carried out much planning at all. Senator Hall talked about the dislocation of the economy which was brought about by the wages sector. I wonder why reference was not made to the increases in profits and prices that are a continuing saga in this country. Overall, it appears that Senator Hall is one of those who is totally disillusioned with the Party to which he belong and which is now in government. I can understand why he should give away politics and go back down on the farm; life will be much quieter.
I do not want to go back into history but I have two or three references to which I wish to draw attention. Not only Senator Hall but also other people on that side of the chamber have referred in recent days to the abolition of the monarchy. This debate was contributed to very greatly by the activities of the Liberal Party when in Opposition in the period 1 972 to 1 975. The activities of the Liberal Party have shortened by perhaps 40 years or 50 years the period before Australia ceases to be a monarchal nation. The Liberal Party did this by its contemptible attitude to the Senate in the period when it was in Opposition. The Liberal Party blocked the passage of” the Appropriation Bills and persuaded the GovernorGeneral to sack a properly elected government. This progress has been further advanced by the decision of this Government to give to Her Majesty to read in this chamber a document so full of half truths and political myths. I do not say that in any derogatory way because it happens to be a factual statement.
Let me quote from some paragraphs in that document as I believe they ought to be put in their correct perspective. Her Majesty said:
My Government is providing incentives and encouragement to the private sector -
That story is different from what the private sector has to say about the actions of this Government-
My Government is not only taking action to restore the economy; it is also making social reforms which are of fundamental importance to the freedom and well-being of the Australian people.
My Government is committed to assisting people overcome poverty and disadvantage, and is giving priority to assisting those most in need in a manner increasing their choice, dignity and self respect.
Let us dwell on those statements for a moment. I was at a Central Australian Aboriginal community recently where more than 150 breadwinners had been refused employment benefits as a result of the work test that had been applied. These statements are not true because evidence to the contrary can be found repeatedly in dozens and dozens of instances in all sections of the Australian community.
At the behest of the Government, Her Majesty went on to say:
My Government is improving the existing arrangements in education in pursuit of equality of opportunity for all Australian students.
My Government’s economic program is designed to overcome unemployment.
Unemployment has increased by a very large percentage in the short lifetime of this Government. Her Majesty continued:
However, at the same time, a number of special programs to assist the young unemployed and provide them with opportunities to acquire job skills has been initiated.
Less than half of one per cent of unemployed young people are being given the opportunity to acquire these additional skills, so what is in this Speech does not state the facts at all. In their context, the words look good. Her Majesty said further:
My Government is acting to secure individual rights. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is now operating, legislation to appoint a Commonwealth Ombudsman has been passed, the Human Rights Commission will be established and a BUI relating to freedom of information will be placed before the Parliament.
In the area of industrial relations, one of vital importance to the economic and social well-being of the Australian community, my Government will bring down legislation to protect the rights of individuals and the community, and establish an Industrial Relations Bureau.
That last paragraph smacks of the activities of a former Prime Minister of this country, the late Stanley Melbourne Bruce, who set out on a union bashing program and to eliminate the power of the union movement. If the present Prime Minister proposes to use that son of operation to remove the power of the unions the same thing will happen to the Fraser Government in 1 978 as happened to the Bruce Government in 1929. Her Majesty said also:
My Government is acting also to protect and expand political rights and strengthen the responsibility and responsiveness of governments to their citizens.
On that note, we can look with some alarm at the activities of the Court Government in Western Australia and the Bjelke-Petersen Government in Queensland. Perhaps we should have a sideways glance also at the present Federal Government with respect to some of its decisions to restrict some of our civil liberties.
A number of references that I have quoted from Her Majesty’s Speech which was provided by this Government to her to read in this chamber are to actions which are not being carried out. A number of natural disasters have occurred in Queensland in the last 3 months or 4 months. Not the least of those were 2 major cyclones. Less than a week ago major flooding occurred in the Tully, Cardwell, Ingham and Innisfail areas and extended as far north as Cairns and even onto the Tableland. No assistance has been granted by this Government to alleviate distress in that area. If it were not for the basic physical resources supplied by 2 arms of our Services- the Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Army- we would have received no assistance whatsoever.
The first cyclone which occurred towards the end of last year devastated Burketown, Mornington Island, Karumba and a number of other centres. I know that in Queensland we have a State Government that is remiss in making applications for grants. It is always late in getting in its applications. At the time of that cyclone, I wrote to the Prime Minister and endeavoured to prevail on him to supply the funds which were required to alleviate immediate distress. We received the usual answer that expenditure over $2m would be met by the Federal Government. This undertaking did not come to fruition. Reports from Mornington Island only a few days ago indicate that there are several hundred people living under canvas. They have suffered the effects of 2 more monsoonal troughs and another cyclone. They have received no assistance whatsoever. Some repairs have been made to official buildings, but the homes of the Bentinck islanders, in particular, have not been replaced. They lost approximately 60 or 70 of their very humble dwellings as a result of one cyclone and the tidal surge that followed.
In the Queen’s Speech we read that the economy is to be restored. Let me refer to two or three quotations to prove that this is not happening. I quote first of all from the statement made by the Treasurer (Mr Lynch) to the Sydney Chamber of Commerce on Friday, 1 1 March 1977, only a few days ago. He said:
Some have made the point that, because unemployment remains high, economic activity is not moving ahead at a satisfactory rate. That kind of assertion is quite fundamentally wrong.
In other words it means, so far as the Treasurer is concerned, and I assume he is speaking on behalf of all members of the Government, that unemployment, morally and in every other way, is of very little consequence as far as this Government is concerned. He went on to say:
Unemployment data are never among the leading indicators of economic recovery and the lift in demand and production that has taken place will take some time yet to be translated into a decline in unemployment. There has been recently too much comment of a political kind directed towards unemployment and too little analysis as to the true picture.
I again submit that over the last few months there has been fiddling with the unemployment list. In January this year I made a statement pointing out that in the field of Aboriginal affairs, a field in which I am particularly interested, many people have been refused unemployment benefit mostly because of the application of impossible work tests and that the figures probably were only marginally correct. So in that area the figures need to be updated considerably to come anywhere near being correct.
Then we hear talk about stable government. In the Sydney Bulletin on 12 March 1977, in that little section headed ‘All Their Own Work’ Mr Lynch, the Treasurer, was reported as having said:
It is totally contrary to the interests of good government if the national government is forced to face the people every 1 8 months.
Yet the man who just walked out of this chamber indicated that there were certain shortcomings in the Labor Government between 1972 and 1975 even though we were compelled, forced physically and electorally, to go to the people every 18 months. Now that the boot is on the other foot it is a different story. The Government says it wants time in order to be able to develop its policies. I venture to say that by 1978, or on whatever earlier date an election is held, this Government still will not have developed its policies.
It is very interesting indeed to note that most of the cuts in expenditure relate to the remoter areas of Australia. The cuts apply to areas so far from the concrete jungles of the metropolitan areas that it is hoped that nobody will ever see them. These are some of the cuts that the Northern Territory has had to sustain: The fourth generating set at Tennant Creek, estimated to cost $1,250,000, was deferred. The project has been reinstated now, but as a result of this great delay it is almost inevitable that power shortages will occur. The 1 1 Kv power line over the Todd River at Alice Springs, estimated to cost $200,000 has been deferred. One of the consequences of that deferral is that the present river crossing has to be repaired after every flood. Another project affected is the Darwin electrical supplies communication system which was estimated to cost $350,000. The present radio system is inadequate to allow proper and safe operations of the distribution system under all conditions. That is another major deferral. The stores and workshop at Stokes Hill power station was estimated to cost $1.5m. It is Darwin’s only power station and the stores building was destroyed by Cyclone Tracy. A new store and workshop are needed urgently in order to maintain the station properly but that too has been deferred. Permanent rehabilitation of the distribution system was to cost $9m in 1976-77. the vote has been reduced to $5.2malmost a 50 per cent cut-and there is only $ 1 .2m in ready cash. It will take over 20 years to restore the system at this rate of expenditure. The Snell Street to McMinns sub-station 66 Kv power line, estimated to cost $2.2m, has been deferred from 1976-77 to 1977-78. This has forced the electrical supply department to go through another storm season with a sub-standard 66 Kv line which was hastily rebuilt as a temporary measure after the cyclone. That is one of the very important things which is needed.
There have been financial cuts in the field of health. The cut back in the staff ceiling has been disastrous. At the time of the cyclone there were 948 people on the staff at the Darwin hospital. The population of the city is now back to near what it was prior to the cyclone but the staff totals only 822. There are 2 new wards at the hospital which cannot be opened because there is no staff to man them.
