Dana Wortley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the following address-in-reply be agreed to: To His Excellency the Governor-General may it please your excellency— We, the Senate of the Commonwealth of Australia in Parliament assembled, desire to express our loyalty to our Most Gracious Sovereign and to thank Your Excellency for the speech which you have been pleased to address to Parliament.

I welcome the opportunity to move the address-in-reply to His Excellency the Governor-General’s speech given at the opening of the 42nd Parliament. On 24 November 2007 the people of Australia voted in a new government. They voted for a government with a plan—a plan that as a nation we will move forward to write a new page in our nation’s history, a plan to make this country of ours even greater. As His Excellency said yesterday:

As one of the world’s oldest democracies, it is easy for us to take elections for granted ...

But, as he went on to say:

... all Australians can celebrate the success of our democracy when such changes can occur so seamlessly and with such goodwill.

This week and those ahead of this parliament are history in the making, a precursor to change, renewal and moving forward. There will be new directions, advancements and progress important to our nation, and today I will focus on just some of these. They include workplace relations, the environment, climate change and water, education and health, skills training, and reconciliation and Indigenous affairs.

It is significant that yesterday, the day we opened the 42nd Parliament, we were for the first time officially welcomed by the traditional owners of this land, by Indigenous Australians—welcomed to country. The Rudd government has made a commitment to our future as a nation, and this was a small but significant step.

The tasks ahead are challenging. We are faced with the bleak reality of climate change, the fact that owning a house is beyond the reach of many Australian families and many young people, the frustration of a skills crisis, the lack of adequate childcare places, the confrontation that many hardworking Australian families are being denied fairness in the workplace, and a wide gap in health and educational outcomes between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. On that Saturday in November less than three months ago, the Australian people made a stand on these and other issues at the ballot box. It is now fair to say that the recovery of the Australian soul, the restoration of our national spirit, is underway with a fair go for all.

Admittedly, there are mountains to climb; but each step takes us closer to delivering to the Australian people the commitments made by this government. The seeds of compassion are once again being sown. Today we take a step forward by honouring the Indigenous people of this land and by apologising for the wrongs they have worn; by apologising for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on them; by apologising for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country; and by saying sorry for the pain, suffering and hurt of the stolen generations, their descendants and their families left behind and for the indignity and degradation inflicted upon a proud people and a proud culture.

In the words of the Prime Minister:

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

When I entered the parliament in July 2005, I included the following words in my first speech:

Today I acknowledge the traditional owners of this land where we stand ... and I pay tribute to all Indigenous people of Australia. For the tragedy suffered by them and their ancestors I am truly sorry, as are the 55,000 people with whom I marched in Adelaide on that long weekend in June 2000. More than 240,000 people around Australia walked for reconciliation with our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is a shame that reconciliation has not progressed as it could have, and we now know that as a nation it will not reflect kindly on us in the history books.

Almost three years on, and with a new government in office, today as a nation we arrive at a place from which to progress reconciliation with our Indigenous peoples. Optimism and hope are returning to these halls. Today we find ourselves at a place from which to start building better relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—a better future. It is the cornerstone upon which we can all begin to establish mutual respect and from which we can work towards achieving other meaningful goals. Now we must take the opportunity to move forward, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, learning from the mistakes of the past and ensuring that they are never repeated.

As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said at yesterday’s historic welcome to country opening of parliament:

Our challenge this week, then is to write a new page in the country’s history, and this is one small step. But for that page to be truly written, it must be written between ourselves and indigenous Australia, and within this parliament between those who are Government and those who are Opposition.

There remains much to be done across the Australian community to bring about reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Through consultation and collaboration with Indigenous peoples and communities, the government will seek to build a relationship based on respect. We must translate our words of apology into actions via meaningful and effective policy, legislation and law. The government will continue developing and implementing a range of initiatives to help close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia in the areas of health outcomes and educational achievement. These include, but are not limited to, within a generation closing the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians; halving the gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the next decade; and halving the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children in their reading, writing and numeracy achievements, also within a decade. It is important that individually and as a nation we recognise the true and full value of Indigenous culture, and we must move towards this end. As a government, we will address these and other examples of oversight and neglect of our Indigenous peoples.

