Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

Taking note without a particular theme is always fun for senators, but governing without a theme is not a good thing for the country. This is a government without a theme, without a rationale, except of course for political survival. Whatever you think of Labor, you could always say in the past that they were passionate and committed. You cannot argue that any more. Some of my friends sitting down here today argue that Labor’s greatest failure is their incompetence and they always point to things like turning a $20 billion surplus into a $50 billion debt within a year. They think that is pretty incompetent. My friend Senator Joyce said earlier today in his contribution that continuing to borrow $100 million a day is pretty incompetent as well.

I have often argued in this place that the Building the Education Revolution was an absolute and utter shambles. It was a shambles because the Commonwealth did not have sufficient oversight mechanisms to ensure that state governments were spending Commonwealth taxpayers’ money appropriately. That is the argument that sticks in the opposition’s craw. It is a failure by the government to ensure that money is well spent by state governments, and what happened as a result of that? School halls built by state governments cost much more than they should have. That is also incompetent.

We know about pink batts as well. We know there were deaths and electrified roofs, and a massive and expensive clean-up campaign. That was also a shambles, and that has been Labor’s answer to the global financial crisis: pink batts and building school halls. If only President Obama had known it was that simple! But, as you know, Mr Deputy President, I am generous: Labor’s failings are not just their incompetence; Labor’s failings are that they do not have an agenda. When Senator Fifield asked Senator Evans yesterday about Labor’s agenda, Senator Evans, for all his great skill at answering questions, did not have an answer.

The government limps from week to week looking for something to believe in. If the Greens do not provide the government with convictions then Labor cannot find them. It is now the Greens providing the Labor Party with conviction. Labor can no longer claim to be the party of conviction. We have heard Senator Faulkner, one of the respected elders of the Australian Labor Party, in the last few weeks say the ALP is long on cunning but short on courage. Doesn’t that summarise where the Australian Labor Party today is in government? Senator Cameron, whose contributions I always enjoy, said that the Labor caucus is full of zombies who do not believe in anything anymore. They used to but they do not now, except for political survival.

The great salvation apparently is the NBN. Senator Conroy is going to save the government with the NBN. The NBN is going to be the saving grace of the Australian Labor Party. But even Senator Conroy does not believe that the NBN is good value for money, that it would pass the cost-benefit analysis. Senator Conroy does not even believe that because he tells the independent members of this place that it would not pass that test, let alone what the OECD says. So the bottom line is: the Labor Party virtually have nothing left. They believe in nothing, and if you think for a second that the BER was a shambles—and the world now knows that—just think of what is going to happen to the NBN over the next 18 months to three years. It will be failure on steroids.

I know the clock ticks down and Christmas awaits us. Santa Claus will hopefully give a president—sorry, a present—and that might be an agenda for our nation’s future. At the moment this government is running off some pathetic synergy between the Greens, the Independents and the Labor Party, and a pathetic synergy is not a recipe for good government.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Santa will bring a present, Senator Mason, and it will not be a president; it will be a prime minister and it will be Prime Minister Julia Gillard. That will be the present we give to the Australian people. I am not sure where Senator Mason has been for the last two years, because his description of the things that the Gillard government did to ensure that this country avoided the greatest recession, potentially the greatest depression since the Great Depression—

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Cormann, Senator Farrell will be heard.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I always appreciate your protection for a fellow South Australian. Senator Mason, I do not know where you have been for the last two years, because this country, thanks to programs like the one that you are criticising, the BER—the sorts of programs that this government introduced—Australia avoided the great recession. Some people call it a depression. Look overseas at countries like the United States, which has 10 per cent unemployment. Yesterday I was talking to an official in the water industry of Spain. He tells me that in his country there is 20 per cent unemployment. You go through countries in Europe. What is the situation in Australia? We are now the envy of the OECD countries because this government, with programs like the BER, enabled Australians to remain in jobs. Because they remained in jobs, they continued—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don’t believe that, Don.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do believe it, Senator Mason. I believe it because it is true. You try and explain, if you are such an economic genius—

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I’m not. I don’t claim to be.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you are so good on economics, Senator Mason, how come you made a $10 billion mistake in your costings at the last election?

