Ross Vasta (Bonner, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The proposed expenditure now before the Federation Chamber is for the Foreign Affairs and Trade Portfolio. The question is that the proposed expenditure be agreed to.

Foreign Affairs and Trade Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $3,775,608,000

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will make a brief opening statement. I am accompanied by my colleague the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Australia is currently confronted by an uncertain and complex international environment. Challenges include international terrorism, conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine, relative shifts in global economic and military power to Asia, and a growing protectionist sentiment that risks undermining global prosperity.

The 2016-17 budget is part of the Australian government's plan to strengthen Australia's national security, promote prosperity and advance our interests as a liberal democracy and an open, export led economy. The Australian government is investing more than $9 million to continue the people smuggling and human trafficking task force, which is playing a key role in support of Operation Sovereign Borders and has restored the integrity of Australia's border protection system after the six years of abject policy failure by the then Rudd-Gillard Labor government.

We are also investing over $6 million to establish Australia's first cyber ambassador and a cybersecurity program to fight cybercrime, one of the new frontiers of security challenges we face. The government have committed nearly $40 million to open two new diplomatic missions in China and Papua New Guinea to strengthen bilateral ties, increase market access for Australian businesses and enhance our ability to provide consular assistance to Australians travelling and working overseas.

Since the budget was handed down, the government has announced a further $58 million over four years to expand Australia's overseas diplomatic presence. The government is committed to ensuring that Australia's diplomatic network matches our standing as one of the world's top 20 countries with global interests.

We have strengthened our ability to respond to emerging overseas events, such as terror attacks and natural disasters, by establishing a Global Watch Office within the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to monitor and respond to developments on a 24-hour basis.

The government will continue to deliver an aid program that is effective and affordable. In 2016-17 Australia will invest $3.8 billion on official development assistance, making us the 12th largest donor among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development comparable economies.

We have committed an additional $220 million over three years to address humanitarian needs in Syria and surrounding countries and $100 million for gender equality programs and the innovation exchange that is developing new, exciting solutions to intractable developments problems in our region. The budget continues our commitments to other key government priorities, including the new Colombo Plan, which is supporting Australian undergraduates to undertake short- and long-term studies, internships and work placements in 40 countries across the Indo-Pacific. By the end of 2017, more than 17,500 students will have lived, studied and worked in our region under the new Colombo Plan that was only established in 2014 after we came to office.

Trade, tourism and investment have played a key role in Australia's 25 years of consecutive, uninterrupted economic growth. We have delivered a trifecta of free trade agreements with the North Asia powerhouse economies. Just last week, the amended Singapore-Australia Free Trade Agreement was signed. In the first year of operation, our agreements with Korea and Japan have delivered real benefits for our economy, including the agriculture sector. The value of Australian exports of fresh beef to Japan increased by 22 per cent to just over $1 billion. Exports of bottled wine to Korea increased 53 per cent. China's imports of fresh Australian lobster between January and March were triple those of 12 months ago.

The 2016-17 budget is part of the Australian government's plan to provide Australian businesses with preferential market access and encourage utilisation of the agreements we have secured. As the minister at the table knows, the government has committed $16.6 million to continue to drive jobs and economic growth through trade and investment. Through the government's ambitious trade agenda, led by the Minister for Trade, Investment and Tourism, the government is ensuring that Australian businesses will have a significant advantage in capturing gains from the growth in Asia's middle-class. The government is connecting businesses with export markets through the online portal seminar series, training provider grants and professional services mutual recognition. The 2016-17 budget supports the government's ongoing efforts to advance Australia's national interests in an uncertain and complex global environment.

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is terrific that we have the opportunity today to talk about the foreign affairs portfolio, trade, tourism and so on. There is a lot of agreement across the aisle on issues around foreign policy—the importance of alliance relationships, the place of Australia in our region, the importance of the Indo Pacific region to Australia's future, and of course our support for international institutions like the United Nations and international laws and norms. Another area where there has been great support and bipartisanship over these last few years has been the support for the role that our defence forces are playing in Iraq and in Syria. I am sure all of us will be watching very closely during these next few days what happens in Mosul.

But one of the questions that Labor have consistently put to the minister is: when will we have the opportunity in the Australian parliament to have a more detailed debate and discussion about what happens next? We have heard very concerning reports of the very brave Kurdish fighters, the Peshmerga, approaching from one side, Iraqi state forces approaching Mosul from another side. There are international concerns about what will happen between these two forces after the battle for Mosul. So I would like to ask the minister first of all: when will she lead a debate in our federal parliament about Australia's role in this conflict overseas? Particularly, when will we have the opportunity to address the 'day after' scenario for Iraq? And also, when will we have the opportunity to have a discussion about the role the larger powers—Iran, Russia and others—are playing in the region and what significance that has for Australia? When will we have that debate in the parliament?

There are important differences between the government and the opposition, and the minister has alluded to one of them—our aid program. Labor committed at the last election that we would invest $800 million more than the Liberals over the forward estimates in the aid program. We would like the minister to address the fact that aid organisations, including the Australian Council for International Development, have said that this aid program under this minister has no vision, that this budget marks the Turnbull government as the least generous in Australian history. I would like to know whether the minister is proud of that achievement and whether she argued for those massive aid cuts or whether in fact she was rolled in the cabinet on those issues.

We on this side have a similar position to the government—that the international laws and norms are absolutely critical to Australia's future. We do best in a world that abides by the rules. We have seen the minister urging China and other parties in disputes in the South China Sea and the East China sea to abide by those international laws and norms and by the decisions that are made in respect of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. How does the minister continue to make that case publicly when Australia itself is being criticised globally for our refusal to come to a final arrangement with Timor-Leste on the seabed boundary dispute that has indeed been dragging on for so long? So could the minister also comment on how difficult it must be for her to be lecturing other countries on the importance of following the rules when Australia is not prepared to be judged by the same set of rules that we are urging others to follow.

I have one final question. The minister mentioned the extra $9 million, I think it was, on issues around people smuggling and border control. I would like the minister to tell us whether she still abides by the decision she made to vote against an arrangement with Malaysia for Malaysia to accept asylum seekers from Australia or whether, like the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, she now admits that was the wrong decision to make.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am so delighted that the shadow minister for health has now shown an interest in Foreign Affairs, because when she was the shadow minister for foreign affairs not once did she come to the consideration in detail, not once did the shadow minister for foreign affairs—now health—attend this important chamber to discuss the foreign affairs and trade budget; not once. So this newfound interest is quite a novelty for us all—she is in the chamber.

The shadow minister for health, the former shadow minister for foreign affairs, who never attended this chamber in that capacity, raised a whole raft of issues. First she asked when there would be an opportunity to discuss our involvement in Iraq. Obviously, she was not taking notice yesterday when the Prime Minister made a speech specifically on the Mosul offensive, on our military commitment in Iraq, and on the work that we are doing in training, advising and supporting the Iraqi security forces.

Yesterday the Prime Minister spoke in the House about the humanitarian effort that the Australian government was providing, and indeed it is incumbent upon the opposition to ask questions in question time. Not once have I had a question from the opposition about the Mosul offensive, about what we are doing in Iraq.

If the shadow minister for health, formerly the shadow minister for foreign affairs, was so interested in what is happening in Syria and Iraq, ask a question in question time. But of course she overlooks the fact that the Leader of the Opposition did have an opportunity to put Labor's position in relation to the Mosul offensive, our involvement in Iraq and indeed our involvement in Syria yesterday. He was given that opportunity, so I do not know where the member for Sydney was during that.

Then she raised the issue of aid—yes, the aid budget is constrained by the budget legacy that we received from the Labor government, and Labor's now shadow minister for foreign affairs was indeed the Minister for Finance and Deregulation. When Labor's Senator Wong was the minister for finance—listen to this—she took a $1.5 billion forecast surplus in 2012-13, the member for Lilley's famous surplus, and turned it into a $19 million deficit. She then took a $23 billion forecast deficit to—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 11:02 to 11:18

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Continuing with the issue of foreign affairs and trade—of which we have only just begun and of which we have only had 10 minutes for consideration in detail before we were interrupted by a division. Acting on the advice of the Deputy Clerk, who advises us that it is up to the chamber to make a decision about how long we proceed here, I think that we should be able to have, at the very least, half an hour for the important issue of foreign affairs and trade.

The fact that this government now wants to run away after 10 minutes of dealing with the issue of foreign affairs and trade and tourism tells you that this government is afraid of being accountable for the decisions that it has made in this budget. If the foreign minister and the trade minister do not come back to this chamber now for 20 minutes to answer questions, then it tells us that they are not prepared to be answerable for the decisions they have made.

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

The time allotted for the debate has expired. The question is that the proposed expenditure for the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio be agreed to.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The fact is that 30 minutes was allocated for the entire portfolio of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Tourism. All we have had is one question from the representative of the shadow minister for foreign affairs to the minister. The minister responded, but we have had nothing about trade, nothing about tourism, nothing about any other issues before this House. That is entirely inappropriate. At the least we should be allowed to have the shadow minister for trade and me, as the shadow minister for tourism, put on the record the questions we would like answered and, if need be, the government can take them on notice and come back to us.

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

The member for Grayndler would be well aware that there are time allocations for each of the portfolios. The time for this one has expired.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not right.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not correct. It is at the discretion of the chamber.

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

I would assume, then, that if you wanted to make a ruling then you would do that at the vote.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have a point of order. We do not wish to challenge supply to the government. What we wish to challenge is the process here, and we can do that in a number of ways. We could do that through a dissent motion if need be, but we would ask that we be allowed to make a contribution and that it be put on the record. The member for Blaxland is about to put on the record his questions about trade, and I would like the opportunity to put on the record questions regarding tourism. Then we can move on, and you can put that resolution re the appropriation. That is a reasonable compromise to put forward on our behalf, which it is up to this chamber to determine. The minister opposite can be reasonable from time to time, and I would ask that this be one of those occasions, rather than our having a belligerent debate about procedures that will waste the time of this chamber.

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

I understand the frustrations of the member. Given that the standing orders in the Federation Chamber are not as definitive as we would like, the reality is that the minister has taken a different determination regarding the questions that you are asking—

Honourable members interjecting—

Allow me to finish. The minister is not even in the chamber to take your questions so, in all fairness, I would prefer to stick with the agenda. If it is something that we need to refer to the Procedure Committee, which I know the good member has done in the past, with other members, with reference to consideration in detail—you are a regular here, my good sir—then we can do that but allow me, please, to forge on with the agenda that I have in front of me for the benefit of those members and ministers who are trying to keep to a schedule in this place. I am quite happy to utilise other provisions of the House for members to be heard.

Question agreed to.

Environment and Energy Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $901,853,000

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to speak on the environment portfolio and the energy portfolio—two very important areas of government attention. Let me start by saying that the coalition has a very strong and proud track record in relation to environmental matters. Go back to the time of Malcolm Fraser and the work that he did to protect Fraser Island and Uluru National Park. Go back to the time of John Howard, who came up with the first renewable energy target in the year 2000. He was also instrumental in establishing—with, I note, the member next to me—the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which is now in force. Prime Minister Abbott, during his time in office, included the banning of dredge disposal in the marine park of the Great Barrier Reef. Of course, the Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been a strong proponent of effective and efficient action in emissions reduction, including going to Paris with a very significant target of a 26 to 28 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030, which is going to place us in the upper echelon of the G20 in terms of targets.

In terms of the budget overview, I would like to make a few comments. Firstly, in terms of the Great Barrier Reef this budget strengthens the government's commitment with a $171 million boost. This includes a $70 million additional injection to the Reef Trust, which brings the government's total investment in the Reef Trust to $210 million. Obviously, this will be important for water quality projects and the like. There is also an extra $101 million for the National Landcare Program, which will help us implement the Reef 2050 Plan.

In terms of Antarctica, this government is making a very significant financial and resources commitment to research in that area. The centrepiece is the new icebreaker, and of course there is more than $200 million over 10 years from 2016-17. So that is a more than $2 billion commitment.

In terms of this portfolio, one of the most significant changes was the Prime Minister's decision to bring the portfolios of energy and environment together. That is important because climate change and energy policy are effectively two sides of the one coin. We are working to reduce our emissions. I am advised that we are on track to meet our 2020 targets by 78 million tonnes, having already beaten our first Kyoto target by 128 million tonnes of abatement. We have a number of policies, whether it is the Emissions Reduction Fund, with more than 600 projects, or whether it is what we are doing in terms of our energy efficiency program to try to get a 40 per cent boost in productivity and energy efficiency by 2030.

I had the pleasure recently of going to Brunei for the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit, which was an initiative of my distinguished predecessor, Greg Hunt, the member for Flinders. This meeting brought together representatives from 42 countries, including 600 different stakeholders. We talked about trying to reduce the amount of deforestation across the world as a way of boosting the environment and local communities and, of course, also reducing global emissions. Between 1990 and 2010, forests contracted in size by 3.3 million hectares, which is greater than the size of Vietnam.

This government is doing a lot of positive things. In fact, just the other day I was able to place the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Scheme as 107th on the National Heritage List, which is very significant. We were able to announce $5 million for a new conservatory at the botanical gardens here in Canberra. Of course, we were a leading part of the recent announcement of the phasing out of hydrofluorocarbons under the Montreal protocol by 85 per cent, which will be very significant in the future. (Time expired)

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

According to official government documents, Australia's actual emissions in 2020 will be 577 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent. This is actually eight per cent above the minimum target of minus five per cent. In fact, the only way we will get to the cumulative abatement target is through projection improvements, which I will return to, carryover of credits from Kyoto period 1 and a hopeless Emissions Reduction Fund that only today has been reported that the Clean Energy Regulator has confirmed was not tested for additionality. Just imagine this for a moment: the Emissions Reduction Fund, the centrepiece of that Direct Action dog, has not been tested adequately for additionality when it is paying for supposed abated emissions. In fact, regarding the Emissions Reduction Fund, the Prime Minister has said that it was a 'fig leaf' over doing nothing and, worse, 'fiscal recklessness on a grand scale'.

Returning to the improvement in the projections of Australia's emissions, which really is the heart of our abatement improvement, the minister's own department has stated that projections have fallen due to lower electricity demand, worse than expected agricultural conditions due to drought, lower manufacturing output due to industrial closures and weaker growth expectations from local coal production due to the fall in international coal prices.

So, in fact, this government is claiming credit for a revision in our abatement task because they have killed manufacturing, particularly in the automotive industry, we have a drought that has reduced agricultural production, consumers are responding to higher electricity prices by reducing electricity demand and coal production was not as strong as expected because of lower coal prices. So we will probably achieve the minus-five per cent target, but we will have an economic structure of plus eight per cent which will make reaching for the 2030 target so much harder.

I have five questions for the minister. I ask that if he does not know the answers he take them on notice. Firstly, has any country or the UN questioned the additionality of the Emissions Reduction Fund and therefore the legitimacy of the abatement claim? Secondly, doesn't the latest revelation from the Clean Energy Regulator demonstrate that the Emissions Reduction Fund is a gigantic fraud? Thirdly, what happens if the coal price rebound is sustained and emissions projections have to be revised upwards? Fourthly, would this cause a blow-out in the cost of the Emissions Reduction Fund or simply allow the target not to be reached? Fifthly, how can the government be proud of reaching the minus-five target, if we do in fact reach it, through the deindustrialisation of Australia and the drought?

I will turn briefly to renewable energy. The renewable energy industry has faced relentless attacks from this government. The most recent example was the Prime Minister following his fossil of a Deputy Prime Minister in claiming renewable energy caused the South Australian blackout. Again, that was disproven today by the AEMO report. I ask again: what is this government's policy to support the development of renewable energy projects after 2020? The minister—and the Prime Minister—failed to answer this in the House of Representatives chamber. If he fails again to answer it now, I ask that he take it on notice.

Also, can the minister answer the question regarding the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. What is the total dollar value of all concessional loans issued by the CEFC? What is the estimated return above equity in dollar terms that the CEFC has booked in its operations? Furthermore, given that there is very little additional cost to the taxpayer in maintaining the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, will the government consider retaining the Clean Energy Innovation Fund to complement ARENA and the broader CEFC?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought that was a Dorothy Dixer, because those questions are exactly the ones I want to answer. The member asked me about the Emissions Reduction Fund. The cost of abatement has been $12.10 a tonne. Do you know how much it was under the carbon tax? It was $1,200 a tonne!

The member asked about meeting our emissions target. When Labor were in government in 2012, they modelled how they were going to get to their own 2020 target. They were going to miss their target by a whopping 755 million tonnes. We are going to beat that target by 78 million tonnes. They were going to miss their target by 755 million tonnes, on their own modelling.

I just want to say that I would love to get into this and further answers. Those opposite have the hide to come into this chamber and talk about renewable energy when they had a 50 per cent target by 2030 with no road map to get there and which has been condemned by people on their own side, such as Graham Richardson and Keith De Lacy—

and it has caused higher electricity prices. (Time expired)

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

The question is that the proposed expenditure for the environment and energy portfolio be agreed to.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order, Deputy Speaker! We have had five minutes of this debate. Are you cutting this off after five minutes?

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

There is a schedule—

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you cutting us off after five minutes? This is a disgrace!

Mr Clare interjecting—

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

Order! I am trying to give a ruling. The member for Blaxland will take his seat! I am trying to give a ruling. It is a fair comment that you make. There are 30 minutes allocated for the debate; the commencement time has expired. I understand the point that you make in and around the shortening of the time available and I can understand, completely, your frustration. However, there is a schedule.

Mr Conroy interjecting—

Please, allow me to make a ruling so we can forge on. There are provisions within the House, for when this chamber suspends to go down for a division and that has played havoc. I suspect that it is something that the Procedure Committee needs to adopt into the future. Unfortunately, we have ministers now rolling in for their allocated timeslots. I do sympathise with the member, but I have made a ruling on this. The standing orders in the Federation Chamber are ambiguous and they do need attention, and I do take the frustrations on board.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Agriculture and Water Resources Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $560,766,000.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate this opportunity to discuss the great things that we are doing in the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources. I note the previous speaker: I always thought he came from a coal-producing area. I thought he believed in his working colleagues in the Hunter Valley, but obviously not. He is swinging with his Green mates. That is good; we will tell them all about it at the next election.

It is very important that we understand exactly where we started with agriculture and water resources back in 2013: the department that was basically on its knees. Its funding had been cut by more than half. We had just come off the back of some catastrophic issues in the agricultural economy, especially in the live cattle trade, and we in the coalition wanted to make sure that we rebuilt this portfolio—that we rebuilt it and then maintained the respect that it deserves as one of the pillars of our economy.

We went into the white paper process and got a substantial funding injection, especially into the crucial areas of biosecurity. We brought forward accelerated depreciation for water reticulation, fencing and fodder storage of 100 per cent over three years.

We got the Farm Management Deposits, which formerly John Anderson had fought a torrid battle for and got through to $400,000. We doubled them to $800,000 and allowed them to be offset against loans on your place—basically giving you a tax deduction to pay off your loan on a place. We know that the best way you can survive on the land is to have strong equity in your business. This was to encourage people, especially young farmers, when they get onto a place—and I can say, as a person whose previous life was as an accountant, 'Pay off your loan; you will survive.' It is the same thing with everything. When you get a good season, jam it against your loan and get a farm management deposit.

We also made sure that we made access to concessional loans--$250 million per year for drought concessional loans. And now, between that and the Dairy Support Package, we have loaned out well in excess of half a billion dollars to close to 1,000 people. We built on that through the last election by announcing the Regional Investment Corporation, which is going to be a facility to assist this—to make it more fluid and to make it work quicker—so that when an issue comes up, and it is for our government or any other government in the future, the Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources can act quickly.

We have better country-of-origin labelling that truly identifies where the product is made and what proportion of what is in the packet comes from our nation, because this is what not only the Australian people but also people overseas were asking for. They want to pay a premium for an Australian product but they want to make sure that it is bona fides—that what is in the package is from our nation. With an ACCC commissioner in place, we put $25.8 million towards pest and weed control. Now when we go out we can actually start to see this tactile delivery. We can go out to Cunnamulla and say, 'These are the dog fences for which we have provided money. We now can bring sheep and shearers back into the area and bring commerce back into the area—making people's lives better.'

What is really important is the $2½ billion we put aside for the Water Infrastructure package. I am very frustrated at the moment with one state in particular, Queensland, which has been completely recalcitrant and not playing the game. You give them the money—in excess of $90 million—for feasibility studies but do not see one started. You put $130 million on the table for the Rookwood Weir—it could bring in an extra $1 billion the year and an extra 2300 jobs—and it is something that should be supported. People should get in behind it. Where has the vision that existed with people like Curtin, Chifley and Menzies gone? Why are we so scared of our own shadow? Why don't we get in there and make these things happen?

We have record prices in cattle and in sheep; we are turning around the wool market; the grow contracts are turning around. Pork is at record prices. Our protein grains—chickpeas—are at record prices, but people say, 'What about your wheat market?' I understand that, but that is why we are making sure there is investment in such things as the inland rail to allow intermodal movement.

The other thing that I know the member for Hunter will bring up is the process of decentralisation. We want to create centres of excellence. Just as when the minerals department was moved to Maitland, we are moving RIRDC down to Wagga. At estimates yesterday we saw a $1.2 billion a year saving through this form of decentralisation. The FRDC is going to Adelaide; a section of GRDC is going up to Toowoomba. These are things we want to do because we believe in decentralisation. I look forward to this opportunity to tell the Australian people about the great work we are doing—(Time expired)

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

He is absolutely correct—I will be asking some questions about relocations. He stood behind cabinet in confidence provisions yesterday, and I note that today he is going to have all the time taken up by bringing so many of his backbench along. He can run but he cannot hide.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

To save time, I am going to put four questions to him very slowly and carefully and I challenge him to answer each and every one of them. Last night in estimates Senator Ruston, representing him, seemed to suggest that CropLife supports the relocation of the APVMA. I asked the minister: does he stand by that assertion? I ask him: how many staff have been lost to the APVMA since he first socialised his determination to relocate that body to his own electorate? Has he revisited the cost of the relocation? I think originally it was $24 million or so. Has he revisited that budget allocation and what is the revision? He is now hiding behind cabinet processes, but will he commit to releasing the cost-benefit analysis of the relocation to Armidale, once the cabinet has completed its deliberations?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was going to wait until the end of the day, but just to show that we do not hide behind any of this, I think it is important to deal with this issue. What frustrates me so much is that the member for Hunter, who knows full well that Premier Bob Carr moved the department of minerals to Maitland because of the economic development it would bring to that region. I commend former Premier Bob Carr for doing that. He was a person of vision, but now the Labor Party has become so insular and so myopic that the only thing they can think about developing is developing Canberra further. Canberra is a wonderful city—God bless Canberra! We are going to spend $100 million on this building, but the largesse of government deserves to be spread further and wider than just Canberra. This is why we want to create these centres of excellence so people in the rural science department of CSIRO, which is in Armidale, have the line of sight and interaction for a better outcome.

We have been having discussions with Matthew Cossey from CropLife, and he has related to me that he has become supportive of the process. He wants to be part of the process and he has become supportive of the process. This is what we do with our negotiations. We are not going to be completely militaristic about this. We are not trying to just send people out to the country. We work with people, and we are working with the department and with the peak industry bodies to make sure that this lands properly. I do not know what Senator Anne Ruston said, but it would have been a reflection of the fact that we are in discussions with CropLife and that Matthew Cossey has shown me that he is now supportive of the process and wants to be part of the process, and I hope that gives the member for Hunter the answer to his question.

