Senate
12 September 1980

31st Parliament · 1st Session



The PRESIDENT (Senator the Hon. Sir Condor Laucke) took the chair at 10 a.m., and read prayers.

page 893

PETITIONS

Privacy Legislation

Senator SHEIL:
QUEENSLAND

– I present the following pet ition from 1 ,749 citizens of Australia:

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

That we are gravely concerned by the invasion of privacy caused by Government agents seizing patients’ medical records:

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

Legislate to protect the private and confidential nature of medical records from scrutiny except on the express and informed consent of the patient or an order from a presidingjudge.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Anti-discrimination Legislation

Senator KNIGHT:
ACT

-I present the following petition from 35 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable President and Members of the Senate of the Australian Parliament in Canberra assembled. The petition of certain citizens respectfully showeth:

That the right to work without discrimination on any ground including, inter alia, discrimination on grounds of race, ethnic origin, pregnancy, marital status, sex and/or sexual preference is a fundamental human right; and

That it is both the duty and responsibility of society to fully support those denied work and therefore those who are unemployed as a result of society’s inability to provide full paid employment should be guaranteed an adequate income without discrimination on any ground, including inter alia discrimination on grounds of race, ethnic origin, marital status, sex and /or sexual preference, or pregnancy.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

That appropriate and adequate laws be formulated and passed to outlaw discrimination in Commonwealth employment, in employment of persons by statutory bodies and quasi-governmental organisations, in employment of individuals under federal awards, and in employment of all persons in areas over which Commonwealth and Australian Capital Territory equal opportunity legislation should have jurisdiction; and

That appropriate laws be formulated and passed to outlaw discrimination in the provision of unemployment benefits to all persons without regard to race, ethnic origin, marital status and/or sex.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Adult Migrant Education

Senator MULVIHILL:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition from 426 citizens of Australia:

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

That recognition should be given to the permanent nature of the Adult Migrant Education programme by providing permanent funding for an adequate and permanent English language teaching service.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Pensions

Senator SHEIL:

– I present the following petition from 385 citizens of Australia:

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

That the amount of ‘Other Income’ pensioners be allowed to earn before affecting their pension be increased to $50.00 per week.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Donations to Amnesty International: Tax Deductibility

Senator GIETZELT:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition from 6 citizens of Australia:

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

We, the undersigned, being concerned citizens of Australia and of the world noting widespread violations of fundamental Human Rights around the world observing that Australia has taken a leading role in the United Nations Commission for Human Rights being aware that less than 40 per cent of money raised by Amnesty international is remitted outside Australia urge the Government to support Amnesty International in a practical way by permitting donations to it to be deductible from income for taxation purposes.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

National Women’s Advisory Council

Senator MacGIBBON:
QUEENSLAND

– I present the following petition from 1 6 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 the National Women’s Advisory Council has not been democratically elected by the women of Australia;

That the National Women’s Advisory Council is not representative of the women of Australia;

That the National Women’s Advisory Council is a discriminatory and sexist imposition on Australian women as Australian men do not have a National Men’s Advisory Council imposed on them.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that the National Women’s Advisory Council be abolished to ensure that Australian women have equal opportunity with Australian men of having issues of concern to them considered, debated and voted on by their Parliamentary representatives without intervention and interference by an unrepresentative “Advisory Council”.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received and read.

Anti-discrimination Legislation

Senator MASON:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– I present the following petition from 1 5 citizens of Australia:

To the Honourable the President and Members of the Senate of the Australian Parliament assembled. The petition of certain citizens respectfully showeth:

That currently discrimination in provision of work, in appointment to jobs and in promotion exists in Australia on particular grounds including, inter alia, grounds of race, ethnic origin, marital status, pregnancy, sex and/or sexual preference; and

That currently discrimination in the provision of unemployment benefits is exercised against particular groups of individuals - in particular, against married women.

Your petitioners therefore humbly pray:

That appropriate laws be formulated and passed to outlaw discrimination in Commonwealth employment, in employment of individuals under federal awards, in employment of persons by statutory bodies and quasi-governmental organisations, and in employment of all persons in areas over which Commonwealth and Australian Capital Territory equal opportunity legislation should have jurisdiction; and

That appropriate laws be formulated and passed to outlaw discrimination in the provision of unemployment benefits to all persons without regard to sex and/or marital status.

And your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray.

Petition received.

The Acting Clerk - Petitions have been lodged for presentation as follows:

National Women’s Advisory Council

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

That the National Women’s Advisory Council has not been democratically elected by the women of Australia;

That the National Women’s Advisory Council is not representative of the women of Australia;

That the National Women’s Advisory Council is a discriminatory and sexist imposition on Australian women as Australian men do not have a National Men’s Advisory Council imposed on them.

Your petitioners therefore pray:

That the National Women’s Advisory Council be abolished to ensure that Australian women have equal opportunity with Australian men of having issues of concern to them considered, debated and voted on by their Parliamentary representatives without intervention and interference by an unrepresentative ‘Advisory Council’.

And.your petitioners as in duty bound will ever pray. by Senators Hamer, Missen, Puplick and Sheil (two petitions).

Petitions received.

page 894

FAMILY ALLOWANCES

Notice of Motion

Senator McINTOSH:
Western Australia

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

That the Senate views with concern the failure of the Fraser

Government to index or increase family allowances since 1 976, thereby reducing their value in real terms by half.

page 894

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT

Notice of Motion

Senator MULVIHILL:
New South Wales

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

That the Senate deplores the victimisation of and discrimination against the single unemployed by the Fraser Government which has rejected their rights to benefits in line with all other pensions and benefits.

page 894

ACCOMMODATION FOR THE AGED

Notice of Motion

Senator ELSTOB:
South Australia

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

That the Senate views with the gravest concern the failure of the Government to keep its promise to bring in a three year aged accommodation program to provide 15,000 beds for our old people, many of whom are presently living alone and uncared for in disastrous economic and social conditions.

page 894

UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT

Notice of Motion

Senator PRIMMER:
Victoria

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

That the Senate condemns the failure of the Fraser Government to consider the plight of young unemployed Australians in the under eighteen age group by leaving their social security benefit at $36 a week, which is the same level it was at in 1975. This action of the Government has resulted in pressures on families and youth emergency accommodation services, to which the Government has given only token recognition, and it shows an appalling disregard for our young people who are given no tools by this Government with which to cope with the effects of the high inflation which continues to grip this country.

page 894

INTEREST RATES

Notice of Motion

Senator GEORGES:
Queensland

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

That the Senate views with grave concern the economic policies of the Fraser Government which have resulted in a21/2 per cent increase in interest rates in this country since 1977 and particularly deplores Mr Fraser’s refusal to keep his election promise of 1977 to reduce interest rates by 2 per cent, meaning a reduction of $500 a year for someone on an average home loan.

page 895

SMALL BUSINESS

Notice of Motion

Senator GIETZELT:
New South Wales

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

That the Senate, whilst noting that the economic policies of the Fraser Government have resulted in a 2i per cent increase in interest rates in this country since 1977, deplores Mr Fraser’s obvious lack of commitment to his 1977 election promise to reduce interest rates by 2 per cent. The Senate particularly deplores the effect that these recent rises in interest rates have had on the small business sector, which is now paying an additional $50 million a year in interest on overdrafts.

page 895

CIVIL LIBERTIES

Notice of Motion

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

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

That the Senate condemns the Fraser Government for its appalling record in the protection of the civil liberties of Australians, and in particular for:

its enactment of new ASIO legislation allowing effectively unrestricted spying on Australian citizens;

its creation of the new Australian Federal Police without simultaneous safeguards on the exercise of police power;

its failure to honour its promise to introduce legislation relating to complaints against police;

its failure to honour its promise to reintroduce the Criminal Investigation Bill;

its passage of atomic energy legislation containing unprecedented penalties for citizens dissenting against uranium mining and processing; (0 its passage of narcotics legislation with alarming, un precedented and insufficiently restricted new powers vested in the police and courts;

its failure to introduce legislation for the Human Rights Commission which would enable it to operate effectively within the States;

its attempts to downgrade the office of the Commissioner for Community Relations and its failure to act in support of the Commissioner in his attempts to combat racism by the governments of Queensland and Western Australia;

its failure to use its Constitutional power to protect the Aboriginal people of Noonkanbah from the depredations of the Western Australian Liberal Government;

its enactment of a mass of new industrial legislation of a savagery unprecedented in Australian industrial relations history;

its emasculation of judicial review legislation so as to severely restrict access to administrative justice for many Australians adversely affected by government decisions; and

its failure to introduce and proceed with freedom of information legislation worthy of the name.

page 895

CHILD CARE ALLOWANCES

Notice of Motion

Senator GEORGES:
Queensland

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

That the Senate deplores the Fraser Government’s reduction of SO per cent in child care allowances, which has resulted in child care being unavailable or too expensive for low income families in Australia.

page 895

TAX AVOIDANCE

Notice of Motion

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

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

That the Senate, noting the massive increase in tax avoidance which has occured over the last five years, and the inequities and distortions this has introduced into the tax system, particularly for ordinary PAYE wage and salary earners, condemns the Treasurer and the Government for their failure to act promptly and effectively to curb such avoidance, in particular by:

amending section 260 of the Income Tax Assessment Act;

giving fully retrospective application to its series of remedial measures closing specific loopholes; and

fully utilising the enforcement powers and procedures presently available to it.

page 895

PRIME MINISTER’S RESIDENCE

Notice of Motion

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

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

That the Senate views with grave concern the continued refusal of the Prime Minister, Mr Fraser, to answer repeated calls from Senator McLaren to provide the Parliament with the cost to the Australian taxpayer of his, Mr Fraser’s, occupancy of the Lodge.

page 895

QUESTION

QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

page 895

QUESTION

BATHURST-ORANGE AREA: TRANSLATOR STATION

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. Is the Minister aware that the College of Advanced Education broadcasting station in the BathurstOrange district has been told by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal that it should be given high priority for a translator station in the area to enable it to beam on the FM band? Is it a fact that when the Government introduced the multicultural broadcasting amending Bill there was provision in that amending Bill to enable public broadcasting stations to broadcast on translator stations? But when the Independent and Multicultural Broadcasting Corporation legislation was withdrawn by the Government that amendment was not proceeded with. Is it a fact that as a result of the early calling of the election and the Government’s not proceeding with that legislation, the Bathurst-Orange district will not be provided with a translator station? In view of the importance of the station to the area will the Government, within the remaining week’s session of this Parliament, see whether it can introduce legislation to amend the Broadcasting and Television Act to enable the Bathurst-Orange district to be provided with such a station?

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

– I am not familiar with all the details put down by the honourable senator in asking his question. I am aware that there are provisions in the Broadcasting and Television Amendment Bill which affect the practical operations of broadcasting in a number of areas. I will have an early discussion with the Minister for Post and Telecommunications about those sections. In the time remaining I think it is unlikely that fresh legislation will be introduced. The honourable senator, with his ministerial experience, would understand the practicalities of the proposition he has put forward. But he raises a matter which I am sure is of concern to the people involved. I will discuss this matter with Mr Staley. I will try to do that today and I will talk to the honourable senator when I have done so. He may then raise the matter next week in the Senate if he is so minded.

page 896

QUESTION

LIQUEFIED PETROLEUM GAS

Senator JESSOP:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– I ask the Minister for National Development and Energy: Is it a fact that discussions have been held by the Minister and his Department with executives of Delhi Petroleum Ltd concerning the sale of Cooper Basin liquefied petroleum gas. Can the Minister say whether negotiations with Cooper Basin producers to establish a pricing formula that would be mutually acceptable to the Government and the producers have been concluded?

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

– Over the months I have had a number of discussions with the co-venturers in the Cooper Basin project and I have had discussions with them regarding liquefied petroleum gas. The question of the use of LPG is defined by the Government in the policy statement on LPG that the Government propounded earlier this year. The Government is keen that the Australian people should have to the fullest extent first priority to use of LPG as a priority energy source, particularly in automotive use. Therefore, the pricing structure has been so devised as to attract to use in the domestic market the great volume of LPG now exported. That will add to our energy stocks.

Consistent with that and consistent with the responsibility of the Cooper Basin project as well as the Bass Strait and North West Shelf projects to the home market and its supplies, the policy that was announced on LPG will prevail; that is, there will be a price for it in the home market for automotive use and a subsidised price for country gas. Further, its use for petrochemicals will take the ordinary commercial price. The Cooper Basin producers, along with other producers, will no doubt be happy to conform with those undertakings.

page 896

QUESTION

PART TIME COMMONWEALTH MEDICAL OFFICERS

Senator GRIMES:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– I ask the Minister for Social Security: Is it a fact that the DirectorGeneral of Social Services has requested the Department of Health to dispense with the services of private practitioners who are part time Commonwealth medical officers if their decisions in the case of invalid pensions do not conform with the new stringent interpretation of the Social Services Act as demonstrated in the DirectorGeneral’s directive in recent months?

Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLEThis is the first time that that matter has been raised with me. I am not aware of any action taken by the Director-General that would be along the lines suggested in the question. I will make inquiries to see whether there is any information I am able to offer to Senator Grimes on this matter.

Senator GRIMES:

- Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. I ask the Minister: Would it be usual for the Director-General of Social Services to consult her before making such a request?

Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE:

There is continuing consultation between the head of my Department and me. I think it would be unusual if the head of my Department were to make requests of this nature to the Department of Health. The appointment of Commonwealth medical officers is within the responsibility of the Department of Health. It was for that reason that I thought I would need to seek advice from the Director-General as to whether he had any discussions with the Department of Health with regard to the appointment of part time Commonwealth medical officers. As I say, their appointment is the responsibility of another department and I will seek information to see whether there is any advice I am able to offer Senator Grimes.

page 896

QUESTION

VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

Senator MISSEN:
VICTORIA

– I draw the attention of the Minister representing the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs to an article appearing in the Australian on 3 September which states that more than 40 Vietnamese refugees have attempted suicide since the arrival of the first boat people in Australia five years ago. Will the Minister comment on this article and, in particular, the claim of the South Australian Director of Austcare, Mr Bill Scetrine. that ‘depression was the major factor behind the suicide attempts’? Does the Minister agree that the Vietnamese have special problems as far as employment, housing, language and adjustment to the community are concerned? Does the Minister also agree that for the Vietnamese to understand our social system and to enjoy its benefits, it is up to all Australians to offer support, friendship and assistance wherever possible? If so, what action will be taken by the Government to encourage greater community awareness of and responsiveness to the special needs of the Vietnamese to ensure that their new life in Australia is one of hope and not one of depression?

Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLE:

The Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs is aware of the article referred to by Senator Missen. I understand that the Minister has been advised that the Australian Director of Austcare states that his comments were based on impressions he had gained from talking to church and other voluntary workers and were not based on statistical or other firm evidence. As regards the incidence of suicide and attempted suicide, the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs has knowledge of two suicides by Indo-Chinese refugees and 47 attempted suicides involving 35 refugees. That is a lower incidence of suicide and attempted suicide than in the Australian community as a whole. In the case of the two suicides, it is understood that both people had been in Australia for a matter of only a few weeks and it seems unlikely that the sad occurrences were related to difficulties encountered after arrival in Australia. There is no evidence available to suggest that the causes of the attempted suicides were primarily related to settlement difficulties in Australia.

A great deal is being done by the Commonwealth Government to assist in the successful settlement of refugees in Australia. Refugees are able to participate in the initial settlement program and are also able to participate in extensive English language courses. They are also provided, through my Department, with benefits and living allowances to assist them in settlement. A recent innovation has been the appointment of bilingual information officers. Refugees are helped also by the Commonwealth Employment Service to find jobs and are given assistance with welfare needs and with the transition from migrant centres into the community generally.

That part of Senator Missen’s question which reflected his own attitude that there is a community responsibility in this matter leads me to say that many voluntary groups around Australia are providing assistance to Indo-Chinese refugees and many individuals and groups are giving a lot of time and personal energy to assist the transition to life in a new community. The Commonwealth is providing grants for some groups, and I know that State governments also assist in settlement of migrants within the States.

I am certainly not in any way understating the problems which Indo-Chinese and other refugees face in resettling in a new community. While much is being done by the Government and voluntary agencies, there is room for more assistance from volunteers and from the community generally in providing a welcoming hand and giving understanding and practical help to the refugees. Many of the refugees have risked their lives in seeking a safe and secure future in Australia and I think that with government and community working together more assistance can be given to ensure that their lives in Australia are all they had hoped they would be.

page 897

QUESTION

TELEVISION RECEPTION: LATROBE VALLEY AND GIPPSLAND AREAS

Senator MELZER:
VICTORIA

– My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. The Minister assured people in the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland areas of Victoria that the Government would ensure that people did not have their television viewing interrupted or downgraded when it allowed the new Channel 10 arrangements. The Minister assured people that the Government and Channel 1 0 would cover the cost of adjusting television sets in the area. Although a very great proportion of people in this area can now receive only Channel 1 0 and not their own local station, Channel 8, the Minister has now withdrawn the technicians and thus any further adaption work. What steps does the Government intend taking to ensure that viewers will have at least as broad a range of viewing as they had before Channel 1 0 intruded, without spending a large amount of money to have their sets adjusted or buying expensive new antennae?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– I remember the considerable amount of publicity that surrounded the matters the honourable senator referred to in her question. I was not aware that there had been any withdrawal of technicians. I will take up the matter with Mr Staley and let the honourable senator have a reply as soon as possible.

page 897

QUESTION

EXPORT OF FAUNA

Senator BONNER:
QUEENSLAND

– I refer the Minister representing the Minister for Science and the

Environment to the statement made in the other place the day before yesterday when the Minister announced the lifting of the 47-year ban on the export of koalas, platypuses and lyrebirds. 1 preface my further remarks by stating that I am opposed to the export of any indigenous animals. However, as the decision has been made, I ask the Minister to assure this chamber that adequate safeguards will be taken to ensure that such exports will not deplete the numbers of these already threatened species and that strict standards will be enforced to ensure that they will not die or be maimed during transport. I seek the Minister’s further assurance that any zoo seeking to import these animals will be carefully vetted so that the care and safety of our indigenous creatures can be guaranteed.

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– The honourable senator’s question relates to a statement about the export of fauna tabled in the House of Representatives by the Minister for Science and the Environment, the Honourable David Thomson, two days ago. 1 think I should point out in response to his expression of opposition to the export of fauna that the Minister’s statement indicated that the Government had not gone along with two recommendations of a report from the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Environment and Conservation which recommended relaxation of Australia’s export policy with respect to fauna. The decision announced by the Minister is more restrictive than were the recommendations by the parliamentary committee. This might be one time when honourable senators would agree with the Government’s failure to go along with a committee recommendation.

The honourable senator’s point relating to koalas, platypuses and lyrebirds is the subject of a recommendation which was taken up by the Government. Whilst current restrictions were maintained on the export of fauna, those three species which had been in a special category are now brought into line with the rest, and the regulations will be amended to allow limited government-controlled export to approved zoos and scientific institutions. This decision has been made after discussion with State Ministers and on the basis of advice from the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service that there is no longer any biological basis for the imposition of stricter controls on the export of these species as compared with other species. The Minister’s statement did point out that koalas, platypuses and lyrebirds are once again common, with populations widely distributed, and so do not justify special attention.

The suggestion from Senator Bonner that there should be strict standards governing the export of those animals is in line with the Government’s own view. The Minister has let me have a copy of the recommended conditions for the export of koalas. I should mention that I got some of this material because both Senator Bonner and Senator Mulvihill had indicated an interest in this area. As the conditions are rather long 1 seek leave to have them incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows -

RECOMMENDED CONDITIONS FOR THE EXPORT OF KOALAS

. No koala will be exported until a Certificate of Health is provided by a Veterinary Surgeon. The Certificate must state the age (approximate) , reproductive state, weight and general condition of the animal, and must include the results of a complete haematological examination.

At the time of examination, the Veterinarian must administer a drug suitable for the removal of intestinal cestodes and must state the name and amount administered in his report.

No Koala will be exported which has:

a pouch young

keratoconjunctivitis;

pneumonia;

urogenital discharge;

dermatitis; (0 a recent history of any disease;

weighs less than 1 .5 kg; or

is in the opinion of the Veterinarian, in a weakened or emaciated condition.

Only under exceptional circumstances will permission to export koalas weighing less than 2 kg or more than 3.5 kg be given.

Permission to export wild caught Koalas may be permitted provided that the animals have had at least, two weeks in captivity and are eating readily.

Koalas must be transported individually in dark boxes measuring 24” x 24” x 32” high, and that the box be fitted with a resting branch and punctured with numerous air holes.

Koalas must not be removed from the box nor handled unless absolutely necessary.

Each Koala must be accompanied by at least 3.6 kg of its usual diet leaves; the leaves being left on the stem and the base of the stem having been cut under water and remaining in water or sealed; and 1 kg of these leaves must be placed in the box with the Koala’.

Koalas must not be subjected to temperatures greater than 30° nor less than 10°C during the trip.

  1. Koalas must be accompanied by a veterinarian familiar with the animals.

1 . The time from crating to destination must be kept to the absolute minimum.

  1. The recipient zoo must have a full-time Veterinarian on staff.

  2. The recipient zoo undertakes in writing to limit handling of Koalas to the minimum necessary for their management and medical care, and to guarantee that the animals will not be handled for commercial or publicity purposes. 14. (a) The recipient zoo must provide evidence that it has access to fresh supplies of Eucalypt leaves of the species on which the consigned Koalas are mainly fed; as well as access to at least one species from each group in appendix I.

The recipient zoo must be able to maintain a minimum daily supply of 1 . 8 kg per Koala of these species.

The. recipient zoo must send fresh samples of their leaves to the exporting institution to determine the palatability prior to export.

The recipient zoo must have a suitable enclosure available which provides:

shade for Koalas during the hot parts of the day;

shelter from prevailing winds;

at least one tree-fork per Koala at not less than 1 .8m above ground nor closer than 0.9m to the next tree fork;

reasonable protection for the animals against interference from the Public.

an ambient temperature not outside the range of 10-30°C for more than seven consecutive hours;

proof against escapes by Koalas or entry by dogs.

Appendix 1

SPECIES OF EUCALYPTS TO BE PROVIDED FOR KOALAS

Groups 1 , 2, 3 - Staple diet species

Group 1:

Eucalypts viminalis - Manna Gum

obliqua - Messmate

ovata - Swamp Gum

glogulus - Southern Blue Gum

Group 2:

rudis- Western Red Gum

tereticornia - Forest Red Gum

camaldulensis - River Red Gum

blackelyi - Blackely’s Red Gum

Group 3:

punctata - Grey Gum

propinqua- Small Fruited Grey Gum

pilularis- Blackbutt

Group 4:

Browse Species

paniculata- Grey Ironbark

sideroxylon - Mugga Ironbark

E, mellidora - Yellow Box

haemostoma - Scribbly Gum

saligna - Blue Gum

robusta - Swamp Mahogany

geniocalyx - Bundy

page 899

QUESTION

DOMESTIC COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE

Senator RYAN:
ACT

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. Is it a fact that the Government has set up a private committee of businessmen to advise the Satellite Project Office on the potential use by business of a domestic communications satellite system? Can the Minister name the members of this committee? Can the Minister state what is the relationship between this committee and the consortium of corporations called Business Communications Services which has been established to lobby for private corporate interests in telecommunications development?

Finally, does the Government yet have a policy on ownership and control of a domestic communications satellite?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– The committee to which the honourable senator refers is, I think, a committee that was established quite recently. I know the names of a number of the members but not all of them. I think it would be better if I gave all the names together. In any event, as I understand it, the committee has been established in response to some criticism of the views of the Project Office by some areas of industry outside government. That committee has been examining what has been done by the Project Office, and I understand from Mr Staley that it has expressed itself as being pretty satisfied with the work which has been done. I am not in a position to give a detailed response, which is required by the question. I will ask Mr Staley to examine the matters raised by Senator Ryan and to give me an early reply.

Senator RYAN:

– I ask a supplementary question. At the end of my question I asked whether the Government yet has a policy on ownership and control of the domestic communications satellite.

Senator CHANEY:

– I refer the honourable senator to the concluding words of my previous answer.

Senator Ryan:

– No, you do not. How outrageous!

Senator CHANEY:

– Since that has been misrepresented by interjection, all I want to say is that I will seek a reply from Mr Staley on the matter.

Senator Georges:

Mr President, I take a point of order. How can he be misrepresented by interjections of which he should have taken no notice at all?

