Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I wish to add to an answer that I supplied to the member for Makin last night. I apologise to the member for Makin: I was distracted a little during his question and I misheard which program he was asking me about in relation to assistance to South Australia. He asked about the Manufacturing Transition Program and I, unfortunately, misheard it and answered the question on the basis that I thought he was asking about the Next Generation Manufacturing Investment Program. There are a number of programs—in fact, a significant number of programs—we are running in South Australia, so I apologise for that confusion.

I now wish to properly answer the question that was asked. The member for Makin asked me to advise him how many applications were received from South Australia and Victoria for funds from the Australian government's Manufacturing Transition Program, which was part of the confusion that then occurred in my mind because the manufacturing program has been completed. It received 77 applications nationally—it is a national program, so when he said South Australia and Victoria I thought he was referring to a scheme within the Growth Fund. He was actually referring to a government policy we took to the last election. The Australian government's manufacturing transition program had 77 applications nationally, 74 of which were eligible and were provided with grants. Five were from South Australia and 19 were from Victoria. I say to the member for Makin: it was a genuine mishearing, and if he requires any further information, he is always welcome to come to my office. In fact, we are having an open session right now.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I seek your indulgence to make a statement in response. I thank the minister for providing the additional information, and I certainly accept his explanation about the response last night.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Having heard from the minister for industry, I suggest that the order agreed to by the Federation Chamber for the consideration of proposed expenditures be varied as shown in the revised schedule, which has been circulated to honourable members.

The schedule read as follows—

Proposed order of consideration of portfolios:

Communications

Attorney-General's

Attorney-General's—Arts

Attorney-General's—Justice

Finance

Foreign Affairs and Trade—Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs and Trade—Trade

Employment

Industry

Immigration and Border Protection

Prime Minister and Cabinet

Prime Minister and Cabinet—Indigenous Affairs

Social Services

Social Services—Human Services

Education

Environment

Agriculture

Treasury

Treasury—Small Business

Infrastructure and Regional Development

Health

Health—Sport

Defence—Defence

Defence—Veterans' Affairs

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand there is no objection to that; we will follow that course.

Prime Minister and Cabinet Portfolio

Proposed expenditure: $1,879,379,000

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the parliamentary secretary knows, in this place if you snooze you lose. I am happy to go first and perhaps, when he does not answer my first question, he will get some of his opening statement jammed into that five minutes allowed for his response.

This is a good opportunity to talk about the appropriations bill as it relates to the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. As the parliamentary secretary would know, to provide a whole-of-government focus on the deregulation agenda, the Office of Deregulation was created within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet on 18 September 2013 and remains in the organisational structure of the department today. The parliamentary secretary would also be aware that in the autumn red tape repeal day of 2014 the government abolished the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines, which regulate the minimum pay and conditions for cleaners. As a result, from 1 July 2014—that is, between the government's first budget and their second budget—some of Australia's lowest-paid workers had their wages cut.

At the Department of Foreign Affairs, for example, cleaners have had their wages cut by $6,000 a year. Cleaners at the Department of Immigration and Border Protection are now receiving $2 less an hour, which means their annual wages will be reduced by thousands of dollars, while cleaners at Parliament House are facing a wage cut because of the abolition of the guidelines and the Clean Start rates. It should not have to be pointed out to members in this place that these are the people who clean our own offices—people we see around the building, people we interact with, people we spend a lot of time with. The government's deregulation agenda has had, is having and will have a very direct and very substantial impact on their take-home pay and their ability to pay the bills and raise their kids.

These wage cuts fly in the face of the Prime Minister's promise just over a year ago today that abolishing the guidelines would not affect cleaners' pay. He said:

I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that no cleaner's pay is reduced.

That was in question time on 16 June 2014. On Monday, at the front of this building on International Cleaners Day, I was proud to join so many colleagues from our side of the House, and indeed some of the crossbenchers as well, to stand with the cleaners who clean this building, to stand with people who just want a fair go. They are just doing their job; they do not want their wages cut. They do a fantastic job.

Mr Porter interjecting—

I am surprised that the other parliamentary secretary is interjecting at this point. I would have thought that he would agree that they do a fantastic job in this building. I am surprised he would object to that point. They do deserve a fair go, they deserve respect and they deserve fair wages and conditions as well.

Given that this government views cleaners' wages as red tape, my question is: will the PM&C Office of Deregulation conduct a review this year of the impacts of this particular measure in their deregulation agenda? Can the parliamentary secretary inform the House: how many cleaners are affected? How much money are they losing? And can he tell us the Office of Deregulation's estimates of how much money is being saved from this budget as a result of taking the wages out of the pockets of some of Australia's lowest paid workers?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to address the question from the member. Ultimately, the question had two specific parts—first, in his words, 'How many cleaners were affected by the deregulatory decision?'; second, 'What was the effect on the wage of the cleaners?' And, third, I think the question was, 'What was the regulatory compliance cost saving that was attached to the actual decision?' The third answer is certainly one that we can get to you with clarity. I do not have that to hand at the moment, but that is something that would have been subject to internal assessment, as to the compliance cost. From recollection, it was not insignificant that the guidelines had placed an onus on—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will get to that. The guidelines had placed an onus on employers, which was viewed by this government, certainly as unnecessary, and it was costing employers. The other two questions were: 'How many cleaners were affected by that deregulatory decision; and what was the effect on the wages?' To be able to answer that properly, what needs to be put on record here by the member—and it is something that I have seen failed to be put on record anywhere—is: 'What is the causal link between the deregulatory decision and whatever subsequent enterprise agreement was bargained between the cleaners and their employers?' As the member would know, having had some experience in these matters, enterprise agreements set wages. They are bargained often between union representatives for the individuals involved and they are the result of those arrangements.

In this instance, deregulatory changes were made. Immediately after those deregulatory changes were made there were no changes whatsoever to the wages and or conditions. Enterprise agreements that had a known termination date were then renegotiated by unions—many of which are affiliated with your side of politics—with their employers. What remains to be proven with any kind of substantial form is that there is a direct causal link between the two.

An opposition member interjecting—

It might assist my friend if I describe how wages are actually set. I might use the example that my parliamentary secretary colleague raised, which is Clean Event. Clean Event provides a perfect example of how wages are actually set. Wages are determined in enterprise agreements by negotiation, almost invariably, by unions negotiating on behalf of the workers with employers, to finalise an enterprise agreement that has a fixed term.

What has been put by the member for Rankin is that there is some kind of causal link between the enterprise agreement that was negotiated many months after a deregulatory decision—which was a far broader decision—was made. To clarify how it is that wages are set, I will use the example of Clean Event. A union negotiates on behalf of its employees with an employer to determine wages and conditions where the conditions will often involve things like leave, leave loading, holiday pay and other conditions of that type. Certain calculations must be made as to whether or not those employees are better or worse off, under the subsequent agreement, compared to previous agreements. Using the example of Clean Event—which has become somewhat topical of late—a view has been put that the cleaners, the employees, who were contracted with the relevant company, Clean Event, would not have been better off under the second compared to the previous agreement. In fact, they would have been substantially worse off. Interestingly, this decision—as the member for Rankin might be happy to concede—was not prefaced or predated by any regulatory or deregulatory decision, was it? It was just an enterprise agreement—

An opposition member interjecting—

What is being put without any evidentiary foundation is that the direct necessary condition that led to a subsequent enterprise agreement had something to do with a deregulatory decision in and about the same industry. What we are pointing out is that here is an example where, in a subsequent decision, a subsequent DVA—

(Time expired)

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

Yesterday, in this place, I had a very insightful conversation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs about Australia's aid program and how it empowers women. The recurring theme of that conversation was that only when all citizens are full participants in society can a nation realise its potential. It should be plainly obvious. If a group excludes or artificially limits 50 per cent of its population from full economic participation, from participating in the national discourse and from decision making, then that society is only holding itself back.

In talking about limiting participation I need to be clear that I am not only referring to deliberate limitations, such as excluding women from educational opportunities and preventing women from voting, but also saying that the conversation needs to be broader. For example; if a couple who have children both want to work then a policy environment that creates inflexible work hours or that makes the cost of child care prohibitive becomes a limitation for that society. If a legal and social environment turns a blind eye from violence or crime against women then that becomes a limitation for the society. If the business environment does not encourage start-ups and entrepreneurs, then we are limiting opportunities for people to be self-sufficient and disempowering those who could otherwise stand on their own two feet.

The context of my exchange with the minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday was, as I said, Australia's foreign aid policy. In that conversation it emerged that in the Asia-Pacific region up to $47 billion is lost annually because of women's limited access to employment and up to $30 billion annually due to gender gaps in education.

Today, Parliamentary Secretary, I would like to bring the conversation a little closer to home—specifically, to my electorate of Solomon. In Darwin and Palmerston, the cost of child care is high and places are very limited. When child care is available, it is often only the long day care type, meaning nurses, doctors, emergency workers, some Defence personnel and other people with shift work or casual work arrangements struggle to find suitable care for their children.

Regrettably, rates of violence in the electorate of Solomon and the Northern Territory generally are also far too high. I say too high, but clearly one violent attack is one too many. In the Northern Territory, more than half of all assaults are in the family home. It goes without saying that most of the victims are indeed women. In this context, Parliamentary Secretary, I would like to put this question to you: what is the coalition government doing to support and protect women and to ensure Australia benefits from the full, unrestricted participation of all of its citizens?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question which goes to a range of issues with regard to this budget and expenditures. I understand the point that you are making about child care and I have visited a number of childcare facilities in my own electorate after this budget—and in fact many of them were mightily pleased with what had been done. Particularly, they found that there was an immense amount of confusion in the variety of payment and subsidies that were available prior to the decision that we are very much hoping would pass through the Senate and which is instituted in this budget.

In terms of increasing that participation, I might just preface what I am about to say by saying that the childcare reforms and jobs and families package are very much directed at participation per se. Obviously, this is a very large ongoing subsidy that is provided by the taxpayer in the area of child care. What we have done is look at ways in which we can make that most thoroughly purposive where the purpose is to engage, support and incentivise mothers to return to work.

When we look at the data in Australia about mothers returning to work, it has been very positive but, equally, when we look at qualitative research, departmental research and things that Productivity Commission has engaged in, it is quite clear that one of the largest, if not the largest, roadblocks in terms of returning to work for a mother is the availability and affordability of child care.

There has also been a very interesting report—I think I stated in the other place—from the United Kingdom which tracks data over several decades from the 1960s to try and interpret how it is that families become better off, become wealthier, increase their standard of living and their household wealth. What it found was that the largest single driver over that period of time was the ability for the female in the family to go back to work and contribute to family income. So women re-entering the workforce or entering the workforce for the first time was the single biggest driver in increased family prosperity in the United Kingdom.

What was even more interesting was that as a driver of family prosperity, it was much higher in the LMI—lower middle income—families than any other cohort. Indeed, what it showed was that the single biggest driver of increasing family prosperity in the UK over several decades, particularly in the types of families that need the greatest assistance, was in women returning to the workforce.

Looking at the packages that we have put in this budget, I will just mention two: the partnership agreement on homelessness, which I will come to in a moment and which I think is very important in this space but, first of all, the child care, jobs and family package. What we have engaged in in this budget is a complete reformulation administratively of the system and in directing what are very considerable amounts of taxpayer's money. Child care will now be an additional subsidy of $3.5 billion, and the way in which that subsidy is going to be allocated is that families between $65,000 and $175,000 will in effect be $30 a week better off, which will represent a subsidy of around about 85 per cent of the total amount of child care. Importantly, this is up to an hourly fee cap, which we very much trust will minimise and reduce some of the exorbitance that had grown up in some childcare centres' fees in some areas where there was a supply problem. Above the $170,000 level, there is again a very significant amount of subsidy—around about the 50 per cent mark, but that will be capped at $10,000 per child for incomes above $180,000.

Sitting beneath that very good and high-level subsidy is going to be a childcare safety net package—$327.7 million—that is going to support 95,000 disadvantaged children, with $168 million going to go specifically to families of children at risk of neglect, irrespective of whether parents meet the activity test, which I will come to in a moment. There is also an $840 million payment to early childhood education that will provide access to 600 hours of preschool per year funding, guaranteed to be indexed for the first time. All of that contributes to a scenario where it is going to be easier, simpler and cheaper for mums to return to the workforce—or, indeed, to enter the workforce for the first time—whether they are single mums or mums in a standard two-parent family. We have determined that that is the single best way to increase family prosperity and thereby increase children's chances for a much more productive future.

I might finish by looking very quickly at that $230 million National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. That has been extended for two years to 2017, and for the first time ever there has been a clear focus driven into that program to ensure that the funds are properly allocated and prioritised to front-line services to women and children who have experienced domestic or family violence. Again, that has been a generally successful program in conjunction with the states, but for the first time ever the focus will clearly be on women. The very ironic thing that happens in issues of family and domestic violence is that it is almost invariably the case that it is the woman who has to leave the family home after experiencing family violence. That in itself is something that we all need to work to reverse. (Time expired)

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the parliamentary secretary, in response to his last answer: can he confirm for the House that he sees no link between the change in the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines and the subsequent wage cuts for Commonwealth cleaners? Will he sit down with the cleaners of this building and their representatives to explain to them why he thinks that there is no link whatsoever between the change to the guidelines and the changes to their wages, and to the wages of Commonwealth cleaners in DFAT and around the Commonwealth Public Service? That is my first set of questions for the parliamentary secretary.

The second set of questions also relates to the deregulation agenda. I want to remind the parliamentary secretary of some of the absolute crowning achievements in this area when it comes to deregulation carried out by him and by his predecessor, the now Assistant Treasurer. These are some of the achievements so far in the deregulation space: the government has changed clauses in 11 different pieces of legislation where from now on the law will omit the word 'e-mail' with a hyphen and substitute 'email' without a hyphen. There are 16 pieces of legislation where from now on the law will omit the words 'facsimile transmission' and substitute the word 'fax'. There are six pieces of legislation where from now on the law will omit the word 'trademark' and substitute the word 'trade mark', with a space. They have corrected a spelling error in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act so that the word 'committing' has the requisite two t's. They have corrected a punctuation error in the Fair Work Act 2009 to insert a comma between the words 'aircraft' and 'ship'; and there are 10 clauses in legislation in which a reference to the 'Legislative Assembly for the Northern Territory' must now be substituted with 'Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory'.

Can the parliamentary secretary inform us if the Office of Deregulation will conduct a review this year to determine the real economic impact of the repeal of these tremendously significant spelling errors, typos and lapsed legislation? And can he confirm for the House that the punctuation errors corrected in some of this legislation still saves the Commonwealth $350,000? Does he stand by that costing?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

One of the things that I have noted about having the stewardship of this deregulatory agenda is that laziness in one area breeds laziness in all areas. I know that members opposite may be happy to put up with poor grammar and over-hyphenation. It may be that you are radically pro hyphen, that you would hyphen everywhere you could and that you would ignore over-hyphenation. It is very interesting, because when we read the annual report what we found was that, for the first time ever, this government undertook a very thoroughgoing audit of the costs of regulation on the Australian economy. The figure that was derived from that report was $65 billion worth of cost effect on the Australian economy from Commonwealth regulation. We broke that down very thoroughly, per department, and we also broke it down in ways that show that the more minor contribution to that $65 billion worth of effect on the economy is in what you might call the acts and regulatory instruments, in the way in which they are devised and written. Underneath that, from recollection, around 80 per cent of the impact of the cost occurs from departmental-level decisions, forms and ongoing issues that relate to the way in which departments interpret the acts and regulations. What we have done—and I think that this is a virtue, not the vice that members opposite would have it be—is that we chase both the big things and the little things.

It is very interesting that the member raised the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act, which I agree had grammar which was appalling. It should never have been drafted in the way that it was. I cannot remember whether it was a previous Liberal or Labor government; I do not know. But, very interestingly, alongside those amendments—which were indeed very grammatical and would have had minor cost effects—there were also changes, because we identified that there were state regimes in the very act that the member talks about, which governs the installation and maintenance of pontoon devices on the Barrier Reef according to the Commonwealth regulation. We did tidy that up, as you point out, in a grammatical way, but also there was a slightly more substantive change. What that did was, in effect, redact those parts of the Commonwealth legislation that purported to have, and for some time had had, an impact the users and installers of pontoon devices on the Great Barrier Reef.

We went through a business cost calculation method. The saving was admittedly modest. From recollection, we calculated that the savings were in the vicinity of about $5,000 per year, because under the very act that my friend talks about there were a very small number of operators who were forced to abide by both a Commonwealth regime and a state regime that were doing precisely the same thing. To the member for Rankin, that may be something which is unimportant, but if you are operating a pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef and have to abide by two separate regimes which both require you to do essentially the same thing and fill in two sets of forms then the requirement that you have is too onerous and unnecessary, and it is worth looking at. If we can tidy up the grammar of the act at the same time, so be it. The sort of laziness that we had opposite is a laziness that not only stops you from looking at commas and hyphenation but then stops you from looking at and investigating acts like the very one that he mentioned, where there were significant cost savings to be had from businesses not having to go through a dual application and maintenance process for pontoons on the Barrier Reef.

The thing about looking at the acts, if you bother to do so, is that, very interestingly, what we have done is not merely to chase down those rats and mice but to look at much larger operational items. For instance, for the first time ever the e-tax system prepopulates. On calculations inside this government and the departments on the business cost calculator model, that saves 1.6 million-odd self-assessing Australians $156 million of their time.

Now I will get to the cleaners. Let me explain to the member for Rankin how causation works. Causation is not proved by saying if event A happened before event B then event A caused event B. What stands as proof quite clear of that— (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Ryan.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hang on a sec. Deputy Speaker, you will note that the member for Ryan, for whom I have great respect—I love her scarf today in particular—was nowhere near on her feet when the time elapsed. I let you have the first one, Deputy Speaker, which you were also not correct on, but this time I was up on my feet well in advance.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mrs Prentice interjecting—

Don't reflect on the chair, member for Ryan.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I am going to reflect on you when I am in the chair!

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is very professional. The member for Ryan is being very professional about her stewardship of the chair. Thank you for the call; a very fair decision. I ask the parliamentary secretary for commas and hyphens: will he meet with the cleaners of this building to explain to them his position that there is no link between the Commonwealth cleaning guidelines being changed by the Abbott government and the cuts to their pay?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the member opposite—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just answer my question!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

going to meet with the employees of Clean Event to explain to them how it is that the EA—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is your budget, Christian!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

negotiated by the leader of his political party produced an outcome for them that left them with very substantially less.

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Let him answer please.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very interesting issue. It is, in a sense, quite astonishing that you would choose cleaning as the issue to pursue here. As I said, you are presupposing that event A that occurs before event B causes event B. You explain to me what it is—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you saying there is no link?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am saying there is no link. The terms and conditions for employees are set by enterprise agreements, bargained under the Fair Work Australia system—the system that your side of politics devised—and negotiated by the union movement, which your side of politics has links to. Simply because event A occurs before event B does not mean event A causes event B. And when you look at the Clean Event example, what was it that caused the employees in the Clean Event EA to receive a less favourable outcome than in their previous EA? It was the way in which that EA was negotiated by the now Leader of the Opposition. It is fascinating because when you look at that process, everything turns on the enterprise agreement—signed by the now Leader of the Opposition. It is a document for Clean Event employees that benefits the employer and disadvantages the workers.

What was it that caused that outcome? Was it a deregulatory agenda? Was it a failure to properly negotiate with the employers? Was it some form of ancillary advantage that was seen as more important, like joining people up to a union? Very interestingly, you can print out the examples, and I advise you to do it, about how that particular EBA worked. Interestingly, the total award rate, had it been negotiated under the award, would have been $673.46, but the multi-hiring clause under the EBA that was negotiated ultimately by the now Leader of the Opposition produced a rate result of $586.32, which has put those workers in a significantly poorer position than they were in previously.

That was a result that came from the negotiation of the EBA under the Fair Work Act system, the system that the Labor Party put in place when in government. The contract was negotiated by the now Leader of the Opposition. In fact, the result was this: many of the Clean Event workers would have been better off staying on the minimum wage and receiving penalties as prescribed under their award rather than working under the now Leader of the Opposition's enterprise bargaining agreement that he negotiated on their behalf. The outcome of an EBA is determined by the negotiation of the EBA and the terms of the EBA. Trying to link that to the deregulator agenda is simply, completely, to misunderstand the causal nature of what produces outcomes in the EBA process.

Returning to the government's deregulatory agenda as a whole, what we have managed to do is enact decisions which, when fully implemented, will reduce compliance costs in the Australian economy by $2.45 billion. And, yes, inside that agenda there is a range of rather mundane cleaning-up of legislation, which has gone undone for too long, but also some incredibly substantive matters. Those will continue with the money that this budget has provided to the Digital Transformation Office. The interface with government will become clearer and crisper for people, whether they are undertaking tender and procurement processes, or whether or not they are going through Centrelink application processes. What we have done is a thorough top to bottom analysis of where regulatory costs are imposed in the economy, and we are tackling them all—both big and small.

When you look at some of the fantastic things that have happened here, and in this recent budget particularly, they have gone directly to organisations such as small business. Fringe benefits tax can now be claimed on two devices even if they have an overlapping functionality, like an iPhone or an iPad—a very significant benefit for business.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ryan has just advised me she is at the Petitions Committee, so she will be late. I give the call to the member for Rankin.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is very good of you, Deputy Speaker, given the member for Ryan is not in the room.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Ryan was supposed to be in the chair and I have just swapped chair duty with her.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is very good of you, Deputy Speaker, and very good of you to mention that, given she is not here, she does not get the call. I think that is consistent with precedent—if you are not here, you do not get the call.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no need to be a smart aleck, member for Rankin, I was just explaining something to you. I do not appreciate your behaviour, and I do not want a repeat of yesterday's behaviour either.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in furious agreement—it is a good idea not to give the call to the member for Ryan, who is not here. We agree.

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no need to be a smart aleck.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question for the parliamentary secretary is in relation to the white paper on agriculture. Why is the white paper on agriculture six months late?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is an issue you would need to direct to the agriculture minister—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have got a white paper on agriculture on your organisational chart.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is in an organisational chart but that is not conducted. There are two white papers being conducted under the auspices of Prime Minister and Cabinet—a tax white paper and a federation white paper. Some stewardship on tax is devolved to me and some stewardship on federation to my friend the parliamentary secretary. But matters with respect to the agricultural white paper are not in the auspices of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

From time to time, of course, white paper processes are elongated beyond original estimates. Particularly, very often—and this is something I think was noticed in the tax white paper—the sheer volume of submissions that are received, and the desire by people to submit further but have been unable to submit within the existing time frame, means that sometimes those time frames are elongated. That is something that would have to be directed towards the agriculture minister.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the parliamentary secretary to respond to a story in the Canberra Times that said:

Paid parental leave for tens of thousands of federal public servants has been plunged into limbo by the Abbott government's controversial cuts to the entitlement. Departments are saying that they cannot finalise the arrangements for their workforces until they have been given clear guidance from public service authorities.

When will that guidance be provided?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have not read the article that the member refers to. Of course, any lack of clarity that might arise from the coalition's Jobs for Families childcare package—which of course includes both the new expenditure to increase the subsidies for child care but also, as the member points out, the savings measures which revolve around both the FTB(B) changes and the eligibility criteria for the state run, government run, system of paid parental leave—with respect to those proposals does not arise from the nature of the proposals, or the way in which the proposals are described, formatted or legislated. That is entirely clear. Of course, uncertainty, very unfortunately, will arise because the position of members opposite is, it appears, to not support those changes, which would give very significant increases to subsidy for those seeking child care. Maybe it is something that members opposite need to discuss with the relevant unions that they have close contact with, but there is no lack of clarity in what is being proposed. If there is any, you could try to point it out, but I think that the drafting is very tight. Of course, clarity may be an issue because of the fact that the legislation is going to meet, it appears, some opposition from Labor.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer the parliamentary secretary to his earlier response about paid parental leave, and again I quote The Canberra Times article:

The key Department of the Prime and Cabinet says it simply does not know what to do about its workforce's paid parental leave entitlements in the wake of the bombshell announcement in May's budget.

Until there is an agreed position across the public service, which was singled out and accused of "double-dipping" in an attempt to sell the policy, everything is up in the air.

Can he respond to this assertion in the article? Can the parliamentary secretary confirm that his colleagues in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet have absolutely no idea how to implement the government's policy on paid parental leave?

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps I can make this comment with respect to The Canberra Times article, which I have not read but you have gracefully quoted a part of: what a sloppy and hopeless piece of journalism that is. The idea that there is some form of a lack of clarity—

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

There are journalists of varying quality and acumen, and, based on the very little excerpt you have given to us about this particular article, I must say that is not the highest point in the art of investigative journalism which has graced the vocabulary of this chamber.

The position that the coalition has taken is that the $11,000-odd of paid parental leave that is provided for by the taxpayer through the auspices of the government should not be available to be taken by Commonwealth public servants who already have expansive and generous paid parental leave systems. The principle is that if you are a Commonwealth public servant who has a large, expansive and generous entitlement, which is of course also funded by the taxpayer of Australia, then you should not be able to also get a further taxpayer-of-Australia funded benefit. The principle is very clear.

The way in which that principle is enacted in the legislation is also very clear. What is less clear is whether or not there is going to be support to ease the passage of that principle, which is well-defined in legislation, through the parliament. To the extent that there may be uncertainty as to the future, that is not uncertainty created by the coalition government, nor pursuant to the principle nor pursuant to the drafting. That is uncertainty that you are creating, so maybe you should—

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is your policy, defend it!

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The policy is sound and the legislation is sound. Whether there is complete certainty is something which unfortunately is out of the control of any government who faces bloody-minded opposition. Maybe it is the case that we will find good support for this, as we did with our pensions package last evening from individuals—

An honourable member: Why are you putting the Greens down?

The Greens are lovely people. But any uncertainty here is caused by your side of politics refusing to do what is the right thing—that is, to move savings in one area of spending on families to very important, productive spending in another area.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the parliamentary secretary. The Prime Minister told his cabinet earlier this month that there would be 'political and personal consequences' for leaking, after Fairfax Media published very detailed revelations of a cabinet debate on plans to strip citizenship from suspected terrorists. My question is: can the parliamentary secretary tell us if the cabinet division is investigating ways to prevent future leaks and how much resourcing is devoted to finding the source of this leak?