In regard to socialising the move and who is left, I have been informed that the turnover is no different from what has been happening at any other time. In 2015-16, 48 people left APVMA—seven resigned, 19 transferred, seven retired and 15 completed their contract. From the people who provided a reason for departure, six of the 48—12.5 per cent—said relocation was an issue. Unless you say 12.5 per cent of the people who have actually moved on is somehow a disastrous number, you do not really have an argument. When you talk about revisiting the costs, we are going to make sure that we do this in the most effective way. Through the white paper, and through the process of running our department effectively, we have money put aside so that we can get this process happening. You would already have seen ads—I think there was one in the Financial Reviewto get this process moving. It is just like we will be doing with the movement of the Rural Industry Research and Development Corporation to Wagga and the FRDC down to Adelaide, where they actually have fish—there are not many fish in Lake Burley Griffin, apart from some carp, but we are going to deal with them as well later on. These are the sorts of things that an effective government does. It is such a great place to be, in a coalition government surrounded by colleagues who have an absolute passion—even those from Hunters Hill—for making sure that they are part of this nation's second largest export after iron ore, which is agricultural exports.

The honourable member went through the cost-benefit analysis. They always grab these things as if they are a smoking gun—'It's Watergate!' Basically, the result of the cost-benefit analysis is neither massively for it nor massively against it—it is basically impartial but there is a slight benefit. There you go. I imagine it would have been the same result when New South Wales moved the minerals department to Maitland. Of course, Premier Bob Carr was a substantive person, a person of vision. He had the capacity to deal with issues such as that. That is what we will be doing here, because we are people of vision. We are the same people of vision who want to build dams, who believe in decentralisation, who believe in inland rail, who have put money on the table to seal the road from Laverton to Winton—we are the sort of people who have that vision to make our nation a stronger place. In the past Labor have had the vote in Armidale but, by gosh, they have lost it now.

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

Putting aside any benefits that might accrue to Armidale, can the minister succinctly, and with some rigor, explain to the House what are the benefits of the relocation of the APVMA to the agriculture sector?

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Jobs.

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

I thank the minister for his brief answer.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was an interjection.

I thought that was the minister's answer.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have you concluded?

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

No, I still have the call! I have five minutes on the clock, Mr Deputy Speaker.

I thank the minister for his answer. He just told the House of Representatives of the Australian parliament that the relocation of the APVMA is going to create jobs outside Armidale. I will now ask him, when he next gets to his feet, to expand on that. How is it that the relocation of a regulatory agency to Armidale—an agency which does not interface with farmers but an agency which interfaces with the chemical companies, is going to create benefits for Australian agriculture—remembering that those farm chemicals and veterinary medicines are critical to productivity in our—

Government members interjecting—

Listen to the ignorance of these people on the other side! This agency approves crop protection, for example. It approves veterinary medicines—the things that are critical to agricultural productivity. It interfaces with the big multinational chemical companies which come here to Canberra hoping to have their new products registered, approved or re-approved in a timely manner. Already they have difficulty doing so, largely because of under-resourcing at the APVMA and workforce issues. When that workforce walks away from the APVMA—when those very highly-trained professionals walk away because they have their children in schools in Canberra, rather than go to Armidale—that workforce will be destroyed, and the minister knows it.

Only this week I spoke to a proponent of a chemical to do with rodents on farms, who wants his organic chemical approved. Usually, that is a 10-week process. He has been told he will have to wait until April, Minister, because your workforce is already in decline. So the minister says that the relocation of this regulatory authority from Canberra to Armidale is going to create jobs in the agriculture sector. To save time, I will sit down and simply ask him again: where are those jobs in the agriculture sector? How is this relocation going to benefit the agriculture sector? Are you going to have approvals more quickly as a result of this move to Armidale?

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

I thank the shadow minister for his contribution. Before I call the question, which is that the proposed expenditure be agreed to, for the benefit of the House I will put the question at around midday, when the time for the debate has matured.

Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, you know well that the coalition government is delivering measures to support farmers—in particular, farmers experiencing hardship. There are concessional loans and the farm household allowance, where $1.1 million a week is being paid out on average, and there is the Rural Financial Counselling Service—

Mr Brian Mitchell interjecting—

The member for Lyons obviously does not care about farmers in hardship. We had better get that on the record!

But I want to refer specifically, if I could, to the concessional loan products. In the 2015-16 financial year the government made available $250 million in drought concessional loans and drought recovery concessional loans. Due to the election caretaker period, we extended those loans to 31 October so that a new scheme could be established on 1 November 2016. These loans are currently being delivered on behalf of the Commonwealth by the states and territories.

Mr Champion interjecting—

The member for Wakefield might want to listen to this! In South Australia it is being delivered by PIRSA and by his good friend Leon Bignell. I know there is a factional divide between them, but he is still his good friend. He has been an abject failure in this regard! He has been allocated—

Mr Champion interjecting—

Well, that is true—he is no friend of mine, because I am a friend of farmers and he is not! Sadly, he is the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries in South Australia.

But let's just focus on why he is no friend of farmers in hardship in South Australia, and this is the so-called minister for agriculture in South Australia. We made a whopping $10 million available for drought concessional loans in South Australia and $10 million for the drought recovery concessional loans. Mr Deputy Speaker, you have heard that his agency, PIRSA, was responsible for managing that process.

Now, these are loans where farmers get access to a concessional 2.66 per cent interest rate for 10 years, with interest only for the first five years and P&I for the second five years. Loans are available for up to 50 per cent of total eligible debt, or $1 million—whichever is the lesser.

You would have thought that, if the minister for agriculture in South Australia was a fierce advocate for farmers in South Australia, particularly those suffering hardship, he would have ensured all of that $20 million was made available to them. But, sadly, Minister, I can report to you, and you know well, that a paltry $2 million was made available to farmers in South Australia in hardship—a paltry $2 million.

The sad thing in South Australia is that farmers have been deterred from making these applications, because of the actions of the South Australian minister and his ineffectual agency PIRSA. We now have a situation where only three farmers have accessed these drought concessional loans but, more disturbingly, under the new dairy loans, farmers have further concerns in South Australian. One of these concerns is with PIRSA and the way they are approaching this. Whereas water entitlements are accepted as security in other jurisdictions on a case-by-case approach, PIRSA have told the industry that they will not accept water as security for loans. This is nonsensical with respect. Every banker I know in the agrispace understands that these entitlements are tradeable and are a security for a loan. So my question is to the minister for agriculture here federally: what is our government doing to make concessional loans available in my state of South Australia so that we ensure farmers get the assistance they need?

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I would like to say, with respect to the shadow minister's questioning, I note that the minister did not commit to the release of the CBA after the cabinet had completed its deliberating in relation to the APVMA. I would also like to talk about the dairy industry. In my electorate of Mayo, I have many dairy farmers who do not sell to Fonterra and Murray Goulburn. These farmers do not currently have access to loans under the Dairy Recovery Concessional Loans scheme, despite being just as heavily affected by the recent drop in farmgate milk prices. Will the minister be extending the Dairy Recovery Concessional Loans scheme to farmers who to not sell to Fonterra and Murray Goulburn? Many farmers have told me they are hurting even though they do not sell to those two providers.

Furthermore, I understand that, for the purpose of the loan schemes in South Australia, security valuations are only based on land and not the full value of farm assets such as lands, livestock and water. I met with the state minister for agriculture who said to me that he needed greater clarity in relation to this from the federal minister. So my question to the minister is: can you provide some greater clarity so that we can have a national position in relation to this?

Minister, I would also like to talk to you about my own electorate of Mayo. We are growers of apples, pears and cherries and, as you know, the backpacker tax has significantly affected my community. My question to the minister is—

Honourable members interjecting —

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

Order! The member for Mayo will take a seat please. Whilst we do encourage robust debate, and I have let debate run, it is starting to get a little unruly, so if I could just remind members of the standing orders and I ask the member for Mayo to resume her contribution.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

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

Because they are boofheads!

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying, I was talking about—

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

The member for Mayo will take her seat. It would assist the House if the shadow minister would withdraw.

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

I withdraw, Mr Deputy Speaker.

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

Thank you. If we could show some courtesy in the House. The member for Mayo please.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. In relation to the backpacker tax, as you know, my party wrote to you in relation to our idea of a seasonal employment program that would assist locals who are unemployed to have incentives and jobactive providers to be involved in the seasonal work so that the farmers in my region are best able to be supported and can find employees who are active and ready to go.

Would the minister please advise what his considerations have been with respect to the letter that I wrote to him some weeks ago? Also, Minister, I would be most appreciative if you could give me an update on the pest-free area designed for the Adelaide Hills and Fleurieu region. What decisions will the minister take to actively support this? This will bring thousands of jobs to my region.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Finance Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $422, 269,000

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

The minister would be aware of the various contortions in shipbuilding policy that this government has held. When the previous Prime Minister was around they were going to build submarines in Japan and of course we had a defence minister who said that ASC could not build a canoe. They have down a reverse double backflip and are now claiming to be utterly committed to shipbuilding in Australia and naval shipbuilding in South Australia.

I have a number of questions about the ASC reform implementation—in particular, the separation of ASC into three companies based around shipbuilding, submarine maintenance and support and infrastructure. I would like to know who has been consulted as part of the review; what the terms of reference of it were; whether any consideration was given to the possible privatisation of ASC; whether the government has received any advice regarding the privatisation of ASC either in whole or in part; and whether the government has been approached by any organisations or private sector entities, businesses, sections of industry or others—middlemen or whoever else—interested in purchasing any part of ASC. Could the minister also advise how long their commitment not to privatise ASC is good for? Is this a time based thing? Is it good for this election or is it a standing bit of government policy? I would be most interested to hear the minister's views on the contortions that are this government's shipbuilding policy.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to very much thank the member for Wakefield for his question and I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate him on the arrival of his brand new baby daughter. The member for Wakefield of course has a strong interest in this matter, as does every South Australian. The government has in fact made very significant commitments to naval shipbuilding in Australia, and the government's commitments are backed by real funding. We will ensure that 21 Pacific patrol boats, 12 offshore patrol vessels, nine Future frigates and 12 Future submarines are built in Australia. The member for Wakefield asked about the ASC and the structure. That is going to be 54 vessels that we have committed to from Australian yards, which compares of course to zero vessels that were built by Labor in the six years that Labor was in government.

The finance minister is the shareholder minister for the ASC, which is of course constructing the air warfare destroyers for the Navy and conducting the full-cycle docking in South Australia for Collins submarines. To ensure that the ASC has the best possible structure to pursue future shipbuilding opportunities and to support the government's naval shipbuilding objectives, the government announced on 11 October that the ASC will be structurally separated into individual shipbuilding, submarine sustainment and infrastructure businesses. The infrastructure company will hold and manage significant upgrades of shipbuilding and infrastructure assets to support future shipbuilding and submarine programs, and the shipbuilding company will employ the skilled shipbuilding workforce and complete the air warfare destroyer project, while the submarine sustainment company will employ the submarine sustainment workforce and sustain the Collins class submarines.

These structural changes will not have an impact on the ASC employee terms and conditions, which, I am sure, is also of interest to the member opposite. The structural separation is, in fact, designed to ensure that the ASC is in the best possible position to pursue future shipbuilding opportunities and to support the government's long-term plans for the Australian naval shipbuilding industry. It will deliver a more efficient and flexible approach. It will facilitate the necessary investment in infrastructure and in workforce capability and facilitate the significant ramp-up in shipbuilding related jobs as required to better support multiple build programs under our naval shipbuilding plan.

Our intention is for the ASC structural separation to be completed in 2017. It has been noted in the press release about the separation that they have, in fact, effectively been operating separate submarine and shipbuilding businesses for the last two years. The chair, Bruce Carter, commented that this operating model:

… has been a major contributing factor in the company's turnaround in the Collins Class submarine and Hobart Class air warfare destroyer programs …

The structural separation of the ASC demonstrates the significant value that this government places on our skilled naval shipbuilding workforce, and the government fully expects that the Collins sustainment and AWD programs will be able to continue their strong performance within their standalone entities and deliver world-class capability to the Australian Defence Force.

On this side, we believe it is very important to make investments in our defence capability. Those opposite cut our investment in defence to the core. It cut to the core to levels that we have not seen since about 1938, I think it was. So it is no wonder that those opposite were not actually able to build anything during their time in government. It is no wonder that those opposite are quite ashamed of their record. Not only have we announced an investment plan, we are also delivering it with funding.

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

I appreciate the opportunity to ask some questions of the Minister representing the Minister for Finance in relation to the proposed sale or other commercialisation of the ASIC registry business. The terms of reference for the scoping study that was undertaken into the ASIC registry business included a requirement that the report for the study address, among other things, identification of any national security issues and mitigation strategies. So I ask the minister: which national security agencies and which national security oversight agencies or entities have been consulted in relation to the possible sale, lease or other commercialisation of the ASIC registry business?

On a related note, the government obviously has a public data policy, released in December 2015, as part of its National Innovation and Science Agenda. This proposal appears to be somewhat at odds with that policy. It is also at odds with a comment from the Prime Minister previously that it was 'regrettable that ASIC's data is behind a paywall'. Accordingly, I ask: has the Digital Transformation Office been consulted in relation to the possible sale or other commercialisation of the ASIC registry business? Has the public data branch of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet been consulted about the possible sale, lease or other commercialisation of the ASIC registry business? If the ASIC registry business is sold, leased or otherwise commercialised, is it anticipated that price regulation would apply to new products? If the ASIC registry business is sold to a corporation, leased to a corporation or otherwise commercialised by agreement with a corporation, will there be any requirement that that corporation be and remain majority Australian owned? If the ASIC registry business is sold to a corporation, leased to a corporation or otherwise commercialised by agreement with a corporation, to what extent will it be possible for the government to ensure the security of the data held by the corporation? Finally, to what extent does the minister believe a new, non-government operator of the ASIC registry will be able to increase search volumes? Has any modelling or prediction work been undertaken to assess the possible additional revenue that could realistically be generated by increasing search volumes for currently existing searches, or is it, instead, intended to be the case that the additional revenue would primarily be generated from the creation of new products under a monopoly arrangement?

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The electorate of Durack produces significant wealth that the rest of Australia relies on, and growth in my electorate means growth for the rest of Australia. Durack is one of the regions that has propelled Australia forward in recent years, and I am very proud to represent an electorate that is full of such hardworking and diligent people. Whether it is iron ore, gas, wheat, beef, horticulture or even rock lobster, Durack constituents are well and truly pulling their weight when it comes to contributing in a positive way to the economy.

That is why it makes the record deficit left to this government by those opposite in 2013 even more disappointing and heartbreaking. I would like to take the time to remind those opposite of the record deficit that Labor managed to rack up in their time in office. Labor exploded our national debt levels and put us into an incredible budget black hole of $310 billion

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

something that those on the other side really do not want to hear; I can sense that—with an upward trajectory of another $123 billion forecast for the next four years.

This economic performance was so bad in 2013 that the Labor government were voted out of office with their lowest primary vote since 1931. They are not so noisy now! While Labor were busy destroying our economy, under their watch at least 1,200 people died at sea and, of course, we have all heard about the pink batts disaster. And we only debated yesterday the VET FEE-HELP program, which blew out by 792 per cent—extraordinary and an impressive display of incompetence by any measure.

This is the record that the Turnbull government has been committed to bettering, because the taxpayer of Australia deserved better governance than what has been served up by those opposite.

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

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

The member for Rankin, I cannot hear.

Melissa Price (Durack, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are focused on growing our economy outside of a resource based, bulk-tonnage economy and are placing an emphasis on instead growing a diverse economy reliant upon the skills and resourcefulness of our people. Infrastructure and education are means that are proven to promote growth in the economy and they are measures this government is very proud to fund.

This government is delivering on commitments to increase education infrastructure funding in regional centres such as the capital grants scheme, which is committed to a new $800,000 funding package for the Geraldton Grammar School, which is my electorate. Since 2015, the capital grants scheme has committed over $3 million to funding school infrastructure projects in Durack. This is indicative of the hard work being done to increase not just the gross amount of students studying but the quality and employability of the graduates who are coming out at the other side. This clearly demonstrates our commitment to building a new economy based on an educated and intelligent workforce.

In fact, this government is committed to improving northern Australia through a wide variety of infrastructure projects which aim to improve the economic performance of the region. This is fantastic news for the electorate of Durack, which includes the entirety of the north-west of Western Australia. This government has committed $600 million for the improvement of roads throughout northern Australia, a much needed injection of capital that will improve accessibility to remote communities and foster regional growth even further. There is also an extra $200 million available for water infrastructure throughout northern Australia—much of which will come to the west, I am pleased to say. This government has demonstrated an effective and energetic response to the mining downturn, and I am sure the members present will be aware that my electorate was one of the hardest hit with respect to the downturn in the mining industry. But we are resilient and we progress. This government is committed to remaining financially responsible and managing this deficit with the care and consideration that is expected by us, by the taxpayers of Australia.

These are the actions of a government that understands how a national economy functions and that encourages enterprises and entrepreneurs that demonstrate a forward-thinking and hardworking attitude. In fact, one of the election commitments the Turnbull government made was a commitment to Indigenous entrepreneurship, and this government has tabled a $90 million fund for Indigenous entrepreneurs seeking to give an equal opportunity to those innovative people in the Indigenous business sector.

I thank Minister O'Dwyer for her hard work in developing regional infrastructure and future-proofing the economic stability of regional Australia, especially in my electorate of Durack. I ask the minister: what further action is the government taking to reduce spending growth and get the budget back to surplus? What real-world impact will this have on families and businesses in my electorate of Durack? What other progress is the government making— (Time expired)

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

Even this minister would appreciate that Australia has an underemployment problem, and that flows through to the budget. Minister, what is the current underemployment rate, and how does that compare historically?

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the members for their questions. Let me start by addressing the member for Griffith's question about the ASIC register. She has asked about the process that has been put in place and about the evaluation of the potential sale of the ASIC register—how that has been conducted and who has been consulted.

Let me say that the government announced in the 2015-16 budget, following consideration of a scoping study, that it would undertake a competitive tender process to market test the capacity of a private operator to upgrade and operate the ASIC registry and to develop value-added products. The government have always said that we would maintain ownership of ASIC's registry data. The government have also said that we are absolutely committed to open data in this government—absolutely committed. Before any decision is made about the sale of the ASIC register—and that decision would need to be made by cabinet—we would need to be completely sure that it met those very high standards we have set and that it would be in the national interest to do so. It is going through the evaluation process, and all relevant stakeholders have, in fact, been contacted for their views.

Going to the member for Durack's question about spending, debt and deficits, she makes a very excellent point. She knows that, when the last coalition government—the Howard-Costello government—was elected and came into government, they inherited a $96 billion black hole from the Labor Party. There was no money in the bank but, certainly, money needed to be paid back, and so that is what they did. They steadily worked away at repaying the $96 billion.

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

I ask members to be quiet. I cannot hear the answer to the question.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They put money in the bank. They created the Future Fund, and more than $45 billion was put into that. It was not only that; they also had a Higher Education Endowment Fund, which, when those opposite came into government, they actually destroyed; they spent the money. So we have not been able to maintain the Higher Education Endowment Fund that was going to fund our universities well into the future.

So what did we inherit from those opposite when we came into government? We inherited cumulative deficits of around $123 billion from those opposite, when in fact they had money in the bank. We have inherited cumulative deficits from them and a debt trajectory heading upwards to 122 per cent of GDP, which is very significant. Since coming into government—

Honourable members interjecting—

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

It is embarrassing, even by your standards.

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

Members have asked very good questions. I cannot hear the answers. I ask members to be quiet while the minister is responding.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is always hard hearing the truth. I know that the member for Rankin feels very sensitive about this particular topic, because of course he was the former principal adviser to Wayne Swan, the former Treasurer. He was the brains trust behind these enormous budget deficits. He does not like the fact that, since coming into government in 2013, we have announced over 500 measures that improve the budget bottom line. These measures have improved the budget bottom line over the relevant forward estimates period by almost $100 billion. But our biggest challenge in government, in reining in spending, is those opposite. It is those opposite who believe that you can tax your way to prosperity. Of course, there is no-one who would actually support this view.

Our budget has been about focusing on better targeting and strengthening the integrity of our welfare system and making sure that the savings from those measures could actually go to the sustainability of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which I note those opposite had not actually funded. It is very easy to announce something, but it is actually very difficult to fund it. So we have taken the difficult decisions to ensure that it is not simply a cruel hoax on some of the most vulnerable people in our society. We have taken those decisions so that those people can be confident that the National Disability Insurance Scheme will be able to be delivered and delivered in full. It is only through our savings measures that we are able to ensure that that can occur.

We have also been investing in roads, in rail and in other infrastructure which is very important. I do not have enough time now to go through all of the other measures. I look forward to the questions from those opposite.

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

It is disappointing, but not entirely surprising, that when the minister is asked about underemployment in our society and in our community she has absolutely no idea. She does not know that in estimates this morning her own department was asked the same question. Her own department—the macrodivision of Treasury—said, 'The underemployment result in the August 2016 quarter is 8.7 per cent.' That is the highest result since the start of the series in 1978. We have the worst underemployment in Australian history on this statistical series, and this minister does not have a clue about it, despite the fact that her own department stood up a couple of hours ago and said this was a fact.

As I said, this is disappointing, but not entirely surprising. This is a minister who is single-handedly responsible for the biggest parliamentary gaffe since Federation. We should not be surprised. We should not be surprised when this minister, who struggles with even basic details like the underemployment rate, cannot do some of the more important things in her job.

The first time this government were elected in 2013, they said their main task was to improve the budget bottom line. When they were re-elected in 2016 they said their main task was to give this $50 billion ram raid on the budget to big multinational corporations. Both of those policy objectives, whether you agree with them or not, are now in tatters. When it comes to improving the bottom line, it has not dawned on those opposite yet, after three years in government, that the deficit and the debt have blown out substantially. It is disappointing, but, again, not entirely surprising that it has not dawned on those opposite.

A couple of Fridays ago the government put out what is called the final budget outcome for the financial year just finished. They put it out on a Friday afternoon. There was no press conference from the Treasurer. There was not a word about it—just a sneaky little press release on a Friday afternoon, so ashamed were they of that outcome. Let me tell the chamber what that outcome was: the final budget outcome for the year just finished was $39.6 billion. That is a blowout eight times bigger than what was inherited. They stand up and they have the gall to talk about debt and deficit. The deficit has blown out substantially on their watch. This was supposed to be their reason for being, yet they have blown out the deficit substantially. They want to talk about debt. In the same final budget outcome net debt is blown out to $296 billion—$77 billion more than they inherited. They stand up and they talk about debt and deficit. I want to know from the minister: what will be the impact if this ineptitude leads to a downgrade in Australia's credit rating? What work has been done by the Treasury to understand the impacts of any downgrade? What would that mean for the people that we collectively represent?

The second policy failure is, of course, the company tax cuts. The minister likes to raise my former employer—someone I am deeply, deeply proud of, having served us through the global financial crisis. You can say it over and over again. I am so proud to have worked for a Treasurer who did such a great job for Australia during the global financial crisis. Let's talk about former employers. I do not know if the minister has yet had the opportunity to check out The Financial Review. She raises former employers in this place on the day when her former employer Peter Costello, the former Treasurer, has torpedoed the centrepiece of their economic plan, which is the $50 billion ram raid on the budget—the $50 billion gift to big corporations in this country. Phil Coorey says in the paper:

His determination came as former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello launched a broadside at the policy … saying the policy lacked funding, balance and coherence.