The PRESIDENT:

– There is no point of order.

page 899

QUESTION

PETROLEUM RETAILING

Senator PUPLICK:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. Is the Minister aware of a campaign being mounted by the Amoco petroleum company against the Government’s announced petroleum retailing scheme? Has Amoco tried to pressure all its dealers into making public statements opposing the principles of the scheme by claiming that the Government is seeking to prevent Amoco from providing any help to its dealers by way of rebates or similar arrangements? Is not this Amoco claim quite untrue? Does the Government’s scheme in fact allow rebates to be made by oil companies, provided they do not discriminate between dealers? Has Amoco been a leader in initiating pricing policies which have sought to discriminate between its dealers, and are its current attempts to scare its dealers into opposition to the Government’s policies a singularly misleading and dishonest piece of work?

Senator DURACK:
Attorney-General · WESTERN AUSTRALIA · LP

– The Minister is not aware, and I am not aware, of a campaign actually being mounted by Amoco at the moment. Certainly, the Government is aware of pricing policies that have been followed by oil companies, including Amoco. In the light of that, the Petroleum Retail Marketing Franchise Bill and the associated Bills which have been introduced have a provision prohibiting an oil company from engaging in unfair price discrimination between its lessee dealers in the manner provided in the legislation. However, if the matter raised by Senator Puplick concerning Amoco ‘s campaign is true, it would not be justified under the provisions of the Bill because the Bill will not prevent an oil company from providing rebates or other price support to help its dealers which are facing price competition. As far as I am aware, no one has suggested - it may be being suggested in the campaign to which Senator Puplick referred - that the Bill would prevent an oil company from helping a dealer in such a situation.

page 900

QUESTION

TRANS-AUSTRALIA AIRLINES: GROUP BOOKINGS

Senator MCINTOSH:

– Can the Minister representing the Minister for Transport advise me why a firm offer in writing dated 1 3 May 1980 by Trans-Australia Airlines at Perth, on a booking by the bowls section of the Western Australian Returned Services League, was withdrawn on 4 September 1980 under direction from the Federal Minister for Transport? Not only do these people now have to face an increase in fares of $33.10 each but also the free tickets offered for a large group have been withdrawn, including for the transport from the airport to a hotel in Brisbane. This group of approximately 100 people, mostly age pensioners, will suffer considerably. Can the Minister therefore advise me of the reasons for the instructions of the Minister for Transport to TAA at Perth?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– I thought I had made it fairly clear in previous answers that the question of concessions was not a matter of the direction of the Government, that in fact the matter had been raised with the airlines by the Government and the airlines took action without reference back to the Government. Indeed, it was following their taking action that the Government met with them and concessions were re-introduced, not by

Government direction but certainly at Government urging. I gave the particulars of that in the Senate some time ago. 1 do not have them with me today. I will, of course, have the facts mentioned by the honourable member examined, but the broad position is that these concessions are not a matter of Government direction.

Senator MCINTOSH:

– I ask a supplementary question. Does this not mean that the contract was dishonoured? Why should the innocent party- the travellers - be put at a disadvantage when there was a firm contract?

Senator CHANEY:

– I do not think the honourable senator is seeking a legal opinion from me, but presumably if they have a firm contract they have a remedy which they may utilise. On the odd occasion on which 1 have read airline tickets I have concluded that I have a contract to do nothing but pay the fare. The number of exceptions contained in the contract is usually such that an airline can deliver one to Bombay when one wants to go to Perth. However, as I have said to the honourable senator, I will have the matter examined as a particular case because I am not familiar with the details.

page 900

QUESTION

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT EMPLOYMENT PROJECT

Senator TEAGUE:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– My question is directed to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. I refer to the Community Development Employment Project which, in its initial years of introduction in some Pitjantjatjara communities, has been in my view enormously superior to the normal individualbased method of payment of unemployment benefit. Is the Government’s review of CDEP now complete? Can the Minister assure me and the Senate that CDEP will continue and will be improved and expanded to include all appropriate Aboriginal communities? In particular, has the Government determined specific responses to the matters raised by the Pitjantjatjara delegation which came to Canberra last May to discuss CDEP with both the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the Minister for Social Security?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– The Government shares Senator Teague’s positive attitude to what is called the Community Development Employment Project, but there have been some difficulties in its administration. The Project arose from an Aboriginal desire to have work rather than unemployment benefit or sit down money because of the bad social effect that simply receiving money and having not much to do was having on particular communities. The Project has been going for some years now and it has proved to be of advantage, but it has also thrown up some difficulties.

The Government undertook a review of the scheme and that review is complete. But it would be fair to say that the review has thrown up more questions which need to be answered and which need further examination. In particular, what needs careful consideration is the basis of income maintenance in remote communities which do not have a normal amount of economic activity to provide paid employment. Unemployment benefit seems to be a rather odd form of income provision in circumstances where the work test is almost inapplicable because there simply is neither a pattern of work nor work available. So I would have to say that the examination of CDEP is a continuing matter in the context of that question of income support. In the meantime, however, ! can assure the Senate, as requested by the honourable senator, that the CDEP will continue.

The Budget Papers show that the allocation for employment projects this year is up by fractionally less than 50 per cent, and most of that is going to community development employment projects in about 18 communities around Australia. A number of those communities are the communities to which the honourable senator referred in the Pitjantjatjara area. The specific matters which were raised by the Pitjantjatjara have been attended to adequately enough to enable the scheme to proceed. The problems that were occurring in the Pitjantjatjara area illustrate the difficulties of administering this sort of project in a remote area. The Project involves providing amounts of money equivalent to unemployment benefit and yet in the Pitjantjatjara community there is often a floating or shifting population. One might well make an assessment of the amount to be made available to a community which is appropriate when there are 40 or 50 ablebodied people there, only to find later that there are 60, 70 or 80 people. Obviously that sort of thing can pose administrative difficulties when the community is very remote from any administrative centre.

In response to the honourable senator, let me say that we have been able to respond to the specific matters raised by the Pitjantjatjara delegation. The response has effectively been to provide rather larger funds to meet the additional population that has come into the areas where the work is available. We are continuing to try to develop this Project because we see it as having great social value in remote Aboriginal communities.

page 901

QUESTION

BANKRUPTCY

Senator TATE:
TASMANIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. Is it a fact that some 1 5,000 businesses have gone bankrupt under the Government’s administration of the economy? Is this the greatest number of such bankruptcies since the depression years? Is it a fact that bankruptcies are now running at a rate approaching 5,000 a year? In view of the great importance of the small business sector to the strength of Australia’s trading and commercial life, I ask: Will the Government ensure that the Commonwealth Development Bank of Australia further increases its level of non-rural loans? Will the Government take other urgent steps to ensure that businesses which require overdraft facilities of less than $100,000 can obtain finance at reasonable rates of interest?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– There is a question and a preamble to a question; I do not know whether that is meant to be a question also.

Senator Georges:

– Well, face up to both.

Senator DURACK:

– I will face up to both. A question was asked of me the other day regarding the level of bankruptcies and comparisons for different years. I said then that I would refer the matter to the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs in order that I might get detailed figures. I will add the further query which Senator Tate has raised. As far as the causes of business bankruptcies are concerned, I remind Senator Tate of an interesting debate which we had in this Senate, in which he participated, on the Bankruptcy Amendment Bill. There was quite a deal of discussion about the various causes of business bankruptcies.

Statistics show that in the year 1978-79 economic conditions were the cause of about 26 per cent of bankruptcies, lack of business ability was the cause of about 25 per cent and lack of sufficient initial working capital was the cause of about 20 per cent. The most likely cause of nonbusiness bankruptcies was the excessive use of credit. There are a variety of causes of bankruptcies, both business and non-business. Regarding the question of whether the Government will extend the powers and functions of the Commonwealth Development Bank, that is not a matter which comes within the administration of my portfolio or that of the Minister representing the Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs. I will refer the matter to the Treasurer.

page 901

QUESTION

TASMANIA AND VICTORIA: BOUNDARY LINE

Senator ARCHER:
TASMANIA

– Will the Minister representing the Prime Minister confirm that the official boundary between Tasmania and Victoria, historically taken as latitude 39 degrees 1 2 south, will be recognised in all matters in which the Commonwealth participates? This would, of course, include such matters as submerged lands, fisheries and so on.

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– Last week I was asked just such a question by Senator Townley. I said that I would seek some information on the matter. I have done so. I am advised that, legally, latitude 39 degrees 1 2 is not a boundary or border between Victoria and Tasmania. The letters patent constituting the Office of Governor of Tasmania used the line to indicate the land territory forming part of the State of Tasmania; that is, south of 39 degrees 1 2. The waters of Bass Strait outside the territorial seas come under Commonwealth jurisdiction for fisheries purposes, that is, under section 51 (x) of the Constitution. I understand that the Prime Minister has undertaken to consult with Ministers of interested States where it may be necessary, for fisheries management purposes, to adopt lines dividing proclaimed waters. The main situation that Senator Archer alluded to- that is, the question of fisheries - is one that is now under discussion. I understand that at this moment the Premier of Tasmania is discussing the development of a squid industry in that area. The Commonwealth will ensure that the authentic interests of Tasmania are very carefully considered and protected.

page 902

QUESTION

AUSTRALIAN SECURITY INTELLIGENCE ORGANISATION

Senator EVANS:

– My question is addressed to the Attorney-General. Was the Solicitor-General, Mr Byers, acting on Government instructions when he submitted to the High Court of Australia on Wednesday, as reported in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review, that there were no effective legal limits to the powers and functions which could be exercised by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation; that the apparent definition and limitation of ASIO’s functions under section 1 7 of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Act 1979 does not mean what it says, and that ASIO is not acting outside its statutory authority when it surveys and harasses organisations and individuals for purposes unrelated to national security? Will the AttorneyGeneral acknowledge that any such instruction or argument would be in gross breach of the kinds of assurances he made to Parliament at the time the ASIO Bill 1979 was being enacted? Will he immediately act to instruct the Solicitor-General to put to the High Court further argument which indicates some slightly greater commitment to the protection of the rights and liberties of Australians?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– As I understand it, Mr Byers put some fairly technical arguments to the High Court.

Senator Evans:

– Technical arguments of great practical significance.

Senator DURACK:

– That may be so, Senator Evans. I have asked Mr Byers to let me have a note of the actual argument that he submitted so that I can discuss the matter further with him. I will take note of Senator Evans’s question and provide a more detailed answer after I have had the note from Mr Byers.

Senator EVANS:

- Mr President, I wish to ask a supplementary question. If any such argument is technically open to be put to the High Court of Australia, will the Attorney acknowledge that there is a fundamental flaw in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation legislation which must be corrected by immediate remedial legislation?

Senator DURACK:

– I think we should await the report that I get from Mr Byers and subsequent discussions I have with him before I start answering that question any further. I presume that Senator Evans is basing his question on the report of Mr Byers’ argument which appeared in the Australian Financial Review yesterday. I think it is better that I see the actual record of that argument before I make any further comment.

page 902

QUESTION

NOONKANBAH

Senator LEWIS:
VICTORIA

– My question is directed to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and is about Noonkanbah. Has he noted the entry on to the stage with a great blaze of national publicity in news reports, on the Australian Broadcasting Commission and in all the national dailies of a fellow by the name of Mr R. J. Hawke? Can the Minister confirm that this is the same Mr Hawke who is a candidate for the Victorian seat of Wills?

Opposition senators interjecting -

Senator LEWIS:

– He will probably be beaten, of course. Does this Mr R. J. Hawke have any official position in relation to this dispute? Is this Mr R. J. Hawke the same person whom one Senator Steele Hall in 1977 in relation to a dispute in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria described as the death-knock doctor’? I ask whether this is the same Mr Hawke about whom Senator Steele Hall said:

What does Mr Hawke- the death-knock doctor- do? He comes in at the end of every industrial dispute and then claims the salvation of the dispute and says that he solved it.

If this is the same Mr Hawke, can we who are concerned about this matter conclude that the actual parties to this dispute are now getting close to some compromise?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– After about 14 or 15 months of talk about Noonkanbah I would be hesitant to pick up the question and say that we can assume that the matter is about to reach a compromise. I can say that some sensible and, I believe, constructive talks are going on in a quiet way. They may achieve a useful result, but I would be hesitant to make any promises.

With respect to the involvement of Mr Hawke whom, I am sure, as the interjections from honourable senators opposite indicated, we can confirm as the candidate for Wills, I have always made it clear that I welcome the involvement of anybody who is seeking a resolution of what is a vexed and difficult dispute. I welcome all those who attempt to bring to it a mediating note rather than a note of confrontation.

I repeat what 1 said yesterday, that whilst the efforts to obtain an agreement may be admirable, I believe the use of trade union power to threaten Western Australian Government Ministers and to threaten companies which have been caught in a most complex and difficult situation is counterproductive. I do not believe it is in the interests of the Aboriginal people of Australia in general or the people of Noonkanbah in particular. I would ask Mr Hawke to confine his role to one of mediation if he believes that is where his talents lie and to cease trying to use trade union force which I believe has a very bad effect on public opinion with respect to Aboriginal affairs.

page 903

QUESTION

MINING DEVELOPMENT

Senator MASON:

– My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. Has the Government predicted massive growth of the mining industry in Australia in the 1980s? Is it not true that these predictions have been largely unspecific as to the amounts of capital involved, and that to that extent the proposed development could be described as uncontrolled? In view of the historic effect of such mineral development explosions in other nations, will the Minister give some Government response to the demonstrable probability of severe inflation and other economic effects which could destroy whole areas of Australian manufacture and price Australian farming products off the world market during the 1980s if in fact that mineral development is uncontrolled?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– The Government has indicated that in the years and decades ahead there will be unprecedented mining developments in Australia, in the area of minerals generally and particularly in the area of energy. The Government has made available, as have other organisations and, indeed, the mining industry, quite a volume of specific statistics as to the projected development of capital in the mining industry. I should have thought that any reference to this development would first of all note that the world outside is in a perilous situation, one that can threaten not only its economic standards but also its political stability unless the countries concerned - and there is a handful, including Australia - are willing to extend their mining developments to provide greater exports of energy to both the developed and the developing countries of the world.

I should have thought that any approach to this problem would have been an acknowledgement that Australia has a profound duty and responsibility to help the nations of the world towards the maintenance of their living standards and towards stability. Australia intends to do that. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Energy Agency, and other responsible bodies have pointed to the need for our role. The real reason why the countries of the world, and indeed the corporations of the world, are turning to Australia for further investment and development is that Australia has three major elements, the first one being predominant. We have a stable economic base. We have a rate of inflation some 3 per cent or 4 per cent below the average rate of inflation of our trading partners, and it is because we have that base that the opportunities come to us. It is pre-eminent in our thinking that, in order to do the job that we must do for the future, inflation must be kept continuously under control. That is why for this election, and for elections in the future, inflation and the good management of this Government will be the predominant issues, by contrast with an Opposition which has failed in those areas. We will, of course, be ensuring that inflation shall be under control, compared with the inflation of our trading partners.

Senator Walsh:

– It will continue to go up.

Senator Gietzelt:

– It is going up.

Senator CARRICK:

– The Australian Labor Party interjects. During its time in office we were costed out of world markets. During its time, 110,000 people in manufacturing industry lost their jobs. In a handful of months we have restored the situation. Australia’s trading position today is better than it has been in a decade. We will have before us our dual responsibilities to maintain a stable economic situation in Australia and to develop our responsibility to the people of the energy-hungry world and to the people of Australia in the creation of new jobs and new job opportunities.

Senator MASON:

– I ask a supplementary question. With respect to the Minister, he has not really answered my question. Will the Government respond and say that it will ensure that this economic development for mining is controlled during the 1980s so that Australian manufacturers and farmers are not damaged by inflation? Will he answer yes or no? -Senator CARRICK - This suggestion that no specific answer was given will, of course, be given the lie by the Hansard record. I was asked: Has the Government indicated massive projected development? The answer to that is yes. 1 was asked: Has the indication been general or specific? I said it has been specific, because the lists have been made available. I was asked: Is there a likelihood of resultant inflation? I referred to the need and responsibility of Australians to look to the world outside. I directed the bulk of my answer to inflation. In fact, the whole of my message was: Yes, this Government will be returned by the people of Australia because of its good management of inflation and because it recognises the need for that management to continue.

page 904

QUESTION

ABORIGINAL SACRED SITES

Senator MESSNER:
SOUTH AUSTRALIA

– Has the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs noted the recent report that a Mr George Coulthard of the Nukana Aboriginal tribe near Port Augusta in South Australia has suggested that the site of the proposed Redcliff petrochemical works may be on or near an Aboriginal sacred site, although he is unable to indicate where it might be? Has the Government any information on the possibility of the existence of such a site? If so, and in view of the great economic importance to South Australia of the Redcliff development, will the Minister use his good offices to ensure that the location is brought to the attention of the State Government so that it may be better able to access the significance of Mr Coulthard’s claim and quickly resolve any doubts which his statement may have caused about the possibility of the development?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– The honourable senator raises in his question a matter which may be an example of something which we will see a little more of over the coming years. That is the concern about possible sacred sites in areas where perhaps for many years there have not been any full blood Aboriginals with a traditional attachment to land. There are already a number of examples of this. I think it is a matter which needs to be approached with considerable care. One is looking at a variety of situations. One might be looking at archaeological sites or sites which have some significance of a physical character. Alternatively, one might be looking at sites which have some significance in a mythological or traditional sense.

My concern about these matters being dealt with carefully is that there are in the remoter parts of Australia, particularly in the north and the centre, Aboriginal communities to whom these things are extremely important. I think a confusion could develop in the public mind about attitudes to sites. To give the Senate a particularly stark example, there were people on the South Coast of New South Wales who declared a bar a sacred site because it was the first place where they had been permitted to drink. Whilst I understand the feeling behind such action, I think it is a dangerous sort of thing to do because it cheapens what may be terribly important to other people.

I am happy to say that on the information I have been able to obtain about the Redcliff situation the matter has been treated with the care and sensitivity that we would want. It appears that all the Aboriginal aspects of the site have been carefully examined. There has been a careful examination of the archaeological position and an attempt has been made to find out whether there are any matters of what might be called living significance. The reports available at this stage suggest that there are no cultural or mythological sites in the area. This has been determined after interviewing Aboriginal representatives with knowledge of and affiliations with the locality. Apparently there are a couple of elderly men in the area who have been regarded as spokesmen and who are associated with the relevant groups. They have expressed the view that there are no sites of significance in the area. There certainly are sites which indicate Aboriginal usage. Large camp sites, hearths on which there are fragments of emu eggs and things of that nature to indicate a settlement, and so on, have been located; but to date there does not appear to be anything which would pose a particular problem.

I think in these matters the sort of careful attention to detail which seems to have been given in the Redcliff case is the answer. I think it is important that all governments and agencies involved approach matters in this way so that we avoid creating situations of unnecessary tension and adversity which reflect badly on those people to whom these things are of considerable living importance.

page 905

QUESTION

AIRCRAFT SAFETY STANDARDS

Senator COLEMAN:
WESTERN AUSTRALIA

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Transport. What safety standards apply to aircraft operating in Australia under lease from companies operating in other countries? Is it true that aircraft are not required to be brought up to Australian safety standards if they are on what is considered to be short term leases, which I understand can be anything up to two years? At what stage of the lease agreement are aircraft examined and on what regular basis are they examined to ensure that alterations, adjustments and repairs have in fact been carried out?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– The honourable senator has raised a matter of some practical interest to Western Australians because I think that there is currently in Western Australia an aircraft on lease from an overseas airline. Unfortunately, I am not in possession of the details. My assumption would be that the same safety standards apply, but I am not in a position to say that categorically. I will ask the Minister for Transport to give me an early reply for the honourable senator.

page 905

QUESTION

DELAYS IN PAYMENT BY COMMONWEALTH DEPARTMENTS

Senator KNIGHT:

– Is the Minister representing the Prime Minister aware that a number of businesses in Canberra and elsewhere have faced problems because of delays by Commonwealth departments and authorities in paying their accounts? As this can have a serious detrimental effect on businesses, particularly small businesses, will the Minister examine this matter to assess whether government accounting procedures can be completed more rapidly and to deal with any other problems preventing the prompt payment of accounts to businesses by the Government, particularly in Canberra where so many businesses are involved in dealings with government agencies?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– 1 fully appreciate that the Australian Capital Territory is in a unique situation in that it is virtually a government territory and so much of the business and expenditure is done through government authorities. I can appreciate, therefore, that if government departments are slow in making their payments there is pressure upon the liquidity of individual businesses. This could be a very bad thing indeed. I will bring this matter to the attention of the Ministry and endeavour to ensure that any delays are overcome. I believe that we should do everything we can to ensure that small businesses, which are the backbone of Australia, are helped in every way.

page 905

QUESTION

UNEMPLOYMENT SURVEY

Senator PRIMMER:

– My question is addressed to the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs. Was the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs critical of the survey of unemployed people conducted for the Victorian Government on the ground that the survey covered only 21 1 unemployed persons in the 15 to 24 age group? If so, was the Minister aware when he made this criticism that the Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force survey for metropolitan Victoria, on which survey the Government relies so heavily, is in fact a survey covering only 1 70 unemployed persons in the 1 5 to 24 age group? How is it that the Minister is prepared to rubbish a survey of 21 1 unemployed persons on the ground of inadequacy but is readily prepared to accept a survey of 170 unemployed persons?

Senator DURACK:
LP

– I will refer that question to the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs.

page 905

QUESTION

SPECIAL BROADCASTING SERVICE

Senator MacGIBBON:

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Post and Telecommunications. As consultant to the Special Broadcasting Service, is Mr Gyngell on the same income as he was on when he was Chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal? If so, is not the Government entitled to a higher standard of advice than the purchasing of endless soccer programs for a figure of around $300,000 - a service which could well be provided by existing outlets? Is it true that $50,000 was offered to Mr Graham Kennedy just to appear for the opening night of this service, and that he declined? Is it also true that the technicians working for the new television service are being paid $2,000 to $3,000 a year more than the comparable pay for television technicians working for the Australian Broadcasting Commission or private industry?

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– I will seek a reply from the Minister for Post and Telecommunications to that series of questions.

page 905

QUESTION

TRACHOMA AND EYE HEALTH PROGRAMS

Senator ROBERTSON:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

– I direct my question to the Minister representing the Minister for Health. Is it a fact that the Northern Territory Government does not want any further national trachoma and eye health programs carried out in the Territory? If this is correct, will the Minister indicate the reasons given for this decision? Would the Minister not agree that, with the high incidence of STDs ear infections, gastro-enteritis and pockets of malnutrition, it would be in the best interests of the Aborigines for the limited resources of the Northern Territory Department of Health to be supplemented by the national program, given that trachoma is still a major problem in the Northern Territory?

Senator Dame MARGARET GUILFOYLEI do not have any information relating to the Northern Territory Government’s approach to the continuation of the trachoma program in the Territory. I will refer the matter to the Minister for Health to see what information can be provided.

Senator CHANEY:
LP

– This matter also impinges on my portfolio. If Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle does not mind, I have a small amount of information which would be of assistance to the honourable senator. There have been recent meetings, and my advice is that the meetings concluded that there should be negotiations between Commonwealth and State health officials and the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists and its State branches with the aim of establishing an effective follow-up program which could involve the use of national resources in close co-operation with State authorities and local ophthalmologists. I think follow-up action is proceeding which would envisage the Northern Territory Department of Health’s receiving outside support and assistance with respect to this work. I do not pretend that that is a detailed answer, but I want the Senate to know that the matter is being pursued with a view to ensuring that effective services are provided.

Senator ROBERTSON:

- Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. Would the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs check the veracity of the newspaper report which stated that Western Australia and the Northern Territory had rejected the national programs?