Referring to the field of education, Her Majesty said that her Government was going to increase its activity. In fact this has not happened in the Northern Territory. It has not happened in north Queensland and it has not happened in the north west of Western Australia. I know there have been other cut backs in metropolitan areas but these cuts are felt more severely by people living in isolated areas. In fact, in my home city of Townsville there are probably more demountable buildings in which kiddies have to suffer in order to obtain some sort of an education than in any other city in Australia. Let me cite two or three examples in the Northern Territory of programs that have been either cut or deferred. They certainly have been dropped from the 1976-77 proposals and we may not see them in the next financial year or even the year after that. The Haasts Bluff transportable school room has been dropped indefinitely. The Tennant Creek area school extension has been transferred to the 1978-79 program. The Alice Springs high school craft block has been shelved indefinitely. The Yirara College laundry facilities have been shelved indefinitely. In the Darwin area, the main effect has been the deferral of the Dripstone high school project for a year. Senator Robertson who represents that area, and I, because of my shadow ministry responsibility, have made numerous overtures here to the relevant Ministers in an effort to get something done about the Dripstone high school. I will not go into further details about that matter because Senator Robertson will be referring at length to those problems when he enters the debate.
Cut backs in the field of Aboriginal affairs largely affect people living in remote areas. We remember the famous statement by Mr Ellicott when he said: ‘On 13 December 1975 vote Liberal-Country Party because it will be better for you than Labor’. Since then there has been repudiation after repudiation of the promises made. That will be the subject of a debate in this chamber in the not too distant future.
I want to refer to two or three of the cuts. I do not have time to quote all the figures and will quote only those for last year and this year. In the field of housing the Labor Government allocated in the Hayden Budget the sum of $ 19.298m but the amount for 1976-77 is $7.2m. This shows the total amounts provided by direct grants and aid, most of which is provided to Aboriginal housing associations, etc. In the field of education there has been a minor increase but then we must look at the deferrals. In February, March and April last year cuts were made to the Hayden Budget by this Government. Other cuts were made at a later date by this Government, almost to the end of the financial year. One needs a book-keeper’s mind and about 3 sets of figures to be able to balance the budget. Cuts were made in the Hayden Budget, they were reinstated to some degree at a later date and then the votes were reduced again. The situation becomes very confusing indeed.
The sum of $ 10. 1 92m was set aside in 1 975-76 for Aboriginal enterprises and for the current financial year the vote was reduced to $2m. The vote for town management and public utilities, an area which provides employment for many people and communities, was reduced from $14.395m to $13.489m. Legal aid was kept to exactly the same amount. Under this Government there has been a continuous scaling down of the Australian Legal Aid Office and the Aboriginal Legal Aid Service. Both organisations now only faintly resemble what they were in the last year of the Labor Government. I sincerely hope that there will be no further scaling down in either field.
People living in remote areas have to put up with many difficulties. For instance, at Broome the cost of living is 40 per cent to 50 per cent higher than in the nearest metropolitan area. At Kununurra in the area of the Ord River scheme the cost of living is 47 per cent higher. The Western Australian Government- I can understand Senator Steele Hall’s criticism of it- sent back something like $7m to be replaced in kitty. This money was made available to that State for Aboriginal housing. The reason Western Australia sent the money back was that no builders were available to do the construction work. Yet we know from figures which I have here- I will not have time to state them all- that unemployment is increasing seriously. If we look at the East Kimberleys and the West Kimberleys we see that a total of 79 1 people are unemployed. It is true that 80 per cent to 90 per cent of these people are Aborigines but they can be gainfully employed. That still leaves a large number of European people without a job. I am sure that many of them would be skilled craftsmen. I turn now to the situation in Mount Isa which is in the north west of Queensland and which is one of the more prosperous mining towns. The North West Star of % March 1977, which is only a week ago, states:
There has been a 50 per cent rise in unemployment in the Mount Isa region since the end of last November. The region’s estimated 7.96 per cent of the work force unemployed compares badly with both the national figure- 5.8 per cent . . .-and the State figure of 6.4 per cent at the end of January.
This unemployment has occurred under a government which indicated earlier, both in its campaign and in the first half of last financial year, that it would restore the economy, reduce unemployment and bring harmony to this great Australian nation. But for the 8 months to the end of February the Federal Government’s deficit was running at a massive $5,532m. This is a massive increase over the deficit for a similar period in the year before. The problems in the north west are set out in a letter which I have here. Mr Deputy President, I assure you that this letter was written by Mr Fraser Cuming of Broome in Western Australia. It was written to the Australian Financial Review and it sets out some statistical details of the problems being encountered by the Commonwealth Employment Service. I would like to read it into Hansard but I seek the permission of the Senate to have it incorporated.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Davidson)- I take it that the document is capable of being incorporated in Hansard?
– Yes.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT-Is leave granted? There being no objection, leave is granted.
The letter read as follows-
KIMBERLEY FAMILIES ‘SAVAGELY DEPRIVED’
Sir, The combined efforts of the Department for Employment and Industrial Relations and the Department of Social Security to allegedly beat the ‘dole bludger’ are savagely depriving some of the community’s most defenceless families of their right to social security.
Among the most vulnerable are many Kimberley families who have a high ratio of illiterate persons among their wage earners.
Since the closure of its Derby office early in 1976, the closest Department for Employment office is at Port Hedland, 550 km outside the Kimberleys.
The DSS has an office at Broome on the southern fringe. There is no way to offset the disadvantage of illiteracy under these circumstances.
The first assault on families dependent on unemployment benefits occurred when DSS officers were required to visit each of the Kimberley towns and have each applicant report at a given point.
Failure to report to the officer meant he had no option but to immediately suspend U/B payments.
Initially, recipients were not advised individually. Often very little notice was given as to the day the officer was to be available.
The severity of these visits had been tempered by greater effort on the part of DSS officers to ensure that recipients have been advised individually and given adequate notice.
A second prong of the attack has been the implementation of penalties (the suspension of U/B payments for six weeks or more ) if an employer claims the applicant left without adequate reason.
No questions are asked of the penalised person- whether the employer provoked the departure, whether it was for family reasons or any other legitimate basis.
This, in effect, gives pastoralists a dominating, almost baron/serf, hold over employees, remembering that it may be 100 km or more to the next station and 300 to 400 km to the next town.
To add to the effectiveness of this tactic is the lack of anyone to appeal to (no union officials, no ombudsman) and, due to the lack of literate skills, the inability to take any action, even if the reason for the penalty was fully understood.
The latest foray into positive action to reduce the number of registered unemployed and the consequent U/B payments, has been devised by the DE and IR.
Most recipients received an innocuous sounding letter circulated by the manager of the Commonwealth Employment Service, Port Hedland:
Since you sought assistance in obtaining employment, I have been trying to find a suitable position for you.
If you want me to continue my efforts, I should like you to let me know by calling at this office, or telephone at a convenient time. Alternatively, you might write your reply at the bottom of this letter and return it to me in the enclosed envelope. No stamp is required ‘.
This note was dated 27 October 1976 and received by many Kimberley people early in November. Some failed to respond.
Being the Kimberley, it was known that no CES officer had been north of the 26th parallel since January 1 976; that all cattle stations were in the process of closing for the season; that no other work could possibly be found before March 1977.
In the first week in December those who failed to respond to the hypocritical trickery of the CES letter received the following notice from the DSS:
Recently the Commonwealth Employment Service wrote to you asking if you still needed their help to find a job.
As you did not reply, they are taking no further action to assist you, and you are no longer actively registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service. However, one of the requirements for payment of Unemployment Benefit is that you must be registered with the Commonwealth Employment Service. Accordingly your payments have now stopped.
Should you be still unemployed and looking for work, you may apply for Unemployment Benefit and test your eligibility.’
Such choice timing no doubt helped to reduce further the true U/B registration figures for December at the expense of the most vulnerable, helpless and needy people in the Commonwealth.
The Fraser Government is to be congratulated on another well-conceived device to reduce public spending and the number of registered unemployed.
FRASER CUMING, Broome, W.A.
-We talk about the freedom of the individual. This matter was also referred to in Her Majesty’s Speech. I have here a telegram which was sent to the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) a few days ago- to be precise, on 4 March. It states:
The Legislative Assembly is deciding what to do with Aboriginal land. We have seen their Bill. They would let white man confuse our people again with words and papers that they can make work and never for us. They intend to find poor Aboriginals to stand like puppets while they speak the words and never for us. Why do we have to be the ones who have to ask all the time. Why does our word have to be questioned all the time. They will ask us to do things we know nothing of and when we fail and are ashamed we will let them have what they want. They know that. If you help us now we will go forward. If you leave us now we are finished.