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As it is 10.45 am, the Federation Chamber will now consider the Indigenous affairs segment of the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio, in accordance with the agreed order of consideration. Perhaps, parliamentary secretary, you could take the member for Rankin's question on notice.

Christian Porter (Pearce, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would be very happy to do so.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister in relation to Indigenous affairs. As a member who represents a large number of Aboriginal people, the welfare and wellbeing of the people in my electorate are very important. We have seen a lot of successful programs, and there are some wonderful things happening in the electorate of Parkes.

I might just touch briefly on the Clontarf Foundation, which is ongoing and is set to increase in numbers over the next few months. The Clontarf Foundation is doing great work in Bourke, Brewarrina, Moree, Coonamble and now Dubbo in my electorate. They have had great achievements, like the two young men from Coonamble who are now working in construction with Leighton Contractors in Sydney and who previously, without the assistance of Clontarf, would not have had the opportunity to obtain full-time employment and, indeed, a career. They have great pride in their achievements, and their community has great pride in their achievements as well. Also, young Nathan Johnson, who was school captain of Brewarrina last year, is now doing a fine arts degree at the University of Newcastle, largely because of the mentoring and assistance from Clontarf.

We still have a lot of issues that affect not only the Aboriginal people in my electorate but also most people who are suffering from living on low incomes and on welfare in remote areas. We are seeing an escalation in the use of methamphetamine, in the form of ice, and the misuse of morphine patches that are being processed into what is locally known as 'hillbilly heroin' and the effects that they are having. There are also a lot of issues around alcohol and the domestic violence which comes with that. This is not an issue just for the Aboriginal people in my electorate; it afflicts a large number of my communities, of which Aboriginal people are residents. One of those issues is around cash in society, and the fact that when the welfare payments come through this money is, in some cases, squandered on drugs and alcohol, and we end up with children and women mainly bearing the consequences of that.

I have a couple of questions for the parliamentary secretary. I am just wondering where the parliamentary secretary is up to with the possible implementation of a Healthy Welfare Card, and what the government is trying to achieve with that. We are aware of the BasicsCard, but the parliamentary secretary might explain what the differences may be between a BasicsCard and the proposed cashless debit card. What will determine the success of a cashless debit card? I am particularly interested to know what discussions and community involvement might be happening at the moment around this process. Finally, how much is our government investing in Indigenous affairs, as well? If the Parliamentary Secretary could answer those questions, I am sure that the constituents in my electorate would be very interested to know.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Parkes for those questions. I have been out to his electorate a couple of times and I certainly appreciate his absolute passion in this space—his passion for his constituents and for the advancement of Aboriginal people more broadly. He is a person who is very, very genuine about his commitment in this space, as are many people in this chamber.

The member for Parkes has asked me several questions. Perhaps I could take some of those in turn. Firstly, working backwards, in terms of how much money we are putting into Indigenous-specific programs, I can confirm to the member for Parkes that we are putting about $4.9 billion over four years into Indigenous-specific programs. They, of course, sit above and beyond any other mainstream programs that Aboriginal people access as well.

I will perhaps make comment in relation to the Clontarf program. There are some very successful Clontarf programs in the member for Parkes' electorate, which I have been out and visited with him, and where I had a throw of the footy with some of the boys in the morning—unfortunately it was not a kick of the footy, AFL style! But it is a terrific program, and this government backs the Clontarf program very strongly. In last year's budget, as you would probably be aware, we significantly boosted the funding for the Clontarf academies so that those academies can continue to be rolled out across the nation. Not only do they boost school attendance, but in many cases they provide the mentoring, the support, the advice and the counsel that these young Indigenous boys and men need, as well as providing opportunities for employment subsequently. So we are very big supporters of the Clontarf Academy, and I commend Gerard Neesham and his team for the work that they do across Australia now. I know that the members of the opposition also strongly support the Clontarf Academy.

I was also asked about the Healthy Welfare Card. This proposal, as you would be aware, came out of the recommendation of Andrew Forrest. We are not adopting his recommendation for it in its entirety, although we are taking that recommendation seriously. In essence there are three differences in what we are proposing to do from what Andrew Forrest recommended. Firstly, we are not proposing that a Healthy Welfare Card as outlined in his report be applied across Australia but, rather, that it would only ever be intended to be applied in discrete locations where there is higher welfare passivity and also high welfare-fuelled alcohol and drug abuse. Secondly, the proposal is to trial this card in two or three locations only to assess its feasibility, to work out what impact it will have and then to make decisions subsequent to that trial. In the most recent budget, funds were set aside to enable that trial to continue. The third difference from the Andrew Forrest recommendation is that, whereas he recommended that no cash be available and that all welfare dollars be placed onto a healthy welfare debit card, we are suggesting that at least some cash does need to be available because we are not in a cashless economy just yet. So we are working with community leaders in various locations to determine what amount of cash is a reasonable amount that you do need versus what you can reasonably put on an ordinary Visa debit card, which is what we are proposing to do.

The member for Parkes asked where this is at. We have been having constructive consultations across many communities around Australia. It is no secret that one of the communities we have been engaged with is the community of Moree, in the member for Parkes' electorate. Those conversations and those consultations, though, are ongoing.

We are also having consultations with many other places. At some stage there will be a decision made as to where we will trial the card, with the core, single objective of trying to address some of the welfare fuelled alcohol and drug abuse, which in some places is very significant and does lead to very significant rates of violence and assaults, particularly against women, and child neglect.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Parliamentary Secretary I would like to ask you a series of questions in relation to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy. I will give one example in relation to it. The Indigenous Advancement Strategy was hailed by the Abbott government as a centrepiece of its Indigenous policy. Indeed the parliamentary secretary has just mentioned $4.9 billion over four years. But for hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations across the country it has been a living nightmare, and they are still living with it. One year on many of them do not know where the axe will fall. This budget entrenches more than half a billion dollars in cuts from Indigenous programs and from Indigenous frontline services, which started in last year's budget. It confirms more than $145 million will be cut from Indigenous programs and services in this financial year, including $46 million for Indigenous health. The budget provides no relief from last year's budget cuts.

What has the Indigenous Advancement Strategy actually done? Last year the government forced all Indigenous organisations to compete in an open competitive tender process. More than $14 billion of applications were received with just $2.3 billion being available under the strategy. Alarmingly, about 75 frontline Indigenous services, including women's shelters, did not apply for that funding because they could not deal with the guidelines. Struggling with this massive oversubscription, the government rolled out $300 million just to keep organisations going for another six months, and this meant $2 billion was available. In March this year the government announced $860 million in funding for Indigenous programs and services. Many of the services were offered just a fraction of their previous funding to deliver the same services and many missed out altogether.

The Indigenous Advancement Strategy left many gaps in vital frontline services so your government, Parliamentary Secretary, was forced to release another $140 million in funding to fix those gaps. Now we learn that the Minister for Indigenous Affairs, the Hon. Nigel Scullion, is gap-filling even further with ad hoc funding offers, with demand driven and direct source funding. Parliamentary Secretary, by what process is the minister actually dealing with demand driven and direct source funding? How does he meet with them, when does he meet with them, how do they get access to him? On what basis or criteria does he make those decisions.

Two weeks out from the new financial year contracts have not been finalised for those organisations who have been notified that they are getting funding. The process is so bad that the submissions given to the Senate inquiry are damning. One of those organisations I would like to draw to your attention is the Bloodwood Tree Association, which operates the Bunara Maya hostel in Port Hedland. Initially they were forced through this process, and they got some interim funding to continue until 30 June 2015. They were told under the IAS they would get no money for the hostel they ran. Five Aboriginal staff members would lose their jobs. The gap-filling process offered an opportunity for the government to address the gap created by the forced disclosure. This is in Port Hedland, Parliamentary Secretary. About a year after the process began, the Bloodwood Tree Association was offered funding for another six months after a quick meeting with the minister. Again we are referring to the process by which those applications were made. Almost unbelievably the Minister for Indigenous Affairs has said that the half a billion dollars in cuts delivered through the IAS was simply an efficiency dividend. The minister guaranteed more than once that no frontline services would be cut. I ask you, Parliamentary Secretary, to explain what a frontline service actually is, according to your government. Does the Parliamentary Secretary stand by the minister's iron-clad guarantee that no frontline services have been cut? Can the Parliamentary Secretary confirm the cuts to be applied in this financial year? This budget did offer some additional investment in Indigenous Advancement Strategy, with $4.8 million allocated for further funding indexation in 2018-19. This is of little comfort, Parliamentary Secretary, to the many organisations which have not got funding beyond this financial year. I ask the parliamentary secretary: how many organisations have actually been contracted until 2018-19? Is this new money? What modelling has been done to arrive at this $4.8 million—at this indexation figure, as the budget shows? Will the parliamentary secretary disclose the modelling? If so, when?

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow Indigenous affairs spokesperson, the member for Blair, for his series of questions in relation to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy and some of the decisions which the government has made this year and last year.

I first address the point that he made right at the beginning and which the member for Blair has been making incorrectly for some time: that we cut half a billion dollars out of the Indigenous-specific programs last year. There was not half a billion dollars. Yes, there were savings made in last year's budget from Indigenous-specific programs across the forward estimates. There were savings across every single department in large part because we were trying to get control of the enormous debt and deficit legacy which we were left by the former government.

What the savings represents, though—to put this into context—were savings of $247 million, from memory, over four years, which out of $30 billion spent on Indigenous people across the nation per annum, according to the Productivity Commission, represents a savings of about 0.2 per cent. I know that the opposition has said a lot about this particular savings, but my point to them is that, if money were the answer, we would have closed the gap, a long time ago. Indeed, we have had an 80 per cent real increase in Indigenous funding over the last decade. Today about $44,000 per Indigenous person is spent across the nation. In remote communities it would be close to double that figure. Money is not the answer. Money is important; of course it is. But if it is just more money that led to closing of the gap then that gap would have been closed some time ago.

What have we done in relation to the Indigenous Advancement Strategy? There was a series of questions which the member for Blair asked in relation to that. As he would know, we have gone through a very significant process in relation to the Indigenous-specific programs. When we came to office there were 150 Indigenous-specific programs across multiple departments. The first step that Tony Abbott decided as the new Prime Minister was to incorporate all of those programs into the Prime Minister's department. That gives it coordination. That gives Indigenous affairs clout. It gives Indigenous affairs a much higher political priority than it has ever had. The second thing that the government has done is amalgamate those 150 programs into five broad, flexible programs largely oriented around the government's priorities, of which everybody knows our top three priorities are, of course, getting kids to school, adults to work and communities safe.

It has been, as you would imagine, quite a significant process to amalgamate those 150 programs into five, but it enables us to be more flexible in relation to the provision of funding and allows local regions and local community leaders and organisations to also be more flexible in terms of the type of applications that they might want to put in against the national priorities which we have set. We have gone through this process. Yes, there were many thousands of applications for the money. In total, 996 organisations have been funded to deliver funding to over 1,350 projects. That is what has occurred in the first round of the IAS funding.

As we have gone along, the Minister for Indigenous Affairs said that there would be a first round of funding and there will be subsequent rounds. Many were given the decision, 'You have not quite been granted funding, but please come back to us and address these couple of issues, and you may well get funding.' That is the process which is going through at the moment, again to try to provide that nuance and flexibility to be able to assess the outcomes on the ground. And in some instances, the outcomes are not being delivered, and where those outcomes are not being delivered, those organisations are not getting further funding. I do not think the taxpayers expect us to continue funding when outcomes have not been delivered.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The budget ceases the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing and a $5.5 billion investment which was not due to expire until 2018. It is a significant amount of funding—about $1.3 billion available to be rolled out over the remaining years of the agreement.

The 2014 progress review of the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing reported more than 1,600 new houses and 5,200 refurbishments have been completed between 2008 and 2013. States and territories have continued to achieve and exceed targets for construction and refurbishment, with another 531 new houses constructed and 839 refurbishments completed in 2013-14. The government will replace the national partnership agreement with a new remote Indigenous housing strategy over three years, totalling $1.1 billion, according to the budget.

Can the parliamentary secretary confirm how many new houses have been constructed and how many refurbishments have been completed under the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing? What were the construction targets for the remaining years of the agreement? How many houses and refurbishments are states and territories required to complete by 2018, under the government's new remote Indigenous housing strategy?

Of great concern is the redirection of $95 million associated with the existing national partnership agreement to fund reform of the Remote Jobs and Communities Program. Indigenous households are more than three times as likely to be overcrowded. The 2011 ABS census on population and housing reported that around 24,700 Indigenous households were considered to be overcrowded. This equates to 115,600 people, or about one in four Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in overcrowded accommodation. Approximately 60.4 per cent of Aboriginal households in remote parts of the Northern Territory are subject to overcrowding.

The problems associated with chronic overcrowding in remote communities are well documented. It is concerning that the government has ripped $95 million from the national partnership agreement, given the serious ongoing issues of overcrowding in remote communities. I suppose it should come as no surprise that funding should be ripped away from remote community investment after the Prime Minister described the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to live on their traditional lands as a 'lifestyle choice' that should be not be subsidised by taxpayers' money. It follows the decision of this government to cut federal funds for essential and municipal services in remote communities across the country and to hand that responsibility to the states and territories.

Parliamentary Secretary, why is the $95 million being cut from the Indigenous remote housing investment? How will reducing funding for remote housing reduce overcrowding in remote communities? Strangely, the new remote housing strategy will fund housing for employment related accommodation not in remote communities but in regional and urban areas—I don't quite get that one. How many houses will actually be constructed in remote communities, as was is intended in the national partnership agreement? And how much of the $1.1 billion for remote housing will now be spent on housing outside of remote communities?

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. I do not know if he wants those questions in writing. There were a lot of statistics in there.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his series of questions, and I am used to the member for Blair's series of questions, which in five minutes are very difficult to get through. I did not count them this time, but I think your record, Member for Blair, is something like 40 questions in a five-minute slot from last year.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am not always satisfied with the answers, Parliamentary Secretary.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will do my best for the chamber and for the member for Blair. I will firstly address the municipal funding issue, which the member for Blair raised. As he would know, we have been working with state and territory governments to transfer the responsibility for municipal services from the federal government to the state governments. And we are doing that on a cooperative basis, where we will sit down with them and they will only agree to take on those services if they feel they have got a good deal out of it. Otherwise they will not sign up to the deal. That is the bottom line. But we have been able to have those constructive arrangements. The reason we are doing it is, in some respects, quite simple. When you look across Australia at everywhere else that municipal services are done, they are done by local councils, or by state governments, or by local councils on behalf of state governments. This is a peculiarity where municipal services have been funded and implemented by federal governments. We are just changing that arrangement so that the level of government closest to the ground in terms of the state governments—

Mr Neumann interjecting—

The member for Blair is interjecting saying he did not ask about MUNS. He did refer to the MUNS funding, so I am addressing the particular point he has raised.

He has then raised a series of questions in relation to housing. He is right that the government is committing $1.13 billion over three years to remote housing, from 2015-16 to 2017-18. And $95 million has been redirected to the RJCP Work for the Dole program, in part to include activities such as working on housing construction. One of the problems with the former NPARIH system was that so few Indigenous people locally were getting employment out of it. From memory, on average the housing costs were something in the vicinity of $600,000 or $800,000 per house constructed, but very few people were getting work out of it. Often it was people who were flown in, or drove in, from the major capital cities to work on these projects. We are unashamedly saying that we would like to see local people working on local housing construction. That, absolutely, is one of our priorities.

Another priority is to move away from an exclusive focus on social housing, so that in the ideal world Aboriginal people, be they in urban Australia or remote Australia, have the same opportunities and the same choices in relation to their housing as anybody else has—so that their only option is not to be put on the waiting list and to wait for a social house to come up, but rather they can also have the option to construct their own house and to own it on a home ownership basis. That is also what we would like to see. I am certainly pleased that the former Newman government put through some important 99-year lease legislation that enables those home ownership opportunities to continue.

I will address the final point, and this does get directly to his questions about why we were thinking about urban and regional locations, at the same time as remote locations, in relation to housing. Part of it is for employment, because as we know there can be significant economic impediments, on top of other impediments, to people leaving a remote community to get a job elsewhere. One of the economic impediments—

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

Michelle Landry (Capricornia, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari!

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would ask him to withdraw that comment. One of the economic impediments is the cost of housing. Should you want to leave a free, or close to free, welfare house in a remote community to take up a job elsewhere, you face significant economic impediments there. So we are supporting people to be mobile, including through housing—

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are joking. You do not know what you are talking about.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is not the House of Representatives. Just be quiet please.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the House of Representatives. He has no bloody idea.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that the member for Lingiari withdraw some of the offensive statements he has made towards me.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, member for Lingiari.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question, obviously, is to the parliamentary secretary. Firstly, let me say how pleased I am that the drug and alcohol rehab centre in Port Augusta will finally be officially opened in August—it will actually operate before that time. This has been on the books since former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd committed to it in the 2008 apology. So it has been quite a while getting there and I am very pleased that this government has been able to deliver it.

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It may have been a budget item, but it was unfortunately due to the incompetence of the previous government that the building could not be established or put in place. I also thank the minister, through you Deputy Speaker, for the extension of the income management program into Ceduna, both the voluntary and the exploration and development of the system that leads to some directed welfare payments. I think this is making an appreciable difference in that community, along with a whole raft of other things that are being done there. As the member for Lingiari would he aware—he has been to Ceduna before—the Standing Committee on Indigenous Affairs recently visited Ceduna and Coober Pedy, both of which have taken a very proactive stance in the management of alcohol damage in their local communities.

The government has received the Forrest report. There is a quite wide-ranging number of recommendations in the Forrest report, some around the issue of the healthy welfare card, but many more. Obviously, communities in my electorate like Ceduna, Coober Pedy, Port Augusta and Port Lincoln are interested in what the government's approach may be in responding to that report.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Mr Ramsey, the member for Grey, for his questions. I also thank him for his significant commitment to his constituents who include many Aboriginal people in some of the more remote places of Australia. Like the member for Parkes, who was speaking beforehand, the member for Grey has a very genuine fair dinkum commitment to the advancement of Aboriginal people more generally. I know that one of the things he had been pressing for for some time was the Port Augusta rehab facility, and it is absolutely terrific to see that the funding has been delivered for that. I commend him for the work that he had done there. I would also make note of and commend former minister Jenny Macklin for some of the income management trials which she oversaw when she was the minister, which included a very small trial in Ceduna as well.

The member for Grey has particularly asked me about the Forrest report, the status update on that and how that might relate to his electorate. I can report that out of the 27 recommendations of the Forrest report the government has decided to move forward on 26 of those 27 recommendations. The one which we are not moving forward on is the one recommending a tax-free status business. In part, we agreed with the sentiment in that recommendation, but it is a very difficult one to implement. Each of the others we are working through. We know that some of those have already been announced and implemented. One of the most significant ones which will impact on the ground, including in the member for Grey's electorate, includes some of the demand-driven measures. By that I mean an increased employment target for the Australian Public Service and putting some pressure on the larger companies in Australia for them to do a bit more in terms of their Indigenous employment. Most significantly, I think, is that for the first time in Australian political history we will be introducing a procurement target for Australian government procurement dollars. We have set ourselves a target of three per cent of our procurement contracts by 2020. This is new for Australia but it is not a new idea. It is in fact an idea taken from the United States, who introduced something similar under President Nixon back in 1969, and Canada, who introduced a similar concept back in 1996. In each of those two countries it had a very significant impact of creating social uplift for minority groups. We are hoping, and we believe, that this important procurement measure will have the same impact for Australia, and I hope that there are many Indigenous enterprises in the member for Grey's electorate that will be beneficiaries of that particular measure.

Of some of the other Forrest report recommendations, the Work for the Dole measure is another important one, and we are rolling that out progressively across Australia. Minister Scullion is doing a terrific job in reforming the old RJCP program, which might have been fine in intent but was not delivering consistently across the board in outcomes. Our intent is for every single person in those RJCP areas to be doing some meaningful activity for at least 25 hours per week.

The member for Grey also touched on the Healthy Welfare Card. I made comment about this card previously, in terms of our objective and our approach. Again, it is no secret that one of the communities amongst a group of communities that we have been having some cooperative discussions with is in the Ceduna region and surrounding communities. We have had very good engagement to date, and that engagement will continue to assess the preparedness and the desirability of implementing that proposal in that region. I have worked very cooperatively with the member for Grey on that.

There are also other measures within the Forrest report which may have an impact in his electorate—some of them measures that concern early childhood; some of them school attendance measures, for example. They will ultimately have an impact on his electorate.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At the risk of getting another non-answer from the parliamentary secretary, I want to again ask questions around housing, and to ask him to be very specific in his response. Can the parliamentary secretary confirm how many new houses have been constructed and refurbishments completed under the National Partnership Agreement on Remote Indigenous Housing? What were the construction targets for the remaining years of the agreement? Can the parliamentary secretary explain why funding for housing at Borroloola has been cut from $22 million to $15 million? How many houses and refurbishments are states and territories required to complete by 2018 under the government's new remote Indigenous housing strategy? These questions are very specific and not difficult. I would like him to answer them.

I would also like to address the question of the redirection of the $988.2 million in funding over eight years to establish a new national partnership agreement on the Northern Territory Aboriginal investment. We are told by the budget papers that this new NPA will replace the existing NPA on Stronger Futures in the Northern Territory at a net additional cost of $61.3 million over four years from 2015-16. I would like to know where this money is coming from. Could the parliamentary secretary give us a break-up of how this $988.2 million is to be spent, over what programs and over what period for each program? I also ask the parliamentary secretary: how is the government attempting to change the existing NPA Stronger Futures program in the Northern Territory through the NPA? We do need to know what is going to be in this new NPA, how it is going to be described and what the obligations of the Northern Territory government, in this case, will be. I would like the parliamentary secretary to articulate what they will be, please.

The new NPA includes, as I understand it, the new MUNS funding for the Northern Territory of $154.8 million. I would like to ask the parliamentary secretary specifically: what was the process for calculating this amount of $154.8 million? In negotiating its provisions, what was the role of the Northern Territory government? What agreements have been reached with the Northern Territory government over this MUNS funding? What communities will be funded under this MUNS funding? Are all communities which have been previously funded under the municipal services program funding from the Commonwealth being covered by this funding? We need to know precisely that information. Can he inform us as to how the Northern Territory government intends to roll out services under this program?

I then just address a couple of other issues which he has spoken about, not the least of which is the idiocy of the comment that somehow you are going to ameliorate poor housing in Aboriginal communities by building housing in Alice Springs. That ain't going to happen, brother, I can tell you. What we need to do is increase the funding in the bush to address it. To say that somehow or other people are getting these places free is just a nonsense. You ought to know, Parliamentary Secretary, that they are required to pay the rates charged for them through the Northern Territory Department of Housing. That is how it is being administered. That is the money they are being paid. They are asked to pay rent like every other Australian, as a public housing tenant.

I also want to make some comments and ask a question about Clontarf. I know that you acknowledge, Parliamentary Secretary, that we on this side of the House believe that Clontarf is a very, very successful program. It operates in a large number of locations across the country, including in my own electorate in the Northern Territory. While I am about it, I want to commend all of those people who are employed in that program for the wonderful work that they do mentoring young Aboriginal men. But I want to ask: why is it that there is no money being made available for similar programs for young women? I am aware that there was a proposal put to the government under the IAS funding proposal by an organisation called Stars for funding to start such a program, which would develop across the country. I am advised that the Stars program was not funded. Can the parliamentary secretary explain to me precisely why the program did not receive funding. Like the government, we accept the need to address the needs of young people in schools. Like the government, we accept the need to make sure that there is equivalent treatment of boys and girls, but at the moment we are not seeing that treatment. I have to say that there was no money made available for these sorts of programs when Labor was in government either. We need to redress the situation, and information would be greatly appreciated.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Member for Lingiari. I think you might even have outdone the member for Blair on the number of questions then.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lingiari for his series of questions. I do not know whether he did break the member for Blair's record of 40 questions in a five minute period, but he certainly did his absolute best to do so.

If I could address the questions in relation to Clontarf first, Clontarf, as the member for Lingiari mentioned, is a terrific organisation started by Gerard Neesham. Many years ago, Gerard Neesham, the first Dockers coach, went on to establish the Clontarf Academy in Western Australia. Subsequently he has been rolling out academies right across Australia, providing AFL football in some places and NRL in other places. They do an absolutely terrific job of ensuring the kids stay in school and are regularly attending school, because that is the fundamental basis of the program; they do a terrific job in providing mentoring to those young boys; and they do a terrific job in providing pathways from school into employment. I have had the opportunity to visit many of these academies across Australia, to see the terrific work which they have been doing, and to speak to young men who will literally tell you to your face that their lives were fundamentally changed as a result of the work of the Clontarf Academy.

The question was asked: why there no similar program for girls? The Clontarf Academy was established for boys, and there has been a lot of pressure on Gerard Neesham. He gets pressured quite frequently to offer the program for girls, and his answer is always: 'We do a very good job with boys; that is our core competency. Let us do that.' We of course would like to see other proposals and ideas and programs established to provide similar types of outcomes for girls, but the Clontarf Academy does a great job of delivering outcomes for boys. When an organisation has a track record in multiple places of delivering outcomes, we should continue to fund that organisation to deliver more outcomes across the country.

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Parliamentary Secretary, I am sorry. Member for Lingiari, you asked a wide range of questions.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But this is very specific.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you were not specific. You asked more than the member for Blair.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am asking him about a particular girls program, and he cannot even answer it.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And you asked a whole range of other questions, so please let the parliamentary secretary continue uninterrupted.

