George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to address the Governor-General’s speech and the outlining in that speech of the legislative agenda for the first Rudd government. I think the way in which the Rudd government has approached this term and the challenges this country will be confronted with—and is confronted with at the present time—and the way in which it intends to deal with those challenges will ensure that we will see more than one speech by the Governor-General outlining the program for a Rudd Labor government.

One of the centrepieces of the address was the approach to industrial relations. What a welcome breath of fresh air it is to see a government that is committed to ensuring a framework is put in place that will restore fairness as a central point in our industrial relations system—fair to employers and, more importantly, fair to employees—and that will ensure that the old Australian idiom of the ‘fair go’ will be back as a centrepiece of our industrial relations system, getting rid of the pernicious laws that were introduced by the previous government and that tipped the scales squarely in favour of employers and provided the opportunity for unscrupulous employers in this country to attack workers’ wages and living standards.

Over the period of the operation of Work Choices we saw a litany of reports in the newspapers of various companies—Boeing was one, Tristar was another; there was a whole history of companies—where workers were exploited by the use of these laws that were put in place by the previous government. Hopefully, we will see the abolition of most of those laws by the end of this year and see in their place a new industrial relations system operating from 1 January 2010 that has at its heart fairness in the workplace. We hope that that system will run for some considerable time into the future before there is a need to revisit our industrial relations system for further amendments. The reason that that was a centre point of the Governor-General’s address was the way it operated in practice—the disadvantage it brought to many workers in many industries, which was the objective of that legislation all along.

Many other issues were touched upon in the Governor-General’s address in this chamber several weeks ago. The government’s approach to dealing with the economy was one. The problem that is besetting our economy at the moment is that inflation is gradually getting out of control. The previous government allowed a situation to develop in this country where the Reserve Bank is in fact increasing interest rates in order to try to keep inflation under control, while in the rest of the world the central banks in the major developed countries are in fact cutting interest rates to try to boost their economic activity.

That obviously is of major concern in terms of its impact upon living standards, the cost of living for many workers and the capacity of ordinary working families to pay their mortgages, to put sufficient food on the table and so on. We have known for a very long time that one of the most negative features of any economy, particularly for working people, is rising inflation, because that eats into their savings, the value of their wages and their capacity to look after their families—to feed them, clothe them and house them. As has been clearly stated by the Prime Minister and by the Treasurer, that is the No. 1 enemy that is the focus of the government at the moment, and a lot of effort is being put into bringing in a budget in May which will ensure that we get the inflation genie back under control.

The second issue is an issue that was debated in this chamber yesterday—that is, skill shortages. We saw the previous government virtually ignore over 11 years what was happening in terms of skill shortages in this country. It did nothing other than put in place some quick fixes, some bandaids over the system, by bringing in traineeships and cutting apprenticeships and training times—anything to boost the facade of the numbers of people who were in training but at the same time delivering no real jobs out of the process, no real tradespeople coming out at the end of the line and certainly nowhere near sufficient numbers to meet the skills needs of the economy.

The Rudd government, as spelt out in the Governor-General’s address, has made a commitment to reversing that trend, to dealing with the issue of the supply of skilled labour in our economy—not just in terms of meeting the immediate needs of the economy but also in terms of putting in place a structure which will meet the skill needs into the longer term. In other words, this is about being able to assess the changing role, the changing skills, that will be required in our economy over time and to ensure that the infrastructure and training is put in place to ensure that the people are there with those skills when the economy requires them. That will be the central role played by Skills Australia. It will also be its role to ensure that the infrastructure that exists in this country for training people, for providing skills, is utilised in the most effective way to deliver the outcomes that the economy needs. That will be central, over the short to medium term, to the capacity of this government to deliver economic outcomes that are in the best interests of ordinary working Australians. Unless we can provide those human resources, we will not be able to provide the economic outcomes—the productivity—and generate the activity in the economy that we otherwise would be able to or to provide and build upon the nation’s wealth. The more we create, of course, the more there is to share around. One thing about this government is that it will ensure that there is a better distribution of the wealth it has created in the economy than was the case over the past 11½ years under the Howard government.

The Rudd government has set an ambitious agenda for its three-year term, across a wide range of policy issues, and it certainly has been made very clear on every occasion by the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, that he is determined to deliver on the commitments we made in the election campaign. So far, he has done it on every occasion. I do not think there was any prouder moment for a member of the Labor Party, a member of the Rudd government, than to be in this place as a member of that government when the government had the courage to say sorry to our Indigenous community, to try to commence the process of healing the divisions that have existed between our Indigenous community and the migrants in the country over many, many years and to put in place a framework so that we can live as an integrated community where everyone not only is looked upon as an equal but in fact is given equal treatment. We know from bitter experience that many of our Indigenous communities, particularly in remote areas of the country, are not treated as equals or treated equally when it comes to the distribution of resources—health resources, education resources and so forth. I look forward to seeing the improvement that comes out of the process that is now underway in dealing with those circumstances.

I think the next three years are going to be an exciting period in this parliament. I think it will be an exciting period politically for the nation, but, more importantly, it will be an exciting period for ordinary working Australian families, as they see their lives continuously improved by the policy decisions and approaches taken by the Rudd Labor government in its first term. As I said before, I think the Governor-General will be along here on many more occasions delivering his address on behalf of future Rudd Labor governments.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commence by thanking my Liberal senator colleagues for allowing me to jump the queue as I have a later chamber duty which I cannot avoid. I take this opportunity in making my address-in-reply speech to follow on from the issue of the apology, which was raised by the Governor-General. I want to revisit the issue of apologies and compensation or redress for those referred to as the forgotten Australians. These are most of the 500,000-plus people who experienced institutional and other forms of out-of-home care in 20th century Australia. Now regarded as a conservative estimate, this number is made up of 7,000 to 10,000 child migrants, 30,000 to 50,000 Aboriginal stolen generations children and the 450,000-plus Australian-born non-Indigenous children raised in orphanages, children’s homes and foster care. Sadly, it is the case that, as vulnerable children, these people endured childhoods bereft of the nurturing and stability that family life can provide. It is also the case that many were subjected to ongoing humiliation and systematic abuse that was often criminal in nature. No matter what the race and no matter what the ethnic background of the child, their experiences were all too similar. Whatever the reason and whatever the rationale underlying government policies concerning the removal and so-called protection of children last century, the downfall has undoubtedly been in the execution of those policies.

