Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to refer tonight, and seek a response, to what I see as a continuing scandal in Public Service employment as it relates to the employment of people with disabilities. The particular responsibility in this area lies with the Public Service Commission, and therefore under the aegis of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. The Public Service Commissioner’s own report, the State of the service report 2004-05, states—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, as the Public Service Commissioner State of the Service Report 2004-05 makes clear:

Over the past decade the data shows a consistent decline in the employment of people reporting a disability as a proportion of APS employees. At June 2005 people with a disability represented 3.8 per cent of ongoing APS employees, down from 3.9 per cent last year and from 5.4 per cent in 1996.

If the percentage remained the same, there would be 2,000 more people with disabilities employed in the Australian Public Service. It goes on to say some things about the changing structure of the Public Service, which clearly is part of the explanation, and I accept that. But it says:

... the past 10 years has seen a decline in the representation of people with a disability at all classification levels.

It really is a serious indictment. To put the numbers away from percentage terms, there were 7,008 people with a disability in 1996 and 4,642 in 2005. Allowing for a slight drop in the overall size of Public Service employment, the effective difference, if we had maintained the percentage, is that there are 2,000 fewer people with a disability in the Public Service than previously.

This is not a one off. Since 1996 the proportion of people with a disability has fallen every year except 2003, when it plateaued—5.4; 5.3; 5.1; 4.8; 4.5; 4.2; then it was 4 per cent for two years; 3.9 and in 2005, 3.8. I say to the government that, if it is genuinely concerned about employment for people with disabilities, start employing some. I notice that the Minister for Employment, who is also the Minister assisting the Prime Minister on Public Service matters, has called a roundtable to encourage employers to take on more people with a disability. I do not have any disagreement with him doing that and I suppose no-one would be rude enough when they turn up to say: ‘We’re all doing better than you, Minister, and it would be good if you showed an example.’

What is happening is a disgrace. It is happening quietly, without any fanfare, without any analysis, without any commentary. It is a disgrace. The government is putting pressure on people with disabilities to go back into the workforce; some of the measures I agree with, some I do not. But the outcome is a desirable objective, that is to say: we want more of the people who have disabilities in our community and have the capacity to work to be in employment.

The Public Service Commissioner’s statement of Public Service values makes it clear that it wants to recognise and utilise the diversity of the Australian community it serves. It wants to promote equity in employment. It wants to provide opportunity to all eligible members of the community to apply for APS employment.

The State of the service report 2003-04 found a similar trend of declining recruitment levels and retention rates for Indigenous employment. The government did respond. At this stage I cannot indicate the success of the response—I am not going there because it is probably too soon to measure—but they did respond with an attempt to institute a centralised strategy to increase Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment in the public sector. It is time they did the same for people with a disability. What is happening now is a scandal. It is totally unacceptable. I would like to see by the next budget that the government has initiated, and the Public Service Commission is implementing, a similar centralised strategy to increase disability employment in the Public Service.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fraser for raising this matter. I can certainly assure him that the government would take those observations seriously. The interesting thing about all those statistical readouts, whether in a percentage term or an actual term, is that it also relies on people accurately reporting whether or not they see themselves as having a disability. The changing mix of workforce circumstances could have an impact on that. I do not think there is any reason to dispute the ambition, which the member for Fraser has acknowledged, of the government trying to encourage more people who see themselves with disabilities identifying the need to move away from a welfare circumstance into an employment circumstance. I also agree with the member for Fraser that the public sector has an important role to play in providing an example to the private sector about looking at the entire Australian potential workforce, particularly at a time when we are short on people. There is a lot of talk about skills, but we are short on people.

The member for Fraser also acknowledged Indigenous workforce matters. In a previous portfolio role I looked very closely at the non-English-speaking background make-up of our public sector. I noted—anecdotally, I will submit—that there were fluctuations, ups and downs, in the number of people from an NESB first and second generation in the statistics collected by the Public Service Commission, mainly because a lot of people who might have been a second-generation Australian did not see themselves as being from a non-English-speaking background. I speak of the very large numbers of post-World War II immigrants from southern Europe—Italy, Greece and so forth. They saw themselves as Australian rather than from a particular ethnic background that was supposedly non-Australian, or however you want to describe it—which, of course, is not a reasonable descriptor at all.

It is important that we have positive employment programs that encourage our first Australians, our most recent Australians and indeed those from a disability circumstance to be featured in the public sector. And, of course, we do. We do not have programs that prevent people from being part of the public sector workforce. As I said, I think the public sector has an important role to play in showing the private sector the way forward.

The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service, Kevin Andrews, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and, indeed, Dr Sharman Stone, the Minister for Workforce Participation, are both directly charged with encouraging improvements in these circumstances. I can certainly say from the government’s point of view, and as a minister who is looking at initiatives to train up those who have been out of the workforce to re-enter the workforce in either the public or private sector, there are enormous amounts of money deliberately set aside. So I can say to the member for Fraser that there are no impediments to progress. I do not believe there is anything to indicate that there is a will against progress.

I thank the member for Fraser for his contribution in this consideration in detail stage because I do not think it hurts to constantly encourage, as this government has done, each of the secretaries of departments to realise that they have a role to advance the cause of our first Australians—or else their own performance based pay arrangements might be affected—so that we do not see accounting methods for disabled Australians, Indigenous Australians and indeed people from a non-English-speaking background simply as an accounting exercise. There needs to be a positive reason for hiring people, and setting out policies that make it very plain that we want to report progress on that. So, I do not mind the member for Fraser’s challenge. I am sure that Dr Shergold, the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, will note those comments very closely, and I look forward to improvements in the following years.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given the shortage of time and the idea that we should move on to discuss some other departments as well this evening, I will confine my questions and remarks to two areas of Prime Minister and Cabinet activity. Budget Paper No. 2 says, on page 314:

Additional funding will also be provided to support PM&C in providing the secretariat to COAG and its work on the National Water and Living Murray initiatives.

The government announced in 2004, in what was described as a first step, that under the Living Murray program some 500 gigalitres in environmental flows would be returned to the Murray River by 2009. My question is: how are we going regarding this target? Is it correct, as has been said to me, that no additional gigalitres have been delivered to the River Murray through the Living Murray program? My follow-up question is: how do you see this target being met? Do you think that the target will be met? In addition, is it the case, as I have also heard, that the government is not planning to buy any water from willing sellers? If you do not intend to buy water from willing sellers, how do you intend to meet the first-step target? That is the first set of questions I wanted to ask.

The second set of questions arises from page 312 of Budget Paper No. 2, under ‘Auditing—increased activity’, where it indicates that an additional $3½ million will be provided over four years to enable the Audit Office to, amongst other things, increase auditing of the Department of Defence. My first question is: what is the reason for the increased auditing of the Department of Defence? Behind that, why are the Department of Defence’s audit reports so poor? Further, what is the government doing to implement the Auditor’s recommendations so we do not keep coming back to this situation of poor and unsatisfactory audit reports for Defence? I will confine my remarks to those questions and seek a response to them.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the member for Wills’ questions relating to the Living Murray Initiative. As the honourable member correctly observed, the Living Murray Initiative is an intergovernmental agreement an essential part of which involves the recovery of 500 gigalitres of permanent water for environmental purposes—that is to say, for the purposes of watering six important environmental sites on the river—by 2009. In the intergovernmental agreement, a number of methods of water acquisition or water recovery were covered. They included: funding infrastructure, water savings infrastructure and water efficiency infrastructure, with the water saved being transferred over to the environmental account; purchases on market; purchases by tender; and a number of other methods of acquisition.

The relevant governments agreed to proceed initially on the basis of acquiring water through funding infrastructure which would save water through efficiencies. There are a number of these proposed investments, the largest part being from Victoria but with investments coming through from New South Wales and new contributions, as at the last Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council meeting, from South Australia. The best estimate that I could give the honourable member is that around 300 gigalitres is most likely to be recovered by 2009—maybe more than that, but it is very unlikely to be less. So concern has been expressed for some time that the 500-gigalitre first-step target will not be met.

The Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council recently approved a new policy proposal of the Commonwealth’s to acquire water from willing sellers via a tender, which will be launched shortly. But it is a tender with a twist, because the water that is to be bought must be water that either has been or will be made available through water efficiency measures. ‘Why are we doing that?’ the honourable member may ask. It is because we are seeking to achieve two objectives. We are seeking to recover water for the environment—which, of course, is the objective of the first step under the Living Murray Initiative—but at the same time we are seeking to promote the more efficient use of water in the agricultural sector, which is mostly irrigation in that part of the country.

The aim is to ensure that the amount of water actually available, or productively available, for agricultural use will not be diminished. Plainly, if a farmer has the right to extract 100 megalitres but, for reasons of inefficient infrastructure or inefficient practices, only 50 per cent of that is being put to productive use, and if the amount of water that is being lost through inefficiencies can be recovered through more efficient infrastructure and is then acquired for the environment, you have genuinely achieved a win-win situation: some water has been saved for the environment and the infrastructure is more efficient. This is exactly the same philosophy as underpinned the first approach—that is, the direct funding of infrastructure approach—but this measure enables the dollars to get down onto the farm rather than go only to finance large-scale infrastructure. It enables the water efficiency dollars to be accessed by individual farmers often for small-scale measures, nonetheless which in aggregate will prove very important in recovering water for the environment.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought I would take the opportunity to give the member for Wills some response on the matters he raised in his contribution a few minutes ago and to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister for his detailed response on the National Water Initiative. To the member for Wills: obviously the Council of Australian Governments’ agenda is enormous. I can say that, in the primary role I have in the government as the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education, we are looking forward to the detailed work that is going to come out of this Council of Australian Governments deliberation in the area of occupational licensing and skills matters alone. The matter within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, with an additional vote of resources to handle the coordination of that, therefore, is a substantial and good investment in the way Australia needs to gear itself for the rest of the 21st century. We are undoing, rebadging and indeed re-establishing some 19th century concepts that have worked well through the 20th century but need to work far better when it comes to Australia’s skills base. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet are very much at the heart of those tasks.

Equally, on the funding for the task force to deal with the APEC conference, there are certain broad assumptions that have been used in a lot of these items. After all, APEC is going to be the largest meeting of its kind ever to occur in Australia so there are no benchmarks for us to refer to. There was some underspending in the previous year and there has been some refocussing this year. The budget was developed in January last year, ahead of some significant planning for the event. The underspending of $18.8 million was due to difficulties in estimating in advance the expenses required for this project, including the expenses by year. These uncertainties caused the Department of Finance and Administration to provide on a no-win no-loss arrangement for the quadrating of this funding in its provision as it is required. In that regard we have the flexibility to respond to that.

From a staffing point of view, the department’s average staff for 2006-07 is expected to increase, by 89, to 564. The increase in staff is in response to supporting the COAG agenda—as I said, substantial and important work for Australia’s future. This government has its eye on where Australian needs to be 20 and 30 years from now. It is not just dealing with where we have been over the last 20 or 30 years. The investment in an additional 30 staff for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is a very good investment indeed. Recruiting for the APEC task force will require some 59 people, and that is continued recruiting that is taking place.

With regard to the additional auditing that the member outlined in his earlier question, I am happy to seek some further advice on that. At the end of it, the general principles always stand. The Department of Defence has a massive expenditure of public moneys. It is very much involved in an important task in a lot of different places at the moment. PM&C want to offer additional resources to make certain that the real task of defending and advancing Australia’s interests overseas is the primary work of Defence. At the same time, ensuring that we can report to the people of Australia the correct expenditure of those moneys means that it is not just up to Defence alone; it is up to PM&C to play its central coordinating role.

Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Public Accountability and Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the parliamentary secretary and the minister for their responses. Can I follow up the issue of the Living Murray Initiative, which the parliamentary secretary responded to. He indicated that around 300 gigalitres—obviously there are some qualifications on the estimate—are likely to be recovered by 2009 through efficiencies and he then spelled out the path that the government is going down and the steps it is taking regarding buying water achieved as a result of efficiencies. My question is: has the government, as part of that exercise, done any estimates about water likely to be recovered through that process? Obviously that is germane to how we are going in relation to the target of 500 gigalitres by 2009. I would be interested to know whether the parliamentary secretary is able to provide any information about what kinds of dividends might be achieved as a result of going down the path that he proposes.

In the absence of colleagues I will take the opportunity to raise with the minister an additional issue concerning the Australian Public Service Commission. The Australian Public Service Commission is referred to at page 312 of the budget papers. One of the issues that has come to my attention recently is that the Public Service Commission has issued a new circular which relates to the citizenship requirements for Commonwealth public servants. Two sentences which previously made clear that the employment of noncitizens could only be done in exceptional circumstances have been deleted from that circular. One of the sentences is:

Preferably, this would only occur on the basis that the person is actively pursuing the acquisition of Australian citizenship.

The other sentence which has been deleted is:

... it is expected that a decision to engage a non-citizen would only occur for sound reasons and not as a matter of course.

This is clearly a watering down of the requirement for citizenship of employees in the Australian Public Service. My question, having regard to this circular, is: how many noncitizens are presently employed in the Australian Public Service and does the government have any view on or any figure of how many are likely to be employed as a result of the change in guidelines outlined in the circular?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I gather that the honourable member wanted to know if we had an estimate of the amount of water likely to be recovered under the new tender arrangements I just mentioned. The answer is we do not. It is a tender. Tender is a price discovery process. We are not advertising the price which we are prepared to pay, nor are we stipulating the amount of water that we would seek to recover. Plainly, and I have said this publicly in many places, we would not be seeking to acquire more than 200 gigalitres because that is probably about all that we are short as far as we can currently see. But I do not think we are likely to have water in those volumes being tendered in any event. So we do not have an estimate.

It will be an informative exercise and we may not acquire any water. I think it is likely that we will acquire some. We are looking at every way in which we can acquire water for the Living Murray Initiative. But our aim is to, as far as we can, always acquire water in a way that ensures that the amount of water available for productive use in agriculture in the southern Murray-Darling Basin is unaffected. In other words, our aim is for a win-win situation where the water that is recovered for the environment is effectively water that was not being productively used.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take a leaf out of the Prime Minister’s book. If the member wants to communicate to me the circular from which he is quoting, I will be happy to have it looked at. I will not take it at face value, even in these in-detail discussions about the expenditure of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

I will say, as a point of principle, as the first ever Australian minister for citizenship, one of the hallmarks of why we wanted to encourage the almost one million people living in this nation today who are not citizens but who are eligible to become Australian citizens was a job in the Public Service. It was one of the things that you could apply for as a citizen. I would be very surprised if there was a watering down of that circumstance. I would be happy, therefore, to take evidence and then, if you like, put it on notice and communicate that back to the member for Wills in due course.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Treasury Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $3,509,487,000

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could I firstly, on the matter of the Treasury, refer to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, which comes under the Treasury portfolio, and remarks I made in the House before about ABS surveys. I think there might be some media interest in this tonight, not relating to matters I have raised but generally. I wonder if I could ask the parliamentary secretary whether he is aware of the number of surveys the ABS conducts in which participation is compulsory and in which Australian citizens are told they will be fined significant amounts of money if they do not participate.

I refer in particular to the Time Use Survey, which people in my electorate have been required to participate in. It is a very onerous survey. They are required to fill in and justify every five minutes of their day for 48 hours. An example is given of a typical ABS return: ‘6.20, toilet; 6.25, had a shower; 6.35, got dressed; 6.40, put on a load of washing; 6.45, made breakfast.’ People are told to fill this out and that if they do not they will be fined, I think, $200. I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could respond as to whether the government is aware of the ABS doing this and whether they endorse this approach.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am aware that the ABS do these sorts of surveys. I think they have been doing them for 100 years. I think the Australian Bureau of Statistics do a wonderful job. The government has supported the ABS with increased funding for several years and will continue to do that.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would be less than frank with the House if I did not say that I found the parliamentary secretary’s response a little disappointing. I recognise that these surveys have been going on for a very long time, and I recognise that they have happened under governments of both persuasions. It is very different from the census. With the census, there is a general level of public understanding and public acceptance that it is an important activity to participate in. There is a general understanding that it is an obligation of citizenship to participate in it. But I do not think it is appropriate for people in my electorate or any other to have somebody knocking on the door and saying, ‘You will account for every five minutes of your day and if you don’t, you will be fined.’

I do not expect the parliamentary secretary to automatically be across these issues, but I wonder if he would be good enough to undertake to investigate and report back as to whether the government does feel this particular survey, amongst others, is appropriate and whether there might be some action taken to remind the ABS that getting people to account for every five minutes of their day for 48 hours is not something which happens in a democracy like Australia.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to do that.

Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not intend to usurp the role of my ministerial colleagues, but I make the observation that before coming into parliament I ran an industry and tourism regional development board. At times, we had various surveys go to motels, caravan parks and the like. There was a similar reluctance to answer them. They were not about what the manager did in a day but what the various denominators were of price, occupancy and so on. I chastised a number of my members at the time by saying, ‘If you want to have a basis on which to go to government for grants and subsidies and the like, you’ve got to have accurate information coming out of the regions.’ I think most of them saw the logic of it.

With a thing like this, you do not know where it might impact. It might impact on child care or any number of other things when this information is fed into the computers. I would be interested to know, Parliamentary Secretary: if someone were to write ‘varies day by day’ on a part that they felt was an intrusion on their privacy or, quite frankly, onerous to complete, would that offend the form? I suspect it would not, and that they would just answer the things that they thought were reasonable in the circumstances. When you provide the answer, I would be interested to know whether there is that sort of latitude within the guidelines.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question also relates to ABS surveys. Is the parliamentary secretary aware that with the ABS survey that looks at work and return to work activities, people over the age of 80 are being randomly selected and required to complete the survey as to whether or not they are looking for work and work activities that they have undertaken in the past month? Has the minister or the government given any thought to providing an exemption to people who are over 80 years of age and find it most distressful that they are forced to either have somebody come into their home or answer the survey over the phone? They feel very intimidated by it, and they cannot see the relevance of this survey to them.

I have spoken to the ABS myself and was unable to organise an exemption for a person who was over the age of 80. I was able to organise for that person to answer the questionnaire over the telephone. Alternatively, the ABS were prepared to allow one of the person’s family members to complete the questionnaire on their behalf. I would be most grateful if the parliamentary secretary would make some inquiries and look at taking some action to alleviate this system. It really does seem quite ridiculous when 80-plus-year-old women are being forced to complete this survey and we are unable to organise an exemption for them.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Shortland for her question. I am very happy to do that; I will have a look at that and come back to you. But I want to make the point—following on from my very distinguished colleague, the member for Hinkler—that it is important for people to understand that the work that the ABS does is critically important to how we move forward in this country. Government decisions at all levels—not just at Commonwealth level but at state and territory levels—use ABS data for almost all their appropriations and a lot of their decisions. Local government rely on ABS statistics. Industry itself relies on ABS statistics to inform it about how it may lobby governments. It is critically important. I think they do a marvellous job. I am happy to take that on board and I will come back to you.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the parliamentary secretary for giving us the opportunity to put some questions to him. I am very interested in some of the forecasts on which the budget is based. In particular, I am interested in this new concept of receipts from companies rising more quickly than company profits. This is partly a function of the resources boom, of course. I might know the answer to this question myself—I think the answer to the question may be the extent to which mining companies, in particular, have been investing happily in new capacity and therefore bringing forward newer and larger deductions—but it is of concern to the opposition that the budget forecast seemed to be largely underpinned by the concept that receipts from company taxes are growing faster than company profits are.

I want to put a few questions to the parliamentary secretary. The first is: does he accept that, based on the budget, company tax is growing faster than company profits? From an independent observer’s view, having company taxes increase more rapidly than company profits seems unsustainable. On what basis does the Treasury believe this can be sustained over the forward estimates period? Is it assumed that the average company tax rate will fall again over the forward estimates?

The effective company tax rate must be rising if company profits are growing slower than the company tax. For current trends to be sustained, is there not effectively an assumption that the effective company rate is increasing and has been, in recent years, approaching the company tax rate itself? Is this the assumption Treasury is using and, if so, on what basis? And is Treasury assuming that the level of deductibility is very low for the additional component on company taxable income that is a basis of the above trend?

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hunter for his very long and complex question. I would like to answer it in two parts: firstly, by saying that I will take the questions on board and come back with the information; and, secondly, by saying that he can rest assured that our projections are very reliable, as they have been for the last decade.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will move on now to another issue. The focus of public debate in recent times has been on child care—or, more to the point, the unavailability of child care—and, of course, the affordability of child care. I ask the parliamentary secretary what work the government have done on the various options for delivering greater child-care services in this country. Have they, for example, done any work on costing extending the FBT arrangements to small businesses or organisations which do not provide child care in-house? Have the government done any costing on the possibility of allowing taxpayers to claim child care as a tax deductible expense?

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hunter for his questions. I will take them on notice.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the parliamentary secretary for his brief answer. I would like to move to another subject—the changes the government is proposing with respect to superannuation in this country. I know that at this stage it is only a proposal and the information in the budget is only very limited, but various costings have been bandied around with respect to the various initiatives the government has taken in the budget, and I was wondering whether the parliamentary secretary could give the parliament some idea of the basis for those costings. There has been talk of the expense of those proposals blowing out to a considerable percentage of GDP, and I was wondering whether the parliamentary secretary could further enlighten us on the basis of the costings and where the major cost is going to be imposed.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, you and the parliament are aware of the government’s announcements on budget night regarding superannuation, but let me remind the member for Hunter that what we have proposed and put forward is the most significant reform to Australia’s superannuation policy framework in decades, and that has largely been driven by this government’s desire to ensure that people, Australians, can save for their future and be prosperous and enjoy their retirement. Of course, it is a very important underpinning of our structural economy, particularly as it relates to some of the demographics that we are experiencing, like the ageing of the population.

