Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My electorate of Solomon has a great community spirit and as a result has a thriving sports community. In Darwin and Palmerston, one can participate in almost every single sport imaginable; from calisthenics to cricket, from BMX-riding to badminton. Darwin and Palmerston certainly has it all. It is probably the only capital city in the country where AFL and NRL are given pretty much equal status. In fact, I know of people who have come to Darwin as committed Australian Rules fans and have developed a strong interest in rugby league.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not kidding! There is a strong soccer competition. Cricket is played at a high standard, with top-shelf southern players coming to compete in the Darwin and District Cricket Association during their winter. Hockey has produced a number of champions; one of whom is in the other place.

The coalition has already shown significant commitment to sports in my electorate by guaranteeing my election commitments in the federal budget. I spent a lot of time in opposition advocating for small community organisations in my electorate, and many of them are local sporting clubs. Now the coalition is in government, I am thrilled that we are taking the physical and mental health of Australians seriously and providing a variety of sporting opportunities to our youth and adults. A healthy constituency means getting out and about and exercising in the electorate. We recognise that local sports are an important aspect of the Top End community. Community sport organisations encourage a healthy and active lifestyle for children and adults.

In the coming months Jingili BMX will officially open their new all-weather track for the first time. This is a great opportunity for Territory BMX riders to be able to hone their skills all year round, without being put off by the annual wet season. This allows BMX riders in the Territory to train at the same level of their interstate competitors. The coalition provided $1.5 million worth of funding to ensure that this project was finally delivered. Unfortunately, in true Labor style, the money was promised a long time ago but the Labor government never actioned it until four weeks out from the election.

The Berrimah Riding Club is another great local organisation in my electorate. It will be receiving about $5,000 to construct a shade structure over their horse-wash bays. Not only does the funding benefit Berrimah Riding Club; it also assists every other equestrian organisation that uses the Robbie Robbins Reserve facilities.

South Darwin Rugby League Club will receive $99,000 for much-needed upgrades to Warren Park, where a majority of the Northern Territory junior rugby league games are held on Saturday mornings. Upgrades to the park will include installation of a demountable for officials, a roller door upgrade, construction and installation of removable shade structures, plumbing repairs, irrigation upgrades and preparation of field lights. In addition, the Palmerston Football Club will receive $8,700 towards construction of new locker rooms for players and there will be $13,000 for the purchase of 15 internationally certified table tennis tables for competition.

Minister, could you tell me about the sporting schools initiative announced in the recent Commonwealth budget and how this program will see more than a third of Australian primary school children participating in sports in the school environment? I have some information about this and I have spoken to some schools in my electorate who were very excited about it. Could you use this opportunity to elaborate so I can provide them with further information about the opportunities for them to access some of this money? I would be very grateful for that, Minister.

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to turn the conversation to issues concerning rural and regional health. I am surprised that some of the members of the National Party that have stood and asked the minister questions have not taken the opportunity to raise these issues. If you look at regional health outcomes and compare those outcomes and the availability of primary care services for people in regional and rural Australia with those for people in metropolitan areas, there is a vast gap that needs to be closed. I am deeply concerned that this budget seems to have a blind spot for regional and rural Australia—a place where people are 30 per cent more likely to have diabetes and 20 to 30 per cent more likely to develop melanoma, where communities are 20 to 30 per cent more likely to have had men commit suicide because of mental health issues and where people are 20 to 30 per cent more likely to suffer from arthritis.

Against this background, you would be very cautious about implementing policy changes that are going to have an adverse impact on access to or cost of primary care services or even access to hospitals in regional and rural Australia. But when we look at the foundations of this policy we can see it has been built on anything but caution. We saw the hand-picked head of the audit commission being asked the basis for the new GP tax. He claimed, falsely, that the basis for the new GP tax was that Australians were visiting a doctor on average 11 times a year. You would have thought if your job was to have access to all the information and to go through it in fine detail that you would look at the right column. That is not a big ask. He should have known that the true figure is six or seven times a year, not 11 times a year. Yet that is the basis on which the GP tax is being introduced.

The Treasurer is fond of dividing the world up into leaners and lifters. When you look at the impact of this budget on regional and rural Australia you can see that the government is the one doing the leaning—on the wallets of people in regional Australia. Somewhere in the order of $1.4 billion will be taken out of the wallets of health consumers in regional Australia because of the operation of the GP tax. So I have to ask the minister: how is this going to improve access to health services for people in rural and regional Australia? The Rural Doctors Association has told us that rural people are some of the poorest in Australia, with some of the lowest incomes in Australia, and the AMA has told us that the GP tax is going to discourage people from going to the doctor. So you have to ask yourself: how is this going to improve health outcomes in rural and regional Australia?

I said earlier that I was surprised that members of the National Party have not ask questions of the minister in relation to the impact on rural and regional Australia. I am looking at the National Party health policy—I have it in front of me—which say, and this is very important:

The Nationals will provide increased financial support for doctors who provide health services in rural and remote communities, through increased Medicare rebates and scheduled fees …

That is a direct quote from the National Party's policy statement that they took to the election. So the question I expect one of the National Party members who are in the chamber today representing rural and regional Australia to answer is: why has their government and their minister breached this promise? Why have they not done what they promised to do? That is a series of questions, and I expect National Party members to follow up on this issue. I also expect them to answer: when you had a policy that said that the minister for rural and regional health would be in the room when all the big decisions were made, how come she was not? How come she was excluded from the biggest health decision the government is going to make in this term? Why was she excluded from this decision? And can the minister explain the impact that this will have on rural and regional Australia?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to particularly go to the government's decision to establish the Medical Research Future Fund. I do want to very clearly put on the record Labor's commitment to medical research and remind people of the investment that we made in many of the medical research facilities that the minister is now visiting. I refer to the government's intention to establish this fund. I refer to evidence provided by officials from the minister's department at Senate estimates on 2 June 2014 that the department became aware of the government's intention to establish the fund probably some time in April. Can the minister confirm that instructions to the Department of Health to establish this fund and notification to the department of the government's intention around this fund were given in April? And, if so, when in April—was it the first week or the last week? If the minister cannot recall the precise date, can the minister confirm that instructions were not given in the last week of April?

I also refer to evidence provided at Senate estimates that the Chief Scientist for Australia and the National Health and Medical Research Council were not consulted on the fund. Can the minister guarantee that they are now being consulted on the fund and that there will be the opportunity for broader consultation on the development of the fund beyond just those two?

I also refer specifically to the minister's statements around medical research funding and the money that he anticipates will be distributed for medical research out of this fund. Minister, can you guarantee that the government's intention is that the NHMRC grant and fellowship funding will continue to grow at its current rate—specifically, that there will be no reduction in NHMRC funding as the Medical Research Future Fund starts to also fund medical research?

Can the minister guarantee that all health and medical research will be supported through this fund, including research on preventative programs? The minister may be aware—as I am aware through a number of meetings I am having with people in the medical research community as well as in the health professional community—that there has been a disconnect between what was said on budget night in the health briefing to stakeholders and what the minister has subsequently said. There is a substantial level of anxiety and confusion about preventative health research, around translational research and around the elements of his medical research fund. I particularly note the important funding for prevention programs being provided following the government's decision to cut nearly $370 million from preventative health by walking away from the national partnership agreement on preventive health and the very important research work in prevention that the Australian National Preventive Health Agency was responsible for. I ask the minister to guarantee that continued level of funding for preventative health research.

Can the minister also guarantee that the fund will provide support for translational research? Can the minister advise whether the fund will provide any support for research that supports medical research, such as support for physicians and mathematicians, given the very substantial cuts that have been made to research funding and science funding in other areas outside of the health portfolio?

I also ask whether the fund will support the costs associated with conducting research at research institutes outside of hospitals. I know the minister will be aware of the issue around the administrative costs associated with research and I ask whether any consideration has been given to ensuring the infrastructure and administrative costs of supporting medical research are also resourced. I note again that the government has cut significant amounts of money out of the CSIRO, the Australian Research Council and the CRC programs, including six that are directly related to the health portfolio. Does the minister acknowledge that these cuts will have a significant impact on health and medical research?

David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I am sure the minister is aware, the electorate of Lyne has many large medical centres. Port Macquarie is quite unique in that it is a tertiary referral centre in a regional centre. It is rather like we see in big cities. But that has not happened overnight. That has happened because there has been a lot of growth in general practice, which has then in turn drawn a lot of retirees into the area and that has then led to a huge population needing specialist medical care.

