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

When we were in this place in the turmoil of the last 24 hours, with discussions about budgets and the accusations flying across the chamber, with responsibility being ignored, or not, a whole range of things happened. I think we often forget the very important things in our lives that we actually ought to be contemplating more often than we currently do, and we should be thinking about them more in this place.

It is with respect to that that I want to spend some time talking about an old friend of mine who recently passed away. I want to do that because she was so very close friend—someone who worked on my behalf in successive elections since 1987; someone who showed me great loyalty over that very long period of time; and someone who was very forthright in her summation of events and in her views. She had no trouble at all in castigating me or bringing me to account for perhaps saying the wrong thing or not actually understanding all that I might in relation to her or her family and community.

I am referring to Mrs N Lalara, who was a senior Nunggabuyu and Warnindilyakwa woman. She was a senior traditional owner of lands in east Arnhem Land but had lived most of her life among her Anindilyakwa-speaking relatives on Groote Eylandt. She was born in 1946 and raised at the newly opened Church Missionary Society mission at Angurugu, on Groote Eylandt. That is where she was educated and was identified early on by the missionaries for her linguistic proficiency in Anindilyakwa, her natural teaching ability and, most importantly for the church, her fluency in English. It was no surprise that, as a result, when she left school Mrs Lalara became a school teacher. Later on during the course of my contribution I will talk about the importance of that educational role and what she might be thinking about the current issues to do with education in the Northern Territory, and Australia more generally.

Always a very strong and influential woman, Mrs Lalara worked with the missionaries but always had doubts about their methods. In an oral history interview conducted in 2012 she said of the missionary times: 'It was just rule bound, strict things. Missionaries were the bossy ones. They used to tell is what to do and they used to punish us.' Things changed for her with the election of the Whitlam government in 1972. It began a process of self-determination and the end of mission control at Angurugu by 1980. The Whitlam land rights legislation, which was subsequently passed by the Fraser government, was to make Mrs Lalara a lifelong supporter and friend of the Australian Labor Party.

However, unlike many, she was not blinded by the language of self-determination; she saw it largely as a masquerade. She said recently about the early 1970s: 'Self-determination was handled appallingly. It is just words. You see so many white people come and go. People do not give a '@$&!' about you. Corrupt principals. Teachers here to bludge in the bush. The white people were basically deadwood. They were conservative and interested in themselves. They wanted to earn money and get a good mortgage for a house somewhere else. Things could not be worse if all the white people left. Nothing has happened because it is bludge city here.' She was referring to the early 1970s.

Mrs Lalara was a very strong, traditional Aboriginal woman. In the late 1970s, while teaching at Angurugu School she met the love of her life, Grant Burgoyne—another very close friend of mine—a recently arrived schoolteacher from Sydney. They had a child, Kara, and were to spend the rest of Mrs Lalara's life together. This was mainly on Groote Eylandt but also travelling to schools and towns around the Territory and New South Wales, including Darwin, Pigeon Hole, Hay, Casino and Nambucca Heads. Everywhere she went, she made an impact as a strong, independent Aboriginal woman, including calling out racism publicly wherever she saw it. At the first cricket test at The Gabba in 1986, she insisted on barracking for the West Indies against the Australian 11, calling at the top of her voice: 'Where are the black players in the Australian team?'

Upon returning to Groote Eylandt she worked informally as an interpreter, without pay, for many years, ensuring that her family and community understood and accessed services. It was not until 1996, with the first trial of an Aboriginal interpreter service in the Northern Territory, that she was to be paid for this work. She sat for one of the first accreditation tests to qualify as an official interpreter and scored one of the highest levels ever for such tests. It was no surprise to those of us who knew her, and had witnessed her performance as an unofficial interpreter for many years, that she would succeed. The first Aboriginal interpreter service and its employees faced many challenges in the early days, but Mrs Lalara's professionalism always shone through. Colleen Roses, the then redoubtable head of the interpreter service, recalls one particular case in the Northern Territory Supreme Court: 'One of the defendants had the same last name and the prosecution lawyer tried to say that Mrs Lalara was related and therefore would take sides. You should have seen his face when Mrs Lalara stood up and advised him that she was related to every Aboriginal person in Australia and as a professional interpreter she did not take sides. I am sure that he had never been challenged before and probably has not been challenged again in such a strong and proud way.'

Courts and hospitals would always make special request to have Mrs Lalara interpret, so professional was she in her work. Judge Sue Oliver sent a special message of condolence to Mrs Lalara's family at her recent funeral. Mrs Lalara was always an active member of the Anindilyakwa Land Council. She campaigned for the removal of a disgraced former CEO and always endeavoured through the land council to make the Groote Eylandt mining company, GEMCO, keep its promises to her people. At her funeral, GEMCO representatives acknowledged this, saying: 'GEMCO always knew when Mrs Lalara was unhappy with them, so forthright was she in making her views known to the company.' It is a fact that she did not like what mining had done to her beloved country, but she still worked constructively with GEMCO to get the best possible result for her people, especially in regard to local employment and land rehabilitation.

In fact, for the last decade, she and her husband, Grant, ran a very successful cross-cultural training program for new GEMCO employees and their contractors to ensure that new arrivals had a better understanding of the cultural mores of the people. When former Governor-General Quentin Bryce visited Groote, Mrs Lalara hosted her at the cross-cultural training course in another example of her never-ending quest to make non-Indigenous people understand something of her people, their needs and their aspirations.

In 2010 a $2 mining company from Perth won exploration leases over 1,723 square kilometres of the seabed between the mainland and Groote. Mrs Lalara went on the offensive with strident opposition to their plans. She gave many media interviews condemning the plans, explaining that eight major song lines across the affected seabed and her people's very existence would be compromised if the mining was to go ahead. She mobilised her people and convinced governments of both political persuasions to put a moratorium on the planned exploration.

On behalf of myself, really, but also of the Australian Labor Party, I cannot conclude without acknowledging the exemplary service that she provided to us over more than four decades. No election passed without her manning the polling booths at Groote, Bickerton Island and Numbulwar on behalf of local Labor candidates including Bob Collins, Wesley Lanhupuy, John Ah Kit, Malarndirri McCarthy and of course myself. Though unwell, she campaigned hard for the current member for Arnhem, Selena Uibo.