Alan Tudge (Aston, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over time there may well be the Clontarf Academy equivalent for girls—I hope that there is. It may be based on netball, or it may be based on other types of activities that provide the mechanism for engaging those girls at school. One example of that has been— (Time expired)

Mr Snowdon interjecting—

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry but your time has expired. I am sure the member for Lingiari can ask you question in the chamber during question time. The question now is that the proposed expenditure for the Prime Minister and Cabinet portfolio be agree to.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The social services budget contains some 53 measures in the 2015-16 'have a go' budget: 21 savings measures totalling approximately $7.3 billion at the time of the budget, and 32 expenditure measures totalling approximately $6.7 billion. In this portfolio we understand the need to spend the considerable taxpayer funds wisely in an area of critical need, and you need to do that based on some pretty clear principles. Those principles include respect for the taxpayer, respect for the beneficiaries and respect for the communities in which both the taxpayers and the beneficiaries reside.

In regard to taxpayers, we know that the equivalent of eight out of 10 income tax payers go to work every day to ensure that social services expenditure of some $150-plus billion every year can be achieved, and it is important to do this in the most effective way that we can. This is an important expenditure, which is supported by the Australian people. They understand and support the need for a strong welfare safety net in this country, and they are pleased to do it. But they expect of us, both as a government and I believe also as a parliament, to be good stewards of that investment and to ensure that it goes to those who most need it.

We are all very familiar with the growth in expenditure in the social services area, and that growth will continue. One of the challenges for the government, both now and many years into the future, is to manage the growth of that expenditure and ensure that wherever possible we are spending it in places that make the biggest difference. It is a question of realising and understanding the alternatives to how money can be expended in this area, to manage that growth, but it is also about ensuring that we do not just shovel it out the door, but that we focus it in the areas of most need. That is why in this budget there are saving of $7.3 billion. We are redeploying that money, ensuring it is better spent with the expenditure of $6.7 billion on 32 programs. We are spending the funds that the taxpayer is choosing to invest in the welfare safety net better, and we are seeking to respect them in how we go about that process.

The budget is also about respecting the choices of Australians around the country, and trying to facilitate the choices they want to make: families who want to be able to work more; young people who want to be able to work; and young people who understand they have significant barriers to overcome when it comes to being able to work. In this budget we are investing in some $330 million worth programs to help some of the most vulnerable young people in this country, in a whole range of different areas and circumstances, to overcome the barriers they have just to get to the starting line of getting a job, let alone in getting a job, and, in addition to that, being able to keep a job once they have been able to secure one. For families it is about helping them facilitate the decision to work more. The Jobs for Families package, which is central to this budget, is critical to that process.

It is also a budget that is, I think, seeking to lead the country into a new understanding about our welfare system—an understanding that welfare is about need, not about entitlement, and certainly not universal entitlement. An understanding that distinguishes between what the welfare system does and what the tax system does. The tax system wherever possible should be trying to allow Australians to keep as much of their hard earned money as possible and not seeking to tax it and should not have an equivalency between a tax concession and a welfare payment, because they are different things. One involves an Australian keeping the money they have earned, and the other involves meeting a need that an Australian has which has been recognised. The taxpayers are very pleased to support people in that situation.

In the lead-up to this budget we have done an enormous amount of work in seeking to reimagine the welfare system of the future, and that work has been significantly assisted by the review done by Patrick McClure which I think provides a very good road map to a future welfare system that is built on the issue of need and safety nets rather than one that is built on the issue of entitlement.

It is our purpose in this budget to facilitate the choices of Australians, to better spend the welfare dollars that we have available, to ensure that we help those most in need and to ensure that we respect the taxpayer, who was pleased to provide that support.

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for the opportunity to ask him some specific questions particularly about these people who are in very serious need. I want to draw his attention to a group of young people who are unemployed and who are going to be abandoned by this government and left with absolutely nothing to live on for a month. I would like to ask the minister: how many young people will be left with nothing to live on if the legislation that is currently in the parliament, saying to young people that they will have absolutely no form of income support for a month? How many young people will be affected in the first year of operation of this change? I also ask the minister what he expects these people to live on, where they will get food to eat and where they will get money to pay their rent.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member and former minister in this area for her question. As the former minister, the member would be fully aware that in last year's budget we took a measure which sought to have a change in arrangements for those who are under 30. They would wait six months before accessing entitlements. There was a considerable debate that ensued as a result of that proposal. It would have provided significant savings to the budget, and these were very difficult decisions that were taken at the time of that budget to address the fiscal chaos that we inherited.

The consequence of not managing a budget well is that it leaves those who need to fix a previous fiscal mess with the responsibility of having to deal with very difficult questions, and that was a very difficult question. But the government listened as the debate ensued. When I came into the portfolio in December, we looked very specifically at this question. In this budget, as a result of the listening, as a result of the consultation, we have brought forward a very different measure. We have reversed the measure that was in last year's budget at a significant cost to the budget for that reversal—around $1½ billion. We have replaced it with a new measure for those who are job ready.

We are not talking about disadvantaged people who have significant barriers to unemployment; they are specifically excluded in the measures that we have brought forward. The exemptions to the measures that the member has referred to exempt former carers of people with a disability, those recently released from prison or psychiatric facilities, young people who are unable to live at home—and there are a number of reasons why they cannot do that, of which members would be very well aware—young people with undiagnosed mental illnesses, humanitarian entrants and other vulnerable migrant youth. If a person has some disability or a current activity test exemption—for example, they are pregnant and in the last six weeks of their pregnancy—they will not have to serve the waiting period. Parents who have primary care of a child are exempted from these measures. The list of exemptions goes on.

I know the opposition would like to characterise this measure in the way that they have, but this measure is quite targeted. This measure is designed to say to young people that getting on a shuttle bus from the school gate to the Centrelink front door is not the choice that we would recommend to you. We are talking about those who are in a job-ready position: they are ready to have a job, they can actually go out and apply for jobs—this measure requires them to have a job plan, it requires them to have a CV, it requires them to go out and apply for jobs and it requires them to choose work. That is what it does. It requires them to choose work and not welfare, and to get off on the right foot as they leave school, rather than the approach that those opposite seem to be recommending, which is to run a short shuttle from the school gate to the Centrelink front door. That is not something we want to encourage, but those opposite seem very keen on promoting welfare as a career choice for young Australians. We do not want to do that. That is not the choice that we want to put forward for young people.

Welfare should never be a career choice for any Australian. Welfare is there for people who need it; it is not the universal grand entitlement in the socialist paradise that those opposite seem to believe in. We think it is there for those who really need it. We want to tell this to young people as they are leaving school, the young people who are able to get a job. These are not young people who are not able to get a job, these are not young people who are unable to go home and have the support of their family; these are young people who are job-ready. The young people who are studying at university will continue to receive Youth Allowance, there are no issues there. The members opposite should understand that. We are encouraging young people to go into work, to go into study. We have the party of welfare on the other side—the welfare party, not the workers' party any more: 'You vote for the Labor Party and we will make sure you get your entitlement benefits for every single last thing, and if you are not entitled we will create an entitlement for you!' They are the authors of the entitlement culture. This measure is designed to encourage people to choose work. The exemptions are real, and they are in place to support those who are most vulnerable. Those opposite simply cannot accept that.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Deputy Speaker Hawke, it is wonderful to see you here today, as a fellow comrade from Western Sydney. I am here to ask a question of the Minister for Social Services. I would like to applaud his work in this portfolio, and applaud his work as a minister of this government over nearly the past two years. Deputy Speaker, being a native of Western Sydney, you know we are home to some of the youngest families in Australia. In fact, Lindsay is the tenth youngest electorate in the country, with a median age of 32. More than 50 per cent of households have dependent children. As a result, the government has spent considerable time in the electorate, launching a $40 billion package over the next four years to give the nation's 1.2 million families better access to child care. Part of the package is to assist up to 240,000 extra families back into the workforce. This is great news. The $246 million package two-year pilot nanny scheme was announced in the electorate of Lindsay—Deputy Speaker, you were also there on that day. This scheme has been met with a lot of applause from the local shift worker community who are looking to keep their jobs, work for their children and have choice about the things they need for their families. I think that is really important, and that is what is so wonderful about the scheme that the minister has provided. This is about giving people opportunities to work, rather than stealing opportunities away from people. We are providing people with opportunity.

Mr Deputy Speaker, we have received a lot of feedback from the community and I would really like to share with you some of the feedback that has come into my office. For instance, Hannah Redwood Blundy posted on my Facebook page:

I think this is wonderful. I was working in fdc—

family day care—

and often had trouble in placing children for nurses, doctors, police officers and even down to counsellors.

But it is more than just nannies; it is widespread reform to deliver affordable and fairer childcare right across the board. More people will get more access through a fairer distribution of rebates. These new measures, once in place, will make it possible for every four-year-old to attend childcare, and that is wonderful news.

For instance, another local lady who has contacted my office is Lyndal Callaghan, who works as a childcare teacher and has a three-month-old daughter. At an announcement with the Prime Minister, the Minister for Social Services and the Minister for Education and Training recently, where these measures were welcomed, she said:

Early childhood is the foundation of lifelong learning. It sets them—

children—

up for the future and early childhood and preschool teaching is very important for children's literacy and numeracy skills.

She is not alone. The overwhelming response to the reforms has been very positive. Recently, we surveyed the electorate—extensively telephone canvassing many people—and the messages were loud and clear. People liked quality care and they wanted to see more simplicity right across the system. That is what the minister is doing.

Another lady that we spoke to—Vicki Skoulogenis, who operates the Mulgoa Preschool and the Alasan Cottage Preschool—told me that she welcomes the new initiatives of flexibility for both parents and their service providers. She said this will provide more options for children through these important stages of their life. Moreover, Bianca and Norm Merchanda from Mulgoa welcomed the single streamlined payment for their family. They say it will make it easier to understand and apply for assistance as compared to the old CCB and CCR system. Renee Sophie from Minchinbury tells me, 'As a single mum, I am happy to see the safety net provided for me at those times when I am between jobs. I will still be able to continue child care under this initiative.' Carly Riddell from Glenmore Park takes another approach: 'I am happy to see the immunisation changes will further protect my five-year-old preschooler, which is comforting news with my newborn ahead.'

My question to the Minister for Social Services is about how the Abbott government is assisting families in my electorate with more affordable, accessible and flexible child care.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lindsay for her question and her comments. I remember the member and me being together when we announced the program for the in-home nannies pilot program, which we hope will commence in January of next year. This is an important program, because it assists those families that currently cannot access mainstream child care and the subsidies that are provided as part of that program. They are shiftworkers, nurses and police officers. They are those who are working in some of the most key occupations in our community and our society. This is one of the key areas that were identified in the course of the Productivity Commission inquiry, and we decided that we were going to focus our program on trying to address the needs of those who the system currently was not addressing—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, members! We have an important question and are hearing the answer.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and that is why we are very pleased to have the nannies pilot. We are very pleased to receive the support of those like the Police Association and others who we are working closely with now to work towards implementation of this plan.

I want to commend those opposite who have been engaged with us in working on the Jobs For Families childcare package. Although it is quite clear they do not agree that you actually have to pay for things that you want to do in government, at least we have broad agreement on the package of measures that we are seeking to reform the childcare system with. There have been constructive discussions on that. I am not seeking to in any way impugn the support of the opposition on those measures, but I think there has been genuine discussion on them. I thank the member for Adelaide and the member for Jagajaga, in particular, for their engagement as we work through those processes. But the Jobs For Families package, at its heart, is trying to give the 48 per cent or thereabouts of families who have said—not only in work conducted by the government but also in other places—that they want to work more. That could be a few hours a day, an extra day a week or going back to work altogether. We want to be able to make that choice more achievable for those families. To do that, you have to have quality child care. As those opposite will know, we have maintained the support for the national quality framework.

An honourable member interjecting—

If those opposite want to turn something where there is clearly bipartisanship to support families into a partisan slanging match, that will reflect on them. What I am saying is that we are working together, at least on the expenditure side of this matter. For those families who want to work more, who want a different set of choices for their families, we are working to ensure that the changes to the childcare arrangements will enable them to do just that.

The other area which we are focused on very strongly is the childcare safety net and the opportunities here are very significant. The childcare safety net package deals with some of the most disadvantaged children in our society and right across the country, whether they are Indigenous children or those from incredibly disadvantaged backgrounds, or children at risk, or families fleeing abuse, or families involved with family domestic violence, or children with profound disabilities—in all of these areas there is additional support and more targeted support for those families. There is more support for families in remote and rural communities who need this support. This is what this package delivers. It provides a subsidy which supports the mainstream of families to exercise their choice to be able to work more. That is not a welfare payment. That is a subsidy provided to the providers of services to reduce the cost of child care. You only get the subsidy if you are seeking to consume the service.

The other thing we have done in that process is to apply a tougher activity test to that. We all understand the value and importance of early childhood education and we have spent more in this package than the federal government has ever spent in this area to support that goal. That is what we have done, but we have also gone further in terms of the universal access commitment of funding to the states—something that was not in the forward estimates from the previous government and had to be funded as a new measure in this budget, just like with the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. In this package, we are supporting mainstream families to exercise their choice to work more and to be able to support themselves more, to achieve the financial independence they want for their families.

For those who are seriously disadvantaged, we are giving them more support too through this package and that is facilitating a choice for those families they may not ever have realised they had, and that is a good thing to do. We are extending the reach of this program to support those families who currently cannot get access because of the nature of that work. That is why the Jobs for Families package will deliver jobs for families. (Time expired)

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has failed to answer the question. How many young people will be affected by this government's harsh changes? How many of them will be forced to live in absolute poverty? How many of them will be affected? I know at least three in my electorate who will be affected. There is Kate, whose rent is $180 a week. She spends $20 a week on petrol, $45 a week on her electricity and gas, $25 a week on her phone, $10 a week on car insurance and $5 a week on medication. Who is going to pay those bills if she is forced to live on nothing? Will the minister be paying those bills? How will this young person pay for the basics? This is the party that stands for homelessness and starvation. They are the starvation party forcing young people to either starve or be homeless.

These are young people who have gone to university, who have got their degrees and are now actively looking for work. There are lots of them. Youth unemployment in my area is up to 16 per cent—that is, 16 per cent of young people who are actively looking for work. The three people that I know of in my electorate—Kate, John and Lee—who would be hit hard if these changes came in, when they first started looking for work when they finished their university degree, finished their TAFE degree, like so many others, how do they start to look for work with no means? How many people are like these people?

How many people who are about to finish university or about to finish TAFE will be hit hard by these changes? How does the minister expect them to live? How will they ensure that they do not starve? How will the government ensure that they do not become homeless? Who will help them pay their bills and ensure that they can actually get to those job interviews? These are people who are actively looking for work, trying to get to job interviews, applying for what jobs exist, but quite frankly there are not enough jobs.

The minister needs to be honest and tell the Australian people how many young people will be affected by this change. If this change had come in, as I said, when Kate started looking for work, when John started looking for work and when Lee started looking for work, who would have paid those bills? That rent figure of $180 a week—how would Kate have paid that bill? How would she have paid her rent if this measure had been in place? The minister needs to come clean. He needs to stand up and tell the Australian young people how many of them will have to beg or borrow from their parents or from their families to be able to support themselves because of this harsh measure. How many people will be affected by this change? How does the minister and the government expect them to pay their bills? How do they expect them to get to job interviews if they do not have the money to put petrol in the car? Be honest with the Australian people and tell us how many people will be affected by these changes?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always interesting when you work through a budget. You deal with the parliament and you get a very quick and clear idea about which parties and which members of parliament are more focused on policy and those which are more focused on politics.

At the last budget, we took forward a measure—a series of measures, actually—and we listened carefully to the response to those measures and those measures were unsuccessful. But what we have learned from the Labor Party is this: the answer is always 'no'. They are not interested in a policy conversation about the future of the nation. They are interested in causing havoc and riot in the parliament. That is what they are interested in doing. They are the wreckers of the parliament. When you go to the parliament with the budget and you say, 'We are proposing to do these measures,' and those measures are rejected, we accept that. Those measures were rejected.

We were told that six months was too long, we were told that the age of 30 was too high and that these things had to be changed. Additionally, they said that there needed to be greater investments in employment programs to get people—particularly young, disadvantaged people—in a position where they could get a job. So what did the government do? The government said, 'Fair enough. We've listened, we've heard you and we've come back with an alternative proposal, which is to cut the six months to one month. We've cut the age from 30 to 25 and we've increased the amount we are spending on programs to assist young people to get into jobs by over $330 million.'

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Those opposite are not interested in this conversation. This is a process where you deal with people who are interested in policy. Those opposite have demonstrated in the last 24 hours on other matters—on the pension—that they are only interested in politics. It is all about the politics; it is never about the policy.

But on the matters that the member raised: I repeat—job seekers in streams B or C with a Job Active provider are not included in these measures. Disability employment service participants are not included in this measure. Parents with 35 per cent or more care for a child are not included in these measures. Young people leaving state care are not included in these measures. People with an activity test exemption are not included in this measure for the duration of that exemption, which includes pregnant women and people testing their eligibility for disability support pension. People who are unable to go back home, where they have a genuine and good reason why they cannot go home and seek the support of their family during that period, are not included in this measure.

In addition to that, there is $8.4 million in funding for emergency relief that will be made available to provide assistance to those affected by the measure will experience hardship. Those opposite are not interested in the substance of this debate. They are interested in their political campaigns, trying to resurrect a flagging leader who has shown appalling policy judgement, and it turns out that he has shown pretty appalling political judgement too, if the last 24 hours are any measure of his political abilities!

This is a Leader of the Opposition who one day wants to know everything about turn backs and the next day cannot even ask a question on them. This is a Leader of the Opposition who one day wants to maintain a campaign on—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Opposition members will come to order!

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and find out in 24 hours whether he wants to continue it—

Jenny Macklin (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Families and Payments) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The minister knows that this is consideration in detail. The member for Bendigo has asked a detailed question about how many people are affected. The minister is refusing to answer and I would ask you to bring him to order.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is no point of order. The member for Bendigo asked a series of questions and the minister is responding to those questions. He is entirely relevant. He has completed his answer so I call the member for Reid.

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

Minister, before I ask my question I would like to take the opportunity at a personal level and an electoral level to say thank you. I am changing tack, given the following line of questioning, and talking about radicalisation and migrant youth in my electorate. I look at your path to politics and at when you started in 2007—coming on the back of the Cronulla riots—representing the seat of Cook, and entering parliament with the member for Blaxland, who I know is a close friend of yours as he is of mine. You did something that I thought was fantastic. It has been widely reported, I know, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it again. You and the member for Blaxland reached out to your local communities, realising that both communities needed to engage and learn more about each other, and started up your mateship trek to Kokoda, where the member for Blaxland, Jason Clare, would get young Muslim youth and you would get young Australian youth of Anglo decent and you would travel to Kokoda. You would not only bond as friends, but you would teach these kids that there is far more that unites us than divides us.

I look at my pathway to politics. I was elected in 2013 and not long after I was elected the issue of Daesh blew up on the world stage. It is no secret that I represent a Western Sydney seat with a large Muslim population. It is also no secret that I have parents in my electorate who are genuinely concerned for the safety and wellbeing of their children. I know the work you have done—I have seen it firsthand—with your and my good friend Jamal Rifi in the local community and with wonderful organisations like the Lebanese Muslim Association, chaired so ably by our good friend Samier Dandan and his amazing crew. I know that three weeks ago you and I were there to make an announcement giving the green light on some pilot projects that I, like you, believe will make a substantial difference in our local communities in Western Sydney. What you do not know, and what I would love to bring to your attention today, is that, not long after being elected, I ran into a character, a wonderful man, called Rabbi Zalman Kastel, and with him and Sheikh Charkawi—and it sounds like the start of a joke: 'A rabbi, a sheik, an imam and a politician walk into a school'—

A government member: And a priest!

We were missing the priest, Minister! But Zalman Kastel and Sheikh Charkawi have done a wonderful job of bringing students from Cronulla High School to South Granville high and the kids from South Granville high to Cronulla. There has been a pilot of an exchange program—a day when they all come together and do amazing things. Once again the common theme they learn—as you cottoned on to, not long after being elected—is that there is far more that unites us as Australians, irrespective of faith, than divides us.

The work you have done out in my local community, and continue to do, I thank you for, at a personal level. But I can tell you—and this is a direct message from the parents in Reid: they want us to stop their kids from being radicalised. They want us, if needs be, to grab them before they jump on a plane, so that we can give them the chance to learn that what they were heading off to is not only wrong but could ultimately prove to be the end of their life. These parents are very worried.

So, Minister, thank you very much, and what I would like to do—given that I know the topic so well, because I have had the benefit of sitting and watching you operate firsthand, and I know that many in this room do not have as multicultural a seat as I do, mine being the second-most multicultural seat in federal parliament—is to ask: would you explain to the House how the Abbott government is assisting vulnerable young migrants and refugees in communities like Reid to engage in work and helping them to make the right choices in their lives, for the sake of our local community, themselves and our country?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Reid for his question and his comments and I commend him for the work he has been doing in his electorate of Reid, particularly in areas such as Auburn and Lakemba, where we have been together regularly with our good friends that you have just referred to, particularly Samier Dandan and Jamal Rifi, who are close friends. And I would add to that Jihad Dib. I commend Jihad Dib for his election to the New South Wales state parliament. I met Jihad through the member for Blaxland some years ago on the Kokoda Track. I think it is wonderful to see someone of Jihad's character and strength and experience in the parliament, serving alongside you as the federal member in that area.

It is important that you reach across the political divides to deal with these difficult issues at the community level. There are many great opportunities, and particularly in this area. I moved from a previous portfolio, looking at these issues from the national security and border protection perspective, and now have the opportunity in this portfolio to get to some of the root issues we have to deal with in countering the predatory behaviour of Daesh.

As you would know, we all have some hard days in this job and we have some very emotional days in this job. One of the most emotional days I have had in this job was going along with Jamal Rifi to see a family—a mother, father and their younger daughter. Four of their sons disappeared, got on the plane and went to Syria. It was a surreal experience. They were expecting these four young men to walk back through the door at any moment. They lost four sons in one day, and I doubt they are ever coming back—for whatever reason.

This starts at a place where it can be stopped. The measures in this budget specifically address these types of issues not specifically in relation to Daesh but more generally in terms of vulnerabilities that we know exist for those from migrant communities and ethnic communities where there can be an isolationism particularly for young people. You need to reach out to those young people and say: 'You're part of this country. Your future is in this country.' I remember something Mecca Laalaa said to me when we walked the Kokoda Track. She said, 'I don't like it that I always have to prove that I'm Australian.' She should not like it that she has to prove to be Australian, because I can think of no better Australians than Mecca, her friends and others who are so committed to their future in this country and their family and others, like all of our families.

There is an opportunity here to send a very clear message to those young people and to work with them to give them different choices. If we do not give them different choices then the great risk is that they will take the bad choices. Our job here with these sorts of policies and measures is to help people to be able to make better choices for their lives. They are their choices, and we all have to own the choices we make, but we have to give them better options. They will be accountable for the decisions they make, and these four young men who have gone over to fight for Daesh will realise, sadly, the consequences of their choices. That will be a terrible tragedy for their family, and that is something we can avoid with these sorts of intervention programs.

The Transition Support for Young Refugees and Other Vulnerable Young Migrants program in the budget contains four measures. The Partnerships for Employment program will provide support for over 2,000 young refugees and vulnerable migrants to undertake job readiness programs to improve their work readiness, to gain work experience and to fill existing job vacancies. The Strong Connections to Education program will provide assistance for up to 1,500 young refugees and vulnerable migrants to remain engaged with education through addressing and building self-confidence and social connections. The Sports Engagement for Youth program will support up to 10,000 young people a year to participate in sporting activities delivered by community groups and sporting organisations to help young people build social connections and confidence beyond their own community. And the Increased Vocational Opportunities program will design an innovative partnership based model and pilot of new arrangements to create pathways for young refugees and vulnerable migrants to strengthen and obtain vocational skills, and up to 300 eligible young people will benefit.

This will all begin in January of next year. I rate it as one of the most important things we are doing as a department in the country's social and national interests. There is a real opportunity for these young people to take a different path from the maniacal, crazed and deadly one that they so clearly can fall into if we do not take this action.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are about 330,000 people working in the aged-care sector, some in residential aged care, others in home care and some in what will be taken up by the new Commonwealth Home Support Program. It is accepted that within the next eight years we will need 55,770 suitably qualified aged-care workers. One of the first acts of this government was to get rid of the negotiated Aged Care Workforce Supplement that Labor brought in, in consultation with COTA, LASA, FaCSIA and the whole sector. Through the 2014-15 budget they put the money back into the aged-care sector. It is accepted, Minister, that there has been very little appreciation of wages and improvement in conditions as a result of that. Your assistant minister made a very interesting comment on the Australian Ageing Agenda website. He said:

Government can't escape their obligation in terms of funding workforce. Building a better skilled, more appropriate aged care workforce will improve outcomes for older Australians.

The assistant minister, Senator Fifield, made a promise back in February 2014 that he would develop an aged-care workforce strategy. Over a year later: where is this strategy, Minister? He also promised there would be an audit of government funded aged-care workforce initiatives and we have not seen that released. Where is that, Minister? In this current budget we have seen a reduction of 15 per cent—over $40 million—from the Aged Care Workforce Development Fund. The contracts and stock take in relation to this will expire in the next couple of weeks. Why did the government cut the funding for the Aged Care Workforce Development Fund—15 per cent, over $40 billion—before the audit was released and before anything like a strategy was delivered?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

While the question may not suggest this, I think there has been a great deal of cooperation and support in the area of aged care—when the government was in opposition, and now that opposition is in government. While there may be issues of dispute, in relation to the matters that the member has raised today, more broadly, there is a healthy and positive consensus, which is allowing some important reforms to the aged-care sector to be realised. I thank the members opposite for their participation in the way we have handled those matters in government, in the same way that I believe they were able to benefit from the way we sought to do that in opposition.

In relation to this matter, the Australian government is redirecting more than $220 million over four years to establish the Aged Care Workforce Development Fund to support training of the aged-care workforce to better meet the needs of frail and older people. The fund will provide workforce initiatives targeting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The fund will replace the current Aged Care Workforce Fund. We understand that the workforce training-and-education role is a shared responsibility between the government and industry, with providers having obligations under the Aged Care Act to ensure there are adequate numbers of appropriately skilled staff to meet the individual care needs of residents. Support through the new Aged Care Workforce Development Fund represents part of the government's contribution to this shared—I stress 'shared'—responsibility.

