Senate
22 August 1979

31st Parliament · 1st Session

  1. Senate
  2. 31st Parliament
  3. 1979

The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Sir Condor Laucke) took the chair at 2. IS p.m., and read prayers.

page 93

PETITIONS

Citizens Initiative Legislation Senator MASON- I present the following petition from 26 citizens of Australia:

The Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The humble petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That to consult Australian citizens on whether or not they should have the right to initiate Federal Legislation is both desirable and practical.

The principles of democracy are upheld by this form of citizen ‘s initiative in twenty two states of the United States of America and European nations who adhere to democracy such as Switzerland. Such rights are not available in Australia.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament Assembled, should take immediate steps to study such systems of citizen ‘s initiative with a view to implementing legislation acknowledging such rights of citizen’s democracy in Australia.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Alice Springs to Darwin Railway

Senator KILGARIFF:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

– I present the following petition from 2 1 1 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth:

That in order to:

Facilitate the development of the North of Australia.

Provide an all-weather rapid land transport system from north to south and vice versa.

Facilitate better defence of Northern Australia.

Provide improved transport for primary and mining products to southern markets.

Boost tourism.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should:

Urge that the Federal Government give favourable consideration to proceeding forthwith with the completion of the construction of the North/South railway from Alice Springs to Darwin as a matter of priority.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Aboriginal Land Rights

Senator MASON:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition from 28 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Honourable Senators in Parliament assembled. This petition of citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

Australia’s Aboriginal and Islander peoples have not been compensated for the loss of their traditional land, social and cultural independence and self-respect.

Australia lags behind other nations with white majorities in providing a Treaty of Commitment to its indigenous people giving them:

A denned proportion of national income for a defined period.

Freehold title to traditional land, waterways and seaboards.

Control over related resources and over the introduction of alcohol and other alien cultural influences in their regions.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will take urgent steps to concur with the wishes of a majority of the electors at every polling place in Australia at the 1 967 referendum by resumption from the States of the major traditional Aboriginal land areas and reserves and former reserves as at 3 1 .3.78, to become federal Crown land pending prompt determination of freehold title for Land Trusts and eventually for defined community co-operatives.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Uranium Mining and Enrichment

Senator COLEMAN:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I present the following petition from 34 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that the construction of a uranium enrichment plant in North Queensland and the mining of uranium on the Herveys Range area should not be proceeded with on the following grounds:

1 ) No safe method has yet been devised for the disposal of nuclear waste.

The mining of uranium ore exposes workers to considerable danger from radon gases.

The danger of poisoning chemicals seeping into surface and underground water supplies as a result of uranium ore mining and refining of uranium ore could pose serious health hazards for persons living in the Townsville region.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should take all possible steps to abandon or postpone indefinitely the mining of uranium in the Herveys Range area, and the construction of an enrichment plant in the Townsville region.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Citizens Initiative Legislation

Senator MASON:

– I present the following petition from 45 citizens of Australia:

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled. Initiate necessary action for a referendum to be held to amend the Constitution to provide for Citizen’s initiative, on the following conditions:

If a specified percentage of the voters (for example 2 per cent) sign a petition asking that a referendum be held on a certain question, then the Federal Government would be obliged to hold that referendum, and the result would become law.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Indexation of Pensions

Senator WHEELDON:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– I present the following petition from 64 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.

Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Research into Congenital Abnormalities in Children

Senator MASON:

– I present the following petition from 53 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth:

That the compiling of statistics on birth defects lacks formal coordination, leading to poor interpretation of the cause of these defects.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, should:

Promote more research into the causes of congenital abnormalities;

Set up a central bureau where records of each child born with abnormalities would be maintained;

Provide support for parent of children with congenital abnormalities.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Indexation of Pensions

Senator GEORGES:
QUEENSLAND

– I present the following petition from 42 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.

Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Indexation of Pensions

Senator KEEFFE:
QUEENSLAND

– I present the following petition from 40 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.

Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Indexation of Pensions

Senator WALTERS:
TASMANIA

– I present the following petition from 60 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.

Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Indexation of Pensions

Senator GIETZELT:
NEW SOUTH WALES

-I present the following petition from 44 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate’ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.

Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

Uranium Mining and Enrichment

Senator KEEFFE:

– I present the following petition from 45 citizens of Australia:

To the honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned respectfully showeth that the construction of a uranium enrichment plant in North Queensland and the mining of uranium on the Herveys Range area should not be proceeded with on the following grounds:

1 ) No safe method has yet been devised for the disposal of nuclear waste.

The mining of uranium ore exposes workers to considerable danger from radon gases.

The danger of poisoning chemicals seeping into surface and underground water supplies as a result of uranium ore mining and refining of uranium ore could pose serious health hazards for persons living in the Townsville region.

Your petitioners most humbly pray that the Senate in Parliament assembled should take all possible steps to abandon or postpone indefinitely the mining of uranium in the Herveys Range area, and the construction of an enrichment plant in the Townsville region.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Indexation of Pensions

Senator YOUNG:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I present the following petition from 80 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension of whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.

Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

The Clerk:

– Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows:

Indexation of Pensions

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1 978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twice-yearly payments inappropriate ‘is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension of whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Once-a-year payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

  1. Restore twice-yearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
  2. Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Peter Baume, Button, Cavanagh, Chaney, Colston, Evans, Hamer, Jessop, Knight, Lewis, Mason, Maunsell, Messner, Missen, Puplick, Robertson, Scott, Sheil and Tate.

Petitions received.

Democratic and Parliamentary Processes

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 the credibility of the Westminister Parliamentary system is weakened by the resignation in protest of Ministers of the Crown without adequate explanation of the reason or reasons Tor the resignations being given to the electorate and that the situation is further exacerbated by the reappointment of the recently resigned Minister within a very brief period, again without any meaningful explanation to the people of Australia.

Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray that the Senate, in Parliament assembled, take note of the need for the electorate at large to be fully informed so that the confidence of the people is not diminished in the democratic process in general and the Parliamentary process in particular.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Wriedt.

Petition received.

Education Funding

To the Honourable President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled. The petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth: .

That further cutbacks in Commonwealth funding to State Schools and transferal of funds to wealthy independent schools as required under the guidelines to the Schools Commission announced by the Minister for Education in early June are of vital concern in that they mitigate against the interests of the great majority of Australian children in State schools.

That Queensland State Schools have not reached the Resource Usage Targets set by the Schools Commission, and even at those financial levels will fall well short of actual provisions standards envisaged by the Commission.

That Queensland’s effort in respect of Capital works is particularly of concern being less than half the per capita effort of other States.

Your petitioners therefore call on their legislators to ensure:

  1. That Federal funding to State Schools is restored to at least 1 974-75 levels;
  2. the independence of the Schools Commission to recommend the allocation of funds to schools on the basis of need, unhindered by Government directive: and
  3. that sufficient funds are provided to Queensland, appropriately tied, to ensure achievement of National standards in this State.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Bonner and Sheil.

Petitions received.

Aboriginal Land Rights

To the Honourable the President and Honourable Senators in Parliament assembled. This Petition of citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

  1. Australia’s Aboriginal and Islander peoples have not been compensated for the loss of their traditional land, social and cultural independence and self-respect.
  2. Australia lags behind other nations with white majorities in providing a Treaty of Commitment to its indigenous people giving them:

A defined proportion of national income for a defined period.

Freehold title to traditional land, waterways and seaboards.

Control over related resources and over the introduction of alcohol and other alien cultural influences in their regions.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your honourable House will take urgent steps to concur with the wishes of a majority of the electors at every polling place in Australia at the 1967 referendum by resumption from the States of the major traditional Aboriginal land areas and reserves and former reserves as at 31 March 1978, to become federal Crown land pending prompt determination of freehold title for Land Trusts and eventually for defined community co-operatives.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Peter Baume.

Petition received.

Indexation of Pensions

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate in Parliament assembled the petition of the undersigned citizens of Australia respectfully showeth:

That restoration of provisions of the Social Security Act that applied prior to the 1978-79 Budget is of vital concern to offset the rising cost of goods and services.

The reason advanced by the Government for yearly payments ‘that the lower level of inflation made twiceyearly payments inappropriate ‘ is not valid.

Great injury will be caused to 920,000 aged, invalid, widows and supporting parents, who rely solely on the pension or whose income, other than the pension, is $6 or less per week. Onceayear payments strike a cruel blow to their expectation and make a mockery of a solemn election pledge.

Also, of very serious concern to pensioners is the possible introduction of a retail turnover tax on goods and services. This concern would be shared by low wage earners, those unemployed, and onerous for small shopkeepers.

Such a turnover tax hits hardest at those least able to bear the burden, who will be forced on their meagre incomes to consume less.

The imposition of a Retail Turnover Tax will be an act of injustice, especially so, for the 920,000 stated above and unemployed persons the richest paying no more than the poorest for goods and services, so taxed, which nets more in taxation on items constantly retailed.

Accordingly, your petitioners call upon their legislators to:

  1. Restore twiceyearly pension adjustments in the Autumn session.
  2. Not to impose on the Australian people a Retail Turnover Tax.
  3. Raise pensions and unemployed benefits above the poverty level to 30 per cent of average weekly earnings.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senator Wriedt.

Petition received.

page 96

IMMIGRATION

Notice of Motion

Senator MULVIHILL:
New South Wales

-I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:

  1. 1 ) That a Select Committee of the Senate be appointed to inquire into and report upon Australia ‘s current immigration program to ascertain whether:

    1. the current NUMAS formula is equitable to all ethnic communities; and
    2. refugee intake would be more equitable to all victims of political persecution if a quota system were applied.

  2. That provisions relating to the membership, powers and proceedings of the Committee be contained in a subsequent resolution.

page 97

COMMONWEALTH ELECTORAL ACT

Notice of Motion

Senator SIBRAA:
New South Wales

-I give notice that, on the next day of sitting, I shall move:

  1. 1 ) That a Select Committee of the Senate be appointed to inquire into and report upon:

    1. All provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918 and associated regulations and procedures, and in particular:
    1. changes that should be made to Parts XIII to XV of the Commonwealth Electoral Act which deal with methods of polling and the present system of counting returned votes;

    2. changes that should be made to Parts XVI and XVII of the Commonwealth Electoral Act so as to determine the best means of ensuring the public disclosure of the sources and amounts of donations to political parties and candidates, and prevent abuses of existing limitations on electoral expenses; and

    3. An appropriate method of allotting proportionate subsidies by the Australian Government to political parties and candidates.

  2. That provisions relating to membership, powers and proceedings of the Committee be contained in a subsequent resolution.

page 97

QUESTION

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

page 97

QUESTION

TAXATION

Senator WRIEDT:
TASMANIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. I refer to the oft stated claim by this Government that it is a tax-reducing Government. I ask: Does this Government still claim that it wants to reduce the taxation burden on the Australian people? If it does, can the Minister explain why this Government, since it has been in office, has collected an additional $50,000m in tax revenue over and above the amount collected by the previous Government? As to the source of my information, I refer the Minister to page 251 of Budget Paper No. 1.

Senator CARRICK:
Vice-President of the Executive Council · NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

-I rather thought that Senator Wriedt was going to discuss this matter at a later time today, when I would be very happy to enlighten him as to the comparative tax harvesting of the Whitlam Government, of which he was a senior Minister, and this Government. For example, I would be delighted to explain that in the three years of the Whitlam Government the total taxation from all sources went up by roughly 55 per cent whilst in our three years of office it went up by some 19 per cent. Perhaps that is an indication of the difference between the two governments. The answer is yes; we not only claim to be but also are a tax reduction government. Had the tax rates of the Whitlam Government applied last year, the taxpayers of Australia would have paid $3,000m more in tax than they have paid under the Fraser Government.

Senator WRIEDT:

– By way of supplementary question, I ask the Minister whether the figures shown in the Budget Papers are correct. Is it not true, according to the scales in the Budget Papers, that the total taxation collection under the Whitlam Government, the previous Government, was $42 billion? Do the Papers not show that the total taxation revenue under this Government is $91 billion- an increase of $50,000m? I ask the Minister: Is it not true that under this Government taxation is increasing as rapidly as and more rapidly than it was under the previous Government? Is it not a fact that this Government went to the Australian people and claimed that it it were elected to office their taxation would be reduced?

Senator CARRICK:

– That is emphatically not true. It is true that the Fraser Government went to the Australian people and said that it would reduce taxation, and it so did. I will be happy to engage the honourable senator in a debate on this matter at a later hour today. On any comparison whatever, what happened was that the Whitlam Labor Government harvested the whirlwind over three years in uncontrolled taxation, whereas this Government has restrained taxation. Since it is worth saying more than once, let me say that perhaps the best test of the revenue expenditure of a government and its control is as measured by the total outlays of that government. On page 5 of the Budget Speech it is stated: lt is worth noting that in the three years to 1972-73 Commonwealth Budget outlays grew by an average of 4% per cent per year in real terms; in the three years to 1 975-76 - under the Whitlam Government- by 10’A per cent per year; and in the three years to 1978-79 by only I percent per year.

The fact of the matter is that all expenditure by government comes out of the taxpayers’ pockets. If Senator Wriedt wants to debate any aspect of taxation at a later hour, I will be happy to engage him. But one government, the Whitlam Labor

Government, increased taxation by lO’/i per cent per year; this Government increased taxation by one per cent per year in terms of its total expenditure. That is the answer.

page 98

QUESTION

COMMONWEALTH SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH ORGANISATION: DIVISION OF FOREST RESEARCH

Senator MARTIN:
QUEENSLAND · LP

– I ask the Minister for Science and the Environment a question about the proposal to transfer to Tasmania from the Australian Capital Territory the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Division of Forest Research. In reaching a decision on this matter, could account be taken of the fact that this Division has the best research library on forestry in Australia- a library which has been made available to students, undergraduate and postgraduate, of forestry at the Australian National University, which has the biggest Department of Forestry in Australia- and that the transfer would deprive these students and the staff in that area of access to that library, thereby hindering forestry research at the ANU?

Senator WEBSTER:
Minister for Science and the Environment · VICTORIA · NCP/NP

– Some concern has been expressed by the honourable senator. That concern has been reflected in articles in the Canberra Times and other newspapers relating to the possible move of the Division of Forest Research from the Australian Capital Territory to Tasmania. I acknowledge the fact that the honourable senator has mentioned, namely, that there is great interaction between the Division of Forest Research, the Division of Plant Industry in the ACT, and the Australian National University, where 1 believe, as does Senator Martin, that great use is made of the library of the Division of Forest Research. CSIRO believes that there is no case for the transfer of the headquarters of the Division of Forest Research to Tasmania. The CSIRO has been in discussion over past months with the LAGE Committee- that is, the location of Australian Government employees committee- and discussion is currently taking place on this matter. The Division of Forest Research is headquartered in Canberra and it has a number of outstations in other States, particularly in my State of Victoria and, of course, in Tasmania.

There is good argument for the enlargement of the Division’s quarters in Tasmania. This is something for the CSIRO to ascertain and I believe that a report will be available in September. The honourable senator can be assured that I will take into account the comments that she has made. Mr President, you may be interested to know that the CSIRO has estimated that the cost to transfer the Division of Forest Research to Tasmania is about $ 1 2m. If this question arises out of the Callaghan report on the structure of industry and employment in Tasmania, I point out that the advice in that report referred to forest products research and not necessarily to the Division of Forest Research.

page 98

QUESTION

TAXATION COLLECTIONS

Senator MCAULIFFE:
QUEENSLAND

– My question, which is addressed to the Minister representing the Treasurer, relates to that asked by Senator Wriedt and the figures my leader quoted concerning the staggering increase in taxation revenue under this Government. Does the Minister accept Senator Wriedt ‘s figures as indicating that that represents an increase of 120 per cent in tax collections? The Minister engaged in percentage comparisons but I think that he was being a bit foxy in attempting to hide the figures quoted by Senator Wriedt. Whilst the Minister was giving his answer I made a quick calculation -

Senator Young:

- Mr President, I take a point of order. Comment is not allowed to be given in the course of asking questions. The honourable senator is making comments rather than asking a question.

The PRESIDENT:

– I ask Senator McAuliffe to continue with his question.

Senator MCAULIFFE:

– I have made a quick calculation. I now ask the Minister: Will he refute or defend his Government’s position on our claim that the Fraser Government in its first three years of office collected $23,000m in additional taxation revenue -

Senator Bishop:

– How much?

Senator MCAULIFFE:

– It collected $23,000m more than was collected during the three years of the previous Labor Government.

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– The facts of the matter are as I have stated them. In the three years of the Whitlam Government the amount of taxation taken from all sources went up by 55 per cent compared with an increase of 19 per cent in our first three years of Government. Lest there be any doubt about this, let me talk about the position in actual terms. I will take firstly personal income tax collections expressed as officially deflated figures. In the first year of the Whitlam Government the collections went up by 19.9 per cent, in the second year by 19.9 per cent and in the third by 3.5 per cent, a total of 43.3 per cent, expressed in deflated figures. In the first year of the Fraser Government taxation went up by 7.6 per cent; in the second year it rose by 0.5 per cent; and in the third year it went down by 3. 1 per cent. Taxation under the Fraser Government rose by a total of 5 per cent compared with the 43.3 per cent under the Whitlam Government. I have used officially deflated figures to give the answer.

page 99

QUESTION

LIQUEFIED PETROLEUM GAS

Senator JESSOP:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question, which is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, concerns the price of liquefied petroleum gas, which rose by lc per litre the other day. This is the second rise within a month. Bearing in mind that the price has doubled in the last 12 months, can the Minister give me an idea of the rationalisation of the Prices Justification Tribunal in acceding to the recent request by Esso Australia Ltd for an increased price?

Senator DURACK:
Attorney-General · WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– I do not have the reasons which the Prices Justification Tribunal gave for that increase. I will refer the matter to the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs and endeavour to obtain an early answer for Senator Jessop.

page 99

QUESTION

PERSONAL INCOME TAX

Senator WALSH:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question is directed to the Leader of the Government. I remind him that he has in the past told the Senate that the proper way in which to compare statistics over time because of changes in money values is as a proportion of the gross domestic product. I ask him whether he remembers the Prime Minister, during the 1977 election campaign, on 25 November to be precise, saying:

We have taken the view that a reduction in the personal tax burden is essential to economic recovery and boosting job opportunities.

Does the Minister know that the Estimates presented in last night’s Budget show that personal income tax as a proportion of GDP will increase from 12.62 per cent last year to 13.27 per cent this year and that the total taxation will increase to 24.43 per cent, which will be a record level? In view of those facts, does the Government believe what the Prime Minister said it believed in 1977 or has it abdicated all responsibility for fostering economic recovery and boosting employment opportunities?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– When the Fraser Government came into office after the Whitlam disaster it saw the huge, record tax harvests of the Whitlam Government, which was taxing people on the lowest incomes at about 46c in the dollar and that taxation was a very high proportion of gross domestic product. Consequently the Fraser Government took steps to reduce income tax substantially. It cannot be gainsaid, and I repeat it, that had the Whitlam rates applied last year the people of Australia would have paid $3,000m more in tax than they did.

Senator WALSH:

– I wish to ask a supplementary question. Does the Minister agree that the most appropriate way to measure these variations over time is to express them as a proportion of gross domestic product? If so, does he know that in the 3 Labor Government Budgets to which he referred personal income tax as a proportion of GDP was 10.76 percent, 12.57 per cent and 12.76 per cent, and that this year it is 13.27 percent?

Senator CARRICK:

-I could think of many better indicators of the measurement of personal income tax. One would be its percentage of average real wages. That would be the real measure. The honourable senator knows that until 1 December this year the tax surcharge will apply, but in the last 7 months of this financial year there will be a tax reduction. For the longer term, that will reduce the tax collections as a percentage of GDP. By any measure of the effect of taxation on the real take-home pay of people, the Whitlam Government robbed the people. We are giving them relief.

page 99

QUESTION

OIL EXPLORATION

Senator YOUNG:

– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for National Development. Is he aware that, in 1972, 101 oil exploration wells were drilled in Australia, that by 1975 the number had dropped to 23 and that by 1976-77 it was as low as 2 1? Is he also aware that by last year exploration activity in Australia had increased to the extent that some 52 wells were being drilled, with further exploration activity taking place this year? Does this not clearly show that the policies of the Fraser Government have encouraged oil exploration- quite the reverse of the Whitlam era, when oil companies were literally driven out of the country and exploration was virtually stopped? Has not the tragic stopping of oil exploration during that period had an unfortunate and adverse affect upon Australia’s current crude oil supplies?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– I was asked a question in somewhat similar terms yesterday, but I am glad that Senator Young has raised it again. It is a matter of enormous importance, as we all know, in Australia today. Senator Young has given figures as to the number of oil exploration wells that were drilled in the years 1972, 1975 and 1978. Although I have not immediately checked those figures, I accept them as accurate and, indeed, they accord with my own recollection of what the trend generally has been.

Opposition senators interjecting-

Senator DURACK:

– It is no good the Opposition, by shouting, trying to gainsay that fact. Indeed, I would be surprised if any Opposition member could reasonably gainsay the fact that, starting with the advent of the Labor Government, there was a most serious reduction in oil exploration. That is just an incontrovertible fact, and the shouting and hullaballoo from the Opposition will do it no good. I notice that Opposition members now appear to be recognising that that was indeed a fact.

The position is that the Fraser Government’s policies in regard to oil exploration have proved successful. There has been a significant increase in activity, and that will continue. However, the fact that there was over those years such a severe reduction in oil exploration means that we are now having to surfer the effects of that reduction in those years. We have not been able, until very recent times, to increase the level of our oil reserves. The effects of this have been very serious indeed. The Government is happy to see that there has been a reversal of the trend and, as a result of further incentives given in the present Budget, we can look forward to an increasing degree of activity in oil exploration.

page 100

DISTINGUISHED VISITOR

The PRESIDENT:

– I draw the attention of honourable senators to the presence in the President’s Gallery of Dame Marie Breen, a former and warmly esteemed member of this place. We welcome her here this afternoon with great happiness.

page 100

QUESTION

TAXATION

Senator O’BYRNE:
TASMANIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Among the plethora of piecrust promises that were made in 1975 and 1977 was the promise that the Government was a tax reduction Government. How does that promise measure up to performance, when the present Budget Papers show that this Government, as has already been pointed out by Senator Wriedt, has increased taxation revenue by $50,000m since coming to office? Is the Government now saying that it cannot function at its reduced level of capacity, without this staggering tax increase?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– The clear evidence that the Government is a tax reduction government is that if the Whitlam Government’s scales had applied last year the taxpayers would have paid $3,000m more. In other words, the tax reduction was $3,000m. Let me just take a simple situation. Under the Hayden 1975-76 Budget scales, the wage earner on $10,000 per annum was taxed at the marginal rate of 46c in the $ I .

Senator Grimes:

– Tell us about the Menzies scale.

Senator CARRICK:

– For a wage earner on $16,000 per annum, the figure was 55c. Under the standard rate scheme- I will give that information for the benefit of Senator Grimes who always needs a little extra instruction- most of the income levels come within the 32c in the $ 1 rate. People earning under $10,000 per annum were paying 46c in the $1 and those between $10,000 and $16,000 per annum paid at the rate of 55c in the $ 1 . Under this Government they are paying 32c. The question asked for proof that we are a tax reduction government. The proof is that there was $3,000m more in the taxpayers’ pockets last year than there would have been under the Whitlam grab. Indeed today there are many more people in the lower incomes area who are totally exempt from taxation.

page 100

QUESTION

VALUATION CERTIFICATES

Senator WALTERS:

-Can the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs say whether it is a fact that two valuation certificates are necessary before donations by the public to galleries of works of art are eligible for tax deductions. If it is a fact, can the Minister indicate what steps can be taken to avoid confusion which may result from two widely different valuation certificates?

Senator WEBSTER:
NCP/NP

– I am advised that the provisions relating to the operation of the scheme of tax incentives for the arts are contained in the Income Tax Assessment Act. The Act provides that a gift of property to a public art gallery, library or museum in respect of which a tax deduction is to be claimed must be valued by two valuers registered under the scheme. The valuations must be made within 30 days before or 30 days after the gift is made to ensure that the deductions claimed represent the true market value. Where there is a difference between two valuations the donor claims the average valuation.

I am advised also that, as the valuers are registered only after their qualifications and experience are carefully checked by a committee established for that purpose, it is unlikely that widely divergent valuations will occur. However, if they should occur I would expect the donor, in consultation with the recipient institution, to seek a third valuation. The Department of Home

Affairs, which administers the scheme, is always happy to advise prospective donors if they have any problems with the scheme. If it does eventuate that a valuation is made outside the 30 day period the Commissioner of Taxation does have discretion to waive the rule.

page 101

QUESTION

WAGE INDEXATION GUIDELINES

Senator BUTTON:
VICTORIA

– My question is directed to Senator Carrick in his unfortunate capacity as Minister representing the Prime Minister. I refer him to Mr Street’s speech to the Australian Institute of Management on 15 May 1979 when he said, consistently with statements repeatedly made by other Ministers, that real wage increases outside the indexation guidelines, through privately negotiated award increases, were threatening Australia’s prospects for economic recovery. I refer the Minister also to a statement, attributed to the Prime Minister in the Australian on 1 8 August, in which he said:

There’s been very little wage drift outside the Commission’s determinations, much less than I think most people would believe.

I ask the Minister which of these two Ministers is correct. Was the Government labouring under a total delusion until 18 August when the Prime Minister made his latest announcement on this matter, or is it again that he will say anything in a desperate attempt to court popularity?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

-No doubt Senator Button, since he would not take notice of the views of either the Prime Minister or Mr Street, would of course take notice of the views of the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, Sir John Moore and Mr Justice Ludeke and others. He himself must know that from time to time over the past year or two the Commission expressed itself as being borderline unwilling to look at wage cases because of the breach of wage indexation. Perhaps we could put forward Sir John Moore as an authority. There is no doubt in the world that from time to time the argument before the Arbitration Commission has been that it ought not to be looking at a wage case because there has not been what is called substantial compliance’. No doubt Senator Button when he looks at the transcript will see that that has been said. Bearing out what Mr Street has said, the Arbitration Commission has supported that view in the past. I have not seen what the Prime Minister has said. I have no doubt that it is not irreconcilable with that view but I will seek the Prime Minister’s views if Senator Button requires them.

Senator BUTTON:

– I wish to ask a supplementary question. The question did not relate to what the Arbitration Commission has said. I am fully familiar with what it has said. Is the Prime Minister’s statement of 18 August correct and is that currently the view of this Government or is it not?

Senator CARRICK:

– I indicated that I have not had the advantage of seeing the full text of that statement. What I have said is that as to the question of above award wages having been a threat to inflation in the past, not only Mr Street but also the Arbitration Commission has said that that is so; that, indeed, there has not been substantial compliance. They have seen that as a threat.

Senator Lewis:

– I wish to take a point of order. Mr President, as I understand it, at Question Time questions are supposed to go from your right to your left. Senator Justin O ‘Byrne is the only Opposition senator who has not asked a supplementary question. The result is that the Opposition is asking two questions to the Government’s one and I draw your attention to that fact.

Mr PRESIDENT:

– The practice of having questions supplementary to the original and seeking further information directly related to the initial question is now established in this place. I ask all honourable senators to ensure that questions supplementary to the original are actually and accurately related to the original question. I have not detected a deviation from that requirement thus far. That is the basis on which questions seeking further information may be asked.

page 101

QUESTION

FUEL CONSERVATION

Senator TOWNLEY:
TASMANIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. No doubt the Minister realises that the cost of fuel is a matter of concern to most car owners. Unfortunately, the attitude of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries seems to indicate that this cost will continue to increase in years to come. No doubt the Minister is aware that considerable fuel is wasted by cars idling at traffic lights. Does the Minister realise that in countries such as Canada and the United States, where there are a great many more cars than in Australia, cars are allowed to turn to the right through a red traffic light after coming to a stop if the way is clear. Will the Minister suggest to those in charge of traffic in the Australian Capital Territory that they allow left turns after stopping at red traffic lights if the way is clear, as an example to the rest of Australia?

Senator CHANEY:
Minister for Aboriginal Affairs · WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– I am not sure that I have the full gist of that question. Honourable senators did seem to ascend into some of Senator Townley ‘s own flying dirty linen. I am not sure whether he wanted us to turn right or left at lights.

Senator Townley:

– In America they drive on the other side of the road.

Senator CHANEY:

– I will direct Senator Townley ‘s question to the Minister for Transport in the hope that the Hansard writer has heard more than I have.

page 102

QUESTION

PENSIONS

Senator ELSTOB:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister for Social Security. I refer to the decision announced by the Minister last night to amend the Social Services Act to enable automatic increases to age pensions in accordance with the movement in the consumer price index and, further, that such adjustments would not flow to people aged 70 years or more. What are the savings to revenue of this callous discrimination against pensioners over 70 years of age?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
Minister for Social Security · NEW SOUTH WALES · LP

– I will consider the matter to see whether an estimate can be made of the number of people aged over 70 with a means-test-free pension at the level quoted in the Budget last night who are eligible to be tested to see whether the increases apply to them. I will see what figure I can give to Senator Elstob.

page 102

QUESTION

SHIFT BROKERING IN AUSTRALIA POST

Senator LEWIS:

– My question is directed to–

Senator Keeffe:

– No supplementary questions.

Senator LEWIS:

– There will not be, because it will be clear- not like Opposition questions. My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. Is it a fact that some union officials are using their positions as union officials to act as shift brokers to re-roster postal workers at mail exchanges throughout Australia, in particular at Redfern, in return for a financial consideration?

Are these arrangements being made during the time when these shift brokers are supposed to be working for the Australian Postal Commission? Is this not contrary to their terms of employment? Further, and perhaps even more importantly, if there is a genuine need for postal workers to be able to re-roster their shifts, why does Australia Post not supervise roster changes to ensure that mail workers are not exploited by their so-called colleagues?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– I understand from the Minister for Post and Telecommunications that there are union officials who act as shift brokers for workers in that industry and that they make some personal profit for making these shift changes. Apparently it is a quite long standing practice in the industry. There is provision in the award for people to be able to exchange shifts, and procedures are laid down which permit that to happen. It involves the two parties being in agreement. This procedure has been formalised by Australia Post. The two parties are required to be in agreement. They sign an exchange form and get the signature of the approving officer. In fact this shift broking, as it is called, has developed over recent years, as has the taking of monetary rewards. The latter practice is not condoned by Australia Post and in fact is a breach, I understand, of the postal staff by-laws 19 and 20. Australia Post is trying to eradicate that practice within its work places.

page 102

QUESTION

BOEING 707 VIP AIRCRAFT

Senator MELZER:
VICTORIA

– I ask a question of the Minister representing the Minister for Defence. On 31 May last, as a result of a statement by the Prime Minister that the two Boeing 707 aircraft bought by the Government for his use when travelling overseas would be used by the defence forces when not being used for this special purpose, I asked for the continuing cost of the necessary refit. I recently received a reply which stated that there would be no continuing costs for the material for the conversion and that the changeover would be carried out by Royal Australian Air Force personnel at Richmond provided for this purpose of maintenance support for the B707 aircraft and that, therefore, there would be no additional cost.