That is a plaintive plea from a group of Aboriginal people associated with the Northern Land Council. They are absolutely devastated at the projected complementary legislation which was brought down in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly a few days ago. The Legislative Assembly, as we warned in this chamber when the land rights legislation was being discussed, repudiated the promise it made to the Australian Government and to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Mr Viner). I dread to think what will happen. I personally requested the Prime Minister to bring all those sensitive areas back to the Australian Government for appropriate legislation.
The final point I wish to make in the limited time which is available concerns the terrible thing which happened in Queensland over the last few weeks. The Queensland Government has refused this Government the right to purchase leasehold land in Queensland on behalf of Aboriginal people. In fact, the Queensland Government is putting spies around the various Titles Offices to make sure that no white person goes in to buy land on behalf of Aboriginals as the Queensland Government fears a black takeover of the northern part of northern Australia. How utterly ridiculous, how rascist and how stupid can some people be. Nevertheless, I suppose the Premier is showing his spleen against the Liberal Party. In the last day or so he has decided to eliminate the Liberal Party, too. Of course, the Liberal Party is the minor coalition partner in the State Government. If the Liberal Party is not prepared to do something about freedom in this country then I feel very sorry for the future and for the people of this country. I feel that the document given to Her Majesty to read to this chamber was a hoax. It was intended to fool the people in relation to the real state of political affairs in Australia. I venture to say that there are some very discerning people in this country who will not be fooled by the promises and lack of promises. Perhaps sooner than we think there will be a change of government.
– These last 2 weeks in the Senate have been weeks of a very challenging nature. I say challenging nature’ because Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Australia, in her twenty-fifth year, her jubilee year, saw fit to come here last Tuesday week and open Parliament. I say challenging because she is an example of a very courageous woman who is conscientious and dedicated. She is dedicated as a Monarch and as a family person. I congratulate Senator Austin Lewis on his maiden speech in the Senate. I believe it was a very fine address. I support it completely inasmuch as he, like many of us, sees the plight and problems of people who live in the country and in the outback.
I am happy to see that Senator Austin Lewis has joined us in the Senate because the indication is that in future he will, as I have said before, join us in taking up the part of the people in the outback. For too long the people in the outback have been ignored, as I have indicated on many other occasions. Senator Tehan gave us a very sensible approach to the problems of the family today. I think both sides of the Senate have acclaimed him for the address which he gave indicating the problems which exist as a result of the breakdown of marriage. He indicated that the number of divorces is increasing at an alarming rate. He indicated that this is eroding our future youth. Like him I believe that Australia is coming to a crisis. It is coming to a crisis for many reasons. We are at a period of practically zero growth. We are a big country with a limited population. We are a virile nation with many things to do which can make for progress in the future. Yet we are coming to a period of zero growth. For the benefit, defence and future of Australia we should be increasing quite rapidly as Australia can support a much larger population. Hand in hand with this problem, this crisis which is coming forward, this breakdown in the family which Senator Tehan has outlined, is a new cult which is developing in Australia. This new cult is attacking Australia from within. The attack is not from enemies which are fighting on our northern shores at the moment; the enemy to which I refer is what I call the soft Australian. The soft Australian is that person who is eroding our future youth. This erosion is taking place in many ways. It has been outlined in the media particularly in the last few weeks, but really over some years, and has come to a head because of the lectures on drugs and pornography given in the last 2 weeks by an American doctor. She has clearly indicated that the attack is now on future Australian youth. However, not only do we have the soft Australian attacking our youth through alcohol but also the rate of abortions in Australia today- it is a very hard rate to measure; I have not been able to measure it in the last 2 weeks and figures are very difficult to get- as it appears from Press reports is costing Australia hundreds of thousands of its future youth. It has got out of hand and this is clear when we consider that at a time when we require population, when we require youth, we are heading for zero growth.
Through this attack by the soft Australian the character of our country is in danger. No longer do we hear the catch cry ‘Fair go’ which we have known over the years. The catch cry we hear too often now is ‘Damn you, Jack, I’m all right’. We see this attitude developing to quite a degree throughout the community. There are strikes by small groups of people- strikes which put our way of life in jeopardy and bring hardship to families and hardship to urban and rural people alike. However, these small groups do not care because they believe that they are all right. They have no thought for their fellow men.
– That is quite unfair, senator, and you know it.
– It is quite fair and the honourable senator knows full well that I am referring to a sector of the community and am not speaking of the community as a whole. I am talking about the soft Australian who is endeavouring to erode our future.
– Speak for yourself.
– The honourable senator says ‘Speak for yourself. I am speaking for very many people. Australia is a fine country, a rich country, but a country is always in trouble when the rich think that they are poor. That is not a saying of mine but a very wise saying of a person in the Australian community and I suggest that we dwell on it. I was particularly taken by the speech of Senator Lajovic. He has come from what I would call the despair of Europe. He has come as a migrant to Australia and now he is one of the leaders of the migrant communityour friends who have come to Australia. I believe that his presence in the Senate will enrich the Senate and Australia.
Tonight I want to speak once again on matters relating to the Northern Territory. I do so not in a parochial way but because senators representing the Territories, as I do, are under challenge and perhaps it will not be too long before the High Court upholds the challenge and there will no longer be, for a while anyway, representation of the Territories in the Senate. The people in the Territories warrant and deserve representation and I call upon the Government, not simply because I am a senator representing the Northern Territory, to once and for all put an end to this challenge and take proper action to ensure that the future of Senate representation for the Territories is beyond challenge.
Senator Georges- Why don’t you speak to Bjelke-Petersen, one of your own Party? It is within his power to withdraw the challenge.
– I am looking to the Federal Government to take proper action. In speeches made in the last week or two since Her Majesty the Queen was here in the Parliament, honourable senators have outlined things that have happened in various countries over the years and the advances that have been made, but there has been no mention of the advances, which have been somewhat slow, that have been made in the Northern Territory. Some 2 weeks ago a delegation from this Federal Parliament led by Mr Speaker Snedden, the President of the Senate, Senator Laucke, the Minister for the Northern Territory, Mr Evan Adermann, and many other people attended the opening of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly to mark an important milestone for the Northern Territory on 1 January this year when there was the initial transfer of powers from the Federal Government to the Northern Territory. It was the beginning of the transfer of federal powers of a State-like nature to the people of the Northern Territory.
The Northern Territory is a developing Territory and ultimately will become a State. There will be a gradual transfer of powers and as the Territory accepts new challenges and responsibilities it will go up the ladder to its ultimate goal of statehood. At this time some 30-odd responsibilities have been transferred but there is something like a further 100 responsibilities which have to be transferred from the Federal Government to the Northern Territory before the Territory achieves statehood. During this time we will see the development of the Northern Territory Public Service and the cutting down of the Australian Public Service component dealing with the Territory. There will be the secondment and transfer of people from the Australian Public Service to the Northern Territory. Already there is a Cabinet of 5 members in the Northern Territory responsible for these state-like responsibilities. As time goes by we will see more powers transferred until the ultimate of statehood is achieved.
While I applaud what has happened in the last year and this important milestone, the progress of the Northern Territory has been extremely slow. I refer briefly to the constitutional development of the Northern Territory as it is set out in a report of this Parliament’s former Joint Committee on the Northern Territory. The history of the Territory is that in 1 863 the Colonial Office of Great Britain gave control of the Northern Territory to the Government of the colony of South Australia. Prior to that in 1824, it may surprise some people to know, the Territory was taken possession of for Great Britain as part of New South Wales. In 1888 the South Australian Northern Territory Representation Act was passed allowing 2 members from the Northern
Territory to go into the South Australian Legislative Council; that is, its Upper House. In 1890 the South Australian Government extended to the white residents of the Territory full adult suffrage. In 1901 Federation gave Northern Territory citizens representation in both Houses of the Federal Parliament. In 1907 South Australia passed the Northern Territory Surrender Act. In 1910 the Australian Parliament passed the Northern Territory Acceptance Act. It is of interest to note that at this particular period, in 1 90 1 , when the Northern Territory as a Territory was annexed to South Australia it was represented in the Senate. It was also represented in the House of Representatives by the honourable member for Grey, the Northern Territory being divided into 3 subdivisions of Palmerston, Pine Creek and Alice Springs. It is also interesting to note that in this time the people of the Northern Territory had the right to vote in referendums but this was taken away in 1910 by the Northern Territory Acceptance Act. Then came the Northern Territory Administration Act which took away from the Territory completely all parliamentary franchise. Without representation, the Northern Territory went through an extremely dull period and was ruled by an administrator and bureaucrats under the Federal Administration.