The Rudd government believe every Australian child deserves a world-class education. We have promised an education revolution, and that is what we are working towards delivering. Submissions have already been made to cabinet regarding the $1 billion National Secondary School Computer Fund and the $2.5 billion trades training centres initiative. Real commitments have been made through the Council of Australian Governments to drive the productivity agenda through substantial reform in education, skills and early childhood development.

The government will raise standards in education by increasing standards in our schools and improving the quality of teaching through a grand reform agenda—the education revolution. Added to our education measures is Labor’s 50 per cent education tax refund, which is designed to boost Australia’s productivity and ease cost of living pressures for working families. Indeed, Australia needs an education revolution with new measures and innovations from early childhood years through primary and high school and on to tertiary study.

As His Excellency noted in his address yesterday, the government wants parents to have access to affordable, high-quality child care that helps them balance their work and family responsibilities. Another innovation will be universal access to early childhood education for all four-year-olds for 15 hours per week for 40 weeks of the year. A national curriculum will be introduced to streamline education in key learning areas for older children and the government will establish trades training centres in thousands of high schools around the country as a central plank in addressing the skills shortage.

There is no doubt that the skills shortage is impacting on our economy. Therefore, the government will commit $1.17 billion to a skills package over four years. The government’s establishment of the Skills Australia body is being fast-tracked to assist in fighting the inflationary pressures in the economy and improving productivity. This independent statutory body, to be known as Skills Australia—made up of members from a range of backgrounds, including economics, industry and academia—will oversee the government’s pledge to provide an extra 450,000 training places in the next four years. Over the coming decade, this number will grow to 820,000. To emphasise the government’s seriousness in this matter, the plan is to have the first 20,000 of these training places available by April this year. The goal of this program is to better match the demand for skills with skills training in Australia.

When it comes to our nation’s health systems, we need to end the state and territory versus Commonwealth government blame game referred to by His Excellency in his speech yesterday. The Rudd government, in cooperation with the states and territories, will direct resources towards medical and health research, boost nursing numbers, establish GP superclinics and put in place strategies to slash elective surgery waiting lists at our hospitals. There will be more attention paid, too, to the seriously under-resourced sectors of rural, women’s and Indigenous health. Aged care will take its turn in the spotlight during this parliamentary term, as will dental health, preventative health policies and meeting the challenge presented by the obesity epidemic confronting Australians of all ages.

As a government, we will address this and other areas that urgently require attention, including the environment, climate change and our most fragile and vital resource, water. Australians know we cannot afford to be sluggish when it comes to issues of our environment. What we do or do not do now and in the coming years will help shape the health of our planet for generations to come. To what extent the globe continues to be hospitable may well depend on us. We cannot afford to leave things to those who come after us.

While, through the media, we have seen worldwide the spectacular and even terrifying evidence of the toll of climate change, there are also clear signs in our own backyard. Environmental wonders, including rainforests, reefs and unique natural wildlife sanctuaries such as Kakadu National Park, are under threat. Bushfires pose more of a threat to life and livelihood than before, and our river systems are being choked by drought. For these reasons and more, on 3 December—the day the government was sworn in—as one of the first acts of this government, the Prime Minister signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto protocol. It was the first official act of the newly elected Rudd Labor government. In doing so, we have now gained a place at the world’s negotiating table.

So Australia will become a full member of the Kyoto protocol next month, and this government intends to be actively involved in developing a comprehensive new agreement to address the very serious issue of climate change. As a government, we want to be helping to drive the international dialogue on climate change rather than remaining in the back seat criticising those at the wheel. The government has also committed to slashing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050. There will also be a $500 million renewable energy fund to develop, commercialise and deploy renewable energy technologies in Australia. This will aim to generate a further $1 billion private sector investment in such technologies. The government is committed to a national emissions trading scheme, which will provide incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions across the country.

Caring for the environment is everyone’s responsibility, but we believe that the government must lead the way. Only the government can legislate change, and so this administration has embarked on a range of initiatives designed to preserve our precious environment. We want to conserve whales in our waters and around the world, and to that end we have upped diplomatic efforts, looked seriously at our international legal options and overseen an unprecedented level of monitoring of the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean. We are also working to help Australians make their homes greener and more sustainable. The range of measures includes green loans, energy efficient insulation and cost-saving new standards for household appliances. The Solar Cities concept will be expanded and every school will become a solar school.