Therefore, I ask the Minister what the actual cost of the refit would be and whether he would advise of the numbers of RAAF personnel specifically engaged in this work and their rank and what specific equipment had to be purchased to carry out this work. Will the salaries, allowances and other expenses of the personnel be paid by the Department of Defence or by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet? On the recent trip to Africa were the costs of crew and maintenance en route covered by the Prime Minister’s Department or by the Defence Department? Is it usual to have the costs of a Prime Minister’s use of RAAF aircraft and personnel covered in the Defence vote or is there a separate vote to cover these matters?

The PRESIDENT:

– Order! I believe that a question of that complexity and length could well be put on notice, but I will offer it to the Minister to reply to the part he wishes to.

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– I was about to say that the honourable senator well knows that a question seeking such detail over such a range cannot properly be asked without notice. I ask her to put the question on notice.

page 103

QUESTION

EARTHQUAKE RESISTANT BUILDINGS

Senator ROCHER:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question is directed to the Minister for Science and the Environment in his capacity as that Minister and as Minister representing the Minister for Housing and Construction. Has the draft uniform code for earthquake resistant buildings, prepared by the Standards Association of Australia, been studied by State authorities? When will the final version of the code be published? Will it be adopted by Commonwealth construction authorities in all areas of Australia, or will its provisions be appropriate only for identified risk areas?

Senator WEBSTER:
NCP/NP

– I am aware of the Standards Association of Australia code. I understand that it was followed in the redevelopment of Darwin. I am unable to say whether that code has been studied by every State authority. It would be my belief that it would not necessarily apply to construction in every State of Australia. But I will take the honourable senator’s question as being on notice and refer it to the Minister for Housing and Construction.

page 103

QUESTION

MR TONY EGGLETON

Senator GIETZELT:

– I ask the Minister Representing the Prime Minister: In what capacity did the National Director of the Liberal Party of Australia national secretariat, Mr Tony Eggleton, accompany the Prime Minister to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Lusaka? Are we to believe that Mr Eggleton travelled as an official of the Commonwealth Secretariat, as the Liberal Party secretariat maintains, or are we to believe what the Prime Minister’s Press office claims, namely, that he went as a consultant to the Government? I ask the Minister also: Who paid for Mr Eggleton ‘s trip? Is it true that his attendance at the conference cost approximately $10,000? Further, can the Minister say whether it is the policy of this Government that the Prime Minister is entitled to take Liberal Party functionaries on international visits at the taxpayers ‘expense?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– All honourable senators, except perhaps Senator Gietzelt, will know that Mr Tony Eggleton over the years has had very close and expert association with and knowledge of the Commonwealth countries and the Commonwealth Secretariat and is held in extremely high personal regard by those Commonwealth countries and by the Commonwealth Secretariat. As to the specific questions raised, as occurred on two previous meetings of Commonwealth Heads of Government, Mr Eggleton was included in the Australian delegation as a consultant because of his special knowledge of and background in Commonwealth matters. As a consultant, his accommodation and travel expenses will be met in the same way as those expenses of other members of the delegation. Apart from those expenses, Mr Eggleton provided his services without remuneration.

Presumably the range of questions was asked because of the chagrin of the Opposition at the success of Mr Fraser at Lusaka. He had remarkable success in strengthening the Commonwealth of nations and in moving towards a successful resolution. Wherever there is in Australia an Australian, whatever position that Australian might hold, who can contribute to the betterment of Australia and the betterment of international relations, this Government will see that that Australian is there to advise. Mr Eggleton was a consultant to the Prime Minister at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London in June 1977 and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Regional Meeting in Sydney in February 1978.

page 103

QUESTION

GRIEVANCES AND APPEALS BUREAU

Senator KNIGHT:
ACT

– I address a question to the Minister representing the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister in Public Service matters. Has an ombudsman style body in the form of a grievances and appeals bureau been established within the Public Service Board, or is action under way to create such a body? What is or will be the role of this bureau in dealing with the grievances of public servants? To what extent will such a body meet the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Australian Government Administration as to the appointment of a Public Service ombudsman?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– A position of Director, Grievances and Appeals Bureau, within the office of the Public Service Board has been created and advertised in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette and the Press. Applications have closed and interviews will commence on Friday, 24 August. Staffing of the Bureau will be arranged within the Board’s existing resources and staff ceilings. The Grievances and Appeals Bureau will provide a focus for all appeals and other grievances in respect of which the Public

Service Board has responsibilities. It will coordinate administrative arrangements for existing appeal tribunals such as promotions appeal committees, discipline appeal boards, et cetera. The Director will be responsible directly to the Public Service Board and will set down instructions for handling appeal and grievance cases within the general framework of personnel policies. The Director will report to the Board on matters arising out of grievance cases which suggest the need for review of policies or processes.

Although this is a progressive and significant step, it is a fact that the establishment of the Bureau will be a more modest innovation than some other earlier proposals and ideas. The Royal Commission on Australian Government administration recommended, among other things, the setting up of a Commonwealth Service ombudsman and a personnel appeals tribunal, which would have been entirely new authorities. However, the Grievances and Appeals Bureau is being set up in accordance with the recommendation of the Joint Council, which of course is a staff management consultative body on matters of this kind. Endorsement by the Joint Council should ensure that the Grievances and Appeals Bureau has the widespread support of public servants.

page 104

QUESTION

AUSTRALIA POLICE: MINISTERIAL MAIL

Senator SIBRAA:

– I preface my question to the Attorney-General by explaining that, during the parliamentary recess, I received a letter from the office of the Minister for Education. It was an acknowledgement from the Minister concerning a problem of one of my constituents and contained no metal staples, paper clips, et cetera. However, on the back of the letter was a stamp which read: ‘Examined by Australia Police’. Underneath was an unreadable signature and a date- 7 August 1979. The seal of the letter obviously had been interfered with. I have the letter here. I ask the Attorney-General: How long has it been the practice of Australia Police to open ministerial mail containing the confidential queries of constituents? In what circumstances is the mail of parliamentarians interfered with, and why?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– I think that that question probably should have been addressed to me as the Minister representing the Minister for Administrative Services. However, having claimed the ball I am not able to field it. I will have to take the question on notice and seek an urgent reply for the honourable senator. I think that all honourable senators would be concerned about the privacy of their mail, and I will try to get a response, if not today then tomorrow morning.

page 104

QUESTION

URANIUM ENRICHMENT PLANT

Senator MacGIBBON:
QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Trade and Resources. I ask: Apart from the many technological and financial advantages accruing to the Australian community from the construction in north Queensland of an enrichment plant for uranium oxide, can the Minister define any proven hazards from such a venture? Are not such fears completely groundless?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– I will refer that question to the Minister for Trade and Resources.

page 104

QUESTION

FORMER GOVERNOR-GENERAL: OVERSEAS TELEPHONE CALLS

Senator McLAREN:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Prime Minister. The Minister will recall that, on 22 February this year, I posed a question to him seeking information whether the immediate past GovernorGeneral had a free telephone service between Australia and England. I received a reply from the Minister during the winter recessincidentally, the reply did not appear in today’s Hansard- in which he said:

The Prime Minister has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

It is not the practice to make public the telephone accounts of current or ex-holders of Vice Regal or Parliamentary office, and I do not propose to institute such a practice.

I now ask: Is there an Act of Parliament which prohibits the disclosure of expenditure of taxpayers ‘ money? If so, will the Minister inform the Senate of the title of that Act? If there is no such Act of Parliament, how does the Prime Minister justify his refusal to make public the amount of taxpayers’ money being expended on overseas telephone calls by the immediate past Governor-General?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– As far as I know, there is no such Act of Parliament. I am asked how I justify the refusal to provide the information. I justify it in the same way as Senator McLaren’s former leader, Mr Whitlam, always justified it. It has been the consistent practice of all Prime Ministers- I take it that Senator McLaren is not advocating a departure from former practicefor this procedure, this protocol, to be observed. I have nothing further to add to that.

Senator McLAREN:

– I wish to ask a supplementary question. The Minister in his answer referred to the previous Prime Minister. I now ask: Can the Minister quote instances where the previous Prime Minister, Mr Whitlam, was asked to divulge details of telephone accounts of ex-Governors-General? As far as I am aware, it never happened. So far as offices- that is, Kirribilli House and Yarralumla- are concerned, Mr Fraser broke that precedent, as I have pointed out in this Parliament on many occasions, in an answer to the honourable member for Barker, Mr Porter, some years ago, when he divulged the cost of those offices.

Senator CARRICK:

-I was referring to the general expenses of Governors-General and exGovernorsGeneral. My recollection is that the previous Prime Minister, like all other Prime Ministers, upheld that protocol.

page 105

QUESTION

ATOMIC ENERGY ACT

Senator MISSEN:
VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for National Development. I refer to the statement made in the Senate by Senator Carrick on 29 May 1978 relating to the use of the Atomic Energy Act 1953 in respect of commercial uranium operations and its effect on civil liberties. In response to debate on the Atomic Energy Amendment Bill 1978, Senator Carrick, on behalf of the Minister for National Development, stated:

Now that particular aspects of the Atomic Energy Act may bc used, it is a good time to reflect and amend if necessary.

I ask the Minister whether this suggestion has been taken up by the Government. If not, will the Minister assure the Senate that some immediate steps will be taken to seek a thorough review of this important Act? In the interests of civil liberties, will the Minister also give his assurance that other legislative measures more appropriate to commercial operations such as Ranger will be considered?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– I recall the statement made by the Leader of the Government, Senator Carrick, in response to the debate on the Atomic Energy Amendment Bill in 1978. The Government has considered the need to introduce further amendments to that Act. I should say that in relation to the security provisions of the Act the Government’s policy that penal provisions which were largely enacted for defence purposes would not be applied to ordinary commercial undertakings was made clear in that debate. However, in line with the policy, the Government has decided to examine the penal provisions of Part IV of the Act, having regard to their potential application to ordinary commercial undertakings. In the meantime, decisions have been made to amend some of the provisions of the Act, and those amendments will be introduced during this session. I can assure

Senator Missen that a general review is being undertaken in relation to the penal provisions, in which my Department is also concerned.

page 105

QUESTION

TAX AVOIDANCE

Senator COLSTON:
QUEENSLAND

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. I refer the Minister to that part of last night’s Budget Speech which mentioned revenue lost due to tax avoidance schemes. I also refer the Minister to reports relating to the manner in which the National Party in Queensland is raising funds for the Bjelke-Petersen Foundation, and in particular to statements by the Queensland President of the Party, Sir Robert Sparkes, that donations to the Foundation can be made tax deductible by placing advertisements in the Party’s magazine National Outlook at uncommercial rates. Will the Minister assure the Parliament and the Australian people that the Taxation Office will undertake a full investigation of these reports that the National Party is obtaining its donations for the Bjelke-Petersen Foundation by encouraging tax avoidance on the part of potential donors? Will the Minister also give an assurance that every effort will be made to ensure that donors to the fund make their donations in a way that does not relieve them of their responsibility to the Australian people to pay their rightful share of tax?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– As to the last section of the question, it is not for the Senate or for me to give advice to members of another party. The Australian Labor Party would take very unkindly to any such advice. Senator Colston will be aware that the Commissioner of Taxation is an independent statutory officer whose job is to pursue the law without fear or favour, whether it be a political party or an individual. 1 have absolute confidence in the Commissioner of Taxation, as I hope all honourable senators have. The Australian Commissioner of Taxation has had before him the allegations which have been made in the Press and in the Senate. It is for the Commissioner of Taxation to pursue this matter and I have no doubt that he will. I will refer the substance of this question to the Treasurer and see whether he wishes to comment further.

page 105

QUESTION

DEPRECIATION ALLOWANCES FOR NEW EQUIPMENT

Senator WATSON:
TASMANIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Treasurer. Despite the constant urgings of the Industries Assistance Commission and the Minister for Industry and Commerce for Australian firms to become more efficient, is the Minister aware that progress is being impeded by out-of-date sections in the Income Tax Assessment Act? Further, is the Minister aware that the current provisions of the Act generously support the repair of often obsolete plant yet deny adequate flexibility in the form of depreciation allowances for new investment? Will the Minister therefore consider an amendment to allow for flexibility at the discretion of each entity to determine the useful life expectancy of each item of plant and hence its depreciation rate?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

- Senator Watson has asked his question in general terms. I imagine, therefore, that he can support it with specifics. I will refer the question in general terms to the Treasurer but I invite the honourable senator to supplement it by writing to the Treasurer indicating those sections of the Income Tax Assessment Act to which he refers and perhaps any suggested reforms. I can say only that the Treasurer and the Government are eager to bring about any reforms which would help to make industry more efficient and overcome any difficulty if we are, however unwittingly, perpetuating obsolescence.

page 106

QUESTION

MOTOR VEHICLE INDUSTRY

Senator MASON:

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for National Development. Is it a fact, as reported in last Friday’s Sydney Daily Mirror, that Cabinet has scrapped plans to introduce a special penalty tax on the sale of big cars with high fuel consumption? Does the Government really believe, as stated in that article, that such a tax would seriously damage the motor industry, threaten the future of the local content plan, add to unemployment and create massive problems for the national economy? Is it now Government policy to encourage Australian car makers to go on indefinitely marketing vehicles such as the Holden Commodore S/LE and the Ford Fairlane which have fuel consumptions as low as 1 1 1/2 miles to the gallon, even though their parent companies are already marketing in the United States of America the new generation of high economy, light weight, front wheel drive cars? Finally, has the Government given the industry any time scale within which grossly wasteful vehicles must be withdrawn from its sale ranges?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– I do not know whether this question has been properly directed to me as the Minister representing the Minister for National Development. It seems that it may well have greater relevance to the Minister for Industry and Commerce or even the Treasurer. However, I will ensure that the question asked is directed to and dealt with by the appropriate minister.

page 106

SOUTH AUSTRALIA: COMMONWEALTH FUNDING

Senator TEAGUE:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I understand that, as expected, the South Australian Government has today resigned its term of office, making way for a Liberal victory at next month’s State election.

Senator Keeffe:

- Mr President, I take a point of order. Yesterday you said that honourable senators could not give information in this chamber. I submit that the honourable senator is doing precisely that and your ruling should apply.

The PRESIDENT:

-Information must not be given but I will listen to the way in which the honourable senator is couching his question. I call Senator Teague.

Senator TEAGUE:

-As the Commonwealth Government’s policy to increase block funding to the States may be raised in the coming weeks in South Australia, I ask: Has South Australia received increased Commonwealth funds in each year of the Fraser Government? Is it not true that South Australia has very full responsibility for its own financial affairs?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

-The fact of the matter is that under the tax reimbursement arrangements for the past three years all States have more than balanced their Budgets. In fact, all States including South Australia have been able to make tax cuts and therefore to disclose that they had surplus funds. I am gratified that the Premier of Queensland has indicated that he would like to see even more substantial tax cuts by the Commonwealth Government. Of course, the effect of this on taxation would be to reduce the 39.8 per cent of tax collections which is going to the States. The only presumption I can make is that the Premiers feel that the amount of money they are getting, the 13.8 per cent, is more than adequate. I have no doubt that in the weeks ahead we will hear the same sombre story. Nothing can get away from the fact that in the three years before we came to power the States all ran into deficits and were all forced to put up taxes and that in the last three years they have been able to cut taxes and balance their Budgets. Now they are urging the Commonwealth Government to cut the mainstream from which the States receive the 39.87 per cent of taxation revenue. I can only conclude that that is a nice tribute to the generosity of the Federal Government.

page 107

QUESTION

IMMIGRATION

Senator MULVIHILL:

– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs. Since it is accepted that a person with a criminal conviction usually has a different hurdle to get over if he wants to enter Australia, how was Charles Colson, the convicted Watergate criminal, able to circumvent the existing immigration practice? Is it true that the commercial venture that he came here for was based- I use the Old Testament terminology- on the commercialisation of his sinful political past?

Senator GUILFOYLE:
LP

– The Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs advises me that visitors with penal records are required to demonstrate significant reasons to warrant variation of the general rule that they should not be admitted to Australia. Allowing for this approach and with an awareness of Charles Colson ‘s involvement with Watergate, the Minister authorised a visit to Australia to allow Mr Colson to speak publicly on prison reform and prison welfare. Mr Colson wished to be in Australia for the release of the film Born Again and, allowing for the objectives of his visit, it would have been unreasonable to refuse authority for entry. Whether the film was to be a financial success was not a factor in the decision. The authority to issue the visa was based on the primary aim of the visit, which was seen to be justified on this score alone.

Senator MULVIHILL:

– I wish to ask a supplementary question. Did this gentleman, who claims to have been born again, make any contribution of his profits to any Australian charity?

Senator GUILFOYLE:

– I am not able to answer whether there were any profits from the venture about which we have been speaking, nor am I aware of whether he made any financial contribution to Australian organisations. I understand that he claims to have been born again. I received a copy of the book which he wrote on his experiences. Beyond that I am not able to comment on the matters raised by Senator Mulvihill.

page 107

QUESTION

NATIONAL HIGHWAYS CONSTRUCTION

Senator KILGARIFF:

– I direct a question to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. I refer to the Commonwealth road fund allocations to South Australia and the fact that there is an increase in the national highways construction part of the allocation. Having in mind that the States are to match the Federal allocation with a quota from State resources, is the

Minister in a position to advise what work is likely to be carried out this financial year by the South Australian Government on the upgrading and sealing of the Stuart Highway, known as the South Road, between Pimba in South Australia and the Northern Territory-South Australian border.

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– This is a matter which has been raised in the Senate on a number of occasions by Senator Kilgariff and by honourable senators opposite. I understand that the Minister for Transport will be announcing details of South Australia’s national highway program in the near future. At the moment I do not have all the details. However I am told that the total allocation to South Australia by the Commonwealth for national highways construction in 1979-80 is to be $ 17.34m and that South Australia has announced that its estimated expenditure on construction works on the Stuart Highway between Bookaloo and the Northern Territory border during this financial year is to be $4.34m. That is a considerable increase on the amounts spent in recent years. I know that this announcement is welcomed by the Minister for Transport, Mr Nixon, who has been urging the South Australian Government for some time to increase the level of funding for that highway. It is heartening to see that at last the South Australian Government has got off its tail.

page 107

QUESTION

LORD HOWE ISLAND

Senator WEBSTER:
NCP/NP

-At Question Time yesterday Senator Missen asked me a question relating to Lord Howe Island. The island is administered by the Lord Howe Island Board, which is responsible to the New South Wales Minister for Lands. I understand that the Minister for Lands has under consideration a Bill to be introduced next year to amend the Lord Howe Island Act to enable the establishment on the island of reserves of national park status to be administered by the Lord Howe Island Board and that an officer of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service nominated by the Minister for Planning and Environment will be a member of the Board.

Senator Missen:

– May I ask a supplementary question arising from that answer?

The PRESIDENT:

– No, we do not allow that. When a question has been replied to later in this form, I have not as yet ruled other than that no supplementary questions may be asked.

Senator Missen:

– This is the only reply that I have had to the question.

The PRESIDENT:

– Some years ago a precedent was created in regard to Question Time. It has carried through to the present. As a matter of courtesy, the Minister may, even though Question Time has concluded, provide certain information. I would be glad if the honourable senator, having heard what the Minister has reported to him, would pursue the matter with him. Question Time is over.

Senator Missen:

– I received no reply at all yesterday and have received the reply now, a day later. Yesterday I could have asked a supplementary question based on that information. However, because it has come a day later and I have received no answer to my question, I do suggest that I should be in a position to ask the same sort of supplementary question that I could have asked yesterday.

The PRESIDENT:

– Question Time having expired, the Minister has exercised his freedom to give an answer to the previous question. However, if supplementary questions were allowed in such a situation they could proceed in a way that I think would be undesirable. I would prefer Ministers to send their reply to the senator who asked the question, rather than have a situation in which, Question Time having concluded, the process of replying is carried over into the time allotted for General Business of this House.

Senator Missen:

– Could I seek leave of the Senate to ask a supplementary question, in view of the fact that I have not previously had a chance to hear the Minister’s reply?

Senator Wriedt:

– I can understand the point made by Senator Missen but as you nave pointed out, Mr President, it is not the practice to permit such supplementary questions. If, in fact, the honourable senator believes that this is a matter that ought to be discussed, it should go to the Standing Orders Committee for consideration. I do not see how we could possibly give leave to create a precedent like that under these circumstances.

Senator Cavanagh:

– On a point of order, I would ask that, in a spirit of generosity, Mr President, you agree to give Senator Missen an early call at Question Time tomorrow.

Senator Georges:

- Mr President, I wish to make a point which arises from your statement. I refer to your advice that a Minister should send an answer directly to a senator. I put it to you that once a question is asked in this place it is the property of the Senate as a whole, and that the answer is of value to us as well as to the senator concerned. A practice is developing in this place of Ministers replying to senators and not even including the answer in the record. I think the practice should not be encouraged. However, there is a device that Senator Missen could have used. He could have sought leave to take note of the answer and perhaps could then have spoken to it.

Senator Rae:

– I seek leave to move a motion that may clarify the whole situation. I would move: That the matter of deferred answers by Ministers to questions be referred to the Standing Orders Committee for consideration.

The PRESIDENT:

– From time to time requests are made of me that certain matters be referred to that Committee. I shall be happy indeed so to do in regard to this matter. I thank honourable senators for the proposal and their pursuance of it.

page 108

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN FILM AND TELEVISION SCHOOL

Senator WEBSTER:
NCP/NP

-Yesterday Senator Walters asked me a question relating to the Australian Film and Television School. The Minister for Home Affairs has advised me as follows:

The Australian Film and Television School through its open program, which offers extension courses for professionals and semi professionals in the film and television industry and in education around Australia, has initiated a training assistance scheme. This scheme operates through the attachment of individuals to any area of the Australian Film and Television industry. The criteria is dependent on the quality of the trainee and the training to be gained through collaboration with a specified individual or organisation.

In this regard, it would be noted that all applications must be presented on the basis of the funding with the respective training organisation. Priorities for training assistance are evaluated by the School’s consultative panel in each State in consultation with the School. These proposals have to be assessed on the basis of the benefit of the attachment to the advancement of the Australian film and television industry and particular consideration is given to the specific needs of each State. In determining priorities the School specifically takes into account the possibility of bringing people from remote areas of the country to major Australian production centres and the possibility of attachments to overseas experts when such people are working in Australia. Although the scheme is flexible in order that the School is able to respond to needs at short notice, it is not anticipated the School will be able to undertake much more than six attachments each year.

page 108

TAXATION

Matter of Urgency

The PRESIDENT:

– I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter dated 21 August from Senator Wriedt:

Dear Mr President,

In accordance with Standing Order 64, I give notice that today I shall move:

That in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The deception by the Fraser Government of its promises to the Australian people to reduce taxation.’

Yours sincerely, (K.S. Wriedt)

Is the motion supported?

More than the number of senators required by the Standing Orders having risen in their places-

Senator WRIEDT:
Leader of the Opposition · Tasmania

– I move:

The electors of Australia clearly recall the Fraser Government’s frequent promises that tax would be reduced and that, if they elected and subsequently re-elected, the Liberal-National Country parties they would be, in fact, supporting lower taxation. Time and again during the 1975 and 1977 election campaigns, the Government parties emphasised that they were the low tax parties. We all remember the advertisements which featured as part of those campaigns taxpayers receiving fistfuls of notes in taxation reductions. These, of course, were supposed to represent the tax cuts that had been promised by the Fraser Government. In the 1977 policy speech, the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) said:

We have reduced taxes, revived incentive and restored fair reward for achievement.

He then went on to say:

This Government has brought in the largest and fairest reforms ever made to Australia’s tax system. Tax indexation saves every Australian taxpayer more money each year.

Mr Fraser then went on to claim that tax indexation and the other alleged reforms put $6 a week into the average wage earner’s pocket. No doubt many of us will recall those advertisements which showed the taxpayer allegedly receiving all these benefits.

In subsequent statements, the Government has attempted to create and perpetuate the myth that it is a low tax party. At the Federal Council meeting of the Liberal Party on 20 April this year, that Party had the hide to claim that full tax indexation was one of its achievements. It was clear, at least, that the Prime Minister and his Treasurer (Mr Howard) had managed to fool at least one section of the community, namely, the Liberal Party’s Federal Council. I now wonder what they say to the proposition that was contained in the Budget Speech last night. The words from that Speech are:

Tax indexation will not be restored for 1979-80.

Perhaps this will confirm in the minds of the electors who voted for the Fraser Government that tax indexation is a dead duck under Mr Fraser and that the Government makes promises which it cannot and does not keep. This Government is prepared to buy votes with blatant promises which are unacheivable Despite the claims to the contrary it is, in fact, a high tax party. No doubt those on the Government side will say that the income tax surcharge of 2.57 per cent has been removed and thus the Australian taxpayer has been offered cuts. To ensure that the Government smartens up and discloses the picture accurately it is worthwhile pointing out that the tax surcharge will remain until December this year at least; thus, the surcharge will still apply for another 5 months. Assuming, of course, that Mr Fraser ‘s promise to knock it off on 1 December can be accepted. The promise of abolition is really only partial and the Government still will be receiving its taxation receipts until at least the end of November. The reduction of the surcharge only returns taxpayers to the same rate of tax as they paid on 30 June last year. There is no reduction of the income tax rates which applied prior to the introduction of the surcharge.

Before examining in more detail some aspects of the Government’s taxation policies, I want to look at the commitment which the Fraser Government gave to tax indexation. I wish to do so because it was a cardinal plank in the tax policies of the Liberal and National Country Parties. Its removal means that claims about tax reform are meaningless and deceptive. In Hansard on 5 May 1976, in answer to a question, the Prime Minister stated:

The Government’s commitment to tax indexation is firm and unequivocal.

Firm and unequivocal’ indeed. First we saw the watering down of tax indexation in last year’s Budget, and in this year’s May economic statement tax indexation was effectively scrapped. There is little doubt about the meaning of the words ‘firm and unequivocal’, yet there is little doubt about Mr Howard’s statement last night that there is and will be no commitment to tax indexation in the current financial year. Indeed, there is no commitment beyond that date. Under the circumstances, is it any wonder that, since the Prime Minister’s credibility is at its lowest level since his election in 1975, the Australian people have the greatest doubts as to the integrity and genuineness of this man? The Prime Minister lifted the expectations of the Australian taxpayers when, in the same answer, he said:

Tax indexation will give a protection to individuals that no other system can give.

That protection has been wiped out and, as a result, the Government will go down as the highest tax government in Australia’s history. There would be less objection to the change to the taxation arrangements if the Government had been honest about the economic difficulties which it believed it was facing and had decided not to lift the expectations of the Australian elector. One cannot help but believe that the promises of tax indexation and related tax reforms were largely a result of the Prime Minister’s greed for power. He was prepared to offer any financial incentive, even though he knew he could not fulfil those promises. The statements of the first of the two Liberal Treasurers, Mr Lynch, also show that the Government believed that tax indexation was an essential element of its economic policy. On 4 March, he said:

One important element of our economic program is the commitment to index personal income taxes . . .

He went on to say:

Personal tax indexation is clearly a measure which is antiinflationary in the longer term to the extent that it moderates tax-induced wage demands and constrains excessive spending based on ‘ automatic ‘ growth of government revenues.

On the basis of that statement, tax indexation was not only to benefit individuals but also was an essential element of the Government’s longer term anti-inflationary policy. It appears not only that the individual taxpayer has been deceived by the Fraser Government but also that the Government is making a fundamental shift in another of its basic commitments, which is allegedly to fight inflation first. It was a commitment that was made not just to individuals because on 24 February Mr Lynch said:

The Government is committed to the introduction of tax indexation for both people and companies.

The expectations of the corporate sector were lifted also. What happened? The trading stock valuation adjustment allowance, which was introduced as one of the tax reforms, was taken away. Therefore, the Government will be taking more of the corporate profits. This hardly tallies with the view which the Treasurer and the Secretary to the Treasury have expressed, that profits need to continue to rise and more incentive needs to be given to investment. Neither individuals nor companies in the Australian community can gain any sense of stability in taxation policy under Mr Fraser’s Government. The creation of instability in tax policy has the psychological effect of reducing the incentive to invest and also the incentive to spend. There will be individuals who must doubt whether the removal of the tax surcharge is permanent. Many companies will make provision for increased company tax in the next financial year.

None of these actions will provide the incentive to increase private sector activity upon which this Government is relying so heavily. Sections of the Fraser Ministry might argue that because Mr Lynch was sacked and a new Treasurer installed, the commitment to tax indexation could be watered down. But it was Mr Howard, with the same evangelical zeal as Mr Lynch, who said on 27 April 1977:

Tax indexation represents the most significant tax reform carried out by any government in this country during the past decade.

Mr Howard went on to say that it would not be possible for the Government to give further tax reductions at that time. He stated:

The Government has no intention of departing from economic responsibility in these matters.

How often have honourable senators heard such words? Most Australians would interpret those remarks as meaning that the Government would remain honest and, even if there were other costs, would maintain its integrity and honour its several firm commitments to introduce full tax indexation. It has not honoured those commitments. This final and open confession of a break with tax indexation is another in a long line of broken promises. Let us look at the figures which show that this Government is a high tax government and that it will go down in history as Australia’s highest tax government. Total taxation receipts under the Fraser Government have risen from $1 1.95 billion in 1975-76 to an estimated $ 1 8.64 billion in the current financial year- an increase of 55.9 per cent in direct taxation proceeds. This increase exceeds the increase in the direct proceeds of the previous Government. I hope that the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Carrick) will note those words in view of the answers he gave today in this place. In contrast, total receipts under the Fraser Government have risen by only 38 per cent. This means that the Fraser Government has been hauling in taxation revenue at a faster rate than other revenues.

As the Treasurer admitted in his Budget Speech last night, the taxation revenue from companies has fallen and, due to tax avoidance, there has been less revenue received from sections of personal tax payers. It probably means that persons paying tax through the payasyouearn system have borne a higher burden of” tax than any other sector of the economy. This gives the lie to the statement and the claims that were made, according to, for example, the Australian Financial Review by the Prime Minister at a luncheon which he gave on 17 August last year. He is reported as having said:

The burden of taxation has been lightened substantially even allowing for the increases the Government has reluctantly had to make in this Budget.

The burden has not been lightened. That was a flight of fancy on the part of the Prime Minister and a continuing attempt to sustain the myth that the Liberal and National Country Parties were low taxation parties. If we look at the Budget receipts in this year’s documents and at total receipts as a proportion of Australia ‘s gross domestic product, clearly the Labor Government was more of a lower total taxation party than is the present Government. In the 3-year period of the previous Government, total receipts as a proportion of Australia’s gross domestic product was 24.5 per cent. Yet under the present Government it has averaged 25.72 per cent. It is 1.2 per cent higher than it was under the previous Government.