Recently, when the 4 referendum Bills were being debated, as honourable senators will remember, some of us did not have the opportunity of speaking on some of those Bills. One in which I was naturally very interested was that which related to the referendum to allow the people of the Territories to vote in a referendum. I refer to the Constitution Alteration (Referendums) Bill 1977. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a statement relating to this matter. The statement is one of my own.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Davidson)- I take it that the statement is capable of being reproduced in Hansard?
– Yes.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT-Is leave granted for the incorporation of this material in Hansard?
– Was this distributed today or recently?
– Yes.
– I have no objection.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTThere being no objection, leave is granted.
If the rest of Australia gives the people of the Northern Territory the right to vote in referendums, 66 years of discrimination will come to an end.
The people of the top end will, at last, have the same basic democratic rights restored to them that they lost in 1 9 1 1 .
It is, perhaps, not often known that the people of the Northern Territory once upon a time did have the right to vote in referendums. Between 1901 and 191 1 the Northern Territory residents voted as part of the South Australian division of Grey. It was not until 1911 -when the Northern Territory was formally transferred from South Australia to the Commonwealth- that the Territorians ‘ franchise was revoked.
It took 12 years for the first steps to overcome this removal of normal democratic rights to be made. In 1923 the Territory was given limited representation in the House of Representatives. It took until 1968 for that member to be given full voting rights. It took until 1975 for the Territory to have representation in the Senate. But it is something of an irony that we can still not vote in referendums.
I hope that the rest of Australia will give us the same rights as every other adult Australian has by letting us vote in referendums after May 2 1.
Apart from the fact that a ‘yes’ vote will do nothing more than restore the rights Territorians once had, there are a number of other reasons why you should vote yes on May 2 1 .
It is patently unfair that residents of the Territories should be given second class citizen status. The residents of the Territories pay taxes. They are as subject to the laws of the Commonwealth as any other Australian. And the growing mineral discoveries in the Territory will make its contribution to Australia’s overall economic wellbeing all the more important in years to come.
At the moment, the people of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory suffer a great disadvantage compared with other Australians.
Denial of the right to vote in referendums is a far greater denial of basic human rights than might first appear.
It is, after all, surely only fair that people made subject to certain laws should have some say in the framing of those laws.
But as things have stood since 191 1, the rest of the people of Australia have been able to dictate laws to the people of the Northern Territory without the people of the Territory being given a chance to express their own wishes.
The only argument put against extending the full adult franchise to voters in the Territories is a suggestion that State rights might somehow be affected.
But that is just unreal. The fact is that State powers are not going to be interferred with in any way at all.
The constitutional requirement that majorities of voters in four States must agree to any proposed constitutional change will not be affected by a ‘yes ‘ vote onMay21.TheStateswill still have the protection the Constitution guarantees them.
The only change to the present law will be that the votes of Territorians will be counted in the overall total. That seems to me to be fair, to be just, and to be democratic. In those circumstances anyone who believes in a fair go for all Australians can do nothing else but vote ‘yes ‘.
– At this stage of the development of the Northern Territory I would call on the States and the Commonwealth Government to recognise the Territory for what it is- an emerging State. I would say here and now that the policies of State and Federal
Governments must recognise this fact. For too long in the past- we see the same thing happening even today- policies have been made in regard to the Northern Territory in this place and in other places without due regard to the fact that the Territory is emerging into a State. I think that proper recognition should be given to this. I suggest also that Federal members of Parliament, members of Parliament in the States and the people of Australia give some sympathy to the people of the Northern Territory. When I say sympathy’ I refer particularly to legislation that is passed which relates specifically to the Northern Territory. Of course, we have seen one piece of such legislation passed recently. I refer to the Aboriginal land rights legislation. This legislation will have and is having a tremendous effect in the Northern Territory. If it is not handled correctly, it will be divisive. If it is not handled properly and with some sympathy we will never achieve what we in the Territory wish to see achieved. That is co-existence- the ability of the various people of the Northern Territory to live alongside each other.
In this last week we have heard attacks being made on the Majority Leader of the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly. It has been stated that proper consultation has not taken place. Many remarks have been made which have eroded his character. I suggest that the Majority Leader in the Northern Territory Legislative Assembly is a most honourable person, a person in a most difficult position and a person who is endeavouring to bring legislation into the Northern Territory along the lines that have been set down by this complementary Territory legislation. As I have said, he has a most difficult job to perform. But it is a job that he is quite capable of performing in the interests of all people of the Northern Territory. I refute what has been said in many places- in the media, in the Senate and in another place. Derogatory statements have been made to the effect that he has gone behind the back of the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and other people. But I suggest to honourable senators and particularly to the members of the Select Committee on the Northern Territory which oversees the legislation that if one peruses the minutes of the meeting that took place in Darwin just recently, one will find that what he said has been open-minded and most fair. He has not gone behind the back of anyone.
At times like this I find that I must return to a subject I have always discussed as much as possible and brought before the Senate. I refer once again to the defence of Australia. I think it is most timely now to bring up this point once again because the White Paper on defence was debated some little time ago. This Paper has placed great importance on mobility for the future defence of Australia. I must remind honourable senators who have forgotten or who do not know about the vast sparsely populated areas of the north and our open coastline that there are thousands of kilometres of coastline that remain completely unprotected. It is with regret that I look back and see the way in which the States and the Federal Government have spent money in the past on national roads in the thickly populated areas of Australia where we see the super-roads and super-highways. I suggest that if Australians wish their country to be defended in the future, this pattern must change. I give Australia some 20 years before it will be in defence trouble. I suggest that the Government take another look at the whole situation and spend some of the money that is being spent in the south now to the benefit, I grant you, of the many millions of people who live on the coastline on national highways in the north of Australia.
There can be no such things as mobility in defence unless we have national highways throughout the top of Australia. Some work has been done. Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia are now linked with a sealed national highway. In fact, the bitumen road now extends up the west coast of Western Australia for quite a distance. But in the top end there is much work to be done between the Northern Territory and the Kimberleys. Work has to be carried out there on many hundreds of kilometres of road. At the moment it is estimated that some ofthe work will be completed perhaps in 2 years. There are other roads in that area that are now just gravel tracks which will take much longer to seal. I refer particularly to the Stuart Highway between the Northern Territory border and Port Augusta in South Australia. This road should have a very high priority in the national roads program. If we are to have mobility I suggest that this area should be given the highest priority and that in the future money should be spent not on super highways around the cities but in the north.
– You have said nothing about railways. Would you like to comment?
– The honourable senator has referred to railways. Of course it is most unfortunate that at present we have a narrow gauge line between Port Augusta and Alice Springs. The line will always be in poor condition because it has very little foundation and is located in low country. At present a standard gauge railway line is being built from Tarcoola to Alice Springs. Despite rumors this railway line will continue to be built and will be completed in about 5 years. I say to the honourable senator that while I see the value of this railroad to the Centre I also suggest that our national highway system must be improved. The building of this national highway in South Australia would also enhance the economy of that State. At present South Australia is missing out very badly on the Northern Territory market which it has held for many years.
Before closing I should like to speak briefly about Darwin Harbour. Many reports have come out over the years regarding this area. Once again I refer to historical notes. The document entitled Provision of General Cargo Facilities at the Port of Darwin indicates that the first wharf was constructed in 1 869. In 1 894 a proposal for a land-backed wharf across Stokes Bay was rejected. Ever since then there has been a paper chase of reports on the development of the Darwin Harbour which is most vital to the development of the north and for the defence of the north. Nothing has been done for some 70-odd years. Darwin still has not the proper harbour facilities and the wharfage that are required for the development and the defence of the north.
I am most pleased to support the motion. It was a great pleasure to see Her Majesty the Queen perform the opening ceremony in the Senate. As I have said before, she is a most dedicated and a most courageous woman. Many people in Australia would join with me in indicating their distaste for some of the antics and some of the demonstrations that have taken place while she has been in Australia. She is the Queen of Australia. I believe it ill befits people to take it out on a woman. I have great pleasure in supporting the motion.
– The Opposition does not oppose the motion for the adoption of the Address-in-Reply to the Speech of Her Majesty the Queen. I congratulate Senator Lewis on his maiden speech. It was brief and to the point which he wished to make. I would like to deal with the remarks that have been made by other honourable senators in this debate. This afternoon Senator Baume made a very thoughtful contribution when he spoke of the tragic early death of a number of politicians and the reason for their deaths. In making this contribution the honourable senator spoke of Anthony Crosland. Only this afternoon I got from the Parliamentary Library a paper entitled Britain, Europe and the World by Anthony
Crosland, former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the British Labour Government.