She delighted in Labor victories, celebrated hard and was devastated by the rare defeats she suffered. She was a very, very tenacious campaigner and someone who would not take a backwards step at a polling booth. Future campaigns will not be the same without her, but I know her husband, Grant; daughter, Kara; and other family members will continue her great work.

This is a really personal thing for me because I knew Mrs Lalara very well, and I know her husband, Grant, very well. And I know how difficult the time has been since the funeral. But I know how proud he is about the life he spent with the love of his life for so long. Sadly, when she passed away she was a shadow of herself. I think she weighed something like 29 kilograms. She was very sick but always, always wise. So it is goodbye to Mrs Lalara.

She was an educationist as well. One of the things that we have noted now is, in her communities, Umbakumba, Angurugu and Alyangula, the schools are very remote. They are up in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The circumstances confronting the kids are difficult and the teachers equally as difficult. So it is really sad for me personally and as a member of this parliament to see that the budget that was to be delivered here last night is going to have a negative impact on those schools. It is a direct impact on Northern Territory. Compared to the funding commitment of the Labor government in 2013 to fair schooling, the Northern Territory will loose over $240 million. Over the next 10 years, Northern Territory government schools would move from the current Commonwealth funding rate of approximately 23 per cent of the SRS down to 20 per cent of the SRS. In transitioning to the lower rate the Commonwealth will apply an average indexation rate of 1.3 per cent between 2018 and 2027. Based on what we know of this calculator, the indexation rate will decrease year by year. The average per-student funding for government school students will grow less than $1,000 over the next 10 years. I heard the shadow minister, the member for Sydney, talk in the previous parliament about the impact of this funding on Northern Territory schools, and she mentioned one school in particular. She mentioned Anula Primary School in suburban Darwin, which will receive $554 over 10 years—not a lot. At the very same time, Trinity Grammar School in Sydney, which has fees of up to $24,000 a year, will receive an increase of $2,734 per student over 10 years. How can this be fair? If you think about the students at Angurugu, Umbakumba and Alyangula, you will understand that many of them are the most disadvantaged educationally in the country. If the government thinks that somehow or other slashing funding in the way in which they are proposing will get a better outcome for remote Aboriginal kids living in bush communities around this country, particularly in my own electorate of the Northern Territory, they are sadly mistaken.

It is just criminal, really, that—when we hear the Prime Minister talking about closing the gap in education and employment—we have a very deliberate attempt here, by their own admission, that will have an impact which will be extremely detrimental to the capacity of the Northern Territory to provide an adequate and appropriate educational outcome for all the children of the Northern Territory. As I say, it will impact most adversely on those most disadvantaged and educationally deprived kids who live in remote parts of the Territory. It is worth noting the response from the Council of Government School Organisations in the Northern Territory. They have put out a press release today in which they have slammed the Turnbull government's 2017 budget for failing to invest in the Northern Territory children. I quote Tabby Fudge, the president of the NT Council of Government School Organisations:

Parents need to understand that rhetoric and spin from the federal government does nothing for our children without the funding attached.

She says further:

Despite the Turnbull government putting out a Fact Sheet on our dreadful levels of disadvantage they have failed to fund our level of need for our disadvantaged students.

Calling your funding ‘student needs based funding’ doesn’t mean you are funding student’s needs and they’re not.

Calling your funding Gonski 2.0 doesn’t mean you are funding what the Gonski report recommended to provide a quality education and they’re not.

Telling parents that you are increasing funding to 20% for government schools doesn’t tell Territory parents that we receive 23% and we will be the only state or territory to have to ‘transition down’ in funding.”

Announcing you are increasing education to the Territory without declaring that government schools will have to do the ‘heavy lifting’ is not fair.

Despite the continual funding attacks on Territory government schools they continue to top the Year 12 results every year thanks to our amazing staff and families. Our schools deserve the funding it actually costs to provide every Territory child with a quality education, no matter where they live.

Federal Budget 2017 is a clear fail for our voiceless children living with the highest level of educational disadvantage.

That says it all. But we are expected to jump and clap when the Prime Minister gets up here and says this is a fair budget that is fair to all Australians. It is not fair; it is not fair at all. I know that those teachers who work in those bush communities and in urban committees in the Northern Territory, who work their backsides of trying to improve educational outcomes for the students—particularly for those kids who are most disadvantaged—will be most upset by this.

It is very clear that you cannot, on the one hand, be talking about improving educational outcomes, saying teachers have to have better qualifications, be more highly motivated and deliver better outcomes if, on the other hand, you do not provide them with the resources they need—and, in this case, the resources are required. We are talking about my own electorate, where 42 per cent of the population are Aboriginal people, and there are a very large number of disadvantaged students living across rural locations. If you do not invest the resources that are required to alleviate the disadvantage, you will not get better educational outcomes, and, as a direct result, the life opportunities of those young people will be limited. And we all know that it is about not only education but also health—that if you do have healthy young people being educated well so that when they leave school they are in a position to either apply for a job or go for further training, then we have not succeeded.

Sadly, this is the case for so many young people in the Northern Territory. We want to break this cycle of dependence and poverty, and the only way we can do this is by making sure we get better educational outcomes. We will not get better educational outcomes in the Northern Territory as a result of this budget, because, as I have pointed out, our schools are being disadvantaged as against other schools across the country. Instead of getting the resources they properly require, they are getting far less. It is a shame. It is something which will hang around the necks of this federal government long into the future.

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Canberrans are used to bracing themselves whenever a coalition government releases a budget. In 1996, we lost 15,000 public servants here in Canberra and 30,000 nationwide, we saw Canberra go into an economic slump, we saw businesses close down, we saw local shops close down and we saw people leave town. Under the Howard government, Canberra really was hit very, very hard, and we went through an economic slump for five years. It took five years for us to dig ourselves out of that hole dug by the Howard government at the time, which saw, as I said, 15,000 jobs axed and people leave town.