Whichever way looked at, the figures show that taxation now is proportionately higher than it was under the previous Government. These figures which I have given come from the Treasurer’s own documents and they do not support the argument that taxation has been reduced during the period of Mr Fraser’s Government. The forecast by the Treasurer that wages and salaries are likely to rise by 9 per cent and the maintenance of the current basic rates of taxation mean that total tax receipts will continue to accelerate and that there will be no lightening of the tax burden. Any money that comes from the taxpayers’ pockets as a result of the removal of the tax surcharge will be soaked up by the crude oil levy and the effective movement of many taxpayers from one rate level to another. The complete absence of personal tax indexation is thus an inbuilt insurance policy for the Government.

If we look at some parts of the Prime Minister’s policy speech in 1977 where he discussed the effects of the previous Government’s taxation policies and proposals and apply them to the present position, we find that according to Mr Fraser’s own criteria he is the great sinner. He said:

We would all pay higher taxes for Labor’s extravaganceand we would pay in higher interest rates, higher inflation, higher unemployment.

That is exactly the position we have at present. Taxation receipts are at an all time record level. We have the highest unemployment on record. Interest rates are likely to rise as the rate of inflation, as admitted by the Government continues to rise. Yet all this has happened under the Fraser Government.

It is interesting to look back at the remarks of Mr Lynch at the National Press Club on 17 August 1977. He said:

The credibility of what any government does in relation tax reform must in fact be measured by the extent df the tax dollars that go into your pocket, into mine, into the pockets of other people.

How right was Mr Lynch. It is a fact that this Government has made the taxpayers’ pockets into a sluice-gate through which it can shunt money without the taxpayers ever receiving the advantage. This Government has become the master of giving with one hand and taking with both. The Fraser petrol tax, the tax surcharge, the dropping of personal and corporate tax indexation and the direct creation of higher inflation show that any vestige of credibility in economic management has disappeared out the window. The electorate in Australia will never again be deceived by the promises made by Mr Malcolm Fraser. We will not forget the fistfuls of notes dangling like the proverbial carrot. One recalls the statement made in another country about another leader in days gone by, the question being: ‘Would you be prepared to buy a used car from this man?’ The answer then was no. The answer in this country will be no.

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– I am delighted to have the opportunity one day after the presentation of the Budget to rise in this place and put the facts. (Quorum formed). I am delighted to be able to correct the total misrepresentation of the position by the Leader of the Opposition (Senator Wriedt). First of all, I should point to his political credibility on taxation. He suggested that he should argue for a censure of the Government because it apparently is a government of high taxation and has not carried out policies on tax indexation and stock valuation adjustments. Let me make perfectly clear the situation from which the Australian Labor Party speaks. When in government it refused outright to have anything to do with tax indexation. Indexation was not its policy. It was a policy which it rejected totally and which it still rejects, because as yet no member of the Opposition has come forward firmly on this subject. This is an old trick. Members of the Opposition argue with others. Let them tell us what their policy is. They argue now about stock valuation adjustments. Let them say that they would introduce stock valuation allowances. When in government they refused to do so. So we are dealing with a party which attempts to censure a government on grounds that it rejected itself. We must keep that in mind. It is a party whose leader, when he is on his feet, reads selectively.

The test of whether my Government has been a tax reduction government is very simple. It relates to the ordinary person in his ordinary home. Let me take the simple test of the ordinary person. He measures what he would pay in cents in the dollar from his wages as such. Under the 1975-76 Hayden Budget the wage earner on $ 10,000 was taxed at the marginal rate of 45c in the dollar, whilst for a wage earner on $ 1 6,000 the figure was 55c. What is the scale under this Government for both those wage earners? It is 32c. That is the tax scale for every person in that range. The measure of whether this Government has cut taxes is a comparison of how many cents in the dollar wage earners paid under the Whitlam Labor Government with what is being done by the Fraser Government. I repeat that under Labor the marginal tax rate was 45c in the dollar for a wage earner on $10,000 and 55c in the dollar for a wage earner on $16,000. Under our Government the standard rate is 32c.

Senator Georges:

– Does that include indirect taxes?

Senator CARRICK:

– Lest anybody, including the inevitable woodpecker, should talk about this, let me say simply that had the Whitlam rates applied -

Senator Georges:

– He only stirs me to better effort.

Senator CARRICK:

– The honourable senator is now not only a civil recidivist but also a political recidivist; and we all compliment him on his haircut, however compulsory it may have been. The fact remains that had the tax scale of the Labor Party applied last year, $3,000m more would have been taken out of the taxpayers’ pockets than we took out of the taxpayers’ pockets. I repeat: Based on the average weekly wage, had the Hayden-Wriedt scale applied in January of this year Labor would have taken $61.25 out of the taxpayers’ pockets as compared with $52.2 under the Fraser Government’s scale. That applies to each individual. That is where it counts. How much in the dollar does a government take? Let me remind the Senate of what in fact has happened. In the three years 1973-74 to 1975-76, under the Whitlam regime, the increase in net pay as you earn taxation was $2, 782m, an increase of 65.6 per cent.

Senator Keeffe:

– What about quoting your own figures?

Senator CARRICK:

-I am delighted that Senator Keeffe should ask me to do that because they will enlighten him. In the three years 1976-77 to 1978-79 the increase was $ 1,869m, compared with Labor’s increase of $2,782m. It was an increase of 21.9 per cent in three years, compared with the Labor increase of 65.6 per cent. Yet honourable senators opposite have the gall to say that we have not honoured our promise to reduce taxes. We were aiming to reduce the level of taxation. Need we go further? Let us consider the whole of taxation revenue. The comparative figures are very real indeed. They reveal that in the three years of the Labor Government there was an increase of $5, 970m- an increase of 54.9 per cent- compared with, for our three years in government, an increase of $3,646m, which is an increase of 18.6 per cent. That is much less than Labor’s increase. There is an incredible difference between the increases. An incredible reduction has been made. Yet Labor’s leader in this chamber has the gall to put forward such a proposition here.

Let me state the record against the background that we are being charged with having committed a breach in terms of tax indexation and stock valuation adjustment. I repeat that both those propositions were rejected by Labor. I repeat that the party whose leader in this chamber is here today talking about tax reduction is the party which, at its Adelaide conference, brought down a huge tax aggrandisement policy- a high taxation policy. It is the party which forgets to tell people about its proposed wealth tax and its proposed resources tax. Of course, the whole of its policies added together, if implemented, would disastrously harvest many thousands of millions of dollars of extra tax from the ordinary worker. That is what that party did when it was in government. That is the party which is now adjuring us.

Let us remind the people of what we did. We said, indeed, that we favoured tax indexation. Six months after we came to office we brought in tax indexation. Prior to that taxation through inflation provided a standing temptation to governments to launch into further spending sprees, which is precisely what the Labor Government did. At Question Time I pointed out the absolutely disastrous figures attributable to the Labor Party. In a moment, Mr President, I will seek leave to incorporate two tables in Hansard. I pointed out earlier the personal income tax collections, in adjusted figures, with the deflator adjusted to enable a proper comparison of the figures, for the three Labor Budgets. In 1973-74 personal income tax collections increased by 19.9 per cent, in 1974-75 they increased by 19.9 per cent and in 1975-76 they increased by 3.5 per cent, representing an increase over the three years of 43.3 per cent. That was Labor’s record.

Labor now says that we have not reduced taxes. What in fact are the Australian Statistician ‘s figures for the Fraser Government? They show that in 1976-77 personal income tax collections increased by 7.6 per cent, in 1977-78 they increased by 0.5 per cent and in 1978-79 they decreased by 3. 1 per cent, representing a total increase of 5 per cent. Yet the party which achieved a real increase of 43.3 per cent in its three years in government is attempting to censure the Government, which has achieved an increase of only 5 per cent over three years. I reminded the Senate earlier and I now remind it again of what was said by the Treasurer (Mr Howard) in his Budget Speech last night because all of the expenditures of government are paid for out of the taxpayers’ pockets. The more a government increases expenditure, the more it raids the taxpayer. Let us see who were the people who increased expenditure and raided the taxpayer. Perhaps the people responsible will deny it. The Treasurer said last night: lt is worth noting that in the three years to 1972-73 -

They were years under a government of the Liberal faith-

Commonwealth Budget outlays grew by an average of 4% per cent per year in real terms: in the three years to 1975-76 -

They were years under the Whitlam Government- by lO’/i per cent per year; and in the three years to 1978-79 -

They were years under the Fraser Government, which Labor is now pretending to censure- by only 1 per cent per year.

There we have it. Who were the people who so contained expenditure that they did not raid the taxpayers’ pockets? Was it Senator Wriedt ‘s discredited Labor Party, with its lO’/i per cent increase in Budget outlays each year, or was it the Fraser Government with its modest increase of 1 per cent per year? It really is the most outrageous gall on the part of the Labor Party. It really is more than Satan rebuking sin, for somebody, in fact the preselected candidate for a Tasmanian lower House seat, a seat he will not win, to come in here as a surrogate Leader of the Opposition, who has so little respect for the Senate that he wants to desert it- that is how we must judge him, as Satan rebuking sin- and say: ‘I want to tell you what the Budget says about tax indexation’. If I might say so, as occurs with nearly everything Senator Wriedt does, he read selectively- he read what suited him. It would be well worth while to read what was said in the Budget Speech about tax indexation. The Treasurer said:

As I have already indicated, it has only proved possible to remove the income tax surcharge. Tax indexation will not be restored for 1 979-80.

Whether or not tax indexation can be restored in 1980-81 will depend upon general economic conditions. Wage decisions by the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission will be relevant to that.

The Government hopes that the increase in take-home pay of wage and salary earners as from I December will encourage greater wage restraint.

The Treasurer went on to state, and of course Senator Wriedt failed to see this:

Let there be no mistake. The Government wants to be in a position to restore tax indexation -

I stress the words ‘wants to be in a position to restore tax indexation ‘- but economic circumstances have to be right.

The person who rebukes us on that issue does not believe in tax indexation. He does not believe in stock valuation adjustment. His own discredited Government would not have a bar of it either. His Government was the Government which harvested inflation. Let us have a little look at what happened. The Fraser Government is very proud of what it had done in tax reduction in its period in office. The Fraser Government has nothing to regret about its record of tax reduction. Indeed, its performance is first class. No government in the history of this Federation has so restrained expenditure as to enable taxation to be given back to the people. Six months after coming to office the Government introduced tax indexation. (Quorum formed). The people of Australia should understand that each time the Labor Party calls a quorum there are almost no Labor senators here at all. That is their normal practice. There are in fact five Labor senators here at the moment, and that ought to be put on record for the people of Australia. That is a high Labor Party attendance, but compare it with the attendance of the 2 1 Government senators who are in their places behind me now. The quorum is a device the Labor Party uses to attempt to deny the Government senator on his feet the time allotted to him to speak. Every time a quorum is called I intend to note to the people of Australia the attendance of the Labor Party in the Senate. I think it is high time the people of Australia knew that the mote is in the Labor Party’s eye and not in the Government’s eye. I turn now to the next major taxation reform that happened in Australia during the second year of the Government’s office.

Opposition senators interjecting-

Senator CARRICK:

-I do not mind if Opposition senators attempt to destroy by noise. All that that indicates to the people of Australia is that they are unwilling to allow the people of Australia to listen to arguments which refute and destroy their argument. Let them scream their heads off.

Senator MacGibbon:

– I raise a point of order. As a matter of courtesy, could the speaker on his feet be given the right to be heard.

Senator Wriedt:

– I speak to the point of order. On many occasions in this type of debate the atmosphere becomes somewhat excited. The reason for this is the manner in which the Leader of the Government conducts himself in the chamber. When Senator MacGibbon has been here a little longer and has had more experience he will find that out. When the Leader of the Government chooses to make the sorts of statements he does and to debate these matters in the way he does I am sure that he expects the sorts of interjections that he gets.

Senator CARRICK:

– Let me make it clear that the people who listen to the debate and the people who read Hansard will be the judges. This is a snide trick by the Opposition to attempt to take up time, to waste time, to deny time to the Government senator on his feet and to outshout him so that his arguments cannot be heard.

Senator Georges:

– On a point of order-

Senator CARRICK:

– Here again is the classic device an attempt by the Labor Whip to take up more time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Townley)- What is your point of order, Senator Georges?

Senator Georges:

– My point of order at least has the same status as that raised by Senator MacGibbon. The Leader of the Government has introduced irrelevant matters into this debate. He speaks of procedures; he speaks of devices on the part of the Opposition to deny him the right to express his opinion. Yet he knows full well that at a later stage the Government will apply the gag and thus deny the Opposition-

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTWhat is your point of order, Senator Georges?

Senator Georges:

– The Leader of the Government has introduced irrelevant matters. He is not keeping to the subject of the debate. He is not relevant and I am proceeding to show how he is not relevant. I am not seeking to waste the time of the Leader of the Government. At least he has another 10 minutes to go. He has already said twice over what he had to say. My point of order is that he is being irrelevant. While I am on my feet, I indicate to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, that Senator Carrick’s irrelevancy has to be understood clearly. At a later stage during this debate he intends to gag one of our speakers.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT- I do not think you can assume that that is going to happen.

Senator Georges:

– I would not enter into this area of debate it if were not for the fact that the Leader of the Government has spoken on procedures. I am merely answering him.

Senator Archer:

– What is the point of order?

Senator Georges:

– Irrelevancy.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTThere is no point of order. I call the Leader of the Government and I ask both sides of the House -

Senator Keeffe:

– On a point of order -

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT- I have heard enough discussion on the point of order.

Senator Keeffe:

– I want to raise a new point of order.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTUnder what Standing Order?

Senator Keeffe:

– The Minister referred to some documents he wanted to incorporate in Hansard, and in that respect a custom has been built up in this chamber. I doubt very much whether those documents have been shown to you, Mr Acting Deputy President, or to the Leader of the Opposition. If that has not been done, they ought to be made available. I raise this point of order-

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTOrder! There is no point of order.

Senator Keeffe:

– I am raising this point of order because it is relevant to the situation, with the dubious figures the Minister has been using ever since we started at 2. 1 5 this afternoon.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTOrder, Senator Keeffe!

Senator Keeffe:

– If the figures are not -

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTOrder, Senator Keeffe!

Senator Keeffe:

– I am raising the question -

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENTSenator Keeffe, I will name you.

Senator Lajovic:

– Sit down.

Senator Keeffe:

– The Acting Deputy President is running the chamber, not you. You would not be able to run a chook house. The Acting Deputy President is running the chamber, and when he tells me to sit down I will do so.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Sit down, Senator Keeffe. If there is another outburst like that, I will name you.

Senator CARRICK:

-So that the people of Australia will understand, the procedure is that at the end of my speech I will seek the incorporation in Hansard of the tables. Indeed, the same courtesy I have repeatedly given to Senator Keeffe in exactly the same circumstances will be conceded. While I am on my feet, let me make one other point. The arrangement that will take place today in this urgency debate will be identical with the arrangements that were made throughout the Whitlam Government’s term. They are arrangements that were agreed upon between the Government and the Opposition throughout the Autumn session. Let that be quite clear. Opposition senators having demonstrated their desire to waste time because they do not want to hear argument, I now come to the second vital reform brought about by the Fraser Government, that is, the introduction of standard rates- the 32c rate, the 46c rate and the 60c rate. That was a fundamental change and a huge reduction in the people’s tax payments. As the Senate will know, along with that reduction all taxpayers have benefited from the reforms. While the aim has been to provide incentive, the less well off have not been forgotten. As a result of the Government’s actions in increasing the tax threshold from $2,519 to $3,893, up to 500,000 Australians no longer have any need to pay income tax. So we have lowered the tax rates. Last year we gave back $3,000m more than would have applied under the Whitlam Government rates. On the Whitlam Government scale, we have taxed the average weekly wage earner about $9 less than the Labor Party would do; and we are adjured that we are not reducing taxation by a party which, I repeat, refused personal tax indexation, which refused corporate tax indexation and which at its Adelaide conference set about to tax the people of Australia- if, God forbid, it ever got back into office- in the highest tax raid ever. To say that that would be higher than the Whitlam tax raid is almost to use hyperbole. Nevertheless, the people of Australia should understand the meanings behind the wealth tax, the resources tax and the intention to develop and enlarge the public sector by shrinking the private sector. That is the situation. The figures are there. I present to the Senate two tables for observation, if the Senate so desires. I seek their incorporation in Hansard and their tabling, if that is desired.

Leave granted.

The tables read as follows-

Senator CARRICK:

– Let me now simply add up what has been said. The fact is that the Labor Party rose today to seek, by way of urgency, to suggest that this Government had not carried out its promises to reduce taxation. Demonstrably, by the scale of tax for the individual taxpayer, that is wrong. It has clearly done so. Demonstrably, by the half a million taxpayers who no longer pay tax, that is wrong. Demonstrably, by the fact that people in higher income groups are paying lower tax now, that is wrong. Demonstrably, the average weekly wage earners are paying today some $9 less than they would have paid under the Labor Party. We are abolishing the tax surcharge. We have said that we cannot at this moment restore tax indexation, but it is our keen desire to do so. I will be interested to hear whether the Labor senator who speaks after me will say positively that the Labor Party will bring in tax indexation in the same way as the Fraser Government did, that it will bring in corporate tax indexation, and that it will in fact bring down the scale of tax that the Fraser Government is applying; because, if not, the Labor Party’s argument falls to the ground.

Senator WALSH:
Western Australia

– A month ago the Government said that it would come clean, it would stop telling lies to the public and it would start telling the truth. It said that it would put before the public honestly and objectively the realities of the Australian economic situation and the difficulties that the country was facing. It is a pity that senior Ministers in the Government could not act in accordance with those standards. The Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) was exposed on the AM program this morning, by someone quite disinterested in party politics- the secretary of the Australian Taxpayers Association - as misrepresenting the facts about his alleged tax cuts which are in fact a tax increase. Senator Carrick has just presented a specious, partly irrelevant and certainly misrepresented defence of the Government’s high tax policies. I repeat that they are the highest taxes that any government has ever imposed on the Australian people. Senator Carrick had the audacity to challenge Senator Wriedt ‘s credibility. I know Senator Wriedt ‘s credibility in the community to be very high. The Prime Minister’s credibility stands at 27 per cent. That is how many people believe what the Prime Minister says.

The Prime Minister leads a Government- and Senator Carrick leads that same Government in the Senate- which was elected almost four years ago on the basis of a number of solemn undertakings to the Australian people. Among other things, it promised propriety in government. Since then we have seen eight Ministers sacked, and three more sackings are in the pipeline. The Prime Minister’s own relatives cannot keep their sticky fingers out of the public purse. They secured improperly $50,000 loans at a rate of interest of 4 per cent. The Government promised jobs for all. Since then unemployment has doubled. It promised lower interest rates. They are going up. It promised lower inflation. For a couple of years it went part of the way to keeping that undertaking, but now even this Government admits that inflation is going up. It has doubled the price of petrol. The Prime Minister said that we did not need a tourist as a Prime Minister. Now he takes off every three months on his latest overseas jaunt in the luxury aircraft he has purchased for $ 1 4m at the taxpayers’ expense.

I have just been handed one of this afternoon’s newspapers. ‘Tax Sting’, it says, ‘You will pay more’. At last the Press has got it right. ‘Tax Row on Budget’, it says. ‘Expert says it is a 27 per cent rise for some’. The expert in question, of course, is Mr Risstrom. The Prime Minister promised that there would be no more jobs for the boys. How many failed Liberal politicians have we seen put into positions in the Public Service since then? It is no wonder that the Fraser Government has such a poor opinion of the Public Service, since it is now stacked with so many of its cast-offs. Yet Senator Carrick has the audacity to talk about Senator Wriedt ‘s credibility. I am told by my learned colleague Senator Button that Sigmund Freud once described neuroticism as ‘an abnormal obsession with the past’. Senator Carrick certainly displayed an abnormal obsession with the fairly distant past in his attempt to defend this Government’s tax rip-off policies. We heard a great deal about the Whitlam Government. We did not hear very much about the levels of taxation which this Government is imposing and has just increased. But I guess that those whose position in the present is untenable find it much more comfortable to dwell in the past.

Numerous examples of the Government’s duplicity on this question of taxation are on the public record. I will quote just a few. On 25 November 1977, during the 1977 election campaign, on the subject of taxation generally the Prime Minister said:

Let me talk for a moment about taxation because it has become the major issue of this election campaign. The differences between the two parties on taxation reveal the fundamental contrast between the philosophies of the Government and Mr Whitlam ‘s Labor Party. We have taken the view that a reduction in the personal tax burden is essential to economic recovery and to boosting job opportunities.

I will repeat that:

We have taken the view that a reduction in the personal tax burden is essential to economic recovery and to boosting job opportunities.

Earlier this afternoon, when asked whether the Government still believed that, in characteristic style Senator Carrick dodged the question. The fact is that total Federal Government tax payable, that is, personal plus indirect, as a proportion of gross domestic product, according to the estimates in last night’s Budget, will hit 24.43 per cent. That is the highest it has ever been. Personal income tax- tax on individuals- rises from 1 2.62 per cent of gross domestic product last year to 13.27 per cent this year. They are the hard facts of the Government’s latest tax rip-off. They are the condensed facts. This leads to only two possible conclusions: Either the Government does not believe what Mr Fraser was saying in 1977-1 guess that since nobody else seems to believe Mr Fraser there is no longer any particular reason why the Government should believe him- or it has completely abdicated its responsibility, to use the Prime Minister’s words in 1977, to promote economic recovery and boost job opportunities.

This afternoon we heard a lot of prevarication from Senator Carrick about the appropriate methodology for comparing changes in tax levels over a period. Only by avoiding the issue can the Government put up any defence at all. But, unfortunately for him, the Treasurer (Mr Howard), in a speech which he delivered in Perth on 30 April, said:

We must Tully understand the facts and not the fiction about the actual level of taxation in Australia. The most recent OECD analysis of comparative tax levels for the year 1976 ranks Australia 17th amongst the 24 member countries when the total taxation is measured at a percentage of the GDP.

That is the appropriate method for making comparisons on taxation, so the Treasurer said on 30 April, and in that instance the Treasurer was correct. If we look at the question of tax indexation, we see that the Fraser Government has reneged on its election promise in two respects. Firstly, it has reneged in respect of the absolute level of taxation, which has gone up. Secondly, it has reneged on what it once claimed was a solemn promise to keep governments honest by indexing the tax schedule.

It is well known that if there is a general increase in prices and incomes and the tax schedule remains unchanged, the proportion of income paid in tax increases. Not only the amount increases but also the proportion paid in tax increases. For that reason, the Government and particularly the Prime Minister said- during election campaigns he says these things- that governments have to be kept honest. He said, We will introduce full tax indexation and we will keep it’. He said in his 1975 policy speech, which is a good place to start, that ‘the implementation of personal tax indexation will be completed within three years’. He then listed a number of points. I will not read all of them but they included the claim that failure to adjust the progressive income tax schedule for the effects of inflation would lead to an acceleration in the rate of wage increases. The Prime Minister said that personal income tax indexation would be introduced because if this were not done it would lead to an acceleration in the rate of wage increases.

The Government claims to be perturbed about wage increases which it asserts are the cause of inflation and says that to restrain excessive increases in wages, indexation must be introduced. The Government formally abandoned wage indexation last night. What is the Government’s policy? The Prime Minister said during the election campaign that ‘the public has a right to know when taxes are being raised and governments should be subject to the financial discipline of introducing explicit legislation to this end’. If the Government still believed that, it would have indexed the tax schedule last night, retained the tax surcharge and gained a comparable amount of revenue. It chose to do the opposite. Why did it choose to do the opposite? It did so because it thought it could more effectively deceive the public by abolishing the tax surcharge, which is something easier to understand, and retaining the existing tax schedule- in other words, abandoning indexation. Of course, it has not worked.

I have quoted already from the afternoon newspapers. Even the public understands what has happened. The headlines in this afternoon’s newspapers are worth repeating. In four inch banner headlines, one newspaper states, ‘Tax sting, you will pay more’. Another afternoon newspaper says, ‘Tax row on budget’. Again, in four inch headlines, it states, ‘Expert says “it’s a 27 per cent rise for some” ‘. The expert in question is Mr Risstrom, the secretary of the Taxpayers Association. The Government thought that it was going to get away with it. I am pleased to see that it has not got away with it and it will not get away with it.

The subject of tax indexation was raised also during the 1977 election campaign. The Prime Minister always becomes most self-righteous on this question during election campaigns. He said,

It is quite clear that the Labor Party would abolish what is called tax indexation’. He went on to tell us, in other words, that if Labor were in office it would greatly increase the personal income tax the public must pay. We were told that a Labor Government would not do this in an open way through legislation but by stealth. The Prime Minister said that the Labor Party would increase taxation by stealth- that is, as incomes increased through inflation it would take a higher proportion of them in tax. That is exactly what the Prime Minister did last night. That is exactly what Senator Carrick supported this afternoon. Whoever follows him in this debate will also swallow his pride and principles, I daresay, and support the Prime Minister. The Government has increased tax by stealth. Let us have a look at the magnitude of those increases.

I have prepared tables and I invite the Minister to examine them before I seek leave to incorporate them in Hansard The table dealing with personal income tax shows that a single person receiving an income of $140 a week, and anticipating the wage increases which the Government forecast in last night’s Budget, will be paying an extra $4 a week in tax throughout this financial year. The proportion of that person’s income paid in tax will rise from 5Vt per cent to almost 17 per cent. The position is repeated right through the income scale up to $200 a week. Someone receiving an income of $200 a week last year will be paying $6 a week more in tax this year. Taxation, as a proportion of that person’s income, will increase from just under 21 per cent to just under 22 per cent. That applies at all levels of income. Perhaps the most reprehensible aspect of all is that the increases apply most severely to those on the lower levels of income. The proportion of income paid in tax will increase by the greatest amount for those on lower incomes. So much for the individual.

If we look at aggregates, we see exactly the same thing. This Government, which claimed to be a low tax government, is imposing in total Commonwealth taxes this year what, on its own estimate, amounts to 24.43 per cent of the gross domestic product. The total tax incorporates the Government’s massive rip-off in oil prices- that is, its petrol taxing policy which has doubled the price of petrol and given the Government an extra $ 1,000m. That is the highest level of taxation as a proportion of gross domestic product which any government has ever imposed on Australia in peacetime. The tax on individuals, at 13.27 per cent, is the highest ever imposed by any government in Australia in peacetime other than that imposed by the Fraser Government in one previous year. So the Government has broken its own record in total taxation and has almost equalled its own record in personal income tax. That is the subject of this debate. It is not just the level of taxation; it is also the fact that in this area, as in so many other areas, the Fraser Government’s promises in 1975 and 1977 have been shown to be totally worthless. Not only has it broken its promise in respect of increasing taxation; it has done it in what the Government itself previously defined as a dishonest manner.

The PRESIDENT:

– Order! The honourable senator’s time has expired. Senator Walsh, you indicated you wished to incorporate certain documents. Do you wish to have those documents incorporated in Hansard!

Senator Walsh:

– I seek leave to have two tables incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The tables read as follows-

Senator MESSNER:
South Australia

– I rise to speak in defence of the Fraser Government in order to set right some of the statements that have been made today, not only in this debate in respect of the Government’s taxation measures but also during Question Time. I see that Senator Wriedt is leaving the chamber at this stage. It is his question in particular that I wish to refer to this afternoon. I think we all heard him say quite clearly that the Government had collected $50,000m more tax than was collected by the Whitlam Labor Government. I looked at the figures he quoted. The reference he gave us in his question was page 25 1 of Budget Paper No. 1. It is very difficult to work out his figures because of his obvious misreading of those on page 251. However, it hit one straight away that he was comparing figures over three years under the Whitlam Labor Government with figures over 4’/i years of this Fraser Government’s period of office. That is the explanation. It does Senator Wriedt no credit to use such an unreasonable debating point.

Senator Walsh and Senator Wriedt have acted in all sorts of strange ways in order to make points about taxation. In particular, we have read of growths in the rate of taxation collections expressed as a proportion of gross domestic product. During 1972-73- the first year of the Whitlam period of office- income tax constituted 13.7 per cent of the gross domestic product. What was it the next year? It was 14.7 per cent. In 1974-75 the figure grew to 16.6 per cent. In the next year, 1975-76, the figure was 16.4 per cent. Every year since then during the period of office of the Fraser Government there has been a fall in personal income tax as a proportion of gross domestic product. Senator Walsh ought to check his facts and at least get his remarks into some sort of perspective before he starts to mislead the public, listening to the broadcast of Senate proceedings, about the operations of these two governments.

Senator Wriedt:

– You are being selective in what you are quoting.

Senator MESSNER:

-No, I am not being selective. I am quoting directly from page 247 of Budget Paper No. 1.

Senator Wriedt:

– Quote the total tax revenue.

Senator MESSNER:

– The honourable senator can check the figures if he likes. If he will not accept that set of criteria, I further refer the Opposition to the deflated percentage increases in taxation collections that have occurred in each of the years from 1973-74 to the year ended 30 June 1979. When we take into account inflation for that period we find that in 1974, when the first Budget of the Whitlam Labor Government was presented, taxes increased in real termsthat is, in terms of the spending power taken from the pockets of the people- by 1 9.9 per cent. Nearly 20c in the dollar was taken from their incomes in 1974 not through inflation, but in real money, real spending power. This reduced their standard of living dramatically. The people remembered that in the election of 1975.

In 1975 the figure rose to 24.6 per cent. In 1976, the first year of the Fraser Government’s period of office, it fell to 7.2 per cent. In the next year it was 6.6 per cent. In 1978 the figure was 1.9 per cent and in 1974 a negative figure of 3.2 per cent was recorded. In other words, more was given back to the people in increased spending power and living standards than was taken. Does that demonstrate a denial of the promises of the Fraser Government? We were elected in 1 974 on the basis of reducing taxation and putting spending power back in the dollar after tax. We did it. These figures demonstrate that. It is quite clear that members of the Opposition have no basis for the sort of argument they are putting today.

Senator Teague:

– They have given up.

Senator MESSNER:

– Apparently members of the Opposition have disappeared and have no further interest in the debate. This is only typical of their operation. Most members of the chamber will recognise that today an election has been called in South Australia.

Senator Bishop:

– Hear, hear!

Senator MESSNER:

-Senator Bishop says: Hear, hear! ‘ I see that Premier Corcoran has decided to call this election on the following basis: He says that he wants South Australians to confirm him in office so that he can put before them a package of policies to carry the Australian Labor Party, not the people of South Australia, into the 1980s. He was asked by journalists at his set-up Press conference whether his calling of an election on the day after the Federal Budget had anything to do with the Budget. He said: ‘No, it has nothing to do with the Budget’. Yet he said that the Budget would be an electoral issue. He said: ‘No, the election has nothing to do with the Federal Budget, but, yes, the Budget will be an electoral issue ‘. What sort of two-faced, hypocritical approach is this from the Premier who sets himself up as the saviour of South Australia? Colonel Corcoran is supposedly going to put value back in the South Australian dollar.