It is expected that the aged-care workforce, as the member has noted, will nearly triple from around 350,000 people to more than 800,000 people in 2050. Priorities for the fund will be informed by a stock take of the Commonwealth funded aged-care workforce initiatives, scheduled to report in mid-2015. The stock take will identify areas of duplication or gaps in the delivery of government workforce initiatives undertaken over the next three years.

The government will provide prioritised funding for workforce initiatives that will have the greatest impact on building the capability of the aged-care sector. These priorities will be set out in the new guidelines for this fund, which will be available, I am advised, later this year. The guidelines will be developed taking into consideration the findings of the workforce stock take currently being undertaken. As part of the 2014-15 budget I note that the government redirected $1½ billion to aged-care providers. This funding was previously allocated for the workforce supplement. As a result, aged-care providers have increased flexibility in organised training and professional-development opportunities that are most appropriate for their staff's needs.

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a question for the minister, but, Minister, I want to give you a little bit of background on two organisations before I refer my question to you. One of the organisations I wish to talk about is Heartfelt House, an organisation that sits in my electorate between the centres of Lismore and Ballina, which does 18-week non-residential courses for adults who were victims of childhood sexual abuse. I think probably everyone in this chamber would agree that one of the greatest, if not the greatest, dysfunctions we have in our community and in our society is that, and that we have to help and try and heal adults who were victims of childhood sexual abuse. We have had many reports of that in the media over far too many years.

I have worked with Vicki and Heidi, who run Heartfelt House, over many years, and I have met many of the participants of the non-residential courses that they do and have read stories of others. There would not be a person in this country who would not be touched and affected by some of the stories that you hear. Vicki and Heidi are two very special people, and they have a great network of volunteers in our community who help them. There would also be very few service clubs in my community that do not fundraise for and help out Heartfelt House in what they do.

The reason that I believe a community organisation like this needs to be supported is the result once people come out the other side of the courses that Heartfelt House offer. The life improvements of many of the participants of these courses is profound. I have met women who have said that the first time that they have been able to attract and maintain a healthy relationship with a member of the opposite sex was after they did one of these courses. We have also had people who have basically said that they were released from a prison—their own mental or psychological prison—by the fact that they participated in the courses run by Heartfelt House.

So that is a bit of background on the organisation. The work they do is important. They are now also looking to extend what they do, to men's programs. To date they have run a few men's programs, just off where they operate, but they are also looking to work and to do the courses and the healing work that they do with men, who, obviously, can also be victims of childhood sexual abuse. So that is one organisation.

The other organisation I want to mention to you, Minister, is the Ballina-Byron Family Centre. This, again, is a great organisation. One of the programs that they have that I am very familiar with is the Fella's Family Project, which very much works with people on parenting and relationship skills. They work with expectant fathers on their self-esteem and also with boys between the ages of 11 and 16 on relationship skills. They do many things: home visits for one-on-one support, parenting programs and support groups, and they provide information and do advocacy and referral work. Much mentoring is done. There is one-on-one support. There are individual and group programs and activities. There is information and, as I said, referral. There are also recreation and leisure-based activities.

So, Minister, given the background of those two organisations, could you please advise how community organisations across Australia such as Heartfelt House and the Ballina-Byron Family Centre are being assisted with funding under the DSS grants scheme, to ensure—and we obviously know this—that we do not have any gaps in frontline community services.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Page for his question but, more importantly, I thank him for his passionate advocacy on behalf of his local community, particularly Heartfelt House and the other various programs. In this place we are often pleasantly in the position where we are surprised that the parliament can really work. The members and the way we engage with members can produce some very good outcomes.

As we all know, there was the process A New Way Of Working for Grants, which was implemented by my predecessor, which sought to address some difficult funding issues and some cost issues within the portfolio—as the previous budget was being put together—and that again required hard decisions. For the first time we had had a competitive tender process—the largest ever, I think, round of competitive grants that any government had pursued before on these types of grants. That process was conducted with an enormous amount of professionalism and integrity by my department—my predecessor's department at the time—but it was quite apparent to me when I became minister that even the best process, with the best will and the best intent, can lead to some outcomes which are clearly nonsensical when you look at them from a different perspective and a broader community perspective.

We need to respect the fact that our officials need to make decisions based on very clear parameters and very clear guidelines. They do not have the flexibility that I suspect they would like on occasions and particularly on the sorts of occasions where some of the decisions were made in relation to that program . This became very apparent to me when I came into this portfolio and we announced that we would be extending for three months for emergency relief providers and six months for existing front-line community service providers to June 30, while we worked through a very considered process of identifying where critical front-line service gaps had emerged. We did that in partnership and cooperation with the full parliament. It was not just government members; we had representations from other members. I offered in the parliament some months ago for other members to bring matters before us as we worked through those issues. That has been, I think, a very useful and good faith process. As a result of that process, some 100 organisations that had been unsuccessful will now receive funding in excess of $40 million, in this budget, to ensure that they can continue those front-line services.

Of course, I am pleased to be able to say Heartfelt House is one of those, and they are receiving funding for two additional years. But, as I said, there are 100 organisations doing very similar and effective work around our communities, all around the country, who will be getting similar support. The reason they are getting that additional support is that members, like the member for Page, have been able to bring them to the attention of the minister to ensure that the decisions that were arrived at in late December prove not to be the final word for those organisations. It is important, when these situations arise, that we are as flexible as we can be, that we listen as hard as we can and that we seek to address the issues that are there. So 100 organisations will be receiving that ongoing funding for two years, which is in excess of $40 million.

It is not just Heartfelt House that will receive ongoing funding. The following organisations will also receive ongoing funding. Karralika here in the ACT—with support from Senator Seselja and Gai Brodtmann, the member here in Canberra—which runs a program that supports parents and their children through drug and alcohol rehabilitation in the electorate of Canberra. Playability supported playgroups are run in places like Cobargo, Bega and Eden. I commend the member for Eden-Monaro for bringing those to my attention. I commend the member for Lingiari for brining to my attention the crisis accommodation in Gove in the Northern Territory. I commend the member for Hinkler for bringing Phoenix House in Bundaberg, which runs a therapeutic preschool, to my attention. Multiple electorates brought the Mirabel Foundation to my attention. We are very pleased to ensure the continued funding for the Mirabel Foundation, which supports children and families suffering from the impact of drug abuse. I particularly commend the member for Melbourne Ports for bringing that to my attention. I am pleased that some members were prepared to engage in a constructive way on this. I was very pleased to be able to support them and listen to their concerns—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It seems that the previous minister opposite may have taken a different approach—I am not sure. There is the Malvern Special Needs Playgroup in Malvern, where we announced these programs. The member for Higgins was particularly keen on this and we were able to ensure that the funding continued. We are pleased to address those issues, and I thank all members for their good faith contribution to that process. (Time expired)

Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I refer to the minister's plan to strip new mothers of up to $11,500 worth of paid parental leave. I remind the minister of his claim that Labor's paid parental leave scheme was not helping women stay at home longer. He said:

Importantly, there was an evaluation report done by the previous Government which showed that before and after the Union/Labor PPL scheme that was brought in post 18 weeks there was no change to people staying at home longer with their kids.

But the minister's own department has proved this to be completely untrue. The secretary of his own department, Mr Finn Pratt, said:

Certainly the high level evaluation finding is that PPL has been successful in assisting mothers to stay home with their children longer …

The evaluation said:

One of the key findings of the evaluation was that PPL had a clear effect of delaying mothers' return to work up to about six months after the birth of their baby …

The secretary of the Department of Social Services has directly contradicted the minister on paid parental leave, making it clear that Labor's Paid Parental Leave scheme is helping women stay at home longer with their newborn baby. The minister thinks that women who access both their employer and the government funded Paid Parental Leave scheme are 'double dippers'. It is a name littered throughout their own budget papers. Their own budget papers claimed that families who claim both employer and government funded Paid Parental Leave schemes are double dippers. I also remind the minister of his comments on Sky News, that he thought that new parents were rorting paid parental leave arrangements when he said, 'Frankly, in many cases I think is a rort.'

Does the minister still think that new mums and dads are double dippers when it comes to paid parental leave? Does the minister still think that new mums and dads are rorters when it comes to pay parental leave? Does the minister stand by his statement that he thinks it is a rort? Does the minister still stand by his words that under Labor's PPL there was no change to people staying at home longer with their kids? Can the minister say how many parents will be adversely affected by his cuts to paid parental leave? In what professions do those parents work?

Given that the business community raised concerns about employers not offering paid parental leave if government was not sharing the cost, does the minister share those business people's concerns? How many enterprise agreements contain paid parental leave premised on the availability of government funded paid parental leave? In addition, how many policies of employers and individual contracts offer paid parental leave, premised on the availability of government paid parental leave? How many parenting aged people are covered by those enterprise agreements, contracts and/or policies? In what industries do those agreements operate? Which industries are covered by those enterprise agreements containing paid parental leave provisions?

Given that the World Health Organisation recommends breastfeeding for six months, is the minister concerned about the public health implications of his changes to paid parental leave? For families in which the primary breadwinner is also the person who is going to be breastfeeding the new baby, is the minister concerned about the likelihood that cutting paid parental leave will mean that those families will have to send that primary breadwinner back to work sooner than they otherwise would have under the current Labor Paid Parental Leave scheme? The minister is aware of families like the family of Sienna Perry in my electorate. Sienna says that if her family had to choose between government and employer funded leave she would go back to work at 19 weeks. Her husband, who earns much less than her as a state school teacher, would have to stay home. He obviously cannot breastfeed, but that will leave them in a situation where they will be a one-income family earlier than under the present system.

Is the minister concerned about the effect on all families of cuts to the Paid Parental Leave scheme in relation to parents having to return to work earlier than was otherwise intended by those families, both from a public health perspective and from the perspective of the benefits that the Productivity Commission identified in respect of the availability paid parental leave?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would encourage those opposite, if they are to start reading a report, to read the report all the way to the end—it might help.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

Page 33—that is a long way past the executive summary, for the information of those opposite. This is the evaluation report commissioned by those opposite when they were in government, so it is their work, their commissioning and this was the result, when it comes to the pay parental leave measures introduced by the previous government in a very cosy deal with the unions.

Ms Macklin interjecting—

I think they need to hear this. We know that those opposite get pretty worked up when you start poking around the deals that have been done with the unions. When they have a sweetheart deal with the unions, that is the thing they will defend—their union mates.

… 78 per cent of mothers were expected not to return to paid work by 18 weeks, compared to 85 per cent after PPL was introduced.

So for up to 18 weeks there was an improvement in mothers staying home with their children. But after 18 weeks, this was the result:

Six months after the birth, the effect of PPL was no longer evident, with 64 per cent of mothers not having returned to paid work before and after the scheme's introduction.

But if you go on to page 44, the research showed no difference after 18 weeks—no difference. It was worse for single mothers, because those staying back 26 weeks after the introduction of PPL fell from 70.6 per cent to 64.5 per cent. The problem for the opposition is that the numbers just do not support the Labor union deal that they hatched together when they were in government.

Alex Hawke (Mitchell, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister. The time for this debate has expired. The Federation Chamber will now consider the Human Services segment of the social services portfolio in accordance with the agreed order of consideration.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be speaking on the Human Services budget consideration in detail and I acknowledge the fine work of my colleague Senator the Hon. Marise Payne, who is the minister responsible for these areas. Our welfare system, as I was mentioning in the previous discussion, must respect those who pay for it—that is, the taxpayers. Eight out of 10 income taxpayers are required to go to work every day to pay for our welfare system and they deserve two things in particular when it comes to the Human Services portfolio: that the welfare measures will be delivered with integrity, and that they will be delivered with efficiency. That is what they expect. More broadly, as a question of policy in relation to the previous discussion, it must help those who are most in need. In this budget, this government has committed to some significant initiatives that will improve not only the integrity of the welfare payment system and broader payment system for the government and the Human Services portfolio but also its efficiency.

We have said from day one in this portfolio that we have no tolerance whatsoever for those who rort the system. It is crucial that we have a strong welfare cop on the beat, and this budget contains significant measures to boost fraud investigation and compliance activities. Australians must have confidence in the system, just as they must have confidence that the safety net will be there for those who really need it. We have already made progress on welfare integrity, such as having Australian government contracted doctors assess new claims for the DSP to achieve consistency and equity across the country. We have tightened up portability arrangements, so people cannot just head off overseas for as long as they like and continue to pick up the DSP. You do not get an entitlement to holiday pay when you are on the DSP. In 2013-14 the Department of Human Services investigated 411 people for dishonestly claiming DSP, which resulted in $9.5 million in raised debts. We have put more than $200 million in this budget into strengthening our compliance and we have delivered on our promise to have a tougher cop on the beat for welfare. The government is committed to protecting the integrity of the welfare system.

We are also committed to innovation in service delivery. That is why we are replacing the decades-old welfare payment IT system, which too many governments have kicked down the road for too long. Investing in a new system will boost efficiencies and help advance welfare reforms as well as lessen the compliance burden on individuals, employers, service providers and, indeed, beneficiaries.

I commend the Human Services minister and all members who seek to participate in this debate. Above all, in the Human Services portfolio it is all about implementation. It is all about connecting the intent of policy with the beneficiaries of those policies. That has to be done with integrity and it has to be done with efficiency, and I commend Minister Payne for the outstanding job she has been doing in delivering on both of those objectives and providing a clear path for reform for the way forward.

Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister raised the Centrelink IT replacement project. We on this side believe it is necessary, but it needs transparency. At recent Senate budget estimates, I think just yesterday, the Department of Human Services officials were unable to explain what was expected in each of the five tranches of the DHS Welfare Payments Infrastructure Transformation project, commonly known as WPIT. Minister, can you explain the tranches, because it is going to be rolled out over time. When is the opposition going to be briefed on this, because our spokesperson, Senator the Hon. Doug Cameron, has not been briefed on it at this stage. We welcome the offer, but when will this take place? How will local content be maximised in this expected $1 billion project? Senator Payne has talked about an advisory group being formed. When is that likely to be formed, who is likely to be on it and how will representatives of the community welfare sector be involved? It is very important that the voice of the clients of the department be heard in the development of new technology. How will local IT operators and small businesses in the sector be involved in this process? What opportunities for skills transfer will be offered during this process for local small businesses, particularly those with expertise in the IT sector, and how is the government proposing to achieve compatibility between the new WPIT and other government IT platforms and systems?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Blair for his questions. I am disappointed that he was not able to ask his own government those questions when they were in government—they were the ones who kept kicking the can down the road on these issues. I am pleased that he is prepared to support the government that is now taking up the challenge of dealing with this issue. He has a series of questions, which are all legitimate questions, and in the course of the implementation of this program various announcements will be made by the minister. I am sure the minister will go to the points that he has raised when those matters can be advised on by the minister. He has already rehearsed all the various announcements that have been made in relation to the various tranches. This is a program which is in its very early stages of implementation—it is the single biggest payments system ICT project in the world today. That is how big it is. Recruitment practices have been put in place to get the right expertise in to mould and frame what is an enormous undertaking, equivalent to major defence contracts and things of that nature. This is an enormous program, and this government was prepared to take on the challenge of something that will benefit generations of Australians. I do not think generations of Australians have been well served by the previous government, and other governments, allowing the system to just be kicked along from the time when Peter Brock won Bathurst. That is how long this thing has been around.

It is important that we now take the steps that we are taking in ensuring that we have this digital transformation of the way we deliver the payments system the country desperately needs. The people we are going to do that principally for are the taxpayers. They are the real clients of the welfare system. In my experience in business, clients are people who pay for things. I know those opposite take a different view of the welfare system and I think they see the entire population as clients of the welfare system, but on this side of the House we strongly believe that taxpayers are paying for this and they are the ones that we are going to respect more than anyone else when it comes to delivering this system. The taxpayers pay the bill.

The minister responsible has gone about the process of establishing $60.5 million, which reflects net funding of $169.3 million provided in years 2015 to 2017 with a net return to budget of $108 million, which will occur in years 2017 to 2019. There are lessons that will be learned from previous transformations, as minimal as they were. The Public Service jobs programs will be extremely large and complex tasks and these matters are being worked through. This is a seven-year project and as the efficiency of the ICT system improves, the staffing profile will also change to reflect the reduction in manual processes. As that proceeds, there will obviously be a lot of work to do to manage those transformations. The consultation through the expert advisory group, the consultation with those beneficiaries of the welfare system—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, when these matters are in a position to be announced, they will be announced. And when there are briefings to be provided to the opposition, they will be provided. But those opposite seem to forget which side of the House they are sitting on. The government is running this program, not the opposition. If the opposition wanted to run the program they should have introduced it when they were in government. But they kicked that can like many other governments did. So when the opposition can actually get to the starting point of acknowledging their neglect of this issue over their entire term in government, then I think they may be a little bit more prepared to engage instructively in the serious reform task that this government has engaged in. We will brief the opposition. We will keep the opposition informed of our issues. We will engage in the consultation. We will employ the right people to ensure this project works successfully and we will continue to show the leadership that we have shown in ensuring this program gets underway in the first place. I welcome the interest of the opposition. It is a little overdue, but if they remain patient they will receive the information they seek.

Russell Matheson (Macarthur, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before if I delve into my question in relation to welfare cheats, I would like to congratulate the Minister for Social Services on delivering good, strong, fair and responsible policy. It is what the community—the Australian people—has been looking for, for a long, long time. Great policy.

During my 25 years of service in the New South Wales Police Force, I had to deal with all manner of criminals, from petty thieves, druggies to bikies and organised crime figures. One of the things that quickly becomes apparent from police work is that criminals rarely choose their destiny. They are either born into a life of crime or they commit crime through need or necessity.

Welfare cheats are in that unique category that receives almost universal condemnation because the community recognises that these people are essentially stealing from the poor and disadvantaged, akin to taking money from a charity box or defrauding the elderly. As any police officer will tell you, criminals will always think of new ways to beat the system. It is therefore vital to use as many resources as possible to catch the crooks and create sophisticated systems to deter crimes happening in the first place.

In April, I joined the Minister for Social Services, the Hon. Scott Morrison, and the Minister for Human Services, Senator Marise Payne, to announce the overhaul of the Human Services' 1980s-era computer system at Campbelltown. The Department of Human Services is responsible for delivering welfare payments through Centrelink to 7.3 million people per year, many of whom are vulnerable and heavily dependent on Centrelink payments.

New systems will help the government automatically match Centrelink information with the Australian Taxation Office databases to look for areas of high-risk fraud and recovery of old debts. The pressing need for further measures was made clearly apparent earlier this year when a team from the AFP-led multi-agency Fraud and Anti-Corruption Centre, which was established by the coalition government last year, moved on a suspected racket in the family day care industry. Investigators from the FACC team, including AFP, Department of Social Services and the Department of Human Services were called in when anomalies exceeding $3 million were identified in government benefit payments to a family day care provider. A number of search warrants were executed and a 27-year-old woman was arrested and charged with three counts of obtaining a financial benefit by deception. AFP officers seized approximately $2.1 million in cash and a vehicle worth roughly $90,000.

In our first year of office, the coalition government's increased focus on compliance has prevented an estimated $70 million to $90 million in fraudulent claims by nearly 60 family day care centres nationwide. However, the problem of welfare cheats is significant and widespread. In 2013, Centrelink recovered $1.5 billion worth of outstanding debts and investigated 3,200 people. Of the money recovered and those investigated that year, $39 million were fraudulent claims and 1,200 people were prosecuted. In 2013 the government spent $132 billion on welfare, which amounts to $250,000 every minute.

Thanks to the years of ruinous economic mismanagement by the former Labor government and the fact that one in four Australian families now receive some form of welfare, we can no longer maintain current levels of expenditure. It is therefore imperative—both financially and morally—that the government has a zero tolerance approach to welfare fraud. We must significantly build our capacity to catch cheats who are in this environment, and to encourage customers to comply to assist the Department of Human Services in keeping non-compliance to a minimum.

We have to be smarter and faster, and more sophisticated systems have to be put in place to identify, investigate and manage potential cases of fraud. There need to be better prevention, better detection and better deterrence measures to counteract all activities ranging from inadvertent non-compliance to outright fraud. Greater intelligence and investigative capabilities will, in the end, require more support from other government agencies such as the AFP and the ATO. I would like to ask the minister—and I know he is going to respond with the good policy he has been delivering—what is the government going to do to crack down on welfare cheats and make sure our welfare system is not abused?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macarthur for his question. He was a tough cop on the beat in his working life before coming to this place. One of the great things about the government party room is that it is comprised of people—as you know, Mr Deputy Speaker—from so many different backgrounds. Having someone with the law enforcement experience of the member of Macarthur in this place is a great asset to this government. His passion for issues relating to law and order and community prevention of violence and things of this nature make him a real leader in his community not just as the member for Macarthur but as a person of great standing in his community over many, many years.

He knows what is required to deal with those who would seek to game the system, for those who would seek to rort the system, for those who would seek to basically steal from taxpayers. Before coming into this place he was used to dealing with crooks. It is very important that in this portfolio, when it comes to the integrity of the social services budget and its implementation through the Human Services portfolio, we do take a very strong approach when it comes to those who are not there to benefit from the system because of any issue of need but to benefit from it because they want to rort it. The measures that we have put in this budget give great substance to our promise that we are putting a tough welfare cop on the beat. There is a four-year intensive package of compliance strategies funded in this budget that complements the WPIT program I just made reference to in relation to an earlier member's question, by which time more streamlined compliance activities developed through the measures will be integrated into a 'business as usual' approach.

The measures from July 2015 will increase the number of fraud investigations and compliance interventions by over 900,000 over four years. That is what we are doing; that is a serious welfare cop on the beat. Fraud investigations and compliance interventions will increase by 900,000 over the next four years—we are going after the cheats, and we are going to stop those cheats. We are going to stop those rorters. This will deliver $1.7 billion in gross savings returned to the government in the budget. It will increase the number of individuals prosecuted for serious welfare offences, as they should be. That will send a very clear message: when it comes to this government we are not going to cop the fraud on behalf of the taxpayer—we are going to pursue it. This fraud and compliance activity is in addition to the fraud and compliance work already undertaken that returns significant savings to government annually. In 2013-14, DHS conducted 869,000 compliance interventions which resulted in $284 million in debts raised and fortnightly savings of $19.2 million, and prevented outlays of $51.8 million.

On 1 July 2015 a new task force will commence that will involve the establishment and developed deployment of specialised teams dedicated to fraud and non-compliance activity. The task force will focus on specific geographic locations and, importantly, will be led by a senior AFP officer—an actual cop. The task force will include intelligence support, compliance officers and fraud investigators. The task force will also include both a centralised intelligence component and field teams operating in the identified areas. The task force will audit individuals in receipt of income support payments to increase the likelihood of detection of current fraud and deterrence of future incorrect claims in the targeted areas. Locations will be selected according to the level of risk based on intelligence and data analysis, and will be conducted at specific locations around Australia on a rolling basis.

There will be an employment income-matching program for individuals who have failed to declare or undeclared their income between 2010 and 2013. That will be reviewed from 1 July 2015. These individuals have already been identified through the existing data-matching arrangements with the Australian Taxation Office. There are other elements—the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre—commencing on 1 January 2016, and real-time risk profiling, which commences on the same date. From 1 January next year a more active online approach will be introduced for customer reporting and declarations. There will be strengthened obligations for students commencing on 1 January next year, with full implementation from January 2017. We make no apologies for strong action to detect and deter welfare fraud. Not on our watch, Mr Deputy Speaker. We will be stopping the rorts.

Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question goes to the issue of call wait times, the amount of time that people are waiting and the significant increases that have occurred for people using Centrelink telephone services. I acknowledge that the previous government and this government have continued to improve the apps and people's ability to report or seek information through online services. However, in my part of the world in Bendigo we have lots of people who still do not have access to decent fast speed broadband. They do not have the connectivity to be able to use the online services. I hope, in answering these questions, the minister does not go to 'just connect to the internet'. A lot of people who still use the telephone services are older people that may not have either the skills or the capability. They may not have internet access. In one area in my electorate, Heathcote, 30 per cent of households do not have the internet. These are people who, when they are seeking support, use the Centrelink telephone services.

Recently the Australian National Audit Office released a report into this specific issue. I am sure that many members have had the same complaints raised with them from local constituents—example after example of people saying that they have been stuck on the phone trying to get access through to Centrelink with wait times of up to 60 to 70 minutes in peak demand time. This is not new. This comes up all the time when you are out in the electorate talking to people. These long waiting times have now been confirmed by this report released by the Australian National Audit Office:

Wait times for Centrelink telephone services have increased significantly in recent years from an average of 3 minutes and 5 seconds in 2010-11 to an average of 16 minutes and 53 seconds in 2013-14.

It notes that a key factor underlying these increases includes a reduction in the number of staff answering the phone. It is actually because staffing numbers have reduced. There have been job cuts, job losses and staffing numbers reduced for people answering the phones. The report found that there would need to be a 33 per cent increase in staffing levels of call centre staff, or 1,000 new full-time jobs, to get the call times back down to five minutes—not even getting back to what it was in 2010-11 of three minutes and five seconds, on average. To get it back down to five minutes there would need to be a 33 per cent increase in call centre staff.

My questions to the minister are: is the government going to increase, like the report has said, the staffing numbers? Will the government commit to these 1,000 new jobs or increase the staffing levels in call centres by 33 per cent? In my own electorate of Bendigo we have one of these smart centres. These are good, local jobs that not only will help—

Ms Claydon interjecting—

The member for Newcastle says that there is also one in Newcastle. These call centres tend to be in regional areas, so they are good, local jobs. We would welcome those local jobs. This is a chance for the minister to commit to creating more public sector jobs in the region, but more importantly, this is a chance for the minister to commit to all those people still relying on Centrelink call centre telephone services to get answered in an effective amount of time. Can the minister also answer the question around productivity? Has there been any work done to work out the productivity losses that we have when people are waiting on the phone for 60 to 70 minutes?

What are the productivity costs to the economy and to communities due to people losing so much of their time waiting for somebody to pick up the phone?