The contemporary consequences of these past practices have been profound for the survivors of often traumatic childhoods and also for their subsequent generations. There have been three national inquiries that have produced four reports that attest to this reality. These are: the 1997 HREOC stolen generations report, Bringing them home; the 2001 Senate Community Affairs References Committee report on child migrants, Lost innocents: righting the record; and the two Senate community affairs committee reports on children raised in institutional and other forms of out-of-home care, the 2004 Forgotten Australians report and the 2005 Protecting vulnerable children: a national challenge report. All of these reports unanimously recommended that a national apology was required to acknowledge the hurt and distress suffered by many of these children and for the harm and loss of opportunity endured well into their adult lives.

During the last parliamentary sitting, Prime Minister Rudd delivered the long-awaited apology to the Indigenous stolen generations. It was indeed a fine and moving speech, a historic moment that I trust will be the beginning of a new way forward for Indigenous Australians. I am already on the record as welcoming this apology. However, in speaking to Senator Evans’s motion on it, I stressed the need for another national apology to be delivered to former child migrants and to those non-Indigenous Australian-born children raised in care, people who often refer to themselves as the white stolen generations. I also raised the issue of compensation or reparations as the next necessary step.

Just as the Bringing them home report recommended an apology so too did the child migrant and Forgotten Australians reports. Although I recognise the political dimensions to another apology of this nature following on so soon, quite simply it is just the right thing to do. I do acknowledge that the timing, content and presentation of that apology will matter greatly and consultation is necessary. It is the right thing to do because the race based past policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families has its counterpart in the race based child migrant schemes from Britain, Ireland and Malta last century. This history was also race based, as the policy was motivated by a desire to populate Australia with a potentially healthy and productive white workforce. The phrase ‘good British stock’ was actually used.

The evidence of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee is that most children arrived in Australia under the misguided idea that they were coming here for a holiday or an adventure. Most were not orphans, as commonly believed, and more often than not were shipped here without informed or actual parental permission. Not only did they lose the chance of maintaining family contacts; they also lost their country. Many had their names arbitrarily changed or were referred to by number.

While not race based, the removal of hundreds of thousands of Australian-born non-Indigenous children had its foundations in families doing it tough. Children were made wards of the state after being charged in the courts with being uncontrollable, neglected or in moral danger. Notice what I just said: ‘charged in the courts’. Children were charged as being neglected. It is just unimaginable today. It was not because they had done anything wrong but because they had been born into poverty, been born to a single mother who was often a teenager, been born into a home plagued with domestic violence or born to a parent who was unable to cope and the like. Some were indeed orphaned.

So many submissions to the Senate inquiries told of how their family lives had been terrible, but what they experienced in care—unfortunately, for so many of them but not, I should emphasise, for all of them—was far, far worse. There were children who were well cared for by caring people. One only has to read the submissions and Hansard evidence to gain a sense of the almost complete lack of a duty of care for far too many of these children. Not only did the state fail—and by that I mean broad state, federal and state governments—so too did the churches and other receiving agencies charged with providing care for vulnerable kids. The despicable crime of ongoing sexual assault was all too common. Rape, sodomy, oral sex and even bestial acts were all revealed in evidence to the Senate inquiries, as were systemic floggings and beatings with a variety of weapons for the most minor misbehaviours. All these acts amounted to criminal assaults punishable by law at the time. And that is the important point. These things that were done to the children were not lawful at the time and yet there was a conspiracy of silence between churches, health authorities, police and others which mostly kept these incidences under cover.

This appalling treatment of vulnerable kids has its match in prisoner of war camps. Places like Bindoon in Western Australia, Goodwood and The Pines in South Australia, Westbrook in Queensland, Box Hill and Bayswater in Victoria, and Parramatta and Hay in New South Wales were akin to concentration camps that incarcerated and brutalised far too many young people in 20th century Australia. Some beatings even resulted in physical impairments later in life. A former child migrant wrote:

Some of the scars of Keaney’s brutality still remain with me both physically and emotionally ... his actions would have warranted criminal charges had he not ... exerted influence over the law in Western Australia.

This man Keaney was a Christian Brother who publicly possessed considerable public relations skills that he put to good work in creating a mythology about himself. He became known as ‘the orphan’s friend’ and in 1953 was awarded an Order of Australia. Despite the best efforts of the committee and of members of the committee, regrettably that order is still standing, and I hope that the new government will make every effort to have it cancelled and removed. Every word read and uttered about Keaney during the child migrant inquiry revealed just what an evil monster he was. The committee report recommended his MBE be cancelled and annulled but the Howard government would not agree to this, nor have my and other people’s efforts since been successful. It is shameful that Keaney’s name continues to sully the list of deserved award recipients. I hope this government—and I direct my remarks to the attention of the Minister for Human Services, at the table—will address this matter.

Another former child migrant vividly recalled a vicious beating she received from a nun at Goodwood Orphanage. She wrote:

I felt the strap come down across my body. It was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. She continued flogging me, ranting and raving, until I could take no more ... She was like a woman gone insane, showing no mercy at all.

That was submission 68. A former state ward who spent time in the infamous Westbrook institution in Queensland wrote:

This man seemed to take great pleasure in humiliating us publicly, flogging us with his heavy leather belt while we knelt naked at his feet. You could receive anything up to 60 lashes and you always ended up bleeding profusely. Sometimes boys lost consciousness. They were the lucky ones.

That was in submission 141. By the way, these are children. A former Parramatta girl wrote in submission 280:

I had my hands held behind my back, hair held and my head bashed into a lot of sinks in the shower block and lost quite a few teeth.