We talk about high taxation. We have heard about the Whitlam period of office and what the Labor Party did to taxation. Some 20c or 25c in the real dollar was taken out of people ‘s pockets. The Labor Government in South Australia since 1970 has increased land tax by 210 per cent, stamp duties by 284 per cent, succession duties by 94 per cent and payroll tax by 549 per cent. This has been done by a so-called low tax party. This is Colonel Corcoran ‘s way of doing business. Apparently moved by the same sentiments as Opposition senators have expressed today, he is calling an election. This is the sort of hypocrisy we find coming-

Senator Bishop:

– I raise a point of order. The remarks of the honourable senator are not relevant to the debate. Members of the Opposition are prevented from replying to the points about the South Australian election. It is a denial of my right to criticise what Senator Messner is doing. I suggest that the honourable senator is out of order.

The PRESIDENT:

– The point of order is not sustained.

Senator MESSNER:

– I was just about to show Senator Bishop the relevance of my remarks by referring to the fact that the Labor Party is obviously a high tax party. Let me refer to the famous conference in Adelaide. Members of the Labor Party chose Adelaide to tell people about high taxation. (Quorum formed). I was just discussing the duplicity of the Labor Party in South Australia and in particular in bringing up the Federal Government taxation record as a matter of urgency today. At a press conference today Colonel Corcoran said that he had been contemplating an election in South Australia for some time. He came to office last February on the resignation of Mr Dunstan, saying he would not have an election for three years; that he wanted the State to consolidate so that it could recover from a disastrous state that had been created even though Labor had been in office there for almost 10 years.

I return to the Australian Labor Party Conference held last July and refer to a not very well publicised section of the policy of the ALP on taxation. The policy talks about a wealth tax which will be introduced by the ALP. The ALP has a twisted idea that this will be the great solution to all taxation problems and that it will not be inflationary. The policy states:

Labor will ‘enhance the equity of the tax system-

I ask honourable senators to note that- by taxing large accumulations of personal capital above a floor-

It is probably $1- that is reviewed regularly and takes into account the special circumstances of farmers, small businessmen and aged people, and excludes the normal -

I underline’ normal ‘, whatever it means holdings assembled over a lifetime by persons and family units’.

I draw attention to that matter because it is clear that the Opposition, if it ever came to government, would be introducing not a capital gains tax but a tax on the wealth of every person in the community.

Secondly, we all recall that, to our great surprise at the time, in June of 1978 Mr Willis, who is now the exalted economic spokesman for the Australian Labor Party, said at a conference of Labor economists:

If Labor does not gain office next election then by 1983, when we could next hope to gain office -

He was already admitting, apparently, that his party could not win the next election- we would face a mammoth task in rebuilding the public sector and maybe an equally mammoth task in convincing the electorate that it should pay a higher level of tax to enable us to do so.

What sort of hypocrisy is this, emanating as it does from the rabble on the other side of the chamber?

Opposition senators interjecting-

Senator MESSNER:

-Mr President, I am so exhausted by all of this that I move:

Question put.

The Senate divided. (The President- Senator the Hon. Sir Condor Laucke)

AYES: 34

NOES: 27

Majority……. 7

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Original question put:

That the motion (Senator Wriedt’s) be agreed to.

The Senate divided. (The President- Senator the Hon. Sir Condor Laucke)

AYES: 27

NOES: 34

Majority……. 7

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative.

page 121

AUSTRALIAN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– Pursuant to section 6 of the Australian Science and Technology Council Act 1 978, I present the report of the Australian Science and Technology Council on ‘Marine Sciences and Technologies in Australia: Immediate Issues’.

The reason why it is a matter of constant concern is that in terms of capital investment the Institute is a great facility. There are great tasks to be done. Like everything else, when this Government imposes its totally unimaginative staff ceilings, often worthwhile initiatives which should in the long term interests of this country be pursued with great rapidity are frustrated and in a sense wasted. That is happening at the Australian Institute of Marine Science now. There is work which is important and urgent which cannot be done because of the lack of availability of sufficient research staff. More importantly, there is a waste of the resources themselves because there are insufficient research staff there to use those resources adequately. The important question in relation to that matter is: When are we likely to expect a decision on it? On behalf of the Opposition, I urge that the Government take a slightly more imaginative decision than it has recently shown it is capable of and do something about the staff of that very important Institute.

The other important point about this report is that some of the material in it goes to a number of other issues which have been raised by various bodies about the general state of marine sciences in Australia, and particularly about research and development work relating to the capacity of this country to develop and make full use of the resources of its enormous coastline and the 200-mile economic zone, the establishment of which is foreshadowed for the near future. Some honourable senators will be familiar with a paper they recently received from a committee for the establishment of an Australian centre for maritime studies. In that imaginative and thoughtful paper it is suggested that the whole question of maritime studies and all the issues involved should be seen in much closer proximity to each other than they have been in the past. It is perhaps shortsighted to talk about research in marine biology or a subject of that kind without having regard to the other factors which bear on the development and protection of the marine environment. I refer to clause 2 of the proposal for an Australian centre for maritime studies. Clause 2 states:

This paper highlights the vital need to disseminate information about Australia’s maritime interests and environment, not only to specialists and decision-makers, but also to the community at large who ultimately will determine the extent to which resources are devoted to develop and manage our maritime interests.

I read in a newspaper recently that Senator Webster is about to become a star of the television screen, as well as being a star of the Senate. Honourable senators look forward to that. Senator Webster will be a man for all seasons on the television screen and will introduce discussion of various scientific topics, which the Opposition hopes will be of interest and concern. Although the unhappy Senator from Wannon appears to be bitching again while I am speaking, the important point is that Senator Webster presumably thinks that in announcing his interest in that role he is either looking after his preselection in Victoria for the Senate or is showing that he is genuinely concerned about public interest in science in Australia. Honourable senators can debate at great length the viability or the implications of his intention to go on television to talk about science. However, this paper which we have received is concerned with the extent of knowledge in the Australian community and the extent to which resources are used. That is very important and of vital concern.

In dealing with the question of Australia’s maritime resources, the paper to which I have referred, and to which the AMSTAC document is relevant, makes the point that Australia is an island continent possessed of diverse and important maritime resources and interests. It refers to the fact that Australia is a major international trading nation, and to the importance of shipping and matters related to shipping for a country of that kind. It states that the ports and seaways of this country are important elements in our economic system. The paper refers to the natural resources of large commercial value which exist along our 20,000 kilometres of coastline and which are in the present territorial waters, the underlying seabed and contiguous areas. It refers to oil production in these areas and industries such as fishing, and makes the very valid point that other countries are taking a vital interest in those maritime resources about which Australia knows very little. It also refers to the importance of Australian waterways, islands, and so on, in terms of their use by the population, which is heavily concentrated on the seaboard. Reference is also made to the absence of any direct involvement or awareness by the Australian community of the utility of the sea except for leisure purposes.

It is in light of the observation that these matters are of vital importance not only in terms of the facilities which they currently offer but also in terms of the potential for the development of new industries that honourable senators have to give high regard to the importance of publicity of these issues and the importance of balanced development and environmental management in the areas to which I refer. This paper also suggests that there is a great variety of areas economics and commerce, the sciences, the environment, international relations and so on affected by the development of resources in this area. That is another matter which goes to the relevance of this report.

The Opposition is very concerned that the research capacity and degree of data available to an Australian government about these sorts of issues should be much greater than it is. It regards the allocation in the Budget as inadequate, cutting as it does into other research grants which are available. The Opposition is concerned about the development of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and the notion of developing some type of Australian centre for marine studies. It is concerned about the important work which is being done by bodies such as the Victorian Institute of Marine Science, a poorly financed but very active and volatile body concerned with the studying of the marine sciences, particularly in relation to the Victorian coastline.

The whole question of how marine sciences, work on marine sciences and data about the coastline and seabed are to be co-ordinated is one of national management with which this Parliament at some stage has to come to grips. At the moment there is an Australian Institute of Marine Science in Queensland. It is a body similar to the Victorian institute. There is a committee in Canberra suggesting an Australian centre for maritime studies, which is a wider concept. There is a great need for co-ordination of all these efforts and for maintaining in one centre a body of data about the marine sciences in Australia. To that extent, the Opposition welcomes this report as an important contribution but it urges the Government to look at this issue a little more seriously than it has in the past and to recognise that work done in this area now will have great benefits for Australia and Australians in the future. The Government should not be too shortsighted in the approach which it is currently adopting, and which it has adopted in the past. 1 seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 123

INTERNATIONAL BAUXITE ASSOCIATION

SenatorDURACK (Western Australia- Attorney-General)- For the information of honourable senators I present the following documents relating to Australia’s membership of the International Bauxite Association:

Protocol to the agreement establishing the International Bauxite Association:

Reservations entered by Australia to the Protocol on privileges and immunities of the International Bauxite Association;

Amendments to the agreement establishing the International Bauxite Association.

page 123

TRADE UNION TRAINING AUTHORITY

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) Pursuant to section 58 of the Trade Union Training Authority Act 1975 and section 25 (2) of the Trade Union Training Authority Amendment Act 1 978I present the report of the Australian Trade Union Training Authority for the period 1 July 1977 to 31 July 1978.

page 123

QUESTION

TRAINING OF SKILLED WORKERS IN JAPAN, KOREA, HONG KONG AND THE PHILIPPINES

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) For the information of honourable senators I present the report of the Australian Tripartite Mission to Study the Training of Skilled Workers in the Metal and Electrical Trades in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

The Opposition thinks that it is quite ironic that this report, which is aimed at easing the transition of skilled migrants into Australian society, is tabled on the day after the presentation of a Budget which has turned its back on the employment of young Australians. Last night’s Budget decreased by about 17 per cent the amount of money available for training Australian workers in skilled occupations such as this mission was sent overseas to examine. The overall outlay for training is cut from $158m in 1978-79 to an estimated $13 lm this year. An amount of $27m in all has been cut from manpower training programs as a result of last night’s Budget. This is an absurd example, with respect, of the total spasticity of this Government in the way in which it does things. At no stage does it let, as it were, one arm of governmentand there seem to be many- know what any of the other arms are doing. The important point is that what has happened with this report which is now in the Senate and with last night’s Budget indicates that the Government, at considerable expense to the taxpayer, sends such missions overseas. They thump around other countries for three or four months, they come back, they make recommendations to the Government and the Government takes no notice of them at all.

I want to make several points but the most important point is that at the same time as missions are shopping around overseas looking at the training of skilled workers there is a drastic reduction in the sums of money available for the training of skilled Australian workers in this country, particularly for the training of young people. For example, for the Special Youth Employment Training Program the allocation under this Budget will be $28m this year compared with $82.6m in 1978-79. This will result in significantly reduced numbers of people receiving assistance through the scheme compared with last year. That will mean a significant and quite horrifying incapacity for many young Australians to obtain training to fit them for suitable jobs. From time to time in this Senate Government spokesmen have shots at the education system about its not producing the skilled people which this country is said repeatedly to need.

There may be some doubt about whether there is such a demand for skilled tradesmen in this country as some people suggest, but on numerous occasions both inside and outside this Parliament we hear Government spokesmen talking about the need for skilled tradesmen and the failures of the education system being responsible for unemployment. At the same time the Williams Committee says that the education system has nothing to do with unemployment in this country- it is just that jobs are not available because of the failure in economic management by the Government. These sorts of inconsistencies emerge all the time in the attitudes of Government spokesmen. The Special Youth Employment Training Program has been cut drastically at the same time as this report has been tabled in the Senate on the needs and requirements for skilled manpower training.

Similarly, the Budget of last night cut the allocation for community youth support schemes from $ 10.7m last year to $ 10m this year in a climate in which the Treasurer (Mr Howard) has predicted that a 10 per cent inflation rate is likely to flow from this Budget. I should say that there was an increase in the allocation for the Education Program for Unemployed Youth from $3. 1 m to $3.7m, which is just keeping abreast of inflation. In Melbourne programs called garage programs, under which kids are benefiting from experience in work as motor mechanics and so on are closing down on Friday of this week. The kids who are working in them will be thrown out on the streets because of cuts in those programs. That is again a situation which is totally inconsistent with the sort of message which is suggested by this report now before the Senate. Similarly, the National Employment and Training scheme budget, which includes a number of things, will be only $67.9m compared with $1 17.8m last year-a cut of $49.9m. As an honourable senator on this side has pointed out, the Commonwealth Rebate for Apprentice Fulltime Training allocation went from $28. 4m to $54.3m. This provides for apprentice training, and insofar as it represents a real increase the Opposition welcomes it and congratulates -

Australian workers, which provide assistance to young people who are seeking to acquire skills in order that they might take their proper place in the Australian work force, have been cut significantly at the same time as we are sending these missions overseas to look at what is being done in the Philippines and other places, for goodness sake! The net result of all that is that unskilled unemployed people are being asked by this Government to bear the brunt of the Government’s policies insofar as the Government is unable to come to grips with the problem of alleviating unemployment.

There is an extraordinary set of inconsistencies in the Government’s policies in this area. Let me refer to one or two points which have been raised, for example, by the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs (Mr MacKellar). On 28 June this year the Australian Financial Review published an article under the heading MacKellar calls for more European migrants’, which reported the Minister as saying:

It is imperative that an active population policy be pursued by Australia and that means an active immigration policy . . .

He was reported to have said:

We are told by the National Training Council that the foreseeable output from the current apprenticeship system over the next few years is not likely to exceed 30,000 tradesmen per year.

On the other hand something in excess of 40,000 new tradesmen would be required each year simply to maintain the number of tradesmen in the work force at around its present level.

Mr MacKellar, the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, having given vent to that opinion, some five days later, on 3 July 1979, the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs, Mr Viner, was reported in the Australian Financial Review, under the heading ‘Need to train our own work force says Viner’, to have said:

Australia can no longer rely on immigration of skilled workers as it has done for many years to supply industry with all its needs . . .

I believe Australia should increasingly look to meeting its requirements, but all employers have to play their part.

Senator Teague- Oh?

Senator BUTTON:

-Yes, it is.

Senator Teague:

– There is a long waiting list.

Senator BUTTON:

-Oh, come on!

Senator Teague:

– There is.

Senator BUTTON:

-Come on! The fact is that the Department is now bringing, for example, Chileans to Melbourne and those people just cannot get jobs. That is all being done in an effort to fill the quota. The point I wish to make about these sorts of inconsistent statements in relation to the report is that two very soft views emerge from the two Ministers’ statements. One is that we will poach on Europe and pinch their tradesmen, probably in some cases recipients of superior training. At the same time, another Minister is admonishing employers, advising them to employ more apprentices. Such statements, both of which may have validity but which are inconsistent, are still a sad reflection on how the Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training, headed by Professor Williams, saw the same issues, as outlined in that Committee’s report. It is clear that neither of those Ministers has taken into account what the Williams committee stated about this subject. The report of that committee set out in some detail the training options available to Australians to develop more skilled manpower and work force in this country.

I record some of the facts which flow from that situation. Firstly, there is a widely held belief that there is a shortfall of skilled tradesmen and new tradesmen in this country, which is estimated by the National Training Council to be 18,000 people a year. The Williams committee throws total doubt on that figure. It stated that the figures need to be analysed carefully and that they cannot automatically be used as a basis for national planning as, for example, Mr MacKellar suggested in his statement. During a time of record youth unemployment, there has been a five per cent decrease this year in apprentice intakes. That is this year; I am not talking about what will flow from the Budget. We hope that some good results in relation to apprenticeships will flow from the assistance given in the Budget to the Commonwealth Rebate for Apprentice Full-time Training scheme. In spite of that decline in the number of apprenticeships available, in Victoria last year the ratio of applicants seeking apprenticeships in the major trades to vacancies was 57:1. In other words, 57 kids were seeking apprenticeships in the skilled trades for every job available. An added problem, of course, is that even if we wanted to train apprentices in a different way, for example, in the technical and further education sector, TAFE has not the resources to do that at the present time.

One could go on and on making these points about inconsistencies in the Government’s attitude, about confusion in the Government’s policy, about manpower planning and about training. But at the height of all this confusion, as if dramatically to emphasise the point, the Government tabled in the Senate today a document entitled ‘The Training of Skilled Workers in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines’, which is a report of an Australian mission to study the training of skilled workers in the metal and electrical trades. No doubt these trips are beaut for the people who go on them and no doubt a lot of very valuable information is contained in the report. But the Government can table reports until it is black and blue in the face. It can pigeonhole them. It can send missions everywhere around the world. But if it is not prepared to make logical and consistent decisions about the implications of those reports and the problems to which those reports are directed it is wasting the money of Australian taxpayers and the time of this Parliament. It is in that context that, whilst we welcome the report for its intrinsic merits, we see that its tabling in the Senate should be set in the context of the Government’s overall policies. Mr President, I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 126

NATIONAL WATER RESOURCES (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE) ACT 1978

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) Pursuant to section 6 of the National Water Resources (Financial Assistance) Act 1978 I present copies of agreements made under the provisions of that Act relating to New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.

page 127

URBAN AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT (FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE) ACT 1974

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) Pursuant to section 8 of the Urban and Regional Development (Financial Assistance) Act 1974, I present copies of an agreement relating to Queensland and a project approval relating to South Australia under the provisions of that Act.

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

-by leave- I move:

I wish to refer particularly to the agreement relating to South Australia made under the provisions of the Urban and Regional Development (Financial Assistance) Act 1974. The South Australian agreement, which I have just looked at, was entered into under an Act of 1 974 and was signed on 24 October 1975 by the then Premier of South Australia, Mr Dunstan, and the then Prime Minister of Australia, Mr Whitlam. It is pertinent to note that had it not been for an agreement between a Federal Labor Government and a State Labor Government people in the areas of Adelaide where this project has been completed would not have a filtered water supply. For many years the people of Adelaide complained about the quality of the water provided to them by the State Government, but it took a Federal Labor Government to enter into an agreement with the State Labor Government to provide a filtered water supply for South Australia. I am very pleased that this is an ongoing process and that many people in Adelaide in particular can enjoy the benefit of a good water supply, something they did not enjoy prior to the advent of a Federal Labor Government and a State Labor Government. I hope that nothing takes place on 15 September which will upset this agreement so that people in South Australia again will have to revert to a very poor quality water supply. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 127

INDUSTRIES ASSISTANCE COMMISSION

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) For the information of honourable senators I present reports of the Industries Assistance Commission on: Certain electric motors short term assistance; bags, sacks and certain polyolefin fabrics; hoists, pulley tackle and winches; and travel goods, brief cases, toilet cases and similar goods. These reports were distributed to honourable senators during the winter recess.

page 127

TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE AUTHORITY

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) Pursuant to section 30B of the Industries Assistance Commission Act 1 973, I present the reports of the Temporary Assistance Authority on: Continuation of assistance for insulators; continuation of assistance for sheets and plates of iron and steel. These reports were distributed to honourable senators during the winter recess.

page 127

AUSTRALIAN CANNED FRUITS BOARD

Senator WEBSTER:
Minister for Science and the Environment · Victoria · NCP/NP

– Pursuant to section 36 of the Canned Fruits Export Marketing Act 1963, I present the annual report and accounts of the Australian Canned Fruits Board for 1978.

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

– by leave- I move:

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

page 127

AUSTRALIAN POSTAL COMMISSION

Senator WEBSTER:
Minister for Science and the Environment · Victoria · NCP/NP

– On behalf of the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications, for the information of honourable senators I present a paper prepared by the Australian Postal Commission entitled service and business outlook for 1979-80’. The publication in respect of the Australian Telecommunications Commission is not yet available. I am advised that it will be available soon. I will present it for the information of honourable senators at that time.

page 127

ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY RESEARCH LABORATORY

Report of Public Works Committee

Senator MELZER:
Victoria

– In accordance with the provisions of the Public Works Committee Act 1969,I present the report relating to the following proposed work:

Relocation of the Royal Australian Navy Research Laboratory (RANRL) from Rushcutters Bay to the Royal Edward Victualling Yard premises at Pyrmont, New South Wales.

page 128

PERSONAL EXPLANATION

Senator GEORGES:
Queensland

-by leave- I refer briefly to an editorial in the Courier-Mail on 19 August headed ‘The jailing of Senator Georges ‘. The editorial states:

Labor’s Senator Georges, in his self-appointed and quite tiresome role of political martyr, must have been absolutely delighted at being put in the Brisbane Jail ‘s punishment cells on half rations.

This was an excellent attention-getting performance.

Now he is out, because somebody paid his fines, as somebody always does when the Senator plays Boggo Road. He does not have to languish on bread and water, or whatever consists of half rations in 1 979 Queensland.

The editorial continues, and I will refer shortly to other sections of it.

The Courier-Mail has a right to express an opinion according to its version of events and to put whatever construction it wishes on my actions. Nevertheless, I also have a right to try to correct the position presented by the editorial. Let me say that my motives were quite contrary to those implied in the editorial in the CourierMail. On Wednesday, 14 August, a police officer called at my home to serve a warrant for my arrest. It was a public holiday and he arrived at 7.30 a.m. I said to him that it was unfortunate that I had a medical appointment with an eye specialist at 8 o’clock. He said to me, with courtesy: ‘By all means keep the appointment. I will be back at 10.30.’ I said that that should be sufficient time for me to keep the appointment. Between 7.30 a.m. and 10.30 a.m.- three hours- I had sufficient time, had I wished to do so, to make arrangements to have the television and media people informed that I was to be arrested at home for failing to pay a $50 fine. However, it was not my intention to seek publicity in this way for my action, an action that I did not take alone. Whether people agree with it or not, many others have taken the action of resisting or breaking a law, knowing that the consequences have to be accepted. That is the position. I know that if I am in breach of a regulation or a lawand it is my right to breach it- I must accept the consequences of breaking that law or regulation.

Senator Teague:

– Is that not seeking political publicity?

Senator GEORGES:

– It depends on the way one looks at it. Yes, during this campaign we were endeavouring to attract attention to a law. But I have been in politics long enough to know that one can be over-exposed. If one is prepared to adhere to a principle and one may go to the point where people consider one tiresome, any publicity obtained can be counter-productive. Nevertheless, I made no attempt to seek any publicity on this occasion for my arrest. The only telephone call I made was to inform the Clerk of the Senate that I would be arrested, that my penalty was seven days’ gaol, that it was possible that that would cut into my arrangements to attend the Parliament, and that it was my understanding that the person responsible for my arrest should notify the President. However, that is a matter I will take up later, as a matter that may have to be decided by the Senate. While I was at the Mitchelton police station, television station Channel 7 rang up and wanted to speak to me. The officers at the police station asked whether I wanted to speak to Channel 7 and I said that I was not interested. On my journey from the Mitchelton police station to the gaol, by arrangement there was no communication between the police car and headquarters because, as the police officers told me, the media pick up police broadcasts. So we deliberately had no communication whatsoever between the police car and headquarters, in order to prevent the media from picking up any information. I give the Senate these facts in order to indicate that I was not intending to make a publicity exercise of this.

Having arrived at Boggo Road and having been taken through the reception centre, I was held for some time in a yard; I was not allocated to any cell. On a previous occasion when I was in Boggo Road, I came up against a regulation, Regulation 225, which required that any prisoner, whenever he was mustered for any reason or paraded before a warder or an officer, spring to attention, take one pace forward, say ‘Here, sir’ and give a military salute in recognition of the authority of the Sovereign. It was in January of this year that I first objected to that regulation and, knowing the consequences of refusing to obey that regulation, I refused to salute. I took it as being primitive. I took it as being degrading. I took it as being unnecessary and having the very opposite effect of what was intended, in my opinion it brought the Sovereign into disrepute to have some poor unfortunate salute a warder perhaps five or six times a day. I refused to salute. That was last January. So honourable senators may have it clear in their minds that the breach of the regulation had first occurred at least eight months previously. Yet the CourierMail in its editorial says that I engaged in a publicity seeking exercise; that this was an excellent attention getting performance.

I knew the consequences of refusing to salute. I knew that that would mean detention in an underground cell, and the cell is underground. I was told by other prisoners that I would face reduced rations and long periods in isolation and in the dark. I knew that. Yet I accepted, in disobeying that regulation, that that was to be the consequence. 1 took no pleasure at all in that, contrary to what that editorial indicated. As I subsequently discovered, there is a prison within a prison in Boggo Road, and possibly in other prisons. When I was taken underground the simple garments that I was given as a prisoner at Boggo Road were taken away from me. I was put into the most indescribable garment- a flannelette vest which was not hemmed. It was cut out by scissors but it was not hemmed. I was not allowed underclothing. The clothes did not fit. The buttons did not meet.

Subsequently, I was taken into a cell where the temperature was deliberately kept below normal. It was very cold indeed. I was forced to go into that cell, face the wall and hold my hands above my head. I was told that on every occasion on which a warder came into that cell I was to get to my feet, face the wall and raise my hands. I was prepared to accept that situation. I was prepared to accept being bawled out and told that my blankets had to be folded in a particular way, that 1 had to fold my toilet paper in a particular way and that I should create no noise and keep myself clean. All of those things I was prepared to do, but I was not prepared to salute a warder in recognition of the authority of the Sovereign, as it was put. What enraged me was the fact that when it came time to put out lights I was stood over by two warders and forced to undress in front of them. As we get older we like privacy. I do not like to be stood over by two people, who demand that I get out of the flimsy clothes I am wearing and get into some broken down pyjamas, and then to be told that I have four blankets to keep me warm, and a mattress which is a converted foot mat- nothing more nor lessthat I have to suffer the cold, and that at regular intervals a flap in the door to the isolation cell will be opened and the cell will be inspected. That is what happened during the coldest night that 1 have ever spent. Those are the conditions which are imposed upon people.

Having been taken out of the cell next morning and paraded at the surgery- I received good treatment and good medication there, and an order was given by the doctor to return my underclothing- I was subsequently paraded before another officer who ordered me to salute him. I was already charged with and had received a penalty of 48 hours solitary confinement for not saluting, and here I was again paraded before a warder, a commissioned officer, who demanded that I salute him. When I did not salute him, he put me on a further charge.

So honourable senators can see how my problem was going to continue endlessly, for seven days. To make matters worse, at 12 o’clock the following day someone paid my fine. Whoever paid my fine did me a favour, in getting me out of those conditions, out of that cell, because I was facing at least another night there. I do not know who paid the fine, but possibly he did me a favour. Nevertheless, I am now being told in an editorial in the Courier-Mail that I may have been part of the arrangement. I consider that to be a complete fabrication. That was not the only newspaper which said that. The Telegraph said exactly the same, and the Sunday Sun said exactly the same, namely, that I was engaged in a publicity seeking exercise. They reduced my actions to the lowest possible level, and I resent it. At a later stage I intend to seek a reference to the Standing Committee on Social Welfare to investigate the conditions under which prisoners who are in breach of Federal law are held in Australian prisons.

Sitting suspended f rom 6.3 to 8 p.m. ( Quorum formed).

page 129

SUPPLY OF AVGAS IN AUSTRALIA

Reference to Standing Committee on Trade and Commerce

Motion (by Senator Georges, on behalf of Senator Walsh) agreed to:

That the following matter be referred to the Standing Committee on Trade and Commerce:

All factors relevant to the supply of avgas in Australia.

page 129

SALES TAX (EXEMPTIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS) AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1979

Bill received from the House of Representatives.

Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay.

Bill (on motion by Senator Carrick) read a first time.

Second Reading

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– I move:

I seek leave for the text to be incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows-

This Bill relates to provisions in the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act which apply to television sets, radios and sound equipment such as record players and tape players, and to records, tape recordings and parts and accessories for equipment of these kinds. Sales tax at the rate of 27’A per cent is payable on television and radio receivers, record players, tape recorders, tape players and various combinations of those appliances specified in items in the second schedule to the Sales Tax (Exemptions and Classifications) Act. Tax at that rate is also payable on records, tape recordings of music or other entertainment material and on parts, accessories and other specified classes of goods associated with television, radio and sound equipment.

Due to changes resulting from technological advances over the years and to new terminology, doubts have been raised about the application of the 27lA per cent rate to certain television, radio and sound appliances or components which are used in combination or association to provide television or radio reception or sound reproduction. The Bill will re-express the relevant provisions to remove any such doubts. It will ensure that tax at the rate of 27V4 per cent is payable on appliances or components that, either alone or in association with each other, are used primarily or principally for the reception of television or radio programs, the reproduction of sound from records, tapes or wires, the recording of sound on tapes or wires or for any two or more of those functions. Included among the appliances which will be specifically taxed at 27 Vi per cent are clock radios but radio transceivers will continue to bear tax at the rate of 1 5 per cent.

Special provisions are included in the Bill to cater for goods which contain television, radio or sound equipment but which also have other functional uses. An article in this category will be taxed at 27V4 per cent if the value of the television, radio or sound equipment is more than one half of the value of the complete article. An example of such an article might be a piece of furniture which has a section designed for use as a cocktail cabinet and which also includes built in record and cassette player equipment. The article would be taxable at 27V4 per cent if the value of the record and cassette player components made up more than half the value of the complete article.

The tax on records and on sound tape recordings will remain unchanged at 27 1/2 per cent. That rate will continue to apply also to parts and accessories for television, radio and sound equipment at present taxed at 27!6 per cent; and to envelopes, stands, cabinets and other goods for the storage of records. Furthermore, the rate of tax on cassette racks and holders and other goods used for storage of tape recordings will be brought into line with the 27Vi per cent rate levied on storage equipment for records. In accordance with long-standing practice that sales tax measures of this kind come into operation on the day following the introduction of the amending Bill into Parliament, the Bill proposes that the amendments have effect from 25 May 1 979.

Details of the various provisions in the Bill are contained in an explanatory memorandum which is being circulated to honourable senators. I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Debate (on motion by Senator Grimes) adjourned.

page 130

COAL INDUSTRY AMENDMENT BILL 1979

Bill received from the House of Representatives.

Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay.

Bill (on motion by Senator Carrick) read a first time.

Second Reading

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– I move:

I seek leave for the incorporation of the text in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows-

The purposes of the Bill are: Firstly, to enable the person constituting the Coal Industry Tribunal also to be appointed to the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission or to the Industrial Commission of New South Wales; secondly, provision is to be made for leave of absence entitlements of the Tribunal to be in accordance with an arrangement entered into between the Governor-General and the Governor of New South Wales, in the same way as the Tribunal ‘s salary is now specified in an arrangement.

As the Act stands at present if the Tribunal engages in paid employment outside the duties of the Tribunal or if he is absent from duty for 14 consecutive days or more than 28 days in any 12 months, other than on leave approved by the Governor-General or the Governor of New South Wales, he is deemed to have vacated office. It should be noted that the previous Coal Industry Tribunal, Mr Justice Gallagher, served as a judge of the New South Wales Industrial Commission from 1955 to 1957 and for many years from 1957 as a Deputy President of the

Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. The provisions enabling Mr Justice Gallagher’s dual appointments were in the Coal Industry Act 1955 and the Coal Industry Act 1957 but those provisions referred specifically to Francis Heath Gallagher.