At the core of our health system we have the general practitioner. That is probably the most cost-effective way of delivering health care. Professional judgement and self-assessment of the rationing of prescriptions, investigations and the like add up to the best way to make sure that taxpayers' dollars are being spent well. A well-trained and widely experienced general practitioner can deliver huge preventative health benefits for the patient and also benefits for the taxpayer.

As you all remember, the people on the other side the chamber a few years ago started the GP superclinics program. My electorate had one of these and it got grants of up to $7 million. The only problem is that it was about 3.5 years ago that they got the grant and it still is not open. It is still a construction site. In their wisdom, they bought a building that had asbestos in it. They have got doctors in town, but none of them are working in it. I was just wondering if the minister could give me some idea what initiatives we in government have put forward in the budget for general practice training, education and infrastructure for general practitioners.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As you know and as I know the minister knows, I was elected only in September. My background is not political. Unlike those opposite and a lot of those around me, while I was lucky enough to go to university, I did not join Young Liberal or Young Labor. I left university and started working at my father's business, as the third generation of my family to do so. I did not join an industry association or a union. I did not become a political staffer. I did not move to an area where there was a safe seat to be won. I got on, raised my kids and worked in my father's business.

I want to thank those sitting opposite because two years ago they inspired me. For 41 years I sat on the sidelines and did not get involved. They inspired me to get involved. For 41 years I took on bank debt, I backed myself and I employed people. When I left my father, we had a big family business—one I am very proud to have played some small part in. But what I learned from my father is that budgets are worth the paper they are written on. They are a guide. And if those opposite can find me a bank that will lend on a budget, I would love to find out what it is so I could tell my father and he could go to a bank and get a loan.

What we deal with in business is actuals and historicals, not forecasts—they can be made to look like what you want them to look like. And those opposite inspired me in a very clear way. We are here to talk about health tonight, and in 2007-08 the health budget was $40 billion. In 2013-14, under their hand, not ours, it was $64.5 billion. That is a 45 per cent increase in six years. They are historicals, and they are actuals. Forget the argument about PEFO, MYEFO, or any EFOs they want. They can argue till they are blue in the face but they are historicals and they own them. But here is the kicker: I got into politics for the sake of my kids and my grandkids. And, as I said, those opposite inspired me because under their stewardship I did not know what this country would look like for my kids and my grandkids. It is fair to say, after 41 years of sitting on the sidelines, I thought they were doing a pretty ordinary job. And those figures would indicate that: they are quite clearly not sustainable.

The minister finds himself in the situation where he has to do something, because it is not sustainable. And every day as I sit in that chamber—the green one—I sit and listen to barbs from the other side such as from the member for Wakefield. I keep going to historicals because in business you live and die by numbers. The other day the member for Wakefield yelled, 'That's what the Medicare levy is for,' as the minister spoke. This year Medicare will cost $21 billion and the Medicare levy will raise $10 billion. We will raise $164 billion in income tax. If we were to increase the Medicare levy for just this year alone to cover the shortfall, it would mean a 6.25 per cent increase just this year—that is the bad news. It had to increase every year in the forward estimates.

But here is the kicker of what those opposite did. It is a standard convention that you budget for four years—this year and three forward estimate years. Those opposite were so inept and so incompetent and so not wanting any scrutiny that they went outside the four-year convention—an electoral cycle is three—and went to 10 years. I heard the member for Ballarat so eloquently reel off years 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, but guess what? That is not how the system works, and they know it. It was a fraud; it was a con to get re-elected. The electorate saw through it, and it is now our job to dispel that myth. This is quite clearly unsustainable. I applaud the minister for the steps he is taking to make it sustainable for the sake of my kids and my grandkids, who are the drivers for what I do.

My question to the minister at the end of that amble is: with growing demand for health and hospital services in my electorate—and it is most aptly served by Concord Hospital—given the incompetence and the mismanagement we endured for six years, can the minister update the House on the government's approach to improving links between primary care and hospitals to help improve the sustainability of the health system and give my kids and grandkids the chance to use it at some stage in the future?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note the contribution from the previous speaker and look forward to seeing him campaigning in the seat of Reid, as I will be, on the substantial cuts to his area health service. And every time there is a bed closure, an emergency department time that blows out and people cannot access elective surgery in his electorate, I will remind him of the words he just spoke. I particularly want to speak about Medicare Locals. I note the contribution from someone who in fact represents one of the poorest communities in this country and I find it incredibly disappointing that he is not standing up for his community when it comes to the healthcare needs of some of the most vulnerable people in Tasmania.

I refer to a briefing to Medicare Locals last Friday by the staff of Deloittes, who conducted a component of the review of Medicare Locals on behalf of Professor John Horvath. I understand that that was a very open briefing and that a number of matters that Deloittes examined during their look at Medicare Locals— a very small number of Medicare Locals—was broadly discussed. I ask the minister: can he confirm that it was in fact a mandatory component of the review conducted by Deloitte that the number of Medicare locals be reduced? To clear up any confusion on this point, will the minister release publicly the Deloitte report?

Of course we know that before the last election, on 28 August under pressure during the last leaders debate, the Prime Minister said, 'We are not shutting any Medicare locals.' That is a clear statement he made quite a few times towards the end of the election campaign. Can the minister now confirm that in fact every single Medicare local is to close and that this promise by the Prime Minister before the election will not be honoured? When was the decision to shut Medicare locals made? Can the minister in fact confirm the decision to reduce the number of Medicare locals was a predetermined outcome of his review? Can the minister confirm that the cost of transitioning to the far fewer numbers of primary healthcare networks is now being absorbed by Medicare locals across the country, that this in particular is affecting services like GP training programs, immunisation programs and family violence programs delivered or contracted for from those Medicare locals?

We know that Medicare locals across the country were given their budget. I understand Victoria was given theirs last Friday and Queensland, New South Wales and other states are now also reporting those budgets. Many of them have now been informed that they have had a significant cut to their funding—in some instances, from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of their funding. What we are seeing with Medicare locals as a result of that is that that budget cut, they are being told, is to pay for bureaucracy to support a tender process in order to support the government's broken promise to close Medicare locals. A number of frontline service staff have been dismissed and told that they have lost their jobs in the last two weeks. I note there was someone who contacted my office—a nurse of some 35 years—who in fact had actually not been unemployed for the last 35 years and has now lost her job at a Medicare local. Can the minister tell the chamber how many staff at Medicare locals have lost their jobs since the government's budget and how many more will lose their jobs as a result of the government's decision to close all Medicare locals?

I note that there are reports that the minister has asked senior department officials to explore ways that costs of GP visits in particular could be covered by private health insurers, and I may come back to that point, but in relation to Medicare locals I want to know what discussions he has had with private health insurers around the contracts and tenders for the new primary health networks.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

) ( ): Mental health is certainly a growing issue in my electorate of Petrie. Since I was elected back in September last year I have had a number of people come see me at my local electorate office to talk about some of the health issues they are experiencing, particularly around mental health. It seems that anything can trigger it, and it is a growing issue throughout the country and where I live up in Petrie. I had a young man come to see me a few weeks ago. He is suffering a mental health problem at the moment mainly because as a child he was adopted out. He sat in my office and told me his story and some of the issues he was facing. It certainly made it very real for me.

Youth suicide and chroming are issues in my electorate that have been there in the past. Thankfully, chroming in particular is a little bit under control, but youth suicide in my area is fairly high amongst young people, as is drug and alcohol abuse. Drug abuse certainly seems to be on the rise. My concern there, of course, is that with young people it can cause permanent damage. Domestic violence and the damage that can cause, particularly to women and children, is certainly an issue that can affect people psychologically.

All of this, of course, impacts on welfare. As a government we are trying to deliver a budget surplus after six massive deficits resulting in a billion dollars a month in interest. We want to make sure that we can do everything we can to ensure that taxpayers' money is spent well. We want to make sure that welfare is sustainable for the long term. That is what the budget was about: ensuring that welfare was sustainable. It was about reigning in Labor's debt and deficit. But if we can make savings around mental health then that would certainly help our budget position overall.

I do want to congratulate the government—I am here to ask a question of the health minister—particularly in relation to education and the government's support for the School Chaplaincy Programme for a further five years. That is an excellent commitment. I note the opposition had not made that commitment before the last election. But it is good that they did continue it under the previous governments. Certainly the commitment for the next five years is well warranted. In Queensland we have an excellent system of chaplains in many schools throughout my electorate and throughout Brisbane generally. Whilst they are not always dealing with mental health issues and they might not necessarily be trained to deal with mental health issues, they do provide a strong local voice in schools and someone that children and young adults can come and talk to freely anytime and provide friendship to. Life is about relationships. Children have teachers at schools who they can talk to, and their parents and their friends. But having chaplains in schools is good too, and it is something I commend the government on.