I know that particular woman; she is a very fine Australian, but she bears the emotional and mental scars of that experience. I could go on and on because the evidence to the Senate inquiries was very extensive, but these typify the widespread physical assaults inflicted on powerless children. They literally lived in fear and terror. And I will repeat: these assaults were not distinguished by what sex or gender you were, they were not distinguished by what race you were or what your ethnicity was or what country you came from. These assaults were applied across the board: white, black, male, female, Maltese, British, Australian—it did not matter. If you were a kid, these particular kinds of horrors were visited on you. That is why I say to this government that an apology is due in the same form as was rightly given to the stolen generations.

Neglect and brutal treatment occurred in all states, in all institutions and in many foster care situations. Mostly the predators were staff members, including religious and lay workers. I will stress again that of course there were many staff members, many religious people and many lay workers who did care for the children as best as they were able. Not everybody was a monster. The covering up of crimes perpetrated on vulnerable children was widespread among the institutions, as was the lack of belief exhibited by adults and the various health, police and welfare authorities when children reported what was continually happening to them. The Senate inquiries were well exposed to evidence that the inspection and superversion regimes were very poor.

Even if kids in care were lucky enough to escape sexual and physical assaults, they still had to endure general neglect, inadequate clothing—rarely were shoes allowed—hunger, lack of education and the exploitation of them as slave labour, in either construction work for boys or laundry work for girls. The other day I drove down to Bindoon—it gives me the horrors; I cannot bear the place—and the stations of the cross are on the hillside. They were built by these children as slave labour. The woman with me at the time happened to be religious and she thought these stations of the cross were marvellous. Then I explained how they were built and what an abomination it was for them to be built by slave labour in the name of Jesus Christ, who, in himself, exhibited the finest characteristics. These were built by monstrous people who pretended that they were doing this in his name. It is just unbearable.

Some children were used for medical and drug experiments, which have been reported in medical journals. Some were unfortunate enough to end up being placed in mental homes or asylums for continual absconding or bad behaviour. Many of them, thousands of them, have since committed suicide. Add to all of this the complete lack of love and nurturing so important to a child’s development and it is no wonder many have been condemned to lifelong scars and troubles. As adults, they have endured lives tarnished by welfare dependency, substance abuse, mental and other health disorders, and relationship and parenting problems.

Moreover, so profound has been the loss of contact with siblings, with family and with place of origin that their sense of self and identity has been irreparably harmed. You are where you come from; you are who you belong to, and they have had that severed—as had the stolen generations. Although some have triumphed over their adversity and found their own healing, they still live with the memories of these tragic childhoods. And there are far too many who have not been so fortunate. I will stress, again and again, that there were many who were fortunate, who were better cared for in these homes than they would have been if they had been left at home. However, one care leaver wrote:

The cumulative effect of this experience is so pervasive that today I’m 52 years old and still a state ward.

That was submission 321. Here is another:

I can’t get some of the terrible things he did to me out of my head, they look in the shadows of my life and haunt me. [He] took my virginity, my innocence, my development, my potential …

That was from submission 239. And a 70-year-old survivor poignantly wrote:

A door opens in the memory bank and the ghosts escape to make us lonely children again.

Committee members and all those involved in these Senate inquiries know only too well that, if you hurt and break the spirit of a child, the result will be a harmed adult. Unfortunately, it is also the case that many survivors of childhood trauma do go on to produce another generation of victims because if you have been harmed as a child your expression of self is often damaged, and that comes out in relationships with your partners and with your children. In submission 267 a daughter of a care leaver wrote:

My Mum … spent years in psychiatric institutions due to the atrocious physical and mental abuse that herself and sister endured for many years at the cruel hands of the ‘so called carers’ at the Salvation Army children’s home.

If the measure of a society is the extent to which it protects and nurtures its children, then, historically, we as a nation have little to be complacent about. If the Prime Minister, if cabinet ministers, if all members of parliament took the time to read the submissions and reports of these three inquiries, I imagine there would be almost total support for the Prime Minister to apologise to all our citizens who suffered as children in care and who continue to carry these scars. Unfortunately, it is the case—we all lead busy lives—that most people have not read the reports or the submissions.

If they read those reports, I also imagine that there would be little resistance to the need for the Commonwealth to follow up an apology with the establishment of a national redress scheme. There would be widespread recognition that an apology is only the first step to righting the wrongs of the past. If we compensate victims of crime and trauma, so too should we compensate those who experienced childhoods of fear, neglect and criminal acts in the care of the state. The state allowed the harm to occur; the state should correct that harm. We should do so because the restitution of past harm through ex gratia payments is a measure of justice often denied these children through the civil and criminal courts and by resistant churches and agencies.

We should do so because of the utter failure of a duty of care by state welfare authorities, the churches and other receiving agencies charged with caring for these defenceless children. Accordingly, the monetary cost of a national redress scheme would need to be shared proportionally by various governments, churches and receiving agencies and it should be capped. Moneys would most likely be expended over a number of years, taking into account the application and decision-making process. It is an obscenity that one or two people who succeed in court can get millions of dollars when the ordinary people would be much better off with tens of thousands of dollars from a redress scheme.

Churches would certainly need to substantially contribute as far too many of their religious and lay workers were perpetrators of sexual and criminal assaults. Some have already been through the courts, while others have escaped prosecution either because they have died or because the lapse of time has presented evidentiary problems. In the United States a recent newspaper report indicated that the Catholic Church in 2007 alone paid out $665 million for child sexual assault cases, which was a 54 per cent increase on 2006. So this is not just an Australian problem but an international problem.

An apology to all those harmed in care last century is only the first symbolic step. Although powerful, it is not sufficient to provide the long-awaited justice due to these people. It is neither too hard nor unaffordable, as is evidenced by the international redress schemes in Canada and Ireland, and here in Australia in Tasmania, Queensland and Western Australia. I stress it is neither too hard nor unaffordable. New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia need to follow suit, as does the Commonwealth with a reparations fund that tops up the state schemes. Shared out proportionally we can afford these redress schemes.