Senator CHANEY:

– I think the distinction needs to be made between whether the program is conducted by State authorities or by independent teams. I suspect that is the matter which is under debate. I will have a further check made, but I just draw the attention of the Senate to the recommendation of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, the doubts that it casts on the task force approach and the need for an integrated approach to these matters. If there are differences of opinion, I think that is probably the area in which they exist.

page 906

QUESTION

RECYCLED ALUMINIUM

Senator WALTERS:
TASMANIA

– I direct my question to the Minister for National Development and Energy. As recycled aluminium requires only 50 per cent of the energy needed to mine and to process primary aluminium does the Minister consider that enough encouragement is given to the community to return aluminium cans for recycling? As the Minister would know already, three million pistons alone are made each year from recycled aluminium. Does the Minister believe this conservation industry could be greatly increased with a little extra encouragement on the part of the Government?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– I am well aware that the recycling of aluminium is an energy saving device. The actual process of smelting alumina into aluminium is very energy hungry. I am not aware whether present encouragement to collect used aluminium is sufficient or whether additional encouragement is necessary. I will certainly look into it. Let me simply say that, quite apart from energy, all this world’s materials are finite. Aluminium is derived from bauxite, which may be plentiful but which is still finite. It ought to be good sense at any time for us to recycle whenever we can, because it involves, of course, the saving of energy.

page 906

QUESTION

HUMAN RIGHTS

Senator SIBRAA:
NEW SOUTH WALES

– My question is directed to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Why did the Government not reply, in accordance with a direction by the Prime Minister dated 25 May 1978, to the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence entitled ‘Human Rights in the Soviet Union’, which was tabled on 8 November 1 979? Have Australian representatives in the Soviet Union attempted to send observers to recent Soviet political trials in accordance with the recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence? Why has the Government not implemented the recommendation of the Joint Standing Committee that a parliamentary committee on human rights be established to investigate breaches of human rights in all countries, including Australia? Is not the Government’s failure to act in these respects yet another demonstration of its hypocrisy and double standards in its dealings with the Soviet Union?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– The answer to the last question is emphatically no. The Government has taken an unequivocal stand on those aspects of behaviour of the Soviet Union which relate to aggression both externally and to persecution internally. In this regard the Government is completely consistent in the whole of its thrust. Indeed, the Government took a lead in matters relating to persecution. Those who have followed the sagas of these courageous men Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov will know that Government members and senators have been leaders of thought in this regard. Those who look towards the events of Afghanistan in recent days will know that the Government sought successfully to crystallise world thought in the dangers of aggression. I am not aware of the current situation as to the progress of the report of the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. I will refer those elements of Senator Sibraa’s question to the Minister concerned and seek a reply.

page 907

QUESTION

QUASI-AUTONOMOUS NATIONAL GOVERNMENT ORGANISATIONS

Senator LEWIS:

– My question is directed to the Leader of the Government in the Senate. He will be aware of the opposition by senators and members of Parliament on this side of politics to quasi-autonomous national government organisations, councils and committees. I ask: Has the Government examined the firm commitment to additional qangos contained in the Labor Party’s policy and platform? Is the Minister in a position to say whether any of those proposed by the Opposition are likely to be taken up by this Government?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– One of the major factors that distinguishes the philosophical approach of this Government to the people of Australia as opposed to that of the Opposition is that factor relating to the size and nature of government. The Government believes big government is not good in itself; that big government can be over-bearing, costly, can lower living standards and weaken the freedoms of the Australian people. Therefore, the Government has sought to look towards the reduction of those areas of government which are unnecessary and which could be over-bearing. The Government believes also that if one has big government, essentially there will be high taxation. It has been indicated by an Australian Labor Party spokesman that one of the troubles when it got back to government would be to persuade the people that they will need to pay higher taxation because of the working out of its philosophies.

A number of Government members and honourable senators in this place- in particular Senator Rae - have drawn attention to these quaint bodies which these days are called qangos.

These statutory bodies which appear and which are not always fully subject to government supervision are very costly. It is my understanding that, whereas we are committed to small government and to the lowering of the taxation burden, we have the reverse situation in the Labor Party. The Labor Party in its recent policy releases is firmly committed to the creation of something like 19 new bodies. These are in addition to another 33 to which the Labor Party was committed in its platform. The incredible figure of about 52 of these new bodies is to be imposed- thank God that it will not happen - upon the Australian people. A huge list of them flows out daily. The difference between the socialist and Liberal philosophy is that whenever a socialist sees a problem he says, Government can do it better than people. We are much better than people in a paternalistic way’, and he then proceeds to set up institutions so to do.

page 907

QUESTION

OIL PRICES

Senator WALSH:

– My question is directed to the Minister for National Development and Energy. In a letter which I received on Wednesday in reply to my earlier questions about oil prices to producers, the Minister said that following a review it had been decided to use September 1978 instead of December 1 978 as the base for indexing the producer’s price. I ask: Who initiated the review? What is the rationale for shifting the indexation base back to September? Will Esso-BHP gain about $18m a year because of that change? Why did the Minister fail publicly to disclose this change in policy which had been previously publicly stated? Have there been any other surreptitious changes of policy?

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– The Government, unlike the Labor Party when it wants to make so-called surreptitious changes, makes its statements very carefully as indeed Senator Walsh failed to say the letter disclosed, because he was directed to page 240 of the Budget Papers where, unsolicited, the explanation was given by the Government. So there is nothing surreptitious.

As to the question of the crude oil pricing and excise arrangements announced by Mr Newman on 30 June 1979, producers’ returns for parity oil from large fields were set on the basis of $9.59 a barrel plus an indexation factor to be derived from the increase in the consumer price index from the December quarter 1 978. Since the latest CPI figure available on 1 January 1980 was that of the September quarter 1 979, producers’ returns after 1 January 1980 import parity price determinations were increased by an amount equal to only the three quarters increase in the CPI, not the four quarters increase originally intended. At the latest import parity pricing determination on 1 July 1980 the increase would have been related to only a five quarters increase and not the six quarters originally intended.

Following representations from the producers, Cabinet decided to change the arrangements to provide for a full six quarters increase by changing the base quarter for indexation purposes to December 1 978. As a result of this change, producers’ returns in the latest import parity price adjustment increased by 14.97 per cent from the $9.59 a barrel price. Senator Walsh cited a figure of a 14.87 per cent increase which is close to the actual increase.

It is not easy to establish how this figure is derived since official price and excise and therefore producers’ returns are set on a dollar per kilolitre basis whereas the figures commonly used to describe such returns are on a dollar a barrel basis. It is possible that some of the difference between those two percentage increases may be derived from this source. The explanation was contained in the Budget Papers.

Senator WALSH:

- Mr President, I ask a supplementary question. When the Government first made the announcement that December 1978 was to be the base for indexation was it not aware of the time lag in procuring CPI figures? Further, is this change of government policy worth about $ 1 8m a year to Esso-BHP?

Senator CARRICK:

– There is no change in government policy. It is a question of applying the full year CPI as distinct from three quarters, and that has been done. I am not aware of the actual amount of money, but I will seek that figure and let Senator Walsh know. I believe it is a smaller amount than that which he gave.

page 908

IRAN

Senator CARRICK:
LP

– Yesterday I undertook to provide Senator Wriedt with additional information about the letter from United States Secretary of State Muskie to the Iranian Prime Minister. The Australian Government was aware of the main thrust and purpose of the letter pursuant to advice given to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Peacock) by the United States authorities. After the Iranian Prime Minister had quoted publicly from the letter in a speech on 9 September, the United States Government decided to release the full text of the letter. This text was received by the Department of Foreign Affairs from the Australian Embassy in Washington and from the American Embassy in Canberra on the morning of 1 1 September. The Government has maintained close contact with the United States Government throughout the hostage affair and will continue to lend support to the United States efforts to seek a satisfactory solution to this problem.

page 908

NATIONAL HEALTH LEGISLATION

Senator DURACK:
General · Western Australia Attorney · LP

– by leave - Mr President, I wish to clarify something I said at an earlier hour this day. During the Committee stage of the National Health Amendment Bill (No. 2) Senator Grimes asked me why the unemployment beneficiaries could not be included in the pensioner health benefit scheme. On advice from the departmental officer present I said that it would cost $35m or thereabouts to extend the scheme as proposed by Senator Grimes. I understand that that figure of $35m referred only to the cost of extending the free pharmaceutical benefits scheme to unemployment beneficiaries.

page 908

NOONKANBAH ABORIGINES

Matter of Urgency

The PRESIDENT:

– I inform the Senate that I have received the following letter, dated 1 2 September 1 980, from Senator Walsh:

Dear Mr President,

Pursuant to Sessional Order, I give notice that today 1 shall move -

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

The failure by the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs to exercise the Constitutional authority to protect Noonkanbah Aborigines from the excesses of the Court Government.

Yours sincerely. PETER WALSH (Senator for Western Australia)

Is the motion supported?

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

Senator WALSH:
Western Australia

I move:

It is with some regret that I move this motion. I regret not only the basic circumstances which have led to the motion being necessary but also having to move what is tantamount to a censure motion against the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Senator Chaney). From my direct knowledge, I know that his personal sympathies lie strongly with the Aboriginal people. I have no doubt that he is greatly upset by the actions of the Court Government. Indeed, he is probably stricken with guilt because of his own failure to prevent the excesses to which the motion refers. I also recognise that he has particular problems being a Liberal senator from Western Australia. The Western Australian Liberal Party is not like any other State branch of the Liberal Party. Its closest ideological and ethical relative is the National Party of Queensland. Small L liberalism of the type normally represented by Senator Chaney is conspicuous by its absence from the Liberal Party of West Australia.

However, not withstanding all the difficulties with which the present Minister has had to work the plain fact is that he has failed to starch the backbone of the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser). As Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Senator Chaney must take responsibility for what has happened within his ministerial area. Given the uncorrected intransigence of the Court Government, the only honourable course left for Senator Chaney is to resign. I draw attention to the key words of the motion, which refers to Senator Chaney’s ‘failure’ and his ‘authority’ to take action which he has declined to take or, more accurately, which the Prime Minister has not permitted him to take. With respect to failure, on Nationwide on 3 September 1980 the Minister himself said: . . Noonkanbah could and should have been settled by negotiation. That was a very real possibility and it’s my expressions of regret were about my failure to achieve that objective.

Although there seems to be a typographical error, the meaning is perfectly clear. Senator Chaney publicly acknowledged his failure to achieve the objective he wanted. With respect to his authority on the same program on 27 August 1980, a week earlier, he said:

Well if you look at the documents surrounding the referendum–

That is, the referendum of 1 967 - lt was certainly to give the Commonwealth power to make special laws, it was also to remove discrimination against Aboriginals that was then contained in the Constitution. But that’s a discretionary power-

He acknowledges that the power is there. He also draws attention to the fact that the power is discretionary. I have no quarrel with that. The opposition’s quarrel concerns the fact that the Government used its discretion and chose not to intervene. It decided against taking effective action. That discrete decision was a function of the Prime Minister’s cowardly abdication of responsibility in this instance, as it has been when he has abdicated his responsibility in similar circumstances in the past. As a result of that abdication of responsibility, Australia is an object of international contempt and/or hatred. As a result of that abdication of responsibility, an Aboriginal community, struggling to regain its self-respect after a century of humiliation and degradation, has been crushed. As a result of that abdication of responsibility, other Aboriginal communities throughout Australia believe, and justifiably in my view, that they have been betrayed and that they will be betrayed in the future. As a result of that abdication of discretionary constitutional authority, bitter divisions between white Australians have been opened up. That is not just my opinion or the opinion of the Labor Party. It has been the near-unanimous opinion of the Australian Press, expressed forcefully in editorials, extracts from some of which I shall quote.

Senator Lewis:

– All of whom are taking sides.

Senator WALSH:

– The first extract is from the Melbourne Age of 26 August, the premier newspaper of Senator Lewis’s own State. It reads: lt is clear that most Australians believe Aboriginal communities should have the right to prevent mining on their traditional land. By publicly siding with the West Australian Premier, Sir Charles Court, Mr Fraser has allowed himself to be tarnished by Sir Charles’s authoritarian attempt to crush Aboriginal resistance by military-style police action.

That is an extract from the premier newspaper of Senator Hamer’s State, a newspaper possibly regarded by many as the premier newspaper of Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald, in similar vein, states:

It will compromise Australia severely in the eyes of the world–

That refers to the uncorrected actions of the Court Government - and especially the Third World. The spectacle of a convoy of heavy trucks, under police escort, ploughing remorselessly through Aboriginal picket lines on their way to desecrating remote Aboriginal sacred sites provides the perfect scenario for those who wish to depict Australia as a racist country committed to pursuing its historic maltreatment and exploitation of Aborigines.

The West Australian - certainly not a newspaper noted for its support of causes taken up by the Australian Labor Party, causes taken up by unions or even, frequently, causes taken up by small L liberals - in its editorial on 30 August, said:

Tactics such as the Government–

That is the Western Australian Government, of course - has employed might have been understandable in circumstances of crisis, but the only emergency that exists at Noonkanbah is of the Government’s own making. The lengths to which it has gone to get the drilling rig there and the device it has used to get it working are more than likely to touch off a fresh round of industrial confrontation and to widen community divisions.

The editorial concluded:

Noonkanbah is a high price to pay against what remains a long-shot oil prospect.

That is a sample of the unequivocal editorial condemnation by all the major newspapers of the country about both the initial actions of the Western Australian Government and the subsequent abdication of responsibility by the Fraser Government.

The record of the Government in Western Australia with respect to Aborigines, and in particular with respect to the people in the Noonkanbah area, shows that on instructions from the Government, no transfers of land to Aboriginal communities have been permitted by the Western Australian Lands Department, since 1977. Twice - once unsuccessfully, once successfully - the Western Australian Government introduced legislation to impede or restrict substantially the opportunity of Aborigines in Western Australia to vote in State elections.

Let me outline the sequence of events in the last 14 months concerning Noonkanbah. In June 1979 Amax moved a drilling rig onto the station and planned to put down an exploratory bore on Pea Hill itself- Pea Hill, of course, being recognised even by Charles Court as a sacred site. It was never conceivable that there was any technical necessity to put down an exploratory hole, let alone the first exploratory hole, on that site. For those who were familiar with the machinations of Charles Court, it was clear from the beginning that the decision to drill at that point was a decision imposed upon Amax by the Western Australian Government and not a decision of Amax itself. It was never credible that a company like Amax, which has had substantial experience under similar circumstances in the United States of America, would have been so insensitive as to put down that first bore, that first exploratory hole, on Pea Hill itself.

That the Western Australian Government was in fact coercing Amax to drill at that site was subsequently confirmed by statements or admissions from Charles Court himself when he referred this year to Amax’s obligations to drill, when he issued veiled threats to the company that unless it proceeded with its obligations at Noonkanbah exploration rights held by the company in other parts of Western Australia would be cancelled. The Government overruled the Western Australian Museum’s designations of sacred sites and areas of influence. It is true that this is something that the Government was legally entitled to do.

Indeed, the basic position of the Western Australian Government, apart from the innate authoritarianism of Charles Court, has always been that as long as it is legal you should do it. The sanction of legality is, in the eyes of the Western Australian Government, apparently sufficient justification for taking any action at all. The attitude of the Western Australian Government seems to be that as long as it is legal you ought to do it.

The Western Australian Government then resumed some land on the pastoral lease itself to secure access to the exploration area. On 18 July it rejected a proposal, submitted in writing from the Noonkanbah community, that there be a moratorium on drilling until the area within 10 miles of the Fitzroy River was mapped. That area amounts to between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of the entire station area. It is not an enormous area; it is probably of no significance so far as oil exploration is concerned. That approach was rejected.

Charles Court ultimately, because he could not get anyone to do it, recruited a private army to move a drilling rig from Eneabba, where it was actually finding gas, to Noonkanbah to drill what is almost certainly a dry hole. This operation was carried out in what was described, and 1 think advisedly described, in several sections of the media as a panzer-style operation. One of the ironies is that while all this was going on the Western Australian Minister for Cultural Affairs, Bill Grayden, who was convicted for punching up a couple of cops in the Sheraton Hotel car park a couple of years ago, was talking about the necessity to maintain law and order. The final irony, of course, was when Charles Court, the great rhetorician of free enterprise, nationalised oil exploration at Noonkanbah, took control of the rig, took financial responsibility on behalf of the Government for the drilling for oil and acquired from Amax its permit for an undisclosed sum. Sir Charles Court has nationalised oil drilling on Noonkanbah.

I want to answer one particularly peurile piece of criticism that has been made by supporters of the Western Australian Government. Some of these supporters - this fairly small but very noisy minority in Western Australia - have referred to the action the Government has taken as being necessary because of our alleged obligation to future generations to secure the oil at Noonkanbah. If, in fact, there is oil at Noonkanbah- I understand that responsible geologists put it about a thousand to one or more that there is a commercial oilfield there- and if we are concerned about future generations we would leave the oil there for the future generations instead of trying to suck it out for ourselves now. That is one of the more fatuous arguments that have been put up by supporters of Charles Court.

Throughout this sequence of events which I have just outlined Senator Chaney made soothing noises about negotiation. Senator Chaney knows very well that one does not negotiate with Charles Court on an issue such as this. To Charles Court such issues are non-negotiable. The Commonwealth Government had two options, and negotiation was never an option. It could have resumed the lease from the State of Western Australia or it could have surrendered to Charles Court, and that is what it did. The Western Australian Government accepted the Commonwealth Government’s surrender on Noonkanbah. I have little doubt that had Senator Chaney himself had effective power he would have resumed the lease. The Prime Minister, as is his custom when confronted by an intransigent State Premier, would not allow it to be done. I repeat in that circumstance, although I respect Senator Chaney’s views on the Aboriginal question and although I have long respected Senator Chaney’s attitude towards Aboriginals, the only honourable course left to him is to resign. After the surrender we were treated to some more self-delusory nonsense such as that which was published in the Age on 8 September. Senator Chaney is quoted as saying:

The Commonwealth Government is determined to avoid any further Noonkanbahs.

That verges on newspeak. Far from being determined to avoid any further Noonkanbahs, what the Commonwealth Government through the responsible Minister, Senator Chaney, has done is give the green light to Charles Court and those of his ilk to behave in the future as they have behaved with respect to Noonkanbah. They have been guaranteed immunity from Commonwealth discipline and Charles Court has been rewarded for intransigence. In the same statement, Senator Chaney continued:

Noonkanbah is the exception, and not the rule. We will continue to work with Aboriginals, with mining companies and with State Governments to ensure there are workable ground rules for the reasonable accommodation of all interests.

Again, that is, at best, self-delusory nonsense. The Noonkanbah incident repeats the history of Aurukun and Mornington Island of cowardice by the Federal Government when confronted with intransigent State Premiers. When the Mornington Island-Aurukun incident was looming up Mr Fraser said: the Commonwealth has a constitutional obligation to these Aboriginals . . . We will not fail them.

Fail them, of course, was precisely what he did. With Noonkanbah we heard many soothing noises, mostly from Senator Chaney, but we saw no action. In the post-Noonkanbah situation, on 29 August Senator Chaney issued a Press statement which said:

Earlier this week talks were held in Canberra between the Prime Minister and other Commonwealth Ministers with the National Aboriginal Conference on matters of principle and a large measure of agreement was reached. Yesterday, senior Government Ministers met with representatives of the Australian Mining Industry Council and the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association to discuss ways of avoiding problems like those at Noonkanbah in future.

That statement is irrelevant because the villains in the Noonkanbah incident, Charles Court and his Government, were not involved. It is fatuous to talk about holding discussion with mining companies and Aboriginal land councils when State Governments are not involved in the discussions, have clearly shown their intransigence and have been allowed to get away with it by this Commonwealth Government which has abdicated both its obligations and duty. In my view, Senator Chaney personally is not responsible for this, but as the Minister responsible he has to accept the final responsibility. The only honourable course left is for him to resign.

Senator CHANEY:
Western AustraliaMinister for Aboriginal Affairs · LP

– May I say in opening that I accept the responsibility for the conduct of the Government’s Aboriginal affairs policy. I will endeavour, in replying to Senator Walsh, to indicate why I believe the Commonwealth has followed a reasonable course and why the course of action which he is proposing to me this morning is not acceptable. Senator Walsh suggested that my course of action could be described as soothing words and no action. I would suggest the only difference that one could distinguish between me and my Labor predecessors is that Labor used fighting words and took no action. Quite frankly, I find the rhetoric of the Australian Labor Party somewhat hard to put together with its conduct when in government. The Labor Government showed a remarkable lack of action. Little use was made of section 51 of the Constitution. All the huffing and puffing in the world made absolutely no difference to the areas of State-Commonwealth differences which have existed for many years and which continue to exist in some limited areas of Aboriginal affairs.

I think to discharge my responsibility properly, I should explain to the Senate why I regard the Government as having met its responsibilities in this area, notwithstanding what I have described as its failure to achieve its objective, which is a negotiated solution to the Noonkanbah dispute. In order to do this it is necessary for me to take the matter in some order, rather than simply to try to tackle the particular points of fact selected by Senator Walsh. I would like to touch on one point of which he made something. That was the suggestion that in 1 979 an exploratory hole was to be drilled on Pea Hill. I think he said it was as a result of a decision which was imposed on the Amax company by the Western Australian Government. Reference to the museum map which was prepared in May or June 1 979 clearly shows the drill area of interest well removed from Pea Hill. I think that point of fact ought to be made clear. I also refer to a letter written by the Amax Petroleum Division dated 2 March to Mr Doug MacCauley of the Noonkanbah Management Committee. The letter, which enclosed a map, states:

A firm location has now been selected and this is indicated on the enclosed plan. This site was chosen not only for technical reasons but also because there would not be a great deal of interference to the environment. It is reasonably close to the existing airstrip and, equally as important, disturbance to the Aboriginal Community should be minimal.

That letter post-dates discussions with the Aboriginal community and the preparation of a map by Amax which clearly shows areas of interest which were to be avoided by Amax. The general Commonwealth approach to the exercise of its power in Aboriginal affairs as contained under section 51 of the Constitution is one of endeavouring to work with the States rather than taking unilateral action to override them. In that situation we act in the same way as Labor acted when it was in office. I think it is quite clear that whatever is done by the Commonwealth, the Aboriginal people who reside in a State will remain citizens of that State. They will remain dependent in the main upon the State for health, education and welfare services. They will be affected by State police and by all of those areas of government which the State clearly controls.

Many of the programs which are promoted by my Department and the Commonwealth Government as being of assistance to Aboriginal affairs require the active co-operation o& the States. It would be ludicrous to suggest that Aboriginal affairs in Australia could be conducted on the basis that we were continuously at war with the States. We do not do it that way, Labor did not do it that way and, in fact, it could not be done. Quite apart from that policy reason, I say that there are good legal, administrative and constitutional reasons why one should not adopt that sort of confrontationist approach. The report of the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs which has often been referred to in this place and which refers to the selfmanagement legislation, makes statements about the Commonwealth’s power to acquire land. It refers to a very useful opinion given by Sir Clarrie Harders on 12 October 1978 when he was Secretary to the Attorney-General’s Department. He referred to Commonwealth power and said:

I think I should say, however, in relation to what is contained in the paper concerning question ( 1 )–

This relates to Commonwealth power - that the form of the question is such as to involve questions of policy and practicality, as well as strictly legal considerations. I wish to emphasise, therefore, that what is said in response to this question rather sets out theoretical parameters. Leaving aside the question of the acquisition of the entire interests in a particular area of land, other possible degrees of control of management, use and occupancy of land could raise problems in various ways which could not be foreseeable in any abstract consideration of the matter.

He went on:

Whatever is said is likely to prove too simplistic, because without all the facts and considerations available, what might be theoretically possible could well prove to be practically impossible or, for policy reasons, not acceptable to those having the responsibility for the matter.

The last part was perhaps the most significant. He said:

I should also mention that, in a situation where the State was not co-operating, it is difficult, if not impossible, to foresee what action the State might take or what legislation it might pass to make difficult a particular course of action proposed by the Commonwealth. What is said in the attached paper must be understood in the light of these comments.

I refer to that statement because I believe it brings out very clearly the fact that this so easily proposed solution of the Labor Party that it would move unilaterally against the States is, in fact, a matter which is fraught with practical and legal difficulties. I refer the Senate to the Labor Party’s recent publication on Aboriginal affairs and the guideline to Labor policies. What we find there are some very cautious words indeed. I believe those words reflect the caution that Labor learnt when it was in office and had to consider these practical matters. One finds in the policy no sweeping suggestions that the ALP will legislate for land rights. No, one finds very selective and careful consideration of the use of section 51. I think if one examines the Labor policy and its references to drafting model legislation which the States might pass, one begins to wonder just how real are these statements by the Labor Party that it would take unilateral action.

I would suggest that members of the Labor Party who share the view put forward by Senator Walsh and the spokesman for Aboriginal affairs sit down and talk to the three previous Labor Ministers for Aboriginal Affairs, Mr Bryant, Mr Johnson and Senator Cavanagh. I suggest that they quiz them on why they did not take unilateral action. They should ask them what were the practical, legal and administrative difficulties that prevented them from doing so; or has there been some extraordinary change in the nature of governments in Western Australia and Queensland since the days of Labor in office that they require totally different treatment? 1 find that the plea from the Labor Party sits oddly with the practice of the Labor Party in the past. I would suggest that those Labor Ministers should come clean with their views on how this power ought to have been used in their time.

I guess that the facts at Noonkanbah are what is really important in this matter: What is it that we are actually examining? 1 think the first thing to be said about Noonkanbah is that in 1 980 it is the exception and not the rule. It does not represent the standard situation between Aboriginals, miners and State governments. In fact, throughout Australia there is a series of successful working relationships which represent what is the norm, not Noonkanbah. A whole series of companies is currently working successfully in the way that the Commonwealth has as publicly indicated it believes these things should be done. I mention companies such as Shell, Mobil, Esso and Comalco as companies which were recently involved successfully in these sorts of negotiations.