It is estimated that one in four young Australians between the ages of 16 and 24 will experience a mental health issue in any given year. I am sure the minister is well aware of that. Three-quarters of mental illnesses occur in people under the age of 25. Minister, I would like to know just what the government is doing to invest in youth mental health and in mental health more generally throughout the community.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just address a few contributions. I turn firstly to the member for Solomon, a champion of local sporting groups and a great grassroots local member who has provided enormous support to a number of groups, particularly those involved in participation of Indigenous youth in sport, AFL in particular. I have visited with the member for Solomon to have a look at some of those programs. I commend her for that. I thank her very much for the work that she does and the inspiration that she provided to the government's decision to invest $100 million into schools to give access to about 850,000 children in just over 5,500 schools across the country to increased participation and the opportunities that sport presents. Whether or not people go on with sport is not necessarily an issue. Yes, there is a significant health dividend for people who move away from a sedentary lifestyle and into active participatory involvement in organised sport or community sport. That is a significant investment that the Commonwealth has made, and I thank her very much for her question in relation to that.

I want to address the issue raised by the member for Throsby, who I note, if I am quoting accurately, said in an article in the last couple of days, 'There's no point building more primary health facilities in rural communities.' What the government has done is promise $52½ million over the course of the next four years to provide a minimum of 175 infrastructure grants for existing general practices in rural and remote settings.

That goes to one of the points the member for Lyne was making before in relation to support that we can provide to rural practices. This is a flagship program, because it does stand in contrast to the GP superclinic program, where the previous government wasted $650 million by putting it into practices that were competing with existing general practices—in rural communities and in marginal seats otherwise. The GP superclinic program presided over by Labor, during the worst period of government since Federation, was not about putting extra resources and clinics into areas of need; it was all about putting them into marginal seats. They were competing with existing practices, which is why the program fell over—and it is why some have not even been started, even after the Labor Party was swept from power in September of last year. So we took a decision that, yes, we should invest into expanding general practice, particularly in rural and regional communities, because we want to see extra training facilitated in those practices. So how the member for Throsby, as the assistant shadow minister for health, who is supposed to have some interest in rural matters, could suggest that we should not be investing any money into these rural communities, is something he will need to explain to the sector. That is a significant investment that we are making and I am very proud of it.

In relation to a couple of the issues raised by the member for Ballarat, the Medical Research Future Fund—yes, it is visionary. Why Labor wanted to rip $400 million out of medical research in 2011 is beyond me. When you talk to young researchers around the country who want certainty around their future and around the way in which they can be employed in labs, institutes and universities across the country, it is absolutely breathtaking for the Labor Party to stand up here and suggest that they somehow support the program when they don't. They don't. They had six years to demonstrate that they could build a capital protected future fund. They didn't do it. They didn't do it. They proposed to rip money out in 2011. With those young researchers, we fought against the then government and we stared those cuts down. I am very proud of that outcome and I am very proud of the fact that we have been able to increase the money into medical research. And we will do it once this bill passes in relation to the Medical Research Future Fund because we are determined to see the future health needs of this country on a sustainable path, and that is something the government will deliver.

The member for Ballarat also asked in relation to Medicare Locals. The former Chief Medical Officer, John Horvath, undertook a review for the government and made recommendations to the government. That has been widely canvassed. In relation to the Deloittes briefing that was provided in recent days, I have not seen the detail of that. I am happy for the member for to forward the details, if she has specific issues in relation to it, but I have not seen the detail of that briefing.

The member for Lyne quite appropriately talked about superclinics and I have addressed that issue. I commend him very much for the years of service he has provided to rural practice and just draw attention to the Practice Incentive Payment for teaching, which is $238.4 million over five years, and the money otherwise that we are providing to infrastructure in rural communities in this budget.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My questions are around the future of Australia's work health workforce. Health Workforce Australia successfully undertook health workforce planning on a national level and produced the first ever long-term national projections for doctors, nurses and midwives in its report, Health workforce 2025. That report found there will be a significant shortage of nurses and a less significant shortfall of doctors by 2025. Now that Health Workforce Australia is being abolished by the government, can the minister guarantee that national health workforce planning will happen and Australia will have enough nurses and doctors to meet future demands? In addition, Health Workforce Australia's Clinical Training Funding Program funded 8,400 quality clinical places for students across 22 individual disciplines in metropolitan, regional and rural Australia, as well as building the clinical training infrastructure across the nation. But we have heard in Senate estimates on 3 June 2014 that there will be no funding for this program past 31 December. My question to the minister is: does the government have a plan for clinical training for the future of our health workforce needs after 31 December and, if so, what is that plan?

Health Workforce Australia's Simulated Learning Environments Program provided a realistic, cost-effective and flexible alternative to clinical training. This program supported a 115 per cent increase in simulated hours in 2012 and particularly supports clinical training in rural and regional Australia. But again we know from a Senate estimates hearing on 3 June 2014 that there will be no guarantee that the government will continue funding this successful program after 31 December. Once again, my question to the minister is: what is the government's plan for simulated learning in a clinical setting after December?

Health Workforce Australia is an independent body. I am sure the minister is aware that it worked collaboratively with key stakeholders and representatives from Commonwealth, state and territory training facilities and universities to build a sustainable health workforce, but now these collaborative relationships will be lost once Health Workforce Australia is abolished and the work becomes the work of the department. What assurances can the minister give that this collaborative approach to building a sustainable health workforce will continue once Health Workforce Australia is abolished?

Since 2001—indeed under the previous government—General Practice Education and Training Ltd has provided general practice training for doctors who are seeking to achieve specialist registration as GPs. GPET reported in its 2012-13 annual report that it had met the Commonwealth target of more than 50 per cent of all training for vocational and prevocational training in regional, rural and remote locations, but now the government is abolishing GPET by 1 January 2015 to reduce, as they quote it, administration costs and overheads. I ask the minister: what guarantees can the government give that this highly successful, high-quality GP training will continue to occur once GPET is abolished?

As I mentioned, GPET runs the very highly successful Prevocational General Practice Placements Program, which gives young doctors exposure to work as a general practitioner. We heard a lot from the previous member about how important that is, particularly in rural and regional areas. Last year, 918 12-week equivalent places were delivered. GPET expects to deliver 975 places this year. This program will end because the government has decided not to fund this initiative past 30 June 2014. What assurances can the government give, and can the minister give, in ensuring that the same number of young doctors will be able to undertake placements, particularly in rural and regional areas, once this program ends?

Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I firstly thank the minister and the chamber for the opportunity to be part of this consideration in detail. Firstly, Minister, let me pay tribute to the work that you are doing in trying to rebuild the health system of this nation from the dysfunctional years before us. I was privileged in another place, in the state of Tasmania, to be the shadow health minister for four years, so this portfolio has a particular interest to me.

The issue about which I will ask a question in a moment is of specific interest to probably all of us in this chamber: bowel cancer. Probably everyone in the room has been touched by this dreadful disease. Interestingly, June is Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. I would encourage all of us to make sure that we are aware of the issues around this disease and would point people to Bowel Cancer Australia's website. I will be 54 shortly, so I am in the zone. Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, you are in the zone; there are a few of us in the zone. Men and women over the age of 50 are at risk and need to take this matter very seriously. So, if you are over the age of 50 and bowel cancer is a matter of family history, that obviously highlights the need for us to be very much aware of the need to check on our own health.

Bowel cancer, to quote many who are working in this area, is preventable, treatable and beatable. They are words that we should all hang onto very dearly. Interestingly, though, bowel cancer in its earliest stages shows no symptoms, so in fact it is quite scary in some regard. There are no symptoms to be seen in the earliest stages of this dreadful disease. That is why it is so important that the issue of bowel screening is at the top of the mind of any government and any health minister. That is the question that I would like to put to the minister this evening.

Sadly, 17,000 people in the next 12 months will be diagnosed with bowel cancer. Of that, 54 per cent will be men and 46 per cent will be women. Over 4,000 people will die of this disease in the next 12 months. That is 10 per cent of all cancer deaths. The good news is that, through proactive work over the last 30-plus years, we have seen the number of bowel cancer deaths halved from about 32 in every 100,000 to 16 in every 100,000. All of us should welcome that movement in those statistics. The real challenge that lies ahead for us is to ensure that we stay on top of the game. All the research indicates that over 500 lives are saved through screening. Those lives could be the ones of our dearly loved family members, our friends or our colleagues. Therefore, it is really important.

