Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2013-2014, Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2013-2014 and Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 2) 2013-2014.

I have spoken in this House about the many workers at Toyota and Holden in Port Melbourne, in my electorate, who have suffered, as a consequence of the government's goading—in the case of Holden—and negligence—in the case of Toyota—the non-continuation of the operations of those major companies.

In both cases they successfully exported tens of millions of dollars of cars to the Middle East until 2008, until the sharp rise in the Australian dollar. This country has to earn export dollars somewhere in the future after the mining boom. We will have no car manufacturing in this country, when the Australian dollar declines, as a result of this government's goading and negligence, as I said. That is a topic for another day.

One area that does concern me about the government's appropriations is the Prime Minister's pledge, and that of his team, before 7 September—before the election:

I offer the government bipartisan support for a responsible and timely NDIS.

After the election claims by the Treasurer were reported on 18 December in The Australian:

THE National Disability Insurance Scheme has already been hit by a "massive blowout'' in costs and will have to be made more efficient, Joe Hockey says.

This was not said before the election. Before the election we also had similar claims about education. Thankfully, we have seen the government retreat from those.

Let me turn to some of the specific areas of appropriation in my electorate. One area of interest I particularly want to focus on is the $10 million announced to transform Junction Oval as a hub for Cricket Victoria. This was designed to fund the Centre for Diversity through Cricket involving the national headquarters for women's cricket, for Indigenous cricket and for social inclusion of new migrants, including some of the very young men from the Subcontinent who have subsequently played for Australia. It was to provide training for all of them as it is becoming more and more difficult to use the MCG. In keeping with the theme of cuts, this project has been revoked and the short-sighted policy has prevailed. Junction Oval remains in a terrible state and needs investment. Local people, local cricket and national cricket, both women's and Indigenous, will all miss out.

In the arts, Creative Partnerships Australia has already closed its offices in Adelaide, Hobart and Canberra. Yesterday in Senate estimates Minister Brandis confirmed that funding for the arts in our cities and regional areas will be reduced under this government. Just how deep the cuts will be remains to be seen. I believe the minister's favourite think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, has suggested cutting off funding for the arts, taking us back to the 1930s. Minister Brandis claimed that arts funding was reduced under Labor. This is untrue. Under former Ministers Crean and Burke—and I was Mr Burke's parliamentary secretary—Labor established the Creative Australia policy, the first Australian cultural policy in nearly 20 years. Creative Australia delivered $235 million in fully funded new investment in the arts on top of the $64 million announced during the policy development process. This included $75 million for the Australia Council and $69 million for other national cultural institutions.

While on the topic of ideological zealotry, it would be remiss of me not to mention the government's plan to dump section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Sections 18C and 18D of the Racial Discrimination Act were introduced in response to recommendations of major inquiries, including the National Inquiry into Racist Violence and the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. These inquiries found that racial hatred and vilification caused psychological harm to their targets and reinforced other forms of discrimination and exclusion. They found that low-level behaviour like this softens the environment for more severe acts of harassment, intimidation and even violence by impliedly condoning such acts.

I have the agreement of the opposition and the government to table a complete set of complaints since the act was established in 1995. It shows complaints received and outcomes of complaints received, conciliated and withdrawn. I seek permission to table that document.

Leave granted.

The table shows that since 1995 there have been 1,656 complaints received under section 18C and of those complaints 478 were referred to conciliation and the remainder were withdrawn or terminated for a number of reasons. Only eight were required to go to court. The whole purpose of section 18C is to promote tolerance by bringing parties together to discuss the subject of their complaint and arrive at a conciliated and agreed outcome. Conciliation meetings that are resolved required the following outcomes: an apology; an agreement to remove offensive material; systemic outcomes, such as changes to policies, procedures and training of staff or individuals; or even the payment of compensation.

Similarly, the new 'freedom commissioner' Tim Wilson, another of their warriors blinded by ideology, has restated his demand for the abolition of section 18C. Strangely, it is the most effective legislative arm of the agency that he works for. I have not come across a situation like this where a public servant in an agency is calling for the abolition of the most effective work of that agency.

Fifty-three per cent of racial vilification complaints in 2012-13 were resolved by conciliation. Less than three per cent of hatred complaints proceeded to court, according to the Human Rights Commission. This small percentage of complaints referred to court illustrates that the use of section 18C under the discrimination act is not being abused. It should not be repealed. Why are we getting rid of it? What is the mindset of those in the coalition—and I am sure in this room there are people from the coalition who do not share those views?

The fervour of the coalition and their tribunes in the Murdoch echo chamber on this issue reflects an attempt to repeal what they call the Bolt laws. Section 18C reinforces pluralist Australia and complaints are resolved by a process of reconciliation. It worked well under that well-known socialist John Howard, the former Prime Minister. For the years that that socialist John Howard was in office he allowed section 18C to proceed. He saw that it was mainly a process of reconciliation and, as a person genuinely committed to pluralist Australia—

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