Although redress was an important and unanimous recommendation of the Forgotten Australians report, the then Howard government would not agree to it, nor would it agree to most of the other 38 recommendations. Its poor response dispelled the widespread belief amongst all the forgotten Australians that justice and targeted services would be forthcoming once their government had been presented with the evidence of systemic failures in the duty of care to vulnerable children.

We can no longer deny the collective social record we now have of a less enlightened period of history and its effect down the generations. It is time to address once and for all these hurt childhoods and ruined adult lives through a national redress scheme.

The nation has been set on a path of healing by the Rudd government. More is yet to be done. The real test for a more empathetic Rudd government will be in what it does in a more meaningful way to overcome the national shame not only of the stolen generation but of all the shattered lives of all those who experienced harm when they were in state care as children.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to speak this morning. I noticed with interest in the Canberra Times yesterday an article by Andrew Fraser, the political correspondent. It was headed ‘Opposition “pinched” review of poll funding’. The article was referring to my motion yesterday in relation to campaign finance reform, political donation reform and a widespread examination by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The article said:

Senator Ronaldson received the endorsement of yesterday’s joint Coalition parties’ meeting for a motion to refer the issue to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

It further quoted me as saying that it would be:

... the most comprehensive nationwide examination of campaign finance since Federation.

Then the article said:

However, the motion appears to almost replicate the wording of a reference given to the committee by Senator Faulkner more than a fortnight ago.

Then the article quotes Senator Faulkner:

“I’ve already done it,” Senator Faulkner said. “He pinched my words.”

So, according to Senator Faulkner in the article, he supported the wording of our motion because they were his words and he would agree with them.

When this matter came before the Senate yesterday, who supported the motion? The Liberal Party and the National Party as a coalition, Family First, the Australian Greens and the Democrats. Who did not support it? Who did not support the words that we had apparently ‘pinched’ from them for a reference to the committee? The Australian Labor Party did not support it. Not only did the Special Minister of State, whose words I had apparently pinched, vote against it, the Australian Labor Party voted against it. But rather than having the intestinal fortitude to call a division, they got their whip to stand up and under his breath say, ‘We just want it noted that we are opposed to this.’ How utterly pathetic.

The reality is that the Australian Labor Party did not support our motion. The motion that I suspect Senator Faulkner was talking about that he referred off to the committee on 27 February was the standard reference that someone in his position would give. I suspect that Senator Abetz has probably used words such as, ‘that an inquiry be conducted by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters to inquire into and report on all aspects of’—the 2007 election, in this case—‘and related matters.’ What the coalition’s motion did was not just give this committee that reference but demanded of them in a nine-point reference to put it all on the table.

Let us have the most comprehensive reform since Federation. Let us stop reacting to Wollongong. Let us stop reacting via press conferences to another disaster for the Australian Labor Party in New South Wales and the Wollongong City Council and the sex and donation scandal. Stop plucking little bits and pieces out and pretending that you are serious about campaign reform and finance reform. The Australian Labor Party voted against a comprehensive inquiry into this issue. So, despite all the platitudes of the Prime Minister, when push came to shove, when the pressure was put on them to see whether they were serious about it, they failed. This comes on the back of a Prime Minister who on 25 February said:

What I’d like to see ... is a general review of how we go about campaign finance. I am a big devotee of campaign finance reform.

So what did this big devotee do when he got the opportunity to do something about reform? He voted against it. He directed his Labor senators to vote against it. Some devotee!

Just out of interest I will pose a question. In his time in the Australian parliament how many times has this big devotee of reform talked about reform? Ten times? Five times? Once? Zero; not once has this big devotee of campaign finance reform mentioned one word about it. The first time he talked about it was when he was hit at a press conference with allegations in relation to the sex and political donations scandal at Wollongong City Council involving the New South Wales ALP. That was the first time this devotee of reform talked about it.

Let us get serious about this issue. The Prime Minister needs to come out today and say that he is prepared to sign up to that motion. It is good enough for the coalition. It is good enough for the Greens. It is good enough for Family First. It is good enough for the Democrats. What have the Australian Labor Party got to hide? Why won’t they have comprehensive reform? What are the Australian Labor Party frightened of? What are they trying to hide by refusing to take this reference? This was a perfect opportunity for the Australian Labor Party to show their bona fides on this matter.

We had the Special Minister of State misrepresenting the position because he clearly does not support my wording. Rather than me having pinched his words, the Special Minister of State is refusing to endorse my wording, the opposition’s wording, for this reference. He refuses to accept it, having said that I copied it. So what is it? Has he mistakenly said that he does not support it and that has been miscommunicated through to the Senate chamber or did he not mean that? The Canberra Times—and I hold nothing against it—were quoting his words that he did mean it. It is as simple as that.

If you respond on the basis of political crisis, you always get caught out. When you go in, as this Prime Minister has done, to support Premier Iemma in New South Wales in relation to the Australian Labor Party’s active apparent involvement in the Wollongong sex and donations scandal, when you back someone like that, you have to be prepared for the ramifications. And the ramifications are that, if you put little bits and pieces on the table, you have to be prepared to put the whole lot on the table, otherwise you will be accused of political opportunism, and indeed the Prime Minister has been opportunistic in relation to this matter. He has put out little bits when responding to New South Wales ALP problems. And then when asked to endorse comprehensive campaign finance reform, of which he is apparently a big devotee, he failed to do so.