Before I ask the question, I want to pay tribute to all those Rotary groups around Australia that have had a significant interest in bowel cancer for 30-plus years. The work that they do to raise awareness is not to be dismissed. I have spent a considerable amount of time with the minister in my electorate. I know that he is quite passionate about matters such as this. I know the minister knows that bowel cancer is indeed a horrible disease with, as I said, around 80 Australians dying each week from the disease. Minister, what is the government doing to reduce further the incidence of bowel cancer in this great country in which we live?

Stephen Jones (Throsby, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a couple of questions in relation to Indigenous health and Indigenous health cuts. The budget had half a billion dollars worth of cuts to the closing the gap programs, including $125 million in cuts to Indigenous health programs. That is surprising given the fact that we still have a terrible problem with the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous health outcomes. This includes the facts that six per cent of the Indigenous population has diabetes and the gap in life expectancy still has not been sufficiently addressed. In fact, there are problems in just about every health indicator that you could look at. We heard the Aboriginal Medical Service raise complaints about the impact of the GP tax on them, on their viability and on Aboriginal health services.

My questions to the minister are these. What will the impact of the GP tax be on Aboriginal health services? What services will need to be cut? Can the minister guarantee that no service provided by an AMS will need to be cut or closed because of the GP tax? Does the minister expect the Aboriginal health services to absorb the cost of the $7 GP tax if they wish to see patients for free? Will the minister boost funding for AMS to compensate for payment of the GP tax? And does the minister acknowledge the GP tax will have a deleterious effect on Aboriginal health given it will put more obstacles in the way of them obtaining access to primary health services?

Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very conscious of the time and thank you for considering further questions. I particularly want to ask some questions around prevention. I refer to the government's decision to abolish the National Preventive Health Agency and the decision to cut $367.9 million from the National Partnership Agreement on Preventive Health. I note that these cuts start on 1 July. I make the point that a good proportion of these funds have been factored into state as well as local council budgets. In this context, I want to ask the minister if he can point to a single additional dollar in the budget, beyond the election promise on bowel cancer screening, where the government is providing new funding for new preventative health initiatives or new public health programs.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just address a few of the contributions that have been made? Firstly, thank you very much to the member for Petrie, who is doing an exceptional job. He is very accessible in his local electorate and that has certainly been acknowledged by his local constituency.

He raised the very important issue of youth mental health, and I am very pleased that in this budget we have provided $18 million over four years for the National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health. We have provided $23.4 million in 2014-15 for the Mental Health Nurse Incentive programme—a continuation of that funding. And, very importantly, we have provided additional funding to the headspace program of $14.9 million over four years. It is a successful program that was strongly supported by the now Prime Minister when he was health minister in the Howard years, and it is an opportunity to provide support to those young people who may not be able to interventions elsewhere in the system. The government strongly supports that particular process.

Can I also address the very worthy contribution of the member for Braddon, who rightly raised concerns around what is a significant and in many ways silent killer within Australian society? Early prevention for any cancer and for any condition is particularly important, which is why it is important for the government to make this $96 million investment in relation to bowel cancer screening. I am very proud of the fact that we were able in a tight budget, where we inherited such a very difficult fiscal position, to find this additional funding to put into bowel cancer screening. We delivered on that election commitment in this budget, and it will save lives. That was acknowledged by Ian Oliver and it was obviously alluded to in the contribution by the member. As he pointed out, he has many years of experience looking at these particular issues and looking at ways in which we can better deliver health care, not just in Tasmania but across the country as well.

Can I also think the member for Kingston for her contribution? It was a difficult situation that we inherited—there is no question about that. There were not only growing numbers within the department but also a dozen new bureaucracies that were created on Labor's watch. It was replicated in New South Wales and in Queensland, where they had a failed health model as well. It has been rectified in Queensland and it has been rectified in New South Wales. We are seeking to do our best to get money back to front-line services, and we reflect that in this budget as well. The government wants to have as much money for front-line services as is possible, and it is a bit rich for one member opposite to be arguing for additional services to be provided and yet for the shadow minister to be arguing, for arguing sake, for more money to be spent in bureaucracies.

It just does not add up; Labor's magic pie just does not add up. We will deliver services more efficiently by bringing them back into the department—services that were previously delivered by HWA and also ANPHA. We will reduce the waste, we will put the money back into the department proper and we will continue those programs within the department because this government is determined not only to fix up Labor's mess—certainly, as it applies fiscally—but in relation to health as well. We will make sure that we get that money back to front-line services, but we are not going to do it by continuing the great big bureaucratic growth program that was delivered by Labor. We will reduce the bureaucracies and we will put money back into front-line services.

I will close just on the very important point raised by the member for Throsby in relation to Indigenous funding. It is still a national disgrace that we have such disparity between life expectancy for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. The Prime Minister has made it one of the main causes of this government, to make sure that we can address that issue and to close the gap. Otherwise, we provide expenditure in the health portfolio separate to the billions of dollars spent within government of $970 million in 2013-14, and that includes $550 million provided in grant funding for Indigenous health services.

So, in addition to the $20 billion that we provide through Medicare, we provide additional support to Aboriginal health services as they operate around the country. That is very important; it will continue, and we are determined to deliver better health outcomes for all Australians, but we cannot do it if we are saddled with Labor's debt and Labor's bureaucracy. We will clean up the fiscal mess, we will clean up the mess in health, we will get money back to front-line services and we will improve health outcomes. Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Immigration and Border Protection Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $5,037,127,000

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The immigration and border protection portfolio has a special responsibility. That responsibility, under this government, is to protect the value of immigration to this country, and to protect the value of our borders as a national asset to this country.

Immigration has been a key cornerstone of our economic and social success as a nation for 200-plus years. There are two key ingredients that will ensure that we continue to maintain this success. We are, arguably, the world's most successful immigration nation. And we have a very good argument that we are the world's best immigration nation. But this cannot be taken for granted, and it will not continue if we do not focus on two core objectives. This government's core objectives in this portfolio area are to ensure the economic focus of our migration program and to ensure the integrity of our migration program.

Without these two key elements our immigration program will be unsuccessful. It will fail to meet the success benchmarks that it has achieved for so long. In this budget we announced the migration program. And we announced that in that program more than two-thirds of the permanent migration program will be attributed to skills. This was a core election commitment, and it follows on from the position that we held when we were last in government.

At the end of the Hawke-Keating government less than 30 per cent of the permanent program was in skills. Over the course of the Howard government that rose to almost 70 per cent. There were many things that we were critical of in the previous government in terms of how they managed immigration. One, though, that I will say that they maintained was the high proportion of skilled migration in the overall permanent program. That is something that we have continued in this budget. We will always ensure that the immigration program is an economic program, not a welfare program. That is our absolute focus in running this program in this budget and the budgets that will follow under an Abbott government.

The second area is integrity—integrity in all aspects of the program. Our activities in our first nine months have obviously been very focused on what has been happening on the border with illegal maritime arrivals. And we have had significant success over that period of time. We know that you cannot pretend to manage your immigration program if you cannot manage your borders. If you are not in control of your borders you are not in control of your immigration program.

So our policies, under Operation Sovereign Borders, have been about addressing that core primary task of any government: to ensure the security of our borders. The success has been there, I think, for all to see. But it cannot be taken for granted. It can easily change. If policies are changed, if postures are changed, if resolve is change and if these policies are not resourced then the success can change and we can easily go back to the position that we were in under the previous government.

Three critical areas make up Operation Sovereign Borders. The first is denying permanent residence to those who have arrived in Australia illegally by boat. We have done that, despite the frustration of those who sit opposite. The second is the offshore processing of people who have arrived illegally by boat. That has been done and continues to be done under this government. The third is by turning boats back where it is safe to do so. These policies— particularly the latter one, when it was introduced in late December—have ensured that we have had no successful people-smuggling venture to this country for almost six months now.