We approach what is an exceptional situation in 1 980 at Noonkanbah. What are the facts of that situation? There has been a great deal of misstatement in a lot of the debate. For example, there have been frequent statements that the dispute is about drilling on a sacred site, that is a matter which ought to be put to rest immediately. There is enough of the museum report now publicly available - part of it has been published in the West Australian newspaper, for example - to make it quite clear that we are talking about drilling within what is called an area of influence. The actual specified sites identified by the Aboriginal community to the museum are not at risk through this drilling. It is 1 .25 kilometres from the nearest locational site, which is a ceremonial area that has been used over a period. It is 3.5 kilometres to Pea Hill. So we are examining the rights and wrongs of a proposal that there be exploratory drilling in an area of interest.

The Commonwealth’s view is that this is a situation which could or ought to be negotiated between the Aboriginals and the mining company. We believe that the Aboriginals have an interest in this area. The museum report indicates a traditional attachment, a traditional association, which is of value to those Aboriginal people. But the important thing is: What is the nature of that interest? As I have said, it is an area of influence and not a sacred site, lt is a problem we have had to examine in other areas. Those people who genuinely wish to study this problem and not simply take sides might examine the Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry report and the way in which it tackled the problem of Mount Brockman which, on all the information I am able to obtain, is a site of considerable significance, a site that really has a great spiritual significance to the Aboriginal people of that area. Honourable senators will find in the Ranger report descriptions of the inquiries made to determine how that site ought to be protected. I refer honourable senators to pages 283 and 284 of the Fox report and its conclusions with respect to the protection of that site. Professor and Dr Berndt gave evidence relevant to the problem. The report states:

A particular site does not consist simply of the actual place associated with a mythic event or where a particular mythic being or djang was metamorphosed, but extends all around that site. Any alien activity within its vicinity should be regarded with the utmost concern.

It goes on further in relation to the particular problem to state:

The inviolable area should most certainly be extended to at least 1 000 to 1 500 yards, and should on no account be allowed to be reduced.

In fact, an area of some 700 metres has been fenced off, at the cost of an ore body, but the appropriate area of protection was seen by Professor Berndt as being 1 ,000 to 1 ,500 yards in that case. I remind the Senate of the sorts of distances which are involved in this case - 1 .25 kilometres and 3.5 kilometres. The Commonwealth’s attitude has been greatly affected by the facts of the matter and by the views expressed by such people as Professor Berndt on the graduated significance to be given to land, the fact that land which is generally open to Aboriginal use and occupation is land which is there for some economic purpose and ought to be the subject of arrangements between the Aboriginal people involved and those who seek to replace their interest. I refer honourable senators, and any other people who are interested, to the views of Professor Berndt, published in the West Australian of 4 April and in the Australian of 8 April, which to my view very well describe this graduation of significance and the fact that in an area of influence one is not in an area of absolute protection but rather an area that is appropriate for negotiation.

Senator Walsh, in moving the motion, has been extremely disparaging in referring to the uselessness of the Commonwealth’s approach to this matter. I have thought it best to be utterly frank with respect to Noonkanbah. Following the failure of negotiations, I have been very ready to say that I am disappointed at the failure to achieve the objective we set. I concede that our failure in this case means that we have to look to the future to see what has to be done to ensure that that failure is not repeated.

The Honourable Ian Viner, the previous Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, collaborated with me in the preparation of a lengthy newspaper article which set out the Commonwealth’s view on how this matter might be approached. I simply draw the Senate’s attention to a number of paragraphs which are consistent with the approach which the Government is currently adopting. We pointed to the need for some mechanism to resolve disputes. We stated:

There is still competition between mining interests and Aboriginal interests in the Northern Territory, no less than in WA. The great difference is that the ground rules for resolution of disputes in the Northern Territory are spelt out clearly in ways which enable all parties’ interests to be accommodated.

This is what is missing at Noonkanbah.

What is needed is a realistic approach from both sides in disputes involving conflicts of interests. First of all, those who want to use land of continuing traditional significance to living Aborigines must respect those aspects of land or lifestyle that Aborigines wish to keep safe and understand that only by negotiating directly, by involving Aborigines themselves in a solution, will any satisfactory solution be found.

In the discussions we have now held with the National Aboriginal Conference and with representatives of the mining industry we have laid down the suggestion that we must have protection which focuses on sites of importance to Aboriginals. We have indicated that we propose to discuss with the States, Aboriginals and miners the future application of these principles to ensure that mining can proceed to everyone’s satisfaction. The National Aboriginal Conference has indicated its interest in collaborating with the Government in the examination of the principles of the protection of both sites and communities and in the elaboration of rules which will avoid these difficulties in the future. I was encouraged by the Press statement issued by the National Aboriginal Conference on 26 August in which it made it quite clear that whilst it would have expected the Commonwealth to take over Noonkanbah and, indeed, to follow the course that Senator Walsh was advocating, it had reached agreement with us in some significant respects. It pointed out that the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in the meeting with the NAC had agreed on the absolute importance of proper agreement between all parties concerned in the negotiations on mining. It went on to say that the Prime Minister had indicated that the Federal Government would now seek talks with State governments and with mining companies to discuss applications of the principles discussed by both parties.

We subsequently met with the Australian Mining Industry Council and the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association. At the conclusion of that meeting a statement was issued in which AMIC and APEA indicated their willingness to co-operate with the Commonwealth, the States and the National Aboriginal Conference in developing these procedures and to make available the experience of those companies which have conducted successful negotiations with Aboriginal communities in petroleum exploration and mining projects. I think the whole of that Press release would help in the understanding of this matter. It is a statement by the Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Anthony). I seek leave to incorporate it in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The document read as follows -

The meeting between Ministers, the Australian Mining Industry Council and the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association today indicated a large measure of agreement on the need for measures to avoid any possible future difficulties between Aboriginal and minining petroleum interests.

The meeting was arranged as a preliminary exploratory discussion. There was no discussion of the Noonkanbah dispute - the purpose of the meeting was to discuss means of avoiding similar problems in future.

It was agreed that the real challenge is to allow development projects so essential for the benefit of all Australians to proceed and, at the same time, to properly provide for accommodation for Aboriginal interests.

The meeting with the industry groups followed a similar meeting with the National Aboriginal Conference in Canberra on Monday. The main concerns of the NAC were the protection of sacred sites and of Aboriginal community lifestyle. AMIC pointed out the content of its own policy statement in these regards:

The mining industry believes that it is essential for the Government to lay down rules which clearly and fairly define the rights and obligations of both the Aborigines and mining companies where mineral activities on Aboriginal lands are concerned. Included in the regulations should be provision for the protection of sites of special significance to the Aborigines.’

It was agreed that, in the light of the common objectives between all parties in respect of sacred site protection and the social protection of Aboriginal communities, it was desirable to draw up clear arrangements to avoid such problems in future. The industry organisations pointed out that companies had negotiated successfully on these matters with many individual Aboriginal communities. The aim is that these procedures could be met within arrangements which are acceptable to the States, the industry, the Aboriginals and the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth will initiate discussions with State Governments to this end.

AMIC and APEA indicated their willingness to co-operate with the Commonwealth, the States and the National Aboriginal Conference in developing these procedures and to make available the experience of those companies who have conducted successful negotiations with Aboriginal communities in petroleum exploration and mining projects.

Senator CHANEY:

– The Commonwealth is now seeking the co-operation of the States in discussing the need for rules which will have the acceptance of all parties - Aboriginals, miners and governments. We anticipate proceeding to the development of rules which will be a guidance to industry and to Aboriginals and which will avoid the situation where conflicts of interest and failures to obtain agreement such as those which have occurred at Noonkanbah cannot be resolved other than by the use of police to enforce people’s legal rights. The Commonwealth, of course, regards that as the least desirable way to achieve the solution to these problems. We see the solution to these problems through negotiation, agreement and perhaps in the end by arbitration. We see this as being a desirable course.

The matter of Noonkanbah, I am sure, is of no satisfaction to anybody, be it the Western Australian Government, the mining companies, the Aboriginals or the Commonwealth Government. It is a matter which has been time consuming, expensive and destructive of many of the things that we are all seeking to do in Australia. The fact of the matter is that it has set us off on a new course which I am sure will help us to avoid these difficulties in the future. I believe that we have to put it down as yet another difficulty which, having experienced it, we have to overcome in the future. I have no intention of resigning over the issue. I make it quite clear that anyone who assumed the job of Minister for Aboriginal Affairs on the assumption that he would have nothing but successes would have to be an idiot.

Question resolved in the negative.

page 915

PUBLICATIONS

Report

Senator ARCHER:
Tasmania

– I present the nineteenth report of the Publications Committee.

Report - by leave- adopted. (Quorum formed).

page 915

QUESTION

DAYS AND HOURS OF MEETING

Senator DURACK (Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral) by leave - On behalf of the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Carrick) I move:

  1. That the Sessional Order relating to the adjournment of the Senate have effect at the terminating time each day.
  2. That, unless otherwise ordered, Standing Order 68 be suspended for the remainder of the present period of sittings.
Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

– I ask the Attorney-General (Senator Durack) why the Government has decided that Parliament should sit on Monday morning and not on Tuesday morning. Why can we not sit on the Tuesday morning instead of the Monday morning? That would give all members of the Senate time to get back here from their respective States. The Government is bringing us back here to sit on Monday morning and then we will be sitting around on Tuesday morning when the Parliament is not sitting. I think that is a very stupid arrangement.

Senator GEORGES:
Queensland

– I notice that the starting time for Monday is 10.30 a.m. At one stage it was indicated that it would be 10 a.m. I consider the new time to be an improvement, although I take the point that Senator McLaren has made. An early start on a Monday does present some difficulties. There are some honourable senators who, by nature of their arrangements, cannot get here at that time. Nevertheless, I think that with the co-operation of the party whips we will manage to get over those first two hours. It seems to me, based on Senator McLaren’s view, that it is not really necessary to start at that time. However, the motion is before us and I do not think we are prepared to propose an amendment to it at this stage. I am concerned with the problems confronting honourable senators in their movements. I want the Government to consider the problems that will arise with transport next week, especially on Friday.

Senator Withers:

– Use VIP aircraft.

Senator GEORGES:

– I am not suggesting that we use VIP aircraft. However, I am suggesting that we ought to make certain that the airlines are advised of the need to facilitate the movement of parliamentarians, especially when the Parliament decides to sit extra hours. With all the forward bookings being made, the airlines are now finding themselves in a very tight situation in which they cannot provide seats for all the parliamentarians when a change of seating is brought about by certain commitments. This applies especially to honourable senators who live in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, the northern part of Queensland and Tasmania. I believe that the Transport Officer is finding extreme difficulty in placing us on aircraft, especially when we sit at times which have not previously been laid down.

The Government should use whatever influence it can to ensure that the airlines recognise the difficulties we face. For instance, today we are due to rise at 5 o’clock. That is an impossible time for quite a number of honourable senators because in order to catch certain flights they need to leave here by 4.30 p.m., otherwise they will be stranded in Canberra or another city until the next morning. If we are to sit these extended hours, let us take into consideration the difficulties in which we place our Transport Officer and let us appreciate the difficulties of the airlines. I come back to the point that the airlines are making it difficult for us. I suggest that someone should remind them that the Parliament has a certain precedence. If we decide to sit the extra times the airlines, bearing in mind the tremendous support they receive from parliamentarians and others, including the Government through the payment of air fares of parliamentarians, should do their utmost to ensure that we have facility of movement.

As we are to sit for the whole of next week, I suggest that we should not repeat the exercise of last night when we sat here until almost a quarter past one. I believe that that is unreasonable. Both sides of the House accept that the people should decide what party they want in office. The election date has been determined. I think that we should now do our utmost to deal, with the important legislation, move out of this place and let the people decide. We know that the people will decide in favour of an Australian Labor Party government. The sooner we get a Labor government the better. The Government will get the fullest co-operation from this side of the House to see that we get back to the electorates as quickly and effectively as possible. Nevertheless, I do not believe that we should sit beyond the adjournment time, which, in almost every case, is II p.m.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 916

INCOME TAX ASSESSMENT AMENDMENT BILL (No. 5) 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 1 September, on motion by Senator Carrick:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator WRIEDT:
Leader of the Opposition · Tasmania

– The Senate has before it the Income Tax Assessment Amendment Bill (No. 5) 1980.

Senator Durack:

– I suggest that there should be a cognate debate on this Bill and the Taxation Debts (Abolition of Crown Priority) Bill.

Senator WRIEDT:

– No, I suggest that they should not be debated cognately. They are substantially different pieces of legislation and the time factor is only marginal. This Bill is a complex piece of legislation. The main purpose of it is to give effect to the proposal announced in the Budget Speech of the Treasurer (Mr Howard) to provide some relief from Australian tax in respect of certain income which Australian residents earn from personal services rendered overseas. Apparently Australian consultancy or contracting companies seeking to win tenders overseas have been at a disadvantage with tenders from countries where certain taxation benefits apply. Because of those benefits the tenderers from those countries have been at an advantage as against Australian tenderers.

The purpose of the legislation is to provide relief for Australian companies which find themselves in that position. That is the intent of the main par’s of the Bill. The details of it are quite complex and I think it is unnecessary for us to deal with them in detail. We on this side of the chamber do not oppose that provision. Indeed, we feel that there will be some advantages accruing to Australian companies seeking contracts overseas as a result of it. The improvement may be only very marginal and it could be argued that unless the provisions of the legislation are enforced properly there may be the risk of this provision being used for the old tax haven benefit. There are safeguards in the legislation to prevent that happening. It really depends on how well those safeguards will be implemented once this legislation becomes operative.

The Bill also provides for two or three other measures. The incentives for the arts are not opposed by the Opposition. There is provision for cases of hardship under the taxation laws and for the creation of a relief board, as it is termed, which will have the power to provide relief up to a specified amount where relief obviously is justified. These are comparatively small measures but they do provide in certain cases benefits to those who need them. For example, the Bill gives Australian exporting firms a slight advantage over their present position. Of course, it is all involved in the total question of the taxation issue and the policies which have applied over nearly the past five years under the present Government.

It is a great pity that the sentiment that may be found in this legislation has not been extended into a much wider area of the income tax laws of this country over the past four and a half years. In fact, we have seen the contrary. We recall the many occasions when commitments and promises were made by the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) in which he gave quite clear undertakings that he would form a tax reducing government. In 1975 and again in 1977 he said that he would lower the income tax burden on the Australian taxpayer, yet in the last four and a half years we have seen almost a doubling of the personal income tax take in this country. In 1975-76 approximately $9 billion was collected in personal income tax. In this year’s Budget we find that the total income tax take will be in the vicinity of $18 billion. That is a massive increase in the past four and a half years; it is a 100 per cent increase. Not only has the collection of tax risen every year under the Fraser Government but also it has risen faster than the increases in wages and salaries.

Of course, that is combined with a deliberate policy that has been pursued by this Government of arguing in the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission that wages and salaries in this country should be depressed; that is, there should not be the increases in wages and salaries that would enable a taxpayer to keep up with the cost of living. That is not a piece of political rhetoric, because it was spelt out very clearly in 1976 by the then Treasurer, Mr Lynch. He made it quite clear that one of the prime objectives of the Government would be to depress the real standards of wages and salaries in Australia. To that extent the Fraser Government has been successful, because if one were to take into account the increase in prices after those 4i years - housewives know this better than anybody else - one would see that the average Australian wage earner needs another $16 in his pay packet to keep up with those increases in prices. That is not a fictitious figure.

When the Government set out in 1976 to implement its stated policy of reducing the real incomes of the average Australian family, it did so quite deliberately. That policy has been successful. Consequently we find that the average Australian family now is that much worse off in real terms - that is, after taking prices into account - than it was four years ago. I doubt that there is in Australia a housewife who would argue with the reality of that position. On top of that, whatever taxation benefits have been afforded by the present Government have been regressive; that is, the smaller one’s income the higher the tax one has to pay. In other words, a person on a small income has received back less than a person on a high income. The more one has, the more one gets; and the less one has, the less one gets. That has been the consistent policy of this Government. The argument I have put forward was endorsed by the Australian Taxpayers Association in the considerable debate that took place during the presentation of the 1 979 Budget when Mr Risstrom, on behalf of the Association, presented figures which showed conclusively that the taxation proposals in that Budget benefited those on the highest incomes and prejudiced those on the lowest incomes.

Despite the massive increase in taxation collections which has taken place, we find that the Commonwealth now has the most massive debt in the history of this country. Under the Fraser Government there has been an increase in the total Commonwealth debt which really staggers the imagination. When Mr Fraser became Prime Minister in 1975 the total Commonwealth debt was $5.9 billion. This year, according to the Budget Papers, the total Commonwealth debt has risen to $18.5 billion. That is a 3+-fold increase in the total debt that the Australian people are now carrying under the Fraser Government. The Prime Minister is the man who claims that, because he has in this Budget allegedly wiped off the deficit, he has finally paid off Labor’s debts. Yet during his term in government he has increased the total debt of the Australian people by around $ 13,000m. Of course, by now everybody realises - certainly the taxpayers realise it - that this is a government whose initial promises were not kept. There was no intention of keeping them and the Australian taxpayer is left now with an enormous debt burden.

Our overseas borrowings alone exceed $6,000m. In the course of the next two financial years the Australian taxpayer will be required to pay back a sum in excess of $ 1 ,000m for repayment of those overseas loans. This has happened as a result of a policy of a Prime Minister who said that he would never put Australia in hock to overseas lenders. Yet that is exactly what he has done. I suggest that in the coming weeks the Australian people need to consider whether they want more of this type of policy or whether they prefer a government which would give an undertaking to ensure that wage and salary earners in this country would receive increases that would keep them up with the cost of living - that is, prices. Surely that is the minimum guarantee to which every Australian family is entitled.

Would it not also be better to put to the Australian people the proposal that the Labor Party is advocating with respect to the tax avoidance merchants, those thieves of the Australian economy who are ripping off hundreds of millions of dollars by their legitimised tax avoidance rackets; that is, to make retrospective legislation to stop such schemes? Those people represent perhaps only 5 per cent of the community because the other 95 per cent are not in a position to avail themselves of those schemes, but that 5 per cent of racketeers is robbing the rest of the Australian community of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Under Labor’s proposal those people indulging in tax avoidance schemes would be caught no matter what; and that would stop tax avoidance stone dead in its tracks. This Government has had that proposal put to it on numerous occasions but is not prepared to do anything about it.

Senator Hamer:

– Why didn’t the Labor Government do something about it?

Senator WRIEDT:

– If those on Senator Hamer’s side of politics are advocating that it is a quite proper, fitting and legitimate exercise for 5 per cent of the Australian community to rip off hundreds of millions of dollars from their fellow Australians, I can assure them that we do not and that the 95 per cent of Australians who suffer by it do not. The only other point I make in respect of the nature of taxation in this country is that it must be made more equitable. This process which has been adopted over the past 41 years of hitting the smallest person hardest is a policy which must be brought to an end. It must be brought to an end at the forthcoming election.

Senator HAMER:
Victoria

– I direct the attention of the Senate to clause 6 of the Income Tax Assessment Amendment Bill (No. 5), the purpose of which is to amend section 78 of the principal Act. The clause contains some very important changes to or elaborations of the taxation incentives for the arts scheme. The clause will extend indefinitely the operation of that scheme which, as I am sure all senators are aware, was originally enacted to operate on a trial basis for a three-year period, which would end on 31 December this year unless re-enacted. When I spoke in the Senate on this subject last April I pointed out how very successful the scheme was and urged the Government to extend it indefinitely. I am delighted that this is now to be done.

The second purpose of this clause is to make gifts made on or after 1 July 1979 to the Artbank collection tax deductible on the same basis. The Artbank scheme is a particular delight, I think I can say, of the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Ellicott. He has set up an excellent collection of works of art, most of which are purchased but some of which now will be able to be given. These works of art are available for loan or lease to suitable organisations. The Artbank collection is a major innovation in the field of the arts.

The third purpose of the clause is to ensure that gifts of property to Artbank are governed by the same general conditions of eligibility which apply under the existing scheme to other donations of works of art to galleries or museums. Finally, it contains a technical point to ensure that the Commissioner of Taxation may reopen income tax assessments made before we pass this legislation to enable a gift made to Artbank before 1 July last year to be eligible for tax deductibility.

How well has this scheme worked? I think it is fair to say that when it first started the public did not really appreciate or understand the working of it and were not fully confident of the benefits that could be gained. The galleries and museums also were somewhat cautious because they did not really understand’ the administrative details and thought it might be too complicated to work to their advantage. In fact all these doubts were misplaced and the three year trial period of the scheme was highly successful. The mechanics have been simple and straightforward for both donors and recipient galleries and museums. I must admit that there were some difficulties in the first two years in obtaining the valuations of the gifts within the prescribed time period. The prescribed time period was too short for some gifts to be properly valued. That was adjusted last April in an amendment passed by the Government. I am told that the scheme now is working to the satisfaction of all concerned.

What about the effects of the scheme? Fifty institutions have gained considerable works of art which would otherwise almost certainly have been beyond their financial capacity. Gifts worth $6.8m have been presented to galleries and museums. Valuable works which otherwise would have gone overseas have remained in Australia. Valuable works which were not known to exist in Australia have come to light. Finally, a very interesting new development, an important overseas collection which was on tour in Australia was bought privately by Australians and presented to the State Gallery of Victoria.

When I spoke to the Senate last April about this scheme I said then that it had attracted 137 donors to 46 museums or galleries and the total value of gifts was $2m. That applied until February this year. Figures are now available to September this year and there has been a dramatic increase. The number of donors has increased from 1 37 to 229, the number of institutions has gone up to 50, and the total value of gifts has gone up from S2m to S6.8m. I also told the Senate last April about some of the remarkable gifts that had been made to individual galleries especially in my State of Victoria. I stressed then and I stress again the value of this scheme to the smaller galleries in particular which, under this scheme, acquire important and valuable artifacts and paintings to add to their existing collections or to initiate new ones.

I repeat that one of the great qualities of this scheme is that it keeps in Australia works of art that almost certainly would otherwise go overseas. This is a very important advantage. I mentioned a moment ago a most interesting new change of direction, or new area of activity of this scheme. Last year the National Gallery of Victoria exhibited the very fine collection of preColumbian art owned by a Mexican, Mr Leonardo Patterson. This exhibition provided us with a remarkable opportunity to see the finest collection of pre-Columbian art in the world outside Mexico. It contains 190 items, at least 50 of which are of the highest importance. Those people who saw the exhibition will remember the miniature ball game in terracotta. The scene shows ball players in action and one player has fallen over the ball. The judges sit in niches at either end and the spectators sit along each side. This is an extremely interesting and important item not just for its appealing narrative but more especially for the cultural and social information about pre-Columbian art which it reveals. The earliest piece in the collection is a stone bowl from Xochipala It is dated about 1 ,500 B.C. This is a key item in a recently discovered pre-Olmec civilisation. This remarkable collection - remarkable by any standards- was bought by a consortium of 19 people and given to the National Gallery of Victoria. So it will now remain in Australia.

This is an unforeseen but very desirable consequence of the tax incentive for the arts scheme. We have bought what was a temporary and magnificent exhibition which camp to Australia and now it will stay here. It was purchased privately and given to an Australian gallery. The value of the gift by the 19 donors is $3. 7m. This, of course, is a very dramatic advance and I think it is a highly desirable one.

Another aspect that is even more effective than was realised when the scheme was introduced is the way in which major works of art are being found that nobody knew were in Australia. A very exciting gift is about to be given in this way to the National Gallery of Victoria. A major painting of Joseph Wright of Derby, valued at about $250,000, has now been given to the Gallery. Nobody knew that this painting was in Australia. It is the most valuable single work of art given to any gallery under the scheme except perhaps for one or two of the individual items in the preColumbian collection. I should mention also that nobody knew that a very important collection of illustrated books of the late nineteenth century, privately printed and illustrated by preRaphaelite artists, was in Australia. The value of this collection which has now been donated under the scheme is about S 1 1 ,000.

These are very impressive gains for the art scene in Australia. I think the tax incentive for the arts scheme, whereby there is tax deductibility for works of art given to art galleries and museums and now to Artbank, is one of the most imaginative and successful schemes for Government aid to the arts that has been introduced anywhere. In my view the Government is performing its proper role. It is acting as a catalyst and not as an activist. I congratulate the Government on the extension of this magnificent scheme into the indefinite future. It has been a very great success.

Senator DURACK:
Western AustraliaAttorneyGeneral · LP

– I thank the Senate for its support of this measure. It is pleasing to note that the benefits Senator Hamer has mentioned will accrue from incentives provided by the scheme which will be continued under the provisions of this legislation. Before putting the second reading of the Income Tax Assessment Amendment Bill to a vote in the Senate, despite the fact that the Opposition has not opposed the measure, I wish to make a few comments on some of the rather outlandish claims made by Senator Wriedt when he was speaking about the taxation system. He sought to perpetuate what must now have become a very cracked Opposition record about the burden of taxation that has been imposed upon the Australian people by the Fraser Government over the last five years. His presentation was a classic example of the abuse of statistics. He quoted bald figures about personal income tax collected over five years compared with that to be collected under the present Budget. Naturally, over a period of five years there has been a very considerable increase in average weekly earnings in the community. The figures have gone up from $167.40 in December 1975 to $258.70 in June of this year. Those figures will increase in the course of this coming year which is the basis of the Budget calculations. So the honourable senator just is not comparing like with like. It really surprises me that Senator Wriedt should have used an argument of that character.