When it comes to action on the urgent issue of water, and particularly our drought-ravaged lifeblood, the Murray-Darling Basin, the government will implement its election commitments to secure a sustainable future for the basin. While some of the nation has suffered through floods in recent weeks, much of it remains terribly parched. Because of this fact, special water-sharing arrangements in the Murray-Darling Basin will continue in 2009.

Nowhere is the need for a new spirit of cooperation between the federal and state governments in the area of water more evident than in my home state of South Australia. Through cooperation, we need to find a long-term and sustainable solution for the River Murray and the communities who depend on it. For the first time in many years, real progress is being made in the area of consolidating a national approach to this crisis. How we deal with this challenge now will affect our people and environment for many years to come.

As with climate change, the voting public’s verdict from last November on workplace relations is clear. Australians want a fair go for themselves, their families and others in the workplace. They want to be treated with respect and even-handedness, and that is an entirely reasonable expectation. When Australians voted last November for Labor’s fair and balanced workplace relations system, we promised them there would be no new Australian workplace agreements. This government’s commitment in this area is to give working families a better, simpler industrial relations system than the one it will replace.

Essential to establishing a better system is to have a modern safety net. Our 10 national employment standards will form the integral part of that safety net. We will modernise and simplify our award system, and we will begin this process with a transition bill promised before the election. People who want to make individual agreements can make common-law agreements which must give them equal or more than the safety net rather than overriding and undermining that safety net.

The purpose of these measures is clear: we want to restore job security and satisfaction to our workforce. The Forward with Fairness reforms that the government will introduce are designed to establish just and fair relationships between employers and employees and revive worker confidence and family certainty. Better morale and more reasonable conditions within the workforce will also foster improved productivity. Happier workers are also healthier workers, with less stress and the associated social problems that it brings. Our legislation will implement a genuine no-disadvantage test for workplace agreements, protect workers against being unfairly dismissed and halt the stripping away of pay and conditions, including public holidays and overtime, without any appropriate remuneration. The government will promote family-friendly policy developments, such as giving women the right to ask their employer for an extended period of maternity leave or to return to work under part-time or more flexible conditions. There also will be a Productivity Commission inquiry looking into possibilities for paid maternity leave as a priority of this administration.

However, it is not only in the areas of the environment, working families, education, health and Indigenous issues that we will see benefits from a new way of thinking and a different course of action from our government; the government’s policies and their implementation are working towards delivering a more just society, a more united society, a more productive society and a more sustainable society in which all Australians can share.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I second the motion moved by Senator Wortley thanking his Excellency the Governor-General for his address to parliament yesterday. I also take this opportunity to congratulate the new ministers and parliamentary secretaries who took their seats for the first time in the parliament yesterday. After 2½ years for me, and up to 11 years for some of my colleagues here, it is a great feeling today to be sitting on the right side of you, Mr Acting Deputy President.

The opening of the 42nd Parliament was a very special day. For the first time in our parliament’s history, we had a welcome to country ceremony. It is hard to believe that it had not been done before. I think that for many years most senators would have attended conferences, events and government functions where a welcome to country ceremony was expected and always occurred. It is good that we have finally done it here. It is unfortunate that it took so long. The welcome to country ceremony was a strong sign that this parliament and this government will be different to those of the past. I am heartened to know that future openings of parliament will also incorporate the welcome to country ceremony.

In his speech, His Excellency the Governor-General pointed out how fortunate we are to live in a nation where governments change peacefully as a result of the free expression of the will of the people. We live in a democracy that is truly democratic, where people can safely and secretly vote with the confidence that their vote will be counted and that they have a say in who runs their country. Not everyone in the world is as fortunate as us. It is indeed a feature of our democracy that we change governments peacefully, and it is also a significant feature of our democracy that it began from the roots up rather than being created by special interest groups. This fact was noted by South Australian representative Josiah Symon at the time of Federation. While members on this side of the chamber do not share all of Symon’s philosophies, he was right in making a distinction between us and the founding structure of the British parliament, for example, which was frustrated by power struggles between royalty and landed gentry.