This has produced savings in this budget of $2½ billion. The previous government had forecast arrivals of 15,600 people over the budget and forward estimates. That is more than 600 boats. Our forecasts have been significantly reduced, and that is what has produced the $2½-billion saving. We have also produced a saving through the closure of 10 centres, two of which are often described as one centre—Aqua and Lilac compounds on Christmas Island. That has produced savings of $283.3 million and $300 million in program savings alone from how we have constructed the overall migration program itself. The budget is delivering on our commitments in immigration. I am happy to take questions.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I thank the minister for the opportunity to ask him questions tonight in this important portfolio area. I do want to ask the minister questions in relation to the Manus Island detention facility. The regional resettlement arrangement which was put in place by the former Labor government and came into effect on 19 July last year had the impact of taking Australia of the table by requiring, for the first time, those persons found to be genuine refugees within the facility to be resettled within Papua New Guinea. What we saw from the moment that that occurred was a significant and game-changing decline in the arrivals of asylum seeker vessels, such that by the time of the election 90 per cent of the flow of asylum seeker vessels had stopped. Those numbers persisted right through until the middle of December before there was any substantive policy put in place by the current government in relation to the issues around our borders. So the significance of the regional resettlement arrangement, at the heart of which is Manus Island detention facility, is absolute. I assume that that is a proposition which is accepted by the minister and by the government by virtue of the fact that both the minister and the government have maintained the regional resettlement arrangement as part of the government's suite of policies in dealing with the flow of asylum seeker vessels. It is unquestionably, statistically at the heart of what has produced a major reduction in flow of asylum seeker vessels. What is critical about that, of course, is that as a consequence of that we have seen a reduction to the point, we hope, that we have seen the end of the loss of life at sea, which was a circumstance which needed to be brought about.

But in saying all of that there are a number of issues which have arisen under this minister's watch and under this government in relation to the Manus Island detention facility. On a number of occasions now the facility has quite literally melted down. Of course we have the events of 16-18 February this year where we saw the very tragic death of Mr Reza Berati along with the serious injury of many others. In the aftermath of that we called upon the government to undertake an independent inquiry into the events of those few days and also the circumstances within the facility leading up to those events which gave rise to them. To the government's credit they conducted that review and we have seen the outcome of that in the Cornell report. On page 8 and 9 of the Cornell report, which is, if you like, the executive summary, there is a description of the key contributing factors. I am quoting:

Frustration in the delay of the processing of their refugee status determinations and lack of information about the likely timing for the completion of these determinations. Further anger and frustration resulting in the consequent uncertainty about their future including and, in particular, how long they will be kept at the Manus centre and frustration arising from the lack of information about what resettlement in PNG would mean for them and their families.

My first question to the minister is whether or not he accepts those findings of the Cornell report as being central causes which gave rise to the events on 16-18 February? On 15 January this year the minister in a press conference said:

… the processing has recommenced on both Nauru and on Manus Island and Australian officials were assisting with training and providing support for that assessment process. That is underway and has been happening now for around about three or four weeks.

And yet in an article just a few days ago by Michael Gordon this seems to be contested, and I am quoting now from the Sydney Morning Herald:

During an hour-long briefing of senior staff, the then acting regional manager of security provider G4s, John McCaffery, said he had been told that no refugee-status determinations would take place "for the foreseeable future" because of lack of funds.

I am interested in whether the minister can clarify if in fact he was wrong when he made the statement that he did on 15 January.

And, finally, I would like to know from the minister when it was that he first had a substantive meeting with his counterpart in PNG about the question of resettlement and processing of people from Manus Island? (Time expired)

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to thank the minister for being able to ask a question of him that pertains to his portfolio interest of immigration. In particular, my question goes to border security. Can I compliment the minister on Operation Sovereign Borders? As a nation, the evidence before us in the parliament is that clearly the operation is working. I need not remind the minister and the House that today marks 100 days since the last successful people-smuggling venture to Australia. As the previous speaker alluded to, that is a good thing because it does reduce that loss of life that we had at sea.

With reference to the last people-smuggling venture that arrived here, it was on 19 December last year. In contrast, if we go back 12 months to the same period of time in 2012-2013, 181 illegal boats arrived with no less than 12,135 passengers on board. The message of stopping the boats is resonating throughout the community and it is resonating throughout my electorate of Wright, and I take this opportunity to advise the House that in particular, new Australians are taking the opportunity to reach out to my office—and I am sure they are to the minister's office—in saying that they have come through the front door, as such, to enter Australia.

I have a sizeable Chinese community, over 13,000 people from the UK, just under 2,000 Germans, a large community of Hungarians, an Irish community, an Italian community and a Scottish community of nearly 3,000. All of them came through the front door and they are overwhelmed with praise for the current government's border protection policies. So the message is resonating in the community of Wright. They are pleased that the back door is being shut.

We must ask ourselves when we look back in history—and I take you to a point where both Greens and Labor said openly that the task of stopping the boats was too great. The task of stopping the boats was virtually going to be unachievable. So I take this opportunity to compliment the minister for the way that he has handled himself. I remember when the border protection policies of the Howard era were wound back. There was high-fiving in the parliament, there was backslapping and there were statements that resonated along the lines of, 'This is my proudest day in the parliament.' There were comments along the lines of, 'This is my greatest single achievement in the parliament.' If only those comments could be retracted by those people with the benefit of hindsight. I suggest that they would be revisited.

I compliment the minister on the way that he has gone about addressing our border security issues. He has done it quietly, methodically and purposely and with a result that heralds unprecedented success. But, of course, you are not the first person to have stopped the boats. I need only to look to the Howard government; it was reviled for its harsh policies that stopped illegal immigrants getting into Australia by boat, whilst in about 12 years they brought in about 2 million legal immigrants to Australia.

In contrast, for everyone who comes illegally, it means that someone coming legally loses their spot. Under Labor, over 800 boats arrived carrying more than 50,000 people, including more than 1,000 children. This catastrophic failure of policy resulted in over 1,000 lives being lost at sea, and no-one trivialises that. No-one would dare trivialise that. As a government, I am now proud to stand beside you, Minister. When we leave this place, whatever definition it may be under, I will make sure I include that in my valedictory speech.

We went to this election and we clearly said that, where possible, we would turn back the boats, we would introduce temporary protection visas and we would introduce offshore processing—all of which have been a successful foundation for stopping the boats. In particular, Minister, my question goes to your successful border protection policies and what effect it has had on the budget, in particular with the detention centres and the winding back of— (Time expired)

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will cover the questions raised by members and I thank the previous member for his kind remarks. The previous government introduced offshore processing in late 2012. It was done after a report that came down in August 2012. For the five years prior to that, and the 10 years prior to that, the Labor Party had completely opposed offshore processing—up hill, down dale, in season and out. They said it would never work and it was never part of the solution. They described it in the most barbaric of terms and they vilified those who proposed those policies, in particular the Father of the House the member the Berowra, and also former Prime Minister John Howard.

One day, they may come into this place and actually apologise to John Howard and the member for Berowra for getting it so wrong. They were dragged kicking and screaming to restore offshore processing, as the member for Corio has acknowledged. They introduced offshore processing under sufferance, under protest and under extreme political pressure. The problem with the way that the previous government went about it is that they only introduced one element of the plan and they still remained completely opposed to the other two elements of the plan.

Let me tell you what we inherited in terms of offshore processing from the previous government. The most significant thing when we came to office was that we found that there was a $1.2 billion funding shortfall in the effective implementation of that policy. What did that comprise? Under the previous government's funding arrangements, only one in six people who had arrived illegally in Australia had been funded to be transferred to offshore processing. Though it was boldly claimed that no-one would be resettled in Australia but they had only funded one in six people to actually be sent offshore.

The infrastructure arrangements on both Manus Island and Nauru were completely deficient. This was found, in the Cornall report, to address the type of policy they announced on 19 July. The infrastructure was just not up to standard. They were not even close to that standard. We had to immediately fund both the processing and the support costs for the running of those facilities to meet a very simple proposition, which was the policy articulated by the previous government. But they did not actually fund it and they did not think through the implementation.

Their implementation of offshore processing was the classic 'fire, aim, ready' approach that we saw in everything from pink batts to school halls. It was the same thing with offshore processing. The previous government were always keen on the announcement, but when it came to implementation they always left the country in a very disadvantaged position. There were no family-friendly facilities on Nauru, but they were planning to send every family member to Nauru. The facilities just were not there. We have had the fund those. There was no playground. There was no air-conditioning in the marquees or anything like that at Nauru. There were no plans to do it, either. These were all things that had to be funded by this government. The upgrade of health facilities on both Manus and Nauru are things that are being funded and had to be done by this government.

The member makes claims about the results of the introduction of offshore processing. I am not surprised that offshore processing had an impact, because I have been making the argument for five years. I am pleased that ultimately, under sufferance, they decided to actually implement it. But when people implement policies that they do not believe in, they rarely get it right. That is what we found when we came to government. Those resettlement arrangements, which the member speaks proudly of, were a blank sheet of paper. There were no resettlement arrangements—none at all. They are only now in the final stages of being put together by the government of Papua New Guinea as a result of nine months of work.