In addition, he makes no allowance whatever for the very fundamental changes in the taxation system that have occurred over the last five years. There was the abolition of the dependant’s concession deduction and its replacement with the very much better and more generous family allowance scheme. That has had a very considerable effect on the figures. Further, there was the great simplification of the taxation system by the Fraser Government in having just the three stages as against the old system of about seven stages. That has been most beneficial for people as they find that they are not being pushed up into higher tax brackets when they earn a little more through overtime and so on. Senator Wriedt’s argument was most specious. I take the opportunity in closing this debate of repudiating that argument.

Senator Wriedt also mentioned the level of the national debt. For goodness sake, why do we have this huge national debt? lt is the result of our inheriting the huge deficits created by the Labor Government. We cannot wipe out deficits overnight. We have gradually, over five years, been reducing that deficit until we have now wiped out the domestic deficit. As the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) said, we have at last been able to pay off the debts incurred by the Labor Government. We inherited those huge deficits and, of course, deficits can be paid for only by borrowing money. We have had to borrow money to pay off those enormous debts incurred by the Labor Government during its very short period in office.

The other point I must deal with is the reference made by Senator Wriedt to tax avoidance. He and Senator Evans and a few other Opposition senators are getting on a while charger and saying what they would do in office about tax avoidance. What an interesting argument that is. What did they do about it when they were in government? The Labor Treasurer of the day allowed the most scandalous tax avoidance scheme ever - the Curran scheme. But those honourable senators did nothing about tax avoidance and they did nothing whatever to tackle the Curran scheme. It was left to this Government and to this Treasurer to take strong and firm action against that scheme and indeed to make such action retrospective in some respects as indeed we have done in the case of some of the most glaring and blatant abuses of the taxation system. So all the points that Senator Wriedt dealt with in his comments on this Bill are utterly misleading. I take this opportunity of repudiating them. Mr President, I hope that this Bill will have a speedy passage.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 920

TAXATION DEBTS (ABOLITION OF CROWN PRIORITY) BILL 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 1 September, on motion by Senator Carrick:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator TATE:
Tasmania

– The Senate is dealing with a Bill which, in part, deals with the removal of what is called Crown priority to the distribution of certain assets on the insolvency of a company. It sounds rather technical and indeed it is dressed up in language in a sort of feudal garb because what we are talking about is the attempt by this Parliament to ameliorate the effects of an ancient doctrine which enabled the Crown to come in and take the assets when available for distribution on a bankruptcy in priority over all other citizens. The Bill does, to some extent, modify that right of the community, through the taxation system, to swallow up all the remaining meagre assets of a company which has become insolvent. As I say, it makes some modification but it does not go far enough and I will be commenting in a moment on my disappointment that it does not go far enough.

Initially, 1 want to set the scene because we are confronted in Australia with the fairly grim situation where the number of bankruptcies is escalating at an ever-increasing rate and where small businesses in particular, being vulnerable to the Government’s economic policies, are finding themselves on the verge of bankruptcy or are going bankrupt. I would hope that all of us in this Parliament would be concerned - I know that everyone outside in the community is concerned - at the deteriorating and fragile position of the small businessman in our community. Small businessmen are the providers of goods and services, the traders, the entrepreneurial life of the nation, the small employers who, over the whole range of the economy and over a wide range of commercial and trading activity, keep a large number of our Australian people employed and out of dole queues. They tend to be labour intensive and we in the Opposition are determined that when we return to government we will do everything possible to aid this small business sector to revive and to employ more people as is its traditional role within our economy.

Senator Messner:

– By a capital gains tax.

Senator TATE:

Senator Messner intervenes in his usual way. Let me give two examples of how a Labor government as opposed to a Liberal government views the plight of small business at present. We heard at Question Time - I also heard it on the Australian Broadcasting Commission news this morning - how a lady at Fyshwick has been trying for months to get the Commonwealth Government to pay certain trading debts owed to her and has had no success. Last night she had to plead personally with the

Treasurer, Mr Howard, to get her situation remedied.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– When the then Senator Cotton was Minister for Industry and Commerce three years ago he said that he was going to correct that very situation.

Senator TATE:

– There you are. The Commonwealth is unconcerned. It takes a harsh and callous attitude towards the plight of small employers, the traders I am talking about, the small business people, right on its doorstep here in Canberra. So what is it doing going out into the nation and saying that it has the solution to the small business problem?

Let me contrast for Senator Messner that attitude with the attitude of the present Labor Government in Tasmania, just to give people a working, concrete, practical illustration of our concern. In Tasmania in the last few weeks the huge supermarket chains such as Coles have announced that they will trade all day Saturday, with one object in view - to put out of business the small corner businessman, the person who remains open day and night in order to service the local community. That is their aim and in doing so they put out of operation a sector of the Tasmanian economy which, in employing 22,000 people, is the second largest employer in Tasmania. The Tasmanian Government has said, through the Premier and through the Minister for Industrial Relations, Mr Terry Aulich that it will take legislative action to prevent these huge supermarket chains from destroying the small business activity which, as I say, is recognised everywhere as the entrepreneurial life of the nation. There are two concrete examples for Senator Messner and Government senators of the different approaches between a Liberal and a Labor administration. I thank Senator Messner very much for giving me the opportunity to put that contrast because we will be putting it constantly before the people over the next few weeks. We will be looking at his Government’s record and he will be running away from it as fast as he can.

The increase in the number of bankruptcies is frightening. Indeed, as we all know it is overwhelming the Official Receiver’s Office; so much so that, even after the collection of some assets of an insolvent company has been undertaken by the Official Receiver, he may have 50c in the dollar to distribute. But I know for a fact that in the great majority of bankruptcy provinces throughout Australia, no distribution has taken place for over two years. That is a fact, lt means that employees and small traders are being denied the benefits of the bankruptcy system as set up by this Government. The Government has not sufficiently increased the staff ceilings of the Official Receiver’s Office to enable the bankruptcy jurisdiction to work efficiently and well. What is the extent of this frightening increase in bankruptcies? About 15,000 businesses have been bankrupted during the current Administration of this Liberal-National Country Party Government. That is the highest number since the old Depression years. 1 repeat: Fifteen thousand businesses have been put out of operation. The number of bankruptcies which was running at the rate of about 2,000 a year in 1 975 is now just on the edge of 5,000 a year. That is the sort of fragile situation which small business finds itself in at present, with escalating interest rates crippling small businesses as they try to service their overdraft commitments. We well know that increasingly small business is providing its funding through debt, through overdraft facilities. Only today I asked a question of the Attorney-General (Senator Durack) about whether the Government, in view of the plight of small business, would have the Commonwealth Development Bank increase the level of its non-rural loans or find some other urgent means of ensuring that small businesses requiring overdraft facilities of less than $100,000 have access to low interest loans. The Attorney-General was not able to give me any joy whatsoever. He could give no reply, no assurance, so bereft is the Government of any policies to help small business get low interest loans which would see it through the present situation.

Speaking of debt as a means of contributing to the life of small business, I should have thought that that was something the Attorney-General could well understand. Whilst he criticised Senator Wriedt for some figures on the debt imposed on this country by the present Government, he did not mention that, although the domestic deficit situation is roughly in balance, the Government has gone overseas and put Australia in hock to the international banking system to an extraordinary extent. Whereas in 1975 the overseas debt on every Australian was $87.57, we now find that under this Government the overseas debt that every Australian will have to pay off - and every Australian’s children and grandchildren, because it will not be paid off easily - is $369.21. That is an astronomical increase in the overseas indebtedness of this great and prosperous nation to the international banking community. So much for the management of debt. We are a debt-ridden society. The Government is debt ridden, small business finds itself debt ridden, and there is no relief in sight until the election on 1 8 October when a new government with more understanding of these matters will be swept into power by the Australian people.

I turn now to the Taxation Debts (Abolition of Crown Priority) Bill 1980. This Bill makes an attempt to enable the community to share in a fair way in the distribution of the meagre assets of a company which has become insolvent. However, it does not go far enough. It does not go as far as the bipartisan Senate Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs said it should. Let me explain. When a company becomes insolvent it may be that the company, being an employer, has some money put aside under the pay-as-you-earn scheme on behalf of the employees. Let us say, for example, that $20,000 is put aside. There may be claims on the company on behalf of the employees for $40,000 for current wages, long service leave entitlements, holiday pay and so on. However, instead of the community, through the taxation system, and the employees being able to rank equally and so share in an equitable manner in these meagre assets, it is still proposed under this legislation that the Government should take priority and swallow up those meagre assets. Not one cent is left for the hard-working employees, the workers who may have devoted perhaps 1 5 or 20 years to that firm’s existence. The employees find they cannot collect one cent of their long service leave entitlements, holiday pay, sick pay, worker’s compensation pay, and perhaps even their last week’s wages because the Government insists, for a paltry sum over all, on maintaining its priority to that debt. That is a cause of shame. lt is a fact that the trade union movement and the various chambers of commerce are at one in saying to the Government: ‘That is unfair’. In the Government’s greed to get its priority, all it does is create further debt throughout the community. That is what I do not understand. If the workers could share a little in those meagre assets and get some of their back pay and annual leave or holiday pay entitlements, they would be able to pay the traders, the rent man, the bank manager, and other people with whom they have a credit relationship. Other small traders, unsecured creditors, would themselves be able to better their situation rather than having to wipe off the relationship with a bankrupt firm as a complete dead loss.

The Senate Committee, consisting of six members drawn from each side of the Parliament, came to a reasoned approach on this matter, and here I am going over ground reiterated time and again this week. It said that the community, through the taxation system, should share equally with employees in this sort of situation. That has been completely and utterly ignored by the Government. It has become tedious and I hate to repeat it, but Senate committees are finding no response on the part of the Government. The Government is so beholden to the Department of Finance, which was the only witness before the Committee to insist on this priority, so beholden to the bureaucracy, that it becomes timid and frightened when a question of simple social justice is involved. What I am talking about is simple social justice for those workers and small traders who find themselves having to pick up a few crumbs, if any are left after the Government has come in and taken the PA YE and such other group taxes as have been collected.

This Bill does not go far enough in the cause of justice, and for that reason I express my disappointment. As would be imagined, in this whole area the Labor Party is constructive and not destructive. We have policies which will aid small businesses to lessen the incidence of bankruptcy which at the moment is such a blight on our entrepreneurial, commercial and trading life. Labor will ensure when in government that small businesses have improved access to finance through a banking institution specialising in the provision of long term and equity finance to small business. We cannot rely on the present structures. Senator Messner is nodding in agreement that they are inadequate at the moment. The Labor Party does not desire to impose any Federal or national administration on small business. I want that very clearly understood. As well as setting up the special banking institution to help provide long term and equity finance to small business, we would ensure that the States have sufficient finance to enable Ministers for Industrial Relations, such as Mr Terry Aulich, whom I have mentioned earlier - men who have a good grasp of the grass roots entrepreneurial activity in their own States - to set up advisory services for small business. These services would enable small business to get the accounting taxation and other advice they may need. We would also ease the tax burden by reviewing laws such as the undistributed profits tax that discriminate against small business. I know that Senator Messner from his public accounting experience would agree with that.

We would also overhaul the Trade Practices Act to make price discrimination and other unfair practice provisions much more effective. Overall, we would see. our role as one of upgrading the Department of Industry and Commerce to provide national co-ordination for State small business agencies. It is in the States that we have the expertise at the grass roots level in departments of labour and industry, and amongst the traders, entrepreneurs, commercial people and chambers of commerce. I believe that when the Australian people make their decision on 18 October they will realise that small business provides so many jobs throughout the economy that it provides the style of life, the choice and the competition which we all favour in the mixed economy of this country. T believe that the Australian people will say that this legislation is inadequate and threadbare, bereft of policy, subservient to the Department of Finance and does not represent the way ahead for Australia and that what we really need is a Labor Government, with this portfolio under the control of Mr Chris Hurford, to enable small business to prosper as it should.

Sitting suspended from 12.59 to 2.15 p.m. (Quorum formed).

Senator MISSEN:
Victoria

- Mr President, I take the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I remind the Senate, because before the suspension of the sitting it would have been difficult to realise it, that we are debating the Taxation Debts (Abolition of Crown Priority) Bill 1980. It is a reformist Bill which this Government has put forward which will be of great benefit to small business and which, of course, has been the cause of a quite irrelevant attack on the Government by Senator Tate.

We have also had a quorum called to draw attention to the fact that there are about 20 Government senators sitting here in the chamber, and now five Opposition senators have managed to struggle their way into the chamber. I am sorry, there are now only four. The Leader of the Opposition (Senator Wriedt) has now departed. This is typical of the Opposition. Its attitude before lunch has not been improved by lunch. Indeed, before lunch Senator Tate tried to pay for his carriage as a senator by making an attack on the Government for its attitude towards small business. Such a brilliant attack, I would think, would justify his being a Minister in any possible Labor government in the future.

Senator Archer:

– Minister for Bankruptcy.

Senator MISSEN:

– I think the Minister for Bankruptcy would be the position for him. He shows a considerable interest and delight in the number of bankruptcies that have occurred in this country, and a knowledge in this area. I think this is very fitting, because bankruptcy of ideas, bankruptcy of principles, bankruptcy of business are the things which one could expect from a Labor government if people were so misguided, which they will not be, as to re-elect that party to the position it occupied in 1974. Senator Tate tells us, that there are many bankruptcies. I wish he would not smile when he says that.

Senator Tate:

– I did not smile.

Senator MISSEN:

– I am sorry, but he did. I know that it is an accidental or perhaps a nervous twitch. On the other hand the Opposition thrives on any disasters that may occur in the community. The Opposition says that there are a large number of bankruptcies in the community. Certainly there are bankruptcies in the community. There are also many more small businesses starting up under this Government. There are people who are prepared to take the risk–

Senator Gietzelt:

– But they are going bankrupt because of Fraser’s economic policies.

Senator MISSEN:

– No. They go bankrupt sometimes because of laws which have been in existence for 80 years. This amending Bill proposed by the Government is the first attempt by government since Federation to take away a source of injustice for the people who run small businesses. That is what this Bill is all about. This is the first Government since Federation that has tried to tackle this problem. It has not proceeded as far as I would like, but I would expect that later, under the economic system which we are developing, we will be able to go further than this. I am sure that we will be able to go further than this, but this legislation will remove a gross injustice. The Commonwealth has claimed a priority in insolvency situations over ordinary creditors. By and large, the small creditors and small businessmen have had money filched from under their eyes. This legislation removes something like half of that claim and that is a great step forward.

Let me say something about Senator Tate’s general argument about the state of small business. The honourable senator’s complaint is that sometimes small businesses go bankrupt. Let us look at the reasons why small businesses go bankrupt today. It is true, of course, that a few of them have problems. They have had problems for some time. They have problems because inflation impinges upon them a great deal. No one can deny the claim that the Commonwealth has set the control of inflation as its major aim. People have complained that the Commonwealth is too onesided and that it has set its aim too high in concentrating on inflation, but the Commonwealth has succeeded in reducing by one-half the rate of inflation in the community and inflation hits at the small businessman sector more than anywhere else.

Inflation is not the only problem with which the small businessman has had to contend. The small businessman on occasions suffers because of trade union activity. He suffers from the heavy power which some left wing trade unions insist upon using to bring businesses into line. One has only to consider the way in which heavy unionism was trying to drive Mr Laidely out of business. One has only to look from time to time at the holdups that take place on the wharves, at what happens in the turnaround of ships and at what happens in regard to the ability of small business to turn around and sell goods. These holdups are the very things which, unfortunately, the union movement, aided and abetted by the Opposition, has insisted on causing. So small business has had its problems, but small business has had the advantage of knowing that the Government which has been in office for five years is sympathetic with its desires and which has been able to achieve reductions in taxation. Small businessmen know that to a very considerable extent they will be able to use the profits they make and that those profits will not disappear too greatly into the hands of the Government.

We know, of course, that the current demands of the Labor Party would cost something like $2,000m. We know that the Labor Party’s promises would have to be paid for and that they would be paid for very extensively by small business and by the ordinary people.

Senator Gietzelt:

– Where did you get your figures from?

Senator MISSEN:

– These figures have been worked out by the Government. It is not very difficult to work them out. The promises made by Labor spokesmen as they go around the country are being costed. I can assure the honourable senator that the Government will not try to buy its way back back into office. It believes that its past record is such that it will generate confidence. The Labor Party’s $2,000m promises would have to be paid for by the small business community of this country. Small businessmen suffered under the Labor Government between 1 973 and 1 975. They participated in the campaign to remove the Whitlam Government. They do not have short memories and they would remember what would happen if they submitted to the enticement which Labor has offered? Senator Tate said that the overseas debt is considerable. He has taken a figure and said that every member of the community will have to pay so much to meet that debt. More money is able to be borrowed from overseas because overseas lenders are now prepared to trust the Government of this country. When this country had a government of the honourable senator’s complexion, that government had to hide in corners; it had to have breakfast with Iraqis and various other people. It had to go to unusual sources to obtain its funds. It had to find them in the Arab coffers and no doubt had to give all kinds of promises to obtain them. Now the Government of this country can borrow abroad because it knows–

Senator Gietzelt:

– There is international money about.

Senator MISSEN:

– Yes, there is international money available to countries that can be trusted, to countries where it is expected that investments will be sound and where government are stable. If our governments are stable, of course people will lend money to Australia. We will not be Luddites like Opposition senators and say that we do not want further machinery, that we do not want these further investments, that we just want to live in the past and be the poor whites of Asia and the country which does not advance.

Senator Gietzelt:

– I raise a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. The Senate is having a cognate debate in respect of the Income Tax Assessment Bill (No. 5) 1980 and the Taxation Debts (Abolition of Crown Priority) Bill 1980. These measures have nothing to do with overseas borrowings. We are talking about the mess that this Government has got the small business sector into, which is the reason why the legislation is being introduced in 1980. I ask you to ask the honourable senator to stick to the matters that are before the Senate. The two Bills have nothing to do with overseas borrowings whatsoever.

Senator MISSEN:

- Mr Acting Deputy President, on the point of order, Senator Gietzelt was not in the chamber before the luncheon suspension so he did not hear the speech of Senator Tate which dealt very substantially with the present position.

Senator Gietzelt:

– Yes, I did.

Senator MISSEN:

– I am sorry, he is so anonymous, I did not realise he was here. He cannot have been listening to the debate. Senator Gietzelt is still trying to interject. He has made his point of order and I am replying to it. My answer is: Firstly, this is not a cognate debate. If the honourable senator was here he was not listening because the debate was clearly not to be a cognate one. Secondly, the debate is on a subject concerned with reforms in relation to small business and their benefits to it. Senator Tate has spoken on these subjects. At this stage I am replying solely to his arguments on that subject.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT (Senator Jessop) - I do not regard this as a valid point of order. I think the debates in this chamber are allowed to range rather widely on occasions. I believe Senator Missen has had regard to what the honourable senator has had to say and I am sure that he will confine his remarks to the subject matter of the legislation.

Senator MISSEN:

– I am proceeding merely to answer the argument that somehow the Government has- not been looking after small business. I say in addition that the Government’s policies have been actually demonstrated in the recent Budget. Any government is justified in saying that the things it puts forward in its Budget, including the items on which the money is to be spent in this coming year, are a good indication of what we intend to do. The 1980-81 Budget contains measures which are specifically designed to promote industrial growth, particularly by fostering exports and encouraging innovation. These are things which are absolutely essential to the development of small businesses, which often grow into large businesses. Export incentive payments in the form of export market development grants and export expansion grants have increased to $250m this year, representing an increase of 270 per cent on the previous year. The purpose of that increase is not just to cover inflation; it is to cover also the Government’s policy of giving recognition to the importance of exports and what businesses in this community must do to expand in this area.

We have demonstrated our recognition of the need for industry to increase its commitment to innovation and technology by providing $32m for industrial research and development. Again, they are important matters so far as industry is concerned. We are providing $1.5m for productivity improvement programs and $54.5m in bounty arrangements covering such products as ships, machine tools, books, agricultural tractors and heavy commercial vehicles.

Finally, in respect to Senator Tate’s rather sad and irrelevant accusations against the Government on the question of small business, which are particularly irrelevant when one considers the Bill we are dealing with, I say that the Government’s policy indicates a very great interest in that area.

Senator McLaren:

– It finally got back to you.

Senator MISSEN:

– Yes, but I had to deal with certain irrelevancies which were brought into this debate. So far as the Bill is concerned, I am happy to say something more than Senator Tate said - that this Bill is one which is part of a series of Bills. It removes a long standing priority which the Crown has claimed over ordinary citizens, over small businessmen and so forth for years. Governments of all complexions since Federation have continued to enjoy both common law rights of Crown privilege, and those developed in the various statutes a number of which are being removed from the legislation by the Taxation Debts (Abolition of Crown Priority) Bill. Another Bill which is before the Parliament will remove the priority so far as the common law is concerned. This matter came before the Parliament earlier as a result of a report of the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs, of which I had the honour to be chairman.

The report of the Committee on the priority of Crown debts does advocate the total abolition of Crown debt priority. Members of that Commitee regret that the Government has not seen its way clear to totally abolish it. There is to be a retention of the pay-as-you-earn claims. I must say that I have never been able to discover the reasons or the basis under -which those claims are to be retained. In response to the Committee’s report the Government acknowledged that it was in full agreement with the main thrust of the Committee’s argument. Consequently the Government decided to introduce legislation of which this Bill is a part. The second reading speech stated that there were to be exceptions in relation to tax instalment deductions and withholding tax deductions from dividends and interest remitted overseas. It continues: . . special considerations that apply in relation to PA YE tax instalment deductions and withholding tax deductions from dividends and interest distinguish those debts from other Crown debts.

I would dearly like to know what those special considerations are. We have never been able to find out. The evidence which was placed before my Committee never disclosed any difference in principle between all the areas of crown priority. I do not know whether there was any discussion of that aspect during the House of Representatives debate on this Bill. That debate was held last night. I have not seen the Hansard, but I think I am safe in saying that I do not imagine there would have been a great deal of further elucidation from debate in the House of Representatives. I speak from bitter experience in that respect.

Nonetheless, we have a situation where it was estimated by the Committee that something like $10m, as best the calculations could be, was involved in the whole Crown debt situation. By this Bill and the other Bills the Government is forgoing something like $5m of that amount. There will still be about $5m which is recovered by the Commonwealth in the PAYE areas. I hope this will finally lead, as this is the first reform that has been done by government since Federation, to the abolition. The Government accepts the basic argument which the Committee advanced but does not feel that at the moment it can leave the whole of the taxation go.

Today when Senator Tate talked of the greed of governments to keep their priority he failed entirely to recognise that there is a considerable concession on the way which will be of benefit to the ordinary person and the ordinary businessman in this community. We know that the Government, a government which has to look to its finances and which worries about the extent to which it can get down - it has successfully brought down- the Budget deficit in this community, has found a way in that year to do justice to a considerable number of people. This will be a help to business in this community. It is a Bill which I welcome because not only does it accept and carry out the recommendations which our inquiries in the Senate have made but also it does substantial justice to the people of this community who have been hurt in many ways and who want to see progress and the development of small business. Therefore, I welcome the Bill and give it warm support.

Senator TATE (Tasmania)- by leave - Mr Deputy President, I claim to have been misrepresented. I had the greatest respect for Senator Missen yesterday, but today he joined Orwell’s thought police in accusing me of taking delight in the escalating bankruptcy figures by my having some sort of smile on my face. This is completely impossible to refute, as honourable senators know. I simply say that I am quite willing to stand on my record of words and actionswhich I thought Senator Missen, being a defender of the common law tradition would appreciate - namely, the words in the speech, my actions and my concern for the bankruptcy jurisdiction and its administration which are well known throughout the Tasmanian community from the east coast to the north-west.

Senator Georges:

– I ask whether Senator Missen would care to apologise. I am serious about this. Would he care to apologise?

Senator Missen:

– No. I would certainly care to say that I thought it was a nervous twitch on the part of Senator Tate when he smiled. I am quite sure of his kindness of heart and his goodwill. I am sure that he never gloats at or glories in the misfortune of anyone. In that he stands in striking contrast to so many of his colleagues that I would hate to hurt him.