If the Labor Party are not serious about this, as is clearly evident by their activities yesterday, why don’t they just say so? Why don’t they acknowledge that their Prime Minister, in defence of a New South Wales Labor mate, tossed a bit on the plate? Why doesn’t the Prime Minister say in reflection, ‘That’s probably not the right thing to do—we’re actually not serious about campaign finance reform, despite what I have said in the past’? With the ALP’s failure yesterday to support the motion that is exactly what the only situation can be. There are no two or three options in relation to this matter. It is quite clear: either you are a devotee and you do something about it or you pluck little bits and pieces out in response to questions at press conferences and then you vote against a motion that I would have thought any big devotee of campaign finance reform not only would have backed but might have even initiated. Well certainly he did not initiate it, so, having lost that opportunity, you would think that the second best course of action, the very least you would do, would be to back it.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’d think.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You would think so, Senator Humphries. But rather than that, there was no initiative and no acceptance; there were just hollow, false words uttered by the Prime Minister. This is, I am afraid, just one example of the failure of the so-called openness and transparency that the Prime Minister took to the Australian people. I am prepared to accept that they took him at face value. They clearly did: he won; we lost. So they have obviously taken him at face value that he would be a Prime Minister running an open and transparent government.

Within a tad over 100 days we have seen no openness and no transparency. We have seen an attempt to hide and run from a motion calling on comprehensive reform of campaign finance and political donations. So much for the openness and transparency! Where has the much-lauded lobbyist register disappeared to? Where has the ministerial staff code of conduct disappeared to? Before Christmas there were bells, whistles, bands and dancing girls—you name it. There was the whole lot up and down the street with this example of openness and transparency. Someone rained on the parade, didn’t they? That was the Prime Minister, who is happy to go out and talk about these things at press conferences when confronted with some difficult questions, but, when push comes to shove, where is he? He is strangely silent in relation to all these matters.

Speaking of strangely silent, the Prime Minister has been strangely silent in relation to the question of union donations. He is happy to talk about overseas donations. He is happy to talk about caps and a couple of other matters he has pulled out in relation to campaign finance reform. There has been no mention of this. He had to be pushed at a press conference again. He said ‘yes’, but he could not bring himself to utter the words that the political donations of the union movement to the Australian Labor Party should be part of this reference. It will be part of this reference, but so will corporate donations, associated entity donations and third-party donations, because the coalition has made it quite clear that it wants a comprehensive review of where this issue is—not little bits and pieces plucked out to defend the Wollongong New South Wales ALP sex and donation scandal, but comprehensive reform.

I will finish my speech as I started. In this chamber yesterday, the coalition, the Democrats, Family First and the Greens voted to support reform. The government, the Australian Labor Party, refused to do so and, for that, they stand utterly condemned.

I seek leave to incorporate Senator Stott Despoja’s speech.

Leave granted.

Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to 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.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Murray, before I go to what will be a bit of a wander because, as everyone knows, it is not often I get up in this place, I would first like to comment on your speech and the starkness of the reality of what happened to tens of thousands of children who were wards of the state or locked away in all sorts of institutions and boarding schools. I will not dwell on it, but I think that your speech should be circulated to every person in the parliament. I have discovered that, the more you know about human nature and the more you worry about human nature, the worse you feel. The more you know about Mother Nature and the more you worry about Mother Nature, the better you feel. One of the great disappointments in public life for me is that, if you have an inquiring mind, the more you know, the worse you feel about what you know.

I commend you on your speech. There is a lot of hard work that would need to be done. Obviously I have a very strong view, for instance, that priests ought to be able to get married. It is just stupid. They used to be able to get married and then, in the 1200s or so, the church decided they had better protect the estate of the church. I have to say it is so well documented—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy, as you know, priests wake up the same as we all do.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let’s not do this again!

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are human. The world’s most precious and important vocation, in my view, is parenthood and the world’s most difficult vocation is the priesthood. I agree with what Senator Ronaldson had to say. I have a very simple mission statement in public life that I try to stick to. With all human endeavour, there are some human failings. I accept that. I try to stick to the fact that I do not like crooks—I usually use a much rougher word—and people who prey on kids, and I would like to think that I do not have a price. I have to say that you can solicit donations from people without being corrupted and influenced by the donations. As a former president of the Liberal Party I collected probably millions of dollars. I have to say that no-one really put it on me. If you do not have a price, it will not affect you. But for a lot of institutions—police et cetera—if they cannot pay the tucker bill, it is an easy way out if someone slips them an envelope of money.

The first time that I was offered a million dollar bribe was only two or three years ago. I rang up Alan Ramsey and said, ‘Ramsey, put this in your diary: I’ve just been offered a million dollar bribe.’ It was to do with the redevelopment of the Malabar rifle range. The bloke who came to see me—and this is the way they operate—just said in the conversation, ‘Senator, and there’s a million in this for you.’ I said to him, ‘Well, old mate, I’ve got a surprise for you: I actually do this job for nothing.’ I immediately rang the appropriate people and took out a bit of insurance by ringing Alan Ramsey and getting him to make a diary note. The bloke never came back, because he was obviously looking for someone he could utilise with a bit of money. You do run into these people. I had some people in my office only last year talking about issues surrounding the development of the Tralee subdivision here in Canberra. As a consequence—and without giving anything away—of those meetings, which were with people from all sides of the argument, I called the Australian Federal Police before one party left the office. You do not have to be affected if you do not have a price.

I have decided that it is much easier to move onto the greater concerns for all Australians in my time here. I do not think that you can deal with the human nature stuff appropriately if you are fair dinkum. Senator Murray, as with what you came up against, you can talk yourself blue in the face and nothing seems to happen. It is a bit like reintroducing pornography into Indigenous communities unless the Indigenous community votes that they do not want to have it. It is ridiculous. In 1999, I commissioned a woman who won the University Medal at the University of Sydney for her thesis on domestic violence in rural New South Wales to do a report on Indigenous child abuse in New South Wales. I can still remember that the people who were on the inquiry into the shutting down of ATSIC did not want me to table this report. No-one else had taken any notice of it. It was graphic. It eventually got tabled. But nobody wants to take firsthand possession of the problem because they do not want to own it.

Up in my office, I have a new secretary. I have had some pretty wonderful calls come into my office, but yesterday a male prostitute rang me because he was about to commit suicide. These things get you down, I have to tell you. The reason that his life has become dysfunctional is that he was seriously abused by a well-known serial abuser at Trinity College in Sydney. I noticed the other day that they have locked up another Marist brother in Sydney and that they are about to lock one up here in Canberra. I get too bloody angry to talk about it.