The member asked me when I first met. I met with my counterpart of Papua New Guinea in the first few weeks. It was the first place I visited. I was the first minister from this government to visit Papua New Guinea. I am surprised the member opposite does not know that. It was followed up by two other meetings by Christmas, and the issues of resettlement and the processing centres were discussed at all of those meetings. He claims that I never met with them till after the terrible incidents in February. He is just wrong. He claims that no-one died at sea from 19 July to the end of the year and he was wrong. Seventy-nine people died. So the member opposite, if he is going to raise issues, really needs to get a handle on the facts around the portfolio and understand what the government which he was a part of left the new government to implement. We had to clean up a mess. We had to clean up a mess on Manus Island. We had to clean up a mess on Nauru—through no fault of the Nauruans or those in Papua New Guinea, by the way, but as a result of a government that was more keen on announcement than they were in actually believing in and implementing a policy.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

First, I thank the minister for his answer, albeit the majority of the questions I asked he did not address. Specifically, I am keen to know whether or not the minister regards the contributing factors that have been identified by Robert Cornall in his report as being the key factors which led to the events of 16-18 February. The minister likes to talk about his slogans, phrases, blank pieces of paper and the rest of it, but you will see from the contributing factors that have been identified by Robert Cornall that there are actually five dot points through pages 8 and 9. I read out three of them previously. The first two are the anger at being brought to PNG—one can understand that—and the anger with the policy that, if they are found to be refugees, they will be resettled in PNG, not Australia. I can understand that. Nowhere in those causes are the matters that the minister raised in his answer.

But there are three further dot points which I read out previously and which raise the specific question of the failure to engage in processing and resettlement in PNG. That is the question that the minister fundamentally refused to answer in the contribution he has just made. It does not surprise me that he has refused to answer it, because the fact of the matter is that this minister utterly dropped the ball on this question. I am interested that he claims to have discussed the mater of resettlement with his counterpart in PNG in their initial meeting. I am interested that he is saying that happened last year.

Certainly it is the case that there was not a ministerial forum—I pose this as a question—in relation to this until 2 April. Can the minister confirm that the process of ministerial forums between himself, our foreign minister, and his counterparts in PNG around resettlement and processing in PNG began on 2 April this year? The minister did not answer the question about whether or not he got his facts wrong when he said that processing was underway on 15 January this year, which seems to have been contradicted by material that emanates from John McCaffrey, the acting regional manager of security provider G4S, as I said in the first question. So I ask that again. Did he get his facts wrong on 15 January?

But there are other matters which have been raised over the last week in the context of the Senate inquiry which also seem to lend weight to the notion that processing and resettlement at Manus stalled, and this, as Robert Cornall identifies, was the key reason that led to the events that occurred on 16-18 February. I refer the minister to the evidence that was provided by Liz Thompson, a migration agent working with Playfair who conducted interviews on behalf of the transferees. On pages 22 and 23 of the Hansard report of her evidence that was provided last Thursday she says:

There were some—

RSD interviews—

completed very soon after my first deployment—

which was in August—

I understand. When we got back to the island the second time—

which was in February—

I was led to believe that about 50 RSD interviews had taken place. There were no decisions, but I understood about 50 RSD interviews had taken place. As I said, in our second appointment it was made very clear to us, on 5 February, that there was no plan for RSD, only CAPS interviews—

which are the initial interviews.

So we were being deployed simply to undertake that initial process of taking the statement, filling in the forms and then providing them to the Australian immigration department, who would then provide them to PNG.

She went on to say that a Jo Boardman made it clear that there were no RSD interviews to be taking place at that time. So I put that to the minister and say: is that your understanding of what was occurring at the facility in February of this year?

Finally, Minister, on 7 February you received a letter from G4S which had attached to it a letter they had provided to Martin Bowles, the secretary of your department, in which they warn you. They note: reliable intelligence indicates that violent protest may be imminent at Manus Island. My question is: what did you do when you received this letter? (Time expired)

My question for the minister will be in relation to Australia's skilled migration program, but I would obviously like to put some context to that, particularly in my electorate of Swan. I must admit I came in before, when the member for Wright was talking and asking a question. I heard him congratulate you on your great efforts in getting to a point where the boats have stopped for six months. I know we do not like to say they have permanently stopped, but you have done a fantastic job and I know the people of Western Australia, particularly in my electorate of Swan, would applaud you and congratulate you on your efforts and the way you went about that.

It surprises me that at the moment we have the shadow minister in here asking you detailed questions about things that while they were in government they never bothered to answer. They never bothered to successfully complete them or even do them. They are now in here asking little detail questions, gotcha questions, to show that they are on the job. Well, they were not on the job for six years.

Getting back to the skilled migration question, the local economy, as you know, in WA has had many skill shortages over the last few years. My electorate of Swan has a real mixture of skilled migrants, but no one group dominates that. A relatively large percentage of Swan residents were born overseas. The 2011 Census data shows that 52.1 per cent of the people in Swan were born in Australia, which is significantly lower than the national average of 69.8 per cent. However, as I said before, no one group dominates. The second largest group is made up of those born in the United Kingdom, at 7.3 per cent, followed by a myriad small groups, the majority from a number of our closest neighbours in South-East Asia. This includes 3.2 per cent from India, 2.9 per cent from Malaysia, 2.8 per cent from New Zealand, 2.6 per cent from China, 1.6 per cent from Indonesia and 1.4 per cent from the Philippines. From that point on, no group makes up more than one per cent of the population of Swan. This creates an interesting balance and mix in the electorate of Swan, and on the whole people mix together in the parks, foreshore, swimming pools et cetera and we all get on. As anyone who has been to Western Australia would know, the lifestyle there is magnificent. It is an outdoorsy lifestyle and everyone does get along quite well.

Back to skill shortages in WA. You will not be surprised to hear me say that there have been skill shortages in WA over the last few years during the mining boom. These can have an inflationary effect and cause cost-of-living pressures and service delivery issues if not addressed. Skilled migration therefore plays an important role in addressing these issues in the short term. Many people in my electorate would see a doctor or an optometrist that has come as a skilled migrant, for example. Up-to-date research undertaken by the Department of Employment identifies occupations with skill shortages state-wide, specifically in WA. The latest list, published on 28 February 2014, reflects research undertaken to 31 December 2013. The department states that skill shortages exist when employers are unable to fill, or have considerable difficulty filling, vacancies for an occupation or significant specialised skills needs within that occupation at current levels of remuneration and conditions of employment and in reasonably accessible locations. Statewide skills shortages specific to WA include vital social services such as childcare centre managers and childcare workers and trades such as first-class metal machinists, panel beaters, locksmiths, solid plasterers and stonemasons, roof tilers and electrical-line workers. As the minister might know, I did an apprenticeship as an electrician and I will have more to say on that matter when the Trade Support Loans (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2014 comes up for debate in the next few days. The mining sector occupations where there are deemed shortages include production manager; mining engineer; medical services, which includes optometrists and audiologists; and food and hospitality, including baker, pastry cook, butcher or smallgoods maker, chef and cook. There is also a particular metropolitan shortage of hairdressers in Swan and in Western Australia.

I note that the minister has been focusing on the skilled migration issue through the Significant Investor Visa program. My question for the minister is how does the budget rebalance Australia's migration programs towards skilled migrants who help to create a stronger Australian economy and more local jobs?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In answering the matters raised by members—firstly, on the issue of processing on both Manus and Nauru from the establishment of offshore processing on Manus island and Nauru in November 2012 through to September 2013. This is the period of time in which the previous government was running processing at both of those facilities in support of the governments of Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

The total number of decisions arrived at during that period of time was zero. Not one. There was not one decision that was handed down. That is in a period of around 10 months. We have been in office for nine months and there has been a total of 109 decisions or recommendations made in refugee status determination processes. I do find it puzzling that the member opposite would want to give lectures on how processing should be done when the previous government spent almost a year involved with these facilities and did not process one claim. Not one. One hundred and nine have now been completed by the governments of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, in assessing people's claims.

It is true, and I do accept, the findings of the Cornall report. This is the report that we promised would be done. I said that we would have an independent report that would seek to explain what happened. I think the report does an excellent job of explaining what happened, and the contributing factors are as Mr Cornall suggests. The frustrations around processing were definitely one of those and that is why the government had to pick up from a standing start on processing to get to the position that we are in now; a position that we have achieved in less than nine months and that they could not achieve, or were not even close to achieving, in the 10 to 11 months that they were in office when they were supporting these arrangements.