We had three federal electorates in those days, in accordance with the size of the population. But, because of the Howard government's cuts, they were reduced to two. Now, as it stands, the electorate of Canberra is the largest in terms of numbers in the country, with 143,000, and the electorate of Fenner is the second largest, with 128,000. Most of my colleagues have electorates of between 90,000 and 100,000. So my electorate is much larger—40,000 people larger—than those of most of my colleagues. It just underscores the fact that Canberra is one of the most underrepresented places in the country, particularly compared to our Tasmanian colleagues, and it is not helped by coalition governments winning elections and taking the axe to our much-loved national capital.

As I said, we tend to brace ourselves for coalition government budgets. We braced ourselves for the Turnbull coalition government budget last night, and we were correct to engage the brace position, because last night's budget had no good news in it for Canberra—none. Since the Abbott-Turnbull government has been in power, 13,000 Public Service jobs have gone. Thirteen thousand have been axed here in Canberra and across Australia. As a result of last night's budget, we are now set to lose thousands more.

I will run through the list. Do not think about them as numbers but as individuals, as people with families as people with children, as people with mortgages, as people with car loans, as people with aspirations and dreams about their ambitions and as people who love their city and who love being public servants, who are dedicated to being servants of our democracy and who are dedicated to making a difference and to altruism. As I run through this very tragic list, think about each of these numbers as an individual, an individual with a family, an individual with friends, an individual with a home, an individual with a mortgage, an individual with a car loan, an individual with a dog and cat and budgie. We are talking people—they are not just numbers—which is what people tend to overlook when they deride Canberra so easily, when they blatantly feel it is okay to pork barrel on Canberra and move government agencies out of here to their own electorates, when they have no qualms about talking about the city with derision, with scorn. These are people who have made a decision to invest in public service, as you did Deputy Speaker Hastie through the Australian Defence Force. You are a public servant, someone dedicated to the defence of our nation and our national security. These people do it in a civilian sense.

So I will run through this tragic list. It is tragic because it seems that since I have been the member for Canberra I have been reading out a list as tragic as this every year under a coalition government. The Department of Human Services is losing almost 1,200 positions—that is a four per cent decrease in the total numbers. The Australian Bureau of Statistics is losing over 400 positions, which is 14 per cent of that agency. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection is losing 245 positions, which is a two per cent decrease in staff. The Department of Health is losing over 240 people. The Australian Federal Police, despite what the Minister for Justice says about the investment there, is losing over 150 people. The Attorney-General's Department is losing 100 people. The Department of Finance is losing over 60 people. The Department of Education and Training is losing almost 50 people. The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources is losing over 40 people. The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies is losing over 30 people, which is a 20 per cent decrease in the size of that agency. The Australian Electoral Commission is losing 24 people. The office of the Director of Public Prosecutions is losing 20 people. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet is losing 14 people. ATRA is losing 15 people. The Australian Skills Quality Authority is losing 13 people. IP Australia is losing nine people. The Fair Work Commission is losing six people.

These cuts to Public Service positions have not been confined to Public Service agencies and departments, they affect our national institutions, which, under this coalition government—under the Abbott government and now under the Turnbull government—have been cut to the core. We are not cutting into fat. We are not cutting into bone. We are cutting into the vital organs of the national institutions. These cuts continue the tradition of the coalition government. We are already seeing the impact that the cuts are having. We are seeing the impact on the preservation and conservation of our nation's story, of our nation's identity, of our nation's history. You cannot cut 20 positions out of the National Gallery, which is a pretty lean and mean outfit, and not expect that it will have some sort of impact on the curating of our national collection. You cannot cut jobs out of the National Library without having some impact on how we tell our national story. The coalition government has announced in the budget that we are losing 15 jobs at the National Archives and another three at the War Memorial. You cannot make these cuts to government agencies—not just funding cuts but also job cuts—without them having an impact on our nation's identity, on our national story and how we tell it, how we preserve it, how we conserve it and how we care for it for future generations. We cannot have cuts without an impact on that story.

As I said, I am very disappointed that there was more bad news for Canberra from the budget, as is the tradition with coalition governments. I have outlined the long list of jobs, thousands of jobs, that will be cut out of the Public Service as well as out of our national institutions, and that is on top of the 13,000 Public Service jobs that have already been cut. But we have also seen cuts in schools. This week and last I spent a lot of time in conversation with Catholic schools here in Canberra. We have a very high proportion of Catholic schools in Canberra because Canberra has a high proportion of Catholics, which is partly due to the sectarianism that occurred during the 1950s. Catholic white-collar professionals found it very difficult to get clerical jobs, particularly in the law, in Melbourne and Sydney. My husband, a Catholic who is well known amongst many of my colleagues and across the aisle as well, said that his mother, who was a very devout Catholic, used to tell stories about signs out the front of factories and shops in the 1950s saying, 'No Catholics need apply.' Probably everyone of that vintage in this room would have heard those stories as well. That was in the 1950s in our country. It is not that long ago that sectarianism was rife in this country, and it is a chapter of our history that tends to be forgotten. We in the ALP still smart from what it did to our party in the 1950s—it split our party—so we are acutely aware of the damage it can do. That chapter of sectarianism in our history is often overlooked.

As I said, we have a very large Catholic population here in Canberra. It is a population that is progressive but also fiercely devoted to public service, fiercely devoted to social justice, and fiercely devoted to serving our democracy and making a better Australia. The values of that very strong Catholic, progressive, social justice tradition are embodied in the Public Service and embodied in the Catholic community here in Canberra. As a result, we have these little systemic schools dotted throughout the ACT. I have a very high proportion of them in my electorate. They are going to be hit very, very hard by the coalition government's budget.

Most of you would have seen the rally at St Clare's on Monday night, which I attended together with the Leader of the Opposition and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, as well as Senator Zed Seselja. I admire Senator Seselja for actually turning up to that. I admire him but I expect he was there as a good St Thomas the Apostle student, Padua High School student and St Mary MacKillop student, and as someone who practises his faith at Holy Family Church in Gowrie and sends his children to, I think, Marist College. It was good that he was there.