My questions to the minister are: will you commit to the 33 per cent increase in call-centre staff, as outlined by this report? Will the minister commit that these jobs will go to regional areas? Will the minister commit to making sure there is good-quality training for these people so they have the skills they require? These services are still vital for many older people and those who do not have access to the internet. Yes, a lot of our lives are online now, but people still rely on these Centrelink telephone services to enable them to communicate and get information and do the basics to ensure they get service from Centrelink.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her questions. The response times for people, particularly for those in distress, are very important. This is a very important topic. I will run through a number of matters in relation to the volume of calls and various things that the Department of Human Services needs to deal with on a daily basis and more broadly. I think we would all agree that it is an incredibly large workload they get through.

I acknowledge many of the things the member opposite raised in her questions but she did neglect to say one thing: the staffing reductions in smart centres were 90 per cent under her government. She has raised the issue of staffing numbers in these areas but conveniently forgot to mention that while Labor was in government they had a 90 per cent reduction to smart centres in those areas.

It is a very big task. In 2014 the department handled over 59.5 million calls from new parents, job seekers, students, separated families, carers, people with disabilities, migrants, refugees, rural and remote Australians, and older and Indigenous Australians. You can imagine the diverse nature of the calls they would be dealing with. In 2014-15 the average speed of answer on the department phones for social security and welfare was less than 16 minutes, which currently meets the departmental standard. The average speed of answer has improved more than one minute when compared with the same period of the previous year.

For health-customer information it is around five minutes and 12 seconds, I am advised; the average speed of answer remains relatively stable when compared with the same period of the previous year. For health providers it is one minute and 23 seconds; the average speed of answer has increased by 50 seconds when compared with the same period of the previous year. For health, PBS authorities and e-health it is 25 seconds; the average speed of answer has improved by 21 seconds when compared with the same period of the previous year of 46 seconds. For child support it is just over 2½ minutes; the average speed of answer has increased by less than a minute. The average wait times in service centres, equally, is 12½ minutes for social security and welfare engagements. For health it is around 7½ minutes.

We do not deny the fact that we would like to do better in this area. I think that is really important. One of the things the member opposite did not quite understand is the revitalising of the payment system, which is what we are doing. As I said in response to an earlier question, the previous government decided not to do anything about the payment system, which is central to how you deal with these issues—when you can get people more online than being on the phone. I understand, as we all do, that there are some people who cannot go online. But if you can get more of the people who can go online off the phone, and get them online, that is a good strategy. Pretty much every business in the country understands that. Those opposite seem to struggle with the notion. That is why we have invested over $1 billion in the WPIT program to deal with these issues.

Those opposite raised the issue of the number of staff—but they cut the number of staff in smart centres by 90 per cent! The outrage we hear from those opposite seems to only find its voice in opposition. With their own government, they did not move on these issues. We are addressing them. There is over $1 billion to address the WPIT system, to improve the technology and ICT system support; all those initiatives.

Minister Payne has been an absolute Trojan on getting this project up and running and securing the support from the government in a difficult fiscal climate. We know if we get it right that the payment dividend for the government will come down the line, but we have to invest up-front in the technology. That is what we are doing. We do not want to try and paper over the problem as previous governments have done and not make the strategic investment which needs to be made in the ICT, which we are doing. We do not want to just deal with the superficial elements of this issue; we want to go to its core and its heart and improve the capability of the government to deal with this issue in a far longer term fashion, because that is what coalition governments do. We think through the long-term consequences of various policy initiatives and we think through the implementation. We think about what the objective is and how we can go about achieving it. I think that really does mark out this government from those opposite when it comes to matters of implementation.

So I acknowledge there are issues to be addressed here, but the members constituents will not be heartened by the way that Labour would approach this problem. They would just spend more money that they do not have rather than investing money strategically which we have been able to provide for through the savings we have put in this budget—savings those opposite do not support.

Expenditure agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 13:01 to 15:59

I wish to correct an answer I gave during consideration in detail of Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2015-2016 in the Human Services portfolio today. I was asked about DHS staff numbers. I had answered, 'I am advised that 90 per cent of staffing reductions in smart centres occurred under Labor', and, further, that the previous government had actually reduced numbers by 90 per cent. The correct response is that at least 80 per cent of the recent reduction in smart centre staff numbers occurred under the previous government.

Education and Training Portfolio

Proposed expenditure: $2,015,007,000

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question relates to access to school education for people with disability. I know, through my conversations with you, Minister, that this is something near and dear to your heart. A couple of years ago my wife, who is an early childhood teacher, was told that she was going to have a child with Down syndrome in her class. She teaches in the Catholic system. It sort of freaked her out because she had never had much to do with Down syndrome children, although she has had a lot to do with children with other disabilities. After doing some research, what she found was that it rekindled her love of teaching. What this child—I am sure the parents will not mind me mentioning her name—Lola has brought to my wife's school has been an absolute gift of inclusion and a sense of community in the school. My son was lucky enough to be in year 7 when Lola was in preschool and he became her year7 buddy. Although she was non-verbal, my son learnt a fair bit of Auslan to be able to communicate with her.

I have a group of people from my community who meet with us regularly. We have a series of requests in relation to access. It seems to me that what my parents are chasing is a consistent approach to back the programs we have, to be open to questions and to make sure the community has access to them. The big question from my parents, especially the parents of young Ben, has been about the transition to high school, and that seems to be the most scary thing. I know that schools and education sit primarily with state governments, but could you outline what you see as the major things we are doing in relation to access for people with disabilities to school communities? What do you think we can push through COAG with the state governments in relation to access for students with disabilities?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Herbert for his question during the consideration in detail of this bill. There has been a tremendous amount of misinformation put out by the Australian Education Union, unfortunately. Yet again, they are the culprits who are frightening the parents of children with disability. As a parent myself, and I know the member for Herbert is also a parent, the worst thing that I could possibly imagine is not having the support required for any of my children if they were to have a disability and to be of school age. That is why both this government and the previous government, to be fair, ensured that there was a loading for disabilities as part of the new school funding model. The Australian Education Union knows that, and the sector knows that, and yet the Australian Education Union has been running a quite disgraceful campaign over the past few months, pretending that somehow what this government is doing is different to what was promised by both the then Labor government and ourselves when we were in opposition.

Before the last election, we said that we would fund the new school funding model for four years and that we would ensure that the loadings provided for as part of the new school funding model were entirely fulfilled, as was planned by the legislation passed in the previous parliament—and that is exactly what we are doing. So the loading for disability is precisely what would have been delivered if the Labor government had been re-elected in 2013. As it happened, we were elected, and we set about ensuring that that loading was applied. In fact, I, as the minister for education, brought the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland into the new school funding model. They had been left out because of the chaos and the mess that was the previous government.

The aspect of disability which makes it different from the other loadings is that the statistics upon which the loading is based are all provided by the states and territories. The states and territories provide that information to the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth puts it into the national school funding model and then out comes a monetary figure indicating what we should pay to each state and territory and the non-government sector, be it Catholic or independent, based on their number of children with a disability and the severity of the disability. The education ministers council, upon which I sit, obviously, has been over the last year and a half making sure that that data is as accurate as possible. That is a very difficult job—as difficult as it was when Labor was in power because each state and territory appears to apply a different definition of 'disability'. Some are more generous than others, and as part of the education ministers council—as the member for Herbert quite rightly points out, these matters are uniquely within the gift of the state and territory governments—we are attempting to achieve a nationally consistent dataset, which would also have occurred if Labor was in power, and we are making progress. It is not nearly as fast as the progress that I would like to be making, and I quickly add that that is not because of anything that the Commonwealth has not done. The state and territory education ministers have indicated to me that they will be able to provide that nationally consistent data this year so that it can apply next year, and I will be holding them to that so that every child in Australia with a disability will be able to receive the correct loading, as they should, to match their disability.

We have also put extra money into the More Support for Students with Disabilities initiative—an initiative of the previous government which did not go to students but which went to teachers. The AEU, and I have to say the shadow minister for education, who is not here, and the acting shadow minister for education, have tried to muddy the waters about that particular program and pretend that somehow that money was delivered to students with disability. It was not—it was delivered to teachers to train them in how to adapt their classes for students with disability. It has been a very successful program and because of its success it is coming to an end and therefore it will not continue to be funded. (Time expired)

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In respect of the question asked by the member for Herbert, apparently the new black in this parliament now is the government applauding itself, not just in rhetorical terms but in physical terms. The member for Adelaide, the shadow minister for education, deeply regrets not being able to be here, because she particularly enjoys sparring with the Minister for Education during consideration in detail. She would desperately like to be here, but she and all members on our side understand that the education part of this budget will be assessed by parents, by students, by teachers, by early childhood educators against the very clear promises that the Prime Minister and the Minister for Education made during the last election campaign. They remember it very clearly—they remember the Prime Minister saying that there would be no cuts to education. They remember the Prime Minister saying at a press conference during the election campaign, or just before it started, that the Liberal-National coalition was 'on an absolute unity ticket when it comes to school funding' and the minister, then the shadow minister, said only a week or two before the election:

So you can vote Liberal or Labor and you'll get exactly the same amount of funding for your school.

The Liberal Party even went so far as to prepare bunting and other election material to put up at polling booths—I do not think it came as far as Port Adelaide but I have certainly heard that it went to many seats—promising voters as they walked into the ballot box that the Liberal Party, if elected to government, would deliver exactly the same dollars to state schools, to independent schools and to Catholic schools as had been set out in the agreements negotiated in the aftermath of the Gonski agreement.

So educators, parents, students and the general community are looking at this budget. It was presented, by the Prime Minister and the besieged Treasurer, as a kinder, softer and gentler budget than the 2014 budget—not that that was a hard bar to get over—and yet, when we look at the education portfolio, all of the worst aspects of the last year's budget are still there. The $100,000 degrees are still there. This minister, as will be explored in more detail during this consideration in detail, is hell-bent on achieving the university reforms that were rejected so fulsomely by the Australian community last year and by the Senate as well. In school funding, the $30 billion or so of cuts that were proudly proclaimed in the 2014 budget papers presented and published by the government are still there. They are still there—and they are there in full colour now, after the 2015 budget, because from 2018 onwards the Commonwealth will only index school funding to the tune of CPI, putting the lie to the election posters that were bedraggled through so many different electorates—not mine, for reasons I still do not understand; you could not come at publishing them down in Port Adelaide, but they were everywhere else—saying that not a single dollar would be different under a Liberal government. But we know that only CPI indexation will apply from 2018.

Everyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the education system knows that this will have a very serious impact on the ability of schools, school managers and teachers to provide the best possible education for Australian students. The National Catholic Education Commission has said that indexation at CPI levels will lead to very serious impacts. Fees will rise, they have said, and schools may well close, as a direct result of the breach of that solemn promise that the minister and the Prime Minister made, while in opposition, to the Australian people, particularly to Australian school communities, that there would be no difference under a Liberal government to the arrangements that were being put in place in the later period of the Labor government.

So I think we would all like to know, given that the minister, under this 'kinder, gentler' budget, has kept every single aspect of the awful budget from last year in the education portfolio: what sort of election bunting is he proposing for 2016?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We do not bother with election bunting in Port Adelaide because we know that the member would not be able to work in any other role if he was not in the parliament. We feel sorry for him and his children. His wife and children expect to be able to be fed. That is the generosity of spirit that you see in the coalition in South Australia.

The member for Port Adelaide also mentioned having a passing acquaintance with the education system. As he would remember, I knew him at university. We were known to knock about together on occasion. He certainly only had a passing acquaintance with education at Adelaide university; he was much more focused on student politics and climbing the greasy pole. But my advice to him is: the higher up the greasy pole you go, the greasier it gets. I notice, Member for Port Adelaide, that you are about to be elected as the national president of the ALP. My advice to you is: the higher up the greasy pole you go, the greasier it gets. So just keep that in mind.

I am very pleased that the member for Port Adelaide has raised school funding—very pleased—because the education union, parents around Australia and Labor states and territories are all wondering whether the Labor Party has committed to the extra many, many multibillions of dollars that were envisaged in the school funding model beyond the four years of the funding agreement. I note that only last week the member for Port Adelaide was asked, as the acting shadow minister for education, whether Labor was committing to those funds, and he could not commit. He did not commit. I read his comments; he did not commit. And he has not committed today. Bill Shorten has not committed. The Leader of the Opposition was asked many times on Neil Mitchell's program whether he would commit to that school funding; he danced around the issue and did not commit. Chris Bowen, the shadow Treasurer, has not committed to the billions of dollars of money that Labor knows they do not have. And I think you will find, Mr Deputy Speaker Irons, that at the next election Labor will again be on a unity ticket with the coalition when it comes to school funding, because they and we will both be committing to the model going forward.

We will certainly see spending on school education increase; it is increasing in this budget by eight per cent this year, eight per cent next year, six per cent the year after that and four per cent the year after that. School funding is going up every year in the budget estimates because we believe that school funding is important.

But funding is only important insofar as it ensures that a quality education can be delivered. Funding on its own does not deliver school outcomes. What we have seen in the debate over the last couple of years is parents realising that school funding is one thing but the quality of education is quite another.

The OECD in their PISA studies have shown us that the No. 1 issue in school education in Australia is the quality of teaching. In the last PISA report, the OECD said that, in Australia, in eight out of 10 reasons why a child will do well or poorly, it is the classroom to which they are allocated—in other words, it is the teacher to whom they are allocated in a school. One out of 10 reasons is their socioeconomic status and one out of 10 reasons is 'all other factors'.

So the government has a students-first policy. It has four pillars. Having settled the funding—having brought Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia into the school funding model, which meant $794 million more for Queensland, which would have been denied them under the previous government; so, having settled all that—we are focused on the national curriculum. And, from 2016, next year, a new national curriculum will be in place that will declutter the primary school curriculum, concertinaing four subjects into one so that teachers can focus on science and maths and English. We are reforming teacher training at the university level to have a focus on STEM and languages and practical outcomes. We are engaging with parents through a parental engagement strategy. And we are, importantly, increasing autonomy across the whole of Australia in the public school system through our Independent Public Schools initiative. Every single state and territory, including Labor states and territories, have signed up to the Independent Public Schools initiative. In this way, we are actually addressing not just funding but also the quality of education that students receive.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, primarily can I congratulate you on your approach to the national curriculum.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Applause won't be necessary!

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I won't applaud! However—

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! The member is asking a question. The member for Forrest will continue.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I understand the great interest that the members opposite have in our very good measures.

So the clearing and simplifying of the national curriculum is very much appreciated. As the minister would be aware, the Independent Public Schools system has been in operation in Western Australia now for some time, and I sit on two of those boards. One of the things that frequently has been mentioned in my work in and out of schools, on a regular basis, is the issue around the national curriculum and the difficulty that teachers have had in meeting the requirements of that and being able to teach those core subjects. So it is a very sound move that you have made in this space.

But I wanted to ask you about one of the key budget measures that has really not been tackled by any previous government, and that is: for the first time, Australian students who have moved overseas for more than six months will be required to pay back their HECS debt as if they were still residing in Australia, and this will happen from 2017. Minister, could you please explain why this is a fairer approach, and can you also give us some idea of what the level of overseas HECS debt is currently and whether you have an indication of what it is likely to rise to as a result of the demand-driven system ahead of us, please.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Forrest for her keen interest in education, not just school education and the national curriculum but also the independent public schools' model in WA that is having a very genuine impact on outcomes of students and the quality of teaching and management of schools.

One thing the member for Forrest did not mention, which she would have been quite within her rights to do so, is her very keen interest in the Youth Allowance and ensuring that young people from rural and regional Australia get the same opportunities to go to university as students in metropolitan Australia. In fact, the member for Forrest has been at the spear tip of the debate within the coalition—in opposition and in government—about trying to ensure there is a fair approach to students from rural Australia in getting to university. I do not want to steal the thunder of the Minister for Social Services. He certainly did make changes to the assets test, which will allow more students from rural and regional Australia to access the Youth Allowance and therefore achieve the same levels of engagement in higher education that metropolitan students are achieving.

The member also asked about the HELP debt—the HECS debt, as most people tend to call it—the Higher Education Contribution Scheme. The Higher Education Contribution Scheme in Australia is a world-beater. It is the envy of the rest of the Western world, in terms of education. It was initiated here, in 1988-89, by the previous Labor government, the Hawke-Keating government, which was a government that actually cared about policy—unlike the current Labor Party, which is much more interested in politics than policy. John Dawkins, as the minister for education, recognised that so-called free education initiated by the Whitlam government simply meant that the poorest Australians paid for the richest Australians to go to university. The Hawke-Keating government changed that error of policy by introducing the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which we thoroughly support.

We currently collect four out of every five dollars of the HECS debt. To put that into perspective, Great Britain collects about 50 to 60 per cent of its debt through its similar scheme to our Higher Education Contribution Scheme. We are very good at collecting the debt. That is a good thing. That means that students who get to go to university get a major private benefit from that, and there is also a public benefit, and they pay back through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which is the an extremely generous scheme. And so it should be, because we want to encourage Australians to go to university. It means that nobody in Australia is locked out of university education because of the cost of education. No Australian turns up to university and thinks they cannot afford to go, because they can access the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.

We are expecting the HELP debt, the HECS debt, to rise from about $36½ billion in 2015-16 to $62.7 billion in 2018-19. That is due to a combination of factors. It is the expansion of opportunity to go to university, under the government's reforms to higher education, and a feature of the vocational education and training system coming into the Higher Education Contribution Scheme. We think this is a positive move, because it allows all Australians, whatever their choice of career or education, to access government support.

For the first time, ever—the member for Forrest is quite correct—we are tackling the issue of overseas HECS debt, which previous governments put in the too-hard basket. It is not as high as we had expected and it does not return as dramatic a dividend to the budget as you would expect. The mythology about the number of Australians and the value of Australians' HECS debt overseas has been inflated, particularly by the tabloid press. But there is a very important principle involved here: if you do go to university in Australia and get a fantastic high-quality degree it does not mean that just because you move overseas you should not pay back that debt you owe the Australian tax office. And we are going to collect that debt. Starting next year we will collect that debt. Whether you are in London, New York or anywhere else in the world, if you are earning over the threshold for the repayment of HECS, you will be expected to pay. That is fair on all those who stay in Australia and pay their debt. If you are overseas in London, as a banker or a financial analyst, then you should pay back your HECS debt. (Time expired)

Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year's budget did absolutely nothing to address the fundamental unfairness of last year's budget disaster, which locked in $30 billion of savage cuts to education. These brutal cuts will affect every student passing through Chifley classrooms. And, because of this government's budget, New South Wales will be hit with over $9.5 billion in school cuts over the next 10 years—$3.1 billion coming from Western Sydney alone. In the electorate of Chifley, 68 schools will have to deal with $270 million in cuts over the next 10 years—the electorate with the second-biggest cut in New South Wales. These cuts will have a real impact on student outcomes and teacher resources. The $30 billion in cuts is the equivalent of an average cut of $3.2 million per school. It is the same as sacking one in seven teachers. At a time when Western Sydney is growing, these cuts are dangerous and short-sighted. They will mean less individual support that can be provided to students. It will mean less in terms of essential literacy and numeracy support, with programs being cut, and less training and support for teachers.

The Australian Early Development Index shows just how these cuts will hurt the students who will need the most help. For example, in the area of Blacktown, 23.8 per cent of children are classified as 'vulnerable' in at least one part of their development. At a time when we should be closing that inequity gap, these children are being dealt a cruel blow from these cuts. Our students certainly deserve better than these cuts to the education budget. Even the government's Liberal-National Party counterparts in New South Wales are joining in the fight on this. Less than three weeks ago, on 28 May, the New South Wales Minister for Education, Adrian Piccoli, said that the New South Wales government 'continues to advocate to the federal government to honour the agreement in full'. The minister certainly owes Western Sydney answers about these cuts.

I would ask the minister a series of questions. Principally, what does he say to the disadvantaged children in Western Sydney who are hoping to change their lives through education but who have been impacted by these cuts? What does he say to the parents in Mount Druitt who want the best for their children's education but all they have seen from this government are broken promises? What does he say to the hardworking principals who just want the resources they need so that children can thrive in their classrooms? Will he ever come to his senses and scrap his unfair budget measures, which will hurt our children and their future? When will he drop those cuts and stop punishing the children of Western Sydney?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley would be well advised to do his homework, because the reality is there are no reductions in education spending in schools in this budget, or last year's budget, or any other budget into the future brought down by this government. School funding goes up every year, on year, for the next four years—eight per cent, eight per cent, six per cent and four per cent. I know it is very hard for Labor. Labor have not done the work in opposition to recalibrate their policy positions. It is sad that they are still just talking about the last election. They were still talking about it last night on The Killing Season. Like a narcissistic obsessive disorder, they are constantly talking about themselves and they are still talking about the last election and the policies from the last election.

The member for Lindsay is a much better member for Western Sydney than the member for Chifley, and the people who live in Mount Druitt probably much prefer to be represented by the member for Lindsay than the member for Chifley—but I digress. The truth is there is a massive increase in spending on school education, and Labor knows it. What the member for Chifley has not caught up with is that his party has not committed to the extra money in years five and six, beyond the forward estimates and beyond the current school agreement.

They have not committed to it. Bill Shorten has not committed to it. Chris Bowen has not committed to it. Kate Ellis has not committed to it. Mark Butler has not committed to it. I would recommend to the member for Chifley that he go back and look at Mark Butler's comments last week, or the week before, in The Australian, where the Labor states and territories and the Australian Education Union asked the federal Labor party whether they were committed to the billions of dollars of extra spending that they have not got the money for. Mr Butler obfuscated and did not answer the question—exactly as Mr Shorten did on the Neil Mitchell program. Chris Bowen has done the same thing, because Labor know they do not have the money.

Labor know that they already have a $58 billion black hole in their economic credibility going forward. They know that. They are going to apparently bring $15 billion of extra spending on foreign aid back if they get re-elected. They apparently have rivers of gold to knock off our savings measures and to vote against their own savings measures in the budget from when they were in government. They think that there is somehow a magic pudding of money out there, but the Australian public is much wiser than that.

Let me just tell the member for Chifley exactly what is happening. There is $69.5 billion, over the forward estimates, of funding to schools. It is a growth of 27.9 per cent on the 2014-15 baseline. A growth of 27.9 per cent is not a cut; it is not a reduction. It means an increase in spending.

Mr Husic interjecting—

It means an increase in spending, no matter how much the member for Chifley interjects. A 27.9 per cent increase means there is more money for schools in the budget this year, next year and the year after that than there was in previous years.

That is why schools are focusing, as is the government, on the other elements that make a quality education—for example, school autonomy, which New South Wales has definitely signed up to, just like Western Australia and Queensland, and all the other states and territories have signed up to. It is why they support our reforms to teacher training at university, because the OECD says the most important element in Australia about whether a child gets a good outcome is the quality of teaching.

The member for Chifley should stop following the line of the AEU and actually start listening to what parents say. What parents say and what parents want is quality teaching in their schools. They want a robust curriculum. They want to be engaged in their schools and they want their principals and their leadership teams to make as many decisions as possible locally. That is what we are delivering. We have decluttered the primary school curriculum. We have refocused the curriculum on science, maths and English.

Opposition members interjecting—

We have actually; you have not caught up with it. ACARA is now working on it, to start on 1 January 2016. There will be a new national curriculum on 1 January 2016, initiated by this government and agreed to by every state and territory. We have also reformed teacher training, have a parental engagement program and independent public schools across Australia.

Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, as you know, I have a keen interest in research, particularly locally-based research in my electorate of Ryan. I know that the wonderful changes you are making to curriculums in schools will lead many more researchers and students into the area of medical research. We are very fortunate. We have everyone, from Professor Ian Frazer, to the Brain Institute, to the Wesley Research Institute, to the CRCs and CSIRO. I thank you for visiting our nanotechnology department and also Professor Mark Kendall's for the work that he is doing, as well as many of the other research projects.

A lot of our research people reach that crucial time when they need support for their research programs. Not all of them are as fortunate as Dr Kate Schroder, who just benefited from some millions of dollars from Michael J Fox for her Parkinson's research at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience.

Minister, there was a lot of concern earlier this year about funding for NCIS programs. I clearly remember the date of 14 May, when you made that wonderful announcement that you would undertake funding for the next two years, of $150 million a year, for those projects to give them certainty and to assist them with the research.

Whilst I am clearly interested in the health and medical research ones in my electorate, I would be keen if you could elaborate on those and others that have received that funding and what led to that situation where we needed you to come out and restore funding for those particular research institutes and facilities. How are these projects evaluated? And what are the guidelines that my researchers need to consider when they are looking for funding in the future?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Ryan, and I note her very longstanding interest in the University of Queensland, which is in her electorate. It is really one of the top four universities in Australia, and it has come along in leaps and bounds in the last 10 to 20 years, primarily because of a focus on research. The University of Queensland has always been a Go8 university, but in the last 10 or so years it has moved to a whole different level of quality, making it one of the very best universities in the world. In fact, UQ has been in the top 100 universities in the world for some time, as are all our Go8 universities. To put that in perspective, there are about 11½ thousand universities in the world. So for Australia to have eight in the top 100 is an enormous achievement.

We in this government do have a particular interest in research, and we are lucky to be led by a Prime Minister who is also particularly keen on research and knows the benefits of research. Therefore, as the Minister for Education and Training, it is a great pleasure of mine that, when I go to the Prime Minister to ask for more support for research, it is readily provided. He knows, as a former health minister, the enormous economic and social benefits of high-quality Australian research, whether it is, as you pointed out, NHMRC or ARC or CRC research for that matter. This year in the budget the government is committing $10.7 billion over the forward estimates to research in my portfolio alone, which is quite remarkable. Across the government, we spend on science research and innovation yearly about $9 billion.

So I was very disappointed, when I became the minister for education, to discover that the Labor Party, in government, had cut the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme. It had left a funding cliff for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme, known as NCRIS.

It had also left a funding cliff for the Future Fellowships program. Future Fellowships and NCRIS are both vitally important for Australia's research effort. Future Fellowships supports mid-career researchers who have perhaps not yet proven themselves nationally or internationally to attract a research grant from the private sector, universities or individuals but who we know are going to be really high-level, high-quality researchers and who we want to keep in Australia doing research in our universities or institutes. Therefore, we have refunded the Future Fellowships program. This year I announced 50 Future Fellowships under the program, which the ARC are now working on to implement, and we will be able to announce those successful future fellows soon. Also, happily, the Treasurer and the Prime Minister supported the continuation of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Scheme at $150 million a year for the next two years—so that is $300 million—while we also undertake a review of infrastructure in our universities.