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, he didn’t. You’re just fiddling.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hockey did. Yes, okay. I am sorry; I withdraw that, Mr Deputy President. It was Mr Hockey who made that mistake—the bloke that you are putting up as—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Mason was heard in silence, and I think Senator Farrell should be given a fair go as well.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would you like my speech notes, Don?

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not need your speaking notes, Senator Bernardi, because I imagine they will say exactly the same things that Senator Mason said and they will be just as wrong as the things Senator Mason said. I would like to talk some more about your economic credentials, but there was one issue that was raised during question time that I would like to refer to, because you have failed to be specific in respect of the taking of note. That is the role of Minister Burke. I had the privilege of being the parliamentary secretary to a large section of Minister Burke’s portfolio. I tell you this bloke works nonstop day and night, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He is going to all of the places where Australians want to see him. He recently came down to Renmark with me. We had a fantastic meeting with irrigators. In fact, even some of your Liberal Party colleagues attended, Mr Deputy President. Patrick Secker came along, as did Tim Whetstone, the new member for Chaffey. He was there, and we had a great meeting with irrigators. The reason that we had a great meeting with irrigators was that, unlike for the whole period of the Howard government, when you took no notice of the problems in the Murray, Minister Burke is concerned about it and he has a plan and a solution.

Mary Fisher (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After the event.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and Urban Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, this is not after the event, Senator Fisher. We want healthy rivers, strong communities and strong food production. That is what Minister Burke is all about, and he is going around the country. Renmark was not the only place he went to. He came down with me and we flew over to see the water coming through the Murray mouth. It was a fantastic scene. We went down to Hindmarsh Island. We also went down to Milang. (Time expired)

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have just seen Senator Farrell struggle through his five minutes because, as Senator Mason said, the government does not have policy, does not have a plan and does not have direction. That is clearly demonstrated by Senator Ludwig’s answers to my questions today. I asked him three very simple questions: when is he going to announce the funding package for Tasmania’s forest contractors, which is absolutely desperately and urgently needed; will it be subject to GST and company tax; and will it have administration fees taken out of the $20 million—in other words, will it be whittled back? My understanding from conversations that I have had with industry is that the minister promised that this would be announced by the end of this week. I gave him the opportunity to clearly state that today. He hid behind the excuse that he did not want to reveal details of the package. I accept that he does not have to tell us how the money will be spent on the contractors themselves, but he could tell them whether $10 million will be gouged out for GST, whether they will be subject to tax on the money that they receive and whether the administration costs for that program will be deducted from the $20 million. He could quite easily have said that and put that on the table right now.

As Senator Mason said, there is an absolutely complete and utter policy failure here, because the Labor Party did not even issue an agriculture policy for this election. Senator Farrell has talked about how wonderful Mr Burke is. He was so lazy in his policy before the last election that he did not even release a policy. In fact, the Labor Party’s policy in respect of forestry was—I read the heading from the media release of 19 August—’Labor matches Coalition forestry commitment’. That was the Labor Party policy for forestry at the last election. So, when we talk about Minister Burke and how wonderful he might be, he was so lazy that he did not even release a policy at the last election.

Senator Boswell asked questions this afternoon in relation to marine parks. It would be interesting to know—given that Senator Conroy said the environment department were working very hard and Senator Farrell said that Minister Burke works day and night 24 hours a day—why the meetings with the Commonwealth Fisheries Association programmed for this afternoon on the issue of marine parks were cancelled. One of the representatives of the Commonwealth Fisheries Association, who was in my office this afternoon, said: ‘This is the reason: we’ve got nothing to say. We have nothing to tell you.’ This is yet another example of what Senator Mason has said: there is no policy and no plan.