The Catholic schools in my electorate are going to be very hard hit. They are going to have average funding cuts of 7.3 per cent. I have had many conversations with the Principal of St Mary MacKillop College, who has told me that over the next decade they are going to be down $770 per student. On Monday I met with the Principal of St Thomas More's, and also Father Julian, who runs the parish church there. You might be familiar with the school, Deputy Speaker Hastie. St Thomas More's is in Campbell, right near the Russell complex, and is a school where 50 per cent of students are from Defence families. They are used to managing students from all over the country who are transitioning to a new life in Canberra. There is a great support system for them at St Thomas More's. The fees at that school are currently around $3,000 a year. As a result of the government's cuts to schools, those fees are probably going to go up to about $5,000 to $8,000 a year, if the school does not close down entirely— because it is quite a small school, with 152 children. It is a very special school and it has a unique understanding of Defence children and the Defence environment. Most of the children I met with the other day had a father in Army and a mother who was a Defence civilian, or both parents in Army. They had just come in from somewhere else over the summer rotation. So these are schools that are going to be very hard hit.

There is St Thomas the Apostle, Senator Zed Seselja's old primary school; St John Vianney's, where my dear, much-loved late mother-in-law taught—and she is still missed and remembered very fondly there; St Mary MacKillop College; and St Bede's, just down the road from here. Every Catholic school in my electorate is going to be very hard hit by this coalition government's budget and its cuts to schools. The concern they have is not just for the fact that they might not exist in two or three years time but for the fact that they provide an important service in terms of supporting children with learning difficulties, supporting children with disabilities, supporting Indigenous students and supporting children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds. These are not rich schools and these are not rich communities. One of the schools, St Anthony's in Wanniassa, received under the Building the Education Revolution the most amount of money of any school in Canberra because it was that underdone in terms of infrastructure and facilities. It was a school that was essentially just a collection of demountables—portables, as they are called in Victoria. The BER transformed that school physically and also transformed its educational outcomes. The school was built around a range of pods—the demountables were mostly gone. It transformed that school. The investment that was made in that school highlighted the fact that it was the most under-resourced school in Canberra. It was certainly not a wealthy school. As I said, the parents sending their children to these Catholic schools are not wealthy parents. They are not drawn from wealthy communities, and the schools are very humble indeed. Speaking about humble, you do worry about this coalition government. I go back to the experiences my husband had in Catholic schools in Queensland, particularly in the 1960s when he was writing on slates—is that the future that this government wants for children in Catholic schools across Australia?

I have mentioned the job cuts by this government—thousands of them, with 13,000 Public Service job cuts already. I have mentioned the cuts to schools, particularly Catholic schools. I have mentioned the cuts to the jobs in national institutions and the impact that will have on our national collection, our national story, our nation's identity. I want to touch on infrastructure.

We saw the coalition government's big glossy last night, with the big map of Australia showing $75 billion worth of infrastructure investment—the big screamer at the top of the page. I looked into the fine detail about what that means for the ACT, what that means for my community. Out of that $75 billion—this is still breathtaking—Canberra is receiving the princely sum of $3 million worth of investment in infrastructure. I got my team to work out what that $3 million investment in Canberra was as a percentage of the $75 billion budget. I will just read it back to you, Deputy Speaker Hastie. This is calculating one billion as 1,000 million, because I understand there are two different versions of a billion. The $3 million we got out of the $75 billion is 0.004 per cent of the infrastructure investment in the budget. That is how much the community of Canberra is valued by the coalition government. Not only do we get thousands of jobs cut here, not only do we get our national institutions starved of funds so that their vital organs are not even functioning, but we get $3 million—

A division having been called in the House of Representatives

Sitting suspended from 16:40 to 16:48

I have just been outlining the paltry amount that was invested in Canberra in last night's coalition government budget—$3 million out of $75 billion—and what that represents in terms of percentage. I have heard defence of the fact that there has been infrastructure investment. The $3 million was for Pialligo Avenue and also the duplication of Monaro Drive. There has been defence that what I regard as maintenance or services is actually an infrastructure investment. It ain't. Lighting and plumbing at Old Parliament House is not infrastructure. A temperature controlled system at the National Film and Sound Archives ain't infrastructure. Shared corporate services at the National Museum also ain't infrastructure. That is not my understanding of infrastructure. A business case for an exhibition at the War Memorial is not infrastructure. There has been a very interesting interpretation of 'infrastructure' in the last 24 hours, but I do not regard that maintenance and those services as infrastructure. Once again, under a coalition government, it is all bad news for Canberra—cuts to jobs, schools, universities and health and an insulting, paltry $3 million in 'infrastructure' investment.

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

I am going to take full advantage of the fact that the standing orders allow me not to keep to the topic at all. I am going to deliver, consecutively, a series of different speeches. Lest anyone wonders where the common thread is, that was it!

First, a number of festivals for people of various faiths are going to be celebrated in the coming weeks, and I will go through those in turn. It is, of course, by no means a full list. On behalf of Labor I extend my best wishes to Buddhist communities in Australia and around the world for Vesak. Vesak commemorates three significant stages in Buddha's life—his birth, enlightenment and death—and is usually observed during the first full moon in May, but in some regions during the new moon.

The teachings of Buddha encompass principles that foster peace, compassion and the realisation of true happiness. At the heart of these beliefs are the four noble truths, which outline the stages of suffering, its causes, and the path that leads to the end of suffering, or enlightenment. Around the world, colourful lotus lanterns adorn temples and are released into the air. The symbolism of the lotus flower comes from the belief that lotus flowers emerged from the first seven steps Buddha took after his birth.

Over the weekend and this coming week, Buddhist communities around Australia will celebrate Buddha's birthday by making offerings of fruit, flowers and incense at temples, offering prayers and performing the ritual of bathing Buddha in rosewater, to symbolise a fresh start in life. Nan Tien Temple, in Wollongong, holds a two-day festival each year at Darling Harbour that attracts people of all cultures, faiths and backgrounds and unites Buddhists from all traditions in ceremonious celebration, entertaining crowds with music, food from various regions, and the opportunity to share blessings and hope for a brighter future. The festival offers us the opportunity to be guided by the fundamental principles that make up the essence of modern multicultural Australia: peace for all, unity as a nation and acceptance of all. To all those celebrating: happy Vesak.