I quote from Peter Costello:

'Well, company tax, whoopee do. Good luck to you. What else is there?'

The problem for Australia is that there is nothing else whatsoever.

You can say what you like about the finance minister, but he has a lot more credibility in this space than the minister opposite. When he was asked whether the company tax cut was the centrepiece of the government's so-called economic plan, Minister Cormann said: 'Just to remind ourselves, you are quite right, it is our centrepiece, not just of our budget but the centrepiece of our national economic plan, our plan for growth and jobs.' We know now that this plan is in tatters; Peter Costello is bagging it; the Senate looks likely to knock it over. So I want to know: if this was the centrepiece of the government's jobs and growth plan and it is now in tatters—and if the other centrepiece was supposed to be budget repair and that it is tatters with these big budget blowouts—what now with the company tax cuts? Will you enact a humiliating backdown or will you stick to a policy which will hollow out schools and hospitals to give a big tax cut—a $50 billion ramraid—to the biggest multinational companies in this country?

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Rankin for his question and I note that the member for Rankin wants to talk about former employers and that he is very proud of his. I also note that his former employer was not able once to deliver a surplus—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

despite declaring that they had delivered surpluses. He was the apprentice to Wayne Swan the master; he is the boy wonder of budget deficits. I think his credibility on deficits is somewhat difficult. His record when he was chief of staff and principal adviser to Wayne Swan was the biggest deficit in cash terms in modern Australian history—$54.5 billion. That is the record of those opposite. He, of course, did say and those opposite have said many times over that they delivered surpluses—

Honourable members interjecting—

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

The minister will resume her seat. I ask the member for Rankin to resume his seat. The member for Rankin was heard in relative quiet. I literally cannot hear the minister's answer. I ask everyone to be a bit quieter so that we can hear the minister.

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to talk about company tax cuts because I think it is important to also record that around 15 years ago we had a corporate tax rate which was the ninth lowest amongst advanced economies. Today it is the sixth highest out of 35 OECD countries. We know that in the global fight for capital and investment, we need to be globally competitive. That is why we have announced our Enterprise Tax Plan, which will put us on a globally competitive scale with all of the other advanced economies around the world and will allow us to continue to attract investment to this country.

The member for Rankin asks why we would be doing this? I can tell you why. We would be doing this because we have received modelling that tells us—as he would know, because he is not as ignorant as he seems—it will deliver an increase in our level of GDP on a sustained basis. He knows that corporate tax cuts are expected to return a business investment of around 2.6 per cent in the long term. He also knows that two-thirds of the benefits of a lower corporate tax rate in Australia accrue to Australian households through higher real wages. You do not need to take my word for it—Ken Henry himself did say that, if the company income tax were to be cut, the principal beneficiaries would be workers. They say they care for workers and they say they are going to stand up for workers, and I would ask them to support our company tax cuts, if they truly believe what they say.

The member opposite has also asked me about underemployment. I find it very curious that he neglected to mention the unemployment rate—the fact that the unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to be 5.6 per cent in August, which was better than the medium market expectation for the rate to remain steady at around 5.7 per cent. This is the lowest unemployment rate since September 2013, almost three years ago.

It is very, very important that, since the election of this government, almost half a million jobs—about 490,000 jobs—have been created. Around 180,000 of those jobs have been created in the last 12 months. This is a government that believes it is important to create jobs. We believe it is important to encourage investment and we believe it is important to do that through our tax plan. In particular, we are encouraging small businesses, through the way that our tax plan operates, to make increased investments in their businesses. Through the cut to the company tax rate and through the equivalent tax discount that will be provided to unincorporated entities, they will be able to invest more in their business, to grow their business and to create more jobs in this country. Because, at the end of the day, that is what it is all about.

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

I have two points. It speaks volumes about those opposite that one member—I hate to single people out—considers the steepest and sharpest synchronised downturn in the global economy since the global depression in the 1930s, the biggest downturn in eight decades, to be an excuse—some piece of trivia to be ignored. That is why they have a credibility problem over there.

The second point I would like to make is to highlight, for the purposes of Hansard, the minister's big claim about the unemployment rate. Because she had not read her note before she started speaking, she said 'Look, we have gone so well that the unemployment rate is currently what we inherited from Labor in September 2013.' So her grand claim is: 'Look how well we have done; we have done as well as we inherited from Labor.' She really should read her stuff before she reads it out publicly. How embarrassing that the minister does not have a sense in her own mind—from her own community or from around the country—that we have a substantial underemployment problem in this country. Her Treasury officials understand this. They said at estimates, two hours ago, that the underemployment rate is the highest it has ever been—in my lifetime—since 1978. Since 1978, it has never been lower. It speaks volumes that the minister does not understand or appreciate this not just in a numerical sense but in a community sense. She does not understand that people are struggling to get the hours that they want. She then stands up and says, 'Hey, but our big defence is'—wait for it!—'the unemployment rate is so good, it's what Labor handed to us'. What a fizzer.

We have spent a lot of time in the last week—not as much time as her colleagues—laughing about a minister who cannot vote for the right team in the parliament. That is one thing, and we have all had our fun—her own colleagues have had more fun with it than we have, frankly, with the whispered conversations on her side of the parliament. That is one thing, and people make mistakes. But it is another thing to really not understand the underemployment challenge and to quote back at us as if it were some great big policy achievement, with all the slogans about jobs and growth, that the unemployment rate—her chosen stat—is around the level that it was in the immediate aftermath of the GFC. That just speaks volumes. For a Treasury minister to not understand these basic things, to not have even a skerrick of a clue about underemployment or unemployment in this country—it is very troubling. If you take the politics out of it, I think most people on the street would like their cabinet ministers to have some understanding of the pressures that are in the labour market. That is my first set of points.

My second point was ignored before—and I really am seeking information here, because this is a very important challenge for the country. If these blowouts in deficit and debt, which are in the government's own budget papers—they are not my opinion; they are the facts in the final budget outcome which were released. They are the facts in the budget papers that the Treasurer and the finance minister released. We know that at least one of the ratings agencies has said that they are concerned about the trajectory of the budget. In July, Standard & Poor's warned the government that there was a one-in-three chance our rating would be downgraded. Moody's said that, without revenue measures to help fix the budget, there would be a credit negative for Australia. There are a whole range of alarm bells ringing from the ratings agencies.

I do not want to make a political point about this; there is an actual issue here with the ratings agencies because, as the minister would understand, I am sure, there are corresponding impacts. If the sovereign rating is downgraded then, in all likelihood, the banks will get downgraded as well. There are implications for borrowing costs. There are big implications, of course, for confidence in the economy. There are a range of implications. If one of those triple A credit ratings, which were won for the first time in our history from all three agencies under Labor—not under Peter Costello but actually under Wayne Swan—is downgraded, I would be very interested to know, as are the Australian people, what the consequences would be for our economy. Do you agree with the Treasury secretary, who said that there is no chance of a downgrade in the next 12 months?

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, want to ask a question about employment, because the 2016-17 budget was one focused on supporting job creation and growing our economy. This is incredibly important when you look at electorates like mine of Robertson on the New South Wales Central Coast where we have more than 30,000 people who commute every day to jobs in Sydney and Newcastle. That is around a four-hour round trip each day. Around one in four adults in the workforce on the Central Coast leave their families early in the morning and return home late at night because they have to go where their jobs are. That means they need to juggle the demands of work, commuting and families.

To help address these issues, I believe that we need a clear plan that works in close collaboration with the federal government, the New South Wales government, the council and the community to help address this. This was certainly highlighted last week in the Baird government's 20-year regional plan for the Central Coast which set out the state government's priorities for action and is a great blueprint for a vibrant sustainable region. One of the primary statistics used to drive this plan is the significant population growth. The document revealed that there will be more than 75,000 more people on the Central Coast by 2036, taking the population to well over 415,000. But the number of total jobs will rise from around 116,000 to 141,000, an increase of only 25,000. This underlines the need for more local jobs for local people on the Central Coast so that our region becomes not only the most beautiful place to work, live and visit but also a thriving hub of business and innovation that is driven by economic growth.

This is particularly vital after six years of Labor which ended in 2013 when the then Labor government failed to deliver a clear plan for the Central Coast that could lay the economic foundation that our local families and businesses so desperately need. Under the coalition and the budgets that have been presented under this government, we are finally starting to see some projects delivered, business precincts established and Australian-first initiatives taking shape right in the heart of Gosford. For example, in the coalition's growth plan for the Central Coast in 2013 we committed to delivering 250 to 300 new government jobs in a Commonwealth agency building in Gosford. Then we doubled that to 600 jobs. We know that will boost the local economy, particularly for Gosford.

Sadly, Labor and Labor aligned advocates on the Central Coast have, in a further determination that Gosford be held back, attacked this initiative. There has been a petition posted online in support of our initiative, to make sure that we see our region thrive, with community figures now determined to see our city transformed at last, while major business people are speaking up in local media about the need to bring our city into the 21st century.

I believe that this government is a central part of this invigoration, including the recent announcement of the Central Coast medical precinct task force, which builds on the $32.5 million commitment to a Central Coast medical school and medical research institute. The project is being delivered in partnership with all levels of government, the University of Newcastle, the Central Coast Local Health District and key stakeholder groups. With the key policy and determination from this government in the recent budget, we can build on this plan for our region.

That is why I was so pleased to see some key initiatives announced in the budget, to be considered in detail here. Part of this is the Turnbull government's legislation to provide personal income tax relief which has passed the parliament, confirming 500,000 average full-time wage earners across Australia will have more money in their pockets. This tax relief increases the middle-income tax bracket from $80,000 to $87,000, providing tax relief of up to $315 per year.

To make it easier for businesses to expand and create more jobs, the budget proposes that the company tax rate be cut, with small and medium businesses benefiting first. It calls for small and medium businesses with annual turnover of less than $10 million to have their company tax rate cut to 27.5 per cent. This will reduce the tax rate for more than 5,000 companies in my electorate of Robertson.

Since many small businesses are not companies, the government will also increase the unincorporated small business tax discount to eight per cent and extend the threshold from a turnover of $2 million to $5 million. This will enable more than 15,000 businesses in Robertson to access these concessions. But these changes must be part of a wider economic plan built on strong budget management, so my question to the minister is this: how does the 2016-17 budget, through these bills, promote jobs and growth? If the government's priority to repair the budget was not being pursued, what would be the alternative?

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

I am conscious of time. If the company tax cuts are defeated in the Senate, will the government stick to them or will they abandon them?

Kelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party, Minister for Revenue and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and I thank the member for Robertson for her question as well. I know how committed she is to her electorate, to being a champion for her electorate and making sure that she can advocate particularly on behalf of those more than 5,000 small businesses that will be beneficiaries of our company tax cuts as well as the unincorporated businesses. Ninety-seven per cent of small businesses in this country are unincorporated, but they too will get the benefit through tax discounts.

She has asked if there are any alternatives. Those opposite, of course, do not support our threshold change to the definition of small business. It has not been changed in a great number of years. They would keep it to less than $2 million in turnover; we are raising it to $10 million. Why would we do that? Because we do not want to put a handbrake on aspiration. We want people to be able to do well. Those opposite would like to penalise them. We think it is a good thing when people do well, because when they do well they can grow more. When they grow more, they can encourage even more employment. The member for Robertson has seen that in her own electorate; in fact, I had the opportunity to visit a number of small businesses in her electorate not so long ago.

She also talks about the benefit of personal income tax cuts and stopping people from going into a higher tax bracket. Again, that is because we believe it is important not to penalise people for doing well. We believe it is important to give them a hand up and we think it is completely ridiculous to think that, in the next 10 years, the majority of Australians will be in the top two tax brackets, unless we do something about it. So it is our down payment on how we can reduce the personal income tax rates for those people.

The member opposite wants to talk about embarrassing moments, speaking about personal income tax rates. When Chris Bowen was the shadow Treasurer, he was asked about personal income tax rates—something that affects absolutely every single Australian in this country. He could not name the tax-free threshold when he was asked by Alan Jones whether or not he could nominate the next tax rate. He took a guess at 15 per cent and, of course, had to be put out of his misery and be told that it was, in fact, 19 per cent. Those opposite have no credibility on these issues and they should not stand in the way of company tax cuts that will benefit small business in this country. He asks me whether or not we are going to proceed with these changes. I would say instead to him: why is it that the Labor Party is so committed to blocking—

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

It is only dead, if you block it.

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

It is only dead if you block it, and you need to be able to look the Australian people in the face and say to them why it is that you stand in the way of small business, why you stand in the way of prosperity for the Australian people and why it is that you will block their aspiration, because it is Labor that is doing that. This side of the House believes it is very important to encourage small business. Those opposite want to put a handbrake on small business and they think the answer to every question is simply to further and further increase taxes. We say it is important—

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

Ratings agencies? I am very happy to speak about ratings agencies. Those opposite would be very, very well aware that we need to get our spending under control in order to satisfy the ratings agencies, and the biggest blocker to getting spending under control, again, is those opposite. While we did have some assistance with the Budget Savings (Omnibus) Bill, frankly, that was not enough. Because of the debt trajectory that we were left with and because of the baked-in spending from those opposite, it was critically important that we address and arrest the spending, and those opposite have been complete blockers.

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

I thank the minister. It being 12.45, the time for this consideration in detail has expired.

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

It is not yet quarter to.

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

It is by my clock here, and I am following this one here.

Finance Portfolio

Proposed expenditure—$422,269,000—agreed to.

Immigration and Border Protection Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $2,766,432,000

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

Minister, the Prime Minister, you and the Deputy Prime Minister all recently travelled to the United States of America to participate in the US led multilateral program to resettle refugees from central America currently living in Costa Rica. It was a very high profile trip and a notable announcement, and you got to spend time with the President of the United States, no doubt. Only this week during Senate estimates representatives from your very own department confirmed that it was the lead agency in the refugee deal and it was 'very involved' in the process, to quote them. Yet when it came to the details of the refugee deal, your department was unable to answer a single question on the basics of the agreement between the Australian government and the United States government.

Minister, given your department was not able to answer basic questions, can you please shed light on the following. What was your personal involvement and role in the development of the refugee deal? When did the negotiations start for this agreement? When was the deal actually reached by the Australian government with the American government? When will refugees start to arrive in Australia? By when will they all have arrived? The department said there will be a small number of refugees, but precisely how many refugees will arrive in Australia? When did the department brief you on the deal? How long will the deal actually last? Tell us about the duration of the deal. What will be the cost to the Australian taxpayer? Will this impact on the overall intake, or is it included in the 18,750 commitment you re-announced in the United States of America? Do you have any other pay-to-play deals in the offing? Minister, unlike the department, do you know the answers to these questions and will you give them today?

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

Minister, welcome to the Federation Chamber. It is good to see you here. I know how busy you are and what an effective job you are doing in your portfolio. The Immigration and Border Protection portfolio has a direct influence on things that happen in my electorate, and the coalition's success in stopping the boats has definitely had successful flow-on effects in my electorate of Swan.

The success of the Operation Sovereign Borders means that the Perth Immigration Residential Housing, which was based in Redcliffe in my electorate in Western Australia can now be closed. This is on track to happen by the end of this year. This facility was first opened in April 2007. As part of the federal budget, the Turnbull government announced that the Redcliffe housing would be one of the four detention facilities in Australia to close, saving $39.1 million over four years, which enhances the budget, of course. This is just one of the many success stories that show how stopping the boats has had dividends for the nation's finances. It is also a reminder of the importance of border security to this country. Our border security is one of the finest in the world, protecting Australia not just against illegal arrivals but also from numerous other threats such as drugs, weapons and fire arms. I have had the good fortune to go out to Perth airport and see the massive amount of illegal weapons, drugs and other things that have been taken by customs agents during their processing of packages coming into Australia.

Two days ago we received news that the Australian Border Force in Western Australia had actually intercepted an international mail package from China. Contained in this package were 335 vials of performance- and image-enhancing drugs. The Border Force investigators executed a search warrant at this man's address and subsequently found prohibited weapons. Minister, this highlights the Border Force's commitment to protecting Australia from all types of threats.

This government's ability to close the Perth Immigration Residential Housing at Redcliffe is also a reminder of the unthinkable chaos that occurred when the previous Labor government weakened Australia's borders, leading to 50,000 illegal arrivals on 800 boats and to over 1,200 deaths at sea. Minister, under Labor, 10,000 people, including 2,000 children, entered detention. In the September update of Operation Sovereign Borders, no illegal maritime arrivals were transferred to Australian immigration authorities and no illegal maritime arrivals were transferred to the regional processing centres. Stopping the people smugglers has been a key part of our border security. Indonesian authorities recently arrested one person for their alleged facilitator involvement in people-smuggling activities. The coalition works with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to continue the delivery of counter-people-smuggling efforts with counterpart agencies in Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. We also have Australian Border Force officers posted to these places to coordinate efforts to keep people smugglers at bay—and people smugglers they are.

In 2008, when I first came into parliament, I attended a citizenship ceremony and met with one of the refugees from Afghanistan. His particular story was as follows. When I asked him how he got to Australia, he said he had arrived by boat during the Howard years. It was one of the three boats that arrived after the policy on turning the boats back was implemented. I asked him, 'How did you find the people smugglers?' He said: 'I didn't find the people smugglers. They actually came to our village and promised that they could get us into Australia.' I said, 'What did that cost you?' He said, 'It cost US$10,000.' I said, 'Did you weigh up the risks?' He said, 'Yeah, it was quite risky, but the people smugglers assured us they could get us into Australia.' So he paid the $10,000 and eventually arrived in Australia on one of the three boats that actually got into Australia. At the end, I said, 'So you found a way to beat the system.' He agreed, 'Yes, we did find a way to beat the system.' That is a story from one of the refugees who came in at that time, actually confirming that it is the people smugglers' trade and nothing more than that.

Minister, by stopping these boats and the people smugglers, this coalition has stopped the flow of illegal arrivals into detention centres. There is broad support for a strong immigration program in this country, as long as it is through legal means. I know we still have a few people in Nauru and on Manus, but we have reduced those numbers. There are only 873 people in the Manus Regional Processing Centre and even fewer people in the Nauru Regional Processing Centre—well below the 10,000 people whom Labor put in detention.

Minister, if you get a chance, I would like you to comment on the article today in TheAustralian regarding the ABC and the havoc they are causing on Nauru by making false allegations. Also, how has the government been able, in our budget, to close more detention centres?

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

Minister, in December 2015, you announced two new high-performance vessels would be delivered to Cairns in September 2016. We have seen September come and go, and, clearly, no vessels have been delivered—another broken promise. It was recently revealed that the delivery of those vessels would be delayed till mid-2017. The federal member for Leichhardt was quoted in a WIN News Cairns interview as saying, concerning these vessels: 'I've checked on it to find there have been some production glitches.'

The role of the Australian Border Force is significant in the region, particularly in Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait, ensuring the border is protected and that illegal fishers cannot exploit our waters—not to mention the other roles the Australia Border Force play. Minister, I am keen for you to explain to the people of Far North Queensland and the Torres Strait: what were those production glitches, will those glitches impact on the effectiveness of the vessels, what was the cost of these vessels and will the delays result in additional expenses? The two vessels are being produced in the United States of America. Has the department purchased other vessels from the company in the United States before? What operations were those two vessels to undertake, precisely? Has the delay in delivering these two vessels resulted in any gaps in the Australian Border Force network in Far North Queensland, North Queensland or the Torres Strait? If so, how is that gap being managed?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for the opportunity to be here in the Federation Chamber. I want to say thank you to other colleagues, including the shadow minister, here today. There are a number of issues that have been raised. To go to the first directly: it is true that the Prime Minister and I had a very productive trip to the United States only a few weeks ago. There, we were able to talk about the success that Australia had enjoyed over the course of the last several years in stopping deaths at sea.

One of the proudest achievements of this government is that we have been able to clean up a mess of Labor's making: 50,000 people arrived in 800 boats. Labor has apologised for that, and we welcome that apology, but it seems that they have not learned from the lesson, because their policy, ultimately, has not changed. If they were elected tomorrow, the difficulty for Labor is that the boats would recommence, because the people smugglers can sniff out a weak Labor leader 10,000 miles away. They did it with Rudd, they did it with Gillard and they are doing it again with Mr Shorten.

The poisoned chalice has been handed to the member for Blair. Mr Neumann presides, along with the Leader of the Opposition, over an opposition which is squarely divided when it comes to this important issue. We can go through each of the contributions of members on the backbench who would add to the failure which they would again preside over, if they were to come back into government. It is a very important point to make because, when we went the United States, we were able to talk about the successes—and there are many European nations who have a lot of interest in the success that Australia has been able to achieve. My department has worked with some of those agencies and some of those countries to work through not just the success that we have had in Operation Sovereign Borders but also the intelligence picture that sits beneath that.

There are 16 agencies that are involved in Operation Sovereign Borders, and they work together and they work well. We have diplomatic engagement with a number of countries, which has resulted in significant success. The point of that is that we have had, as part of that success, interaction with countries, including the United States. It is why we took a decision to support the United States in relation to the settlement of a limited number of people under the program that the honourable member opposite spoke of in his contribution.

To answer his question directly, I was advised of and approved the arrangement in August of this year. It was well thought through because, in the end, regardless of what referrals are made to us by the United Nations through the UNHCR process or any other process in terms of the humanitarian and refugee program, we will conduct our own health checks and our own security and intelligence checks in relation to individuals before people arrive in this country.

It is the case that, in July of this year, the government of Costa Rica announced that it had agreed to enter into a protection transfer arrangement, a PTA, with the UNHCR and IOM—both very important partners for our country. They wanted to help address a regional migration challenge. It is the case that the US, in coordination with the UNHCR and IOM, committed to prescreening protection applicants from the region. Those applicants determined to be most in need will be transferred from Costa Rica for processing. They include refugees from Central America who are seeking international protection from kidnappings, human trafficking, family violence and targeted killings against their communities by known gangs.

We have received a lot of assistance from the United States—particularly, I might say, and it is worth noting, in relation to the intake of refugees from Syria. We have relied necessarily on the United States and that partnership to deal with the security checks that we asked to be undertaken so that we did not end up with the sorts of problems that we have seen in Europe. We have scrutinised every application to the best of our ability. We have done that with the support of the United States and with the support of our Five Eyes partners. We have been able to go through a process which, I think, has resulted in a better intake in terms of the Syrian refugees.

For all of these reasons, because we have a very close working relationship with IOM and with the UNHCR, we did take a decision in relation to the Costa Rica scenario—and it is within the existing program, so there is no additional cost—that I think would enjoy bipartisan support. There is no secret to the process, there is no secret to the detail. Costa Rica, the United States and Australia have been very transparent about the process, and it was an important summit that President Obama put together. Prime Minister Turnbull was able to talk about the success in not only stopping boats but also bringing in a record number of refugees. I am happy to add to that, if necessary.