Senator GEORGES:
Queensland

– As the apology was so lighthearted as to be ridiculous I come to Senator Tate’s defence. I also wish to add a few comments in support of the Bill and Senator Tate’s statements. At the coming election the Government has to face the fact that it has managed to alienate in a variety of areas a certain number of people. One should appreciate that the Government has to alienate only about 5 per cent to 6 per cent on an average throughout Australia to lose government, and it deserves to lose government. This debate seems to indicate that the Government refuses to accept that small businesses have been disaffected in large numbers and that some people have suffered bankruptcy. For instance, legislation will be coming before the House next week, I trust, which will indicate the difficulties in the area for which the Minister for National Development and Energy (Senator Carrick) is responsible, namely petroleum distribution. Many people have suffered bankruptcy because of the inadequacies of this Government. I make it fairly clear that that will be the consequence of a variety of actions and initiatives of this Government as well as neglect in various areas.

I will just give honourable senators this faint comfort. It is not a matter of having to disaffect 20 per cent or 30 per cent. It is sufficient to disaffect 5 per cent or 6 per cent. In this area of bankruptcies the Government certainly has done that. The figure that I heard pronounced showed an increase of some 29 per cent in bankruptcies of small businesses throughout this country. If one spells that out and spreads it across other areas, then honourable senators opposite are out of government. We have been telling them that for quite some time - they will be out of government. That is why we hasten to get to the polls to allow a Labor government to correct many of the errors which this Government has initiated and for which it has been responsible.

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for National Development and Energy · LP

– in reply - It is my pleasant duty to bring the debate back to the Bill. As we understood it until a moment ago, the Bill is called the Taxation Debts (Abolition of Crown Priority) Bill 1980. It is a Bill which has been acknowledged by Senator Missen, amongst others, as being the first step in a very significant reform. Whenever one hears Australian Labor Party criticisms one would imagine that they had been the reformers in this field and that they are chiding us. Of course, their track record is one of silence.

Senator Gietzelt:

– But you have been in office for 3 1 years -

Senator CARRICK:

– Since the interjection has been made, let me say that the electors of Australia have found for 59 of the 79 years of Federation that governments of Liberal faith deliver good government to the people of Australia. They will continue to do that. Any suggestion that we have been in government for a while as a defence by the Labor Party is a revelation that the Labor Party’s defects have kept it out of office. To return to the Bill, and I shall be brief, I acknowledge that the Bill is indebted to a report tabled by the Senate Standing Committee - (Quorum formed). After that obvious diversion, may I say that the Government is indebted to the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs on the right of the Crown to be repaid debts ahead of other creditors. The Senate Committee had recommended that all Crown priorities in insolvency administration should be abrogated entirely.

This Bill, and there will be another Bill, will amend the law relating to income tax, sales tax, payroll tax, wool tax, the stevedoring industry charge, and the tobacco charge, to abolish the priority of the Crown for payment of debts for income tax, other than for tax instalment deductions and withholding tax, in preference to other debts of a company in liquidation or where a receiver to debenture holders has taken possession of any assets of a company, with effect from 1 November 1979. It will reduce, with effect from that date, the obligation imposed upon a liquidator or a receiver for debenture holders with regard to setting aside assets for the payment of tax or charge to reflect this abolition of Crown priority and payment. It will make formal amendments to certain Acts relating to sales tax, the stevedoring industry charge, the tobacco charge and the wool tax, to reflect modern drafting style.

Briefly, this Bill is a first step in a significant reform. There have been some criticisms that the Bill has not gone far enough in terms of payasyouearn deductions. There are some difficulties there upon which I do not propose to dilate now. However, I will refer the comments of honourable senators to the Minister and to the Government and ask for the constructive consideration of this Bill to be taken into account for the future. It is very good to have noted the growth of small business in Australia at an unprecedented rate through recent years. It is also interesting to note that in the years prior to this Government there was a significant stagnation, and even decline. In that light, I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 927

STATES GRANTS (SCHOOLS ASSISTANCE) BILL 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 1 September, on motion by Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for National Development and Energy · LP

Mr President, with the agreement of the Opposition, we can debate this Bill cognately with the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1980.

The PRESIDENT:

– Is that agreed to? There being no objection, I will allow that course to be followed.

Senator WRIEDT:
Leader of the Opposition · Tasmania

– The Senate has before it the States Grants (Schools Assistance Bill) 1980 and the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1980. Both these Bills are annual Bills which provide for certain payments to be made for the year to the various States for both capital and recurrent funding. This debate gives us an opportunity, especially in view of the fact that we are now approaching the end of this Parliament, to look back over the performance of the Fraser Government in respect of education.

I do not think there is any need for me to spell out in any great detail the fact that in the three, years prior to this Government’s coming to office the Labor Government made the most massive effort ever made on behalf of education in Australia. At that time we in the Labor Government took the view that the education system needed a much greater involvement, especially a financial involvement, at the Federal levels. We believed that such involvement would enable the States to upgrade the quality of education in this country not only in the actual building of schools and tertiary education institutions but also in the provision of better facilities for students. That applied to both the government and nongovernment sector. In 1975-76 the present Government gave certain undertakings about increasing expenditure for education and providing greater funds to the States. In particular, it was promised that in the triennium from 1976 to 1978 there would be an increase in real terms in funding. All that, of course, is now history. As we know, that commitment, like so many others of the Fraser Government, was not kept. Funding for education, to the States especially, was in fact reduced.

As the period that this Government has been in office draws to an end we find it still has the same attitude to education as it has had over the past four and a half years. If we consider especially the attitude that has been adopted towards tertiary education - that includes technical education; that is, the training of the tradesmen whom we so badly need in the Australian work force - we see that the attitude of the Government has not altered one iota. The purpose of the tertiary education Bill is to adjust grants for the 1979-81 triennium in respect of cost increases and to ensure that grants for 1981 for universities and colleges of advanced education are not expended on academic salaries which exceed the levels recommended by the Academic Salaries Tribunal.

We are not greatly fussed about the second point. We can see the intent of it. But there is a cautionary note to be sounded because it may mean that there would be some inhibition on those institutions in attracting the best staff for specific purposes- for example, research. The Tertiary Education Commission, which was formed by this Government with the support of the Opposition, has on a number of occasions referred to the danger of declining standards in universities and colleges because of inadequate funding. This has happened particularly in respect of equipment, much of which is outdated. This has arisen because in those four years there has been a quite dramatic change in funding arrangements by the Commonwealth, which have declined dramatically. In its report for the 1 979-8 1 triennium, the Commission stated:

Expenditure on equipment is an inevitable demand on the budget of every institution and to reduce or postpone such expenditure must detract from the quality of teaching and research . . . The Commission supports the view of the Universities Council . . . that the current level of equipment funding understates the reasonable needs of universities.

That point was raised specifically with the shadow Minister for Education, Senator Button, by Professor Karmel, the Chairman of the Commision. We do not believe that universities can be expected to go on with their critical work of research unless the Australian Government is prepared to provide funding which will permit that research to proceed. The amendment which I will be moving on behalf of the Opposition provides for that. We will do this under a three-year program, but we concede that there will be no commitment in the first year because obviously the program will take a little time to get under way. We propose to spend a minimum of $ 12m in this area in the third year. We also propose to make money available for applied research in colleges of advanced education so that they can become more involved with local industries and increasingly make a relevant contribution to industry.

The technical education area is one which we all know has been neglected over the years. It was not until the advent of the Labor Government in 1972 that the first real efforts were made to try to overcome the backlog that had taken place over a number of years. This Government also made a great noise about how it was going to boost its assistance to technical education from 1976. We have found very small increases taking place in assisting that sector in these last four years. Although slightly more than have been provided for universities and colleges of advanced education, in no way could these increases in expenditure be claimed to be keeping up with the real needs of technical education. Even under the present arrangements for 1980-81 the increase is very marginal - a total of about $I.7m. I might add that there is no provision for an increase in capital, despite the fact that the Williams Committee of Inquiry into Education, Training and Employment, which was formed by the present Government and about which a great deal of noise was made prior to its reporting, made substantial recommendations which are not being acted upon by the Government. The position is that there has been a continuing neglect over the past four years. To the motion that the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) be read a second time, on behalf of the Opposition I foreshadow an amendment in the following terms:

At end of motion, add, but the Senate is of the opinion that (A) an extra grant of $2m, in December 1979 prices, for equipment in universities and colleges; and (B) an extra grant of S I 6m, in December 1979 prices, for recurrent funding of technical and further education colleges, should be provided for the year 1981’.

When we consider the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Bill we find a picture very similar to the one we have seen with respect to the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill. The purpose of the amendment which I will move to the motion that this Bill be read a second time is to illustrate what an incoming Labor government would commit itself to during its first three years. In the government and nongovernment sector we have another sorry story of this Government’s not matching in any way the quite remarkable efforts that were made by the previous Government to lift education out of the dilemma that it had been in for so many years prior to 1 972. Of course, this is not a subject that we can deal with in isolation because it concerns the total government attitude towards the States.

As we know, very large amounts of the funding for the construction of schools come out of the capital payments which the Commonwealth makes to the States, and in the last four years they have suffered a dramatic downturn under what is known as the new federalism policy. It is quite understandable that State governments are not able to provide new educational institutions, whether they be tertiary institutions or schools, in various parts of the States, particularly in the regional areas, simply because they now find themselves in such a tight position. The result of those reductions in the payments from the Commonwealth is that all the States are, of course, now seriously looking at the prospect of having to impose a State income tax, about which I will say more in just a moment.

Only this morning in the Melbourne Age it was reported, apparently from a leaked document, that the forthcoming Victorian State Budget will be a disaster. Last month Mr Hamer took the initiative of calling together all State Premiers of the Commonwealth, without inviting the Commonwealth of course, for the purposes of jointly confronting the Federal Government before the coming election. That unique exercise by Mr Hamer, who is a Liberal Premier of course, illustrates how serious and how desperate is the position of all the State governments. Those Premiers will meet again this month and will be seeking from the Federal Government a very clear statement as to what Mr Fraser intends to do. They know now, after four years of so-called cooperative federalism, that the second stage of that federalism - the introduction of State income tax - is staring them in the face. It seems that that is the only way in which they can continue with their capital works programs. The leaked document this morning gave some information which indicated that the capital works program in Victoria will take a slashing in the State Budget which will shortly be brought down. One figure suggests that capital works programs, that is, the building of schools, roads, hospitals and all those other things that State governments do, will be reduced by 30 per cent. The figure mentioned involved one amount of $72m by which the Government of Victoria will be compelled to reduce its capital works program, which will affect the Victorian economy.

Every State Government is in exactly the same position. That is why, after four years, the State governments finally have decided to band together, to stand up to Mr Fraser and to make him declare himself before this election. No Premier wants to be involved in introducing a State income tax. That means that every Australian will have a second bite taken from his pay packet. We were talking only this morning, during the course of the income tax legislation, of how we all know how income tax in this country has doubled from $9 billion to $18 billion in the last four years. We know that every taxpayer has had his taxation increased at a faster rate than his wage or salary has increased. Everybody knows that the real purchasing or disposable income of the average Australian family now is lower than it was four years ago. All this has multiplied and has finally caught up with the States. It has taken four years to do so.

The reason for this happening is spelt out in the figures supplied by the Treasurer (Mr Howard) in answer to a question I asked him on 1 3 November last in which I requested him to set out year by year all the capital payments that have been made to the States since 1972. There is not time to go through all of these but I will just select the relevant years. I will commence with my own State of Tasmania. In 1975-76- the last year of the previous Government - the total capital payments to that State, including Loan Council borrowings, were $179m. In the 1979-80 Budget, up to which these figures go, that figure had declined to $ 149m in money terms. If one indexes forward for the cost of living and for inflation, in order to maintain the same level of expenditure for capital works in that State the amount this year should have been $260m, so that this year Tasmania is $1 10m worse off in the provision of capital funds for that State. Does that not include the parlous position in which Mr Lowe, the Treasurer of Tasmania, now finds himself? We have had some reports in the Press recently of the severity of the Budget which will be brought down in Tasmania shortly.

If we look at Queensland we find a similar story. In 1975-76 total capital payments to Queensland, by the Federal Government of that day, were $479m. In the last financial year it had declined to $420m. If we index the amount in 1 975-76 forward to present day values the figure should be $698m. In other words, this year Queensland will be down about $280m in payments from the Commonwealth which it otherwise should have received. I will briefly detail the figures. South Australia shows a decline from $374m in 1975-76 to $302m this financial year. Western Australia is down from $303m to a total of $254m. In 1975-76 New South Wales received just on $ 1,000m. This year its figures have declined to $850m. If we look at the position in Victoria we can understand the dilemma that Mr

Hamer is now in. In 1975-76 total capital payments to that State amounted to $780m while this year they have declined to $632m. I have not had time to index those figures forward but it is quite evident from the figures 1 read out in the case of the first two States that all the States are in exactly the same position.

I have taken the trouble to read these figures out because they show exactly what is happening in regard to education. This Government is determined to force the States to bear a greater share of the cost of building schools and running them and building universities and colleges of advanced education, and so on, quite apart from the cost of roads and hospitals and so on. The whole purpose of the exercise is to continue to squeeze all the State governments, irrespective of their politics - they are all being treated in exactly the same way; I must say that there is that much consistency about it - into a position where they now find themselves confronted with this dilemma: Do they go on increasing indirect taxes such as motor registration and so on or do they introduce a state income tax and take a second bite out of everybody’s pay packet? Whether Senator Carrick who is the architect of all this and who presumably will be responding on behalf of the Government accepts what I am saying is not important because what is important is the fact that every Premier of Australia accepts the basis of what I have just said. They all know that as a result of Fraser policies they are now facing the position of being forced into raising taxes in their State either by indirect methods or by a direct income tax.

I hope that all Australians listening to these comments realise that one of the most crucial issues on which they will make their decision when they vote on 18 October is whether they want to have to pay a second income tax, whether they want to have a second bite taken out of their pay packets. If the Fraser Government is reelected you can bet that before 1983 comes around every Australian taxpayer will be paying a second income tax. He will be paying his tax to this Government- a tax which has doubled in the last four years; that is an indication of how much better off he will be under the Fraser Government - and on top of that he will be paying a State income tax. That is the prospect before every Australian taxpayer.

There are many other issues, of course. I have raised these matters because they are directly related to the legislation we are dealing with now. I put it to the Government, as has been said here earlier this afternoon, that if that is the sort of program it wants the Australian people to decide upon in October, then let it be that way. But let the Government also rest assured that the Australian people are going to be wide awake by 18 October to the implications of these policies. On behalf of the Opposition, I move as an amendment with respect to the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Bill 1980:

At end of motion, add ‘, but the Senate is of the opinion that (a) an extra grant of $36m, in December 1979 prices, for capital funding for schools; and (b) an extra grant of $8.5m, in December 1 979 prices, for special programs, should be provided for the year 1 98 1 . ‘

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for National Development and Energy · LP

– in reply - The Senate is debating cognately two Bills, the State Grants (Schools Assistance) Bill 1980 and the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1 980. Each year, in response to guidelines from the Government, the Tertiary Education Commission and the Schools Commission report to the Government recommending the handling of the amounts of moneys to be spent. In this case, the two pieces of legislation implement the reports of those two bodies. Against that background, it is important to explain the purpose of the two Bills. One would have thought, listening to Senator Wriedt: ‘We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan’. On the contrary. If I could take the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill, whereas in the last year of the Whitlam Government education funding was cut and triennial funding for tertiary institutions set aside, and that ought to be kept in mind, this Government has restored triennial funding for the recurrent side of tertiary education and increased the amounts. If we are looking for comparative track records, we should remind ourselves that we are facing a comparison of a cut in spending on the one hand and a restoration on the other.

Equally, I have to say that, in regard to recurrent grants, triennial funding is the same in real terms this year, even though there is some stagnation in the general field of post-secondary education. Of course, there has been a huge building program in tertiary education. Now that there is a virtually static education population, except for technical education, significantly the building program is adequate to cope, and the same situation applies to equipment. I remind the Senate that from 1976 to 1981, in the capital and equipment area about $800m was allocated out of taxpayers’ money. I do not have to remind the people of Australia that technical education facilities have been expanded very largely by this Government, there has been a huge concentration on capital building for technical education, a wide range of programs have been implemented, and the Williams Committee of Inquiry into Education and Training was set up.

With reference to the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Bill 1980, I point out that basically the recurrent programs have been maintained at 1980 levels in real terms, and they include a number of interesting new things. One would have thought, listening to Senator Wriedt, that there had been cuts and declines. A significant new initiative is the Sim allocation for the integration of handicapped children into normal schooling. That, I hope, is regarded as a reform of great vision. The percentage link between the costs of maintaining students in government schools and independent schools has been continued. That is an extra $9. 6m a year. In our efforts to continue to help the most needy we have given extra assistance of the order of $6.6m for level 6 schools. Those additional funds amount to a little matter of$16.2m.

I want to put these matters in perspective because Senator Wriedt, knowing that an election is near, has made a series of statements. The fact is that in the last five years the Schools Commission, which is a completely objective body, has been able to report that, due to the funding available, government schools in Australia - both high schools and primary schools in every State - reached the Karmel and Schools Commission target not only on time but years ahead of time. We’ll all be rooned said Hanrahan’, but in fact the body set up to recommend the progress of schools throughout Australia set targets for both primary and high schools and said that desirably such targets ought to be reached in a certain time. In fact, the targets have been reached years ahead of time. That is not a bad story.

I do not want to ignore the rest of Senator Wriedt’s speech. He made the point that the States have been sapped by the Fraser Government; that their abilities have been destroyed; and that they will have to impose more taxes. The inference he wishes us to draw is that a Hayden Labor government would ensure the reverse. It is always good to remind the world that under the Whitlam Government every State government ran itself into a high deficit and had to increase its taxes in such a way that the Labor Premier of South Australia said in 1974 that he had been forced to run himself into unprecedented extra State taxation. He pleaded with the Federal Labor Government to give the States a fixed percentage of Federal revenue. He saw that as the only solution to the problem. The Labor Premier who has been idolised by the Labor Party said that the right thing would be to give the States a percentage share of income tax revenue. That is exactly what this Government has done. Now of course what is being said by inference is that a Federal Labor government would go back to uniform taxation, with all its horrors of high taxes and all its squeezes on the States.

Let us look at what has happened over the past four to five years. Under federalism basically every State in Australia has been able to balance its Budget or achieve a surplus and to cut taxes. We hear the cries: ‘We will all be ruined. Tax will go up in the States’. But the track record under the Liberal Government is that taxes have been cut. Under the Labor Government taxes were increased. That is the picture. Now of course motions are being proposed by Senator Wriedt, who is not particularly interested in the Senate any more; he is looking for other places but I predict that he will be unsuccessful. He proposes a couple of motions which he thinks are clever because they offer more money. When his leader in the other place, Mr Hayden, was giving his last Budget Speech as Treasurer he insisted that anyone advocating increases in government expenditure in times of high inflation was doing exactly the wrong thing.

Senator Wriedt:

– Now just calm down. Don’t get carried away.

Senator CARRICK:

– I can understand Senator Wriedt’s irritation. Mr Hayden said the right thing was not to increase expenditure but to reduce inflation; that the attack should be on inflation. Today Senator Wriedt has asked us to accept a couple of carrots which adds to the program that the Labor Party has announced so far, another $ 1 00m a year for education in the coming year. All told the promises amount to something like an extra $2,000m. Mr Hayden knew in 1975 that the road to tragedy, the road to roaring inflation, was to overspend. The Labor Government, the Whitlam Government, in the 1970s overspent. In fact, by increasing inflation, it got less from the money it spent than it would had it kept inflation down. It got less value for its money, more inflation, and more unemployment.

Amendments which suggest the illusion of more money at a time of inflation are amendments which are simply an attempted hoax upon the community. The community knows that under the Fraser Government schools have reached and surpassed their Karmel targets years ahead of time. It knows that this Government has restored the triennial tertiary recurrent funding. Knowing our record in education and comparing our record in fighting inflation with the record of the Labor Government, the community will reject the Labor

Party, as indeed it would reject the amendment. I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Question put.

That the words proposed to be added (Senator Wriedt’s amendment) be added.

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

AYES: 19

NOES: 28

Majority……. 9

AYES

NOES

Question so resolved in the negative. Original question resolved in the affirmative. Bill read a second time.

In Committee

The Bill.

Senator WRIEDT:
Leader of the Opposition · Tasmania

– I wish to take a couple of minutes to examine further the claim made by Senator Carrick in the course of his reply to the second reading debate. He said that the objectives of the Schools Commission, as set out by the Karmel Committee report, were achieved years in advance of what the Commission had aimed for, the implication being that the schools and the education system of this country had received such a wonderful deal under this Government. But no figures are ever quoted when these sorts of statements are made because the figures do not substantiate such a claim.

For the record I will read the actual figures on education expenditure over recent years. In the financial year 1972-73, the total Commonwealth outlay for education was $442m - that was under the last Budget of the McMahon Government; in 1973-74, the first Budget of the Labor Government, education expenditure was doubled to $860m; in 1974-75 it was increased to $ 1,534m; in 1975-76, the year in which Senator Carrick claimed in the course of his remarks that the Labor Government had reduced education funding, it was increased further to $ 1,846m. According to Senator Carrick an increase of $3 15m is a reduction. These are the liberties Senator Carrick takes. He is careless with the truth and he never reads figures from a document to substantiate the things that he says. He makes these throwaway remarks which are not truthful and which are deliberately misleading. In the course of his remarks not one figure was quoted. I am quoting from the Budget Papers, so no one can argue as to the correctness of what I am saying. That illustrates the point I am making, namely that once it can be illustrated that the things he said in the course of his remarks were demonstrably false the rest of his arguments can be shown to be equally false.

In the first year of the Fraser Government expenditure on education increased again to $2, 160m and in the second year to $2,37 lm. The significance of that is that ever since the commencement of the first Fraser Budget in 1 976-77 at no time was increased expenditure to go beyond the increase in the cost of living and the rate of inflation. In other words, the whole of the education system was held at the levels established by the Labor Government. It was because of the effort that the Labor Government put into education that the Karmel objectives were achieved years before their objective. Senator Carrick was the Minister for Education at the time and he knows that as well as I do. If it had not been for the efforts of the Labor Government to establish the Schools Commission and to put additional funding into education, education today would still be years behind achieving the objectives of the Karmel inquiry. I rise only to expose the manner in which Senator Carrick - as he has done for the last five years in this chamber- uses throw away remarks which I say are careless of the truth.

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for National Development and Energy · LP

– Apart from the fact that the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Wriedt, has been unparliamentary on several occasions in alleging that I am untruthful, that is a serious breach of the Standing Orders. Let me say that I have tabled–

Senator Wriedt:

– I said you were careless of the truth.

Senator CARRICK:

– The honourable senator said I was untruthful.

Senator Wriedt:

– If I said you were untruthful I withdraw it.

Senator CARRICK:

– I thank the honourable senator. Many times in the Senate I have incorporated in Hansard the calendar year figures of the Department of Education. They are not my figures. They are the calendar year figures which show that as a result of the last decision there was a cut in expenditure for that year. They are the figures of the department. They are not mine. The second point I wish to make is that I quoted from the Schools Commission’s report in relation to progress. It was not my statement. I reject entirely that anything I have said was untruthful. The statements that I have made are facts. In due course, on Monday, I will resurrect the table of the costs prepared by the Department of Education and I will have it incorporated in Hansard again. The Australian Labor Party can, if it so desires, attempt to analyse those costs, but they are facts.

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

– I think the Senate should be indebted to the Leader of the Opposition, Senator Wriedt, for once again quoting from the Budget Papers. He did not quote from a document which suits the remarks of the Minister for National Development and Energy, Senator Carrick, but from the Budget Papers. I have quoted this on many occasions. In the last Budget of the McMahon Government something like $460m was allocated for education. In the Hayden Budget, from which this Government has benefited- as Senator Wriedt pointed out- nearly $ 1,900m was allocated for education which was an increase of $ 1,500m. No matter what Senator Carrick says in this place and no matter what document he brings in, he cannot get away from the Budget figures because they are there for everybody to see. Under the Labor Government there was an increase of SI, 500m in the appropriation for education. No matter how Senator Carrick likes to manipulate the figures, what he would have to prove is that those Budget figures are incorrect. I think the Senate and the people listening to this debate are very much indebted to Senator Wriedt for laying to rest, once and for all and for the last time, the fact that Senator Carrick - as he sits on the Government side of the chamber - does mislead the Senate in the way that he carelessly throws figures around.

I wish to refer to a matter raised by Senator Carrick when he spoke to the States Grants (Schools Assistance) Bill 1980 and the States Grants (Tertiary Education Assistance) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1980. He accused the Dunstan Labor Government of increasing State taxes because of the Federal Labor Government’s policies. Senator Carrick said nothing about the increases imposed on the residents of South Australia by the Tonkin Liberal Government because of his Government’s policies. He conveniently forgets that in recent times electricity charges in South Australia have risen by 12 per cent. Water rates have gone up by an enormous amount. Bus fares have increased. This is a burden which is borne by the people of South Australia - which is now under the jurisdiction of Mr Tonkin - as a result of the policies of the Fraser Government. It is said on many occasions that the only thing that has not risen in South Australia since Tonkin became the Premier in September of last year is the ring on a whisky glass. Everything else has gone up, but not the ring on a whisky glass.