On behalf of Labor, I want to extend my best wishes to the Mandaean communities in Australia and around the world on the marking of the birthday of John the Baptist. Mandaeism is a 2,000-year-old faith that has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The ritual of baptism is the focal aspect of worship in Mandaeism. Here in Australia Mandaean communities perform ancient rituals of bathing in the Nepean River, in Penrith, every Sunday. Dressed in white ceremonial robes, men women and children immerse their bodies in water as a symbol of purification and connection to the ancient rituals of the baptism of John the Baptist. For those of us of the various forms of Christian faith—there are a number in the chamber, including myself—this is a faith where the belief is that John the Baptist is a prophet calling for somebody who has not yet come. So, all the teachings of John the Baptist are where the Mandaean faith anchors itself. The Mandaean community has endured an extraordinary amount of persecution and hardship, fleeing Iraq and Iran and settling in different parts of the world. Australia is home to about 10,000 followers of the Mandaean faith, who have developed a strong relationship with community and the Australian society.

I will never forget my first meeting with members of the Mandaean community. It was in this building, more than a decade ago. I was shadow immigration minister at the time and the then member for Prospect, now member for McMahon, had brought a group in to meet with me. The thing that was extraordinary about the meeting was that it was the first time I had ever the Aramaic language being spoken. The Aramaic language, the language of what many of us would call the Holy Land at the time of the New Testament, is still spoken by the Mandaean community. While I did not understand a word, the richness of the language made it a moment that has always stayed with me.

We are privileged that the Australian story is deep and wide. It tells a story of a nation of many cultures, faiths and backgrounds, fused together to represent the essence of a successful, modern multicultural society. That is our Australia.

On behalf of Labor I want to extend my best wishes to Muslim communities in Australia and around the world, who will soon be observing the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month in the Islamic lunar calendar and begins at the sighting of the crescent moon, lasting for 29 to 30 days. At the break of dawn on the first day of Ramadan, Muslims will embark on a month-long journey of fasting, prayer and spiritual reflection. Abstaining from food and drinks, Muslims turn to the Islamic teachings of the Qur'an to re-evaluate their lives and renew their faith in God by giving charity to the less fortunate and strengthening relationships with family. The end of the fasting day is symbolised by the sounding of the call to prayer. After breaking the fast with three dates, according to tradition, family and friends gather to share meals and attend ritual evening prayers at their mosque.

The suburb I live in is Punchbowl, and the suburb next door, Lakemba, is extraordinary during Ramadan. People of all faiths come from all over Sydney, and the suburb is alive the whole night. I would encourage anybody to turn up at any time of night. For the first couple of nights it is very quiet. I would not recommend that you go then; most people are home with their families. But after that, if you are in Sydney during that month, please visit Lakemba at any time of night and you will find that the welcome is very warm and very genuine. So, as the crescent moon appears on the eve of Ramadan, I wish all those who are observing it a blessed and peaceful month of worship, love and prosperity. Ramadan Kareem.

On behalf of Labor I want to extend my best wishes to Jewish communities in Australia and around the world for the joyous occasion of Shavuot. Shavuot commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. The Ten Commandments form the moral basis for the Jewish faith and for other faiths around the world. It is also a harvest festival and the start of the season when ancient Israelite farmers would bring their first fruits to the temple in Jerusalem and celebrate the blessings of God given to the Jewish nation. Here in Australia it marks the beginning of winter and is a time for spiritual connection with God. Families and communities will gather at the synagogue to hear the readings of the Torah and eat dairy foods, which is a customary tradition. The celebration of Shavuot offers all of us the opportunity to reflect on the moral and ethical foundations of our society and to continue work towards building a prosperous nation of diverse cultures, faiths and backgrounds, celebrating the essence of modern multicultural Australia, a nation of vibrant cultures, faiths and backgrounds all united under one banner of unity. Happy Shavuot.

On behalf of Labor I want to extend my best wishes to the Baha'i community in Australia and around the world in commemoration of the ascension of Baha'u'llah, This day marks the death of Baha'u'llah, the prophet founder of the Baha'i faith. This death was only in 1892. It is one of the youngest of the various faiths in Australia. It is a solemn occasion that is usually marked at the time it occurred—around 3 am. It is one of nine major Baha'i holy days in the year on which work is suspended. Commemorations this year take place on 28 May. Baha'i communities in Australia and around the world will come together at that time to read special prayers and readings and to remember the life of their prophet. Commemoration culminates in the reading of a tablet known as the Tablet of Visitation. This tablet is also commonly read at his shrine, which has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. There will also be a commemorative service held in the Baha'i house of worship at Ingleside, Sydney. The traditions of the Baha'i faith reflect the strength of Australia's multicultural community and emphasise religious freedom, which is intrinsic to our national identity, and reaffirms our hopes for the continuity of our vibrant multicultural nation.

I next want to acknowledge the Sikh communities in Australia, who, on 16 June, here and around the world will be commemorating the martyrdom of Arjan Dev Sahib. The date marks the anniversary of his martyrdom. He is the fifth of the 10 revered Sikhs who made the ultimate sacrifice of their life to establish the Sikh faith. The Sikh's story of his sacrifice was that he was tortured for five days by the government of the Mughal emperor, and on the sixth day, after being taken to the river to bathe, disappeared and was never seen again. The day of remembrance is often observed by readings of the Sikh holy book, musical recitation of hymns from the Sri Granth Sahib, the central religious scripture in the Sikh faith, and lectures on Sikhism. The Sikh community in Australia has played a significant role in the Australian story for more than a century and continues to play an integral role in the fabric of our modern multicultural society through contributions to community and the broader Australian society.

With this one, you will work out that the chief of staff in my office is married to someone who is from France. On the occasion of their national holiday, I have been encouraged to extend to the French people around the world and in Australia the heartiest and best wishes and congratulations of federal Labor in advance—putting down the marker now for Bastille Day, which is some time away. But my chief of staff thought we would sneak this one in now. Named after the infamous Parisian prison fortress that was invaded by revolutionary forces in the 18th century, Bastille Day commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution. I know for many people, particularly those living far from home, it is not remembering the storming of the Bastille; it is a celebration of French culture. That day, people come together to eat, drink and celebrate.