What I would like to move on to is Mother Nature. All Australians ought to give consideration to the fact that with the way we are headed we have seen the best of the planet. Poor old Mother Earth is taking a hiding if you believe the scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the 2,500 eminent scientists. They tell us that in 50 years time 50 per cent of the world’s population will be short of water and there will be about a billion people unable to feed themselves. This is on the assumption that the population increases from 6.5 billion to nine billion in that time. Bear in mind that most of the research and modelling that is going on at the moment is on the energy requirement behind that development rather than on the food task to feed them to get to that point. A lot more work needs to be done on the food as well as the energy.

A billion people will be unable to feed themselves. At the present time on the planet, there are about 800 million people who are short of food and there are a billion people who gorge themselves and are obese for whatever reason. There were no fat prisoners of war, by the way, so you do not have to be obese if you do not stick it down your neck—unless you have a medical condition. The scientists tell us that in 50 years—and we are getting there—30 per cent of the productive land of Asia, where two-thirds of the world’s population lives, will go out of production. They tell us that the food task will double and they tell us—and listen carefully to this—that 1.6 billion people on this planet will be displaced.

When Mick Keelty said a few months ago that the greatest threat to Australia’s sovereignty is climate change, he was right on the money. Fortunately for Australia, we are in a position where we are going to be able to handle this, in my view. But a lot of the planet is not going to be able to. The scientists have estimated that somewhere between 200 million and 300 million people in the central part of Africa will be displaced. Because of the irreversible mining of the great northern aquifer in China, something over 400 million people will be displaced. Places like Bangladesh not only will be subject to the mining of the groundwater which ends up in their rivers—their freshwater is being mined by places like India, who are in full denial—but will also succumb to the rising sea.

China, to its credit, recognises that it has this serious water problem and is undertaking great engineering works to try and overcome it by moving water to where they have depleted their ground reservoirs. One of the things that they have underway in an engineering sense—and they say that you can fix anything with engineering if you have enough money—is the building of a water pipeline that will be 1,200 kilometres of 36 or 37 pipes laid side by side that are each 4½ metres deep. It just goes to show that you can do it if you have enough dough.

I think we all ought recognise that there are lots of problems on the planet. But if the scientists are only 50 per cent right and we have only 800 million people who are displaced or if the scientists are only 10 per cent right and we have only 16 million people displaced, the United Nations will not fix the problem. The United Nations, with great respect Mr Acting Deputy President, or some parts of it, has become a massive lot of immeasurable, unaccountable blubber with all sorts of subcultures. I was pleased to see that they arrested some child predators in Timor-Leste. That is all part of the subculture of that set-up.

Australia, the scientists tell us—we are coming to the good news—is going to lose somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent of run-off in the southern parts of the continent. I am fearful. I declare an interest: I am a farmer. There is a gloomy dry winter forecast for lots of southern Australia at the present time, yet the northern parts and northern New South Wales are having a wonderful season, thank God, so there are some options there. Scientists are saying that somewhere between 3,500 and 11,000 gigalitres might disappear out of the run-off from the Murray-Darling Basin. The Murray-Darling Basin has 6.2 per cent of Australia’s run-off, 23,000 gigalitres, and we have about 70 per cent of the productive irrigated water work in that area. I stood up in this place a few years ago and said that any 50-year plan for the Murray-Darling Basin would exclude furrow cotton and paddy rice. Poor old Sharman Stone, Kay Hull and everyone rang me up and abused me and said, ‘What are you doing?’ It is true—they will be opportunity crops but it will be a question of how often the opportunity is going to come along and whether you can maintain the infrastructure in the meantime. I will not get into too much of the technical side because I do not have enough time.

If that is true, we are going to have to reconfigure not only the way we have settled rural and regional Australia but the way we do our business in rural and regional Australia. I have argued this for many years. In my maiden speech here in 1996 I argued that we should develop the north—that we should commit ourselves to doing the science through a task force on the development of the north. I urge and commend the government to get on with it—I am sure Penny Wong will. Uniquely, if we can maintain our sovereignty, as Mick Keelty said, against the background of the earlier figures of displacement, and occupy and manage the north, Australia will still be a world-leading contributor, punching well above its weight in the export of food and other materials, and maintaining our standard of living.

Bear in mind that in the three main catchments of the north, the Timor Sea catchment has 78,000 gigalitres of run-off, the gulf catchment has 98,000 gigalitres of run-off and the north-east catchment in Queensland has 85,000 gigalitres of run-off, against 23,000 gigalitres in the Murray-Darling Basin, where we all seem to want to do business. If we do not do something about that, in 50 years time Australia will be like the rest of the planet—in serious trouble.

Peter Beattie made a serious error, which the Australian Conservation Foundation agrees with, in the wild rivers legislation where Queensland has locked up the first kilometre from productive land in a great many of the gulf rivers. The gulf has 17 million hectares, which is bigger than Victoria, and very little development. During the last federal election campaign—I thought it was a great exercise of democracy that the government changed without anyone getting too excited and we all went back to work and we are still here today doing business and smiling at each other, unlike a lot of the rest of the world—Mick Keelty set this out. You may recall the 18 fishermen and their families on whose fishing zone we imposed our sovereignty. They decided to come to Australia because we mucked up their business enterprise and we sent them to Christmas Island. I cannot imagine what will happen if the science is right and there are, at the top of the prediction, 1.6 billion people who have to be resettled. I am sure there will be a new set of world orders because people in survival mode will make their own rules.

It is interesting that Australia has the privilege of democracy and our system of government. Bear in mind that, as far as I can see, in this parliament there is not one person in the government who lives or has made a living in the bush—commercially that is. They might have a holiday shack or something. Gavin O’Connor obviously did. I am pleased to see that Tony Burke has been appointed as the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, in which I take a deep interest, because he has a good brain and has been a good listener. We have a lot of work to do.

