Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to begin my remarks today by giving an account of the 2009 budget achievements in my electorate of Melbourne Ports. We often get opportunities to talk in this House, but it is most important to listen. We have listened to the Australian people. We have heard the stories, life experiences and worries of people all over this country. I believe that our investment in education infrastructure is an indication of the fact that we have been listening. We understand that Australians are fearful about the fate of their jobs. Small business owners are anxious during this period of global economic turbulence. We understand that the way out of these difficult times is not by sitting on the fence and doing nothing but by doing what the Treasurer has set out in this budget.

The government has pledged $42 billion to the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, which will stimulate local economies and invest in important infrastructure in the long term. In Melbourne Ports, the federal government has signed off on $1.1 million which has been delivered to local councils covering all or part of Melbourne Ports; $832,000 has been delivered to local councils to maintain and upgrade local roads in the Roads to Recovery program; $1 million dollars has been delivered to the six local projects which target dangerous sections of road under the Black Spot Program; and 9,200 needy pensioners will benefit from the additional $16 million substantial pension reform over the next four years. Under this reform, the government delivers an increase of $32.50 per week to full-rate single pensioners and $10.14 to couples, effective 20 September 2009. All of these measures demonstrate that the Nation Building and Jobs Plan is about building a new future, not reinventing the past.

I want to focus on the education revolution, which set aside $14.7 billion. I was very pleased to have the Parliamentary Secretary for Government Service Delivery, Senator Arbib, join me at Elwood Secondary College recently to announce the second round of the National School Pride Program in Melbourne Ports, one of the three elements of the BER. Acting Principal Andrew Nichols and parents, along with school captains Nurshat Fulati and Stephanie Langadiotis, welcomed the $200,000 grant for landscaping and maintenance on the school campus. This program will deliver $6 million to 43 primary and secondary schools in Melbourne Ports to stimulate jobs in our local community. Construction will commence as soon as possible, with many of the National School Pride projects to begin shortly. Schools in Melbourne Ports will be spending their share of the National School Pride program funds on a wide variety of projects, from upgrading the school oval at Caulfield Junior College to replacing carpeting at the Victorian College for the Deaf, while Albert Park Primary will be provided with a special mezzanine teaching space.

Four primary schools in Melbourne Ports received $8,350,000 in round 1 of the Primary Schools for the 21 Century component of the BER. Caulfield Junior College received $3 million; Galilee Regional Catholic Primary School received $2 million; and St Michael’s Grammar School, St Kilda, received $2.5 million—all allocated for multipurpose halls. Yesodei Hatorah College, Elwood, received $850,000 for a 21st century library. I am very pleased to hear from Pam Chessell, the principal of Shelford Girls Grammar, that they are going to spend their money on a school assembly hall.

The next few months will be exciting as the investment in our schools will flow through to local businesses and others in the construction industry. The third element of the BER gives high schools the opportunity to apply for a slice of the $1 billion set aside for 500 science laboratories or language centres. Although the allocation of funding under this program is extremely competitive, a number of high schools in Melbourne Ports have applied and are hopeful of being successful.

Another very worthy funding program in the budget which will benefit a number of eligible schools in my electorate is the Secure Schools funding program. Under the first round of this program, schools within my electorate such as Yeshiva Beth Rivkah College received funds for security improvements. These include security fencing, glass protection, lighting, CCTV, alarm systems and security training. Regrettably, some schools within my electorate missed out on the first round due to teething problems with the program. These problems have been acknowledged and I have been advised that the application guidelines for the program have been revised. My office has this week been in communication with the Attorney-General’s Department, who advised that all schools which were unsuccessful in the first round of funding were being contacted. These schools are being advised that they will soon receive further information about how to amend their funding applications so as to conform to the guidelines. I expect that close liaison with the department, as well as revision of the guidelines, will mean that eligible schools should not have further major problems in accessing Secure Schools funding.

The funding is integral to protect those who are most important for the future development of our nation—our children. The funding is a result of my and the federal government’s campaigning for secure schools in the community, schools which are free from threats of ethnic or religious overtones which impinge on the safety of schools, teachers and students. I welcome the government’s action regarding this issue and I will continue to campaign and support such initiatives.

I would now like to turn to something wider in this year’s budget that has not been that much commented on, outside particular things in my electorate. They include the appropriations for defence. I am very supportive of both the strategic direction of the white paper and the consequential boost to funding enforced capability that it outlines. China will over the next decades be a stronger Asian military power. Its military modernisation has been very strong—in fact in double digits for more than the last 10 years. A major power of China’s stature can be expected to develop globally significant military capability befitting its size, but the pace, scope and structure of China’s military expansion warrant concern and will cause even greater concern if China does not reach out to others to build confidence regarding its military plans. China has long-term goals joining economic growth to military power. The Japanese slogan ‘Rich country, strong arms’ was transformed into China’s 16-character policy which states, ‘Combine the military and civil, combine peace and war, give priority to military products, let the civilians support the military.’