For many years now, Australia and France have enjoyed deep and friendly relations in all political, economic and cultural areas, underpinned by a shared sacrifice in two world wars. We currently share strong diplomatic links and work together in global forums on important issues, such as the economy and climate change. France is a nation with a proud history and a sense of justice. It also is home to people who enjoy life to the full. On that special occasion, I wish everyone celebrating happiness and prosperity—a particular shout-out to Sean and Gaelle.

In the time still available, I want to refer to two things in the arts portfolio. First of all, at the recent 44th Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards held in Pasadena, California, an Australian animated series for children, Beat Bugs, won the award for Outstanding Writing in a Preschool Animated Program for local Australian writers Josh Wakely, Cleon Prineas and Joshua Mapleston. This is a big moment for writer, director and producer Josh Wakely, who created the series, which centres around five young bugs who live in an overgrown suburban backyard—often like mine, I guess—and learn life lessons while having adventures. Josh spent years pulling off the impossible and secured the rights to the Beatles' songs, which are then woven into the narrative as performed by contemporary recording artists such as Pink and Sia. Importantly, he also brought on board Daniel Johns, former lead singer of silverchair, who arranged and produced the music for the series as musical director.

Josh has described the series as 'about teaching kids, but with a bit of humour and not in a patronising way'. The show's theme song is 'All You Need Is Love'. These elements led to the series being backed for broadcast in Australia on the Seven Network and internationally on Netflix. The multi-award-winning production also won an AWGIE Award in the animation category and an AACTA Award for Best Children's Television Series in 2016. Produced by local Australian company Beyond Productions, the production also included a worldwide team of writers and animators in Australia, including upcoming Australian talent. The series is yet another world-class production driven by and featuring Australian talent. Congratulations to Josh and to all the team—I add Rebecca Graham, one of the associate producers—and I encourage them all to keep telling great stories.

I want to refer to an issue that I expect I will be making a number of contributions on. It is not an attack on the government in any way. It is establishing that there is a problem that we as a parliament are going to have to find a way of dealing with. It is what is happening to the major-production live music industry in terms of ticket sales. There has been some attention given already to what is happening with bots. Robot systems are set up, and the bots basically clean out all the tickets the moment they go online so that people are left only able to buy tickets from scalpers. The additional issue I want to refer to in my contribution today is what is happening with fake tickets, and tickets that are real but are sold multiple times. Effectively, what happens is that someone buys one real ticket, and, because a ticket can now be printed off on a computer, they on-sell that ticket to as many as a dozen people. Whoever turns up to the venue first gets in the door. Everybody else turns up with a ticket that the scanner says cannot be allowed for admission because it has already been used. Similarly, some people are turning up with tickets that are entirely fake.

We need to bear in mind who we are talking about. For many Australians, a ticket to a music festival or to a major performance is one of the biggest discretionary purchases they will make during the course of a year. This is a really big purchase when people make it. Simply saying to people, 'Well, you need to be more careful; you need to make sure that you're buying your tickets from someone who's reputable,' is a bit hard when all the search engines are pointing people in the same direction.

I have had a number of music promoters say to me that, when people are turning up to venues and finding that their tickets are not real, one of the regular sites they have purchased from is a site called viagogo. I have heard of incidents, for example, from Frontier. When they last had Justin Bieber, he did not tour New Zealand. They had people fly from New Zealand to Sydney to attend the concert, only to find on arrival that their ticket was fake. I was at Bluesfest over Easter. One of my daughters who was with me was expecting to catch up with some friends of hers whose whole family had gone up to Byron Bay to attend Bluesfest for Easter. I asked her at the end, 'How come we never saw them?' She said, 'Oh, it turned out they had fake tickets.' I asked her to check where they had come from. The answer: viagogo.

I did the check myself, and I would encourage members to check on every search engine you can. Sometimes we get into Google bashing and things like that, but it is not just Google. You can go through Google. You can go through Bing. I even tried that DuckDuckGo search engine. Pick a major international artist, type 'tickets' and see what comes up as an early item, often the first item, telling you where to go for your tickets. Always on the first page—I went through Montane, the Lumineers, Santana, Midnight Oil, Julia Jacklin and Jimmy Barnes—viagogo came up as the site, and it says 'viagogo—official site', meaning it is the official site of viagogo. But if you are someone who might buy a ticket every two or three years and is not constantly out there buying tickets—and, if you are constantly out there buying tickets, it is a pretty expensive way for people to be getting entertainment, particularly if it is these major artists—you see the words 'official site' and you click through.

We need to find a way of making sure that when tickets say that they are not transferable and not to be resold we acknowledge that the site doing the reselling is engaging unlawfully and, when they are selling something that turns out to not be valid, they are engaging in theft. When they have a reputation of doing this repeatedly, can we continue with a situation where the search engines are receiving advertising dollars to continue to promote sites like that?

Viagogo's official policy is that, if you turn up and it turns out to be a fake ticket, they will give you your money back. That is not much good if you have flown to be at the venue. That is not much good if you have been looking forward to going to this particular gig, thinking you have got your tickets and therefore not going anywhere else, and by the time you turn up and discover that your tickets are fake it is impossible to get comparable seats, or possibly any seats, at any of the remaining gigs if they exist.

We are talking about a consumer affairs issue that has hit the music industry and is hitting everyday Australians on one of their largest discretionary purchases. In the first instance, we should find out if there is a way of working with the search engines to get a sensible outcome here, but we cannot allow there to be a continued situation where companies effectively operating in Australia are receiving advertising dollars to direct Australians to purchase stolen or illegal goods. That cannot be a valid commercial arrangement. It is happening every day. It is happening more and more. There is no benefit to the Australian economy. There is only loss for people who love live music. Whether it is turning up to a music festival or turning up to a major artist, whether they be Australian or international, we must start acting now so that, if someone buys a ticket, they know that they can turn up and get entry to the music they love.

Anthony Byrne (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak in the address-in-reply debate, particularly to respond to the Turnbull government's recent budget but also obviously the Governor-General's speech. Some of the key themes of my speech, particularly in relation to rapidly growing outer-suburban Melbourne, are issues like infrastructure and population growth and the social services being provided to those areas. According to the National Growth Areas Alliance, Australia's fast-growing outer suburbs are home to five million people. In the Casey region of my electorate of Holt, we are home to the fastest growing suburb in Australia, Cranbourne East. There is rapid population growth occurring in the outer suburbs, but the key problem is that social infrastructure, roads, schools, jobs and services are not keeping up with this population growth.