Senator Douglas McClelland:
NEW SOUTH WALES · ALP

– What about the unemployment figures?

Senator McLAREN:

– If we look at the unemployment figures - I will be citing them later today or on Monday if we do not get to them today - South Australia now has the highest level of unemployment of any State in Australia. I will leave that matter until we get to the proper time at which they can be referred to. It is of no use Senator Carrick handling figures carelessly as he always does. He handles a lot of other things carelessly. The figures he is handling carelessly today are the Budget figures for education as cited by Senator Wriedt. As I said earlier, I think we are indebted to Senator Wriedt for citing them. There is no way that Senator Carrick - no matter what screed or report he brings into this place, whether it be the Schools Commission report or any other commission report- can disprove the figures which Senator Wriedt cited and which are in black and white in the Budget Papers presented in this Parliament every year.

Senator GIETZELT:
New South Wales

– I listened to the reply of the Minister for National Development and Energy, Senator Carrick, to the second reading debate in which he indicated to the Senate that such substantial progress has been made in education in Australia that we have largely reached a satisfactory level in respect of all schools, whether they be in the private or the public sector. That seemed to me to be complacency on the part of Senator Carrick. He indicated the impetus that was given in the

Whitlam period when, as Senator Wriedt and Senator McLaren have indicated, something in excess of 400 per cent more funds were made available to the whole education area. Senator Carrick ‘s contribution to the debate indicated that continual progress had been made in the five years of the Fraser Government and, particularly, in the period in which he was the Minister for Education. That struck a thought in my mind. I remembered reading just a few days ago a pamphlet which had been handed out in the Parliament by the private sector school system, the Catholic Education Commission. In that pamphlet percentages were mentioned which seemed to vary from the very favourable estimate and projections that Senator Carrick referred to in his reply to the second reading debate. The Commonwealth Government has been taken to task by the Catholic Education Commission. That was why I wished to speak in the debate. It seems to me that what is being said by that organisation is quite contrary to what Senator Carrick has said many times in the Senate and, in fact, is contrary to what he said in reply to the debate today. For example, the honourable senator said that a satisfactory position had been reached in respect of all schools. Yet the pamphlet put out by the Catholic Education Commission stated:

Government funds for non-government school building projects have been cut by some 33 per cent over the past five years, despite increased enrolments.

A crisis situation now exists. New schools and additional classrooms in existing schools are urgently needed in developing areas. Without these many parents will be deprived of their choice in education. We ask–

That is, the Catholic Education Commission- that the allocation of capital funds to non-government schools be increased by at least 10 per cent per year until nongovernment school capital facilities are comparable to those in government schools.

It seems to me that that statement flies directly in the face of the statements made by Senator Carrick in answers to questions and debates in this place and, particularly, in the debate today which would indicate that we have reached a point of some comparable state in the whole school education system and that, in fact, we are in a pretty satisfactory state. I do not think I would be gilding the lily if I were to say that he indicated a degree of satisfaction and complacency which is certainly not borne out by the statement made by that organisation. I would like to hear Senator Carrick’s comments on it.

Senator WALSH:
Western Australia

– When I came into the Senate chamber about 10 minutes ago I thought I heard Senator Carrick say to Senator Wriedt that a Federal Labor Government would go back to uniform taxation, with all its horrors. I know that we hear some wild statements from Senator Carrick from time to time, but I thought 1 must have misheard him, so I immediately went to Senator Wriedt and he said that that was what Senator Carrick said.

Senator Carrick:

– I said that. Will you not do that?

Senator WALSH:

– That is what Senator Carrick said. He is standing by that statement now. Senator Carrick’s health has been a matter of concern to me for some time, but from that statement it is clear that he is hallucinating and that he thinks his federalism policy, which he managed to squeeze through the then Opposition Executive by one vote in 1975, is actually being adopted. He does not realise that it has now been decently buried by the Government. Uniform taxation was introduced in 1942 and we have had it ever since. Notwithstanding the Fraser Government’s avowed policy of abandoning uniform taxation and restoring the former dual State and Federal double income tax system, that just has not happened.

I am really quite concerned about this, and so should the Prime Minister (Mr Malcolm Fraser) be concerned, because Senator Carrick is obviously losing his tenuous group on reality. He comes into the Senate and tells us that a resource tax will increase the price of Australian crude oil, when anyone who knows anything about it knows that the price of crude oil is set by arbitrary decree of the Australian Government. The issue of taxation is a completely separate issue. Day after day he boasts that the Government is having great success in fighting inflation when anyone who cares to look at the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures can see that inflation for the year just ended is 40 per cent higher than it was two years ago and is still rising. The Budget papers predict that it will rise again in this financial year. Senator Carrick tells us that the Fraser Government is pursuing a policy of small government and low taxation when the interdepartmental committee report which was leaked three weeks ago - the Pentagon papers of the Australian economy - shows what the Government actually believes about its record, as distinct from what it says in public; that is, that income taxes as a proportion of the gross domestic product are higher than they ever have been before. We even had the Treasurer (Mr Howard) publicly admitting that fact in Sydney a couple of weeks ago.

Through all this, we have Senator Carrick giving tongue in the Senate to hallucination after hallucination. His health certainly has been a matter of concern to us for some considerable time, especially since that Four Corners program in June, and I believe that the Prime Minister ought to relieve him of his position for his own good.

Senator RAE:
Tasmania

– I believe that we are all used to Senator Walsh and the way he carries on. No reference, therefore, is necessary to the speech that has just been made which, as has become increasingly common, bore more relationship to some sort of personal vendetta he seems to be trying to run rather than to the facts or to the interests of this nation. Let me refer back to some of the remarks made by Senator Wriedt in relation to education expenditure. 1 remind honourable senators that the development of education, from a Commonwealth participation point of view, started in the 1960s. For any member of the Opposition to claim that it was solely the result of the activities of the Labor Government from 1972 to 1975–

Senator Wriedt:

– No one claimed that. You have not been listening to the debate. You are on the wrong track.

Senator RAE:

– I accept what Senator Wriedt says, that he was not claiming that. In the light of that, I will very briefly indicate that in the years between 1969-1972 particularly the increases in relation to education expenditure and Commonwealth involvement in education became very marked indeed, with increases varying between, if my memory serves me correctly, 19 per cent and 40 per cent in a period of almost nil inflation.

Senator Mulvihill:

– Did you accept the concept?

Senator RAE:

– Let us not go into the full details, but rather let us acknowledge that it has been a Commonwealth involvement and development over a period of some 1 0 or 11 years, to the credit of both sides of this chamber and not to be claimed as the sole effort–

Senator Gietzelt:

– That is a useful contribution because Senator Carrick has never given the Labor Government any credit at all.

Senator RAE:

– I do not think that is really true. To put it in perspective, I believe that both sides have in their ways contributed to making a major development in the Commonwealth contribution to education in this country. Both sides can claim considerable credit, both before and after the period of the Whitlam Government. It rather concerns me to hear suggestions that nothing happened before 1 972 or that it all stopped at the end of 1975.

Senator WRIEDT:
Tasmania

– I would not have risen again except for the remarks of Senator Rae. I wish to make it clear that in the course of the remarks by speakers on the Opposition side in the earlier debate we were not claiming at any stage that the Labor Government commenced the Commonwealth’s involvement in education. We were concerned about the claim by Senator Carrick in respect only of the Karmel inquiry and the objectives set by the Schools Commission. The Schools Commission was not formed until 1973, when the Labor Government was in office. Just as a matter of interest, it was formed in spite of the opposition of the Liberal Party. It was only because the National Country Party supported the Labor Party at the time that the Schools Commission was formed at all. But forgetting all that, I wish to make it clear - apparently it escaped the honourable senator’s attention - that the purpose of the debate earlier this afternoon, was to discuss the Karmel objectives. It had nothing to do with the totality of Federal involvement in education from whenever it started.

Senator RAE:
Tasmania

– I rise just to correct one point. The Opposition of the day - the present Government - supported the creation of the Schools Commission. Amendments were moved to the legislation, but the major involve- ment in the creation of the Schools Commission was supported. There were differences of view about how it should be created, about whether there should be representative members or members selected at large, and about the total number of staff. A number of other aspects of the Commission were also the subject of amendments which were moved. However the basic concept of the Commission and the work which it subsequently did were supported at all times by both parties within the Opposition of the day. I believe that the record ought to be corrected and not left as Senator Wriedt stated it.

Bill agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.

Third Reading

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

page 935

STATES GRANTS (TERTIARY EDUCATION ASSISTANCE) AMENDMENT BILL (No. 2) 1980

Second Reading

Consideration resumed from 1 1 September, on motion by Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Amendment (by Senator Wriedt) negatived:

At end of motion add ‘, but the Senate is of the opinion that (a) an extra grant of $2m, in December 1979 prices, for equipment in universities and colleges; and (b) an extra grant of SI 6m, in December 1979 prices, for recurrent funding of technical and further education colleges, should be provided for the year 1981’.

Original question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 936

HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA (CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISIONS) BILL 1980

Second Reading

Debate resumed from 1 1 September, on motion by Senator Durack:

That the Bill be now read a second time.

Senator EVANS:
Victoria

– The purpose of this Bill is to amend various Acts consequent upon the passage of the High Court of Australia Act 1979, which the Opposition did not oppose. We do not oppose the provisions of this consequential piece of legislation. The original Bill accomplished, among other things, the shifting of the administration of the High Court of Australia to Canberra. The Bill now before us amends a number of other Acts to reflect this new administrative and geographical reality. The Acts being amended by this Bill deal essentially with electoral matters. The provisions which are being amended by this Bill are essentially administrative ones concerning the role of the High Court as a court of disputed returns.

I am tempted to take the opportunity presented by this legislation to wax indignant once again on a number of matters related to the capacity, performance, administration, organisation and accommodation of the High Court but, bearing in mind the circumstances of our meeting this afternoon and the time constraints, I take the opportunity to mention only two matters very briefly, both of which are closely connected with the immediate subject matter of the Bill now before us. One of those matters refers to the High Court as a court of disputed returns. The last time this jurisdiction was conspicuously exercised by the High Court was in 1 975 in the notorious case of Senator Webster, when it will be recalled that the Chief Justice, Sir Garfield Barwick, took advantage of his powers under section 184 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act to exercise that jurisdiction as a single judge.

Senator Walsh:

– The Webster case?

Senator EVANS:

– I am talking about the Webster case, which was the last time the High Court exercised its role as a court of disputed returns.

Senator Walsh:

– Shonky!

Senator EVANS:

– I do not wish to traverse in any detail the circumstances of that notorious case, except to say that the circumstances were so controversial, the subject matter was so important - concerning, as it did, the proper application of sections of the Constitution concerned with the qualification of members - and the decision in that case has subsequently been regarded, unhappily, as so legally suspect, whatever its moral attractions might be thought to have been, that in all the circumstances it was wrong and it remains wrong for that jurisdiction, as a court of disputed returns, to have been exercised by a single judge and not by the Full Court. One of the unhappy features of the Webster case was that the Chief Justice, Sir Garfield Barwick, although asked to refer the matter to a full bench, in fact refused to do so on the stated ground that the matters involved were not of such importance as to justify or require such a step being taken. I simply make the point that in matters of this kind when the Court’s jurisdiction of any kind is concerned but, more particularly, when matters as important as its role as a court of disputed returns are concerned, it is crucial that justice not only be done but also be seen to be done.

The passage of time since the Webster case, in the minds of the legal profession or of anyone else aware of the circumstances of that case, has not made any less attractive the circumstances of the exercise of jurisdiction in that case. I would have hoped that the opportunity presented by this Bill to amend some aspects of the jurisdiction of the Court as a court of disputed returns - that is, to amend some provisions of the Commonwealth Electoral Act in this respect - would be taken to correct what was shown to be a most unhappy aspect of the procedural legislation in the Webster case. I would have hoped that the Commonwealth Electoral Act would be amended accordingly to require that, in circumstances of the kind that were in issue in the Webster case, the jurisdiction of the court not be able to be exercised by a single judge but rather by the Full Court.

The other matter to which I want to refer briefly concerns again the geographical shift of the High Court to Canberra, some of the consequences of which shift are, of course, the immediate subject matter of this Bill before us, dealing, as it does, with registrars and registers of the High Court. The High Court has announced that it will no longer sit at all in Sydney and Melbourne. Indeed, it has not sat in Sydney or Melbourne since the High Court building opened here in May this year. The Court has announced that it will nonetheless continue to make regular visits to the outlying provinces to dispense justice to the lesser breeds outside the immediate law, perhaps at oneyearly intervals. But it will not sit in the future in Sydney or Melbourne.

This fact is of some continuing concern to the legal profession, to litigants who are caught up in High Court cases from time to time, and indeed, to the Opposition. It is of some concern that the High Court may lose one of the very few, may I say, attractive characteristics that it has hitherto had as a national institution, as a supreme appellate court and as a national constitutional court; namely, the characteristic of at least physically, whatever might be the case intellectually, keeping in touch with the rest of the community. It is important that the Court over the years has played this role of being seen to be in close physical contact with the communities over whom it dispenses ultimate justice. It has been important in the development of the Bars in the respective jurisdictions that the High Court be from time to time physically close to the profession and not remote and isolated.

I have no doubt at all that it is appropriate for major constitutional litigation and indeed for other full scale hearings involving issues of major importance to be heard at the Court’s new national home in Canberra. But there are a large number of other kinds of proceedings in which the Court is involved quite regularly and which involve a relatively quick turnover of cases and a large number of individual litigants. I refer in particular to that aspect of the Court’s jurisdiction which relates to applications for leave or for special leave to appeal to the High Court against decisions of inferior courts. It is sometimes the case - indeed, it has often been the case - that the High Court in dealing with applications for leave to appeal has chosen to treat the argument on the application as being, in effect, the argument on the appeal itself and to merge what might notionally be thought of as two distinct stages. But there is no necessity for this.

I believe, and there are many in the legal profession who believe, that it would far better suit the convenience, not to mention the pockets, of both litigants and the legal profession were the Court to continue to sit regularly in Sydney and Melbourne, at least for the purpose of hearing those applications for leave to appeal. Often one has a situation in which, when applications for leave are scheduled, a whole courtroom can be full of counsel and litigants having matters turned over at a relatively quick rate. It seems to me to be quite uneconomical for these kinds of proceedings now to be conducted wholly in Canberra and it is quite inappropriate in many ways that litigants should be denied, for reasons of cost, the opportunity to be physically present when matters of this kind, including criminal appeal applications, are heard.

I simply express the hope that, as the administration and organisation of the High Court is subject to continuing scrutiny and review in its new home, further consideration will be given to this question of the role of the High Court when it is travelling around the country. In particular some consideration should be given to the suggestion I have offered that at least one type of proceeding with which the High Court has to deal regularly, namely, the hearing and determination of applications for leave to appeal, continues in the future to be the subject of hearings in Sydney and Melbourne.

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for National Development and Energy · LP

– I commend the Bill to the Senate.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time, and passed through its remaining stages without amendment or debate.

page 937

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 2) 1980-81

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 National Development and Energy · LP

– I move:

I seek leave to incorporate the second reading speech in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows -

This Bill seeks appropriations of the Consolidated Revenue Fund in 1980-81 totalling $1,756,732,000.

The Bill provides for proposed expenditure on the construction of public works and buildings, the acquisition of sites and buildings, advances and loans, items of plant and equipment which are clearly definable as capital expenditure, grants to the States under section 96 of the Constitution and new policy initiatives not previously authorised by special legislation.

Details of these proposed expenditures totalling $1,656,732,000 are set out in schedule 2 to the Bill. An amount of $1 00,000,000 is also included for the advance to the Minister for Finance. Of the total provision of $1,756,732,000, an amount of $771,555,000 was authorised by Supply Act (No. 2) 1980-81, the balance of $985, 1 77,000 being authorised by this Bill.

The main features of the proposed expenditure for 1980-81, of which this Bill will authorise part, were outlined in the Treasurer’s budget speech.

I commend the Bill to honourable senators.

Debate (on motion by Senator Georges) adjourned.

page 938

APPROPRIATION BILL (No. 1) 1980-81

Bill received from the House of Representatives.

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

First Reading

Motion (by Senator Carrick) proposed: That the Bill be now read a first time.

Senator WALSH:
Western Australia

– I am gravely concerned about the condition of the Liberal Party’s Western Australian branch and, in particular, about the moral calibre of two of its candidates for the coming Federal election. One of these candidates is said to owe his extraordinary preselection success to the patronage of Mr Noel Crichton-Browne, the No. 3 candidate on the Liberal Party Senate ticket and former President of the Western Australian branch of the Liberal Party. Mr CrichtonBrowne, according to Mr Bill Wreford, a Liberal Party State councillor and a former president of the Tangney Division, is the best branch stacker in the whole of the Liberal Party. Mr CrichtonBrowne has, on several occasions, both inside and outside this Parliament, been described as a crook. I described him as a crook on 19 November last year.

Senator Carrick:

– But not outside, not on the steps. Coward’s castle.

Senator WALSH:

– Truth, as Senator Carrick very well knows, is not necessarily a defence against defamation. That incident had an unexpected and probably more significant sequel. In my office on the morning of 28 November 1 979 I received a telephone call from Mr Bill Wreford, who told me that he was a member of the Liberal Party’s State Council and a former president of its Tangney Division. He had almost won North Province for the Liberal Party in 1971, but he did not say so at the time. He referred to my comments about Mr Crichton-Browne and then disclosed the reason for his call. ‘CrichtonBrowne is a crook and it is disgraceful that he is on the Liberal Party Senate ticket’, said Bill Wreford, member of the Liberal Party State Council and former president of its Tangney Division. Naturally I agreed. He then asked whether he could call on me. I suggested that he call that afternoon and he agreed, He arrived on time and gave me some information about Mr Crichton-Browne of which I was not previously aware and detailed some events surrounding Mr Crichton-Browne’s endorsement by the Liberal Party for the Senate team, Mr Wreford stated that the Liberal Party’s preselection council had met on Saturday, 29 September, and that Mr Crichton-Browne had gone within one vote of knocking the AttorneyGeneral of the Commonwealth (Senator Durack) out of second position on the ticket.

Senator Mulvihill:

– Would you mind repeating that, senator?

Senator WALSH:

– The crook went within one vote of knocking the Attorney-General of the Commonwealth out of second position on the Liberal Party Senate ticket.

Senator Mulvihill:

– It is incredible.

Senator WALSH:

– Yes, is it not extraordinary? Does it not say something about the esteem in which the Attorney-General must be held by his own branch of the Party? Mr CrichtonBrowne then won third position on the ticket. The reason for that remarkable success, Mr Wreford informed me, was that Mr Crichton-Browne was the best branch stacker in the Liberal Party, although whether he meant in his own Western Australian division or in the whole Liberal Party was not entirely clear. At the Liberal Party’s State Council meeting the next day, that is, 30 September, Mr Wreford gave the assembled delegates his own fairly comprehensive assessment of Mr Crichton-Browne’s business ethics and other matters such as morality and his fitness to be a Liberal Party candidate. Mr Wreford, to use the colloquial, gave Crichton-Browne both barrels. Evidently Mr Crichton-Browne was not present, but some friend or agent of his was because Mr Wreford subsequently received a letter from a solicitor representing Mr Crichton-Browne. Mr Wreford showed me that letter. The letter told him that Mr Crichton-Browne had received a comprehensive, if not exhaustive, record of Mr Wreford’s comments to the State Council of the Liberal Party and that Mr Wreford’s charges against Mr Crichton-Browne constituted civil and/or criminal defamation.

The letter listed six specific matters alleged to have been raised by Mr Wreford at the State

Council meeting. Mr Wreford told me that in fact he had said a few other things that were not mentioned in the solicitor’s letter and speculated as to why they had been omitted. In short, the letter demanded, a grovelling apology from Mr Wreford and threatened legal action if it was not forthcoming. Mr Wreford asked me what I thought he should do. While disclaiming any technical knowledge of the laws of libel, I offered the political opinion that it was a hollow threat because Mr Crichton-Browne would not proceed with a libel action in the run-up to a Federal election in which he was a candidate. He told me that Senator Withers held a similar view. Mr Wreford appeared to agree, and since no writ has been issued it appears that our judgment was correct. The main charges against Mr CrichtonBrowneapart from those of a more personal nature to which the solicitor’s letter did not referconcerned his sleazy business practices and, in particular, his record as an inside trader during the Poseidon share boom and through the notorious Burrill Investments Pty Ltd.

There are more than 20 pages in the 1974 report of the Senate Select Committee on Securities and Exchange about that company’s trade in Poseidon shares, for those who want to look at it more fully. Basically, the report shows that Burrill Investments was a company established by Messrs Burrill and Jones for trading in mining shares by themselves and, as they put it to the Senate Committee, their friends. Evidently, one of those friends was Mr Crichton-Browne. The company’s most profitable share trading appears to have been in Poseidon, the company to which Burrill and Jones were consulting geologists. The Senate report summed up the matter in the following words:

During the period leading up to the announcement of the discovery of nickel and copper sulphides, the consulting geologists and one of the directors misused their official fiduciary positions to buy Poseidon shares for private profit.

The Senate report assessed the private profit accruing to Burrill Investments from this insider trading and market manipulation by the dissemination of false information at something more than $1 .3m. What the Senate report did not reveal was that Burrill Investments was incorporated on 22 May 1969, with a nominal capital of $100,000 and an issued capital of 20,252 one dollar shares. Of those shares, Messrs Burrill and Jones each held one; Noel Crichton-Browne had 5,000; his brother had 3,250; Esther Grace Stevens- then his fiancee, later his wife - had 2,000; and her mother, Norma Stevens, also had 2,000. Thus, of the 20,252 issued shares, Noel Crichton-Browne and his relatives had 12,250- well over half. At that time Esther Stevens worked as a secretary in the office of the Burrill Jones geological consultancy business. According to Mr Wreford, in that position she provided an information pipeline for Crichton-Browne’s other insider trading activities.

Other people in the north have confirmed that Mr Crichton-Browne’s insider trading activities were not restricted to Burrill Investments. Throughout this sleazy activity he was a mining registrar at Marble Bar. Section 8 of the Western Australian Mining Act prohibits a warden or a registrar holding, directly or indirectly, shares in a company associated with mining. If such an offence is proved it is punishable by imprisonment for up to two years. I place on record an additional piece of information concerning Burrill Investments, the relevance of which I have not been able to determine. On 27 September 1970 Burrill Investments set up a Norfolk Island trust called Stonehenge, care of Uri Lynam and Co., Norfolk Island.

Mr Crichton-Browne’s name has also been associated with the Christo Moll tax swindles. The story which was originally written for the West Australian named him as an associate, but on legal advice his name was deleted and replaced by a reference to a former high official of a Western Australian political party. I raised this matter in the form of a question in the Senate on 26 September last year, before the Liberal Party’s selection of Mr Crichton-Browne. Presumably as a delayed response to that, on 24 April 1 980 I receive a letter in my office in Fremantle, a photocopy of which I have here. The letter states:

The Prime Minister should be presented with the following questions relating to the esteemed Noel Crichton-Browne.

Is the Prime Minister aware that the former State President of the Liberal Party in WA and an endorsed candidate for the Liberal Senate team, Mr Noel Crichton Browne, recently visited Europe?

Does the PM realise Mr Crichton Browne was accompanied by a former employee of a MOLL company? (Miss Penny Holmes, ex Quartermanes

Did Mr NCB have discussions with the Federal Director of the Liberal Party, Mr Tony Eggleton, in Paris?

Can the PM advise the Parliament of the subject of the discussions between NCB and Mr Eggleton and or the former employees of the Moll corporation company?

Whatever the full story of his association with the Moll company might be, the public record establishes quite decisively that Crichton-Browne is a sleazy operator. He acquired wealth by defrauding credulous small investors. He is a crook who, but for the selective application of the law of Western Australia, would, have been through Fremantle gaol and disqualified for life from sitting in this Parliament.

The Prime Minister has already restored to ministerial rank a man against whom a prima facie case of electoral bribery was established in court, an self-admitted insider land trader and tax evader, and the custodian and beneficiary of 300,000 stolen dollars. Does he also welcome the attempt to enter this Parliament as a Liberal member a person who is described by a Liberal Party councillor in his own State as a crook who is a disgrace to the Liberal Party? I eagerly await the Prime Minister’s response.