The NCRIS pays for really vital infrastructure that universities would not otherwise be able to fund. It might be the renovation, the refurbishment or the repurposing of an old building in the university which is no longer meeting its purpose, to turn it into something that will be a fabulous laboratory or a test site for research—things like the Synchrotron, for example. There are many other good examples of NCRIS funding, whether in agriculture, science or medicine. Take quantum computing, for example; much of the quantum computing, which is world-class—in fact, world-beating; it is a good year ahead of all of our competitors—is funded through the NCRIS program.

We have saved that NCRIS program, thanks to lobbying from people like the member for Ryan and others to make sure that that continued. Labor wanted to cut it; we refunded it. I fixed that problem, as the Minister for Education and Training, that Labor left for us. I am very pleased to say that we are continuing our strong focus on research. I am lucky to come from the great state of South Australia, as does the member for Kingston. Out of the 15 Nobel Prize winners in Australia's history, five have come from South Australia. Therefore, I have taken a very keen interest in research, because our Nobel Prize winners often begin doing medical or scientific research from these kinds of research grants.

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

I have a number of questions for the Minister for Education and Training. Firstly, referring to a previous answer he gave a little earlier to the member for Port Adelaide, he said that all states have signed up to the independent schools model and that indeed that included Labor states. I have the agreements with the states here and for both South Australia and New South Wales there is a clause which says that it will not establish a model with independent public schools. Does the minister still back up these claims? I am happy to table these documents if he needs to read them. Maybe he needs his memory refreshed.

I also have a number of questions in regard to his proposals to make massive cuts to our universities and indeed to impose significant fee increases on our university students. Despite his legislation having been defeated twice in the parliament, can the minister confirm that the Abbott government is still committed to deregulating universities, sentencing Australian students to $100,000 dollar degrees and also, for the first time, imposing fees on PhD students?

I would also like the minister to confirm and concede that he is making $5 billion worth of cuts with the cuts to the Commonwealth Grant Scheme, the Sustainable Research Excellence program and the Research Training Scheme. Will he confirm that it does equal close to $5 billion worth of cuts? Also, given the government's plan to deregulate universities and rip billions of dollars out of the higher education system has now been defeated, is it slightly duplicitous to put the $37 billion worth of savings in the budget? Will he review that if his legislation gets defeated again? When will we actually get an accurate budget picture, considering this bill has been defeated twice? Will the minister take advice from the vice-chancellors that his time line for implementing these changes is just not practicable? Does the minister still think that six months is sufficient time to introduce these changes? If he does not introduce these changes, how will that affect the forward estimates and when will we hear a report of that? Finally, we would like the minister to tell us if he does plan to bring the legislation to the parliament, where is this legislation, when will he reintroduce it and what is his time frame for that?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It really is a gift to get a question from the member for Kingston!

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

You got a few questions, actually.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, there is lots of lovely time we will have together today and I am looking forward to it.

An honourable member interjecting—

You will get your turn. You did not jump in before; you just wandered in 40 minutes after we started and now you are trying to act like you are central to the story. Like Tony Burke in The Killing Season last night, who had nothing to do with the destruction of Kevin Rudd but now is apparently central to it.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wait until season two. You'll be there!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not think so! Season two was last night, season three is next week. Keep up, Alannah! Last night was number two; next week is number three.

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

The member for Perth will not provoke the minister.

Ms MacTiernan interjecting—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am always helping you out!

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! The member for Perth! The member for Shortland! Order!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am always looking after the member for Perth. I am too good to you! That is the problem. I am too kind-hearted.

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

Independent schools, Chris!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Independent public schools, for the member for Kingston. The member for Kingston, like lots of Labor people, is very caught up with nomenclature. The government is caught up with outcomes and substance. Everything with Labor is superficial. When they were in government every minister had seven or eight titles! We are not actually interested in nomenclature. We are interested in the substance of the policy issue. The simple fact is that every single state and territory has signed up to the government's $70 million independent public schools policy and I am very pleased about that. I do not care whether the states and territories want to call them 'independent public schools,' 'local schools' or 'local choices,' as I think they are called in New South Wales. I do not mind how they dress the policy. The point, the substance of it, is that there will be a lot more autonomy rolled out across Australia in public schools. As an advocate for public schools, as am I, and as I am sure the member for Kingston is, surely the member for Kingston would support more autonomy in public schools. Surely she would, because what it is doing in Western Australia is actually driving people to the public school system. There is an increase in Western Australia of parents choosing public schooling over non-government schooling. Western Australia is the only jurisdiction since 1977 where there has been a greater increase in enrolments in public schools than in non-government schools, and it is being driven by the independent public school model.

When this government came to power, we resolved that we wanted that rolled out as far as possible across Australia. Queensland are going to call theirs independent public schools, in spite of them now having a Labor government. The Northern Territory and Western Australia are calling them independent public schools. Victoria, Tasmania, the ACT, New South Wales and South Australia have different names for them. I do not care what they call them; they have all signed exactly the same agreement. They are all rolling out autonomy in their public schools and giving parents, principals and their leadership teams and teachers the autonomy that they want to be able to have a better public school system for their students. I am very glad about it.

I welcome the member for Kingston's interest in independent public schooling, and I ask her to work with the Australian Education Union to bring them to a happier landing. I would have thought the AEU would be in favour of public schooling, since they represent public school teachers, yet they seem to be the most opposed to independent public schools in spite of the fact that more autonomy is driving more students into public schools. What it really shows is that the AEU is not interested in the students at public schools; they are interested in the teachers in public schools and their conditions, their salaries and their emoluments. What we want on this side of the House is a relentless, laser-like focus on the outcomes of students, putting students first through more autonomy, through a better national curriculum, through better teacher training and through parental engagement. I have taken most of this time to talk about schools and I am happy to talk about universities, and if I am given the opportunity I will come back to that in a moment.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The right to education is a basic human right. The earlier that education can start, the better and more effective it is. It is important that especially our most vulnerable young people are engaged at an early age with formal education and continue to engage throughout their childhood and teenage years. It is critical, regardless of the circumstances a child is born into, that the opportunity for education is universal. That is why I am very pleased to ask the minister for education a question about the universal access partnership, which will provide continued funding for critical early childhood education through the funding of preschools.

This government is committed to supporting families and supporting young Australians to get the best start in life through early education by making it accessible and flexible. It is committed to helping families, and that is demonstrated through its other recent announcement on compulsory vaccinations, on the 'no jab, no pay, no play' provision ending the conscientious objector exemption on children's vaccinations.

We have also funded a pilot scheme for Australians who find accessing affordable child care difficult. On 3 May this year, the Australian government announced an $840 million commitment to continue the funding of preschool education across the country through the National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education. I am pleased to see that more than $2.8 billion has now been provided to states and territories through these national partnership agreements.

Disappointingly, the previous government did not provide funding post-2014, and that is why we are pleased that this funding under the national partnership agreement guarantees federal support into 2016 and 2017, reflecting our commitment to providing flexible, accessible and affordable options for families and children. The funding will be offered on a similar term to those of the existing national partnership agreement. The Productivity Commission recommended that this funding be extended, and I am pleased to have been able to take that recommendation on board within my electorate, but more particularly our government has too.

Importantly, and for the first time, included in the funding is adjustment to increases in the consumer price index so that families and preschools themselves do not lose out. Linking the funding to CPI will result in an extra $30 million over 2016-17. Enrolments in preschools have grown over the years, but there is still more work to be done to support both enrolment and attendance, especially for vulnerable, disadvantaged and Indigenous children. This funding will be used in part to help boost those numbers of young people attending and engaging in early childhood education.

In Western Australia, this funding represents a commitment of $13.4 million in 2014-15 and a doubling of that commitment in 2015-16 to $31.2 million. I want families in Hasluck to have access to early childhood education through a government preschool or a stand-alone preschool, or through long day care. This funding gives certainty to families and also to preschool providers. This funding will create the opportunity for more children to attend preschool, to learn, to socialise with their peers and to help them create the routine foundation for their formal education. The funding will help to improve enrolments as well as to help boost attendance.

I am pleased that nearly 50 preschool providers in Hasluck, all of whom are working to give young people in the suburbs in my electorate the best possible start in life, can now be safe in the knowledge that they will be funded for at least a further two years. I am pleased that the families in Hasluck will continue to have access to 600 hours of preschool per year, ordinarily delivered as 15 hours per week following this government's commitment. This announcement reflects the government's support for Australian families to high-quality, early childhood education for young Australians and its adherence to the basic principle of the right to education, accessible to all people.

My question to the minister is: can you please explain why, when the previous government had failed to commit funding post-2014 to this very important program that gives states and territories the ability to provide universal access to preschool education, you thought and acted on this matter and why this government thinks that it is critical for the youngest people in our country to have this opportunity?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Hasluck for his question. I am bemused by the member for Shortland's amusement at this because I would have thought this was good news in the government's budget, very good news.

Ms Hall interjecting—

The member for Hasluck thinks it is good news and I would have thought that you would have thought it was good news as well. Your government actually did not put the money in the budget into the future in the forward estimates. It took me as the minister for education to deliver universal access at $843 million into the future, because the Labor government had another funding cliff in the budget. I would have thought the member for Shortland would have been pleased with the government's decision. This is an unadulteratedly good news story in this budget, which the member for Hasluck has picked up on. I am not sure the member for Shortland realises the implication.

Under the Labor Party, if they had remained in power, the national partnership agreement would have come to an end and students who are currently getting 15 hours minimum preschool a week at the age of four would have no longer continued to be funded. Let's put that in perspective. Before universal access, in Queensland in 2008 there were no students enrolled in a preschool program for 15 hours or more. By 2013, this number had increased to 95 per cent. In Tasmania in 2008, only six per cent of students were enrolled in a preschool program for 15 hours or more. By 2013, this number had increased to 97 per cent. So the Liberal Party certainly welcome this focus on universal access for preschool for four-year-olds.

I am lucky to come from a state that initiated kindergarten in the 1950s and therefore has had kindergarten as part of our education system for 60 years. But that has not been the case nationally. I give the previous government credit. The previous government initiated this program but then did not fund it beyond 2014. It took this government to find the offsetting savings to make sure that students at the age of four continue to get a minimum of 15 hours support week universal access to preschool.

It is a very good news story and it will mean that every child in Australia who is aged four will be able to go to preschool for 15 hours minimum, supported and subsidised by the Commonwealth taxpayer. That will improve our education outcomes. It will have a long-term impact on literacy, numeracy and social engagement, especially for families of disadvantaged backgrounds, who will be able to get a real go at a lifetime of good quality education from the age of four onwards. And Western Australia alone—and the member for Hasluck is from Western Australia—over the course of the program will receive $307 million of support under the universal access policy.

I was very pleased that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Education and Training, Senator Scott Ryan, took responsibility for this particular area of the Education portfolio. He has done a very good job in convincing the Treasurer, the Prime Minister, and the Expenditure Review Committee. I have to say there was a lot of support within the coalition party room for continuing the universal access model. Whether it was the member for Hindmarsh, the member for Gilmore, the member for Hasluck, the member for Lindsay, the member for Ryan, the member for Corangamite or many other members, there was a lot of lobbying and support for the government continuing universal access.

I would have thought that, rather than being churlish about it, the Labor Party would have been congratulating the government—you can hold the applause—on continuing one of their programs, finding the money to make sure that four-year-olds in Australia had access to a minimum of 15 hours preschool a week.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think we heard a little before of 'post hoc, ergo propter hoc'. The member has taken two facts, one being the rise in enrolment in government schools in WA, which is a good thing, and presumed it had been caused by the mood for autonomy. Given the minister is so strong in science, hopefully one day he will show us how he managed to get the 'propter out of the post'.

The questions I want to talk to the minister today about relate to the Bjorn Lomborg Australian Consensus Centre, for which there is a $4 million allocation to pursue a particular controversial methodology in relation to various international issues. In Senate estimates, we were told that the decision to provide the funding for this Australian consensus centre was made well before there had been any discussion with the University of Western Australia or indeed any other tertiary institution. A decision was made back in the first half of 2014, we understand, to provide this $4 million worth of funding in principle and then have Dr Lomborg go out and sell his wares to a particular university.

I am just seeking to understand how this all came about given that this was not a proposition that emanated from any university. I would like the minister to explain to us who began this process. How was the minister or his department first engaged, because the money does come from his department? Who first approached the department? Given this is not something that came from any Australian tertiary institution or indeed a tertiary institution, I am particularly interested in knowing what methodology was used to assess the methodology. As we heard at Senate estimates, the decision was made to put $4 million into promoting a particular methodology. I am eager to understand, and I am sure the minister is going to be able to clarify, just what processes were put in place to determine the academic rigour and standing of this methodology. What processes were put in place to prioritise the funding of this methodology before any other project? Can the minister say whether any effort was made to get professional advice from the Australian Research Council or any other body as to the standing, rigour and merit of this methodology?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to get this question from the member for Perth. I might say that I am surprised that the member for Charlton did not get to his feet at any point to ask me a question, and I will come back to the member for Kingston's questions about higher education. I might even do it in this particular answer.

In terms of the Australian Consensus Centre: the government adopted exactly the same processes that the previous government adopted for its grant of $7 million to the Whitlam Institute at the University of Western Sydney and the $4 million that it granted to The Conversation online website. Of course, governments make decisions continually on the effective use of public spending. The direct funding of targeted research initiatives is a well-established method of achieving value for money and public benefit.

A government member: He came back!

Oh, he's back! Marvellous!

The Australian Consensus Centre is something that the government is absolutely committed to. Obviously, we are—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My questions relate to the methodology.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes?

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who made the assessment?

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

Order! The member for Perth does not have the call.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We used exactly the same processes, member for Perth, as the previous government did in many different areas. I have given you two examples; there would be other examples.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But they were—

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

Order! The member for Perth does not have the call!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the Australian Consensus Centre was slated to be at the University of Western Australia. On 10 November 1914—sorry, 2014!—I approved the department taking forward arrangements to establish the Australian Consensus Centre at the University of Western Australia. The decision was based on acceptance of the proposal submitted by the University of Western Australia on 4 November 2014, and on—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an absolute nonsense!

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

The member for Perth does not have the call!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

24 March 2015 I approved the department finalising the funding agreement with the University of Western Australia for the Australian Consensus Centre.

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You won't answer the question, will you?

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

If the member for Perth wants to listen she might actually hear an answer!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am disappointed, as are many Australians, that the University of Western Australia was forced into abandoning the Australian Consensus Centre because of the agitation by certain academics at the University of Western Australia. Reading the email by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Australia, Paul Johnson, I think it is fair to say that he was also disappointed—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's got nothing to do with it!

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

The member for Perth will be quiet!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that he could not fulfil the contract that he had already signed with the Australian government to deliver the Australian Consensus Centre because the Australian Consensus Centre would provide a rigorous research project for Australia. The Australian Consensus Centre, modelled on the Copenhagen Consensus Center, would have brought together Nobel prize winners from around the world to talk about the major issues facing Australia and the world. Bjorn Lomborg is a world-famous academic with a very rigorous background, and the outrageous slurring on Bjorn Lomborg as a climate denialist by the Labor Party, the Greens and academics across Australia is completely and utterly false.

Bjorn Lomborg has made it absolutely clear that he believes climate change is occurring. But he has said that we need to put that in the same perspective as all the other challenges that the world faces and that perhaps there are better economic ways of dealing with climate change and with coal fired power et cetera than the ones that have been put forward by the Greens and others around the world.

I would have thought that universities and academics would not have been frightened by somebody in their midst who has a different view. One of the purposes of universities—

Alannah Mactiernan (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will you tell us how the process worked?

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

If the member for Perth keeps that up she will be asked to leave under 187!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

is to explore ideas. And the Australian Consensus Centre and Bjorn Lomborg would have challenged thinking at the University of Western Australia. And even if he were a climate denialist, he is perfectly within his rights to be so if he happens to be that. He is not, actually, but freedom of speech would certainly allow that and academic freedom would allow that too. So I find it very passing strange that the Labor Party would be so vocal about Bjorn Lomborg and the Australian Consensus Centre but be absolutely silent about Jake Lynch and the Sydney peace centre at the University of Sydney.

The Labor Party and the Greens have said nothing—nothing at all!—about Jake Lynch and the so-called 'peace centre' at the University of Sydney, and yet they were very loud in their condemnation of Bjorn Lomborg and the Australian Consensus Centre.

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order!

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have not forgotten you. I am definitely coming back to you. Don't worry.

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

I call the member for Lindsay and she will be heard in silence.

Fiona Scott (Lindsay, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, today I ask a question of the minister about STEM training and why it is so important to the people of Western Sydney. Minister, Western Sydney has before it an innovation revolution. The innovation revolution stems from many different facts, all coming back to this federal government. We have an innovation corridor which in many ways has been spearheaded by some very good friends of ours, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Sydney, Barney Glover, and of course the Chancellor, Peter Shergold.

When we look at the innovation corridor, it goes from Campbelltown in the south, through Penrith and then out to the north-west sector. Over the next 10 years one million people will move into this region. This region is being earmarked, and Penrith, in particular to be a focal point of health and education. Already, with the $3.6 billion worth of federal infrastructure that is coming into this region in just supporting the roads packages, we are seeing science parks coming before the New South Wales department of planning. One in particular, Minister, is the Sydney Science Park. It is owned by the EJ Cooper group, the Baiada group. They see their 280 hectares to be 1,200 jobs, smart jobs—smart jobs in biotech. They also see an additional 10,000 research positions that they would like to come into this facility.

The next one that I would like to talk to you about is Sydney IQ. This sits on UWS land at Werrington. UWS sees there an additional 6,000 jobs—once again, in biotech, engineering, smart manufacturing and the technology and engineering that could go in there. With so much support from the federal government and moral support, they have created a business incubator—working with partners like Google, looking at how they can create the new businesses and a new Google, but an Australian new Google.

My electorate is also the 10th youngest electorate in the Federation. I want to see these smart business parks come in, but I want to see it is the children of Western Sydney that will be the best and brightest. I want to make sure that we provide STEM training to these children and that they grow through their education from primary school all the way through to university—and that it is the children of Western Sydney that will be filling the jobs at the Sydney Science Park and the jobs at the Sydney IQ.

Talking with my local principals—and I have been holding forums with all of my local principals, be it Catholic schools, primary schools, high schools, public schools, independent schools—they are so excited about the future for our region. They are excited about the innovation revolution. They want to get on board. They want to get on board and look at STEM training.

When talking to the principals, overwhelmingly a lot of my school teachers, like myself, hold university degrees from the University of Western Sydney. It is a major university for providing teacher training at the university level. Working with the University of Western Sydney, and with partners like Google, we are going to hold professional development days for the teachers that are already on class. We want to make sure that we get this STEM training all the way through.

When we look at those opposite and their track record here, they came up with a ludicrous idea which had no ability of funding. They could not even get the funding model right. Talking to Professor Barney Glover about this, his thoughts were, and I quote him from the Sydney Morning Herald of 31 May this year:

I'm not sure the evidence is there to support it. We'd need a much more serious debate about it to know if it would be a driver of greater participation in STEM disciplines.

This is really important for my region, Minister. The other thing I wanted to point out was a comment from UWS. The University of Western Sydney is committed to supporting STEM uptake across Western Sydney through initiatives like the Sydney Science Centre. This is a wonderful initiative that the University of Sydney is also looking at. They want a science centre where children can go and participate in science and really get up close and personal with STEM, because they want to see this innovation revolution take hold. They do not just want to see federal government investment in infrastructure. They want to see jobs for the future, jobs for our children. We do not know what jobs will necessarily be there for children in 10, 20 or 30 years time. We want to make sure that our children are creating it.

So, Minister, can you please explain to me what the government is doing to help all of these schools, to help school education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the subjects with the aim of supporting the jobs for the future?

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

I might add that Barney Glover was the Vice-Chancellor of Charles Darwin University before he moved away, sadly.

An honourable member: He was, and he was from Newcastle before that.

There you go! He gets around, spreading the love.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Everybody loves Barney!

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

That is right, we do. The question is that the proposed expenditure be agreed to. I call the minister.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to get the question from the member for Lindsay, who is the best member for Lindsay yet elected. She is doing a fantastic job and has a fantastic relationship with the University of Western Sydney, through Barney Glover, but also she has focused on jobs in Western Sydney and the transformative impact of higher education on Western Sydney and on the people of Western Sydney.

The University of Western Sydney is a great driver of economic growth in Western Sydney and the chance to give young people, particularly, but also mature-age students who want to reskill, the opportunity to change their skills in Western Sydney. I have been to the University of Western Sydney several times—I opened their university college, in fact—and they are at the cutting edge. They will be one of the very best universities and are well on the way to achieving that status. They are not very old in the process of doing so.

I congratulate the member for Lindsay for jumping right into higher education, training, STEM and the University of Western Sydney and supporting that particular institution. It will have real benefits, both economically and socially. Western Sydney is a very multicultural part of Australia and by mixing together at the University of Western Sydney, by being in the same classes, by breaking down barriers, whether they are cultural or religious barriers, the University of Western Sydney is playing its part in the inclusion, cohesion and harmony of Australian society.

The benefits in the budget for the University of Western Sydney in STEM are, quite clearly, that our higher education reforms will be a massive bonus for universities like UWS. They specialise in giving low-SES or disadvantaged students a pathway into higher education. As part of our higher-education reforms, we will expand the demand-driven system for undergraduate degrees to sub-bachelor degrees, diplomas and associate degrees that are offered by universities and TAFEs and other non-university education providers. This is in those pathways programs that many students in Western Sydney use to get the opportunity to get an undergraduate degree. Our higher-education reform is a social-justice policy. It allows students who would not otherwise have the chance to access a pathways program to access it, to use the Higher Education Contribution Scheme to access it and then go onto university.

The Kemp-Norton report, which I initiated not long after becoming the minister for education, found that students who did a pathways program had a one per cent dropout rate at university in undergraduate degrees. Students from a similar demographic background who did not have a pathways program had a 24 per cent dropout rate. Our higher-education reforms will be a great boon for the University of Western Sydney when they are finally passed by this parliament, because they will be able to expand their pathways programs. This is why Barney Glover is so enthusiastic about my reforms and why, as the new head of UA, he is publicly and strongly supporting them. They will also be able to access the Australian scholarships and HEP scholarships that the government plans to introduce.

The scholarships the university would offer, would be used, I assume, to support disadvantaged students—because the University of Sydney's vice-chancellor has said that if the government's reforms pass he will be able to increase his scholarships from 600 to 9,000. He will be able to change his demographic breakdown from six per cent of the University of Sydney's students being from a low-SES background to 20 per cent of the students at the University of Sydney being from a low-SES background. It is great news. It shocks and surprises me that Labor have so lost their way that they would be opposing what is clearly a good policy for low-SES students.

Through our HECS scholarships, Member for Lindsay, we will be able to focus those on low SES, disadvantaged and mature age students wanting to be reskilled. The University of Western Sydney will win again because they educate a higher percentage of low SES students than many other universities because of where they find themselves. I have not had the opportunity to talk about STEM in schools, because higher education is such a passion for me, but I look forward to the opportunity to do so before half past five.

Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know I am going to disappoint the minister because my question is going to be around apprenticeships and not schools and STEM. I know he will be disappointed about that. As well as school education, I am very passionate about apprenticeships, the history of apprenticeships and how they came to be, what they mean on the ground and what the community understands them to mean. In Lalor there are around 3,800 apprentices—that was last year's figure, so I hope there are still 3,800 apprentices on the ground in Lalor.

Those young people's understanding of an apprenticeship is that they sign up and are indentured into an apprenticeship where they learn a trade while working. They form an agreement with their employer that they will be trained by that employer, and subsequently get training from other organisations where that is required. For their part, they then work a 48-hour week or a 38-hour week, depending on their EBA, of course. Some work overtime and are paid for that. They see that as a long-term historical contract and that is what apprenticeships are about.

Many of them have some questions for this government. Many of them want to know why suddenly that contract is no longer the way this government perceives apprenticeships. This government perceives that to complete that apprenticeship they might like to, as we have heard many times, take out a loan that would allow them to complete an apprenticeship that is actually them working for lower wages in a contract with an employer who says, 'Because I am paying you lower wages, I will provide you with training.' But now that seems to have gone by the by.

I went with the shadow minister last year to meet with some apprentices on site at a large building site in my electorate. We met with a dozen to 15 apprentices. It was a terrific day. It was terrific to spend some time with some young people. There were some girls amongst the apprentices as well. It was really, really good. Most of them, admittedly, on this building site were electrical apprentices and plumbing apprentices—the licensed apprentices, if you like, from licensed trades. Unfortunately, there was only one apprentice carpenter on this huge job site with 3,000 employees. He had done a transfer in his third year into commercial out of domestic. He shared with us that there were actually 400 457 visa workers on the site doing the carpentry and the panelling, so he was a little disappointed to be the only carpentry apprentice.

We had a long chat to them and we talked to them about their apprenticeships. We talked to them about their training. We talked to them about the costs of their training. The biggest takeaway from that meeting was their disappointment that they were not going to get the Tools For Your Trade program. One young apprentice, who was in his first year, verging on his second, was really disappointed because he had sat down and set out a plan across his apprenticeship in terms of what tools he would purchase. He and his employer had worked out what he would need across those years and how that expenditure would roll out. He was incredibly disappointed, and pretty much outraged, at the thought that now he was going to take on a personal loan to fulfil work requirements that he thought should be delivered another way, and he was accustomed to having it delivered through that loan program.

My questions to the minister are around exactly that. Of course there was much excitement about this loan program. There was much excitement about all of these apprentices who were going to go and buy that car so they could get that apprenticeship—because we all know that workplaces want 18-year olds and they want them to be licensed. So the question which has obviously been apparent all the way through this is: how many have taken out loans under your new program, what percentage does that represent in terms of apprentices on the ground and have you had any feedback on the cuts to the Tools for Your Trade program?