Research commissioned by the NGAA shows that there is a $50 billion backlog in infrastructure for fast-growing outer suburbs like mine, and unless it is seriously addressed that figure will grow to $73 billion in the next 15 years. By then the population in these areas is expected to reach 7.5 million people. In light of that, I would encourage the Turnbull government, notwithstanding the budget they have just brought down, to give special consideration to setting up a specialised fund for the outer suburbs, in the same way that the rural and regional areas have a dedicated fund. I believe it is only fair that growing outer suburbs are treated equally to get their fair share of infrastructure funding.

As an example of that, in 2015 I supported the investment of $10 million under the National Stronger Regions Fund to build a new arts precinct at Bunjil Place at Westfield Fountain Gate. That will be finished later this year. However, subsequent to that, the Turnbull government cut the National Stronger Regions Fund, replacing it with the Building Better Regions Fund, which now excludes outer suburban electorates like Holt. Given the amount of population growth that is occurring in areas like Holt and outer suburbs dotted all around the country, it is absolutely ludicrous that you could not reuse funding in that fund for projects like Bunjil Place. There are tens of Bunjil Place type projects that cannot be funded. It seemed to be good enough for us to access this fund when Tony Abbott was Prime Minister. Perhaps it was the change in Prime Minister, because it is now not good enough: since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, we cannot access it.

This particularly strikes me when we have, for example, a local bowls club—the Narre Warren Bowls Club—looking for about a million dollars to fund a new shade structure. That sounds like a lot of money for a bowls club, but, particularly given the work happening in the private sector around Bunjil Place, around Westfield Fountain Gate, the area is becoming a regional hub. There is innovation in this design, and the concept behind it is to have a shaded area which people from everywhere can use as an entertainment area. It fits in perfectly. We recently wrote to the minister responsible for the Stronger Regions Fund and were told they did not have funding for that anymore. It is absolutely ridiculous. Twelve months before, you could access this fund; now you cannot. How many projects like the one I mentioned would there be?

The member for Watson, who spoke prior to me, was talking about the contribution made by the Sikh community in our area. They are a substantial presence in my area. They are a great boon to our community. They work very closely with me in the area of taxi driving and the compensation the Victorian state government is paying taxi drivers, and also on issues like community safety. They have been at the forefront of representing the general community on these issues. They have a wonderful temple that they want to expand so that they can offer services like feeding homeless people at night. Under normal circumstances, under the previous fund, that would have qualified for funding, but now it does not.

This sends a message to the outer suburban community, who can see the great population growth that is occurring. If you drive down Clyde Road in Narre Warren going to Cranbourne you can see the phenomenal growth that is occurring. You really do know that it is the fastest growing area in Australia when you drive down there, because of the number of houses that are being built. You would think that, given the taxes that all those people pay and the lives that they are establishing there, it would be a very well developed area, that there would be the social infrastructure, that there would be the funding capacity to build soccer stadiums, football stadiums and all the infrastructure that a growing outer suburb needs. But there is not, and I think that is absolutely ridiculous. So my request as part of the address-in-reply is for the Turnbull government to look at what their predecessors did and then see whether or not they can do something like that—make a readjustment or create a separate fund—so that suburbs like mine can access the regional funds they are entitled to.

Obviously, there is an issue about community safety. My constituency has been struck quite hard by terrorism and extremism in our area, our very suburbs, in particular the shooting at the Endeavour Hills police station in 2014 and the foiled Anzac Day plot in April 2015. One of the great things about my constituency is the way in which the community has come together cohesively, inclusively and in a measured way. It would do great credit to the shock jocks, the people who mouth off about terrorism, and others even in this place who mouth off about various communities if they came to my community and saw the cohesiveness that it has, notwithstanding the challenges it has experienced. I would certainly like to thank our agencies for the work they do—our intelligence agencies, the Federal Police and in particular our local police, who are right at the front line of that threat. The threat has not abated; it is still there. But one thing we will not do is allow that threat, however it manifests, to shape how we live our lives. As I said, that is to the great credit of our community. When you walk into the Westfield shopping centre, the Endeavour Hills Shopping Centre or the Cranbourne Park Shopping Centre you see we have a very strong, resilient, capable group of people there. As I said, they do great credit to the community, particularly in countering those who are trying to foment hate in various sections of the community.

I remember that when I first came here in 1999 I said the worst form of politics is wedge politics—dividing one element of the community from another. We saw elements of that in 1996 when a particular person established a party. I can recall that that party was going to be established in Dandenong around the late nineties—it was 1996 or 1997—and for the first time I saw what were almost riots in the streets, around Dandenong Town Hall, when that party tried to establish itself right in the heart of multicultural Melbourne. There was such a strong feeling that this was not Australia; that it was not about wedging groups against each other. We were all Australians no matter what race, colour or creed we were and we were all together on this journey in our part of the Australian story.

That meeting was not successful. They did not establish a branch of One Nation—let's call the party the party. But further down the track what disturbs me is when others use the difficulties we have experienced in our local area, be they terrorism or community safety, to attack the community. That does not help us at all in dealing with it. As members in the chamber know, I am Deputy Chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. It does not help us in trying to deal with the problem. It does not help us in trying to solve the problem. It just causes tension between communities. It actually exacerbates the problem. We have strong communities, like our Sikh community. We have a very large Indian community, a Sri Lankan community, a Chinese community—I could go on and on; it is a very multicultural area—and they are not succumbing to that fear.

I would, though, touch on one issue that I campaigned on during the federal election, which was community safety—not community safety in the sense of national security but community safety in the sense of people not feeling safe in their homes. That had emerged as an issue, but I think a number of people on the other side of the fence were quite confused as to why I was campaigning on it.