As for the Western Australian Liberal Party, if it endorses candidates of the calibre of Noel Crichton-Browne and Wilson Tuckey the conclusion that crooks control the majority of its preselection council members is inescapable. I know that many members of the Western Australian Liberal Party, including several members of this Parliament, are as disturbed as I am by this takeover of the Western Australian Liberal Party by crooks.

Debate (on motion by Senator Peter Baume) adjourned.

page 940

ADJOURNMENT

Senate Estimates Committees: Answers to Questions - Export of Koalas

Motion (by Senator Carrick) proposed:

That the Senate do now adjourn.

Senator McLAREN:
South Australia

– I wanted to speak in the first reading debate just adjourned. I will now have to confine my remarks to the adjournment because of Senator Baume’s actions. I want to ask the Leader of the Government in the Senate (Senator Carrick) some questions arising out of the hearings of Estimates Committee D. We have just taken the adjournment on the Appropriation Bills.

Senator Carrick:

– I take a point of order. Appropriation Bills (Nos 1 and 2) are before us. They are an order of the day for the next day of sitting. Questions on the Estimates should be directed during the debate on those Bills and not during the adjournment debate.

The PRESIDENT:

- Senator McLaren, you must not in any way anticipate debate. You know that.

Senator McLAREN:

– I am well aware of that. It shows how touchy Senator Carrick is. The question I want to ask him is this: These Bills are now before the Parliament. Many questions were asked during the Estimates Committee hearings for which Senator Carrick undertook to get answers more than 10 days ago for some of them, but as a member of that Committee I have not been provided with those answers. How does the Minister expect us to debate the Bills?

Senator Young:

- Senator–

Senator McLAREN:

– I am talking to the butcher, not the block. When will we be provided with the answers that we are seeking? Will we have them in our hands by Monday of next week when these Bills come on for debate? We will be at a distinct disadvantage if the members of the Committee in particular have not been provided with the answers promised by Senator Carrick. He said he would get answers from the various departments when neither he nor the departmental officers could provide the answers that we wanted. That is my grave concern. I could go on and talk about other things–

Senator Young:

– Will you let me speak?

Senator McLAREN:

– You will get your chance.

Senator Young:

– The Secretary has some correspondence now. Don’t be impatient.

Senator McLAREN:

Senator Young, the Chairman of the Committee, says that the Committee has some correspondence. The Committee may have it but I do not have it. I am a member of the Committee and I want to have a look at those answers over the weekend.

Senator Lewis:

– Why don’t you attack the Committee Secretary?

Senator McLAREN:

– I have just checked my box and there is nothing in it. I am not blaming the Committee Secretary. I am blaming the Minister. He said he would get the answers, and more than 1 0 days have elapsed and we have not got them.

Senator Peter Baume:

– He gives them to the Committee, not to you.

Senator McLAREN:

– Perhaps he does. But we come back to the question of the onerous load of work on committee staff, a matter which we have already debated here. The staff members have other jobs to do. Extra work is loaded upon them. Now we hear Senator Baume interjecting and saying that the Minister gives the answers to the Committee. As a member of that Committee, I am expressing concern that I have not yet received the answers. I am not concerned about what Senator Baume says will happen or what Senator Young says. I want the answers to the questions I asked. I want to do some research on those answers tomorrow and on Sunday, so that I will be fully informed when this legislation comes on for debate in this chamber on Monday. That is all I am saying.

Senator Colston:

– They are not interested in democracy.

Senator McLAREN:

– As Senator Colston says, the people who sit opposite are not one bit interested in democracy. If the Chairman of the Committee has the answers, he would have expedited their delivery to members of the Committee. Senator Colston and I attended the meetings of the Committee for three days. We have not yet received written answers to any questions we asked. The same thing happens in respect of many questions that Opposition senators put on notice. They have to wait months and months before they get answers to them.

Senator Young:

– I rise to order. I ask you, Mr President, to rule that Senator McLaren is overstretching the mark. He is implying that I have been holding back correspondence. I assure the Senate that all correspondence received by me, as Chairman, has been passed on to the Secretary of the Committee.

Senator Lewis:

– I wish to speak to the point of order. Is it not a fact that this debate should take place before the Estimates committee concerned and not in this chamber? Surely this is a matter between Senator McLaren and members of his committee, not the other members of the Senate.

The PRESIDENT:

– There shall be no debate at this stage in respect of matters which will be before the Senate next week.

Senator Carrick:

– If I may speak to the point of order, the fact is that Senator McLaren has revealed quite clearly that he, as a member of an Estimates committee, has not done what it was his responsibility to do before he came before the Senate, that is, find out from the Secretary of his Committee what is the state of the flow of replies. That is a simple matter. Having done that, the correct procedure would be for him to raise this matter on Monday when the Appropriation Bills, which have been listed as an item of business, are before us. I put it to you, Mr President, that Senator McLaren is entirely out of order, both in respect of his own lack of procedure and the fact that we have Bills before us.

Senator McLAREN:

– I would like to speak to the point of order. All I am doing is asking for the answers to certain questions. It is not my responsibility as a senator to go chasing round to the Secretary of the Committee, who, as I have already pointed out to the Senate, has had an onerous task placed upon him. All I did was rise in my place and ask the Minister who appeared before that Committee to expedite the answers. I have no authority at all as a member of parliament to go to a public servant and ask that public servant to provide me with answers. It is the duty of the Minister to see that I get them as a member of parliament. Are we running a kindergarten here? Senator Young said that I implied that he had withheld information. I never uttered those words. I spoke in the vein I did because of the interjections across the chamber first between Senator Baume and Senator Young and then by the parrot who sits opposite, the expatriate from Warrnambool.

The PRESIDENT:

– Order? That is unparliamentary language.

Senator McLAREN:

– What is unparliamentary, Mr President?

The PRESIDENT:

– The reference to Senator Lewis.

Senator McLAREN:

– If that is unparliamentary, I say to you that when people on the other side of the chamber refer to me as ‘Feathers’ you ought to call them to order. Although this remark is made repeatedly in this chamber, I take no objection to it.

The PRESIDENT:

– One might be a term of endearment; the other was a matter of derogation.

Senator McLAREN:

Mr President, in future when honourable senators opposite, particularly the bloke I referred to as a parrot, refer to me as Feathers’, I expect you to call them to order. I withdraw that remark. The whole trouble arose when Senator Baume interjected, which he is quick to do. I am not offended one bit by what he does when I am speaking. So long as I am here I will exercise my rights. The fact is that the whole altercation took place because of the disunity–

The PRESIDENT:

– Order! The Chair has before it a point of order. At this point, I can see no way in which I can sustain the point of order. Questions have been asked in respect of certain matters. The content of the answers to questions is not to be discussed here. That will be the subject of debate next week.

Senator McLAREN:

- Mr President, I am pleased you have ruled in that way on the point of order. I did not think I was transgressing the Standing Orders. You have proven that Senator Carrick is quite wrong in taking a point of order.

The PRESIDENT:

– Do not canvass my ruling.

Senator McLAREN:

– I am agreeing with your ruling. You said that there is no point of order.

The PRESIDENT:

– I have ruled on this matter.

Senator McLAREN:

– I am agreeing with your ruling. You said there was no point of order. I have not yet mentioned any contents of the Bills before us. All I am asking the Minister to do is to ensure that all the information asked for is provided to the members of the Committee - and other committees too now that we have got this far - so that we can do our research tomorrow and on Sunday. The members of all of those committees then can come back to the Senate fully equipped rather than having to pursue the matters again when we consider the Estimates Committee’s reports. That is what I am trying to avoid. Yet we find we are being frustrated by the people opposite. I hope the information sought is in my office by the time I leave Parliament House tonight at about 7 o’clock.

Senator MULVIHILL:
New South Wales

– I always follow the Mulvihill law that if I do not get to ask a question at a given time - I am not going to grapple with Senator Carrick about the whys and wherefores - I use the other forms of this chamber to seek the information I require. Senator Baume in particular knows that we will have a busy Week next week. Very simply, the question which would have been directed at Senator Chaney refers to a topic espoused by Senator Bonner. I refer to the Government’s decision to change the rules in relation to the export of koalas. I raise this matter because the Minister’s response to Senator Bonner was to the effect that his advisers told him that there are such ample numbers of the various species of koalas there is no fear that those numbers will be diminished because of the removal of export bans.

The Sub-committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment, comprising the chairman, Senator Jessop, Senator Melzer, my illustrious Victorian colleague, and I, examined exhaustively the subject of wildlife conservation. Dr Frith, the Director of Wildlife Research in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, told us that it was futile to compare the robustness of kangaroos with that of koalas. A fair number of diseases affect the koala, so they are much more fragile than the various species of kangaroo.

This brings me to the thrust of the response that Senator Chaney gave Senator Bonner. He implied that because we have ample stocks of koalas there is no need to fear. The point I make is that Dr Frith’s evidence, which is contained in the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Science and the Environment on the woodchip industry, was to the effect that koalas are subject to extreme numbers of respiratory and eye diseases. What is much more important is that if a government were prepared to spend about $100,000 a year on special research all those diseases could be eradicated and we possibly would have an abundance of koalas. When we were drafting the Committee’s report there was a united front comprising Senator Jessop and socialist senators such as Senator Melzer and me. I think Senator Townley went along with it, and I am not sure whether Senator MacGibbon was a member of the Committee at the time. We recommended the imposition of a levy on woodchip exports for the purpose of raising that $100,000. This Government in its wisdom has not implemented that recommendation.

If the Government feels it is not prepared to spend that money on research into diseases of the koala, it is jeopardising the koala’s existence by relinquishing the export ban that applied. I do not say that lightly. It is obvious that the mortality rate will be high even at the most well kept zoos in the northern hemisphere. I am quite prepared to pay a tribute to the then Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, the Honourable Wal Fife. Most of our wildlife would find the going pretty hard in the quarters provided in some of the zoos we saw in Canada, Hong Kong and Europe.

I hope that as a result of these remarks appearing in the Senate Hansard Senator Chaney will explain to the Senate not later than next Tuesday how his advisers who convinced the Government to lift the export ban on koalas equate the grounds on which that decision was taken with the strong evidence which was completely to the contrary given by Dr Harry Frith before the highly regarded Standing Committee on Science and the Environment. I put the argument very forcibly because I know what the public’s reaction has been. There may be some argument in relation to kangaroos which are certainly a more robust animal than koalas. I put it to Senator Carrick - I can see him nodding his head - that 48 hours from Sunday night I should have a clear cut response. I do not think there is a senator here who would deny the standard and knowledge of Dr Harry Frith who is one of our foremost wildlife conservationists. I will leave the matter in the lap of Senator Carrick.

Senator CARRICK:
New South WalesMinister for National Development and Energy · LP

– in reply - I, in common with many honourable senators, share Senator Mulvihills concern for the preservation of Australian flora and fauna. I will ask the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Senator Chaney, to take note of the remarks Senator Mulvihill has made, and see whether we can get a response.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

page 943

PAPERS

The following papers were presented, pursuant to statute:

States Grants (Petroleum Products) Act - Amendment to the Schedules of the subsidy scheme in relation to the State of New South Wales, dated 5 September 1980.

Telecommunications Act - By-laws -

Telecommunications (Charging Zones and Charging Districts) Amendment No. 3.

Telecommunications (Community Calls) Amendment No. 2.

Senate adjourned at 4.31 p.m.

page 944

ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

The following answers to questions were circulated:

Effects of Agent Orange (Question No. 2774)

Senator Mason:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 1 May 1980:

  1. Is the Minister for Health aware of publicity given in The Australian of 3 March 1980 to research at Hanoi University which indicates a doubling in the rate of deformed children born to Vietnamese soldiers said to have been sprayed with Agent Orange, even though the mothers had not been exposed to it.
  2. Does this research indicate that contact with Agent Orange can have a mutagenic effect.
  3. Will the Government consider sending a medical team to Hanoi to check on this research and report back, and then apply the results of those findings, in view of the concern expressed by Australian Vietnam veterans about this mutagenic effect.
Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. to (3) I refer the honourable senator to page 87, Hansard, 19 August 1980, on which appears my answer to his question without notice on this matter.

Commonwealth Electoral Rolls (Question No. 2826)

Senator Watson:
TASMANIA

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Administrative Services, upon notice, on 15 May 1980:

Is consideration being given to the inclusion of a reference to titles such as Mr, Mrs and Miss in the new electoral rolls.

Senator Chaney:
LP

– The Minister for Administrative Services has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

The suggestion that titles such as Mr, Mrs and Miss be included in electoral rolls has again been considered, following the honourable senator’s question. However, as the adoption of the suggestion would have far reaching administrative and financial implications, and serve no purpose for electoral administration, it is not proposed to ask electors to furnish such information or to include it in electoral rolls. The costs involved in its adoption, including the cost of obtaining basic information in respect of present electors and subsequently in maintaining the currency of the information, would be prohibitive.

Maritime and Aircraft Museums (Question No. 2979)

Senator Kilgariff:
NORTHERN TERRITORY

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

Will the Government consider assisting the establishment of maritime and aircraft museums, to safeguard veteran and obsolete aircraft and ships which presently lack adequate protection in defence establishments.

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Home Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

On 28 September 1978, 1 announced the Government’s decision to begin a study of the development, timing and location of a national aviation museum and a national maritime museum. Officers of the Department of Home Affairs have met with representatives of the Departments of Defence, Housing and Construction and Transport to prepare proposals on the establishment of the museums. I expect that a report on the full implications of each museum proposal will be available for the Government to consider before the end of 1980.

Unemployment Benefit (Question No. 3002)

Senator Colston:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

What are the current instructions outlining the eligibility for unemployment benefit of spouses of workers stood down as a direct or indirect result of strike action.

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

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

The Social Services Act provides that the spouse of a person who is ineligible for unemployment benefit because of industrial action may qualify for unemployment benefit at the single rate plus additional benefit for each dependent child provided the work test and other conditions of eligibility are satisfied.

Community Health Program (Question No. 3008)

Senator Chipp:
VICTORIA

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

Will the Minister reconsider the decision announced at the last Premiers’ Conference not to increase funding of the Community Health Program during 1980-81, thus occasioning a cut of approximately 10 percent in real terms.

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

Initially, having regard to the States’ improved financial position, the Government had considered it appropriate to hold the 1980-81 block grant funding for the general community health services and the women’s refuge sub-programs of the Community Health Program at the same money amounts as were spent in 1979-80. However, following representations that this original decision would lead to a significant cutback in the services provided in the two areas, the Government decided to review its decision and to increase the appropriation.

The total funds to be provided by the Commonwealth under the Community Health Program in 1980-81 will be S66.5m, representing a 10.9 per cent increase over 1979-80 expenditure. This comprises $55m for general community health services; $3. 8m for women’s refugees; $940,000 for a special health interpreters/translators program; 1315,000 for another special ethnic health workers program; and S6.45m for national projects funded direct by the Commonwealth. The size of this total contribution of funds for the Community Health Program clearly indicates the Government’s concern to ensure that community health services are maintained.

Imports of Milled Rice (Question No. 3021)

Senator Walsh:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

  1. What proportion of paddy rice grains is permitted in imports of milled rice.
  2. What containers are used for rice imports.
  3. What restrictions are there on imports of used containers.
  4. What inspection and sterilization procedures apply to imports of used containers.
Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 5 grains of paddy permitted per kilogram of polished rice.
  2. So far, imported rice has been bagged. Only clean new bags are permitted entry. The bags may be consolidated into shipping containers which are usually designated as general purpose containers.
  3. Second-hand bags are not permitted to be used for imported rice. Shipping containers remain in service for many years until they are no longer suitable for the safe carriage of cargo.

Rice imported in containers is unpacked and inspected in metropolitan areas at ports of entry where treatments such as cleaning and fumigation are carried out if necessary.

  1. Shipping containers are subject to inspection to ensure they are free of pests and prohibited plant and animal residues. Quarantine officers inspect the exteriors of containers at shipping terminals and container depots. Interiors of containers are inspected at depots and unpacking premises.

The containers are cleaned or appropriately treated where necessary.

Sheep Sales to the Soviet Union (Question No. 3024)

Senator Walsh:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Primary Industry, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) What are the names of the vendors of (a) merino and (b) other stud sheep sold for shipment to the Soviet Union at sales since January 1980 and to whom: (i) export permits were granted, and (ii) export permits were not granted.
  2. What was the name of the agent in each case.
Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Primary Industry has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

A single consignment of breeding sheep, made up of 135 Merino rams, 40 Corriedale rams and 47 Corriedale ewes and 7 lambs, has been exported to the Soviet Union during 1980 calendar year. The consignment went by charter aircraft from Tullamarine on 18 August 1980.

Earlier, on 5 June, permission to export some 40 Merino rams and 100 Corriedale sheep was withheld but any sheep from that consignment resubmitted for export in accordance with established procedures were included in the 18 August consignment. (!) (a) (0 The vendors of Merino rams which were exported to the Soviet Union were the following studs: Boonoke, Bundemar, Coonong, Gunyah, Merrill, McDonaldCobran, Old Cobran, One Oak, Pooginook, Roseville No. 1 , Roseville No. 2, Silver Pines, Uardry, Wanganella, Willandra and Wonga.

1 ) (a) (ii) The vendors of the Merino rams refused export permission in June but subsequently exported were the following studs: Boonoke, Bundemar, Coonong, McDonaldCobran, Old Cobran, Uardry, Wanganella, and Wonga.

(b) (i) The vendors of the Corriedale breeding sheep exported to the USSR on 1 8 August were the following studs: Neyliona, Coleambally; Triggervale, Lockhart; Pastora, Lockhart; Aloeburn, Lockhart; Wondinong, Urana; Killarney, Wallendbeen.

(b) (ii) The vendors of the Corriedale breeding sheep refused export permission in June were the following studs: Liberton, Geelong; Killarney, Wallendbeen; Pastora Lockhart; Aloeburn, Lockhart; Quondong, Cudal; Gundowringa, Crookwell; Poorinda, Coleambally; Wood Park, Jeparit; Nigretta East, Hamilton; W. J. and A. Long, Cressy; Maneroo, Skipton; Struan, Lismore; Coolara, Chatsworth; and Triggervale, Lockhart.

The company which exported all of the above breeding sheep was Commercial Bureau (Australia) Pty Ltd. Dalgety Australia Ltd- Export Trading Division actually bid at auction for the Merino rams on behalf of Commercial Bureau.

Employment of the Handicapped (Question No. 3065)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs, upon notice, on 20 August 1 980:

  1. How many employment counsellors in the Department’s offices deal exclusively with employment of the handicapped.
  2. How many handicapped people have been placed in: (a) temporary and (b) permanent positions in each of the past two years.
  3. What are the handicapped categories used in the Department, and how many in each category have been placed in employment in each of the past two years.
Senator Durack:
LP

– The Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. In addition to Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) staff, there are currently 56 specialist officers employed in the Department who are involved with the employment of the handicapped and other disadvantaged people.
  2. Statistics on CES placements of handicapped persons are not collected on a basis which would show the numbers placed in temporary and permanent positions. The total placements of handicapped persons by the CES in each of the past two years were:
  1. The handicapped categories used in the Department and the total placements by the CES in each category in each of the past two years are as follows:

Commonwealth Employment Service (Question No. 3066)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. 1 ) What are the numbers of registered handicapped persons in each State seeking work through the Commonwealth Employment Service.
  2. What is the average time these handicapped persons have been out of work.
  3. What surveys will be undertaken to explore the dimensions of this problem in 1980 or during the International Year of Disabled Persons if these figures are not available.
Senator Durack:
LP

– The Minister for Employment and Youth Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. 1 ) The numbers of handicapped persons registered for employment with the Commonwealth Employment Service, in each State and the Northern Territory as at end-June 1980 (latest figures available) are as follows:
  1. Statistics on the average time handicapped persons have been out of work are not collected.
  2. I understand that the Australian Bureau of Statistics will be conducting a Survey of Impairment, Disability and Handicap in the Australian population and labour force in February 1981.

Special Benefits Paid to Prisoners (Question No. 3092)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 19 August 1980:

How many special benefits in 1979-80 were paid to prisoners on remand who were:

married; and

unmarried.

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

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

Statistics relating to special benefits paid to persons on remand are not available. However, at the end of December 1979, special benefits were being paid to 26 families of persons on remand.

Epidermolysis Bullosa (BD) (Question No. 3097)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 20 August 1980:

  1. Was the Minister made aware earlier this year that funding into Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) was stopped in 1978 by the National Health and Medical Research Council.
  2. Was the Council satisfied with the scientific standard of the previous research; if not, will it be given money by the Department to provide for a further research project to make life tolerable for the children suffering EB and their parents.
Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

  1. Yes.
  2. It is not the Government’s policy to use public money to fund research projects which are not recommended by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NH & MRC).

Government support for medical research is by way of an annual appropriation to the NH & MRC. The 1980-81 budget provided an allocation of J 18 million which is an almost 30 per cent increase over the previous year’s funding for the NH & MRC.

Each year the NH & MRC advertises throughout Australia seeking applications from interested researchers for medical research projects. Thus, research initiatives must come from the research community itself. It is Council policy to recommend a project for funding on the basis of its scientific merit as assessed by a complex peer review system. As there is extremely keen competition for medical research funds, the NH & MRC support must go to those projects which demonstrate the highest levels of scientific merit.

Since 1 978 there have been no projects submitted to Council for research work in the area of Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB). Should a project relating to EB be submitted to the NH & MRC and be assessed as being of high scientific merit, the Council would be pleased to recommend support.

Pensioners (Question No. 3118)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 25 August 1980:

What were the estimated costs each year since 1976 in changing from an ‘income plus assets test’ to an ‘income only’ test.

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

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

The additional cost of the introduction of the income test was estimated to be in the region of $80m in the first full year. Information for later years is not available.

Aids for the Disabled (Question No. 3124)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister representing the Minister for Health, upon notice, on 26 August 1980:

Can the Minister supply further information about the $700,000 allocated for aids for the disabled in 1980-81 with particular reference to: (a) the nature of the aids that will be approved; (b) the nature of the financial assistance to be given; and (c) the grounds for eligibility for assistance.

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

– The Minister for Health has provided the following answer to the honourable senator’s question:

Following the Treasurer’s Budget Speech on 19 August 1980, 1 announced that, in recognition of the needs of disabled persons, the Government has decided to introduce a special program under which aids to daily living will be available to the disabled. Administrative procedures for this new program are currently being developed within my Department as a matter of priority.

It is envisaged that home modifications, and a wide range of aids including wheelchairs, splints and other orthoses, walking aids, electrolarynxes, medical wigs and artifical breast forms be provided under the program. Details of the aids to be provided are being developed.

The Commonwealth will meet the full cost of the aids which will be made available at no cost to eligible persons. $700,000 has been allocated for the program for the period April-June 1 981 .

The program of aids for the disabled will apply to disabled persons who are currently ineligible to receive assistance under existing Commonwealth, Commonwealth/State, or State arrangements.

Social Welfare Policy Secretariat (Question No. 3126)

Senator Grimes:

asked the Minister for Social Security, upon notice, on 26 August 1980:

  1. When did the Social Welfare Policy Secretariat begin work on drawing up a new ‘poverty line’.
  2. When will the details of the new ‘Government poverty line’ be released.
  3. Will the basic data on which the new ‘Government poverty line’ has been formulated be released at the same time.
Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle:
LP

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

  1. The Social Welfare Policy Secretariat began work on various aspects of poverty measurement in February 1 980.
  2. and (3) The Social Welfare Policy Secretariat report is expected to be completed during 1981. The question of whether any of the information should be published is one for the Government to decide at that time.

National Acoustic Laboratories, Perth

Senator Dame Margaret Guilfoyle - On 27

August 1980 (Hansard, page 421), Senator Mcintosh asked me, as Minister representing the Minister for Health, a question without notice concerning the waiting time for appointments at the National Acoustic Laboratories Centre in Perth and the issue of free hearing aid batteries by the Laboratories.

The Minister for Health has provided the following information:

Waiting times for new pensioner clients at the National Acoustic Laboratories Hearing Centre in Perth are in the order of twelve weeks. Having regard to the extremely heavy demand on National Acoustic Laboratories services and the limited staff and financial resources which can be applied to meet these demands a waiting time of twelve weeks cannot be regarded as unduly excessive.

As I announced on 19 August 1980 the issue of free hearing aid batteries by the National Acoustic Laboratories has been extended. Pensioners who meet the eligibility criteria for free National Acoustic Laboratories hearing aids, but who have purchased aids from commercial suppliers, will now be able to obtain batteries without cost from National Acoustic Laboratories Hearing Centres. However pensioners whose aids require battery types not normally stocked by the National Acoustic Laboratories will still have to buy their batteries from commercial outlets. An estimated 25,000 pensioners will be able to benefit from this extension of issue of hearing aid batteries.

Cite as: Australia, Senate, Debates, 12 September 1980, viewed 22 October 2017, <http://historichansard.net/senate/1980/19800912_senate_31_s86/>.