It is very important that wherever we can we incentivise people to save for their retirement. There have been a lot of calls, including calls from all quarters of the community, to simplify superannuation tax, and so we have done that. We have cut through all of that by simply saying that where your funds are in a taxed fund, whether or not you take that as a lump sum or as an allocated pension, there will be no tax at all. This is a very positive initiative. We have embarked upon a consultation period, as the member for Hunter identified, and the government are now going through and will be looking at those submissions, and we will be putting out our position in terms of legislative proposals going forward.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank the parliamentary secretary for his insightful answer. Can I move on to what is known as the entrepreneur’s tax offset. This is, of course, a tax rebate given to certain small businesses, particularly those with revenues of less than $50,000 a year, phasing right out I think at $75,000 a year. I could stand corrected, but I believe the cost of that initiative is somewhat in excess of what was originally proposed when it first appeared in the 2005-06 budget. I ask the parliamentary secretary whether he can provide information about where exactly that money is going, maybe giving us a breakdown of the various businesses receiving the benefit of that tax offset and whether he can clarify why the cost of that offset has so significantly blown out.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to provide the member for Hunter with some of the information he has asked for. Of course, I would not accept on face value that it has blown out, as he has remarked. That is something that I will have a look at, but in terms of providing him the information, I would be happy to do that.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary some questions about the Trade Practices Act, which of course comes under his direct area of responsibility. It is well known and well documented in this country that there is significant concern about the effectiveness of the Trade Practices Act and, of course, there are allocations in the budget to the ACCC for the administration of the Trade Practices Act. Those concerns are very well founded. They go to the impact of cases commonly known as Boral and Rural Press and Metway. In particular, many are concerned that it is very difficult these days for the ACCC to establish in a court of law that a company does have the degree of market power necessary to be in breach because of any action under the Trade Practices Act. There is concern also, of course, that the concept of ‘take advantage’ is now a very questionable concept in the eyes of the courts, and these things need clarification. There is also a need for clarification in the area of what we commonly know as predatory pricing, and that is, of course, the concept of larger firms holding down the price, possibly below cost, just sufficiently long enough to drive a competitor out of the market.

There has been a very big expectation for a number of years now amongst the smaller and independent sector that the government would address these changes. Certainly there have been two significant reports—the Dawson report and I think a unanimous report of the Senate Economics References Committee which recommended a number of changes to section 46. Indeed, the opposition has been stepping up the ante in recent times because we are very concerned that the repeal of the retail marketing sites act should not be undertaken in the absence of significant reforms to section 46. I was hoping the parliamentary secretary could provide advice on where the government is on section 46. Can we expect to see some proposals coming forward from the government in the not-too-distant future and, if so, how wide-ranging will they be and will they cover what I call the two-threshold test—that is, a clarification of the parliamentary intention on the definitions of market power and of the concept of ‘take advantage’?

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member for Hunter is alluding to several cases where certain things have been happening or they have not been happening then, firstly, if he is aware of any of those sorts of cases I hope that he is referring those directly to the ACCC for investigation; I am sure he is. Secondly, to answer his question, the government is always reviewing its legislation in order to ensure that it has the right and appropriate legislation in place.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am always happy to refer cases to the ACCC, which I have done on a not irregular basis. But the point I make again is that there is a widely held view in the community—and we have plenty of legal opinion and, indeed, an all-party Senate committee to back that view—that the Trade Practices Act is now not sufficient to deal with these cases. The ACCC can take the cases all they like but they cannot get an outcome because of the deficiencies in the Trade Practices Act. That is the issue the government has to fix—not the opposition.

But can I take the parliamentary secretary to another issue, and that goes to revenue from fuel taxes. We heard some debate in the House today about various views on the extent to which the government is taking GST revenue compared with the extent to which excise has fallen as a result of the 7c reduction in excise in 2000 and the subsequent freezing of the excise component. The Treasurer bandied some figures around in question time today. Is the parliamentary secretary prepared to table—if not now, at some future time—further detail on the submission that the Treasurer was making in the House?

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of clarification—did the Treasurer table it? I thought you mentioned—

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer used two figures today: roughly speaking, $10 billion raised in GST from fuel taxes since the changes and about $11 billion forgone in excise because of the changes there. It was very short on detail. I thought the parliamentary secretary at some point might be able to get us a more detailed explanation of what the Treasurer was saying in question time today.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the member for Hunter—I am sure that it was the Prime Minister who referred to that in question time today. So, no, I cannot provide anything that the Treasurer said.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the Main Committee that the time agreed to for this section is up.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer and Revenue) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just one minute, Mr Deputy Speaker. It may have been the Prime Minister answering a dorothy dixer, but the figures the Prime Minister was relying upon almost certainly came from Treasury. I would have thought it was the parliamentary secretary’s responsibility to take my request on board and table those figures at his earliest possible convenience.

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question was: could I table the details that the Treasurer presented in the House today. No, I cannot do that, I am sorry—the Prime Minister presented them.

Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Could I reframe the question that the shadow minister just framed to the parliamentary secretary, and ask whether he could supply the figures that the Prime Minister gave in question time today from sources within the Treasury department, and give me that information, please?

Chris Pearce (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would be happy to. What the Prime Minister provided is in Hansard, but if there is any further information that I can provide to the member for Shortland—and through her to the member for Hunter, I am sure—I would be very happy to do that. I will investigate what I can provide to you, if there is any such thing. But I refer you to HansardI am sure they will have the precise figures the PM mentioned.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Finance and Administration Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $2,635,250,000

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very glad that the Special Minister of State is here representing the Minister for Finance and Administration this evening, because my first questions relates to a matter I know is very close to his heart—the sale, or rather the abandoned sale, of the Snowy Hydro Scheme. The government has announced that it will not be proceeding with the sale; however, this has not been communicated, I do not think, to the House. I cannot recall the Prime Minister making a statement to the House to that effect, although public statements have certainly been made. So I was wondering if I could give the minister the opportunity this evening to explain to the chamber the government’s rationale for not proceeding with the sale of the Snowy Hydro.

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer the member for Prospect to the press conference that the Prime Minister and I gave on the Friday morning a couple of weeks ago, whatever date that was, with the detail of the government’s announcement. The federal government, as the member for Prospect may or may not be aware, had a 13 per cent stake in Snowy Hydro. The federal government was not in a position to privatise Snowy Hydro; the only government that was in a position to privatise Snowy Hydro was the New South Wales government. In fact, it was the New South Wales government that made an announcement in December all on its own, without any reference to the federal government or the Victorian government, that it would sell its 58 per cent shareholding and privatise Snowy Hydro. Consequently, a month or two later, the Australian government and the Victorian government agreed that they would sell their shareholdings. I emphasise that the original announcement by the New South Wales government was not conditional upon the sale of the Commonwealth’s 13 per cent and the Victorian government’s 29 per cent; it was a unilateral decision. As a shareholder of only 13 per cent, the Australian government was not running this privatisation.

After listening to the Australian electorate, in a very broad sense, the Australian government came to a decision that we would not proceed with the sale of our 13 per cent. So the only decision that the Australian government made was not to sell that 13 per cent. There was no reason for us to assume that New South Wales would do anything other than continue with selling their 58 per cent, given that they had made the announcement unilaterally in the first place and it was not conditional on the sale of other governments’ shareholdings. Strangely, an hour or so before the Australian government’s decision was announced, the New South Wales Premier made a very forceful case on radio that his government would proceed with their majority shareholding; however, within about 15 minutes of the Prime Minister’s announcement, the Premier had changed his mind. People can make what they like of that. I think he said ‘pulling the rug out’ from under the sale about 20 times in the space of a couple of minutes, which was also a perplexing statement, given that the New South Wales government had made the original decision on their own.

But this discussion happening in the chamber is with respect to the appropriations bills, which is what I thought we were here for, and I can inform the chamber that there was $13.7 million provided for in 2006-07 to meet the external costs associated with the Australian government’s sale of its 13 per cent shareholding in Snowy Hydro Ltd. With that decision not to proceed with the sale, Finance will return the unspent funds to the budget.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that appropriations is an opportunity for wide-ranging questions on matters that appear in the budget papers. I note that the Special Minister of State stated that a very significant factor in the government’s decision was public opposition to the sale of Snowy Hydro and, as he indicated, this was said by both him and the Prime Minister at their press conference. I wonder if the minister could indicate whether the government will be paying as much cognisance to public opposition when it comes to considering and putting through legislation for the sale of Medibank Private and whether they will be reconsidering their decision to privatise all of Telstra, given the massive public opposition to both those sales, which are equal to if not greater than the public opposition across the country to the sale of the Snowy Hydro Scheme.

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government will not be changing their position on the further privatisation of Telstra, and we have made announcements in relation to Medibank Private. There are very different circumstances between the three assets—Telstra, Medibank Private and Snowy Hydro—and I think that has been debated quite substantially in the public arena.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Still on the sale of Snowy Hydro, has the minister’s attention been drawn to comments by Mr Ivor Ries of EL Ballieu, stockbrokers, on Radio National on 2 June, when he referred to the aborted sale of Snowy Hydro? He said:

Well, it’s obviously going to make Telstra a lot harder to sell. You know, because the Government can flip-flop around on policy on a day-to-day basis it’ll significantly decrease foreign investor confidence in Government policy here. So I guess it’s devalued Telstra.

Can the minister inform the House whether the Department of Finance and Administration has prepared any projections or estimations as to whether the revenue from the sale of Telstra has been adversely affected by the decision to abort the sale of Snowy Hydro?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not aware of the comments of that one stockbroker on that one radio program. Unfortunately, I do not have the luxury of being able to sit around listening to a lot of Radio National programs. I emphasise that it is obviously the view of one stockbroker. If you ask the opinion of half-a-dozen lawyers, economists or stockbrokers on something, you might get eight or nine different views. That is probably the case in this situation as well. I am not aware of anything being done by the department along the lines mentioned by the member for Prospect, but if there is any further information that I can provide, I will.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister. I am sure the House appreciates that he will take that on notice and get back to us if any such projections exist. I turn now to a different matter—that is, the matter of the government members secretariat. I have a series of questions about this and the allocation by the Department of Finance and Administration for it. Firstly, could the minister inform the House of the reasoning for the government members secretariat being located in the office of the Chief Government Whip instead of where it used to be in the ministerial office?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My understanding is that those matters were decisions of the Prime Minister.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I clarify that the minister is not in a position to indicate to the House the reasoning for it being located in the Chief Government Whip’s office? Isn’t he in a position to confirm or deny that it is because the Chief Government Whip is not subject to FOI?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My understanding is that the functions of the government members secretariat fall within the responsibility of the Chief Government Whip, and those administrative arrangements are matters that the Prime Minister determined at the time.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wonder whether the minister is in a position to inform us now, or if not to report back to the House, on the location issues of the government members’ secretariat in sitting weeks and non-sitting weeks and, in particular, whether the department of finance encourages or allows staff members of the government secretariat to work out of government members’ electorate offices in other states in non-sitting weeks and help them in the preparation of public materials, newsletters and such from their electorate offices as opposed to their Parliament House location.

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, the function involving the day-to-day management of the government members’ secretariat falls under the responsibility of the Chief Government Whip. But if there is any other information that I am able to provide, then I will do so.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate that, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker. I acknowledge that it does fall under the Chief Government Whip. However, it is an allocation from the department of finance, and I am sure the department of finance would be aware of the location issues of the government members’ secretariat and, given the government’s commitment to public accountability and transparency, I am sure there would be no problem in reporting back to the House.

I would like to now move on to the matter of media monitoring. In 2004-05 the bill for media monitoring in ministers’ offices and departments was over $8 million. It is of some considerable concern to me that a lot of these media monitoring costs will be ministers’ offices and departments ordering exactly the same clips or asking to see exactly the same shots of the news. Does the department of finance, as the department responsible for minimising unnecessary government expenditure, have a protocol or a requirement to ensure that unnecessary duplication of media monitoring does not occur?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I will inquire as to whether there is any particular information I can give in that regard. I would assume that individual departments would work with their relevant minister in relation to media monitoring for the individual departments and ministries and that they would be responsible for the costs and budget allocations et cetera within each individual department. I doubt that it is something that is done right across all ministries but, if there is further information that I can provide, I will.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister. I would like to now move on to another matter. On 13 June the Australian National Audit Office released a report entitled Internet Security in Australian Government Agencies. Again, the Department of Finance and Public Administration will hopefully play a key role in implementing the recommendations of that report. Is the minister aware of the report and is he aware of what happened to a very similar report which the ANAO released in 2001 which made essentially the same sort of recommendations five years ago that we have seen from the report this week? What steps did the department take to implement the 2001 report, which the ANAO finds largely were not implemented, and what steps will the department take to ensure that the 2006 report is actually implemented so that we cannot expect to see another report in 2011 making the same recommendations that they did 10 years previously?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am aware of the report and have some responsibility in this process because the Australian Government Information Management Office, AGIMO, falls within my direct responsibility as Special Minister of State. So I am well aware of the report and I could say that some of the findings of that report are a bit disappointing given the recommendations from a few years ago.