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

Minster, I know the government likes to talk a lot about asylum seekers and refugees, but I want to switch the topic to another area of your portfolio, in relation to temporary workers and temporary work visas. I am talking about backpacker 417 and 462 visas, about skilled migration and skilled temporary worker 457 visas; and about international students. There are about 1.3 million people in this country on temporary work visa arrangements. That is a lot of people to have in our country. Do we know at this moment where they are and where they are working? Do we know where every one of these 1.3 million people is working? Leaving aside the favourite topic of the government, do we really have control of our borders when it comes to temporary workers who are in this country? There are about 200,000 people in Australia on a 417 visa at the moment.

I bring to the minister's attention a report into the 417 visa working holiday program, which was released by the Fair Work Ombudsman on the weekend. Some of the findings in the report were quite damning. I would like to know the minister's comments on how the government is going to follow up those findings, particularly those in relation to the 417 visa and the treatment of people here on this visa. The report says:

As a consequence, the Inquiry found the 417 visa program created an environment where:

This is treatment of people who are here on a visa. Minister, I want to know specifically whether you believe that this could be a case of visa fraud, where 14 per cent of people surveyed had to pay to secure regional work and six per cent had to pay their employee to sign-off on regional work. How does this interact with your department? Specifically, do we have a case of unscrupulous businesses requiring backpackers to pay for visas in terms of employment?

The report highlights that visa holders from Asian countries are more likely to have a low awareness of workplace rights, are more likely to have money deducted from their pay without verbal or written consent, are more likely to have paid to obtain a second-year visa and are more likely to paid an agent to secure regional work to meet the eligibility requirements. Is the department going to provide information to such workers when they enter this country to let them know what their rights are? Such behaviours are grossly undermining this visa program if people have to pay for it in an unscrupulous way. This report is damning on the 88-day regional requirements that we have with this visa. The report's findings are damning and it paints the visa program as exploitative.

Minister, what is the plan to clean this up? Why has there been such a delay about in previous years? This is not the first report on the problems with this class of visa. There have been media reports and government reports—time and time again. The Fair Work Ombudsman in its report said it has a problem with this class of visa. When will the government clean up this visa and make sure that it is fixed?

I have further questions that I want to put to the minister, in relation not just to the 417 visa but to all visa holders. There was the tragic death of a backpacker last Monday. She was working on a workplace and she fell to her death. There was also a tragedy, 12 months earlier, when two other backpackers died at their workplace. Minister, there have already been, sadly, 132 fatalities in Australian workplaces. Just how many of those were visa holders? How many of them are visa holders working here in unsafe working conditions?

My final question relates to 457 visas, and the companies and the people responsible—the assessing authorities. How much money are they making from assessing people on these visas. I am talking about the AMA and Engineers Australia. Just how much money are they making from people applying for 457 visas? Is there a conflict of interest between these organisations, the department and the people applying? (Time expired)

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will address a couple of the issues that the member for Bendigo has raised. In relation to 457 visas, it was a great script from which she read—it would have been great had she attributed it to the union boss that sent it to her; nonetheless, I am happy to do my best to respond to it. The 457 visas are quite an interesting study, because the point missed out in the script from the union, honourably read by the member for Bendigo, is that we have seen a dramatic reduction in the number of 457s under this government compared to Labor's period in government. It is a point that the Labor Party continues to brush over. The same arrangements that applied under the Labor Party apply under this government. If there is a problem with the system I would be happy to hear from the honourable member, but the reality is that the number of 457 visas has dropped dramatically. If the honourable member has questions of particular organisations in relation to their own private affairs, then I suggest she go back to the union and asks them to make those inquiries specifically with those organisations themselves. Similarly, in relation to 417 visas, working holiday visas, we are happy to act on information that honourable members can provide. There is a considerable amount of work being undertaken, including in relation to Taskforce Cadena. It is telling that the member for Bendigo, having delivered her script, done her work, done her bidding on behalf of the union bosses, now leaves the chamber.

The issue of vessels in North Queensland has been raised. The ABF is currently acquiring two fast response boats from SAFE Boats International through a foreign military sale arrangement with the United States Coast Guard—and that speaks to the reliability of this particular provider and the background to this provider. They are a world-class provider of these sorts of vessels. The vessels will give the ABF access to highly specialised vessels of a proven design suitable for border protection, and they will build on the assets both on the water and aerial that we have at the moment in the Torres Strait, which is an incredibly important zone for us in relation not just to boats but to illegal fishers as well. I acknowledge the incredible work done by the member for Leichhardt and his continuing advocacy. It is very pleasing to see that he continues to push in these important areas.

I come back to the contribution of my good friend Mr Irons. He has an impressive interest in these areas, and it is the case, as we have documented before, that Labor opened 17 detention centres and this government is closing 17 detention centres. When we came into government Labor had had 2,000 children in detention, and we have got those children out of detention. We have been able to reduce the numbers of IMAs in detention dramatically. We have been able to continue that success because we have not had new arrivals. It is very clear that, had Labor been successful at the last election, by now the boats would already have recommenced. There is no doubt about that, because they see Labor as weak and divided. They saw it during the election, and that is the reason the Leader of the Opposition sought not to speak about this at all. The reality is that we have not had new arrivals—it has been well over 800 days since we have had a successful people-smuggling venture—and that means we can keep people out of detention.

We are as a government, as I have said on numerous occasions, working with a number of third countries because we do want, as a priority, to get women and children and family units off Nauru. We want to do that because people have been there too long, and it is the case that we have built up success in stopping people smugglers, in breaking their business model, in convincing would-be passengers that it is not worth paying their money, and because of that success we can enter into discussions about implementing this in a way that will not result in new arrivals. There is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes but, to go to the member's question directly, we have been able to close a number of centres. I will make some other points shortly when I have a little more time.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, my first question relates to the extra 12,000 places that were promised to refugees fleeing the conflict in Iraq and Syria, and I commend the government for their decision in relation to that. Today, reports indicate that around 4,000 people have actually arrived in Australia. Canada, during the same time period, has resettled more than 30,000 Syrian refugees. Effectively, they have done that in the same period that we have resettled 4,000 refugees. Why is it taking the Australian government so long to meet their commitment, and what instructions have responsible ministers issued to the department which bear on the rate in which Syrian refugees are being processed to meet the target?

I would like to ask the minister: will your government be considering a one-off amnesty for people who have been found to be genuine refugees on Manus and Nauru, and will you consider some sort of program for them to settle in New Zealand or Canada which, I understand, are two countries that are welcome to take refugees, as in refugees that we have responsibility for? My understanding is that Canada has a scheme that will allow families in Canada to billet, to sponsor, refugee families, particularly families from Syria. Will our government consider the option of a similar program for families here in Australia? That would assist refugee families to more easily connect with the Australian community and would, I am sure, considerably reduce the cost of resettlement.

Minister, I would like to ask you: in relation to the children and young people on Nauru, could you give some details in relation to the engagement of those children in education? My understanding, from certain reports that I have read, is that there are lower rates of engagement for children who are studying, children who have since moved from studying within the detention centre to out in the community, and that they are not going to school for a number of reasons. Will your government commit to ending the long-term detention of the children on Nauru? We understand that the gates are open in the detention centre; however, these children are in a camp. They are not in homes—homes that your children, that my children, live in. They are not in an environment that is conducive to learning, to having a good quality of life; an environment that is conducive to good wellbeing and the kinds of opportunities that our children in Australia have—to go to university, to study further. I would like to ask what the plans are to get those children off Nauru.

Finally, Minister, I would like to ask you about transparency. My party is very focused on transparency, so my question relates to the freedom of the press. My understanding is that, thus far, only A Current Affair and journalist Chris Kenny have had the opportunity to attend Manus Island and Nauru, so I would like to ask: have Fairfax, Huffington, The Guardian, the ABC or any other media outlets made contact with your department to seek to go to Nauru and/or Manus Island, and what were the answers from you in relation to that—did you approve such requests?

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I remind the minister that, if he wishes to, he can respond after two or three batches of speakers.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a fair amount of content in the honourable member's question, and I want to do justice to the reply. The honourable member first raised the issue of the Syrian intake. As a general comment, let me say that, as the United Nations has pointed out, there are 65 million people in the world who are displaced and would seek to come to start a better life in our country tomorrow. That is understandable for a number of reasons. In Syria, for example, there are 6½ million people who are displaced, and the thought that a country like Australia—or even the United States, the United Kingdom or France—could take all of those people is just not realistic. So Australia has announced that we would take 12,000 people as part of an international effort, which put us—even in real terms, but certainly on a per capita basis—pretty close to the top of the tree. Each year, along with the United States and Canada, we settle more people—again, in real terms and on a per capita basis—than almost any other country in the world. So there is a lot for us to be very proud of.

The first charge for me as the minister responsible for immigration and border protection is to make sure that I protect our own people. As we have seen in Belgium, as we have seen in Germany only in the last fortnight and as we have seen in France and elsewhere, people are passing themselves off as refugees when really that is not their background and it is not who they are. They are going to cause disruption and we are not going to allow that to happen in our program. I am not making any other comment about other countries' screening processes or the way in which they have conducted their intake, but it is the case that because we have been scrupulous about each of the applications that have been made we have discovered people of national security interest and risk. I think, had we not conducted the thoroughness of the process, we would have ended up with some of those people here.

The difficulty for all of us in the modern age, and this will be with us for our lifetimes, is that it just takes one person who has crossed our border with ill intent to go into a shopping centre or public place or—speaking of our children—playground or school or somewhere else. We have seen this overseas. The tragedy of such circumstances carried out would not only disrupt and destroy lives but also undermine the confidence the Australian people have in the intake of migrants into this country. What all of the longitudinal work shows is that the Australian public's confidence in an increased number of migrants coming into this country each year tracks very closely to the government of the day's competence in maintaining control of our borders. So we have been meticulous in the process and we have been able to bring people in.

I am advised that between 1 July 2015 and 7 October this year 14,047 visas have been granted. There are the 12,000 within the program, but within the 13,750 base program we already have 4,850 who come from Syria and Iraq—8,313 of those go towards the additional 12,000 places, and there are 884 under the 2016-17 humanitarian program. In this time, 10,244 people have arrived in Australia—5,235 as part of the additional 12,000 places and 1,816 arrivals in 2016-17. As at 7 October, a further 6,126 people have been interviewed and assessed as meeting the threshold requirements for a visa and are awaiting the outcomes of health, character and/or security checks. So the program is going well, but we are not going to rush it. We were encouraged by the Labor Party early on to push through this program and get these people here. We have been very clear—I was very clear to our people in the posts as I have been to the officers within the department here—that we are not going to compromise, (a) because we have the potential of bringing a security risk in and (b) because we would displace somebody who was actually a refugee and deserving of that place and would be left to languish.

In relation to the matters on Nauru, as I have said before, we are absolutely determined—now that we have stopped boats, we have the situation under control and we have the assets and the political determination to deal with this threat ongoing—to get women, children and family units off Nauru. It is the absolute priority of me, the Prime Minister and the government. We have no control over who Nauru issues visas to, as the honourable member would well know. I do not accept advice from the New Zealand minister or from the PNG minister about who I should issue visas to, and this is entirely an issue for the government of Nauru. I would mention that of course the arrangement was set up in 2012 under Prime Minister Gillard. We have tidied up that mess. We have stopped the 1,000 people a week arriving on boats and we have presided over a much more humane arrangement than Labor set up in the first place. (Time expired)

Ted O'Brien (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to have the minister in the room with us today to answer questions. The global political economy is amidst a period of heightened volatility as major conflicts are causing upheaval the world over. As I speak today, there are about 10 major wars raging around the world, with the Syrian civil war alone causing over 1,000 deaths every single week.

Due to such conflicts and the persecutions, the violence and the human rights abuses they create, we have about—and the minister said it—65 million displaced people around the world today: 65 million people!—of which, according to UNHCR, over 15 million are refugees and 10 million are stateless. That is the largest number ever, even larger than post-World War II. This is a sad and miserable fact, and a symptom, if you like, of those major conflicts that are causing upheaval.

Now, Australia, as we know, is one of the few countries in the world that has a planned resettlement program that proactively goes out and selects the most vulnerable people in the world and resettles them here in Australia. No matter how much media noise or activist politics from the Left surround our immigration regime, the fact remains that Australia's record is something we should all be very proud of.

Australians are an open, tolerant and generous people. We know our history, and that all of us, except our Indigenous peoples—our first peoples—are relatively newcomers. That includes me, with a mix of convict blood and free settler blood. As a nation and as a people, we naturally want to help those who are more vulnerable than ourselves. But we are also a pragmatic lot; I have never heard any Australian suggest that we should invite all 21 million refugees to settle here in Australia, nor that we should invite all 65 million displaced people here to take refuge. While we want to do all that we can, there will always be a limit to the resources that we can commit to and how many people can emigrate.

A social compact has emerged over time, and it is a simple one that reflects a correlation between how well the government manages our borders and the people's appetite for new immigrants. This is where Labor got it so drastically wrong in losing control of our borders. They oversaw a humanitarian disaster that resulted from Australia's greatest public policy bungle, certainly in my lifetime, with 50,000 people arriving on 800 boats and over 1,200—at least, those we know about—who lost their lives at sea.

Restoring integrity in the system has fallen to the coalition government, and it has done so. It has restored integrity with a range of measures, and none more important than stopping the boats. Restoring control to our borders requires (1) Labor's mess to be fixed and, (2) building new capacity so that our humanitarian intake may increase. These two challenges are not mutually exclusive. Rather, that they are sequential and interdependent—one is a prerequisite for the other, if you like.

Only by fixing Labor's mess and stopping the boats can confidence and trust in the system be rebuilt, for the greater our control over our sovereign borders the greater our capacity as a nation to extend compassion to those in the world who are indeed the most needy. And it is within this context that I wish to ask the minister the following question: Minister, how has stopping the boats helped restore integrity to our humanitarian intake?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member very much. He is doing a fine job as the new member for Fairfax, and he is making an enormous contribution to this debate because, like all Australians, he wants to make sure that we continue the generosity and that we continue the support to new families who come to our country, in many cases from very difficult circumstances. As a government, we do have a lot to be very proud of and as a country we have a lot to be very proud of.

We have been able to stand up, along with world leaders, and point out the number of people who we do take through the refugee and humanitarian program. And there are a lot of Australians who are very interested in this topic, from both sides of the debate. There are people who argue that we should take fewer and there are people who argue that we should take more. I would point all of those people to the information which details, country by country, the number of refugees taken in by Australia and those taken in by countries like France, Germany and many others

I think Australians would be surprised at how far up that list we sit. And, in addition to the 13,750 people we will take through the humanitarian and refugee program this year—and we have committed to the 12,000 Syrians, as the honourable member noted in his contribution—we will take 16,250 next year and 18,750 in 2018-19. Between 1 July 2015 and 7 October 2016, as I have pointed out before, 14,000 visas were granted to people displaced by conflict in Syria and Iraq alone.

Our country has a very significant relationship with IOM and UNHCR, as I pointed out before, but we also have a very important relationship with many communities here in our country. Many communities have established themselves through the contribution of a number of families who, over one or two or more generations, have been able to contribute philanthropically to the betterment of their own communities. They are now in a position to sponsor people coming to our country through the refugee and humanitarian program. We are very proud to be able to work with those communities, and it is part of the success that we have had in settling almost 850,000 people as refugees since the end of the Second World War. It is a considerable part of the fabric of today's Australian society, and we have the ability to contribute more to that.

As the member for Fairfax rightly points out, the Australian public will only support generosity where they see a competent government in control of the process and not being dictated to by people smugglers. One of the most shameful periods of our country's history was during Labor's period in government when we lost control of our borders and 1,200 people tragically drowned at sea. I am very proud that we have not had one person drown at sea since the commencement of Operation Sovereign Borders. We have been able to get children out of detention and we have been able to bring in a record number of people through the refugee and humanitarian programs—and long may that be the case.

Labor's policy disaster was evidenced by the fact that they reached into the Humanitarian Program to use places which would otherwise have provided support to people out of war-torn countries to settle people who had arrived by boat—economic refugees. It demonstrated the corruptness of Labor's process and it demonstrated why, in this debate even today, they do not have the credibility to talk about what they might do tomorrow. They are completely and utterly divided. The people smugglers have this worked out. We saw it reported in the run-up to the election that people smugglers were rubbing their hands together, anticipating the return of a Labor government and a weak Prime Minister in Shorten following weak prime ministers in Gillard and Rudd. That is the reality. Labor's inability to accept this underscores that they still have not learnt the lesson.

The member for Blair has been passed the poison chalice, and I think Mr Marles was happy to run from this portfolio at a thousand miles an hour. It is only the coalition government that can maintain the integrity we have within the humanitarian and refugee programs. We will continue to work with other countries and organisations to make sure that we deliver the best possible outcomes for those most deserving, so that they can restart their lives in this great country.

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

I agree with the minister's earlier comment that the asylum seekers on Manus and Nauru have been there too long. I agree with him on that. But you have been in power for three years and you have failed to find a durable third-party resettlement option. Minister, yesterday you said:

We have been working around the world with third countries to try and find options … every day we get closer to it.

I note you have not done it in the last three years you have been in power. There has been three years of doing nothing. Where are the negotiations up to? Who are you negotiating with? Which countries? Have you been working with the UNHCR? You have given us no details about that today. If you have been negotiating, in what manner? When will you tell the public what you are actually doing and when will we get these people into durable third-party countries?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is such an important issue to the honourable member opposite that, in fact, he has never asked me a question in question time.

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

I am asking you a question here today.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has not asked me one in question time. He has been the shadow minister for 89 days and has not asked one question on these matters—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask the members to keep their remarks through the chair.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

of national importance. He wants to come here today with these crocodile tears pretending that somehow he has got a grasp of the situation. I tell you what, this member demonstrated—

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

Just answer the question.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will answer the question.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Blair will stop interjecting.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This shadow minister just demonstrated through that question how poorly equipped he is to occupy this office. To ask us to make public who it is we are talking with, who it is we are negotiating with, when these arrangements will be arrived at demonstrates yet again that Labor have not learnt their lessons.

Mr Neumann interjecting—

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Blair will refrain from interjecting.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the reality is that the ignorance demonstrated through that recent contribution by the member for Blair, I think, should say to all Australians that Labor still have no capacity to deal with the very serious consequences of bad decisions in this portfolio. The member makes reference to people who are on Nauru and, indeed for that matter, on Manus. These arrangements were set up by Prime Ministers Rudd and Gillard, it needs to be pointed out. Why do we need these arrangements? Because Labor undid the arrangements when they came into government in 2007. There were four people in detention, including no children, when John Howard left office in 2007 and then there were 50,000 who arrived on 800 boats. It is unbelievable.

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

In 166 days, you have done nothing.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pity that you do not have the ability to ask these questions in the House.

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

I am asking you now.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I am asking the member for Blair.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You have not asked these questions in the House. It either shows that you are completely ineffective in your tactics committee or they do not want to hear from you.

Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Blair, stop interjecting. I have asked a couple of times and I do not want to ask again.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Frankly, I think the member for Corio demonstrated that he had a better temperament than the member for Blair. He had the ability to deal with very tough issues, particularly after the period when Labor first came into the opposition. He admitted the mistakes that Labor made. He admitted that the arrangements on Nauru were set up by Prime Minister Gillard. He admitted that there was an undoing of the successful Howard government arrangements and he at least had the ability, which is not demonstrated here at all and is reinforced again today by the shadow minister, that he could ask questions and conduct himself in a way that was not a threat to these prospective arrangements.

This shadow minister today has demonstrated that he is clearly a threat to prospective arrangements. Asking us today to publicly talk about where sensitive negotiations might be at at this point in time, asking us to disclose who it is we are talking to—having no regard to the interests of whoever that particular partner might be—demonstrates that he does not have the ability to carry out this portfolio in government. It has been evidenced on a day-by-day basis but reinforced in this chamber today.

It is clear that Labor do not want to talk about this issue because they do not ask questions in the House of Representatives on these very matters. It is unbelievable that he would seek to come here to lecture us about people that he put on Nauru that we have sought to get out to third countries or to return to their countries of origin. In actual fact, do you know the reason that Labor have no credibility on this issue? It is because half of their back bench still advocates that they should still come to Australia. Half of Labor's backbench demonstrate that this Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, has no ability to show the leadership required to send a purposeful and definite and clear message to people smugglers that if there was a Labor government in this country that somehow they would not allow the boats to restart. Because if you allow a crushing of one of the successful legs of Operation Sovereign Borders—that is, the operation of regional processing centres—and if you allow people smugglers, as Labor would, to say to people, 'We have again cracked the code to get people to Australia,' you would end up with deaths at sea again. You would end up with 2,000 kids in jail and those opposite should be ashamed of their track record.

Question agreed.

Proceedings suspended from 13:34 to 16:00

Employment Portfolio

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

The proposed expenditure now before the federation chamber is for the employment portfolio. The question is that the proposed expenditure be agreed to.

Proposed expenditure, $1,235,196,000

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to refer to a letter I sent to the Minister for Employment on 16 March this year in relation to the former vice president of the Fair Work Commission, Mr Michael Lawler.

Of course, the minister at the table is aware of the circumstances around the resignation of Vice President Lawler of the Fair Work Commission. There was of course an independent assessment of his conduct by a former Federal Court judge, appointed by the Minister for Employment, to look into whether in fact he had been in breach of his duties as vice president over the most recent years.

I will just remind the House that of course Vice President Lawler was appointed to the Fair Work Commission at the time when the former Prime Minister, the member for Warringah, was the Minister for Employment in the Howard government. So Mr Lawler was a longstanding commissioner of the Fair Work Commission and there were some questions around his performance and him discharging his responsibilities as a vice president of the Fair Work Commission.

We are seeking to have the information about his entitlements disclosed publicly. We do know, of course, that the former Federal Court judge found that he was in breach of his duties as a vice president in his report, commissioned by the Minister for Employment. Then the vice president subsequently made a decision to resign, so no action had to be taken either by the parliament or by some other means.

However, on 16 March, on behalf of the federal opposition I sought to have information about the entitlements that Mr Lawler will be afforded, given his resignation. I asked then that the minister immediately disclose such matters in the public interest. We said at the time that the public has a right to know the difference in the entitlements Mr Lawler will receive as a result of his resignation, rather than being dismissed.

I sought at the time, and it is enclosed within the letter, that the Minister for Employment responded to the matters raised in the report that relate to the application for leave and termination proceedings in order to prevent a matter of this nature rising again. We have not really been provided with such information and we thought it was an opportunity today for the government to provide that information. We think it is in the public interest that a most senior officer of the Fair Work Commission—in fact, arguably, the second-most senior officer of the Fair Work Commission—who was found to be in breach or in dereliction of his obligations as an officer who has subsequently resigned, be required to publicly disclose his entitlements upon that resignation.

We believe that the minister would be aware of the details of such entitlements afforded to Mr Lawler and yet, despite the letter of 16 March from me to the minister, we have not been in receipt of any information and would ask the minister at the table, the minister acting on behalf of the Minister for Employment, to provide answers to this question—namely, what are the details of the entitlements afforded to Mr Lawler upon his resignation?

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

I thank the member for acknowledging that my portfolio of course is Defence Industry, not employment, but I do represent the Minister for Employment here. The member asked a serious question, and I am prepared to give him a serious answer. He most recently on 21 September issued a press release asking for the details of Mr Lawler's entitlements to be disclosed. I can tell him that the Department of Finance has confirmed that Mr Lawler's application for a judicial pension is under consideration, and that is a question better put to the Minister for Finance or his representative in this place. We understand that, following Mr Lawler's resignation, the Fair Work Commission paid him the amounts to which he was legally entitled in accordance with the terms of his appointment—in other words, a pro-rataed, pro-rated remuneration amount and payment in lieu of long service leave.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the minister. Just turning to a more substantial matter in so far as public policy is concerned: today the House passed the registered organisation legislation, or proposed legislation, and the opposition moved some significant amendments to that bill. In December last year, the Labor leader and I announced a suite of reforms in relation to registered organisations, and those announcements informed the amendments that we foreshadowed today.