I think that Anthony Crosland was one of the foremost thinkers and writers in the world on social democracy. I certainly agree with Senator Baume that Anthony Crosland ‘s work in the British Government, his work in the European Economic Community and his intense work and interest in the Socialist International movement helped to bring about his tragic early death. I suggest to Senator Lajovic, who spoke after Senator Baume, that Anthony Crosland perhaps was one socialist whose contributions he should read. Perhaps he would not find all socialists to be bad. Senator Lajovic spoke of the Jackson report and the fact that much work was being done by multi-lingual industrial officers. He said that a lot of work in this field was not being done by the trade union movement. I have to agree with him to a certain extent but I know that in my State of New South Wales the Vehicle Builders Employees Federation of Australia, the Storemen and Packers Union of Australia and the Health and Research Employees Association of Australia- 3 unions that come to mind very quickly- are doing a lot about migrant education in the trade union movement.
Senator Lajovic ought to take note of the fact that migrants have difficulties at all levels throughout Australia and not only in trade union elections. I am sure he is aware of that. He cited tonight the percentage of migrants who are elected in union elections. I would be surprised if that figure were any lower than the percentage of migrants who are elected to public life right throughout Australia. I am not saying that that is a good thing at all. The 2 sets of statistics are very close to one another. Senator Kilgariff, the last speaker, spoke on the defence White Paper. I think that the defence White Paper put down by the Government was a realistic assessment of the present position. I intend to say something on that later.
I had the pleasure of listening to Her Majesty’s Speech. It was, in my view, more significant for its omissions than for what it contained. It can certainly be said that this Government is at greater pains at the moment to cover up its failures and to avoid confronting the unpleasant realities that have resulted from its policies than it has been at any time since it came to power. This applies equally to the domestic scene and to Australian foreign relations. Tonight I intend to focus on some of these issues. First, I wish to deal briefly with the economy. In December 1975 the now Government was elected to office on the promise that it would right the economic mess that was created by the Labor Administration. The Australian people were promised that economic prosperity could be had merely by voting for the Liberal and the National Country Parties. The line ‘switch on the lights’ was repeated so often that it virtually became the catch phrase of the election. People believed it. There is no doubt about that. I talked to quite a number of people in the community who said that the economic problems which the country was in would be solved as soon as the Liberal and National Country Parties were returned to power.
How disillusioned those Australians who supported the current Government Parties must now be. By any criteria the economy is now in a far worse shape than at any time during Labor’s administration. I should point out that the economic difficulties that were suffered by the Labor Government from 1972 to 1975 were largely the result of trends in the international market place and in the world economy generally. This is certainly very true with respect to increases in the cost of living and in the number of unemployed which developed in the period from 1972 to 1975. However, the Liberal and National Country Parties at the time assured the Australian electorate that the Labor Administration was directly responsible for all of our economic woes. Therefore, they said, they would take over the reins of government and put right the mess that we had supposedly created. But let us consider the situation now. Unemployment is at a record post-war high. In regard to the February figures, it was confidently expected that if this economy were to be righted the number of jobless would drop by some 40 000, but in fact the number dropped by approximately 9000. In my State of New South Wales the number dropped by about 612, which made the New South Wales figures for February the worst for 40 years. In some of the more depressed areas in our major cities and in certain country areas unemployment has gone beyond tragedy and has reached crisis point. It is a national scandal.
The national level of 5.7 per cent hides the terrible pockets of unemployment which exist in certain country areas in New South Wales. Last weekend, as part of my duties as a senator, I was in the electorates of Cowper and Lyne in northern New South Wales. It was pointed out to me that in Kempsey and the surrounding areas in the Kempsey valley the largest single income coming into that valley is the unemployment cheque that arrives from the Government every fortnight. Unemployment in centres such as Newcastle, in the outer western suburbs of Sydney or in the rural provincial centres of New
South Wales is far higher than 5.7 per cent. In New South Wales the State average is 6.7 per cent, but that does not tell the full tale. It does not tell the tale of the tens of thousands of young people who are unable to find work. It does not tell the tale of the tens of thousands of skilled and semi-skilled workers whose job prospects, according to the admissions of the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street), are very poor indeed. Of course, we cannot always go by statistics. How many people left school at the end of last year to look for jobs and when they could not find jobs returned to school? I have spoken to many people who fall into that category. They did not register for employment and they did not show in any statistics but they will probably show at the end of next year when they again try to get a job. The figures do not tell either of the hardships suffered by the families of those who are out of work.
Undoubtedly, a large part of this unemployment is the result of the Government’s economic policies. It is a result of the Government’s failure to convince businessmen of the need to invest. It is a result of the Government’s failure to stimulate consumer spending and, worst of all, of the Government’s obession with reducing public expenditure. The reduction of public expenditure reduces employment prospects, and that is graphically demonstrated in New South Wales by the critical situation that has arisen in the construction industry and in the building industry. It is also graphically demonstrated by the closure of the Newcastle shipyards. One can think of other examples of the way in which the present Government has destroyed business and consumer confidence and put the employment prospects of literally hundreds of thousands of Australians at risk. Only recently the spokesmen for business and commerce in Australia openly admitted that confidence in the economy and in the future ofthe Australian economy is at a very low ebb. Part of the Government’s obsession with reducing public expenditure is said to be a result of its desire to reduce the deficit. But if one looks at the facts, the Federal Government deficit at the end of February this year was approaching $5600m, and that is fully $ 1000m over the deficit which existed when the Labor Government was in power. So much for the Government’s success in reducing the deficit.
Again, the Government insists that the rate of inflation can and should be brought down, and no one would disagree with that. Certainly we would not disagree with that. However, if one considers the Government’s record in this area with inflation continuing to run at approximately 1 5 per cent to 1 6 per cent and the latest consumer price index figures showing an increase of the order of 6 per cent, one might be forgiven for asking how much success the Government has had in reducing inflation. I believe that Government decisions such as the fiasco over the devaluation and revaluations of the Australian currency have contributed directly to the staggering increase in the cost of living in Australia over the past 15 months. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported late in 1976 that the devaluation decision had done drastic harm to Australia’s prospects for future economic recovery.
I wish to turn now to the area of industrial relations. I think it is true to say that Government policy in industrial relations consists mainly of attacking the Australian trade union movement. That is evident in the Government’s attempts to blame all of Australia’s economic problems on the trade union movement. It is evident in the Government’s approach to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, arguing that trade unionists should not be compensated for increases in the cost of living. Of course, much of the cost of living increase has resulted from deliberate Government economic policy. It is evident in the coming introduction of the Industrial Relations Bureau, a body which will serve only to worsen the industrial relations climate in this country. If honourable senators talk to members of the trade union movement in this countrythey do not have to talk to the extremist unions; they can talk to what people consider to be moderate unions- they will find out that a confrontation is coming as a result of the introduction of this Bureau. The trade union movement sees it as a strong arm of the Government, and is not prepared to tolerate it. Instead of the co-operation between the Government, employers and employees that was promised by this Government in November and December 1975, at present the Australian industrial relations scene is characterised by mud-slinging and confrontation. Admittedly this is not one-sided; it is two-sided. But I believe that much of it is the result of the abuse that has been hurled at the trade union movement, particularly by Ministers such as Mr Nixon, the Minister for Transport. Because of the things I have pointed out tonight, I think that the Government’s record in industrial relations is almost as bad as its record on the economy. It shows a string of broken promises, and the worst one is its failure to honour its commitment to wage indexation.
I wish to deal briefly with education because I believe that education has gone backwards under this Government. We should look at the fiasco that has occurred in relation to the tertiary education allowances paid to students when the Government was forced to increase the allowances after massive public pressure. Education spending has not kept pace with the rate of inflation in Australia over the past 12 to 15 months, and I think that applies particularly to technical education expenditure. It has increased by only 7.5 per cent over the last 12 months while the rate of inflation, as I have mentioned previously, has been 15 per cent to 16 per cent. Thanks to devaluation, it is likely to go even higher. We have the scandalous situation where institutions like the Sydney Technical College, which is dilapidated, poorly equipped and out of date, are continuing to be used in the last quarter of the 20th century. As I said earlier, the Government’s attitude to education is a complete reversal of the priority that was accorded to it by the previous Labor Government.
In the area of social security, we had the scandal over not paying unemployment benefit to school leavers for 6 weeks, and the harsh Government action in not paying unemployment benefit for 6 weeks to those who voluntarily left their jobs. We have had the savage dole bludger campaign waged by this Government. I noticed tonight Senator Durack referred to that when replying to Senator Button. I have talked recently to young people who have left school. Only last week I spoke to a young person who said that he had chosen his occupation when he was 15 years of age but when he had done his Higher School Certificate that occupation was not open to him. He went back to school for another year and got a better pass but the occupation still was not open to him and at the moment he is unemployed. But he said: ‘Do not call me a dole bludger. I have trained since I was 1 5 years of age for a particular job and I am not going to take a menial job. ‘ Yet tonight Senator Durack said that such people should become accustomed to those menial jobs.