The wool industry is in a hell of a mess at the present time—it is dysfunctional. The thing we need to do on behalf of Australia’s wool growers is let the world know that Australia’s farmers are its greatest environmentalists. Landcare did a wonderful thing for Australian farmers: it taught us what was happening with our land. We are about survival, so we have to look after the land. We are only the custodians. Also, we care for our stock. We are not into animal cruelty, as some of the lunatics you see on the television would have you believe. Most of them would not know where the sun comes up. Most of them plait their armpits and smoke pot. Mulesing is a very necessary thing at the present time because we do not have other technology. As Ian McLachlan and others have said, they are working on it.

In the meantime, Australia could lead the world because we now have technology for pain relief. We could apply pain relief mandatorily for mulesing, castration and tail docking. I think we should move to that as part of an interim measure of genetic fix or technological fix for what is part of the great Australian bush—that is, fly waves and flyblown sheep. Flyblown sheep is a pretty serious problem. There is a bit of pain inflicted. I have mulesed thousands of sheep. It takes about 15 seconds to knock the top off and, if your teeth are good enough, tear the nuts out, trim around the tail, cut the tail off with the shears and then, if you put on pain relief, away they go.

The alternative to that is a very maggoty, destructive fly wave. So there needs to be some common sense brought to that debate. There needs to be unity in the debate. I think that, because we have been reactive rather than proactive, the wool industry and the government should give consideration to setting up some sort of committee to address the urgency which sits above all the politics and squabbling that is going on.

There are a couple of other issues. I think it is stupid that the Liberal Party and the Nationals have not merged. I was pleased to see Doug Anthony, Ian Sinclair and Peter Nixon in the paper today saying again what they and I said years ago. There are natural constituencies; the Labor Party’s are generally urban and a lot of ours are rural and regional. You cannot compartmentalise constituencies with modern communication and transport. We should recognise that the city needs to understand bush issues and problems as well as the bush needing to understand the city. (Time expired)

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am pleased to rise today to speak in the Senate in response to the Governor-General’s address at the opening of the 42nd Parliament. On 24 November 2007, the Australian people voted for a change of government. They voted out the Howard government to embrace the fresh ideas of Kevin Rudd and the Australian Labor Party. The Liberal government and their Work Choices legislation undoubtedly contributed to the election result. There is no denying that the Work Choices legislation was an attack on Australian working families, and that is the view that the Australian community took when they cast their vote. I can certainly testify that that was very evident throughout my home state of Tasmania.

The legislation meant that parents spent less time with their children and that Australian workers and working families had no financial security. Workers were forced to work more hours just to put food on the table and to try to pay their bills. With spiralling petrol, childcare, housing and grocery costs, the cost of living was getting out of control. Yet our previous Prime Minister, John Howard, insisted, ‘Australian families have never been better off.’ In saying this, he demonstrated just how out of touch and arrogant his government was. Interestingly, his views have not changed in recent speeches he has been giving overseas. I am still unsure as to where the coalition actually now stand—some agree and some do not—but the reality is that they have not listened to the Australian community and their views have ultimately not changed. The previous government were irresponsible and Australians expressed their disappointment in the Liberal Party loud and clear on 24 November 2007.

Under John Howard’s Work Choices laws, workers could be put on AWAs with just five minimum conditions. There was more power for employers to dictate working hours and workers had to negotiate conditions like overtime pay, penalty rates, public holidays and annual leave entitlements. John Howard promised that his industrial relations system would be simple, fair and flexible. It was not. It caused mass confusion for workers and employers alike. John Howard promised in television ads, newspapers and booklets which cost the Australian taxpayers millions of dollars that overtime and penalty rates would be protected by law. Once again, that was not the case.

On the point of Work Choices advertising, Ms Julia Gillard, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Deputy Prime Minister.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And Deputy Prime Minister. She is a woman, so she has many jobs! She revealed on 19 February this year that almost 100,000 Work Choices computer mouse pads together with more than 436,000 Work Choices booklets were stashed away by the previous Liberal government prior to the last election. It was good to see they had their priorities right! Australian taxpayers have been forking out $930 per month to store this Liberal government’s Work Choices propaganda. This was part of the propaganda Australian taxpayers had already forked out $121 million for, thanks to the previous Liberal government. And they lecture us about economics and financial management! My constituents in Tasmania were not very pleased to hear that their taxes were being used in this irresponsible way. The Liberal Party’s motto was: spend, spend, spend whatever it takes, as long as we win.

I am pleased to note on this occasion, though, that Ms Julie Bishop, the shadow minister for employment, business and workplace relations, issued a media statement on 7 February this year saying that people should have the right to union representation in their employment negotiations. Unions under Work Choices have in some circumstances been unable to talk directly to their members in the workplace, which is something that I consider important in allowing unions to fulfil their role as representatives of workers. Ultimately, the Howard government exploited Australian workers. I do not think there is any dispute about that. They knew that the Work Choices legislation would have a devastating effect on Australian families, but they pushed the legislation through regardless. I might just add that Senator Barnett, from my home state, who has recently been lecturing us and espousing his views about us needing to be a caring government, was one of those people who sat in this chamber and participated in pushing that legislation through.

The previous government tried to fool Australians by changing the name of their workplace relations reforms. But the Australian people did not fall for this ploy. They knew what John Howard was about and they voted accordingly. The Liberals filled our letterboxes with glossy brochures, trying to convince us that Work Choices was a good thing. But, once again, Australians were not fooled. Never take the Australian workers for granted. Do not believe your own rhetoric is my message to the opposition now. Australians realised that they were not getting a fair deal, and I hope that those on the other side of the chamber now recognise that they must indeed listen to the people they represent. But, to date, the evidence is that they are still not listening and that they are still not prepared to admit that they were wrong.