The whole internet security area is very much a changing area. We know how technology is changing dramatically, almost weekly, and that raises some fairly substantial challenges in e-security areas. The member for Prospect can be assured that we will be taking up their recommendations. In fact we have already started to work on that. I think the government and the department are much better placed now than they were a few years ago to deal with these matters. AGIMO is already working on these recommendations. The member can be assured that they will be implemented.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to take the minister to the issue of government advertising and the indication in estimates that $250 million has been allocated for government advertising in the financial year 2006-07, a substantial increase from financial year 2005-06. Can the minister indicate whether the government has any forward projections as to the timing of this advertising, particularly in relation to the latter half of 2007? Is it expected that advertising will increase over 2007 and perhaps peak somewhere around October 2007?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, this is probably a question that should have been asked as part of Prime Minister and Cabinet. I do chair the Ministerial Committee on Government Communications but that falls within the responsibility of Prime Minister and Cabinet. No, I cannot provide the information that he has asked for now and I do not know whether I can. He referred to a particular figure out of Senate estimates. My recollection is that there were some figures thrown around by senators in Senate estimates. I am not sure whether anybody was able to determine where those figures came from. I suspect that they were figures grasped out of the air by opposition senators during that estimates process.

Individual departments make decisions about their particular campaigns that they are running, whether it be issues related to health, skin cancer and those sorts of campaigns, which they are doing at any particular time. But the timing is individual within the departments. For instance, people would be aware of the advertisements running at the moment for Welfare to Work. Those were obviously timed quite appropriately to inform people about the changes in legislation that come into effect on 1 July. You do not start doing that six months before, but by the same token you do not start doing it on the day that the changes take place. So that was appropriately timed for very proper reasons—so that people understood that there was a change coming up in legislation and that it would come into effect on 1 July. The timing for each of those particular advertising campaigns is very much a matter for the individual departments.

The Minister for Human Services has joined us. He was one of the ministers responsible for that Welfare to Work campaign, to make sure that people are well aware of the legislative changes. So, to further answer the member’s question, individual departments and the particular information they need to provide and the timing of it will be determined by them and not by government in any sort of total sense. The Ministerial Committee on Government Communications responds to individual departments’ requirements for providing that information.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that we are just about out of time and that the Minister for Human Services has arrived. I am sure we do not want to keep him waiting, but I would like to deal with one last matter before we move on. I wish to acknowledge that I am not sure who actually has responsibility for this, but I am interested in the staffing arrangements for parliamentary secretaries. In particular, I am interested in who approves the staffing arrangements for parliamentary secretaries—whether it is the Special Minister of State, the Minister for Finance and Administration or some other minister. To assist the minister, I am particularly interested in the staffing allocation for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and why the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs receives more staff than some government ministers and more staff than anybody on the opposition side other than the Leader of the Opposition himself. What process did the parliamentary secretary have to go through to justify his very significant level of staffing, to whom did he have to justify that—whether it was the minister at the table or some other minister—and what was the justification?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I probably should refer the member for Prospect to the Hansard of Senate estimates, because I think the member for Prospect is simply trawling over the same things that were trawled through in Senate estimates. I make the point that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs has a substantial responsibility and is certainly very different from other parliamentary secretaries in that respect. Ultimately, staff allocations to ministers and to parliamentary secretaries lie with the Prime Minister.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I am not sure if you want to keep going on finance.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I am quite happy for that to happen.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to ask the Special Minister of State about the Department of Finance and Administration guidelines on procurement, specifically as they relate to small business. The department of finance guidelines require all government agencies to pay small businesses their bills within 30 days of receiving a proper invoice and, of course, the goods. The department of finance, as I understand it from answers to me, does not keep those records for itself and certainly does not appear to enforce the keeping of the records or the compliance of other government departments with the policy. I do not expect the minister to be able to answer this immediately, but could he undertake with the department of finance to review the operation of the procurement guidelines and ensure that not only his own department complies with its own guidelines but other government departments comply with them as well?

Gary Nairn (Eden-Monaro, Liberal Party, Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to get some additional information on procurement. I encourage the member for Prospect to look at the e-procurement guidelines that I announced and the department released just recently so that he can see what we are doing from a procurement point of view to give some guidance to various departments in the way in which they do procurement electronically. With respect to the other matters you raised, I am happy to follow them up. What I will find is that this level of government is a hell of a lot better at paying its bills than certain other levels of government. In particular, a state health department was holding out on some of my small business people for 90 days and more. It is just appalling that a state health department would not pay its bills for 90 days or more. We will not be taking any guidelines from state departments, that’s for sure, if we review or do anything at a federal level with respect to paying small businesses.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for taking that further question. The Main Committee will now consider the Department of Human Services.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have some questions for the Minister for Human Services about his announcement today about the investigation of child support payers—or nonpayers. In particular, I listened this morning to his interview with John Laws, which I think he did while driving to Canberra through the fog and which I listened to while driving to Canberra through the fog. I am sure we both had our eyes on the road and were not likely to crash into each other as he was talking and I was listening! I note that the report in the Australian today leads with:

A crack team of investigators will spy on divorced dads who cry poor to avoid paying child support ...

This is the reporting of it. I want to ask the minister to clarify whether it is also the case that the investigators will look at the finances and the situation of recipients of child support who may be underestimating their own income, not just at the payers or nonpayers. Is it or is it not the case that people who have claimed a certain income and claimed payment from the other party based on that income will also have their situation examined by these investigators?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The assessment of the cost of raising a child under the existing formula is based on the payer’s income. If there is a default, the default lies with the payer, not the payee. That is because it is the payer who is not meeting their legal obligations, which are based on their income. Of course, from 1 July 2008, the formula will change. This is the fundamental principle. Currently, the formula is based on the payer’s income. From 1 July 2008, the formula will be based on the cost of raising the children. This is a substantial change which should address many of the complaints. If people are defrauding the system in relation to a payee’s income, we are happy to look at that, but my understanding is that the formula is based on the payer’s income, the non-custodial parent’s income, and that is the income that we are going to be looking at.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should have said at the outset that I do welcome the minister’s announcement today. Any of us, as members of parliament, would have custodial parents coming through our electorate offices with stories of not being able to receive payments from the non-custodial parent, and I am sure that we have all heard the stories of non-custodial parents pretending to have no income and, frankly, dodging their payments. So I do think the Minister for Human Services has made a step in the right direction.

I wonder if the minister could indicate how many staff in the Child Support Agency are currently dedicated to investigating non-custodial parents who are avoiding their legal obligations and avoiding the payment of child support. I know that the majority of investigations at the moment are deskbound, rather than the staff going out and doing proactive investigations, but I am just interested to know what sort of an increase this is and how big a change this is going to make in tracking down non-paying non-custodial parents.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should add for clarification that I am reminded of the fact that a custodial parent’s income comes into the formula when it hits about $40,000, I think it is. So—in order to provide clarity—we still are not looking at that particular area, because it is not deemed to be the high-risk area at this stage. However, of course there will be another look at the application of the current formula once a custodial parent’s income exceeds $40,000.

In relation to the other matter, I would need to get advice. I am happy to provide an answer to the member for Prospect on the current number of CSA staff that focus on enforcement. I will add that we estimate that this year 40,000 non-custodial parents claimed to have no income and receive no welfare. They are the low-hanging fruit, if you like, that represent the people that will be targeted. I estimated on radio today that 90 to 95 per cent of those people were male. In fact, it is 88 or 89 per cent. Overwhelmingly, they are male—although not all are—thus the phrase ‘deadbeat dads’. I should emphasise that there are around 690,000 payers and, of the 690,000 payers, the high-risk ones represent between 40,000 and 70,000. The number referred to the Australian Taxation Office this coming year because they have failed to lodge tax returns might get up to about 100,000. That automatically raises a question about whether they are telling the truth about their income.

There is no joy in this for the government. I want to emphasise that. I get no great joy out of chasing people to pay their debts to their children. But it is a debt to their children. It is their flesh and blood, and they have an obligation to contribute to the cost of raising their own flesh and blood—their own children. There is nothing nice, successful or enjoyable about the breakdown of a relationship. The entire focus of what we do is on the welfare of the children. That is the clear intention of the child support act. That is the motivation for the activity of the Child Support Agency. It is a very tough issue. But, every time we undertake surveillance and every time we undertake court action, we do it on behalf of the children. We do not do it on behalf of an angry mother. We do not do it on behalf of an angry father. We do it on behalf of the children. That is our clear focus.

My advice is that this is the first time we have gone down a path of surveillance. It has been sporadic if it has been undertaken in the past, and this is the first time we have allocated significant resources. We have allocated $143 million over four years to better compliance. It is part of the Parkinson package. There will be arguments from both men and women that the new Parkinson formula either advantages them or disadvantages them. It seems as though this parliament can never get the formula exactly right, because of the over 800,000 cases that the CSA has. Every single case is different. There is different income to the household; there are different relationships, as a mother or a father might be repartnered; there are different custodial arrangements; there are different locations in Australia; and there are different pressure points on the financial arrangements. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to frame a formula that is going to satisfy everyone. It is very difficult. Inevitably, whenever the relationship breaks down, there are incredible emotions involved.

Again, I want to emphasise that what we are doing is targeting those people who are clearly trying to hide their income. There are people out there who try and do it, mainly through so-called self-employment. There are others who choose—I think rather unwisely—to park assets in the name of a new partner, which is courageous behaviour for individuals. If they are using legal structures to try and disguise assets then we will try to find out whether those legal avenues are in fact robust enough to withstand the scrutiny of the courts. We are also introducing a number of other measures, including a significant increase in the number of people who are stopped at airports from leaving the country if they have a debt to the Child Support Agency. I think that is a very powerful tool. We also have a very powerful tool in our referral of cases to the ATO for further investigation.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, if I am reading the figures correctly, it is estimated that there are currently approximately 105,000 people who are using self-employment and cash income to understate their income. It is also estimated that an additional 1,800 parents a year will face scrutiny under the minister’s announcement. I am not sure whether that includes the 300 who do at the moment or if it is on top of that number. Regardless, on my calculations, that is a little over one per cent of the people who it is alleged are or who are thought to be understating their income. Could the minister inform the House in general terms what process will be used to determine which of the 105,000 people will face this scrutiny? Will it be based on complaints from their former partner? Will there be a formula which the CSA will develop to identify those most likely to be identifiable as rorting their payments? Clearly, with 105,000 potential candidates for surveillance and only 1,800 who will be subject to it, there is a large degree of room to move in determining who receives the attention.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The surveillance initiative is the one which has attracted the most media attention, not surprisingly. We hope that there will be greater focus on other areas, such as greater collection of information by existing enforcement officers and the fact that we have the power, which I referred to a little bit earlier, in relation to stopping people at airports. I would rather not give the member for Prospect a box and dice description of how we target people for defrauding the system, but it is fair to say there are certain indicators that will become immediately apparent.