The reason the government are struggling with the $20 million for forest contractors is that they did not do the policy work before the election. They are struggling through it now. Even the Tasmanian Premier said on 10 November:

I am disappointed that it hasn’t happened as rapidly as it should have.

He is quite famous in Tasmania for being slow to get things done, and even the slow Tasmanian Premier believes that this is taking longer than it should. It is a complete and utter policy failure on behalf of the government.

In respect of marine parks, we have been following this process for quite some considerable time. We want to know what the program is and we want to know what the displaced effort policy is, which was the issue which the Commonwealth Fisheries Association was supposed to meet the department about this afternoon. The responses from the department and from the government were, ‘We have got nothing to tell you’. There is complete and utter policy failure on behalf of the government, and now we are in a situation of policy paralysis. A minister cannot even confirm his commitment to an industry association in Tasmania that a policy will be launched this week. It was a very simple question. All he had to do was say, ‘Yes, I made that commitment to the industry and, yes, I am going to follow it through,’ but the government cannot even do that.

And yet again we saw Senator Conroy in response to a question today from another senator about the antisiphoning legislation and proposals. He did not even turn up to the free TV drinks last night—he did not even front. So not only can they not make policy or deliver policy; they will not front up. I spoke to a number of representatives of the industry last night who were very anxious to talk to the minister. They just wanted to put their views to him; they did not necessarily want to harangue, but he would not even front up. This is a demonstration, as Senator Mason said at the outset, of the complete and utter policy failure and paralysis of this government. (Time expired)

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is actually quite disappointing to see that Senator Colbeck has joined the ranks of other Liberal senators and, indeed, his own leader in continually criticising, blocking and going out there and scaring the community. I think that, as Senator Colbeck would know—

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Colbeck knows a good government when he sees one!

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Excuse me, I listened to Senator Colbeck in silence. I know Senator Cormann does have problems controlling himself, but I would appreciate it if he would—

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know a bad government when I see one too.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I was saying, the Gillard government recognises that native forest harvesting and haulage contractors in my home state of Tasmania are facing severe financial difficulties following a downturn in demand for hardwood woodchips sourced from native forests. We will meet our commitment to provide $20 million, as the minister has said in his answer to Senator Colbeck. We will meet the commitment to provide help to forest contractors and their employees to meet the challenges facing the native forest sector in Tasmania.

The details of the package will be announced shortly, as the minister has said, and it will involve both business assistance and exit assistance and will be designed to increase viability in the sector. As Minister Ludwig also mentioned in his response to Senator Colbeck, he visited Tasmania in his first week of receiving the forestry portfolio. He went down to Tasmania in September to consult with the Tasmanian forestry contractors and other key stakeholders, including the state government, environment and industry associations and the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. Since then, the federal and state departments have been working with the Tasmanian government officials, contractors associations and the relevant union, the CFMEU, to develop a $20 million package of support for the Tasmanian forest contractors and their workers. As I have said, this package will include exit assistance and business assistance.

It is a shame that, in his role as the shadow parliamentary secretary, Senator Colbeck has been playing politics with people’s livelihoods and playing on the fears of the sector for the opposition’s own political advantage. The opposition keep talking down the package the government is delivering, when during the election they promised the exact same thing. The opposition must stand up and take responsibility for their comments and stop talking down the contracting sector. The tide of negativity from the opposition only serves to sap confidence in an industry that is already struggling. I ask Senator Colbeck to support the government’s package and to stop talking down the industry.

I also want to take this opportunity to put on record that the Gillard government supports a sustainable and profitable forest industry. We value both the ecological and economic aspects of our native forest resources and believe that there needs to be a balanced and sustainable approach to native forest management. We welcome the landmark agreement between environmental NGOs and the forestry industry in Tasmania on the future of the state’s native forests. I know that many people have worked very hard to get this agreement to this stage. This is a sign of a level of cooperation between the industry and environmental movements that we have not seen in the past.

