Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows

I wish to speak to a number of matters contained in the Governor-General’s address.

Education Revolution

One of the centre-pieces of this Government’s election platform was the ‘education revolution’. It was a good piece of politics because it played to the electorate’s perceptions that Labor is stronger on education, it was a catchy phrase, and it made the Prime Minister and his team look more future-focused than the Coalition.

The big question that I had during the campaign, and it remains unanswered is – where is the policy to back up this catchy slogan?

An education revolution suggests something pretty transformational. It suggests that we are going to see a fundamental change in direction from the policy of the previous Government. And let’s face it, the higher education system in this country could certainly use that.

Under the Howard Government, Australia was the only country in the OECD to decrease investment in higher education – by 4 percent compared to an average increase of 49 percent.

The previous Government implemented voluntary student unionism legislation which further reduced university funding for campus services to the tune of $160 million per year.

They allowed universities to raise HECS-HELP fees and brought in full-fee degrees for domestic students – which have now reached mortgage-like proportions.

The effect of this shifting of university funding from public to private hands was predictable but not to be underestimated. We have students acquiring significant debt early in life and struggling to balance financial and study commitments.

Universities are facing an estimated $2 billion backlog of deferred maintenance.

Even without these funding pressures, universities face the challenges of an ageing domestic population and an increasingly competitive market for international students.

A genuinely revolutionary education policy would redress the significant funding shortfalls the sector faces, make a university degree less of a financial burden for students, and institute policies that position Australia to have a sustainable and competitive higher education system into the future.

So far, while moves such as the review of voluntary student unionism are welcome, I see no suggestion of anything so revolutionary from this Government.

Overseas Aid

The Governor-General referred to the ‘growing recognition that with coordinated international efforts, major progress can be made on reducing global poverty’ and restated the Government’s commitment to increasing the level of Australia’s overseas development assistance to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015-16.

This increase in aid is welcome, though only relative to our currently parlous level of 0.3 per cent.

The new Government’s policy on overseas aid certainly represents a big step in the right direction. I like the idea of concentrating our aid efforts, and the proposed audit of the needs of our closest neighbours is a good starting point. It will provide a blueprint to allow a more comprehensive and effective aid effort in the future.

Labor’s proposed investment in aid, however, still contrasts with the 0.7 percent level that the UN has asked for in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and to which Australia has previously agreed! Five OECD nations are already contributing at this level.

It is shameful that we have been through one of the longest periods of uninterrupted economic growth in our history and yet are still miserly with our development assistance.

While I welcome the Rudd Government’s commitment to increase that, I note that it is a second term commitment – should that occur – and is still well below the level at which Australia agreed in-principle to invest. Must try harder.

Science and Innovation

I congratulate my long-time Senate colleague, Senator Kim Carr, on being appointed Minister of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research and on his work in that role since the election.

He has sent a clear message that the politicisation of our science agencies will not continue and that they are free to report facts and findings as they see them. The Democrats have long called for this very move.

The Minister’s commitment to explain where his decisions on grant funding differ from the recommendations of the various advisory boards is also a welcome one.

I would much prefer to see this requirement stipulated in legislation – and I am somewhat suspicious of the Government’s reluctance to do so.

The National Innovation Review is one of the most significant exercises for innovation policy I have seen in my time in this place.

I share the Minister’s concern about the bewildering array of government programs that exist to support innovation in this country, and for the sake of administrative efficiency and business user-friendliness, I would like to see amalgamation and simplification.

I do have some concerns about the breadth of this review and hope that it will not become so cumbersome itself that it fails to generate any meaningful conclusions. I wonder whether a number of more specific and separate reviews would produce a better result?

Nevertheless, I will watch this process with interest and will have more to say on the review over the coming months. In the meantime, I wish the Minister and the Government well in this ambitious and useful exercise.

Housing & homelessness

The Governor-General made reference to the Government’s plan to address ‘challenges relating to housing affordability and homelessness’. After years of inattention from the previous Government, I am pleased to see that these areas have been made a priority.

I congratulate Tanya Plibersek on her appointment as Minister for Housing and welcome the Government’s commitment to a National Housing Strategy, working across all levels of government.

When Australia’s housing market ranks as the least affordable in the world, it is hardly surprising that people are being turned away from homeless shelters. I commend the Government on committing $150 million to address the drastic shortage in crisis accommodation that routinely sees people miss out on a bed in their most desperate time of need.

I will wait with great interest the outcome of the Government’s White Paper on Homelessness and I encourage the Government to make a commitment from the outset to implementing the paper’s recommendations to fix this blight on our prosperous nation. I have no doubt the paper will explore the complexities of homelessness, initiated by events such as unemployment, family and relationship breakdowns and complicated by mental health and addiction issues. Solving the problem will take courage and foresight from the Government.

Of course, one of the biggest contributors to homelessness is the soaring cost of Australian homes, which now rank as some of the least affordable in the western world. This crisis of affordability is having an impact across the socio-economic spectrum: Gen Y aspirants are struggling to piece together enough for a deposit, others struggle with soaring rent, while hundreds of thousands wait for a place in Australia’s dilapidated public housing stock.

While I am glad that housing has been placed squarely on the COAG roundtable, in a climate of fiscal restraint I fear that it will be an issue that will test the newfound spirit of cooperation between State and Federal Labor. I am also concerned that the Government’s cornerstone affordability measure–a low tax deposit savings scheme–will do nothing to improve affordability in real terms. Creating more tax breaks to arm buyers with extra capital won’t drive market prices down, nor will it create that elusive ‘downwards pressure on inflation’ to keep interest rates low.

If the Government is serious about addressing home affordability, it must examine the two huge elephants in the room – negative gearing and capital gains tax – that reward speculative and inflationary activity. Otherwise, there is a danger that Labor’s housing rhetoric will not become a reality.