The proposed dual appointment provisions will enable any occupier of the office of Coal Industry Tribunal to also hold office in either the Commonwealth or New South Wales industrial tribunals. The Coal Industry Act 1955 was repealed by the 1957 Act and the personal references to Francis Heath Gallagher in the 1957 Act are to be repealed by this amendment. There is no intention at present to appoint the present Tribunal, Mr David Duncan, to either the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission or the New South Wales Industrial Commission. This amendment simply enables such an appointment to be made in future. Should such an appointment be made the Tribunal would be required to give priority to coal industry matters as was the case with Mr Justice Gallagher.

I referred earlier to the Tribunal being deemed to have vacated office if he is absent from duty for more than 14 consecutive days or more than 28 days in any 12 months except on leave granted by the Governor-General or the Governor of New South Wales. It is proposed to specify in an arrangement entered into between the Governor-General and the Governor of New South Wales that the Tribunal should have the same leave entitlements as an officer of the Australian Public Service.

It should also be noted that the New South Wales Government has a Coal Industry Act in similar terms to the Commonwealth legislation and both Governments have agreed not to take action, without the prior concurrence of the other, to repeal or amend any of the legislation covered by the agreement- this is in a preamble to the respective Acts. I can advise that the concurrence of the New South Wales Government has been obtained. I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Debate (on motion by Senator Grimes) adjourned.

page 131

NATIONAL LABOUR CONSULTATIVE COUNCIL AMENDMENT BILL 1979

Bill received from the House of Representatives.

Ordered that the Bill may be taken through all its stages without delay.

Bill (on motion by Senator Carrick) read a first time.

Second Reading

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for Education · LP

– I move:

I seek leave for the incorporation of the text in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows-

The purposes of this Bill are to give effect to two machinery matters. The first amendment enables the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs and the Secretary of his Department to be members of the National Labour Consultative Council. This arises from the creation in December last of the new Departments of Industrial Relations and of Employment and Youth Affairs.

The second amendment provides for the name change in December 1977 of the peak employer group from the National Employers’ Policy Committee to the Confederation of Australian Industry, National Employers’ Industrial Council. I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Debate (on motion by Senator Button) adjourned.

page 131

TELECOMMUNICATIONS (INTERCEPTION) BILL 1979 [No. 2]

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 30 May, on motion by Senator Durack:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-The Senate is dealing with the Telecommunications (Interception) Bill 1979. Because this matter has been canvassed to some degree in the Senate already, I seek to make only a brief contribution in the course of the second reading debate. Many of the issues which are dealt with by this legislation in a sense are interwoven with the essential issues of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation legislation which was debated by the Senate earlier this year. The legislation now before the Senate is in a somewhat different form from the legislation which was introduced earlier under a similar name. In the second reading speech the Minister for Education, Senator Carrick, who introduced this Bill described the differences as being in the following terms:

The changes from the replaced Bill concern the procedures for granting interception warrants Tor narcotic inquiry purposes.

He went on to say that they are consistent with the amendments to the Customs Act to be moved by the Government in another place. Later in that speech Senator Carrick referred to the fact that the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security commended that ASIO’s powers of interception should be extended to interception of information passing over all telecommunications systems and this Bill so provides.

The alterations to this Bill go part of the way to meeting some objections which the Opposition raised in the early stages of the debate on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation legislation. Those objections were raised in relation to what are basically civil liberty issues. The changes which have now been made by the Telecommunications (Interception) Bill are a result of decisions taken by a legislation committee of the House of Representatives which was inquiring into customs legislation. Sir William McMahon and other civil libertarians joined with the Opposition in voting on the legislation in a way which resulted in the changes which have now been made.

Senator Missen:

– The House of Representatives is becoming quite a House of review, is it not?

Senator BUTTON:

-Yes, it is indeed. The previous Bill was withdrawn and amended. The new Bill provides that warrants relating essentially to the bugging of premises and so on cannot be issued by the Attorney-General but only by a judge of the Federal Court or the Supreme Court of a State or Territory.

In the view of the Opposition, the present legislation is an improvement but the Opposition will still move a number of amendments in the Committee stage to improve it further. This whole legislation relating to the snoop organisations has in a sense been a running battle between two viewpoints. One viewpoint takes the strange sort of Len Deighton view of the world that security organisations should be as secret as they possibly can and should be subject to as little public accountability as can be got away with, and things of that kind. The other view requires that they be treated as openly in terms of public accountability and so on as it is possible for them to be. An editorial in the Age newspaper set up that dilemma a couple of years ago. The Age had this to say:

The case made for strengthening Australia’s internal security is convincing enough, but this does not mean that the sensitive area of civil liberties and individual rights can in any way be ignored. Far from it. This is the continuing dilemma in any democracy. There must be a recognizable system of accountability-

And so it goes on.

That is in essence what the Opposition amendments are about. This is correctly stated as the continuing dilemma of any democracy. The amendments which the Opposition will be moving to this legislation, as with the amendments to the ASIO legislation, will be designed to entrench more deeply in this legislation a concern for the protection of individual civil liberties.

I said that this legislation relates to the interception of telecommunications systems. It is arguable that this has to be done to protect security and to detect crimes relating, for example, to narcotics. We only add the qualification to that view that dangers are inherent at any stage in the extension of the power to authorise phone tapping, bugging or anything of that kind. I shall quote from Paragraph 221 of the report of the Law Reform Commission on Criminal Investigation simply to illustrate some important points regarding this matter. The Commission stated:

Listening devices lend themselves to a far greater invasion of privacy. Persons cannot ensure their security and privacy by resort to private places beyond the reach of the hearing or vision of human eavesdroppers (even if equipped with ocular aids). The insecurity of a society devoid of the opportunity of private communication has only to be stated to be guarded against. Another consideration is that listening devices in operation inevitably record many conversations which should be excluded, either because they impinge upon some privileged communication, e.g. between a suspect and his lawyer or doctor, or perhaps even more importantly because they are of no relevance whatever to the suspected offence in question. What most distinguishes electronic surveillance from ordinary search and seizure for physical objects is that electronic surveillance tends by its very nature to be exploratory, unselective and indiscriminate. In effect it involves a type of general search warrant. This is particularly so given the lengthy period of operation for ‘searches’ by listening devices usually contemplated by their proponents. One hundred and seven authorised phone ‘taps’ in a year does not seem much of a price to pay for national security, but when one considers the number of conversations, and conversationalists, that may be involved the issue is more grimly posed.

Senator O’Byrne:

– It is not far from that to the cell in Queensland.

Senator BUTTON:

– Yes, that is correct. In a letter to the Attorney-General dated 17 February last year the Victorian Council of Civil Liberties stated:

The VCCL believes phone tapping should continue to be confined to cases of national security. If it is extended to drug detection it is likely to get out of hand, lead to abuses of power along the lines experienced in America, have little, if any effect on crime detection, inhibit freedom of communication by law abiding citizens and be gradually extended to areas of crime detection.

Bodies which in a sense are professionally and legitimately concerned with these matters have expressed these concerns. The point made by the Law Reform Commission about the area of private phone conversations which telephonic surveillance can get into- indiscriminate phone tapping and things of that kind- is indeed quite horrifying. We all use the telephone a lot. Today I found that I could not use a telephone at a certain establishment as it was not working. It was a source of great horror for me to be unable to use it. That experience indicates the degree to which we do use the telephone. In a country such as this we should insist on the fundamental liberty of being able use the telephone freely without fear of someone eavesdropping. These matters go to the heart of the issues involved in this legislation. They are the concerns of the Opposition. Insofar as it is possible to correct the situation by amendments to this legislation we shall do so in the Committee stage.

The first amendment which will be moved by the Opposition at a later stage concerns the application of interference with telecommunications in relation to narcotic offences. In the course of my remarks at the second reading stage, I want to indicate the area of concern which we have in regard to this matter. The Senate is aware that, according to reliable estimates made by various bodies, there are some two million marihuana users in Australia. I do not refer to permanent users but to people who are in the habit from time to time of using marihuana.

Senator Peter Baume:

– Say 400,000 regular users.

Senator BUTTON:

-The figure is immaterial.

Senator Lewis:

– There is a big difference between two million and 400,000.

Senator BUTTON:

-There is a big difference. I did not think it would matter to honourable senators opposite. The difference between the tax increases in this Budget and those in the last one does not seem to matter at all to them. The mere suggestion of being a little out- 100,000 or a million and a half- in regard to the number of marihuana smokers seems to upset certain senators. It illustrates an interesting cast of mind, if I might say so, to be upset about such a thing like that.

It is very difficult to make a reliable estimate in relation to this question anyway, but let us say, for the benefit of Senator Baume, that there are in Australia 400,000 marihuana users. The passage of this legislation would mean not only that such people would commit an offence if they used marihuana which could be reasonably suspected of being imported, but also that the Comptroller-General of Customs, subject to approval of the Attorney-General, would be able to place taps on any of their telephones. Surely there must be a balancing of society’s interest in preventing the use of drugs- a view that is certainly by no means unanimous in relation to marihuana- assuming that society decides that it wants to prevent the use of drugs, as against its interest in the pursuit of civil liberties by the prevention of widescale interference with private telephone communications.

The record in relation to telephone interceptions, insofar as that record is available to the people of Australia, as I recall it is that the estimate given to the Senate by Senator Lionel Murphy when he was Attorney-General was that there had been approximately 107 authorised telephone taps in a particular year. That does not seem to be an alarming figure, and perhaps it is not, but if we consider it in the context of the Opposition’s first proposed amendment, concerning the definition of a narcotic offence, the scope under this legislation for widespread telephone tapping can be seen. If any person is believed to be smoking marihuana which is reasonably suspected of having been imported, the Bill gives the right to tap that person’s telephone. Of course, it can be said that that power will not be exercised; that any intelligent and benign Attorney-General such as Senator Durack would never exercise that right, even in a fit. But when we are considering legislation, that is not the point.

Senator Lewis:

– Can we see a copy of your proposed amendments so we can understand what you are talking about? It is very difficult.

Senator BUTTON:

-I understood that they had been circulated, but I thought that the honourable senator, in spite of his inability to obtain a copy, would have been able to understand what I was talking about. Even if some of his colleagues could not follow it, I thought that an intelligent chap from Wannon would be able to understand what I was saying. However, as he obviously cannot, we will arrange for the proposed amendments to be circulated as quickly as possible. He will have some time, by the way, to master the details before the Committee stage. The final part of the first amendment that we will move also places a further limitation on the circumstances in which telephone taps and other interference with private communications would be allowed. That relates to the inclusion of permission to tap a telephone only in circumstances where there is a belief that a traffickable quantity of drugs is involved in the circumstances to which I was referring a minute or two ago.

In no sense do I wish to prolong this debate. I wish merely to state the general issues which concern the Opposition. There is one issue which concerns the Opposition and about which Government senators should be concerned, particularly as we live in a society in which large numbers of people are smoking marihuana. The wide scope of this Bill in relation to people of that kind, who in my view should in no way be judged as criminals, is frightening, in that the legislation will be passed by a responsible Parliament, irrespective of how the authority would be exercised in future. Therefore, we support generally the provisions of the Bill, subject to the sorts of amendments which I have suggested and which I invite honourable senators to consider in due course.

Senator PUPLICK:
New South Wales

– The Telecommunications (Interception) Bill relates to the powers of at least two senior officers of the Commonwealth, the DirectorGeneral of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Comptroller-General of Customs. The very lengthy debate which took place, before Parliament rose for the recess, concerning the Director-General of ASIO probably relieves us of the necessity to discuss in great detail at this second reading stage the powers conferred upon him in regard to the interception of communications, and allows us to concentrate on the position as it relates to the ComptrollerGeneral of Customs and to narcotics offences in general. The ASIO Bill has, after all, certain elaborate controls and appeal mechanisms already written into it, so my remarks, as were Senator Button’s, will be confined generally to the question of narcotics and the pursuit of persons believed to be engaged in narcotics offences.

The whole business of interfering with and intercepting communications of one sort or another is hardly new. The power of the Parliament and the power of Ministers of the Crown and their servants to intercept communications was well established even when the postal service was in a fairly rudimentary state. In 1 844 a secret committee of the House of Commons reported in the following terms on the question of interception of the mails and of communications: lt must also be remembered that if such a power as this were formally abolished, the question would not be left in quite the same condition as though the power had never been exercised or disputed; by withdrawing it, every criminal conspirator against the public peace would be publicly assured that he could enjoy secure possession of the easiest, cheapest and most unobserved channel of communication, and that the Secretary of State would not under any circumstances interfere with his correspondence.

The matter was again reviewed by the House of Commons in 1957. The Committee of Privy Councillors appointed to inquire into the interception of communications reported to the House:

We therefore think that no useful purpose would be served by recommending that the power of interception be no longer exercised in the detection and prevention of crime, for it would remove from the hands of the Police a weapon which they have found to be effective when all other methods have been unavailing, and would announce to potential wrong-doers that they have nothing to fear from the Police in this particular respect. This, in our opinion, far from strengthening the liberty of the ordinary citizen, might very well have the opposite effect.

Senator Button has already referred to the report of the Law Reform Commission on Criminal Investigation. In paragraph 224 it concluded:

First, we see no distinction in principle between telephone tapping and other forms of surveillance involving the use of electronic listening devices. Secondly, we think that the police ought not to be denied all the advantages of modern technology in fighting crime which itself uses it. Monitoring of conversations without the consent of either party ought to be permitted in certain narrowly defined instances. Such authorisations should only be granted by a federal judge or a judge of a Supreme Court of a State or Territory, and should be available only in respect of very serious offences.

It went on to draw attention to the nature of the material that should be placed before a judge when he was asked to issue a warrant for the interception of communications. Those three reports presented in 1844, 1957 and 1975 respectively were united by the belief that the form of mass communication was being used by criminal elements or could be used by criminal elements and that the police or the law enforcement authorities should not be denied adequate access to the sorts of tools and machinery necessary to combat crime and to deal with the offences being committed.

It has become increasingly apparent, despite a large number of attempts to maintain the contrary, that in dealing with narcotics offences we are not simply dealing with individual narcotic offenders; we are dealing with organised crime and criminality on a very large scale. In this week’s issue of the Bulletin an analysis is provided of the work that the Federal Commission and the New South Wales Commission inquiring into narcotics matters have come up with. The Bulletin article states:

The Federal commission, more so than the NSW inquiry, has laid to rest the often officially inspired myth that there is no evidence of organised crime involvement.

The article goes on to detail an operation by the police force under the title ‘Operation Gaslight’ which was presented to the Federal Royal Commissioner and which drew attention to the extent of organised crime in the narcotics field. The report went on to say:

Before and after the 1973-74 Moffitt royal commission, which warned of the dangers, some senior NSW policemen have publicly sought to deny such links and the existence of organised crime at all.

I think it is important in balancing up the very real issue of civil liberties to which Senator Button has rightly drawn our attention that we should be aware also in this legislation that we are dealing with organised crime in a very large fashion. Clause 20 of the proposed Bill requires that warrants for customs officers to intercept telecommunications shall be issued only after an application has been made to a judge and after the judge has specifically satisfied himself of certain requirements presented to him in an appropriate form by the customs officers. That procedure must be followed before he goes ahead and issues the warrant. I think that it is important to understand that there is in all of these circumstances the possibility of collusion even among law enforcement officers to use this in a less than creditable fashion.

For instance, one can imagine the situation in which Sergeant A, who is a sergeant of the police force, has a friend, Sergeant B, who is an officer of the customs service. Sergeant A is unable to get evidence regarding suspect C who, he believes, is engaged in a racket about car thefts. So he goes to his friend the customs officer and says: 1 suggest to you that there is a certain individual who is engaged in the narcotics business; so, why don’t you put a tap on his telephone?’ He does not reveal to his colleague in the customs service that the object of this exercise is not, in fact, to get evidence about narcotic offences but rather to get evidence which will be useful in the pursuit of his investigations about the car theft racket. So, the customs officer in all good faith goes to a judge and says: ‘I have had a reasonable tip-off that such-and-such a person is engaged in dealing in narcotics. I would like to put a tap on his telephone’. The judge, or whoever grants the authorisation agrees. A couple of weeks later, the customs officer reveals to his colleague in the police force: ‘Look, we have had this tap going for a while. We did not find out very much about narcotics. It does not appear that there is any narcotics offence taking place but, by gee, we heard some interesting conversations between your suspect and another person regarding a racket in stolen cars’. Although that may not be used in terms of evidence and it may not be admissible in any court of law, it may nevertheless still be a useful tool for the officer who was pursuing his investigations about car thefts to know the names of the persons with whom the suspect has been in contact on that particular issue. He receives that information by way of a tip from his friend who was listening to those conversations which initially were revealed to him under the belief that investigations on narcotics matters were being pursued.

Senator Peter Baume:

– Are these examples hypothetical or actual?

Senator O’Byrne:

– He might have found out what the bishop said to the waitress.

Senator PUPLICK:

-I have really had very little opportunity to understand what anybody has been saying to anybody, Senator O’Byrne, because of the amount of noise that has been coming from the Opposition side of the chamber. (Quorum formed) I was dealing with a case in which I was simply saying that the use of telephone taps ostensibly for one purpose- in order to gather evidence which may be useful for an entirely separate purpose- is something that will need to be borne very much in mind, not only by the judicial officers who have the responsibility for issuing the authorisation for these taps, but by the officers of the customs service, the Attorney-General and his officers to ensure that this power which is being not newly vested in anybody’s hands, but is likely to be portrayed as something related to narcotics when it is not, is a matter of considerable importance.

Senator Mason:

– What is your opinion?

Senator PUPLICK:

-If the honourable senator waits, I will come to that. I refer the Senate to an example of the way in which telephone tapping has previously been undertaken by members of the customs service and the way in which they have pursued the use of interception of telephone conversations. In a recently published book entitled Narc l Inside the Australian Bureau of Narcotics written by Bernard Delaney who is the Bureau’s former Southern Regional Commander, Mr Delaney gives a number of instances of unauthorised telephone taps undertaken by the customs service. For instance, he refers to a case where they were after a person who was suspected of being in possession of a small amount of heroin. In the book the person is referred to as ‘Helmut’. After several unsuccessful attempts to get information about Helmut, the Bureau ‘s officer writes as follows:

We had now tried two approaches and both had failed. We tried a third way: we made him the target of our next phone bugging. Being in the suburbs, it turned out to be less difficult than our earlier interceptions. We could get to the pillar more easily. As it happened, the pillar which connected ‘Helmut’s’ telephone, was in front of a small vacant lot, an ideal place to park our caravan. It was an excellent spot for receiving signals and close to the pillar in case anything went wrong.

He goes on to reveal that during the course of that telephone tap something did go wrong. An officer of the Post-Master General ‘s Department arrived to inspect the pillar which contained the telephone connections. Had the PMG officer opened the pillar, the bug would have been revealed. The conversation between the various narcotics officers was recorded. It discloses that one of the officers got somewhat excited and asked what would happen if the officer of the PMG found the listening device. Mr Delaney who, as I said, was the former Customs officer says in his book: if he does that-

Referring to the PMG technician finding the listening device- we still just sit. Even if they did find us here, we would just plead ignorance. We don’t know anything about it.

At a later stage they decided to try to formalise this process of telephone interception. The book continues:

After this scare we decided that we would formalise our venture into telephone interception. The meeting in Ray Phillips’ office decided that a deputation should visit the boss of the Postal Investigation Section, who continued to be so practical in handling the drug carrying mail.

Should we lay our cards on the table, or should we put a hypothetical situation before him? Better not put the cards on the table, we could compromise him. The approach was, What if . . .’

He was sympathetic but he was bound by an Act of Parliament which made it an offence for anyone to intercept a telephone communication unless it was in the interests of Australia’s security. This limited the interceptions to those carried out by ASIO.

There was no way he could help us. There was no way anyone in his department could help us. There was no way we could get a warrant to carry out this type of investigation.

That reveals two matters that are relevant to this legislation. Quite clearly we have in a book by a former Southern Regional Commander of the Bureau of Narcotics firstly the fact that illegal telephone interception has been practised and was an important tool in some cases in pursuit of the drug peddler; and, secondly, that at that stage they felt that there was no way in which they could get a proper, legal authorisation to carry out that interception. This Bill now gives them a proper, legal method by which they will be able to intercept telephone calls in the pursuit of narcotics investigations. I believe that that is a most important tool to be placed in the hands of the Narcotics Bureau. It is one that ought to be placed there, but one which ought to be used with a great deal of restraint. As with the whole of the ASIO legislation, it potentially leaves itself open to very widespread misuse.

There is an important matter of judgment for members of Parliament as to whether they believe that vesting that power in the hands of various officers of the Commonwealth but now requiring that a warrant should be of a judicial character before it is issued, is adequately balanced with the safeguards which we believe necessary for the protection of the rights of individuals. It has been suggested in an article in the Australian Financial Review of 8 June that the Federal Government has lost confidence in its Narcotics Bureau and that the somewhat traumatic events surrounding the resignation and reappointment of Mr Harvy Bates to his position mean that the Federal Government somehow now has less confidence or less trust in the Narcotics Bureau. The article by Anne Summers which deals with the relationship between Mr Fife and Mr Bates. Referring to Mr Fife, it states:

He announced to Parliament on Tuesday night- while the Government was still dilly-dallying about what to do about the situation- that ‘the Government has decided that it is appropriate, in relation to a narcotics investigation, for a warrant authorising the use of a listening device, to be issued by the judiciary.’

Previously, the legislation provided for such warrants to be issued by the Minister or by the Comptroller-General of Customs.

Clearly the Government has lost confidence in its own narcotics enforcement agency.

It would be very unfortunate if the impression were created that on a widespread level the Government does not have confidence in Mr Bates, or in the administration of the Narcotics Bureau, or that the public has serious cause to feel that the pursuit of drug peddlers and drug offenders in this country is being hampered by corruption, inefficiency or mismanagement. I hope that that will not be an inference drawn from the way in which this Bill has been amended to provide for the use of judicial warrants. The Bill does go on to deal with a number of other matters. At this stage I would not wish to get involved in the question of penalties for narcotics offences because I believe that that is a far more difficult and substantial debate, and one that ought to be reserved until the principal Customs BUI comes before this Chamber for debate. It is one in which there needs to be a great deal of attention paid to the question of penalties, particularly penalties of a highly punitive nature.

In clause 24 the Bill provides for the destruction of other records which may have been obtained as a result of interception, but it may well be that the simple passing on of oral information between law enforcement officers in different branches of law enforcement will serve the same purpose even though the records have been formally destroyed as a result of the operation of clause 24. Clause 27 is another important section in that it requires the ComptrollerGeneral to, firstly, furnish the Minister with certain information, including the number and type of warrants and secondly, as provided in sub-clause 2, to report in writing on the extent to which the interception of communications, or the inspection of telegrams, as the case may be, in pursuance of the warrant has assisted officers of Customs in narcotics inquiries that are being, or have been, made by officers of Customs.

I conclude by returning to the last point made by Senator Button. I do not believe that it would be proper to use these listening devices to intercept the telephone conversations of people who are users of marihuana in a purely personal sense. I understand that there will be enormous problems in trying to put that into legislative form because one will never know whether one is dealing with a person who is personally a user of marihuana but who happens to be in contact with someone who is a supplier or importer of marihuana.

Senator Chipp:

– Did you say you supported Senator Button?

Senator Puplick:

– No, I did not. I said that I was concerned about the same point that Senator Button was concerned about. I did not believe that could be put into legislative form because at some stage it is highly likely that the individual, one-off, small-time user of marihuana, may well be in communication over the telephone or in some other way that relates to this Bill with someone who is a large scale, professional importer of large amounts of marihuana, which he uses simply on the basis of trafficking for profit. To that extent I do not believe that one can find a legislative formula which rules out the telephone interception of the user simply because the chances of his being in contact with a large scale supplier not only of marihuana but also of any other narcotic substance is regarded as being remote. Perhaps it would be more dangerous than the marihuana trade itself if that were to become an excuse for wholesale interception of telephonic communications of any of the large number of people who are personal users of marihuana. The figure of 400,000 upon which Senator Button has eventually settled as a reasonable one for this evening would indicate the potential scope for that. Clearly though, it would be impracticable to attempt to intercept communications to that extent. It will require that judges are satisfied on proper evidence that is put to them, it will not be good enough for someone to come along to a member of the judiciary and say, ‘I must have a warrant for this interception and my reasons are simply that I have all of these reasonable grounds. ‘ I hope that in the way in which members of the judiciary would be prepared to make an evaluation about an application for a warrant to intercept such communications they would be properly satisfied that requests were bona fide and they genuinely had a prospect of leading to the conviction of those people involved in the wholesale trade for profit in marihuana or any other narcotic substance.

Senator Walters:

– How would he know that?

Senator PUPLICK:

– In exactly the same way as a member of the judiciary at some stage makes up his mind whether somebody is guilty or innocent- on the basis of the evidence that is put before him and his own ability to make a rational judgment. I support the Bill because I believe that the narcotics investigators have to be equipped with this power. As I said, like the ASIO Bill, it is open to a great deal of potential misuse. The necessity for the Minister and for other officers to be alert, given the fact that they will be supplied with information about the number of warrants that have been issued, will mean that in the long run the safeguard of the proper use of this legislation will lie in the integrity and the competence of a Minister of the Crown, the Minister for Customs of the day, and in the way in which the Parliament, through him, exercises its supervision over officers of the Crown acting in pursuit of their responsibilities to bring narcotic offenders to justice.

On those grounds I support the legislation. I express at this early stage a reservation about the practicality of being able to find some form of words along the lines suggested by Senator Button in terms of the definition of ‘narcotics offence’ and rely, as I said, upon the status of the Minister and his officers to ensure that this legislation is used for proper purposes which have the support of both sides of the Parliament and is not used for those purposes which I think neither side of the Parliament would regard as legitimate and proper. (Quorum formed).

Senator GIETZELT:
New South Wales

– The Opposition has indicated its concern with the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Bill. The Bill the Senate is now considering and two subsequent Bills are ancillary to the ASIO Bill, which we passed during the last sessional period. We indicated on that occasion that we were expressing not only our concern at the dragnet provisions of that legislation but also the public’s concern about the way in which the Government was proceeding to introduce legislation to formalise some of the illegal activities that were obviously taking place and had taken place in the preceding 30 years. The three Bills are somewhat ancillary to the effectiveness of the ASIO Bill. They provide the means by which the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and its officers, the DirectorGeneral particularly, will be able to put into effect their interpretations and the Government’s interpretations about what is considered to be a subversive matter or a matter that requires some surveillance, some investigation or some collection of information.

The three Bills set out to provide features which would be regarded by most Australians as somewhat repugnant insofar as we are now to delegate to the Director-General, and down the line to some of his officers, the power to listen in on telephone conversations and to intercept mail and open it. Today we have had an example of one of our senators having his mail, a direct communication from a government department, opened by the Commonwealth Police. That is already evidence of the way in which some of those in the areas of surveillance in our country interpret their powers. It is that sort of behaviour that Mr Justice Hope referred to in his voluminous report which was presented to the Parliament last year. Of course, not only will telephones be subject to certain procedures which will deny rights to citizens, but also we will have our mail opened if we fall within a category or classification determined by those who consider they have the right to take that step. In addition we have this new concept for which the Bills provide, that is, the right to break and enter not only a home but also a place of work or any premises. The Director-General or his officers, in a delegated way, will have the right to take that extraordinary step, which hitherto has not been available to them and which is provided for in this legislation. I am not so sure that any justification has been presented by the Government for those extraordinary steps of breaking and entering and infringing the rights of citizens.

We made the point very clearly in the debate on the ASIO legislation that we have no basic objections to the security of our country being protected by an organisation set up for that purpose. But as has been shown in the investigation carried out by Mr Justice Hope, there have been flagrant breaches of that process in the collection of information. In the way in which the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has operated over the years there have been admitted illegalities and misdemeanours on the part of officers. The facts are that if we look at this matter in retrospect we find that there has been no evidence that the collection of information, the phone tapping or the interception of mail has in any circumstance disclosed that a person has been acting against the security of the country.

If we examine the experiences of other countries- I think we have had some examples of this in recent times- we will see grave breaches of human rights, of the rights of citizens and of the rights of proper procedures and practices in the United States of America by the Central Intelligence Agency. We have seen grave breaches, penetration and illegal acts by that organisation in countries of Latin America. These are facts which have been presented before the United States Senate and which are available on record if Government senators are prepared to carry out a survey to see the way in which breaches have taken place. We can look to the breaches which have taken place in a more recent period in West Germany and in intelligence organisations in the United Kingdom. In South Africa one breach has happened since this legislation came up for debate in the Australian Parliament. We have seen the way in which the intelligence organisations in South Africa have been involved not only in grave breaches of public propriety but also in a whole series of illegal activities which have brought down prominent members of the South African Parliament, including the President. We have seen it happen also in France and, of course, we have seen it recently in the disturbances in Iran, where intelligence agencies not only have breached human rights but in fact also have been involved in torture, murder and violence concerning the rights of citizens to engage in what have now been established clearly by the new regime to be legitimate political activities.

What is it that the Australian Labor Party is seeking to do? I suppose we are thankful for small mercies because all we have got out of this Government are small mercies. We are asking the Government to consider the way in which the Opposition has approached this matter and to concede the legitimacy of some of the views which we have expressed in the desire to reach a bipartisan position on the security of our country. What have we asked? We have asked that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation be subjected to an independent financial audit and to a periodic judicial review to ensure that it complies with its charter. Is that something which the Government can dismiss and say is not a reasonable and responsible request made by the alternative government of this country?

We want to ensure that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, particularly in its activities under the pieces of legislation to which we are being asked to give our assent, operates within the law, that it does not unjustifiably infringe civil liberties and that it is responsible to the Parliament. I submit that is not a revolutionary concept. That is what the United States Senate has insisted upon in its deliberations on the operations of its intelligence organisation. We ask that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation shall be responsible to the Parliament, not just to the House of Representatives but also to the Senate. We ask that the AttorneyGeneral shall be required to make an annual report to Parliament, particularly in relation to infringements on human rights and civil liberties which are inherent in these three pieces of legislation. We ask that the Attorney-General should report on the working of ASIO, on any infringement of its governing regulations and actions taken in regard to such an infringement, on the use, for national security purposes or otherwise, of any electronic surveillance devices and on the operation of legislation in relation thereto.

We are not even told about the massive use now of electronic surveillance equipment by security intelligence organisations. I am referring not only to ASIO but also to the other intelligence bodies. The Parliament has not been shown what electronic devices are available. The Parliament has not been taken into the confidence of the Government on what is operating within our community. I do not know enough about these matters, but we all know that there are electronic devices now which are substantially different from those in existence when ASIO was established in 1949. We all know that now devices are available which touch upon and infringe civil liberties. But nobody from the Government side has seen fit to say: ‘This is the sort of bugging device which is available now’.