We have seen the ending of the Austraiian Assistance Plan and the attempt to hive off all responsibility on to the shoulders of State governments, none of which is able to meet the cost of this essential welfare service. In my own State of New South Wales, if we want to keep the Australian Assistance Plan going we face a huge cost. A lot of the people involved in the scheme have suggested that the Federal Government should be prepared to continue to finance the scheme for at least a limited period. They have said that the Federal Government should have been prepared to say: ‘We will pay for the Australian Assistance Plan for another twelve or eighteen months so that the State governments can gradually work out their finances to see whether they can assist in this scheme’. Of course, this has not happened. Also, under this Government, in the past twelve to fifteen months Aborigines have suffered, as have other disadvantaged minorities in the Australian community. We only have to look at the last Budget to see that illustrated, when $33m was cut from expenditure proposed for Aboriginal welfare services, housing and the like. This represents a return to the pre- 1972 ideas so far as the Aborigines and their needs are concerned.
In the area of health, Medibank has been destroyed under the Fraser Administration. I believe there will be a campaign on Medibank in the future and that it is going to be said that Medibank as it is now is inefficient, that costs are rising and that therefore something will have to be done about it. I was talking to some officers of Medibank the other day and they pointed out to me the staggering problems they now have because of the reintroduction of the private health schemes. I do not have time tonight to deal with all those problems. I just want to mention one. Under the previous Medibank scheme every person in Australia was given a card and a number. The majority of people kept this. There are now some people, especially migrants or people who are working in factories where a decision was taken that everybody should switch to another scheme, who still have their Medibank cards. Whenever they are injured or go to the doctor and the doctor asks them what scheme they belong to they do not know, but they have their Medibank card and they quote their Medibank number. The Medibank officials are still trying to check whether someone who makes a claim is a member. Therefore, we are paying out a fortune, not because of inefficiency but because the Government changed the scheme. I believe also that health services generally are being allowed to deteriorate, as they were between 1949 and 1972.
I want to deal briefly with the matter that Senator Steele Hall raised tonight, that is, the Government’s federalism policy. The Australian community has witnessed the deterioration of Federal and State relations to a new low point. Indeed, the Fraser-Carrick federalism policy, much heralded by the Government parties, was a contributing factor to the defeat ofthe LiberalCountry Party Government in the State elections in New South Wales. Of course, what has happened is that costs have been shifted to the State governments and away from the Federal Government. This is hurting the Australian people and it is hurting all the State governments throughout Australia. In fact, the outstanding critics of this Government’s federalism policy today are the Premier of Queensland, Mr BjelkePetersen, and the Liberal Premier of Western Australia, Sir Charles Court. In long and involved letters both these Premiers, in concert with their fellows in the other 4 States, have roundly condemned Fraser federalism. They say that this policy is totally unsatisfactory to meet the needs of the Australian people in the last quarter of the 20th century.
The latest fiasco in the federalism saga is in the Federal and State area of housing. The proposal by the Minister for Environment, Housing and Community Development (Mr Newman) to increase the rate of interest applicable for public housing is one which is deserving of the strongest condemnation because it will force all State Housing Ministers to increase the rents on public housing for low income earners. This means that these people will have to face the additional interest burden that has been imposed by this Government in Canberra. I think this is typical of the Fraser Government’s attitude towards the poor, that is, that no future help is to be extended. Another example of this, as I mentioned previously, was the axing of the Australian Assistance Plan.
I want to turn away from domestic issues now and go on to some areas in the international arena- to matters relating to foreign affairsbecause on this issue this Government to date has a dismal track record. The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) has attempted to paint Australia into a corner so far as Sino-Soviet relations are concerned. He has been rebuffed by his parliamentary colleagues on the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. I think if any honourable senators were to read a copy of that Committee’s report on Australia’s involvement in the Indian Ocean they would see the criticism under which Mr Malcolm Fraser has come from all parties represented in this Senate. He has been criticised in the media and by the general public. The great Indian Ocean threat has turned out to be mythical. President Carter’s initiative to completely demilitarise the Indian Ocean is now supported by Mr Callaghan, the British Prime Minister. This flies directly in the face of the Fraser policy on the Indian Ocean, which is favourably disposed towards an increased American presence. When
I read President Carter’s statement on this issue it made me wonder about the effect of conservative government policies on foreign relations and to observe how those policies have been drastically altered in Australia by the actions of foreign powers. We ought to cast our minds back to the issues relating to Suez, China, Vietnam and now the Indian Ocean to see how Australian foreign policy can be changed overnight by the policies of a foreign government. I do not think this Government has taken any new initiatives whatsoever in foreign affairs. It has largely ignored relationships with the Third World, which I think are terribly important and were considered to be so under the previous Labor Administration.
In the recent White Paper on defence, to which Senator Kilgariff referred tonight, what in fact this Government did and what Mr Malcolm Fraser did was to ask for a realistic reassessment of Australia’s defence needs. This reassessment was going to be used for defence planning for the next 5 years and for the development of a rolling program for defence equipment to be based on this 5 year program. What did we see when the Senate looked at this White Paper on defence? We saw a White Paper very similar to the White Papers that were brought in by Lance Barnard and Bill Morrison when they were Labor Ministers for Defence in a Labor government. In the White Paper presented by the Fraser Government the forward defence concept was out; the stationing of Australian troops overseas was out; and, in fact, the realistic assessment that was put down was that Australia faced no direct threat at this time. In actual fact, most of the initiatives, especially those in relation to important issues such as the Sino-Soviet dispute that I mentioned or the presence of super powers in the Indian Ocean, have been shown to be tailored to lead to greater instability, less co-operation and a heightened threat of conflict in our area.
In contradiction of what spokesmen for the Government have said, the Government’s program is not one which is designed to increase the freedom, opportunity and equality of the Australian people. Nor is it one which will give people an opportunity to make their own choices and to live their own lives. How can one possibly be afforded the opportunity to make decisions or individual choices or be said to be equal with his fellows if he is unemployed, especially if he is young and unemployed, or if he is a new Australian and unemployed? These people are among the growing dispossessed, neglected minority in this country. I do not think it can be said either that this Government seeks to avoid unwarranted intrusion or to protect the individual liberties of people, especially when one looks at the harassment of people receiving social security benefits at the behest of Government policy, or at the looming industrial relations bureau which, as I said before, is going to be used to act as a strong arm of government in dealing with trade unions.
Finally, if one looks at the Government’s minuscule program which is outlined in Her Majesty’s Speech one sees that it cannot be described as reformist in any sense of the word. It does not seek to improve the quality of life of Australians; rather, it seeks to maintain the status quo. Initiatives are not being taken to assist those people most in need. If such initiatives were thought desirable by the Government, programs such as the Australian Assistance Plan would not have been discontinued; they would have been continued. Further steps would have been taken to abolish the means test on pensions. Funds for public housing would not have been kept at a low level; rather, they would have been increased. Funding for Aboriginal welfare would not have been slashed; it would have been increased. If the Government really wanted to improve the quality of life of Australians and to afford Australians a better choice in terms of where they work and live, the decentralisation and development programs, especially those related to New South Wales in the BathurstOrange and Albury-Wodonga areas, would not have been cut back to the bone; rather, they would have been pushed forward vigorously. In short, the Government’s program, which we will see come to fruition over the next 12 months, gives little comfort to the growing numbers of unemployed, to those Australians whose jobs are threatened by government economic policy or to the overwhelming majority of Australians who seek to see the country improve and taken forward. It gives comfort only to those who believe that the status quo should be maintained at all costs and who, for reasons of self-interest, fear change which might threaten their vested interests.
– It gives me pleasure to speak to the Address-in- Reply to Her Majesty’s Speech. I take this opportunity of expressing with other honourable senators my appreciation of the fact that Her Majesty saw fit to open this session of Parliament and to deliver the Speech. Along with other honourable senators I also take this opportunity of expressing our gratitude to Her Majesty for coming to visit the people of
Australia. I take objection, as other honourable senators have, to those persons who have denigrated the visit by carrying on demonstrations. I do not deny anybody the right to demonstrate but there are rimes and places to do so. I believe that the time was not the occasion of the royal visit. The Queen is doing a very good job. It is a difficult task. She is performing that task with dignity and, as some honourable senators have said, with courage. There is no question that debate ought to range over the most vital subject of what form of government there should be within Australia; whether it should have a constitutional monarch or whether it should be a republic. I emphasise the point that the proponents of the republican proposals did their cause no good by using the occasion of the Queen’s visit to demonstrate against her and thus exhibit their own ignorance. Many of the demonstrations were directed against the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr. They were calling for his dismissal. I have found it extraordinary over the last 18 months that the Government has very rarely publicly entered into the lists in support ofthe Governor-General. When the Governor-General was confronted with the situation in November 1975 by the actions of the present Government- actions which I opposed- he had no alternative than to do the job that he did. The Government is now hiding behind his powers and not upholding them. It was the Government that created the situation and not the Governor-General. It is about time that the Government stopped letting him carry that baby.