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Lalor for her question. I know she is genuinely interested in vocational education and training and apprenticeships and, as a former principal of a public high school in Victoria, she has a longstanding interest in educational outcomes for students. I am sure she and I do not always agree on the best pathway to achieve those outcomes, but I do not doubt her genuine interest in achieving the best outcomes possible for students in Lalor. In terms of apprenticeships and vocational education and training, the specific answer to her question is that 25,000 trade support loans have been accessed since the program began in July 2014 and it is a vastly superior program. I do not have the percentage but I am happy to ask my department to take that question on notice. I can tell her it is 25,000 loan applications.

To compare it to the Tools for Your Trade program, it is a vastly preferable scheme because it supports apprentices in the same way as we are supporting students who go to university under the Higher Education Contribution Scheme. They receive a $20,000 loan, which they can access over four years. They can pay it back when they start earning over $53,000 a year, at the lowest rates possible, with a very low CPI interest rate. In fact, I do not think the Trade Support Loans program has a CPI interest rate. No, it is even more generous than the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, which is a CPI loan rate. The trade support loans are even more generous than that. I apologise because there is an Assistant Minister for Education and Training, Senator Simon Birmingham, who would know the details of that even better than I do. To compare it to the Tools for Your Trade, the amount of the program is $20,000 of trade support loans, whereas Tools for Your Trade was $5,500. So why would the Labor Party want to have a $5,500 grant when they could have a $20,000 loan with no interest, paid back when you start earning over $53,000? The payments for trade support loans in year one were up to $8,000. Lump sums for Tools for Your Trade were $800 in the first three months and $1,000 at 12 months, $1,000 at 24 months, $1,200 at 36 months and $1,500 on successful completion. So it was a heavily bureaucratised program and much smaller than the Trade Support Loans program.

The Trade Support Loans program will mean that the apprentice can decide what their priorities are. It could well be tools. It could be all sorts of things that the apprentice decides is what will help them to access and to stay in their apprenticeship. The member for Lalor would know that only about 50 per cent of apprentices have been completing their apprenticeships and that is unacceptable. It was unacceptable under the previous government; it would be unacceptable under any government. We want to encourage young people to complete their apprenticeship. The Trade Support Loans program gives them the encouragement and the chance to do so. It means they will be able to access a very generous scheme and my belief is that, as the years progress, the member for Lalor will be pleased as the rate of apprentices completing their apprenticeships increases because of this government's excellent policy.

Ann Sudmalis (Gilmore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I address these remarks and questions to the minister. The recent budget provided a significant pledge of not just continuing funding but an increased level of funding for universal access to early childhood education. As some of the questions I wanted to ask have already been answered, I thank the minister but also add the following. As a teacher with 10 years experience teaching high school science, where I developed language and literacy models for students of all abilities to increase their learning outcomes, I am reassured by the action taken by the coalition government in regard to education funding. It was particularly important as a high school teacher that the entry-level skills were of a particular standard. Teaching science is often complicated by the use of specialist equipment that, if used inappropriately, can be downright dangerous. If a young student does not have entry-level skills then time must be spent to develop these skills before actual science content can be effectively taught. That was the trigger for me to develop the language and literacy modules that incorporated both science content and literacy skills, with a far better learning outcome overall. These modules were developed across curriculum areas. When I was exchange teaching in upstate New York, I facilitated a number of American teachers from all curricula sectors to develop similar content-based literacy modules.

There is no difference for the children going from the home or from child care to full-time primary education. In fact, the funding for early childhood education is far more essential not only for the child's individual learning but also for the nation as a whole. Investing in our children at this critical period is benefiting the long-term educational outcomes for decades to come. The confirmation of investment in this critical aspect of education for all young children in Australia is of huge significance. The funded hours are actually, for some children, the very first formal hours of socialising with groups of others, learning the behaviours that are expected in the classroom and learning in a structured environment. It is the chance to ask to go to the toilet and to share books, pencils and other equipment. The children, who may not even have siblings, learn to work with others, to cooperate with others and to learn with others. These are essential before-school skills to develop. The early childhood facilitators are a critical link to identifying for some of these children, if they show learning or social difficulties, the need for extra help or other intervention measures.

I am proud to be part of a government that has the vision to continue this essential funding for our young children. Many teachers have approached me recently to commend these actions and communicate to me how essential early childhood learning really is. They explain that this is an opportunity to teach children how to sit in a classroom, to hold a pencil in some cases, and to develop a range of fine motor skills that for some little ones is a completely new experience. These teachers have confirmed that, should these children not receive such introductory instruction, it could push back the progress in their primary education, in some cases causing a learning delay for as much as 12 months, impacting massively on their educational journey. At the same time that a teacher may be struggling to introduce these essential learning skills, the other children who already have these experiences can be held back, often just due to the dynamics of the classroom activities.

Minister, some questions have been brought to me from the community in relation to universal access, and I would like to outline these to you. Initially, there is curiosity as to why we have only extended this funding for the 2016 and 2017 calendar years. There is also some misunderstanding as to which level of government is really responsible for this aspect of education. What are the plans of the federal government in this regard? The Abbott government, as promised, committed to a Productivity Commission review into this aspect of education. Could the minister outline how this has influenced the decision to extend the funding of universal access for early childhood education. Can the minister explain how the commitment of an additional $840 million over the next two years gives families and schools confidence to continue preparing for the education of our young children. As I understand the issue of funding, there are differences that exist across the states and territories. How does the government plan to assist the delivery of funding so that all children in Australia have an equality of access to this critical introductory phase of education?

There are three sectors in our national support of this program that need special attention: Indigenous, vulnerable, and disadvantaged children. They are likely to be the very ones who need the early learning instruction so they can make the most of their primary education. These same groups of children are also likely to need attendance assistance, and they will certainly gain from the socialisation process. While Gilmore may, at first glance, not need any special consideration, there are in fact pockets of socially disadvantaged children, and we know that some of our Indigenous children are not attending early childhood learning at all. How will the Government's Universal Access funding support all children in my electorate and ensure that no one misses out on quality early education? It would appear that they are the ones who will experience the greatest benefit from well-targeted funding in their early years.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the very short time that is available to me I am happy to answer a couple of the member for Gilmore's questions. I am sure the Minister for the Environment will not mind if I finish this particular answer, although I will not take five minutes. The first point is that I do want to acknowledge the extraordinary efforts that the member for Gilmore went to to ensure that the universal access national partnership agreement was continued by this government, having been defunded by the previous government. We are putting $843 million in the budget into the universal access national partnership. For the first time ever it has been indexed at the consumer price index. Labor did not increase it at all from year on year; we are increasing it through the CPI. It is the responsibility of the state and territory governments to provide this level of education in preschool for four-year-olds, but we do recognise that the Commonwealth can assist parents and children—four-year-olds—to access 15 hours minimum a week of preschool, under universal access to preschool, through a subsidy to the states and territories, which we are paying to the states and territories to deliver this on behalf of the Commonwealth.

I do not know if you were in the consideration in detail earlier, Member for Gilmore, but, to put it in perspective, in 2008 in Queensland there were no students enrolled in preschool for 15 hours a week at all. In 2013 that had risen to 95 per cent. In Tasmania there was six per cent in 2008, but in 2013 there was 97 per cent. So this has been a successful program, and I am pleased to be part of a government that intends to continue to fund it. We found the money and we fixed it to make sure that the students of Australia, the four-year-olds of Australia—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is right—we fixed it. And I fixed other things left to me by Labor—whether it was NCRIS or the Future Fellowships or, now, universal access. They start to rack up, the achievements—the things that I have fixed in this portfolio. No applause is necessary in the main committee! But I am very pleased to be able to say that, yes, we are funding the universal access, and in no small measure because of the lobbying and support from the members in the chamber today, and also particularly the member for Gilmore. I thank the House for allowing me the indulgence of continuing past the hour-and-a-half that I have had for consideration in detail, and that, sadly, is coming to an end. I would have looked forward to continuing, but unfortunately the standing orders do not allow me to keep going for more than an hour-and-a-half.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Environment Portfolio

Proposed expenditure: $1,965,588,000

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

May I start in an unusual place by congratulating the opposition spokesperson on his putative elevation to the presidency of the ALP. I have no doubt it will continue to consume much of its time, as it has of late, which may be why we have had only two questions on the environment in nearly two years from the entire ALP. Having said that, I want to make some brief opening points.

Firstly, on the meta picture of that which we inherited and on where we are heading with the priorities of the environment portfolio as demonstrated by this budget, we inherited a national budgetary position in a degree of significant chaos. We remember that the budget deficits bequeathed to this government were $27 billion, $54 billion, $47 billion, $43 billion, $18 billion and back up to $48 billion. Against that background of a catastrophic position, everybody has had to try to operate within the most efficient arrangements—within the most lean of possible structures—so as to ensure that we could spend money on action and would not have before us two things: a bloated bureaucracy or a large deficit. Against that background I am delighted that we have been able to achieve as significant an outcome as we have.

Of course, we inherited the problems of the Home Insulation Program, which still needed fixing. We have seen the catastrophe of the Green Loans program. We saw the aborted take-off of the citizens assembly and cash for clunkers, and of course we had to fix the impact of the carbon tax on so many businesses large and small and on 10 million households around the country. Against that background, to have an allocation of $1.965 billion in this year's budget and to have total available portfolio resources of approximately $2.4 billion over the forward estimates period is an outstanding outcome and achievement.

We look at this in four principal areas: clean air, clean land, clean water and heritage. Within the clean air space, obviously the most significant area is emissions reduction, and the first Emissions Reduction Fund auction has been held. It was a stunning success: 47 million tonnes of abatement contracted, 144 projects and a total allocation of $660 million in forward contracts. The areas in which abatement is to be found include waste landfill gas, reforestation, avoided deforestation, soil carbon, savanna burning, transport and methane from piggeries. That is an outstanding first round. In that first round alone we achieved four times the abatement of the entire carbon tax experiment at approximately one per cent of the cost per tonne of abatement--$13.95 per tonne as opposed to just over $1,300 per tonne of abatement, the real and genuine metric we should look at if we are trying to reduce emissions.

We are also achieving a national clean air agreement. We have in-principle agreement from all of the states and territories. Our objective has been 1 July 2016. I am hopeful that we can do it some considerable time before that. In terms of clean land, the Green Army has a $700 million allocation over the forward estimates in this budget. That is a considerable increase over last year's four years going forward. We set out to achieve 250 Green Army starts this financial year, and I can inform the House that we have in fact achieved 300 and those projects are going tremendously. The Threatened Species Commissioner will soon be joining with me in leading a national threatened species summit, and our focus is on turning around 20 significant species.

From there we move on to what we have done with the one-stop shop: $1 trillion cleared and agreements with all states and territories. In terms of clean water, we have had a tremendous outcome in protecting the reef. I hope to have an opportunity to speak on that more, but the reef outcome is tremendous. The Murray-Darling Basin agreement is making great progress. In heritage, of course, we are making huge strides with the acquisition of an Antarctic icebreaker.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for attending this evening and for his rather backhanded compliment on my election; thank you very much! I am wondering whether in the course of this next half hour—I understand we may have divisions at six—he might care to explain what he was doing to coral that the member for Kennedy was talking about earlier in question time. I have heard many things happen to coral, but deflowering coral was not one of them until this question time!

I want to talk a bit about the background to the Emissions Reduction Fund and the safeguards mechanism and welcome the opportunity to ask the minister a couple of background questions which go very much to the heart of the $2.55 billion of expenditure in the budget around the ERF and the associated policy mechanisms—the safeguard mechanism in particular. I know the minister has been across this policy area for a considerable period of time and so knows that breaking down what is very contested but perhaps the most complex public policy we have in front of us into basic elements is very difficult; but, if there is one central element around the world, it is the agreement that the nations of the world reached at Cancun to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius—an agreement I know the minister is very familiar with and talks about quite a lot in his public speeches. However, I want to talk particularly about the implications of the energy white paper and just get some clarification from the minister about the degree to which this remains a bipartisan position, because when Cancun was signed the minister then reiterated the coalition's support for that national commitment and has since on a number of occasions.

As the minister would know, in the energy white paper and also in an issues paper the PM&C published earlier—or I might be wrong about that, so I will focus on the energy white paper—the department writing that paper focused on what is broadly known as the four-degree scenario, which the International Energy Agency has published. It is called the new policies scenario, but it is broadly understood as the four-degree scenario, a scenario that contemplates a level of development and consumption of fossil fuels that would on scientific advice lead to four degree of warming. I think the minister understands that there is a bit of consternation in the broader community about how you square the energy white paper, which talks about the IEA's the four-degree scenario in pretty glowing terms, particularly, quoting page 44 from the paper:

Australia has the potential to reap substantial economic gains in meeting future global energy demand, which is expected to increase by over one-third by 2040 …

Given that is the trajectory the IEA assumes to be consistent with the four-degree scenario, is the government predicating an energy policy on the four-degree scenario while in the minister's portfolio continuing to express a commitment to the two-degree commitment that was expressed in Cancun? It is a genuine question that I think a lot of stakeholders in the sector are asking. I think we are going to have limited questions, and while I have got the floor I am also keen to get some clarification from the minister about how he proposes to deal with the different reports that the Climate Change Authority will be publishing as part of the deal that was done between the government and the Palmer United Party to pass the direct action—or the ERF legislation. Without going into political hyperbole about the nature of that deal, there is a targets-and-progress review that is out currently for public consultation. It will be finalised over the course of this month, I assume, as part of a special review requested by the minister.

The CCA Act—the Climate Change Authority Act 2011—has particular provisions in it for government responses to reports from the CCA. I would be interested to hear the government's plans for responding to this report that was commissioned by the minister and also what might be planned for a response to the CCA's report on emissions trading schemes that was also part of the deal with Clive Palmer and that I think is due by 30 November later this year.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me start by making a very clear statement. The government's policy is to commit to, work towards and be part of a global push to achieve the two-degree limit on global warming. The Cancun agreement sets that out. Australia was part of it, and we in opposition supported it and as a government we support it. That is both our policy and our objective. My understanding is that at this stage the French as they move towards the Paris post-2020 pledging conference are building a stack of bids. The extent to which they will achieve the two degrees is yet to be calculated. I am not aware of those outcomes, although, having met with the French minister in early April, her statement to me was that they were making significant progress. It is public that they do not believe they will get all the way this time but that they will get a significant proportion of the way, and that will set the world up for another pledging conference at some stage to be determined. I really welcome that.

The shadow minister asks about how this fits with the white paper, and the answer is 'very comfortably'. The energy white paper sets out, exactly as the shadow minister said, at page 44, amongst other pages, a four-degree scenario, but it was just that—a scenario. Our policy is to achieve a two-degree outcome for the world. What this was doing is what any good planner should do—hoping for the best but preparing for the worst. It was taking the realistic worst case. I am delighted and pleased to say that since that time what we have seen through a series of national pledges from other countries is significant progress towards the two-degree target. The energy white paper represented a scenario planning. It set out what it thought were the measures necessary to deal with what would be a worst-case scenario. Since then that worst-case scenario has, in our judgement, fallen by the wayside but, more than that, our policy is clear and categorical. I think that is extremely important to say.

I then want to move forward to the Climate Change Authority. I was in particular asked about the Climate Change Authority and the answer is fairly simple. We will respond to each of the three reports in due course. We are going through a process now of setting our post-2020 targets. That really involves contemplating and considering what was in the CCA report. We have received over 300 submissions—it could be higher now—to the task force being run as a whole-of-government coordinating task force by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. I have engaged in numerous roundtable or direct face-to-face meetings, as has Julie Bishop. We are going through a very detailed public consultation process.

We have always said that we will set our target in the middle of this year. Within the next month you can expect that Australia will lay down its target. Our goal—and I am perfectly public about this—is to have it in place before the major economies forum, which I believe is due on 20 July. That is our time frame. Against that, I am very confident that we will contribute in a constructive and ambitious manner that does not only the right thing by the planet but also the right thing for Australia's domestic future.

Having said that—and this is one of things where the white paper and energy comes in—it is extremely important to know that we have a series of elements that can help us achieve a very successful target. Remember this: we have already beaten our first round of Kyoto targets for 2008 to 2012. We will achieve and beat our second round of Kyoto targets from 2012 to 2020, and we will set a very constructive post-2020 target. We have the Emissions Reduction Fund; we have the safeguards mechanism. There is huge potential for vehicle emission standards in Australia, sadly following on from the loss of our domestic vehicle manufacturing industry. There is very significant potential for CO2 equivalent productions from the next round of the Montreal protocol and, in particular, the energy efficiency plan under the white paper.

Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, my questions will be from someone who lives and works alongside the Great Barrier Reef. I have a series of questions that I would like to put to you. Can you walk me through your response to the World Heritage Committee's listing, that the reef is not in danger? Obviously, as someone who lives alongside the Great Barrier Reef, we were very proud of the result that we got out of that. I would like your official response to that for my people at home. I am very proud to have participated in the reef 2050 plan, or the long-term sustainability plan. Could you give me some perspective on how that was received by the World Heritage Committee and how we are going to progress those things?

I am also after some perspective from you, Minister, in relation to the Great Barrier Reef and particularly as a working reef. I understand the nature of the challenges that we have as a working reef from farming communities and with ports and all of that sort of thing. Could you tell the people in my electorate of Herbert and the people of Townsville which government banned the disposal of capital dredge spoil on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park? From my recollection—correct me if I am wrong—in 2011 the World Heritage Committee first raised alarm bells about capital dredge spoil. Could you walk me through the actual extent of what we were facing in 2011? I know that the Campbell Newman state LNP government did rationalise a lot of the work that was going to be done that was proposed under the Anna Bligh Labor government. Could you walk me through those things?

Could you give me your perspective on how real the actual scale of what we were facing was and—I know that you were the shadow minister at that time—how seriously you considered that, and how much has changed between then and 7 September 2013? I do also note that the total amount committed to the Reef Trust is $140 million; I am very proud of that as well. What kinds of projects will this money be spent on? What is the total amount that Australia is investing to protect the reef into the future and how will my city benefit from it?

On a final personal note, Townsville city councillor Pat Ernst has been onto me, and I have spoken to you briefly about this: we live alongside the Great Barrier Reef and we are a reasonably large city of around 190-200,000 people. Our water management, sewage treatment and all of that sort of thing, when it goes out to the ocean, requires substantially extra capital expenditure because we live alongside the Great Barrier Reef. We benefit from the reef greatly, but Australia benefits from the reef greatly. Would you be able to give me some pointers on that; and can I ask you to commit that next time you are in Townsville—and I am not bunging it on you right now—you will meet with my council, in particular Councillor Pat Ernst and my mayor, Jenny Hill, to discuss the issues that we see into the future in this field, and how the federal government may be able to assist?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much to the member for Herbert, who has been one of the absolute champions of the Great Barrier Reef. Let me begin in the easiest way: yes, I will commit to meet with the council, yourself and the councillor, to discuss options for improving water quality. Believe it or not just an hour ago I met with one of the great companies of Australia, GE Australia—which is a subsidiary of one of the great companies of the world. They indicated to me that they would be partnering with local councils up and down the Great Barrier Reef on sewage treatment proposals under the National Stronger Regions Fund. The simple answer is that the Stronger Regions Fund should, hopefully, be a possible source of funding; it is to be administered by a different department so I would not pre-empt that. I would encourage not just the City of Townsville but other municipal authorities up and down the reef to consider the Stronger Regions Fund. I know that one great water company is involved, GE; other great water companies may well seek to be involved in technology provision. There are real opportunities.

Stepping back to the question about UNESCO; I am absolutely delighted that the draft decision from the World Heritage Centre—which informs the World Heritage Committee, both of which sit under UNESCO—is that the Great Barrier Reef should not be listed as endangered, and there was also considerable praise for Australia. I think we should be fair and recognise that much of the work began under previous governments and has continued over successive governments. Having said that, of course, we inherited three previous decisions which had the reef on a track to endangered status, but it came off under our watch—pending, of course, the final vote. I have previously said to UNESCO that the process has helped people make reforms in Australia. I think that is the plain truth; it has helped us achieve things. Of course, the reef does have its challenges—it would be wrong of anyone not to say that—but it also has its enormous successes. If the world were establishing a world heritage list from scratch today, in my view the first natural property they should and would inscribe would be the Great Barrier Reef as it is today. It is majestic, it is extraordinary, it is 2,300 kilometres long and it is the greatest coral system in the world, by an order of magnitude.

We have done three big things. Firstly, we inherited a massive list of potential dredge proposals involving disposal in the marine park. There were five major proposals amounting to approximately 60 million cubic metres of disposal in the marine park. All those five are gone in terms of disposal in the marine park—all gone. We then put in, as part of the radical change in dredge disposal practices, a once-in-a-century ban on dredge disposal in the marine park. In my view, that practice will never come back. History will look back on this as one of the signature environmental achievements of the Abbott government. The UN has certainly said that this was fundamental to their decision.

Secondly, we then went on to develop the Reef 2050 plan. I thank the member and other members, such as the member for Leichhardt, for their involvement. That Reef 2050 plan sets out—and this was developed with successive Queensland governments—a plan for sediment reduction, nitrogen reduction and pesticide reduction. Those are real things that change the quality of seagrass and of the marine environment where fish breed, and they improve water quality for coral health.

Then we backed that up. There is a $2 billion plan over 10 years, but that has been added to with $100 million from Queensland and $140 million from the Commonwealth through the Reef Trust. That will go to sediment reduction, nitrogen reduction and pesticide reduction. For example, we recently opened a $3 million program in the Burdekin calling for tenders for nitrogen reduction on a lowest-cost-per-unit basis. It will also go to the crown-of-thorns starfish and to monitoring. I recognise that more monitoring is needed. I thank the member for Herbert. He is a passionate advocate for Townsville. He is just as passionate in his support for the reef.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I might ask a couple of questions about a matter that the minister talked about particularly: the 2020 targets—or the 2020 target, potentially—and some of the other targets. As the minister will recall, there was an unconditional target lodged, on behalf of Australia, to reduce carbon pollution by five per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 and then two conditional targets. All three were endorsed by the coalition when in opposition. I want to ask first of all whether those conditional targets remain government policy. I do not think anyone thinks that the second conditional target is anywhere near being satisfied yet. But I would like to ask the minister whether the government has a position on whether or not the second target—so, the conditional target of 15 per cent, which was the subject of a Climate Change Authority report last year, which I do not think the government ever formally responded to—remains government policy. So, first of all, do those two conditional targets remain government policy? Secondly, if they do, has the government reached a view about whether the conditions for the 15 per cent reduction—the first conditional target—have been satisfied?

I am also particularly interested to follow up the member for Herbert's discussion about the reef. I am also interested to know whether the minister is monitoring the increase in land clearing in the Far North Queensland area, and, particularly, monitoring and modelling the impact that that increase in land clearing in Queensland is going to have on Australia's carbon footprint. As I am sure the minister appreciates, the only real reason why Australia was able to achieve its first Kyoto commitment was the extraordinary reduction in carbon emissions from that part of the country through the land clearing reforms put in place by the Queensland state government—the subject of significant arm wrestling over a long period of time, but a very substantial reduction in carbon emissions from that sector, which appear to be in the process of being reversed as a result of the changes to land clearing put in place by the Newman government. Given the minister's overall responsibility for the national carbon footprint, I would appreciate some information as to whether or not his department is monitoring the impact that that will have on Australia's overall carbon emissions.

I also want to follow up some questioning that happened at the Senate estimates process recently about the Emissions Reduction Fund first auction, which the minister again described as a 'stunning success'—which I will leave aside for the sake of brevity. As the minister knows, there was $660 million committed to 107 contracts. The Clean Energy Regulator indicated to the Senate committee that 104 of those 107 contracts were either seven- or 10-year contracts, so they run past 2020 obviously. Apparently the CER had done some modelling, from my recollection of the transcript—or the department had, at least—about how much of the abatement would be expected to be achieved before 2020 and how much would be achieved in the 2020s, given that 104 of the 107 contracts would still be running through the 2020s. Perhaps the minister can give some indication later—if at all—given that we have just been called to a division—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 18:01 to 18:14

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will very briefly note that, in relation to the shadow minister's questions, we are monitoring land clearing in Queensland—that is factored into the national accounts. Secondly, our target is very clear. We will achieve and beat the minus five per cent. But that represents minus 13 per cent. So we will make a final statement, but we will achieve minus 13 per cent on 2005 figures by 2020 and we will beat it. As we have more detail as to the progress after subsequent Emissions Reduction Fund auctions we will provide an update. But our commitment is clear and absolute: to beat the target—that is minus 13 on 2005—and we will provide detail on the final target once the later Emissions Reduction Fund auctions have occurred. I will now allow the member to ask his questions.

Eric Hutchinson (Lyons, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions of the minister in regard to the portfolio areas, but rather than focusing on the Great Barrier Reef I want to focus on the Antarctic and the importance of that research. It is now not only a major economic driver in Tasmania, in Hobart and the southern region, but there is also Hobart's vision of becoming a gateway to the Antarctic.

The University of Tasmania is the state's major employer. The economic drivers that are stimulated because of the investment that is made in the Antarctic by the federal government should not be overlooked, because they have benefits to local businesses in my electorate. For example, I know that Kerry Vincent, the owner of Rural Solutions at Sorell, has contracts with the Antarctic Division, and Dale Elphinstone manufactures equipment that is used to transport people in the Antarctic. So it benefits not only the research task but also businesses within my electorate.

Indeed, one of the key strengths of the University of Tasmania is its research. There is the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, and the foreign students who come to Hobart as a result of the excellence there. Then there are the global partnerships that are established. I really believe it is linked to the brand Tasmania. It provides students from around the state with absolutely high-quality aspirations. It is strategically important to Tasmania and Tasmania's economic prosperity. I note the funding provided by the federal government for Antarctic projects has reinvigorated the economy in Tasmania and delivered jobs and opportunities, as I have mentioned; there are some examples I have given. There was $24 million over three years for the Antarctic Gateway Partnership— (Time expired)

Expenditure agreed to.

Agriculture Portfolio

Proposed expenditure: $463,540,000

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Agriculture is once more painting its position as a major pillar of our economy. When we started with the agriculture department, during the change of government, we had a budget that was less than half of what had been handed over at the conclusion of the Howard government. In that process we have tried to make it our aim to get the best return back through the farm gate, to make sure that we focus on those families on the land and do what is within our power to expedite a change in circumstance, so that they can be part of the refurbishment of the rural asset and so that we can bring real dignity back into their lives.