For example, are we told about the sort of bugging device which brought about the resignation of the United States representative to the United Nations, Mr Andrew Young? In that case, certain intelligence organisations were able to bug private conversations which were regarded by that person to relate to matters within his area of responsibility. I make no judgment on whether Mr Young did the right or wrong thing. But the fact is that intelligence organisations used certain processes, procedures and devices to establish what was being said in conversations in which a representative of a major power was engaged, when he felt he was acting within his area of responsibility. That information was then used in such a way as to undermine his political position.

We are kept in the dark. Not only the Parliament but also the Australian community is kept in the dark. So we have a continuation of the very processes to which Mr Justice Hope referred in his report. Yet we are being asked to sign a blank cheque, as it were, and to give our approval to these three Bills which, in a sense, are the processes and procedures by which the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will operate. We are given no assurances about the collection of information on private individuals. We have seen what happened in South Australia in respect of the activities of its Special Branch. We are aware of what happened in respect of Mr Justice White’s report and of how the names of a great number of ordinary citizens were put on lists which could be described only as lists of the names of people engaged in legitimate political activities. The privacy committee in New South Wales similarly has been concerning itself with the Special Branch files which have been collected over the years.

So is it wrong for us to claim that those sorts of Special Branch files ought to be subject to some form of parliamentary scrutiny and control? I am not suggesting that we want to know whether John Smith and Bill Brown did this and did that, but we ought to know that after five years in which there has been no substantial evidence of John Smith or Bill Brown having been involved in any activities prejudicial to the security of this country those files have been destroyed. That is the sort of assurance which this Government is not prepared to give us. It is not prepared to give that sort of assurance to the Parliament or to the Australian people.

The Government falls back on the claim that over the years governments have not provided information about the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, ignoring the fact that in 1973 Senator Murphy disclosed in this place that in the course of the previous 10 years on an annual average about 100 or so people had their telephones tapped. In fact, if we look at the record we see that at that time he gave the precise figures for the phone tapping which was authorised for security purposes under the then existing legislation. Let us take the figure of 100 legitimate phone taps annually over a 10-year period, which would mean that over a 10-year period something like 1,000 telephones would be tapped. What has been the result of that phone tapping? Surely we are entitled to say, firstly, that that activity was undertaken allegedly in the interests of the security of this country. What has that phone tapping led to in terms of obtaining information which has enabled an assessment or judgment to be made in respect of the individuals involved in those phone taps? Did the phone tapping lead to political conclusions being drawn? Did it lead to conclusions being reached concerning narcotics? Did it lead to people being arrested and charged with drug offences or in fact did it simply enable certain groups within the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to reach certain conclusions in respect of those people whose telephones had been tapped, legitimately in accordance with the legislation at the time, with the approval of the Attorney-General of the day?

Surely we are entitled to knew whether the sorts of judgments which were made as a result of those 1,000 telephone tappings were legitimate or otherwise. Surely we, and not just one man, the Director-General of the Organisation or, if he sees fit, the Attorney-General of the day, are entitled to know that. Surely we are entitled to know whether a process which puts so many citizens under surveillance was justified. Of course, we do not know because we have never been told how many letters have been opened or how many entries of premises made, allegedly in the interests of the security of our country. Those phone tappings were all authorised for security purposes under the then existing legislation. Now we are being asked to formalise the matter and extend the basis upon which such phone tapping, mail interception and breaking and entering will take place.

When these questions have been asked in the past all sorts of dire consequences have been suggested and all sorts of terrible forebodings heard about what this would mean in respect of security. Some on the conservative side have suggested that, if we dared to exercise any parliamentary scrutiny of these matters, the American Government would fold up its relationship with us and no longer have anything to do with this country’s defence or the defence of its own interests. Yet it is the very country that has established the most direct control, influence and auditing over the activities of its own intelligence organisation. The sky did not fall in when Senator Murphy made the revelations. The end of the world did not come in respect of our relations with the United States, and there is absolutely no evidence, except in the thinking processes of this Government or of the intelligence organisations, that these sorts of consequences would flow from any attempt by the elected representatives of the Australian people to exercise some surveillance, some control and some influence over what we on this side of the House believe ought to be the correct and responsible role of the legislator.

We now have to consider not only those sorts of processes but also listening devices. If we are to believe what we read about listening devices, it is possible- I am not saying that it happensthat conversations in our homes, in our offices, in the Parliament, in the Cabinet room, in a trade union meeting place, in a student organisation and in political parties could be overheard. Listening devices are such that now there is absolutely no control possible for the exercise of any reasonable protection over the rights of people. We are being asked virtually to sign a blank cheque and to give an open go, as it were, to the Director-General, and in certain circumstances to the Minister. Is it wrong for us to ask for a periodic judicial audit. The investigation by Mr Justice Hope, although we do not agree with all of his recommendations, was of itself an indication of the value of this kind of independent judicial scrutiny of and report on a particular security agency. What happened in South Australia with Mr Justice White and the cleaning up of that extraordinary mess that was the South Australian Special Branch indicated how important it was for the government of the day to know what was taking place in that State.

It may not be to the liking or to the taste of the existing Director-General to contemplate having a brother judge- that is, the Parliament- double checking him and looking over his shoulder if we were really to exercise our rights and obligations and, I believe, our responsibilities. As we said when we were discussing the ASIO Bill, it is not a question of his personal integrity being under challenge. Rather it is a matter of guaranteeing the integrity of the system itself. In this proposed Act, we may be designing a system which will outlive us all, and of course that is our concern about this legislation.

When we talked about this matter in the earlier debate, Senator Puplick stated that clause 8 of the present Bill confers upon the Minister of the day general powers to give directions to the Director-General. However, he pointed out that it limits his powers to give directions in a number of specific ways, some of which we believe to be unacceptable. We believe that the approach to the exercise of ministerial control and responsibility should be one of absolutely maximising, so far as possible, the power of the Minister visavis the Director-General because only the Minister is politically accountable to the Parliament and to the people in any sense at all. I think that that is a principle from which we cannot shift. We believe that any restrictions on the power vested in the Minister should be denned as narrowly as possible so that the protection is there. The only really legitimate or acceptable limitation we see as appropriate on the power of the Minister in this respect- and in the Committee stage we will be attempting to amend the Bill accordingly- would be to limit his power of access to the detailed content. We are not interested in the detail; we are not interested in knowing what is in the report or what is the result of this legislation in respect of what it does to Citizen A, B or C. We are not concerned with that in the sense of the individual collection of information or a security assessment on a particular individual. But we are concerned that it should not in any way abridge the rights of the individual if he is involved in legitimate political activity. Of course, if he is involved in activity which affects the security of the country or in an activity which is in some way associated with the development of large scale drug trafficking in this country- and of course this legislation to which we are asked to give our assent gives extra powers to the Comptroller-General of Customsthat would be a matter for the judgment of the Minister concerned.

On the one hand, the Government says that it wants a bipartisan approach. On the other hand, the Government wants to maintain the illusion and perpetuate the process upon which the Australian Security Intelligence Organization has always operated. Through these Bills, the Government wants to legitimise what in the past have been illegitimate activities and to extend the legislation to give the right of break and entry to any officer so designated by the DirectorGeneral. We have our misgivings and we have expressed them. Whilst we are thankful that to some extent the Government has given some credence to our point of view, we still believe that the Government has a long way to go. We expect it to give very serious consideration to the amendments that we will be moving in the Committee stage.

Senator CHIPP:
Leader of the Australian Democrats · Victoria

– The Australian Democrats support the concept of this Bill. Unlike my colleague Senator Gietzelt, we very strongly support the concept of the Bill and will vote for the second reading. But we believe that many, if not most, of the amendments to be moved by the Opposition are eminently sensible and we will be supporting most of them. I hope that for once a government- this is not necessarily a criticism of the Liberal-National Country Parties which happen to be in government at the moment- might look at Opposition amendments to a very important Bill, consider them on their merits, and accept some of them. I am pleasantly surprised that, as I read them, some of the amendments go even further in relation to the intention of the Bill than the Government wishes. I personally support the concept of the Bill, particularly as it gives powers to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Narcotics Bureau to tap telephones and intercept telecommunications in certain circumstances and with certain safeguards. I must support it. I remember with some chagrin and disappointment that in 1972, when I was Minister for Customs and Excise, I put this very concept to Cabinet, asking for this very power for the Narcotics Bureau, and I was almost unanimously rolled in Cabinet. That was at a time when the heroin traffic in Australia was minimal. I warned Australia that by 1980 heroin would be the greatest single problem of our young people. I was castigated by the Parliament, by the Opposition. I was asked by newspapers to resign. They said: ‘If the Minister cannot control the heroin traffic, he ought to resign’. People laughed at the suggestion that it could be a danger.

It is now, I think, the biggest and most profitable industry in Australia, with an estimated annual profit of something like $200m. That is how important this problem is to Australia at the moment, particularly in relation to our young people. It is in that context, notwithstanding the respect that I have for Senator Gietzelt ‘s concern about some of the possible infringements of civil liberties and respecting also the points that Senator Button and Senator Puplick made about the possibilities of abuse of some of the provisions of this Bill, that I say again to the lawyers in this Parliament: ‘I have absolute respect for your training, for the kind of mind which you have but which I do not have, which can read unreadable English and make it legal; but this is a social problem as well as a legal problem, and when this Bill is debated ‘-I say this without impertinence, I hope- ‘remember that there is a massive social problem out there and that we may have to take some chance on overprotecting civil liberties of people who can only be classed as monsters and creatures’.

We are rather attracted to those Opposition amendments which reduce the length of operation of a warrant from six months. I understand that the Labor Party wishes to make that 90 days. I would have thought that 90 days was perhaps somewhat long, but we will certainly support that. We agree that the declarations should be on affidavit and not on oath. We think that is sensible. On my understanding of the two amendments to the two separate clauses, the Labor Party’s amendment whereby a judge can give a warrant over the telephone would be welcomed by both the Narcotics Bureau and ASIO. That is one amendment which has been circulated and which, if I have read it correctly, I would ask the Attorney-General (Senator Durack) to consider very seriously accepting. At this stage the Australian Democrats will probably vote against the few other Labor amendments; but let me say, without scoring a point, that we in our party are in a unique position in matters such as this. We will listen to the debate and, depending upon the eloquence of Senator Button and Senator Evans, we are liable to be persuaded during the course of the debate, which is a position that I suggest the Parliament and all senators ought to adopt.

Let me mention why I believe that this is a very important Bill. I have mentioned before my concern about heroin. Various estimates are made of the extent of the traffic in Australia. I will talk in minimum terms. The minimum figure which I can get out of six or seven authoritative sources is that syndicates and businessmen are now making net profits, not turnover, of between $125m and $200m a year every year. Those profits are escalating each year not in arithmetic progression but in geometric progression. Secondly, that represents between 10,000 and 25,000 young Australians, equally divided between male and female and normally aged between 16 and 25 years, who are addicted to this disease, whose habit costs them between $400 and $900 a week and most of whom will be either classed as insane or dead within two years of addiction to their habit.

I try not to be emotional over this problem, but I have been intimately concerned with it since 1969 and almost every warning that I have issued to Australia, to governments, has gone unheeded. Yet the problem grows. It would seem certain that the incidence of heroin addiction in a city in Australia at this time is higher than in any corresponding city of the United States of America.

Senator Peter Baume:

– Do you have any figures? It is a very important assertion that you are making.

Senator CHIPP:

-Unfortunately, as the honourable senator would know, figures are impossible to obtain. I have mentioned this to health investigators and narcotics investigators, and a cross-section of sociologists who have studied the problem both here and in the United States of America. My information from all of them seems to be unanimous that about 12 to 18 months ago we turned the corner and that the per capita incidence is now higher. That does not mean to say that we are less healthy than the United States, because in that country there now seems to be a turn away from narcotics to other forms of drugs, particularly alcohol; but, in terms of heroin addiction, that is the information that I have.

If honourable senators doubt the extent of the problem, they should take up an occupation in which I have become particularly adept in recent years, that of street walking. I do it in a totally amateur way, I might say; but, belonging to a political party that is impoverished, the only way we can propel ourselves in election campaigns is to have my notorious face exposed on the streets on Saturday mornings. During the last State campaigns I attended, when I walked through streets in St Kilda in Melbourne and Kings Cross in Sydney I was shocked, in a period of half an hour, to actually meet and see 14 young Australians who were addicted to heroin. I make no apology if I do become a little emotional over this situation. I believe that it has now reached almost catastrophic proportions.

I mention it in this debate because, useful though this Bill will be in trapping the heroin pusher and useful though it may be in getting the top people in the syndicate- although I very much doubt whether this Bill will have any success in that direction because those sorts of people do not even make telephone calls to involve themselves in this activity- no honourable senator should kid himself or herself that simply because we have allowed the ….I—, as they are affectionately known, to tap telephones we will solve the heroin problem. That is only a drop in the ocean. It is only a small additional tool for this wonderful law enforcement agency in its pursuit of this sort of criminal. We have to look at different things. We have to look at drug education. We have to look at the question of marihuana or cannabis. The plea that I make in this speech is that if we continue to try to score points over the drug problem existing in this country there will be only one winner, and that is the heroin pusher and the syndicates. We had a most courageous and magnificent report by the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare, chaired by Senator Peter Baume. Politicians from different parties were able to sit around a table and produce a very contentious, politically acute conclusion. I cannot recall whether there were any dissenters from that conclusion but I do remember that people from different parties voted in the same way. I believe that unless the political parties of this country can reach consensus on the drug problem facing Australia- let us take politics out of it- it will reach proportions which will be quite frightening.

Let me give two examples. I mention Des Corcoran, the Premier of South Australia. Perhaps I should not because people will think that I am either burying him or praising him now that the election announcement has been made. He is a decent, honest man and a good Premier. A very distinguished person researched South Australia after being asked by the previous Premier to make recommendations concerning the use and legalisation of certain drugs. I read the report and people with whom I have discussed it said that it was an objective, scientific report. It advocated the legalisation or decriminalisation of cannabis. Des Corcoran, the decent, honest, courageous Premier of South Australia said within 24 hours of the presentation to the report, I will not have a bar of it. We will not even discuss it’.

Senator Peter Baume:

– He could not have read it, senator.

Senator CHIPP:

– Did he do that because he had read and digested the report and received advice on it? Of course, he had not. He did it only because he knew that the Liberal Party had a sword hanging over him and was ready to plunge it into his back if he suggested that the South Australian Labor Party was contemplating the decriminalisation of marihuana. The only reason that objective report was never discussed by governments was party politicking. In Victoria a decent, honest, able Premier, Dick Hamer, has exactly the same problem. He dares not move on the matter. He knows that if he moves, he too will be attacked by the Labor Party and accused of being a trendy or permissive.

Senator Button:

– Or the Country Party.

Senator CHIPP:

– More particularly, he will be attacked by the Country Party. While all this is going on we have this massive national problem growing each day. Let me state my position. Nobody has opposed the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis more than I have in the past 13 years after listening and talking to sensible people and reading sensible reports like that presented by Senator Baume ‘s Committee. If I had to vote on the matter tonight, I think that I would still have to vote against decriminalisation but the margin is getting closer; I am 51 per cent against it and 49 per cent in favour of it at the moment. If we could take politics out of the debate I think every honourable senator would feel free to vote according to his or her conscience and what he or she believed to be in the interests -

Senator Button:

– I was not going to give a clue like 51 per cent one way and 49 per cent the other.

Senator CHIPP:

- Senator Button might make fun of what I am saying. I thought that his speech tonight was excellent- I pay him that compliment- except in one area in which it was absolutely pathetic. That was when he discussed the first amendment he proposes to move concerning the definition of narcotics. He also believes what I am saying, that there is a distinction between marihuana or cannabis and heroin or the other forms of narcotics. But he as deputy leader of the Australian Labor Party in the Senate would not dare to give a clue that the Labor Party would be interested in decriminalising cannabis because he knows that every Liberal senator would be onto him and his Party in a flash. The national debate would then be debased without a damn being given about the children who suffer. There is not a shadow of doubt- this is what is making me swing around to the views expressed by Senator Baume- that the illegality of cannabis or marihuana is causing further heroin addiction in this country.

There is no doubt that the massive profits being made from cannabis, marihuana, hashish and hashish oil are being made very much by the same syndicates that peddle heroin. There is no doubt that their sure way of gaining further heroin addicts is to cut off the supply of pot or marihuana to a certain city for a certain time. That is the signal for kids in some flash of rebellion or revolt or for some other reason immediately to give smack, as it is called, a try. These things are proven and on the record. The point I am making tonight is that the Senate might contemplate this Bill, conduct an erudite debate on the protection of civil rights and dot the i’s and cross the t’s But do not let any honourable senator believe that the drug problem is helped even slightly by the introduction of this legislation tonight. I hope that we are moving to a stage when the political parties of this country will decide to have a bipartisan policy, a bipartisan attack, not on telephone tapping but on the drug problem in this country.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

-Let me begin in an unaccustomed fashion by congratulating the Government for at least a couple of aspects of this Bill, the Telecommunications (Interception) Bill, which is now before us. It is, of course, a replacement Bill for an earlier one of the same name introduced last session in company with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation legislation. It has to be conceded that this Bill is a marked improvement on the earlier one which it now replaces. It is a marked improvement insofar as it now provides for the judicial rather than the ministerial issue of warrants in respect of narcotic offences. It is a substantially improved piece of legislation just in terms of its organisation, its coherence, its layout and its readability. That is something on which I think comment ought to be made. It ought not to pass unnoticed. It is a difficult area of legislation and it is pleasing to have reasonably well articulated legislative provisions now before us.

However, the clarity of this legislation only serves to demonstrate rather more obviously than was the case in the earlier drafts of this Bill, its iniquity in a number of regrettably all too obvious respects. It is the unfortunate aspects of this legislation which make it necessary for the Opposition to oppose it quite vigorously as it now stands and which lead us to move a number of amendments in the Committee stage. The Bill operates in two areas as has become clear, I suppose, from the course of the debate so far. It operates, firstly, in respect of ASIO and, secondly, in respect of narcotics offences under the Customs Act. So far as ASIO is concerned, the provisions of the Bill are by and large not new. The Bill is very largely simply a re-enactment of the provisions of the old Telecommunications (Interception) Act extended, however, from simply telephone tapping, which was permitted in respect of security matters by that earlier legislation, to the interception of all forms of telecommunications.

That particular extension from telephones to other forms of telecommunications was recommended by the Hope Commission. That is not a recommendation which the Opposition would oppose. Obviously it is rational in principle that no distinction be drawn in the way those various forms of telecommunications are treated. That is not to say, however, that this aspect of the Bill is without difficulty, without problems, without iniquity so far as the Opposition is concerned. We do argue, as will become clear in the Committee stage, that there are still a number of defects in the way this legislation is framed, albeit that there are difficulties that have been with this legislation in earlier guises under previous enactments. The new provisions in this respect are not unique or new in that sense. The particular matters to which I refer are the time for which warrants can be in force for security matters. Firstly, the Bill provides, as did its predecessor legislation, for a period of six months which we argue is just much too long. Secondly, there are provisions in relation to the issue of warrants in emergency situations which take the matter away from ministerial authority and vest it in a non-elected official, the Director-General of Security. We regard that as intolerable. Thirdly, there are obvious problems, we argue, in the absence from this legislation of any provisions which would require Parliament to be informed regularly if not as to all the details of the warrants issued under the Bill certainly as to the number of such warrants which are issued annually. I do not stop to canvass here the arguments which lie behind our whole approach to ASIO legislation and ASIO powers of this or any other kind. They were obviously canvassed at great length in the course of the debate on the ASIO legislation and to some extent they were repeated here tonight certainly by my colleague, Senator Gietzelt.

The other main aspect of the legislation on which I think it is necessary to say a little more, albeit relatively briefly, at this second reading stage concerns the narcotics provisions and the brand new and completely unprecedented powers that are now to be vested in the Customs officials in the Narcotic Bureau in respect of the enforcement of the Customs Act in the event of narcotics offences. New powers to intercept telephone calls and other telecommunications are now vested in Customs narcotics officials. We have brand new unprecedented powers for such officials to arrange for the interception of telegrams. We have provisions which enable these warrants to be exercised on a not especially selective or circumscribed basis but to stay in force in these matters for up to six months at a time.

The Opposition can well understand the concern in the community about the all too rapid escalation of drug usage in our society, a concern that was very well articulated tonight by the amateur streetwalker in our midst, Senator Chipp. I suppose a tightrope walker might be a more accurate description in the light of the difficulty in which Senator Chipp seems to find himself in coming to a decision on the question of marihuana decriminalisation. Be that as it may, it was a concern well expressed by him and one which is widely felt in the community at large. May be that concern justifies new powers being invested in our key narcotic law enforcement officials.

However, this Bill as it presently stands is alarming in a number of respects. Not the least alarming feature is that it was brought forward at all at this time, given the very large and black cloud which now hangs over the head of the Narcotics Bureau under the present Bureau of Customs. It is a cloud we all know about. It has been the subject of a great deal of debate in this Parliament and the community at large and no doubt will be the subject of a great deal more when we come to consider the detailed customs legislation later in this session. I refer to the revelations made in the aftermath of the death of the Wilson couple in Victoria. It was stated that there had been a criminal penetration of the Narcotics Bureau and that there was someone within that Bureau leaking intelligence information to drug syndicates, which leakage of information was drawn to the Bureau’s attention as early as the beginning of 1978, fully 12 months before the matters were drawn to the Government’s attention. The situation came to light only in the aftermath of the murder of the Wilson couple, the people who had been responsible, it seems, for drawing these facts to the Bureau ‘s attention. This situation resulted in the Government’s decision- quite a proper decision on the face of it- to authorise a multi-force investigation into the operations of the Narcotics Bureau. This decision, however, extraordinarily it seems, was taken without consultation with the Bureau chief, Mr Harvey Bates, and led to his resignation and the subsequent extraordinary saga of his reinstatement.

A situation does obtain at the moment in which the problems about identifying the security that operates within the Narcotics Bureau have still not been resolved. On 8 June this year I asked the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife), through Senator Durack, a question to the following effect:

  1. . why did the Government not consult the head of the Narcotics Bureau, Mr Harvey Bates, before setting in train the multi-force inquiry in question? … if, as appears, it was because the Government lacked confidence in at least some aspects of Mr Bates’s administration of the Bureau, why did the Government take such elaborately obsequious pains to persuade Mr Bates to withdraw his resignation?

The question was answered on 17 July in a letter addressed to me from the Minister. He merely referred me to copies of his Press statements on the Bates question and went on to say:

As the inquiry into the allegations against the activities of an unnamed officer of the Bureau are as yet to be finalised, 1 consider it would bc inappropriate of me to comment further at this stage.

We have a situation where the cloud which is hanging over the head of the Bureau is quite unresolved; yet this Government, with breathtaking insensitivity, proposes to vest in officers of the Bureau who may well have been involved in the perpetration of some extraordinary criminal misbehaviour powers the like of which are totally unprecedented in Australian legal and statutory experience. The real inappropriateness, it seems to me, is not any further comment from the Government on this matter until the inquiry is finalised; the real inappropriateness lies in this legislation being brought forward at all at this time before this matter is resolved to everybody ‘s satisfaction.

The other major concern the Opposition has about the Bill- let us assume it is now before us and look at its terms- is that it ignores basic safeguards which have been recommended most strenuously by the Australian Law Reform Commission’s report on criminal investigation. The Law Reform Commission said- the passages were quoted at length by Senator Puplick earlier tonight- that it may be that electronic surveillance, telephone tapping, listening devices and the rest can be justified as a legitimate law enforcement weapon when one is concerned with certain kinds of crime. What the Commission said very clearly- it is a matter of great regret that the Government has not listened to those recommendations- was that the exercise of such powers should be safeguarded in various ways by being limited to very serious offences, which is not the case under this legislation, as will become clear when we speak to our first amendment.

It is said, again by the Law Reform Commission, that the exercise of these powers should be limited to circumstances where other less draconian methods of law enforcement have been tried and failed or have proved impracticable. There is no such provision in this legislation. It is further said by the Law Reform Commission that the warrant powers in question should require that the warrants be issued in a form which states with great particularity the kind of electronic surveillance or intrusion that is authorised and not simply be warrants issued at large, as is the case under the legislation before us. There are no such limitations. The Law Reform Commission also says that the duration of such warrants should be strictly limited as to time. The Commission throws out a suggestion of 10 days, and it does so in the specific context of narcotics offences; but the time limit under this Bill is six months, in respect of both security matters and narcotics offences.

The Law Reform Commission further recommended that there be a whole variety of preconditions which should apply before warrants are issued by judges in these particular matterspreconditions to ensure that the court has absolutely satisfied itself beyond doubt as to the reasonable basis for the suspicion of the officers in question and the propriety accordingly of issuing the warrant in question. There are no such safeguard provisions in this Bill, and it is sadly deficient as a result.

It cannot be doubted that electronic surveillance, whether by telephone tapping, as is contemplated by this legislation, or by the use of listening devices- which we will come to consider under the Customs Act itself later this session- is a peculiarly effective method of law enforcement, in particular for organised crimes such as drug trafficking; but that is the beginning rather than the end of the argument. In civilised societies- I would hope that we still satisfy that description- the end does not always justify the means chosen to serve that end. If electronic surveillance devices are to be used that should be subject, as the Law Reform Commission has insisted, to the most stringent and rigorous controls- controls which should certainly involve the exercise of judicial rather than simply Ministerial authority when criminal offences are in issue, controls which are genuinely sensitive to the civil libertarian considerations which must always be balanced against the community’s quite legitimate concern with the dimensions of the crime problem that is before it. Legislation of this kind must be strictly watched to ensure that it does not just become what I fear this Bill represents, an indefensible over-reaction to a basic phenomenon which we would all agree should be reacted to somehow.

The most important objection to electronic eavesdropping is, as the Law Reform Commission has put it in paragraph 220 of its report, that by its very nature it is exploratory, unselective and indiscriminate. Innumerable conversations which are privileged, or of a personal and intimate character or otherwise quite irrelevant to the matters in issue, will be picked up once one engages in this kind of telephone tapping and the installation of listening devices. This is particularly so, of course if, as is the case here, the telephone tapping, the surveillance in question, can be carried on for periods of as long as three months or indeed six months.

We have been told officially- Senator Button mentioned the figures earlier- that at least in the late sixties and early seventies, the last period for which we have official figures, under previous legislation something like 100 national security wire taps were authorised each year. The Law Reform Commission has estimated, based on the application to those figures of what we know about the United States experience, that this may have already created a situation in which as many as 12,000 different Australians, engaging in as many as 68,000 or 75,000 different conversations, are being overheard each year. Even given ASIO at its most enthusiastic, there are likely to be in this country, as has been pointed out often in this debate, at any one time many more suspected drug offenders than suspected subversives, and the number of Australians whose privacy could be invaded by the strict, literal application of the tests set out in the Bill, is quite staggering. It is suggested that there are perhaps as many as 400,000 regular marihuana users in this country and perhaps as many as two million casual users, and these represent only one group of the drug offenders who will be covered by this legislation. The implications are staggering and the legislation must have in it safeguards to ensure that it is not misused in such situations.

The final matter about which the Opposition is concerned- it is one about which we can argue at great length in the Committee stage, but one that I wish to state briefly in winding up- is the absence of any provision for reporting to Parliament, or for that matter any other body in a public sense, the number of wire taps or interceptions, that are authorised in any given year, either in the security field or the field of criminal narcotics offences. It seems to the Opposition to be quite indefensible- as indeed it does to the New South Wales Privacy Committee which released its views on the subject some months ago- that there should be no requirement that information of this kind be made available to the Parliament. I do not refer to the setting out of details of particular cases or anything of the kind, but rather to making clear the nature and extent of the use of these devices, so that Parliament can exercise at least some control on behalf of the community of the way, in practice, this legislation is implemented.

As is well known, information of that kind was given to the Parliament by Senator Murphy, as he then was, in 1973 when Attorney-General. He gave information about the number of national security wire taps that had been authorised during the previous 10 years. When he gave that information the sky did not fall in. We were better informed and it seems to me and to the Opposition that we and the community would be much better informed, and that this legislation would be capable of greater acceptance, if it were to contain in addition measures of that kind.

It is for these reasons that the Opposition is quite alarmed at the character of the legislation, cannot support it and will be moving in the short time remaining to it this evening a number of amendments to make that position clear.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- It is with pleasure that I draw the attention of honourable senators to the presence in the gallery of the Hon. Sidney James Plowman, M.P., Speaker of the Victorian Legislative Assembly. Mr Speaker is accompanied by the Clerk of the Assembly, Mr John Campbell. On behalf of honourable senators, I extend a warm welcome to our guests and express the hope that their visit to Canberra will be both pleasant and profitable.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– in reply- Despite some of the remarks that Senator Evans so firmly expressed in winding up the views of the Opposition on the Bill, as I understand the position, the second reading will not be opposed but in the Committee stage amendments will be offered with a view to effecting certain changes that are desired by the Opposition. That is my understanding of the attitude that has been expressed by Opposition senators who have contributed to the debate and I welcome the knowledge that the Senate will be supporting the second reading of this legislation which will bring up to date, and extend in relation to narcotics offences, the authorisation under certain conditions, to intercept telecommunications, a course which would be otherwise illegal.

A lengthy debate has taken place in this chamber in relation to the package of legislation, including this Bill, regarding the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, but, insofar as the Bill extends the powers of that Organisation to intercept telephone communications, the power is not a new one. The power of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to intercept telephonic communications on a warrant authorised, under certain conditions or circumstances, by the Attorney-General is one that the Organisation has possessed since 1960. 1 say that because there seems to have been a good deal of misunderstanding in the public debate on this subject to the effect that somehow or other the Government was proposing some radically new power for ASIO. As I have said- Senator Evans made this point clear in his speech, this is a power which has been available on warrant from the Attorney-General for a number of years. Such powers have been exercised, I believe, in a responsible way over those years, without any real diminution of civil liberties in this country.

The purpose of that power is in aid of the security of this country in the exercise of the powers that ASIO has to watch over threats to this country of subversion, espionage, sabotage and now, as extended by the ASIO legislation, in relation to terrorist activities which, of course, as we all know, are a growing threat in the modern world in which we live. The Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, which was presided over by Mr Justice Hope, by and large accepted those powers and indeed recommended some additions to those powers in other respects, such as listening devices, all of which have been dealt with in the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Bill which passed through the Senate some months ago. Mr Justice Hope recommended that as far as ASIO’s power is concerned, the legislation should be updated and expanded only to apply it to all modern forms of telecommunications, not limiting it as existing powers are to communications over the telephone system. For ASIO ‘s purposes, that was the main purpose of this amendment. However, the Government, as part of its policies in strengthening the fight against drug trafficking in this country, has decided that there should be enabling powers for those investigating narcotics offences to extend those powers also to interceptions of telecommunications or to messages on the telecommunications system as well as for the purpose of security.