Unfortunately, given the procedural motion supported by the government, there was not an opportunity for many members to contribute and there was no opportunity for me, in consideration in detail, to ask the government the questions in relation to the amendments that we were looking to move. So, Mr Deputy Speaker Buchholz, I just want to touch on them, if I could go through the more important amendments proposed. Firstly, the federal opposition believe that we can support a new way of regulating registered organisations in so far as serious breaches are concerned. We have suggested that, rather than establish a separate commission to regulate registered organisations, we believe that ASIC, a mature and significant regulator, would be better charged with the responsibility to regulate the conduct of officers of registered organisations. For that reason, we propose that rather than the so-called ROC being established, we would rather see ASIC be the regulator. We believe it is likely a mature regulator that is highly respected in the community that currently regulates and examines whether in fact there is misconduct by companies is better placed to also regulate employer bodies and unions.

For many years now, the government have been saying—rhetorically, at least—that they want the same set of laws and forms of regulations that apply to companies to apply to registered organisations. In fact, I have heard many government members rhetorically argue that that should be the case. How could there be a better way of ensuring equality before the law, if you like, than having the same regulator regulate registered organisations that regulates companies? We also believe that it is far less likely that any government—this one or any future government—would interfere with the running of ASIC in the way in which they may interfere with this smaller body that is being proposed by the government.

So we would like to hear from the government as to whether they are seriously entertaining that amendment and whether, in fact, they can see the merits in allowing that an existing regulator that has been around for a very long time and that has a corporate memory in dealing with such matters could be the better regulator, as opposed to setting up an entirely new bureaucracy to deal with the regulation of registered organisations. That is one point.

I also ask the minister about some of the proposed amendments that we will be making when the Senate next sits. We ask whether the government would consider the whistleblower protections that we have proposed? We believe that there should be greater levels of support for whistleblowers in registered organisations. If we are going to reduce the likelihood of corruption occurring, we should enshrine the principle of protection and it should be afforded to whistleblowers. We ask the government to seriously entertain that proposition. We would like at least a preliminary response by the minister, if at all possible.

We would also like to see auditors held to a higher level of accountability in relation to their conduct. We want to make sure that they are reporting any misconduct and they are not in any way complicit. We would ask the minister to consider that.

Finally, we would like to know whether the government would seriously entertain reducing the disclosure threshold for donations, not only for registered organisation candidates but for candidates for federal elections.

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

I thank the shadow minister for his questions, and I will deal with them.

It is good to see that the opposition is constructively engaging on the registered organisations commission bill and proposing amendments in the Senate. Obviously, today the House passed the registered organisations commission bills, and we did so with a debate management motion. It did not afford the opposition—particularly new members of the opposition, including the member for Bruce—the opportunity to speak on this bill. But, as I pointed out to the House today, this was the fourth time that the House had considered the registered organisations commission bill. It has been through an exhaustive committee process in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives. The bill that was presented and has now been passed by the House today is in exactly the same form as it was on the other three times it was passed by the House of Representatives. So there is nothing new under the sun in relation to this particular bill.

So I do congratulate the opposition on at least being prepared, when this bill goes to the Senate, to move amendments and to be part of the negotiation process. Of course, the nature of the 45th Parliament is that the coalition has a majority in the House of Representatives—which has been proven time and time again this week—but not in the Senate. Therefore—

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

Yes, there is still another day to go—that is absolutely right! But I am pretty confident that we might have learnt that lesson, shadow minister. In the Senate, negotiation is the name of the game, so I am glad that the opposition is prepared to put forward constructive suggestions.

The government has a very firm view that the proposed registered organisations commission is the best means of delivering honest unions and honest union leaders. The coalition does not have a history of being anti-union—we have a history of being anti crooked union boss and bad union. That is exactly where we should be. I am sure that most members of the ALP—I cannot speak for them all, of course—also abhor dishonest union leaders, because they give honest union leaders a very bad name. Of course, as almost everybody in the Labor Party caucus is a former union leader, I am sure many of them feel very badly about the fact that dishonest union leaders give the rest of them a bad name.

Of course it is worth remembering that the ROC bill was born out of the appalling behaviour of the former member for Dobell, Mr Craig Thomson, who was the secretary of the Health Services Union. The government did not propose these measures because there was not a problem to be solved—there was a problem. The problem was dishonest union leaders ripping off their members—in the Health Services Union's case amongst the poorest workers in the work force such as cleaners in aged care homes and hospitals all around Australia. None of them could be accused of earning expansive incomes, and they were ripped off by Craig Thomson in a heinous way, and also by Mr Williamson before him. The government introduced the registered organisations commissions bill and we think it is the best mechanism to solve the issues. I doubt very much that the Labor Party's amendments will make it a better bill but I am sure that Senator Cash, when she deals with these matters, will deal with them in an even-handed way and give the Labor Party their fair due.

We all know why the Labor Party wants to reduce the thresholds for the disclosure of donations. We all know what happened last time. When the Hawke government introduced the disclosure thresholds, businesses that had previously given to the coalition were visited by union bosses all around Australia and told, 'You don't have to give us the same as you give the coalition, we know you support the coalition, but you must at least give us half.' Businesses that had never dreamt of giving money to the Labor Party to campaign against the coalition were forced, essentially by extortion, into funding a political party that they had had absolutely no intention of ever supporting. As a consequence, that has skewed the system. We do not get the same out of the unions, obviously, and as a consequence we will not be considering the Labor Party 's amendments to the disclosure requirements.

Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is disappointing to hear from the minister that the government will not entertain reducing the disclosure thresholds for candidates. The government commissioned a royal commission, one of the recommendations of which was to create a threshold of $1,000 for candidates in elections of registered organisations. Whilst the government has been praising the work of its former royal commissioner and has continually referred to the royal commission's work in dealing with corruption and other potential offences within registered organisations, it would appear the government wants to apply one set of laws for candidates in some elections and another set of laws for candidates in federal elections.

How can there possibly be a higher standard for candidates of registered organisations when, say, someone wants to run a union compared with candidates of federal elections when they want to run the country? It would appear inconsistent at best, if not hypocritical, to argue that we want to tighten threshold disclosures for those candidates under this bill for registered organisations and yet not apply such a principle to candidates. Whilst I have heard the comments of the minister, we would implore him and his government to reconsider that position. We know that the crossbench understands the merits behind the proposition and I think the government might find that many crossbench senators would support the view that if we are to have a law about threshold disclosure for registered organisations it should also apply to candidates in federal elections.

Let's make sure that all elections conducted by the Australian Electoral Commission do have similar laws. Let's not pretend that somehow there should be a different standard—a lower standard—for candidates who want to be in this place, if they are successful at an election, than for those who are seeking to be officers of registered organisations and go through an election to do so. We think that is highly inconsistent and unfair and, I would argue, hypocritical in relation to the government's current position.

We are happy to negotiate the amendments. We have seriously considered this bill. In fact, I would contend that we have announced policies that, if you look at the amendments in combination, would strengthen the bill. I think there is an opportunity here for the government and for the opposition to come together on a set of changes to the current bill which will match the rhetoric of the government. It would mean that companies and registered organisations would be regulated by the same regulator. It would mean that whistleblowers would be protected, that auditors would have to comply with a higher standard and that transparency in elections would be improved. How could that possibly be a worse situation?

I think the government should reconsider their position in relation to the disclosures. I certainly believe that the crossbench senators like what they hear in relation to the opposition's recommendations. I will not give up. I think the minister at the table, the Minister for Defence Industry, the most senior Defence minister in the government, acting on behalf of the Minister for Employment, should reconsider his earlier answer in relation to that. We think it is important that we get these regulations right. We will never be apologists for corrupt unions officials. We are ashamed when we see a corrupt union official. We should be ashamed when we seek corrupt corporate people too. That is why there has been hypocrisy in relation to the banks and the unions—they are not looking at misconduct in the banks in the same way they are looking at any misconduct in unions.

These are important amendments. I am glad I have had some opportunity to question the minister in relation to them, given that we were gagged in the parliament earlier today. I can assure the minister and this place that we will continue to pursue them with the crossbenchers.

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

I think that I have answered the question. I am happy to make the point that I think the shadow minister's five-minute contribution did not ask me any new question. I feel like I have answered the question in my previous contribution, and I really want to hear the contributions of the members for Chifley and Moreton, who I know are very keen to ask me questions.

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

I want to ask the Minister representing the Minister for Employment particular questions in reference to Work for the Dole. I wanted to draw his attention to the performance of the program which, according to the government's own figures tabled in response to questions on notice, shows that roughly 90 per cent of the young participants in that program fail to be in full-time employment three months after exiting the program. I also refer the minister to the statement today by Renee Leon, the secretary of the department, who told estimates 'the purpose of Work for the Dole is not necessarily to lead directly to a full-time job'.

I ask the minister: does he believe that a roughly 90 per cent failure rate for the Work for the Dole program is an acceptable outcome for the government and young Australians? Can the minister outline what plans the government has to ensure that Work for the Dole will not just get young people ready for work but actually get them work? Or does the minister acknowledge the Turnbull government has given up on the ability of the Work for the Dole program to help young Australians get jobs?

And while we are talking about that program, can I also ask some questions relating in particular to the terrible fatality of a young Work for the Dole participant in Toowoomba, in April this year. I understand that the department has undertaken an internal review of the matter as it relates to the operation of the deed with respect to the maintenance of appropriate workplace health and safety standards for both the providers and the hosts. I note that the government has acknowledged today that this internal review has been completed and that the minister has seen the report.

Also, if I may through you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and through the minister, I thank Minister Cash for two in-depth briefings—verbal briefings—that I received into that internal review and its findings. I have previously asked for copies of that report, which I am waiting to receive. I ask the minister when that report will be made public? Does he accept that the release of the report will help build confidence that the Work for the Dole program is maintaining appropriate workplace health and safety standards? And can the minister advise why an internal departmental review that concentrates on the application of the deed, without in-depth reference to the particulars of the incident and the fatality itself cannot be released ahead of the issue of the Queensland workplace health and safety regulator releasing its report?

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

I might deal with the second question first.

Obviously, the government agrees with your concern about the accident involving the Work for the Dole program in Toowoomba on 19 April 2016. It was a tragic accident, taking the life of a young jobseeker, Mr Joshua Park-Fing, who was a participant. Any workplace accident is a tragedy. Unfortunately, they usually occur entirely through accident and through no fault of any particular person. I think in the case of this accident, it was a situation that could easily have been avoided. But it was not avoided on this occasion and this man's life has been taken, which is a great tragedy for him and for his family and friends.

The matter was reported to the police immediately—as the member for Chifley knows because he has been kept very well informed, I think, by the department—and to workplace health and safety in Queensland, which is the relevant regulatory authority at the state level. WorkSafe Queensland is still currently conducting its investigation into the accident, and the Department of Employment is cooperating in that investigation, as much as it possibly can. Of its own, the Department of Employment has investigated the matters that fall within its responsibilities as the program owner, including compliance with the deed requirements by the jobactive provider.

In terms of the member for Chifley's specific question about releasing the government's own report: my understanding is that consideration will be given to that when the Queensland government has completed its inquiry, and then there will be a coordinated discussion between the various ministers, state and federal, about how that might be achieved. Any of the findings from the Department of Employment's review and the outcomes of the formal investigation will be considered to determine future policy, contractual requirements and operational processes that it has been advised might need to be revised.

Obviously, the government takes all health and safety concerns very seriously. On this occasion the Work for the Dole activity at the Toowoomba Showground was suspended immediately. The activity was never reactivated and has now ceased. The Department of Employment has advised me that the participants who were present or in the vicinity of the incident were offered counselling.

Does the member for Chifley want to ask me a further question about that matter?

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

Yes.

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

Well, to keep the flow, perhaps I might let you do that and then I will answer the wider question you asked.

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

I just have one follow-up question. You were conferring with your colleagues—or your advisers, I should say—and you may have missed one element of my question. It was that my understanding is that the internal review—without giving anything away of the internal review, and respecting the confidentiality of the briefings I have received—focused very much on the particulars of the application of the deed. It does not necessarily, as I am led to believe through the verbal briefings—because I have not been afforded the benefit of the written brief or the report—refer to the particulars of the incident per se, which as you have rightly advised the House is being managed by the Queensland regulator. I am just trying to appreciate why a report into the deed itself and the application of the arrangements relating to the provider and the host cannot be made public. I would certainly welcome any advice you can provide on that.

Can the minister also indicate whether the review—this is the internal review, not the Queensland regulator's report—references the findings of the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program and whether it demonstrates that the review has recommended changes to any internal processes that conform with the commission findings?

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

I must admit to the member for Chifley that I did not hear that part of his question, because I was conferring with my advisers.

Common sense suggests to me that the Commonwealth's area of responsibility, being the program, was quite properly the subject of our internal investigation. The Minister for Employment will make a decision about whether that will be made public at the appropriate time. I am confident that she will offer the member for Chifley a briefing on that matter at the appropriate time, but I understand it has only just been received by the Minister for Employment, so she probably has not formed a view about that at this stage.

In terms of the investigation into the accident itself, it is the jurisdiction of the state—the WorkCover Queensland commission or authority. They may well release their findings—in fact, they usually do in these sorts of situations where there has been a workplace accident. They will do that, I assume, when they finish their investigation and make that decision.

In terms of the Home Insulation Program and the royal commission into those matters, I am simply not aware of whether they form the basis of the program investigation. I am sure that the Minister for Employment will correspond separately with the member for Chifley on that matter as is appropriate. I do not have the answer to that in my briefings, so I will let her deal directly with you.

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

Are you able to take it on notice?

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

I have taken it on notice, and the Minister for Employment will correspond directly to the member for Chifley on that matter.

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

If I can, I will ask the minister about matters that I think he and I share an interest on—specifically, the impact on employment and jobs of automation and technology. I wanted to ask, in reference to the Department of Employment, particular questions in this regard. Firstly, can I ask: has the department undertaken any assessment of the impact of automation and technology on the Australian workforce and the labour market in coming years? How many jobs does the department believe will be made obsolete by automation in the next 15 years? Also, what advice has the department provided the Turnbull government about how to manage the impact of automation and technological change on Australian jobs? What funding in the department is dedicated to finding out what kinds of jobs will disappear due to automation, what jobs may replace them and what can be done to assist people in transition?

If the minister does not have those answers present—I understand they are very specific—I would welcome it if he could take them on notice. I am also well aware that he is a person very much across this issue, given previous portfolio areas he has occupied. I would certainly welcome any input he may have on those matters.

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

It is a very good question, and a lot of people want to know the answer as to the future of manufacturing and automation in Australia and the impact, effectively, of change on our workforce. I would direct the member for Chifley to the voluminous number of reports that exist from the excellent think tanks in Australia that we have around the job impacts of automation and high-tech, advanced manufacturing versus old-fashioned manufacturing.

I have left the portfolio, but I can tell him that the first two quarters of this year were the two best quarters for manufacturing since December 2004. That was in terms of new jobs, new businesses, export opportunities and investment. In those areas, in 2016 manufacturing had the two best quarters that it has had since 2004. So the economy is transitioning and there is no doubt that, for many Australian workers and their families, automation and manufacturing technology represents a threat to their livelihoods. The responsibility of this government—and it would be his responsibility and his government's responsibility if they had won the election—is to move our economy in a direction that provides new work opportunities for those workers in industries that are shrinking—in terms of old-fashioned manufacturing industries—whether it is Ford, Toyota, Holden or others. For that reason, the creation of the defence industry part of the Defence portfolio is a very genuine attempt by the Turnbull-Joyce government—as I understand we call it these days—to address some of those concerns. We have $195 billion of Defence spending heft in Australia in the next 10 years to create a domestic defence industry that employs tens of thousands of Australians in high-tech, advanced manufacturing for both our own needs and also for export. And that is particularly my task as the Minister for Defence Industry. Any facts or evidence that we can provide the member for Chifley to respond to his specific questions, I have no doubt that the advisers from the Minister for Employment's office has made a note and we will get them to him.

In terms of the general issue, we are, as a government, very focused on recognising that there are particular pockets of unemployment and disadvantage in areas of our economy where old-fashioned manufacturing was a significant employer. And, obviously, coming from Adelaide, that is very much the case in northern Adelaide and, to a lesser extent, southern Adelaide. But, of course, in areas of Western Sydney—which the member for Chifley represents—and parts of Tasmania, Geelong, northern Melbourne, Bendigo and parts of Brisbane this is obviously a particular problem. As a consequence, we need to use the resources that are at our disposal to get the Australian defence industry to a capability level where we can confidently spend as much of that Defence dollar here in Australia and drive the defence industry as a very significant pillar of our economy. I think as that happens—and it is already happening as that industry continues to grow and kick more goals, if you like—those people who are concerned about where their jobs will be in the future, for themselves and for their children, will see that the opportunities are there in high-tech, advanced manufacturing. One of the tremendous things about the defence industry is that it is very valuable; it requires high skills; and we have very skilled workforce in this country. We can compete because, even though the labour costs are high, it is in very high-tech, advanced manufacturing and it is not making T-shirts in other parts of the world where labour costs mean Australian cannot compete. It is in making products—whether they are submarines, future frigates, offshore patrol vessels, pacific patrol vessels, parts for the Joint Strike Fighter program or whatever it might be—that we are best in the world and it will create a very significant industry for our economy.

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

I thank the minister for his response and, in particular, referring to, for example, defence industries and manufacturing which, obviously, in those sectors, particular pressures relate to them. It is good to know. As I indicated in my question, it would be great if some of those answers could be taken on notice. I would like to move on to another area within the portfolio area: in particular, a program that was announced during the federal budget this year relating to the establishment of the PaTH internship program, which the opposition has indicated some concerns with. I will keep my question as short as I possibly can, given the time constraints we have.

Six months after the program was announced, and even today through estimates hearings being conducted for the other place, there is no definition of what an intern will be. There is no outline of guarantees to ensure interns will not displace jobs; there is no outline of guarantees to ensure interns will not be used to cut wages; there is no outline of guarantees to ensure that PaTH will not experience the same outcomes as Work for the Dole that I referred to earlier, and whether or not the bulk of interns will fail to get full-time work. I would like to get an indication from the minister as to whether or not he is able to provide the chamber with some assurances in relation to those matters I have raised.

I would also like to ask if the minister is aware of findings of overseas reviews into similar schemes. For example, in Ireland, which has a similar program, the National Youth Council of Ireland found that only 27 per cent of interns were placed in full-time jobs after their internships. I would be interested to know if the Australian scheme will have a higher hiring rate, and what the government's hiring target is for this new program. Can the minister also remind the House of the total amount of public funds dedicated to PaTH over the forward estimates? And has the minister seen or been made aware of a line of questioning that was enthusiastically pursued by Senator James Paterson in estimates today? He was very interested to know whether a potential advantage for this new program is that if an intern does not work out, a business would not be subject to any unfair dismissal claims or costs in that respect. He seemed to indicate that this would be an advantage of the program, that it would sidestep unfair dismissal laws.

Can the minister advise whether or not he shares that same enthusiasm, and if this is actually a program to get people to work or to get people out of work? It seems to be at odds. So I would be interested to get some more details on this, given that the opposition has had some concerns with program designs to date.

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

I think the member for Chifley is trying to be anti-something and negative about something which is obviously an unadulteratedly good idea. The concept of getting young people into jobs through pathways that they might not previously have considered is a very sensible program, a very sensible policy. It was wildly popular in the election, as Deputy Speaker Buchholz will remember—certainly in my electorate and, I assume, in his as well.

Under the internship element of the Youth Jobs PaTH, eligible young jobseekers will be given the opportunity to undertake work experience by participating in internships. This will give the young jobseekers a chance to show what they can do in the real workplace. Both businesses and eligible young jobseekers will be able to choose whether to participate in an internship and, to encourage eligible young jobseekers to undertake such an internship, participants will receive a fortnightly incentive payment from the Department of Human Services of $200. The fortnightly incentive payment will be paid in addition to the young jobseeker's social security payments and will not be counted as remuneration for work. So we are making every effort to ensure that young jobseekers will want to take part in these internships, because they will not lose any money—in fact, they will gain money.

The bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 so that fortnightly incentive payments to eligible young jobseekers placed in internships under the Youth Jobs PaTH are not deemed as income for social security purposes. An equivalent amendment to the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 is also necessary to ensure that the incentive payments are not counted as income for veterans' entitlements purposes. This is a program being administered by the Minister for Employment, and I have absolutely no doubt that it will be a great success that will lead to real jobs.

In terms of Senator Paterson's remarks in estimates, Senator Paterson is a fine senator from Victoria, and I am sure that whatever he has said is perfectly sensible. But as this is the first that I have heard of it, I would be unwise to comment on it.

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

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

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Defence Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $8,047,727,000

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

Thank you, Minister, for the correction. Let me start by saying that, when it comes to the area of defence industry and indeed defence, what has characterised this government since it came to government in 2013 has been total confusion. Let us start with the number of ministers: we are now onto the third Defence minister. We had Minister Johnson, Minister Andrews and now Minister Payne—although, we will get to this a bit later, it does seem as though we have now got two ministers for Defence; although exactly what the order of seniority in respect of those two appears to be unclear, however, with the Minister for Defence Industry here, he may be able to answer that question.

We have had a number of assistant ministers—Assistant Minister McCormack, Assistant Minister Chester and Assistant Minister Robert—go through the portfolio. We now have Minister Tehan operating in the space. This has been a merry-go-round in terms of who has been representing the government in this space.

The confusion goes beyond that. What characterised again in respect of the question of procurement is a complete failure of a strategy around exactly where this government wanted to take procurement. If you look at the question of submarines—and there are a number of questions that need to be answered here by the government—we had Minister Johnston referring to Australian shipbuilders as unable to build a canoe. We had, in the course of the leadership contest with the former Prime Minister Abbott, the single largest procurement in Australian history being tossed around the government party room as a matter of collecting votes to save Mr Abbott. Out of that came the competitive evaluation process, which was a process unknown to Defence at that point in time and still cannot really be explained as to what it was about.

We indeed saw this procurement ostensibly be a part of the clinching of the Japan free trade agreement as it seemed that the government was destined to put this particular procurement in the hands of the Japanese. Then we ended up where we are now with the design being done by DCNS from France.

We have seen in relation to supply ships—this was going to be the most important procurement in terms of maintaining Australian shipyards so that they could survive the valley of death; however, rather than this being done within Australia, because the government at the time was saying that Australian capability was not such that this could be done within Australia, we see tenderers for this work being exclusively outside of Australia, and now that work is being done in Spain.

The serious point of all of this of course is the loss of jobs—1500 shipbuilding jobs have been lost as a result of these decisions that have been made since the Abbott-Turnbull government came to power. I think the other point to make is that, in the context of a significant increase in procurement, we have been over the last few years something in the order of 10 per cent of US foreign military sales and something like the 7th largest defence importer in the world . That speaks to the significant expenditure which is occurring in this area and yet, despite that, there has been precious little effort on the part of this government to leverage that expenditure to build a domestic defence industry. That would appear to be the reason why the minister was called in to save the day, and we now have two Defence ministers—a Minister for Defence and a Minister for Defence Industry.