Data matching plays a significant role in that. Data matching between CSA and Centrelink and between CSA and the tax office provide a significant basis upon which investigations can be undertaken. To give an example, it is highly likely that a non-custodial parent paying only $5 a week to support all of their children—not one child, but all of their children—will be on Newstart. Therefore, if it is reported that they have a lavish lifestyle: perhaps they are driving a Porsche and living in Sandy Bay, Toorak or Mosman—

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

North Sydney?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In North Sydney—absolutely. My constituents are in no way protected from this scrutiny, I can assure you. If they are living a very lavish lifestyle, claiming Centrelink payments and paying only $5 a week to support their children then obviously a flag would be waved that would cause us to undertake further investigations. There will be processes put in place that will reflect current practice to some degree but will also represent new activities.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the minister to the form of employment of these new investigators. The minister has told me before in answers to questions on notice in relation to Centrelink that Centrelink surveillance is primarily contracted out. There are a range of private investigation firms that are used for that purpose. I do not have a problem with that at all, but if I read this announcement correctly—and I have only read the media reports; I am not on the minister’s email list for his press release, if there was one issued—

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hockey interjecting

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure there is. If I read and interpret the reports correctly, these new surveillance officers will be employed in house rather than be contracted out. That would seem to involve a significant degree of skill, training and equipment. I wonder whether the department or Centrelink has engaged in a cost-benefit analysis of conducting this sort of surveillance in house or of contracting it out to private investigation firms.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Off the top of my head, I could not give an answer to that. Logic suggests that it should be contracted out; it probably will be. I have no desire to set up a government surveillance team or to train people in surveillance. Public servants have other skills and I do not think they are the sorts of skills that we should particularly develop, but I have not gone to that level of detail.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister referred in his remarks to stopping people from going overseas, which again is a welcome initiative. I wonder whether the minister could provide the House with information, tonight or on notice, as to how many non-custodial parents who have an outstanding debt with the Child Support Agency are living overseas already and how many of these cases are being actively followed by the Child Support Agency.

This matter is of some particular concern in my electorate, where there is a high degree of people from a non-English speaking background. When a relationship or a marriage breaks down, it is not unusual for one parent to return overseas and the children usually remain in Australia—and these issues do arise from time to time. I am interested in knowing how big a problem this is and whether the new initiative announced by the minister will in any way deal with that. Obviously, there are difficulties in conducting surveillance overseas, but does he have any strategies, either in this announcement or separately, to deal with the matter of overseas non-payers; and, if he does, what might they be?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very detailed question. I stand to be corrected, but I understand that each year 1,800 people with a debt to the Child Support Agency are prevented from leaving the country. We expect that number to increase quite significantly as a result of this new initiative. Do not hold me to the exact figure of 1,800, but it is about that number. As for language barriers, I am sure they would be addressed. Stopping someone from leaving the country is not an easy process, as I am sure the member would be aware, but it is done as a matter of last resort. Obviously, with this new initiative we will expand that program.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would now like to move on to the matter of the smartcard. My first question to the minister is whether the cost estimate of $1.1 billion projected to 2010 is still accurate in his mind.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no reason to change that estimate.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister. I wonder whether the minister could share with the House, in some reasonably but not overly detailed way, how the government projects that the $1.1 billion will be recovered. As I understand it, the government’s position is that the smartcard will be cost neutral and, therefore, that $1.1 billion will be saved through other mechanisms. I wonder whether the minister could share with us exactly how that $1.1 billion is expected to be saved through the operation of the smartcard.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the last two weeks I released a summary of the KPMG business case. KPMG estimates that, over 10 years, the savings will be up to $3 billion. The starting point is fraud and overwhelmingly that $3 billion will be in the area of fraud. We do suffer the difficulty that people do attempt to use—obviously sometimes successfully—a number of created identities in order to claim benefits, particularly from Centrelink.

We have a challenge based on advice that I have received that the current health care cards and pensioner concession cards are not robust and are very susceptible to fraud. The information I received, for example, is that 80 per cent of the PBS is claimed by people with concession cards and that 25 per cent of all concession cards are cancelled prior to the expiry date on the card. That, in itself, represents a concern that people might be using concession cards even though for various reasons they are no longer entitled to the concession. That is one reason why the access card will replace 17 cards and vouchers, and a number of those cards are concession cards. Currently, the government has no way of immediately and remotely cancelling a concession entitlement when it is claimed by an individual presenting an existing card.

I have seen various estimates from a range of sources claiming that the biggest beneficiaries of this will be the states, because they are the ones that give significant concession to individuals on public transport and assistance with rent, electricity, water and in a range of other areas. They base most of that concession entitlement on the Commonwealth cards, and yet they face the same challenge that we do—that is, that those cards are not robust and secure and we do not have the capacity to cancel the entitlement. Let me give you an example. A single parent might be on a single parent’s pension and receive a pensioner concession card. Then, for one reason or another, their assets have increased or their circumstances have changed such that they are no longer entitled to that card. Whilst we can cancel the entitlement from our end, it could be the case that they continue to present the card to get discounts for everything from the PBS to movie tickets. We just do not know.

KPMG provided the estimate of up to $3 billion. That is the financial benefit of the card, but it is the convenience benefit that will be most significant for individuals. The fact is, for example, that 600,000 people, according to KPMG, are turned away from Centrelink every year because they bring insufficient proof of identity information when they roll up to Centrelink. I know that Medicare send out 50,000 letters a year to people who have incorrectly filled out their name and address on a Medicare claim form. That, to me, is the icing on the cake. In fact, it is more than that; it is the carrot on the carrot cake. It represents a convenience to individuals that people have been yearning for but have been unable to obtain. I see that as the real and significant benefit of the access card.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the minister to clarify this. What is not clear to me in the $3 billion savings is how they are specifically related to the smartcard. Is there not double-counting between the savings that are projected from the smartcard and other general antifraud and compliance measures? I wonder whether the minister can confirm that the $3 billion over 10 years is specifically and directly related to the introduction of the smartcard.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I cannot ask for better than that.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, I can help here. Understand that Human Services will deliver $1,000 billion in payments over the next 10 years. Currently we deliver around $92 billion. This year alone our detected fraud will be at around $2 billion. We prosecute around 10 people per day for trying to defraud the health and welfare system. So when KPMG advises us that it is up to $3 billion I personally believe that that is a very conservative figure. I think it will be far greater than that. If we accept the $3 billion figure, that $3 billion represents 0.3 per cent of the money we will distribute over the next 10 years. International benchmarks suggest that fraud is averaging around four to six per cent in health and welfare services. I saw a report I think from Deloittes earlier on that suggested that fraud internationally is around that figure. We are taking very conservative approaches to all these figures. So 0.3 per cent as a saving in relation to the access card I think is quite a conservative figure.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has referred in his remarks to the KPMG report on the smartcard. He indicated in the lead-up to the release of the report that certain sections would be marked ‘commercial-in-confidence’, which the opposition expected and does not have a major problem with. But when he released the report not only were certain sections marked ‘commercial-in-confidence’ others were marked ‘cabinet-in-confidence’. I know the minister will not want to go into detail, because if he did he would not have marked it ‘cabinet-in-confidence’, but I wonder whether he could inform the House in a general way why certain parts were marked ‘cabinet-in-confidence’, which is not what the opposition was expecting and certainly not I think what the public would expect for a publicly funded report.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because it was a cabinet document.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The whole document was a cabinet document, but only certain sections were marked ‘cabinet-in-confidence’. Clearly there is a reason why some was released and some was not.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Prospect should be happy that he received some information from a cabinet-in-confidence document.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has been doing very well tonight, but he lapsed into Howard government arrogance just then. He has been cooperative, he has been transparent but now the Howard government arrogance pops in: ‘You are lucky you are getting any. The taxpayer has paid for it, but be lucky you are getting any. Be grateful that we are telling you anything. Be grateful that we are telling you just a little bit about what is in this KPMG report.’ Given that he says we are lucky to receive any of the KPMG report, can I ask him when we might be receiving the Clayton Utz privacy impact statement?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I emphasise that the KPMG report—I sigh because this has been going on for a while and it is becoming a little predictable, but we are moving on—was part of the advice the government received together with departmental advice and a range of sources of advice in relation to the decision to move forward. Given the level of expenditure involved, I thought it appropriate to release the basic information out of the business case from KPMG, as you correctly identified. There was information there that is sensitive to the tender process. It is a very significant IT tender process, and I do not think we should be giving any of the tenderers a free kick.

In relation to the privacy impact assessment, as I have said, the advice received from Clayton Utz and others was essentially made redundant because the nature of the project changed according to the decision of cabinet. For example, there was a robust public debate about an ID card, and cabinet rejected the proposal for a national ID card. As the Prime Minister said in the press conference the day after ANZAC Day, when we announced the proposal to proceed with the card, we took the view that Australia does not want or need a national identity card. This a very different proposition from a national ID card. Anyone who is familiar with national ID cards around the world would accept that.

There was a range of different sources of information—including, I might add, the Privacy Commissioner, who obviously has far more experience and was well across the brief. She helped us to address some of the privacy issues. I might say that the end product, the access card, will have less information in the chip than sits in your wallet today. It will not have as much on it as a drivers licence. Let me give you a real example. My New South Wales drivers licence—which the local Video Ezy store has a photocopy of—has on the face of it a photo, a name, an address and a date of birth and it has my signature. This card, on the face of it, will have only your photo and your name. It might have your signature on the back of it. In the chip, the only mandatory fields will essentially be your name, your address, your date of birth and pensioner concession and so on. It might have a signature as well. Those fields are readily available for the government now, obviously—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So why are we doing it?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are doing it because this is a more robust identifier, and the challenge we have—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For a billion dollars!

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, and if you were here earlier you would have heard that the savings to individuals and the savings to taxpayers far outweigh the costs of implementing this project. I know it is going to be difficult for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to grasp the details of this, but there is actually strong demand in the community for this initiative. If she asks why we are going down the route of smart card technology, perhaps she could ask her state Labor counterparts, all of whom are proceeding with smart card technology—some not so spectacularly, I might add, because they are promising projects that are far greater than are actually deliverable. The fact is that the Queensland government is rolling out a smart card drivers licence in 2008. It will probably be out there before we have our own health and welfare services access card in the marketplace.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I must say the minister’s response on the privacy impact statement was quite disappointing. On the one hand he says that it is redundant; on the other hand he says that there is commercial-in-confidence information in there which we cannot possibly share. Either it is redundant or it is not. If it is redundant, what is the harm in releasing it? If there is commercial-in-confidence information in there, I would submit, with respect, that he could do the same thing he did with the KPMG report: mark certain parts as commercial-in-confidence and release those parts which are not commercial-in-confidence.

We have been going for 45 minutes and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education are here. I would like to ask one last question. I think it was on Friday that Professor Fels issued his report and warned:

To prevent it becoming a de facto ID card, there should be a prohibition on anyone compelling people to produce it.

I wonder whether the minister could indicate whether it is the intention of the government to introduce legislation to prohibit compelling production of the card. As I understand it, the government has indicated that is their position, but it would be helpful if it could be enshrined in law.

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am a little disappointed that the member for Wills is not here. He tends to ask these questions through press releases. I am sure he has deferred to someone more capable under these circumstances. Professor Fels is a living, breathing privacy impact assessment.

Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you going to do what he says?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a great deal of respect for Professor Fels, as does the Australian community. I obviously listen to everything that he says and take heed of certain things. Let me assure you of this: I did not invite him to take the position of head of the consumer and privacy task force with a flippant disregard for his ability to provide independent, sometimes courageous, advice. We were aware of that. That is because we are taking this issue very seriously. We do not want to see this project derailed by some fringe groups making extravagant claims about the impact on individual privacy. It is just not true. This is not just a rollout of a card; it is a rollout of infrastructure. It is going to be rolled out in a rather unstoppable way by the state governments, by the banking system. Credit card companies already do it with ANZ. They already have a smart card.

Let me explain the fundamental principle here. The fundamental principle is that the magnetic strip on the back of your cards is not safe. It is easily skimmed. The information sitting on that magnetic strip is not as robust as a computer chip in a card. It is a simple fact. Computer chips are more robust. We are not suggesting for a moment that it is a honey pot. We are not suggesting for a moment that it should be the all-encompassing identifier. In fact, I would strongly argue against it being treated by people as a 100-point identifier. I do not want that to occur; otherwise it may be argued that it is an ID card.

But there will be some people that will want to present it for identification purposes, such as when they are picking up an electronic ticket at an airport. A lot of aged Australians do not have drivers licences and have said they want to be able to present something when they are asked to provide proof of identity at various points. I think the issue raised about this being an alternative form of identification is a reasonable point. Some people might want to use it to make up a certain number of points to be able to open a bank account.

I would strongly argue that there is a strong case for us to have legislation that ensures it is certainly not to be the only demanded identifier. That is quite a compelling argument. This is so that, for example, if you want to open a bank account, it cannot be the case that the bank can say, ‘You can either present your access card or you don’t open a bank account.’ I think there is a reasonable point to be made that we could legislate to avoid that occurring. But it could be used as part of the process.

The key thing about it is that, for individuals that apply for the card, we will have a biometric identifier in the form of a photo that is more robust than any identifier out there at the moment. Even passport photos can be submitted by individuals rather than having the photo taken in the passport office. This will be a robust identifier for individuals.

Identity theft is regarded as the biggest threat to individual liberty at the moment—that is the global consumer reaction, and you will see more information about that in the next few days. I see this as a form of secure identity for individuals—for me or others. The other point to note about this card is that the individual controls the card. If a person wants to put additional information on the card, such as that they have an allergy to penicillin, instead of having a wristband there could be a field that can only be seen by medical practitioners that readily identifies that they have a medical condition. These are the sorts of issues that I want discussed publicly and that is why I have engaged Professor Fels. I am glad that the opposition are engaging in the debate.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Education, Science and Training Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $2,794,953,000.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start today with some questions about a matter that the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education made public today—that is, he intends changing the name of the New Apprenticeships scheme to Australian Apprenticeships. I saw reported in the Adelaide Advertiser that the government intends to spend $24 million. I would appreciate it if the minister could tell us if that figure is correct. If it is, has the government decided to spend all of that money in this budget year, 2006-07? If that is the case, where is that identified in the budget papers?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased the member for Jagajaga asked about this matter, because we want to create an enormous amount of prestige about the Australian Apprenticeships system. We want to put this very clearly in the minds of parents and those who support young people as they make their choices about the further studies they might undertake and the training they might want to undertake. For most states, year 10 is the year where students make some decisions about taking on Australian school based apprenticeships in years 11 and 12, with employers taking them on as part-time employees and where their academic studies and training matches the overall requirements of advancing in the elementary parts of trades as well as, obviously, completing academic studies.

We want to create a very clear impression, particularly in the work that is being done through the Council of Australian Governments, that a credential gained in one state carries a weight of recognition across all states. It has been some 10 years since the government’s New Apprenticeships program was launched. We now know that we can have a truly national training system, given the agreement with the states and territories last year, which was recently re-endorsed just 10 days ago at the Ministerial Council for Vocational and Technical Education.

What is in a name? Essentially, the short answer is that the name Australian Apprenticeships says it all. Obviously, our ambition is to get the word out about exactly what that means—to reinforce the decision making that parents and those who support young people help those young people make and to create an air of prestige about it.

I saw the figure of $24 million quoted in the paper as well. I am writing to the Prime Minister to put to him very clearly our ambition to spend an appropriate amount of money not just in this year but over the years ahead, so that the resources are there in an advertising sense and to underpin our clear ambition to create this sense of prestige. My point is that there is nothing in the budget that will reflect that $24 million. There is money that is appropriated, as there regularly is, for marketing exercises underpinning all of this department’s programs. I am seeking further assistance from the Prime Minister, which would be the appropriate way for a minister to do it, and I will wait until the Prime Minister writes back with his agreement to that particular request.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So there is no truth to that $24 million. Is that right? If there is no truth to the $24 million—if you will just confirm that briefly—how much is the actual rebranding going to cost, the change of name from New Apprenticeships scheme to Australian Apprenticeships?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the interests of accountability, I cannot say what the cost of any rebranding exercise is until we embark upon it. But the coincidence of the new contracts for our Australian apprenticeships service centres—or Australian apprenticeships centres, as they will be known from 1 July—gives us an opportunity to write the contract requirements, which is what we are doing, for the 30 or so new providers around this country. These are the people who tendered under the old New Apprenticeships centres program for the right to run these Australian apprenticeship centres so this gives us a ready opportunity to make certain that, as they gear up for door opening on 1 July, they will be reflecting the new program name.

The overall cost would be consistent with the kind of cost that we already see in the expenditure of moneys for marketing. In addition to that, we will obviously look for other ways to further enhance the standing of apprenticeships as a first choice. I simply say to the member for Jagajaga that the full amounts will obviously come out in time, as they would through exposure in Senate estimates and so forth. The money is not appropriated in this matter before us; it is simply a new program proposal put to the Prime Minister, the finance minister and the Treasurer, as is my wont as a minister of state.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So, in other words, the government has no idea how much this rebranding will cost. The second thing that was reported was that this new rebranding was based on research that the government has apparently had done for it. Apparently the research said that the word ‘new’ was considered daggy. Will the minister now make this research available and can he tell us who in fact conducted the research?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will seek advice on exactly who conducted the research. At the end of it, the normal approach to these things is to commission some research to set out very plainly where the positioning of items such as selling the prestige of Australian apprenticeships sits in the marketplace. My understanding is that there was some work done over the last couple of months on this. I must say, anecdotally, the state ministers are very happy about seeing the end of the word ‘new’. So, if nothing else, those who are administering apprenticeship programs around this country are quite happy to see the government act on updating the language and, indeed, reinforcing the sense of prestige and national purpose that will come with this new branding of Australian Apprenticeships.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So the question, Minister, is will the research be made available and will you provide that research to the opposition?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I see no need one way or the other to make it available or not make it available. Is the opposition now proposing to be against the idea of enhancing the standing of apprenticeships?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ms Macklin interjecting

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Is the honourable member seeking to ask a question?

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I am.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will you allow a question, Minister?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am in the process of responding, as is my right in this place.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will you make it available or not?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have said, I see no point one way or the other about making it available.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not an answer.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There will be no more interjections. The minister is having a go at answering the question.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I simply make the point quite plainly that our ambition in working in partnerships with the state and territory governments is to create a truly national process. But if the Deputy Leader of the Opposition now wants to run some sort of rearguard action to try to explain that 10 years after new was new that new should stay, I look forward to that policy announcement prior to the 2007 election.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister will not put words in my mouth. All I am doing is asking for a copy of the research. If he will not make it available in a cooperative way, we will have to pursue other methods. The minister said in his press release today that there will be major changes to Australian apprenticeships. I ask him: will the incentive system for employers be changed, and what other changes does he have in mind that will have an impact on the budget?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Outlined in the documents before us is a clear commitment from this government to employer incentives and other initiatives that outline very clearly our ongoing support for apprenticeships. At the end of it, what we are proposing is a rebadging, rebranding, refocusing, revitalisation of the standing of Australian apprenticeships in the hearts and minds of the decision makers and also the young people who make those decisions themselves. The government’s commitment—a record level of commitment—is something in the order of twice the amount—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek to intervene.

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would the minister permit a question?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Again, I am pursuing the question that has been asked by the member for Jagajaga. I am not going to take any further questions. She can wait until I have completed the answer to the first question she asked me.

The ready reality that the member for Jagajaga never seems to want to get is that the states and territories are actually talking to us and not to her. The states and territories are actually working in a cooperative way with us and are not interested in dealing with the member for Jagajaga. If she has a problem with her own party structures, which means that she is left out of the loop, that is a difficulty that the member for Jagajaga can overcome on her own investment and her own ability or otherwise.

What we are determined to do as a government is to recognise and to ensure that the record level of investment that we are placing directly in the hands of Australian businesses and Australian individuals—who already understand that the best way to invest in their business is to invest in training, and the best way to invest in themselves is to invest in training—is continued. If there is anything in the member for Jagajaga’s attempts at questioning to suggest that the government is planning to somehow or other alter its commitment to that, she is plain wrong, as she always is on any of the subjects associated with this broad discussion.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Goodness me! All I asked was, ‘Will the incentive system be changed?’ and I got that diatribe. I take it from that that the incentive system will not be changed—

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So when you said in your press release today that there will be major changes to Australian apprenticeships in the coming months, you did not actually mean that there were going to be any. So let us put all that to one side, because plainly the government does not have any plans to make any changes other than changing the name.

If we can move to the operation of the technical colleges, first of all I want to ask some questions about some of the stand-alone Australian technical colleges. By that I mean the ones the government intends to set up as independent schools without support from either the state governments or the Catholic system. I will take the example of the proposed technical college to be set up in Townsville next year. I see the member for Herbert has just come in; I am sure he will be interested in the minister’s answers.

The minister has announced that the college will commence operations in 2007, but I just want to understand how this college is going to be financed. The current AGSRC secondary school figure is about $9,000 per student. Could the minister just confirm that that is the Australian Government School Recurrent Cost secondary school standard, about $9,000 a student? Of course, as the minister would be aware, this is a cash figure; it does not include liabilities for superannuation and so on. Nevertheless, as the minister would know, it is a conservative figure when we look at the costs of actually running a senior secondary school. We all know that students in years 11 and 12 are likely to be more expensive than that, and I would ask the minister to confirm that that is his expectation. Some people suggest that the estimates could be between 20 and 50 per cent higher than this average provided for secondary school students.

So, first of all, I would like to know what cost estimate the government actually has, particularly for these schools that are not going to have the support that will be coming to those technical colleges in cooperation with the state government system or the Catholic system. Could the minister give us an idea of the actual figure he is working to for the cost per student in these colleges, like the one in Townsville?

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I vacate the chair in favour of the member for Herbert, might I remind him that it is Tasmania, the electorate of Denison in particular, that is paradise, rather than the electorate of Herbert!

Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Lindsay interjecting

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I fear that the unparliamentary observation by the member for Herbert might in fact be correct—that there could have been a misleading of the chamber! But, either way, I think it is important that each of us comes here with our own little bit of paradise at the back of our minds, even if it satisfies just ourselves!

As for the substantial nature of what the member for Jagajaga has asked, yes, that figure seems to be correct. The question, though, unfortunately underpins the fact that you have not quite worked out, Member for Jagajaga, how this program actually works. Under the process of each of the state governments, there is a requirement for the schools to be registered. Either they are registered as a result of being in a partnership with an existing state owned school or a non-government school, or indeed, as you have suggested in your question, they are registered as a brand new school. All three of those types are in fact part of the network of Australian technical colleges that is being rolled out. But they all have to be registered state by state. As a result of that, they also receive recurrent funding by agreement. Schools that are registered are tied into the school system of that state and have to deliver the curriculum that is required to satisfy whatever the end point of study happens to be in that state—in Tasmania, it is year 10; in most other states it is year 12. At the end of it, they still need to satisfy the state board of studies. They still have to follow the requirements of the state boards as far as the curricula for academic study or indeed technical training are concerned. So the basis of your question is not quite correct—the suggestion that, by some process of osmosis, a school like the one in Townsville, in the member for Herbert’s electorate, might somehow or other be treated differently.