The main effect and purpose of this Bill are not to expand the powers of the security organisation but to expand the powers of the Narcotics Bureau in its investigation and prosecution of narcotics offences, that is, primarily the importation and disposal in this country of the great and vicious variety of drugs which we have been concerned with for some time and which are a threat to so many Australians. Senator Chipp ‘s statement this evening very clearly set out the situation. I do not pretend that these powers are the answer to the drug problem. I accept what Senator Chipp has said about that matter tonight. The drug problem is a very much more complicated and deep-seated problem than can be solved by any one solution. The Government and the Narcotics Bureau believe that in the investigation of these serious crimes the additional power to intercept telecommunications messages will be a weapon of great added value. In amendments to the Customs Act, which are the subject of another Bill to be debated in this Senate shortly- it has already passed through the House of Representatives- my colleague, the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, Mr Fife, has made some comments on this matter. In the second reading speech in introducing that Bill in this chamber, I have referred to the same purposes that the Narcotics Bureau has in the extension of these powers. I quote from the second reading speech that I made in this Senate on 5 June 1979 in introducing the Customs Amendment Bill 1 979 referring to the expanded use or availability of listening devices. The same applies really to this legislation. I said:

The measures contained in this Bill are not directed against the victims of the drug traffic, for whom I am sure we all have the greatest sympathy and concern. They are directed against the real problem- the unscrupulous people who organise and profit from illicit trafficking in narcotics.

A little later I said:

The use of listening devices will be directed particularly against the organisers of the drug trade.

Again I was really repeating what my colleague, Mr Fife, said in another place. That is the purpose for extending the armoury of the Narcotics Bureau. That is the real purpose of the powers proposed in this Bill.

The Bill as originally introduced into this Senate provided for those powers to be exercised under a warrant by the Attorney-General. The same situation has been the case since 1960 in regard to the exercise of such powers by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. The exercise of those powers by the AttorneyGeneral probably followed as they have been exercised by him. The Government felt that it was appropriate that he should continue to exercise them. He and his officers had become experienced in dealing with this type of warrant. As has been said in the debate in the House of Representatives on the Customs legislation, the House of Representatives favoured the view that the exercise of warrants authorising the use of these powers for narcotics offences would be more appropriately carried out by a judge. The Government has accepted that view and indeed believes that different considerations do apply in relation to the investigation of criminal offences than apply to matters relating to security. I am pleased that the Parliament seems to have accepted that distinction. This Bill incorporates that distinction. As I understand the debate and the proposed amendments, there is no challenge to that distinction. As I have said, the Government is very pleased that the Parliament agrees with the Bill in that regard because the Government feels very firmly that the decisions in relation to the exercise of these powers in matters of security are ones properly exercised by a member of the Government, particularly in the person of the Attorney-General.

Senator Chipp:

– I would have preferred it in its original form.

Senator DURACK:

-For both? I think there is a distinction.

Senator Chipp:

– No, for a Minister to authorise, not the judge.

Senator DURACK:

– Yes, for both cases. Honourable senators have different views but it seems to be clearly the view of the Parliament that the judicial warrant is the preferable authority for investigation of what are criminal offences rather than matters relating to security. That is the reason that this Bill has been brought back in this new form. I am pleased that Senator Evans finds it a preferable Bill; I agree with that view. I think that there were deficiencies in the earlier Bill in that it was simply trying to extend to the new situation the old legislation in relation to security. The new Bill is a better document. I do not think that the Bill can be improved very much, despite the attention that the Opposition has given it and the amendments that it is proposing. Of course, honourable senators will be debating them in detail in the Committee stage.

Senator Button:

– In not so much detail if you do not stop soon.

Senator DURACK:

– I am about to stop. If you had not interjected and wound me up again I might have already stopped. I am speaking at somewhat shorter length than most other senators who contributed to this debate, perhaps with the exception of Senator Button. I hope that there is a will to dispose of these amendments, important as they are, but I am sure honourable senators will have sufficient time to dispose of them this evening, without sitting all night. Many of the amendments raise matters that were debated at great length in the debate on the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation legislation. I understood from the general course of the debate that this Bill would be given a second reading without opposition but I understand now that I was wrong in that belief. I have received a message from the Opposition that it is opposing the second reading. I hope that that will not delay the matter too long and that the Senate will be able to pass the second reading of this Bill and proceed into the Committee stage without further delay.

Question put:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

The Senate divided. (The Deputy President- Senator D. B. Scott)

AYES: 34

NOES: 23

Majority……. 11

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee

Clauses 1 to 4- by leave- taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 5 (Interpretation).

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-I move:

Might I begin by pointing out that earlier in this debate some reference was made to the estimated number of marihuana smokers and users in Australia. For the record might I correct any misinterpretation which arose on the Government side of the chamber. I think that there is universal disagreement that the estimated number of regular marihuana smokers in Australia is 400,000 and the estimated number of people in Australia who have used marihuana on a casual or intermittent basis is two million. I am supported in that view by the very explicit statement of the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare, which on page 129 of its report stated ‘There is no agreement on the extent of cannabis used in Australia’, and then went on for several pages to explain why.

The amendment moved by the Opposition is somewhat difficult to follow in terms of the legislation itself. I think I should perhaps explain it in this way. It relates to the definition of’narcotics offence’. Those who are familiar with the Customs Act and with the Schedule to it will appreciate that it includes a number of substances which for the purpose of this legislation are defined as narcotics.

Senator Chipp:

– Which are not narcotics.

Senator BUTTON:

– Which are not narcotics, as Senator Chipp, who is giving us some helpful advice on pharmaceutical matters, points out.

Senator Chipp:

– Pharmacalogical.

Senator BUTTON:

-Thank you. It includes substances such as codeine and cannabis, which I understand are not narcotics. Clause 20 of the Bill expresses the circumstances in which warrants might be issued in the following terms:

Where . . . there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the telecommunications service is being, or is likely to be, used by a person who has committed, or is suspected on reasonable grounds of having committed, or of being likely to commit, a narcotics offence;

To summarise the point insofar as I have made it to this stage, under this legislation the telephone of a person can be tapped if that person is suspected or may be suspected of having committed a narcotics offence. A narcotics offence under this legislation in terms of the definition of narcotics can include offences relating to cannabis pot, as it is more commonly known or codeine, for example. Section 235 of the Customs Act, which is to be amended, defines a narcotics offence. Offences which are punishable under section 235 can be grouped into three classes. The first class comprises a whole range of offences which can be broadly summarised as offences relating to the smuggling of narcotics, the importing of narcotics in breach of the terms of a licence providing for the importation of narcotics, being in possession of narcotics on board a ship without reasonable excuse, the importing or attempting to import narcotic goods without a licence and assisting a person who is trying to import narcotic goods. All those sorts of offences are lumped together as offences of one class which are covered under the definition of a narcotics offence. The first class relates in the crudest form to the pot smuggler, if we may put it that way.

The second class of offence relates to persons who have in their possession narcotics which are reasonably suspected of having been imported into Australia. If one has whatever quantity of marihuana or cannabis in one’s possession -

Senator Walters:

– A joint.

Senator BUTTON:

-Thank you. If anybody has in his possession even a joint which is reasonably suspected of having been imported into Australia, he commits an offence under this section just the same as the fellow who is the smuggler of joints, to use the term of Senator Walters, who seems to be more familiar with it than I am.

Senator Chipp:

– ‘Trendy ‘ is the word.

Senator BUTTON:

– Thank you. A person who has in his possession a joint which is suspected of having been imported into Australia is covered by this section just as the person who is a smuggler of cannabis or anything else into Australia is covered by the section.

The third category of person covered by the section is a person who, on demand from a Customs officer, fails to disclose any knowledge which he may have concerning the importation, whether actual or intended, of any narcotic goods. Three classes of offence are created under the definition of ‘narcotics offence’. The first class of offence concerns the smuggler. We will characterise him as that. The second class of offence concerns the user of marihuana or codeine who is suspected of having obtained it from an imported source. The third class of offence created by the section relates to the person who, on demand from a Customs officer, refuses to disclose information which is believed to be in his possession.

Under this legislation, as it now stands, in respect of each of those classes of offences a warrant can be obtained to tap the telephone or intercept the telecommunications service of that person. This legislation is a steam-roller to crack a nut. It is a dragnet piece of legislation which, if we have regard to appropriate principles of civil liberties, should be confined properly to persons who are in the clearly criminal category of smugglers or illegal importers of drugs- people of that kind. In a country such as this there should not be a law whereby a person can have his telephone tapped because he is smoking a joint which a Customs officer or other bunny suspects has been imported. The fact that a Customs officer thinks he knows something about the importation or exportation of a joint of marihuana or a couple of bits of codeine should not be a circumstance which allows a person to have his telephone tapped. The second two categories of offences should not make people’s telecommunications services subject to interception.

Returning to the figures, there are two million people in this country suspected of having used marihuana, 400,000 regular users and God knows how many users of coedine in one form or another, if one wants to take the absurd extreme example. But when we are looking at legislation of this kind we have to take the absurd extreme example to illustrate the breadth of the issue, to illustrate the fact that, if one has regard to questions of civil liberties, this is a draconian piece of legislation which should not be on the books of a parliament such as this. It is for that reason that this, the first, amendment was moved by the Opposition.

I go back to say that what we are concerned to protect is the position of people who may be smoking marihuana or the like or who may be taking coedine in each case it might have been imported- or the person who refuses, in the view of a Customs officer, to provide information which the Customs officer believes that person has. We are seeking to protect the position of those people. They should not have their telecommunications service tapped on the basis of a warrant which can be issued, again on reasonable grounds, of it being suspected that their telephone is being used, or might be used, or has the possibility of being used in relation to a narcotics offence. Of course, it is the definition of a ‘narcotics offence’ which is reprehensible in these circumstances.

Earlier this evening in the course of the second reading debate Senator Lewis and others said: Look, we have to understand this amendment before we can vote intelligently on it’. I am sad to relate that Senator Lewis is not in the chamber any longer, unless he has slipped under the bench or somewhere. But the fact is that Government senators really should strive to understand the purposes of this amendment because it is very important. If 1 might be so blasphemous as to use the biblical injunction, I do not want it ever to be said of any Government senator in relation to this matter: ‘Forgive them for they know not what they do’. They ought to know what they do in respect of this aspect of the legislation. They ought to support the amendment for the reasons I have set out. I strongly commend it to the consideration of the Committee.

Senator CHIPP:
Leader of the Australian Democrats · Victoria

– I absolutely support everything which Senator Button has said, but I go further. He very eloquently described the second category of people who could be pulled into this dragnet and have their telephones tapped or their communications intercepted. But the issue goes even further than that. I would say that the estimate of two million suspected users of cannabis in some form would be a conservative estimate, but we know that Senator Button always errs on the side of conservatism. But let us remember that since the latter part of this decade something like 65 to 85 per cent of the marihuana used in Australia has not been imported but has been grown locally. Hashish or cannabis oil is a different story. But as far as the leaves of the plant cannabis sativa are concerned, it is mostly locally grown. That is my first point.

The second point I wish to make is that when I was the Minister responsible for these matters I established a section in my Department, which subsequently was taken over by the Department of Science, to try to find out the origin of any form of cannabis used in this country. I was dismayed to learn in answer to several questions on notice which I asked of the Minister for Science and the Environment (Senator Webster) that the officers of that section doing that work have been totally removed from that area for the past several years. I would very much doubt whether we now have the capacity in this country to prove that a certain piece of marihuana was imported or grown locally. To extend that argument, one would then have to say that if the person whose phone is being tapped in fact does have a joint, to use Senator Walters’ colourful description, that person’s telephone can be tapped. But if that joint were actually confiscated or that person were busted, to use another colourful term, and that person were charged, it would be impossible to prove an offence under the Customs Act because firstly it would have to be proved that the cannabis was imported. For that reason, I believe that this provision of the Bill is unjust and could lead to a great number of inequities. We support the Opposition on this issue.

Senator WALTERS:
Tasmania

– This debate just amazes me. Senator Chipp has come up with the figure of two million users. I gather he means occasional users.

Senator Chipp:

– Have used, or are using.

Senator WALTERS:

– I see. Senator Button has said 400,000 -

Senator Chipp:

– No.

Senator WALTERS:

– Would Senator Chipp let me finish. Senator Button said 400,000 -

Senator Chipp:

- Senator Baume said that.

Senator WALTERS:

-Senator Button said that.

Senator Chipp:

- Senator Baume said it.

Senator WALTERS:

– I heard Senator Button also give a figure of 400,000, but we can read the Hansard record tomorrow and perhaps Senator Chipp will apologise then. Senator Button said there were 400,000 users. So the figures given tonight really do express just how much we know in this country- not just in this chamber but in this country- about the number of people using cannabis. We do not know the number. We have not any figures. Senator Chipp as well as Senator Button are just guessing. Senator Button went on to talk about -

Senator Button:

– Have a guess yourself.

Senator WALTERS:

– I would be guessing too if I bothered to come up with a figure.

Senator Button:

– Have a go. That is what the Senate committee did.

Senator WALTERS:

-No, I do not believe in guessing. As Senator Button said, I was a member of the Senate Standing Committee on Social Welfare and we did not believe in guessing. We did point out that the figures are not known, that not enough research has been done and that the figures are not available. But there is one area which both Senator Button and Senator Chipp both failed to mention when talking about the importation of cannabis. As Senator Chipp said, the majority of cannabis used in this country is grown in Australia. However, let us look at some of the strengths of cannabis measured in terms of the, which is the relevant part of cannabis. The the strength of the normal cannabis grown in this country is possibly between 0.2 and 1.0 the. But the imported cannabis, the Buddha grass or Thai sticks from the United States of America, has a the content of between 4 to 14 per cent. That is a long cry from the strength of the cannabis grown in. this country. So if we are talking about the importation of cannabis we are not just talking about the strength of the cannabis grown in this country; we are talking about a totally different type of cannabis. I think that factor has to be borne in mind when we talk about the amendment which Senator Button moved tonight.

Senator PUPLICK:
New South Wales

– If the amendment moved by the Opposition were restricted entirely to the cannabis situation I think it would take on an entirely different character. But the amendment moved by the Opposition relates to:

  1. . a quantity of a narcotic substance that is not less than the trafficable quantity applicable to the substance and is punishable under . . . section 23S of the Customs Act . . .

Attached to the Customs Act is a schedule which states the traffickable quantities of various amounts. For instance, I draw the attention of the Committee to the traffickable quantity of opium, which is 20 grams. Very few people who are personal users, if one could use that phrase as far as opium is concerned, are likely to be in need of that amount of the substance. Presumably, that is why the figure of 20 grams has been arrived at. But I would have thought that there was a fairly strong presumption that a person who has in his possession 10 or 15 grams of opium was likely at some stage to have been in contact with a supplier who was able to provide not only him but other people with substantial amounts of opium. If one looks at the traffickable amount of heroin under this Schedule, it is two grams, which is the same as the traffickable amount of methadone or morphine. I read the Labor Party’s amendment as meaning that there would be no ability on the part of a Customs officer to make an approach to a judge in order to start proceedings for the issue of a warrant or that there would be no narcotics offence in the terms that the Labor Party’s amendment would have us believe if, for instance, somebody had an amount of approximately 1 5 grams of opium in his possession. I would have thought that that was the sort of amount that could well lead one through a series of connections to the original supplier of the opium, and one which would be well worth the Customs officers getting onto, if necessary by the use of electronic listening devices. It is because this proposed amendment does not deal exclusively with the subject of cannabis but deals with all the other substances that are on the Schedule that I find some difficulty with it. For instance, the figure for methadone appears fairly small at two grams. However, when looking today through the answers to questions on notice in the House of Representatives Hansard my attention was drawn to a question about methadone asked by Dr Klugman of the

Minister for Health (Mr Hunt). Dr Klugman drew attention to the fact that the amount of methadone prescribed in the Australian Capital Territory during the four weeks ended 8 October 1977 was 24,500 milligrams whereas for the four weeks ended 7 October 1978 it had risen to 154,200 milligrams. Although there has been a very substantial reduction since that date, those figures indicate that from time to time other substances are involved in the sudden upsurge in the use of narcotics which at particular times and in particular circumstances require Customs officers to display a great deal more vigilance and attention to the problem. Looking again at Schedule 6 in relation to barbiturates, one sees that the traffickable quantity referred to is 50 grams. One could go through the two pages taken up by Schedule 6 to indicate that there is a large number of substances for which one would have thought that the possession of an amount less than the traffickable amount would nevertheless lead Customs officers on a very worthwhile course of investigation as to the source of supply.

Senator Button:

– You are not saying that methadone is brought into this country for medical purposes by other than importers?

Senator PUPLICK:

– No, I am not saying that at all. I am saying that in attempting to deal with the problem of imported cannabis and the importers of cannabis one should not be persuaded to accept an amendment based upon the traffickable quantity set out in Schedule 6 of the Customs Act, which relates to so many other substances. I certainly believe that a large amount of opium is being imported and that a person who may be in possession of an amount slightly less than the 20 grams which constitutes the traffickable amount under the Schedule might well turn out to be an extremely valuable subject to be placed under surveillance in order to identify the source of the opium of which he is in possession and which is more likely to have been imported than to have been home grown or home produced. Whilst I have a great deal of sympathy with the way in which Senator Button has presented this amendment as far as the problem of cannabis is concerned, to have used that as the basis and then to extend it to a range of other narcotics in terms of their traffickable amount -

Senator Peter Baume:

– Cannabis is not a narcotic.

Senator PUPLICK:

-I am sorry. To extend it to the other items that are listed in the Schedule to the Customs Act as having a traffickable quantity I think is likely to defeat a number of purposes that all honourable senators believe ought to be pursued and pursued with some vigour. It is because the amendment does not confine itself solely to the problem of cannabis that I will not be able to support it.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

-Senator Puplick has been perverse, as he so often is. This is not the occasion to take us through a tour, however glittering, of the recesses of his understanding of the narcotics penalty provisions in the Customs Act. A more appropriate occasion for that excursion undoubtedly will be when we come to the Customs legislation. I suggest that Senator Puplick confine his and the Senate’s attention to the real issue before us, which I state simply as follows: We are not talking about whether the amount of a prohibited substance possessed is such that it might conceivably prove interesting to a narcotics officer chasing the sources of that substance. Almost any conceivable amount, however minute, when found to be in the possession of a particular person might prove to be interesting. The quantum is not of the essence for that argument. What we are talking about is whether the amount in the possession of the person in question is of such volume and whether the offence committed thereby is so serious as to justify, on the merest suspicion, the tapping of that person’s telephone for periods of up to six months, which is what this legislation is all about.

I detain the Committee further only to say that the distinction which lies behind the Opposition’s amendment, suggesting that it might be appropriate for these powers to apply in respect of certain kinds of offences but not others, is not simply a product of our own preference but is one that has the full support of the Australian Law Reform Commission. As honourable senators should remember, and indeed Senator Puplick should remember since he quoted the passage, at page 107 of the criminal investigation report the Commission said that these powers to issue warrants should be available only in respect of very serious offences. The footnote goes on to discuss what might constitute very serious offences in the context of electronic surveillance. Without going into nauseous detail at this hour, I suggest that the kind of criteria which have been articulated by Senator Button in his amendment are such as would satisfy the thrust, the substance, the spirit and the principle which lies behind that Law Reform Commission recommendation and that accordingly this amendment ought to be accepted by the Senate.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– The Government is opposed to the amendment moved by Senator Button. I can assure him that, despite certain difficulties we have had in fully understanding the amendment, we oppose it having overcome those problems and, I hope, understanding it. Indeed, its meaning was made clear to us by the amended form of the amendment that was made available before this debate commenced. It is clear now from the debate what is the issue, and that has just been restated by Senator Evans.

The Government’s opposition to this amendment is based on a number of grounds. Let me firstly emphasise that whether 400,000, or two million or 400 people are guilty of offences, and whether they have smoked at some stage or are smoking regularly, the fact is that, as the law stands, under the Customs Act if an imported narcotic is involved, whether cannabis, codeine, heroin or opium, they are guilty of a serious offence, the maximum penalty for which is imprisonment for two years, depending upon the quantity in their possession. In this particular proposal I think that this debate is misconceived. We are dealing with an aid to law enforcement, namely, the ability to intercept telecommunications for that purpose, as well as conducting the many other methods of law enforcement with which the Narcotics Bureau is charged in the exercise of its duty. If it is felt that there is something wrong with that law, whether it is because 400,000- or whatever the number ispeople in the community today are possibly guilty of offences under this section, I think that is another question altogether.

I think the Opposition should come out and say quite clearly where it stands on that issue, not seek to have this very serious and very difficult question debated in a muffled way by saying: ‘It might be a breach of the law, but you should not have this particular power of investigating the breach conferred on the Narcotics Bureau’. Senator Chipp has referred to how agonising this question is. Apparently he is now 49 per cent in favour of modifying the law. But he made it quite clear that, although he had serious doubts about it, he still would not support the decriminalisation of this conduct. That is the first point I want to make. I think the Opposition should make clear where it stands in relation to this matter. However, that is only by way of introduction to the reasons why the Government is opposed to this amendment.

The fact of the matter is that this is not putting a power as such in the hands of a narcotics officer. He can exercise that power only under a warrant granted by a Supreme Court judge. He has to go to a judge, and in the terms of clause 20 of this Bill he has to satisfy the judge that ‘there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the telecommunications service is being, or is likely to be, used by a person who has committed, or is suspected on reasonable grounds of having committed, or of being likely to commit, a narcotics offence’; and he has to satisfy a judge that there are reasonable grounds for believing that these are prohibited imports, that they are narcotics which have been imported. As Senator Chipp has said, in his view the vast majority of cannabis is not imported but is grown in Australia. Therefore, despite the concern of the Opposition about all these hundreds of thousands of people who may be smoking cannabis, the Bill would not apply to them because, if Senator Chipp is correct, this particular narcotic substance is unlikely to have been imported. If the narcotics officer -

Senator Chipp:

– All it needs is for the narcotics officer to reasonably suspect that it is imported. That is all he has to do.

Senator DURACK:

– Yes. He has to reasonably suspect that it is imported; but before he can get a warrant he has to satisfy the judge that there are reasonable grounds for believing that it is imported. If this amendment were agreed to, he would have to establish to the satisfaction of the judge that there were reasonable grounds for believing that the person concerned had a commercial or traffickable quantity of the narcotic substance in his possession. That could be inhibiting to the narcotics investigation.

As I said in the second reading debate, this power- the use of listening devices and the use of telephone interceptions- is desired, and the Government believes properly desired, by the Narcotics Bureau and officers of that Bureau in order to attack the suppliers, the importers, the distributors- the big men in this evil trade. That is why it is wanted. It is not sought in order to chase after the victims of this traffic who may be in possession of a small quantity. It is designed as a tool of investigation against the major operators in this field. I quoted in the second reading debate what have been stated to be the reasons why the Government has moved these amendments to the legislation and sought this increase in power. As Senator Puplick has quite correctly said, there may well be in the purpose of that investigation the desire to get on to such a supplier. If the officers know of somebody who has received from him, it may be a valuable and important tool in that investigation as well. So there are a number of reasons why we believe that if the Opposition amendment were adhered to it would severely detract from and inhibit the value of this proposed amendment and extension of the powers of the Narcotics Bureau in the investigation and pursuit of the major importers and distributors of narcotic substances in this country.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

– I rise on one brief point only, because I think the Attorney-General, in seeking to defend the legislation as it now stands, used an argument which was totally beneath him. In exercising what he thinks is some sort of macho-spunky politics, he challenges the Opposition to say where it stands on the issue of criminality in relation to drug use. He sees that as being referable to the subject of this debate. That is a completely dishonest argument, with the greatest respect.

As a member of the Opposition, all I have to say on that issue is that I do not regard the using of cannabis on odd occasions as being in the same category of offence as, for example, treason, smuggling and terrorism, which are other activities in respect of which phone tapping will be allowed, and that is where I stand for the purposes of this legislation. If the AttorneyGeneral would tell us, for example, why the offence of smoking the odd quantities of cannabis is more reprehensible than murder, which is not prescribed by any Federal legislation as a matter in respect of which one can have one’s phone tapped, then the argument would have some sense about it. But it is an absolutely nonsense argument in the way in which he puts it.

Consideration interrupted.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Robertson:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

– Order! In conformity with the sessional order relating to the adjournment of the Senate, I formally put the question:

That the Temporary Chairman do now leave the chair and report to the Senate.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

The Temporary Chairman having reported accordingly-

page 154

ADJOURNMENT

Answers to Questions

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT- Order! It being 1 1 p.m., I put the question:

That the Senate do now adjourn.

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

– I wish to raise briefly tonight a matter that I have raised -

Senator Peter Baume:

– I make the suggestion to Senator McLaren that it might suit his purpose if we put the question and perhaps come back to the adjournment debate later. We might wish to negative the adjournment question.

Senator Cavanagh:

– If you do not negative the question, he cannot speak on the matter.

Senator Peter Baume:

– I am trying to give the honourable senator an indication.

Senator McLAREN:

– I am on my feet and I will say the few words that I wish to say. I want to bring to the attention of the Senate a matter which I pursued during the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) on 30 May this year. I then put to Senator Guilfoyle, who was in charge of that Bill, a series of questions relating to the purchase of VIP aircraft by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) for his extravagant indulgences. I have it on pretty good authority that surveys carried out by the Liberal Party of Australia to ascertain why it is receiving such a low rating in the public opinion polls revealed that one of the main reasons is the purchase by the Prime Minister and his extravagant use of those aircraft.

During the parliamentary recess I received a letter from Mr Killen, the Minister for Defence, setting out some answers to many of the questions that I asked of Senator Guilfoyle during the Committee stage of the debate on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) on 30 and 31 May. Honourable senators will recall that the Senate met into the early hours of the morning on 3 1 May. I do not intend tonight to debate the answer that I was given. However, 1 will seek leave when I finish my remarks to have the answer incorporated in Hansard. If I do not do that, this series of answers to the series of questions which was asked in this chamber will not appear in the public record. The Government seems to be developing this habit in respect of questions that are asked in this place and this matter was referred to earlier today. Honourable senators ask questions in the Senate and receive answers by way of letters. Unless the honourable senator concerned is prepared to use the debate on the first reading of a money Bill or take up the time of the Senate in the adjournment debate, we do not get those answers into the public record.

I raised another matter by way of a question on notice earlier this year. I think it occurred on the first day the Senate met in the Autumn session. I asked then whether the previous Governor-General had a free telephone. I had to pursue the matter right to the death knell on the last day of sitting of the Autumn session- 8 June- and I received an answer to that question on notice. To my surprise, today I found that it was not even recorded in yesterday’s Hansard. I had to ask a question of Senator Carrick about that matter which we will pursue to the bitter end because it involves the expenditure of public moneys. The Government will not reveal to the electorate at large the amount involved. I was told today that there is no Act of Parliament which entitles the Government to adopt that attitude. However, I will pursue that at a later date.

I rose to speak tonight to have this letter from Mr Killen, the Minister for Defence, incorporated in Hansard to give an opportunity to many of my colleagues to analyse that answer and also to analyse other answers that have been given on the same question to other members of Parliament to see how they tie in. I seek leave to have incorporated in Hansard a letter dated 3 1 July 1979, addressed to me, and signed by D. J. Killen, Minister for Defence.

Leave granted.

The letter read as follows-

Minister for Defence Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600

Dear Senator McLaren,

You will recall that during consideration of Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 1978-79 on 30 May 1979, Senator Guilfoyle undertook to obtain further information on matters you raised regarding the Boeing 707 aircraft recently purchased from Qantas.

The following information is provided in answer to the questions you asked.

Question

What other purposes will these aircraft serve apart from taking personnel to Butterworth two or three times a year?

Answer

The aircraft will be used quite extensively by the RAAF for the carriage of passengers and cargo on such flights as: transport of personnel, dependents and cargo to and from Butterworth- Up to 40 return flights a year; transport of personnel and cargo in support of international exercises- Up to 12 flights a year: other unplanned requirements e.g. use in major emergency situations; other internal use for the transport of equipment or personnel.

I refer you to Senator Carrick ‘s reply to a question by Senator Townley as recorded on pages 2S08 and 2509, of Hansard, 3 1 May 1979.

Question

Are they to be armed as fighter aircraft, or are they to be fitted out so that they can carry bombs?

Answer

No.

Question

What is the real purpose of the B707 aircraft? Answer

The reason for the purchase of the B707 aircraft is fully stated in Senator Carrick ‘s reply to a question by Senator

Townley, as recorded on pages 2S08 and 2S09, of Hansard, 31 May 1979.

Question

Are the aircraft to be chartered by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet from the Department of Defence when they are required for VIP duties?

Answer

No.

Question

If they are to be used occasionally by the Prime Minister for VIP travel, will their costs be charged against the Prime Minister’s Department at the same rate at which the previous Prime Minister chartered equivalent planes from Qantas Airways Limited for his overseas trips?

Answer

The costs of operating the aircraft will not be recovered on a commercial chaner basis. The annual operating costs of special purpose aircraft are shared between the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Defence in accordance with an arrangement agreed by Government in 1967. Under this arrangement, aircraft flying costs, including fuel, oil, tyres, oxygen, spares, servicing of aircraft by contractors and aircraft handling costs at civil airports, are shared proportionately according to hours flown in special purpose and Defence roles. All other costs, apart from the cost of rations, are borne by the Department of Defence. The Government has directed that an Interdepartmental Committee review and make recommendations on this cost sharing arrangement. Operating costs of B707 aircraft will be included in this review.

Question

What Department will bear the cost of converting the aircraft from troop carrying facilities to VIP facilities and vice-versa?

Answer

The cost involved in converting the aircraft from a troop carrying configuration to a special purpose configuration and vice versa will be the pay of the RAAF personnel employed to remove and replace furniture and fittings. It is expected that the Interdepartmental Committee reviewing the cost sharing arrangements will make recommendations on this aspect.

Question

What terms will apply when the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet charters these aircraft for VIP travel?

Answer

The aircraft will not be chartered. Answers to previous questions refer.

Yours sincerely, D.J. KILLEN

Senator G. T. McLaren, Parliament House, Canberra, ACT 2600

Senator McLAREN:

– I thank the Senate. That is the extent of my remarks on this subject now.

Question resolved in the negative.

page 156

TELECOMMUNICATIONS (INTERCEPTION) BILL 1979 [No. 2]

In Committee

Consideration resumed.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Robertson:

- Senator Button, you are in continuation.

Senator BUTTON:

-I made the point I wished to make.

Senator McLaren:

– I raise a point of order. I draw the attention of the Senate to the fact that the lights indicating that the proceedings are being broadcast are not on. I understand that on a Wednesday we are on air until 1 1.30. We are now back on general business.