There are a number of questions which need to be answered in respect of the procurement space. The number of shipbuilding workers in Australia has gone down to a critical level. The OPVs are scheduled to be steel cut in 2018, the Future Frigates in 2019. I guess the first question that I ask the minister is: has a preferred design partner been chosen for both of the those projects? And, if it has not, when is it intended to be so and can there be certainty that the dates in respect of cutting steel will be met?

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

To answer specifically the question from the member for Corio: I would have thought he was aware that there is a competitive evaluation process for the offshore patrol vessels designer and for the future frigates designer. That is in the midst of its operations right now—it is being done right now. There are three bidders for both the OPVs and the future frigates, which I think he would also know. The decision about that will be made at the appropriate time. One of the critical responsibilities that I have as Minister for Defence Industry is to keep the schedule on track. As a consequence, much of my effort on a daily basis goes into ensuring that the decisions are being made in a timely way by the Minister for Defence Industry—being me, obviously. It's not good to talk about oneself in the third person; it sounds slightly crazy!

But obviously the decisions that I need to make will ensure that Defence does not face any delays from this place and in fact can get on with the schedule, and that is exactly what is happening. Those decisions are being made, and I am surprised that the member for Corio would venture into this particular part of public policy. Marise Payne and I as the Minister for Defence and Minister for Defence Industry have made more decisions in 100 days than the Labor Party made in six years when they were in office. That was the Rip van Winkle period of defence policy in Australia's history, and the only saving grace for the member for Corio is that he was not given responsibility for that area of government policy when he was on the front bench in the Gillard government. It is one of the great failures of those six years. I am glad that the member for Menzies is here in the Federation Chamber—although he may not be—because, when he and I taking over in 2013 as part of a new government, he as the Minister for Defence had to try and get these decisions back on track after six years of absolute inertia in the period of the Gillard and Rudd governments.

You do not need to hear very much about how bad it was to be convinced. In the six years of the Rudd and Gillard governments they made not one decision to build a naval vessel here in Australia—zero in six years. In the three years that we have been in government we have decided to build 54 vessels over the coming decades: 12 submarines, nine future frigates 12 offshore patrol vessels and 21 Pacific patrol vessels—54 vessels. We are investing $195 billion over the next 10 years in building defence capability—not all, of course in naval shipbuilding. About $90 billion of it is in naval shipbuilding. This entirely transforms our defence capability, and it is a decision that this government has made. The previous government created the valley of death, which is leading to real people, not numbers on papers, losing their jobs at Osborne, at Williamstown, at Henderson and, for that matter, at Newcastle—across the naval shipbuilding industry—because the government that the member for Corio was a part of did not have the gumption, the capacity or the desire to make the decisions necessary in these projects, which are long-lead-time projects, to keep the workforce intact.

But we are not shirking this major task. This is a major challenge. The member at the table, the member for Menzies, initiated the Defence white paper process. That was handed down in February this year. With it was the integrated investment program and the defence industry policy statement. These three documents are the basis for the government's plans for building defence capability, the strategy behind it and the purpose of it over the next several decades. One day, potentially, the opposition may well be in government, and I hope that they will recognise that this foundation the current government has put in place is worthy of being supported into the future.

The record is not good. Each time the Labor Party gets into office, they cut defence spending. It is the first thing they do. The last government's record was to get it down to 1.38 per cent of GDP, the lowest level since the appeasement era in the 1930s. We are repairing that extraordinary damage that they did to the Defence portfolio, and I look forward to the member for Corio's next attempt to try and hide his shame.

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

Of course the question of defence spending is a complete ruse—it is a stat that the minister likes to quote.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

It is also true that during the Rudd-Gillard era we saw defence spending approach the level of two per cent, a rate that for much of that time was higher than what was being spent during the Howard era. The reality is that what we have seen since this government came to power is a wholesale loss of jobs in the Australian shipbuilding industry. The shipbuilding yards in Williamstown and the Forgacs shipbuilding yards are now bereft of work. As the minister absolutely correctly said, 1,500 real people, with real families, are no longer working in this industry. A key part of this was the consistent approach by this government that there is not the capability in this country to perform indigenous defence work, which is absolutely incorrect. That is what has led to a situation where supply ships are now being built in Spain that could have been built here, and in fact it is quite clear that there would be the capacity for that to occur.

I want to ask the minister about submarines. This is the single biggest procurement in Australian defence history. It is a critically important procurement for Australia's future capability and it is one that has been treated with scant regard by this government since they came to power. The idea that a procurement of $50 billion up front and many tens of billions more in maintenance through the life of the project gets tossed around a party room over a leadership contest is absolutely astonishing. It is very much to this government's shame that they treated a procurement of that significance, both in terms of the amount of money which goes into it but also in terms of our nation's defence, with such disrespect by not considering it strictly in terms of what was the best public policy in the national interest but making it a matter of internal politics within the government party room.

The process which has now been put in place saw the announcement of the DCNS as the preferred design partner. That of course is not a contract to build the submarines as such—it is a contract to provide a design for the future submarine. We have very long time lines in place in relation to the procurement of the submarines—we will not be seeing steel being cut until 2021, and we will not see the first submarine in the water engaging in activity until 2032. The implication of that is the requirement for a significant upgrade of the Collins class submarine, given that we are talking about a 16-year horizon between where we are today and the first occasion on which the future submarines will be in the water. There are a whole lot of issues that need to be addressed and risk that needs to be managed between now and then. Given that we are talking about the continued operation of the Collins class through until that time, inevitably there will be significant expense at the back end of that period in maintaining the Collins class.

That leads to me these questions. Can the minister absolutely guarantee that all the future submarines will be built in Australia—not just the first off the line, but that none of them will be built in France? Will the timelines, as lengthy as they are, be able to be maintained on the basis of all of these submarines being built in Australia? The minister has said that 90 per cent of the submarines will have Australian content in them. That appears to be a figure which has not been backed up by either the Minister for Defence or the secretary of Defence in Senate estimates, so how can the minister assure us that 90 per cent of this build will be done in Australia?

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

The member for Corio says that the current government has not got the confidence in Australian defence industry capability, and yet we are the government that has made all the decisions in the last three years to build Australian defence industry capability. When his party was in government, they had so little confidence in the Australian industry they made not one decision to build anything here in Australia—not one decision to build a navy ship here in Australia. So if any political party has no confidence in Australian defence industry, it is obviously the Labor Party. If the Labor Party believed that the Australian industry had the capability to deliver, they would have made those decisions.

Obviously, the member for Corio's position does not stack up. This is the government that in three years has taken Australian defence industry from the very sad state it was under the Labor Party into having an incredibly bright future, where we are putting behind that the push of $195 billion of spending to build defence industry capability over the next 10 years.

The member for Corio asked me the most extraordinary question about the submarines, as though the Labor Party has any credibility at all on submarine policy in this country. Apart from the Beazley Defence ministry and the Hawke government making the initial decision to build the Collins class submarines, ever since then the Labor Party's record on submarine building in Australia has been worse than woeful. It has done vandalism to the Australian shipbuilding industry. If they seriously believed that they had any credibility on submarine building, why didn't they make a decision in that six-year period of government under Rudd and Gillard to sustain a shipbuilding industry—a submarine building industry— into the future? They totally neglected to do so.

So that is why we when we came to office—first David Johnson and then Kevin Andrews and now Marise Payne and I—have had to put back the pieces to build a submarine industry in this country. We have signed the DCNS contract to design the Australianised version of the Shortfin Barracuda—something that the Labor Party never even tried to do. It was this government that initiated the competitive evaluation process; the Labor Party never even considered doing so. That is why 12 submarines will be built in Adelaide at Osborne North. That is an absolute commitment that we have made which will deliver jobs, investment and growth in the economy, not just in South Australia but across Australia, because, of course, many Australian businesses will take part in that project. It will be a real boon to our economy. I am sure the Labor Party supports it—a $50 billion program on just the building part of the program will make a tremendous difference to the Australian economy.

So, yes, I can absolutely guarantee that all 12 submarines will be built at Osborne North in Adelaide in the great state of South Australia. The member for Corio also asked me about a 90 per cent figure. I have never said that 90 per cent of the submarine build would be done in Adelaide. That was a statement made by Sean Costello, the chief executive officer of DCNS in Australia. He made that statement on the radio, and I think you will find, if you return to any of my comments that I have made on this subject, that every time I have referenced that figure I have said the DCNS themselves say 90 per cent will be done in Australia. Therefore it is not my figure; it is DCNS's figure and Sean Costello's figure.

I think that answers your questions. I thought you were going to ask me about the life cycle of the Collins class submarine and an assurance that there is no capability gap. You did not ask me that, but I will answer it anyway. It would have been an interesting question for you to have asked. Of course, the government is taking the measures necessary to ensure that there is no capability gap between the Collins class submarine and the Australianised Shortfin Barracuda and we will be monitoring all the time to ensure that the schedule remains on track for DCNS. That is why we have already announced that Lockheed Martin will be the combat system integrator—they won that process. We announced that about two or three weeks ago. We are getting on with the job. If it ever appears at any point that that will not be the case, the government will take whatever measures are necessary to ensure that there is no capability gap.

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

That was going to be my next question. It shows that the minister and I have been doing too much together—he is predicting what I am about to ask him. I thank the minister for answering the question about the capability gap.

I will make a point in relation to competitive evaluation processes and what occurred under the previous Labor government. The competitive evaluation process is not something that is understood by Defence and the military, because it was a new process imagined out of, essentially, a leadership dispute within the government party room in order to deal with certain circumstances. The reality is that the procurement process for the submarines has left a lot to be desired, and a feature of this government's procurement has been delay. We have consistently seen key procurement decisions delayed under this government. The integrated investment plan, which the minister speaks of, is far less detailed than the Defence Capability Plan, which was in place under Labor. Under this government, the time lines in the DCP for a number of key procurements have slipped.

I want to ask some further questions about the submarines. The minister has indicated that 90 per cent is not his figure. I am keen to understand exactly what his figure is, then, in relation to the expected percentage of Australian build in the submarines. This is a critical matter for building Australian capability and, indeed, building an Australian defence industry. The supply chains that are put in place for the submarines will provide significant opportunity in Australia, or at least they have the potential to do that if there is a significant component of Australian build within the submarines. Obviously that is good in terms of jobs; it is also important in the strategic sense of building sovereign capacity. I am keen to understand that, and it is critical that the first submarines are built in Australia. I hear the minister's answer to the question—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 17:08 to 17:46

Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Federation Chamber will now consider the Veterans' Affairs segment of the Defence Portfolio, in accordance with the agreed order of consideration.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to ask the minister questions around the 2016-17 portfolio budget statement for the Department of Veterans' Affairs, which states:

DVA recognises that our client base is unique and crosses the age spectrum, from those in their later years of life such as widows of First World War veterans, to infants of contemporary servicemen and women. We aim to be a responsive and flexible organisation, and to efficiently deliver high quality, connected services to all generations of veterans and the wider veteran community.

Part of the critical services which DVA is responsible for delivering is around the Veterans' Access Network offices, or the VAN offices, which provide frontline services for veterans and their families. Minister, can you advise how many Veterans' Access Network offices have closed since September 2013? What happened to the staff of these offices? Are they still employed by DVA? Have any staff moved into the co-located DHS-Centrelink offices? Can the minister also advise whether there is a dedicated support officer for veterans at those offices where VANS have been co-located to DHS-Centrelink? Is there a DVA or DHS staff member and, if so, does the minister believe that DHS have the targeted skills to help veterans?

Can the minister advise if those men and women who have served our country should have to stand in line at Centrelink to seek veterans' services? Can the minister advise if there are any plans to close down any more Veterans' Access Network offices? Does the minister have any more plans to move veterans' services to DHS? More specifically, can the minister provide further reassurance to the veterans and families of Newcastle, in my electorate, that their office will not close down? Can the minister provide a detailed breakdown of the cost per annum of each open, standalone Veterans' Access Network office?

The costs that I am seeking are the costs per annum to keep open, including the rent per annum for each office, staff numbers and full-time equivalents, stationery costs and other miscellaneous items.

The minister will appreciate that this is a very topical issue in my community of Newcastle. For a number of months now there have been rumours that the VAN office is about to close when the lease terminates next year, in 2017. There are very strong views around the co-location of these offices in Centrelink. Indeed, veterans who have come to see me, particularly those from the Vietnam veterans community, have some grave concerns. There is a co-located Vietnam veterans counselling service with the VAN office in Newcastle and there are a number of shared facilities, including the boardroom and kitchen facilities. There are grave concerns about what will happen to those veterans who rely on the counselling services there and to groups, like the Men's Health Peer Education, which are running important mental health and counselling services from those offices. Members of the TPI Association and many other ex-service organisations in my electorate have come to me deeply worried about the stories they keep hearing about the closure of the VAN office in Newcastle.

In my area I have the Williamtown RAAF Base, with some 3½ thousand personnel to the north, and I have some 29 ex-service organisations in my electorate. It is a very active community. This group of people fought very hard to get services into those communities of need in the first place and they are deeply worried about any potential for closure of the VAN office in Newcastle. I seek your assurance on all of those questions I have just asked, Minister.

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I regularly receive correspondence from veterans around the country, and it is a privilege and a great responsibility to be asked to give voice to those concerns. A recurring theme of representations from these veterans includes the level of access and funding for mental health care. I have heard multiple cases where a veteran has attempted to receive white card status for mental health treatment only to be denied or delayed because a link was required between their condition and their service. One ex-serviceman from Canning recently approached my office because the DVA would not provide financial assistance for his mental health treatment. Other ex-diggers have lobbied because they have seen their mates who have not received adequate treatment succumb to suicide.

I have raised such issues with the minister in the past and appreciate the concern, the readiness and the action he has shown. Would the minister please advise the House on recent decisions made by the Department of Veterans' Affairs to expand its cover for non-liability health care? Would he also please outline the practical consequences this will have for Australia's former service men and women?

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will start with the last question first and then go on to the questions that were asked by the member for Newcastle. Since coming into the portfolio in February I have done wide-ranging consultations. I have visited over 30 ex-service organisations around the country in every state and territory—as I have in your electorate, Deputy Speaker Wicks—to get feedback from our veterans on the ground on what matters are really important to them and what they are looking for when it comes to the government. The feedback was very clear. To start with, they wanted to make sure that they would have a standalone Department of Veterans' Affairs, and we made it clear in our election commitment that we would continue to have a standalone Department of Veterans' Affairs that would look after the interests of our veterans.

The second thing they made clear was that there was a concern with the time which was being allocated to processing claims. There were a lot of anecdotes about how a system which was still, in part, paper based needed to be updated for us to have a department which could service the veterans clientele in a proper way. On this point, I think the feedback was extremely valid—and this goes back, I think, over the last decade, goes back over successive governments—because we have failed to give the Department of Veterans' Affairs the IT, the information technology, capability that they need to operate as a department in the 21st century. One of the incredibly important things which we did in this year's budget was allocate money so that, for the first time, we could begin an upgrade of the IT system in the Department of Veterans' Affairs. This will mean that we can make the most significant changes to the way the department operates and make sure that everything they are doing is absolutely centred on the veteran.

The other important piece of feedback that I got was that, when it came to veterans who were dealing with mental health issues, sometimes the complexity of the claims process could add extra stress to those issues. What we did—and I know this is something which the member for Canning has been extremely pleased about—is we have said that from now on, if you have PTSD, depression, anxiety, alcoholism or substance issues, you do not have to, in any way, show that it is related to your service in order to get assistance and to get help. It is non-liability health care. We introduced this in the budget, and it came in on 1 July. That has made a big impact, and I would call on all members to make sure they are going out and promoting that within the veterans community. It means that you do not have to prove anything to get help—help is there. If you have served one full day in the armed services, then you are eligible for this. It, in part, fits with all the advice we get in this area which is that the earlier the intervention, the better the outcomes and results.

I also had feedback on the VAN offices and the VVCS, as the member for Newcastle knows—and I have spoken to her about this. There are no plans to close the VAN office in Newcastle. We are obviously looking at ways to make sure we are maximising the use of those VANs, and this is something that we will continue to be examining.

Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I note that the Department of Veterans' Affairs had a budget in financial year 2016-17 of $11.7 billion. By my calculations, the cost of having a deputy commissioner in the Northern Territory office, which we do not currently have, is about $30,000. I am wondering whether we can find $30,000 per annum to make sure that veterans in the Northern Territory are represented the same as anyone else in this country. If you refer to the organisational chart of the Department of Veterans' Affairs, which has a blank in the Northern Territory, it is because we have not got a deputy commissioner for veterans' affairs. I think it would help veterans in the NT if they were represented with a deputy commissioner, the same as anyone else around the country. Having written to the minister on 28 August, can we get an answer as to when the Northern Territory will have a deputy commissioner for veterans' affairs reappointed?

Now $30,000 does not seem like a large amount of money, so, if it is cost cutting, it is probably not a good area to cut. I have made various communications with your office and just ask that, on behalf of veterans of the Northern Territory, we get some answers as to when that reappointment will occur.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are slightly over time. Other questions can be put in writing to the minister. The minister may wish to briefly respond.

Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to thank the honourable member for his question. As he knows, we have been speaking and discussing this issue. I have said to him that I will get a response to him. I would just point out that, of that $11.7 billion, which is the budget for the Department of Veterans' Affairs, 98 per cent of that expenditure is obviously legislated and goes to ensuring that those veterans who need our help and assistance get it. When he talks about the budget for the Department of Veterans' Affairs, I just highlight that fact to him. Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

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

Question agreed to.

Attorney-General's Portfolio

The proposed expenditure now before the Federation Chamber is for the Attorney-General's portfolio. The question is that the proposed expenditure be agreed to.

Proposed expenditure, $1,762,709,000

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When it comes to this government, its Attorney-General and his representative here today in this place, it is difficult to know where to start. Since his appointment as Attorney-General in 2013, Senator Brandis has brought nothing but trouble for this government, for the legal assistance sector and indeed for the rule of law in this country.

When Prime Minister Turnbull knocked off his predecessor in September last year, Senator Brandis already had a litany of serious mistakes to his name: his total mishandling of the metadata retention bill, his right to be bigots and his disastrous period as minister for the arts come to mind. Mr Turnbull knocked him off as arts minister but, mystifyingly, he kept him on as Attorney-General, a decision which I am sure that he is ruing now.

Even after more than three years as Senator Brandis' opposite number, however, I am surprised by the lows that he has reached in recent weeks. His disgraceful treatment of the Solicitor-General, the second law officer of this country, has shocked not just the legal community but also many Australians who did not even know that the position existed before last Friday's Senate hearing, but they do now.

The Solicitor-General was created as a position in the Commonwealth in 1916 to give independent apolitical advice. This is what the current Solicitor-General, Justin Gleeson QC, was ably doing until 4 May 2016—the date when Senator Brandis destroyed the integrity of the office. On 4 May 2016, Senator Brandis tabled a new legal services direction in the Senate which severely limits the ability of the Solicitor-General to do his job. Instead of quickly responding to requests for advice from a government department, a government minister or even the Prime Minister, the Solicitor-General must now submit a request for written consent from Senator Brandis. Let me step this out: the Solicitor-General receives a request for urgent advice from the immigration department, for instance, at 11.30 pm at night. He cannot respond until he can find the Attorney-General, who might be anywhere or out of the country, and he has to wait to receive written confirmation, a written consent, with Senator Brandis' signature.

In evidence given to a Senate inquiry hearing on Friday, Mr Gleeson, the Solicitor-General, stated that he had already been forced to disobey the legal services direction in order to respond to a request to urgent advice in the required time frame as he believes he is required to do by the Law Officers Act. He said that the concern over this conflict introduced by Senator Brandis has kept him awake at night since 5 May. This is not something that a man like Mr Gleeson, who has represented Australia at the International Court of Justice and the High Court, and is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, could say lightly. Mr Gleeson was treated disgracefully by coalition senators on Friday. I note that a Fairfax Media article today asks if they are 'the rudest men in Australia'. They were certainly the rudest men in the room on Friday. But we should not be surprised after their disgraceful treatment of another fine statutory officer, Professor Gillian Triggs, in previous estimates hearings and, I have to say, in the current estimates hearing. This is not, as the Prime Minister likes to describe it, just a fight between two lawyers, to be duked at in the bar common room—whatever the Prime Minister intends to mean by that phrase. This actually matters.

It mattered on the bill last year that enables the government to strip dual nationals of their Australian citizenship. On that bill, Senator Brandis asked the Solicitor-General's advice on two draft versions of the bill but never on the final version. And yet, in a written letter to me and the entire Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, Senator Brandis said that he had. The Prime Minister repeated that mistruth, and let us not underrate the significance of this: Senator Brandis and the Prime Minister have misrepresented the advice that they received on the constitutionality of a bill that is now likely to be subject to a High Court challenge. Because of the Attorney-General's arrogance, the parliament may have passed a bill that will be struck down, and that, if it occurs, is no-one's fault other than Senator Brandis's.

It also matters for a current bill before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, called the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2016. This is a bill unprecedented in its nature in Australia, which would allow the Attorney-General to keep people in prison beyond the term of their sentence. It is absolutely right that Labor does due diligence on this bill. I would like to ask the Minister for Justice on behalf of the Attorney-General what the answer is to the question I asked in a letter that I have just sent to the Attorney-General, at the end of a correspondence starting on Sunday. The question is: has the Solicitor-General advised on the final version of the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2016? If not, why not? And how many of the current bills before the parliament has the Solicitor-General been given the opportunity to advise on in their final versions? (Time expired)

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer to the latter part of what the shadow Attorney-General is asking is: I am not familiar with the correspondence that he is talking about. If he is saying that he has just sent it today then I do not know whether there has been a response or not, but I can give him some general points about the issue that he is raising. We have heard a lot about his concerns regarding the Solicitor-General, and the facts about what he is alleging are very well known. As we know, the Attorney-General issued a direction that established a procedure that gives effect to paragraph 12(b) of the Law Officers Act 1964, which provides that a function of the Solicitor-General is:

… to furnish his or her opinion to the Attorney-General on questions of law referred to him or her by the Attorney-General …

The direction enables government bodies to request Solicitor-General opinions by seeking the consent of the Attorney-General. Very importantly, these arrangements do not limit the independence of the Solicitor-General, as the member for Isaacs appears to be alleging.

A lot of the sound and fury around this seems to be about the method of consultation that occurred between the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General, but, again, the facts about this are very well known. A consultation occurred in the Attorney-General's office on 30 November 2015, at which the Attorney-General invited the Solicitor-General to provide further feedback in writing about the issue. The 30 November meeting was requested by the Solicitor-General to discuss the process for seeking and acting on Solicitor-General advice in significant matters. The Attorney-General considered the Solicitor-General's views before finalising the amendments to the direction and the guidance note that accompanies that direction. I think it is very important to note that, since that direction was made, the Attorney-General has considered 10 requests for the Solicitor-General to provide an opinion pursuant to paragraph 12(b) of the Law Officers Act, and all 10 requests have been approved. He has also made one direct referral to the Solicitor-General himself.