I should add that, on top of the continuing commitment of this government, record amounts of money are going to state governments for the use, in a recurrent sense and also in a capital works sense, of schools. There are record amounts of money going into the private school sector from this government for recurrent expenditure as well as capital works. There is also a vote of money that is going to each of the consortia running the Australian technical colleges, money that goes towards both capital works and additional recurrent expenditure. So, to sum up the answer to the member for Jagajaga’s question, there is additional money. There are additional resources—$351 million over the current quadrennium.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do understand that the independent schools receive money from the Commonwealth, and I am glad that the minister has confirmed that his estimate of the secondary figure is as we expect it to be—that is, about $9,000 per student—and that he also accepts that year 11 and 12 students are more expensive. We could add on to that that VET students are even more expensive again because of the technology and so on that they require.

I will run through the figures. If this school in Townsville were to receive the same rate of Commonwealth support as a Catholic systemic school, it would be receiving about $5,200 a student. State recurrent funding would be about $2,000 a student. That gets us up to around $7,000 to $7,500 a student, so we are a bit short. The department has advised the Senate estimates committee that this college will not be charging fees. The answer to the question that we asked in Senate estimates indicates that the fees for this college will be nil. The point of all of this is that, as the minister has confirmed, secondary school students need at least $9,000 a student. For years 11 and 12, they could need an additional $2,000 a student, yet this school, by the government’s own figures, will only be getting $7,500 a student. I would ask how much extra is going to go to this school in Townsville from the Australian technical college fund per student if it is the case that they are paying nil fees.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In response to that, the figures that the member for Jagajaga has offered are perhaps an indicative example or an example indicative, if you want to look at it another way. At the end of it, the government have made it plain that no additional fees will be charged for people to attend an Australian technical college. We understand that there are fee structures already in place in line with the attendance at an existing non-government school.

The Australian government has dedicated something in the order of $19 million or $20 million to the Australian technical college in Townsville for its operating and capital works moneys over this current three-year period. On top of that, it has a tremendous amount of support from the Townsville community. The Townsville example is not isolated in this, but I have to say that I have been quite amazed by the strength of support that has come out of the Townsville community in general and, indeed, the Townsville business community towards the Australian technical college of North Queensland. It is quite amazing to think that, some six or seven months before this particular college opens, Townsville business has already committed 100-plus places for school based apprenticeships—Australian school based apprenticeships, as they will be called from 1 July. That is 100-plus employment opportunities to young people attending this school.

On top of that, the effect of the strong business contingent involved in the management of this college sees businesses such as Alexander Body Works, which have repainted one of their utilities with ‘Australian Technical College North Queensland’ I am telling everyone all around the country, ‘You should get an Alexander Body Works involved in your consortium.’ They are driving around Townsville and Thuringowa getting the word out. I have a feeling I may have to be literally beating people off with a stick, and they are going to be coming back and asking for even more money because this program is so successful and so well understood in the Townsville region. I was rather delighted that the member for Jagajaga used the Townsville example, but I would be very cautious if I was her in any attacks that she might make on the way that this college is operating or organising itself, because it has an enormous of support in the Townsville and Thuringowa region.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you yourself would know, Mr Deputy Speaker—and as the minister knows—this is a new school, so I ask him again: is it the case that there will be no fees? It is a new school so the current fees do not apply. Is it true that there will be no fees at this school? That is the first thing. The second is that the minister has just told us that $20 million will be spent on this school. The critical question is how much of the $20 million will be spent in a recurrent way per student and how much is going on buildings?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not have the numbers off the top of my head but I am happy to go and find those in order to account for them. But at the end of it we also believe the consortium is very well equipped, very well supported and very well able to do all that they said that they would do. I make the principal point that there is no additional fee involved in attending an Australian technical college.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So at this school there will be no fees, given there are no fees now because the school in fact does not exist—is that correct?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Hardgrave interjecting

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Okay. I will go to some of the other technical colleges. Now that the minister has told us that he intends to spend $20 million at the technical college in Townsville and he has also told us, in previous announcements, that there will be $20 million spent in the Hunter and $9.6 million in Geelong, could the minister also tell us how much is being spent on the technical colleges that are already open: Gladstone, Port Macquarie, Eastern Melbourne and the Gold Coast? Could the minister tell us how much recurrent money is being spent and how much capital money is being spent?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Jagajaga might be wise to put these specific questions on the Notice Paper. I am happy to try and furnish her information upon request.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reason I am asking here, through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the minister is that we have asked these questions in Senate estimates and the department refused to answer them. This is an opportunity for the minister to actually give us an answer here tonight and, if he is unable to, can I take it that the commitment he has just given is that we now will have answers to these questions?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have just said the member for Jagajaga might want to put the specific questions on the Notice Paper. I am not constantly carrying around with me the expenditure, technical college by technical college.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ask your advisers.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not need to ask my advisers because they are not carrying it either. The member for Jagajaga might be wise to understand that the varying amounts of money reflect the ambitions of each of the local communities. Each community has put a case to us about how they interpret the Australian technical college program. Each brings a different asset base, a different model and a different approach. We have entered into a contractual obligation with each of those communities. There has been a very real effort to allow each of those communities to understand that there is not a standard amount of money that is associated with it. Some simply cost more than others because of the type of programs people have put to us.

In Townsville there has been a larger commitment to the physical structures of buildings because we recognise that it is a cyclone rated area that requires quality building. A quality program of construction is underway, to the best of my knowledge. But the day-to-day dealings and all of that information actually rests in the hands of each consortium. The government is always happy to account for what those amounts are. I suspect that, as each of the amounts is expended and as each of those dollar figures is available, if the officials have not provided it at Senate estimates I might see the member for Jagajaga put it on the Notice Paper and ask me a question.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the minister has just given a commitment to that sort of accountability, we will put it on the Notice Paper. I look forward to a comprehensive answer that sets out the commitment in both recurrent and capital terms. The other questions are related to how many apprentices will actually be enrolled in each of these technical colleges. First of all, with the colleges that have already been opened the department has provided information about how many students are already enrolled at those technical colleges, so I will not ask that again. How many of the students at the Eastern Melbourne technical college are actually enrolled in school based apprenticeships? Are all the students at the technical college actually enrolled in school based apprenticeships?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know the exact number of people involved in school based apprenticeships, but I do know that the eastern Melbourne consortium have an obligation, in a contractual form, to ensure that each of the students involved with the Australian Technical College East Melbourne are involved in a school based apprenticeship. They either do that at the beginning of their enrolment or, indeed, once they have achieved some of their prevocational occupational health and safety studies and those sorts of things; it depends on how the school itself is structured. Either way, the students have a commitment. The consortium also has a commitment to have those students not only in a school based apprenticeship but in a certificate III school based apprenticeship—in other words, one that reflects a real trade-based assessment. In anticipation of further questions, the one at Port Macquarie simply cannot do that.

If the member for Jagajaga were really committed to this cause, she would get on the phone to the New South Wales Minister for Education and Training—if she would take the call—and demand that she stop playing at shadow boxing on this and deliver Australian school based apprenticeship opportunities to what I would estimate are between 5,000 and 7,000 students in New South Wales. The member for Jagajaga could do that today. But the problem is—and we saw it just the other week with the rollover by the member for Brand on the question of Australian workplace agreements—that John Robertson from Unions New South Wales is running the New South Wales government and not any of the people who sit in the cabinet room.

I cannot give you the exact number of people who are involved in whatever trades or apprenticeships. But we do expect each of these consortiums, rightly, to live up to its contractual agreement to provide at least these apprenticeships. In a state like New South Wales that is quite radical. Yet every day in Queensland, the North Queensland technical college is developing itself and already has over 100 bids from employers to take on school based apprentices. I think it is amazing, when you compare that with what is happening in New South Wales.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister mentioned Port Macquarie, so I might now ask him a question that I want answered about Port Macquarie. The minister would be aware that St Joseph’s vocational, a school at Port Macquarie, was operating as a vocational college before it became a technical college. I understand that the school at that time had 185 students enrolled already. I ask the minister how many extra apprentices are enrolled at the four technical colleges that are currently operating? He has previously said that just under 300 students are enrolled. But is it the case that, if you remove the 185 who were at Port Macquarie already, the extra number of students in this new technical college is closer to only about 100?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am just so glad that the member for Jagajaga did not become the education minister after the last election. If she had, the number of people enrolled in the Australian technical college around Australia would be zero—because there would not be such colleges. The member for Jagajaga is very churlish and very uncharitable in her approach. People in all these different places around Australia are less than impressed by her approach on this. The nonsense she has peddled about Gladstone, for instance, has gone over like a lead weighted battleship in that particular city, which has a great commitment to vocational and technical education that has been enhanced by extra funds from this government.

She would not want to show up at Port Macquarie or Taree either, because she would be tarred and feathered because of her churlish and uncharitable comments about the way that St Joseph’s vocational college is enhancing what it has done in the past. Even worse; if there were any commitment by the member opposite to school based apprenticeships, she would be joining with me and demanding that New South Wales in particular, but also Western Australia, get with the program and give the sort of opportunities that are available every day to people in Queensland and that are becoming available every day to people in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. But these sorts of opportunities seem to be a foreign concept in Western Australia, a state run by the CFMEU—with the CFMEU’s head numbers person being that state’s education minister—and in New South Wales, where Unions New South Wales refuses to allow part-time apprenticeships. Is it any wonder that businesses in New South Wales are leaving the state? I invite the member for Jagajaga to refocus her energy on joining with us on this to try to bring about and broker the change we want.

The simple reality is that currently there are over 300 school based apprenticeships, not all operating at the certificate III level because of the New South Wales intransigence and failure to update. The ambition is very clear: with over 20 colleges that should be operating come the 2007 school year, there will be over 2,000 school based apprenticeships. I suspect that by about this time next year we will see something in the order of 2½ thousand school based apprenticeships operating.

This government is actually about giving opportunity to young people. We are not about prescribing—as the Labor Party have done state by state around this country—that kids have to remain at school until they finish year 12 or kids have to remain at school until they are 17 or 18, depending on where they are, and yet not providing full range of pathways and opportunities. This government has done more to expand the notion of success that individuals can achieve by taking on the trades than those opposite ever dreamed about. They had this lazy view that training was about burying further the massive levels of unemployment. In 1993, when they trashed the training system with the recession we had to have and 30,000 people left it overnight, we saw a whole series of programs under Working Nation, which was actually all about using training to hide the real level of unemployment in this country.

All I say to the member for Jagajaga is that, if she were genuine in her inquiry this evening, she would be saying to me: ‘Minister, tell me how I can help you succeed? Minister, tell me how I can talk those silly people in state governments in New South Wales and Western Australia into getting with the program? Tell me how I can go to the union movement and say, “Hold on a second; you have no chance of growing your union membership if you don’t have people in the workforce, in the trades”?’