Although in our early history there was a failure to include Aboriginal Australians, there were at least sentiments expressed about a people’s parliament. This historic week in our parliament is a step towards achieving a more inclusive system. The political liberty Australians have in being able to change governments democratically and peacefully is one that other nations do not have. Some nations do not have that opportunity, nor the opportunity to establish their democracies from scratch. Before a democracy can come about in some countries a lot of pain has to be endured while regimes which are not representative are replaced. One example of such a country is Myanmar. In its recent history Myanmar has suffered a military dictatorship which has severely curtailed the democratic rights of its citizens. Who could forget those terrible images we have all undoubtedly seen of Buddhist monks and democracy protesters being fired at with tear gas and rounded up to be imprisoned? Pakistan is another example where the fight for democracy is characterised by violence. Less than two months ago, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was murdered by extremists. She had shown great courage and defiance in her resistance to extremism as she campaigned resolutely for democracy in Pakistan.

Recently, Kenya has also struggled for democracy as it faces civil strife and allegations of vote rigging following the recent elections there. Subsequent to those elections, we have seen violence which has claimed the lives of more than 1,000 Kenyans and is reported to have displaced more than 600,000 people. Even in the ex-Commonwealth country of Zimbabwe, where the history of the British system and conventions on parliamentary democracy would be presumed to be stronger than in some other countries, abuses of executive power leading to an undemocratic regime occur to this day. One emerging democracy which must in time experience the democracy that Australia enjoys is East Timor. However, currently this young nation is beset with political instability which saw the country split following the last election. The instability was further expressed in the recent attempted assassination of the country’s President and Prime Minister.

I would like to take this chance to remind the Senate that our government is strongly committed to seeing democracy prosper in that nation, our nearest neighbour, and we have deployed extra troops and police officers there in an effort to maintain order at this particularly volatile time. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of our troops and the Australian Federal Police officers serving in East Timor and in other countries, including Iraq.

In contrast to those examples of nations struggling for democracy, on 24 November last year Australians went to polling booths and voted according to their own free will. Australians used their democratic right and they voted for change. The trust and confidence of the nation has been handed to those of us in the Labor Party. It is a significant step for a nation to change government, and with change comes much responsibility for those who are assuming government.

A key difference between the new Australian government and the previous one is that under a Labor government the focus will not be on the individual. We have the ability to look at the bigger picture and we are committed to improving the lives of all Australians. We believe in a fair distribution of the benefits of economic growth, continuous improvement in the welfare and living standards of the Australians people and the reallocation of resources to those most in need. Labor is proud to bring these principles with it into the new government.

I was very encouraged to hear the Governor-General outline the government’s plans for the future. We do not just have plans; we implement them. When elected, Labor hit the ground running, and we will not be slowing down anytime soon. As His Excellency mentioned, one of our first actions as a new government was to ratify Kyoto. From the beginning of the election campaign, Mr Rudd outlined Labor’s commitment to the environment and our commitment to addressing climate change. This commitment has been evident since our election, not only in the ratification of the Kyoto protocol but also by the creation of the climate change portfolio. That change to portfolios means that the Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, is able to dedicate herself to the issue.

The government has also committed to reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by the year 2050. We see that climate change is one of the biggest challenges of our generation and, if the Australian government does not take action, it will undoubtedly continue to be one of the biggest challenges for generations to come. The previous government unfortunately was full of climate change sceptics and made little effort to protect our environment and develop ways to counteract global warming, but we will take action.

Labor has developed a strong plan of action to address the environmental issues that are currently facing Australia and the rest of the world. As the Governor-General outlined, our plans for the environment include managing the water crisis. As Senator Wortley said, this is an issue of particular importance to my state of South Australia. For urban areas, the new government will be establishing a $1 billion fund to invest in both old and new water supplies. A number of rebates will also be made available for families across the nation to assist them in making their homes more water efficient.

Those in rural areas, particularly farmers, have been impacted the most by the water crisis. For this reason the government has a drought policy that will ensure that those farmers receiving government assistance are better equipped to deal with drought. That includes climate change adaptation programs, which support farmers to change their practices to better deal with changes in the environment.

One area that really suffered during the reign of the Howard-Costello government was the education sector. So, shortly after the election, senators and members were directed by the new Prime Minister to visit schools. These visits were invigorating. It gave us all a chance to get out into the community and find out what is needed in our education sector. I took the opportunity to visit public and private schools in metropolitan and rural areas of South Australia and it provided me with a very good understanding of the issues faced by our schools. It was exciting to visit the schools and to present our education revolution, particularly our digital education revolution. Everywhere we went principals, teachers, students and parents showed great interest in this initiative and looked forward to improving and expanding the information technology systems in their schools.