The member for Isaacs raised the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2016, which is amendments to the Criminal Code. This is a vitally important initiative of the government to secure community safety. He is right to say that this is quite an extraordinary power that we are requesting the parliament to approve, but of course we are living in an extraordinary time where we do need to give our agencies the powers that they need to do the job that we require of them. This bill provides for the continuing detention of high-risk terrorist offenders. Our decision to introduce a regime of post-detention for serious terrorist offenders is based on the fact that if they were to continue to present an unacceptable risk to community safety then we would continue to detain them. We have had a conversation with all of the states and territories. Every single jurisdiction in Australia endorses the Commonwealth's approach to this.

We are very confident that the bill as drafted is constitutionally valid. The Solicitor-General has provided advice on the draft bill. Amendments were made to the draft bill that take into account the views of the Solicitor-General, as well as feedback that we received from our partners in the states and territories. Consistent with the longstanding practice of this government and previous governments, including a government of which the member for Isaacs was a member, we are not going to comment on the content and nature of the government's legal advice.

There have been opportunities for the member for Isaacs to ask questions about this at the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. I urge him to continue in this parliament the very constructive approach that was taken in the last parliament. On questions of national security, between 2013 and 2016 we were able to work constructively with the opposition to ensure that we updated the powers that were available to our agencies. The terror threat that we are facing now is vastly different than that we faced previously and we do need to police it in a different way. That requires resourcing for our agencies. We have been providing that. It also requires powers to our agencies. We need to make sure that they can intervene early. If somebody continues to pose a risk to the Australian community, I think the expectation is that we will continue to detain them.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I accept the compliments to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security from the Minister for Justice. I accept those compliments on behalf of all 11 members of the intelligence committee, a committee which I was very proud to be a member of in the last parliament. The minister is quite right to point out that there was a very cooperative approach brought by all 11 members of the committee to the work of that committee, which resulted in five reports on counterterrorism bills and some 100 recommendations, all of which, demonstrating the work of the committee, were accepted by the government.

Perhaps while we are here the minister could answer the questions I have just asked. I will explain again what the purpose of the questioning is. I wrote to the Prime Minister on Sunday, 16 October—and I am happy to provide these letters to the minister if he has not come armed with them—because there were reports that the citizenship bill was about to be used by the government and that it was about to be almost certainly the subject of a High Court challenge. This citizenship bill is the bill on which the Attorney-General of Australia misled the parliament and the intelligence committee by falsely claiming in a formal letter to me, which is annexed to the report of the intelligence committee, that the Solicitor-General had advised on the bill.

The Solicitor-General himself, in a letter dated 12 November 2015, has made clear to the Senate committee that is inquiring into the dealings between the Solicitor-General and the Attorney-General that that was a misrepresentation by the Attorney-General of his advice. To get over the problem, because the Attorney-General has already misled the intelligence committee on a previous occasion, I wrote to the Prime Minister to ask him to confirm that the Solicitor-General had, in fact, advised on the new counterterrorism bill, a very difficult and unprecedented counterterrorism measure, that is before the committee and the parliament at the moment—the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2016.

The question I asked was whether or not the Solicitor-General had been asked to advise on this high-risk terrorist offenders bill. That is the question I am still asking, because Senator Brandis was asked by the Prime Minister to write back to me, which he did on 17 October—the Monday of this week—informing me that, exactly the same as the citizenship bill, the Solicitor-General had advised on some earlier draft of the high-risk terrorist offenders bill but has not, it seems, advised on the bill now before the parliament. Naturally enough, I wrote back to the Attorney-General the same day. I will read out, for the assistance of the minister, what I said: 'I seek further clarification from you that the Solicitor-General has been given the opportunity to advise not just on the draft but on the final version of the bill which is currently before the parliament and the intelligence committee.' That is the answer I am looking for. In addition, I want the minister to answer the other question which he could not answer—that is, how many of the current bills before the parliament has the Solicitor-General been given the opportunity to advise on in their final versions? I hope he has got those questions clear. I am happy to provide the correspondence if he needs it.

In the time that is available to me, in addition to those questions, I want to ask if the justice minister agrees with the new legal services direction that was made by the Attorney-General on 4 May. Can he explain why he agrees with this new legal services direction, which is unprecedented, which breaks with a convention that is 100 years old and which is disagreed with not just by the current Solicitor-General but by the former Solicitor-General Dr Gavan Griffith, who served the Commonwealth for 14 years under the Hawke, Keating and Howard governments. I could also ask the justice minister: has he ever sought the advice of the Solicitor-General without going to the Attorney-General first? If he has, why would he not support others doing the same?

There is another topic I want to go to that is different to the dealings of the Attorney-General with the Solicitor-General. It relates to the way in which this government is treating the Australian Institute of Criminology. It is effectively abolishing the Australian Institute of Criminology and merging it with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. This is very much a government that does not want to listen to the experts. We heard yesterday that the government is prepared to water down our gun laws in order to secure votes in the Senate for its antiworker legislation. Australians en masse were rightly horrified at the possibility that rapid-fire weapons might be let into Australia. Today, we have been hearing righteous indignation—

Mr Keenan interjecting—

And we are hearing a bit more of it now from this minister! (Time expired)

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To begin with, I want to deal with the last part of what the shadow Attorney-General was saying. Of course I completely and utterly reject the ridiculous assertion that this government in any way, shape or form has sought or would seek to water down Australia's gun laws. That is complete and utter rubbish. I am very happy to go through what has been going on with that. The government has been taking proactive action to ensure that lever action shotguns over a magazine capacity of five are not allowed to be imported into Australia. The shadow Attorney-General was the Attorney-General for a short and rather inglorious period, but I would still expect him to know something about the way we govern gun laws in this country and the way we regulate guns in Australia. It has been absolutely clear to me, from the questioning in the House—not by him, admittedly, but by others on the opposition frontbench—that they would not have a clue about the way we regulate guns in Australia. I am happy to provide a very quick crash course, given I have got limited time. This is a very important question.

Ms Butler interjecting—

I would be very happy if you were to ask me a question about that. I will go back to what I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. Under your protection, Deputy Speaker Kelly, I will continue. The way we regulate guns in Australia is very simple: the Commonwealth regulates the import of guns and the states are responsible for the classification of guns. This is, of course, where we have our leverage; it is in relation to the import of guns. As the Minister for Justice, I have used that to ensure that we would not have a large-scale import of lever action shotguns with a magazine capacity of over five. That is in keeping, I think, with the spirit of the NFA even though the original NFA and the NFA that Labor presided over for six years put all lever-action shotguns into category A—the least restrictive category available of licensing around the country. The thing about category A is that all lever-action shotguns were placed in there regardless of their magazine capacity. It is also the case that in category A you could own as many of these guns as you like. Category A is the same category that we categorise air rifles in.

I did not think that was acceptable, so we took actions to limit the import of lever-action shotguns whilst we had a conversation with the states about where we should ultimately classify these guns. That has taken longer than I would have liked; I would have like to have concluded that conversation before now. But the reality is that not every jurisdiction agrees, and so we have been using our good officers to try and get a national agreement. There are nine jurisdictions in this country. To keep the NFA intact, we all need to move together. That takes a little bit of patience and understanding, but I do feel very confident that over time we will get the states to agree amongst themselves about where to classify lever-action shotguns with a magazine capacity of over five and also with a magazine capacity of under five. Again, I want to explicitly reject the suggestion that the member for Isaacs just made that we would seek, or have sought, to water down Australia's gun laws. It is nonsense, and I am sure he knows it is nonsense.

He raised questions about the Solicitor-General. I might just ask him—there was another issue that he raised in between, which has now escaped me. There were three issues he raised in that question. If the member for Isaacs is paying attention, could he remind what the third one was?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am happy to remind the minister. It was: has the Solicitor-General advised on the final version—

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, there was another one beyond the Solicitor-General.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the justice minister agree with the new legal services direction? Can he explain why? Has he ever sought the advice of the Solicitor-General without going to the Attorney-General first?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take notes in future, but in fairness, he did jump around between different topics. First, I absolutely reject the assertion that he made that somehow the Attorney-General has misled the House in any way, shape or form. That is not correct. He knows it is not correct and yet he continues to assert it. The Attorney-General has, as I raised in my previous answer, taken a direction and regarded the administrative process by which we get advice from the Solicitor-General. I think I am as surprised as everybody else in the country that it has caused the shadow Attorney-General to feel so aggrieved. It is an administrative process. It is a mere formality. When the Attorney-General has been asked if the Solicitor-General can provide advice, in every single case that he has been asked he has acquiesced to the Solicitor-General providing that advice. Again, I think this is a very straightforward issue and I am surprised it has taken up so much airtime.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hansard will record that the minister has failed to answer my question twice about whether or not the Solicitor-General advised on the final version of the Criminal Code Amendment (High Risk Terrorist Offenders) Bill 2016. He has not answered my questions about the legal services direction, nor as to whether he has ever sought the advice of the Solicitor-General without going to the Attorney-General first.

Going to the other topic that I wanted to deal with: the righteous indignation that we have heard from the government on the subject of guns today and strident assertions from, in particular, the Prime Minister, that mandatory minimum sentences are the solution to Australia's gun problems. There is no convincing evidence to prove that mandatory minimum sentencing acts as a deterrent. Despite that, the government is pursuing this measure. It is ignoring concerns expressed repeatedly by state and territory prosecutors. It is ignoring the concerns and opposition to mandatory sentencing expressed repeatedly by bar associations across Australia, by law societies across Australia and by the Law Council of Australia, the peak body. Extraordinarily, it is ignoring even the government's own Attorney-General's Department's formal guidelines, which oppose mandatory minimum sentences. Of course, this government refuses to listen to all of those experts.

Labor is tough on guns. The minister knows that, and the government knows that. We want to stand with the government to implement sensible crime and justice policy, but this is a government which does not want to listen to the experts. We are deeply concerned that actions this government is taking in that regard will do more harm than good.

The determination to persevere with poor policy and to ignore the experts is not new. At the same time as the government is thinking, at least, about watering down our gun laws and talking to people about watering down our gun laws—particularly senators, in exchange for votes in that House—and ignoring law enforcement experts, this government is also destroying our ability to collect independent expert research on crime. A quieter, but very concerning policy proposed by the government over the past year is the merger of the Australian Institute of Criminology with the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission. This merger would see our national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice moved into what is essentially a law enforcement body.

Labor believes that these functions are best undertaken by an independent agency that can guarantee the independence of the work undertaken. For over 40 years the Australian Institute of Criminology has produced expert research on gun control, including research on firearms and violent crime to firearms trafficking and armed robbery. The research has been critical to developing sensible and robust policies to tackle illegal weapons on our streets. Part of the reason why we in this parliament can trust this research—and why Australians generally can trust this research, and why we can rely so heavily on this research—is that it comes from what is seen to be an independent and highly respected source. Its independence allows it to talk to offenders, to talk to law enforcement, to talk to the courts and to talk to victims. It has a broad overview and a unique insight into crime and justice, and it helps policymakers and law enforcement to stop crimes before they occur.

Australia's criminologists must be afforded the independence that allows them to pursue the highest quality of research. Without independent, evidence-based data our gun control policy initiatives will be compromised, as will many of the other initiatives in the criminal justice area. Already the research on armed robbery has been cut. We have seen large reductions in staff and, for the first time in years, the Australian Institute of Criminology is failing to reach its research targets. Now is not the time to be making policy in the dark. This government's refusal to listen to experts or to commit to independent criminological research is very concerning. If this government wants to be tough on crime it first needs to understand crime. Labor will never water down our world-leading gun laws, and we will also stand by our internationally-renowned criminological research institutions. We call on the government to do the same.

The questions I put to the Minister for Justice are: how many staff were there at the Australian Institute of Criminology before the merger? How many staff are there now? How many criminologists and research staff have left the Australian Institute of Criminology since the merger was announced? How many have been replaced? How much has the merging of back-office operations saved? And, as to the breadth of research: under the proposed merger, who is going to clear AIC research obligations? And can you guarantee that all current AIC monitoring programs will continue?

Finally, as to a concern that has been expressed about reduced research output: has the Australian Institute of Criminology met all of its research key performance indicators in 2015-16 and, if not, why not? And if not, has the Australian Institute of Criminology ever failed to meet its key performance indicators before?

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sorry to hear the shadow Attorney-General attack what has been a very important policy achievement of this government—the creation of the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission—where we took the former Australian Crime Commission, CrimTrac and the Australian Institute of Criminology and created a new and better agency. The reason we did that is that we believed it was vitally important that we create an agency that was fit for purpose in what are changing times.

Everyone would appreciate that we are living in a time where information flow, particularly information flow to our law enforcement agencies, is vitally important. We need to make sure that we have cutting-edge technologies and a cutting-edge agency dealing with that. The merger has leveraged the strengths of those three agencies and has improved their capacity to support the police and justice sector. It has also given the AIC direct access to intelligence that it would not have had as a standalone agency.

Following the merger, it is absolutely not the case that there will be a reduction in the quality or scope of research from the Australian Institute of Criminology. They form a new research branch within the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission called the Australian Crime and Justice Research Centre, which is headed by a senior criminologist researcher and overseen by an ethics committee.

As I said, the merger will not impact on the ACIC's ability to provide high-quality research to the broad range of stakeholders that have been provided research over the past 43 years. The member asked me about the determination of their priorities, but it is not up to me as minister to determine their priorities. It is up to the ACIC board. They will take advice from a non-legislative advisory body that consists of the existing Criminology Research Advisory Council members, the state and territory justice agencies and the Commonwealth Attorney-General's Department, two representatives from the law enforcement community, two members of the Australian criminal intelligence commission and a representative from the Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology. This process will ensure that state and territory justice agencies will continue to play an important role in shaping the future direction of the merged agencies' criminological research program. Far from what the member for Isaacs was saying, the research that was previously conducted by the ARC will continue, but it will continue within a new framework within the ACIC.

There is obviously a legislative imperative that we get the administrative processes around this right, because this has actually happened. We are dealing now with the fact that the ARC has been merged into the ACIC. If it were to be the case that the opposition were to take a different view, that would complicate things and provide enormous unnecessary bureaucracy for the ACIC. Quite frankly, the ACIC has got very important things to do—tackling national security priorities and organised crime. We need to ensure that the ACIC is focused on what it needs to do—and that is protecting the security of the Australian people.

In his contribution, the member for Isaacs again made a series of outlandish and completely incorrect assertions about what we are doing with Australia's gun laws. The gun laws introduced by the Liberal government in 1996 are gun laws of which we are justifiably proud. We would never do anything to dilute the vital importance of the national firearms agreement. I do not know whether the member understands anything about the way we classify guns or not but he needs to understand that the current situation is that all lever-action shotguns are in category A—every single one. If you have a category A, licence you could literally have a 110 lever-action shotgun with a magazine capacity as long as the technology allows you. That is the current situation. That is the situation we are seeking to address.

We have been talking to the states about the way they want to classify the gun. I am hoping we will conclude that conversation. The only thing we are dealing with is the anomaly whereby a relatively high-powered gun in the form of a lever-action shotgun that could have a significant magazine capacity—in this case, over five—is going into the least restrictive category. We are addressing that.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you—

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Kelly, I rise on a point of order. The call should go to the opposition. The government has just spoken.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate your advice. It is at the discretion of the chair. The opposition has had the opportunity to ask two questions. The member for Mallee has the call.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you—

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The opposition gets to speak and then the government gets to speak and then the opposition does. The minister can choose not to answer, which—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is at the chair's discretion. With respect, I have made a decision on this. You have had two questions. The member for Mallee has the call.

Ms Butler interjecting—

You are reflecting on the chair. I would ask the member to resume her seat or to leave the chamber.

Ms Butler interjecting—

The member will leave the chamber.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to talk about a very important issue.

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

I just gave you three goes in a row.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have asked the member for Griffith to leave the chamber.

The member for Griffith then left the chamber.

The member for Isaacs on a point of order?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the greatest of respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, there is an absolutely firmly established practice in this chamber that it is an alternation of speakers between the government and the opposition, and I would respectfully suggest that you seek the advice of the clerk at the table so as to be properly advised before persisting with this incorrect ruling.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have made my ruling. The opposition has had two consecutive questions. The member for Mallee has the call.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to talk about something that is very important to my electorate, and that is the security of the Australian people. I am very pleased that we have got a Minister for Justice who takes this very seriously. If you look at the welfare of a country, you have to have a country that does not have corruption and that has security so people can go about and live their lives. The thing that has been an issue particularly in the electorate of Mallee has been ice. Ice is being run by bikie gangs, and it has been a really significant issue. I have taken great comfort in the minister's strong interest not only in limiting the trafficking of ice but also in limiting the criminal activity that has surrounded that. About a year ago, I spent a night with the Victoria Police in Mildura, which was fun. It was actually the night of the triple j One Night Stand, which was an experience in itself.

An honourable member interjecting—

Well, that is what it is called. It is a rock concert, for the record, just to clear up any misunderstanding for Hansard! In that, we were also able to have a discussion around what is happening. One of the questions I have got for the minister is: what is the action the government is taking to ensure the safety and security of law enforcement and intelligence officers?

I also commend the minister for taking a very strong and respectful interest when it comes to gun laws. People in my electorate are shooters. They are responsible shooters. The great thing about the Howard gun laws, which often gets lost in the discussion, is the cooling-off period—the fact that you cannot get up a head of steam and go out and purchase a gun; you have actually got to wait a month or more. You have got to have a justifiable reason for it. You have got to pass a good character test. That has been very welcome.

I am interested in the minister's response about what action he is taking to make sure that people in my community feel safe. I commend him for the work that he has been doing so far. I have particular interest in what he is doing around the topic of ice, because that is an area where, unfortunately, we seem to have people involved in that trade and partaking in illegal firearm importation as well. It disappoints me that the opposition has been very limp-wristed instead of backing the coalition on closing that down. I look forward to a very worthwhile response from the minister.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Mallee for that series of questions. On the issue of crystal methamphetamine, better known as ice, we are facing a very serious problem in Australia, on which the government has taken significant national leadership. We have been concerned for some time around the reports we get from our own law enforcement agencies and from state law enforcement agencies. If any member of parliament were to go and talk to their local emergency department in a hospital, if they were to talk to emergency services workers in other sectors, they would know that the use of crystal methamphetamine has exploded. The last figures we had suggested that there were about 200,000 users of ice in Australia, but it is almost certain that that figure would be significantly more today.

We have been very concerned to take national leadership on this, and we wanted to get the best possible advice about what the federal government can do that is actually going to address the issue and work. We asked the former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Ken Lay to join with two health professionals in a National Ice Taskforce. They travelled the country, talking to people who have been addicted, talking to treatment services, talking to police, talking to people in hospitals, talking to other frontline service workers, and they provided that advice to the government in the latter half of last year. The government has responded with the most significant investment in drug and alcohol rehabilitation in Australia's history. We know that we need to tackle the supply side, which is policing. We are pulling more drugs off the streets; we are locking up more people who are peddling drugs; and we are confiscating more of the assets of serious drug criminals. But we know the supply side is not going to be the only answer here. We need to get people off this drug. We need to make sure that, if they are addicted and they seek treatment, they can get treatment. We have made a $240 million investment in drug and alcohol rehabilitation. This is an extra investment—on top of the investment that we already make and on top of what the states and territories already make—to make sure that help is available to people when they need it.

We have also invested an extra $60 million in education and understanding the rehabilitation process for ice, because the detoxification and the rehabilitation process for this very serious drug is different to what you would use for other drugs—it is different to what you would use for alcoholics or heroine addicts or any other drug. We need to make sure that we have rehabilitation services that are actually dealing with the specific issue of crystal methamphetamine. That money flows from 1 July this year, and I hope some of it flowed into the coffers to some people in the electorate of Mallee.

Mr Perrett interjecting—

Thank you, the member for Moreton. The second thing he asked, which is a vitally important question, was about the protection for our police and law enforcement officers. This is vitally important because we know that police have been the targets of terror attacks in Australia. The first terror attack we had was at the Endeavour Hills police station in Melbourne in 2014. That was where a Vic. police officer and an AFP officer were both stabbed by the same perpetrator, who was subsequently killed. Last year we had the murder of Curtis Cheng out the front of the Parramatta police station. We know that police are specifically targeted by those who would seek to do harm in the community. In fact, the Director-General of Security upgraded the terrorism threat level specifically for law enforcement to probable, which is a reflection on the fact that we need to protect our police better.

I am very pleased to say that in this year's budget, the 15-16 budget, the government provided $153.6 million over the next four years in recognition of the current threat of terrorist acts against law enforcement agencies. This measure will see a range of measures implemented across Australia. The AFP received additional funding of $19.8 million over four years and will redirect $28.7 million over four years from within existing resources. The ACIC also received just over $5 million for their security. Yes, the member for Mallee has identified a very serious problem; yes, we have been taking action to make sure that our law enforcement officers have appropriate protections. We are very proud of the fact that in a very constrained fiscal environment we have been able to find the money for something that is so vitally important.

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, an electronic device that emits a high-frequency sound, which causes physical harm to children and young adults, is being imported into Australia and marketed as an anti-loitering device. It is called The Mosquito. The tone these devices emit can only be heard by people who are less than 25 years of age, including babies and children, because of their ears and the hairs in their ears. It irritates and can cause pain and other symptoms such as dizziness, headache, nausea and impairment. It can have even more serious effects on children who have autism.

These devices are being purchased for the purpose of dispelling groups of adolescents through the emission of the high-frequency sound, even though the young people have done no wrong and have a legal right to assemble. One of these devices was installed in a shopping centre in Hervey Bay in Queensland, but it was recently taken down after the community legal centre advocated on behalf of the young workers and visitors to the shopping centre. These young people were perhaps saving up in their jobs to pay for their houses or perhaps their avocado breakfasts.

Has the minister given permission for the importation of these devices as an acoustic anti-personnel device under item (5) in part 2 of schedule 13 of the Customs Prohibited Imports Regulations Act 1956? Will the minister look into how this device was ever imported? Can the minister inform the community, particularly young people, about this? I should note, Minister, that I notified your advisers beforehand because this is a pretty precise piece of information.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the member for Moreton providing me with advance advice about this. I am not familiar with this device at all. When he talks about Customs regulations, I do not administer those; they are administered by the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection. But I am happy to look into what he is saying which, on face value, is disturbing, and get back to him with a sensible answer.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Communications and the Arts Portfolio

Proposed expenditure, $1,405,327,000

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know that the National Broadband Network is one of Labor's and this century's great policy initiatives. Given its importance, we must have a serious conversation about the path going forward.

Labor took a policy to the 2016 election which would have seen fibre to the home rolled out to homes in the fixed-line footprint that were not in the current fibre-to-the-node construction pipeline. This would have expanded fibre to 40 per cent of households. This was less than the original 93 per cent target in our 2009 policy, but it recognised where things stood. The policy was thoroughly costed, and would have delivered fibre access across Australia at a rollout cost of between $49 to $57 billion. Our policy objective has remained consistent: to connect fibre to as many homes and premises as possible.

In contrast, what has transpired since the 2013 strategic review has been technological confusion, increasing complexity, increased costs and rollout delays. This has translated into a poor user experience and a lack of confidence by the majority of Australians in the ability of the NBN to meet our future needs. We have also clearly seen a detrimental impact on retail service providers.

