Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would just ask the parliamentary secretary a few questions about Australian Hearing. To give the chamber some background on Australian Hearing, it was one of the great achievements of the Chifley government. It was formed first as the Australian Research Laboratory to provide hearing services to World War II veterans like my grandfather, who returned home after military service with hearing problems obviously from the effect of munitions, the 25-pounders and all the other loud noises that go on in ancient battlefields—and in new ones. It was expanded after that to take care of those who were victims of the 1939-41 rubella epidemics. It has been around for 67 years. It has traditionally had bipartisan support, including a significant expansion to pensioners in 1968 by the Liberal government, which I suppose would be the Holt or perhaps the Gorton government. It has survived all of these governments, including the Howard government, and has remained in public hands up until today.

We know that it is subject to the threat of privatisation, having been mentioned in the government's Commission of Audit and recommended for privatising. We know that the Department of Finance has a scoping study. We know that the health department has been consulted. We know that there has been very little consultation with the deaf community or the parents of deaf children.

This is a very important public institution. It has the Australian Hearing Hub at Macquarie University, which includes the National Acoustic Laboratories. I am very interested in the National Acoustic Laboratories' future in any potential privatisation. At the moment it is a model, I think, of how the public sector, the university sector and the private sector can all work together to create not just great hearing services and technology but also great medical exports for this country.

This is a very important institution. My questions would be: at what point will a scooping study conclude? If the government intends to privatise this, what would be the time line for consultation? How much consultation with the deaf community industry and service providers will occur before privatising? Will there be universal service obligations that will be put on any hearing providers that might purchase Australian Hearing? Similarly, will there be any universal service obligation or any universal service commitment to the Commonwealth on the National Acoustic Laboratories, if that was to be privatised? Particular, would researchers, universities, industry and the community have access to the National Acoustic Laboratories in the event of privatisation? If the parliamentary secretary could inform the House—and indeed the community about this very important publicly owned organisation that has been around since 1947 and has had up until this point a large degree of bipartisan support to remain in public hands—about this government's intentions regarding this valuable public institution, that would be a good thing.

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