Although any sort of conflict with China or other states in the region is unlikely and to be avoided at all costs by means of our diplomacy, a worst-case scenario for Australian enforcers means that our defence forces should be flexible enough to face all possible developments. As such, it is welcome that the white paper lays out substantial additional investment for the Navy, Army and Air Force. Acknowledging the key role of the Navy, as the Prime Minister did in his speech last year, and protecting Australia through the air-sea gap, we have the respective acquisition of 12 new and more powerful submarines, bigger and more potent replacements for the Anzac-class frigates and cruise missiles to arm our ships and submarines. Major investments in the Army will include upgraded tanks and combat vehicles, UAVs, and an increase in battlefield helicopters. Australia’s air power will be reinforced by 100 new Joint Strike Fighters as well as surveillance, refuelling and cargo planes.

Also noticeable in this white paper is the starkly different way Indonesia is viewed in comparison to earlier white papers. We can be thankful that Indonesia is no longer viewed as a potential threat to Australia and Australian interests. The changed view of Indonesia reflects the remarkable gains by that country in the past decade. I have been there a number of times, and I can attest to the vibrant nature of Indonesian democracy. It has managed a successful transition to multiparty democracy, embarked on a long journey of economic reform and been a proven strong partner for Australia in the fight against terrorism. It is likely that these positive trends will continue, and I know that the people of Australia wish the people of Indonesia well with these developments as a democratic state with improved social and economic cohesion.

I would like to conclude my remarks on the budget allocations by speaking about an element of allocations in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade budget. I recently had the opportunity to organise an international conference on human rights in North Korea in Melbourne, with 350 participants, including the shadow Japanese finance minister, the leading opposition MP from South Korea and many Australian MPs. The conference was for the most part funded by private NGOs—in particular, it was held in partnership with a South Korean NGO—and private philanthropists, although we did apply for separate Commonwealth funding. The conference has already happened, and it is relevant because two funding programs continue under the current budget.

I was successful in getting sponsorships for the conference under one of these Commonwealth programs, which is the AusAID International Seminar Support Scheme. Under the scheme I was able to sponsor a number of attendees to Australia, including the keynote speaker, Dr Vitit Muntarbhorn, the very famous Thai professor of law who was the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea. The purpose of this scheme is to allow people from the region to attend human rights conferences in Australia. It is a fine scheme, and I am glad to see it is being continued in the current budget. I also applied for the DFAT funded Australia-Korea Foundation. The raison d’etre for the AKF is to administer and fund projects and programs which will promote people-to-people and institutional links covering the spectrum of Australia’s relations with Korea. It is administered by a board.

The focus of the conference was obviously on human rights in North Korea. As I said, it was opened by the foreign minister. It had MPs, international participants, a major international art exhibition and films brought straight from North Korea that had not been seen anywhere in the industrialised world before. It was aimed at raising awareness of this issue in Australia as well as suggesting actions Australians could take to help the poor people of North Korea. The conference also involved scores of Koreans coming to Australia, including politicians, academics, religious leaders and human rights activists.

I was thus very surprised to be told that the AKF board refused to help fund the conference—particularly after the secretariat had encouraged us, saying that given the international participation and the very high profile of the participants we were sure to be supported. The failure of the AKF to help the conference resulted in a number of very embarrassing cutbacks. One cutback on audiovisual costs resulted in the malfunction of a DVD movie that the conference was watching in its final session. The civic reception at the town hall had to be cancelled. A longer-term exhibition of art of the North Korean refugee Sun Mu at the town hall had also been planned but was called off. I agreed to find funding for one of the conference’s dinners on Friday night but, as a result of the AKF decision, embarrassingly had to renege on this promise and the South Korean co-organisers had to pay for the dinner. I applied for AKF funding for the conference on 28 January and was advised by the AKF secretariat that the conference had every chance of support. However, on 13 February I was advised that the board had rejected the application. On 22 February I emailed the AKF secretariat, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, a number of questions. These were:

• Will any of the other functions (sponsored by the AKF) be opened by—

the foreign minister?

• Will any of the successful applications involve 30+ MPs—

from Korea, Indonesia, Japan and Australia?

• Will any of the successful grants involve bringing more than 50 South Koreans to Australia at no expense to the foundation?
• What criteria for AKF grants did we not fulfil in this application?

On 25 February my staff sent an email to the AKF secretariat asking for my questions to be passed on to the board, and as of this moment we have still had no response. It is regrettable that a fine organisation like the Australia-Korea Foundation would not respond to requests from members of parliament. I can assure them that answers will be requested, as this organisation is funded by the federal budget under these appropriations. By hook or by crook members of this parliament will find them accountable.

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