University students continued to suffer because the previous government introduced voluntary student unionism and broke its promise of no more full-fee-paying university places. As we know, there are now 104 domestic full-fee university degrees costing over $100,000—three of which cost more that $200,000 per student. Labor believes that everyone has the right to a good education regardless of their socioeconomic background. Therefore we will be keeping our promise of phasing out full-fee-paying courses so that by the year 2010 students will be entering universities based on merit, not on their household income.

Working families have also suffered over the last decade through Howard’s draconian and extreme industrial relations laws, the decline in housing affordability and the rising cost of living. Those three elements combined have led to a lot of people doing it really tough at the moment. The Rudd Labor government acknowledges those problems and is committed to addressing them.

I am proud to say that the government will bury WorkChoices. Changes will include abolishing AWAs but respecting existing contractual arrangements; providing 10 national employment standards; creating a fast and simple unfair dismissals system; simplifying and modernising some 4,300 awards; and creating a new independent umpire—Fair Work Australia.

Throughout the campaign we outlined a comprehensive plan on how to address housing affordability and homelessness. This plan incorporates first home saver accounts, the release of Commonwealth land and talking with the states and territories to develop a national housing affordability agreement. That agreement is just one example of the new cooperation between state and federal governments that will bring an end to the so-called blame game that we saw the previous federal government use extensively as an excuse for doing nothing.

An area that is of great importance to the government is Indigenous affairs. The experience of the last day and a half in Canberra and in Parliament House has been unique and I feel very honoured to have been a part of it. The events that have transpired are truly momentous and are without doubt a highlight of this nation’s history. Today’s apology in both houses of the parliament is but the first step in developing respect and equality amongst all Australians. Our next focus must be on closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Australians can already be proud of the government, as we have already shown strength and energy—disproving claims that we would become a ‘me too’ government.

The Governor-General referred to a ‘modern Australia’ in his speech yesterday. A modern Australia can be interpreted as a country which is prepared to be active and is not shackled by conservatism. A modern society also sets targets and takes action. While conservatism is by definition a tendency to resist change, this change of government will see a refreshing approach to how we view the world and how we treat our citizens. We do have a lot of catching up to do.

One area where we need to catch up very quickly is the skills shortage. By not acting on the Reserve Bank predictions of a skills shortage, the former coalition government made this country much less able to take advantage of opportunities in this first decade of the 21st century. Rather than rhetoric, the Labor government has set targets for change. In the Governor-General’s address, for instance, we see specific targets and time lines. I would like to outline a few of those time lines. The government aims to deliver a budget surplus of 1.5 per cent of GDP in 2008-09. It aims to provide an additional 450,000 training places, which will be established over four years, including 65,000 extra apprenticeships, with the first 20,000 places available from April this year. The government has committed to reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent on 2000 levels by 2050. A major study to help Australia set robust shorter term emission reductions will report in June this year. A national emissions trading scheme will be established by the end of 2010. The time line for an apology to the stolen generations is immediate. Targets have been set for improved education and health among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. The government will withdraw all Australian combat troops from Iraq at the end of the next rotation, due in the middle of the year. Australia’s overseas development assistance will increase to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015-16. There were many other initiatives outlined in the Governor-General’s speech, including plans to reform the health system and to build a world-class education system, as I mentioned before.

Apart from setting targets for a modern, fairer and more efficient and productive society, Labor has demonstrated already its commitment to being modern, as the Governor-General put it, by addressing contemporary and future issues. Under that banner, there are many other things those of us in this chamber would like to see the government implement so that the nation is truly inclusive and fair for all. Personally, I hope that one day soon we can agree on a sensible scheme of universal paid parental leave and stronger legislation to ensure women do not continue to be disadvantaged in the workplace. I would also like to see government legislation amended to remove any provisions that discriminate against Australians because of their race, gender, disability, religion or sexuality. I look forward to the term of this government and look forward to working with all my fellow senators to make a better future for all Australians.

Debate (on motion by Senator Ludwig) adjourned.