That process—and I am not saying that we are completely responsible for it, but we have been a vital part of it—now sees cattle at record prices. We have had sheep at record prices. Wool is now attaining the highest prices it has had since the conclusion of the wool floor price—the wool southern scheme—and it continues to go up, and we will soon have record prices there. Even in the wine industry—from my discussions with our agriculture advisory committee—we are starting to get sustained contractual obligations coming into play, assisting us in the wine industry, and we were starting from a very low base. If you go to other sections of our industry, such as the caprine section—the goat section—there are record prices. Cotton is at a very strong price. Our forward grain prices are strong. For our citrus, we are getting a good turnaround. And we have brought about things such as the opening of the tropical fruit market into the United States of America, with the first exports of mangoes and lychees to those markets. The agriculture portfolio is many and varied, and it requires a dedication and intensity. I like to always thank the work of my department and my colleagues for what they do.

We have also started on a process of proper country of origin labelling. This has been in its first pass of cabinet and we have finished the consultation phase with industry, and we are currently in the midst of a consultation phase with the public. I think we have around 8,000 submissions there at the moment. This will give us a descriptor which is diagrammatic, reflective of proportionality, simple to understand and compulsory.

We have also engaged for the first time in a formidable campaign to deal with issues such as wild dogs and pest control. We are now getting submissions back from the western districts about proper fencing programs, supported by the government, so that we can create the mechanism for the exclusion of wild dogs so we can repopulate those areas with sheep. That goes hand in glove with the revitalisation of a lot of the towns to bring back the wool industry. The wool industry comes with shearers and wages, and it is of vital importance to some of the western districts.

On a biosecurity level, our most recent fight was probably with Panama disease. We enacted the flying squad, which was part of our election commitment. The flying squad has been part and parcel for why we now have only one confirmed area of Panama disease. We had a false negative at Mareeba and we have one section in Tully. It is a very important industry to that area—approximately $600 million—and it is something we need to protect.

We have brought about accelerated depreciation of 100 per cent for fencing and 100 per cent on water reticulation so we get refurbishment of the irrigation asset on the property. We also brought the depreciation on fodder storage in silos and haysheds from over 30 years down to three years. We are trying to make sure that the better returns the farmers are now receiving are invested back into the farming asset, so they can work hand in glove in increasing the volume of our agricultural exports because our nation needs it. This is the sort of money we need to bring in to mitigate some of the effects of the downturn in coal and iron ore.

We have also started on the investigation and relocation of sections of the department. No doubt we will have some questions about that. I think this is important. We have to have a vision for the future. We have to have a vision for centres of excellence. We have to have the same sort of vision in agriculture that brought about Canberra. That involved a visionary process. I look forward to questions.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for his contribution and his willingness to work with me when it has been necessary over the last couple of years to settle some very important issues in the agricultural sector. We had a little stoush the parliament today, so we are enjoying ourselves immensely. He knows my greatest disappointment in his government's performance is that two years into the government we still lack a strategic plan for the sector. We were promised an agriculture white paper by Christmas of last year. We still do not have one and, unfortunately, the minister has been unprepared to tell me when we might see one. Until we see it, I will not be in a position to assess whether he has delivered a strategic direction for the sector or delivered nothing more than a wish list of spending promises. We will wait and see. Again, I ask him on behalf of all the commodities sectors when they might hope to see that document. He told the House today that the northern Australia white paper was 'imminent'—a word is quite fond of. But he is not prepared to say the same thing of the agriculture white paper and I therefore fear that it might be some way off in the distance still. He might be able to give us some guidance in that respect.

The minister did tonight what he is fond of doing—that is, to take credit for prices in a range of commodities. He likes to take credit; he never talks about commodity prices which have fallen. I do not quite understand nor do people out there in the broader community why it is he that it takes credit for rises but no responsibility for falls. But tonight I challenge him again. He gave us a number of examples about commodity price rises. I challenge him again to tell us what indeed he has done which has caused these commodity price rises. I will be very interested in the answers, if he is willing to do so.

Tonight I am not going to take too much of the chamber's time. I want to focus on just a few areas. I want to delve into drought assistance just a little. I want to talk about the new FIRB rules. And I might just ask a couple of questions, if I get time, about some of the appropriations for legal advice and assistance for the department.

Drought in Australia is very bad. We know that many parts of Queensland and New South Wales have been without rain now for three years. Now, of course, the bureau is predicting an El Nino, so things are not likely to get better. My perspective is that the government's drought policy has been a failure. Its focus has been on concessional loans that have not suited the needs of the farming community, and on that basis the take-up rate has been poor. The minister will get up and say that, when he came, only so many concessional loans had been taken up, but he deliberately forgets that the concessional loans put in place by the former Labor government were not about drought, because we were not all that far into a drought. Drought had not become an urgent consideration. They were about farm debt, not drought. Certainly, if someone was in debt because of drought, that was a consideration and would make them eligible for the loans, but it is mischievous to compare the take-up rate on the concessional loans with the later introduced drought loans program.

Where I get a little bit curious is on the numbers. We were told in estimates at the end of April that $280 million had been allocated for drought concessional loans and $114.9 million had been spent. If my maths is correct, that leaves about $175 million not allocated. And then, on the original farm finance loan, which was $420 million, $167 million had been spent, leaving $253 million. So there is a total of about $428 million not allocated, and yet the money the minister announced in the budget equated to $250 million. So I simply ask the minister: what has the take-up on the most recently announced loans been, and where is the difference between the $400-odd million not allocated under the two original programs and the $250 million—only—allocated under the new program?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a range of things that the member for Hunter, the shadow minister for agriculture, has brought up, and I will try to go through them and be as succinct as I can. The first question he asked is about the white paper. The white paper is complete. It has been through the ERC process. It has been through the cabinet process. We are now merely finding the day for its announcement, so everything that we need to do there is complete.

I can understand the frustration that may be held by the shadow minister and possibly held by others, but it was very important, extremely important, on behalf of agriculture that we stayed at the table and bargained as hard as we possibly could for the best possible deal for regional Australia. I believe that we have done that. We have done that because the alternative was to come up with a motherhood statement, and the last thing I wanted was a glossy brochure that talked about aspirations but never actually delivered any money on how to do them.

Within the food plan there were many ideas. The Labor Party food plan had many ideas, but the capacity to finance them was not apparent. That was the problem we had with it.

What we have now—and you have already seen sections of it—are three issues: on fencing, on water write-off in the first year and on fodder. They are from the white paper. They were announced in the budget. Also on the back of that is that any person with a turnover of less than $2 million gets plant that is pertinent to their business to the value of $20,000 immediately written off. This has been overwhelmingly supported in the community.

It just stands to reason that you are not going to announce the Northern Australia white paper, a dams task force and the agriculture white paper in the shadow of a budget or all together at the one time. We will make sure that there is the proper absorption of the material that we need. Without giving too much away: within a month we will have the agriculture white paper out—and probably sooner. I am trying to be as honest as I can in answer to your question. I note your weekly media releases in this space, every Friday. It is good. I take that as advertising, and I do want the focus to be on this agricultural white paper because there has been so much work done. It is such a substantive document, with over 1,000 responses from the community, that we want to make sure that it gets the very best absorption by the public, and—regardless of whether I am the minister or someone else is, or we are the government or someone else is—that we have a formidable document that can be carried forward and utilised into the future, because in agriculture we do not work for three-year terms. This is something that the shadow minister and I are at one on. It is a long-term plan. It has to be a long-term plan. It is very similar to Defence; you cannot have wild oscillations in policy; otherwise, you have chaos on the land and you will have the loss of a sense of stability, and that is not respecting the people we represent.

The other question he asked was: what role does the government have in the turnaround in commodity prices? That is a very fair question, and now I propose to answer some of it. We have opened up six new live animal destinations: Egypt; Bahrain; Lebanon; Iran, after four decades—four decades—of it being closed; Thailand and Cambodia. We started this work immediately. The first place I went to as a minister on receiving the job was the Middle East. Even as recently as last night I was back talking to the ambassador and representatives from Kuwait, from Egypt, from Lebanon, from Jordan and from Iraq, trying to make sure that we further expand that trade. That is the role you have to do. It is a vitally important market to us. Today I have been speaking with Minister Gao, who is out here, and the ambassador about furthering the protocols to try and get the export of kangaroo meat. It is vitally important that we do this and export this product into this market. These are the issues that three free trade agreements have assisted with. I commend my department for expediting so many of the protocols so we can move products—whether it is tropical fruits, cattle or sheep. These are the things that we do that bring the return back through the farm gate.

Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister for his words. He would be well aware that the electorate of Grey, covering 92 per cent of South Australia, has many spokes to its wheels, including steelmaking, lead-zinc smelting and a large mining sector. We still—at least for a little while—generate quite a large proportion of the South Australian electricity grid through a coal-fired power station at Port Augusta, and a lot of renewable energy as well. But for all that, agriculture and fishing are still the backbone of our economy. I am very pleased with the energy that is in agricultural markets at the moment, and the minister covered off on some of those when he spoke. Some of those, and most especially the live exports trade, have been driven by good government and good policy, and I congratulate the minister and the government for those achievements.

I particularly appreciate the extra money the government is injecting into agricultural research. In my electorate specifically, of the $100 million that the government has put on the table for extra research in agriculture and the fisheries industry, there has been a grant going to the kingfish industry in Arno Bay. This is in the throes of re-establishing itself after running through a period of very tough times when they had very high mortalities and were struggling to understand what was wrong. They seem to have it all sorted out now, and the industry is starting to grow significant tonnages into good export markets. Of course that ties into some of the things that we saw today—the signing of the free trade agreement with China.

I have a very long background in agricultural research as a farmer representative on various bodies, and I know and appreciate just how important agricultural research is to the sector. In fact, I have said for many years that Australian farmers will grow more grain and more fibre every year—unfortunately with fewer people, but that is the reality of it—and we will grow it better. We will do that because we have the right tools provided to us, because we have always been at or very near the cutting edge of agriculture throughout the world, and it is so important that we keep there. So my first question to the minister is to ask him to tell me what he expects the extra research money for agricultural pursuits to do and just how different organisations can target that money and get the best outcome.

The minister has also expressed some views about shifting the last four, I think, registered research organisations out of Canberra into the regions. I have particular interest, of course, in two of those, one being the GRDC, the Grains Research and Development Corporation, and the other one being the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation, because of course we have that rather large industry at Port Lincoln. I am just wondering exactly how the minister sees this unfolding, how these organisations are likely to adapt to the minister's request, and whether he sees any role for South Australia in perhaps hosting any of these bodies.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the question, and I also commend the work done by the honourable member, especially in the backbench committee of the coalition, a very active and diligent committee that has within its continual purview the issues of agricultural Australia. It is of great assistance in the task that we have before us.

Research and development, of course, is a vital cog. We have to be at the forefront. We have a quality product, and unless it is seen by the world as a quality product it will not get a premium price. As an analogy, I always ask people who they think the biggest beef exporter in the world is. They generally get it right: they will say it is predominantly Brazil. But it is not exclusively Brazil; at times India is the biggest exporter of beef in the world. They do not get our prices, because of the problems they have with biosecurity and disease. This is why we have to be at the forefront of this.

That is why I have been happy to be part of some of our matched funding of GRDC in the last 12 months and to announce, I think, $12 million for further PhD students at Toowoomba in research into grains. I think it was about a year ago—it might have been close to a year ago—that we were at Curtin University to announce in excess of $100 million in further research and development into the grains industry there. Recently, the coalition has had a $100 million research and development process afoot, and it was with great pleasure that we announced the first tranche of that, which was $26.7 million for a range of research and development projects, such as Smarter Irrigation for Profit, which involves the Cotton Research and Development Corporation. That received $4 million.

I will just dwell on that one for a little, because Australia has the highest yields of cotton in the world, and a large section of that is because of the co-location of the RDC for cotton, which is in Narrabri in the seat of Parkes—and it is great to see the member for Parkes here—and the people who actually grow the cotton. This means that, with people such as Dr Guy Roth, we are at the forefront of this industry. There is that immediacy in getting the technology, delivering it back to the paddock, finding the problems from the paddock and dealing with them at the RDC.

This is one of the reasons that the coalition has always had a strong belief in decentralisation and also in the creation of centres for excellence, one of which is our Cotton RDC. I do not believe that this nation is only capable of doing it once; I think we can do it in numerous settings in other places. We are working with the GRDC and FRDC, and we are in continual negotiations because we want to make this a transition in which people partner with us. I believe at the start there were some hesitancies but now people are signed on and they are all wanting to be part of it.

What we have, as a classic example, with the GRDC are discussions about the parts of GRDC that can go to sections of our nation, obviously including places such as South Australia, Western Australia and other areas. I believe that this is what we have to do. When I go to Knoxville and the University of Tennessee, I see people who are expert in the cotton fields. When I go to the University of Georgia, I see people who are expert in bovine genetics. I do not have an expectation that everything I need to see is in Washington and I do not know why that should be the case here. We should be trying to create centres of excellence because we can affect the culture of a regional centre more than we can affect the culture of a large city like Canberra. It was possible in the past but now it is so big, so diverse and so dynamic. I do not think you will ever affect the culture of Sydney with an agricultural RDC.

All of these things get better bang for their buck if they are in areas where it is more pertinent to the industry they are dealing with—as was the case with the department of mines at a state level when it was moved by a state Labor government to Maitland, as it should have been. That is where the mining is. That is why the department of fisheries in New South Wales was moved to Port Stephens. It makes sense; that is where the fish are. The department of agriculture is in Orange and I do not think anyone thinks that was some sort of obnoxious decision. (Time expired)

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my initial contribution I asked the minister some specific questions about drought funding and he made no attempt to answer them. Maybe he is waiting for the mathematicians up the back to help him out there. I understand that and appreciate it, so I trust those answers will still be forthcoming. I am going to help the minister answer the question by the member for Grey. Yes, the mining department regulates the mining industry and it might make some sense for it to be nearby, and fisheries regulate the fisheries industry and it might make some sense. But research and development corporations make decisions about where research dollars should be spent and the priorities. They do not do research. It makes no sense for them necessarily to be close to where the crop is growing. If it did make sense, the minister would not be sending the Grains RDC to Wagga Wagga; he would probably be sending it to Western Australia. But, of course, grains are grains and even if there were some merit in having it close to one grain, it does not necessarily provide merit because it does not put it close to the grains industry in Western Australia. Decentralisation is a wonderful thing and, unfortunately, it is a great challenge. It fails more often than it works. It works when someone has a strategic plan with long lead times and proper consultation has been undertaken.

The minister has just issued an edict that these RDCs move. There is great resistance. I was intrigued to hear the minister say that people are now on board. What that means is that there is partial backdown here. The minister has now realised this is not going to work. It is going to cost $40 million—money that could have gone to research—staff are going to leave en masse and now he is having a hybrid system where he is keeping probably the majority of people in Canberra. He will put two people in Wagga and say, 'I did it. I achieved my decentralisation plan.' We will see how wrong I am, Minister.

I welcome the backdown because this is just a silly idea—$40 million that should be going into research being wasted on redundancies and relocations. Of course, all the expertise we have in these RDCs will go out the window because people, for obvious reasons—they have got a husband or father in Canberra or kids in the local school—do not want to go to Wagga or Hobart or wherever the minister might have in mind. The bad news for the member for Grey is that I have never heard the minister make any reference to South Australia. I do not think there is any plan to send anyone to South Australia. There is another important point. The minister really does not seem to understand that, or he really is being mischievous and wants to mislead people. Remember that the minister has been cutting money out of the CRCs in CSIRO and the Rural Industries RDC. He promised more money, but he is cutting money. He has got his $100 million, but he has taken that much at least out of the bucket elsewhere.

But research and development money is precious, and we have got to have a competitive environment. So when the RDCs put money out on offer to researchers, there is competition. So this university might be interested and this university over here might also be interested, and there is a competitive tension.

The minister's insistence is that the RDC go an extra university, a regional university, suggesting to all and sundry that that university is going to be doing all the research—this great synergy between the RDC and the university. But where is the competitive tension?

You will have too much collaboration: you will have a nudge and a wink. The university will become the researcher of choice for the minister's new model of RDC. This is not a good thing for our RDC dollars—not by any stretch of the imagination. So I am glad you are climbing down, Minister. I know that will be greatly welcomed by those who work and manage our RDCs. Don't smile and suggest that people in our RDCs think this is a good idea. They are in rebellion, and you know they are in rebellion. In fact, they know you cannot make them move. You have got a problem now and you are backing down, and I welcome the back down.

Foreign Investment Review Board—changes; no, I will not go there, because I will not have time. I will save that for my next contribution. I simply again ask the minister to give me those drought answers I was looking for.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With regard to the drought, we have currently had 5,096 claims for farm household allowance being granted. The Australian government offers three concessional loan schemes. So far 551 farm businesses—I think this was to the end of May—have approved loans totalling over $284 million. The current interest rate for drought recovery loans is at 3.21 per cent; current recovery loans at 3.84 per cent; and concessional loans at 4.34 per cent.

It is surprising when the actual cost of the relocations—that is, a maximum worst-case scenario—

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

You asked a range of questions, Shadow Minister—member for Hunter. If you ask a range of questions, you are going to get a range of answers. What that means is if there was a worst-case scenario, including such things as if you could not re-lease or sublease the building, which in the current market is rubbish—of course you are going to be able to re-lease the building. The issue is: you talk about 30—

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

I seem to remember a place—was it Australia House or something that the Labor Party had—that had some of the dearest rents in the world owned formerly by the Labor Party? This is one of the reasons that if we want to spend money on research and development, then over the longer term we have to make sure we are in a more affordable market.

What I can say is, recently, as part of the $330 million drought package, we made quarter of a billion dollars accessible for a further 12 months. The longest term within that category is up to 10 years—10 years at 3.21 per cent. It is unsurprising that, in areas where the drought is most prevalent, you get the biggest draw down on the facilities; and, in areas where the drought is prevalent, of course you do not. But in New South Wales and Queensland, we are, I believe, pretty well close to the tranches as they are made available have been fully drawn.

What you also asked about within this research and development criteria and the incredible sin of a maximum cost—even at Senate estimates, Shadow Minister, they noted a maximum cost. When the Howard-Vale government was kicked out, lost the election, the budget in the Department of Agriculture was $3.486 billion a year. When we came back into government, it was about $1.5 billion. It is amazing that you more than halved the size of the agricultural budget; decreased it by more than $1,500 million, and then you have the gall to talk to us about the cost of trying to do a better job with $30 million or between $30 million and $40 million at a maximum cost.

If Labor, the alternative government, has a distinct policy they want to put money alongside, then that that is a statement for Mr Shorten to make in his budget reply speech—and we did not hear boo. In fact, we have no guarantee whatsoever that the Labor Party will stand by any of the budget allocations we have made available so far and which will be further apparent in the white paper. I look forward to substantive statements from you, as the alternative agriculture minister, clearly spelling out your willingness to stand behind the agricultural industry—and that must be something we can hold an alternative government to. What we have at the moment is remonstrations, ridicule and derision—but no policy. I think it is about time we started getting some policy. I think the people of Australia deserve attention to detail to show that you are taking this portfolio seriously.

Going back to further research and development issues, the $26.7 million tranche— (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a couple of questions for the agriculture minister. I have been in this place for going on eight years. I would like to compliment the minister. On budget night, the Treasurer mentioned agriculture quite a few times. I acknowledge the minister's influence in those decisions to put agriculture once again at the centre of the government's priorities. In the previous six budgets that I sat through, I did not hear agriculture mentioned once. The shadow minister is not present in the chamber, but I admit that he is showing some interest in agriculture. It is rather unusual for someone in the Labor Party to show that interest. His predecessors were somewhat embarrassed to have the agriculture portfolio and they did everything they could do to get out of it. When Mr Burke was the minister, he decided we would no longer have 'droughts'—we would have 'periods of dryness'—and we would no longer need a policy for drought. So I commend the minister, who has come into the portfolio in the midst of the worst drought in history, for the work that he has done.

In the north-west part of my electorate of Parkes, the drought is biting very hard. We are going into our fourth year of drought. Just today and yesterday, as we had a magnificent rainfall event go through northern New South Wales and Queensland, the bizarre happened again: it skipped over the Walgett Shire. While Bourke, to the west, got 50 millimetres and Moree, to the east, got 50 millimetres, Walgett get itself got 15 millimetres—and with no subsoil moisture, there is no real relief. I acknowledge the work that you have done, Minister, and the visits that you and the Prime Minister and the Treasurer have made to my electorate to speak to those farmers.

One of the issues in those areas is that the ability of farmers to diversify has been somewhat limited. With over 30 years of farming experience myself, I happen to know that one of the quickest ways to generate a dollar is through the running of sheep. Cattle are running very hot at the moment—over $3 a kilo for weaners—but, from my experience, the quick way to generate a dollar coming out of a drought is through sheep. But in northern New South Wales, Queensland and other parts of Australia wild dogs are a huge problem. In some parts, not only has this prohibited the running of sheep but there are widespread reports that wild dogs are now taking down calves. This is having an enormous effect. As we come out of drought, the ability of farmers to get back on their feet, I believe, would be greatly enhanced if there were a control mechanism for wild dogs. I understand there is work being done. So one of the questions I would like to ask the minister is if he might update me and others present on what the policy will be on wild dogs.

The irony also is that as rain is falling in other parts—we have seen some magnificent rainfall across the eastern states—much of it is running out to sea. I would like to ask the minister about where he is with his dams white paper and what sort of thing we might expect from the minister and from this government with regard to dams. We are having a huge problem. The Parkes electorate covers 25 per cent of the Murray-Darling Basin, and all the rivers in my electorate at the moment are looking at zero allocation. I know that the best investment that you can put into a town in my electorate is a megalitre of water. There is no other thing that you can put in that generates more of a multiplier effect than a megalitre of water.

So there you are, Minister: a couple of questions, one on wild dogs and the other one on where we are with our dams policy.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have put forward a program of making sure that we create the best impetus for the creation of fencing that both begins and ends at the same spot so we get the greatest enclosure of the greatest possible area, but with a plan to eradicate the dogs within that area. I think that is vitally important. We are hoping—and this is the feedback we are now getting—that in certain areas the councils would work together. This also will increase our capacity to deal with this. Whilst we are dealing with the eradication of wild dogs, we also have greater capacity to deal with other feral pests, especially wild pigs. Also, because predominantly there is no natural predator to the kangaroo except us, we have to get the kangaroo meat industry going again. It helps us with some form of control there as well. This is vitally important.

I know we are getting to the end of the time, so what I will do, to pay proper respect to the questions that were asked by the shadow minister in regard to concessional loans, is to take it on notice to deliver to the shadow minister the precise answers. He can take that as a correction of anything I have said. Rather than read you through all the tabulated data here, we will get it to you. That, I think, is the most concise way. I think you deserve the respect of trying to get you as much detail as I possibly can on that issue.

In conclusion—because we are coming to a conclusion—on the water infrastructure, I know that, especially in the member for Parkes's area, in Walgett, it is a travesty that once more I hear that they have missed out on rain. But in other areas in the member's electorate there are some of the best irrigated farms with the highest yields in the world—the best in the world. They are going to grab the capacity with both hands. Whilst they are getting good prices for cotton, they now have the capacity to refurbish and make their farms even more efficient, with a 100 per cent write-off. It is that sort of investment.

I will give you one example. We have the IFED project, which the state Labor government in Queensland and the former Treasurer of Queensland, Keith De Lacy, are discussing. That is a $1.7 billion or $1.8 billion project in North Queensland, predominantly irrigation. This is the sort of thing that brings the jobs into the area. When we are talking to the people in the area, these are the sorts of projects they want in order to get the Indigenous community employed. Fred Pascoe from the lands council comes down and says, 'These are the sorts of issues that I want you to stand behind and drive.' Within our dams policy, we are going to have to have some reach across the chamber in a bipartisan way to drive some of these projects through. It is going to be vitally important in the refurbishment of the agricultural assets of Australia.

In conclusion, we will get to the shadow minister the tabulated data on exactly where those loans are. On the issue of wild dogs, I do not think it is going to wait too much. We will be paying further attention to the water infrastructure space in the white paper. That was actually part of the white paper, and it is of vital importance that we have a policy for refurbishment of the irrigated assets on the property. That goes hand in glove with the construction of further dams in our nation, in the catchments. In the area where I formerly lived, between Surat and Hebel, they have created a small dam for the fattening of lambs. It became a precinct that produced about $1 billion worth of cotton a year. But you have to have that seed capital—that seed investment. It is that sort of entrepreneurial spirit, driven by the individual, that actually puts money on the table for our nation.

There are so many other things I would have liked to be able to go through had I had the opportunity. There are further issues in our research and development field that are being dealt with. We are now developing a new rust for blackberries. We are looking at the biological treatment of parthenium weed. This is in our most recent tranche. We are looking for better efficiencies in irrigation. In the dairy industry, we have a $4 million grant for greater efficiencies in dairy. (Time expired)

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the proposed expenditure for the Agriculture portfolio be agreed to.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there any time remaining, Mr Deputy Speaker? I am hopeful that there may be.

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We were due to conclude at 7 pm for the adjournment.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I understand that, but we started late because of the division. I think that might have been one opportunity to extend just a few minutes. I am going to shout the minister; we are having a dance. The minister and I are dancing tonight. His wife could not make it, so—

Ian Goodenough (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will allow a brief question.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just thank the minister for his courtesy and his commitment in returning to me the drought. I might just ask him to add some information. It is very hard to derive just from the budget papers what the program is costing the government. The government is borrowing at the bond rate and charging between three and four per cent. So what will the various programs actually cost the government, taking into account, of course, provision for doubtful debts and administrative and other fees? I was going to ask him some questions about FIRB threshold changes and charges, but out of respect for the hour and the House I will leave those for another day.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister. There are certain areas where some of our loan facilities have been virtually fully drawn, and in other areas not so much. They are more accentuated where there is not a drought. But the best way to get succinct detail is to provide it to the shadow minister rather than babble it out here.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:03