The cost of the copper-dominated NBN is currently projected to be between $46 and $54 billion. If only this government had the conviction to stay the course, Australians would have had access to a better network for largely the same cost! As I have outlined previously, the root cause is that this government lacks a coherent policy vision. This confusion has led the government to take its hands off the wheel. There is clearly a lack of comprehension and interest from the current communications minister in the project, and his vision could be described as pedestrian, to say the least.

We on this side recognise the transformational power provided by high-speed broadband. I recognise the reality of where the network is up to; we are aware of the operational and systems complexity that are now baked into this multi-technology patchwork. Fragmentation, whether that be in the access network or in the IT systems, does have material impacts on organisation cohesion, customer experience and retailer viability. So, come the next election—whenever that is held—regrettably, an incoming government will not be dealing with a blank slate. Engineering decisions will have been made, contracts will have been entered into and the network footprint will have taken shape. So what we will have is a patchwork of some form. It is a question of how that patchwork can best be shaped by what we do in the present.

With this in mind, I want to pose the question: if this government refuses to contemplate fibre infrastructure, then what is the next-best alternative to their current course? What does a fibre-enhanced middle path looked like? The cost of deploying FTTN is now estimated to be around $2,300 per premises. In comparison, the cost of fibre to the distribution point is estimated to be around $2,700 per premises. For consumers, the prospect of more fibre and less copper means better speeds to support the applications of the future. It is also good news for retailers, because they will earn more revenue over the faster network and can deliver a better experience for their customers over newer infrastructure.

The underlying technology network designed for fibre to the distribution point also offers better prospects relative to FTTN by preserving a viable upgrade path to take the fibre to the premises into the future. The Vertigan panel did not model the incremental costs or benefits of fibre to the distribution point versus FTTN in 2014. And, in fairness, fibre to the distribution point was not as developed then as it is now, and so perhaps the costs were not sufficiently known to enable this type of analysis to take place. But if this government insists on locking in copper as the primary infrastructure delivery mechanism, they should do so in a responsible way that preserves a viable upgrade path to fibre in the future.

Within the parameters of their copper-driven world view, they should be seeking to deliver Australians the best and most reliable service. The comparative merits of fibre to the distribution point and fibre to the node should be analysed in an objective way to evaluate the best path forward. These decisions cannot be outsourced to NBN Co. We cannot expect NBN Co itself to be guided by public interest, as this is not its mandate. This does require policy leadership and it is the government's job to lead.

My questions to the minister are as follows: will the government be examining the merits of using fibre to the distribution point as the preferred access network in areas where fibre to the node and HFC build has not commenced? And will the government undertake to ensure that any fibre-to-the-distribution-point design and deployment preserves the option of a fibre upgrade path for end users?

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for the opportunity to respond on the question of the multi-technology mix which characterises the NBN, which is being rolled out by the Turnbull government.

And that rollout is going well. As at 13 October, there were 3,252,709 premises which were able to connect. Of course, when Labor left government in 2013 there were barely 50,000 services in operation. So what we are seeing is the rollout of the NBN gathering pace, and a very substantial number of Australians are now able to access the National Broadband Network using the multi-technology model—a combination of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node and, of course, the HFC—hybrid fibre coax. I do emphasise the point—despite some of the ill-informed rhetoric that we hear—that all of those modes involve fibre at different stages of the network.

When the incoming coalition government developed the multi-technology mix—more specifically, when NBN developed the multi-technology mix—with the assistance of extensive external consulting advice and also drawing on the capabilities of the management team, amongst the considerations was how best to achieve the rollout in the speediest possible fashion, bearing in mind that after six years' rhetoric we had inherited a situation where there was an enormous amount of talk about an NBN network but very little had been delivered.

As I mentioned, barely 50,000 Australians were actually able to get a broadband service, and the primary service delivered by the NBN was supporting photo ops—and they were very good at supporting photo opportunities. If then Prime Minister Gillard had a desire to appear in a photo op with a hard hat and a high-vis vest, then the NBN was at her service. If then Minister Conroy had a desire to be photographed or videoed feeding fibre into a pit, then the NBN was at his service. But when it came to actually rolling out fibre—rolling out the National Broadband Network—it turned out that the company charged with doing that had done a truly dismal job.

Now partly that was undoubtedly due to the fact that there was almost nobody on the board who had any serious telecommunications experience. And the chief executive, while certainly with distinguished experience running one of the largest telecommunications equipment vendors, was not an experienced networks executive. We fixed those issues. We fixed those issues when we came to government. We put in Ziggy Switkowski as chair, one of Australia's most experienced telecommunications executives—the former chief executive of both Optus and Telstra. We put in an experienced and capable management team and we charged the management team with developing the multi-technology mix—the combination of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node, hybrid fibre coax—

An opposition member: Yesterday's technology tomorrow.

Tell me, how many years have you actually worked in the telecommunications industry?

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister should ignore interjections.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Fibre to the node is very widely used around the world by companies like AT&T, British Telecommunications and Deutsche Telekom, and one of the reasons they use it is the speed of the rollout. This was precisely the point that the management team of NBN, together with extensive consultancy advice, arrived at. One of the key considerations was getting the rollout achieved and delivered quickly. And, of course, that is now what is happening. Look at the rate of rollout compared to the performance of the previous Labor government, which, as I have mentioned, managed to connect barely 50,000 people to the network in six years. They spent $6 billion, but they connected barely 50,000 premises to the network. We are now at a point where some 3.2 million premises are able to connect and the total number that are actually activated is 1.417 million.

The shadow minister asked about fibre to the distribution point. Obviously, that is an option that is being used, and we have announced that some 700,000 premises are planned to be served by fibre to the distribution point—some on the Optus HFC and some going beyond that.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the proposed expenditure be agreed to. I call the member for Corangamite.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order!

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Watson on a point of order?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise my point of order under standing order 185, which states that rules for the House apply to the Federation Chamber. In accordance with the rules that apply when we are in the conduct of debate, I refer you to pages 503 and 432 of House of Representatives Practice.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just bear with me while I come to page 503. Fire away.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On page 503, at the commencement of the second-last paragraph, it says:

Although the allocation of the call is a matter for the discretion of the Chair, it is usual, as a principle, to call Members from each side of the House, government and non-government, alternately.

It then goes on to explain the treatment of independents—I believe there are none within the room. The final sentence of that section says:

The call is alternated to each side of the Chamber even when government and opposition Members are not on opposing sides of a debate, for example, in cases of a free vote.

I then take you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to page 432—

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But I am a government member—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Watson has the call.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Page 432 of Practice deals specifically with consideration in detail. You will find under the subheading, 'Consideration in detail', if you go to the third paragraph:

The Federation Chamber goes through the schedule portfolio by portfolio, debating for each portfolio the question 'that the proposed expenditure be agreed to.'

That is what I wanted to read to you.

The allocation of the call during this part of the parliament's procedures follows the allocation of the call for when we are debating, not the allocation of the call as if it were a form of question time. If it were question time, the questions to the executive would alternate between opposition members and government backbench, with a minister responding on each occasion. In the time I have been in this room tonight, that is what you have been following. What I am advising you, Deputy Speaker, is that is the way the standing orders work for question time. We are not in question time. The Federation Chamber is debating a question. Between each speaker you have been repeating to the chamber the question we are debating. That means the speeches from the minister, even if they amount in their content to a response to a question, count as speeches from the government. If government backbenchers are to make speeches and occupy time during this, then it can only happen if the minister does not seek the call immediately after an opposition question has been made and defers to a government backbencher. But the call must alternate because we are debating a motion.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just so I am clear, your suggestion is that if the minister speaks in response to the question, members of the government do not get to ask questions. Is that your interpretation?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not a matter of interpretation. I am simply reading to you what Practice says. When debate is occurring, the call alternates between government and opposition, quite rightly. When government members are seeking the call, you have given preference to a government minister over a government backbencher. Those sorts of precedents are something that is quite—

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect, I disagree with that. What I have done is put the question—the question that the proposed expenditure be agreed to—and then I have given the call to whoever has been standing. I have not put that question again when the minister has answered the question.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you have been neglecting to remind the House what the question before it is at different points and when you put that, that raises a completely different issue. It does not change the fact that the House is debating at this point. We are not in question time; we are in Consideration in Detail debating a matter, and the call should alternate. When the call goes to the government side, if you want to give the call to the member for Corangamite, so be it. But when it was the turn for the call to go to the government side, you repeatedly, across two ministers, gave the call to the minister. Having done that, the next call should go to the opposition.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I restated the question, and it is my recollection that I did not restate the question—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it is not whether or not you restated the question.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I gave the opportunity to the minister to respond to the question that was put. The member for Corangamite on this point of order.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my previous experience of Consideration in Detail, the ruling has been made that the alternation of speakers is between government speakers and opposition speakers, both being given the opportunity to ask questions of the minister. Now, I refer to the provisions of the standing orders that the Manager of Opposition Business has read out today. The standing orders do not provide for what the Manager of Opposition Business is arguing. There is no specific provision in the standing orders which reflects what the Manager of Opposition Business is arguing. So I would put to you that it is a matter of discretion, and previous practice is—and it certainly was on the last occasion that I spoke on these matters—that there has been an alternation. It follows as a matter of logic that if you do not make that ruling then government members can readily be denied any opportunity to ask a question. So I would ask you to stay with your ruling.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Watson, still on the point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The critical issue here—and there is no reference to the quotes I gave from Practice to it being different depending on whether or not you have stated the question—is that the call goes alternately from the government side to the opposition side. What the member for Corangamite has just described is how the standing orders apply during question time. Practice, on page 432, makes it absolutely clear that we are debating each portfolio. If the minister seeks to engage in that debate, then that may well be the call you give for the government. But the fact that you have given the call to whomever you have chosen on the government side means the next call must come to the opposition, otherwise the reference I gave in Practice is being completely ignored. This is no small issue. It goes to whether or not, in Consideration in Detail, this House will continue the practice of the opposition being given equal time to the government. We accept that that is not how question time works—we do not love it, but no opposition ever has—but Practice is clear that we are debating when we are up here right now, and, with respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, if you are giving consecutive calls to government members, whether they be ministers or backbenchers, then Practice is not being followed.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Corangamite on this point of order.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the member for Watson's further point, I would put to you that we are actually alternating between government and opposition speakers and that the definition of 'debate' does not require government speakers to be excluded. The purpose of the consideration-in-detail debate is for the minister to answer questions. It is totally proper. To the extent that there is any concern about the interpretation of the standing orders—because it does not provide what the member for Watson is actually saying—I would ask you to use your discretion on this occasion.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McMillan on the point of order?

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have great respect for the member for Watson and his knowledge of the standing orders. However, the practice in this place has been, as I understand it, that the chair takes from the opposition first, the minister has an opportunity to answer and the chair then defers the next question to the government and so it goes. If the minister chooses to answer at any time through the exercise—and I put this process to the member for Watson—he can take three or four interventions or propositions from either side and then answer all of those. It has been done in different ways. But, if the member for Watson is trying to say that the minister answering a question is therefore a government speaker, that has not been the practice. For the information of the room, we had a very long meeting on this with the chairs and deputy chairs of both sides of the House and we agreed that this was the process up here as it was explained to us—and that is my understanding of the practice.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Watson further on the point of order?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If I may, I will respond to the issues that were very respectfully and decently raised just then. I have a copy of that report of the Standing Committee of Procedure in front of me now and I will read from it:

The participation of government backbench Members should not, however, result in a disproportionate allocation of time to the government side, as is currently the case.

We have a resolution from that Procedures Committee that, when that practice has been followed, it has been wrong. And there have been occasions where what the member for McMillan describes has occurred in here. Originally, when this practice first started, the only people who would come in and question ministers were opposition members. That is how it used to happen. It used to be very, very rare for anyone from the government to stand up. So then the question and answer format just flowed.

The report from that Procedures Committee in the last term made clear that, with the participation government members, the logical way to make sure that you still have equal time is for the minister to not immediately respond to every opposition question; that sometimes the minister will sit back, allow a government backbencher to make a contribution and it will come back to another opposition question and then the minister will respond to the different issues that have been raised. But we cannot have a situation where it is debate, as this is, and the opposition is getting less than half the time.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McMillan further on the point of order?

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I take it is on indulgence, because there is no other reason that I can stand up.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is on the point of order.

Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In continuance of the point of order: in consideration of the issues that the member for Watson has respectfully put before the chair, it was agreed that government members should not be taking up their full amount of time; that they should be considerate of the committee room in the process of what we are doing to give everybody ample opportunity—and I hope that has been the case. But it does not mean that government members cannot play a role in the process.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand the opposition's concern on this issue. The consideration-in-detail process is something that I have had some concerns with since I have been here as far as the allocation of time. My concern is that members from both sides should have equal opportunity to ask a question of the minister. Ultimately, if I read the standing orders, 'the allocation of the call is a matter for the discretion of the chair.' After that there are a whole lot of advisory points. It is my opinion that I should take it alternately. If the minister chooses to answer, he can. The minister may also choose not to answer and so he will take another question. Therefore, what I propose to do is give the call to the member for Corangamite. If the minister does not want to then take the answer, I will go to the member for Whitlam.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, can I clarify so I know exactly what the ruling is. I am not going to continue to argue. I have put my case. I just want to make sure that I know what your ruling is. You are saying that, if a minister responds to an opposition question, that speech will not count as a contribution from the government side?

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Correct.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Deputy Speaker's ruling be dissented from.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second that motion.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With respect to the member on what has been put to me, if the minister is happy, I will give the call to the member for Whitlam. The member for Whitlam will have the call and the minister will not answer and the call will go to the member for Corangamite.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. What I am suggesting, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that you give the call first to whoever you choose on the opposition side, then I will yield the call to a government member, then you will go back to the opposition, then we will come over here and then I will stand up and answer. If there are more then we can keep going within the time constraints.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I put that to the member for Watson and the member for Isaacs.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is still a motion before the chair. If the position is that the call henceforth will be alternating between the two sides then I did not need to move that motion and I will withdraw it.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the minister will refrain from answering until he has heard—

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, you choose who you give the call to. If it is going to alternate between both sides, then I did not need to move that motion. I withdraw it.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Watson.

A government member: The seconder will have to withdraw.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And I thank the member for Isaacs. Under those circumstances I give the call to the member for Whitlam.

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

My questions go to the Mobile Black Spot Program, which is an important program that enjoys bipartisan support across the House. However, the administration of the program has been quite wanting. This is a $220 million program—$220 million worth of Commonwealth government funds, taxpayer funds, are dedicated to the shared objective of ensuring that mobile phone services are available to people in rural and regional Australia on the same basis as they are for people who live in the cities. That is a very laudable objective that enjoys broad support across the House.

The program was initiated pursuant to an election commitment in June 2015. The first round, worth $110 million of taxpayer money, was allocated to provide funds to build base stations in up to 500 locations that were nominated as black spots throughout the country. By way of background: there are currently 10,000 nominated black spots throughout the country. That is right. Deputy Speaker Kelly, I know you come from a rural area. A lot of them will be in your electorate. There are 10,000 mobile phone black spots throughout the country.

It is matter of deep concern to those of us on this side of the House that the administration of the program has been found wanting. Indeed, the member for Greenway last year wrote to the Australian National Audit Office asking them to conduct an audit in relation to round 1 of the program. I have to say that the findings of the Audit Office are of deep concern to every Australian who cares about the allocation of taxpayer dollars and to every Australian who wants one of those 10,000 black spots covered by a new base station.

The Audit Office has found that one in four of the base stations that were funded by the government provided no new or additional coverage. In fact, it says on page 9 of the report:

… up to 89 base stations—

about 25 per cent of those funded in round 1—

provided minimal benefits to consumers in areas that previously did not have any coverage and, as a result, did not score a single point for coverage …

The cost of that failure was $28 million. We have discovered, from our reading of the report and material that has come through Senate estimates in the last 24 hours, that there has been monumental incompetence in the administration of this program.

Our question to the minister who is representing the minister in this chamber today and who was the parliamentary secretary responsible for the design and administration of the program is: why did mobile black spot funding go to base stations that provided only minimal benefits to consumers? Why did that happen? Why was $28 million worth of taxpayer funds wasted on base stations that provided no or minimal benefits to consumers?

I have heard the minister previously say that one of the objectives of the program was to provide increased competition. On its face, that stacks up. But, if you look at the allocation of the funds under the Mobile Black Spot Program, the overwhelming majority of the funds went to the largest incumbent: Telstra. Is it any wonder that this report, in its damning conclusion about the administration of round 1 of the program, found that substantial consolidation of existing coverage by the big telecommunication players, particularly Telstra, resulted from round 1 of the program? So they cannot say that putting $28 million worth of mobile black spot funding into towers that provided no or minimal benefit to consumers was okay because it was increasing competition. The audit commission has already dealt with that issue. The minister has questions to answer on this. Today he is the minister representing the minister from the other place, but he was the parliamentary secretary who was responsible for designing and administering the program. The parliament deserves some answers on this question.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the member for Corangamite, I advise that I came in and witnessed the discussion that was had. I have spoken to the minister. One thing that is not in dispute is that this chamber adjourns at 7.30. So I propose that questions can be asked until 25 minutes past seven. I will call whoever is on their feet at 25 minutes past seven and allow the minister the last five minutes. That is the best use of everyone's time.

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Out of respect for all members here in the chamber, I will keep my question relatively short. I would also like to put to the minister a question in relation to our Mobile Black Spot Program. I note that, in my electorate in round 1, 10 base stations were funded. None of those areas had any proper mobile coverage. I have to say that Labor, in the previous six years, did not provide one dollar to fix one mobile black spot anywhere in the country. In contrast, our program has been absolutely applauded throughout all rural and regional communities right across this nation. I know that when we turned on the mobile base station in Carlisle River—the first base station to be turned on in Corangamite—a tiny settlement for the first time felt that somebody was listening. Dereel, where there was a terrible bushfire in February 2013—again a community that felt completely isolated because they did not have access to mobile coverage—has also been funded, along with Gellibrand, and base stations have been fast-tracked there. I also want to briefly mention Bellbrae, Anglesea, Aireys Inlet and Birregurra, which have also been funded in election commitments that we gave prior to the last election.

For the communities I represent—a very large regional area in Victoria—I am incredibly proud of what we are delivering. I ask the minister to update the chamber on the rollout of the Mobile Black Spot Program and the extent to which this is making a real difference in rural and regional communities.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Nick Xenophon Team) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 2016 budget saw a concerning drop in financial support for community radio. The services provided by community radio bring diversity to the broadcasting sector and deliver services that are not delivered by commercial stations, particularly in regional areas of the country. In my electorate I have several community radio stations, and they provide an urgent and important service.

It is my understanding that in the 2016 budget we saw a decrease in funding for community radio broadcasters from $3.7 million per annum to $2.3 million per annum. This will mean that community broadcasters cannot proceed with the rollout of digital radio, even though commercial stations are committed to moving in this direction. Can the minister please advise what evidence was used to support this decision to cut such funding? I ask that question in the light of the fact that a reduction in the forward estimates for commercial broadcasters is around $163 million, so it would appear to me that, while lending a hand to commercial networks, this government has, by cutting the funding of community radio, hurt community broadcasters and hurt communities.

Given the projects that they wish to complete in the near future, community radio is seeking a commitment of $2.2 million per annum over the forward estimates. However, it is also my understanding that the Community Broadcasting Association wrote to Minister Fifield seeking such extra funding and received a reply indicating that the government would deny that. Can the minister advise on the evidence used to make this decision, given the impact of the lack of digital resources and the effect that would have on community radio?

With respect to a community radio station in my electorate—Adelaide Hills FM, 88.9—I recently wrote to Minister Fifield in relation to a permanent broadcasting licence for the station. My letter remains unanswered, so I am using this opportunity to talk about this. The radio station is the only one based in the Adelaide Hills. It provides crucial support to the community, including broadcasting of local sporting fixtures and, most critically, it provides advice in relation to weather and bushfires—and we are a high-risk bushfire area. My understanding is that in order to gain a permanent licence, which it is very keen to do, Adelaide Hills FM must be invited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority to apply for one. Could the minister provide me with an update in relation to the Australian Communications and Media Authority. Has he spoken to it to invite Adelaide Hills Radio to apply for a permanent licence. If not, could I ask the minister to give an undertaking to do so.

In my remaining time I would like to talk about mobile phone coverage in my electorate. I was very pleased with the government's election promise for my community to receive mobile phone coverage for blackspots in Ashbourne and Stokes Bay on Kangaroo Island. I would like to ask the minister: when will the government be inviting mobile phone network operators to bid for funding to provide coverage to Ashbourne and on Kangaroo Island? When does the government expect these locations will have full mobile phone coverage? Thank you.

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will need a minute at the end to close the House down so, because of the time, I will give the call to the minister and at 28 minutes past we will need to go through this appropriation.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Minister for Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a range of questions there. Let me come first to the question raised by the member for Mayo in relation to community radio. The position is that the government will provide $15.491 million in 2016-17 to support the community broadcasting sector, including $2.28 million for community digital radio. This funding will continue to be administered by the Community Broadcasting Foundation. There is ongoing funding at the rate of $2.28 million per year for the digital radio project to support the digital community radio services operating in the five mainland capitals.

In relation to your specific question about Adelaide Hills FM, I will ask Minister Fifield to come back to you with a response on that. In relation to your question about Ashbourne and Stokes Bay, I am advised that those were probably under round 3. I will get some more advice about the timing of that and come back to you.

The member for Corangamite asked what progress is being made in relation to the Mobile Black Spots Program round 1 and the rollout. That rollout is gathering momentum. When last I checked, I think, it was 69 base stations that have now been rolled out, and both Telstra and Vodafone are continuing to roll out base stations.

Ms Rowland interjecting—

That is absolutely correct, Shadow Minister. Well done. Both Telstra and Vodafone are continuing to roll out base stations, and so the program is proceeding in a very satisfactory fashion.

That leads me to the issues raised by the member for Whitlam. I want to put on the record a number of extracts from the Australian National Audit Office report in relation to the Mobile Black Spots Program:

The department established the key elements that would be expected to form part of a competitive, merit-based grants programme …

  …   …   …

The department appropriately identified black spots to guide the location of proposed base stations to be funded under the MBSP through its Database of Reported Locations …

  …   …   …

The department developed programme guidelines that reflected the objectives of the programme and contained an appropriate range of information about the programme to facilitate the submission of applications …

Let us go to the question that the member put, which was: are taxpayers getting value for money out of this project? The funding commitment from the Commonwealth government was $100 million. The ultimate amount of money which is being expended to deliver base stations is $385 million. That reflects the fact that the program was carefully designed to attract private sector investment from the mobile operators, and both Telstra and Vodafone put significant dollars on the table. It also attracted significant funding from state governments. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and WA all put money into the program, and we quite carefully designed it so that the state and Commonwealth money could work together so there was an efficient and competitive process.

The member for Whitlam goes to what is an important point: the fact that there is a competitive imbalance and Telstra has the largest network. One way we could have designed this program would have been to say, 'We will allocate all of the money in one big lump.' We chose not to do that. We very specifically designed a base-station-by-base-station competitive selection process, and we specifically allocated points in the process for co-funding from other sources. So the member for Whitlam is right: there is an important competitive issue to address. The program was designed very carefully to try and maximise competition, and it succeeded in that regard. Vodafone came in and put competitive pressure on Telstra, and that secured a much better outcome for taxpayers: 499 base stations was well at the top end of anybody's expectations. This was a great outcome for rural and regional Australians.

Proposed expenditure agreed to.

Debate adjourned.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 19:29.