Senator Puplick:

– We are on the adjournment.

Senator McLaren:

– We are not on the adjournment. We are dealing with the business of the Parliament.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN:

– Order! I am advised that as soon as the Senate goes onto the adjournment debate the broadcast is finished. We have had the adjournment debate so the broadcast has finished.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 6 to 8- by leave- taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 9 (Issue of warrants by AttorneyGeneral for Organisation to intercept telecommunications).

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

– I move:

Put shortly, this amendment is to reduce the time period for a warrant in respect of security taps from six months to 90 days. This is consistent with the amendment which the Opposition moved to a similar provision in relation to listening devices when the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Bill was before this chamber. The proposition was rejected by the Government at that stage. We hope that the Government will think again about this amendment, particularly as there is a distinction of a practical kind between listening devices and telephone taps. Telephone interception is something which can be physically accomplished very easily whereas the installation of a listening device may well be, as a practical matter, something which occasions a great deal of difficulty and accordingly might be thought to justify a power to operate for a longer period of time. That particular rationale is not relevant to the case of telecommunications interception. I suggest that that is a ground for distinction.

The general argument in favour of reducing the time period for electronic surveillance of any kind has been put at some length in this debate and earlier debates. As was stated by the Law Reform Commission, electronic surveillance of this kind is, by its very nature, exploratory, unselective and indiscriminate. For that reason it ought to be subject to very closely wraught safeguards. In the Law Reform Commission’s opinion, reduced time periods is one such safeguard. It has been said by Senator Chipp that he does not think this is an especially radical type of proposition in the sense that the period of 90 days suggested for national security taps is still a relatively long one. I acknowledge that this amendment might well be thought not to go far enough, but at least it ought to be one for that reason, if no other, which is acceptable to the Government. The passage of an amendment in these terms would at the very least force a reappraisal after three months of the legitimacy, the effectiveness, of the particular interception for which the warrant has been sought. I commend the amendment to the Government accordingly.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– This amendment is consistent with the views that the Opposition expressed in relation to the provision for warrants for listening devices. The Government has considered the matter again in the light of the present amendment but the Government is equally consistent in its opposition to it. Briefly the reason is that we believe that the full period of six months is required in many cases. Added administrative burdens would occur with the imposition of the 90 day limit. Unless provided for in the legislation, the 90-day limit, the six-month limit or any other limit does not stop warrants being issued again. Because it has been the experience of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation that it does need to apply these intercepts for periods much longer than 90 days, the view is that it would be administratively burdensome to have this restriction as proposed by the Opposition.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 10 (Issue of warrant by DirectorGeneral of Security in emergency for Organisation to intercept telecommunications).

Senator EVANS (Victoria) (1 1.131-1 seek leave to move together amendments 3 and 4, both of which relate to clause 10.

Leave granted.

Senator EVANS:

-I move:

Both the amendments relate to our proposal that in emergency situations the Minister should still be required to authorise the warrant in question rather than in emergency situations that power being vested in the unelected official, the Director-General of Security. We regard it as something of an alarming prospect that such power should be vested in a non-elected, irresponsible- in that sense- official, even for a relatively short time. We take that view especially given the failure of the Government during the ASIO debate to accept any of the additional safeguards that we wanted to insert into the security system to ensure that the exercise of discretions and powers by non-elected officials would be in accordance with democratic civil libertarian principles. In particular I refer to the rejection by the Government of the proposals for regular judicial audits of the behaviour of the officials in question. It is in that context that we reiterate our concern that powers of any kind, particularly of this very far-reaching kind, ought to be vested in officials in this way. We accept the need for some kind of emergency procedure whereby the Minister of the day, rather than formally, in written terms, having to authorise the exercise of the power in question, should be able to do so orally. Questions as to the practicability of gaining access to the relevant Minister or acting Minister were dealt with in the ASIO debate. I do not detain the Senate to reiterate them now. I commend the amendment accordingly.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– As Senator Evans has said, the issue raised here has already been the subject of discussion in the debate on the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Bill in regard to the implementation of those powers in relation to listening devices. (Quorum formed). As I was about to say, the Government opposed a similar amendment in relation to the ASIO legislation and is opposing this amendment because of the practical problems that its acceptance would present. It would mean that the Director-General would have to be able at all times to get in touch with the Attorney-General of the day. Given the size of the country and the amount of travel in which politicians and probably even the Director-General himself are engaged it would pose practical problems. There would also be the need to ensure that a secure line is available to discuss these matters. Also, the discussion of such matters over the telephone is difficult. I think there are practical problems. In fact, this power has existed in the Telephonic Communications (Interception) Act for many years and, as I understand it, has not been used very much at all. It is only in most exceptional cases that the Director-General would be likely to exercise these powers. I do not think that there is any real threat to civil liberties in the DirectorGeneral having that power in an emergency. As I have said, it has not been used very much at all. The Government believes that the practical difficulties of trying to implement such a proposal would certainly outweigh any very minor benefits that might be achieved from it.

Amendments negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 1 1 (Issue of Warrants for Organization to intercept telegrams).

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

– by leave- I move:

The first of the two amendments relates again to the question of emergency authorisation, this time in respect of telegrams rather than telecommunications generally, for which the argument has already been put. The second of the amendments to this clause relates to the reduction of time for telegram warrants from six months to 90 days. Again, the argument has been put. I will not detain the Senate further.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– For the reasons that have already been given in regard to similar amendments that Senator Evans moved earlier, the Government is opposed to these amendments.

Amendments negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 12 to 19- by leave- taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 20 (Issue of warrants for the Customs to intercept telecommunications).

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-The Opposition proposes three amendments, Nos 7, 8 and 9 to clause 20.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Robertson:

– Is it your wish to take them together?

Senator BUTTON:

– It might be better if they were taken separately. Accordingly, I move:

The amendment seeks to ensure that the information upon which a warrant shall be issued shall be in written rather than oral form. The reasons are fairly obvious. It is an important matter which should require that an officer apply his mind to putting down on paper the reasons for the warrant. That would not be, in our view, a particularly onerous task. Nevertheless it is important in terms of the overall significance of the issuance of a warrant in this way.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– The Government is opposed to the amendment. The Crimes Act provides that warrants thereunder shall be issued only upon the giving of information on oath. Indeed, that has been the traditional manner in which provision has been made in the law for the issue of warrants. It has also been the practice for the information to be recorded on paper, so that the oath is made in the form of an affidavit or statutory declaration. There does not seem to be any particular reason why the traditional procedure should be altered. Of course, it is within the power of the judge concerned to require that the information shall be provided on affidavit. He may well decide in most cases to do so. The Government sees no reason why there should be any specific provision in this instance which differs from the standard provision in the law concerning approaches to judicial officers for the issue of warrants.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

– I simply put on record something that Senator Button omitted to mention but which the AttorneyGeneral (Senator Durack) should have been much more familiar with than he demonstrated on this occasion. It is that this proposal, like so many others which have sat behind the Opposition’s amendments, is derived directly from the recommendations of the Australian Law Reform Commission in its report on criminal investigation, which had a great deal to say about the warrant-issuing procedure under the Crimes Act, and indeed under other Federal legislation.

The Commission drew the attention of the Government to the criticisms of that procedure that had been articulated by the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory in the case of the Queen v. Tillett ex parte Newton. It made quite explicit recommendations concerning reform of the warrant-issuing procedure to require, amongst other things, the preparation of a document, not as a matter of discretion but as a required course, in all circumstances where warrants were issued. Indeed, many other recommendations relating to the issuance of warrants were made by the Law Reform Commission and these are picked up, in particular, in proposed amendment No. 9 of the Opposition, which Senator Button will be moving in just a moment.

I find it a matter of acute regret that this Government, which has shown its willingness to implement, at least at one stage of its term of office, the recommendations of that Commission in this respect- recommendations which were embodied in the Criminal Investigation Bill that was introduced during the tenure of Mr Ellicott as Attorney-General- has been guilty of so much manifest back-sliding, particularly during, I say with regret, the stewardship of the present Attorney-General in this matter. I would hope that he would appreciate that these recommendations, like so many others are not being advanced by the Opposition as a product of some thought under the shower this morning or at any other time. They are being advanced as a result of our careful consideration and picking up of recommendations- of which this is but onewhich have been the subject of very careful and detailed deliberation by the Law Reform Commission. I would hope that the Attorney-General would take that consideration into account in this and the subsequent amendments in this series.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– I do not want to get into a debate on the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission on criminal investigation of which the Senate by this time will be aware that Senator Evans is a strong proponent. I simply say that the Government has not yet formed a final view in relation to those recommendations. It may be that this one, among others, may be adopted. In that event the appropriate changes would be made in legislation generally. But we have not made those decisions as yet. As things stand at the moment the law is, in general terms, as I have indicated. The Government believes it ought to be incorporated here in the same way.

Amendment negatived.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

– I move:

This amendment provides for a limitation upon the circumstances under which State judges or judges of the Supreme Courts of the Territories may issue warrants. The legislation as it stands gives full capacity to Federal judges to issue warrants under any circumstances. The Opposition feels that there should be some limitation on that capacity in relation to State judges and Territory judges. The limitation should be that these judges are limited in their jurisdiction of their own bailiwicks. If I could put it another way, there may be some judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland or Western Australia who has an obsessional interest in issuing warrants and it will become the practice of customs officers to go to that particular judge if this legislation remains as it is.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– The Government is opposed to this amendment, from the point of view of convenience. It seems to me, that the argument advanced by Senator Button, could well apply to a judge of any court. I am sure he would not be suggesting that a judge of the Federal Court would have a particular obsession one way or the other on any subject.

Senator Button:

– But he would have a wider net for his obsession.

Senator DURACK:

-I do not follow that argument. I think it could apply, as I said, to a Federal judge as well as to a State judge. The convenience of having the ability to go to a State judge and get a warrant equally effective as in the case of application to a Federal judge of course, is very great indeed. Despite the fact that there seems to be a growing number of Federal judges there are still significant parts of Australia where there is not a Federal judge. That certainly would not be convenient. I speak of Western Australia and northern Queensland.

Senator Missen:

– Tasmania.

Senator DURACK:

– Tasmania- I am sorrywhich is even more important than either of those.

Senator Button:

– You would not go to Tasmania to get a warrant for the Northern Territory, would you?

Senator DURACK:

– The movement of these people is very considerable. The warrant may need to be applied outside a particular jurisdiction. The Government believes that it is more convenient to have it in the terms of the provision in the legislation than restricting it in this way.

Amendment negatived.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

– I move:

The purpose of this amendment is clear from the face of it, but it provides a minimum level of information that must be supplied to a judge before he issues a warrant. As Senator Evans pointed out in an earlier contribution, it is again in line with the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission. I suppose the AttorneyGeneral (Senator Durack) will reject it for that reason. It seems to the Opposition that it is important that there should be a specification in the legislation of the minimum level of information which is provided to a judge before he issues a warrant. That is the purpose of the amendment.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– The Government is not opposing this amendment because it has been recommended by the Law Reform Commission.

Senator Button:

– You almost put it that way before.

Senator DURACK:

– I did not put my reply to Senator Evans on that basis either. All I am saying is that simply because the Law Reform Commission has recommended it is not necessarily a reason why we ought to accept it, particularly as we have not made up our mind in relation to these general recommendations which have been made by the Law Reform Commission in the report which has been referred to earlier. The reasons why the Government does not accept this amendment are again for the same reasons that I gave earlier in relation to the amendment requiring that the matters placed before the judge should be on affidavit. We believe that we can rely on the good sense and experience of the judiciary in handling these applications. Admittedly it will be a new responsibility for the judges to exercise these powers, but I really do not think that the judges of superior courts in Australia, Federal courts and State supreme courts, really need to have spelled out in this sort of detail in an Act of Parliament how they are to proceed in regard to these applications. It is the Government’s view that they should be relied upon to work out the procedures. When all is said and done, the procedures may differ in circumstances. It is very undesirable to tie the judges down in this very specific way.

Amendment negatived.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-I move:

The provision of amendment No. 10 provides for reducing the time in respect of which a warrant will be valid. In the context of clause 20, the time proposed is 30 days, not 6 months. That is different from the 90 days which was proposed in an earlier clause. The same reasons apply why the time in respect of which a warrant should be valid has been reduced.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

-Given the newly-expressed willingness of the AttorneyGeneral (Senator Durack) to consider with an open mind the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission might I just add some remarks. In the particular context of drug law enforcement and the use of electronic surveillance in relation thereto, the Law Reform Commission did recommend that warrants be issued for no longer than 10 days at a time in relation to criminal offences of that kind. In identifying a particular time period it was not adverting to security situations in relation to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. It was adverting to criminal offences generally including narcotics offences. Bearing in mind that recommendation, the Opposition has moved for a quite reduced period of 30 days, in the hope of attracting some sympathetic consideration from the Government- a forlorn hope, it appears, in the light of what has happened during the last half hour. The Opposition did in fact allow an extra 20 days above the Law Reform Commission’s suggested norm. We have proposed a lesser period than that in the Bill because in principle, as Senator Button said, a short period is eminently justified but a shorter period is justified by the peculiar nature of the offences in issue here and their difference from a security situation.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– It is true that this question of the period for which a warrant would be required does present a new problem. In the debate on the duration of a warrant in relation to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation 1 said that it had been the experience of the organization that warrants were required for long periods and frequently for a period of six months, and that renewals beyond that period were required, that being the justification for not reducing the period. Admittedly in this case, we have not had that experience, but the Government feels that in the light of ASIO experience it is quite likely that warrants would be required for periods up to six months. When all is said and done, as I said earlier, they are required for the investigation of the major importers and distributors of narcotic substances. The investigations are very likely to be long, detailed and complicated. It is thought probable that the warrants would need to be placed for some time.

The Opposition will appreciate that obviously 10 days is too short a period. I think that obviously 30 days is too short a period. However, as far as the protection of civil liberties is concerned, the duration of the warrant is determined by the judge issuing it. If he is not satisfied that it is required for a period of six months, which is only the maximum period, he can limit it to a much shorter period. Judges may be as impressed with the recommendation of the Law Reform Commission on this matter as was Senator Evans. In fact, that is what they may do. As I have repeatedly said in this debate, the Government believes that it should leave these sorts of questions to the good sense, responsibility and experience of the judiciary.

Amendment negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Proposed new clause 20a.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

– I move:

This amendment relates to telecommunications interception under the Customs legislation. The effect of it is to provide for telephone applications for warrants where it is impracticable to follow the procedure set out in section 20. This proposed clause was drafted with the intention of supplementing our amendment to clause 20 which has, of course, just been defeated. In a sense it was made necessary by our proposed amendment to clause 20. If our amendment to clause 20 had been passed and it was accordingly necessary for applications for warrants to be in writing in all circumstances, there would have been difficulty in applying for warrants in urgent situations. At the moment, urgent situations are probably to be regarded as being accommodated by clause 20 (3) (a) to the extent that there is a reference to applications being able to be made orally. No doubt that is why the present Bill does not make specific provision for emergency applications for warrants.

The Opposition moved this amendment because it was in a sense contingent upon the successful passage of its proposed amendment to clause 20. The fact that the Opposition’s proposed amendment to clause 20 failed does not mean that it should withdraw this amendment, because the Opposition does regard it as appropriate that there be an emergency procedure specifically set out. The Opposition believes that the sense and practice of having an emergency procedure is manifest and, furthermore, there is the desirability of putting this amendment at least on the record in order that, hopefully, it and the preceding amendment might be further considered by the Government overnight and perhaps in another place given a little more sympathetic attention than it was given in the Senate tonight.

At the risk of driving the Attorney-General (Senator Durack) up the wall, the only further point I make is that this is another recommendation which comes from the Law Reform Commission report. That report recommended the use of a telephone application procedure in this and a number of other matters as part of its general, quite sensible, theme that in law enforcement generally, the Government and the community ought not to ignore the technological developments that have occurred over the last 50 or 60 years, one of which has been the invention of the telephone. Just as other technological advances, such as the existence of tape recorders, ought not to be ignored when one is considering the best way of monitoring interrogations, so too should the existence of the telephone not continue to be ignored when one is trying to work out viable, up to date, sensible and effective methods of law enforcement. It is for those combinations of reasons that the Opposition moves the proposed new clause 20a.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– I agree that it is perfectly appropriate for this amendment to be moved despite the defeat of an earlier amendment which would have rendered this amendment much more necessary than it is now. However, the question of obtaining a warrant by telephone is an interesting proposition and it is one which I can assure Senator Evans is being considered in relation to the proposals of the Law Reform Commission. As to its insertion in this legislation, the Government believes that at this stage it is better not to innovate in this way before the broader issue of the implementation of that Commission’s report is finally resolved. The Government’s proposals in that regard will probably be made to this Parliament in another form. The position is that the availability of application to a large number of both Federal and Supreme Court judges, for which the Government has provided in this legislation from a practical point of view, eliminates certainly the necessity for and even the desirability of having this proposed new clause, unless it can be demonstrated that applications for warrants by telephone generally is of value. The Government has not made a final decision in relation to that matter. It believes that to insert this provision in the Bill at this stage is premature. I acknowledge the fact that it is an interesting proposition and it may be proved to be a valuable addition. I would prefer to see it debated on another occasion.

Proposed new clause negatived.

Clause 21 (Issue of warrants for the Customs to inspect telegrams).

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-For the sake of convenience, I seek leave to move amendments Nos. 12 to 16 together.

Leave granted.

Senator BUTTON:

-I move:

In essence the first amendment has already been discussed in the context of an earlier clause. It seeks to insert provision for an affidavit instead of information on oath. It is preferable, in our view, to have it in writing for record purposes. Senator Evans also dealt with this matter in the context of the Law Reform Commission’s report.

Amendment No. 13 in substance has already been moved to a different clause as amendment No. 8. As I recall it, the Attorney-General (Senator Durack) rejected that amendment as a matter of convenience, and presumably he will do so again. The first part of amendment No. 14 again sets out the minimum requirements upon which a judge would properly insist as being the grounds for the issue of a warrant. At this stage of the evening I do not wish to go into all the details of that provision. It is self-explanatory. A judge has to be satisfied as to certain matters in relation to the commission or the suspected commission of a narcotics offence. The last part of the amendment is concerned again with the balancing of public and private interests. That is an issue which we discussed in the course of the second reading debate.

Amendment No. 15 again deals with reducing the life of a warrant in the circumstances which were discussed by Senator Evans in relation to an earlier amendment. Amendment No. 16 provides for the issue of emergency warrants and telegrams. That again is a matter which Senator Evans discussed in the context of the preceding amendment. I adopt and refer to the arguments which he advanced in support of the earlier amendment. I commend the amendments to the Senate.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– The Government is opposed to these amendments. The principle behind them has already been the subject of debate when considering other amendments to earlier clauses of this Bill. I think Senator Button recognises that because of the terms in which he has moved them. I do not think there is any need for me to go over again the reasons why the Government is opposed to them.

Amendments negatived.

Clause agreed to.

Clauses 22 to 27- by leave- taken together, and agreed to.

Clause 28 agreed to.

Proposed new clause 29.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

– I move:

Proposed new clause 29 provides that the Minister should lay before Parliament a report of the effectiveness of the activities by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and by the Comptroller-General of Customs under this legislation. We have been through all this before in relation to the ASIO Bill and very briefly I go through it again because it is a matter of concern and importance to the Opposition in relation to legislation of this kind. The importance, of course, attaches to the fact that we are dealing with a very serious matter in relation to the civil liberties of Australian subjects. In the context of that awareness it is desirable, in the view of the Opposition and of many commentators on this legislation, that the Minister should report to Parliament on the effectiveness of activities undertaken by the Comptroller-General of Customs, for example. I do not think I need to emphasise the arguments in relation to this matter any further except to say that it goes to the heart of the question of public accountability.

Organisations of this kind around the world have all failed and have all got into trouble when there has not been a degree of public accountability about their activities in the absence of legislation of the kind suggested by the Opposition. The Parliament of this country should know in general terms what is going on in relation to the use of this sort of legislation. Organisations around the world have got into difficulties because of the lack of accountability, amongst other things. With legislation of this type there should be the highest degree of accountability to a Parliament such as this. There is no specification of what the proposed new clause would actually require, but the question of effectiveness should be dealt with. Of course, a basic argument about the effectiveness of legislation of this kind generally has taken place in America and in other places. It is a matter which should be the subject of a report to Parliament. I commend this important amendment to the Committee.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

– I detain the Committee only in order to read into the record what I think is an important recommendation which was made to the Government by the New South Wales Privacy Committee in a publicly released letter from Mr W. J. Orme, the executive member of the Committee, on 23 March 1978 addressed to the Hon. W. C. Fife, the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. Part of that letter constitutes a recommendation that there should be a disclosure to Parliament of the extent of interceptions under the Customs Act. I read the relevant paragraph as follows:

At least each three months Parliament should be informed of:

the number of warrants issued;

the number of warrants requested and refused;

where they apply to telephones, the total number of the telephone services the subject of the warrants;

a break down of the number of uses of other types of devices by device;

the number of conversations listened into by each type of device;

each of the above figures broken down wherever possible by State.

I commend that recommendation to the attention of the Government, reminding the Government that the New South Wales Privacy Committee is a body with an admirably established reputation during the period that it has been a going concern. It is a body which has a great deal of sensitivity and understanding in these issues. I would hope not only that the Government would accept the recommendation to put into the Bill a statutory requirement for parliamentary reporting but also that in meeting that statutory requirement it would follow the guidelines which have been laid out by the Privacy Committee. For the sake of the record I remind the Committee that parliamentary reporting- not of Customs warrants, because of course there has been no provision for electronic surveillance in the narcotics-Customs area before, but in the even more sensitive area of security- has been accomplished in the past. I refer once again to the by now well known answer of Senator Lionel Murphy as Attorney-General, as recorded in the House of Representatives Hansard of 12 April 1973. It was a path breaking answer which put on record the experience in terms of the bald number of telephone taps in the security area which had taken place in each of the years 1 964 to 1973.

I make a final plea to the Government. Even if the Government continues to reject the notion of there being any kind of parliamentary reporting in relation to national security matters- a position which, regrettably, it made perfectly clear in the course of the debate on the ASIO legislation- will it please consider giving us proper parliamentary reporting of the use of warrants for electronic surveillance in the Customs area so that we as a Parliament, on behalf of the Australian community, can get some indication of how these powers are being used. The Government would not be giving anything away to the various nasties it is tracking down in this area by advising the Parliament of the kind of information that is suggested by the New South Wales Privacy Committee. If indeed there are many such interceptions this information perhaps would convey to the Australian community in a peculiarly graphic way what I take it the Government and Senator Chipp are certainly both interested in doing, that is, conveying to the community the scale of the problem.

If the Government is not willing to provide this kind of information to the Parliament and to the community it can do nothing other than to create a suspicion- I fear an all too legitimate suspicion- in the minds of the community that it is misusing these powers on a substantial scale and that it is anxious to conceal the scale of that misuse. I see no reason why the kind of matters to which I have referred cannot be the subject of parliamentary reporting in either the national security or the narcotics law context. But if the Government is going to insist on its already articulated attitude in relation to national security, surely it is at least able to appreciate the distinction between that subject matter and the criminal law one in the narcotics area and accordingly make the concession of accepting our amendment in that context.

Senator CHIPP:
Leader of the Australian Democrats · Victoria

– Both Senator Button and Senator Evans have made speeches of impeccable logic. The Australian Democrats would totally support this proposed new clause if it ended after the first sentence. In my understanding there are two components of this proposed new clause. It provides that a report be laid before each House of Parliament on the effectiveness of activities undertaken by both the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Narcotics Bureau. With that I find no objection. I think it is constructive and I would support it to the hilt. But then the proposed new clause goes on to state that ‘such report shall include details of warrants issued under each of sections 9 10, 11,20 and 21 of this Act’.

I have read that part of the proposed new clause several times and married it with the Bill. If my understanding is correct, if this amendment were passed, in the report presented to both Houses of Parliament would be the names or identities of the persons whose telephones had been tapped or whose communications had be intercepted. To me, that would be an unthinkable proposition. Senator Evans rightly talked about privacy. Having been the Minister responsible in this area I realise that there are a lot of paranoic people around who love dobbing in people. It is incredible how persuasive they can be. On such evidence 1 can foresee an innocent person having his telephone tapped and then his name put into a report which is subsequently presented to Parliament. We support the principle, but the last sentence of the amendment seems to me to be totally impractical. I leave it to Senator Button or Senator Evans. If they would contemplate removing that last sentence we certainly would support the proposal, but we would not support it otherwise.

Thursday, 23 August 1979

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– Let me deal with this amendment in two parts, firstly with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and, secondly, with the Customs warrants. The amendment boxes the two parts and does not make any such distinction. I think there is a problem with the amendment in that regard. Senator Chipp has put his finger on a very serious problem with the amendment in another respect. In relation to ASIO, in the course of the very long debates we had here on that subject, honourable senators will recall that the Government agreed to two amendments moved by the Opposition which I think made a very considerable improvement concerning the accountability of ASIO.

We agreed to insert in the legislation a provision that from time to time the DirectorGeneral of Security would brief the Leader of the Opposition in relation to the activities of ASIO. We agreed also that there would be a statutory requirement that the annual reports of ASIO to the Government would be made available to the Leader of the Opposition. Of course, such reports and indeed the briefings, if the Leader of the Opposition sought them, would comprehend the activities and the effectiveness of the activities of ASIO in regard to telephone interceptions. The Government made it quite clear that that was as far as it could go in relation to statutory obligations concerning the accountability of ASIO. It has been the long-standing policy of my Government not to disclose the activities of ASIO in Parliament or elsewhere. But we believe that there should be a bipartisan approach to ASIO. That is why we agreed to the amendments requiring the provision of a statutory obligation to inform the Leader of the Opposition about these matters.

The whole issue of the accountability of ASIO was debated at great length. I believe that this Bill is a very substantial improvement on the existing legislation. But we are not prepared to take this matter further. The amendment moved by the Opposition would require a good deal of information in relation to the activities of ASIO being made public. As Senator Chipp has said, if the amendment were accepted it would require a very great amount of detail about warrants to be given. But even if that requirement were eliminated from the amendment, we believe that a report on the effectiveness of activities in relation to warrants for ASIO would reveal a great deal about the Organisation which ought to be kept secret. The phrase ‘effectiveness of activities’ is very general. I think that it would go much further than anything which Senator Murphy, when he was Attorney-General, may have revealed about the warrants which had been issued for ASIO under the then existing legislation. So the Government cannot agree to the amendment in regard to ASIO in any shape of form.

As to the new power that is provided in this legislation to aid in the investigation of narcotics offences through warrants issued to the Comptroller-General of Customs, clause 27 (2) of the Bill provides that the Comptroller-General of Customs will furnish to the Minister, in respect of each warrant issued within three months after the expiration or revocation, a report in writing on the extent to which the interception of communications, or the inspection of telegrams, as the case may be, has assisted officers of Customs in narcotics inquiries that have been made by officers of Customs. So the Comptroller-General is accountable to the Minister in very clear terms as set out in sub-clause (2 ).

In the Customs Amendment Bill, which has passed through another place and which I hope we will shortly be dealing with, there is a somewhat similar provision to that in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation legislation which provides as a statutory requirement that at least once a year the Leader of the Opposition is to be briefed on matters relating to contraventions of that legislation. So there will be a report to the Leader of the Opposition about the activities of the Narcotics Bureau and that is an advance in accountability in these matters.

Senator Chipp:

– Where is that provided?

Senator DURACK:

-That is in the Customs Amendment Bill. It is not in this legislation. There will be a general briefing of the Leader of the Opposition in the narcotics area. It is not in quite the same terms but broadly it is in the same terms as is provided in the ASIO legislation. The Customs legislation of course is yet to be debated in this place but it has been passed by the House of Representatives and it represents Government policy. This is a new power and I think we need to proceed cautiously. It is not normal practice for governments to make reports in any detailed way about the activities of law enforcement agencies.

Senator Evans:

– It is not normal practice for governments to tap telephones, I hope.

Senator DURACK:

– It is not normal practice because the powers to tap telephones have been very limited. The Opposition’s amendment seeks to have reports made to Parliament about the effectiveness of certain law enforcement activities, namely the interception of telecommunications. I am saying that it is not normal practice for law enforcement agencies to report to Parliament upon the effectiveness of their investigations in various ways. I think there is a misunderstanding that there is something unique about this type of law enforcement activity. Law enforcement activity such as the traditional warrant to search a person’s home is a great invasion of civil liberties. Admittedly this is an additional power but it is part and parcel of law enforcement. I think that one must move cautiously when considering what type of reporting should be made to Parliament about these sorts of activities.

The Government ought to give consideration to the information that may appropriately be given to Parliament about these activities. At this stage there is provision for accountability to the Minister and there is provision for briefing of the Leader of the Opposition in these matters. I think that we ought to wait to see just how far it may be appropriate to provide information on a wider scale about this sort of law enforcement activity.

As I have said, although the Government will bear in mind at all times the desirability of the greatest accountability of law enforcement agencies, as we did in relation to security agencies, nevertheless we believe that great caution must be exercised in the degree to which information about this type of activity is made public. Both for reasons of privacy, as Senator Chipp mentioned, and also because of the serious effect that such disclosure may have upon the efficacy of these law enforcement methods and activities. No one would suggest that information about many of these activities should ever be made public. It is clear enough that there is an accountability by the ComptrollerGeneral of Customs and his officers to the Government and to the Leader of the Opposition. At this stage the Government believes that it would be preferable to leave it at that. As I said in relation to the accountability of ASIO, I favour a statement being made to Parliament from time to time on matters that arise in relation to ASIO. I think that my colleague the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs (Mr Fife), who is in charge of the Customs Act and its administration, may well be prepared to take the same view in relation to matters under his responsibility, but the Government does not favour a statutory obligation to that effect.

Senator BUTTON:
Victoria

-I raise one brief matter which I do not think will invite a reply from the AttorneyGeneral (Senator Durack). With respect, Senator Chipp made a very good point about the second sentence of the Opposition’s amendment. I understand that the Opposition’s amendment will be rejected for a variety of reasons, but I would hate it to be rejected on the basis of what might be described as some imprecision of drafting in the second sentence. The word ‘details’ as it is used in the second sentence is intended to relate to the sorts of matters to which Senator Evans referred and which were put forward by the New South Wales Privacy Commission. I record that in Hansard to acknowledge that we follow Senator Chipp ‘s point.

Proposed new clause negatived.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

Bill (on motion by Senator Durack) read a third time.

page 167

TELECOMMUNICATIONS AMENDMENT BILL 1979

In Committee

The Bills.

Consideration resumed from 9 May.

Bills agreed to.

Bills reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Readings

Bills (on motion by Senator Durack) read a third time.

Senate adjourned at 12.16 a.m. (Thursday)

Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 22 August 1979, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1979/19790822_senate_31_s82/>.

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