Despite desperate attacks from the Howard government since the Work Choices legislation was introduced, Labor has always maintained its belief that this country should have a fairer, simpler and more balanced workplace relations system. The Rudd Labor government is committed to restoring balance in the workplace. Labor recognises that Australians are hard workers. Australians have worked hard to ensure the prosperity of our nation and to ensure their children have a better standard of living than they had. All workers ask for is fair treatment—a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. But under the Howard government this right was denied. Australians have always held a strong belief in the importance of fairness at work and they know that only a Labor government will stand up for their rights in the workplace. The Rudd government is committed to building a modern workplace relations system that balances flexibility for employers with fairness for employees. A flexible and a fair workplace relations system is critical to building a competitive economy that delivers for Australian workers.

The government’s plan for the future of Australia’s workplace relations system will encourage wages and conditions to be negotiated at the enterprise level. We believe all Australian employees are entitled to a safety net of 10 national employment standards. We believe employees earning less than $100,000 are also entitled to an extra safety net provided by modern, simple awards. The Office of the Employment Advocate, now known as the Workplace Authority, conducted a survey which showed the following results with respect to Work Choices legislation. It was found that leave loadings were removed from 64 per cent of AWAs, penalty rates were removed from 63 per cent of AWAs, shift loadings were removed from 52 per cent, and in 16 per cent of all cases all award conditions were removed. These shocking statistics show just how unfair and unjust the Howard government’s legislation was. I believe Australians do not have to choose between economic prosperity and fair treatment at work. Australians can have both. Australian workers deserve both. Australians deserve to have the best system, the fairest system, that will protect their rights at work and also ensure that their families are able to balance their work and home lives. Labor’s industrial relations policy, Forward with Fairness, ensures that this happens

In April last year, the ALP published the Forward with Fairness workplace relations policy and confirmed that, if elected, we would abolish Australian workplace agreements. In August last year we released our Forward with Fairness policy implementation plan, which reiterated Labor’s commitment to abolish Australian workplace agreements. It also set out sensible transitional arrangements a Rudd Labor government would adopt for implementing this key commitment. This policy makes it clear that, when Labor’s workplace relations system is fully operational, there will be no AWAs.

The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 begins the process of phasing out the Howard-Costello government’s extreme and unfair Work Choices law in favour of a fairer, more productive and flexible workplace relations system. It has been developed following extensive consultation with employer organisations, unions and state and territory ministers. The government understands that to create a simple, fair, flexible and productive workplace relations system, we must talk with employers, employees and those who will play a role in our new workplace relations system.

The Rudd Labor government will create a new industrial relations system for a modern Australian economy and modern Australian workplaces. Labor’s system will be a simple one: we will work with the states for a single, uniform national system for the private sector and economic reform the Howard government was never able to achieve. We will reduce the rules and regulations about what can be included in the agreements so that employers and employees will be able to talk and bargain about what suits them. And we will have a new accessible, impartial, independent umpire, Fair Work Australia, which offers a simple, one-stop shop service.

Labor’s system will be a fairer system. Labor is committed to ensuring that the minimum wage is set by Fair Work Australia in an open and transparent process that considers the needs of Australian working families, particularly the low paid, and the needs of the Australian economy. We will also have a clear and decent safety net of legislated conditions and industry awards so that employers and employees can easily understand their rights and obligations at work. The Labor government, unlike the previous government, recognises the needs of both employers and businesses and is committed to striking the right balance. This was something the former Liberal government showed no interest in. The former Liberal government were only concerned about catering for the needs of big business at the expense of Australian workers and their families.

The people opposite me in the chamber supported and voted for John Howard’s unfair legislation. They argued for more than 12 months that Work Choices was fair, even though they knew it was having a devastating effect on Australian workers. I am pleased to say on this occasion that the former industrial relations minister, Joe Hockey, now admits the laws went too deep. In fact, recently on the television program Four Corners Mr Hockey confirmed what we all knew on this side, and that is that his own cabinet colleagues were unaware of the actual impact that these conditions were going to have on Australian families. Can you believe that? Members of the cabinet at that time were unaware of one of the most devastating pieces of legislation that has come through this chamber.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They weren’t unaware; they didn’t care.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Minister, you are being disruptive.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take Senator Conroy’s point. The reality is that they did not care, and that is very evident here today with some of the contributions during this debate and the confusion still within the coalition as to whether or not they should keep Work Choices. The distress these laws caused working families will never be forgotten. There is a lesson from history we can learn. The same thing happened in 1929 when that government attacked Australian workers. At that time they voted out the Prime Minister and his government. On 24 November 2007 the people did the right thing by getting rid of John Howard and his government.

I fully support the comments of Ms Gillard, the Deputy Prime Minister, in her second reading speech on the Forward with Fairness bill in which she stated:

It is now time for members in this place to respect and represent the clear message from the Australian people. No more Work Choices, no more Australian workplace agreements, no more unfairness, complexity and confusion.

She went on to say:

If the opposition uses its numbers in the Senate to unduly delay or reject this bill then that would be a deliberate choice by the Liberal Party to keep Work Choices alive. That would be a deliberate decision by the Liberal Party to treat the Australian people with contempt.

Minister Gillard and the Australian Labor Party understand the needs of working families. We understand that Australians need employment security. During 2008, the government will be consulting with employers, employees, businesses, unions and industry about its plans for a new workplace relations system.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s new workplace relations system will be fully operational by January 2010. It will be underpinned by a modern and fair set of minimum conditions. The new arrangements will foster the creation of a more highly skilled workforce, job growth and a better balance between work and family life. I commend these measures to the Senate and hope we can achieve some positive outcomes out of the mess that was created by the previous government.

I would like to place on record some of the other issues that I would have liked to cover in my address today, including the skill shortages and the economic difficulties we now face with inflation because of the legacy of 12 years of the Howard government. I would also like to say what a turning point it was and how proud I was to stand here as an Australian when the Prime Minister apologised on behalf of the country to the Indigenous members of our community. I, too, would like to join with others in hoping that this will strengthen the relationship and bring us closer together. There are so many other issues I would have liked to cover today, but I will leave it there.

Debate (on motion by Senator Conroy) adjourned.

Ordered that the resumption of the debate be made an order of the day for a later hour.