I take this opportunity to congratulate Senator Austin Lewis on his maiden speech. His background shows that he was not only capable in his profession but he was also a very good organiser and a man of great principle. He asked us not to treat his words lightly. We do not intend to do so if the speeches he makes in the future are similar to his maiden speech. He also said that he knew his Prime Minister. It is very handy to have somebody in the Senate now who knows the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser). Perhaps a few messages might be taken to the Prime Minister who is now sitting in his ivory tower in a corner into which he has been painted. I intend to deliver some of those messages during my speech on the Address-in-Reply. They will range over such matters as the portion in Her Majesty’s Speech concerning the referendums. They will deal very seriously with the industrial policy of the Government and its lack of knowledge of the needs and requirements of registered industrial organisations. If it does not acquire some knowledge and implement the appropriate legislation a real intention will arise amongst the industrial organisations to opt out of the system of industrial arbitration in this country and to become deregistered. Already there is a large number of registered industrial organisations which would opt out and become de-registered tomorrow if there were general support within registered industrial organisations affiliated with the Australian Council of Trade Unions for that particular move. The Government’s failure to understand the problems of registered industrial organisations may well bring that about.
I remind the Senate that I asked a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Senator Durack) on 23 February 1977. It dealt with the problems that arose from the last piece of legislation which this Government brought in and the problems which arose from a statement made by the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations (Mr Street) which, if we are to take the word of the Australian Industrial Court, was untrue. Tomorrow, I propose to deal at some length with that statement and to ask whether it was a deliberate misleading of the House of Representatives and the Senate or whether it showed the ignorance of the Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations in respect of industrial matters generally. I shall deal with the proposed Industrial Relations Bureau and the path of confrontation down which that will lead the Government. I propose to deal with the lack of action being taken in the health area- the opening of the gate to abortion in the Australian Capital Territory. I propose to deal in detail with the financial machinations of the companies that are attempting to impose their types of abortion on the Australian Capital Territory. I propose to deal with the subjects of refugees and foreign affairs and also the vital issue of the inability of many married people within Australia to obtain homes. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later stage.
Leave granted; debate adjourned.
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– Order! It being approximately 1 1 p.m., in conformity with the sessional order relating to the adjournment of the Senate, I formally put the question:
That the Senate do now adjourn.
-Mr President, I wish to speak shortly on the adjournment debate tonight about a matter on which I spoke during an adjournment debate last week. I refer to East Timor and certain threats that have been made by some people in the Indonesian Government against an Australian individual and perhaps the Australian people at large. In common with many Australians this morning I commenced my day with some sense of dismay and anger. Most, if not all, honourable senators will have seen the numerous Press articles which appeared this day on East Timor. Those of us who read those articles were acquainted with the spectacle of an Indonesian General and the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs making provocative threats against Australia. I realise that ‘threats’ is a strong word, but I believe that there is no escaping the reality of the situation. The statements amount to nothing less than threats to this Government and to one Australian citizen.
Reports this morning and again in the afternoon and evening Press have confirmed certain basic facts. It has already been confirmed that the Australian Ambassador, Mr Woolcott, was summoned by the Indonesian Government to meet General Sujono Darusman, the DirectorGeneral of Political Affairs of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry. This meeting has been described as taking the form of a reprimand of Australia by the Indonesian Government. The Australian Ambassador was told that there was grave concern in Jakarta over the involvement of Mr Jim Dunn in activities hostile to Indonesia. General Darusman is reported to have inquired why an Australian public servant could obtain so much time to raise allegations about East Timor. I believe that this is blatant interference in the activities of an Australian citizen.
If that was not enough, General Yoga Sugama, the head of the infamous intelligence service, added fuel to the fire- that is, if he is reported correctly- by saying that Indonesia was taking steps to prevent Mr Dunn’s appearance before a United States congressional committee. This statement can be interpreted only, I believe, in a most sinister and disturbing light. It was this veiled threat against Mr Dunn that prompted Mr Tom Uren in the other place and Senator Georges to call for protection for this courageous Australian citizen. Mr Dunn’s principled stand must be endorsed by the Australian Government. It certainly is by all fair-minded Australians. Mr Dunn must be provided with protection, I believe. Further, the Australian Government has a duty and a responsibility to investigate this matter and to take every possible measure to ensure the safety of this man of high moral principles.
Finally, and probably even worse than the 2 previous statements, is the hysterical outburst of the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Adam Malik. Mr Malik turned back the clock more than 15 years when yesterday he made the most blatant threats against Australia since the days of President Sukarno. Mr Malik is reported widely to have said that the Indonesian Government would allow demonstrations and other mass actions against the Australian embassy in Jakarta if activities critical of Indonesian action in East Timor continued. This hysterical statement must be replied to strongly by the Australian Government. Not to do so is only to compound the strain of appeasement that, I believe, runs throughout Australia’s foreign policy in relation to what has been going on in East Timor in the last 1 5 months to 1 8 months. I suppose one must ask oneself what prompted this furious and, I believe, foolish outburst from the Indonesian authorities.
– They are guilty.
– I believe Senator O’Byrne is right. The collection of basic source material from East Timorese refugees by Mr Dunn and Mr Gordon Bryant has, I believe, exposed the very brutal and bad treatment meted out to the East Timorese civilian population by the occupying Indonesian forces. This, in turn, led to a great amount of concern being expressed in Australia, both in the Press and by the population at large. It brought a response from the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Peacock. He said that he was disturbed by certain allegations contained in Mr Dunn’s report. Like Mr Peacock, I am disturbed by these reports of atrocities in East Timor. Like all honourable senators, I am sure, and the population at large, I am keen to see some investigation carried out at a top level into the truth or otherwise of these allegations.
There are, I believe, international repercussions in relation to these atrocities. These have made the Indonesian military authorities act like a wounded tiger. They face scrutiny in the Netherlands and in the United States. A recent debate in the Dutch Parliament led to a decision by that Government to review its provision of 2 corvettes to the Government of Indonesia. This generally does not augur well for that Government, particularly at the meeting in April of the inter-governmental group on Indonesia. Perhaps it is in the United States that the Indonesians fear most the repercussions. The atrocities, as reported by Mr Dunn, prompted the international relations sub-committee of the United States House of Representatives to invite Mr Dunn to address it on 23 March. That is next Wednesday. That could lead to moves in the United States to bring pressure on the Indonesian Government to cease its military activities in East Timor. It is patently obvious, I believe, that the Indonesian Government is worried that this alleged evidence of atrocities will reinforce criticism in the United States on the human rights issue.
It is obvious that the United States Government is concerned about this matter and that the Indonesian Government is concerned that this public scrutiny could lead to Congress cutting back on aid, particularly military aid to that country. This would be especially so, I believe, if it is proved that United States military equipment was in any way used in the initial attack on East Timor or in the continuing war there. All of us realise that to use American military equipment in a situation such as this contravenes the United States laws relating to the use of American military equipment. This is the stark reality that is now confronting the Indonesian Government.
I believe it is the work of all humanitarians in Australia and elsewhere that has led to this situation. Senators and members of this Parliament and other concerned people in the community have, for the last 1 5 to 1 8 months, by their activities and their words, led to questioning and, to a large extent, to the exposure ofthe horror of the aggression in East Timor. It has been a matter that has received, daily, perhaps more and more prominence in the editorials of our leading newspapers. I would like to read part of one of those editorials to the Senate this evening. It is the editorial in today’s Melbourne Herald and it states:
The Foreign Minister’s statement to the Australian Parliament again sets out the reasons why the Indonesian military occupation of East Timor cannot be taken as a closed matter in accordance with the repeated protestations of Jakarta generals.
Mr Peacock pointed to our continued ‘opposition to the use of force to settle problems in the region’. This and much more in UN resolutions has been ignored by the Jakarta regime, whose ‘fact-finding’ mission which decided the East Timorese wanted integration into Indonesia has been in turn rebuffed by the General Assembly.