The processing and resettlement are critical to how these facilities run. We had no legacy to work with when we took over the support of these facilities under the arrangements which the previous government had arrived at under the memorandum of understanding. I mentioned the three meetings that I held with my counterparts, one of which was a formal dialogue between Australia and Papua New Guinea. That was part of their formal agenda for those discussions. And I have been in Papua New Guinea more often than any other minister in this government. I am constantly there, and I will continue to be there as we have an important job to do there.

Mr Cornall makes reference to when processing commenced. And I stand by my statements of 15 January, because the whole processing end-to-end process starts with the initial interviews, and that had already commenced at the time that I made the statements. I suggest that he probably does not want to use Fairfax media as his research tool if he is going to pursue this portfolio with any credibility. They are constantly having to be corrected on these matters. When you listen to journalists who have agendas rather than pursuing pure reporting, well, good luck listening to Michael Gordon. I am sure he will serve you well.

In terms of the actions taken by the government, I simply refer you to page 76 of the Cornall report. The Cornall report makes very clear the actions the government took with the intelligence reports that led up to the terrible incidents in early February. In addition to what is noted there, we ordered the deployment of 130 extra security guards into that place to ensure that the maximum protection could be provided. As terrible as that night and the night before were, the centre opened the next morning and ran, and there were tremendous acts of heroism that night that actually protected and got many, many people to safety down to the oval. That was because of the planning and the preparation that was put in place for that evening. It was not like what happened at Nauru on their watch—those over on that side—when it burned to the ground; or on their watch, when Christmas Island burned to the ground; or when Villawood burned to the ground. That did not happen that night. Something terrible happened that night, we all agree, but the centre stood up the next morning and the centre continued to operate. That was a critical thing to happen, and that was a result of the planning and preparations that went into dealing with what was a terrible incident on that occasion.

The government took actions; the government planned, but we had to deal with the mess that we had been left with by the previous government. That was a long fuse that went from a decision on 19 July to implement a policy for which they had not thought through the implementation issues that had to be addressed in order to announce it. And in doing so, they set the scene for what we saw that night.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I give the minister marks for chutzpah, because it seems to me that he is claiming success out of the events of 16 and 18 February which, given what occurred, is genuinely astounding.

In circumstances where it is clear that there have not been frequent meetings between the minister and his counterpart in PNG until after these events occurred, it is evident that the government completely dropped the ball on the question of resettlement. As the minister well knows, what is different about this arrangement compared with any of the offshore processing which was done under the former Howard government, is that this arrangement will result in people being resettled in PNG. It is the fundamental point, which is why this has made the difference. The minister can talk about offshore processing and its effects, but the reality is that by the end of the Howard government people smugglers absolutely knew that if you got someone to Nauru you had well and truly got them to Australia. The prescription that existed then would simply not have survived the wave of people we have seen since.

What was different about the regional resettlement arrangement was the nature in which it took Australia off the table—that is why resettlement was so critical, and that is why it is such a huge mistake on the part of the minister that that ball was dropped, because it goes to the central question of the efficacy of the regional resettlement arrangement in PNG.

I do want to raise a separate matter, and that is the very tragic circumstances of Mr Leo Seemanpillai who, as it turned out, lived in my electorate. Leo Seemanpillai tragically died just over two weeks ago, and I would like to thank the minister for taking the time on the day after this tragic event to ring me and brief me on the circumstances of that. I do make that acknowledgement in this place now.

This was, and has been, a really tragic incident for the community of Geelong; obviously for the Tamil community in Geelong, of which Mr Seemanpillai was a member. My question to the minister in relation to this incident is a simple one. Mr Seemanpillai's funeral is tomorrow, and my question is: on what basis have visas been refused for Mr Seemanpillai's family to attend this funeral? And does the minister contend here today that there is absolutely nothing within his power to allow him to facilitate the passage of this man's family to attend the funeral tomorrow? It appears that a disturbing letter from the Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection—as it is reported in the media—acknowledges the sincerity of the desire to pay respects on the part of Leo Seemanpillai's brother, Ezekiel, but it also states that it appears—and the question is whether this is correct—that he does not intend to stay in Australia on a genuinely temporary basis. Is that really the basis on which this man's brother has been refused a visa to come to Australia to attend his brother's funeral? My principal question is: does the minister have no power to do anything to deal with this circumstance and allow these people to attend their family member's funeral?

I would also like to ask another question in relation to a totally separate area. This relates to the change of contractor on Manus Island. Earlier this year, the principal contractor at the Manus Island detention facility changed from G4S to Transfield. As I understand, the contract to perform the services on Nauru appears to be a $2.1 billion contract. It is for both Nauru and Manus. My first question to the minister is: is that the price for the entire contract? But the principal question is: what tendering process was undertaken prior to the change in relation to the principal contractor? Whose decision was it within government to change the contractor, and when was that decision made?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There have been a number of matters raised, but, first of all, there was no ball to drop. He had never left a ball behind when it came to offshore processing and resettlement in particular. There were no resettlement arrangements with Papua New Guinea when the previous government left office. There was nothing. There had not been anything for months until we sat down and started working through these issues. We started that process within weeks of coming to government. It has been a long road and we have worked carefully with the government of Papua New Guinea. We are very close now to the finalisation of proper resettlement arrangements in Papua New Guinea.

Just announcing them does not make them true. They did not exist, member for Corio. They were not there. They had to be created. Just because you promised them does not mean they miraculously came into existence. They had to worked on, they had to be implemented, they had to be created, they had to be negotiated and they had to be funded. That is what our task has been over the last nine months. So there was no ball to drop. They never even picked up a ball. There was no ball when it came to what the previous government left behind when it came to resettlement arrangements. It was a blank page and an empty promise from the previous Prime Minister and the previous minister.

The other point to note is what would have happened had arrivals continued at even the claimed levels of the opposition—and they base their great statistical achievement on a two-week period before the election date. They were so successful that this occurred in the caretaker period. This was the period of their triumph. Two weeks they claim as the success of the implementation of their policies. Two weeks says nothing. Six months of no successful venture to Australia talks about success. But let us assume even for a second that in his wildest fantasies that this was an achievement of the previous government. Arrivals at 400 per month, which is higher than it was back in 2010 at the time of the previous election, would have swamped Manus Island and Nauru within months. The whole policy would have collapsed. They simply did not have the capacity, the resources or the systems in place to deal with that rate of arrivals which would have continued to happen under that government. They only had one arrow. They only had one arrow on offshore processing.

We have never claimed that it required just one thing. We brought in the policies of denying permanent visas for those who were already onshore. There is a pool of 30,000 people constantly messaging back to those offshore. If there had been a re-election of the Labor government, those people would have said, 'Yes, come down on the boat. This government is going to hand us our permanent visas.' That would have messaged back. The nuances of whether people ended up in Papua New Guinea or stayed in Australia would have been lost, but the message about permanent visas being handed out would have remained. That still remains true today. Without that message, without that clear change in resolve and without the clear actions of the government to turn boats back where it was safe to do so, Manus Island and Nauru would probably not have got past the first quarter of this year—if they were lucky, and if they could have sustained arrivals at no more than about 400 per month. It would have collapsed. Today, as we sit here, if that government had been re-elected we would be back up where it was. The policy would have been a complete failure; it would have been overwhelmed by their own failures. The opposition are seeking to delude themselves with pretensions and fantasies as some sort of comfort from the terrible failures they had in government. They should just simply acknowledge that they got it all wrong and this government has got it right. They should simply accept this fact, support the government's policies, support turnbacks where it is safe to do so, support denying permanent visas and support offshore processing done properly, as it is being done by this government.

On the very sensitive matter of Mr Leo Seemanpillai, I have no power to intervene in a decision that has been made for a tourist visa by a delegated officer for an offshore application. There is no such intervention power for the minister. I said that earlier today, and perhaps the member missed it when I made that comment on Sky News earlier today, but that is the case. I would not suggest that he takes his immigration advice from Sarah Hanson-Young—Senator Hanson-Young—or Fairfax press or anyone else. This is a very sensitive matter. The difficulties of family members, in this case, of getting to Australia was acknowledged by the government. It was for that reason that I took the unusual step up of offering the repatriation of the remains to ensure that a funeral could have been held with the family. That offer was rejected. That is a matter for the family and that is for their judgement. But Australia's visa laws will apply; the processes that are put in place to police and run those visa arrangements will apply. There is no special intervention power that is available to the minister to override those processes in an application of this nature. Tomorrow will be a very sad day for that family and it will be a very sad day for all of us. I extend my best wishes and sympathies to his friends and family.

Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia has always had a very proud record in terms of offshore humanitarian programs. We are one of the most generous countries in the world. Between 1993 and 2012 we had the third largest number of recipients: 211,240. The Howard government had strong offshore and resettlement policies. I was very proud to work on some of those resettlement policies, particularly the work on refugee resettlement and the offshore component. I want to add to the voices of my colleagues in thanking the minister for the fine work he has been doing to ensure that the boats have been stopped for a period of more than six months. We no longer see devastating cases where lives were lost at sea that would tug at the heartstrings of all of us.

There are thousands of people around the world who are displaced every day through war and human rights violations. When one looks at how many are displaced around the world one sees that at any given time there are 45.2 million people forcibly displaced worldwide. At the end of 2012 there were 28.8 million internally displaced people, 15.4 million refugees and 937,000 asylum seekers. Australia has an obligation to make sure that we have a viable offshore program that accepts the people that are most at risk, that in many cases have been languishing in camps for many years. I have visited many camps, as I am sure the immigration minister has and as many of the people sitting on this side of the chamber have. I have seen many of the camps, particularly on the Burma-Thailand border, that have up to 100,000 people in them for many years. Our offshore program clearly should be catering for people who most desperately need to come to Australia and have been in these camps for a long time.

The world is unfortunately getting to be a more turbulent place. In recent years we have seen the situation in Syria from where many people have been displaced into Jordan and Lebanon. Just recently I had a meeting with the Jordanian ambassador, and I want to congratulate the work that countries like Jordan are doing, particularly in looking after the huge number of internally displaced people who have come across the border from Syria. These problems will not go away.

I want to also thank the minister for the fantastic work that he has done in increasing the Women at Risk intake. This particular program was very much needed because, unfortunately and sadly, being a woman in many of these offshore and refugee camps puts women at the highest risk. Many of the times that they are displaced they may have lost their husbands killed or they may have been separated from them and unfortunately their livelihood is greatly threatened and also their ability to be protected. It puts them at risk of rape and terrible atrocities.

Minister, I have a question to you in terms of the humanitarian component of our program. I would like to know what has been the humanitarian dividend delivered in the budget as a result of the coalition's policies to stop illegal boat arrivals under our Operation Sovereign Borders?

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, despite however many attempts the minister makes to play down the significance of the impact of the regional resettlement arrangement on the suite of measures which has reduced the flow of asylum seeker vessels, he cannot get past the simple fact that this is a policy which he and his government have continued to prosecute. It is a policy which, clearly, he agrees has a big impact. It is a policy in terms of offshore processing which never existed under the Howard government, and it was a policy that he criticised quite openly at the time that the agreement was actually made with PNG.

It may be an inconvenient truth for the minister but the figures are all there. When you look at the number of asylum seeker vessels that were coming to Australia, they reduced by 90 per cent from the time that the agreement was put in place within a couple of months and that number did not just persist for a couple of weeks; it persisted right through to 19 December. Prior to 19 December the government did not turn around a single boat. Prior to 19 December the government did not buy any fishing vessels, as they said they would do, in Indonesia. There was no substantive policy that was implemented by the government until 19 December and yet the decrease in the numbers as a result of the regional resettlement arrangement implemented by the former Labor government with PNG persisted.

The minister likes to talk about a blank page—that there was no ball to drop, that all we did was announce, that we did not 'negotiate', a word he used in relation to his efforts, as if we just magically out of thin air got an agreement with PNG. He described it as nothing other than an 'empty promise' by the former Prime Minister and by the former immigration minister. So I ask this question of the minister: given that it was an agreement with Papua New Guinea, to which Papua New Guinea was a party, and you have described this now as an 'empty promise', do you also then say that it was an empty promise on the part of the PNG Prime Minister?

Mr Morrison interjecting—

Oh, that is convenient. Even though it was an agreement between two parties. Do you say there was an empty promise on behalf of the PNG foreign minister and immigration minister?

Mr Morrison interjecting—

And therein lies the complete contradiction in the minister's own rhetoric here, because he is talking in relation to an agreement—a joint announcement between two parties, Australia and PNG—that one party did it as a hollow, empty promise but the other party, speaking at precisely the same time, Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and Attorney-General of PNG, was not. Both speaking at precisely the same time but there's was full of substance but ours was a hollow empty promise! That is, of course, ridiculous. This was an agreement that was negotiated between Australia and PNG that required significant diplomacy. There was an undertaking from PNG that was arrived at by virtue of this negotiation to resettle people in PNG. That was a breakthrough in terms of the relationship that Australia had with PNG or, for that matter, with any other country in the region. It totally changed the game in terms of asylum seekers coming to this country by boat. What it meant was that Australia was taken off the table, and Australia was taken off the table by virtue of an agreement that the former government negotiated with the PNG government. It was announced jointly, and you described that as 'an empty promise'. I would be interested to see how your counterparts in PNG would regard you in describing what they did then as being nothing other than 'an empty promise'.

That minister talked about temporary protection visas as being a critical part of his program in seeing an end to the flow of asylum seeker vessels. The question I have to the minister in relation to this is very simple: does the minister imagine, or does the minister contemplate, that it would be possible under his stewardship in this portfolio—under his government—that a visa would be offered to and asylum seeker coming to Australia by boat after 19 July last year or, indeed, at any point in the future? Do you say that any person who came after 19 July last year would be entitled to any visa to this country? Because if the answer to that is 'no', then it does not matter what you do or do not do to the cohort of 30,000 people who are here because Australia, by your own admission, has been taken off the table. So TPVs are clearly redundant. The minister has conceded that in his answer right now.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the shadow minister spends a bit of time in this portfolio will probably understand some of the matters that are before him. But in relation to his claims: I have addressed the questions that he has raised this evening. But let me just deal with this last one on temporary protection visas.

Temporary protection visas deny the people smugglers' promise to those who arrived illegally prior to 19 July. And if the shadow minister does not understand that 30,000 people, who are the primary source of information about whether someone should seek to travel to Australia, is irrelevant in the flow of information and messaging back up the people-smuggling chain, then he has no idea about how this works. He really does not understand what the pool of information is that those who are sitting offshore in many other places around the world will draw on. He has no understanding about the role not only of those who have come but also the diaspora in Australia of those who have come and how the government's consistent approach to handling this issue, whether it is them, or people offshore or those who might seek to come who we would turn back, he simply has learnt nothing from Labor's failures while they were in government. And that is where they will remain. They will make proclamations that they are still for offshore processing until they decide they are not again, and the Australian people know where they stand because they just know what they are feeling and they know where they stand on this issue.

But there is a really important reason for why we have done what we did with Operation Sovereign Borders, which started on 18 September, almost nine months ago now. It was to restore integrity to our borders and to restore integrity to our immigration program. The questions asked by my colleagues, and the member for Brisbane in particular, and those asked by other colleagues go to the heart of the dividend that is paid as a result of the success of the policies of Operation Sovereign Borders. In this budget there is $2½ billion of savings. Now, that is in contrast to the $11.5 billion-plus in budget blow-outs that occurred under the previous government, and which would have continued to occur.

They were forecasting 15,600 arrivals at the time of the last election. They said they would fix the problem, but they were forecasting 15,600 arrivals—more than 600 boats! That is apparently a success when it comes to that Labor Party! Two-and-a-half billion dollars of savings; we are closing the detention centres that they opened. And they opened them because they had lost control of the borders. And those savings are going to save the budget some $283 million.

In addition to that, the humanitarian dividend is significant. Twenty thousand places in this financial year, in the budget year and over the forward estimates have been freed up under the refugee and humanitarian program, specifically in the special humanitarian program, which went from a program of almost 4,700 people when we left office to a program of just 500 under the previous government. Four thousand people a year were being denied a special humanitarian visa in this country who had gone through the proper process, had come through the right process and been denied because the previous government could not control the borders. Those 20,000 places have been created and quarantined in the program. They cannot be taken away.

One of the areas of the program which will also benefit is the one the member for Brisbane mentioned: the more than 1,000 places that have been provided to women at risk. Women in places of desperation around the world who are in need of these visas—the ones who are without a male partner in support and who often have children—are the most vulnerable and the most immobile. You do not see them on boats; they could never afford it or get out of the camp. What we have done with Operation Sovereign Borders has freed up the program to address their need. They have been the silent voices in this debate for the last six years, and their voices have been heard by this government because we have acted to protect our borders and to ensure that the opportunity of smugglers to peddle their evil trade and steal the places that were going to those women has been thwarted. It has been taken away.

Finally, the economic program of this budget as demonstrated in the migration program is enabling the program to deliver on the economic objectives of this country because the program now has integrity, and it has integrity thanks to Operation Sovereign Borders, which is opposed by those opposite.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 21:07.