National Security and Human Rights

Details of the Government’s agenda in relation to human rights and Australia’s domestic security regime were conspicuously absent from the Governor-General’s speech.

The previous Government enacted more than 40 pieces of security related anti-terror legislation, many of which have curtailed fundamental Human Rights and broadened the unsupervised powers of the AFP and ASIO. Many laws abrogated fundamental legal principles like natural justice, the presumption of innocence and the right to silence.

Labor was complicit in the creation of this rights-abrasive monolith, having voted with the Coalition to pass many of the draconian laws. It also voted down my motion to initiate a Senate inquiry into the nature and extent of the laws in the wake of the Dr Mohamed Haneef affair, a motion that will be re-introduced into the new Parliament.

So far, the new Government has promised a judicial inquiry into the Haneef affair – but we have seen little detail of the inquiry. Meanwhile, simultaneous inquiries are being conducted by the AFP in relation to Haneef, and the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security into the Ul-Haque debacle.

The inquiries are fragmented and incident specific. They will not consider the laws in their totality, nor how those laws interact with other draconian laws such as Ministerial discretion under the Migration Act. Moreover they will largely be conducted behind closed doors, with little opportunity for public input.

The Government also proposes to conduct a public consultation into the need for a Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities. Again, detail on this proposal is sketchy – the Government has released no information of the form of the consultation or the resources available to the process, and the Attorney-General has already ruled out a constitutional Bill of Rights and the enforceability of any Charter against individuals and Corporations.

This sounds like a recipe for a toothless tiger to me. It is one thing for the Government to make the right sounds on human rights, but quite another to get the policy right. I am particularly interested in how the Government proposes to reconcile some of the rights offensive policies which it has committed to – such as mandatory detention – in light of its ostensible commitment to human rights.

Work and family

I was encouraged by the Governor-General’s reference to the Government’s commitment to ‘measures that will relieve the pressure on working parents’, including a commitment to flexible parental leave and access to affordable and high quality child care.

These are just some of the many key supports needed for working families around Australia.

Raising the Child Care Tax Benefit from 30% to 50% to assist with the out of pocket expense of childcare is essential in ensuring that we have universal and affordable childcare across the board. Labor’s commitment to assist parents with the financial burden of childcare is commendable, and something for which the Democrats have long advocated.

While not explicitly outlined within the Governor-General’s address, I would like to briefly address Labor’s commitment to paid maternity leave.

The Democrats have been at the forefront of calls for the introduction of government-funded paid maternity leave. Last year, I re-introduced legislation that would provide for 14-weeks government funded leave at the minimum wage.

While it is pleasing to see that there will be some movement on this issue, with the Labor Party initiating a Productivity Commission inquiry into the feasibility of paid maternity leave, it is essential that this issue is not delayed any further.

We have already seen the issue of paid maternity leave subject to a comprehensive HREOC inquiry, as well as a Senate inquiry into my first Private Senator’s Bill for paid maternity leave back in 2002.

Considering Australia remains one of only two OECD countries without a scheme of paid maternity leave, and the fact that three quarters of Australians support it, the onus is now on the Labor Party to deliver on this vital area of support for working mothers, sooner rather than later.

I hope to see some real policy action from the Government before the end of my term, and will watch with interest deliberations of the Productivity Commission inquiry into paid maternity leave when they are released in February 2009.

River Murray and Water

The Governor-General referred to the Government’s resolve to tackle the water crisis, including in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin.

Unlike some of the Eastern seaboard States which have received heavy rainfalls of late, my home State of South Australia remains well and truly gripped by one of the worst droughts this nation has seen. While the rain has been a mixed blessing for some, resulting in dangerous floods and extensive property damage, it has also provided a vital top up to many water catchments, particularly in Queensland and NSW.

In South Australia – the last in a long line of Murray-Darling dependants – the consequences of the drought have never been clearer and there is real concern that the easing of drought conditions upstream will quell the impetus for serious and long term reform of the management of this vital water resource.

The Government’s resolve to tackle the water crisis remains to be tested, and Senator Wong will no doubt face a difficult challenge in balancing the national interest against that of her home State which – at the bottom of the Murray – is losing out.

While climate change is a priority for the federal Government, the water crisis has so far been largely overlooked. Water issues were given cursory attention at the December COAG despite almost a year having elapsed since the $10 billion plan to take over the Murray Darling river system was announced. The Rudd Government is yet to resolve Victoria’s concerns with the plan, which halted the deal last year, although I note that negotiations appear to be progressing.

Commonwealth control of the Murray-Darling river system was long overdue and while those of us who supported such control had concerns about the Howard Government’s proposed Murray takeover, these were outweighed by the need for urgent action to arrest the drought’s impact.

Mighty River Red Gums are dying; salinity has reached dangerously high levels; and irrigators and Riverland towns are struggling.

Action is needed on all fronts, such as reforming unsustainable practices; over-allocations; and consumer incentives to reduce domestic water consumption. Such options should be exhausted before expensive and energy intensive options like desalination are considered.

My constituents in South Australia are bravely doing their bit - installing rainwater tanks, grey water diverters, water-saving showerheads, or dual flush toilets – and in the meantime watching their gardens (and in some cases their livelihoods) wither away before their eyes.

I will be monitoring the new Government’s action on water reforms closely to ensure that their efforts are not in vain.

Conclusion

Already in the short time since this Government was elected, much has been made of ‘new ideas’, its ‘fresh approach to governing’ and the unique, cooperative opportunity presented by concurrent Labor Governments at both a Federal and State level.

While such optimism and plans are welcome, they must be tempered by the reality that this Government will be judged by its achievements rather than its agenda. I, for one, will be watching very closely to ensure that the rhetoric is matched by reality.