In the time remaining to me I would like to restate the government’s commitment to supporting regional jobs, to encouraging sustainable investment in forestry and to helping our forest industries prepare for future challenges. That is why we are committed to delivering the $20 million package to the contracting sector which we promised during the election and which the minister confirmed in his answer, once again, in question time today. (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is an embarrassment of riches with which we can dissect this fragile and, one would say, feckless government. I should start by taking to task Senator Carol Brown for maintaining there was coalition disinterest in and lack of support for the forestry commitment that the Labor Party made. Senator Brown probably does not spend a lot of time reading, but I am reading from a Labor press release here entitled ‘Labor matches Coalition forestry commitment’. That part of matching the coalition’s idea and policy has been lost on Senator Carol Brown as she has been defending Labor’s policy. It is the only policy she can defend, because Labor had to copy ours to get a decent policy. There is no doubt about this: this is a government that is absolutely feckless. It is, as Senator Faulkner, the wise old man of the Labor Party—he is not that old actually; I will take that back, but he is a wise, well-respected man—said: Labor are long on cunning and short on courage. Often I disagree with Senator Faulkner, but I think this sentiment is right.

But Senator Faulkner clearly has not learned the Labor version of courage. The South Australian state Treasurer, Kevin Foley, claimed in the parliament that the opposition did not have Labor’s courage to break their promises. How pathetic is that? You have a South Australian Treasurer boasting that he is courageous enough to break his promises. And, sure enough, clearly that model has been translated into the federal parliament, because this government claim they are keeping their promises and yet they are breaking them again and again. Do you remember the shrill claims by Senator Wong and Prime Minister Gillard about how they would implement every part of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority plan that was to be released? They have walked away from that commitment now even though they signed up to it blindly. They signed up to it not knowing what was in it and yet they made these election promises to the Australian people. Do you remember their promise not to have a carbon tax? Of course you do, because that was in every media statement for weeks on end during the election campaign: we will not be putting a price on carbon. What have they done? They have had to get the spine of the Greens to make them implement a carbon tax, which is now back on the agenda.

What about Senator Conroy today? He makes claims all the time about the broadband plan, when we know perfectly well what the costs of it are going to be. We know it is going to be $43 billion but we do not know what the actual benefits of it are going to be or whether it will be worth the price paid. Senator Conroy does not even know that. He talks all the time about how it has been rolled out in Willunga and the people of Willunga are very happy. I have to tell you, I was speaking to someone from Willunga at five minutes to two, before question time today, who said that they and all their friends have not heard anything about this broadband; it is certainly not connected to their place and they live right in the township of Willunga. So one has to ask: what reckoning is Senator Conroy on? This is another example of what this government is focused on; it is delusion on a grand scale.

It is a government that is like the walking dead. And who has said that but one of their own. He is one of the most entertaining senators in this place, I have to say, but it was humiliating for the Labor Party when Senator Cameron said that this government is full of zombies. It is full of deadheads, and we know it is full of desperadoes because they are desperate to cling to power at any price. We know that. If Labor were a beverage, they would not even be the liquid in the glass; they would be froth at the top. They are the froth—

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are the dregs on the bottom.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They could be the dregs on the bottom, indeed, but they are froth on the top of what is now a green beer. We know that this Green menace that is launching into us—

Honourable Senators:

Honourable senators interjecting—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is torture! This Green menace is now controlling the agenda of the Labor Party. This is an alliance that is so concerned about important issues for Australia, such as borrowing $100 million a day, the reckless and feckless rollout and the waste of government money, that the very first items that they have brought on their lacklustre legislative agenda are about euthanasia, about gay marriage—about things that the Australian people are not consumed with. They are desperate about how they can reduce the cost of living and how they can fight against the interest rate rises that have been foisted upon this country by the reckless and imprudent spending of the Labor Party. Yet what defence do we hear? We hear nothing from Labor or the Greens. It is just more froth and bubbles.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am going to take note of only one of the answers, and that is about the issue of SIHIP and the Aboriginal employment program. I am very concerned and want to clarify the employment and working conditions for Aboriginal workers employed under SIHIP. We want to know under what conditions participants in CDEP, traineeships or Work for the Dole programs are being employed. We have received some very disturbing reports from communities in Central Australia of inconsistent and in fact exploitative treatment of Aboriginal workers. This, surely, should not be happening in what is supposed to be one of our premier infrastructure programs in this country.

The minister proudly proclaimed the meeting of a 30 per cent target of Indigenous or Aboriginal employees. But under what conditions is that 30 per cent target being met, and how many of those are real jobs? We have heard allegations of Aboriginal workers on CDEP or on income management being promised top-up pay that they did not receive or did not fully receive. There are allegations of inconsistent and diminishing rates of top-up pay for workers, so that workers continuously employed to do the same work for the same number of hours a day receive less pay in subsequent pay packets. We have heard allegations of a failure to provide pay slips, employment contracts or other documentation to Aboriginal workers. We have heard allegations of a failure to report on employment outcomes to JSA providers and minimal training for extended periods of work—for example, one day for three or four months of full-time work, and they are still supposed to be trainees.

We have heard of Aboriginal contractors being asked to include CDEP places to reduce costs and receiving less work when they refuse to do so. We have heard of Aboriginal contracting organisations who are fully able to employ full-time people in real jobs being told, ‘No, we want you to do CDEP,’ and when they refuse because they are committed to real job outcomes, they do not receive the work and are cut out of the work. We have heard of different workers doing the same work side-by-side but receiving vastly different pay. We have heard of oversubscription of CDEP workers for the amount of work required. For example, there will be 15 or 20 employees on CDEP work where you would normally have five or six full-time workers—in other words, the figures are being skewed, and maybe that is where some of that 30 per cent so proudly boasted of as being over target comes from. We are concerned that if some or in fact all of these allegations are true, they are undermining the positive employment outcomes that could be achieved by the significant opportunity provided by SIHIP.

Minister Arbib, in answer to my questions around CDEP, claimed that part of the rationale for employing CDEP people under the SIHIP program was to provide long-term training to help aboriginal people get into real jobs. As I have said, the reports coming from Central Australia are that a single day’s training is provided before somebody works full time for three or four months on the job without any further training. I fail to see how this is justifying employing people on CDEP under so-called training when they are not receiving any training. That could be about cheap outcomes for the employer. By any account, we believe that that is in fact real work they are doing. It is not trainee work. These are real jobs and they should be paid as real jobs.

One of the other issues here, of course, is that the people who are working on these jobs are still being income quarantined. Here you have Aboriginal people who are supposedly in real jobs, but they are still getting income quarantined. What is that all about? How is that teaching people to get a job? It was supposed to be about encouraging people into employment; that is about still demonising people and the government having its cake and eating it too. They changed CDEP in the first place so they could income manage people’s work for the dole payments. Now you have people supposedly working full time in real jobs and still getting income managed. It is no wonder Aboriginal people get so discouraged when again they see the promise of real jobs disappearing for more CDEP training, more exploitation, people not getting paid for the work they do and working alongside people who are getting paid full, proper wages. They are working alongside people doing the same work and not getting those wages. That is not fair.

I appreciate the government undertaking to investigate that. It needs to be investigated immediately. I would hope that they have already started investigating it, seeing as these claims came out last week. I hope that the government would have instantly started investigating it. I am disappointed that the minister could not tell us how much of the 30 per cent of jobs that were supposed to have been for Aboriginal employment were full time. How many of those were real jobs? The government has told us time and time again that they are creating real jobs, but the minister could not tell me how many out of that 30 per cent were real jobs. That is unacceptable.

Question agreed to.