My attention was drawn to concerns about community safety when I was doorknocking in the area around Cranbourne East prior to the election campaign and someone I doorknocked was too afraid to open their door. Originally I thought, 'Of course that would happen; it's a politician doorknocking around election time,' but when the person actually did come out, after identifying who I was, she said the reason she would not open the door was that she was afraid of local gangs that were around the area. We conducted a forum during the federal election campaign and we have been campaigning on this issue ever since. I have talked about the explosive growth that we have in my electorate. I have 120,000 electors but I have 196,000 people living in my electorate. It is a very large number of people. When those people move to the outer suburbs they deserve to be kept safe. That is our job; that is a government's job. That is what we have to do whether we be state, federal or local government, but predominantly in the national sphere, the macro sphere, it is the federal government. In the state sphere, obviously, it is the state government.

We are seeing, through the investment of the Andrews government, more police coming online—I think there is funding for nearly 3,000 extra police—but in the meantime there is still much to be done. That is a welcome development, but we really do need to get those resources out there as fast as possible. It takes time and resources to train police officers, and then they need to get experience before they can become fully operational. So we certainly welcome that investment, but I draw the attention of my state colleagues to the fact that those concerns remain. There is still an issue. There are still ways in which this difficulty can be challenged, and I think it is something that we should talk more about. I will be talking more about it on behalf of my constituency, because that has been raised as an issue.

The other thing I wanted to touch on, particularly given the national security issue I just talked about, is the budget that the federal government has delivered. Some, even within the honourable member's own ranks on the other side, are talking about it as being socialist, which is a very scary concept when you are throwing it at the Turnbull government. Perhaps Malcolm in 1994 to 1996 might have been close to the mark, but I do not regard him as being a socialist at this point in time—and we could talk about that in much greater detail. But one of the key concerns I have—it touches on national security but it touches on other areas as well—is how people perceive the role of government these days.

In national security there is a classic case in point. I was in the United States after the San Bernardino massacre. I was there, in my capacity as deputy chair of the intelligence and security committee, to meet intelligence agencies—the CIA, the FBI—and also the US Department of State and other people. The great issue of concern being raised by those agencies was that Apple would not unlock for the FBI the iPhone that was used by the perpetrators of that terrorist act, the two individuals. The FBI then had to resort to other means to ensure that the phone could be unlocked. It struck me, as someone in government—we had cross-jurisdictional conversations about this, and it is something I would put on the record—that the question is: when do private companies dictate how we run national security, whether in this country, in the United States of America or in the United Kingdom, because they are similarly minded jurisdictions?

This is not an argument to say that we should have further sweeping national security reforms that compel companies to do things that they might not want to do or that would inhibit the way in which they make money. That is not what I want. But what has occurred to me in my time in the national security space, which is about 12 years, is the increasing challenge that major companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and other such companies have—Apple, for example, which was the manufacturer of the phones—when there is a need from a national security perspective to access their telecommunications devices or communication streams. I think this is one of the issues that governments—come what may and in some, way shape or form—are going to have to confront: where do we draw a limit on the role of the state? This needs to be confronted by this government, and, if we are successful at the next election, a Shorten Labor government, and also by governments across the world—not so much by Russia and others, but particularly by our Western democracies.

My belief is that our primary role as a government is to provide security for our citizens. We do that. We send people overseas to conflicts to defend our way of life. They have served our country incredibly faithfully and well, and continue to do so in conflicts that we are dealing with at the present period of time, such as the eradication of ISIS, in particular, in Iraq. So, that is our primary responsibility. Then the question occurs: in a functioning Western democracy, where does the state intersect with the role of imposing, perhaps, legislation on a corporation that compels it to provide information that might be essential for the safeguarding of national security? An example, as I said, was San Bernardino, and there are other examples that have been provided in classified briefings that I cannot go into. This is going to be a major problem. I am certainly hoping to travel to the United States in the next couple of months. Why am I talking about this during an address-in-reply speech? Because national security affects everyone. We do not have functioning economies and we do not have a functioning way of life unless our security is protected—at a macro level with national security and at a micro level with our state police and local law and order.

There is an area that I intend to flesh out, and, as I said, I have had conversations with counterparts in the United States and the United Kingdom about this issue, which has been going now for some period of time: I believe that government is going to have to play a greater role with the information that it might need to obtain from companies like Apple and Google—not in an authoritarian way, but in a way such that we do not have to go to third parties. I think going to third parties is a very unhelpful way of doing it, and, citing the San Bernardino case in particular, it is just not going to work. We really do need those companies to come to the party. That does not mean, necessarily, building backdoors in, as some have suggested with some of the Apple products or other products on the market. But it does mean that, when we really do need to access the technologies, the data streams and the devices, we can do that in order to keep our community safe.

I promise you that this is going to be an evolving conversation. We talk about encryption, and companies have become remarkably successful providing encryption services that, basically, protect organisations commercially and protect individuals. That is to be welcomed, but the question is how do you get that overall balance right—from them trying to protect their customer base to the issue of national security? This is going to be one of the great arguments that we will have as governments of any persuasion over the next two to three years—particularly as we should anticipate that there will be more leaks about what agencies do. One thing I disagree with in terms of my discussions with the Americans is that they were quite confident that there would not be further leaks. That was last year, and, in fact, we have seen further leaks. When you have aggregated data in any way, shape or form, it can be hacked, regardless of what the security levels are. So I think we should assume that that is going to happen, and we should assume at some stage in the national security environment in the next five to 10 years that we will have ongoing leaks about the way our agencies do their business. That is going to provide a challenge for legislators, governments and security agencies, but we are operating in that environment. I do not think there is any need to pretend that we are not. I think what we do need to do, as a safeguard, is ensure that we have appropriate oversight of these agencies—not so much by the executive of the parliament, but by duly elected committees comprising parliamentary members. I am fortunate to be part of a committee—the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security—which I think does perform an important oversight role. I understand there is an independent review that is being conducted into the intelligence agencies by some nominated individuals, and there are also the oversight arrangements, which include the oversight arrangements by our committees. I say to those independent reviewers, to this government and to any government that we made need to increase our powers. If we do not increase the oversight, we will not have the support of the public. You can rest assured that we will have more leaks and, when we have more leaks, they will need to be investigated and there will need to be more oversight. That should come from elected officials; it should not come just from people who are commissioned for the purpose of an inquiry. In the next two to five years, I think you will see that become another of the great arguments of our age. I will leave it there.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That further proceedings be conducted in the House.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 17 : 30