But the member for Jagajaga has shown that she is not genuine in this. This is all about trying to get some fodder for a press release, and I can think of all of her lines now. The sad reality for the member for Jagajaga is that I look forward to this churlish and uncharitable press release that she will put out, because all that it will do is further develop the view amongst the state ministers—and indeed amongst the constituency that she is trying to offer some shadow representation to—that in fact she knows nothing about what she is talking about.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I shall take it from all of that that I am correct, that there were about 185 students already enrolled at the Port Macquarie vocational college before it became an ATC and that therefore the extra apprentices enrolled in the four ATCs that are now open are closer to about 100, because you have not corrected it and instead have decided to give us just a whole lot of waffle.

Given that he is prepared to take these questions on notice, I will just say this to the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education. As he would be aware, he has a piece of legislation in the chamber right at the moment. When we get to the consideration in detail stage of that bill tomorrow or the next day then he may ask his department for answers to the detailed questions that I have put to him tonight, because I intend to ask them again.

I will move on to another area of training policy, particularly the future of the industry skills councils. I ask the minister whether or not a review of the industry skills councils is currently under way, or has that review already been completed? I ask the minister: who was responsible for conducting the review? If it was external to the department, who conducted it and how much did the review cost?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Jagajaga has damned herself on two fronts with the comments she has just made. The piece of legislation that she has forecast to come before the chamber again this week is an example of how successful the Australian technical colleges program has been, because it brings forward expenditure from the out years into the current year. It shows the great lie that she is trying to tell around Australia about this program. It is actually bringing money from the out years into the earlier years. It is creating the necessary financing and the flexibility in the financing that is necessary to meet the expectations of the communities that have taken up the challenge for the technical colleges.

The member for Jagajaga can try to use this forum to verbal me as much as she likes, but she knows very plainly that I have made it—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Answer the question.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not a question and answer period; this is a series of five-minute speeches. You should understand the rules of engagement. What I am prepared to do is to engage on the point that it is not reasonable to suggest that I have not answered any of your questions and inquiries. In fact, I have, but the member for Jagajaga chooses not to want to listen to the responses, because it does not suit her predetermined purpose.

With regard to the industry skills councils, this also makes my earlier point very plain—that is, obviously none of the state ministers is talking to her. At the recent Ministerial Council for Vocational and Technical Education this subject was raised by state ministers, and they asked to be involved in the process, which, at an earlier ministerial council meeting, they had charged me to execute. Under the Skilling Australia’s Workforce Agreement, the national training agreement, there was consideration that all elements of the training system would be subject to review, including the industry skills council. My department has undertaken an extensive range of consultations with industry groups, unions and the state departments of education and training to seek their views. State ministers will be further consulted on the matter and will make some decisions later in the year. Frankly, at the end of it—and I think that one of the ministers made this point—we have to be sure that all elements of the national training system are contributing to the way the system operates. One way or another, whether or not the industry skills councils are performing their tasks is something we will make a decision on as is appropriate and that will be decided by state ministers and me. It simply proves yet again that the state ministers will not talk to the member for Jagajaga. She has no research potential other than to ask these questions. It really is quite sad how disconnected she is from the national debate on training.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will finish on a couple of indexation issues. It is disappointing that the Minister for Education, Science and Training is not here; I cannot see the point of going into any great detail on schools’ issues. But the minister may be aware that Minister Bishop has issued a number of media releases claiming that the indexation of schools recurrent programs is an average of 6.4 per cent. I ask that the minister at the table confirm that the indexation is an average of 6.4 per cent. I also ask the minister how, if that is the case, he can justify an indexation arrangement of about two per cent for vocational and technical education. Why has he been able to deliver only two per cent to vocational and technical education if schools are getting an average of 6.4 per cent?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to take the substantial basis of that question and report back to the member for Jagajaga in due course. At the end of it, this government, this budget and the documents before us have voted almost an extra $1 billion towards the task of higher education in schools, science and training. This is a government that has had a record level of commitment now, over the 10 years it has been in office, to a massive spending spree on education. There has never been a government like this when it comes to education, science and training as far as the level of expenditure is concerned—expenditure that is well targeted and trusts local communities. One billion dollars is to be invested in the Investing in Our Schools program, delivering to both the state school sector and the non-government sector and to the parents in those sectors a chance to invest directly in their schools.

I suspect that no matter what the member for Jagajaga might like to ask, the answer is not going to satisfy her. The government have increased expenditure in this portfolio to record numbers. We have, I think, taken upon ourselves very plainly a sense of national cooperation and national leadership. What is important from our point of view is that the states keep up, and whether the states are able to keep up with our leadership on this is an issue for individual states. It is understood that the overall partnership in training and in schools is a partnership with the state governments—constitutionally, they have direct responsibility for it. We are a part player in it but we are a part player in the sense that we can provide national leadership that can fashion national outcomes on a state-by-state basis.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given that vocational and technical education and universities are getting indexation of two per cent it does not say much about higher education under this government. Given that the Minister for Vocational and Technical Education is going to get back to me about that, I will leave that issue. I have a couple of other issues. The minister may have seen the state Liberal spokesperson from New South Wales, Mr Brad Hazzard, saying that if the Liberal-National coalition won the next election in New South Wales A to E reporting would not be used to report on children up to year 3 and that local communities would choose how to report on students in years 4 to 6. The spokesperson has come out and said that he will not do what the federal government has required the states to do. Would such a decision by a New South Wales state Liberal government—obviously a big assumption about whether or not they will win the state election—mean that the federal minister would withhold funding from New South Wales public schools? If that is the case, what is the total value of grants to New South Wales public schools that would be put at risk if the A to E reporting requirement was not met, as was suggested by the Liberal spokesperson in New South Wales?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought that this was the Parliament of Australia and not fantasy land in the sense that we are dealing with a hypothetical here. If there is a change of government in New South Wales—and I hope there is—the point would be made very plain to the incoming education minister that the government stands on the side of parents. Parents need to have a good understanding about how their child is performing, not just simply something saying that they exist and that they are actually in the classroom. We want a clear reporting process. We want something that is very easily understood. We think it is reasonable that parents know how their child is performing in comparison not only with other people in the state but also with other people in the classroom.

The only people who have something to fear out of this are mediocre teachers. We think that the best teachers are going to welcome the chance to have parents know that their students are achieving an A outcome, a B outcome, a C outcome or whatever. No-one has anything to fear. We stand for excellence in education on this side. We have put it very plainly to the states. My understanding is that Minister Bishop is expecting some responses back from the states by the end of July. I guess we will deal with the detail of those responses then.

It is really important that the member for Jagajaga does not do herself a disservice by standing for mediocrity. The Labor Party are all about rewarding mediocrity. Members of the Labor Party are constantly looking for examples to satisfy the case put to them by the Australian Education Union or the New South Wales Teachers Federation that mediocrity is okay. We have a view that we want to achieve excellence from our students. Earlier reforms from this government dealt with literacy and numeracy benchmarking. The way in which those opposite rallied against that because somehow it was going to expose teachers did them no service at all. Without wanting to embarrass my poor son, but I am about to, if it had not been for Dr David Kemp’s reforms earlier in the life of this government revealing literacy traps, which then enabled my son to find out that he was not reading and writing properly, he might not be as good a student as he is today. I am quite proud about the fact that this government has stood for encouraging excellence and exposing where excellence is not being achieved. Whether it is the New South Wales Liberal Party, the New South Wales Labor Party or whoever it happens to be, it is an example that the member for Jagajaga will go and grab for, because she stands for mediocrity while we on this side stand for excellence.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the minister that it is actually the New South Wales Liberal Party who are opposing these measures, not the Labor Party. The Labor government in New South Wales have given a commitment to this reporting system, so I hope that the rant that the minister has just delivered will be well received by the New South Wales Liberal spokesperson on education, that plainly what he stands for is mediocrity.

Another issue I want to get the minister’s response on is also in this year’s budget. The government has decided to continue its tutorial voucher initiative. I understand there has been an evaluation done of the pilot tutorial voucher initiative. There is an executive summary of this evaluation that is available on the DEST website. We would like to see a copy of the final evaluation.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Before the bells rang for the division, I referred to the evaluation of the pilot tutorial voucher initiative. Will the full copy of the report of that evaluation be made available publicly? As I said, the executive summary is on the website but we would appreciate a copy of the whole report.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am advised that, as the member has suggested, the executive summary is available on the website. In due course, the full evaluation report will be made available. Various chapters are being finalised and the collation of chapters and appendices is being done. So in due course it will be made available.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would appreciate it if the minister could also let us know how much the evaluation cost. Obviously, the material that is available on the website about the success or otherwise of the tutorial voucher initiative is important, given that the government has decided to continue with this initiative. In the interests of being able to assess whether or not the first round of the pilot was successful, it is important that the evaluation be made available as quickly as possible. And could the minister also let me know how much the evaluation actually cost?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that the member for Jagajaga has placed a pretty extensive FOI request with the department seeking documents relating to this pilot tutorial voucher initiative and the evaluation of the pilot. The first response was provided on 13 March and the next on 8 May. Remaining documents were to be provided in two stages; I think some were provided on 22 May and the final stage will be made available as soon as practical. I am sure that the matter of cost and all those other matters can be handled in that FOI request, or in whatever other form suits the member for Jagajaga. The government has not made it a practice to not make information available following reasonable requests. I do not see us changing our approach in this particular matter.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Finally, I want to ask the minister about the federal government’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership interdepartmental committee. I would be pleased if the minister would inform us of whether or not the Department of Education, Science and Training is on this nuclear energy partnership interdepartmental committee and, if so, what role it is playing.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, the Prime Minister established this taskforce to undertake an objective, scientific and comprehensive review into the questions of nuclear energy, uranium mining and processing, and so forth—things that might be relevant to Australia in the long term. Naturally enough, this department play a role because obviously we have access to scientific expertise—to people who are highly regarded and who are regarded around the world as being capable in this area. The various key taskforce members have been announced by the Prime Minister. The taskforce will be chaired by Ziggy Switkowski and will include various other people who bring a variety of views to this task. This department stands ready to be of assistance in whatever form that taskforce dictates.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I was talking about the federal government’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership interdepartmental committee, which is a different group from the one the minister has just referred to. So, once again, I ask: is his department on this interdepartmental committee and, if so, what role is it playing?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Obviously, the Minister for Education, Science and Training, who is primarily responsible for science, is currently over the middle of the Pacific, heading to the United States. I will happily take that question on notice and refer the answer back to the member for Jagajaga at some stage.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is another matter that I would like the minister’s advice on. For some time now, the non-government school sector has been expecting to hear about a review to be undertaken, as they understand it, by the department—an internal review looking at the way in which the government intends to fund non-government schools into the next quadrennium. It is obviously a very important matter for the non-government school sector. So I ask the minister if he could let us know where this review is up to, when it will be announced, who will be conducting it and when he expects it to be completed.

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to say that the review will be conducted in the course of this year. It is being conducted within the department, but obviously it will seek advice from the non-government schools so they have full input into the process. They will have more than a little chance to put their various points of view on any of the matters they care to raise.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the minister: so am I right in thinking that this review has commenced? Is that correct?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that some preliminary work has commenced on it, the elementary stages of this, and that the review proper will be conducted over the remainder of this calendar year.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This review will be conducted by the department. Will the department be seeking formal submissions from the major non-government school groups so that they can put in their contributions to the department?

Gary Hardgrave (Moreton, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think I have probably already answered that. To put it another way, we would expect that the non-government school sector would be actively participating, putting formal submissions into the department to help us shape the way this review is deliberated on. So we welcome the full cooperation and engagement of the non-government school sector.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Remainder of bill—by leave—taken as a whole, and agreed to.

Ordered that this bill be reported to the House without amendment.