Mr Peacock also recalled that Australia has urged ‘consistently and strongly, that the International Red Cross be allowed to resume activity in East Timor’. Jakarta’s refusal of this and other kinds of outside access to East Timor has rebounded against its own interests. The American Congressional invitation to Timor specialist Mr Jim Dunn is part of that harvest.
Now Mr Dunn’s investigations, the preliminary ventilation in the US of his allegations about atrocities in East Timor, and the anxiety in Jakarta that all this may affect US military aid to Indonesia have produced what appears to be an unprecedented invitation for human rights activist Congressman Donald Fraser to visit Timor to see ‘the real situation’.
Even if, like nobody before him, Congressman Fraser (and accompanying experts?) is given complete freedom of movement, unlimited access to the local population, and reliable interpreters, that will still not cure the Timor sickness that afflicts Indonesia’s relations with some of its closest associates- Australia, the US, and The Netherlands. Only Jakarta’s compliance with UN resolutions, and courts martial proceedings against commanders identified with atrocity allegations can do that.
The sickness can only be exacerbated by such unfortunate threats as those attributed yesterday to the Indonesian Foreign Minister, Mr Malik; a deeply disappointing reversion to the Soekarnoist tactic of permitting so-called spontaneous mob intimidation of embassies.
That editorial sums up my feelings and, I believe, the feelings of a great number of other citizens in this community. The Australian Government must act to resist this pressure. I believe we also have a responsibility to seek the truth in these matters. We must be prepared to investigate the tragedy that has occurred to a people so close to our shores. I hope that the Senate will seek the truth, as is being done in the US, and that it will inquire into and, if possible, extend our assistance to the suffering yet heroic East Timorese. We will all have the opportunity of pursuing this course of action over the next few days.
It does appear that our embassy in Jakarta did not know of the presence of Australian journalists in East Timor until one gentleman, Gerald Stone from Channel 9 in Melbourne, rang the embassy on 17 October 1975 for information about them. Presumably that happened after Channel 9 had received information from an anonymous telephone caller- I believe from a government listening post in north Australiawho said that the journalists would not be returning to Australia because they were dead. This is all despite the fact that I believe the embassy in Jakarta informed the Department of Foreign Affairs before 16 October that Indonesian forces would attack East Timor in the Balibo area at some future time. Why then did not the Department of Foreign Affairs notify our embassy in Jakarta ofthe presence of Australian journalists in East Timor. I now suggest that our embassy in Jakarta only learned of the presence of the journalists in East Timor some time after their deaths and this delay allowed the Indonesian authorities time in which to try to cover up their crime. Finally, I make a plea for each and every one of us to do what we can to support the initiatives already set in motion to inquire into this matter. I hope that never again will we as a nation allow such a travesty of justice to occur anywhere in our region.
– I also wish to raise a matter which is related to East Timor and the actions of the Indonesian Government. I can assure the Senate that this is not part of any concerted antiIndonesian campaign but results from information that was provided to me by 2 constituents of mine- a Mr and Mrs Quin of Stirling Highway, Nedlands, Western Australia. Mr and Mrs Quin, who are both schoolteachers and are employed by the Western Australia Department of Education, had proposed to visit Singapore and Bali as part of one of the package tours which were arranged by Qantas Airways Ltd in January during the last summer holidays. As an Indonesian visa was needed for them to visit Bali they made an application on 6 January to the Indonesian consular office in Perth for Indonesian visas. The clerk at the Indonesian consular office in Perth stamped Indonesian visas inside their passports more or less automatically when they presented them, but asked to retain the passports so that confirmation could be obtained from the Embassy that visas would be issued.
On 10 January they returned to the consular office in Perth to pick up their passports but were told they were not ready. On 12 January they again visited the Indonesian consular office where the visa clerk in their presence telephoned Mr Achmed in the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra. Mr Achmed said that approval had been sought from Jakarta. It had not been obtained. The clerk then returned the passports to Mr and Mrs Quin with large cancelled stamps placed on the visas which had been entered in their passports.
On 1 3 January the Qantas office in Perth made inquiries by telephone of the Indonesian Embassy in Canberra as to whether the visas were ready. Qantas was informed that no further information was available. On 14 January Mr and Mrs Quin left on their trip without visas to enter Indonesia. They arrived in Singapore. On 17 January they applied at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, as when they were in Perth, they had been told would be wise for them to do for their visas so that they could visit Bali. On 1 8 January they attended at the Indonesian Embassy and were told that the visas had been refused. Qantas made representations on their behalf as also did the Australian High Commission which they visited. However, no satisfaction was received from the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore. Mr and Mrs Quin said- and knowing these 2 people I do not think they would be exaggerating-that the Indonesian official with whom they were dealing at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore adopted a very rude and offensive manner towards them in refusing to grant them the visas.
They returned home ultimately without having been able to visit Bali which was of some inconvenience as it was one of the main reasons for their having set off on this trip. On 10 February Mr Beecham, who is the Honorary Consul for Indonesia in Perth, visited Mr and Mrs Quin and told them that the reason that Indonesian visas had been refused to them was that the Indonesian Government understood that they were associated with the Friends of East Timor. They in fact denied having had any association with the Friends of East Timor or any connection of any kind with anybody connected with East Timor. However, they did volunteer information seeing the subject had been raised that they did not approve of what the Indonesian Government had done in East Timor and it was very likely they would, if someone had asked them, support the general objectives as they understood them of the Friends of East Timor. But in fact they had not had anything to do with that organisation. They had made no statements on the matter, they had taken part in no demonstrations, they had written no letters, said anything or done anything at all apart from having read the papers and drawing their own conclusions from what they had read.
I have raised this matter because I think it does reflect something that should be drawn to the attention of the Senate. I think that it might also be worth while for the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock) to consider making some representations to the Indonesian Embassy because a number of things seem to emerge. One of them, apparently, is that the Indonesian Embassy is engaging in some sort of surveillance of the political activities of Australians within their own country. These are completely legitimate political activities. There is nothing illegal in this country about the Friends of East Timor. Members of all political parties represented in this Parliament have expressed views similar to the views which I understand the Friends of East Timor express although, as it happens in this case, the surveillance was incompetent as we unfortunately frequently find with the activities of the Indonesian Government. Apparently they got the wrong people. They mistook them for somebody else.
As a result of the actions of the Indonesian Government these people now have passports with a large letter R on the front page of each passport which was placed there by Indonesian Consular officials. Also there are cancelled stamps on the tourist visas which had been marked in the passports. This is something which can be very embarrassing, particularly for people travelling in Asia where there are constant stories of young people- this is a young couple- alleged to have committed some sort of drug offences. One can well imagine somebody looking at a passport like this drawing the erroneous conclusion that some allegation had been made of committing some drug offence or some matter of this kind. I do not believe it is a correct state of affairs that the Indonesian Government should attempt to intimidate Australian citizens by saying that if they speak up or belong to some organisation- I have already said that this couple did not belong to the organisation- or take a view on the position in East Timor they will be subject to this sort of discrimination, that they will not be allowed to go for a tourist trip to Bali or to pass through Indonesia as a tourist. These people have had the indignity of having their passports stamped in a way which could lead other people to the conclusion that they have committed some criminal offence or could well be suspected of having committed some criminal offence. I have nothing further to add to the matter except to say that I believe this is a matter which ought to be the subject of some sort of remonstration by the Australian Government to the Indonesian Embassy.
– I will certainly draw the attention of my colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock) to the particular matters raised by Senator Wheeldon and to the general matters raised by Senator Primmer.
Question resolved in the affirmative.
page 246
The following answer to a question was circulated:
Homeless Persons in Brisbane (Question No. 70)
Has the Department of Social Security recently conducted a survey of homeless men and women in Brisbane. If so, (a) what form did the survey take, (b) what information was gathered in the survey, and (c) what further action is the Department taking as a result of the survey.
A survey of homeless people in Brisbane has been conducted by the Queensland Homeless Persons Advisory Committee and staff of the Brisbane office of my Department. The survey is a contribution to the current review of the homeless persons assistance program:
Brief interviews were conducted with homeless people using various assistance centres in Brisbane. Participation was voluntary.
Particular attention was given to whether individuals had been sleeping out of doors, as a possible indication of a shortage of suitable accommodation. Information was also requested on age, marital status, contact with relatives, occupation, unemployment, education, geographical mobility and fre- quency of arrest for offences involving alcoholism and d estitution.
The information collected in the course of the survey is now being analysed. Together with information collected in other studies being undertaken in Queensland and elsewhere, including a national sample survey of centres for homeless people, it will be used in formulation of proposals for a continuing program of assistance to homeless people.
Senate adjourned at 11.23 p.m.
Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 16 March 1977, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1977/19770316_senate_30_s72/>.